Shadow Detective Supernatural Action Thriller Series: Books 1-3 (Shadow Detective Boxset) Read online

  Smart man, Joe thought. Smarter than me, in any case.

  They walked through the rusting main gate and entered the forsaken structure. The damp air couldn't quite mask the foul odor emanating from the damaged buildings. There was something sick and rotten here, something that shouldn't be disturbed.

  Cormac was letting his imagination run wild and get the best of him. Plenty of spooky places in the world weren't haunted, and plenty of nice places were veritable nightmares.

  Once inside the gutted prison, they faced three levels of empty holding cells, a landscape of peeling paint and rusting steel. Pale shafts of light stabbed through the barred windows. The walls were blackened and scorched, bearing evidence of the fire. Debris littered the floor, turning the dank hallways into an obstacle course. More than once, they were forced to wiggle their way past twisted steel or piles of burned matresses. Their footsteps echoed eerily in the cavernous structure, doing little to alleviate the oppressive atmosphere of the prison.

  Even before the fire, dark feelings of despair defined this place. Violence and negative energy coursed through its steel and stone arteries. Joe could still feel it, even though no one had been detained here for months.

  As they advanced, the team's ghost hunting equipment chirped and squeaked, a surreal, almost laughable soundtrack in their oppressive surroundings. Joe's sense of foreboding deepened with each step, the air stirring with hints of sinister emotion. He kept picking up fleeting impressions of rage and pain mixed with unbridled hatred.

  It's me...my presence. Whatever has lain dormant here is drawing on my powers.

  Something had remained trapped in this structure. Something evil.

  All of a sudden, Joe wanted nothing more than to turn back. The dead model's rage at the night club paled in comparison to the fearsome emotions imprinted into the prison's scorched foundation. He needed to get out of this place. Now.

  But if he did that, he might never find the hunter or the answers to his questions. Could he really live the rest of his life surrounded by ghosts but powerless to protect himself?

  He followed Dr. Gould and her team into a room at the end of a long hallway. The place turned out to be the prison's execution chamber. A foreboding electric chair dominated the eerie space. It faced a large, shattered window that looked out into a witness room. Human misery had seeped into the very walls, the chamber's dark power undeniable.

  "Dr. Frank Engelman, one of the worst serial killers the state has ever seen, was executed here the night the fire broke out," Gould said, her voice echoing eerily.

  "Jesus, it's freezing in here," Steve said, breath clouding before him.

  "This is the coldest room in the whole prison," Nick explained as he took in the readings of his thermometer. "Even colder than outside."

  Joe’s eyes were fixed to the electric chair. Something was happening. The air shimmered and rippled. A pair of black eyes appeared on the surface of the electric chair. Seconds later, a mouth rimmed with blood-stained teeth followed. More details snapped into focus as a terrifying figure materialized, body jerking as fifty thousand volts of electricity tore through the specter's writhing form. Joe stifled a cry and recoiled from the sight, gripped by terror. The specter’s scream was deafening but judging by the calm expressions on Gould and her assistants' faces, only Joe could hear it.

  "Dr. Gould, I have to leave," he said, his voice a raspy whisper.

  She flicked him a curious look. "You're picking something up, aren't you?"

  Joe struggled to maintain his composure as he said, "You don't want to know."

  He was done talking. Without uttering another word, he whirled around and stormed out of the execution chamber. Behind him, Steve said nervously, "Maybe Cormac is right. Maybe we should listen to him..."

  Joe picked up his pace until he was practically running down the adjoining cell block. He could make out shadowy shapes now in the corner of his eye, dim outlines of faceless spirits lurking in the holding cells that flanked the hallway. These ghosts were struggling to manifest. He could feel these entities latching on to him, drawn to his psychic powers like moths to a flame.

  Behind him, fast approaching footsteps grew louder. Dr. Gould wasn't letting him off the hook that easily. Stubborn woman. He looked up, realizing that in his attempt to get away from the electric chair, he’d stumbled into a vast room. Abandoned carts faced enormous boilers and industrial washers. This immense space must have been the prison's laundry room. The hulking, rusting machines cast grotesquely distorted shadows in the muted daylight that seeped through a series of barred windows. He stood still in this mechanical graveyard, the only sound the constant drip, drip of copper-colored water escaping from the pipes overhead.

  "Cormac, wait up!" Nick cried, his voice ringing hollowly, an alien sound that didn't belong within these cursed walls. Joe was almost out of the laundry room when one of the washers came to life, the sudden noise jolting in the shadowy space.

  Joe froze in place, his pulse throbbing in his ears.

  He took a step back from the washer and his blood went cold. A pale, disembodied head hovered inside the drum. The same skeletal death mask from the execution chamber.

  Too late... It's too late...

  The footsteps behind him had become deafening now, and he spun around. Nick, gasping for breath, appeared before him. "Man, what the hell is going on?"

  Before Joe could answer, one of the laundry carts careened toward the door leading out of the laundry room. Stunned, Nick whirled toward the rapidly approaching cart. A split second later, it knocked him against a nearby washer, pinning the man against the rusted metal.

  Once again, Joe caught a terrifying glimpse of the spectral face, lips distorted into a hungry snarl. Then Nick's six-foot-two, two-hundred pound frame was sucked into the industrial washer.

  There was a spray of red and a series of crunching noises.

  Joe stared with horror at Nick's mangled body as Dr. Gould's voice rang through the prison laundry room.

  "Cormac, can you hear me?"

  Her voice was replaced with a shrill scream. Cormac braced himself against one of the washers, terror holding him in its steely grip. He hadn't felt this scared since he’d faced his first insurgent attack back in Iraq.

  We should’ve listened to the monster hunter...

  “Cormac!”

  Steve’s voice made him spin on his heels. The Dominican ghost hunter was approaching with quick steps, eyes wide. His hand reached out for him only…

  To pass through his arm.

  For an eternal beat they stared at each other, stunned into frozen silence. And then Joe saw the large, gaping hole in the parapsychologist’s stomach.

  Oh my God, he’s dead… and doesn’t even realize it…

  Judging by the terrified expression in Steve’s face, he’d drawn the same conclusion. Slowly, a black mist oozed from his ears, eyes, and nose and rose into the air like a dark angel of doom. The swirling black cloud hovered for a beat and began to take on a recognizable human shape, the spirit previously glimpsed in the execution chamber and washer now materializing fully. Details grew visible. Cracked and bloodied lips, eyes of pure blackness seething with an unholy fire, a skeletal frame clad in a grey, burned prison uniform.

  Joe’s breath misted as serial killer Frank Engelman stood before him. Steve’s spirit flanked him, the dead scientist’s gaze edging toward madness. He let out a shrill cry of shocked dismay as his writhing spirit was absorbed by the entity. For a split second, Joe caught a glimpse of Steve’s soul inside Engelman. Like a faded TV signal, he flickered across the serial killer’s spectral form, lips frozen in a rictus of a scream.

  Engelman tilted his head. Joe followed the spirit's malevolent gaze as more shadows were peeling from the darkness. A parade of the damned, prison uniforms baked into scorched skin. Murderers, rapists and the worst psychopaths to have ever walked this earth. That’s what Dr. Gould had called them. The souls of all the inmates who'd perished in the fire.
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  Joe's heart hammered. He couldn’t breathe.

  A moment later, the spirit of Frank Engelman was upon him, mere inches between them.

  Then the malignant ghost stepped into him. For one eternal moment, a surreal rush of violent images flooded Joe’s mind, too much for him to absorb.

  And then his world turned dark, and he felt nothing at all.

  6

  The two weeks following the incident at the night club were uneventful. No demons to slay, no ghosts to banish. For most people—the sane ones—this would be a good thing. In my case, it had the opposite effect. I was getting more antsy with each passing day. I had nothing to fill the long hours when the world didn’t need saving. Maybe I should get a hobby. Something that didn’t involve black magic sorcerers and ancient beings of unstoppable evil. What did normal people do on their days off?

  I had allowed our battle against the forces of darkness to define our lives and swallow up everything else. Great way to get things done, poor way to live a life.

  Every morning I stepped up to my partner's desk, inquiring about some possible case. And each day I received the identical terse answer.

  "It's quiet out there."

  Talk about an understatement.

  In a weird way, the lack of occult activity scared me even more. It could only mean the forces of darkness were gathering for something big. The proverbial calm before the storm.

  After a week without a single supernatural case or sighting, I began to turn my attention to our vast mystical library. There were a million things to learn about the occult—rituals to familiarize myself with, supernatural lore to internalize. But within a few pages, my mind would wander, unable to maintain my focus on the leather-bound tomes before me and the ancient, horrifying truths contained within their dusty pages.

  Face it, Raven, you're a man of action. Leave the book-learnin’ to Skulick.

  Without my work, I felt useless and adrift. Those feelings had always led me straight to the bottle or the arms of a one-night stand—but even those not-so-healthy habits held no appeal now. In short, my extended period of rest and relaxation was driving me nuts. Who was Mike Raven when he wasn't chasing after some ungodly beast? The answer was sobering: He was some guy who spent way too much time hung over on the couch, watching TV and thinking about detective Jane Archer.

  My sour mood even began to wear on Skulick. “You ever of think of getting a hobby, kid? Something to get you out of the house when you’re not hunting nightmares?”

  I shrugged. “My work is my hobby.”

  “Last time I checked, a hobby is an activity done in one’s leisure time for fun.”

  “I enjoy hunting demons. In fact, I can’t think of anything I rather do right now.”

  Skulick furrowed his brows, his impatience growing. “Our mission isn’t a sprint but a marathon. You keep up this pace, you’ll burn yourself out.”

  “Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black? Maybe you should take your own advice, partner.”

  “I’m stuck in this goddamn chair. You have options.”

  A ghost had dropped my partner out of a window less than a year ago. Miraculously Skulick had survived but he would never walk on his own again. Considering our growing list of enemies, it wasn’t safe for him to venture outside in a wheelchair. My partner truly had become a prisoner inside our loft. I knew Skulick hated feeling limited and confined. Like myself, he had always lived for the action. Being stuck inside had to be wearing on him—and seeing me with a bad case of cabin fever probably wasn’t helping his own mental state.

  “Does drinking count as a hobby?” I asked. Okay now I was intentionally being a dumbass—but at least it might make him laugh.

  Skulick’s lips curled into a grin.

  “Only if you’re a real man who can hold his liquor.”

  Nice comeback, buddy, I thought as I smiled back at him.

  “Kid, I’m not trying to give you a hard time. I worry about ya, that’s all. And I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did. This job—this calling—will chew you up and spit you out if you’re not careful.”

  Skulick had a point and I knew it. But identifying a problem was a lot easier than fixing it.

  “How’s your love life? Have you thought of giving that detective friend of yours a call?”

  Skulick had always liked Archer and felt we would make a good pair. He had no idea that I already managed to bungle it up. I regretted my next words as soon as they came from my lips.

  “Remind me again what happened to your fiancée?”

  Skulick’s face darkened. The woman in question had become a victim of a master vampire almost thirty years ago. The tragedy had turned a rising star in the city’s homicide division into one of the most feared monster hunters the forces of darkness had ever had to face.

  Why the hell had I brought her up? It’s like I couldn’t be satisfied until everyone else felt as miserable as I did.

  “Sorry, Skulick, that was uncalled for…”

  I broke off. Skulick had turned away from me to face his bank of monitors again.

  This day was getting off to a great start.

  Mercifully, that’s when the phone rang. The man on the line was none other than Homicide Detective Rob Benson, my liaison at the department. He only called on me and Skulick when a weird case presented itself that required our expert touch. Judging by his grim tone, he was about to share some bad news.

  I cheered up immediately and then felt guilty about it.

  "Hello, Raven, how have you been?"

  "Busy juggling a few cases," I lied.

  "Well I hope you can make a little time and join me at Blackwell Penitentiary. We have a situation out here."

  The mention of the prison made my ears perk up. I vaguely recalled the place being shut down about a year ago when a terrible fire broke out. Benson refused to offer any further details, but for the detective to reach out to me, some supernatural mayhem had to be going down.

  Within ten minutes of getting off the phone, I was seated behind the wheel of my Equus Baas, on my way to the old prison. As I eased my vehicle into the rainy day, I couldn't help but wonder whether Archer would be at the scene when I arrived.

  Man, I really needed to get a life.

  Dark clouds were gathering around the ominous prison when I pulled up in my muscle car. A fine drizzle pelted my windshield as I parked next to a few police cruisers. The uniformed officers fronting the facility's entrance immediately recognized my wheels. I could tell by the black looks that greeted me as I got out of my car. There was little love lost between me and the cops under Benson's command. Most didn't know what to make of the bearded, trench-coat wearing stranger who tended to show up when things got weird.

  "Lovely weather we're having today," I said as I turned up my collar against the rain. My attempt at sarcasm sure wasn't winning me any more friends. I resigned myself to my outsider status, dropped all attempts at charm, and got down to the business. "Benson wants to see me."

  One of the sober-faced officers told me to follow him, and I obliged. The scar on my chest, which the demon Morgal had marked me with twenty-one years earlier, was itching something fierce as we walked down a cell block teeming with uniformed cops. Dark forces had found a home within the walls of the abandoned penitentiary, no doubt about it. I looked around, hoping to catch a glimpse of Archer.

  Get your head on straight, Raven. This is a crime scene. Time to focus on the work ahead.

  "Glad you're here, Raven," Benson said as he regarded me with an unreadable look. "Maybe you can make some sense of all this X-Files shit. Come with me."

  I tipped my head to the officer who had escorted me to the crime scene and said, “Thanks for the tour, brother," and fell in step with Benson. We walked in silence as the big African-American detective led me into an industrial laundry room. I immediately spotted two shroud-covered bodies sprawled across the floor. For a second I thought I caught a glimpse of shadowy movement among the maze of
boilers and washers. Spirits lingered here but their presence was weak. Nothing suggested that those ghosts could materialize and harm the living.

  "Can I take a peek?"

  Benson nodded. Thankful that I'd skipped breakfast, I crouched down before the first body and pulled the shroud back. Mangled, mummified features locked in the rictus of a scream stared back at me. The man appeared to have been dead for months or even years. I'd seen bodies which had aged at such an accelerated pace before. It normally meant a demon had drained their life force

  Or perhaps, in this case, a ghost.

  The second body was in even worse shape. Limbs twisted at odd angles, a shriveled-up husk of a man.

  "I guess now you know why I called you. By the way, we have a survivor."

  I arched an eyebrow. “Oh?”

  "She says you guys know each other."

  Benson led me to the end of the laundry room. A hunched-over figure sat in the corner. My heart sank. Goddamnit, I'd warned Dr. Gould that something like this could happen. My guess was that the two mummies had been her assistants. Poor fools. Dabbling with the occult is a surefire recipe for disaster.

  Her haunted face peered up at me, tears welling in her eyes.

  "It's all my fault. You tried to warn me, Raven."

  "What happened here?"

  "Something attacked us..." She broke off, bit her lips, and added, "It took possession of Joe Cormac."

  "You better start from the beginning. What were you doing here in the first place?"

  Benson answered for her.

  "Apparently this lady and her friends decided to play Ghostbusters in an abandoned prison," he said.

  “Any particular reason?” I asked.

  “Some of the workers have been complaining about weird shit going on,” Benson admitted.

  "It all started after we entered the execution chamber," Gould said, having found her voice again. "Joe Cormac began to pick up a presence. Said he had to get out of here. Nick and Steve went after him..."

  She paused for a moment, took a deep breath, fighting back tears of grief.