Revenant- a Jake Crowley Adventure Read online

  REVENANT

  A Jake Crowley Adventure

  David Wood and Alan Baxter

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Revenant- A Jake Crowley Adventure (Jake Crowley Adventures)

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Epilogue

  Books and Series by David Wood

  Books by Alan Baxter

  About the Authors

  A lost book holds the secret to eternal life.

  Archaeologists excavating a mass grave in a historic New York City cemetery make a gruesome discovery: stacked like cordwood are skeletal remains going back decades, but all have one thing in common. Each skull bears a hole in the exact same location. When their friend is murdered investigating this bizarre discovery, Jake Crowley and Rose Black set off in search of the killer. Their path will take them to abandoned hospitals, hidden chambers, and into the depths of the strange world that lies beneath New York City in search of Edgar Allan Poe’s secret journal.

  An occult murder mystery wrapped in an action-packed thriller!

  Praise for David Wood and Alan Baxter

  “BLOOD CODEX IS A GENUINE up all night got to see what happens next thriller that grabs you from the first page and doesn't let go until the last.” Steven Savile

  “Rip roaring action from start to finish. Wit and humor throughout. Just one question - how soon until the next one? Because I can't wait.” Graham Brown

  “A page-turning yarn. Indiana Jones better watch his back!”Jeremy Robinson

  “A a story that thrills and makes one think beyond the boundaries of mere fiction and enter the world of 'why not'?” David Lynn Golemon,

  “A twisty tale of adventure and intrigue that never lets up and never lets go!” Robert Masello

  “A fast-paced storyline that holds the reader right from the start,. and a no-nonsense story-telling approach that lets the unfolding action speak for itself.” Van Ikin

  “With mysterious rituals, macabre rites and superb supernatural action scenes, Wood and Baxter deliver a fast-paced horror thriller.” J.F.Penn

  “Wood and Baxter have taken on the classic black magic/cult conspiracy subgenre, chucked in a toxic mix of weirdness, creepshow chills and action, and created a tale that reads like a latter-day Hammer Horror thriller. Nice, dark fun.” Robert Hood

  REVENANT- A Jake Crowley Adventure

  Copyright 2019 by David Wood

  All rights reserved

  Published by Adrenaline Press

  www.adrenaline.press

  Adrenaline Press is an imprint of Gryphonwood Press

  www.gryphonwoodpress.com

  This is a work of fiction. All characters are products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously.

  Prologue

  Salem, Massachusetts, November 1692

  Charles Winthrop shivered and pulled his coat tighter about his shoulders. The cold and damp soaked through is inadequate coat, making his skin clammy. He wished to be anywhere but in such cold, damp woods in the middle of the late autumn night. Surely there were easier ways to do this. His breath puffed and clouded in the light from a bright half-moon that speared between leafless trees. Somehow, the silver illumination made him feel even colder.

  He hurried to catch up with the Witchfinder. “Sir? Are we nearly there?” He loathed the weak whine in his voice, but no longer felt his feet for numbness and wanted to be sure he would survive the night. The lot of the apprentice witchfinder bore many discomforts, and it seemed he learned a new one almost daily. Charles wished for a flask of warming alcohol. Aqua vitae! The water of life! The thought brought a fleeting smile to his face, his first on this miserable night.

  The Witchfinder slowed his pace and glanced down. Physically, the man was almost the opposite of Winthrop’s short, stocky rotundity. Tall and thin, almost insectile in the precision of his movements, he nonetheless traveled with an easy grace. He turned his sharp-featured face to Winthrop, looking down his long nose. His dark green eyes were lost in shadow, pools of night under the ledge of his brow, crowned with gently curling dark brown hair. In the moonlight, his teeth glistened brightly as he smiled, but there was no warmth to be had there either. The Witchfinder’s smile was as cold as the night, and entirely predatory. It reminded Winthrop of the scar the Witchfinder bore across his chest, from left shoulder to just beside his heart. Wide and puckered, perpetually pale, it looked like something close to a mortal injury had been enacted upon the man there. Winthrop had asked him once how he had come by such a wound, for it must have been quite a blow to heal with such a broad scar.

  The Witchfinder had fingered the scar almost reverently and then pulled his shirt down over it as he continued dressing. He had said, “There are more dangerous things in this world than witches, sometimes.” The enigmatic reply was all Winthrop had ever been able to learn. And now, looking through the night at that smile, he wondered if perhaps the Witchfinder himself wasn’t one of the more dangerous things anyone might have the misfortune to encounter.

  Now, the tall man smiled, charismatic as ever. “You suffer, Charles?”

  “Honestly, sir? Yes!” Winthrop was thankful for the conversation not least to remove his thoughts from the forefront of his mind.

  “We all suffer, Charles. Some of us more than seems fair, more than seems reasonable for our burden as agents of God, wouldn’t you say?”

  Winthrop looked at his feet, ashamed. The Witchfinder’s wife lay deathly sick at their home, and would surely soon fall victim to consumption. Winthrop knew his master watched impotently as her lungs threw out more and more blood, her body weakened and failed, knowing she would eventually die in pain and fear. A terrible fate for her, an awful burden for the Witchfinder, both of them a sufferance far greater than any degree of cold feet.

  But that didn’t lessen the immediate suffering Winthrop endured now, though perhaps he should have kept it to himself. The cracks were beginning to show in his mentor’s demeanor. The Witchfinder had become temperamental, erratic, quick to anger. And Winthrop realized that for all his smiling here, the man’s eyes no doubt sparkled on the edge of fury.

  “I’m just very cold, is all, Sir. And hoped we were nearly there. No distance is too far, of course.”

  “Of course.” The Witchfinder strode off into the woods and Winthrop hurried to catch up.

  Thankfully it wasn’t long before a cottage came into sight, a couple of warm orange squares in the cold night marking the windows, a heavy shingle roof above reflected the moonlight. The building was of stone, heavy gray chunks, roughly hewn. The Witchfinder raised a hand and the two of th
em crouched, creeping forward as silently as the damp leaf litter would allow. Soon they crossed a small garden, more a simple clearing in the woods than anything deliberate, but a vegetable patch and herb garden were clearly well-attended to one side of the dwelling. As the men drew near, voices came to them, jovial and relaxed. The mixed strains of several women.

  The Witchfinder raised one long, bony finger to his lips and moved in a low crouch to one of the brightly lit windows. Winthrop followed, the warmth emanating from the thick glass almost mocking as his feet pressed numbly into soft grass at the base of the cottage wall. Together they edged their eyes up over the sill and looked inside.

  A group eight of women, six of them on the most recent list of the accused, stood in a rough circle before a crackling fire. The logs in the hearth glowed a deep red and dozens of candles on tables and sills around the room made everything bright as day inside. The room was homely, busy with old, but well cared for, furniture that had been pushed aside to clear the space directly before the flames. The friendly chatter waned slightly and then one woman brought them all to order with a quiet word. They smoothed their circle and joined hands, began a soft chant, almost like a child’s playground rhyme, but slow and ominous.

  Another woman entered, helping along a young boy no older than eight or nine. He was stripped to the waist, his trousers threadbare and stained with dirt, his bare feet grubby. Against his chest he held one withered arm, his left, supported protectively by his right. The woman helping him had one hand lightly on his shoulder. With a friendly smile and a nod she guided him into the circle. He ducked under the joined hands of one pair and stood in their midst, turned a slow circle with an expectant though slightly fearful expression on his face.

  “Lie down,” the woman who had helped him said. “Relax, Thomas, you’ll be fine. I promise.”

  The boy nodded, his trust in her apparent, and laid on his back on the floor. His thin chest heaved as he took a deep breath, then he closed his eyes. The woman who had brought him in gently touched the hands of one pair of women and they parted to let her join the circle.

  “Just in time,” the Witchfinder breathed. “Now we shall see.” His hand rested on the hilt of the dagger he kept always on his belt.

  “Sir, shouldn’t we stop this?” Winthrop whispered, his heart hammering. Were they really going to stand by and simply watch witchcraft performed upon this innocent boy child? Were these witches about to offer him to Satan? To sacrifice him?

  “We need proof these women are the darkest of witches. We must wait.”

  Winthrop swallowed a lump in his throat, tried to keep his voice strong, though quiet. “Proof?” he asked. “But that little boy...”

  The Witchfinder glanced at him, eyes flashing with anger. Here was more of that erratic behavior Winthrop had noticed, more irrational and confusing anger. “I regret whatever may befall the boy, but we have to think of all the lives that will be saved if we can root out all the witches in the colony. In order to do that, we must first find the real witches, the leaders, the coordinators. Or are you perhaps ill-suited for this particular apprenticeship, Charles?”

  Winthrop swallowed hard. Though he feared the tall thin man, his confusion won out. “Are you suggesting the witches we’ve already hanged were not real witches, if we didn’t witness their devilcraft firsthand?”

  “Be quiet, Charles. Get down! It’s starting. I will take the risk of observation while you protect your sensibilities.”

  With one surprisingly strong gesture, the Witchfinder put a hand onto Winthrop’s shoulder and pressed him to the grass. Winthrop fell back onto his rump, instantly damp and cold from the night dew. Stunned, he sat there, staring up at the Witchfinder’s face, glowing like fire in the light of the window. Unable to see any inside longer, Winthrop watched his mentor instead, tried to ascertain the activity by his master’s expression. The Witchfinder was clearly enthralled.

  Winthrop heard the chanting increase in pace and volume and soon began to feel something, a palpable energy surging forth in waves. It made his heart race, his hair stand on end, his skin prickle with gooseflesh. He tried to stand, but his legs were weak, his breath suddenly shallow. He looked up at the Witchfinder and saw an expression of wonder on the tall man’s face. The light from inside flickered, as every candle suddenly guttered in a gust of wind, then stilled, and then brightened further. The sounds of the women’s voices and the brightness of the candlelight both grew, faster and brighter, ever more intense. A pressure built inside Winthrop’s head like the onset of a sudden and debilitating headache. He squeezed the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes tightly shut, and bit his lower lip to keep from crying out, terrified of what might be happening inside. Surely he had never been closer to Satan in his life. He pushed up again, trying to call out, tell the Witchfinder to put an end to it, but the tall man pushed him down again. What was occurring inside, and why would the Witchfinder not allow him to see? He felt he needed to bear witness also, even though a significant part of him had no desire to watch. The pressure built further, the chanting louder and faster, the light seemed to burst brighter than ever and then everything stilled.

  Silence. For a moment, Winthrop thought it had fallen dark, but realized the candles and firelight were back to their normal luminescence and his eyes quickly adjusted. He looked up again to see pure wonder on the Witchfinder’s face, his expression almost beatific.

  “Sir? What happened in there? The boy, sir? Is he well?”

  His question remained unanswered as the man stared.

  “Sir?” he pressed. “What now? Let us end this blasphemy!”

  Smiling again, that predatory showing of teeth, the Witchfinder reached down and took Winthrop’s hand, hauled him to his feet. Winthrop began a smile of his own, about to turn and look into the cottage to see for himself what had held his master so enraptured, when he felt a sharp, heavy punch into his chest. He looked down to see the Witchfinder’s pale, bony hand gripping tightly the hilt of his dagger. The blade was buried between Winthrop’s ribs. His heart still, pain exploded and darkness flooded into the edges of his vision.

  “I am sorry,” the Witchfinder said quietly, almost kindly. “But I cannot have you telling anyone.”

  Chapter 1

  “Not the most impressive sight.” Jake Crowley and Rose Black stood outside The Edgar Allan Poe House on West Third Street, in New York City. Already the place was proving to be something of an anti-climax. The three-story home had been completely engulfed by a much larger building, the façade itself a recreation of the original structure. The whole thing had the impression of a pretty flower swallowed by wild grasses, homogenous and desperate.

  “Don’t start with me, you grumpy old badger,” Rose Black said. “We’re going to relax and enjoy ourselves.”

  “I’m not grumpy, only tired. You kept me up late last night.”

  Rose grinned. “I think it was the other way around. I was the one tired from our road trip, but you had other plans.”

  Crowley smiled, slipped his arm around her waist, and gave her a squeeze. The pair had been through a hell of a lot in the past few weeks. Their search for Rose’s missing sister, Lily, had led them across the pond to the United States on the trail of a lost Egyptian artifact. They had also learned some unwelcome news about Lily and where her true loyalties lay. In the ensuing chase, Lily’s small plane had crashed. No bodies had been recovered from the wreckage as far as they knew. Surely no one could have survived a crash like that.

  “I just hope agent Paul doesn’t learn we’re still in the country,” Crowley said. The FBI agent had instructed them to return to England and had provided airline tickets to help them along the way. They’d decided to extend their stay by rescheduling the flight from New York to London by two weeks, then taking their time leisurely road-tripping across the United States. Little had he known that middle America, especially Kansas, made for endless, mind-numbingly boring scenery.

  “Technically, he didn’t order
us to leave the country on any specific date,” Rose said. “We’re just stopping off for some sightseeing and to visit your Aunt Gertie.”

  Crowley laughed. “Remember I’m the only one allowed to call her that.” Gertrude Fawcett, known as Trudy to everyone but Crowley, was his favorite aunt, and he was like a son to her. Hence the special dispensation for the juvenile nickname.

  Rose’s attention had already returned to the Poe House. She scrolled on her phone, looking up details. “This is a reinterpretation of the original house where Poe once resided,” she said disdainfully. “He lived here only a little while anyway, from 1844 to 1845. Apparently, New York University demolished the historic structure when they built Furman Hall here. What a letdown! But we can have a look inside, and it’s the ghost that intrigues me anyway.”

  “The ghost?” Crowley asked.

  “Yeah, legends have it that Poe’s ghost is seen here often and no one really knows why, given it was such a short-lived residence, such a tiny part of his life really. It did coincide with some of the man’s first significant successes as a writer, so it has its relevance, but not really for haunting. There are several theories as to why he’s here so often, but none of them really make much sense.”

  “It’s all a bit...” Crowley paused, searching for the right word.

  “Lame?” Rose offered. She grinned. “It really is, huh? But this whole area has some cool ghost stories.” She turned and pointed across the street at a building of orange and yellow brick, four stories standing a little taller than the more modern structures either side. The second, third, and fourth floors each had three tall windows, but the first floor featured a large black, arch-topped door. Above it, gold letters on black proclaimed FIRE PATROL, a bold number 2 on each corner level with the sign. “That’s former Fire Patrol Station #2,” Rose said. “Now a private residence, some news anchor or other lives there, but it has a long history. Built by Ernest Flagg in 1906. It’s said to be haunted by the ghost of a firefighter by the name of Schwartz.”