by Lissa Kasey
Stalked by Shadows
A Simply Crafty Paranormal Mystery
Lissa Kasey
Stalked By Shadows
1st Edition
Copyright © 2019 Lissa Kasey
All rights reserved
Cover Art by Garrett Leigh
Edited by Christy Duke
Published by Lissa Kasey
http://www.lissakasey.com
Please Be Advised
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Warning
This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. This eBook cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book can be shared or reproduced without the express permission of the Author.
Contents
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
Letter from Lissa
About the Author
Also by Lissa Kasey
Prologue
He had no face. Or at least that’s what my brain told me. Rationally there were reasons. It was too dark out in the deserts of Afghanistan in the middle of the night. He was too far away. I was too tired to see properly, maybe I was dehydrated and delusional.
Except alarm bells went off in my brain. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Something wasn’t right. Again, the rational part of my brain tried to parse facts. The cut of his fatigues was familiar. Maybe he was out for a late-night dump, outside base, in the middle of nowhere, without a weapon, or backup.
I squinted through the night vision goggles, pushed them up, rubbed my eyes and then put them back down. The blur of his form didn’t change, just got closer as he headed my way. I radioed to the team, “Alpha Team, possible friendly outside base, Roger?”
The radio crackled back, “Location, over.”
I was on post, stationed behind a dune, flat on my stomach, about two dozen yards outside the base. A glance back through the darkness and I could see the vague outline of vehicles, no movement or heat signatures as those things would give the base away.
“North face,” I replied. “Friendly not accounted for? Over.” I asked. I’d been part of the team long enough to know everyone’s name and face, but in the gear, out here with nothing but sand and wind, everyone looked the same in the dark. Size and shape could sometimes help, but even that was pretty universal with soldiers used to long hikes with hundred-pound packs on their backs.
“No friendlies unaccounted for, over,” the voice crackled back.
But those were our fatigues. I squinted at him some more, trying to make out the face beneath the hat. He got closer, probably four dozen yards or so. The shadows seemed to distort his face, making it look ghoulish in the night vision lens, like it shifted, contorting, but that had to be the play of shadows. Real people didn’t look like that.
“Maybe another base? Any other channel chatter? Over.”
“None,” the radio spat back. “Nothing in our area. Nearest friendly twelve kilometers away. Over.”
What the fuck?
He was really close now, the face still distorted and shifting, a void with slits of contorting darkness where features should be. I’d never seen shadows do that to anyone.
It wasn’t a local, not in fatigues like that. “Advise. Unknown approaching. Not local. Not friendly. Over.” Fear intensified in my gut. I’d shoot if I had to, wouldn’t even be the first time, but he was close and each step made my heart pound faster with a feeling I couldn’t quite place. Dread?
“Drone shows no heat signatures, over.”
I hadn’t even heard the machine when my on-alert senses usually could pick up the heartbeat of the guy standing next to me, but it made sense that they would deploy one at the first hint of something unusual. My night vision gave me a vague heat signal, not unusual in the roasting evening temps, movement and shape, even if it did waver. Fuck.
The day before when we’d stopped in a small village, I’d overheard talk of something in Pashto, which for me wasn’t as fluent as Dari or as it was known internationally as Farsi. A story about jin, mythical spirits who tricked men into following them into the desert, only to kill them, or something along those lines.
My gut rolled over. It was legend. Talk. Probably to scare us. They had no idea any of us spoke the language. Most of the team spoke a few words in Farsi, none as fluently as I did. And none that I knew of could tell the difference between Dari and Pashto. I tended to pick up languages quickly, which is why I was always on point for communications despite being a weapons expert.
“Advise, over.” I aimed for his head, hands tightening around the barrel, of my gun, holding on for dear life while alarm bells screamed in my head.
“Backup headed your way, ETA minus one, over.”
Would he be on me before then? He was still coming. Shouldn’t he have reached me already? I could hear the approach of my team behind me, stealthy, moving quickly, but while the sand hid a lot of footsteps and the rustle of clothing, their whispers tended to echo off the small surfaces of the vehicles and tents when in an enclosed area. The sandstorm earlier in the day had forced the team to base early and in tight formation, which meant keeping a close watch on all sides until morning and we could move again now that the storm was over.
Two team members crawled up beside me, slow enough to not startle me, though I clung to the trigger and the image of whatever the fuck it was headed our way. Both stared out into the darkness, nothing but our night vision to give us clarity.
“Friendly?” I inquired of them.
Neither spoke for a minute.
“Unknown,” the one on the left said.
I glanced toward the guy on the right and through the night vision I could see him frowning as he stared out into the sand. Both men beside me had faces, defined and full of shadows but nothing like what was coming our way. I glanced back. The guy—or thing, whatever he was—wavered again, face distorting almost like he yawned, but opened his mouth too wide. It was something out of a horror movie, the unhinged jaw of a skeleton or some creepy cryptid, gaping into a void, which filled my stomach with rocks and terror.
I heard the two men beside me gasp. The one on the right scrambled back, tugging on my jacket as he went. “Pull back,” he said.
“Advise?” I inquired, confused.
The other scrambled away as well, dragging me back with them.
“Pull back to base,” the one from the right said again. Johnson. I recognized his voice. He tapped his radio. “Team regroup, over,” he said as he dragged me back toward the circle of vehicles. The man, or thing, or whatever the fuck it was, was still coming, filling me with a sense of doom.
&n
bsp; Chapter 1
I awoke with a strangled scream, gasping and flailing like I was still being dragged by my teammates back to the base. But when I opened my eyes it was to my brother’s tiny apartment ceiling and realization that I’d fallen asleep on his couch while waiting for him to get home from work.
Fuck.
I sat up and rubbed my face. It was after two in the afternoon. My hip ached from sleeping at a contorted angle and likely from the nightmare. Nap dreams were the worst. Though that particular memory popped up a lot. I’d stopped mentioning it to my therapist months ago. Survivor’s guilt, they told me. Our base had been lost the next day, only three of the nearly two dozen making it out at all. The two men, who had seen what I’d seen, killed as well. The military said I misremembered things. There had been no man in the dark, no omen of doom, it was all in my head.
Yeah, the memories were always in my fucking head. It was easier to discredit a man by calling him crazy than explain whatever the fuck had decimated our base.
The door opened, Lukas stepped inside and closed it behind him. He set a messenger bag on the table and went to wash his hands in the kitchen sink. It was a ritual for him. Bag down, hands clean, then usually off to change clothes. All things to leave the work day behind.
The apartment was one big space for the kitchen, living room, and dining room, and a small bedroom and bathroom. Not really enough room for two people at a little over 700 square feet, but he hadn’t bought it with the idea that I’d be crashing on his couch, semi-permanently. He’d moved to NOLA while I was enlisted, leaving behind Charlotte, North Carolina and a lot of asshole cops who treated him like they’d rather hang him than work with him.
The sleeves of Lukas’ white dress shirt were rolled up, the shirt tucked into fitted tan pants. He looked like a businessman instead of a police detective, but I knew it was part of being professional for him. And since he was one of the highest-ranking homicide detectives in the New Orleans Police Department, I figured his professionalism didn’t hurt anything. He handled sensitive subject matter carefully and always seemed to take care of the families of the victims. He also showed up in a lot of news reports as his good looks and charming personality made great press for the police department.
His hair was cropped short, leaving a hint of blond curls to decorate the crown of his head, and a tiny sweep to soften his forehead, sides cut too close to allow for any shape. Mine was a shoulder-length mass of curls that frizzed in the humid NOLA air, the only proof in our shared brown eyes, blond hair, and bronze skins, of our African-American father. Anyone would look at Lukas and think attractive, put-together, and dateable. I was none of those things.
“You okay, little brother?” Lukas asked. Little brother because he was thirty minutes older. Identical twins, Lukas and I, but unalike in so many ways. I must have been quiet too long because he said, “Alex?”
“I had a nightmare. Sorry.”
Lukas glanced around the apartment, seeming to take in that nothing was broken. It had been known to happen. PTSD they told me. Sometimes I woke up and reality was hard to parse from fiction. I was getting better at sorting it out… most of the time.
He dried his hands and turned to lean against the counter, looking thoughtful and worried all at once. “You okay to start work today?”
“Yes, though I’m still not sure a retail job is the best idea for me.” In truth, I was out of options. Not many jobs for an ex-Army Ranger weapons specialist with severe PTSD issues. My social services coordinator had given me the grim fact that over 70% of ex-Rangers were unemployed. So much for the Army’s promise of great things after the horrors. Three long tours and all I got was a bum hip, added cynicism, and nightmares. I’d have preferred a T-shirt.
“It won’t be all retail. Micah needs help with stock, shipping and receiving, which is a lot of his business now that he’s gone online, and I already told you about the tours.”
In the French Quarter of New Orleans, ghost and vampire tours were a big thing. Apparently Micah, whom I had yet to meet but was a friend of my brother’s, owned a little wicca shop that also scheduled and hosted walking tours of the Quarter and the Garden District. Sometimes he even hosted ghost hunting on particular haunted properties. I’d read the brochures and studied his website.
“I don’t think I know enough about New Orleans to give tours.”
“You’re muscle,” Lukas reminded me. “He’s licensed as a tour guide by the city. One of the few who is actually officially licensed.” He shrugged. “Micah is small and sometimes that makes people think he’s an easy target. There has been a handful of drunk frat boys who have interrupted his tours and you’ll be there to send them on their way if it happens again. It will save the NOPD time.”
“Ghost tours,” I grumbled, running my hands through my hair. I’d have to shower and work some gel into it before going out, otherwise I’d probably scare the guy. “No such thing as ghosts. It’s all in our fucking messed up heads.” Mine more than most, or so my therapist told me. Simply because I saw things others didn’t, didn’t mean those things were real. “Does he know how crazy I am?”
“You’re not crazy.”
I was. Certifiable. If not for Lukas I’d still be in a psych ward somewhere, likely a ward of the state. It was how they kept me quiet until I learned it was better to not tell anyone what I had seen. Shadow men. Monsters in the dark. Omens of doom. An entire troop lost to some sort of invisible sand monster. Yeah, I was nuts, but I said nothing to Lukas because he still took care of me no matter how crazy I was. It was the only thing keeping me here.
Lukas was all I had. Without him, I’d have been homeless, probably dead from starvation or suicide. Serving had changed me. And I wasn’t sure if it had changed Lukas too, or my perception of him. Had he always been so stern and silent? Or was that how he dealt with me? Was it my months in rehab and then later in the psych ward that made him so careful? Was it the burden of supporting a worthless twin brother that made the laugh lines that were beginning to appear around his eyes turn to frown lines? Thirty-two was young to have frown lines, but my own face was marred with them as well.
“You don’t believe in that stuff,” I said. “Supernatural bullshit.”
“No,” Lukas agreed. He folded his arms across his chest and looked at me. “But I believe in you.”
Well didn’t that take all the steam out of my self-pity. I sighed.
Lukas stood there another few seconds studying me. “You should know a few things about Micah,” he finally said.
“Like?” I looked his way trying to discern the expression on his face.
“You might recognize him.”
“Okay,” I said.
“He’s your type.” He paused for a minute. “I guess both our type.”
“Are you into him?” Lukas didn’t have a preferred gender. Well, so long as he got sex—he was a bit of a whore—it didn’t matter the gender. I was wholeheartedly gay despite having a particular kink. Lukas liked pretty. Pretty anything, boy, girl, a mix of the two, just pretty. He never dated, but maybe Micah was an ex or a weird hanger-on.
“He used to work in porn.”
That wasn’t something I expected.
“If I recall, you were a fan.”
I tried to think back to my time between tours. It felt like a long time ago. Another lifetime even. Before endless doctors, waiting rooms, and psych wards. Before some sort of monster killed my team. “Okay?”
“Went by Cosplay Boy or something.”
The vivid memory of clear blue eyes staring through the computer screen with an intensity that made me come more than once flashed through my head. I felt heat flush my face and my dick gave a little twitch. Wow, I hadn’t even thought that fucker worked anymore; my dick hadn’t stirred since before the attack. It wasn’t at full mast, but more of a ‘hey, hello, I’m awake.’
“Or maybe it was Fem Boy. I know you sent me a link once. Blue eyes, black mask, usually pink hair.”
Oh fuck, yeah, him I remembered. Cute and small, with kohl rimmed blue eyes to die for. Nose and mouth always covered in a black mask while he wore little school girl outfits and cosplay bright-colored wigs when getting fucked by some guy with a big dick. Yeah, I still had those saved somewhere. “His face was always covered, not sure how’d I’d recognize him anyway.”
“I recognized him,” Lukas pointed out. “From the one video I saw. It’s the eyes. Unmistakable. Haunting. Like they could look right through you.”
Yeah, those eyes had been something. He’d been really good about eye contact in the videos. I cleared my throat. “He doesn’t do that anymore?” Obviously. Not that I’d searched out his videos since I’d been back in the sane world. But if he owned a shop and did tours, did he have time for porn?
“No. Had an incident two years ago that set him on the path he’s on now. I didn’t want it to get weird if you met him and recognized him right away. You’re not exactly subtle.”
Subtle was not the army way. “You weren’t in the videos with him or anything were you?” ‘Cause not only would that be awkward but also kind of gross since I’d gotten off to them.
“No. Micah and I have never been anything but friends.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “So the drunk frat boys, do they hit on him because they recognize him?”
Lukas shrugged. “Maybe? All I know is that it happens a lot. I’d rather he not do the tours at all. He’s one of the few guides who have access to some of the most dangerous areas of the city, like the graveyards. We don’t have enough cops to be trailing him every night, and he’s making enough now to pay for help. I thought maybe you could put your hero complex to work.”
