Time Maverick

By Gracen Miller

New Orleans 2034... A post-apocalyptic hellhole where anarchy rules the streets.

Thrown forward in time, Nicoletta, Stetson, and Marik discover a bleak world with no opportunities. Paranormals control the narrative, enslaving and governing the humans for their sick pleasures.

Nic loathes the self-proclaimed King ruling her city. Buildings are decimated and humans are fighting to the death in horrific gladiator style confrontations. The new normal must go.

Their best hope at overhauling their dismal future lies in finding a way back to their timeline. But can they catch a break to turn that theory into reality?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Celtic Hearts Press
• Release date: Sep 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9781949575392

Gracen Miller

Gracen is a hopeless daydreamer masquerading as a “normal” person in southern society. When not writing, she’s a full-time basketball/football/guitar mom for her two sons and a devoted wife to her real-life hero-husband. She’s addicted to writing, paranormal romance novels and movies, Alabama football and coffee...addictions are not necessarily in order of priority. She is convinced coffee is nectar from the gods and blending coffee and writing together generates the perfect creative merger. Many of her creative worlds are spawned from coffee highs.

Book preview

Chapter

One

Nic

They’d killed the bitch. It’d taken all the Nightshade Guild and most of their partners to outsmart her, but at least that vampiress couldn’t hurt anyone again.

A low vibration resonated in the cave, the tone high enough Nic’s teeth ached. The cheers and hugs of victory came to a quick end, as everyone peered about.

Was the bitch resurrecting somehow?

No one is that immortal, not even my Crystal goddess.

Nic wanted to grab Stetson and Marik’s hands, but she powered up instead, relishing the bite of magick against her fingertips. Ready to respond, she glanced about, noticing the response of the other mages.

Time seemed to stand still. Words came to her on an echo, as her friends moved sluggishly, as if filmography placed them into a slow-mo effect.

The Time Scythe glowed from within, its energy a pulsating wave of energy outward like disco beats. Slow at first, then becoming faster as if sped up until Nic’s eyes burned from the brightness.

She lifted her hand to shield her eyes, but then the Time Scythe shattered, plumes of energy hurtled toward them. In the path of the magick, they were thrown backward as if struck by a nuclear blast.

Fire bloomed across the front of Nic’s body, burning her cheeks. She crashed into Stetson’s chest, and Franklin squealed in her ear. The vampire’s arms wrapped around her as she reached for Marik. Their fingers brushed against one another, and she managed to link her pinkie with his. On instinct, she erected a shield about them.

Flashes of light blipped about them, reminding her of a 1970s disco ball but blinking at supersonic speed. They moved by some magickal way, cartwheeled about, and unable to control their trajectory.

They came to a sudden halt, slamming into the ground. Limbs tangled, Nic was sandwiched between them. While it was her favorite bedroom festivity, this added to the unwanted bruises and scrapes brought about by their battle to defeat Sidrith.

Groaning, Nic waited while Stetson and Marik untangled themselves and sat up. She recognized the area immediately. The Riverwalk near Lake Ponchatrain.

Trippy. Marik shook his long hair over his shoulder. The diminishing sunlight enhancing his pointy ears.

What the fuck just happened? Nic reached up to reassure herself Franklin remained with her. His spikes pricked a finger, and she could feel him attempting to unwind himself from her hair.

Her familiar muttered in her head, I’m okay. He sounded like he took a beating.

Relieved to hear him speak, she pushed to her feet, ignoring the aches with the movement, and strode to the edge of the boardwalk.

What the fuck is wrong with my city?

She glanced about, taking in the French Quarter’s disarray. Lake Ponchatrain was nothing more than a mudhole, with a creek winding through the riverbed. Pieces of the boardwalk were missing, and even the part she stood on was rotted and creaking with each move she made. The bridge to cross the once fastmoving river was in tatters, gaps in the pavement and railing rusted, no longer attached to its supports.

Turning, Nic peered at the Cathedral. The steeple was gone, and graffiti covered the outside mortar. Phuck God.

Idiots can’t even spell, Franklin twittered in her ear.

Nic mentally fist-bumped her familiar.

Andrew Jackson’s statue lay on its side, head hacked off and speared on one of the remaining spikes of the gate surrounding the miniature garden. For the most part, the wrought iron fence remained intact, with a few panels removed in odd places. The overgrown shrubs hid the square from street peddlers.

From this distance, she could make out parts of the pebbled path, but the grass had otherwise eaten most of it. The popular donut shop to the right no longer existed but was a burned-out remnant of itself. Jax Brewery to her left sported a chunk gone from one corner, as if it’d taken a hit by some airborne projectile. Ivy crawled upward along the outside of the building.

Swiping at a pant leg, she lifted the hem enough to palm a rune, and mixed a bit of crystal mojo with it. Focusing it through the tazil ring Marik gifted to her, she thrust her hands forward, sending forth her power. The oblong rune rotated outward, dispersing an enlightenment spell across its path. And revealed… nothing.

Not a single damn magickal revelation enlightened her on what happened to her beloved city. Nic ground her teeth together to stop the scream from exiting the back of her throat.

Is your magick still wrong? From her peripheral she spied Franklin using his hand to shade his eyes as he surveyed the landscape. "Because this doesn’t make sense."

"No kidding." Under her breath she grumbled about hedgehogs stating the obvious.

What’d that tell you? Marik continued to stare about the area, as if waiting for Nic’s mojo to expose something to him.

Not a goddamn thing. She sighed, worrying the inside of her cheek with her teeth. It should’ve revealed what caused this destruction. And before either of you ask, my magick has returned. I can feel it, so that’s not the problem. The spell had come easily, the mojo flaring beneath her skin like always, very unlike when Sidrith stole her power. Let’s talk to Blythe.

If this destruction is any indication of the city, the Arcane Lounge might no longer exist. Stetson peered to his left toward the business