by Jason DeGray
THE
RUINED
MAN
a novel by
JASON DEGRAY
MICHELKIN | PUBLISHING
ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO
BOOKS.MICHELKIN.COM
Other titles from Michelkin Publishing:
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The Charming Swindler by Jeff Musillo
The Knower by Ilan Herman
Little Karl by M. Earl Smith & E. A. Santoli
Dear Sun, Dear Moon by Deborah Paggi & Gayle Cole
Small Boy, Big Dreams by Jeff Musillo & Bryce Prevatte
Gypsies of New Rochelle by Ivan Jenson
Adventures Through the Trees by Kay Gehring
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real
locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products
of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons,
living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 Jason DeGray
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0-9980672-7-X
ISBN-13: 978-0-9980672-7-8
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my family and friends. Loving a writer isn’t easy and I greatly appreciate your support.
To my parents, thanks for putting up with my uniqueness, even when it drove you crazy.
To Dr. Ashley Faulkner for saying, “Turn this into a book!”
To Melanie Lipari for not losing sight of me, even when I lost sight of myself.
To my son, Aidan, for keeping me young while making me feel old.
To my son, Ethan, for being a constant and blessed presence in my life.
To Brandon Campanella for convincing me to move to Albuquerque in the first place and our Sunday morning writing sessions that inspired this work.
And to Michelkin Publishing for giving me the opportunity to share my stories with the world.
BRIEFING: PURPLE GATES
Magic is real. And it is a filthy, evil thing. Victor Wolf knew this intimately. Every fiber of his being had learned this lesson the hard way. No, magic and those who practiced it hadn’t done him any favors. The scars covering his body were evidence of that. They were hideous, those scars, and they changed him, turned him into something inhuman.
They had twisted him into a living nightmare he could not awaken from and forcing him to become a modern-day pariah—a ruined man. And as a result, like those outcasts in ancient days, he walked in the shadows of the world he had once inhabited. All the while, he suffered Cassandra’s curse of being able to see the horrors awaiting humanity behind the veil but an inability to convince anyone of the truth of his visions. Nobody wanted to believe a monster.
It was for the best, he supposed. Magic was real, after all. The less people believed that, the safer they were…for the most part. Magic is a volatile force and fiercely independent. Sometimes it refuses to stay in the shadows and reaches with its inky claws into humanity’s waking life. And this was one truth Victor Wolf couldn’t abide.
CHAPTER 1
The Purple Gates Chapel, a nondescript white-washed church with a skinny bell tower, was tucked away in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains. No signs or banners announced its function. No cars were ever seen parked in its parking lot. The ornate Purple Gates, where the church got its name in the local legendry, were barred with a thick iron chain and padlock only adding to the urban legends of evil rituals and black magic that surrounded the place.
The truth was that the building was home to a kooky group calling themselves “Paranormal Experientialists.” Mostly made up of bored academics and unemployed artists, the Purple Gates Group wasn’t guilty of anything more than trespassing on private property while hunting spirits. Kooky, but largely harmless. Victor Wolf and Frank Barber, homicide detectives for the Albuquerque Police Department, had come looking for a fanatic known as Jonas the Unrepentant who the Purple Gates Group had recently brought into their fold.
Not much was known about the man. He was apparently a newcomer in town as no one on the streets or in any social circle knew anything about him. Plenty of people had heard of him, however. Whoever this Jonas was, he was the father of dozens of wild rumors about everything from his licentious nature to his possession of superhuman abilities. Rumors that seemed outrageous had to be checked when taking into consideration the rash of transient homicides that started right around the time of his arrival.
Twelve homeless men and women had been found brutally murdered over the past several months with no apparent motivation or connection except the arrival on the scene of Jonas the Unrepentant. Wolf and Barber decided to check him out, but tracking him down had proven difficult until an anonymous tip led them to the Purple Gates.
The church was secured tightly, but that wasn’t the interlopers’ destination. They hopped the fence and proceeded quietly to the small copse some distance away from the main building, but still within its fences. They heard muffled chanting and saw the flicker of firelight playing across the trees as they crept ever so quietly nearer to their targets: eight black-cloaked individuals and one in a cloak of deep burgundy gathered in a semicircle around a rough-hewn stone altar.
Bound to the altar was a bare-chested transient with a gray matted beard and long hair falling over a fearful face, mumbling incoherently as he struggled against his restraints. The entire group was deep into the ritual, swaying hypnotically and oblivious to the world around them. Wolf and Barber stared dumbly at the surreal scene playing out before them.
“I feel like I’m in a bad horror movie,” growled Wolf.
“Shhhh! That’s gotta be Jonas. What’s he doing?” Barber asked as he pointed to the man in the burgundy robe.
Jonas yelled something indecipherable and raised a dagger. All noise stopped in tense anticipation—not only the chanting, but the sounds of the living world around them grew quiet. The stillness generated an unnatural fear that the slightest movement could literally shatter the flimsy veil of reality. When Jonas spoke, his voice did just that. Its vibrations stirred long forgotten memories in all present. Suddenly, they remembered what it was like to be conceived. As if they had all been transported back to a blissful womb alive with ripples of sound. They had been trapped in a pregnant moment. It was a moment that could give birth to limitless possibility or unending terror.
“Welcome to the world, Lord of Murder,” Jonas said, plunging the dagger into the old man’s chest.
Wolf and Barber had seen all they needed to see.
“All you assholes freeze! Police!” Wolf screamed and burst from his hiding place.
Cultists turned to him in unison and the spell was broken. The distraction proved their undoing. They failed to see the Lord of Murder rising out of the bloody mist spewing from the dead transient’s chest. It was a hideous beast—a man’s body with the head of a dog that looked to be straight from the depths of hell. He flexed giant griffon’s wings that protruded from his over-muscled back and looked with hatred and disdain on the cultists scrambling around below him.
With no concentrated will to keep the demon contained, the feeble circle holding him failed and the Lord of Murder was set free. The enraged demon immediately grabbed the nearest cultist and tore his head from his shoulders. Screams filled the air at the same instant it began raining blood.
“Fuck this!” Barber shrieked and bolted in sheer, irrational terror.
Wolf didn’t run, however. Someone had to answer for this and he was determined to see that Jonas was that person. He charged into the carnage firing wildly at the thing tearing limbs as easily as paper. The bullets had no effect on the monstrosity. It con
tinued its slaughter oblivious to Wolf’s attempts to stop it.
“Hey!” Wolf shouted and, out of bullets, threw his useless gun at the beast. It bounced off the Lord of Murder’s head and clattered to the ground out of reach.
Having dispatched the black-cloaked cultists, the demon slowly turned toward Wolf still clutching the severed limbs of its victims in its claws. It appeared half ethereal, its grotesque form outlined by rivulets of blood and gore. The living nightmare stared at Wolf, its massive chest heaving.
“I will kill you next, Victor Wolf. None defy me. None escape me. I am the LORD OF MURDER!”
“Easy, big fella,” Wolf said, trying to keep the tremor from his voice. “I don’t know what you are, but I don’t want any trouble.” Wolf saw a flutter of burgundy in his peripheral vision and heard a few unintelligible words at the same moment the Lord of Murder rushed him.
The demon’s claws rent his flesh, leaving grooves over every inch of his body, but its assault didn’t end there. The demon prince pressed on, reaching deeper into Wolf to tear at his spirit and overwhelm the light in his soul with a stifling darkness. In that moment, his soul experienced irrevocable annihilation. He didn’t just stare into the abyss, he kissed it and intimately tasted the nothingness. He was forever tainted by that brief eternity, transformed into a ruined man.
Wolf screamed and spiraled into darkness, praying for death to release him from his torment.
CHAPTER 2
Living can often be a crueler fate than dying. Wolf felt every instant of that cruel suffering during the first few months of his recovery. The scars wouldn’t heal and, constantly throbbing with pain, seeped puss and ooze. Wolf, bandaged from head to toe, glumly referred to himself as “The Mummy.” The slightest movement was an exercise in agony. Even talking hurt. He was on heavy doses of painkillers and antibiotics and spent most of his day drugged out of his mind or passed out altogether.
His wife, Miriam, was having her own problems being in her first trimester of pregnancy. On top of nursing her husband back to health, she was dealing with morning sickness and everything else that comes with carrying a child. She did the best she could, but the strain was beginning to take its toll and Wolf wasn’t helping much.
She couldn’t talk to him because the painkillers made him incoherent. Not to mention, his oozing wounds stank. They gave off a stench that all the air freshener in the world couldn’t dispel. To save her sanity, she hired a nurse to come in twice a day to change Wolf’s bandages and take care of anything else that needed to be cleaned.
She was lost in dark musings as she carried Wolf’s lunch upstairs, her back aching with every step. Her foot caught on the last step and she fell, dropping the lunch tray.
“Miri!” Wolf called from his bedroom. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. I just dropped your lunch.”
“It’s okay. I’m not really hungry. Could you come in here please?”
Miriam fortified herself for the assault on her senses and, holding her breath, opened the door.
The room was dark since they had installed the felt curtains. Wolf claimed the sunlight hurt his scars. She could make out his form in the bed.
“Are you alright, baby? Do your bandages need changed? The nurse will be by in about an hour.”
“I’m fine.”
“What is it, then?” She crept to his bedside and laid her hand on his forehead. He still raged with fever.
“The nightmares, Miri. They won’t stop.”
“Shhh. Don’t worry about them now. They’re just nightmares. Try to rest.”
But Wolf wouldn’t be put off so easily.
“You’re there. And Jonas. You remember him? He was that crazy freak Barber and I were after when…”
“I remember.”
“He’s there. And the people in cloaks. Chanting, chanting, chanting! They never stop chanting!” Wolf strained and his bandages seeped fresh blood.
“Victor, you have to relax. Everything is okay.”
“No, it’s not! What if…what if they want the baby?”
“Stop it. I mean it. They’re dreams, Vic! Dreams and hallucinations caused by the drugs. The doctor said it would happen.”
“Dreams. That’s right. Dreams and hallucinations,” mumbled Wolf as he closed his eyes and eased back into the pillows, breathless from the exertion. “I’m sorry, Miri.”
“Exactly. Just dreams. Now please, try to rest.” Miriam inched quietly toward the door once Wolf’s breathing became slow and regular.
“Miri?” Wolf said as she stepped out the door.
“Yes?”
“Will you still love me now that,” he struggled to finish,”…now that I’m a monster?”
“You’re not a monster, Vic. You’re my husband.”
“You know I love you, right? You’re my life, Miri. You and our child.”
“I know, Vic. I know. I love you too. Please try to rest.” She eased the door closed and the tears rolled down her cheeks unbidden.
The dreams didn’t stop or subside, but grew increasingly more violent. The Lord of Murder started appearing in them, his monstrous form only visible through the spray of blood that sprang from those crushed beneath his feet. Wolf became convinced the dreams were somehow capable of affecting reality. This development alarmed Miriam and, four months into Wolf’s recovery, she called Barber.
“Frank? It’s Miriam.”
“Hey, Miriam. How’s Wolf?”
“Not good. His scars have finally started to heal, but he’s been having nightmares about what happened. He keeps mentioning ‘The Lord of Murder’ and talking about all of us getting killed.”
Barber had trouble swallowing the lump in his throat.
“He’s been through hell. There’s no way we can know what he’s going through trying to make sense of it.”
“What sense? It was a bear attack. That’s what you said. So either Victor is on the verge of some kind of mental breakdown or you lied about what you saw. Which is it, Frank? What did you see out there?”
Barber’s voice was hoarse as he spoke. “It, um, it was a bear, Miriam. That’s what I saw. I promise.”
“That’s what I thought,” Miriam sighed. “He’s really not doing well, Frank. Can’t you come and see him?”
There was an uncomfortable silence from Barber. “I’m sorry. I can’t right now. I’ve just…I’ve got too much going on. It’s crazy here.”
Miriam lashed out, sick of Barber’s vague answers. “Don’t bullshit me, Frank. What’s really going on? Feeling guilty? Ashamed? Can’t face him after what happened?”
“I told you. I’m busy. I’ll call the department shrink. She’ll come by and talk to him. That’s all I can do right now.” He hung up the phone with a curse because Miriam was right. He couldn’t face Wolf. He didn’t have it in him. He wasn’t a coward by any stretch, but that didn’t change the fact that he fled like one that terrible night. Despite what the reports said, what he said, Barber had witnessed something that had no roots in the world of flesh and blood. The sight had terrified him so much that his brain wouldn’t even register the experience as real. His mind had fled, protecting his sanity. Instead, Barber had said he saw a bear leap from the brush and tear into the occultists.
Not so for Wolf. He saw everything and fled from nothing. He’d paid for his valor dearly and that was something Barber would never forgive himself for. To hear that Wolf was suffering did nothing to assuage Barber’s feelings of guilt and incompetence. But he couldn’t help his friend and partner. He couldn’t even help himself.
It was with a heavy heart he dialed the department shrink, Carrie Spangler.
“Hey, doc. It’s Barber. Yeah, I’m fine. I just heard from Miriam Wolf. She says Vic is having a hard time of it. Sounds like he needs someone to talk to. Yeah. Thanks. Let me know how it goes.”
He hung up the phone, lit a cigarette and poured himself a stiff drink.
CHAPTER 3
Wolf gingerly stroked the scars on his
face. It took six months, but his wounds had finally healed.
“What have I become?” he asked the monster staring back at him in the bathroom mirror.
“Perfect in my sight,” responded his reflection.
Wolf yelped and smashed his fist into the mirror.
“Vic? Vic, what’s wrong?” Miriam poked her head in. “Oh, baby! What did you do?” She kneeled down, maneuvering around the bulk of her belly and began picking up shards of glass while Wolf ran water over the re-opened scars on his hands.
“Can I have one of those?” he nodded at a jagged shard in Miriam’s hands.
“Why?”
“Thought I’d scrape my eyes out. Or maybe cut my throat.”
Miriam didn’t respond, but Wolf saw the tears burning her eyes, and his self-absorption and depression softened. “I’m sorry, Miri. I’m just—”
“Don’t Vic! Just don’t!” she rushed from the bathroom, clutching the shards of glass to her like the pieces of her broken heart.
Wolf bandaged his hand and finished cleaning up before going to find his wife. She was at the kitchen table sobbing in front of an unopened bottle of vodka. Alcohol had always been there for her. Living with a cop wasn’t easy and she needed a coping mechanism. Her pregnancy had forced her to stop drinking and with that came a flood of emotions she had been suppressing for years. As a result, her anger and disdain had grown for her husband. She tried to make excuses and rationalize it away, but after a while, the rationalizations grew stale and resentment set in.
“Miri, look,” Wolf began softly.
“No, Victor. You look. Look real hard. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m pregnant. With our child. We can’t raise a baby like this! The comments. The insinuations. The bullshit. I don’t need that right now. I need you. Here. I need my husband back.”