Sunday, October 31, 2021
Random Paranormal Tales of 2021 Part 12
Summary:
Terrible things are happening in the tiny town of Spangle, California. Creatures never before seen explode from the shadows. Hunter becomes prey. Man becomes food.
After seeing his lover torn apart before his eyes, Terry Jones sets out with his little pug, Bruce, to escape the mayhem. Secluding himself in a mountain cabin, he lies low, expecting death at every moment. So lonely he almost welcomes it.
From the dreadful emptiness of this terrifying new world where every breath might be his last, a stranger appears. And beyond all imagining, love enters the picture yet again.
With someone at last to hold, Terry rediscovers his zest for life--and his fear of death.
Finally, with Jonas James at his side, he finds the courage to fight back.
John Inman has done it again! 2020 zapped my reading mojo so I just got around to reading Ravenous and I loved it! This book is a brilliant blend of horror, romance, chemistry, and humor . . . everything that makes for perfect October reading.
I won't say too much as I don't want to spoil it for anyone who, like me, arrived late to the party. I will say that from the fear of finding a drop of blood on your loved ones to the flapping of the approaching devastation, you know you won't forget what your about to read. My heart breaks for Terry when he recalls how close to getting away he and his husband were when they heard the flapping. I'm a bit of an introvert and don't mind to spend an evening alone here and there but how he manages it on that mountain with only Bruce the pug for company is beyond me. Which only makes his finding Jonas stealing from his traps that much more compelling, filled with snark and cuddle once they get back to Terry's cabin.
I won't go into any more specifics behind the bat-like creatures that cause so much pain and suffering but I will mention that John Inman's ability to world-build with such fear induced, edge of your seat, horror laced with humor storytelling is brilliant! Brilliant seems like too simple a word but the journey he takes his readers on will leave you breathless, sometimes out of fear, sometimes out of laughter, but always out of completely getting lost in the pages. Ravenous is another one of Inman's can't-put-it-down-because-I-need-to-know-how-it-ends but kicking-myself-when-it's-over-that-I-didn't-read-it-slower novels that gets the blood pumping.
RATING:
Summary:
Haunted Souls #4
Be careful what you witch for…
Ghost Detective Jude Byrne is missing the excitement of the high-profile investigations he and his partner have been handling. Every time the bell jingles over the shop door, he finds himself hoping it’s their next big case. Jude gets his wish and then some when Anson Hollister, curator of the Salem Witch House, walks into West Side Magick with a frightening story to tell. He’s been visited by the spirit of Thatcher Webb, the judge who’d presided over the Salem Witch Trials, sentencing nineteen innocent women to hang.
Psychic Copeland Forbes is enjoying the slower pace of life with Jude. Back from vacation and settled into their new house, he’s content working cases that don’t make him want to sleep with the lights on. Agreeing to take Anson’s case, Cope becomes violently ill on a trip to investigate The Witch House, making him fear there is something more sinister involved rather than the simple haunting Anson described.
With no sign of Thatcher Webb’s spirit, the investigation is at a near standstill, until warlock Callum Churchill, who’s ancestor, Abigail, was one of Thatcher Webb’s victims, disappears on a visit to The Witch House. Can Jude and Cope find the missing witch and put a stop to the diabolical goings on or will they become the next spirits haunting the ghost house?
Summary:
Magic Emporium
Sometimes Fate has a bizarre sense of humor.
Or at least it seems that way to Gus, owner of the Rainbow Room, Asheville’s main hangout for gay paranormals. He’s seen Fate catch up with the patrons of his bar while he served drinks and listened to their stories for three hundred years. He found all of it amusing, until his fated mate walks in and suddenly the twists aren’t so funny any longer!
Bear Hickes is a mage who specializes in fire, but life has lost its spark since his twin brother got married and left him alone. His older brother, Whimsy, is determined to help Bear find happiness no matter how much Bear objects, but meeting Gus gives Bear a wonderful idea: if Gus will pretend to be his boyfriend, Whimsy will get off his case. And somewhere along the line, Bear finds he wants it to be for real.
But there are secrets Gus is keeping from not just Bear, but the whole world. And when those secrets catch up with him at last, the danger won’t be just for Gus alone.
This story is set in the Asheville Arcana universe, but can be read as a standalone.
Stop Dragon My Heart Around is part of the multi-author Magic Emporium Series. Each book stands alone, but each one features an appearance by Marden’s Magic Emporium, a shop that can appear anywhere, but only once and only when someone’s in dire need. This book contains explicit scenes and a guaranteed HEA.
Summary:
Researchers In Paranormal Phenomenon #1
Do you hear bumps in the night? Get unexplained chills? Feel like someone’s watching you when you’re all alone? Don’t stay scared! Shoot RIPP a message for all your spooktacular needs!
Dane
I only go along with Rory and Thad’s crazy plan of checking out an abandoned train station because they seem so excited, and I honestly don’t care what we do for our film class project. Transferring colleges was supposed to be my escape from reality, anyway, so there’s no harm in doing a little ghost hunting, right? It’s not like we’ll find anything. I really just want to go through the motions, but these guys have a way of making me care—ugh. Even Rory’s older brother is able to get under my skin in ways I wish he couldn’t. I should stay away, but his sweet and caring nature keeps pulling me in—damn him.
Brooks
Helping Rory and Thad with RIPP is just something I do to spend time with them. Bless their little hearts, they really believe in ghosts and are determined to prove it to the world. When Dane gets assigned to their group for their class project, my worry they won’t need me anymore is overshadowed by my desire to spend as much time as possible getting to know the mysterious new man. I get my wish when we have an encounter that seems… unbelievable. As scary as it is, my life becomes less aimless when Dane and I team up to protect my brother and his best friend when they insist on returning to the train station again... and again.
What happens when two men experience something no one else sees? Can they stay alive long enough to fall in love or is seeing what lives at Coldburgh Train Station the beginning of the end?
Coldburgh Train Station is book one in the RIPP (Researchers In Paranormal Phenomenon) series. It’s a 90K word standalone MM romance with spooky fun, cute guys, apparitions, a hyper younger brother that won’t stay away from the coffee pot, a friend that cares way too much about his tan, spirits, a crazy mom, amazing friendships, love, and did we mention ghosts?
Intended for audiences 18 years and older.
Summary:
ABCs of Spellcraft #11
Uncle Fonzo has always been cagey about what his duties as Hand of the Penn family actually entail. Dixon figures they mainly involve playing poker with other middle-aged Scriveners, while Yuri suspects there are semi-legal dealings under the poker table as well.
Whatever his typical responsibilities might be, Fonzo’s got his hands full with a new grandchild on the way. So when he’s tasked by the head of circuit to find Pinyin Bay’s next mayor, he passes on the burden—er, opportunity—to his favorite nephew.
No problem! Dixon doesn’t know much about Handless politics, but he’s sure he’s acquainted with plenty of folks who’d make a fine public official (meaning, someone who won’t obstruct Scrivener interests.) But when he and Yuri get to know the potential candidates a bit better, they discover each one is stranger than the last.
Can the boys find a Scrivener-friendly mayor before time runs out? Or will the worst possible candidate in Pinyin Bay win simply by default?
The ABCs of Spellcraft is a series filled with bad jokes and good magic, where M/M romance meets paranormal cozy. A perky hero, a brooding love interest, and delightfully twisty-turny stories that never end up quite where you’d expect.
Click to Check Out Previous
Random Paranormal Tales of 2021
Ravenous by John Inman
Chapter One
TERRY JONES opened his eyes to a bombardment of gentle crystal sounds, clearly orchestrated by Mother Nature herself. The noises were so musical, so unexpected and sweet, they yanked Terry upright in the bed and left him sitting there with an insipid grin on his face. He could sense his eyes bulging out as big as melon balls, and there was some sort of weird little shiver of pleasure crawling up his naked back, which made him wiggle around and damn near laugh out loud.
Holy crap! The sounds on the air were beautiful! No car horns, no wailing ambulances, no beeping garbage trucks warning toddlers on tricycles to get the hell out of the way before they got smashed flat. No earsplitting rumble of skateboards or atonal rap crap blasting from passing automobiles. Not even any kids screaming to high heaven on their way to school. Just the sweet cacophony of birds and the lazy rush and scrape of shifting tree limbs swaying merrily in the morning breeze, tickling the cabin walls. Above his head, a plunk and then a gentle rumble scrambling from left to right told him a pine cone had been knocked loose from the tree outside and sent bouncing across the cabin’s roof before tumbling over the edge in what was no doubt a graceful swan dive, to land with a muted thud in the dirt below.
Terry took a second to dig through the blankets to find his sleeping pug, Bruce. Named for Bruce Willis because the dog thought he was hot shit too—and like the real Bruce, sometimes actually was. Bruce was apparently immune to the glorious songs of nature. Terry pulled his limp body out into the morning light and held him up in front of his face to give him a smooch on the belly. Bruce wagged his tail, yawned, snorted a few times in bliss, as pugs are prone to do, then promptly fell fast asleep dangling there in midair.
“Pitiful old guy,” Terry crooned, tucking the dog carefully back under the covers.
He gazed around the room, and the second he took in where he was, Terry froze. Memories came flooding back, pelting him like hail. Sharp and icy cold. Horrible memories. Bloody memories.
His gaze shot up to the ceiling, and he thought back to the sound he had heard only moments before. The pine cone striking the roof and rolling to the ground. Or had it been a pine cone at all?
He shook the covers off his bare legs and stepped onto the cold floor. His cock, which had been standing at morning attention only moments before, was now shriveled and limp. Warily, holding his breath, Terry walked to the upstairs cabin window and pressed his nose against the glass.
The forest surrounding his acre of land was in a furious state of motion—tree branches large and small twitching and swaying in the wind. Tall weeds were bowing to one another on the banks of the ditch that bordered Terry’s property in the back. Most of the trees were pine and hickory, with a few towering bridges of honeysuckle draping from one tree to another. Their flowers had not blossomed yet, but the twining vines and leaves of the honeysuckle, as green and vibrant as in high summer, still trembled in the breeze and dripped with morning dew.
Terry stood stock-still at the window. The chilly air seeping through the glass in front of him laid icy fingers across his bare chest and belly. Someday he would have to put in storm windows, but not today. Or anytime soon more than likely. Not while his little neck of the woods was still under siege.
And not when every heartbeat might be his last. As that thought struck him, Terry gazed down at himself. At his long fuzzy legs, coated with ginger hair, neatly muscled from years of jogging. At the furry expanse of his chest and abdomen, as lean as his legs, with an added trail of red fuzz leaking down from his navel to lose itself in his nest of coppery pubic hair. His sleeping cock nestled there, one eye peering out at the world as if leery of facing the day.
That little stroke of whimsy almost made him smile. But the smile was short-lived.
Terry held his hands up and surveyed his arms and fingers. Checked around his fingernails for torn skin. He slid those same fingers across his face, up and over his beard to his cheekbones, down his neck, along toward the back of his head. Every couple of seconds, drawing his hands back and studying his fingertips for smears of blood in case he might have scratched himself while he slept.
Nothing. He breathed a sigh of relief.
He gazed back at the bed, where Bruce had poked his nose out of the covers. He was watching Terry for any signs of movement. Preferably movement toward the kitchen where Bruce might find himself being served breakfast.
Terry chuckled watching him, made a motion for the dog to follow, then set off toward the staircase leading down from the cabin’s loft where he kept his bed. Bruce flew out from under the blankets in hot pursuit, bright-eyed now but still yawning. His stubby tail wagged in anticipatory bliss while the toenails on his four little feet tippy-tapped across the icy floor.
With a grunt as stiff muscles stretched, Terry poured a bowl of kibbles from the fifty-pound bag under the kitchen sink. He set the bowl on Bruce’s blue blankie by the kitchen stove, then refilled Bruce’s water dish while the pug burrowed his snout into his food and all but inhaled it to extinction.
With his roomie taken care of, Terry filled a teakettle for instant coffee and placed it on the gas stove, then set about preparing his own breakfast. Eggs over easy and bacon, fried in a skillet on the burner next to the teakettle. He would have liked a baked potato nuked in the microwave and smothered with butter, but he was too lazy to fix it. Instead he made do with cold cereal buried beneath half a cup of sugar for dessert. Terry had a sweet tooth, and donuts were a little hard to come by these days.
While he ate he listened to the mockingbirds who always perched on the chimney above his hearth, sending their voices spilling out across the grate to fill the cabin with song. Of course, the song was one step short of caterwauling, but Terry was used to it. Once in a while, Bruce growled at the racket coming through the flue, but on the whole, Terry figured he was used to it too.
His gaze wandered to the stack of galvanized fence posts piled clumsily against the cabin wall by the back kitchen door. The posts had been glommed from a now defunct home improvement store down the mountain, not too far from the city limits of Spangle, California. Terry’s hometown. Since the invasion came, since the beasts had spewed up from the guts of the earth or spilled out of the depths of somebody’s fucking nightmare—wherever the hell they came from—Spangle had become little more than a deathtrap. A deathtrap Terry Jones had been lucky to escape. So far.
But he wouldn’t think about that now.
He nibbled on bacon and soaked up the egg yolk from his plate with the last of the stale bread before returning his gaze to the fence posts in the corner.
The posts were metal, six feet long, perhaps three inches wide and a quarter inch thick. Strong and unbendable. They were pierced with countless holes, intended for the convenient attachment of fencing wire. But Terry wasn’t interested in fencing wire. Fencing wire wouldn’t fill his needs at all. No, Terry was in the process of using the heavy metal posts to reinforce the outside of the cabin. This included the windows and doors, where he placed the posts like security bars, nailing them two inches apart so he could still see outside but close enough that nothing outside could make its way in. When he was finished with the outside, he would line the walls and ceiling inside as well.
As a second line of defense should the first line fail, Terry was using the metal posts to reinforce the walls downstairs in what he had come to call the blood room. The blood room had once been a fruit cellar, but those days were long gone, Terry told himself with a nasty little smirk aimed at the fence posts in the corner. The blood room was there as a last retreat. A final chance at survival. Sort of like a last-ditch bomb shelter, except nuclear bombs were actually the least of his worries. His and everybody else’s in and around Spangle. These days they were more concerned with flying beasts with fangs and claws and an unquenchable thirst for human blood. And who could ever have seen that coming?
Terry checked the calendar on the wall beside his chair. He reached over and filled yesterday’s square—August 2—with a fat black X, using the Sharpie hanging beside it on a string. There. It was official. He had survived another day and night. Ruffling through the pages of past months, he counted back to May 3. Exactly three months ago. That was the day he hightailed it out of Spangle and entrenched himself here in his and Bobby’s vacation cabin on this measly little mountain in the backcountry, three miles out of town. It had always been a refuge before, this cabin. A place for them to relax. Where they could get away from work and spend quality time together, just the two of them. Plus Bruce.
Now, of course, Bobby was no more. He had been taken only hours after they fled the town, as so many fellow residents before them had been taken. On that day, when Bobby was wrenched from Terry’s side and swept away in the horror, Terry knew he would never go back to their house in town. Not as long as the horror kept escalating. He had no choice but to carry through with the plans he and Bobby had made to escape the slaughter. So with little more than a broken heart, the clothes on his back, and his beloved little dog, Terry slunk off into oblivion. And now, three months later, here he still was. Hiding out. Cowering, to be more precise. Aching not to be alone anymore, but unable to leave his tiny mountain, the only place he felt safe enough now to call home, and the last place in the world he should really be at all.
He had burglarized a few out-of-business clothing stores since leaving town, sneaking back to replenish his wardrobe. He had looted abandoned grocery stores for canned goods to keep himself alive. But there was little he could do about his broken heart. With time, it had healed a bit. But there were still days—and nights—when Terry all but crumbled under the grief, the weight of missing Bobby. There were so many things he missed. The sound of Bobby’s voice across the breakfast table. His gentle snores in the bed at night. The way Bobby inevitably rolled into Terry’s arms in the wee hours of each and every morning, his mouth and hands seeking comfort, his sleep-warm skin nestling close until Terry, his own hunger awakened, sought Bobby’s warmth as well.
They had been good for each other, him and Bobby. Their love had been real. As real as the creatures that tore Bobby away three months back on this very day. As real as the creatures that would tear Terry away today if he wasn’t careful. If he wasn’t diligent.
Once again, Terry searched his hands for any little cut or tear. Any seepage of blood, no matter how minute. He touched his face and checked his fingertips for smears of blood. His beard was getting long, he noticed, since he had stopped shaving. No sense asking for trouble if shaving wasn’t necessary. One slip of the razor and they would be on him in a flash. He didn’t doubt it for a minute.
Them. Terry shuddered, thinking back. Out of nowhere, filling Terry’s mind, was the sound of Bobby’s final scream as he was torn to pieces in front of him.
Terry’s fork clattered to the floor, and he closed his eyes, trying to squeeze the memory away, to head it off before it took hold of him completely.
It refused to budge, of course. It always did. The memory stayed lodged right behind his eyes, where it always lay in wait. Lurking. Hoping to catch him off guard.
As it just had.
God, Terry missed his old life. And oh sweet Jesus, how he hated that fucking memory!
So he plucked it from behind his eyes with trembling fingers and placed it on a dark shelf at the back of his mind. Tucking it away. Burying it among the flotsam, back where the shadows were deepest. It took every ounce of willpower he possessed, but he managed it.
For now.
Ghost House by Pandora Pine
PROLOGUE
Anson
July…
Anson Hollister was frantic. Fourth of July week was the second busiest week of the year at Salem’s Witch House. Only Halloween was busier. Anson didn’t even want to think about the “H” word right now. Summertime crowds were bad enough. The only plus to the mob of vacationing tourists was that the majority of them weren’t drunk by 10:00 a.m. when the museum opened. Joy…
A definite minus to working in a seventeenth century house in the middle of summer was that there was no central air. Dressed like he could have stepped off the 1692 fashion runway, Anson was ready to keel over from the heat, and it was only 9:00 a.m. His black, woolen pants were itchy. The white shirt fit him well, but it wouldn’t be long before he’d be sweating, and smelling, through his deodorant. At least his stench was period authentic. His buckle shoes, with the small heel, clanked loudly on the wooden floor, which creaked with every step he took. Ain’t we got fun?
This never should have happened. Anson never should have ended up working at Salem’s Witch House. Even now, three years later, he still couldn’t figure out what happened.
After he’d graduated with a Master’s degree in Art History, Anson had gone to work at The Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He’d loved life in the Berkshires. Williamstown was an artsy college town filled with more men than he could shake a stick at. Five years into his assistant curator position at the museum, he’d decided it was time to take the next step in his career.
Applications went out to the Museum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. He’d also applied to several trendy downtown galleries, as well as the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. Lastly, he’d applied to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem.
In the heart of the Witch City, the P.E.M., as locals called it, was the one place in town that had no obvious affiliation to the Salem Witch Trials. It was the reason he’d applied for the curator position. The board of trustees had been as enchanted with him as he’d been with them, and they made Anson an offer.
After finishing out the summer at The Clark, he’d packed his bags and moved to Salem. Anson had found a pretty little apartment close to Salem Harbor. He could smell the ocean from his living room sofa. Life was good in gay-friendly Salem.
That’s when it all hit the fan. Two weeks after he signed his offer letter from the P.E.M., the phone rang with a call he’d never forget. It was Brandon Michaelson, from the board of trustees, telling Anson they were rescinding his offer of employment. When Anson asked why, he’d been told that his old boss from The Clark had given him an awful recommendation.
The worst part about the act of betrayal by his former boss was that Anson had asked the P.E.M. not to contact The Clark’s curator. He had a reputation for doing this to young staffers looking to move up in the world. Michaelson had said Anson couldn’t be hired without an employer reference, but he was free to keep the piddly signing bonus they’d given him.
Out of options and out of luck, Anson was back on the hunt for a new job. That was how he’d ended up at The Salem Witch House, dressed like a pilgrim, in shoes that buckled, about to die from heat stroke.
Over the last three years, his hatred for witches had grown exponentially. He despised the Salem Witch Trial witches, the Hocus Pocus witches, Glinda the good witch of the North, even Elizabeth Montgomery from Bewitched. Big or small, Anson hated them all. Don’t even get him started on witchcraft, potions, black cats, and broomsticks.
The worst part about his job, aside from the heat stroke, was that working there had changed his whole persona. He’d always been happy and bubbly, easily making friends with anyone and everyone. All of that changed when he agreed to be the curator of The Witch House. Anson wasn’t stupid enough to think the personality shift had to do with this building. No, it had to do with the fact that his dream of curating an art museum had died an agonizing death.
All those years at Boston College. All the dollars he still owed in student loans… And for what? To give tourists from Idaho a history lesson and the grand tour of a creaky old house.
FML… Anson shook his head. He didn’t have time for this head-on collision down memory lane. He had work to do. He clip-clopped around the house, making sure there were donation fliers in the Lucite holders. The museum ran on a grant from the City of Salem, but every extra dollar donated helped supplement the upkeep of the house, leaving more of the city budget for his salary.
Glancing quickly at his phone, Anson saw it was 9:45 a.m. The museum would be open in fifteen minutes. He could already see a crowd growing outside. They were taking selfies with the house, and some were cackling like witches.
Fantastic.
Anson hated witches. He couldn’t stress that enough. He wondered if he’d ended up at the New England Pirate Museum instead, would he have developed a hatred for pirates too. Sighing, he supposed not. Pirates were all about gold and rum. Black cats and bubbling cauldrons need not apply. Kids loved pirates. Who didn’t want to be a seafaring, eyepatch-wearing buccaneer?
The Salem Witch House never had a witch in it. Well, so far as the history went. The house was owned by a man named Thatcher Webb, who’d been born in Salem in 1640. He’d been the son of a wealthy shipbuilder. In his earlier years, he’d joined his father’s business. Later on, he’d become a local magistrate, hearing cases that involved petty crimes and burglary.
All of that changed in March of 1692 when he was asked to look into the reports of witchcraft circulating through Essex County, Massachusetts. Webb had not been asked to be a part of the court hearing the witchcraft cases initially. When one of his colleagues resigned after the first so-called witch was hanged, Webb was chosen to take his place.
Webb made a name for himself thanks to his stance on “spectral evidence.” He was a proponent of admitting into evidence actions seen in visions as proof of witchcraft. What a crock of bull. If Anson ever met the man, he’d punch his lights out.
Under Webb’s time on the bench, nineteen people were convicted as witches and sentenced to hang. Oddly enough, one of the accused witches, not convicted was Charity Webb, Thatcher’s mother. She’d been accused of witchcraft by her maid, who then later recanted and confessed that she herself was a witch.
That particular part of the story never sat well with Anson. Even back in 1692, it wasn’t what you knew, but who.
From the scullery, Anson headed to the bathroom. It would be his last chance to see to his personal needs and make sure his costume was in perfect order. Shutting the door behind him, he turned to the wall-mounted mirror. His forehead was soaked in sweat and he wasn’t even wearing his hat yet.
Pulling paper towels out of the dispenser, Anson wet them and looked up to dab his face. What he saw in the mirror stopped him cold. A very familiar man, dressed in nearly identical attire, was standing behind him. Unless he missed his guess, the man was Thatcher Webb.
Anson blinked several times, needing to make sure he was really seeing the other man in the reflection or if this was the result of heat stroke finally taking him down. After the last blink, the man was still standing behind him.
“Thatcher Webb?” His voice shook.
The man nodded. “The witches,” the spirit half-whispered, sounding scared or, at the very least, nervous.
“There are no witches here.” Anson was stunned. He could have blown off the image of Thatcher Webb as a fluke or his imagination, but he surely hadn’t imagined the words the ghost spoke to him.
“The witches must die.” Webb turned to gaze behind him, before looking back at Anson’s reflection with terror in his eyes.
Whatever Thatcher Webb could see, Anson could not. It was almost as if he was checking behind him to see if something was about to grab him.
“Witches!” Thatcher shouted before winking out of sight.
Turning around, Anson saw there was nothing behind him. Looking back into the mirror, he saw only his own terrified reflection.
Anson hated witches and didn’t believe in ghosts. The one thing he did believe in was his own sanity. If Thatcher Webb said there were witches coming, then Anson needed to figure out how to stop them.
Gold help him.
Stop Dragon My Heart Around by Rachel Langella
The heavy wooden front door swung open, letting in a gust of the chilly fall night air as well as two more patrons, one of whom Gus recognized. Whimsy Hickes-Edgewood was a long-time regular, although he was usually part of the mid-week crowd since he’d gotten married. Gus didn’t know the man with Whimsy, but if he had to guess, he’d say either a brother or close cousin based on the similarity of their features. While the stranger was taller than Whimsy by a good four or five inches, they had the same wiry build, dark eyes, high cheekbones, and deep toned skin. They both wore their hair in a long, sleek braid that reached mid-back, but Whimsy’s was adorned with an eagle feather, which had been bestowed on him to acknowledge his heroism in helping stop a recent demonic incursion in the area. Both men were dressed casually in jeans, cabled wool sweaters, and sturdy boots, and the stranger’s jeans revealed he had legs that seemed to go up to his shoulders—which was more than enough to make Gus take an interest.
The stranger glanced around the room and pivoted back toward the door, but Whimsy looped an arm through his and forcefully dragged him over to the bar.
“Hey, Gus!” Whimsy offered a friendly smile and a wave with his free hand while maintaining a death grip on the man’s arm with the other. “I’d like you to meet my little brother. One of them, anyway. This is Bear Hickes. Bear, this is Gus. He owns the place, so be nice.”
“Hey.” Bear gave a terse nod, but his furrowed brow and thinned lips said he’d rather be anywhere else.
Gus let his gaze go slightly unfocused to read the newcomer’s aura. But when he did, he almost reeled back in utter shock and dismay. Mr. Cranky’s aura gleamed with the purple of a mage, just like Whimsy’s, but more than that, it was edged with a fiery gold that was almost as dazzling as the sun. Never in all his long, long life had Gus ever expected this to happen; in fact, he’d gone out of his way to make sure it wouldn’t. But Fate was a fickle mistress, as he well knew, and as he dropped his gaze down to the familiar wood of the bar, Gus felt an almost irresistible desire to run—though he wasn’t sure if he wanted to run toward the man or away from him and out of Asheville forever. Away from the man Fate had decided should be his mate.
The other part of himself stirred, and he pushed it firmly back, grateful for the amulet he always wore. Not only did it keep others from seeing his true nature, but it helped to keep the more volatile half of his inner self in check, though it was still a struggle.
It couldn’t have taken more than the space of a few seconds, but Gus was aware the silence was dragging out too long. He raised his head, forcing himself to look in their direction. “Welcome,” he said, making himself smile. “Nice to see you, Whimsy. What can I get you?”
“Whatever local IPA you’ve got on tap. Two, please.” Whimsy studied him while Bear seemed intent on appearing as put upon as possible while surveying the crowd. “You okay, Gus?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Gus reached for the ever-chilled glasses he kept under the bar, then tilted his head at Whimsy as he reached toward the tap, which was shaped like a rearing unicorn. “So what brings you out on a weekend?”
Not that Gus wanted to know. Much. Really, Whimsy Hickes-Edgewood’s little brother? He couldn’t be much more than twenty years old, could he? Given how many centuries Gus had been around, it made him feel even more ancient.
“Bear needs to get laid.” Whimsy hopped up on a bar stool and leaned his elbows on the bar while he watched Gus draw their beers.
“For fuck’s sake!” Bear’s cheeks flushed deep pink, and he avoided making eye contact with both Whimsy and Gus. But Whimsy grinned wickedly.
“Exactly.”
Coldburgh Train Station by Michele Notaro & Sammi Cee
Prologue
Brooks
Columbariums were creepy. Did I believe that meant they were haunted with ghosts? No. But that didn’t change the fact twenty-five urns filled with the ashes of the deceased was a bit disconcerting. And it wasn’t because the wall was particularly spooky. The cemetery’s caretakers obviously took the urn wall seriously since it was as well-maintained as the lawns of the graveyard. With the surrounding trees, at the very least, I’d have expected to see bird droppings, but they were scrubbed and clean of debris or stains.
“This is so exciting,” my little brother, Rory, said as he dropped the bag of ghost-busting equipment he carried and rubbed his hands together.
“Yeah, it’s even better at night,” his best friend and our roommate, Thad, agreed.
Of course, he’d think so. These two were obsessed with ghosts and proving their existence, and what better time to do that than the witching hour on a warm, windless night. The summer cold I’d caught was kicking my ass, and I longed for my bed. They’d told me to stay home and sit this one out, but I’d never abandoned them before and I wasn’t about to start now. Sure, they could set up a few cameras on tripods to film whatever ghostly encounters they were expecting to happen tonight, but it gave them more to work with in editing when I came along and followed them around with the camera, zooming in on their facial expressions or panning out when my little brother started dancing around like a dork.
Atchu. Dammit, I must’ve sneezed a hundred times today, I thought, while pulling out another Kleenex. Being outside most of the day didn’t help.
“Bless you,” Rory said sympathetically, and Thad snickered.
“Thanks.” While blowing my nose, I gave Thad the evil eye.
He bit back a smile but then glanced at Rory, and they both cracked up. Rolling my eyes and choosing to ignore them, I threw my tissue in the plastic bag I’d brought along specifically for that. I knew why they were laughing. Today, Rory had told the audience I wasn’t feeling well, going so far as turning a camera on me so that they could see my bright red nose and watery eyes. Thad thought he’d been slick and had taken several pictures of me while supposedly pointing past me at the tombstones in the distance. I’d made them both promise that none of that would make it online, but I was the oldest, and they lived to bust my chops in the most obnoxious ways possible. How?
By showing my face on their YouTube channel, RIPP, which stood for Researchers In Paranormal Phenomenon and featured the two of them. Me? I did the grunt work. I loaded and unloaded the van, made sure their equipment was good to go, held cameras, lighting, and mics, or whatever else needed to be done—anything and everything except standing in front of the camera. I detested seeing myself online, even more than I hated hearing the sound of my voice when Rory asked me questions while filming and forced me to answer. My aversion to seeing myself on screen was so bad I wouldn’t even video chat with my parents. I believed myself to be a reasonably confident person, and I knew I wasn’t a bad looking guy, but I came across so goofy while Rory came to life—even more than normal—and sparkled brighter than the stars in the sky. Then Thad charmed the viewers with his classically handsome face and rugged determination to give their subscribers a taste of the supernatural.
A shiver wracked my body, and I coughed. Rory shoved a water bottle into my hands, which I sipped gratefully. “Thanks, squirt.” He’d gone back to making sure all of his equipment; cameras, EVP watch, and EMF scanner were on and ready to catch a spirit or two, so he merely threw his middle finger up into my general direction. “Hey, that’s not nice. I feel like death warmed over, and still I pulled myself out of bed, risking my health for you both, and yet you flip me off? What’s the world coming to when your own brother doesn’t care about you?”
Thad snorted. “Really, Brooks? We should’ve told you that if you were going to complain the whole time not to come. Good grief. You’re being such a baby.”
To remind him that I was the most adult of all of us, I stuck my tongue out at him. Ugh. He wasn’t kidding, though. Normally, of the three of us, I was the practical, level-headed one, but I really didn’t feel good. Another shiver worked its way up my spine, leaving me cold. “Man, now I have the chills,” I whined.
Expecting one of them to tease me, I glanced between the two. Rory smiled gleefully and fist-pumped the air. “That’s not your cold, big brother. That’s a ghost.”
“What are you talking about?” I whipped my head around, not seeing anything, alive or dead.
“Get your camera up there and film this, Brooks. The temperature just dropped at least twenty degrees. We feel it, too,” Thad said.
Suddenly a windstorm kicked up, whistling through the trees, and the flowers left by mourners on the ground next to the columbarium blew across the ground within the three-walled structure. “I knew it. I could tell when we were filming here earlier that we weren’t alone,” Rory exclaimed.
Rory and Thad high-fived, staring around expectantly, and I groaned internally. Did they really think that the supposedly translucent old lady was really going to shimmer in and out, going from urn to urn and praying? Or perhaps they anticipated the mischievous little boy who witnesses said came and gathered the flowers and pulled off the petals, dropping them on the ground while his body blinked in and out? Or my favorite, the one the guys really wanted to see, some angry old man who overturned the urns that were on display, cursing everyone who’d had the nerve to turn his body to dust.
Rory and Thad shouted out the audio and thermal readings that pointed to paranormal activity, and I slowly circled with the camera to my eye, watching and waiting for whatever invariably happened that left the two of them disappointed. I knew tonight would be no different. It was so early in the summer that a temperature drop in the middle of the night wasn’t exactly abnormal. As far as the sudden wind, that’s why we were here now instead of waiting until I felt better. The weather forecast showed a storm front moving in sometime in the early morning and lasting for several days. Let’s face it, the weather was nothing if not unpredictable.
An awareness that I’d felt very few times hit me, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I tensed and noticed Thad tense, too, while Rory grinned maniacally. What the—
Boom! One of the bronze urns crashed to the ground from its crevice in the wall.
Rory squeaked, while Thad and I both dropped an f-bomb. Rory recovered first. “Look! Holy shit! Brooks, are you getting this?”
My hand shook as I continued recording. I had to admit, the temperature had dropped again, and there was no way the wind could’ve pushed that heavy bronze urn from its perch. After years of trying, were Rory and Thad finally going to prove—
Someone belly-laughing on the other side of the wall carried over the howling wind. Rory’s eager smile fell as Thad stomped around the wall with a flashlight lighting his path. Then he peered around the corner, and I found myself holding my breath until he said, “Kid, what in the hell are you doing?”
Rory stomped a foot, huffing to himself, and I chuckled, cutting off when he whipped his narrowed gaze in my direction. Good thing that Thad and Rory excelled at editing. At least we got enough between today and tonight that they’d get several episodes that might leave some people wondering… what if…
Unfortunately for them, they’d never make a believer out of me.
Mayor May Not by Jordan Castillo Price
1
Dixon
Who can resist a piping hot churro straight from the deep fryer? Or a golden brown, deep-fried funnel cake? Or a melty, chocolatey fried Snickers bar? Or a thick, chewy slab of fried dough covered in frosting and cinnamon and colorful candy sprinkles? Not me.
And judging by the fact that he was currently covered in powdered sugar, not Yuri.
A-dorable.
“Say, Yuri,” I ventured, as the mineral-seaweed scent of the water cut through the olfactory wall of fried food. “Isn’t it funny that of the million and one places each of us could be, we both ended up in Pinyin Bay?”
He scowled as if to say, Hardly funny when I was lured here against my will and bound by Spellcraft to serve a Handless tyrant…but he didn’t go so far as to actually speak the words. Because while that might’ve been technically true, no one would argue that things had totally turned out for the best.
It was the perfect day for a fundraiser. The Pinyin Bay boardwalk creaked beneath our feet. Though it was still patchy in some places and completely blown up in others, with any luck, repairs could begin soon. And in the meantime, no one complained about our festivities spilling out into the asphalt lot of the municipal salt pile. I worked my hand into the crook of Yuri’s elbow, enjoying the bulge of his biceps in a way that never got old, then gave his arm a squeeze and said, “Even the boardwalk will be back to normal before you know it.”
Yuri eyed the crowd. “I am not so sure. Turnout is not as good as we had hoped.”
“Really?” I took a better look around. “Come to think of it, there was an awful lot of elbow room at the urinal—”
“We live ten minutes away, could you not have waited?”
“Anyhoo, Drew’s going to be phenomenally upset if we don’t make our numbers.”
Drew Draws was the driving force behind the Rebuild the Boardwalk Extravaganza…if by driving, you meant blustering around with lots of big hand gestures in a glittery visor and lamenting that a creative’s work is never done. Drew had been selling tourist caricatures from a stall on the boardwalk for more than twenty years, though late last summer we discovered there was more to his talent than just making his subjects’ hair look big.
Of course, Yuri and I helped wherever we could. Yuri with Seer advice, and me insisting on adding the word Extravaganza to his fundraiser’s title—because who doesn’t love an extravaganza?
Through nippy fall days and long winter nights, Drew had split his time between learning the Seer craft and making the extravaganza a reality. He’d been planning to use the big event to announce his “retirement” from caricature and become a full-fledged Seer. It was perfect timing. He could make the announcement when he turned over a big novelty check to the contractors who’d won the bid to restore the boardwalk to its former glory…or at least its former garish kitschiness. That check couldn’t be paltry, though, not when the numbers would be big enough for everyone to see—even in the blurry, weirdly-framed shots they published in the Pinyin Bay Journal.
The fundraiser had been months in the making. If it flopped, we’d never hear the end of it. Not because we were personally responsible, but because the new Seer spent so much time with my uncle, and the attic floor isn’t very well insulated. And Drew can be pretty darned loud when he gets excited.
“Word of mouth is what we need,” I decided.
“Where else would words come from?” Yuri wondered. “Or do I really want to know?”
“Just another charming expression in English. It means we need to get these people hyped up so they let all their friends know how much fun they’re having.” I grabbed the nearest stranger, a sunburned guy wearing socks with sandals, and asked, “Isn’t this the coolest extravaganza you’ve ever attended?”
The great thing about questions is that they’re not just for finding answers. In this case, I was hoping to help this guy realize exactly how much fun he was having. I knew for a fact there hadn’t been an “extravaganza” in Pinyin Bay’s recorded history (I’d even looked it up!). So, even if he was just having an okay time—by sheer default, Rebuild the Boardwalk would still be the coolest.
Strangers usually agree with me—especially when I startle them—but instead of just saying whatever it might take to disengage, the pink-nosed guy took in all the festivities and said, “The games are rigged, the food is cold, and the only ride is the Ferris wheel. And I could ride that anytime.”
“There’s a bouncy castle right over there.”
“With a weight limit of a hundred pounds. I’d hardly call this an extravaganza. A fair, maybe. Or even a festivity. But extravaganza is really pushing it.”
Far be it from me to get involved in a discussion about vocabulary with someone so pedantic. I knew full well how important it was to be accurate with my word choices. How could I not, with all the vocabulary Spellcraft tutors had drilled into my young, impressionable brain?
Turning away, I scoped out a woman in big sunglasses and bright pink lip gloss. She probably had a whole bunch of friends on Friendlike! Plus, she was tiny enough that she could hop around in the bouncy castle if the mood took her. I plastered on a big, non-threatening smile, trotted up to her, and said, “Could there possibly be a more perfect day for an extravaganza?”
Hooking a finger over the arm of her sunglasses, the woman slid them down her nose, scanned the bay, and said with a shrug, “I guess it’s fine.”
There’s just no pleasing some people! But there were dozens of folks milling listlessly around…or maybe they were just relaxed. Surely there’d be a potential influencer somewhere in the crowd. It was just a matter of finding someone suitably enthused to take my message to the people—
“Dixon Penn!” boomed a familiar voice, startling me so badly I nearly ended up wearing Yuri’s funnel cake. Ladin Silver peeled out from behind a concession stand belly-first, brandishing a Technicolor snow cone in each hand. I was hardly surprised to see him there, as Ladin had a particular knack for games of chance. Rumor has it his old trailer was raided for suspicion of illegal gambling—stoat racing, to be exact—but he’s never confirmed or denied that allegation.
“Just the person I wanted to see!” Ladin boomed at me.
“Wow. Uh…really?”
“Hasn’t Drew Draws been spending all his free time over at your uncle’s place?”
It was no secret among the circuit that Uncle Fonzo was training a new Seer. In fact, it was pretty big news within our Spellcraft circuit. “That’s right.”
“Good. Then you’re sure to run into him at some point. Hold this.” He shoved a snow cone at me, and reflexively, my hand came up to grab the paper holder. The ball of ice on top was a bright green so electric it couldn’t possibly be found in nature, and it smelled like a confusing melange of coconut and oregano. Once Ladin had a free hand, he dug an envelope out from his Sansabelt slacks and thrust it toward me. I grabbed it as reflexively as I’d grabbed the snow cone. “See that Drew gets this.” He patted me on the head with a sticky palm. “There’s a good boy.”
I gave back the green snow cone and he ambled off, pausing every few steps to lick one, then the other, until eventually he meandered behind the listlessly capering Pinyin Bay Perch, and I lost sight of him.
Yuri scowled down at the envelope in my hands. “What is it?”
“Maybe it’s a bribe. Local businesses donated all kinds of interesting stuff for the big raffle—and you know how easy it is to rig those things.” I held the envelope up to the light, but unfortunately the paper was too thick for me to see though. “What do you suppose the going rate might be to fix a local raffle? There were some really cute curtain rods in one of the gift baskets—”
“We only have one window,” Yuri reminded me. “And it has shutters.”
I tucked the envelope into my messenger bag. “True. But things are always better when they’re free.”
“But it is not free if a bribe is involved.”
I was about to say we’d have to agree to disagree when we came upon the bandstand. Normally, this was where Pinyin Bay Elementary held their graduation ceremony and the civic orchestra played rousing marches on the Fourth of July. The crowd was thicker here, and everyone was abuzz.
I craned my neck to see what they were all so excited about, but the guy in front of me was particularly tall.
But not taller than my grown man friend.
“Hot dog eating contest?” Yuri said incredulously.
“Only in America!” I declared. While that probably wasn’t the case…I was sure he’d been thinking it. And I never like to disagree with him for long.
“Excuse me…pardon me,” I said as I squeezed my way to the front of the crowd, while Yuri strode in behind me with significantly more force and fewer apologies. I’d never seen a real, live competitive eating event, and I had so many questions. Were the hot dogs boiled or grilled? How much mustard was involved? And could anyone actually say the word wiener without tittering?
I was nearly to the edge of the bandstand when someone snapped, “Watch it, buddy, I’m standing here,” and I found myself elbow to elbow with my cousin.
“Sabina!” I said enthusiastically. And, “Vano…” less so. He’d been stuck to my cousin like glue ever since he put her in the family way. While I was used to having him around nowadays, he still managed to outdo me at every turn. Granted, I’d really upped my flourishing game lately in the face of such stiff competition. What stuck in my craw was the fact that Vano was anything but competitive. Currently, he was fanning Sabina with a map from the tourism kiosk, and he was going at it so earnestly that he’d worked up a sweat…which made his hair fall into an effortlessly attractive tousle.
Of course it did.
Self-consciously, I smoothed the sides of my hair and checked for any wayward strays. I supposed that the important thing was that Vano was willing to take the brunt of my cousin’s mood swings. I’ve heard that some women get a certain glow about them when they’re pregnant. Sabina’s glow was more of a glower.
“Where’ve you guys been?” my cousin said. “This sun is brutal. I need Yuri to cast a shadow.”
Without missing a beat, Yuri glanced up at the sky and positioned himself to block the sun from landing directly on her.
I said, “It seems like you’ve been pregnant forever. How much longer until the baby is due?”
Sabina shrugged. “Hard to say. Depends on whether I got knocked up on the davenport, or under the boardwalk, or in the back of the Buick.”
Vano smiled to himself. “I still say it was on the circular staircase in the solarium at Nana’s house.”
“Forget I asked,” I said weakly.
“Can the doctors not give you a due date?” Yuri wondered.
“Doctor!” Sabina scoffed. “Who has time for all the ridiculous hoops a doctor would make me jump through? Tests and sonograms and prenatal vitamins and whatnot. It’s all just a racket to pad their bills.”
Beneath the burgeoning sunburn on his nose, Yuri went pale. “I thought Americans had programs for things like this. What about insurance?”
“Insurance is a sucker’s bet,” Sabina said dismissively.
I patted Yuri on the arm. “It’s fine. There’s a midwife in our circuit who handles these sorts of things.”
Yuri narrowed his eyes at my cousin. “And when was the last time you saw this midwife?”
“I’ve been meaning to get around to it. But things have been so busy, what with the new Seer and the festival….”
“Extravaganza,” I reminded her.
Ignoring me, Sabina grabbed the brochure out of Vano’s hands and began fanning herself harder. “I’ve had all I can take of this weather. If they don’t start the contest soon, I’ll need to forfeit.”
“Hold on,” I said. “You entered?”
“Drew needed more bodies to make it look good, so he waived my entry fee. I figured, free hot dogs, why not?”
Who doesn’t love a good hot dog? Other than a vegetarian. And probably a pig…although they do say pigs are notoriously omnivorous. At any rate, even though hot dogs were as American as apple pie and sky-high health insurance, Yuri—who can be surprisingly picky—was happy to demolish half a pack at a sitting.
Sabina fanned herself harder as some helpers wheeled a groaning covered cart onto the bandstand to some hoots and cheers from the swelling crowd. Through the ancient, crackly PA system, Drew’s voice announced: “Folks, our big event will start in five minutes. Now it’s time for the contestants to gather backstage.”
I expected my cousin to waddle toward the starting gate at full speed, but surprisingly enough, she turned on her heel and started pushing through the crowd in the opposite direction. “Sabina!” I called out. “Where ya going?”
“Can’t you smell that?” she demanded. I smelled nothing but the ambient marine funk of the bay. “Hot dog water! Gross! It’s enough to make me hurl!”
The crowd in front of her thinned out in a real hurry.
“But wait,” I said, “what about your spot in the eating contest?”
“One of you will have to fill it. I’m outta here.”
John has been writing fiction for as long as he can remember. Born on a small farm in Indiana, he now resides in San Diego, California where he spends his time gardening, pampering his pets, hiking and biking the trails and canyons of San Diego, and of course, writing. He and his partner share a passion for theater, books, film, and the continuing fight for marriage equality. If you would like to know more about John, check out his website.
Sick of the slogging rat-race of her 9-5 job, Pandora Pine put pen to paper (literally!) to make her ambition of becoming a romance novelist a reality. She cut her teeth in the dog-eat-dog world of fan fiction, still dreaming of the day when she would be a published author.
In her spare time, Pandora fancies herself an amateur nature photographer. She enjoys mucking around in swamps, hiking through the woods and crawling around on her hands and knees in her backyard seeking out the perfect shot. Pandora is a fan of roadside seafood shacks and always thinks Mexican food is a good idea at the time.
Some of Pandora's favorite things are chocolate, writing longhand with purple pens, and handsome men falling in love with each other.
Rachel Langella and Ari McKay are the professional pseudonyms for Arionrhod and McKay, who have been writing together for over a decade. Their collaborations encompass a wide variety of romance genres, including contemporary, fantasy, science fiction, gothic, and action/adventure. Their work includes the Blood Bathory series of paranormal novels, the Herc’s Mercs series, as well as two historical Westerns: Heart of Stone and Finding Forgiveness. When not writing, they can often be found scheming over costume designs or binge watching TV shows together.
Ari McKay is a retired systems engineer turned full-time writer and seamstress. Now that she is an empty-nester, she has turned her attentions to finding the perfect piece of land to build a fortress in preparation for the zombie apocalypse, and baking (and eating) far too many cakes.
Rachel Langella is a creative writing teacher who has been writing for one reason or another most of her life. She loves all things spooky and/or vintage, and she’s given in to Ari’s corruptive influences and learned to sew so she can make her own vintage-style clothes and costumes. Given she has the survival skills of a gnat, she’s relying on Ari to help her survive the zombie apocalypse.
Michele is married to an awesome husband that puts up with her and all the characters in her head—and there are many. They live together in Baltimore, Maryland with their two young boys and two crazy dogs. She grew up dancing and swimming and taught dance—ballet, tap, jazz, hip hop, & modern—for ten years before her kids came along. Now she stays home to write about the sexy men in her head and does PTA everything—as long as coffee is involved. Two other tattooed moms run the PTA with her, and though she wants to rip her hair out from it, she still loves it.
Sammi Cee was raised in a family of readers. Summer vacations consisted of a good book while sitting lakeside from as far back as she could remember. After growing up and having her own children, her appreciation of how the written word could transport you on an adventure, bring you to tears, or give you hope, took on a whole new meaning.
These days Sammi is watching her children develop into fine young ladies while doing the things she enjoys most: drinking coffee, eating chocolate, and writing her own stories.
These days Sammi is watching her children develop into fine young ladies while doing the things she enjoys most: drinking coffee, eating chocolate, and writing her own stories.
Author and artist Jordan Castillo Price is the owner of JCP Books LLC. Her paranormal thrillers are colored by her time in the midwest, from inner city Chicago, to small town Wisconsin, to liberal Madison.
Jordan is best known as the author of the PsyCop series, an unfolding tale of paranormal mystery and suspense starring Victor Bayne, a gay medium who's plagued by ghostly visitations. Also check out her new series, Mnevermind, where memories are made...one client at a time.
With her education in fine arts and practical experience as a graphic designer, Jordan set out to create high quality ebooks with lavish cover art, quality editing and gripping content. The result is JCP Books, offering stories you'll want to read again and again.
John Inman
iTUNES / GOOGLE PLAY / AMAZON
EMAIL: John492@att.net
Pandora Pine
Rachel Langella/Ari McKay
WEBSITE / NEWSLETTER / AUDIBLE
GOOGLE PLAY / TUMBLR / KOBO
Michele Notaro
Sammi Cee
Jordan Castillo Price
SMASHWORDS / LIVEJOURNAL / B&N
EMAILS: jordan@psycop.com
jcp.heat@gmail.com
Ravenous by John Inman
KOBO / iTUNES / GOOGLE PLAY
Ghost House by Pandora Pine
Stop Dragon My Heart Around by Rachel Langella
Coldburgh Train Station by Michele Notaro & Sammi Cee
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