Demonic and the Eldritch (eBook)

Detective Tonya Rives knew that this was going to be an important job when she was called in to meet her off-the-books employer Mr. Marius von Krane. He was a major property developer working under the Santini Conglomerate. Marius would never meet her in person, but instead communicate through a middleman, except for a few rare instances. This was one of those rare instances, which meant he was taking what was causing him problems this time personally, and he wanted to make sure she clearly understood his instructions perfectly clear.

When Tonya came to visit von Krane at his moored luxury houseboat, the nurse ran past with heel-nipping swears and curses being broadcasted out from the craft’s sliding entrance. Upon entering, she saw Marius wandering around in a bathrobe and slippers, wrapped in bandages and gauze that were spattered with yellow and pinkish-red stains. He resembled more a mummy than the man she remembered speaking to face to face last time. While madly trying to scratch himself, he attempted to pour a drink from a decanter of expensive alcohol.

“Shut the door and have a seat!” he barked.

After Detective Rives closed the sliding glass door and sat in a plush armchair, she inquired, “What happened to you?”

“That quack nurse popped some boils I said were particularly sore and were to be avoided until I was ready!” Marius answered in a barbed manner, but not exactly in the entirety of what she meant by the question.

“I’m very itchy and sore, I asked for a professional lancing, not ham-fisted manhandling. Speaking of which…” With both drink and bottle in his hands, he pointed Tonya’s attention to a table with a miniature architectural model of a fancy-looking neighborhood on display. “Ever since I made it my goal to acquire those properties, it’s been a bigger pain than the boils on my ass.”

“Still gunning after Providence End, I see.” she verified.

Providence End was a slum, with no more than two hundred fifty recorded residents, ten operational businesses, an estimated indigent street population of seventy-four, and more than a third of the buildings were derelict. Most of the residents were tenants. They didn’t own any private property, but there was the risk of them organizing – even maybe forming a tenants union – against Mr. von Krane’s efforts, so they could keep an affordable roof over their heads. He wasn’t interested in appealing to them. His intended target audience was instead its business and property owners; about fifty in total. He needed their backing of his purchases and redevelopment plans once the offer was brought to the city council and mayor for further approval.

“My moves on Providence End started off no differently from most other neighborhoods in the past.” Marius began. “I incentivized the area’s elected representative to hold a meeting to hear my urban renewal proposal. To thwart any attempts by the renters at becoming an obstacle, the meeting was scheduled to be on a workweek during a time when most of them needed to work. The day of the meeting rolled around, and tenant attendance was just as low as expected, but only sixteen of the business and property owners appeared.”

“Only sixteen you say?” asked Tonya, raising an eyebrow momentarily at her client.

Marius continued, “Wasn’t the only thing off-putting about the meeting. Many in the audience seemed uncomfortable and jumpy, but I carried on with my pitch. All seemed to be going fine until an old crone disrupted the meeting.”

He stopped for a wheezy cough before taking a swig from his glass, then hemming something thick yet unseen from his airways and giving a hard swallow afterwards.

Marius raised his bottle to Tonya in bandaged hand. “Drink?”

“No thanks.” she politely waved down. She asked as he poured himself another, “Who’s this old lady you speak of?”

“She said that she represented the interests of someone known as the Blight Bringer.” Marius replied. “Apparently, this Blight Bringer was the one who owned the third of the neighborhood that was in disuse and disrepair.”

“Blight Bringer? Never heard of him.”

“Well, he’s known enough in the neighborhood. Soon as she said the name, ten of the sixteen owners ran out of the building in a panic, apologizing and denying any intent to sell. I had the police officers present usher her out, yet almost the entire time she was there, she kept saying, ‘Heed my warning Mr. von Krane, and do not pursue this neighborhood, or else it will be your doom!’” Von Krane scoffed out of agitation, before hacking up a thick, slick blob into a waste bin and wiping his mouth off with his sleeve.

“How did the rest of the meeting go?” Detective Rives asked, hoping to soon reach the part where she could present her cost to take care of the problem he wanted gone.

“The rest of the meeting picked up without a hitch after she was sent away. The six who stayed for the full pitch, didn’t live in the same neighborhood as what they owned, but had heard of the rumors that scared the residents. They all thought it was urban legends made to scare the superstitious. I cut checks for a downpayment in the hopes of retaining those property owners left over, and possibly convincing the others to return and rejoin the deal.” Trailing off, he drank from his glass until he stopped halfway to stare in disappointment at the sloshing liquid left. “Almost three days after the meeting, all six of the owners were dragged from their homes, taken to the middle of Providence End, and tossed into a bonfire. They were all burned alive with their checks stuffed in their mouths.”

Tonya’s eyes lit up as she sat up in her seat. “I thought that’s what it was.” she said out of keen realization.

“What do you know about the incident?”

“I wanted to know more about this case, but Providence End is located outside of my precinct. I only learned as much about it as everyone else who watched the news coverage. Wasn’t like there were no witnesses, since almost all who lived in the neighborhood were forced to watch and record the crime. I take it that old woman I saw playing announcer in the footage was the same who you confronted during the meeting?”

“The same.” Marius said after more coughing and placing his decanter on a counter next to the extra medical supplies left over by the nurse.

“Of course, she wasn’t the one who actively committed the crime. That credit goes to her likely associates, the Ghuls.”

Detective Rives knew the Ghuls as Providence End’s local street gang. Before the public execution, they were mostly known by anyone outside of the neighborhood for their territorial graffiti, loitering, and creating noise disturbances as they cruised around in dark hoopties. The colors these vehicles sported were the same as the gang’s choice of wardrobe: black, grey, dark green, and purple. The members could be easily identified by their pencil harem pants, and long, oversized, full-zip hoodies, which have their insignia and gang name embroidered on the back.

Despite their unmistakable uniforms, each member individually was hard to identify. Some always wore sunglasses, and cloth face masks, bandanas, or infinity scarves, but all of them used their own large overhanging hoods to obscure the face. They also often wore gloves too. Most notable was their eerie silence, as none of them were ever heard talking to anyone, in or outside of the group.

“The video sparked public outrage, so I felt it was the perfect time to introduce my plans for urban redevelopment to the council and mayor.” said Marius in a tone of self-gratitude.

He scratched at the thinner layers of bandages on his person. “Since I didn’t get the full backing of Providence End’s private property owners, I would instead convince the city to implement imminent domain, connecting the murders to the neighborhood’s wayward bums and junkies that infest the area. It would’ve been the more manageable alternative to show that they were doing something about its criminal element, as opposed to what they immediately opted for in response to the outcry. When Providence End’s streets were flooded with police, not one gangster was ever captured, but all the other residents there were harassed and brutalized, which only got worse when one officer disappeared while chasing after a suspected Ghul member.”

Besides law enforcement and the missing cop’s family, no one knew about the missing cop since that knowledge wasn’t released to the public yet. Tonya wasn’t the least surprised that von Krane knew since she wasn’t the only one secretly on his payroll. The difference between the detective and the others, however, was that she was the best card he hadn’t played for the Providence End problem until now. She was pricey, but she always got things done; any job, no matter how dirty her hands would get. Plus, she’d always work alone and kept quiet, which he really liked. Tonya wanted him to hurry and to get to the contract, knowing that she was his last resort, but at the same time she was now further intrigued by the surrounding circumstances he was building through his story.

Marius began to speak in a voice that was becoming increasingly sour, “I privately incentivized key city government officials to back my idea at the next scheduled town hall meeting, but by the time the day came, those willing to support me had disappeared and their homes were razed. The others were scared so badly that they canceled all future meetings indefinitely and reassigned nearly all the police from Providence End to focus on patrolling and protecting...