by JL Terra
Cursed
Legend Hunters, book 4
JL Terra
Copyright 2021 JL Terra / Lisa Phillips
All rights reserved
Editing by Jen Wieber
Cover Design Ryan Schwarz
CONTENTS
Prologue
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
Prologue
Normandy, 1423
Rain fell in sheets. The ground was frozen under her feet, but slippery in places so that the soles of her canvas shoes lost traction on the mud and ice. Still, she journeyed up the hill to the fortress—the castle belonging to Andrew, third son of Norman. British. French.
What did it matter when every lord was the same as the one who had come before?
They occupied this corner of France where she had grown up. Where she had poured her own sweat into tilling the land in an attempt to grow and sustain a life for herself. Until the corruption came.
She had wed and subsequently bore a son. Months later she had buried both of them. And then the sun rose again. The crops grew. Life went on. That was the worst of it.
She could hear the Almighty in His heavens laughing. Always laughing. All this, while Genevieve lived. It was the greatest joke of all. And yet, it seemed He still was not done with her.
She pounded her fist on the door beside the west gate. Long enough her hand numbed and her arm grew tired. Then the door opened. A bearded man as big as a bear squinted down at her with the glassy gaze of someone who had already consumed far too much this evening.
“Alms for the poor.”
“At this hour? I’ve got much more pleasurable pursuits on my mind.” His gaze dropped to her feet and back up to her hair.
She knew what he saw. Lank hair, falling where it willed. A dirty face. Ragged clothing.
“I suppose you’ll have to do. Though likely I’ll regret it in the morning.”
“I know I’ll regret hearing it.” A second voice, also male, joined the first. “You make far too much noise, squealing like a pig.”
The two of them stared down at her.
“Two silvers.” She lifted her chin and attempted a demure smile. “Since there’s two of you.”
The first one grinned. He took a step toward her.
Genevieve’s palms heated a second before she whipped her cloak back, revealing the sword strapped to her side. She slid it from its scabbard.
His reaction mattered little given he was sliced in two, from hip to hip, in just a split second. The cry caught in his throat as he fell to his knees, frantically scooping at his bowels to no avail. They slid between his fingers and spilled onto the ground.
He teetered forward and fell into the pile, face first.
Coming at her from the right was his friend with his sword drawn. She cut off his battle cry with a parry and another swipe.
He toppled in a heap beside his friend.
Genevieve entered the castle, hurrying down long hallways lit by torches and eventually found her way to the cellars.
The watchman slumbered. Inching up quietly behind him, she reached around his fat head and clamped a hand over his nose and mouth. Her other arm, wasting no time, snaked around his neck, keeping him pinned to the chair. She braced herself by tightening her grip around his neck and waited until his frantic thrashing slowed to intermittent jerks. As he finally succumbed to the sleep of death, she relieved him of his keys.
Three cells on each side. She peered in the high window on each door, anticipating the alarm cry to sound throughout the castle at any minute. Five cells, no luck. Just one to go. As Genevieve set her eyes on her charge sprawled out on the floor of the cell, she breathed a sigh of relief.
Genevieve got the door open, but the girl didn’t move. She crouched on the straw-covered floor. “Analise. Wake up.” She brushed the red hair from the girl’s shoulder.
Thick lashes fluttered and she awoke with a gasp.
“It’s ok. It’s me.”
Color bled from the girl’s face. “You shouldn’t have come for me.”
You’re all I have left. This might be a cruel joke of fate, but it was still her duty. Her mission. Her call. “We must hurry. Come.” She grabbed Analise under the arms to aid the girl in sitting, but stopped suddenly.
With her hair now away from her shoulder, Genevieve saw the two marks, like incisions, on her neck. Before she could react, the girl said, “He knows you’re here.”
“Let him come.” Tears gathered in her eyes, a surprise, having thought they’d dried up forever. “I failed you. I’m sorry.”
A scream erupted from within the castle, high above them.
“Go.”
Genevieve shook her head. “I’m not leaving you.”
“It’s too late for me.”
Analise drew Genevieve’s hand close and placed it low on her belly. Through the ragged shift she wore, the bump was suddenly evident.
She gasped. “What did he do to you?”
Analise held Genevieve’s hand tight against the protrusion. Under their fingers, it contorted. Pain filled the girl’s eyes and her body clenched, muscles bunching and contracting in pain. She hissed out a breath through her teeth.
“You have to kill me.”
Genevieve drew back, attempting to pull her hand from that…thing. The spawn of evil.
“Rid the world of it,” Analise said. “It is your sworn duty, after all.”
Chapter 1
If Mei could act normal for long enough, she might be able to convince them she was just a regular person. At least that was what she hoped for every time she walked into the community center and teen shelter in Brooklyn where she spent most of her time these days. Trying to help. Ignoring the complexities of her life.
The red brick building had been an industrial factory a hundred years ago. Since then, someone had subdivided it into two floors of rooms to turn it into a usable place. At one end it had a huge room of bunk beds for girls, along with an enormous bathroom. The boys’ room was on the other side of the building. In between was a huge hang-out area, like a giant living room. Someone had donated a couple of older game consoles and stacks of games.
“You seem distracted today.”
Mei spun around, the leather fabric of her jacket creaking. “Sheila, hey.”
Sheila’s bushy brows rose. The woman took “matron” to the next level, and Mei knew for a fact it was the center’s director who ate most of the chocolate that was donated, despite her own repeated demands that the kids fess up on who the culprit was. As if teens who lived predominantly on the streets would narc on each other. No way was that going to happen.
Sheila still just stood there and hadn’t said anything more, so Mei finally broke the silence. “What’s up?”
“You’re supposed to meet with Bella today, aren’t you?”
“She sent me a text. She might not make it.” Mei wasn’t so worried. Usually Bella was reliable—for a fourteen –year old who lived with her drug-dealer brother. The teen slept at the center most weekends.
/> Sheila made a chiding sound. “These children will walk all over you if you simply accept their word at face value.”
Mei leaned against the wall. “I give them the benefit of the doubt until they prove I shouldn’t.”
For a few of the kids, that unspoken rule had lasted mere seconds before realizing their word was worth squat. But with Bella, it hadn’t happened yet.
Mei figured that it took work to establish a good relationship with these kids, and it started with not referring to them as “children.” These teens had more life experience than a lot of adults. They had varying backgrounds, but the themes were the same. Neglect. Abuse. Parents and teachers who had failed them. A system that saw each one as just another case file in a mountainous stack of case files. Mei did what she could, but her powers didn’t seem to extend to the healing arts—body, mind or spirit. She had different skills, but that was a whole other thing she didn’t want to get into right now, even if only in her head. She was afraid she would let something slip, and then Sheila would have more ammo.
Sheila made a “huh” sound and waddled off to whatever chocolate she’d scrounged from the latest donation box. She wasn’t a bad person, given how many years she’d devoted to helping the kids who came through these doors. But what had once been a calling had settled into the mundane and she’d grown cynical. Burned out, most likely. It seemed like, these days, everyone was burned out on their life. Wasn’t that why Mei, herself, had come here?
She headed down the cold hall to the main area, full of couches and end tables that were often, though not today, stacked out of the way. A wall of desks on one side. Pool table. Foosball and ping pong. Even a few arcade games with their ever-increasing high scores.
“What up?” The Asian teen who spoke managed to blur the two words into one, and even that was barely discernible as English.
Mei looked down at the kid. “If you ever want to interview for a job where you’ll actually make decent money, you might want to work on your greetings.”
The kid stared over the back of the couch, lounging there in an obtuse formation like the angles they were going over yesterday in the tutoring room. “You been talkin’ to Sheila again.”
“She can help you, too. If you actually decide you want to do something with your life.”
He flashed a jaunty smile. “You ain’t supposed to push me, remember? I might disappear and you’ll never know if you’re to blame for making me join that gang and wind up dead, or in prison. Could be all your fault.”
Mei leaned forward slightly. “You wanna join a gang, I will personally apply my boot to your—”
“Mei! Goodness.”
She spun to find Sheila with both hands on her hips. Uh-oh. Sheila was already at level three. Mei wasn’t sure what would happen at, say, level six; probably Sheila’s head would explode. So far she’d only seen four and a half.
Behind her, Mei could hear the teen trying to hold back laughter.
She said, “Yes, Sheila?”
“You may not have been here long enough to know this, but you should be aware that we do not allow our volunteers to—”
Across the open lobby, the front door crashed against the wall and a man stumbled in. He was big. At first, she figured it was one of her family members—from her team made up of both friends and relatives. Yeah, it was complicated. Four of them on the team were muscled guys, though none were as tall as this guy standing before her.
For a split second, everything in her warred between wanting this guy to be Malachi and also hoping it wasn’t him. This also was complicated.
Neither her history nor her family needed to bleed into this place. She’d come here for specific reasons—some space and a chance to get her head together. To try and do something good with her life before everything went wrong again—which it always seemed to. Disaster was inevitable. Why walk right into it if she didn’t have to? She wanted to find peace but didn’t know how.
Mei pushed these unsettled thoughts away, and then came to the conclusion that she’d never seen this guy before.
The man continued his stumbling, this time slamming himself against the door as though unable to even hold himself up. He had on jeans and work boots, above which he wore a heavy jacket over a denim shirt. Dark, dirty hair. Stubble on his chin. Pale face and bloodshot eyes. Even his lips were pale.
Sheila started toward him, hands still on her hips. “Sir, you—”
He swatted her with a boulder-sized fist. Sheila yelped and fell. She hit the tile floor and slid toward the wall.
More than one person behind Mei gasped.
“Everyone stay back.” Mei held out a hand and used the voice that invited no argument.
She was the one in charge of this situation here and everyone needed to know that. She didn’t need any of them getting heroic ideas—or looking for a way to blow off steam and take out their anger on this guy. She was the one who would handle this.
After all, she was the most qualified.
“What do you want, man?” She had a number of weapons on her person but didn’t reach for any of them. First came the verbal attempt to diffuse the situation. “Tell me what you want.”
He grunted and glanced around. Nostrils flared. He didn’t seem entirely in control of his faculties. More like an animal, scenting the wind.
“Dude.” She barked the word.
His attention landed on her. “Where…she?”
“Who?”
It took him a second of thought to answer, “Bella.”
Mei held back her surprise.
Sneakers hit the floor, and when Mei looked over at the ruckus, the couch the obtuse kid was lounging on was now empty. Her eyes followed him as he came up alongside her.
“Say what?” The kid lifted his chin at the giant. He thought he was chieftain here and didn’t appreciate one of his people being targeted.
“I’ve got this.” Mei looked at the kid with raised eyebrows, fully expecting and ready to butt heads with him over her requested dominance. But only minorly.
He might feel as though he was in charge and, yes, he topped out at six foot two with his weight easily at two-fifty, but he was also just fourteen.
“Stay behind me, Han.” They called him that because he always flew solo.
Instead, he retorted, “Get this guy out of here.”
Before she could do that, he continued, “What d’you want with Bella?”
“Han, I got this.” She needed him back.
The man took a lumbering step toward them. His eyes scanned the room. Looking for Bella? Good thing she wasn’t here. This guy might not know what she looked like, which was good for Bella. But it also meant other teen girls could be in danger. Did he have a photo? That would help incriminate him as a threat.
Mei ran through the details in her head. Just a few seconds to collect her thoughts. Her mind had always worked that way, putting vital details together in a way that gave her some leverage.
She reached for the back of her belt and slid out the baton she had sewn between the belt loops, which she now flicked to extend to its full length.
“You’re packing, and you pull that?” Han had evidently seen the pistol holstered at the small of her back.
“Non-lethal force.” It came after a verbal warning attempting to diffuse the situation. Because despite the fact she had a weapon holstered at the small of her back, she didn’t want these kids to witness yet more violence in their lives. Not if she could prevent it. “Stand down. Leave now, or things will get worse for you.”
“Where is Bella?”
At the wall, Sheila started to stir.
“You give her to me.” His voice sounded rusty.
Mei wasn’t sure if he was hopped up on something. It was always possible, but hard to tell with the array of substances available. Who knew why a person’s eyes might be bloodshot? Some of these kids, after being on the other side of a screen for too long, had eyes that looked fatigued. “Back off. You’re not getting her.�
�� Mei shrugged. “She ain’t even here.”
He paid no attention to the baton she held.
Sheila gasped.
One of the kids called out, “What do you want with Bella?”
A girl said, “Doesn’t matter. He can’t have her.”
Mei studied the man. He didn’t seem concerned with the room full of people, only that he wanted Bella. But for what? She wasn’t sure the reason even mattered, considering Mei had zero intention of letting him get his hands on the girl. Good thing she wasn’t here.
Sheila rustled against the wall, low to Mei’s left. Mei couldn’t see her but sensed she was now sitting up. “I’m calling the police!”
She gritted her teeth and told the man, “You need to leave now. Cops are coming.”
She was only bluffing, but hoped no one else picked up on it. She would only call the police if life depended on it. After all, the last thing she needed was to be here when the cops showed up asking questions and checking ID. Then again, she figured the kids thought the same. They lived life below the radar, and though breaking the law wasn’t uncommon, Mei was sure they hadn’t done near the things she had.
None of them had lived her life.
Just like she hadn’t lived theirs. But her experiences meant she had to live life under the radar. It also meant she had a giant clue what it felt like to go through the things they had. She had learned the hard way that she couldn’t think too much about her history, or she wouldn’t get out of that mental spiral for a while, so she steered clear of it.
Sheila wailed into the phone, “Yes! We need the police!”
Mei tuned it out so she could work on de-escalating this situation.
“She said go, dude. So go.” Han stepped up beside her, thankfully giving her a wide berth on the right side where she held the baton.
She didn’t need to get caught up against a wall of teenager without the room to move if she needed to. “Like he said.”
Then the kid spoke to her. “Give me the gun. I’ll take care of him.”
“Give me Bella,” the man growled.
“Yes,” Sheila wailed. “Send everyone. There’s a deranged man here!”
