Shadow Detective Supernatural Dark Urban Fantasy Series: Books 1-3 (Shadow Detective Boxset) Read online

  Shadow Detective Series

  Books 1 - 3

  WILLIAM MASSA

  Critical Mass Publishing

  Copyright © 2016 by WILLIAM MASSA

  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.

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  Contents

  Cursed City

  Prologue

  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

  Soul Catcher

  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

  Blood Rain

  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

  About the Author

  Also by WILLIAM MASSA

  Prologue

  It’s official, Blaire thought. I hate camping.

  Her teeth chattered in the frigid tent. No matter how much she tried to cocoon herself inside her sleeping bag, she couldn’t get warm.

  The camping trip had sounded like a romantic idea when Eric first brought it up to her, three months earlier. Her mind had filled with visions of hiking through a fairy tale forest and snuggling up to her sweetheart under the stars. The reality was much less pleasant.

  It had begun to rain as soon as they unpacked their gear and hit the hiking trails. Somehow they managed to set up their tent despite the biting wind and incessant downpour. Unable to start a fire, they snacked on tasteless protein bars, which she washed down with a bottle of wine.

  Talk about a classy combo.

  Blaire was thankful she’d had the foresight to bring some alcohol along for the trip, despite Eric’s protests. He tended to be sober to a fault. The wine warmed her for a bit, but its soothing effects had long worn off.

  Within minutes of slipping into the tent, Eric nodded off. Blaire wasn’t so lucky, and she’d spent the last two hours worrying about every random sound outside. God, what she would’ve given for the wail of a police siren or the sound of someone rummaging through the dumpster below their apartment. Unlike Eric, who grew up on a farm, Blaire was a true city kid. Her idea of roughing it was to take the subway instead of an Uber.

  She tried to pass the time by reading a book on her Kindle, but the frigid conditions made it hard to concentrate. Besides, a horror novel was a lot more entertaining when you were safe and snug in your apartment. In the wilderness, stories of mad killers stalking innocent victims lost much of their appeal.

  This was going to be a long night.

  Making matters worse was her pressing need to relieve herself. She shuddered at the thought of untangling herself from her sleeping bag, leaving the relative safety of their tent, and finding some nearby tree under which to do her business.

  She tried to ignore her physical discomfort, but after another restless hour of staring at the tent’s ceiling while obsessing over the latest hoot or cracking branch, she couldn’t hold it any longer. Either she braved the woods or she peed her pants.

  The thought made her turn red with embarrassment and immediately unzip her sleeping bag. She would just have to be quick.

  As Blaire crawled out of the tent, she promised herself that this would be her first and last camping adventure. If Eric wanted a girl who could tough it out in the wild, he’d have to look elsewhere.

  The night air raked her exposed skin as she stumbled to her feet. Breath clouding before her, arms tightly wrapped around her chest, she scrambled toward the trees. The wet ground slurped under her shoes.

  After a chilly minute of frantic searching, she located a spot that was private yet close enough to their tent. She took a deep breath, slipped her jeans to her knees, and dropped to her haunches. Seconds later, blissful relief followed.

  For a moment, she blocked out the relentless cold and the sound of her emptying bladder drowned out all the spooky nocturnal noises. Mercifully. Once finished, she pulled up her pants and turned back to their shelter. About fifteen feet separated her from the blue tent, the only pale hint of color in the dark forest. Its trees cast menacing shadows as the pale moonlight shafted through the thick canopy above.

  Blaire steeled herself for a quick sprint to the tent. Her limbs felt stiff from the cold, but she knew she could do this. She was just about to take her first step when a droplet of something wet pelted her face.

  Oh great, don’t tell me it’s about to rain again.

  When four more drops hit her in quick succession, she realized the liquid felt hot against her skin. She wiped away the wetness pearling on her forehead and studied her hands. Even in the dim moonlight, she could clearly see the crimson smeared across her fingers.

  It was fresh blood.

  Still too stunned to feel any real fear, Blaire looked up and gasped.

  A few feet above her, the severed head of a deer stared back at her with empty eyes.

  Someone had decapitated the animal and mounted its head on the tree branch above. The ragged state of the poor creature’s neck suggested that its head was torn right off its body.

  What kind of monster would do such a thing?!

  As Blaire took a step back, a mad cackle burst forth from the dark trees. Terror rippled up her spine and shook Blaire from her fear-frozen state. She exploded into motion, barely aware of crossing the distance between the trees and their tent, ripping the zippered flap open, and crawling inside. It felt as though one moment fear held her in its icy grip and the next she was pressing her frozen face against Eric, shaking him awake. “Wake up,�
� she hissed, voice quivering.

  “Someone’s out there.”

  A groggy Eric blinked at her, still half-asleep. Before she could offer an explanation, another peal of crazed laughter filled the night, jolting her beau wide awake.

  Blaire scrambled to zip the tent closed. “Oh my God,” she breathed.

  “What’s happening?”

  She caught a fleeting glimpse of a black shape outside their tent, followed by a rush of violent motion. The next moment, the tent collapsed on top of them. The stranger outside must’ve torn the guy-lines out of the ground. Blaire and Eric cried out in panic as the world inside the tent went topsy-turvy. The assailant was now dragging it over the bumpy forest floor with both Blaire and Eric still inside. She clung to Eric with all her might while the hard ground bit into their backs.

  The violent forward momentum stopped, and for a moment she felt relieved. Then the tent went airborne. Blaire realized with horror that the shadowy figure must’ve thrown one of the ropes over a branch and was now lifting them upward like animals caught in a snare. The tent’s fabric stretched under their weight, but it didn’t rip. They swung back and forth, arms and legs entangled.

  A deep wound opened in the tent’s fabric, shredding it from top to bottom. Moonlight seeped through the gutted material as their phantom attacker stood before them, at last revealed.

  The monstrous creature glaring back at Blaire defied rational thought. Her terrified scream erupted into the night but was quickly drowned out by another burst of inhuman laughter.

  1

  Death lurked in the dark forest.

  The signs were everywhere, and you didn’t have to be a seasoned paranormal investigator to pick up on them. An unearthly stillness had settled over the landscape, reminding me that I was the sole living creature foolish enough to brave these parts. The animals that inhabited the woods had all fled. Shadows chased the sunlight shafting through the heavy canopy, and the sky above was the color of melted lead. The syrupy air felt heavy and cloying, as if some strange force was sucking the oxygen from it.

  Up ahead, the terrain became more challenging. The trees were taller and more foreboding, the underbrush thicker. Once solid ground was transformed now into a swamp by the unending rain. Scaly trunks and winding, overgrown roots threatened to trip me up, while branches reached out with malevolent intent. With each step, the chilling certainty grew: the forest had declared war against me.

  No, not the forest, I reminded myself, but the evil hiding within its deepest shadows.

  Undeterred, I pressed onward, knowing I was closing in on my quarry.

  Most people with a healthy survival instinct would’ve turned back. Unfortunately, in my line of work, one didn’t get the luxury of walking away from danger. Ever since my family was murdered by demons twenty-one years ago, I’ve dedicated my life to fighting the forces of darkness. My name is Mike Raven, and I hunt monsters.

  And sometimes they hunt me.

  Today was one of those days.

  I paused as my eyes landed on the shredded tent wrapped around one of the trees ahead. Torn strands of blue fabric flapped in the wind like a war-ravaged flag.

  Both campers and hikers had gone missing over the last few weeks. Attempts by local law enforcement to comb the woods had come up empty. It was as if the great forest had swallowed nineteen souls whole, only leaving behind a few tattered remnants of their gear.

  People disappear every day, but the inverted pentagrams and other occult paraphernalia found near the campsites suggested a supernatural angle to these particular vanishings. Detective John Kove, a former city cop familiar with my reputation as a problem solver for strange cases, had reached out to me about this one. His call had come at the perfect time. A surprising lull in paranormal activity back in the city made me jump at the chance for some action in the countryside.

  But it was already turning into the field trip from hell.

  As I stood there examining the blood-spattered fabric, little of my appetite for adventure remained. I knew there wouldn’t be a happy ending to the story of these missing campers. All I could hope for at this point was to track down the rampaging beast and prevent it from claiming more innocent victims.

  I did have a theory about what sort of evil I might be facing here. My research had unearthed information related to an old legend. More than two hundred years earlier, during the winter of 1879, a witch by the name of Mercy Blackmore was banished to these woods and left to starve as punishment for practicing black magic. For centuries, the Blackmore Witch’s evil had remained dormant.

  Until now.

  I looked up from the torn tent and my blood turned to ice.

  The circle of barren trees around me had changed while my attention was focused on the victims’ shredded tent. Missing person posters now hung from the skeletal trees ahead, the nineteen dead campers staring back at me from their positions in this unholy shrine. Snapshots taken during happier times showed off smiling faces in black and white. The fliers promised substantial rewards for any information about the lost souls in question.

  The sight was both heartbreaking and infuriating. This witch was mocking me. I balled a hand around the tent’s blood-caked fabric, anger rising within me.

  I will put a stop to this, I thought.

  Take your best shot, fool!

  The voice invading my thoughts was both human and not of this world.

  Without warning, the missing person posters ignited into flames and then turned to ash. Burned air singed my lungs.

  Almost immediately, the demon-inflicted scar on my chest lit up with a fresh, sharp pain, a clear indicator that black magic was at work here. When the demons slaughtered my parents, the talons of one of the foul beasts had slashed my skin. The wound took months to heal and the scar served as a reminder of the evil that dwelled within the hidden corners of our world. For some reason, the demon’s mark tended to become inflamed in proximity to agents of the dark arts. It heightened my awareness of the paranormal in more ways than one, giving me a sixth sense of sorts.

  At the moment, my old wound was itching something fierce.

  Heart hammering with growing terror, I advanced into the encroaching darkness. After about a hundred feet, I slowed my pace. A broken-down, overgrown cabin stood revealed. Moss and other vegetation tattooed its walls, fusing the forest with the man-made structure.

  My demon’s mark throbbed. This had to be the origin point of the area’s unnatural energy. According to the police reports, the first group of missing hikers planned to stay at a cabin. Was this the cabin in question? Lt. Kove and his fellow officers had failed to locate the structure, even after numerous searches.

  The witch must’ve magically cloaked the place somehow. Only someone whose life had been touched by the supernatural could penetrate her black magic veil.

  Someone like me.

  My hand slipped underneath my trench coat and closed around the handle of a pistol. The wooden grip felt hot to the touch as I drew Hellseeker.

  Gifted to me by Joe Skulick, the demonologist who had been my mentor since my parents’ murder, the holy weapon gave off a spectral green glow. This was one more indicator that evil infused the air. Cast from the broken blade of a magical demon-slayer sword, the pistol was at least a hundred years old. Bullets fired from Hellseeker could destroy most supernatural monsters. Vampires, shifters, demons and ghosts of all kinds feared this magical gun.

  I hoped that Hellseeker would be able to put an end to the infernal Mercy Blackmore. Emboldened by the weight of the weapon in my hand, I approached the cabin.

  It seemed…alive somehow. The crumbling building kept expanding and contracting in a subtle manner, as if the structure was the dark, pulsating heart of this accursed forest. An ancient evil dwelled within those walls.

  I could only pray I’d be a match for it.

  My mud-encrusted boot shot out at the wooden door in a determined kick. It gave way with a creak. Darkness filled the entrance, which gaped like a
black wound in the structure’s side.

  Something stirred in there.

  For a moment, a panicked voice inside my mind piped up, urging me to turn around and start running. A palpable terror clawed its way through my body and choked the breath from my lungs.

  Not an unreasonable response, considering the lethal power lurking within the witch’s domain.

  I fought this rising weakness, drawing on the memory of my parents’ faces. Their smiles. Thinking about my folks made the old anger well up. It burnt with the same intensity as the demon’s mark on my chest and swept the fear aside.

  Empowered by my rage, I strode into the cabin. The glow from Hellseeker carved warm patches of light from the tomblike darkness. Thick roots and dense shrubbery had infested the building’s interior as nature reclaimed what was rightfully hers. Unwholesome foliage spread across the wooden walls and stone floor like a metastasizing cancer.

  Gun up, I advanced. A strange calm fell over me. I was eager to face my enemy, eager to find justice for the witch’s victims.

  “Help me.”