Table of Contents
Synopsis
What Reviewers Say About Barbara Ann Wright’s Work
By the Author
Acknowledgments
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Epilogue
About the Author
Books Available from Bold Strokes Books
Synopsis
Cressida loves Greek mythology, tales of gods and monsters, but she knows they aren’t real no matter how awesome it would be to meet the beautiful women of myth. When her aunt June disappears, Cressida realizes the other members of her family aren’t so rational. June’s notes point to a possible entrance to the fabled Underworld before they cut off completely.
Following June’s footsteps leads Cressida into a world she knew only as legend, a place of marvels and danger, where the living are highly prized by the dead. Desperate, Cressida turns to Medusa, a demigoddess who’s been maligned by myth, but everything in the Underworld comes with a price. Medusa is more than willing to help find June, and all it will cost Cressida is one little murder.
What Reviewers Say About Barbara Ann Wright’s Work
The Pyradisté Adventures
“…a healthy dose of a very creative, yet believable, world into which the reader will step to find enjoyment and heart-thumping action. It’s a fiendishly delightful tale.”—Lamda Literary
“Barbara Ann Wright is a master when it comes to crafting a solid and entertaining fantasy novel. …The world of lesbian literature has a small handful of high-quality fantasy authors, and Barbara Ann Wright is well on her way to joining the likes of Jane Fletcher, Cate Culpepper, and Andi Marquette. …Lovers of the fantasy and futuristic genre will likely adore this novel, and adventurous romance fans should find plenty to sink their teeth into.”—The Rainbow Reader
“The Pyramid Waltz has had me smiling for three days. …I also haven’t actually read…a world that is entirely unfazed by homosexuality or female power before. I think I love it. I’m just delighted this book exists. …If you enjoyed The Pyramid Waltz, For Want of a Fiend is the perfect next step…you’d be embarking on a joyous, funny, sweet and madcap ride around very dark things lovingly told, with characters who will stay with you for months after.”—The Lesbrary
“This book will keep you turning the page to find out the answers. …Fans of the fantasy genre will really enjoy this installment of the story. We can’t wait for the next book.”—Curve Magazine
Thrall: Beyond Gold and Glory
“…incidents and betrayals run rampant in this world, and Wright’s style successfully kept me on my toes, navigating the shifting alliances… [Thrall] is a story of finding one’s path where you would least expect it. It is full of bloodthirsty battles and witty repartee…which gave it a nice balanced focus…This was the first Barbara Ann Wright novel I’ve read, and I doubt it will be the last. Her dialogue was concise and natural, and she built a fantastical world that I easily imagined from one scene to the next. Lovers of Vikings, monsters and magic won’t be disappointed by this one.”—Curve Magazine
“The characters were likable, the issues complex, and the battles were exciting. I really enjoyed this book and I highly recommend it.”—All Our Worlds
Coils
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Coils
© 2016 By Barbara Ann Wright. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN 13: 978-1-62639-599-2
This Electronic Book is published by
Bold Strokes Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 249
Valley Falls, New York 12185
First Edition: September 2016
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Credits
Editor: Cindy Cresap
Production Design: Susan Ramundo
Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])
By the Author
The Pyradisté Adventures
The Pyramid Waltz
For Want of a Fiend
A Kingdom Lost
The Fiend Queen
Thrall: Beyond Gold and Glory
Paladins of the Storm Lord
Coils
Acknowledgments
As always, to Mom and Ross. You’re just that great. A big thank you to Angela, Deb, Erin, Matt, Natsu, and Pattie for reading my work and making it better. Thanks to Cindy Cresap for the same. Thanks, David Slayton, for always being awesome and spending more money on my books than you should. And thanks to all my wonderful mythology teachers. I loved every minute.
Dedication
To Sarah Warburton, who loves old Greek stuff as much as I do, maybe more
Chapter One
June’s disappearance would have made more sense if her apartment had become a crime scene, with smashed furniture and yellow tape, definitive marks that something had happened. Instead, Cressida had to make do with one email, and as she stood in her aunt’s tidy living room, she read it again on her phone, dissecting it, looking for anything that might make a woman disappear as handily as a magician’s trick.
“Found something wonderful,” it read. “Maybe impossible but still wonderful. See you soon. Love, Aunt June.”
Wonderful could mean anything, but to June, who signed her emails like letters, it had to mean a relic of a bygone age. Impossible meant something that other experts had dismissed as myth, but if anyone could find the impossible, it was June, the woman who’d taught Cressida that studying classical literature had more to it than dusty old books.
But June’s apartment wasn’t Greece, Turkey, or Libya, all places June had once taken Cressida, wanting her to stumble on the secrets and tales just waiting to be discovered. And this wasn’t a story told around a flickering campfire like those that had guaranteed Cressida would follow somewhat in her aunt’s footsteps and seek out a doctorate in classical literature, so close to her aunt’s doctorates in archaeology and classical studies. Cressida’s parents had warned her that June would get her into trouble, that June’s study bordered on belief, but this wasn’t trouble. This was just…gone.
Four days and no news, unheard of for a woman who loved to share her discoveries and stayed in touch almost daily while she was jaunting. Cressida had tried June’s contacts in Greece and various universities, but no one had a clue. Her apartment sat as if waiting for her. With all her bills set on auto-pay, it would wait until the money ran out.
With the email reciting itself in June’s high-pitched, excitable voice, Cressida searched. She felt like a snoop, but if she went missing, she hoped someone would do the same to find her. The bedroom was tidy, the clothing utilitarian with only a few empty hangers and clear spaces in drawers. Her backpack was gone, no surprise when jaunting after the impossible. The police wouldn’t open an inv
estigation because she’d clearly left on her own.
June’s study looked like Archaeological Digest with its framed photos of dig sites and artifacts fighting for space with artists’ renderings of every goddess imaginable. Snaps of every relic June had ever authenticated were packed into thick scrapbooks.
Her laptop sat on the desk in between mountains of paper. Strange, she usually traveled with it, and Cressida wondered if its presence was a clue in itself. She flipped it open and turned it on as she had before, hoping that it would miraculously bypass the password screen this time. She’d already asked her parents for ideas, and they’d gone through every myth they knew.
Cressida rested her chin on one fist and wished she’d watched more crime shows or that she knew someone who hacked computers, but TV hackers usually only hacked the computers of the dead. Cressida shuddered and pushed that thought far away. A dead June was impossible; it would be like killing a tornado.
She turned to the stacks of paper, looking at those on top. Most were copies from university reference texts. Most were in Greek, and from what Cressida could make out, most were about the Underworld. June had highlighted a few lines about Hercules visiting the Underworld. She had the entire tale of Orpheus’s attempt to rescue his wife, and she’d underlined passages in The Odyssey. She had articles on the gods and monsters who were said to dwell in the Underworld and the Titans who were imprisoned there. She must have been hard at work on her next article, but what could she discover about myths of the Underworld that hadn’t already been written? On top of one paper June had written, “Eleusinian Mysteries,” and underlined it three times.
Cressida frowned. The Mysteries were the secret rites of an ancient cult that worshiped Demeter, goddess of the harvest, and her daughter Persephone, queen of the Underworld. But the Eleusinian Mysteries had died out long ago, as extinct as the worship of the ancient gods. As secret rites, all that was left of them was rumor. Maybe June had found some new insight.
But if she had, she hadn’t written it down anywhere for Cressida to find. She pulled June’s email up on her phone again. “Love, June,” it read, and June didn’t even write “love” when she emailed her sister. Cressida had been included on some of the emails between her mother and her aunt; they’d been signed, “Best, June,” or “Have a good one, June.” They loved each other, but they weren’t so close that they just up and said it.
Cressida looked to the password field on the laptop again. “Oh, Aunt June, tell me you didn’t.” Cressida typed her own name into the password field, and when the start screen loaded, she felt both elated and ashamed. It wasn’t as bad as “1234,” but it still made her cringe.
When she opened June’s email and saw the flight confirmation, she punched the air. It was for London, not Greece like she’d thought. But before she could call June’s friends in the UK, she noticed the flight was going the wrong way. London to Austin, a recent ticket for someone called Nero Georgiou.
Who named their child Nero? It was dated one day before June had sent her email to Cressida. She kept scrolling and found a reservation for the Doubletree near the university. Cressida picked back through June’s papers until she found a sticky note with the words, “Nero 319,” a clue that had meant nothing before.
“Got ya!” She pushed back in the chair, but whom had she gotten? A lover? Possibly. June found lovers at every port, of every sex, but she hadn’t yet flown any to her. Maybe Nero was just that good in bed.
With forward momentum pushing her along, Cressida grabbed her purse, locked up, and nearly ran to her car. As quickly as the lights would let her go, she sped toward the university district and parked at the Doubletree. She passed through the lobby and strode toward the elevators as if she had a right to be there. June had always told her that the right look went a long way; a confident gait had gotten her into many exhibitions she hadn’t been invited to.
Outside of 319, Cressida hesitated. What if June was in there, and the two of them had been lost in a haze of drunken sex? No, she still would have found time to call. And the sex couldn’t be good enough to be called wonderful and impossible.
And if June was in there hacked to bloody pieces? Cressida’s hand fell again. She looked down the hall, measuring the distance to the elevator and stairs. She looped her purse around her fist and hoped it would make a good enough weapon. She owed it to June to see this through. She hoped Nero was some visiting professor, maybe an expert on the Underworld, and that he’d have a simple explanation for June’s disappearance all ready.
She knocked and lifted her purse, ready to wail on whoever answered the door in case the explanation was murderously complicated.
“Who is it?” Not June’s voice, a man’s, a bleary one by the sound of it.
Before she could answer, the door opened, and a young man in a half-tied robe blinked at her. She hesitated, purse still lifted. He pushed black hair out of his eyes, looked her over from head to toe, and smiled. “This must be my lucky day.”
She gave him the same once-over. Skinny, very young, definitely not June’s taste. “I wouldn’t count on it.”
He stood wide, gesturing for her to come in. “Did one of my friends get me a present for being such a good boy?” His accent pegged him as British with a hint of something else, possibly Greek. In his sty of a room, sheets were strewn everywhere, clothes on top of them. Room service trays perched on various surfaces. If the maids had been in since he’d taken up residence, they’d probably died of fright, and he’d stuffed them under the bed.
“You a dancer, sweetheart?” he asked.
Cressida strode past him, confident she could break him in half if necessary. “I’m looking for my aunt June.”
“Never heard of her.” But he turned away as he said it. He looked about nineteen. Not a visiting professor then, unless he was a genius.
“Are you Nero?”
“The one and only.”
“Then I’m betting you know the woman who flew you over here.”
He blinked at her hazily, and she noted the liquor bottles scattered here and there. A bra hung from one of the light sconces. Bright turquoise, it didn’t look like June’s style.
“I know lots of women, sweetheart. They come, they go.”
Cressida took a menacing step toward him. “Tell me where my aunt is, or I’m calling the cops. You were the last one to see her. I’m sure they’d be interested in that.”
“Look, sweetheart—”
“Cressida. One more sweetheart, and we find out just how good of a weapon this is.” She lifted the purse.
His eyes widened, then he smiled again. “If you think I’m dangerous, why did you come alone?”
She snorted. She was taller than him by several inches, and though she’d never been in a fight, she thought he’d be a good first experience. She had rage in her corner, too, shouting at her to grab his skinny ass and dangle him out the window. “Are we calling the cops or what?”
He barked a laugh. “Better call them now if you want them in an hour. Traffic here is a bit—” He wandered close to the window, and his smile slipped. “Did you tell someone you were coming here?”
Thinking he really meant to try something, she readied the purse again. “Why?”
“You were followed. I told her to watch for that, and she should have told you the same.” He began to hurry around the room, gathering his things. “She said you were smart,” he mumbled. “In college and everything.”
“A grad student, actually.” She looked out the window and saw a man standing near the bushes, looking up at the hotel, at her, but he shouldn’t have been able to see her through the window in daylight. He wore a turtleneck too warm for spring and was as bald as a cue. Another man joined him, twin in looks and dress, and when Cressida glanced toward the sidewalk, she saw another striding to join them. Incredibly creepy triplets? She would have hoped their parents taught them to dress differently, but maybe they liked freaking people out.
“Do they have some
thing to do with June?” she asked.
He’d pulled on jeans and a black tee while her back was turned. “I can’t believe you didn’t check to see if anyone followed you!” He threw more things into two bags: clothes, empty liquor bottles, half full ones, it didn’t seem to matter.
“What the hell is going on?” She grabbed for him, but he twisted away.
“Just help me get out of here, and I’ll tell you.” He opened the chest of drawers and removed a carved wooden box from the lowest one, handling it with delicate reverence, nestling it into his clothes before zippering the bag closed.
“Tell me now! Do they know what happened to June?” She pointed toward the window.
“Yes, but they won’t tell you. If they catch me, they’ll kill me, and then you’ll never know.” He grinned, the little weasel. “So you better make sure I stay in one piece, College.”
“So, let’s stay here and call the police!”
“Hmm, better not. My things aren’t exactly legal in the pharmacological department.”
She pressed a hand to her pounding temples. “You’re a drug dealer?”
He laughed. “If I was, I’d have better security than a student.” He put on a bright smile. “A beautiful student, but still.” She lifted the purse again, and he hurried on. “Call someone if you want. I’ll be long gone, and you’ll have no June, and until the police get here, you might be at the tender mercy of that thug.”
Cressida looked out the window again. “Thugs.”
“Right. So, you coming?”
She let her own evil smile show through. “Maybe you tell me where June is, or I’ll go tell them where you are.”
Coils Page 1