Knight Casefiles Book 1: Revelations

Revelations [Chapter 1]

Chapter 1

Ignorance is bliss. Let me repeat that because it cannot be stressed enough: Ignorance is freaking bliss. 

Do you know how most people manage to get through the day? They simply don’t give a crap. Life gets a whole lot easier when you don’t pay attention to all the bad stuff around you.

Little homeless kid asking for food? Not my problem..

Fire at the children’s hospital? Who cares?

Neighbor’s wife has several bruises the day after you hear them arguing? Probably tripped.  

Just ran over someone? Sorry, dude, my favorite show is on.

Sure, it makes life less…real, and more like a deluded dream but I’m sure you understand. There’s simply not enough time to worry about things that don’t affect “me.” Humans are creatures of logic, no matter how many sitcoms or political debates make you question the fact. Seeing is believing, right? If you don’t perceive something, it doesn’t exist. If you don’t believe that that kid is really just a few hours from starving to death and not just a swindler, you can ignore him completely and Jiminy Cricket won’t have anything to say about it. In the same way, you can ignore your obviously dysfunctional neighbors because the husband is scary and you didn’t really see anything anyway.

Of course, we can’t just blame all this on human cowardice. There just really are situations where a single vanilla citizen can’t make a difference – we’re only human. Situations like, say, World War II, or the Black Plague, or a giant tornado, or having a pack of monsters make their hidey-hole in NYC’s sewers.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Let’s start over: my name is Christopher Pierce, and there are times when I really hate my job..

***

“Sewers,” I grunted in frustration as I trudged through the murky sludge. “Why is it always the sewers?”

It had rained last night, the water that poured in drowning whatever dry walkway was supposed to be there. Even at six feet tall, I was thigh-deep in the foul muck that gave off a stench of what I imagined hell to smell like. It added the problem of keeping the small form I had wrapped in my leather jacket away from the water because no way in hell was I washing that. In fact, after this mission, I planned to burn all my clothes.

The dim glow of the chemical light that poked out of my pocket cast ugly shadows on the moist walls, turning the sludge a sickly green color. Then, as if mocking me, a cold gust of wind suddenly blew past, stirring up a rank odor that would make any grown man hurl. As such, I doubled over and had to steady myself on the nearby wall, touching something too soft and damp for me to want to describe further. I reigned in the urge to vomit, not wanting to add anymore gunk to the already questionable waters.

“This was not how I wanted to spend my Friday night,” I gagged. “Couldn’t they have picked anywhere better to hole up? Like Tahiti?”

“Then it would no longer be in your jurisdiction,” a female voice answered a little too loud.

I grimaced as I adjusted the volume on my earpiece. “My point exactly, Sigrun.”

“Just do your job and hurry up,” the voice called again. “We don’t know how long-”

Sigrun’s scolding was interrupted by a sudden uproar that echoed behind me. Inhuman tongues spoke in outrage as the sounds of scuttling and wading through the water began to get louder, ergo closer. I cursed and started running faster. If those things caught up to me, it would not end well.