The Darkest Night (Witch Queen Book 1), page 1
Copyright
The Darkest Night (Witch Queen 1)
Copyright © AD Starrling 2021. All rights reserved. Registered with the US Copyright Service.
Edited by Right Ink On The Wall
Cover design by 17 Studio Book Design
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The right of AD Starrling to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without the prior written consent of the author, excepting for brief quotes used in reviews. Your respect of the author’s rights and hard work is appreciated.
Request to publish extracts from this book should be sent to the author at ads@adstarrling.com
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people (living or dead), events, establishments, organizations, or locations are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used factitiously. All other characters, and all other incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
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Contents
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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
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Acknowledgments
Books by A.D. Starrling
Hunted Extract
About A.D. Starrling
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Seventeen Series
Seventeen Series Novels
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Seventeen Series Short Stories
Other series based in the Seventeen Universe
Legion
Witch Queen
Military Romantic Suspense
Division Eight
Miscellaneous
Void - A Sci-fi Horror Short Story
The Other Side of the Wall - A Horror Short Story
Blurb
Hana Mae Jin does not believe in magic. Unfortunately, magic believes in her.
When the hospital where Mae Jin works is attacked by terrifying monsters, a power the mortuary assistant never knew she possessed awakens, sending a wave of magic across New York that has unforeseen repercussions.
Nikolai Stanisic has only one wish. To stop his brother Oscar and their father the Sorcerer King from carrying out the dreadful scheme that was put into motion the night they killed his mother. His only chance at success lies in rousing the soul of the being his father fears the most: the rightful Witch Queen, fated to save the world of magic and rule over it.
Thrust into a fantastical realm hidden from most mortal eyes, Mae soon learns of her mythical past and the incredible destiny that awaits her. Armed with the weapon and the familiar who were once promised to her, she joins forces with Nikolai and Vlad Vissarion, a seductive Russian mobster who wants to stop a demon-infested gang from taking over the city’s criminal underworld.
With the New York coven and a pair of mysterious magic users from Chicago at their side, Mae, Nikolai, and Vlad find themselves facing an enemy far more vicious than they could ever have imagined and uncover a terrifying plot set in motion by the Sorcerer King and his Dark Council.
The Darkest Night is the first book in the brand-new urban fantasy series Witch Queen. Featuring a mortuary assistant who labels herself as 'just a chick from Koreatown who likes beer and cutting people up,’ a sardonic fox, a steak-loving sentient weapon, and a whole bunch of other worrisome characters, The Darkest Night is a rip-roaring ride full of magic, monsters, mayhem, and, well, steak. Get the spellbinding first book in this action-packed urban fantasy series today and enter a universe you won’t want to leave. Or may not be allowed to leave. Some of those characters really are worrisome...
Witch Queen is the third series set in the bestselling Seventeen universe and follows on from the Seventeen and Legion series. It contains references to characters in the other series and the odd cameo appearance.
Chapter 1
The dead man wore red shoes. They were brand-new, wholecut, Italian-leather Oxfords and looked to be worth about half her paycheck. Hana Mae Jin studied the gory bloodstains dulling the expensive material.
There’s not enough hydrogen peroxide in the world to get rid of those.
She removed the items from the dead man’s feet and placed them in a labeled bag on the steel countertop to her left. The man’s clothes followed. Soon, he was a cold, stiff body lying on the autopsy table, head propped up by a plastic block and naked but for the yellow I.D. tag on his toe.
Alexei ‘Colin’ Antonovich had died from a single bullet wound to the head. The police report accompanying the corpse indicated he was a member of Oniks, a Russian crime gang that started operating in New York a year ago. Oniks’s rapidly growing influence in the city’s underworld meant they were now in conflict with the more established gangs in Brooklyn and Queens, a fact NYPD and the forensic pathology centers working under the aegis of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner were all too aware of from the mounting body count this summer. As far as the cops knew, Oniks was operating independently of the most powerful Russian crime syndicate in New York, a fact both law enforcement and city officials found puzzling.
The gang’s specialty was protection rackets and loan-shark operations. The detectives in charge of Antonovich’s murder case had reconstructed his movements from Brooklyn to Queens late last night from his phone GPS. The working theory was that Antonovich had been lured to an alleyway in Ozone Park by rival gang members or a would-be victim before meeting his untimely death. His body was discovered under a subway overpass close to the 88th Boyd Ave station at 4 a.m. by someone out for an early morning run.
Bar the bullet wound to his head, Antonovich bore no signs of physical injury. His attackers had stripped him of his wallet and the gun that had been registered to his name, but left his clothes and shoes intact. Considering Antonovich’s suit cost almost as much as his Oxfords, Mae could only presume his killers didn’t fancy wearing a dead man’s outfit.
She glanced at the digital clock on the wall to her left and grimaced at the time. It was already past 7 p.m.
Rose is gonna be pissed if I miss our dinner date again.
She sent a quick text to her best friend, left her phone on the worktop at the end of the room, and returned to the autopsy table. She adjusted her splash shield before picking up a scalpel from the instrument tray to her right.
This was her tenth postmortem of the day.
She should have clocked out an hour ago, but had agreed to stay behind and finish this one last job. With three mortuary assistants and two pathologists on sick leave across the forensic autopsy centers that served the city, the labs at Grandview General Hospital had been swamped as of late. Everyone had done overtime this month, including Steve Hodge, the director of pathology services.
With the detectives investigating Antonovich’s murder having impressed upon Hodge the urgency of obtaining a full autopsy report on the Russian mobster, Mae hadn’t begrudged her boss his decision when he’d assigned her the case that morning. Hodge was also working overtime in the lab next door and would likely be there well after she left.
A trickle of sweat danced down Mae’s back as she stretched out the kinks in her neck. The unusually oppressive heat that had lingered over the city these past couple of weeks made for unpleasant working conditions, even in the air-conditioned rooms in the basement of the hospital. She promised herself a cold shower as soon as she finished, started the digital voice recorder and transcription software on the mobile computer station, and made the first incision.
Skin and flesh gave way smoothly under her blade. It didn’t take her long to extract and process the thoracic and abdominal organs, her movements swift and efficient from thousands of hours
Kathryn Rose Blake’s gold sneakers squeaked to a halt on the linoleum floor. Her eyebrows drew together as she looked from Mae to the saw and the body on the autopsy table. The third-year surgical resident propped her hands on her hips and tapped out an impatient beat with her left foot, the pink-sapphire bracelet Mae had given her as a birthday gift glittering at her wrist.
“Our reservation is in twenty minutes, Mae.”
Mae sighed. “I know. Did you get my message?”
“Why do you think I’m here?” Rose grumbled. “You realize you canceled on me last time too, right?”
“Yeah, sorry about that.”
Rose’s frown deepened. “You don’t sound the least bit remorseful. May I remind you that I missed out on getting laid because you bailed on me?”
Mae rolled her eyes hard. “I wish you’d stop organizing our dinner dates in places where you want to pick up guys. It’s unhygienic.”
“This from a woman about to carve out a dead man’s brain.” Rose shrugged. “I don’t see the problem. Two birds, one stone. We’re both busy and don’t have time for a relationship. And, FYI, you could really do with letting off some steam the old-fashioned way. A vibrator may be a girl’s best friend, but yours is gonna explode from overuse.”
“Please leave Bob out of this conversation,” Mae muttered as she applied the saw to Antonovich’s skull. The blade came to life with a smooth whir. “I thought you had a hot date with Tom the ob-gyn last week?”
“I did.” Rose made a face. “Turns out Tom doesn’t push my buttons in the bedroom.”
Mae paused, surgical saw aloft and surprise pasted across her face behind her splash shield. “But he’s an ob-gyn.”
“That just means he knows his anatomy, Mae,” Rose said in the tone of one addressing a half-wit. “It doesn’t mean he can light my fire.”
Mae pursed her lips. Considering how frequently and easily Rose’s fire could be lit, Tom the ob-gyn must have been crushed by his failure.
Rose propped herself up on an empty autopsy table and dropped her messenger bag next to her. “How about I keep you company while you finish up? That way you won’t run out on me like last time.”
Mae sighed and brought her focus back to the saw.
Chapter 2
“You know, I didn’t actually run out on you, right? I had a family emergency.”
Rose wrinkled her nose. “Your family emergency was your grandmother setting you up on another marriage meeting.”
Mae couldn’t well argue with that statement.
Even though she was born and raised in Queens, her South Korean family insisted on her and her younger sister Ryu So-Young following the customs of the country they had left behind when they emigrated to the States. Two of those traditions were So-gae and Seon, which literally translated to ‘introduction’ and ‘marriage meeting.’ At the ripe old age of twenty-eight, Mae was fast losing her value as a prospective bride, a fact her mother and grandmother never failed to remind her of.
Mae’s mouth tightened.
She wasn’t sure how much longer she was willing to indulge their desperate matchmaking attempts. She shuddered when she recalled the last suitor they had arranged for her to meet, the night she’d bailed on Rose.
The accountant’s pasty complexion and stout appearance had reminded her of a songpyeon, the doughy, mung-bean-filled, half-moon rice cake her mother liked to make for afternoon tea.
Since Rice Cake had chosen a pricey place for their date and was picking up the bill, Mae had decided to overlook his sweaty hands and feverish eyes in favor of the delicious food. The meeting would have ended the way all of Mae’s So-gaes did, if not for Rice Cake’s wandering fingers. Guilt shot through her as she put down the saw and lifted the dome of Antonovich’s skull.
I probably shouldn’t have hit him as hard as I did.
Though there’d been plenty of witnesses who’d seen the guy fondle her ass without her permission as they were preparing to leave the restaurant, Mae still hadn’t heard the end of it from her mother and her grandmother.
Apparently, kicking Rice Cake in the balls before finishing him off with a vicious left hook had been a step too far and not the kind of behavior expected from a polite young lady seeking a wedding match.
“It’s a miracle he hasn’t sued us,” Ye-Seul Hwang had grumbled upon hearing the news of her granddaughter’s violent transgression from their neighbor Mrs. Son-Ha, AKA Koreatown’s official busybody and first-class muckraker. “Never mind what this will do to your chances of landing another marriage meeting. Mr. Poh thinks you should lie low for a few weeks.”
“For the hundredth time, I’m not interested in getting married right now,” Mae had objected, doing her best not to make her words come out a wail. “Nor do I want you and Poh to set me up on any more crazy-ass dates.”
“Language, young lady,” her mother Yoo-Mi had warned coolly. “Mr. Poh is the best matchmaker in the city.” Her mouth flattened to a thin line, a sure sign she was moments away from blowing a fuse. “You should be grateful your father and I even allowed you to leave home and get your own apartment. You don’t know half the gossip we have to suffer through from Mrs. Son-Ha and her friends about having an unmarried daughter not living under the family roof.” She sniffed. “They think you’re fornicating with foreign men.”
Bob the vibrator and the handful of guys she’d slept with since she lost her virginity in college had flashed before Mae’s eyes at that.
“Why, they practically called you a jizz,” Ye-Seul had added with a soured expression.
Mae had choked on her tea. Yoo-Mi had turned an alarming shade of red.
“Do you mean Jezebel?” Mae’s sister Ryu had asked carefully. “Jizz means something, er, different.”
“Yes, that Jeze word,” Ye-Seul had concurred with some vigorous head bobbing. “What does jizz mean?” she’d asked curiously, much to Yoo-Mi’s horror.
Ryu had waved a dismissive hand. “Never mind that. Personally, I think Mae should have ripped that guy’s dick off and fed it to Mrs. Son-Ha’s dogs.”
She’d made a slicing movement across her raised left middle finger and ignored the glare Yoo-Mi had shot at her.
“What am I to do with the two of you?” their mother had finally said in a heavy voice. “All I want is your happiness. After everything you’ve sacrificed for this family, you both deserve that.”
Her chin had wobbled and her eyes had glistened with a shimmer of tears.
Remorse and frustration had swept through Mae at the quiet accusation behind Yoo-Mi’s words. She’d seen the same emotions flash in Ryu’s eyes and almost wished she hadn’t come home for Sunday dinner.
Their mother still hadn’t forgiven herself for the fact that Mae had had to give up her surgical residency at Grandview General to manage the family’s funeral home three years ago, after their father’s sudden death from a heart attack. Or that, instead of pursuing a promising MBA, Ryu had taken over the job of funeral home director from Mae a year and a half later, after graduating in the top ten percent of her class from one of New York’s most prestigious business schools.
