Deception soul seer chro.., p.1
Deception: Soul Seer Chronicles, Book 2, page 1
Deception
Soul Seer Chronicles, Book 2
S.J. Cairns
Contents
Acknowledgments
1. Coven Liaison
2. Bad Timing
3. Waterworks
4. Assumptions are Easy
5. No Punch Line
6. No Compassion for the Blind
7. Moving Forward
8. The Cycle
9. Two of a Kind
10. Misguided
11. Hidden Away
12. Consuming Thoughts
13. Creating Change
14. The Other One
15. Feline Frenzy
16. Lofty Secrets
17. Desperate Men
18. Reunion
19. Bound to Bleed
20. Through the Veil
21. Fanfanatic
22. Circle of Evil
23. No Real Damage
24. How Strong Can One Person Be?
25. Enlightening Brutality
26. A Foreign Husk
27. Elemental
28. Into the Future
About the Author
Copyright © 2022 by S.J. Cairns
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form on by an electric or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Cover design by Getcovers
Logo created by S.J. Cairns
Logo image by CNuisin depositphotos.com ID 265803116
Tree vector by Nikhomtreevector depositphotos.com
ID 391693140
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ebook: 978-1-7782426-3-2
paperback: 978-1-7782426 -4-9
hardcover: 978-1-7782426-5-6
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Previous edition printed 2018
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Black Thumb Publishing
Ontario, Canada
www.sjcairns.com
Created with Vellum
Acknowledgments
Much has changed since Book 1 of the Soul Seer Chronicles was published including the closing of its original publisher and the second publisher a year later. Once the sobbing and panicked freak-outs abated, friends with big hearts became a lighthouse in the darkness and helped me find my way. I can’t thank them enough for having faith in Sophie’s story.
Thank you to every reader of Discovery, Book 1, for sticking it out with me and for reading Deception, Book 2. I hope I have exceeded your expectations.
As always, I owe a tip of the hat to my writing group The Quillies. They hold a special place in my heart. With loyal support like theirs, I have already found success.
To my husband:
You have lost countless hours of my time to my never-ending desire to create worlds on the dark side of reality, but your love provides me the greatest inspiration of all. Your support, understanding, and yummy food-making has not gone unnoticed.
1
Coven Liaison
More heavy-duty cleaner, more polishing, and still the light hit a stubborn smudge on the bar top. Disintegrate the whole damn thing with innate power passed down for generations? Abso-freaking-lutely. Erase all signs of dried-on BBQ wing sauce? Not a bloody chance.
Hiding my powers from the Blind, the non-magic patrons of The Lush’s, busy poisoning their livers with cheap drinks and their colons with deep-fried everything, was a pain in the ass.
“You hedging for a tip?” my co-worker Eddie asked. “Because I’m pretty sure the bar top is the wrong kind of wood for rubbing that hard.”
I chucked the cloth at his face. A wet slap smacked him before he could get his tattooed hands up.
“Touchy much?” He tossed the cloth onto the lower counter out of my reach. “Your attitude’s been flipped to max bitch since you came in. Clear tables and burn off some energy. You’re freakin’ me out.”
“Pfft. Freaking you out,” I muttered.
If Eddie only knew about the real world. That he wasn’t the top of the food chain. That with the help of a coven, I saved the life of a guy I met in my nightmares from a sleeping curse? Ha! Then he’d freak out. Hell, I freaked out. We still didn’t know the reason behind why Caine Berisford was stuck in the sleeping curse to begin with, though we knew an evil fucker, Loring, was somehow involved. I had already gained too much of his attention and expected to see him again soon.
While all the lifesaving and near life-losing turned out in Caine and I’s favour, all I wanted was to keep busy and pretend I was just another Blind human like Eddie who had no idea how dangerous the world really was.
Dish bin in hand, I rounded the bar and caught sight of a familiar redhead in my peripherals coming through the door. My feet didn’t stop. I cleared beer bottles while their previous lightweight sippers flirted with a couple of guys at the pool table.
“Hey! Sophie, slow your roll.”
Stopping wasn’t going to happen.
“You can’t get away from me.” Kim followed and grabbed empty bottles and glasses and dropped them in the bin as we moved around the crowd. “What are you doing here?”
“Taking a crochet for dummies class.”
She wasn’t thrown by my deadpan sarcasm. “Why are you working? Why tonight? Caine’s awake now.”
“Confirmed alive and healthy.”
“Yes.” She lowered her voice. “But considering what happened to you while you were under—”
I spun around so quick her green-blue eyes widened. “You don’t have to remind me, Kim.”
“Got it.”
“I was there.”
“I know.”
I broke the tension and kept going.
Kim followed.
“What’s going on, Soph? You were fine at the hospital and then went mute on the ride home. You said you were going to bed, but then you left.”
“You’re keeping tabs on me? Do I need to worry about waking up to you staring at me and wearing my underwear on your head?”
“No,” she said with forced calm. “We’re neighbours, it’s impossible to miss Bosco wailing when you leave.” She lowered her voice again. "I figured out where you went with a location beacon.”
“A what?” She gave me a look and I understood it was a magic thing. “Whatever. I’m busy Kim.”
I spun away from her and knocked over a pint of beer, the whole thing splashing down my leg, the glass shattering on the hardwood.
“Watch it!” The college-aged patron yelled at me over the sound of the top 40 hits and loud enough to bring the attention of more than half the bar. “Work much? It’s your job to pour drinks, not dump them.”
I ground my teeth. “I’m sorry—”
“You’re headed to the bar to fetch me another fucking drink, is what you are.”
A flush of magic raged to the surface of my skin and crawled up the back of my neck before I registered the power surge. This punk had no clue what I was capable of. Hell, I didn’t know what I was capable of, and it was burning to let loose.
Something grabbed my attention over the guy’s shoulder. Another patron raising his arm to take a swig of dark liquid from a short glass, his profile visible to me across the room, his soul glow unmistakable. He was a stranger to me, but his dark soul glow told me everything I needed to know.
A Tainted, evil Magic was in the bar.
The pissed off and drink-less college prick snapped his fingers in my line of sight. “Hey! Get me another drink. I’m not paying for it either.”
Refraining from taking the broken glass and shoving it into the prick’s neck, I smiled and headed back to the bar. Dragging Kim with me, I dropped the bin of glasses on the bar top with a loud clang.
“Did you break something?” My boss, Drew, with impeccable hearing unless you’re asking for fair wages and legal break times, came out of the back office.
“Yes, Drew,” I said without patience, wanting to tell Kim what I saw. “Take it out of my pay as well as funds for a pint.”
Drew sneered and went back into the office, saving me from further argument. Since I threatened him with the authorities for his shady dealings, he’s backed off by a crotch hair.
Eddie laughed. “He’s going to double it for you being a bitch.”
“Let him.”
“What about you?” Eddie asked Kim, stopping me again. “How ‘bout I make it up to you and buy you a drink?”
“Oh….” Kim looked at me surprised.
I turned to Eddie. “Shouldn’t you be making it up to me?”
He gave me a withering look.
“Vodka martini,” Kim ordered. My expression turned on Kim. “What?”
“Coming up.” Eddie slapped the bar top and got working on the drink.
“Kim, we have a big problem.”
“Eddie? Why? He’s super cute. I’m not turning down a free drink. Or do you mean the freak-out you’re having about Caine because that’s definitely a problem.”
“Neither.” I quieted my voice. “That guy has a dark soul glow.”
Kim gasped. “Eddie?”
“Ugh, no, get your mind off c
She tried to see who I meant, but he wasn’t visible from the bar through the crowd unless you could see his filthy soul.
“He was at Aunt Lacey’s when Loring attacked.”
She gasped. “No way!”
“Yes way. Call Aunt Lacey and get her to—”
“Here you go.” A chipper-voiced Eddie interrupted and served Kim’s drink with four extra olives.
“Thanks, handsome.” Kim beamed at Eddie and took a sip of her drink still looking at him over the edge of her martini glass.
“Call her!”
“Ah!” She sloshed her drink. “Okay, okay!”
“Call who?” Eddie asked.
“No one,” I snapped at him.
“Fine.” He pulled back. “Jesus fuck. You still have to serve that asshat his drink and clean up the mess.”
Kim used the natural power of her blue-green eyes and trained them on Eddie. “And I would be eternally grateful if you could do it for Sophie.” She even tacked on a head-tilt which caused her long red hair to fall over her shoulder. “I still need her for a quick moment. Please?”
He huffed. “Fine. You can at least pour the guy’s drink.”
“Got it.” At least that way, I didn't have to interact with the college prick or get close to the Tainted Magic, even if it meant Kim’s shameless flirting.
“Thanks bunches.” Kim slapped on an extra wide smile as Eddie passed with the mop and bucket. She then called Aunt Lacey as I poured a pint of Rickard’s Red and put it on the bar top.
Kim was still on the phone talking as she searched through her purse for something, silent as I presumed Aunt Lacey was talking. She took out a vial of something and pinched a bit into her palm before sprinkling it into the pint I poured.
A quick check of the room showed no one noticed, too enthralled with their night out. “Are you planning on date-raping that douche-nozzle?”
She shushed me.
Before I could dump it, Eddie returned and took it to serve to the college prick.
The thumbs-up from Kim was discomforting.
The Lush’s doors opened and in walked a man that had me saying “Holy shit” and gripping Kim’s arm before I could stop myself. His blond head turned to me, but I was too busy checking out his bright soul colour to remember basic manners.
Kim spun to see what I reacted to as the blond man approached us.
“Do I know you?” he asked.
“Umm….”
“Who are you?” Kim spoke for me, her phone still to her ear.
He scanned the bar. I followed his gaze and noticed the Tainted Magic was no longer polluting the back table with his dark soul. Was the blond stranger looking for him? Before I could ask, he said, “I’m tasked with welcoming—”
“Hold up.” Kim raised a finger to him and went back to her phone, listening as myself and the blond man stood in awkward silence. He checked over his shoulder at the bar patrons. Disappointment evident in his furrowed brow and the downturn in the edges of his lips.
Whoever he was, his soul was nothing I had ever seen before. No other Magic at Aunt Lacey’s party emitted a similar soul glow: a bright white with a glimmer of metallic pink. The shimmer captivated me as I tried to train my eyes to take in what I was seeing.
“Sure.” Kim’s high-pitched tone stole me from my gawking as she thrust her phone towards the blond man. “Aunt Lacey wants to talk to you.”
He took the phone with less surprise than I would have. “Elder?” He listened. “My apologies.” More silence. “Understood.” He gave Kim back her phone. “As I was saying, I am a Coven Liaison tasked with welcoming new inductees and had a moment to stop by this establishment to do so.”
“Bullshit.” I couldn’t help myself.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Coven Liaison?”
“That is what I said.”
I kept his gaze and leaned into the bar top. “Your visit has nothing to do with some welcoming task any more than it does the half-price beer bucket. The dark-souled motherfucker who happened to disappear when you showed up isn't a coincidence.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but he looked like he was going to lie, so I saved him the trouble.
“Loring’s man, right?”
He nodded. “How would you know, Sophie?”
I crossed my arms. “If you know my name, then you know how.”
He half-smiled before saying, “Indeed.” He took a seat at the bar. “Families with the Soul Seeing trait exist in the tomes, though I had my doubts any bloodlines remained active. Quite a gift.”
“Then you know more than I do.” I knew nothing about my bloodline or the power I inherited. Family was useless. My Grandma Lizzie was too busy making it her mission to condemn me for giving into the “Devil’s charms” by practicing. I couldn’t even shut my Soul Seer ability off, which cast Mr. Pink-Sparkly-Soul in a perpetual haze of princess glitter.
He moved on. “Our Elder informed me of your identity which explains your overreaction at my entry.”
“I didn’t overreact.”
“You did.” He looked over his shoulder. “And tipped-off my target who seems to have disappeared. I admit ‘Coven Liaison’ was a weak cover, though it has worked on those without your talents to call me out.”
“I’m not a fan of liars. The fact you’re quick to give one says a lot.”
The man held my gaze for a moment, something like guilt shining through his dark blue eyes. A sadness contrasting with his glittery soul glow. Though he never apologized.
“Why were you following him?” Kim broke our staring contest.
The man took a breath and considered before responding. “He’s within territory he knows better than to cross. After speaking with our Elder and finding the Soul Seer he attempted to snatch at the Elder’s gathering, the question of why is easily answered.” He looked at me. “Why no wards?”
“Wards?”
“Safety measures. You work among the Blind. Simple wards would safeguard against those such as my target. Or provide a basic warning of their entry.”
“Safeguard? He’s the first evil fucker to come in here.”
“Please.” Eddie came around the counter. “We’ve had plenty of assholes in here. Evil is a bit much though, don’t you think?” Thinking back to Jack, my neighbour who tried to kill me feet from where we stood, I had to disagree with Eddie.
A screech and commotion had us looking towards the customers. The college prick bent over his table vomiting on the floor as his girlfriend was freaking out and gagging. The others around them squealed and raced out of the splash zone. The college prick's stomach contents continued to waterfall onto the hardwood as his friends stood around. One ever so helpful sack-pimple pulled out their phone and started live-streaming.
“I take it back,” Eddie said. “That motherfucker is pure evil.”
“Umm….” I looked at my co-worker but didn’t have to finish.
“Yes! I’ll clean it.” He cursed and grabbed cleaning tools.
Eddie stormed over to the guy, hoisted him off his knees by his arm, and dragged him outside. His girlfriend followed, covering her mouth and nose, as if she would rather leave him than have the bar know they were together.
So much for loyalty.
“He could have at least made it to the bathroom,” Kim said.
The blond man turned to her. “You’re responsible?”
Kim’s eyes went wide with obvious guilt. I don’t know how he knew, and Kim looked terrified that he did.
