by J. T. Bock
A VERY
PARANORMAL
HOLIDAY
Table of Contents
Copyright page
The Grandfather Paradox
The Naughty List
The Biting Cold
Facing the Darkness
Cat & Moused
A Christmas Feral
A VERY PARANORMAL HOLIDAY ANTHOLOGY
THE GRANDFATHER PARADOX. Copyright © 2014 by J.T. Bock
THE NAUGHTY LIST. Copyright © 2014 by Debra Dunbar
THE BITING COLD. Copyright © 2014 by Mark Henwick
FACING THE DARKNESS. Copyright © 2014 by Susan Illene
CAT & MOUSED. Copyright © 2014 by J.C. Mells
A CHRISTMAS FERAL. Copyright © 2014 by Connie Suttle
All right reserved.
This book, whole or in part, may not be copied, scanned, or reproduced by electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying or the implementation of any type of storage or retrieval system) without the express written permission of the authors, except where permitted by law.
Images obtained for the creation of this anthology’s cover were licensed for use from depositphotos.com. Design by Claudia McKinney at Phat Puppy Art.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events portrayed within its pages are products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously and are not meant to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead, undead, or mostly dead is purely coincidental. The laws of physics, chemistry, biology and psychology may also not work as depicted.
Reader discretion is advised.
A VERY PARANORMAL HOLIDAY ANTHOLOGY
There’s something supernatural lurking under the mistletoe this year. Get ready for a twist on the holiday season with paranormal tales from six fantasy authors:
The Grandfather Paradox: An UltraSecurity Christmas Story by J. T. Bock
A Billionaire, a Christmas Dinner, and the Grandfather Paradox
Nobody has time for this, especially UltraAgent TimeTrap. Between holiday drinks with friends, visiting long-lost family, and her mother's reality show special, TimeTrap's time is limited—even for an alt-jumper like her who can travel through space and time. Another alt-jumper is messing with her mojo and her timeline. UltraAgents are missing. Her bosses have disappeared. Now she has to protect the next target, a hot CEO of a large defense company. Is there enough time to save the day and Christmas and enjoy a holiday cocktail with a special someone?
The Naughty List by Debra Dunbar
Samantha Martin is an Imp, on holiday with her angelic main-squeeze, Gregory. What better place to show an angel the true meaning of Christmas than a small Alpine resort town? But it’s hard to keep up the impish good cheer when people are being murdered for their sinful ways. Could the killer be. . . Santa?
The Biting Cold by Mark Henwick
Detroit. A bitter winter. A city coming apart and a woman holding on to her rapidly ebbing life.
Psychiatrist Dr. Amanda Lloyd is focused only on living long enough to give her testimony in court and put a vicious criminal away. The defense lawyers are fighting for a postponement she can’t afford and digging into her own mental problems in an attempt to discredit her.
She can’t spare time for the patient who claims to be a vampire.
Unless what he offers her is exactly what she needs.
Facing the Darkness by Susan Illene
Kerbasi, a former guardian of Purgatory, has resisted every effort to help him find his humanity. After forty-five hundred years of tending to his prisoners in the cruelest of ways he feels he's above the petty concerns of mankind. But what's he to do when he's charged with bringing comfort to a boy sick with cancer during the holiday season? This is one child who just might break through that impervious wall he's wrapped around his heart.
Cat and Moused by J. C. Mells
Moused Thurman was sure there had to be better ways to spend Christmas Eve than being held hostage in an elevator by a sexy, sassy, vampire-assassin.
But for the life of him, he couldn't think of one.
A Christmas Feral by Connie Suttle
Cassie is running from the man who forced her to become his fiancée.
Parke is stepping into his father's shoes as Chancellor of everything paranormal.
The two are on a collision course with unpredictable results.
What should you do when a Truth Demon marries a Fire Demon?
Get the hell out of Seattle.
The Grandfather Paradox
An UltraSecurity Christmas Story
By
J.T. Bock
www.jtbock.com
PepperLip Press
Chapter 1
“Prohib-what?”
Kali, UltraAgent code name TimeTrap, blinked at the man in a starched linen shirt with a severe part down the center of his greased black hair. The dour-faced guy stood behind what appeared to be mahogany bar, but he refused her drink order because of ...
“Oh, prohibition. Sorry, wrong year,” Kali uttered before calling forth her power. An invisible line tugged at her core, snapping and stretching her backwards through a swirling gray and black blur to her time, her universe, her office at UltraSecurity.
The carpeted floor materialized under her platform boots. Her minimalist desk, lip-shaped couch, pop art soup print, beanbag chairs, and glass bookshelves decorated with drugstore Christmas knickknacks appeared around her.
She blew out a breath. “That was weird.”
Kali turned and slammed into her boss Sean Vivas.
She yelped. Caught off guard, Kali teetered on her heels. Arms helicoptered to keep her balanced but failed. Kali staggered and fell with an “oomph” onto red-lipped cushions, which puckered around her bottom.
The corners of Sean’s mouth quirked up into a smile. He didn’t move to help her. Kali couldn’t tell if it was because she’d surprised him, or Sean enjoyed watching her struggle to stand.
“What are you doing here?” Kali asked with forced cheer.
“Your mother is looking for you.”
Kali shook her head against a stinging sense of déjà vu.
“And what does Deandra want now?” Kali pushed off the couch and pushed away the odd feeling. With the platform boots, she stood eye-level with Sean, just over six feet tall.
“She was expecting you for dinner tonight and hadn’t heard from you.” Sean smoothed a hand over his holiday tie as if smoothing out the wrinkles could redeem the swirling monstrosity of green, red and gold.
“I totally forgot. Well, sort of forgotten about it. I made other dinner plans to get out of it.”
A room filled with Deandra Bordeaux’s Hollywood wannabe friends was not on her must-do list. She’d rather take another alternate universe jump—or alt-jump, she preferred the new slang—to the 1930s. The thought of seeing her mother made Kali long for a stiff drink even more. But she needed to wait at least an hour, maybe longer, to alt-jump again, considering how far back she’d landed in history. The more years she traveled into the past, the more fuel she needed to sustain her power. And she had planned a special alt-jump later tonight so she wanted to conserve energy. This time she wouldn’t overshoot and land in the wrong year. Kali had a date set for Christmas of 1969 to get into the holiday spirit.
Kali strutted past Sean to her desk. She plopped into her chair behind the shiny glass desktop and reached in her snack drawer for a Twinkie.
“How can you eat that crap?” Sean grimaced.
Kali hiked a brow at her boss, the self-appointed of
fice health guru since he started training for marathons. His shoulders did appear wider under his gray blazer. Maybe because he’d dropped a few inches from his waist accentuating his v-shape.
“I burn a ton of calories with alt-jumping or, as the brains call it, quantum transference. So I can eat like crap when I want.” Kali broke the spongy cake in two and took her time licking out the creamy center to show how much she didn’t care for his comment.
Sean shrugged. “Are you here to catch up on work? Make sure you note it on your timesheet. It’s due tomorrow. Don’t forget again.”
Geesh. She’d forgotten once, perhaps twice, to submit her timesheet this year. Now every time Sean saw her, he reminded Kali of her mistake. At least he was consistent.
“Finished the follow-up paperwork for the Dama X case the other day. No assignments at U-Sec for me until after the New Year. I’m assisting your father at TransGen next week. He wants my input on a DoD research proposal for a device that transfers objects through space on a quantum level. Since my power works through quantum transference, I’m the resident expert.”
Kali’s eyes strayed to the Warhol print of Campbell’s Split Pea Soup hanging behind Sean. Her stomach growled. The cream-filled cake wasn’t filling the void.
“Where did you just travel from?” Sean asked. “You muttered that something was weird.”
“1930. Must’ve overshot 1962 somehow. Tried to order a decent Manhattan and was slapped with the whole prohibition thing.” Kali shivered at the memory. “What an awful time to live.”
“Does that happen often?”
“Decent Manhattans? No, which is why I like my favorite pub in 1960s N-Y-C. But thirty years earlier it was drier than the Dust Bowl. Would’ve sought out a speakeasy, but I’m wearing the wrong era.”
She pointed to her mod dress and go-go boots.
“I mean ...” Sean didn’t bother hiding his annoyance with Kali not understanding him. “Do you overshoot by decades often?”
“Now that you mention it.” Kali screwed up her mouth. “It’s been several years since I have.”
When Kali had misjudged her alt-jumps in the beginning, she’d been nervous, unsure how to focus. After five years of living with this power, Kali now considered herself a semi-pro, still perfecting the nuances of dimensional travel. But this last alt-jump left her disoriented as if she’d experienced a disturbance in the universal force that had shoved her off course.
“When my power first manifested, I had a few mishaps. Chased by a T-Rex, almost clubbed by a Neanderthal, put in jail for being a witch. Normal mistakes. If we discover more alt-jumpers or alt-trotters—which is a new term I’m trotting out—pun intended.” She grinned at her cleverness. “If we find others like me, I’m sure they’ll tell similar stories.”
Sean didn’t return Kali’s smile. “None of that happened. I read your reports.”
“Actually, one of them did. I don’t list everything in my reports.” Kali played coy to irritate him, and judging by his pinched lips, she had. “But you bring up a good point. I should test out why this happened. Might’ve been a blip between the universal planes affecting this last alt-trot.”
“Alt-trot sounds like you have intestinal problems. Don’t use that term.”
Sean finding fault. What a shocker.
“Speaking of gastric issues,” Kali paused for Sean to get her inference, “you scared the crap out of me. I have rules for my office. No one in here if I’m not. It’s for my safety, remember? It screws with my mojo.”
“I know.” Sean crossed his arms.
“You were almost in my zone, man.” Kali jabbed a finger at the red circle sewn into the gray carpet.
“I stayed out of your zone,” he tossed back.
“And it’s time for you to get out of my office,” Kali segued into another topic, not caring how Sean took her tone. Hungry and cranky, Kali had enough of him. “I need to contact my friend about our plans tonight.”
“You’re really not going to your mother’s dinner?”
“I’d rather party during the Great Depression with Steinbeck narrating the event than eat dinner at my mom’s house with her celebritant friends.”
“I’d hoped you were going, because she invited me.”
Of course, Deandra would. Sean made the local papers as the Baltimore/D.C. area’s most eligible bachelor. Plus, he could be a stunt double for actor Daniel Dae Kim, whose high, perfect cheekbones could cut a diamond out of coal. (Kali binge watched the television show Lost over Thanksgiving and still didn’t understand what happened in the end.) Fifteen years younger than Deandra, Sean was in her mom’s target age range, which made Kali a bit ill, considering Sean was six years older than she. Soon Deandra’s boy toys would be younger than Kali.
Yes, 1930 seemed better and better.
“You don’t want to attend her party,” Kali advised.
“Why not? It’s a great networking opportunity. Potential investors and clients. The CEO of DERST Industries will be there. They’re the largest defense and security contractor in the country. Do you know how long I’ve been trying to schedule a meeting with him about a partnership between DERST and U-Sec?”
“Please don’t make me do this.”
“It’ll be broadcast live on the Real Life Reality Channel.”
The Real Life Reality Channel, a misnomer of epic proportions.
“Oh, goodie gumdrops. Even more of a reason not to go.” Kali rested her head in her hands.
“It’s great exposure for our company.”
Kali swore Sean’s eyes lit up with dollar signs.
“You mean your company, Sean. I’m going to get real with you—again, pun intended. My mother doesn’t know what I can do—that I can travel to an alternate universe or teleport from place to place in ours. She has a vague notion I work with TransGen and U-Sec, but she thinks it’s in R&D. I’d prefer to keep her in the darkish gray.”
Sean’s brow furrowed. “Why?”
“Because it’s none of her business.” And because she’d want me to pick her up an original Vivienne Westwood dress or pop her over to Studio 54 like we were hopping on I-95 to hit up a club in D.C. Or worse yet, she’d want to create a reality show around my exploits and power. Deandra didn’t care what Kali did unless it furthered her own career as a reality star.
“I use an alias at work,” Kali continued. “I’m fortunate that I look different than I did years ago when I last appeared on her show. Plus, my peers are smart enough not to watch that stupid channel. I don’t want to wear a mask at my job. They irritate my face and limit my peripheral vision. And they don’t work with my outfits. People will think I’m trying too hard.”
“Glad you told me. I might’ve mentioned your ability to her at the party. If you do decide to go and risk the exposure, I would be grateful.”
“Does grateful mean a large holiday bonus?”
Sean threw his hands up with an exasperated sigh. “Why would you need a bonus? You’re set. Got a lifelong contract with U-Sec and TransGen. Even make your own hours. As an owner, I wish I had those terms.”
“You want my terms?” Kali folded her hands on her desk. “Well, have an accident occur during your graduate work at MIT—overseen by TransGen—that creates not only this never-before-seen ability but also genetic changes for which you’ll need lifetime medical oversight in case it kills you.”
Sean’s tense expression relaxed. He nodded and put his back to her as if embarrassed that he’d mentioned it.
He should be.
“Don’t forget to call your mom.” Sean stepped into the hall and said over his shoulder, “And don’t forget to submit your timesheet tomorrow before you break for Christmas.”
Kali stuck out her tongue at his retreating back. Then she stood and walked over to the doorway. Poking her head out, she looked up and down the hall to make sure Sean was gone. The coast clear, she closed and locked the door.
Kali knelt, lifted the edge of the couch and reached underneath
the hollow bottom lip. Her fingers wrapped around a notebook, and she tugged it out. Written inside were columns of dates, places and times where she had traveled over the past few years. Kali didn’t want to meet herself by ending up in the same place at the same time where and when she traveled before, especially since she went to one era and place more than others. In fact, Kali worried that she might need to ration her time in the 1960s based on how her logs were filling up. Once Kali added her most recent travel, she tucked the book back into her hiding spot.
Writing it on paper was archaic, she knew. A computer program could keep track and help sort the travel stops. But Kali wanted these trips kept private. With the interconnectivity of computer systems—not to mention Sean’s transhuman ability to connect with electronics through touch—it wouldn’t take much effort for someone to see where and when she’d been. For work trips, she didn’t mind. Kali kept a log on U-Sec’s intranet when she was on their dime. No one needed to know where she’d been on her personal time.
Kali settled onto the foam lip couch. She removed her phone from her dress pocket and turned it on. Several missed calls from her mother. She deleted the voicemails without listening to them. Next Kali texted UltraAgent Inferno to meet at their favorite bar on Charles Street in an hour. She needed this night out with her friend and co-worker, someone from whom she didn’t have to hide her transhuman ability and who understood what it meant to be different.
The text bounced back as undeliverable. She sent it once more. Another error message.
Kali called his number.
The line didn’t ring but beeped then played a computerized recording, “We’re sorry this number is out of service.”
Kali checked the number and dialed again.
Same spiel.
“Change your number and didn’t tell me? Uncool.” She typed an email to him on her smartphone and hit send.
