Kingdom of Darkness (Kingdom Journals Book 2) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  More books from Tricia

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  More books from Tricia

  KINGDOM of DARKNESS

  Kingdom Journals Volume 2 - Camille's Story

  by Tricia Copeland

  Copyright © 2017 True Bird Publishing LLC

  All rights reserved

  License Notes:

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be copied or re-distributed in any way. Author holds all copyright.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Edited by Tia Silverthorne Bach

  Proofread by Jennifer Oberth

  Interior Formatting by Jo Michaels

  all of Indie Books Gone Wild

  Cover by Alivia Anders of White Rabbit Book Design

  Published by True Bird Publishing LLC, Superior, CO

  The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by fines and federal imprisonment.

  “Death lies on her like an untimely frost

  Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.”

  -William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

  “That must have been some dream last night. Was the guy hot?” Tyler taunted me as he sat down at the breakfast table.

  “It’s not like that.” I slapped him on the shoulder.

  “Camille, Tyler, seriously,” Mom scolded. “Don’t start the weekend fighting?” She squatted down so we were eye to eye. “You had a dream? Why didn’t you say something?”

  “It wasn’t a big deal.”

  “Well, what was it about? Who was in it?”

  The dreams had started four weeks before, but I hadn’t told Mom because I knew she would freak out and double my counseling sessions. The first was a scene with a girl and her mother at a library. They studied a boy who sat at a table reading. The next day the girl and boy met at the library again. I never heard words, only saw pictures. It wasn’t like I thought the dreams were real, but it fascinated me the way the storyline continued.

  I’d had imaginary friends when I was younger. My pretend scenarios got so out of control, Mother put me on medication. She moved us from Los Angeles to the Arizona desert, seeking a healthier environment. Then she relocated us to Cheyenne, Santa Fe, and Bismarck, trying to find a solution to my health problems. Bismarck had been better but still not perfect, and we packed up and relocated to Iceland, the healthiest country on the planet. Tyler had pushed for Honolulu, but in the end, cost of living won out.

  Reykjavik seemed to have solved all my problems. We’d been there over a year, and I hadn’t had any episodes. Then the dreams started. Granted they were just that, fictitious stories created by the overactive limbic part of my brain. My research indicated this to be the emotional part that gets highly active during REM sleep, when our prefrontal cortex, the mastermind of the brain, rests. The limbic portion of the human brain causes emotional, vivid, irrational scenarios to play out in our sleep.

  My dreams were more like a silent movie, continuing where they’d left off the previous night. The plot included a girl who didn’t eat normal food save sushi, avoided human contact, and had witch-like powers. The boy developed these powers, and he and the girl assembled an army of vampires and witches to fight another group of witches. So, of course, the scenarios playing through my head each night couldn’t be real.

  The whole issue was that, even with medication, I’d had visions of my imaginary friends after we’d left Los Angeles. The girl and boy, Violet and Chase, searched for me and sat outside my door waiting for me to come play. The doctor switched my medication, and the hallucinations stopped just before my fourth birthday. I hadn’t seen Violet or Chase since, but the characters in my dreams had similarities to my imaginary friends. Maybe their features wouldn’t have stuck with me so vividly, except each time we moved I saw a new psychiatrist. He or she always reviewed my history, so I had to relive being three every other year or so. Violet’s reddish-brown hair, her milky white skin, and Chase’s dark hair and eyes, became etched into my brain.

  For the past month, I’d watched the characters on mute. But the previous night’s dream, or whatever it was, ended with a name I heard clear as day, as if the people were in my room. “Ivy,” the girl and boy had recited together. It was the pretend name my Violet and Chase used for me. As soon as the sound of the name vibrated through my head, I’d woken with chill bumps covering my body.

  Sitting up, I wrapped the blankets around my shoulders, wondering how the girl and boy in the dream knew my nickname. A buzzing sound, like the type you hear just before you pass out, grew in intensity until I thought my eardrums might explode, and then it stopped suddenly and images filled my head.

  The boy hugged the girl. “Thank you for saving me. I can’t believe Thanatos didn’t kill you.”

  “He wanted me alive.” She buried her face in his chest. “What have I done? This is all my fault.”

  “Alena.” A woman pulled the girl from his grip. “We must attend to Elizabeth.”

  “Mother, I’m so sorry. Elizabeth–” Alena’s chest heaved with sobs.

  “It’s going to be okay. All will be fine.” Her mother kissed the top of Alena’s head.

  They walked to a body that lay lifeless on the ground. Kneeling beside it, the mother closed the woman’s eyes. “I pray that you have had the blessing of a good, fulfilling life and were consoled and sure about your death. May your body rest at peace in the earth.”

  An older gentleman stooped over and kissed the dead woman’s forehead. “She knew her anam cara many years ago.” Lifting her in his arms, he walked towards the trees.

  Alena grabbed her mother’s arm. “Why did you only say her body would rest in the earth? What about her soul? Won’t she always be with us in spirit?”

  “This is not the time I would have wanted to bring this up. We are not eternal like other creatures. We only are given one lifetime.”

  “What? How can you know this? Is it some type of curse?”

  “It is what we are given. I for one am grateful to have lived so many years and to see my daughter become a woman.”

  Alena released her mother’s arm and turned to face a pile of bodies heaped in the center of the clearing. Alena approached one of the men standing near the fallen creatures. “How many did we lose?”

  “Two. Not bad for a battle with witches as strong as these. We were lucky to have outnumbered them three to one. If you hadn’t drawn Thanatos away, it would have been much worse.”

  “Not Aaron?”

  “No, not Aaron. He is attending to one of the departed. Stand back.”

  They stepped a few feet from the pile of bodies, and the man fl
icked a lighter and threw it into the heap. The clothes caught fire, and the people became engulfed in flames.

  Alena turned away, rejoining the boy she’d embraced before. They locked hands and followed the others into the wooded area.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about vampires?” he asked her.

  “It is forbidden.”

  “But you told me about witches.”

  “Only when I was sure that you were one.”

  “So, you are half witch, half vampire?”

  “Yes, the most forbidden creature of all. That is why it’s dangerous for me and my family. You don’t hate me, do you?”

  “I wish you would’ve told me. I could never hate you. What do we do now that Theron has the sword?”

  “We find Ivy.”

  I felt a hand on my arm. “Camille. Are you with us?” Mom’s eyes bore into mine.

  “Yes, sorry. Just remembering the dream.”

  “It wasn’t the buzzing again, was it?”

  “No, Mom, no buzzing. I’m fine.”

  “That dream had to be about a guy.” Tyler chuckled from across the table.

  “Not everyone is a sex-starved geek like you.” I shot him an evil stare.

  “Guys! Just one breakfast, please.”

  “Sorry, Mom.” I popped a bite of pancakes in my mouth, thinking I would spend the weekend in the library researching magical swords and what psychological condition caused the dream to continue after I woke. The term lucid dream stuck in my head, and I made a mental note to look it up.

  I tended to my Saturday chores and homework. Then, I packed a bag and walked to the library. Remembering seeing the sword’s box lying in a pentagram, I typed the words sword and pentagram into the search window. There were no applicable results, and I typed in magic sword, which again gave me no relevant answers. Next I typed in famous swords, which brought up a list several pages long, starting with Excalibur, King Author’s sword.

  One site listed a Celtic sword, Fragarach, which I noted because of the Celtic term anam cara the older gentleman had used. The blade was supposedly forged by the gods and wielded by a being that ferried souls to the afterlife. Those pierced with the sword were forced to speak the truth. Noting a book about Fragarach, I moved on to the alternate search terms, including dagger, lance, and spear. Searching for a famous lance brought up a site that listed mythical objects, one of which included the Holy Lance or Spear of Longinus. I wrote down the book numbers and found both texts on the shelves.

  “Someone is interested in mythology,” the librarian commented when I handed him the books.

  “Yes.” I forced a smile.

  At home, I plopped on the couch and scoured the books for information listing possible good and bad uses for each of the weapons. I figured if an evil person had Fragarach, then there would be no keeper of heaven and hell. While bad, I couldn’t see an immediate danger to human kind. However, the Spear of Longinus supposedly brought freedom to enslaved people. So, if a person with ill will wielded it, then those incarcerated for crimes might be set free, I guessed.

  Examining my paper, I realized I’d gone too far down this path, crumpled the page, and tossed it in the wastebasket. Why did it matter what sword it was? It didn’t, did it? Would learning which mythical weapon the bad guys had stolen help me decipher my dream and figure out my psyche? I doubted it. But the girl and boy thought it was important to find Ivy, ergo me. Maybe I was pivotal in retrieving the sword from the evil dude, Theron.

  I grabbed another sheet of paper and started making a list of the characters I knew: the girl named Alena; her mother; Elizabeth, who died; an old man; the boy; another large man; Thanatos, who seemed to be feared; Aaron, who the girl was happy hadn’t died; Theron, the evil teenage boy; and Ivy, possibly me. Then, I wrote down: Alena equals Violet, and boy equals Chase.

  “Whatcha doin’, pipsqueak?” Tyler entered from the kitchen.

  “Nothing.” I closed the book on the notes.

  He snatched the text beside me. “Mythology, eh?”

  “Yeah, I have a research paper for literature.”

  “Good luck on that. So, senior year. You made it. That’s something I would’ve thought to be mythology.”

  I threw a pillow at him. “Really? Because it seems like you and college are going to fall into that category.”

  “I’m taking a gap year. It’s a total thing. Besides, who wouldn’t want to be a mountain-bike guide for a year in Iceland?”

  At exactly a year older than me, my brother constantly taunted me. I guessed he figured it made me tougher or something. Maybe if I’d been a boy, we’d be wrestling on the floor. It was fine. I’d learned to hold my own with him. It drove Mom insane, but Tyler and I had been sparring that way since we were little, it was kind of our thing.

  “Hey, we should cook Mom dinner,” Tyler suggested.

  “I’m up for that.”

  Invading the kitchen, we found ingredients for her favorite savory crepes.

  “But seriously,” Tyler started, “no humming right, just a dream?”

  “Yeah, just a weird wacky dream.”

  “Okay.” He handed me the pan.

  We made a stack of crepes, grilled some meat strips and veggies, and were setting the table when Mom arrived.

  “Aww, guys”—her eyes filled with tears—“you’re so nice. I’m sorry I had to work today. Tomorrow we’ll go on a hike or something.”

  “No worries.” I hugged her.

  “And you.” She wrapped her arms around Tyler. “I’m sorry I keep moving you around.”

  “Hey, family first.” Tyler told her.

  At four a.m., ringing in my ears woke me.

  The girl, Alena, stood in a doorway with her mother, welcoming the boy, ergo Chase, and a woman.

  “We’re so glad you came, Rachel and Hunter. I’m Anne.” Alena’s mother shook the woman’s hand.

  “It’s nice to meet you.” Rachel handed a bouquet of lilies to Anne. “I heard about your loss. I’m very sorry.”

  “Thank you. Please come in.” Anne stepped back, motioning for the guests to enter the condo.

  Rachel, Hunter, Alena, and Anne walked into a sitting area where the older gentleman I recognized from the previous night waited.

  “Rachel, this is Orm, a family friend.” Anne introduced him to Rachel.

  “Nice to meet you.” Rachel’s smile looked tentative.

  They sat on the sofas, but Alena bounced up. “I’ll get some drinks.”

  “Yes, that would be nice,” her mother commented.

  Alena brought ice water from the kitchen, and Anne poured wine for the adults.

  “So, Rachel, you must be interested in why we wanted to meet with you.”

  “Yes. Hunter said this was important, and I wasn’t supposed to freak out.”

  Anne chuckled. “Well, yes, there is that factor.”

  Hunter proceeded to tell his mother about his special powers. He demonstrated levitating a chair and lighting the logs in the fireplace.

  “Dad is a very powerful witch. He would very much like for me to join him in his coven. But he’s not a good man. I don’t want any part of his way of life.” Hunter finished his story.

  Rachel’s mouth hung open. “You made that couch float? Thanatos is a witch? You are a witch?”

  “Your son is very powerful for one who has just awakened his powers.” Orm spoke for the first time.

  “And this is how he and Alena knew each other as imaginary friends?”

  “We believe so.”

  “So, Alena is a witch?” Rachel turned to face Alena.

  “As am I,” Orm replied.

  “We believe Thanatos may try to take Hunter and Alena.” Anne spoke again. “We feel it is in their best interest to house them in a safe place until they are eighteen.”

  “Eighteen? That is nearly nine months away.”

  “Thanatos is very powerful.”

  Rachel took Hunter’s hand. “Thanatos is your father. He wouldn�
��t—”

  “Mom, Thanatos killed Elizabeth.”

  Rachel’s hand went to her mouth, and she gazed wide-eyed around the room.

  “We have many resources at our disposal.” Anne crossed the room to sit beside Rachel. “They can finish school online. They will have access to a gym and pool.”

  “Will I be able to see you?” Rachel ran her hand down Hunter’s back.

  “We can arrange meetings perhaps once every other week or so. And you will be able to video chat with him any time you like,” Anne said.

  Tears formed in Rachel’s eyes. “When would you leave?”

  “Tonight,” Hunter confirmed.

  Rachel nodded, and the group walked Rachel and Hunter to the door.

  “I’ll see you in a couple of hours.” Hunter squeezed Alena’s hand and kissed her cheek.

  “Okay.” She nodded. “Be safe.”

  “I have my best men protecting them,” Anne told her daughter.

  I blinked and realized I was still in my room. Finding the sheet with my character list, I marked down Chase’s name as Hunter and the older gentleman’s as Orm. Then I wrote witch next to Hunter, Orm, Thanatos, and Theron, and witch-vampire next to Alena. I guessed that made Anne either a vampire or witch. Thinking I would never get sleep again, I checked the time and slid my feet in my slippers, padding to the kitchen for some warm milk. The story didn’t start again, and I convinced myself the visions and oration comprised an intricate dream.

  “Come on slugabed, the sun will be up soon. I thought we were hiking.” Mom pulled the covers from atop me.

  Seeing the time read five after nine, I sat up. “Sorry, I was awake for a while during the night.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, sure, just thinking about stuff.”

  “Okay, well, I have breakfast ready.”

  Slipping on my hiking clothes, I made my way to the kitchen. Tyler had already finished half a plate of pancakes. “Sleep much?”

  “Eat much?” I plopped into the chair with my dish.

  As I brought a bite to my mouth, my ears started to ring and a vision danced in front of my eyes. As before, Alena and her mother, Anne, welcomed Hunter and Rachel into their home. Hunter had a duffle bag on one shoulder and a backpack on the other.