Death Be Shifted
Katie Epstein
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
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
DEATH BE RISING
Author Bio
Acknowledgments
To Marta,
You made a difference to the story.
And both I, and the story, will never forget it.
Thank you.
1
Cold.
Darkness.
A world where isolation became my prison, a cage without bars. And no escape. No future to crave.
“Keep quiet, bitch,” the orderly, Edwin, spat in my ear, dragging me along the dark, cold hallway. “Behave yourself, and I won’t screw you here and now. We’ll just play.”
His laughter turned my stomach, but I stopped resisting. If he ever tried to carry out on his threat, I vowed to hurt him with all I had. But if I left tonight with only a grope, then I could handle it—just as I’d done for the past few months after his hands had first wandered.
“Good girl.” Edwin’s breathing grew labored, and I closed my eyes to the sound of his lust. Hopefully, tonight, Dr. Warwick’s experiment would be a long one, and Edwin wouldn’t have time to play before throwing me back into my room—not when the day staff was due to begin their shift during the early dawn.
The stone stairs leading to the basement felt icy cold beneath my feet, Edwin having refused me my slippers again. I shuddered against the growing darkness that lingered in the abandoned rooms beneath the hospital.
“Ah, Terra!” Dr. Warwick welcomed me as if I were his favored niece rather than a patient. Edwin pushed me into the room, and the doctor ushered me forward. But then I saw the chair.
Cushioned, yet worn, it lay horizontally with straps ready to hold me down—to keep me still.
Edwin pushed me toward it, but when I noticed the needles on a trolley close by, I resisted, beginning to struggle once more. He backhanded me, taking advantage of my disorientated state to shove me into the chair.
I screamed when I felt them buckle my wrists into the leather bindings. But no matter how hard I fought, I could never escape, exhausting myself into compliance.
“Why the fuss?” Dr. Warwick cooed, tapping the inside of my elbow to find a vein. “All we need to do is draw some blood. I have another drug for you to try. This one will make you a little sleepy while I run a few more tests. Nothing to worry about.”
I had plenty to worry over. I knew what the blood taking meant. The doctor would draw too much. He always did. Then his idea of fun would begin. Tonight would be no different.
Feeling the room swim as my blood filled one vial after the other, I begged for some form of oblivion. But none came.
“Edwin.” Dr. Warwick waved him over while he wrote notes in his weathered book. “You remember what we discussed?”
“Oh, yes,” he replied excitedly.
“Good. Let me wire up our dear patient first.”
I had no strength left to fight as the sadistic doctor wired me up to his machines. He poised a thumb over the button on his stopwatch.
“One minute this time, Edwin. Not a second more.”
Edwin grinned, his buck teeth yellow and stained. He placed his fat fingers over my mouth and nose, and I struggled in my panic to breathe.
“Let us begin.”
“No!” I screamed, my words muffled through his fingers. I fought for breath against the human barrier, torn between falling into the darkness and craving air. “No!”
Warm hands touched my face, stroked my cheek with tenderness. And suddenly, Edwin shimmered away.
“Terra,” I heard someone say. Someone I knew. “I’m here.”
A kiss caressed my lips, a warmth I knew well, and I responded, needing the contact, the beautiful way the person tended to me.
“Come back,” the voice whispered. “Come back to me…”
I followed the words, feeling the butterfly touch of their kisses tempting me out of the fog. A face I recognized slowly swam into view.
“Kaleb,” I croaked. The realization I’d gotten lost in a dream hit me hard and fast.
In a sudden rush, I sat up and held onto him, the horrors of my past taking hold. He held me tight, pulled me close, comforting me.
“It’s okay,” he whispered. “I’m here.”
As he soothed, rubbing comforting circles on my back, I focused on the contact, absorbing his warmth. Slowly, the remnants of the dream that had encased me in old memories, fell away.
Dan Vasquez, an elf disguised as a human and working for the FBI, had found me those many years ago. He’d believed my pleas when my mom had ignored them. He’d rescued me. Taken me away from that cold and cruel place and rid the earth of Dr. Warwick and Edwin once and for all. He had told me of another world that sat through a portal in Seattle, one where people would accept my psychic gifts.
At sixteen years of age, I left the nightmare of the psychiatric hospital and got thrown into a life I would never have thought possible.
Vampires. Shifters. Fairies. Mermaids. Every mythical creature you can think of has some tie to Portiside. Isn’t it said there is many a truth in myth? Well, that’s the case of the world where I’ve lived since the day I got transported through a magical gateway.
After years of studying in my new home, I finally got my wish to become an Enforcer Field Agent for the Portiside City Agency. Recently, my boss had assigned me to lead the IET—the Interside Enforcement Team—and he ordered us to hunt down several criminals who’d escaped a top security prison in our world. They were dangerous convicts, ones who’d stolen a bomb and blasted through the portal to hide out on Earthside.
So far, we had them contained in Seattle with the use of magical wards being energized around the city to block them from escaping. But that’s the only support we had. Other than that, it left the six of us to delve into the darkness and hope for new leads. After many traumatic investigations and some close calls, we’d rid the world on both sides of some nasty criminals. Five down, only seven more to go.
Taking a few deep breaths, I found the firm foundation of reality while in the warmth of Kaleb’s hold, and, slowly but surely, the terror seeped away.
“Thanks,” I mumbled, drawing away from him. But he didn’t let me go far. Holding me close, he studied me while brushing the hair from my face.
“Nightmare?”
I nodded. “You could say that.”
“Want to talk about it?”
I shook my head automatically, a defense mechanism of keeping my present and past separate. But when I noticed his frown, I realized I didn’t want to shut him out anymore—not as I’d often done in the past. Things were different now. Bef
ore we hadn’t entertained turning our friendship into something more, and I’d felt uncomfortable including him in my shit. But now, after my fun-loving player of a partner had edged his way into my heart, I wanted to drop the barriers because I loved him.
Yes. I’d fallen in love with the goof. And now, after many years of friendship, we’d decided to test the waters of dating.
We’d done a lot of kissing before going to sleep last night, and, in an unusually romantic gesture, Kaleb had vowed a no-sex rule until we’d had at least three dates. I’d laughed at his philosophy, but humored him as he wanted to prove us being together wasn’t just sex for him. There were feelings on both sides, but I’d gone and done the whole shebang and fallen head over heels.
Kaleb didn’t know that though. Sex wasn’t the only thing we had to drip-feed into our relationship, him being the first to admit he’s a commitment-phobe.
Placing my hand lightly against his cheek, I stroked it soothingly as I explained to him, “Bad memories. From the hospital.”
“The ones who hurt you?” He pulled me closer, the anger he felt for my experiences eking its way across his handsome face.
“Yeah. The doctor, he took some blood. A lot of blood. Before they conducted the oxygen test.”
“The what?”
“Suffocating me for a minute to see if my gift responded.”
“What?” His beautiful blue wolf-shifter eyes turned amber-gold from the rage both he and his wolf felt.
“I didn’t go through it again.” I tenderly tucked the fallen tendrils of his dark blond hair behind his ear. “You stopped it before he could finish his experiment. You brought me around.”
Taking a calming breath, he lay back down beside me. “It doesn’t change the fact you went through it once. I want to kill them. Rip their goddamn heart out!”
“Kaleb?”
“What?”
“Your eyes are amber.”
“I know,” he replied grumpily.
I fed my hands through his hair and tugged him closer, putting my lips on his.
He took comfort from it at first, calming somewhat, but then the passion exploded beneath us. Our tongues clashed, our hands roamed, and he touched me as often as he could without taking it to the next level. But that didn’t stop him skimming my breasts, devouring my neck, rubbing himself up against me.
We were breathless when suddenly someone banged on the door of the basement.
The owner of the expensive house had converted the lower floor into a game room with all the trimmings—a home where our team temporarily lived. But the basement had a lock to give us some element of privacy.
“I didn’t lock it,” Kaleb breathed, his hands warm on my skin where my top had ridden up. I loved the feel of his hands on me. I needed more from him, wanted more, but reluctantly, I moved away.
“I’m coming down,” we heard Mayra shout from the top of the stairs. “Make sure you’re not doing it!”
I groaned aloud and grabbed a pillow to cover my face. I hadn’t told our team witch and dear friend yet about me and Kaleb finally getting on—regarding making out a lot anyway—but from the sounds of it, she already knew.
Kaleb laughed and snatched the pillow off me. Mayra appeared at the bottom of his bed.
My cheeks flamed seeing her stand there with her arms crossed, her brow raised in question. But as uncomfortable as I was, I had to smile at the evolution Mayra’s fashion sense had undergone the longer we spent over here. Her usual closet of steampunk-fashioned attire appeared less and less, and a more sedate, floral dress had become her regular style. She’d also tamed that white-blonde hair of hers, no longer back combed within an inch of its life. But the bright aquamarine bow she wore to match her striking eyes reassured me my friend still stood before us.
“Now I understand why you didn’t sleep in your room last night,” Mayra said in humor. She took pleasure in making me cringe beneath her gaze.
Sitting up and pulling my top back down over my stomach, I tried to explain: “We had a late night, so I crashed down here.”
“Sure you did.” She winked. “But if this is what I think it is, then I’m pleased about it. Bernard and I were trying to work out which one of us should bang your heads together first.”
Kaleb nudged me as if to say ‘I told you so.’ I rolled my eyes and swung my legs off the bed.
“I’ll come upstairs with you now. We can have a coffee and a chat.”
“That will have to wait, I’m afraid,” she replied. “Dan called. He tried your cell, but, apparently, it went to straight to voicemail.”
Groaning inwardly at the thought of leaving my cell upstairs in my room, I asked, “What did he want?”
“You need to call him as soon as you can. Like, now.”
“Fine,” I sighed, getting up, but Kaleb pulled me back. “Kaleb!”
He hooked a finger beneath my chin, drawing me to him for a kiss.
“Aww,” Mayra said, bringing me back down to Earth with the bump. I quickly pulled away and shoved at his shoulder.
“You’re an ass.”
“And you need to learn that you don’t spend the night with a man and then refuse to kiss him the morning after. It’s rude.”
“Rude, eh?”
He shrugged. “I don’t make the rules.”
“Ugh. I need to call Dan.” To Mayra, I said, “We didn’t sleep together.”
She put her hands up. “I’m not judging.”
Kaleb sniggered.
“Mayra, turn him into a toad.”
“There’s no point,” said Kaleb. “You’d only kiss my sexy frog mouth better and turn me into a sexy specimen again.”
I shuddered, the reference too close for comfort. Only recently had we taken out a soul-borrowing demon, one who had hijacked the soul of a serial killer obsessed with fairytales. He’d called himself The Bard and captured me at the victim’s home who he’d dressed as The Frog King. Or Frog Prince. Or whatever the hell he had called it.
“I believe I’ve had enough of fairy tales, thank you very much,” I told them both, heading for the stairs. “I’m off to call Dan.”
2
After discovering my cell was dead, I charged it up enough to make the call.
Nursing a cup of coffee in the kitchen, I dialed the number of the Special Agent in Charge of the Seattle Division of the FBI, my temporary boss while I was over on this side of the portal, and someone who I love like family.
The last time we’d spoken, Dan had given me the employee acceptance paperwork for FBI Agent Noah Grady to become a member of the IET.
Grady and I had worked together on The Bard case. And after my confession to the strait-laced human with the gift of seeing the dead—including the ghost of his deceased partner—Grady had sidled away with a promise to let me know about his decision in accepting the opening in the Interside Enforcement Team.
That’s how we’d left it. Grady knowing some of our world, but not all of it. And he only had a few weeks to make a decision that would turn his organized human world upside down.
So much had happened since we’d chased the prisoners through to Earthside. A large part of those changes coming from the evolution of my gift. But it had begun before that, beginning with the moment I found I could control a rogue shifter through his energy back in our world of Portiside. Afterward, I’d somehow gained the capability to do much more with my so-called psychic abilities, including the conclusion I could hear the voice of Grady’s ghost friend, Karl Danes. That’s something I needed to speak to both Dan and my previous FBI partner about—if only I could find the guts.
Dan answered on the third ring, and the sound of his voice soothed me some. “Hey, kid,” said Dan when he answered the phone. I heard him move around, and close a door behind him. “Thanks for calling me back.”
“No problem. What’s up?”
“Want to jump straight to it, eh?”
I smiled. “Yeah. You could say that.”
“Talked to Gra
dy yet?”
“Kind of. I’ll speak to him more when I get the chance. I’ll tell him more then. I’m spoon feeding it to him.”
“Don’t take too long. He may want the additional time to think about it after you’ve given him all the facts.”
Guilt hit me at the thought, and I asked, “What if I tell him everything and he can’t handle it?”
“Grady can handle it. I wouldn’t have thrown him into your path if I didn’t think so.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“Have a little faith. You handled the information about Portiside easy enough back when you emigrated over.”
“It was different for me. I was leaving hell behind.”
“You were sixteen and scared. Yet you still did it. And you’ve blossomed from being in a world that accepts your gift. Maybe Grady will, too.”
On that note, “Dan… When I came through Immigration, did I pass the tests as expected?”
“What do you mean, kid?”
“I mean, were there questions about what I am?”
Silence hovered over the line before he continued. “I’m not sure. I could ask around for you?”
Your testing was overseen by a Finder, one who protects you as if you were his own, the powerful vampire, Marco Perduto’s, words floated to mind. Dan being the Finder who’d overseen my testing.
“Is there any reason you’re asking?” Dan’s voice brought me back to the conversation.
“No. No reason.”
“Terra… If there is something on your mind…”
Death Be Shifted (The Terra Vane Series Book 6) Page 1