The Night's Champion Collection: A supernatural werewolf thriller trilogy Read online

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  NIGHT'S FAVOR

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  NIGHT'S FALL

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  Chapter Eighty

  Chapter Eighty-One

  Chapter Eighty-Two

  Chapter Eighty-Three

  Chapter Eighty-Four

  Chapter Eighty-Five

  Chapter Eighty-Six

  Chapter Eighty-Seven

  Chapter Eighty-Eight

  Chapter Eighty-Nine

  Chapter Ninety

  Chapter Ninety-One

  Chapter Ninety-Two

  Chapter Ninety-Three

  Chapter Ninety-Four

  Chapter Ninety-Five

  Chapter Ninety-Six

  Chapter Ninety-Seven

  Chapter Ninety-Eight

  Chapter Ninety-Nine

  Chapter One Hundred

  Chapter One Hundred One

  Chapter One Hundred Two

  NIGHT'S END

  OVERTURE

  Chapter One Hundred Three

  Chapter One Hundred Four

  Chapter One Hundred Five

  Chapter One Hundred Six

  Chapter One Hundred Seven

  Chapter One Hundred Eight

  Chapter One Hundred Nine

  Chapter One Hundred Ten

  Chapter One Hundred Eleven

  Chapter One Hundred Twelve

  Chapter One Hundred Thirteen

  Chapter One Hundred Fourteen

  Chapter One Hundred Fifteen

  Chapter One Hundred Sixteen

  Chapter One Hundred Seventeen

  Chapter One Hundred Eighteen

  Chapter One Hundred Nineteen

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-One

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Two

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Three

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Four

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Five

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Six

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Seven

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Eight

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Nine

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-One

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Two

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Three

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Four

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Five

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Six

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Seven

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Eight

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Nine

  Chapter One Hundred Forty

  Chapter One Hundred Forty-One

  Chapter One Hundred Forty-Two

  Chapter One Hundred Forty-Three

  GET YOUR FREE STARTER LIBRARY

  Enjoy this Book? You Can Change the World!

  Also by Richard Parry

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  EXCERPT: TYCHE'S FLIGHT

  An Easy Mark

  Chapter One

  THE NIGHT'S CHAMPION COLLECTION

  Richard Parry

  THE NIGHT'S CHAMPION COLLECTION copyright © 2017 Richard Parry.

  Cover design copyright © 2017 Mondegreen.

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9951041-9-8

  First edition.

  No parts of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any form without permission. Piracy, much as it sounds like a cool thing done at sea with a lot of, “Me hearties!” commentary, is a dick move. It gives nothing back to the people who made this book, so don’t do it. Support original works: purchase only authorized editions.

  While we’re here, what you’re holding is a work of fiction created by a professional liar. It is not done in an edgy documentary style with recovered footage. Pretty much everything in here was made up by the author so you could enjoy a story about the world being saved through action scenes and witty dialog. No people were used as templates, serial numbers filed off for anonymity: let’s be honest, John Miles couldn’t be based on anyone real. Any resemblance to humans you know (alive) or have known (dead) is coincidental.

  Details on how to get your FREE STARTER LIBRARY can be found at the end of this book.

  Find out more about Richard Parry at mondegreen.co

  Published by Mondegreen, New Zealand.

  All the things, big and small, that you do — you make my life wonderful.

  For my Kitney.

  NIGHT'S FAVOR

  Could one night change your life forever?

  Valentine Everard drinks to get through the week — but then, who doesn’t? — so waking up with no memory isn’t unusual. What is unusual is how his body is becoming faster and stronger. This is the Night’s Favor, and it is creating a beast within him: a werewolf. With these gifts come outside interest: Elsie Morgan, CEO of Big Pharma company Biomne, is hunting him for the g
ift he carries to save her dying heir.

  When his newfound Pack mate Danielle Kendrick’s daughter is abducted, Val must race to rescue her. Elsie offers him a devil’s bargain: a child for a child, a life for a life. Even knowing that the child is merely a way to draw him in, he cannot resist the call of Pack. Will he be able to master the Night’s Favor and save those he loves? Will he fall into darkness and anger like his maker?

  CHAPTER ONE

  The van stuck out of the wall of Elephant Blues as if it had been thrown there, the skid marks of the tires showing where it had veered before jumping the curb. One door on the back was missing — they still hadn't found it — and the other hung loose on a single hinge, its handle missing. The laminated glass of its single window lay in a spider-webbed sheet on the pavement, a hole torn through the middle.

  A hand sat beside it, the pool of blood diluting in the rain. It was a left hand, but no wedding ring — strong fingers, definitely a man's. It lay palm up, fingers curled like a dead insect. The fingernails were carefully trimmed and clean, as if the guy had managed a manicure just before having it torn off. At least it looked torn; not cut, not sawn, but torn. The bones of the arm stuck out from the stump, the stark white ends free of other tissue. Big floodlights kicked back the night, the fingers of the hand stretching tall shadows along the sidewalk. They hadn't found the rest of the body — not out here.

  It might be in the pile inside.

  “Think he punched through the glass? Maybe got out? Lost his hand that way?” Elliot chewed on the end of his pen.

  “Nah.” Carlisle shuffled her feet through the puddles on the wet sidewalk, trying to get the bottom of her soles clean. She was getting rained on, and her pants were starting to stick to her. Well, more than they already were — Carlisle glanced at her red-stained knee and clamped down on the shudder. She should have kept her overcoat on, but inside the heat had made her want to retch, the memory of the slaughterhouse reek still with her. She tried to loosen her pants, but they were plastered on — Goddamn. “Knuckles are fine, and that's safety glass. No cuts on the wrist, not that I can see. Almost looks chewed. We’ve got to find the arm... Jesus, Vince. There’s so many people in there.” Rain was running down the back of her collar. “And they’re all dead. How are we getting on with a witness check?”

  “No one saw shit. I swear the only way we'd have less witnesses is if this was a Foundation for the Blind annual meet. Connolly and Malloney are in there too. Somewhere. They were good guys. Fuck’s sake.” Elliot offered his umbrella to Carlisle. “You're going to die of hypothermia. Take the umbrella.”

  It was pink, with Hello Kitty motifs in the fabric, a cheap white handle at the bottom. Carlisle snorted. “Where'd you get that thing?”

  Elliot tilted it, looking at it as if for the first time. “You know, I really can't remember. It might have been the evidence locker.” He shrugged. “I'm not buying an umbrella. Too damn windy around here. I’ll call their families.”

  “Management thinking, buddy. Keep it, it's more your color. Leave the calls to me. I knew Connolly, a little.” Carlisle looked inside the van, taking in the straps tethered to one side. There was some kind of harness, big enough for a man, but it was hard to tell with it all shredded like that. “I'd bet you your next night shift that those straps are nylon.” She reached into a pocket, rescuing a stick of gum. Chewing, she stepped up into the van, wiping her wet blond — and just a little gray, right? — hair away from her face. She used the end of a pen to poke through the remains of the harness. Definitely torn — the frayed ends of the nylon hanging down from the steel wall, which had been pulled in slightly with whatever force had torn the straps. A bench seat was opposite the harness.

  She took in the bullet holes on the wall with the harness. She'd noticed them before, but just how many hadn’t sunk in. Lots of them — a quick eyeball said twenty or thirty rounds had been unloaded in here. Someone on the bench seat had fired into the opposite wall, probably into whoever was in that harness. Blood was smeared down the steel wall, with a small puddle on the ground. Not a lot — not enough for a guy with a bunch of bullets in him. Casings lay on the floor of the van, the bright of the brass distinct against the carpet. Two machine pistols shared space with them. No damn bodies though.

  They were all inside.

  “You need … just come here.” The tone of Elliot's voice brought her out of the van in a rush, almost turning her ankle in the rain. She just missed — shit — the severed hand, nearly stumbling head first into the street. Elliot was looking up — above the van, the blood running down its white paint stark even at night. Carlisle followed his gaze to above the overhang of the Elephant Blues. A bronze elephant about the size of a small car sat on top, trunk proudly raised to the sky, one foot lifted. Elliot was staring at the elephant.

  A body had been impaled on the trunk, easy to miss in the darkness. No head. Carlisle recovered first. “Different guy.”

  “What?” Elliot was a heartbeat behind, still shaken.

  “Body's still got both hands. Just no head. Closest thing to a full corpse I’ve seen all night.” The ragged ends of tissue, tendons, and the spine stuck out from the torso of the corpse. Blood was being washed down from the body onto the awning, onto the van, and into the street. “I hope Forensics did their thing out here. Our evidence is being rinsed away.”

  Elliot shrugged, just a little. “They got worse problems. Not one of them is going to see their wife for a week, the amount of reassembly needed in there.”

  “Probably won’t see lunch for a week, either.” No way you could have pastrami on rye after spending time in the Blues this evening. Nodding to herself, Carlisle walked over to the squad car. It had mounted the curb, nosing up behind the van, but back ten or fifteen feet. Both doors were still open, lights on, but no siren. It wasn’t that the car had done the chase running silent; the siren was missing, the ends of wires sticking out where it had been mounted. The trunk was open, the shotgun missing — the officers had probably left the car in a hurry, but the lack of bullet holes in the car suggested it hadn’t been under fire. The patrol unit had made the call in for support a half hour ago; it’d been Connolly on the radio, panic in his voice. A car chase in the center of the city with shots fired, real gangster stuff. No idea on number of people involved, no idea who was shooting, no idea why. Just shots fired — in pursuit — and then silence. They'd tracked the car by the GPS in it, finding it here at Elephant Blues. The engine was still running.

  It made no sense. A half hour was a long time. Long enough for two good cops to die. Not long enough for their bodies to be cold. If they could confirm which bodies — which parts — were theirs.

  The first evidence that Connolly and Malloney had made an armed response came at the entrance to the bar. Two spent casings were on the ground alongside broken glass and wood splinters. The officers had gone in loud. They’d headed into the bar, to be lost in the chaos of whatever had gone down in the Elephant Blues.

  Carlisle looked over at Elliot, who was still looking up at the body on the elephant. “Look, stop fucking around over there. Have you found the CCTV system?”

  “I found where it was. You know the bar?”

  “Sure. I stepped over twenty smashed bottles of spirits. My socks smell of Midori.”

  “That’s not what your socks smell of. But — look. You know it’s crazy in there, right? Tables, chairs thrown around. Looks like some kind of Chuck Norris fight remake.”

  “Silent Rage.” Carlisle swallowed as something hysterical tried to bubble through. She hadn’t seen that movie in years.

  “What?”

  “Silent Rage. That’s the movie with the bar fight. Dan — I mean Norris — was in the bar...” Carlisle trailed off. “Whatever. What about it?”

  “Right.” Elliot gestured into the bar. “One of the tables was thrown right through the bar. Sort of unlucky. It went through the DVR.”

  “You’re shitting me. Sort of unlucky? Through it? A
thousand places the table could have gone —”

  “Be fair, sister. The tables did go a thousand places. One of them was through the DVR.”

  “You’re telling me we’ve got the bloodbath of the century in there, like someone’s siphoning the local abattoir through the sprinkler system, and we’ve got no footage?”

  Elliot looked at his feet. “Yeah.”

  “Fuck.” Carlisle remembered her first steps down into the Blues that evening, seeing the tables knocked over, chairs thrown around. Blood, bits of tissue — there, someone's blood-drenched scarf — were everywhere inside the bar. The shelf that held spirits was shattered, the remains of Midori and Galliano and fifty other types of bottled joy mingling with the sea of blood on the ground. Carlisle’s non-skid shoe covers had slipped anyway, and she’d fallen heavily on one knee in the gore. The hand she’d thrown out to steady herself had come back sticky with blood, the latex covering red and tacky. It was the first time she’d thrown up at crime scene in years.

  She shook herself out of the memory. So her expensive suit would need dry-cleaning; that was just part of the job. “We might need to wait on Forensics then.”

  Elliot nodded, pulling his jacket tighter over the belly middle age and too much time behind a desk had given him. “Hell of a night.”

  “Yeah.” Carlisle absently wiped water off her face. “Hell of a night.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Val felt like he’d been hit by a car.

  Curling over the bowl, he retched again, hands shaking. He didn’t remember waking up; he didn’t remember getting home, or what might have happened after his tenth beer last night. He hoped it was only a night — he had a big meeting with the boss this morning.

  It wouldn’t be the first time he’d lost days of time down the bottom of a bottle.

  “Get your shit together, Val.” He spat into the bowl, bracing himself on the edge of the porcelain. Standing up shakily, he felt the nausea rise and curled back over, retching again. He failed to get his tie out of the way this time, and it came back out of the bowl covered in —

  How in God’s name was he wearing a tie? He didn’t even have any pants.