Bloodline Awakened Supernatural Thriller Series: Books 1-3

by Jason Paul Rice

  “Look, thanks for the encouragement here. I’m not giving up. You probably need to get back to that drink.”

  “I’m just saying. Every other guardian angel is telling me awesome stories about how fun and crazy their human is. Think about other people is all I’m saying, Micheal.”

  “No problem. I’ll turn my life into a complete train wreck so that you have some entertainment. Get back to the bar, boss.”

  I walked away, and Artoise yelled, “At least start getting laid. We all need a little porn, you know. You owe me at least that.”

  Picking up my pace, I realized I didn’t really have a plan. I was going to run up and snatch my kidnapped friends, which wasn’t much of an in-depth operation. Maybe I should heed Artoise’s advice this time.

  I noticed the Jersey Devil had walked past the limo and gone to mingle with his shifters. Sneaking along the tree line on the side of the road, I neared the rear of the limousine. My erratic breathing and second thoughts didn’t stop me as I rushed the door.

  I nonchalantly approached the handle, hoping it was unlocked. It was not.

  Peeking back over at the Jersey Devil with his back turned about forty feet away, I gained the courage to use some magical force to bust out the window. The driver jumped out of the vehicle as I fumbled around to find the lock or handle.

  The Jersey Devil came rushing toward me, and I still couldn’t find my way into the limo. Something hit me from behind, smashing me into the vehicle.

  I dropped to the ground.

  Looking up, the Jersey Devil was sauntering up to me, frowning and out of breath. He spat right next to me. “What the fuck are you trying to pull?”

  “Release my friends. Right now.”

  “I should kill you right now, but there’s this tiny part of me that thinks you can get me that book. However, I will teach you a lesson about respect.”

  A force surrounded my body and lifted me to my feet. The strange grip over me pulled me toward the demon, my feet dragging on the dirt road. As I got within arm’s reach, the Jersey Devil backhanded me in the face, catching his bony knuckles flush against my cheek.

  The hold over me continued, lifting me off the ground, above the limo and into the moonlit night. I hovered about fifteen feet in the air, and the Jersey Devil said, “I’m barely even trying here, just so you know. And I have control of all these beasts.” He gestured with a claw-tipped thumb toward his shifters. “It’s time to stop messing around and go get me that book.”

  The surrounding force suddenly relented and I dropped like a rock. As I tumbled to the ground, arms flailing, the Jersey Devil hit me in the back with some more magic, spinning me around like a whirly bird until I crashed face down.

  My hands and knees took the worst of it and the pain centered around those four areas. Luckily, he had dropped me onto some softer grass and not on top of the limo. The fall had forced the wind out of me along with my confidence.

  As I tried to catch my breath, the Jersey Devil wrapped two slimy hands around my neck and kneeled on my chest. Holy hell, he weighed a ton.

  The Jersey Devil said, “I think I need to really teach you a lesson.”

  I fought for oxygen, but the demon only tightened his grip. I flopped around, but the demi-devil’s mass made it impossible for me to break the hold. Silver stars streaked into my vision and the lightheaded feeling moved through my entire body. I could feel my heart beating in my eyes, and then suddenly, everything stopped working.

  Darkness. Only darkness.

  My body went limp. I was in a tunnel. One side was bright, and the other dark. Which way should I go? The light seemed really appealing.

  The Jersey Devil broke the hold, stood up, and said, “Oh shit. I think I killed him.”

  Chapter 27

  I RACED TOWARD THE light, but it kept moving away from me, teasing me. It seemed so warm, so comforting.

  A swift kick to the ribcage jolted my system alive again. Colorful visions filled my head as I gasped for air. It felt like I’d just sprinted ten miles. My lungs burned, heart pounded, and the new pain filtered through my body.

  The Jersey Devil commented through his chuckling, “Damn, he’s alive.”

  Before I could get my breathing straight, the Jersey Devil grabbed me by the scruff of my neck, picked me up like a suitcase and folded me under his arm. I weighed about two-hundred and twenty pounds, but the enormous demon carried me like a ragdoll.

  He carried me to the Honda Accord, which had stopped right after I’d bailed. The demon stuffed me into the car, slammed the door shut, and warned, “Stop with the heroic bullshit, kid. It’s going to get you killed.”

  I hoped I hadn’t gotten Mabon or Stacy killed. That was reckless, but I had to try something. I punched the door with the side of my fist, causing more pain to radiate up my hand.

  It was over. There was no reason to compete with the Jersey Devil and his pack of shifters. He was too powerful. No way.

  I shared a bloodline with Merlin and could eventually become one of the most powerful wizards alive, yet a demi-devil had just thrown me around like a little bitch. My dreams of becoming a legendary wizard were over. Dashed. And I had let down my mother. Again.

  Some people said I was too hard on myself, but that was the only way I knew. Despite the urge to give up, I couldn’t get the case out of my head.

  If I were to continue to piece this together, it appeared to go straight to the top of the Red Cavern. What was the end game? The demons weren’t going to take control of national governments, were they? My brain twisted around, trying to put all the clues together.

  With the Jersey Devil involved, he might be using the G20 murders to help accomplish his dreams of locking the gates of hell. Throw the world into chaos and strike while everyone was distracted.

  All the clues I’d obtained seemed to be connected.

  I had a healthy hunch that the Jersey Devil, Glenn the “Barber,” the McNights and Ruth Westerhouse were all working in concert to achieve this goal. Glenn seemed to be a recruiter for the sex club, and I gathered she had been supplying her clients’ hair to the demons.

  I knew what I had to do if I was going to press on. I had to talk to the Celtic Gods and find out if they knew about any weaknesses the Jersey Devil might have. Perhaps I held an advantage I wasn’t aware of. I stopped feeling so worthless and tried to piece together a plan of visiting the Gods without my underworld connection, Alayna.

  But first, we pulled up to Ruth’s house.

  I walked up to the door and Ruth opened it before I had a chance to knock. She was wearing flannel pajamas and no makeup, which was a stark change. Her hair was wet and I caught a fruity whiff of mango as she ran her fingers through the tangled mess.

  I used my Bogart voice, unknowingly, “So, what did you want to talk to me about? You said you had some information that might help.”

  She closed one eye, indicating I should ditch the deep voice. “Yes. I also wanted to know if you had been able to find anything out about Darren. It’s tearing me up inside.”

  I focused on the red marks around her neck. They were fresh and I got the sinking feeling they were caused by fingers and thumbs. “We haven’t been able to find out too much.”

  She cut right to the chase and I could smell Jameson on her breath. “You didn’t come back and take that box, did you?” She tried to drop it in casually as she played with her hair.

  “Ma’am. You pointed a gun in my face and threatened to shoot me. I took that threat seriously and went straight home that night. Why do you ask?”

  She invited me in. Ruth led me down a hallway into her dining room with a long rectangular table, wooden chairs and a presentation storage cabinet filled with fine china. “Well, it’s gone now and I just want to make sure it didn’t fall into the wrong hands. So you haven’t found out anything else? I mean, about the case. Sit down.” She sat down across the table.

  I got a strange sensation of lingering magic. It wasn’t in the house right now, bu
t it had been. Despite the possible concussion and rattled brain, I quickly uncovered Ruth’s game. She didn’t have any information for me. She was trying to glean information out of me. She was being used by the Red Cavern somehow.

  I tried to change the line of questioning. “How well do you know the McNights?”

  She looked away. “Would you like something to drink?”

  “I’d murder a glass of Jameson, if you had any.” I knew she had an empty bottle, at least.

  Her eyes shifted, possibly questioning how I knew she had Jameson, and then she smiled. “I’ll be right back.”

  She disappeared from the dining room and I heard cabinets opening and closing. I scanned the room for any pertinent details. Nothing jumped out but I realized she had avoided the question about the McNights after openly talking about them the other night.

  She came back and handed me a rocks glass, nearly full of my favorite booze. She sipped her drink and I asked her again before she had a chance to sit back down, “So the McNights?”

  She slid into the chair and took another sip of her drink. “Darren introduced us.”

  I pounded my fist on the table almost spilling my drink. “All right let’s cut the shit right now. You’re telling me that the two most powerful families in the city of Pittsburgh didn’t mingle with each other. And you only met them as an adult. It doesn’t add up.”

  She took a big gulp of Jameson and lowered her head. “Our families didn’t get along. And you have to understand that there are many members of each family. But for the most part, we were raised to hate the McNights.”

  “Is that why you don’t get along with your family now?”

  “Where did you hear that gossip?” She took a drink. I leaned across the table and held the bottom of her glass to make her keep drinking. She was close to spilling the beans. She choked and spit some of the amber liquid on the table, but then took another gulp. Ruth used the cotton place mat to wipe up the liquid.

  “I’m a detective. It’s my job to find out things and keep the identity of my sources a secret or I wouldn’t have any sources. And honestly, this isn’t a very big secret.”

  She finished her drink as I looked at my glass, still half full. She said, “I know. I guess I’ve always known. Darren became friends with the McNights and we ended up going on a double date with Harold and Raquel and had a great time. We became fast and furious friends and when my parents found out I was hanging out with the McNights, they went ballistic. Excuse me.”

  She grabbed her glass, got up from the table and left the room. I took a drink and hoped she would keep talking. She re-entered the room with a full rocks glass, spilling over the sides, and sat back down.

  She burped. “Excuse me. What were we talking about?”

  “Your friendship with the McNights and how it caused strain with your family.”

  “Right.” She spilled some of the drink on her finger and licked it off. “After my parents basically disowned me was when the McNights took us to their club.”

  I tried to be direct. “Sex club?”

  She nodded and lowered her head. “Yes. It was really fun at first. Pittsburgh can be so boring. Then it took, sort of, a dark turn. I can’t tell you anything else. They’ll kill me”

  I wanted to promise her that she would be safe. That I would never let anything happen to her. I knew she was being used by a powerful demon and wanted to help me more than anything. But, I’d be lying if I told her I could keep her safe. Hell, I could barely keep myself safe.

  I studied her eyes, the dull gray flecks of her irises screamed a song of sadness and her bloodshot corneas spoke of sleepless nights. I’d lost a lover too, and understood the pain she must be going through.

  Emily.

  I said, “I’m not going to ask you anymore who they are, because I know. I know they have threatened you. I know that they told you to have me over so that you could find out what I know.”

  She sat up straight, frightened. “Wait, are you one of them? Did they send you to kill me?” She picked up her glass and threw the Jameson at me. The golden liquid hit my face and dripped onto my ruined shirt. She jumped up from the table.

  Strange defense. She would have been better off throwing the heavy glass at me. I threw my hands up. “I’m only here to help you. But I can’t help you unless you tell me what you know. What changed with the sex club?” I licked the Jameson off my lips and wiped my face off with my sleeves.

  Ruth went to the kitchen and got me a towel. She sat back down, embarrassed. “Sorry, I’m a little on edge. It was mostly the McNights. They became obsessed with magic. How was I to know what kind of magic it was? Darren became infatuated with it like I told you already and I just followed his lead. Years flew by and it seemed like I had only blinked my eyes, and the next thing I knew, the club had taken a dark turn.”

  She reached out for my glass of Jameson, which I happily handed to her. She slugged the remainder and set it on the table. The woman could drink. She continued, her words starting to slur, “People wanted to leave the club, but the McNights wouldn’t let them. They kept saying that it would mess up the grand plan.”

  “The grand plan. What was that?”

  “I couldn’t tell you. I wasn’t privy to those types of conversations and I didn’t want to be. Darren did. He tried to talk to me about it, but I wouldn’t listen. I wasn’t into black magic and using the power of demons.” Her body shook like she had the chills.

  “So did you catch bits and pieces of the conversations?”

  “Here and there. Like I said, I tried to tune him out. They are convinced you have that box, by the way. They’re going to kill you if you don’t give it back to me,” she warned.

  “I’m pretty sure they will, if I had the box, but alas, I do not. Who choked you?”

  Her leathery, freckled face turned a dark shade of red. “What? What these?” She pointed to the marks on her neck. “That’s nothing. I was trying to massage my neck and I got a little rough.” She took a drink out of the empty glass and looked up at the ceiling.

  She was a terrible liar. I asked, “Harold did it, right?”

  A horrified look came over her face, “What?”

  “Let’s stop the lying now.”

  She let out a mighty sigh and leaned back in the chair. “After Darren did what he did, Harold went ballistic. I can’t even count how many times he’s threatened to kill me. Apparently, Darren screwed up his mission.”

  Now we were getting somewhere. “Screwed up. How did he screw up?”

  She looked at the empty glass again and I could tell she was debating on getting another. “He was supposed to commit his murders the next day. It would make twenty shifter murders on the same day to send out the warning for the G20 conference. Darren did it a day early.”

  That was why he was apologizing and begging me not to kill him that morning in the alley. “Have you seen Darren since the murders?”

  “No. Harold keeps saying that if he finds him, he’s going to kill him too. Then he got physical with me because he thought I lost the box.” She rubbed her neck.

  “Why do you fear Harold?”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “I’ve never met the guy and I’m new to Pittsburgh. Humor me.”

  She waited for a few moments trying to gather her thoughts. “He’s a powerful warlock, for one. At least, that’s what he calls himself. I never saw it myself, but the stories Darren told me were scary. That he could make a cat explode, just by looking at it. Creepy, dark stuff. And Darren was afraid of him. Darren was the strongest man I’d ever met, not physically, but mentally. He wouldn’t admit it to me, but I could tell he was scared of Harold and that scared me even more.”

  “I need to know more about the magic stories. Specifically, about Harold.”

  A pounding knock on the front door caused Ruth and me to sit up straight. Fear quickly conquered the contours of her face as her eyes widened and her mouth opened. She jumped up and pointed toward th
e back of the house. “You gotta go out the back. Oh my God, I hope it’s not them again.”

  Chapter 28

  I SLIPPED OUT THE BACK door of Ruth Westerhouse’s domain with a heavy heart. I wanted to stay and possibly help her, but I ultimately thought my presence might do more harm than good. I walked through the communal woods in the back of Ruth’s house and came out in someone else’s back yard. I stumbled out onto the street, found the house’s address and called for an Uber.

  It broke my heart seeing Ruth used as a pawn in this game. The choke marks on her neck made me furious, wanting to take down the McNights. They were the one missing piece of this puzzle that I desperately needed to investigate. I debated following them for a few days or staking out their property.

  The adrenaline from the night’s action wore off and the half-glass of Jameson kicked in when my friend in the tiny smart car showed up. I hopped in and made small talk with the nice older lady on the way to my house. She dropped me off and my second wind kicked in.

  I pounded on Reginald’s door. “Reg. Get out here. We need to talk, my friend.”

  The door jerked open and his son, Ronald, appeared with an angry scowl, adjusting his square frames, focusing on me. “What the fuck are you doing making all this commotion? My dad’s asleep, man.”

  “I just wanted to talk to my friend.”

  “First off, it’s a little weird that you two are friends. How old are you anyway? But if he wakes up, you know who’s got to deal with him. Me. Not you. Me. You know who’s gotta take him to the bathroom. Me. Not you. Me.”

  “I was just trying to talk...”

  He slammed the door in my face.

  “I was just trying to talk to the only person I can really talk about magic with.” I pounded on the door a few more times, hoping to wake Reginald up.

  I’d helped Reg go to the bathroom many times, and it wasn’t that big a deal. I went inside my apartment, poured myself another glass of whiskey, and hunkered down on my loveseat.