by J. C. Diem
Dark Moon Rising
Half Fae Hunter: Book One
J.C. Diem
Copyright © 2018 J.C. DIEM
www.jcdiem.com
All rights reserved. Published by Seize The Night Publishing Agency.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter One
Rusty metal shackles bit into my wrists, digging deeper by the second while my feet dangled a few inches above the ground. Thin trickles of blood ran down both of my arms to stain the sleeves of my t-shirt. My arms and shoulders already ached from the strain of taking my weight. If it was this painful now, I could only imagine the agony of being hung up like a slab of beef for several days.
My captors had carried me here, then had chained my wrists and hoisted me into the air before walking away. It hadn’t been easy to pretend to be unconscious while being manhandled by them, but it had been necessary. I needed to know how many enemies I was dealing with before I could rescue the other captives. The two men who I’d allowed to kidnap me had both been human, but that didn’t mean they weren’t working with monsters of some kind. Stranger things had happened after all.
Keeping my eyes closed and remaining limp, I listened intently. The floor was made of dirt, which muffled footsteps, but there were no sounds of my captors returning yet. A girl moaned softly a few yards to my right. Deep breathing came from an unconscious person a few yards past her. I could smell sweat, blood and fear. Even with my eyes closed, I knew they were two of the missing people I was searching for.
Somewhere in the distance, a door opened with a squeal of aged hinges. A heated conversation echoed through the passageways as several more people entered the structure. Their voices rose and fell in volume and intensity, but I didn’t bother to try to make out what they were saying. I wasn’t interested in their squabble. The only thing I wanted to know was how many enemies I had to kill.
My abductors had no idea about the peril they’d put themselves in when I’d let them ambush me. I might look human, but I was something far stranger and way more dangerous than that. I had fairy blood running through my veins, which put me in the category of a supernatural creature.
I’d been practicing with my fae powers after they’d been vastly increased last winter during the events that had shaken the entire world and I’d learned a few new tricks. Sending out my senses to glean more information, I immediately picked up on the other two captives that were being held in the same room as me. The girl was awake and she was in pain. I could now delve into people and creatures and could almost see their inner workings. Apart from her torn skin from being shackled, the girl didn’t seem to be injured. Her boyfriend was wounded and might need medical attention. There were no other life signs coming from anywhere else in the room. Either the other prisoners had been shifted, or they were dead. I had my money on the second option.
Spreading my senses out wider, I picked up on seven people in a chamber a few hundred yards away. They were clustered together, still arguing about something. Their energy indicated they were all human rather than supernatural creatures like me. I didn’t know what their motivations were for capturing and killing people and I didn’t care. They’d signed their own death warrants the moment they’d kidnapped innocents as far as I was concerned.
Now that I knew what I was dealing with, it was time for action. Opening my eyes, I lifted my head and scanned the room to see it was actually a large chamber. A dozen pairs of shackles hung from hooks that were screwed into the gigantic wooden beam above me. The chains looked like they’d only been installed a few months ago, but they were already stained black with blood.
Tunnels branches off in several directions, leading deeper into what appeared to be an abandoned mine. Dim lightbulbs hung twenty or so feet apart, casting a wan light on ancient, rusty rail tracks that marched along a tunnel straight ahead. They would lead towards the exit, no doubt. The walls were made of roughly hewn rock. Wooden boards kept unsteady areas of the tunnel from collapsing.
Turning my head, I met the terrified eyes of the girl who dangled to my right. In her twenties, her long brown hair was a tangled mess. She wore a blue tank top and white shorts that were stained with dirt and blood. One of her sneakers had fallen off. It lay forlornly on the ground beneath her dangling feet. “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” I drawled quietly in the Texan accent I’d never managed to lose, not that I’d really tried. “I’ll get us out of here. You and your boyfriend will be fine.” Gold threads connected the pair, indicating they were a couple. I could always tell when people had been intimate with each other. It was one of my fae talents.
“Shh!” she cautioned me in a fearful whisper. “They’ll hear you!” She whipped her head towards the tunnel with the train tracks, which set her chains into motion. Slowly spinning in a circle, she let out pained whimpers as fresh blood ran down her wrists. They’d both been here since yesterday. Her pain from dangling from her chains for so long had to be excruciating by now.
Waiting until her back was to me, I concentrated on the shackles that bound my arms. I sent a blast of power into the hinges and they burst open. Dropping to the ground, I landed lightly on my feet, then strode over to the girl. She gasped in terror when my hands came to rest on her hips, then sagged in relief when she realized it was just me.
I used more magic to break her free, then caught her when she fell. She stifled her whimpers as I helped her over to the wall and sat her down. Her legs were too wobbly to support her weight without assistance. “How did you do that?” she whispered as she leaned back against the boards.
“The shackles were rusted through,” I lied. “They wouldn’t have held us for much longer. One good tug was enough to break them.”
She looked over at the broken metal doubtfully, but didn’t question me further. Gingerly rubbing her shoulders, she watched anxiously as I retrieved her boyfriend. Her wrists were a mangled m
ess and she would have permanent scars from her ordeal. “Will he be okay?” she whispered when he was lying next to her. Like her, he was dressed for summer.
“I think he’s just unconscious,” I replied as I retrieved her sneaker and handed it to her. I delved the guy again and found a nasty contusion on his temple. It wasn’t serious, as far as I could tell. I gave his mind a gentle prod and he responded sluggishly. A small amount of power was enough to prompt him to begin to wake up. “Stay here and keep quiet,” I cautioned her. “I’ll be back soon.” Unlike my fellow prisoners, I wore jeans rather than shorts. The heat had never bothered me much and I wasn’t a shorts kind of guy.
Standing smoothly, I strode away before she could delay me with more questions. My senses were on full alert as I made my way down the tunnel. Hearing footsteps approaching, I ducked into one of the many niches that had been cut into the passageway. I could tell by his energy that it was one of the men who had kidnapped me. He was returning to the chamber I was thinking of as a meat locker, probably to choose his next victim.
I waited until he was next to me, then reached out and grabbed him by the throat. Squeezing hard, I choked off his startled yelp so he couldn’t alert the rest of his group. Before my foe could really understand the danger he was in, I took hold of him by the top of his head and twisted my hands sharply. His neck snapped with a muted crunching sound. Increased strength was just one of the bonuses I’d received when my full potential had been unlocked six months ago.
Dragging the dead man into the alcove, I searched him for weapons. The first thing I found was my trusty Colt. It had been taken from me when I’d allowed myself to be captured. Their plan of waylaying travelers had been simple. One man pretended he was having car trouble and flagged down one of the few cars that took the heavily wooded back road. The second man hid in the bushes and ambushed his prey from behind. I’d pretended to be knocked out by the butt of the gun that had slammed into the back of my skull, but it had just been a sham to get them to bring me to their lair.
I removed my holster from the thief and clipped it to my own belt again, then slid my weapon inside. Next, I took my spare ammo from the corpse’s pockets. A quick search told me that none of my knives were on his body.
Taking a few cheap, inferior knives from the pockets of the dead man, I continued my trek. The voices drew closer as I neared a gentle curving bend in the tracks. Closing in on the larger chamber ahead, I hid in the darkness between the lights and examined what I was up against.
It seemed the band of murderers had indeed been here for a few months. A table and seven chairs sat in the center of the chamber. Four sets of bunk beds were set off to the right. A portable stove was to the left and another room was beside it. An awful smell wafted through the cracks. It smelled like death and rotting meat.
Dead ahead was a thick metal door that had to be the exit. The train tracks led straight to it. I would have to go through my remaining enemies in order to get the survivors out. That didn’t bother me at all, since I hadn’t intended to leave any of them alive anyway. I wasn’t a lawman, but I had my own sense of justice and I was going to unleash it on these miscreants.
“Go and see what’s taking your brother so long,” one of the women ordered. She was probably the matriarch of the family. In her sixties, her gray hair was unwashed and straggly. No one in the group was clean and their clothes were downright filthy. Her accent indicated she wasn’t from this area, but had come from somewhere else.
Doing as ordered, another young man broke off from the group. I ducked back around the bend and hid in the closest niche to wait. When I heard the shuffle of his feet, I waited for my foe to reach me. This time, I used one of the knives I’d pilfered from his brother and stabbed him in the neck. The young man let out a weak gurgle as blood spurted from his severed vein and I dragged him into the alcove.
“Two down, five to go,” I said quietly. “I like those odds.” With a grin of anticipation, I gave up on sneaking and sauntered out of hiding.
“Back already?” the matriarch snapped, then squinted at me. Her eyes widened when she realized I wasn’t her son. At her alarmed shout, they all reached for their weapons, but my hands were already on the move. My borrowed knife spun end over end and lodged in the heart of one of the men. Another pierced a young woman’s eye. Two more flicked towards their targets, too fast for the eye to track. One by one, their bodies fell until only their matriarch was left alive.
Letting out an enraged screech, she snatched up a cleaver from the table and ran at me. With her crazed eyes locked on mine, she snarled, revealing what was left of her stained and badly eroded teeth. Ordinarily, I tried to avoid killing humans. But these people didn’t deserve any mercy. God only knew how many innocent folks they’d murdered.
Taking the last knife that I’d stolen out of my pocket, I flicked it at her almost lazily. It lodged in her throat and she let out a hoarse shout. Dropping the cleaver, she plucked at the knife with strengthless fingers, then fell to her knees. Toppling onto her face, she let out a final breath, then expired.
There was no need for me to check their pulses to see if any of them were still alive. A mental quick scan of their bodies was enough to tell me they were dead. With my main task out of the way, I caved into my curiosity and headed for the mystery door.
Chapter Two
Even before I opened the door, I suspected what I would find hidden behind it. A heavy stench of decay enveloped me when I stepped through the door into a bathroom. Anyone with a weak stomach would have gagged at the odor. Most people would have fled, haunted forever by the sight that I currently beheld. Unfortunately, I’d seen it all and not much could shock me now.
Dark and dingy, the room was lit with a single dim bulb. The shadows weren’t deep enough to hide the horrors of the slaughter that had occurred here. Slabs of meat hung from hooks in the three shower stalls, bleeding into the drain. The meat hadn’t come from animals, but from the people that these sick freaks had taken captive.
A pile of offal sat in one corner, which accounted for the smell. Anything that couldn’t be consumed had been discarded. I counted three fairly recently severed human heads and at least a dozen others that were weeks or months old. Blood splattered the walls, ceiling and floor. The three basins were stained red. They hadn’t been cleaned since the mine had been abandoned decades ago.
With my curiosity satisfied, I left the grisly pantry, crossed to the exit and opened the door. A short distance away, the tracks and tunnel opened out into a large parking area. My battered red pickup truck was parked next to a few other vehicles. It seemed to be in workable condition, but I wouldn’t know for sure until I was behind the wheel. I could hear a generator running somewhere nearby. It must be powering the electricity in the mine.
Turning to the table, I saw a large wooden bowl with a jumble of keys in the center of it. Mine sat on the top of the pile. I plucked them free and slid them into my pocket. My cell phone and wallet were in another bowl and I retrieved them as well. I found my hunting knives and sheaths attached to the belts of two of the men and strapped them to my own belt again. Wishing I’d been in time to save the other victims, I returned to the other chamber.
The girl gasped in fright when I appeared, then let out a sob of relief when I stepped into the light. “It’s okay,” I said in a soothing voice. “They’re all dead and you’re safe. Now, let’s get you two kids out of here.” She gave me a strange look, probably because I looked barely any older than she did. I still hadn’t gotten used to looking so young again.
“What’s happening?” the boyfriend asked in a slurred voice. He’d only just regained consciousness and was understandably confused.
“Who are you?” the girl asked. Her dark eyes were haunted by her close brush with death.
“My name is Jake Everett, honey,” I replied, tipping an invisible hat at her. I had a five-day stubble on my jaw and my clothes were badly wrinkled. I probably didn’t look particularly reputable right no
w.
“You killed them all by yourself?” she asked in disbelief. She was too distraught and frightened for my innate glamor to lull her beneath its usual spell. I was dampening it down as much as I could, which helped her to resist my charm.
“It’s my job,” I said, taking her boyfriend’s arm and hauling it over my shoulder. Like the girl, his wrists were mangled from dangling from the shackles for so long.
“Are you a cop?” she asked, pushing herself to her feet and grimacing in pain. She’d donned her sneaker and was ready and eager to escape.
“Nope. I’m a half fae hunter.”
“A what?”
“Never mind,” I said, then half-carried the boyfriend down the tunnel. “I’d advise you not to look at the bodies,” I told the pair. They both ignored me, as I’d expected. The girl dry-heaved when we came across the guy with the snapped neck. She didn’t see the second corpse I’d stashed away, but she lost it completely when we reached the main chamber where the bulk of the bodies lay.
“Holy crap,” the boyfriend said, dazed and horrified by the slaughter. “You did this to them?”
“It was either them or me,” I said in a hard tone. “I didn’t intend to allow them to turn me into their dinner.”
“Are you telling us they’re cannibals?” the girl asked, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Her eyes skittered from one body to the next, unable to settle on one for long.
“Take a look through that door over yonder if you don’t believe me,” I invited.
Catching a glimpse of a human leg hanging from a hook inside the open shower stall across from the door, she went even paler. “Oh, God. I just want to get the hell out of here.”
“Do you see your belongings in those bowls?” I asked, nodding at the jumble of equipment on the table.
She crossed to the table and sorted through the various bowls, taking out her purse, her boyfriend’s wallet, their cell phones and a set of car keys. “Should I call the cops?” she asked. Checking her phone, she shook her head in answer to her own question. “There’s no reception.”
