Authors: T. Lynne Tolles
Tags: #paranormal romance, #young adult, #angel, #witches, #dragon, #new adult, #hellhounds
Autumn Calling
A Hellhound Tail
About AUTUMN
CALLING
Summer Raine thought her life was tough
growing up as an orphan, but with finding her relatives, it’s
become clear, having a family is not all it’s cracked up to
be.
Her paternal side is out to kill her and
her maternal side is, well, odd to say the least, with a great aunt
who wavers on the cusp of dementia and a great uncle who is a
grumpy talking cat, both of which are feverishly shoving a crash
course of witchcraft down her throat to help survive the
apocalyptic war of magic that will probably be their demise.
Add a defiant adolescent hellhound to the
caldron, Tori in the hospital from an almost fatal dog mobile crash
and Summer losing her heart, she isn’t exactly having the best
time.
How will she ever learn enough of the craft
to save herself, her friends, and the crazy family she’s finally
found? And what if her newly found wicked witch of a twin sister
doesn’t seem all that…villainous?
Discover how Summer keeps her sanity during
these troubling times with the help of some old and new friends, as
well as her slobbering, sometimes mutinous, hellhound, and a new
love at her side.
Calling
SMASHWORDS EDITION
Troll Publishing
Copyright 2014 T. Lynne Tolles
August 14, 2015
Version 2.0.1 May 6, 2016
ISBN 978-0-9905589-1-0
All Rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage
and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews,
is illegal and punishable by law.
Publisher’s Note:
This is a work of fiction. All names,
characters, places, and events are the work of the author’s
imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons,
living or dead, locales or events is coincidental.
T. Lynne Tolles
Cover Artist: Jennifer Meyer
Digital Formatting: Author E.M.S.
Contents
Other books by T. Lynne Tolles
Tori and Summer stood shoulder to shoulder
in the graveyard, facing Summer’s Uncle Morti, who had been
punished for magical misuse by being turned into a very rotund
tuxedo cat.
Morti stood on a tall mossy gravestone, his
golden-green eyes glowing as he instructed his untrained niece and
her best friend who hadn’t an ounce of magical blood within
her.
Tori, try as she might, had very little
success in her magic lessons. Summer was progressing, but needed to
step up tenfold if she was going to take on the entire Macabre
family determined to see the end of Summer’s family tree.
Morti and Myrtle were brother and sister.
Myrtle had once been a very powerful witch, but it’s thought that
the Macabre family had a hand in her lapses of memory and
comprehension over the past thirty or more years. Myrtle tutored
the girls in magic, but mostly the herbal and potion side of it.
Morti was in charge of elemental magic and casting. Having been
raised in an orphanage all her life with Tori, Summer was terribly
behind in the knowledge, history, and practical aspects of her
family gifts.
Hunter, who Summer met when she moved onto
the Midnight estate last year, was an ancient dragon, the last of
his kind actually, who’d been promised a dragon egg by the Macabres
if he kidnapped Morti so they could strip him of his magical
powers. Due to his long life, Hunter was in charge of teaching
Summer the history of magic, including about the war between the
Midnights and Macabres.
Summer had all the tools she needed to get
up to speed—everything but time. The Macabres now knew of her
existence and they would surely attack sooner than later—before she
had time to learn to use magic to defend herself and her family
against them and the twin sister she’d learned she had.
“Concentrate,” the grumpy cat shouted.
The two girls stood with their hands in
front of them, palms just inches away from each other. Tori’s hands
were empty, but Summer’s crackled with pulses of electricity. A
golden orb swelled between her hands, but it was unstable, and
though she concentrated she couldn’t get it to form as it should to
be utilized in combat.
It was then that the fidgety hellhound pup,
over two hundred pounds, which lay between the two girls, decided
the cantankerous cat’s twitching tale was too much to resist and he
pounced. In doing so he bumped Summer’s leg, throwing her off
kilter. When she used her arms to reestablish her balance, her orb
was thrown towards the cat. Sully’s leap shoved the cat out of
mortal danger, but not away from having his tail set aflame. One
slobbery lick from the amorous Sully and Morti’s tail was
extinguished. A hairless smoking tip of a tail replaced the once
large, fluffy, white one previously there.
In the commotion, Tori zapped herself with
her own tiny electrical spark and she sucked her finger as she
tried not to laugh with Summer at the scene before them. Sully
continued to lick the cat, slicking all the black and white fur on
his head back into strange, spikey clumps.
Morti was mumbling maniacally in Latin at
yet another failed attempt at arguing, and as Sully carried him off
in his slobbery mouth Morti dismissed the current lesson.
* * *
Tori and Summer made their way back to
Summer’s cottage on the back right corner of the Midnight estate,
nestled by the graveyard. Sully romped by, still gripping a loudly
protesting, singed feline.
“So, I’ve got some news…” Tori excitedly
announced.
“Ooh…do tell,” Summer said.
“Nick feels we’re ready for the next step in
our relationship.”
“Does he? And what’s this next step?”
“Moving in together.”
“Oh,” Summer said, a little shocked.
“You disapprove?”
“Uh. No. It’s just not every day your bestie
gets an apartment with a vampire.”
“You’re not still hung up on that are you? I
mean, come on…you’re dating a vampire too.”
“Technically it’s hard to date a vampire
when he’s in another country.”
“You are a stickler for details,” Tori
joked. “But seriously, that’s just temporary. You knew he’d be gone
for a while when he took off with Hunter to Japan.”
“I know. It’s just, our relationship was
just starting, and I don’t know. I’ve only heard from him a handful
of times in the last two months.”
“Hunting down a lead on probably the last
living female dragon takes a lot of work.”
“Of course, you’re right. And it is far more
important to possibly extend the existence a species than worry
about my problems. It’s just, well, I’m a little lonely.”
“ How could you possibly be lonely with ME
around most of the day? Even though Dr. Stuart took a long-time
coming vacation and closed the vet office so you could get up to
speed with your cool new magic.”
“I have enjoyed having you all to myself
during the days, but then you go home to your vampire and I’m alone
with my gigantic hellhound puppy.”
“Well when you put it like that, I can see
your dilemma,” Tori joked. They laughed for a moment as they sat on
the little porch of the cottage watching the crazy hellhound and
cat.
“You are cool with Nick and me moving in
together, aren’t you?” Tori said seriously.
“Of course I am. You and he are good for one
another. I’m just feeling a little jealous your relationship is
moving on and mine’s kind of petering out.”
“You don’t think that, do you? Jackson
adores you. I’m sure Hunter and he are busy pursuing some
clue.”
“Maybe. I just…we never really got
established as a couple before he left and now, well, it feels like
it’s just not there anymore,” Summer explained.
Nick appeared around the bend with a stern
look on his face, staring at the girls.
“Nick, honey. You’re here.”
“Yup,” he said, kissing Tori, but never
really taking his eyes off of Summer. Summer was sure with his
vampire hearing, he’d heard their conversation. Nick was very
protective when it came to his best bud Jackson, and if he got wind
that she was thinking of calling off the relationship, Jackson
would be hearing about it, pronto!
“Nick,” Tori said with a tone of reprimand.
“I don’t know how much of our conversation you heard, but we were
just chit chatting. Girl stuff, you know. Don’t get your vampire
cape in a bunch. Besides, even you can understand how distance can
be hard on a new relationship. Summer’s not wrong in feeling the
way she does. I’d probably feel the same way, so just stop with the
stink-eye look.”
He grumbled something under his breath,
forced a painful looking smile on his face, and then nibbled her
neck, making Tori giggle.
As they started back towards the car, Tori
said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”
“I’ll be here with bells on,” Summer said,
waving.
Tori waved and Summer could hear her telling
Nick about how tomorrow they would learn about gypsy magic from Ms.
Midnight, hence the bells. Summer loved having Tori to learn with.
It was so nice to have someone else to talk to about what she was
learning, the mistakes she made or how grumpy old Morti was
being.
If it weren’t for her enthusiastic
excitement and involvement, Summer might not be in a great place.
It was a lot of pressure knowing you had to get up to speed
magic-wise as fast as possible to save yourself, your family, and
friends from a wickedly evil family. A family, she knew, whose
blood flowed within her. It was all so much to wrap her head
around.
All her life she’d been in the orphanage
thinking she had no family whatsoever, to find out later that the
only way to protect her from her father’s evil family was for her
grandmother Ivy to steal her away in the night and hide her away in
the Holy Cross Orphanage.
Ms. Myrtle Midnight, Aunt Myrtle to Summer,
was her grandmother Ivy’s sister. She had explained how this all
came to be a few months back when Hunter had posed as a demon and
stole away the RAT, namely Morti, who is the Reliquary of All
Thaumaturgy.
Since then Aunt Myrtle, Morti, and Hunter
have been cramming knowledge and information into her, preparing
her for a magical war she’s expected to be a key player in. At the
time she’d talked to Aunt Myrtle, it had been too much. But now
that the information’s had time to sink in, maybe she’d talk to
Aunt Myrtle before Tori came for lessons about this twin sister
that she’d have to fight in the near future.
* * *
The following morning Summer got up early
and sat on the couch having a bowl of Cheerios while checking her
email on her computer. Sully had just finished his hellhound kibble
and found it was time to take up a spot on the floor near Summer to
lick doggy junk. Summer scrunched her face as she watched Sully.
This seemed to be very detailed work and quite time consuming.
After what seemed like ten minutes he came
up for air panting as if he’d held his breath the entire time.
After a moment he started on his leg, licking and nibbling with
great intricacy. “You have quite a ritual there, boy,” she said,
shaking her head. Sully ignored her and continued about his
business of whatever it was he was doing, whether itching or
grooming. He had no time for her nonsense.