Dead Ground (Harbinger P.I. Book 4) Read online

  Dead Ground

  Harbinger P.I. Book 4

  Adam J Wright

  Contents

  The Harbinger P.I. Series

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Afterword

  The Harbinger P.I. Series

  Lost Soul

  Buried Memory

  Dark Magic

  Dead Ground

  Chapter 1

  “Leon, keep the car steady! I can’t get a clear shot!” I was leaning out the passenger side window of Leon’s Porsche Cayman, pistol crossbow in hand, while he raced toward the car in front of us. Leon’s Porsche had enough horsepower to catch the Buick Regal but this stretch of highway curved around the lake and every time I got a bead on the Buick, Leon over-steered and sent the Cayman drifting over the center line, spoiling my aim.

  I slipped back in through the window. “If you’re going to buy expensive cars, at least learn how to drive them.”

  “I’m still getting used to the steering, man. Give me a break.”

  “A break? When I asked you to come and help me on a stakeout, what made you think bringing a canary-yellow Porsche would be a good idea?”

  “I thought we might need the speed if the perps made a run for it. And I was right. ” He got the car straightened up and hit the gas. The silver Regal loomed large in the windshield, sunlight glinting off its rear window.

  “They’re not perps, they’re demons,” I said as I leaned out through the window again. “This isn’t a cop show.” The sudden rush of air snatched my words away.

  “You sure about that?” Leon asked. “I’ve seen this scene in a hundred different shows on TV.”

  He was right. This might not be a cop show, yet here I was leaning out of a speeding car while trying to shoot out the tires of the car in front. Sure, I was using a crossbow and enchanted bolts instead of a gun but the concept was the same.

  In a way, I was a cop of the preternatural world. I was certainly one of the good guys, anyway.

  Sheriff Cantrell, who’d lost two deputies to a frog-eyed monster a couple of weeks ago, would disagree. As far as he was concerned, I was a menace, even though I’d solved a three-year-old cold case for his department, discovered how his wife had been killed, and saved the world from being invaded by a bunch of dark gods.

  I took aim at the Regal’s rear tire and pulled the crossbow’s trigger. The bolt flew into the tire and, because it was enchanted and not an ordinary crossbow bolt, went right through the wheel and came out the other side.

  It probably embedded itself into the road but I didn’t see that because I had to get back inside the car quickly when we hit a sharp left turn and Leon wrenched the wheel to stop us from hitting the safety railing.

  The Regal was out of control. It slammed into the railing and bounced back into the middle of the road. The driver must have slammed on the brakes—or what was left of them—and overcorrected his steering, because the vehicle fishtailed in a cloud of white smoke. The remaining three tires screeched on the asphalt and a smell of burning rubber filled the air.

  Then the car accelerated and shot forward again. Only this time, instead of trying to outrun us, the driver seemed to think he could escape by making a sudden turn onto one of the side roads that led to the lake.

  “Don’t lose them,” I told Leon. “They’ll probably ditch the car and make a run for it when they get to the trees.”

  “I won’t lose them,” he said calmly, his face a mask of grim determination.

  The woods by the lake stretched for miles in both directions. If the demons abandoned the Regal and made a run for it, we had to stop them quickly, before we lost them amid the trees.

  The car ahead of us skidded to a halt and the front doors on either side opened. A dark figure fled out of each side, one heading for the trees on the right, the other running left.

  Leon pressed on the brakes and the Porsche skidded to a stop inches from the Regal’s rear bumper. “You go right,” I told him, opening my door and chasing the demon that had run into the trees on the left.

  I could hear my prey ahead, its feet rustling through the undergrowth, but I couldn’t see it. Damn thing was moving fast. I picked up my pace, pumping my arms and legs, being careful to avoid roots and branches on the ground. If I tripped and fell, the demon would be gone and my week of surveillance would have been wasted.

  This morning, I’d received a call from a guy named Bud Clark who ran the Society of Shadows’ Salem office. Apparently, he was trying to track down a couple of demons that had killed a Massachusetts investigator. Bud had reason to believe that the demons in question were moving north, through Maine, and he had asked me to be on the lookout. He said they were driving a silver Buick Regal and gave me the license number.

  His call came at a time when I had nothing better to do than follow the lead he’d given me. After the cases involving the church at Clara and the monster in the lake, the office had been quiet.

  Felicity had had to fly over to Sussex to visit her parents after her mother called her late one night in a panicked state. Felicity’s father had suffered a heart attack and was in the hospital. Felicity called me after she arrived back in England to tell me that her father was doing okay but she wanted to stay there a little longer just to make sure and to help her mother. I told her to take all the time she needed and not to worry about work.

  The truth was, work was nonexistent. I arrived at the empty office every day and sat around drinking coffee and researching ancient Egyptian magic. I was hoping to find something that might free my friend Mallory from a curse she had become afflicted with after destroying the heart of a sorceress that an Egyptian priest named Rekhmire had bound magically into a box thousands of years ago. Now, Mallory only had one year to live before the curse killed her.

  Despite calling Mallory at least a dozen times, and leaving eight or nine voicemails on her phone, I hadn’t spoken to her since the night of the Oak House Slaughter, a massacre that had taken place a couple of weeks ago, when the killer known as Mister Scary had killed twenty-two high school students in an abandoned house in Michigan, leaving a single female survivor, Leah Carlyle. Like Mallory, Leah was now being called a Final Girl by the media.

  With Felicity gone, Mallory unreachable, and no case to investigate, I was spinning my wheels. The research into ancient curses was leading to a bunch of dead ends.

  So when Bud’s call came, I was ready to take any opportunity that meant I could escape the four walls of my office. Demon-hunting sounded ideal.

  I planned to take my Land Rover, which was back from the shop, down to the highway and sit there for a while, waiting for the Regal to pass by. Then, I’d follow it until it pulled over somewhere and I would deal with its demonic occupants quickly and quietly.

  Before I left the office, though, I decided I owed Leon some action. He and his butler, Michael, had helped out with t
he lake monster case and Leon was always asking me if he could get involved in any other work, big or small. So I called him and told him I was staking out the highway and asked if he’d like to help. I warned him it would probably mean hours of sitting at the roadside and being bored. But if he wanted to, he could drive.

  He jumped at the opportunity. And turned up in a canary-yellow Porsche Cayman.

  As it turned out, we only had to wait an hour before the Regal went rolling by. But as soon as Leon pulled out into the road, the demons must have sensed they were being followed because they went hell for leather.

  So now here I was, searching for one of them in the woods while Leon chased its companion.

  I saw movement ahead and raised the pistol crossbow. But before I could release a bolt, the demon dodged behind the trees. I ran on, following the sound of its feet disturbing the undergrowth and snapping twigs. When I saw it again, it was fifty yards ahead of me and increasing that distance fast.

  I stopped and aimed the pistol crossbow with both hands, trying to remain calm and not rush the shot. When I finally released the bolt, it flew between the trees and caught the demon’s right shoulder blade. The creature stumbled and fell. The bolt I’d just shot it with was specifically enchanted to take down demonic beings. The magic that was bound to the projectile was like napalm when it hit its intended target.

  The demon hissed in pain and tried to get back to its feet. I rushed toward it, reloading the crossbow. I had an enchanted dagger fixed to my belt but I was hoping I wouldn’t need to get that close to the creature.

  As I approached the demon, I saw it clearly for the first time. It was tall and heavily-built, like a six-and-a-half-foot linebacker. Its skin was scaly and the color of old, dried blood. When its eyes glared at me, they were bright yellow and snake-like. It reached back and tore the crossbow bolt from its shoulder. Staggering to its feet, it sneered at me. “Another investigator. I will deal with you just as I dealt with the investigator in Salem.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think so,” I said. “I’m the one holding the crossbow and you’re the one covered in dirt.”

  It laughed, a hideous sound that made me feel cold inside. “You have no idea what is coming, investigator. Your puny Society of Shadows shall be crushed beneath the might of the Midnight Cabal.”

  “Oh, you’re with those guys, huh?” I’d heard about the rise of the Cabal from my father. Apparently, they were a group as old as the Society but instead of wanting to save the world, they wanted to throw it back into the superstitious chaos of the Middle Ages.

  The demon sneered again. “One day, this world shall belong to our kind.”

  “Is that right? Well, unfortunately for you, you won’t be around to see it. Bye.” I shot it through the heart with an enchanted bolt. The demon shrieked and collapsed to the ground, the hateful yellow light in its eyes dimming. When the lights went out entirely, the body began to disintegrate into ash.

  I retraced my steps to the cars and then quickly crossed over the road to the section of the woods where the other demon had fled. I’d given Leon shotgun shells enchanted with the demon napalm magic but I still hurried through the trees. These creatures were dangerous.

  A couple of seconds after I’d entered this part of the woods, I heard a shotgun blast, then another. I ran toward the sound and found Leon standing over a pile of ash.

  “Hey,” I said as nonchalantly as I could. I didn’t want Leon to think that I’d been worried about him. He enjoyed this and he was good at it and I didn’t want to shake his confidence in any way.

  He gave me a little wave. He was sweating and breathing heavily from chasing down the demon that now lay dead—well, disintegrated—at his feet.

  “Good job,” I said.

  “No problem at all,” he said, grinning. “We should do this more often. That was fun.”

  We started to walk back through the trees toward the cars. “Thanks for your help,” I said. “I’ll call Bud Clark and tell him we got his demons. Want to grab a bite to eat at Darla’s?”

  “Yeah, sounds good.”

  When we reached the cars, Leon asked, “How come you brought me on this job and not Felicity? I thought you two were inseparable.”

  “She’s in England at the moment,” I said, putting the pistol crossbow into the Porsche’s trunk. “Her dad had a heart attack so she’s gone over there to be with her family.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, man.” He got into the driver’s seat.

  I closed the trunk and slid into the passenger seat. “She should be back soon.”

  Leon grinned and looked at me knowingly.

  “What?” I asked him.

  “Nothing. It’s just that I’ve seen you two together and I think maybe there’s more there than just a working relationship, if you know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Now get us to Darla’s.”

  He started the engine. It roared to life and then settled into a smooth purr. “You don’t want to talk about it?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Leon shrugged and turned the Porsche around. When we got to the highway, he said, “I just meant it would be cool if you two were a thing. Felicity is intelligent and she can kick ass when she needs to. And, of course, she’s smoking hot.”

  I really didn’t want to have this conversation with Leon. He was right about Felicity—she was all those things and more—but our relationship had only taken tiny steps beyond being purely professional. Neither of us was sure what was happening or where it was going to lead. And now that she was in England, it was leading nowhere.

  I missed her, and that was nothing to do with work. She was an amazing assistant, and an invaluable resource when it came to occult languages and symbols, but I missed just having her around. She was funny and smart and caring, a good person who was willing to step into the fight against evil and give it her all. I missed talking to her and getting her input on cases.

  Of course, at the moment, there were no cases. After eating a burger with Leon, I’d be returning to an empty office and more unproductive hours researching ancient Egyptian magic. I’d probably do the Midnight Cabal a favor and die of boredom.

  “Where’s Michael today?” I asked Leon, hoping to shut down his line of inquiry regarding Felicity. Leon was rarely seen without his butler. In fact, I’d never seen one without the other.

  “It’s his summer vacation. He usually tends to the plants in his hothouse during his free time. He grows orchids and that kind of thing. And he talks to them. Says its makes them grow faster.”

  “Really?” I tried to visualize Michael talking to orchids in a hothouse. It was difficult to reconcile with what I had seen of the man. He was tough and courageous, more like Leon’s bodyguard than his butler.

  Leon chuckled. “Yeah, I know. That doesn’t sound like Michael, right? He says it relaxes him. He used to be a soldier and I think growing flowers helps him forget about some of the things he’s seen.”

  “That makes sense,” I said. I could imagine Michael in the army, probably as a member of a Special Forces unit.

  We got to Darla’s Diner and Leon found a space in the corner of the parking lot. As usual, Darla’s was busy. I could see through the windows that most of the booths and tables were occupied by customers. It was one of the best places to eat in the area and was frequented by locals as well as truckers passing through on their way to New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and New York.

  Inside, the air was cool thanks to the AC. There was a smell of fried meat and onions that I was sure got pumped out of the vents along with the air to make the customers hungrier. Leon slid quickly into a booth by the window that had just been vacated by a group of truckers. I sat opposite him.

  “Are you paying for this?” he asked as he inspected his menu.

  I laughed. “I thought you made millions from those apps you developed?”

  He looked at me over the top of the menu, his brown e
yes humorous. “I do. But I demand some form of payment for chasing down those demons.”

  “You demand payment, huh? You sound like that faerie queen who made me pledge my services to her.”

  His expression turned suddenly serious. “Did anything ever come of that? What did she want you to do?”

  I shrugged. “Nothing yet. I guess I’ll hear from her when she wants something.” Leon and I had been lost in the realm of Faerie and I’d had to agree to be of service to the Lady of the Forest in exchange for a way back home.

  The terms I’d agreed to meant I could refuse any request but until I accepted one, I was indebted to the Lady. As far as deals with the fae went, it wasn’t all that bad but I didn’t like being indebted to anyone, never mind a faerie queen.

  “That was a crazy place,” Leon said.

  “Crazy and dangerous. It isn’t on my list of favorite places to visit.”

  The waitress, a young dark-haired girl, came over and cleared the table. “I’ll take your orders in a moment,” she said before she left with the dirty dishes.

  Leon flashed her a smile and then turned his attention back to me. “You got any more jobs lined up that I can help you with?”

  I shook my head. “I haven’t got any jobs lined up at all. Business hasn’t exactly been booming lately.”

  “That’s a shame.” His face fell for a moment but then lifted into an easy smile when the waitress returned.

  “What can I get you?” she asked.

  I ordered a Darla’s Double Burger and Coke. Leon ordered the same. The waitress filled our coffee cups and disappeared.

  “So what are you going to do?” Leon asked me.

  “I don’t know. Wait for something to turn up, I guess.”

  He nodded. “I get bored easily. That’s why I still work on new apps and stuff even though I don’t need the money anymore. I tried to retire once but I felt like I was going crazy after a couple of weeks so I went right back to creating apps.”

  “Well, my job doesn’t work like that. I can’t create a monster to hunt or a case to investigate. I have to wait for them to turn up.”