Black Market (The Wizard Hall Chronicles Book 2)

by Sheryl Steines

  With their hands still in handshake, with magic swirling around them, Melichi had no choice but to make the deal as stated.

  He’d better not add to the deal.

  “Yes. The Fraternitatem will not go to the U.S. for any reason. I apologize for the murder of Benaiah outside your black market portal. We should have dealt with the body in a much more discreet manner.”

  “But you didn’t, and you’ve caused many difficulties. It isn’t easy to do a memory modification for the entire population of the earth,” Annie accused.

  The magic that bound their agreement snaked around each of their hands as a golden light shimmered and sparkled, binding them together. When the magic completed its task, it dissipated in the cave air.

  Still with their hands connected Melichi said, “Again, I do apologize for that inconvenience. We had every intention of leaving with Benaiah’s body, but we would have been discovered. Better you found him than us exposing magic.

  He released his hand from hers. She slipped the ring from her finger and handed it to him.

  He sneered at her briefly after putting the ring on his finger. “I didn’t order Rathbone to kill your father. Rathbone took it upon himself to handle an unfortunate situation. I actually tried to recruit your father to join us,” Melichi said.

  Annie couldn’t hide her surprise and didn’t know how to respond to that revelation.

  Dad never would have.

  Annie didn’t trust Melichi. In her gut, she believed her father had died because of this case, regardless of whose idea it was or who had carried out the plan. The tears began to well in her eyes; she didn’t want Melichi to see her weakness.

  Without another word, Annie turned and left the cave, teleporting from the entrance to collect Gibbs and Spencer and head home.

  Prologue

  Rebekah Stoner was fired from her job as a television journalist. She was confused as to why she couldn’t remember any of the events that led to her dismissal. It was as if those memories had been completely removed from her brain.

  Whatever caused her firing mattered little anymore; she had spent the last several days at home preparing resumes and DVDs highlighting her experience. It could only be done in small shifts, since she was far too distracted to sit still. She took to walking around the neighborhood. Every day for a week, Rebekah’s walks grew in distance, and she stayed away from home longer. Still, her excursions offered her no answers for the hell her life had descended into.

  On a lovely day in early spring, Rebekah walked herself to Millennium Park along Lake Michigan. It hadn’t been a plan, and if someone had asked, she wouldn’t have had an answer as to why she was aimlessly walking past The Bean. She sat herself on one of the open benches and watched people walk by.

  Tourists shopped across the street or ate at the many restaurants in the area. As they flitted about, they seemed light and free of stress as though none of them understood the weight that Rebekah felt in her chest.

  This place, this bench felt familiar and comforting, and yet Rebekah didn’t know why. She hadn’t been to this park since she first moved to Chicago five years ago. And yet…

  The first nice day in many months was drawing visitors to the park; it was crowded. Benches were packed except for hers, so Rebekah wasn’t surprised when a woman she didn’t recognize, older than her with cropped salt-and-pepper hair, asked if she could sit on the bench beside her.

  “Sure. It’s public property,” Rebekah said and moved a newspaper that had been left behind.

  “It’s a beautiful day,” the woman said.

  “Yeah, it is. I’m Rebekah by the way.” She held out her hand.

  “Arden Blakely.” They shook hands lightly and rested them in their laps. It was quiet between them for a moment as they continued to observe the crowds pass by. A family near them took pictures of each other and the city skyline. The harried mother worked diligently to keep her children from wandering off.

  “You look familiar,” Arden said. “Don’t you work for Channel 5 news?”

  Rebekah shrunk away. “I used to.”

  “Sorry. I liked your stories. Why did you quit?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know.” Rebekah couldn’t shake the melancholy and wiped a tear from her eye.

  “I feel the same. I keep wandering. I just can’t get focused.”

  Arden glanced at the newspaper and then back to the family that had been taking pictures; the smallest child was running off, leaving her mother to drop a diaper bag and run after her. “It’s a beautiful day.”

  “Yes, it is,” Rebekah answered.

  *

  The minute Annie returned home from the Cave of Ages, she went on medical leave. Being injured twice in a week was just enough to claim compensation time and she gladly stayed in bed past eight in the morning when the sun burst through the curtains, blinding her.

  Once she was awake, her mind raced to the missing file that her father had probably stored in the house, if he really had hidden it. Leaving Cham to a few more minutes of sleep, Annie climbed out of bed.

  There was only one place in the house Annie hadn’t bothered searching for the file, and that was the basement.

  Still unfinished, the room was cold and damp, so Annie zipped up her warm hoodie and stood at the center of the crowded space, surveying any possible locations to hide a file. Maybe in the walls or under the floor or maybe in the air vents. Annie only ever used this space for storage and laundry.

  She started with the laundry room, going through the door in the back wall. Thumping on the walls, she assessed the sound, searching for a possible void in the wall. When she found nothing, she checked behind the water heater, thinking her father may have shoved it back there. With no sign of a file, Annie turned and saw the remnants of Zola’s ordeal. She had been held in this room prior to being taken to the dungeon. Remains of the iron shackles lay on the floor.

  Annie picked up the iron and carried them to the next room, thinking of what to do with the hard metal.

  Stepping back inside the larger basement, Annie scanned the walls and floors with a quick look.

  The crawl space!

  There was an open space beneath the staircase that headed to the second floor. Annie had never seen what was stored underneath, if anything was there at all.

  She sat on the cold floor and pushed on the panel, but it wouldn’t slide open, either manually or with magic. The door wouldn’t budge. With a summoned crystal, Annie held the rock over the opening, moving it from top to bottom; the rock glowed brightly.

  She captured the magic and stared into the crystal. The magic was old, very possibly eight years old.

  “Hey,” Cham said, walking over to her as he rubbed sleep from his eyes. “Whatcha doing?”

  “I think I found a hiding spot.” She handed him her crystal so he could read the magic.

  “Ah… that’s a really simple spell,” he noted.

  I thought the same thing.

  It surprised her how simple her father had made the spell.

  Maybe Dad assumed no one would ever look here.

  “You really think it’s as easy as that?” Annie asked, mostly because she was still shocked how basic of a spell her father had used.

  “Yeah. I do.” The doorbell rang. “I’ll get it. You open,” he offered and headed back upstairs.

  Annie waved her palm across the crawl space door, sending a reversal spell into the panel; the door slid open as if it there was nothing to it. “Really, Dad?” Annie murmured. She summoned a flashlight and peered inside the space that filled with cobwebs, dirt, and what Annie thought was a nest. After shuddering, she spotted a box in the far corner. Maybe he had thought the bugs, dead mice, and spider webs would keep someone away.

  Like me?

  Or maybe Annie could just summon the box, which floated easily to her.

  “You got an unmarked package,” Cham said, handing her an envelope addressed to her with no return address.

  “Odd. But lo
ok,” she announced proudly and showed him the box.

  “So Jason did hide the file. You okay to look inside?”

  Am I okay?

  Ryan had given Annie his full support to investigate her father’s case. She lifted the box and floated it beside her as she walked up the stairs with her unmarked package.

  “I don’t recognize the handwriting,” Annie said. She ran her crystal over the package; it didn’t glow.

  Feeling a thick paper inside, Annie ripped open the seal and peered inside. It was not what she expected. She slipped the contents on the table.

  “It’s… what the hell, this is a French newspaper.”

  The paper was folded with purpose; a picture attached to an article was clearly visible. And at the center of the picture, a red circle was drawn around a face. Annie summon a magnifying glass and examined the picture as Cham looked on from behind.

  “Oh crap,” she exclaimed as she held the glass and stared into the picture.

  “That can’t be.”

  They stared at a picture of Princess Amelie, alive and walking among a crowd.

  The End

  Author’s Note

  It took me several years to find the right story for the second book in the Annie Loves Cham series. After publishing what was supposed to be Book Two, called She Wulf, I received some horribly bad reviews on the book, and for a week, I couldn’t form words. It hurt too much, and all I could do was cry.

  Within a few months after releasing She Wulf, I promised myself I would pick myself up and dust myself off and start the third book and move on with the series. I had several ideas, and even started writing a few, but I found myself in a position where nothing worked. None of the plots propelled the story of Annie and Cham forward in a meaningful way.

  It was nearly a two-year struggle. After trying to write two different stories, I almost gave up. If it weren’t for several people, I just might have, but in the end, I couldn’t give up on a dream I’ve had since I was seven years old.

  So I did something radical, something most authors don’t take on. Before I had a chance to fully think through my decision, I saved the last draft of The Day of First Sun as something like draft number 114, and I started a new rewrite.

  It was as though I was looking at the story through a new set of eyes. There were plot points that I had never resolved, other scenes that I felt were unnecessary to the story, and an editor told me that out of all of the relationships in the book, none of them were new—they were all already established. Some of them, this editor advised, might be better served as if they were written as new contacts.

  And she was right. As I rewrote the entire book, I saw new aspects of the story pop out. I made changes, and the story became fuller, with more action and more trouble. My characters no longer solved the crimes easily. I added purpose.

  The decision to rewrite Book One affected the course of my life for two years. And in the end, after three more edits, a new book cover, and a completely restructured series, I couldn’t be happier with the end result. While waiting between my final edits, I finally found the story for Book Two that propelled the story further, that allowed my characters to grow and change and allow the series to be more complete and interconnected, like never before.

  It was a long journey in which I learned how to effectively edit a story, how to tie up loose ends, when to put characters in compromising positions, how to add color to an otherwise fun plot. While finishing the final edits to The Day of First Sun, I was able to finally create Book Two, the story that you now know as Black Market. It was the right story in which to continue to build the series, a good vehicle to observe Annie Pearce and Cham Chamsky as they grow and change. It is the right story for the series, for Annie and Cham and their team of friends.

  The rest of the series has a structure and a life. The first draft of book three is complete, and the fourth book is waiting for a rewrite. I can’t wait to finish the stories and share them with you. I hope you enjoyed the second installment in the series.

  I thank my children and my family and friends for their support, for reading the book and offering suggestions, or for selling with me at a local book fair. And I thank the fans who have reached out to me and let me know how much they’ve enjoyed the story.

  About the Author

  I’ve known since the age of 7 years old that I wanted to be a writer. Unfortunately, life zig zagged me down a path so far from that dream that it took meeting a former classmate and published author, for me to finally find the focus and rekindle the passion to write my first book.

  When I’m not writing, I’m hanging with my kids and husband, tooling around in my convertible, reading, or pretending to be an interior designer.

  If you like Annie and Cham, Like me on Facebook at Author Sheryl Steines, follow me on Twitter @SherylSteines and let me know what you think of The Wizard Hall Chronicles on my website at www.Sherylsteines.com.