Charon Lane

Published by: eXtasy Books

Author : J.S. Frankel

ISBN :978-1-4874-4289-7

Page :204

Word Count :63400

Publication Date :2025-01-14

Series : #

Heat Level :

Available Formats :

Category : Young Adult , Coming Soon , (YA) Mystery and Suspense

Product Code: 978-1-4874-4289-7

0 reviews
Write a review

Finding a job shouldn’t involve selling your soul...

Mark Eisen, a student of no renown, needs money for cool clothes plus a smartphone, things that’ll get him noticed, or so he thinks. He finds a job as a delivery person, and his employer is Mr. Natias, a rather mysterious gentleman with great wealth.

At first, the job goes well. Mark picks up items such as a rare stuffed toy, a belt, and a deck of cards once used by Wild Bill Hickok. But then his mojo vanishes, his job goes sour, and he almost loses his girlfriend, Rebecca, over a misunderstanding.

It’s then that Mark learns that his employer is no ordinary person. Rather, Natias is the devil himself, not the religious kind of devil, but an extremely powerful being that has existed since time began. In order not to lose his soul—or life-force—Mark will have to use every trick in the book to win the day.

No one’s ever prepared when it comes to losing a parent. I’d found that out the hard way. I’d been living in Detroit with my parents, but two months ago, a drunk driver decided to deprive me of my mother and father.

After a trial in which said driver got wheeled in while hooked up to life-saving equipment, and after the judge had decided in my favor, I got an insurance settlement that would see me through for the next few years. Beyond that, who knew?

I’d have given it all back if I could see my parents again. But that wasn’t going to happen, and the harsh reality was that even though I now had a fair amount of money, it wasn’t all mine. Not yet. My parents had never left a will, so everything had to go to probate, and until such time as the court decided matters, I had to rely on the goodwill of my aunt.

Also, being seventeen, under the law, I needed a guardian. My attorney, Jordan Pellers, a friend of my father’s, contacted my Aunt Lucy, my late father’s sister. Both sets of my grandparents were gone, and my mother, like me, had been an only child.

The judge agreed, and after the documents were signed, he made arrangements for me to take a train to Chicago and meet up with my aunt.

At the station, we waited for the train to pull in. It was ten in the morning, and the passengers swirled around us. I paid them no attention. Mr. Pellers extended his hand, and we shook. “Mark, I’m sorry this happened. Your father and I were close. We went to school together, and if there was any other way—”

“It’s okay,” I replied, shifting nervously from foot to foot, wondering what my future had in store for me. “I know everything has to go through probate.”

“Hopefully, it won’t take too long. I promise that once things are done, everything will be sent your way. You won’t have to worry about money. As for my fee, I’m waiving the usual. I knew your parents, I know Lucy…she’ll do right by you.”

He looked down the track, and I followed his gaze. An announcement came over the loudspeaker. “Number sixteen for Chicago, arriving on track eight. Number sixteen for Chicago, arriving on track eight.”

Pellers spoke quickly. “Listen, Mark. Lucy will meet you in Chicago, and that’ll be that. She’s already registered you at your school, Morton High.” He cleared his throat. “All that’s on the surface. The most important thing is to get the estate settled and for you to heal. It’s terrible, I know, but you have to try.”

He then repeated that he’d let me know about legal matters as soon as he heard anything. “The earliest will be four months, but it might take longer.”

That figured. Justice always took its time. Then my train pulled in, we shook hands again, and I was off to my new life. While watching the scenery pass by, I reflected on my former days in Detroit. School was school. I’d made a few friends, but I was the perennial outsider. Not due to my family name—Eisen—or the fact that my parents were strictly middle-class, but because there was always someone who was destined to orbit the popular nucleus of students.

And I was that someone.

It wasn’t what I wanted…more like it had happened, and I had to deal with it. I was on the short side of five-nine, lean and lanky with no discernible muscle mass, curly black hair, dark eyes—courtesy of my mother—and a big beak, courtesy of my father. In short, I was average, or perhaps less so.

But more than looks—and they were important—was personality. Mine could be categorized as quiet and shy. I didn’t have the gift of gab, I wasn’t assertive, I was certainly no genius, and I wasn’t athletic. In short, I was a walking advertisement for being the Eternally Alone Guy.

Being short and slight often made me a target for those bigger and less socially decent. A target meant being beaten up until I learned to hit back. I still lost most of the time, but I always went down swinging.

So, after realizing that I’d never be big, strong, fast, or ridiculously smart, what did I have going for me? Answer—I had a good memory, eidetic, in fact. I could recite passages from books or repeat what others had said, word for word. It marked me as someone not to reveal secrets to, another factor in my Eternally Alone Guy status.

Write a review

Your Name

Your Review

Note: HTML is not translated!

Rating Bad Good

Captcha

Enter the code in the box below

Related Products

Tags: JS Frankel, Charon Lane, mystery, young adult, detective