Summary:
Smart men never dabble with demons. I never claimed to be smart, but at least I’m powerful enough to control them. When I bound Havoc to me nearly three hundred years ago, I never realized how difficult he’d make my life, although “accidentally” lighting him on fire every now and then does bring a smile to my face.
Havoc is handsome, mysterious, and somehow my closest companion, even if we don’t always get along. He’s more interested in bedding attractive women than protecting my life, which defeats the main reason a mage like me would have a demon. I even had to fight off swordsmen alone once because he was too busy betting on who’d survive.
When fifteen people are found dead with messages from a long-extinct cult, Havoc and I are forced to face our past and sort through our differences. We start to realize that there’s something more to this relationship, something that has kept us by each other’s sides for so long. Maybe it took three hundred years to finally understand my feelings for Havoc and realize that I can’t imagine being with anyone but him. Havoc and I will do everything we can to stop the evil that is threatening the lives of the people I care about. Or destroy everything—we haven’t quite figured that out yet.
Happy Endings is a 73k word novel that has an immensely powerful mage, a shapeshifting demon with a strong libido, a dark mage that just won’t stay dead, a spray bottle put to unusual uses, armor that is most definitely not made of dragon skin, blackmail involving an unfortunate slow-mo video, a detective being pursued by a determined minotaur, unprofessional use of illusions, and an epic walk into battle.
Summary:
Smart men quit while they’re ahead—they lay low and hope disaster blows on by them. Not me. Especially when disaster seems to follow me and my soulmate Havoc, a demon I bound to me three hundred years ago with my magic.
The dark mage Geoff is back from the dead and creating chaos by devouring the hearts of people with magical abilities, giving him overwhelming power as his followers grow. And since I’m one of the strongest mages alive and am leading the resistance against him, he’s coming for me next. Oh, and it might have something to do with the fact that I was also the one who originally killed him. But you can’t blame me; the guy needed to die.
Havoc and I, along with our unlikely band of… (I don’t want to say heroes, I can’t give them that much credit) annoyances will stop at nothing to end the destruction. It doesn’t hurt that there’s a sexy demon by my side every step of the way. For the first time in three hundred years, I’m finally with the person meant for me, and I will do anything to keep from losing him.
Familiar Beginnings is a 63k word sequel to Happy Endings. It contains a powerful mage who just wants to be left in peace, a mysterious curly-haired troublemaker, gargoyles that are literally dumber than stone, a river trip that doesn’t feel at all like a vacation, and a “cat” with some unusual features and deadly claws.
Summary:
Nothing can go wrong with being in love with a demon and having a dragon familiar whose idea of a fun time is watching me plummet to the ground, right? Now that things have settled down, I’m hoping to finally get some peace and quiet to spend with Havoc.
Instead, we get a guy who can walk the river of the dead, a centaur that seems allergic to pants, and an angel who has only one true love: himself.
This is the group of misfits I’ve been given to protect the district.
Sometimes I can’t help but wonder how we stopped an unbelievably powerful dark mage.
After finding a strange book in the middle of the woods that seems to be connected to curse magic, I find myself in the presence of someone from my past… someone I never expected to meet again. As the clues lead us into a district on the brink of destruction, Havoc and I realize that in order to stop the district from collapsing and taking down our friends with it, we can’t do it alone. With the assistance of my chaotic crew, we are going to stop this darkness before it consumes those we care about.
But everything comes at a cost because when you work with magic, nothing is predictable.
Happy Endings #1
Chapter One
My day’s been going pretty smoothly. I haven’t had any interruptions, and I just picked up a really good book on the various ways people have failed at summoning demons. It’s always fun to laugh at the failures of others.
Or at least it was going smoothly until I sense someone heading toward my store who I’ve never met before. Which probably means that I don’t want to meet them. With my finger, I draw the sign of Illusion on my left hand and then on my right, and with just a thought, I throw an illusion on myself. The illusion allows me to disguise my actual features and make me appear to be something different to the viewer. No longer do I look like the twenty-six-year-old man I am with dark brown hair, longer on the top, and dark blue eyes, instead, I now appear to be a person a little more appropriate for screwing with someone.
An eighty-four-year-old woman.
People automatically react to an older woman much differently than they would to a guy in their twenties, so I feel like it’s an appropriate illusion.
The door dings as it is pushed open, and two men walk in, instantly looking around. One is a man in his thirties, who appears to be Latino with dark hair that’s cut short. His dark brown eyes turn right to me as I watch him. The man next to him is older, with light brown hair and blue eyes and seems much more confident in the way he moves up to the desk. They reek of cop long before they pull their badges out.
“Good morning, ma’am,” the older man says. See? Instant respect. “My name is Detective Ian Smith.”
“Detective Sam Diaz,” the younger one says as they both show me their badges. “We are looking for a man named… what was that name again?”
Ian pulls out a paper. “Milliant Sh… Sha… Shiv… voldeshve?” he asks, completely butchering the name.
“Milliant Shavoldeshve?” I ask, pronouncing it correctly.
“Yes,” he says. “Can we speak with him?”
I shake my head and realize that an even better idea is being a half-deaf older lady. “Who? Millie’s gotta shave?” I ask, pretending that I didn’t just correctly pronounce the name a moment ago.
“You just said his name correctly for us.”
“Who?”
“Milliant. We’re here to show him a message.”
“A massage! Oh! Yes!” I say, and realize that I am too bored to not have fun with these guys. “You’re here for a massage?”
“No, we need to speak to Milliant Shavoldeshve,” Sam says sternly.
I shake my head. “Hmm… no, no. We give massages. We don’t give Milliants. Just massages.”
“We were told to find him here. Could you tell us who he is?” Ian asks.
“What? Could I tell you about what? About the massage? Normal massage… OH!” I make my eyes super wide. “I know what you young’uns want. Happy endings!” I declare eagerly.
“Is there prostitution going on here?” Sam asks as he looks at me in alarm.
“No! No! No one’s getting prosecuted! Just massages! Massages and happy endings,” I say.
“Yes, ‘happy ending’ is an act of prostitution,” Sam says. “And it’s illegal. So, unless you want us to report you, you’ll need to tell us who the man we are looking for is.”
“No, of course not! There are no prosthetics!” I wave at my chest where my breasts hang low. “Alllllll real!” I say. “Wanna feel?”
“Prostitution. A happy ending is…”
Ian then proceeds to mimic someone getting jerked off, and I have to try my hardest not to laugh.
I mimic the motion. “What? You boys and your lingo! I’ll cut you a deal. Twenty dollars. Happy ending is forty.”
“She claims it’s not prostitution but continues to try to sell it to us!” Ian says to Sam. They are both watching me in exasperation, and I’m loving every moment of it. It’s not often I get to screw around with people like this.
“Hmm… hold please!” I hold up a finger in front of their faces to emphasize that I want them to wait a moment, then I pull open the door behind me. “Yoko-chan! Yoko-chan!”
Yoko walks through the door, looks at me and then at the two men as she raises an eyebrow. She’s clearly confused but is smart enough to figure out that the person behind the illusion is me.
“Police officer. Happy ending,” I say.
“Me?” she asks pointing at herself. Yoko is a gorgeous Japanese woman in her mid-twenties. To help pay for her schooling as a witch, she has been working for me for two years. Her long black hair falls around her face, her pale skin highlighting her rich brown eyes. She’s wearing dark blue skinny jeans and an oversized t-shirt from a band she went to see a week ago. She is supposed to be in uniform while working with the customers, but she seems to think that everything in her wardrobe is uniform material.
“Yes,” I say.
“No!” the officer says, alarmed.
“He want you,” Yoko says, quickly picking up a horrid accent, even though she was born and raised right here.
“No. Silly little lass. Strip,” I order with a very stern voice. I roll up a magazine and jab it at her for emphasis.
“For my family!” she cries as she picks up her shirt and starts pulling it off.
“No! Stop! Please. We are just looking for a man named Milliant Shavoldeshve,” Sam says, sounding very exasperated.
“Strip, whore, strip!” I say as I begin beating her with the magazine. “She likes it! I promise!”
“Please, no!” Sam says as he looks at Ian in alarm
“Virgin,” I say to the detectives who are losing their minds. “Unless you want someone more experienced!” I cup a hand over my mouth and lean into him. “I have lots of experience.” Sam is trying to calm Yoko, and Ian is trying to get her to put her shirt back on while Yoko cries.
I pull out my phone and snap a picture of him with his hands on her shirt and Yoko wearing just a bra. “Souvenir!”
“Oh god. No. Delete that,” Sam says, now flustered.
I pull my phone back before he can grab it.
“Delete that picture,” he says.
“No. If you leave, the picture will be deleted. If you come back, the picture will ruin your lives,” I threaten.
“We’re leaving,” Ian says as he hurriedly backs to the door before slipping through it. Sam quickly follows while muttering something about me being crazy.
“Yay! Happy ending!” I say.
Yoko bursts out laughing as she pulls her shirt down. “What the hell was that?”
“That, my sweetheart, is how you get people to leave,” I say as I drop the illusion on myself and pick my book back up.
She laughs harder as she shakes her head. “What happens when they come with a warrant for your arrest?”
“And when they walk through and see it’s a coffee shop, what are they going to do?”
“That’s true,” she says. “I better get paid overtime for that.”
“Just take it out of all the money you owe me for ‘borrowing’ supplies and never returning them.”
“Why do you have such a good memory?”
“A gift, my dear,” I say as I pick my book up and continue reading.
***
You have to be kidding. They’re coming back? Maybe they’re masochists. That could be the only reason, right?
I throw on an illusion of a super busty, blonde female who barely looks legal. The door dings as the two men and Ravera, a competitor in the charms department, walks in.
That bitch sold me out. I should have guessed it was her.
“Happy, happy endings!” I shout as they walk in.
Of course she told them. She’d sell out her own children to get the law on her side so when she does shitty things, they’ll look the other way. No wonder why they’re sniffing around here. I should’ve known she was the one behind this.
“Massage?” I ask. “New special! Happy, happy ending!”
“You sure this is the place?” Sam asks desperately.
“Yes. Can we talk to Milliant?” she asks.
“Ahh! Yes, yes! One moment, please!” I say.
I walk through the door into the café where people are enjoying their beverages in peace. It is a small café tucked back, out of sight and out of mind, just how I like it. The tables are full enough just by word of mouth.
Right inside the door, a woman is sitting at a table working on a novel she has been writing for years. I just pray she doesn’t force me to read it like the last one she wrote. I had to spell my eyes open just to stay awake. But it’s the cat curled up on the table that I’m more interested in.
“Hey, it’s Miles. Can I borrow your familiar?” I ask since I still have the illusion on.
The witch looks up at me in surprise. “Hey, Miles… um… what for?”
The cat in question opens his eyes and looks at me curiously as I try to think of how to explain the situation. “I would like to scare a rat.”
She looks at me in confusion, but she knows I wouldn’t harm the creature, so she nods slowly. The hesitation probably has to do with me being a mage who could incinerate a rat with just a glance.
I pick him up, and cradling him in my arm, I carry him into the front room and set him on the desk. “Milliant!”
They all stare at the cat as they try to figure out if it’s really the “Milliant” they’re searching for. He stands up, stretches, and then meows rather loudly. I’m sure it is some kind of complaint since his sleep has been interrupted.
The back door opens, and a large man comes in from the café. Seeing an escape, the cat jumps off the counter and slips through the open door. “Hey…” He looks between me and the others, then to the cat disappearing into the café. “Uh…” Baron is easily six foot six and stocky. He doesn’t have an ounce of fat on him, and I swear his muscles have muscles. He looks like he could snap a man in half, but he is easily the nicest person I know. I still can’t fathom how he became alpha of a nearby werewolf pack. I can’t see him fighting for any position. He probably won it by using the power of kindness.
“These people want you to give them a happy ending,” I say.
“Like…” he points to his groin. “Happy ending?”
“Yes. Happy ending.”
“No, we don’t. We are looking for a man named Milliant,” Ian says.
“Who the heck is Milliant?” he asks as he looks at me in confusion. Poor simple Baron. “Is that even a name? Who would name their child that?”
My mother.
“Milliant, this isn’t funny. We know he’s here. Are you him?” Ravera asks as she eyes Baron skeptically.
“You don’t know what he looks like?” Sam asks Ravera.
“He’s a mage. He can use an illusion. I’m sure he sensed us coming miles away and put on an illusion, but I’ll show you the sure-fire way to find out,” Ravera says as she comes over to my side of the table.
She walks up to Baron and looks him in the eye and then walks over to me. I’m not quite sure what she thinks she’s doing, since there’s no way for anyone to see through my illusion, but she walks up very close and looks at me. Then goes to knee me in the crotch. I jerk back and cup my groin instinctively.
“This is him. No woman is so quick to protect her crotch,” she says.
I laugh. “Ravera, Ravera, why?” I ask.
“Because they told me they’d look the other way with my little…project if I sold you out,” she says.
“Of course you did,” I say.
“Drop that illusion, I don’t like being the second prettiest in the room,” she says.
“Even if I drop it, you still are,” I joke. “We can clearly see that the title goes to Baron.”
“Huh?” Baron asks as he looks at me.
I ignore him and turn back to Ravera. “So, what do you guys want so badly?”
“Wait… you were the older lady yesterday?” Ian asks.
“I was,” I say as I shift my illusion to her.
“Why couldn’t you just help us?” Sam asks.
“Honestly, I want nothing to do with either of you,” I admit as I drop all illusions.
They look at me in even more surprise than before. “What?” I ask.
“You’re a lot younger than I expected. With all the prestige your name has riding on it, I assumed you were older,” Sam says.
“Don’t let him fool you, he’s older than he lets anyone believe,” Ravera says.
“Uh… boss, I had a customer ask for some Vil Greens in their tea,” Baron says, remembering that he is supposed to be in the kitchen.
“Who is it?” I ask.
“Terrance.”
“Uh… yeah, teaspoon, no more,” I say.
“Thanks,” he says as he passes through the door.
“So, what’s up?” I ask, knowing that I might as well relent and give them what they want so they can be on their way.
“We need a document read, and Ravera believes that only you can read it,” Sam says as he hands it to me. It’s an old, yellowed letter written in a foreign language. I take it carefully, curious if it would crumble to ashes if I moved it too quickly.
I scan over the paper as everyone watches me. “Oh… oh my god…” My eyes continue to move over it. “Oh... Eh! No! NO!”
“What does it say?” Ian asks eagerly. Everyone leans forward, and Ravera looks down at the document expectantly.
I look up at him. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” I ask. “I mean… this could change everything.”
“Please, just tell us what it says,” Sam requests.
“I don’t know, I can’t read it,” I admit.
“What? You mean we went through all of this, and you can’t even read it?” Sam asks sounding irritated.
“Correct,” I reply as I pass the paper back to him.
“I’m sure you have a way to decrypt it,” Ravera says stubbornly.
I look at her expectantly. “Why? Things like this are sometimes best left alone. So why should I worry about it? I need a reason.”
The detectives look at each other for a moment and think about it.
“You have no reason not to tell him,” Ravera says. “You can trust him.”
“A man named Ether West was killed two days ago, and this note was left on his chest. The key to figuring out his murder could be written in that document.”
“Ether West was killed nine days ago,” I say as I watch them closely. This may go deeper than I thought or want to deal with.
“What are you talking about? His body was found two days ago, and his autopsy report states that he died that day,” Sam says. “And how do you know about his death? Nothing has been made public.”
I shrug. Clearly, he doesn’t understand my position in this city. “I know everything that goes on in this city. A familiar told me that Ether West was killed nine days ago. The body most likely appears to have died only two days ago to hide the tracks of the killer. A simple spell really, to preserve the dead.”
“And you didn’t tell anyone?”
I shrug. “Why draw suspicion onto myself? He was already dead. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I kind of like staying under the radar.”
“This was not the first murder. There were fifteen deaths in various districts at the same time.”
Now, that isn’t what I was expecting to hear. Maybe I should stick my nose into this a bit. “Intriguing. You have spiked my interest. Do you have a list of the deceased?”
“I do,” Sam says as he pulls the paper out and hands it to me.
“This is completely confidential,” Ian informs me before Sam lets go of the paper.
“Understood.” I set it on the desk and read through the list of deceased. I recognize all the names, but I don’t know them very well. “This is quite interesting.”
“You know any of them?” Sam asks.
“I know all of them, though not well,” I say. “Just in passing or by name.”
“Can you think of anything that connects them? Or think of why they were targeted?”
“Let’s figure out what this letter says. Where exactly did it come from? You said you found it on Ether West, but where?”
“It was folded up inside his pocket.”
“Interesting,” I say. “Alright, come along.”
I pull open the door and step into the café that I run. It’s mostly open to people with abilities or half-humans. There are some regular humans who show up, but they have to be fine with everyone because in here, no one has to hide who they are. Along the walls are shelves with books, charms, and potions that I also sell. Some of which I made, some that Yoko made. The two detectives look around curiously, and Ravera immediately tries touching a locket that’s sitting on a shelf.
“Ravera,” I warn. “Hands to yourself.”
“Just looking,” she says, but Ravera is known to just take what she wants.
“Mine.” I pry it from her fingers.
Ravera is a witch, which means that she can do simple spells, but her main focus is potions. I am a mage, which means that I can easily work with magic, illusions, spells, elements, and demons, but I have an affinity for fire. It is the main type of magic that I am able to connect to and can use with ease. I don’t need to draw a spell symbol for it and only need to speak its name in order to control it.
We walk into the next room, and I turn on the lights. The room is nearly empty with black walls and a gray floor and ceiling. There are no windows and only one door, to cut down on distractions. I shut and lock the door, which makes the detectives look at each other uneasily.
“You’re summoning someone?” Ravera asks, suddenly realizing what this room is used for.
I nod as I walk farther into the room. “I am.”
“You’re letting us watch?” she asks, thrilled.
“I am. Please stand with your back against the wall and be quiet. Do not talk to the demon unless I give permission, and do not disturb me.”
In the corner of the room, I pick up a bowl that is full of powder and a piece of chalk I bought in the kids’ aisle at the Dollar General. Using the bright pink, star-shaped chalk, I draw a perfect circle on the floor and then create the symbol for the demon realm in the middle. I pick up a knife, which was lying next to the bowl, and press it against my palm, cutting my skin just enough to allow blood to bubble through. I hold my hand down, and a few drops of blood drip out and splatter onto the floor. Then I kneel on the floor since my skin has to make contact with the summoning circle. I press my hands down onto the circle and feel my magic rumble within me.
“Havoc, I call upon you,” I say, skipping out on all the mumbo jumbo I had to spout when I first learned how to summon demons and the like.
Silence.
“Goddammit, Havoc, I know you’re there,” I snap, knowing he is doing this just to avoid me. Demons are not always known for being the most compliant of beings. And the ones I deal with seem particularly stubborn.
I can feel the magic bubbling under my palm as the circle glows white. Yet I can feel Havoc persisting and fighting against my summoning, which means that this isn’t going to go as planned.
“Havoc!” I snap. “You lazy son of a bitch. Get out here.”
The ground begins to shake, and the floor breaks away as a hand reaches out from the deep recesses of the earth. The hand hooks the edge of the floor and drags itself up, and I realize that this is going south very quickly. Havoc doesn’t display such theatrics when he is summoned.
“Goddammit,” I say. “Havoc, I’m going to make you scrub my toilets!”
Instead of Havoc, a minotaur pulls itself out of the ground which is shifting back to how it was before the summoning. He stands slowly, rising tall above me and faces me with a huge smirk on his bull-like face. His fur is white but for the black highlighting his ears and eyes. His horns rise from both sides of his skull, and there is a deep nick in one of his bovine-like ears, which flickers in my direction. The thick white hair runs down to his chest where his bull-like features fall away to human flesh and bare skin.
“Hey, baby,” the minotaur says, and I sigh.
“Hey, Iya. Where’s Havoc?”
He puffs out his chest. “He sent me instead.”
“I see that. And what is he doing that is so important?”
“Reading a book.”
I stay kneeling, which is never the best position for the completely naked Iya. He has no issue with everyone seeing his genitals, and trust me, I can see them just fine. “I see. And did you tell him he is an asshole?” I ask.
“No, he said I’d get to see you, so I gladly came,” he says with a grin. “I told him I’d gladly ‘come’ just for you.”
“Yay for me. Go back.”
“I refuse,” he says, winking at me.
I grumble. Dealing with Iya is never easy. “You are filth. Iya, I’ll force you back. Go peacefully.”
“Maybe if you do something for me first. Trust me, I’ll make it worth your time,” he says with a suggestive eyebrow lift that makes me shudder. He doesn’t seem fazed.
“Nope.”
He cocks his head. “You know you want a piece of Iya.”
I stare at him in annoyance. “Iya, I force you to return,” I snap, and he’s knocked down to his knees.
“Wait! Please! I just want to penetrate you! I will treat you kindly!” The ground opens up, and he claws at the circle as he’s pulled back through it and dragged away.
“Well… that was fun. Might have to bleach my eyeballs now,” I say.
“How can you control such a powerful demon?” Ravera asks.
“Clearly, I’m struggling because he’s an asshole,” I say.
“Iya the Minotaur… he’s a very high-level demon,” she says, clearly impressed.
I raise an eyebrow. “Oh no, I wasn’t talking about Iya.”
“The demon you are trying to summon is higher than that?” she asks with wide eyes.
She clearly doesn’t understand what I can do. I walk over to the corner where I have the one thing that will get Havoc to listen. I pick it up and toss it onto the summoning circle.
“A Hershey bar?” Sam asks, rightfully suspicious.
“Yes, a Hershey bar. The asshole wants a Hershey bar,” I say. “Havoc, get your ass up here.”
Familiar Beginnings #2
Chapter One
“I think that maybe we might have screwed something up,” I say.
“Maybe? Might have?” Havoc asks as he dangles upside down from the shackles around his ankles. Why they figured putting him upside down was ideal, I’m not sure. They at least hung me from the ceiling by my wrists.
“It was a possibility and you know we have to follow all leads,” I say.
Havoc swings back and forth, arms crossed over his chest, eyes directed on me, until the chain starts rotating and his back is turned to me. He wiggles around until he’s facing me so he can resume glaring. “Remember what I said?”
“Nope.”
“All vampires are dicks.”
“Yes, and I didn’t believe you because you hate Nicco, who is a perfectly fine vampire, so I assumed you were being prejudiced, like normal.”
My arms are starting to hurt from being shackled above my body with my feet left dangling. The shackles have runes embedded in them that keep me from using my magic or I’d have poofed our asses out of here in a burst of smoke, fire, and rubble. Instead, I’m left swinging as I think because Havoc is basically useless since the runes are also keeping Havoc from shifting into his raven form.
We’d thought the vampires had been in contact with Geoff, but it was just a stupid rumor, created by them to try to make themselves look scarier.
“Now hear me out, what if you crawl up my body—” I start.
“And choke you a little for not listening to me?” Havoc asks as he shows me his shiny white fangs. Since he’s a demon, being a little grumpy, easily annoyed, and possessive are some of his character traits. He also loves power, which is how we became bonded. He’s a very handsome man that I’ve known for the past few hundred years. Just recently he finally told me he loved me, which should have been our happy ending. But of course, fate never goes that way. Especially when an ancient dark mage currently wants to eat my heart.
Now, I’m flattered that of all the people in the world, the great dark mage Geoff—risen from the dead—wants to devour my heart, but I kind of like it right where it is. Especially now that I have Havoc by my side.
Literally.
He’s turned around now, his ass in line with my eyes. His two white horns that curl slightly like a ram’s contrast sharply with the rich black of his hair that’s currently sticking out because gravity is pulling it down.
“The upside to this is that I have a very nice view,” I assure him.
He whips his head around to look at me and gives me a grin. “Ooh, you like my ass, dontcha?”
“I mean, it’s you or the dead guy,” I say as I point at the skeleton hanging from the third set of chains.
“His ass is as flat as yours.”
My grin turns immediately to a scowl. “Why do I like you?”
He’s cackling now as he turns to face me again, his blue catlike eyes watching me closely. “Now, what’s this about me climbing you like a tree?” he asks.
“What if you climb up my body and you hold me up so my skin isn’t touching the shackles. Get me? If I try pulling myself up to do it, my hand will be on the chain, so it won’t work.”
“Huh… that could be a semi-smart idea. I’m surprised you thought of it.”
“Surprised? Really?”
“Shocked, honestly,” he says as he swings over, but he misses on the first go. I start swinging too, but now we’re swinging in opposite directions, getting farther apart by the minute. I stop my swings and judge it better before he has a smart-ass comment about that. He wraps his hands around my thighs and that’s when one of his horns slams between my legs.
“Watch my balls!” I cry as I spread my legs, but that just smooshes his face right into my groin.
“I’m watching them real damn close. Why’d you spread your legs, you naughty, naughty boy? I highly doubt right now is the time for that. But I’m so damn good, I bet I could get you to come in an instant.”
“You’re not that good,” I say as I look down into his eyes.
“Tell me I’m that good or I’ll be so brokenhearted that I’ll let go. My hands are slipping! My heart is compressing! I’m fading away!”
I sigh at the drama I have to deal with. “You are so mightily good that my cock becomes erect every time your name graces anyone’s lips,” I say dryly.
“Sometimes I wonder if you were put on this earth to torment me,” he says. “And I’ve been such a good person that I can’t understand why.”
I cock my head, really feeling like this conversation is more important than getting free. “You… You… what? Do you not remember all the times you’ve been mean to me? What about the time you put gryphon piss on the bottom of my shoes and all those horny gryphons tried mating with my feet?”
He’s laughing so hard now that he nearly loses his grip on me. “Barely any of that happened.”
I stare at him.
“Like a fraction. The thing had his ding dong out, but he didn’t try mating you.”
I continue staring at him.
“He might have grazed you with it.”
“Why do I love you?”
“Good question,” he says as he unbuttons my pants and yanks my pants and underwear straight down my thighs before continuing his climb up my body.
“What are you doing?” I cry as cold air touches my ass and balls, but there’s not a lick I can do with my hands strapped above my head.
Havoc is dying, he’s laughing so hard. “I just wanted to see your penis. Sue me. I would think you’d be flattered that your lover wants to see it and isn’t disgusted by it.”
“Yeah, maybe if we were in bed but not in an evil vampire den!” I wiggle a little, but it makes my pants slide down farther, so I quickly still myself. Havoc wraps his arms around my shoulders so we’re eye to eye.
“Hey, babe. Looking pretty sexy, but isn’t your penis getting a little cold?” he says.
“I’m finding a new demon.”
“None will ever be as amazing as me.”
“That’s where I fear you’re wrong,” I grumble, but then he gives me a little sweet kiss that makes me smile and my brain turn to mush. That’s also when the door opens and the vampires look at us in confusion.
“What the fuck is going on here?” the oldest growls.
While most vampires are kind and use synthetic or animal blood, there are a small handful who are complete dicks and get off on feeding from and murdering innocent humans—not that either Havoc or I are innocent, but we don’t go around killing humans for a bit of fun.
And these fuckers need to understand who they’re dealing with.
“I was trying to choke myself on his cock so I didn’t have to see your ugly face again,” Havoc says. He hooks my chain in the crook of his arm so he can keep from falling down as he reaches my hands and pulls me up with his superior strength. The moment he raises me, I push my arms together so he can hold the hard metal shackles away from my skin. He doesn’t completely get it away from both arms, but my power is strong enough that what he does give me allows me to instantly break the bind.
The runes crack, the shackles fall from my wrists, and Havoc lets me drop to the ground. The moment I touch, I step forward to throw magic at these assholes. But I’ve promptly forgotten about my pants being around my ankles. I fall forward, smashing down face-first into the ground.
The vampires cackle and laugh before rushing toward me. I call the name of fire and it rushes out with just a thought, grabbing onto the evil vampires and turning them all to ash.
The room is deadly silent as I roll onto my back and pull my pants up before looking over at Havoc hanging upside down. He starts to whistle like he has no idea why I’m on the ground.
“Havoc?”
“My love! You have defeated the evil ones!”
“Havoc?”
“You’re so amazing!”
“Havoc?”
“You’re gorgeous too! Beautiful brown hair that looks like it came from the angels!”
“You’re not going to make me forget that you nearly got me killed by depantsing me.”
He whistles a merry little tune until I wave my hand and the shackles on his legs break. Of course, I was hoping he’d at least hit the ground, but instead, he flips onto his feet with amazing reflexes. Amazingly annoying reflexes.
He dusts himself off and walks over to me, arms wide open like I’m going to jump into them.
“Back your ass off.”
“I was going to carry you over the vampire dust!” he says as he points at the ashes.
“Oh… then I suppose,” I say, and he picks me up and carries me to the other side of the door. “Well, this was a massive dead end.”
“I don’t know. I had fun.” He sounds like he’s telling the truth, too.
“Your definition of fun is vastly different than mine,” I say as he goes to set me down. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Setting you… on the ground?”
“It’s raining outside, and my feet don’t want to get wet.”
“Yes, your majesty,” he says as he walks through the evil vampires’ lair to the front door and looks out at the downpour. Then he flips me over his shoulder and ducks his head under my body like I’m some human umbrella as he runs to the car.
“You are going on my shit list!” I yell as I’m flopped all around as he comes skidding to a halt at the car. “You only said you didn’t want your feet wet!” He yanks the door open and tosses me inside before running around to the other side and getting in. “Whoo! Man, I almost got wet,” he says as he looks over at me.
Lanni leans forward from the back seat and smiles at us. “Good thing you used Miles as an umbrella,” she says.
Havoc and I just about crawl out of our skin. I nearly explode the car with my magic right then and there. Havoc leaps so high his horns ram into the fabric on the ceiling of the car, ripping it.
“What the hell?” I ask.
Lanni looks to her right, her left, and then behind her in clear confusion. “Am I… missing something? Ooh! Is it another invisible beastie?”
“No, we were in shock about you.”
She seems genuinely surprised about this revelation. “Oh! Yeah, I’ve been here quite a while. I hopped in when I saw those vampires drag you guys inside!”
“And… did you call for help or come to help us?” I ask in disbelief.
“Nope! I mean… really, why would I think you two couldn’t handle some dark vampires? But then it started taking a while, and I was getting bored and hungry, so I called Uber Eats and had them bring me a sandwich from that cute little place down the road. It was delicious!”
“And you never thought to help us?” I ask.
“I got you guys sandwiches too!” She pops them in front of us, and I instantly forgive the idiot. Lanni is an interesting being. She can take over the bodies of the recently deceased and live in them like they’re her own body. She doesn’t bring the body back to life, seeing as the person who once used it has since moved on, but while she’s in the body, it’ll continue to age and be affected by ailments. And when the body becomes too old, she moves on to another.
Right now, she’s in the body of a woman with frizzy blonde hair and a huge smile. Freckles are dotted over her button nose. But just because I refer to her as “she” doesn’t mean she’s actually a female. To my understanding, she’s genderless and takes on the pronoun of the body she inhabits, though she isn’t picky about which gender of body she takes. She says it makes her feel closer to them and the body is more accustomed to their own gender, instead of a new one.
“I’ll forgive you this once,” I say as I take the sandwich. When I open it up and see that it’s my favorite sandwich from a place down the road, I immediately forgive her even more. It’s still warm and tastes delicious enough I can even forget that she watched them drag us inside and did nothing.
“Did you find anything?” Lanni asks.
“Miles flashed them his penis and then they burst into ash.”
“Ah… makes sense,” she says with a nod.
I glare at Havoc. “It doesn’t make sense.”
He grins at me from behind his chicken cordon bleu.
“So what now?” Havoc asks.
“I don’t know, I’m running out of leads. I’m not sure we’ll ever find the mage who helped bring Geoff back to life. I just really thought that if we found them, we could torture Geoff’s location out of them,” I say. “But this was just another dead end.”
Havoc nods approvingly. “You know I always enjoy a good torturing. But we’ve already looked into every legal mage within hundreds of miles and none are strong enough, so that leaves the illegal ones, and who knows where all of them are.”
“What if it’s not a mage?” Lanni asks.
“What else would be strong enough?” I ask as I start the car.
She thinks about it for a moment before shrugging. “I don’t know… maybe you’re right. I mean… the spell calls for a mage, right?”
“Yes. They would have been using the book of Teller, who was a dark mage. So we’re probably looking for someone who is very familiar with black magic,” I say, but the only dark mage I’ve ever come across was Geoff. He taught me some black magic, but I was able to save myself before I let it consume me or let myself be drawn in by its power. I can use some black magic, but only spells that I know I won’t be pulled into. Black magic is a powerful thing, but if you’re not mentally strong enough, it’ll pull you into its power, which is how many dark mages lose their lives.
Havoc stills my hand, and for a moment, I wonder if something’s wrong. Then he directs my sandwich to his mouth and takes a bite. “That’s pretty good. Try mine.”
“I think we have bigger things to worry about,” I say before taking a bite. “Ooh, that’s good too.”
Havoc leans back in his seat. “Let’s head home. I’ll talk to some demons and see if they’ve heard anything about a dark mage.”
“Lanni, are you riding with us?” I ask.
She seems to have been waiting for this because she claps her hands together. “Yes! I’ll ride back with you. I didn’t bring a car here.”
“How’d you get here?”
I hear her seat belt snap into place. “This man drove me! He was very nice and told me I looked like his dead wife.”
“You got into a strange vehicle with a creepy stranger who told you that you looked like his dead wife?” I ask in concern. How has she not died yet?
“I did! Don’t worry. I can’t die… I think.”
“Why do you attract such strange people?” Havoc asks as I begin to drive.
“I… I don’t know,” I admit.
Malicious Midpoint #3
Chapter One
Nothing like freefalling to my death.
Goddammit. Why? Why have I lived to be this damn old only to die like this?
The wind is whipping past me as the tiny houses below me steadily become bigger, reminding me that while my fall might seem endless, my end is drawing increasingly nearer.
“Miles… I kind of feel like you don’t quite have the situation under control,” Havoc says, voice in my mind since he’s currently in his raven form. He’s diving beside me to keep up with my steady fall.
“Nope, I have everything perfectly, one hundred percent under control. I’m drowning in control.”
Havoc, who’s a demon and also the love of my life, holds nothing back as he makes a noise at me, like he thinks something about this is hilarious. The moment I started falling to my death, he dutifully flew after me, but he can do nothing to save me and more or less seems to find amusement in my predicament.
“Did you just… chortle?” I ask, wind whipping so hard it’s making my eyes water.
“I would never.”
I snatch the raven out of the air and draw him into my chest, making sure to pin his wings down so he can’t flutter off.
“Dammit, Miles! What the hell are you doing?” he asks in my head. He can do this because we’re linked as demon and mage. Even though I’ve given him free will at this point, he still likes to share the link we have held between each other for hundreds of years.
“I thought that since you loved me, we should die together. You know? Embraced in each other’s arms.”
He pecks at me. “Oh no, no. I should not be punished for this. I did not call the giant flesh-eating monster cute.”
In retrospect, calling my familiar cute when he had my life in his… paws was not the smartest thing to do. But one would think their own familiar would like them enough to not just drop them, leaving them to plummet to their death because someone called them cute.
Clearly, not this one.
“He’s not actually going to let me die because of this, right?” I ask.
Havoc doesn’t say anything, which, let’s be honest, isn’t a good thing.
“I mean… he secretly likes me, right?” I ask, trying to think back on all the moments of affection my familiar, Menace, has given me.
I come up with nothing.
“Well, shit.”
“That house is starting to look quite close,” Havoc says.
Fuckity fuck fuck. I’m going to die because I called Menace cute. This is my fate… this is—
“Menace, I’m sorry! You’re big and mighty and strong and the complete opposite of cute!” I yell, not quite sure he can even hear me since I can’t even see him any longer. I let Havoc go. “Live for me.”
He grabs onto the back of my shirt with his talons, which does absolutely nothing to slow me down no matter how hard he beats his wings.
And as doubt starts to settle in my mind, the giant red dragon swoops down and snatches me up in one massive, clawed foot. He slows down the descent before dropping me onto the ground where I land in some mud. Menace seems to realize this and “helps” by picking me up and setting me on my feet while mud and water drip from my face. Then the giant dragon shifts back into a very red cat who immediately begins grooming his paw like holding me up and saving my life left him with a disease he’ll only free himself from by grooming.
Havoc shifts from his raven form into his more humanlike form before landing next to me. He’s an extremely handsome man with sharp eyes and white horns that rise from his black hair. His focus is currently on Menace, my familiar, who he dislikes greatly. (I honestly think a lot of it stems from the fact that Menace won’t allow him to ride on his back when he’s a dragon.)
“What if we just like… get rid of him?” Havoc suggests.
The thing is, mage familiars have been nonexistent for many years. In the centuries I’ve been around, I’ve never even heard of someone having one, and to my knowledge, Menace is the only one of his kind. And while that sounds fascinating and thrilling to probably anyone else in the world, it’s because they’re not aware that Menace is… well… a menace.
Scraping the mud off my face, I angry-walk right up to the cat who pauses with his black tongue sticking out. It’s ridiculously cute, which I will make sure never to allow the cat to know.
I lean over and point a finger at the feline. “You do not ever do that again, do you hear me?”
Menace makes a show of yawning, like he thinks my demands are dreadfully boring. His mouth is full of dozens of needlelike teeth eager to shred my skin.
“Menace!”
He yowls his complaint at me.
“I’m not joking. I could have died, and all for what? Because your pride keeps you from being able to take a compliment?”
“Um… Miles. I love listening to you berate the nasty ball of fur, but I think we have something a bit more… pressing at the moment,” Havoc says as he motions in the direction he’s facing.
I turn and notice that even Menace seems interested in what Havoc has found. Which is concerning because Menace’s goal in life is to pretend he’s not interested in anything besides himself and making others bleed or be miserable.
“Huh,” I say, realizing now that I’m not fixated on berating a cat, that I can feel a strange surge of magic around me. About twenty feet from where we landed is a dead deer lying in the middle of what looks like a small crater. Clearly, something magical blasted the hole in the ground, but the deer placed right in the middle of it is even more peculiar.
“Is it a magic circle?” Havoc eyes it suspiciously.
“No… but I feel magic coming from it,” I say as I inch toward it because, honestly, who knows what the hell we’ll find ourselves in the middle of. Could be just a hole that an unfortunate deer fell into or, knowing our luck, it could be the opening to hell waiting to swallow us up.
I take my chances with hell and head over to it, too damn nosy not to look.
That’s when the deer twitches.
“Is it not dead?” Havoc asks.
“Oh no, it’s dead. It has a spell or something on it,” I say as I watch the creature rise on unsteady feet and burst into flames.
“Huh,” Havoc says, which I’m not sure is immensely helpful in this situation when the flaming ball of… whatever it is lowers its head and aims its flaming antlers right at me before charging.
“Hell,” I mutter, not expecting this as I lift my hand up in an arc, using my magic to create a barrier around me. Thankfully, my magic is very familiar with fire, so as the flames beat against the barrier around me, it holds true.
And just like that, a huge explosion sounds as the creature seems to explode and the fire dissipates.
I drop my barrier and look over at my two companions who both look quite displeased with me for some reason.
“Excuse me?” Havoc grumbles.
“What?” I ask.
“Why did you only barrier your own ass? What about my mighty fine ass?” he asks as he waves to himself.
“It was coming at me! I assumed you’d flutter away on your wings!”
He stares at me while wiping at his cheek. “I think… I think I have deer chunks on my face.”
“That’s not… no…” I say, unsure why he had to share this with me.
“It… exploded and I…” He peers at something on his hand.
“I’m sure it’s only mud… from exploding.” Then I give him a smile as I turn to Menace who is hissing wildly. At first, I’m unsure why until I see that the tip of his tail got singed.
I stare at the cat in disbelief. “Okay now, you’re a fire-breathing dragon, so don’t give me that shit. I assumed you’d dragon your ass out of here!” I say as both demon and familiar glower at me like I called upon the exploding deer.
“I never thought I’d agree with that cat on anything,” Havoc says. “But I do.”
“Oh, come on. You both know if either of you were actually in immediate danger I would rush right to your aid,” I say, feeling kind of guilty. I honestly thought they’d use their own powers to move away! I mean, how the hell is a dragon cat not fireproof? Doesn’t he breathe fire?
Havoc guffaws in the most sarcastic way possible as I narrow my eyes at him.
“You’re both pains in my ass,” I growl as I head over to the original hole and look down in it. At the bottom is nothing but dirt. When I go to step into it, Havoc grabs the back of my hoodie and proceeds to choke me as he pulls me back.
“Don’t go diving in holes you don’t know,” he says.
“That’s what he said,” I say, to which I receive no laughter and more looks. “It’s fine. I wanted to feel if there was magic!” I try to straighten my hoodie before eyeing the hole in the ground since Havoc doesn’t seem happy to let me in it. Menace meows and I look over to where he’s sitting on a book that’s lying open. I’d missed it while fixated on exploding deer and sketchy holes.
When I reach it, I pick it up and immediately realize it’s a restricted book. A book of spells that’d been deemed too unmanageable about a hundred or so years ago. I flip to the front where, if it’s a legal copy, it should have a mark stating where it belongs.
“Huh,” I say.
“What?” Havoc says as he leans over to look at the emblem marked in the front of the book. “Ah. Jacob’s school, right?”
“Yeah,” I say. Jacob Stewart, a mage I’ve worked with on occasion, is the headmaster and founder of a school in a nearby district. The school caters mostly to college-aged adults learning magic, as well as some youth that have surpassed what their schools can help them with. It’s not only for mages or witches but any magical being who has even a smidgen of power that they need help controlling.
But why would one of his restricted books be out here? Generally, people need special permission to even access one.
I hand the book over to Havoc and decide the easiest way to get an answer to this is to call Jacob and see what he has to say.
He answers on the second ring with a “Dear god, not you.”
“Jacob! It’s clear you missed me!”
He’s quiet for a moment, clearly thinking about exactly how much he missed me. “What horribly dark and twisted thing have you gotten into this time?” he asks, like that’s the only time I call him… Okay, so it is the only time I call him. “I nearly died the last time I helped you.”
“Ah, well we all nearly died! As long as none of us actually died, it’s all good! And that’s the fun of it. Anyway, this is actually pertaining to you and your school. Not me. I’m quite innocent here, in fact.”
That seems to snag his attention. “My school?”
“I found one of your books out here. Delany’s Spells and Charms,” I say.
He’s quiet for a moment. “You’re sure it’s mine?”
“Surprisingly enough, I do know how to read.”
“That’s not good,” he says, but I’m not sure if he’s referring to me reading or the book. “I’ll be there. Send me your location.”
I look around, not quite sure how to give the address to a hole in the middle of the woods, but I do my best.
The wait for Jacob leaves me too damn curious and I inch my way over to the hole before Havoc can stop me (he’s too busy telling the cat off for letting me plummet down to earth). Just as I’m going to climb into it, I hear someone rustling through the woods before Jacob shows up in a suit and tie.
“Why in the worlds was it out here and… what is that?” he asks as he points to the hole I’m prepared to drop into.
“Well, it’s a hole,” I say.
“I can see that.”
I explain how the scene was when we stumbled upon it, and he watches me curiously.
“Have you read this book?” Jacob asks when I finish describing everything to him.
“I have, but it’s probably been ninety years or more,” I say.
“There’s nothing like this in it. The book was banned for being unsafe; not in a dark magic kind of way but more like… if you didn’t perform the spell one hundred percent correctly, you were likely to get a limb blown off. The council deemed it hazardous and locked it away. Only my teachers have access to the book, but this… this doesn’t feel like anything out of the book. Is it black magic?”
“I can’t tell yet because I get interrupted every time I try to climb in,” I say and drop inside before Havoc can choke me again. There’s blood from the deer at the bottom as well as a chunk of bone and a lock of dark brown hair.
“Looks almost like a curse,” I say before setting my hand down and closing my eyes. I can feel the magic bubbling gently, telling me the curse had been done at least a day ago at this point. Beyond using the deer’s blood, the body had been placed there to make sure it remained untouched and to scare away anything wishing to harm it. “It’s inactive now. I don’t think it’s black magic, but it’s still dark. A curse of some sort. I don’t know if breaking the magic will stop it, but we’ll see.”
I gather up the bone and hair and then, just with a thought, snap the magic. It’s not hard, especially with how old the spell is and how the person who cast it clearly didn’t think to lock it down. Maybe they didn’t need to. Maybe it needed to fester for a short time before disrupting it caused no issues at all.
I hand the items over to Jacob. “Well, here you are. I’d be careful and find out who managed to get a hold of the book. I’m not quite sure what they were up to, but it clearly wasn’t the best idea if cursework is what they were aiming for.”
Jacob eyes the materials I’ve given him before glancing up at me. “Would you mind going with me? I would love your opinion, and since you were able to feel the magic, maybe you could help me pinpoint who did this.”
Heading off to a different district wasn’t exactly what I had in mind for today, but Jacob did come to my aid when the dark mage Geoff was determined to remove my head from my body. He’s also come to plenty of my district meetings to help where he can—even if he side-eyes my demons—so of course I can’t say no.
“Sure.” I look at Havoc who shrugs.
“Can we torture whoever did it?” Havoc asks eagerly. Menace meows approvingly as he sharpens his claws on a tree.
Jacob looks over at Havoc uneasily. While he’s a mage like me, Jacob is strongly against the use of demons. I think he believes it borders too closely along the lines of dark magic and would like to steer clear of it. It leaves him to have some not-so-fond feelings toward Havoc and my draw to demon magic. “Ha, you’re such a jokester!” Jacob says, clearly in an attempt to try to make the situation less… dark.
“I was not—”
I give Havoc a look that makes him grudgingly shut up. Menace, on the other hand, hisses his complaints. About what? No one knows. Maybe because his nails are newly sharpened and he has no one to maim.
The noise, though, draws Jacob’s attention to him. “He is so fascinating,” Jacob says as he eyes the cat. “To think… a mage’s familiar… I never thought I’d see one. I wonder if there are more out there.”
“Well, this one took like ten murdered people to summon, so…” I start.
Jacob gives me a tight-lipped look. “Uh-huh…”
I feel like I need to remind him that I wasn’t the mass murderer who killed multiple people to summon an evil cat. “I didn’t summon him.”
“I’m aware.”
“If Miles summoned him, he’d have at least summoned a pleasant one,” Havoc decides.
Menace starts yowling as he runs toward me and leaps on Havoc’s back, scaling up him with his sharpened claws before gently jumping onto my shoulder as Havoc howls. Menace is not at all concerned as he grooms his singed tail. Instead, his purrs couldn’t be anything but pleasure as Havoc glares at him, knowing that I won’t allow him to murder the small beast.
Alice Winters started writing stories as soon as she was old enough to turn her ideas into written words. She loves writing a variety of things from romance and comedy to action. She also enjoys reading, horseback riding, and spending time with her pets.
EMAIL: alicewintersauthor@gmail.com
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