Jebediah's Crime
Vincent Phan Tran
Contents
Introduction
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
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
Before you leave the Hinge
Enjoy this book? You can make a huge difference
Acknowledgments
Introduction
GET EXCLUSIVE DELETED SCENES FROM "JEBEDIAH'S CRIME" AND A FREE UPCOMING NOVELLA
Building a relationship with my readers is the best thing about writing. I occasionally send notes with details on new releases, special offers and other bits of news related to the Hinge Series.
And if you sign up to the mailing list I'll send you all this free stuff:
1. Exclusive, action-packed scenes originally deleted from JEBEDIAH'S CRIME.
2. A copy of my upcoming novella, working-title "SHE JUST AIN'T INTO YOU," upon availability. It stars one of the Scrounge bounty hunters from JEBEDIAH'S CRIME.
Look for the offer link at the end of the book.
Until then, happy reading!
For Nghia Nguyen, with great love and affection. She kept the monsters away.
Prologue
"This must be pain," the angel realized then pressed his new hands against his head and shrieked. The darkness of the abyss flashed away from the blue fire sweeping over his body. Flames shot out in great, wide blades, burning pieces of him like acid and leaving behind pink, human flesh.
His cries reverberated through the gray expanse around him. Lightning stabbed down from the darkened skies. It gouged sizzling holes into the not-ground he knelt on. If he were human longer he'd have recognized the scent of flowers coming off his mangled flesh—because an angel burning smells like roses.
His wing spasmed in pain and shed feathers in great batches. They drifted down and became translucent before fading entirely from view. The sheets of flame consumed his wings then worked their way down to his shoulder blades. The angel gritted his teeth and dragged a breath into his lungs. His wings no longer blocked the landscape behind him.
A dimension colored like a stormy cloud stretched into the horizon. Entities of multiple shapes swept back and forth. Some had giant insect legs that seemingly dropped from the sky, walked across the blankness then disappeared. Others were impressions lacking physical form, ripping through space, and leaving behind buzzing, flitting balls of swirling energy like a shark shedding parasitic fish. Others were the absence of all things, a blankness that devoured light and dark in tentacles sweeping back and forth. Thankfully, these moved the fastest, for they terrified the angel.
He heaved out a great breath and forced himself to his feet, framing himself against the shadows of the traveling Gods and Beings. The fire had almost wholly consumed him. He stood shuddering and naked in his fragile, human form. His only remaining grace pulsed about his face.
The ring of flame condensed, surrounded his neck like a noose and raced up his head. He screamed aloud and clenched his fists high above his head, unable to steel himself against the burning agony. The fire reached the top of his head and enveloped the glowing halo hovering on top. The halo flashed once, darkened, then dropped with a metallic clang to the ground.
The flame pulsed away then ripped into two pieces. Each half shattered space and time like glass, leaving pieces of sky floating in midair. These pieces coalesced into the form of two doors. Out of one door spilled a brilliant, burning light intermingled with a single note of incredible beauty. Through the other door came inky blackness and the sound a mother makes when she loses a child. The angel turned to face them both.
"Clothes."
He started at the dry, raspy sound of his voice. He'd never breathed air before much less spoken.
Created.
He felt the voice from the first door more than heard it. It was bright and full of majesty.
Make sure the belt matches the shoes, the other door laughed. Its croaking tone set his hair on edge.
He was wearing jeans and a sweater now. He felt hardness against his feet from the ground he used to fly over. He bent to pick up the now dark halo before shoving it into a pocket in the back of his pants. It pinched against his new skin. He drew a deep, shuddering breath.
"I'm less than what I was — so much less," he lamented. The doors began to respond in turn.
Your heritage was taken to satisfy the Covenant. The Provenances will not interfere so long as it remains dormant, the light door said.
The Hinge will allow only a few gifts, the dark door added.
"The Hinge," he repeated. The wound in reality, standing in the middle of world, where the laws of the universe were mere suggestions and demons walked with impunity. Its origins and purpose were shrouded from even the heavenly host. It was a place where angels feared to tread. "It has destroyed my brothers and sisters before me."
We know! The door of darkness gave a manic laugh. And it may kill you.
And yet, you cannot fail. The Adversary approaches even now, said the door of light.
At the mention of the Adversary, the entities moving through the dimension slowed for a moment. Eons old galactic beings that had created worlds and manifested in the nightmares of living things since the beginning of time shuddered at the thought of that entity.
"Can't you stop it?" he asked. A pause, then both doors responded simultaneously.
We do not know.
The angel took in the lack of knowledge from two all-powerful beings, then asked, "What would you have me do?"
We need tools. Place them into the crucible. Beat and temper them, the dark door said.
Guide them, and give them your wisdom, added the light door.
"Why is this my burden?" he asked.
It is still the calm before a great storm. Who better to prepare the world than the Angel of Stillness? replied the light door. Then it began to spin, faster and faster until its edges blurred from sight. It threw off ribbons of light and energy.
In opposite direction, the dark door spun while streaming shadow matter. Then the two doors slammed into each other with a great crash and created a single, huge portal.
The angel was pulled through the portal and downward, streaming and flaring like a meteor through the earth's atmosphere. His vision locked on a round, golden field of energy in the middle of the sea. Beneath it laid the island of the Hinge. He streaked towards the island, pierced the outer field, and then crashed onto a beach. His descent cratered the ground and launched debris into the air. The angel came to a single knee in the crater, silhouetted against the drifting smoke, then looked up into the night sky.
Use the tools. They are weapons to be thrown aside when empty, said the dark voice. There is one even the creatures of the Hinge fear.
"Who?"
When the answer came, he couldn't tell if it was from the light or the dark.
His name is Jebediah.
; Chapter 1
The gray thing in the woods darted in and out of sight, staying just beyond the boundaries of the thin light. Jebediah Creek stepped slowly to the edge of the ring of torches. Behind him was a simple log cabin, and from inside came the sounds of a woman struggling and in pain. A midwife's voice rose, telling her to breathe deeply again and again. Each time she was answered with a keen of pain and a cry of agony. Jebediah stayed facing forward and away from the cabin, peering into the darkness of the woods and waiting. His open hand, the one not cradling a Glock 9mm handgun, drummed against his leg.
A protection detail required too much patience, too much guarding against something that might not happen. The frame of mind to wait for something to happen then react just wasn't in his nature. He was a bounty hunter, a fighter and a chaser, not a shield.
He took a breath in, then watched it blow white in the chilly air.
At least the day's weather agreed with him. He tended to overheat on even a slightly warm day. But today was cold and overcast, chilly enough for him to need a thicker overcoat. And the dusting of snow covering the ground suited him just fine.
The tree tops in the grove cast long, craggy shadows across the white, snowy ground. Light flurries drifted across his face and tickled his unshaven cheeks and chin.
He didn't raise a hand to wipe them away though. To do that meant diverting his attention from the creature stalking through the woods. His free hand went to a pocket, brought up a flashlight and thumbed it on. The small beam of light gave little illumination across the grove but at least he could see the area directly in front of him better. He cursed the Leaves for the absence of any exterior lights beyond the half-circle of torches surrounding the cabin.
The Leaves agrarian community eschewed most modern conveniences for humble living standards.
Childbirths used the same community midwives that had delivered children across the decades. A barn stood in the distance, housing the horse and buggy that carried the house's residents. Next to the hand-built cabin was a vegetable garden, now covered to protect against the cold. A few interior lights and a small refrigerator in the house were the limit to their modern concessions. All they'd allowed Jebediah to bring onto their land was his handgun and a flashlight.
And their children were still raised in the old beliefs. Some left to explore the rest of the Hinge. But surprisingly, most returned to the familiarity of the farm homes and the life they'd been raised in. The problem was, some of them came back changed.
Jebediah was getting ready to kill one now.
The woman, whose delivery screams rang out behind him, had birthed another child in this same house sixteen years earlier. For all appearances, Joshua was a normal boy, full of energy and mischief. He'd learned sewing from his mother and showed considerable potential as a tailor. It'd broken his parents' hearts when he'd decided to leave the community and see the rest of the Hinge, setting his path to designing clothes in the electric glow and flashing lights of the Caliber.
His messages were frequent at first, describing a job in a clothing store and friends he'd made while taking classes at a design school. They became more sporadic after hinting at a new girlfriend. Then, they'd stopped entirely.
Worried, his family went to his job and were shocked by his transformation. He'd become a skinny, strangely aged man with a nervous tic at the corner of his mouth.
Joshua reacted to them with embarrassment and derision, pushing them out of the store so his friends wouldn't see.
His mother tried to give him clothes she'd made by hand. He threw them back, humiliated by their appearance next to the brand names he wore. He was sweating profusely and cursed at them the whole time. They'd stayed and tried to see him again and again, but were turned away, the last time by a sallow, dark-haired girl with rings in her nose.
She'd told them he was designing behind doors, but she would definitely pass their message on. The smirk on her face told them the message would never be delivered.
When Jebediah heard the story from Joshua's father, the mother had been holding one of those homespun shirts she'd made for her child, clutching and twisting it while she sobbed. Her crying kept Jebediah from speaking. He could have told them Joshua was gone the moment they described the sweating and aged look. The boy was using Rain.
The origin of the drug was unknown. The powder dissolved as soon as anyone tried to bring it off the island. Some speculated it was the glow of the Hinge given in a distilled, physical form. Others claimed it was tears of a demon mixed with narcotics. When taken, the drug gave strength, speed and stamina.
He'd seen a man run down a fleeing cheetah, grab it with single hand, slam it against his knee, and snap its back, all in the space of seconds. Another had walked to a street sign and hauled it out of its cement housing in the asphalt. He'd then thrown it like a spear at a building, where it buried itself three feet into the wall. In both instances, the men had been sweating as if in a sauna.
The profuse sweating, the source of the drug's name, was an outward sign of the user's metabolic rate being hyper-accelerated. Bodily processes got ramped to an unnatural speed. It took years off their lives; the side effect had been known to age people five years at a time.
The drug eventually twisted the bodies of long-term addicts. Nails lengthened into claws and their skin toughened and turned gray. Their faces became strained and sunken, and their flesh melted away, leaving behind a skeletal visage. In the final stage of addiction, their eyes turned yellow interspersed with tiny red lights that flitted like tadpoles across water, and their minds descended into madness.
Some still remembered those closest to them, and in many ways, they were the worst. They instinctively sought out family and friends. But when they found them, they'd recall the old comfort of their lives—something they could no longer have. Their frustration became anger, and the unnatural speed and strength of Rain would manifest in violence and death.
Branches close to Jebediah shifted and he refocused on the present. He swept his flashlight over and recoiled. Yellow eyes glared down at him, shining like flashlights through the darkness from within a tree. The creature was perched on its branches like some hideous and deformed monkey. Red specks swarmed across its eyes, then stopped and condensed into jagged irises focused on the bounty hunter. It opened a mouth lined with darkened teeth, shrieked a guttural scream, then threw itself to the ground and charged. Both clawed hands shot out and ripped deep gouges into the nearby trees it sped by. Their branches shuddered in protest.
Jebediah leaped back into the center of the ring of torches.
"Here boy! Come get me." He baited the creature towards him, then brought his weapon to bear and started firing.
The first shot took flesh off the monster's shoulder. It dropped to all fours, bunched its limbs, then jumped and darted to the right like an insect. Jebediah cursed and sidestepped, firing over and over. But the creature was moving too fast to track; it was like trying to shoot a mosquito.
The addict hit the ground near Jebediah's side and came at him. Its long, clawed arms swept out, and Jebediah flung himself away. A claw caught the sleeve of his jacket and ripped it clean off. He spun and fired at close range, thundering round after round into the creature's abdomen.
It responded with a scream of pain, then raised its fists straight up into the air and struck the ground with a massive blow. The force cratered the ground and knocked Jebediah from his feet. The creature leapt at him.
The bounty hunter rolled to his back in time to fire upwards at the hurtling body falling straight down at him. The rounds struck again and again and tore off gobs of gray flesh. The creature landed almost directly on top of him, and the impact blasted the breath from Jebediah's lungs.
The creature must have been hurt, because it paused to breathe, and its claws failed to lash out. Then, it brought its skeleton face close to Jebediah's and tried to bite him. Its breath was fetid and almost toxic.
Jebediah jerked away, brought his gun up
and placed it directly against the monster's skull.
"Enough," he said, then pulled the trigger. But the hammer struck against an empty magazine. The monster glared with yellow and red eyes and Jebediah saw his own death within.
At that moment, the cry of a newborn rang out from inside the cabin.
The creature jerked toward the noise, shoved itself off the hunter, then stalked to the front door, seemingly forgetting Jebediah. It reached the wood door and placed a hand against it, feeling the heat from inside and sniffing it as if remembering the old scents of home.
"Boy! Look at me, boy," yelled Jebediah. The creature ignored him and pushed harder against the door. The heavy oaken door creaked and he knew it would collapse in an instant.
"I'll burn it," yelled the bounty hunter. The creature stopped and turned. Jebediah was standing by the far edge of the torch ring again. He lifted the homemade shirt Joshua's mother had made for him and held it close to the flames.
"Still too good for these?" he taunted, waving it closer and closer to the fire. The creature gave an enraged cry. It left the door and came at him. In the last few feet, it leapt with arms stretched outward to spear him with its claws. As he leapt, Jebediah's foot came down and broke a trigger buried under the snowy ground.
The wooden stakes he'd hidden there launched upward and slammed into the monster with deadly force. They impaled the addict in half a dozen places, stopping it in mid-air with a great jarring impact. Its face dangled less than an inch from Jebediah.
Jebediah's Crime: A Heroic Supernatural Thriller (The Hinge Series Book 1) Page 1
