Ghost Bullets

The Ghost Gun kills what it hits, its ghost bullets ensnaring the victim's soul to their killer.Except that nothing is that simple.Certainly not an apparently simple theft that leads detectives into a war between secret societies over artifacts which have been around for millennia, their origin unknown, their abilities inexplicable.Demoted to Vice due to departmental politics, Detective Cassie Kinsala sees an opportunity to restore her career path. But what looks like it might offer a decent arrest soon turns into a quagmire the law might not cover, and might not protect her from.Jimmy Bancroft used to be a cop. Working for the other side lets him avoid paperwork. Investigating rumours of a competitor moving in on his employer's interests, he becomes entangled in a war between criminals and a secret society. And someone might be trying to set him up. Gareth Lewis has written a number of novels and shorter works in a few genres, including fantasy, science fiction, and thrillers. A programmer, he has a degree in computer studies, and lives in South Wales. The Ghost Gun fires ghost bullets that kill anyone they touch, stealing their soul to haunt the shooter.Except it doesn't. It's one of several artifacts that appear to us in forms we can understand, changing appearance over centuries. The Ghost Gun connects to targets, taking something that kills them. This stolen essence - memory, personality, or whatever - then manifests to the shooter as their victim, which only they can see.Secret societies hunt and go to war over these artifacts. And all artifacts in some way fire ghost bullets that taint whatever they hit, corrupting the world around them into something unnatural.