The power of premonition was a rare curse in Nola, but it didn’t disrupt her life the way telepathy or other mental abilities would have. Her first strong premonition had been of something falling from the sky, back when Regine was only five years old. She’d misinterpreted the vision of the future as an imminent threat and knocked Regine to the ground, scaring her to death and scraping her little knees. Collette hated her curse, but she trusted it. She’d reported the vision to the Chief of Safety, and the Prince set up a telescope to watch the sky. Three years later, the vision came true. A burning hunk of ancient space debris fell, but the city had been tracking its decaying orbit for months and they were prepared. They’d pulled all the sheep from the fields, and only lost an acre of grain to fire.
“Has Corin even touched his piano?” Regine asked, inquiring after her little brother.
“Hmm?” Collette asked. “Sorry, I thought I saw a bird. Corin’s fine.”
“That’s not what Dad says,” Regine said, snatching a piece of bark from her two-year-old’s hand before the toddler could put it in her mouth.
Regine kept talking, but the vision of the object falling from the sky repeated. She saw the orange glow as it hit the atmosphere, heading straight for their city.
“Mom?” Regine asked, her cheeks twitching with concern. As slow as they were going, she could tell when Collette missed a step.
Collette smiled, and blinked her eyes to clear the haze. “It’s this damn curse. I—”
Her vision went fuzzy again, but this time, she felt something like a knife slashing across her forearms, and she heard a cry. Then she saw a woman lying on the ground, bleeding. At first, she thought it was a vision of herself. But then she heard the cry, and she ran toward the sound.
A woman lay on the ground moaning and rocking side to side. She had bleeding gashes on her forearms. They didn’t look like knife wounds.
“Mom, what’s going on?” Regine hollered. “Is it a gator?”
“I don’t see one. Regine, keep the children back,” she ordered. She tapped the emergency radio in her pocket. “Dispatch, I need wildlife control and a medical team at river marker—” she glanced around, but didn’t see a post. “Marker!”
“Thirty-two!” Regine replied. A crowd was starting to gather, most holding back their children.
“Thirty-two,” Collette said, putting her hand on the person’s arms to staunch the blood. She glanced down at her clothes, looking for something she might use as a tourniquet. “Calm, darling. Breathe,” she said to the woman. “What happened?”
“Magistrate,” the woman rasped. Her throat sounded dry. That seemed like a good thing. That meant she wasn’t choking on her own blood.
“What happened?” Collette asked again.
“Spirit,” she whispered.
Collette’s eyes widened and she backed away, frantically wiping her bloody hands on the grass. Her mother had been possessed by a spirit. That was how Collette became cursed with premonitions.
“You’re a Questre?” Collette asked. That was the word they used for the possessed. When Questre died, their spirits jumped into the next nearest host and took over. Collette did not want to be a Questre.
The woman shook her head. “She hit me,” the woman said.
“Who? A Questre?” Collette asked, her mind spinning. Any Questre hunter knew better than to kill their prey in public. The only way to spare the next victim was to isolate the body. The person had to die alone.
“More than a Questre. A real spirit.”
“Spirits don’t leave gashes like that,” Collette said.
“This one was solid. It could touch me,” she said.
“Where did it go?” Collette asked, looking into the sea of gathered people. She had to keep them safe!
“It flew away,” she said. Her eyes closed and Collette scrambled back again. She hit the leg of one of her service officers who had arrived with the medics. They quickly established a barrier and encouraged the crowd to disperse.
“Magistrate, are you hurt?” a middle-aged officer asked, putting his arm around her and bracing her wrists, bloody palms up. She’d never seen Officer Belgard in a premonition, but her gut told her something was off about him. The Prince of Law had assigned him to more shifts at the Palace the last few months. He often followed her when she traveled the city, so it made sense he’d be first on the scene.
“The blood is hers,” Collette said, her skin crawling at his closeness. “Be careful with her. She claims a spirit attacked.”
“A new Questre in town,” he asked, sounding delighted at the prospect of the hunt.
“It can’t be. No. She said it flew away. Questre don’t fly,” Collette said, trying to twist out of his arms. He kept a firm hold of her wrists.
“I will test this blood and see if she can be traced to a cursed line,” he said. “It’s possible this woman has been driven mad by her premonitions. But if you do suspect she’s Questre, we could kill her to be sure.”
“Don’t you dare talk so casually about killing the innocent,” Collette said, kicking his shin to make him let go. She held her hands in front of her, knowing they needed the blood. She gritted her teeth while he got a swab kit from the medics and collected a sample.
“You used to be so eager to abolish the Questre. Now, your loyalties seem to be toward them,” he taunted.
He narrowed his eyes, but she narrowed hers back and squared her shoulders. “You think I’m one of them, don’t you?” she challenged. Now it made sense why he was so eager to follow her. He didn’t trust her.
“The other cursed children never have the clarity in premonitions that you do,” he said. “You seem to have something extra. Maybe something your mother gave you to carry.”
“I made sure my mother’s spirit died with her,” Collette retorted. Her mother’s face flashed before her eyes. The old woman had carried the spirit for decades, knowing full well Collette would be cursed by it. Collette was certain she’d killed beast, and she had to live with the fact that she’d condemned her mother with it.
“We don’t criminalize your curse because we want others to feel confident coming forward to report Questre,” Belgard said, capping his swab and handing her a rag to clean her hands.
“My example is hardly motivational, since my reward for speaking out was watching my mother burn,” Collette said. “We drove out the Questre in our parents’ generation. Our children don’t inherit the curse. In another generation, we’ll be free of these vile spirits. Assuming this woman hasn’t unearthed a new crop of them.”
“She was attacked by something physical. We can kill something physical,” Belgard assured.
Coming Fall 2020
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The Qinali Virus
An ancient warning. A new threat.
Amber’s astral projection ability is rare…
… and it’s everything the Council of Highmere has been waiting for.
Trained in astronomy, Amber is bored by her tedious, Council-appointed job. When her mind wanders, so does her astral body, and always to the same place – a meteor-flattened crater in a forest with an ancient metal sign poking up through the dirt.
The sign warns of Sudden Death.
Decades ago, a silent, but deadly virus had decimated the population of the planet, and left in its wake the seeming utopia Amber’s people enjoyed. But with the warning, Amber starts to question her world like never before. Her quest to unbury the past makes her a threat to the Council.
And they will use her family against her.
Can Amber uncover the truth behind the ancient warning sign before the Council enacts their plan?
You’ll love this sci-fi thriller, because you can’t protect your family if you don’t know what’s out there.
Get it now!
Also by Valerie J. Mikles
The New Dawn Series Novels
#1 The Disappear
ed
#2 Sequestered
#3 Trade Circle
#4 Hybrid
#5 The Gray Market
#6 The Confluence
#7 Premonition
Get the whole series on Amazon
Standalone Novels
The Qinali Virus
Whisper (Coming in 2021)
Short Stories
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Second Chances: A Reason to Walk
Second Chances: The Lost Ingredient
Invasive Species
Alien Invasion 2020
Brains: The Starving Zombie’s Guide to a More Successful Apocalypse
About the Author
Valerie J. Mikles is a PhD astronomer who defected from academia to pursue her dream of being an out of work actor in L.A. She is active in community theater as an actor, choreographer, costumer, and stage manager. She frequents sci-fi conventions as a science/author guest and a fan/cosplayer. She currently lives in Maryland with her three cats and works on weather satellites for NOAA.
The Confluence: A Space Opera Adventure Series (The New Dawn Book 6) Page 28