Evil, Ancient, Hungry

The Chronicles of Ian Duncan — Book Two

the first rough chapter

by Ripley King

Chapter One

I tried to ignore the tentacles waving about in the air, but they kept getting in my face.

“Aim for the head, fool!” the little voice in my head said.

“Like I’m not?!”

I was doing my best, vaguely focused on the three squiggly arms in front, because I knew four more slimy appendages were probably sneaking up from behind. The best I could do was turn tight circles, hacking off what I could reach, grateful they weren’t growing back.

Then I noticed something.

Something that chilled my shit.

They looked like fat red dildos, and they were oozing out of each remaining, undulating arm.

“Not in this lifetime!” I hollered.

Voice started laughing. Belly bursting, slap your knees, chortles and snorts. That was the point where I missed Sheena the most. She was still healing, and I was stuck with an antique Japanese Katana, circa 1800, custom-made for a large samurai warrior of no historical importance.

The blade was just over three feet in length, cost several grand, and had some weight to it compared to other swords I looked at. Sharp as a razor, too. A good sword.

Horny squid creature in front, no real retreat. I could feel my living wards shift undecided. I wondered if there was some magic spell I could use to save my for-real asshole from getting buggered. I would have asked voice, but she was still ROTFLOL, figuratively speaking.

I said, “I don’t know what makes you think of me as your fuck-buddy, but I’m happily married.”

Not really thinking, more like acting on instinct, I took a short step forward using synchronicity, and brought my sword straight down between the thing’s eyes.

At least I hoped they were eyes. They shifted about like eyes. My blade met very little resistance on its way to the floor.

The squid’s arms shot out, vibrated rather intensely for a second or two, and then fell to the floor, lifeless.

I must have stood there for a good minute or two, enjoying the visual aspects of what just happened, making sure it was dead, keeping my ass cheeks tightly clenched.

“For Christ’s sake, Voice,” I finally said, “Shut up already!”

And then the absurdity of the whole situation got to me. That’s when Nick entered the room, with Griffith behind.

“What the hell is so funny?” Nick asked.

“Look,” was all I could manage between guffaws.

He looked, looked harder, and then his eyes widened in understanding. That’s when he joined in with chortles and snorts of his own.

Let me quickly recap things for all you newbies. I’m Ian Duncan, the Earth Father, Avatara, an immortal soul in a mortal shell.

Living tattoos, my magical wards, cover most of my body, and can shift and shape themselves to protect me as needed . . . most of the time. The squid thing . . .

“Are those?” Nick asked between the snorts. Voice kept right on laughing. Griffith, I think it went over his head, but he was desperately grasping for the gist of it.

The little voice in my head is the ghost of Erinoria the Enchantress. She got stuffed into my head when I rescued my mate, my first and only real love, Sheena, from Avalon, the land of the Faerie.

Erinoria is a fountain of odd magical knowledge, and can only take corporeal form when I pass through the wicker gate into Avalon. When I do pass through the gate, she gets to stay behind as flesh and blood. She can also be a royal pain in the ass, and has a thing for ugly shoes.

“Yep,” I said, trying to smother my giggles.

Sheen is my true sword. Queen of the Asphalt Jungle. She’s not a soul trapped in the sword, but the actual sword itself. My weapon of choice. In her true Avatara form as the Earth Mother, she’s short, extremely beautiful, and I miss her.

“And they were?” Nick asked, trying to hold it all in.

Together we saved our daughter from Hell’s minions on Earth, but not without almost getting my wonderful mate killed. In sword form she’s indestructible, but she changed back into her real form to protect our newborn daughter.

Lucifer’s sword of darkness almost did her in. She was a hair’s width away from hopping aboard the reincarnation merry-go-round, when our daughter (who then appeared as a ten year old) changed her back into her sword form.

“Uh huh,” I squeaked.

As for our daughter, she can travel through time, among other powers I can only guess at, because she chased away an apostle of Hell with a threat. Right now I have a gnome wet-nurse looking after her, and would love a few words with the older version of her.

“Shit,” Griffith said, nudging one with his foot.

Me, I’m waiting for Sheena to let me know she’s healed before we give our infant daughter a name. In the meantime I deal with dirty diapers, loss of sleep, projectile vomiting, shit the color and consistency of Dijon mustard, and way too many women, telling me what I should be doing.

“Are there any victims?” Griffith asked rather forcefully. I don’t think he ever had a sense of humor.

As for the current situation, underneath Des Moines, Iowa, is a city of the dead and damned. I closed off the entrance to the necropolis, sealed the demons inside, but I’m fairly certain this squid thing was topside at the time, or . . . I don’t know.

Nick sobered up first, but it took me another minute before I could stash the yucks.

Homicide Detective Nicholas York, Nick, he’s always been my best friend. Short, beefy, glasses, married with two kids, we were beer buddies as teens. He leads the Weird Squad for the city of Des Moines. Detective Daniel Griffith as his partner.

For the most part Griffith is a rube. Taller, thinner, single, better dressed, but he’s finally warming up to the overall situation.

After another minute to catch my breath, I said, “Let me go first. Something else could be lurking about, ready to pork me in the ass.”

Which , after we glanced at each other, had Nick and me yucking it up for another minute.

After I put my serious face on, which wasn’t easy, not by a long shot, we cleared the next room.

We worked our way from cubical to office to stairwell on the ground floor, and then managed the second floor. We found one female victim, clothes shredded, huddled under a desk near the back wall in shock.

She sat in a puddle of the creature’s spunk. Rode hard, and put away wet.

Nick slowly approached, but then she started screaming. She stopped screaming long enough to puke what had to be a gallon of squid-monster goop, and then passed out. Nick got on his radio and called for an ambulance.

“Use a sleep spell on her,” Voice said, serious now as a heart attack. “Make her forget, and pray her sleep lasts long enough for the doctors to help her.”

“Et-nos legla uunah,” I said, gesturing. “Neget-neget-neget.”

I could see her muscles visibly relax, and bent down to check her pulse. Her heartbeat was slow but steady, so I wiped the spunk off her face, and positioned her head so she could breathe a little easier.

“What was that?” Nick asked.

“Sleep spell,” I said. “And with luck she won’t remember this day.”

“You wiped her memory?” Griffith asked.

“I hope so,” I said. “Just think of a cover story to tell her, make sure she gets surgery if needed, or a morning-after pill or two. Whatever it takes. And I mean that. Whatever it takes. And have her watched for a couple of weeks. That thing wanted to breed, and I don’t want it to succeed.”

“No problem,” Nick said. “I don’t think she could have told us anything, even if she wanted to.”

“What the hell was that thing?” Griffith then asked. “A new kind of demon?”

To tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure. I don’t think it was a demon. Virtually all demons are humanoid in appearance, for the most part. Most angels or gods are humanoid in appearance, for the most part. This . . . this was something new.

“Or far older than you know,” Voice added.

“Spill it, Voice,” I said.

“There are tales among the oldest of the Fae about things that existed before the gods. Creatures of great power. It has been said that they created the gods to worship them. That creature could have been an Old One.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “I probably pissed ’em off, along with everybody else.”

“Stop talking to the voice and clue me in,” Nick said.

“I’m not sure,” I said, “and Voice isn’t either. Let me do some research and get back to you.”

“I thought this big shit was over when you sealed shut to doors of the necropolis,” Griffith said. “Nothing left but the cleanup.”

“They’re sealed,” I returned. “But this might be a whole new level of fucked.”

The look on his face said he understood, all too well.

Nick looked at me, and I looked at him. He had a pretty good idea what I’d be facing in the coming months. Demons wanting to open their front door, wanting revenge, possibly my head on a silver platter surrounded by lettuce.

“Unsure or not,” Nick said, “what did you kill? Between you and me.”

“Possibly an Old One,” I said. “Think H. P. Lovecraft, and go from there.”

Nick was quick on the uptake. A lot quicker than Griffith. Comes from being a gore-whore as a teen. He watched the films, read the stories, and now stood a little straighter, thinking about the possibilities.

“How—?” Nick started to ask.

“Did you see a possible entrance?” I interrupted. “Well, neither did I. No slime trail from the outside, in. As far as I could see this thing just appeared on our plane of existence.”

Did you ever wonder how wrong things were? Feel as if you didn’t belong? Wonder just how deep the rabbit hole goes?

Don’t answer. The questions were rhetorical. The world is strange, and then stranger still. What I wouldn’t give to pick through the Vatican’s hidden libraries and vaults. Chances are there were more than a few items that would bring back a few choice memories I lost.

You, reader, are supposed to be here, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why. Why are you privy to my life? My fight to end a nightmare, once written in stone? Why do I even talk to you? It’s not like you can talk back. And if you do, I can’t hear you.

“Ian?” Nick asked.

“I’m okay,” I said. “I’m just tired. We need to call Foster and get a sample of that thing before it vanishes. I want to know what it isn’t.”

Foster is the Medical Examiner. He’s short, chunky in all the right places, likes to fish, and is old enough to handle the weird shit without batting an eye. I don’t know what I would do without him.

“You think it will vanish?” Griffith asked.

“It might,” I replied. “If not, Foster will have to contain the remains. Incinerate them. The idea is to cover all the bases, and hope for the best.”

“I got this covered,” Griffith said, picking up a slice of squid thing, putting it in a baggie. “Direct the EMT’s upstairs.”

Nick looked at me, I looked at him, and we both looked at Griffith, who nodded and shooed us away.

I waited until we were outside to say, “Did that just happen?”

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” Nick said. “He’s really trying to get a handle on things.”

“Better than going insane.”

Nick nodded. He then said, “He took a few weeks off after leading your skeleton army. Chief Norman thought it a good idea, too. Let him baste in the significance of the day. I’ve been watching him, looking for signs of PTSD. So far so good.”

“Two shrinks working overtime, from what I heard. Some turnover in the rank and file.”

“A few new faces added. The prospects get told the truth day one by Chief Norman herself, and if they can’t get on board, they don’t get to stay.”

“And how’s that working out?”

“Better than you might think. The locker-room gossip confirms everything, and by the end of the first week they either get shown the door, or get shown the videos.”

“Videos?”

“A lot of dash-cam footage of your skeleton army, the werewolf attack, the trees, and those big fucking rats. If they can handle that, they’re assigned to a patrol car, sitting next to a seasoned vet.”

“I had no idea.”

“It works. I don’t know why, but it does. Everything weird lands on my desk now, and we do our best, but they are the front line. I’m putting in some overtime, but it can’t be helped. We killed two lesser demons last week, refugees eating out of garbage cans, and had their remains cremated. I’m supposed to pick out two seasoned vets for a second odd squad, but I’m fighting for a vet and a new guy. Griffith agrees with me, for a pleasant change. He sees the merits of another odd couple. The chief is giving it some thought.”

“Next thing, she’ll want you to carry swords.”

“She’s looking for qualified instructors in Kendo. The whole force will be going back to school, Ian. Silver bullets and more. We can put them down, but Foster has been removing their heads.”

ME Foster reduced to removing heads, arranging for cremations, the scattering of the ashes on holy ground. City cops with silver bullets and swords. A whole new level of fucked to deal with.

“I’m missing something,” I said.

The brain fart struck, lasted a good five minutes, and then I could speak, but wasn’t sure what to say. My mouth opened, closed, opened, but nothing came out.

Nick eventually said, “Yeah?”

“I don’t know,” I returned.

By that time the ambulance had arrived, and Nick was giving them the down and dirty, telling them to ignore the thing in the lobby. He added, “The second floor, and be gentle with her. She should stay asleep, but be prepared to sedate her. Have the emergency room doctors call me immediately upon arrival. I’ll pass on my instructions for her care.”

They nodded and entered the building.

Then it hit me. I grabbed Nick, and we were halfway to the ground when the creature exploded, taking a good part of the building with it.