Mature Magic 06-What Treachery Is This?, page 1
WHAT TREACHERY IS THIS?
MATURE MAGIC
BOOK 6
SAM CHEEVER
ELECTRIC PROSE PUBLISHING
Copyright © 2023 by Sam Cheever
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
CONTENTS
About Rome
Stay in Touch
Live ho the wicked old witch
1. A Messenger Both Fair and Fierce
2. Shall Vision, Heart, and Magic Pierce
3. A Seer From the World Doth Hide
4. His Quaking Heart, His Broken Pride
5. But Prophecy Doth Prove Itself
6. The Victim’s Downfall Borne in Stealth
7. A Lares’ Home Though Safe Must Be
8. Its Boundaries Close, Its People Free
9. Alliances Can a Shelter Make
10. A Grieving Friend Whose Heart They Take
11. The Fool Steps in Where Doubt May Fall
12. A Bravely Given Thought to Call
13. Millennia Doth Friendships Grow
14. And Wicked Though the Monsters Go
15. The Lares’ Safe Place Breached Anew
16. Her Council Strong, a Victory Too
17. The Witch Returns, Her Friends Despair
18. A Plan to Strengthen, A Spell to Care
19. Friends Will Come From Near and Far
20. A Fond Affair, a Fallen Star
21. The Villain Has at Last Been Found
22. The Lares and Her Friends Abound
23. A Seemingly Unbeatable Foe
24. When Good Must Win, and Evil Go
Don’t Miss Out
About the Author
Also by Sam Cheever
ABOUT ROME
Crafting worlds is crazy good fun. Authors love to make stuff up. Sometimes locations that are created for books seem like real places, even though they’re not. That’s actually good, because it means the author has done her job well. My fictional town of Rome, Indiana is not based on a real place. I’ve created a location that lives in my mind—one that fits the stories I wanted to tell. Hopefully you have enjoyed the picturesque town of Rome with all its paranormal challenges. I’m thankful for the opportunity to share this fictional town and its inhabitants with you.
xo
Sam Cheever
PRAISE FOR SAM CHEEVER
“You have that essential Je ne sais quoi that it takes to tell a story so mesmerizing you cannot stop reading once started. You are not telling stories to your readers…you are taking them with you on your adventures so that the experience can be shared by all as it happens and not simply replayed like a memory on the page of a diary! You are indeed gifted and it is my pleasure to read your books!”
Valerie Irwin
Live ho the wicked old witch…the wicked old witch…the wicked old witch. Live hale the wicked old witch…Ye’ll surely mourn her death.
The last person anybody ever expected to get into trouble was the crone. I’d believed she was pretty much bombproof. I mean, who in their right mind would go after a two-thousand-year-old witch who was also a magical historian? The problem was, I didn’t know what took her down. But something did. Whatever it was, it left her hovering on the razor edge of death.
If I don’t kick it into gear and go after her attacker, the old witch’s present condition could become permanent. And then I’d have a grieving teen to deal with. As well as an extremely irritated magical horse.
STAY IN TOUCH
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LIVE HO THE WICKED OLD WITCH
A gallant friend tears through the night. A prayer for help a heart takes flight. A guardian tosses fitful sleep, her mind a turmoil, worries deep. But all who come to hear the tale, must hold hope close as evil wails. Embrace the witch to save their friends. For if they don’t the worlds will end.
A Messenger Both Fair and Fierce
Shall Vision, Heart, and Magic Pierce
A Seer From the World Doth Hide
His Quaking Heart, His Broken Pride
But Prophecy Doth Prove Itself
The Victim’s Downfall Borne in Stealth
A Lares Home Though Safe Must Be
Its Boundaries Close, Its People Free
Alliances Can a Shelter Make
A Grieving Friend Whose Heart They Take
The Fool Steps in Where Doubt May Fall
A Bravely Given Thought to Call
Millennia Doth Friendships Grow
And Wicked Though the Monsters Go
The Lares’ Safe Place Breached Anew
Her Council Strong, a Victory Too
The Witch Returns, Her Friends Despair
A Plan to Strengthen, A Spell to Care
Friends Will Come From Near and Far
A Fond Affair, a Fallen Star
The Villain Has at Last Been Found
The Lares and Her Friends Abound
A Seemingly Unbeatable Foe
When Good Must Win, and Evil Go
1
A MESSENGER BOTH FAIR AND FIERCE
Hooves thundered across hard, veiny earth, the sound echoing inside a broad white chest in overtaxed heartbeats, and the rhythm of enormous, straining lungs. Wild brown eyes rolled and flashed, foam flecking a silky nose, the nostrils flaring with effort. Overhead, an endless umbrella of ancient trees bent protectively over the messenger, their intent driven by an ancient magic whose dark portent flailed insistent urgings upon their rough skins as the messenger passed. The glossy leaves of the guardian trees were still and silent, despite a roiling pulse of rage and an even angrier wind.
My skin was clammy. My pillow damp and rumpled. Inside my chest the thunder of the creature’s approaching hooves framed my own heartbeats. I twisted beneath the blankets, sweaty hands shoving at covers that felt more like a prison cell than protection against the cool early-fall night.
The sky I could barely see between the over-arching bulk of the protective trees was dark…dangerous…and fully embroiled in a rage-filled magic that tore through the midnight landscape.
Dark, reverberating screams ripped from a hoarse throat. Tear-filled eyes glossy with horror. A world ripped asunder by chaotic magic that recognized the loss of one of its own.
Tumultuous and frenzied with fear.
But it was the high-pitched scream of a single clear voice that reached me through the unruly, broken magic and wrenched me, drenched and frantic, from a fitful sleep.
Wanda!
I sat bolt upright in my bed, knowing I’d experienced a supernova of a Response vision.
Monty jerked to his feet as I cried out, frantically bathing my arm with kisses. I shoved shoulder-length black hair off my face with a shaky hand and gulped air as if I’d been suffocating a moment earlier. “I’m okay, buddy.” I glanced over at Gren’s side of the bed and found him missing. With a small sound of alarm, I wrenched the covers back and started to run.
As I ran, I determined the locations of each of my council members in the space of a single thought. In the next breath, I sent each of them a call to gather. I was vaguely aware of Monty flying through the house with me. When I opened the door, he squeezed past me into the darkness, running toward the tall form standing in the yard,
Gren’s gaze was locked on the magical woods at the back of the property. He didn’t turn as I let the mudroom door slam behind me. Even the oversized, yellow-eyed bat fluttering above his head didn’t cause him to look up. My angel’s stark, worried gaze was focused on the horizon. A horizon which roiled with black clouds, speared occasionally by the silver spurs of a waxing gibbous moon.
I lay a hand on his bare shoulder as I came up to him. To my surprise, his warm skin trembled slightly beneath my touch. “Gren?”
He finally looked at me. “What did you see?”
“The White Mare. She’s coming with a message.” I shivered as I remembered the dream vision. “I don’t think the message is a good one.” I chewed the inside of my bottom lip. “It’s not Wanda. It can’t be Wanda.”
Gren looped a heavy arm around my shoulders and pulled me close, his lips touching my forehead. “Let’s not jump to conclusions.”
A slight form burst from the woods and ran toward us. The man’s leanly muscular frame moved effortlessly, bare feet forming moist footprints in the glistening grass.
I watched him come, my lips trying to curl with disgust.
When Bathos slowed to a walk twenty feet away, he wasn’t even panting. “Is it the girl?”
The demon was only five feet eight inches tall, but he carried himself as if he were much larger. He had black eyes and glossy black hair and the face of an angel. A fallen angel. He was also Wanda’s father, a man who didn’t deserve to know what was going on with the teen, since it was his threat to take her away from me that had caused her to run.
Gren’s arm tightened around my shoulders. He said, “We don’t know yet. The Mare is coming.”
The White Mare was a powerful magical creature. she was a loyal companion to the crone, but the old wit
It was the reason the crone had made it a habit to send the elegant creature to me when there was news I needed quickly.
A low, eerie howl split the night, followed by another, different kind of howl. A moment later, two long, muscular shapes, enormous in the fractured moonlight, loped across my lawn.
The giant moon hound shifted in a burst of silver light without losing a stride. Sir Ferral of the Guardian Assembly, otherwise known as my Advocate, strode up to Gren and me with the usual glower firmly affixed to his handsome face. Even freshly shifted from his moon hound form, Ferral’s chin-length, wavy blond hair, square jaw, and piercing dark silver gaze still made him look like a character from the cover of a romance novel. “What’s happened?”
“We don’t know yet,” Gren said, saving me from having to deal with Mister Happy when he was still feeling—shall we say—a bit growly. “We’re waiting for the Mare.” Ferral opened his mouth and Gren cut him off with a raised hand. “As far as we know, Wanda is fine.”
Ferral’s mouth snapped shut with a click of teeth and he nodded.
Behind him, the enormous wolf with the bright golden eyes lay down on the grass. Luke had chosen not to shift back, so he could snap and snarl at Bathos.
The demon simply rolled his eyes at the spectacle of enormous white teeth. It was no wonder. As the keeper of a prison for monsters, Bathos had likely seen and dealt with much worse than my intimidating but rational council member who was currently shaped like a wolf.
Behind me the door creaked open and closed with a quiet thump as the family of my heart, who were also two of my council members walked arm and arm toward our little group.
My sister’s delicate features were tense, her thick mane of blonde hair, recently cut into a cute pageboy style, flew around her face with wild abandon, the glossy strands catching the moonlight and sparking with silver flame. “What’s wrong? What happened? Are you okay? Monty?” She looked frantically around for my little man, finding him sitting at the base of the largest tombstone in our little graveyard, staring hopefully up at an annoyed black cat.
She relaxed as Wraith narrowed her round yellow eyes on him and swatted half-heartedly in his direction, hissing.
Mavis gave me a hug, looking up at me with worry etched in the corners of her pale gray eyes. I wrapped an arm around the mother of my heart, who’d recently turned sixty-three, but looked and acted twenty years younger with her peaches and cream complexion and strong constitution. “We’re waiting for the Mare,” I said responding to both of them.
Mavis patted my back and stepped away. “Good. As long as it’s not Wanda.”
Monty barked a greeting to someone, and we all turned to find Reverend Dodson rising from the ground beneath the tombstone. The sight of him made my shoulders soften, pleasure at knowing we had him back home again making me temporarily forget my worry.
He strode toward us instead of floating, his slender, six-foot-tall form looking as solid as I’d ever seen it. Something about his visit to the spectral plane had amped up his ghost mojo, until he was almost as corporeal a presence as any of my other council members.
He smiled when he saw my face, his hands coming out to clasp mine.
I noticed Wraith and Monty had followed him from the graveyard, something they never used to do.
“Aggy, my dear. How are you?”
I pulled him into a hug, noting the cold but no longer painfully icy aura surrounding him. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant. “I’m better every time I see you here with us again.”
His smile widened. He looked around and shared the smile with my council. “Is everyone here?”
I shook my head. “Trish is on king-training duty this week. She’ll be late.” The Unseelie Fairy court had recently lost its queen and Trish had found them a new one…well, actually a king…whom she’d been helping get up to speed for the last couple of months. It hadn’t been easy. There had been many challenges, not the least of which was the fact that future King Nova had been a prince of the Seelie court, a distinction that didn’t endear him to members of the Unseelie court. “And Niele is reading the roots,” I added.
When everyone looked at me as if I had two heads, I shrugged. “Don’t ask me what that means. He explained it but it made no sense.” As a gnome, Niele spent much of his time beneath the soil, tending to things I only understood on the most basic, surface level. I knew that he and his many cousins and family members kept the very core of the earth’s foundation solid and secure, but all I really understood was that he made my yard look spectacular in the spring and summer.
“Shall I tell you what I know now?” Reverend Dodson asked.
“Yes. I’ll fill the others in when they get here.”
“Well, it’s good news,” he said. “Of a sort. There are no new deaths reported in the crone’s home world.” He grimaced. “No humanoid deaths. It is my understanding that one of those nasty monsters of hers was killed. Grisly story.”
I nodded, not inclined to feel bad about one of the crone’s Leviathan being killed. The nasty creatures had nearly eaten all of us when we’d traveled to speak to the ancient witch the previous year.
The Rev’s kind brown eyes found Bathos and the ghost twitched, the instinctive movement almost imperceptible. He’d had to fight a lot of demons when he’d been on the spectral plane. I figured he probably had a good case of demonic PTSD from the experience. But he forced himself to speak kindly. “Your daughter is well. The summons has nothing to do with her.”
Bathos’s cold black gaze narrowed slightly, and he inclined his head. “Thank you for telling me.”
The Rev nodded.
“So, the crone is okay too?” I asked. I suddenly felt as if a shoe was in the midst of dropping even as I retrieved the one that had already hit the floor.
The Rev’s smile wavered and died. His lean, heavily creased face folded into an unhappy mask. “Unfortunately, I cannot confirm that. I can only tell you that no one has entered the spectral plane from that world. And my spies can attest to the young historian’s well-being.”
His words pulled a weight from my shoulders and I took a deep breath, releasing it slowly. Some of the tension fell away from my neck and shoulders and I managed a small smile when I looked up at Gren. “She’s okay.”
He lowered his head and touched his lips to mine. “Yes, beautiful Aggy. That’s great news.”
Without warning, the ground between where we stood and the woods erupted in a geyser of dirt, rock, and vegetation and Niele flew out of the eruption. The gnome’s small black eyes shone with an alarmed light and his thick features were formed into a frown. He shook himself slightly, clumps of dirt and rock sifting from his wild silver hair, and strode in my direction.
I’d like to think that I was past the shock of dealing with a naked gnome in my yard, but honesty compelled me to admit to myself that I wasn’t. I kept my gaze determinedly on his face as he rushed toward us, stick and berries bouncing.
Okay, I tried to keep my gaze on his face, but peripheral vision is a witch.
“Madam Lares,” Niele said, stopping in front of me and bowing—an annoying habit he’d picked up since I’d come fully into my guardianship. “The vessel is nearly here. She should emerge from the Mystical Wood in five…”
