Back to Spell One
Western Woods Mystery #1
Samantha Silver
Blueberry Books Press
Contents
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
Also by Samantha Silver
About the Author
Chapter 1
Seattle in the summer was absolutely gorgeous. Not too hot, not too cold, with the warm sun beating down on me, making my walk to my absolutely hellish job just a little bit more tolerable.
It was all going to be worth it, I kept telling myself. I mean sure, working behind the bar in an upscale club in downtown Seattle definitely had its downsides. There were the frat boys who thought they were God’s gift to women, and the creepy old guys in suits who figured they could buy their way into my pants, the drunks who didn’t understand the meaning of the words “you’ve had enough for one night” and everything else in between. But hey, the money was good. The money was very good, in fact, for someone like me who had absolutely no education outside of my high school diploma, and who was trying to save up some money to go to college. I hadn’t quite figured out what I was going to study yet. Maybe I’d go into nursing? That seemed like the sort of thing I’d be good at.
But for now, I was going to go through another eight-hour shift in the job I hated, in the hopes that someday – hopefully in the next year or so – I’d have saved up enough money that I could go to college, even if it was only part-time, and start building a real career.
After all, I was now twenty-six years old, and it was time to start thinking about what I was really going to do with my life. I wasn’t going to be able to tend bar forever, after all. And I most certainly didn’t want to.
I made my way to the club, in the trendy Seattle neighborhood of Belltown. Passing through the large red door that made the club I worked at instantly recognizable – it was called Red Door, after all – I headed towards the bar where Jake, one of my coworkers, was already at the till counting the cash for the night.
“Way to show up on time, White,” he said without looking up.
Did I mention I hated my job yet?
“My shift starts at seven, and it’s six fifty-seven,” I muttered in reply.
“Well, I’ve been here for fifteen minutes already, getting everything set for when we open.”
“Congratulations on giving away your labor for free, then. I believe in being paid when I’m here.”
“Whatever. Can you go downstairs and grab another case of Jack Daniels? We’re basically out.”
I stuffed my purse under the counter and nodded. “Sure.”
I made my way towards a black door at the back of the room with ‘staff only’ stenciled in red letters. Passing through it, I ran into Lisa, one of the managers of the club. Lisa was probably the only person here I actually liked; she understood that this job was a stepping stone for me and that the club business wasn’t really something I wanted to be a part of long-term.
“Hey, Tina,” she greeted me with a warm smile. “How are you?”
“Good, thanks,” I replied. “You?”
“Super busy! Apparently, K-Team’s bachelor party is coming here tonight.”
I rolled my eyes. “Great, that’s what we need.”
“Well, the publicity will be great, at least. See ya!”
K-Team was the name of the Instagram account of a local “celebrity”. He had over a million followers on Instagram, and his whole account was basically based around being as big of a douche as possible – posing with fast cars while wearing sunglasses, showing off his money, working out, all that sort of thing.
I mean, I knew I probably shouldn’t judge without seeing them, but I had a feeling K-Team’s bachelor party crew weren’t exactly going to be a group of well-behaved, model citizens that were going to make my life easy tonight.
Making my way downstairs, where we stored the extra alcohol, I stepped around cases of beer until I found the extra bottles of Jack. To be honest, I didn’t really mind this part of the job. It took ages for me to lug cases back up the stairs, but I always felt like it was basically a workout I was getting paid to do. Plus, when I finally managed to get a case from downstairs and back to the bar, I always felt a cool sense of accomplishment. I was basically Wonder Woman, right?
I settled into the routine of daily life as the doors to the club opened and revelers began to make their way in. We opened at nine, but generally things didn’t really start to get going until around eleven, and then we had three hours of chaos until two, when we closed up for the night.
I had to admit, things had actually been going pretty well up until around midnight. Two bachelorette parties had come in, and while they were all definitely drunk, they were polite about it, and one of the girls even gave me a $100 tip on behalf of one of the brides.
Then, around midnight, K-Team and his entourage came in, and everything changed. As he came towards the bar, I had to stop from laughing. The guy was maybe five eight, with his hair slicked back like he was Scott Caan or something, wearing so many gold chains it was a miracle he managed to hold his head up. He wore a blazer over a pair of low-cut jeans and a white t-shirt, and still had his Ray Bans on, even though we were not only indoors, but in a super-dark club.
As he swaggered through the crowd – there was really no other way to describe the way he was walking – his entourage pushed anyone who got too close away. There had to be fifteen guys with him, all surrounding K-Team like he was some kind of God.
“Great, this is going to be just awesome,” Jake muttered under his breath, and for once, I agreed with him. There was no way K-Town and his team weren’t going to be absolutely awful customers.
“Yo, bartender,” K-Town announced when we made his way to the bar. “The crew and I need some bubbly. Ten bottles of your best,” he ordered, slapping a credit card down on the table.
I waited until I faced the bar, getting ready to grab some of the bottles he had ordered before rolling my eyes.
“We’re going to be at the table at the back. Make sure hottie over there brings us the bottles,” K-Town said, pointing towards me. My face grew red. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before, but I still wasn’t entirely used to it. My parents – a wonderful couple who couldn’t have children of their own and adopted me when I was a toddler – had always taught me to be respectful of other people and their bodies. It wasn’t until I worked here that I realized just how many people could have used parents that were more like mine.
Their entourage spent the entire night making disparaging comments about my body, and by the time we closed at two, I was almost in tears. I knew I had to be stronger than this. I knew this was the real world, and that comments like that were the norm, but I had to admit, it still hurt. I wasn’t the outgoing, popular girl in high school. I had never been the type to go out to clubs and parties and that sort of thing. I wasn’t really used to being around drunk people who were a bit looser with their lips – and their hands – than they might have been while sober, and K-Team and his entourage were the worst customers I’d had in a long time in that regard.
When I finally cashed out and grabbed my stuff, j
ust before three in the morning, Jake looked at me with something other than hatred in his eyes for the first time. “Yo, you want me to drive you home or something? Those guys were bad, tonight.”
I shook my head no. “Thanks. I’m just going to walk. I only live about ten blocks away.”
“Cool.”
I just wanted to get home, have a long, hot shower, crawl under the covers and sleep away the awfulness of tonight. I wanted to forget about the comments about my body. I wanted to forget about the leering stares.
I really, really wished I had enough money to enroll into college now.
As I left the club, I let out a sigh of relief. It always felt good to feel the cool night air on my face after hours in the stuffy club full of sweaty people grinding against one another. Plus, the feeling of the air on my face was the ultimate symbol of my freedom. I now had sixteen hours before I had to be there again for my next shift. Sixteen hours to sleep, watch Netflix, maybe read some of the latest book I was working through, Big Little Lies.
I started walking away from the club and back towards home. It was just a short walk to the tiny studio apartment I’d been lucky enough to rent for below market rates for the simple reason that I was pretty sure it broke every single rule in the fire code. But hey, I couldn’t afford Seattle prices otherwise, and certainly not downtown, so who was I to complain? At least I didn’t have any roommates.
“Hey, you,” I suddenly heard behind me. My blood went cold. I turned and saw K-Team. He was by himself now, his gold chains twinkling under the streetlight. “Come over here.”
“No, thanks, I’m heading home,” I replied. A million thoughts ran through my head. Should I try and go back to the club? No, K-Town was between me and the club; I’d have to get past him to get back there. I was still about eight blocks from home. Could I outrun him? Those chains had to weigh a ton, and while he spent so much time at the gym, he obviously regularly skipped leg day.
“Aw, but honey, I told all my crew to bail so we could have some alone time,” he said, taking a couple of steps towards me. I wanted to vomit. Was this really happening?
“Leave me alone,” I said, clutching my purse closer to my body and taking a step backwards. “I don’t want to hang out with you.”
“Come on, sweetie. It’s my bachelor night. I’m allowed to have a bit of fun, aren’t I?”
This was not good.
Chapter 2
There was definitely no more time to try and figure things out. I had a feeling my words weren’t going to have any kind of effect on K-Team. If I tried to run past him and get back to the club he might grab me, so I did the next best thing: I turned and ran away, hoping to get home first, or to find someone to help me.
As I darted down the street, I became all too aware of one thing: I definitely needed to hit the gym a little bit more. I instantly began panting and sweating, but none of that mattered, because I had to get as far away from this disgusting creep as possible. I didn’t even want to think about what he had planned.
“Hey, wait,” he called out after me, but I didn’t stop. I didn’t even turn to see if he was coming after me. I thought I could hear footsteps behind me, but I didn’t know for sure. I didn’t dare turn to look.
My brown hair whipped into my face as I ran, and I wished I’d thought to put it in a ponytail tonight. I couldn’t really see where I was going, and while I knew the route I needed to take, it was dark, I was panicking, and it just wasn’t really a great situation all around.
I was only about three blocks from home when I stumbled on the pavement and launched towards one of the trees that lined Bell Street. Who knew that Seattle’s green space was going to be what eventually took me out?
A cry of surprise escaped my lips, and I closed my eyes, bracing for impact as I pitched head-first towards the tree. To my surprise, however, I found myself hitting the ground, my hands and knees scraping against grass rather than my face meeting the bark of the tree.
“What the-” I started, opening my eyes and looking around. This was way too weird.
Instead of being in downtown Seattle, I looked to be at the entrance of a forest. Behind me was a single huge oak tree, surrounded on either side by about 50 yards of grass, with a single woodchip path leading into a large forest of coniferous trees.
Where on earth was I? I had lived in Seattle my entire life; this was definitely nowhere near the city.
“Well, hello there, I see you’ve had a bit of an adventure coming back through Eddie,” a man’s voice said from behind me.
I gasped as I stood up and looked to see where the voice was coming from. The man behind me was at least six foot two, with long, blonde hair and dazzling blue eyes that reminded me suspiciously of the Ice Walkers from Game of Thrones.
“Who are you?” I asked, stepping away from the man.
“I was about to ask you the same thing,” the man replied, making his way towards me. “I’ve never seen you come to Western Woods before.”
“Western Woods?”
“Why yes, of course. Eddie here is the portal tree between the Western Woods and the human world.”
“The human world? What is this? Some sort of trick? Some sort of weird Alice in Wonderland kind of thing?”
“What is Alice in Wonderland?”
“Am I dead?” I was starting to seriously consider the possibility that this was what had happened. Was this heaven? Or, whatever the afterlife was? Had I maybe hit my head on the tree, and that was it for me? Right now, I had absolutely no idea.
“I must say, you’re acting rather strangely for a paranormal. What kind are you?”
“I’m not a paranormal at all,” I replied. “I’m just a normal person, from Seattle, and I was just trying to get home after escaping a creepy guy, when I tripped and fell into a tree. Have I died? You certainly don’t look like how I imagined Saint Peter would look.”
Saint Peter had never been painted with abs and muscles that bulged against his shirt when I was in church.
“You can’t be a normal person,” the man replied. “The portal only works if you have paranormal powers.”
“Well, I don’t. I don’t know what these paranormal powers you’re talking about are. But so, I’m not dead?”
The man laughed. “Of course you’re not dead. Well, at least, I don’t think you are. You certainly don’t have the teeth of the vampire, and you’re completely opaque so you’re not a ghost, although I suppose vampires are undead rather than dead. No, I believe you’re very much alive. The question is, what are you? Shifter? You certainly don’t look like any I’ve ever seen. No, I think you’re more likely to be a witch.”
“A witch?” I asked. “No. No, none of this can be real. Witches don’t exist, vampires don’t exist, and I don’t even know what a shifter is.”
The man grinned at me. “You really have no idea what a shifter is?”
I shook my head. That was what he took from my last sentence?
I gasped in surprise as all of a sudden the man was covered in a blinding light; it was so bright that I covered my eyes until a second later it disappeared, and the man was replaced instead with a huge, terrifying dragon. He had the same blue eyes as the man, and scales that glittered in a combination of yellow, orange, and red.
My mouth dropped open. “This cannot be real,” I repeated, shaking my head. Nope. Dragons didn’t exist. They just didn’t. And where on earth had that man gone? Surely, he couldn’t have turned into the dragon. It just wasn’t possible.
And yet, I could actually see the resemblance. The eyes were the same, and the shades of the scales looked a lot like the man’s blond hair. A second later, the dragon began to warp; he became smaller and smaller and eventually had turned back into the man. Had that seriously just happened?
“Now you know what a shifter is,” the man said with a grin. I was pretty sure my mouth was permanently dropped open. “So tell me, what magical town do you come from that you’ve never heard of shifters? I’ve met a lo
t of travelers in my time, and a lot of different paranormals, and every single one of them has known what a shifter is. Where do you come from?”
“I’m from Seattle,” I finally managed to stammer out.
“No, no. What paranormal town are you from?”
“I’m not from a paranormal town. I’m telling you, I’m from Seattle.”
The man tilted his head towards me, and for the first time, I had a feeling he thought I was telling the truth.
“Interesting. So you’ve never been to the paranormal world?”
I shook my head no.
“Well, it’s impossible for you to have passed through Eddie if you didn’t have paranormal powers. I suppose I’ll have to take you into town and sort this out.”
“Into town?” I asked. The man motioned to the path that led into the forest.
“It’s only about a quarter mile away. We can easily walk there.”
I definitely didn’t want to follow this strange man into a forest, and this weird world, when I had absolutely no idea what was going on. But I didn’t really know what other options I had. The man began to stride off along the path, and I followed after him.
“What’s your name, anyway?” I asked as I jogged up behind him.
“I am Drake,” the man answered. “And you?”
“Tina,” I replied. As we entered the forest, I was a little bit worried about the light situation. After all, traveling in the dark without any light hadn’t gone very well for me tonight. I pulled out my phone, to turn on the flashlight, but as soon as we crossed the threshold into the forest a million dancing lights suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
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