by J. R. Thorn
Chasing Fate
J.R. Thorn
Contents
Blurb
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Epilogue
Also by J.R. Thorn
Chasing Fate © 2019 J.R. Thorn
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This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Chasing Fate
Every Thousand Years the Cycle of Death Returns
* * *
A young psychic named Renee inherits her grandmother’s terrifying powers and summons two hot (and very naked) angels to help her save the world. Paired up with her ex-boyfriend turned vampire, she’s in for a hell of a ride.
Every thousand years the cycle of death comes to claim the three major realms: Earth, heaven, and hell. It’s her turn to chase fate and stop the cycle from devouring her world, bringing heaven and hell down with it.
When the echoes of calamity begin to take form and destroy her beloved Fortune Street, she’ll have to race against the clock to stop her new vision from coming to fruition. Earth in ashes and heaven and hell collapsed in a ball of flames.
Edwin and Devon aren’t the kind of angels she’d expected to conjure with her new gifts for such a monumental task. With Devon’s constant flirting, Edwin’s sexy brooding, and Jeffery’s distracting fangs, she’ll have to hope they’re more useful than they are distracting in the game of chasing fate.
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Chapter 1
I couldn’t go to the hospital, not again, not today. My grandmother raved that I couldn’t be anywhere near her right now, so here I was, desperately shuffling her Tarot cards as if sending my fate out of order could undo the visions. The dark magic hissing across the worn tableaus never lied—not to me. The faded faces gave me enough foresight to know that my beloved grandmother was going to die. Her passing would be marked by the blood moon, but I didn’t look to see if the sickly, ruby gleam had begun its crawl across the windowsill. Instead, I bent over the fortune table where my grandmother had once taught me this terrible power, and shuffled the cards until they tore under my fingers.
That same vision that had plagued me for years came again. My grandmother’s voice filtered through my mind.
“The world is stitched together by this magic. You must harness it before it’s ripped apart.”
I looked down at the cards I’d just torn under my fingertips, only to find that they’d righted themselves again. Two cards stood face up with wicked grins. The dark angel and the man of light.
It wasn’t the typical Tarot deck… it was one tailored to our shop. My grandmother liked to call them a Fate deck.
Forced by my own stubborn need to fulfill the vision, I flipped over the overturned cards.
Each one… burned.
My fingernails scratched across the wooden table. I’d never fully believed in the nonsense my grandmother lived and breathed, even when I’d started to have the visions.
I picked up a burnt card, but it transformed until it glimmered with a healthy sheen. The tableau revealed itself to be a key, of course. Was this hallucination real? Or was I finally losing my shit?
My insides churned and I wished that Jen was here. Only my best friend knew about my “issues,” and her lips pressed into a thin line every time I announced that schizophrenia must run in my family.
I didn’t have a mother or father to speak of. When I’d asked my grandmother about it, she’d smiled and told me that she was the only parent I needed and one day, I’d understand.
Now she was on her deathbed—one that I’d fucking foreseen. There was no way, right?
I made the mistake of turning and getting a perfect view of a ripe blood moon that stood out in the sky like a forbidden fruit ready to pluck.
My grandmother would have said that this was natural. I was just inheriting my abilities. She had the uncanny ability to know what was going to happen next, but I’d just played along. A little sign on the door proudly glittered her name: Madame Jennie. It was her job to make people believe she could see things. She’d had such a gift to make this musty little shop feel like it filled to the brim with magic. Without her crackly voice to give it character, it was empty. Just me, my burnt cards, and a blood moon. I’d never felt so isolated and cold.
An icy draft found its way across my feet and curled around my ankles, amplifying the sensation of dread. I shivered and forced myself away from the rounded table where my grandmother had given so many people hope. Now that she was gone, I felt like she’d taken all the hope with her. Her readings had always been optimistic, at least at the end. There would always be tears and anxious clients on the edge of their seat as my grandma stared into a cloudy little ball. She’d always laugh and tell me later that she didn’t need glass to see the future or to commune with the dead. She was a Keymaster to the spirit realm, and one day, I’d understand what that meant. She’d always looked sad when she’d assured me the last part, as if she didn’t want me to understand.
As I shakily stood, I didn’t want to face the reality that my grandmother would finally immerse herself into that spirit realm today. Perhaps that understanding she’d dreaded would be the day of her death—the day I stopped believing in magic.
Just when I was about to give up trying to sense my grandmother in her old shop and go back to my lonely apartment, a glimmer caught my eye. The crooked shelves that housed herbs and spells were supposed to line the entire east wall, but when I looked again, I noticed this time that there were now two sets of shelves… and an old door wedged in the middle.
“The hell?” I muttered under my breath as I approached what was certainly a new hallucination. My visions always came when I least expected them. I ran my fingers over the wooden frame and my heart fluttered to life when I realized either this was real, or I’d finally gone off the edge. My visions had never included tactile sensation.
Looking around the shop, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Quiet, ruby moonlight continued to stream in through the streaked windows that really needed some cleaning and only the faint thrum of music trickled down the streets.
Turning back to the door, I did what any insane person would do. I wrapped my fingers around the brass handle and twisted.
A dark room greeted me when I pushed my way inside. “What kind of shit were you hiding from me?” I hissed as I forced my trembling legs to function.
Whatever my grandmother had been, I was ready to become a believer—or to hammer the final nail in my sanity coffin.
Candles came to life when I entered the room and I swallowed a startled scream. There was no way my hallucinations could be this creative. So
mehow… this was real.
A single pedestal housed an ancient book. Even though it emanated with an ancient power, the gleaming cover looked untouched by time. Black marble encrusted the thick pages was polished to a fine sheen and engraved runes wound through each other across the surface.
As I approached it, the book flung open and I squeaked with surprise.
This wasn’t happening.
The book opened to a page with three sentences in calligraphy. The left page depicted three orbs, one blue, one white, and one a vibrant red.
I don’t know why I read the words, but I did. It was in Latin, but somehow I knew the meaning as I spoke the ancient spell.
Keymaster of Earth, may your magic fulfill me.
Angel of Light, I summon you to assist me.
Demon of Death, I beseech you to protect me.
I don’t know what had compelled me to speak those words aloud, or if I was really reading Latin off some ancient grimoire in a secret room in the back of my grandmother’s shop… but it was going to get a whole lot weirder.
Two orbs glowed on the floor and my eyes went wide. I should have run, or screamed, or done something other than stand gawking at the magical swirls that blistered scars across my vision, but I was frozen stiff. It wasn’t terror that gripped me, but a deep understanding in the core of my stomach that said while I’d shrugged off my grandmother’s promises, I’d kept a small seed alive in my heart that there’d been truth to her words. I’d wanted to believe her. I’d always wanted to trust that everything in my life had happened for a reason. My grandmother had been so good to me and I wanted her to still be around when I graduated high school and found a guy to settle down with. I’d always known that wouldn’t happen because she’d never tell me her real age. She had to be in her nineties by the way wisdom gleamed in her eyes, but I’d always been convinced she was a lot older than that and just didn’t want the publicity in a book of records for world’s oldest and most stubborn fortune-teller.
When the two glowing orbs turned into naked men with wings, I knew my grandmother had a hell of a lot of explaining to do.
To my left knelt an angel with a boyish smile and slicked back hair. To my right, another with the body of a warrior and eyes that pierced me to my soul.
When they stood, a blush sent a wave of scaling heat across my cheeks. “Uh… n-naked,” I stuttered, putting my hand up to block the lower half of their bodies. “Very, very naked.”
The one to my right stepped out of his orb and spread his wings, frowning when the long stems of his feathers grazed the confines of the room. “Don’t be a prude,” he said with a low angelic voice that had my knees knocking. He stretched his wings again as if he felt cramped. “Your spell doesn’t bring objects through. Just flesh.”
I blinked at him over the rim of my hand that I refused to lower in spite of the heat uncurling in my stomach at the low curves at his hips. “Um, spell? Right.” I offered him a nervous laugh that made me sound utterly ridiculous. “If I cast a spell, I’m really really sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
He glowered with such violence in his gaze that my throat closed up. “There are no accidents with the grimoire,” he growled. “You have summoned me, Edwin, angel of the heavens.” He pointed to his comrade. “This is Devon, angel of hell.” His gaze moved past me as he unfocused. “The Keymaster is dying. That’s why you’ve summoned us.” He glanced at the book still open to the Latin page. “Unless…”
The angel named Devon stepped out of his orb and the room doused into dim candlelight as the magic faded. “Don’t look like much of a Keymaster,” he complained with narrowed eyes. His voice caressed me with smooth, wicked tones. “Why don’t you tell us how you got the grimoire to open for you? Are you some sort of imposter?”
As my mouth bobbed open and closed like a fish, Jen’s voice carried through the lobby. “Renee?” she called and bells jingled as the front door to the shop closed. “I saw your car! Don’t hide from me!”
Cursing, I slammed the book closed and ignored the painfully beautiful hallucinations that were trying to make me believe I’d just summoned naked supernatural creatures in a secret room of my grandmother’s fortune-teller shop. “Just be quiet,” I hissed, feeling silly to command my own imagination to shut it, and grabbed the handle.
I tried to ignore the logic that this felt very real. I twisted the knob and slipped out of the room, entered into the lobby and found Jen blinking at me as she wrinkled a tan paper bag in her grip. “I didn’t know this place had another room,” she said as she tried to peer around my shoulder.
Securing the door shut, I leaned on the knob and squeezed as someone inside tried to turn it.
“Oh, yeah, renovations.” I pitched my voice louder. “It’s got some rats, though. They need to learn to keep quiet or I’m going to kill them!” To my relief, the hand on the other side of the door stopped trying to twist the knob from me.
Jen gave me a raised brow. “Uh, right.” She reached around me and placed the bag on the shelf next to the splintered door. The delicious scent of salty, greasy fries made my stomach rumble. I hadn’t eaten all day, not with my insides twisted into a knot about my grandmother and my visions that all said she was supposed to die tonight.
“Got you some midnight grub,” she offered and gave me a sidelong smile.
“You got me fries?” I asked.
Her smile warmed my heart. “I know, I know. I’m all about protein bars and green smoothies, but sometimes the soul just needs a little grease, you know?”
I laughed. “Yeah, I guess.”
“You look tired, Ren.” She tucked an unruly curl of my brunette locks behind an ear. “You really need to get some rest.”
Taking her by the elbow, I guided her to the door and prayed that if I wasn’t insane, the supernaturals I’d just summoned would behave.
“I appreciate it,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady, “but I’m okay, really. You didn’t have to come check up on me.”
Jen looked so adorable with the moonlight streaking across her platinum blonde strands as if she could set the air on fire. Unlike my unruly frizz, each strand on her head neatly rested in place and boasted a metallic gleam. Even her pout marked her as the envy of Marion College. “Are you sure you’re all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” She gave the Tarot cards at the table a grimace. “Don’t tell me those worked?”
I rolled my eyes. “Tarot cards don’t summon dead people.” I gave her a nudge to the door. “I really appreciate you coming over. I really do, but it’s late and I’m just closing up. I promise—”
A crash sounded and we both grabbed onto each other. “What was that?” Jen hissed.
I laughed and untangled her arms from mine. “Just the rats. They probably knocked something over.” Opening the door, I resisted the urge to shove her through. “I’ll take care of it. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
“You’re acting weird,” she murmured, but reluctantly crossed the threshold. Her slim flats looked fragile against the jagged street which attracted the type of people who liked tattoos and fortunes, rather than people like Jen with a disposition for avocados. She gave me a lingering look as concern knit her brows. “I’ll go with you to check on your grandma tomorrow. You shouldn’t have to go there alone.”
I gave her a weak smile. I couldn’t tell her that I knew my grandmother was already gone. My visions weren’t some mental illness that I could brush off. They were real. Jen had heard that crash just as much as I had. This wasn’t a hallucination.
My stomach dropped. That meant there were naked angels in the other room.
“Yeah,” I said anyway and cringed when my voice went up a pitch. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Jen frowned, but waved goodbye. I watched her go until her shadow disappeared, and even the moonlight seemed to wane.
The crinkling of a paper bag sounded behind me, followed by crunching and I turned around with a frown.
The angel named Devon cr
ammed a fistful of fries into his mouth. “Holy hellfire,” he said around the food, “humans have progressed in the grub department.” He swallowed and ignored Edwin’s glare. “What? Don’t tell me you actually like the porridge.”
Edwin rolled his eyes then gave me a pointed look. “Can you summon us something to wear?” he asked. His wings flared. “You’ll have to hide these, as well. We need to accompany you to the real Keymaster without humans flipping out.”
Blushing, I squeezed my eyes closed, but it was too late. Some horribly adult images were now seared to my corneas.
“Something to wear? Uh, okay.” I eased out my hands out and made my way to the countertop where my grandmother kept my gym bag. I unzipped it and tugged out my ex-boyfriend’s jersey. “How about this?”
My eyes burst open when the fabric yanked out of my hand. “Don’t tell me that you can summon two key angels but you can’t do a simple conjuring spell?” Edwin sighed and covered his lower half with the jersey that I was never going to touch again. “Something’s wrong,” he said. “The Keymaster wouldn’t leave such a clueless apprentice in charge.”
“Yeah,” Devon agreed, then offered me a devilish grin. “Not that I had any clothes on me to summon anyway. You yanked me out of hell when I was just about to—”
Edwin slapped a fry out of Devon’s hand. “Would you stop. The girl is clearly traumatized as it is. Don’t add such imagery.” He pressed the heel of his palm into his eyes. “Too late. Image is there. I’m going to be sick.”
My fingers curled into the rough fabric of my gym bag as irritation spiked. Who did these supernaturals think they were? “Look. I don’t know what the hell you guys want or how you got here, but whatever it was, it was an accident.” My heart clenched. “And I have no idea who this Keymaster is you keep referring to, but if you’re asking about the woman who owns this shop, then you’re out of luck. She’s dead.”
