The Book of Lost Souls
Read The Book of Lost Souls Online
Authors: Michelle Muto
THE BOOK OF LOST SOULS
by Michelle Muto
Copyright © 2011 by Michelle Muto
All Rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever without prior written permission by the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or to events or locations is entirely coincidental.
For my husband, who always believed in magic.
CHAPTER 1
“I don’t know, Ivy. This borders on black magic,” Shayde said. “You are so dead when your mom finds out.”
For as long as Ivy could remember, Shayde had been the cautious one. The problem was, Raven’s take was different. From the intense expression of interest on her face, Raven thought the whole thing was a rush. Ivy should have counted on the obvious—as usual, her two best friends had conflicting viewpoints.
Great, just freaking great.
Ivy tried to relax, to not let them sense how nervous she was. This wasn’t black magic. Not really. Just sort of...well, gray. Gray wasn’t so bad. Was it?
She tapped the glass in front of the Horned-Toad lizard named Spike. “Who says she’ll find out?”
Shayde gave Ivy an incredulous look. “You’re a witch. Your mom’s a witch. We live in a small town where everyone knows practically everyone else and you think people
won’t
figure it out?”
“Lighten up! It’ll be
fun
,” Raven said as she adjusted her fake jewel-encrusted crown. Each girl had dressed in a different costume for the annual Northwick High Halloween party—Shayde was a pirate lass who would have turned any real pirate’s head, Raven as an elaborate, medieval version of the Red Queen, and Ivy in a simple renaissance-style Juliet costume.
This year, Raven’s parents had agreed to host the event the week before Halloween. The location made for a very happy student body since Raven’s parents also owned the ideal place for such a party—the newly renovated Forever View Funeral Home and Mortuary.
Ivy wiped her perspiring palms against her dress, trying to ignore the growing tension between her friends. She stared into the terrarium. “I guess if I’m going to do this, I’d better get busy.”
Spike, who belonged to Raven’s younger brother, tilted his head at them as though wondering which girl held his dinner of crickets or meal worms. If Spike had known what Ivy had in mind, he might have considered retreating behind the rocks at the far edge of his sunlamp-heated enclosure. But Spike was a lizard and therefore, blissfully ignorant.
Spike’s terrarium sat on top of a bookcase next to a cherry wood study desk. A wrought-iron day bed was opposite the desk, covered with a gold and black coverlet and a single red pillow. A guy’s renaissance costume in dark velvet lay on top of the coverlet.
Ivy reached inside the terrarium and scooped up Spike, who at the last minute tried to scramble to the safety of his river rock hideaway.
“You
do
know what happens when Horned-Toad lizards feel threatened, right?” Raven chided.
“Yeah, I know. But everything will be fine,” Ivy said, more to reassure herself than her friends. She placed Spike on top of the costume and tried not to think about him freaking out enough that he’d actually squirt blood from his eyes. The chance of anything like that happening seemed minuscule at best. In her experience, Spike was a very calm lizard.
“He’ll be the perfect Romeo,” Ivy said, confident she had also managed a decent Juliet. It hadn’t come without some effort, though. The only Juliet outfit at the costume shop had been two sizes too large and a much brighter green than she liked. It took a couple spells—one to trim the dress down to size so she didn’t look like she was wearing a tent, and a second spell to change the color to sage instead of a Christmassy green. With her auburn hair, she’d end up resembling a life-sized holiday ornament, which was definitely not the look she was going for.
On the bed, her soon-to-be Romeo took a step forward and cocked his head, first to one side, then the other, eyes scanning the coverlet for insects.
“You think we should have fed him first?” Shayde asked.
If Shayde still thought this was a bad idea, then maybe it was. Maybe she should return Spike to his tank and forget the whole idea. Then she thought about Dean Matthews, one of the coolest, most gorgeous guys at Northwick High. After tonight, maybe he wouldn’t act like she was so invisible.
“Oh, this is going to be too cool!” Raven exclaimed.
Instead of encouraging her, Raven’s enthusiasm gave Ivy another moment of concern. Raven enjoyed living life on the edge. Shayde might be a little too much on the common sense and caution stuff, but Raven was the exact opposite. She was a vampire and vampires were almost immortal. Which made a lot of them avid risk-takers. At least the ones Ivy had met.
Ivy took
Spectacular Spells Explained
, the spell book she’d borrowed from her mother’s reading shelf, flipped it open to a bookmarked section and scanned the page. From her pocket she retrieved a folded page torn from a magazine and drew a deep breath. Altering clothing by magic had been easy, but the Changing spell wasn’t something she’d done on a live creature before.
“Isn’t there a guideline that says witches aren’t supposed to change one living thing into another without a really good reason and Council approval?” the ever cautious Shayde asked. “Won’t it seem, you know, like something your dad would’ve done?”
“Shut
up
, Shayde!” Raven hissed. “X-nay, on the evil wizard-a.”
Ivy unfolded the paper in an attempt to ignore Shayde’s all too true comment about her father—a wizard who once had been associated with a very evil spell caster before leaving town—and studied the ad. In it, a sandy-haired model leaned against a brick wall. He was bare chested and barefoot, wearing only faded jeans and a seductive gaze.
“Yum!” Raven said, earning her a frown of disapproval from Shayde. “Not like that! I just meant he’s pretty hot for one of
them
.”
“You mean a Regular,” Shayde corrected.
“Right. My bad.” Raven rolled her eyes. “Humans. Regulars. What
ever
you call them,
they’re not
Kindreds
. There’s nothing about them that’s supernatural.”
“Half the town are Regulars,” Shayde reminded her.
Shayde and Raven’s friendly sparring was nothing new. But right now, it was a distraction Ivy didn’t need. “Cool it, guys, okay?”
Shayde and Raven exchanged looks and a shrug.
“I think he’s a little old for you,” Shayde said. “He’s definitely frat material. Your mom is gonna freak when she hears about this.”
“I’ll be seventeen soon.”
“Next spring,” Raven said, fidgeting with a lock of her black hair. “Besides, he’s not that old. What? Twenty, maybe? He’s
supposed
to look like he’s in college.” Raven smirked. “You’ll definitely get everyone’s attention with him.”
“He also looks kinda like an older version of Dean,” Shayde pointed out. “Come on, Ivy!” She folded her arms across her chest, looking more pouty than angry. “How much more obvious can you get?”
Ivy shut out her friends commentary, narrowed her eyes at Spike and extended her hand, fingers spread wide as she concentrated on her spell. Spike jumped like he’d been prodded, and then ever so slowly the Horned-Toad’s shape began to grow and twist. Small wisps of smoke that smelled faintly of old grease rose into the air and Ivy wrinkled her nose.
Transformations didn’t impress Shayde—she was a werewolf, after all. On the other hand, Raven took a keen interest. “Wow. This is kinda gross,” she said. “I
love
it.”
Ivy agreed with the gross part. She found it repulsive as the lizard started to take more human form—a grotesque combination of scales and ever-shifting rubbery skin that reminded her of the piglets in formaldehyde she had dissected in biology last spring. As she continued focusing on the spell, Ivy felt an odd, sugary-like high race through her and she concentrated even harder. Spike’s form slid, almost fluidly, into the surrounding clothing, sparing the girls from further having to watch much more of the half-lizard, half-human transformation. The lizard’s scaly head and reptilian claws shifted into human hands and feet. A wide mouth became the soft, sensuous lips of the model. When Ivy finally completed the spell, Spike really did look human. He lay there for a minute, blinking his dark brown eyes.
Then he scanned his costume for bugs.
“I
really
think we should have fed him first,” Shayde repeated. “And what’s with his hair?”
Despite the spell’s success, Ivy had to agree that Spike’s blond hair resembled his name. It stuck out from his head at every imaginable angle.
Raven scrunched up her face. “He looks like Billy Idol.”
Ivy and Shayde looked at Raven, confused.
“A contestant on American Idol?” Shayde guessed.
“
Nooo,”
Raven said. “B
illy
Idol. He was a punk-rocker back in the eighties.”
“Oh,” Ivy replied. Raven would know about that era. Vampires didn’t age like the rest of the Kindreds. At least
most
Kindreds. Raven and her brother had been turned into vampires when they were teens back in the early eighties and would still look and, for the most part, act like high school students when Ivy and Shayde were graduating college. It had to be weird to stay young for so long, to always
feel
pretty much the same. In some ways, it’d be great to never grow old. But, to stay a
teen
practically forever? The thought was unbearable. Ivy shivered almost imperceptibly.
“Ivy,” Shayde said, concern sweeping across her face. “I think you forgot to make him
think
human. And he can’t go like that. I mean, really, just look at his
hair
. He looks like a porcupine with an excess of hair gel.”
Spike jerked his head around in short, quick movements—eyeing the girls, the bed, the room. The spell hadn’t worked quite as Ivy planned. She took another glance at the bare-chested model in the ad. His blond hair was wavy, but at least under control. The model looked smug. Spike looked, well,
mental
.
“Hmmm. He loses something from the guy wearing the jeans to the guy in leotards, but not bad,” Raven said. “Shayde’s right, though. You need to make him more human. And we really do need to fix his hair. Sure you don’t want to make him a brunette?”
“Whatever you’re gonna do with him, you’d better hurry. The party starts at seven and it’s already six-thirty,” Shayde said, exasperated. “I still don’t know
why
you didn’t go with Nick. It would have been easier.”
“Ivy doesn’t want who she
could
have,” Raven said. “She wants who she
can’t
have.”
“What? Nick Marcelli too much of a heartbreaker for you, Ivy?” Shayde taunted. “Afraid you might really like him? Or, maybe it’s the bad boy reputation?”
“The rep’s sort of undeserved, don’t you think?” Raven said. “Kid stuff. Setting off fire extinguishers during exams, shrinking the girls’ gym uniforms—”
“Putting glamours on the freshman lockers to resemble the black pits of hell, hacking into the school computers. Should I continue?” Ivy replied.
“That was over a year ago,” Raven countered. “He’s grown past that.”
“Nick dated Phoebe. I heard she’s into black magic,” Ivy said. “Really dark stuff.” Besides, Mr. Marcelli had been a friend of her dad’s, not that Ivy would ever mention that as a reason, even if it was partially true.