The Curse Breakers

Book 2: The Curse Keepers

by D.G. Swank, Denise Grover Swank

Genres: Contemporary Fantasy; New Adult & College; Paranormal Romance

Synopsis

The second book in the Curse keepers series

 

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Release date: October 10, 2023

Publisher: DGS

Print pages: 398

Sample

CHAPTER 1

 

The rain came down in thick sheets, drenching through my cotton tank top and denim shorts. I welcomed it. I welcomed anything that made me feel something.

I stood inside of the Elizabethan Gardens, next to the goddamned tree that had ruined my life more than four hundred years before I was even born. The gate to Popogusso.

The gate to hell.

And my daddy was on the other side.

I leaned back my head and shouted into the night, taunting the god who had sent him there. “Ahone! Come out and face me, you fucking asshole!”

The only answer was the rain that pelted my face and filled my open mouth.

I spat on the ground and slapped my palm on the rough bark of the ancient oak tree. The mark that had appeared on my hand almost three weeks ago had power, after all, but that power was so much stronger when my mark was pressed to the identical one on the other Curse Keeper’s right palm.

His betrayal sliced through me again. It was still impossible to believe that Collin had purposefully opened the gate.

I’d forced him to close it again. But at what cost? The Native American gods and spirits had still escaped and now they were in hiding, killing hundreds of animals as they regained the strength they’d lost over their centuries of exile. And my father had died as a sacrifice. The gate might be closed again, but it would take two Keepers to send the gods and spirits back. Which meant the assholes weren’t going anywhere since Collin believed they should be free.

Even if they were after me.

“Okeus! Where are you? You said you wanted me, well here I am!” I stepped back from the tree, throwing my arms wide. “Come and get me!” Taunting him was pointless, but I felt the need to rage at someone. A temporarily incapacitated god probably wasn’t the best choice, but it was safe enough for the moment. He had to regain strength before he could face anyone…even me.

Lightning flashed in the sky and thunder boomed.

“Ellie.”

I spun around, my long, wet hair whipping against my arm. Tom Helmsworth, an old high school classmate of mine, stood behind me, hands on his hips. I suspected he was here in his official capacity—as a police officer of Manteo. “How’d you know I was here?”

“Every time a thunderstorm appears out of nowhere directly over the botanical gardens, it’s a safe bet that you’ll be here too.”

Fucking wind gods. They loved to torment me every chance they got.

“You can’t bring him back, Ellie.”

I knew Tom meant that I couldn’t bring Daddy back from the dead, but Daddy hadn’t died under ordinary circumstances. For all I knew, I could bring him back.

Tom took a few cautious steps toward me, and I understood why. The first few times he’d found me here, I was crying and kneeling on the spot where Daddy died. Two nights ago, he had found me pounding on the tree. Tonight, I was shouting at the gods. Sadness had slipped into anger.

How much had he actually heard?

He stopped in front of me. “You can’t keep doing this. I haven’t arrested you because I know how hard it was for you to lose your dad. Everyone knows how close you two were.” He put his hand on my arm and

 gripped lightly.

His touch sent a bolt of pain through the zigzag scar on my bicep, and I tried not to wince.

Tom bent his knees and lowered his face to mine, his expression gentle. “Ellie, this is illegal. You’re trespassing.”

I looked back at the oak tree. Someone needed to tell that to the gods.

“You need to go home.”

Tom slid his arm around my back and gently guided me toward the gate. “Let me drive you.”

I shook away from his touch. “I can drive myself.”

His eyebrows rose. “Can you?”

I stopped in my tracks. “You think I’ve been drinking.”

“Ellie.” His voice softened and he looked down at me, water dripping from his bangs. “You’re hurting. There’s no shame in drinking a little to numb your grief, but I can’t let you drive and hurt yourself or someone else.”

“I’m not drunk, Tom.”

“Nevertheless, I’m going to drive you home.” His mouth lifted into a smart-ass grin. “Unless you’d rather I drive you to the police station.”

Some choice. “Fine.”

As soon as we reached the parking lot, the torrential downpour immediately stopped. If Tom noticed, he didn’t comment. Instead, he guided me toward his police cruiser, which was parked next to my beat-up car. Tom opened the passenger door for me. I offered him a tight smile and climbed in. At least he was letting me ride up front.

He made his way around the back of the car and popped the trunk. After he climbed behind the wheel, he tossed me a beach towel. “Here.”

I grabbed it. “I didn’t know towels were standard issue in a police car.”

He chuckled, using another towel to dry his face. “They’re not. But I was a Boy Scout.”

He must have stopped to grab the towels before driving out here. “Why are you being so nice to me, Tom?”

He stopped rubbing his hair with the towel and slowly lowered his hand to his lap. “Maybe we weren’t in the same grade, but we were friends through Claire’s sister.” He paused and tilted his head. “And I know that you’re all alone now that your dad’s gone. You don’t have any grandparents around. No aunts and uncles. No siblings.”

“I have Myra. And Claire.”

“True,” he acknowledged. “But Claire is getting ready for her wedding. And your stepmother is in mourning herself, not to mention all the overtime she’s putting in at the Fort Raleigh visitor center and the bed and breakfast.”

My eyes widened. He must have really been paying attention to my life to know all of that. I wasn’t sure I liked it.

“You need someone to keep an eye on you.”

My back stiffened. A few weeks ago someone else had insisted on keeping an eye on me whether I liked it or not. Look how that had turned out. “I can take care of myself.”

“No one’s disputing that. I just feel better watching out for you.”

It was pointless to argue with him so I stared out the windshield as we drove down Highway 64 back to Manteo.

A voice over his police radio broke the silence. “Helmsworth, we got a call about another mutilated dog off of Highway 64.”

Tom’s shoulders stiffened and he cast a sideways glance at me before answering. “Roger. I picked up a stranded driver, and I’m dropping her off in town before I head out there.”

“Roger.” The dispatcher gave Tom the address.

“Mutilated dog?” I asked, my stomach churning with dread. Had the spirits’ campaign of terrorism escalated?

Tom groaned. “As if animals dropping dead all over the island wasn’t bad enough, now something is attacking dogs and ripping their guts out without eating them.”

“What do you think it is?”

Tom’s eyebrows lifted. “Why don’t you tell me.”

My stomach dropped to the floorboards. “How would I know?”

Sighing, he ran his hand through his hair. “Sorry, it’s been a rough few weeks.”

He didn’t know the half of it.

“So, Ellie.” Tom shifted in his seat. “What do you know about the Native American gods?”

What had he heard? I shrugged. “Not much. Why do you ask?”

“Well…” His hand twisted on the steering wheel. “It just seems a little odd for a woman who can practically trace her ancestry back to the Mayflower to be shouting at Algonquian gods.”

I could go back further than that. I was a direct descendant of Ananias Dare of the Lost

Colony of Roanoke, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. Especially when all the history books said there were no survivors. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I notice you’re still marking your door with those symbols.”

I twisted in my seat. “Are you investigating me?”

Tom parked at a stoplight and turned to look at me. “Ellie, two weeks ago there was a local death every day for four days and each person had ties to you. Of course I’m investigating you.”

My mouth dropped open, my anger rising to the surface again. “You really think I’d kill my own father?”

His face lost all expression. “I thought your father had a heart attack.”

Shit.

“Ellie, I’ve known you since you started kindergarten. There’s no way in hell you killed anyone, least of all your father.”

I turned away, trying to get it together. Tom was trained to get information from people. I needed to start thinking before I spoke, not a natural impulse for me.

The light turned green and Tom drove through the intersection. “So are you going to tell me the real reason why you have those marks on your front door?”

I didn’t answer.

“When I asked you after Marlena’s death, you said it was for protection. Protection from what?”

I closed my eyes and resisted the urge to shake my head. “I told you—it was insurance.”

“Where did you learn how to do that?”

I decided to turn the question around on him. “Where did you learn about Algonquian gods and markings?”

“My mother is part Lumbee. I asked my great uncle after I first saw them on your door.” He stopped at another stoplight.

This had to be the longest drive ever.

“And what’s with the marking on your back?”

Goddamn it. How on earth had he seen that?

As if reading my mind, he reached over and shifted the strap of my tank top to the side. “Your shirt isn’t exactly covering it. What’s it for?”

“It was a dare from Claire. She knows how much Myra hates tattoos. So before Daddy died, I got a henna tattoo and pretended it was real.” It was all true except for the dare part. “It’s fading.” Which also meant I was almost out of time. Okeus’s symbol on my back was a temporary protection

protection from the gods and spirits. Once it was gone, my manitou—or life force—would be fair game. And they’d all made it quite clear that they considered my manitou a gourmet feast.

“More Native American symbols, Ellie.”

He was starting to piss me off. “When did it become a crime to be fascinated with another culture? People get Asian symbols tattooed on them all the time.”

The light turned green, and I held back a sigh of relief. We were only five blocks from my apartment.

“You have to admit that the timing is a bit coincidental.”

“How do you know I haven’t been interested in Native American things for a while?”

“Call it a hunch. You just admitted you got the henna tattoo right before your father died, and that’s around the time you started marking your door. Something fishy is going on here.”

I needed to learn to keep my mouth shut. I sucked at this covert crap.

We rode the rest of the way to my apartment in silence, although Tom kept sneaking glances at me. When he pulled into my parking lot, I reached for the door handle like it was my lifeline. He grabbed my arm. “Ellie, wait.”

I paused, refusing to look at him.

“Like I said, I know you’re not a murderer. I’m not accusing you of anything. In fact, I think you’re in trouble, only I’ve done a piss-poor job of telling you that.” He tugged on my arm. “Ellie, look at me.”

I slowly turned to face him.

“You’re scared of someone or something, and I want to help you. But I can’t do that unless you tell me what’s wrong.”

As I stared into Tom’s earnest face, I realized I felt like telling him everything. That I was one of two Curse Keepers, the descendant of the Ananias Dare line. As the eldest child of the previous Keeper, my father, my job had been to watch and wait for the breaking of the curse that had made the Lost Colony of Roanoke disappear over four hundred years ago. The other Keeper was Collin Dailey, a commercial fisherman from Buxton, North Carolina, currently living in Wanchese, and part-time petty thief, who took his role more seriously than I did mine. He was the descendant of the line begun by the Croatan chief Manteo. Only Collin had purposely broken the curse…and instead of closing the gate to hell before the morning

morning of the seventh day, he had tricked me into opening it wide.

Everyone was scrambling for a reasonable explanation for why the Lost Colony had suddenly reappeared a few weeks ago, preserved down to the food in the colonists’ bowls. I wanted to tell Tom the truth: Collin had shown up in the New Moon restaurant while I was working and pressed his right palm to mine, breaking the curse.

I would have loved to tell Tom about the horrifying things that had escaped and how they now lay in wait, regaining their strength before seeking their revenge against humanity for locking them away. That the mutilated dog he was about to investigate had undoubtedly been butchered by one of them.

But if I told him any of it, he would think I was crazy. If I told him all of it, he’d have me committed.

The curse was my cross to bear.

I offered him a tired smile. “Thanks, Tom. If I find myself in a situation where I think you can help me, I’ll be sure to call you.”

Before he could ask more questions, I hopped out of the police car and headed up the two flights of outside stairs to my apartment. When I reached the landing, I realized that I’d left my keys and purse in my unlocked car, but I wasn’t about to let Tom know that. I bent over and pulled my spare key from underneath the mat and slipped it into the door. As I swung it open, I froze. There were fresh markings on the door.

Collin had been here.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and summoned my anger. Collin Fucking Dailey didn’t deserve my tears. I had given him my heart—not to mention the fact that my soul was now literally bound to his for all eternity—and he’d thrown it away. He’d thrown me away for whatever reward Okeus had promised him in exchange for opening the gate.

So why was he still helping me?

After the curse was broken three weeks ago and the first spirits were released, Collin had started to mark my door with symbols that represented the day and the night, forces of nature, and, in the center of each side, his symbol for the land, asking all the forces to lend me their protection.

Collin was the son of the earth, and I was the daughter of the sea. Our power was stronger

combined than it was individually. So right before the end—before he betrayed me—we intersected our symbols for added protection.

Now, every few nights, he would sneak up and either scratch on fresh markings or place his symbol over mine.

He was protecting me even now.

I wanted to hate him—I did hate him—but this very act had softened my heart to him before. And look where that had gotten me…I needed to grow up. Collin wasn’t doing this out of love.

Collin Dailey loved one person—himself.

He was helping me out of guilt. It would only be a matter of time before he decided he’d paid his dues. Either that, or he thought he still needed me for something. Perhaps it was a combination of the two.

Any way I sliced it, I was in deep shit. The henna tattoo had faded so much it was almost gone, and Collin would soon stop lending me his marks.

I needed to learn how to protect myself or I was as good as dead.

 

CHAPTER 2

 

When the curse first broke, animals began parading through my dreams, calling out to me for help. And I also began to have nightmares about the past, dredging up memories that had been buried long ago. But after the gate opened all the way, and my henna tattoo began to fade, other creepy crawlies started to invade my dreams…

The creatures varied from night to night, but tonight the creature resembled a badger, although it was many times larger than it should have been. It crouched in front of me, its eyes glowing red. Its teeth were huge, sharp, and dripping with blood.

“Curse Keeper,” it said. “Daughter of the sea and witness to creation. Okeus is waiting for you to be ready, but I have other plans.”

Panic washed through me, and I took a step backward, holding up the mark on my palm. I had the power to send him away—not permanently, but I could get him to leave me alone for now.

The animal laughed. “Your mark won’t always work.”

It wasn’t exactly news. Okeus’s children had screamed and hissed about these great plans as they spilled out of the gates of hell. Their first order of business was to regain their strength. Torturing me for four centuries as punishment for my ancestor’s role in locking them away was a close second. Despite the way I’d taunted Okeus in the botanical gardens, I knew the last thing I wanted to do was confront him. “Tell Okeus I’ll take a rain check.”

“Tell him yourself,” the creature snarled. “He’ll visit you soon. Unless I get to you first.”

A dog appeared behind the badger, hunched down and whimpering, restrained by unseen forces. The badger turned around and attacked with a loud growl, throwing the dog to the ground and ripping open the flesh of its abdomen. Screaming and howling, the dog tried to get away, but the badger continued its attack, ripping intestines from the still-living creature and flinging them to the ground.

I fought to wake from the nightmare, but the badger looked over its shoulder, intestines hanging from its teeth, and mumbled, “This is only the beginning.”

I awoke screaming, my nose still filled with the scent of blood. I jumped out of bed and ran to the toilet, throwing up what was left of my dinner from hours earlier. I tried to purge the image from my head along with the contents of my stomach. The image wasn’t as easy to lose.

After I rinsed out my mouth, I made sure all the window ledges were protected with salt, which helped keep out the nasties. I went into my living room and grabbed my laptop, hoping to uncover some information about the creature from my dream. I wasn’t even sure what to look for. My biggest problem was that four hundred years ago the colonists had been more intent on converting the Native Americans to Christianity than they were on recording their belief system. Multiple tribes had been wiped from existence without making more than a blip on the historical record, which meant that finding specific information about the gods and spirits was next to impossible. I’d already checked the local library and bookstore and performed every conceivable Internet search. I needed to know what I was fighting—or at the very least defending myself against—but there was so little to find.

I curled up on the oversized sofa with an afghan and glanced at the clock, surprised I hadn’t yet had a visitor. Maybe they’d skip tonight since I’d

been out by the tree.

But that was wishful thinking. The banging on my front door started at 4:00 a.m., close to dawn—when the spirits were usually at their strongest.

The mark on my palm itched and burned, making me cringe. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with a messenger, but it wasn’t like I had a choice. If I didn’t answer, the thing would keep pounding and moaning and might awaken my neighbors. And if anyone came to investigate, there was a good chance the spirit would take their manitou, the essence of life in all living things. So, I either answered the door or risked killing my neighbors and condemning them to hell. Too bad I liked my neighbors.

“Curse Keeper! I summon you.”

Setting my laptop on the sofa, I threw off the afghan and padded to the front door.

“Who’s there?”

“Who are you to speak to me this way!”

I groaned. It had to be Kanim, the messenger spirit of Okeus. As if the badger thing hadn’t been enough for one night. Taking a deep breath, I cracked open the door and spread my legs apart to brace myself against the wind with which the spirit would most likely blast me.

The cold gust hit me in the face, and instead of the usual dark blob hovering over the wooden floor of my deck, a large bird with a human head and flowing white hair was perched on the rail of my front porch.

It was Wapi, the northern wind god.

Oh crap. He was just a shadowy spirit the first time I met him. I’d seen his true form when the gates of hell burst open, but most of the messengers who’d visited me after that night still showed up as shadows. Wapi had been free the longest of all the gods, so there’d been more time for him to regain his strength. What did it mean about the others if Wapi was already strong enough to come to me in his corporeal state?

Part of me was terrified. If he’d regained his true form, what was he capable of doing? The marks on my door would only keep him from coming in to get me. They wouldn’t protect me once I left the apartment.

I gripped the edge of the door. “What do you want, Wapi?” There was no love lost between us. He’d tried to suck out my manitou a couple of days after the curse was first broken.

“Okeus has placed his mark on your arm.”

My hand self-consciously rubbed the zigzag scar made by Okeus’s claw. “Ahone has claimed me.”

“Ahone,” the bird spit. “Ahone is a weak coward. He hides in the heavens. Where is your Ahone now? Where will he be when Okeus comes to claim that which is his?”

I couldn’t help thinking that ‘that which is his’ meant me.

I rested my temple on the edge of the door frame. “I’m tired, so cut to the chase. What do you want?”

“You are running out of time. You must choose a side. Okeus or Ahone.”

“And if I don’t?”

His leer sent chills down my spine before I slammed the door closed. I expected him to howl and scream in protest, but it remained blessedly silent outside. After a moment, I turned and rested the back of my head against the door.

The bottom line was that Wapi was right. I would have to choose…and it wasn’t much of a choice. Okeus promised me an eternal life in hell. Ahone promised little other than his protection, but at least my soul wouldn’t be damned. Not that I knew of, anyway.

Not like Collin’s.

Perhaps I could put Ahone’s mark on my back if I knew what it was. One thing was for sure: I really was running out of time.

I stumbled back to the sofa in exhaustion and dozed there for a few hours, my dreams remarkably quiet, until Claire let herself into the apartment.

“You look like shit.” she said as she kicked the door closed behind her and handed me a cup of coffee from the shop across the alley.

“Gee, I love you too.” I took a sip of the coffee, burning my tongue and nearly dropping the cup.

She plopped down in the overstuffed chair across from me, dug a muffin out of a paper bag, and handed it to me. “I heard you were in the botanical gardens last night.”

I peeled the lining paper off the muffin, giving it my full attention. “And where did

you hear that?”

“Tom Helmsworth stopped by my house this morning to have a chat.”

My gaze jerked up to meet hers.

Claire watched me for several seconds and when I didn’t answer, she continued. “He said it wasn’t the first time.”

I took a bite. “He’s watching me.”

“Why?”

“He knows that all those deaths are connected to me.”

Her eyebrows rose. “He thinks you killed those people?”

“No, but he heard me shouting to Okeus and Ahone, and he’s studied the symbols on my door. I’m pretty sure he knows something’s up.”

“How does he know about the symbols?”

“He says he’s part Lumbee. He asked his great uncle.”

Claire shook her head. “It doesn’t mean he really knows anything. How could he?”

I ran my hand through my dirty hair and looked up at her. “My dreams are getting worse.”

“What did you see?”

“When Tom brought me home, I heard a call come over the radio. The dispatcher said a mutilated dog had been found. I don’t think it was the first one.” I groaned. “I mean, I know hundreds of animals have already died—in fact, it’s a wonder there are any left—but this time, they’ve been tortured.”

“What does it have to do with your dreams?”

“Last night, the creature in my dreams ripped a dog apart in front of me.”

The color drained from her face; then she sat back in the chair and tucked her feet underneath her. “Maybe it was the power of suggestion, Ellie. It could have just been a dream.”

I shook my head. “No, this was real. And the thing talked to me. It told me that I had to make a decision soon, that Okeus was coming for me.”

“You’re okay as long as you have the symbols on the door, right?”

“For now, sure. But the spirits are growing stronger. Soon they’ll be strong enough to show themselves in the daylight. I’m no closer to finding Ahone’s symbol for my back. What am I supposed to do?”

Her eyes widened in fear. “I don’t know.”

I crossed my legs and leaned forward. “I’m not going to sit here and wait for them to come and get me, Claire. I need to learn how to protect myself.

And I have to figure out how to protect everyone else too. Sure, it’s dogs now, but it won’t be long before the spirits move on to people.”

“How are you going to do that? We’ve looked at every resource we can find, both at the library and online. Are you going to visit the Lumbees or something?”

Pressing my lips together, I considered my options. I needed an expert who knew more about Native American spirits than anyone else. Someone who’d studied these religions in depth. Then an idea struck—one so perfect I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before. I grabbed my laptop and searched for universities that offered Native American studies. “If you want an expert, who else knows more than a professor teaching the subject, right?”

Claire considered it. “You might be on to something there. What are you going to do?”

It looked like the closest university with a strong program was the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Digging into the faculty page, I pointed to the screen. “Here, Dr. David Preston. He’s the head of the American Studies Department and it says he’s an expert on North Carolinian Indians. That means he might have the information I need, right?”

She looked doubtful. “I guess…”

I stood and stretched. “It’s worth a chance. I’ll leave as soon as I finish up at the bed and breakfast this morning.” I only hoped the anxiety I always felt when I left the island—a wretched side effect of the curse—wouldn’t be too debilitating. But I’d suffer through just about anything to improve my chances of long-term survival.

“You’re going to go today?”

“I need this information as soon as possible, Claire.”

“How do you know if he’ll even be there? It’s summer.”

“I’ll call and see if he’s available. Maybe he teaches summer classes.” I sat down and turned my back to her, pulling aside the top strap of my tank top. “The henna tattoo is almost gone. It’s my only protection. I have a few days left at most.”

“So just replace it with what Collin put on you.”

“But he used Okeus’s mark on my back. The spirits keep telling me I have to choose. If I put Okeus’s mark on my back permanently, it will mean I’ve chosen him. I have to wait until I find Ahone’s symbol.”

She sighed, nodding reluctantly. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

I got up and headed for the bathroom. “I’m going to take a shower. I’ll call you later.”

“Ellie, wait.”

I paused next to my bathroom door.

“Let me go with you.”

“But you have to work."

“I’ll work for a few hours and then tell them I’m sick.” She gave me a wry smile. “I’m worried about you. Chapel Hill is a good four hours away, and I don’t want you going by yourself. What if…”

“What if what? I get attacked by the badger thing that showed up in my dream?”

She looked down into her coffee.

“All the more reason for you to stay home.”

Her face shot up, a determined look in her eyes.

I sagged against the door frame. I couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to her. But I also couldn’t stand the thought of being alone all day. “Thanks, Claire. You’re right. I’m scared to death, and I need you.”

Claire got up and walked over, pulling me into a hug. “I’m here for you. As long as you don’t try to back out of wearing the maid of honor dress I picked out for you.” I tried to pull back and swat her arm, but she tightened her hold as she giggled into my ear. “I know you hate that dress, but you’re going to have to wear it. It was a concession to my sister for picking you as my maid of honor. So get over it.”

“I know, but orange taffeta ruffles? Really? I’m going to look like a pumpkin.”

“Nah, you’re not round enough. Maybe a squash. ...