Resurrection

By Gail Roughton

Resurrection. A secret society. Not everyone can join, just the elite few who remember their past lives. Only the Seer knows if those memories are truth or fabrication. There’s just one problem. The new Seer is missing in action. War-N-Wit’s new assignment is a blast from the past! But whose past?

Review:
"Chad and Ariel Garrett held me spellbound in the first of the War N Wit series, The Witch. There's never a dull moment with those two around. Throw in a cunning con artist/evil figure from the past and Ms Roughton does it again. In Resurrection, their adventure continues. A must read." Roseanne Dowell

• Language: English
• Publisher: BWL Publishing Inc.
• Release date: Apr 5, 2015
• ISBN: 9781771454032

Gail Roughton

Gail Roughton is a native of small town Georgia whose Deep South heritage features prominently in much of her work. She’s a retired paralegal who lived in a law office for over forty years, during which time she raised three children and quite a few attorneys. She kept herself more or less sane by writing novels and tossing the completed manuscripts into her closet, most of which have now emerged in published form. A cross-genre writer, her books range from humor to romance to thriller to horror and she’s never quite sure what to expect when she sits down at the keyboard. Now multi-published by Books We Love, Ltd., her credits include the War-N-Wit, Inc. series, my name be Cain...and my color be Se’ben, Vanished, and Country Justice, the first book in the Southern Justice series. Currently, she’s working on Black Turkey Walk, the second Southern Justice novel. Gail sends special thanks to her husband, children and grandchildren for (usually) leaving her alone when she’s staring at her computer screen and to Books We Love for making dreams come true.

Book preview

Resurrection

War-N-Wit, Inc. #2

By Gail Roughton

Digital ISBNs

EPUB 978-1-77362-116-6

Kindle 978-1-77362-117-3

WEB 978-1-77362-118-0

Amazon Print 978-1-77362-119-7

Copyright 2012 by Gail Roughton

Cover art by Michelle Lee

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.

~~~~

Here’s to Magic! Wherever we may find it!

Chapter One

I glared down at my husband. The honeymoon was over. Probably a good thing, since as honeymoons go, this one had been a killer. Almost for real.

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. That was one thing about couples who’d been together through eternity. We didn’t have much modesty left.

I shook my head. No changing the unchangeable. Chad’s cell phone sounded his business ringtone from the nightstand. 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 all right for him to shower. And I knew he hadn’t asked because he didn’t care if it was all right or not. If he wanted a shower, he’d take one.

"Ariel Garrett, sir. I turned my attention back to our caller, probably the caller who’d hung up last night when I answered the phone. 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 could be expected to catch the meaning behind the name. 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 these last few days. 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. That 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.