one twisted voice Read online

  Who knew when the subterranean vault was built? Maybe in her insanity the suicidal starlet had ordered the cellar scoured out of the bedrock, or perhaps it had been cut much later, the colossal work undertaken in a short span of time through the magic of Von Richter. Maybe it had existed for centuries and the house erected astride it. The wolf neither knew nor cared.

  All I understood was that the source of OOZE was at the bottom of those steps and went down.

  The stairs opened directly into a large bell-shaped chamber.

  There was no lab, but something much stranger. Spread across the floor was dozens of urns, set in a spiral that circled ever to the centre of the room. Men bent to the task of lifting the urns, moving them forward while others carted away those nearest the central point and stacked them on raised platforms.

  The stench was horrific and burned the thin membranes of my nostrils and lips. My eyes glossed, causing me to blink as I surveyed the weird goings on. Then my attention was drawn to a figure directing the workers. It was a tall, thin man, with an almost austere cast to his handsome features. The whip in his hand belied his wholesomeness. He cracked it wildly, ushering the activity as he chanted arcane spells ripped from the pages of Das Hauptbuch Versteckte Dämonische Namen. At first my wolfen mind didn’t comprehend what it witnessed. It saw only enemies and prepared to rend and tear.

  Then it saw the central figure, chained in iron and suspended from the ceiling, and even the fearless werewolf blanched back a half step.

  The creature was huge, twice as big as me, with massive limbs twisted about its body. Its head was inordinately large even on its gargantuan body, wide at the jaw and tapering to a pointed crest at the top. Sharp teeth jutted from a wide lipless maw, in which ragged and serrated teeth glistened wetly. Large lids covered its eyes and it seemed to be in some sort of slumber despite the torture of the chains and whip. Yellow beads of slime oozed from huge pores on its back and flanks.

  The men held the urns to the suppurating pores gathering the slime, mindful that they did not step on the arcane symbol marked on the floor beneath it in chalk.

  In reflection I later understood that the puss leaking from the creature’s hide was not unlike the poison that beads on the hide of toads or certain tree frogs. The wolfen-Dalton did not know this, but it recognised the excretion as the source of OOZE.

  Employing spells from Das Hauptbuch Versteckte Dämonische Namen, Wilhelm Von Richter had called forth a demon from the abyss and having bound the beast in iron and the power of the magical sigil beneath it, was harvesting the poison from its hide. That poison he was feeding to drug addicts, giving them the ultimate high, before their need for more OOZE tied them to him. Not only tied them but bound them: users were changing into hybrid creatures not unlike the beast from which they supped. To what end he was building an army of enslaved demons no one would ever know.

  I lunged, emitting an ear-splitting howl.

  My appearance had twofold effect. Every half-man in the room turned towards me in surprise, and the lidded-eyes of the demon slid open.

  Then I was among the urn carriers. Some still bore the features of men, but some had morphed into lizard-like things with scaly skin and forked tongues. All were monstrous. I spared none of them my raking claws and clamping jaws. Blood gouted, guts spilled, excrement spattered, and men and lizard-men screeched in agony. Some fought back, slipping and sliding in the filth on the floor, which only grew more putrid as urns of OOZE were dropped or shattered during the fight. My fur became a sticky mess. But it did not halt me. I barely halted to cry a victory howl as I tore them limb from limb and scattered their parts to the far walls of the room.

  I was living the life.

  Doing what a werewolf does best.

  My vision was blood red.

  Yet still I saw the slim figure of Von Richter wavering like a candle flame before me.

  He lifted his whip high then snapped it towards me.

  Its silver tip scoured the flesh of my muzzle, causing me to rear back in pain. Smoke rose from my sizzling flesh where the whip had found me.

  Von Richter cried out in triumph.

  He cracked the whip and this time it was my right shoulder that was left with a burning wound.

  He came forward like a lion tamer. I backed away on all fours.

  ‘Hiyaa!’ he shouted and cracked the whip again.

  Another wound burned on my left foreleg.

  ‘Back you monstrosity!’

  Crack!

  This time I did howl but it was in pain as I backed to the cellar wall.

  But Von Richter should have remembered that the most dangerous beast is the one that is wounded and cornered.

  Roaring I leapt at him, and this time his whip hadn’t the distance to find my hide. I swiped at him with the back of one forelimb, knocking him off his feet.

  Von Richter skidded across the blood- and OOZE-slicked floor.

  His slide took him directly beneath his prisoner.

  His clothing wiped away part of the intricate sigil that bound the beast to this world.

  I paused, going down on my haunches, my tongue lolling as I watched.

  The giant creature writhed in its bonds, and the iron chains twisted apart, links breaking and sending shards flying in all directions as deadly as bullets. A couple pieces of flying shrapnel hit me, but unlike silver, iron did not do me lasting harm. The demon flopped from its bindings landing on its elongated hind legs, standing astride Von Richer who raised one palm towards it in beseechment. He cried out, shouting in the arcane language of the ledger, calling out its name. ‘Nyathafargel! I command you…’

  Its wide-lipped mouth split into a cavern housing razor-tipped fangs, but I only got a split-second glance before the head dipped down and the teeth crunched into Von Richter’s flesh from one hip to opposite shoulder. The creature reared up, its forelimbs flying high in victory as it shook Von Richter side-to-side like a terrier with a rat in its jaws.

  Von Richter thudded to the floor directly in front of me.

  At least part of him did.

  The rest the creature wolfed down in two great gulps, its eyes rolling back into its skull with each swallow.

  It went down on all fours, its heavy head bobbing as it studied me.

  Perhaps it recognised another creature of hell.

  More likely it saw me as the saviour that loosed it from imprisonment.

  It merely blinked slowly, then disappeared like dissolving smoke, back to the netherworld from which Von Richter’s spells had called it.

  EIGHT

  Buddy Holly was singing “That’ll be the day-hey-hey when I die…”

  I was standing in Troy Bishop’s aerie at the very top of his townhouse, the music tinny and flat through his radio-cassette player.

  I was Roman Dalton once again, and I was clothed.

  Bishop wasn’t.

  He was as naked as the first time I saw him, but no longer did he look as scrawny or as pale.

  His face was flushed pink, hair a bit darker. His belly was extended and thick purple veins writhed along both arms and legs. His fingers were spatulas as before, but the nails that looked chewed to the wick now extended to sharp tips.

  I glanced from the Strigoi to the radio-cassette and wondered if it was the immortal’s sense of humour in choosing that song.

  ‘You did well, Roman Dalton.’ Bishop didn’t sound as tongue-tied as before. ‘You have saved my species from the threat of OOZE and once again given us blood on which we can safely feed.’

  ‘As long as you stick to the criminals and lowlifes as you did before, then that’s our business finished with.’

  ‘I did promise.’ He smiled coldly. Lifted a finger to his chest and made the sign of a cross: it didn’t escape my notice that it was long at the top, short at the bottom, a satanic mockery of the crucifix. ‘Cross my heart, hope to die,’ he sneered.

  I held out my palm.

  ‘The other half of the fee.’

  He fl
icked a disdainful wave at the sideboard next to his chair. ‘Take it. Take it all.’

  There was another pile of cash as large as the first one I’d taken when first I’d answered the Strigoi’s call. I wedged it in my coat pocket, patted it in satisfaction. I turned to leave, done with looking at him, ready for a drink.

  ‘Dalton.’

  I peered round at him.

  ‘What was Von Richter’s purpose for calling forth the demon?’ he asked.

  I shrugged.

  ‘He was breeding an army poisonous to my kind,’ Bishop said.

  I knew what Bishop was worried about. Had Von Richter’s motive been to eradicate the Strigoi race? So maybe the sorcerer wasn’t all bad.

  ‘Where’s the book?’ Bishop said.

  ‘What book?’

  ‘The sorcerer’s spell book: Das Hauptbuch Versteckte Dämonische Namen.’

  ‘You knew about that then?’

  ‘Yes,’ Bishop said, his lips turning up in a smile that showed teeth that had grown to wicked points. ‘I would like it in my possession.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Insurance against someone else attempting to use its power against my kind.’

  ‘You needn’t worry about it,’ I said. ‘I burned Von Richter’s place to the ground so that no one got their hands on the OOZE stockpiled in the basement.’ My words were the truth, but then I went for a convincing lie. I’d already got Duffy started on a silent auction with The City’s rare book collectors, and expected a big payday when finally I handed it over. ‘For good measure I got the flames started with the pages of that musty old book. It’s gone, a pile of cinders now.’

  ‘You burned it?’ Bishop reared up, his jaws working furiously. ‘Sacrilege!’

  ‘I’ll tell you what is sacrilege,’ I said, turning and thumbing up the volume to its highest setting on the radio-cassette. ‘Playing Rock ‘N’ Roll quietly.’

  ‘I should kill you!’ Bishop screamed over the top of the music.

  ‘Want to give it a try?’ I said and walked out of his room as Buddy hollered “That’ll be the day!”

  Author’s note:

  This story first appeared in the eBook Paul D. Brazill’s “Drunk on the Moon 2” (Pulp Metal Fiction) and features characters created by Paul D. Brazill.

  Other books by Matt Hilton

  The Joe Hunter thriller series:

  Published by Hodder and Stoughton and also available in ebook

  Dead Men’s Dust (2009)

  Judgement and Wrath (2009)

  Slash and Burn (2010)

  Cut and Run (2010)

  Blood and Ashes (2011)

  Dead Men’s Harvest (2011)

  No Going Back (2012)

  Rules of Honour (2013)

  Published by William Morrow and Company and also available in ebook

  Dead Men’s Dust (2009)

  Judgment and Wrath (2010)

  Slash and Burn (2011)

  Cut and Run (2011)

  Blood and Ashes (2013)

  Short stories in print:

  Even More Tonto Short Stories - contains short story ‘The Skin We’re In’ by Matt Hilton. Tonto Books (2010)

  Holiday of the Dead – contains short story ‘Apocalypse Noo’ by Vallon Jackson (pen name). Wild Wolf Publishing (2011)

  Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 9 – contains short story ‘The Skin We’re In’ by Matt Hilton. Robinson (2012)

  Uncommon Assassins – contains short story ‘Misconceptions’ by Matt Hilton. Smart Rhino Publications (2012)

  Electronic books:

  Joe Hunter: Six of the Best – six stories by Matt Hilton. Hodder and Stoughton (2012)

  True Brit Grit – contains story ‘Payback: With Interest” by Matt Hilton. Guilty Conscience Publishing (2012)

  Action: Pulse Pounding Tales Vol 1 – contains 2 stories ‘Satisfaction Guaranteed’ and ‘Trench Warfare’ by Matt Hilton. Sempre Vigile Press (2012)

  Dominion by Matt Hilton. Sempre Vigile Press (2011)

  Darkest Hour by Matt Hilton. Sempre Vigile Press (2011)

  Deliver Us From Evil by J. A Norton (pen name). Sempre Vigile press. (2010)

  Confetti for Gabrielle. Sempre Vigile Press (2011)

  Off The Record 2 – contains story ‘How The West Was Won’ by Matt Hilton. Guilty Conscience Publishing (2012)

  Drunk on the Moon 2 – contains story ‘Booze and Ooze’ by Matt Hilton. (2012)

  Dead Fall – a Joe Hunter short story. William Morrow and Company (2012)

  Dead Fall – a Joe Hunter story. Hodder and Stoughton (2012)

  Red Stripes – a Joe Hunter short story. Hodder and Stoughton (2013)

  Red Stripes – a Joe hunter short story. William Morrow and Company (20130

  About the author:

  Matt Hilton quit his career as a police officer with Cumbria Constabulary in order to pursue his love of writing tight, cinematic American-style crime thrillers. He is the author of the Joe Hunter thriller series. His first novel - Dead Men’s Dust - was released in May 2009 by Hodder & Stoughton in the UK and by William Morrow & Company (Harper Collins) in the USA. Dead Men’s Dust has been translated into four foreign languages, and shortlisted for the ITW Debut Thriller Award of 2009. The Eighth book in the series – Rules of Honour - has recently been published. Matt is married and lives in Cumbria, UK. He is a high-ranking martial artist and has been a detective and private security specialist, all of which lend an authenticity to the action scenes in his books.

  http://www.matthiltonbooks.com

  http://matthiltonbooks.blogspot.com