Lethal Red Riding Hood (Dark Goddess Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Advance Reader Copy

  CHAPTER ONE Wild Thing

  CHAPTER TWO Loose Ends

  CHAPTER THREE Enter Elissa

  CHAPTER FOUR She Doesn't Kick Puppies

  CHAPTER FIVE En Memorium

  CHAPTER SIX Page Thirteen

  CHAPTER SEVEN Inquiring Minds

  CHAPTER EIGHT Moving Mountains

  CHAPTER NINE Ghost Story

  CHAPTER TEN Without a Trace

  CHAPTER ELEVEN Hardened Clay

  CHAPTER TWELVE The Call to Serve

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN In Seriena's Eyes

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN Sabina's Breakdown

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN Cat and Mouse

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN Crossing Paths

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN The Dead Pool

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Living a Nightmare

  CHAPTER NINETEEN Bilge Glyphs

  CHAPTER TWENTY A Tragedy of Errors

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Burning Rage

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO So Not Good

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Wake Up

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Into the Woods

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE Cold, Hard Math

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX Witch Hunt

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN True Love's Kiss

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT Death Row

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE Bone Pit

  CHAPTER THIRTY Once Upon a Time

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE She Didn't Say No

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO Bread Crumb

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE Ghost Story Too

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR Get Out

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE Whiplash

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX Down to Goblin Town

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN Oobly Yech

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT Dealing with the Devil

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE You Broke Her

  CHAPTER FORTY That Whole Bread Thing

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE Taking a Stand

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO The Best-Laid Plans

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE The Last Waltz

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR After the Ball

  About the Authors

  LETHAL RED RIDING HOOD

  Leonard and Ann Marie Wilson

  Copyright © 2020 Leonard and Ann Marie Wilson

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-7355525-1-4

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020917562

  DEDICATION

  In memory of Gary Alan Wilson: brother, friend, game master, and the man who introduced us.

  There are many people without whom this book would never have been written, but of all of them—and in defiance of the years since his passing—his was the biggest single influence on the shape it took.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Cover Design by Peter O’Connor

  https://bespokebookcovers.com

  Copy Editing by Elise Williams Rikard

  https://www.elisewilliamsrikard.com

  Editorial Assistance provided by

  Fellowship of Conway Literati

  ADVANCE READER COPY

  Not for sale.

  Distributed for review purposes only.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Wild Thing

  “Wait! Don’t go!” Tobias shoved his way through the crowd of revelers, struggling to keep sight of the young woman. Even if his words had reached her above the chatter and the lively airs of the musicians, though, they’d still have been drowned out by the deep, reverberating tones of the grand clock striking the hour. Tobias alternately cursed and apologized as he bumped into and dodged lords and ladies dressed in finery that would have turned every head on an ordinary occasion—but right here, right now, seemed eclipsed to Tobias by that remarkable blond girl in the dazzling ruby gown.

  She’d riveted his attention from the moment she swept into the ballroom, and her every word and gesture had left him feeling they’d hit it off grandly. Then, bang, the clock struck twelve, and she was off with nothing more than an, “Oh, my! Look at the time!” and a hastily blown farewell kiss.

  Tobias hit the doors running, bursting out from the ballroom and onto a landing that overlooked the great foyer of the mansion. He heard her before he saw her, her crystalline slippers clattering against the steps of the spiraling staircase that swept down to the main floor. In her wake, she’d already left an impromptu dam of servants who’d been on their way up from the kitchens with silver trays of roasted lamb and pheasant, now all tumbled together in a horrible mess by the abruptness of her passage.

  “I don’t even know your name!” he shouted. The girl finally turned just long enough to blow him another kiss and favor Tobias with one last merry smile before disappearing out the door.

  He contemplated for a moment the dizzying distance to the hard marble floor below, and evoked more than a few gasps of astonishment from the onlookers as he went for it. Vaulting straight over the balcony railing, the athletic young nobleman aimed for the nearest of the room’s high, arched windows, letting out a whoop of triumph as he caught the top of the drapes and began sliding quickly down. Then the rod holding them in place gave way on one end, and instead of sliding Tobias found himself swinging.

  With a smash and a crash, he hit the windowpane. Shards flew everywhere, and visions of a life about to be abruptly cut short flashed before his eyes as he lost his grip and found himself flying out into the courtyard over very thin air.

  Looking up at the stars glittering overhead as his momentum had its all-too-brief, stomach-churning fight with gravity, Tobias had time to think perhaps that this was a time ready-made to wish on one of them. What he didn’t have time for was to actually act on the thought before he landed flat on his back in the mansion’s decorative fishpond.

  By the time they’d dragged him out and he’d recovered, of course, the girl was long gone. Tobias withdrew to his study to lick his wounds, change into some dry clothes, and escape the sudden murmurs of gossip buzzing about that the master of the house had gone completely mad.

  As he stood before the fire, pulling on a fresh shirt and cursing himself for a fool, a knock came at his door.

  “Your Highness,” the man stammered after being bid enter. “I’m afraid she, er…got away…”

  “Yes. Thank you,” Tobias muttered testily. “You can go.”

  “But we may yet be able to find her, Your Highness. She seems to have lost a rather distinctive article on the front steps. Perhaps…”

  “Yes!” Tobias perked up at once. “What? Where is it?”

  The visitor beckoned to a footman waiting outside. “Here, Your Highness,” he said, trying gamely to maintain an impassive expression as the footman held aloft the girl’s ruby-red gown.

  The rhythmic click of crystal on cobblestone echoed through the clean, quiet streets of Serylia, outside the mansion. Quite unfazed by her newly acquired lack of gown, Keely strode confidently through the flickering lamplight in nothing but those slippers, a short saucy white chemise, an eclectic collection of jewelry hanging from her throat and arms, and a self-satisfied grin. She’d yet to meet a soul on the streets at this hour, though the night wind did carry the clatter of a distant wagon drawing slowly nearer, and she angled off in the direction of the sound until she finally spied the cart crossing an intersection ahead of her.

  The farmer driving it never spared a glance in Keely's direction. He drove on, staring straight ahead with his mind on his business without a clue as to what he'd missed. Even when Keely ran to catch the cart, the clatter of the cart'
s wheels drowned out the clatter of her slippers against the cobbles, and she was able to hop onto the back, undetected.

  As the cart rattled on through the sleeping city, an old beggar resting in the shelter of an arch just around the corner stirred in time to see Keely perched there amid the farmer’s load of pumpkins with her feet dangling off the back. Keely just grinned and winked at the man, holding a finger to her lips in a conspiratorial request for his silence, then slipped an expensive-looking bracelet off her wrist and tossed it neatly into the tin cup sitting beside him.

  The beggar grinned back gratefully and returned the parting wave Keely gave him before shadow swallowed up the curious scene.

  Keely felt the cart jerk to a stop and realized that she’d dozed off, but the smell of the river and the wisps of fog drifting through the night quickly reassured her that they’d come down into the market district. With that and the distinctive silhouette of the Swan Gate bridge against the moonlit sky, she had her bearings again even before she hopped to the ground. Landing on soft earth instead of hard cobbles, she walked away silently amidst the carts, tents, stalls, and snores of farmers who had arrived at a more reasonable hour.

  Though scores of people surrounded her, none stirred to notice the barely clad woman in their midst, and Keely soon left them behind on her trek toward the bridge.

  She’d gone halfway there before running into another waking soul—or, rather, before another waking soul ran into her. At first, she thought she was about to be assaulted as he burst from a dark alley in a headlong rush, and she raised a hand instinctively to claw at him. By the time she’d gotten her hand up, though, he’d already barreled into her, and they both went sprawling on the street. Then he scrabbled away, neither attacking nor apologizing nor paying her any mind at all.

  The man couldn’t even be bothered to spare a glance for her wardrobe, or lack thereof. He just grabbed for his small armload of books that had scattered on the ground when they collided, and as quick as that, he was off running again.

  Keely dusted herself off, making a small face at how her nice chemise had been muddied, then quickly stepped off into the shadows of the doorway she’d just passed. Where a man was running like that, something was chasing him. The best she could hope was that it would be the city watch in pursuit of a burglar and even they would surely find excuses to detain her and wind up asking awkward questions, given the state they’d find her in.

  She was pondering her options for if it turned out to be a pack of feral dogs when the pursuit arrived. Five riders came thundering out of the night so rapidly that she’d barely heard the horses’ hooves striking the unpaved earth of the alley before the lead rider appeared, a shadow among shadows as the woman’s midnight-black cloak whipped about her. The man riding a heartbeat behind also wore black, but alongside a brilliant crimson that left no chance of his being taken for a shadow.

  The moment Keely saw that flash of red, she began wishing she was dealing with those feral dogs instead. Time slowed. Her heart sped up. She found herself fumbling to draw a non-existent cloak protectively around her as she shrank further back into her shadowy corner.

  Now free of the confined space of the alley, the second rider spurred his charger forward, overtaking the woman’s smaller horse by the time the last set of hooves behind them hit the cobbles of the street. A cudgel flashed out as he rode past the man with the books, connecting with a sickening crack. The echoing crack of the man’s skull hitting the cobblestones sounded an instant later, no less sickening.

  Blood glistened off the cudgel that had struck the man down. Its wielder wheeled his charger back toward the limp form on the ground and the books scattered about it. Keely held perfectly still, not daring so much as to breathe lest the movement draw eyes to the lamplight shimmering off the white of her chemise or glittering off the jewels she still wore.

  Only when the riders had gathered up the man and his books and ridden off into the night did she finally gasp for air and collapse to the ground in the corner where she’d hid, tears rolling down her cheeks, silent but unrestrained.

  With a start, Keely realized she’d been sitting there long enough for the chill of the ground to sink into her bones, though she had no memory of any time passing. “Page thirteen, girl,” she muttered to herself. “Page thirteen.” Angrily, she dried her tears with the heel of her hand, knowing as it came away with dramatic smears of the make-up she’d painted on for the ball, that her face must now resemble an artist’s well used palette.

  She got up and—moving a little unsteadily at first—followed the faint chattering of a fountain to its source. Perched on the fountain edge, in the shadow of a bronze likeness of the Child, Keely pulled off her blond wig and laid it aside. As she sat unwinding the long, silver braids she’d had tucked beneath, she gazed upward at the little girl who stood frozen in the act of reaching up for a large butterfly alighting on her finger while water cascaded around them.

  “Fluff and faerie stories,” Keely told the bronze girl earnestly. “That’s what you are, you know. No disrespect, of course—we’ve got a lot in common—but while you’re telling everybody you’re all cuddles and comfort, the rest of you is out there sheltering this stuff behind her name. Behind your name? Whatever. It’s not right.”

  Keely had given up believing in Seriena on the horrible night that had led to the creation of page thirteen, but that didn’t stop her from confiding in Seriena’s child aspect. It wasn’t like that night had left her anyone else to confide in. Besides, who better to share your secrets with than a girl who didn’t exist? The risk of them getting blabbed about seemed pretty close to zero.

  Yet for all that, a little part of Keely felt sure she had just invited terrible retribution for daring to say a word against Seriena’s second aspect as the protective mother goddess. Or was that the over-protective mother goddess?

  Actually, Keely had come to think of the other aspect of Seriena less as the child’s protective mother-self than as the child’s petulant, tantrum-prone evil twin. Even an imaginary evil twin could do a lot of damage with an untouchable private army at her beck and call.

  Keely splashed water on her face until she could no longer rub the colors off of it onto her hands, then she finished letting her hair down and began the calming ritual of combing it out with the little tortoiseshell comb she’d used to pin her long braids in place under the wig.

  Keely was objectively aware that her face and figure were passable enough that she could bluff any man into thinking they were something special just by throwing around the right posture, props, and attitude. Despite the frequent necessity of concealing her hair, though, she didn’t just accept it as adequate; she genuinely liked it.

  The first step in getting anyone to give you anything in life—food, shelter, a smile, a kind word, money, flowers, jewels…anything—was getting them to notice you exist. Her hair got her noticed. One overly poetic young man had even gone so far as to describe it as “silky curls of liquid silver”. That had been just before he’d become an overly ardent young man and she’d broken his lute over his head, but he’d hardly been unique in where he’d chosen to begin his flattery.

  When Keely had finally finished combing out her hair, she stood up, straightened her chemise, and drew a deep breath. “Page sixteen?” she whispered to herself, to which she replied politely with a firm nod.

  “There we go, then,” she said, flashing the bronze statue a smile as bright and winsome as any she’d flashed prince what’s-his-name at the ball. “All better, see? I told you not to worry about me. It’s your other self that needs looking after. She’s gone quite off her rocker.”

  As she peered down into the dark mirror of the fountain, Keely gave herself a final inspection as best she could around the ripples, then she climbed up gracefully and threaded her way through the cascading waters of the fountain to give the little bronze girl an affectionate kiss on the cheek.

  “Thanks for listening.” She dropped lightly back to the cob
bles of the street, only slightly dampened from the experience.

  “Oh, and…” She selected a glittering pendant from the jewels about her throat and tossed it into the deep waters at the foot of the statue.

  “An offering from…the Countess Camdovan, I think?” Keely said as the pendant settled to the bottom amidst a scattering of small coins. “We only met the once. Short woman, brown hair, dark eyes, not a great dancer? Gets really…well, annoyed…with servants who have trouble reading her mind? You know who I mean, of course. Just count the donation as credit toward her place in the hereafter. I’m sure she needs it.”

  Madame Ophelia sat amid the clutter of her time-worn medicine wagon, thumbing curiously through a heavily weathered book with her equally weathered hands. The graying woman stopped short of actually reading any of the thing—not for lack of curiosity, but because she hadn’t a bloody clue how. Decidedly and proudly a woman of the world, not a woman of letters, Ophelia nevertheless found it an occasional nuisance that objects such as this refused to volunteer their secrets to her.

  Her two daughters, having grown up accustomed to maneuvering around the clutter, somehow managed to go about the business of changing their clothes without knocking anything over and without stepping or sitting on any of the half-dozen or so cats lounging about the wagon. They’d carefully stowed away the fancy ball-gowns they’d been wearing and were in the middle of slipping on more utilitarian wear when the door of the wagon opened. Keely climbed inside, nearly tripping over one of the cats as it scurried between her feet in a sudden rush to get outside.

  Ophelia looked up from her book with an exasperated sigh. “Not again! Girl, that dress cost a fortune.”

  “And I’d have never been able to sell it, or to wear it again, after a high-profile job like that,” Keely countered as she carefully removed a pair of diamond earrings and dumped them onto Ophelia’s book along with an armload of glittering bracelets. “There. Paid for in full. The thing was an albatross.”