Soul Slam

by Allie Burton

Buzzzzzzzzz.

  Not a dial tone. I jammed the disconnect button several times. The same sound. The phone wasn’t working or was disconnected.

  Horror screeched through me. The internal screaming reached a pitch no opera diva could hit. My organs shriveled and I fought against complete and total panic.

  I took stock of the room. The windows were too high to jump from. The bed had drawers fashioned underneath with no place to hide below.

  The top step squeaked in its own special way. The intruder was in the upstairs hallway.

  Raving fear shredded my lungs. I found it hard to breathe. I couldn’t stand in the middle of the room like a sacrificial pheasant.

  With shaky legs, I dashed inside the closet with the guitar. My only weapon of defense. I closed the door most of the way and peered between the crack. A shadow emerged against the wall. Tall, male, determined.

  The figure moved to the center of the room. Close to six feet and around one hundred and sixty pounds. Full lips positioned above a strong, pointy jaw with a dimple in the middle. The jaw was a perfect foil for the prominent cheekbones. Messy dark hair, long on the top and sticking out at odd angles as if he’d run his fingers through it. Broad shoulders in a tight black T-shirt. Trim waist. Tight jeans molding to strong thighs.

  The specific inventory was only so I could describe him better to the police.

  His sharp emerald gaze scanned Grandfather’s room. Perused the closet door.

  My muscles tensed ready to attack if needed. I held my breath. Didn’t move. From this angle, he couldn’t see me. Could the intruder sense I was here?

  Raising the guitar in slow speed, my arms shook. The weight of fear pushed down with tripled gravity.

  The intruder stalked toward the closet.

  Pure terror stoked a fire inside me.

  His strong hand grabbed the door handle. Pulled.

  The door swung open, exposing me.

  My internal fire exploded into action. Without thought, I swung the guitar down on top of the intruder.

  Thwack.

  The acoustic guitar cracked over his head. The base bonged and the strings strummed. A symphony gone wild. The neck broke in two and the strings sprang free. Sadness plucked. I’d destroyed the beautiful instrument.

  Quit mourning the guitar and move!

  Purchase Tut’s Trumpet at Kobo!

  Excerpt from

  Peace Piper

  Soul Warriors Book 3

  by Allie Burton

  Her mother slowly dying in a poisonous plot of power.

  An ancient instrument of peace threatening ultimate destruction.

  A determined brainiac demanding secrets and smart enough to uncover them.

  Piper Akins has lived her entire life in the clutches of an evil cult and wants to run away. But with her uncle’s double cross and her mother on her deathbed, she has no choice but to do as the cult demands and search for the supposed magical trumpet of King Tut.

  Thanks to an unknown but powerful father, Piper is immune to the trumpet’s effects. But she’s not immune to the charms of Soul Warrior Math, who believes she’s working with him not against him.

  Math might be the smartest warrior in the force, but he wants to be respected for his physical prowess. The only way to prove this is to discover Piper’s secrets, find the missing trumpet of peace, and defeat the evil cult. When Piper tricks him, he realizes he’s failed on all counts.

  While Piper and Math circle around each other, pretending one thing, believing another, the threat grows. Her mother will certainly die if Piper doesn’t betray her growing love for Math. And Math must offer more than muscles and brains to win Piper over. He must offer his heart.

  But can both learn to trust each other in time to stop mankind’s annihilation?

  “The characters are fun, flirty and mysterious. The storyline is engaging and wonderfully paced. Oh yes, I am digging these Soul Warriors and their history. 5 Magical Stars!” –I Read Indie Review

  Excerpt:

  The eerie quietness of my uncle’s pawn shop slithered across my skin making the hairs on my arms stand at attention. Something was wrong. The shop was usually crawling with down-on-their-luck people who traded precious objects for cash, but there wasn’t a soul around in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday. Uncle Louie profited from people’s misery. The dirtiness of his business clung to me, and I always left needing a shower.

  From the back room, he dealt in stolen and black-market goods. Illegal items. Magical relics.

  The reason for my visit today.

  Inching into the shop, I trod carefully around the frayed carpet near the stairs and the dented linoleum floor. A moldy smell wafted from the bookcases. The shelves lining the walls were filled with clocks and paintings and other knickknacks the good people of San Francisco could no longer afford. The floor itself held antique couches and rocking chairs, musical instruments, and even a fake mummy.

  I lived in the basement of an Egyptian museum and I’d seen a real mummy. I’d seen lots of strange items and occurrences.

  A screeching noise came from the back room.

  My body stiffened. Every muscle contracted and tightened. I jerked my head up, listening. Someone was in the shop.

  The killer? Or my uncle? Or maybe he was both?

  Nothing Uncle Louie did surprised me. Aaron said my uncle would do anything to make a buck. I planned to escape from both of them. Soon.

  I couldn’t take the time to discover if and how Bob died, I needed to find out who lived, who was making the noise. If it was Uncle Louie, he could deal with this death scene.

  The screeching continued and my body hummed along. The music called to me in a strange way, even though it sounded like a badly-played instrument. A saxophone or a trumpet.

  My heart thudded and dropped, tapping at my feet like one of Tut’s gold sandals. Couldn’t be the powerful instrument I’d been sent to pick up.

  Uncle Louie wouldn’t be so stupid to disobey the demands of the Magical Order of Crucis. Would he? I might be scared of Uncle Louie, but I was terrified of the Order. They held my life and my mom’s life in their fascist fists. Or in Mom’s case, their underground ceremonial temple.

  An urge to follow the sound tugged me forward. Only because it was my job to retrieve Tut’s Trumpet of Peace. Nothing else. Brushing aside the urge to run toward the noise, I forced myself to walk to the back room at a slow, steady pace. I didn’t believe in the magical properties the trumpet was supposed to possess.

  I followed the discordant notes into the short, dark hallway leading toward the bathroom, break room, and my uncle’s office. The disgusting bathroom was to the right. Door open and empty. A person had to be desperate to use the foul facilities.

  The break room was to the left. A shop employee lay on top of the table, a lit cigarette dangling from his hand. Motionless. No blood or gaping wound.

  The pounding in my heart increased so fast it sounded like a speeding train. The hairs on my body didn’t just stand at attention, they froze in place. Holy hieroglyphics.

  Moving past, I knew I couldn’t help the guy if he was still alive. I was good at fixing machines, not people. Plus, this need to find the source of the sound pulled. I glanced at my cell phone, recording my stroll through the land of the dead. Calling the cops would be the smart thing to do, the right thing to do, except Uncle Louie would kill me. Unless he was dead, too.

  And Aaron, the leader of the Order, would assign me a fate worse than death.

  Indecision danced on my own grave. Be killed by the killer or call the cops and be killed by Uncle Louie or Aaron. Which will it be, Piper?

  I’d finally gotten my driver’s license and a bit of freedom from Aaron and the Order. Before, they’d kept us prisoners in the secret basement of the museum. Hoping to use my new freedom once Mom was healthy, I planned to escape. In the meantime, I was trying to prove my trustworthiness to Aaron while I bided my time.

  “It’s a valuable artifact.” Uncle Loui
e’s greedy voice slid into the hallway—a wheeling and dealing snake.

  The imagined snake slunk across my skin. The fear he was dead faded. The fear he might kill me never waned. The instrument still played. And still pulled. I held my body back, hiding by the doorway.

  “Worth lots of money.” Uncle Louie continued his sales pitch, although he slurred his words. Weird, because Uncle Louie didn’t drink. “The trumpet came with a special shipment from Egypt.”

  That very trumpet blared in my head, confirming my suspicion and heralding my demise. Uncle Louie was selling Tut’s Trumpet of Peace. Aaron would be furious and the Magical Order of Crucis would take retribution on Uncle Louie.

  On me, and my mom, too.

  The urge to dash into the room and rip the trumpet away from the player pulsed inside of me. To save myself, my mom, and the trumpet.

  “How much?” A nasally voice asked.

  The trumpet screeched a high, out-of-tune chord, so there had to be a third person in the room who played. The need to play the trumpet rushed through my bloodstream and twitched in my fingers. I could play the trumpet so much better even though I’d never had a single music lesson or touched an instrument in my life.

  Confusion jumbled my thinking. Why would I think I could play it?

  The desire to play battled with fear of this same desire. Teasing and taunting, fighting for my soul. My job was to pick up the trumpet from Uncle Louie and deliver it to Aaron, not play the instrument.

  Uncle Louie was the middleman. The Order had the trumpet delivered to him in an illegal shipment. He was supposed give the trumpet to me so I could bring it to Aaron. The Magical Order of Crucis believed the Trumpet of Peace would bring harmony to the world, and Mom would be free from her pain and suffering.

  Camel dung.

  How could Tut’s trumpet bring peace when it had already caused death?

  Purchase Peace Piper at Kobo!

  Excerpt from

  Cleo’s Curse

  Soul Warriors Book 4

  by Allie Burton

  An ancient knot entangling Cleo in a world of magic and power.

  A driven leader intent on controlling a curse.

  A disgruntled slave no longer willing to bow to a modern goddess.

  Needing to suck up to her parents, spoiled boarding school student Cleo Carruthers decides to make an effort and attend classes. Except the teachers can’t see her. The Knot of Uset has woven a web around her and she’s become truly invisible.

  A slave to Queen Cleopatra in a previous life, Soul Warrior Antony refuses to serve anyone. But when a modern day goddess demands his help, he can’t say no. Saving the world must take precedence over his wishes. Until his wishes get tied up into a knot by Cleo.

  Trapped in a strange world, together the two teens must secure the magic of the knot and become unbound from the relic’s powers. But they are being hunted by those who want them to disappear. Permanently.

  Excerpt:

  A black SUV screeched to a stop on the quiet street in front of my private boarding school residence hall. Two men wearing mismatching black pants and sweatshirts charged out of the vehicle.

  I hated when people didn’t match their shades of black. Fashion basics, people.

  “Get the Uset package!” One of the guys with black hair and a strong build rushed past, pushing me.

  I stumbled and my Christian Louboutin boots slipped off the sidewalk into a puddle, coating the pink leather in mud. Was I invisible to everyone? “Hey!”

  The man swiveled and pointed a metallic gray contraption. The barrel came to a tip like a ballpoint pen. Tubes curved along the top in an infinity pattern. Where the trigger should be was a clear orb sparking with flames.

  Each detail stamped on my mind even while my brain circled in panicked loops. Loops that dipped and flipped and tripped. I’d never seen a rifle close, especially one this strange-looking. I held my shopping-bag laden arms in a no-challenge position and took a shaky step back. The designer clothes, guy-teasing pumps, and chocolates weighed heavier in the fancy bags than they had the entire time I’d shopped.

  The guy pointed the gun toward his real quarry—a delivery guy.

  My bones sagged, weary with relief. I took another slow step back.

  Further up the sidewalk, the second man pointed his weird gun at the delivery guy dressed in a drab brown uniform and pushing a metal cart filled with packages. The delivery guy stopped only a few feet from the front door of my building. No one was around this early on a Saturday morning because most of the students were sleeping or studying.

  The man dressed in black shoved the gun at the delivery guy. “Give me the Uset package.”

  Was that a new perfume or fashion designer? My designer friend Demetri was about to release his latest line and I’d be one of the first to see the runway show. From the plain black khaki slacks, black sweatshirts and knit beanies the men with strange guns wore, I didn’t think they were after stylish clothes.

  The delivery guy with the bulging belly held up both his hands knowing he was being mugged. “Take them.”

  Obviously he wasn’t paid enough to protect the packages in his care. Hopefully, none of my online shopping was in that shipment.

  The man standing by me moved forward and picked up the top package. Grunting, he tossed the box to the ground. Glass shattered inside. He did the same with the next package. And the next.

  The street view was blocked by the dark van and the delivery truck. Tall hedges covered the residence hall’s lower windows. No one could see what was taking place unless they sauntered down the sidewalk.

  Without the gun trained on me, I took another step back trying to merge with the bushes. With a shaky hand, I grabbed my phone from my pocket. I tapped the screen and hit the recording app. It didn’t turn on.

  “It’s not here.” The man threw the last package down. “Where is the goddess of Uset package?”

  I smacked the recording app again. Come on. Think how many hits I’d get with this post.

  Both guys held their weird guns higher, trained at the delivery guy’s head, ignoring me.

  I swallowed. Instead of recording for social media, I should be calling 9-1-1.

  The delivery guy’s eyes widened covering half his face. He tucked in his chin and fear stamped his expression. “I don’t know, dude.”

  Both guns fired. Real flames.

  Except not real flames because purple, pink and green colors shot out in streams. The noise hissed more than banged. The streams wrapped around the blah-brown delivery guy and he bent at the waist seeming to curl into himself.

  My chest chattered in a horrific rhythm causing my heart to sputter and choke. Adrenaline and a self-preservation instinct had me hitting the ground. I landed in the puddle and covered my head with my hands. My nose filled with the smell of wet dirt. Forget recording the scene, I needed help. Hitting the first speed dial, I listened to the dial tone.

  Pick up. Pick up. Pick up.

  The delivery guy collapsed onto the ground. The two men turned toward me. The rhythm in my chest twisted into an electric dance music. I couldn’t hear the two men talking, yet I knew I’d be next.

  “I’m sorry I’m not able to answer the phone right now. Leave a message or call my assistant at…”

  Anger flashed similar to the flames from those weird guns. Hurt sent a burning sensation over my skin. Of course, she didn’t pick up. Not for me. My life was ending and I wouldn’t even get to say goodbye.

  I flattened my body against the wet sidewalk not caring about my tailored jeans or the untucked silk blouse. Not worrying about my perfect brunette curls or my department store-prepared make-up. Only thinking about my short, sixteen-year life.

  A life I’d been trying to change so my parents would approve. Go to classes. Make real friends. Start a new adventure.

  Being dead was not an adventure. Being dead was…well, dead.

  The burning pain ripped through and scorched my lungs. I wasn’t ready t
o die. I scrunched my body trying to get smaller. Sharp pinpricks pierced the scorching skin. Had the torture begun? I didn’t hear the weird guns or see the colors swirling. I lifted my head.

  The two men jumped into the SUV and the car squealed away.

  Those black pants. Honestly, someone needed to lock Walmart’s doors once and for all.

  My body warped into the muddy and wet sidewalk. Every inch of my skin made contact with the rough surface proving I was alive. I was safe. Not that my life mattered to anyone else.

  Beeeeeep. Mother’s long-winded message finally ended.

  “Mother, this is CC, you’re daughter.” In case she’d forgotten. “You have to get me out of this horrible San Francisco boarding school. Someone’s been killed in front of the residence hall.”

  The message clicked off and I smashed my finger against the end button. My parents wouldn’t notice if I’d been killed or disappeared. They were too busy with their jet-set travel, country club and charity events. Which was the reason I was trying to be good so they’d bring me home and start paying attention.

  Untangling my arms from my shopping bags, I got to my feet and stared at the body of the delivery guy.

  Quit feeling sorry for yourself. At least you’re not dead.

  His brown uniform smoked. He must’ve been wet from the rain and the sun warmed his clothes, steaming them dry.

  I surveyed the sky. There was no sun. Only fog and damp. Why had my parents banished me to this west coast wasteland?

  Tiny tendrils of grey plumes twisted into the air off the delivery guy. Splotches of…emptiness appeared on his body. Like big holes.