Read the Savannah Paranormal Detective Agency 1
Read the Savannah Paranormal Detective Agency 2
Savannah Paranormal Detective Agency 3
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
“Max! Max! Can you believe that mummy thought we could insure curses on treasures that everyone and their colonizer had already looted?! We’re rich, Max, rich!”
Debra skipped down the walking path, her shoes made a clacking sound which tapped in cadence with the vowels she stressed as she repeated her statement. Her giddiness blinded her to the sliced bike chains dangling on the fountain fence. When she did notice, she stumbled. Picking herself up, she stood aghast at the sight.
Fountain sounds boomed in her ears, interfering with her thinking. It took four consecutive double takes for everything to register in her head.
Sights of hypothetical fates befalling Max flooded her mind. Most of them involved a variation of the Bigfoot ripping the chains apart along with her junior detective partner. The rest were just the Bigfoot eating him. All of them sank her heart deeper and deeper. In a soft whimper, she called out his name.
The emotional moment lasted exactly 4.2 seconds. At 4.2000001 seconds, her body jerked with realization.
“Hey,” she said to no one in particular, “wait a minute. I made that up about Gigantopithecus americanum. Plus, the chains.” She knelt and picked up one of the smoothly cut metal pieces. “This isn’t torn apart. This is the work of something that favors finesse over power.”
Her head turned down the sidewalk path, allowing her vision to travel down several blocks to a mansion.
Under her breath, she muttered poison, “That hussy.” In her mind, she had already convicted the villain.
Inside the cards room of the Junior Club of Savannahian Vampires was packed with members, tired from a long night of entertaining tourists, doing chores, and now wrapping up the business meeting. Like normal, the last line item proved to be the worst.
Eva Eve stood erect, her antebellum style white nightgown draping the ground around her, while everyone else dreaded what was to come next. “I just do not feel comfortable with this month’s donations going to the Co-Mason Temple Hospital. I recognize they do good, but shouldn’t we find someone with no connections to the dark arts like Saint James de Compostela Children’s Hospital?”
Groans erupted amongst the vampiresses. A few rolled their eyes.
As usual, Elizabeth Stirk rose to object. “For the last time, they aren’t practitioners of the dark arts. They drive little cars and wear funny hats.” Her voice betrayed her exhaustion.
Then everyone screamed. It expressed their surprise as a sweaty, out of breath, and frizzled haired Debra, looking as if she was chasing down a journalistic source in the 1920s, burst through the door. She held up a finger and acted like she was about to speak, but then raised it up, and a few seconds later raised it even higher still.
Eva broke the silence. “The judge said as long as we allowed you at the tennis courts, you were still barred 100 yards from our door at all times.”
There was no vocal response from Debra, only that she lift her finger a little higher.
Eva put her hands on her hips. “Why did you run and blast through our door if you were going to be out of breath? You could have knocked!”
It took Debra a few more deep breaths to speak, and even then she could barely talk. “Where. Did. You. Put. Max. Isabelle?”
The white nightgowned vampires gave each other queer looks and murmured amongst themselves.
“Do you mean where did we put Max and Isabelle? Or do you think I am Isabelle? Max isn’t here and Isabelle is sitting in the second row over there,” Eva said.
The thin fanged-vampire gave a meek wave.
“Just. Give. Him. Back.” Debra took a breath, gulped, and regained her composure. “Otherwise, I am not leaving.”
“Dispatch, Unit 24 reporting in. It’s too early for this crap.”
“Mornin’, 24, go ahead. What’s the matter, hon?”
“Show me 10-23 at York and Sherman Avenue. I’m at the Junior Club for Savannahian Vampires’ house. I got a 10-15 on one female vampire for trespass and vandalism of carpets as she was dragged out. Guess who it freakin’ is. Debra. Requesting 10-29.”
“10-4, 24. Oh, Debra, yeah, no surprise there. I was wondering where our frequent flyer went. Been a while since we last had a call on her. Let me check, one minute. Yeah. Last decade on the monster file shows multiple priors for trespass, forging documents, disorderly, littering, extortion, operating a tourism company without a license, zombie voter suppression in 2020, and a lot more state and federal marks. All active warrants suppressed because of her work stopping the Uranium Killer, 24.”
“Copy. Still gets me in my craw that we struck that deal. Crap, it’s happening again, dispatch.”
“Let me guess, 24, suspect is uncooperative.”
“10-4. She’s 10-96 on attitude. Yakking and yapping that everything is unfair. She claims she is trying to do the right thing, that she is a hero, and claiming her partner in crime is missing. Dang, she is screetchin’ like it’s the UGA game.”
“Copy. Club members on scene?”
“Affirm. No one harmed but all are rattled. They want her gone so they can go to bed before the sun rises so they ain’t givin’ full statements no matter how hard I try. I’m going to 10-8 Debra with a warning.”
“10-4, 24. Document the warning and the 10-20. Advise her next time it’s 10-15 all the way to county and that we can put her in the cell with the wendigo. He’ll remember her.”
“Already did. She’s still ranting about trying to do the right thing. Nobody here is buying what she is sellin’. Man, won’t she be quiet?”
“Clear the call as warning issued, trespass advisement given. You 10-8?”
“10-8. Releasing suspect now. Oh, she is off and running west towards Bull Street. Biscuits, I can still hear her complaining about everyone being against her.”
“Copy, 24. Dispatch clear.”
“10-4. I need some pancakes. Over and out.”
In a rare concession to reality, Debra stopped blasting the cruel world so she could run and breathe at the same time. Even then, exhaustion forced her to cease running as she approached Bull Street. That gave her time to register her arch-rivals ahead.
Three blue beret-wearing Savannah Scout Society for Girls were neatly stacking a table of Scout Society cookies. Behind them was Coco the Skunk Ape, still on their retainer.
Stopping, Debra bent so she could put her hands on her knees and gain composure. However, her blood began boiling as a scout girl with braces laughed, probably at something stupid, Debra thought.
“Alright,” Debra said, “you little metal-mouthed freak, give me back Max and I will only impose a 25% monsters’ representational fee. Act like Reconstruction bosses again, and I’m upping it to 55%.”
The little metal-mouth who looked like she could get a job in Hollywood playing a poor runt zeroed in her beady little eyes onto the vampiress. Her little teeth reminded Debra of various critters that would scour about the Mississippi River mudflats. Gawd, Debra had never met the girl before but already she hated her.
“Hey! My mommy told me that if you come and bother us again, I can call my daddy!” the Ompa Lummpa of this dimension said.
Endorphins flooded Debra’s brain. The scouts didn’t know she was prepared this time.
The massive and ripped Skunk Ape stomped as it walked forward three paces; each step shaking the ground as it moved. A growl so low it cut through skin and muscle to vibrate bones crawled out of its mouth.
“Debra,” Coco the Skunk Ape said, “You have no fighter to tank all the damage this time. Go home.”
She reached around and tapped the tranquilizer dart gun in her pants’ back pocket.
“Debra, come on. They’re kids.”
She studied the prison tattoos on its body. Two letters LM enclosed in a four-leaf clover were the key, and it made her laugh out loud.
“You mean to tell me that you’re a member of the Leprechaun Mafia?! What did you do? Protect their marshmallow stash in prison?!”
A small frown formed on the monster, and it shook its head. The hard nasal exhale sounded sad. It took a moment for Coco to regain composure and look the vampire in the eye.
“I’ve done things I’m not proud of, Debra. Thankfully, unions give a second chance. Now please go and let these girls fundraise for the local animal shelter.”
A high pitched laughter burst from her. She shook her head and said, “Give me Max, and I’ll let them keep their cookies.”
The metal mouthed one flashed her teeth and pointed at her in a manner worthy of a Prussian officer threatening a neighboring country. “We beat you once and we will do another round of Savannah World of Bleakness and Light to make the lesson more painful this time!”
Debra clapped her hands. “I declare a fight! That means I get to do one attack move first.”
“Fight!” a deep voice from out of nowhere demanded.
She pulled out her handheld tranquilizer gun, and before the big Skunk Ape monster and the little scout monsters in their own right could react, she fired a dart straight into the monster’s neck. The beast went lights out immediately and fell face first into Bull Street with a massive thump.
The three scouts screamed in horror at the sight of the protector going down. Debra, though, cackled.
“Your screams count as a move each! Have fun being limited to only one move this round, you little tyrants!”
Little faces looked at each other clearly in horror. The rules that they had used to dominate before were being used against them. However, their countenances solidified with a fire in their eyes. The one of them on the left said, “I transfer my action point to Sally!” The one on the right said the same thing.
Now, a grin worthy of Debra when she plotted grew on the child. Three moves allowed for a multitude of malicious options. And the one she picked was one of the most malicious. The dental abomination summoned a handful of delicious chocolate-covered cookies, crumbled them in her hands and blew them in the vampire’s face.
“+25 blood damage diabetes attack!” the girl yelled.
Sugar-supercharged blood clogged Debra’s arteries and clenched her heart. Sharp pain brought her to her knees while her now numb feet kept her there.
“You- you- monster!” the vampire cried, half in anger and half in pain.
“Ha ha,” the scout replied.
Brace Face used her last two action points to deliver one-two punch blows straight into Debra’s cheeks. While the impacts themselves weren’t so bad, the damage to the ego was crushing.
“Now leave us alone, you big meanie!”
But Debra did not leave. Instead, she rose and wiped her nose with her arm, costing her a point but gaining her partial health recovery. She knew better than to taunt because that would have been her second action point. Rather, she swung her leg back, then thrusted it forward, arching it straight into the snot-nosed kid’s beak.
Footballs, whether Association, American gridiron, or Australian, go shorter distances on average when kicked than how far the poor scout flew. When she did land, she broke out in a bawl for her daddy. The two lackeys each grabbed an arm and carried her off as they fled.
“Victory,” the disembodied narrator proclaimed.
Debra advanced two steps and put her hands near her mouth to amplify her voice. “That’s right! Flee! Bull Street belongs to me now!” Then, her face and arms dropped. “Hey! Don’t run away! I need to know where you put Max!” She took off after them.
“Dispatch, Unit 24, emergency traffic.”
“This is Dispatch. All units stand by. 24, go ahead.”
“At Bull and Lee. It’s Debra again. She kicked my daughter in the face. I want units on me. I want her down now and hard.”
“Copy, 24. Assault on a child. Units 31, 16, and 7, 10-18 Bull and Lee. 24, what’s Joni’s condition? Need EMS?”
“Her face is scuffed and outfit is ruined, but she’s gonna be fine after some breakfast ice cream. Negative on rescue.”
“10-4. Thank you, Lord. 31, 16, 7, continue.”
“31 here. 10-23. Contact. She’s yelling and running down the street. Oh, she’s holding up her hands.”
“This is 24. Doesn’t matter. Get her on the ground. Remember, what she did to Joni. I’m on foot and almost there.”
“16 on scene. She’s says it was all a misunderstanding. Oh, it’s on now.”
“24 on site, taser deployed.”
“7 on scene. I got another cartridge if she twitches.”
“This is Dispatch. 24, confirm subject resisting.”
“She just tried summoning a fireball. Second cycle.”
“31 here. That zap got her. We’re putting weight on her.”
“24. Putting cuffs on her now.
“10-4. Good job everyone. I’m copying Debra in custody at Bull and Lee. Charge?”
“Assault on my child, trespass, and whatever else I write. I’m throwing her in the back now and on my way to you.”
“Copy. 24 en route to booking with one vampire. 31, 16 and 7, clear the scene when you can. Channel clear.”
Buy My Books
Looking for psychological military science fiction? Read about the adventure of veteran Brendan Murphy as he tries to keep peace between Earth and a mysterious alien race known as the Sabia. Read the Fallen series today! Please remember to leave a review once you are done. Reviews are the lifeblood of independent creators, and using these links helps me too via the affiliate program!
And I am editing the fourth book presently.
Or check out my humorous Savannah Paranormal Detective Agency short stories.
Until Next Time
The next chapter drops Wednesday, October 28th.
As always, please leave a comment with any questions, reviews, thoughts, whatever about Fallen, Risen, Dormition, An Odd Pilgrimage, The Savannah Paranormal Detective Agency or whatever else I have discussed. I promise to reply!