Restless Spirits

by Sharon Stevenson

  When Eight and Cal were done slobbering all over each other, we stood in a circle.

  I did the countdown for Eight, knowing by the way she held herself that she was ready to get started. She looked like Britt, on a really bad attitude day. “Ready? Set… Go!”

  Off she went. The rest of us stood around and waited. Tim was muttering under his breath, counting the seconds out loud. I was too freaked to even try to trip him up. Eight had three minutes to distract him, and we were jumping in to take him out. Time really goes slowly when the day sucks ass.

  Forty-Four – Eight

  The throne room was impressive. I swallowed my nerves as I approached the empty throne. I was supposed to emulate the late Great Britton Rocks. She didn’t do nervous. She probably hadn’t ever felt afraid that she might be walking to her death either.

  Oh, God, what was I doing here? This was insane. This was just… calm down. Everything is going to be fine. You’re doing this for your best friend. She deserves better than an arsehole who sees her as a plaything. She deserves someone as good as Cal.

  I approached the throne and reached out to touch one of the gold arms. The light touch on my shoulder made me shiver uncontrollably. Someone had managed to sneak up on me. That someone had his lips on the naked skin by my dress strap. I refrained from pushing him away. He was supposed to think I was Nine. I made a breathy noise I hoped was sexy, but it came out strained. I didn’t like this, and I wasn’t a good enough actress to pretend I did. Shit!

  I felt him smile. He took my hand and spun me around. The gasp this time was genuine. He was still smiling. I could see what Nine saw in him, sort of. He wasn’t young or buff or tanned, but there was something about him that made me feel like I had when I first came out of my cloning chamber. The doctor had been handsome, and I’d been naked. My skin had heated when he examined me. I could feel it heating now.

  “I didn’t expect to see you back so soon,” he told me, a twinkle in his eyes. “Your show is still tomorrow night, is it not?”

  I swallowed. “I just had to see you before. For luck.” I sounded enough like her to get away with the quiver of fear that was making every word shake.

  “Is this where I tell you to break a leg?” His smile became sly.

  A nervous laugh stuttered out of me. “I don’t think that applies to a concert.”

  “Oh, no? How ‘bout break a neck?” He tilted his head, studying me coldly.

  Every trace of humour melted out of my system. The power of his magic washed over me like a wave. I fell back, collapsing into his throne. I could feel his fingers wrapping around my neck, even though he wasn’t touching me. He smiled as I fought to breathe, clawing at thin air in my panic.

  “You’re a pale imitation,” he told me. “Nine will miss you, but I won’t.”

  The room started to darken. I felt tears slide from the corners of my eyes. I screamed inside my head for my back-up to arrive, but deep down, somewhere, I knew it was too late.

  Forty-Five – Pete

  Cal gasped sharply. All eyes fell on him as he crumbled to dust in front of us. Our hopes sank with his ashes. Eight had been found out.

  “Shit,” I cursed. “What now?”

  “Now, we move fast,” Mickey said, teleporting us all together.

  Had I known he was going to do that I’d have told him I’d get there myself. The strange feeling I’d had every time I teleported with Angie was multiplied times ten, making me seriously want to puke when we arrived in the throne room at the castle. I held my dinner down somehow and watched as the King turned to greet us. His broad smile was alarming. The slumped over body of clone number Eight in his throne was enough to make Angie growl.

  “Well, well,” the King said. “The Dead-Man-Walking returns, and he brings my Recruiters back. Well, two of them at least. I’ll assume you destroyed the others?”

  Timmy nodded stiffly. He couldn’t seem to move, at least as far as I could tell from his tense stance that he didn’t break even when the King got up close and whispered into his ear.

  “Thanks for saving me the hassle of tracking you down.”

  I found I couldn’t move when I tried. My neck and face seemed fine, but the rest of me was locked down. He was stopping us from attacking him. He could kill us without any effort, without even touching us. I blinked as I realised how the hell I knew what he was thinking. I was inside his head somehow, and it was a scary as fuck place to be. He had killed me because of Tim. He’d wanted to hurt him. This was all building up to Mickey. He’d never intended to execute Piss-face. He wanted him around to torture.

  “Hey, shit-for-brains,” I called over as he eyed up my cousin like a piece of rancid meat. “Bet you can’t find me.” I teleported, effectively breaking his binding spell. I hid behind the throne for a few seconds before I did it again.

  He didn’t look amused, particularly as Mickey and Tim did the same thing once they realised why I had. Angie was standing stock still with a blank expression on her face. I wondered if she’d gotten out of the body somehow. Mickey threw his first fireball, and the King deflected it without touching it. I tried, and soon all three of us were pelting him from all angles. He threw up an invisible shield and yawned at us. He threw all of us backwards with the tiniest flick of his magic. I bumped into Angie, toppling her to the ground. Tim groaned beside us.

  Mickey! I got up and watched the King march over to my cousin, a long sword appearing in his hand. This couldn’t be happening. I got up, trying to pull the sword from him with my magic. It wouldn’t work. He had some sort of protection on the handle. It looked like that locket Kit had been wearing.

  He turned slightly, and every hair on my brand new body stood on end. He grinned at me and turned back, swinging the sword backwards. I willed myself to ‘port Mickey out of his way. My will went a little bit overboard. When I blinked, we were in my living room, Mickey stumbling into the couch as I straightened and sniffed the air. “Is there sick in here somewhere?”

  “Tim!” Mickey’s wide eyes made me realise my panic ‘porting hadn’t included his boyfriend or Angie.

  Shit. How do these things keep happening to me? I shook my head. “We’re safe now, we can’t go back.”

  “Are you crazy? We’re never going to be safe now,” he told me. “I’m going back. We have to finish this.”

  The hellish thing was he was right. The king had to die, or else we would. Rather him than us, eh? I grabbed hold of his arm. “Wait for me.”

  Pete and his friends return in

  Limitless Magic

  Read on for the first chapter

  Raised Book Four

  Limitless Magic

  One – Pete

  Smacking face-first into a brick wall is never fun. I suppose there are some downsides to having a flesh and blood body again. I took a step back and frowned into the darkness. Apparently I’d imagined the wall entirely, which my throbbing head and bruised chest protested wildly about.

  “What. The. Fuck?” Mickey’s rage grabbed my attention.

  Standing a few feet away from me, he was staring at the castle as if he wanted to kill something, or someone, more likely. He produced a fireball and launched it at the invisible barrier we’d hit when we tried to teleport back to the throne room. The flame scorched along the surface of the barrier, before burning out, leaving behind a faint wisp of pink smoke.

  I winced as I rolled my shoulders. I’d just gotten used to being able to walk through things. This strange new body was going to take some time to wear in. Not that I wasn’t looking forward to stuffing it full of junk food. Kit’s face flashed through my head. I wondered what she’d think of it. Would she even fancy me now? I realised quickly that it didn’t matter, and mentally slapped myself for letting my thoughts get carried away with themselves. It was useless to think about any of that. I had to get my head back in the game.

  “The spell you did to put me in here,” I started, wishing I could get the thought of Kit bringing me a box of donuts out
of my head. It was pure fantasy and I knew it. I wasn’t going to get to enjoy anything about being in real live human skin again. Considering I was on a suicide mission right now, I needed to forget it and pretend I was still just another dead man walking. I cleared my throat as Mickey turned my way. “Undo it.”

  “No,” he snapped, running a hand over the short hairs on his head. “Ghosts can’t pass through that barrier either. It’s blocked against all magic.” He gave me a warning glare. “And I’m not undoing the spell anyway, Pete. You don’t get to just escape this time.”

  Escape? What was he talking about?

  “I’m just trying to find a way back in.”

  “Since when did you have a death wish?”

  Now he was making less than zero sense. “You’re the one who wants to take on the King.”

  “You know what I’m talking about.” He was glowering at me as if I should know.

  “Eh…”

  “You died when you didn’t need to,” he snapped. “I know you saved that American Animate. Why the hell didn’t you save yourself?”

  The penny dropped like a lead weight.

  “You think I liked being an Animate? It was fucking torture, Mickey. It wasn’t a life. I was already dead.” I sighed, feeling dampness under my nose and realising it was bleeding. I didn’t have a tissue, but apparently I was forgetting I was magically endowed now. My cousin made a tissue box appear from nowhere and chucked it at me. I scrambled to catch it in this lanky body. The blood had just touched my lip by the time I got a tissue in place. The metallic taste had already touched my tongue. “Fuck’s sake.”

  “Well, you have a proper body now. You can’t mess it up this time.”

  I nodded slowly, before lifting my head to try and stop the nosebleed. It didn’t matter. We were all going to bite it if Mickey was determined to take down the King of Scotland; the highest level magic user in the whole country. It was only a matter of time. Too bad we couldn’t factor in any last requests.

  “Tim’s almost as strong as he is,” Mickey murmured. “It has to be why he was going to kill him.”

  I flashed back to seeing inside the King’s head. Mickey’s estimation was off. The King didn’t want to kill Timmy at all. He wanted to mess with him. I didn’t know the full reason yet, but it wasn’t Piss-face who was in danger of death by the King’s hand, it was Mickey.

  When I tried to articulate that, I couldn’t. I didn’t know enough, and it wouldn’t stop Mickey anyhow. He was determined to save his stupid arsey boyfriend, regardless of the consequences.

  “We need an actual plan.” It was the first sensible thing I’d said in ages.

  “We need Trish,” Mickey had decided, blinking out of existence beside me.

  I took one last long look at the castle, lit up against the night sky. It didn’t look like a place to be afraid of. It wasn’t looming forebodingly. Too bad looks can be deceptive.

  Sighing, I thought of Trish’s flat and wondered idly if she might have some human food hiding in one of her kitchen cupboards. My hands glowed pink as I teleported.

  Trish’s flat was tidier than the last time I’d seen it, but she didn’t seem anywhere near as chirpy.

  “No, I’m not going anywhere near the castle.” She shuddered.

  Her eyes rolled and glowed at the same time as she looked me over. I saw her lips quiver slightly as I removed the bloodied tissue from my nose. It had stopped bleeding at least.

  “Not even if I give you him?” Mickey barely glanced my way.

  “What?” I didn’t like the implications of that. “I’m not a toy, Mickey. You can’t just—”

  He rolled his eyes. “You’ve never been bitten. She’ll just want to—”

  “Get out, both of you. And never come back.” She pushed us and started to sing softly under her breath, sounding exactly like the alien music I’d heard on that recruitment tape at the castle. My brain felt weirdly itchy at the sound. I couldn’t think straight as I moved away from her.

  “But, Trish,” Mickey protested while we walked towards the door, sounding like he was struggling to speak. “Can’t you just… tell us how to get through the damned barrier?”

  She stopped singing and my brain took a relieved breath. “Your friend there already has all the answers. Get out.”

  Mickey frowned at me as we were kicked out of the vampire’s flat. The glow of her eyes as she sniffed in a breath before the door closed told me one thing for sure, she was tempted by the smell of my blood. I threw the tissue down on the ground.

  “What did she mean by that?” He was eyeing me suspiciously.

  “She’s crazy, clearly.”

  My answer didn’t seem to be satisfactory.

  I sighed. “She wanted us gone, Mickey. I don’t know what she was talking about.”

  “We need her,” he said, desperation in his eyes.

  It was time to take one for the team. “Wait here.”

  Knocking on the door gently, I leaned my forehead against it. “Trish? Come on. We need help. I’ll let you bite me. Come on, you know you want to.”

  Mickey snorted at my efforts. But the floorboards were creaking in there.

  “I taste good,” I teased, wondering how much further I could go before making myself sick. The thought of being bitten didn’t exactly thrill me. “I’ve never been bitten before.”

  The sound of the door knob turning was followed by the door opening just enough for her to yank me through and slam it closed again. The lock slid into place and I was pinned up against the wall by a thoroughly ravenous vampire. Her teeth appeared with a hiss. The height difference meant she was perfectly positioned to clamp on to my neck. It kind of stung but I clenched my jaw and tried to pretend I was just dreaming this whole thing. It didn’t last long. A few minutes and she was backing off, leaving me with a mildly fuzzy headache and a little bit wonky on my feet.

  “So, how do we breach the barrier?”

  She blinked until the orange glow was gone from her eyes. Wiping at her mouth, she backed away.

  “You have a telepathic link with the ghost you were here with before. It’s going to take someone inside the force-field to punch a hole in it. There’s no way to get in from outside.”

  “A telepathic link?”

  “You called on each other when you were spirits. The link was established then. Didn’t you read the Animates Manual?”

  I shrugged. “I skimmed it.”

  “You have your answer.”

  “How do I open the link?”

  She looked me over. “You can read the manual. Or you can come back tomorrow and let me bite you again.”

  I headed for the door. Option number one was better for at least two reasons. I just hoped the damned book was where I’d left it in the flat. Mickey looked at me when I came out into the hall.

  “Well?”

  “We’ve got a book to find. Apparently someone inside the castle needs to break the barrier, and I have some kind of pre-established telepathic link I can use to speak to Angie.”

  I just hoped she was talking to me, and that she was actually still capable of helping us. My stomach churned as we teleported to my old flat. If the woman who’d killed me was our only hope, we might be royally screwed.

  Also by Sharon Stevenson

  The Gallows Novels:

  Blood Bound

  Demon Divided

  Fate Fallen

  Curse Corrupted

  Hell Halved

  Spirit Splintered

  Heaven & Hell (coming soon)

  Reality Ruptured (coming soon)

  Prophecy Passed (coming soon)

  Short works in the Gallows series:

  Back from the Dark (novella, best read after Fate Fallen)

  Double Dare (newsletter exclusive short story, set before Blood Bound)

  False Front (newsletter exclusive short story, set before Blood Bound)

  Shadows Grove (newsletter exclusive short story, best read after Spirit Splintered)
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  Box Sets in the Gallows series:

  The Gallows Novels: Books 1-3

  The Gallows Novels: Books 4-6

  The Gallows Novels: Books 7-9 (coming soon)

  The Raised Series:

  Dead Man Running

  Death Magic Rules

  Restless Spirits

  Limitless Magic (coming soon)

  Short works in the Raised series:

  Walking Away (novella, coming soon)

  The Shady Arcade Trilogy:

  Amnesia Bites

  Sweet Oblivion (coming soon)

  Beyond Shadows (coming soon)

  At Hell’s Gates Anthologies:

  At Hell’s Gates: Existing Worlds (Gallows short story: Welcome to Hell)

  At Hell’s Gates: Origins of Evil (stand alone horror short: Forget Me Never)

  At Hell’s Gates: Bound by Blood (stand alone horror short: Monster)

  Saint’s Grove Standalone Paranormal Romance:

  Heart (Book 10 of 12)

  All Saint’s Grove Novels in Series Order:

  Immortal Ties by Jennifer Malone Wright

  Hearts Aligning by Miranda Hardy

  Her Forbidden Knight by Carly Fall

  Racing Time by Elizabeth Kirke