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    Rag & Bones: Kindred
    Rag & Bones: Kindred
    Rag & Bones: Kindred
    Ebook289 pages4 hours

    Rag & Bones: Kindred

    By Juliet Boyd

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    About this ebook

    Family is everything ... except when you don’t have one.Flynn hasn’t seen her birth mother for ten years. At least, that’s what she believes. The evidence says different. Trying to find her proves to be almost impossible. And she discovers that she’s not the only one looking. Danger is becoming a part of her life, but this turns out to be her biggest challenge yet.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJuliet Boyd
    Release dateNov 17, 2014
    ISBN9781311812506
    Rag & Bones: Kindred
    Author

    Juliet Boyd

    Juliet lives in Somerset in the south-west of England. She used to work in administration, but now writes full-time. Her main writing interests are fantasy, science fiction, weird fiction, horror and flash fiction. Details of her work are available on her website.

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      Book preview

      Rag & Bones - Juliet Boyd

      Rag & Bones

      KINDRED

      Book Four

      JULIET BOYD

      Copyright © 2014 Juliet Boyd

      All rights reserved.

      Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Smashwords edition

      www.julietboyd.com

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      This book is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and situations portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Any reference to an actual event, product or location is used in an entirely fictitious manner.

      Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Chapter 22

      Chapter 23

      Chapter 24

      Chapter 25

      Chapter 26

      Chapter 27

      Chapter 28

      About the Author

      Also in This Series

      Chapter 1

      GOOD MORNING. How are you today?

      The voice was far too cheerful for her mood. Nadelie blinked at the bright light that flooded into the room. It was a different care worker again, pulling the curtains back without asking permission, as if Nadelie wanted to see what was going on outside at this ungodly hour, and making the assumption that she wanted everyone else to know that she was up. That was the last thing she wanted. She hated the invasion of privacy that giving a house key to a complete stranger imposed on her.

      Getting old was not how she'd imagined it would be.

      She hadn't dreamed of spending her twilight years taking three-month cruises around the Caribbean and spending long holidays in the Spanish seaside resorts during the quiet winter months, although a bit of warmth certainly wouldn't go amiss once in a while. She hadn't even dreamed of owning a large, detached house, with empty rooms full of memories after her family had flown the nest. All she'd wanted was to be happy and to know that her family were safe.

      That hadn't exactly worked out.

      It was like the whole world had turned against her. It wasn't her fault.

      Even Roberto, her first actual husband, but second committed and long-term relationship, had decided life with her wasn't all she'd cracked it up to be and had disappeared one day without saying a word, or even leaving a note telling her where he'd gone. Or why. She was pretty certain that there were no good-looking secretaries involved in his disappearance, at least, not his good-looking secretary. Working as a labourer on a building site didn't require a lot of paperwork, unless you were the boss, and he'd never been good with anything but working with his hands. She suspected the reason he'd left was entirely down to her. And that wasn't simply the 'blame yourself' syndrome that many women experienced when a relationship broke down.

      She had to admit, it was a lot to take in when you didn't know what you'd married into before tying the knot. She really should have told him when he proposed (or much earlier if she was honest), but she was so excited that he'd asked for her hand and she did love him, that it never seemed to be the right moment.

      It wasn't the right moment when she finally did tell him, either.

      She'd come to think that moments were never right, no matter what the circumstances, or the consequences.

      What was worse was that he hadn't told anyone else where he was going, not even his own mother, and he hadn't turned up as a corpse – she'd checked a number of times at all the local hospitals – so her assumption was that he'd gone because he hated the truth about the life she led. He might simply have been scared. She couldn't blame him for that, but he could've kept in touch for the sake of his daughter. She was only eighteen-months-old when he went. Old enough to know Daddy had gone, but not old enough to understand why. Poor Emmy couldn't even remember his face, apart from what she'd seen in the few photographs Nadelie had kept and most of those were faded with the years. She'd let her daughter have them all when she left home. Nadelie didn't want to remember his face. Not any more.

      Let's get you out of bed, shall we? Nadelie blinked again. She'd almost forgotten the woman was there. It wasn't difficult. They became like background noise to your life when you were old. She raised herself up from the pillow, swung her legs over the side of the bed and waited for the Zimmer frame to be placed in front of her.

      It wouldn't have been so bad if she'd actually needed all this fuss, but it was only a cover. She could've hidden away in some cave, or gone abroad. Instead, she'd decided to hide in plain sight.

      The same old routine. Day in. Day out. Helpless. Incapacitated. This was no life for anyone.

      While the care worker's back was turned, Nadelie flicked her wrist and her slippers landed next to her feet.

      Sometimes, she dreamed of what it would've been like if she'd taken the other path. The path that would've kept everything together. Sometimes, she even thought about taking that path now.

      Thought.

      She didn't have that level of strength any more. Even though her body was better than she portrayed, she was still old.

      Let's give you a wash, shall we? Start the day off as we mean to go on.

      Nadelie didn't say a word. It wasn't like she had a choice.

      Chapter 2

      IF THERE was one thing that an overlord hated having to deal with more than anything else, it was magic. Proper magic, of course, not the illusions that passed as mass entertainment and could barely fool the most incompetent of analytical minds.

      The Overlord of sector X-T17 had managed to avoid getting involved with magic for pretty well most of his existence, which was good going since it was a damned long time since he was born … came into existence, the moment there was life on the planet that was called Earth. A name he despised, because it required less imagination than a goldfish had to come up with.

      Sector X-T17 was in the middle of the beautiful British countryside, towards the south-west of the country – each sector was approximately one thousand catchments, which was pretty close to one human mile squared – and his was one of the quietest in the northern hemisphere (if you completely ignored the dead territories of the polar cap and the vast swathes of uninhabited countryside and desert). He considered himself lucky. It was a charming little plot of land, and his sector didn't run across any of the major cities of the region, let alone the world. The biggest settlement contained less than one hundred thousand inhabitants and there were large bands of sparsely populated land where the biggest threat was being scared by an angry bull. The crime rate was negligible – the supernatural crime rate, that is, because he wasn't in the least bit interested in the human kind.

      Until recently.

      Things had all gone pear-shaped when that damned witch was born – the one who pumped just a teensy-weensy bit of vampire blood through her veins on a daily basis. It had skewed everything, and not in a good way. The environmental balance was off the scale and as for the power versus strength ratio, it didn't bear thinking about. It was one of those combinations that they were warned from the get-go was an absolute no-no. It was even on a list – The Top Ten Disastrous Inbreeding Combinations in the Universe. At number one. A witch-vampire hybrid was the kind of creature that, by the rules of the overlords, needed to be eliminated almost before it took its first breath. Of course, it was the most difficult kind to quash.

      Hybrids were frowned upon, mainly because you could never tell what you were going to get. Guessing the outcome was a bit like crossbreeding a lion and a tiger and trying to predict the stripe pattern. It all depended on the proportions of one element to the other, and how adept the lucky recipient of the genes was at using the gifts that had been bestowed upon them.

      And as if the mere fact that she was a hybrid wasn't enough, she was also in the line of descent that meant she would one day be the Keeper of the Mother Stone.

      Disaster piled upon disaster. Pain piled upon pain.

      The Overlord rubbed at the scar across his back and winced. He had been found asleep at the wheel. It was what he'd deserved. He should've known what was going on in his own territory. He should've killed the baby before it was born, the mother before she gave birth, and none of this would've happened. Instead, it was so long since there'd been any trouble at all that he'd stopped monitoring the sensors on a daily basis (or even a yearly one).

      They weren't happy.

      To crown it all, just before the girl's fifth birthday, when he'd finally been making progress, her mother had unexpectedly hidden her daughter away and there hadn't been a blip since. He was told, in no uncertain terms, that the situation must not be allowed to develop any further – shorthand: kill the girl before she has a chance to use her powers.

      But you couldn't do that if you couldn't find her.

      Long story short, he'd failed.

      He rubbed at the skin below his left arm. It was still tender.

      Two months ago, everything had changed. The girl had reappeared. When he'd first noticed the reading on the sensors, he hadn't believed it, but he rebooted the system, twice, and it was still there. Feeling completely overjoyed and unbearably stressed at the same time was an odd sensation.

      It seemed that the mother had put an impenetrable barrier around her progeny and hid her in a cave. Who'd have thought it? He looked around at the rough, stone walls of his own abode and sighed.

      He had decided that the best way to sort everything out was to walk among them. He had to become human and in some way find and befriend this daughter so that he could then end her life. Except, he had no idea what she looked like after all those years hidden away. A blip on a screen was one thing. An actual person that you could touch was another.

      To say that he was sick of being encased in the trappings of a human body was to put his feelings mildly. Each week that had passed had ramped up his anger at the hybrid. So much so, that when he finally came face to face with her, he hadn't recognised her at all. He'd been anticipating something …different. She wasn't the grey-haired old woman he'd expected to see, she was young, vibrant and … young!

      It had been a shock. One that had turned everything he'd planned on its head and forced him to rethink. He'd left his job as a stacker at the local supermarket and redefined himself in terms of the local school.

      Some days he found it difficult to remember who he was pretending to be.

      But his new personality was so much more fun.

      When the girl was nearby, he could feel her power reaching out around her. It was almost like she had a pink glow around her body. Well, really, she did, but humans couldn't see it, or other supers. Only overlords were privy to the super glows. They were like markers so you knew what you were dealing with without having to ask. So useful. Witches could be white or black. Vampires were red. Werewolves were brown. Etc. Etc. Humans were this insipid beige colour. Some of them nearly blended into the interior decoration of their houses.

      It disturbed him that Flynn was pink.

      He still hadn't worked out how he was going to secure her, not in detail, but he was pretty sure he needed to hurry up. They weren't a particularly patient bunch. But he'd decided that he didn't want to take her without taking her mother as well. And he didn't want to take her mother without taking the Mother Stone. If he got all three, then he would be safe again for many years to come and could go back to a simpler way of life.

      He sloughed off the remaining debris from his outer shell and had a shower beneath his favourite underground waterfall. It was such a pain pretending to sleep in the real world. He never wanted to go back before dawn. The feel of the water on his skin made him groan with pleasure.

      But, it would soon be over. Things were coming to a head. He was certain his plan would work.

      It was just as well, because he was pretty sure he couldn't stand many more hours of listening to teachers drone on about this and that and students screeching their heads off. Each teacher thought they were better than the next, except most of what they taught was wrong, or rather, out-dated. Their knowledge was on the low side of dismal. If only mathematicians and physicists opened their minds a bit more they'd know exactly how the universe worked and all the possibilities within it. And they'd realise who was in charge. And when it came to the students, they had the attention spans of fleas and the discipline of an untrained dog. How they ever passed any exams was beyond him. Implanting information into their brains would be so much more efficient, but the likelihood of that in the next fifty years was pretty minimal.

      The Overlord dried off with a quick shake of his body and decided to tune in to his direct link. He'd been avoiding communication for too long and they were going to be gunning for him even more if he wasn't careful. At least, this time, he could regale them with some good news.

      It didn't change the outcome.

      The gist of the communication he received was a rather forceful, 'Get a move on. The whole destiny of the universe rests upon you,' which he did think was a little excessive. There had to be sectors in jeopardy the whole time. The destiny of the universe never rested on one creature. Or one sector. It wasn't designed that way. It couldn't be. If one of the servants had that much power, then they wouldn't be in control. It was absurd, but it did make him feel nervous. The other thing he gleaned from the conversation was that he was being 'too aggressive' in his interactions. He wanted to say that it would've helped immensely if there were a manual for such things, but he didn't. He'd only behaved like he would normally. Show your power and you get what you want. It had always worked before. Unfortunately, they were quite insistent. He wasn't sure he wanted to be nice. He wasn't sure he could keep his emotions in check to that extent.

      Overlords weren't meant for undercover work. It wasn't natural.

      Chapter 3

      YOU WOULDN'T believe the difference. She's always home from school on time. She does her homework when she should without being badgered by me. She doesn't disappear late in the evening without any explanation. She doesn't even go to that club any more. You know, the one we talked about when you came over to dinner. I can't remember what it was now. Can you? Never mind. It doesn't matter. It's like she's a different girl. The girl we used to know before, well, before she changed. I just can't believe it. If I didn't know better, I'd say someone waved a magic wand over her and cast a spell to make her good again. As if. All that stuff's hokum diddly okum, of course. Thank goodness. I don't believe in anything further than what I can see in front of me, and even that can't be guaranteed. See that car over there? That's probably not real. Only joking. Ha! Ha! Can you imagine what it'd be like if there were lots of those, oh what do they call them? Yes, that's it, supernormals. All those witches and vampire bats and demon creatures with horns for ears. Mind you, if they did exist, I couldn't ever imagine them coming here to Midbury. Could you? Midbury? Not a middle of the backwater kind of town like ours, where nobody stays out beyond eleven because there's nothing to do. Can you? Hey? Can you?

      Rag blinked. He felt like he needed to take a gulp of air on her behalf, but managed to stop himself from what, no doubt, would be considered a faux pas of the highest order. Er, No, he said instead, wondering what, if anything, he had just disagreed with. For someone with extremely acute hearing he had an extraordinary ability to tune out when he wanted to.

      He looked down at his watch, trying not to make it obvious. It was just his luck that on leaving the off licence, armed with a bottle of Carrie's favourite wine, he'd run straight into Jean. Literally, straight into her. Flying oranges, splatted eggs and everything. You'd think, with all his special powers and highly-tuned senses, he could've avoided that kind of situation. His mind was obviously elsewhere then as well.

      It had taken five minutes just to put all her shopping back into the carrier bag, what they could salvage, because he had to move at snail's pace, also known as human speed. And after that disaster, which he'd stupidly said to her was his fault, when it wasn't in the slightest, he couldn't exactly walk away without a word or two to the woman and not be considered very rude. Or ten million. He'd already been standing there for another fifteen while she ranted on about how good Lori was being these days. If only she knew where her beloved daughter was right then, and what she was doing, she'd probably have fainted on the spot.

      He began to fidget. He couldn't stop himself. He'd already been out once that day and he only had twenty minutes left before he needed to be inside, away from any vestige of sunlight. Preferably at Carrie's flat, which, at a normal pace, because it was the middle of the day and it seemed like the whole world was around and about, was a good ten minutes away.

      Look, I'm sorry, but I need to go, he said, bracing himself for the five-minute goodbye. Jean looked down at the bottle he was holding. He knew she couldn't see exactly what it was, because the bag was wrapped up to the neck, which he was clutching tight, but it was clear it was alcohol. It wasn't exactly a sneer he saw on her face, or anything he could describe in a meaningful way, but she clearly thought he was going to be drinking in the middle of the afternoon and wasn't terribly impressed. Or maybe he'd got it wrong and she was jealous. They did have quite a store of that apple and blackberry wine they made at her house.

      Yes, of course. I mustn't keep you. My love to Ellie.

      He nodded. He didn't give her a chance to say anything else, he was already walking away. He needed to head straight to Carrie's flat and not let anything else distract him, which was difficult, because being outside during the day was still relatively new to him and it was like learning to be normal again. Everything was interesting. Everything was new. And everything took up too much time.

      He tried to put his head down and push on, he really did, but his enhanced vision meant that he couldn't help noticing Ellie's car was parked in the car park by the side of the shopping mall and, if he wasn't mistaken, that was her just leaving the building on the other side of the car park. A red brick two-storey building he'd never even noticed before. He had no idea what that building was, and now, he really wanted to know, because he didn't like secrets unless he was the one keeping them, but the only way he could find out was by super-speeding over to have a look, and considering the number of people he could see just in his non-peripheral vision, that wasn't an option.

      He looked at his watch again. Ten minutes. He could always look another time. He continued on to Carrie's flat.

      Carrie

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