Shadow Born: A Joseph Hunter Novel: Book 1 (Joseph Hunter Series) Read online

  Shadow Born

  Joseph Hunter Book 1

  Alex Gates

  Alex C Gates

  Copyright © 2020 by Alex C. Gates

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Design: Luminescence Covers

  Editor: Walker Kornfeld

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Join the Hunt

  Shadow Born

  Warning!

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  What did you think?

  Shadow Hunter

  Join the Hunt

  Also by Alex Gates

  Acknowledgments

  Join the Hunt

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  Shadow Born

  Warning!

  Hi.

  Little disclaimer about me, Joseph Labrador Hunter—no, that’s not my real middle name, but yes, I think it sounds pretty badass.

  This story isn’t not for the faint of heart. It’s not for the sensitive.

  I know what you’re thinking, reader. You have handled the daring Harry Dresden, the foul-mouthed Nate Temple, the pulpy violence of James Stark. Well, let me tell you something right now…

  You’re dead wrong if you think you can handle Joseph Labrador Hunter. I’m more of the third, forgotten Winchester brother.

  In the words of my old pal, Lemony Snicket, “If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book.” He’s not really a pal of mine, more of a hero, but the sentiment rings true. My story isn’t one of happiness.

  It has a sad beginning…

  In the middle, there’s a lot of violent, sad things that happen…

  And the ending, well, that’s the saddest part.

  I’m not a hero. I’m not a wizard. I’m not Superman with a wand. If you’re looking for light-hearted fun, go sniff up someone else’s magical staff.

  I’m a nightmare to my best friends and a death wish to my worst enemies. And I’m also very melodramatic, and I will sometimes break into a running commentary with my reader—because it’s the only time anyone listens to me!

  Grab your favorite drink. You’ll need it if you ever want to forget this story.

  1

  Cold water drizzled over my face, waking me from a dead sleep. By the way my head hammered, I half-wished I’d finally eaten that special, life-ending bullet I had always craved. It would have swept away the shattered glass rattling around the old think tank. I’m just very conscious of what I put into my body, and I had hard time believing that a bullet in the brain would solve any of my problems—beyond my headache, that was.

  The coolness of the damp ground and the morning air and the sprinkling water helped with the burning temperatures of my skin and head. But the reek of feces and wet soil didn’t help with the bile lodged in my throat and the nausea swimming through stomach.

  As I lay facedown, I opened my eyes and saw green blades of grass thick with dew. The water showering over me had moved away. Thankfully, it returned a couple seconds later, spraying over my body and soaking my clothes.

  Shit, I thought, clawing my fingers into the moist soil and trying to recollect last night.

  In a previous life, I was a contractor, hired to locate, investigate, and exterminate. In this life, I did more or less the same thing—locate where I woke up, investigate the previous night, exterminate the hangover. That’s a true riches to fucking rags story, right there.

  After work yesterday, I’d found a dingy bar with a killer happy hour to mourn the anniversary of my wife’s death—which was actually today. I didn’t remember leaving the dive, though. Nor did I recall whose yard I had passed out in.

  Not mine. That was for certain. My sprinkler box had a massive black widow living in it, and I’d be damned to turn the irrigation knob from OFF to AUTO and mess with that bitch. Not that my lawn grew anything beyond dandelions and broad-leafed weeds, anyway. Better to keep it my preferred color for a yard—brown.

  I grunted as another stream of sprinkler water washed over me, and I forced myself to sit upright. My chin rested against my collarbone as I waited for the blood to drain from head. The yard spun. The cold, sporadic sprinkler water helped with the aching throughout my entire body and my hazy vision and the lingering nausea.

  I burped, tasting bile, but I didn’t vomit. Thank God for small victories.

  I gripped my temples between my thumb and index finger, applying pressure to my head, and my thumb pressed into something slimy… gooey. Pulling back my hand, I noticed a greenish-brown substance smeared over my thumb. The lingering smell of feces grew. I coughed as another round of nausea overwhelmed me.

  “Great,” I muttered when the sickness passed. Apparently, the grass hadn’t been up to par with my fancy-ass sleeping standards. I had needed a pillow upon which to rest my dainty head, and I had chosen a fluffy pile of dog shit.

  I wiped my thumb on the wet lawn and surveyed the neighborhood. As I did, dreaded realization settled over me, instantly curing my hangover and muting the stench of poo that spread across my face like peanut butt-butter. I had an untamable urge to get up and leave this place and not look back.

  “Shit,” I said again, my stomach knotting every which way, my skin tingly with regret. I’d screwed up last night—and not the usual Joseph Hunter screw up. I had actually fucked up good and proper.

  I stood on shaky legs and stumbled toward the street as the world whirled around.

  “Joey,” called an idiotic voice from behind me. “Where you going?”

  I silently cursed, but kept walking, pretending not to hear.

  “Joey,” the voice said again. “I see you.”

  I halted my attempted escape and sat back in the wet lawn. The water soaked into my jeans, helping maintain a cool internal temperature. I kept my attention on the street before me, not daring to glance back and show recognition. The sun was rising in front of me, so I also had a decent view of gray clouds catching fire—a beautiful metaphor to my ashen life.

  “I’ve been meaning to turn those sprinklers off,” Derek said from the front porch. “Rough night?”

  I cleared my throat. “Not the parts I remember. What time is it?”

  “She’s not up yet, if that’s what you mean.”

  It was what I meant.

  “I have coffee,” Derek said. “There’s a little leftover breakfast. You hungry?”

  I shook my head. My stomach rumbled and my hands formed to fists. “I shouldn’t be here.” I surveyed the area for any signs of danger—of someone or something that didn’t belong in the quaint neighborhood. “Shouldn’t be seen with you. It’s too dangerous.”

  The sprinklers turned off, leaving me soaked and shivering in the cool morning breeze. A car sped by, going about double the speed limit. A twinge of fear turned to anger, clutching at my heart. My
seven-year-old daughter lived in this neighborhood, lived in the house right behind me. That car had no right to speed.

  “Mel’s doing good,” Derek offered. “Just started second grade. Her teacher loves her. She has lots of friends.”

  I sniffled, the cold weather getting to my sinuses. “Today is the day,” I said, opening and staring at my shit-smeared palms. Normally, I wasn’t this morose. But something about the anniversary of my wife’s death—something about those memories stole my usual humor. “Seven years ago to the very day.” I grunted as I stood. “Derek.”

  “Yeah?”

  I still faced the street with my back to him. “Thanks for the offer, but I have to go. You know I shouldn’t be here. It’s too dangerous for Mel.”

  “I know.”

  Before walking away, I hesitated, licking my dehydrated lips. I should have drunk from the sprinklers like a dog when they were on for a little water. “Does she…” I swallowed, then cleared my throat. “Does she know about me?” I couldn’t help but ask the question. Since giving Mel to Derek and Marie shortly after her mother died, I’d never spoken to the man. I gave him Mel, and he accepted her as a daughter—we both understood that we could never speak after that.

  Derek didn’t say anything at first. I fought hard not to look back and see his face. After a minute, he said, “No.”

  “What about Callie? Does Mel know about her mother?”

  Quieter this time, but quicker in his response, Derek said, “No.”

  Another car passed at a much slower pace than the previous. I glanced at the driver—a focused old lady who hugged the steering wheel. The sun had risen above the roof of the house across the street, and I had to squint against the brightness. Despite the cloud cover, the light burned into my throbbing head, but I accepted the pain.

  “Don’t ever tell her.”

  “Never,” Derek said.

  He was about forty. He and Marie, his wife, had tried to conceive for over ten years, but they found success about as often as I found happiness. I’ll you deduce the correct answer to that word problem. Nothing that modern medicine had to offer worked for them. Shortly after Callie’s death, I had asked Xander—who was good at finding things, and who you’ll meet soon enough—to find a family for Mel that would love her and keep her safe. He found the Anderson’s. Good people who had loved and cared for and protected my daughter for seven years now.

  But the main reason I had decided to hand Mel over was that Derek and his wife had no life—and, at the time, I had planned to dedicate what remained of mine to finding Callie’s killers and introducing them to excruciating mental, psychological, and physical pain. I couldn’t allow Mel to grow up in my home, where my enemies could get to her and hurt her, or use her against me. So, I moved her out of Sacramento and into a smaller town with the impotent nerd and his gorgeous—seriously, Derek was batting way out of his league—wife.

  The decision was easy to make.

  Derek and Marie woke up at five on the weekdays, six on the weekends. He prepared breakfast—fried eggs on buttered toast—for himself and her. He always tore open two packs of Stevia to dump in his coffee, while his wife preferred hot tea with honey. They followed that routine every single morning. On weekdays before work, he visited the gym, where he swam—I dizzied just watching him go back and forth like a damn windshield wiper. She went to yoga or ran in circles around a track like a damn hamster. After their morning workouts, they went to the old grindstone until four, came home, completed house chores, and ate dinner. Derek played online chess while his wife shopped the online sales, then they climbed into bed and watched a movie until they fell asleep.

  Rinse and repeat.

  I know you’re thinking it, so I will go ahead and say it. Yes, I stalked them. I stalked them good and hard for month to pinpoint their routines, their patterns, and their behaviors. I strategically chose them for Mel, because they would be there for her. They would provide structure—something I would never be able to offer.

  Back to the story. I stumbled off Derek’s lawn, leaving wet boot prints on the cement sidewalk. I didn’t dare glance back at the house. What if I saw her standing at his leg, or peeking from behind the open door, or staring out a window?

  I wiped my face, smearing the forgotten shit over my skin and into my hair. Cursing again, I tore off my jacket and used the soaked sleeve to wash off the mess. When I finished, I threw the jacket in the first trash can I came across—a metallic bin standing beside a wooden park bench. I sat on the bench and stared at the empty playground—the ghost of a possible life I had never lived.

  When I built up the courage, I removed my phone from my pants pocket to call my boss, tell him I would be late into work. The device had suffered an abhorrent amount of water damage, and it refused to power on. I shoved it back into its cave and closed my eyes, breathing heavily through my lips.

  In the darkness of my hungover yet halfway-sober mind, I relived the war I had fought in from over a decade ago. I could still smell human blood and the blackened odor of a fired gun and the rank stench of mud. I could hear the screams and the sobs and the promises of revenge.

  In my mind, I saw my wife’s charred bones—seven years ago, to the day.

  Those images always filled the darkness of my mind. To erase them, I had to drink. Otherwise, death played between my ears all night long. If I couldn’t drink, I just stayed awake and drove the streets like a broken, burnt-out, sleep-deprived vigilante—but it was better than staring at my ceiling fan.

  Unable to reside in the nightmare for long, I opened my eyes. Sweat beaded my forehead and slid down my face. I needed to go home and shower, clean the rest of the shit and the mud off me, step into dry, warm clothes—then head to work, if the boss hadn’t already fired me. Job started at six in the morning, which had come and gone with the sunrise.

  “One thing at a time,” I said, standing from the park bench. A shower would come first—maybe some one-on-none hanky-panky, if I was lucky—followed by a handful of painkillers washed down with hot coffee and scrambled eggs.

  Then I would deal with my boss.

  2

  Twenty minutes later, a ride share service—hey, if they’re not paying me, I’m not saying their name—dropped me off at the edge of my property. I shuffled up the quarter-mile-long gravel driveway, stopping to stare at and contemplate the meaning of the abnormality parked before my home. A car that didn’t belong to me.

  I gnawed at my lower lip and picked at a loose nail, studying the vehicle. White paint. Tinted windows. A fancy emblem that I didn’t recognize—not because it was an unusual car, but because there was little else in life I cared for less than cars. Maybe designer fashion, actually, or organic, glutton-free food. I’m getting off topic, though. For a second, as I regarded this strange vehicle, I wondered if my boss had tired of my habitual tardiness and hungover performances, and had decided to pay me a visit. But I had lied about my address on the application, so… nope, not him.

  As I stood before my front yard, I suffered a mild case of comparisonitis. It was all weeds and dead grass and dirt—a real eye sore compared to Derek the Nerd’s pristine yard. I grimaced as another pang of envy overtook me. That nerd had everything I wanted—a living wife, my daughter, and a manicured lawn. He probably even had a sprinkler box not overrun with black widows. What I wouldn’t give.

  Sighing at the chaotic world I had created for myself, I stared past my dead yard to my decrepit trailer.

  Let’s get this over with right now. I’m not Bruce Wayne. I live in a trailer, not a mansion with a butler and a hidden cave. Big whoop. I’d slapped a single-wide onto a three-acre lot of dirt and weeds. The size, though small, is plenty big enough to satisfy lonely, old me—and yes, that’s exactly what she said. Also, let’s go ahead and shatter a couple stereotypes. I’m not that guy with a hairy gut rolling out of his sweat-stained shirt who shotguns discount beer in his underwear. Have I done that? Most definitely. But I was doing that long before I boug
ht the trailer. Let me tell you something else about my home. You ready? Sitting down? There’s faux stone on the face of it and a sconce right next to my very penetrable front door. So, yeah, I’m luxury as shit. Oh, you’re tired of hearing about my single-wide? Ready to move on and read about who had left their car parked on my property? Well, guess what? You’re the judgmental prick who sneered at the mention of my beautiful, leaky-when-it-rains trailer.

  Now that we’ve cleared that up…

  I stepped onto the cracked cement sidewalk that led to my faded front door, and I froze a few feet from the deadbolt. My hand was in my pocket, fingering the key.

  A pair of dog tags dangled from the door handle. They clinked lightly as the morning breeze brushed against them. I wiped my lips with the back of my arm, then lifted the dog tags off the handle and placed them around my neck. I shoved the house key back into my pocket.

  Why bother using it now?

  Xander would have left the door unlocked for me. He was thoughtful like that—always considering the needs of others and putting them before his own. That beautiful bastard loved Jesus more than I loved a bottle of tequila and a solid beating from a strong and firm woman wearing nothing but high heels.

  Opening the door to my trailer, I stepped into the dim-lit foyer—a small space with a short table to the side. At just over six-hundred square feet, my home was basically a shitty studio apartment on wheels. It was a place where I went to shower and sometimes sleep. The kitchen was too cramped to utilize effectively and the sink wouldn’t support more than three small dishes at a time.