by Sharon Joss
CHAOS KARMA
A HAND OF FATE NOVEL
By Sharon Joss
CHAOS KARMA Copyright © 2015 by Sharon Joss
All rights reserved.
Published 2015 by Aja Publishing
www.ajapublishing.wordpress.com
Copyright © 2015 by Aja Publishing
Cover Art & design © 2015 by Lou Harper
All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and events portrayed in this publication are used fictitiously or are entirely fictional. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.
KINDLE EDITION
ISBN: 978-1-941544-99-0
TABLE OF CONTENTS
BEGINNING
COPYRIGHT PAGE
START
CHAPTER2
CHAPTER3
CHAPTER4
CHAPTER5
CHAPTER6
CHAPTER7
CHAPTER8
CHAPTER9
CHAPTER10
CHAPTER11
CHAPTER12
CHAPTER13
CHAPTER14
CHAPTER15
CHAPTER16
CHAPTER17
CHAPTER18
CHAPTER19
CHAPTER20
CHAPTER21
CHAPTER22
CHAPTER23
CHAPTER24
CHAPTER25
CHAPTER26
CHAPTER27
ABOUTtheAUTHOR
CHAPTER 1
The smell of chili and bacon grease hit me hard as I stepped inside the twenty-four hour diner on Third Street. Dave’s Killer Burgers is practically an institution in Shore Haven. When I was a kid, the place used to be called Ed’s Drive-In, but when Melvin Moody bought it twenty-some years ago, he converted it to a regular restaurant and renamed it for his pets—an ever-hungry school of Indigo Diamond piranhas as big as turkey platters. Dave’s was probably the only restaurant in upstate New York with a floor-to-ceiling aquarium in the dining room.
Tourists come from miles around to see Mel feed his fish, but they keep coming back for the food. Mel told me once he learned how to cook in the Army, and maybe it’s true, but put a spatula in his hand and fryer in arms reach and he’s a magician. He’s got more than fifty different burgers on the menu.
No fish sandwiches, though.
The front of the 50’s-style diner is a glass-walled patio with a roll-back roof so that in the summer, diners can eat outside. Inside, there is a front room with booths and a big U-shaped counter. The booths are all red tuck-and-roll vinyl, with plenty of chrome around the table and counter edges and a big ol’ Wurlitzer jukebox by the front door. The cash register sits in the middle of the restaurant, dividing the brightly-lit front counter area from the darker dining room in the back, where it’s all tables and chairs for bigger parties. The killer fish aquarium covers most of the back wall of the restaurant dining room.
Two sets of swinging doors lead into the kitchen. The one on the back wall is the ‘in’ door, and the one near the front counter is the ‘out’ door, and Mel is quick to fire any waitress or busboy that mixes them up. I started out bussing tables here in high school, and worked my way up to waitress until I got hired on as a parking control officer for the city of Pictson.
Mel and I go way back.
I passed through the ‘in’ doors into the kitchen, making my way past the dishwasher, soup kettles, and the pick-up station; around the far corner to the tiny windowless office where Mel was doing the books. He looked up only when I cleared my throat.
He slid the greasy paper cap off his head and ran his fingers through his hair. “What the hell are you doing here, Blackman? You get fired again?”
Mel is an Elvis man, through and through. If I had to guess, I’d bet he’s in his mid-to-late-fifties. His hair is thinner than it used to be, and the Grecian Formula he uses gives it an unnatural bronzy-greenish hue. He still wears it slicked back and shiny with Brylcreem. His office smelled like fryer grease and Aqua Velva aftershave. Today, like every day, he wore black-and-white checked pants and a grease-and-chili-stained white chef’s jacket.
“No.” But I could feel my cheeks burning. “Why do you always just assume that’s why I’m here?”
He glared at me over his little half glasses. “Don’t play games with me, girl. I’m busy. What do you want?”
Dark circles beneath his eyes warned me he hadn’t been sleeping well—which I suppose explained his lack of friendly banter. “I just need a little extra cash.”
“So I heard.” He turned back to his books. “Why don’t you just put in for overtime?”
Of course he had to know about the cutbacks. All the Picston cops ate at Dave’s. “Okay, yes. They cut back my hours. I’m down to three days a week. My apartment burned up and I’m staying with a friend until I can afford to get my own place. You happy now?”
“Where you staying?
I debated telling him, but knowing Mel, he already knew the answer. It wasn’t just cops that ate a Dave’s, all the locals did. As a result, he usually had his finger on the pulse of everything going on in Shore Haven. “The Coumlie house—just until I can get back on my feet.” I still felt weird about explaining my living arrangement or admitting to people that I was related to her. “It belongs to my um, cousin now. Henri.”
He scowled and shook his head. Mel had lived in Shore Haven for years, but like everybody else in town, he thought Madame Coumlie, the Hand of Fate and oh by the way my great-grandmother, was nothing but a fortune-teller. But she’d also been the direct descendant of Morta, one of the original three Fates. When she died, her legacy came to me.
“You been getting some bad publicity lately.” He rubbed the stubble along his chin. “Might be bad for business.”
Normally, Mel’s teasing didn’t bother me, and he could take it was well as he dished it. We both knew he’d give me the job. If I wasn’t so desperate to get my life back to normal, I wouldn’t have to beg. Living with Henri was about the last place on the planet I wanted to call home. I mean, I liked Henri, and giving me and my djemon, Blix, a place to stay in exchange for me tutoring him on how to pass as human was working out well, but I didn’t have much privacy. My brand-new boyfriend, Rhys Warrick didn’t seem to mind, but I did. I needed my own place.
“Come on, Mel, gimme a break. I’ll even clean the fish tank. I noticed it’s looking a little murky today.” Mel always said I did a better job cleaning the tank than anyone. For some reason, the fish didn’t get as stressed when I did the job. For all their bad-ass reputation, piranhas are actually quite delicate and difficult to care for.
He pushed the little half-glasses to the top of his head and leaned back in his chair, facing me. “No can do, Mattie. The day shift is full, and those girls all have seniority. All I’ve got is Thursday, Friday and Saturday graveyard.”
Rats. Weekend graveyard shift was the worst. Eleven at night until seven in the morning. Nothing but drunks and sidework. Busy as hell, lousy tips, and three hours of cleaning the place before the morning shift came in. I’d be working Monday, Wednesday, and Friday on parking patrol, so Fridays would kick my ass.
And then there was the Spirit Festival to consider. As the new Hand of Fate, I’d agreed to be the Grand Marshal of the parade and Guest of Honor at the Spirit Ball. The parade wouldn’t be a problem. I’d just have to sneak out of the Spirit Ball on Saturday before my shift started.
“Okay, I’ll take it.”
“Hold your horses, girlie. You’re gonna have to wear the uniform. We got
new ones last month—just for the graveyard girls.”
“Well, it’s about time.” For as long as I could remember, the uniforms at Dave’s had been circa 1950’s soda jerk outfits. Waitresses wore a white blouse with a red and white pinstripe poodle skirt; the busboys wore white shirts with red bowties and black pants. I couldn’t wait to see the new duds.
He opened one of the metal lockers against the back wall and pulled out a purple plastic hangar with a few stray wisps of black cloth pinned to it. I winced inwardly as he held it up. “Made locally, so I got a good discount. If it fits, you’ve got the job.”
I fingered the sheer fabric, trying to sort out the costume. It was not much more than a tissue-thin black silk bustier cinched over ruffled black panties and fishnet tights. More appropriate for lingerie. A teensy black ruffled apron, with a cheapy plastic sword hung from a sash at the waist. A black eye patch hung from the neck of the hanger. “What the hell, Mel? Are you serious?”
He grinned. “I’m doing you a favor, Blackman. The graveyard girls tell me their tips have tripled, and business has shot through the roof since we changed the uniforms. You still want the job?”
CHAPTER 2
In Shore Haven, the undead come out after midnight. So do the paranorms and the Alternate Individuals, or AIs, as they like to call themselves. People like Henri, my landlord. They come to Dave’s Killer Burgers to do business and socialize. It’s the only 24-hour business in town, and one of the few places where the AI’s feel comfortable mingling with humans.
Humans came to Dave’s after the bars closed, and there were a double fistful of bars in Shore Haven.
Mel hadn’t lied. Graveyard shift was a lot busier than I remembered. And the costumes the other girls wore, while equally skimpy, were all slightly different. There was a frilly a cowgirl, a devil, a superhero—all wearing the same basic costume as me, but with a different cheesy prop. I told Mel I couldn’t see with the eye patch on, but he wouldn’t listen, so I wore it flipped up except when he was around. I swallowed my pride every time I picked up my tip, but the money was good.
My only solace was in knowing that Rhys would never see me in the pirate get-up. He’d left for Scotland a couple weeks earlier to close out his personal affairs. We’d made plans to get a place together when he came back. In the meantime, I was going to work my ruffled ass off and save every penny I could.
It was just after two in the morning and I was in the middle of the Saturday night bar rush when I got an emergency page. Before he left, Rhys had set up his phone to forward his calls to me. We weren’t supposed to use our cell phones on duty, but it was an old friend, Lou Scali.
Lou was an ex-cop who’d taken early retirement in the latest round of City cutbacks and opened his own private detective agency. So private, he only worked word of mouth. Lou’s clients were all connected to the paranormal community trusted Lou because he was one of their own.
He wanted me to meet him immediately at the motor court next to the amusement park.
I stepped into the walk-in refrigerator for privacy. “I can’t, I’m working. I don’t get off until seven.”
“This can’t wait that long, Mattie. Normally I’d call Rhys, and let him take a look before calling the feds, but he’s not here.”
Rhys Warrick is a visiting professor at University of Rochester, specializing in ancient cultures. He’s the first guy the feds and local authorities go to for answers when they’re looking at a suspected paranormal crime scene. What’s not generally known is that he’s also an immortal djenie more than two thousand years old, so a lot of his expertise comes from first-hand knowledge. He was the one who discovered I was heir to the Hand of Fate and started this whole shebang.
And by the way, coolest boyfriend ever.
But I’m not Rhys. “What do you expect me to do? What is it?”
“It’s complicated. There are other people involved. People who can’t afford to be involved. Hell, I can’t afford to be involved. Look, I’m serious, I need you out here. This is Hand of Fate business, I think.”
That meant djemons. Great. Goosebumps raced up my arms, or maybe it was the refrigerated air in the walk-in. The last demon I faced just about killed me. I wasn’t in any hurry to repeat the experience.
Lou must’ve sensed my reluctance. “If not you, Mattie, who?”
Whatever it was, it had Lou rattled. I was still new to this whole Hand of Fate stuff, but I swore an oath to the goddess Morta that I’d serve and protect her subjects, and Lou was one of them. “Oh all right. I’ll tell LaRue I’m sick. I can’t come right now, we’re too busy.” LaRue was the lead waitress and manager on graveyard shift. “Give me an hour.”
* * *
Fifty minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot of the Shore Happy Motor Court—a collection of dreary rundown cabins on the far side of Heavenly Shores Amusement Park. There had been a rainstorm a couple hours earlier, and the still air and humidity was miserable. In upstate New York, July is the sweatiest month of the year.
I spotted Lou when he stepped out from behind the dumpster to greet me. Even in the dimly lit parking lot, he’s easy to recognize. He’s a little guy, shorter than me even, with a thin dark comb-over, sad eyes, and a perpetually mournful expression. And unlike some cops I could think of, he’s not a dick. Hell, I like Lou.
Even though I don’t know what he is, exactly.
As the living incarnation of the Queen of Death, I think I’m supposed to, but I don’t. He’s got no lifeline. No aura. Nada. He’s not alive, but not dead either. It’s hardly the kind of thing I could come out and ask without being rude. Whatever he is, he’s one of mine. Mine to serve and protect.
His eyes went wide at the sight of my ruffled floozy pirate outfit, and I blushed. “Took you long enough.”
At least he knew better than to make a crack. “What’s so important?”
“A body.”
A little thrill ran through me. Suddenly, I was wide awake. “Seriously?”
“This way.” Lou led the way past the dumpster, down the cracked and broken concrete walkway toward the last cabin in the park.
To call them cabins is overly generous. Seventy or eighty years ago, they were vacation rentals for urban refugees escaping the sweltering summer heat. Half a century ago, they served as employee housing for the amusement park workers. When I was a kid, these places rented by the hour, and I’d wait outside while my mother made friends and ‘entertained’ her clients. Now, these filthy, ramshackle sheds were home to vagrants, drug users, and people who had no other place to go.
Light gleamed around the splintered frame of the cottage at the end of the row. As Lou eased the door open, I noticed he was wearing gloves. I rubbed my hands on my, um, ruffles. “Shouldn’t I be wearing gloves, too?”
He shook his head. “Nah. Just don’t touch anything.” He pushed the door open and stood aside. “After you.”
I clasped my hands together in front of me to keep them out of trouble and squeezed past him through the doorway. My attention was immediately drawn to the brown, naked form lying on the bed.
A mummy?
The body was nothing more than mahogany-colored skin stretched taut over a skeleton. Lying on his side, his knees drawn up to his chest, his head thrown back. His long stringy hair was completely white. His eyes were gone; the lids had sunk deep into his skull. His lips had shrunk away from his teeth in a ghastly grimace. I’d seen dead bodies before, but not like this. He looked like one of those petrified people they pulled out of peat bogs in Ireland.
A rumble sounded from behind me.
Lou rubbed his stomach. “Sorry, I haven’t eaten since lunch, and you smell like chili fries.”
I snorted. “Hello, I just got off work. I wasn’t expecting to be called out to, um, this.” I inspected the body. Come to think of it, there was no smell of decay in the room. Except for dank smell of the room itself, there was no smell of any kind. “Who is he?”
Lou stepped closer to the bed.
“His name is William Parry. He’s the mayor’s cousin. Lead singer for Wiley Willy and the Rogues.”
I knew him. I bent over the desiccated corpse, trying to discern Willy’s features, but nothing looked familiar. Everybody in Shore Haven knew Wiley Willy and the Rogues. They played outdoor concerts every summer at the amusement park. Also weddings, beach parties, bar mitzvahs, and they were the official band of the Spirit Festival. They’d been around for years. Willy was probably in his late thirties, but this man looked decades older.
“How can you be sure?”
Lou picked up a wallet lying on the dust-covered nightstand and showed me the man’s driver’s license. “Because I’ve been following him for the last few days. Let’s just say Mayor Brunson asked me to keep an eye on him. Willy’s behavior has been erratic lately. Brunson thought maybe he was into to something he shouldn’t be. I followed him here just before midnight. I figured maybe he was meeting someone, right? No one came in, and no one left. I finally got curious, and decided to check on him. When he wouldn’t answer my knock, I had to force the door. Found him like this.”
“Where are his clothes?
“I’ve no idea. I looked everywhere. There’s a closet full of spider webs, if you don’t believe me.”
I scowled. “You’re saying he walked in here stark naked a few hours ago and ended up like this? That’s not possible.”
“Well, he wasn’t naked when he got here, sister. That’s why I thought I’d give you a crack at it before I called it in.” He flashed me the cash inside the wallet. A thick wad of fifties. “Whoever did this wasn’t in it for the money.”
Not for the first time, I wished Rhys hadn’t gone back to Scotland. He probably could have told us what happened here in about two minutes. Instinctively, I reached out to the leathery corpse, letting my fingers hover just over the surface of the skin. I opened that part of my mind which linked me to my ancestor, the Goddess of Death, but got nothing. No body heat here. No aura, no lifeline.
