The Linkis an upcoming series by Jen Stacey about the blurring of lines between the living, the dead, and all the things in-between.
Gemma Richardson has been trying to recover the memories she lost in a car accident, when she comes to discover that she isn't as normal as she thought she was. There are Beings out there--mankind has often confused them for gods--both good and evil, who can use the dead to further their own goals. Over time, Gemma embraces her role as a Link, a bridge between those alive and those dead, but Dark Beings are out there who will stop at nothing to bring the Otherworld to our own.
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More on what you can expect to see when it's released for free online:
- dark fantasy
- Celtic lore influences
- original mythology
- YA horror
- combat action
- weapons exploration
- balanced romance arcs
- ensemble cast
- multiple character perspectives
Ash turned on the light and a huge garage-like room unfolded before us. In the middle of the room were wrestling mats, and next to the mats sat a table full of guns of all sizes. Various other weapons hung on the walls above the gun table. He had everything from a butter knife to an ax hanging on that wall.
“This is where we will train you for battle,” Ash said, plainly.
“Okay, I get that I can touch and kill this Ronk guy if he’s wearing something, but how do the ghosts fit in? They’re dead. They can’t exactly be touched, right?”
Ash rolled his eyes, glancing at me. For a moment he seemed to consider whether he should answer my question or not, and then he finally decided it was for the best—but not without a sarcastic comment first. “You were so much more willing to believe this when we had this conversation a year ago. You have extraordinary abilities that allow you to touch ghosts. Unfortunately, this means they can touch you as well.”
I walked over towards the table of weapons, looking down at them. My father had taught me about guns at a young age to take away the fear of the unknown and the curiosity that came with it, but I had never thought of myself as comfortable around them.
…Had I?
“We had this conversation a year ago?” I asked, and Jason and Ash exchanged a look between them that I couldn’t read.”
I can see that you won’t need much training,” Ash sounded kind of disappointed as he watched me lift one of the guns and examine it. “That’s good. I hate teaching. For the last year, I’ve been teaching you, helping you remember how to fight,” Ash explained. “Not that it’s been enjoyable anyway, but starting over is just going to be a pain.”
“You’re my teacher and you don’t even like to teach?” I asked, glancing up at him.”
I never said I chose this job,” he said, sounding just a little irritated, “You didn’t choose to be The Link, Jason didn’t choose to…well, he didn’t choose to be involved either. I don’t think I would have chosen him to do what he is supposed to,” Jason glared at Ash as he said that.
“So, when do I start training then?” I asked, trying to break the tension. There was something more going on that was unspoken, and I suddenly felt like a third wheel in this conversation. Again.
“Tomorrow,” Ash’s hard voice poured out of his mouth, like rocks falling down a hill, fighting him along the way. He clearly didn’t want to be answering my question this way.
I nodded, glancing at the guns one more time before reaching over to pick one up. It felt heavy in my hand, foreign, and I hated it. Setting it down, I glanced at the other weapons—most of them looking like they were taken off of a fantasy movie set. “Why the antiques?” I asked them.
“You’ve learned how to use the weapons of the ages over your lifetimes. You favor some of them over others,” Jason explained. “We keep a variety around for your sake.”
“And there are some gun fights you can only take a knife to,” Ash muttered sarcastically.
“Right,” I muttered, turning to follow them back upstairs. As we made our way into the main lobby, a strange feeling came over me. For a moment I wasn’t able to move at all, and then it was as if my entire body sped up, my heart racing and my lungs gasping for air in heavy breaths. “Something’s wrong,” I commented, looking at the door.
“Gem—” Jason started to say something, but I took off running on instinct. It was like my feet no longer listened to me.
Once outside, I realized why. There were three men—if you could call them that, with their skeletal appearance—standing on the yard in front of Ash’s creepy house. They looked sickly, as if they were almost corpses already, but something told me not to underestimate them. The one thing that set them apart aside from the nearly-dead appearance was the odd placement of a tattoo on the left side of their neck: a skull eating a rose with a snake wrapped around the stem, pierced by the rose’s thorns in places but fighting to bite into the petals.
I suddenly felt very alone.
One of the men stepped forward, tilting his head as he looked at me, blinking eyes that looked so tired and worn out I couldn’t understand how he saw anything anymore. “You don’t remember who you are, do you?” he asked me.
“I’m really getting tired of people telling me that,” I muttered.
I wasn’t prepared when he aimed his gun at me and shot a single bullet, so it hit my shoulder with a sickening—yet disturbingly familiar—‘thunk’ of pain. It ran through my shoulder down into my chest, and for a frightening moment I was completely paralyzed. And then, just like before, everything around me seemed to speed up and catch up with me.
I’ve never been all that coordinated, so I was just as surprised as the man in front of me when I reached forward and snapped his wrist back, taking the gun from his hand, dropping the clip, and tossing it aside. “You shouldn’t play with guns,” I muttered, throwing my fist into his face, “that’s how accidents happen.”
The other two men watched as their buddy fell to the ground, passed out cold, and I stared at them in surprise when they pulled out swords. “Right,” I muttered, thinking about what Ash had said only minutes before just as Jason jumped forward to tackle the man to my left. I would have loved to focus on how much ass he kicked in that moment, but the last of the three strangers was after me now, and despite his frail appearance this bastard was strong.
He swung his sword at me, but I fell to the ground and rolled out of the way with practiced ease that caught me off guard. Jumping to my feet again once I was standing behind him, I reached for his arm and snapped it back so that his elbow broke and he dropped the sword.
Nearby, Jason had equally subdued his corpsy stranger. “Are you o—” he paused and scratched his head as he looked at me, “Oh. I guess ya are.”
I laughed, high on adrenaline and shock from what I’d just accomplished. “I don’t know what just happened, but that was fun.”
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