The Twenty-Sided Sorceress 1
Annie Bellet
Jade Crow lives in a small town called Wylde, Idaho that has thick ley lines running through a river that attracts supernatural creatures. She owns a gaming shop and her best friend, Azalea “Harper,” who is a fox shifter, is with her when a Justice of the Shifters, Aleksei Kirov, walks in. Harper identifies him from a feather talisman. He says that he had a vision of Jade killing a great number of shifters. Jade hasn’t actually killed anyone yet, and she tells him so. He can tell that she is not lying. Harper explains that she is a hedge-witch - which relieves Jade because she is actually a sorceress in hiding from her past mentor/love that tried to fill her with magic and then eat her heart to absorb her power. The Justice explains that he had a vision and Jade will be in the middle of it. He wants to talk to her about it. The Leprechaun who owns the antique shop next door, Ciaran, comes over to have her look at a few things to make sure there isn’t any magic attached. She leaves the Justice outside of her shop and takes Harper with her to look at the items. When Ciaran reveals his buys from an auction, Harper sees a stuffed fox and informs them it is her mom.
The Justice, Alek, joins the girls and the Ciaran at his shop. Jade explains to him that Harper’s mom, Rose, would go out camping for a week at a time, so no one thought it odd that she was missing. They do find it odd that she was in fox form when she was killed. Levi (wolverine, married to an owl, and mechanic) and Ezee (wolverine, gay, and a professor of history), the twins, arrive for Thursday game night. Jade assures Alek that they are friends and she has them take care of Harper and cancel with their only human player, Steve. Jade decides they can take Rosie to Vivian Lake, the wolf shifter veterinarian, to get an idea of what might have happened.
Jade rides with Rose in her lap while Alek drives them in his truck to the vet. He explains that the nine have powers and visions. They show him what they can and a sort of internal compass leads him to where he needs to go. Once they arrive, Jade immediately tells the young receptionist to have the doctor meet them in the surgery room. Vivian expects that Jade has brought her another critter that Harper insisted on saving, but is shocked when Jade tells her the stuffed fox is Rose. The vet agrees to an autopsy to figure out what happened. When Jade picks Rose up, she feels magic and a heartbeat. She stops the procedure and tells them that Rose is in a sort of stasis. Vivian offers to watch over Rose and Alek takes Jade back to her shop so she can tell the others what is going on.
Back at Jade’s place, they explain to the others that Rose is under a spell and there might be some hope. Ciaran comes in to show a copy of the license and finger print that belong to the guy that sold him the stuffed fox. He thinks it is odd that it says he is in his 30’s but in person he looked like a college student. Jade agrees to do a small spell to locate the guy. She locks herself in her room and puts small bursts of power into a compass, hoping that the small spell won’t attract her ex-boyfriend, Siram. She remembers the group that took her in when her biological family had kicked her out and how he had destroyed that. She gives the compass to Alek to track whoever did this. Levi, Ezee, and Jade take Harper get ready to leave to tell her brother what has happened.
On the way to the Bed and Breakfast that Harper’s family owns, Jade gets a call from Ciaran. He tells her in Irish that there are two men with guns before he continues in English. He says he needs the fox she bought back. She tells Levi to turn around and fills them in on what is going on. They make it back to the store and she takes a bundled up blanket inside with her. She tells the others to wait outside and keep watch. She goes in the front door and calls out to Ciaran. Alek is already there hiding in the back and waiting for the men to come out of Ciaran’s office. One goes with Ciaran to meet Jade and Alek grabs him. Ciaran is able to get out of the way. The other man seems to be talking to someone else who is not there and decides he is too scared to not do what he says. He goes after Jade. Some sort of magic from a medallion starts to come down on him. Jade tries to push it back and steals the medallion, hiding it from her friends. In the process, she is shot and her phone is shattered. She knows that she will heal quickly and doesn’t want her friends to find out what she really is. Alek comes to help her to apartment because he can tell what she is doing.
Alek gets Jade into the bathtub in her apartment and cuts off her pants to look at the wound. He puts a silvery barrier around them so that Harper cannot hear their discussion. As she continues to heal herself, Alek asks Jade questions about what happened in Ciaran’s shop. She isn’t really sure, but she has some ideas. Obviously, the two young men were not the ones controlling the magic, there was someone behind it. Alek knows she isn’t a hedge witch, but she doesn’t elaborate. He takes the medallion out of her bra and asks about it, but she doesn’t know exactly what it is. He leaves and Jade asks Harper to stay over. The next morning, Jade wakes up to the smell of Harper cooking breakfast. After they eat, Harper leaves to spend the day at the doctor’s with her mom. Jade runs the shop and debates whether or not she can stay or whether she had done enough magic to attract Samir. Ezee says he recognized one of the boys from the previous night and that he is going to ask around the college. When Harper and Levi arrive, they are in a panic because Ezee is missing. Jade locks up the shop to go help them look for him.
Levi has a key to his brother’s office and they use it to get in. A suspicious man, Bernie Barnes, comes to tell them that Ezee isn’t in there. Jade looks at him magically and he doesn’t register as anything, like he is a void. When Jade suggests he show them where the student cafe is, Bernie makes a run for it. Levi and Harper follow him while Jade tries to keep up. They loose him in the basement and decided to keep going down into the steam tunnels. They find two shifters in wolf form that smell dead, a blood pentagram, and magic books. Harper makes Jade check to make sure and she touches the one that looks less dead. She feels the heart beat. The man has found a way to harness the shifter’s powers. Levi knows what Jade has to do and takes Harper away. Jade takes out a dagger and her guardian, Wolf, is there to nudge her along. She is disgusted that Alek’s vision came true as she stabs the wolf in the chest.
Alek is waiting for them outside the shop. He and Jade go to her apartment so that she can change and fill him in. Jade explains that Bernie Barnes is a warlock, a human that uses external magic. He has found a way to tap into the internal magic of the shifters and use them as a sort of battery. At this point, he is still human and able to be stopped, but that may not last long. She explains that she has to leave town quickly before Samir comes and kills all of her friends. Alek tries to convince her that he can help with Samir if she helps with Bernie. Jade is skeptical and shows him Wolf. She has a scar on her from their last encounter with the sorcerer. Alek is impressed that Samir scared an Undying. Jade explains that he has been collecting hearts for power since Jesus was around. He goes to take care of the warlock. Jade gets cleaned up and then goes down to the shop where Harper and Levi are waiting. Once they realize that she isn’t going to help, they leave. Jade is sad that her last conversation with Harper will be a fight, but can’t help it.
Jade starts packing a few things from her apartment, knowing she can’t take a lot with her. She goes to the shop next to get a drawn portrait of her surrogate family she got for graduating high school. She is debating if she could help, even if she didn’t think it would get everyone killed by Samir. Max, Harper’s little brother, comes to tell her that Levi and Harper took Rose. Jade realizes they are going to follow Alek and get themselves hurt or worse. She uses the medallion to track the location of Bernie Barnes and tells Max to drive her car so that she can concentrate.
Following the spell, Jade makes her way through the woods, hoping that her friends have already won and are on their way to see her. Wolf appears to offer Jade a ride (last time this happened, they were both dying from Samir’s hands). They stop and look down into a field. Alek is in a chalk circle that acts like a cage. Levi and Harper are in animal form and unconscious. Bernie is casting some spell on Ezee, who is trapped in another circle. Jade decides to race down into the clearing with Wolf and take out the bad guy. However, she didn’t see his minion and is shot in the back.
Jade falls down and can’t get over the pain enough to move. Wolf licks her wound and it gives her enough to get up and continue the fight. She lets the magic flow through her and hits the minion with a magical fist, knocking him out. She knows she cannot get to Ezee in time to stop what is happening, so she undoes the circle around Alek. He is able to get out and attack Bernie to stop the ritual. Jade approaches them and tells Bernie that they will let him live if he undoes the spells on her friends. He says that he bought a book online and used it to learn the spell, but he burned it to keep his minions from using the power. They sold Rose for weed money and that is how they were alerted to his dealings. He was never concerned about undoing the spell, so didn’t bother to learn that before the book was destroyed. Jade eats his heart so that she is able to understand the magic. She is able to free Ezee before she passes out. Alek says he will handle things from there.
The next three days Jade spends sleeping in order to recover. At some point, she is able to stay awake long enough to undo the spell on Rose. Ezee explains that he was able to watch everything that was going on while he was frozen. He fills everyone in, but leaves out the part about Jade eating Bernie’s heart. Jade is finally able to go home and starts thinking about whether or not she should leave. Alek shows up with Chinese food and she is convinced that she is ready to start living instead of just surviving. He promises to help her train since he has been assigned to the area for a while. They make out and Jade says she’ll have to teach him to become a gamer.