AGELESS: (The Eerie Chronicles Book 1) Read online




  The Eerie Chronicles, Book One

  AGELESS

  S. Ghali

  This book is a work of fiction. Any reference to historical events, real people living or dead, real locales is entirely coincidental and used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Ageless. Copyright © 2018 by S. Ghali

  All rights reserved. No part of this book maybe reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.

  Cover Design by Ebooklaunch.com

  eBook Designed by Acepub

  I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO MY FAMILY, THANK YOU FOR YOUR INCREDIBLE SUPPORT AND UNCONDITIONAL LOVE.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  PROLOGUE

  “Sixteen million pounds for sixteen years of your life, isn’t reasonable?” Sir John Whitmore’s calm, acidic words travelled across the London gentlemen’s club game room, and landed in my ears like poison snaking through my veins. “If you’re interested in renegotiating, I can always take one year off your contract and divide that amount by four. Are those numbers more attractive to you now, Mr. O’Brien?

  I wiped my sweaty palms on the pants of my new suit as I watched him pulling off his white fencing gloves, handing them to his butler. If I didn’t regain some control in the next few seconds, I’d become the prey of this lion of a man. After all, it’s not every day you’re offered millions of pounds for the most bizarre job of your life. If I hoped to change the terms of this strange contract, I’d have to play it smart, right here, right now.

  I couldn’t believe my luck. Not three days ago, I was still in Belfast, sitting in a pub, enjoying the last ale that my wallet could afford when two men dressed in expensive, perfectly tailored suits approached me and offered me five thousand pounds just to get on a private jet right away and meet with Sir John Whitmore.

  Who the hell is Sir John Whitmore? Should have been my first question. But no! My first and only question was if they were damn serious about the money?? And they were. So, I said yes, in a heartbeat.

  Even in my right mind I would have never turned down thousands of pounds. I’d done shitty jobs, dodgey jobs for much less without doing much thinking. This one seemed very easy. But still, I should have stopped a minute and asked why a guy who could afford a private jet wanted to meet a twenty-five-year-old ex-con who still lived with his mum.

  A few hours later, I had my answer. I met The Mysterious man, an elegant middle-aged CEO, quite fit, with brown hair and distinct hazel green eyes and a natural authority that could intimidate even the most confident man in the world. I listened to the man carefully, very carefully, to what he had to say, and not only did I find out that we were blood related, I was dumbstruck when I understood the deal he wanted me to consider.

  Then he gave me three days and two nights to think about the offer while enjoying my stay in a luxurious five-star boutique hotel, the five thousand pounds promised, full access to VIP clubs and the company of the most stunning girls I’d ever encountered in my life—the type of girls you can only find on the covers of fashion magazines or in the arms of powerful men. And for those few precious days I was treated like one of those powerful men who live at the top of the world, like kings.

  Damn, I wished it would never end. But it ended today, in this large empty game room of the most exclusive gentleman’s club in London, and if I were to ever enjoy the royal life again I had to take the deal he offered and give away the next sixteen years of my life.

  “It’s just… it’s a huge commitment and for a long period…” My words trailed off. I was losing it.

  Shit.

  “Let’s put it this way” he cut me off, “If you were to find work tomorrow despite your criminal record, what would happen? You’d live your life on minimum wage, resisting the criminal ways that would send you back to prison once again.”

  “I wouldn’t like that,” I said. He looked at me and I immediately closed my mouth.

  “But let’s be optimistic here. Let’s imagine that you do commit to honesty for the next fifty years of your life. Unless of a miracle, never in your lifetime would you be able to make a fifth of what I’m offering to you today.”

  “Why are you choosing me?” I asked, suddenly.

  “It’s an extraordinary stroke of luck that we share the same blood. My cousin gave you the greatest gift that a child could ever dream of when he impregnated your mother. He made you a Whitmore, whether you knew it or not. You are different from your half-brothers, gifted with a great intelligence and luck, but you wasted it by following the path of your siblings. Your loyalty to them is admirable, but it’s only gotten you into trouble. I’m looking for that kind of loyalty to your real blood, the Whitmore bloodline.”

  “Of all the members of your impeccable family, you choose a bastard and a criminal, to raise your child!”

  “Exactly!” he replied, without hesitation or doubt in his voice, which was highly disturbing.

  “That’s what I don’t understand!”

  “I can’t raise her myself, and the other members of this impeccable family of mine, as you put it, refuse to do so…”

  “Why?” I asked, wanting to know not only why he couldn’t raise her, but why no one else could, either.

  “There is…” he cleared his throat, as if he was having difficulty getting the following words out. “There is a family curse upon us that says… if I raise her, I will die. Unfortunately, I take it very seriously. And when I asked my family to take my place, they refused, fearing that the curse would rebound on them.”

  My lips parted. I couldn’t believe what he had just said and how serious he was about something that sounded like sheer lunacy—the makings of an urban legend. I took more than a minute to process my thoughts. Yes, he was quite serious. This extremely powerful man at the head of an empire, richer than the crown of England, whose family was linked to royalty—yes, I had Googled him—was afraid of a family curse.

  If the child had been born with a tail or was otherwise so deformed that he was ashamed of her, I would have almost understood. But a curse—superstitious nonsense, at best. I was a purebred Irishman myself, and I didn’t believe in this bullshit… and yet, I believed that he believed it. His eyes showed that he took what he had told me as absolute truth, which made him absolutely dangerous.

  I remained silent, not wanting to say anything that would either commit me to this bizarre deal or exclude me from it. After all, he was offering sixteen million pounds. He took the liberty of repeating the non-negotiable terms of the contract, which I could have recited from memory, along wit
h him. I was to spend sixteen years in a rural village called Cleaven Hill and marry a woman who was already chosen for me. I would change my name to Whitmore, but would only have access to the prestige of his name and the reward after the contract was fulfilled. I’d provide for my family, and more importantly, I had to provide stability, happiness, and a good quality of life for the child, and my soon-to-be. She was a childcare specialist who would make sure that the child would receive the best of care and the love that she deserved. The child would also receive a medical exam every year for the first few years. This was what he was “asking” from me.

  “What if I refuse?” I replied, wriggling out of my dumbstruck state of mind.

  “I’m offering you a second chance, and this road provides you with a clean record, more money than you have ever dreamt of, and the great opportunity to step into a family of noble blood. I know that you’re willing to turn your life around. Today is the day you decide what kind of man you want to be for the rest of your life.”

  My heart was pounding so hard that I thought I might die. The only thing that I could do was nod my head in response, consenting to take the job. I would become a father to the baby that everyone feared.

  I moved away slowly, my feet weighted as if they were made of stone. My eyes remained on him as I took one step back, and then another.

  “One more thing,” he said. His words resonated like a threat before he added, “if you conceal any information concerning my daughter, if anything happens to her, I will make sure you suffer a fate worse than death!”

  Upon hearing those last words, the deal was sealed. My contract had begun.

  1

  Sixteen years later, Surrey, England.

  It was unbearable to begin a school day on a hot morning like this one, the first sunny day in three months of cold rain and winter skies. Even in ever-moody England it was a radical climatic change from one day to another—but thankfully, it had nothing to do with me.

  From my seat, I could feel excitement filling the school bus, the other students hoping, like me, that the day would pass as quickly as possible—but for one big reason that had nothing to do with the weather. Today was a special day for most of them, those who were invited to the party of the year, but I wasn’t one of them. Actually, I was never part of anything. I was the lonely girl who usually sat alone and talked to no one.

  The bus driver halted at the entrance of Saint Clarence’s large campus, right off Maze Hill town, pouring out a stream of students eager to escape the sweaty furnace of the bus.

  I got off last and walked at a slow pace between the imposing buildings of a nineteenth-century boarding school converted to a public secondary school. I enjoyed the beautiful old red brick colour that only sunlight could bring out of the well-preserved gothic architecture. I walked through the cloister linking the library to the small courtyard with ivy growing on its beautiful pillars, my favourite place to relax, but unfortunately too many students had the same idea and had already filled up the place, enjoying the sun before they had to go inside for class. So I kept going and when I turned the curve to reach the main entrance, I glimpsed something I never thought I would see so early in the morning.

  My best friend, April Monroe, was lying there, sprawled out on the large balustrade of the fifteen steps to the vaulting arches of the main entrance, wearing a new black leather jacket over her crumpled uniform, sunglasses on. She loved to draw attention to herself. Her hair, for example, was like a rainbow, with a little bit of blue, some grown-out and fading brown, and even a few blond highlights. It was too wild by most people’s accounts, but amazing from April’s perspective. And I loved how she didn’t care of what people thought.

  I climbed a few more steps and stopped right between the sunlight and her face.

  “You’re early!” I said as a good morning. “That’s a first.”

  April lowered her sunglasses and turned her head, peering at me over the rim and smiling in a most nonchalant way.

  “And a last, Evelyn. I had business to do,” she replied. Her quirky smile sprang to life, just as she had sprung off the balustrade. “Do you want to know what it was?”

  “If it involved you and the new assistant coach, I’d rather not,” I said, resuming my walk.

  We couldn’t have been less alike; April was the kind of girl who liked to make an impression. On the other hand, I was a quiet, average-looking sixteen-year-old girl whose only distinguishing features were my eyes, and maybe my hair. The eyes were ‘amazing hazel melted in a green fire’—April’s words, not mine. The hair, curly light brown that defied any products or efforts to make it behave, so I always tied it up in a bun. Despite our different personalities, we had a tight bond that had endured the test of time, and not just because she was the only friend I had.

  She flopped her left arm around my neck and leaned her weight on me, flipping her backpack over her right shoulder. “That guy is old news. I dumped him. Too boring, he reminded me of you!”

  I stared at her and saw the most wickedly happy grin. “Arrrgh, I’m just messing with you. But seriously, that’s not why I came in early.”

  We walked in through the heavy mahogany doors and once inside, April tugged on my blazer and guided me toward the corner of the main hallway.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “This would be worth it,” she said, raising her eyebrows and then reaching into her backpack to pull out two long black envelopes with stylish white calligraphy on them. The title read: Invitation. I gulped, immediately knowing what it was.

  My hands went up and I shoved the invitations back in. I looked around and I was relieved that no one else saw them. I looked at April, who rolled her eyes at me. “How did you get those?” I asked urgently.

  “Connections,” she said, her big brown eyes shining from just saying the word.

  Connections meant she had gently blackmailed someone into getting those invitations, or else. The girl was crazy—trouble personified. “Do I need to remind you…”

  She cut me off. “No, I remember the police station and my mum begging Kiera’s lame parents to drop the charges perfectly. Yawn… Really, I don’t need a reminder.”

  “April, if you go to that party tonight, you’ll get in trouble. You know it!”

  “Oh please, chill out. It’s just a party! No one is going to prison.”

  It was typical for April to play these things down and make me look like the buzzkill. But… it was more than just a party. It was The Party of the Year, being held at the largest property in the county—with the “in-crowd” as guests. Last year, April was a party crasher and wow, did she crash. She got drunk, broke things, and set off an alarm that was protecting some Fabergé eggs. Then all hell broke loose. Kiera barely escaped getting in trouble for having alcohol at her party and April’s mum found herself with a lifelong bill to pay for the damage that her daughter had done. If it were me, I’d crawl into my shell like a turtle and feel agonising remorse until I drew my last breath, but nooo… not April.

  “This time we’re just going there to have some fun.”

  We? I started to shake my head involuntarily and instantly I felt my palms clamming up. The way I was feeling probably made my forehead glisten, too. “No way!”

  “Yes, come on. Stop being a wet blanket. This is the biggest party of the year and we are never, never, ever invited. Today, we are!” She winked with a smile. “Take advantage of it, Evelyn. Let your hair down from that uptight bun and live it up.”

  “We don’t get invited because Kiera hates us.” Why did I need to point out the obvious? It was a mystery to me and the more I tried to use my words, the more it seemed that I was talking to a brick wall. I glanced at April. She’d made up her mind already, clearly, which made any logical argument futile.

  “That’s true,” April said, pondering my words. “I know why she hates me, but I don’t know why she hates you.”

  Her statement drained the colour right off my face, leaving my pal
e complexion a few shades whiter. “I guess because we’re friends,” I said. It was a quick answer and a poor lie.

  “You are not my only friend,” she replied, folding her arms and implying bullshit on my part. “And my other friends have gotten invited, so…”

  Oh boy, I knew where this was going.

  April continued. “The twins, for example. And last year, Jake was invited, while we were dating, and she told him not to bring me along…”

  “And he went anyway. Yes, I remember, that’s why you crashed her party!” I finished her story. I wanted to tell her to stop whining about it, but I really couldn’t, because it was my own pathetic lie that had spurred this conversation on.

  “Anyway, it doesn’t bother you that Miss Perfection hates you for no reason?” April asked in an acidic voice. If it were possible, I would have thought that green smoke could come out of her when she talked that way—she reminded me of a demon that could vaporise itself into the present world from the underground.

  I didn’t know how to answer her. April was right, it bothered me. But I knew exactly why Kiera Davenport hated me. It had started on the worst day of my life, the day of the accident in 1999. We were just eight-year-olds. And April didn’t need to know the truth of what really went down that day or she would see me for the monster I truly was. Out of habit, my left hand went down to my right wrist and I felt the centre of the pink limpid crystal that I always wore. I glanced at my birthmark beneath it, which reminded me of a crescent moon. It was the only thing that could give me comfort in anxious moments like this one. This moment was my fault, too, which made it more annoying. I knew better. I was trained to lie better and yet I had been caught offguard.

  Kiera Davenport was the exact opposite of me. She had it all—popularity, money and normalcy. She had a flawless peach complexion and long, sable-brown wavy hair that always shone as if the sun was drawn to it. Of course, on many days I would have traded everything to be her, instead of being the invisible girl. The boring girl. I didn’t hate her at all. She’d been a mean kid who used to bully many kids, including me, but she had grown out of it. I admired the way she always had a smile on her face or an easy laugh. It was musical to everyone.