Ancient, Evil, Hungry -The Chronicles of Ian Duncan: Book Two

By Ripley King

Urban paranormal with a twist!

The action never stops in this thriller second installment of The Chronicles of Ian Duncan. Avatara. The Earth Father. An immortal soul in a mortal shell.

Old Ones have appeared in the city, Sheena is still healing, Olympian gods and goddesses are thrown into the mix, and the baby needs a name. That’s when Fate appears, bringing with him Pukey the cat. His daughter’s cat. It always has been, and always will be her cat. Is there such a thing as a cat god?

Did Lovecraft have it right? Are we doomed?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ripley King
• Release date: Oct 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370281626

Ripley King

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

Book preview

Chapter 1

I tried to ignore the thick grayish tentacles waving about in the air, but they kept getting in my face.

Aim for the head, fool! the little voice in my head said.

No kidding!

I was vaguely focused on the three squiggly arms in front, because I knew four more slimy appendages were sneaking up from behind. The best I could do was turn tight circles, hacking off what I could reach, thrilled they weren’t growing back.

Then I noticed something that chilled my shit to a screeching halt, inside my body, where it mattered most.

They looked like fat, bright-red rubber dildos, and they were slowly oozing out of each remaining arm.

Not in this lifetime!

Voice started laughing. Belly bursting, slap-your-knees chortles and snorts.

That was the moment I missed Sheena the most. She was still healing, and I was stuck with an antique Japanese Katana, circa 1800, custom-made for a large samurai warrior of no historical importance. The blade was almost four feet in length, cost several grand, and had some weight to it compared to other swords I examined. Sharp as a fresh scalpel. A good sword.

Horny squid-creature in front, no real retreat. I could feel my living wards shift, undecided.

I wondered then if there was some spell I could use to save my for-real asshole from getting buggered. I would have asked Voice, but she was still rolling on the floor, laughing out loud, figuratively speaking.

I don’t know what makes you think of me as your fuck-buddy, I said, but I’m a happily married man.

Not really thinking, more like acting on instinct, I took a short step forward using synchronicity, crossing the room in an instant, and brought my sword straight down between the thing’s beady all-black eyes.

At least I hoped they were eyes. There were about a dark dozen on each side of what might pass for a bulbous head, and they shifted about like eyes. My blade met little resistance on its way to the floor.

The squid-thing’s remaining arms shot straight out in all directions, vibrated rather intensely for a second or two, and then fell limply to the floor.

I must have stood there for a good minute, enjoying the visual aspects of what just happened, making sure it was dead, keeping my ass cheeks tightly clenched.

For Christ’s sake, Voice, I finally said, shut up already!

Then the absurdity of the whole situation got to me. That’s when Nick entered the room, towing Griffith behind.

What the hell is so funny? Nick asked.

Look, was all I could squeak between guffaws.

He looked, looked harder, and then his eyes widened in understanding. That’s when he joined in with chuckles and snorts of his own.

Let me quickly recap things for all the newbies out there.

I’m Ian Duncan, the Earth Father, Avatara, an immortal soul in a mortal shell. I’m about yea tall, solidly built, and have a long jagged scar down my right brow and cheek all the naughty dirty girls like.

Living tattoos, my magical wards, cover most of my body. They shift and shape themselves to protect me as needed . . . most of the time. The horny squid thing . . .

And those are? Nick asked between the hilarity.

He knew what they were. We watched a lot of cheesy 70's porn as teens. Hairy snatches, bad dialogue, trashy sets, and boing-chika-wow-wow music to tie it all together.

Voice kept right on laughing. Imagine that reverberating inside your head.

Yup, I said, trying to smother my off-and-on cackles.

Griffith, I think the joke (Fate probably graced me with) went over his head, but he was desperately grasping for the gist of it.

As for the little voice in my head, she’s the ghost of Erinoria the Enchantress. She got stuffed into my head when I rescued my mate, my first and only real love, Sheena, from Avalon, the land of the Faerie.

Erinoria is a fountain of odd magical knowledge, and can only take corporeal form when I pass through the wicker gate into Avalon. When I do pass through the gate, she gets to stay behind as a real flesh and blood person. She can also be a royal pain in the ass, a genuine clothes horse, and has a thing for ugly shoes.

Apparently, in her day, Erinoria was also the hot chick with weird laugh.

Hey!

Sheena is my true sword. Queen of the Asphalt Jungle. She’s not a soul trapped in a sword, but the actual sword itself. My weapon of choice. In her true Avatara form as the Earth Mother, she’s short, muscular without being masculine, with long snow-white hair. She’s extremely beautiful with her down-turned soulful eyes and full red lips, and I miss her. Boy, do I miss her.

And they were . . . ? Nick asked, trying to stifle the yucks.

Uh huh, I said, before another fit of laughter had tears running down my cheeks.

Together we saved our daughter from Hell’s minions on Earth, but not without almost getting my wonderful mate killed. In sword form she is indestructible, but she changed back into her real form to protect our newborn daughter.

Lucifer’s sword of darkness almost did her in. She was within a hair’s width away from hopping aboard the reincarnation merry-go-round, when our daughter (who then appeared as a ten year old) changed her back into her sword form.

As for our daughter, she can travel through time, amongst other powers I can only guess at, because she somehow chased away an apostle of Hell with a verbal threat. Right now I have a gnome wet-nurse looking after her, and would love a few words with the older version of her.

Shit, Griffith said, nudging one of the loaded tentacles with his foot. It spurted, and for me that just cranked it up a notch and a half.

I’m still waiting for Sheena to let me know she’s healed before we give our infant daughter a name. In the meantime I deal with loss of sleep, projectile vomit, gag-a-maggot shit the color and consistency of Dijon mustard, and way too many womenfolk in any given day, telling me what I should be doing.

I wasn’t sure about Nick, but my sides were starting to hurt.

Are there any victims? Griffith asked rather forcefully.

I don’t think he ever had a sense of humor.

As for the current situation, underneath Des Moines, Iowa, is a city of the dead and damned. Our very own version of Buffy’s (The Vampire Slayer) fictional Hell-mouth. I closed off the main sewer entrance to the necropolis, sealing the demons inside, but I’m fairly certain this squid thing was topside at the time, or . . . I don’t know.

Nick sobered up first, but it took me another minute before I could stash the laughs. I was, after all, on the ass-end of that joke. Pun intended.

Homicide Detective Nicholas York, Nick, he’s always been my best friend. My height, beefy, glasses, married with two kids. We were beer buddies as teens. He leads the Weird Squad for the city of Des Moines. Detective Daniel Griffith is his partner.

For the most part, Griffith is a rube. Taller, thinner, single, certainly better dressed, he’s finally warming up to the overall situation.

After another minute to catch my breath, I said, Let me go first. Something else could be lurking about, ready to pork my backside.

Which, after we glanced at each other, had Nick and me working the yucks another minute or two.

After I put my serious face on, which wasn’t easy, not by a long shot, we cleared the next room.

Chapter 2

We worked our way from cramped cubical to spacious office to dirty stairwell on the ground floor, and then managed the second floor.

Clear!

We found one female victim on the third floor, clothes shredded, huddled under a standard gray cubical desk in shock. She sat in a puddle of the creature’s creamy white spunk, obviously rode hard and put away wet.

And some people think tentacles are fun and sexy. The second hottest item you can get mail-order out of the back of skin-mag ordered, adult toy catalogs, or FedExed straight to your door off the Web, or courtesy of your nearest adult toy emporium, if you’re not afraid to be seen walking inside.

Nick slowly approached her, but then she started screaming. She stopped screaming long enough to spew what had to be a gallon of milky squid-monster goop in one long retch, and then passed out.

Nick got on his cell and called for an ambulance.

Use a sleep spell on her, Voice said, now serious as a stroke. Also, make her forget. Pray her sleep lasts long enough for the doctors to help her.

Clear! Griffith said from the back hallway. He then moved toward us. Just the girl.

Et-nos legla uuoonah, I said, gesturing toward her, neget-neget.

I could see her muscles visibly relax, and bent to check her pulse. Her heartbeat was slow, strong and steady, so I wiped the gunk off her face, and positioned her head so she could breathe a little easier.

What was that? Nick asked, backing up.

Powerful sleep spell, I said, using a lot of tissues on my hand. And with luck she won’t remember this day.

You wiped her memory? Griffith asked.

I seriously hope so, I said. Just think of a cover story to tell her, make sure she gets a morning-after pill or three, or surgery. Whatever it takes, and I mean that. This thing wanted to breed, and I don’t want it to succeed. Have her watched for a couple of weeks, too. She is not to give birth to another . . . whatever that was.

No problem, Nick said. I don’t think she could have told us anything, even if she wanted to. Maybe you could have forced her. You got a spell for that?

What the hell was that thing? Griffith then asked. A new kind of demon?

To tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure. I don’t think it was a demon. For the most part, virtually all demons are humanoid in appearance. Ugly, sure. Scaly, sometimes. Mostly both and clawed, but humanoid.

For that matter, the majority of angels and gods are humanoid in appearance. This . . . was something new.

Or far older than you know, Voice added.

Spill it, Voice, I said.

"There are tales among the oldest of the Fae about entities that existed before the gods. They looked like that thing. Creatures of great power. It has been said that they created the gods to worship them. This could have been an Old One."

Let me guess, I said. I probably pissed ’em off when I destroyed the Tablets of Fate, along with everybody else.

Stop talking to Voice and clue me in, Nick said.

I’m not sure, I said, and Voice isn’t either. Let me do some research and get back to you.

I thought the big shit was over when you shut the doors of the necropolis, Griffith said, sealing them inside. Nothing left for us but the cleanup topside.

They’re sealed inside their city, I returned, but this might be a whole new level of fucked.

The look on Griffith’s face said he understood, all too well.

Nick looked at me, and I looked at him. He had a pretty good idea what I’d be facing in the coming months. Demons wanting to open their front door, possibly my head on a silver platter, apple in my mouth, on a bed of Iceberg lettuce. Who knows. Demons I can deal with. This?

Unsure or not, Nick said, what did you kill? Between you and me.

Possibly an Old One, I said. Think H. P. Lovecraft, and go from there.

Nick was quick on the uptake. A lot quicker than Griffith. Comes from being a gore-whore as a teen. He watched the films, read the stories, and now stood a little straighter, thinking about the possibilities.

The building has importance? Nick asked.

Not that I can see or feel, I said. The ground below is untainted and quiet. Did you see a big spell diagramed on the floor or on a wall?

Nope.

Neither did I. No slime trail from the outside, in. As far as I can tell, this thing just appeared on our plane of existence, and went floor to floor. We were lucky enough to catch it in the lobby, before it made the front door.

Or made you. There should have been more people in the building, Ian. One survivor? It’s almost eight-thirty, and most of the city doesn’t do nine to five. More like eight to four.

I was wondering that myself. A few people might have escaped. At least one did to call in the monster sighting, and we got here pretty fast for a pack of old men. Maybe the damn thing ate them?

Did you ever wonder how wrong things were?

Feel as if you didn’t belong?

"Wonder how deep the rabbit hole goes?"

Don’t bother with any answers. The questions were rhetorical.

The world we inhabit is strange, and then stranger still. Only you rubes tend to ignore what you can’t accept. Like nothing preternatural exists in your happy little world.

Count your blessings. What I wouldn’t give to pick through the Vatican’s hidden libraries and vaults.

You, reader, are supposed to be here, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why. Why are you privy to my life? My fight to end a nightmare once written in stone?

Why do I even talk to you? It’s not like you can talk back, and if you do, I can’t hear you. So, I want you to consider something. Talking to the tv screen is one thing, and kind of fun, but talking at a book the same way is just weird.

Ian? Nick asked.

I’m okay, I said. I’m just tired. Not enough sleep, and too many dirty diapers. We need to call Foster and get a sample of that thing before it vanishes. I want to know what it is, or isn’t.

Doctor Ely Foster is the Medical Examiner for the city of Des Moines. He’s short, getting balder by the day, chunky in all the right places, likes to fish, and is old enough to handle the weird shit without batting an eye. I don’t know what I would do without him.

You think it will vanish? Griffith asked.

It might, I replied. If not, Foster will have to contain the remains. Incinerate them when he’s done, sprinkle the ashes on holy ground. The idea is to cover all bases and hope for the best.

We should head downstairs, Nick said.

I got her covered, Griffith said. Direct the EMT’s here.

Nick looked at me, I looked at him, and we both looked at Griffith, who nodded and (using both hands) shooed us away.

I waited until we were downstairs and outside to say, Did that really happen?

Don’t look a gift horse, Nick said, and so on and so on. He’s really trying to get a handle on things.

Better than going insane.

Nick nodded. He then said, He took a few days off after leading your skeleton army. Chief Norman thought it a good idea. ‘Let him baste in the significance of the event.’ I’ve been watching him, looking for signs of PTSD. So far, so good.

Two shrinks working overtime, from what I heard. Some turnover in the rank and file.

A few new faces added, sure. The prospects get told the truth day-one by Chief Norman herself, and if they can’t get onboard, they get left on the dock.

How’s that working out?

Better than you might think. The locker-room gossip confirms everything, and by the end of the first week they either get shown the door, or get shown the videos.

Videos?

A lot of dash-cam footage of the werewolf attack, the trees, your skeleton army, along with those big fucking rat things. If they can handle that they’re assigned to a patrol car, sitting next to a seasoned vet.

I had no idea. And that works?

It works. I don’t know why, but it does. Everything weird now lands on my desk, and we do our best, but patrol officers are still the front line. I’m putting in some overtime, but that can’t be helped. Did you know we killed two lesser demons last week? Refugees, eating out of restaurant garbage cans.

You never told me, and Allison hasn’t said anything.

She doesn’t know, because I quit telling her. Most of it. Foster had their remains cremated. I’m supposed to pick out two seasoned vets for a second Weird Squad, but I’m fighting for a vet and a new guy. Griffith agrees with me, for a pleasant change. He sees the merits of another odd couple. The chief is giving it some thought.

Next thing, she’ll want you to carry swords.

"She’s looking for qualified instructors in Kendo, even as we speak. The whole force will soon be going back to school. Silver bullets and more. She wants us to put them down when we find them, and Foster has been removing their heads."

Doc Foster reduced to removing heads. Nothing new there. Not in this city. I just wasn’t sure about city cops with silver bullets and long swords. Not when I got a whole new level of fucked to deal with.

I’m missing something, I said.

The brain fart struck, lasted a good five minutes, and then I could speak, but wasn’t sure what to say. I do know I made a few unintelligible sounds.

Nick eventually said, Yeah?

I don’t know, I returned.

By that time the ambulance had arrived, Nick was giving the attendants the full down and dirty, telling them to ignore and definitely not touch the sliced and diced gooey squid-thing on the lobby floor.

He added, The third floor, and be gentle with her. I think the elevator still works, but that’s your call. She should stay asleep the whole time, but be prepared to sedate her. Something strong. Have the emergency room doctors call me immediately upon arrival. I’ll pass on my instructions for her care.

They took his card, nodded, and entered the building.

Then it hit me. That thing I had missed.

I grabbed Nick, and we were halfway to the ground when the squid creature exploded, instantly killing the ambulance attendants, taking a damn big part of the building with it.

Chapter 3

I am Ian Duncan. Avatara. The Earth Father. An immortal soul in a mortal shell.

The pretty little girl sat on the swing, pumping her legs, gaining momentum, laughing, and I stood and watched her, sharing her joy.

Watch this, Daddy!

With that said she launched herself out of the swing, and gracefully landed in the soft sand near me.

I held out an arm for her to catch before she toppled over, but needn’t have worried. I had forgotten what it was like to be a kid at that age, and have the balance of a ballet dancer.

That was a good jump, I said, thoroughly impressed. Do it again?

She then turned to me in all seriousness, and said, You need to wake up, Daddy. Uncle Nick is hurt.

What?

Don’t be dense, Daddy. This is a dream of sorts. The building you were in just exploded. Your wards protected you as well as they could, but Uncle Nick is badly hurt. Only you can save him.

What building? I asked, looking around.

The day was perfect. Sunshine and clear blue sky. The park wasn’t crowded, and no dogs were without leashes for a pleasant change. When I looked back at my overly concerned daughter, she got angry and shouted at me to—

Wake up, fool!

Voice.

I was down on the ground.

Blood, and lots of it.

Nick . . .

Is badly hurt. Get up! Now!

That shout in my head did something, because the adrenaline surge rolled me over, got me groggily to my knees, and I could see Nick next to me in an ever-widening puddle of red. It looked like half his scalp had been pealed back, and I could see where his too-white skull had been crushed, much like a finger could dent the shell of an egg.

After seeing that, I didn’t need to think. I gently lifted his head up off the pavement, put my arm around his shoulder, and instinctively used a version of forced synchronicity to get him to the nearest emergency room.

I need some help here!

Several women and one man screamed at our sudden and bloody appearance on the lobby floor. Several staff members looked over the lobby desk and screamed for a Gurney, and whatever doctor was within earshot.

A blur of concerned medical personnel pushed me out of the way, lifted Nick onto the Gurney before it had rolled to a stop, and two doctors were already issuing orders, vanishing through the doors toward the nearest open trauma bay.

I was told to stay back, and then someone started asking me questions. Questions like, What are your injuries? What’s your name? Can you tell us what happened? Questions I didn’t want to answer. I didn’t have the time.

I stood, turned, and took a step back, letting synchronicity deposit me in the street near the demolished building.

Naked Sheena exited the smoking building next door, propping Griffith up as he staggered beside her. She saw me and changed directions. I hurried over and grabbed Griffith’s other arm, and we led him to the far curb.

The blast threw him and the girl into the neighboring building, she said. I couldn’t sense any broken bones or internal bleeding, but I’m sure he has a concussion. I had to get him out before the fire spread. Before you ask, the girl is dead. And you?

Nick? Griffith groggily asked.

Hospital, I said. He nodded, and then passed out.

The second building was now an inferno in progress. A second and