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Return Of The Witch (The Witch Next Door Book 6)
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Return Of The Witch
The Witch Next Door™ Book Six
Judith Berens
This book is a work of fiction.
All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
Copyright © 2019 Judith Berens, Martha Carr & Michael Anderle
Cover by Fantasy Book Design
Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing
A Michael Anderle Production
LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
LMBPN Publishing
PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy
Las Vegas, NV 89109
First US edition, November 2019
ebook ISBN: 978-1-64202-586-6
Print ISBN: 978-1-64202-587-3
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Free Books
Author Notes - Martha Carr
Author Notes - Michael Anderle
Other Books By Martha Carr
Books by Michael Anderle
Connect with The Authors
The Return of the Witch Team
Thanks to the JIT Readers
Jeff Eaton
Dorothy Lloyd
Diane L. Smith
Larry Omans
If we’ve missed anyone, please let us know!
Editor
SkyHunter Editing Team
Dedications
From Martha
To everyone who still believes in magic
and all the possibilities that holds.
To all the readers who make this
entire ride so much fun.
And to my son, Louie and so many wonderful friends who remind me all the time of what
really matters and how wonderful
life can be in any given moment.
From Michael
To Family, Friends and
Those Who Love
To Read.
May We All Enjoy Grace
To Live The Life We Are
Called.
One
On the west coast of a Grecian peninsula a few miles outside Savalia, Lily Antony stared at the glistening Mediterranean Sea and pressed Romeo’s cellphone to her ear. “But after all that, Bentley, I promise, we’re fine.”
Her mom’s accountant and long-time friend, Bentley McClure, released a heavy sigh on the other end of the line. “You’re exactly like your mother, Lily. I know you can take care of yourself, the same way she always managed to power her way through anything and everything that tried to stop her. That doesn’t mean I don’t still worry about you. Especially when our last phone call ended with an explosion and considerable shouting.”
Lily scuffed her bare foot across the white sands of the beach where she and Romeo had parked her 2002 Winnebago Adventurer—a gift from Bentley before she’d had to flee Charleston and head off in search of her mom. “I know. I’m sorry it took me a few days to get back to you.”
He snorted. “It’s better than not hearing from you for six months while the rest of the world thinks you’re dead.”
“Well, I have something to help against these people that my mom never had.”
“What might that be?”
She grinned. “I have a werewolf traveling with me, numerous visions in my back pocket, and an insanely powerful witch feeding me information from the inside.”
His chuckle was a little dry and strained. “Indeed. If Greta Antony had Greta Antony to help her, I imagine she wouldn’t have found herself nearly as entangled in this mess.”
“Well, now she has me.” The side door to the Winnie banged shut behind her, and Lily turned away from the beach. A shirtless Romeo stood outside the RV, stretched his arms up above his head, and indulged a growl of satisfaction. The sun rising behind the vehicle was a perfectly golden backlight to her werewolf friend who’d become so much more than only a friend. Before she let herself get too distracted by the sight, she turned away and gazed at the lightening sky. “I hate having to ask a favor, and maybe it’s a little redundant, seeing as we’re all the way out here—”
“Anything, Lily.”
“Would you mind putting money in my bank account? Not to use while we’re here. My phone was disconnected, and that’s how I realized things are a little empty in the bank. I’d like to have a phone just in case.”
“That’s your favor?” Bentley sounded like he was trying not to laugh.
“Only this one payment. We’re so close, Bentley. We almost found her. And I can repay you as soon as we get back to the States. Seriously, I still have a few giant bags of gold coins—”
This time, the man she’d known her whole life as the stoic, proper, immaculately precise man with an incredible amount of love for Greta Antony and her daughter burst out laughing. “Lily, if you bring her home again in one piece—if you come home in one piece—I’ll pay your phone bill for an entire year.”
Lily wrinkled her nose. “Well, that won’t be necessary.”
“Of course I can help you with that, Lily. I’ll send the funds over as soon as I’m off the phone with you.”
“Thank you.” She sighed gratefully and buried her toes in the sand. “I never quite got to tell you the rest of the important stuff the last time I called. Grab a pen and write down this number.” When the man gave her the go-ahead, she glanced at the magical business card in her other hand. The words scrolled across in navy-blue letters and gold flashes of light and she read the number out.
“Who does this belong to?” Bentley asked.
“A man named Gabriel Mercier.” Lily flipped the card over and nodded at the crest of the magical Order whose members were spread across Europe. “He’s a detective with Non-Magical Relations for Cadre Europa.”
“I see.”
“And before you try to ask in a subtly skeptical way, no, I did not get into any trouble with an Order out here.”
He chuckled. “It never crossed my mind.”
“We met Gabriel in France, and he told us enough to make it perfectly clear that the Council and most of the magical world has no idea what the Black Heron’s up to. Hopefully, when you call him, you guys can start changing that.” She cleared her throat and recalled one more man she’d connected with the French witch detective. “Do you know anyone in Romania named Darius?”
“Lily, I don�
�t know anyone in Romania, period.”
“Fair enough. Gabriel should have gotten in touch with Darius. I hope. The man’s a healer and has a ton of information about the Black Heron. He was putting it all together with Mom right before they took her.”
There was a long pause, and Bentley took a deep breath. “Then I suppose the man is worth reaching out to as well. Does he have a last name?”
“I…actually, we never quite got that far. The minute he told me he knew my mom, I kinda forgot to ask.”
“That’s fine, Lily. I’ll call this detective, and I’m sure he’ll be able to fill me in on the rest. It gives me an opportunity to brush up on my French, anyway.”
Lily smirked. “Remind me to show you this little spell I put together for language translation.”
“I’ll put it on the list of things to cover when you, Romeo, and your mother are safely back where you belong.”
“Good. Thanks for everything, Bentley. I wish I could say I’ll call you soon, but I’m not exactly sure what’ll happen from here on out.”
“Well, at least I’ll know it’s a call from your own phone the next time I hear from you. You be safe, Lily. And bring her home.”
“That’s exactly what I plan to do. Bye, Bentley.” She ended the call, turned the screen off on Romeo’s phone, and stared at the glittering blue waves that seemed to stretch for endless miles. The sea is the sea. It smells like home. At least there’s something familiar here.
Two hands settled on her waist, and she tilted her head enough for Romeo to hook his chin over her shoulder as he wound his arms around her. “How’d the call go?”
She leaned back against him and settled into the warmth of her one constant comfort since she’d left South Carolina a little over two months before. “Well, it wasn’t interrupted by Black Heron magicals and their experiments gone wrong. There were no explosions and no crazy magic. So it was a good conversation.”
He chuckled and kissed her cheek. “Did you give him that detective’s number?”
“Yep.” She turned away from him a little to meet his gaze and raised an eyebrow. “Have you had any luck on finding us a freighter going that way?” She lifted a finger to point across the Mediterranean in the general direction of their next destination—Libya.
“There are numerous freighters, Lil. That’s not the problem.”
When he didn’t say anything else, she laughed and turned in his arms to face him. “You can’t simply say there’s a problem and leave it at that.”
“Yeah, I know. I looked into every one of them. They have all kinds of hoops to go through in order to get us on one of those giant boats. The ones that are big enough for the Winnie are commercial only, and there’s a crapload of paperwork that goes with it.”
“That’s really not gonna help us.”
“No kidding.”
Standing on her tiptoes, Lily left a quick kiss on his lips before she slipped out of his arms. “It sounds like we’d better get a move on, then. How far away is the closest?”
“About an hour and a half.” Romeo smirked and watched her dance her way across the beach toward their house on wheels.
“That’s a ridiculously short drive after all the stretches we’ve done.”
“Yeah, but I have a feeling we’ll only be turned away by every single shipyard we come across. They want us to fill out papers and a manifest, and then there are customs. Not to mention the fact that most people prefer to be paid with credit cards or actual money.”
“Was that specifically stated in their terms? ‘Sorry, we don’t take solid-gold coins.’” She grinned cheekily at him as she opened the Winnie’s side door and waited for him to catch up.
“No. It wasn’t specifically stated anywhere.”
“Hey, we managed to wiggle our way onto the Atlantic Maiden from South America to France with gold coins and a little magical bartering. And I doubt Captain Kruzjic had a contingency plan for that.” She offered him his cell phone, and he took it with a smirk before he followed her inside the RV.
“We had a tip about Kruzjic potentially being willing to take us across the ocean under the table. Unfortunately, we don’t know anyone here who could point us in the right direction.”
Lily clambered into the passenger seat and stared out the window at the sea. “You know, if I’d known it was safe to go back to Otiylo, we could’ve asked Ozias.”
“It’s not safe.”
“I know that.” She waited until he joined her in the front and slid into the driver’s seat, his expression attentive. “If we go back there it’s more dangerous for us than it is for them. I’m not gonna bring the Black Heron down on those people’s heads again. They already did too much to help us.”
“I think that’s a fairly good call.”
With a nod, she gestured toward the wide, tall windshield. “Let’s get moving up the coast, then. We obviously don’t have any problems making friends and asking around for magical deals to get this thing across the water.”
Romeo chuckled and started the engine. “You make it sound so easy.”
“It is easy.”
“Except for the fact that I can’t plan any of this before we simply start approaching random strangers to ask if they’ll take our gold for a secret trip across the Mediterranean Sea with no paper trail.”
“Hustling for under-the-table deals is an art form, Romeo.” She winked at him and buckled her seatbelt. “Consider all this good practice.”
He laughed, shifted into drive, and eased the vehicle across the sand toward the main road. “Oh, yeah? Does that mean you’ve had practice with hustling?”
“I might have.” She leaned back in the seat and stretched her legs out in front of her.
“I’m not sure that hustling in high school to get into clubs with a fake ID is on the same level as making a secret deal with a legit cargo freighter to take us to Libya.”
“Oh, come on, Romeo.” Lily grinned and gave him a playful punch in the arm. “I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.”
He did a double-take and squinted at her before he focused on the road again. “I’d like to think I already know all your tricks.”
“Well, let’s say that—watch out!”
Romeo braked sharply, and the Winnie lurched to a stop much faster than the brakes were capable of managing. In the center of Highway E09 stood a creature barely under four feet tall wearing dark, green-black pants that were frayed at the edges. It stretched its hand toward them and engulfed the RV in a blaze of green light, making the entire vehicle lurch again where it had already stopped on the road.
“Who’s the frogman?” Romeo shouted.
The huge, bulging eyes on the green-skinned creature’s face narrowed, and the pulsing column of green light continued to churn from its outstretched hands to keep its newest victims right where they were.
“Back up,” Lily muttered.
“Yep.” He threw the Winnie into reverse and floored the gas pedal. The tires squealed on the asphalt, and a plume of white smoke drifted up from the back when he glanced at the side mirror.
“Romeo—”
“I’m trying.”
“Okay, stop. You’re gonna blow a hole in the tires.”
Reluctantly, he eased off the gas pedal and snarled and his eyes flashing their dangerous silver light that always happened before a shift. “I thought the network tracker on you was gone.”
“Yeah, so did I. But I don’t think this guy’s with the Black Heron.”
“What makes you think that?” He looked at her with wide eyes. “The dude jumped out in front of us to keep us from going anywhere. Wait for it. The attacks will come any minute now.”
“No.” With her hand hidden from the creature’s view, Lily summoned her favorite attack spell. The red sparks flaring to life at her fingertips but she wouldn’t use it yet. “Does that look like a beckoning wave to you?”
“Lily, by now, I think we’re past the whole ‘come closer because I’m giving you a
friendly wave’ trap.”
“But he’s not doing anything.” The minute she said it, the creature lowered its hand and the green light that kept the Winnie from moving blinked out. Calm and unperturbed, it stood there and waved again for them to step out and join it.
Romeo clenched the steering wheel even tighter and scowled at the creature in the road who very much looked like a giant frog walking upright on two legs. “Fine.” He released the steering wheel with a grunt and frowned at Lily. “You know I won’t play nice if this is some kinda trick.”
She unbuckled her seatbelt and slowly released it, staring at their unexpected visitor. “I know. But I don’t think it’s a trick.”
With a sigh, he unbuckled his seatbelt and stood from the driver’s seat. “Let’s go see what it wants, then.”
Lily followed him to the top of the steps at the side door and stopped him with a firm hand on his wrist. “Maybe let me go out first, huh? I don’t want you to rip that little guy apart simply for sneezing.”
His frown deepened, but he shrugged and let her step outside ahead of him.
Two
As she stepped around the front of the Winnie, Lily made no attempt to hide the red sparks that crackled along her fingertips, but she didn’t exactly brandish them, either. The green-skinned being still stood about ten feet from the RV and seemed not to notice her ready attack spell until she’d stopped in front of the Winnie’s bumper. Romeo stopped beside her and glared at the oddity in their path.