Blood Storm Magic Read online

  Table of Contents

  Blood Storm Magic

  Copyright

  Books by Jayne Faith

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Preview of Blood of Stone (Stone Blood Book 1) by Jayne Faith

  Blood Storm Magic

  ELLA GREY BOOK FOUR

  JAYNE FAITH

  Copyright

  Blood Storm Magic

  Copyright © 2018 by Jayne Faith

  All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to a real person, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the authors.

  Blood storm magic / a novel by Jayne Faith

  Ebook Edition ISBN: 978-0-9996458-1-9

  Edited by: Mary Novak

  Proofread by: Tia Silverthorne Bach of Indie Books Gone Wild

  Cover by: Deranged Doctor Designs

  Published in the United States of America

  Books by Jayne Faith

  Ella Grey Series (Urban Fantasy)

  Stone Cold Magic

  Dark Harvest Magic

  Demon Born Magic

  Blood Storm Magic

  Shattered Magic Novels (Urban Fantasy)

  Blood of Stone

  Stone Blood Legacy

  Rise of the Stone Court

  The Oldest Changeling in Faerie

  Sapient Salvation Series (Dystopian Romance)

  The Selection

  The Awakening

  The Divining

  The Claiming

  Magic Currents (Dystopian Fairy Tale)

  Books by Christine Castle

  Love Across Stars Novels (Sci-Fi Romance)

  The Seas of Time

  The Laws of Attraction

  Vampire’s Elixir Series (Urban Fantasy Romance)

  Chasing Legends

  Riding Rifts

  Drinking Destiny

  Chapter 1

  MY PULSE TAPPED a swift tempo as I watched the arch-demon hone in on me. The giant winged creature circled slowly overhead, but from my Demon Patrol training I knew their behavior well enough to not be fooled by the lazy spiral the hellspawn traced. The interdimensional rip it had emerged from created a backdrop of neon-blue magic. It almost looked like special effects in a movie, but this was no CGI wizardry. It was very real.

  I gripped the handle of my razor chain whip tightly, belatedly realizing I should have wrapped it with paper tape or something. A bit of sweat on the palm made it slippery. I was still getting used to the weapon, after a rogue vamp had snapped my old charmed whip.

  In my ear, there was a brief pop of static and then a deep voice.

  “We’ve got a clear shot,” the Supernatural Special Forces leader said.

  “Stand down. Let me take it,” I muttered, little white puffs of air punctuating my words. “It’s not quite clear of the rip. If you guys start firing, the rip will close again, and you’ll spook the hellspawn.”

  The vertical rip was like a giant cat’s pupil framed with bright blue flames. The lower end of the slit almost touched the ground, and the whole thing was nearly three stories tall.

  “We’ve got you if anything goes sideways,” the voice said. There was a pause. “Is it wrong that I want to see you pop its head off?”

  The corners of my lips twitched in an almost-grin. The voice in my ear belonged to Caleb Montgomery, lead on the team that was backing me up on this job.

  “Not wrong at all,” I said, my eyes glued to the arch-demon.

  The creature’s flight was picking up speed, and it was starting to drop in elevation. Specialists had been trying to close the rip for weeks after some high-schoolers had come to this construction site with the bright idea of playing with magic they couldn’t control. One of the kids had paid with his life when they’d opened the rip. His buddies were lucky they hadn’t died, too. The rip was intermittent—opening and closing at random. There’d been more casualties as specialists tried to seal the thing permanently. Rip-sealing magic was fairly new and only worked on smaller tears. If this rip were any bigger, it wouldn’t be a candidate.

  My old partner Damien and I had won a contract to accomplish what others hadn’t managed—close the rip, kill any lingering demons, and reap the souls of the people who’d died on the site. Damien was gone, having taken Phillip Zarella’s offer of mage power. The change had altered Damien in terrible ways and seemed to fuel his life-long obsession with gaining his family’s acceptance and approval. The final betrayal was when he took my brother, Evan, who I’d been desperately searching for the past five years and finally rescued from a vampire feeder den. But Evan’s ill luck had continued, because he unfortunately held the key to permanently closing the rips.

  I still didn’t know where Damien was hiding Evan, but I was using my necromancy to deploy minor demons as my spies. I’d commanded several of them and sent them to watch places I thought Damien might go—his hometown back East, a family home in the Hamptons, his loft here in downtown Boise. I’d also been in touch with the madman himself, Zarella, for help, and he was making use of his own resources to try to locate Evan. But so far there was no sign of my brother.

  In the meantime, I’d run out of money. That was why I was standing under a giant rip with the aim of beheading an arch-demon.

  Before Damien’s change, he and I had set up a freelance magical services company, Perfect Circle Supernatural Services. Part of me felt dirty continuing a venture that had any connection to Damien. But my bank account balance remained coldly unsympathetic to my conflicted feelings, and when the company won a couple of the contracts we’d bid on, I couldn’t afford to turn down the jobs.

  The rip that towered over me had brought not only myself and an SSF Team, but also a trio of mid-Level III crafters who would try to close the tear as soon as I took care of the arch-demon.

  This particular rip had been troublesome because each time it opened, dangerous arch-demons flew through. A Special Forces Team would show up to kill the demon before it could possess a human, but the weapon blasts caused the rip to close up again before the magic specialists could permanently sew it closed. And then at some random time, the rip would appear again, releasing more arch-demons and starting the cycle over again.

  I’d been hired for this job partly because I was impervious to demon possession. Plus, my time on Demon Patrol had given me ample knowledge of the creatures as well as credentials. I just had to kill the arch-demon in a way that wouldn’t cause the rip to disappear before the Level III specialists could snuff it out for good.

  I’d recently amped up my magical ability to high III, so far up on the Magical Aptitude Scale I registered at the maximum. Technically, I was more powerful even than the three magic experts here to close the rip, but I didn�
�t have the knowledge or training to close rips. Such an increase in power—any increase at all, actually—was supposed to be impossible. But before Damien had turned mage, he’d figured out how to do it first on himself and then on me. I considered my change a parting gift from my former partner and friend. The irony of it was, when I found him and my brother I would use the full force of my magic to rip Damien apart if I had to.

  My pulse kicked up as the arch-demon’s wings stilled for a split second. This was it. The creature was going to dive.

  I flicked my wrist and my chain whip jumped off the ground. Drawing power and pushing it into my arm, I made the weapon light up with earth, fire, and air magic.

  The creature screamed an ear-grating cry as its lizard-like head aimed straight for me. Leathery wings pumped. The smell of sulfur and rot filled my nostrils.

  I spun my arm faster, whirling the whip until it blurred. I would only have one chance. If I missed, SSF would fire and the rip would wink out, only to reappear at some other random time. But I had no intention of sending everyone home disappointed.

  Directed by my magic, the chain whip curled into a spiral in the air. I pushed more air and earth and then let go, sending the weapon up at the hellspawn. Green filaments of earth trailed from the whip to my palms, and I quickly flicked my arms to send the chain curling around the beast’s neck.

  When it was nice and snug, I yanked. The arch-demon screeched in fury.

  The chain whip responded, its razor-edged links cutting easily into flesh. One more pull, and the chain sliced clear through.

  The head broke from the body and dropped to the ground with a heavy-sounding plunk. The rest of the arch-demon remained aloft for a second or two, the wings still pumping by reflex. Then it went limp and crashed to the ground.

  The trio of crafters moved in with SSF right behind them to cover in case another demon came through.

  I pulled on the earth magic filaments that still connected me to my weapon, and the chain whip snaked along the ground toward me. The crafters and soldiers jumped out of the way.

  I stood where I was and watched the Level IIIs work. They swiftly drew magic of the four elements and began to weave it in strands that began to curl together. Within a few seconds, the patterns were too complicated for my eyes to sort out the individual pieces, but the overall shape seemed to be forming into a multi-colored double-helix.

  One end of the magic darted to the lower edge of the rip. The magic strands quickly curled upward, like a couple of threads on a giant invisible needle. It literally looked as if the helices were sewing the rip closed.

  It seemed to be working. Neon blue rip magic extinguished as soon as the Level III’s creation swirled around it. Up and up, the double helix curled the edges of the rip together until it was gone.

  The whole thing took maybe five minutes. When it was done, everyone stood in awed silence for a few seconds. Than a few of the higher-ups who’d hung back began to applaud. A few of the SSF Team men and women raised their arms and some victorious shouts went up.

  I watched the three Level IIIs shake hands and then reached for water magic, intending to wash the arch-demon ick off my whip before gathering it up. Water magic was my newest trick. It was the most difficult of the four elemental magics to command, and I still sucked at it, but I could draw enough for small tasks.

  I closed my eyes briefly to focus. Most beginning magic users devised a little trick to make initial contact with each of the elements. After a lot of practice, experienced crafters didn’t need tricks anymore, but it would be a while before I got there. With water, I initiated contact with the element by sending my awareness to the moisture in the environment around me. Easy, if I were near a lake or in a house with plumbing. Not as straightforward outside at a construction site, shivering in the freezing winter air.

  “Nice work disposing of the demon, Grey,” a deep, warm voice said, interrupting my concentration. My eyes popped open to find Caleb standing there, smiling. “Kind of made Special Forces irrelevant, but I’ll try not to let it bruise my ego too badly.”

  I smiled back. It was hard not to. Caleb had an ever-present twinkle in his green eyes, and his reddish hair was somehow attractively messed up from the helmet he held under one arm. He shifted the helmet so he could reach out his right hand.

  I grasped it and gave a modest half-shrug. “It could have taken a bad turn. I’m glad you guys were here.”

  Caleb was new to the local Supernatural Special Forces division, having just moved to town about a month back. The division had been beefed up after my brother was taken from Rogan’s house only hours after we’d rescued Evan from a vampire feeder den. A huge genetically modified demon had been used to facilitate the abduction, and the creature had possessed Rogan. The demon couldn’t be exorcised, and it led to Rogan’s death. The threat of new and more dangerous hellspawn had brought more firepower to the local Supernatural Forces team.

  Caleb and I had crossed paths three times before. Twice on jobs, and once when we’d randomly bumped into each other downtown.

  I let go of his hand, and he pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. “Bunch of us are going to the pub, if you’d like to join. We figured since we’re all going to be a little amped up for a while, we might as well close the place down.”

  It was after midnight, and bars closed at two.

  “I appreciate the invite, but I’ve still got work to do on site,” I said, keeping purposely vague about the task that remained.

  It was tempting to say I’d meet up with them later. I missed the comradery of my Demon Patrol coworkers, and it might have been nice to drink a couple of beers and shoot the shit with the Special Forces people. But I knew by the way Caleb looked at me that he wanted to ask me out, and I just wasn’t ready. Rogan had been gone only a month, and his absence was still too fresh.

  “Maybe next time?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Sure.”

  The SFF Team was loading up, and the Level III crafters were talking to Detective Barnes, the petite blond lead detective from Supernatural Crimes. She and another detective I’d come to know, Chris Lagatuda, were probably there to wrap up the investigation of the deaths that had occurred.

  Since Supernatural Crimes had hired me for this job, both detectives knew that part of my contract involved reaping the souls of the deceased. No one knew exactly why the souls hadn’t already departed, but we all assumed it had something to do with the proximity of the intermittent rip.

  Since the adrenaline of taking out the arch-demon was starting to wear off, my attention switched to the soft tickle that seemed to emanate from my bones. It was the sense of something waiting out there for me. The souls that wanted to be cut free.

  At the thought of reaping, I felt a vague stirring behind my sternum. An angel of death named Xaphan had permanently attached itself to me when I’d temporarily died on the job several months ago. For a while, it looked like the reaper would be the end of me as it chomped away at my soul so it could take over my body. But Phillip Zarella, of all people, had provided the fix that kept Xaphan at bay. I couldn’t get rid of the reaper, but that was okay—we’d reached a sort of understanding. I was in charge, and Xaphan was allowed to ride along. My reaper gave me the ability to move between the world of the living and the in-between, the realm where reapers roamed and souls of the deceased awaited release to the beyond.

  I watched the red tail lights of the armored Supernatural Special Forces truck retreat down the dirt road leading away from the construction site. Then I took a deep breath, faced the skeletal structure of the partially finished building, and let my awareness slip into the in-between.

  Chapter 2

  THE GRAY MIST of the in-between drifted low around my legs, puffing and eddying when my movements disturbed it. There was no true night or day in this realm, only weak light and colorless tones.

  Not all objects carried over here, and there wasn’t a whole lot of rhyme or reason to it. The partially constructed apartmen
t development looked essentially the same in the in-between as it did in the realm of the living, but I noticed that the young trees the landscapers had planted before winter set in didn’t exist here.

  Neither Barnes nor Lagatuda, who’d moved several yards away to stand near their Supernatural Crimes cruiser, were visible in limbo land either. The living never were.

  I let my reaper come forth, giving in to the sense that drew us toward the still-tethered souls. One was a teenager, one of the kids who’d been fooling around with magic and accidentally opened the rip. The human part of me felt sadness that someone so young had lost his life, but the reaper felt no emotion, only single-minded focus.

  That was the soul I was drawn to first. The boy had lost his life near the front left corner of the unfinished building. His soul appeared as a vacant-eyed, wispy specter that floated several feet above the ground, held like a helium balloon by a gossamer strand extending from one foot down to the spot where he’d died.

  As if by reflex, my right hand lifted with a preternaturally sudden movement. In the skeletal fingers, a short knife appeared.

  The blade’s metal appeared dull in the faint, ethereal light of the in-between, but the edge was diamond-sharp.

  The filament holding the boy’s soul in this realm pulled at me, almost hypnotizing me. When I drew near, the soul seemed to wake up, jerking and straining at the cord that held it.

  With a movement so swift it had to be the reaper controlling it, the knife flicked out and severed the cord. The soul winked out, but not before a look of serenity crossed the boy’s face.

  I turned and stalked to the next soul, this one belonging to an adult who’d perished on the second floor. A swing of the blade, and another soul freed. The third victim had died on the top floor, a witch who’d reportedly come to try to collect some of the neon-blue magic licking from the rip. It was illegal, and for good reason—the properties of rip magic weren’t well-understood, and it was obviously extremely dangerous to get that close to an interdimensional tear.