Grave Beginnings (The Grave Report, Book 1) Read online

  You should’ve seen the effect the salt had on its body, as it writhed and flailed, the very inky substance that comprised the wraiths body was bubbling. It looked like a hot boiling tar pit at the moment, series of bubbles were forming and bursting all over its body in rapid succession. There was hissing too though, only this time it wasn’t emanating from the creatures mouth but from this hideous black steam that seemed to be spouting out from all different places on the creature.

  “Someone needs to cut back on their sodium intake, too much of this stuff will kill ya,” I quipped.

  Its pain induced writhing was beginning to slow, it was beginning to recover and here I was wasting time with jokes.

  I quickly ran towards the monstrosity, not the smartest move but now I had something to tip the scale in my favor, I tossed another handful at the beast to keep it in its place. Once again the wraith was twitching violently in agony as I quickly began pouring the contents of the bag in around the creature, forming a solid white salt circle.

  Making an unbreakable circle of salt is an excellent way to trap many a monster. The same reason that salt can hurt a wraith is why it can create an impassable barrier, trapping the creature within, if it tried to cross, well it’d be like going through an electric fence. Bottom line, the wraith wasn’t going to get through until I let it.

  Score one for Graves!

  Of course, now I had the problem of a pissed off trapped wraith which, I had no clue what to do about. I couldn’t exactly leave it here until my case was finished, eventually someone would come across it somehow and then what? I’d be leaving a booby trap for some poor innocent person and the wraith, being the killing machine it is, would feed on them.

  I stood there for a moment pondering my next move when something really unexpected happened.

  “Release us,” rasped the wraith.

  It fucking spoke! I knew that some wraiths could talk but I had never come across one that did.

  “Well,” I began, rubbing my hands together excitedly, “now things are getting interesting.”

  “Release us mortal,” it rasped once again.

  “Uh, gonna have to go with no on that one sludge ball.”

  The wraith bristled at that remark; apparently it took offense at being called a sludge ball, too bad.

  “Release us and you die quick,” it said.

  “Yeah but if you stay in the circle you can’t kill me, clever huh?” I joked.

  The wraith didn’t respond.

  “Wait a minute,” I said aloud, “why am I sitting here arguing with you when I could get the information I need out of you…and why am I doing all of this while naked?”

  “Stupid creature,” it hissed angrily.

  I narrowed my eyes, ok; I was going to enjoy this.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” I chided as I walked over to grab my towel, wrapping it around my waist again to retain some dignity in the situation, as if the wraith cared.

  I had an idea and it was a damn good one too but it all depended on one thing, I needed a rope, something I doubted Norman would have lying around.

  I searched his kitchen, first floor and bedroom but found nothing. It was only when I passed through gym on the way back down from his bedroom when I noticed it, lying atop one of the weight racks was a rather lengthy metal chain. I went over to inspect it, it was the kind used by hardcore weightlifters to look badass or whatever, I honestly didn’t know what they used it for but that wasn’t important. It wasn’t made out of stainless steel for whatever reason but it was pure good ole iron!

  I didn’t bother to get dressed between all of this; waste of time and that was something I certainly did not have a great deal of. I went down to the kitchen and grabbed the torn bag of salt, walking past the wraith as I did.

  It lunged at me fast! Then it impacted thin air, bouncing off as if it had it an invisible wall, then the shrieks started. It was writhing around once again in a great deal of pain, it had forgotten about the salt circle; it reacted on its plain predatory need to feed when I had walked by.

  Lesson learned bitch! Don’t mess with Vincent Graves.

  “Tsk tsk tsk,” I said, waving and admonishing finger as I did, “now now, inky, behave.”

  I could swear that the thing shot me a murderous look, even while writhing in agony; it managed for a brief second to look me directly in the face and hold that look.

  It had no eyes! How the hell did it do that? No facial features save for a sludgy opening that was a mouth, but it could give me a death look.

  Very creepy!

  Of course I didn’t let it see that it had freaked me out, I had to appear in control and unfazed, which I was, sort of.

  I walked past the creature; it was settling down and calmly following me with its head, sitting there trapped and balancing on its coiled snake like tail. I waved a goodbye at it as I headed up to Norman’s destroyed bathroom.

  “Thank God the tub’s intact,” I muttered as I walked over to it and turned on the cold water. I reached over to the side of the tub, where lay a little rubber stopper, grabbing it and placing it into the drain hole. The tub began to fill rapidly with icy cold water, once it reached a few inches; I dropped in the iron chain.

  “Here goes nothing,” I said, what I was about to do was more theory than anything else but I was hoping it would work. I poured the remaining contents of the salt bag into the water and began running my hand through the tub. After a few seconds and being satisfied that much of the salt had been dissolved, I reached in and removed the iron chain from the briny solution.

  Salt and iron could hurt a wraith, but I was really wondering what I could do with an iron chain that had been submerged in salt water and was now coated in the stuff. I needed answers and what I was about to do could be considered vile; surely the Geneva Convention had something or many things banning this. But then again, the Geneva Convention and its rules didn’t apply to supernatural horrors, so fuck it!

  I held the chain in both hands and gave it a forceful tug to check its integrity, it went taut and held strong, good news for me, bad for the wraith.

  Time to get me some answers, I thought.

  I walked back down to the kitchen where the pent up wraith was still trapped; it was balanced on its coiled snake like tail. It looked ready to strike at any moment, it was swaying much like a cobra does, waiting, biding its time to lunge at me. Except it couldn’t as long as it remained inside the salt circle, well I guess it could try but I was pretty sure the outcome of its last attempt was still fresh in its mind.

  I adjusted my towel once again, I didn’t want it dropping off as I was about to “forcefully interrogate,” the wraith, God that would’ve been embarrassing.

  “Okay you toxic snot ball,” I growled, “time to fess up!”

  The wraith just hung there in silence and stillness, its swaying stopped, its posture remained tense however.

  Okay then.

  “Last chance you overgrown Rorschach, I know something’s got hold of you, I wanna know what, who, when, where, why, all of it.” I said menacingly, jerking on the chain in a threatening manner to accentuate my point.

  It tilted its inkblot head to the side rather quizzically for a moment, maybe it was thinking of a response; I don’t know what goes on in their heads. Then it responded in a quiet whisper like hiss, “we will feast on your soul…slowly, slowly, we will suck your soul slowly.”

  “So that’s a no huh?” I said shrugging, “kay then, now we do it the hard way,” I had no idea if this was actually going to work but I couldn’t let my uncertainty show. I released the chain from the grip of my right hand, leaving it hanging only from my left and then swung it as hard as I could at the creature’s throat. It lashed around the wraith’s neck and kept coiling around but that wasn’t what I was focused on because my question had been answered.

  The wraith erupted into the loudest fit of shrieking I had seen or heard yet, violently spasming and flailing inside the salt circle, the saltwater dipped ir
on chain was working. It was the only safe way to interrogate the wraith, I couldn’t very well step into the circle myself, that would be suicide. This would allow me to reach into the circle without risk of breaking it, putting myself in harms way and effectively allow me to hurt the wraith.

  What I was doing could have easily been considered torture, well now that I think about it, it was torture, but it was a wraith, a remorseless killing machine so I didn’t feel one bit guilty.

  Wraiths don’t feel any compassion, love or any other decent feeling except for insatiable hunger. That’s why they’re horrors, imagine something that only cares about consuming, killing anything to satisfy a hunger than can never be sated, nothing is enough, no amount of humans killed will ever be enough. They are blights upon nature. A wraith isn’t something you can change or convince to stop killing, they’re not some convict who you can try to “correct,” they are and always will be a weapon made to be enthralled by other more powerful beings. Wraiths are supernatural hitmen.

  So I was going to torture the sonuvabitch until I got any information I could out of it. I knew it had something useful, like I said; wraiths are contract killers minus the contract part. Something out there, and I had an inkling it was the something I was really after, was what put this wraith in its thrall and made it come after me. I wanted to know what and where it was now!

  The wraith hadn’t stopped it shrieking yet; of course it couldn’t so long as I had the chain around its sludge like throat. I gave the chain a few shakes until it fell off. The wraith actually collapsed into a coiled state, I could see it heaving heavily, it was recovering from what I had just put it through.

  “So, ready to talk now? If not, we could go another round, how ‘bout it?” I said threateningly.

  The wraith surged forwards so fast I would’ve missed it had I blinked, then it collided with the magical barrier created by the salt, it recoiled instantly and erupted into another fit of agony.

  I tapped a finger to my forehead, “uh uh ah, bad supernatural nasty, bad!” I scolded.

  I waited patiently, ok not so patiently, as the wraith was enduring it third or was it fourth bout of excruciating pain.

  Welcome to my world, I thought.

  After several moments passed, the creature slowly began to rise and started staring at me, hard.

  “Had enough yet?”

  It was rasping very heavily but made no attempt to answer me.

  “Round two it is,” I said, holding the chain up high, giving the wraith a good view of it.

  “Wait!” it hissed loudly.

  I didn’t, I swung my arm back, readying up for another lash.

  “Wait!” it pleaded, it actually pleaded, like with its hands up and everything.

  “What?” I snarled.

  “We will answer, it will ask and we will answer,” it heaved.

  “S’pose I can’t ask you to cut out the Gollum act can I?”

  “We don’t comprehend,” it replied.

  Guess not.

  “What in hell?” gasped a feminine voice.

  I whirled about to see that not more than fifteen feet from me stood Agent Ortiz. She was frozen in place, her Glock drawn and held at chest level, pointed not at the wraith but me. There was a hideous black ink like monstrosity in the same room and her gun was leveled at me.

  Seriously?

  “Wha…wha…what is that thing?” She stammered.

  I should’ve known something like this could have happened, after all she did have Norman’s address but still, I really didn’t think she’d come barging into his home. I know the tiger fiasco had her riled up but you can’t just storm into a suspect’s home.

  The wraith apparently didn’t give a damn what was going through either of our minds as it turned to face Agent Ortiz and let out a very menacing hiss.

  She fainted.

  “Uh, don’t go anywhere,” I said to the wraith, dropping the chain as I bolted over to catch the falling FBI agent. She was fairly light, but then I also had a tid bit of enhanced strength so carrying her wasn’t too bad. I carried her all the way downstairs to Norman’s lavishly decorated living room, placing her as gently as I could on his couch to rest. Hopefully she would remain unconscious as until I had finished dealing with the wraith.

  After leaving her safely ensconced atop Norman’s couch, I walked back upstairs to his kitchen and the trapped wraith.

  “Sorry about that, the feds have never really had good manners, always busting down a door or two, so rude. Where were we?” I asked. “Oh that’s right slime ball,” I began, remembering what I wanted to ask it before Agent Ortiz had interrupted, “I wanna know who or what made you their bitch, who sent you after me!?” I said harshly.

  “We do not know,” it answered.

  “Too bad,” I said, picking up the fallen chain, I raised it over my head and was about to send it into another cast when the wraith spoke up.

  “WE DO NOT KNOW!” it rasped loudly, “she forced us, she bound us but we did not see.”

  She? I wondered, well now I had something. Whatever it was I was dealing with was a female. The problem was, I didn’t know if the monster was female or masquerading as a human female, although, that didn’t matter in the end.

  “What else do you know, how do you even know it’s a female?” I asked.

  “We felt it, felt her,” it began, “felt her essence when she bound us.” It finished with a serpenty hiss.

  “Wait, you can tell a monsters gender by feeling its…. essence?” I said in a befuddled tone.

  “Yes,” was its all too simplistic reply.

  “How?”

  It didn’t answer.

  “How!?” I snarled, if there are things like that then I needed to know, any technique or ability I could use to glean info was useful.

  “Not for mortals, only wraiths.” It supplied matter of factly. “It is, nothing more, it is.”

  I took that to mean that only wraiths could do it, some sort of supernatural monster gender checker thingy. Maybe it was a way for them to tell who their new boss was since wraiths were used frequently by all manner of more powerful creatures. Maybe it was a way to garner a bit of payback, I’m not sure if wraiths care about that but if I were one of them and I was made into something’s bitch, I would.

  It made sense that logic; I mean why not, wraiths fed on humans for their souls, the essence of power that lay in every person’s soul. Monsters had power too; power that could be fed upon, if a wraith was strong enough or had the jump, maybe it could feed on a creature that had previously enthralled it. That notion intrigued me.

  “Can you feed on whatever is binding you right now?” I asked inquisitively, that bit of knowledge could prove useful; maybe I could turn this thing on whatever was pulling its inky strings.

  “Yes,” it answered.

  Sweet, I thought.

  “And no,” it finished.

  “Uh, why not?”

  “She is stronger, far stronger, older, ancient.” It replied.

  Huh, well then, I had gotten a pretty damn good answer and from a wraith. Why was it that the one thing in the universe that could supply me with a good answer was a wraith and not my intelligent and apparently omniscient boss Church?

  “So this creature, it’s old, very old?” I asked.

  “Yes,” hissed the wraith.

  “But you don’t know what it is right?”

  “Yes,” it repeated.

  “Wait, yes as in you do know, or yes as in you don’t know?”

  “Yes,” it said once again.

  “Sonuvabitch,” I muttered.

  “What is the creature that had you bound?”

  “We do not know,” it replied.

  I sighed; it took all of that to elicit that response.

  “If I release you,” I began hesitantly, “what are the odds you’ll go get some payback on the thing binding you and not try to peel my face off.”

  “We will not peel your face off—” it began.
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  “Oh good because it really isn’t mine, it’s kind of on loan but the guy wasn’t really using it ‘cause he’s dead and—” I started

  “We will feast on your soul,” it finished, cutting me off.

  “Well…that sucks, you sure?”

  “We will feast on your soul, we will devour your essence and leave your corpse to rot,” it hissed venomously, spitting its hatred out literally as small drops of black ooze spurted from its mouth.

  Guess that settled it, I wasn’t left with any choice other than to kill the wraith. I whipped the chain into an arc like swing as fast I could, wrapping it around the wraiths face this time. Its face quickly began forming small bubbles that began bursting, the black steam began shooting out of it and its shrieks pierced my ears painfully. I didn’t stop there though; I yanked hard on the chain, forcing the monster to collide with the salt barrier. Its screams doubled, everything doubled, the bubbles that were rapidly forming and burst across its body, the steam billowing out of it and of course, its agony.

  It didn’t last long, a minute at the most and the worst part of it was probably the damage done to my hearing from its incessant shrieks. It seemed cold, cruel even, but it wasn’t. The truth of the matter was, if I let that thing go, it would either report back to its master and come at me again. Or, since it was weakened from my torture, if I had let it go and if didn’t try to kill me, it would assuredly stalk and kill some poor innocent human being to regain its strength.

  I. Could. Not. Allow. That.

  That’s who I am, as cold and cruel as what I just did seemed, it would have been far crueler to have let that thing go. Anyone it killed after being set free would have been on me. Now I’m not really in the business of saving people but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna stand by and let them die.

  The wraiths death wasn’t anything spectacular, it didn’t burst into an explosion of tar like goo that went splattering everywhere, it just sort of collapsed. The mass of inky black liquid fell in on itself like a structure that had just lost its foundation. Inside the circle of pristine white salt, lay the very opposite, a dirty disgusting black gooey mass.

  “That’s gonna be a bitch to get out for whoever’s gonna be selling this place now that Norman’s dead,” I muttered.