Strange Magic
The Magic Series #1
By Michelle Mankin
Release Date: April 25, 2016
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Billy Blade is a hardworking, hard living, razor sharp musical force. Mysterious behind his dark shades, the rough around the edges Texan mesmerizes with his haunting harmonica and tantalizes with his dangerous looks and smooth country charm. His latest album is topping the charts. He’s the newly crowned King of the Bacchus Krewe. He’s definitely living the rock star dream.
Exotic Creole beauty Thyme Bellerose couldn't be more content. She has it all. An adoring grandmother. A handsome Tulane medical student beau. A satisfying job in the heart of New Orleans’ French Quarter. Her life is as rich as the ice cream she creates. She’s got everything under control.
But control is an illusion. Dreams can turn into nightmares. And now during Mardi Gras, otherworldly powers stand ready to shape their destinies in ways they could never imagine.
PROLOGUE
Billy
“Dammit, de’pouille.”
I quickly grabbed a
pillow and covered my lap while Arla Gautreaux rolled his eyes to the ceiling
as if searching for the patience he required within the recessed lighting of
the tour bus.
Access to my dick
denied to her, the brunette kneeling on the floor between my spread legs rocked
back on her spiked heels. She wasn’t wearing anything else. Neither was the
other brunette on the bed next to me, but she wasn’t as bold as her companion
and pulled the rumpled silk sheet in front of her too big to be real breasts.
The entire scene too familiar to be shocking to him anymore, my manager
continued to voice his displeasure peppering the air with Cajun curses strong
enough to make my eyes water.
“Next time maybe
try knocking,” I mouthed lamely. It wasn’t much of a defense. He had it right
when he called me a hot mess. I was a pedal to the floor, picking up major
momentum, barreling headlong down a predictable path to its natural dead end
disaster.
“I’ll start asking
your permission to enter,” Arla tapped his watch and jerked his chin over his
shoulder to emphasize his point, “when you start taking your commitments
seriously, no? You forget you have a show tonight, Billy?”
I shook my head. Of
course, I hadn’t. “Excuse me, darlin’.” I tossed the pillow aside and moved
Brunette One out of the way so I could yank up the Rock 47 jeans from around my
ankles. She and her eager friend might have told me their names at sound check
before they offered me their services as a two for one deal, but I’d be damned
if I could remember either one. In fact, I was already regretting taking them
up on it.
“I gotta go.
Playtime’s over,” I announced gruffly despising the weakness that made me screw
up everything in my life.
Untamable strands
of dark blond slid forward effectively shielding my eyes from my manager’s
condemnation as I carefully tucked my dick back inside, buttoned my fly and
re-buckled my Nocona belt.
“If you wanna keep
your fans and tour sponsors you need to stop pulling stunts like this, podna.”
Arla dished out the well-deserved verbal lashing ignoring the brunettes as they
sifted through drifts of empty liquor bottles and six months of accumulated
tour clutter for their discarded clothing.
“You’re right,
Arla. I screwed up. I know.” I swiveled at the waist snagging my favorite
wadded up black Fender t-shirt from where it lay on the bed behind me. Bunching
the soft cotton between my fingers, I punched my head through the frayed
collar. Before I could get my arms into the sleeves, one of the white gold
bands from the silver chain I wore around my neck got caught on a loose thread.
Guilt burned inside my gut as I paused to untangle it.
“I hope so, Blade.”
Arla slammed me with a censuring gaze the moment I looked up, his dark scowl
eradicating the trio of laugh lines that usually framed his muddy brown eyes.
“I surely do hope so, but lately it doan seem like anything I say gets through
to you.” Arla’s lazy way of drawing out his words and stressing the last syllable
came from time spent deep down in the Louisiana swamp and was even more
noticeable than my south Texas twang.
Arla’s
disappointment stung. I didn’t really care what most people thought about me,
but he was a loyal friend, one of the few who had stuck by me when everyone
else had written me off as a
lost cause. For
nearly a year I had taken a sabbatical from everything, holing up in the old
tool shed behind my parents’ house, drowning my sorrow in alcohol. The only
breaks in the monotony were the regular visits from the one man who had refused
to give up on me. If not for his stubborn persistence, I’d probably still be
languishing within the ramshackle confines of my self-imposed exile.
Walkie talkie
sputter crackling in his hand, Arla made a rolling gesture with the other. I
knew the drill. Best get moving. Arla wasn’t some label lackey that I could
brush off or push around. We’d been together too many years for that, since the
very beginning of my career when I had been seventeen and winning the Professional
Bull Riding world championship had been my goal. Singing had just been more of
an afterthought, something I did to impress the chicks. Pathetic now that I
thought about it, how my pickup technique hadn’t changed in all this time.
Anyway, Arla had convinced
me to hang up the spurs, placed a guitar in my hands and insisted I learn to
play. He had showed me the basics of songwriting, and not long after I got the
knack of it he had negotiated my first record deal. The latest one with Black
Cat Records was his doing as well.
“Blade, take us
backstage with you,” Brunette One whined blocking my exit, a pile of clothes in
her arms, but still as naked as the day she’d been born. Brunette Two in her
bra and jeans hovered beside her friend chewing disinterestedly on a raggedy
red thumbnail.
“No can do,
darlin’.” I stepped around her snagging sunglasses from the shelf and lifting
my black Stetson off its stand. I raked back the thick layers of my hair to get
them out of my eyes before shoving the hat down on my head. “We leave for
Houston directly after the show tonight.” I slid on the dark aviator shades I
always wore on stage, dismissing her, but more importantly shielding my glacier
blue eyes from Arla’s scrutiny.
He barked an order
to event security on his handheld before addressing my companions. “Ladies,
you’ve got two minutes to get dressed and get off the bus. I’m sending someone
back here in case you need some encouragement.” He turned and made his way down
the center aisle past the sleeping bunks to the front lounge without pausing to
look over his shoulder to see if I followed. He didn’t need to. I might be on
the slow road to ruin but I didn’t have a death wish.
My three man
security detail and my personal assistant, Lorraine, fell into place around us
as soon as we stepped onto the pavement. As a unit we set off across the gated
lot where all the buses were parked. The steady roar of the outdoor crowd grew
louder as we approached the scaffolding of the stage but I knew it would be
even crazier once I stepped out in front of them.
A warm wind with
just a hint of brine from the bay rolled a discarded Outside Lands festival cup
across my path. I stepped over it just beginning to run through the set list in
my mind when Arla spoke again.
“Just got the call
from the Bacchus Krewe Captain.” Hearing the edge of excitement in his voice I
knew it had to be good news. “They chose you,podna.”
“Seriously?” That
was cool but it wasn’t something that came totally out of left field. Arla had
buddies who were on the committee. Each year the thousand or so members of the
Bacchus Krewe chose a top tier celebrity to be their king and fashioned their theme
around him. Because of Arla’s connections I knew that my name was on their
short list, but then so were a lot of other notables.
“Yeah, Blade.
When’s it goan sink in that thick skull of yours how big of a deal you done
become? Country entertainer of the year. Grammy for song of the year and best
rock album. Cover of Rolling Stone. Top of the list for rock and country sales
for over half the year. Why wouldn’t Bacchus want you?”
I shrugged. I
didn’t put a lot of stock in awards and shit. It was nice to receive those
honors, don’t get me wrong. It was just that I tried not to focus on stuff that
was outside my control. It was hard enough to manage the things that I could.
But I knew this one was a big deal to my native New Orleans boss.
“Don’t make any plans
in February. It’s not just the parade you’ll be officiating. You’ll also be
performing at their masked Rendezvous Supper Dance in the Morial Convention
Center. Your ceremonial duties aren’t quite as complicated as those in the
older more traditional Mardi Gras Krewes, but we’ll still have a ton of stuff
to go over as the event gets closer.” He shot me a serious look and held out
his hand. “Here.” I took the coin he offered me. “That’s just a prototype. When
you’re in the parade you’ll wave your scepter and the other riders on your
float will toss those wherever you point.”
I studied the
silver dollar sized doubloon.
I knew the ones
from Bacchus were some of the most collected and valuable of all the carnival
throws. They sold for thousands of dollars after Mardi Gras on auction sites.
Mine was black and had a silver imprint of me in my cowboy hat and sunglasses
on the front. That same side also had the year twenty fifteen and the parade
number. The flip side was engraved with an image of my harmonica, the date
again and the theme ‘Celebrating Mouth Harp Charmers’.
A blast of icy wind
that came out of nowhere suddenly lifted the hair underneath my hat and raised
chill bumps on my arms.
I glanced around to
see how everyone else was reacting but oddly no one else in my entourage seemed
to have been affected. “Arla,” I began. “Did you feel that…”I trailed off as
the ground started to roll like a boat on a choppy lake beneath my feet. I
swayed and my vision tunneled. I heard three long protracted harmonica notes. A
beautiful woman’s face materialized within a smoky haze that I knew had nothing
to do with the famous San Francisco fog.
Though I’d never
seen her before she seemed strangely familiar. Haunted violet eyes locked with
mine as if it were a two way exchange, as if she could really see me. Not just
the man I was now, but also the man I had been, the one who used to give a
damn, the one who had been buried under the rubble of his demolished heart.
“Help me,” the
violet eyed beauty intoned faintly with an accent I couldn’t place. “Please.”
“Hey, Billy.” Arla
put his hand on my arm. I jumped. “You ok?”
The spell was
broken.
“Where the hell is
he?” The voice on the other end of Arla’s walkie talkie exploded with high
volume disembodied displeasure.
The sounds and
sensations of the here and now effectively swept away the lingering traces of
whatever the hell had just happened. Just one more freaky occurrence I’d have
to chalk up to alcohol and my overactive imagination.
No more mixing
tequila and whiskey, I vowed.
“Relax. We’ve got
him. We’re coming down the corridor now. He’ll be there in five,” Arla
responded calmly, his wrinkle free western shirt and pressed Wrangler jeans
outward reflections of his inner chillaxed attitude. Though he had an intricate
tattoo spanning the entire length of his spine that told me there was a little
unexpected rebel beneath the polish. I could always count on him to keep his
head despite the chaos that I or anyone else threw at him. Irate record execs,
clingy groupies, condescending rehab administrators who didn’t appreciate me
checking in wearing only boxers and boots; no one kicked my boss from the bayou
out of his steady groove.
“You’re thirty
minutes late this time.” Arla shook his head, the ends of his dark brown hair
brushing his collar. “You’re lucky Blackberry Smoke extended their set to cover
for you.” He gave me another censuring glance that might’ve had me quaking in
my boots a couple of years ago, but not anymore. Not these days. Not the soon
to be crowned Bacchus monarch, the prince of the rock and country airways Billy
Blade. The no longer down and out, scraping out a meager living playing nothing
but cash songs at BYOB honkytonks out in the boondocks. These days I was the
comeback sensation everyone was talking about, a headliner selling out maximum
capacity stadium sized venues. A mega huge superstar.
Fucking fickle
fame.
It was all due to
the success of my latest album Never Too Dead to Dance. The title sucked wind,
in more ways than one I could assure you, but I was proud of the songs I’d
written for it after crawling away from the wreckage of my life post rehab. I’d
channeled all the bad stuff, all the broken dreams, the heartache and the anger
into my music. The only time I really felt like my old self anymore was when I
was up on stage playing those tunes. If I wanted to continue having the
privilege of doing so I would do well to pay attention to the boss. People were
counting on me. Loads of them. The crew. And my fans. It was time I stopped
being such a self-hating, self-absorbed bastard.
Arla took off to
negotiate the next big deal on my behalf while I jogged up the steps to the
stage. Rodney, my guitar tech, handed me my custom black and silver Gibson
hollow body. I threw the strap over my shoulder and clipped it into place, not
missing a step as I strode out onto the brightly lit stage, an earsplitting
boom from the Golden Gate Park capacity crowd nearly blowing the hat off my
head. I still hadn’t gotten used to it, even though it had been like this at
nearly every stop for over a year now. As low as I’d been, I’d never take it
for granted.
I tipped my hat to
the audience out on the grassy lawn to show them my respect and the sea of
fifty thousand Outside Lands festival fans cheered even louder. Cell phone
cameras flashed from the bikini clad chicks on their boyfriend’s shoulders
upfront and the tented VIP booths on the far sidelines where the rich cats paid
thirty-six hundred dollars a ticket.
It was wall to wall
people in every direction, a massive swarm of living breathing humanity.
Well, not all of
them were living and breathing. There were others out there, too. Ones only I
seemed to be able to see. Ones I refused to dwell on. They were nowhere in
sight at the moment, but I knew from experience that they wouldn't remain
hidden for long...
not if I blew into my
harmonica.
The New York Times bestselling author of the Black Cat Records series of novels.
Romance with subtext.
Reimagining classic stories with sexy rock stars and thought provoking issues.
Love Evolution, Love Revolution, and Love Resolution are a BRUTAL STRENGTH centered trilogy, combining the plot underpinnings of Shakespeare with the drama, excitement, and indisputable sexiness of the rock 'n roll industry.
Things take a bit of an edgier, once upon a time turn with the TEMPEST series. These pierced, tatted, and troubled Seattle rockers are young and on the cusp of making it big, but with serious obstacles to overcome that may prevent them from ever getting there.
Rock stars, myths, and legends collide with paranormal romance in a totally mesmerizing way in the MAGIC series.
When Michelle is not prowling the streets of her Texas town listening to her rock music much too loud, she is putting her daydreams down on paper or traveling the world with her family and friends, sometimes for real, and sometimes just for pretend as she takes the children to school and back.
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