His Angelic Keeper
By Melinda Kucsera
Copyright
His Angelic Keeper © 2018 Melinda Kucsera
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Table of Contents
Other Books Set in This World
Want Free Stories?
Would You Give Me A Star?
Dedication
Not Your Usual Greeting
Snacked on by a Memory-Eating Mist
Avoiding Searchers
Missing Pieces
Accidental Possession
Wings and Flaming Things
Other Books Set in This World
HIS ANGELIC KEEPER
HIS ANGELIC KEEPER: HIDDEN*
CURSE BREAKER: BOOKS 1-4
CURSE BREAKER: ENCHANTED
CURSE BREAKER: DARKENS
CURSE BREAKER: FACETED
CURSE BREAKER: FALLS
CURSE BREAKER: SUNDERED*
CURSE BREAKER: TOWERED*
SHARDS FOR HIS PRESENT*
ERRANT KNIGHTS*
*Forthcoming in 2018
Want Free Stories?
So do I! Who am I? I’m the star of this book. Did you know each week the cast of Melinda’s stories take readers on an adventure? What are you waiting for? Join us. Just go to: www.mkucsera.com/welcomecharacters to sign up.
Would You Give Me A Star?
Yes, I’m a fictional character, but I need reviews too! I exist when you read my story. I love feedback and reviews help other readers decide if my adventure is right for them. (It is, but they won’t know that if you don’t leave a review.) So, if you’re enjoying this book, please consider leaving a review. I treasure your feedback.
Thank you for reading His Angelic Keeper.
Dedication
O, Guardian most dear,
I’m lost and full of fear.
My past’s gone, leaving me in tears.
Help me find me a way back there
to the ones I hold dear.
O, Guardian most dear,
make all things clear.
O, Guardian most dear.
-Traditional Shayarin Prayer
Not Your Usual Greeting
Hi Readers!
Welcome to the Angel’s unofficial guide to the Curse Breaker series. Ah, I mean, His Angelic Keeper, the first book in my break-out series. It’s also book number I don’t know what of the Curse Breaker series because I appear in books 1 and 4. His Angelic Keeper tells my side of the story.
(There’s some debate about whether this book should count as book 5 or if the series should be renumbered with my book elbowing Darkens out of its number 2 slot. I’m fine with it either way, but my nephew is so adorable when he argues, I have no incentive to resolve that quandary anytime soon.)
Instead of your usual greeter, my nephew, you got me, his Auntie because I haven’t ‘met’ my nephew yet. How could I not know my nephew? Well, medical care doesn’t exist in Shayari for anyone who’s not wealthy and even then, most remedies will kill you. (We haven’t discovered germs yet.) So, I died before the first book in the Curse Breaker series.
But you already guessed that. Since we’re all friends here, you can just call me—ah, well now that’s embarrassing. The story hasn’t even begun yet and I've already forgotten my name. How strange.
Well, I had a name just a moment ago. I’m sure it’ll come back to me. Wait a minute—what’s all this gray stuff? It’s oozing all over the paper I’m writing on and eating it?
Now it’s devouring the table too and are those proboscises? (You know those long flexible trunks elephants have.) What're those things feeling around for?
Oh, Shades and Blades, it’s tearing through the wall.
And now it’s not. A fog bank just rolled over it and that proboscis vanished.
Don’t run away! There’s something I must tell you—something important. But look at your hands. They’ve gone all translucent and smoky.
Don’t panic. We’re fading into the gray fog subsuming everything. It doesn’t hurt, so we must survive this, right?
I don’t remember why I must speak to you. The reason disappeared with my name and the room when the fog took us.
Are you still there? Call out if you hear me. All right, I guess you’re back where you belong, safe in your favorite reading nook while the fog carries me to the beginning of my tale.
I hope you enjoy His Angelic Keeper. It’s my first stab at the whole main character thing and I do mean stab. Hang onto your halo, this’ll be a bumpy ride through some odd corners of the afterlife.
—Your hero for this tale, name currently unknown
Snacked on by a Memory-Eating Mist
[Parts of this tale takes place during Curse Breaker: Enchanted]
Where am I?
Everything was gray and blurry. She blinked to clear her eyes, but the grayness refused to clarify.
Where was I before I arrived here?
When she tried to remember, she found nothing, not even a hint of a clue. Her mind had been scoured clean of everything except that one conviction—I was just somewhere else in the middle of doing something important. That wrenching feeling of displacement was so strong, there was no denying it. But it gave her something to go on, some mental ground to build on. She clung to that scrap of information and searched for more.
My mind can't be completely erased if I have even a vague sense of what I was doing before I woke up in this state.
She smiled, already feeling a little more in control of things. First things first, she must find who or what stole her memories and if that person, place, or thing could still take them. Her smile became a grin, but it faltered as that gray nothingness wrapped its colloidal thickness around her and her newly formed plan disintegrated.
Oh, no, you don't.
She tried to hold on to her plan as it slipped away, word by word, dissolving into the mist until she was left empty and alone again—a listless husk twisting in that all-encompassing fog.
Dark whispers vibrated that gray stuff as she came back to herself. Was it a cocoon of some kind? If it was, then it wasn't made from anything she could touch or feel. How strange.
I should be freaked out by this, but I'm not. Why aren't I?
In fact, she just felt empty as if the ability to feel had been sucked out of her. Not exactly normal, but at least she could still think.
It’s this place. It’s trying to make me apathetic, so I’ll be a good prisoner and wallow away the years in my bland cell. Yeah, that’s not happening.
She tried to remember anything at all but there was just the grayness rolling in endless waves through her mind, wiping away each attempt to remember, but she refused to give up.
Something doesn't want me to remember. I must know something this mysterious ‘they’ don’t want me to know. And that must be important. How can I figure out what that something is without tipping off the gray thing encasing me?
Now that was a muddle. Can it sense my thoughts?
Probably. How else would it know I recalled something?
But she couldn't know that for certain.
It could’ve wiped my mind a thousand times since I arrived here. I have only a vague sense of purpose to go on. And that too could be wrong.
She drifted then, floating in the gray sea of forgetfulness until whispers disturbed the quiet.
They grew louder and less intelligible as the grayness under her rippled like disturbed water.
Is there water under there?
A memory stirred but the gray fog vacuumed it up before it could rise to the level of conscious thought. But there was something important about the water here. Her nemesis couldn't erase that fact. It had left an indelible mark on her psyche—or a well-trod path from countless memories I can't yet retrieve. She suppressed a smile and blanked her mind before the fog sensed the change in her and closed in to kill it.
I remember nothing. I am nothing, she sent into that grayness passing over her, and its smoky fingers stayed out of her mind.
It flowed sluggishly by as if it had eaten too much and was considering whether it had room for more. Or was that just wishful thinking?
My memories can't have filled you up. You're too vast. Unless she was inside the belly of a beast, but that seemed too strange a scenario to contemplate.
All the truly enormous magical beasts were long extinct. Her gut confirmed that, and she didn’t need her memories to back up that certainty. No, she wasn’t inside anything except a bizarre prison, and prisons had walls to scale and locked doors she could pick. If she could find her way past this gray menace.
Does the fog-beast seem vast because it’s all I see? How far away is that horizon? This misty plane seemed to stretch on forever in all directions without end or relief. Nothing is that large.
But the fog could be an exotic creature, or it could be generated by one as a defense mechanism. Given its memory-stealing properties, that made sense.
It might even fear me.
She laughed at the idea of anything fearing her. Still, the idea had some merit. Everyone feared something.
Maybe I’m more fearsome than I feel.
That voice called again, still in no language she understood. The ground didn’t react this time. Even though the call grew fainter, her gut still urged her to hide. And that didn't make any sense at all.
If there's someone here sharing this bizarre experience, I should find them and compare notes. Maybe they know how we got here or better yet, how to escape.
But that inner caution, something she hadn't known she possessed, refused to unclench. It held her down under the fog and kept her quiet. Not everything here might be friendly. I've forgotten too much. How can I tell who's a friend and who's the foe who tossed me in here?
The voice continued to call while its owner moved further away. She still couldn't tell what this person was shouting nor whether the voice was the same one as before. It might not be. There could be a whole enclave hidden in this gray stuff. That memory-stealing fog might be protecting their home.
Would they help me if I made myself known to them? Probably not, you don't shroud your home in forgetfulness unless you want to discourage visitors. Alright, new plan—avoid those searchers.
Avoiding Searchers
Just having a goal focused her and she stopped drifting through the fog. There still wasn't a physical ground to stand on, not since the first voice had called out, and it had fallen silent. But she had a mental one and from there, she could claw her way back to herself and get some much-needed answers.
Just when she thought the last voice was an aural hallucination, another voice called into the gray nothingness. It had a darker timbre than the first but like that original hail, it sent shivers through the fog, eddying it. Was the voice changing it? Might this place be mutable?
Can I reshape it to something less drab and more scenic? I’ll have to test that theory after I dodge this searcher.
His voice grew louder still, further ruffling the fog, but it didn't reveal anything. That fog still enveloped her hiding what lay under it and anything else moving through it. He called out again, but his words were still an unintelligible jumble.
Damn, he could be calling out directions to the nearest exit, but I can’t make it out. Or he could be calling my name.
She froze there lost in the fog and to herself. Who am I?
No name came to her. Before she could panic over her nameless state, a second voice joined the first. That couldn’t be good. She still couldn’t see anything but the fog. Now isn’t the time to worry about names and identities. You've got people to avoid.
Two searchers meant there was something to find, and it implied a dwindling time limit to find it. This place isn't the nothingness it seems, not if there are two—now three people scouring it for something or someone. They might be looking for me.
Three sets of echoes stirred the fog, and it churned like white water over rocks. Before she could trace them, those voices faded into silence again. But there must be more to this gray place. Those searchers came from somewhere. I just need to find their lair.
She tried to kick her feet, but nothing happened, nor could she even feel her extremities, but they had to be there, right?
“Don't panic. Just take it one step at a time and you'll get there,” said an echo of a memory.
It spoke in a boy's voice, soft as a whisper and full of support. With it came a hint of green more sensed than seen because there was no color here.
And then there was. A soft green light spread through the fog, bouncing from droplet to suspended droplet, refracting that tiny light, reminding her of his eyes. That same green spark had danced in their depths and delight lit her up.
Show me some magic!
At her command, a small hand shot out of the fog. It was a child’s hand reaching for hers. But she couldn’t endanger him, not when she had no idea who or what she was facing. She patted the hand but didn’t take it.
Thank you, but I got into this mess, and I'll get out of it.
A glowing green tendril curled around his fading hand and his offer of help. She tensed, ready to battle the fog for this recaptured bit of her past. But the grayness didn't swamp her or try to take that echo from her past away.
Maybe it really had eaten too many of her memories during her stay here and now had no room for more. I hope you choke on my memories.
The silence startled her. What happened to those voices?
No echoes disturbed the fog. It lay still as a sleeping child with a full belly. Did the fog feast on the searchers' memories too?
Are you too full to eat anymore? This last thought she directed at her foggy prison and it drew back as if insulted, creating a clear space around her head.
I will beat you. I think I did once before. That’s what you don’t want me to remember—how I bested you, so I can’t do it again.
The fog backed up more, revealing the tops of her bony shoulders. The gray fabric of her dress covered them.
Oh good, I’m not naked.
Nudity would have ratcheted up this situation to another level of weird, one she didn’t feel equal to just now. Relieved, she raised her hand to rub her temples, but no fingers touched her face. She tried again but nothing happened—not good. Either my eyes aren't working properly, or my hand is gone.
Missing Pieces
Don’t panic. Your hand must be here somewhere. This gray stuff is just messing with your head. She pushed all thoughts to the contrary away.
My hand was here before—and there was that troublesome word again, ‘before.’
Before I was here I was somewhere else doing something else. At least I hope so because ‘here’ is quite boring unless you like gray smears.
She stared at the retreating fog. I hope I gave you the worst case of indigestion you've ever had.
Maybe it heard her because the fog fled like it had an urgent need to be elsewhere. Its retreat was herky-jerky as it abandoned all attempts to flow. In flight, it looked more like a herd of misty, half-formed beasts. Though they could also be insects considering the way they trampled each other. The horde moved so fast they blurred.
If they get sick on my memories, will they give them back? Do I want them back after that?
Just the thought of her memories funneling throug
h the digestive tracts of a bunch of strange creatures nauseated her. Perhaps she'd taken that eating metaphor a bit too far, or perhaps not far enough. Whatever those creatures were, they had to survive on more than just memories.
A quick downward check relieved her of one worry—she had a body of sorts. It was blurry and parts of it smoked but all the important bits were there, and they now responded to her commands. All except her eyes which just showed her a flat gray plane under an equally gray dome. So, she rubbed them but that didn't improve the lackluster view.
Maybe there’s something wrong with my eyes?
Thoughts of ‘before’ distracted her. They crept in, bringing with them a tumult of impressions—creaking floorboards, cold fingers clasping hers, a baby’s thin wail.
Who’s baby? Did I have a baby?
Her gut said no as more fragments of the past flooded her. She reached for them, and the name she’d forgotten. I must regain as much of myself as I can before those memory-eating creatures return or those searchers find me.
When the ground under her opened wide, she dropped through the hole, ignoring the gray dust sifting onto her head.
Shrinking as she plummeted, she landed light as a feather on a little girl’s shoulder and became tangled in her unwashed hair. The girl flicked at her, thinking her an insect.
Why is nothing ever easy?
She tried to dodge, but she was caught in a bird’s nest of knots, and that finger was growing as it neared her. This is going to hurt.
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