DEATHLY SHADOW: BLACK PROPHECIES SERIES

By Terry R. King

Sara and Hana Tanaka are twin Japanese sisters with extremely opposite personalities. They were born and raised in a rough Detroit environment by their mother and father. They have both inherited telepathic abilities from their father. Sara wants to use her gifts to help people and soon learns her abilities go beyond telepathy and into the realm of mind control…at a cost. Hana the bad sister has unfortunately also inherited her mother's psychopathy and she is using her telepathic abilities for her own pleasure. Sara befriends a police officer, Detective Scott, who is trying to find Hana because she has killed at least three men. Sara begins helping Scott solve crimes using her telepathic skills. During one of their sessions she identifies a man who thinks he is a Serial Killer. The killer becomes obsessed with Sara during that session and begins to stalk her and wants to make her one of his women. He kills each woman, marks them and believes he owns them forever. An unorthodox philanthropist named Alberto Black is forming a team of 'experts' including people with paranormal gifts who he hopes will investigate difficult crimes and solve them. He has learned of Sara's skills and offers her a place on his team, if she can survive this serial killer’s obsession.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 23, 2024
• ISBN: 9781663262059

Terry R. King

Terry R. King is a native of Cincinnati Ohio. He was in Information Technology and retired after working 30 years at a fortune 500 company, focusing on Computer System’s Validation and Technical Writing. Terry has always had a passion for reading and writing and a fascination for understanding the supernatural, paranormal and serial killers; are they born or made? He and his Wife love to travel and try to spend as much quality time as they can with their five grown daughters and seven grandchildren. Terry’s two favorite quotes are: “I drink and I now things” (Tyrion Lannister) and “You can’t scare me, I have five daughters!” Both of which are inspiration for his writing

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Copyright © 2024 Terry R. King.

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ISBN: 978-1-6632-6204-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-6205-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024907611

iUniverse rev. date: 04/11/2024

CONTENTS

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Epilogue

DEDICATION

To my Wife Melissa and Daughters.

To my mother Audrey Happy 90th Birthday.

Thank you for being strong!

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CHAPTER ONE

As we entered the funeral home together, I heard calming music playing, like elevator music. There were more people here than I expected. I was so happy that all these people came to pay their last respects to my father. There were friends and co-workers and some neighbors in attendance. I remembered some of them, and I smiled and nodded to say hello as I passed them. I knew it was going to be a horrible day for me, but today wasn’t about me.

They were all dressed nicely in dark dress clothes out of respect for my father in this tragic moment as people normally do at funerals. I was wearing a new black dress that mother let me buy for the ceremony. Some of the women would nod their heads, slightly smile and reach out to lightly touch my arm as a form of respect and sympathy. They were gathered and talking in small groups, drinking coffee and tea. I came here with my mother and sister. My mother, Jade began to mingle with the guests and my sister Hana, predictably, went directly to the front row and sat down without saying hello to anyone.

My focus, my reason for being here was to say goodbye to my father. He was gone now, and I will miss him dearly. An accident at work had taken him from us. I noticed beautiful flower arrangements spread about the room with tags from those who bought them. I noticed a visitor’s logbook by the entrance too. Before I leave, I should go around and collect the tags to know who to send thank you cards to. Of course, my mother wouldn’t think of that. She largely only thinks of herself. I started performing some of my mother’s roles at home a couple of years ago to keep our home normal.

As I approached the casket, I wanted to give him my entire attention and as I began to look up at my father with my upper peripheral vision, I thought I saw that his dark eyes were open for a second, staring straight ahead. As my focus fell fully upon his face they weren’t of course. It wasn’t possible for his eyes to be open; he had died two days ago and had been embalmed which happens to everyone unless you are cremated or if you belong to a religion that forbids it.

As I stood alone in front of my father’s casket, I looked down at him for the last time. I have some very happy memories that briefly began to play through my mind which made me smile.

He was a handsome man, lying there in a new suit I picked out and my mother bought for him. His black hair was combed perfectly, and his hands were folded neatly across his chest. I love him and will miss him greatly. I wanted to spend as much time with him as possible before I had to walk away forever.

I softly said, I love you Daddy and we are going to miss you so much! I will try to take care of them. I meant my mother and my sister of course. I didn’t know it at the time, but even though I would try to take care of them, I inevitably would fail. They both had serious mental issues and father knew it too.

Suddenly I heard a faint and distinct sort of wispy exhale sound with a voice that said, "I’ll always be with you." I thought…wait where did that come from? I turned and looked around. It had to be someone close by me but there was no one around me. I gazed back to my fathers face and it was still the same, of course. Where did those words come from I wondered?

Father and I talked about it recently. That was the day I learned I had his gift. For now, I was so happy that the accident hadn’t been so bad that they couldn’t open the casket. I was so happy to see him one last time.

I had never been to a funeral before, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. At first, I was afraid of what I might see gazing into a casket, seeing a deceased person. A deceased person that I loved very much. He simply looked like a grim version of my father, with no smile and he smiled a lot. He was still, so still. He squinted his eyes when he smiled too.

Suddenly, I felt compelled to touch his hand. I reached forward into the casket and his skin was cool and soft on his right wrist. I closed my eyes to try and see other memories more clearly. I suddenly felt as though he touched my hand in return which caused me to pull my hand back. I opened my eyes and his hands were clearly in the same place as before. I didn’t know what was going on. I thought, is he trying to reach out to me somehow or is this my imagination? I turned my head and looked at my sister Hana and she was staring at me with a smirk on her face. I thought…Did she do this somehow? Does she have psychic powers like father and I do? Maybe she does after all. She would never discuss anything like that with me.

I then began to wonder if Hana and my mother would even step up and pay their last respects before the casket was closed. I turned and looked at my father again and he was still the same. He would look like this after his burial forever. I will miss him so much! I left my father’s casket and went to sit two seats away from my sister.

One of my mother’s friends escorted her to father’s casket to visit him one last time, just before the ceremony and I saw my mother’s not surprisingly exaggerate her pain and agony. While mother’s friend held her, mother looked down at father and began to cry harder.

Her friend used a handkerchief to daub her cheeks of her tears. I knew Mother would miss my father greatly. She almost seemed to sit down on the floor from the grief and her friend held her up as she took her to her seat, next to me.

The priest stepped up to the altar and asked everyone to please take their seats. It appears there were plenty of seats for all my father’s friends.

Now seated beside my mother I took her hand and held it. At first, she looked at our hands and seemed surprised that I had done that and then she smiled and held my hand in return. That felt so amazing. Mother then tried to take hold of Hana’s hand and Hana yanked her hand back. I thought…you bitch. Just this once can it not be about you?

The priest began and delivered a very articulate and respectful sermon which made a lot of women cry including me and my mother. The priest said he didn’t know my father well, but he had talked to a few of his friends and neighbors who described my father’s kindness. The room was quiet and serious during his sermon. Someone coughed occasionally and you could hear people moving about but trying to be quiet.

We seldom went to church but when we did, this was the church we attended. I am not surprised that my father did not talk to the priest. He so often needed to focus on my mother when we went anywhere. I turned my head and gazed around the room to see how people were reacting and I noticed an Asian gentleman that looked a lot like my father. He locked eyes with me. He never turned away and finally smiled. I of course smiled in return and wondered who he was. I thought…I hope I can talk to him before this is over. Maybe he is related to my father somehow.

After the nice indoor part of the ceremony, we all walked to the cemetery that was beside the Funeral home. The old church was on the opposite side of the cemetery. I had read that when older churches bought property, they bought extra property to plan for this arrangement. They always tried to put a church, a cemetery, and a funeral home clustered together. Now, many times there wasn’t enough property available to do that plus building codes present problems for cemeteries. Most people were opposed to living beside a cemetery and it is such a huge undertaking to ever move a cemetery.

It was a nice sunny day out and the walk was nice. The gravel crunched under everyone’s feet as we walked along a path. You could hear a light mumble as people quietly talked as we moved forward. Father’s casket was being carried by six men and the priest led the way.

Birds were chirping in the distance and the occasional wind gust was welcome. I could hear a woodpecker hammering a tree off in the distance. You could feel the sun on your skin as it sometimes made it through the trees. The trees were weaving slightly as the breeze blew through them.

My father’s casket was placed on a frame that was covered by some sort of red velvet. They would use the frame to lower him below the ground to his final resting place. I saw a Monarch butterfly fly around and it flew close to my face, which caused me to smile and then it landed on my father’s casket. It was odd because I don’t see them often. I felt it was a good omen.

Most of the people at the indoor service also came to his burial plot for the ‘Rite of Committal’ ceremony and as the priest was finishing his final respects, I thought I heard a light knocking and I looked around. Finally, I decided that it seemed as though it might be coming from his casket, but I knew that wasn’t possible either. It was unsettling to me. The butterfly that was still sitting on my father’s casket began flapping its wings harder and began to fly away. The knocking didn’t seem to bother the butterfly.

I briefly glanced to see if anyone else seemed to hear it and no one else reacted. I also noticed the Asian man from the funeral service was out here too and was still staring and smiling at me too. This man looked so much like him. He could almost be his twin.

I wanted to talk to him and ask. He looked at me and then at Hana. Hana had her head tilted down as if praying, but she seemed to be struggling not to laugh and once again had that same smirk on her face. She may have been doing the knocking. Maybe, she does have our skills or powers and she’s showing me she does for the first time.

I had talked to my father briefly before he died about my telepathic powers, I had inherited from him. He figured it out when I was trying to read his thoughts one evening. I didn’t know if Hana had inherited them or not. I had hoped not. At the end of the service, I looked around for the man but he was gone. It was a large wide-open field with the occasional headstones around us. It would have been impossible for him to walk away without me seeing him. The butterfly was gone too.

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CHAPTER TWO

JADE AND RIKU

I have been thinking lately about the years my family spent together. It was my father Riku, my mother Jade, my twin sister Hana, and myself. My mother was born and grew up in the Detroit area and attended college here.

My grandparents moved here from Japan and were financially well off. I always assumed my mother must have had a normal pampered childhood growing up. From what I was told my father, Riku Tanaka and my mother Jade, met and married in Japan when she was there for a college internship.

Mother said when they met in Japan, they hit it off immediately, really enjoyed each other’s company, and spent a lot of time together. They ended up marrying within a month and I believe my mother has never really been the same since. My mother’s days of being pampered over were done. I felt my mother Jade seemed confused about how to manage a traditional Japanese lifestyle that was expected of her and her narcissistic self.

I remember seeing pictures of my mother in college here in Detroit before her trip to Japan and during her internship. I thought she was so beautiful, always smiling and laughing with her friends, but other than those pictures I don’t recall seeing her laugh or smile, well…ever.

My mother told me once they returned to Detroit she had taken Riku to her parents’ house to introduce Riku to them. She was excited to introduce him to them. Her father became very angry and walked away. Mother knew her parents or mainly her father were unhappy she had married without his arrangement or consent, but she had no idea her father would react this badly.

Mother had talked to her mother over the years and tried to use her mother to seek her father’s forgiveness. My Grandmother said she tried to talk to my Grandfather about it but he wouldnt listen. Mother said her father found out she was calling and stopped it. So I have never met any of my mother’s relatives. I assumed my father’s family was still in Japan.

From what I understand, our father Riku, acquired a factory job and was content with his middle management position and never tried to get promoted. He felt he had exceeded the life he would have had in Japan and was content. Jade said she was always hoping that Riku would be more assertive and tried to push him into getting promoted into Senior management so they could have more money like her parents did.

As a traditional Japanese man, my father spent very little time at home with his family. We thought he worked long hours and spent much of his spare time after work at a local ‘Gentlemen’s Club’ or bars, with the excuse that he was entertaining his ‘clients’…but my mother was never allowed to join him because her ‘place’, according to my father, was in the home, making sure it was always clean and tidy and that us children were exceptional at everything we did. Ha! She seldom cleaned and had no idea what our grades were.

My mother got pregnant with us soon after they were married. She spent much of her time through her pregnancy alone, feeling sorry for herself. I spoke to one of the neighborhood women who told me, that several women from the neighborhood would get together regularly, like a women’s club so that they had something to do.

They began to invite my mother to their weekly club meetings because they felt sorry for her and felt obligated since she was pregnant. In their meetings, they would play cards, share snacks, read books, and talk about them. They would also sip the occasional glass of wine. Because of my mothers’ unpredictable temperament, she was invited, but most of them were not fond of her.

As time progressed, she was invited to these meetings or parties less