Into the Mystic, Volume One Read online

  A NineStar Press Publication

  www.ninestarpress.com

  Into the Mystic: Volume One

  Copyright © 2017 Brooklyn Ray

  Copyright © 2017 J.C. Long

  Copyright © 2017 Kara Race-Moore

  Copyright © 2017 Samantha Kate

  Copyright © 2017 Nicole Field

  Copyright © 2017 J.P. Jackson

  Copyright © 2017 Caitlin Ricci

  Copyright © 2017 L.J. Hamlin

  Copyright © 2017 Kayla Bashe

  Copyright © 2017 Charli Coty

  Copyright © 2017 Tay LaRoi

  Cover Art by Natasha Snow ©Copyright 2017

  Edited by: Raevyn

  Published in 2017 by NineStar Press, New Mexico, USA.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, NineStar Press, LLC.

  Warning

  This book contains sexually explicit content, which is only suitable for mature readers.

  Into the Mystic

  Volume One

  Brooklyn Ray

  J.C. Long

  Kara Race-Moore

  Samantha Kate

  Nicole Field

  J.P. Jackson

  Caitlin Ricci

  L.J. Hamlin

  Kayla Bashe

  Charli Coty

  Tay LaRoi

  Table of Contents

  Reborn

  About Brooklyn Ray

  Zero Hour

  About J.C. Long

  Dove in the Window

  About Kara Race-Moore

  Bottom of the River

  About Samantha Kate

  If You Want to Walk

  About Nicole Field

  A Tended Garden

  About J.P. Jackson

  Romancing the Healer

  About Caitlin Ricci

  Midnight Kisses

  About L.J. Hamlin

  Like a Bell through the Night

  About Kayla Bashe

  The Imp in the Rock

  About Charli Coty

  Smile like You Mean It

  About Tay LaRoi

  Reborn

  Brooklyn Ray

  Night skies bleed. She’d known that all her life, from the time she was a girl, climbing onto the roof to look at the stars, to now, walking on cold misty streets in a town she’d never considered coming back to. Thalia’s chin tipped up, dark skin highlighted by streetlamps and the glow of cracked movie theater signs. She studied the November sky, tracing the blurred pinpricks where stars peeked through fog and deep navy collided seamlessly with pitch-black. Everything dripped—moonlight into the nether, starlight into the horizon.

  Look, Thalia, watch time cut it open. The sun would sink and Thalia would wait. The night bleeds and we’re reborn. Once the sun was behind the distant mountain range, Thalia and her family would set off into the woods. The stars and moon would bleed white and gold, and the witches of Port Lewis would mirror the act above by spilling blood below.

  Thalia’s hands had been clean for three years. She didn’t intend to dirty them again.

  A buzz vibrated the front pocket of her black jacket. She stopped to lean against the brick wall of a familiar pizza parlor and pulled out her phone. “Christ,” she bit, wincing when the bright screen flashed in her eyes. Her gaze fell over one message after the next, the first from her brother, the second from her aunt, and the third from her father.

  Every message said the same thing in varying tones.

  Your mother is dead, Thalia. You’re the next matriarch. Come home.

  Thalia had been reading the same texts for a week now. The Darbonne Witches were without a leader, and a clan without a leader would fall apart within a year. But Thalia Darbonne wasn’t any witch—she was a deserter, a stain on the reputable name her family had carried for generations.

  Nights like these, when the sky bled and the fog was thick, Thalia remembered magic.

  She felt it echo in her veins, a whisper of heat, a weighty soreness that felt brittle under her skin.

  Nights like these reminded her that magic was a terrifying, savage thing.

  Her thumbs hovered over the screen. She typed a message to her brother, backspaced it, tried again, line after line after line, and backspaced everything she’d written for the second time.

  She settled on two words. I’m here.

  Thalia hit send. As soon as she saw Luther had read the text, she slid her phone back into her jacket pocket and looked back up at the sky. Magic stirred within her, jostled awake by her hometown, her mother’s untimely death, and by something else. A familiarity. A distinct shift in the air, odd and transparent, like a switch had been flipped and the lights dimmed, water ran the wrong way, things were unmade.

  Somehow, the night recognized the collision of energies before she did. The natural magic in the air shuddered and retreated, urging her to do the same.

  But Thalia knew this darkness. She’d had it etched into her skin. She’d worn it under her clothes. She’d let it slither down her throat.

  “I felt you a mile away.” Her voice hadn’t changed any. It carried the same rasp, the same quiet wisp. “What’s a Darbonne runaway like you doing in a soggy town like this?”

  Thalia remembered the shape of Jordan’s lips, too full on the bottom, too bowed on the top. She remembered her small chin, the cliff of her cheekbones, the prominent angles of her face. They hadn’t softened over time, but her brows were thinner now, higher, and there was a ring through her left nostril. Her hair was still shoulder-length and ashy, the blonde people paid to get rid of at a salon, with loose waves created by coastal air.

  “My mom died,” Thalia said because small talk was for people who didn’t kill to appease their lineage, or steal magic to raise the dead. “They want me back.”

  “They could’ve asked me,” Jordan purred. The uncomfortable truth of her practice made Thalia’s guts twist. “All I need is a body and an invocation.”

  Thalia’s head listed to the side; her arms crossed over her chest. The knot low in her abdomen worked in tandem with the heat rising into her cheeks. Nervousness battled with disregard. Desire fractured the eaves in her mind where Jordan’s low voice dusted old memories.

  “Why’d you come find me?” Thalia shifted. The click of her ankle boots ricocheted off the alley walls behind the pizza parlor. She felt Jordan’s sharp gaze on her face, the rake of it down her neck, past the silver chain between her collarbones, to her torso. “You know what happened, Jordan. This town’s too small to get something like a Darbonne death past you.”

  “Death never gets past me.” Jordan’s dark, slate eyes caught Thalia’s flighty gaze. “You know that.”

  Each word stretched open, filled with purpose and warmth. No matter how many years had gone by, Thalia couldn’t shake the soft brush of Jordan’s magic against her own. Unnatural meeting natural, a drop of blood in a clear lake, a clawed hand wrapped around the stem of a flower.

  Thalia found herself looking back at Jordan, searching through days and weeks, months and years. Why didn’t you come looking for me sooner?

  The quiet between them broke around car tires on wet asphalt, and the beat of wings cutting through the air.

  Jordan straightened her back as two black feet landed on her shoulder. She hummed, regarding the crow with a tilt of her head before her gaze slid back to Thalia. “Yeah, you remember who this
is,” Jordan cooed. “Don’t you?”

  For the first time since Thalia had crossed the county line, she smiled. “Hello, River.”

  River cawed at her. The feathers on his throat ruffled as he tucked himself against Jordan’s ear. Her shoulder sagged under his weight, the jut of her clavicle poking through her white T-shirt.

  “Have you gone to the woods yet? I’m sure your familiar would love to see you.” Jordan arched a fair brow. Her mouth twisted into a peculiar, knowing smile.

  “What makes you think King hasn’t come to see me?” Thalia hadn’t meant to snap, but her teeth clacked anyway. She scrubbed her palm over her head, her buzz cut a reassuring scratch against her hand.

  “Has he?”

  Thalia huffed. “Yes, actually. I see him every few months.”

  Jordan’s smile deepened. She dipped her head, impressed. A lingering smile later, and the pass of their gazes prompted Jordan’s lips apart. She said, “Meet me in the woods tomorrow.”

  “No,” Thalia said quickly. She averted her gaze to her hands, clasped together in front of her waist. She fiddled with a chunky moonstone ring. “No,” she repeated, softer this time, more to herself than to Jordan.

  Jordan eyed her carefully. Thalia felt her gaze like spider’s feet, darting here and there, settling somewhere Thalia would mentally swat at only to feel them elsewhere a moment later. Old wounds stung when they began to peel open. Memories seemed surreal when they resurfaced in situations like this one—on nights when the sky bled, in places where witches and necromancers stalked the streets.

  River cawed again. Jordan inhaled a deep breath and sighed.

  “Meet me in the woods,” she said again.

  Thalia looked at the ground until she couldn’t possibly look any longer. When her gaze flicked forward, Jordan was walking backward, eyes lidded and smile lazy as if she’d seen this play out in a dream and knew the outcome.

  Thalia watched Jordan’s lips mouth the words silently once more.

  Meet me in the woods.

  Port Lewis was a rainy little town pressed against the cliffs on the West Coast, nestled in the tall, mossy Washington trees. Thalia hadn’t realized she’d missed it until now, as she looked over the balcony in her family’s old house. A cup of tea warmed her hands. The pitter-patter of morning showers danced across the roof.

  The sliding glass door opened. Thalia tilted her head, acknowledging heavy footsteps. Luther and she had been born on the same day, two years apart. Luther was the eldest, but at twenty-two and twenty-four, there wasn’t much wisdom he’d acquired that she hadn’t. Witches far and wide called them constellation twins, siblings sharing space like stars shared patterns.

  He appeared beside her, broad shouldered and square jawed, tall opposed to her petite. He glanced at the slender spoon sitting in the mug. The air vibrated, and the spoon turned in circles on its own. “Your honey will get stuck to the bottom if you don’t stir it,” Luther said.

  A soft smile crossed Thalia’s face. She wanted to cook up an explanation, find a way to make the last three years seem secondary, but she didn’t know how to. It’d be a long time, and this unknown was her consequence.

  “Did it happen naturally?” Thalia lifted the mug to her mouth and set it against her bottom lip. “Or was it retaliation?”

  Luther draped his forearms over the banister. She watched his jaw flex, a shadow turning his dark skin darker in the hollow under his cheekbone. “Natural. It took us six months to get her to see the doctor. Once we dragged her there, they ran the tests, and—” He paused to shrug. “—nothing much we could do at stage four.”

  “Stubborn,” Thalia hissed. She focused on the tree line behind their fence. A greenhouse loomed next to a dainty metal table, its bottom covered with long grass and gray-capped mushrooms. She remembered spending afternoons there, listening to her mother’s voice, practicing spell after spell. Like that, Thalia. Her mother’s long fingers curled under her chin. Focus. Ask the trees for assistance, call to Isis.

  Despite being a Darbonne girl, Thalia never had been as receptive to their magic as Cher. It hid inside her, buried under the weight of her mother’s success, and her grandmother’s wisdom, and every matriarch who had come before her. Instead of reaching for light and balance, Thalia’s magic lunged for passing shadows and twisted power.

  Darbonne’s weren’t black magicians. They were sacrificial—ancient in their rites and craft. But somehow, someway, Thalia had found herself wandering into the shadows, toward a den of alchemists who used outlawed magic to bend nature to their will. There, she’d found herself wrapped up in one of them, bleeding with one of them, loving one of them.

  “She was,” Luther said. His voice shook the memories away. “You must’ve gotten it from her.”

  “Must’ve,” Thalia agreed.

  Silence fell over them again, broken up by the rain and a whistling kettle on the stove inside. The kettle died down. Thalia caught the sound of her father hushing it.

  “I can sense her on you,” Luther said under his breath.

  Thalia’s eyelids curtained closed.

  “She leaves a trail. Impossible not to,” he chirped, waving a hand dismissively down Thalia’s body. “Her energy latches on to people like us. It wants to syphon from us, take and take and take.”

  “I didn’t mean to run into her.” She adjusted the cuff of her long-sleeved shirt, fidgeted with the self-stirring spoon in her mug. “And I don’t need you pulling on my collar like I’m a leashed dog. I know what she is, and what she does.”

  “Didn’t stop you before.” Luther eyed her down the slope of his wide nose. The two gold studs in each of his nostrils glinted in the whitewashed morning light. “Mom warned you—”

  “Mom cut me off,” Thalia interjected. Heat rose into her cheeks. She felt the crackle of magic spark in her wrists. “She gave me an ultimatum, and it wasn’t fair—no.” She flashed her palm when Luther opened his mouth to speak. “You don’t get to chastise me. I left Jordan.”

  “You left everyone,” Luther snorted.

  Thalia’s teeth gnashed. “I’m here now, aren’t I?”

  “Oh, good,” Luther mocked, “Thalia came home for her mother’s funeral. Everyone please, a round of applause.”

  She jabbed him in the chest with her index finger. Her eyes narrowed, mouth pinched in a tight line. “You know this isn’t just about burying her.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “If I could give this shit to you, I would.” Thalia scoffed. “I wish we could trade places, trust me. You’re older; it should be you anyway.”

  “But it’s not,” Luther said gently.

  Thalia snarled and turned to look at the greenhouse. She caught the shape of pale horns between the trees behind it, the twitch of a brown nose. “No, it’s not.”

  “Celene’s coming over for dinner. She wants to talk to you.”

  “Wonderful.” Thalia loved her aunt, but she wasn’t ready to deal with Celene. She could hear it already. Stay away from the Wolfe clan, Thalia. They’re dangerous. Their brand of magic is seductive; it’ll pull you in. You won’t know it has you until it’s too late.

  “Dad will be there,” Luther added.

  “I know.”

  “And you’ll be gone tonight, right?”

  Thalia’s gaze shifted sideways, darting curiously around his face.

  He lifted his chin and arched a thick brow, head cocked to the side, expression loose and pliant. You’re my sister, he said with his eyes, I know you. “I won’t tell, but be careful.”

  Thalia didn’t indulge him or his caution. She looked at the greenhouse and the old table, replaying images of her mother in flowing dresses and wide-brimmed hats, flowers tucked into her wiry curls. Three years ago, Thalia would’ve been fighting with Cher about the sigils carved into her skin, about the marks on her neck and the mingling of Wolfe and Darbonne magic.

  It isn’t safe, Cher would’ve said. This magic comes at a price.

  Magi
c was like driving too fast or snorting a line of cocaine or walking across hot coals. It made people believe it wouldn’t betray them. But cars crashed and hearts stopped beating and people got burned.

  Thalia inhaled a deep, sharp breath. The ghost of Jordan’s lips dusted her jaw from a faraway memory, her whispered voice loud in the stillness, Do you feel that?

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket. A pang of guilt spiked through her, followed by warm, effervescent desire. She read the text once, twice, three times.

  Jordan Wolfe: Need a ride?

  Thalia didn’t answer.

  Luther: Celene is a lot, but she’s just trying to help.

  Thalia: I must’ve missed the part where she helped.

  Luther: What time will you be back?

  Thalia: Don’t know.

  Luther: Are you coming back at least?

  Thalia: Yes.

  Yes happened to be the truth, despite Thalia wanting to book a ticket on the first bus back to Los Angeles. She pulled her jacket tightly around her, boots thudding against the concrete as she walked through downtown.

  Port Lewis was small but lively. People stood in front of the movie theater and shared greasy food at the pizza parlor, looked through boutiques, and sipped hot drinks from the coffee carts and cafes. Thalia weaved through them, arms crossed over her chest, taking in certain places and fitting them to memories.

  The fire escape on the apartment building across from the pizza place was where Thalia met Jordan for the first time. Jordan’s legs had been dangling off the side of the red platform, a cigarette pressed between her lips. She’d said, Hey, white witch, and despite knowing better, Thalia had stopped and said, Hey, necromancer.

  It was an odd meeting, seeing as they’d known of each other, but didn’t know each other. They’d run in opposing circles, kept the peace between spell-casters by only ever eyeing each other carefully over tables at restaurants, or across halls at school. Back then, they’d been two sixteen-year-old girls who wanted to know what they could do—to the world, and to each other.