Soul Snatcher - Chaos Magic Book 1: An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure, page 1
Soul Snatcher
CHAOS MAGIC
BOOK ONE
JENN MITCHELL
MJ KRAUS
Copyright © 2022 by Muonic Press Inc
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About the Author
JENN MITCHELL
Jenn Mitchell writes humorous Urban Fantasy
from the heart of South Central Pennsylvania’s
Amish Country.
When she’s not writing, Jenn enjoys traveling, crafting, cooking, hoarding cookbooks, and spending time with the World’s most patient and loving significant other.
She also writes Cozy Mysteries as J Lee Mitchell.
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realperson@hhmbpublishing.com
About the Author
MJ KRAUS
Mike Kraus started writing in 2012 with the bestselling post-apocalyptic series Final Dawn.
In 2017 he began expanding into the Urban Fantasy and Fantasy genres, which he writes under the pen name of "MJ Kraus.”
www.mikekrausbooks.com
hello@mikekrausbooks.com
Special Thanks
I’d like to thank Mike and Janita for letting me join them in the Makeshift Wizard world. It's been the most amazing experience.
I’d also like to thank Christian Bentulan for his amazing cover art and Theresa Schultz for her fabulous editing and feedback.
Last, but certainly not least, I want to thank our beta readers, you are truly the best.
Chaos Magic Book 2
Chaos Magic Book 2
Available Here
Chapter
One
It was only eight forty-five a.m. and the day was already going to shit. I rounded the corner and spotted my business partner, Ox, standing in front of our pawn shop in a pool of broken glass. He was staring at a large hole where our front window should have been.
“Nice of you to finally show up, Danny boy.”
Verbal sparring isn’t my strong suit so I didn’t bother to reply. My strength is empathic magic. I have a gift for reading feelings, and I sensed a mixture of sarcasm and hostility pouring out of Ox. He’s a dwarf so there’s usually a bit of both hovering around him, but this was next-level kind of angry so I went with the safe bet: handing him his coffee, and ignoring him.
I carefully stepped over the broken glass and placed a palm against the front door. My warding runes flickered a few times, then a bolt of energy nailed me in the chest, knocking me backwards. I landed hard on my ass, spilling coffee down the front of me. Clearly the protection spell was still in place, which didn’t make sense.
“What the…”
A loud crash inside the shop kept me from finishing my question. I scrambled to my feet and shouted the command to deactivate the magical security system. “Impedio iauna sit portendo!”
I did a double take as Ox yanked open the front door and pulled a hatchet from inside his vest. What can I say? Dwarfs know how to accessorize. I grabbed his arm. “Wait! You have no idea who’s in there. What if they’re armed? You can’t just go charging in like SWAT.”
Ox pushed my hand away and grumbled, “Danny, you really need to get a girlfriend and stop watching so much TV.”
We both jumped as we heard a familiar voice from the ground behind us. “I’m sorry to interrupt this riveting banter, but I thought the two of you might like to know that I smell perfume. At least one of our intruders is female.”
Ox groaned. “Chet! Don’t just stand there sniffing your own ass. Get in there and act like a guard dog for once.” The dwarf shook his head and muttered. “Wretched mutt.”
The English bulldog curled his muzzle and lifted a leg in Ox’s direction. I really thought Chet was going to relieve himself on us, but instead he let loose a noxious cloud of fecal decay. The stink was so vicious it had me doubled over, gasping for air.
Ox glared at me. “This is what you get for letting him eat food truck tacos.”
I was still bent over, gagging, as Ox walked away complaining about Chet and me being useless. I didn’t take it personally, but in Chet’s defense, he isn’t really a guard dog. Technically, he isn’t a dog at all. He’s an elf trapped in a bulldog body by a Romani curse.
I took my jacket off and laid it across the broken glass so Chet wouldn’t cut his paws. We were only a few steps inside the pawn shop when Ox let out a roar. A wave of fear, pain, and surprise wafted out of the back room and almost knocked me over. The pain and surprise belonged to Ox; the fear belonged to someone whose emotional energy I didn’t recognize.
Chet hightailed it behind the counter to the safety of his dog bed. I ran toward Ox and reached the room just in time to see a flash of black leather slipping out the window. Ox was rolling around on the floor trying to dislodge the crossbow bolt protruding from his right shoulder. I didn’t need to use my magic to sense his emotion was now anger. It was pretty clear when he bellowed, “Quit gawking at me and go after her! She’s got the Soul Snatcher!”
Shockwaves pulsed through my body. “You’re joking, right? Tell me you’re joking.”
Ox stopped tugging on the bolt and glared at me. “I’m not joking. Dwarfs never joke. Now go! You have to get that artifact back.”
The Soul Snatcher was over three hundred fifty years old and worth a fortune to the right collector, especially if that collector planned to use it. The kind of artifacts Ox and I procured don’t exactly come with certificates of authenticity, but rumor around the collectors’ circuit is that the Soul Snatcher was the personal walking stick of alchemist Edward Kelley and when used in conjunction with an extraction spell, it has the ability to steal the life force from any living creature.
Not exactly the kind of artifact you’d want falling into the wrong hands. Ox and I specialize in locating and containing dangerous magical objects. The pawn shop makes a convenient front for that kind of thing.
“Damn it, Danny! Move!”
I knew Ox was right, but I was still too busy freaking out to operate my legs. My knees felt like rubber and my bladder was about to empty itself down my leg. I definitely picked the wrong day to wear tan khakis. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t afraid of a cursed object. I was afraid of the collector who paid us to procure it and was coming to pick it up later that afternoon.
Mallis Candilora isn’t just any collector. He’s an elder of the unseelie court and a sorcerer of unfathomable power. Power he isn’t afraid to use against those who displease him.
I pulled myself together and tried to focus. I have problems controlling magic when I get scared or nervous, so a plan involving spells wasn’t an option. I went with using my shoulder to batter the door, praying it would fly open with enough force to temporarily intimidate our thief.
Unfortunately, I’m more of a bookworm than a battering ram, so in hindsight, it was a bad plan. Our thief had blocked the door from the outside and I ended up knocking myself out cold and dislocating my shoulder.
When I came to, Ox had removed the crossbow bolt from his own shoulder and bandaged the wound. He had a hold of my arm and his foot was in my armpit. I was still a little out of it when I heard him say, “Sorry, Danny boy, this is going to hurt.” He yanked my arm toward him, I heard myself scream, then everything went black.
I’m not sure how long I was out the second time, but waking up to Chet drooling on my face was almost as unpleasant as Ox setting my shoulder. I tried to sit up, but only managed to roll over and spray the floor with my breakfast.
He shot me that displeased dwarf look. “This is exactly why ‘you puke, you clean it up’ is a house rule around here until you man up, Danny.”
Ox has many strengths; motivational speaking isn’t one of them. He grabbed me by the armpits and lifted me into the closest chair. My head was still spinning and my shirt was soaked with dog drool. Ox tossed me a towel, then pulled a chair over for himself. “Dry yourself off and clean up your mess. I’m going to see if anything else is missing. When I get back, we need to figure out what to do about Mallis.”
As soon as I heard his name I puked again.
I inherited Tarot’s Pawn Shop—and my gift for empathic magic—from my grandfather, Markus. I guess you could say I also inherited Chet. It’s a long story, but I’ll try to keep it short. Chet and my grandfather were best friends and business partners. Okay, business partners might not be the right term. They were more like magical grifters who used their abilities to manipulate innocent people. According to my grandfather, they had a good thing going, until Chet’s libido screwed it up.
At first it was trivial things, like getting d
Acquiring the pawn shop was one of their bigger scores. Somewhere in Boca Raton is an aging widow who still doesn’t realize she was manipulated into selling her flower shop for a quarter of what it was really worth.
Misusing magic always comes with a price, and in their case, karma knocked on the door with a wrecking ball. Their mark was a Romani king who supposedly had a stash of jewels and gold coins worth a fortune. He also had a daughter in need of a husband. Enter Chet. He was supposed to string her along until he got close enough to the king to find out where the stash was hidden. It was going well until the daughter caught Chet and her stepmother in the middle of a little afternoon delight. Things went downhill pretty quickly from there. As it turns out, the king may have been an untouched, but his daughter was a coxani, or what most people would call a witch, with some pretty powerful vengeance magic that she used to turn Chet into an English bulldog.
The Council has strict rules prohibiting the use of magic for financial gain and were about to come down hard on my grandfather and Chet. That’s when Mallis stepped in and persuaded the Council to let the elven court handle the matter. Their case never got to that court. They would have been better off if it had because Mallis had his own sleazy agenda.
The terms of their agreement were simple: Chet would stay in dog form so it appeared to the Council that punishment had been doled out, and the two of them would stop fleecing people for personal gain and instead use their talents to acquire valuable, magical artifacts for Mallis.
Shortly after my grandfather’s death, Mallis showed up and informed me that death dissolved flesh, but it didn’t dissolve their agreement. If we wanted to keep the pawn shop, and Chet wanted to keep breathing, Ox and I would continue the agreement with Mallis.
My grandfather and Chet had practically raised me, and the pawn shop was the only home I’d ever known. There was no way I was going to let Mallis take my home—or my dog—away from me, so I agreed. Ox says he agreed because we’re best friends, but truthfully, I think it was just so he didn’t have to become a cop and work for his fiancée’s father. He’s got kind of a MacGyver-meets-Indiana Jones personality that wouldn’t survive the monotony of a regular day job.
We’d spent months tracking down the Soul Snatcher, and it hadn’t been a cheap search, so I seriously doubted that Mallis was going to take the news of our robbery well. In fact, I was fairly sure that he was going to flip his crown. I just hoped that his punishment didn’t involve anything with sharp teeth, talons, or tentacles.
Chapter
Two
As far as best friends go, Ox and I couldn’t be more different. He’s up at four thirty a.m., runs five miles, bench presses the equivalent of a small car, then chugs down a wheatgrass smoothie. I hit the snooze button multiple times, drag myself to the shower, then spend half an hour digging through my dirty laundry looking for the least-wrinkled T-shirt.
We also have completely different approaches to problem solving. Ox prefers building mechanical solutions or using brute strength. I cast spells that sometimes don’t work as intended, or ignore the problem and hope it resolves itself. Neither approach was going to solve our Mallis problem.
We’d been bouncing ideas off each other for the last two hours and still had nothing workable. Chet gave up ten minutes in and fell asleep on the floor between us. I heard a loud piff, then smelled something rancid. It was time for a walk. I nudged Chet with my foot and he rolled over, exposing his belly. He was a whore for belly rubs and I usually took the bait.
Ox wasn’t such an easy mark, or in the mood for Chet’s cute doggie routine. “Stop rolling around on the floor and go do your business before Mallis gets here. We’ve got enough to deal with. The last thing we need is you dropping a pile of the Devil’s doughnuts in front of him.”
“Must you always be so vulgar, Oxuardo? You’re ruining a perfectly delightful moment.”
I didn’t wait for Ox to counter. I knew where this was going. Ox hates it when anyone uses his full name, especially Chet. The anger radiating off Ox was hot enough to fry an egg. I stopped rubbing Chet’s belly and tugged on his collar. “Ox is right. Let’s go.”
Chet started to say something, but I clapped my hand over his mouth. “Not now.”
Ox glared at us both. “Danny’s right, you miserable mutt. I gave you that voice and I can take it away.” He wasn’t kidding either. Ox built Chet an electro-talkbox collar and has regretted it ever since.
I dragged the hound to the front of the shop and was digging around under the counter looking for his leash when I heard glass crunching near the front door. My heart literally stopped beating for a few seconds. Mallis was early.
“Doing some redecorating, are we? The just-been-looted look is a nice touch.”
I looked up and instantly relaxed when I saw Mallis’s errand boy, Lenos, and realized he was alone. Chet, on the other hand, flew into attack mode. He sounded more like a dire wolf than an aging English bulldog. I pointed at him and told him to heel. I’d no doubt pay for that later.
Lenos sneered at Chet and clucked his tongue. “Hello, cousin. Looks like I’ve arrived just in time for your potty break. Be a good boy and I’ll give you a milk bone when you get back.”
“Maybe I’ll give you a bite on the ass, you pompous…”
I quickly unhooked Chet’s collar before he made an already unpleasant situation worse. He can only talk if he’s wearing the collar. The thought provided cold comfort. Chet calmed down when Ox stepped into the room. Ox glanced at me, then at the collar in my hand, and grunted.
"Lenos. I'd say it's good to see you, but we both know it's not. Where's your master? It’s not like him to let you out unsupervised."
I wasn't sure what Ox hoped to accomplish by being rude, but I was fairly sure it wasn't working. Lenos was bleeding irate energy.
"Mallis is not my master. He’s my employer, and it’s my job to handle the unpleasant things, such as interacting with the three of you. Now, if there are no further questions, I believe you have something for me."
I gulped so loud I was sure Lenos must have heard it. I couldn’t help it. I always get a little quirky when I'm nervous. In the time it took me to blink, Lenos did this thing where he disappears from one spot and reappears in another without making a sound. I didn’t know how he did it, but it was creepy as hell. He now stood so close to me I could smell the garlic on his breath. He seriously needed a mint.
“Daniel,” Lenos sneered. “Is there a problem I should know about?”
I didn’t think he was referring to his halitosis.
“Um, well, see…” I had no idea what to say, so I went with stammering, hoping to buy some time, and failed miserably. Lenos pulled a wand from inside his cloak and pointed it at Chet. That’s when Ox reached for his hatchet. I had to do something, quick. Past experience should have told me that a spell wasn’t the best option. That whole quirky nervous thing I’ve got going seriously impacts my ability to control magic, but I never seem to remember that under pressure.
I jumped back and yelled, “Effectus adversum!”
Done correctly, that spell will counter an attack. Instead, my spell morphed into an enormous yellow Formica dragon and huffed a wall of fire directly at us. I ducked. Ox swore. Chet fainted.
