Summary:
End Street Vol. 3
The Case of the Purple Pearl #5
After failing in a quest to win the Fae Queen’s approval, Halstein is locked in a world of stone. Forced to remain a gargoyle he spends his days on Sam’s desk pining for his lost love.
Prince Idris’s lover went missing and was presumed dead. Alone, Idris lives a life away from court, starved of energy but unwilling to sleep in the room he once shared with his beloved.
Can Sam and Bob save these fated lovers before it's too late? And will Bob’s ultimate sacrifice be enough to free Hal from his prison?
The Case of the Guilty Ghost #6
Bob is lost in grief, Sam is fighting for his life, and there is no middle ground. Can their love survive?
Bob is grieving over his brother’s sacrifice. Guilt-ridden and devastated, he buries himself in vampire mourning and pulls away from Sam.
Magic tears Sam from the vampire castle and he has to face new adversaries alone, when all he wants is Bob at his side.
Ettore is in the Aset Ka waiting room, next in line for the ceremony for his soul to be torn from his body. Aset Ka has other plans, and Ettore finds himself reunited with a lost love and fighting alongside his brother.
A forgotten past binds Theodore ‘Teddy’ McCurray Constantine III to Ettore, and with the curse tied to Ettore broken by his death, Teddy’s past returns to him with a vengeance.
A royal family in denial, a battle between gods, and long forgotten love leaves no time for Sam and Bob to take a breath. Is it too late to save the supernatural world?
The Case of the Purple Pearl#5
Original Read October 2016:
With number 5 we learn how the stone gargoyle came to be stone, but is he a real gargoyle? I think you all know what my next statement will be: you'll have to read that for yourself. As it is with everything in Sam's world, there's often more questions than answers and this time Purple Pearl ends in a bit of a cliffhanger, luckily for me I only have to wait a few weeks for number 6. Sam and Bob may not always seem to be the main characters in the plot but they are at the heart of it, this time it seems more dangerous but as always, Sam the human-non human and Bob the vampire's love is true and bright but can it survive their newest case?
Re-Read March 2017:
Better than ever. Sam and Bob's chemistry just jumps off the page and knowing the end didn't take away an ounce of enjoyment the second time around.
The Case of the Guilty Ghost #6
Original Review April 2017:
I had bittersweet feels about this one when the release day came around. On the plus side, End Street Detective Agency Series is amazing, stupendous, fabulous, well frankly it's just plain great all around. On the minus side, it's the conclusion, the end, finale, final, finis, no more, well frankly that leaves me with just all kinds of boo-hooing. So as you can imagine, I hated to begin because then it would be it when I hit the last page but I couldn't not read The Case of the Guilty Ghost, the gang cried out to be read.
What can I say about Guilty Ghost without giving anything away? Not too much really but I can't stress enough that this is NOT a standalone, you have to start at the beginning with The Case of the Cupid Curse. I will say that Sam has finally accepted that he's not entirely human, although I don't think he likes it being pointed out. His magic, or paranormality if you will, continues to grow and we finally learn why he is what he is as so many factors fall into place.
We have vampires, dragons, and ghosts, oh my! Bob's brother returns, Teddy the ghost's history is revealed, the evil is uncovered, and the future is shaky but it's all yummy. RJ Scott and Amber Kell have created a world that one can get lost in and who knew it would go where it did when Bob the Vampire rented a room from Sam the human(he thinks). I have already re-read the first five stories even though it hasn't even been 6 months since my original read and I'm already looking forward to my next re-read, which probably says more about how much I love this universe than all the words I've already written. End Street has definitely earned it's prime position on my paranormal shelf.
The Case of the Purple Pearl #5
Chapter One
“What are you doing?”
Sam sighed. This was the fifth time today their visiting gargoyle had asked him that. Three weeks had passed since it had decided to stay at the house and wait for Sam to find it a master. And those three weeks had lasted a very long time.
“Taxes,” Sam muttered. The same answer he’d given every single time he’d been asked.
“I don’t like math,” the little gargoyle said. He waddled across Sam’s desk, leaving small muddy footprints on a neatly filled-in form. Sam couldn’t even muster the energy to get angry.
“Are you going to tell me your name yet?” Sam asked. He placed his pen on the desk and leaned back with a stretch, eying the small gargoyle against the hulking monstrosity that sat immobile on the corner of his desk. They were so dissimilar, in size and expression.
“You know I can only tell my master.”
“I can’t keep calling you the little gargoyle. I’m going to have to give you a name.”
The little gargoyle turned in a circle to face Sam, then squatted into a pose with his mouth open in a snarl. It looked pretty mean, and Sam edged back.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
The gargoyle’s expression changed back to the one he usually had; that of a dopey baby.
“Nothing, I was just giving you my fierce face so you can give me the right name. I’m not having you calling me Sunshine or Cutie. I want something strong like Zephariel Angel of Vengeance.”
Sam couldn’t help the snort of laughter, then immediately felt guilty when the gargoyle’s expression fell. “Sorry,” he apologized. “It’s just, uhm, that name is taken. How about Leo, like a lion, a brave, strong lion.”
The gargoyle tilted his head in contemplation, then nodded. “Leo, I like Leo. I’m done with you now. You already have a gargoyle. I’m going to find my true master.”
That decided, he jumped down off the desk and waddled over to the door, sidestepping awkwardly when Smudge slunk in with intent in every step. In a leap, Smudge was up on the desk, sitting right on the tax forms and staring straight into Sam’s face.
“What are you doing?” Smudge asked telepathically.
“Taxes,” Sam answered. He didn’t add a sigh this time.
“You should be tracking down what kind of other your uncle’s pet gargoyle is.”
Leo, the newly named visiting gargoyle, had declared that the old paperweight on Sam’s desk that looked like a gargoyle, walked like a gargoyle, and was stone like a gargoyle, wasn’t actually a gargoyle at all, but other.
“Where do you suggest I start? And why can’t you tell what it is, oh powerful familiar.” Sam couldn’t help the sarcasm. Smudge was capable of putting souls back in bodies and using heavy magic, but he couldn’t track down what kind of paranormal had been transformed into an ancient crumbling gargoyle paperweight?
“I’ll forget you said that,” Smudge said condescendingly. “I’ve been busy.”
“With what?” Sam asked. Privately he thought Smudge spent too much time cleaning himself with his paws up in the air and his tongue—
“I can hear you,” Smudge warned. “And who else do you think can keep your attic spider infestation at bay?”
Sam shuddered. He didn’t like small spiders at best, let alone the giant ones Smudge had suggested lived only a few floors up. “Good work,” Sam praised. “And as to our paperweight friend here—” Sam tapped the solid stone thing on the head with a stapler. “—I’ve put out a request to everyone I know as to who may be missing someone. I used the ParaGoogle to see if anyone knows anything. Not sure what else I can do at this stage.”
Smudge gave a feline version of a huff, deliberately washed himself on the desk for a good five minutes, then disappeared out of the room. Sam shook off the fur that had fallen on his paperwork. This needed to be done and, unless he finished it soon, he’d have the authorities fining him all over the place.
A knock on his office door jerked Sam from his sad contemplation of the bills he had to pay. Although he’d earned some money recently and he owned the building where he worked and lived, the flow of money going out far exceeded the money rushing into his pockets.
Taxes were a bitch.
“Come in!” he shouted.
Sam lifted an eyebrow at the sight of the dark-haired man entering his office. The strangest part of his visitor was his apparent ordinariness. The man’s eyes didn’t glow with vampire ire, he didn’t growl with pent-up werewolf angst, and his average height and weight could only be explained one way. Human. He must be lost.
“Sorry, I knocked on the front door but no one answered. I hope you don’t mind me letting myself in.” The man indicated the entrance with a vague wave.
“No. Of course not.” Sam would have to learn to either lock his outer door or get an alarm of some kind. The doorbell had stopped working a few days ago, and Sam suspected their water heater might be ready to explode at any moment. Bob swore it would be fine, but it gurgled at Sam the last time he went to the basement to get the laundry. He might have to give in and hire a handyman. Neither he nor Bob were very useful around the house.
“I’m Abbott Williams. I heard you were a detective.” The man held up a flyer as if that explained his presence.
Sam stood to shake hands. “I’m Sam Enderson. Nice to meet you. Yes, I am a detective.” He accepted the yellow paper Abbott handed over. It listed Sam’s detective agency, their location on a little map, and little else. It did have a nice picture of the building, though. “I don’t remember having any flyers printed up.”
Abbott shrugged. “I found it at the bar down the street. Anyway, I need you to follow my boyfriend around. I think he’s cheating on me. Are you interested in the job or not?”
Sam tossed the flyer on his desk to study later. Bob probably made them and forgot to tell Sam about it. “Break up with him. That’s what I did.”
“Some guy cheated on you?” Abbott made it sound as if he couldn’t imagine such a thing happening.
“Yep. But I got over it.” At least that’s what Sam kept telling himself whenever he thought of his ex’s betrayal. Bob usually pulled him out of the bad memories with a blowjob. Worked every time.
The young man’s mouth tightened in annoyance. “I can’t just break up with him.”
“Why not? If you really suspect he’s cheating on you, he probably is.” Sam knew from his own experience that glossing over problems in a relationship didn’t improve the situation. “You’re better off without him.”
“I don’t want to be without him. I love him.”
“If he loved you back he wouldn’t cheat,” Sam said flatly. He’d hate to be the one who had to tell Abbott he’d been right about his boyfriend.
“I can pay,” Abbott insisted. He pulled a wad of cash out of his pocket and tossed it on the desk. “I don’t want you to do anything else. I want to know the truth. Just find out if he’s cheating. After that, I can decide what to do.”
The man’s desperate words struck a chord with Sam. Of course, so did Abbott’s nice crinkly stack of bills. “Have a seat and tell me all about this boyfriend of yours.”
What could it hurt to do a little surveillance? After all, hadn’t Sam gotten into this business to help people? Surely hunting down one human and taking some pictures would be way easier than the other stuff he was always tangled up in. Bob should be happy that Sam finally got a non-supernatural case. At least this time no one would be trying to set him on fire.
Once he’d settled in the chair opposite Sam, Abbott handed over a photo. “This is Greg.”
Sam took the picture Abbott handed over. A dark-haired man with green eyes looked back at him.
“He’s cute.”
“I know,” Abbott said.
“Okay,” Sam began. “I’ll take the case, but the usual proviso is that if I find something you don’t like, the End Street Detective Agency can’t be held responsible.”
Abbott nodded. “I understand.”
Sam pushed across the requisite forms and disclaimers, which Abbott signed. They shook hands, and then Abbott gave some extra details about places and dates and where Sam might find the philandering boyfriend before he left.
Sam counted the money; easily enough to cover the bills for the next two weeks.
A quick, easy job for good money.
Now this was what being a private detective was all about.
The Case of the Guilty Ghost #6
Chapter 1
Sam took the stairs two at a time, all one hundred and sixty of them, to the top of the tower, leaving him gasping for oxygen. He’d seen Bob heading that way, or dreamed it, or half woke and imagined it. He didn’t know what exactly, only that somehow, he knew he would find Bob at the top of the black tower. He ducked the low lintel, slid to an ungainly halt on the stone floor, unbalanced and grabbed at the wall to hold himself upright.
“Bob?” he called into the dark corners of the tower, but there was no reply. His vampire lover didn’t step from the shadows with a smile or words of love. The place was empty, and the only presence Sam sensed was spiders. Knowing his luck, they were man-eating spiders.
“Sam!”
Sam winced at the shout up the stairs, and then heard huffing and cursing as the owner of the deep voice appeared in the doorway. Jin, who had never quite gone home, citing that he was responsible for Sam, was way past pissed. At least Jin, being a dragon shifter, could light up the room. Then Sam recalled he could light up the room just by thinking about it.
“I want there to be light,” he murmured, and then held up his hand to block his eyes as a pure white light exploded in the center of the room, filling every corner before receding back to a steady glowing orb.
He blinked, the light burning his retina. He closed his eyes tight, willing the spotted vision to go.
“What are you doing up here?” Jin asked. He sounded wary, like everyone else tiptoeing around Sam these past two weeks.
“Bob,” Sam said. When he opened his eyes again, he could see the entire room. An elaborate altar took up the far side of the circular chamber, built into the wall and covered in years of dusty cobwebs, likely from the imagined killer spiders. He stepped toward it, a low humming drawing his attention. Jin moved to block his way.
“Leave it, Sam,” Jin said. His hard tone left no room for discussion.
The noise of more footsteps stomping up the stairs, then Lambert, Sam’s vampire liaison, appeared at the top. Lambert, a tall stretched-skinny vampire with eerily cloudy eyes, had a propensity to follow Sam everywhere, spouting fear at everything and anything.
“Sire, you can’t be in here,” Lambert said, waving his hands ineffectively.
Sam spun back around to face the altar. “Stop calling me sire,” he muttered under his breath. He was getting pretty sick of how people treated him in the damn castle. Half the vampires lauded him as a ruler of supernaturals, the other half wanted him either locked up or gone. The first group assigned Lambert to him. They felt Sam needed an escort in the vampire kingdom because he was, in their words, special. Lambert was the kind of paranormal stuck firmly in the past. The historian kept talking about the old days like they were better times.
Sam wasn’t sure why Lambert had been so accepting of him given he was A, human, and B, with Bob.
Jin held up a hand, glowing with the remnants of dragon fire magic and placed it flat on Sam’s chest. It didn’t burn, only fizzled, and popped sending a small shock through his body.
“Sam, talk to me,” Jin demanded.
The humming from the altar intensified, and a voice in Sam’s head was saying the same things over and over, Sam, I am here, and I need your help.
“I can hear Bob in my head, he called me up here,” Sam repeated.
“No, you can’t have heard him,” Lambert corrected. “The mate link is blocked in times of mourning. You are hearing something else, dark magic maybe. You need to come back down to your chamber where you are safe.”
A mixture of exasperation and fear crossed Lambert’s face when Sam stepped back toward the altar.
“I want to see him.” He’d been too long without Bob. Their separation was causing cracks in his sanity.
“It’s not much longer until he’s done,” Jin reassured.
“Please come away, Sam,” Lambert pleaded. That was new. Lambert never called him Sam.
“Just take my hand,” Jin said, holding out his hand.
Sam stepped backward, more toward the altar, and he heard Lambert let out a small curse.
“Take my hand, Sam,” Jin said. “This is stupid and dangerous.”
Sam turned on Jin, sparks flying from his fingers. Jin stepped back from him, narrowly avoiding the biting magic. “Stay away from me.”
He shook his fingers, electricity passing up his arm. Usually when that happened, Bob was there to hold his hands, settle him and take away the pinpricks of pain.
“Come away, Sam,” Jin said.
“Listen to the dragon,” Lambert added, his voice thick with fear.
“You and Jin do what I say,” Sam snapped, not knowing where the superiority in his voice was coming from.
Sam fought his loss of control. So much for me being a higher supernatural. Every day without Bob felt like torture, and Sam was lost without his vampire lover next to him. The headaches, the sparks of energy from his fingers, and the pain in his chest grew more intense with each hour that passed. He knew Bob was in mourning. Hell, Sam respected the traditions, but right then, all he wanted was his lover by his side.
Hurry up, the voice in his head said. I need your help.
He shook off the words and concentrated on Lambert. “Take me to the Sanctum, let me see Bob, convince me he isn’t calling for my help, and I will come with you.” He wasn’t being unreasonable, they were.
“This is an ancient rite.” Lambert seemed stunned that Sam was asking this. “No humans.”
“Something is wrong.” With me? With him? Something is terribly wrong, but no one is listening.
“What is wrong? Is it your head?” Jin asked, his voice low, and his expression concerned.
Yes. No. Hell, I don’t know. I know Bob loves me, and I love him. I just need to kiss him.
Instead, he said, “I have to help Bob with his grieving. We can’t be apart like this.”
Sam didn’t know what made him say it that way; he wasn’t needy, it wasn’t a normal need for lovers to be together. His instincts had been screaming at him that he and Bob shouldn’t be apart.
Ever!
Lambert gasped as he did every time Sam suggested he should be part of any ancient vampire rite. “A non-pureblood cannot help with the rituals of grieving.”
Sam knew Lambert was winding himself up to that whole vampire purity speech and he sighed. Jin must have sensed his irritability because he rounded on Lambert and roared, fire sparking around him. Lambert stumbled back in shock.
“Wait for us outside,” Jin ordered.
Lambert looked torn between staying to keep an eye on Sam, his job, or evading the dragon fire that Jin was breathing all around the room.
Lambert’s eyes narrowed. His calculating gaze flashed from Jin to Sam and back again a few times before he sketched a small bow and left the chamber. “I will go down exactly the seven steps of Aset Ka,” he announced over his shoulder. He was kind of stuck on numbers and more than a little obsessive about the freaking vampire god.
The same god who had made a bargain with Bob’s brother Ettore before returning Bob to Sam, and taking Ettore to some kind of hell, or heaven, or whatever.
“Bob needs me,” Sam said, firmly. “I was asleep and heard him calling me. He must be out of mourning.”
“Sam, you have to stop, he isn’t up here.”
“He must be, he called me.” Maybe if Sam said it enough times one of them would listen.
Jin shook his head. “You heard that through your mate link? In your mind. You can’t have because the link is muted when Bob is mourning.”
Sam shook his head, confused. “No, it was like an image of the stairs, and this room, and there was an altar, only it wasn’t this old. It had gold all over it, a chalice in the center, and Bob was examining it, and he called me over, and there was magic….” Sam pressed his hands against his temples, attempting to ease the tension building from that incessant humming. “He needs me.”
“Sam, it was just a dream. You’re tired. Let’s go get some sleep, and we’ll re-examine this in the morning.” Jin took his arm, encouraged him back to the doorway, but Sam wrenched away and shoved Jin to the side, and with a flick of his hand there was a thick wall of ice between them. Sam stood on the side of the altar, and Jin beat on the ice trying to get through.
Bob needed him, and nothing or no one was stopping him. He’d felt Bob’s grief, through their bond, for four long days and then without warning; the bond was severed. He’d been told that had to happen as part of the rituals of mourning.
Sam was lost. Not even his daughter Mal arriving had helped. At that moment, it didn’t matter that she was the light of his life, he wasn’t whole without Bob. There was no family without Bob.
“Watch Mal,” Sam spoke clearly through the ice, which wasn’t giving way, and Jin snarled at him. “Please.”
“Don’t do anything stupid, Sam! We’ll go down and find Bob.”
But Sam wasn’t doing anything stupid. He was doing what he should have been doing all along, finding Bob and making sure he was okay. Something had happened, someone had come into the castle, stolen Bob from his mourning and only Sam could help. He turned his back on Jin to face the altar. Something there was calling him. Help me, help me.
Bob’s voice? Or was it softer the closer that Sam got to the altar? A whisper of a voice?
He stepped closer, the hum louder, and then another step, and as he neared the low resonating noise stopped, and for a moment he was motionless.
He reached a hand toward the altar, expecting a barrier, or magic, or some booby-trap that would whisk him to killer spider land or some other awful, horrible place.
A crash behind him had him looking back. Jin was nearly through the barrier, melting the ice as fast as he could with his dragon fire; in seconds he would be through. Sam flicked his hand to create another level of ice, but nothing happened.
“Just when I need magic, it isn’t there,” he murmured.
Something inside him began to hurt, an insistent tug at the base of his neck that ran down his spine then back again. The sensation was weird, moving his feet, guiding him, and he had no control over his own body. He was a marionette, and someone else was pulling the strings.
Fear began to spread in the pit of his stomach, Jin screamed his name and the heat of dragon fire warmed his back, but none of it mattered.
Because his hand touched the altar.
And everything went to hell.
Saturday's Series Spotlight
Amber Kell has made a career out of daydreaming. It has been a lifelong habit she practices diligently as shown by her complete lack of focus on anything not related to her fantasy world building.
Despite her husband's insistence she doesn't drink enough to be a true literary genius, she continues to spin stories of people falling happily in love and staying that way.
She is thwarted during the day by a traffic jam of cats on the stairway and a puppy who insists on walks, but she bravely perseveres.
Writing love stories with a happy ever after – cowboys, heroes, family, hockey, single dads, bodyguards
USA Today bestselling author RJ Scott has written over one hundred romance books. Emotional stories of complicated characters, cowboys, single dads, hockey players, millionaires, princes, bodyguards, Navy SEALs, soldiers, doctors, paramedics, firefighters, cops, and the men who get mixed up in their lives, always with a happy ever after.
She lives just outside London and spends every waking minute she isn’t with family either reading or writing. The last time she had a week’s break from writing, she didn’t like it one little bit, and she has yet to meet a box of chocolates she couldn’t defeat.
Amber Kell
GOOGLE PLAY / iTUNES / KOBO
EMAIL: amberkellwrites@gmail.com
RJ Scott
BOOKBUB / KOBO / SMASHWORDS
EMAIL: rj@rjscott.co.uk
Volume 3
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