Legend of the Gypsy Queen Skull: The Devil's Triangle - Book 1 by otis duane

quickly withdrew his dagger from his belt. Stepping into the
much-smaller corsair, the psychopath plunged his blade into the
man’s gut and sneered at him as he slit open his belly.
    Laughing, Gliv then shoved him down to the
deck, as the pirate clenched ahold of his stomach. Staring at his
squirming victim, he tauntingly licked the blood from his
double-edged blade and then spat on him.
    “Erosh! Adnon!” Gliv called out over his
shoulder, beckoning two of his dreadlocked pirates.
    Running over to him, like Gliv, they too
were shirtless with blackened tiger stripes painted across their
bare chests and had strands of burning hemp in their long
beards.
    “Throw this shark bait over the side,” he
ordered with a crazed look in his eye.
    The pirates knew better than to argue with
him and picked up their fallen comrade.
    “No, please. I beg you!” the bloodied man
pleaded as they lifted him up and tossed him over the side.
    Grinning ear-to-ear, Gliv went back to
waving the streams of hemp smoke up into his nostrils.
    “Anything else Master Gliv?” one of them
asked him.
    Snapping his finger, he pointed at his
henchmen and said, “Bring me up some slaves from the hole.”
    Turning to his comrade, the pirate smirked
and then the two of them hastily disappeared down a nearby
hatch.
    “We’ll see what this English captain is made
of,” Gliv said to himself, closing his eyes as he drew in a deep
breath.

Chapter 7 -
The Ancient Witch
    8th Century BC ~ Mt. Olympus ~ Ancient
Greece

    In the Dorian family, their mystical blood
lineage ran only through the female bloodline. The males had no
proclivity for the magic, and no one really had any idea why. It
had just been that way for as long as anyone could remember.
    Tradition held it was the matriarch’s
responsibility to mentor her daughters in Dorian witchcraft. And
growing up, Tilda’s mother had done just that, but had also taught
her to use their magic benevolently.
    “Just as everything in the universe has two
sides, a yin and a yang, so too does our magic,” she would explain.
She had gone to great lengths to warn Tilda to steer clear of their
magic’s darker, shadowy side. “Though tempting as it may be, grave
consequences await those with a malevolent heart,” her mother would
say.
    Tilda heeded her mother’s warning and only
worked in the light of their Dorian magic. And, like her mother
before her, Tilda began teaching her own daughters the magic at an
early age. Just as importantly, she taught them when not to use
it.
    “Our magic is to heal mankind, not to become
its scourge,” she often reminded her three girls.
    They were all exceptionally talented
witches, each with their own specialty. Erika was an intuitive
fortune teller who could gaze into one’s eyes and read their soul.
The middle girl, Elena, was a passionate romantic and especially
drawn to brewing love and courtship potions. Whereas, Adriana was a
gentle soul, whose calling was to heal the sick.
    Though the girls were trained in all facets
of the magic, there was one secret Tilda had never revealed to
them. It was her most guarded one of all. She was a Dorian Gypsy
Queen and the secret keeper of an ancient mystical relic called the
Gypsy Queen Skull.
    The skull itself was an object so powerful
that it could breach the very fabric of space and time itself.
According to its legend, it was fired in the furnace of the Sun and
was forged by a god’s hammer on Mercury. It was believed to have
been inhabited with the life force of a celestial being. Some even
said it was the entrapped soul of a fallen Greek god .
    ~*~
    To know the story of Tilda’s Dorian
ancestors is to know the skull and the Gypsy Queen’s role.
    Originally, the Dorians were a family coven
of witches in ancient Greece who wandered the rugged countryside
selling their esoteric services. They acted as healers, mediums,
seers, and even sorceresses, who practiced both white and black
magic.
    As masters of spirit conjuring,