“Mom?” Elyse’s voice broke and sobbing, she ran to her mother.
To her credit, Mrs. Kelly only flinched a little, then scooped Elyse into an embrace, stroking her hair soothingly.
“Does somebody want to explain why everyone thinks it’s 2018?” Mrs. Kelly asked very calmly.
“Holy shit,” I repeated.
“Dude, you already said that,” Wyatt said.
“Katherine,” said Lucy, kneeling down next to Elyse and her mom. “It’s good to see you again.”
“Okay, I’ll ask it,” Wyatt said. “How is Mrs. Kelly here, now, in the real world when she, you know, died?”
Mrs. Kelly tensed at this revelation.
Wyatt added, “And along that same line of inquiry, did anyone even know it was possible to pull a living person out of a memory construct? Because if you did, you should have shared with the group.”
“Wyatt,” I gestured for him to be quiet.
“What? I’m just curious, because you know this kind of thing,” Wyatt pointed to Mrs. Kelly. “This isn’t magic, it’s—it’s biblical, that’s what it is. And I’m a man of reason, so I don’t use those words lightly.”
“Wyatt, now’s not the time,” I said.
Wyatt was incredulous. “Not the time?”
Wyatt didn’t get to say more, because a jet of liquid-green fire hit me from behind. My aura protected me, mostly, and Maddie zapped me with a healing spell that took care of the rest.
I shifted into beast form and performed a leaping, twisting move that landed me behind my attacker.
“Marcus!” Lucy shouted.
Marcus grinned at her and gave a little wave.
I slashed through his midsection, expecting him to come apart like Swiss cheese.
Nothing.
The Marcus standing in front of me was an illusion, a decoy.
Six more fake Marcus’s popped up around the clearing, all of them grinning from ear to ear. The Marcus chorus spoke in perfect unison.
“I don’t know how you managed it, Lucy. To pull all of us from your memory, here to this beautiful forest, it’s simply amazing. But I promise you this, I will discover how it was done, and I will take your power. I told you once that you were mine, and that has not changed, my sweet.”
I felt a very familiar wave of energy ripple through the air.
“He’s opening a portal!” I yelled.
I spun in every direction looking for the escaping psychopath.
“There,” Lucy shouted, sending a barrage of fireballs.
I moved so fast I almost beat her fireballs to the punch. But it didn’t matter, the portal was closing and the last thing I saw was Marcus’ stupid, smiling face.
“I don’t understand,” said Lucy. “He’s dead—I killed him a long time ago.”
“That was yesterday,” I told her. “Before people started getting sucked out of memories. Do you remember what happened while you were in the coma?”
“Pieces of it, yes. It’s like a really vivid dream. You know, the kind that you can’t completely recall once you wake up.”
“But you do remember the real history, what went down that night?”
“I remember waking up in a room full of bodies, and being soaked in blood as if I had taken a bath in the stuff,” Lucy said, a faraway look in her eyes. “I remember finding the bodies of my parents among the dead, and that Marcus was responsible—and that I took his head for what he did.” Lucy’s face turned stone hard. “And now he’s loose in the world again, and somehow it’s my fault.”
No,” I insisted. “It’s not your fault. Something went hooey there at the end. I think it was a combination of Cynthia’s magic, the magic contained in your blades, and Wyatt’s ability. They intermingled and well . . . here we are.” I gestured around us. “And I also think your memory of killing Marcus may be a fake, an implant. There’s a lot I need to fill you in on.”
“How dare you show your face here, Ollphiest?”
Lucy and I spun, my claws out and her with a fireball at the ready.
“Mr. Kelly?” I retracted my claws and Lucy let her fireball wink out.
It was Mr. Kelly, but he looked horrible. He was too thin, he needed a shave and a haircut, and his clothes looked like he’d mugged a homeless person.
I looked back over my shoulder. In our pursuit of Marcus we’d left the others just beyond the trees behind us.
“Mr. Kelly, something incredible has happened.”
Mr. Kelly shifted into panther form, roaring loud and long, and in an instant a pack of very large wolves and panthers, shape-shifters all, stalked out of the trees.
Oh boy.
Lucy ignited a fireball in each hand. I stared at her.
“What?” she asked. “If they want you, they’re going to have to come through me.”
Mr. Kelly crouched and the other panthers and wolves followed his lead. Oh crap, they were actually going to attack.
“Richard? What on earth are you doing?” Mrs. Kelly said, pushing past Lucy and me. “You shift back this instant, all of you,” Mrs. Kelly stamped her foot at the shifters surrounding us.
Mr. Kelly froze and started making the most heart-wrenching keening sound I’ve ever heard. Mrs. Kelly stepped forward and bopped him on his panther nose.
“Stop that,” Mrs. Kelly said.
Mr. Kelly shifted and grabbed Mrs. Kelly by the shoulders.
“Katie?” Mr. Kelly whispered.
And then he mashed her to him and showered kisses on her mouth, her cheeks, her eyes and her nose. Mr. Kelly couldn’t hold her close enough.
“Richard, really, there are people present,” Mrs. Kelly chided.
I glanced at the small army of shifters. One by one they all shifted back to human form. I realized all the Kelly children were present. Wow, they had all been prepared to attack me. I would need time to process that.
It is because they fear us, as they should.
This time I didn’t shout down my inner crazy. Maybe I needed to start taking his ravings a little more seriously.
It’s about time.
But not right now.
Elyse pushed past me, but not before giving my arm a squeeze. She joined the growing crowd of family and friends surrounding her parents. I realized for the first time that the Kelly kids I knew from Pasadena weren’t the only Kelly kids. Elyse’s family was huge. Of course, her parents had been alive for hundreds of years, so it only made sense.
Wyatt and Maddie joined Lucy and me as we watched all the shifters come forward to pay their respects to Mrs. Kelly.
“Whoa, that’s a lot of naked shape-shifters,” Wyatt said, nervously. “They do know we’re on their side, right?”
“I think we’re good,” I said, and added under my breath, “for now.”
“So what do we do next?” Maddie asked. “Everyone back in LA must be freaking out.”
I looked at her quizzically.
“Lucy’s here and we’re here, so that means none of us are there,” Maddie said, as if explaining simple arithmetic to a group of five-year-olds. “Cynthia must have lost her shit when we all disappeared.”
I grimaced. “That’s an excellent point. That completely slipped my attention.”
“Excuse me,” Wyatt said, and when no one answered he said even louder, “Excuse me!” Dozens of shifter eyes turned toward the kid. “Hi, um, yeah, sorry to interrupt, but does anyone have a cell phone? We need to make a call.”
Eyes narrowed and a few growls slipped out. Wyatt quickly realized his error, smiled at the crowd and said, “Never mind.” He quickly stepped back and positioned himself behind me.
Lucy let out a long breath. “I think it’s a mistake to call the Society.”
I was stunned.
“What?”
“My trip down memory lane wasn’t just a fun vacation,” Lucy gritted her teeth. “Things that happened back then, things that I thought I’d suppressed, I know now they were taken from me by force.”
“Memory modification? A
re you sure?” I asked.
“Yeah, Cynthia did it herself. She said she couldn’t trust anyone else with the task.”
“But why would they do that if they ended up recruiting you?” Maddie asked.
“You all heard her, they thought I was a blood-mage,” said Lucy.
“But you’re not,” I said.
“Oh, but I was, kind of.”
Wyatt’s mouth fell open. Maddie shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. Elyse looked in our direction. She was following the conversation.
“Um, would you like to elaborate on that explosive statement?” I said.
“You guys saw the size of the coven. In real life a super-bear didn’t show up to save the day.” Lucy smiled at me. “I took them all out single-handedly. Even being a Paragon with innate magic, there was no way I should have survived. Unless, of course, I was somehow able to tap into and drain their magic. Remember, all of them were charged up on—” A small sob escaped Lucy’s lips.
Her family’s blood is what the coven was hopped up on that night. Lucy had siphoned blood-magic derived from the life force of her family to kill the very people that had just sacrificed her parents.
It was horrible.
Wyatt gave a low whistle.
Maddie reached out and held Lucy’s hand.
“You nuked them, that’s all that matters,” I said.
Lucy nodded, recovering.
“Okay, so we don’t call HQ. What do you want to do?”
Lucy’s reply was immediate and forceful. “Hunt Marcus.”
“I agree he’s a douche bag of the first order and we need to make him dead, but why go after him right now?”
“Because he knows what really happened that night. How he’s alive, when I remember killing him… And how he was able to hide from the Society all these years,” said Lucy.
“Don’t you think that maybe you just pulled him out of your memory like you did with Mrs. Kelly?” I asked. “Because, like I said, there’s a good chance his death is a fake memory.”
“Nope,” Wyatt answered. “The Marcus she shish-kebabed in her memory construct is lying back there with Lucy’s blades sticking out of his back.”
“What?” I said, stunned.
Maddie nodded. “Oh, yeah, it’s all kinds of weird.”
“So, the Marcus who just escaped? Where’d he come from?” I asked.
Wyatt shrugged. “I don’t know, dude, but Lucy pulled Elyse’s mom out of thin air, so creating an evil magic clone of Marcus doesn’t seem all that far-fetched in comparison. By the way,” Wyatt added. “We really need to work on our apprehension skills. Because, you know, the bad guys keep getting away.”
“Agreed,” said Lucy.
“Okay, so we hunt Marcus,” I said.
Lucy turned to face us, her eyes brimming with tears. “There is one other thing. I told you I found my parents that night, but there was no sign of Jason, my little brother. I think—I think he may have survived. Marcus may also have the answer to that question.” Lucy paused and then looked at each of us in turn. “I need to find him, but I can’t do it alone. I need your help.”
“You’ve got it,” I said.
Maddie and Wyatt nodded in agreement.
“Where do we even begin to look?” Wyatt asked.
A mischievous grin spread across Lucy’s face. “I know a guy.”
CABAL
A Paragon Society Novel
**Coming Soon**
* * *
Thank you!!
Thank you, thank you for continuing to follow Orson and his friends’ journey through the crazy world of the Paragon Society. I hope you enjoyed reading Lucy as much as I enjoyed writing it. Once again the writing, rewriting and editing process has taken longer than I planned and so I’m currently about a month behind on my self-imposed publishing schedule. But, I’m already several chapters into the next book and I’m pushing myself for a late summer release.
After feedback from readers I have made a change to the editing process, and I’m very excited with the skill and ability of my new editor. The edit on this book is superior to what I received on the first two books and I plan on having Orson and Gypsy Witch re-edited.
If you’re enjoying the story, you can make a big difference…
Obviously, the Paragon Society series is not classical literature, but that’s okay because I did not set out to write classical literature. My only goal is to tell a fun, exciting and engaging story and hopefully, you agree that I’ve succeeded in that endeavor.
I’m a pulp fiction writer, and I embrace that title with pride.
Hands down, reviews are one of the most powerful tools in an author’s arsenal. I would be tremendously grateful if you could spend a few minutes leaving an honest review. It can be as long or as short as you like. Reviews help me gain visibility, and they can bring my books to the attention of other readers who may enjoy them. Thank you, in advance for your help!
Paragon Society Fans
First, I want to give a shout-out to my advance readers, once again you’ve proven how invaluable you are as the final group of eyeballs that give my manuscripts the once over, and in the process discover missed typos and even some structural issues. You guys rock!
I love getting to know my readers because without you I’d be mumbling to myself in the dark somewhere. Many of you have already reached out, and I do my best to respond to everyone, but if I missed you, I apologize, please know that I appreciate the time it took for you to send the email and I’m very thankful.
I occasionally (very occasionally - no spam ever!) send out newsletter updates with details on new releases, excerpts from upcoming books, sneak-peeks at cover art and more importantly free or discounted Paragon Society swag.
From time to time I also invite readers to join my (already awesome) advance reader team, which gets them copies of upcoming books before they are officially released - for free.
If this sounds like something you may be interested in, please drop me an email at:
[email protected]
Or find me on Facebook @therealparagonsociety
All my best,
David
Lucy: A Paragon Society Novel (Book 3) Page 21
