Grim Tidings Read online

  Contents

  Legacy Club Teaser

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Review Request

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  Coming Soon

  Copyright

  About the Author

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  Chapter One

  The vampire’s body turned to smoke and dissipated into the portal that Beli, my soul blade, had cut into his heart.

  Another one, behind you! Isabelle screamed from within the confines of my mind. I felt her magic build up in my brow, connecting my and Isabelle’s will to an oak that stood to my right. The tree responded, and its roots shot up from the ground, plunging through a second vampire’s back and into its ashen heart, intercepting the vamp before he could pounce onto my back. I quickly struck him with my soul blade for good measure. My blade wasn’t just a blade—it was an elemental spirit, the spirit of a gatekeeper dragon. When I struck the undead, the blade seemed to know where to send them, channeling their essence through a temporary portal into the land of the dead.

  “Good call,” I told Isabelle, my soul-bound familiar whose possession had the convenient side effect of giving us some pretty kick-ass abilities. Combined with my own newly acquired Voodoo abilities, we were a fairly formidable force.

  I looked across the field and spotted Ashley running my direction.

  “Did you get them all?” my older sister asked.

  “Pretty sure. I mean, Isabelle can’t sense vampires. So your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Wait!” Ashley shouted. “Behind you!”

  I quickly turned as another vampire leapt out of nowhere—a fury in his red, glowing eyes reflecting what I assumed was his hunger for human blood. I gripped my soul blade with both hands. The vampire hesitated.

  “What are you waiting for, bloodsucker!” I shouted.

  The vampire smiled widely, flashing his elongated fangs.

  “Have you ever heard of orthodontics?” I asked. “You should get that shit fixed.”

  “Brian?” Ashley asked, interrupting my attempt to provoke the vampire. When they hesitate, I’d found, a few well-timed verbal jabs was usually all it took for their rage to take over, which usually meant a charge directly into my soul blade.

  “Wait, you know this guy?”

  “This was Brian… you remember?”

  “Junior prom Brian?” I asked, still keeping the snarling vampire in my sights.

  “Yeah, he tried to get into my pants. Wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

  The vampire shrugged.

  I shook my head.

  “Not going to get any empathy from me, asshole. Unlike my sister, I went to an all-girls school.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Vampire Brian asked.

  I shrugged. “Girl power?” I charged the vampire, my blade held tightly in both hands and aimed directly for his chest.

  He quickly parried to the right. I spun around on my left foot, swinging my blade around in one hand and slicing him right between the legs.

  Black blood shot from his crotch as a look of horror struck his face before his entire frame dissipated—my soul blade redirecting its victim to hell.

  “That’s what you get for messing with my sister,” I said.

  “He must’ve been newly turned,” Ashley said. “What a shame.”

  I raised my eyebrows, detecting the sarcasm in Ashley’s remark. “How do you know how recently he was turned?”

  “Saw him at our homecoming a couple years ago,” Ashley said. “He was his typical self—still a misogynist, flirting with every single girl in our class who showed any skin. Either way, he’s been a vampire for less than two years.”

  “All these vamps seem new. Driven by rage and hunger. Not like the one we staked last year.”

  “I agree,” Ashley said. “But it still makes no sense. I’ve renewed our wards three times this month. They shouldn’t lose their strength so quickly.”

  I shrugged. Ashley had spent the better part of the last year on the Choctaw reservation learning Shamanism from our friend—now her boyfriend—Roger Thundershield. She was pretty good at it. Good enough that Roger had said there was little left he could teach her. So it didn’t make much sense that her wards kept failing. And even more odd, it was unclear what they were trying to find on our property. Don’t get me wrong, more than one supernatural showdown had occurred on the plantation through the years. But I couldn’t think of anything here that would draw in the vampires.

  One more… to the left.

  I turned, and Isabelle was right. One more vampire, a female this time, lurked in the shadows. I quickly re-summoned my soul blade and charged after it. She tried to dodge out of the way, but these vamps were still newbs. For the first month or two after reawakening they tended to be consumed by hunger. It made them fearless. It also made them clumsy and careless.

  “Was that four this time?” I asked. “Seems like they always come in threes.”

  “Someone is sending them here,” Ashley said.

  I nodded, releasing Beli—my soul blade—and allowing him to dissipate back into the ether.

  “I think you’re right… but it doesn’t make sense. Whoever is sending them should know by now that we can handle three or four at a time without much trouble. Maybe he’s just trying to distract us.”

  “Probably… but from what?”

  I shrugged.

  “This shit started about the same time everything went down at the Academy. It can’t be a coincidence.”

  “You’re right… when I brought Baron Samedi back, he said that his reawakening might bring out the vamps, but I thought we’d handled that.”

  Baron Samedi was what the Vodouisants call a “Loa”—a kind of demigod with powers dedicated to a particular cause. They are neither pure good nor pure evil—usually a combination of the two, kind of like most humans. This one was the Loa of death, basically the Grim Reaper. I’d spent most of my life afraid of this particular Loa—but when we needed him to put another Loa who was even nastier than he was in his place, I had traveled into Guinee to reawaken him. But like death itself, there’s a dark side and a light side to his essence. Whenever his dark side walked the earth, there was a risk that any who’d been infected with his aspect in the past would become vampires—blood and soul sucking creatures that dwell in darkness. But we’d locked Baron Samedi back in the realm of Guinee. My classmate, Nico, had fashioned a Voodoo doll using some dark magic and basically gave himself up to ensure that the Baron wouldn’t return. Over the last six months or so I’d tried to find Nico, tried to figure out exactly what happened… but so far I hadn’t had much success.

  The whole ordeal basically left the headmaster of the Voodoo Academy dead—or at least as dead as a Loa can get. In truth, I wasn’t sure exactly what had happened to Papa Legba, but I knew his absence meant that the whole Academy was temporarily
defunct until a new headmaster could be appointed. The Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveau, was overseeing the project and intended to reopen the Academy no later than was necessary once she investigated everything and was sure that courses were ready to resume in good order. If anyone knew what was going on with these vamps, it would be Marie Laveau.

  “I need to call Mikah,” I said.

  “Isabelle probably wants to see him. You realize it has been more than two weeks since you let them go on a date together.”

  Yes, Isabelle said. I’d like to see him…

  I didn’t often let Isabelle take the reins—but I recently allowed her to take control of our body so she could date Mikah, one of our classmates at the Voodoo Academy and also a member of College Ogoun, one year our senior. He was a good guy, no doubt. But having to play the third wheel in my own body while Isabelle and Mikah did their “thing” was always a bit awkward.

  “That’s not why I need to call him,” I said. “But you’re right. I did promise Isabelle I’d be more… understanding.”

  Oh that’s right, you promised… I’d almost forgotten!

  I rolled my eyes at Isabelle’s sarcasm. It used to be that I never let her take the reins, because whenever I took my body back over—which could happen quite easily if I saw anything that triggered intense emotions—I had the worst headaches that basically made it impossible to function. They usually lasted several hours, sometimes as long as a day. We remedied that issue not long ago—Mikah, who was a great Voodoo herbalist, had worked with Roger to combine his insights with those from Shamanism to create a pretty powerful remedy. For the most part it worked. I still had headaches afterwards, but they were more of an annoyance now than anything else. That is, so long as I had a vial of the good stuff to take within the first few moments after regaining control over my body. If I waited even five minutes, the headache would rage too strongly. At that point, the remedy was rendered useless.

  “So why do you need Mikah, then?” Ashley asked.

  “Well, his mom is Aida-Wedo… a part of the Academy. He seems to have inside knowledge on all the politics going on there now. You know, advantages that come with being the child of a Loa.”

  “Do you think he can get us an audience with Marie Laveau?”

  “We can try… but that might be a bit above his pay grade. I mean, she’s the fucking Voodoo queen.”

  “Doesn’t hurt to try, right? I mean, if she’s really investigating everything that happened, it’s kind of weird that she hasn’t even asked you for an interview.”

  I shrugged. “She must not be very close to figuring it all out.”

  “But if she knew anything at all, she’d be speaking to you. None of what happened would have made sense at all if not for you and your abilities.”

  “I suppose that’s true…”

  My thoughts were interrupted by the tune of Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer”—my most recently chosen universal ringtone. I retrieved my phone from my pocket.

  “Hello?”

  “Miss Mulledy?” a female voice said on the opposite end of the line.

  “Yes… this is Annabelle Mulledy.”

  “My name is Dorothea Collins. I’m the new head nurse at St. Louis Manor.”

  I cringed a little. The previous head nurse had been like family to us. Always gave Ashley and me hugs every time we came to visit. But she’d retired a few weeks ago, and while we try to make it over to the manor at least once a week, we hadn’t made it for a while. All these vampire attacks had us on edge and, truth be told, we hadn’t really left the plantation much.

  “Yes, I know who you are. They told us you’d be joining. We meant to get up there this week. Is everything okay with Mom and Dad?”

  “Well, I don’t want you to panic. But they aren’t here.”

  I gripped my phone tightly. “What do you mean they aren’t there?”

  I looked at Ashley, who looked dumbfounded by what I was saying.

  “It isn’t uncommon for adults in their condition to try and leave the facility. Sometimes they think they’re going home. Living out a memory from earlier in their lives. We almost always find them.”

  “Almost?” I asked.

  “We always find them, eventually. Sometimes the police will bring them in. But usually it’s the family who knows them the best, can look at places that might be meaningful to them, places they might be likely to go.”

  I sighed. “All right, we haven’t seen them yet. But my sister and I will be there in ten. I assume you can get us into their apartment?”

  “I can do that, Miss Mulledy.”

  I hung up the phone.

  “Sounds like our vampire problem will have to wait…”

  I shook my head. “If these vampires are tied to the Baron’s essence, it might be connected.”

  “What do you mean?” Ashley asked.

  “When I talked to Baron Samedi in Guinee, before bringing him back, he said anyone he’d ever bitten while in his red aspect… would probably become a vampire at some point after his return.”

  “You don’t think… I mean, it’s been months since all that shit went down, and they’ve been just fine. Well, as fine as they could be. And there’s no reason to believe the Baron got out of Guinee.”

  “But when they were bitten, back when our family was attacked… that bite was connected to the zombies that carried the Baron’s aspect. If what he says is true, and if he really is back somehow…”

  “Or it could just be two dementia patients wandering off,” Ashley said.

  I nodded. Ashley was right, of course. This wasn’t all that uncommon. The nurse had said it happened fairly regularly. But ever since the Baron told me that might happen, I’d been waiting for this particular shoe to drop. Something in my gut told me this was something more… something I feared, because if they’d been turned, there’d be only one thing I could do… and it wasn’t something I wanted to think about.

  Chapter Two

  I’d texted Mikah and asked him to meet us at St. Louis Manor. No, not in St. Louis, Missouri—a lot of shit is named after St. Louis in New Orleans. Like the cathedral, for instance, where the entrance to Vilokan—the Voodoo Underworld—is hidden. I wasn’t sure he’d get the text, to be honest. He spends about half of his time in Vilokan, even when school is out of session. Still, I was pleasantly pleased to see him waiting behind his geeky moped as Ashley and I pulled up in my custom-painted Camaro.

  He’s here! Isabelle said, hardly able to contain her excitement. I swear, technically Isabelle was working on her second century in terms of existence—but she’d only lived a few years in her earthly life before she’d died, and when it came to boys, she was basically a teenager in love. She was nauseatingly infatuated with Mikah. The boy was growing on me, don’t get me wrong. But I was a bit more jaded than she was when it came to the fellas. Hence, the ease with which I’d sliced and diced at Vampire Brian’s gonads just minutes before.

  “Thanks for coming,” I said as I gave Mikah a hug, making Isabelle giggle inside my mind, which in turn caused my stomach to lurch.

  “Do you really think they’ve turned?” Mikah asked. “I mean, what are the chances?”

  “My point exactly,” Ashley said.

  “We got the call just after another vampire attack at the plantation… I’m not sure it’s a coincidence.”

  “Well, here’s to hoping you’re wrong,” Mikah said.

  I just shook my head. “I hope I’m wrong, too, but I’m telling you… my gut is telling me the worst. I’m glad you’re here. We really needed someone with knowledge about all this shit, someone with a more objective viewpoint than Ashley or I might have.”

  “Not the way I really wanted to meet your parents,” Mikah said.

  I shrugged. “What’s the big deal? I mean, Isabelle is the one you’re dating. They aren’t her parents.”

  Mikah grinned. “I suppose you’re right, but dating a girl who shares a body with someone else… well, it’s…”

/>   “A little weird?” I asked, finishing his thought.

  “Well I wasn’t going to use the W-word.”

  “Can’t be as weird for you as it is for me,” I said. “I mean, I have to sit there in the back of my own mind and watch you guys cuddle and watch chick flicks together.”

  “Not a fan of the chick flicks?”

  “Dude… if I have to watch Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore fall in love one more time…”

  Ashley was cracking up as we walked through the front doors of the manor.

  “Well what kind of films do you like?” Mikah asked.

  I blew a raspberry. “First, we don’t call them films, we call them movies. Second, I’m partial to the horror flicks.”

  “Flicks? I thought you call them movies.”

  “Flicks works too. But yeah, horror… the creepier the better. Give me Freddy Krueger movies over the Sandler-Barrymore combo any day of the week.”

  “Freddy is weak,” Mikah said.

  “How do you get creepier than Freddy?” I asked. “If you aren’t creeped out by Freddy, you don’t know his backstory.”

  “Horror films are too predictable,” Mikah said.

  “You called them films again.”

  “You know what I mean. They all follow a formula.”

  I scrunched my brow. “And romantic comedies don’t?”

  “They do,” Mikah admitted. “But at least it’s a formula that evokes positive feelings rather than making me want to piss my pants.”

  “I’d rather piss my pants than vomit, and I can’t watch rom-coms without feeling the urge to blow chunks.”

  “If fluids of any kind are uncontrollably projecting from your bodies,” Ashley interjected, “you have bigger problems than poor movie choices.”

  “Touché,” I replied. “Still, I stand by my point. Vomit is worse than piss.”

  “Is it, though?” Mikah asked. “Would you rather your cat spit up a hairball on your carpet or piss on it?”

  “I’ll grant that there is no substance on earth more disgusting than cat urine. But we aren’t talking about cats,” I said. “We are talking about which of these admittedly undesirable options I’d prefer to avoid if I had to endure one of them. Pissing is something I do several times a day. I generally try to avoid vomiting as much as possible.”