by Lotta Smith
“Hi, Stephanie! Thanks for picking me—” I meant to finish the sentence with “up,” but I couldn’t.
All of the sudden, the floor under my feet disappeared and I felt myself falling, being sucked into the dark abyss.
“Honey, how—what the heck?” Stephanie’s eyes widened, and I caught a flicker of fear in her hazel eyes. The last thing I saw was Stephanie staring down at me, mouth gaping like a fish. She must have recovered, because I heard, “Honey, what are you doing? We have a scene to shoot! Hello?” yelled down to me, her voice fading the further I got.
The fall seemed never ending. After I got over my initial terror, I found myself wondering if this was a new tactic concocted by my relatives. After all, my family used to be a group of powerful shamans long ago. As far as I knew, we had lost the supernatural power to manipulate the laws of nature and physics. Not to mention, they seemed to have forgotten about their history. For instance, the current emperor, my grandfather, was supposed to be the highest-ranked Shinto priest. His main job was to pray to the gods and goddesses for assistance in keeping our nation safe from natural disasters. Except, he’s an atheist. During his reign, we have suffered magnitude 8+ earthquakes not just once but three or four times and a massive amount of flooding with tsunamis. So, I’d be genuinely shocked if my family still possessed power to create a vacuum hole underneath me.
I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. This was too weird to be real. Hoping the whole thing was a daydream, I reopened my eyes. I was still falling. The tunnel was dark with not a speck of light, and I had yet to hit the ground despite plummeting for quite a long time at this point. The hotel building wasn’t as high as a skyscraper, and according to my mental calculation using my weight, I should have hit the ground and been smashed like a rotten tomato by now.
Suddenly, my eyes grew heavy and I felt terribly sleepy. As I shut my eyes, a part of me realized I’d be better off asleep or unconscious when I crashed and died, hopefully making that fatal moment as pain-free as possible.
They say your whole life flashes before you when you encounter a life-threatening incident, and I expected the same thing to happen to me, but I didn’t see my whole life in my mind’s eyes. Instead, I saw images of yummy-looking food and their recipes. Born as a princess, I’d never really cooked, but as I fell, it was as if the residual memory of a deceased chef was handed down to me, and my head was filled with the great wisdom of culinary arts.
I knew I would die soon and my ambition to rock the world as a reality TV star was over before it had even started, but I was strangely calm and happy.
Before completely lost consciousness, I decided to work on my culinary skills if I had a chance to be reincarnated in the future.
With a giggle, I fell asleep.
And seriously, I’d never felt so peaceful.
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About the author
Hi! My name is Lotta Smith. I’m the author of Paranormal in Manhattan Mysteries and Kelly Kinki Mysteries. I love everything comedy, from novels, TVs, to movies. In my teenage days, I was addicted to mysteries that involves amateur sleuth duo of a hot male professor and a quirky female student—with a light touch of romance sprinkled on top. So I went to medical school, partly because I wanted to see real dead bodies, and mostly because I was determined to meet sexy professors (specializing forensic pathology, perhaps) and go a-sleuthin’.
I got to see dead bodies and learn about the danger of petting zoos (sometimes, kids have their lips bitten off by…say, a pony!) but unfortunately, sexy professors were absolutely nonexistent. Recently, I realized that I’m a hopeless unromantic.
I’m hard at work writing new books.
To hear about new books and discounted book sales, please sign up for my newsletter at:
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And check out my other books on Amazon
Paranormal in Manhattan Mysteries: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07H7LHR31
PI Assistant Extraordinaire Mysteries:
Book 1: Ghostly Murder: http://amzn.to/204aWJ4
Book 2: Immortal Eyes: http://amzn.to/1T4DKC3
Book 3: Deadly Vision: http://amzn.to/1og0Pp9
Also, there’s a bundle of 3 books available…
Confessions of the Assistant Extraordinaire: amzn.to/1R3GaO6
In case you missed…
Paranormal in Manhattan Mysteries: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07H7LHR31
Book 1: Wicked for Hire: http://amzn.to/25IHH6X
Sometimes, the opportunity of a lifetime busts your door instead of gently knocking at it...
FREE on Kindle Unlimited!
Medical student Amanda Meyer thought she had her life all planned out until people started dying the moment they touched her. Being cleared of any wrongdoing didn't stop the medical school from expelling her, and it didn't rid her of the unfortunate nickname Grim Reaper.
Luckily, having a rep as the harbinger of death isn't a total resume killer. Rick Rowling, Special Agent for the FBI's Paranormal Cases Division recruits her to work for the Bureau. But the sexy, brilliant, outrageous loose cannon proves to be just as untouchable as the mysterious creature or creatures that may be responsible for the seemingly unsolvable murder that becomes their first case together.
Instead of treating patients, Amanda's life becomes a test of her patience and a wild ride into the wicked paranormal world where her new boss runs the show. Together they face a ghoulish force that could destroy the entire city and a grueling family dinner that could leave Amanda contemplating harakiri.
It's a battle of life and debt [student debt, that is] and saving the world has never been so funny.
Prologue
966 Park Avenue Tower
11:48 AM, November 10…
With a weird moan, her whole body shivering, she collapses onto the sofa.
I think she’s lucky that she’s already sitting on the sofa as she crumples. If she was standing, she might have cracked her head on the marble floor like Humpty Dumpty—which won’t be pretty.
She’s lying there, totally motionless. One elbow’s stiffly bent at a right angle, as if she’s turned into stone as the result of looking Medusa in the eye.
I gasp—fearing she’s dead.
Rick Rowling, the head of the FBI’s New York Paranormal Division and my boss for the past two days, approaches and touches her neck. Looking totally blasé, he confirms that she’s still alive.
I let out a sigh of relief.
On the other hand, Rowling announces that we leave the place because “It’s boring.”
My eyes widen with a total disbelief.
Of course, I disagree with him, but he brushes off my objection, stating that he doesn’t care about all the crap of making arrests, prosecuting, and taking cases to trial. Again, he says that it’s just a minor issue and he’s way too busy for that. “You know what? I have better things to do,” Rowling declares, turning on his heels to leave the condo.
“Excuse me, Rick,” I call to his back.
“What?” he asks, without turning around.
“We can’t just leave,” I say. Then it suddenly occurs to me that offending my boss isn’t in my best interest, so I add, “I’m afraid.”
“Why not?” He cocks his head. “Mandy, don’t be such a killjoy. The NYPD can work on the boring stuff, such as deciphering the social pathology of crimes and so on, because they have time to kill. On the other hand, I have no time to waste.”
“Okay, so we don’t need to decipher the social pathology of crimes, but we do need to figure out the whereabouts of the human-eating monster, don’t we?” I point out.
I’m not joking or exaggerating.
I’m talking about a practically imperishable ghoul which could eat up the entire population of New York State, if not the whole world.
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XOXO, Lotta Smith