Book of Shadows 3: Hunting: Book of Shadows, #3

By Michael Beaulieu

16-year-old witches Emma, Lia and Shar can’t catch a lucky break.  The coven’s spells tend to have unintended side-effects, they’ve been the victims of hate crimes, and now witch hunters are on a mission to capture them.  Experienced hunters who are working with a powerful black magick witch hellbent on killing the girls so she can steal their magick.  

Of course, the hunters have to catch them first and these girls have plenty of tricks up their sleeves.  Like becoming hunters themselves instead of just prey.  

First, the girls will need to find out where the evil witch and company sleep.  To do that – and to defeat them – the girls will call on all of their friends, including Emma’s powerful witch boyfriend, a fireball-hurling fairy and an advanced hacker.  But do they really have what it takes to defeat an evil witch who’s slain and stolen magick from dozens of other witches already?  Read Book of Shadows 3: Hunting today and find out!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Midnight Publishing
• Release date: Mar 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386471516

Book preview

BOOK OF SHADOWS

Volume 3: Hunting

A Novel by Michael Beaulieu

Book of Shadows: Volume Three: Hunting

© Copyright 2017 by Michael Beaulieu

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events or 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.

First edition: January 2018

Visit Michael Beaulieu online and subscribe to his mailing list for announcements about new releases, limited time promotions of his books, a first look at upcoming projects, access to cool giveaways, freebies and much more. www.michaelbeaulieu.com

Cover design by Michael Beaulieu

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CHAPTER ONE

My name is Emma McGlinchey-Beaulieu and I’m a teenage witch. A teenage witch who’s just returned home from Greater Lowell Hospital. In spite of the fact that I’m only 16-years-old, I was in-patient because I had a heart attack. An honest to Goddess, real heart attack, as opposed to when I have panic attacks where I worry about having a heart attack. Apparently, it happened because I accidentally used magick to leave my body and help my friend Shar hypnotize a police detective when she was being interrogated. Seems you’re supposed to stay attached to your body with a cord when you have an out of body experience and I didn’t realize that because I’d never had one before. My spirit leaving my body as it did literally caused my heart to stop. In fact, I was dead until the paramedics revived me.

Shar, her girlfriend Lia and I are besties and have been since we were seven. All three of us were interrogated – more than once – because we were forced to put down four of our fellow students at Noah’s Catholic High when they showed up at school with guns and tried to kill us the other day. The reason the police were looking into it was that the families of the students we were forced to end wanted us arrested for manslaughter and the police were trying to determine if we should be charged accordingly. Fortunately, the detectives decided not to charge us. But school bullies and police detectives aren’t the only ones who’ve been gunning for us. You see, the shooting happened because my boyfriend Tim had accidentally killed a bully named Troy when he used black magick to make vines crush his ribs. Now his parents have hired witch hunters to kill us. Yesterday the hunters sent me a cursed package at the hospital that proved to have a very bloody boar’s heart in it. (I know, gross.) The blood was laced with belladonna, something witches also call deadly nightshade, and it came into contact with a cut I got from opening the box it was in. It’s toxic stuff, usually used a poison, and it made me hallucinate like crazy, but I’m fine now. Rattled, sure, but not seeing things. Well, OK, aside from an occasional flashback of the hallucinations, which made me re-live the shooting with the same bullies trying to kill me. So not cool.

There’s a cruiser parked outside my parents’ house right now and will be for at least the next 24 hours, given what happened yesterday. Not that a cop sitting in a car out front is going to deter witch hunters. Especially not witch hunters collaborating with a powerful witch like our hunters are. At least we assume they are since the package was cursed and nobody really uses deadly nightshade for anything anymore besides witches.

Lia, Shar and I are hanging in my bedroom right now. Mom said they could come over as long as we’re not too loud, since Dad is sleeping in their bedroom after staying up all night at the hospital so I would be able to feel safe and sleep.

I’ve just put Bowie’s The Next Day CD on at a low volume. I considered playing the vinyl version, but if we’re going to be busy looking at our Book of Shadows, possibly casting a spell, I didn’t want to worry about having to flip records over. Plus, Lia likes to make smart ass remarks about CDs sounding better than vinyl and I didn’t want to hear it today. (FYI, I know CDs technically sound better, but I still happen to prefer the sound of vinyl.)

Lia just took the Book of Shadows out of her backpack and put it on my bed. It’s still glowing, as it was when Lia brought it to the hospital earlier today. It surprises me because it usually doesn’t do that. I just thought it was doing that today so I’d know it was in Lia’s backpack. Maybe it’s because it’s been translated? The spells in the back were in strange runes but the book was so impressed that I left my body to help Shar that it decided to translate them for us. The book is an animated object, you see, and it has a mind of its own. Sometimes you’ll look through it and find a spell that wasn’t there before, which is pretty cool.

Does it look like it’s glowing to you guys? I ask Lia and Shar as we stand before my bed, looking at the book.

Yeah, they both say simultaneously.

I smirk. How long has it been doing it?

Since I put it in my backpack this morning. Lia says.

Shar is practically bouncing up and down, unable to stand still. So, who should do the honors?

Go ahead, I say.

OK. Cool.

Shar picks up the book and we all sit on the edge of my bed to look at it. She’s about to open it when I get an idea. Wait, let’s hold hands and pray that we open it to the page we need.

Shar offers Lia and I each a hand. Good idea.

Can I say it? Lia asks.

For a second I think she’s being sarcastic, since I can’t recall her ever leading us in a prayer, but then I realize she’s serious. Sure, go for it.

Gods and Goddesses. We are currently screwed. Please, please, please guide us to survive those who would harm us. Let us open the Book of Shadows to the page that would benefit us most right now. Our lives apparently depend on it. We are your humble servants. So mote it be.

So mote it be, Shar and I say and we release our hands.

Shar is about to open the book when a thought strikes her and her shoulders jerk. Wait a minute – if the three times rule is true, shouldn’t three times as much bad luck happen to whoever sent the boar’s heart package?

Yeah, I say. In theory.

Well, shouldn’t it? Lia asks.

I bite my bottom lip. Oui. So far as we know. But who knows if they’ve got some way of shielding themselves from that.

Lia opens her mouth to say something else but stops when the book starts flipping through its pages.

Shit, Lia and Shar say as I say, Merde. (I prefer to do my swearing in French.)

We all look at the page it’s open to. At first the glowing makes it impossible to read then it stops doing it. The top of the page reads (in crimson lettering that could very well have been written in blood): WITCH JARS: FOR PROTECTION.

What the fuck are witch jars? Lia asks. That’s the last any of us speaks until we’re done reading the page.

There’s a list of ingredients:

nails (rusty and bent)

pieces of broken mirror

shards of broken glass

an egg (can be boiled but not broken)

sea salt

7 gems for protection, can be all of one kind or a mix of the following: turquoise, black onyx or obsidian

9 pinches or flowers – to be connected to the Goddess – of cayenne pepper, black pepper, dried onion, dead lilies, dead carnations, dead aloe, myrrh or dried mint

urine

optional: razor blades, used syringes, thumb tacks, sewing needles, hair pins, chicken wire

also needed: large jar and metal lid, gloves, shovel

directions: Begin by making the circle and doing a protection spell. As you make your jar, visualize negative energy returning to sender. Wearing gloves, place sharp objects in the jar first, saying, May your ill intentions, malice and evil be reflected and returned to you threefold. Next add stones saying, God and Goddess, I ask for your protection, followed by the pinches or flowers, saying, For the Goddess. Next add the salt, saying, Of all that is natural, I ask, let no evil pass. Now add the urine, May my waste lay you to waste. Finally, add the egg, May your evil rot here then be returned to you. You should decorate the jar with runes, sigils or symbols of protection. Bury the jar upside down on the property of the owner. It will protect the owner and anyone the owner invites onto the property while there. If the owner does not own property it may be kept in the home in a dark place where it will not be seen.

That is some fucked up shit, Lia says as we all finish reading it within a few seconds of each other.

Shar shakes her head and trembles. Yeah, that’s like some scarier than Stephen King black magick shit.

The hair on the back of my neck stands up and I suddenly have to pee so bad it hurts. Be right back. I run to the bathroom and can’t get onto the toilet quickly enough. I think that, yeah, that’s some scary merde, but it sounds like just the thing we need. They’re probably going to freak out about it at first and I probably would, too, if I wasn’t the one who received the heart in a box and spent most of yesterday hallucinating much scarier merde.

When I get back Shar has placed the open book on my bed and she’s sitting on my desk chair, her left leg shaking. Lia’s still on my bed though. The two of them are talking. I sit down with the Book in between Lia and I.

It’s good that it’s strong, Lia is saying to Shar. Let them get what they fucking deserve.

I share Lia’s enthusiasm. I agree. It’s definitely dark, but if it’s going to send the evil they do right back to them then so mote it be, you know?

I guess if it’s just helping to send their evil back to them... Shar says in a low voice.

You’re the one who asked about the three times rule, I say.

We sit in silence for a moment then Shar claps her hands together – like I often do – and smiles. You’re right. You’re totally right. I was just a little freaked out by how harsh the ingredients are.

At least it doesn’t call for merde, I say jokingly. (In case you’ve forgotten, merde is French for shit.)

Shar winces so hard her face looks all distorted. Ew, gross.

Lia starts laughing and laughing, amused by Shar’s expression, which makes me laugh so hard I nearly fall off the bed. In fact, Lia stops laughing before me and I’m still cackling as she starts flipping through the Book.

I remember that Dad’s sleeping as Shar glares at me and I finally stop. That look on your face was priceless, though.

She sticks her tongue out at me and I giggle but just for a second.

You gonna come look at the Book? Lia asks her.

No, that’s OK. I trust you guys will tell me if there’s anything about sacrificing chickens or goats.

I turn my attention to the book and watch as Lia slowly flips through the pages in the back. Those pages were previously in untranslatable runes. Some of them are about making talismans and amulets with pictures of all these different ones you can make, which look really cool and should be fun to do. Others are about numerology, which has all these illustrations of squares – like graph paper – with numbers in them. That looks confusing, but it can’t hurt to try it. There are also pages about divination, which seems to be about talking with the Gods and Goddesses, and fortune telling. One type is called skrying and it’s about staring into a pool of water, using it like a crystal ball, which it says you can also use. Another is called radiesthesia, which is using a pendulum to ask the God or Goddess yes or no questions. You tie the pendulum to a string or chain and hold the string and the pendulum is supposed to swing to either yes or no depending on the God or Goddess’s answers. There’s also a divination type called sortilege, which involves casting – throwing down – runes like dice. To that end, it says you can cast dominos and dice, too. But I don’t know how you’d interpret the results of those. Maybe I can look that up online. Then there are pages about cartomancy, which is interpreting tarot cards and playing cards; my great grandmother did the latter. In fact, there are over a dozen pages about this, one devoted to each card of both tarot and playing card types, which there are beautifully illustrated examples of. I guess my great grandmother was a talented artist. There’s also something called warding, which is using ancient runes and symbols, along with spells, to trap demons and witches and there are some drawings of those. Finally, there are pages – chapters, really – about healing, astral projection and teleportation. I definitely need to study up on astral projection so I do it properly if I ever have to do it again. Likewise, I imagine teleportation could come in mighty handy. If only we’d been able to do that the day of the shooting. I wonder if January can help us learn it, since it’s one of her fairy powers. I would’ve asked her before, but I didn’t know it was something witches could even do.

Wow, that’s a lot of stuff, I say. I look at Shar. There’s stuff on everything from protective talismans to numerology to astral projection to teleportation.

Her eyes bulge and her mouth falls open. We can teleport?

I nod. Yeah. Apparently.

Well, for now, I think we should focus on the jars, Lia says. Seeing how the book made that our priority and all.

Sounds like a good idea, Shar says.

One side of Lia’s mouth curls into a smirk. No, it’s a kick ass idea.

I just have one very important question. So, how are we gonna get all these ingredients?

Lia inhales and exhales quickly. Fuck. Right.

Think Juliana will take us to Salem tomorrow? I ask. I’m sure George’s or some other wiccan store has the gems and herbs.

As long as she doesn’t have a Skype meeting or something. Obviously, she wants us to be protected.

I have a mirror we can break, Shar says.

I always thought that was seven years bad luck, I say. But maybe if it’s face down and your reflection isn’t captured in it as it breaks it’s OK?

The book wouldn’t say to use it if it was bad luck. Unless you’re somehow supposed to find a mirror some unlucky soul already broke, Shar says.

Yeah. I look back at the list of ingredients. Some of these things I can get from our kitchen like sea salt and pepper. And I can get some of my father’s razor blades.

So, the problem is, where the fuck are we gonna get bent and rusty nails? Lia asks.

There’s another problem, too, I say. A big one.

Shar’s eyes go wide and she raises her voice. That’s right. The jars.

Exactement, I say.

Job Lots! Lia says. I saw some the other day at Ocean State Job Lots.

Sweet.

But what about the nails? Shar asks.

I pick up my laptop. Maybe Google knows. I type in bent, rusty nails. Well, there’s a drink called the Bent Nail and there’s a Bent and Rusty Cotton Company, but I’m not seeing anywhere to buy bent and rusty nails. I add wicca and buy to the search field. OK, it doesn’t show a wicca supply store selling them, but a bunch of people are selling them on Etsy.

Chic alors, Lia says.

And I can use Paypal to pay for them.

The account you secretly linked to your savings behind your parental units’ backs? Shar asks with a mischievous grin.

I nod and quickly type away and submit an order for a pound of bent and rusty nails. Voilà! C’est fini, mes amies! I even ordered next day delivery.

Super! Shar says with a French accent.

So, shall we make a circle and say this protection spell? I ask.

Yes, says Lia and Shar’s shared brain.

My mother has gone out on an errand and my father is still sleeping, so I uncorked a bottle of cheap wine they won’t miss and we brought it up to my room along with some sea salt because the altar I made in my top drawer needed that, too. Of course, the drawer is slanted when you pull it out, so everything has to be transferred onto the top of my bureau first, but we’ve just finished that.

Lia’s brings the open Book to the altar where Shar and I stand. You should be high priestess today, she says to me telepathically.

Shar smiles. I agree.

D’accord, I say. Agreed.

I think the words candles light and every candle in my room lights, altar and otherwise. Shar lights the incense as I pick up the athame, which immediately emits blue sparks, then I walk around in a circle three times. Then I pick up the altar bell and ring it three times.

I nod at Shar and she pours the water into the salt.

I point the athame up toward the sky and make the sign of the pentacle. Guardians of the North, South, East and West, we call upon you, asking that you guard this sacred circle and protect it from any negative force that may try to enter. So mote it be.

So mote it be, Lia and Shar say.

I place the athame on the altar and it ceases to spark. Lord and Lady, we humbly invite you to join us here in our sacred space. Please join us and observe these rites that we perform in your honor and guide us in all things we do. So mote it be.

So mote it be, Lia and Shar say again.

Now it’s time to sip the wine. I raise the glass, look up and say, To Lord and Lady!

I take a sip and hand it to Shar, who lifts it and says, To Lord and Lady!

Lia can’t take the glass from Shar because it takes two hands to hold the open Book. So, Shar raises it again and Lia says, To Lord and Lady then Shar pours some into Lia’s mouth, only she pours too much and some of it drips onto the Book.

Shit! Shar says.

Fuck, Lia and I say.

We all tremble a little but we look and the wine on the book just dissolves and the pages are fine.

Whew, all three of us say at once, which makes us all laugh a little.

OK, down to business, I say.

Lia holds the book for me. I look at it quickly then I shut my eyes and try to picture it, to see if my photographic memory still works at all. To my surprise, it does. I open my eyes and blink rapidly, excited. I could see it. Maybe my memory isn’t totally toast.

Cool. But let’s do the spell already. The Book is kind of heavy, Lia says.

I take a couple deep breaths. I read it from the book, not memory, because we’ve been told we should read it directly from the Book of Shadows for better outcomes. As ocean waves roll, and crops grow each year, the earth sustains us, a gift from God and Goddess, as is our lives, humbly we ask you God and Goddess, Lord and Lady, to protect us, to let your light shine around us, warding off the evil of all those who wish to harm us, give us strength to survive, to thrive and live long, happy and healthy lives, honoring you in all things we do, be watchful of our minds, bodies and souls, keep them pure as virgin snow, leave no dirt upon us, let none tarnish us or do us malice, humbly we ask you God and Goddess, to protect us, to be always within and around us, and allow the Angels and Saints to aid us, humbly we ask you God and Goddess, so mote it be.

So mote it be, Lia and Shar say.

Lia closes the book and hands it to Shar. I pick up the athame and I’m about to pierce the circle when Lia says, Don’t, looking up.

Shar and I look and we see three bubbles slowly floating down the circle side-by-side, none ahead of the others. We quietly watch, remaining still, as the bubbles reach us and envelop our heads like helmets. As soon as it touches mine, a warm, tingling sensation washes over me and my whole head tingles, almost as though my whole face was numbed by novocaine. Meanwhile, I suddenly feel turbo-charged and overflowing with confidence, as if I could do anything. The way Lia and Shar’s eyes light up, it would seem they’re experiencing the same thing. Then the bubbles turn into this gel-like substance and it slides down our bodies as though warm water was poured over us, except it goes somewhat slower. As it does so, my whole body experiences a gentle prickling and I find myself feeling weightless, as though I could levitate. So, I attempt to do so, telling myself to be weightless, and I slowly rise up from the floor. Not more than half a foot, but here I am floating. Look, I say.

Oh my Goddess, I have to do that, Shar says. Her face wrinkles as she concentrates hard but it doesn’t happen.

Lia, however, rises. A bit higher than I, in fact. Sweet, she says.

Can’t you feel the confidence? I ask Shar.

Yeah. Totally.

So, let your body relax and imagine yourself weightless and just let yourself rise up.

She closes her eyes and shakes her hands for a few seconds. Then she takes a deep breath and as she exhales she rises up, half a foot above Lia, in fact. She opens her eyes and they’re practically bulging out of her head. This is wicked awesome, she says, the sides of her mouth curled into a great, big smile.

Rise higher, I tell myself. It doesn’t work though. On the contrary, we are lowered to the ground, albeit at a slow pace.

Well, it was fun while it lasted, Shar says.

Once we’re all down on the floor I pick up the athame and pierce the circle, closing it.

It’s been an hour since we closed the circle. We’ve been sitting around my room shooting the shit. We finished listening to Bowie and now the latest Superbus CD just finished. It should be mentioned that I’ve converted Lia and Shar into Superbus fans. It took a little while because of the language barrier but I just kept making them listen to them until the juicy hooks finally got them addicted. Now that I have over a hundred dollars allowance saved up, I’m going to have my father keep this week’s and give me his credit card so I can order the new Superbus on vinyl from Amazon.fr or Fnac.com. Fnac is a French chain that’s kind of like a cross between Amazon and Best Buy.

Now I have to ask Lia and Shar if they’ll help me change Tim’s appearance. The spell for that is in the middle of the Book of Shadows so we’re already familiar with it. I used to have it memorized but now it’s gone. Oh well, I’m supposed to read the spells from the book anyway.

So, I have to ask you guys something, I say. I try to make it sound upbeat but it comes out sounding ominous and they look at me with wide eyes, Shar’s mouth slightly agape.

OK... Lia says.

It’s nothing bad. I just need your help with a spell. I force a wide smile.

What for? Shar