Magic Runes Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  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

  Magic Runes

  Devyn Jayse

  Contents

  Title Page

  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

  MAGIC RUNES

  Magic Runes Book 1

  DEVYN JAYSE

  Magic Runes

  Book 1 of the Magic Runes Series

  Copyright © 2017 Devyn Jayse

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover design by Andrei Bat.

  For my Family

  One

  “Oh no you don’t!” I grabbed a piece of chalk from my pocket and swiftly drew symbols tying the spirit to the earth. “You thought you could get away with this, didn't you? You didn't count on Sylvia calling me.”

  Sylvia owned the apartment the ghost had been haunting. And I was Carmen Rebello, owner of Magic Runes, a specialty magic store located in the heart of El Born, Barcelona. Sylvia was a regular client, always coming to me to get rid of supernatural inhabitants before she rented out her apartments to new tenants. She made a good living buying, fixing up, and renting out apartments. She also owned a line of pharmacies, not that the two were related but I always found it interesting.

  The ghost struggled to get out of the constraints I had placed him in. To the casual viewer it looked like he was trapped in an invisible box. He glared at me, his dark eyes showing his frustration.

  “What's your problem anyway? Why didn't you continue on to the other side?” One thing I liked about taking on jobs that helped spirits move on was finding out the reason that they stayed behind in the first place. I found it fascinating. At the beginning, I thought they didn’t move on to the next plane because they wanted to remain around family, but I had been wrong. Most spirits were scared or angry that their lives had been unexpectedly shortened. They refused to move on.

  That's why they usually made life difficult for whoever entered their vicinity. Some ghosts could co-exist, others were simply territorial. They liked to cause as much trouble as possible to the people that moved into their territory.

  “So are you going to tell me your story?” I asked him again. The ghost continued to give me the silent treatment refusing to disclose his excuse for scaring away all the new tenants that tried to move in. I sighed. I guess I was going to have to get rid of him without learning why. It wasn’t ideal. I liked to get a sense of closure before I banished them, but it was the job I had been hired to do.

  I picked up a piece of chalk to continue writing out the spell-work that would cause the spirit to leave the human realm, when a sudden force knocked me over on to my knees. Startled, I looked around to see what had done that. The ghost had broken out of his contained space. That had never happened before. I quickly got to my feet, my right hand still clutching the chalk.

  He leered at me, his expression nasty. As I watched, the apparition expanded, getting larger and larger.

  “Being bigger than me won’t intimidate me,” I warned him. My hand tightened on the chalk. I had to quickly think of another spell to restrict his movements. I wasn’t worried about being harmed. I always wrapped layers of rune protections to ward off serious injury before taking on a job like this. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t be tossed around and bruised.

  The ghost opened his mouth as if he intended to wail at me but instead I felt the air being sucked as my body was dragged forward. I planted my feet, but I had underestimated the strength of the spirit. I fought to resist, suppressing my initial burst of horror, still trying to find an incantation that would work against him.

  He sneered, as if he could read my mind.

  “You think you can force me to go to the other side? You have no power here.”

  I gaped at him. “You can talk!”

  “Of course I can talk.” His tone was disdainful, clearly letting me know why he hadn’t attempted to converse with me.

  “Why don’t you want to move on?”

  “This is my place, they have no right to come and take over what is mine.” A burst of wind accompanied his words.

  “You didn’t own this apartment when you were alive. You didn’t rent it. You moved into this apartment when the last tenants vacated the place. So it’s not really your place.” I tried to reason with him.

  “I am here, so it is mine.”

  “You know that’s not how it works. You’ll have to continue on to the next plane.”

  “Do you know what there is waiting for me there?”

  “No,” I admitted.

  “There is nothing. Here, I have my place.”

  “You want to live here by yourself in a place where you’re not welcome? What kind of existence would that be?”

  “An existence.”

  I had to admit that I wasn’t completely sure what happened when I cast the spell on the spirits. The essence of the spell was to return the being or thing it was cast on to the place they belonged. When we first learned how to do it we practiced with inanimate objects. I had spent hours taking books off my bookshelf and using the spell to return them to their proper place. Like many magic-practitioners we had studied the theory of the realm beyond ours, but that’s all we had to work with - a theory.

  “Can you be certain that I will still exit when you banish me?”

  “No, but there would be no reason to think otherwise.”

  “What if you’re wrong?”

  “I don’t think I am. You were invited to join the other realm when you died but you refused to move on. I’m giving you a second chance.” That’s what I believed. I gripped the chalk in my hand. “Will you go willingly or do you want to make things difficult?”

  His answer was to dive toward me.

  I jumped out of the way, hitting the ground hard. I stayed down and quickly drew a circle of protection around me, chanting as I put up a ward. He threw himself over and over against the invisible wall I had built. Every time he crashed into the ward, it resulted in a loud bang. He was testing it for weaknesses. I continued to draw my runes on the ground, trying my best to ignore him. His wails turned into earsplitting cries.

  I gritted my teeth and kept going. I didn’t have time to draw a rune that blocked sound, I was close to finishing the spell for his departure. The pressure in my head inc
reased as his screams got louder. He hurled obscenities at me.

  Right when I thought I couldn’t take it anymore, he disappeared into thin air.

  With him gone I could hear my heart hammering in my ears.

  I took a sharp breath, gulping in air. My hand let go of the chalk and it dropped with a soft thud to the floor. I wiped my hand on my jeans and clutched my head. I could already feel myself beginning to get a killer migraine. I had expended too much magic getting rid of the ghost, I couldn’t afford to use it to get rid of the migraine.

  I got to my feet, gathered my things and made my way out of the apartment.

  Just a regular day in the world of Carmen Rebello.

  Two

  “You're back.”

  I looked up from the counter just in time to see an invisibility spell shimmer and collapse against the store’s wards, revealing a gargoyle beneath. Concealment spells fell apart as soon as the user crossed over the threshold, forcing the person to reveal their true selves.

  Mateu strolled in, shaking off the residual by-products of the wards. Any supernatural that stepped into the store felt a tingle, some more so than others depending on their power.

  “I passed by earlier but you weren't here,” Mateu continued. He jumped up on to his usual seat, a small bench by the window overlooking the street. The gargoyle had the grace of a panther, though the person that had carved Mateu gave him the jumbled features of assorted creatures. “Stubborn spirit?”

  “Yes,” I continued to line up products on the counter. “It took longer than I had anticipated. I didn't expect him to be so upset.”

  “Well, you’re trying to get him to cross to the other side. It can’t be a pleasant experience or none of them would stick around. All of them would have moved on already.”

  “I really think there's something better for them on the other side or I wouldn't be doing this. I think they’re just scared and I’m helping them find their proper place.” Despite my words, I couldn’t help remembering the ghost’s questions. I really hoped I was right.

  “I hope you're right.” Mateu echoed my thoughts. He stretched his body and shook. He reminded me of a dog shaking off water after a bath.

  “What’s the latest gossip?” I changed the subject. Mateu usually spent his mornings at the Cathedral with the other gargoyles. He lived in the gothic quarter, the residence of most of Barcelona’s gargoyles. You could barely turn the corner without seeing one of them. Despite their abundance, most humans didn’t notice their presence.

  Gargoyles were an unusually chatty bunch. I assumed it was because they had to stay silent and be still for long stretches of time so that when they actually get a chance to talk they were difficult to get them to stop. As far as gargoyles went, Mateu wasn't the chattiest in the bunch. He could actually keep a secret which was useful and sometimes necessary in my line of work. Some people thought he was my familiar but he was the one who chose me. He had started by frequently visiting my store until he was spending most of his time here. I didn’t mind. I liked the company.

  It helped that other supernaturals were used to gargoyles, so he could move and speak freely when they were around. It was only when humans unwittingly walked into the store that he had to lapse back into gargoyle mode. The wards I had set usually repulsed human walk-ins but there were some rare ones that were resistant to them. Those situations were usually awkward but occurred so infrequently that they made for funny stories afterward. And if the humans saw anything, a quick memory spell usually worked to fix the situation.

  “Word on the street is that the SBI is looking for vampire recruits,” Mateu settled comfortably and watched me count the products I had lined up on the counter.

  “Vampire recruits? That would never happen.”

  “That’s what some are saying, but it is the SBI. They’ll get someone to do it.”

  The Supernatural Bureau of Investigation, SBI, was an international organization. The majority of humans didn’t know of its existence. That’s how you knew the SBI were good at their job. The SBI’s mandate was to keep magic and supernatural activity hidden from humans. They were quick, merciless and effective at shutting down rogue supernatural activity. The agency had a lot of power and wasn’t much loved by the community. They did what they had to do, just like the IRS, but no one was going to thank them for it.

  “Yes, but you know vampires. The dark days would arrive sooner than one of them would join the SBI to inform on another.” I insisted.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure. The world is changing. I can sense it,” Mateu said, drily.

  “How old are you now?”

  Mateu turned his nose up. “Why must you always bring age into it? It is what it is, the seasons pass and the circle turns, but at some point the circle shifts and I can feel that shift coming.”

  I tilted my head. “What brought that on?”

  “It’s coming, Carmen. Better to be ready for the change rather than be caught scrambling to keep up.”

  I suppressed a shiver at his words. I had my own reasons for not wanting things to change. My life had fallen into a routine. I wasn’t ready to pick up and leave again.

  “What’s wrong?” Mateu asked me, sensing my distress.

  “Nothing,” I replied. I had managed to keep my history hidden for this long. I wasn’t about to share it. This wasn’t the time, and if I was lucky that time would never come. “Do you know why the SBI is interested in a vampire recruit?”

  Mateu shrugged. “You know what a secretive bunch the vampires are. It might be useful for the SBI to have an internal source.”

  “Having an internal source is different than having a recruit. A recruit means that person will would become an agent, doesn't it?”

  Mateu nodded. “Yes, that's what some of the others were saying. The proposition is alleged to be the work of Anne Berg.”

  “She doesn’t work for the SBI anymore.”

  “Maybe not, but if the former director of the SBI made a recommendation, the new guy can hardly refuse, can he?”

  “She’s been out for years. Why do people continue to think she’s running the show?”

  “Rumor has it she didn’t want to leave but she was forced to for personal reasons. And how can you not think she’s running the show? Anne Berg holds the record for longevity in her role as SBI Director. No one else has come close. It takes a lot of wit to be in charge of that many supernaturals and keeping them in line without forming enemies that unite in bringing you down.”

  “Do you think any vampire would take up the offer?”

  “Only if it proved beneficial to them. They're all self-serving and would want any advantages over the others.”

  Like many in the supernatural community, Mateu had no love for the vampires. Due to their immortality and canny ability when it came to money and investments, the majority of vampires were rich and controlled much of the supernatural politics. Having wealth and power concentrated in such a small group caused friction. Tensions simmered under the surface, but for the most part the system worked. Every few years rumors of a war between vampires and shifters would begin and leave again.

  “I’m surprised word got out. You know the vampires are going to be side-eyeing each other now,” I said. “As if they need more of a reason to be paranoid.”

  “Maybe that's what the SBI wants?” Mateu suggested.

  “It’s not like them to insert themselves into politics.” I grinned.

  Mateu let out a cackle at my joke. The SBI was notorious for trying to manipulate all supernatural matters, from economics to politics.

  “I’m glad I’m just a witch. The SBI doesn’t want anything to do with me and that’s the way I like it.”

  “Just you wait, they’ll find a purpose for you and get you working for them sooner or later.”

  I repressed another shudder. That would be my worst nightmare.

  “What are your plans for the week?” Mateu asked me.

  “Nothing much. Business has been s
low, so I’m thinking of giving a class.” Usually I supplemented my income by giving classes in various forms of magic. I taught runes, potion making, and other activities. Sometimes it was struggle to keep things afloat and earn enough to pay for rent, but my store served a purpose in the community and I enjoyed the work. I also liked being in charge of my own work hours. Like many of the other specialty stores in El Born, I opened and closed my store whenever I wanted. And my customers were okay with it. Most of them had my phone number and I left a note on the door for those who didn’t. If I was nearby, I could return to the store and help them with what they needed.

  “Do you want me to tell the other gargoyles to talk up your services? Give you a small marketing push?”

  I shook my head. “No, that's okay, I kind of need this week to prepare. I have a speaker visiting the store next week. It’s going to require a lot of coordination and work. I’ve told the local covens but I’m going to have to send out reminders.”

  “Whatever you like. If you change your mind, let me know.” Mateu returned to people-watching.

  To drum up work and business, I had put together a little event for witches and wizards. I had invited many of the nearby covens to sign up. I had ordered a lot of inventory and had to send out a newsletter letting them know what was in the store. I hoped that would help increase sales.

  “In fact…” My voice trailed off. Mateu’s shoulders had stiffened and his body was on alert as he stared out the window. I tensed. “What's wrong?”

  “Come over here,” Mateu said, still focused on whatever he saw outside the window. I walked around the counter and made my way to him. He got to his feet and stared intently at the street. As soon as I was within arm’s length of him, he asked me, “Do you see that woman?”