by KJ Robinson
Sorceress Unleashed
The Ford Family Saga 1
KJ Robinson
Contents
Introduction
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
Epilogue
About the Author
Copyright © 2017 by KJ Robinson
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
Here’s to strong women. May we know them. May we be them. May we raise them.
Introduction
Demon Ex, Kidnapped Son, and the Apocalypse. No Problem.
Traylor Ford has lived a quiet life for the last eighteen years. Exiled from her family because of her magical abilities, she’s kept her power under wraps. She thought she was doing all the right things, keeping her head down and raising her son, but that all changes when he is kidnapped.
Traylor’s son is the key to a demon prophecy older than the Dead Sea Scrolls. She’s hidden his half demon, half sorcerer powers for years, but that didn’t stop a legion of demons from taking him as their prisoner.
Together with her fiercely seductive demon ex-boyfriend, Demetrius, and her current lover, Detective Chase, Traylor unleashes her powers of sorcery in a quest to find her son and stop the demon Apocalypse from taking over the world.
Chapter One
Everyone says that being a parent is tough. I know that better than most, having had my son at the tender age of seventeen. Although I was a teen parent, it didn’t make me any less of one. In fact, having my son so young made me more determined to give him a happy and normal life. And in those moments when I start to doubt my decision, I looked in his face and remember why I’ve made the decisions I’ve made. I tell myself that everything I’ve done, I’ve done for him.
But, what they don’t tell you is you can do everything right and still have it all go wrong.
I thought it was going to be a regular Wednesday night at my tattoo shop, Enchanted Ink. We hadn’t had a customer all day and I was playing around with a new sketch of a tattoo design that I dreamt of the night before. My cat, Sheba was circling around my ankles and rubbing up against the bare skin there.
I would have thought she was being extra loving, but I knew her better than that. She was giving me her feed me purr and I fell for it like always. She then scampered towards her bowl which I had in the corner of my studio. I walked over to where she was mewing next to her now empty bowl. She was such a glutton.
“I filled this bowl an hour ago,” I chastised her as I nuzzled her under her chin. Her purr was so loud it made my hand vibrate. She knew just how to play me.
My cat Sheba aka The Queen of Sheba was a Bombay, the only cat bred to be panther like. Bombays were also the only breed that solely produced black cats. Sheba was my familiar and if she could talk she’d tell you she was the real Queen of this castle. I was mostly there to make her life more comfortable.
I’m not saying that she didn’t come in handy, not at all. Most sorceress didn’t have a need for a familiar, but I had Sheba before I turned into a Sorceress. I The ‘Big S’ was what I liked to call my transformation from normal witch to full on sorceress.
“Must not have given her enough,” Tyler said from the doorway a twinkle in his green eye, always in his green eye. Tyler had heterochromia, his eyes were two different colors, one brown and the other green. It was a side effect of his condition. One of the more pleasant side effects.
Tyler looked down at his sneakers and his riotous tumble of curls fell into his eyes. His tall and lanky frame took up the whole space and I marveled at how much he’d grown. He wasn’t my little boy anymore by a long shot, but that didn’t stop me from being his mom.
“So, it’s pretty dead in here,” he started.
I shook my head no. I knew exactly what he was getting at. He’d been hounding me all day to let him leave early, but I was trying to teach him responsibility. Which meant that even if I did want to close up shop, I wasn’t going to. Responsibility today meant doing his work with pride, not playing on his cell, and finally him cleaning up the backroom which held our supplies.
“If you make it quick in the backroom, we can close,” I said. I watched him light up. It was the same smile he had when I said thirty more minutes of TV on a school night or that he could play one more video game. I watched him grab the broom and dust pan and sling them over his right shoulder.
“Make sure it’s spick and span back there?” I called out to his retreating back.
“What does that even mean?” He asked.
“Just something your grandfather used to say,” I said and then immediately regretted it. I watched him pause before he started walking back to the supply room again.
I cursed myself for uttering even a word about that man and went back to my sketch.
After a few minutes, I heard him quietly shuffle over to where I was sketching. "So, are we like never going to see grandpa again?" He asked me.
I faked a smile. "Don't you see him enough every Sunday on TV," I said.
"And in reruns," he joked. I laughed though the mirth didn't reach my eyes. My father a religious man was overcome when I became pregnant with Tyler, but that didn’t match the fury when he found out what Tyler was. Right after I had him we were summarily kicked out of the Ford household.
The sound of the motion sensors on my door alerted me to a new customer, which I thought was odd since it was about 15 minutes until our posted closing time. I mean I was a good artist but I didn't like to do rush jobs and I definitely didn't like staying past closing time if I didn't have to.
I turned away from my sketch and towards the front of the shop. Sometimes we got some creeper type customers because we were located across from one of the oldest landmarks in Clarksburg. A lot of people believed that this whole area was haunted because of it. The truth was far more sinister than any harmless hauntings.
Clarksburg was named for trader John Clarke, and was established at the intersection of the main road between Georgetown and Frederick and an old Seneca trail. The Natives that lived near the trail were pushed off the land, which was once blessed. They cursed the land for anyone who participated in the annihilation of them as well as their descendants. The legends say that their blood is still seeped in the soil.
One of its earliest white inhabitants was a man named Michael Ashford Dowden, who in 1752 received permission for forty acres of land from the colonial government. That land was called "Hammer Hill" and two years later he was granted permission to build an inn. The history of the inn for most was no more than a footnote in history. However, the inn hosted the army of General Edward Braddock during the French and Indian War, further cursing the land. It also served as a meeting place for local Sons of Liberty before the American Revolution, giving more credence as being a place to plan and prepare for war.
That Inn still stood as a frame structure called Ordinal House. My shop sat in a quaint looking shopping center across the street from it. The shopping center façade was made using an earthy red brick to make it appear as old as the curse inn a
cross from it.
I reached out with my magic to get a feel for who had come through the door. I didn’t sense any magical powers in the person, so it was definitely a Norm. Norms or normals were those that were solely human with no magic at all.
I had my whole shop tricked out with powerful wards to keep out those whom he wished to do me harm. But that didn’t stop the occasional wayward customer who although not malicious, wanted to cause some mischief.
“We’re closed,” I yelled to the front of the store.
Chapter Two
“Sign says you close in a few minutes,” the voice said.
I knew that voice anywhere. I heard his footsteps come towards the back of the shop where Tyler and I were. The man who the voice belonged to certainly was not my average tattoo customer.
He was dressed impeccably and wore a tailored navy blue suit that seemed to make his amber skin glow. His dark curly hair was cut precisely, but with enough length to show that he had a playful side. His dark brown eyes were continually roving looking for something, anything out of place or dangerous. I guess that was one of the things that I loved about him.
Detective Chase was my knight in shining armor, if knights still existed. He had gotten Tyler and I out of a jam when Tyler turned sixteen. It was a case of a supernatural nature and the good detective made sure to solve the case without leaking our secret.
It wasn't that the people of Clarksburg didn't know about the existence of us Supes, but I was reluctant to throw it in their faces. Not to mention that Tyler and I weren’t your average garden-variety supernaturals. I was a sorceress of which there were short supply, at least in the Tri-State area of Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia. And Tyler, he was something else altogether.
There were a lot of Norms in town that would love to see us wiped out of existence. It was something about our powers that made a lot of people nervous, to say the least. And sometimes that envy could have deadly consequences.
I walked towards Chase and he leaned down to give me a chaste kiss on my lips. "Eww,” Tyler said squirming. “Can y’all not do that in front of me.”
“Stop being ridiculous," I said to Tyler. He wasn't a child anymore. He was turning eighteen this weekend. "Now that you're an official grown-up you can at least act like one."
"Speaking of birthdays," Chase said as he threw a wrapped package he took of the pocket of his coat. Tyler caught the package and started to open it.
"Why don't you wait until your party?" I asked him.
"Aww mom, you’re not still trying to throw me a party, are you? I'm not a little kid anymore, I don't need a party.”
I walked over to Tyler and pinched his cheek, “You'll always be my little kid," I said and then kissed him on the cheek. “Plus, you’ll be going off to college in the fall and I won’t be able to do things like this,” I added.
Tyler had gotten accepted to Georgetown University on a full academic scholarship. He had already decided that he was going to be a theology major. His grandfather might've been proud, if he was capable of being proud of someone he deemed an abomination.
"Alright mom, just this one last time," he said.
“Good I've already invited all your friends," I said with a laugh.
Chase walked over to the easel where I had been sketching, "Hey Tray, what's this you’ve been drawing?” he asked.
"I don't know it's just something that came to me in a dream."
"You know it looks like something from a new case I'm working on. A teenage girl was murdered last night. Looks like some type of ritualized killing," he said as he scrolled through the pictures on his cell phone. He stopped scrolling and held his cell up to me.
The first thing I noticed was that Jacinda Lewis AKA Tyler’s girlfriend and guest number one to his birthday party this weekend was the murder victim. The second thing I noticed was that written in her blood on the wall was the exact symbol I had been sketching from my dream. Maybe a party wasn’t such a good idea.
I slowly handed the cell phone back to Chase and took a hold of his arm. “Tyler, Chase and I need to discuss something we’ll be back in a few minutes can you lock up the store for me? I’ll meet you out front in fifteen. “I hustled Chase out of the shop and onto street where I leaned up against my 1995 Toyota Corolla. The only thing grounding me to reality right now was the reassuring coolness of the metal of my hood.
In a moment of an uncharacteristic kindness, must step father bought me this car is a sweet 16 present. It served me well over the next almost 20 years. She never broke down on me and I kept her running like a well oiled machine.My magic helped with that a bit. I didn’t totally keep around for nostalgia sake. Modern technology tended to go but daddy with us magical types.
It was late and the sky was lit up by a sprinkling of stars. The streets had quaint old fashioned looking lamp posts that provided enough light that you wouldn’t be afraid of getting mugged. Across the street stood the Ordinal House, our most famous landmark.
For those in the know, it was also a place central to the ley lines in our county. In fact, most of them converged right there. It was the equivalent of a magical nuclear reactor site in your neighborhood. Good thing the Norms only knew moderately about the power there. I crossed my arms in front of me trying to decide how much I should tell Chase.
I looked around the street again and saw that it was empty. A lot of the shops had already closed at eight, but I like my shop to stay open a little later. It gave it a little more of an edgy appeal. My customers liked that they could come in late at night and get a tatt done, listen to some cool music from my awesome playlist, and if they were lucky eat a treat or two that I baked earlier in the day.
“What is it Traylor?” he asked. “You looked spooked back there and I’ve never known you to have an aversion to blood.”
Spooked wasn’t the word. What he showed me hit a little too close to home. Not just because it was Tyler’s girlfriend, but the dream I’ve had the night before didn’t give me the warm fuzzies.
I had tried to shrug it off earlier in the day, but it kept nagging me. That was why I decided to sketch it, hoping it would trigger some memory of mine, but I got bupkis. So, seeing that symbol again written in Tyler’s girlfriend’s blood made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
“That girl the picture. That’s Jacinda Lewis,” I started. Chase just nodded, but I knew he was taking it all in. The switch from boyfriend hat to detective hat was palpable. He didn’t take out a notepad or anything, but I could see the gears in his mind working. “She is… She was Tyler’s girlfriend.”
Chapter Three
I was still in shock at seeing the photo of Jacinda lifeless on the floor surrounded by her own blood. Her skin that was always so luminescent and fresh with youth now held a deathly pallor. Her hair that she had cut into a funky undercut after graduation was now in a disarray, sticking up all over her head in odd angles. I didn’t want to remember her like this and I know that Tyler wouldn’t either. I was going to make sure that he didn’t see her in this way, that he would always remember her with beauty and life.
“Do you need to sit down?” Chase asked me. Holding on to my elbow gently guiding me to sit on the curb. I sat down and put my head in my hands. I could feel Chase sit next to me, his knee touched mine lightly.
“I know this is a bad time, but I have to ask you something,” Chase started. “Where was Tyler last night?”
“I can’t believe you’re asking me that.”
“You know I have to,” he countered.
“You’ve known Tyler since he was sixteen. Do you really think he’s capable of something like this?
“Of course not, but I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t ask.”
Part of me knew he was right, but the mother hen in me wanted to peck his eyes out. How he could think my Tyler could do something like this to someone he loved infuriated me. Tyler had given Jacinda a promise ring on prom night. He knew I thought they were both too young to make a
decision like marriage, but he assured me she was the one.
I told him if he really thought that, then they could wait until after college. He made a deal with me to wait, but bought a promise ring for her to seal the deal with her. He had told me how overjoyed she was, as if it were a real engagement ring. And now she was lifeless, dead, and someone had murdered her.
I hated to ask Chase this question, but I needed to see it. “Chase, can you take me to the crime scene?”
It took a lot of cajoling, but here we were in Chase’s car speeding to Jacinda’s home. I told Tyler we’d be back soon and to just wait at the shop. I didn’t have the heart to tell him what had happened. Plus, I knew if I did he’d insist that he come with us. Chase was already taking a risk just taking me to an active crime scene.
“Thanks for letting me do this,” I started. Chase just looked straight ahead to the highway.
“I could get fired or worse, charged with tampering with a crime scene,” he finally answered.
“I know,” I said and turned on the radio. The music filled the car while I zoned out so I could think about what I knew so far. Truthfully not much, I just had a hunch. It couldn’t be a coincidence that the symbol that turned up in my dream also turned up at a crime scene involving someone I knew. I wondered if this was a message. What it could be saying, I had no idea.
“We’re here,” Chase said as he put the car in park. I hadn’t realized how much time had passed. We were over in the wealthy section of Clarksburg. There were three sections of Clarksburg and none of them were what you’d call poor. The median salary here was six-figures.
While Tyler and I stayed in a nice apartment. Near Harris Teeter, score! We weren’t rolling in the dough, though. All the money I had, I used to put into my shop. Which equated to a small inheritance from a grandfather I never met on my mother’s side. Everything we had I worked hard for it.
