War-N-Wit, Inc. – Resurrection

War-N-Wit, Inc. – Resurrection 

by

Gail Roughton

ISBN: 978-1-927476-53-6

Books We Love Ltd.

(Electronic Book Publishers)

192 Lakeside Greens Drive

Chestermere, Alberta, T1X 1C2

Canada

http://bookswelove.net

Copyright 2012 by Gail Roughton

Cover art by Michelle Lee Copyright 2012

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under
copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by
any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise)
without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above
publisher of this book.

Chapter One

The honeymoon was over. And a damn good thing, too. As
honeymoons go, this one had been a killer. Almost for real.

I glared down at my husband. Officially, we’d been married
five days. Unofficially, well—let’s just say we’d been together a lot longer
than that. Through eternity, in fact.

“The doctor said you needed to stay at least three days! So
if you think you’re walking out of this hospital within thirty-six hours of
almost
bleedin’
to death, you got
another think coming, Magic Man!”

He flung the white hospital bedcovers back with his right
arm, sat up and swung his legs off the bed. He was good, I’ll give him that. I
doubt anybody but me would’ve noticed the white tinge around his lips or the
faint grimace when his left arm and shoulder moved. Then again, nobody but me
could feel the sting from the torn flesh around the bullet hole in his
shoulder.

I said we’d been together through eternity, didn’t I? Well,
there’re some side benefits to this “eternal couple” thing. This time around,
it seemed we didn’t just
know
what
the other was feeling. We
felt
it.

The soreness wasn’t so bad. I knew it was there and I could
keep it at a distance. Occasionally, my foot still remembered the healing knife
wound through his foot—a souvenir of our wedding trip to Vegas last week. That
is, our combination wedding trip coupled with hauling in the ho and pimp who’d
skipped bail. A little side business that hadn’t gone quite as planned. Still,
not everybody could say they’d gotten married on a motorcycle in the White
Chapel’s Tunnel of Love Drive-Thru.

Sudden, unexpected pain or fear, though? That’s a little
harder to explain.
 
I’d been sitting at
my desk last October, minding my own business and doing my job as legal
assistant to three attorneys at a pretty large firm in my hometown of Macon, Georgia.
Then private investigator Chad Garrett called in to report he’d successfully
served a complaint. Thus ended life as I knew it. Chad Garrett wasn’t an
ordinary private investigator.
 
Oh, no.
Nothing that simple. The private investigator we’d hired had to be a warlock.
Not just any warlock, either,
 
a warlock
on the hunt for his witch, his eternal soul mate.
 
The soul mate he’d reincarnated with over
centuries. And that, he insisted, would be me.

 
I didn’t believe him,
of course, not at first. Not until Christmas, when
Christmas Day had given me a gift I’d never thought any mortal could
possess. The day I’d known, known with
absolute certainty there was an
underlying power, a grand magic and music of the universe. That everything and
everyone was
connected
, intertwined.
And that in that connection was the ancient, universal truth, lost and twisted
and forgotten through the ages. Before there had ever been a "Bless you,
my child", there had been a "Blessed be." The religion of the
old ones. The day I’d known I was a witch. One of the ancients.

Being one of the ancients had its perks. But it had its
drawbacks, too, like feeling what my soul mate felt. I’d gone right into the
dark with him when he’d almost bled out from that bullet in the shoulder. I’d
had one hell of rough introduction to my newfound powers but at least a
drug-dealing serial killer was off the streets. Permanently. And a lot of
families now had their daughters back. Not the way they wanted them, and my
heart still ached when I thought of their pain, but at least now they’d have
closure. And graves to visit. And one girl was going home alive.

* * *

“Doctors always tell me I need to stay in the hospital. I
haven’t listened to one yet, not starting now.” He started across the floor
towards the bathroom, hospital gown flashing glimpses of bare butt. Great butt,
but then I’m prejudiced.

“Hell!” He reached around to grab the flapping sides of the
gown. “Besides, I hate having my ass hanging out in the wind.”

“Nobody here to see it but me,” I advised. “And I’ll look at
it all day. Though I got to say, baby, your ass is always hanging out in the
wind. Occupational hazard.”

“Yeah, but man, what a rush!” He left the door open and I
heard the top of the toilet lid lift. Another thing about couples together
through eternity. We didn’t have much modesty left.

I shook my head. No changing the unchangeable. I’d known
when I married him Chad Garrett lived for the danger zone. The man loved his
work. All of it. Skip-tracing, bounty hunting, process serving. He’d spent his whole
career in one aspect or another of law enforcement, beginning with the
 
Fort Lauderdale Police Department and moving on
to the Florida Bureau of Investigation. I figured there might be a few other
“agency” credentials he hadn’t listed on the bio page on his website when he
went into the private sector I didn’t know about yet.
 
I’d been a paralegal my entire professional
career, up until I’d married Chad and become a
 
PI-bounty hunter in training. I’d never seen anybody come even close to
the things I’d already seen him do. Things I didn’t think the average cop
turned private investigator could do.

Chad’s cell phone sounded from the nightstand.
Sons of Anarchy
. Yeah, wasn’t he though?
I picked it up.

“War-N-Wit, Inc. Ariel Garrett. How can we help you?”

No answer.

“Hello?”

“I was under the impression that War-N-Wit, Inc. was Chad
Garrett. Who are you and what are you doing answering his phone?”

Excuse me?
It was
a man’s voice, but prissy and rude as hell. However, this was my husband’s—and
now my—baby. He’d bled for this company many times in the past and he’d
undoubtedly bleed for it again in the future.

The sound of a shower caught my attention. I hoped he’d keep
his shoulder dry. And his foot reasonably out of the water, though those stiches
were doing nicely. I hadn’t even asked a nurse whether it was alright for him
to shower. And I knew he hadn’t asked because he didn’t care if it was alright
or not. If he wanted a shower, he’d take one.

“Ariel
Garrett
,
sir. I turned my attention back to our caller. “Chad Garrett’s wife and
partner. How can we help you?”

“I do not want Chad Garrett’s
wife
. I want Chad Garrett. I want the
War
of War-N-Wit.”

For real?
Well,
we’ve all got our own little bag of rocks to tote around. I didn’t much like
that emphasis on the “War”, though. Like he knew what War-N-Wit really meant.
Only special people with special talents usually caught on to the meaning
behind the name. I’d never come across a rude person with special talents
before, but I figured every group had them. I hadn’t even known persons of
these particular “special talents” existed until recently, let alone that I was
one of them. But if he did know what it meant, it was time to let him know who
he was talking to.

“Well, sir, I’m sorry, but you’ve got the
Wit
of War-N-Wit, and my husband is not
available at the moment. So I’m afraid you either talk to me or you don’t
talk.”

For a minute I thought he’d hung up. But no. Don’t know why
I thought I’d be that lucky.

“I am Mr. Oliver Hedgepath. I have been endeavoring for some
time now to engage the services of Mr. Garrett but he always seems to have a
full schedule. However, things are rapidly shifting to the point wherein I need
his
immediate
assistance. I’m afraid
I’m going to have to become insistent about it.”

And lots of luck with
that, buddy
, I thought. Anybody who thought they’d get Chad Garrett’s
attention because they
insisted
on it
must not live in the real world. Either that or they didn’t know him very well.

“Well, sir, in fact, we’ve had a very full schedule. And at
the moment Mr. Garrett is recuperating from the aftereffects of our last
engagement. But I would be
delighted
to relay a message, providing of course you give me one.” I’d always had the
knack of parroting the tone of a person I was conversing with by phone. An
invaluable talent for a paralegal. I could be as country or as redneck or as
official as I needed to be. Or, as in this instance, as prissy. I wouldn’t be
at all delighted to relay a message though, that was a bald-faced lie. I absolutely
didn’t like Mr. Oliver Hedgepath. And from his pained tone, he absolutely
didn’t like me, either.

He sighed. Apparently he’d decided I was an obstacle that
must be overcome. Well, at least he wasn’t completely stupid.

“I am the
major domo
of a very important organization. That organization is under attack. I believe
Chad Garrett is the only man who can help me. I have already explained this to
him, but I don’t feel he’s given it the import it demands.”

Faint alarm bells juggled my memory. A phone call Chad had
taken on the way to the Atlanta Airport en route to our wild Vegas run.

"There's a group called Resurrection. Membership is contingent
upon being reincarnated. Status is contingent on how many times."

“Mr. Hedgepath, would you be
referring to the Resurrection Society?”

Shocked silence on the other
end of the line.

“Mr. Garrett discusses his
confidential phone calls? Perhaps I misjudged him.”

“Mr. Garrett discusses his
business calls with his business partner—who is also his wife. Perhaps I should
remind you that my husband specifically advised you not to expect his answer
—which was no—to be any different should you check back with him at a later
date. Something on the order of
‘War-N-Wit,
Inc. deals with the living. The modern American justice system.’
”

Mostly that was true. As
Chad had explained, he’d worked hard to gain the reputation he had in his field
and he was damn good at it. It was nobody else’s business if he had a little
extra talent on the magical side.

Chad walked out of the bathroom,
towel wrapped casually around his hips. Dry bandage, so at least he’d been
careful.

“Baby girl, I sorta hoped
you’d join me.”

I waved the phone in the air
and motioned for him to
sssssshhhh.
He raised his eyebrow and I hit the speaker button just as Mr. Hedgepath
recovered from the latest shock to his system; namely, that I have almost total
recall. That shocks a lot of folks, actually. Very handy talent to have.

“Young lady, you are
impertinent and a detriment to your husband’s business. You are female and
therefore cannot possibly have any expertise in this field. Now, I
demand
to speak with Mr. Garrett.”

I winced. But he’d asked for
it. Chad’s face darkened as he grabbed the phone, not bothering to take it off
speaker.

“Hedgepath.”

“Oh, so the young lady has a
modicum of sense, she’s finally given you—”

“Hedgepath, I will not work
for you. I would never have worked for you. You have no idea how lucky you are
you’re not in the same room with me. Because
no one
talks to my wife like that. Do not ever call this number
again.” He hit the “end” button and turned to me.

“And don’t you
ever
just stand there and
let
anyone talk to you like—”

“Whoa, darlin’. I wasn’t
goin’ to. But you came out of the shower and took over.”

He blew a “whoo” through his
lips. “Yeah, I guess I did. But you’re not working at any law office and you’re
not hired help. You don’t have to take insults and I don’t want you to ever
take any. Understand?”

“Magic Man. I wasn’t goin’
to, trust me.”

“Okay. Just don’t.” He
walked over to the carry-all I’d retrieved from the hotel room when we’d taken
up residence in the hospital, pulled out fresh jeans and tee, and started
dressing.

The surgeon chose that
moment to check on his patient.

“And what do you think
you’re doing, Mr. Garrett?”

“Checking out.”

“Oh, no, you’re not, you
need at least another full day—”

“Watch me. Get me the
release form, I’ll sign it.”

“What release form?”

“The ‘against medical advice
thing’. I’ll sign it.”

“You’re real familiar with
those forms, I’m guessing?”

“Yes. I am. Now get it.”

“Mr. Garrett—”

Mr. Garrett, still enraged
courtesy of Mr. Oliver Hedgepath, turned to the doctor. His eyes turned from
blue to silver. He glared. That was all. He didn’t speak.

The doctor sighed.

“One ‘against medical advice
form’. Coming up.”