“Are you… okay?” I asked.
“I am… I feel… whole,” she said. Her French accent was like music to my ears, her vibrancy like a beautiful sunset, warm and welcoming.
She struggled to her feet, shook off her daze, and flexed her fingers. I watched, waited, and hoped that we had actually rescued Collette and not given the Shadow what it wanted. But when she looked at me and smiled my fears began to fade into the aether.
“Collette?” Damien said.
The Necromancer looked at him and nodded. “Thank you. All of you,” she said, “You have saved my life. Now let me take us home.”
Sweeter words had never been said.
CHAPTER 26
With Collette’s magick restored she had the power to rip open a portal wide enough for us all to get home without having to back track through the Underworld, a fact I was truly grateful for. She extended her hands out in front of herself, clasped at empty air, and pulled the black apart to reveal the warm light of day, but as we made our way through and entered the world of the living we realized that we had travelled far. Real far. The trees, the hills and the mountains we were in put us at almost fifty miles north of Raven’s Glen!
Still, stepping into the cool, fresh breeze with the sun shining brightly in the East was like stepping into a warm, scented bath. I sighed, took in a deep breath of clean, living air, and smiled at the Horned God of the Sun, Helios, for seeing us safely through the ordeal.
No sooner had I stepped through the portal that I pulled my phone out of the waterproof bag Damien had been safely holding onto and called Aaron. It took me a moment to get a signal, but when I heard his voice on the other end of the line, my heart soared.
“Aaron!” I said.
“Amber? Fuck. Where are you?”
“I’m… I don’t know. I’ll have to track my position in a second. I just wanted to hear your voice.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, a little cut up but I’m fine. We’re all fine.”
“Did you do what you wanted to do?”
I glanced at Collette who, in the bright noonday light seemed more out of place than a cactus in a marsh, and smiled. “Yeah, we did. Can you pick us up?”
“I’ll get changed right now. Text me your location and I’ll come get you.”
“Alright. We’ll find the nearest road and walk there.”
“Be careful, okay?”
“Believe me, finding a road and getting down there will be a piece of cake compared to what we’ve just been through.”
Aaron laughed. “I bet. Alright, sit tight.”
I hung up, google-mapped our location, and sent it to Aaron while Frank and Damien waded out of the black portal to the land of the dead and back into the material world. We had emerged on a hill somewhere. All around us were trees, soil, grass. I couldn’t identify any landmarks but I also couldn’t see the city from where we were.
With a wave of Collette’s hand the portal shut—and we were clear.
“Are you guys okay?” I asked.
They nodded.
“I’ll be damned if I go into another cave anytime soon, though,” Frank said, “Don’t you dare ask me to do this again.”
“With any luck I won’t have to,” I said. “Collette… how do you feel?”
“Like myself,” she said, smiling. “I have not felt like zis since… a very long time.”
I turned to Damien. He was clutching the urn against his chest, careful not to drop it. In my mind’s eye I could see the gypsy woman behind us, shimmering like a hallucination and tied to the urn. I smiled, and she smiled back.
I had forgiven her for what she did to me. She only wanted to come back to the world of the living, to finish her business and move on. I didn’t know that ghosts could be thrown into the underworld against their will, but that was the case with her. She knew that, somewhere, up here, her brother roamed the world searching. Lost. She knew she was the only one who could help him cross over, to make the transition. Only then would she be able to move on to whatever existence awaited those ghosts who were allowed to transcend. I wasn’t sorry for her, but I understood.
I would sell someone out for my family, too. It didn’t make me a bad person to think that, either. Anyone would, right? Family comes first. Always. Whether it’s the family you’re born with, or the family you choose. Blood is thicker than water, and down in the Underworld the water ran black and cold.
So Collette bound the ghost to the urn, which had been hers in life, and suffused her with the power to leave the Underworld. As a Necromancer it was Collette’s duty to assist the dead, not just manipulate them. So I left it to her to decide how best to help Madame Aishe. Despite her betrayal she had helped us cross the river and taught me a few things about the Underworld I wouldn’t have otherwise known.
Damien gave the urn to Collette and she stepped lightly down the rocky slope. The rest of us followed, but Frank pulled me back and asked me to wait. We watched Damien and the French Necromancer help each other on the way down for a moment before—
“So how about you tell me about this werewolf of yours.” Frank said. His tone was stern, and it scared me a little.
“I, uh,” I said.
“This is serious shit, Amber.”
“What? I didn’t think to tell you because… I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.”
“Big deal? You remember what those cultists wanted, right? What was written in their book?”
The wolf, the demon and the witch.
“Yeah, I remember.”
“Then you know that if you and Aaron have a kid—”
“Woah, isn’t it a little too soon for you to be talking about us having kids? We’re just—”
“Madly in love, I know. You can’t pull the wool over my eyes, honey. I’ve been in love too many times. I know the signs.”
“We’re careful!”
“Careful doesn’t have shit on Fate, witch. You of all people should know that.”
Hot fumes rose into my chest. My relationship with Aaron was special to me. Sacred. I didn’t like having it questioned. Not by Frank and not by anyone.
“Frank, I—”
“Listen,” he said, before I could speak, “I’m not about to tell you how to run your life. Hell, I like Aaron. The guy’s fucking hot, and I would sell my own sister to step into the sack with a werewolf.” I blushed bright pink. He wasn’t wrong there. Aaron was a beast in the bedroom, but also gentle… and generous. “But if you have a kid, Amber, that child will be hunted, cursed, and will probably live a very tough life.”
“I know,” I said. “I know, Frank. But I, I want to be with him. I deserve him, dammit. I’ve been fucked around one too many times by guys. Aaron is different. But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry I didn’t come clean sooner.”
Frank took me by the hands. His touch was soft and nice, despite the fact that his fingers were caked in dirt and blood. “I’m your friend, Amber. Your brother. I’ve got your back.”
I nodded. It was comforting to hear Frank’s words spoken aloud. I always knew they lived in his heart of hearts, but hearing them touch my ears was melodious.
“Hey guys!” Damien was yelling from the foot of the hill. “Are you coming down or what?”
“What are we going to do about her?” Frank asked.
I cocked my head to look at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, is she going to leave or is she going to stay?”
I turned my eyes down to Collette. She was a stranger here, a foreigner in a foreign land whose powers were as mysterious to me as my own but also coated in a layer of mistrust, like a poisoned dagger.
“She stays,” I said, “She’ll stay in Raven’s Glen and she’ll join our Coven. I helped her with her problem, and now she’s going to help me with mine.”
“Do you think you’re ready for that?”
I turned my face up at Frank and grinned. “I am. Are you?”
To be continued…
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**
Was that creepy or what?
When I look back at the series’ humble beginnings (Midnight Magick), it’s easy to see how the series has improved over time. This makes me happy, and my readers happy, and that’s what’s important, isn’t it? That you buy a book and feel satisfied with it at the end. So if I’ve succeeded there like I hope I have, then I’ve done a good job by you.
Book six - The Red Witch - picks up immediately after the events of the Necromancer, and is available right now!! You won’t want to miss this book. It’s going to be the best one yet, full of danger, thrills, spills, and—of course—that tough relationship drama you’ve come to know is so prevalent in my stories. And to prove it, here’s an excerpt:
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I thought of Aaron and how much I just wanted to wrap myself around him and sleep. Even if I knew I wouldn't ever have an ordinary life, was it impossible to want and have a normal week? Or even a normal day? I would settle for that. I'm not greedy. But Collette had promised me that I would never have a normal life, not as long as this stranger drew breath, and I had read way too many books and watched way too many movies to know that if anyone ever said that to someone, it was probably true.
“We should be doing something then, shouldn’t we?” I asked, “Trying to locate her?”
Collette shook her head. “You are not ready to face such a foe yet, Amber. I am here to prepare you, but if we go searching for ze asp in ze sand we will be bitten before we know what’s hit us.”
“So… we wait?”
“We wait. She will not strike for some time.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because our quarry is immortal; and immortals are slow.”
“Immortal?” There’s that something else, I thought, answering my earlier question. “How is that… how is it even possible?”
“Some say she made a deal with ze devil in exchange for eternal life. Ze story of ze Witch desperate for ze fountain of youth has been told many times, but zis is because it happens more often zan you could imagine. Ze devil would never suffice himself with a single servant.”
“I didn’t… believe… in the devil before this all started,” I said, “Wiccans don’t believe in the devil.”
“But you know ze truth now. And in any case, ze devil is only a name by which to know ze beast. It has many names in many cultures and tongues. Some believe and others do not, but it has great power and has always existed; as has Magick.”
“And one of its servants is after me. What I want to know is why.”
“Because, ma chèrie,” said the Necromancer, “Ze Red Witch is ze only one who can break ze game Linezka has been playing; and she doesn’t want zat.”
Tap here to buy the Red Witch now!
***
As always, if you did enjoy this please be so kind as to go back to where you bought the book and drop a review with your thoughts and comments. Indies thrive on reviews, and I’m happy for each and every one I get. If, on the other hand, you did not enjoy the book, please feel free to drop me an email at [email protected] and let me know why.
Happy reading!
Katerina Martinez
www.katerinamartinez.com
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THE NECROMANCER
Amber Lee Mysteries
Book 3
ISBN-13: 978-0-9583032-3-1
Copyright © 2015 by Katerina Martinez. All rights reserved Cover uses images © 2015 Shutterstock.
Published by Katerina Martinez.
Visit: www.katerinamartinez.com
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WARNING: This book is intended for mature audiences since it features mature language and some explicit sex scenes.
***
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, events or locales is purely coincidental.
Reproduction in whole or in part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited. I greatly appreciate you taking the time to read my work. Please consider leaving a review wherever you bought the book, or tell your friends about this serial to help spread the word!
Thank you for supporting my work.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: KATERINA MARTINEZ
At the time of this writing it is the 20th of April, 2015.
Welcome to the third installment of the Amber Lee Mystery series. I expect you have some reading to do so I’ll keep this short. I just wanted to take a moment to thank you personally for having read this far and for supporting my works. This series is my very first stint into the world of writing—my beachhead, if you will—and I am humbled by your decision to pick my books out of the vast ocean of books that’s available to you.
Writing books isn’t an easy thing to do. I often hear folks saying that they couldn’t do it or that they don’t have the mind for it, and up until now I thought that perhaps all they had to do was sit down with their ideas, organize themselves, and the books would come to you like the horizon to a ship. But in my short stint as a writer I have found that the ideas aren’t the problem, nor is the organization. Writing books is a marathon run, and most folks have to really dig deep to find that inner fortitude.
Myself included.
I have never attempted something as large as what I am attempting to do now. Often times I find myself overwhelmed by the sheer amount of forces standing in the way of a writer who wants to make a living from their craft. Money, time, support, endurance, and—of course—skill, are all obstacles that a writer has to overcome if they want to succeed. And sometimes it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I guess what I’m trying to say here is this; if you’re a reader, you are about to read a book that a real person has fought hard to write. Because every book is hard to write, and no matter how strong an author looks on the outside, they have bled to write it. And if you’re a writer, I have news for you: it doesn’t get any easier, but if you push hard and dig deep, there’s a world of satisfaction waiting for you on the other side of that finish line.
So keep running.
Katerina Martinez
DEDICATION
To Fairy Violet. Thank you for being my friend and supporting me.
The Necromancer Page 16
