Ibenus (Valducan series)

  Ibenus

  Book Three of the Valducan

  Seth Skorkowsky

  © 2016

  Cover Design by Shawn T. King

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Worldwide Rights

  Created in the United States of America

  Published by Ragnarok Publications | www.ragnarokpub.com

  Publisher: Tim Marquitz | Creative Director: J.M. Martin

  Thank you for purchasing this Ragnarok Publications eBook.

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Episode 138: Chupacabra

  Chapter Nine

  Episode 159: Amiens pt2 -They Strike Again

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Episode 160: Paris Kill Squad

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Episode 161: Subterranean Warzone

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  For Curtis. We might fight like sisters, but we'll always be family.

  Ibenus

  Book Three of the Valducan

  Chapter One

  Six months ago:

  "When's this cocker goin' to get here?" James shifted in his seat with a grunt. "My ass is fallin' asleep."

  Victoria watched through the rain-streaked window as a van rolled past, wet asphalt gleaming red in its wake. Something seemed off tonight, and not just the drizzle and emptiness or James' mood. She bent to look up at the nearest streetlamp.

  "What is it?" James asked.

  "Streetlights," she answered. "Not working."

  "Kids." He grunted. "Smashin' `em up for kicks or to hide whatever mischief they're up to."

  "No mischief at the moment," Victoria said. "Makes it harder to whore if no johns can see you."

  James snorted. "Probably better for business." He stretched his mouth into an ugly scowl, drawing a chuckle from Victoria.

  "Maybe." She scanned further up the street, hemmed in between brick buildings, most of their windows dark or broken. Layers of graffiti encrusted the steel-shuttered shop fronts. Four lights were out. How many were out the night before? One? Funny how you don't notice some things until they're absent.

  "Maybe the bugs got `em," James offered, with a campfire story flair.

  "You saw the latest video?"

  "Of course." He scratched his stubbled head. "Internet's all abuzz about `em. Some wanker's got a remote control toy and everyone's gone mental."

  Victoria nodded, her eyes still on the apartment across the street. The video, captured by CCTV cameras, showed a lone pedestrian being attacked by a giant insect, like a tailless lobster. The victim screams mutedly on the silent footage, falls, then gets dragged away. Three videos in two weeks. No witnesses. No positive IDs on the apparent victims. All three attacks took place within two blocks of where they now sat. Maybe that was why no one was out. "I think it's a dog."

  "Dog?"

  "Yeah. Little terrier in a rubber suit."

  He shrugged. "Could be a dog, I suppose. Last video showed two of `em."

  They sat silent for several minutes, the rain softly pattering the car roof, before James cleared his throat. "Detective Sergeant," he said, using her formal title, "Carpenter isn't coming back. If he were, we'd have seen him by now, and he's not going to come in this pissy weather. Trust me."

  Victoria looked back out the window so he wouldn't see her clenched jaw. One girl was already dead and the other in hospital with a brain injury. Miles Carpenter was the only suspect they had. This was her first case since her promotion, and a failure. Three weeks and no new leads. Her queue was already filling with four new cases that DCI Brown listed as higher priority. She had to get this bastard. But James had a point. He always seemed to know these things, what he referred to as the 'Manchester Way.' He'd been a copper for eighteen years. Had he not been so open with his opinion he might have been promoted for something beyond just Detective Constable. However, his tendency to be right most of the time, and the fact that most of his younger superiors, including herself, had learned from him, meant he was still in the Criminal Investigation Department. James might rub the wrong way but there was no denying he knew the streets.

  Victoria turned to him, meeting his broad face. "Another quarter hour." It was more of a request than an order. They had no solid lead and it was James' car. Hers was in the shop.

  James nodded slow and enormously. "All right. I can do that."

  Smiling, Victoria turned back toward the street. Carpenter had better show. Time was ticking down and hours of breathing James' farts needed some sort of payoff.

  A dark van rolled slowly by. It appeared to be the same one that passed only minutes before. It stopped in the middle of the street and the side doors opened. A pair of black-clad figures in masks hopped out.

  Victoria straightened in her seat. "What the hell?"

  They appeared male but it was difficult to tell in the scant light. One was broad and tall, everything about him huge. The other slender. The thin man slid out of the vehicle and shut the door behind him in one fluid motion, as if practiced a thousand times. They each held something in their hands but carried them low against their sides.

  "Who the hell are these bastards?" James asked.

  The van drove away the moment the men were out. They hurried off and disappeared in an alley. Before the van turned at the next intersection, the taillights lit the objects in their hands, silhouetting them in a moment of crimson. The giant carried a club of some kind, its bulging end jagged. The other held a sword, its blade bowed forward in a D-shaped curve.

  "Call it in," Victoria said, her voice rising. "Get Tactical here."

  James fumbled the radio from the console. "This is DC Kettington. Do you read?"

  Victoria continued to watch the alley and street.

  "This is DC Kettington. Do you read?"

  Silence.

  "Piece of shit," James growled. "This is DC Kettington," he repeated, his voice clear and loud. "Do you read?" He twisted the volume control and a buzzing hum came through the speaker.

  "What is that?" Victoria asked.

  He clicked through channels but the hum continued. "Not working."

  Victoria fished out her phone. The screen's light filled the car, momentarily blinding her. "No bars."

  "Oh," James breathed, shaking his head. "Oh you bastards. They're jamming."

  A spike of fear welled in Victoria's chest. "Mob?"

  "Yeah."

  Victoria's mouth went dry. Two men with primitive weapons, lights destroyed beforehand, mobile and radio frequencies jammed. Someone was about to die with no one to stop them. Not on my watch. "Come on."
<
br />   "What?"

  "We're the police," she said.

  "You plan on using a pair of batons to stop men with swords?"

  "Yes," she snapped. "If not, we can get a report on them. Nick them later."

  James held her gaze, his lips tightening into a flat line. He pulled the keys from the ignition and leaned over her, jamming them into the glove box. "Open it up."

  She dropped the little door open and a mass of crumpled papers nearly spilled into her lap.

  "Pouch in the bottom," he said.

  Victoria rifled through the chaos before finding a brown vinyl bag shoved into the back corner. It was heavier than she expected. Something metal bulged inside. Her eyes widened as she felt a handle, the cylinder. She pulled it open to see the black revolver. "What is this?"

  "You know what that is," he said frankly. "Got it off a tosser I busted some years back. Numbers had been filed off. Held on to it."

  "You shouldn't have this, James."

  "Neither should the crooks but it don't stop them. Manchester Way."

  Nervous tingles danced along her fingers she reached inside, gripping the gun by its plastic handle. "Is it loaded?"

  "Of course."

  Victoria swung open the cylinder, verifying the six loaded rounds. An icy confidence swept through her veins, cooling the nervous jitters. "You ever fired it?"

  "Best if you didn't know."

  She nodded. "Manchester Way." Her hand tightened on the grip and she pushed open the car door into the cold drizzle. "Come on."

  They hurried across the street. The glow of the city lights reflected down from the clouds, casting everything in shades of gray. Victoria pressed herself against the wall beside the alleyway, the rough brick digging into her back. She took a breath, then peered around the corner.

  Empty.

  Scanning the shadows, Victoria followed the narrow canyon, James behind her. Their feet sloshed through the shallow puddles.

  "There," James mouthed, motioning to an open doorway leading into the abandoned building.

  Splinters of wood clung to the hinges. A dull silver padlock hung uselessly to the other side.

  Victoria closed in, and peeked inside. Shards of smashed wood that had once been the door littered the hallway beyond. Wet footprints led into the darkness.

  James glanced over her shoulder and looked at her. "What now?"

  "Keep trying to call Tactical. We know they're inside."

  He stepped back from the door and whispered into the radio. "This is Detective Constable Kettington requesting assistance. Do you read?"

  Hiding behind the wall, Victoria continued to peer inside, hoping to see movement.

  "Does anyone hear me?"

  The shrill cries of babies echoed out from the blackness. Victoria's eyes widened in horror. How many were there? Four? Five? All screaming.

  James turned from his radio, his thumb still on the button. "My God."

  One of the baby voices abruptly cut off, followed by another. Then another.

  Victoria's grip tightened on the gun. "James…we have to…"

  "Yeah." James pocketed the radio and removed a stubby torch. He clicked the button, unleashing a brilliant white beam and shone it through the open door.

  Victoria fished her keys from her pocket and removed a tiny LED light from the ring. She held it in the hand supporting the gun. It wasn't much, nothing compared to James' torch, but it was something.

  A long hallway stretched nearly the length of the building before ending at an intersection. Empty bottles and crumpled papers littered the peeling linoleum tiles. Doors lined both sides. Most of them stood open. Others were missing entirely.

  The last of the children's wails came from deep inside, high and terrified. It suddenly ceased and the building once again fell silent.

  Victoria took the lead, only a step ahead of James, to her right. They scanned each room as they passed, their lights finding discarded mattresses and sleeping bags, but no occupants. It stank of piss, mildew, and stale cigarette smoke. Squatters had obviously lived here, but where were they?

  Halfway to the split, the pungent, sweet stench of rotten meat assaulted Victoria's senses.

  "Smells like dead cat," James grumbled, tucking his mouth in the crook of his elbow.

  Victoria wished she could do the same but she needed both hands to steady the revolver. The stink worsened as they moved onward, but not because they were moving closer. It was growing stronger, as if someone had opened a broken and long-sealed refrigerator and now the reeking air was boiling out, desperate to escape. Tears welled in her eyes from the smell, but she pushed onward. She had to find those babies and the bastards who might have hurt them.

  At the intersection, James shined his light up one branch, pausing momentarily on a discarded white sneaker that seemed completely out of place amongst the grime and filth.

  Victoria motioned down the other hall, the direction of the smell. "This way."

  James' light swung around and stopped on a black smoking shape a few steps away. It looked like some sort of insect or crab, split in half and its shell stripped away from the rubbery flesh. It sizzled and hissed. Victoria realized it wasn't black smoke rising from its surface but quickly dissipating vapor. Bile rose in her throat at that ungodly stench.

  "What is that?" James asked from his elbow.

  She shook her head, unwilling to open her mouth for fear of tasting it. Giving as wide a berth as the hallway allowed, Victoria stepped around the steaming black mess and continued on. They passed a dank stairwell, its walls emblazoned with orange and red spray-paint, and came to a wide lobby.

  Four more fetid corpses littered this room, two crushed to a paste with awkwardly jutting spider legs. The stench was incredible. Dark steam curled through the beam of James' torch as he scanned the room, stopping on one of the ghastly black things splattered against the wall.

  A loud thump sounded upstairs, like a ram hitting a door. James' light shot to the ceiling, finding nothing but cobwebs.

  Another baby cry sounded. Distant. Terrified.

  "Come on," Victoria said, barely moving her lips.

  They crept up the stairs to the second floor. The baby's wails had ceased but it sounded like it had come from here. She shined her light up the stairwell, verifying it was empty, then stepped out into the hall. James followed behind, so close Victoria could hear his rapid breaths.

  She started down the hallway when scratching sounded beyond a door to her right. The numbers had long since been pried off, but the missing space in the crackled paint read, '137.'

  They shared a look. Victoria stood back, holding the gun, arms stretched before her. James leaned in, threw open the door, and shone his light into the darkened room.

  Nothing.

  A baby's coo came from the corner.

  Something shuffled across the trash-strewn floor. Victoria's light went to the movement, finding a pale, waxy shape the size of a bread loaf. James's brilliant light fell upon it, revealing a chitinous insect. The creature's face resembled a porcelain china doll, its oily black eyes completely filling the sockets. A pair of segmented pincers twitched outward from its bristle-lined hole of a mouth.

  It looked up at them and a shrill infant's sob issued from that hideous maw.

  What…no…no…it's not real. Victoria stepped back, struggling to grasp the thing before her. It's not real.

  A second cry issued from the room and a second baby-faced insect scuttled into the light's beam. It clacked its mandibles and sprang toward James.

  "Gah!" He stumbled back, swinging the light away from the room as he batted the creature mid-air with his baton.

  It hit the wall with a hard thock and fell to the floor, one of its legs broken.

  The creature giggled and shuffled back onto its belly, the broken leg twitching awkwardly.

  James screamed and kicked it. It hit the wall again, wailing its baby's cry. He stomped it over
and over, crushing its plated armor, and squishing its guts out onto the filthy tiles.

  More screams poured from inside. Victoria swung her light around to see the other insect charging toward James and a third one scurrying out from an open air vent.

  She fired. The gun's booming report was louder than she would have thought possible. The round missed, kicking up shards of linoleum. Victoria pulled the trigger again, blasting the hideous thing nearly in half. Its legs and mandibles shuddered. Black ooze hissed out from the wound.

  Her ears rang in a shrill hum.

  The third creature was coming toward her, its mouth open in a scream Victoria could no longer hear. It crawled onto a broken sofa frame, readying to jump when she raised the gun and fired.

  The creature fell back into the shadows, black ichor splattering onto the wall behind it.

  Heart pounding, Victoria reached into the damnable room, grasped the door's handle and yanked it shut before any more of the monsters could appear. That awful rotted stench flooded the hall.

  "What the hell? What the hell?" James blubbered, his voice barely audible above the muted hum. Sweat streaked his white face. His wide eyes were locked onto the smashed bug in undeniable terror.

  The creature's pale shell blackened and evaporated into misty vapor, leaving the gooey meat to sag and shrivel.

  "What the hell?" James repeated, shaking his head.

  "We need to go," Victoria said.

  James only stared at the dead thing.

  "DC Kettington!"

  He looked at her. A smear of black ooze spattered his chin.

  "We need to go," she repeated.

  James blinked, then nodded. "Yeah. Need to go."

  Victoria started toward the stairs when James froze, his eyes locked on the hallway behind her. She spun to see a man's shape silhouetted against the far window. James' light came up, revealing the smaller of the two black-clad intruders. He held his strange, curved sword before him.

  "Stop right there!" she ordered, raising the gun. "Police."

  The masked man cocked his head.