Deadly Departed: A Supernatural Thriller (Fletcher & Fletcher, Paranormal Investigators Book 2)

by David Bussell

  Frank relaxed and so did I. Erin wasn’t here to kill us. The question was, what was she here for?

  ‘I have friends,’ she went on. ‘Family. People who aren’t part of this world. So I’m not having monsters strutting down the street like they own the place.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, holding up a hand. ‘I’m stuck on the idea of you having friends.’

  Frank gave a little gurgle that I recognised as a laugh.

  ‘Keep it up and see what happens,’ Erin growled, aiming the tip of her knife at his groin. Catching herself, she sucked down a long calming breath, sighed, and lowered the weapon. ‘Look what you did, getting me all worked up again.’ She wagged her finger playfully. ‘I already told you guys I’m not here to fight.’

  ‘Right. So you’re not angry at us for running you down with a hearse?’

  ‘Water under the bridge, lads. Totally over it.’

  ‘Really?’

  She punched me in the face. Hard.

  ‘Okay, now I’m over it.’

  Frank went to retaliate but I called him off. ‘What do you want, Erin?’

  ‘I want to work with you,’ she said. ‘To help you nip this in the bud.’

  I rubbed my nose. ‘Thanks for the offer but it’s all in hand.’

  It wasn’t, obviously, but the situation was serious enough without throwing petrol on the fire.

  Erin gave us a bitchy smirk. ‘With all due respect, this isn’t a bunch of schoolgirls fighting over a handbag. If you really want to clean house, you need me.’

  ‘We’ve been doing all right so far,’ I said.

  Erin’s eyes slid over us slowly, taking in each bruise, each cut. ‘Sure. You’re really sticking it to the big boys.’

  I cast a look to the ground, to the blood running down the gutter, to the mess she’d made of our attackers while we were busy getting our heads kicked in. Erin was right. She was a wild card, but she was the only weapon we had against the enemies arrayed before us. Frank and I could ruffle some feathers, but Erin was the real deal. With her help we could drive a wedge into this union and send the fae packing.

  ‘I know where the Arcadians are hiding.’

  Erin smiled. ‘Look at you, pulling your weight. Go on then, where is it? A gingerbread house? Some enchanted dimension you get to through a ring of magic mushrooms?’

  ‘Nooo,’ said Frank. ‘In ciiiity. Undergrooound.’

  ‘He speaks!’ said Erin, taken by surprise. ‘So what are we talking, franken-man? Concealed doorway, heavily guarded, tight as a gnat’s fanny?’

  Answering this one was going to take more words than Frank knew, so I picked up the slack.

  ‘The fae have taken over a disused tunnel system. The way in is gated but not invisible. It’s big enough to drive a car through and hiding in plain sight. Honestly, I don’t think the fae are all that worried about being found. They know we’re not a threat to them.’

  Erin cackled. ‘They haven’t met me yet.’

  A quick look at the diced-up corpses on the ground reaffirmed Erin’s worth.

  ‘So then,’ she said, a wicked glint in her eye, ‘where is it exactly? Where’s this rabbit warren of theirs?’

  ‘Before we get to the nitty-gritty, we need to lay out some ground rules.’

  Erin cocked a hip. ‘Not really one for rules, boys.’

  ‘Then it looks like we won’t be working together after all.’

  She looked to my partner to see if he felt the same way and was met by a resolute nod.

  ‘Fine,’ she said, shrugging her tattooed shoulders. ‘What did you have in mind?’

  ‘I need you to cancel your contract on the kid.’

  ‘His Lordship? What are you talking about? I’m here to wipe out the Arcadians; why would I want to leave one alive?’

  ‘Because your client hired you under false pretences. The kid didn’t kill Tali. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?’

  ‘Nope. I don’t get hung up on the details. Show me a target and I’ll show you a dead body, that’s the deal.’

  ‘Not this time. This is a deal-breaker. Either you cancel the contract or we’re done.’

  Erin toyed with her knife, balancing it on the tip of her index finger and turning it like a fidget spinner. ‘You realise I could just torture you until you tell me where the fae are hiding, right?’

  ‘I do.’

  She jiggled her foot while she weighed up her options. Eventually she said, ‘Fine. As a show of good faith I’ll cancel the contract. Might as well cut my losses on that job anyway since I don’t know where Tali disappeared to.’ She caught the knife by its hilt, stopping it mid-spin. ‘But there’s one condition: you have to make sure that little pixie evaporates. I hear about another big blue invasion and it’s you two I’ll come looking for. Got it?’

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘Gottt iiiit,’ Frank agreed.

  ‘All right then.’ She pulled aside a flap of her leather jacket and slid the knife into a concealed sheath.

  ‘So, your morals…’ I said, ‘pretty fluid, huh?’

  She threw back her head and laughed. ‘Mate, you have no idea.’

  We shared the location of the Unseelie Court and went about prepping our mission: crashing the wedding and giving the Arcadians their marching orders. According to what we’d learned from the drunk fae lying at our feet, we only had a few hours left before the bells were set to toll, so I suggested we use that time productively and get tooled up.

  ‘First thing we need to do is stop by my friend’s place,’ I said, steering us in the direction of Legerdomain.

  ‘Oh yeah? What friend’s that?’ asked Erin.

  ‘Jaaazz haaaaands,’ said Frank.

  ‘Did I hear that right? Did Death Breath just say your mate’s name is Jazz Hands?’

  ‘Yeah. I call her that on account of her having the old spirit fingers.’ I gave my digits a wiggle, laying on some imaginary hoodoo.

  Erin offered a derisory snort and rolled up a sleeve to show off her tattoos, which pulsed with the power infernal. ‘Magic we’ve got. If we’re going to wipe out an Uncanny army we need another kind of weapon.’

  ‘What did you have in mind?’ I asked.

  She returned a smile as jagged and red as a teacher’s tick. ‘That hearse of yours… is it still running?’

  Chapter Fifty-Five: Pit Stop

  Under Erin’s instruction, we took the company car to a mechanic for what she described as, “A little tune-up”. What that entailed I had no idea, but I knew one thing for sure: the under-the-arches garage she took us to was bent as a nine bob note. It was obvious from the disassembled car components lying all over the gaff that this was a chop shop, a place where stolen motors were stripped down and sold for parts.

  ‘What exactly are we doing here?’ I asked.

  I was just as confused as Frank by all this, and it wasn’t my job to be as confused as Frank.

  ‘I told you, a little mod to the motor,’ Erin replied.

  ‘Why, though? How’s this going to help us break into the Unseelie Court?’

  ‘You said it yourself, Casper: the way into the place is big enough to drive a car through.’ She slapped the hearse’s bonnet. ‘This is the car.’

  Frank laughed.

  ‘See, even he thinks that’s a joke. Tell me that’s a joke.’

  Erin shook her head. ‘In case you didn’t work it out already, I like the sledgehammer approach. No mucking about. Blow the bloody doors off and get the job done.’

  It sounded mental—it was mental—but since we couldn’t exactly stealth our way inside, a full-frontal attack was pretty much the only option we had. The stretch of tunnel that led from the gated entrance to the throne room was big enough to accommodate a car, and yet a question still lingered: how was driving a motor in there going to improve our chances against the wedding party?

  Stepping in from a side office came the owner of the garage, a hairy-handed knuckle-dragger with a primate stoop and leathery
skin the colour of something you’d dig out of your nose.

  ‘There he is,’ said Erin. giving the ogre a friendly dig in the shoulder. ‘Fletchers, say hello to Terry, the best mechanic this side of the river.’

  ‘Either side,’ Terry corrected in a voice like a rolling boulder. ‘Didn’t you hear? Danny in Camberwell got his head bitten off by a werebadger.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that,’ said Erin.

  The ogre shrugged. ‘It happens.’

  He sloped over to the hearse, spat in his palms, and rubbed his hands together. ‘Right then, let’s get a look up her skirt…’

  Rather than using the pit to get underneath the vehicle, he reached down, grabbed a load-bearing part of the undercarriage, and heaved the hearse up on two wheels.

  ‘Bit battered, but I can work with this,’ he said, stroking his chin with his free hand.

  ‘Sorry, can I butt in?’ I said, raising a finger. ‘What exactly are you doing to my car?’

  The ogre set the hearse back down. ‘Well, I’m not here to rotate your tyres, I’ll say that much.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, growing tired of the secrecy. ‘So what then?’

  Erin sighed. ‘You really hate a mystery, don’t you?’

  ‘I’m a detective, so yeah.’

  ‘Just roll with it this once, will you? I promise the surprise will be worth the wait.’

  While Terry went about his job, Erin steered us from the main part of the garage and into a side room: an all-in-one kitchen/toilet. The space was cramped, filthy, and plastered with ogre porn. Frank ogled the display, eyes bulging from his head like a pair of doorknobs.

  ‘See anything you like, big boy?’ asked Erin.

  ‘Can we change the subject, please?’ I suggested.

  ‘Fine.’ She popped on the kettle and brewed herself a cuppa. ‘Let’s talk about how you cancelled my tattoos back at your office.’

  I supposed it beat discussing ogre porn. ‘Paid your boss a visit,’ I explained. ‘Pinched it off at the source.’

  She sucked in a whistle. ‘Oh dear. That’s you on the Long Man’s shit list.’

  ‘About that: would you mind putting in a good word for me there? Help me smooth things over?’

  She took a sip of her tea. ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’

  ‘Thanks a million.’

  ‘Don’t get snippy with me, Spooky. If you’d let me kill His Lordship before the fae snatched him back, we wouldn’t be in this mess.’

  Eventually, the ogre swung open the door.

  ‘All done.’

  We followed him back into the garage, where I gave the hearse a once-over. I had to circle around to the front end of the thing before I figured out what was different.

  ‘So that’s what this was all about.’

  Frank grinned. ‘Gooooood.’

  ‘Pretty sweet, eh?’ said Erin.

  ‘You were right,’ I admitted. ‘It was worth the wait.’ I crouched down and gave the modifications a closer inspection. ‘And you’re sure these are going to work?’

  ‘No idea,’ she replied, ‘but it’s going to be a lot of fun finding out.’

  Erin Banks wasn’t petrol on a fire. She was the fire.

  ‘All right then,’ I said, merging with Frank. ‘Let’s fire this thing up, get into that lair, and James Herbert those pricks.’

  ‘Now we’re talking,’ said Erin. ‘Go on then. Get your purse out and pay the man.’

  I felt a tap on the shoulder and turned around to see Terry the ogre presenting me with an open palm the size of a lowland gorilla’s.

  With Erin riding shotgun, I drove the modded hearse from the garage and headed for Kentish Town to pick up Stronge. It wasn’t until she stepped into the back of the motor that she realised who I had in the passenger seat.

  ‘You!’

  She reached for her hip but I turned and slapped Frank’s hand on hers.

  ‘Keep your hair on, Kat. She’s with us.’

  ‘Are you forgetting this woman attacked me? That she tried to kill you?'

  Erin swivelled in her seat and gave Stronge a shit-eating grin. ‘Mad, right?’

  ‘Erin’s had a change of heart,’ I explained. ‘She’s not after us now, she’s after the bad guys.’

  ‘Oh, that’s fine then,’ said Stronge, feigning relief. ‘Never mind that she’s a hired killer, she’s had a change of heart. I feel safer already.’

  ‘If this is about me clobbering you over the head that time, I’m sorry,’ said Erin. ‘At least I left you alive, though. That was pretty cool of me.’

  Stronge stared daggers at her.

  Erin turned to me. ‘Well, this clearly isn’t going to work.’

  ‘It has to work,’ I said. ‘You know what we’re going up against here. We need all hands on deck.’

  I turned my attention to Stronge. ‘Look, Kat, I know she’s a bit of a handful, but—’

  ‘A handful? I’m not having her be any part of this, do you understand? I’m the law. I know that doesn’t mean much in this world of yours, but it’s enough to stop me buddying up with an assassin.’

  ‘Ordinarily, I’d agree with you, Kat, but we need her. Frank and me aren’t gonna do the soul bond thing, so I can’t be ghosting in there and pulling the kid out.’

  Stronge squinted at me. ‘Why are you making that face? Are you about to say something really fucking stupid?’

  ‘The only way we’re going to rescue the kid is by busting into the Unseelie Court and cracking some heads.’

  ‘There it is.’

  She placed her head in her hands and kneaded her temples vigorously.

  I put on my best teacher voice: calm and soothing but direct and weighty. ‘The wedding’s at midnight, and if this marriage goes ahead, the Accord is done for.’

  The upcoming union was already messing with the city’s delicate ecosystem. If the ceremony took place, the Uncanny Kingdom and the regular UK would no longer overlap invisibly, they’d clash together like a couple of cymbals. Magic would reign and the world would be turned upside down.

  ‘We’ve got one shot,’ I went on. ‘If we don’t stop this wedding it’ll be silly season out there. Total anarchy. There’ll be rioting on the streets before the sun comes up and magic on every TV station. You okay with that?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Stronge shot back, ‘but there has to be some way of stopping all that happening without blowing up a wedding.’

  ‘Wise up, girl,’ said Erin. ‘This isn’t a wedding, it’s the Thunderdome. We do whatever needs doing to stop shit falling apart.’

  ‘If there was any other way, Kat. Any way at all...’

  Stronge wrung her hands like a Homeric widow. ‘Fine. But I’ll have my eye on this lunatic the whole time.’ She shot Erin an icy glare. ‘You hear me? You do anything I don’t like in there and you’ll have me to deal with. Understood?’

  Erin just about managed to keep her smile in check, which was pretty sporting given that she could have murdered the detective in about a thousand different ways.

  ‘Deal. Now can we go kick some dick, please?’

  Inside my head, Frank voiced an enthusiastic, Yeees.

  I fired up the engine, gripped the steering wheel, and slipped the car in gear.

  Erin drummed her hands on the dashboard and foghorned like a boxing announcer, ‘Leeet’s get ready to nuptial!’

  Chapter Fifty-Six: Schlock and Awe

  We sat in the hearse facing the old train station, an onslaught of bullet-sized raindrops battering the windshield and smudging the pinpricks of distant streetlights.

  Were we really going to do this? Were the four of us seriously about to drive into a fae lair and crash smack bang into the middle of an Uncanny congregation? Surely that was insane. Then again, what was that old saying?: No risk = no reward. And yet there was another saying, wasn’t there, one that rang truer to me: The top of Mount Everest is littered with the bodies of people who took risks.

  But what choice did we have? The day was near
ly done and the sound of wedding bells was all but in our ears. If we had even the slightest chance of dropping some bleach in this cesspool, we had to take it.

  ‘I’d like to state for the record that I think this is a terrible idea,’ said DCI Stronge.

  ‘Noted,’ I replied.

  She was right, though. As far as good ideas went, this was up there with tossing a fistful of coins into the turbine of a plane for good luck.

  Still...

  ‘We ready?’ I asked.

  Stronge nodded back grimly. Inside my head, Frank answered in the affirmative. The only person who seemed to really be on board with the plan was Erin (not just on board, but giddy).

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ she said, punching the roof of the car. ‘Let’s go, fuckos.’

  I gunned the engine, revved her up, and popped the stick in first. The car carved a sudden s-shaped path as we lurched forward, then we were off, wipers frantically scraping aside the never-ending sheet of water that bore down upon us.

  The bumper took down a chain link fence as we steamed down a grass verge and barrelled towards the padlocked gate of the fae lair. There was an ear-splitting bang of metal on metal as the gate was flattened under the front end of the hearse and delivered out of the back. The dashboard lit up with every warning light imaginable, but the old girl kept going (they really knew how to build a motor back in the day).

  Beyond the entrance was a second layer of security: a pack of soldiers standing guard at the gate. Since they were busy playing cards when we arrived, they didn’t present us with much resistance and were sent bouncing over the roof of the car in rapid succession. That’s what you get for shirking your duties. That said, it’s hard to imagine what they would have done to stop us even if they were alert at the time. We wanted in and we were bloody well getting in.

  Further down the tunnel we sped, threading the needle, the acoustics of the shaft multiplying the din of the engine and turning it into a war cry. Blue torches flashed by us in a dizzying blur until we hit a puddle of standing water and I lost control of the wheel. The hearse went hydroplaning across the last stretch of the tunnel, through the giant tree root gates, and into the throne room.