Call to murder, p.1
Summoner 16, page 1
If you want to get notified of my books the day that they come out, make sure you join my Facebook fan group (or search and join). If you don’t join my Facebook page, you’ll never get alerted that the next book is out.
Chapter One
It was a beautiful evening on the northern coast of Luratamba.
My team and I had landed outside the city of Desacino, and while Lieutenant Danny negotiated for a refill on fuel for the airship, my friends, wife, and I explored the port town. My women and Mati all wore freshly acquired colorful scarves that matched the textures and designs of the tapestries lining the squat yellow brick buildings around us. Braden had picked up a new belt made of smooth goat skin leather, and Varleth had discovered a well-crafted curved blade.
It wasn’t as elaborate as the rhin sword made especially for him by Arwyn and the team of researchers back at the Academy, but the dark-haired gypsy seemed pleased with his find. The sword came with an ornate mahogany colored sheath, and the banisher kept his tattered grey cloak pulled back away from his new weapon.
I chuckled as I watched my friend strut in his own subtle way.
We’d just finished eating an exotic meal of fried yucca stuffed with rice and beans. Someone had even managed to get a few mangoes for us all to share, and we passed the juicy tropical fruit back and forth as we ambled through the streets of the small port town.
“Should we take some mangoes back to Mistral for the rest of our friends?” Nia asked as she handed me the fruit.
The beautiful multi-elementalist was one of the most thoughtful and generous people I knew, but I hadn’t always known how much compassion she had for others. When I’d first met the talented prodigy daughter of the famous Kenefick dynasty, she’d acted volatile and reclusive. After she’d warmed up to me, though, she’d also opened her heart to having more friends, and I loved watching her more sensitive and nurturing side come out.
She was going to be a wonderful wife and an even better mother to our children.
“Gawain won’t want any,” I reminded the ashen-haired beauty before I sank my teeth into the sticky flesh of the perfectly ripe mango. “He seemed disgusted with them the last time we were here.”
The fire mage’s upturned nose sprang into my mind, and I snorted to myself as I pictured the haughty, proud, and fiery man’s reaction to the sweet fruits like mangoes and papayas.
Maker, I missed all my friends back in Mistral.
“That feels like a lifetime ago,” Arwyn noted in a wistful voice. “Desacino is like an old friend now.”
The gorgeous professor had a point. The last time we’d visited this city, the Southern continent seemed like a different world, but after my journey through Luratamba, to Utun, and finally into Vay, coming back to this quaint port village was nothing short of comforting.
At the start of our Southern journey, the red-haired healer had been our translator and cultural guide through the volatile jungles and precocious zealots, and the professor had worked tirelessly to ensure the success of our mission, but I wouldn’t expect any less of Arwyn Hamner. My teacher was one of the most intelligent people I knew, and her mind was always racing to piece together some puzzle, which I’d found incredibly attractive since the first day we met.
“It’s amazing,” Cyra exclaimed, and she bit into the juicy mango. “The air feels different.”
“I forgot you weren’t with us the last time we were in Luratamba,” Nia said, and she gave the dark-skinned summoner an apologetic smile.
The delightfully exotic summoner returned the elementalist’s smile, but I could tell my chocolate skinned lover wasn’t thinking about what she’d missed. Cyra had stayed in Mistral during our trip through the jungle in search of Miralea, but she’d joined the team for a brief time when we were in Utun fighting against Utuni, so I was glad she had a chance to explore more of the world before we returned home. Cyra was always looking on the bright side of things, and I doubted if she’d ever met a day she didn’t like, so I knew she would just be focused on enjoying the moment.
“I’ve never been here, either,” Braden reminded us with a sheepish grin. “I’m really glad we got to stop here after completing the mission.”
The ox-like summoner hefted the bag of souvenirs he and Mati had purchased throughout the day, and he took another large bite of his mango before he tossed the fibrous pit into a bush and wiped his hand on his pants.
“Yeah, it’s like an actual vacation,” my roommate’s black-haired girlfriend added as she hooked her arm onto Braden’s elbow. “No one is trying to kill us or trick us into a trap.”
Mati was a dark-haired, loud-mouthed banisher, and while I’d found her slightly abrasive at first, I was getting accustomed to her lack of any filters, and she was quite in love with my pal Braden, so she obviously had great taste.
“Hey,” I interjected, “no one actually managed to trick us. I saw that coming from a mile away, and you know it.”
“Of course,” Varleth drawled in a sarcastic tone. “We can’t forget whose fault it was that we followed a sneaky old weasel into a crypt.”
I ignored my friends’ teasing jabs, since we’d learned a lot from our experience in the crypt. We’d been looking for the library in Vyguard, the capital city of Vay, when an old man had offered to show us the way shortly after someone declared it was destroyed.
I’d immediately suspected the volunteering elder was a minion of the shapeshifters’ goddess, Veopa, but my gut had said to keep going anyway, and it was a good thing I listened. If we hadn’t gone into the crypts and read the inscriptions carved there, then I never would have thought to look for the library in the Shadowscape.
That was where we’d found the library in the end, so I was pleased with how events had turned out.
“It is nice to be able to relax for a moment,” Arwyn noted, and she led our group down a side street to angle back toward where we’d left the airship. “Still, I hope some of the soldiers got a chance to sight see as well.”
“I hope they kept the books under close watch while we were gone,” Nia said. “We can’t afford to let anything happen to them now.”
“Books not safe?” Freya asked in halting Mistral with a bird-like tilt of her head.
My shapeshifting wife had learned a lot of my native language, but she still struggled to understand nuances of conversation. I knew some of the warrior princess’ moments of confusion stemmed from cultural differences more so than the difficulties of learning a new dialect, and I hoped she could adapt to the way things were in my homeland without too much trouble.
“They should be,” I reassured my blonde wife in the language of the clans. “The soldiers and Danny are guarding the books. They’re just really important, and we all want to make sure they get back to Mistral in one piece.”
“Let’s return to the ship.” My wife gave a firm nod, and her gold-flecked eyes filled with determination. “I will stay with the books and guard them with my life. I will not let you down, Gryff.”
“You’re amazing.” I grinned. Then I turned to my Mistral friends and switched back to my native tongue. “Are we headed back to the airship?”
“Yes,” Arwyn informed me in the confident tone of a squad leader. “Follow me.”
“Is Queen Lisi going to be mad if you don’t say hello while in her country?” Cyra asked as she scratched her familiar’s reptilian snout. The dark-skinned summoner carried her miniature silver dragon on her shoulders beneath her nest of brown curls, and the tiny monster kept her bright pink wings tucked against her back as she leaned into her master’s affectionate touch.
“Queen Lisi doesn’t have to know we were here,” I retorted with a wink.
Did you say queen? Dio chirped from his seat in my hip pouch. The tiny saber-tooth tiger beast pulled himself up straight and hooked his comically large front canines over the edge of the leather. I want to meet the queen.
My familiar seemed to have an avid interest in the fairer sex, but I wondered how much my monster from the Shadowscape understood of human women.
Maybe it was all instinctual. So far, the cat-like summons had good taste, so Dio wasn’t entirely baseless in his observations, but I was often glad I was the only one privy to my familiar’s thoughts.
“The queen has many eyes and ears within her realm,” Arwyn informed us in a cautious tone. “We should avoid doing anything to upset her, especially while we are still in Luratamba.”
“You’re right,” I conceded with an innocent smile at my gorgeous teacher. “If I had time to send her a message, I would, but we need to get back on the airship, so there’s nothing that can be done.”
“Oh, well,” Nia said with a shrug. “We can send her gifts and an apology once we are back in Varle. We never brought her gifts when we first visited, either, and I’d like to think we can do a better job to represent Mistral.”
“You’re going to make a wonderful diplomat,” I praised the elementalist.
“Thanks,” Nia replied, and a rosy hue colored her plump cheeks.
“Aww, you two are so cute!” Cyra gushed.
“Whatever.” The ashen-haired mage rolled her eyes, but she had a pleased air about her as she pranced ahead of me and the dark-skinned summoner with her high ponytail swinging energetically across her back.
Suddenly, I heard the sound of a rifle firing, and it was coming from the direction of the air strip. Then the clash of metal on metal echoed through the dense jungle foliage outside the village clearing.
“Great,” Varleth muttered in a dry voice. “You just had to
“I didn’t say anything,” I argued, but I furrowed my eyebrows as I gazed toward the sounds of conflict.
“Let’s go,” Arwyn instructed, and then the red-haired healer sprinted down the dirt path between the last rows of houses on the edge of Desacino.
We raced behind the professor as we all instinctively prepared for a fight.
My hand rifled through my bandolier, and I tossed out a couple of essence crystals mid-run, but as plumes of smoke burst onto the path behind me, Varleth dashed through and coughed pointedly at me as he caught up.
“Sorry,” I mumbled as I sensed my bonds with my summons.
My vingehund, my kalgori, and my bullet bass erupted from their crystals and fell in line behind me, and the instant my monsters were active, I began the process of borrowing their abilities for myself.
I coated my body in the metallic chrome armor of my rubbery fish-like summons, then I manifested the blue-feathered wings of my canine-like monster, and finally I lined every inch of myself with the thin, but deadly sharp blades of my butterfly-like blade winged kalgori.
I lifted my chin proudly as I refocused on the path. We had just passed beneath the tree line, and the dense foliage of the jungle engulfed us in shadows. The air was cooler, and the sounds of frogs and birds rang in my ears, but I knew the airship was only a few hundred feet away, so I pressed forward with even more energy.
I was tempted to use my speed slugs and race ahead to see what the commotion was, but I didn’t think my friends would appreciate being left behind. Plus, I didn’t have enough of the slimy energy boosting monsters for everyone, so I settled for my own naturally quick gait.
My friends’ panting breaths created a staccato soundtrack to our mad dash through the jungle, but the trail was clear enough to maintain our pace.
Suddenly, a uniformed man ran down the path toward us, and he skidded to a stop in front of Arwyn. Then the soldier pointed back the way he’d come with wide eyes. “Miss Hamner, I was coming to find you. We’re under attack!”
“We heard a gunshot,” Arwyn explained, and she paused only a moment to scan the young man over before she continued her sprint. “Hurry!”
The soldier inhaled and spun around to jog along with us. I could sense his reluctance, though, and I clenched my jaw as I wondered what we would find at the airship.
A moment later, we burst into a clearing where a long landing strip was painted onto the cleared jungle floor. The airship sat at the far edge, angled toward the length of the field in preparation for takeoff, and a battle raged around the flying vessel between the Mistral soldiers and a group of dirty men in tattered and stained clothes.
Even Mur helped the platoon fight off their attackers, and the shapeshifter swung his wide moose antlers into a scrawny man’s chest. Then the kid let out a threatening bellow as his enemy scrambled away from his heavy stomping hooves.
After a cursory count, I estimated there to be about twenty to forty enemies between us and the airship, and as I scanned the clearing, I spotted Lieutenant Danny with his sword out pacing around a hulking man with a long, tangled brown beard.
“Permission to use lethal force,” I growled as I worked the muscle in my jaw.
Arwyn shot me a sideways glance as she fabricated a long rapier from the muscles of her leg. “Last resort only. Push through to the airship, confirm the security of the books, then remove the remaining threats.”
“Got it.” I grinned, then I tossed out another essence crystal and pulled my daggers free while my arachness skittered from the cloud of smoke bursting from the shattered crystal. My summons rushed into battle with a murderous joy in her every movement, and I rushed forward in my spider-like monster’s wake.
Dio leapt from my hip pouch and trotted at my side as he stretched into his larger form. When my familiar was at full size, his withers were level with my eyes, and with his two-foot-long yellowed canines curving down from his fanged maw, I knew he made an intimidating impression.
My familiar let out a low growl, then veered to the right to pounce onto a man running toward us with a sword brandished before him. I watched from my peripheral vision as my summons swiped his opponent’s head with a long-nailed claw and knocked the man from his feet. Before I could give my monster the command to keep his target alive, though, Dio landed on his enemy with both front legs, and the sickening sound of the man’s skull being crushed accompanied the motion.
Woops.
I heard my friends yell their battle cries as they dashed toward the airship, and a moment later, the screech of a hawk reverberated across the clearing, and my shapeshifting wife flew over the field toward one of the lowlifes threatening the flying vessel.
Shards of ice shot by my face as Nia blasted frozen projectiles at her opponent’s feet. The globs stuck to the asshole’s legs and held him firmly in place, and then a soldier nearby strode up to the imprisoned man and stabbed him through the heart.
Then the elementalist shifted her aim toward another enemy, but I turned back to my own target, and in my next breath, I approached a shaggy man with a ripped green tunic.
I lifted my hands as I pulled on my bond with my arachness to borrow her web ability, and once the power surged through me, I ejected strands of sticky spider silk from my palms, and the strings stuck onto my targeted enemy. The man’s sword arm was trapped to his side, and as I crossed the distance between us in two rapid strides, I completed the cocoon around my opponent.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked as I held my rhin dagger against the man’s throat.
“I need the money,” the man quivered, and the motion caused my blade to slice through some of his scraggly beard. The hair particles drifted down to his rank, wine stained shirt to settle onto his wide gut. He smelled like a dung heap, and his face had an oddly hollow quality despite his portly shape.
I grimaced and swung my leg behind his ankles in a swift kick that knocked him onto his back. “Stay there.”
Then I turned to scan the battlefield for a new enemy, but I found the open bay door of the airship unobstructed ahead of me. Arwyn’s instructions to get to the books first flashed through my mind and at the same time, one of the assholes jogged up the ramp into the body of the flying vessel.
I gritted my teeth and reached for my speed slug while I took off at a fast pace toward the airship. A moment later, I attached my slimy green summons to the nape of my neck, and I charged forward at superhuman speed.
By the time I reached the ramp, the strange man had only managed to get a few feet inside the airship, but in my next breath, I slammed into his back with my daggers, and we both toppled to the ground as the man died beneath me.
Summon me, Sera pleaded as my concentration on my mental wards lulled. I will protect your precious books from these criminals.
“You’ll go nowhere near them,” I informed the dark-winged Archon in a stern voice, and then I dismissed her from the forefront of my thoughts before I reinforced the magic boundaries preventing the goddesses from speaking to me.
I’d tamped down on the restraints I used to keep the Archons contained within my consciousness ever since the rulers of the monster realm revealed their obsession with bearing my children. I didn’t know what game they were playing, but the manipulation in their demeanor was hard to ignore.
I strode down the aisle between the rows of seats, and then I slid open the partition door to the bunk room. There, stacked in neat rows against the wall, were the books we’d recovered from the Guardian’s Record Room and Library back in Vay.
I let out a relieved sigh at the sight of them.
We’d had to fight through an army of mutated monsters and a giant yellow octopus to get the volumes out of the Shadowscape, only to find Jace standing in our way on the other side, and after dealing with all of that, I wasn’t about to let some assholes come in and take them away.
“Gryff!” Nia called from the bay door.
Dio sat at the top of the ramp with a bored air, and he cocked his head down to purr at the elementalist.
I stuck my head out of the bunk room. “What’s up, is everything okay?”
“Of course, they’ve all been taken out,” the ashen-haired elementalist informed me with a dismissive wave, and then the ashen-haired beauty absentmindedly reached up and scratched my familiar’s chin behind his massive curved fangs. “What? You think you’re the only one capable of fighting off some bandits?”
