BLOOD CURSE (sample chapters)

Chapter Two

Three hours later, it wasn't all doom and gloom. Using leftovers, Mac had fashioned dinner—scrambled eggs cooked with sliced onions, sliced wieners and toast topped with cheese spread. Unable to think himself out of the funk, he had tried to work himself out of it. For two hours, he had been somewhat successful, doing edits on website copy for a woman in the Dominican Republic who called herself a Voodoo witch, casting spells designed to improve a person's life in finance, love and relationships, health, well-being and inner peace and tranquility. Mac's main source of income was editing manuscripts from new indie authors sent to him from Marque Publishing. But the agreement he had with Marque also allowed him to hang up his own shingle (or website as it were) in which he offered editing and writing services for a wide range of clients.

The request from Voodoo witch Magdeline Ortega had arrived via e-mail a week ago and at first Mac had been reluctant to take the assignment. Like Hollywood movies had portrayed it, he had always viewed Voodoo in a negative light, associated with witches pushing pins into dolls and causing all manner of horrors to spell victims. But Magdeline, or Maggie as she preferred to be called, who resided in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, assured Mac over the phone that her Voodoo spells were only for the betterment of her customers and to help them realize their true aspirations in life. She was, she insisted, "a real spell caster and a fourth generation Voodoo witch whose roots began in Haiti." After a ten-minute conversation—man, did she have a smooth and sexy voice—Mac agreed to help her. He had even agreed to her request for a ten per cent discount after she had offered Mac a free Voodoo spell, one that would "solve all your problems, help you with your love interest, and show you the path to happiness, inner peace and tranquility."

Finishing the last of the night's edits at 8:36 pm, he saved the document, closed it and wiped his tired eyes. He doubted he would take Maggie up on the free spell offer but after today's let-down with Ophelia, he hadn't completely ruled it out. He was at his wit's end trying to figure out how to land a date with her. Maybe he needed a powerful Voodoo spell to give him that added edge. His own resources were letting him down and the isolation of country living and the lack of people-contact was starting to give him cabin fever.

As the Doors played, Mac stared out his bay window into blackness, listening to the lyrics, punctuated by one-hundred-kilometer-per-hour wind gusts battering the northern front exposure of his house. Trees swayed, whistled and whipped.

You know the day destroys the night
Night divides the day
Tried to run
Tried to hide
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side, yeah

Remembering he had left some plastic lawn chairs and a table exposed in the back yard, he got up, sure that the furniture would be plastered against the surrounding tree-line, probably splintered into a million pieces by the ferocious winds.

Then his cell phone rang. At first he was going to ignore the call—he wasn't exactly in the headspace for conversation—but then he realized it was his long-time friend Dianna Wilson, a deeply spiritual woman who often propped him up when he was feeling down. Living in Vancouver, she was the type of friend who would drop everything in a heartbeat, jump on a plane, and rush to his aid if he needed her help. A person was lucky if they could count friends like that on one hand. Mac could count them on two.

He answered. After the perfunctory social niceties, she got to the point. Mac knew it wouldn't take long. Dianna wasn't big on mincing words.

"How are you adjusting to Island life?"