Anthology 1. Mysteria.pdf

Mortal in Mysteria

SUSAN GRANT

A Lone Wolf

MARYJANICE DAVIDSON

The Witches of Mysteria and the Dead Who Love Them

GENA SHOWALTER

Candy Cox and the Big Bad (Were)Wolf

P. C. CAST

Introduction

Once upon a time in a land closer than anyone might be comfortable with, a demon high

lord was sent to destroy a small, starving (and, let's face it, weird) band of settlers who

were fleeing the last town they'd tried to settle in (a place eventually known as Kansas

City, Missouri, the Show Me State, which did indeed show them tar and feathers and the

road west). The group was composed of magical misfits and outcasts: a bloodaphobic

vampire, a black‐magic witch and her white‐magic husband, a pack of arduous

(translation: hump‐happy) werewolves, and a man named John who had gotten confused

and joined the wrong wagon train. When the demon spied this ragged, rejected bunch, he

(for a reason known only to himself but which had to do with uncontrollable random acts

of kindness) decided not just to spare them, but to create a magical haven for them.

And so, nestled in a beautiful valley in the Rocky Mountains, the town of Mysteria was

founded. Over the years, it became a refuge for creatures of the night and those

unwanted by traditional society. No one—or thing—was turned away. Magic thrived,

aphrodisiacs laced the pollen, and fairy tales came true.

The first settlers eventually died (those that weren't already dead or undead, that is), but

they left pieces of themselves behind. The vampire invented a powerful blood‐appetite

suppressant for any other vampires with a fear of blood. The witch and the warlock

created a wishing well—a wishing well that swirled and churned with both white and black

magic, a dangerous combination. The hump‐happy werewolves left the essence of

perpetual springtime and love (translation: they peed all around the boundary of the city,

so that everyone—or thing—that entered or left Mysteria was, well, marked). John, the

only nonmagical being in the group, left his confused but mundane genes, founding a

family that would ultimately spawn more humans of nonmagical abilities who remained in

Mysteria because finding their way out was just too much like geometry.

Each of the settlers thought, as their spirits floated to the heavens—all right, some of

them went straight to hell, the naughty sinners—that their best contribution to the

fantastical town of Mysteria was a happily‐ever‐after for their descendants. If only they

could have known the events that would one day unfold…

MORTAL IN MYSTERIA

Susan Grant

Chapter One

The dirty, sweat‐soaked demon dropped to his knees. His hands, bound at the wrists with

chains, rested awkwardly at the small of his back. Nevertheless, he formed his mouth into

a smile he hoped appeared as contrite as his posture. 'Tis better if you do not infuriate the

boss any more than you have already , he thought. "I am prepared to pay for my

transgressions, Master."

"And pay for them, you shall!" The Devil's forked tongue darted out to moisten thin,

malice‐curved lips. "I have thought long and hard about your crimes," he hissed with the

very faintest of lisps. "Now, prepare to receive your sentence, Demon."

"Aye, Master." All the demons were named "Demon" down here in Hell. To their master

they were all but indistinguishable. Only Lucifer stood apart, with his trademark black

goatee, the horns, the pitchfork, and the crimson suit. Proof that the whimsies of fashion

in Hell had been at a standstill since the birth of time.

Fashion? Hell's bells, didn't he have more important things to worry about? Like losing his

head, or some other body part of which he'd grown fond? The demon winced. His

concentration simply wasn't what it used to be after the century of torture he'd endured

for his crimes. Or had it been two or three centuries that he'd been paying for his terrible

deeds? It had become difficult to keep track. Ah, but what was an extra century or two in

the grand scheme of things? He'd existed for more than ten thousand years, tasked to

bring the worst sort of doubt into the miserable, pitifully abbreviated lives of human

beings. Far from being just any demon, he was a demon lord, and one of the most ancient

of them all: the Demon High Lord of Self‐Doubt and Second Thoughts, the bane of many a

human failure, simpering creatures all too eager to listen to the fears that he could so

easily plant in their weak minds. You can't , he'd whisper until they believed it. You won't.

Try, and you will surely fail .

Countless men who could have ruled the world had never stepped beyond their front

doors because he'd made them doubt their abilities, made them afraid to take chances, to

risk failure. Nor were women any safer from his dark murmurings through the eons. He'd

frightened countless wenches, silencing their voices by playing up their fears of sounding

too shrill, too stupid, too… different.

Humanity's failures—he'd been the force behind so many of them. Until that fateful day

when he'd glimpsed true courage and couldn't bring himself to destroy it, giving the Will‐

to‐Go‐On to a small, starving band of settlers wandering in the snowy woods of the Rocky

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