Taken
Jennifer Blackstream
Skeleton Key Publishing
Contents
Copyright
Summary
Also by Jennifer Blackstream
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
Next Book
From the Author
Other Books by Jennifer Blackstream
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TAKEN
A Blood Trails Novel, Book 3
USA Today Bestselling Author
JENNIFER BLACKSTREAM
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Taken
©Copyright Jennifer Blackstream 2018, Skeleton Key Publishing
Edited by 720 Editing
Cover Art by Yocla Designs © Copyright 2017
This is a work fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form without the written permission of the author. You may not circulate this book in any format. Thank you for respecting the hard work of all people involved with the creation of this ebook.
Summary
A cold case puts Shade on the trail of three teenagers who disappeared from a homeless shelter the night before a charity art auction. The cops think they left willingly, but Shade knows some of the most frightening monsters from the Otherworld can be as seductive as they are dangerous.
Talented artists vanishing without a trace. Willing participants in their own disappearance.
Shade knows exactly what fate has befallen the teenagers. But what will she risk to get them back?
Book 3 in the Blood Trails series
ALSO BY JENNIFER BLACKSTREAM
Join my mailing list to be alerted when new titles are released.
Urban Fantasy
Blood Trails Series
Deadline
Monster
Taken
Book #4 (Jan 2019)
Paranormal Romance
Blood Prince Series
Before Midnight
One Bite
Golden Stair
Divine Scales
Beautiful Salvation
Bonus Novel: The Pirate’s Witch
Blood Realm Series:
All for a Rose
Blue Voodoo
The Archer
Bear With Me
Stolen Wish
Join my mailing list to be alerted when new titles are released.
Short stories are not listed here, but can be found on my website here.
"Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand."
― W.B. Yeats
Chapter 1
“My money’s on a murder.”
Peasblossom’s announcement drilled into my ears, exponentially increasing the migraine throbbing in my temples. I planted my elbows on the desk in my kitchen that sat where my dining room table should be, focusing on the warmth of my teacup cradled in my palms and breathing slowly so as not to dislodge my head from my shoulders. Nine thirty a.m. on an April morning in Ohio meant cloudy grey skies more often than not, but today? Today the morning sunlight poured through my small kitchen window, taunting the agony arching through every neuron in my brain.
“Please, stop shouting. I told you, I have a headache.” The glow from the computer screen on the desk in front of me sent laser beams of light directly through my pupils and into my brain. I squeezed my eyes shut and groaned.
The pixie sprawled out on my shoulder like a wilting flower snorted her derision directly into my ear. “Andy will be here any minute to take you to the oracle and pick out one of his ice files, and you’re doing your best impression of the shambling dead. And I’m not shouting.”
“With your mouth that close to my ear, you might as well be. And they’re called cold cases, not ice files.”
Peasblossom rolled onto her stomach. “Ice files sounds better. And anyway, that’s not the point, is it? You wanted to be a crime solver and now there’s an FBI agent on his way to your house with a literal trunk full of ice files for you to choose from, and you can’t tell the difference between shouting and a pleasant conversational tone.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Your nightmares are getting worse. It’s been two weeks since you swallowed that dream shard, and you still didn’t sleep more than two hours altogether last night. Not to mention you woke up screaming so loud this morning you’re lucky the neighbors didn’t break your door down thinking you were being murdered. Actually, it all started before the dream shard, didn’t it?” She drummed her fingers against my shoulder. “I think it’s the cat.”
I breathed in the fragrant steam from my black tea, pushing away the images that threatened to flood my mind on the heel of the pixie’s recap of last night. Shadows and monsters with glistening teeth, irises of green flame. Screams of terror and pain. Something inside me pulled taut, snapped.
I rubbed my chest over my heart. The metaphysical thread under my skin pulsed, accentuating the fraying tip fluttering in the darkness. I’d severed that bond years ago, decades… Blood and bone, for all I knew, it had been centuries ago. It hadn’t hurt this bad since the weeks following the fated cut. My sister’s face hovered in my mind, and I shoved it away and forced my eyes open.
“You blame Majesty for everything.” I took a sip of tea and held it in my mouth to let the honey coat my tongue before swallowing.
“I don’t like him.”
I glanced at the cat—or rather, the kitten—in question. Majesty lay on the backrest of the grey sectional couch that took up most of my small living room, his black-striped grey side rising and falling with every sleepy breath. He cracked open one blue eye as if he sensed he was being discussed, but closed it after only a second, dismissing whatever the pixie might have to say as unimportant.
“You think the kitten is causing my nightmares? Not the angry sorceress who promised to visit me in my dreams?”
Peasblossom sat up, sliding closer to my neck as she gave Majesty an uneasy glare. The sunlight bounced off her translucent wings and made her pink eyes glitter like precious stones, and her long blush-colored ponytail swung heavily from side to side, brushing my black turtleneck and the flower-petal skirt of Peasblossom’s dress. “You didn’t have nightmares before he got here. And the fluffy monster has enough magic to kill you in your sleep.”
“Majesty is in pain. He’s here so we can help him.” I bit my lip, studying the feline in question. “Whoever cast that spell on him to keep him from aging must have known what the consequences would be.”
“Maybe he’ll explode,” Peasblossom suggested.
“That’s not funny.” I forced myself to stand and shuffled over to Majesty to run my fingers over his side. A purr vibrated against my fingertips, softening the angry snapping of magic underneath his downy fur. I reached for my power.
“Apstergeo.” Blue energy seeped from my fingertips, sinking deep inside Majesty, and the magic coiled tightly inside him. I couldn’t remove the spell hissing and spit
ting beneath the kitten’s fur like a metaphysical parasite, but I could calm it. My magic slid over it like an oily sheen, smoothing out the frazzled ends until it stopped crackling like exposed wiring in a condemned building.
“Any luck with that name I gave you?” I asked Peasblossom.
“No. But then, you wouldn’t expect her to give Mrs. Harvesty her real name, would you? Not if whoever cast that spell knew the furball would end up on your doorstep.”
“Peasblossom,” I warned, setting down my cup of tea.
She crossed her arms and stuck out her chin. “He’s dangerous! Someone bound his life force into a ball, and it’s feeding in on itself like a…like a…” She huffed. “Well, I don’t know what. But you said yourself, that energy has to go somewhere. And you’re the village witch, so whoever bound that spell to the beast had to expect he would suffer for it, and that daft woman would bring him here.”
“You’ve never liked cats.” I sank to the floor and leaned against the wall. “I’ll ask Mother Hazel to see him again.”
“Why? You want to hear the speech again? You want me to have to hear the speech again?” Peasblossom slid down my arm to the desk’s surface. “You’re not her apprentice anymore. You left; you chose to be a private investigator. She won’t help you with your pet problems.” She paced as she ranted, kicking paperclips out of her way as she went.
“She owes me a favor.” I caught a paperclip before it could fly off the edge of the desk and put it in the shallow magnetized cup next to my laptop with the rest of the paperclips, thumbtacks, and extra staples.
“And you would waste it on that ball of fluff?” Peasblossom demanded, her tone a shrill screech of outrage.
I slapped my palms over my ears and dropped my forehead to the desktop. “Oh, dear gods, stop shouting!”
I whimpered, remembering too late that it hurt when I shouted too. I sucked in a few deep breaths, and when I thought I could speak without decapitating myself, I whispered against the desk’s surface, “Did I get that apology gift for Arianne in the mail yesterday?”
“Yes,” Peasblossom grumbled. “But it won’t work. She doesn’t like you, and a trinket won’t change that.”
“A ring of summoning isn’t a trinket. I put a lot of thought into that gift.”
“Yes, and you think you’re so clever. But I still say giving her another means to summon a monster after she already sent three after you is asinine.”
“I want to show her there’s no hard feelings. Besides, Mr. Gunderson gave me that amazing bracer, so I’d rather she send summoned creatures after me. The bracer is a solid weapon against dream shards, but if she decided to get creative…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. There was no shortage of horrible things a dream sorceress could do. Summoning nightmares was the least of my worries.
Peasblossom sniffed. “Asinine.”
I stared at my fuzzy slipper boots with their multicolored threads and blinding neon-pink faux-fur lining. Who was I kidding? The pixie was right. Arianne would never forgive me. It was only a matter of time before she put her mind to really making my life miserable.
Burn down one hotel room and you’re public enemy number one for life.
“Do we have any more raspberries?”
“No, but we have cherries.”
I hauled myself to my feet and lumbered to the fridge. The sight of the large bag of dark red fruit taking up most of my crisper drawer cheered me up, promising the pleasure only out-of-season fruit could offer. This particular treat had cost me seven dollars a pound, but they tasted heavenly. More so for being a guilty pleasure.
Magic rose inside me as I held three cherries in my palm. “Nutrio.” Green energy filled my palm like liquid, washing over the fruit and sinking beneath the shining red skins. I popped one into my mouth, biting around the seed and spitting the pit out before swallowing.
“Do you have today’s to-do list?” I asked around a mouthful of fruit.
“It’s posted right here on the computer you were staring at two seconds ago. Egad, woman, how can you miss a neon-orange Post-it?”
I ate the other two cherries, waiting for the magic to nourish my tired body before answering. I didn’t respond until the urge to grab the flyswatter and go after Peasblossom passed. “Read it to me?”
A dramatic sigh, then the rustle of a Post-it. “Prepare frozen dinners for Mrs. Alan to eat while she’s on maternity leave.”
“Done—she has enough lasagna and beef stew to feed her family for two weeks.”
“Good thing she has the deep freezer in the garage.”
I snorted and retrieved my tea from where I’d set it on the floor beside the couch. “She needs it, with four teenage boys and that lumberjack of a husband.”
“Exorcise the ghost from Mr. Olsen’s teapot?”
“There was no ghost in that teapot. A mouse got stuck, but it’s out now.”
A knock on my door interrupted us. Peasblossom peeked at me over the top of the retina-searing Post-it, pink brows arched in a silent question. I straightened my spine and gave her a serene smile. The debilitating migraine was gone, as was the exhaustion.
“A spell won’t replace a true night’s sleep forever,” Peasblossom said primly. “Get rid of the cat, or you’ll be sorry.”
If she’d been less snippy with me this morning, or kept her voice to a reasonable volume in consideration of my migraine, I might have warned her that Majesty was awake and crouched on the floor by the desk—waiting for her. But she was in a snarky mood, and perhaps being swatted at by a furry paw was exactly what she needed. So I said nothing.
I opened the door to find Agent Andrew Bradford standing on my small front stoop. At six foot one, I usually had to crane my neck to see his face, but today I didn’t bother. That angle would send too much blood rushing to my brain, and I didn’t want to arouse the migraine so soon after defeating it. As usual, Andy’s dark blue suit had been starched to within an inch of its life, and the shirt beneath it appeared blinding white in the April sun. I wondered briefly if the glare off his shirt was the reason for the dark glasses he wore, then chastised myself for being rude.
“I need to grab my bag, and I’ll be all set. Come on in.”
Andy stepped inside, his hair changing in color from warm chocolate in the sunlight to black coffee in the shade of my house. A man of few words, he remained silent as I ambled to the supply room to fetch my waist pouch, pretending not to notice the way he studied every nook and cranny of my living room as he waited.
“If you’re expecting my house to be different than anyone else’s, I’m afraid it will disappoint. It’s one thing that always upset my mentor. She said a clean house gives people the impression a witch isn’t busy doing her job.”
“Your house is different, but not in the way I expected.” The floorboards in the living room creaked under the beige Berber carpet as Andy ventured farther into the house. “Did you move here recently?”
I grabbed the black pouch from where it hung on a hook on the side of the herb cabinet that took up most of one wall and fastened it around my waist. “No, I’ve lived here for three years. But I don’t entertain here, and I don’t like clutter.”
“I can see that.”
I tugged on the hem of my long black shirt to get rid of the wrinkles the pouch caused. I could carry a bag or a purse, but knowing me, I’d end up losing it, or having it spill out all over the place. My mentor favored the classic cloak with deep pockets, but when I tried that, I ended up fielding a ton of questions about what Ren faire I was attending. So enchanted fanny pack it was.
“You were expecting a bubbling cauldron over a fireplace, maybe some bones and feathers lying about?”
“That would violate your rule to ‘harm none,’ wouldn’t it?”
I grinned as I left the room. “You’ve been studying witches.”
He circled the desk that sat in the center of my dining room where most people would have kept a table and chairs. “I tried. There’s quite a
variety.”
“There is.”
“Any resources you’d recommend over others?”
I thought about it for a minute. “Ever read the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett?”
“No.”
“Start there. Ever played Pathfinder?” I checked on Majesty’s water bowl to make sure he had enough to drink. The long silence continued behind me, and I sighed. “D&D?”
He crossed his arms. “I’m sorry?”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, I’m talking about Dungeons & Dragons.”
“The game?” he asked.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Never mind. Shall we—”
A high-pitched shriek cut me off, and a flash of pink light zipped across the room to collide with Andy’s neck. I smothered a laugh as the FBI agent nearly leapt out of his skin.
Peasblossom glared at me from where she clung to Andy’s neck. “You! You knew he was there, didn’t you?”
Majesty let out a creepy growl-purr-whine and crouched near the corner of the couch, tail lashing from side to side as he peered up at Peasblossom.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I shrugged.
“Liar!”
“You’re not suggesting I’m more observant than you? You being a pixie and me a mere mortal?”
Peasblossom pursed her lips, still glaring at me. “No.”
Andy cleared his throat. “Are you okay?”
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