Contents
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Free Story
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
Free Story
Vampire for Hire Preview
Review
Read More
Help Me Out
Author's Note
About the Author
My Other Books
Sparked
The Nephalem Files
Book 1
Douglas Wayne
SPARKED
THE NEPHALEM FILES
BOOK 1
Douglas Wayne
Copyright © 2015 by Douglas Wayne. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events or locales is purely coincidental. Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited.
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- 1 -
"Here's the mail, Boss," Stacy said as she placed the stack of envelopes on top of the growing mountain on the corner of my desk.
"I don't assume there's any good news?" I grabbed the new additions to the pile and thumbed through them. All bills. Over half of them well past due at this point. That's the problem with my line of work. It's not every day someone wanted to hire a paranormal investigator like myself.
I would've considered another line of work, but the only other thing I was cut out for was being a cop. I had nothing against police in general, just a dislike the ever growing amount of politics that went into the job.
Not to mention they require you to carry a gun. I've made it thirty-three years without touching one, I planned to make it at least seventy more.
Even with the lack of work, I couldn't see myself doing anything new. The old world was all I knew though it helped I was an upstanding member of the community. It's not as secretive as some would have you believe.
"Still no sign of the check from the Robinson case?"
She shook her head and quickly exited the room. I couldn't say I blamed her. After two months I figured they would have paid me by now. I also had the tendency to verbally take out my aggression on the nearest target, which happened to be her more often than not.
This one wasn't her fault, the Robinson case was doomed from the start. Courtney Robinson called in a panic insistent that her neighbor was a vampire. Her only evidence to the fact was that he was always out of his house at night and slept during the day. When I suggested that he might just work the midnight shift somewhere, she flipped her lid. But she was still insistent that I come down, so I hopped on the first plane to Tallahassee to make her happy.
She picked me up at the airport shortly after I arrived, complete with more evidence. By the time I looked over the stack of photos I was ready to fly back home. Her sole evidence of him being a vampire was how he sparkled in the sunlight while he was outside barbecuing over the weekend. A surefire sign she had watched Twilight one too many times. Vamps don't sparkle in the sun, they burn. No amount of makeup or sunblock will change that.
I give the movies credit, they get quite a few things right about them. Like how they operate in packs that tend to oppose each other, though their hatred of werewolves is grossly overstated. The two species don't go out of their way to help each other, but they don't generally hate each other either.
As I suspected, her neighbor did have a night job working at a gas station on the other side of town. I didn't even have to tail him to get the information. I just did what every good neighbor should have done before freaking out and asked the man.
Him sparkling in the sun was another matter entirely, but was another easy one to spot. He was recently divorced and had his seven year old daughter over for her bi-weekly stay. A week before the picture, his shower had went out in the house. Thanks to his schedule and the fact he had his daughter over for the weekend, he hadn't had time to fix it. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, but his daughter had a thing for glitter bombing her bathwater. I didn't ask to see the tub, but I'd bet he is still cleaning up the mess today.
It took all of twelve hours to solve the case, and I spent eight hours of that sleeping, which is probably why she is refusing to pay.
Paranormal investigation isn't about the money. It would be easy to drive all over the country and milk these people for everything if I wanted to, but that wasn't my style. Thanks to the cases like Mrs. Robinson, I tried to only take the serious calls. Even if it meant I had to live on rice and noodles for a few extra days.
And deal with the collection calls.
"Any calls while I was out?" I shouted loud enough for the neighbors at Subway to hear through the poorly insulated walls.
"Is there ever?" She said before shutting the door to my office. Her standard response to the question. Some people think I'm crazy for putting up with an office assistant that treated me the way she does, but those people don't know the truth. Out of all the people I've tried at the position, she was the best. There wasn't even a close second.
Being a skinwalker didn't hurt her case any either. Having someone who could look like someone else without the use of magic was a definite plus.
With a lack of calls, I sat down at the computer to try to find something local. Craigslist, for all its problems, was a goldmine once you learned how to spot the hoaxes. The pay for the jobs was lower than what I got on one of my calls, but any money was better than zero right now.
It took a while, but I found a post asking for help finding a dozen missing sheep on a farm just north of Moberly, Missouri. It wasn't my ideal type of job, but lost animals tend to be easy to find or explain. Either they wandered off the farm somewhere close, or they got taken by a predator of some type.
With a job in mind, I reached for the phone just in time for it to ring.
"Raymond Gilmore, paranormal investigator. How can I help you?"
"Is this the same Raymond Gilmore that shot ole James Lucas in the ass while elk hunting in Montana?"
I stifled a laugh. That was a memory I had nearly forgotten, which should tell you how often I take vacations. "It was an arrow," I said, hiding my embarrassment. I've never been great with projectiles I didn't create, but I couldn't turn down the trip. It's not every day you get invited on a trip on someone else's dime.
"He couldn't walk for a month," Trevor said through his booming laughter. "His wife wanted to murder you for that. Remember the messages?"
"I deleted them a few months ago." Thirteen of them. All in the span of two days. She must have c
alled me every dirty name in the book three times over by the end. I wanted to apologize to her for it, but I could never grow the nerve to dial her back.
"Those were the days," he said, calming down.
"I know you didn't call me to reminisce." Trevor hadn't called me for nearly four years, right after the last time we worked together when he was a detective for the Kansas City Police Department.
That case was special, but for all the bad reasons. Trevor called because they were dealing with a serial killer in the city who was targeting women. That isn't the type of job I'm normally keen to jump on, but this wasn't your normal murderer. Each one of the women had six different pentagrams carved into their skin on various spots on the body.
Neck.
Forehead.
Each wrist.
Back.
Chest.
Generally, that's a sign someone is planning on summoning something unnatural to the world.
Usually from hell.
Thankfully, this guy didn't have a clue how to do the ritual properly. But it still took a few weeks to get him off the streets.
"You free to handle another case?" he asked. "I know it's been a while since we talked, but I have a good one for ya."
"That depends." I said. "We aren't talking about more ritualistic murders, are we?"
Trevor laughed. "Nothing like that. We've had a rash of single car accidents that aren't making any sense. Three days in a row we have had four fatalities on the same stretch of highway."
"Bad weather?" That's my first assumption, knowing how people like to drive when it rains.
"Sunny and in the eighties," he said. "The coroner believes they are all suicides."
"I hate to say it, Trev, but the coroner is probably right." Suicides rarely make sense. Nothing humanity is capable of really does. How else can you explain how everyone finds something positive to say about a gunman who kills a dozen people in a crowded shopping mall. They never point to the problems with the person either, only referencing some external cause, like video games. The signs are always there, some people become really good at ignoring them until it is too late.
"I hear ya, Ray. If it was one guy I would agree. But we are talking about four deaths the exact same way in less than seventy-two hours."
"The world is full of copycats. All it takes is one bizarre news story and all the crazies come out at once to play. The first guy pulled off his death and gave the others an idea to try it."
"Nothing about these guys screams suicidal," he said. "Good family lives. No major financial problems. They were all in good health before the accidents..."
I hesitated with my response knowing he would argue with me until I either gave in or hung up the phone. Everything about this case screamed mundane. If I wasn't talking to Trevor I would have either hung up or referred him to the local authorities by now.
"What's it going to take to get you here?"
"Price has gone up since we last worked together." Normally I'd tell the caller I'm not as cheap as they are expecting, and it isn't. My services were highly valuable to the right people, and I expected to be compensated accordingly. "Two thousand just to drive out there and another thousand a day from there. If the case goes to court, you will have to cover the cost of my attorney and another five hundred for each day I'm there."
"It has gone up," he said. "I'll tell you what, Ray. We'll double it. How fast can you get here?"
That escalated much more quickly than I imagined. Something told me I needed to raise my prices when I work with other departments, or at least talk to Trev about how much they usually pay for outside consulting.
"That depends. Where are you at these days?"
"Boulder, Colorado."
"I'll pack a few things and see you tomorrow."
- 2 -
Boulder, Colorado is a community just north of Denver. Ironically, writers label the place as sort of proverbial mecca. The holy place of the US. There wasn't much more to Boulder than there is to any other city in the states, but that didn't stop the citizens from using it as a point of pride.
The drive to the city was nice and peaceful. There is something about a twelve hour drive through the heart of Kansas that is rather relaxing. Cows, oil fields, the sea of corn. It's the perfect way to clear your mind. I try to avoid making the trip tired.
I met Trevor at the local McDonald's right inside town. What can I say? The long drive made me hungry. That and I love their coffee. The way things looked, I'd be going through a few gallons of the stuff while I'm here.
"Nice to see you, Ray. It's been too long." Trevor said when he stepped out of his car. He wore a light gray suit matched with a red and white striped tie. His once brown hair had given up the fight to an ever growing field of gray. His once grand mustache was joined by a matching beard though it was well groomed. Surefire signs of a guy who has had enough shaving to last a lifetime. Lord knows I felt that way sometimes.
"You too." I said, reaching out to shake his hand. With the pleasantries out of the way, I opened the passenger door to my midnight blue Buick Skylark. He offered to take me in his car, but I had to decline. I didn't drive all the way out here just to be chauffeured around.
From the McDonald's, the scene wasn't far away taking all of fifteen minutes to drive. The trip was quiet, except for Trevor's hasty directions. You could tell he'd lived here for a while as he kept forgetting to tell me to turn until the last minute.
"Pull off on the shoulder," he said. "The accident scenes are up ahead."
He doesn't need to tell me any more because the signs are sitting in front of me. At most of the exit ramps they have these yellow barrels blocking any spot where there could be a nasty impact. This spot has a nearly a dozen of them, but not a single on is sitting in front of the concrete barrier. Paint is visible on the edge as well as each side of the barrier from the recent impacts. Besides the barrels, if there was something else that looked odd to me, it was the lack of skid marks leading to the scene.
I waited for a clearing in the traffic before I opened my door. When I stepped out, the glass crunched below my feet as I walked to get a better look.
"All four of them happened right here?"
He nodded. "The chief is thinking about closing down the ramp. He thinks there may be something else involved."
"What makes you think they weren't suicides?" I asked while I felt the gouges on the concrete.
"Why else would they all crash right here?"
When I turned to face him, I saw the concern in his eyes. He was always the type to get emotionally attached to cases like this, even when he shouldn't.
"Like I said yesterday, probably just dealing with copycats. First guy comes along and kills himself easily on a particular stretch of rad. Second guy, who was already thinking of offing himself, notices the news coverage and accident reports since you have to shut down the highway to do accident reconstruction. He decides that he will do himself the same way the next day."
"You could be right, but there is still one thing bothering me." He took a large sip of his coffee before he looked over at me. "When we found the cars, they were all in park."
"Park?" I asked. "Maybe they had a change of heart at the last second, but the brakes wouldn't do the trick so they slammed the shifter into park hoping to stop the car. It raises a few more questions, but my verdict stands."
He walked close behind me while I ran my hand along the cracked barrier. The smell of antifreeze was thick in the air, obviously trapped in the cracking pavement.
"You think you could check the area," he said. "You know. For magic?"
"I won't find anything. It's been too long." The time lapse wouldn't have mattered as much if they would have left the scene blocked until I could get here. Unfortunately it wasn't an option. There aren't too many cities willing to close down the main highway for a minute longer than necessary. Judging by the traffic I see now, there had been a few thousand cars through this stretch since the last accident.
> Any hope of finding any residue here was long gone.
"Are you positive the cars were in park?" Without a skid mark, it didn't look like they even tried to stop.
"One hundred percent. I wouldn't have believed it either if I didn't see it myself."
"I see why you called me," I said, walking back to the car. "Where are the cars now?"
"We had them towed back to the lab. Standard practice when a fatality is involved. They want to go through the vehicles just to make sure there wasn't some sort of defect that caused the accidents."
That was a good sign, at least. If the lab was as careful with evidence as I was expecting, there was a chance I could find something.
Of course, there had to be something to find.
I threw my keys to Trevor and plopped down in the passenger seat. As much as I preferred to drive, it would be faster to just let him take the wheel. Less chance for me to take a wrong turn and end up taking the scenic route to the lab.
He pulled into the gated parking lot about twenty minutes after leaving the crash site, taking a parking spot well away from the building. I didn't know if he chose that parking spot, or it was assigned to him. But he didn't hesitate to park there, even with half the lot still open.
"I need to warn you," Trevor said before getting out of the car. "The captain isn't happy that I brought you in."
I would have been surprised if he said otherwise. People who never haven't been involved with an investigation don't understand that you often need outside help. Police departments like this often had a normal pool of these people to draw on when the time calls for it. If the captain wasn't happy, it's because Trevor ignored the regulars and called me anyways.
"I've handled tougher guys than him."
"Her." He corrected me. "That's an easy way to tick her off."
"I'll keep that in mind."
He led me inside the building, stopping at the desk clerk long enough to explain who I was. She looked around five feet tall with strawberry blond hair to go with a set of hazel eyes. From the short time we spent at the desk, I can tell she was a little ball of energy just waiting to burst.
Sparked: The Nephalem Files (Book 1) Page 1