by Simone Sinna
Were-Devils of Tasmania 4
The Ghosts’ Release
Despite her home at Tarrabah being in ashes after an attack by ghost destroyers, Misty Mortimer goes with her instinct to trust ghost brothers Damon and Kadar Karlssen, finding their attraction is mutually hypnotic. But the brothers are trying to break the northern vampires' centuries-long hold on the secret of a viral curse, and in order to do so all three are pitted against a formidable enemy.
Buoyed by a prophecy from her homeland in Tasmania, Misty must survive the vampire caves beneath Whitby but can only do so if Damon and she can link in a way they have never before. Aided by the ghost of her grandfather who died at the hands of the vampires, and a love that has survived generations, there is a final choice put to them by the Oracle, and they must decide whether the power of love will win.
Note: There is no sexual relationship or touching for titillation between or among siblings.
Genre: Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Paranormal, Shape-shifter
Length: 28,854 words
THE GHOSTS’ RELEASE
Were-Devils of Tasmania 4
Simone Sinna
MENAGE AMOUR
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Amour
THE GHOSTS’ RELEASE
Copyright © 2013 by Simone Sinna
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62242-750-5
First E-book Publication: April 2013
Cover design by Christine Kirchoff
All cover art and logo copyright © 2013 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
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DEDICATION
To scientists who work to assist species like the Tasmanian Devil and find a cure for viruses such as the Hendra.
THE GHOSTS’ RELEASE
Were-Devils of Tasmania 4
SIMONE SINNA
Copyright © 2013
Chapter One
Misty could not think of one good reason to be where she was. Whatever had possessed her to agree to come with Bonnie for a long weekend in Yorkshire was now little more than a faint memory. It wasn’t that she wasn’t used to bad weather, having been raised in Tasmania. Even in summer the mountains had been known to have snowfalls, but, unlike her brothers in Tasmania, she’d stay inside reading if the weather looked even half as bad as it had been in England for last three days.
“It rates as the second-best walk in the world,” said Bonnie, who had looked at cheap holiday options on Google from their apartment in London. “It takes two weeks but we can just do the last few days if you can’t get time off work. It’ll only cost a train fare and the pubs each night.”
The latter, Misty had soon found out, had been the main attraction for Bonnie, who’d been doing a nightly tasting of the local ales.
“It’s early October, barely out of summer,” Bonnie had also said, failing to add that it had been the wettest summer on record, and that the one before had also seen torrential downpours. These hadn’t abated. Misty had great gear, but there was no such thing as waterproof clothing when you were negotiating mires and bogs in which you could disappear up to your waist, and when it rained pretty much all day every day.
By the third and last day of the walk, Misty was longing for a change of clothes, a fire, and a steaming hot drink. The rain in her face felt like ice shards and with the steady drips off her hood, as well as the thick mist, the vast and supposedly beautiful moors could have been hiding half a dozen Heathcliffs and no one would know.
To make matters worse, Bonnie had found her Heathcliff and taken a taxi with him. Misty had been tempted to go with them but it seemed wrong to come walking in order to clear your head and then not do so. Now, up to her knees in mud and with no sign of a path, she wondered at this decision. The more pressing issue was, just where was she? Her map had got wet and disintegrated in her hands. All she could do now was head east and hope for the best.
This was easier said than done. The gorse was thick underfoot but in spots gave way to hidden bogs that attempted to swallow her boots. Misty had to work hard to retrieve both foot and boot on more than one occasion. She swore loudly and a startled grouse flew into the air, cooing messages of caution to its mate. She watched it disappear into the mist and stood for a moment, the stillness and silence making her feel she was every bit as remote as in her home at Tarrabah. Steeling herself, she cautiously put another foot forward.
“I wouldn’t go that way if I were you.”
The voice emerged from the fog to her right and Misty visibly started. She had excellent senses and though he was downwind, she should have heard him. Or rather, them. She had been thinking of the Bronte sisters’ lonely walks on the moors and Catherine calling for Heathcliff—now, confronted by two hooded men whose faces were in shadows underneath what looked like the heavy oiled Driza-Bone coats she’d had as a teenager, Misty was left wondering for a moment if she was dreaming.
“There’s a bog hole,” the voice explained in a lightly-Australian accent. The sort of accent an Australia
n had after living overseas for a few years, like Misty. This one didn’t have a British twinge, however. Something more exotic.
“There are bog holes everywhere,” said Misty, stepping closer to them. “Are you heading to Robin Hood’s Bay by any chance?”
With her step forward, both men almost imperceptibly stepped back, exchanging a look. Misty stopped, all her senses alert. “I was thinking it would be good to have someone lead the way or pull me out if I go down one of those holes.”
There was a moment of silence. The icy wind picked up, straight off the North Sea, bringing with it a sense of malaise that went deeper than the cold. Misty had no need to fear men, even two of them. She could easily defeat them, had their intent been anything other than noble. But, though still upwind, her senses suggested they might not be just men.
The bulkier of the two, with lazier vowels, hesitated before asking, “You’re alone?”
Misty could just make out his face. There was a softness to his lips and a boyish look, perhaps because of the wet hair over his eyes. The half-smile looked genuine and she sensed concern, but it was the deep-green eyes that drew Misty’s attention. As if he knew they had given him away, he turned to the other man who had been watching her in silence.
“I don’t think it’s safe to be walking alone,” the boyish one continued to his companion. “We should ensure she gets there.”
“Of course.” This was the voice that had first spoken, more reserved, more measured. He had the same green eyes. “That is,” he continued, “if you think we are safer than the alternative.”
Misty stared at him. The tone wasn’t threatening, but in the words was a warning. She wasn’t sure of what. There was something about him that seemed oddly familiar. She stepped closer. This time the men remained still and any doubts about who they were vanished.
“You’re a long way from home,” said Misty, trying to keep her tone light. Against these two, even with her unusual capabilities, a bookworm like her wouldn’t stand a chance.
Ghost destroyers.
“As are you,” said the measured man, his eyes never leaving her.
She wasn’t sure why she wasn’t feeling threatened. Which instinct to go with?
* * * *
Damon Karlssen felt tired and irritable and the weather wasn’t helping one bit. He and his younger brother, Kadar, had arrived in England the morning before and taken the train from the airport to York and a bus to Whitby.
“What makes you think we’re going to succeed this time?” Kadar had grumbled. “It’s not as if we haven’t been here before.”
Damon had been reticent to discuss the reason for his sudden decision. It was surprising Kadar hadn’t asked earlier, or quizzed him about why he was blocking his thoughts. Thought blocking was not that unusual. Damon liked his own space and resented Kadar’s constant stream of thought and conversation interrupting his thinking, but he’d closed down the moment he saw what his cousins were planning—a full-out final assault on the were-devils in Tasmania.
He hadn’t slept at all on the plane. Two thoughts kept circulating through his mind. One thought had been there every working day of the last ten years. At the university interview he’d been asked, “Why do you want to be a doctor?”
He had replied truthfully that he wanted to be the one to discover the cure for viral illness. What he hadn’t added was that he was sure, for no reason other than his grandfather’s encouragement, that he would. Not just any viral illness, but the one that was coming to wipe out the ghosts because of what his grandfather, Charles, and great-uncle Adam had done fifty years earlier.
After returning to Australia from the war, Charles had been racked with a guilt that had never left him. He became a thin, nervous man whose hand shook and who looked much older than his years. “We made a pact with Satan,” Charles had told Damon. “And we will pay.”
“It’s okay, Grandpa,” Damon had replied, only ten years old. “I’ll fix it.”
Trouble was, he hadn’t, and this was the second thought that kept repeating itself. Despite finishing his medical degree, being trained at some of the best clinical research labs in the world and working with the World Health Organization for the last two years, he was no closer to his original goal than he’d been when he’d first promised he would.
The goalposts, true, had changed a little. He’d learnt so much, thought he was so close, and yet now the virus was starting to kill his family and the answer was elusive as ever. If any were-devil survived his cousin Zac’s murderous rampage, the were-devils would ensure the new virus was let loose to infect the ghosts. When he had stood with his family and they’d mostly voted with Zac and Adam, Damon had silently signaled to Kadar and they’d gone straight to the airport. In that one signal, Damon must have said enough. Kadar had just assumed, it seemed, they would be going to Whitby. Mostly, they worked out of Switzerland, but in England they always returned to Whitby, the place where the vampires had made their pact with the ghosts.
“Adam wouldn’t ever tell me how he got hold of them,” Charles had said on one of the many occasions in recent years Damon had grilled him. “But they met us in the ruined Cathedral and then took us…somewhere.”
Charles and Adam had been blindfolded and, Charles had been sure, drugged. “I don’t know how they did it,” he said. “But I felt like I was in a dream. Nothing was quite real. I have no idea where they took us or how long it took to get there.”
More recently, when Damon had been with his family, listening to what Adam and Zac were planning for their final assault, Charles had come up behind him and pulled on his arm. “It was October,” he’d said.
It had taken a few moments for Damon to focus. Was October—but it was early October now? But the words penetrated. Charles was referring to over seventy years earlier.
“What if the vampires only ever went to Whitby at a particular time each year? If so, what better time than Halloween?” Charles had said.
It was a thin thread and maybe just desperation, but Damon was sure his grandfather was right.
* * * *
“Lead on,” said Misty with a good deal more confidence than she felt.
“If we are going to be your guides,” said Mister Reserved, “we had better introduce ourselves. I’m Damon Karlssen.”
Naturally. Which of the asshole Karlssens did he descend from?
“And I’m Kadar,” said the other. “His brother.”
Great. Two murdering Karlssens.
“I’m Misty Mortimer.” She watched their faces. No change on Damon’s shadowed, chiseled lines, but Kadar’s eyebrows went up before he looked at his brother. Her grandfather had been the one that dumped the men’s ancestor—great-aunt, Misty presumed—and started the whole quest for revenge.
The going was slow. Misty hung behind them, keeping her distance, and they respected her doing so, turning around or waiting on occasion to ensure she was there. Misty’s mind was racing. Why were they out walking on the Yorkshire moors? Surely it was too great a coincidence. As far as she knew, ghosts were much like were-devils in that they tended to stick close to home. Then there was the temperature thing. Weren’t they meant to prefer heat? No one would ever think Yorkshire in October was going to be hot.
Then there was what they were wearing. The Driza-Bone was perfect, true, but they had long black leather boots. Gumboots she could understand, but these? Maybe they were writers in the Bronte tradition? No, with their looks, more like actors trying to channel their inner Heathcliff and Rochester. Maybe it was this that was sending her senses into a spin. Damon looked like a Greek god or at least like Simon Baker, the actor Bonnie liked, though definitely not as soft. And Kadar looked part geek, part schoolboy, and part teddy bear. She wasn’t meant to have thoughts like this about ghosts.
Too long without a boyfriend, she was sure her sister or Bonnie would have said. Last time she was home, over a year ago, Melody had moaned they were both going to be old maids, but in subsequent emails had leaked to
her, under the threat of death if Misty told anyone, that she was in love. Misty had been thrilled, even if Curt was human. She hoped he’d hung in there with Melody through her illness. It was only a week ago that Misty had been told Tilman Tremain had found a cure.
Misty had been working fifteen-hour days to do just that, so when Tilman had beaten her to it, Misty had finally agreed to come on this walk. She needed to recover from the stress that she had put herself under, and of knowing her sister was dying, before returning to Tasmania to celebrate with them all.
It had been a long time since she’d been interested in a man. The truth was, Misty wasn’t the sort of woman men liked. Too smart, too nerdy, too introverted, too weird. In Tasmania, even among her family, she stood out. Sure, she had black hair with the trademark white streak that fell to her butt, long and silky and always in a plait, half in defiance of the looks people gave her. She was a throwback to an ancestor. Her grandmother had Chinese and indigenous blood, and Misty looked simply too exotic for Tasmania with her almond-shaped eyes that revealed nothing, and the olive skin.
In London and New York, where she had studied before that, there was such a melting pot of appearances, no one noticed or cared. She’d had a boyfriend in New York, but the offer to work with one of the world’s leading geneticists in England had been far more compelling. And though she’d been on a few dates in London, organized by Bonnie, she just didn’t seem to have the time when they asked her out again. Her PhD in genetics and viral susceptibility was, she had been sure, the answer to the Devils’ Curse. If she was honest with herself, the walk was in part to accept that she’d been wasting her time. Tilman had developed the antidote and her people were going to survive. She was delighted, ecstatic. But she needed to decide if, without the driver that had been keeping her going, she wanted to stay and complete what she’d started or go home to the family she missed daily and never return.
