Curse You

By Armada Volya

She paced the room, looking out the window, waiting for the sun to set. She didn't think anyone would be coming over after her father was arrested; it'd be too dangerous to pay condolences to the daughter of a warlock. Still, she couldn't take any chances. She couldn't be interrupted, and she couldn't speak to anyone until the next morning.
The last rays of bright red light filtered through the curtain and left Elizabeth in the night's embrace. She opened the jar, read the spell one more time, making out letters under the moon's meager glow, and then set up the candle. She walked around the tiny flame, careful not to put it out, and began chanting, weaving a part of her own soul into the words and feeding it to the fire.
“The harm to me is harm to you and all your kin and all your blood.”
The flame leaped, grew larger, consuming the wax in half the time it should have. Elizabeth watched the candle burn in silence, watched energy, the soul of fire, glide through the air and hug her body. She sensed the reassurance of the spell, its protection.
With a needle Elizabeth pricked her finger and let one drop of blood fall on the flame just as it was about to die. The wick hissed, and the last of the energy that smelled and tasted of vengeance came to Elizabeth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Armada Volya
• Release date: Mar 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311866004

Armada Volya

I am an artist who prefers drawing cute, adorable flowers and a writer who goes for not so cute and adorable monsters. Although I was telling fantastical stories since early childhood (telling my mom that someone else peed in my pants), I had never realized that I was actually any good at it until Vincent ( my husband) whipped me into shape and told me to shut up and start writing.On one wonderful fall day Vincent told me to try my hand in writing short stories, to which I replied that I could never write a short story because I would suck at it and my grammar is bad because English is my third language and so on and so forth. Long story short, Vincent wakes up the next day and I present him with my first short story."You just told me you can't write," said Vincent. And then he read the story that I, the woman who had always painted colorful, adorable flowers, had written. It was a very dark story about OCD vampires (no seriously, OCD vampires can be very scary.)And that was the beginning of The Kairan Curse, which ended up being broken down into 3 collections of short stories and notelets.

Book preview

Curse You

By Armada Volya

Copyright Armada Volya 2014

Published by Under Candlelight

Smashwords Edition

Cover Art by Vincent Volya Russell

Curse You

Chapter 1

Fredrick Kairan looked at the cow before him. It had always had plenty of milk after every calf, but this time the milk had run dry. Steven Glarin had been complaining about this for a few weeks. Although Fredrick thought he knew who was responsible, he couldn't prove it. After all, this was a bad year; the grass was drying out and the grazing fields were more yellow than green.

But now... now there was a snake.

In the morning, Steve had seen a snake in the hay by the cow's feet. He had called on Fredrick without delay, and Frederick came – he had to protect his town. No matter how hard they searched the barn, they failed to find the creature. It had simply vanished.

There had to be devilry in this. The snake wasn't an ordinary one, and it was responsible for the cow's lack of milk. In his mind, Fredrick saw the vile creature slithering over to the cow at night and sucking at its teat – devil's creature. Where was it?

Giving up on the search, Fredrick came out of the barn, sun glistening on his black hair and drops of sweat beginning to gather on his forehead, despite the early hour. The wet fabric of his shirt hugged Fredrick's broad shoulders. He stood tall, looking over his town, praying to protect it from unholy dangers.

Fredrick looked down the street to see Jacob working in the yard, watering the plants that were still alive in spite of the drought. He wasn't there when Fredrick first arrived. It was obvious: Jacob was a shape-shifter.

Jacob had turned into a snake, crawled into the barn, stolen the milk, and when he had been caught, crawled out. But snakes weren't fast enough, and he didn't make it home until after Fredrick's arrival. He wasn't sure he could prove it, but God would do that for him.

A woman's scream startled Fredrick. He turned to see Mrs. Jackson rushing out of the house with a bundle in her arms. Her eyes met Fredrick's, and she rushed to him. Collapsing on her knees in front of the man who had always protected the town from the devil, she cried an unstoppable, unearthly cry.

The child's dead face looked as peaceful as if he were sleeping.

When Mrs. Jackson calmed down enough to speak, she told him about the perfect health of her son, his good appetite, and his sleep of the previous night – a sleep from which he didn't awake.

Anger