The Moonlight Monsters Detective Agency Volume One Read online

  The Moonlight Monster Detective Agency

  Volume One

  By

  Maggie Harper

  Copyright © 2011 Maggie Harper

  First Published by Thompson, Joyce, MacGowan Publishing Group 2011

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transferred in any form without prior written permission from the author or her representatives. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Contents

  Foreword

  Blood Oath

  High Spirits

  Hells Bells

  Sand Wedged

  Full Circle

  Foreword

  Wow, what can I say about this series that will properly convey my newfound joy at having discovered it? Maybe that’s it’s given me the emotional wherewithal to drag myself out of bed before five pm (on weekdays anyway)? Or perhaps that it has instilled me with the courage to finally face my fear of competitive arctic skinny-diving? Well ok, maybe not quite as extreme as those examples, but you get the drift…

  Seriously though, the Moonlight Monsters Detective Agency is really something special and if you’re holding it in your hands right now then I honestly envy you for what you’re about to experience. I was lucky enough to get an early read on these stories from Shane over at TJM Publishing and I’m not ashamed to admit that I devoured each one as greedily as a hungry German on Bratwurst Morning as soon as they came out. In Tina, Sam et al, Maggie Harper has started one of the most exciting takes on the supernatural mystery angle since Mulder and Scully shared that first kiss and the X Files went stale for the next four seasons or so. Not like that kept any of us from watching though, right?

  Anyway, without further ado, here’s volume one of the Moonlight Monsters Detective Agency. You’re in for quite a treat. And I’ll stop talking now.

  – Andrew Green

  Andrew Green is the author of the Godsmacked series published by Thompson, Joyce, MacGowan Publishing Group.

  Blood Oath

  ‘Ok Tina, you can do this.’

  Tina Peterson inched her feet a few more steps across the black and white linoleum floor of the office staff kitchen. The smell was unbearable. At the other side of the room was an oven, a fridge and a long counter on top of which was perched a microwave oven – the source of this particular terrible stench. Its inside surface had been sprayed completely black from whatever horrible, otherworldly object had exploded within and it was impossible to see anything through the glass door.

  Tina stepped forward. Her fingers were squeezed tightly around her nostrils, yet somehow the smell was still getting in.

  ‘Come on,’ she whispered, ‘just walk over there, pull out the plug and bag the thing. This should be child’s play to you. After all, you’re the one who singlehandedly faced down the Nefarious Allegiance of Kaco-Moon last summer. Just do it Tina…’

  She moved closer. The effluvium was making her eyes water and her skin was starting to sting. With a flash, she clamped her free hand over her mouth. ‘Oh Jesus, I think I’m going to be sick!’

  At that moment, the huge Russian figure of Boris Rachmaninoff burst into the room. ‘Tvoyu Mat!’ he roared, ‘what is this terrible smell!’

  Tina looked up and gestured frantically towards the microwave. ‘It’s one of Ernie’s damn space-pies,’ she said, ‘get it out of here and down to the garbage, will you? Before I throw up.’

  Boris, who just so happened to be a werebear – as in a man who sometimes turns into a bear – rushed forward and snatched the machine up off the counter as though it were no heavier than a bag of feathers. Superhuman strength comes in handy sometimes. Grumbling a spew of curse words in his native tongue, he ran to the window and dropped the microwave down the garbage chute. With a crash it landed in the skip below.

  ‘Boris looked down at the alley through the window. ‘I suppose we’ll have to put some kind of chemical treatments on there. That little Svoloch better have something to do the job, before some poor hobo starts rooting around and gives himself a damn seizure.’

  Across the room Tina was slowly regaining her composure. She shook her head. ‘That’s it, Boris,’ she said, ‘next time we’re getting two microwaves – and Ernie has to keep his one in the basement…’ She sighed. It was supposed to be lunchtime, but she’d lost her appetite now for good. Oh well, she thought, all in a day’s work at the Moonlight Monsters’ Detective Agency.

  Tina was part demon. An eighth-demon to be precise – on her mother’s side – although the family didn’t really keep in touch with that strain of relations these days. Which was just fine as far as Tina was concerned. While not all of the demon breeds could be said to be truly evil (and there were actually nearly as many of them as there were mammals on Earth), they were all certainly strange. Very strange, in fact, and Tina had never been comfortable with that part of her heritage. But then that was America, she observed – everybody’s people had come there from somewhere and she saw herself as being essentially no different than anybody else who abstained from following the Orthodox culture and traditions of their forefathers.

  And anyway, she was still human at a ratio of seven to one, so she wasn’t really all that different to any other normal citizen of Moonlight City. Certainly she looked no different – with her long brown hair and cute, slightly-bookish spectacles – and outside of her work with the Detective Agency, she lived a private life that was typically human. Some might even say it was boring, since Tina spent most nights doing little more than curling up with a good mystery novel and her cat Gabriel for company.

  No, it was only on the inside where her magical traits had manifested themselves. For one thing Tina aged at no more than a fraction of the rate of most people. She was twenty-nine, but she looked like a young twenty-two and would probably stay that way for at least another ten years. She was only glad that she’d aged relatively normally up until the hormonal deluge of adolescence had passed. She shuddered to think of what it would be like trying to celebrate her thirtieth birthday with a body that still looked twelve years old. That’s how it had been for her mom.

  Besides the extended life-expectancy, Tina Peterson was also gifted with psychic abilities. Mainly telepathy and mild telekinesis, to be precise, and that’s what had attracted her to the Moonlight Supernatural Detective Agency (AKA the Moonlight Monsters’ Detective Agency, as it was affectionately referred to by those in the know). Sure, it would have been easy to hitch a free-ride with powers like hers, but Tina was the kind of person who’d rather give something back. Though sometimes she still wondered if she’d made the right choice…

  ‘Man,’ she said, plugging in the summer fan to help clear out the smell, ‘that’s the last time Ernie’s making food up here. I know this is supposed to be an equal opportunities workplace but I’ve just about had enough of this crap.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Boris grunted and then opened the fridge to collect his own lunch of raw beefsteak.

  ‘Well at least you’ve still got your appetite,’ Tina said, ‘me – I mightn’t eat till after Christmas at this rate.’

  ‘You know I get cranky if I don’t get my meat,’ Boris shrugged and started tucking in.

  At that moment Ernie the Egghead – the agency’s IT guy and three-foot alien grayling – maneuvered his way into the kitchen on his electronic walking pod (think, tiny wheel chair with legs). ‘Hey!’ he called, ‘where’s the microwave gone? I had my lunch in there…’

  Ernie the Egghead, whose real name was all but unpronounceable by the human tongue, had crash-landed in the de
sert outside Las Vegas in nineteen eighty-five. He’d been on a voyage of self-discovery across the Universe starting in the Horsehair Nebula, and had been long out of communications range with his home planet by the time he reached Earth. For better or for worse, that meant he was stuck here for good.

  Well Ernie had a mind for math that would have made Kim Peek blush and he soon crossed paths with a relentless gambler and high-roller from the strip who knew just exactly how best to put the alien’s mind to work. Together they made a cool fortune for two whole years before the agency finally got wind of the racket. When they intercepted the gamblers Ernie was given a choice: either he offer up his gifts for the service of the agency, or they hand him over to the US Government where he’d probably spend the rest of his life in a glass cage getting poked with sticks. When it was put to him like that, Ernie was happy to comply.

  ‘What do you mean it smelt terrible?’ Ernie demanded, ‘it smelt delicious! That was one of my favorite mothers’ recipes, I’ll have you know. My third mother – Xccooonnnnnnchccchhhhcamupppppa the Vast and Honored.’

  ‘Well save it for home in future,’ Tina warned, ‘coz to me and Boris it smelt like a horse that crawled under a bridge to die – ten years ago Goddamn it!’

  Ernie stared up at her with his big almond eyes and shrugged his wrinkly grey shoulders. ‘Yeah, I know,’ he said, ‘like I said: delicious.’

  Tina rolled her eyes and sighed.

  ‘Anyway,’ Ernie continued, scuttling further into the kitchen on his mechanical little legs, ‘something’s come up. I just got word from the Institute that there’s a new undesirable in town…’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Boris asked.

  ‘Yeah. Sam Parker’s the name. Guy’s a vampire from London – not to mention a two-bit conman besides. He just moved in last week and now he’s setting himself up across town as some kind of paranormal Private Detective.’

  Ernie reached into the little box-compartment on the front of his walker and took out a glossy photograph. He handed it to Tina.

  She considered the roguish face beneath a mop of scruffy blond hair for a second before passing the picture to Boris. ‘Huh,’ she said, ‘well he is kind of cute, but if he’s trying to practice without a license then he has to go.’

  ‘So this vamp’s downtown then?’ Boris asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ Ernie said, ‘guy’s rented himself a little basement office over on Moreland Street. Chance’s are with money he procured through devious means.’

  ‘We’re on it,’ Tina said, ‘anything to get out of this damn kitchen. Still smells like a sewer in here…’

  Boris shrugged and made a move for the door.

  ‘One more thing,’ Tina said, turning back to face the little alien, ‘we had to chuck the microwave down the garbage chute, so you better get that quarantined before it raises any suspicions.’

  Ernie’s eyes lit up. ‘Oh yeah? Maybe I can still salvage my lunch then.’

  ‘No. You know you can’t go out there without a chaperone. Send Lonny the cleaner to do it.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ Ernie shrugged, ‘just you go find Sam Parker, I’ll take care of it.’

  Tina grabbed her coat and they headed outside.

  Outside the sky was clear and sunny. A good day for mid-December, Tina observed as they left the agency office and made for the car.

  ‘Man,’ Boris muttered, ‘you can still smell that crap from here. They better get it cleaned up soon.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Tina smiled, ‘got to feel bad for Lonny though.’

  They climbed into the sleek black company Mercedes and Boris started the engine.

  ‘So how’s everything at home?’ Tina asked him as she pulled on her seatbelt.

  ‘Oh noisy, noisy, noisy,’ Boris grumbled. ‘Svetlana’s reaching the terrible teens already. You think that’s bad with humans, just try to picture with bear-cubs…’

  ‘I guess it’s not easy on any kid.’

  ‘Ya. And her brothers, all they care for is this X-Station, Playbox machine. I tell you, it’s not good for a boy to be inside glued to television screens and made-up pictures all day.’

  ‘These are wild times we live in,’ Tina said, ‘nobody can deny that. How’s your sister doing?’

  ‘Ah,’ Boris sighed, ‘her hands are full with the little ones, but she does her best. I suppose I am blessed in many ways.’

  ‘Yeah well they’re lucky they’ve got you,’ Tina said, ‘God knows you’re a good father to them Boris.’

  As a younger man, Boris Rachmaninoff had used his unique skills – i.e., the ability to hulk-out bear-style at will (except for during full moons, when the transformation would take place whether he wanted it to or not) – to aid freedom-fighters in Soviet Russia before the collapse of the USSR. Although he’d been no more than twenty-one when the Berlin Wall came down, he’d already spent a good five years or so as the personal bodyguard for a cell of revolutionary soldiers. So when he immigrated to the states later that year with his young wife Arianna, it was just that experience which made him the perfect candidate for service with the Supernatural Detective Agency.

  Over the next two decades he worked tirelessly for the Agency, even after the tragic death of his wife in two-thousand and eight. When Tina made the grade six years ago it had been him who’d shown her the ropes. They’d been partners ever since.

  Moonlight City was a generally peaceful metropolis located on the East Coast, south of New York but north of DC, which was, for some inexplicable reason, occasionally disturbed by disasters and mishaps of a supernatural nature, which seemed to occur there much more frequently than anywhere else in the nation. Well if the heads up at the Shelly Byron Institute (the loose organization that governed paranormal activity across the globe and gave the agency their orders) knew why Moonlight City was this way predisposed then they certainly weren’t letting on. It was a mystery that Tina expected she might solve herself some day, but as for now, all she could do was guess.

  As Boris drove the car across town, Tina let her mind filter out and spread around the city, searching for a psychic trace of Sam Parker. Tina had the ability to enter just about anybody’s mind with ease, though outside of work she usually abstained for ethical reasons. Normals were easy prey, she could pretty much find out anything she wanted off them with ease, but most supernatural beings had at least some semblance of internal defenses set up. When you know what’s really out there it pays to put in an extra bit of work.

  That said, there were a few who could block her out completely, but unless Sam Parker was expecting them that day, then it should be easy enough to pick him up. All she had to do was listen out for the dude thinking thoughts in a British accent.

  At the corner of Augustine and St. John’s Street, she hit the target.

  “Ok Mate, you’re set. You’ve got the cigarettes, a nice little drop of Irish Whiskey to keep you warm and a little pouch of pig’s blood in case you get thirsty…”

  ‘I’ve got him.’ Tina said.

  ‘Ok,’ Boris nodded, ‘which way?’

  ‘Hold on…’

  “This bastard should be here anytime soon Sam, so just settle down and wait. That’s it, maybe light a fag to keep the chill away. Oh yeah, it’s all good…”

  ‘North,’ Tina said, ‘North West along Augustine Avenue. He’s close.’

  Boris changed lanes and set off up the street.

  ‘Come on, come on,’ Tina whispered as she tried to hone in on the perp.

  “AAaahhh, that’s a nice smoke mate. One good thing about the yanks is they know how to roll a – Hold on a second! Who the ‘ell are you!”

  ‘Shit,’ Tina muttered, ‘he’s picked me up…’

  “Trying to have a little peek into Sam Parker’s head are we love? Ha! Not without buying me dinner first at least…”

  Parker’s defenses had kicked in strong now – there was no way she’d hear anything that he didn’t want her to hear. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t still find his location.r />
  ‘He’s along here somewhere,’ she said, ‘up high, I think.’

  Boris slowed the car down, keeping his eyes fixed on the passing buildings. Tina placed her fingers to her forehead and started to speak, beaming the words directly into Parker’s head.

  ‘Sam Parker! This is Agent Tina Peterson of the SDA – that’s Supernatural Detective Agency, in case you aren’t aware. We have reason to believe you’re practicing investigation without a license. An offense punishable under section eight of the Alighieri Act. We know you’re on Augustine, so why don’t you just step out onto the street and surrender and maybe we’ll show you a little clemency.’

  “Hah!” Sam Parker’s mind replied, “The hell I will love, I’m on a case here.”

  ‘Well then you should expect to be met with the full brunt of the law,’ Tina said and closed off her voice to Sam’s mind. ‘He’s up high somewhere, on your side,’ she said to Boris, ‘Check the rooftops and fire-escapes.’

  ‘I see him!’ Boris shouted, pointing down the street. There, hanging from a rusty fire-escape, was the figure of Sam Parker, his whole body hidden beneath a heavy coat and hood – the standard attire for a vampire out in the open during daylight.

  ‘Ok,’ Tina said, ‘pull up slow – we don’t want him to hear us approach.’

  “You still there love?” Sam Parker asked, “because I’ve got to split – though you sound like a real keeper, so maybe we’ll meet again, yeah? Toodles then…”

  As they parked up beside the curb, Parker dropped down from the fire-escape, landing first on the canopy of a grocery store and then tumbling onto the sidewalk.

  “Ah shit, shit, shit, you bloody WANKER!”

  The detectives jumped out of the car, as Parker picked himself up and set off running down the street.