Kindle Edition
Download to your Nook (eBook)
Download from Apple iTunes (eBook)
Download from Smashwords (eBook)
Amazon
Cat's Creation at Wittegen Press
Category:
Fantasy
Publisher: Wittegen Press
ISBN-10: B007NH8O9C
Pages: 209
Copyright: Mar 21, 2012
Price: $2.99 (eBook)
Life goes on for the residents of Between as they struggle to recover from the events that nearly destroyed their home and left a gaping hole in the structure of their world. The difficult road before them ends in Mydarec, a world run by mafia-style families, where sorcerers and vampires are a part of every-day living.
Life goes on for the residents of Between as they struggle to recover from the events that nearly destroyed their home and left a gaping hole in the structure of their world. As one of the leaders of the Questors, Charlie feels responsible for helping them to remain strong and together, but he’s not sure how. To make his problems worse, his magic has become unreliable, and yet there is another task to deal with; one that requires all seven Questors to be at their magical peak. The difficult road before them ends in Mydarec, a world run by mafia-style families, where sorcerers and vampires are a part of every-day living. Forced to play a role that could cost him his life and plagued by a vision of death, Charlie must struggle to overcome his own insecurities and, with his friends, figure out why they have been sent to such a dangerous world.
Travel with Charlie through a strange new world in the second exciting novel in The Chronicles of Charlie Waterman.
Excerpt
"Duck!"
Charlie threw himself to the ground and just missed being decapitated by Diallo's sword. Nearly the whole of their first group training session since he and Alexander had returned had gone the same way. They were just off; it was as simple as that. He had arrived back after being home in England full of high spirits, but his optimism was beginning to sag.
"Let's take five," he said, just shrugging at Diallo's apologetic expression.
Before the first task and before Deborah had been removed as a mentor, all seven Questors had been working well together, but their cohesion had slipped. Since he had been chosen by the Cat Spirit and brought to Between to be trained, he had only seen improvement in the way all of them worked as a team, but not anymore. He couldn't even blame it on the injuries he, Alexander and Junko had sustained during the first task, because they were all completely healed.
Their group dynamic was off and there was tension in the team. It was clearly going to take work to put what they had had back in place.
"It's Yesenia," Alexander said as they stepped away from the others.
Charlie opened his mouth to jump to the girl's defence; after all she had been through a great upheaval losing Deborah. Mentors were trusted above all others and given the task of training their Questors, that Deborah had betrayed them all, betrayed Yesenia, must have been an incredible blow.
"She has retreated behind a wall and we are all being too careful around her," Alexander finished before he could speak.
Charlie stopped and then nodded; he couldn't argue with that.
"It might be me as well," he added, unwilling to let Yesenia take all the blame, "I don't feel ... well ... balanced."
"Then you're hiding it well," his friend told him; "it's not you."
There wasn't a lot Charlie could do about that except accept it. He trusted Alexander's judgement and the vampire was not one to mince his words.
Glancing down, Charlie looked at the spirit mark on his arm, with the added design from where he had bonded with the Ring of Darkness. The gold and black ring ran round his wrist and tendrils came off it, down around the cat, so that the two were inextricably bound together. The magic given to him by the Cat Spirit was still there at his beck and call, but he could feel the power from the magical object as well, linked as obviously as the designs on his arm that represented them. He couldn't help wondering if it was causing problems.
"What do we do about it?" he asked, glancing at where the others were sharing out cups of water.
Having spent the last week with the vampire out of their normal setting, Charlie felt closest to Alexander. Taking his friend to his home, showing Alexander around and basically just having fun had been good for them both. They were supposed to be the leaders of the team, chosen specifically by the Cat and Dragon spirits for some qualities that Charlie still often doubted were there, and, briefly, he had really begun to feel as if they might manage it. Now he was having doubts again.
However, he definitely hadn't been chosen because he had a defeatist attitude and he mentally shook himself. He was not willing to lose Yesenia because of Deborah's failing and he didn't think Alexander was either.
"I don't know," were not the words he wanted to hear from his friend, "but for now I would suggest we switch to less dangerous exercises. Perhaps our animal forms will be easier."
"It's worth a try," Charlie agreed; it wasn't as if he had any instant fix-it plans either.
Taking a deep breath, he turned and walked over to the others, putting his fears to the back of his mind.
"Let's see if our animals have gone less soft than we have after the break," he said, grinning and trying to make a joke of the tension he knew they could all feel.
"Speak for yourself," Thane said, already working on his buttons, "some of us did not get a holiday."
"Well you've still gone soft without Charlie and I to keep you in line," Alexander said in a very dry tone.
"Ooh, that's fighting talk," Thane joked back.
Charlie rolled his eyes and began to strip, as did the others. As he gathered his magic and concentrated on his lynx form he felt the magical atmosphere in the room shift as the others did the same. Alexander had chosen his small dragon shape and the other five all flowed into their given animals.
Kaelyn flew up to perch on one of the high platforms, watching them all with her sharp, hawk eyes and Thane sped off down the pool in the middle of the arena, his dolphin tail splashing water at his land-bound brethren. That started a race, because Diallo charged off along the side of the pool, claws clicking on the wooden floor and tongue lolling out of his huge wolf muzzle. At least the pair seemed to be having some fun and Charlie could not begrudge them that. That left Junko, who shook out her main and stamped her hooves as she finished transforming, and Yesenia.
Charlie had to work very hard not to shudder when Yesenia achieved her spider form and scuttled off to climb the platform framework. His arachnophobia was still a problem he was trying to overcome. When he looked at Alexander he could tell his friend was mentally laughing at him; Alexander found such a silly fear highly entertaining. He put his ears back to show what he thought of that reaction and then bounded after Diallo; they had training to do and he refused to be laughed at by a vampire.
|
