Faith is Fallen (Broken Fantasies Series)

Prologue

The day everything changed, Mike scoured his father's house for hours looking for evidence that his father was murdered. He'd buried the man the day before, and he just couldn't, wouldn't believe that his death was anything but murder. Too many of his family had died under suspicious circumstances, and he just didn't buy it. He didn't know what was going on, but he intended to find out. He had no family left in the world, and other than his boyfriend of five years, he was all alone.

He ripped open another box, hoping for enlightenment, but fully expecting his hopes to be dashed once more. After going through room after room, he held little hope that the attic would prove to be the answer to all. He was out of options. He didn't know where else to look.

Mike's phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out. "How goes it?" the next message from his boyfriend, Rick, read.

"How do you think?" he texted back. His mood had deteriorated as they day went on, until now he would have snapped at a nun.

He went back to the box before him, remembering the day as a child he'd gone through this very same box with his dad.

"This is our history, our family, our ancestry," he'd said.

Mike sifted through the family crests, documents, and miscellany that heralded their Scottish heritage, and pulled out the single grey stone with a Celtic symbol etched into it. His father had said it was magic.

"Cara McKay," he mumbled out loud. Their ancestor. Some woman from hundreds of years ago. It was said that if you held the stone firmly in your hand, she would appear to you. She was not only the family matriarch, but some said the family guardian angel.

"Not that she's done such a great job of that." He put the stone in his pocket and went on, hoping for answers, but quickly giving up when he finished digging through the last box.

"Nothing." He looked around the hot, humid attic, and tried not to let the emotion overtake him. Frustration, anger, grief, they beat at him from all sides, threatening to consume him.

He stood, nearly falling over, but catching himself on the slanted ceiling. "I will figure this out."

His phone buzzed again. "Poor baby. Need a hug? Xoxo."

He smiled down at the screen in spite of himself. Rick always got a little lovey dovey. It was part of his appeal.

Mike unlocked the phone to reply when he heard a noise from downstairs and froze. His father's house had always creaked and moaned at the slightest footsteps, and he distinctly heard sounds of movement coming from the first floor.

He took in a stuttering breath, not even realizing he'd held it for so long. Mike had locked all the doors. He was certain. He couldn't forget if he tried. It was force of habit. His father had drilled it into him at a young age. So someone had broken in. Maybe the same someone that had killed his father and the rest of his family?

The stone weighed heavily in his pocket as he swallowed heavily, waiting as if to see if it had been his imagination. No luck. The steps grew louder, and he recognized the distinctive sound of the stairs as the intruders moved from the first to second floors.

He looked down at the bulge in his pocket, wondering at the story. He'd never believed it for a second, not even when he was little. After all, how could a 400 year old woman magically appear? It was impossible, defied the laws of physics. Preposterous.

Nevertheless, he pulled the stone out of his pocket and held it in his hand as the steps got progressively closer. He couldn't escape. The only exit from the attic travelled straight down the stairs that some stranger currently walked up.

A loud yawning creak echoed in his ears. The pull down stairs for the attic. They'd always made that sound any time someone over fifty pounds climbed them. His breathing became more pronounced, wheezing out of him in exaggerated puffs.

Unthinkingly, he gripped the stone, and a bright flash immediately filled the room.