by Elias Raven
Table of Contents
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
Shadow & Flame
Part 2
Elias Raven
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright 2017 Elias Raven
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover design: The Collective
Written by: Elias Raven
Published by: Elias Raven
Shadow & Flame Part 2
First edition – July 2017
All rights reserved
The Collective is here…
We’ve set the stage, created the characters, and fashioned a world full of twists and turns. Now it’s your turn to sit back and immerse yourself in this incredible series. Each episode weaves the characters and storylines of five standalone novels together to give you an epic crossover series. We’ve left you breadcrumbs, tidbits of information intertwined throughout our stories. Can you find them? Can you collect the clues we’ve left and become part of The Collective and solve the case?
Featured authors in order of appearance:
International bestselling author -Riley Edwards www.rileyedwardsromance.com
International bestselling author - Erin Trejo – www.authorerintrejo.weebly.com/
Best Selling author - Ellie Masters – www.elliemasters.com
Award winning author - Elias Raven – www.eliasraven.com
Award winning author - Chris Genovese – www.eroticmayberry.com
Best Selling author Carver Pike – www.carverpike.com
Season One
Riley Edwards - Unbroken (part one) http://amzn.to/2m4q79L
Erin Trejo - Iron Claw MC (part one) http://amzn.to/2mnB3C2
Ellie Masters - Learning to Breathe http://amzn.to/2mnxbRy
Elias Raven - Shadow & Flame http://amzn.to/2nfHeVr
Chris Genovese - Quills and Daggers http://amzn.to/2m4mEIa
Riley Edwards Unbroken (part two) https://books2read.com/u/mgKQzD
Erin Trejo – Iron Claw (part two) - https://books2read.com/u/bQZrJD
Ellie Masters - Becoming His ( Learning to Breathe part two)
https://books2read.com/u/bOrBJA
Elias Raven -Shadow & Flame (part two)
Carver Pike – We All Fall Down ( Quills and Daggers part two)
Connect with The Collective at:
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www.TheCollectiveNovels.com
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Table of Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgements
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
~Epilogue~
Dedication
This novel is dedicated to my online and real world family and friends that have stood by me patiently as this novel has come to fruition. In many ways, this story is the culmination of a dream. I hope you enjoy the world that I have created as much as I enjoyed bringing it to reality.
Thank you all for believing in me.
Elias Raven
Acknowledgements
Let me start off by thanking my fellow authors that are involved in The Collective Project: Riley Edwards, Erin Trejo, Ellie Masters and Chris Genovese/Carver Pike. Working through a ten book series with all of you, has been nothing short of a miracle. Thank you so much for your tireless work, late night conversations, and collaborative efforts to make this project come alive.
I would like to thank my Alpha Readers (you know who you are) for all of your help as I put the second book together. I would also like to thank my PA, Kendall Blackburn and friend and fellow co-author Riley Edwards for all of their tireless work and for putting up with me as I pieced together my second novel. Without their help the final draft would not have been completed. Thank you also to Chris Genovese for working with Kendall on tweaking certain parts of this novel, so that the final book flowed better with the end of the series. Thank you to Eva Poole my friend and partner in crime these many years for all of her help formatting and tweaking to get this book ready for publication. Thank you to Michelle L PA for all of her tireless work that she has done for all of the authors in The Collective Project.
To the entire Collective Beta Team, you rock! Thank you so much for all of your constructive feedback and suggestions that helped to make this story the best that it could be. Your efforts are truly appreciated, and none of us could have done this without you.
A big thank you to my street team, The Ravenettes, for all of your hard work promoting the new book and The Collective as a whole. Your enthusiasm and support has kept a smile on my face throughout the whole process.
I would like to give a special shout out to Riley Edwards for all of her work that she has done for The Collective as a whole. I would also like to thank Ellie Masters for planting the seeds that were the genesis of this story and for her continued support & friendship. You have both gone above and beyond to bring this project to life.
I want to give a very special thank you to my friend and mentor, Author Gina Whitney, for allowing me the singular honor of having four of her characters in this book. If it hadn’t have been for a chance meeting with this wonderful woman and a reading of Saving Abel, I would have never taken pen to paper and written my first novel.
Last, but not least, I would like to thank my fans in The Raven Cave. Without you, this journey would not have been possible. To all of you reading this work for the first time, enjoy the ride...
Chapter 1
~East Coker~
In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur, and faces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.
Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
And to shake the wainscot where the field mouse trots
And to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto.
Excerpt from Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot
Royston~ “What the fuck is that?” Rhianna said as Misty gasped while pointing at the window. We all turned to look at the dining room window, following her finger. We all saw the words scrawled on the fog-laden glass. The effect was eerie as the fog billowed along the sides of the house and all around us. “Ashes, A
shes, We All Fall Down?” Detective Logan said with hint of question lingering in the air. Reid looked at all of us and shook his head. “This is some kind of fucked up shit,” he mumbled to himself.
Rhianna and Misty were standing next to each other. They both tensed, and
I could tell by their body language that Reid’s comment wasn’t sitting well with either one of them. Before they decided to cut Reid off at the knees, I interjected into the conversation.
“Reid, you have been here with Detective Logan. We all saw and heard the same thing. There are an awful lot of coincidences that are occurring, not the least of which is the choice of music that whomever or whatever was outside chose to use just now,” I said.
Misty interjected herself at that point trying to keep her temper in check.
“Reid, I agree this is fucked up. Seriously, nothing like this has ever happened around here or to us. We live in SAUSA-FUCKING-LITO for Christ’s sake! We are talking about a really quiet and private neighborhood. On top of that, we don’t give our address out to everyone!” she exclaimed.
Reid paced around and looked over at Logan. The detective was already taking pictures of the window before the sunlight came back and evaporated the image. Since the window was wet when the message was left on the glass, there would be no fingerprints to retrieve. As if on cue, the sunlight broke through the fog, and the sky outside started getting noticeably clearer. Logan walked over to us.
“Look, I don’t know what is going on here, but now that the sun is coming out, I suggest we go check things out around the property and see if we can find any clues. You all need to stay right here and do not touch anything.
Rhianna looked at everyone then spoke her mind.
“We understand perfectly, but it is my fucking house. So you won’t mind if I join you in the hunt outside to find out if there was some assholes playing a prank on us today. There is a distinct possibility that if I find out that we have been pranked, I might just put a bullet in someone’s ass or between their eyes, then I might drag them through the back door and say it was trespassing?” she said with a very deadly seriousness.
“You don’t have any objections, do you, Detective Logan?” Rhianna smiled innocently at the officer.
Both Logan and Reid looked at each other then back at Rhianna.
“You are kidding, right?” Logan asked Rhianna.
“Yes I am, but if someone comes after us, officer, I am going to shoot first and ask questions later,” she replied with the slightest edge of venom in her voice.
“Then you won‘t have any objections when I haul your ass to the precinct in cuffs, will you?” Detective Logan replied back with the cocky grin and wink that you would expect from one of San Francisco‘s finest alpha cops.
“Fine, we will split up, but no one touches anything. Are we clear on that?”
Everyone nodded and agreed.
“Rhianna, Royston, you two come with me. Misty, go with Reid and check for anything out of place in the house. Reid, call me if you all find any clues. If we don’t do this by the book, anything we find will be inadmissible,” Logan instructed.
Logan nodded his head and we split up. I went with Logan through the back door along with Rhianna. We started searching the backyard and along the tree line. The property wasn’t fenced off per se because it was semi secluded. Rhianna’s house was at the end of the cul-de-sac and this allowed her property to be pretty well hidden by the tree line. It had a very rustic feel to it. The sides of the house were fenced off up to the front. She left the back yard open to the woods and the hillsides that rolled down from the back. They went together along each side of the house being careful not to touch anything. I could see that Rhianna had her hand firmly in her jacket pocket grasping her father's .38 special.
I knew Rhianna well enough to know she wasn’t kidding in what she had told Detective Logan.
She would shoot to kill and ask questions later. That really did concern me, because I also knew Detective Logan would do just as he said, too. He would not let her go off half-cocked and harm someone either. Detective Logan walked over to me while Rhianna was checking for something beneath a large redwood tree.
Logan pointed at the ground toward the house. He took pictures, showing me where the ground had been disturbed and where there were broken branches like something heavy had snapped them. You could tell that Logan’s years growing up on a farm and hunting for his supper were showing. He picked up telltale clues in the brush very quickly.
“If you look across here, most of the leaves and brush haven’t been disturbed. That would make sense since most of the people that live back here don’t go onto the hillsides or along the tree line. The owners do have to keep it cleared for fire season though, so they usually have someone come through and trim and clear brush prior to the summer. Since we are at the beginning of the year, none of this should have been disturbed. Also these look like fresh breaks,” he explained to me. I rubbed my chin watching as he laid it all out for me.
“I know you’re a sharp cookie, Royston. Now if you look at the ground here, see the trail going toward the house?”
I nodded my head.
“You sure it’s not something the girls do, maybe they hike back here?” he asked.
I honestly couldn’t remember if the girls hiked the back of their property or the neighboring properties or not. It wasn’t something we had ever discussed. I preferred giving them their privacy where I could and not to intrude too far into what they liked to do in their off time unless invited.
Logan shrugged his shoulders as Rhianna came over to join us. She pointed back at the redwood tree.
“I found this along the base of that tree, snagged in some of the bark. I took pictures of how I found it,” she informed us, showing us the pictures on her phone.
We walked back to the tree, and sure enough, there was some fabric caught at the base of the tree. From the initial look, I suspected cotton fabric, perhaps from a sock.
“Looks like white cotton, perhaps from a sock?” I suggested.
Detective Logan nodded his head in agreement.
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. I don’t see any other fabric, but there are broken branches here and the ground was wet enough that there are also some partial shoe prints in the mud.Unfortunately, nothing concrete enough to give the boys in the lab a call,” the detective said while pointing to the area in question.
We all looked at each other as I noticed some footprints that looked slightly off. I pointed it out to both Rhianna and Logan.
“Do you see that over there? There are more disturbances in the brush heading toward the neighboring property,” I stated.
Logan took more pictures while we followed along, but soon the brush cleared and the ground was harder and we lost the trail. We made our way back to the girl’s house where we found Reid and Misty in the back yard waiting for us.
“Did you guys find anything?” Reid asked.
“Nothing concrete as of yet, just bits and pieces. We were wondering if Lady Luck had perchance smiled in your direction,” I replied.
Both Reid and Misty shook their heads.
“If it’s ok with Detective Logan, I would suggest you two have a look over here behind the house. We did find a few things by that large redwood over there, so don’t disturb that area. Also, look across the yard and the back tree line area. There are some footprints that Logan was wondering if they might be yours. We will check the window and sides and see if we see anything else.” I told them. Detective Logan nodded in agreement.
Both girls nodded as Reid chimed in. “Hey, I am going to go with the ladies while you two check the sides. I want to ask them about the neighbors and get some info.”
I gave Logan the chin up signal and we made our way to the left side of the house first. The window that had been written on was rather high up. Whoever or whatever had done it would have had to be over average height. I would think they would have to be leaning towards six feet or mor
e in stature unless one was standing on a step stool or plastic bucket. A thorough examination of the soil, however, didn’t provide any indication that was the case, so we kept looking further. We looked for any sign of fingerprints on the window ledge. The moisture from the fog along with the abrupt return of the sun wiped out any chance we had to find prints.
The left side gate was unlocked, which was strange. Normally, the girls kept the gates secured. I would have to ask them about that later?
We walked through and continued our examination of the front driveway, but found the cul-de-sac eerily quiet. We walked over to the right side of the house and found that gate also unlocked. . We walked carefully down the side of the house but didn’t find any further evidence. We continued walking toward the back of the house and found Reid and the ladies waiting for us in the back yard.
“Did you find anything?” Misty asked.
I shook my head and we all started to make our way back inside. Right near the back steps, Detective Logan caught a small movement on one of the pillars. He found another small piece of fabric. This one was grey and black. I motioned for everyone to stop moving and pointed to the fabric where Logan was already taking pictures. Logan pulled a small plastic bag out of his pocket and carefully retrieved the fabric.
“This is just a suggestion, but why don’t we retrieve that other clue as well now that we are done investigating the backyard. You ladies did have a look already right? I asked.
“We can mark off the area and map it if we need too. We probably won’t get any detail out of the fabric, but now we have found two pieces.” I said holding up two fingers.
We went back into the house. Rhianna went and made a fresh pot of tea for me and coffee for the guys while the rest of us sat around the table again. We reviewed our notes and Reid suggested they finish the original interview that had been planned before we had any further interruptions.