Love and Magic Read online

  Love and Magic

  Shara Lanel and Trista Ann Michaels

  Published 2005

  ISBN 1-59578-168-4

  Published by Liquid Silver Books, imprint of Atlantic Bridge Publishing, 10509 Sedgegrass Dr, Indianapolis, Indiana 46235. Copyright © 2005, Shara Lanel and Trista Ann Michaels. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Liquid Silver Books

  http://LSbooks.com

  Email:

  [email protected]

  Editor

  Jean Cooper

  Cover Artist

  April Martinez

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  Grave Awakening

  Shara Lanel

  Dedication

  Thanks, Dad, for letting me use your photo in my cover. You inspire my creativity in so many ways. And thanks for being there whenever I need you, like when my car breaks down or when I need the best driving directions to New York. And thanks for helping Mom download my books onto her Palm, and thanks Mom for buying each one. You are the best parents and I’m lucky to have you.

  And where would I be without my ever-present readers-critiquers: Tracy, Jeff, Kelly, and Kathy. You came through for me in a crunch once again. Tracy, thanks for handing over your stash of Wicca books, too, and maybe one day you’ll get them back.

  Chapter One

  The dreams came in the dead of night, and they were about the dead. The sleeping, decaying dead trapped six-feet-under in plush, airtight coffins. Diera Rand saw their faces, eyes closed, cheeks gaunt, skin stretched and leathery. Each corpse wore its Sunday best, a dress or a suit, while clutching a memento in skeletal hands.

  It was the same night after night. When the first rays of light stretched across the horizon—at that moment—the dead in her dreams opened their eyes. The funny thing was, whether male or female, those eyes were always the same.

  * * * *

  Kim Jacobs doubted her knees would last the night. It didn’t matter that she was sixteen and slim and in the prime of health. Her knees were not designed for this shit.

  She’d been ordered by the High Priest Setnau to kneel on the red clay outside the magick circle, along with two other “potentials.” Remain still and silent, he’d said, during the entire ritual. A potential’s role was to observe, to prove her dedication and worthiness. Kim’s dedication was wavering, though, as sharp stones dug into her kneecaps, piercing, despite her jeans and the burlap gown she wore over them. The whole get-up—burlap gown, zero make-up, blonde hair unbound and clingy—made her feel more humble than she liked, and she was beginning to think that she might ditch this whole witch idea.

  Not that she could go back home with her tail between her legs, not after the screaming match she’d had with her dad. No way. She’d carve out a life here in Richmond, even if it didn’t involve this coven thing. She’d already made a few friends and found a couch to sleep on. All she needed was a job. To hell with school and church and her ancient parents with their ridiculous rules.

  The coven members were all unfamiliar to her, older. Even the High Priest seemed to be using a fake name. It was freaky. She’d found this group by Googling online. She’d emailed back and forth with the High Priestess Isis, who played the role of Membership Chair. The older, mousy-looking lady had convinced Kim to come to Richmond for this esbat and observe. She’d said that coven members from all over the United States were converging to perform several magickal ceremonies in preparation for Samhain—Halloween—at the end of the month.

  For Kim, it meant an excuse to skip school and escape her overbearing father. It was an easy drive to Richmond from Norfolk. And if she happened to “find” her true self during all this hocus pocus, so much the better.

  Tin lanterns, old-fashioned like the ones sold in Colonial Williamsburg, sat on stumps outside the circle, but they did little to light the clearing. She’d expected a huge bonfire, until she’d followed Isis through a hole in a chain link fence on Cherry Street, a hole that had obviously been created where it shouldn’t be. Keeping an eye out for cops or security guards, they’d marched past eerily silent graves, lit only by a sliver of moon and bouncing flashlight beams, until they’d slid down an embankment into a clearing. Heavy, orange dirt-moving equipment was parked at the far end, and piles of dirt and knocked-down trees gave Kim the impression that this area was being cleared for more burial space. The main thing seemed to be that it was off the paved road that wound around the huge cemetery and would be very hard to see from the front gate if a police cruiser drove by.

  Flashlights were turned off, lanterns were lit, and the High Priest, with his satiny black robe swishing about him, carved the magick circle into the ground with his scary sword. The coven members, dressed in black street clothes, held hands and walked slowly counter-clockwise around the High Priest and a girl named Wanda, who was dressed in a nearly transparent white robe. Wanda stood, trembling, eyes wide. Kim had to wonder whether the girl wanted to be here any more than she did, but Wanda was the initiate, destined to become a full-member of the coven that night.

  *

  Aleister Graves often laughed at the irony of his name. His father had idolized the late-magician Aleister Crowley when he’d worshipped Satan, so he’d named his only child after him. The fact that his last name just happened to be Graves made the setting of Hollywood Cemetery perfect for Aleister’s current activities.

  His father had worshipped Satan, never understanding that acknowledging Satan meant acknowledging the usurping religion of Christianity. Aleister didn’t believe in either. He was a Pagan, High Priest of his coven, Nightshade, so he’d chosen as his witch name Setnau, and that was the only name the coven members knew him by. That is, except for Isis, his High Priestess, who stood just inside the circle in a drab black gown, anxiously awaiting her role in the ceremony. In order to handle the day to day business of the coven, Isis was the one member who knew Aleister’s true identity.

  Besides Isis, eleven other men and women surrounded him in the circle. Beyond the markings in the dirt, lanterns lit the nervous faces of three kneeling potentials, girls he hoped to lure into the coven with his virility and power. Later. For this evening, his focus was on the fascinating woman who stood before him. Barely a woman, only eighteen, but, alas, not a virgin. Virgins were getting harder and harder to come by. But this female had an innocent aura about her, which intrigued Aleister. More than this, he knew that she wore nothing under her white linen robe. Imagining her unveiling tantalized him.

  The widdershins movement of the coven stalled and each member seemed to stop breathing as they waited for the initiation to begin. They were expecting magick tonight, and Aleister would give it to them. He’d learned a certain amount of showmanship from his father, though he toned it down to create a mood of reverence for this particular ceremony.

  Crossing his arms over his chest, he held a ritual knife known as an athame in one hand and a scourge in the other. Both implements touched his shoulders, reminiscent of Egyptian paintings. Then he intoned the words of the initiation ceremony, which he had created from the witchcraft lore he’d read. “Strip off your robe and jewelry, for you may not bring these with you on this journey.”

  The initiate, named Wanda Clemmons in her everyday life, complied, slowly revealing smooth olive-toned flesh.
The linen caught on the curves of her breasts, until subtle movements of her arms sent it cascading to the ground. She stood before him naked, breasts fresh and ripe, pussy hair shaved into a neat rectangle, thighs taut and luscious. Her fingers flexed as she held her arms stiff at her sides.

  Aleister licked his lips and proceeded with the ceremony. “Do you promise to keep all that you see here today secret, locked in your heart?”

  “I do.”

  “Do you pledge allegiance to the Horned God and the Mother Goddess and to the Coven Nightshade?”

  “I do.”

  “And will you obey your High Priest with your body and your mind in all things?”

  She hesitated for just a moment. Aleister resisted the urge to snap the scourge across her breasts in punishment for her moment of doubt, but she quickly recovered and said, “I do.”

  He then measured her with a red silken cord, which was knotted at even intervals. “This cord I will keep, and it will be buried with curses upon it if you reveal any of what you learn of the Craft from this point forward.”

  “I understand,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

  He swatted the tails of the scourge against her breasts, just hard enough to sting, startling the girl, but she held her ground. He repeated the motions on her thighs.

  “Sacrifice, death, and rebirth. Now we will enact the ceremony of the God and Goddess to complete your initiation.” He turned to his High Priestess Isis, a willowy woman in her 40s whom he felt no sexual attraction for, but whom he’d fucked numerous times to keep her compliant. She accepted the athame and scourge from him, then stepped back into her place in the circle. He knew most Wiccan groups considered the High Priestess to be head of the coven, but that was simply not acceptable. He was the head of Nightshade and soon all would bow before him.

  In his guise as Setnau, he knelt near Wanda’s feet, still wearing his black silk robe. He leaned his face close enough to her patch of pussy fur that he could smell her sex. Inhaling deeply, he chanted the words of power to himself. This ceremony would not only secure a new initiate to his coven. It would also help him gather more power for his ultimate plan.

  He leaned in closer, letting the bristly blond fuzz tickle his nose, as he pictured the true object of his desire, Diera Rand, a girl of fourteen when he’d known her, with curly red hair and creamy white thighs. Aleister kissed the clit of the initiate gently, beginning the tri-fold kiss, but Diera filled his mind. She would be twenty-four now, with filled-out curves and damaged psyche. The woman in front of him was a mere stand-in.

  He raised himself to kiss first one taut nipple, then the next. Wanda moaned in response, as he returned to her clit. He coaxed it into his mouth, sucking it, licking it, still light and gentle, conscious of the solemn eyes of his coven watching as he increased the arousal of the initiate. Her chest lifted with deep breaths as he once again kissed her right nipple. He pulled her aureole into his mouth, then repeated the action on her left breast. In his mind he remembered Diera, red hair falling across the altar cloth, legs spread wide, as his father swung a censer in a pentagram pattern over her body. His balls tightened when he thought of the silken cords binding her wrists and ankles, as his father prepared for the Great Rite. Aleister longed to touch himself and fantasize about having Diera underneath him now that they were both adults. He would remind her of how he’d watched his father take her virginity and how that had destined her to be his High Priestess.

  All in good time. For now he needed to keep track of the initiation ceremony, so he could focus and grow his power. Only power would draw Diera back to him. Only power would keep her with him permanently.

  “Now you will perform the five-fold kiss on me.” Aleister stripped and spread his legs wide and pointed his arms straight out. “Kiss my lips, then my left palm, then my left foot, followed by my right foot, right palm, and lips again. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  As her lips moved around his body, symbolizing the five points of a pentagram, he visualized the headstones surrounding them in the darkness, the houses of the dead, the obelisks and the rough-hewn pyramid, ancient symbols of power, stripped of their true meaning in this cemetery, but powerful just the same. He pictured the dead in their coffins opening their eyes and turning worshipful gazes to him. Give me your essence, give me your power. Tasting her sex had aroused him, but having so many eyes watching him as Wanda’s lips caressed his skin made him burn.

  Everything he did during this witching hour was focused on bringing Diera to him, though none of the coven knew his ultimate design. She, with her history of pain and death, was meant to be the true High Priestess of Nightshade, his power source. Soon she would come to understand his deity, and she would bow at his feet and worship him. It was for Diera that he’d chosen Hollywood Cemetery to perform this rite, because both of her parents were buried here. Their lingering spirits would strengthen the spell he wove, designed to infect her dreams.

  “Stand,” he ordered the initiate, and he once again focused on performing the tri-fold kiss on her. He sucked and caressed her, bringing her to the brink of climax, her moans like ambrosia to his ears. But once she reached that edge, he had to abstain from touching her. She would not come tonight, nor would he.

  When he thought she’d reached that point, could go no farther without orgasm, he stood and faced her. Her chest heaved, her nipples were rosy and engorged, juices dripped from her vagina and ran down her thighs. She bit her lip and stared into his eyes, imploring him to finish it, to make her come.

  “I am giving you your witch name tonight,” he said. “It is Brigid.”

  She nodded and licked her lips.

  “You will not touch yourself or allow another person to touch you sexually until we meet again, do you understand?”

  Eyes wide, she nodded.

  “This ceremony of power will continue until the full moon before Samhain, and if you have an orgasm, you will release the power. This is forbidden.”

  Finally she spoke. “I understand.”

  “Isis, please help Brigid re-robe.”

  The group carefully broke the circle, gathered the magickal tools, and extinguished the lanterns. Aleister held his hands palm to palm and breathed deeply, willing his arousal to subside, as he observed his “potentials.” They were all wide-eyed, shocked at what they’d witnessed, likely shocked at their own bodies’ responses as well. Two of the girls turned worshipful eyes to the High Priest as he approached them, and he could see their hardened tits through their gowns. Very good. They’d followed his orders and were naked underneath the burlap fabric.

  “Stand, Monica.”

  The first girl stood. She’d said she was eighteen, but he had his doubts. He pinched her chin with his fingers and gave her a harsh, open-mouth kiss. She gasped, but accepted eagerly. He slid his free hand to her ass, cupped it, and pressed her against his diminishing erection.

  “Very nice, my girl. You will go far if you continue on the Path.” He released her and turned to Linda, who’d stated that she was seventeen. Her eighteenth birthday, however, was October 31st, which he thought was a good omen. He pinched both of her tits simultaneously, hard. She moaned in response.

  “Do you like pain?” Aleister asked.

  “Yes.” Her voice was breathy and her mouth very fuckable, but, sadly, not tonight. He must abstain from sex, just as he’d ordered Wanda to do. His power was growing and he would not waste it on recreational orgasms.

  He turned to the last potential and found her picking at her cuticles and looking in the direction of the river, though she couldn’t see it in the darkness.

  “Stand, Kim,” he ordered her. He was disappointed to see her apathy, since she’d made him want to jerk-off from the moment Isis had brought her to him, with her D-cup breasts and curvy hips. When she rose to her feet, he observed the cuffs of jeans beneath her gown as well as chunky sandals. Modesty. How interesting. What if she were truly a virgin? He could perform the Great Rite with her on
Samhain. Oh, what power that would bring.

  “Kim, did Isis not tell you to remove all clothing accept for the gown?” he asked, realizing his erection had returned full-force.

  “The cloth’s too rough,” she said sullenly.

  This girl, the one he truly wanted the chance to initiate, seemed the one most likely to escape his grasp after tonight. “I’m very disappointed in you,” he said, as he turned to his High Priestess. “Isis, please take Kim home.”

  “I have my car,” Kim protested.

  “Isis will drive you.” But could he trust his High Priestess with something this important, even if he gave her specific instructions?

  The other girls loped off, giggling, but he gripped Kim’s arm so that she couldn’t follow. The rest of the coven dispersed, leaving only the two females and himself.

  “Let go of me,” Kim demanded, yanking her arm. He tightened his grip. “I’ll drive myself home.” Such a whiny voice from such a beautiful body. Aleister breathed in deeply, striving to control his impulses. He wanted to order Isis to pin Kim’s arms so that he could fuck her right now, but such an act outside the circle would serve no purpose and it would disperse the power he’d generated with Brigid tonight. No, he must wait, but he would not let her go.

  “Isis, on second thought, I will escort Kim to her car. You may go.”

  The woman nodded with a slight smile on her face. She was the most vacuous personality he’d ever met, but that served his purpose for now. She never asked questions or expressed an opinion, a rare gift indeed.

  * * * *

  Diera Rand woke up, gasping, suffocating under her blankets. She didn’t need to see the clock to know it was the exact same time as when she’d startled awake yesterday. The crack of dawn. Since she was not a morning person, this little problem was really getting old. She dug her way to the surface of her blankets and glanced at her clock. It confirmed her guess—too damn early! She struggled across the bed to reach the glass of water sitting on her Shaker nightstand. Sipping the tepid liquid slowly, she rolled her eyes in exasperation.