This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

In the ashes of her past, she will rise up, and her death will save us all.

Lizzie ran from her past for ten years, zigzagging across the United States every few months, trying to outlast the prophesy that an oracle gave to her when she was just sixteen years old.

But nobody can run from their destiny forever.

After watching her friend brutally gunned down by a group of ruthless demons, she had no choice but to protect the woman’s child, and there was only one place where Lizzie knew the girl would be safe.

Bronard, Missouri.

Home.

She stayed away to protect her parents, but the girl needed mystical protection.

Her parents had taken in magical strays their whole lives, including Lizzie. If anyone could save the poor child’s life, it would be her mother and father.

But will returning to her home doom Lizzie even as she works to save the child she has vowed to defend?

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It had begun. For a decade, I tried to outrun my prophecy, but as I watched the fire consume my childhood home with my father’s charred body inside of it, I knew for a fact that the last decade of my life had been folly. I could have stayed put, in my cozy room, with my loving family. I didn’t have to abandon them. I didn’t have to run for ten years. I didn’t have to blow up my life—my prophecy came for me anyway.

I could have graduated high school, gone to college, worked the land with my parents while they were still young and healthy enough to do so, and taken the load off them when they grew enfeebled. If I had been home, maybe my mother would have fought harder, and my father wouldn’t have given up so much of himself to save her.

But I left to protect them and took on the burden of a hard, horrible life, to make sure they didn’t suffer…and yet, they did suffer. And in the end, my prophecy caught up with me.

“We have to go,” Kimberly said, pulling me through the fields.

“The fire,” I said, stunned. “We have to stop the fire.”

Even as I said it, I knew that was impossible. Flames had consumed the walls and the roof already. If a fire truck arrived right then, it still would have been hard to contain, and the nearest station was ten minutes away.

Kimberly was an expert at fighting monsters, but I saw the fear in her eyes as red flashes blinked all around the house, and more demons appeared to give chase. Despite all of that, my instinct was to run inside, back to my father.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Kimberly grumbled, stopping to catch her breath. “He’s dead. Mourn him, but don’t join him.”

“Fine,” I said, watching the demons charge toward us. “You’re right. Let’s go, then!”

“I need a minute. If I don’t focus perfectly, we could be lost in the ether, and I’m not in the best state right now.” Red lights flashed around us, and three more demons appeared in the cornfields. “Guess I don’t have a choice.”

Kimberly pulled me toward her and tossed a pinch of pixie dust from her pouch to the ground. We evaporated, and I fell through the inky blackness. It didn’t suck the hope from me this time because I had no hope left. I had only the knowledge that I was fate’s pawn. Everything I had ever heard about having agency and free will was a load of garbage.

My stomach sank and then expanded as we popped back into the universe, and I fell to the ground onto cold concrete. We were in an empty building. Plastic covered the exposed walls and the office equipment that speckled the floor.

“Catch your breath,” Kimberly said, rubbing my back. “If you want to cry—”

I threw off her hand and stood. “I don’t want to cry. I want to punch something!”

She shrugged. “Well, this place is being renovated, and all these walls are scheduled for demo, so go for it.”

I looked back at her, trying to judge if she was messing with me, but she just gave a small nod. I had spent a decade bottling up my emotions, and at that moment, I didn’t want to contain them anymore. They came out like a geyser.

I picked the closest wall to me and slammed my hand hard into it. The drywall buckled but didn’t cave, and the impact stung. It felt right. The ripples of pain that shot through my body when I punched the wall again masked the pain erupting from my broken heart. Everything I knew had been ripped away from me.

No mother. No father. No place to call home.

I beat my fists against the wall until the tears overtook me, and I crumbled to the floor, streaks of blood trailing from my knuckles.

“Are you done?”

“NO!” I shouted. I punched the wall again, but my strength had left me.

“Okay.” Kimberly crossed her legs and watched me. “Take your time.”

I turned from her gaze. “Stop looking at me.”

“I can’t do that, kid. I promised your parents I’d look out for you, and you’re in a fragile state. I have to make sure you don’t hurt yourself…well, hurt yourself more.” She stopped for a moment. “Did you break anything?”

I looked at the blood-stained wall. I had managed to knock a big hole in it, and a piece of drywall dangled above me. “Just the wall, I think.”

“Didn’t hit a stud, did you? Those things hurt like the dickens.”

“No.” I looked down at my hands, flexing them in alternating pulses. “Aside from being bruised and bloody, they don’t feel broken.”

“Good,” Kimberly replied. “Last thing we need is to take you to the hospital with a broken knuckle.”

“Yes. That would take this night to another level of suck.”

“I know that’s a joke,” Kimberly said. “But please trust me, there are so many additional levels of suck here that you couldn’t even imagine.”

“Name one.”

She slid closer. “Well, you’re not in Hell right now, so that’s one right there.” She scooted closer still. “You didn’t have an arm ripped off by a demon; there’s another one.”

“No, just everything I’ve ever known was taken from me. I guess that’s just a jolly stroll in the park to you.”

Kimberly slid next to me. “No, Lizzie, this sucks really bad. Almost nobody in the history of the world had had a crappier day than you, but it could always be worse.”

“Cheery,” I croaked through my tears. “You always were a ray of sunshine.”

She placed her hand on my leg. “Nobody has ever accused me of being chipper, just effective. Part of that includes being able to put terrible situations in context and keeping my head.” She sighed. “It’s a skill I don’t wish on my worst enemy.”

I rested my head against the wall behind me and looked at her. “Seems to be working out okay for you.”

She chuckled. “Yeah, people call me resilient. They say because I’ve seen so much, I can bounce back from anything, but no one…we shouldn’t have to be resilient. No one should have to see the things I’ve seen. I only hope that everyone I ever save can grow up to be soft. But that’s not the way of the world now, is it?”

“It’s a nice dream.”

She squeezed my shoulder. “Unfortunately, you’re going to have to be resilient today, Lizzie.”

“Why? Can’t I just crumble?”

“Two reasons. First, the prophecy said that once you have lost everything, you’ll rise, and I have faith that’s true, as much as I hate it. You may not believe this, but I was hoping that prophecy was garbage as much as you were—maybe more.”

I wiped the tears from my eyes. “And what’s the second reason.”

“There’s a little girl out there whose prophecy is intertwined with yours, and there’s no doubt in my mind they’re after her, too. If they haven’t found her already, they will soon.”

Veronica. She was in trouble. The moment the words crossed my mind, every bit of sadness crusted over, replaced by a determination to save her. The demons would not win. They would not get Veronica…even if it cost me everything, I would make sure that little girl was safe.

I pushed myself up. “Then we have to go…now.”

Read the next chapter

This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

Subscribe now

Subscribe now

This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

In the ashes of her past, she will rise up, and her death will save us all.

Lizzie ran from her past for ten years, zigzagging across the United States every few months, trying to outlast the prophesy that an oracle gave to her when she was just sixteen years old.

But nobody can run from their destiny forever.

After watching her friend brutally gunned down by a group of ruthless demons, she had no choice but to protect the woman’s child, and there was only one place where Lizzie knew the girl would be safe.

Bronard, Missouri.

Home.

She stayed away to protect her parents, but the girl needed mystical protection.

Her parents had taken in magical strays their whole lives, including Lizzie. If anyone could save the poor child’s life, it would be her mother and father.

But will returning to her home doom Lizzie even as she works to save the child she has vowed to defend?

Subscribe now

Exhaustion didn’t begin to describe how tired I was. When Dad and I returned to the house that night, not only were we physically drained from standing on our feet all day, but we were emotionally shattered from repeatedly rubbing the rawness of our loss.

“I’m going to bed,” I said, trudging up the stairs.

“Can you take your old room, kiddo? I’d like to sleep in the guest room.” Dad asked. “I can’t be in my room right now.”

I nodded. “Of course.”

The bed in my old room was more comfortable than most of the motels I’d stayed in over the past few years, but it was hard as a rock compared to the guest room’s. Still, how could I complain? We would probably have to change mom’s mattress, if not the whole bed, before he could get on with sleeping in there again, but we would cross that bridge tomorrow, maybe later. Mom’s death was too fresh to imagine doing anything functional except close my eyes.

Tomorrow, I thought to myself as I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep. Or, I would have liked to drift off, except that as I did, a bright blue light filled the room. I opened my eyes to see a glowing blue man, unbound from his body, projecting something like the aura of himself at the edge of the bed.

“Elizabeth, you have been chosen by the great powers beyond and have turned from your quest. It is now the time to turn back toward it, for fate had finally aligned fo—”

“Shut up,” I growled, throwing the blanket over my head.

“Excuse me?” the voice said, indignant. “I am Saint Nari, herald of the archangel Gabriel, and you will—”

“I said shut up,” I grumbled, turning from him. “Can’t you hear? I am not interested.”

“Wha—in all my years I have neve—” The angel stammered. “I have a message to deliver, and I will have you listen to it.”

I rolled back to him and sat up in bed. “If I listen, will you go away and leave me alone?”

“That is the nature of a messenger. Now, if you will allow me to herald for a moment, it would be preferable to the alternative.”

A chorus of angels chimed behind him in song, making Nari’s appearance even more insufferable.

“Which is?”

He held up a finger. “Me boring the message into your skull with my index finger.”

“That doesn’t sound pleasant.”

“It is not.”

“And there is no scenario where you just…go away? I don’t want any of what you’re selling.”

“I hear that a lot, actually.”

“That’s not surprising. I have never heard of anybody that was visited by an angel and had a good time afterward.”

“How—how did you know I was an angel?”

“Do you not hear the choir behind you?” I shook my head, exasperated. “Seriously, I need you to take about 40 percent off whatever is going on right now.”

The angel tried to hide his irritation, but it was written all over his face. “I come from a long tradition of—”

“Just get on with it then. I’m trying to sleep.”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t need your life story. The longer you are here, the more annoying you get. Since I can’t get rid of you until you make your speech, get on with it.”

“Well—uuhh—” He scratched his head. “I forget what I was supposed to say.”

I sighed again. “Let me help. I have a great destiny. I’m supposed to save the world. It’s almost time to get started, for the fate of the universe is at stake. Or something like that, right?”

“Uhh—yeah—that’s kind of exactly—how did you know that?”

“I got my prophecy when I was twelve. I’ve known all this for a long time, but now that you’re here, it means that I was right to stay away from this place.”

“Are you thinking of foregoing your destiny? That would be disastrous to the world. I can’t even begin to th—”

“Let me stop you right there,” I growled. “Why do I care what happens to the world? I’ll be dead. I won’t even be able to enjoy this world I’m saving. So, I’ll ask again, why should I give a care?”

Nari floated toward me. “You are part of this world. Those you love are part of this world. Would you not want to save it for them?”

“There’s only one person I care about in this world, and he’s old as dirt.”

“And what about the girl? Do you not care about her?”

I leaped out of bed and stomped over to the angel. “You leave her out of this.”

“I’m sorry. She is very much in this, and if you wish her to stay safe, I suggest you change your attitude.”

“Is—that a threat? Is an angel threatening me?”

Nari shook his head. “No, not threatening. Just stating facts. We cannot make you choose your fate, but the sooner you accept it, the better it will be for everyone and the higher chance you have to save this world you claim to hate.” The angel floated back toward the wall. “But the choice is yours, jerk.”

The angel snapped his fingers and vanished. It might not have been a direct threat by an angel, but he confirmed there was a threat to Veronica’s life. I needed to protect her, no matter the cost. You promised to protect her, Lizzie, but what if running toward her was exactly what the stupid angels wanted in the first place? What if that put her in more danger?

Even if that might be true, I couldn’t just stand around and do nothing. I snuck out of my room and downstairs to the kitchen. Dad kept Kimberly’s number on a Post-It note in our junk drawer when I was younger, and I was happy to see he hadn’t moved it in the decade since I left.

I pounded the number into the phone and waited for her to pick up. Unfortunately, all I got was her voicemail.

“Kimberly, I need to talk to you right now. She’s in trouble. Do you hear me? Get here now. I’ll be out back so as not to wake Dad.”

I slammed the phone down, put on a coat, and made my way to the backyard, a hundred yards from the house so that I couldn’t be heard through the windows. There, I waited in the cold for Kimberly to come.

Please come, Kimberly. I can’t save the girl without you.

It was thirty minutes in the frigid cold before the flash of purple smoke popped in front of me. I waved my hands, and Kimberly trudged over, yawning and stretching her arms.

“This better be good. You roused me from a great dream about eatin—”

“An angel just came to me, said that the prophecy was about to come tru—you know what, that part doesn’t matter. He said that Veronica is in trouble, and I have to save her.”

“That sounds like angel bologna to me. Trying to manipulate you into playing their game, the one you’ve been ducking for a decade.”

“And what if it’s not?”

“Then I—”

Cars screeched in front of our house. As they came to a stop, three red flashes popped in the front yard.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Kimberly said. “This is not good.”

“Who are they?”

“Demons, I’m guessing. I was worried this would happen. The wards on your house were bound to your mother. I had made a second set bound to your father, but when Carl decided to play hero and try to save his wife—well, he doesn’t have magic anymore…I’ll bet when that angel came, it was like a beacon for demons.”

“Dad!” I screamed. It didn’t matter if I was okay. The idea of his burning in that house flashed through my brain.

I smashed through the back door just as a fireball exploded through the living room. Five demons rushed inside, each uglier and more grotesque than the last, with red horns atop their heads and faces contorted in fury.

“Crepitus glacies!” I shouted. Ice shot out of my hands and exploded in the faces of the demons, sending them flying backward. “Vento tempestas!”

A galeforce wind blew from my fingers and spun two of the demons out of the door. One of the remaining demons rushed forward, a fiery sword burning in his hand. As he raised it into the air and charged, a pink plume of smoke appeared in front of him, and Kimberly stuck two daggers into the demon’s throat. He dropped the sword, which set fire to the floor and the alcove next to the stairs.

Another demon charged just as an explosion rocked above us. The demon flew backward, and I looked up to see Dad ambling down the stairs with a shotgun.

“Get her out of here!” He fired another round as a demon rushed through the door and threw a fireball at him. Dad fired one more round before he went up in flames.

“Dad!” I went to help him, but Kimberly grabbed me and pulled me toward the back of the house. “Let go of me!”

“If we stay here, we die!” A tinge of sadness rose in her voice. She had spent almost as much time in that house during my childhood as I had. “We have to go.”

The demons were closing in on us, and I knew we had no choice. With one last look at my father as he laid limp on the landing above us, I let Kimberly drag me away. Behind us, the fire consumed the whole house, except the demons that chased after us.

My past, and everything I had ever loved, was gone in an instant.

Read the next chapter

This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

Subscribe now

This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

In the ashes of her past, she will rise up, and her death will save us all.

Lizzie ran from her past for ten years, zigzagging across the United States every few months, trying to outlast the prophesy that an oracle gave to her when she was just sixteen years old.

But nobody can run from their destiny forever.

After watching her friend brutally gunned down by a group of ruthless demons, she had no choice but to protect the woman’s child, and there was only one place where Lizzie knew the girl would be safe.

Bronard, Missouri.

Home.

She stayed away to protect her parents, but the girl needed mystical protection.

Her parents had taken in magical strays their whole lives, including Lizzie. If anyone could save the poor child’s life, it would be her mother and father.

But will returning to her home doom Lizzie even as she works to save the child she has vowed to defend?

Subscribe now

I laid crumpled on the floor until the coroner came and collected the body, and then I helped Dad strip the bed down to the mattress. He’d had a long time to prepare for this moment. He carried out the plans he’d made beforehand in rote detail. I didn’t have the same luxury. Even though Kimberly had told me that my mother was sick, it never actually registered that she was going to die.

When I came home and saw her enfeebled and bedridden, her death imminent, some part of me still believed that she would live for years and years. Perhaps because she had been alive my entire life, and she was indomitable, a larger-than-life force of nature that nothing could topple.

But time toppled her, didn’t it? The great equalizer. Death.

I wasn’t ready to be without a mother. Then again, Veronica wasn’t ready to be without a mother, either, and I expected her to be strong. I had to be strong, too.

Most of the arrangements had already been made. They’d picked a church for the service and a burial plot. Dessertations, mom’s old shop, catered the wake. Betsy and Ed baked up a spread of bagel sandwiches, donuts, and eclairs for the occasion. The lox was a nice touch.

The wake took place three days after her death, in a small funeral parlor that I used to pass on my way to school when I was younger—when I had all the hope in the world. The funeral director’s son, Brian, had gone to school with me, though he was a few years older.

“It’s nice to see you again,” he said to me softly when Dad and I arrived at the funeral parlor for the wake. “You look lovely.”

I didn’t. I had been crying for the last three days and had only realized I didn’t have the clothes for a funeral a couple of hours before. Luckily, Mom had plenty of dresses. I picked one that was too big on me, but black even if it had fat white polka dots on it, and cinched it with a belt. I said a polite “thank you” and accepted his hand.

“Come this way. We have her set up in the viewing area.”

Mom had wasted away over the last year of being stuck on the bed, but Dad managed to find a dress that fit her perfectly, a simple black number with a white, frilly collar. She wore her favorite dark red lipstick, and they made her up to look nearly alive.

We had an hour alone with her before the people started funneling into the viewing area. First was Ben, the man who made the bourbon we drank the night of her death.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” he said to us both, taking our hands in turn. “I made a special case for you, old friend.”

He reached into his coat and pulled out a bottle of bourbon, and Dad started crying when he saw that Ben had labeled it Junebug, with a little cartoon June bug as the mascot on the label. I took the bottle, as Dad’s hands shook with sadness.

“That’s very sweet,” I said. “He loves your bourbon.”

“We all loved Junebug.” Ben placed his hand on Dad’s shoulder. “And we love you. I’ll deliver that case tomorrow and check on you. Louisa’s gonna make a casserole, too.”

The rest of the wake was a bevy of faces, hands, and names, some I recognized from years ago and others that were new to me. We must have shaken hands with over a hundred people during the three hours of the wake, and I heard stories from so many people that filled my heart with joy. It had been years since I heard about my mother saving the neighbor’s dog from getting run over by a tiller or how she used to make the best eclairs in the whole state—so good that the governor had asked her to cater his daughter’s wedding.

But there were also stories from the years I missed, and they ripped my heart in half, little by little. I was nearly a puddle on the floor by the time the last of them fell on my ears. That night at home, we ate a dinner of bagels and donuts, taking turns swigging from the bottle.

The next morning, I woke early with a splitting headache and realized we’d finished over half of the bourbon Ben gave us. I popped some Advil and rode into town to pick out a new dress from Dana’s, landing on a spaghetti strap, knee-length black dress with a cardigan to cover my shoulders.

I returned to the house just in time to pick Dad up for the funeral. He was looking over a set of cards and mumbling to himself.

“I forgot to mention this last night,” he said, pulling on his coat. “But you are going to need to say something at the funeral today.”

“Me?” I said. “I haven’t prepared—I have no idea what to say. I’m not good at public speaking.”

“Just speak from the heart—and remember, it doesn’t matter if everyone hates it. The only thing that matters is that your mother asked for it, and we need to follow her last” —he choked back tears— “her last wishes, okay?”

I nodded. “Okay, Dad.”

He was in no condition to operate a vehicle, so I drove us to the church. I hadn’t been to a church since I was baptized, and the fact that Mom wanted to have a funeral in one struck me as odd.

“She came to it late in life,” Dad answered the question on my mind as we pulled up to the white-washed church. “When she could still get out, they had support groups in the church, and they were kind to her.”

There were already a dozen cars at the church when we arrived, and more streamed in behind us. By the time the service started and the pastor called for his first blessing, the church pews were nearly filled. My mother was quite a woman, it seemed, and touched so many people in the town.

After the pastor delivered his remarks, Dad walked up to the pulpit and cleared his throat. “Thank you for coming. If you knew my wife, you know that she loved telling stories. I loved listening to them. I’m afraid I’m not much of a talker. That was Junebug—my wife’s job. She was the one everyone loved, and I was the one who made friends simply by being in her presence. After all, how bad could I be if Junie chose to love me, right?”

He laughed sadly. “She put out so much good into the world. It was her fuel. There was never a school fundraiser or bake sale she wasn’t willing to donate her time and her baking expertise to help—and god, could that woman bake.” There was a murmur of agreement and light laughter throughout the church. He continued, “It’s not often that a person finds something they were better suited for than Junie and baking. If you ever had something she baked, you know those hands were blessed by God—and now they have returned to his grace.” He cleared his throat. “I love you, Junebug. You were a light in the darkness, and the world has become colder without you in it. And now, I believe my daughter has something to say.”

He rushed off the stage and sat down as I stood and walked to the pulpit. “Wow. I was just thinking that I pitied the person who followed that—and um, I guess that’s me. I was only told I had to say something a couple of minutes ago, so I am just winging it—can you tell?” I sighed and collected myself, gathering the words. “My mom was one of the two greatest humans I’ve ever known, and I’ve been all over this country, met all sorts of people. Mom was one of a kind. She took me in, even though I’m not her blood, and gave me a home. She didn’t have to do that. She didn’t have to do any of the amazing things she did, but she did them anyway, no matter the cost. I’ve been gone for a decade, and I know there wasn’t a day she didn’t talk about me because at least once a day, my ears would start ringing—that was just one of the many things I learned from my mom. ‘If your ears are ringing, then somebody’s talking about you.’ What if you have tinnitus, though? She never answered that one. The minute I came home and felt the love both Mom and Dad imbued in the house I grew up, I knew I had made a mistake leaving all those years ago. I have never felt that kind of love before, or since, except in that house. Mom loved, recklessly and often, even when people didn’t deserve it—especially when people didn’t deserve it.”

I stood there for a minute, stifling tears before I sat down. When Dad squeezed my arm and looked at me with pride, I knew I had not embarrassed myself or my mother’s memory.

After the funeral, we led the procession to the burial plot and threw flowers into the grave as her body was lowered into the ground. And then it was over. The people dispersed, heading back to where they were from—and left behind two broken people grieving alone over Mom’s grave.

Read the next chapter

This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

Subscribe now

This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

In the ashes of her past, she will rise up, and her death will save us all.

Lizzie ran from her past for ten years, zigzagging across the United States every few months, trying to outlast the prophesy that an oracle gave to her when she was just sixteen years old.

But nobody can run from their destiny forever.

After watching her friend brutally gunned down by a group of ruthless demons, she had no choice but to protect the woman’s child, and there was only one place where Lizzie knew the girl would be safe.

Bronard, Missouri.

Home.

She stayed away to protect her parents, but the girl needed mystical protection.

Her parents had taken in magical strays their whole lives, including Lizzie. If anyone could save the poor child’s life, it would be her mother and father.

But will returning to her home doom Lizzie even as she works to save the child she has vowed to defend?

Subscribe now

Dad wasn’t wrong. The bourbon burned going down, but it burned so good. After taking a swig from my glass, I pushed it over to Dad to fill me up again, which he did without so much as a raised eyebrow.

“Ben Coleman up the road makes this himself. If it isn’t the smoothest bourbon I’ve ever had, I don’t know what is.” He finished his own glass and refilled it. “I’ve been his best customer since your mom got sick.”

I swirled the drink in my glass. “I should have been here, Dad. I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”

He chuckled lightly to himself. “You don’t owe us anything, kid. That’s not how parenting works. You don’t have a kid so they’ll take care of you. It was an honor to bring you up and watch you make your own decisions.” He took a long drink. “Wish you made different ones, mind you, and could’ve used your help, ‘specially in the last couple of years, but you don’t owe us anything. I just hoped you lived your best life out there on the road. Did you?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t live much of a life, Dad. I saw a lot of the country, though. I don’t think there’s a sight or attraction I haven’t seen, in fact. I made it to every national park in the contiguous and just about every roadside attraction I could find.”

He smiled. “Which was your favorite?”

“They were all pretty cool, but the Billy the Kid museum—the one in New Mexico, not the one in Texas—that one’s gotta be the weirdest. They have a whole exhibit dedicated to a woman that went to Sunday school every week for over fifty years.”

“Was she Billy the Kid’s ancestor or something?”

“Not that I know. She was just a woman. Plus, they have cars, and trucks, and dolls, and other stuff that definitely did not exist in the 1800s. Charming, though. I bought a pin, but I lost it. I lost so much on the road, Pop.”

“Sounds like you lost yourself out there,” he said.

I nodded. “Yeah. This is the first time I feel like myself in a long time.”

“And you’re still determined to leave, then?”

I looked at him for a long moment. We both knew the answer. I didn’t get a chance to say it because as I sat there, footsteps banged down the stairs. Johnny, harried and flustered, rushed into the dining room.

“What is it, Johnny?” Dad asked, confused.

“Sorry to disturb you, Carl, but I think it’s time.”

Dad went first into the room, and I followed close behind. Mom’s breathing was so shallow it barely looked as if her chest was moving at all.

“Junebug?” Dad choked out, taking Mom’s hand into his. “I’m here, baby. I love you so much, Junie. You made me happier than I thought possible, for longer than I ever imagined…but I’ll be okay, Junebug. I want you to know that. I know you could never leave if you didn’t know I was going to be okay.” He patted her hand with his, shaking with every word he said. “I’ll see you soon, baby.”

He couldn’t continue through his tears and beckoned me over to him. I sat down beside him. “He’s right, Mom. I’m here. I’m going to take care of him. I promise.”

I didn’t know why I said that. Just moments ago, I was ready to disappear again. But looking at the two of them, I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t just abandon the farm and everything I ever knew—the only place I’d ever been happy—not until I knew that Dad was going to be okay. By the look on his face, he was never going to be okay again. Not until he could join his wife in the great beyond.

“I love you, Mom. I’m sorry I was gone for so long. I’m sorry…I wish I had this past decade with you. I wish I’d called—I wish…there are so many things I wish. But I’m here now, just like you wanted. You can go, now, Mom, because I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere—”

The tears took me over, and I couldn’t say another word. I believed she had heard me. As I wept, the heart monitor flatlined. She let out one final breath, and she was gone.

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This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

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This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

In the ashes of her past, she will rise up, and her death will save us all.

Lizzie ran from her past for ten years, zigzagging across the United States every few months, trying to outlast the prophesy that an oracle gave to her when she was just sixteen years old.

But nobody can run from their destiny forever.

After watching her friend brutally gunned down by a group of ruthless demons, she had no choice but to protect the woman’s child, and there was only one place where Lizzie knew the girl would be safe.

Bronard, Missouri.

Home.

She stayed away to protect her parents, but the girl needed mystical protection.

Her parents had taken in magical strays their whole lives, including Lizzie. If anyone could save the poor child’s life, it would be her mother and father.

But will returning to her home doom Lizzie even as she works to save the child she has vowed to defend?

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My feet stepped heavily on the way up to Veronica’s room as if concrete had filled my boots and hardened. With great difficulty, I reached the top of the steps and inched open the door to her room. She had ripped all the posters off the wall and capsized the corner desk chair in a fit of anger, but now sat patiently on her bed next to the leather suitcase Dad had given her.

She acknowledged my presence by folding her hands in front of her and turning toward the wall. “Go away.” Her voice was measured and calm, but there was a weariness to it. Her eyes were red and puffy, and the glistening of her cheeks belied her tears.

“It’s time,” I said, trying to give my words an air of finality.

She snapped her head toward me. “Why did you even save me if all you were going to do was send me away?”

I sat down next to her. “Saving somebody and caring for them are two different things. I’m not much of a hero, but I’m even less of a mother. I thought maybe—maybe Mom and Dad could—but they are both old and sick. This is your best option for a happy life. Kimberly’s done this before, and she knows what she’s doing. I trust her.”

“I hate her,” Veronica scowled.

“I don’t like her, either.”

“I hate you, too.”

“Join the club, kid.” I held out my hand. “That’s not going to change anything. Hate me all you want right now, but soon enough, you’ll forget all about me.”

She wiped her cheek. “How do you know?”

“Cuz I’ve watched it happen a thousand times before.”

She grabbed my hand and pulled herself to stand. “I don’t think so, Lizzie. I think I’m going to remember this forever.”

There was nothing else to say, so I guided her toward the door, carrying the heavy leather suitcase that held the clothes and things I’d bought her—everything that she owned in the world. As we walked down the stairs, I realized that in our haste to leave Nevada, I hadn’t even grabbed a picture of Becky for Veronica to hold on to in her sadness.

That would not do.

The girl at least needed one memento of her mother. When we reached the bottom of the stairs, Carl and Kimberly stood in front of the door, waiting.

“Dad,” I said. “Can you watch Veronica for a moment? There’s something I need to do with Kimberly.”

“Oh, this should be lovely,” Kimberly replied. “One more thing to hold us up. You know I do have other things to do than wait at your beck and call.”

I pulled Kimberly into the other room, and after telling her what I needed, she begrudgingly agreed it was a good idea.

“Close your eyes and imagine the house, every detail that you can,” Kimberly said. “Make it real in your mind, down to the smallest detail.”

I did what she asked, filling in everything I remembered. When I had a clear picture of the house, my stomach fell out from me, and a cold shiver blew through me. For a moment, all hope drained from my body, and then, like a rubber band, my stomach snapped back into my throat with a jerk, and I opened my eyes to see Becky’s house in front of me, just as I remembered it.

“Let’s make this quick,” Kimberly said.

My steps toward the house were measured, made cautious by the memories of the death I’d witnessed there. Kimberly opened the door with her elbow and walked inside through rows of yellow police tape. Bullet holes riddled the walls of the living room and up the stairs, where a streak of blood led us up to the second floor.

“Take your pick,” Kimberly said to the pictures that lined the walls. Some of them were cracked with bullets or were only of Veronica, but at the top, I found a nice big one of the three of them—Veronica, Becky, and Rick, smiling in the grass, as if they would never have another care for the rest of their days.

“This is the one,” I said, grabbing it.

“Good,” she replied. “This place gives me the creeps.”

I stepped past her, led somehow by the bloodstains on the floor in the master bedroom—where Becky had bled out like a stuck pig. Anger rose in my throat when I thought about what monsters could take a mother from her daughter—and that they were still hunting Veronica.

I slammed my hand into the floorboards once, twice, three times, as the tears of rage and grief came, and then I felt Kimberly’s hand slip over my shoulder.

“How could they do this—” I blubbered. “She was such a good one—she didn’t deserve—”

“Monsters don’t care, Lizzie. Not if you’re a saint, or a nun, or a mother. I’ve seen it so many times before that sometimes I forget that most people don’t know that.” She knelt next to me. “I envy that you thought you could avoid your destiny. Even though it was a fool’s errand, you really thought that the gods would allow you peace in a world filled with monsters.”

“She’s not going to be okay, is she?” I asked through more tears.

“I don’t know. I found her a nice family and warded it, so she’s protected, but the rest of it is on her. If she’s like Anjelica, stubborn and foolhardy, they’ll find her in a minute, but if she’s careful—if she takes her protection seriously—maybe she can outrun it. It’s possible.”

“You’ve never seen it before, though, have you?” I asked.

“For the time being, she’ll be okay, but if demons are after her…they are relentless.”

I clenched my fists together. “We have to kill them.”

“I’m working on that. I have to find them first, though, and while I’m doing that, Veronica will be safest away from you, somewhere your prophecies can’t come true, either of them.”

I nodded. “I want to be there when you kill them. I want to watch them banished back to Hell where they belong.”

“I can make that happen.” She stood up. “But one thing at a time. For now, let’s get that picture back to Veronica, okay?”

I placed my hand in Kimberly’s, and we vanished again. For a moment, I was surrounded by black ichor as far as I could see in every direction. My stomach dropped to my knees, and then we were back in my old house, a plume of purple and pink smoke surrounding us.

Veronica jumped back with a stifled scream. It wasn’t every day you saw a pixie materialize in front of you, after all. She calmed after a moment, and I held the picture out for her.

“I wanted you to have something happy that you could look back on, so you don’t forget them.”

Veronica touched the picture, sliding her hand up to her mother’s laughing face. “This—we—I—” She broke down and fell to the floor, sobbing for a long while, while we all tried to comfort her. After a long while before she was calm, she clutched the picture tightly to her chest. “Thank you.”

“I wish I could do more.”

She smiled a sad smile at me. “Maybe you will.”

She held her hand out to me, and I wrapped my fingers around hers. She was so small. She needed protection, but from somebody else. I wasn’t equipped to give her what she needed, no matter how much I wanted to be that person for her.

“We should go,” Kimberly said. softly

I let go of Veronica’s hand, and she took Kimberly’s. “Maybe you’ll come visit,” Veronica said.

I smiled. “Maybe.”

I knew it wasn’t to be. Once she vanished, Kimberly would carry the secret of Veronica’s location to her grave and beyond. In a puff of smoke, they were gone, and a piece of my heart broke.

“Come on,” Dad said. “I have an aged bourbon that would be very appropriate for a shit situation like this.”

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This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

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This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

In the ashes of her past, she will rise up, and her death will save us all.

Lizzie ran from her past for ten years, zigzagging across the United States every few months, trying to outlast the prophesy that an oracle gave to her when she was just sixteen years old.

But nobody can run from their destiny forever.

After watching her friend brutally gunned down by a group of ruthless demons, she had no choice but to protect the woman’s child, and there was only one place where Lizzie knew the girl would be safe.

Bronard, Missouri.

Home.

She stayed away to protect her parents, but the girl needed mystical protection.

Her parents had taken in magical strays their whole lives, including Lizzie. If anyone could save the poor child’s life, it would be her mother and father.

But will returning to her home doom Lizzie even as she works to save the child she has vowed to defend?

Subscribe now

After I left the Oracle, we headed to the lot Dad recommended and sold the car with no problem. It was an old junker, so I didn’t expect much for it, and I didn’t get much for it. When Dad came to pick us up, he asked me about my day, but I could only answer that it was “fine.” Any more depth than that, and I’d have to give the awful truth: I was going to have to leave them again. I didn’t want to. The longer I spent in my childhood home, the more I realized how unmoored I had been in the past decade, traveling from town to town, searching for a modicum of peace.

Humans have an innate ability to acclimate to their surroundings, and I’d grown to believe the hollowness inside of me was normal, but now I knew that was a lie. The hollowness came from being away from my home and the people I loved, quarantining my heart from the rest of the world. It had all come flooding back to me now. Like a numb hand regaining feeling after a long sleep, the pinpricks of pain meant I was feeling something, and I liked it.

I don’t know what I had hoped the Oracle would say. Maybe that she was wrong, and it was all a big misunderstanding. “Whoopsie, I made a mistake” would have been really nice. My intellectual brain knew that would never happen, of course. And my emotional brain was an idiot that couldn’t find its way out of a paper bag.

When we got home, I decided to do chores to clear my head and figure out my next steps. If I had to leave my parents again, I wanted to remember the feel of the soil on my fingers before I fled like a thief in the night.

“What are you doing?” Veronica’s voice said from the end of a row of tomatoes.

I turned to her, stunned to find that dusk had settled on the farm. I had been in my own head for hours. I wiped the sweat from my brow and gave a deep exhale, looking down at my basket of rotten tomatoes.

“You can’t let the rotten fruit stay on the tree. It corrupts the whole crop.” I held up one of the bruised tomatoes. “See?”

She leaned forward to look at the rotted and bug-eaten tomatoes I’d pulled from the vines. “Gross.”

“Have you ever heard the expression ‘a few bad apples spoil the bunch’?”

“Mommy used to say it.”

I smiled at her. “She’s a very smart lady, but it’s not just an expression. This is where it comes from. If we let these bad ones grow, they’ll attract all kinds of nasty bugs, and if we don’t pick these rotten ones, they can destroy a whole season’s crop. So, I’m going through and picking them.”

“Can I help?”

I pushed the bucket over to her, and we looked for rotten tomatoes until it was too dark to see anything but our noses. I remembered back to my own father teaching me how to tend the crops, and now here I was, passing the knowledge to a new generation. Part of me wished we could stay on that farm forever, tilling the fields and watching them grow, but the rest of me knew that was impossible.

If we stayed together, all of us—Mom, Dad, Veronica, and I—would be in danger. Starr told us that our fates were intertwined, and if that was true, then perhaps this little girl would die with me, and I couldn’t let that happen. The only thing that would protect us was to separate from each other, as far as possible, with no way to contact each other.

“Supper’s ready!” Pop yelled at us from his spot at the back door. “Don’t let it get cold!”

I picked up the basket of rotten tomatoes and walked hand in hand with Veronica to the compost bin, where I tossed the rotten fruit so at least they could do some good. A few bad apples can spoil the bunch, but just because they’ve gone rotten doesn’t mean they can’t still be useful.

“What are we having?” I asked as I took off my shoes inside the house. “I’m starved.”

“Meatloaf,” Dad called from the kitchen. “Thought we’d have a nice, family dinner together.”

That did sound nice, at least until I walked into the dining room and saw Kimberly sitting at the end of the table. My heart sank. Instinctively, I knew that she had found a place for Veronica. I squeezed that little girl’s hand so tight, and I never wanted to let go, even though I knew it was the right thing—the only thing.

“Nice to see you had a change of heart,” Kimberly said. “And that you’re back where you belong.”

I didn’t respond. I took Veronica into the bathroom, where we washed our hands together. Desperation swirled in my stomach. I couldn’t acknowledge that this would be the last night I spent with Veronica, the last meal I shared with her. You barely know this little girl, Lizzie. Screw your head on straight. We finished cleaning our hands and took our seats just as Dad slid the meatloaf onto the table.

“Eat up,” he said.

“It smells delicious, doesn’t it, Veronica?” I asked.

She nodded. “Totally.”

“And hello to you, Veronica,” Kimberly said. “Since Lizzie won’t do it, I’ll introduce myself. My name is Kimberly. We’re going to have so much fun together tonight.”

Veronica cocked her head to the side. “What kind of fun?”

“We’ll talk more after dinner, but I was hoping you would come with me on an adventure.” Her voice was whispered but excited. “Do you like adventures?”

Veronica looked down at her lap. “I used to like adventures, but then—” She didn’t have to finish. “Now, I just like farming. Did you know that a few bad tomatoes can spoil a whole crop?”

Kimberly took a bite of her meatloaf. “I heard something about that. It’s nice you’re learning something. I have a friend who is an excellent teacher. If you like learning, you should really meet him.”

“I don’t want to meet new people for a little while.” Veronica looked over at me, but I focused on swirling barbecue sauce in my mashed potatoes. “You’re here to take me away, aren’t you?”

That took us all by surprise, but Kimberly recovered properly. “You’re very smart. How did you know that?”

“You used the same voice Lizzie did when she brought me here. With adults, the worse the news, the higher their voice.” She took a bite of meatloaf. “I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“It’s for the best,” I said, half trying to convince myself.

“How do you know?” Veronica asked. “What if I’m supposed to be here with you?”

“I’m no guardian, kid,” I replied. “You need to be in a loving home, with parents who—who can take care of you better than me.”

“What about Carl and Junebug? You said you’d take care of them. Why can’t you take care of me, too?”

“Because I can’t. If you stay around me—I’m trying to keep you safe, okay?”

“You promised to look out for me, and now you’re just going to give me away? And I don’t even have a say in it? That’s not fair!” She slammed her fork on the table. “Why didn’t you just leave me with my mom if you’re just going to abandon me?”

She pushed out her chair and rushed upstairs. I started to go after her but felt the tug of my father’s arm on mine before I could stand.

“You stay here. I don’t think she wants to see you right now.”

I nodded and watched him leave the table. Kimberly waited until he was up the stairs and out of sight before she spoke. “I suppose you’ll be leaving too, before long.”

“I came to make sure Veronica’s taken care of and say goodbye to my mom. I’ve done both of those things, so the best thing for me to do is move on.”

Kimberly chuckled. “You really are an idiot.”

“Excuse me?” I scoffed. “I mean, I know I’m an idiot, but to what specific reason are you referring?”

“Even after all this time…” She shook her head. “Don’t you think your parents would rather have you here, even if it puts them in danger?”

“That’s not their choice to make.”

She stared at me, unblinking. Kimberly’s steely demeanor always unnerved me, and more so at that moment. “Maybe not, but you should let them make that choice.”

I shook my head. “I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to them.”

“And that’s why you’re an idiot, a selfish idiot. Your parents are good people, and they’re dying. Whether they burn in a fire or die in their bed, they will be gone soon, and I don’t think it matters to them how. What matters to them is that you’re here with them for the end, not off on some stupid noble quest.” She shrugged. “But then, it’s not about what they want, just what you want, right?”

“That’s not fair.”

Kimberly took her plate to the sink. “It’s the fairest thing I could possibly say about you.”

Footsteps creaked on the stairs. Dad walked into the dining room just as Kimberly came back from the kitchen.

“She’s packing now,” Carl said with a deep sigh. “She doesn’t like it, but she’s doing it. That girl is hard-headed like a mule. Reminds me of somebody else I know.” He turned to me. “Are you sure this is the best idea?”

“That doesn’t matter, Carl,” Kimberly said. “It’s the best thing for her, and that’s all that matters.”

Low blow, Kimberly. Low blow. I calmed myself before I spoke. “No matter what either of you thinks of me, I’ve only tried to do what’s right for the people I care about.”

“I know,” Dad said, squeezing my shoulder. “It’s just funny how trying to do the right thing can lead you to so many wrong decisions.”

Low blow, Dad. Low blow.

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This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

Subscribe now

This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

In the ashes of her past, she will rise up, and her death will save us all.

Lizzie ran from her past for ten years, zigzagging across the United States every few months, trying to outlast the prophesy that an oracle gave to her when she was just sixteen years old.

But nobody can run from their destiny forever.

After watching her friend brutally gunned down by a group of ruthless demons, she had no choice but to protect the woman’s child, and there was only one place where Lizzie knew the girl would be safe.

Bronard, Missouri.

Home.

She stayed away to protect her parents, but the girl needed mystical protection.

Her parents had taken in magical strays their whole lives, including Lizzie. If anyone could save the poor child’s life, it would be her mother and father.

But will returning to her home doom Lizzie even as she works to save the child she has vowed to defend?

Subscribe now

“This place is gross,” Veronica said as we pulled into the trailer park.

She wasn’t wrong. I had lived in my fair share of trailer parks in the past ten years. On the whole, they were clean, if rudimentary, but this place was dingy and sad. Every person we passed looked like the hope had drifted from their eyes long ago. Some of the faces I recognized from my last trip to the park over ten years ago, or from school and around town. All of them relics of a bygone age, hollowed with time and drained of all signs of life. They stared at my boat of a car as we slid through the dirt road littered with plastic and glass bottles.

Crumpled bits of paper rolled across the ground like tumbleweeds. I followed Starr back to her unit, staying far enough behind that she wouldn’t recognize me. She was in the same derelict unit she occupied so long ago, even more dilapidated now, just like her.

The last time we met, I remember thinking the woman seemed like she was at death’s door. Somehow the years had taken even more from her, thinning her out until there was little more than a skeleton, in a suit made of skin, shambling up the stairs of her unit and struggling against gravity to make her way inside.

“Stay here,” I said to Veronica as I put the car in park and locked the doors behind me.

“Shouldn’t leave your kid like that,” a gruff voice called from behind me. I turned to see a pot-bellied man with a five o’clock shadow going on nine if he didn’t find a razor soon. His jagged teeth caught me by surprise as he moved toward me, yellowed, with several having given way to rot and others fallen out completely. “Not safe, that.”

“I don’t want any trouble, mister.”

“Jake. They call me Jake. You can call me ‘honey’ though, love. You’re a delicious-looking one, ain’t ya?” He licked his lips, accentuating his jagged teeth. “Yeah, yer a tasty one.”

“I don’t want any trouble, Jake.”

He stepped forward, grabbing at the belt on his waist as he went. “And what if I want trouble?”

“Leave her be, Jake!” a woman screamed behind us. I turned to see the red-haired woman who tended to the Oracle. “Don’t be an animal. It’s not even a full moon tonight.”

“Come now, Charlie,” Jake said. “I ain’t causing trouble.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Charlie said, scampering up to us. Unlike the woman she served, she was as spry as ever, though she had packed on a couple of pounds in the face and more in the stomach. The extra heft suited her. “Go watch your stories and leave the girl be.”

Jake threw up his hands and turned away, ambling back to a frayed lawn chair and picking up a beer bottle with the label mostly peeled off.

“Thank you,” I said to Charlie.

She dipped her head in acknowledgment. “You look like a girl looking for answers, and if my associate and I know anything, it’s how to find those answers for people.”

“That’s what I’m hoping for,” I said.

“You here for a reading?”

“I’m not sure, but I am looking for answers.” I pointed to the car. “The girl—she’s in a bad way, and I need to figure out how I can help her.”

“We usually don’t do readings for people that young. Never works out well for us. Had some bad experiences in the past.”

“I—I get that. She’s already had a reading, though, but her mom—well, she’s my responsibility now, and her mom didn’t get a chance to tell me about her prophecy before she—before the girl was left in my care.”

“So, she’s got a prophecy on her, then?” Charlie thought for a long moment, ping-ponging her eyes between Veronica and me as she stroked her chin. Finally, she gave a nod. “Bring her in.”

I unlocked the door and eyed Jake warily as I pulled Veronica out of the car. We followed Charlie toward the double-wide and up the rotten wooden stairs to the door. As it creaked open, the distinct smell of stale smoke smacked into me. My stomach leaped into my throat, and a memory flashed through my brain, the memory of a scared little girl, trembling with fear, watching the Oracle thrash across the table, telling her she was going to die and take everything she loved down with her.

“Starr,” Charlie sang sweetly as we made our way into the trailer. “We have a customer.”

Starr moaned, rousing from a couch next to the door. She stared at me with sunken eyes, and the hatred I had for her melted away. Time had taken more from her than I ever could. She destroyed my life, but life destroyed her just the same. All that was left in me toward her was pity and shame that I carried such hatred for her for so long.

“It’s fifty,” she said. “If you wanna stay in the room, then it’s a hundred.”

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the money I had just gotten from Jennifer at the Dress Barn and handed it to her. This better be worth it. Otherwise, I had just wasted my nut chasing phantoms.

Charlie pocketed the money and helped Starr to her feet. They shambled together across the trailer into the same little booth where I had sat once before. I brought Veronica over and sat with her on the other side of the booth.

“Veronica,” I said as tenderly as possible. “This is my friend Starr. A long time ago, she helped me find my place in the world, and now she’s going to help you.”

“N-nice to meet you,” Veronica said, her voice trembling.

“It’s nice to meet you too, child.” Starr’s voice was raspy, and her feral eyes moved from Veronica to me. Her eyes seemed to look through me, not at me, as she pondered me for a moment. “And you, yes, I remember you. Evil things I saw in your future. If this child has something to do with your fate, then I want nothing to do with her.” She turned to Charlie. “Give this woman back her money and send her away.”

“No!” I shouted. “Please. I have to know if this child has something to do with my prophecy. I have to know what to do with her. You owe me that much after what you did to me. I’ve been on the run for ten years.” The anger bubbled back into my stomach, and I clenched my jaw, trying to fight it off. “Please.”

Starr Wolfsong shuddered visibly. “I traveled across this whole country, trying to unsee the things I saw in your future—trying to escape the feeling of hopelessness that your vision brought to me, but everywhere I traveled, you followed me.”

“And after your prophecy, I ran away from home trying to avoid my future, only to be forced back here and to this trailer park, where I found you, again. Whether you believe in fate or not, that’s too big a coincidence to discount, don’t you think?”

“The fates are fickle mistresses, but yes, I admit I have felt compelled to return here as if every move I made to turn away from this place led me here again. I have often wondered why the universe kept me alive so long, in so much pain. Perhaps it is to be here, now, in this moment.” She swallowed, a painful grimace settling over her face. “I’m sorry for what happened to you and for what you must sacrifice—what you have already sacrificed.”

“Thank you for that, but right now, I just want to find out what this girl’s part is in this whole plan and how to help her.”

Starr reached her arms toward Veronica. “My sight has been blocked since that day with you, but I have other ways of telling the future.” She managed a smile. “Place your hands in mine, girl, palms up.”

Veronica looked over at me, and when I nodded, did as she was told. Starr leaned forward and stared at the little girl’s palms for a long moment before shaking her head slowly. “Your lifeline is broken so early…yet, it continues. I have never in all my years seen anything like this, and your fate line—” She turned to me. “Let me see your palms.” I turned them over for her. “Identical. I thought as much.” She closed both of our palms. “Your fates, I fear, are intrinsically linked, and they are both bound to the fate of us all.”

“What did you see that night?” I said. “When you gave me my vision?”

Starr looked at me for several long moments before she spoke with a trembling voice. “I saw the Earth, overrun with demons and all manner of Hellbeasts…and then I saw your death. In your eyes, there was a new beginning, as the past burned.” She pressed her hands tightly into mine. “It is not fair, but life is not fair. Not for any of us.” She sighed and looked over at Charlie. “Give them back their money. They will need it more than me.”

I slid out of the booth and took the money Charlie held out. “Thank you.”

Starr dropped her head into her chest. “No, thank you. I feel a great weight has been lifted off my chest. I only wish I did not have to place it on you instead.”

I smiled sadly. “You didn’t do anything. Fate did that.”

Read the next chapter

This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

Subscribe now

This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

In the ashes of her past, she will rise up, and her death will save us all.

Lizzie ran from her past for ten years, zigzagging across the United States every few months, trying to outlast the prophesy that an oracle gave to her when she was just sixteen years old.

But nobody can run from their destiny forever.

After watching her friend brutally gunned down by a group of ruthless demons, she had no choice but to protect the woman’s child, and there was only one place where Lizzie knew the girl would be safe.

Bronard, Missouri.

Home.

She stayed away to protect her parents, but the girl needed mystical protection.

Her parents had taken in magical strays their whole lives, including Lizzie. If anyone could save the poor child’s life, it would be her mother and father.

But will returning to her home doom Lizzie even as she works to save the child she has vowed to defend?

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Even with coffee running through my system, I had no trouble falling asleep after finishing with the sheets and carrying Veronica to bed. The last couple of days had been exhausting, mentally, physically, and emotionally, and the farmhouse was the only place I ever truly felt safe.

I never slept well on the road, which made me a good worker because I was always up for a shift, but as I laid in the four-poster bed in the guest room, Veronica asleep in the next room, I felt a decade of exhaustion smash into me at once. I didn’t have to worry that some meth-head would burst in on me or listen to a prostitute and her john in the next room. Instead, there was just quiet, quiet for miles. In that quiet, I found peace.

When I woke up, the sun stung my eyes, and I heard a rooster crow. The stairs creaked outside my room, and I rolled out of bed to find Dad wobbling down the hallway holding Mom’s breakfast on a tray.

“Let me help you with that,” I said, pushing open the door to Mom’s bedroom.

“Come on, then,” he said, placing the breakfast on Junebug’s lap. It wasn’t much, a half a bagel with cream cheese, some milk, and a few cut-up grapes, but she beamed when she saw it.

“Looks delicious,” she said, taking one of the grapes.

“I’m no chef, not like you, my dear.” Dad kissed Mom on the forehead. “But I make due. Betsy says hello. Sends her love.”

“Did you already go into town this morning?” I asked.

“Of course. I go every morning. Only fresh bagels are good enough for my Junebug.”

“You spoil me, love,” Mom said slowly as she took a tiny bite. “Poppy seed. Yummy as ever.”

“Well, I would love to waste the day with you, my dear, but chores call,” Carl said with a smile. “Until we meet again.”

“No, don’t worry about all that right now,” I butted in. “Rest, both of you. I’m back home. I’ll do the chores.”

“Sure you can handle it?” Dad said, but he didn’t need to be told twice. He slid off his shoes and then into bed next to my mother.

“Any of it changed in a decade?”

He shook his head. “That’s the beauty of this place. Nothing changes ‘cept the seasons.”

I rushed down the stairs to see a middle-aged man with a shiny, jolly face wearing a set of blue scrubs. “I’ll be off now, Car—” He caught sight of me. “Oh, hello. You must be Lizzie, right? Carl talked about you…a lot.”

I nodded. “And you’re Johnny?”

He held out his hand, and I shook it. “I am.”

“Thanks for taking such good care of my mom.”

“Happy to do it.” He smiled. “Junebug is a real special woman. I’m glad I got to know her.”

I choked on my emotions, and I turned to the back door. “Me too.”

Choring was like riding a bike. Once you learned the ropes, your muscles never forgot the motion. I started with milking the cows before feeding the chickens, then walked the lines, spraying the corn and looking for defects until the morning watering started, then I leaped back to fill the straw for the cows and pluck the eggs from the chicken coup.

By the time I went back inside, I smelled like a foot, but a sweaty, accomplished foot. Dad must have heard me come in because not long after, he crept down the stairs just as I finished placing the basket of eggs on the dining room table for inspection.

“Nice haul this morning,” he said, ambling over. “Put them in the fridge. I’ll bring them to Betsy tomorrow morning.”

“I can do it,” I said. “How much do you get for them?”

He shrugged. “We keep a tab for pastries at this point. Money’s not much good on the farm these days, and with your mother sick, I get more out of the pastries anyway.”

“Daaad—” I started to lecture him about in-kind bartering but cut myself off. Who was I to judge? They made it to old age and deserved their eccentricities. “I need to go into town anyway, so I can bring them when I pick up new clothes for the kid and me.”

“What kind of person doesn’t bring clothing when they travel?”

“I had clothes and a wad of cash waiting for me in the motel when I saved the girl, but since then, we’ve just been traveling.” I looked out the front window at the Buick that sat in the yard. “Speaking of, you know anyone who needs a car and will be real discrete about chain of title?”

He nodded. “I’ll give you a number. He’ll chop it up and use it for parts. Meanwhile, there’s plenty of clothing in your closet upstairs if you wanna look at it. We haven’t thrown anything away.”

I chuckled. “I appreciate that, but I’m through my Goth phase, I think, and Veronica’s too small for them just yet.”

“Well, bring them into town anyway. Dana’s kid has been after us for years to sell that stuff. Says it’s vintage. Might be able to get some coin for it.” He sighed, taking in a good, long look at me. “I know you’re adopted, but you really do look just like your mother.”

I chuckled. “She’s white. I’m Black. You’re losing it, old man.”

“Maybe that’s it. Anyway, I think she might have some clothes that would fit you. That way, you don’t smell like a cow going into town.” He reached into his pocket and pulled a credit card from his wallet. “You can put the clothes on this card. They shouldn’t give you any guff about it once they figure out who you are.”

“You don’t have to—” I started before Dad held up his hand.

“Least I can do.” Tears welled in his eyes. “Please, let me do this for my daughter.”

I took the card. “Thanks, Dad.”

The center of town was about twenty minutes from our farm if you drove with a lead foot, thirty if you respected the speed limit. There was a time when I could tear around bends at full-tilt boogie speed, but I didn’t have the same feel for the roads anymore, so Veronica and I made it in a little closer to a half-hour. My dad might have made it in fifteen, especially in his prime.

My mom’s old store, Dessertations, sat at the end of a quaint strip of town that also held Dana’s Dress Barn, a sheriff station annex, and a smoked meats bar-b-que. It made me smile that it was still standing even if my mother couldn’t. It was her legacy.

“Let’s go,” I said to Veronica, who was already out of the car. I grabbed her hand in mine, holding the eggs with the other, and walked into the store. I was expecting to see Betsy but instead found a baby-faced man whose nose was covered in dough.

“Morning, ladies. Welcome to Dessertations! What can I do for you?” he said, then peered closer at us. “My, you two must be from out of town because I don’t recognize you at all.”

“It’s been a decade, Ed, but I haven’t changed that much, have I?” I replied. “How’s your mother? She in?”

“She only comes in the early morning these days.” Ed smiled at me and squinted closely. “Oh my goshness, is that little Lizzie back from the dead?”

“I was never dead, Ed,” I replied. “And this is Veronica.”

He spun from around the counter and hugged me tightly, pluming flour between us. “So good to see you again.” He shook Veronica’s hand. “And nice to meet you, little one. Your mom is a bit of a legend around here.”

“She’s not my mother,” Veronica said flatly. “My mom’s dead.”

“Oh.” His face dropped. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“We all are.” I slid in front of Veronica and held up the basket of eggs. “Carl says you have an arrangement for these?”

Ed took the basket. “Your family really does have the best eggs. I don’t know how you do it, but yes.” He walked behind the counter. “Meanwhile, pick anything you want, on the house.”

“What do you think, Veronica?” I said, brushing flour from my mom’s hideous pink flannel shirt. “My mother’s favorite used to be eclairs.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s like a long donut with gooey cream inside, topped with chocolate.”

Her eyes got big. “I want that.”

“Make that two.” I smiled. “I love that you have kept this place the same even after all these years.”

Ed dipped down into the glass counter. “Well, your mother was an institution. When she sold the shop to my mom, Mom promised to keep that tradition alive, and then when I took over last year, it had already been standing for two decades and—well, let’s just say if I tried to change it now, there would be an uprising.”

I took the eclairs from Ed and gave one to Veronica. “Thanks, Ed. I guess I’ll see you around.”

“I sure do hope so.”

We sat outside and ate our eclairs. They were just as delicious as I remembered. I’ve had a thousand eclairs in a hundred towns, and Mom’s recipe was still the best. Veronica must have thought so, too, because even with her small frame, she finished the whole éclair, then licked her fingers clean of all the sticky goodness.

After finishing our sweets, we had enough sugar to tackle Dana’s Dress Barn. Dana never liked my mother, but I got along fine with her daughter Jennifer when we were in school, which gave me hope that she wouldn’t be a heartless shrew like her mother.

“Are you serious?” Jennifer said as we slammed the clothes on the counter. She dug through my old clothes with relish. “This is like the mother lode. I’ve been dying to get Junebug to sell this to me forev—” That’s the moment she saw my face behind the mountain of clothing. “Oh my god! Is that really you, Lizzie?”

I nodded. “It’s me.”

“It’s so good to see you!” She shouted before pointing at Veronica. “And who’s your little helper here?”

“This is Veronica. She’s not mine. I’m just babysitting right now.”

“Hey!” Veronica protested. “I’m not a baby.”

I nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m watching her right now, is what I meant.”

Jennifer shook her head at both of us. “Well, the two of you look a fright. Luckily, I have a cure for what ails ya. Best selection of threads in three counties.”

I glanced around the store and had to admit that it had promise. Gone were the gaudy styles of the old dress barn, replaced with modern looks and sleek aesthetics. “Thank god you got rid of the mom jeans.”

“Oh god, hon,” Jennifer said. “They were the first thing to go. Well, go pick out whatever you want, and then I’ll square up what’s left over when you’re done.”

I picked out enough clothes for a week before turning my attention to Veronica. She was harder to shop for, but after an hour, we had a selection of shirts, pants, shoes, and underwear enough to get her wherever Kimberly was going to take her. I wanted her to have something from me since after she left my care. I would likely never see her again.

I felt a little guilty putting so much on Dad’s credit card, but if he wanted to buy us clothes, who was I to argue. Once the new clothes were purchased, Jennifer reached into her drawer and handed me $100 for the clothes I brought in.

“This is too much, Jennifer,” I said when she put it in my hands and closed it around me. “No way my clothes are worth that much.”

She shook her hands. “I owed you from back in high school. Consider this my repayment, with interest.”

Why was everybody being so nice to me today? Was it because I had a little kid with me? I needed the money, so I didn’t argue. I’d lost the rest of my rainy-day fund back in Nevada and used almost all my tips from my last day of work just getting to Bronard. It was nice to have some extra money in my pocket.

The last stop was offloading the car. Dad’s connection was in Maynard, three towns from Bronard, and past the site where the Oracle gave her prophetic vision of my future. When I passed the trailer park, I stopped dead, slamming the brakes on the old car until it skidded to a stop.

Right there, in the middle of the park, walking like she hadn’t destroyed my whole life, was the Oracle, Starr Wolfsong, without a care in the world. She looked a little worse for wear, but it was definitely her. Then a thought flashed across my brain: Maybe she could help me figure out how to help Veronica.

No, she would help me figure out how to help Veronica. It was the least she could do after… And if she wouldn’t, well, part of me hoped she wouldn’t so that I could make her pay for the last decade of my life.

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This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

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This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

In the ashes of her past, she will rise up, and her death will save us all.

Lizzie ran from her past for ten years, zigzagging across the United States every few months, trying to outlast the prophesy that an oracle gave to her when she was just sixteen years old.

But nobody can run from their destiny forever.

After watching her friend brutally gunned down by a group of ruthless demons, she had no choice but to protect the woman’s child, and there was only one place where Lizzie knew the girl would be safe.

Bronard, Missouri.

Home.

She stayed away to protect her parents, but the girl needed mystical protection.

Her parents had taken in magical strays their whole lives, including Lizzie. If anyone could save the poor child’s life, it would be her mother and father.

But will returning to her home doom Lizzie even as she works to save the child she has vowed to defend?

Subscribe now

I didn’t know how long I slept, but when I woke up, the sun was ready to set again, and Mom still slumbered beside me. I slipped out of her gentle embrace and made my way down the stairs. Dad was sitting on the couch, watching White Christmas even though it was nowhere near, as Veronica lay curled up on the couch next to him.

I intentionally stepped on the creaky floorboard in the middle of the hardwood, and he turned to me with a smile. He eased himself out of his chair and hobbled into the dining room.

“Coffee?”

I nodded. “As much as you can spare.”

“A woman after my own heart.” He quietly disappeared into the kitchen. Junebug and Carl always had coffee brewing, no matter the time in the day or night, because there was always work to be done. I had long been convinced they were immune to the effects of caffeine.

A few minutes later, he came back into the dining room holding two cups of coffee in tremoring hands. I jumped up and took my cup from him before easing him into the chair.

“This isn’t anything fancy, so if you like that kind of French vanilla crap or mocha choco blast, you’re not gonna find anything like that here.” He grunted. “We drink our coffee black in this house, in case you don’t remember.”

I took a sip. “I remember. It hasn’t been that long.”

Dad placed the cup down, looking down at his liver-spotted hands. “Feels like a lifetime. Last time you were here, I could pick you up in my hands and lift you straight over my head.”

I rolled my eyes. “I wasn’t a baby when I left. I was sixteen, Dad. Exaggerating much?”

“That’s how I remember it—you running away—barely up to my waist.”

“Delusion is a great gift, old man.” I took another sip of coffee and saw that my innocently jestful tone didn’t come across. “That was a joke.”

“I know it was a joke, but it wasn’t funny. I never humored you as a kid, and I’m not gonna start now. Besides, you were telling the truth. I am old. Feel like I aged a hundred years since you left.”

“You look great, Dad.”

“Don’t you lie to me, dang it. Not in my own house.” He looked down at the coffee in his cup. “I can barely get out to do chores anymore. Yields are down, so I can’t hire staff. Most days, I think the only thing I’m good for is dying.”

Thoughts of the prophecy danced through my head. I spent so much time away to save my parents from death, but it had come for them anyway.

“I thought pixies lived for a long time, Dad. You’re not that old. Mom either.”

He squeezed his hands together. “I don’t know how magic works, kiddo. Nobody does, and anyone who tells you otherwise is duping you, duping themselves, or both. It was like one day I was fit as a fiddle, and the next I could barely lift a shovel.”

“I don’t know much about magic, but I know that’s a load of horse manure.” I brought my eyes to his. “How long ago did you try curing her yourself?”

He sighed. “Don’t even remember now, and it doesn’t matter. It didn’t work. Kimberly tried to tell me there would be side effects, but I didn’t care—I don’t care. Life’s not worth a lick without her, so maybe it’s a blessing that it backfired and took so much from me.” He took another sip of coffee. “How is your mother?”

“You know how she is.”

“I do, but I want to hear you say it.”

My head dropped. “I’ve spent the last decade stuffing every emotion I’ve ever had deep down in the dregs of my soul. The last day has cracked all that open, and now every feeling I’ve suppressed for ten years is hitting me at once. And none of that was as bad as seeing her in that bed.”

He nodded solemnly. “It’s hard to watch my little Junebug waste away like that. Sometimes—sometimes she looks at me like she used to, with love and hope in her eyes. Those are the worst moments because I know there is no hope left.”

I slid my hand across the table and touched his. “There is hope left, Pop. I’m here now.”

“Then you’ll go again.”

“Maybe,” I replied. “But I’m going to help until then, and I’m going to take care of you both while I’m still here, okay?”

There was something he wanted to say, and it danced across his face for a moment, but it was replaced by a simple, sad smile. “How bad is it with the girl?”

“She lost the only two people that cared about her today. She didn’t watch them die, at least, so there’s hope there.”

“That’s the blessing in this curse, I suppose.” He sipped his coffee again. “She’s welcome here. We still have your bed made upstairs.”

“It needs a good cleaning. I’ll bring down the sheets when I go back up.”

“Bring the ones from the guest room, too.” He stopped for a moment. “You know, had you told us you were coming, we would’ve made the bed up for you.”

“I didn’t know I was coming until I walked through the door.” I hesitated. “I know you don’t believe this, but I was trying to protect you both. That’s why I left.”

His face was stone. “I know you think that, but it wasn’t your job to protect us. It was our job to protect you, and we failed.” His lip quivered. “Your mama never forgave herself for that.”

I opened my mouth to say something but couldn’t. I knew my appearing out of nowhere picked open some wounds that had long since been scabbed over. It was selfish to come back here, but as Kimberly had made all too clear, I was a selfish girl.

“Let me get the linens.” I pushed my chair out. “Do I need to pull them off Mom’s bed, too?”

He shook his head. “No, Johnny will be here soon to look after her.”

“Johnny?”

“He’s the fella we hired to look after Mom in her last days. He does a crack-up job, too. Makes sure she comfortable.”

“That’s nice, Dad.”

He took a long sip of coffee, staring at the floor. “It’s something. That’s for sure.”

Read the next chapter

This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

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This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

In the ashes of her past, she will rise up, and her death will save us all.

Lizzie ran from her past for ten years, zigzagging across the United States every few months, trying to outlast the prophesy that an oracle gave to her when she was just sixteen years old.

But nobody can run from their destiny forever.

After watching her friend brutally gunned down by a group of ruthless demons, she had no choice but to protect the woman’s child, and there was only one place where Lizzie knew the girl would be safe.

Bronard, Missouri.

Home.

She stayed away to protect her parents, but the girl needed mystical protection.

Her parents had taken in magical strays their whole lives, including Lizzie. If anyone could save the poor child’s life, it would be her mother and father.

But will returning to her home doom Lizzie even as she works to save the child she has vowed to defend?

Subscribe now

It was exactly the same as when I left it, down to the coats on the hooks to the left of the door. I used to rush through the door after a day at school and throw my backpack—the same one I would abandon in Edgemont when I left with Veronica—on the ground next to my muddy shoes and flop on the couch to watch television before chores.

The same laughing sounds that Veronica was making from the kitchen were the ones I once made, too, as Dad made hot chocolate, or soup, or any number of snacks for me. And if Mom was home, she would pull one of her famous eclairs or donuts out of the oven and stuff them in my belly. God, what it was like to have a fast metabolism in my younger years.

The television was blaring classic TCM when I passed by on my way to the stairs. The television had been replaced since my youth, but the rest of the room was glaringly the same, though the thick coating of fuzz made it seem grayer than I remembered. A floorboard under me moaned, exactly five steps into the house, just like always. I hopped over it the night I left to avoid being caught.

As I placed my hand on the banister, Veronica rushed out from the kitchen door and into the dining room, where she sat on the same chair that I had once claimed. Children were incredibly resilient, and it was amazing to see her smiling at Carl as he hobbled back into the room.

“Do you want marshmallows, too?” Dad asked.

She nodded. “Course I do. I’m not a savage.”

“A girl after my own heart,” he said with a chuckle, disappearing back behind the door.

I took the stairs one at a time, in no rush to see my mother’s failing condition. The stairs squeaked and cracked in chorus as if the house was greeting me. The banister, like the rest of the house, was coated in a thin layer of dust. It hung in the air above where I’d placed my fingers for a moment before floating down to the floor.

There was a heaviness in my feet as I stepped onto the second floor of my childhood home. The door to my room sat on the far end of the hall, and on the near end was the one they gave to guests that had been occupied for a short time by my estranged, world-hopping sister. On the other side was my parent’s office and on the far end, across from the door to my room, was my parent’s bedroom. That’s where Mom was.

I needed another moment to gather my courage. Instead of opening Mom’s door, I pushed open the door to my childhood bedroom. I wasn’t surprised to see that it hadn’t been touched since I left, except that the bed had been made and the schoolbooks I’d left spread across my desk were nowhere to be found.

I thought I was edgy, putting up pictures of the Cure and the Smyths and painting my walls black “to match the color of my soul.” I cringed a little. If only I knew what real pain was, perhaps I would have been able to see the joy in this home, in my innocent childhood.

That was the problem with youth. It was impossible to understand just how long life would be or how dark things could get when you hadn’t lived much of your life. A year seemed to last a century when I was younger. Imagining that there would be four to five times as many days to live—well, that was an impossible task.

I knew I shouldn’t blame myself for believing that I had reached the zenith of my misery back then. If, when I was a child, I had been given even a fraction of the weight that my life now carried, I would have buckled under the pressure. I had to grow and mature into the idea that living with the misery was possible, that every single person in the whole of the world deals with so much misery that it’s hard to believe the world keeps turning. And yet, not only does it keep turning, some people even find joy in it.

Dust plumed into the air when I sat down on the bed, causing me to hack a few times. I stood immediately and made my way out of the room to grab some air, closing the door behind me to lock in the dust particles. When I stopped coughing, I was in front of Mom’s door, my hand resting on the doorknob.

“Carl?” a weak voice said. “Is that you? It doesn’t sound like your clodhopper footsteps.”

I entered the room where Mom lay in bed, shriveled and weak. Her skin was gray, and her eyes sunken. A heart monitor beeped next to her, and even the stress of moving her head to look at me was too much for her to manage. She fell back with a painful moan. I wanted to wail at the sight of my strong mother degraded like this, but I choked back my emotions, hid them like I had so often in my past.

“No, Mom. It’s me. It’s your Lizzie. Do you remember me?” I took a few steps through the musk that permeated the room.

Her voice shook when she talked. “Lizzie?” This time she fought through the exhaustion and turned to see me. “My gods, is it really you?”

I grabbed her hand. “Yes, Mom. It’s really me.”

She gave a wobbly smile and squeezed my hand tightly. “I never thought I would see you again.”

I nodded. “It’s so good to see you, Mom.”

“It’s good to see you too, baby. Now, come and give your mom a hug.”

She opened up her arms, and I collapsed into them like I had when I was a child. Listening to her heart beating in her chest made me feel safe in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time. I let my eyes fall closed.

Read the next chapter

This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

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This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

In the ashes of her past, she will rise up, and her death will save us all.

Lizzie ran from her past for ten years, zigzagging across the United States every few months, trying to outlast the prophesy that an oracle gave to her when she was just sixteen years old.

But nobody can run from their destiny forever.

After watching her friend brutally gunned down by a group of ruthless demons, she had no choice but to protect the woman’s child, and there was only one place where Lizzie knew the girl would be safe.

Bronard, Missouri.

Home.

She stayed away to protect her parents, but the girl needed mystical protection.

Her parents had taken in magical strays their whole lives, including Lizzie. If anyone could save the poor child’s life, it would be her mother and father.

But will returning to her home doom Lizzie even as she works to save the child she has vowed to defend?

Subscribe now

I turned down the streets of Bronard using muscle memory, surprised that so little had changed in the decade I’d been away. The Johnsons were still selling corn on the side of the road, and a few farms down, you could get berries from the Clacksons. The road down the middle of town toward my parent’s farm was filled with food stands with all manner of fruit and veggies in them. As we passed the homemade signs, I took note of the children I’d grown up with, now adults with their own children in tow as they worked their family farms.

That was supposed to be my lot in life, to help Dad and Mom till the fields, to care for them in their old age, to carry on their legacy. There was no doubt I would come back to the farm after college and work it until I died. Some people might not have thought that appealing, but it was my dream—a dream shattered by the prophecy that loomed over my head.

“It smells funny,” Veronica said as we drove through.

“That’s good, good country air, Veronica,” I said.

“Smells like poop,” she observed.

“It sure does. I’ve missed it.”

“Weirdo.”

Papa’s truck was still in front of the white farmhouse. His tools, now rusted and in disrepair, hung on the shed on the right of the driveway. It was like stepping back in time to a past I never thought I’d return to.

“We’re here,” I said.

“Thank god,” Veronica said. “That was a long ride.”

I had tried to get her some coloring books and games to play, but Veronica wasn’t interested in any of that. She just wanted to get where we were going and focused on the road. When I unbuckled her seat belt, she hopped out of the car and latched onto my hand on our way to the door.

We hadn’t even reached the steps before the creaky screen swung open, and my father, Carl, shuffled out, hunched over a cane. His dark skin was cut with deep grooves. He wasn’t a young man when I was a child, but now he looked like the world had sucked the last of his life out of him. When he saw me, his face lit up, and the old Dad came through the thick wrinkles for a moment.

“L-Lizzie? My gods, is that you?”

I grinned. “Hi, Dad!”

He stood straight up then and scooted toward me as I made my way to him. We embraced in a long hug filled with tears and laughter.

“I never thought I would see you again, kiddo.”

“I never thought I’d see you again either, Dad.” I thought it would be awkward, after all this time, to see my father, but it felt like old times, like we hadn’t been estranged for a decade. I smelled his scent as I hugged him tightly and knew I was home. It was the thing I’d spent a decade running from, and it was the only thing I never knew I always wanted—to see my parents again. I lied to myself into believing I didn’t crave this moment, but there was no more lying now. The truth rushed at me in a torrent.

After a long while, Carl’s eyes moved from me to Veronica. “And who is your friend?”

I unlatched from his embrace and turned to her. “This is Veronica. She’s—I think—one of us, and she’s in a bad way. That’s why I came back.”

He nodded. “I thought maybe you just wanted to see your old man and your mother before she…I’m just glad to see you.” He hobbled over to Veronica and held out his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, little one.”

She shook his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, too, sir.”

“Carl,” he said. “You can call me Carl.”

“Nice to meet you, Carl.”

He smiled a weak smile. “How would you like some cocoa?”

“I’d like that very much, Carl.”

He placed his hand on her back. “Then how about we have some hot chocolate while Lizzie here goes to say hello to her mother.”

“Who’s Lizzie?”

“I am, Veronica,” I replied.

“Oh.” She looked at me, confused. “I thought your name was Jude.”

“I’ve had a lot of names, but my real name is Elizabeth—Lizzie.”

“I like Jude better.”

“Noted.” I touched Dad’s shoulder as they passed. “Where is she?”

“Our room. Upstairs.” He helped Veronica into the house. “I think you know the way.”

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This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

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This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

In the ashes of her past, she will rise up, and her death will save us all.

Lizzie ran from her past for ten years, zigzagging across the United States every few months, trying to outlast the prophesy that an oracle gave to her when she was just sixteen years old.

But nobody can run from their destiny forever.

After watching her friend brutally gunned down by a group of ruthless demons, she had no choice but to protect the woman’s child, and there was only one place where Lizzie knew the girl would be safe.

Bronard, Missouri.

Home.

She stayed away to protect her parents, but the girl needed mystical protection.

Her parents had taken in magical strays their whole lives, including Lizzie. If anyone could save the poor child’s life, it would be her mother and father.

But will returning to her home doom Lizzie even as she works to save the child she has vowed to defend?

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We drove through the night. Veronica repeatedly asked me where her mother was, but I just couldn’t—every time I tried to tell her the truth, a lump lodged in my throat and forced me mute. Eventually, Veronica must have realized that her mother wasn’t coming with us. Perhaps she recognized the blood on my pants, or the fear in my eyes, or the pain on my face at the mention of Becky. Whatever the reason, she settled down once we reached Utah and let the car lull her into a fitful sleep.

What the hell was I doing? By any metric, I was kidnapping Veronica, and now I had taken her across state lines, making myself a felon. If a police officer pulled me over, they would see a girl that wasn’t related to me and the residuals of her mother’s blood on my hands. They would arrest me, and Veronica would tell them where she lived. The murder would be all over the news by now.

This was why you’re not supposed to make connections, Lizzie. I was supposed to keep my head low and leave a place before I caught feelings. That had been my motto and kept me safe for the past decade, and now, in one day, I’d abandoned everything I believed, all for a little girl and her fae mother.

I didn’t know for sure Veronica was fae. Rick was fae, and all three of them had the necklace, but there’s all manner of reasons why somebody would want a little girl like that—a prophecy girl who was supposed to save the world.

It wasn’t lost on me that our fates were similar, and I didn’t believe in coincidence. Maybe Veronica’s destiny was intrinsically linked to mine, and every mile I drove toward Bronard was one step closer to a rendezvous with the inevitable conclusion of my story and hers.

You should just leave her on the side of the road or drop her at a fire station. They would find a home for her. She’s adorable, after all. Who wouldn’t love her?

I shook off the thought. No, she would tell them where she’s from, and then they would bring her back and—there was only one person who could keep her safe, and it sure as shit wasn’t me. And I didn’t know how to contact Kimberly except through my mother.

Kimberly had saved hundreds of fae over the years. She would know what to do. Junebug would know what to do. Papa Carl would know what to do. I bit my lip to avoid crying, but deep tremors fiercely shook through my body and tugged on the steering wheel until I had no choice except to turn off the road into a rest area. It wasn’t much more than a bathroom with a couple of vending machines.

I wiped the last of my tears from my face, then shook Veronica awake. “Hey,” I said in a whisper. “Do you have to pee?”

“Mommy?” she replied, bleary-eyed. When her eyes focused on me, her face dropped into a scowl. “You’re not Mommy.”

I shook my head. “No, I’m not. Do you need to use the bathroom?”

She yawned. “Yes.”

I unbuckled her and pulled her out of the car. She didn’t try to tug away from me.

“I’m not kidnapping you,” I said as we washed our hands in the bathroom sink. “I want you to know that.”

“That sounds like the kind of thing a kidnapper would say,” she replied, looking up at me as I handed her a brown paper towel.

“You’re not wrong,” I said. “Your mother—she taught you well, but I’m not kidnapping you. I’m trying to protect you.”

“Protect me from what?”

“From bad people.”

“Do the bad people have Mommy?”

I sighed. It was time to tell her the truth. It wouldn’t be any better hiding it from her only to hear it from somebody else. I needed to stop being a chicken and bite the bullet, whatever the cliché was.

I sat her on a bench outside after buying her a bunch of sugary candy to help ease the pain. I turned on the lights to the car, so we could have some illumination. The night was bitterly cold. I hated deserts. They didn’t retain heat during the night, and yet they sweltered in the day.

After Veronica had eaten half a bag of Skittles, I spoke. “Your mother loves you very much. Did you know that?”

She nodded. “I know. She tells me all the time.”

She would never tell her again.

“The bad men. The ones chasing you. They…they hurt your mommy, Veronica. I tried to help her—to save her—but—but—your mother died.”

It started slow. She cocked her head to the left, then to the right, before blinking several times, trying to process what she just heard. The realization of my words seemed to hit her in waves, lightly at first and then crashing upon her with greater and greater force until the flood of tears was so great that I thought she might drown under them. I was ill-equipped to deal with children, let alone grieving children. I had survived by bottling up my emotions about everything and everyone I met. In the face of strong feelings, I turned the other way.

There was no turning away from this—Veronica’s poor life had been changed forever. The two people who had protected her were dead, and all she had left was me.

When she stopped heaving tears, she slid her arms around me, hugging my stomach. She didn’t speak for a long while, and neither did I. She simply cried into my shirt, and I rubbed her back, trying to comfort her.

“I’m going to take you somewhere you can be safe,” I said, finally.

“I want my mommy.”

“I know, sweetheart. I know, but—well—you know you can’t see her again, right?”

She sniffled. “I’ll see her in Heaven.”

Maybe. “Not for a very long time, sweetheart, but I’m sure she’ll be waiting to welcome you when you die—which won’t be for a very, very long time.”

She squeezed me tighter. “Because you’ll protect me.”

“I’ll take you somewhere where you’ll be safe,” I replied, correcting her. “My friend will know what to do to protect you. She’s a real badass.”

“A…badass?”

“That’s right,” I said with a smile. “She’ll know exactly what to do because she’s done it so many times before with so many other kids just like you.”

“How do you know?”

I pulled the black opal necklace that I kept around my neck. It was the only thing I’d kept from the past I worked so hard to distance myself from because I was a hypocrite. “Because she helped me.”

Veronica pulled her necklace out from beneath her shirt. “Just like mine!”

“That’s right, and my friend is going to help you, just like she helped me.”

“She sounds nice.” She nodded with determination. “Not mommy nice, but nice.”

“She’s something, all right.” I chuckled. “And you know what else? I’m going to introduce you to a woman who’s gonna love you so much.”

“How can you know that?”

“Because you are totally loveable.” I gave her a little squeeze. “And for another thing, she’s my mom, so I have some experience with her.”

“That sounds nice, I guess.”

“I know it’s not perfect, kiddo, and it’s not your mom, but it’s still gonna be great, I promise.”

“Pinky promise?” She held out her left pinky.

I hooked it into my finger and closed it tight. “Pinky promise.”

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This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

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This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

In the ashes of her past, she will rise up, and her death will save us all.

Lizzie ran from her past for ten years, zigzagging across the United States every few months, trying to outlast the prophesy that an oracle gave to her when she was just sixteen years old.

But nobody can run from their destiny forever.

After watching her friend brutally gunned down by a group of ruthless demons, she had no choice but to protect the woman’s child, and there was only one place where Lizzie knew the girl would be safe.

Bronard, Missouri.

Home.

She stayed away to protect her parents, but the girl needed mystical protection.

Her parents had taken in magical strays their whole lives, including Lizzie. If anyone could save the poor child’s life, it would be her mother and father.

But will returning to her home doom Lizzie even as she works to save the child she has vowed to defend?

Subscribe now

I racked my brain to try to remember where Becky lived. We chatted so much that she must have told me before, but I couldn’t think—in a flood of adrenaline, I passed an intersection where the street sign triggered a memory. I’d driven her home once after Rick stood her up.

Though, she wasn’t a human at all, was she? She was probably fae, like Rick, and they were on the run, just like all those poor little fairies that came into our house when I was a kid. They were scared—petrified, really—and alone. The world was tough enough for humans, but fairy folk had been hunted down for centuries.

We could blend in with humans, sure, but our magic left a mark. Anybody that knew what to look for could find us. That was why Rick’s necklace was so important. The black opal had special properties allowing magic to bind to it, specifically a very powerful protection spell that kept fae hidden from all but the most powerful magical forces. However, you needed runes to keep it charged, or else it was useless.

I parked on the street across from Becky’s house. She drove a rusty Dodge Charger that barely turned over most days, which I didn’t see in the driveway. If I had a heart, I would have offered her my car, or at least to give her a ride, but I was protective of my wheels in case I needed to leave town at a moment’s notice.

That made me wonder why I was still there. I’d run away from so much less. Normally I would already be on the road, halfway across the state by now. And yet, I couldn’t will myself to leave Becky. How had she made such an impression in such a short time? Why were some people so good at burrowing themselves into your heart?

It was probably the magic. Of course. Becky might not even be aware of her power, but it was the only explanation. I was far too rational to let her win me over any other way. Even with the possibility that she might have cast a spell on me, I couldn’t put the car back into drive and speed off into the horizon.

I was sitting there wrestling with my desire to leave when the beat-up Dodge Charger pulled around the corner and into the driveway. Becky removed two brown bags from the backseat and walked toward the house.

I stepped out of the car and walked toward her. “Becky!”

She turned to me. “Jesus, Jude. You almost gave me a heart attack.”

“We have to go. Come on.”

“What are you ta—” She looked past me toward the car behind her and instantly made the connection. “Where’s Rick?”

I dropped my eyes. “He’s dead. Four men came looking for you. We tried to escape. I made it. He didn’t. Where’s Veronica?”

She started trembling. She tried to control her crying, stay in control, but the emotions were winning. “She—how—Are you one of them?”

“Who are them?”

“They’re—they’re after Veronica,” she said. “Because of what she is. Because of what we all are.”

“No, I’m not one of them.” I looked back to the street. They would be coming any minute. “Let’s go inside. Do you have a go-bag?”

She opened the front door. “We’ve had one since we moved in, just in case.” She set the food down on the counter. “Guess I don’t need these. I was gonna make lasagna.” She walked toward the stairs. “Wait here for me.”

“Where’s Veronica?” I yelled down the hall.

“Still at school. I was just about to pick her up.”

I peered out of the window. A long black car slid to a stop in front of the house. “We have to go, now!”

When I turned back, Becky had a duffel strapped to her side and was holding a tiny backpack just the right size for a little girl. “I’m ready.”

“Who are these guys?” I asked, watching them walk out of the car.

“Demons,” she replied.

“Why are they after Veronica?”

“We didn’t know for a long time. They have been after us since she was born. Finally, we went to an Oracle.”

“Let me guess,” I said, pushing a chair to the lock as they stormed up the stairs. “She’s a prophecy girl?”

“Well, she is a girl, and she has a prophecy, so yeah, I guess so. The Oracle said she would save the world. Then, she told us to get some black opal and lay low, and we’ve been doing that ever since.” She pulled the necklace from her blouse. “See?”

“Did you charge it?”

“Nobody said anything about charging it.”

Someone pounded loudly against the door. “Of course they didn’t. Is there a back door to this place?”

“Yes,” Becky replied, turning around. We heard glass smashing, and two demons rushed inside, guns drawn.

They began to fire their weapons. Bullets tore through the front of the house as I rushed up the stairs, pulling Becky along behind me. She cried out and fell to her knees, a thick red streak on the wall behind her. She looked up at me with glassy eyes, pressing her fingers against her stomach.

“I’m fine. Keep going.”

I dragged her along with me to the master bedroom at the end of the hallway and pushed a heavy dresser in front of the door. Becky stumbled to the edge of the bed. Her breathing was labored and wet.

“Let me see.” I ripped open her shirt to find the bullet hole that had punctured her stomach. It spurted blood with every heave of her chest.

“Listen to me,” Becky whispered as the door slammed. “Protect my daughter, please.”

I shook my head. “You’re going to protect her just fine. Don’t worry.”

She squeezed my hand. “Don’t lie to me. Promise me you’ll protect her.”

My eyes filled with tears as I nodded. “I promise. I promise, but you’re going to—”

“Millard Fillmore. Mister Matt’s class. She’s a panda…” She slumped over, white as a sheet.

There wasn’t any more time to say my goodbyes. Heavy footsteps thundered down the hall. I ripped the necklace off Becky’s neck, grabbed the bags, and smashed through the window out onto the roof. The moment the demons banged open the door, I slid down the roof and landed in some bushes.

By the time they fired at me, I was already halfway down the block in Rick’s Buick. Just leave, Lizzie. Just leave. You don’t owe her anything. You’ve only known her a month. Just a single stupid month. You don’t owe her your life.

Even as I said the words to myself, my hands turned the wheel away from the main road as if I was being guided by an invisible force. At the end of the block, I took a right, and in four blocks, I ended up in front of Millard Fillmore elementary school.

I ducked inside and headed to the bathroom to wash the blood from my hands in the tiny sinks much too small for my body. I did my best to scrub at my pants, but I didn’t have much time. I had to hope people would assume it was paint. It wouldn’t take long for the demons to realize Veronica wasn’t at the house and come to the school looking for her.

The building wasn’t very big, and I followed the pandas down the colorfully decorated hallways. There was a jolly one painted on Mister Matt’s door.

“Excuse me?” I said, knocking on the crepe paper taped to the door.

Mister Matt was in the center of the room reading a book to the kids, and he turned to me with kind eyes before his smile dropped from the sight of me. “Can I…help you?”

I nodded. “I’m sorry to be a bother, but I need to see Veronica.”

“Are you a parent, or—”

“Her mother is very sick, and her father rushed her to the hospital. They sent me here. All I have is this?” I pulled the black opal necklace out of my pocket. “Do you recognize this, Veronica?”

She looked at it for a moment and then pulled an identical one out of her shirt. “That’s Mommy’s. I have one just like it!”

“I know this is irregular,” I said.

He shook his head. “I simply can’t—”

“There’s no time for this!” I didn’t blame him, but right now, he was an obstacle to Veronica’s safety, and he had to get out of my way or suffer the consequences.

I stormed into the room and picked Veronica up. By the time I turned around, Mister Matt was on top of me, lumbering over me with his lanky frame.

“Let her go!” he screamed.

I pushed him hard as he rushed toward me. He stumbled backward and fell into the tiny tables the children used. The children screamed bloody murder and rushed to him.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” I called out to the class, then turned to Veronica. “Are you ready to go?”

“Are we really going to see Mommy?” She was strangely calm, given the situation.

I nodded. “Of course. She’s very excited to see you.” The lie sent pangs through my body. There was only one place safe enough for an orphaned fairy kid. Looks like I would be headed back to Bronard after all. Mom will be so excited.

Read the next chapter

This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

Subscribe now

This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

In the ashes of her past, she will rise up, and her death will save us all.

Lizzie ran from her past for ten years, zigzagging across the United States every few months, trying to outlast the prophesy that an oracle gave to her when she was just sixteen years old.

But nobody can run from their destiny forever.

After watching her friend brutally gunned down by a group of ruthless demons, she had no choice but to protect the woman’s child, and there was only one place where Lizzie knew the girl would be safe.

Bronard, Missouri.

Home.

She stayed away to protect her parents, but the girl needed mystical protection.

Her parents had taken in magical strays their whole lives, including Lizzie. If anyone could save the poor child’s life, it would be her mother and father.

But will returning to her home doom Lizzie even as she works to save the child she has vowed to defend?

Subscribe now

Turned out that Becky didn’t have the power to hire any new waitresses, though she did put in a good word to Celeste, the owner of the restaurant, who ran me through my paces before agreeing to hire me.

“Lots of people just want a job here cuz they think it’ll be easy,” Celeste said during my interview. “When they realize it’s hard, harder than hell, they decide it’s not for them. That sound like you, Jude M—”

“Absolutely not,” I cut in before she could finish saying my new assumed identity. “I’ve worked waitressing jobs before, and I know just how hard they are. If people got paid based on how hard a job was, we’d all be making Bill Gate’s salary, is what I say.”

“Amen, sister.” I didn’t actually ever say that, but it seemed to appease Celeste. She looked me up and down for a long time, furrowing her brow. “Are you a size six?”

“Depends on the cut.”

“Bryan!” Celeste hollered. “Bring me a six.”

A tall man with a mustache came into the office carrying the same pink apron I’d seen Becky wear the previous night. I didn’t realize that the apron was sewn into the dress itself, making it all the more hideous.

“Here you go, my little waterfall,” he said, twitching his mustache as he gingerly handed it to Celeste. “Anything else?”

“Not right now, sweet thing.” Bryan left, and Celeste handed the dress-apron combo to me. “The customers like it. It cinches in all the right places.”

“You don’t have to convince me to wear a demeaning dress, ma’am. I have been in this game for a long time. Whatever brings in tips, right?”

“And keeps people coming back. The more you flirt, well…you know.”

Nobody wanted to say that the job was as much pretending to flirt with the customers as anything else. I didn’t have any reservations about that part of it. I’m sure there were some waitressing jobs where that wasn’t true, but truckers had simple pleasures. After being stuck in a truck for a dozen hours, having a lady be nice for a couple of minutes as they ate their food made them feel good, and that went a long way to getting a nice tip. We were all whores in some way. Maybe we didn’t have sex for money, but we sold our souls for it. The way I figured it, if you were going to prostitute yourself, it helped to understand the rules of the game and how to exploit them to your advantage. I didn’t have many things going for me, but I was always charming.

I was supposed to be on probation for the first couple of weeks, learning the ropes from Becky’s expert guidance, but I already knew the lingo and had excellent customer service skills. After three days, they took off the training wheels and let me work on my own. I found a motel up the road, close enough that I could walk, and worked as many hours as they would give me.

It always surprised me how quickly I acclimated to a new place. Within a week, my new life felt like normal. The town of Edgewater, Nevada, became my new home, and the customers soon became regulars. Becky and I became friends, or as close to it as I would let myself get to the idea.

I never let our friendship leave the diner. Once I stepped out into the parking lot, she didn’t exist, as far as I was concerned. On the clock, we were inseparable. It was amazing how you could work a hundred jobs not connecting to a single person, and then step into a place where you feel an instant bond like you were sisters, separated at birth. She told me about her life, her ex-husband, and her little girl, Veronica, a precocious six-year-old too smart for her own good.

Sometimes, Veronica would come into the diner after school and do her homework. She was dark-skinned with a puffy afro that her mother kept meticulously quaffed. She didn’t talk much, but one day I showed her how delicious dipping fries into milkshakes could be, and she fell in love with me. Every time she came into the diner, she begged her mother for fries and a shake, and Becky always relented. That girl had her mother wrapped around her finger.

I actually legitimately liked both of them, which was vexing for me, but it kept the guilt of my mother at bay. I decided to use Becky and Veronica’s happiness like a drug to anesthetize me to my failed relationship with my parents. I should have left, but I just…couldn’t get the courage to do so…not yet. Turned out I was just as big a hypocrite as anyone else.

I grew very protective over them in short order, partially because the kid was nearly impossible not to love, but also because Becky had terrible taste in men—or specifically, one man—Rick.

“You seen Becky?” He came in the restaurant at all hours, asking the same question, bothering her at work, and, more than once, nearly getting her fired. This particular day he looked worse than usual. His pale skin was moist with sweat, and the bags under his eyes were more pronounced.

“She hasn’t come in yet, today, Rick,” I replied as I slid behind the counter to place an order. “Stack of Vermont, frog sticks, fry two, let the sun shine, and a 50/50.” When I turned back around, Rick was still there. Usually, he rushed out as quickly as he came in, but today, he wasn’t leaving. “Why are you still here?”

“I have to find her, Jude.” It had been almost a month, and the new name still didn’t sit right with me. “Now.”

“Maybe she left you.” I pressed my hands into the counter. “I’ve been pushing her pretty hard to dump your ass.”

“She would never do that.” He shook his head fervently. “I protect her.”

My eyes narrowed. “That’s what all abusers say.”

“I’m NOT—!” He cleared his throat as all eyes in the diner turned to him. “I’m not abusing her.” He reached into his shirt and squeezed a necklace under it. “I protect her. We protect each other.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

“Listen to me!” He screamed, slapping the counter loudly. The movement jostled his clothing and set the necklace free. My eyes went wide. It was a black opal, just like the type my mother gave fairies to protect them from something terrible coming to find them. “We have to stay together.”

“Where did you get that?” I asked, pointing to the necklace.

He suddenly realized the necklace was out and stuffed it back into his shirt. “Nothing. Nowhere. Don’t—please. She talks to you. Have you—”

Behind him, the glass door swung open, and four men, bulky, tall, hulking even, entered, each uglier and meaner than the last.

“It’s over,” the man in front said, the folds of his neck creasing his bald head. “Give us the girl.”

Rick knocked his hands together and shot fire from the tips of his fingers toward the men, who walked forward as if the fire was a harmless breeze. The other people in the diner weren’t so calm and began to rush from their booths toward the other door.

“You’re a fae,” I said.

“Don’t be crazy,” Rick replied. “You’re talking foolish.”

One of the men, this one with a demon tattooed on his cheek, swung at Rick. He ducked it and knocked the tattooed man in the face before kicking him backward, crashing through the glass door. The other three advanced, and I did something stupid. Something I hadn’t done since I was a child.

“Frigus tempestas!” I shouted, and ice shot from the tips of my fingernails, coating the men in a thick layer of ice. I slid over the counter and grabbed Rick by the hand. “Come on!”

“You’re a fae, too?”

“DUH!” I screamed. “I try not to use my powers in public, though, and now I gotta leave another town because I did. Thanks a lot, Rick!”

We slammed through the front door. “This isn’t my fault!”

“Well, it’s definitely not mine! So, if not mine and not yours, whose fault is it? And don’t you dare say Becky or Veronica.” I looked around the parking lot. “Where’s your car?”

He pointed to a piece of crap brown Buick Century from the 80s, big as a boat and twice as slow. We rushed toward it and got in. Rick peeled away just as the men smashed through their ice prisons and ran outside.

They fired at us on our way onto the street. I ducked the bullets, but then the horn blared as the car began to turn toward the sidewalk. I spun around to see Rick lying on the steering wheel, his head bleeding from a bullet wound.

“Shit.” I reached over and pulled the driver’s seat door open before kicking Rick out onto the road. It was an inauspicious end for a man I had completely misjudged, but the shooters were rushing forward, and I didn’t have time to be delicate.

I slid over into the driver’s seat and kicked my foot onto the gas, the door flapping open as I gunned it. I yanked it shut as the bullets fired into the car, barely missing me. I tore off down the street and couldn’t help but laugh through my fear. The fickle finger of fate was a fucker.

Read the next chapter

This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

Subscribe now

This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

In the ashes of her past, she will rise up, and her death will save us all.

Lizzie ran from her past for ten years, zigzagging across the United States every few months, trying to outlast the prophesy that an oracle gave to her when she was just sixteen years old.

But nobody can run from their destiny forever.

After watching her friend brutally gunned down by a group of ruthless demons, she had no choice but to protect the woman’s child, and there was only one place where Lizzie knew the girl would be safe.

Bronard, Missouri.

Home.

She stayed away to protect her parents, but the girl needed mystical protection.

Her parents had taken in magical strays their whole lives, including Lizzie. If anyone could save the poor child’s life, it would be her mother and father.

But will returning to her home doom Lizzie even as she works to save the child she has vowed to defend?

Subscribe now

Every turn of the tires crashed like a wave of guilt on my heart, but I knew I was making the right decision…didn’t I? If I went to see my mother, I would be putting her in danger, both from the prophecy and from her own will to live. If I wanted her to live, I had to stay away and live with the guilt.

It wasn’t like I hadn’t come to terms with guilt. Hell, I’d worn it like an old shawl since I ran away. That first night I left home, I could barely close the door on Dad’s pickup truck, and I had to fight against my own body to put the key to the ignition. It was like I got punched in the gut when the engine turned over, but I was determined to leave, to protect those that I loved, and never to love anything or anyone ever again. Once I found a new car, I called and told Carl where to find the truck. I couldn’t have that on my conscience, too.

It was a lonely, solitary life, and through the last decade, the one thing I could count on was the guilt. It sat with me every day. Sometimes, it squeezed my stomach so tight I could barely move, but usually, it was a light din, like something ringing in my ear. It just needed somebody like Kimberly to turn the volume up.

She wasn’t wrong, either. She was just a dick about it. She saw things from her side and from Mom and Dad’s side, but she never tried to see things my way. Imagine being sixteen years old and told that you must die to save the world, and that your past must burn along with you. Yes, Kimberly had had a tough row, too. As a baby, she’d been kidnapped and brought to Hell as a sacrifice to the Devil. Later, she had to watch as the mentor who saved her from that terrible fate was slaughtered in front of her eyes. But Kimberly had agency to fight against that fate. She became a monster hunter, a savior of fairy folk. She didn’t have to die to fulfill her destiny. She didn’t have to burn her past to live her life.

I did.

I wished I’d never known my fate. I could have gone on in ignorant bliss. But now, a nagging thought pushed its way to the surface—could anyone really outrun their fate? I had built my life on the idea that you could. Deep in the back of my brain, the part of my brain that only spoke in the deepest silence, I knew I was on a fool’s errand; if the fickle finger of fate wanted me to die, it would find a way to make it so.

Hell, it was nudging me right now, pushing me back to my past, the past that I’d done everything in my power to avoid. If my past died before I showed up, then it couldn’t burn, could it?

Ah, there you have it, Lizzie, the crux of the matter. You can’t kill the past if it dies without you, and if you can fight against that part of the prophecy, then perhaps you didn’t have to die at all, at least not for a very long time—as an old woman, maybe. Peacefully, in your sleep. That’s what you want, after all, in the end, right? You don’t care that your mother will die without seeing you for a decade—that your father will die alone, without his wife to help him pass into the darkness. What matters is that you’ll be alive.

I clutched the steering wheel and turned off the road at the next town I saw. Any town would do. I wasn’t picky. I often fought against my guilt by swerving into whatever truck stop town came up on the map. I couldn’t take the voices pounding in the back of my head. One of the best tactics against guilt was to fill it with work, and lots of it.

I had no idea how long I had been driving or where I was exactly, just that the name on the exit said Edgemont Rd, and it was somewhere along the 80 past Reno. Everywhere in Nevada looked kinda the same: Large swaths of desert speckled with lush forests and small towns nestled by the bits of water that popped up along the way.

It was the middle of the night, but I passed a couple of motels with vacancy signs. There was no point in going to bed. My brain wouldn’t shut up until morning. Better to find an open diner, get some food, and check out the classifieds for a job. I had acquired enough skills over the last decade that I could do most entry-level jobs well enough. I had experience working at call centers, logging companies, answering phones, telemarketing for vitamin companies, selling cars, and, of course, waitressing. That was the one I kept coming back to, even though it was the one I liked least—except for telemarketing. There was nothing worse than calling people, interrupting their dinner, and getting them to scream at you for five minutes, or hanging up on you in the middle of a sentence.

It didn’t take me long to find the little diner with the lights on. Several semis were parked outside, which was how I judged a good diner. Truckers talked, and you could always rely on them for recommendations on good, fast, cheap eats along the interstates. I often peppered them with questions about their favorite towns along their routes, and more than once used their recommendations when I moved further down the line.

Sometimes, I would get a trucker who became a regular at more than one place I had worked, even if they were hundreds of miles apart. Maybe that should have been a cue to move on, but there was never any fear of developing more than a passing connection with them. They never stayed around one place for more than a meal, anyway. However, now that I thought about it, maybe that’s how Kimberly tracked me across the country, by using the same truckers I did to rebuild my path.

Very sneaky. I would be sure to take side streets and country roads next time. Although if Junebug died, I doubt she’d be looking for me anymore. Kimberly liked my father enough, but she would kill for my mother. Watching Junebug suffer couldn’t have been easy, and it likely drove the pixie to check up on me more often than she otherwise would have—to beg me to come home. Once Junebug was gone and the constant pain was off her heart, Kimberly would forget about me, and that would be for the best.

The bell over the glass door dinged when I opened it, and a smiling waitress, way too perky for the middle of the night, walked over to me wearing a pink apron and red shoes, accented with a red headband to pull back her brown hair. Her nametag read Becky in glittering letters.

“What can I do ya for, hon?” she said.

“Table for one, please.”

“Follow me,” she replied, snaking through the empty tables to a red vinyl booth by a window looking out at the main road. “Here you go.”

She handed me the menu, and I smiled at her. “You don’t have to do that, Becky.”

She cocked her head. “Do what?”

“I’m a waitress, too,” I said. “I know that customer voice anywhere, and it’s exhausting, so you don’t have to, but if you want to drop the act around me, it’s okay.”

Becky took a deep breath, and the smile dropped from her face. When she spoke again, her voice had dropped half an octave. “Thank Christ. I’m at the second half of a double, and I don’t think I could pretend to give a care about one more person. No offense.”

“Girl, I have been there.” I looked at the menu. “What’s good here?”

“People like the burger, but what greasy spoon doesn’t have a good burger, right?”

“What kind of fries?”

“Real crispy ones,” she said.

I pointed at her. “That’s what I want. And do you have a vanilla milkshake?”

“We do, but the strawberry is better, in my opinion.”

“I’ll have that, then. I know better than to go against a waitress’s recommendation.”

The thing I liked most about greasy spoons was that they didn’t care about presentation. They were much more worried about taste, the good ones at least, which was where I tried to end up. Becky wasn’t wrong; the burger was dynamite. Though, if you couldn’t get a burger right, you had no business being in the diner business.

As I savored my meal, the few truckers in the diner funneled out until it was just Becky and me. She smiled at me as she cleaned the tables around me, and when that was done, hopped from one foot to another, trying to maintain the energy to stand on her aching feet.

“How much time do you have left on the clock?” I asked her.

She looked up to the glittering wall clock above the counter. “Two hours.”

“Busy this time of night?”

She shook her head. “Not too bad. Could be a couple more people or a couple dozen before I get to go home. All of ‘em will be crap tippers, though. That’s for sure.”

I swirled a fry into my milkshake and popped it into my mouth. “Want some help? I’m a pretty good waitress if I do say so.”

“Uhm…I don’t know how to answer that.”

I pushed the basket of fries over to her. “If you’re anything like me, you haven’t eaten since you started shift. So, how about you eat some fries, take a load off, and I’ll handle the next customer.” She looked at me funny, trying to size me up. “You keep the tips, too.”

“What’s in it for you?”

I popped another fry. “I’m new in town, and I need a job, so you might consider it a tryout, and well…I really don’t want to be alone right now. Doing work will stop the voices in my head from driving me crazy.”

She stepped over to my table, and I handed her a fry. “I am real hungry.”

I slipped out of the chair. “What can I get you? My treat.”

She lost the last of her resolve and slid into the booth across from where I had just been sitting. “You wouldn’t believe it, but Bryan back there makes a real mean Cajun chicken pasta.”

“Weird, but I like it.”

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This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

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This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

In the ashes of her past, she will rise up, and her death will save us all.

Lizzie ran from her past for ten years, zigzagging across the United States every few months, trying to outlast the prophesy that an oracle gave to her when she was just sixteen years old.

But nobody can run from their destiny forever.

After watching her friend brutally gunned down by a group of ruthless demons, she had no choice but to protect the woman’s child, and there was only one place where Lizzie knew the girl would be safe.

Bronard, Missouri.

Home.

She stayed away to protect her parents, but the girl needed mystical protection.

Her parents had taken in magical strays their whole lives, including Lizzie. If anyone could save the poor child’s life, it would be her mother and father.

But will returning to her home doom Lizzie even as she works to save the child she has vowed to defend?

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I learned very early in my travels that if you wanted to leave at a moment’s notice, you had to travel light. Over the years, I only accumulated enough stuff to fill my old purple Jansport from before I dropped out of high school, and a small rolling suitcase where I kept two pairs of jeans, a black pleated skirt, and a black dress, along with enough underwear to last a week, plus two pairs of heels that needed to be repaired or replaced, a pair of slippers, and an extra pair of tennis shoes, along with a puffy coat and a light jacket. In my backpack, I kept a lockpicking kit, toiletries, a small make-up kit, a CD player, whatever books I was reading at the time— I’d just finished Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire, and now it was Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons—and a first aid kit. For a while, I kept old aprons and nametags from all the places I worked, but I packed in a hurry some years ago and lost them somewhere around Nebraska.

It was for the best because they linked me to my past and the memories I made along the way. As it stood, I tried my best not to keep any clothing for more than a year if I could help it. The only thing I kept from my childhood was a black opal necklace that my mother once gave me for protection.

There was nothing else to bind me to the past, not even my name, which I made sure to change at least once a season whenever I could find a good counterfeiter. Usually, I worked with some high school or college kid who could connect me with somebody that made fake IDs, but they were of dubious quality. I needed them to fool even the police. In a pinch, I could make one, but good equipment wasn’t cheap, and I rarely had extra money lying around.

After cleaning out my motel room, I walked to the front desk. There wasn’t a fancy name for it or anything. It just said “motel” in big, neon letters that buzzed through the night. Bugz kept the place clean enough, and the price was right. Apropos of the owner’s name, the place was littered with cockroaches, but they scattered when the lights were on. I almost always stayed in motels wherever I traveled. I didn’t even want to commit to a month-to-month lease.

“Evening, Niobe,” Bugz said to me, giving me a smile that showed all four of his chipped front teeth. “What can I do ya for?”

“Checking out, Bugz,” I replied.

His face dropped, and he scratched the stubble on his chin. “That’s a shame. You were a good tenant. Never made no trouble for me.” He leaned in. “Not like some people who come here for all sorts of illicit activities.”

“I’ve heard ‘em here and there,” I said. “I just try to keep my head down and stay out of trouble.”

His face scrunched. “Seems like trouble found you, though, didn’t it?”

He pointed past me to a shadow that stood next to my Civic hatchback. I recognized Kimberly’s outline immediately, even in the dark. She had a way of standing out when she wanted to look tough, and she had tracked me down enough times that I knew the way she leaned against my car.

I grumbled to myself and put down a wad of money. “Looks that way. This should be enough since I paid up last Friday.”

Bugz flipped quickly through the wad of fives and ones, and then nodded. “Seems like it’s all there. Take care of yourself, Niobe, ya hear?”

I pushed open the glass door of the office. “I’m trying, but some people aren’t making it easy.”

I felt like stomping across the parking lot and having it out with Kimberly, but that’s exactly what she wanted—to get under my skin—and I wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction. Instead, I smiled brightly at her, putting on my best “aggrieved waitress trying desperately to stay sane face”, and walked toward her.

“I thought I finally lost you,” I said. “How did you find me? This town isn’t even on the map.”

Kimberly had bangs that cut across her face like Aaliyah, and her black hair was just as shiny. I had no idea how she fought when she could only see out of one eye, but she managed somehow because she was still alive. In her line of work, that meant something. It wasn’t just anybody who could track down demons and slaughter them. I was deeply scared of Kimberly the first time she tracked me down but had since numbed to her incredible powers.

“You’re getting sloppy,” Kimberly said. “You used to drive for days, zig-zagging across the country before you stopped. This one was less than a day’s drive, and it seems like you took the 5 all the way down here. You didn’t even switch cars. That’s amateur.” She pushed off the car. “Plus, I got a look at the stash of IDs you keep in the glove box last time, and there are surprisingly few Niobe’s in California.”

I sighed. “Yeah, I knew I was going to have trouble with those weird names I bought last time. Then again, I figured you would just go away.”

“It’s been a decade, kiddo. When will you learn I’m never going away?”

“When will you appreciate what I’m trying to do here? Oh right, you don’t fear death because you’re immortal.”

She held up her hands. “I am as the gods made me.”

“As Thanatos made you if I remember correctly.” I shook my head. “What do you want?”

She sighed. “Junebug is sick. Doctors don’t think she’s going to make it through the month. She wants to see you before the end.”

My fists clenched. I felt my heart thump faster in my chest and the tears well in my eyes, but I did everything in my power to appear calm. “So?”

Kimberly’s brow furrowed. “You’ve been trying to outrun your past—to decouple your emotions from everything you were for over a decade, and one mention of your mom sends you to tears. Maybe that’s a good indication running isn’t a good idea anymore.”

“Goddamn it!” I threw my hands in the air. “I’m doing this to save them.”

Kimberly had found me a dozen times before in a dozen cities around the country, and every time she did, she tried to convince me to return home to be with my parents—that I could have a normal life, even knowing what I knew. She tried to tell me that my past wouldn’t burn and I wouldn’t die. Every time, I sent her back to my parents empty-handed, but now with my mom dying…how could I not go?

“That’s garbage!” Kimberly screamed. “You’re doing this to save yourself. That’s fine, honestly, but why don’t you think of somebody other than yourself for a change and go see your mother before she dies?”

“All I do is think of other people!” I shouted back. Before the words even left my mouth, the tears began to fall. Big, heaping tears like I hadn’t cried in years—like I don’t know if I had ever cried, at least not in the past decade. It was as if every emotion I’d siphoned away flooded out of me at once. I collapsed on the ground, right there in that motel parking lot, and curled up in a ball.

“What’s going on out here?” Bugz shouted as the door to the motel office flung open. “You okay, Niobe?”

I don’t know what I said to him, but whatever I pushed out of my mouth seemed to be enough to satisfy him, and he went back into his office, though when my eyes found the window, I saw him watching me as Kimberly rubbed my back.

Eventually, the tears were gone, and there was nothing left to do but clean myself up. I walked back into the lobby and asked if I could use his bathroom. Graciously, Bugz gave me the key to my old room.

“You still technically have it ‘til morning.” He smiled at me as I left him.

I didn’t notice that Kimberly had followed me inside until I came out of the bathroom and yelped in surprise at her standing there. I thought about saying something vicious but choked it back and sat on the bed, alone, as she sat on the chair across from me.

“What does she have?” I asked.

“Cancer,” Kimberly replied.

“What kind?” I whispered, barely able to keep it together.

“One of the bad ones. Pancreas, or at least it metastasized there, and her lungs, and her—the last set of x-rays lit up like Rockefeller Center on Christmas, Lizzie. I think it would be easier to tell you where she doesn’t have cancer right now.”

“What about chemo? Radiation? Whatever other stuff they have to fight this stuff?”

“She’s been sick for a long time,” Kimberly said. “She swore me to secrecy. Didn’t want me to guilt you into coming home. Now there’s nothing left but to wait for the end.”

“Why are you telling me?”

“Cuz I want you to see your mom before she dies. She’s earned that much. Even if she doesn’t want it, she needs it. I think now she’s just holding on…she’s just holding on to the hope that you’ll come home—”

I had never seen Kimberly waver in all my years, but the tears came, even for her. I walked into the bathroom and brought her a roll of toilet paper. She took a few squares and dabbed her eyes, taking a moment.

“Junebug would kill me if she knew I told you this.” Kimberly sighed. “Or she would if she wasn’t bed—bedridden.” She barely choked out the last words, and I felt for her. She was family to my mother, and vice versa.

“If waiting for me to come home is the only thing that’s keeping her alive, then I can’t go back. I can’t be the reason she dies—I can’t.”

Kimberly nodded, more to herself than me. “I figured you would say that. I hoped maybe this time would be different, but deep down, I knew it wouldn’t.” She pushed herself off the chair. “You’re the most selfish being I’ve ever met in my whole stupid existence…and I’m including demons into that equation.”

“How am I selfish? I’m staying away to save her!”

“No,” Kimberly replied. “You’re staying away to save yourself. It’s okay, like I said. I don’t know why I expected this time to be any different.”

She reached into a pouch on her belt and pulled out a pinch of pink powder. Without another word, she threw it on the ground and disappeared into a puff of pink smoke. With the lingering smell of burnt ember from Kimberly’s smoke, I threw myself on the bed and began to cry again.

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This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

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This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

In the ashes of her past, she will rise up, and her death will save us all.

Lizzie ran from her past for ten years, zigzagging across the United States every few months, trying to outlast the prophesy that an oracle gave to her when she was just sixteen years old.

But nobody can run from their destiny forever.

After watching her friend brutally gunned down by a group of ruthless demons, she had no choice but to protect the woman’s child, and there was only one place where Lizzie knew the girl would be safe.

Bronard, Missouri.

Home.

She stayed away to protect her parents, but the girl needed mystical protection.

Her parents had taken in magical strays their whole lives, including Lizzie. If anyone could save the poor child’s life, it would be her mother and father.

But will returning to her home doom Lizzie even as she works to save the child she has vowed to defend?

Subscribe now

My latest home was a small town called Oakmont, California, far from the hustle and bustle of places like Los Angeles and San Francisco. Most people think that the Golden State is all glitz and glamour, full of coastal liberal elites, movie stars, and beaches. Really, most of California was farm country, filled with farmers, truckers, and people who worked with their hands.

Sure, Los Angeles had an outmoded influence in the state, but even at a million square miles, it was a fraction of the total land in the state. Oakmont rested above San Francisco and east of Napa Valley, up where the slanted coastline turned straight for Oregon. I had worked up in Oregon as a waitress for three months before somebody caught feelings for me, and I left.

There were a few keys to being able to leave a place in the dead of night at the drop of a hat. First, you needed a crappy job that paid you in cash at regular intervals. You couldn’t spend two weeks waiting for that last paycheck. It also helped to have a job you hated. It was another bonus if they didn’t ask questions about your work history. Any job that needed a resume was out. Waitressing fit all those things at once. Almost all my wages were made in tips that I pocketed at the end of the night, and it was terrible work that I absolutely hated.

Nothing against the profession. I knew there were people who liked waitressing and were much better at it than me. I didn’t have the personality for it. Getting yelled at for getting an order wrong, standing on your feet for twelve hours, and smelling like greasy, sweaty, swamp ass after a long shift was not my idea of a good time, not to mention the pay was crap, even in bigger cities—though I almost never stopped in those since they were too expensive.

So that’s the first and second key to life on the road, I guess. The third, final, and most important, was that you could never form an attachment to anyone, no matter what. My rule was that I couldn’t stay in a place more than six months even if I liked it because just being around people enough made me like them, and liking somebody was a good way to build a past with them, and I didn’t want anyone to burn because of me.

I would never admit it to his face, but that’s the reason I left the last town. I liked a boy too much. His name was Tom, and I liked him enough that I was already considering leaving before he admitted the attraction was mutual, and it pushed me over the edge. If I was honest with myself, I probably stayed too long even before Tom confessed his love for me, all because of a serious bout of lonely, and he was the treatment. A stout, gentle, country boy, who always said “please” and “thank you” after ordering, and called me ma’am, no matter how many times I told him to call me Lizzie.

There were Toms all over the country, ghosts of lives I might have had if I stayed in Bronard, if I’d had the simple future I wanted. It seemed like at least twice a year, I fell for somebody in one town or another along the road, and it was happening more frequently with each passing season. It was a lonely life, and I was still a warm-blooded woman at the end of the day. It was all I could do not to act on my impulses…but I never did. I hadn’t even kissed anyone since my boyfriend, Pete, in high school.

He had been the hardest one to leave. We were together since middle school—since Anjelica taught me how to flirt so, I could get his attention. He would have graduated college already. I often wondered about what he was doing, but he was my past—a past I was trying to protect by being on the run. I wasn’t doing him any favors by keeping him in my thoughts.

I was in Oakmont now, and the present was where I needed to focus my attention. I had been working at Murray’s for four weeks since blowing into town and was just getting the hang of the regulars who came in for their morning breakfast before work and the ones that caught me on the way home after their shift.

It always amazed me how every town was the same. They all had their little diners, at least one that had the best pancakes in town and another that made its money by being open later than the others, even though their food was average.

Murray’s was the former. I had worked in dozens, maybe hundreds at this point, and every one of them had their own little customer base, and they always tipped better if you remembered their orders by heart.

“Short stack, over easy, with a cup of joe?” I asked a bearded man with long, black hair and olive skin. His name was Jeff, and I appreciated that his order was simple and consistent. There were bigger orders than Jeff’s, and bigger tippers, too, but Jeff was quiet and polite, with dark brown eyes that you could get lost in forever. Yes, I certainly had a type.

“That’s right, ma’am,” he said, and I bit the inside of my lip to stop from letting out a little moan. It got harder and harder to deny my body’s needs. We were pack animals, after all, and forced celibacy was driving me nutty. “And could you bring some sugar and cream, too?”

“Of course, sugar,” I said with a playful smile that oozed with unintentional flirtation. “Be right back.”

I wrote down the order and slid it into the queue on the kitchen counter. A big, gruff bull named Oscar spun the orders around the belt until he grabbed it, grunted, and then went to work.

“What are you waiting for?” Victoria, one of the other waitresses, the nosey one who’s always up in everyone’s business—every workplace I’ve ever been at had one like her—said to me. “He is Heaven on a stick.”

I shook my head. “He’s not my type.”

“Pardon my French,” Victoria said. “But that’s a load of bull. I see the way he looks at you, and I hear the lilt in your voice when you chat with him. Not to mention the bounce in your step when you walk away from his table.”

“There is no bounce!” I replied, indignant.

“You’re lying to yourself, kiddo.” Victoria shook her head. “That’s the worst kind of lying.”

The bell rang behind me, and an order came up. “Comforting lies are all I have.”

I grabbed the order and brought two plates to a couple of truckers in the corner that I didn’t recognize. Since it was a small town, ninety percent or so of the customers were regulars, and if I didn’t recognize them by now, it meant they were probably just passing through. The diner wasn’t far from the freeway, which made it convenient for long haulers to stop off for a meal while they were on the road. Once I served the truckers, I went to fill up water glasses for a family of four on a road trip, and a woman eating alone, drinking coffee like it was going out of style.

The whole time, I kept the side of my eye on Jeff, thinking about what Victoria had said. Maybe it would be okay to have a one-night stand with—no, that’s how it started. One night became ten, and before long, you had a past and a future, and then you were dead.

I spent a lot of time thinking about not risking anybody’s life, but I would be lying if I didn’t admit the biggest reason I was avoiding my prophecy was to prevent my own death. Yes, the past would burn, but when it did, I would die…and I didn’t want to die.

“Order up!”

I picked up Jeff’s order from the window and brought it over to him.

“Looks delicious,” he replied with a smile. “Oscar’s talents are lost in a place like this.”

“Yeah, they’re really lucky to have him, I guess.” I turned around. “I’ll be right back with your coffee.”

I rushed behind the counter; my breath hurried with teenage adrenaline just from being near Jeff. I needed to calm down. This wasn’t like me. I was cool, controlled, and focused. He was only a guy—one of a hundred guys I’d crushed on over the years, who vanished out of my brain the moment I was a hundred miles away.

I brought the coffee and set it down next to Jeff. He took it with a smile, and when I turned away, he cleared his throat.

“Yes?” I said, turning back to him but trying to avoid his fiery eyes.

“You forgot the sugar, sugar,” he said with a carefree smile.

“Dang it! Right.” I grabbed a handful of sugar packets from another table and brought them over to him. “Here you go.”

When I set them down, he slid his hand over mine, just for a moment. A flash of electricity flowed through me. I turned to look into his eyes and saw my entire life flash between us. I saw a wedding and children, and happiness…but I also saw a fire, and finally, my death.

I yanked my hand away quickly. I gave him a small smile and turned, taking a big gulp of air. Well, this town was nice while it lasted, but it was time to move on before beautiful Jeff became a casualty of my prophecy, and then, inevitably, I did, too.

Read the next chapter

This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

Subscribe now

This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

In the ashes of her past, she will rise up, and her death will save us all.

Lizzie ran from her past for ten years, zigzagging across the United States every few months, trying to outlast the prophesy that an oracle gave to her when she was just sixteen years old.

But nobody can run from their destiny forever.

After watching her friend brutally gunned down by a group of ruthless demons, she had no choice but to protect the woman’s child, and there was only one place where Lizzie knew the girl would be safe.

Bronard, Missouri.

Home.

She stayed away to protect her parents, but the girl needed mystical protection.

Her parents had taken in magical strays their whole lives, including Lizzie. If anyone could save the poor child’s life, it would be her mother and father.

But will returning to her home doom Lizzie even as she works to save the child she has vowed to defend?

Subscribe now

In the ashes of her past, she will rise, and her death will save us all.

My mom thought getting a psychic reading would be a good birthday present. After all, I was constantly worried about the future ever since my adopted sister disappeared through a portal into another world and never returned. Even though the pixie Kimberly came back and told me that Anjelica was just fine on whatever planet she’d ended up on, that didn’t make me feel much better. I mean, I was happy she wasn’t dead but—well, I didn’t even know being whisked across the universe was a possible future for somebody. I was only twelve and hyper-impressionable, so I became rather obsessed with the idea that something I couldn’t even fathom would come out of left field and suck out my soul, or vaporize me, or turn me into a toadstool for the rest of my life.

No matter how many times my mom, Junebug, told me, “Lizzie, you’re being a drama queen,” I had one irrefutable piece of evidence that proved my worries were warranted. After all, it happened to my sister, or at least the closest thing to a sister I ever had. We weren’t blood, and I only knew her for a week, but Junebug and Carl adopted her all the same, just like they had me, and that made us family. They never made that mistake again, unfortunately, which made me an only child, at least on this planet, what with Angelica living her life somewhere across the galaxy.

The town we lived in—Bronard, Missouri—had a lot of weird people in it. Some might even call them monsters. I don’t know what drew so much fairy folk and monsters to our little piece of America, but Mom liked to boast that we had the most fairy folk per capita anywhere in the contiguous United States. I didn’t know if that was true. It’s one of those unverifiable pieces of Americana, like the world’s biggest ball of wax or the biggest ham sandwich. Sure, maybe even Guinness would back us, but there’s no saying somebody didn’t make a bigger sandwich just for laughs. It was a big sandwich we had in Bronard though, and fairy folk were the meat inside of it, that much I knew. We weren’t cannibals or anything, I’m just bad at metaphors.

One of the most unique of all the fairy folk that lived in Bronard was the Oracle, just like the ones that used to reside in Delphi. They said this one was a descendant of theirs, but that was just hearsay—little towns ran on gossip, and Bronard was no different. Nobody really knew the truth about the Oracle for sure. Most people kept clear of her since she rarely gave good news. The best you could hope was that her prophecy had nothing useful in it at all and just said you were gonna be a boring sod plowing sod for the rest of your life. That’s what I was hoping for, at least, when I’d gotten my reading.

Mom had thought it would be a good idea to get me one, even with all the warning signs, if for no other reason than to prove that I was destined to live a simple, old life, helping her with the bakery and helping Dad with the farm. Might seem like a boring life to some people, but that’s all I wanted. I didn’t need to become a space pope. I just wanted a little piece of Earth and a little peace of mind.

That’s not how things worked out, though.

I remembered every moment, every aching syllable, of our interaction. It stuck to me like a wet shirt.

Mom brought me to Starr Wolfsong—what a name for an Oracle— a couple of days after my sixteenth birthday in 1990, back before cell phones or AOL, when we still had to play phone tag to catch somebody instead of checking their away message. It was a simpler time, though maybe it was just simpler for me.

The Oracle lived in a trailer park, in a double-wide that sunk as we stepped up to it, creaking at us to stay away. We didn’t listen. It was double for Mom to sit and listen to the fortune, and when she asked if I wanted her to stay, I shook my head. I was a brave girl. I could handle it, or so I thought.

“Would you like half my grilled cheese?” Starr asked with a hoarse voice, her gray-skinned hand wobbling as she held out her bony arm to me.

“No, thanks,” I said.

Starr looked unhealthily gaunt, skin hanging off little more than bones as if the muscles underneath had melted away. She lit a cigarette and took a deep inhale, and then blew it out the open window next to her. The whole of the trailer reeked of smoke and misery which, even without the woman looking like she would keel over any moment, was enough to make me lose my appetite.

“I sense apprehension in you,” she said through her thin lips. “If I may offer you a piece of advice. You will not like what you hear, so I suggest you leave now.”

“How do you know?”

She ran her bony fingers through strands of thinning hair. “I have lived too many years and performed too many readings. Were I a charlatan, I could pretend that I don’t see the death of every soul that walks through my trailer. If I were a better showman, I might be able to imbue my prophesies with an ounce of hope.” She coughed a wet cough into her hand for a long moment before catching my eyes again. “People do not want the truth. If they did, I would be as rich as Miss Cleo or any of them who prey on the insecure. People pay for comforting lies, not harsh truths.”

“My mother seems to think it will help me.”

Starr flicked the cigarette out of her hand, and it landed in a puddle of muddy water. She turned to me, setting her hands face up in the middle of the table. “Place your hands in mine, and your fate will be known—though I warn you: None get out of this world alive.”

“Are you saying you will see my death?”

She took a shallow breath, wheezing as she let it out. “I do not know what I will see. That is the nature of my power. I am a slave to it.”

I nodded and slowly, gingerly placed my hands inside hers. The moment I did, a shock jolted through my body as if my fingers were touching an electrical wire. I opened my mouth, trying to scream, but before I could, the sensation passed, and my body relaxed.

Starr was still, her eyeballs rolled back into her head so that only the bloodshot whites were visible. She muttered under her breath for a long moment, her voice barely audible. With every loop of her circuitous words, I made them more clearly until they filled my soul with dread.

“In the ashes of her past, she will rise, and her death will save us all,” the Oracle gurgled like her mouth was filled with water. “In the ashes of her past, she will rise, and her death will save us all.”

She continued in that manner until her words boomed against the walls, echoing off every surface. I tried to pull my hands from her clutches, but her weak arms held me tightly, no matter how hard I pulled back.

“Stop!” I shouted. “STOP! MOM!”

The door slammed open, and my mother saw what horror she wrought on me as she heard Starr’s screaming words. “In the ashes of her past, she will rise, and her death will save us all!”

Seeing the dread in my face, Mom reached forward to pry me free from the Oracle’s fingers. When her hands weren’t strong enough by themselves, she ran to the kitchen and pulled a butter knife out of the drawer. She wedged it under the woman’s knuckles and wrenched me away, one finger at a time.

When I was finally free, Starr’s shrieking stopped, and she fell onto the table, limp. She wasn’t dead, but she had been knocked unconscious.

“Should we call an ambulance?” I asked.

“Don’t bother.” A woman stepped out from the hallway. She had big red hair like Reba McEntire and a gruff, gritty voice like she gargled with rocks. “Happens three times a week, and she couldn’t afford the ambulance ride even if you did call.” She brushed past me. “Just go. I’ll take care of her.” She turned back to me and narrowed her eyes. “I hope it was worth it.”

It wasn’t, but I didn’t say that. Instead, I looked over at Mom, who made her way out of the trailer. There was a deep shame in her eyes like she’d known what would happen. Or maybe she knew what I would do next.

In the ashes of her past, she will rise, and her death will save us all.

I spent the next week thinking, ruminating over those words. I went back to the trailer park, looking for the Oracle, but she had packed up and left town. I was the straw that broke her back, apparently, and I didn’t quite know how to feel about my prophecy causing such a reaction in her that she had no recourse but to flee town.

The only thing I knew for sure was that Carl and Junebug, my parents, were in trouble. They were my past and they were my present. I did not want them to turn to ash so that I could rise. I didn’t want any of it, and I especially didn’t want to be a savior.

I did the only thing that I could think of to save my parents. I ran away and didn’t stop running. Maybe it was a rash decision, but it was the right one. I was sure of it. It was hard at first, moving from town to town the minute I caught feeling for something or someone, desperate not to have a past, so there would be nothing to burn.

Over the next ten years, it got easier, at least that’s what I told myself. Nothing like a comforting lie to help you sleep at night.

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This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

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This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

It's not easy being the Antichrist.

Anjelica’s mother never told her that she was a demon. Now, all she wants is her old life back, but that’s not possible for her. Not after what she’s seen.

Anjelica used to be a popular cheerleader with an awesome life, but that was before an evil cult of demons tried to use her blood to open a portal to Hell and start the Apocalypse.

She was rescued from that fate, barely, and because of the imminent threat to her life, her saviors ripped her from Los Angeles and brought her to a safe house in the middle of nowhere.

They said it was for her own good, but she would rather be dead than stuck in boring, old Bronard, Missouri. She was from the big city, so a sleepy, rural life wasn’t for her.

She longed for excitement.

So, when she met a young witch with a mysterious past who promised to show her everything she knew about opening portals and traveling between distant lands, they bonded immediately

I mean, what’s the worst that could happen, right?

It’s not like they would open an intergalactic gateway to another planet and get thrown into a brand, new world with no way to get back to Earth, right?

Join Anjelica in her own solo adventure and find out what happened to her immediately after the events in Magic.

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I splashed into an inky black pool of tar. Gasping, I swam to the surface. As I did, two disembodied hands pulled me from the ooze and brought me to shore, where I dripped like a wet dog. I sucked in air, even though I knew I was not in need of it, not anymore.

I looked up to see Araphel seated on a bench, patting for me to sit next to him. “I’m dead, aren’t I?”

“Right now, you are in the between.” Araphel looked straight ahead. “I am concentrating on your aura, trying to buy your friends additional seconds to save you.”

“Did we win?”

“It would seem so. You saved Baron Samedi, who turned the battle in your favor. Of course, having a god on your side has a tendency to do that. It took them ninety seconds to find you after the carnage stopped.” He looked over at me. “If you didn’t have demon blood inside of you, there would have been nothing I could have done for you.”

“It seems to be all sorts of helpful, doesn’t it?”

“And you won your soul, too, in the end.” Araphel nodded at no one in particular. “Oh, good. It looks like you are going home after all.”

I looked down at my hands. They were fading out. “Is this a good thing?”

“Only if you like being alive.”

“I really do.” I faded from the darkness. “Corny as that might be.”

My eyes blinked open, and I was inside the throne room. I sat up gasping for air, for real this time. Baron Samedi knelt next to me while Margaret and Kimberly stood behind him.

“You are very lucky,” Baron Samedi said. “Lucky that I am a benevolent deity and that I was in a magnanimous mood.”

My chest burned, but when I looked for the bullet holes, they had healed. “What a load of crap. We saved you! It only makes sense that you would return the favor.”

He helped me to my feet. “That would be human rationality. The gods do not keep the same logic.”

“Then…thank you, I guess.”

“And thank you, little one. I did not think you would be able to deliver me this king of yours. He is even more terrible than you described.”

“What about the prince?” I said, looking around suddenly. He was dead on the floor. “Good riddance.”

“Looks like you were wrong,” Margaret said. “We didn’t probably definitely die.”

“Speak for yourself.” I coughed as if hot lead still filled my lungs.

***

It took several weeks for the dust to settle. The capital royals all sided with the king, but it didn’t take much convincing to bring in our own reinforcements once other countries learned that the king had been deposed. Within a month, the political situation had been attenuated to a seething unrest.

Director Frente decided that a constitutional monarchy in the way I’d described it was a good course of action, at least for the short-term stability of the realm. When it came to appointing a leader, there was nobody better qualified than Margaret, who agreed to be coronated and then oversee turning the monarchy into a republic.

“This is quite a way for your prophecy to come true,” I said with a smile.

“Oh yeah.” Margaret said as we stood in the throne room where just days ago, we had killed a king. “I forgot about that. I guess it did come true, didn’t it? Man, that’s weird.”

“Are you sure? About staying here, I mean.” The coronation, though it was broadcast on national television, had been a small, quiet affair. We still had no idea who in the royal court we could trust.

“I am,” she replied. “I will need a counsel, you know? And the new country will need a prime minister. I think you would be great for either role.”

I laughed. “So, you want me to sit behind a desk all day? No thanks.”

“I didn’t think so,” Margaret said. “But can I ask you a favor, in my capacity as queen?”

“Of course, your majesty.” I bowed. “I still can’t believe I’m calling you that, but of course.”

“Our standing is low in the world, and as we’re rebuilding our reputation and giving the other countries back their lands, I would like for you to stay and help with that effort, at least until we are stable.”

“How long will that be?” I asked.

She smiled. “Not long. One or two lifetimes, max.”

I squeezed her hands. “This is not my home.”

“Home is where our heart is. There is nothing for you back on Earth. Here, you can have everything and be part of something important.”

I nodded. “This is a big choice. Can I think about it?”

“Yes, but not long. We need to get started immediately.”

***

I waited in my dreams for Araphel’s hands to pull me down into the darkness, but they didn’t come, not for weeks after the siege of King Ulthar’s castle. Then, one day, I felt a familiar tug on my leg, and I smiled as it dragged me away.

Araphel materialized at the kitchen table of my house and slid a pile of pancakes in front of me. He sat in a chair next to me, while the chair across from me, piled high with another stack of pancakes, rested empty.

“Where were you?” I asked. “I waited for you.”

“You had a big decision to make, and I didn’t want to come until you made it.”

“Then you know,” I said.

He nodded. “It was a difficult decision, I’m sure, but I think the best for all parties involved.”

“You will still take Kimberly back, won’t you?”

“Of course. She has much work to do on her planet, though not as much as you have on this one.”

I looked down at the pancakes. “Did I make the right choice?”

“For you.”

I shook my head. “I don’t mean just about staying here. I mean…did I make the right choice, helping to bring down the king?”

“That was the only choice. Despots and autocrats destroy the natural order. They yearn for power, and if left to their own devices, they can upset the balance of the universe. Only the gods were meant to wield such power, and we have had an eternity to learn how to wield it properly.”

“And you still get it wrong sometimes.”

“Yes, that too.” He sighed. “I have brought someone to say goodbye to you. Think of it as a parting gift for saving the world.”

He snapped his fingers, and my mother was there, smiling. The wrinkles on the edges of her eyes and creases in her cheeks had grown deeper since I’d last seen her, and her blonde hair was mostly white with age and worry.

“Hi, kiddo,” she said. “It’s good to see you’re safe.”

“Safe is an operative word.” I turned to Araphel. “Is this…real?”

He nodded. “Of course. It might be a dream, but it is also very real.”

I smiled my own broad smile. “Hi, Mom. I’m so sorry that I left.”

She clasped her hands in front of her chest. “It took time to understand, but Araphel helped me appreciate what it means for you to stay and how much danger you are in on Earth. God, I really mucked it up, kiddo. I should be the one apologizing to you.”

“Maybe we should just both say we’re sorry for the little hells we put each other through.”

She started to cry, and then I did too. We stood and wrapped our arms around each other and stayed there for a long while, listening to each other breathe, hearing our hearts beat against the other’s chest. We had never been closer, even a universe away.

It would be okay. Even if it all went belly up, it would be okay. I believed that deep down in the bowels of my soul. I had to. It was the only way to have any hope in this crazy universe.

***

You have just finished Evil, but there is so much Godsverse left to go. Keep reading after the author’s note to get a sneak preview of Time, starring Anjelica’s adopted sister Lizzie in a brand-new solo adventure.

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This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

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This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

It's not easy being the Antichrist.

Anjelica’s mother never told her that she was a demon. Now, all she wants is her old life back, but that’s not possible for her. Not after what she’s seen.

Anjelica used to be a popular cheerleader with an awesome life, but that was before an evil cult of demons tried to use her blood to open a portal to Hell and start the Apocalypse.

She was rescued from that fate, barely, and because of the imminent threat to her life, her saviors ripped her from Los Angeles and brought her to a safe house in the middle of nowhere.

They said it was for her own good, but she would rather be dead than stuck in boring, old Bronard, Missouri. She was from the big city, so a sleepy, rural life wasn’t for her.

She longed for excitement.

So, when she met a young witch with a mysterious past who promised to show her everything she knew about opening portals and traveling between distant lands, they bonded immediately

I mean, what’s the worst that could happen, right?

It’s not like they would open an intergalactic gateway to another planet and get thrown into a brand, new world with no way to get back to Earth, right?

Join Anjelica in her own solo adventure and find out what happened to her immediately after the events in Magic.

Subscribe now

“Why is Margaret so important to you?” I asked Prince Yimnit as we walked through the foyer of the palace, which was as ostentatious, no, more so, than anything I had seen before. Long purple banners embroidered with large cursive U’s fell from a high ceiling carved with angels, gods, flowers, and demons. Elegant tapestries hung from every wall, depicting King Ulthar, usually topless, as he fought bears and armies in equal measure. Somebody had an inferiority complex, that was for sure.

“Did you know that King Ulthar had two sons when he came to this world?” Prince Yimnit asked as if he was asking my favorite color. “Of course you didn’t. Any information on my brother Clevin was expunged from the records. When I came here, I was four, just barely old enough to remember, and my brother, he had just been born, one of a set.”

“Twins?” Margaret said.

“Yes,” Prince Yimnit said. “Powerful magic in twins.”

“What happened to him?” she asked.

Prince Yimnit bit his lip angrily. “My father—our father—was obsessed with returning home to my mother. He found an ancient spell that would allow him to travel on the paths of the gods again, but it required a sacrifice from his own world to light the way.”

“Oh no,” I said, slowing. “He didn’t.”

He nodded. “He killed my brother to open the path, but when it opened, I got scared and ran away. The bridge was unstable, and my father had to make a choice, my life or you and mother’s. He charged my uncle, his cavalier, with finding your mother and bringing you back home while he stayed back with me. A slight he has never allowed me to forget.”

Margaret sighed. “My mother…she’s dead…”

“I see,” Prince Yimnit said. “How?”

“In battle with your uncle,” I said. “They came for Margaret, for both of them, and I guess she died in the crossfire.”

“Horrible.” Prince Yimnit thought for a moment. “Our uncle was supposed to use you as a sacrifice, just like the king used Clevin years earlier, to return my mother to him. I don’t think anyone thought it would take so long to find you. Mother must have been a powerful witch.”

Margaret nodded. “She was.”

Prince Yimnit sighed. “After my brother’s sacrifice, my father set about making a life here and found that he had the power to charm the royals of this place. Eventually, he set about building an empire.” Prince Yimnit turned to Margaret. “With your blood, he will return to Earth and claim what he believes is his birthright, the complete domination of two worlds.”

“He’s awful,” I said. “We have to stop him.”

Prince Yimnit continued with us down the hall. “And so you shall. I have done unspeakable things in his name, and tonight that all ends, by your hand.”

“Why couldn’t you kill him?” I asked, following next to him.

“I am not strong enough to go against my own father. It is my great shame.”

“I don’t trust you,” I grumbled.

“Nor should you. And yet, it seems to be your only choice.”

“No,” I whispered to him. From the corner of my eye, a pink cloud of smoke flashed. It was Kimberly, bringing Director Frente’s troops. “I could kill you both, father and son.”

Prince Yimnit laughed. “And how would your puny rebellion quell the unrest in the city? You are twenty left, if that. We still have an army. No, you need me if you hope to have peace.” He stopped in front of the doors to the throne room. “Let us get through this one thing and then deal with the next.”

He clapped his hands, and two Jackboots opened the golden doors. We walked into the hall, which felt much bigger without a thousand different nobles inside staring at us. The last time I was in this room, with Madam Fantasmo, the gods rest her soul, it felt small and claustrophobic. Now, it seemed as though a football field could squeeze inside of it, or at least a small basketball court.

The doors that I hadn’t noticed my first time in the throne room were open now, and I could see the glowing cylinder in the next room, tended by a squad of Jackboots. We approached the throne, where King Ulthar sat, clutching the massive scepter.

“I have brought them to you, Father,” Prince Yimnit said.

The king’s eyes were stone cold, narrowing into little beads. “These are the children that have caused so much trouble.” He stood. “Look at them. They are puny and wretched. It is an insult that they have been able to do so much to thwart our efforts.” He walked down toward us. “Still, you have done little more than irritate, like a pebble in the shoe of a giant.” He spun around me. “Your deaths will show there is nowhere that is not under our watchful eye, and no one can contend with my reign, even if they come from beyond the stars.” Turning to Margaret, he said. “And you will return me to the world I once knew, this time as a conquering hero.”

Gunshots rang out from the hallway, and the Jackboots clattered through the hall, trying to defend against our ambush. The lights to the room fell, though the light from the cylinder still burned brightly.

“What is happening?” the king shouted.

“The rebellion must be mounting a final assault!” Prince Yimnit said.

The king screamed to the Jackboots. “Take them down! Leave none alive!” As the Jackboots filed out of the room, King Ulthar smiled at me. “I only knew you should try something so foolis—”

A flash of pink light exploded behind him, and blood fell down his royal purple robe. Kimberly pulled the dagger out of the king’s back and wiped it on her coat. Then, she held it up again toward Prince Yimnit.

“That was so very satisfying.” She lunged for the prince. “And now, for you.”

“Wait!” I shouted, holding her back for an instant. “We might need him for the transition.”

“No,” Kimberly growled. “We need to kill him now before his evil spreads. We have this one chance to—”

Prince Yimnit clapped his hands, and a shockwave shot out, knocking Margaret and me back toward the throne. “Fools. Do you really think this was about a silly throne?”

“Yes,” Margaret replied. “You’re saying it’s not?”

“My father thought so small.” Prince Yimnit advanced on us. “He wanted to use the power of the gods, but I found that with the right weapon, you can become a god!”

“A weapon?” Margaret said.

“Yes, little sister.” He reached down and pried the scepter from his dead father’s hands. “What is bound inside this scepter can bend the will of a god.” He gazed at it and then, in one swift motion, smashed it into the ground until it shattered. From inside of the scepter, he pulled out a long two-handed sword. Prince Yimnit gripped its hilt. “With this weapon, I will become a god.”

“I can’t let you do that!” I screamed, rushing toward him.

Prince Yimnit raised his hand and ice shot from it. “I have learned new tricks since last we met!”

I fell back toward Kimberly. The moment I touched her, she flashed us to the other side of the room, where she grabbed me and flung me toward Prince Yimnit. I curled into a ball and hit him in the stomach with all the force I could muster. He fell backward, and Margaret pushed out her hands to cast a fireball. It didn’t have to kill him. It just had to be a distraction. I ran toward the cylinder, and as I passed Kimberly, I screamed, “Keep him busy!”

I sprinted toward the device in the next room. It had only been moments since the king died, and the Jackboots were making their way back toward me. Unberiler, I said under my breath, searching the console until I found it.

“Hey!” The Jackboots raised their guns. “Stop there!”

I ignored them. I ran around the device until I found it, in big letters. Unberiler. I flipped up the panel below and found three wires—yellow, blue, and black. What was the order? Think, Anjelica. The shouts were getting louder and mixing with gunfire. I drowned them all out, every one of them, and thought back to the underworld and the words of Doctor Jortensur. The answer entered my brain from the ether: Blue, yellow, black. I cut the wires in that order. When I was done, I pressed the panel down again and slammed the button. The whole room went white.

I barely felt the light against my cheek as my shirt filled with wet, sticky blood. I counted three bullets before I fell to the ground, gasping and wheezing, and then there was darkness.

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This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.

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