The Cursing Stones Read online

  SONYA BATEMAN

  AVALON RISING: BOOK 1

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  Copyright © 2017 by Sonya Bateman

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Shayne Rutherford, Wicked Good Book Covers

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.

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  A demon’s job is to corrupt as many souls as possible. But for Jaeryth, there’s only one soul he wants: Logan Frost, a Prophet in waiting. When his obsession with her affects his performance, he's stripped of his demonic status and sent on one final mission: turn Logan to Hell’s side, or kill her. An eternity of torture awaits him if he fails.

  Logan, a struggling singer and recovering addict, has no idea she’s destined to change the world. But she’s hallucinating black-eyed spirits that no one else sees — and then she meets Jaeryth, who can see them too. He quickly becomes her anchor to sanity.

  But as the legions of Hell fight harder to destroy Logan, the two of them face impossible choices … and one must make the ultimate sacrifice to save the other, and the world.

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  More series by Sonya Bateman

  Available now from Amazon and Kindle Unlimited:

  The DeathSpeaker Codex

  Aftermagic

  House Phoenix

  Available from Amazon and wherever books are sold:

  Gavyn Donatti series

  Part 1: Homecoming Queen

  Chapter 1

  Isle of Parthas; North Sea — Ogham Wood

  A quarter moon in a clear night sky did little to illuminate the woods, and the penlight he’d brought along wasn’t much brighter, but Danny MacCallan pressed on. He couldn’t risk a lot of light out here — not if he meant to find out what the druids were doing.

  Someone had to stop them.

  Strange things had been happening in the village lately. Unusual weather, tide changes, charms and lucky objects gone missing. And then yesterday, one of his spring lambs had been mutilated. Left in bloody bits all over the meadow. His da’ had started muttering darkly about the druids and the approach of the summer solstice, but he wouldn’t do anything about it.

  Well, Danny wasn’t about to stand by and watch more of their flock slaughtered. Whatever they were up to, it was going to end.

  He’d never understood why most everyone in the village still feared the druids. If there’d been an age of magic, it was long over. Technology ruled the world now — even this island, where the old ways had endured in some form for centuries, had cell phone towers and Internet access. The druid clan still inhabited the forest, but they’d stopped interacting with the village years ago, after that business with the female druid who’d run the apothecary. Closed up shop and withdrew, turned away anyone who came seeking their brand of help.

  But it seemed they had a few tricks left in them yet. A bit of magic up their creepy, robed sleeves. It was high time for the druids to fade away with the rest of the old world and make way for the new.

  Danny hadn’t told anyone his plans. He’d been sure he could find the clearing where they met to cast their spells, the nearly perfect circle in the center of the oak grove. But he’d been walking more than half an hour now and hadn’t come across the grove. It should have been much closer to the border of the woods.

  He considered whistling to fill the silence, despite the endless childhood warnings from his mum about how whistling through the wood was an invitation for the faeries to snatch him. It was one thing to believe the druids had some small measure of power, which they’d proven in the past, and another entirely to think the Fair Folk were real. So whistling should’ve been fine. Still, he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it — just in case the faeries had other ideas about whether they existed.

  At last, he saw something ahead through the trees. A faint, pulsing glow. He switched off the penlight and crept toward it, certain he’d found some druid ritual he could put a stop to. And he would.

  Danny MacCallan, village hero. It had a nice ring.

  The closer he got, the stronger the light. Gradually he realized that it was like no light he’d ever seen. It shimmered with every color, including some he couldn’t quite name — and focusing on those non-colors made his eyes water and his head swim.

  Finally he was close enough to see the clearing, but this wasn’t the oak grove. And there were no druids. In fact, there was nothing but the light, hovering in midair at the center of a rough circle of stones. Like a rip in reality.

  As he stared, mesmerized, he saw shadows shifting within the light. Fast and fleeting, but moving with apparent purpose. Then one of the shadows stopped and something started to emerge from the shimmering rip. A leg, followed by another leg.

  Then another. And another.

  Danny tried to back away, but his feet refused to obey. All four legs were attached to the same torso. So were all four arms. There was a face made of nightmares, covered in blotched and bristling skin. Glittering red eyes the size of softballs. For an instant the light threw the creature into stark silhouette — and then the glowing swath winked out entirely, like a candle flame snuffed in the wind.

  But the creature remained.

  It advanced with soft chittering sounds that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. With monumental effort, Danny pivoted and ran, thinking stupidly that his da’ had been wrong. That was no druid.

  The creature was on him in a heartbeat. His last sight was black, writhing lips surrounding the stained ivory fangs that descended toward his throat.

  Chapter 2

  Amherst College Campus; Massachusetts, USA – One Week Later

  The next time her roommate suggested a double blind date, Rain Finlay intended to turn her into a toad. Well, maybe not an actual toad. But Steffie was definitely going to be on laundry duty for a month after this fiasco.

  “So that happened in freshman year,” Rain’s so-called date, Martin, was saying. “And no one’s broken our record yet. One full keg in twenty minutes. Except I beat Luke by like five seconds.”

  Luke, who was Steffie’s date, scowled. “Because you cheated. You distracted me.”

  “Hey, I said there were naked cheerleaders. Is it my fault you believed that crap?”

  Rain rolled her eyes in Steffie’s direction. “We have to use the ladies’,” she said.

  “The ladies’?” Martin said, grinning. “Your accent is hot. You’re British, right?”

  “Wrong.” Okay, she changed her mind. She’d turn Martin into a toad. “Coming along, roomie?”

  “Um. Yeah.” Steffie slid off the bar stool, sending a purse-lipped glance at Luke. “You guys … order another round or something. But skip the cheerleaders, huh?”

  Martin let out a grating laugh. “Hey, maybe later we can roleplay,” he said. “I dig pompoms.”

  Rain couldn’t march Steffie away fast enough.

  When they were out of earshot, her roommate sighed. “I know, I know,” she said. “They’re giant douchebags. But in my defense, they are DG.”

  “And that’d be…?”

  “Delta Gamma. You know, the fraternity?” Steffie looked at her feet. “Er, one of the small ones. I think they’re off campus.”

  Rain smirked. “Way off.”

  “Okay, so how do we ditch them?”

  “Throw some cheerleaders and run.”

  Steffie laughed as she followed Rain
toward the restrooms at the back. “Looks like you and me will have to celebrate alone,” she said. “One more year down.”

  “One more to go.” Rain smiled at the thought of tomorrow, the first day of summer break. Third-year sociology had been the hardest yet, and she was looking forward to temporary freedom from classes and papers and research and studying. Not that she was leaving campus — she had nowhere else to go. But at least Steffie would be here with her. “You still taking those summer courses?” she said.

  “Yup. I need to pass a math, and summer’s the only time they have that elective I want. Modern cinema.”

  “You mean it’s the only time Professor Lyons is teaching modern cinema.”

  “Well, there is that,” Steffie said with a grin.

  Rain stopped in front of the restroom door and looked back toward the bar. The two buffoons they’d brought were chatting up a couple of blondes, showing off their fraternity pins. “You know, I don’t think they’ll miss us if we slip out the back door now,” she said.

  “Good, but I really do have to pee. You?”

  “I’m fine. I’ll wait here.”

  Steffie went into the bathroom, and Rain leaned against the tiled wall to close her eyes for a moment. She was more tired than she thought. She’d been having dreams lately — disturbing, half-remembered, the kind she should probably worry about. Dreams that weren’t the normal, harmless variety.

  But she was well out of it. Had been for years. If something was happening in the place she’d left behind, it wasn’t her concern anymore.

  She’d nearly fallen asleep standing up when her phone buzzed.

  Even as she decided not to answer it, she was pulling the phone from her pocket. The screen showed no name, and the displayed number was a long string of zeros. Not suspicious at all. But she felt compelled to take the call — and it unnerved her, because the feeling wasn’t new. And it wasn’t natural.

  She thumbed Accept despite her best attempt not to. “Hello?”

  “Rhiannon.”

  The single word brought a flood of memories she didn’t want. No one had called her that since she left the island — and the voice on the other end of the phone belonged to the reason she’d left. The reason she’d never go back. “I’m busy,” she said in her coldest tone. “I don’t know how you got this number, but lose it. And don’t ever Compel me again.”

  “Yer Poppy’s been taken.”

  Her stomach clenched. Leave it to her father to be painfully blunt, yet impossibly vague. There wasn’t a subtle bone in Lachlan Finlay’s body. “Taken,” she repeated.

  “Him and three others from the village. It started a week ago.”

  “What started?” she said. “Taken where?”

  “I knew that, I wouldn’t call ye.”

  She let out a long, careful sigh. “What am I supposed to do about it?”

  “Come home. Find them.”

  “No.” She said it reflexively, but her resolve had already cracked a bit the instant he mentioned Poppy. Her grandfather, Ewan Tavish, wasn’t the most powerful druid — and that was probably part of the reason she loved him the most. Leaving him had been painful. The rest of the clan, not so much. “Who took him?”

  “Not who,” her father said. “What.”

  “This again? They’re not real—”

  “Ain’t them. Something else.”

  “So what, a wild animal?” She really wasn’t in the mood for her father’s mystic babbling about faeries and witches and black dogs and King Arthur, and other things that didn’t exist. “Look, maybe Poppy just left,” she said. “Or if it was an animal, he’s probably … done for.”

  “Rhiannon Dawn, ye know that’s not possible.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Ye do. Can’t run from that, girl.”

  She sighed again — this time because he was right. Even halfway around the world, she would’ve sensed it if one of the clan died. Especially Poppy. And the dreams she’d been having weren’t of death.

  They were omens. She’d known that for weeks, but she didn’t want to admit it.

  “So it’s settled then,” her father said.

  “Wait a minute. Let me repeat — what am I supposed to do?”

  “Use yer gift. We’ve already talked to all the humans.”

  Great. Her father wanted her to drop her entire life and travel a few thousand miles to a place she never wanted to set foot in again, so she could interrogate a bunch of sheep and cows. Maybe a raven or two for good measure. “Glynis has the same gift,” she said. “Why didn’t you get her to do it?”

  “Not as good as you. Besides, she’s gone.”

  “Did she get taken too?”

  “No. She’s left the order.”

  She shivered. Glynis had been a friend. She’d run the apothecary, selling herbs and potions and other friendly magic to the villagers. Rain had worked with her there for almost a year before the relationship with her father completely fractured, and she had to leave or go crazy.

  Glynis was absolutely committed to the life, the customs and rituals and spell work. She lived and breathed the clan. Loved helping people with magic. Rain couldn’t imagine anything that would make her leave. “What happened?” she said.

  “Never mind that,” her father said sharply. “Come home. Before it’s too late.”

  And then he was gone.

  The old rage filled her, and it was all she could do not to smash the phone. He was still doing it — commanding and manipulating her, treating her like an idiot child, refusing to explain himself or anything else. But the anger drained just as quickly, because Poppy really was in trouble. She couldn’t deny that. Her father never would have called if he wasn’t desperate.

  She had to save Poppy, and she couldn’t do it from here.

  “Rain?” Steffie’s voice brought her back to the dark noise of the bar, worlds away from where she’d been in her mind. “Oh my God, you look awful,” her roommate said. “What’s going on?”

  Her expression felt as blank as her thoughts. “I have to go home.”

  Chapter 3

  Isle of Parthas – The Following Night

  The ferry ride from the mainland was just as unsettling as Rain remembered, right down to the brooding captain of the vessel and the misty shrouds that enveloped the village docks. She would’ve been glad to disembark, if the destination was anywhere else in the world except here.

  She pulled on her backpack and strapped her shoulder bag in place as the ferry bumped alongside the landing zone. The captain grunted at her when she climbed the ladder to the dock. She assumed he meant goodbye, so she waved a bit, and he nodded.

  It was an oddly effective conversation.

  The docks seemed deserted. That was unusual, considering it was just past dusk—too early for this place to shut down for the night. True, it was the only village on the island, but there’d always been some activity regardless of the time.

  But everything was so quiet. The place almost felt abandoned.

  She walked slowly down the dock and stood at the edge of the shore. The small collection of wooden buildings here appeared empty, and the path to Bairnskill Village seemed somehow darker than she remembered. She could see a few lights from homes far in the distance, and the forest beyond.

  And, of course, the castle.

  Aislinn Castle stood at the top of Taran Tor, the highest point on the island. It had been deserted for decades, and most of the village residents believed the place was cursed. Her father had more specific ideas. He claimed that Aislinn Castle belonged to King Arthur, and the Isle of Parthas was actually Avalon.

  Even being raised as a druid and knowing that magic was real, Rain wasn’t buying that particular theory. Arthur Pendragon and his knights had never existed.

  She stared at the castle a moment longer. It was a beautiful place, thousands of years old and breathtaking in daylight, but slightly ominous at night when it was little more than shadows sketched against the sky. Abando
ning a place like that to the ravages of time was almost a tragedy.

  Just as she thought that, a light came on in one of the castle windows.

  Her heart stopped. That wasn’t possible. She forced herself to focus, to see the light for what it must be — a flash of moon, a coincidental reflection, something normal. But it remained steady, a warm orange-yellow glow that spilled through the arched stone opening and painted shadows down the slopes of the tor.

  And then a figure crossed in front of the light.

  “Rhiannon Finlay.”

  The nearby voice made her jump. She snapped toward the sound and saw a young man about her age, with dark red hair and clear brown, smiling eyes, standing just off the path. He was dressed in jeans and t-shirt, a canvas military-style jacket, and heavy black boots. And he looked familiar.

  She blinked. “Kincaid?”

  “Got it in one.” He grinned and strode up the path toward her, thumbs hooked in his belt loops. “Wasn’t sure you’d remember me,” he said. “It’s been a long time, Rhiannon.”

  “Rain,” she said.

  He frowned and glanced up. “Don’t think so. Sky seems clear.”

  “No, I mean … call me Rain. Everyone does.”

  “Not here they don’t,” he said with a smirk. “All right then, Rain. But your father isn’t going to like that.”

  “Ask me if I care.”

  “All right. Do you care?”

  She surprised herself by laughing. Kincaid hadn’t been much when she left — just a kid, really, the same as her. Still learning the ways, still trying to discover his own gift. But he’d definitely grown up. He was tall and solid, with an easy air of self-possession and a confident stance. It helped that he’d managed to lose the freckles.

  “So anyway,” he said. “Your father sent me to escort you to the camp.”

  “Of course he did.” Not that she particularly wanted him to, but he couldn’t be bothered to come himself? They hadn’t seen each other in five years. Apparently he wasn’t interested in reconciliation — and if that was the case, it was fine with her. She was just here to find her Poppy, and then she’d be gone for good. Again.