Rise of the Discordant: The Complete Five Book Series

by Christina McMullen

  * * *

  Maybe it was the beer on an empty stomach or maybe it was the fact that I knew no one would be there, but I didn’t feel like going immediately home. Instead of heading north from the Five Penny, I went south, crossing the river at its lower bend. I found myself standing in front of the old mill. A soft glow, which would have been invisible to most people, came from what was left of the old loading docks.

  I could hear muttering and every so often, the light would flare up or grow dimmer. Occasionally this would be followed by a string of curses. I shook my head. Desmond had been at it since noon. Quite frankly, after he sent me a text to let me know that the quake had indeed weakened the barrier, I had expected to see at least one of the mystics helping him out. Certainly, Desmond’s job as a Warrior required that he put a stop to the threat of Discordant, but I was pretty sure this did not mean that it was something that he had to do alone.

  I passed through the barrier that we had put up to keep the locals out, making enough noise that I would not sneak up on Desmond. When he heard me, he looked up and frowned.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Funny,” I said with a light chuckle. “I came out here to ask you the same.”

  “I beg your pardon?” The frown lines on his face deepened and I shook my head.

  “Desmond, you’ve been out here for more than six hours.”

  “The earthquake was of a much stronger magnitude than those previous. I’m at a loss as to what we can do to strengthen our barrier.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” I said quietly. “Desmond, you had help putting this barrier up. What makes you think you can fix it on your own? Why didn’t you ask for help this time?”

  He eyed me warily.

  “I don’t know what component failed, Seth. Until I’ve got that figured out, asking for help would be useless.”

  “Or a different set of eyes could provide you with a fresh perspective,” I admonished.

  “Did you simply come out here to give me a hard time?” he asked, though I was relieved to hear the humor in his tone.

  “Mostly,” I countered, lightening my own voice. “Well, that and I needed a walk. I didn’t get a lunch today and I stopped in at the Penny.”

  “Oh?” Desmond looked up from his phone at that. “And were you able to talk to Donna?”

  “Actually, she was quite willing to talk. Apparently, the incubus who was supposed to…” I trailed off with a look and Desmond nodded, indicating there was no need to elaborate. “He managed to get a token to her.”

  At that, Desmond opened his mouth to protest, but I had been expecting as much and cut him off. “Donna isn’t dumb, Desmond. She figured out pretty quickly that it was a ruse to get her to open this fissure. She’s not going to open it, though she is convinced that he’s put a curse on her,” I added, but didn’t elaborate. Desmond and I had enough awkwardness between us without discussing Donna’s sex life.

  “No, I would hope not,” he said with a long exhale. “Though if we have another couple quakes like this, it’s not going to matter much.”

  “Dammit!” I cursed. “I knew I forgot something. I got so caught up in applications today that I forgot I was going to investigate this fracking company. Something isn’t adding up. Didn’t the EPA come in and put a temporary hold on production after we sent them our findings?”

  After discovering the instabilities under Blackbird, thanks to the corners cut by the mill’s owners, Desmond, Betty, and I worked out a plausible story of how we came to discover the deception. We made sure to send it to the agency that was above the one who had originally okayed the mill’s compliance.

  “They did, but the courts struck down the ban claiming insufficient proof that fracking will further disrupt the damage.”

  “And an earthquake nearly every damned day isn’t sufficient proof?”

  I think my anger might have startled Desmond.

  “You and I both know that the arguments put forth by the city council were driven by fear. Fear that Down to Earth would pack up and take their fracking money elsewhere.”

  “That’s the part that I really don’t get. Desmond, I work for the unemployment office. I see the numbers. Down to Earth hasn’t created a single job for Blackbird’s residents. Not only that, but the workforce that they brought with them has done nothing, and I mean literally nothing to boost the economy. They aren’t staying in hotels, they haven’t paid for housing, and I sure as hell haven’t seen anyone new hanging around the Five Penny.”

  The more my argument turned into a rant, the angrier I became. I had begun pacing, mindful to stay clear of the sinkhole, though truth be told, my mood had swung so far to black that I almost wished a stray Discordant would pop up out of the fissure and try me. Rationally, I knew I probably just needed to eat. I swung back around, intending to tell Desmond exactly that, but there was something odd, well, odder than usual about his expression. The ever-present worry was there, working my anger back up to a frenzied pitch, but there was something else. Was that a hint of a smile?

  “What?” I barked and immediately flinched at my own snappish tone.

  “Nothing,” he said, holding his hands up defensively, but if anything, the amusement he was trying and failing to hide was growing.

  “Desmond, you’re laughing at me.”

  “No! I’m not. It… it’s just… I’ve never seen you angry, I guess,” he said with a soft chuckle. “You were always the one to keep my temper in check.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m hungry and this fracking business…wait…”

  I caught the anomaly in his phrasing and seconds later, his mirth vanished in a cloud of panicked anxiety.

  “Seth, never mind. I…” he mumbled, but I hardly heard him over the dam breaking in my own mind.

  “You’re talking about before, aren’t you?”

  The Creator had said that we had known each other in previous lives. Desmond knew something about this. It was our soul familiarity that kept Amara from taking mine. I’d hoped that eventually I’d be able to ask him about it, but ever since then, Desmond had been wary of me and my martyr soul, which had caused something of a rift to open between us. I’d be lying if I said my own stubborn attitude had nothing to do with that, but it no longer mattered.

  “Seth, I don’t know if it would be a good idea…”

  Images, blurred and confused at first, began to take form. I saw flashes of the past. Desmond turning to me with a wide smile. He looked much the same as now, a little younger, perhaps, but dressed in a loose smock and trousers of rough woven cotton. He took my hand and I looked down, shocked to see how tiny it was in his and that the skin was actually several shades darker than Desmond’s. He lifted my hand to his lips. As he pressed a gentle kiss to the back of my fingers, the past became crystal clear.

  I was Sarah. The only woman Desmond ever loved.

  Chapter 3

  The Intervention

  Donna sat up and blinked. She was no longer in her bed or in her room, or in Blackbird, for that matter. The bright, sandy beach was nowhere she had been before. Reclining back on his elbows just a few feet away was her incubus. She was growing used to his lack of clothing and modesty, but still marveled at the fact that living within a dream made him impervious to things like sand being wedged into uncomfortable places.

  “I brought you something.”

  Donna raised her eyebrows.

  “You did? I don’t see anything.”

  Between the lack of clothing and expansive, empty beach, there wasn’t much of a place that he could hide anything. Unless it was something very small…

  She stomped down hard on that line of thinking and chastised her heart for the sudden flutter. What had gotten into her?

  “Don’t you?” he asked, stretching in a practiced way that was meant to seem effortless and draw her attention.

  “Oh, so are you saying all of this is for me?”

  “Of course,” he said with a wink.

 
“To do with as I please?”

  At that, he gave a wistful sigh.

  “If only we could.”

  His words were like a bucket of ice water that stopped the fluttering and sent her waterlogged heart plummeting.

  “I see,” she said tersely and got up to walk along the edge of the surf, determined to get at least some pleasure out of the artificial paradise. She’d barely taken two steps before he appeared at her side.

  “Where are you going?”

  “For a walk.”

  “Okay, I can do that,” he said, falling into step beside her. She did her best to ignore him, but it wasn’t long before the combined silence and his unwavering gaze began to drive her mad.

  “So, do you have a name?” Donna purposefully looked out over the setting sun and the beautiful fiery rainbow it made on the water’s surface, determined to stay strong and not give in.

  “Like clothing, Fa Be’yoh doesn’t seem to believe that there’s a need for names.”

  At the reminder of his nakedness, her head turned on instinct. Donna was sure she saw a smug smile ghost across his face.

  “Well that’s just stupid,” Donna huffed. “Names don’t cost anything and he gets to have one.”

  “Your mother named him.”

  “Really?” Donna snorted. Suddenly, her father’s odd name made sense.

  “Really,” he nodded. “There’s magic in names, you know.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it,” she grumbled, wondering, not for the first time, why her mother had to choose to give her a name that clearly meant virgin. “Whatever. I’m tired of calling you hey you, so I’m going to call you Inky.”

  “Inky?” he asked, scrunching up his nose.

  “Inky, as in short for Incubus.”

  “You can’t do any better than that?”

  “Oh I see how it is,” Donna said and rolled her eyes. She had thought the name was quite clever. “You’re fine to have no name and then as soon as I give you one you become a name critic. Okay then, you’re now Blinky.”

  “Blinky? Blinky’s worse than Inky”

  “Pinky?”

  “I don’t think-”

  “Fine! I’m calling you Clyde, no more objections!”

  “But that doesn’t even-” he began to protest, but Donna held up her hand.

  “You are Clyde. Get used to it.”

  “If you insist,” he said with a dramatic sigh. “So, why are we walking?”

  “Because we can’t do anything else,” Donna snapped.

  “Can’t we?”

  She stopped and turned, not daring to think that the words meant what she thought they did.

  “You tell me.”

  She cringed at the breathy anticipation. What had gotten into her? This guy was nothing more than an incorporeal Discordant who wasn’t even capable of doing the only thing incubi were known to do. She should have ignored him. She should have strengthened her wards to keep him out of her dreams. There was no way that any of this could end in anything but trouble.

  Yet…

  “Ow!”

  Had she been paying attention, Donna might have noticed the tree that had sprang up impossibly from the sandy surf before running head-on into it.

  * * *

  “Dammit!”

  Through my watery eyes, I saw a blurred expanse of green and brown and figured out that I’d managed to sleepwalk out to the back yard. At least I wasn’t far from the house. I hadn’t made it into the woods, mainly because I’d run directly into one of the giant pine trees that ringed the yard. Already, an angry bump was forming on my forehead and it was tender. I hoped we had some ice in the freezer so I wouldn’t have to waste a bag of frozen peas. At least the girls were at work and no one was around to witness me walking head first into a tree.

  Or so I thought.

  Because the universe is not kind, Betty and Louise were sitting at the kitchen table, a pot of coffee between the two of them.

  “Um… isn’t it Thursday?” I asked once my heart slowed down and crawled out of my throat. The clock on the microwave said it was early afternoon. Betty should have been at the bakery and Louise should still be at the bank.

  “Bogie’s keeping an eye on my shop.”

  “I took the afternoon off.”

  “Why? What’d I miss?” I asked and grabbed a mug out of the cupboard, hoping that Betty made the coffee. My hands were still shaking from the scare as I poured a cup.

  “Donna,” Louise started with a deep breath and a tone that I recognized as her “serious business” voice. “I think it’s time we had a talk.”

  “About?”

  My own voice was snippy, but already, I wasn’t liking the direction this was headed in. For the two of them to take time off from work, especially Louise, they had to have felt it was important. Personally, I didn’t need a well-meaning but poorly executed intervention on top of everything else. Besides, one sip and it was clear that Louise had made the coffee.

  “About you, honey,” Betty answered. No doubt to keep Louise from immediately saying something to piss me off. She could be pretty blunt. “Your efforts to hide the fact that something is wrong aren’t working and we’re worried about you.”

  “What? Nothing’s wrong. Why do you think something’s wrong?”

  Admittedly, acting casual and grace under pressure were not among my talents.

  “So, you’re saying you destroyed a pair of my three hundred dollar pumps for nothing?”

  “Oh come on, you bought them off Zappos,” I said in my defense. “You told me you got them on clearance.”

  “That was the sale price,” she growled.

  “Damn, really? You know there’s a Payless right here in town that sells shoes for like, twenty bucks, right?”

  Well, clearly, from the way the energy started to shift, that was the wrong answer. Honestly, who spends that kind of money on shoes?

  “Okay, let’s all try and stay focused,” Betty said as she tried to bring the energies back into balance. Not easy when Louise was doing her best wicked witch routine. “Now,” she turned her eyes to me. “Are we supposed to believe you just decided to go for a walk this afternoon barefoot and in your skivvies?”

  In my…oops. It was a good thing we were all witches and had seen each other naked because I’m not sure of how many other roommates would think nothing of holding an intervention with someone wearing only a pair of undies and a threadbare tank top.

  “Okay fine! I was sleep walking,” I admitted. “It happens sometimes.”

  If I was being honest, it happened enough that I made a mental note to buy some better PJs. Or at least some new underwear. The elastic on this pair was shot.

  “Donna, it happens a lot,” Louise said.

  “It’s pretty obvious that you aren’t getting any sleep,” Betty added.

  “Fine,” I said with a sigh. “It’s not like the secret isn’t out anyway. Clyde had a token delivered.”

  “Clyde?”

  “The incubus who was supposed to impregnate me,” I explained. “I just named him tonight. I don’t think he likes it.”

  “Okay, hold up there, cowgirl!” Louise interrupted. “You’re having incubus dreams? As in…”

  “As in, no,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I’m not a virgin, so he can’t do anything, but…” I sighed, wondering if I was making a mistake. I hated keeping secrets from the girls, and it wasn’t like Seth and Bogie didn’t already know. Still…

  “But what?” Louise asked.

  “But that’s the problem,” I said at last.

  “Huh?”

  Both witches looked at me in confusion.

  “We’re not having sex,” I admitted. “He shows up in my dreams, naked, mind you, and just… wants to talk. I already know he’s just trying to get me to open the portal, so you don’t have to lecture me. I just… It’s a little frustrating and yeah, that’s why I’m not getting a lot of sleep.”

  “That’s…” Betty began.

 
“…Gotta suck,” Louise finished.

  “Tell me about it!” I huffed. “And worst of all, he’s always bragging about how many virgins he’s defiled and how many heirs he’s sired.”

  “Wait, what?” Louise looked at me like I had two heads. “You’re seriously stressing over this guy? He sounds like an ass. Kick him to the curb.”

  “Don’t you think I would have if I could have? I’ve looked it up. There’s no spell or potion for getting rid of an incubus because they don’t usually stick around once they have what they want.”

  “There’s got to be something,” Betty said, pulling out the ancient tome her mother had sent her not long ago. It contained all the spells known to the Woods family.

  “Good luck finding it in there,” Louise snorted and popped open her laptop.

  I smiled. Despite knowing they wouldn’t find anything, I was grateful.

  “Nothing jumps out at me,” Betty said, running her hand over the pages.

  “The internet isn’t giving up any ghosts either,” Louise said with a frown. “Have you tried a ward?”

  “I had a charm that worked well enough until I was dumb enough to take the token. Now, even Betty’s sleeping draught isn’t keeping him out. Maybe I’m just…” I looked around the table and a thought popped into my head. “Do you think we could be cursed?”

  “We?” Louise asked, looking affronted.

  “Yeah!” I said. “Maybe it’s not just me after all. I mean, I know my family curse was broken, so that doesn’t explain the bad luck that I’ve had ever since.”

  “Well…” Betty shot a look over at Louise. “I guess it’s possible, but what does that have to do with us?”

  “Really Betty?” I rolled my eyes. “I’m not the only one who’s had a string of bad luck here recently. Seems weird, doesn’t it? I mean, look at us. We’re not exactly unattractive, yet it seems we can’t have nice things, or at least, nice relationships.”

  “Hey! I do have a nice relationship!” Betty bristled.

  “Okay, fine,” I said with an exasperated sigh. “Bogie’s a nice guy, for a demon. But Betty, that’s pretty sad. You’re best relationship to date is with a demon. And don’t you even start, Louise! Every single man you have ever liked has been unavailable. We’re cursed!”