Witches (Runes series Book 6)
WITCHES
Ednah Walters
Copyright © Ednah Walters 2015
Published by Firetrail Publishing
This book is a work of fiction. The names characters,
places, and incidents are products of the author’s
imagination and are not to be construed as real.
Any resemblance to any actual events or
persons, living or dead, actual events, locale
or organizations is entirely coincidental.
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Firetrail Publishing
P.O. Box 3444
Logan, UT 84324
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Copyright © Ednah Walters 2015
Published by Firetrail Publishing
ISBN: 0991251741
ISBN-13: 978-0-991251742
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Edited by Allisyn Ma Edmonds
Cover Design by Cora Graphics.
© All Rights Reserved.
No part of this book may be used or
reproduced in any manner whatsoever
without permission, except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Firetrail Publishing publication: March 2015
www.firetrailpublishing.com
ALSO BY EDNAH WALTERS:
The Runes Series:
Runes (book one-free)
Immortals (book two)
Grimnirs: (book three-Cora/Echo)
Seeress (book four)
Souls (book five-Cora/Echo)
The Guardian Legacy Series:
Awakened (prequel-free)
Betrayed (book one)
Hunted (book two)
Forgotten (coming June 2015)
CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE
E. B. WALTERS
The Fitzgerald Family series
Slow Burn (book 1-Free)
Mine Until Dawn (book 2)
Kiss Me Crazy (book 3)
Dangerous Love (book 4)
Forever Hers (book 5)
Surrender to Temptation (book 6)
Infinitus Billionaires
Impulse (book 1)
Indulge (book 2-Coming Fall 2015)
Table of Contents
WITCHES. 1
ALSO BY EDNAH WALTERS: 3
DEDICATION.. 5
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. 6
TRADEMARK LIST. 7
GLOSSARY.. 8
1. First Case. 10
2. Illusions. 26
3. Kiss My Paws. 37
4. A Helping Hand. 68
5. The Staff. 93
6. Draugar 112
7. The Staff. 137
8. Tea with a Warlock. 157
9. Whose Side Are You on?. 180
10. First Session. 194
11. Oh My, Didn’t Expect That 209
12. The Vision. 225
13. No More Visions. 242
14. The Forest 263
15. Stupid Posters. 277
16. Eirik. 293
17. The Ultimatum.. 307
18. Empty Threats. 325
19. Black Bears. 340
20. Crypt 360
21. We Know the Truth. 375
22. Death Comes Knocking. 388
23. Our Moment 405
24. Turning Tables. 427
25. The Norns. 443
Epilogue. 460
A SPECIAL MESSAGE.. 464
DEDICATION
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This one is for you,
ToRaine’s fans
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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I want to thank my editor, Allisyn Ma Edmonds, for going through this at
such short notice and doing an amazing job. So happy I found you.
To my personal assistant Cheree Crump, you rock!!!
Nuns have nothing on you. So thanks for being my sounding board.
To my author buddy, Melissa Haag, thanks for putting the stamp
of approval on the final product. I’m so happy we connected.
To my beta-readers Irina Wo, Jeannette Oatman Whitus, and
Carolina Silva. Thank you for reading the raw version
and for your honest feedback. I could not have polished the
book without your keen eyes. My Street Team: This is for YOU!!
You keep me humbled, encourage me, you make me laugh and cry.
I love hanging out with you guys, love sharing stories and pictures.
Thank you for being so awesome. If I could thank all of you
individually, I would. You know who you are. Love you, guys.
To husband and my wonderful children, thank you for
your unwavering love and support. You inspire me in
so many ways. Love you, guys.
TRADEMARK LIST
Google
Harley
StubHub/LA Galaxy
FIFA
Nikon
Twizzlers
Supernatural
CWTV
Charmed
Beckham
The Scarlett Letter
Chevrolet
Petsmart
Honda Civic
World Cup
Dodge
Lays
Herbalife
GLOSSARY
Asgard: Home of the Aesir gods
Odin: The father and ruler of all gods and men.
He is an Aesir god. Half of the dead soldiers/warriors/athletes
go to live in his hall Valhalla.
Freya: The poetry-loving goddess of love and fertility.
The other half of the dead warriors/soldiers/athletes go to her hall in Falkvang
Frigg: Odin’s wife, the patron of marriage and motherhood
Norns: deities who control destinies of men and gods
Völva: A powerful seeress
Völur: A group of seeresses
Immortals: Humans who stop aging and self-heal
because of the magical runes etched on their skin
Valkyries: Immortals who collect fallen warriors/soldiers/
fighters/athletes
and take them to Valhalla and Falkvang
Ragnarok: The end of the world war between the gods and
the evil giants
Artavus: Magical knife or dagger used to etch runes
Artavo: Plural of artavus
Stillo: A type of artavus
Grimnirs: Reapers for Hel
Hel: The Goddess Hel in charge of the dead
Hel: Home of Goddess Hel, dead criminals, those dead from
illness and old age
Nastraad/Corpse Strand: The island in Hel for criminals and evil Mortals
Yggdrasil: The tree of life or tree of knowledge that connects
the nine realms of Norse cosmology
Seidr: An old Norse term referring to a magical practice by the
Norse, it includes act of divination or prophecy performed
while in a trance.
Brísingamen: A beautiful necklace owned by Goddess Freya
Bygul: One of the cats that pulls Goddess Freya’s chariot
skreyja vilfill: loosely translated from Norse as incompetent beetle
Baulufotr: cow foot in Norse
Beiskaldi: bitch in Norse
Jotunn: giants in Norse
Draugr/Draugar/Revenants/Wendigo: zombie-like creatures
Garm: Hel’s hound
Daufi: Stupid in Norse
Idun: Norse Goddess of Sprin
Nornsgard: Norns’ Hall
Midgard: Earth in
Valknut: the rune formed by three interlocked triangles
1. First Case
The stench of stale sweat woke me from a deep slumber, and I jerked upright, fighting the gag ref
lex. The source of the stench was Beau Hardshaw’s sweatshirt on my pillow. Dang it! I’d fallen asleep on the job.
Naked jocks flashed in my head, images I was still trying to erase from my memory. Served me right for trying to steal something of Beau’s. But what was a witch supposed to do when a Mortal was in danger of destroying his life? Brave the worst place in Kayville High School—the boy’s locker room.
I picked up the sweatshirt with my thumb and forefinger like it was a rattlesnake, but that was all the contact I needed to get a vision. My room faded into darkness. Walls and cabinets appeared in its place, and then I was standing in the same room I’d visited earlier this evening—Beau Hardshaw’s kitchen. The scene played out like my worst nightmare.
Beau raised the gun, green eyes fierce and crazed like a cornered animal, and pointed it at his stepfather.
The lumberjack stumbled back, an empty beer box dropping from his hand. He only wore underwear—tighty-whities, hairy chest and large stomach hanging over stick legs. Not exactly what I wanted to see in a vision.
“What do you think you’re doing, boy?” Hardshaw senior snarled. “You’d better be prepared to pull that trigger, because I’m gonna teach you a lesson when I come over there.”
Beau grimaced and shook his head. He either didn’t like being called a boy, or he objected to being taught a lesson by anyone. Beau was tall and buff with serious tats and a killer smile. It didn’t help that he was the co-captain of Kayville High’s baseball team and a chick magnet with a reputation for girl hopping. Yep, Beau wore his douchebaggery on his sleeves and didn’t care who knew it. Even I had noticed him, Kayville High’s Number One Bad Boy, during my pre-Torin years.
“Get out or you’re a dead man,” Beau threatened.
“This is my home, boy, and she is my wife!” his stepfather bellowed.
“She’s my mother and tonight is the last time you touch her.” Beau angled the gun.
“Don’t, Beau!” a woman cried out. I followed the voice to the corner of the cabinets, where a woman crouched, cowering. From the way she held her arm it was probably injured.
“He’ll kill you if I don’t stop him, Mama,” Beau said in a shaky voice. He released the safety of the gun, the sound loud in the stillness of the moment.
“I’d never kill your mother, Beau,” his hulking stepfather said, his voice now whiny. He moved backward toward Beau’s mother. “I love her. Put the gun down, son.” Then he grabbed his wife by her hair and hauled her in front of him, just as Beau pulled the trigger.
The sound of the gun wiped the vision, and I was back in my room. I jumped to my feet. At least that was my intention. I landed on the floor with enough noise to wake the dead. Lucky for me, Mom and my boyfriend, Torin, were out reaping souls. Dad was doing much better, but he was a deep sleeper these days, courtesy of some serious pain and sleep runes for his terminal cancer. Femi, his nurse, would understand once I explained.
As though my thoughts had conjured her, a portal appeared in my room and Femi peered at me. “You okay, doll?”
“Yes. Just a nightmare.” Go away now, I projected into her head.
“Okay. Goodnight.”
The portal closed behind her, and I wondered if I’d gotten inside her head or if she’d believed that I was actually okay. I didn’t like getting inside people’s heads and playing with their thoughts, but sometimes, it was necessary. Besides, I was new to these witchy powers. I improvised a lot.
I engaged my runes and started for the mirror. Before it responded to my runes and changed into a portal, I caught my reflection and grimaced. My hair was a mess, and I still wore my pajamas—shorts and a tank top. The silk robe only came to my thighs. And I couldn’t remember where I’d put my slippers.
Oh well, I had more important things to worry about than my appearance. In the seconds it took for the mirror to turn into a portal, I mentally went over what I knew about Beau’s life.
His stepfather was a bastard. If I hadn’t seen him treating Beau like a punching bag in my earlier vision, I would not have fallen asleep holding his dirty sweatshirt. I needed to touch items belonging to people to get a vision. Being a Seeress had its perks, but when it involved a life-changing vision, it totally screwed up my day.
I’d received the first vision in the school cafeteria today, when Beau had brushed against me. The bloody scene and the gun in Beau’s hand had been enough to make me lose my appetite.
The second one had happened after I’d deliberately followed him, bumped into him, and dropped my books. He’d probably thought I was coming on to him, especially when I’d grabbed his hand and hung on to it for dear life. My visions had never been so clear, but the look on Beau’s face, a cross between shock and fascination, could lead to complications. My eyes glowed whenever I had premonitions. So he could either tell his friends that Torin St. James’ girl was into him or was a witch. I’d been labeled a witch before I even knew I was one. Now I wore the label with pride. Too much had happened the past nine months for me to disregard my magical gifts.
Bottom line was Beau could kill his abusive stepfather and possibly his mother tonight.
The thought brought me back to the present, and I watched the portal form. The mirror changed texture until the surface looked like a rippling pool of water. Portals come in all sizes: some with hallways and others without, depending on the runes used. Tonight, the surface peeled back into a short hallway, the floor and the walls shimmering.
The lights weren’t on in Beau’s house. The fact that there were no flashing red and blue lights outside told me that the events in my vision hadn’t occurred yet.
I stepped into his living room, and the portal closed. The runes glowing on my body gave me enough illumination, so it wasn’t hard to get my bearings. I recognized the worn out sofas and pictures of Beau in baseball outfits on the walls and fireplace. There were a few pictures of a little girl, and I wondered if he had a sister. She appeared much younger than Beau, and in the pictures; he couldn’t have been older than ten.
I left the mirror in the living room, skirted around chairs and tables, and went toward the hallway. During lunch, I’d followed Beau home in my car and searched his house for a gun, a very frustrating endeavor since I couldn’t use my elemental magic.
Was it only a week ago I’d discovered I was linked to the world around me in ways that were both scary and beautiful? I could communicate with trees. Command the ground I walked on. And don’t get me started on what I could do to the human mind. That wasn’t elemental, but it was still pretty amazing. Even Torin, a powerful Valkyrie, was not immune to my magic.
I reached the basement door, and I found myself hesitating before creating the next portal. Doubts crept in. I hadn’t found the gun during my earlier search. What were the chances I’d find it now? It was quiet. Maybe nothing was going to happen tonight.
I peered into the hallway. The house wasn’t large, just a single story with a basement, where Beau’s bedroom was located. He lived on the west side of Kayville, where most Chandler Lumber Corp’s workers and their families resided. Chandler was the single largest employer in Kayville, Oregon. We might boast of being wine country with huge vineyards, but the wineries were actually in the neighboring towns. Half the kids I went to school with were from families like Beau’s, with generations working or having worked in the lumber industry.
Beau, however, could break that circle. He had an amazing arm and a chance at a full ride to college on a baseball scholarship. Scouts were already coming to the games to watch him when he was only a junior. This mess with his stepfather might just prevent that from happening.
Why should I care about what happened to Beau? The guy I loved would definitely not understand. Torin was a Valkyrie, a soul reaper, and he strongly believed in letting one’s destiny take its course. I was the opposite. I believed that everyone should have the right to change his or her destiny. You know, make mistakes, and pick themselves up, dust off their pants, re-evaluate, and try things a
different way. And if they got a little help along the way, that was just great. As long as it was what they wanted, and not what some hag, deity, or supernatural being had decided before they were born.
So here I was, butting my nose into Beau’s business. It might come back and bite me in the butt. Heck, I might even fail to help him. Beau with his tattoos and bad reputation was the worst candidate for a first case, but I didn’t choose the visions I got. This one happened and I was dealing with it the only way I knew how. I was giving Beau a nudge off a destructive path. The rest would be up to him.
The Norns weren’t going to like me interfering in their business, but then again, when have I ever done anything that made those hags happy? I just couldn’t sit back and do nothing. Or I could have called the cops and told them… What? I saw a vision of a crime that hadn’t been committed? They’d laugh at me or haul me off to a mental house.
Sneaking into the guys’ locker room to find something of Beau’s had been traumatizing. High school guys are gross. They fart, and scratch their asses and balls with no shame. I’d always thought my first naked guy would be Torin, the man I was crazy about. Unfortunately, I was wrong. I’d grabbed the first thing of Beau’s and used an air portal to get out of there fast. Not fast enough though. The images of naked jocks were trapped in my head.