Cleo's Curse

by Allie Burton

  “It’s happening… To. Her.” Jeb’s voice was faint as if coming from a distance, but I saw his shoes through squinted eyelids.

  “But it’s my right. My inheritance.” Xander stomped his sandaled foot near my head. “My destiny.”

  “It’s too late.” Jeb’s voice curled like a sneer with extra hatred. “The transfer has occurred. This stupid girl is now in possession of King Tutankhamun’s soul.”

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  Excerpt from

  Tut’s Trumpet

  Soul Warriors Book 2

  by Allie Burton

  Her grandfather kidnapped.

  An ancient instrument of death in her hands.

  A warrior from the past determined to stop her.

  When sixteen-year-old Aria York loses her parents, she thinks nothing worse can happen. Then her grandfather is kidnapped by a mysterious Egyptian cult and she is being hunted by two competing sects. Both want King Tut’s trumpet of war and will kill to obtain the legendary instrument.

  When Aria plays the magical trumpet she forgets her grief. Instead, triumph, greed and anger flow through her veins. When chaos erupts in San Francisco as a direct result, she realizes she must trust a tortured warrior even though he demands she hand over the trumpet or risk enveloping the world in war.

  Falcon comes from the past with a goal to save the future. He makes a deal with Aria to help save her grandfather, risking his quest by involving the girl and jeopardizing his heart.

  Aria wants to believe him, but knows there’s something even bigger at stake. A secret so powerful neither teen understands the implications. As each precious hour passes, she’s forced to ask: Is she playing the trumpet or is the trumpet playing her?

  “Tut’s Trumpet is spellbinding, dark and furious as the chaos is unleashed and felt throughout. Fascinating reading with touches of myth, history, legends and more. Did I mention the magic of romance?” –Dii, Top 500 reviewer

  Excerpt:

  Weird I didn’t feel the same pull to play the flute as I had with Tut’s trumpet.

  A door snickered closed downstairs. The noise echoed up the stairs and into the music room. The classical guitar CD I’d put on was silenced.

  All the warm fuzzy feelings fled. I froze in place. Panic pulsed and thrummed to a wild beat. My ears perked trying to hear more over my internal rock band. My brain swarmed with scenarios. The biggest one—the only one—the kidnapper had snuck in the house.

  My gaze darted around the room. No phone. No escape.

  I picked up the biggest thing I could carry, a guitar, and raised it above my shoulder. If I could get to Grandfather’s room I could use the phone to call the police. They said they’d be in the neighborhood.

  Rushing to the music room doorway, I peeked down the hall. The lights were on. I didn’t hear anything or anyone.

  I tiptoed down the hall, holding the guitar above my head. Maybe I’d been imagining the noise. Maybe with the excitement I’d thought I’d heard something.

  The steps creaked.

  I stopped. Anxiety sizzled causing the hairs on my body to stand on end. The steps always creaked when someone was coming up the stairs.

  Maybe the kidnappers had gotten impatient and they’d come to search for the trumpet themselves. Maybe they’d already killed my grandfather. Maybe they were going to kill me.

  Each maybe led to a more terrifying scenario. My body trembled and my muscles tightened with the decision of fight or flight.

  The stairs creaked again.

  Whoever was there was taking the stairs one step at a time. Sneaking in. They knew I was here and didn’t want to be discovered.

  Too late.

  I sped into my grandfather’s room, reached for the phone, and lifted it to my ear.

  Buzzzzzzzzz.

  Not a dial tone. I jammed the disconnect button several times. The same sound. The phone wasn’t working or was disconnected.

  Horror screeched through me. The internal screaming reached a pitch no opera diva could hit. My organs shriveled and I fought against complete and total panic.

  I took stock of the room. The windows were too high to jump from. The bed had drawers fashioned underneath with no place to hide below.

  The top step squeaked in its own special way. The intruder was in the upstairs hallway.

  Raving fear shredded my lungs. I found it hard to breathe. I couldn’t stand in the middle of the room like a sacrificial pheasant.

  With shaky legs, I dashed inside the closet with the guitar. My only weapon of defense. I closed the door most of the way and peered between the crack. A shadow emerged against the wall. Tall, male, determined.

  The figure moved to the center of the room. Close to six feet and around one hundred and sixty pounds. Full lips positioned above a strong, pointy jaw with a dimple in the middle. The jaw was a perfect foil for the prominent cheekbones. Messy dark hair, long on the top and sticking out at odd angles as if he’d run his fingers through it. Broad shoulders in a tight black T-shirt. Trim waist. Tight jeans molding to strong thighs.

  The specific inventory was only so I could describe him better to the police.

  His sharp emerald gaze scanned Grandfather’s room. Perused the closet door.

  My muscles tensed ready to attack if needed. I held my breath. Didn’t move. From this angle, he couldn’t see me. Could the intruder sense I was here?

  Raising the guitar in slow speed, my arms shook. The weight of fear pushed down with tripled gravity.

  The intruder stalked toward the closet.

  Pure terror stoked a fire inside me.

  His strong hand grabbed the door handle. Pulled.

  The door swung open, exposing me.

  My internal fire exploded into action. Without thought, I swung the guitar down on top of the intruder.

  Thwack.

  The acoustic guitar cracked over his head. The base bonged and the strings strummed. A symphony gone wild. The neck broke in two and the strings sprang free. Sadness plucked. I’d destroyed the beautiful instrument.

  Quit mourning the guitar and move!

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  Excerpt from

  Peace Piper

  Soul Warriors Book 3

  by Allie Burton

  Her mother slowly dying in a poisonous plot of power.

  An ancient instrument of peace threatening ultimate destruction.

  A determined brainiac demanding secrets and smart enough to uncover them.

  Piper Akins has lived her entire life in the clutches of an evil cult and wants to run away. But with her uncle’s double cross and her mother on her deathbed, she has no choice but to do as the cult demands and search for the supposed magical trumpet of King Tut.

  Thanks to an unknown but powerful father, Piper is immune to the trumpet’s effects. But she’s not immune to the charms of Soul Warrior Math, who believes she’s working with him not against him.

  Math might be the smartest warrior in the force, but he wants to be respected for his physical prowess. The only way to prove this is to discover Piper’s secrets, find the missing trumpet of peace, and defeat the evil cult. When Piper tricks him, he realizes he’s failed on all counts.

  While Piper and Math circle around each other, pretending one thing, believing another, the threat grows. Her mother will certainly die if Piper doesn’t betray her growing love for Math. And Math must offer more than muscles and brains to win Piper over. He must offer his heart.

  But can both learn to trust each other in time to stop mankind’s annihilation?

  “The characters are fun, flirty and mysterious. The storyline is engaging and wonderfully paced. Oh yes, I am digging these Soul Warriors and their history. 5 Magical Stars!” –I Read Indie Review

  Excerpt:

  The eerie quietness of my uncle’s pawn shop slithered across my skin making the hairs on my arms stand at attention. Something was wrong. The shop was usually crawling with down-on-their-luck people who
traded precious objects for cash, but there wasn’t a soul around in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday. Uncle Louie profited from people’s misery. The dirtiness of his business clung to me, and I always left needing a shower.

  From the back room, he dealt in stolen and black-market goods. Illegal items. Magical relics.

  The reason for my visit today.

  Inching into the shop, I trod carefully around the frayed carpet near the stairs and the dented linoleum floor. A moldy smell wafted from the bookcases. The shelves lining the walls were filled with clocks and paintings and other knickknacks the good people of San Francisco could no longer afford. The floor itself held antique couches and rocking chairs, musical instruments, and even a fake mummy.

  I lived in the basement of an Egyptian museum and I’d seen a real mummy. I’d seen lots of strange items and occurrences.

  A screeching noise came from the back room.

  My body stiffened. Every muscle contracted and tightened. I jerked my head up, listening. Someone was in the shop.

  The killer? Or my uncle? Or maybe he was both?

  Nothing Uncle Louie did surprised me. Aaron said my uncle would do anything to make a buck. I planned to escape from both of them. Soon.

  I couldn’t take the time to discover if and how Bob died, I needed to find out who lived, who was making the noise. If it was Uncle Louie, he could deal with this death scene.

  The screeching continued and my body hummed along. The music called to me in a strange way, even though it sounded like a badly-played instrument. A saxophone or a trumpet.

  My heart thudded and dropped, tapping at my feet like one of Tut’s gold sandals. Couldn’t be the powerful instrument I’d been sent to pick up.

  Uncle Louie wouldn’t be so stupid to disobey the demands of the Magical Order of Crucis. Would he? I might be scared of Uncle Louie, but I was terrified of the Order. They held my life and my mom’s life in their fascist fists. Or in Mom’s case, their underground ceremonial temple.

  An urge to follow the sound tugged me forward. Only because it was my job to retrieve Tut’s Trumpet of Peace. Nothing else. Brushing aside the urge to run toward the noise, I forced myself to walk to the back room at a slow, steady pace. I didn’t believe in the magical properties the trumpet was supposed to possess.

  I followed the discordant notes into the short, dark hallway leading toward the bathroom, break room, and my uncle’s office. The disgusting bathroom was to the right. Door open and empty. A person had to be desperate to use the foul facilities.

  The break room was to the left. A shop employee lay on top of the table, a lit cigarette dangling from his hand. Motionless. No blood or gaping wound.

  The pounding in my heart increased so fast it sounded like a speeding train. The hairs on my body didn’t just stand at attention, they froze in place. Holy hieroglyphics.

  Moving past, I knew I couldn’t help the guy if he was still alive. I was good at fixing machines, not people. Plus, this need to find the source of the sound pulled. I glanced at my cell phone, recording my stroll through the land of the dead. Calling the cops would be the smart thing to do, the right thing to do, except Uncle Louie would kill me. Unless he was dead, too.

  And Aaron, the leader of the Order, would assign me a fate worse than death.

  Indecision danced on my own grave. Be killed by the killer or call the cops and be killed by Uncle Louie or Aaron. Which will it be, Piper?

  I’d finally gotten my driver’s license and a bit of freedom from Aaron and the Order. Before, they’d kept us prisoners in the secret basement of the museum. Hoping to use my new freedom once Mom was healthy, I planned to escape. In the meantime, I was trying to prove my trustworthiness to Aaron while I bided my time.

  “It’s a valuable artifact.” Uncle Louie’s greedy voice slid into the hallway—a wheeling and dealing snake.

  The imagined snake slunk across my skin. The fear he was dead faded. The fear he might kill me never waned. The instrument still played. And still pulled. I held my body back, hiding by the doorway.

  “Worth lots of money.” Uncle Louie continued his sales pitch, although he slurred his words. Weird, because Uncle Louie didn’t drink. “The trumpet came with a special shipment from Egypt.”

  That very trumpet blared in my head, confirming my suspicion and heralding my demise. Uncle Louie was selling Tut’s Trumpet of Peace. Aaron would be furious and the Magical Order of Crucis would take retribution on Uncle Louie.

  On me, and my mom, too.

  The urge to dash into the room and rip the trumpet away from the player pulsed inside of me. To save myself, my mom, and the trumpet.

  “How much?” A nasally voice asked.

  The trumpet screeched a high, out-of-tune chord, so there had to be a third person in the room who played. The need to play the trumpet rushed through my bloodstream and twitched in my fingers. I could play the trumpet so much better even though I’d never had a single music lesson or touched an instrument in my life.

  Confusion jumbled my thinking. Why would I think I could play it?

  The desire to play battled with fear of this same desire. Teasing and taunting, fighting for my soul. My job was to pick up the trumpet from Uncle Louie and deliver it to Aaron, not play the instrument.

  Uncle Louie was the middleman. The Order had the trumpet delivered to him in an illegal shipment. He was supposed give the trumpet to me so I could bring it to Aaron. The Magical Order of Crucis believed the Trumpet of Peace would bring harmony to the world, and Mom would be free from her pain and suffering.

  Camel dung.

  How could Tut’s trumpet bring peace when it had already caused death?

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  Excerpt from

  Atlantis Riptide

  Lost Daughters of Atlantis Book 1

  by Allie Burton

  When a girl runs away from the circus…

  For all her sixteen years, Pearl Poseidon has been a fish out of water. A freak on display for her adoptive parents’ profit. Running away from her horrible life, she craves one thing—anonymity. But when she saves a small boy from drowning she exposes herself and her mutant abilities to Chase, a budding investigative reporter.

  Now, he has questions. And so do the police.

  Once Pearl discovers her secret identity, she learns she’s part of a larger war between battling Atlanteans. A battle that will decide who rules the oceans. A battle raging between evil and her true family. Will she find a way to use her powers in time to save a kingdom she never knew existed?

  This is the start of a young adult fantasy action adventure novel series. “Free sweet summer young adult paranormal with death-defying underwater rescues.” Reviewer

  Excerpt:

  The sea otter twirled around behind me. His cold snout bumped me on the back.

  “Are you trying to tell me something?” The question sounded so stupid leaving my tongue. I’m mean, come on, talking to an animal?

  He swam back in front and nodded his head up and down. Yes.

  I reeled back and caught my breath. I was talking to a sea otter.

  The otter ducked under and swam around me in a circle. Then, he lay on his back and used his paw in a “come here” motion.

  I ducked under and swam in a circle around him. He circled again, and so did I. We were swimming in a constant figure-eight pattern under the water.

  Unbelievable. I was playing with a sea otter. My spirits soared. My smile widened. Like being a five-year-old at a playground, I’d made my first real friend.

  Not that the otter was a human friend, but it counted. Didn’t it?

  Following for a bit, I stopped when I realized he headed to shore. “I don’t want to go back yet.” I wasn’t ready to leave the comfort of the water and return to my lonely tent.

  The sea otter shook his head fast in an agitated motion. Even his furry face appeared upset.

  “Can’t we play longer?” I remembered reading about sea otters and ho
w they played. Slipping and sliding and diving. Turning and twisting underwater, kind of like I’d done earlier.

  He did the “follow me” motion again. Then his eyes grew wide and his whiskers twitched.

  I twisted around, but saw nothing. The fog had rolled closer to shore, but the stars and the moon still gave off a little light. A small motor boat sounded in the distance.

  I faced him again. “What’s wrong?”

  The sea otter was gone. My furry friend had left me.

  Alone, again.

  An ache tore through my chest and I sniffed. “That’s okay. I’m used to being by myself.”

  The water around me swirled. Waves gathered in a big circle, expanding out in further and further concentric loops. The pattern repeated with more strength and velocity. Like a toilet being flushed, the water pooled into a vortex.

  My body caught in the current. I couldn’t move out of the circle, surrounded by a ring of water. My tummy churned with the motion. My gaze glazed over watching the water go round and round like a hypnotist’s trick.

  A strange sensation sucked at my toes. The feeling continued up my legs to my hips. I kicked and clawed but the water tugged like a ginormous vacuum at the bottom of the ocean.