Hellborn Read online

  Copyright © 2019 by Lisa Manifold

  Hellborn

  Deadwood Sisters: The Unlucky Book 1

  Cover Art: Atlantis Book Design

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Hellborn

  Deadwood Sisters: The Unlucky Book 1

  Lisa Manifold

  To Val, Dennis, and Tim

  The Holy Trinity of Docs

  Contents

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  Translations

  The Mostly Open Paranormal Investigative Agency

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Lisa Manifold

  In 1876, John Henry Holliday, known as Doc Holliday, spent part of the year living in Deadwood, South Dakota. He’d come to work in the newly opened Bella Union Saloon. Doc left Deadwood in 1877, never to return. As far as he knew, he didn’t leave anything behind.

  He was wrong

  Prologue

  Deadwood, South Dakota

  1912

  Desdemona Nightingale Burns—she’d kept her husband’s last name even though she had no idea where he’d gone; even though she knew he was finally on the other side—walked through the house with a single candle. Everything was different now that her mother had died. For example, if her mother was gone, why was someone—or something—banging around in her mother’s room? She’d ignored it until she could ignore the noise no longer, and headed out to investigate.

  For thirty-six years, ever since her mother had fallen in love with—and lost—John Holliday, she’d presided over the house on Main Street. Her mother, also Desdemona Nightingale but known as Granny Nightingale, had won the house in a card game shortly after Holliday blew out of town with the wind. She claimed it was one of the two great gifts Holliday had left her with as he’d been teaching her to gamble before he disappeared. The other was herself. Not that anyone knew. As far as the world was concerned, John Henry “Doc” Holliday had died without issue.

  She and her mother had worked hard to keep it that way.

  The man who’d lost the house had done his best to win it back, but Granny Nightingale prevailed. She fixed it up and raised her daughter there, married and lost a husband—who, like her own, was practically forgotten--and recently, opened a tea and herbal shop. Desdemona made sure her mother was careful. After all, Granny was a witch, and no one needed to know. That’s what she told her girls. Everything was all right, for now. When the girls got older—when they stopped getting older—it would become more difficult. She had enough problems with her own lack of aging. Add four more girls? Desdemona shook her head. No need to borrow trouble until it happened. With four daughters, she’d be able to claim all sorts of nieces as the years went on.

  After all, people saw what they wanted to see. If the Nightingales were polite, quiet, paid taxes, didn’t look at anyone’s husband, they would be safe.

  Even if there were lingering looks from the husbands, a quick spell from Granny would take care of that. She sent a prayer to the goddess. That was something else she’d have to take on. She was the matriarch now. Her mother didn’t want to go, but she’d decided to leave. She wanted to make it easier for her daughter and granddaughters.

  But to her, it felt like there was something else, some other reason her mother had decided to leave. She’d always told Desdemona that she’d stay around until everyone wanted her to leave.

  I didn’t want you to leave, she thought.

  None of them had to die. Not unless they wanted to. As long as they stayed in Deadwood, the Nightingales could live as long as they wished. Desdemona wasn’t sure it was a gift. For the most part, it seemed to incur more work. Her personal thought was that her mother was tired, and this was a good excuse. Along with whatever it was her mother was hiding.

  She lifted the candle higher as she stood outside of the door where her mother—known to one and all, even her, as Granny—had slept recently. There it was again. The knocking sound that had dragged her out of bed.

  Desdemona sent a silent prayer to the goddess that her mother had not decided to haunt them. She said it silently in case Granny was, in fact, still around. Carefully, she opened the door, and walked in with the candle held out in front of her.

  The smell of Overholt rye whiskey hit her like a brick to the face. She was familiar with it because Granny set out a glass every year on November eighth, the day John Holliday supposedly died. She swore it was his drink of choice, and as she’d met him when he worked at the Bella Union, Granny was in a position to know.

  Desdemona hated the smell. She wondered if Granny had a bottle hidden somewhere that had broken in the confusion of the funeral.

  “Hello, darlin’,” a male voice drawled. “It’s about time we met.”

  Chapter One

  The sound of breaking china echoed around the house as I slammed out the front door. I made sure to slam the screen door hard, just to make a point.

  “Damn woman,” I muttered.

  “I heard that!”

  “Good!” I yelled over my shoulder. “I wanted you to!” I stomped to my car, pulling my keys from my pocket. As I got into the car, I pulled my hair up into a messy bun. I caught sight of myself in the mirror. Dark brown hair, brownish green eyes, and the nose ring. I couldn’t get used to it, but I needed it to look like someone else. The only thing that would cure me now was to race down the road in my Porsche 911. Speed was a universal healer.

  Or killer, if you weren’t careful. But it didn’t matter. I couldn’t die. More’s the damn pity. The nose ring sparkled in the sunlight. Having to look like someone else was one of the joys of not being able to die. “I hate my life!” I made sure to yell out the window.

  “I heard that!” came from the house again.

  As I gunned the engine, I saw our neighbor, Mrs. Kittrick, glaring. She hated us. And for this, she’d probably call the cops. Noise complaints were her favorite bitch move. Like we didn’t have Sturgis here every damn year. But gotta call the po-po on those Nightingale … women.

  That’s how she referred to us. Those Nightingale…women. You could feel the pause. I knew that she wanted to call us whores. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. As the supposed daughter of myself, I was another one in a long line of those … women.

  Which made me nice as pie to her. It nearly killed the old bat.

  “Hi, Mrs. Kittrick!” I called out the window as I pulled away from the house. “Your yard is gorgeous, as usual!” I waved like we weren’t bitter foes and grinned as I looked in the rear-view mirror to see her glaring at my amazing gunmetal gray automotive ass.

  That simple act of petty kindness alone eased my anger and brought it down to a non-killing level.

  My sisters were enough to make anyone homicidal on a normal day. Add my mom to the mix, and it was a miracle that our house was still standing. Four women who were never, ever wrong was challenging on a good
day. The small fact that we’d been here for over one hundred and twenty years didn’t help, either.

  That whole ‘can’t die’ thing was a pain in my ass. But if we left the area, we lost the immortal factor that had allowed us to live here and threaten one another for over a century. We’d only had one of my sisters leave the Deadwood area, and she’d died over sixty years ago. The rest of us stayed here, fussing and fighting, as my mom said.

  As I left the neighborhood, and got out onto the highway, I hit the gas, letting the RPMs vent all my frustration. Normally, my family and I resolved our disagreements easily, being skilled practitioners at the sport, but not this time. This one was too big.

  You can’t just ignore it when a necromancer moves into your street. You just can’t. They have their craft, like everyone else. But their craft involves the dead. That’s where they get their power from—the dead. Hence the ‘necro’ part of necromancer.

  Not to mention I’d never met a single necromancer who did his thing for the good of humanity. Nope. They were always self-centered. Usually raging narcissists, and they exploited the dead. Generally, the dead want to be left in peace, but necromancers are based in holding up that process.

  So … no. No ignoring the friendly neighborhood necromancer. Not on my watch.

  My mom—known as Meema--didn’t agree. She’d been the one throwing the china at me as I left. My sisters, Deirdre and Daniella, didn’t feel strongly one way or the other, which was miraculous, but they were tired. We’d had a busy month with a warlock and the tea shop. So they took the path of least resistance.

  Which wasn’t the path I was advocating. It had escalated from there. Meema wanted to wait and see if he managed to make things troublesome.

  I hated to wait and see. This meant that any pets in the neighborhood would disappear suddenly, at the very least. The dead liked to eat when brought back by necromancers. Cats were a favorite. So were nosy dogs.

  Not that we had any. But our neighbors did. I didn’t even want Mrs. Kittrick’s two evil old cats to get eaten. We had a house chicken, but I’d back Evil against a zombie any day of the week.

  Three against one meant we were going to wait and see. I didn’t understand why we couldn’t just go introduce ourselves, and let him know the rules, mainly: One Strike And You’re Out.

  I shook my head as I blasted down the highway, Bowie wailing from the speakers. This was just making more work for us. We’d have to start a regular patrol of the cemeteries immediately. That was a shit ton of extra work. Keeping the supernatural side of Deadwood, South Dakota on the rails was enough.

  As I got closer to the Wyoming border, I realized that this wasn’t going to solve my problem. I made a giant loop of a U-turn at the next exit ramp and headed back to Deadwood. But I wasn’t going to head home. I’d stop at the Saloon No. 10 and get a Crab Hollandaise burger and a whiskey. Maybe a couple of whiskeys. Comfort food before heading back to face my dragon family.

  Not real dragons, or anything like that. Although there were dragons still around. I’d heard of some hiding out down in the Southwest. No dragons in my family. We had enough problems with being witches. Immortality, as long as we never left Deadwood. We could all see ghosts.

  And we all had a finely tuned sense of right and wrong. All of us did things to even the playing field, make things square. Meema called it our justice-meter. We also looked out for Deadwood. Granny, long gone, had laid down the law. We protected Deadwood from all the supernatural shit that liked to try and park here and do whatever it was that was on their agenda. It was never anything good for the humans that lived here. Granny had felt coming to Deadwood had not only changed her life but saved it. Looking out for Deadwood was the family business.

  Oh, and we had a ghost. A family ghost. Who might even rate higher on the pain-in-the ass scale than my mother and sisters right now.

  John Henry Holliday. My grandfather. Yeah, that John Henry Holliday.

  It was a shame he was already dead. On days like today, I wanted to kill him. This was all John’s fault. He and my mother had gotten into it about something—neither would tell us what, which made it worse—and Meema was on a rampage. Another thing that would need to be sorted. There were too many secrets in our house. I shook my head. Later. This would all need to happen later.

  Deadwood was quiet today. It was late spring. We had a little more time before the tourists descended en masse on us. Not that I was complaining. I loved the tourists. I didn’t know them, and despite the public family business, didn’t get to know them. But I loved them nonetheless.

  Because it was late spring, Meema closed Monday through Wednesday. I could roll right past our family’s tea and herbal shop without feeling any guilt. Thank goddess, because the Crab Hollandaise burger was calling to me in the worst way. I parked and walked in, taking a seat at the bar.

  Duffy, the bartender, looked over her shoulder when I sat down. “Hey, Des, what’s up?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Fighting with Meema and my sisters. What else?”

  “Crab?”

  “Yes, please.” I loved being a local.

  Outside of the fact that all I had to do was walk in here, and the bartenders knew what I was having, I loved Deadwood. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. The fact that who and what I was centered on Deadwood came in second, almost. I truly loved it here.

  “What are you drinking?”

  “The Stranahan,” I said. I loved that they had a good-sized whiskey selection. Even though I didn’t stray from my favorites. Right now, it was the Colorado whiskey from the Stranahan down in Denver.

  Duffy smiled and poured me a healthy shot, neat. She added a glass of water, and then let me be.

  Yeah, it was good to be local.

  I stared at the mirrors over the bar, not really seeing them. Someone came in the door, and I felt the breeze from the open door waft over me. Kind of like when you felt ghosts pass by. That was another reason I liked Saloon No. 10. I knew the ghosts here, and they knew me. Actually, a number of them had known me. As the oldest granddaughter of Desdemona Nightingale, saloon and dance hall girl at the Bella Union Saloon, circa 1876, she and my mom, also Desdemona Nightingale, had seen a lot of death. So had I, Desdemona Nightingale number three.

  But since we all knew each other, the ghosts here tended to leave me alone unless they were in the mood for a chat. They were terrible gossips. After a hundred years, I was pretty good about ignoring ghosts I didn’t want to deal with.

  Duffy came out with a plate and set it in front of me. “Here you go, sweets.”

  “Thanks, Duff.” I smiled.

  I inhaled the smell of crab and hollandaise. Two of the foods from the goddess. I took a bite and as I was chewing, steps sounded behind me. The proverbial boots-on-hardwood.

  “Desdemona Holliday,” a deep voice said.

  I chewed carefully and swallowed. Then I set my burger down, also carefully. I wiped my hands on my napkin and took a deep breath. I felt the magic gather at my fingers. No one called us Holliday. We were the Nightingales, and the Holliday aspect was kept under wraps.

  No exceptions.

  I turned my barstool around slowly to see what had to be the brand-new neighbor, since the man in front of me was a necromancer. While he didn’t have the normal stink they all seemed to have, he had the look. After a while, you could just tell. He was tall, with dark, longish hair. His face was clean-shaven, and his eyes were the gray-green of a summer storm.

  What the hell? Stop it, I told myself. This guy needed to shape up, move, or die. No matter what color his eyes were.

  We protected Deadwood. No exceptions.

  “I am Desdemona Nightingale. Can I help you?” The magic coiled tightly in my fingers, waiting to be released. One wrong move, pal. Make just one … and all my aggression is gone for the day. Probably for tomorrow, too.

  He frowned. “You call yourselves Nightingale, but we both know the truth.”

  “Oh? Well, please enlighten me.” I s
wiveled a half-turn and picked up my burger again. “I suppose you can have a seat.” I indicated the stool next to me with my burger.

  “I did not come here to—”

  “I came here for this burger, and I’m not letting it get cold. Sit, or don’t.” I turned the barstool back to the bar. It was a risk, putting my back to him, but it was better he not suspect anything. Bad enough he knew my real name.

  The indecision rolled off him. That was a good sign. At least he didn’t plan to off me before I finished the burger. Then he sat down.

  “What can I do for you?” I asked.

  “I wish to make peace with you.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.” The magic waiting in my hands eased in intensity. I didn’t know what he wanted, but it seemed there wasn’t going to be a showdown at the Saloon No. 10. Which was probably for the best. Damn it.

  “I am well aware of what you and your family do here.”

  My eyebrow went up. I knew it made me seem snotty as hell, but I couldn’t help it. “Are you? Then why are you here?”

  “My help has been requested.”

  Oh, this was good. “In what way?” Finishing the burger, I went to work on the fries.

  “I would like the chance to help those requesting my … services without interference from you.”

  “Really? I’d like all the cats and dogs in our neighborhood to keep on breathing.”

  “That’s not—”

  “It’s totally realistic and fair, zombie guy,” I hissed, leaning closer to him. “And you know it. If you know about my family, then you know better than to come here and try and blow smoke at me.”