Deadson Confidential: A Drakeverse Urban Fantasy Novel

by N. P. Martin

  When I wasn’t seeing to Zee, I was spending a lot of time thinking about the Ord an Dúnmharú Amháin, not so much thinking about what they could’ve done to Ava—for I could barely contemplate that—but how I was going to find out what they had done. I spent hours researching the Order online, and searching for references in the various books that I owned, but nowhere did I see the ODA mentioned, not even in forums on the Dark Web. It was as if the ODA had wiped all mention of themselves from existence, which these days was a massive feat. It made me fearful of their power, and I inevitably wondered if they had any connection to the greater Illuminati Conspiracy. When I contacted my father and asked him if he had found anything, and he said that he hadn’t, it became clear, if it wasn’t abundantly clear before, that I would struggle to find anything on the bastards. After a while, the entire investigation started to seem like a lost cause, another dead end.

  Maybe it’s time to give up, I thought, hating myself for even thinking that.

  But it had been twelve years. Surely she couldn’t be alive after being missing for so long? After being abducted by a serial killer cult, of all things?

  Surely…

  Surely…

  The morning after the shipping container incident, I called Murtagh to find out what had happened after. What he told me, I wrote an article around for Deadson Confidential:

  INCUBUS SERIAL KILLER PUT DOWN BY HEROIC DETECTIVES!

  Fearless FPD detectives have finally caught and killed the incubus serial killer responsible for the recent brutal deaths of three women.

  The incubus, possessing the body of a man named Rick Marino, killed his victims in order to impregnate them with his seed and produce killer spawn just like him.

  The first spawn was captured and exterminated, and the bodies of the other two victims were frozen before the spawn could emerge. It is expected the spawn will be surgically removed from the frozen corpses before the women’s bodies are handed over to family.

  Last night, acting on a tipoff, Detectives John Murtagh and William Huxley heroically chased down the murderous incubus to Bayside Shipyards, eventually cornering the incubus in an empty shipping container.

  “The suspect was trying to hide from us,” said Detective Murtagh. “But we soon found the bastard.”

  Upon finding the incubus, the demon tried to attack the two detectives. Fortunately, Detective Huxley was quick on the draw and shot the demon in the head, killing it.

  As readers are probably aware, if you do enough damage to a host body, a demon’s spirit will be forced to leave its vessel. In this case, the incubus’ spirit left the body of Rick Marino and then was eventually sucked back down to Hell where it belongs.

  “We’re just glad we got the guy before he could kill any more innocent victims,” Detective Murtagh said.

  Detective Murtagh also thanked yours truly for his help in solving the case, saying: “We couldn’t have done it without you.”

  I smiled at that last part of the story. Murtagh never said any such thing. I’m sure he thought it, though.

  As he said he would, my landlord Mr. Dent came banging on my door after two days demanding his rent. With him were two burly looking men in leather jackets who I assumed were enforcers. “Time’s up, Deadson,” Dent barked as he pointed at me, a thick cigar between his pudgy fingers. “Gimme what you owe me, or these two guys are going to throw you and all your stuff out the fucking window. And I’m not exaggerating when I say that, am I boys?”

  “No sir,” one of the enforcers said as he glared at me.

  “Definitely not,” the other one agreed.

  I of course didn’t have the money Dent was after, and to be honest, I had completely forgotten about his ultimatum, so I had to improvise and try to get rid of the man before he woke Zee up and she came out and killed all three of them. Which she would do, even if she was still weak. “I don’t have the money,” I said, holding my hands up to stop him from butting in before I’d finished. “But—I can give you something else that will more than cover what I owe you. Just gimme a second.”

  Going into the living room while Dent and his two goons waited out in the hallway, I went and took down a large abstract expressionist painting from off the wall and carried it out with me to the front door, holding it up so Dent could see it.

  “What the fuck, Deadson?” Dent said before I could say anything. “If you think I’m—”

  “Just wait,” I said, cutting him off. “This is an original painting by an up-and-coming artist on the scene. It’s worth thousands if you find the right buyer, a lot more than what I owe you.”

  Dent stared at the painting like it was dog shit smeared over a white canvas. “How could that piece of shit be worth thousands of dollars? What do you take me for, Deadson?”

  “I’m telling you the truth.”

  “If I may, sir,” one of the enforcers said as he leaned in and examined the painting for a moment, before whispering something in Dent’s ear.

  Dent then nodded and said, “Okay, my boy here says the painting might actually be worth something.”

  “Your boy has a good eye,” I said, glad we were getting somewhere.

  “I tell you what, Deadson,” Dent said. “I’ll take the painting, but it only buys you another month.”

  “What? This should cover me for the rest of the year!”

  “Yeah, well, I gotta sell the thing, which incurs risk because no doubt that thing was stolen. Am I right? Yeah, that’s what I thought. One month. That’s all I’m willing to give you. Take it or leave it.”

  “Three months,” I said, hardly able to believe I was haggling with my damn landlord.

  Dent sighed as he stuck his fat cigar in his mouth. “Two months, and that’s my final offer.”

  Fucking gangster.

  “Fine,” I said, just wanting him off my back now as I handed one of the goons the painting. “Two months it is then.”

  Smiling, Dent said, “Pleasure doing business with you. I’ll see you, Deadson.”

  “Asshole,” I muttered as I slammed the door on him.

  Naturally, I checked out the forum where Marino mentioned he got “work” from Phillips. The forum was basically for supernaturals who were looking to make money using their unusual abilities. As Marino said himself, even supernaturals have to earn a living. Despite being fearsome monsters in many cases, these creatures still had to exist within human society, and no one could properly exist in human society without money. For most supernaturals, this meant turning to crime. Many of the posts on the forum were from organized criminal gangs looking for muscle, or for supernaturals with specific skills to help with particular jobs. I mean, why go to the expense of paying a whole gang of humans to be muscle when you could just employ one single werewolf or vampire to do the same job? Need hard to find information or a system hacked? Employ a cybermancer. Need new, unusual porn actors to satisfy the market’s increasingly jaded appetites? Take your pick. Secret government department looking to hire hitmen or espionage stringers? Plenty on the forum to choose from.

  I browsed through the various posts for a while before I saw the one posted by Phillips, or at least by one of his minions. The post title read: Lucrative gig for those willing to get their hands dirty—cash only!

  The post itself was brief, and read: Would you like to get paid to do what you do best? Would you be willing to record yourself while doing it? Completely secure and well-paid gig. PM for details.

  For a while I sat wondering if I should go with my initial idea of offering my own gig—an open bounty on Martin Phillips. The half million dollars I would offer would come from the sale of one of the paintings hanging in the apartment, which I could easily fence. But then I thought death would be too good for Phillips. Besides, if I wanted him dead, I could’ve just gotten Zee to do it, who was more than willing. I’ve never killed anyone myself, least not outside of self defense. Cold-blooded murder was not my style. I’d rather take monsters down in other ways.

 
So I gave my new friends a call, Artemis and Pan Demic. Even though they were clearly two slackers with an out-of-control coke habit, they proved to me when I met them they still knew their shit.

  When Artemis answered the phone, I asked him to look into Martin Phillips. What I needed was a link that proved he was the main proprietor of the network of sites he ran on the Dark Web, all hosted through the same company—Liberty Hosting—that hosted drug markets, money-laundering operations, hacking groups, millions of images of child abuse, and a whole slew of snuff videos and images. If Artemis and Pan Demic could establish a direct line from Phillips—or his other company, GeekMind—to Liberty Hosting, I could hand over the proof to the Feds and they could arrest Phillips, hopefully putting him in jail for a very long time. I already knew the Feds were after Phillips, and had been for some time in their effort to crack down on illegal Dark Web activity. The problem was, the Feds could never prove Phillips had anything to do with Liberty Hosting, or any other illegal activity. Like many tech billionaires, he was protected from on high, and could afford to cover his tracks well.

  “So,” Artemis said on the phone, “you want us to succeed where the Feds have failed miserably, despite all their unlimited resources, NSA tech, and world class talent?”

  “Yeah, that’s about the size of it,” I said.

  “Challenge accepted!” they both said at the same time.

  I was working in my office when Zee finally emerged from bed and came to see me. She walked into the office naked, her body still sporting a few bruises here and there, her puncture wound closed over but still healing. “Hey, baby,” she said almost sheepishly as she came and sat on my lap, snuggling into me for a moment before sitting up a little to look at me and smile. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

  I smiled back and stroked her cheek with the back of my hand. “You don’t have to thank me,” I said. “I’m always here for you.”

  Zee smiled again, with tears in her eyes this time, which was something I’d never seen before in her. “You almost died because of me.”

  “What? No. A fucking incubus threw me off a boat. That wasn’t your fault.”

  “Yeah, but I went chasing after him, didn’t I? I was so caught up in wanting to get him, I didn’t even consider you’d be in trouble.”

  “It’s fine, Zee, honestly. I was probably stupid for boarding that boat in the first place.”

  “You’re not mad at me?”

  “I could never be mad at you, Zee,” I said as I wiped her tears, looking at them like they were some wondrously rare substance as they dampened my finger.

  “I thought he was going to kill me.”

  “So did I. What happened?”

  “I chased him to the shipyards,” she said. “When I finally jumped him, I thought it was going to be easy, but…he was too strong. Stronger than he should’ve been.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe I was just over-confident, and I paid for my arrogance.”

  “You certainly paid all right.”

  “It won’t happen again.”

  I nodded. “I hope not. I don’t want to lose you.”

  She smiled as she gently poked my chest. “You got him, though, didn’t you?”

  “Just about,” I said. “Vinci finished the job.”

  “Speaking of finishing the job,” she said. “I need energy to heal. I think I’ll go out tonight and find somebody. Then later, when I get back, I can show you how grateful I really am. How’s that sound, Mr. Hero?”

  “I’m no hero, but it sounds great.”

  “Good,” she said, kissing me on the lips. “I’m going to get cleaned up before I go out.”

  “Okay, baby.”

  When she walked to the door, I said, “Zee?”

  Zee turned. “Yeah, baby?”

  “Did you mean what you said the other night at the warehouse?”

  She stared at me for a moment and then smiled. “Every word, baby,” she said. “Every word.”

  Later, after Zee had gone out on the hunt, I got an unexpected call from my father asking to meet at the restaurant. When I met him, he seemed anxious as he sat at the table drinking whiskey instead of his usual martini. The only time my father drank whiskey was when there was something wrong, so it was with some trepidation that I went and sat down at the table, ordering my own whiskey from the maître d’.

  “What’s going on?” I asked my father. “You seem…stressed.”

  My father smiled tightly as if he could barely keep a handle on his emotions. “I have bad news, I’m afraid,” he said before downing the rest of his whiskey and raising his hand for the maître d’ to bring him another.

  A sinking feeling occurred in my stomach as I observed my father’s anxious behavior, and I knew whatever bad news he had to impart, it had to be about Ava. “What bad news? Did you find something out about Ava?”

  He nodded grimly as the maître d’ brought our drinks and then hurried off again. “I’m afraid so.”

  After a pause, I said, “Well, Jesus, Father, tell me. What did you find out?”

  “It’s more what I found,” he said. “Or rather, what Mac found in the Great Woods.”

  I stared at him. “Please don’t tell me he found a body…”

  “He found several bodies, all in a mass grave.”

  “But you don’t know—”

  “At least one of the bodies is from someone who went missing around the same time as your sister.”

  Fuck me.

  It felt like I’d been hit with a sledgehammer, and for a moment, I was dumbstruck, and all I could do was stare at him. “And…the rest?” I almost whispered.

  “Still undergoing testing,” he said.

  “So we don’t know if Ava is one of them yet?”

  He shook his head. “Not yet. I’ll know by morning.”

  “Jesus Christ,” I breathed as I rubbed my forehead.

  “Are you okay?”

  “No, I’m not okay, Father.” I paused for a moment, trying to process what was happening. “What was Mac doing there in the Great Woods?”

  “Based on your source’s information, I sent him to search for this Order’s hideout, or whatever you want to call it.”

  “Did he find it?”

  “No. It’s much too large of an area for one man, even a weredingo, to cover.”

  “But he found the mass grave.”

  “Yes, deep in the woods.”

  “Which must mean the ODA hideout is somewhere close by.”

  “Not necessarily,” he said. “I doubt the Order would’ve buried the bodies so close to their hideout. Mac searched the surrounding area and found nothing.”

  “My source is pretty sure the ODA has a place in the woods somewhere.”

  “Maybe so. If they did, they wouldn’t make it easy to find. They are likely using magic to conceal it.”

  “Makes sense.”

  My father let out a shuddering breath, looking as close to breaking point as I’d ever seen him. “This isn’t looking good, Damion.”

  “I know,” I said in a quiet voice. “But I’m not giving up yet, and neither should you.”

  My father finished his drink and stood up suddenly. “Maybe it’s time to face the truth,” he said.

  “Father—”

  “I’ll let you know the outcome of the other tests as soon as I find out.”

  “Father—” I said again, but he was already walking away.

  21

  Needless to say, I never slept a wink all night. Even after Zee came back reinvigorated and made love to me, I could hardly concentrate, and Zee noticed, eventually giving up trying to please me. Once I explained to her what had happened, she held me for a while in bed until I got up and paced around the apartment for a while before heading out and aimlessly walking the streets until daybreak.

  When I got back, I tried to do some work, but couldn’t concentrate. In the end, I went back out again and bought a pack of
cigarettes, spending the next few hours smoking most of them as I paced agitatedly around the apartment, Zee knowing there wasn’t much she could say to me, for the most part staying out of my way.

  And then, sometime after 10.00 a.m. my father called me. When I heard the phone ring, I felt sick, almost afraid to answer it.

  But I had to answer it.

  “Hello?” I said, staring hard at the floor as Zee watched me from a distance.

  “None of them were her,” my father said. “Ava’s body was not among them.”

  A huge sigh of relief left me. “Jesus Christ…”

  “There were ten bodies,” my father said. “Six women, four men. All went missing around the same time as Ava.”

  “So it was an old grave.”

  “Yes.”

  “Which means there must be…more.”

  “Probably,” he said quietly. “I’m organizing a crew to go out to the woods to conduct a more extensive search.”

  “Do you know if there was any evidence found along with the bodies? DNA evidence, perhaps?”

  “Tests are still being done. I’ll let you know if anything turns up.” He paused for long seconds. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said distantly. “I don’t know how to feel now.”

  “You were expecting closure?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I’m sorry you have to go through this, Damion.”

  “Yeah,” I said before hanging up. “You too.”

  Zee came walking over after I set the phone down. “It wasn’t her?” she asked.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head, conflicting emotions running through me. I obviously didn’t want confirmation that Ava was dead, but a part of me was hoping for closure, that the whole thing would finally be over and I could move on. Instead, the situation had just become intensified.

  “Come here, baby,” Zee said, as she pulled me into an embrace, and I held her tight as tears ran down my face.