by K. C. Hunter
Contents
Introduction
KANA’S ADVENTURES HAVE JUST STARTED
Legal
Free Books
Dedication
Kana Cold
The Worst Fear
The Poolhall Princess
Pony Girl
A Trickle of Water
What's Left Behind
The Alpha Female
Ganzfeld Plus
My Own Prison
Behind The Veil
The Price of Publishing
Make a Difference
KANA’S ADVENTURES HAVE JUST STARTED
Get Exclusives
About The Author
Case of the
Shinigami
KC Hunter
KANA’S ADVENTURES HAVE JUST STARTED
KANA COLD
The Reaping of the Black Grimoires
“An adventurous mix of Indiana Jones and Jessica Jones.”
The revival of a secret society. Three dark books of magic. And one badass woman to save the world from Hell...
Kana Cold gained a measure of notoriety when she solved the first recorded case of a Shinigami in North America. Now, the Vatican has commissioned her help to track down three books of dark magic—known as The Black Grimoires—hidden around the world.
With ancient spirits wanting her dead, a secret group known as The Thule Society hot on her trail, and the distraction of an Italian archeologist/playboy, Kana must find a way to keep the unholy power of the Black Grimoires from unleashing hell on Earth.
Kana Cold: The Reaping of the Black Grimoires is the first book in a paranormal thriller series. Part action adventure, part globe-trotting treasure hunt, part supernatural mystery, Kana’s first adventure into the underworld is a high-octane thrill ride!
ORDER TODAY FOR PRE-SALE!
AOE STUDIOS
Published by AOE Studios
KANA COLD: CASE OF THE SHINIGAMI
Copyright © 2018 by KC Hunter. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America. For more information contact AOE Studios: [email protected].
Reproducing this book without permission from the author or the publisher is an infringement of its copyright. This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any other resemblance to any actual events or persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design KC Hunter
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
AOE Studios publication: First Edition September 2018
KANA’S ADVENTURES ARE JUST BEGINNING
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FOR ALL THOSE WHO DESIRE TO BE MORE THAN THEY ARE AND ARE BRAVE ENOUGH TO REACH FOR IT
KANA COLD
CASE OF THE
SHINIGAMI
The Worst Fear
The cries of a little girl echoed through the McNeil house at 2 am. Mark and Alice McNeil left the door to their master bedroom open for their daughter, who feared being alone in her bedroom, so she could sleep next to them in case her night terrors became too much. Bad dreams were common for Melody McNeil, but tonight there was something different.
Mark rolled onto his side, his legs dangling over the edge of the bed. He woke his wife who groaned from beneath a pillow. “Is it my turn or your turn?”
“No, it’s mine,” Mark answered.
He sat upright and slid his feet into a pair of slippers, blinking to keep his eyelids from staying shut. His daughter’s cries turned into primal screams. This wasn’t the usual night terror. Fearing that his daughter was in actual peril, he slapped his face and ran to her bedroom. Was she injured? Had she fallen? The way she cried out, the shrieks piercing his eardrums, meant this was beyond monsters under the bed or creaking noises from the closet.
Mark burst through the door of his daughter’s bedroom. “Melody? What’s wrong?” He froze when he saw Melody standing at the end of her bed, motionless and stiff. “What in the hell?” He took a cautious step toward the bed, his slippers sinking into the carpet, and then another before Melody shrieked again, forcing him to cover his ears.
He looked up at Melody, her feet hovering above the bed, her toes nipping at the bedsheets. The hair on top of her head moved, scrunched together in a ball as if some invisible fist took hold of her like she was a garbage bag. Her tiny hands swatted at the air above her, but the tormentor pulled on both arms, stretching her out into a human crucifix.
Mark balled his fist. “Get the hell off of her!”
A cold wind blew through him, raising goosebumps on his arms and legs. In the same moment, Melody collapsed forward, free but not safe. She fell over like a cardboard sign toppled in a tornado, fast and hard. Mark tried to catch her but missed. Melody hit the floor at an angle, jamming her arm on impact and breaking it in three places.
“Melody! I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry!” He rushed to her, cradling her in his arms, staring at the twisted limb. He turned to see Alice rushing to the door, her hands pressed together against her lips. Cursing himself inside, Mark apologized repeatedly to both his wife and daughter. There was no way to fix it, no way to go back and catch her. It was done.
***
“That was when I knew I had to get help,” Mark said, sighing through his steepled fingers.
A week after Melody’s fall, the McNeils sat across from a blogger named Tomas at a rundown diner near the airport. Mark observed Tomas from the other side of the booth as the reporter scribbled on his notepad. His appearance wasn’t what he expected. He wore an expensive suit, far above the paygrade of a news reporter, and had a thinning head of hair. His weathered hand stopped writing as if he felt Mark’s stare and was offended by it.
“I haven’t read anything from your website.” Alice pushed her auburn hair to the side. “Mark says you’re legitimate.”
Tomas’s began scribbling again. “We’re known on the dark web for genuine paranormal stories, ones that can’t easily be debunked. We pay handsomely for valid stories.” His lips curled into a grin. “That is why you’re here, no?”
Mark tapped the side of his coffee mug. “I’m not entirely sure about selling our story. We’d have to have assurances that our family was protected.”
Alice scooted forward. “You’ll change the names in this article I assume? Melody is still a child. I don’t want her name turning up somewhere and the kids at school bullying her because of this.”
“No, don’t worry Mrs. McNeil. If we didn’t keep our sources confidential, we’d go out of business. Children are particularly protected. You have my word.”
The waitress returned and set a plate of bacon and scrambled eggs in front of Mark. “If I go any further with this story, I also have to ask that you keep the people who helped us, the investigators, a secret as well.”
“Why?”
Mark hesitated to answer, running his hand through the patch of greying hair above his ear. “You’ll know when I finish.” Alice put her hand on his thigh to stop it from shaking.
Toma
s folded his hands and rested his chin on his knuckles. “Okay. No real names. It will lessen your payout slightly, I hope you understand.”
“We do,” said Alice.
The reporter nodded and picked up his pencil again, the tip hovering over a blank page in his notepad. “I guess we should start with this investigator you hired. This… Kana Cold. How did you meet her?”
The Poolhall Princess
Mark only told a few people at work about the situation with Melody. One of his friends, David Paryla, suggested he find a paranormal investigator and offered him the name of a woman he had hired in the past. What he didn’t mention was that finding this investigator would be difficult, not like looking up a plumber in the phone book. He didn’t provide a working phone number either. It took eight days for Mark to track down Kana Cold at a bar called Scruffy’s.
He arrived at the bar and immediately felt out of place. Rows of motorcycles filled the parking lot, a few of their owners stood outside the entrance, the hazy smoke of half-extinguished cigarettes clouding the doorway. He did his best to ignore them and walked straight inside.
Mark went to the bar and motioned for the waitress. “Can I speak to a manager?”
She gave him the same stare as the bikers outside did, chewing away at her bubble gum as she slid her index finger along the outline of her cherry red lips. “Okay, I’ll go get him sweetie.” Her voice was that of a lifelong cigarette smoker. “Just wait here a tick.”
The clientele was what he expected from the outside parking lot: leather vests, biker patches, bandanas, and wallets linked by chains. To his left, two men played a game of darts while another sat underneath the board, slumped against a forty-year-old wood panel wall, a beer in one hand and a cigarette dangling between his lips. Right next to him was a poster promoting the weekly pool league—which, coincidentally, was tonight—featuring a trio of groomed middle-aged men in khaki shorts and Polo shirts, smiling mechanically as they stood around a pool table. No such patrons existed here. Mark grinned at the litany of dart holes that dotted the advertisement, along with the mustache, horns, and squirting phallus drawn in black marker over the models’ faces.
A short, clean shaven man stood behind the bar, his hand extended. “Hey there, I’m Chester. This is my place. I heard you wanted to see a manager.”
Chester looked as out of place as Mark did, a suburban man from a middle-class family. He leaned closer to Chester so no one else would overhear him. “Kana Cold? Do you know her?”
“Yeah, I know her. She’s in the back near the main pool tables. Asian chic, black leather jacket, white t-shirt. You didn’t hear that from me though. The girl likes her privacy. What’s your name?”
An argument was building between the two bikers playing darts.
“Mark. Mark McNeil. I’m not from this side of town.”
“I can tell that.” Chester’s buttoned-up powder blue shirt and popped collar didn’t scream “biker” either. He was comfortable here, ignoring the potential brawl unfolding five feet away from them. “Hey, listen, tonight's Pool League. Is that why you’re here or are you just looking for this girl?”
“Just the girl.”
The pushing escalated into overturned mugs and spilled beer.
Chester’s face lit up with a smile. “Oh. You look like a man who works in a respectable office. Well, if you want to come back next week with some of your friends, I can give you a discount. Free tables and the best chicken wings you’ll find this side of town.”
“Well, I’m not much of a pool player.” Mark nodded toward the fighting dart players. “Do you think you should do something about that?”
Chester pointed at his own chest, smirking. “Me? Ha! I don’t mess with them, they don’t mess with me. Whatever they break they pay for. My pops taught them that before he passed. I own the bar but it’s still his rules: whatever you break you pay for.”
Mark looked back over his shoulder at the fighting bikers, flinching at every curse shouted and fist thrown. “If you say so.”
The two men settled down after their biker brothers pulled them apart. The waitress trotted over to clean the spilled mess on the floor, sweeping up broken glass while trying to keep her breasts from falling out of her white tube top. The fighters, now friends again, watched her clean up the mess with mesmerized smirks, sipping bear and wiping the excess from their long beards.
“See,” Chester said, his confident smirk returning. “You can go on to the back now. Don’t stare at anybody’s woman and you’ll be fine.”
Mark made his way past the main area to the back where the pool tables were. No one made room for him, forcing him to squeeze through the tight network of tables and chairs that crowded the bar. A few patrons grumbled obscenities at him. Mark kept his focus on the pool tables, his stride hurried.
It didn’t take long for him to find this Kana Cold, the only Asian face in the entire pool hall. To him she looked a bit too young to be in a bar that served alcohol, a pool cue in one hand and a shot glass in the other, watching her older male opponent line up his next shot.
“Sonofabitch!” the older biker shouted after missing his target. “Go on. Take the damn shot.”
Kana swallowed the last bit of rum in her glass, leaned over the side of the table and took her shot, knocking the eight ball into the corner pocket. A few groans came from the onlookers as those who bet against her handed over stacks of dollars to those who didn’t. She pushed her long black hair from her face as a few of the betters handed her cash.
“Y'all losing to this Ching-Chong Eggroll?” This shouter pushed his way through the crowd, a short, wiry, pale kid flanked by his biker brothers. “Should be ashamed of yourselves! You know how they do? They cheat! That’s what she’s doing. Cheating!” the skinny man continued his tirade.
One of the older regulars at the bar yelled back. “Nitro Nick. You’re a guest around here, remember that. I’d watch my tongue little man.”
“What man? You taking up for her or something?” Nitro Nick stuck his finger in the old man’s face.
Bob, as he was known, laughed as he pushed the boy’s finger away. “I’m trying to save you the trouble of being embarrassed. But go ahead.”
“That’s what I thought.” Nick backed away a step. “I got next. Show y’all how to play this game.” He swiped Kana’s bottle of rum and took a swig for himself. “OH-wee! Yes, ma’am!” He pointed the bottle at Kana “Gonna show you where your place is, little girl.”
With rum in hand, he headed toward the dollar change machine at the front of the bar. She watched him walk away, her head cocked.
Bob waved to Kana. “You want us to handle this for you?”
Kana smirked. “No, but you might have to buy me another bottle.”
Mark saw his opportunity to get her attention with the loudmouth gone. “Kana Cold, right?”
She held on to her pool stick, more focused on the table than him. “Right so far.”
Mark offered his hand. “Hi, I’m Mark McNeil. My wife and I live out in Bowley’s Corner. If you have a minute, I’d like to talk to you about something.”
Kana looked him straight in the eyes but didn’t shake his hand. “Please don’t tell me you have a yellow fever fetish. I don’t do swingers.”
“What? No. I’m here for…” He stepped closer to whisper. “I’m here for a case.”
“Office hours are from 9 am to 2 pm, except for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, then we’re closed. Call the number.”
Mark retracted his hand. “I don’t have your number. I found out about you through a friend at work.”
“Who?”
“David Paryla.”
Kana sighed, chalking the tip of her pool cue.
“Is there something wrong with David?”
She blew the excess chalk dust from the cue. “That guy tried to run a scam on me. He had an audio recorder hidden in the walls on a timer. Every few hours it would play some God-awful recording of a woman moaning like a ghost, li
kely something he downloaded online. If you’re a friend of his…”
“Not a friend. He’s a co-worker. He didn’t tell me any of that, but he said you were legit.”
Kana shook her head. “Sorry, I'm not interested.”
“Look, I don’t mean to be pushy. This is serious. I’m not trying to trick you or scam you or make fun of you. Whatever David did is on him.”
Kana stood to look him up and down. Khaki slacks, a checkered dress shirt, the smell of his off-the-shelf cologne, all hints that he was a better fit for Chester’s pool league than a potential client. She narrowed her eyes and shook her head again, reaffirming her disinterest.
Before Mark could continue to make his case, he was tapped on the shoulder by Nitro Nick, a venomous sneer on the biker’s lips. “You’re in the wrong part of town. This place ain’t for you, no matter how much that clown who runs this bar wants your type in here.”
Nick’s breath made Mark’s face tighten like a prune. “I’m just trying to ask the lady a question.”
“Lady?” Nick laughed. “Oh man! You are on the wrong side of town. Get the hell out of my way. I need to teach this lady a lesson.”
Mark had no interest in a fight, especially one he would lose. There were four bikers at his side. Maybe they’d jump in, maybe not. It was a question he didn’t want answered. Choosing safety first, Mark stepped out of the way.
“Two hundred, if you can afford it.” Nitro Nick laid out a stack of one-dollar bills on the pool table.
“Did you come back from the strip club?” Kana asked, her lips curled in an unimpressed sneer.
Nick wagged his finger at her. “Oh, you don't have the cash?”
