The Harbinger PI Box Set

by Adam J. Wright

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not even sure this is a preternatural case. Your husband could be right and this might be nothing more than a nineteen-year-old kid going through a phase. But the nocturnal wandering in the woods does give me enough reason to investigate. I might find that there’s no preternatural connection at all, and then I’ll have to drop the case. But for now, I’m willing to take a look.”

  Amelia smiled thinly. “Thank you.”

  “I’ll need to come to your house,” I said. “And I may bring my assistant along. We’ll need to talk to James and take a look at those woods.”

  I saw a slight smile cross Felicity’s face at the prospect of going out into the field. To me, the case sounded mundane. There was barely enough strangeness about it to suggest there was even a slim chance of preternatural activity. But beggars can’t be choosers, and at the moment, Amelia Robinson’s case was all I had. It might be the only case to come through this office for a while, so there was nothing to lose by investigating it.

  “I have to remind you,” Amelia said, “about being discreet. Especially where my husband is concerned. He has no idea I came here today, no idea about who you are or what you do.”

  “We probably won’t need to speak with him,” I said. “The important thing is that we speak with James and investigate the woods.”

  “That’s fine,” Amelia said.

  “Excellent,” I said, standing. “Now, Felicity will take you to her office where she’ll explain our fees and take some more details from you. We’ll need your address, of course, and the names of the people James went to Dark Rock Lake with, if you know any of them. I assume you’d like us to start immediately?”

  She nodded. “Yes, please.”

  “Then we’ll see you at your house later today.” I held out my hand and she shook it. Her grip was a little stronger than it had been when she’s arrived and I wondered if that was because she felt more confident now that she had confided in someone. I doubted she had told her husband that she was afraid James might be a vampire.

  “Thank you, Mr. Harbinger,” she said as Felicity led her out of the office.

  “Glad to help,” I said, and closed the door after they’d left. I sat behind the desk and did an internet search for Dark Rock Lake. It was fifty miles north of Dearmont and seemed to be a typical summer vacation destination with cabins on the lakeshore and wildlife trails winding through the woods.

  “What happened to you while you were there, James?” I whispered as I scrolled through photos of the lake and cabins. The place looked innocent enough. I was probably going to have to go there at some point if I discovered something preternatural in James’s case.

  Twenty minutes later, Felicity came back into the office. She had a smile on her face. “Mrs. Robinson paid us for a week and five hundred dollars to cover expenses.”

  “Let’s not spend it all yet,” I said. “We might end up giving her most of that money back.”

  Her face fell. “You don’t think this is a preternatural matter?”

  I sighed. “I think this one should be known as The Case of the Moody Teenager.”

  “Well, it might be more than just that,” she said hopefully. “Maybe James Robinson is demon-possessed or something.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You make it sound like you want the poor guy to need saving. We’ll check it out, but don’t get your hopes up. I know you want your first case to be exciting, but this one really looks like James is just being a typical teenager.”

  “But he’s staying in his room all day.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe he’s trying to avoid someone. He might have had an argument with someone at that lake party.”

  “He only goes out at night and he wanders the woods,” she said.

  “Maybe he’s discovered Goth music and he’s exploring his tortured soul.”

  Her eyes lit up. “Tortured by….”

  “Not tortured by a demon,” I cut in.

  “What, then?”

  “Tortured by Goth music.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Don’t you think this could be a preternatural case? Isn’t there even a slim chance?”

  “Sure there is,” I said. “That’s why we’re going to check it out.”

  “Great. So what’s our first move?”

  “First, we talk to the people who went to that party, then we go see James Robinson.”

  “Okay,” Felicity said. “Mrs. Robinson only gave me one name when I asked her who was at that party. She said she doesn’t know all of her son’s acquaintances, but there’s one guy who was definitely at that party: Leon Smith, James’s best friend.”

  “Do we have an address for him?”

  She nodded. “Address and phone number.” That was good. Felicity had been thorough getting the information from Amelia Robinson.

  “So, let’s give him a call and arrange a meet.”

  “The number is in my office,” she said, going to the door. “I’ll call him from the office phone in there.” She left and I got out of my chair went over to the window. Main Street was buzzing with people now. Maybe Dearmont wasn’t so sleepy after all.

  “Leon Smith is at home,” Felicity called out from her office.

  “Is he willing to talk to us?”

  “Yeah, I told him we were private detectives and we wanted to ask him some questions about the party at Dark Rock Lake.”

  “What did he say?” I asked as I left my office and shut the door. I stood in the hallway, watching Felicity as she set the answering machine on the phone and grabbed her purse from where it had been hanging on the back of her chair.

  “He said, and I quote, ‘Sure, that was a weird-ass party.’ He sounded more than willing to answer a few questions. He lives a few miles out of town. Do you have GPS?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got a portable GPS in the Land Rover.”

  “Weapons?”

  I frowned at her. “We’re going to question someone, not attack a nest of vampires. We won’t need weapons.”

  As we walked down the stairs, she said, “The Society of Shadows Investigative Guidebook say that an investigator should be armed at all times. You never know when you might be attacked. At the very least, you should have a dagger, preferably enchanted, and you should also….”

  “Yeah, there’s some stuff in the car,” I told her as we left the building and I locked the door. The day was really warming up. The delicious smell of donuts drifted from the shop next door.

  “Don’t you have any weapons on your person?” Felicity asked.

  “No,” I said. “I only got here yesterday and I didn’t think it would be a good idea to take an enchanted dagger through airport security.”

  She followed me to the back of the building where the Land Rover was parked. I could sense that she wanted to say something more to me regarding my lack of weapons.

  “What is it?” I asked her as I climbed into the driver’s seat and she was getting in the passenger side. I swept the map of Dearmont off her seat and onto the floor so she wouldn’t sit on it.

  She didn’t say anything until she was settled in the seat and I had started the engine. Then she said, “I’ve noticed you have a lack of regard for the rules and regulations of the Society.”

  “Oh, really?” I said. “Well, the Society have a lack of regard for me, so that makes us even.”

  She sighed and looked out of her window, but she didn’t say anything.

  “If you’re not happy about how I run my business,” I said as I backed out of the parking space, “write it in a report and send it to my father.”

  4

  Felicity didn’t speak to me as we hit Main Street. I said to her, “The GPS is by your feet.” I turned right and began driving north, but I had no idea where I was going.

  She found the GPS, picked it up, unwound the tangled power wire, and plugged it into the cigarette lighter. After keying in our destination, she stuck the GPS to the windshield. It computed our route and the female voice told
me to turn around. I was going the wrong way.

  The street wasn’t really busy so I made a U turn and headed in the other direction.

  “Are you going to keep bringing up the reason I was sent here?” she asked quietly. Even though her voice was low, there was an angry edge to it.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to bring my father into it. It’s just that at the moment, I feel like I’ve been shafted by the Society. I had a good business going in Chicago and they shipped me here, away from all that. It makes me angry.”

  “Well, that isn’t my fault,” she said. “Whatever you did in Paris must have been pretty bad for them to banish you from your old job, your old life.”

  I looked at her and gave her a thin smile. “They could have done much worse.” I decided to tell her what was really playing on my mind regarding my enforced relocation. “Look, here’s the thing. When I was in Chicago, I did a lot of good and helped a lot of people. Now that I’m here in Dearmont, I just don’t think I’ll be able to do that anymore. Not on the same scale, anyway.”

  Felicity’s anger seemed to soften slightly. Her voice was much gentler when she said, “You must really miss Chicago.”

  “Yeah, I do. I have friends there; people I can rely on. I’ve trusted them with my life on many occasions and they’ve never disappointed me. Here,” I gestured through the window at Main Street, “I don’t know anyone.”

  “That will change in time, Alec. You just need to settle in your new environment. And I know we got off to a shaky start, but maybe someday, you’ll trust me like you do your old friends.”

  I shrugged. I wasn’t going to commit to anything. We left Main Street and followed a road that took us south. We drove through a residential area where the houses looked like they might date back to the late nineteenth century, then took a narrow highway that cut through the dense wood that virtually encircled Dearmont.

  That was when I noticed the car behind us.

  It was a dark green Ford Taurus that seemed unremarkable, except that I was sure it had been behind us when I was driving north along Main Street and then had followed us again after I’d turned south.

  It had always been a couple of cars behind us, hanging back as we’d made our way through town. Now it was directly behind us because there were no other cars on the highway.

  “We have company,” I told Felicity.

  At first, she frowned, not understanding what I meant. Then she turned in her seat and looked out of the rear window. “Are they following us?”

  “Maybe.” I squinted at the rearview mirror. There seemed to be two men in the car, the driver and a passenger in the front.

  “What are we going to do?” Felicity whispered as if the men in the car might hear her if she spoke at a normal level.

  I looked at the digital map on the GPS screen. There was a side road up ahead, on the left. If I took that road and the Taurus followed, that would confirm we were being tailed. It wouldn’t explain why, though.

  As I was trying to think of reasons someone would want to follow us, the Taurus accelerated, looming larger in the Land Rover’s rear window. Then it cut left and began to overtake us.

  I had a bad feeling about this.

  The Taurus came level with us and I glanced over at the driver. He was a thin man with short-cropped black hair and a goatee, wearing a black sweater. His passenger was burlier, with a full beard and a black sweater to match the driver’s.

  The driver shot me a grin that looked both amused and wicked at the same time. I noticed that his window was fully open. Steering with his right hand, he lifted his left to the open window. He was holding a gun, its muzzle pointed at the front tire of the Land Rover.

  I hit the brakes hard. The tires squealed on the road as we skidded to a stop. Felicity screamed as she shot forward in her seat, but the seatbelt prevented her from flying through the windshield.

  My own seatbelt constricted across my chest, driving the air out of my lungs.

  Up ahead, the Taurus skidded into a U-turn so that it was facing us. The maneuver was executed perfectly. These guys were good.

  “Hold on,” I told Felicity as I floored the accelerator pedal.

  We lurched forward and I steered around the Taurus, which was still picking up speed after its sudden change of direction.

  In the rearview mirror, I saw the Taurus turn around again, white smoke belching from its tires as they sought purchase on the road. We were never going to be able to outrun it.

  My mind was racing. If we were going to get out of this alive, we needed to fight back. “Take the wheel,” I told Felicity.

  “What?”

  “Take the wheel. I need to get into the back.”

  She swallowed and nodded. “Okay.”

  I put the stick shift into neutral so the Land Rover wouldn’t stall and clambered into the back seat. Felicity slid over and took the wheel, slamming the vehicle into gear again and putting her foot on the gas. I thanked the stars that she was English; she knew how to drive a stick shift.

  I glanced out of the rear window. The Taurus was close and gaining on us. I could see the grim look of determination in the dark eyes of the driver.

  Reaching under the seat, I found what I wanted. I pulled the long, cloth-wrapped bundle onto the back seat and began to unwrap it, pulling at the silk ties that held the cloth in place.

  Felicity glanced back at me. “What’s that?”

  “I told you I had weapons in the car.” The cloth fell aside and I grasped the hilt of the broadsword. As soon as it was in my hand, the rune-inscribed blade began to flicker with blue flame. This was no ordinary flame. If touched to paper, it wouldn’t set it alight. The light that pulsated around the sword was cold, brilliant, magical energy. The weapon was enchanted.

  “Slow down,” I told Felicity.

  She sounded worried. “Are you sure? They’re already right behind us.” The blue glow from the sword illuminated her dark eyes.

  “If you don’t slow down, it’s going to make what I’m about to do next even more dangerous than it already is.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Slowing down.” She pressed the brake gently. Our speed barely changed.

  “Faster,” I said.

  “Faster? I thought you wanted me to slow down.” She hit the gas again.

  “No, I mean press the brake faster. Make us go slower.”

  She nodded and slowed us again. This time, the deceleration threw me against the back of her seat.

  The Taurus came alongside us again.

  “Hit the brakes hard,” I shouted to Felicity.

  She did and the Land Rover juddered to a halt. The Taurus shot past us. It skidded to a stop and began to turn to face us.

  I opened my door and threw myself out of the Land Rover. As soon as my boots hit the road, I sprinted toward the Taurus, sword in hand.

  Before the dark green car could accelerate again, I jumped up onto its hood and drove the sword through the metal to the engine beneath. The enchanted blade slid easily through the engine, disabling it. The Taurus emitted a metallic squeal and then died as if it were a monster that I’d stabbed through the heart.

  The bearded guy in the passenger seat had a shotgun. He leaned out of his window and took aim, trying to shoot me off the hood of the car. Before he pulled the trigger, I leaped up onto the roof of the Taurus, out of his sight. The shotgun discharged, the sudden explosion of sound disturbing a flock of birds in a nearby tree and sending them scattering into the air.

  “Don’t shoot him!” the guy with the goatee shouted at his partner.

  “Yeah, don’t shoot me,” I said. “It’s very rude.”

  I swung the sword over my head and down onto the shotgun barrel. The magical blade sliced through the gun. The ruined barrel clattered to the road.

  The bearded guy cried out in surprise, but he acted fast, kicking his door open and staying low as he got out of the car in case I attacked him from above. I didn’t want to kill him. I had to kee
p these guys alive so I could find out who sent them. Although, technically, I only had to keep one of them alive for that.

  I jumped down off the car and hit the back of Bearded Guy’s knees with the flat part of the sword blade. He yelped and went down, rolling in the grass at the side of the road and clutching his legs.

  I stood over him and cast a glance back over my shoulder, looking for Goatee Guy. He wasn’t in the Taurus anymore. The driver’s door was open, the seat vacant. I saw him running toward the Land Rover.

  Only now he looked very different from the man who had tried to shoot out my tires. Now, he was huge, at least eight feet tall, with muscles so large that his physique would put any bodybuilder to shame. The black sweater he was wearing must be made of some type of stretchable fabric because it still clung to his enlarged body, as did his black pants.

  “Shit,” I said. “Ogres.”

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, a roar sounded from beneath me. Bearded Guy was now also in ogre form. He swatted me away with one huge hand and I flew through the air before coming back down to earth in the grass ten feet away from where I had been standing.

  “Felicity, get out of here!” I shouted. I didn’t get a chance to look over at the Land Rover because Bearded Guy, now Bearded Ogre, was scrambling to his feet and getting ready to charge at me with his huge, powerful body.

  He lowered his head and ran forward like a bull charging a matador.

  The sword was still in my hands. I waited until the ogre was too close to change his direction and side-stepped his charge. As he stumbled past me, I sliced the broadsword through the air toward his neck. This time, I didn’t use the flat of the blade.

  He never knew what hit him. The enchanted blade slid through his muscles, sinews, and bones as if they were soft butter. The ogre crashed to the ground in two pieces, his head detached from his body.

  I whirled around to face the Land Rover and what I saw there made my heart sink. The ogre with the goatee had one massive hand wrapped around Felicity’s neck and was holding her up as if she were a rag doll. Felicity struggled against his grip, her hands clawing at his, her legs kicking in mid-air, but she had no chance against an ogre. He held her at arm’s length so her kicks couldn’t reach him.