Hashtag Murder

by brett hicks

  Hashtag Murder: Garda Druid Series Book One

  One:

  The echo of thumping rhythmic bass beats washed over Smokey’s. They replaced the subdued music of the daytime hours with techno and industrial rock music. The bar and grill served as the local watering hole to some of Dublin’s finest. Garda Siochana (Translates to Guardians of the Peace.) The Irish police force, and as you might have guessed by now, my employer.

  I had barely been back in Dublin for half a day, and I had sought an appropriate haunt for my night life. During my formative years in the blue uniform, I was placed away from “home.” That word being used loosely.

  I had lucked out when I was promoted to detective garda, and they had transferred me back home. My granny had missed me while I was half across Ireland on my daily patrols. Granny had been the only relative willing to take in the evil spawn of my bastard father and her angel daughter. (not literally.)

  Best guess I can give you, is that my father was possessed of some evil force or spirit. I speculate that this is partially why I can see beyond the foggy veil of the oblivion erected for the mortal eyes. I am in some part connected to the darkness that holds sway over my father’s addled mind.

  My story is one you might have read about before. Girl grows up in stable house, only for said house to buckle after her thirteenth birthday. Said house tumbles like a discarded pile of playing cards haplessly stacked in a shamble, unstable environment.

  My dad well let’s just say he was evil. What controlled him, what guided his actions, made him a legendary serial killer. As the product of such a mortal beast, my American family disowned me. My mother was murdered. She was the last of my dad’s victims. The police wouldn’t have even captured him, if it had not been for my help.

  Dad taught me dozens of forms of martial arts by the age of thirteen. We shared a fascination with the art of weaponless combat. My sister shut down upon seeing our discarded mom. I grew vindictive, and in an all-or-nothing gambit, I survived while I barred my father’s attempts to flee his latest crime scene.

  Not that anyone ever told my side of the story to the reporters. No, they branded me with the same scarlet-letter that my psycho father wore on his forehead. I was the daughter of the monster, only, in that final conflict with him, I gleamed great insights into what truly drove his murderous behavior.

  I saw the dark blur of nightmare powers. The spirit that consumed my father’s mind, had been a serial murderer in his own time, in his own body. That was the first true hind of the harsh nature of the world unseen which I gleamed early on.

  While my big sister succumbed to the madness of the lies and puppet theater of the mortal world, I sank ass-first into the deep-end of the supernatural world I never even realized existed. My cursed eyes seemed to land me in scrape, after scrape. Until my granny finally stepped in and took me home to Dublin. By then, everyone, my teachers and my friends had shunned me. I had fallen between the cracks on the pavement.

  This world is so cold, I never thought I would catch a single ray of warmth in the air again. However, with thousands of miles, and a country away, people moved on and so did I. Struggling as I might, and cursed with my father’s eyes, I still land myself ass-first in scrapes, repeatedly. The old-world charm of the Irish life had nuzzled itself deeply into my heart.

  The way I saw it, I only had two choices, cop or robber. (Hopefully, you get my true meaning.) I was bound for jail, or I was bound to wear a badge. Being unable to hide from the supernatural world as I am, I would have found my way into one. I wanted protected people, to serve, and to join the human Garda. Now, I try to help where I can, when I can, while settling human differences daily. I guess you could really call me a problem solver, more than anything.

  However, as of today, you could also call me Detective Garda. I was a plainclothes cop now, and they finally allowed me to carry a gun on my beat. Here, only the fancy detectives get to carry firearms. Not that I have ever felt impeded before. Being the only surviving daughter of a serial-killing martial-artist had its perks, like knowing how to kill a man twenty ways to Sunday, without even being detected. (No, I am not claiming to be some new-age ninja.) I am just a girl who has a healthy obsession with fitness and self-defense.

  While I had a mutt, try to claim excessive force a time or two, I had never found myself in any deadly situation I could not handle. (That is to say, I am still breathing now!)

  ***

  I knock back the thick dark beer, the biter-sweet of its succulent flavor forces a mild grimace to my features. The club-like ambience of the bar swarm my senses in over-drive, and I kick off from the bar stool I have been sitting on for the past five minutes, and I move to the dance floor, feeling the warmth of the buzz spreading throughout my body.

  I am a full-blood Irish American girl in her prime, but I never drink to the point of intoxication. All around me, green-blooded natives are toasting away their cares and singing along to the popular techno-revised music.

  Even the cops I spot are drinking their fill in full portions. The crowd swells as the night is beginning in Dublin. I lose myself to the pulsing throngs of the crowd. Tonight, is the last night I can cut free into obscurity. Dublin has never known me, truly known me, but I know that I must resign myself to discovery. I am now a detective, and the life I have led until now, will come with its fill of regrets. Not the least of which, will be the day people finally dig into my past, revealing my father’s shameful deeds. This discovery looms over me like a dangling sword of some unnamed, faceless maleficent demon.

  The world of darkness is enough to drive a sober girl to drink nightly! While I might not be a judge, nor can I claim to be sober as one, I think I handle my stress well, thanks!

  My dark chestnut hair spills free around me, haloing me in dark silken threads of straight glossy feminine spender. My pale-green eyes flicker open often enough to aid my balance. My perception of the world around me is muddled, but that part of me that sees the unseen, feels the pulse of life around me, and even some tiny spell-crafting. I am not surprised to sense the twinge of magiks in a pub, even a copper pub. This is Ireland, and nearly all the damn bar tenders on this island have supernatural genetics. And your run-of-the-mill leprechauns. This one, for example, is a full-blood leprechaun. He is impartial, and his pub is a safe space for all mortal or immortal. The tiny pricks of magiks I feel, are his ward spells igniting against my runic tattoos. Tattoos I had done only a few months after coming here, after discovering the ancient ways of enchanting the body against possession. Call me crazy, but I hardly wish to tempt fate, considering my heritage.

  Being the keen and sensitive girl, I am, I feel the weight of eyes gazing upon me. I’m not sure how, but I can always feel the difference between a passing glance, and someone taking notice of my existence. My strange gifts or curses, whatever you call them, are very astute, very sensitive. I have had years of practice at honing them and learning how to dull them while in mortal company.

  After a beat of dancing, I finally feel the last dull tingling tendrils of my previous drink wearing off. I saunter over to the bar, and I sit down, tap my finger and call out for a draft lager. I’m not a wine girl, nor am I a heavy drinker, so I developed an appreciation for well brewed beers.

  “Put it on mine, Ernie.”

  A deep and masculine voice said, his fingers tapping right next to mine. I look up mainly in curiosity, to the dark-blue gaze of his own personal Irish ocean. A girl could get lost in the rough beauty of his chiseled features, and his seemingly careless, yet put-together sense of style. He was casual, yet he seemed to have deliberately stepped into this almost grunge-like rock-star-chic appearance. He had planned this look a week in advance.

  The look in his eyes told me he was into me, despite the c
ommon misconception about men with fashion-sense.

  I give him a bat of my lashes before I can take the flirtatious gesture back. I’m not supposed to be engaging the locals, but one last tryst, before my oblivion kicks in tomorrow, right?!

  I’m not usually the type to decide I will take a man to bed tonight, but I am no angel either! Maybe it was the impending dread and the excitement of my promotion that weakened my carnal resolve? Maybe I could just claim insanity, later? I mean, given my history, I am sure someone would buy that defense!

  Maybe it was just the way he devoured me with his savage blue gaze? Perhaps I would never know what short-circuited my mental hardware tonight. All I know for sure, is that I was drawn to him.

  We danced to terrible eighties power-ballads. I felt his strength, like a feral heat against my skin. He was primal strong, so much so I was unsure. He felt a heady blend of familiar and foreign. He felt so like a shapeshifter. While I was not xenophobic, I have made a practice of noninvolvement with other species. Maybe it was this intensity, or maybe it was that I felt something beyond the carnal pangs I typically fueled, while neglecting my emotional diet.

  We danced late into the night, then late became early. With the sun, I was gone, and I was gone without ever bothering to ask his name. That sounds like a modern cliché, I am sure. This is not typical of me, not by half. I am usually more reserved, broody even. I could see the curiosity in his hot gaze, as his perused the magiked ink covering my breasts and back. I wanted to make a lasting impression on the rough and stylish rock-star man of my dreams, even if I never saw him again, nor ever learned his name.

  With the morning, came sanity—or what passed for it in my world. I did my best to shower, and shake off the experience, forgetting that I had felt so profoundly on the eve of my new posting.

  Granny didn’t bother me when I came in with the first rays of dawn. I was a grown woman, and she seemed more relieved that I had all my limbs intact and was only showing the rumpled disheveled look of a girl slinking in from a wild night. At least this time I was not covered in my own blood and bits of a demon! Or burned and charred to the metaphorical bone, from a night spent purging dark witches from the local cemetery. Let’s not even mention the time I came in with the severed hand in my bag!

  She’s seen worse. And, like any other morning, she fries up some eggs and brews a pot of tea for us both. Granny is cunning, and she is in no rush to pry from me every detail of my night. She seemed to lean more towards the whittle-down over-time approach to interrogating me about my sex life.

  Despite the veritable horror-show that my life has become, she is the one person I know I can depend on.

  Two:

  My head was throbbing slightly, telling me I needed to hydrate myself more thoroughly. I might not have gotten wasted, but I knocked back several glasses. I drank my tea with granny, even though she knew damn well I was going for an espresso the moment I stepped out the door. I guess you cannot beat the American out of the girl, eh?

  My granny didn’t need to speak much to fill a room with emotion. She smiled warmly, fondly at me sipping her tea. Her pale green eyes, so like my own, were full of wonderment. I could feel her happiness as if it were my own. I seem to have a nearly supernatural sense for strong human emotions, but I was sure I was not an empath. However, my granny seemed to be many times more potent. It was like some connection had forged itself between us over the years.

  I didn’t need to look far to see the heady indicators that I was not normal. Even in the subtle things of my life, I could see all the surrounding signs. What these signs were telling me, were unclear, only that I was not human.

  Often in these naked moments of reflection flickers of images of my father and the darkness seeping from him, collided with my conscious mind.

  “Are ye going to eat that or just stare off like a looper?” My granny asked me, her thick Irish accent was full of amusement. Her bright green eyes seemed to dance with amusement at my sudden embarrassment.

  “Aye, just a bit nervous, I guess?” I said, making my statement a question more than a statement of facts. Granny sniffed mildly but did not quip back. She seemed to enjoy observing my young adult struggles in life. Sometimes I think the elderly got some perverse thrill out of our struggles! (Very possible!)

  Though she was getting up there in age, Granny didn’t look much over fifty or sixty. She was still lean and still in good health. She had lived a very clean and very substance-free life. She did not drink too much in excess, even though everyone drank heavily in our culture.

  “You went out for a few scoops and didn’t return at all.” Granny said, stating facts. Over here, a few scoops mean a few drinks.

  “How, how about you just forget all about that!” I said, looking away as I drank my hot tea. I could feel the blush creeping into my cheeks. I was a grown ass woman; I did not need to get the third degree from my Granny!

  “Oh, come now Avery. How else is an old one supposed to live, if not vicariously through ye?” She said, her sassy tone every bit my equal. Sometimes I really saw myself in my granny. I paused with my tea close to my lips and I sighed.

  “Nothing much to tell, except that I performed a ninja-like escape before he could take me home with him this morning.”

  Granny chuckled at this, a rich full sounding tone of amusement. She seemed to derive genuine joy from my shenanigans. I was never a princess type of girl, but it said a lot about my lifestyle, that my granny was my only real “friend.” I mainly spent my time focused on my work, on catching criminals and protecting people. I also spent time problem solving minor supernatural issues. However, I have kept myself off their radar. Once you are well known to that world and that community, there really is no turning back!

  I have delved into the hidden realms, but the abyss had yet to stare back at me! Besides, the few beings who knew of me, just believed I was a perceptive human, nothing else. I had no clue what exactly I truly was, but I knew that I was magical. I could perform small enchantments, spells and other rituals. I had suspected I had some witch blood in me, but granny was not flying a broom around—not that I knew any witches who used a damn broom!

  There are as many flavors of witchery, as there are Christian churches. Each a slightly different deviation in the road about how to use power, and what sources to draw from. I am not an expert, but one has taken the time to explain this much to me in the past.

  What I have discovered, is that the way I use magic does not fit with witchery. Without risking exposing myself to others, I have no other reliable method of discovering the truth behind my strange abilities.

  I am not Hermione Granger, no wand, and nothing flashy. I can expel spirits with incantations, and I have even learned how to perform a real-world version of what people call an exorcism. My non-Garda firearms are often loaded with ammo laced with cold iron shavings and mistletoe. Iron and mistletoe both have enchanted properties and are often poisonous to supernaturals. Iron is effective against ghosts, ghouls, and fairies. Believe it or not the latter of those three are often what has forced me to use my ammo. Ireland being the human realm haven for all manners of the fair-folk.

  What makes matters worse, is Dublin is neutral territory, so I also must dodge trouble from all three fairy courts, and the undesirables and exiles banished from the fae home realm. It is no small miracle that I survived to my majority age, without either being killed or outed by someone. While I did not know what I was, I was sure that I was alone.

  If I knew one thing, it was that solitary predators often became the prey. Wisest course of action is invisibility. I lived on the very precipice of the supernatural community. The world’s rule of law was decided here, for Ireland is one of the last bastions of the oldest of the old. The yester-year haven for those with long memories and even longer lives.

  I needed to find myself known to this insulated community as much as I needed a bullet to the brain, not at all! Though I have worked on the fringes, and I have dealt with some rela
tively minor threats from time to time, no one took notice. Slight nuisances like a few stray evils and boogies get taken out by humans all the time.

  “Did it ever occur to ye to take his number? From the state of ye, I would say he has done you well little miss.” Granny said, smiling in a very sassy manner at me. She then raised her teacup elegantly and sipped lightly. She might not have much, and we might live in the poorest section of North Dublin, but Granny had all the class and sophistication of royalty.

  Our home was above the university area. We live in a place called Ballymun. My new posting is to be as detective garda at the Ballymun Garda Station. We are the clip you see on the news with all the crime, murders, and general nastiness. It is an area most around Ireland would consider synonymous with crime and danger.

  My granny has lived here since she was a little girl. Her dad moved her to this house when he was demoted at his job, some terrible cutbacks. However, he persevered, and he saved enough to pay off this small house. A house that seemed to be a perfect haven for a rogue supernatural just coming into her own, like me.

  “It didn’t cross my mind for a second!” (I am such a big fat liar!)

  “Oh, so that wanton look of yers is just for the kicks, yeah? I’m old, not soft, ya plank! You need to let that bloody iron, wrought gate of yer’s down sometime or ye will have nothing to come home to.”

  She stopped short of saying, “When I’m gone” but the implication in her silence filled the air more densely than words ever could.

  “Granny…” I looked at her and I went through the proper stages of grief and denial. She had softened me up and knocked all the fight out of me. She was the only thing I had left, and she was also the only human on the planet who could “handle” me. Though she had the gleam of triumph in her gaze, she did not verbally declare her victory in this small verbal exchange.

  If she were a decade younger, or I was a few decades older, I would have growled and hissed about her playing such dirty pool with me!