Paranormal Word Series Box Set (Books 1-3 and Novella)

by CC Solomon

  “Well, that’s a little hurtful,” Phillip said, with a frown. “We would never be part of a village that was so exclusive. We are all human.”

  I turned my head slowly to him, struggling to keep my face neutral. He ignored my gaze boring into the side of his face.

  “You people always bring destruction,” shouted Mac, clearly not getting the warning that Ed gave him. “You’re the reason all this mess started. You brought the Sickness!”

  “We are just as innocent as you,” I said back. “I had no control over becoming what I am. My parents didn’t change. They died of the Sickness as well. I’d give anything to go back to the way things were.”

  The group went silent.

  Ed, who I was beginning to believe was the leader, spoke up. “How’d you get here?” he asked, eyes slit in suspicion. “You sound American.”

  “Long story. But let’s just say magic and against our will.”

  Ed raised an eyebrow. “You were banished?”

  “No, we have people at home who want us back. But we were sent away by magic we can’t break or we’d just teleport ourselves back.”

  “We were hoping we’d find someone who had a boat or could fly a plane, with magic, to get us back,” Phillip added.

  “Where do you magic people live?” asked the crazy woman. She lowered her guns now but I knew she could put a bullet in me faster than I could say a spell

  “America. Near Washington, D.C.” Phillip answered.

  The group grew silent again. Then burst into laughter.

  Phillip looked back to me. “Did I say something funny?”

  I shrugged.

  “No one here has the capabilities or the time to get you to America. At least, not right now.” Ed crossed his arms and considered us. “So, you’ll have to stay here.”

  Phillip opened his mouth to speak, but I spoke first. “Can we stay in your village until we can get home?” I threw up my hands. “I realize you said no people with powers but we can keep our gifts under wraps. We’re witches, so it’ll be easy. Or we could use our magic to make things better for you. Heal the sick. Ward your town. We won’t cause any trouble. We’re good people.” I looked up to Phillip. “Right?” And if Mae thought it important enough to refer to this Ed guy, I had to stay close to him. If I didn’t, it was quite possible her premonition wouldn’t be realized.

  Phillip slowly nodded, lips pursed together.

  The group gathered together and whispered, shooting suspicious looks at us every once in a while, except the crazy-eyed woman who waved at us from the huddle.

  Phillip turned to me. “They aren’t going to want a bunch of strangers in their town. Besides, they don’t have the means to help us. We should just keep going.”

  “And go where? We don’t know this country. We don’t know how long it might take us to find other people. If we stick with them, we might have a better chance of meeting people who can help us. Regardless, we need to be part of a town to survive.”

  “But a town of—” he lowered his voice even more “—non-gifted humans? How can they help us?”

  “Well, they survived this long and Ed just took out a magic being. There are a lot of strong ungifted humans out there. I live with some in Hagerstown. It’s time you see things differently, as well.”

  “Fine,” Ed called. “You can help us in town. Heal some of our sick, grow food, get our electricity working. You can stay with us on a trial basis. You do anything funny and you’re out, unless we decide to kill you.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “And you can tell us more about you on the way.” He handed one of the totes back to us. The one with the food. He kept the one with the liquor.

  Chapter 15

  We headed back to Ed’s village in our SUV. They came in two cars but were all too happy to have us use our spells to get other cars working. So much for not liking our kind. Gas was a hot commodity nine years in. No one was exactly importing and exporting it and most of our gas was taken from what was left at gas stations we scouted and cars on the road. That was just about gone now and most mobile cars were electric or hybrid cars that were magically powered. Gas based cars could still run if powered by magic but not for long.

  “I see you aren’t out of gas here,” Phillip observed.

  “We use electric cars. Ran out of gas options a while ago,” Ed explained while walking to our SUV before we hit the road.

  “I thought you were anti-paranormal humans,” I stated. “How’d you get cars to work?”

  “We used to know a tech mage. He got a load of cars running before we parted ways. We also work with a village in Galway that has a lot of your kind there.”

  “I guess we aren’t all so bad,” Phillip muttered.

  Ed shrugged. “The pretty lady rides with me,” He stated, looking over at me. “You go with Peter over there” He said to Phillip, pointing to an older blond-haired man.

  “Or, just a thought, I go with Amina,” Phillip said, standing closer to me.

  Ed gave him an amused smile. “Or I can leave both of you here. We don’t know you and, honestly, don’t trust you. If something goes down with one, at least we have the other as insurance.”

  I frowned. I wasn’t exactly jumping up and down to stay with Phillip but I didn’t want him causing a fight if we were separated either, especially if that resulted in me getting hurt. I was in no mood to talk about the whole soulmate linking just yet.

  “That’s fine,” I said, eyeing Phillip.

  He raised the corner of his upper lip in a silent snarl and then proceeded to speak to me in Spanish. Now, my Spanish comprehension game was severely lacking but for some reason I understood everything he said to me.

  “Be careful. I don’t like the way the red-headed guy looks at you. Kill him if he tries anything. Be safe,” he said in Spanish.

  I cocked an eyebrow and without thinking, replied in perfect Spanish. “I’m better off with him than you.”

  His eyes widened then narrowed before he turned away and went to the other car. Well, that was curious. How had we just communicated in Spanish when I only knew the bare minimum? On my best days, all I could do was read it. And yet, here we were talking normally as if it were nothing. Phillip, although raised most of his life in the U.S., was originally from the Dominican Republic, so Spanish was natural for him. Could our bond even stretch so far as to include knowledge? Did I know what he knew and vice versa? Again, I wondered how deep our bond went. Could he read my thoughts? If he could, he hadn’t given it away.

  “Come on, darlin’,” Ed called, honking the horn of the car, unfazed by our exchange in Spanish. I got in the front passenger seat, continuing to look at Phillip as he got in his assigned car.

  “He your boyfriend?” Ed asked.

  My eyes widened and I shook my head quickly.

  Ed snorted. “Well, he thinks he is.”

  Ed mentioned that they lived thirty minutes outside of the city, but it would take closer to an hour due to the state of the roads. So, there would be plenty of time to tell our life’s stories.

  Ed drove us out of the city into a suburban area, which was a longer but safer route to their town. He mentioned that although their highways were much quicker, they were a nightmare to get around. Apparently, there were still many abandoned cars there from attempts to flee the city when vampires and ghosts attacked, and the Sickness came. Highways were now graveyards that attracted those who fed on the dead and anyone simple enough to go there. He was surprised we were still alive but when I mentioned that we were run out of an abandoned apartment due to ghosts he gave an, “A-ha.’”

  “You seem pretty all right but, your mate seems like a bit of an arse. Can we trust him?” he asked, giving me a quick side-eye.

  “Sure, you can…most of the time. He’s just a bit…uptight.”

  He grumbled something unintelligible. “I must say, this magic you lot have is amazing. You can turn rotten food into edible food and restart technology. How did yo
u learn about these spells? You say you weren’t a witch before all of this, right?”

  I withheld the fact that we were actually life mages. I didn’t think it would go over well to tell them that Phillip and I had power over anything living. Anyway, mages were a subset of witches so I wasn’t lying. “Correct. I found spell books at specialty book stores, met other witches who shared their knowledge, and then there’s the internet.”

  He looked quickly at me with a frown. “You still have bloody internet access?”

  I nodded. “Yes, if it weren’t for witches and mages, America would have a hard time getting back together. I mean, it’s still having problems but now we can at least communicate with each other without having to leave our towns, at least with others who have internet. Makes it much easier to coordinate efforts.”

  “Guess you’re having an easier go of it,” he grumbled, shaking his head. “We’ve visited some other villages that have the internet as well. The tech mage we met didn’t stick around long enough to get the internet working. He was only passing through and fixed a few of our cars and got our electricity going in exchange for food. That was almost three years ago. But when anything breaks, we’re out of luck. The only other way to keep electricity working is to have a steady source of magic around.”

  “And since you don’t let magic humans live in your town, until now, you can’t keep things working.”

  Ed nodded. “We’d let some folks from a town in Galway live with us but they aren’t too keen on coming to Dublin and we aren’t too keen on moving to Galway. I like our town. It’s got many resources nearby and they aren’t scarce yet. Plus, their leader is an arse.”

  “Do you have computers or laptops in your town?”

  “Yeah, as decoration.”

  “We can help get them working. I can try to reach my people in America, too. And we can try to fix anything that’s broken.”

  “So, you Americans are doing well?”

  I shrugged. “Not everywhere. It’s still a divided country. The government’s trying to start up but we are still a bunch of independent towns. I’m sure there are many towns like yours in America. Places that have essentially gone off the grid because they don’t have a tech mage or witch near them. Or maybe don’t even want to be bothered with technology and electricity anymore. Simple life might be easier.”

  “It has its charms. I have no idea what’s going on in my country and not sure that I care. I raced out of the city when people started getting sick. The best way to survive is to isolate yourself from strangers. The suburbs are the safest. Countryside is best from the Sickness but then you get more of the hard-to-kill monsters.”

  I nodded.

  “Also, the suburbs have fewer supernatural packs. If we just get a random stray magic, like a selkie or a goblin, we’re lucky.”

  “Selkie?”

  “We’re near the water so we get a few creatures of the sea wandering over to us from time to time. Selkies are like seals that can become human. They aren’t a bother but some have gotten into our village. Caused a bit of mischief is all.”

  “Oh, like mermaids?”

  He nodded. “Something like that. Now, the fairies… bloody bastards. The changelings in particular are a dangerous lot. They love stealing little children, especially the babies.”

  I opened my mouth in shock. “My friend who sent us here is a fairy.”

  “You understand what I mean then. She’s not your friend. Once our wall is fully up, it’ll be easier to fight against them.”

  We fell quiet for a while as we left the suburbs and headed into the countryside. Fields of lush, tall grass below a now gray and cloudy sky filled my view. With the country’s population reduced to half its size and no signs of life as we drove, the cloud-covered sky only added to a gloomy atmosphere.

  A town of green. More of Mae’s vision played in my head. By green, had she meant plant life? This area was full of vibrant nature. I could only assume that Ed’s town was part of that as we headed farther from the city. A bubble of excitement grew in me. What if this was the start of the chain of events leading to Phillip’s defeat?

  “At least your nature looks nice and healthy,” I observed.

  Ed scoffed. “A quarter of the plant life here will eat you alive, darlin’.”

  I grimaced. “What happened to your town that made everyone agree to ban paranormal humans?” I asked, still gazing out of the window.

  He grunted. “Early in our first year as a town, almost four years ago now, we were more vulnerable. We didn’t have as many people or weapons. Many times, we fell under attack by fairies. We eventually had to move. I don’t think the Fae were ever human. They probably just came here from the fairy world or some shite.”

  “The fairy world?”

  “They have a whole different dimension where time passes differently. We only know this because someone was actually able to escape after being kidnapped by the Fae. She was maybe a ten-year-old girl when they took her but thirteen when she returned. They took some of our children and adults. Killed a few as well. I still have battle scars from that fight.”

  “Why?”

  “Their population is small. They like to build their ranks by finding people to have children with. And they have this fascination with children. Easily pliable, so that they can become future mates when they’re old enough, I suppose. The ten-year-old, Maddy, is the only one to ever come back. She claimed she’d only been in the fairy world a few months. But we knew she’d been gone almost three years. And she still looked ten, not thirteen like she should have been. Her mother had died a year after she was taken. Some say of a broken heart. She just went to sleep one night and never woke up. And here was her little girl, as if no time had passed.”

  “Geez.”

  He shrugged. “So, you see, we aren’t too keen on magic. It hasn’t done us much good. Except for the cars.”

  I stopped myself from asking what made him change his mind about allowing Phillip and me to come back with him. Suddenly the answer seemed very clear. Nothing had changed his mind. Someone had. I would have to choke Phillip when I saw him.

  On the one hand, using his magic to convince them to let us come to their town was doing the very thing they hated us for. On the other hand, if he hadn’t, we’d still be roaming the Irish streets looking for help.

  I’d kick him in the knee cap and get him under control as soon as we had a private moment. I decided not to bring up the subject to Ed. If he even suspected we were using magic on him, he’d kick me out of this car while it was still moving. I didn’t want to press my luck with his kindness. He didn’t seem like the type to randomly give it.

  I looked back out of the window and squinted my eyes. There was a person waving his or her arms, standing on the side of the road farther up.

  The car in front of us slowed down in front of what I could now see was a man and then sped up, driving on.

  Soon our car passed but did not slow down. I looked out at the man as he stared at us with pained, watery eyes. He looked older, perhaps in his late 40s with thinning hair and a frail frame. His lips were cracked and dry and his skin was just as dehydrated and splotchy.

  “He looks like he has the Sickness. Is that why no one stopped?” I asked.

  “Correct. Could be something else but who wants to risk it nowadays? I feel for the poor bastard but I can’t take any chances. We just had to send out a man who caught the Sickness while on a scout. Some arse we ran into sneezed on him.”

  “That doesn’t mean he caught it. If he doesn’t show signs in a week, he’s fine.”

  “And during that week, he could have spread it to others. We aren’t monsters. We have a house outside of our village that we put the sick in. They get exiled a week until we are sure they don’t have the Sickness. Then they can come back. He didn’t.”

  “Phillip or I could have given the man food.”

  “And how do you know that just because you don’t get sick, you aren’t carriers? Th
at poor bloke touches you and you come back to my town and spread the Sickness. Everyone who isn’t immune dies and you come out without so much as a cough. I can’t place that kind of risk on my people.”

  I nodded. He had a point. His people had only survived this long by being careful and diligent. It made sense now why they wore the face masks. I hadn’t come across many human-only towns. They were the most vulnerable but the smartest. They took no unnecessary chances and remained on high alert, putting in systems to ensure the safety of their people from the supernatural and the Sickness. They didn’t have the benefits of wards and other magic. They only had their own strength and intelligence. I was very curious how Ed’s town existed in this world.

  “Are you the leader? I assume you are,” I stated.

  “Of sorts.”

  “What did you do before this?”

  He gave a quick shrug. “A little of this, a little of that. Mostly construction. Look, people just followed me in the beginning because they thought I was the scariest looking. They figured I’d protect them. When those monsters appeared, my mates and I were able to fend them off. We’re good with weapons. Probably why I did a tour in prison.”

  “For killing monsters?” I raised an eyebrow with a smirk on my lips.

  He smiled. “For robbing a bank.”

  “I see.” I nodded slowly and adjusted in my passenger seat.

  Ed glanced over at me. “I didn’t hurt anyone, if that’s what you’re wondering. You’re safe with me, darlin’.” He looked back at the road. “I don’t profess to be a good man but I’ve kept the others safe. We have maybe 300 people in our town. We’re surviving. We even have a farm and go fishing when it’s safe. Even without magic or technology, we’re living.”

  “Clearly,” I replied as I gazed out of the window, continuing to enjoy the beauty of the Irish countryside.

  Once we arrived at the suburban community, Ed parked the car and offered a tour of the town.

  Phillip jumped out of the car in front of me and cursed. “This woman cut me!” He exclaimed to whoever was listening.