Black In White by JC Andrijeski



Halloween Fiction – The Chair

by JC Andrijeski 

Devon fights…

She fights at first just to be there. Just to…

Keep her eyes open.

If she closes them…

Well, if she closes them for too long, shell die.

That should motivate you, Devon…

One of them doesnt really open, though. Not anymore.

She can hear it.

A steady drip, drip, drip under the bolted down chair where she sits.

Shes… tied. Tied up…

Ankles handcuffed to the front legs. Wrists handcuffed behind her, the chain wrapped through the metal back support of a heavy chair with no padding. She hears the sound, like a light, tapping hammer against her skull.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Each drop hits more liquid.

More liquid every minute.

…a growing pool. It lays below her, mostly under her seat where it drips down from her sliced thigh and the larger gash in her abdomen. Its already soaked through her black pants. She doesnt look at the pool…

She doesnt look at it.

Her elbows touch behind her, trembling.

Well, shaking maybe.

Shock. She must be in shock. The body kind of shock. Some part of her wants to fight or flight… at least until she collapses in front of the sliding glass doors of an emergency room.

They left her here.

Bastards just left. Didnt even bother to finish her off.

Devons eyes drift up, to a metal shop light hanging on a long, half-chewed wire from the ceiling. The ceiling lays high above. Cross-beams with rivets, a broken catwalk. Corrugated tin roof with holes and sheet-metal walls. Cement floor. The expanse and size of it are clear to her suddenly, even in the dark… even with only one eye. Its a modern-day cavern. An empty, rusted-out ruin.

Warehouse.

Jeez… cliché, much?

The smile doesnt linger on her swollen lips.

Where, though? Where is she? Should she try yelling? Is it worth it, spending time and energy trying to get the gag off to yell?

She doesnt have a lot of time. Has to choose wisely.

The warehouse is empty… vast.

She hears doves somewhere. Pigeons? They fuss and coo and rustle feathers against metal and more feathers. The sound comes from up high, echoing down to her. She imagines she sees them, huddled next to framed, dirty, dust-covered windows. Shafts of broken sunlight slant down, illuminating dancing dust motes. None of that light touches her.

Its quiet. Really damned quiet.

No cars. No voices. No footsteps to echo.

Would anyone hear her, if she yelled?

Probably not, she decides.

Why would they have left her here, alive? She tries to think about this, to make sense of it, then realizes the answer is simple. She doesnt matter. She is nothing to them. It amused him to leave her alive, so he did.

Shes probably not in the city at all, not anymore.

Her mind finds and scuttles other possibilities. She wastes more time, trying to remember the ride out here, in case she gets a chance to report in. How many of them took her. What they looked like. She didnt see shit on the drive here, or as they dragged her inside. She tripped a few times. On metal edges, steps, maybe. She didnt see anything that could help her now.

Shed been terrified.

They whipped the bag off her face…

Nothing but the hanging light, those tools, rough hands…

Screaming.

It went on for a long time.

Questions. She wont remember those, either.

…she tried to listen. Before that. She tried to…

She hadnt been trained for this. No one told her this might happen.

First job. Big deal first job, working for the president.

Just a noob. A rook.

A red shirt.

She tries to make a report. To herself. A report on what happened…

…three men forced a black bag over my head at approximately 7:15 am. Id just reached the edge of the perimeter on our secondary check, at the southeast corner of the UN building on East 42nd and 1st. I was overpowered, drugged, then blindfolded with a bag before being marched down the emergency stairwell Id been patrolling. They took outside the building through a lower access door, where I was almost immediately shoved in the back of an unmarked van…

Well. Her mind said unmarked van.”

She remembers a sliding door, the grating sound before it slammed shut with a muffled bang and the snick of a lock. In the movies its always an unmarked van…but it could have been some suburban minivan, for all Devon knew.

Maybe with a My Kid is an Honor Roll Student” bumper sticker…

Distraction. She doesnt have time for distraction.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

She doesnt know much about the human body, but she knows it needs blood.

Hers is running out. Too fast.

No one is coming.

Theyd cut her…

Christ. How did this happened?

Wrong place, wrong time.

…but she cant think about that anymore, either.

Her one, good eye scours the space again.

Heavy wooden table. Dirty, covered in tools.

Devon doesnt want to look at those tools, given that most are covered in her blood. She makes herself stare at them anyway. Some are sharp, sure…most are sharp, rusted, like a horror movie or something from the Tower of London. A few blunter things. She cant say for sure, but doesnt think any of them would help her get out of the chair. Not with no hands. Not fast enough.

A spark ignites somewhere in her mind.

Keys.

Hed snorted, staring at her with those hard, slate-like eyes.

Hed been finished. Worked up a sweat. Probably a calorie deficit day for him. Like going to the gym.

Orange-tinged blond hair sweated to his forehead and neck. Face, neck and upper body speckled with small and large red dots, larger patches of the same fluid on the sleeves of his blue t-shirt and his hands. He made a show of wiping those thick, hairy hands on a dirty rag before he left.

Shed already been counting down the minutes.

Maybe he had been, too.

Or maybe the clock had already stopped, from his perspective.

Hed left the keys.

Well… sort of. Hed thrown them across the empty warehouse.

He did that casually, too, tossing them in a high arc, like tossing a bottle opener to a friend at a party.

They went far, though.

Devon heard them land. She hears it again now, a distant thunk in her head as she fights to remember. She hears them skitter across the cement a few feet…or maybe a few yards…like a distant replay.

That bastard grinned at her after he did it. Teeth yellow from smoking. Face broken with a darker scruff than that pale. Blond hair. Between that and his darker roots, he must have bleached his hair, come to think of it.

Distraction.

He threw the keys… that was right before he left.

She thinks she remembers the direction. She thinks…

Devon bites down on her lip. Hard.

The pain forces her eyes (eye?) open once more.

It brings her mind briefly, sharply, back into focus.

Youre not going to just sit here and die, Devon.

Youre not going to play some stupid wait-and-see denial game… like some fatalistic ass, waiting for angelic intervention…

That time, she doesnt think.

She starts to rock the chair.

She starts to rock it for all shes worth.

 

* * *

 

Its difficult at first.

Side to side. Baby steps.

Then wider swings.

The legs teeter a few times, chunk down. Make her flinch.

It takes a few, good seconds to get her rhythm down…

Then its a little scary. The chair starts to sway for real. Those legs chunk down harder. Land less steadily.

Some part of her still winces back.

Some part of her doesnt want more pain.

Death, Devon.

Death is worse than a little pain, damn it…

…she makes herself do it, anyway.

When that final rock tips her over the edge, shes startled. Like some part of her still doesnt see it coming.

Her body tries to catch it in reflex…

It cant.

She lands, hard, exhales in a pain-filled grunt.

Moaning, she gasps. Winded. She lays on her side, panting, wasting oxygen, moaning, feeling like she just wants to die. Shes sure shes broken her arm. It feels like she just hit it with a hammer.

She did, more or less. On purpose.

It feels like an eternity of time shes wasted.

She can see it now, though. Shes half-laying in it.

That pool of blood. Its big.

Scary big.

It motivates her.

She starts to writhe inside the bindings of the chair. She tried to pull the chair with her, across the cement floor.

On her side, she can move her body, like a snake. It hurts her abdomen. It hurts enough to distract her from her throbbing leg, from her arm. She can even move the arm under her, but hit hurts like hell.

All of it hurts like… well, it hurts a heck of a lot.

More than anything she cares to remember.

She does it anyway.

Shes going to get across the floor. No matter what.

If they find her dead, she wont just be sitting in a chair.

She wont just be sitting over a pool of her own blood.

* * *

At first, she thinks shes not getting anywhere.

Its slow. Really slow.

She looks back though, when she has to rest. She sees a smear of blood, coming mostly off of that cut he made in her leg. A lot probably off that hole in her abdomen, too.

She looks forward again, moving.

Writhing. Gasping.

Nothing ever hurt so much.

Shes tired.

She doesnt want to think about being tired.

She doesnt want to think about what it might mean.

Shes really damned tired, though.

She fights to see through the one eye. Its fogged a bit now, not really working right. She blinks, fighting to clear it. It works, but not really.

She cant get tired.

She cant…

The first time she snaps out, she realizes shes been lying there. She doesnt know how long. Dozing…

Time for a nap, Devon? Really?

…but it scares the shit out of her.

Shes fading. She has to hurry.

She writhes faster across the cement floor, groaning a little from the wounds that have stiffened just enough to remind her shes been lying there.

She makes it a few more feet.

A few more.

Shell stop, just for a second.

Needs to rest.

Needs to…

* * *

Hey! Hey, lady!”

Devons head lolls on her neck.

The ground hurts. Something sharp there. Glass?

A nail.

Light in her face.

Really bright.

Its dark in here. Really dark.

Shes still tied to the chair.

Whatcha doindown there, lady?”

The voice slurs, then laughs. The laugh echoes, a hollow pinging against the metal insides of the cavernous space.

Devon blinks up, unable to shield her eyes from that light. Her wrists are still cuffed to the back of the chair.

Shes still tied to the chair.

Panic fills her.

A memory of that drip, drip, drip…

She fights to speak. Help,” she whispers.

Lady, youre bleeding a lot. Damn. A lot… thats really fucked up…”

Help me…” she whispers. Please… help me…”

She fights to move. Maybe to plead with him.

Maybe just to show him she cant.

Hey,” he says. What you doing in here, lady? What happened to you?”

She has the absurd desire to laugh.

Then to scream at him.

He laughs again, maybe at the look on her face.

Devon feels sick, dizzy. Is this real? Is someone really here? Is she dead? Dreaming on a gurney in some emergency room?

But no. The chair. The chair is still there.

She wouldnt dream the chair.

He doesnt seem right, either. High, maybe? Maybe he has a phone.

Then she sees it.

Hes using the phone to look at her. Using the light on the phone…

Hope turns into anxiety, clutching at her chest.

Please,” she whispers. She fights to make more noise, to speak. She clears her throat, swears she tastes more blood, then fights away the image. Please,” she says, a little louder. Please… call someone… please…”

Call someone?” That off-key laugh. Who you want me to call? Who done this to you, lady?”

She fights to see him through the bright light. She stares at the phone…

It is maddeningly out of reach.

Please,” she whispers. Please… call someone. Please…”

Another voice startles her.

It is louder, deeper.

What the hell?” it says. Who are you talking to…?” A longer pause. Then new voice gets close enough to see past the light. Jesus Christ… Rudy! What the fuck are you doing? Dont touch her!”

 He sounds disgusted. Afraid.

What are you doing, man?” he says, angrier now. Get away from her. Seriously, man. That is gross…”

The first one crouches down, so that hes closer to her.

Devon smells alcohol on his breath, smoke.

The face she sees is young, shockingly so. Younger than either of the voices she thought she heard. She sees rounded cheeks, large eyes with dilated pupils. She cant make out many features.

Hes like a happy ghost. An apparition.

Leave her alone, Rudy,” another voice says. You dont want to piss off whoever did this to her…”

Fuck, man!” the first one says. Chill, okay? Shes bleeding!”

I know shes bleeding,” the deeper, angrier-sounding voice says. Just leave her alone, okay? Leave her there… and dont touch nothing.”

We cant just leave her,” the first voice says. Can we?

Devon hears doubt in his voice.

That doubt scares her.

Terrifies her.

Please,” she says. She fights to make her voice louder. Please… I have money. I can pay you…”

Money?” A note of interest grows in the first voice. How much?”

A lot…”

Here? You got it here, lady?”

No.” She shakes her head. No. In my bank. But I promise, I––”

See?” the angry voice says. She doesnt have shit. Shell say anything right now…you cant believe her, man!”

No,” Devon pleads. No… I promise. Its true…”

Come on,” the angry voice says. I aint calling no cops. No way.”

You can call after you leave,” Devon says. Secret. Wont tell. Dont tell them your name…”

No!” the second one snaps.

He seems to be looking at her, but she cant see him past that ring of bright light. She can only feel the weight of his stare.

Im on parole, lady,” he says. No offense, but youre already dead. No one can help you now but God.”

Keys!” Devon blurts. Do you see keys? On the ground? Anywhere?”

Keys?” the first voice pipes, interested again.

Devon realized only then that hed fallen silent.

Yes.” Devon nods. She turns back towards him, away from his angry friend, fighting to speak. Yes. Please look. Please. Ill say I found them. I promise I will. I wont tell anyone about either of you…”

On the floor?”

No!” the angry voice says. Come on, Rudy. Lets go. Shes giving me the creeps.”

I can look for a minute, man. Chill.”

Shes already dead.”

One minute. Chill, man.”

Devon sees the first one, the one with the phone, wandering around the empty space. She cranes her head and her right eye towards the flickers of light and reflection on random metal surfaces as he shines his phone screen around, aiming it at different spots on the cement floor.

A few seconds later, he lets out a jubilant laugh.

It echoes up to the metal rafters, bouncing against the walls of Devons head.

Hey! I see em! I see your keys, lady!”

Here,” she manages. Please… bring them here, Rudy… please…”

Angry guy mutters.

Clothes rustle somewhere over where she lays, like hes folding his arms, or maybe shoving his hands into his pockets. The material is light, noisy, like a windbreaker or maybe a nylon jacket.

Bitch knows your name, man,” he says.

Whose fault is that?” Rudy says cheerfully.

Devon hears a jangling sound as he scoops up the keys. Like music.

She listens as he brings them over to her.

She hears footsteps…

Then his face is near hers again, grinning like he just won a prize.

You want em by your hand, lady?”

Uncuff me. Please.”

No, Rudy!” the second voice snaps. Leave the bitch her keys, and you did your good deed. Lets get the hell out of here. Now. Before someone sees us and figures what you did.”

The first one leans down, placing the keys clumsily in her fingers behind her back. Devon reaches for the slick ring. Grasps hold of cold metal with all of her might. She gasps, fighting tears, even as the kid whispers in her ear.

Sorry, lady,” he tells her. The smell of his breath still makes her wince. Pot smoke and cheap booze. Sorry. I hope you get out of here okay…”

Call,” she begs him, whispering back. Please, when you get out of here… just… call someone. Even with the keys, I wont have time, Rudy. I wont get out of here in time… please call someone for help…”

He grins at her again.

Devon only sees emptiness in those hazel eyes.

She never gets a good look at his face. All she sees are those hazel irises blackened by too much pupil. Teeth that glow nearly florescent behind the blue-white panel of his smartphone.

Please, Rudy,” she pleads, her voice a shadow now. Please. Help me. Dont leave me here to die… please… I dont know where I am…”

But its dark inside her cave again.

Theyve already gone.

 

* * *

 

She loops the key ring through two of her fingers.

Grips it there. Wills it to stay.

Using her free fingers, she feels over the surface of the cuff, looking for the hole. A notched opening, a tiny square merged with a tiny rectangle. She finds it on one cuff. Holds a finger there.

How much time does she have?

An hour? Maybe two?

When did they pick her up?

When did he ask the last question?

How long had it been since he stuck that knife in her thigh? He left it there, for awhile. It might have bled less then, with the knife in it. He left it sticking out of her, until he was ready to leave…

She gasped, gripping the key with all of her strength as she fought it closer to that tiny, odd-shaped hole.

There are other keys on the loop of metal, though.

Three keys. One for each set of cuffs.

Is she holding the right one?

33.333% chance that shes holding the right one.

She prays. Like a child, she prays its the right key. As if that will solve all of her problems. As if thats going to end it.

She wont drop the keys.

That much she knows.

She wont drop them.

Adrenaline, feeding her blood. Maybe killing her faster. Maybe giving her just enough for a last try at life.

She positions that first key over the hole. It goes in. She could cry with relief. She grips it, though. She grips it tight. She twists. She twists it… carefully. It wont unlock. It wont move.

Her hands are slick. Wet. Hot. Shes doing it wrong.

Wrong? Or is it the wrong key?

She fights with it. Wills it to open.

Wrong key.

Her mind screams it. It screams it in the dark, pointing at a ticking clock, at the drips of blood she can no longer hear coming out of her thigh and out of that wound in her belly.

Focus.

She bites her lip again, tasting more blood.

Next key.

66.66666% chance that this one is right.

Process of elimination. Odds keep getting better.

Better for one.

Worse for the other.

Shes out of time.

Time…

* * *

It is the third key.

100% chance of being correct.

Even so, when the lock twists, she almost cries out in delirious relief.

Shed half-convinced herself it would be wrong. Shed half convinced herself it would be the match that fell in the snow…

To Build a Fire.

…but it turned, and she felt the metal fall away, and let out that cry, waking the doves in their high rafters.

She felt the cuff fall open and then she could move her arms.

Not broken, after all. Just hurt a lot.

Still gripping the keys, she moved like a geriatric. She didnt pull her arms. Even with her hurt abdomen, she pulled her body forward, dragging her arms after her.

She still held those damned keys.

She might never put them down. Ever.

No time to waste.

She dragged her arms forward, crying, in spite of herself.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

She leaned forward. Fumbling in the dark. Dark like no light ever existed.

But thats not quite true, either.

She can see an orange light… through those dirty windows above the sheet metal walls. She can smell the dirt on the cement floor, and piss, and she can see that light.

Shes not dead yet.

Left leg first. Maybe because it feels urgent. Its the leg that got stabbed. She has to get it free. Now. Right now.

She fumbles for the hole. Finds it.

She kept the key in the lock of the cuffs that had locked her wrists to the back of the chair. It dangled from her wrist on the hand that didnt look for the keyhole that still held her to the metal chair.

66.6666% chance of being correct on the first try.

That time, it worked on the first try.

She freed that leg and groaned, holding onto the last key, key number three, the one that would finally free her from the chair. She gripped it tightly in her fingers. She held it as she gripped her free ankle, tears running down her face.

Thinking. How to move her body. She fell apart from the chair strangely that time, still tied to it, but at a weird angle now.

She tries to think her way through where she is.

She tries to rewind her way back through the dark.

Wrists free. Fall forward.

Left leg free, fall to the side.

She wraps around herself, dragging the chair. It makes a hollow, scraping sound as it grates across the cement floor. The sound echoes. She pants, and that echoes, too. She feels a nail there, something she shouldnt step on.

Shes still gripping the key.

The last key. The final key. She holds it like the holy grail, gripping it with fear in her wet, hot, throbbing hand.

The answer to her final problem.

She may never let it go.

100% chance of being right.





Black In White
Quentin Black Mystery 
Book One
JC Andrijeski

Genre: Urban Fantasy Mystery Romance
Publisher: White Sun Press
Date of Publication: September 9, 2015
ISBN: ISBN-13: 978-1545436714  
ISBN-10: 1545436711
ASIN: B01554ZHH6
Number of pages: 268
Word Count: 76,755

Cover Artist: Damonza

Tagline: Meet Quentin Black: Private Investigator. Psychic. Possible murderer.

Book Description: 

Gifted with an uncanny sense about people, psychologist Miri Fox works as a profiler for the San Francisco police. When her best friend, homicide detective Nick Tanaka, thinks he’s finally nailed the serial murderer known as the “Wedding Killer,” she agrees to check him out, using her gift to discover the truth.

But the suspect, Quentin Black, isn’t anything like Miri expects.

He claims to be hunting the killer too, and the longer Miri talks to him, the more determined she becomes to uncover his secrets.

When he confronts her about the nature of her peculiar “insight,” Miri gets pulled into Black’s bizarre world, and embroiled in a game of cat and mouse with a deadly killer–who might just be Black himself.

Worse, she finds herself irresistibly drawn to Black, a complication she doesn’t need with a best friend who’s a homicide cop and a boyfriend in intelligence.

Can Miriam see a way out or is her future covered in Black?

THE QUENTIN BLACK MYSTERY SERIES encompasses a number of dark, gritty paranormal mystery arcs with science fiction elements, starring brilliant and mysterious Quentin Black and forensic psychologist Miriam Fox. For fans of realistic paranormal mysteries with romantic elements, the series spans continents and dimensions as Black solves crimes, takes on other races and tries to keep his and Miri’s true identities secret to keep them both alive.


Excerpt:

I tilted my head, still smiling, but letting my puzzlement show.

“Why are you talking to me at all?” I asked finally.

“Why shouldn’t I talk to you?” he said. “I’ve already told you that you’re the first person to walk in here that I thought might be worth my attempting to communicate.”

“Because I’m female?” I said.

“Because you seem to be less of a fool than the rest of them,” he corrected me at once.

“But you said Nick had a mind?”

“I said he had a mind of sorts. Not the same thing at all. Although, given the nature of his intellect, he has undoubtedly chosen the right profession for himself.”

I smiled again. “I’m sure that will be quite a relief for him.”

I heard laughter in the earpiece that time, right before Nick spoke up.

“See if he’ll tell you his name,” he said to me.

“Certainly, if you really want to know,” the suspect said, before I could voice the question aloud.

“My name is Black. Quentin Black. Middle initial, R.”

I stared at him, still recovering from the fact that he’d seemingly heard Nick give me an instruction through the earpiece.

Clearly, he wanted me to know he’d heard it, too.

“You heard that?” I said to him.

“Good ear, yes?” he said. Smiling, he gave me a more cryptic, yet borderline predatory look.

“Less good with you, however. Significantly less good.”

He paused, studying my face with eyes full of meaning.

I almost got the sense he was waiting for me to reply—or maybe just to react.

When I didn’t, he leaned back in the chair, making another of those graceful, flowing gestures with his hand.

“I find that… fascinating, doc. Quite intriguing. Perhaps that is crossing a boundary with you again, however? To mention that?”

I paused on his words, then decided to dismiss them.

“Is that a real name?” I said. “Quentin Black. That doesn’t sound real. It sounds fake.”

“Real is all subjective, is it not?”

“So it’s not real, then?”

“Depends on what you mean.”

“Is it your legal name?”

“Again, depends on what you mean.”

“I mean, could you look it up in a database and actually get a hit somewhere?”

“How would I know that?” he said, making an innocent gesture with his hands, again within the limits of the metal cuffs.

Realizing I wasn’t going to get any more from him on that line of questioning, I changed direction. “What does the ‘R’ stand for?” I said.

“Rayne.”

“Quentin Rayne Black?” I repeated back to him, still not hiding my disbelief.

“Would you believe me if I said my parents had a sense of whimsy?” he asked me.

“No,” I said.

“Would you believe that I do, then?”

I snorted a laugh, in spite of myself. I heard it echoed through the earpiece, although I heard a few curses coming from that direction, too.

I shook my head at the suspect himself, but less in a “no” that time.

“Yes,” I conceded finally. “So it is a made-up name, then?”

The man calling himself Quentin Black only returned my smile. His eyes once again looked shrewd, less thoughtful and more openly calculating.

Even so, his weird comment about “listening” came back to me.

Truthfully, he was looking at me as if he were listening very hard.

The thought made me slightly nervous.


About the Author:

JC Andrijeski is a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of gritty, character-driven, “real”-feeling paranormal mysteries and apocalyptic fiction. Her books have strong romance subplots, found families, and often a metaphysical bent. JC has a background in journalism, history and politics, and loves hiking, people watching, yoga, meditation, weird tourist destinations, the beach, coffee, birds, snails, and tacos. She grew up in the Bay Area of California, but travels extensively and has lived abroad in Europe, Australia, and Asia, and from coast to coast in the continental United States. She’s now living and writing full-time in Hollister, California.



 












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Bloodstone by H. R. Sinclair



Bloodstone
Lost Witch 
Book One
H. R. Sinclair

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: H. R. Sinclair
Date of Publication: September 22, 2024
ISBN: 9798329367645
ASIN B0CTHQJJTF
Number of pages: 290
Word Count: 76k

Cover Artist: H. R. Sinclair

Tagline: Family secrets hold the key to buried magic. Her legacy awaits.

Book Description: 

Katelyn Grey is a gardener in Southern California. She’s content with pruning shrubs and looking after her step-mom, the only family she has left. That is, until a lawyer shows up and tells her that her long-lost aunt died, leaving her the family home on the other side of the country.

Though Katelyn hates to travel, a weird clause in her aunt’s will forces her to visit a quaint New England seaside town. Her world changes when she discovers she’s inherited a haunted brownstone, fickle magic, and a hidden key that someone else wants. And they’re willing to kill for it.

Now, she must learn how to use magic, find the key, and figure out what it’s for before she ends up like her long-lost aunt. Dead.

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Excerpt:

Small colored flecks danced in the sunlight. They darted back and forth. They rushed me, encircling me, round and round, faster and faster, creating a whirlwind of color that made me woozy. I began swaying before the flecks scattered. They swooped and gathered in front of me, coalescing into the shape of a small, translucent woman. She hovered several feet off the ground, sparkling like multicolored glitter and moving like an ethereal ballerina.

When she spoke, it echoed a thousand voices speaking in harmony. “Fáilte. Welcome. We are the Breena. You are of Andraste.”

“I’m Katie.” Wariness crept into my voice. The family books read Andraste. “Yeah, I think I’m Andraste.”

“Yes. You wear the Taith, a gift of the Breena.” She gestured to the traveling boots. “We are pleased to see them in this form. It has been long since the clan Andraste has visited. Tell us, what has become of sweet Clara and her quest?”

She—they—knew Clara? “I’m sorry, she died.”

“That is unfortunate. We liked Clara. You are taking up the quest?”

My stomach dropped. They may have said it as a question, but it sounded like a statement. “I … I didn’t know my Aunt Clara, and I don’t know anything about a quest. I’m not the right person to talk to.”

“Yes, she was given the quest. As she is no longer, the task falls to the next in line.”

“Is this an optional type of quest?”

“It is your charge.”

“Well, I’m not the next in line. That’s probably my uncle. I’ll put him in touch with you.”

The Breena moved closer to me. One of the little flecks zipped from one side of her face to the other. “You are next in line. You wear the blessing. You are of Andraste, Keepers of Secrets, Guardians of Mamwlada. You are the Legacy. Protector of the Light. You will take up the quest. Find the Oubusch. Find the Others before the gates open. Stop the disciples of Morus.”

“Find what now?”

“Find the Oubusch. Find the Others before the gates open. Stop the disciples of Morus before they break the lock.” The Breena’s voice reverberated off my skin.

I swallowed. “Who’s Morus? What gate? What others? What’s an Oubusch, and how do I find it?”

“The Oubusch will lead you to the Others. Find the Stone, find the Others.”

“But how?”

“Open the box. Use the sundial.” The words rhythmic like a song. Her essence oscillated, and her form began to melt away.

“Wait, what box?”

“What is there is here, what is here is not there. You must hurry, time is ending.” With that, the flecks disbursed, and she was gone.

“Wait, please, I don’t understand.” No one answered



About the Author: 

H. R. Sinclair is a left-handed hermit prepping for the squirrel apocalypse. She was born and raised in Southern California, but now lives and works in New England. She writes fantastical stories and visits cemeteries for inspiration.









Tales of the Wythenwood Book One by J.W. Hawkins


Tales of the Wythenwood
Book One
J.W. Hawkins

Genre: Dark Fantasy
Publisher: Wilderwood Press
Date of Publication: 31 August
ISBN: 9798334501188
ASIN: B0D752QM73
Number of pages: 296
Word Count: 74,000

Book Description:

J.W. Hawkins’ “Tales of the Wythenwood” masterfully blends whimsy with darkness, capturing the essence of dark fantasy and classic fairy tales while infusing them with modern sensibilities. The collection is rich in themes of nature, survival, morality, and the complex interplay between good and evil. The author’s love for rhythmic and descriptive language breathes life into the Wythenwood, making it a character in its own right. Each story, while unique, contributes to a cohesive world where the fantastical and the real intertwine seamlessly.

Great Oak, an omnipotent power, hatches plans to crush dissent. Injured Desideria is helped by a mysterious creature—but what is its real intent? The Taker of Faces stalks the night for her next victim. Will this be the one that sates her need and provides all that she craves? Indoli, a benevolent master of manipulation learns the consequences of teaching his ways too well—and soon the fate of the entire wood is at stake. 


Excerpt From Tales of the Wythenwood: The Artfulness of Stupidity

Prologue

The eagle sat watchfully, the wind ruffling its feathers as it swirled unimpeded atop of the spindle of rocks on which the eyrie sat. The foliage below swirled hither and thither in a great maelstrom of assorted detritus. Yet none came so high as to bother the winged guardian as he remained alert upon his perch looking down on the outstretched canopy of the seemingly endless Wythenwood below.

Hand over hand, foot over foot the troupe climbed upwards; silently. Their simian faces grimaced as the cold gusts of air bombarded them in a continuous effort to break their will. Never had they climbed so high, yet they knew not why they climbed and knew not what they sought. All that was known were the tempting whispers of a prize beyond prizes, the reward of all rewards that could be found uttered in the darkest nooks and deepest crannies of the Wythenwood, where all utterances came under hushed breath.

The eagle was as eagle-eyed as eagles are and had long since espied the intruders, yet he waited until the baboons had climbed high enough to ensure that any fall would return them to the soil once more, to nourish the roots of the endless number of trees that was the Wythenwood. He must send a message to those who would consider trespassing on the hallowed stones of Eramana’s needle he thought. The message needed be to clear— and final.

Higher and higher they climbed up the thrusting edifice; wrought by rain, winds and eons passed. The eagle looked down over its beak and upon its sacred charge, a ward that it had been born to guard and would also die to do just so. It bore the mottled patterning common to all eggs of eagle kind, yet this egg was swollen to an enormous size, large enough for an eagle fully grown at birth to erupt from its dappled shell. Though the shell itself was interspersed with a multitude of tiny holes and through every hole; like the most intricate and ornate of weavings grew the most impossible of vines. Leaves of red, leaves of gold and green, nestled amongst them was every shade between. Leaves of oak, leaves of acacia, pine and yew holding every color from spring to fall. It was not one tree; it was them all.

Although it seemed that the vine belonged perhaps to every tree that ever was, in some ways it belonged to none at all. For no roots did it bare to earth, instead it just lay wreathen around the great egg from which it protruded with the long tentacular strands of the chimaera vine smothering all the other eggs nesting within the eyrie in a nurturing, motherly embrace.

The eagle dipped its beak so that it all but touched the leaves of the wreathen egg and whispered so gently that even the air itself, through which the eagle’s words did pass could have barely heard.

Hand over hand, foot over foot still the baboons climbed on, eyes wild with the greed of anticipation, up and up they rose. And then it happened…

Yellow beaks and wings as black as the reaper’s cowl descended from the mists above. Gray tendrils of cloud ran amok as flailing arms grasped for them in panicked desperation, only for their brief hope of salvation to disappear into corporeal nothingness upon little more than the promise of a touch. Wrenched from the rocks by ferocity and talon the baboons one-by-one began to fall. A final glint of life dancing in their eyes with maddened fright as they plummeted to the swiftly encroaching ground.

The intruders lay motionless with eyes now glazed by death. The soil shall have them once more thought Reinhardt.


About the Author: 

J.W. Hawkins is a writer of Dark and Epic Fantasy, best known as the author of Tales of the Wythenwood. He is noted for his florid and descriptive use language and use of fantastical allegory that mirrors the empirical world. He lives in the UK with his wife Michelle and two boys Graham and Mark.

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