Nine Lives of Karma Rae: TDU Series, #13

By Jyn West

Nine Lives of Karma Rae introduces you to a new group of characters. They will meet our TDU group along the way but have their own adventures beginning, or perhaps resuming from times past. Their lifestyle will likely be different from your own and they will be the first to acknowledge that it will not work for everyone. For their species, it is the norm not the exception. They do not advocate either for or against it in our time but encourage each individual to live in a manner that resonates harmoniously within themselves. Be who you are and allow others the same. If you cannot live supportively of each other, then agree to disagree but peacefully without spreading harm or bitterness. There is enough of that in our world today without adding more.

If you have read my previous books you will know that I promote romance but not graphic descriptions of what transpires behind closed doors. That hasn't changed so if the prior paragraph had you worried in either a positive or negative manner, rest easy. I hope you will turn the pages and continue on to enjoy Karma's story. I am sure you will get a kick out of their interactions with the TDU and others.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jyn West
• Release date: Oct 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393003977

Book preview

Copyright Page

Copyright ©2019 Jyn West All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the Author. You must not circulate the book in any format. Thank you for respecting the rights of the Author. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

Dedication & Acknowledgements

Thank you to my family and friends who continue to encourage me and hold me accountable. For believing that I could do this and succeed. I could not have done it without you. Your patience and love carried me through the rough spots, and you rejoiced with me as hurdles were cleared. Thanks to Mom and Dad who were even willing to read outside their normal genre to support me, you are the best.

A special thanks to all my beta readers and their willingness to take me on as a new author and to share your views while the work was in progress. For helping me identify slang terms that not all regions would interpret the same. LOL Thanks for seeing it through. Georgianna Jonson and Dee B. you guys are the best interactive sounding boards ever. I am honored to have had you with me through the process. Justin, thanks so much for the books you were able to read for me before your move. Maureen and Gloria I hope you are enjoying the beginning of the series as much as you did the later books you read for me.

My family, friends and beta readers have heard this disclaimer many times but here it is for all reading my books for the first time.

These books are works of fiction. If details about locations are accurate, I may have passed through or I may have gotten lucky with my description. No need to correct perceived errors in the description, this is fiction. Some facts or observations are woven through the stories but for the majority of the material, this is fiction. *laugh* I hope you enjoy the stories. I hope they inspire you to explore places you have not been, but please don’t try to find places described except just for fun, because it’s fiction. May the wanderlust take you to places unknown by road or by reading. Encourage our youth to learn the joy and fun of reading, a vacation for our mind that can last minutes or hours as time allows. Thanks for checking us out.

About: TDU - The Series

Tactical (strategic, planned, psychological, calculated, intentional)

Development (expansion, progress, advancement, training, education)

Unit (entity, division, group, company, organization)

The number of paranormal entities in the world are increasing and intermarrying with humans. Those humans and their friends and families are now aware of them and word is spreading. Who will help with peacekeeping and law enforcement as knowledge of their existence spreads. Who will help train local law enforcement agencies how to deal with these groups, who have until now been self-policed. With the increased numbers and expansion beyond the voluntary group boundaries of the past, an integrated human and paranormal force will be needed for the future. The Tactical Development Unit (TDU) is that force.

Nine Lives of Karma Rae introduces you to a new group of characters. They will meet our TDU group along the way but have their own adventures beginning, or perhaps resuming from times past. Their lifestyle will likely be different from your own and they will be the first to acknowledge that it will not work for everyone. For their species, it is the norm not the exception. They do not advocate either for or against it in our time but encourage each individual to live in a manner that resonates harmoniously within themselves. Be who you are and allow others the same. If you cannot live supportively of each other, then agree to disagree but peacefully without spreading harm or bitterness. There is enough of that in our world today without adding more.

If you have read my previous books you will know that I promote romance but not graphic descriptions of what transpires behind closed doors. That hasn’t changed so if the prior paragraph had you worried in either a positive or negative manner, rest easy. I hope you will turn the pages and continue on to enjoy Karma’s story. I am sure you will get a kick out of their interactions with the TDU and others.

Table of Contents

Contents

Copyright Page

Dedication & Acknowledgements

About: TDU - The Series

Table of Contents

~ Prologue ~ Nine Lives of Karma Rae

Chapter 1 - Awakening

Chapter 2 - Mail & Fate

Chapter 3 - Homing Beacon

Chapter 4 - Research

Chapter 5 - Getting Real

Chapter 6 - Moving

Chapter 7 - Grand Opening

Chapter 8 - Timing is Everything

Chapter 9 - Engaged

Chapter 10 – TDU Assignment

Chapter 11 - Wedding

Chapter 12 – Honeymoon Sparring

Chapter 13 - House Hunting

Chapter 14 - Progress

Chapter 15 - Nearly Normal

Chapter 16 – Journals

Chapter 17 – Knowledge & Power

Chapter 18 – TDU & Quantico

About the Author

~ Prologue ~ Nine Lives of Karma Rae

Excerpt from Grandpa Dan’s Journal:

Karma Rae Long – First grandchild.

My first grandchild was a surprise to her parents, but not to me. You see, our family on my Mama’s side have many gifts and mine is having the sight a short way into the future. When my daughter Rae Lynn Donner and Kenneth Rae Lang started dating in high school, I sat those two down and told them that the only birth control that is 100% effective is abstinence. Now I was under no illusions about how young people act outside the view of their folks but having the sight and being able to read the signs they gave off when they were hiding something, I was able to encourage them strongly, and often, to avoid that temptation in their high school years.

We talked regularly about the fact that Karma Rae Lang would be a handful and pay them back in spades for every time they tested the strength of modern day birth control methods. Well, you can imagine that when they went off to college, they began testing the statistics almost immediately. I kept reminding them that Karma would be joining them soon if they continued their promiscuous behaviors. They laughed about me saying Karma would come to them and return test for test, reassured me they were being very careful and responsible in sharing their love for each other.

A few months before the end of their first year of college my daughter, with Kenny in tow, came home for a long weekend. Kenny asked for my blessing to marry Rae Lynn. They were both nervous and holding their breath. I asked if there was anything else they wanted to say in the matter, and they admitted that they were expecting my first grandchild. Though they had used birth control every time, my prediction about the failure rate of birth control methods turned out to be true.

I told them that I had seen their future while they were still in high school, so it was not a surprise to me and gave them my blessing because I also saw the years and years of love and family ahead of them. I also reminded them that Karma Rae would be testing them for years to come and they needed to learn now how to be patient and loving and encouraging to her because she would be a great blessing to them as long as she didn’t run out of the lives in her account.

Kenny laughed and said, like a cat has nine lives? I told him if we were going to equate them to cats they better plan on adopting a 100 to accommodate her curious spirit. They both paled and I figured my job was done as I walked away laughing. I could have mentioned that both the love of my life and myself came from a long history of families where the first born were blessed with special gifts.

Our first born, Rae Lynn’s brother Thomas, had the gift of healing. Started using it on small animals when he was 5 and after one tour in the military be became a doctor and joined a group that go into remote areas and treat natives without access to healthcare. The miracles of his gift of healing were easier to use without insurance companies expecting certain statistics to prevail.

I saw in Karma’s future that there were going to be times I called Tom home to tend to his niece over the years. I suspect child protective services would have been a part of Karma’s life early on if we hadn’t self-treated her within the family. She would eventually learn to express her curiosity verbally, and only try things out when her siblings weren’t around, once they started copying her actions. *laugh* But until then, the phrase curiosity killed the cat certainly was tattooed on Karma’s heart and soul.

Karma Rae Lang was born 7 months later, already anxious to arrive early and test the lives in her account. It was a close call, but she was a lovely and determined bit of preemie heaven and she survived, thrived and blessed our lives and the two siblings who followed her a few years later.

Some of her adventures stick out in my mind more than others. *grin* By age 4, one of her gifts was apparent, as she talked to every animal whose path she crossed. They even sought her out.

At six, she observed a fox in its den and learned, from the fox, how to make her own den. Unfortunately, she made her den in the field that all the neighbor boys rode their bikes on, jumping the small hills with them like a moto cross of old. One day a jump went awry, and the boy landed on Karma’s den, collapsing it on top of her and breaking her arm. She arrived home later that day with her first cast, of many, and the back yard quickly filled with a plethora of sympathetic friends of hers. Birds, squirrels, cats, a fox and even a skunk (who was thankfully well behaved), all checked out the cast.

At seven, Karma was confidently riding her two wheel bike down the sidewalk when a bully from her class jumped out of a bush to scare her. She and the bike fell into the street and she was hit by a car. The boy stayed by her side until help arrived a few minutes later to perform CPR, since she had stopped breathing and was not conscious. He admitted to the police officer what happened. After she was breathing on her own and on the way to the hospital, he led them to her home to tell her parents what happened. Charlie stopped being a bully after that day and instead became Karma’s self-appointed protector and over several years became her best friend. (Eight lives to go.)

When she was nine, a flying squirrel taught her how to leap from branch to branch through the trees in the woods, which worked until she went too high and picked a branch too small for her size. Her Uncle Thomas came home for that one, she hit so many branches on the way down and met a few boulders in the final plummet to the ground, the contusions and cuts took weeks to heal, even with Thomas helping them along.

Ten was the age when a brown bear piggy backed her home with a sprained ankle, thank God no one shot at them. We thought that was the scariest encounter until at eleven we found her napping in the field next door with El Diablo, the psychotic bull from the rodeo. She told us he is only mean because they don’t let him have friends anymore and he invited her to snuggle with him in the shade. Rae Lynn and Kenny nearly had heart attacks on that one. Truth be told, I almost did too, even knowing about her gift.

That was about the same time she noticed that Ari and Beth were starting to follow her lead in all things daring and exciting. They were 8 and 6 respectively. She sat her parents down and explained that she didn’t want her little brother and sister to get hurt and asked for some scheduled time, with them otherwise occupied, each week to be herself and explore. And in return she would be all talk and no action in their presence. She was negotiating at 11, well blackmailing really, can you imagine the nightmares they must have had about the teen years preparing to descend upon them? *laugh* The next couple years were pretty normal, as active kids are, there were some PE, playtime and vacation mishaps.

The winter Karma was in 8th grade she saw a young child, a boy, following their puppy out on the frozen pond in the park. Well, deeper and bigger than a pond really, but not big enough to call it a lake. She called to the puppy to come off the ice knowing the boy would follow and as he was walking back toward her the ice started to crack and the boy fell in.

Karma called for help from nearby adults, sliding the puppy toward them, and went carefully further out on the ice. She lay down and stretched as far as she could, so that her weight was not concentrated in a small area but spread out and reached for the child. She managed to pull him free and scooted him ahead of her on the ice until the adults could reach the boy.

She continued to scoot toward the bank but suddenly the remaining portion of ice developed a huge crack and she fell through. The giant pieces then slammed back together over her and she couldn’t get out. With the youngster safe the adults turned their attention to attempting a rescue of Karma. By the time they located her and pulled her out she had swallowed copious amounts of the ice cold water and was not breathing.

The emergency services had arrived by then and immediately started CPR and continued it all the way to the hospital. Finally in the ER she started retching all the pond water from her lungs and came back to life. She told us she had seen that it would all turn out okay, her ability of sight like her grandparents had arrived. (Seven lives to go.)

High school and college saw lots of adventures and dangers, but none that were life threatening. She was fearless with wild animals and life in general. She climbed mountains, hiked canyons, bungee jumped from bridges and learned to sky dive and fly planes. She volunteered often to help find missing persons in the area she lived and a few lost objects too.

She interned with multiple companies dealing with animals of all sizes throughout her school years and acted as a consultant for wildlife shows and parks. She endured her fair share of bites and scratches in spite of her ability to communicate with the animals. Some animals, like humans, are just mean or angry at times.

She also consulted on several high profile law enforcement cases where animals or their human trainers and caretakers were involved in crimes. One ended with a local hero being arrested for animal abuse and his supporters were unmerciful in their determination to discredit and harm her. Several were charged with stalking, assault and battery and criminal trespass.

A well respected newspaper in the city began a smear campaign, to support the local accused of animal abuse and to do everything in their power to present her as a fake and charlatan. As a result of their efforts to sway the public, she began receiving death threats and finally had to leave her job and move to another state closer to her family. It was devastating both emotionally and financially. She had only one semester of college remaining, and her graduation was delayed because of it. She enrolled in the college her brother Ari had been attending to become a Vet and graduated at the top of her class in spite of all the stress she had lived through recently. I was so proud of my granddaughter. As horrible as those people had been to her she still remained such a positive and loving young woman.

On graduation she started applying for full time employment only to find that the damage caused by the articles in her old hometown had in many cases been shared with other papers at a national level. After several months of rejections due to the publicity surrounding her from the year prior, she contacted a lawyer and sued the paper for damages.

She had to take unrelated employment and work on rebuilding her professional reputation slowly over the year that followed that. She wouldn’t talk about the lawsuit even with family or friends but at the end of the trial the paper was forced to print a retraction and feature about the trial under the courts approval and share it with every agency it had previously shared the originals with. There was also a settlement of an undisclosed amount to cover her income shortages until her business could be rebuilt. It was very difficult for her to stand up publicly to the media who bullied her so unmercifully. She is much stronger and more respected by her peers because of it though.

Karma works now as a consultant in the entertainment world, dealing with animals of all kinds. She travels to their movie locations and is also on call for several veterinary practices for when they have difficult patients. LOL She would like to open her own business someday that caters to pets. Ari will graduate soon, and she would love to cut back on her travel and work near his practice, helping him as needed.

Next month there is a huge conference of animal workers meeting at a ski resort near Detroit. She has been talking about it for weeks already. I am hoping she will meet a nice young man to settle down with. Of my three grandchildren, only the youngest, Beth, has married so far. No great grandchildren yet but I am hopeful. In my future sight I see several but no indication of timing for them. *wink*

.  .  .  .  . 

Chapter 1 - Awakening

Six weeks later. . . .

My brain feels like it’s caught in a vise and I can’t seem to open my eyes no matter how hard I try. There are people in the room talking about me, but I can’t talk or open my eyes to let them know I can hear them.

Is she awake yet, Ari? It’s been over a week since the accident. She should be waking by now, shouldn’t she?

The Doc said she would wake up when the swelling goes down more. We were lucky, those first few days were pretty scary waiting for her vitals to improve and for her to be breathing on her own again. Beth, it’s going to be fine, Grandad said it’s just a matter of time. He saw her getting better in a vision so we know she will.

I know Ari, it’s just so unfair. Why do these things keep happening to her? Grandad used to tease that she was like a cat with nine lives and at the rate she was going through them, she would need a 100 cats just to live a normal human lifespan.

*laugh* I remember that. He used to say I lived life like a mouse on LSD, darting into danger at every opportunity because the rainbows and lightning bolts were calling me to ride on them.

Not all those close calls were my fault though, the times that weren’t shouldn’t count against me, right? And technically, I have only been pronounced dead twice, three times if this counts? I can’t quite remember what happened yet. My brain feels foggy and pressed at the same time. Beth mentioned an accident, which sounds right, something involving falling? Gah. Why can’t I remember? I’m here guys, I can hear you, so tired though. . . . . .

Hey Sis, anything yet? They did the brain scan again this morning, right?

Hey, Ari, yes to the brain scan and nothing else yet. Her face looks way more relaxed though and they finally cut back on the pain meds. Her internist thinks she was overmedicated by the surgeon and hopes the lower dose will help her wake up. He said there doesn’t appear to be any reason she hasn’t by now, medically.

Well, it’s been almost three weeks and I won’t be able to come the next few weekends. I’m sorry you’ve been having to hold the fort here alone, this last year of school is so jammed, I just can’t take off school days for anything. I brought in her very own cure-all to hopefully help though. (Opens a small box and reaches in to pull out the most adorable kitten ever.)

*Laughing* Oh.My.God. Ari, I can’t believe you did that. You better hope a nurse doesn’t come in while it’s here. Karma, it’s time to wake up. Ari snuck in a kitten to love you back to health so wake up because if you don’t take control of it the staff might take it to the POUND, Karma, THE.POUND.

Ari settles the kitten in the crook of my neck and the little kitten starts purring, kneading my shoulder and cleaning my face. Leave it to my brother to bring the perfect cup of love to greet me when I wake. My facial muscles start twitching with each rough tongue swipe. I still can’t seem to open my eyes, but my shoulder responds to push the little cuddler closer to my cheek and I sigh. It feels like maybe my lips obeyed with a smile too, but I wasn’t sure until Ari whooped and high fived Beth over the bed.

Now they are both grabbing my hands and laughing, and Beth pressed the button for the nurse. I try to tell them I’m awake, but my lips seem plastered shut the same as my eyes. I’d give anything for a good face washing and a view of the victory dance I can hear going on. *grinning, well sort of grinning*

Beth and Ari each have one of my hands and in desperation I try fingerspelling into their hands. My fingers actually obey, and I spell out, need face wash and water. By the time I finish the room is quiet and they must be staring at each other to see if the other noticed or if they imagined it. Do it again, they both shout. So I start over slowly.

Beth pulls my hand to her face to wipe away her tears and says I’ll get the warm wash rag and Ari adds that he will get some ice chips because water through a straw might be too much all at once. He kisses my forehead and leaves the room. The nurse arrives as Beth gets back to the bedside with the warm wash rag and shares the kitten miracle and fingerspelling. The nurse holds my hand and asks for a squeeze, I do, she pats my hand and says she will be right back after she calls my doctor with the news.

Beth works gently over