Dirty Deeds Read online

  Dirty Deeds

  D.V. Wolfe

  Lightning Strike Press

  Copyright © 2020 D.V. Wolfe

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Cover design by: Lightning Strike Press

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Jimbo and Glenn, who rode shotgun on this crazy train.

  "To survive it is often necessary to fight and to fight you have to dirty yourself."

  - George Orwell

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  Other Books in the Midnight Rider Series

  JOIN THE HUNT!

  Acknowledgment

  About The Author

  1

  “Bane, will you stop screwing around with that severed head? You’re gonna make me puke.”

  “But look at the way the skin is torn, not chewed,” I said. I looked up at Noah. He was pale and trying to gulp down some air, his huge adam’s apple bobbing in his chicken neck. I gripped the severed head by the hair and turned it so that Noah could see what I was talking about. I held it out towards him. “Here. See?”

  Noah heaved. I pulled the head away, narrowly avoiding the stream of vomit and I took a step back. I waited until Noah stopped dry-heaving and said. “Ya done?”

  He gave me the finger. I had to admit, this was shitty. Noah didn’t belong here. After St. Louis, I thought, maybe. But we’d barely made it two towns over before we heard on the radio that there was fog rolling into Louisville. So here we were, in a dirty back alley, clutching a severed head and two Big Gulps from the convenience store. I set my drink on the dumpster and shifted the head to my free hand before moving to pat Noah on the back while he heaved again.

  Since we’d left St. Louis, I’d tried three times to take him to the nearest Greyhound station and get him out of this nightmare. I’d told him that he should put me, Lucy and all the shit he’d seen, in the rearview mirror and ride off into the sunset. These conversations hadn’t been successful. They always ended in hand gestures and shouting, so I’d let it drop for the moment. Now, I was about to bring it up a fourth time, when Noah held up his hand.

  “Shut up, Bane.” I was about to protest, but he shook his head. “Before you even start, just shut up.” He took a shaky breath and looked around the alley. “So what’s...what’s next?”

  I sighed and looked back down at the head. The glassy eyes stared up at me as if the head was also asking, ‘what’s next’.

  “Well,” I said. “The likelihood that this head was out for a stroll down this alley, all by its lonesome, is a bit of a stretch. My guess is that there’s a body, partial or otherwise, somewhere around here.” Noah took my drink and I pulled a penlight out of my back pocket. I led the way down the alley from the cross street, shining the light into dumpsters we passed and behind garbage cans. There was a partial trail of blood; spots on the ground and smears on the dumpsters, fences and garbage cans as if the poor guy had stumbled down the alley, bouncing off of everything.

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” Noah said beside me.

  I grinned. I couldn’t help myself. “Which part?”

  “So this guy stumbles down the alley, bleeding from somewhere, and then had his head ripped off. But, whoever did it, left the head and took the body?” I paused to consider what Noah had said, turning around to look at the path we’d followed. Noah was right.

  The cliche ding went off in my head. “I know what we’re hunting.”

  Noah huffed next to me as we made our way back to the end of the alley, retracing our steps to the first dumpster where we’d spotted the blood. I turned to look at him when we reached the pool of street light illuminating Lucy, my old ‘49 Ford pickup.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You wanna share with the class?” Noah asked, swishing his drink in his mouth and spitting it on the ground.

  The sound of laughter broke the stillness of the otherwise quiet street and we turned to see a crowd exiting a restaurant and heading down the sidewalk towards us. I glanced down at the severed head and thrust it at Noah. “Here, stuff this under your shirt! Pretend to be pregnant.”

  “Ew! No! You do it!”

  I growled in frustration and crossed quickly to Lucy. I threw the head onto the seat through the open passenger side window. Noah joined me and we quickly turned and leaned against Lucy, blocking the open window with our backs, and trying to arrange our faces into casual nonchalance as the well-dressed couples strolled by. I smiled at them and nodded, trying not to grimace as the newly re-filed barrel of my sawed off in the holster on my back scraped against bare skin. There was a hole in my shirt, or so Noah had told me. I hadn’t actually checked. We hadn’t stopped to shower or change clothes since Indianapolis. After the last couple had rounded the corner and disappeared, I stepped away from the truck and moved to the driver’s side door, pulling the shotgun off my back and tucking it behind the bench seat. I climbed behind the wheel and tried not to wince when the squeak of the passenger door echoed through the night and Noah clambered in beside me.

  “Damn it, Bane!” He spat and I turned to look at him. “You threw the head in the pizza box!” I glanced down and stared at the back of the guy’s head, right in the middle of the barely touched pizza.

  “Who left the box open?” I asked.

  “It was hot,” Noah said. “I was letting it cool off.”

  “Has it been more than ten seconds?” I asked, turning the key over in the ignition. Something landed in my lap and I looked down at the severed head, still face down. I picked it up by the hair and I could smell marinara in my lap and see the dark stain on my already dirty jeans. “Now my crotch smells like Italy. Thanks for that.”

  Noah tossed the pizza box out the window and we watched it land several feet short of the dumpster. I stared at Noah. He turned to look at me. I didn’t move. Finally, he sighed and climbed out of the truck. He stomped over to the cardboard box and tossed the box into the dumpster. He climbed back in and I turned my attention back to the road. “You know,” I said, shifting Lucy into gear. “There’s a level in Hell where you slowly suffocate under all the garbage you made during your lifetime.”

  We were quiet for a moment as I moved us back to one of the main roads and started looking for a place that was open all night. Usually, we could park in the lot of a Walmart or an IHOP and plan and regroup without being bothered if the establishment was open. Noah’s stomach growled, breaking the silence. A stab of guilt hit me in the chest. Noah didn’t say anything. He didn’t whine about being hungry. He crossed his arms over his chest, low as if trying to muffle the noise as his stomach protested again.

  I cleared my throat and turned back towards the main drag. “So, pizza again? Or did our friend, Head-ly here ruin it for you?” Noah looked down at the head in the seat between us and subcon
sciously moved closer to the door.

  “Yeah, I think I might be off pizza for a while.”

  I nodded and slowed down. The truck cab was washed in neon lights from both sides of the street as we passed fast food options.

  “How about Mexican?” I asked.

  Noah snorted. “This truck cab isn’t big enough for both us, a severed head, and your ass after Mexican.”

  I cut my eyes to him. “Fine. You pick.”

  “How about subs?”

  I pulled into the parking lot for a chain sub sandwich place and rolled onto one cheek to fish my wallet out of my back pocket. The black leather wallet stank of the pit and it was always warm, like having a seat-heater but only for the one butt cheek. I held it in my palm and felt the same sickening, sucking feeling in my stomach as if something was digging a hole through my intestines, burrowing deeper and deeper. I opened it and looked down at the single twenty-dollar bill inside. The wallet always produced the bare minimum. Every time I went through this process, I imagined some bank teller in hell giggling with glee as they made another mark on my soul. I pulled the twenty out and handed it to Noah.

  “What kind do you want?” Noah asked.

  I shrugged. “Surprise me.” Noah’s face split into an evil grin.

  “Just remember,” I said, tilting towards him to put the wallet back in my pocket. “You have to ride with your decision.” His smile quickly became a scowl and he kicked his door open.

  I flipped the cab lights on, grabbed the open box of Peeps off the dashboard, and shook it. One left. I bit the ass off of the sweet marshmallowy goodness and I looked down at the severed head in the seat, which was staring back up at me. In the light of the truck cab, I could see that under the marinara mustache the guy now had, he had died with a bemused expression, his lips tilted up at the corners.

  “What are you smiling at?” I grumbled. I stuffed the rest of the Peep into my mouth, savoring the sugar and pillowy softness on my tongue as I kicked my door open and climbed out. I popped open the toolbox in the truck bed and started shifting things around, trying to find what we’d need for the hunt. I picked a few books out of the jumbled mess, a two-liter pop bottle full of holy water, and my road atlas. I set them on the driver’s seat and looked back down at the severed head. I went back to the toolbox and dug around some more, coming up with a black garbage bag. I stuffed the head in and tossed it into the toolbox.

  “I hope you don’t forget that thing’s in there,” Noah said. I slammed the lid down and climbed back into the truck. Noah followed and handed over a wrapped sub.

  I set the sandwich on top of the books and the atlas in the seat next to me and took a pull from my convenience store Big Gulp while I watched Noah devour his sandwich. Where did it all go? The kid was built like a ten-speed bicycle; all long limbs and sharp angles. His frizzy orange hair was matted and grime-streaked. His tie-dyed shirt, which he’d worn since I met him, was stained and ripped in places. None of this seemed to bother him, or at least he didn’t complain. It looked like he’d washed his hands in the restaurant, but the grime started again at his forearms and I saw dried blood smears and black grease all the way to his shirt sleeves. Noah burped and crumpled his wrapper. He looked over at my untouched sandwich, a little longingly. I handed it to him and he furrowed his brow, looking at me.

  “You first,” I said. “If I see you eat half of it, I’ll believe you didn’t get me something disgusting as payback for ruining your pizza.”

  Noah rolled his eyes. “Fair enough.” He unwrapped the sub and took a big bite. I smelled more marinara.

  “What, did you get me meatballs?” I asked.

  Noah grinned around a bulging mouthful. “I figured if you dropped any on yourself, it would just blend in with the way you already smelled.” He swallowed and I watched the huge lump of food making its way down his neck. “Bane,” He said. “Don’t you get hungry?”

  I looked up at him. “Sometimes.”

  “I mean, you’ve got a human body. And I see you eat, but it’s like, just the bare minimum. Well except for those, disgusting, sugary…” He cut his eyes to the empty box of Peeps, still on the dashboard. I opened my mouth to protest his disparaging remarks about them and he held his hand up to stop me. “Well, those and sometimes Mexican food, or just weird shit. Like that mint chocolate ice cream shake that you dipped your roast beef sandwich in last night. Seriously, what’s up with you?”

  I started Lucy but didn’t shift her into gear. Questions. Lots of them. That was the first thing I was going to have to get used to if Noah hung around. Being alone had meant never having to think about what to say, or how to answer questions because there was no one there to ask them. Especially these types of questions. I sighed. “Since I came back from the pit, food just tastes...different.”

  “Different, how?” Noah asked, his mouth full of meatballs.

  I looked over at him. “I’m not going to have this conversation with you while your mouth is full of balls.”

  He gave me the finger again and swallowed before setting the sandwich back down on its wrapping. He looked at me expectantly and waved his hand. “Continue.”

  I shrugged. “Food tastes like ash for the most part now, different kinds of ash, mind you. Sometimes it’s like licking a grill, other times like tipping an ashtray down my throat.”

  Noah made a face. “What about the Peeps and the whiskey?”

  I grinned. “The Peeps taste like sugar and marshmallow. Isn’t that what they’re supposed to taste like?”

  Noah shrugged. “I don’t know. I was a little kid the last time I choked one down.”

  I shrugged. “More for me. I don’t know why, but they just taste...right.”

  “Probably all those preservatives,” Noah said. “Maybe stuff that isn’t actually food tastes normal to you. What about the whiskey?”

  I pulled the bottle of Stitch’s Whiskey out from under the seat. “Well, this is Mattie Mae’s special distillation. It’s hunter whiskey. She puts all kinds of herbs and shit in it for protection. She uses Djinn blood and there’s a spell process that makes it adapt to the drinker’s needs. Like if I just need some pain control, it won’t make me drunk, it’ll just make me numb. Make sense?” I asked.

  Noah shrugged. “I guess so. So what about the Mexican food?”

  “The heat. It makes my eyes burn and my skin sweat. Feels like I’m eating something other than ash. Cold does that sometimes, too.” I shifted into reverse, turning to look behind us. “Enough ‘talk show’ interrogation,” I said. “We have a headless corpse to find.”

  “Yeah, so fill me in,” Noah said, re-wrapping the remains of the sandwich and tossing it into the seat between us. “What the hell are we looking for?”

  I reached up and flipped the cab light off before shifting into gear and pulling out of the lot. “I just told you, a headless corpse.”

  “Bane,” Noah growled and I grinned in the dark as we continued down the main drag.

  “It’s a witch,” I said.

  “Witches are real?” Noah asked.

  I rolled my eyes. “Noah, in the last six days you’ve seen poltergeists, Pucas, wraiths, Rawheads, demons, Cynocephali, and a Hayman. Why is it so hard to believe witches are real?”

  Noah was quiet, and for a minute I felt bad about reminding him of everything that had happened. “So how do we...hunt witches?” Noah asked.

  I sighed. “Sadly, of all of the above-mentioned things, they’re the hardest to hunt. Mostly because they blend in, like normal people.”

  Noah yawned and settled himself into the corner of the truck. He’d slept sitting up in that position for the last six nights. The last time either of us had seen a bed or a shower had been in Indianapolis, almost a week ago and that was the last time Noah had been able to stretch out. I started looking around and took a turn off the main road and into a Motel 6 parking lot.

  “What are we…” Noah started.

  “No offense, but you need a shower,” I said
, pulling into a parking spot.