Coercion

by Tamara Hart Heiner

  Coercion

  Goddess of Fate

  Book 3

  Tamara Hart Heiner

  ebook edition

  copyright 2019 Tamara Hart Heiner

  cover art by Tamara Hart Heiner

  Also by Tamara Hart Heiner:

  Perilous (WiDo Publishing 2010)

  Altercation (WiDo Publishing 2012)

  Deliverer (Tamark Books 2014)

  Priceless (WiDo Publishing 2016)

  Vendetta (Tamark Books 2018)

  Goddess of Fate:

  Inevitable (Tamark Books 2013)

  Entranced (Tamark Books 2017)

  Kellam High:

  Lay Me Down (Tamark Books 2016)

  Reaching Kylee (Tamark Books 2016)

  The Extraordinarily Ordinary Life of Cassandra Jones:

  Walker Wildcats Year 1: Age 10 (Tamark Books 2015)

  Walker Wildcats Year 2: Age 11 (Tamark Books 2016)

  Southwest Cougars Year 1: Age 12 (Tamark Books 2017)

  Southwest Cougars Year 2: Age 13 (Tamark Books 2018)

  Tornado Warning (Dancing Lemur Press 2014)

  After the Fall (Tamark Books 2018)

  ebook Edition, License Notes:

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Contents

  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

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Bibliography

  About the author

  My dear reader:

  I made it up.

  I know it’s hard to believe, but this series is a work of fiction. None of it is true. None of these things ever happened, including much of the Latvian mythology. Latvian mythology is one without a lot of sources. The Latvian people didn’t have written stories to begin with, and so each story was passed on from family to family, generation to generation, and each family had a slightly different version.

  And then Christianity entered the picture, and the gods and goddesses changed to Saints, and the rites and rituals changed to holidays, and, well, you get the picture.

  This was good and bad. It didn’t give me a lot to draw on, but it left a lot of room for creativity. So I’ve twisted the Latvian mythology to fit my plot. I did my best to immerse myself in what documents I could find, but that wasn’t many. A lot more is written about Lithuanian mythology, but they are a little different, so I learned what I could and tried to make sense of it. I had a lot of fun with this fantasy world, and I hope you enjoy it as well.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The three of us stood there in a circle, facing each other. I looked at my younger sister Beth and recognized the determination on her face. Beside me was Meredith, my closest friend. No, she was so much more than that. There was no defining our relationship, at least not in mortal terms.

  I looked down at my hand, at the cell phone cupped in my palm. It was time.

  “Ready, Jayne?” Beth asked.

  I lifted my head to my sister, her eyes unwavering as she stared at me. I nodded. “Ready.”

  It had been two days since the three of us ran away from home. Two days since the mythological Latvian pantheon took over our corner of New Jersey, resulting in countless suicides and abandoned families. Two days since Aaron was swallowed up by hell.

  And now it was time to call home.

  I powered up my ghetto flip phone and pressed the button to call my mom. Next to me, I saw Meredith doing the same to her smart phone, only she was calling her dad.

  My mom answered an instant later, her voice breathy with panic and hope and relief. “Jayne? Jayne, is that you?”

  “It’s me, Mom.” My throat unexpectedly closed up, and I thought I would cry. Never had I wanted my mother more than right now, when my whole world was literally falling apart.

  Her sobs echoed through the phone. “Where are you? Are you okay? Where is your sister? What happened?”

  I took a deep breath and answered her questions, spitting out the lie the three of us had already fabricated. “I don’t know what happened. When I woke up this morning, I wasn’t at home. I don’t remember leaving, but I’m with Beth and Meredith and we’re all okay.”

  She latched onto those words. “So you’re okay. You’re okay.”

  “Yes,” I said, glad to keep her focused on that sentiment. “We’re on our way home. We should be there in a few hours.”

  “Jayne,” my mom said, her voice barely above a whisper. “The world has gone crazy. You’re not the only person to vanish. I hope all of those missing people are heading home now too.”

  I gave a little shudder and closed my eyes. They weren’t. Those people weren’t heading home because I had failed. I couldn’t even save my boyfriend, let alone the faceless masses whose fates had been changed by a rogue goddess.

  “I hope you’re right,” I said instead. “We’ll see you soon, okay?”

  “Hurry. I put out a missing persons report for you, and I’m not going to tell the police you’re home until I see you myself.”

  I couldn’t help the tiny smile that pushed against my lips. My poor mom had been through enough of my shenanigans to know not to expect me until I was present.

  How completely different from a year ago, when I was the very predictable, reliable older daughter.

  “Okay, Mom. Call me anytime.”

  As soon as I hung up and lowered the phone from my ear, it was flooded with a dozen other missed calls and texts and voicemails. I started at the top, playing them as Meredith finished up her conversation with her dad.

  “Well?” Beth asked from beside me.

  I held up a finger as I listened to Dana’s message. Dana had been my best friend for years, but since she left me for college over the summer, we had sort of drifted apart. I hadn’t been able to keep her on top of all the crazy stuff in my life.

  “Jayne, I’ve called you five times and you’re not answering. I’m freaking out, your mom is freaking out, half of New Jersey is freaking out. The epidemic of missing people has spread into Delaware and Maryland, and I just know this has something to do with you. Call me back. Call me back as soon as you get this.”

  While prone to theatrics, I knew from the tone of her voice that she was sick with worry. She knew more about my secret talents than anyone else, except present company and perhaps my boyfriend. She also knew that I had been on the trail of the rebel goddess, trying to bring the destruction of souls to a halt.

  I pressed the return call button and spoke to Beth while I waited for Dana to pick up. “Mom’s fine. She was crying, but she didn’t question our story.” Yet. “Meredith, are we ready?�
��

  “Yes.” Meredith slipped her phone into her pocket and moved to her car, parked in the long grass on the side of a lonely country road. Behind it sat the cottage where we had spent the past two days recovering and planning. Recovering from the battle we lost and planning to win this war.

  I climbed into the passenger side, and Dana answered as I pulled on my seatbelt. The car jerked when Meredith plowed off the grass and onto the road.

  “Please tell me you’re alive and have a very good reason for not answering your phone,” Dana said.

  “I’m alive and have a very good reason for not answering my phone,” I said.

  “Jayne, thank goodness,” she breathed, and I could picture her closing her eyes and letting out an exhale. “Now spill it,” she said, her voice lightening. “What’s going on?”

  Where to start? I hadn’t even told her everything before this went down. “It was Karta. Or rather, this girl Samantha who used to be Karta. She thought she could buy her own immortality by stealing souls. She summoned hundreds of people to her to build a little army. I tried to stop her, I tried to free them, but I failed.”

  “Wait, slow down, I’m lost,” Dana said. “Karta? Refresh me. Who is that?”

  “Karta is one of the goddesses of fate,” I said. “She’s my sister-goddess, the one in charge of adults. She works with me under Laima’s direction.” I was, after all, the other goddess of fate.

  “So isn’t she one of the good guys?”

  “Was.” I glanced at my sister in the back seat, her gaze out the window as we drove down the two-lane highway. “When Samantha went on her power trip, Laima took away her powers and gave them to Beth. Beth is Karta now.” I felt a surge of pride in my sister, in her ability to step up and take charge in this situation.

  “Whoa. This is freaky crazy.”

  I took a deep breath, preparing myself to confess the biggest loss. “She took Aaron.”

  Dana’s gasp echoed my own horror. “What does that even mean? She took him? Like, his soul belongs to her?”

  “Exactly.” The tears pricked my eyes. Aaron, my boyfriend of almost six months—until he broke up with me, of course. “He’s one of her minions now.”

  “But you can get him back, right? I mean, she’s not even a goddess any more.”

  “You can bet on it.” I closed my hands around the edge of the door, my knuckles whitening with the tension. “We’ve already started on a plan.” Samantha—her mortal name—might not be a goddess anymore, but she’d paired herself with a powerful god, and he supported her plan. We would have to stop them both to save Aaron and the other souls.

  “Can I help?”

  I had Dana’s undivided attention, something I hadn’t had since she started school a few weeks ago. She was always so distracted with boys, or classes, or boys, or, well, that was about it. “I wish there was something that could be done, but this is on us.”

  “Will you let me know?”

  Her voice sounded so pinched and worried that I nodded. “Of course. If I think of anything at all, I’ll let you know.”

  We said our goodbyes, and I continued down the list of voicemails. The next one was from an unavailable number, and I wasn’t surprised to hear Lieutenant Bailey’s voice carrying across the line. The car slowed as Meredith put on her turn signal, and I looked up in time to see we’d merged onto the interstate. My stomach fluttered. We’d be home sooner than I wanted.

  “Jayne, this is Lieutenant Bailey from the Lacey Township Police Department. Your mother put out a missing persons report on you and your sister, and due to our previous interactions, I thought I would personally call to see if you’re all right. Please return my call as soon as you get this, thank you.”

  Oh, how sweet. He was worried about me. I went to the next voicemail.

  “Hello, Jayne?”

  The English accent filled me with dread, and I knew who the speaker was before she said.

  “This is Elizabeth Chambers, Aaron’s mother. I haven’t heard from him in two days, and I wondered if you might know his whereabouts. It’s not like him to be so irresponsible. If he is with you, please tell him to call his mother. Thank you.”

  Her words dripped with sarcastic innuendo, implying that if Aaron was acting irresponsible, it was totally my influence.

  How I wished she were wrong.

  I took a deep breath and held it. Then I looked at Meredith.

  “That was Aaron’s mom. Wanted to know where he is. What do I do? Do I tell her?”

  Meredith shot me a quick glance before turning her attention back to the steering wheel. “And say what? That he tried to save you by giving up his soul to a demonic Latvian god? I don’t think that’s gonna go over well.”

  I snorted, realizing how insane that would sound. “I should tell her he’s missing, right?”

  “What good will that do? She knows that much, doesn’t she? She wants answers, Jayne, and unless you’re able to give them to her, I would just play dumb.”

  Meredith was right. I didn’t have any new information, no light to shed on the mystery.

  I hit the number to call Mrs. Chambers back. She answered almost as quickly as my own mother had.

  “Hello, this is Elizabeth.” The crisp British accent had an air of restless expectancy to it.

  “Mrs. Chambers, this is Jayne,” I said. “Sorry, I’ve been away from my phone.”

  “Where is Aaron?” she demanded, cutting me off.

  For a moment I lost my train of thought, visualizing Aaron as I’d last seen him: pressed khaki pants, sweater vest, and empty, black eyes. Face devoid of emotion. I gathered my wits about me and said, “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him.” I racked my brain, trying to think of how I would be acting if I really didn’t know anything. “Are you sure he didn’t tell you where he was going? How long has he been gone?”

  “You’re not fooling anyone, Jayne,” she said, her voice cold. “He told me he was going to your house. That he was going to break up with you, Jayne Lockwood. Now I demand to know what you have done with my son.”

  Chills went down my spine. She didn’t just think I was a bad influence; she thought I might have hurt him.

  Which was crazy ironic, because the first time I saw a vision of Aaron’s future, it involved him being murdered by his future ex-wife.

  “I haven’t seen Aaron,” I said.

  “So if I talk to your parents, they won’t have seen him either?”

  My mom might have seen Aaron when he came over to break up with me. “He came over, just like you said, but then he left. He broke up with me because of you. Happy?” I managed to throw some genuine indignation and hurt into my voice. “You told him I wasn’t good enough for him, that he needed to go back to England and get away from me. So that’s exactly what he did. It’s not my fault he doesn’t tell you everything. Why don’t you check the flight records and see which one he took back?”

  My voice had taken on quite an angry energy, and I realized I was expressing my true feelings toward her, even if the circumstances were false.

  Silence reigned on the line, and my conscience pricked me. I shouldn’t have spoken to her that way. Before I could apologize, she spoke again.

  “All right, Jayne. If that’s how you want to play this. But I will definitely let the police know you were the last person who saw my son before he disappeared.”

  I would have hung up on her, but she beat me to it. “Argh!” I tossed my phone onto the console, but not so far away I couldn’t reach it. I had a bad habit of throwing it across the room when I was angry and then having to track it down later.

  “What?” Meredith asked, her voice tense. “What’s wrong?”

  “That was Aaron’s mom. She said she’s going to tell the police I was the last person to see him before he disappeared. Definitely threatening me.”

  “Sounds like you’d have a happy family with your in-laws,” Beth said from the back, her voice way too chipper.

  “They’re not my i
n-laws,” I growled. Although, truthfully, I hoped they would be some day.

  “She’s just making idle threats,” Meredith said. “Doesn’t she know anything? Maybe it’s different in England, but here in America, adults who disappear aren’t considered missing persons until there’s suspicion of foul play, which there won’t be since it looks like half of New Jersey disappeared over the weekend, but even if that weren’t the case, they would just consider him a runaway or someone hiding from his parents—”

  “Thanks, Meredith,” I said, cutting her off. Her logic reassured me, but I wasn’t nervous about Mrs. Chamber’s accusations. It was the thought that someday I would have to share Aaron with that offensive woman that really got under my skin.

  Provided, of course, that I really had successfully changed his fate and he wasn’t going to end up married to his ex-girlfriend Libby.

  But what did any of that matter? Samantha had single-handedly changed the fate of hundreds of people, for the worse, and without Laima’s approval. Once again everything I knew about my powers descended into a confusing kaleidoscope around me, and I pressed the palms of my hands to my head before I couldn’t tell which way was up or down.

  “I’m going to need gas in about twenty minutes,” Meredith said.

  I lowered my hands away from my face and looked at her. “I’ll pay this time.” She’d covered the bill this entire trip and hadn’t even asked for help. “Hey, what about your dad? What did he say?”

  “He handled it about the same as your mom, it sounds like. Just relieved to know I’m alive. My brother is well, he didn’t take off or anything, but lots of people did.”

  My skin tingled with alarm as I thought of all the people who had received Samantha’s brainwashing poem. The majority had abandoned their homes and families to join her army. A small handful, however, had reacted badly, and a shocking number of suicides had plagued our township for the past few weeks.

  “And how are we on the suicides?” I asked.