Shadow Burns: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Preternatural Affairs Book 4) by S.M. Reine Page A
Authors: S.M. Reine
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off my waist, struggled to the door.
Flinging it open, I found my living room on the other side.
No hallway. No weird light. Just my dingy apartment with its IKEA furniture and Suzy sleeping like the little angel she wasn’t.
I raked a hand through my hair, leaving it standing up in sweaty spikes.
It really had been a nightmare. Just a nightmare. Everything was fine.
I’d escaped Paradise Mile. I was safe.
And my bedside clock still read 11:59.
CHAPTER FIVE
ON FRIDAY, I WENT to work like normal, answered a lot of emails, and told Fritz that I was going to spend my weekend finishing up the paperwork from the Paradise Mile case. Don’t call me, I’ll be busy. That kind of thing.
On Sunday, I went back to Mojave.
The official word was that the Paradise Mile was closed. I hadn’t been assigned a new investigation yet, but Fritz said he’d probably have something for me on Monday.
Whatever the OPA thought, whatever we were telling the families of the victims, the case wasn’t closed for me. And I only partially thought that because I couldn’t stop dreaming of that goddamn hallway.
“Shouldn’t we have brought more stuff with us?” asked Isobel Stonecrow, the woman sitting in the passenger seat of my car.
I turned onto the dirt road leading into the Paradise Mile canyon. “More what?”
“More…” She gestured vaguely at nothing. “Just more . More weapons. More staff. More body armor or something. If you think a demon’s responsible for these deaths…”
“It’s just a funeral.” I massaged my dry, tired eyes with my fingertips. “We’re not getting attacked today.”
My car bounced through a pothole and Isobel winced. “If you’re certain.” Her teeth clacked against each other audibly as the dirt grew rougher.
I hadn’t had an excuse to borrow one of the SUVs from the OPA’s motor pool, so we’d been enjoying a bumpy, janky ride all the way out to the desert. Isobel was tolerating it well. She hadn’t complained once.
Optimistically, I thought that driving my old sedan was kind of like having a massage chair working on my sore muscles.
Less optimistically, I regretted not taking next model year’s Corvette from Fritz’s house. He’d been nagging me to take one of his cars for weeks, claiming that my sedan was a death trap and that I should be driving something safer. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to take him up on the offer. Call it pride or whatever. I was starting to think Fritz was right.
Nothing charms a woman less than taking her for a ride in a car held together with duct tape and wishes.
“Are you okay?” Isobel asked, surprising me. I was the one shaking her apart in my car. I’d been thinking of asking her the same question.
“Why’s that?”
“You don’t look good.”
Suzy had said something similar when I’d seen her on Friday afternoon. Actually, she’d said, “You look like the shit I stepped in outside my townhouse this morning,” and then brandished her dirty shoe at me, but that was Suzy for you.
“Just having a hard time sleeping.” I rubbed my eyes again. They were so dry. My hands felt heavy, too.
Isobel made a sympathetic sound. Wonder if she would have been as sympathetic if I’d told her the whole truth: that I kept dreaming circles around the house in Paradise Mile, walking through that same hallway for nights on end, glimpsing red nothingness outside my front door’s peephole.
Suzy’s assessment was closer to accurate than Isobel’s. I looked and felt like shit, and I was probably insane for going back to that house.
We reached the mouth of the canyon to find news vans waiting for us. No more black SUVs, no sign of OPA control at all. Just news vans with satellites mounted on their roofs and a lot of reporters trying not to squint from the intensity of the lights beating down on them.
If the media was there, then the OPA hadn’t just closed the case. We’d decided that we had nothing to do with it. Otherwise, we never
Flinging it open, I found my living room on the other side.
No hallway. No weird light. Just my dingy apartment with its IKEA furniture and Suzy sleeping like the little angel she wasn’t.
I raked a hand through my hair, leaving it standing up in sweaty spikes.
It really had been a nightmare. Just a nightmare. Everything was fine.
I’d escaped Paradise Mile. I was safe.
And my bedside clock still read 11:59.
CHAPTER FIVE
ON FRIDAY, I WENT to work like normal, answered a lot of emails, and told Fritz that I was going to spend my weekend finishing up the paperwork from the Paradise Mile case. Don’t call me, I’ll be busy. That kind of thing.
On Sunday, I went back to Mojave.
The official word was that the Paradise Mile was closed. I hadn’t been assigned a new investigation yet, but Fritz said he’d probably have something for me on Monday.
Whatever the OPA thought, whatever we were telling the families of the victims, the case wasn’t closed for me. And I only partially thought that because I couldn’t stop dreaming of that goddamn hallway.
“Shouldn’t we have brought more stuff with us?” asked Isobel Stonecrow, the woman sitting in the passenger seat of my car.
I turned onto the dirt road leading into the Paradise Mile canyon. “More what?”
“More…” She gestured vaguely at nothing. “Just more . More weapons. More staff. More body armor or something. If you think a demon’s responsible for these deaths…”
“It’s just a funeral.” I massaged my dry, tired eyes with my fingertips. “We’re not getting attacked today.”
My car bounced through a pothole and Isobel winced. “If you’re certain.” Her teeth clacked against each other audibly as the dirt grew rougher.
I hadn’t had an excuse to borrow one of the SUVs from the OPA’s motor pool, so we’d been enjoying a bumpy, janky ride all the way out to the desert. Isobel was tolerating it well. She hadn’t complained once.
Optimistically, I thought that driving my old sedan was kind of like having a massage chair working on my sore muscles.
Less optimistically, I regretted not taking next model year’s Corvette from Fritz’s house. He’d been nagging me to take one of his cars for weeks, claiming that my sedan was a death trap and that I should be driving something safer. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to take him up on the offer. Call it pride or whatever. I was starting to think Fritz was right.
Nothing charms a woman less than taking her for a ride in a car held together with duct tape and wishes.
“Are you okay?” Isobel asked, surprising me. I was the one shaking her apart in my car. I’d been thinking of asking her the same question.
“Why’s that?”
“You don’t look good.”
Suzy had said something similar when I’d seen her on Friday afternoon. Actually, she’d said, “You look like the shit I stepped in outside my townhouse this morning,” and then brandished her dirty shoe at me, but that was Suzy for you.
“Just having a hard time sleeping.” I rubbed my eyes again. They were so dry. My hands felt heavy, too.
Isobel made a sympathetic sound. Wonder if she would have been as sympathetic if I’d told her the whole truth: that I kept dreaming circles around the house in Paradise Mile, walking through that same hallway for nights on end, glimpsing red nothingness outside my front door’s peephole.
Suzy’s assessment was closer to accurate than Isobel’s. I looked and felt like shit, and I was probably insane for going back to that house.
We reached the mouth of the canyon to find news vans waiting for us. No more black SUVs, no sign of OPA control at all. Just news vans with satellites mounted on their roofs and a lot of reporters trying not to squint from the intensity of the lights beating down on them.
If the media was there, then the OPA hadn’t just closed the case. We’d decided that we had nothing to do with it. Otherwise, we never
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