Hell's City: Hell's Vengeance Series, #2

By Ian Fortey, Ron Ripley and Scare Street

Death's highway leads Shane Ryan into his darkest case yet…

Barely surviving his last brush with evil, ghost hunter Shane Ryan's investigation into the supernatural killings in Ontario takes him to Detroit.

A former police officer, Wyatt Hawthorn's vindictive spirit is obsessed with vengeance and bloodshed. And he's determined to make Shane's ally, Detective Jacinta Perez, his next victim…

Locked in a sinister game of cat and mouse with this undead madman, Shane and Jacinta struggle to locate his victims, before their life is snuffed out for good. But as more blood is spilled, the two begin to realize this killer may be more than they bargained for.

Hawthorn is building something: a new kind of ghostly apparition. Something more twisted and more evil than Shane had ever faced before.

And unless he can find a way to stop Hawthorn, Jacinta may find herself trapped in a fate far worse than death…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scare Street
• Release date: May 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9798224905553

Book preview

Prologue

The air smelled of mildew and old oil: earthy, pungent things forgotten in the dark. And behind it all, something foul and rotten. Sherry opened her eyes with a gasp and sat up quickly. Her head spun, and her vision blurred. The pain in the back of her head was fierce and biting. She reached for it and winced, feeling sticky blood matted into her hair alongside grit from the ground.

She wanted to cry out for help. Her unfamiliar surroundings suggested a warehouse, maybe? She didn’t recognize the space, but it was large and dark. Windows lined a wall on the far side of the place, a huge bank of them. Many were broken, and others seemed frosted with grime and age.

In the poor light, bits of trash and furniture were scattered here and there, and some giant, rusted-out machines attached onto the floor. Maybe she was in an abandoned factory.

The place was still and silent. Only her own shuddering breaths made noise. She had to be far from home. Her hands went to her pockets. Her phone was gone.

The last thing she could remember was walking. She’d taken the bus home from her shift at the restaurant and had planned to take a shower then head out to dinner with her friend, Bernadette. And then… what?

Her memories ended there, just walking home. But the pain in the back of her head filled in the blanks. She must have been attacked, and then taken to whatever place she was in. Detroit was littered with old factories and warehouses, abandoned relics of better and more prosperous days. She could have been anywhere.

Sherry resisted the urge to call for help. She didn’t want to alert whoever had taken her that she was awake. If it was an abandoned factory on the outskirts of town, no one would be around to help her, anyway.

Slowly, she got to her feet. I didn’t endure growing up in the worst part of town just to die in this filthy place, at the hands of some psycho.

Her eyes scanned the darkness and settled on the broken leg of an old chair. The wood was lightweight, but it was better than nothing. She picked it up and held it like a bat, then searched her surroundings more carefully. Now that she was up, she could see more of the building. It was definitely a factory that must have been abandoned for decades. It was nearly gutted, and only the graffiti on the walls and trash on the floors spoke of anyone having been there since.

She could see no doors, but the windows were close enough. She could climb out through a broken one, and she’d be able to escape soon enough.

There was little light from the windows, and she couldn’t guess the hour. Perhaps early morning, before sunrise, or maybe just after sundown. There was no way to know for sure.

The wound in her head throbbed in time with her pulse as she made her way across the dirty floor to the nearest window. She tried to be swift and silent, but the sounds of her footsteps echoed through the massive, mostly empty space. As loud as she was, her only comfort was that anyone else—her captor, perhaps—would likely be just as loud. But she heard nothing. She was alone.

Her head was the only source of pain. Whoever had attacked her, whatever they had planned, they seemed to have only knocked her out and then left her. Maybe someone thought she was dead. Or maybe they were planning to come back soon. Either way, she had to escape.

The closest of the broken windows was set behind what looked like old pallets on the far side of a cement support pillar. She made her way to it, gripping the chair leg tightly. As she approached, the distant sounds of city life filtered to her ears. Traffic noises, far from her but still audible, brought a relieved smile to her face. She would find her way to the police, or to a hospital, soon.

She paused at the cement pillar to catch her breath, leaning against it for support. Her head was still fuzzy, and with her heart racing, her eyes were having trouble staying focused. I must have a concussion, she thought. Bad, but could have been worse.

In the stillness of the factory, she tried to take a couple of calm, centering breaths. Just enough to lower her heart rate, get her head on straight, and take control. She closed her eyes, feeling the cool, rough surface of the cement on her shoulder.

I’m going to be fine. I’m going to get away.

She took a step forward, her shoulder still on the pillar as she reached its edge, and stopped again, opening her eyes to look at the window. She was going to be fine.

Hi.

The voice was impossibly close. A man, quiet and calm, speaking almost directly into her ear. She turned, raising the chair leg to strike, but a hand caught her wrist.

He had been standing against the back side of the pillar. He must have been waiting for her there, the lower half of his face concealed behind a bandana bearing the image of a skeleton’s mouth.

In the poor light of the warehouse, she could see his dark eyes were locked on hers. The grip of his hand was painfully strong. He didn’t shake or jerk her arm at all, but she was still forced to drop her makeshift weapon. His strength felt like it would crush her bones.

She tried to pull away, but it was no use. He held her firmly with one hand, then raised a knife with the other. It was a simple kitchen knife, but large and looked sharp. He held the tip against the flesh of her neck, and she stopped struggling, if only to avoid doing his work for him.

What do you want? Panic and fear mixing with anger in her voice.

I need your help, the man said calmly. I’m starting a new collection. I’m creating something no one has ever seen before.

He pulled her along, walking backwards and dragging her with him. The blade at her neck scraped and dug into her flesh. She did her best to keep up without stumbling or jerking, to keep the knife from cutting deeper.

He led her back to the center of the factory, away from the windows and towards an assortment of gutted machines assembled like a rusted-out Stonehenge.

She still had no idea what the machines were, or what the factory might have once done, but the man stopped at the edge of the ring of equipment, then lifted his foot and absently kicked at a control box attached to a thick wire.

A ring of lights burst to life, the kind photographers used for professional shoots. There were umbrellas behind them directing their illumination to a central spot. Below, a tangle of sloppy wires rigged them all to an unseen power source.

In the center of the ring of lights and machines was a carefully arrayed mishmash of body parts. There were legs, arms, torsos, and heads. There had to have been at least ten bodies’ worth. Some parts were just tossed near the base of the lights, as though unwanted and unneeded. But others had been arranged and posed.

The centerpiece was held together with thick, ungainly wire. A monstrosity of human parts fashioned into something new. Four arms and four legs had been attached to mismatched hands and feet. Wires and rough thread held the raggedly cut limbs together. Three torsos lined up chest down to the ground, with thick string binding them together. The groin of the first was attached to the shoulders of the second, and that one was attached likewise to the third.

A line of heads ran down the backs of the segmented torsos, two on each torso, like plates on a dinosaur’s spine. One had been attached at the front to the exposed neck of the first torso, but instead of facing down, it had been sewn on at the back of the skull, so that it faced out. Its lower jaw had been removed and replaced with a nearly skeletal hand, the flesh and meat scraped haphazardly from the fingers to expose bone, with the fingers all curved up like teeth to meet the upper jaw. The eyes were missing.

Sherry stared at what was in front of her, unable to even comprehend what it was at first. It dawned on her slowly, amidst the mess of blood, ragged tissue, and ugly wire and thread. He had forged a spider out of the corpses. Eight arms and legs, a segmented body, and a face with a skeletal mandible mouth. It was a human spider.

The sound that escaped her was faint. Not words, not even a scream. The horror she felt, the pure panic, was beyond words. The empty eyes of the flesh abomination faced in her direction, and she could not look away, even as every ounce of her being begged and screamed for her to turn and run.

I call her Charlotte, the man said, and she could tell he was smiling behind the mask. What do you think of her?

She felt the blade poke her throat again, threatening to plunge deeper. The pain brought her back to reality, back to her senses, and she tore her eyes away from the atrocity of flesh and bone to look at him.

I think— she began.

Light flooded the warehouse just as doors and windows exploded at all angles, and the man turned away, the knife moving with him.

Sherry did not hesitate. She kicked him in the knee, forcing it to bend. The man collapsed, and she ran, as dozens of men and women in tactical armor holding guns rushed towards them.

Down on the ground! she heard someone yell, just as someone else shouted to drop the knife. They were talking to him, not her. She simply ran.

A body stepped in front of her, and she hit them hard. Arms wrapped around her, and she screamed, struggling and fighting as hard as she could.

It’s okay. You’re okay!

She looked up into the face of a woman. More voices yelled.

Put it down! someone demanded. Another woman had her arms raised, a pistol in her hands. A badge on a chain hung over her body armor.

Come on, the woman holding Sherry said. She wore a badge as well. She pulled Sherry away, towards a uniformed officer. Take her outside, now.

Perez, the second one said, her voice intense. The woman nodded quickly at Sherry, then returned to what was happening.

Someone shouted wordlessly, a panicked cry, and a gunshot rang out. Two more went off in quick succession, and the woman called Perez waved her arms, a gun clasped firmly in one of them.

Hold your fire! she shouted in a voice that seemed too loud for her frame. Hold your fire!

Officers ran towards the center of the room. Sherry resisted the uniform officer as he tried to pull her from the building, looking back as the SWAT team and the detectives descended on the man. A gunshot in his thigh stained his pants with blood. The knife was nowhere to be seen.

One of the officers pulled the bandana off the man’s face as they reached him, while another moved to handcuff him from behind. The man was grinning, looking up at them with the biggest smile.

Chris Jessop, you are under arrest for the murders—

Great to see you again, Jacinta, the man said to the officer, the woman named Perez. She said something in reply, but Sherry could not hear it. More shouting and commotion covered up the rest of what was going on, and the uniformed officer pulled her outside, where a waiting paramedic took her to an ambulance.

Chapter 1: Motor City

Traffic was at a standstill, and Shane Ryan stared out his window at a pea-green Plymouth Barracuda. The color was hideous, but the car was in remarkably good condition. Country music blared out the open windows, and the driver, as trapped in traffic as anyone else, sang along to a song he clearly didn’t know well.

It was an inauspicious beginning to what already seemed like an unpleasant trip. Shane had last seen his girlfriend, Detective Jacinta Perez of the Detroit Metro Police Department, only a few weeks prior, when they were working together in Canada. She had come in to assist in a murder investigation involving victims from Detroit. Together, they had stopped both a serial killer and the ghost of one of his victims.

Before sunrise that morning, Jacinta had called him again with word of the case she’d been working on—a copycat killer on her home turf in Detroit.

Copycat killers were certainly not unheard of. The ghost of Levi Ellis basically copied the work of his own killer, former Ontario Provincial Police Officer Wyatt Hawthorn. But to have another copycat—only weeks later, and in a new location—was too… strange.

Serial killers were not Shane’s thing. Living, breathing psychopaths could be dealt with by living, breathing cops. That was literally Jacinta’s job. But something smelled off about this case.

The copycat seemed to know too much about the original case, about Hawthorn.

Shane was on the road right away, and reduced what should have been an eleven-hour drive closer to nine by disrespecting posted speed limits when he could.

Detroit Metro had caught the killer red-handed in a factory with what would have been his latest victim, and plenty of grisly evidence of his past crimes. That should have ended things right there. But something didn’t feel right to Jacinta.

The man they had arrested was named Chris Jessop. Reports said he had been part of the team that cleaned up the gas station where Hawthorn had met his demise, where Jacinta herself had nearly been killed.

Based on the timeline the police had reconstructed, Jessop abandoned his work in the middle of it, drove to Detroit, and then almost immediately started killing people. And he’d started a collection of body parts, just like Hawthorn had done.

Some people would call that a coincidence. In Shane’s opinion, this was absolutely related—a continuation.

Jacinta was not fully convinced they had a ghost since they had a living, breathing suspect in custody, and she hadn’t necessarily called him about one. But after what they had already gone through, Shane wasn’t about to leave it to chance, and she wasn’t closing the door on the possibility. Hawthorn had been a prolific killer, using his status as a cop and his knowledge of local crimes to fly under the radar for years. No one knew exactly how many people he had killed, but it would probably have been dozens. And more than one had returned from the dead, their spirits angry and rooted in place around where they had died or where their bodies had been dumped.

The weather was still brutally hot, and the humidity of the day was making it more unpleasant. Being stuck in traffic was just the icing on the cake. Shane just wanted to get to the place where Jessop had been taken into custody, take a look at his stomping grounds, and see if there were any signs of something more than a man who had gone completely insane.

The Barracuda’s engine roared, and the car surged forward just a few feet. Shane hoped whatever was holding them up would clear soon. This was why he didn’t work with the living that often. Well, one of the reasons. Loud music, traffic jams. The stink of a hundred cars’ exhausts on a hot day.

He would have been willing to chalk Jessop up to a guy who had lost it after spending a lot of time in the darkest parts of the world of law enforcement, cleaning up the messes made by killers. He’d never heard of that before, but he could understand it. It could have been possible, if not for one thing. Jacinta had told Shane that Jessop was wearing a bandana when he was caught.

One of Hawthorn’s bandanas.

Wyatt Hawthorn had adopted a sort of signature as part of his reign of terror: just a simple bandana attached around his head, covering his face from the nose down. He had a collection of them in his house, each one with the same image printed on it. When he wore the bandana, it made the lower half of his own face look skeletal.

Shane found it all a bit performative. The man collected body parts, he wore creepy masks, he adapted his MO based on where he was dumping bodies, and he was deeply into the history of local serial killers. He had been putting on a show, playing to an audience that didn’t even really exist outside of his mind. It seemed clear to Shane that Hawthorn had wanted the same attention he had given to other serial killers.

Maybe Jessop was just a crazy man. Maybe he was secretly into killers, as Hawthorn himself had been, and chose that exact day as the moment to break out and make his dark fantasies a reality. But maybe not. Shane needed to know more.

The moment traffic lessened enough to allow him to go anywhere else, Shane pulled off the street he was on, leaving the loud Barracuda behind, and weaved through a maze of Detroit’s back streets, to find the industrial district Jessop had called home in his brief stay in Detroit.

The city was a strange mix of vibrance and life, with huge, busy casinos and traffic-clogged streets that quickly gave way to neighborhoods full of boarded-up houses, overgrown lawns, or shuttered businesses. It was both living and dead at the same time, as though gangrene had set in to its untended extremities.