OCCULT Detectives Volume 1 Read online

  AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTIONS

  OCCULT Detectives Volume 1

  “Personal Devil” © 2014 Joel Jenkins

  “The Strix Society” © 2014 Josh Reynolds

  “The Lost Wife of Thomas Tan” © 2014 Jim Beard

  “Jazzy” © 2014 Ron Fortier

  Published by Airship 27 Productions

  www.airship27.com

  www.airship27hangar.com

  Interior illustrations © 2014 Rob Davis

  Cover illustration © 2014 Rob Davis & Jesús Rodríguez

  Managing Editor: Ron Fortier

  Associate Editor: Charles Saunders

  Marketing and Promotions Manager: Michael Vance

  Production and design by Rob Davis

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright

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  OCCULT

  Detectives

  Volume One

  PERSONAL DEVIL............................................................................................................................5

  (A Lone Crow Adventure)

  By Joel Jenkins

  Mormon gunfighter, Porter Rockwell, seeks Lone Crow’s aid in battling the netherworld spirit of a kurdaitcha who freezes her victims to death.

  THE STRIX SOCIETY....................................................................................................................49

  (A St. Cyprian Adventure)

  By Josh Reynolds

  At the bidding of a wealthy Lord, St. Cyprian and Miss Gallowglass attempt to save a callow youth from an immortal siren with demonic powers.

  THE LOST WIFE OF THOMAS TAN................................................................................85

  (A Sgt. Janus Adventure)

  By Jim Beard

  A lonely man needs Sgt. Janus’ aid to put to rest the spirit of his late wife and foil the plans of a nefarious cult.

  JAZZY.........................................................................................................................................................116

  (A Ravenwood : Stepson of Mystery Adventure)

  By Ron Fortier

  Ravenwood must protect a young teenage girl with a dark secret regarding her past.

  Personal Devil

  A Lone Crow Adventure

  By Joel Jenkins

  Crossing the American River, a few miles below Sutter’s Mill where California gold was first discovered, and traveling down the Canyon of the Middle Fork the Indian dressed in cowboy’s clothing passed an alder upon which the words Murderer’s Bar were carved. It was near here on a pebbled sand bar that the remains of a camp had been found by the Merritt-Buckner expedition. The former campsite contained the scorched bones and remnants of both white man and Indian, which had been burned in a pit upon that bar, the hair of both Indian and white man strewn about as if in some sort of ritual.

  Even this grisly discovery was not enough to tarnish the lure of gold. Just out of shouting distance of Murderer’s Bar a few buildings had sprung up to supply and outfit prospectors who worked the Middle Fork of the American River, panning for flecks and pebbles of gold. It was here that Lone Crow found the tavern owned by the infamous Mormon gunfighter Porter Rockwell. Lone Crow slid from his horse and hitched it at the rail. Inside the incongruent conglomeration of hewed trees and salvaged board from the ramshackle cabin of a deserted mining operation, Crow found Rockwell, nursing an ale. He was sitting on a stool, fashioned from a whiskey crate, at the rough-hewn bar formed by splitting a large tree down the center.

  Receding at the top, Porter’s dark brown hair spilled over his shoulders. He turned his cold blue gaze upon the man entering his tavern and his somberness was momentarily replaced with a large grin. “Brother Crow, you are a sight for sore eyes!”

  The bar was mostly empty at mid-day except for a few miners at the back who had decided to give up their panning in favor of raising three sheets to the wind. Crow pulled up one of the makeshift stools alongside Rockwell, ignoring the suspicious gazes of the miners who wondered why a long-haired Indian had just walked into their bar.

  “An urgent message from Porter Rockwell can’t be ignored,” said Crow.

  Rockwell blanched. “Careful when you say my name, Crow. I’m going by Brown, now. There’s more than a few Missourians around who would have my head if they knew who I really was.”

  Crow nodded, understanding this well. “So what is it that brings me here?”

  Rockwell appeared a bit sheepish. “I may have overreacted, Crow…and I feel bad about dragging you all the way out here on a fool’s errand.”

  “A fool’s errand?” repeated Crow.

  “The fool being me. I’m all balled up about the matter.”

  “What matter?” asked Crow.

  “It’s just that I’m befuddled by the whole thing, and I don’t even understand what happened to me but I know that you’ve dealt with some weird things, and I’ve sure ‘nuff seen some strange things when I’ve been in your company. I thought that maybe you’d have some ideas ...” Rockwell broke off. “I’m forgetting my manners.”

  Rockwell called out to the bartender. “Elvin, get Mr. Crow, here, something to drink.”

  “Water will be fine,” said Crow.

  Elvin, the squat bartender with the bushy beard seemed confused by this. “But we don’t…”

  “You heard what he said,” barked Rockwell. “Go get the man some water!”

  “Yes, sir.” Elvin hurried out the back door of the tavern in search of some water — not a common request from their patrons.

  Rockwell lifted his half full glass. “You’re a better man than I, Crow. I can’t seem to stay away from the hard stuff.”

  Crow knew that despite the Mormon edict against strong drink, Rockwell hadn’t completely complied. “So what are these strange things that you’ve been seeing, Porter?”

  “Well, Brigham asked me to collect tithes from Sam Brannan, whose been collecting the moneys from the saints here in California. I went with Brother Lyman to ask for the tithes and he told me that I’d have to present a receipt from God before he handed over those tithes.

  “I don’t much like being told to skedaddle, so I pulled my hog leg on him. Brannan, he just laughed in my face, and I was about to lay a stripe across his skull with the barrel of my pistol when I looked up and saw some dark thing hovering in the corner over Brannan’s head.”

  “A dark thing?” asked Crow, for he’d seen many dark things in his brief time on the earth.

  “I…I think it was a woman, but her body was all swirling blackness, like somebody was stirring a barrel of tar. All I really remember about her is eyes like pits into hell.” Porter peered at the Indian. “Have you ever run into something like that before?”

  Crow thought long before answering. “Perhaps, maybe a kurdaitcha or a succubus, if the personage was indeed female.”

  “Best as I could tell,” said Rockwell, “but like I said, the body was not solid, it was like gun smoke or some such thing. I’ve heard of a succubus, but this creature was not desirable in any way that I could tell. Maybe she was a kurdaitcha.”

  “What happened when you saw the creature?” asked Crow.

  “My mind went blank. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t even act. Finally, Lyman ha
d to lead me away! I’ve never felt so befuddled; except for maybe when I’m deep in my drinks.”

  “It could be a kurdaitcha,” said Crow. “They are malevolent spirits that have the power to confuse men’s minds. Usually, they attach themselves to a host and persuade them to do wicked things and help them accomplish those things.”

  “You think that this kurdaitcha has attached herself to Sam Brannan?”

  Crow gave the slightest of shrugs. “It’s possible … if it is indeed a kurdaitcha.”

  “So how do you fight a kurdaitcha, Crow? Because I’ll be durned if I’m going to go back to Brigham and tell him I couldn’t fetch the tithing funds he sent me for.”

  “You can kill the host.” Crow accepted a glass of cold river water from Elvin. “But the kurdaitcha will transfer to the unprotected body of anyone within the distance that a scream can be heard.”

  “That can be a long ways,” said Rockwell. “Is there any way to stop it?”

  “By wearing shoes made of emu feathers and human blood,” replied Crow, “but emu feathers may be hard to come by in California.”

  “Human blood is plentiful enough. Is there any other way to stop the kurdaitcha from moving into another body?”

  “Maybe or maybe not,” said Crow. “I don’t even know for sure if emu feather shoes will do the trick.”

  “You don’t know? What did you do last time you encountered one of ...”

  Rockwell broke off from his conversation when the beer glass in his hand exploded into shards. Ale foam sprayed the rough-hewn bar top, and the report of a rifle rang in their ears. The bartender clutched at his chest where a blossom of crimson appeared. The first gunshot was followed by more, coming through the open doorway, splintering the bar in a half dozen places while Crow and Rockwell dove for cover deeper in the tavern.

  The gold hunters who had been sharing drinks in the corner left the crates upon which they had been perched and crouched behind the tables, which were also constructed from crates and slabs cut from tree stumps.

  Rockwell grabbed up a fire poker and began to clear out the mud which was daubed between the seams of the logs which constructed the tavern. “I’ll hold them off, Crow, make myself a distraction, while you go out the back and see if you can get a bead on them.”

  Crow had been of a same mind and was already headed toward the back door of the tavern, which was little more than a doe skin flap. He rolled through in the case that whoever had shot Elvin had an accomplice that was set up and waiting for someone to emerge from the rear of the tavern. This bit of precaution saved Crow’s life; for the moment he tumbled into the open, a rifle began to spit at him from the grove of trees that flanked the rudely built assemblage of huts and shanties.

  A pair of holes appeared in the doe skin flap and then whoever was firing from the woods adjusted his aim and gouts of dirt and rock erupted near Crow as he scrambled to find cover behind a large bloodstained stump, from which protruded a hatchet amid a pile of chicken heads. Crow could hear gunfire from the front of the cabin, and based on the frequency and sound of the shots he could tell that there were at least two gunmen firing upon the cabin from the front. Rockwell was apparently alive and well, because he was lustily yelling denigrations at the attackers as he returned fire through the chinks between the logs.

  Crow wasn’t of much help to Rockwell at the moment, because he found himself pinned down by the rifleman at the rear and unable to move from the cover of the stump for fear of being hit. As of yet, he hadn’t fired a single shot in return. Part of this was because he hadn’t figured out precisely where the rifleman was positioned and the other part was because he didn’t want to waste any bullets.

  He picked up and tossed a chicken head out into the open and it jumped as a bullet struck it, then Crow reached up and wrenched the hatchet loose from the log, before ducking back behind cover. The stump shuddered as a bullet struck it. Without ever leaving cover, Crow lofted the hatchet in the general direction of the rifleman and then ducked around to the left of the log.

  The hatchet was still spinning through the air, and Crow could see the rifleman, crouched behind a fallen tree some twenty yards distant. For a moment, the rifleman’s attention was diverted by the flight of the hatchet and amidst a split-second determination of whether it was a danger to him. It was not, however, the blade of the axe that posed the threat to his life. Crow fired his eagle-butted Colt. 45 three times. One of the shots shaved off a scrap of bark from the log over which the rifleman had laid his gun, and the other two shots stitched across the breast and collarbone of the rifleman.

  As the hatchet whirled off to be lost in the trees, the rifleman groaned and sank to the ground, his rifle toppling after him. Crow’s own rifle was still scabbarded on his horse, and so he raced into the grove, leaping the log behind which the dying rifleman lay. The rifleman looked at him resentfully, as Crow plucked up his rifle. The lips of the dying man fluttered, but he was unable to say anything, before the last of his life’s blood spilled to the thirsty earth.

  The rifleman had just finished loading a fresh cartridge and Crow jerked loose the dead man’s bandolier of ammunition and threw it over his own shoulder. Without hesitating he ran along the back of a supply outpost and a dilapidated shack held together with clots of mud and rope salvaged from an abandoned ship in the port of San Francisco, and peered around the edge, rifle thrown to his shoulder.

  Black powder vapor undulated through the chinks of the tavern as Rockwell fired up the craggy rise and into the forest. However, it was the puffs of black powder that rose from the forest that interested Crow, for these indicated the positions of the pair of riflemen that hid in the copse of slender trees that grew thick along the slopes.

  In order to steady his aim, Crow rested the barrel of the rifle on a stick that protruded from the corner of the shack. The shot was a tricky one because he had to thread the bullet through the screen of tree trunks to hit a sniper whose head and shoulders were the only parts of his body that were visible, and which were partially concealed by the boles of intervening saplings.

  Crow blew out a breath so that the rise and fall of his lungs would not throw off his aim and he squeezed the trigger. The bullet took off the hat of the rifleman, who clapped a hand to his scalp. When his palm came away bloody, he began to scramble toward the crest of the slope, rifle in his right hand. It took Crow but a moment to pull back the bolt, eject the spent casing and push another into its place. By this time the rifleman was scrambling over the lip of the hill and the second gunman had turned his rifle away from the tavern and toward Crow.

  Just over Crow’s head, a bullet took a clod of earth and sod off the roof of the shack. Instead of shooting the retreating rifleman, Crow turned his attention to the better concealed rifleman who had remained on the slope. Again, the shot was nigh on impossible. However, Crow managed to skin the bark of a sapling just left of the rifleman, and this sent him ducking out of sight while he reloaded.

  While Crow raced to reload before the concealed rifleman could, Rockwell was not disposed to pass up a shot at the momentarily exposed gunman at the top of the ridge. There was still a mass of branches and leaves obscuring the target, but Rockwell’s pistol cracked twice and the second round took the rifleman in the heel, splitting his boot, before he staggered over the rise and out of sight.

  Crow was quicker on the reload than his opponent who was still hunkered down on the slope, and when that rifleman rose, the Indian adjusted his aim a fraction to the right and sent a bullet skimming down the length of his enemy’s rifle barrel and through his right eye. As the rifleman died, he pulled the trigger and blew off another clot of sod, raining dirt down upon the brim of Crow’s hat.

  Seeing the way was clear, Rockwell emerged from the tavern, even as he replaced some spent cartridges in his pistol. He and Crow each sprinted across the rutted street and threw themselves into the midst of the forested slope, using their momentum to propel them up the uneven and treacherous incline. When the
y emerged from the forest at the crest of the slope, they caught sight of a pinto, with a white sock on his left rear leg, and its rider which were just about to disappear around the narrow neck of a fissure in the rocky crags.

  Rockwell sent a parting bullet in the direction of the fleeing horseman, but it spanged off an outcropping of rock just as the rifleman rounded the corner into the obscurity of the rugged landscape. As the cloud of black gunpowder from his pistol rose, Rockwell glanced back at the remaining horse, which strained at its tether, attempting to uproot the sapling to which it was tied. “It seems you’re richer one horse, Crow.”

  “Sell it and give the proceeds to the bartender’s family,” said Crow. “They’ll have more need of it than I.”

  Rockwell nodded. “Elvin was a good man. I don’t relish the thought of breaking the bad news to his wife.”

  “So, just who is it that wants you dead, Porter?”

  Rockwell shrugged. “I’ve kilt a lot of people, never anyone that didn’t need killing, but it wouldn’t be surprising that someone wanted me dead. There’s too many Missourian gold hunters who might remember that I kilt more than a few of their mobocrat friends.”

  Crow picked his way down the slope. “Maybe your identity isn’t as secret as you thought.”

  “Maybe,” conceded Rockwell. “Maybe it’s time I take my grubstake and head for friendlier parts.”

  Crow crouched over the dead rifleman and the gory mess that stained the earth of the slope. He saw the glint of a chain beneath the flannel collar of the man’s shirt and he opened up the neck to pull loose a brass medallion that was pressed with the image of the sword-bearing woman with a scale in her left hand, and on the other a large eye around which radiated beams of light or energy. “Does this look familiar to you, Porter?”

  “Hmph,” grunted Rockwell as he took and examined the coin. “This woman looks like lady justice … except she’s missing the blindfold.”