Metaphysical Mysteries

I don’t wish to frighten you, reads the anonymous note introverted and bullied eight-year-old Leo Cruz finds in his backpack. All the sender asks is that he avoid a certain spot on a certain day, or he’ll die. Leo has reason to be afraid. The warning hearkens back to nearly a decade ago - to the same site, where a murder has become local folklore and a favorite campfire tale reinvented year after year by the kids of Arenas, a small Spanish town.

The invasion begins! The survey starship Yellowjacket is no pushover, but when an alien force larger than any in living memory appears out of nowhere, she is overwhelmed and left for dead on a hostile world. It's a bad start to the day for Captain Brynn Jameson — and that's before he learns the architect of the invasion has a personal vendetta against him. Now, the resourceful crew must find a way to repair their crippled ship, gather allies, and get back in the fight — before there's no fight left to join. Note: The Stars Dark series is an homage to thrilling pulp sci-fi of yesteryear....

A marijuana mystery, the story of Rolland Greene. Rolland Greene, a local writer, and his friends find themselves wrapped up in a complex paper chase. Rolland Greene takes you to the heartland of Northern California and reveals the mind and heart of a Mendonesian caught up in high strangeness. Rolland spends his time writing his political treatise, but suddenly finds himself trying to survive the tumult surrounding his lifestyle and friends. Rolland and his buds all find themselves tormented by bad luck when criminals begin pursuit of a treasure unique to Mendocino, the guidebook to crime. ...

Mercy Habernackle has just gotten the surprise of a lifetime. She has a brother - and not just any brother, a dark, mysterious, and incredibly hot brother. Given up for adoption 24 years ago, Reign Alexander just wants to get to know his long lost sister, but things take a dangerous turn when on his first night in Aspen Falls, a woman ends up dead, in Reign's bed! Desperate to prove her brother's innocence and save her mother from heartache, Mercy enlists the help of the Witch Squad to find out who really killed Harper Bradshaw.

At the end of a metaphysical conference, reluctant attendee Camille Dare discovers an envelope with her name on it. Filled with travel documents, a photograph, and bloody scarf material, the source of the envelope and its contents remain anonymous, but the directive is clear: Find the missing person in this unusual case. The missing person, Katherine Agurre, comes from a high-profile family. A growing obsession with the missing person case and her own quest for self-understanding compel Camille to begin a trip to meet people she never knew and locations she never expected to visit.

Bucky Wunderlick, rock star and budding messiah, has hit a spiritual wall. In midtour he bolts from his band to hole up in a dingy East Village apartment and separate himself from the paranoid machine that propels the culture he has helped create. As faithful fans await messages, Bucky encounters every sort of roiling farce he is trying to escape.

After uncovering a mystical link to the ancient civilization of Galderkhaan, child psychologist Caitlin O'Hara is left with strange new powers. Suddenly she can heal her young patients with her mind and see things from other places and other times. But as she learns more about her powers, she also realizes that someone is watching her, perhaps hunting her - and using her son to do it.

The world was descending into chaos: wars, sickness, famine, climate change, irregular weather patterns and general world unrest. One person, a priest, had the power to intervene. With a shaking hand he scripted an obscure, cryptic riddle on scraps of ancient papyrus scrolls. The riddle, together with an unusual gemstone, was tucked inside five silk satchels then delivered to each of his chosen ones. A chilling dampness filled the little church; lingering, enveloping and clinging.

“Was it truly an "act of nature" or something worse? Who can you believe? How do you know you are right? Very compelling and excellent storytelling.” I thought it was just another August storm. But, everything isn’t always exactly what it seems in life. Sometimes a storm is more than a storm. My mother and sister came up missing. My Dad, badly burned, secreted away. And the trail taken to find the answers became a path into more storms. How do you know you’re right? I found myself approaching something beyond everything I thought to be true.

"I very much need to be dead." These are the chilling words left behind by a man who had everything to live for - but took his own life. In the aftermath, his widow, Jane Hawk, does what all her grief, fear, and fury demand: find the truth, no matter what. People of talent and accomplishment, people admired and happy and sound of mind, have been committing suicide in surprising numbers. When Jane seeks to learn why, she becomes the most-wanted fugitive in America. Her powerful enemies are protecting a secret so important - so terrifying - that they will exterminate anyone in their way.

"Highly recommended!" — The Prairies Book Review. Young runaway Mig isn't like the other children. When Mary Ellen catches him stealing eggs from her henhouse, she decides to help him hide from his pursuers. Little does she know that her simple act of kindness will change the Universe forever.

The mind is a maze. Your memories are its key. A detective tasked with solving the seemingly impossible murder of an influential scientist finds a clue that leads him to Credence, a corporation that uses mass beliefs to change reality, enabling space travel. In a not-so-distant future, the murder of a notorious neuroscientist threatens the closure of Credence, a federal corporation where the powerful minds of exceptional individuals—the Believers—are harnessed into mass beliefs capable of teleporting spaceships to the other side of the universe. To avoid the deaths of the colonists in ...

Deep in the forests of the Pacific Northwest is a small village called Dark Root, a town steeped in magic, mystery, and secrets. But for Maggie Maddock, Dark Root is also a prison - a place where she is forced to work in her mother's Magick Shoppe while the rest of the world moves forward without her. When a mysterious stranger offers to take Maggie away from it all, she leaves without looking back. Seven years later, Maggie is called home by her beloved older sister.

Hank Boyd is emotionally spent, unsure of what to do next. Does he call it quits and hang up his shovel, or does he push forward and endure? The decision is unfortunately made easier when he and his team are systematically attacked. Everyone is under fire and fighting for their lives as they try desperately to escape and regroup. The enemy is merciless and unconcerned with who gets in their way. Through information acquired from a past foe, they discover that not only was the fabled Tower of Babel real, but its ruins house an evil so powerful that not even Hank, still imbued with the might ...

On Christmas Eve, 2017, the life of Russian-American artist Nikita Nataniel Kuznetsov changes beyond recognition. He’s plagued with a deadly bacterial infection that sends him off to the afterlife. Before he can move on to the other side, he must stand trial that takes place in a concert hall, attended by an invisible audience. As he sits at his piano, he is compelled to watch a 3D movie of his life, allowing him to relive meaningful events: his miserable childhood at a boarding school in the USSR of the 70s, his rise to stardom, his run-ins with the KGB, and a fateful breakup from his ...

A crime witnessed over twenty years ago has had a chilling effect on the life of Gabrielle Golden. When new evidence is uncovered, the cold case begins to heat up, as does Gabrielle’s personal life thanks to true crime writer and former Texas Ranger Levi Sawyer. Can they identify the killer before they themselves become the next chapter? A cold case. A hot affair. SHIVER.

In Austin, Texas, burned-out attorney Robert Cole receives a mysterious call offering him millions to help those failed by the system. His first case leads him to Selina Ward, a disillusioned prosecutor, and together they search for a missing boy named Thomas Brandt. What begins as a missing child case rapidly spirals into something far more profound as Robert and Selina discover that Thomas carries a fragment of divine power within his DNA—a "Word" that entities beyond human comprehension desperately want to control. At the center of this cosmic conspiracy stands Silas Drake, a tech ...

Please Note: This story is also part of book 10 of The Hunter Legacy series, The Long Road to Gaia. Thirteen doesn't like humans. The last thing he wants is to be assigned a mission to babysit them. Given a choice, he'd happily let them blow themselves up, after he saved all the cats first. Exactly how humans could ever have anything to do with galaxy wide consequences is completely beyond his ability to understand. When asked to perform an intervention, there was always freewill to choose not to. But in this case, does he really have a choice? This is a 5000 word short story, set in The ...

Hell hath no fury like an angry god of the underworld. Persephone is missing. When Hades fails to locate his wife, he takes drastic measures. He hires the Montague & Strong Detective Agency to locate her, bring her back to him, and most importantly, find out who dared to kidnap his wife. Now, Monty and Strong must uncover a plot to overthrow Hades and steal the underworld, return Persephone to her husband unharmed, and prevent a god from unleashing his wrath and starting a celestial battle royale. It’s not the end of the world, but it’s going to be close.

An interviewer at a centre for gifted children encounters a child whose perception of the world defies human comprehension. A man experiencing time lapses suspects he may be guilty of murder. A helping hand for the homeless and an unbelievable job opportunity for the unskilled—in a hostile future, can such benevolence be trusted? A man displaced through time over and over again struggles to comprehend his fate while a former space marine discovers that falling in love with an alien can have unintended side effects. These science fiction stories explore diverse aspects of the human mind—...