The Cursebreaker Clan (CC) Prologue (Patreon)

Hidden Location, Germany

May 2028

Anson Brüsehaber reached out to grab the trunk he’d been looking for off of the shelf. When he heard a small noise behind him. He whirled around on the stop ladder.

His cousin Alice stared up at him. “What are you doing?”

He sneered at her as his sudden panic faded. “What does it look like I’m doing?” He turned his back on her and started pulling down the trunk again. If his father or his uncle had found him he might have had a problem. Or even if Alice’s brother had come by. But Alice? She wasn’t going to stop him.

“It looks like you’re taking Great Uncles forbidden writings out of storage! Put those back!”

Anson rolled his eyes. “Shut up, Alice.” He turned around and set the trunk carefully on the ground, making sure not to fall off the ladder. When he climbed down the few steps to the ground he turned to tell Alice to piss off.

Suddenly, Alice was right in his face, glaring into his eyes. “I said ‘Put it back’.”

Anson scowled, angry at having flinched. She was just his punk cousin, not someone to actually be scared of. She hadn’t beaten him in a fight a single time in their lives. He grabbed her shoulder and started to push her away. “I don’t take orders from-”

In a flash Alice grabbed his hand of her shoulder and twisted his arm painfully.

“I. Said. Put. It. Back!” Alice snarled at him.

He gasped in pain and tried to pull away, but Alice just adjusted her grip and forced him to move away from the self, and the trunk sitting on the ground.

“Dad!” She shouted back into the rest of the house. “Uncle Terrel! Oz! Anson’s trying to-”

Anson punched at her mouth with his free hand. He couldn’t let any of them stop him! He knew he had the right idea, but his family was too caught up in stupid traditions to see it!

Alice saw the punch coming and managed to pull out of the way in time, but lost her grip on Anson’s arm.

“Get out of my way!” Anson demanded. “You can’t stop me, you won’t even be able to slow me down!”

Alice dashed in closer as he shouted at her, and slammed a hammer blow into his diaphragm as he spoke.

With a gasp Anson hunched over, desperately trying to get a good breath as all the air in his lungs was forced out of him. He staggered to one side, away from the trunk. He tried to right himself, to get ready to fight back, but Alice was moving too fast.

She swept his legs out from under him in one well practiced move, grabbed the front of his shirt, and slammed him into the floor. “We haven’t fought in years you idiot.” She hissed at him. “And I’ve been practicing to get better.”

As he laid there on the ground, struggling to catch his breath, he tired to grab at her ankles, but she just stepped out of his reach and started pushing the trunk further away from him as she shouted for help again.

Anson growled and reached for his wrist. He hadn’t wanted to use this on any of his family, but they weren’t giving him much choice. He pulled the bracelet out of his sleeve and reached his hand out towards Alice. Around his wrist, the dull metal bracelet began to glow with a dark purple light. After a moment of concentrating on the bracelet and its light, Anson flicked his hand at Alice.

Out of the bracelet flew a tangled web of energy the same color as the glow. It wrapped around Alice like a net and knocked her to the ground.

“What the hell?” She shouted. The dark purple, glowing net managed to tangle up around enough of her to keep her from getting back up, but she managed wiggle around enough to turn her head towards Anson. She froze in place, her face paling as she stared at the bracelet on his wrist. “Anson… What have you done?!”

“The right thing!” He shouted at her as he pulled himself to his feet. “I managed to look past the idiotic old traditions and see that we’re wasting the potential of all these!” He gestured at the bracelet. “We can control them! Use them for good. But you’re all too focused on getting rid of them!”

“Because they hurt people, Anson!”

“They don’t have to though.” He grabbed the trunk from where she’d dropped it. “Right in here are the answers on how to make them work for us.” He started dragging the trunk out of the door.

“Anson!” Alice shouted. “Don’t! You’re going to hurt yourself! Cursed object are just as bad for the person wielding them as they are everyone around them!”

Anson ignored her as he dragged the trunk to the front door. He glanced around the driveway  and saw only his car and Alice’s. Good. He didn’t want to have to fight the rest of his family too.

He loaded the trunk into the back seat of his car and hopped into the driver seat. He stared back at the house through his rear-view mirror as he drove away. The magical net binding Alice would fade away in a few hours, leaving her no worse for the wear. As annoying as she could be, and as caught up in the old, faded traditions of their family and clan as she was, Alice was still family. He still loved her, and didn’t want her to get hurt. 

He heard Alice yelling at him as he left, and he didn’t even disagree with her. He wasn’t stupid enough to think that cursed objects weren’t dangerous, but a dangerous tool is still a tool! Explosives could kill people, but there were just as many useful reasons as there are dangers! He just needed to prove to his family that cursed objects were the same way.  And he had the perfect opportunity.

The object that had started everything, that had led to the clan coming into existence in the first place, had shown up somewhere in the United States. Cursed objects could be useful, but just as there were some mundane things that shouldn’t be allowed to exist, there were some cursed objects that did need to be destroyed as well. Cursed items that were actually evil. Like the Hungering Blade. Now he just had to find it, and get rid of it for good. Destroying that sword, the sword that had started everything, that generations of his family had hunted for and chased after, would prove to them that he was right.

Now he just had to find it.