Curse
of Prometheus:
A
Tale of Medea
by Morgan
St. Knight
Genre:
Paranormal/urban fantasy
AISN:
B00HRG6FEA
ISBN-13:
978-0991396092
Number
of pages: 276
Word
count: 107,000
The
ancient world's most notorious sorceress has just become the modern
world's only hope for survival.
Book
Description:
How
do you fight a god of light who has been seduced by darkness? That’s
the challenge Medea Keres must meet. Posing as a wealthy young
heiress in modern day Atlanta, no one knows she is the original
Medea, the sorceress from ancient Greek legends.
As
priestess of the witch goddess Hecate, Medea is charged with hunting
demons that would otherwise overrun the world. Now she must face a
far greater adversary. One of the twelve shining Olympian gods has
turned rogue, violating the edict against human sacrifice. As the
body count quickly rises, Medea knows her enemy is getting stronger.
With
the help of the underworld nymph Orphne and the hero-god Heracles,
she must find a way to unmask the evil so that the other Olympians
will take action.
But
as she probes deeper into a blood-soaked labyrinth of suspense and
intrigue, Medea finds a net of deceit and treachery that will require
all of her cunning to escape.
Excerpt
1
He
reached out a tentative hand to touch one of the wings. “God,” he
whispered. “God, God, God, I’m sorry. What have you done to me?”
“Get off it!”
I snapped. “Don’t even pretend that this is a surprise. Who or
what are you? And don’t bother telling me you’re some kind of
angel. No angel has moves like the ones you just made with me!”
“I don’t
want to interrupt, but we have something else to deal with,”
Heracles said, putting a hand on my arm. “I’m sure this can wait.
He won’t be going anywhere.” He gently tugged me towards the
steps.
“Stay with
him,” I told Orphne, hoping she knew the harshness in my tone
wasn’t directed at her. “Don’t take your eyes off of him.”
She half-smiled
at that. “That’ll be an easy promise to keep.”
Heracles bounded
up the basement steps but I took them one at a time, a little
reluctantly at that. I’d had enough aggravation for the night. I
didn’t need something else on my plate.
“You’ll want
to put something on, unless the neighbors are very liberal.” He was
heading for the front door.
“Not by a long
shot,” I muttered. I pulled my London Fog out of the closet and
belted it around me. We stepped outside into a steady fall of rain.
There were still muted flashes and thunder rolls overhead, but
nothing like there’d been a short time ago.
I threw my hands
up. “This is what you wanted to show me? I know they don’t have
anything but wonderful weather on Olympus, but surely you haven’t
forgotten what rain is.”
He walked towards
the street. “It’s not quite the way I remember it. Come along.
You’ll see what I mean.”
I quashed the
sound of annoyance rising in my throat and trotted to catch up with
him. The rain seemed to be easing.
He strode across
the street. “Over here. You’ll get the picture.”
The invective I’d
chosen stopped at the tip of my tongue as I stepped out into the
street.
And out of the
rain.
I’d known rain
to stop abruptly before, but this was different. Mostly, because I
could still hear the rain behind me.
I think I knew
what I was going to see before I completed my slow turn. Something at
the back of my mind said not to look, but I had to. Heracles was
standing there with his arms folded.
“Any ideas?”
Damn him anyway, if he wasn’t smirking when he said it.
I didn’t find
anything at all funny about the fact that the storm was centered over
my house—and only my house. The clouds, with their soft flashes of
lightning and gentle peals of low thunder, were directly overhead.
The sky over the rest of the street was clear, faint stars sparkling
overhead.
“Shit,” I said
with real passion. “Shit, shit, SHIT!” Stamping my bare foot
repeatedly on the asphalt to punctuate the curses hurt like hell, but
I didn’t care at that point.
“Shall I hazard
a guess that this has something to do with what you were up to with
our winged friend?”
The anger and
shock were fading, but they weren’t gone. I began pacing.
“I don’t know.
I don’t know what happened with him. But the storm came up just as
we were...” I let the rest hang, but he’d gotten the message.
“Remember
Pompeii,” he said with a teasing note in his voice.
“Accident! It
was just… an… accident!”
“An accident
that conveniently happened as you were getting…acquainted… with a
very unusual young man down on a nearby beach. An unusual young man
who, it turned out—”
“Was the son of
Poseidon and a mortal woman,” I finished weakly as I sat down on
the curb. Not a soul was stirring, not even a light as far down the
street as I could see.
I leaned back a
bit and jumped as I got splashed by the rain that was still falling
resolutely on my yard. It felt better to lean forward and put my head
in my hands anyway.
“I don’t need
this. I don’t need something else. Tonight of all nights, I don’t
need this.”
Heracles crossed
the street and sat down next to me. “Cheer up. It could be worse.
It could have been another Vesuvius. Or maybe some other horrendous
disaster. At least we weren’t buried like Pompeii.”
“It’s disaster
enough, isn’t it?” Still, I shivered a bit at what could have
happened. We were nowhere near a volcano, but the New Madrid fault
was close enough to Atlanta that it might have decided to give way
during my little escapade. Just because the Earth moved for me,
didn’t mean it had to move for millions of other people. I decided
to count my blessings.
“Mixed bloods,
Medea. Mixed bloods can call up very unusual phenomena when they
mate. Perhaps it’s best we never were more than friends. Even when
I was mortal, I was still half-god.”
The rain was
tapering off behind us. If there was any luck to be had, I hoped it
would be enough to ensure that no one had bothered looking out their
window to see a storm drenching only my house that night.
“I suppose we’d
best figure out who and what our friend is, and whether he’s any
threat.” Heracles rose, holding out a hand without prompting this
time. I took it and let him pull me up.
“Just what I
needed. Another mystery.”
He trudged back
through the grass. “Maybe this one will be easier to solve.” He
sounded nonchalant enough about it. I tried to let the mood infect
me, but it kept its distance. I felt like one of the storm clouds
hovering over my house had just floated down and taken up permanent
residence over my head.
Excerpt
2
I spoke the charm
that unsealed the sanctuary door. It swung open, and simultaneously
candles in sconces around the walls flared to life.
But they weren’t
the only things that were glowing.
Next to the altar
that held a statue of Hecate, a censer and vessels for libations,
there was a small side-table. The single object on it was radiating
an eerie light. It was a Sybil’s mirror, my direct link to Hades.
It was a convenient way to send in my reports.
It was convenient
most of the time, anyway. Just not at that particular moment. It
should not have been glowing before I spoke the incantation to
activate it.
The smart thing to
do would have been to run right out of that room, lock the door from
the outside and chant an invocation to call up some of the entities I
was on friendly terms with. But smart is never high on my list when
I’m tired and hungry.
So I went closer
to the mirror. Mistake number one. The surface rippled like water,
and I knew that images would soon break through.
At first, all I
could see was something ill-defined, like an object bobbing just
below the surface of a cloudy pool of water. The image became more
defined. I dimly saw a bejeweled hand caressing what appeared to be a
crumpled mound of crimson velvet. The image sharpened even more: it
was not velvet.
It was flesh. A
gaping, bloody hole in a human torso. The hand was stroking it
slightly, dabbling ringed fingers into the gash as someone might
lazily trail their hand in a cool pond on a warm spring day. I could
tell it was a man’s body, but the image wasn’t wide enough for me
to see his face, or the woman who was stroking the wound.
Everything had a
cloudy sheen to it and her jewelry had an off color, making the gems
unidentifiable. They were an odd, bluish-green.
A soft voice
filled the room, as if it was coming from every corner.
“Drink, drink…”
it cajoled. A woman’s voice, light and soothing with the hint of
myriad promises.
The image receded
a bit, enough for me to see more of the torso as well as the body’s
arms. I could see it was a man, but no more.
The vista slowly
sank back into dimness. Another was surfacing. A mouth, surrounded by
a lush beard. It was like black sable, sleek and oiled, arranged
artfully into intricate curls and ringlets. A classic Greek style.
The mouth and beard were all I could see, no other features to give
me a clue about who it was.
The
mouth was full and sensual, or at least it normally would be. I could
tell that much even though it was twisted and pulled into a grimace.
Pain? Ecstasy? A little of both, it seemed. It was not the expression
which disturbed me the most.
The lush lips were
streaked with blood. I could see, as the mouth opened in a silent
groan, traces of blood on the teeth.
The image
sharpened further, coming closer as if it was trying to come out of
the mirror into my reality. My eyes widened as I realized it was
no trick of light. The mouth was emerging from the mirror. Only a
slight protrusion at first, then more, more…
The rim of the
Sybil’s mirror was changing, becoming the same color as the blood
on the lips pushing through the mirror’s surface.
As I backed away
my ears started buzzing and I felt the floor wavering beneath me. I
heard a sound that quickly grew louder, a throaty whisper that turned
from a hoarse cry of need into distinct words.
“Join us. Join
us. Join us… Medea…”
Hearing my name
sent a shock through me, enough to make me want to bolt. But I
couldn’t.
The hideous mouth
opened wider and scarlet clouds spilled from it like steam from a
seething cauldron. They swept across the floor, flowing over my feet
and up my calves. My legs were rooted to the spot even though my mind
wanted nothing more than to run in terror—out of the room, out of
the house, out of the city if I could run that much.
The room reeked of
copper and ordure. Noxious fumes poured up my torso and over my chest
and face, choking me.
Without warning or
intent I fell backwards. It took me a moment to realize that I hadn’t
stumbled. I had been pulled.
I could see the
arms reaching from under my own, curving up over my chest towards my
shoulders. They ended in hands that were as white as alabaster.
White, except for the black nails that curved like talons from the
fingers. Talons that were coming dangerously close to my throat.
I barely noticed
that the vile clouds were being sucked back into the mirror, as if
some gigantic monster on the other side had drawn in a large breath.
The light started to fade from the mirror.
I was spun around.
As the mirror’s glow dimmed I saw a face pale as moonlight, a mouth
crimson as a ripe pomegranate, and eyes the color of amethysts just
inches from my face.
The most
pronounced feature was the hair. It seemed to be made of cobwebs and
mist, floating in a silvery-grey cloud. Some of it was moving. Alive.
As I looked at it, things looked back at me. Vipers.
The intruder’s
mouth opened, revealing long curving fangs.
“Medea…” The
voice came from a distance, echoing as if I was in a deep cavern. The
last thing I saw was the mouth opening wider, the fangs coming
closer. Then the darkness took me.
Welcome to my
world.
About
the Author:
Morgan
St. Knight live in Atlanta, and is a lifelong student of mythology,
the occult, and comparative religion. With more than 25 years of
experience as a journalist, Morgan enjoys the occasional foray into
fantasyland to escape the grim realities of life. He is currently
working on the sequel to "Curse of Prometheus" and is
developing a second paranormal series which also takes place in the
South.
Twitter:
@morganstknight
Kindle Giveaway
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And yes, if you win a copy of the book, you are still in the running for the Kindle giveaway!
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