Southwest Nights (Semiautomatic Sorceress Book 1) by Kal Aaron (large ebook reader txt) 📕

“No’s one dead.” Aisha sniffed. “My mistake.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Lyssa holstered her weapon and stared, dumbfounded, at the other Sorceress. Relief warred with irritation and pain. “A mistake? You almost turned me into fried Hecate!”

“Yes, and I stopped. You don’t have to be so petty about it. And I believe it would have been baked or roasted in this case. There was no oil involved.” Aisha smirked and wiped more blood off her mouth. “When I saw you here, I assumed you’d come with shards for the scum. You can’t blame me for how suspicious you looked.”

“A mistake is drinking the last pop in the refrigerator without asking me. It’s not trying to kill me. You can at least say, ‘Hey, Hecate, I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions and almost killed you. Sorry I almost made you use a powerful obliteration spell.’”

Aisha scoffed. “You wounded me. I wounded you. It’s your fault for interfering in my investigation and showing up at the exact place the criminals are using as a base. I’ll admit to jumping to conclusions, but given your family history, you can hardly blame me.”

“Interfering with your investigation?” Lyssa glared at Aisha. “Has your heat finally fried your brain? I was assigned to investigate how the criminals in Phoenix got their shards, with an official EAA contract sanctioned by Elder Samuel. What, you think I have so little to do that I just decided to take a trip to Midland and roust criminals?”

Aisha narrowed her eyes. She placed her hands on her hips and glared back at Lyssa. “I was assigned by Elder Theodora to investigate rumors of shard-smuggling out of Texas.”

Lyssa ground her teeth. Torches technically didn’t have territories, though the Elders encouraged them to move around to ensure there was at least one within theoretical striking distance of most places of significant population and not too many in any one area. That had been one of the main motivations for Samuel’s suggestion that Lyssa move to Phoenix from San Diego.

The Elders, however, did have distinct areas of responsibility, including the eight Elders assigned to North America. Samuel’s area included the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico.

The problem was where those territories met and overlapped. The Society only marginally cared about Shadow geopolitical lines, and it wasn’t as if Elders ruled their territories like medieval nobles. They were focused on the safety of the Illuminated in their territories and making sure that nothing was happening that might threaten the Society.

An Illuminated who wasn’t a Torch or an Eclipse rarely had to deal with Elders. Theory implied Elders should be able to coordinate to handle problems.

Lyssa had never been sure if that idea was aspirational or a way for ambitious Elders to excuse certain actions in border areas. From what she’d heard and read, this had been a problem back to the Post-Cataclysm years. A problem that wasn’t fixed after thousands of years was never getting fixed.

Before M-Day, it’d been less of an issue. Torches were rarely deployed for needs outside of direct Society business, and there was more careful coordination. No one wanted to risk exposing the world of sorcery. Now, with Torches taking on Shadow threats, things had become murkier.

Midland lay on the border of Samuel’s and Theodora’s territory. Lyssa could see where the mistake might happen, but there was one thing that bothered her about the whole situation—something that felt wrong on a deeper level.

“And Theodora didn’t bother to mention it to Samuel?” Lyssa asked. “Or the EAA?”

Had Samuel not bothered to mention it to her? It would make sense to have more than one Torch working a big, politically sensitive case, but Lyssa and Aisha had gotten in each other’s way because their Elders hadn’t told them everything. They had been lucky the night didn’t end with one less Sorceress in the world.

Aisha shrugged, looking unconcerned. “This isn’t an EAA contract. This was an order directly from Elder Theodora. She preferred that the Shadows be kept ignorant about this, but I suppose you and Elder Samuel have made that difficult by involving the American government.”

Lyssa hissed. Flagging adrenaline allowed the pain of her injuries to pierce her consciousness. Getting blasted by flame sorcery at close range was never enjoyable, even with her defenses. Smug demeanor aside, the cuts and burns on Aisha proved she wasn’t in much better shape, and they might need to be ready for more action soon.

“You know what?” Lyssa threw a hand in the air. “Who cares? Now we know. We’re both working this case, and I know you like me about as much as a thieving cat likes water, but we both have the same goal in the end: stopping those shards from getting into the wrong hands.”

Aisha tried to fold her arms but grimaced as she rubbed her wounds. “You have a point. It’s rare for you to have one, but I won’t deny anything you’ve said.”

Lyssa reached into a pocket and pulled out her small baggie filled with painkiller petals. She put one in her mouth and swallowed before offering one to Aisha. “It’s not healing. It’s for pain. I’m saving the healing ones until I have a better idea of what comes next.”

The other Sorceress eyed the petal with a faint frown before snatching it out of Lyssa’s palm and downing it with a delicate swallow. “It’s from your foster mother, I presume?”

“Yeah.” Lyssa let out a sigh of relief as her aches faded. “I know you hate me, but at least you respect Tricia.”

She realized the reason Aisha had dared to use her family name before. There was no reason to hide names if they were inside a sound shield. That reminded Lyssa of another open question.

“Did you put the shard up there?” she asked, gesturing above.

“No,” Aisha replied.

Lyssa waved smoke out of her face and coughed. The fight had been short enough and there was enough concrete around to stop the area from burning out of control, but there were still crates and