Shifting Problems

by Jason Paul Rice

  Shifting Problems

  Bloodline Awakened Supernatural Thriller Series, Book 1

  Jason Paul Rice

  Copyright 2017 by Jason Paul Rice

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. All names are made up and used fictionally. Any resemblance to real people is completely coincidental. Any resemblance to real events is only part of the author’s imagination.

  Cover Art by Ljiljana Romanovic

  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

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Preview: Graveyard Uprisings: Bloodline Awakened Supernatural Thriller Series, Book 2

  1

  I heightened my senses to detect dark forces as I lingered in the lobby. Satisfied the building was clean, I let my magic subside back down into the reservoir.

  I entered the meeting room and guilt attacked me as I said hello to the other members. I had sworn an oath in front of the Celtic Gods to protect Pittsburgh from demonic entities. In exchange for my oath, the druidic physicians and healing witches had cured my lung cancer. The Gods had also promised to turn me into a powerful wizard, awakening the bloodline I shared with Merlin, but I was only twenty-three, beginning a lifelong journey of magic.

  As I sat down, my guilty feelings increased, knowing I had an underworld advantage in my battle, while the rest of the group was at the mercy of their insurance providers to stay alive. I was a proud regular at the Cancer Support Group on Locust Street in Oakland.

  We sat on folding chairs set up in a horseshoe configuration. The early morning sun crept through a set of cracked blinds, casting long shadows across the burgundy carpeting. A small table in the corner had a pot of coffee and pumpkin-spiced rice crispy treats on it. The heat kicked on, creating a competing aromatic swirl of java, perfume and cologne.

  A woman with a gaunt face and red handkerchief covering her bald head stood up. “I’m Stacy and I’m a cancer fighter.”

  We all rang out, “Hi, Stacy.”

  Stacy scratched one of the moles on her pale cheek with a trembling thumb and sniffled through her flared nostrils. “I’m doing better, but not out of the woods yet. I’ve been given a forty-percent chance at survival.” Tears formed in her reddened eyes and she produced a used tissue from her pocket. She blew her nose and everyone waited patiently. Her soft voice cracked as she continued, “I know that’s not the greatest odds, but I’m going to beat it.” She barely got the last few words out.

  The rest of the support group started clapping and I jumped up from my chair. I took four steps forward and wrapped my arms around Stacy. Her forehead hit my clavicle and her tears meshed into the fabric of my hoodie with the cursive writing, Merlino Detective Service, across the chest.

  I hadn’t known her before she had walked through that entrance door about an hour ago, but when you’re fighting cancer, we all fight under the same flag.

  I felt the warmth of her body, but it wasn’t complete warmth, almost an artificial heat. She was in pain. Her outer shell carried the heat and hid the icy glacier just beneath the surface. Fighting cancer could do that to a person. You could lie to everyone else about it, but deep down, you could never fool yourself.

  It didn’t take a wizard to sense her pain. The group leader, Sharon, cleared her throat for several seconds. The stubborn phlegm didn’t want to come up. It was like centuries of collected cobwebs that she wildly swatted away with a broom, only to create a tangled mess on the bristles and tire herself out in the process.

  She finally wrestled the obstruction loose, chewed it up, took a swig of her Diet Dr. Pepper, and swallowed it. I wanted to gag. Sharon said, “Thank you for sharing, Stacy. I know it’s difficult right now, but you have this group behind you. If you ever need anything, we have a master list of everyone’s phone numbers that you can take with you.”

  It’s hard to explain what it had been like to hear the diagnosis, once the words finally seeped through the thick layers of shock and denial. Everything had changed. I’d heard almost all those words during the diagnosis a million times before, but not in that particular order. And not that one particular word. Cancer.

  I remembered what it was like at first. Why me? What did I do to deserve this? Everything faded, became dull, jejune, vapid, pallid. Like there was nothing there. Everything was stupid. Everything sucked. I was simply waiting to die. A skeleton of bones waiting for the flesh to waste away.

  It was important to have people invest emotionally in you when your head was in that state. For me, it was Alayna, the wingless faerie, my savior, and my mentor. I loved her more than my limited vocabulary could properly express. She had taken me to the druidic underworld known as the Deep Burrow and introduced me to the Celtic Gods.

  Some of these survivors didn’t have anyone to turn to, nobody to give a shit about them. You needed somebody, and I wanted to be that somebody that everyone could lean on.

  I had an amazing advantage fighting my cancer, and even then it was a great struggle. I wanted to be there for the fighters who didn’t have a strong support system. I let go of Stacy, looked encouragingly into her crying green eyes, and we both returned to our seats.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket and I slid it out just enough to see who it was. Lieutenant Gretchen Meyer of the newly formed Pittsburgh Police Department of the Occult. I checked the message and it said she needed to talk to me. Strange. She never wanted to talk to me unless she desperately needed help.

  I had been providing detective work, even though I didn’t fully understand the craft, for the past year to pay rent and bills. Alayna hadn’t told me the whole truth when she had promised that I wouldn’t have to worry about money. I thought I would get a rich benefactor to put me up in a mansion and give me a new car every week. Wrong. Wrong to the tenth.

  I texted Lieutenant Meyer back and let her know that I was in a meeting. My phone immediately buzzed again with one word in all caps. URGENT. Gretchen, who hated it when I called her by her first name, was never one for one-word messages so I had a good idea something big might have happened. Finally.

  I had taken on several cases over the last year, only to have them turn out to be paranormal hoaxes and the alien attack had turned out to be nothing more than a rabid barn owl, so I hoped I would finally have the chance to take on a real case.

  I texted her back to pick me up at the meeting. I had left a few meetings before they ended, but I always felt terrible about it. These survivors were now my battle brothers and sisters and I wanted to be there for them, as they had for me, for the entire meetings. Unfortunately, the meetings weren’t going to ward off my mentor/angry landlord, Alayna.

  Ten minutes later, another text came through. Gretchen was waiting outside, so I apologized and slipped out the gray door with a square slab of glass at about head level. I stepped out into the chilly autumn day and secured the middle button on my leather jacket.

  I opened the passenger door of the ’98 Jeep Cherokee. Gretchen had never picked me up in a squad car. I ho
pped in and was met by a stiff face and pursed lips. G.M., another nickname I had given her that she hated, scratched her firm chin. I assumed she was in her mid-forties, short and stout, filling out the black police uniform. Her German roots had given her amber eyes, short, sandy-blond hair, bronze skin with light freckling, and a tough-as-nails attitude.

  She barked, “You’re not carrying anything wet this time, are you?”

  I turned away from her and looked at the sky. A cerulean setting streaked with ivory clouds. No gray ones to be found. “What are you talking about?”

  She spoke in a light German accent and a deep voice for a woman, “Look, it only takes one time. I don’t know what to expect out of you.”

  One time. One time, I had been experimenting with potions and the process went a little haywire. The tiny vial exploded in her car, soaking most of her vehicle and me. In my defense, I did pay for her to have the entire SUV professionally shampooed. I had hoped she would turn down the offer from a broke young man struggling to make his way. I overestimated her. She had told me I needed to learn responsibility someway.

  “We’re all good this time. What is so important?”

  She pulled out onto the main road and jammed down the gas pedal. “What do you know about animal shifting?”

  Okay, this party just got kicked into overdrive. “What is your real question, G.M.?”

  She turned and stared at me as she flew down 5th Avenue. “What did I tell you about that? We’re not in some fraternity together, dude, so show me respect and call me Lieutenant. All right now. Who in this city is capable of shifting into a demon-like creature?”

  Now we were getting somewhere. Paranormal activity had been on the rise in Pittsburgh for the past decade, hence the new department that had been set up about a year ago. “Off the top of my head, that’s a little difficult to say. I’d first probably say it could be the McNights.”

  “They are a huge family. I assume the McNights from the goth bowling alley?”

  “Those are the ones. I’ve received a few stories that they are connected to demons from the Red Cavern. Not sure if I believe it and I can’t get close to them because I don’t have any proof other than hearsay.”

  Gretchen turned to me again and let the car veer toward oncoming traffic. The blaring car horn alerted me to grab the wheel with some of my mental magic and jerk it back into our lane.

  She peeked over a few times, trying to keep her attention on the road. “Are you sure? Any corroboration you could provide?”

  She knew that the underworld of demons named the Red Cavern was real, but she didn’t want to believe it. Nobody did. Not even me. For heading a specialized department dealing with the occult, G.M. hadn’t the slightest interest in the paranormal and taken the job for the pay raise only. She remained focused on making enough money to start her own detective agency. She hadn’t confessed the details to me, but I knew she hated working for someone else and really hated taking any advice from someone half her age.

  I couldn’t argue with her on either measure, especially the latter. I wouldn’t want to take advice from a ten-year-old in the same way that she wouldn’t want to take advice from a twenty-three-year-old know-it-all. What could I say, I had a lot of knowledge in my head and was proud to share it. I just needed to work on my delivery and sarcasm so I didn’t come across as such an asshole.

  I knew it was a deficiency, but I was working on it. Most of my time during my cancer recovery was spent with Mabon, the youthful God. It had done wonders for learning new information, but little for my development as a mature adult.

  I also suffered from social anxiety because I wasn’t fully comfortable with myself. I was okay talking to people as a detective or once I got to know someone.

  “Yeah, see, corroboration, see.” I mocked in a funny tone, like the bad guy from the Dick Tracy cartoons. I used to watch them with my Mom. “You know how I work. Have any of my uncorroborated stories turned out to be false? Give me the whole picture, G.M., not just little hints.”

  “It’s Lieutenant Meyer, you dolt. All right, tough guy, you ready? We received a report about a board meeting in the PNC Building downtown.”

  “Sounds pretty exciting.” I jabbed at her.

  She huffed, and cutoff another car to get into the right lane. “If you’ll allow me to finish. One surviving eye-witness said that Darren Danbergh suddenly changed into a dark, reptilian figure and used its massive claws and teeth to rip into, and devour everyone in the meeting, except for one traumatized eye-witness. One of my colleagues said it was the most gruesome crime scene she has ever seen. And she’s seen them all.”

  “Okay, if that’s true, we seem to be driving away from the city.”

  “Ahh, very good Einstein.”

  “I’m smarter than you.” Damn my childish nature.

  “Not sure if you want to be bragging about that.”

  “I’m smarter than you.” I don’t know how the second one slipped out of my mouth again. I needed to work on that.

  “Focus. We are going to the house of the shifter. Scrounged up some quick information that he had a live-in girlfriend. Thirty-two year old Ruth Westerhouse. Quite a last name there.”

  “Is she from, ‘The Westerhouses?’”

  “The one and only. Although it sounds like she was ousted from the good graces of the family.”

  The Westerhouses basically ran the city of Pittsburgh. You couldn’t walk more than two blocks without seeing a sign for one of their numerous businesses.

  “The shifter. What’s the file on him?”

  “Darren Danbergh. Up and coming Vice President at PNC. Co-workers say he kept to himself. Not much more information as of yet.”

  “I can already tell you’ve visited the crime scene. Where is this house?”

  “Fox Chapel. Should be there in about five minutes.” She speeded up.

  I wondered if G.M. knew that Fox Chapel was becoming a hotbed of paranormal activity. I had several side jobs, separate from Gretchen’s work, which proved that a lot of rich people were suddenly dabbling in the dark art of magic. Dark magic almost always carried a tragic cost. Or so I had heard.

  Being a novice in the game of magic was frustrating. The one thing I had learned was that I hadn’t learned very much. I had absorbed about two drops out of the ocean of magic. I had the ability to harness more magic than almost anyone in the world. The end-game potential was scary. I had learned about the different nuances of magic, the threat of the Red Cavern, and how to use magic in the city with thousands of innocent people running around, but I still yearned for more.

  We arrived at the house.

  2

  I got out of the car and took a gander at the place. Nice house. Not Westerhouse nice, but I would have loved to call it home.

  A two-story house, the bottom level made of brick that receded into the second floor covered with dirty white aluminum siding in desperate need of a power wash. Two Doric columns held a rectangular roof over the entrance to the house and a walkway snaked around the yard, ending near the mailbox. A Lincoln Navigator sat in the driveway. The vehicle had the two driver’s side wheels in the driveway but the other two were in the grass.

  Gretchen parked in front of the house and we made the awkward walk to the doorway. I didn’t know what to say. Oh, hey, sorry to bother you, but do you have a minute to talk about how your boyfriend turned out to be a grisly murderer? Or, maybe you’d like to discuss how you were booted from the richest family in Pittsburgh? Neither sounded like a good opening line.

  I had experience in consoling people, but in those situations, I wasn’t trying to garner information. Totally different ballgame when you were trying to pry information out of a traumatized witness.

  We got out of the car and walked up the cobblestone walkway. We were about ten feet from the entrance, when the glass screen door opened toward us. Gretchen dug into her pocket to grab her badge as a woman came outside and held her hand up in a fist.

  Disheveled, st
rung-out and tired were the first words to pop into my head. The short woman with dyed bright red hair and black roots had freckles under a heavy sheen of makeup. Her dainty nose and the complete package made me envision that Little Orphan Annie had grown up to be a stripper.

  She screamed, “I told you we would have the stuff ready, when it’s ready.” She stopped when Gretchen held up her badge.

  “Ma’am, I am Lieutenant Gretchen Meyer of the Pittsburgh Police Occult Unit. This is detective Merlino.”

  I nodded my head, tightlipped. “Ma’am.”

  “What do you want with me?” Her face went pale, and I realized she didn’t know.

  What the hell, G.M.? Being the first to talk to a witness is great, but I didn’t know we were rolling up Grim Reaper style. I took a deep breath and hoped Gretchen would take the lead. She didn’t.

  “Ma’am. I’m afraid we have some bad news for you. Your boyfriend is suspected of some really heinous criminal behavior.” I danced around the exact truth and had to be delicate. I didn’t know how to say it. “Multiple murders.” I can’t believe those were the comforting words I settled on.

  Her crying eyes rolled back in her head and she looked like she might pass out.

  Smooth, real smooth.

  I reached out, hooked underneath her sweaty armpits and held her up. It wasn’t dead weight. I helped straighten her out and rubbed my ridiculous mustache. Not because I wanted to play with the ratty stash, I needed a quick sniff.

  Body odor, yes, but body odor was drowned out by deodorant. Not a clue, but this was a sign. My suspicion had been raised. I leaned in and hugged the woman. I pulled her close and the shorter woman lay her head on my chest.