The Curse Keepers
The Curse Keepers
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SYNOPSIS
SYNOPSIS
When the keepers meet for the first time, the gate will be opened.
Two little rules have kept me safe since my mother died protecting me: always trust your instincts and forget everything about the curse.
But when I accidentally activate an ancient catastrophe I’ve spent my life running from, breaking the seal on the gates of hell and ripping the lost colony of Roanoke back through time and getting the attention of a vengeful god in the process, rules go out the window.
I can barely keep myself alive, and now somehow, it’s my responsibility to save all of humanity?
We’re screwed.
Chapter One Look Inside
Chapter One Look Inside
The moment I laid eyes on him, I knew he was trouble.
He stood in the doorway of the New Moon restaurant, filling the space with his tall, muscular frame and sucking the air from the room. Literally. As I focused on inflating my chest with the limited air supply, I tried to ignore the warning bells ringing in my head.
Always listen to your instincts.
My instincts had been honed by years of working as a waitress in a tourist town. You learn a lot about people from working with the public.
From the end of May until the first of September every year, my hometown of Manteo on Roanoke Island, North Carolina, was overrun with tourists. They came to enjoy our quaint little town but mostly to see the alleged site of the first English colony to have settled in North America, the Lost Colony of Roanoke. Everyone had a theory about what had become of the colony that had settled on the Roanoke Island shores over four hundred years ago, from a massacre by neighboring Native American tribes to alien abduction. My family had their own take on what happened. A version my father used to push on me before I convinced myself it was just a myth—the kind of story that gets passed down from generation to generation, exaggerated each time. I’d forgotten most of it, except for the very basics, and I tried not to think about those when I could help it.
The late lunch crowd was clearing out, so it was that rare period in the summer when we got a breather before dinner. My co-worker Marlena seated the guy in her section, although I could tell she did so grudgingly. Old habits were hard to kick, and she’d always tried to fix me up with any man who walked in the door without a wedding ring.
I nearly groaned when I realized that I’d checked.
The no-air situation became worse. I hurried out the back door and leaned against the building, gulping deep breaths as the bricks pricked my arm. How can I be having an asthma attack? I don’t even have asthma. I’d never experienced anything like this before. No matter how much air I sucked into my lungs, I still felt short of breath.
After about five minutes, I got control of my panic and made myself go back inside.
Marlena had already taken the guy’s order, and he sat brooding over a beer, staring out the window at the tourist-filled street. I only had two tables left, and Marlena had rung both of them out while I was hiding out back. With nothing to do for the moment, I picked up a towel and wiped the bar counter in tiny, mindless circles. My chest felt tight, but my breathing was manageable. I must be coming down with a sudden summer cold. Finding a rational explanation helped settle my frayed nerves. Slightly.
“You rub that spot any more and you’re liable to wear a hole right through it.” Marlena winked. She seemed to be breathing without any problem whatsoever. “Someone got you shook up?”
I shot her a scowl, then looked around the small restaurant. No one else seemed to be having issues either. Except for the guy Marlena had seated. His chest rose and fell at a slow, even pace, as if he were concentrating on the movement.
A small part of the back of my brain screamed that it knew what was going on—that it wasn’t just weird but uncanny. My mind fluttered back to my father’s story about our family heritage—the curse—which he claimed went all the way back to our ancestor, a citizen of the Lost Colony.
I hushed it. Maybe I’d developed late-in-life allergies or a summer cold.
“No,” I said to Marlena.
“Then good. I’m due for a break and the only one left in my station is that one.” She shot a thumb in his direction. “You won’t mind finishing up Mr. Hottie for me.”
I knew I’d gotten off too easy with her putting him in her own section. Shaking my head, I turned my back to the dining room, just as I saw the man give me a quick glance. “Nope. No way. He just sat down, and he hasn’t even ordered his food yet. You take his order, then take your break.”
“He doesn’t want any food, just the beer.” Raising her eyebrows, she lowered her face to mine. “He’s a fine-lookin’ man close to your age, and he’s been eyeing you since he walked in the door.”
“That’s what worries me.” But truth be told, that wasn’t all that had me concerned. My difficulty breathing worried me. So did the creeping sensation that this guy had some significance to me other than being attractive. The sooner “Mr. Hottie” walked out the door, the better.
Marlena nudged me with her shoulder. “You should give him your number, Ellie.”
My mouth gaped, but I quickly shut it, glaring. “I’m not giving him my number! I don’t even know him. Besides, I’m dating Dwight.”
“Dwight the insurance adjuster from Michigan? You’re still dating him?” Marlena crossed her arms over her ample breasts and shot me a stern look. Marlena was an intimidating woman, standing nearly six feet tall with the body of a small linebacker. When she put on that stern look, most people cowered in fear. Unfortunately for her, I’d learned she was mostly bark. But she still scared me a bit. I’d just tried not to let her know it.
Sighing, I shook my head. “For all you know, he’s a tourist, so what makes him any different than Dwight?”
Marlena grinned. “He’s ten times better looking, for starters.” She thrust his bill into my hands. “You’ll thank me for this later. Now, go.” Turning with a laugh, she walked out the back door, pausing only to call into the kitchen, “I’ll be back in fifteen, Fred.”
I was getting light-headed again, fighting the urge to gasp for air. The man and woman in front of me seemed perfectly fine.
Oh, God. What if the things my father had told me about the curse were true?
No. The curse was a fairy tale. Maybe I had pulmonary embolism. That was a better alternative to the curse being real.
A couple, the only other people in the dining room, waved as they walked out into the summer heat, and I turned to table five, trying to force air into my lungs. This is stupid. He’s just some guy. Give him his ticket, he’ll leave, and that will be that. This has nothing to do with him.
But I knew he was different. Deep down in the pit of my soul. One of the few things I remembered from Daddy’s story about the curse floated into memory, begging for attention. My shoe caught on the edge of a table foot, and I stumbled, sloshing tea over the side of the pitcher and onto a nearby table.
What in the hell was wrong with me?
The man turned his face to watch me. His dark eyes burned into mine. Marlena was right. Up close, I could see he was an extremely good-looking man. His dark hair was closely trimmed, and stubble covered his face, like he’d forgotten to shave for a few days. But the dark circles under his eyes gave him a weary look. He clutched his beer bottle, his knuckles white, as though he was more nervous than his expression suggested.
An alarm rang in my head, my instincts pinging every nerve along my spine. I didn’t understand what was going on, but I knew I needed him to leave. Now.
I set the pitcher on the sticky table and forced myself to take two steps toward him. The hair on my arms stood on end as though I’d become electrically charged.
What the hell?
The man’s eyes widened, his lips parting slightly.
I thrust the bill folder toward him from several feet away and flopped it on the table with a dull thud. “You can pay whenever you’re ready,” I said in a rasp, the air sticking in my throat even more than before. My panic rose, but I stomped it down, frustrated that I was still paranoid about the curse after all of these years.
The corners of his mouth lifted into the barest hint of a smile, giving him a ruggedly handsome look. I was sure most women around the world would have swooned at the sight. I, on the other hand, was close to passing out from lack of oxygen.
His chest rose and fell in heavy gasps. He was having a hard time breathing as well. It should have made me feel better. Instead, it made my near-hysteria worse. Something was wrong—badly wrong. I wasn’t unappealing, but I knew our labored breathing extended from something other than attraction.
Don’t let him touch you.
I took two steps back and put a hand over my heart. Maybe we were suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning. Could you get that from air conditioning? There had to be some logical explanation for what was happening to me. Happening to us.
Something other than the warning my father had given me years ago.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet, and hastily removed some cash, tossing it onto the table. The hair on his arms stood on end.
My eyes widened in fear as he got to his feet. He took a step toward me and stopped as I backed into a different table, my body wedging between the chairs. His dark, almost black, eyes held my gaze. “I didn’t catch your name.” His breath escaped in short bursts.
Whatever was happening to me was also happening to him.
My face tingled from lack of oxygen, and I felt dangerously close to passing out. The closer he came toward me, the more difficult it was to breathe. I knew I should move away from him, but everything around me seemed to slow, and I couldn’t seem to get my muscles to work. Not to mention I was trapped by the table and two chairs on either side of me. The hair on my head felt electrified. “I didn’t give it.” My words came out slurred.
His face had paled, and his eyes moved to my name tag. He grinned, but it wasn’t friendly. “Thank you, Ellie.” My name sounded like the answer to a riddle on his lips. “Until next time.”
He started to walk away, then stopped, spinning around and grabbing my right hand with his, as though he meant to shake my hand. An electrical shock ran from my palm into my chest.
For one brief moment, the entire world seemed magnified and microscopic all at once. The space around me faded, and I was no longer me. I was the waves in the sound off the pier and the clouds in the sky. I was an ant outside on the parking lot. I was part of every tree on the street.
Before I could marvel at the vast connectedness of the universe, I felt a tear in the veil separating the earthly world from the spiritual, and the screams of hundreds of beings—ugly and foul—filled my head.
The man’s mouth opened, and he dropped his hold with a start. Stumbling backward, he hurried out the door, not even casting a backward glance.
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