I am back with more free stuff. Today, I’m sharing the first chapter of my new release The Gnome Situation which comes out in just two days. If you enjoy this sneak peek, consider purchasing the book! The entire series is available on Amazon and if you’re more of a paperback reader consider The Leslie Kim Serials Omnibus, which includes all four serials that are currently released!

CHAPTER ONE

“We’ve got a body.”

Elena’s somber announcement echoed through the intercom system of Leslie’s ship. He sat up on the side of his bed. His bones seemed to creak since his run in with the Grootslang.

“Okay,” Leslie said through a stretch.

“Can you meet me out here?” Elena asked. “I think you should see this.”

“On my way,” Leslie replied. “Send me the coordinates.”

“I’ll see you soon, then. Bye.”

Elena ended the call, and Leslie hurried to get dressed. A flexible tee shirt and slacks would be fine for today.

His small room opened into the living area, which included a small kitchen. At the front of the ship was the driver’s compartment.

“Frank, have you downloaded the coordinates?”

“Yes, master. I am pleased to announce that your route is set. Would you like me to brew coffee?”

“No, that’s fine. Increase the temperature by 5 degrees please.”

Leslie grabbed an energy packet from the kitchen and unsealed the top. He inhaled the contents of the bag, and the boost of caffeine hit his system immediately.

“Start the thrusters, we’re out of here.”

#

“She’s been dead about two days.”

Elena stood outside the door of his ship, ready to guide Him inside the Dome where the crime scene was being hidden. It was Kapatonian tradition to hide the body with a hologram. This time it projected a large white dome with the writing: IDID Property – Do Not Disturb.

“Do you know who she is?” Leslie asked. He hopped down from the ship and accepted the lanyard that gave him the appropriate credentials.

“Not yet. Unfortunately, her face is burned beyond recognition. You’ll need to gear up before we go inside.”

Leslie rolled down the door to the ship and tried to lock the door on the bottom.

“Hold on a moment; I just need to jiggle it into place,” Leslie explained.

He shook the handle until he could hold it in just the right spot to turn the lock.

“Are you done?” Elena sighed.

“All set.” Leslie grinned back at her, spinning his key around his finger.

Elena cringed. “Put that relic away; you’re embarrassing.”

Leslie chuckled as he followed her to a small tent outside the dome. Two clear, rubbery curtains were held open for them by guards out front. Inside were neatly folded white suits, boots, and clear helmets.

“Wow, I’ve always wanted to see what it was like in a fishbowl,” Leslie remarked.

Elena made a point to ignore him.

“Check your pockets for anything sharp. You don’t want to end up with a tear,” she warned.

Leslie ran his hands up and down his torso and thighs. “Nothing pointy here except where it’s supposed to be.”

“Be certain. If you’re exposed, even for a moment, you’ll be quarantined for a minimum of two weeks.”

Leslie slipped into the white suit. It felt like one of the Kapatonian work uniforms. The fabric was unlike anything he’d felt on Earth. After his limbs were inside, it sucked close to his skin like a vacuum seal bag. The rumples from his clothes beneath the suit made it especially uncomfortable. Once the large helmet and boots were on, the guards let them exit.

Leslie scanned his credentials by the opening of the holographic dome and followed Elena inside.

Once they entered the dome, the sound of rushing water greeted them. A large culvert was directing wastewater from the filtration center. The water flowed uninterrupted except in the spot where a small body was crumpled.

“What’s stopping it from flowing down stream?” Leslie asked.

“She’s melted into the pavement. Take this.” Elena handed him a small cylindrical tool. “It’s a light, and it will be your hands for this. If you want to take a sample, press here, and it’ll grab it for you.”

“Got it.”

There was only one other button on the tool, so Leslie assumed that was the light function.

As they got closer to the body, Leslie’s stomach churned. The body was exceedingly small. “Another Gnome.”

“Yes, Gnome female. Initial observations by the team suggest that she’s around forty years old.” Elena turned on her light and pointed it toward the body’s feet. “She’s barefoot, in her pajamas. I don’t think she was supposed to be out.”

The skin along her legs and stomach, where her shirt was pulled up into the water, was decaying. It was a mottled gray and blue, holes speckling the skin like Swiss cheese.

“What could cause something like this?” Leslie asked. “None of the other bodies were this bad.”

He moved up stream and shined the light on her face. Besides the exposed teeth and jaw, there wasn’t much skin remaining.

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s getting more potent,” Elena said.

She knelt onto the pavement and took a sample from her leg. “We’ll have a team study it. What are you thinking?”

Leslie shook his head and instinctively reached to run his fingers through his hair, only to hit the side of his helmet.

“Maybe she was drawn to the water because her skin was burning. When the Grootslang attacked me, it felt like I was on fire.” Leslie remembered the pain vividly.

He shined his light along the body. A small white triangle was sticking out of her pocket. Leslie leaned down and carefully pulled it out.

“You can’t touch the body; it could burn through the suit.” Elena exclaimed.

Leslie looked at his hand, but it didn’t appear to be damaged. In his fingers was a small Identification card. It was similar to the ones they used to access the crime scene.

“Genevieve Pulmer,” Leslie read. “Housekeeping.”

“Stay put.” Elena spun on her heels. “I need an evidence bag over here!”

One of the guards grabbed a small clear tray and brought it over to Leslie. He sat the card carefully onto the tray, and the guard whisked it away.

“Alright, you’re going to need to go through decontamination,” Elena said.

“I’ve barely had time to observe the body,” Leslie protested.

“I’m not taking the risk that your suit ends up corroded. Do you want to spend more time in Quarantine? Go through decontamination, and I’ll meet you back at the office later,” Elena commanded.

“Follow me.” The other guard motioned to Leslie.

#

“You are not evolved enough to appreciate the tender taste of Space Sludge.” Nelly spun in his chair with an extra-large order in hand.

Leslie rolled his eyes, rocking gently in the office chair. He was starting to get sick of Nelly’s self-important commentary. They had only been working together for a few weeks, and the Kapatonian was really grinding his gears. “Yeah, well, when you can tell me where exactly they manufacture that crap, then maybe I’ll consider it.”

Nelly’s purple skin turned a shade of copper.

 “I think it’s taken from the third moon. There’s no proof that there are any negative effects from food manufactured on the moons—”

“Yeah, yeah, you just keep telling yourself that.”

He winked at Nelly, then sat straight in his chair as Elena entered the office through the large metal doors.

“You two slackers get any work done down here?”

She pushed Leslie’s chair out of the way to access the computers. Elena plugged a drive into the computer and started uploading files.

He groaned; this meant she had managed to uncover some more evidence on their case. They were still tying up the strings from the Grootslang case that ended three weeks ago. After Nora’s death, he dove headfirst into the investigation. There were so many unanswered questions, and with all the procedural restrictions the Kapaton Government placed on IDID, it has been a mess working through it all.

“Someone thinks they spotted the Featherwing Dragon out in the canyon where we found the Grootslang,” she mumbled, half to herself.

“If it’s infected with whatever the Grootslang had, then we’re in trouble. The dragon is small, so it will be hard to find. And it flies, so… this will be a challenge,” Elena explained.

“We’ve already found fifteen cases of melting corpses all around the city. We need to contain this before it spreads to us,” Nelly emphasized.

Leslie had the feeling he was referring only to his own species.

“So far, it has only affected Gnomes,” Elena reminded him.

“We need more time to develop an immunity packet for the general population. We must slow down the spread,” Nelly said. “I can send a team out to look for the Featherwing now.”

“Do that,” Elena agreed.

  She brushed her hair away from her face and adjusted her holographic glasses. She seemed more stressed than usual; a permanent line divided her forehead as she read the files.

“I wonder why the creatures are drawn to those caverns.” Leslie eyed the spot on the map that was blinking on the computer.

Nelly slurped loudly from his Space Sludge, leaving the straw in his mouth as he talked. “I hope they continue to die over there, and we don’t find any more bodies near the water district.”

“Grootslangs, Gnomes, and Featherwing Dragons all traditionally lived underground, but only Grootslangs lived in actual caves,” Leslie recalled. He’d been studying their lore for weeks.

“If they’re drawn to water because of the burning in their skin, I’m not sure why they would head to the caves,” Elena admitted.

“Well, there was water in the cave where I slayed the Grootslang,” Leslie said. “Maybe there’s more water in the other caves. How much of the area has been explored?”

“Our government regularly mines the caves for water. We have an abundance, of course. It’s what makes trading with you humans so easy; you all seem to like water so much.”

“They don’t like it; they need it,” Elena corrected.

“Oh, like you know all about being human, right?” Leslie asked sarcastically.

Elena laid her hands on his desk and leaned forward, giving Leslie the stink eye.

Nelly fidgeted in his chair.

“I believe we’re getting off the topic.”

“What’s our plan for today then?” Leslie asked.

The computer signaled that it was done uploading the files.

Elena opened the photos of the crime scene this morning.

“We still have the interview today,” Nelly said.

“Yes. We need to leave for that in a few minutes,” Elena said.

“Who are we interviewing?” Leslie asked.

“A Kapatonian with a certain odd sense of fashion. She has tattoos covering her face. It’s despicable.” Nelly shuddered at the thought.

“Which tattooed lady? Layla?” Leslie asked. His fists clenched as he thought about the Kapatonian responsible for a double homicide in his last case.

“No, no it’s another woman that—” Elena scoffed when she was interrupted again.

“I don’t have a Layla on the schedule for today,” Nelly mumbled.

“It’s not Layla. It’s someone that, yes, does have the same tattoos that Layla had, but that’s not why she’s here. She worked with Genevieve Pulmer. We’re just asking questions, and I am done answering yours.” Elena turned and clicked her heels on the way to the door.

“Is she a suspect?” he asked, following behind Nelly on their way into the hall.

She turned and pursed her lips at him.

“She’s a Kapatonian working as a housekeeper with tattoos on her face. Of course she’s a suspect.”

She had a point there. Kapatonians rarely worked service industry jobs, and while body modification was common, facial tattoos were not.

Leslie glanced at the squid that was breathing steadily on the back of Nelly’s head. All Kapatonians had them, though they weren’t really like squids at all. Kapatonians didn’t need water to survive; they loved the dry desert and thrived in arid environments. The tentacles on the back of their heads were used to pull moisture from the air. This allowed them to stay hydrated without using much of their planet’s water at all. They have been able to sustain themselves for millions of years, or more, without damaging their ecosystem too much. Something Earth would never have succeeded at. They used little oxygen, giving them a purple skin tone and released a thick dye into their bloodstream when their emotions ran wild, which turned them orange. The white tattoos that were gaining in popularity among criminals and lower classes, were the only tattoos that wouldn’t change their tone when the Kapatonians’ skin did.

Elena led them down the dark halls of IDID, past a dozen pressure locked doors and into the interview rooms. Criminals of all species sat behind the glass. They couldn’t see out, but they were able to be observed.

He noticed Tai Reed sitting in her own glass box. She had one leg on the bed, pulled up to her chest. Tai was rocking side to side and smiling. Somehow her caramel skin still looked perfect, and her curly bounced around her shoulders. Leslie had once thought she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever met. Until he found out that she had murdered his father and followed him to Kapaton. There was something more wrong with her than an inability to be rejected.

He took a breath and kept walking. The only way he could get close to Tai was if he didn’t let it be known how badly he wanted to kill her. He needed the IDID workers to trust him if he was every going to get the few moments alone with her that he needed.

“It’s this one.” Elena called as he walked past her, not noticing that she had stopped in the hall. Nelly blinked his large eyes at him.

Elena stepped toward him. “Let it go,” she said under her breath.

She cowered beneath the bright lights, which exaggerated how tired she seemed.

“Her name is Ulariana. Uly is her preferred name. She worked for Erlarnik Aphagraph along with the two Gnomes in question. She does housekeeping for him,” Elena explained.

Nelly started to set up his recording equipment, complete with the flying drone which would take note of everything they said.

“Aphagraph…” Leslie had heard that name before, though he wasn’t sure where. He let the sound of it roll off his tongue, wishing he could just remember it. Elena opened a photo of Erlarnik, but that wasn’t what triggered his memory. Below it was the logo for SureFoot. The personal protection company where his last case’s victim, Albert Line, had worked.

“Does he work at SureFoot?”

She raised her brow at him but looked over the file.

“You could say that, I suppose; he owns it.”

Leslie blushed, remembering that he had claimed to be Mr. Aphagraph at the company party. No wonder everyone was so suspicious of him. A 5’9″ Korean-American Human pretending to be a 6’7″ Blue Skinned Kapatonian was a terrible disguise. Though he didn’t know it at the time.

Nelly finished preparing the transcriber and used his ID tag to open the pressure locked door to the interview room. “Hello, Uly, my name is Nelly, and I’ll be the supervising officer this morning. Thank you for cooperating with our investigation.”

Uly nodded and shook Nelly’s hand before he took a step back to the corner of the room. Leslie sat in the chair opposite her while Elena opted to stand. He was starting to understand why she wore heels everywhere. She must have seemed like a shrimp compared to the Kapatonians, but with heels on and the Kapatonians sitting down, it evened out the playing field.

“My name is Elena Gerklova, and I’m accompanied by my partner, Leslie Kim. How are you this morning?”

Uly sucked her tentacles tight to her head and turned in her chair to face Nelly

“Am I really going to have to face a Vampire for this entire interview?” She spoke with an accent that Leslie identified as coming from the northern hemisphere.

Elena waved Nelly to stop him from saying anything. “He isn’t doing this interview; he’s merely an observer. He isn’t going to stop me from asking anything and certainly won’t assist you in answering. Look at me, Uly. I’m the only one who gets to say when you leave this room.”

She had experience dealing with the speciesist population of Kapaton. It wasn’t unusual for the Kapatonians to be rude toward Vampires. It was the existence of a species somehow more sustainable than their own that threatened them.

“What do you want from me?” the alien asked.

Uly sat tall in her chair, straightening her shoulders. Her hands were cuffed on the table with lasers.

“I just want you to confirm some facts for me. You work for Larny Aphagraph, correct?”

Uly nodded, turning her gaze to Leslie, who was stoic across the table. “You’re not a Vampire, are you?”

He smirked, wondering what gave him away. The lack of fangs or his ability to enact self-control in a stressful environment.

Uly seemed pleased by this and turned her attention back to the questions.

“Yes, I work for Larny.”

“As a housekeeper at his residence?”

Elena waited until Uly confirmed with a nod before going on. “Is that residence this address in the Hills? Please look at the photo on the screen and confirm.”

“That’s the one.”

“Did you know Henriette Yons?” She swiped to a photo of a young Gnome woman who was admitted to IDID with bizarre symptoms.

“Yes, didn’t she catch that disease?”

“She did. She was the sixteenth person to contract the condition that has been spreading. Did you also work with Genevieve Pulmer?”

“Yes.”

“Did you hear about her death?”

Uly sighed, a shudder crawling up her spine that made her tentacles expand. “Yes. She got whatever that monster had. I heard it will melt your skin off if you’re near it. It spreads through the air and makes you go crazy.”

“Where did you hear that?” Leslie asked, curious about who was spreading the misinformation. While the disease would disintegrate soft skinned folks and cause memory loss, it was unlikely that it spread through the air. He had himself been exposed to the Grootslang, and while he suffered phenomenal burns, he didn’t melt or lose his mind.

“It’s all over the city; everyone’s talking about it.” Uly slumped in her chair, her confident act wearing off as the clock ticked by.

“When was the last time you saw Henriette?”

“I guess it’s been over a month. I haven’t seen her since that monster got out.”

Something clicked for Leslie. It didn’t make sense that she wouldn’t have seen Henriette since the Grootslang escaped from IDID, since Henriette didn’t go missing until after the first wave of contamination. “Where were you the night that the Grootslang got out?”

Elena glanced at him.

“Working, I think. It’s been a while.”

“Do you know how long it has been?”

He knew that it was the fifteenth when they solved the Grootslang case, the day that Nora and Albert died. In the first week after the Grootslang died, five more cases of skin melting Gnomes appeared. By the twenty-fifth, ten days later, Henriette had gone missing after her family noticed signs of slurred speech and memory loss. They found her body on the twenty-ninth of last month. Today was the seventh, three weeks and two days after the Grootslang went missing, yet only thirteen days since Henriette had gone.

“I told you, like over a month.” Uly held her ground.

Elena caught on with what he was chasing now. “Have you been present at work in the past three weeks?”

“Every day.” She was starting to be impatient now, clicking her tongue against her pale purple lips.

“Well, Henriette didn’t go missing until the twenty-fifth, Uly,” he reminded her.

“Okay, three weeks or four weeks. What difference does it make?”

Nelly cleared his throat.

“We’re only allowed to keep her in the interview room for thirty minute sessions. I highly suggest we take a break now.”

Dammit. The Kapatonians had rules for everything, just as they were getting somewhere. He looked to Elena.

“Let’s just finish these questions; it’ll only be a few minutes.”

Elena shook her head. “You know how it is. Uly, sit tight.”

She stood and led the way out of the interview room and into the hallway.

“What the hell, Nelly?”

“I’m only doing my job, Mr. Kim.”

“Leave it alone, Les. What do you think of this lady?” Elena was skimming her file over again.

“She’s clearly hiding something.”

“Being inaccurate with dates is very common in stressful situations,” Nelly added.

Leslie was well aware how common it was. Yet Uly didn’t seem that stressed out. It was only once he started questioning her on whether she had attended work did she seem to falter. He wasn’t going to judge her for skipping a few days of housekeeping unless she knew something about Kapaton’s growing body count.

“Can you call her supervisor and ask about her attendance?”

“It’s unlikely that it’s accurate. She’s a housekeeper, so she probably shows up alone,” she said.

“What about someone else who worked in the home? Henriette and Genevieve were in housekeeping as well, so what about a gardener or something?”

Elena nodded, already flipping through the employment records. “On the day Henriette went missing, there’s record of a maintenance man working in the car dock.”

“What about on the day the Grootslang went missing?” He didn’t have a good reason to ask except that Uly seemed to connect the two dates when she said that Henriette had been missing for roughly the same amount of time, which wasn’t true at all. It was possible she had confused Henriette with Genevieve Pulmer, who was missing for some time before her body was found. Uly had proven that she was speciesist, so she could have confused them. Something Leslie would never be able to do after seeing her corpse.

“Okay, it looks like Genevieve and Henriette were both working that day. As well as another Gnome, an Atticus Pulmer. Possibly related to Genevieve.”

“Did he catch the disease? He won’t be any use to us if he’s dead.”

“It doesn’t appear he kept showing up to work after Genevieve caught it. It’s possible it’s because he was also sick, but he didn’t come to IDID for treatment if he was. I’ll make some calls.” She was already dialing when Leslie finished processing what she said. Elena trotted up and down the hall as she talked quickly on the phone.

He was just as sick of hearing about the disease, or whatever it was, than anyone. He knew from personal experience it hurt like hell, but he wasn’t sure what they were classifying it as now. At first, they thought the Grootslang itself was venomous. Then they thought it was some sort of bacterial skin infection. It was then considered to have some sort of viral disease, but when they tested its blood, there was really no sign that it was viral. It was something about the Grootslang’s thick hide that held onto the deadly substance. He infected everything he touched; his sweat and saliva was corrosive.

“Alright, here’s what we know. Write this down,” Elena commanded as she came back. Leslie shrugged, holding up his empty hands to show he didn’t have any sort of utensil available.

“I guess I’ll just record myself. What do I need you for again?” Elena teased. “Okay, so Atticus is related to Genevieve; it’s her brother-in-law. It appears that he stopped coming to work over fear of what she contracted. He has a few kids and didn’t want them to catch anything. He started working at a neighboring residence instead. But, he confirmed that Genevieve started to act ill and he saw her at work with a rash. But her behavior changed suddenly, and she left the residence. I can only assume that’s when she wandered onto the streets and fell into the drainage ditch. Sorry for the imagery—”

“Will you get to the point already? Was Uly there or not?”

“She wasn’t. And when I talked to the dock maintenance guy, a Vampire by the way, he confirmed that she wasn’t there, either. In fact, he had never seen a Kapatonian work at the residence.”

She raised her eyebrows above the rim of her thick glasses.

“So, did this alien ever work there?”

“She was working there when we apprehended her, so apparently just not on the days when it would be a good alibi.”

Elena nodded to Nelly as she unlocked the pressure lock door again. She turned back to Leslie before she opened it.

“I don’t need your help in here. You can go review evidence.”

He pouted and rolled his eyes.

“What? You’re giving me desk duty? Is this because I don’t carry around a pen?”

“I don’t think being in here is the best use of your time.”

She grinned her sharp teeth at him. “Besides, you’re just so good at watching old videos.”

Leslie moved out of the way as Nelly and his equipment bustled past him into the interview room and closed the door behind them. He supposed he wasn’t that helpful in the room, really, though he was the one to notice the small details that Uly left out. In any matter, he had to let it go; he wasn’t leading the case.