Stripped (Order of Akasha Book 0) Read online

  Jax stepped in front of Jennie protectively, hiding her slight frame. “The girl wouldn’t talk, Travis. What was I supposed to do? I’m tired of playing around.” He took a step toward me. “Just pay attention. Besides Jennie’s magic, what else do you smell? It reeks of negative spells in here.”

  He wasn’t wrong. The neat, tidy living room, its walls hung with family pictures and Better Homes and Garden magazines on the table, carried a whiff of rotten meat. But that still didn’t excuse what Jax and Jennie were doing.

  “She’s a kid,” I snapped. “We don’t even know if she’s the source.”

  “It doesn’t matter. She knows something and we’re making her talk.”

  “Jennie,” I called out. I needed to know how culpable she was in this. Did she know what she was doing? Did she know using her powers to coerce someone was wrong?

  Of course, she did. It was obvious. It was what we were brought up on. I was grasping at straws trying to find a way to make this right.

  One slight shift changed everything. Jax moved just out of the way, revealing Jennie’s face. Everything I wanted to know was written right there. She knew, and she had chosen to do this of her own volition. Dread opened a pit in my stomach. “I can’t let you two do this,” I said.

  “The kid knows something, Travis. And we need answers. What if people are out there getting hurt right now, while we sit on our asses waiting for gods knows what to happen?”

  The power between us crackled, the heat rising in my fingertips and in my throat. Jax had never been patient, had never liked the footwork it took to get to the bottom of things. But I’d never expected this kind of betrayal of our basic principles from him. Enforcers were above reproach. If we broke the rules, we forfeited any claim we had to police the actions of others.

  Behind me, the door flew open. “Rachel!” a woman called and power slammed into me before I could turn. The smell of rotten flesh enveloped me as I flew through the air, smashing into the far wall. Air whooshed from my lungs as I hit the floor.

  Even with my eyes closed, Jennie’s guilty look swam in front of me.

  “M-mom?” the young girl asked, voice wavering in fear and confusion. She gazed into the empty corner and then back at her mom.

  When I pulled myself up, I saw one of the women from last night, eyes blazing with fury as she fought the binding spell Jax and Jennie had put on her. The pine smell of Jax’s magic mixing with the lilacs and the rotten meat smell of the woman’s magic made my stomach roil.

  The woman looked like an older version of the girl. With her streaked blond hair framing her face and her suit jacket, she could have been one of any number of suburban mothers in the neighborhood. Only, her magic set her apart. And her magic was strong. She had almost freed herself from the spell.

  I joined forces with Jennie and Jax, pulling from the ties of my coven, and held her firmly in place.

  The young girl screamed in despair.

  “Sleep,” I said, sparing a glance toward the girl.

  The young girl slumped over on the couch, her head landing softly on the cushion as if she’d cried herself out of a temper tantrum.

  Jennie finally looked at me when we spelled the witch in place. “Travis, you have to listen.”

  “You know I can’t.” I made my voice hard. Inside, my stomach twisted. I knew what I had to do next.

  Her eyes watered. “But I’m helping,” she said. “It’s a good thing.”

  I placed my hand on her forehead and closed my eyes. Her body shook. “By the power of the Order of the Akasha, a trial has been set to prove your worthiness. If you be true, let light live within you. If you be false, may the light flush out any magic of dark. To thine own self be true.” The power flashed through me, leaving a visible mark on Jennie’s skin.

  “You bastard,” Jax roared. He reared back to punch me, but a simple touch on his forehead stopped him. I said the same incantation over him. After all, it was my duty, my calling. Even though it had brought me to this, marking my best friend and my sister, I had to do it.

  “Holy shit,” Randy said from behind me. “Jax, what did you do, you bastard?” Anger, but no surprise laced his voice.

  Randy and I were definitely going to have to have a talk…and soon.

  Connor waltzed in after Randy. He looked around wide-eyed, taking in the marks on his friends’ foreheads. They would be there for any magic user to see until after the trial. His gaze landed on me. “Jesus. What the fuck happened?”

  “Order up Ms. Wicca a trial. The girl is fine. Wipe her memory.” I had to stay professional about this or I might fall apart. My best friend and my sister, both on trial. But Jax and Jennie might still be found innocent. Nothing was definite yet.

  Connor grabbed my arm as I walked past. “You okay?”

  “I have to go tell my parents. Can you take Jennie home? I don’t have an extra helmet.”

  “I can take her,” Jax said, arms crossed over his chest. “Unless you don’t trust me.”

  “Oddly enough, I don’t.” With a last cold look at Jax, I left.

  I could feel Jax’s energy like a dark cloud at my back.

  Outside, the world was the same. In ten minutes, my whole life had been turned upside down, and yet the sky still blazed blue and the grass was still green.

  Jax and Jennie would have to account for their actions. They had nothing to fear if they’d done nothing wrong. But me? Either way, I was screwed. If my suspicions were wrong and I subjected my best friend and my sister to a trial, they would never forgive me. If I was right, how could I forgive them?

  With a quick glance to the heavens, I prayed that I’d made the right decision.

  Chapter Three

  The conversation with my parents went about as well as I could have hoped. Which was to say, absolutely horribly. My mother yelled. My father went silent, his disapproval hovering like a cloud around him.

  The pictures of Jennie and I on the walls seemed to stare at me in accusation. When Jennie finally came home, all she had was evasion and half-truths.

  Dinner was absolute torture.

  My parents questioned me relentlessly on what I had seen, picking at the minute details of my story, trying to find a way to spin it that cleared Jennie in their minds. Jennie alternated between crying and yelling at me.

  Halfway through, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I pushed my plate away, the meatloaf and potatoes greasy and unappetizing.

  “What do you want me to say?” I exploded. “Do you want me to say I hope I’m wrong? Because I do. I hope to hell I’m wrong.”

  Jennie’s eyes flared. In the background, my mom grabbed my dad’s hand, her nails digging into the thin skin of his wrist.

  “It’s up to you, Jennie. Your choices have always been up to you,” I said and pushed away from the table.

  Thankfully, the trial was tonight. There would be no dragging it out.

  I arrived at the trial separately, preparing silently with the rest of the guys, minus Jax. Our meetings were held in a building the Order owned down by the wharf. The water gave energy to our spells so it was a natural place to house the coven.

  The top level held offices and meeting rooms we barely used, but the bottom level was where we held the trials. In the middle of the circled floor was the Order of the Akasha pentagram. Surrounding it was a railing which led to theater-style seating. At the front of the room was where my coven sat during the trials, straight on toward the accused. Above our heads was a painting of the original Order of the Akasha from 1692.

  Everyone was silent as we worked the Order magic on the pentagram. Because we were linked via the coven, they knew what the charges of the accused were without me having to express them. The tension was thick and tasted bitter.

  We first brought forth the woman, who had turned out to be a newly practicing Wiccan. Holly Homemaker had got a taste of the occult during a recent trip to New Orleans, and had plunged into her studies full force.

  Within a few months, she’
d delighted in the fact that she’d been able to give her husband a raise, buy a new minivan, and secure another trip down South. That was the way most of these things worked, no overt evil intent just overzealous people working with things they didn’t quite understand.

  What pushed her over the edge though was finding out her husband was cheating on her with a next-door neighbor. Her house stank of black magic because she decided she wasn’t going to sit back and take it. Apparently, divorce wasn’t an option when you could get revenge.

  It started out small. First, she gave her husband bad gas during a meeting at work. Relatively harmless, but it progressed as it usually did. Progressed to the point where she magically cut the brakes on the neighbor’s car. That was why the neighborhood women were over for coffee the first night we were pulled there. She needed a piece of clothing from the cheating woman to use with her spell.

  The room darkened with her in the center. The fire from the torches around the room sparked and reached toward the ceiling. Connor, Randy, Gabe and I decided we’d strip her of her occult memories and reverse the things she’d given herself with black magic. She would need to be kept an eye on, but chances of her reverting were small.

  Jax was next. When he entered the specially drawn pentagram, we’d be able to see through to his soul. We’d see colors, memories, the truth about him. Enforcers were as white as angels deep inside.

  That didn’t mean we acted like them. In all ways that mattered, though, we were pure. We believed in good over everything. In harmony with everything. We believed magic shouldn’t be used to force someone’s free will. There was a big difference between praying to the light for good fortune, and making it happen with dark.

  When Jax entered the circle, he wasn’t light anymore. He wasn’t dark either. He was a mixture. The dark green of greed and purple stain of power filtered in enough to make him hazy, a wisp of smoke. It wasn’t until the memories hit that I held my breath.

  I gritted my teeth as I watched him torture his Psych professor into changing his midterm grade. Even worse, my stomach knotted when he put the conceal spell on to hide it from us all.

  It sealed his fate. Not only did he do something wrong, he knew it, and secreted it away.

  Jennie’s quiet sobs echoed around the room as she waited in the wings.

  “Damn,” Randy said from the side of me.

  “It was one time,” Jax said.

  “You know better,” Connor replied evenly.

  He was right. Enforcers went through months of training after they felt the pull. As my best friend, Jax was better prepared than all and yet still chose poorly. Without speaking, the four of us held hands as we first took the Enforcer powers from Jax. Then, we reached further, pulling from him his Natural status.

  This wasn’t the first time an Enforcer had to have his magical abilities plucked from him. It wouldn’t be the last either.

  Connor tried to escort Jax away from the pentagram, but Jax pushed him away. When the shadows swallowed Jax up, I knew that was the last time I’d ever see him, but I couldn’t muster the energy to care. Not when my sister was up next.

  My stomach hollowed out. I prayed to the gods I wouldn’t have to take my sister’s power like we’d just done to Jax.

  Connor pulled Jennie up and walked her into the center of the pentagram. She stood with her chin in the air, though tears were still wet on her cheeks. If she decided to still talk to me after all this, I’d have to comfort her about Jax. Then again, I should probably leave that up to my mother.

  I held my breath as the four of us closed our eyes. For a minute, there was nothing. Then a whoosh of liberating white blinded me. “Thank the gods,” I said. Her true self would be her savior.

  Memories flicked by of her and Jax. She looked so happy it stung. But then the Akasha found what it was looking for.

  We’d found out Jennie had the ability to make people see whatever they wanted when Mom had been stung by dozens of bees when Jennie was twelve. Because Mom was allergic, Jennie started to talk to her about the beach and the brilliant blue water. Without even realizing it, Jennie had conjured the ocean in Mom’s mind.

  Really cool, helpful ability when used for good, which Jennie usually did. She volunteered at the local Hospice and talked with the patients who were near dying.

  Terrible and cruel ability when used for bad.

  The memories faded and Jennie stood there now. “He told me I was helping.” She floundered and frantically sought me out until she caught my gaze. “All I ever wanted to do was help.”

  She was telling the truth. Jax convinced her that making that young girl see her mother dying would help them get to the bottom of the situation. He also helped her realize she was helping him when she made his professor see his young son committing suicide before he went to the computer and changed Jax’s grade.

  There was so much love for Jax that she didn’t even realize what she was doing.

  I was left out of the sentencing talks for obvious reasons. When they came back and said they’d decided to just remove her ability to make people see what she wanted, my whole body sighed in relief. It was the best conclusion that could have come out of this. Enforcer’s sentencing were usually hard and fast, but they were fit to the crime. Jennie wouldn’t be happy, but she’d come to see that this was for the best. If she couldn’t handle the ability, it had to be taken away.

  I walked into the center of the pentagram head down. Because I was coven leader, stripping powers was my responsibility. I held my palm to her forehead. “Please, Travis,” she whispered.

  “It’s only the one power.”

  She shook her head. “It’s everything to me.”

  “It’s okay.” I closed my eyes and searched for the beginnings of her power. Each power had touch and smells and color. It was how we wielded our magic. We pulled it up from within us, using the feel of it, the taste. Jennie’s was hard to distinguish. It ran through her like jungle vines.

  I pulled and pulled. It snapped.

  Jennie’s eyes flew open. She dropped to her knees.

  Her vision power was rooted in everything. I’d effectively pulled almost everything out of her, stripped her of her being.

  Her magic was gone.

  The end

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  E. M. Moore

  E. M. Moore is an Urban Fantasy author who loves everything paranormal--especially witches. She's visited Salem more than a few times and can't get enough of their ghost tours and witch museums.

  To keep up with her and her books, you can like her on Facebook! (Just copy and paste the following link into your browser.) https://www.facebook.com/E-M-Moore-1716402765267532/?fref=ts

  Mixi J Applebottom

  A Note from Mixi…

  I write stories about being hungry, working hard, and struggling to survive. Sometimes, they even have happy endings. I currently have three children and three cats. I’m overly affectionate in my newsletter, and if you’d like me to tell you are wonderful, you should certainly sign up. For I do, indeed, think you are wonderful. Thanks so much!

  Mixi J Applebottom

  Feel free to contact Mixi directly at: [email protected]

  or visit her blog at: mixijapplebottom.com

  Join my email list: mixijapplebottom.com/booklinks

  OTHER BOOKS BY E. M. MOORE

  CHRONICLES OF CAS SERIES

  REAWAKENED

  HIDDEN

  POWER

  SEVERED

  Salem's magic has always stayed hidden...until now.

  Salem Public Library’s own Cas Marston has a secret. With the blood of countless Ley Line Guardians running through her veins, there are certain expectations on her shoulders…expectations that have nothing to do with cataloging books.

  For centuries the Ley Line Guardians have kept Salem's magical ties a secret from the outside world, but when ley energy begins blasting out over Salem, Cas finds herself with a bit of an issue. One she needs to put a stop
to—and fast. With her brother missing and the city nearing disaster level, the local coven offers a solution. Torn between family and duty, Cas is faced with an impossible decision that will seal fates…one way or another.

  Will Cas find a way to fulfill her duty as Salem's Ley Line Guardian? Or should she heed her brother's last message…and run?

  THE ADAMS’ WITCH SERIES

  BOUND IN BLOOD

  CURSED IN LOVE

  A curse to kill them all...

  On a quest to unearth more about her long dead father, eighteen-year old Sarah Perkins ends up in quiet Adams, Virginia chasing a lead. She didn't know her presence there would trigger the Adams' Witch curse.

  Things are in motion that can't be stopped. For centuries, the immortal Mother Shipton has claimed one innocent life after another. Now, Sarah finds herself on a race against time and magic to unravel the mysteries of the past before time runs out.

  Can Sarah escape the curse before it takes her life? Or will the Adams' witch claim another victim?

  OTHER BOOKS BY MIXI J APPLEBOTTOM

  LOCKED HOUSE HAUNTINGS

  JASPIERRE TRILOGY

  READ ON FOR A SNEAK PEAK OF BOUND IN BLOOD BY E. M. MOORE:

  Sarah

  Nine-hundred miles of I-95 taught me that Virginia was as much like Florida as flip-flops were like heels. Not necessarily better in any way, just different. Gone were the palm trees and sandy beaches I’d spent my entire life around. In their place? Pine trees. A lot of them.

  Outside the SUV, headlights touched on the dark, foggy back-road the GPS told me to turn down a few miles back. Houses were few and far between. Actual signs of life? Even more sparse. Woods, fields, and scurry animals seemed to be a hit in Virginia, though.

  It would’ve been nice to meet my great aunt Rose for the first time in a familiar place. Then again, it also would’ve been nice to know she existed further back than three days ago. I had my mother to thank for that.