Willing Servants

There's a side to the real estate racket that professionals hate to admit, and the mere whisper of its existence is enough to send the local market plunging. Ghosts. A good haunting can lead to lawsuits, red tape, and worse, bad press. Landing a troubled house, especially one linked to the local boogeyman, is enough to make an experienced agent question their sanity.

For Mara Singleton, a modern day ghost buster and established author to best-selling books on the paranormal, red tape turns green. She and her crew of over-the-hill investigators thrive on being a necessary evil. So, when close friends contact Mara to take a look at their house, she takes the job on as a favor. She doesn't realize her father, a psychic working with police departments on the east coast, has been struggling to reach her for days. Nor does she know the story of the Predator Priest that hunted this neighborhood ten years ago, murdering then raping his victims. But, it's just a favor, and the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Sam Bradford, aging detective, on the edge of being a desk jockey, isn't so innocent. He stopped the Predator Priest as a rookie, made his career on it. Everything has a cost though, and not only does Sam have horrifying nightmares of that fateful night, he developed a permanent fear of the dark. When reports come in of a priest assaulting a local woman with a startlingly similar methodology, Sam realizes his fear just might be justified.

Eric Turowski is the author of 21st Century Pulp, as well as numerous short stories. He is the general manager and part owner of the Alameda Sun newspaper in Alameda, California.