Contents
TITLE PAGE
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
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Thanks For Reading
GHOST CLAN
PHOENIX THRONE BOOK ONE
HEATHER WALKER
Copyright © 2018 Heather Walker
Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
Chapter 1
“This is stupid!” Carmen Hendricks stuffed her fists into her down vest pockets and hunched her shoulders. “I don’t care what you guys say. I’m not doing it.”
Hazel Green shuffled her tarot cards and didn’t look up. “If you think it’s so stupid, you don’t have to do it. The rest of us will do it instead. We don’t need you.”
Carmen looked away, but she didn’t leave the circle.
Hazel laid out her cards in a star pattern on her living room carpet. Scented candles already burned around the room. Hazel dragged out every movement to make it take as long as possible. She checked the four faces around her to make sure her theatrics produced the maximum effect.
Carmen shifted in her seat. Sitting cross-legged on the floor put her feet to sleep. She longed to stretch them or walk around the room, but she didn’t move. In her seven years as a cop, she never bought into all this supernatural stuff, but the investigator in her just had to see what happened. If this whole wacky experiment flopped, she could laugh in Hazel’s face.
Of all the kooky ideas Hazel came up with in the ten years Carmen knew her, this capped them all. Carmen met Hazel, along with the other three women in the room, in their college dorm when they first left home. They’d been friends ever since, and New Aged Hazel dragged them along on every flight of fancy that entered her head.
For some reason, Carmen’s skepticism didn’t bother Hazel. She always insisted on including Carmen in her seances, her incantations, her energy readings, and every other fad she ever cooked up.
Not that Carmen blamed Hazel. Hazel got off to a bad start with a Wiccan for a mother and a Hare Krishna for a father. Hazel showed up to the first Orientation Day at the dorm wearing her hair loose down to her waist, a full-length purple paisley skirt, a jingling anklet, and no shoes. Poor girl. She never had a chance. Ten years later, she still searched the world for that one elusive trend that would bring all the puzzle pieces together.
She still wore her hair too long and unstyled. She never learned how to dress. She always experimented with fashion trends and failed to make them work. Right now, her long flowing organza pants cinched too tight around her scarecrow waist. A flouncy orange blouse hid whatever chest she might have underneath. Her clothes gave her no shape at all, and her scrawny head stuck up on her spindly neck at a weird angle.
Carmen fingered her pager in her vest pocket. With any luck, it would go off and give her an excuse to get out of this. She cast a quick glance around the room. Her other three friends watched Hazel, too, each with a different expression on her face.
Grace Spencer stared up at Hazel in wide-eyed worship. She came from solid middle-class schoolteacher parents who would never have anything to do with the supernatural, the out-there, or anything beyond their comfortable little neighborhood. Grace wanted to be Hazel. She would have been if she only dared break out of her shell once in a while.
As far as Carmen knew, Grace never even had a boyfriend. She rebelled against her parents by refusing to get a teaching credential. She went into education administration instead, and her parents didn’t speak to her for a year after she changed her major.
Even then, she dressed like a school teacher. She wore her sandy brown hair in a spherical coiffure around her head and loud dowdy jewelry clinked at her neck and wrists. She wore skirts below the knee and a stiff sport jacket over a shirt with lapels too wide for the jacket. She folded her panty-hosed legs to one side under her, and her low pumps sat in the corner where she kicked them.
Elle Watson checked her watch. Her plain brown hair cut straight across her jawline at the perfect length, and no one could find fault with the business suit she wore. She battled bigotry and the glass ceiling to become the youngest CEO of a major investment house with a paycheck to match.
Of everyone in the circle, Carmen admired Elle the most. Petite and wiry, Elle hid a rock-solid body of hard muscle under that suit. She lifted heavy weighs three days a week, but she never bulked up. She kept trim, lean, and absolutely hard as chiseled granite. She brooked no nonsense from anybody, but she always had a soft spot for Hazel.
Elle felt sorry for Hazel. That’s why she went along with all Hazel’s lunatic experiments, and Elle would never, never laugh in Hazel’s face if one of them failed. She patted Hazel on the back and assured her it would work out next time. That’s what Carmen admired most about Elle. She could slash and burn through the financial world all day and still sympathize with her friend after hours. She had a heart—a bigger heart than Carmen herself.
And then there was Carmen herself. She wore her down vest over a simple knit t-shirt, close-fitting black jeans, and sensible, flat-heeled boots. She might be in her plain clothes right now, but she had to be ready for anything. She wore her hair buzzed on the sides and a cap of black curls on top.
Life as a cop didn’t endear Carmen to the likes of Hazel. She had no time for Hazel or her ridiculous malarkey. Still, Carmen wished she could play it off the way Elle did. She wished she could be a little more human instead of this Terminator robot with armor three feet thick.
Sadie Cole studied Hazel’s every move. Sadie always studied everything. She didn’t care if an idea came from out back of beyond or straight out of Encyclopedia Britannica. If it happened in front of her, or on the internet, or anywhere else, it was worth her studying it.
She watched Hazel set out the sage smudge sticks, the rose petals, and the bowl of lavender-infused water at key places around the circle. She took in every detail.
Medical school never dampened Sadie’s thirst for knowledge. She graduated with honors from Stanford Medical School. She could have gone on to do great things and make great money, but she chose a career in public health instead. She just cared about people. She took extra time to get to know every patient that came to see her. Every conversation, every nuance of facial expression interested her no end.
Sadie brushed her silky dark hair out of her eyes and scooted into position when Hazel waved her forward to join the circle. Sadie s
till wore her blue scrubs from the hospital where she worked. She came straight over after work instead of going home to change first.
Hazel spread her arms wide and intoned deep in her throat. She used a voice completely different from her everyday squeaky crackle. “Now we must all join hands and repeat the spell.”
Carmen snorted to herself. Magic spell—yeah, right.
The others moved into position. Elle put out her hand. “You, too, Carmen.”
Carmen wouldn’t have moved for anyone else, but she couldn’t disobey Elle. She crab-walked into the circle and took Elle’s hand on one side and Sadie’s on the other. Holding hands with those two didn’t seem half so idiotic. If they could go along with this, Carmen could, too. She never could have coped with holding Grace’s hand or Hazel’s.
Hazel cast a significant glance around her circle of friends. “Now repeat the words after me, and we will all be instantly transported to King Arthur’s court in Camelot.”
Carmen thanked Heaven there was no chance of this actually working. The last thing in this world she wanted to do was spend time somewhere without running water, without firearms and ammunition, and without antibiotics.
Hazel drawled something, but Carmen didn’t listen. The sooner she got out of this, the better. She had another double shift to work tomorrow.
Elle squeezed her hand. “Pay attention. We all have to repeat the words, or the spell won’t work.”
Carmen dragged her senses back to the circle. All the others repeated the words after Hazel. Carmen forced herself to listen and repeat them, too.
“Mnistoh, mnylnin, ini dheflo llyatta lladdepas sefrimi viaphreen urlu…”
Where did Hazel come up with this stuff, anyway? Carmen felt stupid repeating this nonsense, but when she heard Sadie puzzle out the exact pronunciation to make sure she got it right and Elle lifting her voice to give the spell more inflection, Carmen joined in, too.
Hazel nodded encouragement. She talked louder and raised her voice to the rafters. She swelled out her chest until she shouted out the words to whatever cosmic force heard her.
Grace shut her eyes and swayed back and forth. Sadie’s fingers tightened on Carmen’s hand. The tension around the circle escalated to a fevered pitch. The spirit of casting a magic spell infected Carmen, too. She put more emphasis on the words. In spite of herself, she found herself throwing herself into it.
At that moment, the candles in the room all snuffed out at once. They left the room in darkness, but only Carmen noticed. The others kept chanting the words over and over until their madness caught Carmen in its power. She joined the chorus.
All of a sudden, a blaze of fire shot out of the bowl of lavender water. The smudge stick burst into flame, and the light flashed through the room. For one instant, Carmen caught sight of her friends ranged in a circle around her. She got one searing glimpse of their faces.
The next instant, a puff of smoke exploded in the center of the circle. It burst forth from the point where the ten tarot cards joined to form the spokes of a wheel pointing out at the women surrounding it.
The puff struck Carmen in the face. It knocked her backwards at the same moment it hit all four of her friends. It broke the link between their hands. All five women toppled back on the carpet, and Carmen knew no more.
Chapter 2
Angus Cameron stood atop the tallest hill he could find in this strange country. He closed his eyes and let the wind whip through his sandy blonde hair. At least the sun made the day pleasant after a solid week of freezing, torrential rain and gale force winds.
The breeze didn’t chill him anymore. The sun thawed his aching bones, but he refused to show his discomfort. Fate didn’t select him to lead his ragtag band of followers for nothing. He traversed all this land, and he would traverse the same again to accomplish his aim.
He would have lingered there on the sunny hilltop a lot longer if his brother Callum hadn’t come up behind him. “Can ye see ought from up ‘ere?”
Angus snapped his eyes open, but he didn’t turn around. “Nae, naught. That wee breezelet slowed us down.”
Callum laughed out loud, and his heavy hand slammed down on Angus’s shoulder. “Breezelet! By Heaven, that’s the mon for me! Breezelet!”
Angus bit back a smile. “Gang ye back down the hill and roust the others. We mun’ be making miles before we lose the sun.”
Callum thumped down the hill behind Angus’s back on his return to the little camp tucked beyond the trees. Angus could count on Callum to get everyone on their feet and moving when Angus himself couldn’t do it. Callum could do more with sheer brawn than Angus could do with persuasion.
The leader’s life got a lot more complicated than Angus bargained for when the little party left their home castle to cross the Highlands in search of a distant shot at survival. Angus would have given anything to stay behind those stout fortress walls, but circumstances drove him into the open.
He could use brawn when he needed to, but he couldn’t convince his people to follow him that way. He had to use wit and innuendo. He had to connive and cajole. How he hated it!
The clink of metal called him to turn around. Ten people emerged from the forest and crossed the field toward his hill. Ten men. That’s all he had in the world, and ten men couldn’t win the battle facing them. Angus knew that now. He didn’t want to admit it to himself, but seven hard weeks on the rough trail taught him a few things.
He trotted down the hill and took his place in line with the others. He didn’t bother taking the front. He left that to Callum. The others would have slit his throat a long time ago if Callum hadn’t stood by him. Through all the defeats, the deaths and desertions, Callum never wavered. Angus had to do this—for Callum if not for himself. He had to prove Callum hadn’t made a mistake by supporting him.
Angus cast an appraising glance over the company the way he usually did in these moments of respite. He gauged every man and his temper, his mood, his strength. Without really meaning too, Angus calculated the likelihood of each man standing his ground in another confrontation with the enemy.
After all they faced together, Angus should know better than to question these men. They stood against unspeakable odds, and they kept fighting and pushing forward when Angus wanted to give up and die.
Good old Callum forged across the field and never hesitated when the time came to plunge into another foreboding patch of woods across the stream beyond. Four years younger than Angus, Callum never shrank from any adventure in his life. He put on the face of a man who never fears anything, but Angus knew better.
In his youth, Callum suffered night terrors. He woke up screaming, kicking, and thrashing in the big bed Angus shared with his brothers. Even then, he outweighed everyone in it and left a bruise when his heel struck a leg or a rib.
For three months, he swore he saw a ghostly apparition standing at the foot of the bed. He described it in detail. He said it was a beautiful lady dressed all in white, except she bore a cutlass scar across her cheek. She spoke to him, but no sound came out of her mouth.
Angus’s father, old Robbie Cameron, took his broad leather belt to Callum for telling lies. Angus found Callum crying in the stable more than once, not from the whipping, but from sheer terror he would see the dead lady again. He wasn’t ten years old at the time. Angus put his arm around his brother’s shoulders and held him until he stopped crying, but he could do nothing to help him.
After three months of constant tension and uncertainty, Angus woke in the middle of the night while Callum still slept in the bed next to him. Their other brothers snored and didn’t notice the shimmering specter hovering at the foot of the bed.
Angus froze stiff. He couldn’t breathe to wake anybody up. The lady’s mouth moved, just the way Callum described it. Angus’s blood ran cold, and the hair stood up along his back. In desperation to do something, anything, he groped to one side and gripped the first leg he found.
His second brother, young Robbie, started out a d
ead sleep. He whipped upright before his eyes fully opened. Then he saw the lady, too. Both brothers watched in stunned horror until the ghost disappeared.
The next morning, they went together to their father to tell what they’d seen. Their father said nothing. He never apologized to Callum for making a mistake, and nothing more was said about the incident. The ghost lady never returned, and peace descended over the Cameron household once more.
Angus always trusted Robbie. Robbie never bucked Angus’s authority for being the oldest, and the two supported each other through everything. They ruled their other three brothers together, but while Callum clung to Angus after the ghost incident, the youngest two always fawned on Robbie.
Taller than the others with thick curly copper hair, a divine light glowed out of Robbie. Anyone could believe he was destined to rule the Camerons, but destiny played a trick on him by making him second to Angus.
No one felt this more than Angus, and he deferred to Robbie whenever possible. Robbie even carried his father’s name. Angus wished more than once on this ill-fated journey he’d been born second. He would gladly hand over the reins to his younger brother, but that could never be.
The younger two, Fergus and Jamie, never questioned what their older three brothers decided to do. If the older three decided to leave their ruined castle to trek across dangerous lands in search of something no one knew existed, who were they to question it?
As it happened, Angus had plenty of opportunity to praise Providence they agreed to come. The older of the two, Fergus considered everything more deeply. He saw things in the distance Angus learned a long time ago not to ask about. Fergus heard things in the wind and thought things in his mind no mortal would ever understand. Of all five brothers, he comprehended the stakes best, but he never gave anything away.
He knew how to fight, though. No one dared stand up to his sword, and he saved his brothers’ lives more than once by warning them of danger and defending them when it came.
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