To Crawl up Dirt

By Madalin Negru

Reni Eswer is young and eager for adventure . Takes on a task from her pack alpha on the account that would be a breeze for her skill . Soon she finds the shadows she is chasing snapping at her heels and threatening to sweep her up in a storm of violence , and all to close to Christmas .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Madalin Negru
• Release date: Apr 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463821985

Madalin Negru

Negru Mădălin is a fiction writer and an artist on occasion . He was born on 13 of July in the small town of Saveni . It's the love of stories and myths , that guided his hand to write and draw . As person which spends too much time in his own thoughts and imagination it was only a matter of time before some of those ideas would spill on to paper in the form of writing and drawings .

Book preview

To crawl up dirt

A Reni Eswer story

by Negru Mădălin

Copyright 2015 Negru Mădălin

Contents

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

Afterwards

about the author

Other books

Chapter 1

Morning crept into my dreams along with the loud and distant sound of thunder. After I opened both eyes and focused on that damned sound, it shaped itself into deafening knocking on old wood. The door to my modest apartment was being assaulted by somebody was in a hurry; I presume, or standing there for some time and got baffled because I sometimes dream well until noon. I took over five heartbeats to jump out of bed and stumble toward the door of the apartment.

When it flung opened it blinded me, the morning light reflecting off the winter’s snow and the hallway windows. The storm that had been battering Dresden for weeks now.

A large figure was sitting in the frame of the door waiting for me to acknowledge his presence, and maybe out of politeness didn’t nudge mine out of the grogginess I was feeling. A tall man built like a bear, fat and a lot of muscle packed on a solid frame.

He had a square face, a broken nose and his and upper lip had a small gash on his right side. Looked like it stretched to his ear if you eyed closer for the healing marks, short silver hair and bright blue eyes glaring at me. He was like a wise old dad waiting for his cub to see reality in full.

Good morning Marcus. Come in please. I exhaled in slow motion.

Good morning, he said as he brushed past me.

I felt that I overslept more than usual, my foggy brain only just now grasped what really felt like, a thing it does every single day after more vivid dreams.

That Marcus was at my apartment, the Dresden werewolf pack leader wasn’t expediting that process. Oh, the joy of procrastination. As we both stepped in the kitchen, he continued his polite and drab small talk.

Late last night, we had three murders.

I put the kettle on the fire to warm up coffee, and suppressed a facepalm, then curved a sigh into a yawn.

He grabbed a chair and slumped into it, then threw a red folder on the table and methodically put the pages under my eyes clear to see the thing that will occupy my next few days; when I would accept the task he had concocted in his cold mind.

He hovered his hand over one paper strewn across the table and continued on. The inconsiderate bastard.

They found Three teenage girls dead in Alvad cemetery, all of them had severe lacerations and even missing a few chunks of flesh as if a predator had feasted on them.

How cliche is it? I asked with the slightest hint of a smirk.

Well, on one hand, they aren’t goths. On the other, they have candles and a pot with bones.

Damn, I said imagining a bunch of cackling and dancing teens with long hooked noses, slightly hunched over a boiling cauldron. The one cackling and furiously stirring its horrid contents. Did they pilfer any tomb ?

No, none of the graves were turned over .

So, not there for riches ? I asked with a slight smile on my face, was hoping to encourage a smile from his old haggard face.

OK, he isn’t that old looking, on a close inspection, I would say senior. Somebody that just got of his prime.

That kind of person that might let the valley of his later years get him down mentally and his body with him. Not Marcus, his face was a perpetual serious tone; with a touch of grumpy depending what angle you had on him, the physical tests I bet he would pass as if he was in his prime.

Big is a word I would through to classify his body type sure, but that only tells you he might look like a giant brick, in reality, his muscles were sculpted by the long years fighting for control over the Dresden werewolf pack, the imposing height, and deliberate movement , all made him look big and unbending , a colossal that seemed to lack any funny bones .

It did suck the joy out of some conversations, of course, on the other hand, he has been accommodating in his dealings with the pack, he wasn’t one to lead without considering his fellow peer’s words.

No this is more of the occult, then anything, he said straight-faced.

I don’t know. If they are young it could have been about a lot of things, including stupidity .

My brain was slowly booting up but my curiosity got the first strike in so I pulled a chair facing Marcus and with foggy eyes stared at the pictures resting on my dining table. Damn be my lucky star, today’s lunch was not down in the tank yet.

But it sure is going to go down hard. The girls in the pictures were like dolls wearing rags, one was face down in the snow with a deep gash on her back coming from the neck down to her waist where you could see half a butterfly tattoo, the flesh was on display, redder than usual.

And something white was protruding from her upper torso and as if the attacker didn’t do enough she was also missing her left hand. Three dead girls in the snow near an odd looking circle which melted the snow to the dirt, arranged in the circle was a fine trace of something white, some kind of dust or salt.

Then at seemingly random, scattered pebbles or rocks near a couple of other undistinguished objects, maybe a knife and some burnt out candles?

Hardcore. I said keeping a straight face and the beginnings of a stomach ache at bay by sheer force of will and no small amount of mental blanking.

At a glance what do you see ?

What's with the circle? Witches ?

Or a bunch of young impressionable teens playing as such, in a cemetery at midnight. There isn’t a predator for miles that can inflict this kind of damage; you know .

Yes, no animal you mean. But there has to be a supernatural out there besides us that can do this .

Maybe, and last I checked we didn’t have any unannounced werewolf’s rolling in town, he said, a question creeping into his eyes.

I pulled myself up and stopped the fire, poured my coffee sipped once and continued my thought.

Could it be one of the pack?

It’s not from within the pack, he said with an almost imperceptible growl. He was still, the white of his eyes frightened me for the second I had held them.

It dawned on me that the question of loyalty from one of the pack meant I had questioned his competence as a leader. Damn dangerous move. That’s why you shouldn’t make a conversation before a jolt of coffee in the morning.

That was my mistake, and I apologized thrice. As for this. Any person in or visiting the town could be on their first change can’t they ?

Sure they can but they would already be a werewolf, the first time you change into a bloodthirsty lunatic is the first time you understand what you are; but to the rest of us can smell it in your blood and breath short time before that. If it is a werewolf then it is an outsider and now a murderer .

Why are you here Marcus, I said and took another sip of coffee .It isn’t for the coffee .

That’s cos you forgot to pour me one . He said annoyance in his voice.

I awkwardly took the kettle off the stove and poured a cup for my forgotten guest, damn my foggy brain. I smiled and nodded even more awkwardly for him to continue :

I am over my head in paperwork with the bodies and the mortician. He is still assembling the picture so while I look into missing people and dealing with the press you and Harl are gonna look on the other side of life .

I am part of the press. I said shaking my head at his implied dismissal . You jackass . Finished under my breath.

That’s a good cover for the detective work you will be doing for the week .

How come the police isn’t involved in this ?

To be frank disappointment was in his voice as he said it The higher ups are pushing for animal attacks. That means a couple of rookies searching for the identities of the victims and the local animal control chasing their tails for a couple of weeks .

I shook my head in exasperation, damn my lucky star, why can’t lunatics take a break, it’s holiday season I got things to buy and people to call over, dinner plans.

The shopping at this time of year is gonna be murder, but no there had to be a shocking story to report near Christmas day.

One more thought he continued there were more footprints than bodies at the scene of the crime which might suggest survivors .

Survivors? How many more, and how could you have found them with all this blizzard battering the city? I interjected kinda missing the point in his statement.

hmm … two more sets of footprints and yes it was difficult to come by them. The question is how did they escape because there is no news of any incidents in the area. Did the assailant just gave up or are they just lucky? And if they weren’t followed could it be a local spirit angered by the five intruders mocking about in the middle of the night ?

Call an exorcist.

He sighed at my quip, but no anger showed in his face just mild disappointment at my lack of gravitas.

You are that exorcist .

He might as well added dummy at the end of that statement. Poor me or lucky, that I had shooed away a small spirit some time back, in a distant land known as England. Do a favor for a close one, just for kicks and you will be known worldwide; wasn’t the pitch when I accepted her request.

Harl is gonna look into any witchcraft mater. It’s a rare thing for a spirit to take form, the footprints and claw marks say it was physical being so how did the last two get away, did they even ? he said.

They grew wings . I shot quick.

"Don’t be daft,