by Bella Klaus
I flipped ahead, muttering under my breath, “How do I protect myself from vampires?”
Back at the academy, we learned that all vampires found Dharma salt repellent, but only the preternatural kind found it deadly. Perhaps it was related to the putrefying heart.
Sunlight, silver, and natural fire repelled the undead, preternaturals, but the supernaturals remained immune to such weapons. I skimmed through the entire book, looking for anything else, and ended up engrossed in the author’s study on vampire reproduction habits. Only one in a thousand vampire females were capable of giving birth.
On the rare occasions they produced a pure-blooded child, the offspring would become extremely powerful and be immediately elevated to the status of a king.
Vampire King.
A shudder seized my spine, and I clenched my teeth, kicking myself for not replacing the amethyst crystal around my neck. The mere mention of that loathsome title stirred memories in me I needed to suppress.
“Mera, dear?” Istabelle’s voice filled the library. “Time to open the shop.”
“Sorry. I lost track of time.” I rose from the armchair and headed up the spiral staircase.
Istabelle stood in the middle of the shop floor, clad in a fitted silk dress of flamingo pink. A thick belt in the same fabric cinched her in at the waist and a quadruple string of pearls broke up the bright color.
Today, she wore a pair of ivory combs in her white, cotton-candy hair, pulling the mass of undefined curls back behind her ears.
“Go on, then.” She swept her arm to the door, where a blond man hopped from foot to foot on the doorstep.
Even with his head down, I could tell by the willowy frame and honey blond highlights that this was Jonathan.
My lips tightened.
The man wasn’t unattractive, and he seemed sort-of okay. I only wished he would stop using his weekly sound bath sessions to ask me out on dates.
Most clients lay in the treatment rooms with their eyes closed, enjoying the feel of the black tourmaline crystals soaking up negative energy from their chakras, but not Jonathan.
He watched me the entire time I walked around the treatment table, striking Tibetan singing bowls with the mallet. Jonathan talked over their healing chimes, asking me if I wanted to go down the road for coffee, across the road for a sandwich, round the corner for lunch, dinner, whatever.
Each time I said no, hoping he would give up because he clearly wasn’t interested in a sound bath, but each time, he insisted on booking another session. The rent on a store in central London was exorbitant, and we couldn’t refuse business.
I sent Istabelle a pained glance, but she swept across the shop floor and rounded the counter. My gaze flicked back to the glass door, where Jonathan now stood with a raised hand and a tiny smile.
“Sorry for the late opening.” I opened the door, letting in a gust of drizzly wind.
He wiped his feet on the doormat. “It’s about this morning’s sound bath.”
My heart filled with hope. “Do you need to cancel?”
“Can I postpone it until the afternoon? I have a stock take at work and—”
“No problem,” I said with a tight smile. “Is three okay with you?”
He gave me a jaunty salute. “It’s a date.”
Before I could contradict Jonathan, a man in a FedEx uniform slipped through the front door, holding a small package. “Delivery for the Crystal Shop?”
I eyed the inch-thick envelope-sized box. “I’ll sign for it.”
Jonathan said something about seeing me later. I gave him an absent nod and signed the delivery man’s electronic touchscreen with a stylus. After handing me the package, he left, and I brought it to the counter.
If this was the delivery Istabelle was expecting, it certainly didn’t require anyone to come in early. I weighed it in my hand, feeling no more than half a pound, and turned it around. It felt nothing like the usual packages we received via courier, but it was addressed to the business, rather than Istabelle herself.
I walked to the door that led up to her apartment and knocked. “Istabelle? Special delivery.”
“What’s inside?” she shouted back.
“Hold on.” I opened a drawer beneath the desk and fumbled for a box cutter. After slicing through the tape holding the cardboard together, I eased out its flaps, revealing an unmarked velvet box. As soon as I touched the box, it thrummed with power.
My throat dried. Whatever was inside felt rare and expensive—not meant for the hands of an apprentice. I turned to the door and shouted, “Something extremely powerful.”
“Open it.” Istabelle said.
I raised a shoulder. Perhaps I’d underestimated her willingness to trust me with priceless objects.
Inside the box lay a bracelet made of faceted citrine hearts, each about an inch in diameter and held together with a chain so delicate it resembled a single strand of hair.
A breath caught in the back of my throat. Citrine was a common enough gemstone that we recommended for those wanting to boost their happiness and wealth but something like this had the juice to make millionaires.
To my naked eye, each heart was flawless, with a triple-A gemstone-grade clarity that reminded me of pale fire.
“Did you order a citrine bracelet?” I asked.
“No.”
My brows drew together. Who in the Natural World would send such an item to a shop that sold crystals? Based on its power alone, it was worth nearly everything we had on the shelves, including the three-foot-tall geodes.
Istabelle didn’t ask any more questions about the bracelet, so I reached for the lid, ready to place it in the safe.
As soon as my fingers touched the velvet, the bracelet snaked up my hand and locked itself around my wrist.
I sucked in a breath through my teeth. The wretched thing wasn’t just an inert magical item, someone had enchanted it to capture one of our wrists.
The question was, why?
Chapter Two
I stared down at the bracelet glittering on my arm, turning it stone by stone for signs of a clasp. The annoying thing was seamless, appearing bound by magic.
“Istabelle,” I shouted. “Please, come down.”
The older woman didn’t answer, and I hoped she wasn’t on the phone to Australia or somewhere like that, arranging another long-distance purchase.
My boss sourced magical stones from all over the world, coming in varying levels of power, but this was the first item we’d received that had ever done something sentient.
I reached into the counter drawer, picked up a pair of wire cutters, and slipped them between two of the heart-shaped stones.
The door opened, and a customer staggered in, clutching her belly. She was thin, wearing a pinstriped pencil suit, indicating that she probably worked in one of the offices nearby. Ropes of greasy blonde hair hung over her pale face, which looked at odds with her smart attire and laptop-sized Louis Vuitton bag.
I shoved the cutters back into the drawer and straightened. “Welcome to the Crystal Shop,” I said in my best shopkeeper voice. “How may I help—”
“Do you have something for upset stomachs?” She held on to a shelf displaying crystal balls, barely able to stand.
“Are you alright?” I walked around the counter, crossed the shop floor, and stared down at the woman’s source of pain.
I couldn’t see magic—only feel it—but the energy radiating from her torso was rough and jagged, reminding me of daggers too blunt and rusty to cut. They weren’t just jutting out of her but moving.
My gaze snapped to the woman’s face, which was contorted with pain. This was a psychic attack.
There was an ethic for healing. If I saw something was wrong with a person, I couldn’t just fix it without their knowledge or consent.
Istabelle taught me that it would be a violation. I had to ask her if she needed help, if she wasn’t a client, bring it up in conversation, and then offer.
Psychic attacks at t
his level weren’t deliberate. There wasn’t usually a human sitting somewhere with a voodoo doll, sending negative vibes.
A person working in a hostile office where they were the target of malevolent thoughts could find themselves feeling the negativity in their physical body. Attacks like this occurred when the thoughts coalesced into shards of energy too powerful to be ignored.
The woman stared up at me, her eyes wide. “Do you have a natural remedy for stomach aches?”
I guided her to the corner, where two small armchairs were arranged around the shelves of esoteric books. “Take a seat, and I’ll bring over a few items.”
Sometimes, all a crystal required was to be in the presence of the person who needed them to work. Without touching her or placing my hands on her body, I could already tell that her biggest problem was psychic protection and not an upset stomach.
I walked across the room to the trays where we kept the protective crystals and stopped at the ones already polished into pendants.
My fingers lingered over the display. Onyx, obsidian, and black tourmaline. All three had similar properties in that they protected the user from negative energy. While the first two tended to absorb the energy, black tourmaline transmuted it into positive. My instincts guided me to the black tourmaline.
I turned around to take another look at the woman, whose features relaxed. Without thinking too much about it, I let my gaze snap to the basket of smooth pendants and selected one nearly the size of my palm.
“How about this?” I walked back to the woman and placed the pendant over her solar plexus chakra.
Chakras were the body’s energy centers. According to what Istabelle taught me, we had seven, and the solar plexus dealt with weight, self-esteem, and boundaries. It was also the area that most commonly received psychic attacks.
The woman inhaled a deep breath and sighed. “That’s so much better than the antacids they sold me at the chemist. I’ll have to thank my sister for recommending your shop. How much is it?”
Warmth filled my chest. The best part of this job was seeing the difference these crystals could make in a customer’s wellbeing.
We’d have to find a chain long enough for the pendant to hang close to the solar plexus, and a session or two with the sound bath would break up those energy forms. If she was willing, I could teach her ways to protect herself from all the attacks.
“A crystal this size is 29.99,” I replied with a smile.
She reared back, her nose wrinkling. “For a poxy stone?”
My lips formed a tight line. How could I tell her that this particular stone had magical properties that would not only absorb the negativity thrown her way but transform it into something positive?
Comments like that would lead to a barrage of questions demanding proof of magical ability, threatening the exposure of the Supernatural World.
“This particular piece of black tourmaline was sourced from Asia,” I replied.
“Black tourmaline, huh?” She pulled out her smartphone and fired up her eBay app.
After tapping in the name, she huffed. “It says here I can get a large piece for seven pounds, including shipping.”
I raised a shoulder and walked back to the counter, with the crystal in my palm. Istabelle taught me never to argue with customers over our prices. If they couldn’t see or feel the value of our products, well, that was their decision.
The few supernatural customers who came here never balked because they knew what they were buying. Some humans were open to new age and natural healing, but this lady seemed to place more value in material things like her designer accessories than in her health.
She stood and snatched a copy of The Crystal Bible off the shelf. “I can get this cheaper on Amazon, too.”
“Alright.” I pulled out a drawer where we placed crystals that needed cleansing.
Since the black tourmaline pendant had relieved the woman’s pain, we couldn’t sell it to anyone else without removing any traces of her or her attackers’ energies.
With a huff, she threw the book down on the chair and stomped out of the store, bringing in a blast of cool air from outside.
I rested my hands on the counter, watching her stride across the road. With each step she took toward the other side, her posture curled in on itself. Now that she’d left the store’s protective environment, her pain had returned.
The door leading to the apartment opened, and Istabelle poked out her fluffy head. “You called?”
I showed her my wrist. “The delivery just attached itself to me. Can you help me get it off?”
Istabelle’s gray brows drew together. “I didn’t order firestone.”
My gaze dropped to the transparent heart-shaped crystals. “I thought this was citrine.”
She shook her head. “Firestone only takes the appearance of triple-A-grade citrine,” she said in lecture mode. “The difference is its temperature. While citrine is warm, firestone has an absence of heat until activated.”
“How do you activate firestone?” The words slipped from my lips before I could stop them.
What I really wanted to know was how to take off the bracelet, who sent it, and why in the Natural World it had decided to attach itself to me.
Istabelle launched into an explanation of the stone’s immense capacity to store and discharge fire-based energy. There were few magical volcanoes around the world, such as the one beneath the Aegean Sea.
Magical miners used the stones to gather and store fire for warfare. Firestone was one of the reasons why the supernatural communities around the world seldom went to war. Each held an arsenal of stored energy powerful enough to destroy entire cities.
But the real question was why someone had turned this stone into jewelry and sent it here.
Istabelle picked up the cardboard box and frowned. “There’s no postmark on the packaging.” Her gaze wandered to the velvet case. “And that has a magic muffling enchantment.”
I chewed my lip. “What are you saying?”
“Whoever sent this knew you were sensitive to magic and wanted you in particular to open it.”
My heart sank. Nobody from Logris, except Aunt Arianna and a few close relatives, knew I was here. My birthday was close, but they always sent gifts to my apartment, not the shop.
Istabelle opened the drawer, slipped on goggles and a pair of gloves, and pulled out a pair of diamond shears. My stomach trembled at the thought that she’d ignored the wire cutters and gone straight for the item that could cut through magic.
“Turn your head, dear,” she said.
I did as she said, feeling the shears slip beneath the tiny string holding together the crystals. She snipped and hissed out a breath.
“What’s happened?” I glanced down at the bracelet, which still lay in place around my wrist. “What happened to the wire?”
She dangled it between her fingers. “Unfortunately, the stones have bonded to your skin. This level of magic is beyond our capabilities. I’m afraid you’ll need to see a practitioner in Logris.”
My heart skipped several beats. Not just because I had the magical equivalent of a bomb casing wrapped around the wrist of my right arm. The thought of returning to Logris filled me with nauseous anxiety. It was where so many had witnessed that night of heartbreak and humiliation.
I shook my head. “There’s got to be somewhere else.”
Istabelle placed a hand on my shoulder. “You’ll have to face them sometime. We may not be magical, but we live long lives and the more time you spend out of your community, the more you’ll age.”
“Maybe I don’t want to live beyond a hundred years.”
“Perhaps not, but you can’t wait around to see what that firestone might do.”
She was right, but I wasn’t ready to face anyone from my old city. I exhaled a long sigh, trying to expel the boulders of dread weighing down my belly. “Do you have any books about firestone downstairs?”
“There are several, but I recommend you see a prof
essional immediately.”
“I’ll…” My throat dried. The last thing I wanted to do was return to Logris. By now, everyone would have learned about my awful exit. “I’ll think about it.”
Istabelle stepped back, offering me a patient smile. “Whatever you say. I’ll come down later to relieve you for lunch.”
For the next few hours, I couldn’t stop thinking about the firestone hearts around my wrist. They weren’t a bracelet because nothing was holding them together. I slid my fingers beneath the stone, but it was like trying to separate my fingernails. The stones felt like they’d become part of my body.
In between unpacking a delivery of new books and serving customers, I tried everything I could think of to dislodge the stones. Onyx, which was supposed to remove negative attachments, didn’t have any effect and neither did any of the flower remedy samples we kept around the shop for psychic protection.
The morning raced by, and Istabelle returned to the shop floor at twelve to replenish our display of rose quartz hearts. Rose quartz was our biggest seller. It radiated a gentle, unconditional love, strengthened the heart chakra, and boosted happiness.
I wore it continuously during my first year working at the Crystal shop, drawing on its strength to help me overcome my past. Some women bought it by the pouchful because it helped the wearer attract love while enhancing self-esteem.
At twelve-thirty, Beatrice strode into the store, her chocolate-brown eyes sparkling with happiness and a chignon with loose tendrils of hair framing her heart-shaped face. She wore a navy blue dress tailored to skim her curvaceous figure.
This was one person who certainly didn’t need rose quartz, as she had no trouble attracting men.
She flashed Istabelle a dazzling smile. “Hello Mrs. Bonham-Sackville, I’m here to whisk Mera away for a long lunch.”
“Take as much time as you need.” Istabelle waved me away.
I wasn’t sure if she was talking about lunch or making a decision to see a healer in Logris about my firestone problem. Either way, I zipped around the counter and hurried to my friend.
