Dead Drops and Dragons: An Urban Fantasy Thriller

By Seann Barbour

Terry Graham is a loser. But that changes when he and his buddies find a trash bag full of cash stuffed beneath a dumpster. Now they're rich, and everything they ever wanted is within their grasps. But before they can enjoy more than a taste of that high life, the money's original owners track them down-- and they're mad. Terry and his buddies will need to pay back what they stole, but they might not survive the experience. After all, now they know things that they were never meant to...

The world is full of secrets, and secrets have keepers. The mysterious Paktritter now have Terry in their sights, and they won't rest until they have him in their hands. At every turn, he is hunted; by a man with too many teeth, by a billionaire who saw the fall of Rome, by a woman who can turn into a wolf. He'll have to fight tooth and nail to survive in a world that's nothing like he thought it was.

His life will never be the same.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Seann Barbour
• Release date: Feb 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215243725

Seann Barbour

Seann Barbour exists. He exists and he writes fantasy and horror novels. Sometimes he writes books that are both, but sometimes he just writes one or the other. Occasionally he does other things.

Book preview

The Pact

Book One

DEAD DROPS AND DRAGONS

An Urban Fantasy Thriller

Seann Barbour

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2023 Seann Barbour

CHAPTER ONE

Above the shadows, the light flickered.

It was brilliant white. It was fluorescent. With every blink, it went out with a barely audible buzz, only to return to life less than a second later. The lights around it remained steadfast and alive and still—shining down on the empty cars and the parking spaces and the gray concrete painted with white and yellow and blue lines below. They illuminated constantly and without interruption, but this one single light failed to do even that.

And as it blinked and flickered, it cast a myriad of stuttering shadows from the rows of vehicles below. They extended outward in all shapes and sizes, vanishing and morphing and changing as the light continuously blinked in and out of existence.

In the dead of night, in that gray and lifeless parking garage, the faulty bulb and the shadows it created represented the only source of movement.

Until, across the garage, the elevator beeped and its doors slid open.

A woman stepped out. She began to walk across the empty parking garage, humming some pop tune to herself. Her heels clicked against the pavement, echoing throughout the otherwise silent and still structure. With each step, her golden hair bounced. It was healthy and it was vibrant and it caught the light in such a way that a halo seemed to glow around her head.

The woman wore a pink blouse. The top few buttons were undone, giving just the barest hint of cleavage. Over the blouse she wore a blue jacket, perfectly tailored to her peach form. Its color matched her skirt, which extended to just above her knees and hugged her legs and bottom tightly, showing off her shape and her curves without erring into the lewd. Her purse, pink and leather and small, was slung beneath her arm.

As she walked, her shadow trailed behind her, jumping forward and then sliding backward as she passed beneath each individual lighting fixture. It jumped and danced as the flickering light drew nearer with every step.

Click. Click. Click.

Her heels were the only sound in that parking garage. The city was sleeping, though it might be hard to recall that beneath these brilliant lights. She could see clearly, and anyone who may have been hiding in the shadows could doubtless see her clearly as well.

She had big chocolatey brown eyes, and her face was perfectly round with a little button nose. Her lips were just slightly more red than was natural—a subtle touch of makeup that extended to her cheeks. She had a youthful, almost innocent appearance. It was the kind of appearance that activated a sort of protective instinct in men, and drew them to her whether she wanted them at her side or not.

A watcher could see all this clearly, and from the shadows beneath the rows of cars, a watcher did.

It watched her heels as she approached its hiding spot. It watched her as she passed by. The woman was heading down a ramp, toward the lower level, and the unseen watcher crawled through the shadows to follow her.

It slithered through the darkness, settling below a sedan, and it watched as the woman came to a stop beside a white jeep. Black and pink covered the spare tire on the back, and the paint job was immaculate—not a chip or a scratch in sight. The woman opened up her purse and she fumbled with it. After a moment, she removed her hand, but her keys slipped from her fingers and clattered noisily to the floor between her feet.

She couched down to retrieve them, her skirt riding up just a bit. The watcher saw this, and saw too its opportunity. This woman was young and beautiful and full of life. Doubtless she had many friends, a social circle that would wonder where she had disappeared to, that would whisper fearfully that he had taken another one, and wasn’t it shame that it had to be her?

It practically salivated. She would feed it well. The watcher slid out from beneath the sedan and approached the woman.

As she stood up, she felt its hungry gaze upon her. The woman turned, and she saw a pair of deep, pitch black eyes staring back at her. Those terrible eyes were sunk into a pallid, grinning face, devoid of all features save for its eyes that mouth that was far too wide. This face was perched upon a tall and lanky body that would almost be human if the proportions were not all wrong.

The thing stepped forward, still grinning. Its limbs moved wildly and flailingly, as though controlled externally, like a marionette’s strings. It reached a six-fingered hand toward her, and a sound, low and deep, a gurgling giggle rose up from its throat.

The woman’s eyes widened. A scream echoed throughout the parking garage. Blood spattered against the pavement below.

A moment later, a man rounded the corner and began walking up the central ramp. He was Black, and light skinned, and he held a nearly-finished cigarette between his lips. He possessed a smooth, hairless face, and wore a black suit with a black tie and a black long coat. As he approached where the woman had encountered the creature, he took the cigarette from his mouth and dropped it to the floor, then scuffed it out with his shoe. He adjusted his black trilby, and examined the scene before him.

Bogeyman? he asked.

The woman turned to the newcomer, licking her lips, now redder than they had been moments before. Looks like, she told him. Just like we thought. So that means the missing women are probably still alive.

"You bit my arm off!"

She looked down at the creature who had tried to grab her. Its grin was gone, replaced now by a grimace of pain and fear. He rolled about on the dirty pavement, clutching the bleeding stump just past its left elbow. The rest of the arm, and the six-fingered hand, lay a foot or so away from him in a growing puddle of blood, still twitching.

You were trying to grab me, the woman told him with a shrug. A small smile appeared on her lips. A girl’s gotta defend herself.

"You bit my fucking arm off! the creature repeated, as though this would change things. Its voice was raspy, like a whisper blown up to max volume, static artifacts remaining in the sound file and blasting out the speakers. I didn’t know you were a—"

OK, hold up, said the man. He shook his head and stepped forward. It really doesn’t matter one way or the other whether or not you knew about Rachel’s… gifts. The fact remains that you were out here looking to capture some pretty White girls, all nice and photogenic and popular, and take them off somewhere to do God-knows-what with them, right?

"At which point the news would go into a frenzy, again, added the woman. And people would keep on freaking out about who could be stealing all these pretty girls?"

That’s a lot of fear to feed on, the man noted. You must have eaten like a king these past few weeks.

The creature looked back and forth between the man and the woman. "Who…? Who are you people?"

The man smiled. My name’s Mason Daniels, he said. "Captain Mason Daniels. And the young lady you attempted to accost is Investigator Rachel Dunning."

Two black eyes widened. Somehow, the creature managed to look even paler. "You’re Paktritter, it said. Shit."

Yep, Mason agreed. Shit indeed. Rachel?

The blonde woman rolled her head across her shoulders, cracking her neck. Alright, Mr. Bogeyman, she said, stepping toward the creature. It shuddered and tried to shrink away from her. So are you going to come quietly, or are you going to give us a workout?

The creature gave a pleading look to Mason, then looked back at Rachel. Then it started to scramble away, toward the shadows beneath the cars.

Really? Rachel asked after it, already moving to catch the creature.

Mason simply shook his head and sighed. He pulled a switchblade from his pocket and slid the steel against his own wrist.

Blood oozed from the open wound, and it began to glow.

***

A day later, wholly ignorant of what happened in that parking garage on the other side of the city, three men congregated to drink beer and shoot the shit.

It had been a gray day all day, with dark skies that made empty threats of rain and winds that beckoned for storms that never arrived. As the sun started to set and the shadows grew long, the three men met in an empty lot beside a gas station convenience store, behind Old Owen’s Family Restaurant.

They had known each other for years, going back to high school. All three had been born and raised in the D.C. Metropolitan Area, and all three had met early on in the ninth grade. They had spent their high school years cramped together in the same classrooms, and in the decade since graduation all three had drifted about aimlessly. Though none had drifted through the world. That might have been a reprieve, or a relief, to get out of D.C. and see what else this Earth had to offer. No, they drifted through life, and they had no clear destination.

Can’t believe it’s Friday already, said Terry, taking a drink from a bottle of beer. Bryan had brought a six-pack.

You say that every Friday, said Michael.

"Not every Friday."

Every Friday that I see you.

Terry grinned and gulped down some more beer. Well, it’s always true I guess, he said. Weeks go by so fast, and a whole lot of nothing happens in every one.

I’m getting a promotion, Bryan said suddenly. He blurted it out, as though the announcement had been sitting on his tongue all this time, just waiting to jump out between his lips and make its grand entrance unto the world.

The other two men raised their eyebrows at him. Bryan was the smallest of their group—five feet and six inches in height, and with a beard that he’d grown largely out of self-consciousness. But of the three men, he also wore the cleanest clothes and the nicest shoes, and both Terry and Michael had been waiting with more and more dread for the moment when he would finally outgrow his high school friends and join the rest of his class in making something of himself.

Congrats, man, Terry said, raising the bottle in his hand. He was sitting on the ground, jeans against the gravel and dirt, the back of his green polo shirt against the rusted chain-link fence that separated this property from the back of Old Owen’s. Upon his shirt were embroidered the words Batteries and Bobs and below that chain name was a dark stain of unknown origin. Moving on up in the world.

How big a promotion are we talking? Michael asked. He was the tallest and lankiest of the group, and his blond hair, pulled back now in a ponytail, had been the first to begin the process of thinning and receding.

Big enough, said Bryan. And there’s a decent pay raise too. I think I may be moving out of my old crappy apartment, once the lease is up.

The rest of his words were unspoken, but Michael and Terry could hear them regardless, plain as day: ‘Across town, to a nicer neighborhood, leaving you guys behind.’

Congrats, Terry said again, and he tried his best to sound like he meant it.

I haven’t had any promotions, Michael muttered. What about you, Ter?

Nah.

You guys should get office jobs, Bryan told them. They hand promotions out like candy. Plus you don’t have to stand all day.

Wish I could, Terry said. I’d kill for a job where I could actually sit down in the air conditioning and take real, regular breaks. Keep applying, but no bites.

Michael nodded. Retail and fast food experience don’t impress the office guys, he said. Especially when you’re almost thirty.

Well… keep it trying. Bryan sounded deflated. He looked deflated. Terry wondered if maybe they shouldn’t have taken the opportunity to bitch and moan about their lot in life and had just been happy for their buddy for a change. But he said nothing as Bryan leaned against the fence beside him and looked out at the back of the building beyond those links.

Old Owen’s had been around for decades. Terry’s family had gone there tons of times when he was a kid. His first date, way back when he was a high school freshman, had been there. Old Owen still ran the place, and nobody knew how old he actually was. But he’d been Old Owen two decades ago, and he was still Old Owen now.

The front of the restaurant, being for families, was a warm and inviting place. The back? It was just as grimy and just as bare and filthy as the back of any business. Nobody going in the front door would see the gutters and dumpsters and trash and weird stains on the concrete. Sometimes a guy would come out the back door and toss a black bag of garbage into the dumpster, or a waitress or two would step out for a cigarette break. No one was popping out right now though—Friday night was the busiest time of the week for a family restaurant, and Old Owen needed all hands on deck.

Terry knew that well. He’d worked at a restaurant fresh out of high school, and he’d fucking hated it. It was constant and even when it wasn’t you were still expected to look busy so that your bosses felt like they were getting their money’s worth out of you (you got time to lean, you got time to clean! they’d say, as if they were the genius who came up with that rhyme). Then you got to go home with sore feet, smelling like bread and oil and seasoning, and you’d collapse into your bed so that you could get up and do it all over again tomorrow.

No, Terry hated working in a restaurant. He hated it possibly even more than he hated his current job, which was saying something. After he’d left, he’d vowed to never ever work in food service again.

Me and Julie broke up, Michael announced, distracting Terry and Bryan from the back of Old Owen’s. There’d been a lull in the conversation, and Michael had always hated those.

I know, said Terry. He’d had this conversation before and he had little interest in repeating it.

Bryan was even less impressed. You guys break up like every other week.

This time it’s for good, Michael promised them, like he always did. And you know what? I couldn’t be happier! Glad to be free of that bitch. This was not the first time Terry had heard this spiel, and he possessed not a shred of belief that it would be the last.

Sure, sure, he groaned, and stood up. The beer bottle was empty. Welcome to the bachelor’s life, then. Again. He looked at the dumpster behind Old Owen’s. Though the chain-link separated the two properties, it had been ages since anyone had bothered to actually maintain the thing, so it was far from an impenetrable barrier. A storm a few years back had loosened up the earth beneath the fence poles, and part of the whole structure had collapsed. Then someone came along and decided to finish the job that nature had started with some wire cutters, and an eight-foot section of fence had been missing ever since.

Terry took a few steps and tossed the empty bottle through the opening, at the dumpster. He missed. The glass bounced against the side of the big green metal container and shattered all over the pavement below.

Fucking hell, Bryan said. Your aim’s still shit.

I’m just having an off day.

Bryan shook his head and walked through the fence opening. He made his way to the dumpster and tossed his own empty bottle into it.

You think he’s gonna move away? Terry asked Michael, once Bryan was out of earshot.

To bigger and better things, Michael said. Little man was always slumming it with us. You know that.

Slumming? You mean like Julie did with you?

Fuck you man.

Bryan had started to turn back toward his buds, but paused midway. His foot had kicked at a black garbage bag that had somehow been wedged beneath the dumpster. Terry watched him frown and crouch down next to it.

Come on, dude, you don’t know where that shit’s been! Terry made his way through the opening in the fence over to Bryan and the dumpster, with Michael following close behind.

By the time they reached him, Bryan had pulled the bag out from under the trash, and the plastic had caught on the edge of the dumpster and torn open. He was staring at whatever was inside.

What, is rotten food really that interesting? Michael asked.

No, said Bryan. But this is. He reached into the garbage bag and pulled out a stack of green bills.

Terry gawked at it. His eyes widened and he wondered if he’d passed out and started dreaming. "Holy… are those real?"

I don’t know… Maybe? Bryan pulled more stacks out of the bag. The thing was filled with brick after brick of crisp new twenty-dollar bills.

It’s gotta be fake, Michael said. I mean, why would someone just throw a ton of cash away? It’s gotta be counterfeit or something.

Or something, Terry agreed. He grabbed his own brick of money from the bag and flipped through the bills. He was by no means an expert, but they seemed real enough to him. Holy shit. How much money is this?

Seven… eight… nine… a lot. Bryan gave up counting the individual bills. I’ve never seen this much money before.

There’s gotta be at least a thousand dollars in each of these! Michael exclaimed. By now, all three of them were eagerly snatching more and more money from the bag.

"At least, said Bryan. Let’s see. These are, what? As thick as a book, maybe? That’s like 400 pages, I guess? Cut that in half and it’s 200 sheets of paper… Two hundred times twenty…"

Four thousand dollars per brick, Terry breathed. Hot damn.

More than that, probably. I was just guessing.

Someone’s gonna come and look for all this, yeah? Michael asked. I mean, assuming it’s all real, right? Someone’s probably gonna come looking?

Terry glanced around. Aside from his two buddies, there was nobody else here. Maybe, he said. His face broke into a big smile and he flashed his teeth at the other two. But I don’t see anyone here right now. Do you?

Michael and Bryan stared at him in silence for a moment, and then their smiles mirrored his own. Laughing, the three men tore into the bag of money and grabbed as much cash as they could carry.

***

Midnight was always busy for the man with the black dress shirt and the black tie. Most people were asleep by now, or trying to be, but for him midnight was the point where he always felt the most alive and energetic. The day turned over to the next and the clock rang out its twelve foreboding chimes and he wanted nothing more than to run and jump, to climb and hunt and kill. Every cell within him, every drop of his pristine blood, cried out for the joy of motion and speed.

And yet, these days there were so rarely any matters that required him to run or jump or climb. Sometimes he would be called upon to hunt or kill, but these modern humans were just so fat and lazy and stupid. They’d become complacent in their safe little modern lives and no longer knew how to survive the sort of challenge that the man in the black dress shirt craved. Whenever he got the order to hunt, he would exult in the thrill of it, and then sulk in disappointment when his quarry bumbled inevitably into failure just as the man in the black dress shirt was getting started.

It was the city, he thought. It made people weak. Time was, man had to hunt for his own food. He had to defend himself on the edges of civilization against the beasts and worse that stalked through the moonlit nights. Back then, man had known how to fight. He had known how to run without making a sound, how to subsist on the land away from his fellows. He had known how to survive.

He’d known how to make things fun.

These new men were so aimless and thoughtless. They were used to living in safety in their stone and metal buildings, and they got all their food from some shop around the corner. The man in the black dress shirt supposed that he couldn’t fault them for that. No living creature, presented between the choice of bounty and possible starvation, would choose the latter. But there was a difference between finding fault and feeling resentment, and the man in the black dress shirt resented modern man quite a bit.

But tonight was not a night for hunting or killing. And it certainly was no night for running or jumping or climbing. Tonight was a night for collecting, and the man in the black dress shirt had only one more stop on his list: the drop in Deanwood.

He put the car in park and stepped out onto the pavement, letting the modern vehicle run idly as he did so. It wasn’t like he’d be outside of it for long. These vehicles were yet another of the myriad conveniences that made modern man so weak—why build up muscles and learn to run when you could just drive everywhere? The man in the black dress shirt despised the ugly thing, but the Pact forbade him from running across rooftops and leaping across roads like he really wanted to, like his heart demanded.

Like he would have done, back in the good old days.

The man in the black dress shirt and the black tie also wore black slacks, and he didn’t particularly care about whether or not they got dirty or whether or not the knees got worn out. He knelt down on the pavement next to the dumpster and fished for the bag that he knew was there.

And that was when the man in