📖First Chapter: The Mirror by P.K. Eden #firstchapter

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Title: The Mirror

Author: P.K. Eden

Publisher: The Wild Rose Press

Publication Date: October 14, 2024

Pages: 390

Genre: Urban Fantasy

What if you found out the artifacts from the fairy tales you loved as a child were real and one of them just predicted your death?

That’s the dilemma Scientist Ben Michaels faces when Siene Dower, descendant of the Brothers Grimm, tells him that Snow White’s Magic Mirror sent her to stop him from getting into the cab that crashed and burst into flame right before his eyes at the intersection at Penn Station, New York City. Does practical Dr. Michaels dismiss everything he knows about reality and science and follow the curious and beautiful woman who just saved his life?

The Mirror is available at Amazon.

First Chapter:

Germany 1945

“Where is it?”

The SS Commandant’s voice sounded like a snake hissing to the bloodied figure tied to a chair in front of him. “Where you and your kind will never find it,” the man said. He smiled through swollen lips, defiance in his tone.

The SS officer prepared to strike the bound man’s face again when a knock at the door stopped him. He lowered his arm. “Kommen.”

A young soldier entered. He raised his hand and simultaneously smacked his heels together as he had been trained to do. “Heil!”

“Report,” the officer ordered.

“The house was empty except for the old woman.”

“Did you search thoroughly?”

The soldier let out a frightened breath. “We did and found nothing.”

A sneer curled the senior officer’s lip. “Bring the woman here.”

For a moment, the soldier’s exacting stance buckled, but he quickly pulled his shoulders back. “She killed herself before we had a chance to question her.”

“Fool!” The commandant spat out before opening a cut on the cheek of the young solder’s face with a punishing, black leather-gloved backhanded slap. “Get out!”

The soldier covered his bleeding cheek with one hand and backed away. Once at the door, he saluted and quickly left.

A low snicker filled the room elevating into a guttural, choking laugh.

The Commandant turned slowly.

The captive lifted his battered face. “You see Herr Schmidt, we will do anything, give anything, even our lives. The search is over for you and your kind. You will never know the future before you live it.” He smiled through bloodied teeth. “That is, if you live.”

Schmidt felt his rage rise. He grasped the man by his chin so he could not look away. “By now your wife is dead and it is only a matter of time before we find your son. When we do, we will take the treasure from his dying hands.”

The prisoner locked his gaze on Schmidt. “You will never find the shard. Never! It’s over for you.”

Schmidt shook his head. “I beg to differ.”

In a movement almost faster than the eye could see, he pulled a black Lugar from its holster and shot the prisoner through his right eye. The man’s head lolled forward, and blood dripped onto the floor. As the sound of the gunshot faded, the phone jangled on the desk near the window. Schmidt strode across the room, his boots tapping a cadence on the wooden floor. He snatched the receiver from the cradle.

“Was ist das?”

He felt his entire body go cold as he listened to the voice on the other end. Slowly he laid down the receiver and turned to the dead man slumped in the chair. He loaded another round into the chamber of his Lugar.

“You were right, old friend. It is all over. The Americans are coming.” He shot one more round into the dead man and left.

In the streets, chaos reigned. People ran in all directions, some carrying suitcases or bundles, some fleeing with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Women held crying children and clutched the hands of toddlers. Older children and men who had not been conscripted into the German Army pushed wagons or carts loaded with personal possessions. The screaming of women and crying of frightened children sporadically overlaid the sound of bombs exploding in the distance.

Anger and foreboding clutched at Schmidt’s heart. He had to get home. His breath came in short gasps as he wound his way through the panicked crowd. The irony of it all; he should be inheriting the world, not counting the minutes to his end.

He and his family were Taltos. Once loyal members of the Primogens, a secret society possessing some of the most secret and mystical articles not known to man. Taltoians were a rogue sect bent on eliminating the Primogen protectors and using the objects for profit. For centuries, in the undercurrent of society, Taltoians fought the Primogens to regain the artifacts, but Primogen Sentinels, Council Loyalists, like the one he’d killed only a few minutes before, stood steadfast against them.

The old man wouldn’t tell him the whereabouts of the shard from Snow White’s Magic Mirror. The shard, a piece broken from the artifact to deactivate it, would lead him to the mirror. Once the mirror was whole, he would control the spirit inside. Depending on what he asked, he could either alter the future or use what he saw to fit into his plan.

As part of the Fuhrer’s preoccupation with the mystical, Schmidt had been charged to find out if the stories about the Mirror were true and if so, to bring it to Berlin to help with the war effort. Schmidt had other plans for this magical object, but now the war and the approaching Americans changed everything.

The Sentinel was dead, and his son was surely on his way to Rome or some other Primogen sanctuary. The shard would be hidden once again to ensure it and the mirror was not united unless needed for some noble cause. Though he and Taltoians would not hesitate to use the mystical powers the mirror possessed for unrestricted gain, the Primogens exercised restraint and stayed away from altering the destiny of mankind except in dire circumstances.

After opening the door to his home, Schmidt became acutely aware of the silence. Normally, he would hear the strains of a concerto played on the grand piano by his daughter accompanied by the sweet humming of his wife. Today however, the quiet was deafening. He closed his eyes, his heartbeat returning to normal. They were gone. Before leaving to interrogate the Primogen Sentinel, he arranged for their safe passage out of the city and made his wife promise she and his daughter would pack and leave. For the first time in days his smile was genuine.

He walked to the bar on the far side of the living room and pulled out a bottle of Schnapps. After pouring a healthy portion, he lifted his head and saw his image in the mirror on the wall. The once confident man he saw now looked defeated. Slowly he smiled at the quirk of fate. He saluted and drank the shot in one long gulp.

For the second time that day he pulled the Lugar from its holster and cocked the trigger. He parted the lace curtains on the window with his forefinger. A few people still rushed through the streets as the sound of the war grew closer. There was no way he would sit in an American prison camp until his fate was decided.

His laugh came out like the hysterics of a madman. I can see the future after all, he thought, right before he put the Luger to his temple and pulled the trigger.

About the Authors:

P.K. Eden is the alter ego of multi-published and award winning authors Patt Milhailff and Kathye Quick whose debut novel FIREBRAND was lauded as comparable to the Harry Potter series, garnered 5-Star reviews, and won numerous Reviewer’s Choice Awards.

Born long, long ago in a place not so far away, Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, Kathryn Quick has been writing since the Sisters in St. Casmir’s Grammar School gave her the ruled yellow paper and a number two pencil. She writes contemporary and career romances, romantic comedies, historical romances as well as urban fantasy.

Kathye has twenty fiction books in print with various publishing houses and one non-fiction compilation of her town’s history at the behest of the Manville Library Bord. She was honored to have been named an Amazon top 100 Romance Author for Ineligible Bachelor published by Montlake Romance. Other works include a three book Grandmother’s Rings Series – Amethyst, Sapphire and Citrine, a rom-com series that follows three siblings as they use their Grandmother’s Rings given to them by their mother to find their soulmates.

Because she has been fascinated by King Arthur and his knights for almost forever, her series Beyond Camelot, Brother Knights, is her vision of how the majestic kingdom may have survived after Arthur. Two books are written in this series with the third and final still in concept.

She is a founding member of Liberty State Fiction Writers and has been a part of Romance Writers of America and New Jersey Romance Writers.

She is married to her real-life hero, Donald, and has three grown sons, each having romantic adventures of their own. Her two grandkids, Savannah and Dax, happily cut into her writing time but she still manages to get a few pages done each day.

Website & Social Media:

Website ➜ www.Kathrynquick.com

Twitter ➜ https://x.com/KQuickAuthor

Facebook ➜ https://www.facebook.com/KathrynQuickBooks/

Instagram ➜ https://www.instagram.com/kathrynquickauthor/

Goodreads ➜ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/217228581-the-mirror

***

Thanks to novelist and editor, Dr. Nathasha Brooks-Harris who invited Patt Milhailff to write for several TRUE CONFESSION lines of magazines where she learned tight and entertaining writing and resulted in the publication of more than two hundred short stories and articles.

One of Patt’s most gratifying experiences was when she moderated a standing room only workshop at the African American Romance Slam Jam in 2004 and has since enjoyed speaking engagements at libraries, book clubs and other forums.

She was awarded 2009 Author of the year and 2010 Mentor of the year by Romance writers of America, New York City Chapter, a terrific organization that helped her to obtain valuable lessons and insight while on her writing journey.

Patt is also featured in A Dream Deferred, A Joy Achieved, a non-fiction novella by Charise Nesbit a co-producer at Tyler Perry Studios, about foster care, as well as being included in two of Times Bestselling Author Zane’s anthologies.

Patt is one half of the writing duo P.K. Eden along with Kathye Quick, authors of Firebrand, that received a five star Affaire de Couer Reviewer’s Choice Award.

She is also a member of Liberty States Fiction Writers the home of a magnitude of talented writers and fellow authors and is the author of nine novels.

Patt was raised, and educated in New York City, residing in New Jersey, and has since relocated to Delaware.

Social Networks for P.K. Eden:

Follow on Twitter: https://x.com/PKEdenAuthor

Follow on Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/P.K.EdenAuthor

Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p.k.edenauthor/

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