Art of Death Read online

  Art of Death

  Curse Breaker Series: Book 1

  By: Becca Vincenza

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2018 Becca Vincenza

  Cover: Covers by Christian

  Editing: Hot Tree Editing

  Proof Reading: Dawn Yacovetta

  ISBN: 9780463554753

  All rights reserved. The book may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  The books are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author‘s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Books by Becca

  HEXED SERIES

  Hexed Hearts

  Hunter’s Heart

  THE REBIRTH SERIES

  Damaged

  Healed

  Stolen

  MERCENARIES FOR HIRE

  Freelance

  Hired

  Contracted

  Authorized

  Dedication

  To my best friend. I couldn’t have done this without you.

  Acknowledgement

  I can’t ever do this page right. I want to thank everyone and I am always so worried I will forget someone. So let’s start from the beginning. Thank you to my best friend, Stacey Rourke for letting me literally bother her with every little detail of this book. From the beginning stages of plotting the whole world, to the very bitter end as I am formatting it.

  Thank you to my beta reads who without their insight and passion to help me I don’t think I would ever have the courage to get this to the editor. So thank you Jennifer, Vanessa, Victoria and Rana.

  MASSIVE thank you to the team members at Hot Tree Editing who managed to not only squeeze me in pretty quick but made me feel confident in my work again.

  Thank you to Karina Espinosa for listening to me freak out about this that and whatever and making me fall absolutely head over heels in love with Urban Fantasy.

  Thank you to Dawn Yacovetta who always comes to my rescue by swooping in when I need an amazing proof reader (no editor or proof reader touched this part probably much to their dismay.

  Thank you, readers, for taking a chance on me, or for joining me in this new genre that excites me to no end. It’s like finally finding home.

  Preface

  Ever wonder how you end up in certain situations? And what exactly you could’ve done to make things turn out differently? I knew the exact moment I could’ve changed my entire fate. Of course, I would’ve walked into a future I didn’t realize had already been planned. But that’s for a different time.

  I wished I hadn’t acknowledged that ghost on a normal, albeit boring day at work. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here.

  A branding rod heated in the fire until the end glowed a fluorescent orange, which I was convinced only existed in Lisa Frank pictures up to that point. Instead, it moved closer and closer to me. Pain that would no doubt be the worst I had suffered yet approached.

  All because I’d talked to that ghost.

  All because I’d fucked up, big-time.

  Chapter 1

  My lip curled as I watched the couple in the booth in the back trying to eat each other’s faces. Okay, maybe they weren’t eating so much as “kissing,” but even that felt like a stretch of the imagination. The fact that I could hear—yes, hear—the slurp of their saliva made me damn glad that relationships had been a ghost in my life.

  Heh. Ghost.

  Speaking of…

  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a new ghost who flickered in and out. I had seen him around town. He was getting stronger every day. However, part of the rules that my paranoid, protective parents constantly warned us to remember was to never engage new ghosts. Especially ghosts of people we didn’t know, which were very rare.

  Slllurp.

  Gritting my teeth, I gave the couple my best evil eye. Why here? Why not go down to Bam’s Diner? Snorting at my own thought, I could almost see the owner’s face watching these two. Amber would have them kicked out on a park bench in a second flat.

  In Kodiak Falls, you had your choice of about two eateries. Bam’s was number one. Somehow the Full Moon—yeah, real original—got third in a place that technically only had two sit-down restaurants, but looking around the bar, I could understand why.

  The lighting was something out of a bad crime movie with eighties green glass shades everywhere and mosaic ones for the booths. The floors creaked in almost every spot you walked. In the darkened corner of the bar sat a semi-broken jukebox that I wish no one would ever notice. It had a rotation of three songs, and if I heard “Carry on my Wayward Son” one more time today, someone would be murdered. Or I’d rip off my own ears. One of the two would happen.

  The high-pitched laughter of the female patron bounced off the walls. Yes, we were at the perfect place for them to suck face, and it wasn’t bothering anyone else because there wasn’t anyone else. Ghosts were few and far between in our small, sleepy town in literally the middle of nowhere, Alaska.

  Extending my sixth sense—God, that movie ruined everything about my magic—I learned that a dead rodent had been trapped in the back. Ah, two birds, one stone.

  Ira would be in the back doing gods knew what, but even though his father owned the bar, it didn’t mean I had to do all the work. Flexing my fingers, I watched the strings of sparkling red currents flow from each of my fingertips. The Death Lines crawled toward the small animal before latching around me, my magic coiling and flooding into the dead body.

  With a small tug, I used my powers as a necromancer to command the rodent forward. The power I had to put into it was more than I was used to though, and sweat started to bead on my forehead. He had been farther out than I’d thought, probably behind the stove at the very back of the bar. Dammit.

  Drawing more of my focus on the rodent, I tugged it forward, encouraging the little beasty to walk to the front of the store. It shouldn’t really be as hard as it was, considering I once conjured the family dog back to life by letting the grief take over. I had only been six, and I was brokenhearted. My parents had a fit though.

  Even at that age, the rules were drilled into my head so much that I could recite them better than my ABCs. My parents were a bit obsessive about the rules though. Even now, I had broken about three or four of them, but it still didn’t stop me. If I had to hear them sucking on each other for one more moment, I’d turn on “Carry on my Wayward Son.” And that would do absolutely nothing to improve my mood.

  Chhhht. Click. Chhht. Click. Click.

  Okay, maybe it was a little overdramatic to make it move like a zombie, but it made the whole experience more fun. The bar had been completely empty besides the couple plus Ira in the back. The guy stopped and cocked his head, listening, a quiet growl coming from his throat with his annoyance. The rat scurried faster over the table at my command.

  I kept my head down and continuously wiped the same glass I had been wiping for the last five minutes. At that point, it should have shined. The woman, who I recognized as an old classmate of mine, jumped up with a squeal.

  Holding back my snort of laughter, I kept wiping. My fingers twitched, and my Death Lines tugged. Sneaking a peek, I saw the rat scurry backward.

  That wasn’t me.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed my audience.

  Shit. It took me a moment to realize that the person watching this all go down had not been alive. Instead, an unknown ghost had wandered into my bar—well, not mine, but whatever—and watched me fuck with the other two Mystics in here.

  Double shit.

  Death Lines w
ere invisible to most other Mystics, but ghosts could see through any glamour, magic, and the like. Evolution had been kind to necromancers, allowing us to hide our magic from other Mystics. But right then, I felt utterly exposed.

  I released my hold on the rat, and it flopped onto the hard wood with a loud thump. Rigor mortis crept back into its little body, and damn did that little fucker stink.

  The ghost’s eyes widened as he looked at the rat and then back to me.

  “You’re a necromancer!” he said excitedly.

  Pulling my attention away from the ghost, albeit a few minutes too late, I turned back to the couple in the corner. The male urged his girl out of the booth and glared in my direction. The ghost might’ve just figured out what I was, but everyone in town already knew. It was safe to say they weren’t fans.

  The platinum blonde flipped her hair over her shoulder as she passed me with a nasty twist to her lips. I smiled brightly at her as she left the bar.

  “Have a good day. Don’t forget to tip your waitress.” The door flapped shut. “Who was me, you giant dicks.”

  The ghost snorted and floated closer, staring at me brightly.

  “Go away, go away, go away,” I muttered under my breath then cursed because Ira was in the back and would probably hear me. Dude didn’t let anything go. Without a doubt, he would come out here if he thought I was talking to someone… not quite alive anymore.

  I groaned at the thought of seeing my ex-best friend’s older brother come out here. Ira had become way too Alpha for his own good, and he hadn’t even taken over for his father yet. But Ira and Indigo’s father owned the bar, so there would be no escape.

  “Will you help me?” the ghost asked.

  “Really not in the position for that,” I mused.

  “Why not? Surely it can’t be that hard. Don’t you do some magical voodoo?”

  “Magical voodoo?” Resisting the urge to look at the ghost, I busied myself by wiping the counter.

  “How am I supposed to know how your stuff works?”

  I snorted. My ‘stuff’? Widening my eyes in disbelief, I focused on literally anything else.

  “I don’t get why it would be so hard for you to help me. Not like this bar is booming with business,” the ghost said.

  “Rowan.”

  Ah fuck. I cringed as I heard the back door swing open. Peeking over my shoulder, I tried not to grit my teeth. “Hey, Abel.”

  His gaze went straight to the unknown ghost behind me, and the muscle in his temple throbbed. “You ready to leave?”

  Ugh. Ira probably heard me talking to the ghost and snagged my twin before he came through the front doors, letting him know something was up. Little snitch.

  “Sure, let’s head out.” I grabbed my wallet from behind the counter and followed Abel out the door. My brother went ahead of me, and I pounced on his back as he stepped outside.

  Abel stood tall like the rest of the men in my family while I had my mom’s average size. In the human world, average was average; in the Mystic world, average tended to be on the short side.

  I wrapped my arms around Abel’s neck.

  “Ro, not right now.”

  “I’m sorry, Abel.”

  “Rowan.”

  Releasing my twin, I stepped around him. “What’s up with you?”

  Unlike all six of our brothers, Abel was the one who tended to put up with my antics. He kept quiet, his jaw working as he debated on what to yell at me about. I had no doubt Ira told him about the rat. Which I’d left on the dance floor. Was it wrong that I wanted to laugh, thinking about when Ira would find it?

  “You’re not worried about next week?” Abel hedged, probably since the ghost was hovering.

  Ah. Birthday doom is on his mind again. Every Mystic had a second puberty, in a sense. And the age varied for each race. For necromancers, it was our twenty-first birthday when we came into our full powers. Most of our brothers had their changes way before Abel and I had been born. I couldn’t remember what went into it.

  Of course, my twin and I were special. We were Curse Breakers. It was an unfortunate title and deemed us as different. My father’s family had been cursed by another necromancer family centuries ago.

  The Hayes family, my family, had been giving birth to more and more girls and girl/boy twin combinations over the years. In our history books, it’s noted that women have more control over life and death; therefore, females tended to be more powerful than male necromancers. And any girl/boy twins born had equal powers, the male’s usually matching the female’s. It had been a blessing for our family, but others saw it as threatening.

  A rival clan, the Quintanos, had become jealous of the power the Hayeses had been gaining with our increased girl and twin birthrate. Once upon a time, our family had been a hot commodity, and more Mystics hired us. That pissed off the Quintano family, and they had a witch curse our family to only have males. They wanted to eliminate our line completely, but magic had limitations. The males in our family had a hard time marrying female necromancers as they knew of the Hayes family curse. No females in our race wanted to marry into a dying and weakening family line.

  Abel had been the seventh son born to the seventh son and so on and so on. And then, there had been me. The surprise. All the sonograms said I would be a boy until I came out a minute after my brother.

  “I’m not worried about anything, Abel. You worry enough for the both of us. You know Kent always says you got the worry gene in the womb. And I got the dumbass gene.”

  Kent was one of our older brothers who was closer to our age. Before he left to train to be part of the Guard, he used to let us hang with him. While I missed Kent, he did what most people our age did when they could. He left.

  Gods, that sounded amazing. I had never left Kodiak Falls.

  “Well, Kent was right about the dumbass gene,” Abel said. I smiled at the face that reflected my own but was much more masculine.

  “I like when you make jokes.”

  “Come on, short stuff.”

  “I don’t feel like going home.”

  “Because I’m going to tattle on you?” Abel asked with his brows raised.

  “That among other things,” I said. It had been too good to be true to think my brother didn’t notice my little interaction with the ghost. Not only could he see and hear him also, but that was just Abel. Observant and smart.

  “Come on.” Abel wrapped his arm around my shoulder before slipping it up farther and trapping my neck.

  “Don’t you even dare.”

  “I don’t know what you could mean, Ro-ro.”

  “Oh no, you don’t.”

  I twisted and turned in my twin’s hold, trying to escape. A laugh shot through me as my brother and I fought.

  “Hey! I’m not done with you, girl!”

  Fucking shit.

  The ghost stormed out of the bar, and I cringed as Abel tightened his hold a little before releasing me and pointedly walking toward his truck. Following Abel, I wondered how long this ghost would stick around before he gave up.

  “I know you both can hear me!”

  Abel kept a straight face as he climbed into his truck. I’d blown our secret to this ghost, breaking one of the most important and easiest rules to follow. If we went home with my new ghost friend in tow, my parents would be livid.

  “Do you think Wilson would let us use his apartment for a couple of days?” I asked as I joined Abel in the truck. Our brother Wilson would have the wards and crystals to keep the ghost out. The problem with ghosts was that the more powerful they were, the easier they could pass different wards. This one had been almost solid for days. It wouldn’t be so easy to rid ourselves of him.

  “Wilson is going to be here in a few days,” Abel said.

  “When did you talk to him?” I asked, intrigued. Wilson didn’t call us younger siblings very often.

  “Earlier this morning. He’d been on the phone with Mom and wanted to talk to me.”

  “Well, we can s
tay at Wilson’s apartment until he arrives in town.”

  “Rowan.”

  Abel started the truck and drove off before the ghost could try to hitch a ride.

  “Don’t ‘Rowan’ me, Abel. I know I fucked up. I’m trying to make it right. If we resolve his death in a couple of days, before Wilson gets here, we can avoid Mom and Dad until then.”

  “And if we can’t and he becomes a vengeful?”

  I hated Abel’s logic. A vengeful would be a step down from a poltergeist but still something we couldn’t handle yet. Vengeful ghosts were powerful and dangerous, especially to a younger necromancer. Then for sure my parents would find out.

  “It won’t come to that.”

  Abel remained silent for the rest of the drive, but he didn’t head in the direction of home. Instead, he drove toward Wilson’s apartment. Our second-oldest brother was a business wiz who lived full-time in a bigger city but kept an apartment here for when he came home for visits. He liked his space because he always worked, and with seven other siblings and his parents, there wasn’t such a thing as peace and quiet.

  “Ro…”

  “Don’t ‘Ro’ me, either. Let’s do it. Put our powers to the test.” Together our powers equaled that of a full-grown necromancer. We could banish the ghost from this area, but that could prove more dangerous in the long run. By shooting this ghost out, we could invite a horde of new ones in. If we banished him, we would have to banish him to limbo or coax him to “the other side.”

  “No. We’ll ignore him. If he doesn’t go away in a couple of days, I’ll tell Mom and Dad that I slipped up,” Abel said.

  A stab of guilt prodded at me. Abel had been taking care of my problems since he’d been old enough to speak. He always covered for me, tried to take the blame even though, most of the time, my parents knew it had been me anyway.

  “Abel…”

  “Don’t, Rowan. Let’s get to Wilson’s.”

  Uncomfortable with how the conversation ended, I shifted in my seat. Pouting because I hated when my twin was mad at me, I watched the wilderness fly past us.