by T. R. Lester
This book is a work of fiction. Names, graphic symbols, organizations, places, events, and incidences are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2017 T. R. Lester All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be used, reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transferred in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Self-published by Amazon Publishing.
Copyright © 2017 T. R. Lester
All rights reserved.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
About the Author
Prologue
Emily Kessler awoke to find herself in pain. The last thing she could remember was going to her vehicle after work.
Her abductor took her one night when she was leaving her office. Before she even knew what was happening, he had placed a cloth over her face, and everything went black.
Looking around, she could see she was in some kind of room, a small room, one that looked as if cardboard had been used to paper the walls.
Her arms and legs were restrained with chains and her body hurt from head to toe. When she looked down, she could see a bulge in her abdominal region.
“Where am I?” She whispers.
“Ah, my dear, you are in my care now. Don’t worry.”
“Who are you?”
“Who I am is of no concern. Just know that I’m caring for you.”
“Why am I in so much pain, and why is my stomach so big?”
The monster doesn’t answer. Instead, he walked over to her, sat in a chair beside the bed, and began to tattoo a design into her skin. Above her heart. The pain is unbearable. Emily wailed and screamed so much her throat felt raw as the monster continued his torture.
At some point, she passed out.
When she came to again, the bulge in her stomach was much larger. Trying to remember how long she had been here was useless. She had been in and out of consciousness so much it was hard to determine. She knew the bulge was not normal, and that she had an unusual amount of pain. As she lay there on the bed, she felt a stirring, a flutter in her stomach. She looked down at the bulge and saw it was moving and undulating.
She screamed.
“What’s wrong with me? What is that?”
“It’s my child. He will be born soon, and I will have a son.”
“Have I been here nine months? Why am I so big?”
“You have been here for sixty-eight hours; my son will be born in seventy-two hours. You are the incubator for my offspring.”
Emily catches a glimpse of the monster. A very tall man with black hair and fair skin with hazel eyes that held no trace of humanity or caring.
Emily started to scream again, and the monster leaned down to her open legs and sink his long sharp fangs into her femoral artery, taking big gulps of blood until she stopped screaming. He kept her bled out to the point of weakness so that her outbursts were fewer.
The monster looked at the very faint outline of a distinctive mark above Emily’s right breast and smiled.
“I hope I was able to recreate that mark. Maybe no one will notice it’s not real.”
Suddenly, her stomach started to undulate and move again. The monster rubbed a hand over her belly and sighed.
“Soon my son, very soon.”
The movement gets faster and more violent. Emily’s scream brings the man out of his reverie.
“Not now. It’s not time yet.” He says.
He can see the imprint of tiny hands on the stomach. Tiny hands pushing against the inside of the woman’s womb, pushing to get free.
“No, No.” The monster says.
Emily screamed and writhed under the restraint of the chains. It felt like something was ripping her insides out, like something was clawing to get out, to be free. It felt as if she was being shredded from the inside.
She felt a pressure that seemed to be sliding in a downward movement. She feared taking a breath as though it may tear her apart inside. Tiny hands inside her were pushing against the walls of her stomach, pushing to get out. The fingers felt like razor blades sliding through muscle. She silently prayed to die, so the pain would end.
The monster watched as the skin on the woman’s abdomen began to tear open and shred. The fetus was pushing itself out. Clawing its way through its mother’s womb, stomach and muscles.
Emily finally passed out from the pain and the monster continued to watch as his son finally pushed his way through the ragged torn flesh of its mother abdomen.
He gasped.
The fetus was deformed, hideously. With long claws and fangs and a grossly deformed misshapen head, it resembled an alien. The skin looked as if it had been flayed from its back and chest, showing the spine and rib cage.
“Nooo!”
The monster picked up the creature and held it to his chest. The creature was no longer breathing. The smell of rotting meat was so strong he winced.
Looking up at the woman, he could see, she too, was no longer breathing. The blank lifeless look in her eyes and the absence of a heartbeat confirmed this.
Walking over to a table, he placed the creature on a blanket and slowly wrapped it, taking care to not damage it further. He built a fire in the fireplace and stoked it until it was burning bright and hot. Picking up the bundle, he ran his index finger across the creature’s head and placed it on the flames. He watched as the flames engulfed the small bundle and slowly burned away the offspring he had wanted.
Now he would have to start over. Find another woman to incubate his offspring. Or, maybe he would just concentrate on his current project.
He wrapped a dirty blanket around the body of the woman, threw her over his shoulder and headed out to find a place to dump her like a bag of trash. She wouldn’t fit into the fireplace and he didn’t have time to dig a hole to bury her. This would have to do. He didn’t care if she was found. No one could trace her back to him.
Chapter 1
Grace was making her way down a wooded trail in the Natchez Trace State Park. The night sky was dark and showed hints of clouds that were the forewarning for an approaching storm. It was mid-February, but the weather had been mild. In the south, the only way to know the seasons have changed is to look at the calendar because the weather didn’t show it.
She loved her job, but she really wasn’t in a hurry to see the gruesome scene that awaited her.
She knew the victim she was going to see was a human female, approximately twenty to twenty-five years old, long dark brown hair and a tattoo of some sort of mark above her heart. She also knew the woman had been beaten severely.
Grace Chandler had just joined the enigmatic Paranormal Activity Department, or P.A.D as some call it, ten years ago at age twenty-one, when her brother, Nathaniel, disappeared. His body was never found, so it was unknown to Grace if he was still alive or dead.
She has used her special skills over the years to solve werewolf, witch
, and other supernatural crimes, track down missing people, and solve mundane crimes. She’d made it a personal mission to ensure no other family had to go through what she had with the disappearance of her brother. Not knowing what happened to him had been the most difficult situation in her personal life.
The small city of Tupelo, Mississippi rarely sees crimes of this significance and there isn’t an abundance of supernatural crimes in the area, but they do occur from time to time.
Grace Chandler was known in her department as the most diligent agent in the area. Known as the sister who wanted to find justice for a missing and presumably dead brother, she always fought for those who couldn’t fight for themselves. The less fortunate ones who have no family or friends, who’s cases would more than likely get tossed to the back burner. She spent her time seeking justice for those who have been wronged.
She was taught to have compassion and humility while growing up.
Grace was fortunate enough to have known her great grandmother, Salili Chandler. She was the granddaughter of a Chickasaw Nation Native American tribal chief. Her grandfather, Chief Chikasha taught his people integrity, humility, kindness, honesty and fearlessness. He taught them to stand for what was right and what they believed in. He taught them that the world was not always fair and to persevere and never give up. Salili reared her children with the same beliefs.
Grace never gave up. Being a female agent in a department of men was often a struggle. The belief that she would never be as good as the male agents was a thorn in her side. She spent many days fighting for a case she knew she could handle, only to be told no, that it was too hard or that she didn’t have the stomach for it, or that she was too cute for such a gruesome job.
Being of Native American heritage, she had all the traits of her ancestors. Grace was five feet seven inches tall with long black hair that reached to her waist. Her beautiful almond shaped hazel eyes and tan skin often prompted the male agents to make unwanted advances and be all around perverts toward her until she had to threaten with a lawsuit. But, in the end, she earned the respect of her co-workers by being diligent and solving more cases than anyone else in the department.
Continuing her walk, she passes a small sign that reads, “Blackfoot Trail”.
“Damn I hate walking through wooded areas.” Grace says under her breath.
The trail finally ended and Grace saw the bright lights, yellow caution tape and Crime Scene Response team working and the director of the paranormal division was already there.
“Good evening Director Tanner.” Grace says as she approached the scene.
“Hello Special Agent Chandler.” Gordon Tanner says.
“What do we have?”
Director Tanner motions to a young man standing over to the left of them to come over.
“This is CSR agent Jason Hayes. He’s been taking notes and will fill you in Grace.”
“Thank you.”
“Hello Jason.”
Jason nods.
“I don’t have a name yet, we’re working on that. But so far, I can tell you that she suffered. She looks to be between twenty and twenty-five years old. There are no witnesses. She has bruising around her ankles, neck and wrists, her back, inner thighs and breasts. She also has puncture wounds around her collar bone and the nape of her neck. Deep wounds resembling a… well, I’m not really sure what they resemble. I’ve never seen those before. There’s a mark, or tattoo, right above her right breast. It almost resembles a tribal tattoo of some sort, except there are more intricately etched lines in the center of it and the letter V.”
“Holy hell.”
“And the worst part, well, it looks like she just gave birth. There is an umbilical cord protruding from the wound on her stomach.” Jason says.
Grace nods a thank you at Jason and walks over to the body.
As she approaches, she catches the light smell of rotted meat. The victim is partially covered by leaves and has dirt under her nails. She has scratch marks on her neck that look as if she was trying to claw something away so she could breathe. The bruising on her body is significant. Some of them have started turning green, some yellow, which means they have been there more than five days. There are puncture wounds on her inner thighs that resemble bites. Bending down to get a closer look, Grace can see the shredded skin that was once her stomach. She forced the bile back down and continued to look at the body. Hearing footsteps behind her, Grace turns to see Jason walking over.
“Do you know about how long she’s been here? Or maybe an approximation of death?” Grace asks him.
“I don’t like to try to guess about time of death, I leave that to the coroner. There no way to pin point it to an exact time. But from the look of the area and scarcity of insects, she hasn’t been here long. Rigor mortis begins within two to six hours of death, starting with the eyelids, neck, and jaw. Over the next four to six hours, rigor mortis spreads to the other muscles, including those in the internal organs such as the heart. I checked her finger joint for movement and it isn’t in full rigor yet. So, I would guess she’s been dead between two and ten hours.”
“That’s a wide time frame.”
Jason shrugs.
“Do you have a name yet?”
“No. But we have narrowed down the missing persons list by her appearance and characteristics. We should have a name in the next few hours.”
“Witnesses?” Grace asks.
Jason shakes his head no.
“She suffered terribly.” Grace says.
“She did, yes. I hope we find this bastard soon.”
“I’m going now. I have to get to work on this case. Somehow, I have the feeling this one is not going to be so open and shut.”
Heading back up the foot trail, Grace goes back over the bite marks in her mind trying to determine what would make a mark like that. Possibly vampire, possibly canine. And what about the tattoo above her breast? Taking her phone out, she scrolled through to find Gideon Lykos’ number. Computer whiz and all-around genius. He’s helped her retrieve information in previous crimes and he’s also beta for the Lykos pack, his brother Roman being the alpha.
As she dials his number, the hairs on her neck start to prickle. Feeling uneasy, she casually looks around to see if anyone is there. Not seeing anyone, or anything, she continues to walk as the other line rings.
A deep male voice answers.
“What’s up Grace?”
“Hi Gideon. How’s it going?”
“Since you’re calling me, I would say not too good.” Gideon says with a grunt.
“You’re right on that.” Grace tells him.
“Look, I have a victim who has a tattoo above her right breast. It looks to be some kind of tribal or pack mark. Think you can help me find out where it originated from?”
“Of course. I’m always here to help. You said victim?”
“Yes. I did.”
Grace went over some of the details with Gideon leaving out some of the more personal ones.
“I’ll see what I can find out. You do know there isn’t but one pack in this area and that’s our pack, right?”
“Yes, I know that, but I have to start somewhere. Maybe they are encroaching on your territory, in which case I’m sure your brother Roman, the big alpha, will rip them to shreds.” Grace says with a smile.
“Do you think it was a wolf?” He asks her.
“No, I don’t. It doesn’t really look like a bite that a wolf could make.”
“Ok. I’ll get to work on that for you. How about you come and see me? Say tonight.”
“How about no? You lost your chance when we dated those few months and you felt the need to go outside of our relationship and satisfy your needs.”
“Ah hell baby. Give me another chance. Don’t make a wolf beg.”
Grace snorts.
“No.”
“I’ll send you photos when I have them. Let me know what you find out please.”
“So, it’s like that? You’re jus
t cutting me out, no looking back, no nothing?”
“Bye Gideon. Talk to you later.”
The last thing Grace hears as she disconnects is, “That’s one cold-hearted woman.”
Grace giggles.
Gideon Lykos. One hot man. At six feet seven inches tall, he towers over the other pack members. Tone, hot body with abs chiselled to perfection. His biceps pop at any little movement. He always has a calming effect on those around him, and those beautiful jade green eyes with swirls of amber can make you swoon. What a dog. Literally. The man is a chick magnet. They had dated for three months the year before. She had known him for about eight years. She was apprehensive about dating him but gave it a try. He was nice enough, a gentleman in every sense of the word. But he just couldn’t control his wandering eye. She had caught him one day when, unbeknownst to him, his brother Roman had invited her to a cook out. She had arrived, walked through the house and exited out the back door into the huge back yard and saw Gideon sitting at a table, with a blonde sitting on his lap drooling over him. She had turned to leave when she felt his hand on her shoulder. She spun around, punched him in the jaw and told him to kiss her ass. As she left the yard, she heard his pack mates laughing raucously and hurling insults at him. Dumb ass, ass hat, busted, and cock blocker were just a few she heard before slinging gravel across the yard on her exit from the drive way.
She had remained friends with him after she had gotten over the initial fury of her discovery. He was, after all, a good man. He just wasn’t a good boyfriend.
“Horn dog.” Grace says with a snort.
Coming out of her reverie, Grace reached the end of the trail. She could see her car now. As she stepped off the grass and onto the parking lot, she felt that sensation of being watched again. Looking around, she still saw nothing.
“Get a grip Grace. No one is there.”
Finally getting to her car, she took her keys, unlocked the door and slid in.
She sat for a few minutes looking at her surroundings. Still, nothing is visible to her, but somehow, Grace knows someone was watching her.
Chapter 2
Grace makes it back to the department and heads into her office. Not looking forward to this investigation, she stops and grabs a cup of coffee to boost her mood. She has no witness on this case. She’s got nothing but a body and a crime scene.