Deadson Confidential: A Drakeverse Urban Fantasy Novel

by N. P. Martin

I shook my head as I walked over to the desk. “No thanks. You mind if I sit down?”

  “I don’t know, that depends,” he said.

  “Depends on what?”

  “On why you’re here. Are you here to screw me over again, Deadson?” He opened his desk drawer again and pulled out a silver-plated automatic this time, which he loosely pointed at me. “Cuz you know, from what that little fag downstairs on the front desk told me, I think you’re here to fuck me over, that’s what I think. You remember how you fucked me over before, don’t you, Deadson? You remember all the fucking trouble you caused me, you slimy fuck you?”

  “You can relax,” I said, smiling at him. “I’m not here to cause you any trouble.”

  “Oh yeah?” he said, waving the gun, his eyes hidden behind the mirror shades, briefly making me wonder how he even saw anything in the darkened room. “It didn’t fucking sound that way when you got my little front desk fag to deliver your fucking message. What was it again? ‘GeekMind Owner Investigated Over Child Porn Allegations.’ Yeah, that was it. You fucking prick. I could shoot you right now and have one of my people dump your body in the fucking river and nobody would know it was me. Hell, I should probably do that anyway considering the trouble you caused me before. And by the way, you don’t even work for that fucking piece of shit rag anymore. You vomit all your little lies onto that fucking website of yours now. What’s it called? Deadson Confidential? Yeah, that’s it. Fucking piece of shit.”

  Jesus. This guy needs to lay off whatever he was putting up his nose.

  “Listen, Martin—”

  “Don’t call me that,” he said loudly, still waving the gun, his finger on the goddamn trigger. “You don’t get to call me that. Only my friends call me Martin, and you’re not my fucking friend.”

  “Fine, then.” I forced a smile, losing patience with this slimeball. It probably would’ve been easier to forget about Plan A and go straight to Plan B. Least that way, I wouldn’t have had to listen to the prick. “Mr. Phillips then. How’s that?”

  “Don’t fucking mock me! I’ll fucking shoot you!”

  “Christ, I wasn’t mocking you. Will you just lower the damn gun for a second? We both know you’re not going to shoot me. You don’t have it in you to shoot me.”

  Phillips shot to his feet and pointed the gun out straight. “You don’t think I could fucking shoot you?”

  Me and my big mouth.

  “I’m sure you could,” I said. “That’s not what I meant. I meant you don’t want to shoot me.”

  “That’s not what you fucking said. You said I didn’t have it in me.” He leaned forward as snot ran out of his nose. “I got news for you, pal. You have no clue what I’m capable of doing. No fucking clue! Take a look around. You think I built this empire you see before you without shedding a little blood, huh? You think I haven’t killed anybody?”

  No, I don’t asshole. I think you get your lackeys to do it for you.

  “You know I’m recording this conversation, right?” I said to him.

  Phillips stared at me for long seconds, my face reflected in his mirrors. “What the fuck you say?”

  “I’m recording this conversation. The audio streams directly to my computer at home.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “No bullshit. I record all my conversations to do with work. Look.” Slowly, I reached into my pocket and took out my phone. “The wonders of technology, huh? But then you’d know all about that, being a big tech mogul and all.”

  “Of course,” he practically spat.

  I nodded. “Okay then. If you don’t want a transcript of this conversation showing up on my website, you’d better lower that gun, sit down, and answer my questions.”

  Phillips shook his head after staring at me for a few seconds, and then finally lowered the gun, tossing it down on his desk. “You like my cock?” he asked as he sat down, taking a cigarette from the pack on his desk and lightening it up with a big fancy lighter.

  Sitting down, I said, “You mean this…thing on your desk here?”

  “Yeah. You like it?”

  I stared at him. “Am I supposed to like it?”

  “I dunno. Are you a fag?”

  “No.”

  “You can still like it, even if you’re not a fag.”

  I nodded. “Good to know. Can we talk about why I came here now?”

  “Fine. Whatever. Ask whatever you’re gonna ask then.”

  “I’m investigating a murder that took place last night in Bricktown,” I told him. “The man who did it most likely met the woman he murdered through your website, Intimate Connections.”

  “So? What’s that got to do with me? What people do when they meet is up to them. I have no control over what these saddos do, nor do I care. People are just traffic to me, nothing more.”

  “That’s a very…progressive attitude, I guess.”

  “Progressive? I don’t even know what the fuck that means. Are we done now?”

  “Not yet. I’d like you to access your database and pull up the information on the man the murder victim met last night.”

  Phillips snorted as he wiped his nose with the side of his hand. “The fuck I will. Why should I? That’s confidential information. You got no right to see that shit.”

  “Maybe not,” I said. “But the cops do. They’ll land here with a warrant soon enough, and then they’ll search your databases, probably finding other stuff besides the information they’d be looking for. Stuff you probably don’t want them to see.”

  “Fuck the cops. I got nothing to hide.”

  You mean you’ve got everything well hidden.

  “Maybe not, but I’m sure you don’t want the cops up your ass, anymore than I want that thing on your desk up my ass.”

  Phillips laughed. “No, I guess not.”

  “Right. So I’m saying, get me the information I need, and then I can just pass it on to the cops, saving you an ass-fucking.”

  “Shit. You’re a real piece of work, aren’t you?” He sat back in his chair and took a long drag of his cigarette, blowing the smoke directly at me. Bastard. “I’ve checked out that website of yours, you know. It’s what I do. I like to acquire assets. Your site’s numbers are pretty impressive, considering.”

  “Considering what?”

  “Well, considering that you make shit up and pass it off as real. I mean, monsters and shit? The Occult Underground? What the fuck is that? Come on…”

  I couldn’t tell if he was serious or just making out that he knew nothing about the things he had just mentioned. The possibility of a man like Phillips, a man in his position with his money, being ignorant of the occult, was unlikely indeed. It was almost a rite of passage for the rich and powerful to become heavily involved in occultism. But then again, maybe this guy was too dumb to understand the esoteric principles behind the occult, or too insufferable for other occultists to bear. Either way, I didn’t give a shit. I just wanted access to his database. “It’s not made up, I can assure you of that.”

  “Okay, Kolchak,” he said. “It doesn’t matter anyway. People like what they like, and in my experience, the more fucked up the better, and your shit is plenty fucked up. Point is, though, I could help you increase your bottom line by getting you some high-paying advertisers on board. You’d triple your ad revenue overnight. I guarantee it.”

  “You mean you’d wanna fill my site with ads for your porn sites?”

  “Yeah. Don’t be so fucking prissy about it. Sex sells, man. And your traffic is probably gagging for it, especially for monster porn. Demons fucking women and shit. They’d love it. I could make you rich.”

  “And what would you want in return?” I asked purely out of interest.

  “Nothing too much. A controlling share in your site.”

  Smiling, I shook my head. “No thanks. The success of my website rests on its credibility. My credibility. Plastering monster porn ads all over the site won’t help that.”

  “Suit yourself,” Phillips sai
d dismissively. “Fuck it, maybe I’ll start my own site. I got plenty of copy slaves who could write the shit you write, no problem. Then I could monetize the shit out of it.”

  “Good luck with that,” I said, astounded by his arrogance. “So are you gonna give me the information I need or not?”

  Shaking his head, Phillips said, “No.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Cuz I don’t have to, that’s why.”

  “That’s your reason? Because you don’t have to?”

  “What, you need another reason? How about this, then? I don’t help people who screwed me over, and you buddy, fucking screwed me over when you wrote that shit about my sites. You cost me a lot of money back then. Now you have the nerve to come here into my fucking office to ask me for a favor?” Shaking his head, he waved his hand at me. “Get the fuck outta here.”

  Sighing, I shook my head and stood up, knowing I wasn’t going to get anywhere with the guy. As I turned to leave, I accidentally on purpose knocked the plaster cast of Phillips’ penis from his desk. The cast fell onto the floor and broke into pieces.

  “What the fuck?!” Phillips screamed as he shot to his feet and came running around to inspect the damage to his prized possession. “You fucking asshole! You broke my cock!”

  “Oops,” I said. “Too many espressos this morning. It’s left me a bit jittery. My bad.”

  “Get out! Get the fuck out!”

  “Remember this moment,” I told him as I walked toward the door. “This is the moment you’ll think back on after I’m done.”

  “Done with what?” he shouted.

  I didn’t answer him as I walked out the door.

  Plan B it is then.

  And then we’ll see if Mr. Phillips has anything to hide…

  9

  A bit peckish, I grabbed a sandwich from a local deli before getting into my car and driving to the nearby park. At the park, I went to a secluded corner where I liked to go to sometimes to watch the birds as they went about their business in the surrounding trees and bushes. As I ate my sandwich and sipped from a can of soda, I watched a Robin hop about in the grass before it flew off into the bushes, its spot soon taken by a group of sparrows. In the clearing sky above, a Red-Tailed Hawk soared, stopping to hover occasionally as it surveyed the ground below for its next meal. Over on the lake, Mallards and Mute Swans floated on the choppy surface of the water while gulls flew nosily overhead. With no other people around, it was a peaceful scene, and I soon forgot about Martin Phillips and his supreme arrogance, though I chuckled to myself when I pictured his face after I knocked his plaster cast cock from off his desk. I also wondered if he would get a new cast made to replace the one I broke, concluding that he probably would. His ego would demand it, and knowing Phillips, he would probably add an extra inch to the length as well.

  When I was done eating my sandwich, I took out my phone and gave Zee a call to see how she was doing on her hunt for the incubus spawn. When she answered, she sounded annoyed. “Yeah?” she said curtly, making me wonder if she was still pissed at me.

  “Hey,” I said. “How goes the hunt?”

  “I tracked the thing to an empty tenement a couple blocks over.”

  “And?”

  “It got away before I could grab it. I think it was planning on staying there a while until it grew up. It’s increased in size already. It looks like a kid now.”

  “How’d you manage to lose it?”

  “Don’t give me shit over it,” she snapped. “It escaped through a vent in the wall. It’s a slippery little fucker.”

  “I wasn’t giving you shit. I was just asking. Are you still mad at me?”

  “What do you think? You called me a soul-sucker.”

  “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “Well, you did. You call someone a soul-sucker, even if they are, don’t expect a different reaction.”

  “How about I buy you dinner later?”

  “You think you can buy me off with dinner?”

  “No, but it’ll be a start, won’t it?”

  “I already have dinner plans. I plan on feeding on the CEO tonight.”

  “Okay. How about we curl up on the couch and watch something then, after you’re done with the CEO?”

  “Do I get to pick what we watch?”

  “Yeah, all right.”

  “The Exorcist then.”

  I suppressed a sigh. “You sure? You don’t want to watch something else instead? The Boys, maybe? I hear it’s good.”

  “What the hell is The Boys? You said I could pick.”

  “I know, but we’ve watched that movie like a hundred times. Don’t you ever get tired of it?”

  “It’s a funny movie. It makes me laugh.”

  I shook my head at a nearby pigeon as it seemed to coo at me in sympathy. “Okay. The Exorcist it is then. It’ll be late, though. I got something to do later as well.”

  “Yeah? What?”

  “A little breaking and entering. Shouldn’t take long.”

  “Okay,” Zee said. “I’ll stay on the incubus spawn’s trail then. I’ll call if I find it.”

  “Will do.”

  “Oh, and Damion?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Your mother sucks cocks in Hell.”

  Looking at the pigeon as I lowered the phone, I shook my head and said, “See what I gotta put up with?” The pigeon cooed and then flew away, leaving me alone on the bench.

  For a brief time, my thoughts turned to my father as I wondered why he wanted to see me. It had been almost a year since I last spoke to him, a conversation that became an argument and ended with me storming out of the house in Woodsville. Maybe he thought by meeting on neutral ground this time, things would be different. Though I doubted it. I would probably turn up just to see what he had to say, more out of interest than anything else.

  In the meantime, I stood up and reluctantly walked away from my peaceful spot in the park, ambling down the pathway toward the main gates. As I passed a clump of bushes, a rustling within made me stop and look, thinking it might be a fox or something. I stood waiting on whatever it was to emerge, hoping it was a fox as I hadn’t seen one in a while.

  But what emerged from the bushes wasn’t a fox, but a creature about the size of a small child. The creature was naked with pale skin and long pointed ears, with whitish hair that hung most of the way down its back. It was a Wyldefae, many of whom had a strong presence in the park, although they were normally better at staying concealed. This one didn’t seem too concerned I had seen it. It stopped and smiled, revealing pointed teeth. In its arms it held a blue bundle, like something wrapped in a blanket, which it clutched tightly to itself before bolting across the grass and into a larger clump of bushes that allowed it to cross into the woods unseen.

  Shaking my head, I carried on my way as I tried not to think about what was in the blue bundle held by the Wyldefae. I decided I would post a warning on the website later that day, telling people to be on their guard while in the park, or any other natural areas. The Fae were so good at hiding themselves, spending most of their time in Faerie, that I rarely gave them any thought. But they fucked with humans as much as the rest of the supernaturals that populated the city, and of all the supernaturals, the Fae were the ones who disturbed me the most, as alien as they were, and as wicked as they could be sometimes toward the unwary. Yes, I thought a friendly warning on the website for people to be on their guard wouldn’t go amiss.

  Upon leaving the park, I headed to my car and was about to get in when my phone rang. Thinking it was Zee, I took the phone out and checked the screen, but saw it was a call to the DC Hotline being redirected to my phone. Probably someone calling about the incubus spawn, I thought as I answered. “Hello?”

  “Hey,” said a gruff voice. “Is this Damion Deadson from Deadson Confidential?”

  “Yeah,” I said, frowning at the unfamiliar accent of the caller as I tried to work out if
it was Spanish or some other European-based accent. “Who’s this?”

  “It doesn’t matter who I am yet,” the caller said cryptically. “What matters is, I have information you might be interested in.”

  “Oh yeah?” I said, thinking this might be another crank call, which I got all the time. “What information?”

  “I don’t want to say too much over the phone,” the caller said, his tone exaggeratedly conspiratorial as if the guy thought he was in a movie or something. “But it concerns Lucifer and that whole mess with Wendall Knightsbridge last year.”

  I frowned, the caller now having my full attention. “Is that right? What about it?”

  “Well,” the caller began, but stopped when someone in the background, sounding like a child almost, shouted something like, “Maka! Maka!” or “Waka! Waka!” And then the caller shouted, “Hey you little shit! Can’t you see I’m on the phone? Piss off!” Then he said to me, “Sorry about that. Kids, you know?”

  “Yeah,” I said, the strangeness of the call, and the caller, making me shake my head as I got inside the car. “Listen, buddy, I’m kinda busy, so if you have something to tell me—”

  “I do,” the caller said. “But not over the phone. We’ll have to meet in person.”

  “Okay.” I was always wary of these calls. More than once I had been lured into meeting people, only to find they—and usually several others—were waiting to beat the shit out of me instead. “Well, how about you give me something now, just so I know you aren’t wasting my time.”

  “Wasting your time? Buddy—” The caller paused for a second. “Okay, try this on for size then—this city was overrun with demons last year, and no one even remembers.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Lucifer.”

  “But if no one remembers, how do you know it happened?”

  “I was there, obviously. Only a few of us kept our memories.”

  “Because Lucifer.”

  “Exactly. I can give you the whole scoop if you want.”

  Hmm…

  “And what do you want in return?”

  “I was thinking maybe a weekly post on your website, but we’ll talk about that when we meet.”