Cursed, page 1
part #1 of Coven of the Raven Series
Cursed
Coven of the Raven
Shona Husk
Contents
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
Epilogue
About the Author
Other titles by Shona Husk
Copyright © 2018 by Shona Husk
Cover art by Studioenp
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.
Created with Vellum
Chapter 1
The house was silent as Mylla went through every room of the large, old place and closed the curtains. In the music room she paused for a moment to stare out into the yard. The dark shapes of trees loomed out of the dusk, but beyond them through the tangle of shrubs and overgrown grasses were statues. A shiver ran down her back. They were too life like. From here it almost looked like a garden party that never moved or was waiting for permission to move. They gave her the creeps. That was why she didn’t spend much time in the yard. She frowned. Did she ever go into the yard?
She tried to force thoughts into her mind, to raise a memory of something that had meaning. It was so hard to remember and think beyond the tasks assigned to her.
Cook the meals, clean the house. Every day the same until she couldn’t tell one from another. She could have been here a week or years. But she’d been keeping track and knew the truth even though it didn’t make sense.
“Mylla.”
She jumped at the sound of his voice and turned.
He looked at her, his stare hard and piercing, as if he could see into her soul, and all the thoughts she’d been trying to gather scattered like fallen leaves in a breeze. She wanted to run after them, catch them and hold them close, but not while he was watching. He couldn’t know. Yet why she knew that she couldn’t explain, only that if he knew she had her own thoughts he would take them away. She was sure he made her forget things, but she couldn’t remember enough to confirm her own suspicions.
“You will need to prepare the servants’ quarters. I have advertised for a gardener.”
She nodded. The order felt familiar and filled her with equal parts hope and dread. Had he made her do that before? He must have.
“Is there anything you’d like to ask?”
She swallowed. There was so much she wanted to ask, and yet she couldn’t make the words. They wouldn’t come. Questions were dangerous. Instead her reply was wooden and simple, as he expected. “No, Sir.”
Her voice. She still had one. She wanted to dance but didn’t know how. She wanted to say something else just to hear her voice again; it was so rare she spoke. Her lips opened. Mr. Quigley was staring at her as if daring her.
Mylla closed her mouth and ducked her head. It was better to be silent. Pretend that she didn’t have enough of a mind to remember things and know something wasn’t right. Even if she didn’t know what right was.
“When you are finished with your jobs, bathe and come to my room.” Mr. Quigley smiled and it stirred memories that she thought lost. They swam at the murky depths of her mind for just a moment before sinking back into the gloom as if they’d never existed. But they had been there, she was sure of it. Why else would she fear going to his room at night?
Why else would her stomach knot and tremble?
She nodded even though she wanted to say no. Her toes gripped the inside of her shoes, a tiny movement that she controlled. Again, that was important. But it was also important he didn’t know. Later she’d read the notes she’d made in secret in the book and remember to make another mark on the wall behind her chest of drawers, and she’d remind herself that she shouldn’t look this young when the marks on the wall said she’d been there for twenty years.
It had been longer. She was sure, but did she trust her own mind when so much seemed to be missing?
He gave her one last lingering look and left the room. When he was gone, she turned back to the window to draw the heavy curtains. A large crow landed on the balcony railing. It cocked its head and stared at her.
Help me. But the words never formed. The plea remained stuck in her head, and no matter what she did it was trapped. She was trapped in her own body, unable to do anything to aid her own escape from the evil that was Thomas Quigley.
“I need to talk to you.” Oskar stood in the doorway. He’d been watching Mason go through a complicated series of karate moves. The kata looked beautiful and was one way above him, but Mason had made it look easy. He made everything look as easy as if being a witch was a natural state, not something that had to be worked at.
Mason beckoned him into the large room they trained in. Oskar bowed and toed off his shoes, then decided he’d better take his socks off, too, since Mason was still on the mats and wasn’t walking over to talk. If he wanted to talk to Mason, he had to step onto the mats. And stepping onto the mats meant he had to be ready to fight.
“Is this about your misappropriation of company time to research your great uncle?” Mason watched him, looking for a lie or a denial. To do either would be stupid. Mason hadn’t gotten this far by being kind and forgiving. On the other hand, only one witch had been killed in the last five years, and the Uncommon Raven Agency, which employed many coven members, was doing well, so whatever Mason was doing was working.
“It could be.” Oskar stood opposite the man who’d kept him from going off the rails as a young teen, and who’d brought him into the coven at eighteen. He was also the man who wouldn’t fully initiate him despite nearly twelve years of loyal service to the coven and the Morrigu. He was an outsider and it wasn’t from anything he’d done—that he could have accepted.
Mason bowed and the sinking sensation that Oskar was about to get his ass kicked into next week grew. He couldn’t afford to lose a week.
Oskar returned the bow and the bone bracelet around his wrist gave a hollow clink. “I’m not dressed for fighting.” Jeans and a t-shirt—it could’ve been worse, at least he didn’t favor the skinny jeans that were in fashion.
“A warrior is always dressed to fight.”
Great. Mason was in one of those moods. Quiet and deadly with no trace of humor. Last time they’d crossed paths like this, Oskar had been banned from using magic for three months. It wasn’t that Mason hated him, he just didn’t trust him. The Quigley bloodline had turned bad about a century ago. Hell, half the time Oskar wasn’t sure he trusted himself. But he worked hard, harder than some of the others, to prove he was worthy.
Oskar raised his hands, his fingers loosely curled. The mats were cool and firm beneath his feet. Familiar. He was going to miss this place. With only a few months until the death curse took his life, there were things he needed to do.
He needed to tell Mason he was resigning. It wasn’t as though the coven would miss him, they’d probably be glad to see him go. He caught his thoughts before they turned black. He had friends, and the people he trusted were here, even if that trust didn’t always flow back. The coven was his default family.
“What do you want to say?” Mason threw a couple of quick punches that Oskar barely sidestepped and blocked. Mason was just too damn fast.
“I quit.” Again Oskar defended, but didn’t attack. He didn’t get a chance as Mason kept him dancing, but Mason was only testing. If Mason had wanted, he could have put him on the mats already.
“You’ve got three months until the Morrigu claims you.” Mason caught Oskar’s wrist. To avoid getting it broken, he threw himself over Mason’s arm, rolled, and came back up. Mason was waiting with a kick that came very close to clipping his jaw.
Oskar slid under Mason’s guard, hoping to at least get one good strike in. “I’m not going to sit and wait for Her to come.”
“You’re going after your uncle.”
“Great-great-great uncle.” They weren’t that closely related. The only thing they had in common was the curse. Thomas, his uncle, had pissed the Morrigu off plenty, not that She wanted Thomas’s soul anymore. He was no warrior, but a coward afraid of death. As punishment for Thomas’s actions, all the Quigley men died at thirty. It was a bitch of a curse and not an easy thing to live with. There was nothing nice about knowing the day his life would end. “You’d do the same.”
Mason didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. Oskar could see the concern etched in the lines between Mason’s eyebrows and in the thin press of his lips. He’d expected Mason to try and talk him out of it. One mistimed kick and Oskar was swept onto his back. Before he could get up, Mason was on him, pinning him to the mats. “You think you’re ready to take on a witch of that strength?”
They grappled, the fight moving from controlled technique to rough and dirty. “Do I have a choice? I can’t ask any of you to join me. Too many have already died trying to right his wrong.” An entire coven had been wiped out sixty years ago. But that wasn’t all. There was a pattern to the other deaths—or disappearances as they were called. Unsolved cases, missing men, none of whom had any connections to other covens that Oskar could find.
“You want to die sooner?” Mason gripped the front of Oskar’s shirt as if he could shake sense into him. Put that way it sounded a little insane.
“I don’t fear death. It’s coming for me anyway.” He’d known since he was fifteen that he was going to die like his father. Midnight on his thirtieth birthday. He’d been told why. At first he’d pleaded, begged the Goddess for trials and quests to prove he wasn’t the same, but it had all been in vain. Eighty-nine days to go. Some people might pack their bags and go to Thailand. Others take out a loan and live big in Vegas. He intended to meet the Morrigu head on and prove he would go down swinging right to the end.
“And the Morrigu?” Mason raised an eyebrow. The fight was now over. Mason would let him walk away if their Goddess was in agreement, but Oskar still couldn’t lie to Mason, not totally anyway.
“She is silent on the matter.” Well, not entirely. But since She could only invade his dreams unless he actively sought Her out, he’d been choosing to ignore them. Ignoring the Goddess he was sworn to serve probably wouldn’t end well, but shit, really, how much worse could things get?
Mason released him and stood. After a pause he offered Oskar a hand, which he accepted. “Your mind is made up.”
Oskar nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He’d rather live a long life, have a wife and children, but he wouldn’t allow himself either. He didn’t want to pass the curse on. He’d seen too many cousins die. While the Morrigu only required the service of the youngest son, She’d been so incensed by Thomas’s misuse of magic that all Quigley men wore the death curse, not just the witches. He had nephews that would die before they’d hit their stride. Before they ever had a chance to leave their mark.
When he’d die, no one would give a damn. His father had died when he was three, because of the curse, his mother when he was seventeen, because of cancer. The coven might pause for a moment, they’d have to find someone else to do their research and background work.
Oskar took a breath and looked Mason in the eye. “I’d like to be fully initiated before I go.”
“No.”
“Damn it. I have spent my life working for Her and the coven, you could at least grant me full rank and privilege before I die.”
“When you die you get full rank and privilege. I will not hand you that power when, by your own admission, you are going to see Thomas.”
“And if I live?” The odds of that happening were small, but a chance was still a chance and it was better than the alternative. He couldn’t lie down and accept his fate.
“Live naturally or join him?”
“When I kill him.” There was only one way to end the death curse, but killing a hundred-year-old witch who was using death magic to stay alive wasn’t going to be easy. If it was, people wouldn’t have died trying. But he had a plan. One that sucked and put him in Thomas’s hands, but he needed to get close since he couldn’t beat him with magic.
“If you kill him, you will get full admittance. The first Quigley in one hundred years.” Mason stepped back and bowed. The conversation was over. “Put your resignation letter on my desk. Of course, if you live, you can have your job back.”
Oskar snorted, he wasn’t even thinking that far ahead. He couldn’t. There was too much that could happen between now and his thirtieth birthday.
“Thanks.” He couldn’t erase the sarcasm from his voice.
“You’ve put everything you have into training, both as a warrior and a witch. You’ve been an asset in the office, but I will not breach the restriction put on your bloodline by the Morrigu.”
His eyebrows jerked up. He hadn’t realized it was a direct order from Her. Did She realize She was hampering the people who wanted Thomas’s work undone? Probably, but She was a vindictive bitch at times so She probably didn’t care. Of all the Gods and Goddesses out there, he’d had to have been born into a family that was bound to serve the Morrigu because of some ancient battle and agreement. Freewill was ninety percent bullshit. “I understand.”
“Good.” Mason clasped his hand. “And good luck. You’ll need it.”
No, he didn’t need luck. He needed magic. He needed the coven at his back. But all he had was fifty years of research that his grandfather had started and his father had added to. Both had been cops. Oskar had used his time at the Uncommon Raven Agency to add his own notes to the file—misusing company time. He now had a clear picture of what Thomas Quigley had been up to, even if he still had no idea how to break the spell or how to kill Thomas.
“Thank you. For everything.” Without Mason and the coven he would’ve ended it sooner—he’d certainly thought about it when he was younger. Living with a death curse was a sentence on its own. Eighty-nine days. Plenty of time.
Chapter 2
The drive up to Buffalo was pretty easy once Oskar had gotten out of New York City. The van he’d purchased was a piece of crap with Ohio plates. However it fitted with his new persona of itinerant odd jobber. The kind of person who’d apply for a short-term gardening job that gave a small amount of cash along with lodgings and food.
Walking into the house with magic crackling and laying down a challenge would only result in him getting his ass fried by Thomas. He knew that with one hundred percent certainty because that’s what had happened previously to the other witches that had gone after Thomas for glory or revenge.
He’d known this job was going to be coming up as Thomas liked to get the estate gardens done every ten years. And every ten years someone went missing from the Buffalo area. Someone who was last seen in one of the nearby towns talking about going for a job at one of the many mansions that lined the lake, and yet nothing had ever been found to incriminate Thomas.
Magic, like most things, was what the user made it. It didn’t guarantee wealth, status, or any other benefit. Like anything worth having, it took time and dedication to get right. Oskar had worked hard and done everything he could to shore up his own abilities without being let in on the greater secrets open to full initiates, because he’d known this day would come.
Magically he wasn’t strong enough to go up against Thomas, but hopefully he was smarter and more resourceful. As long as Thomas didn’t realize who he was, he’d be fine.
The coven’s last gift had been a set of fake IDs. Passport, driver’s license, social security number, the works. The van was registered under his new name of Oskar Clark—an unfunny joke of the Ravens. Still, at least it didn’t sound like he had an Irish background. With his mother’s dark blond hair he didn’t look like a Quigley, either. The last thing he needed was for Thomas to suspect he was part of the Coven of the Raven, or any coven for that matter.
His father’s bracelet rattled as he shifted gears and slowed down, cruising through the town looking for a motel for the night. His mother had made the bracelet out of raven bones for his father. She’d known he was a witch, and when she’d found the dead raven she’d stripped the bones and given his father a gift of great significance—both personal and magical. After his death she’d put it away until she’d gotten sick, then she’d given it to him and told him everything. He’d been fifteen. He’d watched her die for two years and contemplated his own death. He’d been a morbid teen.
If the Ravens hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t be here. He’d found strength in serving the Morrigu. Martial arts and magic had given him the self-discipline not to crumble, even as he looked his waiting death in the eye. He still hoped death would blink first and he’d get to live.
Thomas would understand the importance of the bracelet and feel the magic. Before he arrived he’d have to take it off. It hadn’t left his wrist for half his life, and aside from a file of notes and newspaper clippings, it was his only connection to the man he barely remembered calling Dad.
He took a room at a chain motel and emptied his bag onto the bed. He hadn’t brought much with him, having already left everything of value, magical or financial, at the coven—along with his will, thanks to Peyton. It was useful to have a lawyer as a member. Unfortunately there would be no last-minute hearing on his sentence, no stay of execution. He bit back the bitterness that wanted to suck him under. He wanted to hate the Morrigu but couldn’t. She was what She was, and the blame for all the deaths, both family and other, lay at Thomas’s feet. No matter how long his uncle lived there would eventually be a day of reckoning.
