FEAR – Chakra Demons, The Red Wood Chronicles

By M.J. Hook

Hooks Note: Manuscript is currently being edited, but I just couldn’t wait to get his out to m’crew. Enjoy the read. Please let me know your thoughts in the comment field below.

Book 1 – Chapter 1

Tuesday

I was born in Lake Michigan.

For some reason, my blood mother, Jenny Blatt, pregnant and in a frantic rush, drove her pickup off the Mackinac Bridge into the great lake. While the truck began its descent into the chilly water, I popped out of Jenny, then popped out the truck window to start my trip to the surface.

Several people driving on I-75 that morning witnessed the accident. One man, Dr. Bill Wood, stopped his car, ran to the broken side rail, and jumped into the water to save the occupants.

As he swam down to the truck, something rushed up and bumped him in the face.

That was me.

Dr. Bill loved telling the story. In his words: “Once I realized it was a baby, I changed direction and swam up for air. Backstroking toward the concrete footer under the bridge, I got to where I could stand up and see he was a newborn baby boy—born in the caul. I took the sac off, allowing him to take his first breath. Seeing the cord and placenta attached, I went into doctor mode.”

He tied off the cord with a wet shoelace. 

“Amazing,” Dr. Bill would say, “this big boy came out of such a tiny woman. His real father must have been a giant.”

She couldn’t confirm or deny the fact. The small woman, Jenny Blatt, drowned.

Dr. Bill rode in the ambulance and made sure I settled in at the hospital. He went back to the bridge, watched them pull the truck out, ID my dead mother, then followed the police to her remote cabin near Garnet.

They found no indication of who she was, where she was from, or who my blood father was.

“There was a trunk full of money, and a box labeled FOR THE BOY that contained some used toys and a pack of newborn diapers. That was it. One toy was a tiny, plastic red-haired troll doll,” he would add. “I asked the officers if I could take it for the boy. They looked at me strange, but didn’t object once they had it documented.”

Dr. Bill, in Michigan for a doctor’s golf retreat, called his wife Tina, back home in Colorado Springs, and told her what happened. Since they could not have any children and had talked about adoption, he put an idea in her head.

“I told her, ‘Shoot, I already feel like the lady in the lake gave him to us, hon. Like Excalibur.’ Something very magical about that moment when he bumped my nose.”

Tina flew up to Michigan that evening.

After an extensive background check on Dr. Bill and Tina, the court agreed that they could temporarily foster me in Michigan. Tina rented a small apartment in Grand Rapids while Dr. Bill headed back to Colorado Springs to work. He would visit every weekend.

After three months, the court found no evidence of who my blood father was and no luck finding any relatives of Miss or Mrs. Blatt. 

Dr. Bill and Tina Wood became Dad and Mom.

With the completed adoption, they took me back to Colorado and formerly named me Travis, after my new mom’s father. Because of my brilliant red hair and my way-above-average physical size, eventually everyone just called me…

* * *

“Red?” Benny’s voice squawks from my phone, steering my attention back to the road and call. “Earth calling Red Wood. You there, buddy?”

“Sorry, oh mighty detective. I was woolgathering,” I huff with a fatigued voice that should sound exhausted to my friend, adding a heavy sigh for punctuation.

“Yeah, I do that too when someone tells me they have a dead body I need to see. Happens every day, as a matter of fact.” Benny laughs, ignoring my weary feint.

When Benny Rogers calls, it undoubtedly concerns a crime scene the Colorado Springs homicide detective needs me to check out. Homicide means at least one body. The invite means supernatural misdoing may be involved.

“So, you need me now?” Attempting a tone of reluctance this time. Driving home after a long night of training with my apprentice, Jabari Le Roux, has me tired physically and spiritually. I want a shower, a meal, and my bed. Not a case of paranormal malfeasance to work on.

“Yes, and good morning. Great way to start a chilly November day, and I would like you there before stuff gets tagged and bagged. I’m heading up right now. Scenic turnoff, Fountain Creek side of the pass, just south of Waldo Canyon. Pull in at the exit.”

Dooty calls.

• • •

The creek culvert where we stand is a tree-filled, rocky area that stretches across from the highway to the base of foothills traversing up Ute Pass. Fountain Creek runs deep from the mountain run-off, giving the tranquil scene a soothing, trickling soundtrack to complement the view. The fresh snowfall would be icing on the visual cake, but the morning vista’s tainted by crisscrossed yellow crime-scene tape surrounding a corpse.

With no fresh prints in the virgin snow around the victim, an investigation team member starts melting the white stuff with a heat blower.

The body, a girl, naked and posed in the starting position to run a race, remains isolated inside the confines of the yellow tape. Her feet, flat on their balls, arched to lift her heels—one foot below her raised butt, the other set back—dig into dirt like a natural starting block. The back, starting with her butt, remains perfectly level to the ground up to her shoulders, held in place by her two extended arms, palms flat, not on finger tips. Her head tilts up to look toward an imaginary finish line with cloudy, lifeless eyes. The face of what might have been an angel in life—young, sweet, and innocent—displays inert regret frozen in death.

Someone went to a lot of effort to show off their victim. It leaves me feeling colder than the November morning temperature.

The snow-glazed pose is a curiosity, but adding to the weirdness appears to be short table legs attached to precise parts of her body. Two matching metals legs, one stuck behind each ankle, match the two on the backside of each elbow. A larger, wooden leg appears to thread into her tailbone, which matches another leg screwed into the back of her head.

“What’s up with the furniture accessories?” Benny asks.

“No idea…yet,” I say, shaking off the chill as we move around the scene.

Flipping back and forth between normal viewing and my spiritual sight, or what I call 3E, I had seen nothing from the parking lot down to the creek that would suggest magic was involved. No sign of residual energy from a curse, spell, or enchantment.

Using my anja, or third eye, allows me to see the true nature of things, an amplified sight that displays the spiritual core of my surroundings. Auras display the radiant colors of emotion and intent of people, as well as the primal spirits of all living matter—animals, plants, insects. Years of grueling practice trained me to focus on what’s important, while masking out other distractive noise.

Using 3E also increases my other five senses as well, allowing me to capture a clue that may not be obvious on normal sensory levels.

It reveals the world as it truly is—matter, energy, elements—mingling together in a spectrum of universal magnificence that can cause tears of wonder, and horrors that would release bladder and bowel instantly.

Most importantly, the sight displays magical energy, which I am currently looking for. Magic always leaves some sort of residue. Whether it be a cast spell, blood (which holds the living’s energy even after death for a time), a binding, or something hidden by a glamour—an illusional construct—to hide a sorcerer’s misbehaving. 

Viewing the girl’s body, I see nothing to suggest sorcery. No residue of an arcane sacrifice. No blood anywhere on or around the body. The girl has a pentacle tattooed on her right shoulder, which is why Benny contacted me, but the tatt is not fresh.

One thing I can see suspended above her head is the girl’s baddoon, her soul bag, twisting and floundering like a large, glowing larva stuck in a bird’s beak. The girl’s spirit fights to retain life, while its glowing root attached to the crown of her head stretches and kinks.

After a peaceful death, the soul’s essence inflates the baddoon, its aura adjusting to the death and appearing like a rainbow-colored balloon. The spirit sack of the deceased first tethers to the physical body. Once the passing of soul-gas registers and accepts the moment, the tether dissolves, allowing the spirit to journey on to the Universe.

With murder, or even suicide, the spiritual anger and regret hold on to the mortal vessel.

Wanting justice, revenge, or a second chance at life, the spirit struggles until the energy deteriorates and the grip releases, sending the departed into a universal purgatory, something like a crowded train station during rush hour. Or, if the energy is determined to stay near friends, family, and murderous jerks that checked their ticket, the spirit reattaches to a familiar place to haunt the living as a ghost with baggage.

The girl’s baddoon appears to be on a train to ghostville as it twists and spans. A fury of color, its aura glows with frustrated rage. A brilliant distortion within the confines of the tarnished bag. My sight fills with the kaleidoscopic pallet of wrath and regret. A rainbow covered by mildewed clouds of gray, the formations tainted with green-molding remorse, surrounded by brown-infected edges of disappointment.

 “So, still no idea about the table legs, detective, but her spirit has a story to tell,” I say to Benny, in my for-his-ears-only voice.

“She got one of those, whadya call it, balloon bags hanging on?” Benny replies. He glances at me—one part hope, one part curiosity.

“Yeah, she does, and it ain’t pretty. I don’t see any sorcery involved in her death, and it’s obvious her murder didn’t happen here. No blood. Hopefully, I can get the story from her spirit, but I need to start story time now.”

“Let them clear the snow. We found some tire tracks up behind the convenient blind spot in the turnoff. Also found some sweet foot prints coming down the trail. Guy must have carried her, so the extra weight made accurate impressions. Just need to see if they match what’s around the body.”

Benny enjoys finding blatant evidence. It makes the hard but rewarding job to catch the killer that much easier. By commuting with her baddoon, I can normally put a name to the bad guy, if the victim knew them, and a location for evidence to make the arrest faster.

“We got footprints, detective,” the tech inside the tape yells to Benny. “Looks like a match.”

“Good. Cast a left and right and take lots of pics,” Benny instructs.

“Yes, sir.”

Benny pulls me out of earshot from the investigative crowd gathering around the tape surrounding the body.

“I’ll get people to pull back once the plaster’s poured. You know the drill, wear the footies and gloves and touch nothing that’s, uh, real. Physical.” Benny hands me a pair of elastic shoe covers from his coat pocket. I wear my leather gloves that comfortably fit my hands.

“You ever tire of explaining why I get special treatment with your dead bodies?”

Benny smirks. “With my success rate finding sicko bad guys, I don’t need to explain.”

I attempt to place a cover over my left boot when the elastic breaks just as I clear the heel. 

“You really need to stock up on some larger booties for my size 15 feet, detective. One size does not fit all.” Using a quick adhesive spell, I fix the break, then successfully cover the other boot without mishap.

“That would be a special order. Next time, I’ll bring trash bags and bungee cords.” Benny pauses, looking up the trail to the highway. A loud voice, heavy on the nasal, is shouting orders.

“Eddie Munster’s here. You need to get in there and do your thing.”

Eddie Munster, aka Edward Hinkle, is the COSP lead forensic investigator. The man is good at his job, but lacks the social skills to maintain friendly relationships. Dead bodies don’t talk back, so Hinkle naturally enjoys their company. I will admit he is good at listening to the story their remains tell.

As the Paranormal Specialist for the department, I’ve worked my way to the top of Eddie’s shit list. After I correctly interpreted an investigation, and Eddie misdiagnosed it, the PS could inspect crime scenes, including bodies (with a no-touching clause), before Dr. Hinkle’s involvement.

Thus, the shit list.

Following the same path in toward the body the tech made walking out, I approach the girl. Stopping beside her head, then kneeling, while spreading my arms up and out, I open my palms as if preparing to conduct an orchestra. This is assuming my paranormal posture. The pose allows officers to see my hands, a ruse while I extend my cog coil from my stomach toward the tortured soul inside the baddoon.

The cognitive coil, another bonus being a well inked and linked wizard to Gaia, the Earth Mother, is spiritually similar to my 3E sight. By reaching out with a cog-coil, I can connect to another’s spirit, alive or recently deceased. It is a tool to share and sometimes influence energy. Normally, the communion starts with a gentle introduction. But sometimes, when someone is freaking out and needs to get their shit together to avoid, say, an oncoming car or a gun-toting idiot, introductions vanish.

The baddoon is pulling harder against its binding. There will be one more lost soul with major unresolved issues if I don’t make contact soon.

Since forensics frown upon enchanted circles drawn around their crime scenes, I have learned to communicate with departed spirits without the protection charmed circles offer. Most baddoons rarely lash out, but in case one does, I have other tricks up my sleeves that can subdue it momentarily.

Like, right before a tether breaks. It’s a great opportunity to discuss options with the frantically departed.

In a hushed voice and using my spiritual power language, a Donegal dialect of Irish Gaelic, I invite my power to the energy surrounding the soul bag. A spiritual request for welcome.

“Cuir failte romham, le do thoil.”

Every wizard, witch, sorcerer or sorceress has a language that complements their spell casting. This gives intent and meaning with words to link energy inherited in the caster’s blood. Latin is a popular lingo to roll off the tongue. Those with knowledge of their lineage may use a common tongue, or beef up their studies to learn Sanskrit, Aztec, Ethiopic, and other ancient such. It took little time for me to discover mine. Having the same ginger locks my blood mother had, my teacher for the subject kept me dialed in to the Northern European dialects. My language became obvious as I spoke a simple flame spell to light a candle and ended up setting the curtains on fire across the room.

The connection in place, I introduce myself to the girl’s energy using spiritual telepathy through my coil; speaking between souls.

“Child. Please share with me your anguish. Show me your story so that I may relieve your suffering and free your spirit.”

The twisting bag o’soul stops its franticness and vibrates, a posturing that allows me to connect my coil and pass through the spiritual membrane. As the power from the bag’s aura blends with my energy, the girl’s desperation yanks my core and drags me in.

Her story begins—a ribbon knotted in terror.

A brief life unraveled by evil.