Infernal Vengeance, page 1
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental
N.P. Martin
Infernal Vengeance
Ethan Drake Series Book 6
Copyright © 2020 by N. P. MARTIN
info@npmarin.com
Cover design by Original Book Cover Designs
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
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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
TEASER: BLOOD MAGIC (WIZARD’S CREED # 1)
TEASER: SERPENT SON (GODS AND MONSTERS TRILOGY BOOK 1)
Books By N. P. Martin
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1
Larry Swinger was dead.
I had gone to see the tattooist and sometime street doctor at his parlor—The Tattoomb—on Gristle Street when I noticed the yellow police tape stretched across the front door, and I knew straight away something terrible had happened to Larry. I stood at the top of the steps leading down to the parlor, just staring at the bright yellow tape, at a scene I had witnessed dozens of times before as a cop. The crime scene was closed, the cops and forensics having done their job. The tape stretched across the door was to keep people out.
But it wouldn’t keep me out.
“What happened?” Haedemus asked as he stood on the street behind me.
“Something bad,” I mumbled as I wondered what I was going to find when I went inside the parlor. Would there be blood? Would it be splashed across the walls? Pooled on the floor? Would I get an awful sense of Larry’s last moments after I walked in? Assuming he was dead, of course, but I knew he was. Being on intimate terms with death, I knew the stench of its bitter aftermath.
“I seen you round here before,” said a voice to my right, and I turned to see a woman standing in the doorway of the thrift store next door.
“I’m a friend of Larry’s,” I said to the woman, who was in her forties, but dressed like it was still the seventies, wearing flared jeans and a fur-lined gilet. I’d seen her around before. Patricia, I think her name was. Larry used to joke he’d like to fuck her, but the two never bothered much as far as I know. “What happened here?”
“Larry’s dead, I’m sorry to say.” The woman took a drag on the cigarette she was holding.
A metal band constricted around my chest, and I swallowed tightly. So it was true. He was really dead. “What happened?” I asked again.
The woman shook her head like she didn’t want to talk about it, staying in the doorway so the rain didn’t hit her. It was 5:30 in the evening and darkness had already descended on the city, an icy December wind picking up as litter blew around the street. “I already told the cops everything.”
“Tell me.” I stared hard at her, perhaps too hard. She retreated into the shop a little as if afraid. I changed my tone. “It’s Patricia, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Larry was my friend, Patricia. I just wanna know what happened to him.”
Patricia nodded, then said, “It happened yesterday. I had closed the store early to do a stock take. That’s when I heard the screaming. Larry’s screaming.” She closed her eyes for a second as if she could still hear the screams in her head. “It was awful.”
“Did you see what happened?”
“It’s like I told the cops, I didn’t see anything. I was too scared to…” She trailed off and shook her head a little as if in shame.
“It’s okay,” I said. “You were frightened. I get it. Did you see anyone go into the shop beforehand?”
“You still a cop? Larry told me one time you were a cop.”
“Not anymore.”
“Are you still gonna get who done this? Cops didn’t seem too interested.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said. “For Larry.”
“He was a good guy,” Patricia said. “I mean, aside from his liking for girls far too young for him, that is.”
I nodded, knowing all too well. “Did you see anyone before Larry was killed?”
Patricia tried to hold my gaze, but couldn’t. It felt like I had a fire in my eyes, stoked by anger and grief. I still couldn’t believe Larry was dead. He didn’t have any enemies as far as I knew. Or at least, he didn’t mention that he had. As always when people die, we find out we didn’t know them as well as we thought we did. Secrets come out. Skeletons materialize in closets.
What skeletons did Larry have in his closet? Did one of those skeletons kill him? Rest assured, I was gonna find out.
“Well?” I said to Patricia after she didn’t answer. “Did you see anyone or not?”
“I noticed a guy go in as I was closing the store,” she said, almost reluctantly as she flicked cigarette ash to the wet ground.
“What did this guy look like?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t get a good look.”
“You’re lying,” I said too harshly.
Patricia tossed her cigarette away and went to close the door. “I’ve said enough.”
“Wait,” I said, now mindful of my tone again. “Please, Patricia. Larry was my friend, and right now, I’m probably the only one interested in finding out who killed him. The cops know who Larry was and what he did. Far as they’re concerned, he probably brought it on himself. And maybe he did, I don’t know, but I’d like the chance to find out. Everyone deserves justice, right?”
“S’ppose so.”
“I’m sure Larry helped you out more than once, am I right?”
“Once or twice,” Patricia said with a shrug.
“There you go then. You owe it to Larry to help me find his killer. Now, who did you see walk into the parlor before Larry was killed?”
“I saw a man,” Patricia said, folding her arms around herself as if she were cold. “I only saw him through the window, though. I didn’t get a good look.”
“Did he see you?”
“I don’t think so. I was standing behind a coat rack.”
“Did you see his face?”
“A little. He was wearing a hat, and his collar was turned up. He was tall, though. Old too.”
“Old? How old?”
“It was dark,” she said, squirming like it was all she could do to think about it. “But a car drove past and I glimpsed his face in the headlights. It had lines in it. Age lines, like my granddaddy has.”
“Did you catch his eye color? Distinguishing features?”
“Like I said, it was dark. People came and went from Larry’s all the time. I don’t usually take much notice.”
“Yet you noticed this guy,” I said. “There must’ve been something about him.”
“Maybe, I don’t—”
“Think, Patricia.”
Steady, Drake. You don’t want her shutting you out. She’s the only witness.
“There was just something about him, like the first time I ever saw you walk into Larry’s parlor.”
I frowned. “What do you mean by that?”
She looked away and seemed to take another small step back into the shop. “There’s a darkness about you,” she said. “There was a darkness about this guy as well. I can read people’s auras. It’s a thing I’ve always been able to do. Your aura is dark, but his was darker.”
A MURK maybe?
“Is there anything else you can tell me?”
“That’s it.”
“What about after he went into the parlor? What did you hear? Did you hear his voice?”
“All I heard was Larry screaming. That’s when I phoned the cops.”
“Did you see the killer leave?”
“I was too busy hiding. I got freaked out by the screams.”
“How did Larry sound? Did he sound angry? Terrified?”
“Wouldn’t you be if someone was killing you?”
“I guess. You tell the cops any of this?”
She shook her head. “I just told them what I heard. I didn’t tell them about the man I saw.”
“Why not?” I asked, knowing the answer already.
“'Cause I don’t want him coming after me, that’s why.” She started to close the door. “Anyway, I’ve said enough. I hope you catch the guy.”
When Patricia closed the door, I stood in the rain and lit a cigarette as I tried to get my head around the cold fact that Larry was dead. He had been a good friend to me over the years, and had helped me out enough times, most notably with saving Scarlet Hood after Carlito Martinez almost killed her.
Yeah, for all the good it did. She died anyway.
And now Larry was dead too. Killed by some crazy fuck over God knows what.
“Ethan? Are you okay?”
I turned to look at Haedemus, still getting used to the fact that he no longer looked like he had just risen from the grave after a year long stint in the dirt. Hannah had transformed him while we were all still in Hell—two weeks ago now—making him into a gleaming, magnificent beast who was nonetheless still invisible to Unawares. Among the MURKs and Awares, however, Haedemus turned heads. A little too much for my liking. Riding him around the city, I often felt like some jumped-up prat driving a brand new Italian sports car. Haedemus didn’t mind the stares, though, his rampant ego feeding greedily off of them like a vampire feeds off of blood.
“I just found out my friend was killed,” I said. “What do you think?”
“It’s becoming a dangerous business being your friend, Ethan,” Haedemus said. “Perhaps I should be more careful. This new body of mine comes at a price, after all. It comes with mortality. I can die now, just like the rest of you.”
I shook my head at him. “I hope you never become a grief councilor, Haedemus.”
“Such people exist? What for? To tell someone how shit they’re feeling? I think they already know, don’t you.”
I knew, that’s for sure. Pike’s death in Hell still ate me up every day. I didn’t think I would miss him so much, but I did. Just like I missed Angela and Callie, not to mention Scarlet.
And now Larry.
When it would it all end?
When I do, that’s when.
Or when the world ends. Way things are going right now with Knightsbridge, that might not be far off.
“Why did you even come here, Ethan?” Haedemus asked me as rain ran down his shimmering black coat.
“To get my tattoos redone,” I said. “They got burned off in Hell.” The bots didn’t bother to recreate them after they regenerated me. I felt bare without the ink now. They powered my Infernal Itch, which was also gone now too. Though it seemed like early warning signs were a moot point these days, as every asshole MURK and psychopath seemed to be in my face.
Like Lucifer, for instance, who just showed up whenever he wanted, usually to talk about stuff that had no relevance to saving the world or his father. I hadn’t seen the Devil in days, though. I’d hardly seen anybody in days. Ever since Hell, I’d been spending a lot of my time alone.
Ever since Hannah left, you mean?
Yeah, ever since she left.
But I couldn’t think about that now. I had a crime scene to examine, even though it was the last thing I wanted to do.
“Stay here,” I told Haedemus. “I’m going inside to check the place out.”
“Yes, as always, Ethan,” Haedemus said. “And as always, where am I going to go? I’ll just stay here and ponder my porn script. There are a few key plot points I still have to work out. Plus, I’m still working on my character. I can’t decide if he used to be a dressage horse or a racehorse. Both would give him the stamina he’d need to satisfy all those mares. But I’m thinking dressage might be a little too gay. What do you think?”
“I think I have more important things on my mind,” I said, turning my back on him to walk down the steps to the parlor.
“This is important, I’ll have you know. It’s important to me.”
I felt like telling him I couldn’t care less what was important to him as I snapped the police tape covering the door, but I kept my mouth shut less I elicit a stream of justification and abuse from him, which I was in no mood for.
The parlor door was locked, so I took out my lock picks from my trench pocket and picked the lock in under a minute, which was a good time for me. Scarlet popped into my head as I remembered her ribbing me over being too slow to pick the lock at Jonas Webb’s hideout that time. She had taken over and picked the lock in seconds. Then later, she had kissed me. A stir of longing went through me as I smiled at the memory, but my smile soon faded when I opened the door and walked inside the tattoo parlor, flicking the light switch to reveal a scene that made me think for a second I was back in Hell.
There was blood everywhere.
I don’t know what I expected when I went inside the cramped parlor, but it wasn’t this level of insanity, that’s for sure. Every picture and tattoo design on the four walls seemed to be coated in blood—in Larry’s blood—making every image infrared. Splatter was all over the ceiling as well, and red colored in the white spaces on the walls. With this amount of blood, Larry must’ve had one or more major arteries cut. Inside my head, an image flashed of Larry’s jugular spraying blood all over the room, vast quantities geysering out at a rapid rate, splashing onto the grimy floor where it formed great pools of dark crimson.
Looking down, I saw the drag marks leading into the back, to the makeshift surgery where Larry saw his patients. Swallowing, I stepped forward slowly and followed the bloody path to the open door, stepping reluctantly into another blood splattered room.
Jesus, how could so much blood come out of one person?
I’m sorry, Larry. Sorry you had to die in such a way. You didn’t deserve it. I knew you, and you didn’t deserve to go out like this.
I shut my eyes, unable to deal with any more horror. I’d seen enough in Hell, and before that as well. What’s it gonna take for my mind to crack open like a rotten egg someday, spilling out all that remembered horror, all that blood, which must amount to a raging river by now, filled with rapids of guts and gore?
Suck it up buddy. This is your life. Always has been. Besides, you got a one-way ticket to Hell now, anyway. Horror is all you’ll have for eternity.
Jesus. The thought was so utterly overwhelming I almost collapsed under the weight of it.
I’d sold my soul—what was left of it, anyway—to a Demon Lord. What the fuck was I thinking?
The question was rhetorical, for I knew exactly what I was doing when I signed the contract in front of Hadriel. But even as I was signing my soul away, somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice was whispering, “Don’t worry. We’ll find a way out of this. We always do.”
I had trusted that voice at the time. Now I wasn’t so sure. You don’t just break a deal with a Demon Lord, not unless you want to spend eternity in Hell as a piece of slime in a pool of shit, but only after you’d been tortured for probably centuries before your body fell to pieces and gave up the ghost, that is.
No two ways about it—I was fucked.
Unless I actually did manage to find a way out of my contract with Hadriel. She said it herself—humans always hang onto hope and are pre-programmed to never give up even if the odds are impossible. Especially if the odds are impossible.
Well, she was right. Being a human myself—mostly—I know a little something about not giving up. Shit, it’s what I do. I’m Ethan fucking Drake. I always find a way out of the shit, even if I come out stinking myself.
Fuck Hadriel if she thinks I’m just some stupid mortal for her to move around a chessboard like a pawn. She clearly forgets that pawns can take down Kings—and Queens. Or in this case, Duchesses. Whatever the fuck. She’d found her match in this mortal. She just didn’t know it yet, and if she did, well, she better be ready.
Opening my eyes, I was hit with the sight of Larry’s blood again, sprayed all over the walls. The black leather gurney still dripped with it.
Who would’ve done such a thing? Who would’ve killed Larry in such a clearly savage manner?
Going by the splatter patterns, the force behind the blows was immense, filled with rage and with certainty, done with a practiced hand. An experienced hand.
Done with a knife.
An old guy, according to Patricia. Why would an old man kill someone like Larry with a knife? Despite his questionable lifestyle choices, Larry was no pushover. He was stocky, and from the drunken arm wrestling I’d done with him, I knew he was strong as well. Which may explain why his blood was everywhere. Clearly he struggled against his assailant. But his killer must’ve got the jump on him somehow. Did he know Larry? Is that why he was able to pull a knife and slash Larry with it before Larry could do anything to stop him? Or maybe the guy played on his age, pretending to be harmless…until he wasn’t?
