Major Feeding: A Piper & Payne Supernatural Thriller (Netherworld Paranormal Police Department Book 4) Read online

  Major Feeding

  A Piper & Payne Supernatural Thriller Book 4

  John P. Logsdon

  Christopher P. Young

  There are many book series in the Paranormal Police Department, and there are a ton more on the way!

  PPD Precincts

  Las Vegas - Ian Dex

  Netherworld - Piper & Payne

  Southeast Asia - Mark Vedis

  Seattle - Savannah Sage

  Shadow - Wren Cooper

  New York - Bethany Black

  Tap here to see all the books in the PPD, listed by their timeline!

  OTHER SERIES

  Platoon F - Comedic Sci-Fi

  Queen Arthur - Arthurian Comedy

  Ononokin - Comedic Fantasy

  Chapter 1

  The Netherworld Paranormal Police Department (PPD) was still recovering from the riots brought on by the fae, but we were down so many officers at this point that it’d take months to get back to one hundred percent.

  Probably years.

  Reaper was a few minutes late getting to his desk. Not that there was really a specific timeframe we had to work our shifts, but he was a creature of habit. Precision was his modus operandi.

  “You’re late,” I chirped, doing my best to antagonize him. It rarely worked. “Going to get written up if you’re not careful.”

  “Seriously?” he asked, his glowing eyes somehow registering concern.

  “No,” I laughed in response. “You’re too easy, Reap.”

  He sat down and took off his hat, revealing that he had a nice head of thick dark hair underneath. I had never quite understood why he wore the hat, but I had to admit that it did give him a “detective” look when he did. Without it, he had more of a Sears catalog underwear model thing going on…if they had glowing red eyes, anyway.

  “I was dropping Agnes off with Pecker,” he said, flipping on his computer. “She asked to visit and Pecker has been talking about working with her on a few projects.”

  It was an odd pairing, Agnes being a red-eared slider turtle and Pecker being a goblin, but the two had hit it off pretty well. They were both problem solvers who were into technology. How a turtle could be into technology was beyond me. Regardless, she seemed pretty damn good at it, or at least good with brainstorming ideas. Pecker was our resident tech guy. Almost every piece of technology we used was either invented by him or had been modified by him.

  “I shudder to think what they could be developing,” I said.

  Reaper grinned slightly before turning back to his screen.

  “I wasn’t told. I’m just pleased Agnes has another friend.” He tapped on his keyboard for a moment. “It always saddens me to leave her alone in her aquarium. This way she gets to have time out and about.”

  “Right,” I replied, rolling my eyes at the back of his head. “Anyway, I’ve been scanning the feeds and had a quick chat with the chief. Seems like we’re going to be shorthanded for a while.”

  “Yes,” Reaper sighed. “It will be a challenging few months.”

  “Let’s just hope that nothing happens until we get our—”

  Have you ever had a situation where you opened your mouth to say something only to find that you should have kept your mouth shut? I wasn’t a superstitious person or anything, but it was almost uncanny that whenever I was in the middle of bringing up a worst-case scenario situation, that damn scenario fired off.

  What had stopped me mid-sentence was the sound of gunfire.

  “What was that?” Reaper asked, as bodies began standing up at their cubicles.

  “I’d say gunshots,” I replied.

  Next to us sat our two newest partners, Brazen and Kix. Technically, they were more junior Retrievers, who were assigned to me, but I did my best to treat them like I would any partner I had: poorly.

  “We’ve got a shooter in the building,” Brazen announced.

  Brazen was a werebear. Big, strong, disheveled, and quite an asshole. He was also a damn fine officer who was willing to take a bullet in order to save lives. So, while I found that he rubbed me the wrong way, I couldn’t argue the fact that he was an asset to my team.

  Kix was housed in the cubicle in front of Reaper. He was a djinn. Tattoos ran up and down all exposed parts of his person. While he wasn’t a bad cop, he also wasn’t the toughest guy around. Oh, he’d fight, sure, but he was better at working the sleuthing side of things.

  As a case in point, Kix was busily crawling under his desk.

  “What are you doing?” I asked as I pulled out my gun and checked to make sure I had a full pack of Death Nails loaded.

  “They say the best place to hide from an office shooter is under your desk,” Kix replied.

  “You’re a cop, Kix,” I stated, frowning at him.

  “Yeah, pal,” Brazen agreed with me, which didn’t happen often. “Get your ass out of there and load up.”

  “It may just have been an accident,” Reaper chimed in. He pointed at his screen. “I’m not seeing anything from the internal feeds.”

  More gunfire ensued.

  “Then again…”

  Reaper stood up, not bothering to finish his sentence.

  “Everyone, listen up,” Chief Carter commanded through our connectors, a little device implanted in our brains to allow us to communicate with each other, “we’re being invaded. They’re on the lower level and working their way up. We’re going to need all personnel down on level two in order to hold them off until we have more officers come in from the field.”

  “Who is it, Chief?” asked a voice I didn’t recognize.

  “After everything that’s been happening over the last couple of months, kid,” the chief replied, “I’d bet a fist full of gold coins that we’re dealing with Keller’s big push.”

  Perfect timing.

  For Keller, that is.

  He’d been working on breaking down our ranks for a while now. Killing Retrievers, starting riots, and just generally being a pain in the ass. It was essentially a case of history repeating itself.

  Keller, a dickhead of a mage who’d gone on a crime spree in the late eighties, killed a lot of people and did his best to take over the Netherworld PPD as well.

  He had failed, obviously, but not before doing a shitload of damage.

  One thing he had succeeded at during his reign of terror was to kill my parents.

  He’d nearly gotten me as well, but something went wacky and I ended up becoming an immortal instead.

  The reason Keller had targeted my parents and me was because we had the ability to see supernaturals. This was not a common trait among normals, but there were a few of us around. Now, when I say we could “see” them, I mean see who they really are. Any normal could spot and converse with a werewolf who was in human form; they’d just assume it was a human. But my family was able to look at the person and see beyond, recognizing their true nature.

  Unfortunately, my parents were witnesses to crimes committed by Keller, so on the night he had escaped, he targeted us.

  They died and I was taken to the Netherworld, healed, and then raised there. With my parents being killed by an evil mage and me surviving the attack, I got the joy of being called names like “Harry Piper” and “Piper Potter.”

  Not fun.

  So, I had a very strong desire to kill Keller, should the opportunity arise.

  It seemed that my time had come.

  Chapter 2

  We hustled over to th
e stairwell with Chief Carter in the lead. He was an older guy, but that never stopped him from getting into the fray. In fact, I’d say he was probably quite a formidable fighter.

  I’d never seen him tear into anyone firsthand, but there was just something about him that said he was a grandfatherly, Santa Claus-looking badass.

  “Listen up,” he called out, stemming the tide of officers, most of which were new recruits. “Keep your heads about you as we go down here. If it’s what I think it is, it not going to be pretty.”

  He then started directing traffic, assigning rookies to veterans and instructing each group on where to go.

  “Piper,” he said, motioning for me to move off to one side with my crew, “I have a different assignment for you. Just wait.”

  Once he completed doling out orders, he stepped over to us.

  “We’re going to do everything we can to keep Keller and his goons from getting to the main floor,” he said. “I’ve already put a call out to officers in the city, telling them to get back here as soon as possible.” He gave us all a stern look. “I need you four to get Pecker out somehow.”

  “Shit,” I whispered, kicking myself for not remembering that Pecker was in the basement, which was where Keller’s raiding party was. I knew the chief wasn’t fond of foul language, but his only response was a grim nod. “Have you heard from him?”

  “No.”

  More gunshots went off, as if driving home the point that our main technician was in trouble.

  “Pecker,” I called through the connector, “are you there?”

  No response.

  “Shit,” I said again.

  Another grim nod.

  “Oh no,” Reaper rasped, his face ashen. “That means Agnes is in trouble, too.”

  The chief gave Reaper a funny look but didn’t push the subject.

  “Anyway, I don’t know if Pecker”—the chief paused and looked up at my partner—“and Agnes are okay or not, but if they are, you four have to get them out of there. Are we clear?”

  “Of course,” I replied sternly.

  “Good. You’ll be going down to the second floor, but not this way.” He pointed to his office. “In the back of my office you’ll see a door.”

  “The one to your closet?” I asked.

  “It’s not a closet,” he replied. “It’s an access lift that leads from the basement to my office.”

  “And then up to the roof?” Brazen asked.

  “No,” the chief answered. “It stops at my office. It was installed there a long time before I became chief.”

  “What’s it for?” I asked.

  “There’s a hidden conference room on the bottom floor,” he answered. “It’s where I meet with my superiors once a week.”

  I’d obviously known that the chief had bosses, but since he’d never really talked about them it seemed odd to think that he wasn’t the top of the chain. And as far as him “meeting” with them down there, I knew that wasn’t a physical get-together. His Directors would show up via a magical video conference of sorts. There were always secured rooms set aside for these types of things.

  “Couldn’t Keller have already gotten to that room?” asked Reaper.

  “Not unless he’s really lucky,” the chief replied. “There is no door from the outside. It’s just a smooth wall. If you know where it is and you have the combination, it’ll open; otherwise, you’d never know it was there.”

  Kix raised his hand. “If it’s a smooth wall, where do you enter a combination?”

  “Across from the elevator door, you’ll see a small nick on the baseboard.” The chief eyed each of us. “It’s purposefully not obvious, so you’ll have to look for it. Press on it and hold for five seconds and a small panel will light up just above it.”

  “Magic?” Brazen queried.

  “No,” said the chief. “It’s just technology.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “The code is 77717.”

  “That’s a lot of sevens,” Kix piped up.

  We all squinted at him.

  The chief groaned heavily. “I should have known that bastard was going to go for a major feeding event.”

  “A what?” I asked, not having heard that phrase used before.

  “It’s a term that originated before your time,” the chief replied. “Before the old war, the vampires and various weretypes would occasionally plan out massive attacks on the other factions.” He looked at me. “They’d feed on them…majorly.”

  “Ah.” That was an unpleasant thought. “Got it.”

  “So you think he’s looking to eat everyone?” asked Kix with a look of dread.

  Again, we all squinted at him.

  “Don’t be a dumbass, Kix,” Brazen said, punching his partner on the bicep. “He’s just using that term to describe the deal.”

  Kix replied with “Ow” while rubbing his arm.

  “Right,” the chief said after a moment. “Well, go through there while we keep Keller and his gang occupied. Get Pecker out.” He glanced up at Reaper again. “And Agnes, too, of course. Then get back up here and we’ll reassess the situation.”

  “You got it, Chief,” I affirmed. “Come on, boys.”

  Chapter 3

  The lift didn’t have enough room for four people, so Reaper and I went down first and then waited for Brazen and Kix. To be honest, I would have preferred that it was just me doing this little liberation, but seeing as I didn’t know how many goons Keller had stationed in the hallway, having backup was a good idea.

  Still, four people trying to sneak around was a lot more challenging than one or two.

  “Okay,” I said, once everyone was in place, “it obviously doesn’t make sense for all of us to go out there. If we get caught, we’re all sunk. So we’re going to split this up.”

  Reaper moved over to stand by me, clearly ready to save his beloved turtle.

  That was going to make this exchange less than fun.

  “Kix,” I said, readying myself for an argument, “you’re going to come with me.”

  Yes, I realized that bringing the guy who was trying to hide under his desk when the gunshots started was probably not the best course of action, but it made the most sense for the mission.

  “Piper?” Reaper’s tone was dark.

  “You and Brazen are going to wait here,” I commanded. “If we’re not back in fifteen minutes, you’ll come and get us.”

  My partner’s face was stony. “I should be with you in order to get Agnes.”

  “No, Reap,” I countered, “you shouldn’t. First off, you’re emotionally attached.”

  “You’re attached to Pecker,” he argued.

  Brazen and Kix giggled.

  I gave them a sharp look.

  They stopped giggling.

  “It’s different and you know it,” I stated, returning my eyes to Reaper. “Besides, if anything happens to you and me, that would mean our lives would be in the hands of these two.”

  “Hey, now,” Brazen scoffed. “Who saved your sorry asses when that fucked-up fae had you both in the torture chamber?”

  He had me there. If it hadn’t been for them, Reaper and I would have been killed. Okay, so not really “killed” since we’re both immortal, but our heads could have been permanently separated from our bodies, which would have been worse than dying.

  “Look,” I said, keeping my voice stern, “Kix and I are going and that’s that. You two will wait here for fifteen minutes. If we’re not back by then, you’ll mount a rescue attempt.”

  It was beyond obvious that Reaper was not a fan of this plan, but it was the most sensible means of handling the situation.

  “Fine,” he said stoically, “but don’t you dare forget to bring Agnes back.”

  I gave him a challenging look.

  “Even if I forgot, Reap, do you really think Pecker would leave her behind?”

  He softened a bit at that. Then he sighed and shook his head.

  I glanced over at Kix.


  He did not look thrilled with the prospect of joining me on this mission, and I had to share that sentiment. I would have much preferred to bring Reaper or even Brazen. But, again, it wasn’t about what I wanted, it was about what was best for getting through this shit.

  Kix was a good cop, and he wouldn’t shy away from a firefight once the action started. The problem was that I’d seen him hesitate a few times, looking for clever ways out of a problem instead of just using brute force. I was all for being clever when possible, but sometimes you just had to shoot first and ask questions later.

  “I see the wheels turning, Kix,” I said, giving him the benefit of the doubt. “Do you have any idea how to liberate them without us having to fight?”

  He chewed his lip for a moment, which pulled at the ink lines on his face.

  “Not really,” he said. “I’ve been trying to think of something, but without knowing how many people are out there waiting for us, it’s hard to say. Plus,” he continued, “we don’t know if Pecker’s been captured or not. He may just be hiding.” He swallowed. “If he has been captured, though, that’ll mean he’ll be guarded.”

  He echoed my concerns precisely.

  Well, at least it was a good sign that Kix and I were thinking along the same path.

  “Yep,” I said finally. “Best have your gun at the ready. We’ll probably need to fight our way through at least some of this.”

  That’s when a thought hit me. If Pecker was unable to communicate via his connector, maybe all of us were in the same boat?

  “Can you all hear me okay through this?” I attempted.

  They nodded in unison.

  Well, that was good at least.

  It was also a gloomy revelation because it meant Pecker was likely unconscious, or worse.

  I cracked the door open and peered out.

  “Empty,” I whispered, closing it again. I stood back up. “Fifteen minutes, boys. Are we clear?”

  Brazen cracked his neck from side to side. Reaper didn’t respond at all.