Evangelina Green

Book 1 - The Color Guard

Smashwords Edition

Copyright Susan Firtik - 2011

Names, characters, places
and incidents either are the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously, and any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business
establishments, events, or locales is entirely
coincidental.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook
may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like
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Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is the story of
Evangelina...
and
her sisters. No blood relation, but sisters by
choice.

Although the main focus of this
story is
Lina
,
there will also be quite a bit of information about and interaction
with, her two sisters, Tatianna and Antoinetta.

There are other main characters to fall in love
with, side characters to drool over, and some twists, turns, sex
and love.

Susan

PROLOGUE

25 years ago

The dimly lit hallway was
filled with shadows. The late shift had come on two hours earlier
and the hospital staff were either asleep at their stations,
watching television, or reading. The patients were left to rest
until the morning shift arrived at 6:00 a.m. He’d be long gone by
then. Arturius moved within the shadows, barely there. He was just
a movement that caught your eye occasionally, making you look, but
never able to see anything. Some of the humans felt a chill as he
passed, but that couldn’t be helped. He had a job to do and
cloaking all his
gifts
was draining. He had little strength left and even less
time.

T
he soft lighting ahead indicated the nursery. His target lay
in her clear, plastic bassinet, sleeping peacefully, wrapped in
pink blankets, and wearing a pink cap over her tiny blond head. He
stopped beside the sleeping infant. She was only hours old. As long
as he lived, Arturius never ceased to be awed by the miracle of
birth, the spirit and determination of humans to continue on. He
was delaying what he knew he had to do, but wanted to gaze upon his
tiny pink daughter just a while longer.

Her mother Susan was a
real beauty, full of life with a dash of magic. She never knew that
she was special in that way. Her parents wanted her to be
normal
so they never
told her she was descended from Dragons. Arturius wouldn’t tell her
now. It was a shame she’d never know her magic. She’d never
remember him or the time they’d spent together. It had to be that
way to protect her and the baby she had just given birth to.
Although Arturius had never been an emotional vampire, once he’d
met Susan he’d begun to
feel
and it changed the way he viewed his
life.

Susan was pregnant after the first night
Arturius came to her, yet he visited her nightly for another two
months, neglecting his other duties. He’d felt love and didn’t want
to leave it behind. Hundreds of years without emotion, to find love
in his last year of life, was unfair punishment. To stay was heady
temptation.

Demon master Urell promised the black witch
Martiss immortality if she would submit to him and do his bidding.
He asked for a difficult spell, something to undo a vampire.
Martiss prepared for months, finally cursing Arturius to fully die
within one year, twelve short months, after over nine hundred years
on earth.

The white witch Benelda, sister-in-coven to
Martiss, disgusted by what her sister she had become, had tried to
undo the curse, but being unable to do so, she gave him the ability
to procreate. That was the best she could offer.

She gave him the chance to leave heirs to
carry on his mission, which was plain, but not so simple: fight and
stop evil from entering this world.

Martiss was stronger than most witches, but
her strength was given over to evil. She was promised rewards at
the cost of her humanity and worse for those who opposed her, it
meant death. Benelda placed a bulls-eye on her back when she
spelled Arturius with the ability to procreate, thwarting Martiss’
plans. She became the target of Martiss, Urell, and his minions.
She didn’t live to see Arturius’ first born.

The swish of electronic doors closing down
the hall brought him back to the task at hand. Taking one last look
at the sleeping baby girl and with a heavy sigh of longing,
Arturius lightly placed his hand on the child’s head. Concentrating
and shaking at the effort, a soft green glow flowed from his palm
onto the baby’s soft curls. Arturius spoke her name:

“
Evangelina Green
Maddox.

This is all I have to leave you

Your true powers, shielded and protected

Until you reach the time they are
needed.

You and your family—my family—will have to
fight,

To save your world. I love you.”

The green glow surrounded the entire
bassinet now and formed a protective bubble around them both. A
shield against the evil she would face as she grew into adulthood
when her power would reach full potential. Arturius moved away and
watched as the glow subsided and was slowly absorbed into the
infant girl. Evangelina awoke, and even with the unfocused eyes of
a newborn, she stretched her arm up for his hand, and
looked…actually looked at him! Her father. They touched briefly and
emotions flooded his heart. He felt love for his daughter but also
sadness and regret.

He had to hurry now. Leave before the
temptation to stay with Evangelina and her mother Susan became too
strong to resist. Once again he was within the shadows, unseen and
silent, the hospital corridors deserted. He was headed to another
daughter, somewhere in northern California.

She would be his “Blue”…

CHAPTER ONE

Driving up the long, tree shrouded lane, she
felt that nagging feeling of dread again.

“
What the hell was I
thinking?” She mused out loud. She did that a lot and her thoughts
often took form as verbal mumblings, and had caused her
embarrassment and chiding from parents and teachers.

Looking down the lane, the ancient trees
dripped with Spanish moss, blocking the initial view of the road
ahead and the house at the end of the drive. It looked like rain
was coming and that would slow everything down to a crawl in the
sleepy southern town.

"
Damnit, I hope this storm blows over." Sunshine bled through
the thick leaves, only a thin strip of light, to be swallowed up by
the gloom. It did
not
help her mood.

The closer she got, the worse the old house
looked. She knew it was in bad shape but hadn’t seen the front from
this angle until this morning. There was such a feeling of sadness
about the stately structure. The windows appeared to be crying for
their lost youth. What little paint remained was hanging by a
thread—literally. The roof not only looked bare, it seemed to sag
in shame.

"Yeah, don’t feel ashamed, old lady, it’s
not your fault." Lina knew she’d be pronounced crazy by anyone who
caught her talking to an old house but she’d been called worse.
Witch. Cursed. She pushed back the memories.

"Get back to the present, Lina.” She
admonished herself, opened the car door, grabbed her bag of tools,
her purse, and the small bag of clothes and toiletries and took
them up to the third step from the front door.

She ran her hand through her short blond
hair trying to give it some body, or shape, or life. She’d always
had long hair—to the curve of her lower back, for most of her 24
years—but the heat and humidity of southern Arkansas made it wilt.
The shorter, fluffy cut was easier to maintain, hitting her chin
with a flirty curl and it actually made her look younger. It
actually accented her unusual green eyes, even with the dark
circles underneath that had formed in the last few months.

Lina stood over 5 ft. 11 inches tall and
usually had a curvier shape, as her friends called it; she called
it fat. With the stress of travelling, hiring contractors, and the
heat of the south, she’d lost a good 25 lbs. and now her clothes
hung on her. The stress Lina felt was that she had taken on the
responsibility to get the house, grounds, and clinic finished. In
less than a month her two best friends were arriving. They called
each other sisters after spending every summer together at the
mansion since they were eight years old. Tatianna, now called
Tashi, and Antoinetta, were coming home. The latter coming home to
die. None of the doctors she’d seen—and there had been many—could
identify the problem and then naturally, they had no treatment or
cure for her. Lina liked things in her life to make sense. This
mystery illness was out of order. Lina wanted order in her life,
just for a while.

Antoinetta, affectionately called Netta, was
dying as sure as the mansion seemed to be. Maybe by breathing life
into the old house, the flurry of activity could revive Netta as
well. They all had a connection to the mansion, as they called it,
so maybe?

Also with a project as
huge as this one, and all the different areas that needed
attention, maybe Lina could distract Netta with some small tasks.
Maybe the exercise and fresh air would help. Good home cooking and
loved ones near, maybe Lina could find some peace for herself. It
was up to her to make sure everything was ready.
Ready
? Was anyone ever
ready to watch their sister die?

She parked out front near the cars and
trucks of the workmen doing the demo of the back of the house. She
could hear the generator starting up. The recent rains had
partially flooded the local swamp, so she never approached the
mansion from the front. She chose to use the shortcut from town,
through the now flooded and impassable swamp, arriving at the back
near the kitchen. That part of the house was being torn down and
remodeled into a larger more modern kitchen. Connecting the kitchen
to the clinic for the new veterinarian she'd hired, which allowed
it to double as a clinic for Netta, should it come to that.

The vet was still practicing in Cypress
Wood, the nearest town, but once she heard the practice was
dissolving, she'd asked if any of the veterinarians would be
staying in the area. She hired one after seeing his excellent
resume, sight unseen.

The rainstorm looming overhead would stop
all work on the house and with precious little time left before
Netta came home, there was no spare time for delays. Workmen had
been here off and on for the last eight weeks.

The foundation for the additions had been
poured, but electrical, plumbing, framing, drywall, and painting
hadn’t been started. Lina and Tashi would do a lot of the finish
work inside, like painting the walls and even some tile or wood
floor installations. They had ceramic tiles for the kitchen and
either hardwood or laminates for the rest. They left the electric
and plumbing to the professionals, but Lina could install a light
fixture or hang cabinets, for heaven’s sake…she wasn’t helpless.
She was the mother hen of the group. Sometimes by choice, although
there were times when she would have gladly let someone else take
that role.

“
Shake it off, Lina.”
There was so much to do and so little time. The mansion had fallen
into disrepair, but the land and swamps around it were still
valuable. There was obvious value in the ecology. There were acres
of wetlands and the nature preserve, where countless birds,
mammals, amphibians, rare species of plants and trees—even some
people—flourished along the river. But long ago they’d discovered
oil and natural gas deposits that could bring in huge fortunes for
generations, if the family had approved it, which they hadn’t. They
preferred Mother Nature to amassing fortune.

***

Lina longed for the mansion of her youth,
those lazy summers spent with Grams and Gramps, daydreaming, laying
about, and not having a care in the world. Gloomy misgivings had
shadowed the comfort she should have felt upon returning the only
home to which she felt a real connection. Why?

Their adopted
grandparents
weren’t
actual relatives, but were more like caregivers. Now, thinking
back, she couldn’t remember why they called them grandparents,
other than at their request, and then also out of respect for two
important people in their lives. And she wondered how three girls
all with different families and backgrounds ended up together at
the “School” for Young Ladies every summer after they turned eight
years old. The three of them were the only
young ladies
ever in attendance.
Even their birthdays were within a year of the each other’s. Odd,
but that just made it more interesting to Lina. None of the girls
knew for sure how they were connected, but they felt like
sisters
, and that bond
was strong.