Tuesday, October 15, 2024

The Nephilim’s Fate by Eliza Hampstead



The Nephilim’s Fate
War of the Nephilim Series
Eliza Hampstead

Genre: Fantasy Romance
Date of Publication: 16. August 2022
ISBN: 979-8837459108
ASIN: B0B72G3H1T
Number of pages: 307
Word Count: 87K
Cover Artist: Rio B Nugroho

Tagline: She will find a way, even if it leads to a war between Heaven and Hell.

Book Description:

In the heart of London, Alissia's ordinary life takes a thrilling turn when she is attacked by bloodthirsty vampires. When Nate, the man she dreamed about for years, swoops in to save her, her reality shatters as she discovers a shocking truth: she's a witch, and he's a Nephilim. But their love is cursed, forbidden by ancient laws that threaten to tear their world apart.

As old rivalries resurface and dark secrets come to light, Alissia and Nate must confront their deepest fears and fight for their love, even if it means igniting a war between Heaven and Hell.

With unforgettable characters, steamy romance, and gripping plot twists, this captivating new fantasy series by award-winning author Eliza Hampstead delves into a world of angels and demons, forbidden love, and the inexorable power of fate.



Excerpt 2 Learning about her mother:

My heart stopped for a moment before resuming its work at double speed. I gulped. Now was the time for the truth. Seraphina stood up and walked to her desk; when she turned back, she held a photo in her hand. My heart was beating frantically as Seraphina held out the picture. I nearly didn’t take it. I suddenly wanted to live in ignorance, yet my body reacted before I could decide and took the photo. I looked at a woman who resembled me a great deal. She also had dark hair and green eyes, her nose was a bit longer than mine, and her lips were thinner. However, it was clear that she was my kin.

“Her name was Keira Shepard. Your father is still unknown; the coven thinks he was a human and unimportant to her. She never told anybody about him.”

Keira Shepard. A beautiful name that fitted her. I wanted to know everything about her, right now. “What do you know of her? Is her family an old witch family? Did she leave anything behind?”

“She was from an old family. To our knowledge, it had died with her until now. Her belongings went to the coven after her mother—your grandmother—died ten years ago. Her file states she could glimpse into the future. She was much into the second sight. If you want to, I can ask for the whole file, including the documentation about her going missing.”

“That would be splendid. Thank you.” I tried to say more, but my thoughts were spinning. I had the name and face of my birth mother and a thousand questions


About the Author:

Award winning author Eliza Hampstead, a scientist by training, lives with her family in the UK. When she's not writing, she spends her time as a geek. Playing all sorts of games (board games, video games, RPGs) and being a big fan of medieval history are only a few of the many hobbies she has. Passionate about fantasy, she's always planning her next adventure.
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Monday, October 14, 2024

Ghosts of Sleepy Hollow by Sam Baltrusis - Haunted Halloween Spooktacular



SLEEPY HOLLOW’S HEADLESS HORSEMAN

By Sam Baltrusis

For more than two centuries after Washington Irving unleashed “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” the Headless Horseman is still very much alive in pop culture.

   Elizabeth Bradley, a historian and author of Knickerbocker: The Myth Behind New York, rattled off a few of the various adaptations of the great American ghost story on the October 26, 2022 edition of WNYC News.

   “It has such legs and you can see that in all of the different interpretations,“ Bradley said during the radio interview. “There truly is a version of ‘Sleepy Hollow’ for every generation.” It’s an impressive list that includes Disney’s animated classic from 1949 and Tim Burton’s supernatural horror flick starring Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci.

   Of course, no one can eclipse the original which was initially published with a collection of essays and stories for The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent in 1820.

   “Irving's version of the Headless Horseman is set in the Hudson Valley region, and it pits an outsider, a Yankee, named Ichabod Crane against a very insular Dutch community,” Bradley said. “Throughout the course of the story, Ichabod pursues a local Dutch heiress in an effort to integrate himself into this community and is ultimately run out of town by the apparition of the Headless Horseman.”

   Bradley told WNYC that she believes the famed short-story writer created the headless Hessian in an attempt to populate a young nation with its own ghosts and mythologies. “You have to remember that Irving was born the year after the American Revolution ended,” she said. “The war was in the rear-view mirror of the people of Sleepy Hollow and a very new United States. It was an opportunity to create a whole regional culture. He really seized the moment and had a lot of fun with it."

   How did “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” become associated with All Hallows’ Eve? Bradley explained that the holiday wasn’t even on Irving’s radar when he fleshed out America’s first monster. “He doesn't mention Halloween once in the story,” she said. “[The Headless Horseman] is often associated with having a pumpkin for a head,” she said, adding that the character’s jack-o’-lantern prop was added in Disney’s The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad and, over the years, the haunting imagery then seared itself into pop culture. “Most people only knew the Disney version and that’s where the Halloween association really started to come into play,” Bradley added.

   J.W. Ocker, author of The New York Grimpendium and creator of the OTIS: Odd Things I’ve Seen blog, is on board with the idea that the Headless Horseman has somehow become the unofficial ambassador of spooky season. “The Headless Horseman is the spirit of fall,” Ocker told me during a sit-down interview at the Sleepy Hollow Hotel. “Every monster wants to be associated with autumn, but there’s something about him running through a forest with the leaves changing colors that makes him the patron monster of Halloween. The bigger Halloween gets, the bigger he gets. Everytime you feed Halloween, you feed him.”

   Ocker agreed with Bradley that the animated version from the Disney movie has ingrained itself into the American psyche. “Our generation grew up with the Disney cartoon,” he said. “You can’t think of the Headless Horseman without thinking of the purple-cloaked, cackling creature from the animated version. The imagery has almost become a part of the monster’s brand.”

   The United States of Cryptids author said he always thought the Headless Horseman had a jack-o’-lantern in one hand and a battle sword in another, but was shocked to learn that Irving didn’t include the macabre accessories in the short story. He was also convinced that the Headless Horseman eventually caught up with Ichabod Crane on a covered bridge. Not true.

   “People who visit Sleepy Hollow always want to see the covered bridge, but it doesn’t exist,” Ocker said. “If I could change one thing to the original story, I would make it a covered bridge. It just seems fitting.”

   Despite being tweaked a bit in the modern adaptations of Irving’s story, Ocker said the Headless Horseman is still his all-time favorite galloping ghoul. “Irving gave us the first real American monster,” he told me. “I’m not a very patriotic guy, but as an American there’s something that speaks to me about the horseman. It’s our monster. Frankenstein is from Germany and Dracula is from Transylvania. Thanks to Irving, we have our own.”.

   The secret to the short story’s success? Ocker believes the ambiguity of Irving’s fearless phantom somehow amplifies its mystique. “All we know is he was a Hessian soldier who lost his head during the American Revolution,” he told me. “There’s not much of a backstory to him. He’s this vague creature that pops up in the graveyard and runs around on his horse. He’s not jumping out of your closet. He has no face, He’s in essence an invisible man and there’s something unnerving about him as a monster.”

   In Brian Haughton’s Lore of the Ghost, he mentioned that Irving was living in Birmingham, England when he wrote “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and surmised that the celebrated American author “probably picked up on some of the elements he used in the story” overseas. “The headless ghost motif was known in German folklore at least as early as 1505 when it was recorded in a sermon written by Geiler von Kaysersberg, who mentions headless spirits being part of the Wild Hunt,” he noted.

   While Haughton wrote that Irving was strongly influenced by the stories told by Dutch immigrants during his childhood in New York, he suggested that it’s also likely that the writer was inspired by the recurring headless ghost motifs from northern European folklore. “The tradition of the headless ghost is found worldwide in many diverse cultures, and exhibits broadly the same characteristics connected with death and death warnings,” Haughton reported. “Popular tradition attributes such hauntings to the wandering spirits of those who died by beheading, either by execution or accident.”

   Haughton is in agreement that Irving’s story continues to leave a profound mark on popular culture. “Irving’s dark story of the headless Hessian soldier who rides forth every night through the dark lanes of Sleepy Hollow, and the dénouement of the tale involving a supernatural wild chase through the woods, has had a significant effect on the nature of American hauntings,” Haughton wrote in Lore of the Ghost. “The influence of Irving’s tale on popular culture is evident.”

   Alex Matsuo, author of Women of the Paranormal, told me that there may be an underlying reason why “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” continues to strike a chord with American readers. “We don't think about it often, but there are countless legends that were created to dehumanize a group,” Matsuo explained. “Instead of perceiving the Hessian as a real person, granted a terrifying figure during the time of the Revolutionary War, he turned it into this story that is meant to remind people that the Hessians were not meant to be trusted, even after the war was over.”

   Even though Matsuo sees a deeper meaning to what could be viewed as a cautionary tale, she said the Headless Horseman keeps luring her back to the Hudson Valley area, “Between the story of the Hessian soldier who lost his head around Halloween in 1776, and Ichabod Crane encountering him while trying to avoid him at all cost, there is a lesson to be learned there,” Matsuo said. “But I think the way that Disney commercialized ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,’ plus the Tim Burton film, there is a romanticization of the spell-bound region that has cemented it into Halloween traditions.


Ghosts of Sleepy Hollow: 
Haunts of the Headless Horseman
Haunted America
Sam Baltrusis

Genre: Ghosts & Hauntings
Publisher: History Press
Date of Publication: September 23, 2024
ISBN: 978-146715802
Number of pages: 144
Word Count: 32,500

Tagline: Chilling Tales of the Hudson Valley

Book Description:

Nestled on the banks of the Hudson River, Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown are steeped in history and ghost lore. Famous for Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” the storied Westchester region also has a dark history of witches, spies, and pirates. 

Rumors of Headless Horseman sightings surge during spooky season while visitors flock to the Valley’s haunted hot spots like the Old Dutch Church and the famed writer’s Sunnyside home. 

Join author and journalist Sam Baltrusis on a bone-chilling journey through the streets of Sleepy Hollow as he breathes new life into the legendary village’s long-departed souls.

Amazon     BN     Arcadia




Excerpt:

Sleepy Hollow, New York is brimming with ghostly legends that have somehow taken on a life of their own.

Nestled on the banks of the Hudson River, the fabled region —which includes the adjoining Tarrytown— has become the go-to place during spooky season thanks to the popularity of Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."

Late-night lantern tours in search of a decapitated soldier's galloping ghost? Yes, please.

If one spends enough time walking through the labyrinthine paths of the village's historic cemeteries, however, there's something sinister oozing beneath Sleepy Hollow's rustic, story-book facade.

It's as if the entire hamlet is under some sort of enchantment. Or, as Irving penned in 1820, it oddly feels like the locals are somehow bewitched and "are subject to trances and visions."

The revered writer referred to the area as the "spell-bound region," and rightfully so. According to several first-hand accounts, creepy music and disembodied voices emerge out of thin air

Based on Irving's mythical take on his later-in-life hometown, it should be no surprise that the Headless Horseman isn't the Valley’s only fearsome phantom seeking postmortem revenge.

The entire region seems to be teeming with paranormal activity. Several publications sensationally claim that both Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown together make the "most haunted places in the world."

But, is it?

After digging beneath the surface, it's difficult to pinpoint what's actually paranormal activity versus a made-up ghost story that has been collectively conjured over a 200-year period.

Alex Matsuo, a Maryland-based author and paranormal investigator who has written about the area’s alleged paranormal activity in her Spooky Stuff blog, believes that the line between fact and fiction is somehow blurred in Sleepy Hollow.

“After Washington Irving's infamous tale plunged the area into fame, I would hypothesize that perhaps some of the paranormal activity could be attributed to thought-forms,” Matsuo told me. “There's also the case of self-fulfilling prophecies that people can accomplish without realizing it.”

Matsuo cited the replica of the bridge in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery as a potential hotspot for ghostly encounters that are freakishly fueled by the expectations of thrill-seeking visitors.

 “Just by knowing the tale and the true story behind it, they would already get a case of the creeps,” she explained. “Then, with tensions rising, they hear a branch break or footsteps, and they get really spooked. They go home and tell their friends and family about the creepy experience, unknowing that there was an animal nearby causing the ruckus.”

Also, there are what paranormal researchers call thought-forms or an outward manifestation of the heightened emotions of those who visit Sleepy Hollow during spooky season. Matsuo believes that based on this concept, extreme fear can somehow take a physical form within the spirit world.

“When you have a massive amount of people invested in a story, even a fictional story based on real people, that energy has to go somewhere,” she said. “In the case of Sleepy Hollow, it may have manifested into paranormal occurrences. I would guess that most of that energy is more organized, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of that energy was displaced, which could explain some of the random paranormal events that have happened over the years.”


About the Author:

Sam Baltrusis, author of Ghosts of Salem: Haunts of the Witch City and featured in The Curse of Lizzie Borden shock doc, has penned eighteen paranormal-themed books including Haunted Boston Harbor and Ghosts of the American Revolution. He has been featured on several national TV shows including the Travel Channel's A Haunting, Most Terrifying Places, Haunted Towns, and Fright Club (1 & 2). He also made a cameo in the documentary The House in Between 2 and on several additional television programs including The UnBelievable with Dan Aykroyd, History’s Most Haunted, Paranormal Nightshift, and Forbidden History. Baltrusis is a sought-after lecturer who speaks at libraries and paranormal-related events across the country. Visit SamBaltrusis.com for more information.












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Black In White by JC Andrijeski - Haunted Halloween Spooktacular



Halloween Fiction - The Chair

by JC Andrijeski 

Devon fights…

She fights at first just to be there. Just to…

Keep her eyes open.

If she closes them…

Well, if she closes them for too long, shell die.

That should motivate you, Devon…

One of them doesnt really open, though. Not anymore.

She can hear it.

A steady drip, drip, drip under the bolted down chair where she sits.

Shes… tied. Tied up…

Ankles handcuffed to the front legs. Wrists handcuffed behind her, the chain wrapped through the metal back support of a heavy chair with no padding. She hears the sound, like a light, tapping hammer against her skull.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Each drop hits more liquid.

More liquid every minute.

…a growing pool. It lays below her, mostly under her seat where it drips down from her sliced thigh and the larger gash in her abdomen. Its already soaked through her black pants. She doesnt look at the pool…

She doesnt look at it.

Her elbows touch behind her, trembling.

Well, shaking maybe.

Shock. She must be in shock. The body kind of shock. Some part of her wants to fight or flight… at least until she collapses in front of the sliding glass doors of an emergency room.

They left her here.

Bastards just left. Didnt even bother to finish her off.

Devons eyes drift up, to a metal shop light hanging on a long, half-chewed wire from the ceiling. The ceiling lays high above. Cross-beams with rivets, a broken catwalk. Corrugated tin roof with holes and sheet-metal walls. Cement floor. The expanse and size of it are clear to her suddenly, even in the dark… even with only one eye. Its a modern-day cavern. An empty, rusted-out ruin.

Warehouse.

Jeez… cliché, much?

The smile doesnt linger on her swollen lips.

Where, though? Where is she? Should she try yelling? Is it worth it, spending time and energy trying to get the gag off to yell?

She doesnt have a lot of time. Has to choose wisely.

The warehouse is empty… vast.

She hears doves somewhere. Pigeons? They fuss and coo and rustle feathers against metal and more feathers. The sound comes from up high, echoing down to her. She imagines she sees them, huddled next to framed, dirty, dust-covered windows. Shafts of broken sunlight slant down, illuminating dancing dust motes. None of that light touches her.

Its quiet. Really damned quiet.

No cars. No voices. No footsteps to echo.

Would anyone hear her, if she yelled?

Probably not, she decides.

Why would they have left her here, alive? She tries to think about this, to make sense of it, then realizes the answer is simple. She doesnt matter. She is nothing to them. It amused him to leave her alive, so he did.

Shes probably not in the city at all, not anymore.

Her mind finds and scuttles other possibilities. She wastes more time, trying to remember the ride out here, in case she gets a chance to report in. How many of them took her. What they looked like. She didnt see shit on the drive here, or as they dragged her inside. She tripped a few times. On metal edges, steps, maybe. She didnt see anything that could help her now.

Shed been terrified.

They whipped the bag off her face…

Nothing but the hanging light, those tools, rough hands…

Screaming.

It went on for a long time.

Questions. She wont remember those, either.

…she tried to listen. Before that. She tried to…

She hadnt been trained for this. No one told her this might happen.

First job. Big deal first job, working for the president.

Just a noob. A rook.

A red shirt.

She tries to make a report. To herself. A report on what happened…

…three men forced a black bag over my head at approximately 7:15 am. Id just reached the edge of the perimeter on our secondary check, at the southeast corner of the UN building on East 42nd and 1st. I was overpowered, drugged, then blindfolded with a bag before being marched down the emergency stairwell Id been patrolling. They took outside the building through a lower access door, where I was almost immediately shoved in the back of an unmarked van…

Well. Her mind said unmarked van.”

She remembers a sliding door, the grating sound before it slammed shut with a muffled bang and the snick of a lock. In the movies its always an unmarked van...but it could have been some suburban minivan, for all Devon knew.

Maybe with a My Kid is an Honor Roll Student” bumper sticker…

Distraction. She doesnt have time for distraction.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

She doesnt know much about the human body, but she knows it needs blood.

Hers is running out. Too fast.

No one is coming.

Theyd cut her…

Christ. How did this happened?

Wrong place, wrong time.

…but she cant think about that anymore, either.

Her one, good eye scours the space again.

Heavy wooden table. Dirty, covered in tools.

Devon doesnt want to look at those tools, given that most are covered in her blood. She makes herself stare at them anyway. Some are sharp, sure...most are sharp, rusted, like a horror movie or something from the Tower of London. A few blunter things. She cant say for sure, but doesnt think any of them would help her get out of the chair. Not with no hands. Not fast enough.

A spark ignites somewhere in her mind.

Keys.

Hed snorted, staring at her with those hard, slate-like eyes.

Hed been finished. Worked up a sweat. Probably a calorie deficit day for him. Like going to the gym.

Orange-tinged blond hair sweated to his forehead and neck. Face, neck and upper body speckled with small and large red dots, larger patches of the same fluid on the sleeves of his blue t-shirt and his hands. He made a show of wiping those thick, hairy hands on a dirty rag before he left.

Shed already been counting down the minutes.

Maybe he had been, too.

Or maybe the clock had already stopped, from his perspective.

Hed left the keys.

Well… sort of. Hed thrown them across the empty warehouse.

He did that casually, too, tossing them in a high arc, like tossing a bottle opener to a friend at a party.

They went far, though.

Devon heard them land. She hears it again now, a distant thunk in her head as she fights to remember. She hears them skitter across the cement a few feet...or maybe a few yards...like a distant replay.

That bastard grinned at her after he did it. Teeth yellow from smoking. Face broken with a darker scruff than that pale. Blond hair. Between that and his darker roots, he must have bleached his hair, come to think of it.

Distraction.

He threw the keys… that was right before he left.

She thinks she remembers the direction. She thinks…

Devon bites down on her lip. Hard.

The pain forces her eyes (eye?) open once more.

It brings her mind briefly, sharply, back into focus.

Youre not going to just sit here and die, Devon.

Youre not going to play some stupid wait-and-see denial game… like some fatalistic ass, waiting for angelic intervention…

That time, she doesnt think.

She starts to rock the chair.

She starts to rock it for all shes worth.

 

* * *

 

Its difficult at first.

Side to side. Baby steps.

Then wider swings.

The legs teeter a few times, chunk down. Make her flinch.

It takes a few, good seconds to get her rhythm down...

Then its a little scary. The chair starts to sway for real. Those legs chunk down harder. Land less steadily.

Some part of her still winces back.

Some part of her doesnt want more pain.

Death, Devon.

Death is worse than a little pain, damn it…

…she makes herself do it, anyway.

When that final rock tips her over the edge, shes startled. Like some part of her still doesnt see it coming.

Her body tries to catch it in reflex…

It cant.

She lands, hard, exhales in a pain-filled grunt.

Moaning, she gasps. Winded. She lays on her side, panting, wasting oxygen, moaning, feeling like she just wants to die. Shes sure shes broken her arm. It feels like she just hit it with a hammer.

She did, more or less. On purpose.

It feels like an eternity of time shes wasted.

She can see it now, though. Shes half-laying in it.

That pool of blood. Its big.

Scary big.

It motivates her.

She starts to writhe inside the bindings of the chair. She tried to pull the chair with her, across the cement floor.

On her side, she can move her body, like a snake. It hurts her abdomen. It hurts enough to distract her from her throbbing leg, from her arm. She can even move the arm under her, but hit hurts like hell.

All of it hurts like… well, it hurts a heck of a lot.

More than anything she cares to remember.

She does it anyway.

Shes going to get across the floor. No matter what.

If they find her dead, she wont just be sitting in a chair.

She wont just be sitting over a pool of her own blood.

* * *

At first, she thinks shes not getting anywhere.

Its slow. Really slow.

She looks back though, when she has to rest. She sees a smear of blood, coming mostly off of that cut he made in her leg. A lot probably off that hole in her abdomen, too.

She looks forward again, moving.

Writhing. Gasping.

Nothing ever hurt so much.

Shes tired.

She doesnt want to think about being tired.

She doesnt want to think about what it might mean.

Shes really damned tired, though.

She fights to see through the one eye. Its fogged a bit now, not really working right. She blinks, fighting to clear it. It works, but not really.

She cant get tired.

She cant...

The first time she snaps out, she realizes shes been lying there. She doesnt know how long. Dozing...

Time for a nap, Devon? Really?

…but it scares the shit out of her.

Shes fading. She has to hurry.

She writhes faster across the cement floor, groaning a little from the wounds that have stiffened just enough to remind her shes been lying there.

She makes it a few more feet.

A few more.

Shell stop, just for a second.

Needs to rest.

Needs to…

* * *

Hey! Hey, lady!”

Devons head lolls on her neck.

The ground hurts. Something sharp there. Glass?

A nail.

Light in her face.

Really bright.

Its dark in here. Really dark.

Shes still tied to the chair.

Whatcha doindown there, lady?”

The voice slurs, then laughs. The laugh echoes, a hollow pinging against the metal insides of the cavernous space.

Devon blinks up, unable to shield her eyes from that light. Her wrists are still cuffed to the back of the chair.

Shes still tied to the chair.

Panic fills her.

A memory of that drip, drip, drip…

She fights to speak. Help,” she whispers.

Lady, youre bleeding a lot. Damn. A lot… thats really fucked up…”

Help me…” she whispers. Please… help me…”

She fights to move. Maybe to plead with him.

Maybe just to show him she cant.

Hey,” he says. What you doing in here, lady? What happened to you?”

She has the absurd desire to laugh.

Then to scream at him.

He laughs again, maybe at the look on her face.

Devon feels sick, dizzy. Is this real? Is someone really here? Is she dead? Dreaming on a gurney in some emergency room?

But no. The chair. The chair is still there.

She wouldnt dream the chair.

He doesnt seem right, either. High, maybe? Maybe he has a phone.

Then she sees it.

Hes using the phone to look at her. Using the light on the phone…

Hope turns into anxiety, clutching at her chest.

Please,” she whispers. She fights to make more noise, to speak. She clears her throat, swears she tastes more blood, then fights away the image. Please,” she says, a little louder. Please… call someone… please…”

Call someone?” That off-key laugh. Who you want me to call? Who done this to you, lady?”

She fights to see him through the bright light. She stares at the phone…

It is maddeningly out of reach.

Please,” she whispers. Please… call someone. Please…”

Another voice startles her.

It is louder, deeper.

What the hell?” it says. Who are you talking to…?” A longer pause. Then new voice gets close enough to see past the light. Jesus Christ… Rudy! What the fuck are you doing? Dont touch her!”

 He sounds disgusted. Afraid.

What are you doing, man?” he says, angrier now. Get away from her. Seriously, man. That is gross…”

The first one crouches down, so that hes closer to her.

Devon smells alcohol on his breath, smoke.

The face she sees is young, shockingly so. Younger than either of the voices she thought she heard. She sees rounded cheeks, large eyes with dilated pupils. She cant make out many features.

Hes like a happy ghost. An apparition.

Leave her alone, Rudy,” another voice says. You dont want to piss off whoever did this to her…”

Fuck, man!” the first one says. Chill, okay? Shes bleeding!”

I know shes bleeding,” the deeper, angrier-sounding voice says. Just leave her alone, okay? Leave her there… and dont touch nothing.”

We cant just leave her,” the first voice says. Can we?

Devon hears doubt in his voice.

That doubt scares her.

Terrifies her.

Please,” she says. She fights to make her voice louder. Please… I have money. I can pay you…”

Money?” A note of interest grows in the first voice. How much?”

A lot…”

Here? You got it here, lady?”

No.” She shakes her head. No. In my bank. But I promise, I––”

See?” the angry voice says. She doesnt have shit. Shell say anything right now...you cant believe her, man!”

No,” Devon pleads. No… I promise. Its true…”

Come on,” the angry voice says. I aint calling no cops. No way.”

You can call after you leave,” Devon says. Secret. Wont tell. Dont tell them your name…”

No!” the second one snaps.

He seems to be looking at her, but she cant see him past that ring of bright light. She can only feel the weight of his stare.

Im on parole, lady,” he says. No offense, but youre already dead. No one can help you now but God.”

Keys!” Devon blurts. Do you see keys? On the ground? Anywhere?”

Keys?” the first voice pipes, interested again.

Devon realized only then that hed fallen silent.

Yes.” Devon nods. She turns back towards him, away from his angry friend, fighting to speak. Yes. Please look. Please. Ill say I found them. I promise I will. I wont tell anyone about either of you…”

On the floor?”

No!” the angry voice says. Come on, Rudy. Lets go. Shes giving me the creeps.”

I can look for a minute, man. Chill.”

Shes already dead.”

One minute. Chill, man.”

Devon sees the first one, the one with the phone, wandering around the empty space. She cranes her head and her right eye towards the flickers of light and reflection on random metal surfaces as he shines his phone screen around, aiming it at different spots on the cement floor.

A few seconds later, he lets out a jubilant laugh.

It echoes up to the metal rafters, bouncing against the walls of Devons head.

Hey! I see em! I see your keys, lady!”

Here,” she manages. Please… bring them here, Rudy… please…”

Angry guy mutters.

Clothes rustle somewhere over where she lays, like hes folding his arms, or maybe shoving his hands into his pockets. The material is light, noisy, like a windbreaker or maybe a nylon jacket.

Bitch knows your name, man,” he says.

Whose fault is that?” Rudy says cheerfully.

Devon hears a jangling sound as he scoops up the keys. Like music.

She listens as he brings them over to her.

She hears footsteps…

Then his face is near hers again, grinning like he just won a prize.

You want em by your hand, lady?”

Uncuff me. Please.”

No, Rudy!” the second voice snaps. Leave the bitch her keys, and you did your good deed. Lets get the hell out of here. Now. Before someone sees us and figures what you did.”

The first one leans down, placing the keys clumsily in her fingers behind her back. Devon reaches for the slick ring. Grasps hold of cold metal with all of her might. She gasps, fighting tears, even as the kid whispers in her ear.

Sorry, lady,” he tells her. The smell of his breath still makes her wince. Pot smoke and cheap booze. Sorry. I hope you get out of here okay…”

Call,” she begs him, whispering back. Please, when you get out of here… just… call someone. Even with the keys, I wont have time, Rudy. I wont get out of here in time… please call someone for help…”

He grins at her again.

Devon only sees emptiness in those hazel eyes.

She never gets a good look at his face. All she sees are those hazel irises blackened by too much pupil. Teeth that glow nearly florescent behind the blue-white panel of his smartphone.

Please, Rudy,” she pleads, her voice a shadow now. Please. Help me. Dont leave me here to die… please… I dont know where I am…”

But its dark inside her cave again.

Theyve already gone.

 

* * *

 

She loops the key ring through two of her fingers.

Grips it there. Wills it to stay.

Using her free fingers, she feels over the surface of the cuff, looking for the hole. A notched opening, a tiny square merged with a tiny rectangle. She finds it on one cuff. Holds a finger there.

How much time does she have?

An hour? Maybe two?

When did they pick her up?

When did he ask the last question?

How long had it been since he stuck that knife in her thigh? He left it there, for awhile. It might have bled less then, with the knife in it. He left it sticking out of her, until he was ready to leave…

She gasped, gripping the key with all of her strength as she fought it closer to that tiny, odd-shaped hole.

There are other keys on the loop of metal, though.

Three keys. One for each set of cuffs.

Is she holding the right one?

33.333% chance that shes holding the right one.

She prays. Like a child, she prays its the right key. As if that will solve all of her problems. As if thats going to end it.

She wont drop the keys.

That much she knows.

She wont drop them.

Adrenaline, feeding her blood. Maybe killing her faster. Maybe giving her just enough for a last try at life.

She positions that first key over the hole. It goes in. She could cry with relief. She grips it, though. She grips it tight. She twists. She twists it… carefully. It wont unlock. It wont move.

Her hands are slick. Wet. Hot. Shes doing it wrong.

Wrong? Or is it the wrong key?

She fights with it. Wills it to open.

Wrong key.

Her mind screams it. It screams it in the dark, pointing at a ticking clock, at the drips of blood she can no longer hear coming out of her thigh and out of that wound in her belly.

Focus.

She bites her lip again, tasting more blood.

Next key.

66.66666% chance that this one is right.

Process of elimination. Odds keep getting better.

Better for one.

Worse for the other.

Shes out of time.

Time…

* * *

It is the third key.

100% chance of being correct.

Even so, when the lock twists, she almost cries out in delirious relief.

Shed half-convinced herself it would be wrong. Shed half convinced herself it would be the match that fell in the snow…

To Build a Fire.

…but it turned, and she felt the metal fall away, and let out that cry, waking the doves in their high rafters.

She felt the cuff fall open and then she could move her arms.

Not broken, after all. Just hurt a lot.

Still gripping the keys, she moved like a geriatric. She didnt pull her arms. Even with her hurt abdomen, she pulled her body forward, dragging her arms after her.

She still held those damned keys.

She might never put them down. Ever.

No time to waste.

She dragged her arms forward, crying, in spite of herself.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

She leaned forward. Fumbling in the dark. Dark like no light ever existed.

But thats not quite true, either.

She can see an orange light… through those dirty windows above the sheet metal walls. She can smell the dirt on the cement floor, and piss, and she can see that light.

Shes not dead yet.

Left leg first. Maybe because it feels urgent. Its the leg that got stabbed. She has to get it free. Now. Right now.

She fumbles for the hole. Finds it.

She kept the key in the lock of the cuffs that had locked her wrists to the back of the chair. It dangled from her wrist on the hand that didnt look for the keyhole that still held her to the metal chair.

66.6666% chance of being correct on the first try.

That time, it worked on the first try.

She freed that leg and groaned, holding onto the last key, key number three, the one that would finally free her from the chair. She gripped it tightly in her fingers. She held it as she gripped her free ankle, tears running down her face.

Thinking. How to move her body. She fell apart from the chair strangely that time, still tied to it, but at a weird angle now.

She tries to think her way through where she is.

She tries to rewind her way back through the dark.

Wrists free. Fall forward.

Left leg free, fall to the side.

She wraps around herself, dragging the chair. It makes a hollow, scraping sound as it grates across the cement floor. The sound echoes. She pants, and that echoes, too. She feels a nail there, something she shouldnt step on.

Shes still gripping the key.

The last key. The final key. She holds it like the holy grail, gripping it with fear in her wet, hot, throbbing hand.

The answer to her final problem.

She may never let it go.

100% chance of being right.





Black In White
Quentin Black Mystery 
Book One
JC Andrijeski

Genre: Urban Fantasy Mystery Romance
Publisher: White Sun Press
Date of Publication: September 9, 2015
ISBN: ISBN-13: 978-1545436714  
ISBN-10: 1545436711
ASIN: B01554ZHH6
Number of pages: 268
Word Count: 76,755

Cover Artist: Damonza

Tagline: Meet Quentin Black: Private Investigator. Psychic. Possible murderer.

Book Description: 

Gifted with an uncanny sense about people, psychologist Miri Fox works as a profiler for the San Francisco police. When her best friend, homicide detective Nick Tanaka, thinks he's finally nailed the serial murderer known as the "Wedding Killer," she agrees to check him out, using her gift to discover the truth.

But the suspect, Quentin Black, isn't anything like Miri expects.

He claims to be hunting the killer too, and the longer Miri talks to him, the more determined she becomes to uncover his secrets.

When he confronts her about the nature of her peculiar "insight," Miri gets pulled into Black's bizarre world, and embroiled in a game of cat and mouse with a deadly killer--who might just be Black himself.

Worse, she finds herself irresistibly drawn to Black, a complication she doesn't need with a best friend who's a homicide cop and a boyfriend in intelligence.

Can Miriam see a way out or is her future covered in Black?

THE QUENTIN BLACK MYSTERY SERIES encompasses a number of dark, gritty paranormal mystery arcs with science fiction elements, starring brilliant and mysterious Quentin Black and forensic psychologist Miriam Fox. For fans of realistic paranormal mysteries with romantic elements, the series spans continents and dimensions as Black solves crimes, takes on other races and tries to keep his and Miri's true identities secret to keep them both alive.


Excerpt:

I tilted my head, still smiling, but letting my puzzlement show.

“Why are you talking to me at all?” I asked finally.

“Why shouldn’t I talk to you?” he said. “I’ve already told you that you’re the first person to walk in here that I thought might be worth my attempting to communicate.”

“Because I’m female?” I said.

“Because you seem to be less of a fool than the rest of them,” he corrected me at once.

“But you said Nick had a mind?”

“I said he had a mind of sorts. Not the same thing at all. Although, given the nature of his intellect, he has undoubtedly chosen the right profession for himself.”

I smiled again. “I’m sure that will be quite a relief for him.”

I heard laughter in the earpiece that time, right before Nick spoke up.

“See if he’ll tell you his name,” he said to me.

“Certainly, if you really want to know,” the suspect said, before I could voice the question aloud.

“My name is Black. Quentin Black. Middle initial, R.”

I stared at him, still recovering from the fact that he’d seemingly heard Nick give me an instruction through the earpiece.

Clearly, he wanted me to know he’d heard it, too.

“You heard that?” I said to him.

“Good ear, yes?” he said. Smiling, he gave me a more cryptic, yet borderline predatory look.

“Less good with you, however. Significantly less good.”

He paused, studying my face with eyes full of meaning.

I almost got the sense he was waiting for me to reply—or maybe just to react.

When I didn’t, he leaned back in the chair, making another of those graceful, flowing gestures with his hand.

“I find that… fascinating, doc. Quite intriguing. Perhaps that is crossing a boundary with you again, however? To mention that?”

I paused on his words, then decided to dismiss them.

“Is that a real name?” I said. “Quentin Black. That doesn’t sound real. It sounds fake.”

“Real is all subjective, is it not?”

“So it’s not real, then?”

“Depends on what you mean.”

“Is it your legal name?”

“Again, depends on what you mean.”

“I mean, could you look it up in a database and actually get a hit somewhere?”

“How would I know that?” he said, making an innocent gesture with his hands, again within the limits of the metal cuffs.

Realizing I wasn’t going to get any more from him on that line of questioning, I changed direction. “What does the ‘R’ stand for?” I said.

“Rayne.”

“Quentin Rayne Black?” I repeated back to him, still not hiding my disbelief.

“Would you believe me if I said my parents had a sense of whimsy?” he asked me.

“No,” I said.

“Would you believe that I do, then?”

I snorted a laugh, in spite of myself. I heard it echoed through the earpiece, although I heard a few curses coming from that direction, too.

I shook my head at the suspect himself, but less in a “no” that time.

“Yes,” I conceded finally. “So it is a made-up name, then?”

The man calling himself Quentin Black only returned my smile. His eyes once again looked shrewd, less thoughtful and more openly calculating.

Even so, his weird comment about “listening” came back to me.

Truthfully, he was looking at me as if he were listening very hard.

The thought made me slightly nervous.


About the Author:

JC Andrijeski is a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of gritty, character-driven, “real”-feeling paranormal mysteries and apocalyptic fiction. Her books have strong romance subplots, found families, and often a metaphysical bent. JC has a background in journalism, history and politics, and loves hiking, people watching, yoga, meditation, weird tourist destinations, the beach, coffee, birds, snails, and tacos. She grew up in the Bay Area of California, but travels extensively and has lived abroad in Europe, Australia, and Asia, and from coast to coast in the continental United States. She’s now living and writing full-time in Hollister, California.



 












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