Serpent Cursed (Lost Souls Series Book 2) Read online

  “That’s what the man says.” Harper gestured toward Fred. “Get your backpack and knife. I don’t imagine our ride will be waiting for us when we get done.”

  Tyson shouldered his backpack and made a point to nod and thank Fred as he exited the RV after Harper. He thought he heard Harper snort, but Fred waved cheerily and wished them luck before the screen door slammed shut behind them. The engine roared and the RV signaled and merged back onto the road. So much for their ride.

  Tyson squinted, putting a hand up to shield his eyes from the sun. A man in overalls appeared from the shaded garage, rubbing his hands on a filthy blue rag.

  “How can I help you two?” the man drawled, sniffing and wiping his nose, adding another grease smear to his face.

  “You know Charlemagne?”

  The man spit, squinting at them. Realization dawned, brightening his entire face. He slapped the rag on his thigh and barked out a laugh. “You mean Charlie! Yeah, come on.”

  Tyson and Harper exchanged looks. A soothsayer named Charlie didn’t bode well to Tyson. What could a redneck auto mechanic tell him about interpreting ancient visions?

  The man in overalls took them winding through the shop. “The name’s Beuford. You can call me Bo. I hope you know what you’re getting into. Charlie, well, she’s something else.”

  The shop smelled like motor oil and dust. They stopped a brown-painted metal door that said “f— ice” with the other letters scratched off. Bo knocked.

  The door opened a crack and a woman stuck her head out. She had a nest of hair sticking out every direction from her messy bun and a bandana attempting to tame it or cover it up. Grease smears and who knew what else decorated her coveralls, arms, and face.

  “Hey Bo! What’d ya bring me?” She looked at Harper and grimaced, then saw Tyson at the back of the bunch and snaked a hand forward, grabbing the front of his shirt. She reeled him in, making sniffing noises. Her eyes widened.

  “Um, excuse me. Hi.” Tyson pushed against her hand, trying to get her off of him. He cleared his throat. “Are you Charlemagne?”

  “Ha!” The woman laughed. “Call me Charlie.” She stepped back and snapped her fingers. The office behind her glowed orange with swirls of pink inside, and the pulsing beat of electronic dance music wafted from beyond the door. The woman’s smile shone, and Tyson blinked at the glare from her teeth. In a moment, the coveralls disappeared, and she wore a black shirt with neon green writing, the sleeve slipping off her shoulder to reveal the strap of a purple leotard, and a neon pink skirt flared out from her waist. She looked like an 80s dancer, with her hair sprung out from its bun into a curled pouf, and she suddenly wore rouge and eye shadow in place of the grease smudges.

  “I’ll be working on the crossover we got in today, Charlie.”

  “Have at it, Bo.” She grinned at Tyson. “It’s not every day we get someone like you in here. Step into my office.” She jerked her head toward the door. “Your friend can wait outside while we chat.” And then she winked.

  Tyson glanced to Harper, who had her hand over her mouth like she stifled a laugh.

  “If this is a soothsayer, I’m a rockstar,” Tyson grumbled.

  Harper shrugged. “She does have magic. You have to at least give her that.”

  Tyson huffed and squared his shoulders before slipping into the neon-lit office. Gone were the stacks of paper he had glimpsed through the glass window, now shaded with a set of blinds. Charlie sat on a desk, her head moving in time to the beat.

  “What is all this?” Tyson asked, shouting over the growing music volume. “Some kind of joke?”

  “Never a joke, darling. We soothsayers and dreamwalkers channel our nearest generation ancestor who last held the power. Mine happens to be from the happenest era ever, don’t you think?” She tossed her hair.

  “Not sure I can take any of this seriously,” Tyson admitted.

  “At some point, you’re going to have to. In order to come into your abilities fully, you’ll need to go through what your ancestor went through to get their abilities.”

  He winced. “Does it involve dancing?”

  “Maybe,” Charlie didn’t seem offended by his lack of enthusiasm for her craft. She looked him up and down, then turned to her shelves where a line of naked little dolls with multicolored hair stood glassy-eyed. Trolls. Tyson remembered those. As Charlie muttered under her breath, the trolls’ eyes glowed in a color to match their hair, one by one. Charlie snatched a Rubix cube off the end of the shelf and turned it four times, fingers almost blurring. The surface glowed white, reflecting in the soothsayer’s eyes.

  “Your grandfather on your father’s side guides you.”

  The glow faded from the cube and the troll’s eyes simultaneously.

  “That’s it? I could have told you that,” Tyson said, shifting his gaze from Charlie to the trolls and back again. Without the creepy trolls.

  Charlie clapped her hands. “Oh! You’re having visions already. That’s good. Do you have a focal point?”

  Tyson gave her a puzzled look. He adjusted the backpack strap slung over his shoulder.

  “An object of familial importance that your ancestor could have owned,” Charlie explained.

  “Like a knife?”

  Charlie made a scrunched up face, looking at the disco ball in the ceiling, then paused. “Well, I suppose. It’s not as brilliant as I hoped, but it could be a knife, yes.”

  “My grandmother gave it to me. When I touch it, sometimes I get visions.” Other times light shoots out of it to defend me against goblins. He left that part off, though he figured of all people Charlie would understand.

  She pointed straight up at the glowing, floating ball. “The disco ball. Seriously. My aunt gave it to me right before she died. Who knew she was a soothsayer! Some called her a fortune-teller, but that’s sort of a derogatory term, you know? We’re not to be confused with the scam artists that show up at fairs and carnivals and only predict drama and happy endings.” She rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue between her teeth. “Anyway, what brings you to my shop?”

  Tyson wished he could get away from the strobing, pulsing lights. They were giving him a headache. He rubbed his temples and shut his eyes for a moment, and tried to think of why he was here. Harper wanted him to get more specifics from his visions. He opened his eyes. “Can you help me, uh, fine-tune my visions? They’re hard to understand.”

  Charlie let out a bell-like laugh. “That’s part of it, sweetheart. You have to learn to interpret them yourself. It will get easier after you complete the rites of passage.”

  “Rites of passage?”

  “Yeah. Journey to your homeland, find your mentor. They’ll prepare you for the rites of passage. Every soothsayer, or dreamwalker in your case, goes through them.”

  “Then there’s nothing you can do?” His shoulders slumped. His homeland was in Alaska, where his grandparents had come from, and they’d already been headed there. But Alaska was a huge place. How could he tell where to go to find this mentor?

  “I can take a reading, but I’ll warn you, it’s tricky looking into the aether for other seers like yourself. Our abilities can mix and do some pretty strange things. But seeing as you’re a fledgling, I doubt there would be much interference.” Charlie reached up to the twirling globe and unhooked it from the ceiling.

  Tyson remembered what Fred the goblin had said about cost. He shifted, coughing to clear his throat. Charlie paused and looked at him expectantly. “So, er, what would that cost, exactly?” Tyson winced. It sounded rude, but he couldn’t agree to this unless he knew upfront what he would have to pay.

  Charlie waved one hand, almost dropping the disco ball. “Oh pshh. For a fellow dreamwalker, I’ll consider it an investment in the future. You can pay me back if I ever need a reading.” She laughed clear and high, and Tyson cracked a nervous smile.

  “Still want to know?” Charlie asked.

  Tyson nodded.


  Charlie held it in relaxed, bent arms, staring into it like a crystal ball.

  Tyson stepped back like it was a bomb, his mouth suddenly gone dry. The globe’s metallic surface bled to white, and his mind flashed back to seeing the Beryllium orb in the basement of the lodge at Camp Silver Lake, Harper’s hands glued to it, her eyes lit up with an otherworldly light. She’d been out of his reach entirely.

  He unclenched his hands, flexing them, breathing in through his nose and trying to convince himself that this would be different. Charlie controlled this orb, not the other way around.

  “Gates,” Charlie intoned, an invisible wind lifting her curled locks slightly. Her eyes remained fixed on the transformed disco ball. “Gates. Arctic. Dreamwalker. Tribe. Gods.”

  She breathed in, shutting her eyes, and the disco ball dimmed. She shook herself all over like a dog after swimming, and smiled at Tyson.

  “Did you get all of that?”

  “Gates, gates, arctic, dreamwalker, tribe, gods.” Tyson ticked the words off on his fingers.

  “Very good. I’m impressed. I can’t always remember what I say.”

  “Is that all you saw? Just the words?”

  “Oh no. There are images too. Just a moment.” A stack of blank canvases hid beneath the long desk at the back of the room. Charlie dragged one out and concentrated on it, her eyes flashing psychedelic tones. The trolls behind her did the same, their beady little eyes pulsing out an unheard rhythm. And, as if she’d painted it, a scene appeared on the canvas.

  Tyson’s mouth dropped open as Charlie blinked and offered him the painting. He took it gingerly, as if the paint were still drying, but the surface felt more like it had been printed. “This is amazing!”

  “Thank you. I have some natural talent for painting, but these days it’s so much quicker to scan and print.” She laughed at her little joke, picking up the disco ball from the desk she’d sat it on and tiptoeing to hang it back up. It didn’t light up this time, to Tyson’s relief. He wanted to focus on the painting.

  It displayed a mountain scene. Two huge mountain ranges on either side of a valley with a river running through the center. Gates. Gates. Arctic. Why had Charlie said “gates” twice? Perhaps because there were two mountains on either side of the other, like a gate? Tiny figures stood in the valley on either side of the river. On the left side, a figure stood dressed in native garb, its face covered by a mask with a terrifying expression. Tyson shivered. On the opposite side stood a crowd, most of whom didn’t have detailed enough faces to make out, but several in the front did, and the more shocking thing was that two of them had jet black wings extended. An old man with long, greying hair, a young man standing next to him. And next to the winged men stood a blonde woman with green skin.

  Tribe. Tyson swallowed the lump in his throat and adjusted his grip on the painting. Aside from the green skin, it could be Becca. Had they escaped Aberration Management and found Harper’s tribe somehow?

  “See anyone you know?”

  “Maybe,” Tyson croaked. He scanned the rest of the painting. A bright white splash of paint glowed near the bottom right-hand corner, but no figures that could represent the gods Charlie had mentioned.

  “Know where you’re headed?”

  “I think so.” He handed the painting back to her.

  Charlie took it, looking somewhat dejected. “I don’t suppose you have a place for this in your backpack.” She chuckled to herself, then propped it up on a nearby desk and snapped her fingers. The lighting went from a warm glow to the stale ambience of flickering fluorescents. Piles of mismanaged papers cascaded across the desks, burying the trolls and Rubix cube. The disco-crystal ball hid under the guise of a broken ceiling fan.

  Charlie thumbed her pockets and grinned at Tyson. “Transformation is a fun thing, my friend. You should look forward to discovering your forms.”

  I like this form well enough, I think, Tyson thought as Charlie opened the door. He stepped out into the banging, clanging noise of the shop, letting reality wash back over him. Charlie slapped him on the back.

  “You come back when your adventure is over, eh? I like to hear how the whole story plays out.”

  “Of course.” The words fell automatically from Tyson’s lips. He licked them and blinked at the perplexed look on Harper’s face. She glanced from him to Charlie and back again, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “Finished already?” Harper asked.

  Already? They’d been in there for what felt like an hour. “I think so,” Tyson said.

  “He’s a good one, Harper King. Don’t underestimate him.” Charlie raised an eyebrow and adjusted the filthy bandana on her head.

  “S-sure,” Harper stuttered, as if she wasn’t sure how to respond. Tyson smiled. He waved as Charlie passed him to get back to work, and he could have sworn she winked at him.

  Bo escorted them out of the auto shop and into the bright morning sunlight. He wished them luck and jogged back into the shop, leaving them standing on the side of the road together. Tyson squinted, looking up and down the highway.

  “So, thumbs out?” he asked reluctantly.

  A horn honked, drowning out Harper’s response. There were no cars on the road. Tyson looked behind them to see a blue Jeep roaring out from behind the shop. It pulled to a stop beside them, and Charlie slapped the side.

  “I heard you needed a ride. Ain’t nothing more reliable than this buggy.” She jumped out, tossing Tyson the keys. He caught them, blinking rapidly. He swallowed past the lump in his throat.

  “You sure about this?” he called out.

  Charlie waved and gave him a thumbs up, already headed back toward the shop. “Just bring it back in one piece, if you can manage,” she hollered.

  Harper’s jaw had dropped. Tyson had never seen her so shocked, and it made him laugh.

  “So, I got us a ride,” he said, feeling a bit smug.

  Harper punched his shoulder. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

  They climbed inside. Tyson slung his backpack into the back seat, and started the Jeep, gripping the wheel.

  Alaska, here I come.

  Tyson immediately reached for the radio dial. Harper groaned, but didn’t stop him. He turned to his favorite station—news and country music. The jaunty tune of the previous song faded and a voice crackled to life as Tyson signaled to enter the highway.

  “That was Ann Garner and ‘She’s Crazy.’ Thanks for the request, Allison from Prosser. Speaking of crazy, have you seen any psychopathic paranormal murderers, lately?”

  Harper sat bolt upright. “Turn it up.”

  Tyson adjusted the dial.

  “That’s right, folks. We’ve got a report that two unstable individuals escaped from a Naturalization camp here in Oregon. Authorities are concerned about the damage these two can do, so they have given us descriptions of the perpetrators and ask that if anyone has more information, to please call in now.

  “They are a man and a woman traveling together. The man is Caucasian, has brown hair, brown eyes, and stands about average height. His abilities are unknown. The woman appears to be of Native Indian origin and has short black hair, brown eyes, and is about 5’1”. She is a dangerous type of shifter— a raven, with unprecedented abilities.”

  Tyson and Harper stared at each other. A horn honked, and Tyson swerved back into his lane, heart pounding in his chest.

  Someone had reported the incident at Camp Silver Lake, and now, they were wanted.

  ⇺ ⇻

  Chapter Nine

  Harper

  “These two have been marked as extremely dangerous. Do not approach or attempt to restrain on your own. Dial 6-1-1 upon sighting or if you have any information.”

  The radio host finished the broadcast and cut to a commercial. It took Tyson a moment before he turned the volume down. A stunned silence filled the cab of the Jeep.

  Tyson glanced at her with so much frequency, Harper expected he woul
d have whiplash later. She didn’t have the energy to tell him to stop, and to his credit he didn’t ask her what was wrong or try to fill the silence. They were being hunted. Every human, and some law-abiding paranormals, would be on the lookout for them. Crossing state lines hadn’t helped them.

  Who could have told?

  “It was Lilith, wasn’t it?” Tyson said after a long moment. “The deaths had to be reported or someone would have come looking. Smart move on Lilith’s part to set up a scapegoat. Everyone saw us fly away during the fight that broke out. It’s too good. And she pays you so you won’t suspect when she reports it. She doesn’t care if you take the fall.”

  Harper nodded numbly. The credit card seemed to burn in her back pocket. Lilith planned all of this out. She got Harper to make Violet and James vulnerable so the witch could kill them in cold blood, then made sure no one would suspect her. It was brilliant. And Harper had been too blinded by her own fury to question it.

  She flexed her fingers, staring at the half-moon crescents in her palm from where her fingernails had dug into the skin.

  She was a wanted fugitive. Wanted not just for being inhuman, but because they thought she had killed two people. Had she? Were the deaths of Violet and James Petrov her fault?

  Tyson must have sensed her mood because he turned the music back up on the radio and drove without saying anything else.

  It gave Harper too much time to think. Her thoughts replayed the events of the previous morning—the Beryllium orb, their escape from the camp—and she kept tripping over the hole in her mind. She worried at it, prodding it from different angles, wondering what she could have forgotten that would leave such a big, empty hole in her subconscious. She tried throwing different memories and ideas around to see if something would spark, but… nothing. It made her want to curl up in a corner and cry, but there were no corners to cry in while road-tripping in a Jeep with a camp counselor who listened to country music.