Waking Up Dead

Amanda Fasciano

Description

Detective Cadence Riley never believed in ghosts, until she became one.


Killed in the line of duty, she finds herself recruited into a group that monitors haunted sites, making sure the spirits don't give too much away to the living. All seems to be going well until a group of cultists unleash a chaos demon in a haunted asylum. Being a detective and the drive to help others didn’t stop with her pulse.


Now Cadence and her new partner Snow find themselves in a race against time. They have to find a way to stop the demon before it devours both the spirits and the living, and they may just have to break a few rules to do it. Being six feet under has never been so lively as she realizes her training officer is definitely in over their heads.


Join the team in this urban fantasy meets crime detective story and get ready for the series of a lifetime, er, afterlife!

Sujets

• Policier & Thriller
• Thriller
• Démon
• Summoning
• Paranormal
• Spirit
• Fiction
• Détective
• Ghost
• Per Yngve Ohlin
• Crime
• Asylum
• Mystery
• Supernatural
• Demon
• Detective
• Demonology
• Evocation
• Conflict between good and evil
• Ghosts
• Thrillers

Informations

• Publié par: 4 Horsemen Publications, Inc.
• Date de parution: 29 janvier 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798823200561
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Table o f Contents
The Ghost of Detec tives Past
The Hardest Part of Goodbye is Saying it
Decisions, Decisions
First Day on the Job
Lexin gton Hills
Stakeouts and Con versations
Baggage for One Please
Tr aining Day
Ding Dong! Chao s Calling!
Ent er the NHD
Trouble ? Trouble.
Overwhelmin g Evidence
When Things Go From Strang e to Worse
And Today’s Surprise C ameo is...
Rules? W hat Rules?
Putting Thi ngs to Bed
Author Bio
Book Club Questions





Waking Up Dead
Copyright © 2023 Amanda Fasciano. All rights r eserved.

4 Horsemen Publicatio ns, Inc.
1497 Main St. S uite 169
Dunedin, FL 34698
4horsemenpublicat ions.com
info@4horsemenpublicat ions.com
Cover and Typeset by S . Wilder
Editor Kristin e Cotter
All rights to the work within are reserved to the author and publisher. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 International Copyright Act, without prior written permission except in brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Please contact either the Publisher or Author to gain per mission.
This is book is meant as a reference guide. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. All brands, quotes, and cited work respectfully belongs to the original rights holders and bear no affiliation to the authors or pu blisher.
Library of Congress Control Number: 20 22945573
Print ISBN: 979-8-823 2-0057-8
Hardcover ISBN: 979-8-823 2-0141-4
Audio ISBN: 979-8-823 2-0055-4
E-Book ISBN: 979-8-823 2-0056-1


This Book Is De dicated To
My parents, who always indulged my flights of fancy.
My husband, who has never let me give up on my dreams.
Dan Verner, the best high school creative writing teacher a kid c ould have.
Chapter 1
The Ghost of Detec tives Past
W hen Detective Cadence Riley awoke, she had no idea where she was or how she had got ten there.
She found herself in some kind of waiting room. Disoriented and mildly panicked, she realized she didn’t recognize the room and could not recall how or why she was there. She tried to find something familiar to lock on to, but the décor and the room’s inhabitants were strange. Subconsciously, she reached for her belt—for her badge. Her unease grew when she discovered it was not there, and as she moved, she couldn’t feel the weight of her gun or its shoulde r holster.
As she leaped to her feet, the chair wobbled, threatening to topple over. She focused on those around her, attempting to find a common thread; the act calmed her. The others in the room were all different shapes and sizes, all different ages and ethnicities. There was a middle-aged black man clad in a utility worker’s uniform. Beside him sat a young woman in a grocery store uniform. An older man wearing a hunting outfit occupied the corner, humming some random tune. They all seemed to wear the same expression on their face; their eyes glassy and their muscles relaxed. None of them seemed to n otice her.
I am a cop , she reminded herself. She was not going to let panic rule her. Someone had to know where they were, right? She moved a couple of chairs down and took a seat next to the utility worker. Getting a solid grip on her emotions, she tried to sound congenial as she gr eeted him.
“Hey, how’s it going?” she asked. He didn’t respond. He didn’t even twitch. The man gave no sign that he had heard her.
“Hello?” she asked, waving her hand in front of his face.
She looked around to see if anyone looked as if they had heard her. She waved her hands at them. No one acknowledged her. They all just kept staring straight ahead, their eyes glazed over and vacant. The older man in the corner just kept humming his tune.
She got up and crossed the room, running her hands through her dark blonde hair as she went. This had to be a dream, right? A place she didn’t recognize, no memory of how she got there, and nothing with her other than the clothes she wore. It absolutely had to b e a dream.
She leaned against the wall, refusing to sit back down with the vacant people; they gave her the creeps. This had to be the most ridiculous, pointless dream she had ever had; nothing was happening in it. She crossed her arms over her chest and sighed, leaning her head back against the wall. She broke that pose only to see if she had her cell phone with her. Stranger things had happened in dreams before. Keeping her nerves in check, she reached into her pockets, one by one. She would be damned if she was going to appear as frantic as she felt. Alas, she did not have her phone, and so she went back to fuming at her subconscious for keeping her here.
A door suddenly opened in the wall, which was remarkable because there hadn’t been a door before. Cadence straightened, eager to see what would happen. A somewhat harried-looking man emerged. He was one of those people who seemed ageless. He had graying hair and some lines to his face, and his blue-gray eyes seemed to exude both youthful energy and wisdom. Cadence wasn’t sure if he was thirty, fifty, or somewhere in between. A file folder was open in his hands.
Osmund Snow was intently reading the description of the person he was there to retrieve; a 30-year-old woman of average height with an athletic build. The latter made sense, given that she had been an officer. Blonde hair and green eyes completed the list of things he needed to search out. He closed the file and examined those waiting. He then spotted her standing by t he wall.
“You wouldn’t happen to be Detective Cadence Riley by any chance, would you?” he asked, his accent marking him as an E nglishman.
At last, her subconscious had decided to do something. She took a step toward hi m. “I am.”
“Oh good,” he said with a sigh of relief. “You woke up earlier than expected. I was afraid I’d lost you. That wouldn’t do now, would it?”
“Um, I guess not.” She shrugged. He beckoned for her to follow him, and she did. Once the door closed behind them, it again disappeared into the wall. She looked him over, trying to figure out his age, or anything else other than his obvious heritage. While not as physically imposing as some, he seemed to be someone who kept fit. “Who are you? How do you know my name?”
“Oh, I’m Osmund Snow. Pleasure to meet you,” he replied, offering his hand to shake.
She took the offered hand and shook it. “Nice to meet you, but you didn’t answer my second question. And wher e are we?”
“Ah, yes. Well, why don’t you come with me? I’ll answer all your questions in m y office.”
Cadence arched a skeptical eyebrow but followed. Through rows of desks they went, passing by people who sat with headphones on and computer screens in front of them. She could see different things on the screens but couldn’t really make out what was being done on them. She held her questions, though, following Osmund Snow through the area to one of the many doors on the far side of the room. He opened the door, which let them into a room that felt oddly familiar.
The walls were a kind of pale cream or beige, the usual color office designers choose when trying to stay neutral, but not go with white. There were two desks facing each other. One was obviously his, with files and papers on it. The other was clear and didn’t seem to belong to anyone.
He gestured toward the empty desk as he closed the door. “Have a seat.” As he settled into his, he looked up at her. “Has anyone ever told you your eyes are the most beautiful shade of jade?”
Cadence looked off, slightly embarrassed at his random compliment. “Yeah, uh … thanks. So … where is this place?” At this point, Cadence assumed that she was dreaming. But hey , she thought, I might as well find out what my subconscious has cooked up for me this time .
“I suppose limbo might be the most proper term,” he said and shrugged, looking slightly em barrassed.
“Limbo? So, I’m what? Waiting to come out of a coma or something?” That made sense as to why she was dreaming at any rate, though she didn’t recall being injured. Her brows furrowed as she realized that the more she thought about it, the harder it seemed for her to recall anything specific about re cent days.
“Not quite,” he said and leaned forward, his icy eyes searching her jade ones. “Detective Riley, I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you, but you ’re dead.”
Cadence sat there for a moment in stunned silence, then shook her head and laughed. “Nice joke. Is this some kind of trick the guys put together?” She momentarily forgot that this was supposed to be a dream and began looking around for cameras or people peeking in and getting their laugh out of it. She was a bit discomfited to find no evidence of an y of that.
“No, no joke, I’m afraid,” Snow said. “You’ve died. This is a place for processing, of sorts.”
“Processing? For what? Heav en? Hell?”
“Well, neither, to be honest. I don’t want to get into theological discussions about the existence of Heaven or Hell or what they are. All I can do is present you with the choice you now have. You can end–go into whatever kind of heaven or hell your own personal ideology and conscience creates for you, or you can stay here and help out.”
Once again, she tried looking for cameras or snickering cops. This had to be a joke. She started opening drawers, in the vain hopes of finding some kind of recording device. The closing of the drawers became successively harder until she was yanking them open and slamming them shut.
“This is a