How To Be A Badass Witch: Book Two Read online

  How To Be A Badass Witch

  How to be a Badass Witch™ Book Two

  Michael Anderle

  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 © 2020 Michael Anderle

  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, December 2020

  Version 1.01, December 2020

  ebook ISBN: 978-1-64971-362-9

  Print ISBN: 978-1-64971-363-6

  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

  Chapter 32

  Creator Notes - Michael Anderle

  Books by Michael Anderle

  Connect with Michael

  The How To Be A Badass Witch Book Two Team

  Thanks to our Beta Team

  Larry Omans, John Ashmore, Rachel Beckford, Kelly O’Donnell

  Thanks to our JIT Readers

  Dave Hicks

  Dorothy Lloyd

  Deb Mader

  Daryl McDaniel

  Wendy L Bonell

  Jackey Hankard-Brodie

  Angel LaVey

  Paul Westman

  Debi Sateren

  If We’ve missed anyone, please let us know!

  Editor

  The Skyhunter Editing Team

  To Family, Friends and

  Those Who Love

  To Read.

  May We All Enjoy Grace

  To Live The Life We Are

  Called.

  Chapter One

  Kera MacDonagh stared at the wreckage on the table in front of her and decided she wasn’t physically or mentally able to deal with the mess right now.

  It was the largest breakfast she’d eaten in her life, including during her teenage years when she’d participated in multiple sports. It contained: an eight-egg omelet containing cheese, onions, green peppers, avocados, and ham, sprinkled with black pepper, six pieces of buttered whole-wheat toast, a stack of waffles covered with syrup, and most of a package of breakfast sausages. She washed it down with a glass of orange juice and a cup of coffee with more creamer than usual.

  And a banana for good measure. After all, vitamins were important.

  Or something.

  She felt like someone had magically inserted an anvil into the center of her torso. She hadn’t checked her grimoire for that spell, but she was living proof that it existed. She was absolutely sure it would be impossible to get out of her chair right now.

  A lifetime of living in a diet-obsessed culture had not prepared her for the challenge of trying to gain weight. Her appetite was way up lately, a side effect of casting too many spells. Despite eating like an Olympic athlete, she’d been losing weight. She kept trying to counteract it with more food, but she was reaching the limits of her stomach’s endurance. Just this morning, for instance, she had woken up to find out she was five pounds down after eating a gigantic burrito, a bag of chips, and three candy bars the night before.

  Hence this morning’s gigantic breakfast. Mrs. Kim had been sending home-cooked Korean food by the bucketful, and she was not going to be pleased if Kera lost more weight. She had stated unequivocally that Kera’s homework was to get back to her normal size. Mrs. Kim was a polite woman in her forties, always generous and kind.

  And yet, Kera got the sense that she would not want to piss the woman off.

  She flopped down on her bed and clicked on the old TV. After the weather report, the anchors began discussing the main story: resurging gang violence. According to the LAPD, the increase was incremental but still worrisome, and they were doing everything in their power to first contain it and then roll it back. An expert crime analyst appeared, commenting that the overall trend in gang warfare had been downwards in LA since the mid-1990s, but it had never completely gone away and probably never would.

  She glanced around her home. It bore tiny, subtle signs of her new magic use: a scorch mark on the wall here, a stack of notebooks there. Even the gym equipment she’d finally set up in the corner of the open space was related. She didn’t want to rely on her magic when she confronted gang members.

  It was also why she was watching the news. In the past, she had mainly used the television to create ambient background noise while she studied or cleaned. It was her version of white noise and was especially welcome now that she lived alone.

  Lately, however, she had begun to do things that showed up on the news, and keeping track of which details about her got noticed helped her avoid being found out. Kera wanted to do good in the world, but she wasn’t ready to be a celebrity.

  Particularly after Mr. Kim’s warning two days ago: The abilities you have are unusual, but you are not the only one who has them. Playing with those forces can be dangerous, not only to your health but if others find you. That, I have some knowledge of.

  She was still trying to work up the courage to figure out what that knowledge was. She had also reduced the pain of Mr. Kim’s arthritis and halted the progress of Mrs. Kim’s cancer, and she would do it again. But the idea of them knowing about the magic when even she did not understand it yet…

  That frightened her.

  After all, she still did not know who had written the grimoire that had taught her spells. The authors were effectively anonymous, operating behind a mysterious company that seemed to have been founded for the sole purpose of publishing a single thaumaturgic grimoire. She knew they likely hadn’t done so just out of the goodness of their heart, and she was getting increasingly worried about them finding her.

  She supposed they might be friendly, but she wasn’t certain about that.

  Call it instinct.

  Her phone beeped, and she reached over to check it. She saw that she had a voicemail from her mother and a new text message from Mr. Kim, asking her to swing by when she had the time.

  Kera set the phone down and sighed as she leaned to shut off the TV. A commercial for a new steakhouse up in Glendale was blaring, and despite the gargantuan breakfast, her stomach grumbled. She also felt tired, though she knew that was the result of her now-thwarted plan for a morning to herself. Obligations to other people always seemed to arise whenever she had some alone-time in which to relax.

&nbs
p; She looked at her home gym with a grimace. She had intended to work out as soon as her stomach felt better, but it looked like that wasn’t an option now. The workouts were complicating her attempts to stave off the weight loss, but she was worried about relying too heavily on her magic. The stronger and more capable she was, the less she would need magic to help her.

  Having scrounged up some parts from a neighbor and others from graduating college athletes, she had managed to assemble a small but viable home gym. The centerpiece of it was a weight bench, old and ripped but perfectly serviceable, with multiple configurations for working different limbs and muscle groups via a system of jointed levers holding thick iron discs.

  On the far side of the bench, and surrounded by a generous helping of elbow room, was her heavy punching bag. Zee, her motorcycle, had been forced to give up half the space that had once belonged exclusively to him.

  In addition, Kera had mounted a chin-up bar between two of the slats on the side of the warehouse. She wanted to get a treadmill as well, but there was only so much a person could do—or afford—at once. Even a used treadmill wasn’t in her budget right now, especially since she had no way to haul it home.

  As she went to take a shower, she mentally rearranged her day so she could work out later. If it takes half a year, she promised herself, I’m going to be twice as strong as I was when I was nineteen. I better, anyway, with all the goddamn protein I’ve been putting away.

  “Look! Look what they fucking did.”

  Johnny Torrez had stitches in the side of his head, two of his fingers wrapped and splinted, and a fascinating variety of purple bruises, but no one, including him, was paying much attention to that.

  Instead, they were paying attention to the phone he held up, showing pictures of his recently refurbished Mustang.

  More recently, unfortunately, the car had been the target of…something. Johnny still didn’t know what. The hood looked as though someone had turned on a blowtorch, left it sitting there while it was ignited, and then wandered off to get lunch. Damage to the engine and other internals was surprisingly minimal, but he could still look forward to a painful, expensive trip to the shop to make certain the vehicle would function.

  As Johnny scrolled through the pictures, a muscle jumped on his jaw. He knew what was coming next, and he was not looking forward to it.

  His boss settled back in her chair finally and gazed into the middle distance, considering something. Pauline Smith wore suits to show off a strenuously thin figure, her hair and nails were always immaculate, and she tended to speak in the sort of corporate jargon that made anyone listening immediately tune out.

  All in all, she was the sort of woman one might look at and erroneously assume was just another advancement-obsessed business school graduate. Johnny wouldn’t have given her another glance on the street, at least, not with regard to her character. Everything about Pauline looked predictable.

  He now knew, however, that Pauline’s golden hair was dyed darker, not lighter. That her brown eyes weren’t brown but were colored contacts over ice-blue irises. Her last name wasn’t Smith, either, but Testrovsky.

  Pauline often spoke about “building a better tomorrow” and “using their platform to create a more peaceful world.” What she was talking about was getting most of the populace hooked on drugs so they would be docile and easily led—no match for the dictatorship she intended to create.

  Johnny believed she was batshit crazy, and he had no idea what she was going to say about this. He just knew it wasn’t going to be pleasant.

  She had to understand. He genuinely didn’t remember the night before, and he couldn’t figure out how the damage had been done to his car. Given his injuries, there had been a confrontation of some sort, but Johnny didn’t remember it. All he knew was that he had woken up injured in a damaged car with a note hung from on his rearview mirror that said LA WITCH TERRITORY, HANDS OFF.

  “Johnny,” Pauline said finally, “do you have any reason to believe it was the people from the Mermaid who did this? The ones you were trying to persuade to enter into a partnership with us?”

  Johnny shook his head. “I don’t think so. The owner was being stubborn before, but they’re pretty tame—all bark, no bite. Whoever did this had more teeth than that.”

  “Let’s see that note again.” Pauline extended her hand.

  Johnny pulled out the crumpled piece of paper and gave it to her. There wasn’t much to the thing, merely a warning not to infringe on the territory of the so-called LA Witches.

  Pauline sank her chin into one hand as she stared at it.

  “It doesn’t matter who these competitors are,” she said finally. “I only care about them insofar as they’re obstacles, unexpected ones.”

  The only other sound in the room was the rustle of pen on paper as Lia wrote, taking down meeting notes.

  Pauline looked at Sven and Johnny. “Neither of you mentioned the ‘LA Witches’ in your research about Little Tokyo and Chinatown.”

  The two men shifted uncomfortably. They had been sent to evaluate which gangs were operating in the first territories Pauline had staked out. Her plans, which had mainly been successful so far, had been based on their intel, and this latest snag…

  Would logically have resulted from their oversight.

  Pauline, however, surprised Johnny. “I have also never heard of this group,” she admitted. “Lia?”

  Lia looked up with a deer-in-headlights expression. She, like Sven, was afraid of Pauline. “No,” she said quietly.

  Pauline tapped her black-manicured nails on the table. “Well then, there are two possibilities. One, that this gang is attempting the same thing we are, and our interference has caused them to show their hand early, and two, that they were formed in response to us. Either begs the question of what their endgame is, and how they managed to do that.” She nodded at Johnny and his phone.

  Johnny let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. It hurt his ribs, but he could hardly feel that against the wave of relief. He had only disdain for people who were terrified of their gang leaders, but he couldn’t seem to get a handle on Pauline. She was violence wrapped up in a boring corporate veneer.

  He had been worried that she wouldn’t believe him.

  He was still unsettled. He wasn’t entirely sure why he was willing to tell her the truth. His original instinct had been to hide it. After all, admitting he’d gotten beaten up was not going to look good. Admitting he didn’t remember how was worse.

  He wondered now if he had done it partly so Pauline would ream him out and tell him he was being an idiot. So she would come up with some rational way this had happened.

  Because when you got beaten up and your car got fucked up in a way that made no sense and you forgot all of it and someone took credit for it while calling themselves a witch…

  Well, you came to certain conclusions.

  Pauline fixed him with a stare. “We need to find out their identities, their bases of operations, and their weak links. Then we exploit those links to degrade and sabotage their foothold.”

  Johnny nodded. Finally, he and Pauline agreed on something: take out the fuckers who had done this to his car.

  An arch of one blonde eyebrow told him she wasn’t willing to play entirely nice, however. “And if they have any high-quality employees, we find ways to entice or threaten them into working for us instead. We can always use good people.”

  Johnny was a hairsbreadth from snarling. “If you think I’m going to recruit the assholes who did this—”

  Pauline met his eyes with a sardonic smile and lifted one shoulder. “Prove to me I don’t need to.”

  Blonde bitch. Johnny’s life had been too full of those lately. To his surprise, there was a new feeling in his chest: respect. Pauline had maneuvered him into a corner. She had believed his research. She was giving him a chance to eliminate this person, playing him against his own pride.

  Johnny gave her a long look. He could almost swear s
he was smiling. He felt the urge to do the same. He gave her a nod and left the room.

  He was going to find out who the hell these LA Witches were, and he was going to take them down. They might show up like ghosts, but there was one thing he knew about people who came in strong: they didn’t know how to play the long game.

  He’d been in the gang world since he was eleven years old. There was no way these people knew what they were in for.

  Mia Angel and Doug Lopez sat together on a bench near the Ross Snyder Rec Center, watching the wispy white clouds waft over the sun, and the fronds of palm trees sway in the breeze. They’d finished their lunch and Doug continued to sip what was left of his drink, making the straw gurgle as it struggled to get the last of the lemonade out between the ice cubes.

  “Man,” said Mia, “I have got to stop having lunch with you. Every time I do, we end up eating something that chips about six months off my lifespan.”

  Her fellow reporter shrugged and tossed his empty cup into a nearby trashcan. “You have to admit, their burgers are amazing. Love it when they char the outside but leave the slightest trace of pink in the middle.”

  Mia preferred her ground beef to be uniformly well-done, so she kept her mouth shut for the time being.