Excerpt: The Witch & the Warrior
Corazita met Chet’s car before she met him...
The first time she’d ever seen the radioactive green-purple Bugati Chiron was an hour after she’d opened her shop on Main Street of a little mountain town called Arcana Glen. Corazita had moved to the town for two reasons. One, because it was full of Elves, like herself, as well as many Witches, Shifters and other arcanes. Two, because she was trying to go clean and her therapist, Pastor Mike, lived there.
On that Monday morning, opening day of her new business, Corazita was incredibly nervous. It was her first legitimate enterprise, and she was desperate to prove she could earn money as an independent businesswoman, trading something other than her body. No one in Arcana Glen knew about her ugly past except Pastor Mike, and Corazita intended to keep it that way.
Compulsively, she kept pacing in and out of her shop to see if any customers had parked in front yet. She had dolled herself up in her cutest designer red dress, matching four-inch pumps and dyed-to-match curls. She displayed little red hearts in her irises, and if a Mundane asked, she’d purr, yes, those are contacts, but they weren’t. She really had red eyes. Many passers-by, especially of the male persuasion, stumbled when they passed her, or stopped to gawk, but no customers had entered her store yet. Her ice sculpture store happened to be right next to Paige’s Ink Emporium, and so far, the only people who had come by had disappeared into the rec room to play pool. It was not exactly the same clientele that would be interested in decorative fancy-event table pieces.
That’s when he pulled up, the handsome devil in a gorgeous machine. He ignored the paint and the coin machines indicating the location of parking spots; he slanted his baby across two spaces, exactly half-way across the line. Balanced on one arm, strong as a pole jumper, he bounded out of the topless car without opening the door. Did he put coins in the meter? Hell no. The arrogant bastard made a beeline across the street without looking at the traffic in either direction. Two cars almost collided swerving to avoid him, but he gave no indication he noticed or cared.
“Hey! Hey, you! Hey, asshole! You can’t park there!” Corazita shouted. “You’re taking up two spaces, you jerk!”
Never once did he look back.
Infuriated as much by the way he ignored her as the way he parked, Corazita lost it. She went into her shop and returned with the iron bar normally used to bar the basement door from the inside.
She smashed the iron bar down onto the hood of his fancy-shmancy car. She infused her feeble overhand swing with the power of elemental Wind.
The crash of the iron magically accelerated to hurricane velocity, crushing the car hood like a tin can was truly an awful noise, one she hoped never to hear again.
Time seemed to freeze.
The devil stopped walking.
He turned around.
He stalked back across the street and stood on the other side of the hood from Corazita.
She could see that he had eyes the same radioactive neon green-purple as his car when he narrowed them at her. She also realized that he wasn’t just rich and arrogant, but brawny and built like a tank. He had dark hair, dark eyes, a chiseled chin, and shoulders as wide as a football field. Clothes meant nothing to him, obviously, because compared to his car, his attire only looked as sexy as it did because his muscles filled out the blue jeans and black t-shirt. The bastard was smoking hot in every dimension, and right now he was fuming like an overheated engine.
“What. Have. You. Done?” he hissed.
“You. Can’t. Park. Here,” she snapped back.
“Woman,” he said through bared teeth. “Do you have any idea how much this car costs?”
As if on cue, a red and blue light flashed. A clunky cop car pulled up alongside the smashed masterpiece. The sheriff, a young Boy Next Door type, climbed out. This was also Corazita’s first time meeting the local law enforcement, and, holy moly, had she blown it. When the sheriff saw the damage to the car, he whistled. He wagged his chin between the furious driver and the woman in red still holding an iron bar. Hastily, Corazita tossed the bar onto the sidewalk, but it was probably too late to spin a story about ne'er-do-well teen hooligans who had gone that way on their skateboards...
“What’s the problem, Chet?” the young sheriff asked. As if that wasn’t painfully obvious. How wonderful to learn that they were on a first name basis.
“Hey, Spencer,” Chet said. When he smiled, he revealed perfect white teeth. He added, formally, “Sheriff Lawson: This woman deliberately and maliciously smashed my baby. I demand that she pay damages.”
This was when Corazita learned for the first time that the curvy car was a custom Bugatti Chiron sport, etc, etc. and exactly how much it was worth.
Chet leaned forward over the crumpled hood and smirked at her. “You are going to pay for this if it takes the rest of your life. I am about to break you.”
“C’mon, Chet,” the sheriff wheedled. “The money means nothing to you. I’ll issue the lady a ticket, and how about we just let it go at that?”
“Issue me a ticket?” squealed Corazita, outraged all over again. “How about Mr-I-Can-Park-Wherever-I-Want? How about give him a ticket?”
“Oh, I will,” sighed Sheriff Lawson.
Chet pulled a wallet out of his jeans pocket and handed a wad of Benjamins to the Sheriff. “Consider it paid.”
Sheriff Spencer Lawson rolled his shoulders in a shrug to Corazita, as if to ask, What else can I do? Corazita noticed that he did pull out a pad, wrote a ticket for three hundred dollars, and returned all but three of the bills to Chet. Nice to know he was an honest cop, but that didn’t help her.
Corazita flicked her tongue over her lips, wondering how the hell she was going to get herself out of this mess. Chet fixated on the motion like a predator who had just spotted prey.
“You know what?” he said. His voice sounded deeper, sexier. “I’ll accept a kiss as payment in full. Deal?”
“A kiss,” she repeated flatly. “You. Want a kiss. From me.”
“I want to kiss you. Yes. I’m doing you a favor, sweetheart. One damn kiss, and I’ll cancel your entire debt.”
Corazita crossed her arms. She made a show of examining him like a slab of meat from his tussled hair to his muscular calves. She puckered her cherry red lips. And since she already knew he liked it, she opened her mouth and licked her lips again, slowly, deliberately. Sensuously. She noted how his jeans, already straining to cover those muscular thighs, strained a bit more, a bit higher.
“You know what—sweetheart?” she cooed. “Nope. Never. I would rather mortgage my store, my car and my house than kiss you. ‘Chet.’” She turned his name into a sneer. She held arms straight out, wrists crossed, to Sheriff Lawson. “Cuff me, Sheriff. Take me to jail for assault, battery, whatever you want. Hell, arrest me for grand theft auto, for all I care. I am not paying one cent to that demon. I sure as hell am not going to kiss him. I would rather rot in prison for the rest of my life!”
“Go ahead, Spencer,” said Chet. “Arrest the felon. If she thinks I won’t push this until I win, she’s got a lot to learn about me.” He flashed those pearly whites at Corazita. “I. Always. Win.”
“Not. This. Time.”
Sheriff Spencer Lawson floundered, clearly not wanting to arrest Corazita but also probably not willing to go against a man who could probably bury the sheriff’s department in lawyers.
The impasse was broken in the most improbable way—although Corazita was later to learn, not that improbable in Arcana Glen. Unnoticed by any of the three of the, a fourth person had arrived on the scene. They all jumped in surprise when he cleared his throat. It was as if he had appeared out of thin air.
The newcomer was taller and slimmer than Chet. He was handsome but there was something taciturn and uncanny about him that gave Corazita the shivers. His unusual attire didn’t help. Although it was barely ten in the morning, he wore a formal black tux with an old-fashioned, rather theatrical black silk top hat. He looked like a stage magician.
Sheriff Spencer Lawson had only been exasperated with “Chet,” even though he was obviously a billionaire and an asshole. But when the sheriff saw the man in the top hat, Spencer Lawson blanched white and broke out into a sweat. -
“Uh...oh...Mr. Guiscard, I didn’t notice you there,” he stammered.
Even the supremely arrogant driver tensed up instantly in the presence of the mysterious Mr. Guiscard. Chet clenched his fists, narrowed his eyes, and seemed prepared to spring into a fight.
Mr. Guiscard stretched his hand toward Corazita. He had slender, elegant fingers, but she didn’t want him to touch her. He didn’t; he flourished his hand and procured out a large gold coin from the air next to her hair, like old stage-magic trick of pulling a quarter out one’s ear.
“Please,” muttered Chet. “That’s not even real magic.”
Mr. Guiscard flipped the gold coin around in the fingers of one hand; the coin flashed and now he held a checkbook. He opened it; he scribbled something. He handed the check to the sheriff. Then he walked away. He didn’t hurry, yet somehow, he was quickly out of sight. He was there and then he wasn’t.
Sheriff Lawson’s eyes bugged when he examined the check. He handed it to Chet. “Looks like the Magician covered the cost of your repairs.”
“Is he really a magician?” Corazita asked.
“Yup,” said Sheriff Lawson. “Works in Los Vegas, usually. He owns that giant hulk of rock up there.” He pointed to a castle which loomed against the horizon at the far end of Arcana Glen. Corazita felt icy fear trickle down her spine. So he was that Magician, the one who owned Arcana Castle.
Sheriff Spencer Lawson handed the check to the arrogant driver. “You better take it, Chet.”
Chet took the piece of paper with a thin smile. He ripped it half. “I have decided to pay for my own repairs,” he declared before the sheriff could speak. Chet focused the same thin, wicked smile on Corazita. “You’ve won the first round. But this isn’t over. I always win in the end.”
He turned to walk away, back across the street, just like he had after he parked.
“Hey, asshole, here’s your kiss!” Corazita shouted at his back.
This time he looked back at her.
She placed her middle finger to her lips, puckered her lips, and blew the kiss at him with her middle finger high in the air.
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