The Lance Brody Series
Books 1 and 2, plus Prequel Novella
Michael Robertson, Jr.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, businesses, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any similarities to events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and should be recognized as such. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, etc.) without the prior written consent and permission of the author.
Dark Beginnings Copyright © 2016 Michael Robertson, Jr.
Cover Design Copyright © 2016 Jason Collins
Dark Game Copyright © 2016 Michael Robertson, Jr.
Cover Design Copyright © 2016 Jason Collins
Dark Son Copyright © 2017 Michael Robertson, Jr.
Cover Design Copyright © 2017 Jason Collins
Contents
Dark Beginnings
Author’s Note
Dark Beginnings
1993
1995
1999
2010
2015 (I)
2015 (II)
Dark Game
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Dark Son
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Epilogue
Author’s note
Also by Michael Robertson, Jr.
Dark Beginnings
(Lance Brody Series, Book 0)
Author’s Note
DARK BEGINNINGS is a 100-page prequel novella and the true beginning of the Lance Brody series. I hope you enjoy joining Lance on all his adventures.
-Michael Robertson Jr
Dark Beginnings
1993
Pamela Brody was a lot of things.
Pretty? Absolutely, in that girl-next-door sort of way.
Funny? Hell, she was downright knee-slap hysterical when she got going. Witty and quick as lightning.
Smart? Name a book and she’d probably read it. She had the start of a small library piled in stacks around her home. Everything from Freud to Stephen King to a biography of Benjamin Franklin.
Odd? Well, yes, that word did get tossed around in conversations in which her name would come up. Not so much in a negative light, but in a we can’t really figure her out way. The fact that no serious boyfriends had managed to stick around longer than a month or two only fueled the small town’s gossip fires further in this regard. Who was she, really?
The list of adjectives was immense and varied.
But the adjective that would best describe twenty-four-year-old Pamela Brody on the night of April 13, 1993, was aroused.
Which was odd. Since on that night, at just a few minutes past eleven o’clock, Pamela Brody was scaling the fence of the Great Hillston Cemetery. Yes, that was actually its name, as if there were anything great about death.
Pamela swung one leg over the top of the wrought-iron rails, then the other, her flowered cotton sundress catching momentarily on one of the rods before she pulled it clear and let herself fall the five or six feet to the ground. Her dress puffed out around her like in that scene from the Alice in Wonderland cartoon, and then her bare feet hit the grass and she bent her knees and rolled once before popping back up quickly and saying, “See? Easiest thing in the world.”
From the other side of the fence, staring at her and clearly trying to figure out what he’d gotten himself into, the young man in the tweed jacket who’d stopped in town yesterday for a week’s worth of business said, “I never said it wasn’t easy. I suggested it wasn’t the best idea. We’re trespassing, and … well...” He shrugged, nodding toward the scene behind Pamela. “You have to admit it’s a bit creepy.”
She smiled at him coyly, turned her head just slightly and said, “I didn’t take you for the type to be afraid of ghosts.”
They’d met last night at the local sports bar. He’d stopped in because it was the first place he’d found to get something to eat that was close to his motel, and she’d been there to watch the Chicago Bulls match-up against their Eastern Conference rival, Detroit. He’d noticed her right away; the way she sat alone, seemingly oblivious to the crowds around her, the simple way she was dressed—in a sundress similar to the one she wore tonight, only the slightest hint of makeup on her face. She appeared completely and at ease with herself and her surroundings. She appeared so neutral. A few folks stopped and spoke to her, each one greeted with a smile and some polite conversation, but her attention always turned quickly back to the game, especially when MJ had the ball.
“I’m not afraid of ghosts.” Even as he said the words, he didn’t believe them himself. And honestly, one didn’t often question oneself about the existence of ghosts. It wasn’t something most people held serious debates about on a whim—or on a date. But it was amazing how quickly the plausibility of the spirit world came into view when one stood mere feet away from one of the oldest and largest cemeteries in the state, and with the hour quickly approaching midnight. He looked up to the sky, just as a strong gust of wind blew through, rattling the iron fencing and whistling through tree limbs. A black cloud rolled across the moon, a cancerous spot growing across the surface. The man ran a hand through his blond hair, sighed. “I think it might storm.”
Pamela turned and walked away, toward the tombstones and mausoleums. Another breeze blew and kicked her dress up around her thighs. She made no effort at modesty, just shouted back over her shoulder, “So now you’re afraid of getting wet, too?”
At halftime he’d gone over and sat on the stool next to he
r, offered to buy her another drink. She turned and looked at him and when her eyes met his, he was filled with something he could only describe as being dunked into a perfectly warm bath. She smiled, and his world lit up, his head reeling with the strange mixture of love and sensuality and desire this girl seemed to put out … radiate. She accepted the drink—an iced tea, which he found cutely conservative—and they introduced themselves and they talked about the game and what he did for work and what there was to do in such a small town, and with two minutes left in the game he asked if he could take her to dinner tomorrow night. She had smiled, accepted, and then kissed him on the cheek before standing and leaving the bar. Leaving him alone on the stool and wondering who this girl was he’d just met.
After the flash of Pamela’s bare thighs, the man cursed under his breath and then heaved himself up and over the fence. His loafers slipped on the railing, but, tall as he was—a good bit over six feet—the effort needed was minimal. He landed softly on the other side and found that he’d started to sweat despite the cool spring night. He took off his jacket, folded it over his arm and hurried off after Pamela.
She was walking through the rows of headstones, periodically stopping and kneeling down to examine the names and dates and epitaphs. Sometimes she would reach out and rest her hand on the marker, a gentle gesture of sympathy. Sometimes she would shake her head slowly, as if digesting terrible news. Sometimes she would grin and stand and act like she’d just heard a dirty joke.
The man watched her silently for a while, then came up behind her and said, “Do you do this often?”
She turned and took his hand and led him away with her, deeper among the graves. “People are always so sad about death,” she said, running her fingers across the top of another stone. “They bring so much negative energy into these places. I wish more of them would stop and appreciate the beauty around them.”
“Beauty?” he asked.
She stopped and let go of his hand, holding her palms up and gesturing at all around her. “Look around. Look at all these tributes to lives lived, all these markers of memories. Entire generations of people lie here. Histories.” She raised a hand to her ear. “Listen,” she said.
Another gust of wind blew through the trees, screamed through gaps in mausoleum walls. Then silence.
The man shivered. “What am I hearing?”
She looked up at him and smiled. “Peace,” she said. “The voices of the resting.”
A light sprinkle of rain began to fall, tiny droplets of water peppering Pamela’s forehead, as if she glistened with sweat.
The man grew irritated as the cold rain increased and his shirt stuck to him, his hair matting to his head.
Only the sight of Pamela’s nipples stiffening beneath her dress kept him in place, made him ask, “Pam, why are we here? Why did you bring me here?”
She went up onto her tiptoes and kissed him on the mouth, rainwater dripping down both their faces. When she pulled away: “Because I like you. And this is one of my favorite places. I wanted to share it with you.”
A crack of thunder shouted in the distance. Not on top of them, but closer than the man would have liked. He glanced back the way they’d come, back up the pathway between the headstones. Through the fencing he could still barely make out the darkened shadow that was his car, parked along the backroad they’d taken. So close, yet it seemed so far. Something urged him to go back, to get in that car and drive away. Away from Pamela and away from Hillston. Work be damned.
He shivered, wiped water from his eyes, and then turned back to Pamela. When he saw her, when he met her eyes, that warm-bath feeling hit him again. He let his gaze soak her in, his eyes slowly rolling down her body, admiring the way the wet fabric clung to her and showed off her slender figure. He felt a stirring down below, and just as quickly as the thought had occurred to him, the idea of the car and running away fled from memory.
Pamela said nothing. She took his hand and pulled him deeper into the cemetery. He allowed her to lead him, following a twisting path of gravel around a small bend. When they made it around the corner, Pamela pulled him left, into the grass. His loafers squished and squashed through the soggy ground, and if he’d not been overcome by the allure of the woman before him, he would have cursed at the thought of having to purchase a new pair.
Another crack of thunder boomed, this time much closer. Too close. The rain kicked up another notch, and soon the sound of the falling droplets drowned out all other sound. The clouds rolled in heavier, completely engulfing the moon. Darkness seeped in. He could only see a few feet in front of him now, enough to make out Pamela’s slim shoulders.
A few yards ahead a large oak tree, one that looked as though it had begun its life well before the first person was laid to rest in the Great Hillston Cemetery, sprawled up and out of the earth. It towered toward the sky, its limbs forming a near-perfect umbrella from the rain. Pamela pulled him under the cover, and then the two of them stood there together, hands still intertwined, and watched and listened to the onslaught of weather.
Then a bolt of lightning sliced through the sky and the man was again hit with the urge to run. He turned to protest their misadventure, but Pamela had pulled away and was peeling off her dress. Even in the near-darkness he could make out the fine curves of her body, his eyes lingering at her chest, small but firm and perfect. Her wet hair fell around her face, dripped onto her shoulders. Her intentions were clear.
The man tossed his jacket onto the ground under their canopy of branches and fervently undressed. She smiled as he struggled with his pants, hopping from foot to foot like a clumsy fool.
But then he was with her, laying her down atop his jacket—another new purchase that would need to be made—and feeling the surprising warmth of her skin. They kissed, hungrily, and any concern the man had had before vanished as quickly as Pamela’s dress had. She guided him inside her, the warmth of her nearly melting him, his arms and shoulders shuddering. For the next few minutes, the entire rest of the world evaporated, and the man marveled at how he could ever have been so stupid to want to turn away from what would end up being the most erotic moment of his life. He knew he wouldn’t be able to continue much longer; he was getting close.
And then the lightning streaked the sky and crashed to the ground what felt like mere feet from where Pamela and the man were lying. And when it did, two things happened.
First, the man let out a small groan of pleasure as he finished, spilling himself inside her and nearly falling forward on arms of jelly.
Second, when the lightning crashed down, electrifying the air around them and seemingly rattling their bones, the darkness had lit up in a brilliant flash of white and gold, a single pulse from a great strobe light. A freeze frame in the night.
And the man had screamed.
Not because he was startled by the noise and the light, but because when the great spotlight had flashed on them, the man had seen the faces of what had to be at least a hundred people all around them, a close circle of spectators all huddled together and watching with great interest.
Just a blip, a quick snapshot that would be forever etched in his memory. But he knew exactly who they were, as well as he knew his own name.
The spirits of the Great Hillston Cemetery had come out for a show that night.
And they’d been smiling.
After he’d screamed, the man struggled to untangle himself from Pamela, slipping on the wet earth and scrambling after his clothes. He didn’t offer any parting words, no explanation. Fear had seized him, a puppet master, and he the puppet. He shoved himself into his pants, putting them on backward, grabbed his shirt and left his shoes and jacket behind. And then he was running, back down the path, back to his car.
Pamela Brody watched him go, never once even calling out after him. Simply stunned at what had just unfolded before her. After a while, she laid her head back and closed her eyes, listening to the sounds of the storm around her, feeling surprisingly at peace.
She would never see the man again.
The list of adjectives was immense and varied. But after that night in the Great Hillston Cemetery, you could add one more word to the list.
Pregnant.
Nine months later, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. She named him Lancelot.
Lance, for short.
1995
Pamela Brody had never known her parents. She’d been put up for adoption at birth and had been unlucky enough to draw the short straw in regard to her new adoptive guardians. An alcoholic “father” and neglectful “mother” had managed to keep her alive for the first four years of her life, but, as the social services worker had put it in Pamela’s case file, it was nothing short of a miracle the girl had survived.
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