‘Spell of Vanishing’ by Anna Abner



I have a liking for stories with necromancers.
In Anna Abner's 'Spell of Vanishing', Cole Burkov is a formidable necromancer. However a devastating nightmare spell has left him confused about what’s real and what’s fantasy. Afraid of hurting more of his friends, he casts a vanishing spell on himself, except something goes wrong. He’s not invisible to spirits. He’s invisible to everyone.
Talia Jackson doesn’t want to help Cole cast his vanishing spell. She’s on a mission to collect him for the Dark Caster. But when Cole uses her, against her will, to create the spell she becomes the only human being on earth that can see him.
Together, the unlikely allies will seek out one of the most diabolical casters in the dark cabal—the White Wraith. But when the witch fights back, Cole and Talia discover they may not be strong enough to survive her furious assault.
Interesting isn't it?
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Here is a Excerpt from Chapter One:
"Rough asphalt dug into Cole Burkov’s knees, but he couldn’t remember why he’d knelt in front of a burned down church in the first place. His memory was in tatters, made up of a pinch of nightmare, a dash of reality, and a whole lot of lost time.
Blood was what brought him back to himself. The old, itchy blood on his hands and the fresh, slimy blood smeared across his left forearm, obscuring the line of scars of varying ages running up his wrist like railroad tracks.
When he cast magic he was always careful to cut shallow slices, but maybe sometime during the night, lost in his muddled memories, he’d cut himself too deep.
He couldn't remember.
Cole sucked in a deep breath, hoping the rush of humid, North Carolina air would stimulate his memory, but it only made him dizzy.
As he gazed up at the charred skeleton of a former religious building, he got the funny feeling he was supposed to be doing something. That he wasn't there on his knees by chance.
A large, ebony crow peered at him from a willow tree at the edge of the parking lot. Crows were bad luck, but one in a churchyard was an omen of death. The bird flapped his wings once and took flight, soaring low over the parking lot before disappearing behind a brick wall.
"Cole!" A familiar ghost appeared in front of him, her face a mask of agony. He had never seen his spirit companion Stephanie so distressed. "I found Dani. She's coming. Can you hear me? She's on her way. Just hang tight and everything will be okay."
Daniela Ferraro. His friend. The witch.
Bits and pieces of the last few days resurfaced. He had strangled Dani in a hospital room and then escaped, hiding out on the streets and in the woods ringing the town. The night before he’d slept sheltered among a copse of pine trees behind Auburn's movie theater. The night before that? Hard to say. He thought the clothes he wore, black scrub bottoms and a yellow smiley face tee, were castoffs from the hospital. Or maybe that was part of the nightmare spell. Maybe he’d never been inside a hospital.
Either way, unable to suffer the guilt a moment longer, he’d come to the Dark Caster's last known gathering place to face him. Or join him. That, too, was vague.
Of course the bastard wasn't there.
But if Dani was on her way it meant one of two things. Either he was still in the nightmare spell and Cole would be forced to kill her again when the evil inside him rose up, or he hadn't killed her and she’d try to stop him from going to war with the Dark Caster.
Neither of those things was going to happen.
“Tell her not to come,” he said. “Tell her not to come anywhere near me.”
Anna Abner has been a writer for nearly her entire life, but some of her day jobs have included teaching, childcare, and real estate. She lives in North Carolina with her family and loves hearing from fans:
@AnnaAbner
 

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