HAUNTED

  SHADOWHAVEN GHOSTS

  BOOK ONE

  N.P. MARTIN

  Ethan Drake Series

  BLACKSTAR (PREQUEL)

  INFERNAL JUSTICE

  BLOOD SUMMONED

  DEATH DEALERS

  BLACK MIRROR

  HELL PATROL

  INFERNAL VENGEANCE

  INFERNUM

  BLACK RAIN

  INFERNAL DESCENT

  RED VILLAGE

  NEON BLACK

  Deadson Confidential Trilogy

  INFERNAL LAISONS

  DEATH CULT

  DRAGON BLOOD

  Gods And Monsters Series

  SINISTER MAGIC

  OTHERWORLD MAGIC

  SHADOW MAGIC

  HELLFIRE MAGIC

  WILDCARD MAGIC

  ROCKSTAR MAGIC

  Wizard’s Creed Series

  CRIMSON CROW

  BLOOD MAGIC

  BLOOD DEBT

  BLOOD CULT

  BLOOD DEMON

  Nephilim Rising Series

  HUNTER’S LEGACY

  DEMON’S LEGACY

  HELL’S LEGACY

  DEVIL’S LEGACY

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental

  N.P. Martin

  Haunted

  Shadowhaven Ghosts Book 1

  Copyright © 2024 by N. P. MARTIN

  info@npmarin.com

  Cover design by NMT Design Studio

  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.

  Contents

  FREE BOOK

  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

  Give a Damn, Give a Review

  Books By N. P. Martin

  About The Author

  FREE BOOK

  You think you're a real fan of my twisted little world? You want to be the first sorry son of a bitch to get your grubby mitts on every messed up thing that claws its way out of my depraved imagination? Then it's time to belly up to the bar and join the VIP club, where the drinks are strong, the company's strange, and the shadows are always a little too long for comfort.

  As a VIP member, you'll get the inside scoop on all the wicked shit I've got brewing in the depths of my haunted cerebellum. We're talking exclusive previews, behind-the-scenes glimpses, and first crack at the freshest hell I can conjure up. And just for signing your soul away on the dotted line, I'll even toss in a FREE Ethan Drake novella, a nasty little slice of nightmare fuel that'll have you checking under the bed and sleeping with the lights on for weeks.

  But why stop there? Come find me on Facebook and Instagram, where the madness never stops. It's a non-stop freak show of updates, teasers, and general depravity that'll keep you coming back for more like the twisted little junkie you are. Plus, you'll get to rub elbows with the other sickos who call themselves my fans, compare scars, and maybe even pick up a few new ones along the way.

  So what are you waiting for? Click that image like it owes you money—or visit www.npmartin.com—and get ready to take a long, hard walk on the dark side. And when you're done selling your soul, make sure you give me a like on my Facebook page. Because in this game, you're gonna need all the friends you can get.

  Welcome to the club, you magnificent bastards. Now let's go raise some hell.

  Chapter

  One

  Istood atop the Emberhold, taking in the hellscape that was Shadowhaven, Oregon sprawled out before me. The night’s chill couldn’t touch the infernal heat radiating off the pavement far below. Neon signs pulsed like open wounds, the city’s lifeblood oozing out into the starless June night. Skyscrapers jutted up like crooked teeth in a meth head’s rotting gums, each one a headstone marking Shadowhaven’s slow descent into the abyss. The drone of traffic was the devil’s lullaby, singing the damned souls wandering these streets to sleep—the lost, the desperate, the insatiable.

  Freedom. What a joke. I’d barely been out of the joint for three months and already it felt like just another prison, only this time my cell was the size of Shadowhaven. The city of the living... and the dead. No matter where I turned, I couldn’t escape the ghosts that clung to this place like a terminal disease.

  My gaze wandered from the glitzy neon glow of downtown to the desolate outskirts where even the roaches knew better than to tread. I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding, the acrid taste of irony coating my tongue.

  Three months ago I was counting my final breaths in a cell, now here I was sucking down the sweet “freedom” of smog and shattered hopes. Freedom’s a bitch like that, teasing you with her siren call then slipping through your fingers like a puff of smoke. Especially when the chains of your past are still wrapped tight around your throat.

  I sparked up a cigarette, the click of the lighter drowned out by a haunting wail rising up from the street below. The sound pierced right through me, a banshee’s cry laden with a grief as old as time itself.

  There, under the sputtering neon sign of a fleabag motel, stood a specter that seemed a part of a different world than the one inhabited by the living. She was barely dressed, tattered fabric streaked with the unmistakable crimson of blood. Ethereal yet undeniably marked by violence. Her eyes, two black holes devoid of life, scanned the decrepit street, endlessly searching for something forever lost.

  Smoke leaked from my lungs as I watched, the ghost’s empty gaze a mirror of the desolation that had consumed her. Her dead eyes flicked up toward me and I quickly melted back into the shadows.

  “Not tonight,” I muttered under my breath.

  I’d had my fill of shades for one day. The moment they catch wind that you can see them, that you might hear their pitiful mewling, they latch onto you like the parasites they are. They don’t let go until you give them what they want... or until they’ve bled you dry.

  I was running on empty already, and I’d be damned if I let another one suck out what little life I had left. Little Miss Wailing could rot down there for all I cared. Maybe I’d throw her a bone eventually, maybe not.

  This city was crawling with more ghosts than one man could ever hope to put down, and more kept clawing their way out of the grave every goddamn day.

  I turned my back on the tortured specter, retreating into the Emberhold. The downstairs had once been alive with the thunder of fire engines, fearless heroes riding out to fight the good fight. Now it was just a cemetery, the hearses long gone.

  The station had been shuttered while I was rotting in a cell, the city too broke to keep even this little piece of history alive. The once proud Renaissance Revival, now just another crumbling tomb slowly being reclaimed by time’s merciless grip. A real slap in the face to all those who served, but hey, that’s Shadowhaven for you.

  I’d stumbled across this old husk a few weeks back, a weathered For Sale sign hanging off it like an infected toenail. I was still holed up in a rathole that made my prison cell feel like the Ritz and I figured what the hell. The city had finally coughed up a little cash for locking me up for a crime I didn’t commit, so I snatched this place up for a song. The space was a godsend after being entombed in the iron womb of a cell. I could finally breathe again... or at least pretend to.

  Emberhold.

  That’s what I christened this ruin. A sanctuary from the unrelenting shit storm outside. The firefighter’s pole still stood sentinel in the center of the room, a rusted reminder of headier days. Sometimes I’d even take a ride down it when I first woke up, before the weight of the shades and my own sordid past ground me back down.

  I poured myself a few fingers of bourbon and collapsed onto the secondhand couch I’d scored. I could’ve gone for something a little more upscale, but I liked my furniture with some history woven into the fabric, the imprint of past lives and past asses. Leave the pristine leather sectionals to the fat cats in their glass towers. They wouldn’t know a hard day’s work if it bit them in the Gucci wallet.

  “Fuck,” I grumbled around the cigarette clenched in my teeth, “Least they don’t have to claw tooth and nail just to make it to another day.”

  Cry me a river. Suck it up.

  I flicked an ash and watched it float away like another little piece of my soul lost to the void. The paint peeling from the walls, the rusted red door gaping like an infected wound, it was all a giant cosmic joke with the punchline aimed squarely at my head. Barely three months out of the pen and the whole goddamn world had gone sideways. I was a glitch in the system now, a warped record playing in a room full of shiny CDs.

  This moldering firehouse, it was the fun house mirror version of my own w
retched existence. What was it a shrine to again? Courage under fire? What a crock. Now it was just another carcass, the bones picked clean by the scavengers. The fearless warriors immortalized in the photos on the walls just ghosts in faded frames. There was a time I thought a place like this was hallowed ground. Just goes to show, even the most revered altars crumble to dust in the end.

  I sat there picking at the cracks in the dingy paint, feeling the weight of it all crushing down on me. Loneliness. It clung heavier than any prison chains, growing heavier with each step. This place used to have a heartbeat, pulsing with life. Brotherhood forged in the flames. These days, I was just the cemetery caretaker choking on the ashes of my own dashed dreams.

  Still, there was an odd sort of kinship to be found in the rot. This place was as much of a dead man walking as I was. Soldiers forgotten by the world, still standing out of nothing more than pure spite. Survivors... if you could even call this living.

  I took another long drag, the ember fighting against the inevitable for a brief, defiant moment before fizzling back to black. With a grunt, I hauled myself up and made my way over to the new sound system I’d dropped far too much cash on.

  My record collection sat off to the side, an altar to the gods of metal. The only light in the void when I was a kid, drowning out the symphonies of violence raining down just outside my bedroom door. I pulled out Entombed’s ‘Left Hand Path’ and dropped the needle, a rare smile cracking my face as the speakers screamed to life.

  Sure beat the fuck out of what passed for music in the joint.

  The crunching guitars rattled the walls as I turned to the cluttered wall of clues and unanswered questions. At the center of the chaos was one man.

  James fucking Mercer.

  The Judas that had strung me up and left me to rot.

  Mercer’s smug grin sneered out from the faded newspaper photo, mocking me. Even then, you could see it in his eyes—he’d already measured me for my cross and he was just itching to hammer in the nails.

  Every time I caught sight of that motherfucker’s face it was like a knife to the gut, betrayal and rage churning into a toxic sludge. It had been eating away at me for years, my constant cellmate.

  Golden boy Mercer. My mentor, my brother in blue. What a fucking laugh. I’d looked up to that snake, followed him around like a brain-dead puppy looking for its master. I would have died for the bastard. It wasn’t until I was choking on the stale air of a six by eight that I finally saw him for what he really was—a twisted, broken excuse of a man.

  The photo blurred as I sucked down the dregs of my cigarette, but I couldn’t look away. His eyes, once so warm and reassuring, now just twin glaciers ready to swallow me whole. The eyes of the serpent in the garden, full of false promises and honeyed lies. That picture was a monument to my own stupidity, a blaring reminder that my life was just a house of cards waiting for the wrong breeze.

  The words tasted like bile as they clawed their way up my throat. “I will find you, Mercer. I will track you down like the dog you are and I will⁠—”

  A harsh knock at the front door cut my threat short. I shot one final scowl at Mercer’s fading visage before pushing off the wall and stalking toward the entrance. A Glock 19 sat on a table within easy reach, a precaution for any unwelcome guests. I pressed an eye to the peephole, every muscle tensed and ready to unleash hell if needed.

  When I saw who was on the other side, I let out a bitter snort. It was trouble alright, but not the kind you could solve with a bullet.

  It was my sister.

  Chapter

  Two

  Istood there for a beat, debating whether opening that door would unleash more than just my sister’s wrath. But fuck it, blood’s thicker than water, even if mine was more Jim Beam than hemoglobin these days. I unlocked the deadbolt and swung the door open.

  “Hey,” I grunted. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  Leah gaped at me like I’d just crawled out of my own grave. “The pleasure? I’ve been calling you for days, you asshole. I thought you were dead in a ditch somewhere.”

  “Still kicking,” I said, stepping aside so she could blow past me in a cloud of Chanel No. 5.

  “Is that a joke? Jesus, Elias.” She made a beeline for the bourbon, her high heels clacking on the scarred wood floor.

  “Nope. What’s got your panties in a twist? More than usual, I mean.”

  “Can you please turn that racket off?” She had to shout over the buzz saw guitars. “You know I can’t stand that noise.”

  “I’m not turning it off, Leah.”

  “Then turn it the fuck down at least. Or put on some Crüe, something that doesn’t sound like Satan fellating a chainsaw.”

  “I’ll turn it down.” I snatched the remote off the coffee table and dialed back the volume.

  “Christ, it’s like a meat locker in here,” she said, hugging herself. “When are you gonna get the heating fixed?”

  “It’s an old building. Nothing’s simple.”

  “Story of your life, right?” she scoffed, knocking back a shot of bourbon and pouring another before the burn faded.

  I squinted at her. “The fuck’s that supposed to mean? Bad day at the office, dear?”

  “Never mind.” She drained her glass again. “And yeah, it was a shit day. I busted my ass on a piece and my prick editor spiked it. Might as well have rammed that spike right up my twat for how bad it hurt.”

  “Seriously?” I collapsed onto the sofa after pouring my own drink. “It’s just an article, Leah. This place is a petri dish for hard luck tales.”

  Leah’s eyes flashed like blue fire. “Did those words really just dribble out of your mouth? We’re talking about my goddamn career, Elias. You remember, the career that got your sorry ass out of lockup? Ring any bells?”

  “Yeah, I know. My bad. What was the story?”

  “Ancient fucking history now, isn’t it?”

  “Guess so.” I choked back the impulse to tell her there were plenty of other scumbags in the sea. “Take a load off, unclench for a minute. You’re wound tighter than a two dollar watch, sis.”

  “Oh, so you’re Dr. Phil now?”

  “Only if you want me to be, baby.” I waggled my eyebrows.

  She flipped me the bird but finally sank onto the couch beside me. Seeing her like this, all keyed up and ready to slug someone, it was like looking at a past version of myself. When I still had the badge, the job was my whole damn universe. Ate, slept, and bled blue. Now here I was, out of the game, still trying to figure out who the fuck I even was without it.

  “So how’s life treating you?” Leah asked, her hackles settling now that she had some booze in her and got to vent. “You gonna tell me why you’ve been dodging my calls?”

  “Kept meaning to get back to you, but you know how it is, always another shit storm brewing.”

  “So business is good then?”

  “Shockingly decent, considering I’m a pariah in this hellhole.”

  “You’re not a pariah, Elias. The charges got dropped, remember?”

  “Sure, but this is Shadowhaven, sis. Mud sticks, whether it’s bullshit or not. I can still feel the side-eyes crawling over my skin like maggots.”

  “Fuck ‘em. You were always a good cop, and you’ll be an even better PI.” She hesitated. “What about the... other stuff?”

  “Other stuff?”

  Leah was still struggling to wrap her head around my newfound ability to talk with the dearly departed. She didn’t buy it at first, thought the pen had poisoned my brain pan. I had to jump through some serious hoops to convince her I wasn’t just howling at the moon.

  My pragmatic, cynical sister ain’t exactly what you’d call open to the spirit realm. To her, the world is strictly what you can put under a microscope or run through a printing press. The idea that there’s a whole other layer to reality, let’s just say it ain’t a comfortable fit in her worldview.

  Leah’s doubt was thick as a brick shithouse, but I chiseled at it until she didn’t have a choice. Started small—getting spooks to knock shit over, whisper in her ear, real amateur hour Ouija board nonsense. But Leah’s a nut that needs the sledgehammer, not the scalpel.

  So I tracked down a couple of ghosts, a father and son who died in some nasty car wreck, doomed to retrace their last moments over and over like a skipping record. Tom and little Mikey, just regular schmucks in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now they were trapped in purgatory’s waiting room, unable to punch their ticket to the other side.