Lonely Hero Thing: The Chronicles of Ian Duncan - Book One

By Ripley King

Lonely Hero Thing

The Chronicles of Ian Duncan - Book One

Warped urban fantasy.

Ian Duncan. Millionaire. He owns a brew pub and a restaurant. He's also Earth's paladin. A man with a named sword, magical powers, and a little voice in his head only he can hear.

Beneath the deepest roots of Des Moines, Iowa, there exists a city of the dead and damned. In this necropolis is a child yet to be born. This child's blood, once shed, will open the gates of Hell.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ripley King
• Release date: Dec 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310309502

Ripley King

I'm a storyteller, with many published credits. Now I do my own thing. Have fun.

Book preview

Lonely Hero Thing - The Chronicles of Ian Duncan - Book One by Ripley King

Urban Paranormal

Ian Duncan. Millionaire. He owns a brew pub and a restaurant.

He’s also Earth’s paladin. A man with a named sword, magical powers, and a little voice in his head only he can hear.

Beneath the deepest roots of Des Moines, Iowa, there exists a city of the dead and damned. In this necropolis is a little girl yet to be born. Her blood, once shed, will open the gates of Hell.

Novel and Cover Illustration Copyright © 2012 Ripley King. All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or locals, is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have control over, and does not assume any responsibility for author or third party Web sites or their content.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the author is illegal. Please purchase only authorized editions. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

Everything Ripley King

The no spam, your email will never be shared, monthly newsletter. Check your spam filter, or look in your in box to confirm, and then enjoy news on pre orders, bargains, new releases, cover reveals, and exclusive content like short stories, freebies, or whatever else my demented mind can fabricate.

For those who always wanted to give urban paranormal a proper enema.

Lonely Hero Thing

One

Dead things should have the decency to stay dead.

My first thought on the issue at hand, and I would include myself in that blanket conclusion, but I’m still a little iffy when it comes to me. More on that later. I’m sort of busy.

In an acclimated, yet distinct old-world Eastern European accent my well-dressed target said, Once again you present yourself a thorn in my ass, Ian Duncan.

Igor Chekhov, I returned. Live hard, die young, leave a pretty corpse. In my opinion, highly overrated.

No running away this time.

I knew what he was thinking, but to keep this sad verbal melodrama going I said, Good for me, bad for you.

Vampires.

I hate vampires.

You rubes think vampires are sleek and sexy. Proud creatures with tortured souls. Everlasting angst, perpetual lust, immeasurable love, infinite whatever your dead fucking heart desires.

You do not comprehend your situation, Ian Duncan.

Get a clue. They do choose some impressive physical specimens to sire, think good breeding habits, but they’re still soulless monsters. They kill innocent men, women, and children without a decent thought in their heads, or the slightest hint of conscience.

Just waiting on your next move, Igor.

I’ve seen victims repeatedly raped and tortured, slowly drained of their life’s blood, sometimes for days, sometimes for months before they’re slaughtered. Mainly because they think it’s fun or funny. Probably both.

You don’t think, Ian. I have you cold.

Bottom line, vampires are as sexy as fresh dog shit on a new shoe.

Bring ’em in, Igor. Introduce me to the new family.

Russian born, almost three hundred years old, the late yet seemingly productive Mr. Chekhov had previously turned two young ladies into creatures of the night, and I killed them last year.

Chekhov escaped, and I didn’t expect to hear from him anytime soon, yet last night I noticed Igor was back in town. His now appearance took me by surprise. From the size of this new nest he apparently managed to turn a quick third, and then she somehow managed to sire two back-to-back, which was almost unheard of lore wise, and they seemed to have managed . . . one . . . two . . .

I hate doing the math. Nothing ever adds up to my satisfaction. Nowadays my philosophy is kill ’em all and let God sort ’em out.

Nice, I said, examining the first babe. Your taste in women seems to be improving. Apparently prolific, with big tits.

She smiled at that.

Must have been a real black widow when alive, I continued. A genuine ball-buster to sire two back-to-back.

The smile widened.

The only thing I don’t get is why you returned, Igor. You managed your last escape flawlessly. Your old family died, but you didn’t. That is what counts, right?

My revenge on you will be sweet, he said. Your blood will feed me, and my new family. That is all you need to know.

Revenge, I said. "I get that. You think you got the drop on me. The big blond guy in the garage? He tried doing that Kung Fu walk-on-rice-paper shit, sneak up behind me . . . He made a lot of noise and I handed him his head. You’re next."

That took the fight out of Igor. I could see it in his eyes. Yet the rest of his new family spent too much time over the years watching quirky television and cheesy movies.

When Igor’s new pump lunged for my throat, I pulled my sword out of the fold in space I hide it in, and hewed her in two. Her legs went all-akimbo, and finally stopped when they tripped over themselves.

I had, in the meantime, pivoted to the right, sidestepping her upper half’s desperate last grasp, taking her head in the process.

Instead of poofing into mythical dust, which I would have preferred, I had an upper and lower torso on the floor with a head on the couch, bleeding into the tan micro-fabric.

Another pitcher then stepped up to the mound, and my next swing amputated the husky guy’s shiny bald dome. I watched his body twitch all the way to the floor. I like it when they twitch all the way to the floor. My mind later replays that in slow motion. It’s how I get my jollies on.

The petite tattooed girl with the bald guy, she twisted and dipped like a street dancer, side-kicking me in the gut, probably thinking martial arts skills came with the fangs.

They don’t, but it takes the newbies a while to figure things out.

Her foot caught me by surprise, and it hurt, knocked the wind out of me too, but it hurt more when I hit the wall behind me.

The only thing that saved my sorry ass just then was the drywall. I went through both layers, between the wall studs, grateful there were no wood fire braces or wiring to get tangled up in, and ended up in the dining room.

When she charged through the open door with a snarl I was barely on my wobbly feet, sucking dusty air, bending over (which made the dusty air thing more difficult) with Sheena’s hilt still a half inch from my palm.

Yeah, I named my sword Sheena. Queen of the Asphalt Jungle. Get over it.

Seeing vamp-girl’s many tattoos up close and that personal had me driving for Sheena. Once in hand, I swung her up in a wide arch, which removed the hand closest to my neck near her elbow.

After that it was all instinct and the need to survive. Hack, slash, bob, weave, leaving five bodies in two rooms headless.

I really hate vampires.

I suppose I should take a few moments to explain a few things while I piled the torsos, heads, and assorted limbs in the center of the living room, before I set them ablaze. Another unexplained house fire in the ’burbs, possibly squatters, leaving a strange pile of ash that may or may not be human remains.

The city Medical Examiner, one Doctor Ely Foster, he helps me hide the truth from the rubes. You ordinary folk seem to be troubled by the truth. Let me bring you up to speed.

The truth is vampires can’t move faster than a blink of an eye. They can’t stop speeding automobiles without breaking a few of their hollow bones, and can only leap three times the height of most Hollywood actors on any good night.

They do fear crosses and other religious artifacts for the obvious reasons, yet a wooden stake to the heart is a useless myth, along with garlic.

A stake to the heart will paralyze them, which comes in handy if you can get close enough to stake them in the first place. The garlic . . . the garlic just smells bad. Too many raw cloves bunched together would repel anything with a working nose. I’m thinking, before the industrial revolution, it was a poor-man’s way to hide one’s scent.

And just because they hate sunlight doesn’t mean they burst into flames when exposed. Sunlight is like concentrated acid to vampires. After a few moments of exposure they bubble and melt like wicked witches in water.

Now, you might want to ask: Why isn’t the world overrun by vampires?

That’s a good question I once asked myself.

Vampires can only turn three to five people over to the dark side throughout their long parasitic lives. It has something to do with accumulated soul force after feeding, and they can only feed on so much blood at one sitting. With modern dietary standards being what they are, one or two pasta-fed victims per week is all they can handle without getting fat, and they look too good to let themselves get fat.

It takes a lot of meals to get enough soul force stored within them to pass a portion of themselves on, turning someone into an un-dead fiend. Only then can they comfortably do the swapping of blood thing, what binds them together as a family, without becoming as weak as newborn kittens.

New vampires, now they tend to be real hungry at birth, and will turn on their sires if allowed. Because of all these little-known facts their nests tend to be small.

Shit.

Igor, of course, escaped . . . again.

Old fart sure can rabbit. I said. One thing, he’s on his own. He don’t have the soul force to sire another bimbo, big boobs or not.

Got that right, the little voice in my head acknowledged.

Ah, the little voice. The little voice isn’t easy to explain, but I’ll try.

I died twice, and came back twice. I’m not a walk-in, can only channel the Grand Asshole-a on real bad days, and could care less about the average ghost finding the light. Spooks don’t bother me, and I don’t bother them. Not having a psychic spark makes me a here-and-now kind of guy. The little voice in my head popped up after I died the second time.

To be truthful, the first time I died was in a dream. The first dream I can remember having. One dream after a lifetime of absolutely nothing, and it was a doozy.

I stepped off the curb in front of my then place of employment and was hit by a delivery truck. Boom! That quick and the dream was over. That’s why you should always look both ways before crossing the street.

I awoke that sunny Thursday morning engulfed by a profound peace, breathing deep, feeling great. Had a great day, too.

Because of that dream-death experience I somehow acquired the knowledge of what encompasses life after death. That was five years ago.

The second time I died the paramedics had to jaws-of-life me out of my mangled car, and broke a few ribs performing CPR, but they got me going again. I spent a couple of weeks in a drug-induced coma, healing, and then several months later I was me again . . . with a few subtle differences.

The wispy black hair hides a shallow dent in my skull about the size of a dime, and my right brow and cheek has a long jagged scar down it the naughty dirty girls seem to like. That was three years ago.

I returned that second time with oodles of odd knowledge, a paladin of sorts, chosen to fight the evils of the world with a named sword, and a sidekick that exists only as a little voice in my head.

So, either I’m the real deal, or off-my-meds rabidly schizophrenic. You decide, but later.

Yes, I know you’re there.

It’s okay. I don’t mind. You’re supposed to be there, and the name my sword originally came with was long and annoyingly hard to pronounce. I re-christened her. Once I gave her the mental image behind the name, she seemed to like the change.

I poured a lot of lighter fluid on the bodies I’d gathered and thumb-struck a wooden match, retreating out the backdoor before the oily black smoke killed me a third time.

The little voice in my head said, Time for a hunt.

Sure. Why not. Maybe I’ll get lucky.

Since the housing crisis had yet to really peak, I doubt there were a total of ten families living within the immediate area. Most of the Bush-era foreclosures around me, like the one starting to spit orange flames out the popping windows, would be compromised by my necessary action. That’s not me.

I called the fire in as an anonymous tip, followed the depressed weed trail across the backyard, over the chain-link fence, through another yard just as weedy, around another foreclosed home to the pavement. That was where the trail ended.

Part of the knowledge stuffed into my noggin included a fair command of the oldest magic. Blood magic and word magic, with the occasional hand gesture for oomph. Only the Faerie use wand magic, but they think it crass.

I shot a hand out and said, Incedent en-ped.

Igor’s glowing footprints were widely spaced down the center of the street, heading toward the nearby industrial section of the city.

I could hear sirens coming closer. Firefighters about to earn their pay. In order to avoid looking suspicious or guilty I crossed the street, and calmly walked away.

Half a mile later, in the parking lot next to a small plumbing supplies warehouse, I saw the manhole cover Igor vanished under to escape the rising sun.

The sewers in the oldest sections of the city are large. More than enough room for a quick getaway. The only problem as I saw it, there are things that live underground that don’t particularly like me. That and the smell. Good thing my stomach was empty.

I climbed down into the sewer, breathing through clenched teeth, and pulled Sheena.

Infata en-pata nos.

Being a good girl she lit up, glowing bright white. If I was headed in the right direction she would glow brighter, or vice versa.

When the concrete gave way to fat red brick, I knew I was in the oldest part of the city sewer system. Here, along with assorted evil vermin, roots from fat old trees communed with rats the size of small dogs.

The rats watched our advance through beady black eyes, wondering if they could mug me and make me a prospective meal. The latter thought it best to let Sheena and me pass unmolested. As far as they knew, I wasn’t hunting them.

The roots, though, surprised me. When Sheena got too close to one large tangle, the entire mass moved out of her way.

That was interesting, I said.

Too much magic seeps up from the necropolis below, my little voice answered.

So now these roots have a life of their own?

Life without sentience is not life.

Maybe, maybe not. I couldn’t say one way or the other. Creepy nonetheless.

What do you think they eat? I asked.

Rats.

Makes sense.

I must have walked another two miles ankle-deep in piss and shit, turning this way and that, listening to the denizens of the underground slink away, still breathing through clenched teeth. When the trail ended in some kind of chamber, a junction from the looks of things, Sheena didn’t want to give up. After a closer look a section of wall pulled open to reveal a cave entrance.

I stopped there, Sheena’s enthusiasm for the hunt notwithstanding.

Inside that particular cave was a tunnel, and at the end of that very long, downward sloping tunnel was another cave. This cave was massive, from what I understood, and had in it a big door. Behind that big door lived the most hideous and deadly members of the old world.

Not prepared for that fight it was time to call it a day. My pleasant aroma meant I’d have to walk home, which wasn’t that far away. My shoes squished with each step.

Two

Des Moines is an old city with a lot of new potential, dotting the Iowa skyline. Insurance and banking made this city great. You wouldn’t think that under its deepest foundations was a necropolis, or city of the dead and damned. A city so old its name had been forgotten.

From what I gathered over the last few years, the Faerie fought the demons to a standstill here, just after man learned to walk upright. The battle was prolonged, grisly, falling just short of genocidal. The surviving Faerie magically sunk and entombed the city under a mile or more of enchanted stone in one day, and then piled a lot of ordinary dirt over it that night, or so the story goes.

In the meantime humanity learned to make tools, bred like there was no tomorrow, covering the continents like hungry ants.

The Faerie adapted and ultimately hid themselves in a parallel reality they called Avalon, with only myth and legend and the occasional immigrant to mark their continued existence.

The demons, though, inbred and built, and dug their way out. Took a long time, but not long enough.

Because of their past underground existence all demons have an aversion to light, so tend to stick close to whatever hole they call home. Unfortunately some of them managed to migrate over the millennia, an outward expansion, giving rise to humanity’s instinctual fear of the dark.

Cultures the globe over have their stories. Monsters and bogeymen, vampires and shape shifters, slaughtering the strong and helpless alike. Now you know.

As I turned the corner, home never looked so good.

The five-story building I owned and lived in was bought with the insurance settlements from my car accident. Skirting downtown proper, the bottom two floors housed a brew pub and restaurant I also owned.

The boys that ran both concerns made their own beer downstairs, and served some fine fare upstairs. In spite of the continuing recession both businesses remained profitable, but maintaining my ideal weight . . .

The third floor was for business storage, and the fourth floor was my storage, which meant I had the top floor all to myself. The marked-private door on the side of the building opened to a micro-lobby with a keyed elevator.

Fatigue and pain started to scream at me for a nice hot shower, some cold pizza from the night before, quite a few aspirin, and a few chilled beers in which to wash everything down. With only one button to push, I started listening to that scream.

The car went up, the doors opened, I stepped out into my personal lobby, and pinned to my door by a fairly lethal-looking ornate dagger was the body of the girl I had shared a few slices of that pizza with the night before. You know, when both were hot and gooey.

Damn.

The only window my lobby had was strewn across the carpeting, and dibbles of blood seemed to be splattered everywhere. I stood there, giving the overall scene some thought.

The building facing my window was only three stories tall, and across the alley. My fire escape was on the other side of the building.

Any thoughts? I asked the little voice in my head.

Manifest her last actions.

I had only the vaguest idea what the suggested spell would do.

I don’t want to disturb the murder scene. You know Nick hates it when I disturb a murder scene. Possible contamination of evidence, putting myself in doubt, blah, blah, blah. As if I care.

"The body will appear to move, but will remain stationary."

Then I need to have Nick here. Share the fun.

The body will soon cool, making the spell useless.

None of the blood has dried. She’s fresh. She’ll still be warm when Nick arrives.

I waited, and when the little voice in my head had nothing more to say I placed my call.

Morning, Nick. I have a dead girl pinned to my front door.

DAD! IT’S FOR YOU!

Brian?

Yeah.

You’re beginning to sound more like your father every day.

That’s not a compliment, Uncle Ian. Here.

Hello? the new voice said.

"Nicholas?

Ian? What in God’s name do you need from me this early in the morning?

In the background I could hear Brian say, He has a dead girl pinned to his front door.

I said, What he said.

I haven’t even poured my first cup of coffee, Nick countered.

"Me, I got kicked through a wall,