Drawing Dead (Jack of Spades #1)

By Lee Brazil

The world hasn't been the same since the preternaturals came out of the closet. Much to many people’s chagrin, strange beings of all kinds are making life tricky for the "normals."
Physics professor Dr. Sabine Brusilov has been obsessed with ghost hunting since he was eight years old.. He's gathered a wealth of knowledge, but can't produce a shred of scientific proof.
One hundred and seventy-five years of death haven't done riverboat gambler Barton Montoire a damn bit of good. He's still rash, impulsive, and prone to fits of temper and bouts of melancholy.
You'd think that when fate brought the two of them together, Bart's lonely spirit would be calmed, and Sabine would have the proof his heart desires.
In a world where mythical beings are real, love is still the most elusive... and treacherous myth of them all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lee Brazil
• Release date: Feb 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311135773

Lee Brazil

Somewhere in a small town in up-state New York are a librarian and a second grade teacher to whom I owe my life. That might be a touch dramatic, but it’s nevertheless one hundred percent true.Because they taught me the joy of reading, of escaping into worlds crafted of words.Have you ever been nine years old and sure of nothing so much as that you don’t belong? Looked at the world from behind glasses, and wondered why you don’t fit?Then turn the page and see... there you are, running from Injun Joe in a dark graveyard; there you are fencing with Athos; there you are...beneath the deep blue sea- marveling at exotic creatures with Captain Nemo.I found myself between the pages of books, and that is why I write now, it’s why I taught English and literature for so many years, and it’s why my house contains more pounds of books than furniture.If I’d had my way, I’d have been a fencer...or a starship captain, or a lawyer, or a detective solving crimes. But instead, I am a writer, and that’s the best thing in the world to be if you ask me, because as a writer, I can be all those things and more.If I hadn’t learned to value the stories between the pages, who knows what would have happened? Certainly not college...teaching...or writing.

Book preview

The world hasn't been the same since the preternaturals came out of the closet. Much to many people’s chagrin, strange beings of all kinds are making life tricky for the normals.

Physics professor Dr. Sabine Brusilov has been obsessed with ghost hunting since he was eight years old.. He's gathered a wealth of knowledge, but can't produce a shred of scientific proof.

One hundred and seventy-five years of death haven't done riverboat gambler Barton Montoire a damn bit of good. He's still rash, impulsive, and prone to fits of temper and bouts of melancholy.

You'd think that when fate brought the two of them together, Bart's lonely spirit would be calmed, and Sabine would have the proof his heart desires.

In a world where mythical beings are real, love is still the most elusive… and treacherous myth of them all.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, locations and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. As such, any resemblance to any persons, living or deceased, businesses, events, or locales is coincidental.

Copyright Feb. 2015 © Lee Brazil

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Printed in the United States of America

Trademark Acknowledgements:

The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following trademarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

The Hobbit: The Saul Zaentz Company

Sharpie: Sanford, L.P.

Pulp Friction 2015: Altered States

Drawing Dead

Jack of Spades 1

By

Lee Brazil

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Jack of Spades

Drawing Dead

Chapter One

Mrs. Carew, I apologize. Tell me about the paranormal problem again? Sabine brushed back over his shoulder the dark hair that his mischievous boyfriend had loosened. Normally he kept it in a ponytail, a queue, as Bart quaintly called it, because it tickled his face when loose. He always ended up pushing it back and getting smudges on his glasses in the process.

He frowned at Bart’s glimmer…the sort of ripple in the air that reminded him of the way heat looked rising off a highway in the dead of summer. Sneaky bastard.

It’s my new upstairs neighbors, Dr. Brusilov. Before they even moved in they installed dark blinds on their windows and I never see anyone coming out during the day. Not even at the mailboxes. But all night long… The thumping and the bumping and the shrieking. I’m sure they’re vampires up there murdering innocents.

Sabine tapped his pencil on the desk and watched Bart coalesce into something resembling a solid shape in front of his office door. Being a vampire is not illegal, and you’d have to have proof of murder, Mrs. Carew. He explained as patiently as he could.

Six years earlier he’d investigated a haunting at Mrs. Carew’s church…and had received bi-weekly phone calls about hauntings ever since.

Well, couldn’t you come out and investigate it?

That’s not the sort of paranormal I investigate, Mrs. Carew. Here at Dead Men’s Tales we only investigate hauntings. He glanced at his watch. Thursdays were generally light, but tonight happened to be poker night, and as luck would have it, it was his turn to play host to the gathering.

You mean ghosts, like at the church, right?

Exactly, just ghosts. His brows shot up and his lips twitched as Bart began an elaborate strip tease accompanied by high knee kicks and spins. The cancan had been popular with students when Bart was at university, nearly two hundred years earlier. It was Bart’s idea of risqué…and Sabine bit back his laugh.

Those are real, too?

Yes, he sighed, setting the pen down and rubbing his temple. Ghosts, vampires, werewolves…you name it, I imagine it's real. The world had changed so much, people like Mrs. Carew who’d once been considered crackpots were thrown even more off balance. Learning that the world as you knew it was never really…well, the world as you knew it, had been devastating for some and inspirational for others.

The vampires had come out first…then the wolves.

Just Sabine’s luck that the supernatural beings he’d spent the last fifteen years trying to prove existed—scientifically and irrefutably—were still shy and in hiding. Except Bart. He glanced up at the semi-transparent and now fully nude ghost that had haunted him for the better part of the last decade. And Bart was just stubborn enough to refuse to share any relevant information with him.

You know what, Mrs. Carew? he straightened in his chair. "I’ll come by on my way home. Maybe if I just knock on the door and ask them to be a little quieter at night,

Reviews for Drawing Dead (Jack of Spades #1)

[Gerisgrltrl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Sabine's lover is a ghost who is struggling to regain his memories while keeping Sabine from exploiting ghosts for his research project.