WILD AND WICKED WAYS
(World of Touch of Gray 1)
Wendy Weather 1
aka Wendy’s Pennsylvania Posse
Leia Howard
COPYRIGHT
Wild and Wicked Ways (Touch of Gray 2.5) by Leia Howard
https://authorleia.blogspot.com
©2019 Leia Howard
Published: 2019 December
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
Cover By: BetiBup33Design
eBook ISBN: B07XMFFVDT
DEDICATION
Thank you to Veronica and Cole for the beta reads.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
WORLD OF TOUCH OF GRAY
CHAPTER ONE - Wendy
Wendy adjusts her scarf to cover her entire mouth, trying to avoid breathing the cold Pennsylvania air deep into her lungs. She grew up in New Orleans which is known for its humid and warm, often sweltering weather. She and her twin brother, Sully, have lived in Albuquerque for the past thirteen years. While it can get cold in Albuquerque, or ABQ, it only occasionally snows, and no month had an average temperature below freezing. So, of course it’s chillingly cold with breezy snow conditions in Pennsylvania when she returns to investigate strange occurrences surrounding the regional forest at the West Branch of the Susquehanna River. The same ominous forest that originally caused her and Sully to be called to the area almost six weeks ago.
Wendy’s first trip was at the request from family members of several children who were stricken down with an illness after being presumably attacked while in the forest. A suspicious and mysterious illness that the doctors could not identify let alone treat. It didn’t respond to antibiotics or other anti-infective medications and the cultures derived from the samples could not be identified. To their credit, the medical personnel placed the children in medical comas and fought the illness to a temporary standstill by treating the children’s symptoms, but eventually, the illness would have won. While the medical community did what they could for the children, the parents began to seek alternate treatments. They contacted a few herbal healers in the area, but no tinctures nor poultices worked. The healers then recommended going to a PsyWitch, but there were none locally. A few PsyWitches in outlying areas like Vermont and Ontario were contacted, but their professed ability was too weak to help, though they confirmed the illness was unnatural. They suggested contacting the generally stronger PsyWitches of the GT.
In desperation, the children’s parents submitted an urgent petition for a PsyWitch from the Greater Tribal Council of the Americas, or GT, to examine the children and attempt to cure them. The closest PsyWitches to Pennsylvania were in Atikokan, in the Eastern Sub-Arctic Conservatorship or Council Bluffs in the Southern Plains Conservatorship. However, something about the area spooked the various tribes originally from Pennsylvania and the tribal police declined to escort PsyWitches to the area. The reluctance was deep as it survived the tribes not living along the Susquehanna since the GT was formed over 150 years ago, just after the American Civil War. All Psycepts traveling outside the borders of the GT in central and western North America require police escort and with the reluctance of the two nearest conservatorship police to come to northern Pennsylvania, alternate options were given.
At first, the GT granted travel authorizations to the parents and medical staff to transport the children to one of the closer conservatorships. However, the doctors felt the children’s status prevented this. When the escort and transportation ideas failed, an urgent petition was sent to more distant conservatorships. Wendy was the lucky PsyWitch that granted the petition, dragging Sully, a Psycept police sergeant, with her.
Wendy was able to cure the children, but it was a close call requiring several days of healing charms and cleansing rituals. The cause of the illness remained unresolved and Wendy felt compelled to return to the area with reinforcements to investigate what attacked the children and threatened their lives. Armed with additional information provided by a vision from the Graham siblings, Wendy rounded up companions interested in investigating the strange occurrences and hopefully neutralizing the menace.
Speaking of the team, they might be fine with freezing, but she’s too warm-blooded to last long out here. “Let’s get to the motel. Once we warm up a bit, we can get the team together, eat, and finalize our plans.”
Tiko and Libby fail to hide their smirks at her suggestion. The MacGillivray siblings are originally from Pennsylvania and were used to the cold winter weather. Tiko is present to put to rest any unquiet dead while Libby wants to investigate the unusual blood cultures obtained from the infected children. The other Psycepts in the party include Vito Mata, an Asomatous that may bespeak the spirits; flora PsySapient Maddie, and Weather Guide Diego Escudero.
Wendy and Vito are representatives on the seven-member Psycept Council, but as no more than two are approved to be out of SWACon at one time, no one else in their party are council members. Weather Guides like Diego are seconded to the GT military and are not often granted leave to handle petitions. His mother, Gloria, is one of the few that have fulfilled the terms of her resident contract and would have normally accompanied Wendy. However, as the current head of the Council, Gloria couldn’t be the third out of SWACon and instead, sent Diego in her place while temporarily reinstating with the military in lieu of her son.
Kyle Ngo, a fauna PsySapient and fellow council member was originally interested in coming but asked his mentor, Tewow to replace him in the group. At seven psychics, one officer is not enough to cover their large party and Sepulveda serves as the second to Sully in their police escort. Wendy feels that if the nine of them can’t deal with threat in the forest, then the situation is beyond hopeless.
“I can try to disperse some of the cold air and biting wind,” Diego offers. “Something in this area is attracting the chill. Surrounding areas up
