by CC Solomon
Paranormal World Series
Books 1-3 and Novella
C. C. Solomon
CatDog Publications
The Paranormal World Series is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by C.C. Solomon
All rights reserved; no part of this document shall be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form and by any means without the express permission of the author. Nor may this document be printed or circulated in any form, binding or cover, other than that which it is published.
ISBN: 978-1-7336259-5-1
Contents
Foreword
Mystic Bonds
Acknowledgments
Prologue
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
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
Mystic Journeys
Acknowledgments
Prologue
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
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Mystic Realms
Acknowledgments
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
Epilogue
Mystic Awakenings
Acknowledgments
Prologue
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
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by C. C. Solomon
Foreword
To find information on all books by C.C. Solomon, please visit Amazon.
Mystic Bonds
Paranormal World, Book One
By
C.C. Solomon
Acknowledgments
Thank you to all my friends and family who supported my dreams. My beta readers, Diana, Montrez and Shay, who gave me so much feedback. My editor, Nina Gooden, for her great eyesight, help, and encouraging comments. My proofreaders at Yours Truly Book Services for their help improving my books. Morgan and Charlee who gave me their artists eyes for a cover.
Prologue
“That was the worst town visit we’ve ever had,” Charles grumbled as he drove our gray SUV down the two-way street at a snail’s pace, avoiding the rusted cars abandoned haphazardly on both sides of the road.
“It wasn’t that bad,” I replied, leaning my head on the passenger side window.
“They were little jerks. Reminded me of why I hated school so much.”
I chuckled. “You were a nerd back then, I can understand that.”
“Shut it.”
I laughed even harder. “Kids, they were just kids.”
“I’ve never seen that. It’s kind of sad.”
Years of doing bartering in different towns and this was the first time we’d encountered a village of only children. Well, they weren’t all kids. The eldest were perhaps very early twenties. Just barely what used to be the drinking age of twenty-one. And apparently, people of that age would be kicked out of the town once they turned twenty-two. Ever since the world became a magical nightmare, us survivors were pretty low on trust. It was no surprise that a pool of children, a little under one hundred of them, had decided to come together and form their own more civilized Lord of the Flies. It was odd, but they seemed to have structure of some sort.
“They seemed very mature,” I said.
“One of them called me a shithead.”
“Yeah, but you did curse him out before that.”
Charles cut his eyes at me quickly before looking back at the road. “He threatened to turn my head into an actual pile of feces. I mean, could he have really done that?”
I shrugged, still laughing. “He was a wizard so…anything’s possible.”
Charles shivered. “Like I said, that was a town of jerks.”
“Who had a lot to barter with us, so stop complaining.”
“Well, someone else can go next—” Charles suddenly stopped talking.
I turned to Charles. “What’s-”
I didn’t have to ask him what was wrong. It was suddenly very clear. To the left of us, a group of ten to fifteen people were scattered about an open field, seemingly running in terror.
They were running from something.
A monster that charged at them from farther down the field.
It was the stuff of nightmares. I’d honestly never seen anything like it. Not on TV and definitely not in real life.
It was over twenty feet tall. Normal sized, it could have been a dog.
A freaking dog.
It was covered in long, dark-brown, matted fur with a short bushy tail. I’m no dog expert, so I couldn’t determine the breed. Maybe a Rottweiler. It had sharp, slobbery teeth and bright, red eyes.
And it roared.
The sound was loud and monstrous. I didn’t have much experience with roars, so the closest I could compare it to was a bear. Definitely not a dog. The ground shook with the sound.
Some of the people running shot at the monster dog with rifles. No magic was used. They were regular humans. They didn’t stand a chance. The bullets seemed to only annoy the dog rather than injure it.
I looked back to monster dog and
saw it shaking its huge head, the kicking legs of some poor man hanging out of its enormous, bloody mouth. It widened its jaw again and gulped the man whole. It didn’t take time to chew before it moved forward and chomped on its next victim.
I was no hero. I loved scary movies, but there was a limit to my fear level. I didn’t like spiders, and I’d run screaming, butt-naked out of the house to escape a cockroach or a snake. Yet, something moved me to help.
“Stop the car,” I shouted.
“Hell, no!” Charles yelled.
“We need to help them! They aren’t paranormals. They’ll all die.”
“Amina…”
“Our parents didn’t raise us to not help where we can.”
“Damn it,” Charles murmured as he slowed the car down and pulled off to the right side of the road. “That thing is going to stomp on this car, and then we’re going to be dead.”
“Stay here then,” I stated, getting out of the car.
“Yeah, right,” I heard him say as he opened his driver’s side door.
I jogged across the street and stopped at the edge of the field.
“What are you going to do?” Charles asked, beside me.
“Something,” I replied. I really didn’t know. After all this time, my magic was still surprising me. I mostly learned about what I could do through trial and error. That and just plain winging it. I would wing it now.
I reached out towards the massacre with my hands, pushing my magic through my fingers. I was at least fifty feet away. I wasn’t thinking; just desperate to stop this monster from eating any more people.
“Stop! Please!” I screamed.
A sharp, head-splitting pain ripped through my brain, causing me to lose balance. I had to steady myself with outstretched arms. The front of my skull felt like it was breaking, and my vision blurred momentarily. My knees grew weak, and I stumbled a bit. Charles caught me before I hit the ground and steadied me.
The disorientation felt like it lasted for minutes, but logically I knew it was less time. Pain always came when I used this form of magic, and although I knew it was coming, it never failed to knock me back.
The monster stopped just inches away from an older, white woman who had fallen on the ground. Nightmare dog turned its head, which was the size of a monster truck, towards me.
“Sit!” I shouted. It was actually more of a question, but I said it with force, so that counted for something.
And the dog sat! However, head-splitting pain also returned. A wave of nausea came as well, but it was not long-lasting.
Having this momentary diversion, the woman got up and ran to a man nearby who was aiming a rifle at monster dog. The monster didn’t move its attention or cloudy gaze away from me.
“What are you going to do now?” Charles asked.
“Going to send it back to hell where it came from.”
How I planned to do that, I actually didn’t know, but I decided to think logically. It listened to me when I told it to stop and when I said for it to sit so… “Die.”
A barrage of pain attacked my whole body like every nerve was set on fire. I keeled over and cried out.
Fido tilted to the side and then toppled all the way to the ground with an earth-shaking thud. Its eyes stayed open but were now glazed over in a death stare. Its black tongue hung out of its mouth, and legs became stiff.
He looked dead to me.
The pain vanished as quickly as it had come.
I fell to the ground from the shock of it all.
It was a pretty uneventful battle.
“Is it? Is it dead?” called a man off to our left.
“Yes!” I shouted back. I sat upright and supported myself with my right hand.
“What are you?” asked the woman I’d saved from being dinner.
“I’m a witch.”
“You’re very strong,” said the man beside her, his eyes wide.
I shrugged modestly. “I’m okay.”
“You controlled it just with your voice. That’s more than okay,” said another woman. She squinted her eyes and walked towards us with cautious steps.
“She’s a rockstar,” Charles boasted.
“We could use power like yours,” said the man on our left, walking forward.
“We’re already part of a village, but if you need our help, we’d be happy to—”
“Barter,” Charles cut in. “You can’t be doing all these unpaid services, Sis,” he whispered, placing a hand on my shoulder.
“We don’t need to trade,” said the other woman. “We just need your blood.”
“Say what—” Charles didn’t finish his sentence. I heard the sound of a gunshot from behind us. Charles arched his back and dropped to his knees.
I spun around, my hands out to attack with my magic. A bullet hit me in my shoulder, and I soon felt a sharp blast of pain spread through me. I stumbled forward but lost my balance and fell to the ground. My vision clouded, and I saw several boots walk forward before darkness washed over me.
Chapter 1
I wasn’t sure where I was. It was dark. Nighttime. I was outside in a small park surrounded by streets, sidewalks, row homes, and what looked like a couple of mom-and-pop restaurants and bars. I was in a neighborhood. Perhaps in the city. What city, I couldn’t be sure. Nothing unique to identify my surroundings popped out in the dark.
I sat down on a bench at the perimeter of the park under a lamp post. I looked ahead across the grassy field at a red, neon “Open” sign on the front of a bar sandwiched between houses. Music played off in the distance.
There was life around me. I could feel it, like a minor static on the skin. However, no one was outside, and I heard no buzz of human chatter. I couldn’t tell how late it was. It was certainly too late to be sitting outside alone. Yet, I didn’t get up.
It was summer, I think, by the feel of thick heat on my skin and the way I was dressed. I had on an all-white, A-line, spaghetti strapped dress that stopped at my knees. On my feet, I wore simple light-brown colored sandals that matched closely to my skin tone. My dark, brown hair was out in its natural curly state, grazing my shoulders.
I looked like bait for a predator.
A distant roar, like the sound of a lion, got me to my feet. I spun around, trying to locate the origin of the noise but had no such luck. This was a city; the roar of a lion didn’t match the surrounding. Then again, neither did me standing out in the dark.
“It’s just someone’s TV playing too loudly,” I muttered, wrapping my arms around myself. I wasn’t cold, but I was certainly creeped out.
I was being naive, borderline stupid. Why was I out here? Could I be waiting for someone? Why didn’t I know?
I listened for the animal call again, yet heard nothing but the music from the bar across the street.
I sat back down carefully, my bottom on the edge of the bench. The music was comforting. Odd noises didn’t sound so bad when you had the baseline of an old, 90s-era song playing along with it.
Or so I told myself.
Something electric suddenly pricked the air around me. Goosebumps peppered my arms and made the fine hairs stand up. I heard a shuffling behind me to my left but didn’t turn around, too afraid to see the source of what I assumed was the animal roar. The sound grew closer. Footsteps or paws crunched grass. A shadow appeared on the sidewalk where my bench and I rested under the street light. It was human-shaped.
“Mind if I sit next to you?” The voice was deep, male, soothing, and familiar.
I looked to my left at the source of the voice. A few steps in front of me now stood a man, perhaps in his late twenties, although age worked differently nowadays, so one never really knew how old another person was exactly.
He had a pleasant smile on his face and kind, light-brown eyes, honey-colored skin, and short, wavy black, hair faded close to his scalp. He wore dark jeans and an untucked, white button-down shirt that covered his just shy of 6-foot, athletic frame. On his feet were black and white Converse t
hat gave him a boy-next-door appeal. He was very attractive, and his smile, with full lips and the world’s nicest white teeth, made his face almost glow.
He smiled like he knew me like he had all the answers and was excited to tell them to me. Ease settled in.
“Uh, yeah, sure. I’m sorry, do I know you?” I asked.
He sat down beside me.
Close.
I could smell his cologne. Like sandalwood and summer rain on grass with a tinge of something sweet. It was intoxicating.
