by Kaye, Rainy
Twisted Legends
Twisted Magic Book 4
Rainy Kaye
Twisted Legends © 2021, Rainy Kaye
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Contents
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
About the Author
1
When Jada and I were twelve, I had wanted to see if I could use my magic to levitate, but as she had predicted, I never got my feet off the ground, literally. She had fluttered her eyes and admonished the trivialities of our barely existent skill. I had clung to the hope that there was more to it. She had been the practical one, though.
After more than two decades of magic being barely worth doing, I couldn’t quite wrap my head around what had happened in Haven Rock. My boring witchery suddenly wasn’t so mundane, but I could make little sense of where it was coming from and why. Truth be told, I had started to tap into a deeper well of magic even before we had left Green River, but it hadn’t been until we had faced the necromancer that I’d realized just how significant that was turning out to be.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to seek out answers. Not yet, anyway. We had more important tasks at hand, namely tracking down the vault where the portraits harboring two of the world’s darkest mages belonged.
I had zero clues where it might be.
That left us with only one choice—Sasmita’s connection. Not that she would tell us who they were, but she did relent that because they wanted the blood from all the dark witches and mages, they may reveal the location of the vault once she informed them Joseph Stone had returned Eliza Brown before her blood had been collected.
Our only hope was that whoever this mysterious individual was, they actually knew how to find the vault in the first place.
Otherwise, the dark mages would soon emerge from their portraits and wipe us off the map.
No pressure.
Sasmita had said that her connection had an office in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which could just be a Panera Bread, as far as I was concerned. Maybe mage blood was the latest hot startup idea. Regardless, the drive from Haven Rock, Colorado towards Oklahoma would have been a lot more enjoyable if Nikandros and Uwe weren’t hitchhiking in the back of our stolen van and Fiona wasn’t smoldering evil in the backseat.
Eleanor Roosevelt once said, I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.
In that case, my choices yesterday were suspect at best.
Today, I was bruised, tired, and hungry.
Randall, in the driver seat, spoke up. “We’ve just crossed into New Mexico. Should we stop before heading into Oklahoma and have some pie and rehearse how we’re not going to die in the upcoming encounter?”
“I’ll be talking to them solo,” Sasmita muttered from the passenger seat.
“Then just pie,” I said, glancing at Fiona next to me. “Want some pie?”
She inched her gaze toward me, until I looked away before she made eye contact.
Randall pulled off the highway and a few moments later, we wound through a narrow dusty street until coming to a stop in front of a café though, at first glance, it could have been somebody’s house.
Maybe it was.
We piled out and together, trudged up the cracked cement path that led to the front door through a gravel yard.
As we walked, I touched the medallion under my shirt, strung from a chain I had picked up at a truck stop. If I lost the medallion, I wouldn’t be able to open the portals to the portraits and our adventure would come to a sharp and tragic end.
I tugged my shirt and draped the bottom over the knife sheathed on my hip, my parting gift from Ever and her sisters. The weapon wouldn’t do much good against the dark witches and mages, but it made me feel like a badass, and these days, that was the most I could ask for.
Inside, the café was dim, with most of the light coming from the open roof draped with black netting. Only the counter and kitchen area, visible from the front, had a solid ceiling. The walls were hand-painted murals of city skylines, women in saris, and kittens peeking out of teacups. The floor had been tiled in two distinct patterns—dark faux wood grain and white with gold flecks—that divided the room for no apparent reason.
Long tables had been placed horizontally and vertically across the space with clusters of chairs, clearly meant to inspire community and socialization.
That would be the absolute last thing I wanted right now. However, food was no longer negotiable, so I trudged inside and wove past groups of people who had spread out their chairs. Most had their attention on their phones and their meals.
An empty table sat along the far wall, and I picked up my pace, like I was in a land rush and needed to plant my flag into it. I took the seat with my back to the wall and let out a long breath.
Randall pulled a chair for Fiona and scooted her in as Sasmita joined us.
“I’ve got a bit of cash left. I can order for us if you want.” He turned to Sasmita. “Do you want to come with?”
She cast a questioning look my way. I shrugged one shoulder and waved them on.
They turned and trooped toward the counter. I tried to make out the menu written on the chalkboard mounted up by the ceiling but couldn’t decipher much of it from this angle.
Fiona sat with her hands on the table in front of her, palms flat. There was nothing natural about her anymore.
“How you feeling?” I lifted my chin at her.
A sad little smirk crept on her face and she tilted her head to look down at her hands.
My heart clenched, and I went to reach for her, but halted. As much of a bad person as it made me, I couldn’t bring myself to touch any of the tainted flesh. I was relatively sure at this point it wasn’t contagious, but I had nothing to support that theory. I didn’t want to find out the hard way.
She looked at my hand stilled across the table, and I retracted it, keenly aware that she might be sick, she might be mute, but she wasn’t stupid.
“I’m trying to find an answer,” I said, sounding lame to even myself. I was looking for mages and the vault, not a cure, but that was only because I didn’t know where to start in that search. The mages had somehow become the easier option.
Her lips tightened because we both knew I had nothing.
Silence flourished between us, and I sank down into myself with the realization that no matter what happened, I had failed my best friend. She needed me now—not later, not when it was convenient—and I couldn’t even try to deliver. It wasn’t an easy morsel of truth to digest.
Randall and Sasmita returned with a few plates, and a barista followed with several more. They set down the dishes: spanakopita, samosas, sweet
potato flautas, fried tofu bites, and vegetable sandwiches cut into pieces.
I looked up at Randall and fluttered my eyes. “Decisions are tough, aren’t they?”
He grinned, pulling out the chair beside Fiona, and dropped down, eyeing the plates. Sasmita sat at the end of the table, between us. A moment later, the barista returned with a tray full of glasses of water and ice-cold lavender lemonade.
The three of us dived in, eating and dipping and chatting. Even Fiona helped herself, and if it wasn’t for the darkness seeping through her and the occasional twitch, I would believe, even if for a moment, that this was normal. We were just friends hanging out, having a good time. The feeling of the people I loved and cared about being whole again was refreshing, even if it wasn’t entirely true.
After we had cleared all the food, as well as an additional order of French fries, the barista returned with coffees and brownie squares and chocolate mousse pie. We nibbled at our dessert and sipped our caffeine, continuing our conversation in which we had managed to avoid, for the entire meal, discussing any of our most pressing issues.
Like dark witches and mages destroying the world.
My eyes grew heavy, and I considered if we could splurge on a hotel room for a night. We didn’t have time to spare, but dozing in the van hadn’t been the most invigorating sleep. The four of us could make one room work, somehow. I would even opt to stretch out on the floor, if nothing else but to be able to lie flat and sleep again. It had only been a day, but it felt like much longer, especially to my back and neck.
Randall and Sasmita began to clear the table. I forced myself awake and leaned forward to gather silverware.
An unused fork hopped upright, standing on its prongs.
I blinked, hand hovering a few inches away. I snapped my hand back to my lap, curling it into a fist, and stared at the fork that had been compelled vertical.
Randall stood dead still, as if afraid to startle the animated utensil.
The fork shivered and then, as if on its own accord, strolled along the table. It hopped off the edge and continued across the floor.
Several other patrons turned and watched it. One found their wits enough to flick a wadded-up paper napkin at it, but the fork didn’t respond. Another person lifted their phone to record the moment.
I pressed my lips together, watching as the fork made its way to the front door.
“Uh…” I began, glancing at Randall. “We should, um, probably follow that.”
Without a word, we launched forward, Sasmita pulling Fiona to her feet. A new patron entered just in time for the fork to slip out past their shoes, unnoticed. We charged around them and out of the café. The fork beelined across the parking lot.
“Never in my goddamned life,” I muttered, unable to finish the sentence.
Was a walking fork all that much different than a killer mage, in the grand scheme of what had become my life?
No, not really. Somehow, it was just another day.
I tried to gain on the fork, but that stupid thing scurried along, just out of reach. It hopped up on the bumper of a pale blue VW Bus. I picked up my pace. The Bus roared to life and pulled out of the parking space. I stepped back out of the way, my companions gathering with me. The Bus swung around, the windows tinted too dark for me to see who was inside, but I raised my arms, trying to flag the driver. They either didn’t see me or thought we were a bunch of panhandlers—we certainly looked the part these days—because they rolled toward the exit and then turned onto the street.
I started forward, but Randall caught the shoulder of my shirt.
“Let’s get the van,” he said.
I nodded and we tripped over each other as we hurried to our vehicle. We loaded up inside, Sasmita driving, Randall up front, and Fiona and me in the back. Sasmita jerked the van out and floored it. The tires screeched in the parking lot as she barely halted to check the road before swinging out onto it. She careened around traffic until we were trailing the Bus, unabashed.
I leaned forward in my seat, squinting out the windshield. “Is the fork still on the bumper?”
“Yeah.” Randall pointed. “It’s nestled itself by the bumper guard.”
“Do you think the driver knows they have a stowaway?” Sasmita asked, not looking from the road as she maintained our tailgating.
“If they do, this is the strangest getaway I’ve heard of,” I muttered.
The fork glimmered as it caught sunlight, and I sized it up, trying to determine what I had missed. Clearly, it wasn’t an actual fork. It had to be something else, like a strange…terrestrial squid? An elongated spider? An alien?
Forks didn’t get up and walk around, except, of course, when they did.
The Bus pulled onto the highway, and we followed. There wasn’t much traffic, and as we flew by signs, I realized we were traveling in the opposite direction we had been heading. Instead of Oklahoma, we were on a straight path to Arizona.
Sasmita and Randall had surely noticed this too, but we had all silently concluded that we weren’t letting an animated fork get away. Not if we could help it.
The Bus continued onward, picking up speed, and we stayed on it as we hurtled through the expanse of New Mexico. The van rattled a little as we far exceeded the speed limit.
What had gotten into the driver of the Bus?
Within a few hours, we had crossed through New Mexico and reached the Arizona border. I thought we must be getting low on gas by now, but Sasmita did not let up. We careened south, so close to the Bus that if the driver stomped on the brakes, we would be in their back pocket.
Finally, the Bus took an exit, and we followed.
“Guys,” Sasmita said, loudly. “We’re headed into Orangewood Grove, unincorporated. That’s where the next mage is.”
I straightened in my seat, more surprised than I should have been. Of course anything strange and unsettling would be near the epicenter of an untethered monster like the next mage.
I just hadn’t been expecting a fork to lead the way.
“What does this thing do?” I asked. “I mean, it’s an animated utensil. It must do something, right?”
“It can sing, it can dance,” Randall replied, deadpan.
“Your back isn’t nearly hairy enough for you to be the beast,” I said. “I just know nothing good has come from these mages. I don’t trust this, not at all.”
I sighed, falling back against my seat, and turned to stare out my window.
Something crept along my leg. I startled, ready to bat away whatever had snuck into the vehicle.
Instead, I found Fiona’s hand resting on my lap. She was, through whatever mask she wore these days that obscured the person underneath, trying to give me a reassuring look.
Tears pricked at my eyes. Fiona was there, somewhere.
I had to save her.
Hesitantly, I placed my hand over hers as we pulled into Orangewood Grove.
2
Orangewood Grove was a gunfight in a corral short of being the setting out of a western movie.
Desert expanded in every direction, with tan brush low to the ground, nearly the same shade as the dirt, and wiry taller bushes that strived to be green. The land was lumpy with hills that graduated into mountains. There was far less cactus than I had anticipated, but that was probably a pleasure for another day.
The houses appeared to be islands unto themselves, with acres between them. I couldn’t imagine who wanted to own any of this, but one man’s trash.
The VW Bus pulled up on the shoulder of the road. The fork dropped to the ground and skittered off into the brush. The Bus turned around and floored it out of there.
We parked in a dirt lot next to a small building and hoped it wasn’t a surprise tow-area. I stepped out of the van, leaving my backpack inside for safe keeping. Still, hot air met my face, like I had opened an oven to check on baking cookies, except there were no cookies and life sucked.
Sighing, I turned to help Fiona out into the geographical equiv
alent of anguish. Randall and Sasmita joined us.
“This…” I said, scanning the distance. “This is pretty much awful.”
Sasmita pulled on her shirt to cool herself. “I don’t know what’s worse—this weather or facing another mage.”
The necromancer had been in a small town, but he had still managed to hide from us long enough to do substantial damage. We couldn’t wait around for this mage to make an appearance. It was bad enough he’d already had a head start while we had been fighting the ones who were now imprisoned back in their portraits and sitting in the van.
At least for as long as their seals held. I shoved down the fear that we were not any closer to finding the vault. We didn’t know how long before the seals broke, but we knew what happened when they did. One mage at a time had been ruthless; two of them at once would be our death.
Nothing like a ticking bomb to motivate.
I nodded to my comrades and headed onto the asphalt road that led past the small building—a convenience store and post office, all in one. My soles tapped on the street, and I realized just how empty this place was. We hadn’t seen anyone yet.
“Any chance this is a ghost town?” I asked, lifting my hair off the back of my neck to try to catch a breeze. “Maybe everyone moved away when they realized that the gold was just Billy Bob’s tooth?”
“No, it’s an active town. Well, an inhabited one.” Sasmita turned down her bottom lip as she surveyed the area. “I wouldn’t call it active by any means.”
We passed a cluster of shops and approached another ranch house. Behind the fence, two brown horses ambled about under a stable that resembled a crude carport, tails swishing. They didn’t seem bothered by our approach.