The Findings of Magic: Uncollected Anthology: Magical Arts

By Kari Kilgore

Magic Lost. And Found.

Katie makes magical beads. Desired by her best clients, Atlanta's powerful and rich.
But now she frantically searches for a lost set.
Never suspecting another seeks not only her beads, but Katie herself.
What happens when the two cross paths, hot on the trail of so much treasure?

 

An excerpt from The Findings of Magic:
Vanished, but not without a trace

Katie knew her instincts and the pull of familiar magic were right. The last few of her missing beads had been here in this otherwise ordinary emporium, and not long ago, either.

Their music lingered as a whispery echo, stirring her blood and bones.

But they were gone now.

She slowly settled her hands onto the delightfully tactile sea of beads anyway. Sinking her fingers into cool and smooth and rough and scratchy. Cheap and well-made, ordinary and carrying faint traces of power.

Enough power that she might have carefully gathered those to add into designs to support the stronger pieces and increase their potency.

She would have, if she hadn't been on the trail of the last few of the most potent beads she'd ever had the privilege of handling.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Spiral Publishing, Ltd
• Release date: Dec 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201835323

Kari Kilgore

Kari Kilgore started her first published novel Until Death in Transylvania, Romania, and finished it in Room 217 at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, where Stephen King got the idea for The Shining. That’s just one example of how real world inspiration drives her fiction. Kari’s first published novel Until Death was included on the Preliminary Ballot for the Bram Stoker Award for Outstanding Achievement in a First Novel in 2016. It was also a finalist for the Golden Stake Award at the Vampire Arts Festival in 2018. Recent professional short story sales include three to Fiction River anthology magazine, with the first due out in the September issue. Kari also has two stories in a holiday-themed anthology project with Kristine Kathryn Rusch due out over the holidays in 2019. Kari writes fantasy, science fiction, horror, and contemporary fiction, and she’s happiest when she surprises herself. She lives at the end of a long dirt road in the middle of the woods with her husband Jason Adams, various house critters, and wildlife they’re better off not knowing more about. Kari’s novels, novellas, and short stories are available at www.spiralpublishing.net, which also publishes books by Frank Kilgore and Jason Adams. For more information about Kari, upcoming publications, her travels and adventures, and random cool things that catch her attention, visit www.karikilgore.com.

Book preview

The Findings of Magic

For everyone who survived the 1990s

and remembers at least parts of it

THE FINDINGS OF MAGIC

KARI KILGORE

SPIRAL PUBLISHING, LTD.

THE FINDINGS OF MAGIC

Katie couldn’t decide if she really wished for the glory days of bead shops all over Atlanta back in the 90s, or if that was a bit of nostalgia kicking in as she drew ever closer to her fifties. Those heady days of her twenties when magic imagined and real was so much easier to find, even at the cost of getting a little grubby with your surroundings.

After all, the Druid Hills Jewelry and Craft Emporium she’d just stepped into was a good bit more pleasant and a lot less grubby than some of those dimly lit, cramped, incense-filled dens she’d frequented nearly thirty years ago.

Wait.

Thirty years? Really?

She shook her head, refocused on her mission, and walked across the spotless pale-blue tile, her eyes on a sign against the back wall of the grocery-store-sized room. With Beads and Supplies printed in crisp black and white, and an array of smaller signs right underneath.

She had enough to contend with as an unnatural tide of shyness threatened to wash her right back out the door.

The air inside was a refreshing break from Atlanta’s June heat and humidity, cool and dry enough to evaporate the sweat on her face in record time. Not a trace of incense or much of anything else, either. Mostly some kind of artificial pine scent, probably from whatever cleaner kept that floor shiny enough to reflect the rows of tube lighting overhead.

She walked past standard bright white display rows full of fake flowers, every possible variety of photo frame, and a pitifully small selection of fabric on the way through, dodging square bins in the middle of the wide central aisle. Someone on a typical crafting errand would possibly be tempted by blank pillow forms piled high, or discounted cake pans shaped like rabbits and eggs left over from Easter.

She had to admit the fake apples, grapes, and peaches crammed into another bin looked realistic enough