Touching Spirits
Kevin R. Hill
Author Bio
Kevin R. Hill has lived in many countries and his travel articles have appeared internationally. While residing in Yucatan and researching an article about the ancient Maya, Kevin found reference to a magical black dwarf. That made him sit up. It was the beginning, the spark of an idea for a novel. Everywhere on the peninsula locals build small houses for a mythical black creature called the Alux (Aloosh). When he found that one of the asteroids that ended the dinosaurs struck the Yucatan, it was the missing piece of plot he needed. What if that asteroid had been inhabited? Could that have been the origin of the Alux myth?
It took three years to weave the Alux into an action novel, and the result was Touching Spirits.
Kevin now has several titles on Kindle and in hard cover form.
Description
The joy of writing this book came from being able to share a pristine village I discovered on the Caribbean coast of Mexico in the mid-eighties. It was the village time forgot. Imagine shorts and sandals all day long, one tin roof market where the owner pours cola into plastic bags for children to avoid charging a bottle deposit. It was paradise for a writer. Now it is my pleasure to share my village. I hope you love it as I do. I have woven into the book many funny stories taken from my time there, from my days beside the Caribbean, a gringo in Yucatan.
An ancient Mayan text is stolen and someone believed long dead reaches through the black night and grabs police Sergeant Cody Brannon, the lone American on the Amsterdam force. Cody thinks he is going crazy and is shocked to find men following him.
After a police shooting he flees the men stalking him and flies home to his freaky grandmother who once mentioned family members being touched by something not of this world. He is only there briefly, and manages to get few answers before he must lead the men tracking him away from the old woman.
In a village far from nosy police departments, he begins to prepare for an attack. But the moment he arrives he is followed by an old Mayan woman. Others sit in the dead grass outside his hut at night.
When bodies begin turning up around his village he is pushed, with beautiful Clarissa and two friends, to investigate the killings. It turns out to be a case that will challenge his concept of reality and the world he lives in.
Book excerpt
CHAPTER 1
I was doing my nightly cop thing in one of those tall skinny houses in Amsterdam. If I wanted to sleep I had to check every access point before I went to bed. I started at the same door every time, pushed my shoulder against the warped old thing until I felt the bolt click into place, then walked to the next entry point, the bathroom window. Only another cop would understand.
As I was drifting into sleep someone sat beside me. Someone was in the room. The mattress compressed and triggered an alarm in my head. Adrenalin hit my heart like a defibrillator jolt. I snapped awake but did not move.
Gun and badge were on the bedside table. If the intruder had my weapon I was already dead. I waited for a pillow pushed against my head to silence the shot.
My head pounded. The veins throbbed in my neck as someone took hold of my arm.
I shouted and jumped out of bed, grabbed my automatic and flipped the light switch, but I was alone.
It was the third time in a week something sat on my bed and grabbed me. I moaned and laughed and wiped sweat from my face. Strange sounds escaped my mouth as I slid down the wall beside the light switch. Cops don’t go crazy. I had to hold it together. There were attorneys to deal with and divorce papers to sign.
For years marriage held together my life in Amsterdam. Friends, career, apartment and language were stuffed inside it like groceries in a paper bag. Divorce hit that bag like a stream of water. What had once seemed strong fell apart in my hands and left me juggling the contents so nothing would shatter at my feet.
I remember the day everything changed. Michelle was across the kitchen, chopping asparagus for a midnight stir-fry, her blonde hair falling over a shoulder.
She had been acting odd for a couple of weeks, as though she wanted to say something. That night she had been out and looked so sexy and sweet standing there in black pumps and flowers on a blouse that hung low around her neck, shaking with the rhythm of the chopping. As I admired her and stepped close, kissed her shoulder, pressed my hand on hers, I smelled perfume and cigarette smoke from the club.
The instant I touched her she started crying and dropped the knife.
“Cody, there’s something I’ve wanted to tell you for weeks. I met a new friend, and her husband, and it just happened with the three of us. I’ve tried not to see them, but something inside me has changed and I can’t stop.”
It wasn’t so much the words that hurt as the look in her eyes, those green eyes once so full of admiration and hope and our love, now showed fear and a wanting to be somewhere else. Her simple admission cracked the foundation of our home, broke the concept of us. It was as though I had been slapped but it hurt more, a pain in my gut that sucked strength out of me because I knew what it meant. Michelle was the reason I came to Amsterdam, learned Dutch and joined the force. She was my Holland. Without her as my anchor in the Netherlands I could feel the tide of culture and language pushing me toward the beach of my home, my country, the USA.
Memories and plans danced through my mind as I sat with my back against the wall, the light switch beside me. Traffic in the street below turned silent. Laughing crowds had long since left the bars when I climbed into bed.
I was sleeping on the horrible pull-out sofa, steel bars poking me when I moved, dreaming of Michelle cozy in our apartment, when I found myself staring at a man. I thought I was dreaming and rose on an elbow. He was in his sixties, dressed as a Wild West gambler with vest, Western bow tie, silver walking stick, a strange blue glow around him. I stared for a few moments before realizing I was awake.
That pounding started in my head and I wanted to shout. I jumped out of bed and ran for the light switch once more.