Tria smiled. “Does that surprise you?” she asked, seeing the light rise behind him.
Ian Gregory was no longer having an out of body experience. His body had died. He was being called to the other side.
Ian didn’t even look at the light, his eyes still fixed on Madison. “Imogen’s coming,” he said, a small smile on his lips.
And music filled the air around them. It was a melody of the fae, of earth, of healing, of pure peace. It was the most beautiful sound Tria had ever heard.
She watched as a girl with fluorescent green hair walked toward Madison, playing a small wooden flute. With the eyes of the dead, Tria could see that the girl was a half-breed, both fae and human. The fae were an amazing species, one Tria had never dealt with before.
She watched in fascination as the song called on the magic in the air and began moving through Ian’s body. The light behind them faded back as the song played and Ian’s spirit began to move back toward its body.
“Ian, wait,” Tria called, a plan forming in her mind.
He glanced at her, a look of peace on his face.
Tria held out her hands between them. “Ian, the PSA needs to be stopped. Please, let me help you do it.”
“How?”
“My ability to speak with the dead can be given to you before you go back to the earth plane. I will be your spirit guide, help you in any way I can to put a stop to their operation.”
Ian gazed at her for a few humming seconds before he gave a slow nod. “Your son,” he said like he had just remembered.
Tria swallowed and nodded. “My son still needs the treatments they give him to keep him alive. My boyfriend will bring him in but there’s no way to know for sure if the PSA will continue. Please, let me guide you but also let me watch out for my son this way.”
Ian took in a shaky breath and laid his hands out between them. As his spirit went back to his body, Tria passed her ability to speak with the dead into his body and mind.
“Well done, Tria,” Poston’s voice said from behind her and suddenly, Tria understood.
Her spirit group had not truly abandoned her. What they had done was to make her part of them for the rest of eternity.
TWENTY-FIVE
The pain of the tattoo gun injecting ink into my side was nothing in comparison to all the other pains I had experienced over the last few days. Imogen’s song had healed the damage done to my body but my heart continued to scream in pain. Ian had died. Yes, he had come back to life but he was different.
Everything was different. I had lost two clients. I had seen so much death. The life of adventure I had thought would be mine was a series of horrors that felt like they might break me.
I probably wouldn’t have felt that way if things hadn’t been so weird with Ian. He had died on Campbells Run Road. Now, he would hardly look at me. He seemed distracted all the time.
I felt abandoned and it was not doing good things for me. The one good thing that had happened was that Erkens and Spencer had returned. It seemed their werewolf case hadn’t been much better than my cases had been.
The buzz of the tattoo gun stopped and the guy wiped away the last of my blood, covering the helm of awe with a bandage. I pulled my shirt into place, relieved to have that protection permanently emblazoned into my skin. It was one thing I wouldn’t have to worry about anymore. One.
I had tried to convince Ian to do the same thing but he had told me he didn’t need it. He’d said he was protected . . . then he had walked away.
We weren’t in a normal tattoo parlor. Instead, it was some kind of witch doctor’s place. The guy had ‘blessed’ the ink he used on me and had used his own magic while he did it.
Erkens had insisted he come along and since Spencer was his new sidekick, he’d insisted on it as well. The witch doctor didn’t have a problem with my group, so they’d hung around while I’d had it done.
By the time we had all piled into Erkens’ truck, my mood had taken a nosedive again. I wished Ian had been there. I hated the fact he had walked away. I wanted to tell him I did not blame him for what Edith had done to me through his body.
The fact that Gina had been killed while in her jail cell and Detective Roche had been recorded doing it meant that the cops were no longer looking into those cases. They had found trophies that Paul Mueller had taken of those kills in Detective Roche’s car. It was over but it felt so wrong to allow people to believe Roche had been the one who’d done those things.
The whole situation was terrible. So many deaths. So much suffering.
“Madison?”
I glanced up to find Imogen, Spencer, and Erkens all looking at me. I must look as dejected as I felt.
I understood that Ian was dealing with a lot. I was too but he didn’t seem to care. The pain of that realization hit me in the face and tears began to slide down my cheeks as Erkens drove.
Imogen leaned over and wrapped her arms around me, letting me blubber into her shoulder. It wasn’t only the Ian situation I cried for. It was Tria, Gina, Kirby, Tanya, Officer Salis, Detective Roche, and even Quinn. I had a sister and something was going on. I hadn’t been able to find her. I was lost.
After a complete emotional breakdown, I found that my mind worked a lot more clearly. I would find Quinn. My sister and I would go together to talk to Dad. I would find a way to stop the PSA.
Erkens handed me a tissue out of the center console and gave me one of his bulldog looks in the rearview mirror. “Madison, I’ve told you this before. I will tell you again and you will listen. Happy endings don’t happen in real life. There is very rarely a complete resolution to our cases. You have to get used to that or this life will break you. The fact you and Imogen bound the spirit to its grave is an amazing win. We also now know why there is so much more paranormal activity in Pittsburgh than in other cities. The PSA is our number one priority. We need to focus on that.”
I wiped away my tears and nodded. “I do understand that. I really do. It’s just been a rough few days.”
“Well now that you’ve got your crying done, let’s get out there and kick some tail.”
I sniffled before a laugh bubbled out. It was such an Erkens thing to say but it was almost perfect. I had to focus on one problem at a time.
I would make Quinn my priority. I would figure out where my sister was and hopefully, that would help me figure out the PSA situation. I could do this. With Erkens, Spencer, and Imogen on my side, the bad guys wouldn’t stand a chance.
EPILOGUE
Quinn Turner stared at the computer screen in front of her. She knew Dr. Renat had come into her room but she was not in the mood to deal with the man. He had always disconcerted her. Recently, fear had begun to fill her when he was around.
There was something different about him. She had always assumed he was simply an antisocial intellectual, too intelligent to be bothered with normal people. In the last few months, it was like he saw everyone as a specimen in his lab, something expendable.
She had been in that holding area for four days and Dr. Renat was the only person she’d seen. He had come in several times to question her about what she had told TC Erkens. She was thankful to know that the PSA didn’t seem to know about Madison. They had only known that Quinn had gone to the paranormal investigator’s office.
She had told some of her best lies when she’d spoken to him. She had told him that she had gone to TC Erkens because she had seen that one of her spirit capsules had been opened, releasing the fragment of soul that had been inside it. She had made it seem like she had simply hired the man to help her find the ghost before anything bad could happen.
From the way Dr. Renat had reacted, Quinn was sure she had convinced him. Or she hoped it was true, anyway. She wasn’t sure what the man would do if he found out her little sister worked for TC Erkens.
“This is the girl?” a voice she didn’t recognize asked.
Quinn glanced back, startled to see that a man in a suit stood by the door next to Dr. Renat. He w
as an attractive, middle-aged man, with a shaved head and chiseled features. The way he looked at her made her even less comfortable than she usually was around Dr. Renat.
She felt as though that man saw straight through her clothes. She wanted to pull her jacket closer around her but chose not to. She would not allow either man to see how uncomfortable she was. She would not give them that power over her.
Dr. Renat nodded. “Yes. This is Quinn Turner, our head of department in computer engineering.”
“She is young for this position, isn’t she?”
“She is but she is qualified.”
Quinn scowled, disliking the fact they spoke about her like she wasn’t there.
Dr. Renat waved the man toward her. “Quinn, this is Sheenan. His people are from the Axis Mundi. He had an encounter with a nixer and his own power was drained away. Your new project is to get his power back and to negate the ability of the nixer. Sheenan has paid us a small fortune to get this done.”
Quinn’s mouth worked silently for a moment. “I don’t have that kind of clearance. Manufacturing magic is way above my paygrade,” she said, annoyed with herself that her voice shook as she spoke.
She had heard about nixers. They were very rare. Something told her if Sheenan’s power had been taken away by a nixer, it had been for a very good reason.
She had to find a way to get around that order. Every instinct in her body was telling her that Sheenan was a dangerous man. If that dangerous man was given back the power that had been taken from him, she didn’t want to contemplate the amount of damage he would do.
Dr. Renat inclined his head. “You now have the clearance. You will be moved to theoretical engineering and given a chance to redeem yourself in that way. If you fail, this will be your new home,” he said, waving his hand around the small, prison-like room.
Sheenan kept his eyes fixed on Quinn. “She will not fail. For the sake of her younger sister, she will succeed. Madison is a lovely girl. I would hate for anything to happen to her.”
Quinn’s heart pounded so hard, she felt lightheaded. She had always felt sympathy for Tria, for how the PSA used her son to control her. Now that she was on the other end, she understood how her friend had felt.
She would do anything to protect Madison. She could only hope that Madison would figure things out quickly. She would fight to protect her sister to her dying breath but she knew Madison would do the same for her.
In the two days they had spent in each other’s company, Quinn had discovered just how alike they were. She felt a bond with her sister and she was sure Madison felt that bond as well. No one would be allowed to hurt Madison Meyer.
Author’s Note
Wow. This one is full of things I need to let you know about! Okay, so first off, the serial killers I wrote about truly did exist. Tillie Klimek and Paul Mueller were their real names as well. I took some literary license..a LOT of literary license with their stories but the basics are true.
The Thirteen Bends truly is an urban legend from Pittsburgh. Again, I did my own thing with it but the basics are what I was able to find on that legend, including the location.
No, St. Perpetua school didn’t exist and so far as I know, the nuns were never accused or burned in the school. That’s my very dark, kind of creepy imagination doing its thing.
I have a friend who is a bonafide medium. (Charles Freedom Long) He gave me some tips on making Tria a more believable character. Once again, I did my own thing but the gist of what he told me is part of Tria’s tale.
I really hope you enjoyed this book. Keep an eye out for more in Madison’s series of adventures. There’s a LOT more of them to come!
Weblog:
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https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14219796.Shannon_Reber
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Other books by Shannon Reber
http://www.amazon.com/author/shannonreber
In The Works (The Light Bearer Prequel)
In Their Midst (The Light Bearer Book 1)
The Key (reprogramming the gods Book 1)
Ill-Fated (The Cintamani Chronicles Book 1)
Ill-Omened (The Cintamani Chronicles Book 2)
Ill-Starred (The Cintamani Chronicles Book 3)
The Girl In White (A Madison Meyer Mystery Volume 1)
The Exiler (A Madison Meyer Side Story)
The Black Merchant (A Madison Meyer Mystery Volume 2)
The Dark Spirit (A Madison Meyer Christmas Story)
Friends and Foes (The Druid Heirs book 1)
Life and Loss (The Druid Heirs book 2)
Peace and Peril (The Druid Heirs book 3)
The Druid Heirs (The Complete Trilogy)
Misery (A Short Story)
Cadger (The Annwyn Revolution Book 1)
Illusion
Gray (Awakening Book 1)
White (Awakening Book 2)
Black (Awakening Book 3)
The Stockades (The Uniters Code Book 1)
The Sepulcher (The Uniters Code Book 2)
The Stronghold (The Uniters Code Book 3)
The Sanctum (The Uniters Code Book 4)
The Shrine (The Uniters Code Book 5)
The Uniters Code (The Complete Series)
The Seer (The Seal of Solomon prequel)
The Puppeteer (The Seal of Solomon Book 1)
The Gatekeeper (The Seal of Solomon Book 2)
The Fire Wielder (The Seal of Solomon Book 3)
About the Author
Shannon Reber was born a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away . . . or her imagination was anyway. She lives in western New York with her husband and a wide variety of both real and imaginary friends who often battle it out for dominance in her head. Who needs another normal person in this messed up world? Read her books, or the evil overlord will take control of her mind!
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