Sudden Shock

By Nia Markos

Elleanor Stone has been alive for centuries. Cursed with immortality by none other than the goddess Aphrodite herself, Elleanor has been working for the past eleven years in modern day New York, as an investigator with the agency guarding against paranormal crimes and misdemeanors. As a lead investigator, she works alongside her partners, a fourteenth-century vampire, and a long-lived Sidhe faerie.

Brant Ankar, billionaire, and philanthropist, fathered by an Asgardian warrior, has only recently arrived in New York to open a sub-division of his company Ankar and Associates. Pleading for help, a woman from his past, begs him to recover a lost artifact which may have dire consequences if it falls into the wrong hands.Elleanor has her own hands full when the murder of a young female werewolf leads her to believe the cause of death to be due to a vampire bite.

Time is of the essence in solving the crime. Suspicion, hatred, between vampires and werewolves, runs deep. Having only recently halted their centuries-old war, finding out a vampire was responsible could cause a new conflict to erupt.From New York to Florence, Elleanor follows the clues to solve the young woman’s murder. The arrival of a past love, one she long thought dead, will have profound consequences, both to the case and to her personally.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nia Markos
• Release date: Feb 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005746025

Nia Markos

I write about Sidhe faeries, magic, daemons and shadows, quests and prophecies, with mythological elements in The Crystal Series. (And The Guardians of the Accords series under the Elleanor Stone Collection). My next book, Sudden Shock, comes out September, 2018. I also be releasing a follow up to The Crystal Series soon.https://niamarkos.com/Professional Bio:Nia Markos was born in Montreal, Canada, to Greek parents who loved to indulge her with tales of mythology and history. Drawing inspiration from their stories and combining them with her love of the paranormal, she weaves tales for her young/new adult audience.After graduating college, Nia went to on to study history at university. At a crossroads in her life, the opportunity presented itself to enter the work force in something other than what she had foreseen. For over thirty years she worked in the financial sector.An avid, ferocious reader of practically anything written, be it historical, fantasy, thrillers or spy novels, her preferred reading has been in the young adult paranormal genre. Writing is a passion, one which she discovered later in life.Her first book release, Elements (The Crystal Series Book One), has garnered great reviews. Three books later, the complete trilogy is available. The final installment of The Crystal Series, released in late 2017, brings a conclusion to that part of the story. Her new continuing series, The Elleanor Stone Collection, builds on that world, adding new characters and taking them on to greater adventures.

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Sudden Shock

Nia Markos

Copyright © 2018 by Nia Markos

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.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Cover design by: Nia Markos

Editor: Jacqueline Snider

None of this would have been possible without the love and support of Dominic.

Or, the valuable input of Cynthia and Seb

Hide In Plain Sight

Twilight came and went. In its wake, the expanding blackness of night moved steadily across the island of Manhattan. Street lamps lit up, traffic eased and pedestrians scattered. October had brought cold, unseasonal weather, an early reminder that winter was on its way. Numbing cold was threatening the overnight hours.

Exiting one of the buildings, on an abandoned avenue in the Bowery District at ten that night, something’s shadow elongated across the sidewalk. Hidden beneath a hood, its owner could not be seen. The figure stopped just outside the door, scanning the neighborhood, and upon seeing the coast being clear hurried away.

In its haste, making its way across the avenue, its misjudgment caused it to bump into a parked car, jarring it heavily. The car’s alarm went off, the blaring horn breaking the quiet, sounding deafening to the ears of the escaping figure. Without a backward glance, it sped away, putting as much distance as quickly as possible between itself and the complex it had just left.

High up, on the seventh floor of that same building, the inside of a corner apartment appeared inky black. Reflected on the pane of glass, the moon cast itself in muted shades. The floors above the apartment and below it emitted light from still-awake residents. None of the inhabitants on the seventh, however, seemed to be up at that hour. An eerie stillness hung over the inside of the apartment, where the ongoing car alarm penetrated its silence.

The muffled sound of the alarm, both insistent and annoying, brought the young woman back to awareness. Moving through the closed window, the persistent wailing gave her something to focus on, as she ever so slowly regained her senses. Blinking, terror filled her at the surrounding darkness until she realized the lights were off. She found herself huddled in the far corner of the shadowed living room, disoriented and struggling to get her bearings. What happened? How did I get over here?

The last thing she recalled was a debilitating, torturous sensation, as though her entire body was being consumed by fire. She vaguely remembered sitting at her desk on the other side of the room. Her laptop, open on the last search page, still cast a radiant light across the desktop, displaying proof of its recent use. She had been researching something important, but in her muddled mind could not recollect what. The onset of the blistering pain had come swiftly, but was brief. Then, she had felt nothing. She must have lost consciousness. How she had ended up there, in the corner, had her mystified.

A final chirp sounded outside. The blaring alarm fell silent. In the now absolute silence of the room, the abrupt clatter coming from the refrigerator as it released its ice cubes into the receptacle, startled her. Trembling from fright, she wrapped her arms around her legs, bringing them closer to her body. Increasing fear kept her frozen, paralyzed. Her eyes darted here and there, unable to fathom a reasonable explanation for her situation. Then her eyes landed on someone sprawled across the floor in the center of the room. She had no clue who it might be.

With only the moonlight entering through the window to pierce the darkness, she could just barely make out an outline of the body that was facing away from her. From where she sat, identifying who it could be was impossible. The face of the person looked away towards the front door. Whoever they were, they lay very still, unmoving. She saw no indication the person was even breathing. A dire, ominous foreboding made her press further back against the wall behind her, as if to hide within it. With her sight adjusting to the limited light in the room, her eyes fastened on the body, and an involuntary shudder coursed through her.

The sprawled figure lay on their stomach. That the body was female was obvious by the clothing she wore. A light-colored dress rode up on the left bent knee, exposing a thigh and gave a glimpse of the woman’s pink underwear. The garments seemed familiar to her, as she took in the position of the body. Both of the arms were spread out above her head, as if the female had tried to soften her fall. Debating whether to go over to check and see if the woman needed help, she found she was unable to leave the safety of her hiding place. Something kept her rooted to the spot.

Panicked, even the familiarity of the room could not calm her. She knew each corner, each piece of furniture in sight. Her apartment was tastefully decorated in soft pastels. She had spent weeks deciding on the color scheme before moving in. The walls were painted a delicate peach color, while she chose the sofa and armchair for their unusual burnt rose shade. She still had not decided on the tables and lighting for the room. Her thoughts were harshly pulled back to the reality of her situation by the sound of approaching footsteps from the hallway outside.

She heard muted voices from the other side of her front door. The knock that followed went unanswered. Fearing for her life, not wanting to end up like the body on the floor, she stayed still, quiet, listening and watching. The rattling of her doorknob made her jump, freezing her as she stared transfixed at its turning ever so slowly. A whimper escaped her and she brought her hands to cover her mouth to silence herself. With the door inching its way open, the cast of light from the hallway spread into the living room. Two people, a man and a woman, entered, scanning the room before they moved towards the body on the floor. The young woman held her breath, hoping they would not notice her.

__________________________________

Entering the room, at precisely eleven thirteen that night, the pair of forensic analysts approached the body expecting the worst. After shutting the door behind him, the man trailed after the woman, carrying a large metal case, which he deposited within easy reach of his partner, who was hunched down checking for a pulse. In the absence of light, both having enhanced sight, they could see from the waxen complexion, the glassy eyes and dilated pupils that the corpse had been dead a little over an hour. Their boss must have been alerted of the crime at the precise moment the young woman had died. It was not unheard of. They had the Faicinn, their felony notification device, to thank for that.

One of the founding members, who helped establish the Accords governing the preternatural worlds, created a device that alerted them to crimes perpetrated by the various races bound by the Accords. From the most inconsequential transgressions to the more significant infractions, this extraordinary invention led teams, such as theirs, to the locations of crimes they were tasked to investigate. The faerie race known as the Sidhe, led by Queen Eliana, had been instrumental in restoring peace between the many factions of preternatural beings.

Since her ascension to the throne over three thousand years before, the queen’s main focus was upon governing and protecting her people. From the Sidhe’s shielded, invisible island off the coast of Scotland, she saw the need to take on a leadership role if her people and those of other preternatural beings were to survive undetected by humans.

Queen Eliana freely offered the felony notification device to the governing body, a collection of Council members duly elected by their peers. She had named the device Faicinn, their word for envision. Its usual sky-blue colored, monoclinic, crystalline shape pulsed a vivid indigo when detecting a crime. From inside the crystal, the location, the victim and the team to be called were projected to the administrators. The image appeared to the administrators as a scrolling text. Cast out into the darkened room from within the crystal, the words hung in the air in the middle of their workplace.

The Faicinn was linked to the Sidhe’s powerful crystal named the Kaemorra, meaning sanctuary. The Kaemorra protected the island of Eruva, which the Sidhe called their home, and also allowed the queen to harness its energy to foresee the future, protect her people and cloak their island in invisibility. If the Faicinn could identify the guilty parties, the job of the investigators would become obsolete. But they were not so lucky. Queen Eliana had purposely limited the power within the device making it the responsibility of the teams to do the investigating. Her reasoning, the purpose of it, she had never let known.

Crimes such as the one they were presently investigating were quickly assigned to teams of two analysts and a lead investigator. Humans were never aware of the crimes, petty or more heinous, which were committed by criminals within the preternatural world. Some of what these diverse beings were capable of still managed to shock even the most seasoned investigators. This death lacked the blood and gore they had grown accustomed to. The dead woman showed no signs of violence or that she had put up any struggle against her assailant.

The female analyst rose and stepped away from the body. Nodding to her partner, the action confirmed they did indeed have a murder on their hands. Getting to work, she leaned down to open the case and proceeded to extract a series of sterile swabs and plastic, re-sealable bags. These she placed on the case’s open tray where she would have access to them as needed. She left the body in its position so that her partner could capture the scene with his digital camera. Moving out of his way, she gave him room to maneuver while he snapped photos from different angles. Their routine was well established after years of working together, making words unnecessary between them.

With nothing else to do until her partner was finished, she took the opportunity to wander around the room, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. Everything appeared in its place, organized and impeccably clean. The only light in the room came from the open laptop sitting on a simple desk. Walking over to it, the laptop showed her the results of a search the woman had initiated earlier. She leaned forward to read what the dead woman had been interested in.

Curious was all she could think upon seeing the letters forming the words, hide in plain sight. The search engine had spit back different links to a movie of that name. Not sure if it meant anything relative to the case, she called her partner over to snap some additional photos. The laptop they would bag and tag as evidence for further analysis, once the postmortem was completed.

I’m done. You can examine the body. He informed her. Having taken the shots of the desk, he moved to snap photos of the rest of the living room.

Leaving the desk, she returned to the dead woman, beginning her usual routine of viewing the body before collecting specimens. As she pulled on a pair of latex gloves, she crouched down to visually examine the victim. The woman’s name was Eve. She was young, just a month over her nineteenth birthday. Her importance was not lost on the two analysts. She was a female werewolf, employed by the Council member representing their kind.

Pretty came to the analyst’s mind while she examined the little she could see of the dead woman’s face. Long strands of strawberry-blond hair concealed half her face, fell down to cover her neck and then fanned out onto the floor. Pushing the strands out of the way, the side of her face and exposed neck came into view. The sight of the wound forced a gasp from the analyst’s lips.

Hearing the sound, her partner came over to see what had caused it. His customary pale complexion seemed to blanch further. Eve’s long, elegant neck exhibited the telltale signs of what had caused her death. Two pinprick points, about an inch-and-a-half apart, had pierced Eve’s jugular. The sight of the wound caused an instant reaction from her partner.

Watching his canines elongate, the woman heard a low hiss escape him. She knew enough to calm him before he completely lost control. She needed him focused on their work. Using her ingrained talent for soothing, her touch on his arm had the desired effect. His feral eyes lost their glazed countenance, returning to the shade she found endearing.

We may have no choice but to call Elle. She had spoken only once she was sure he had settled down. Get the light, please. No point in working in the dark.

Maybe. Let’s finish our work here before we decide. He answered her first comment, moving to the wall by the door to flick on the light. From there, he stepped away to continue his work, leaving her to do hers. The woman caught his glance back at the body, and saw the shudder that raced through him. Seeing her concerned look, he turned away.

Sighing at his now-stiff back, she resumed her examination of the body. The area around the marks on the woman’s neck appeared blistered and swollen, but no sign of blood was present. Reaching with her gloved fingers, she pressed the skin to find it hard, unyielding. She made no comment on that fact. Continuing, she turned Eve over onto her back to check for any other wounds. Eve’s facial expression seemed peaceful, as if she were sleeping.

No other marks were visible, but that did not mean there were none. She would have the chance to examine Eve more thoroughly back at the lab. For now, she collected the necessary specimens of tissue, fiber and anything else that caught her eye. They would have to keep an open mind on the evidence. Her partner, she saw, had stopped his work and was staring out the window. There were no words she could speak to allay his fears.

The presence of the young woman huddled in the corner had gone unseen by them both. Whether she was grateful not to be discovered or alarmed at the fact they did not notice her, only she knew. Wide-eyed, she followed their movements in her apartment, completely unable to make sense of anything that was happening.

The Call

Arriving home in the small hours, Elleanor Stone pulled into her driveway, with only the motion-detecting light above her two-car garage to guide her. She parked outside for once, too tired to go through the motions of having to exit the car and haul the garage door up. Yet again, the thought of installing an automatic garage-door opener came to mind. It was another thing to add to her list, which had been growing ever since she had moved in six months before.

Getting out of her prized, 2016, sleek red Jaguar F-Type, she crossed the distance to the painted-black door of her home, and entered directly into her ten-foot-square mud room. Before closing the front door, she made sure to press her car remote, listening for the chirp of the car locking the doors and arming the alarm.

Upon entering, she dumped everything, including her purse, coat and boots, onto the black, wood-framed bench at her right. Her usual routine of placing things neatly in the cubbies, on the seat bench or inside the sliding, mirrored closet was foregone. Too exhausted to care, she ignored her wallet falling out of her purse and left it where it had landed on the floor. She would pick it up when she left in the morning.

Her overriding need for sleep kept her moving forward. At the other end of the mud room, the beveled clear-glassed, double French doors stood open. Walking through them, she stepped down into the open-spaced section of her living room.

As expected, Aramis, her lone companion, a precocious little Beagle, upon hearing her arrival had greeted her with his usual exuberance. After letting him outside to do his business, he crisscrossed through her legs, jumping up now and then. Following her into the kitchen, he impatiently waited for her to fill his bowls with food and water, completely forgetting about her once he had started eating.

She had chosen the property purposely for its location. Far off from any roads, surrounded by forest, the isolation allowed her complete privacy. She was ten driving minutes away from the center of Thomaston, New York, and a little less than forty minutes, on a good day, from Manhattan, where she worked. The charming one-story, gray-bricked bungalow she called home, with its circular drive, was off Community Drive and down a private road. She had no fear of living so far away from the nearest neighbors. In fact, she welcomed the solitude.

A large, gray-stoned fireplace took up most of the outside facing wall of her living room, over which a sixty-inch, flat-screen television, which was rarely used, was wall mounted. Everything else, the furnishings, lighting and decorations were original pieces that had moved with her through the ages. Her antiques would fetch an impressive sum at auction. Past the living room, her spacious dining room could easily accommodate twelve guests. The kitchen behind the dining room, with its cream, faint cappuccino-veined marble floor, although housing all the modern appliances, an island and being fully equipped, seldom got used. In her pantry, the sole item she kept in stock was her favorite Arabica-bean coffee. Taken black with no sugar, it was no surprise that her fridge, if opened, was empty.

Off to the right of the entrance, a long corridor led to the back of the house where two bedrooms, an office and a powder room were found. The guest bedroom possessed an identical king-sized bed to her own, with two night stands and a dresser. It lacked any color scheme or warmth. Painted entirely white, its use had never been required. She kept it at the ready on the off-chance she permitted someone to stay overnight.

Her office was her sanctum. Here one got a glimpse into her character, her interests. A vast collection of original editions and antique books, stored protectively within thick-glassed, barrister bookcases, took up all the walls in the room. They ranged in subject matter, from historical scrolls, literature from Hemingway and Joyce, and quite a few periodicals from past centuries, which were kept in mint condition. She would peruse at her leisure, when time afforded it, a newfound treasure trove of books on her most prized possession; it had taken three men to move the ornate hand-carved French imperial desk, which faced away from the window, into the room.

In her bedroom, her taste ran into more modern conveniences. Her walk-in closet, almost as large as the bedroom itself, held her preferred style of dress. Imperial dresses, tailored suits for business, simple straight-leg trousers, with an assortment of shirts and sweaters hung on hangers on one side. On the other side, a variety of jeans with differing cuts, along with leather slacks and jackets, took up the row. Shoes, boots, sandals and sneakers were neatly arranged on racks on the facing wall.

The furniture in the bedroom, which was decorated in earthy tones of creams and beiges, included her king-sized bed, a dresser and two bureaus with matching sconce lighting mounted above them. A separate door led to her Roman-inspired bathroom with its impressive, immense shower.

With Aramis taken care of, Elleanor gave his head a pat, which he ignored, and returned to the living room. There she poured herself a glass of whiskey, needing it to face the prospect of another dream-riddled night. While she nursed her drink, she sat on the couch, wondering if tonight would be different than the endless previous ones.

Over the past six months, her nightly sleep had been reduced to a mere few hours. Would her tiredness be enough to stave off the return of the unwelcome, repetitive dream she had been enduring? Gulping down the rest of her drink, she left the glass on the ottoman in front of her, got up from the couch and made her way to her bedroom.

There she found herself drawn to the only personal item in the room, a painting of a man depicted during Roman times. It was to remind her, never allow her to forget, what came with getting attached to people. She had commissioned it from memory. Working alongside the artist she hired for the job, detailing the man’s unforgettable features and the exact presence he had exuded. The artist had captured him to perfection.

Gazing upon it inevitably brought the painful reminder of his loss crushing back to her. It was so long ago, but the heartache refused to heal. No one since then had been able to make her forget. Only her work kept her focused, making it possible for her to move forward.

She stood in front of the painting for some time, wondering why the latest turn of events was consuming her. His face remained frozen in time. His full sensual lips that had teased and excited her, spoke not one word to explain what was happening to her. She finally crawled into bed exhausted, seeking to empty her mind and find that elusive peace. However, her eyes remained open, her mind refusing to still, refusing to stop trying to figure out what it all meant.

She knew work had nothing to do with the reason sleep refused to claim her. All in all, her job was the one thing going well in her life. For the past eleven years, her job working at the Agency dealing with otherworldly crimes and misdemeanors gave her focus. The name of the Agency was a tongue twister; people who worked there were forced to come up with an acronym. The Agency’s Division for Resolving Otherworldly Infractions and Transgressions became ADROIT. The word meant skilled in handling situations, which aptly described what she and her coworkers were tasked to do. She was a lead investigator, working alongside two partners who each specialized in their own unique field. To those she worked or associated with, she was known simply as Ella. Her few close friends affectionately called her Elle.

Her day had begun at six that morning. The call to investigate a break in at the home of a well-respected warlock took no time to solve. The man had simply been a victim of a recently fired employee. In less than an hour, his stolen belongings had been found, and the culprit apprehended. Ella’s day, though, was just beginning.

Another three cases found their way to her. Along with the ones she was already investigating, she had no time to spare on her personal problems. She managed to resolve all her cases, with the last one including apprehending a clever suspect after weeks of following his trail. Catching him red-handed stealing blood from