Unquiet Magic: Unquiet Magic, #1

By Dobie Holloway

Jack Belamit has been living a nice life as a quiet, modestly affluent gay man. No obligations, no stress, and a love life consisting of casual hookups at a neighborhood bar. Now, however, Jack's father and brother have disappeared, and one of the senior Belamit's rivals is moving in on his business empire, dragging Jack into the conflict. Jack's father, however, is not just any reclusive billionaire, but an incubus, a creature that feeds on the sexual energies of humans, and his rival is the witch Anaksut, the most beautiful, and dangerous, woman in the world.

 

Jack's inheritance from his father includes fragments of incubus magic, which he struggles to understand and control, as well as the avatar, a damaged copy of his father's personality that was accidentally imprinted on Jack's psyche in the womb. In the past the avatar has helped Jack, but over time it has become increasingly unstable, with an agenda all its own.

 

Jack realizes that his only hope of getting his life back on track is to work with Anaksut to find his father. Anaksut assigns Carlos Colosio to accompany Jack as her spy. Carlos was once a timid delivery driver from Guanajuato, but has been transformed by Anaksut into a satyr, a being with more-than-human vitality and sexual prowess. With Carlos' help, Jack tracks his father and brother to a remote Caribbean island, but not before he experiences an eye-opening evening in a sex club in the Baltics, a visit to a frigid mountaintop weather station and its lonely keeper, two days on the job in a tropical bordello, and frantic sex with a sentient thunderstorm.
 

On the island of Las Sirenas, Jack discovers that everything he thought he knew about himself and his family is wrong. Jack has no choice but to embrace his heritage and come to terms with his feelings for his family, and for Carlos.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dobie Holloway
• Release date: Jul 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223126409

Dobie Holloway

A former farm boy who ran away to the big city to seek fun and adventure -- but mostly fun -- Dobie Holloway's life experiences are the fuel for his writing.

Book preview

ONE

I WOKE UP WITHOUT ANY sense of having ever been unconscious.

I had been sitting in a cafe having a cup of coffee and thinking deep thoughts about Art, and Existentialism, and the Fall of Rome, and stuff like that—

(That, of course, is a bald-faced lie. I had been thinking about the barista's beautiful hands, big and strong, with square fingertips and heavy, bony knuckles. I have a thing for nice hands. Especially on a good-looking barista. That sounds rather banal, however, so let's pretend I was thinking about the things I mentioned, the kinds of things that always start with capital letters.)

—and then, without any transition, I was sitting in my father's office high above the city, naked and stinking of sex, tied to a chair with a slowly subsiding erection and blinking stupidly at the most beautiful woman in the world.

Back among the living? Exquisitely sculpted lips smiled, revealing teeth as white as the snow on Mount Everest, beneath eyes just as cold. That smile had reduced men of wealth and power to giggling adolescents, but on me, they were wasted. I could appreciate the aesthetic value, but that was as far as it went. She knew that as well as I did, so I assumed she was just showing off.

Anaksut. Daughter of the Sun. Mirror of the Sea. Sorceress of the Golden Eye. How nice to see you. You could have just texted me. I made a show of looking around the office. You and I are in my father's office, but my father isn't. And until a moment ago, neither was I.

Actually, you got up and went into the bathroom at the café approximately—she glanced down at a gold watch hanging on an thin platinum chain around her neck—seventy minutes ago, at which point the fugue hit you, and I transported you here. An hour later, I had to give you a bit of a zap so you'd allow the boys to put you in that chair. You've taken quite some time to recover. I hope you haven't been unwell?

Fit as a fiddle, thank you. I'm just not used to being folded in and out of spacetime like that. It takes me a while to get my feet back under me. I tugged at the slender cords tying my wrists to the arms of the chair. Speaking of which ...

No, dear. You stay right there and make yourself comfortable. I want to be sure I have your undivided attention for a few minutes.

Consider it yours, but maybe you could tell me what I've been doing since you transported me? My backside felt strange, and I was sitting in a considerable quantity of something sticky. My memory was fuzzy, but I had my suspicions.

Anaksut laughed. As to that, I can't really say. I only just got here a few minutes ago. I can tell you, however, that Carlos and Lee were here waiting for you when you popped in, so perhaps they can tell you more than I can.

Two men stepped into view from behind my chair. One was tall, lean and long-bodied, with an oddly proportioned face and topaz eyes, black hair hanging to his shoulders. The other was shorter, heavier, more aggressively muscular, vaguely Asian, with a military buzz cut and cream-pale skin. Both men wore black nylon warm-up suits that covered their assets without entirely concealing them.

Ah. The boys.

Indeed.

Anaksut's henchmen Carlos Colosio and Lee Wing were satyrs, ordinary men who, in exchange for a commitment to a lifetime of service to the witch, were given increased strength, stamina, and resistance to injury or disease—as well as dramatically enhanced sexual prowess and drive, along with the equipment to exercise those attributes effectively. Seeing them, more of the events of the last hour came back to me, and I grinned. Much that had been confusing was becoming clearer.

Ah. We had a party. Why did I blank on it?

Anaksut waved away the question. I may have been careless with the mindzap. She narrowed her eyes, staring at me in a way that made my eyeballs hurt, and the fuzziness cleared instantly, memory falling back into place with an almost audible clank. All better now?

I reviewed the last hour's events and blew out a puff of air. Holy crap! I looked at Carlos and Lee. Yes, thank you. I'd hate to have forgotten that experience. I had a lovely time. Carlos grinned and flapped his tongue in my direction.

Anaksut looked at him with distaste and waved them both from the room. She rose from my father's desk chair and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city and, beyond it, the river.

Prominently displayed on the desk was the only other thing in the room—besides the woman herself—that might be considered unequivocally beautiful: a three-dimensional representation of a cluster of orchid blooms rendered in white onyx, amethyst, topaz, and jade. The orchid was my father's trademark, the emblem of his identity. The name orchid came from the Greek word for testicles, and orchids were notable for the complexity and intensity of their relationship to the creatures that pollinated them. As it applied to my family, the symbolism was apt.

Anaksut stood looking out at the view for a long moment—a very effective bit of stagecraft, I had to admit, her gray suit and smoky-blond hair against the overcast October sky—then she turned and came around to the near side of the desk to lean back against it, her ankles crossed, her arms folded under her breasts.

No one has heard from Belamit for almost a year, she said.

Is that a question?

She waggled a finger, and the strings gripping my wrists tightened enough to hurt.

Don't be snippy. Has he been in contact with you in any way?

No. He and Rafe took off on one of their trips to Brazil or Corsica or Sri Lanka or wherever just before the holidays last year, and they've been out of touch ever since. My bonds relaxed, and I bent my head to examine them more closely. What are these, by the way?

Mary's Tresses, Anaksut said. An adult virgin cuts her hair off and soaks it in her own menstrual blood and gives it to a magic user—all of her own free will, mind you, no tricks allowed—and the hair can then be twisted into a cord that will hold any thinking being. They're resistant to magic, to strength, to fire or blades.

I wouldn't have thought there were that many virgins in your immediate social circle.

She laughed. You'd be surprised. I'm the beloved patroness of a nunnery in Bakhuriani, Georgia—the country, not the state. Novitiates undergo a special ceremony. The hair is shipped to me FedEx, and I make the twine out of it.

It was my turn to laugh. That's amazing. I don't think my father has ever thought of setting up a production line for magical apparatus. Although I suppose he might have done such a thing somewhere. He's been at this a long time.

He doesn't consult you?

Why should he? Rafe is the chosen one. I'm just the spare. An unexpected extra.

She nodded. This was not news to anyone who followed my father's career closely.

So if I transformed you into a Scottish Terrier with a skin condition, he wouldn't care.

I shrugged. Probably not. I'd be very disappointed, though. And our friendship, yours and mine, would be negatively impacted. Rumor has it you're allergic to dogs.

She laughed again, genuinely this time, no glamour, no attempt to get under my skin.

That's true. And I do rather like you. Your brother is so much prettier, but he doesn't have as much in the way of personality.

He hasn't had much chance to develop one, has he? Always living in Dad's shadow.

No. Sad, that, but none of my business. Belamit has always marched to a different drummer. She squared her shoulders and looked me in the eyes. His absence creates a vacuum. I propose to fill it, at least in part.

And if he comes back unexpectedly?

She shrugged, a rather coarse gesture that she turned into something catlike, graceful. I wasn't even slightly attracted, but I could appreciate the artistry. Then he comes back.

So why exactly are you and I having this conversation? I asked. Much I've enjoyed the afternoon with Carlos and Lee, surely you didn't just bring me here for a playdate.

She smiled, not her thousand-watt smile, but just an ordinary one, with teeth and lips and eyes, no little electric fingers dancing around in my brain and my groin.

No, that was just to remind you that, although you may be Belamit's son, you're still powerless, a toy. A toy that even the least of my servants can play with. Meanwhile, your father's current absence leaves a vacuum, and nature abhors a vacuum. Unless and until he comes back and chases me out, I'm taking control of select cuts of his little empire. I don't want you underfoot.

You know and I know that I have no interest whatever in my father's affairs. He has Rafe for that.

Pretty Raphael. Nobody's seen him, either.

Nothing to do with me. As far as my father is concerned, I'm just part of the staff.

She smiled again, again without the strange magic. So we're clear? I'm here, and you're to stay out of my way. If you don't, I can do far worse things to you than tie you to a chair.

Understood.

Anaksut walked back behind the desk and consulted her smartphone; all business. Good. I have places to be, things to do, widows and orphans to put out on the street, so I'll have to scurry. I'll send the boys in to release you. You will remain in this room with them for one hour after I'm gone. Then, and only then, you may leave. Walk through that door one second earlier, and you'll regret it.

My clothes? My wallet, my keys, my phone?

All your things are in your apartment. She blew me a sardonic kiss and then made a gesture with both hands that my eye could not quite follow. Toodles, she said.

With that, she suddenly turned gray, like a black-and-white photo, collapsing a heartbeat later into a puff of smoke and the smell of jasmine and sex. Serious sex. My dick gave a jerk, and I wrestled with the bonds some more, the mess I was sitting in making embarrassing squelching noises as I struggled. The chair was probably going to have to be replaced. I hoped it wasn't a valued antique.

I have a short attention span; I admit it. Sitting in that chair with an assortment of bodily fluids drying on my skin was not a lot of fun. When Carlos and Lee strolled back in, I was actually pleased to see them.

Anaksut still can't imagine any son of Belamit's getting so much pleasure from submitting to other men's lusts. She had known my father for centuries, but I'd only been around for thirty years. Old prejudices die hard, and prejudices held for millennia die hardest. This was a blind spot for her. I wondered how it might be useful.

Carlos touched the Mary's Tresses with a tiny metal rod, and they untied themselves and dropped to the floor. When he was done, the rod simply evaporated into thin air, and Lee collected the cords and laid them reverently on the credenza in front of the big window.

Now then, Carlos said as he helped me up off the chair and onto the top of the desk, hiking my legs into the air. Where were we?

It was just as well that my father was not in evidence. He would not have been happy to see the mess we left on the polished surface of his priceless African rosewood desk. Sweat, spit, and man-juice, smeared and tracked across the wood, a sticky mire that some hapless cleaning crew would have to try to remove without dulling the finish.

As the hour ticked toward its expiration, I lay back on the desk, propped on my elbows, watching the satyrs wrestle their cocks—still half-hard, a thing with satyrs— into jockstraps before they climbed into their matching black nylon running suits, big baggy clothes that still somehow managed to emphasize the high, tight curve of Carlos' butt and the bulky roundness of Lee's pecs and ample package. They took one last look around the room, then Carlos blew me a kiss, and they let themselves out, closing the door behind them.

I felt both tired and incredibly energized. My blood seemed to fizz in my veins, even as my muscles felt like bread dough. As my father's son, even if I'm not the favorite, I reap some benefits, and I was experiencing one of them now. I was stinking and naked and sore, and I felt like a million bucks.

I peeled myself up off the desk, wincing as my skin stuck to the drying fluids, and started looking for something to wear.

I searched through the various drawers and cupboards, but apparently, my father never felt the need to keep a change of clothes at the office. There wasn't even a towel, just the two sodden washcloths the satyrs had used. I remembered that there was a closet in the basement full of boiler suits in various sizes, worn by building maintenance workers while on duty. If I stuck to the stairs—ten stories!—I could conceivably get all the way to the basement without running into anyone. If I did get caught, I could explain my nakedness as some kind of hazing.

Right. In a building occupied by investment brokers, financial advisers, and wealth managers. Guys like that run up and down the stairs naked all the fucking time.

After a few deep breaths, rehearsing some sample explanations in my mind, I opened the hall door and stepped through it—

—and into a rocky, windy wasteland.

That bitch, I gasped, shocked. I whipped around in time to see the doorway vanish, a last narrow slice of the office hanging in space before it folded itself up and evaporated.

TWO

NOT CONTENT WITH HAVING me banged very thoroughly by the hired help, Anaksut had constructed a gateway spell around the door. It was apparently keyed only to me, since Carlos and Lee had gone through without triggering the spell. This was serious, big-kid magic, way beyond my pay grade. The fact that she could spare this kind of energy just to make a point was impressive, if not downright scary.

A gateway spell, but gateway to where? The air was thin and cold and decidedly breezy—did I mention cold?—and the landscape was treeless, just rocks and scrubby-looking weeds. There were patches of snow tucked behind the largest of the rocks. The horizon seemed only about twenty yards away, so I assumed I was on top of a mountain somewhere. I turned, sucking in an abrupt lungful of chill air as the wind hit my boy-bits, and they tried to retreat into my abdomen.

Welcome to weather station MA-Zero-Zero-Two, high atop dramatic Mount Morgan, notable for having the third-worst weather of any location in the continental United States. A man dressed in a thick Aran Isles sweater and insulated ski pants stood about ten feet away. I can't help but wonder if you haven't made a wrong turn somewhere.

I had to laugh, my hands crossed over my crotch, trying to trap what warmth I could. You might say that. Mount Morgan? Anaksut's spell had shipped me clear into the next state.

He gestured back the way he had come, and