The Tools of the Ghost by Hemant Nayak

The Tools of the Ghost: An Urban Fantasy Novel – Book One: In the Path of the Ghost by Hemant Nayak

A #1 New Release in its first week. From award-winning author Hemant Nayak comes “A thrilling and utterly original fantasy.” -George Jreije Author of Shad Hadid and the Alchemists of Alexandria – HarperCollins

Eleven children have been kidnapped by a monster no one can stop, and everyone is telling FBI special agent Kiran Patel she should have stayed behind a desk. Even her mother wants her to quit and go back to grad school. Her hope of living up to her father’s dreams for her and becoming the next Sherlock Holmes looks like a long shot at best.

When Kiran’s partner is fatally wounded by something out of a nightmare, his strange tattoo transfers from his arm to hers. Her partner tells her that there’s no hope to crack this case by the usual means. He slips his amulet over her neck and tells her she must do what he was too afraid to do and summon the worst of supernatural creatures to aid her, a being called the Ghost, a dead soul who committed the only crime that can never be atoned for.

But there are rules. Don’t promise the Ghost anything and don’t ever take off the amulet or he’ll kill you. The Ghost doesn’t care about anything or anyone. And she’ll need two other people to form a trinity in order to control him.

Heaven rejected him. Hell feared him. His crime was the only one that God could never forgive, but when evil is too powerful for anyone to confront, there’s only one solution left—to summon the Ghost.
Now one unlikely FBI agent and a creature worse than the demons of Hell are the only chance left to find the children.
Kiran’s got to solve the crime before more kids disappear or her new partner does her in.

EXCERPT

Special Agent Kiran Patel slammed the phone down, then adjusted it to make sure it sat straight. That call had gone to shit fast. She sharpened two rather chewed-upon pencils and laid them perfectly parallel. Her long, thin fingers placed them gently like chess pieces on a board, just so, as if how the erasers lined up made a difference. Spartacus, the smelly beast of a dog sprawled across her kitchen floor, raised a huge black ear, and promptly resumed snoring.

All her life, Kiran had secretly hoped that straightening out the little things, placing them in lines, setting them in order, might help bring the chaos of the greater world into line as well. Like a magic spell, or voodoo doll, except with the intent of making things better instead of ruthlessly torturing someone. Of course, it hadn’t worked.

In her second year with the FBI, nothing had fallen into place and certainly not the case she was working on now. Still, none of the evidence of her failure stopped the habits. The workings of her mind and heart followed their own plans and were hard to persuade with logic alone.

The logical thing to do would be to stay home and follow orders. She should kick back, maintain a sense of personal detachment, and wait to see how things turned out. Instead, she put on a jacket and checked the clock. A quarter to nine. She had thirty minutes to get to an abandoned church on Fifth and Pine, the one place in Seattle where she’d been forbidden to go. She looked in the mirror and sighed at a hair out of place and a slight tear in the sleeve of her powder-blue jacket. A less-torn jacket would have been nice, but the dog had chewed up her coat and it was pouring.

The call from the Director of Criminal Investigations had been unambiguous.

“Don’t tell me I’m being unjust, Patel. Justice is a myth. How did you make it through Quantico? You’ve uncovered some leads, but you belong behind a desk. There’s no room for forgiveness here. You and Anatol keep the hell out of this.”

Belonged behind a desk? Kiran picked up one of the pencils and put it down before she started chewing. The Director was probably right. She wasn’t sure she’d want someone with her level of anxiety on this case either. Still, she had every right to be there when they brought the kids out. If she hadn’t found that church, they’d still be running in stupid circles. And by that she meant extremely tiny circles. True, Jefferson would glue her butt behind a desk if anyone found out, but she could go wherever the hell she wanted to if she was out for a stroll or shopping or doing whatever normal people did.

Before she left, she filled a bowl of water for the black shag beast she was dog-sitting for Anatol. The giant mutt thing was probably still digesting the coat she couldn’t afford to replace. He made the whole place smell like damp dog, which made her mother hate to visit, which was the real reason she let Spartacus stay. She kicked the LSAT prep book toward the beast, hoping it would be chewed to pulp as fast as the MCAT book. The sticky note on the book’s cover read “You can do it too, Cutie!” in her mother’s annoyingly perfect cursive.

She aimed a finger at Spartacus who actually raised his enormous head. “Eat any more clothes and you’re evicted. You’ll be on the curb with your squeaky toys, waiting for the pound. Imagine yourself, all hairy and tough, surrounded by pink unicorn squeakers. You’ll never live that down.”

Spartacus flopped on his side and sighed like a thunderstorm, which was the exact level of attention most people paid to her ultimatums. Her partner, Anatol, claimed his joints ached and he needed a break from walking Spartacus, but Kiran suspected he was tired of Spartacus never listening to a word anyone said.

Kiran locked the door twice before going back in to adjust the brass Ganesha on the mantlepiece and confirm she’d turned off the oven for the fourth time. She threw on a bright orange scarf to make it clear she was only a common citizen out for coffee and grabbed the steel-rimmed glasses she’d left on the table. She took the stairs. Elevators could get stuck, which reminded Kiran of being buried alive, which made her palms sweat. Her watch read nine. Fifteen minutes. Now, she had to run.