Heather sat silently, cupped the over-sized coffee mug, and watched a woman and young boy enter the coffee shop. In his grasp were a small stack of papers and a roll of tape. The mother cut through the line, ignoring the “hey” and “get in line” as she approached the young girl at the register. Heather couldn’t hear what the woman said but noticed the young girl nod and take one of the pages from the boy. Her smile appeared broken. The mother and son exited the coffee shop, offered an apology or two and a wave of the hand as they left. The cashier stepped to the store-front window and taped up the page she took from the boy. Though the sun had already dipped below the horizon long ago, the ambient light from the streets was enough to display the photocopy through the stark white paper.
MISSING DOG
FIFI
She squinted at the black and white photograph of the pooch beneath its name.
IF FOUND, PLEASE CALL (718) 555-1634
REWARD - $500.00
“Well?” Kelsey said and brushed back sandy tresses behind her ear. Her blue eyes pierced the intimately lit darkness of the café and snapped Heather from her daze.
“Well, what?”
“Am I right?” Kelsey asserted. Heather’s gaze slipped downward. Kelsey rolled her eyes.
“I know you loved him and I’m sorry to hear about what happened, but holy shit, it’s about time you fucking dumped him.”
“Oh, would you just be quiet? Not everybody’s as heartless as you,” Emma said. Kelsey gawped.
“Heartless! How’s that heartless? It’s the fucking truth. Heather hasn’t been herself in like, what? A year? More? Are you that blind to see what he was doing to her?”
“But she loved him! You don’t just unlove someone,” Emma barked. Heather watched the blush of anguish rise to her cheeks. Emma was petite, nothing short of charming and pure, with her curly bob and pinch of the cheeks and lips for color instead of makeup. When her passions flared, even the alleyway denizens would quake at her footfalls. Except for Kelsey.
Heather believed Kelsey enjoyed pushing Emma’s buttons to see how long it would take before the gentle nymph would morph into a violent ogre. Although only friends, if it were true that opposites attract, then Kelsey and Emma would be together forever. Lovers or not. Kelsey teased at the idea a few times during Junior year. Emma never entertained the shenanigans. Even if she used the excuse of “experimentation,” or over-indulgence, her father would disown her. He promised as much.
“Will the two of you just stop? Heather doesn’t need any of this bullshit,” Beatrice said and squeezed Heather’s hand. Heather slipped away. “You see what you’re doing to this poor girl? I called you here because she needs us!”
“You know what I need?”
You need to end this.
Shut up!
How do you expect all of this to end if you’re wasting your time with—
“Shut up. Please,” she sniveled.
“What?” Beatrice simpered.
“I need a drink. Whose great idea was it coming to a coffee shop,” Heather said. She knew she didn’t need a drink, but she sure as fuck wanted one. It would settle the nerves her “besties” got on. They meant well, they always did. It would quiet the voices within.
“What you need is a nice, warm bath, surrounded by candles and lite music,” Emma said.
“Bullshit. Plug in your wand and go to town. You want to feel better? Go fuck yourself. Literally,” Kelsey said.
“Oh, my God, you are really just gross,” Beatrice groaned. It curled Heather’s lips upwards as she hoisted her purse.
“Where’re you going,” Kelsey snapped. “We had a whole weekend planned.” Beatrice snatched Heather by the back of the arm.
“I’m not feeling up to staying out. I know you all made and canceled plans to be here, but I’m going home and taking everyone’s advice. Even yours, Kels,” Heather winked. “We’ll try this again tomorrow. Come on, Bea. I want to make it to Arnipoor’s before they close.”
“We’re not leaving,” Beatrice ordered. “I know you. You’re not going to move on until you figure out what happened. Wish you wouldn’t, but that’s not the Heather I know.” The other women agreed. Heather snickered.
“What makes you think I’m going to do that?” Heather said.
Emma thrust her hands to her hips and cocked her head. “What did you do when Kelsey aced her thesis with Professor Harris?”
“Oh, please,” Heather snapped. “She was bombing Law Philosophy. You know she slept with him.”
“Okay, you’re right. What about when they changed the dorm policy on boys? You wouldn’t stop until you found out it was because Erica Schwartz had a bunch of guys over from Oneonta,” Emma said.
“Everybody figured that one out! She filmed herself having a fucking gangbang, Em. Don’t be such a fucking prude,” Kelsey said.
“Oh my, God. Let’s get back to Chase then. What about when he told her he doesn’t want to know anything about his birth parents?”
Heather looked away. It was a venture she had to abandon. First, because the web search turned up articles she was too afraid to continue reading. Second, Chase found out. It wasn’t pretty.
“Leave me alone,” Emma snapped. “Anyway, Heather, we know you don’t know when to let go, so, we’re coming along for the ride and make sure you don’t get any more hurt than you are. Deal?”
Heather nodded and reconsidered the flyer in the window.
PURPOSE
Alchemy’s law of Equivalent Exchange states that mankind cannot gain without losing something in return. The law was expressed to her as a child when magic was thought to be nothing more than just charlatan’s tricks intended to drain bank accounts. Examples of the law were imparted only as a child would understand.
“If I offer you a piece of candy, what will you present in return?”
He remained silent, awaiting her riposte. The ear to ear grin, the squeaky-voiced, six-year-old answered.
“Thank you?”
An explosion of fireflies filled her vision as the sting of a thousand needles reddened her cheek, barely desaturated compared to her wavy auburn tresses. Emerald eyes fixed in fear and confusion peered through dainty fingers. The whoosh of air recoiled her once again as he yanked her hand away before she could attach childish emotion to the pain.
“Are you a hound,” he barked. “Perhaps a bitch?” His voice growled like that of a rabid mutt. “Only a hound will address their master as such. A bitch would snap back. Do you dare?
Little Grace Whitmore remained frozen, silent. His eyes eased closed as if he realized she was his kindergarten aged daughter rather than someone else’s high school brat.
“Again; if I offer you a piece of candy, what will you present in return?” His thicket of untamable eyebrows knitted. The creases of experience and jaded comprehension already folded the flesh of his forehead as the claws of crow’s feet stretched from the corners of his eyes. A flash of wonderment placed her teacher, her father, much older than what she perceived.
Could he have been her grandfather? A long-lost uncle? His accent was nothing like her mother’s. And now that she considered it, her mother was somewhat older than most others. Was she adopted? Grace had heard that there were children who had mommies and daddies that we not really their own and wondered if she might be just like them.
No. Grace had the same hair, the same eyes as Mommy. And the silent fire within like Daddy. Unaware or lucid, Grace knew that Mommy and Daddy were indeed hers.
Silvery orbs pierced the particles of dust that passed between them in the Upstate New York meadow. His silence hushed the surrounding wildlife. His virgin white dress shirt, cinched up around the shoulders by his lightless black suspenders that held up his equally ebony slacks, appeared dismally contrast to the greens, blues and golds of nature.
She sniffled and choked back her embarrassment and desolation in her frantic quest for the only answer he might accept. A catcher’s mitt of a hand, dry and calloused, gr
asped her by the face and puckered her lips.
“If you have nothing to offer, and you still want that candy, beware that something you hold dear will be taken from you. Without regard for your will. That is the law.”
“But I don’t know what to offer you, Father. I’m sorry.” The sting of tears had already clouded her vision. Aged, tombstone teeth expanded as his thin lips stretched back into a menacing grin. A sight that drew more fear than ease. Arms outstretched, he summoned her with a nod. She dived into his clutch and apologized.
He hushed her. “I did not edify to cause you pain or confusion, but to impart an important lesson in reciprocity. Now, dear, to your room. Consider your piano studies. Mother will have dinner prepared by sunset. Your favorite; pie and pudding,” he said. She lifted her head and kissed him on the cheek before she dashed away.
Throughout her life, this lesson, the first of many, became ingrained so deeply, nearly every silken word that fell from her ruby lips directed advantage and desire. She also measured her appearance that aided in her receiving everything she wished for. And if the proposition was right, she would offer herself.
Never would she subjugate herself to the likeness of a hound, a bitch. She would be the mistress, the superior, the magistrate. Like her father.
Ancient Jacobean stairs groaned under each footfall as she ascended. The cedar balusters, painted over more times than there were owners and occupants, supported the silky glide of her hand across the banister. Purpose was her solitary intent as she stepped closer toward the doorway atop the landing. One of three rooms, she arrived at her study, her temple, her sanctum sanctorum. Ever since she purchased the Soho building more than a decade ago, no one, beside the contractor who stripped everything from the room, save for the plasterboard and support beams in the loft, entered the room without invitation.
“Your temple must remain clean to you and your purpose. Never allow it to be tainted by the impure, lest the secrets you desire shall remain concealed forevermore.” Another lesson learned after disobeying her father when she allowed her teenage friends to run amok in her bedroom.
The click of the brass doorknob and the rasp of rusted hinges, her plush robe drifted from her shoulders onto the floor. She leaned her nude back against the door and drew her hand upwards towards the slide bolt as her eyes pierced the darkness before her. The haunting odors of iron, copper, and lavender drifted over the foremost scent of molded pine as the moonlight poured through the seeded glass windows and illuminated the vast, empty space in the natural azure hues of night.
Bare feet circumambulated the room as whispered chants drifted from her supple lips. Voluptuous hips rolled in oceanic waves. Their rhythm, subtle and deliberate as her intent.
The circle complete, she stepped towards the desk amid the center of the room. Delicate fingers swept down the oxidized shaft of the support beam as she admired the handcrafted frieze. The scrollwork, gouged with expressions of bane and sorrow, bowed before her, subservient to her regard. She placed both hands upon the worn pine top as she slipped onto the seat. A chill volleyed up her spine as flesh connected with the emotionless wood. Sliding the solitary drawer of the desk open, fingers wrapped around the cracked leather hilt of a blade. Although her Latin suffered, she spoke one phrase as fluently as her English. She drew the jagged edge of the blade to her mouth and whispered.
“Pater. Ostende mihi te ipsum. Domine deduc me in semita in tenebris.”
Her tongue snaked out and slid over the blade. The taste of iron coated her mouth as she spat into her open palm. Dipping the tip of her nail into her essence, upon the table she illustrated crude symbols. The scrape of nail to wood sent another bolt up her spine. She spat once more into her hand and prayed. “Eoligos, Lord of the Visible and Invisible, show me the way.”
Eyes closed, her finger continued in unconscious design.
“Lahad, Voice of the Abyss, command his words and fill my conscious with his wisdom.”
“Helel Ben Shahar, Lord of Light, illuminate the path unto his feet.”
“Surgat, open all locks between this world and the next and grant his admission. Let my life blood detriment supplant for his knowledge.”
Emerald eyes peered through the gloom, searching, awaiting reception as the murmur of a passing conversation along Spring Street momentarily seized her attention. A slight shake of her head pushed the disturbance into the distance. If her cohort had been invited to assist, perhaps the sidewalk stragglers would have been persuaded to remain silent. That was if he could keep quiet himself. On too many occasions, he proved a bigger distraction than an overturning truck filled with glass and dynamite.
A voice whispered over her shoulder from the black nothingness. Her head tilted, and her gaze shifted towards the sound. Amber tendrils dripped over her nude shoulder as every strand brushed through the delicate fibers that covered her fair skin. No light fell within the corner of the chamber. Through the black, she recognized it was he. His voice, though a mere whisper, obsessive and entreated, harmonious and sensitive, its solemn tones beckoned her as deeply as she did him.
Slowly, her hand reached into the drawer and removed several sheets of parchment, careful not to drop the cartridge fountain pen atop. Heat prickled across her skin as he, or it, drew near. The air tightened and cooled around her as she exhaled. Goosebumps arose on her shoulder as the ethereal consciousness touched her. And it drew the corners of her lips upwards. She dipped her head to her other shoulder and listened. Eyes closed as he spoke. Her pen twirled and moved across the parchment as the words passed through her and out her hand.
There is not one, but two whom you are to subjugate. Take heed for the time is short…
She accepted the dictation for nearly an hour, her purpose defined, she placed the pen atop the desk and smiled.
To continue reading, head over to jgkor.com now to download.
A MOMENT OF YOUR TIME
Did you enjoy The Accursed? Would you like other readers like you to enjoy it too? That’s where I need your help.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JG Koratzanis is an artist, musician, and author of the Victim of Fate series.
A native New Yorker, JG has spent his life observing, reading and writing about the City that never sleeps, giving his characters a true fortitude from a real world.
When he’s not writing, he enjoys writing and recording original music, playing with his kids, and eating peanut butter and cheddar cheese while watching shows like Black Mirror and Marvel’s The Punisher on Netflix.
He lives in New Jersey with his wife, kids, and Jerry the Dog.
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www.jgkor.com
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The Accursed and The Estranged was originally written as Coward: A Dark Tragedy. As the previous subtitle suggested, it was a tragedy. It was a story that I didn’t fully unfold, and I didn’t realize it until it was too late.
These books are that full realization. Whereas Coward was a 48K word novel, The Accursed is close to 70K while The Estranged sits around 42K (110K total.) Obviously, there was a lot added, even and more deleted.
The Estranged is a gift for you, available at jgkor.com. I hope you enjoy. It’s worth your time considering the events of both The Accursed and The Estranged as they expand further in the next book, The Condemned.
Other books by J.G. Koratzanis
The Estranged – The Concurrent Novel to The Accursed,
AVAILABLE ONLY AT jgkor.com
The Condemned – Victim of Fate II
COMING SOON
The Wicked – Victi
m of Fate III
The Redeemed – Victim of Fate IV
Other books in the series to be announced…
COPYRIGHT
The Accursed
Copyright © 2018 JG Koratzanis
All rights reserved.
First eBook Edition 2018
KJ Publishing
Cover Design by JKOR Graffix
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the author is illegal and punishable by law.
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