Bloodline Awakened Supernatural Thriller Series: Books 1-3

by Jason Paul Rice

  “Quite a life.”

  He agreed, “Quite a life indeed. A harsh one no doubt, trying to keep those raging, malevolent spirits inside forever.”

  “So what do those spirits do? They just scare people from what I know.” I’d actually heard much worse.

  Jonathan cleared his throat. “They can, but I’ve heard it can get much worse than that if they start to work together. Dybbuk spirits work together to form into Sendal Spirits. Individually they aren’t very worrisome, but when they combine twenty spirits to make one super spirit, you can imagine the power. That’s why I didn’t want the owner to burn those other boxes. If the spirit from one of those boxes merges with another spirit, I can get both of them back into the box.”

  I wanted to press him on that, but I couldn’t contain my excitement. “How much do you think they are worth?”

  He paused for a few seconds. “I’ve talked to about a dozen people and a conservative estimate would be around five to ten thousand.”

  That. Was. Awesome. “Total?”

  He laughed. “Five to ten thousand per.”

  I smiled as a one-thousand-dollar job just received a major monetary upgrade. “Now we’re talking. That’s a nice slice of cheese.”

  His tone went from chummy to serious, “Don’t forget about fees too. You’ll be taxed and have to pay a fifteen percent premium on each item.”

  Considering this was basically found money, I didn’t mind paying the fees to make it happen. I joked, “Then I won’t sell them.”

  Jonathan paused for several moments and I could almost feel his heavy breathing through the phone. “Really?”

  “No, I’m just kidding.” Our humor didn’t mesh very well.

  He didn’t laugh. “Smart man. Have you made any progress with our friend that we discussed?”

  I convinced my brain of the lie. “Still nothing on that front. Nobody that I’ve contacted so far has even the faintest clue as to where she might be.”

  His voice latched on to some anger. “She will be found. That I can tell you.”

  “Did you ever think that she split town? She could be across the country or even the world by now.”

  “I have people everywhere. She will be found and she will be dealt with. Let’s not discuss this much more over the phone.”

  That was something we could agree on. “Good idea. Just give me a call if I need to do anything to facilitate the items for the auction.”

  “I will need you to fill out some paperwork before we get those before the public. I will call you when I get the paperwork together.”

  “Thanks, Jonathan.”

  “All right, Mike.”

  I still felt weird being in the middle of this vampire sandwich. I couldn’t help but feel it wasn’t going to work out well for me.

  Just a normal day, you know, talking to Socrates and a vampire with a total combined age of about 2500. No biggie. I sat down and kicked my feet up on the desk.

  An artic chill swept through the room, causing the windows to frost up. I shivered and jumped up from my desk, wondering what was causing the temperature drop.

  Chapter 14

  NOT THE THERMOSTAT. As I peered around the office, I zeroed in on a heating vent near the ceiling. A glimmering fog escaped from the openings and floated around before taking shape. The fog was a mixture of silver, blue and green with little sparkles.

  It took on the adumbration of an ogre that must have been over eight-feet-tall. An object that appeared to be a club materialized in his right hand. The vaporous ogre drew the club back and took a long, slow swing at my head.

  I easily ducked the foggy club. The follow through smashed the computer on my desk and busted out the window. How had I not detected any magic in the area? That realization scared me as much as the ogre did, who turned around and grabbed the empty desk in the corner of the room.

  The see-through beast lifted the solid pine desk off the ground, whirled around and launched it at me. I slid out of the way, narrowly escaping a painful death. I couldn’t draw any fireballs in fear that I would burn down my office.

  I manipulated an air pocket and formed it into a rectangle before heaving it at the ghostly figure. The condensed pocket went right through the spirit and crashed into a bookshelf against the wall.

  How come it can hit me, but I can’t hit it? The ghost hissed, taunting me, and hit me with an invisible force that launched me against the front door.

  I tried to catch my breath as the spirit closed in on me. I kicked helplessly at the ghost and my feet passed through the opalescent fog, doing no damage. A strange force brought me back to my feet with my back against the front door.

  Before I could regain my wits, I was flying across my office again, landing with a harsh thud. So much for wearing the nice suit to work today. I loosened the tie and opened the top button of my shirt. The silent spirit assassin shifted its shape to what appeared to be a centaur.

  The mythically-shaped gas started pulling in the chill from around the room and the spirit appeared to be absorbing the frost and solidifying. I looked around for an escape route as the centaur’s rear right leg swiped the ground, readying for takeoff.

  Smoke came from my black carpeting as the centaur kept striking his foot against the floor. He leaned back and forth, sizing me up, as the ice inside the spirit cracked with the movements. Maybe I could hit this thing with some magic now?

  Too late. I watched as the beast crouched and prepared to crush me against the wall. Never thought this would be how it ended. I don’t even know what this was. Sendal Spirits?

  Just as the centaur went to spring into action, the front door swung open, and a sexy young vampire rushed through the jamb, bringing one hell of a fury with her. The spirit reacted to the sound from behind and turned to find out what it was.

  Carolyn, with full Wolverine-style purple fingernails extended, took an elegant sideswipe, slicing through the body of the horse. A terrible shriek of pain coupled with the sound of shattering ice, and I swear it could have been heard from miles away.

  The spiritual body fell to the ground with a plopping sound and the ice melted into the carpet. Carolyn leaned down and quickly extended her nails into the beast one more time. The spirit became silenced and completely disappeared, slowly seeping into the carpet.

  “Holy shit, how did you do that? I couldn’t even touch that thing. I assume it was a Sendal Spirit.”

  “Probably. That’s why these help.” She flipped around her long fingernails to expose the undersides. Rune symbols from her vampire clan had been etched into the nails.

  This woman could kill me at any moment with a simple swipe of her nails. I could feel the power emanating from them as they got closer to my face. Scary, but pretty frickin’ cool too.

  “Cheater. I need to grow my nails out too.” I almost asked how they retracted and kept the symbols, but I knew she wouldn’t reveal her secret. “On a serious note, thank you. Very much. We make a pretty good team. You sure you want to leave with all the fun we’ve been having? Hell, we’re just getting started.”

  “Ha ha. We do make a pretty good team. You get your ass kicked and I save you.” She stole Reg’s laugh. And she insulted me. Evil succubus. She continued, “I think I need to get out of this town. Does Jonathan know anything yet?”

  “I don’t think so. He seems to be pretty frustrated about it too. You probably shouldn’t expect a Christmas card this year.”

  She laughed like Reg again. He must have been rubbing off on her. She said, “I’m more worried about a toe tag right now.”

  “That’s reasonable. He knows something happened to the two vamps he sent after you.”

  She picked up my busted monitor and put it back on my desk. “Too bad that’s where it stops. Dead men don’t tell stories. Not good ones anyhow. This is either going to go one of two ways. He either gets tired of chasing me and totally gives up, or he gets frustrated and sends an army of creatures to find me.”

  “What do you thi
nk it will be?”

  She sighed. “You’ve met Jonathan a few times now. Which one do you think it is?”

  I didn’t need to answer and she knew it, indicated by the shit-eating grin on her mug. She was still in battle mode with the tips of her fangs peeking out of her dark lips.

  I said, “You look exhausted. Sorry I dragged you out of bed for all this.” I gestured around my destroyed office. “Why don’t we go back to my house before the cops show up and start asking questions. I’ll tidy this place up tomorrow.”

  I stayed for a few minutes to patch up the window so that the entire room wouldn’t be a popsicle when I came back. Carolyn and I went back to my house. I changed out of my suit into much more comfortable gear.

  I went downstairs and joined Carolyn and Colossus on the couch. I still couldn’t believe that she’d got my dog to warm up to her, especially if the pooch knew what she had eaten for breakfast. Speaking of which, was it feeding time for the vamp? Who could keep track of her insatiable appetite for blood?

  I felt like I was bleeding internally from the ass whipping courtesy of a mystery spirit. Colossus ran under me as I went to sit down, a bad habit he just couldn’t seem to break. Wrenching my body to the side to avoid him, my back locked up for a second. I stretched out the cramp, and slithered down on the couch as my dog jumped onto my lap. Picking up the pillow beside me, I tucked it behind my head.

  This day had certainly taken a strange turn after such a promising beginning. I was worried that Felix was correct and these were Sendal Spirits. That crazy brawl in my office had convinced me. Panic rushed around my chest, and I realized I was overmatched.

  Worry about my girlfriend and father snaked through my body, mingling with the panic. It erased the pain from the fights I had gotten into this week, which was a plus.

  How could I defeat thousand-year-old spirits that combined and consolidated their power into a super-force? The Celtic Gods might need to give me some ancient help to defeat this ghostly group since Carolyn had to use her rune claws to kill it. I needed to get more information on how to battle these spirits.

  The meeting with Socrates had been interesting. Perhaps I could get some answers out of the Greek Gods about the Sendal Spirits. Peeking over at my small vampire friend, I couldn’t believe she had saved my life twice.

  The most sensible thing to do was to listen to what the Greek Gods had to say. It could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship or just a wasted conversation. Hopefully they can help me get these malevolent spirits out of Pittsburgh.

  I talked to Carolyn and my eyelids began to get heavy. I leaned back, mashing my head into the soft pillow, and faded out. Strange dreams swirled inside my head in which an unidentified person was yelling at me. Berating me.

  The lids of my eyes slowly flickered open as the voice from my dream became clear.

  Satoku screamed, “What the fuck is going on here, Mike?”

  Chapter 15

  I LOOKED DOWN AND KNEW I was in deep trouble. I had passed out sitting up and my trusty vampire friend had curled up next to me and used my lap as a pillow. Reaching out, I shook her neck and she sat up next to me, groggy.

  “Oh. Her? There’s nothing going on here.” I stammered.

  That answer did not satisfy my girlfriend. “Nothing? Sure as shit doesn’t look like nothing. Who the fuck is she?”

  “Who? Her? Oh, she’s nobody.” Bad choice of words.

  She paced the length of my coffee table, chest heaving in and out, full of anger. “Nobody? Nobody? I must be hallucinating then, you know, because I do that all the time. You better start explaining what is going on here.”

  I stood up and moved toward her until she put her hand up for me to stop. “She’s part of the new job I am working on.” I turned to Carolyn. “Show her your teeth.”

  The vamp smiled, and her incisors extended into sharp fangs.

  I explained, “She is a vampire and we are working on a case together. I didn’t want to say anything to you because of Felix. I couldn’t afford to have him running around town talking to everyone about it.”

  She shook her head, disgusted. “You’re going to use Felix as an excuse again? Unreal.”

  “It’s not an excuse. He’s connected to a lot of supernaturals in Pittsburgh and this is a very delicate matter.”

  She leaned down and stroked Colossus’s chin. “I just don’t know anymore. I get that your life isn’t going to be ordinary, for lack of a better word. I get it. But when I find you passed out on a couch with a sexy vampire on your lap, what am I supposed to think?”

  She had made a fair point. “I don’t know. How am I supposed to feel when you ditch me to hang out with another guy all the time?”

  She rolled her eyes at me. “Felix? I don’t even really look at him like a guy. He’s just a friend.”

  “Carolyn is just a friend too.”

  Colossus ran to the front door and Satoku stood up again. “Yeah, but there is a big difference here. I’ve openly told you that I was hanging out with Felix. I’ve never kept anything a secret from you. If you showed up at my house and saw me lying in bed with him, I would anticipate the same reaction from you.”

  “If I may.” Carolyn stood up and approached Satoku. “I’m sorry Mike, but I’m going to tell her the truth.” The vamp stood within an arm’s reach of my girlfriend, making me uncomfortable as sweat leached out of the skin on my forearms.

  Carolyn continued, “She’s not as beautiful as you made her out to be.”

  Satoku immediately interjected, head bobbing side to side, “Excuse me.”

  The vampire smiled at my girlfriend. I could tell her from experience, that wasn’t going to work. Carolyn said, “That’s not a bad thing if you would let me finish. What I am saying is that Mike talked you up so much that you would have had to float in here as an angel on a cloud. If you heard the things Mike has said about you, let’s just say, I wish I had a guy saying the same stuff about me. He’s scared to lose you and I can see why.”

  Satoku said, “Thank you.”

  The vampire reached out and put her hand on Satoku’s shoulder. “You’re welcome. You know guys, they’ll admit to their friend how much they love a girl even though they can’t properly express it to her.”

  Why was Carolyn so much smoother than me with the ladies? I wasn’t about to stick my nose into this as it seemed to be working out for me.

  Satoku agreed, “I guess that is true.”

  She rubbed Satoku’s upper arm. “Honestly, I have to tell him to shut up sometimes because he’s rambling on about how great you are. No offense to you.”

  “None taken. We haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Satoku.” She extended an open hand.

  Carolyn reached out and shook her hand. “Carolyn, nice to formally meet you. And I can guarantee you there is nothing going on between Mike and me. I like his friend Reg much better.”

  The normal glow on my girlfriend’s face returned, “Isn’t he the greatest guy in the world?”

  “He is a peach ready to be sucked.” Carolyn nodded, pulling her lip piercings into her mouth.

  Satoku laughed. “I probably wouldn’t use those exact words myself, but good for you two. He is a great person.” She looked around Carolyn to make eye contact with me. “As for you mister, you aren’t off the hook by any stretch of the imagination.”

  What? I thought you two just became best friends and you were going to forgive me because of all the good things I said about you.

  Satoku continued, “We need to trust each other with everything. I don’t want to walk into another scene like this. I mean it’s not like she’s staying here, right?”

  I tried to explain, “Well, that’s kind of, part of the job. She needs to stay close to me at all times. Kind of like with you and Felix.”

  The glow disappeared again, and Satoku’s tone harshened, “All right, look. This whataboutism bullshit with Felix needs to stop. He’s waiting for me in the car so I have to get going. Give me
a call tomorrow if you want. I need some time to think about this and what I am doing right now.”

  “You can look into my soul if you don’t believe me.” I got up to give her a hug goodbye, but she turned her back on me and stormed out the door without a word.

  Carolyn said, “You’re lucky I was here.”

  “Lucky. I nearly got dumped because you were here. How is that luck?”

  She sat back down on the couch. “Putting the instigating situation aside, your stuttering, tongue-tied explanation was pathetic. She’s nobody. Were you expecting me to disappear or something?”

  “You could have at least turned into a raven. Look, I’m not very smooth with the ladies. I have social anxiety too.”

  “You talk to me just fine.”

  She was right. Anything job related made me more at ease. “Yeah, I almost feel more comfortable with supernatural beings. The problem is that Satoku is a Searcher so I can’t even stretch the truth with her because she will find out.”

  Her head moved back and her eyes widened. “She’s a Soul Searcher? Thanks for letting me know. I was staring into her haunting green eyes. Of all the conversations we’ve had about her, I figure that would have come up at least once.”

  I didn’t talk about it because gifted people could be taken advantage of. “Sorry, but I would never expect her to just stop by out of the blue. Why had she stopped by anyway?”

  “She was probably ready to forgive you until she saw me. Ha ha.” She didn’t have the bass in the laugh that Reg had, but she was trying.

  “That really isn’t making me feel any better if that is your intention.”

  She spoke to me like a baby, “Aw, I don’t like seeing you all sad. You want me to fix you a glass of Jameson?”

  I tilted my head and nodded, “I do like my Jameson. Maybe half a glass just to settle my thoughts.”

  We ended up getting wasted. I went over to my office to tidy things up, but in my drunken stupor, I most likely made matters worse. When I returned home, Reg and Carolyn were hanging out, actually making out, so I went to my room with the dog.