Casting Curses Read online

  CASTING CURSES

  -A Bewitching Bedlam Novel-

  Book 5

  YASMINE GALENORN

  A Nightqueen Enterprises LLC Publication

  Published by Yasmine Galenorn

  PO Box 2037, Kirkland WA 98083-2037

  CASTING CURSES

  A Bewitching Bedlam Novel

  Copyright © 2018 by Yasmine Galenorn

  First Electronic Printing: 2018 Nightqueen Enterprises LLC

  First Print Edition: 2018 Nightqueen Enterprises, LLC

  Cover Art & Design: Earthly Charms

  Editor: Elizabeth Flynn

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any format, be it print or electronic or audio, without permission. Please prevent piracy by purchasing only authorized versions of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, or places is entirely coincidental and not to be construed as representative or an endorsement of any living/ existing group, person, place, or business.

  A Nightqueen Enterprises LLC Publication

  Published in the United States of America

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Welcome to Casting Curses

  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

  Playlist

  Biography

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to my beloved husband, Samwise, who is more supportive than any husband out there. (Hey, I’m biased!) He believes in me, even at times when I’m having trouble believing in myself. Thank you to my wonderful assistants—Andria Holley and Jennifer Arnold. And to my friends—namely Carol, Jo, Vicki, Shawntelle, and Mandy. Also, to the whole UF Group gang I’m in. They’ve held my hand more than once this past year as I’ve made the jump from traditional to indie publishing. It’s been a scary, exciting, fast-track ride and I’m loving it.

  Love and scritches to my four furbles—Caly, Brighid (the cat, not the goddess), Morgana, and li’l boy Apple, who make every day a delight. And reverence, honor, and love to my spiritual guardians—Mielikki, Tapio, Ukko, Rauni, and Brighid (the goddess, not the cat).

  And to you, readers, for taking Maddy and Aegis and Bubba into your heart. Be cautious when you rub a kitty’s belly—you never know when you might end up petting a cjinn! I hope you enjoy this book. If you want to know more about me and my work, check out my bibliography in the back of the book, be sure to sign up for my newsletter, and you can find me on the web at Galenorn.com.

  Welcome to Casting Curses

  A November windstorm smashes through the roof of the Bewitching Bedlam, and the damage exposes a hidden room containing a dark secret. An ancient force has been unleashed, and a curse is endangering everyone whom Maddy loves and everything she’s worked for. With her loved ones in danger, Maddy must undergo an arcane ritual in order to lift the curse and exorcise the angry spirit. But her magic is on the fritz, and without the use of her powers, will Maddy be able to face Ereshkigal, the goddess of the Underworld, and survive?

  Chapter 1

  THE WEATHER WAS raging. We were in the throes of a classic November windstorm, with gusts predicted to clock as high as seventy miles an hour, not uncommon during autumn storms in Western Washington. Sustained winds had already reached a steady thirty miles per hour, and outside the trees swayed, lashed by the wind, as rain sleeted down sideways. A number of people didn’t believe me when I told them that it rained sideways here, but anybody who had ever lived in the Pacific Northwest could attest to the phenomenon.

  I was standing at the counter, staring out into the yard, hoping that all our trees would hold steady. There were several that I was suspicious of, but I hadn’t had the chance to have an arborist in to look at their root systems yet. We’d just have to cross our fingers and hope. That was another lovely product of our storms here—downed trees, power outages, and landslides. Every year several people were killed by falling timber when the ground became saturated and the shallow roots gave way.

  “Steaks will be ready in ten minutes.” Max was out on the back patio, grilling steaks and corn on the cob. He had waved me off when I asked if he wanted to cook them inside. “If I can’t handle a little rain, I’m not the weretiger I claim to be,” he had said. After ten minutes, he had put on a rain poncho and looked altogether miserable, but he wasn’t giving up.

  Aegis took an apple pie out of the oven and slid in a pan of biscuits. He was wearing my retro-1950s ruffled polka dot apron that I had bought, hoping to entice myself into cooking more. The apron hadn’t proved incentive enough to lure me into the kitchen, but Aegis looked adorable in it. He happily tied it on over his black jeans and muscle shirt, making for one very cuddly goth.

  Sandy and I were also in our element. Max and Aegis had designated us the drink department.

  “Margaritas?” Sandy asked.

  I shook my head. “Hot rum toddies.”

  She glanced outside. “Yeah, the rum wins out.”

  As I stirred the base—water, butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves—she opened a bottle of dark rum. As I moved the pan off the flame to add the alcohol, she shook her head.

  “More.” She gave me a long look.

  I added another splash.

  “More.” She motioned to the bottle and it jerked in my hand, tipping back into the pan.

  I laughed and gave up, upending the bottle into the base. I returned the pan to the flame and gently stirred the contents, then lowered the heat to let it simmer for a few minutes. I ladled the drink into a mug and handed it to her. She sipped and gave me a nod of approval.

  For once, she wasn’t wearing her usual getup of yoga pants and a crop top. Sandy was a gym bunny, rich enough to buy and sell most of the town. She loved her designer bags and sunglasses, but getting her out of her gym clothes was like trying to keep a fish alive out of water. But given the storm, she had opted for a pair of jeans and a powder blue turtleneck that set off her spun-gold hair.

  “So that’s enough booze?” I restrained a grin.

  “No, but it will do.”

  Laughing, I turned off the flame and leaned back against the counter. It was true—Sandy and I liked our booze. Our witch’s blood gave us a high tolerance to alcohol, though we were also party girls at heart. But the past year, our primary parties had been at home with our boyfriends.

  A brilliant flash of lightning split the sky, illuminating the kitchen. I shivered as a crash of thunder began to rumble so long and loud that the windows rattled. It felt like the thunderbolt was never going to end, but when it did, a massive deluge of hail splattered against the deck.

  Max let out a curse from the patio. Aegis hurried out to help him carry in the food, and by the time they had carried everything inside, they were covered with tiny chunks of ice.

  “Freaking hell, it’s coming down out there.” Max’s hair was plastered to his head, and he had a couple bright pink spots on his face where the hail had stung him. “The storm’s really picking up. I’m going to secure your barbecue so it doesn’t go flying across the yard. In this rain, I doubt if the briquettes would start a fire if they fell out on the grass, but there’s no point taking any chances.”

  He headed
back outside, moving the grill so that it was resting under the eaves of the house. Short of chaining it down, there wasn’t much else he could do.

  Inside, Aegis and Sandy arranged the food on the table as I poured tall mugs of the hot buttered rum. By the time Max returned, the biscuits were ready. I grabbed the remote and lit the battery-operated candles in the center of the table. While I preferred flame to batteries, I wasn’t betting on having power by morning, and flameless candles were just safer in a power outage.

  We were eating in the kitchen rather than at the dining room table, because the dining room table was piled high with linens and china, in preparation for our guests who were coming in tomorrow. But for tonight, the Bewitching Bedlam bed-and-breakfast was ours and ours alone.

  Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Mr. Henry Mosswood was holed up in his room. Our semipermanent lodger had opted for dinner alone with Franny, our house ghost. The two had somehow ended up in what I assumed was a doomed-to-fail love affair—they didn’t talk much about it so I wasn’t sure exactly how far it had progressed. None of us understood how they were making it work, but it wasn’t any of our business and I did my best to keep my nose out of it.

  Another massive lightning bolt forked across the sky. I held my breath, counting. One and two and three and—boom. The house shook and I grabbed hold of the table.

  “Holy crap,” Sandy said.

  Outside, hail began to bounce on the ground again.

  I picked up my buttered rum, taking a long sip to soothe my nerves. “The storm is supposed to be rough, but I didn’t think it was going to be this bad. I hope everything’s okay up at the school.”

  Sandy’s legal ward, soon to be her adopted daughter, lived at the Neverfall Academy for Gifted Students, a magical boarding school for witches. Children of all ages, from all parts of the country, attended the academy, from Hexengarten to grade 12. One of the largest and oldest educational institutions for members of the Otherkin community, Neverfall was also one of the most prestigious.

  “Jenna is probably safer than we are. That place was built to withstand an earthquake up to a nine-pointer. So it should be able to withstand a thunderstorm.” Sandy buttered a roll and bit into it, a look of bliss washing across her face. “Aegis, if you ever decide to give up the music business, you should open a bakery. I’m not kidding—you are the best baker in town.”

  Aegis waved her off, but he his grin told me he was gratified.

  “I actually worked as a baker, about two hundred years ago. It was ideal because I worked the night shift and baked all the bread before morning. They never figured out I was a vampire, and thanks to my sourdough and rye, that shop made a killing. When I left, they begged me to stay. They offered me twice my salary because they knew they weren’t going to find anybody as good as I was. At least not in that area.”

  As we dug into the steaks, the wind outside grew stronger. The gusts were sending branches sailing through the yard. At one point I glanced out to see a trash can go racing by. I thought I’d managed to secure them, but apparently not.

  “It hasn’t stormed this hard in a while,” I said. “Even the storm that Fata Morgana brought with her wasn’t this strong.”

  “If the weather doesn’t let up, you two should stay here,” Aegis said. “It’s a rough night to go driving around the island.”

  We lived on Bedlam Island, a small isle out in the San Juans off the coast of Western Washington, near Lopez and Orcas islands.

  Bedlam—both the island and the city that pretty much sprawled across it—boasted a population of 6,000, give or take a few. While a number of the other San Juan islands were actually protected from extreme weather, Bedlam was farther north, angled perfectly to receive the brunt of weather coming down through the Haro Strait. The island was like a storm magnet. All the magical power acted like a lightning rod for bad weather. We got heavy snow in winter, and wild windstorms in the autumn.

  Founded by witches, Bedlam could cloak up to prevent too much unwanted attention. But generally, we were open to tourists, though most were from the Otherkin community, and a ferry ran from the northeastern part of the island over to Bellingham, once an hour every hour from five a.m. until two a.m. But tonight, it wasn’t running anywhere, given the rough waves on the sound.

  “Did the weather report say how long it’s supposed to last?” Sandy finished her dinner, and carried her plate over to the counter. “Anybody ready for pie?”

  At that moment, the lights flickered and went out.

  “Well, at least we got dinner before the power went out.” I crossed to the counter, where I had already laid out another array of flameless candles. I used the remote to turn them on, as well. “I’ll go start the fire in the parlor. It’s going to get chilly really quick in this drafty old mansion. Aegis, can you check with Henry to see if he’s all right? I’m pretty sure Franny’s up there with him, but make sure everything’s okay. I gave him a flashlight and a couple battery-operated candles earlier this afternoon.”

  Aegis pushed his chair back and stood. “I’ll be right back. I’ll also light the candles in our room. Do you want regular ones, or fake?”

  He didn’t seem to appreciate the flameless candles. They went against his sensibilities. But I had heard too many reports of houses burning down when careless people left the real ones unattended. A fireplace was different. They were built for containing a fire, and a good screen kept the embers in. Clean it once a year and you were generally home-free.

  “Fake, and be glad that we have them. Check on Bubba too, and Luna.”

  As Max and Sandy cleared the table and cut slices of pie, I found a flashlight and, turning it on, headed into the parlor. After turning on the candles that lined the shelves, I knelt by the fireplace. I had already prepped a fire, and now I reached out, holding my hand toward the wood. I closed my eyes and whispered, “Fire burn bright” and the flame flickered to life in the kindling. Within moments, a merry fire was crackling away, safe behind the metal screen.

  Max and Sandy carried the pie into the parlor, and then Sandy returned to the kitchen to bring in the rest of the hot buttered rum. We curled up next to the fire, waiting for Aegis. He returned, Franny floating behind him.

  Franny had been trapped in this mansion for over 200 years. She had died at a young age, at twenty-four, when she went tumbling down the stairs. We had discovered that she had been cursed—bound to the house—but we still hadn’t figured out how to break the hex yet. Meanwhile, she wandered around in her blue muslin gown, doing her best to mesh with our lifestyles. She loved to read so I had set her up in the library with a computer that I kept on twenty-four seven, an e-reader app, an account for an online shopping site that I could monitor, and I had rigged it all with voice software so she could turn the pages and select what books she wanted to read. It seemed the least I could do for her, given her circumstances.

  “Henry decided just to go to bed. He’s all right. He’s got his flashlight and candles. He said to wake him up if anything monumental happens.”

  Franny let out a disgruntled snort. “This little storm is nothing. You should have seen some of the storms that raged when we first came to the island.” She floated over to the window, looking out. “I used to love storms when I was alive. They always made me feel so awake and aware.” She turned around, hugging herself. “I miss feeling the rain on my skin. Don’t ever take things like that for granted. When you lose them, and you know you’ve lost them, it can make life seem bleak.”

  I was used to her angst, but I wasn’t used to her being so philosophical. Franny was, in the nicest terms possible, a habitual complainer and a perpetual victim. In fact, sometimes I thought she wasn’t happy unless she was complaining.

  “Is everything okay?” I scooted over, making room for Aegis. He sat down beside me, wrapping his arm around my waist and giving me a kiss on the forehead. His lips were cool, almost icy, but I was used to it. Dating a vampire had taken some getting used
to, especially for me.

  Franny shrugged, but she didn’t turn around. She seemed glued to the storm. “I suppose. I suppose it’s as good as it’s ever going to get, given my circumstances.” She let out a sigh, then glanced back at us. “I think I’ll go rest. Good night.” And with that, she vanished into the wall.

  “Where does she go when she disappears?” Max asked.

  I shrugged. “I have no idea, and I’ve never asked. The question has always seemed invasive to me. She seems awfully solemn, though, not at all her usual self. I wonder if she and Henry had an argument.”

  “It can’t be easy, being in love with somebody when you’re a ghost and they’re corporeal. I mean, is there any real future for them? I wonder if she’s beginning to realize the obstacles they face.” Sandy paused, then lowered her voice. “Do you think she can hear me?”

  I shook my head. “Franny’s very good at tuning out. I can’t be sure, but I think she has enough sensibilities not to eavesdrop. Why?”

  “I had a sudden horrible thought. You don’t think she’d ever encourage Henry to kill himself so that he could be with her, do you?” She looked almost ill at the thought.

  I blinked. “What kind of late-night horror show have you been watching? Of course she wouldn’t do that.” I paused for a moment, then added, “At least, I don’t think she would.” I turned to Aegis. “What do you think?”

  He held up his hands, leaning back. “Nope. Don’t get me involved in this. I am not about to speculate on something so horrible. Franny’s a good egg, and Henry’s pretty damned smart. That’s all I’m going to say about the idea. And I suggest that we drop it right there.” Aegis was pretty laid-back but when he put his foot down, he put it down hard.

  “Fine,” Sandy said. “Just don’t blame me if something happens.”