Chapter 1

ChapterOne

Ophelia

Monsters - Shinedown

Dark fog coiled around me as I kneeled into the cold, sodden soil which seeped through the fabric of my jeans. The rounded moon sat like a beacon of silver light that washed over me, highlighting parts of the grim and ominous graveyard in Hallows Point. Baleful clouds circled overhead, breaking apart the abyss, and forming sinister-looking images within the sky that had my pulse thundering under my skin. Throbbing with an acute awareness at the column of my throat with such force, it began to ache as if I had been stabbed with a needle.

I shouldn’t be here.

I shouldn’t be toying with the dead.

It was disrespectful, not to mention creepy as fuck.

The souls in these graves had either been blessed by the heavens or cursed by the devil himself. There was a feeling that burned into the back of my neck, deceptive eyes watched me from the shadows. It was in my head, I was alone here. I knew that. I knew that I shouldn’t be here at all and the smart thing to do would be to pack up my shit and leave.

But I just couldn’t help myself.

I wanted to know… needed to know.

How real such wicked words uttered on that one special night called All Hallows Eve could truly be. We all played into the feeble tales of such an unholy night.

Played the games of Bloody Mary and watched out for the Candyman with razor blades in his cut-throat sweets.

But what about the rest of it?

What about the demons of the dark?

My heart beat frantically, more wild than the stallions riding their way through autumn, churning those golden leaves. I could feel my pulse thumping against the taut skin at the column of my neck as I tried to build the courage to play with all things spooky.

This was a stupid idea, but there’s no backing out now.

If I wanted my next book Summoning Hell in the Shits & GigglesOf Purgatory series to be another hit for me, I needed to do the research.

I needed to know what it felt like in the dead of night when you’re alone, but never without company. When the darkness concealed your worst nightmares and you convinced yourself that something lingered there, in the shadows, waiting to destroy you with all the sick and twisted things you thought you had kept secret but were unable to in this very moment of a very bleak night.

The untamed pace of your horrified heart, that wanted any excuse to take you out of the game altogether instead of sitting idle and experiencing these acute feelings of terror.

Because being nothing was more than being a pathetic human riddled with so much fear, it forced you to give in to those so-called irrational emotions that plagued the simplicity of a human mind.

I felt that way now, like I was moments away from succumbing to my self-induced terror and falling by the wayside onto some unknown person’s grave.

I jotted everything down in my notebook.

Every little twitch and eye flicker and every little flutter and small seizure of fright.

Detailed every sensation and thought that was running havoc through my chaotic mind.

Everything from the chill skating down my spine to the tremble in my hands. The book beside me flickered in the wind as the pages flipped in a hurried arch, as if a galeforce wind had just blown upon it with harsh and unforgiving lips. I gasped, jumping back, bringing a quivering hand to my chest as the air around me burned like ice in my lungs, “For fuck’s sake, pull it together, Ophelia.” I slammed my hand down on the old leather bindings and huffed at the night. I found the book on some website that referred to themselves as the Olden Truths Of Wiccan Ways. I purchased the only thing they actually advertised on the site, actually. The description read that this was the only copy in existence and that only the one of pure blood could wield the spells within it.

Sounded like some shit marketing if you asked me, but I had to set the scene.

After I wandered through the graveyard aimlessly, I chose a spot at the back. It was barren, with dried, rotten and withered leaves laid along the ground. I wasn’t disrespectful enough to do this over somebody’s actual grave.

Sheesh.

A Weeping Willow tree that overhung, brushed against the backs of my hands. The trunk was huge and spiraled into the earth beyond the canopy of weeping catkins.

The foliage seemed to glow a neon kind of deep and dark green, under the scarce light of the moon that reflected back at me as a dull kind of silver, now hidden from my vantage point at the moment. I rooted through my bag and pulled out the three blood-red candles, then set them down, embedded into the soil at the three tips of a triquetra. Then I sprinkled black salt around the iron pentagram buried under the dirt at the base of the tree.

“Jesus fuck. Feeling like you’re about to have a damn aneurysm as the dead rise to eat your flesh definitely needs to be explained in the book,” I uttered with a small whisper under my breath like the abyss would hear me and come for my soul if I uttered the words too loudly. “The things I do for my readers.” My breath is harsh and chilled. A billowing white burst of cloudy smoke whispered from my lips as I shook my head and lowered my eyes back to the book, sitting by my knees.

I ran my deft fingers over the engraved cover. Gold foiled embroidery bordered the edge, curved and entwined like the symbols of a triquetra. The binding is one long and slithered snake twisted around another. Thick lips that looked to be coming out of the cover itself more than being added in some way, sat in the right hand bottom corner, and the title Wicked Words Spoken On All Hallows wasscripted in such a deep and dark red above it, you could hardly read the words at all.Itook a moment to appreciatethe unique beauty of it before I flicked it open and found the page that I needed.

Anima Summoner

A spell that translated to Soul Summoner in Latin. The ingredients were the blood of the caster, a desire for the darkness, and the idea of the subject you wished to raise. In my case, a smut God from way down under. I pulled the knife out next and held open the pages with my knees, as I fought against the speed of the wind that funneled into small tornadoes around me and upheaved all of the dirt on the ground. My mind spiraled into what the fuck territory, but I had to see this through. I needed to experience absolutely everything if I was going to write it so accurately, my words would feel the way I was right now. My hair whipped around my face, the sharp strands barbed as I shook them away and pulled the blade across my palm. Blood dripped, small rivulets splotched against the soil, soaking them in the crimson tears of my very essence. I hissed, the pain not entirely unpleasant but unnatural as the sting spread through me like veins of fucked-up desire and heated my very core.

But we don’t speak about that.

“Hear me, come to me, something wicked this way comes,” I began to chant, the words raw and powerful as they tore from my throat. I felt it rushing through me, almost like the thought of this working alone was enough to empower me with a vicious tone that bespoke determination. It was enough to make a damn fool of myself inside a creepy graveyard too. “Hear me, come to me, something wicked this way comes.” The tone of my voice increased in volume as it dropped to a deadly low octave, a low hum that sounded like the purr of an engine. “Hear me, come to me, something wicked this way comes.” I glared up into the night as I willed all of my strength and focus into summoning this demon God. I risked a quick glance back down at the pages and read the next incantation like a damn pro.

Maybe I was a witch in my past life?

Huh.

“Come to me, wicked demon. A soul from the dark, a sinful heathen. I call to you, this Hallows Eve, to give you life and grant you a reprieve. Stain this earth red with my blood on your corpse, wreak your havoc as this night runs its course. I call to you now so let it be, rise from the ashes, and answer to me.”

The sound of an explosion shattered my ears, but nothing seemed misplaced. Thrown back, I hit the ground hard and groaned as I rolled to my side and brought my knees up so I could lift myself back up onto them. “What the fuck was that?” I asked at the very same moment lightning struck and I shrieked like a siren getting whacked by the ship of sailors she was hoping to devour.

The sky flashed a neon-colored blue as the bolt of lightning that struck beside me shimmered in an angelic glitter-like purple. It was beautiful, you know if it wasn’t trying to kill me dead.

Guess I was in the right place to keel over though, aye?

My chest burned as my throat turned dry, painful as I swallowed past the thick lump lodged within it. Sweat beaded along my brow, dropping onto my lashes as I batted them away and tried to settle my breathing that branded me like a hot iron. Thunder clapped across the heavens like a roar of demented deaths calling for the night and I shuddered, then folded within myself as I fell to my ass and lifted my knees to my chest in a cradle.

Unholy Satan, that was not supposed to happen.

What was supposed to happen?

Fuck if I knew.

But mother nature scaring the shit out of me at the exact moment I decided to do some in-the-field research for my next book was not one of them. I trembled as I spied something that looked like gray stone poking through the soil. I crawled toward it and swiped away all of the moist dirt and recoiled when I saw that it was a headstone.

A very neglected headstone.

Shit, fuck, Halloween cunt!

Here lies Blake Colton.

Not exactly poetic and heartfelt.

I did this on somebody’s grave.

Damn.

“Oh shit,” I breathed, as I stumbled back and forced myself up on unsteady legs. “Sorry dude, no disrespect!”

“None taken. But couldn’t you have knocked first, given a guy the heads up? I mean, come now, love. I’m not even wearing my best face,” a deep, brooding voice husked from the darkness as a man bled from the shadows and stepped through the overhang of the willow tree. I swallowed thickly, unsure if I should tuck my tail and run, or play dead to the man who stalked toward me with half a chiseled face of the exposed bones shaping his skeletal form. It weaved back together, regenerated, and connected to look like the side of his face thankfully covered in normal flesh.

Pain started in my neck as my spine locked up in terror. Everything within me seized in fright and disbelief, but the horror didn’t stop the word from slipping out. “Demon,” I breathed while the final piece of his flesh coiled and weaved back together and showcased an Adonis of a man before me.

He was striking, eyes darker than onyx with cheekbones as chiseled as Spike’s from Buffy. Tanned flesh glistened under the rays of night, his entire body covered in tattoos. Not the kind that left no space on the skin, but the kind you ached to run your tongue over in the heart of one sinful and never spoken about again night. His chest and abdomen were on display as he wore a leather jacket that fell from his shoulders. My warped pussy fluttered as I clenched together my thighs.

He stood without shoes, toes twined within the soil, with black jeans hung low on his carved hips. The V that was sharper than any blade dipped between the waistline and stole my focus for a moment. There was something else that added to the sinister air around us though. Something that added to the feeling slithering all across my skin.

Blood.

He was covered in blood.

By the time I recovered from the sight before me, it was already too late.

He was there, in front of me with harsh breath that kissed against my skin and a vicious hand that coiled within my hair until he yanked me back far enough that he could expose my throat to him. Greedy eyes assessed me and everything fell silent. The only thing to be heard was the thunder of my hammering heart louder than the actual thunder that clapped around us.

His lips were a fraction away from mine as my hot air blew against them softly and he growled, “No demon, love. You did just bag yourself a serial killer though. Want to tell me how you brought me back from the dead? Because I’m pretty sure when my lights went out, they never came on again.”

When his lips touched mine, nothing else mattered. The world fell away, broken piece by broken piece as it was taken by the breeze that took all of my sinful secrets to the void and I hoped they stayed far away from this sinful man.