Othernaturals Book Five: Swarm

“When someone with Judge’s power threatens an Old Testament plague, we need to take it seriously.”

The invitation to the Perkins Institute for Paranormal Research was a last-minute surprise for the Othernaturals, something to fill the summer days before the team resumed its ordinary investigations. Rosemary, Andrew, Greg, and Judge accept the Institute's offer to meet its current subject: Xander Teller, a young man who believes he came back from the dead. He is the unpredictable guest of the Perkins Institute, often slipping away to commit minor acts of ecological vandalism to appease the forces that gave him a second life and those protecting him now. Science can offer no explanation for his reappearance in the world of the living. Rosemary believes she and her team might do better.

The lure of the progressive Perkins Institute is strong. Greg Hatchett is fascinated by the haughty, seductive Dr. Walter Walton, a paranormal scientist who resents the interference of glorified ghost-hunters into his empirical studies. Animal empath Judge Duncan is enamored by the Perkins Institute’s ecological goals, its research on bee colonies, the two mysterious women who tend the hives, and their strange black bees. Unnerved by ominous stories of a parallel dimension that relies on our Earth to sustain it and means soon to declare its dominion, Andrew and Rosemary find themselves tempted closer toward a passion they both crave and fear.

Xander has a strange warning for the Othernaturals. He was returned to life specifically to lure Rosemary within the grasp of an aged, jealous entity. For some time, Rosemary has known that something beyond physical Earth was watching her. With her team beside her and the remarkable power she inherited from her grandfather, she is confident there is nothing to fear from a mere ghost, even an ancient one. What Rosemary fails to understand is that the greatest threat against her is not a force beyond her world, but the loyalty and protection she offers those she calls her friends.

"Swarm" is Christina Harlin's fifth book of paranormal investigations by the gifted cast of the webshow Othernaturals.