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Witch of the Midnight Blade
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WITCH OF THE MIDNIGHT: THE COMPLETE SERIES
A World on Fire novel
Kris Austen Radcliffe
Copyright 2019 Kris Austen Radcliffe
All rights reserved.
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Published by
Six Talon Sign Fantasy & Futuristic Romance
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Edited by Annetta Ribken
Copyedited by Juli Lilly
Cover designed by Lou Harper at CoverAffairs.com
Series dragon design and art by Christina Rausch
Plus a special thanks to my Proofing Crew.
Copyright notice: All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidences are used factitiously. All representations of real locales, programs, or services are factitious accounts of the environments and services described. Any resemblances characters, places, or events have to actual people, living or dead, business, establishments, events, or locales is entirely unintended and coincidental.
Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
For requests, please e-mail: [email protected].
First electronic edition, July 2019
version 7.12.2019
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ISBN: 978-1-939730-72-5
Contents
Witch of the Midnight Blade
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PART ONE
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
Epilogue
PART TWO
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
PART THREE
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
Untitled
World on Fire
The Worlds of
About the Author
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Witch of the Midnight Blade
World on Fire
Kris Austen Radcliffe
World on Fire
The Universe
Fate Fire Shifter Dragon
Games of Fate
Flux of Skin
Fifth of Blood
Bonds Broken & Silent
All But Human
Men and Beasts
The Burning World
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Dragon’s Fate and Other Stories
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Series Two
Witch of the Midnight Blade
Witch of the Midnight Blade Part One
Witch of the Midnight Blade Part Two
Witch of the Midnight Blade Part Three
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Witch of the Midnight Blade: The Complete Series
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Series Three
World on Fire
Call of the Dragonslayer (coming soon)
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PART ONE
Chapter One
Old man Nax gave everyone grief. Mrs. Karanova, in her frowny, badass Russian elderly-lady accent, once told me “He is old fool.” Then she growled “svarlivyy” which, it turns out, means “cantankerous.”
So Mr. Nax, the frowny-yet-not-obviously-badass old man in 38A, spent his days with a tank full of enough crabby can-do grief that he managed to piss off Mrs. gives-no-fucks Karanova.
Thing is, Mr. Nax never gave me problems when I changed his bedding and checked his oxygen. He watched me from his Paradise Homes-issued recliner in his Paradise Homes-okayed baggy old-man pants and complained about the weather, or the vinyl squeaking under his supposedly frail old ass.
He never, not once, tried to steal meds. Not once did he use his unseen size to get his way. Nor did he tell me in his loud, old-man voice to go across the concourse to Building One and kill all the Fates.
Because Fates—as the old goats here in Building Two liked to say, Mrs. Karanova included—were the real enemy. Fates, it seemed, were no good.
No good at all.
Management claimed that it was all in good fun—Skins versus Shirts, Soccer versus Hockey or whatever stupid sports analogy you wanted to use—and that the rivalry kept the residents “entertained.”
They’re awfully specific sometimes, though, the residents, when they don’t think the aides are listening. I heard things that made me wonder. Things that suggested that the oddly-chosen team name of “Fates” actually meant something sinister to the oldsters in Building Two.
Ignoring it seemed the safest course of action. But a lie is a lie, and lying lays eggs that hatch into other lies. Then those lies swarm, and the next thing you know you’re infested.
So I asked a question. A simple one, really, even if it made less sense than “entertainment.” I asked because I thought Mrs. Karanova really did talk to ghosts. And Mr. Nax really did take up more space than he should. I measured the depression in his bed one morning.
Mr. Nax is not a frail little old man.
He’s not, so I asked why. Though, honestly, my question was more a scream into the bitter winter cold. I screamed as the full, unwanted, true reality crouched atop the smoldering ruins of Paradise Homes.
She swung my sword, the real truth. Her eyes glowed like scabs on fire, and she clucked in delight at my coming death.
All while, at her back, dragons broke the world.
But I’m getting ahead of myself….
Chapter Two
The night the world burned…
Roseanna Hernandez laughed in my face, which wasn’t like her, because she’s one of the most reliable people I know. Not nicest—Roseanna wasn’t sweet—but she never tolerated bullshit and she’d drive your kid to school in her beat-up old truck, even in a blizzard, if you had no other way to get little Johnny to class.
I don’t have kids, unless you count my two younger brothers, but they’re not little, nor is either of them named Johnny. And they go to a special smart-kids’ middle school. But Roseanna would help, if I asked.
Which was why her laughing right in my face about my Mr. Nax suspicions cut so badly.
“Oh, hon,” she said. Her round eyes and round face took on the hint of squareness that only appeared when she was taking in all the angles of a situation.
Roseanna might be the head aide at Paradise Homes, but if she could get herself through some business classes, she’d be running the place within a week.
She patted my shoulder. I’m a good five inches taller than Roseanna, and thinner. I suspected we had an iconic-yet-cartoony contrast when we walk the halls together—Roseanna the mother, me the maid, and all the oldsters the crones.
“Del,” she said, “no one here is magical. No one’s a vampire and we don’t have pixies in the breakroom.”
“Roseanna….” Of course we didn’t have vampires and pixies. “You go check Mr. Nax, then.” He was not what he seemed, but he wasn’t vampire-evil, nor was he a dancing pixie.
She shook her head. “Take Mrs. Karanova down to the dining room. It’s time to eat.”
Then she walked away, presumably to check on one of the other residents, and I stood alone next to the nurses’ workstation just off the wing’s common area. Every resident of Paradise Homes had access to a sitting area with a big television, tables full of jigsaw puzzles, comfy chairs, and a lot of houseplants. Each area had its own workstation, where we aides hung out when we weren’t checking oxygen or helping with zippers.
This particular common area hadn’t been updated in a couple of decades. It was more worn than bland, and all the colors had faded to the same visually-beige midtones. The walls, the carpet, the workstation’s counter—everything had the same blah-ness one would expect of an institution, which was a shame, since we were surrounded by magical people, no matter what Roseanna believed.
This common area also smelled different. Both Building One and Building Two had the specific smell that all institutions with medical supplies carried—that bitter, layered fragrance with high notes of ozone, mid notes of industrial cleaners, and low notes of living, breathing, old residents. It was the perfume at the end of life in modern times—society trying to cover up and contain the organic finality of old age.
The smell of Paradise Homes changed when someone passed. The organics… stopped. The sense of life that floated in the air—slow life, old life—shifted over to no life, and the scent took on bitter overtones, and deep, dark undernotes.
Not today, thankfully.
I marked down my intent to chaperone Mrs. K to dinner, and turned toward her room.
Mr. Nax stood in his room’s threshold, his old-man sweats baggy on his supposedly-slight frame, with one hand on the door’s metal casing and the other out in front of him as if he was about to cast a spell on me.
“Mr. Nax,” I said. “I’m about to get Mrs. Karanova. Would you like to walk down to dinner with us?”
How that old man got his entire bald head to scowl, I didn’t know, but I figured it had to do with whatever magic he was using to cast his pretend-frail façade.
Not that I knew for sure that he cast some sort of façade. But I had my suspicions, no matter what Roseanna Hernandez thought.
“No,” he said, but he didn’t turn his back or walk away. He stood where he was and stared.
I’m one of the newer aides—I should be finishing my sophomore year at the University of Colorado. I’m not. I’m here. But six months on the job should be enough to tell me who in the wing is a creeper and who isn’t.
I think Mr. Nax wanted me to think he’s a creeper, but I also thought his cantankerousness was just as much a part of his glamour as his frailness.
He never stared at my chest. He never said “sweetie” or tried to touch me or any of the other aides in inappropriate ways. It was as if he wanted distance and being too intense was the only way he knew how to get it.
“You sure?” I asked.
A small pout flitted over his lips. “Yes,” he said. Then he waved me away.
I shrugged. “Buzz if you change your mind!” I called.
He shuffled into his room as he waved me away yet again with one hand behind his back.
I knocked on Mrs. K’s door. “Irena? It’s time for dinner.”
“Come in, dear!” she called. Mrs. K had been born in Colorado but she still had a spectacular Russian accent. Smooth, lyrical pronunciation—something one did not normally associate with Russian accents—flowed from her lips every time she spoke, as if I was in a room with a princess.
She was lowering herself into her wheelchair as I walked in.
“I can help you with that,” I said.
Mrs. K rubbed her parchment-like hands together and looked up at me. She was a strong-willed oldster, a woman who, I suspected, kept her slight body alive by the sheer power of her considerable will.
She also liked to talk. She chatted up everyone who got within ten feet of her, often regaling us with stories of “those Bolshevik bastards” and her mother’s time in the Tsar’s court.
She wiggled in her wheelchair. She did not enjoy the hard pokes and bumpy surface of her transport, and made several unhappy faces not only at me, but also at her clunky shoes as I set her feet on the chair’s rests.
We kept her room tidy, the way she liked it, and her bed made, and her window frost-free. We did our best, making sure housekeeping also kept her portrait of Tsar Nicholas II dust-free and her crystal vase full of clean water and yellow roses.
“What is your name, dear?” she asked.
Mrs. K often did not remember my name. “Del, Mrs. K.”
She patted my arm. “Yes, yes. Will you be sitting with me at dinner tonight?”
“I wish I could.” I pointed out the door. “I have to work.”
Her face fell. Just for a micro-second, but in that short amount of time, she looked like a hurt kid.
Roseanna says I’m too involved in the residents’ lives. She says I need to remember that we lose one a month. Somewhere, someone in Building One or Two won’t wake up. Not being too involved made the good-byes easier.
But Mrs. K got me every time.
I wheeled her into the hallway.
“Your parents named you after a city?” Mrs. K always asked about my name.
I leaned close as I pushed her along the dingy carpet. “My mom named me after an Elton John song.” I had no connection to Philadelphia and had never visited. But my mom says she and the guy who fathered me were listening to an oldies station the night I was conceived.
Which I never wanted to know. Too much information was too much information. My mom, at least as far as I knew, hadn’t TMI’d my two brothers, which I chalked up to my stepdad’s lawyerly influence.
“Philadelphia,” Mrs. K said. “… Parrish?”
She remembered. “That’s right, Mrs. K. Del Parrish. I’m your aide.”
I wheeled her down the dour hallway, over the drab brown carpet and between the boring, beige walls.
“I do believe this place needs art!” Mrs. K declared yet again. “I have art.” She had art, once, or so she liked to tell everyone. “My mother rescued it from the Bolsheviks.”
No mutters about how they were sneaky, angry bastards, those Bolsheviks.
“I remember, Mrs. Karanova,” I said. “Your mother was the Romanovs’ cook, correct?”
“Yes.” Mrs. K rubbed her leathery hands together again. “My mother was Maria Romanova’s best friend.”
We all knew the story—supposedly, someone important sav
ed Maria, Alexei, and a few of their servants from the frozen death of Siberia, relocating Mrs. K’s then-pregnant mother here to Colorado. Most of the other aides laughed and said they were waiting for Mrs. K to embellish her “saving the Romanovs” story with aliens or fairies.
But the story never changed. Never grew more fantastic beyond the supposed evacuation of the Tsar’s long-dead family. It was, at its core, quite mundane—lots of time hiding, lots of boredom, a cramped steamer ship to America, and witness protection in the great American West.