Pyromancist Read online

  Pyromancist

  Seven Forbidden Arts #1

  A Novel

  by Charmaine Pauls

  Published by

  Satin Romance

  An Imprint of Melange Books, LLC

  White Bear Lake, MN 55110

  www.satinromance.com

  Pyromancist, Copyright 2015 Charmaine Pauls

  ISBN: 978-1-68046-034-6

  Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher. 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 publisher.

  Published in the United States of America.

  Cover Design by Caroline Andrus

  For Tracy

  Table of Contents

  "Pyromancist"

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twety-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Sneek Peak at “Aeromancist: The Beginning”

  Previews

  PYROMANCIST

  by Charmaine Pauls

  At the same time as mysterious fires commence to rage through Clelia d’Ambois’ home village in Brittany, France, she starts sleepwalking. Daughter of a Japanese orphan, Clelia’s heritage is riddled with dark secrets that threaten anyone she loves. In a recurring nightmare she sees Josselin, the haunted man who abandoned their village nine years earlier, come for her, but she doesn’t know why. All she knows is that she has to run. As fast as she can.

  Leader of a paranormal crime taskforce, Josselin de Arradon is called back to his hometown with a mission—find and kill the firestarter responsible for Larmor—Baden’s blazing destruction. Sensing that Clelia is the key to solving the crime, Josselin kidnaps her to use her as bait. The battle doesn’t turn out quite as he expected. Nothing could have prepared him for the truth, or the depth of his desire for his prisoner.

  Chapter One

  The dream was always the same. A helicopter circled in slow motion over the sea, the dynamic of its movement casting a net of circles over the water while she walked down the jetty like a bug to a windshield. Around her, the forest bordering the island was dark, and beyond it, the village was burning.

  The helicopter dipped, turned–deliberate this time–and descended. Lower still. She could feel the wind from the propeller on her face, fanning the flames. It landed where the jetty expanded onto the quay. The metal body was motionless, but the machine continued to cut through the air. Swoosh.

  Suddenly it all seemed wrong. Upside down. She could see the image of the craft disperse, as if she were seeing it through water. The sea beneath was weightless, atmospheric. Nothing. There was nowhere to fall. The blades made ripples in the liquid air, a pebble thrown into a pond. It was done. The stone had been dropped. The waves had to follow.

  She could smell the ocean now, the fermenting seaweed that broke through the clean scent with every ebb and flow of the breeze. It mixed with the scent of wood turning to charcoal in the fire and the diesel from the boats. The hot carbon dioxide fumes burned her nostrils. Her senses were alive, indicating it was real, even as her mind urged her to pull out of her sleep. Yet, she stood watching like a rabbit rendered helpless by the hypnotizing headlights, its extermination a forlorn conclusion.

  The hatch lifted. A masculine boot was placed firmly on the wooden boards. The tip of a long coat slipped from the seat, revealing the dark shine of the man’s pants. He had to fold his body double to fit his tall frame through the opening. His black hair, streaked with silver, fell loose down his back, the ends whipping up around his face in the wind of the blades. Her breath caught in her throat. It always happened the same way, and even if she had dreamt it repeatedly, his identity always shocked her.

  Josselin de Arradon. He straightened unhurriedly and turned slowly, his gaze targeted on her, like he had known she would be standing there, at the top of the pier, at that moment, on that day. For a few seconds their eyes remained locked. She had frozen, and now he started to move. As he walked along the jetty, his dark coat lifted to his midriff, flying to the beat of an invisible fan. His hair billowed behind him. After the terrible tragedy, the strands framing his face had turned white overnight. His thigh muscles flexed and bunched as his flat boots hit the ground. His features were older now, mature, but his jaw had the determined set from his youth, and his gray eyes had the same haunted look. Josselin de Aragon was coming for her. She didn’t know why, but she knew it meant she had to run. As fast as she could.

  Clelia d’Ambois woke with a start. Beneath her, she felt damp earth. Above her, she could see branches of the giant pine trees holding hands in the light of the moon. A cry escaped her lips as she shot upright. Snow, her wolfdog, sat beside her. He yelped softly. A little way farther off, she could make out the other three wolf hybrids, Rain, Cloud and Thunder, who started howling when she moved again. She couldn’t tell the time, but morning wasn’t far. The faint light of the coming sunrise turned the distant horizon purple.

  The pine needles rustled as the wind suddenly picked up. She shivered. Her cotton pajamas were wet from the dew. She felt Snow’s warm tongue on her arm.

  Clelia took a deep breath and lifted her head. Usually she liked being in the woods before sunrise. It was like seeing a person who had just tumbled out of bed, with his face still unwashed, the night’s dreams still in his eyes. But this new thing frightened her. Her fear spoiled the untainted day’s beauty. Snow nudged her with his nose. She trailed her fingers down the white fur of his back.

  “Oh, Snow. Not again. How long have I been here?”

  Snow trotted to the outer circle where the other dogs stood guard. They immediately obeyed their alpha by falling in line.

  Clelia got up and made her way back to her grandfather’s fishing cottage, her feet light but her heart heavy.

  The cottage stood alone on the French shore of the Gulf of Morbihan, on the Island of Berder, the Breton name that meant The Island of Brothers. It was high tide. The sea had washed up to the stonewall of their terrace. Her grandfather Erwan’s small fishing boat was gone. He would have left at four in the morning with the turn of the tide. Beyond the smooth surface of the ocean, their house rose white against the black grass hill that would turn a luminous green in the light of the day. It was a simple home with a kitchen, bathroom, shower and two bedrooms. Around the back, they had a chicken coop for rabbits, hedgehogs, and turtles, a shed for Erwan’s fishing gear, and wooden houses for the dogs. The stray cats slept wherever they could, usually inside the house, as far away from the wolfdogs as possible.

  At the backdoor, Snow sat down on the rock slab next to the wild rose bush while the other dogs ran off to the beach. Tripod, a three-legged mongrel, lay in the kitchen on a cushion by the cold stove. Clelia filled th
e black kettle with water and lit the gas for Erwan’s tea. She laid the table with baguette, butter, and mulberry jam. When the water boiled, she turned off the gas and poured it over tea leaves in a pot. She first fed all the animals and then went upstairs to her attic room to get dressed. She washed her face and brushed her teeth in her ensuite bathroom cubicle. Her straight, black hair reached her shoulders. She made a braid and tied it with a ribbon.

  She stared at her Asian features in the mirror, the dark slanted eyes that were too big, dominating her heart-shaped face and pale skin, and the curve of her eyebrows that showed just under the curtain of her fringe. She looked nothing like the Larmoriens who inhabited the islands or Larmor-Baden on the mainland. Her physical appearance had always set her apart, reminded the villagers that she didn’t belong. She was an outcast and people her own age were weary of her. They disliked her, teased and degraded her, because of who her mother was. Even if her mother had been dead for twenty-three years, the tradition-fast Brittany people remembered. No, there was no chance of her being accepted through the slow process of forgetting. They were a community who held fast to their roots, who told the same tales their pre-Celtic ancestors, famous for erecting their standing stones, had. To a people who had held onto their culture for more than six thousand years, twenty-three was a drop in the ocean. Only a few of the older people had learned to live with her, had managed to look past who she was.

  From the window in the tilted roof, she saw Erwan’s red boat approaching from the east, from the direction of Île Longue. Quickly, she pulled on denim shorts, a pink T-shirt, and white flip-flops. She went downstairs and through the sea-facing door of the kitchen to watch Erwan remove his rubber boots on the stone steps of their veranda. His boat was already anchored. He had no net, no crates. He rolled up the legs of his blue pinafore and left the pipe that always seesawed in the corner of his mouth in the astray on the garden table.

  “Mat an traoú,” he said by way of greeting.

  Erwan still maintained the Breton tongue and encouraged her to keep the language of the ancient ways, even if everyone else her age in the village spoke French these days.

  “Ya, mat-tre,” she said.

  He patted her with a weathered hand on the shoulder as he entered the house, his shoulders stooped and his wrinkled face yellow from the long days on the salty water.

  Clelia followed and poured the strong tea he liked into his breakfast bowl.

  “You didn’t go fishing, Erwan,” she said.

  “Nah. I didn’t go fishing.” Erwan placed his palms on the table and lowered his body with a flinch into the chair.

  Clelia watched him with fondness from under her lashes. He was getting too old for taking out the boat, even if he wouldn’t hear anything of retiring. She had never called him grandfather. She didn’t know why. It wasn’t because he wasn’t her biological grandfather. She just grew up with his first name always on her lips. She put the bowl in front of him and waited until he cupped the warm brew with both hands, sighing approvingly.

  “Where did you go?” she said, even if she knew the answer.

  He blew vapor over the edge of the bowl. “Larmor.”

  Clelia closed her eyes fleetingly. “There was another fire, wasn’t there?”

  Instead of answering, Erwan slurped his tea.

  “Which one was it this time?”

  He took a while before he answered, and when he spoke, he didn’t meet her eyes. “The mayor’s house.”

  She inhaled sharply. “Was anyone hurt?”

  “It started on the kitchen side of the house. Brendan and Petrounel woke up before the flames got near the bedroom.”

  “And the house?”

  Erwan only shook his head.

  Clelia took a shaky breath. “At what time did it happen?”

  “Four. I saw the glow from across the water when I went out to get the boat.”

  She turned her back on him so that he wouldn’t see the anxiety in her eyes. Standing on tiptoe, she opened the overhead cupboard and removed a mug. It was hard to ask her next question.

  “Did you check on me before you left?” she said softly.

  There was a long silence. When Clelia finally faced Erwan again, she saw compassion in his eyes.

  “Did it happen again, grandchild?”

  “Yes. I woke up in the woods this time.”

  “I see.” He stared intently at his tea.

  She gripped the edge of the table. “What if it’s me, Erwan?”

  He looked up. “You didn’t start that fire. You were fast asleep when I left.”

  “But I could have gone before, taken the dinghy and been back before you noticed the flames.”

  “Clelia, grandchild, it was a long time ago. You haven’t started a fire since you were three.”

  “But who’s to say it’s not starting again?”

  Angst tied her stomach in a knot. In the past month, fifty houses had been burned mysteriously. The village was swamped with police, firemen, and forensic experts who couldn’t determine the cause of the fires. The villagers suspected arson. If they had known about her supernatural ability to involuntarily set objects alight, even if it only happened to her as a small child, they would have had her on the proverbial stake in the blink of an eye, condemned as the witch they accused her mother of.

  “Clelia, it happened twice. You were just a baby.”

  Clelia bit her lip. She knew Erwan wanted to believe it as much as she did. Once, while playing on the beach, she saw a boy kicking a dog. When she told him to stop, he laughed and picked up a stick, starting to chase the helpless animal. She couldn’t exactly remember everything, but Erwan said the stick in the boy’s hand caught fire. He had a fright, threw it down and ran away. The second time was when she was almost trampled by a horse while visiting the stables with Erwan. Then the hay had burst into flames. Erwan told the bystanders that he had dropped his pipe.

  Now, one house after the next was burned to ashes, from the same time her sleepwalking had started. And the dream. Clelia hadn’t told Erwan about her dream. Deep down she knew that the dream, the sleepwalking, and the fires were somehow connected, but she was too petrified to voice the thought for fear that it might be true.

  She became aware of Erwan watching her, and when she met his gaze, he said in a quiet tone, “They say Josselin de Arradon is back in town.”

  Clelia’s body went colder than the icy Atlantic. Although she had never said anything about her feelings for Josselin, Erwan wasn’t blind. He was a wise old man who didn’t need words to see the truth. Clelia reminded herself of this as she carefully pushed her emotions back. She tried to show nothing of her shock. She even managed to keep a straight face when she said, “Really? When did he get back?”

  “Yester night.”

  “That’s a surprise,” she said, not quite succeeding in sounding casual.

  “They say he’s not alone.” His voice held a measure of sympathy and warning, Erwan’s way of preparing her for bad news. “He’s with a woman.”

  She lowered her eyes and started wiping bread crumbs from the table into her hand. “I thought he was in New York.”

  “Ay. That’s where he came from.”

  Swallowing her hurt and disappointment so that she could speak in an unaffected tone, she said, “Why would he come back, after all these years?”

  “Who knows? Maybe he’s finally ready to face his demons, or maybe he brought the woman to make her mistress of his home.”

  “Mistress of his home? You still speak as if he’s royalty.”

  Clelia disapproved of social casts, something Erwan had not completely let go of. Actually, a lot of the villagers still honored their ancestral barons and earls.

  “Our predecessors may have chopped off the head of the king, but the lad’s got a duke’s blood flowing in his veins, and nothing can change that.”

  Clelia dared to glance at her grandfather. “And you think he found a wife and brought her here, to make a home in his ch
ildhood house?”

  Erwan looked at her regretfully, as if it pained him to say, “A woman can heal a man in ways doctors and therapists sometimes can’t. But don’t forget, there is still his castle.”

  Yes, of course. Josselin de Arradon was heir to his grandfather’s castle that stood in near ruins in the forest of Brocéliande. When his mother married his father, a high-ranking officer with a poor income, the family didn’t have the means to sustain the expansive land and the enormous stronghold. Instead, they moved into the big house near the sea. After Josselin’s grandfather’s death, his gambling addiction having financially crippled the heritage, the castle was left to waste away in that enchanted forest. Could it be that Josselin had found the means to restore it back to its former glory? Or did he find the means to heal his heart? Clelia found herself suddenly envious of the woman who had such magic at her disposal.

  “And have you seen him?” she said, busying herself with rinsing the teapot.

  “Nay.”

  After the de Arradon family tragedy, no one ever expected Josselin to return. A shiver ran down Clelia’s spine. Snow cried softly at the door.

  “I’m late for work,” she said, drying her hands. “I’ve fed the animals and there’s Pintade Chouchenn in the oven for lunch.”

  She kissed Erwan on the cheek, threw her flip-flops into her backpack and pulled on a denim jacket and her red rubber boots that stood by the backdoor. Their veranda steps gave access to the beach at low tide when their boats would be stranded, but at high tide the stairs were flooded and they could take Erwan’s fishing boat and the dinghy straight out to sea. Outside, she tossed her bag into the motorized dinghy and untied the rope from the metal peg. She climbed in, started the engine and steered the boat across the Gulf in the direction of the mainland. At low tide, she had to take her bike and pedal across the bridge that connected the Presque Isle to the village, but across the water was quicker, and navigating the dinghy always had a calming effect on her. As she looked back, she saw Snow standing on the steps. She could hear his howl over the roar of the engine.