The Investigator and The Case Of The Missing Brain - The Apprentices Chronicles

If one could murder sanity, then the Investigator would be the prime suspect.
He walked without a care in the world. Nobody who knew him would question him, and those who didn't know the man generally learned his quirks in time to avoid meeting a gory end.
As Lyara hurried behind The Investigator, she reckoned it could have been worse. The Investigator simply was the prime force to reckon with in Cloatos, and that was while considering the ancient evils that lurked beneath the depths of the city, the primeval plagues that scoured the living, the poisonous insects and plants, the diseased minds of psychopaths and much more.
The Investigator didn't bleed like normal men. He didn't feel pain. He didn't suffer.
He was an Unnatural, and his favorite food was despair.

The Investigator and The Case of the Missing Brain is a dark humor, urban fantasy filled adventure that is set into a grim looking penal colony for the wicked known as Cloatos, ruled by the law of survival of the smartest and deep underground, where magics both ancient and powerful keep those who enter inside, and prevent any escape..
Lyara is a cynical, hard-nosed girl scraping barely by, and with all the bad luck of the world on her shoulders, for she has caught the Investigator's interest, and that is never a good thing. With venom and sarcasm dripping from her every word, even scenes of uncommon horror hardly faze her.
The Investigator is a witty psychopath with a penchant for sadism, but a monster has to eat, and he feeds on despair. His hobby of solving troubles in the underground colony stem from a mere desire to stave off his boredom as he plans his great escape from the inescapable prison, and no proper Investigator would work without an assistant. Never mind the gruesome ends his assistants always end up in.

"An interesting story, with proper servings of despair and horror (as expected from Sir Shadenight). Very gritty.
And then you introduce the Investigator.
Hoo boy. Even among the rest of them, his affable evil and casual violation of her personal freedom and identity really stands out and makes the character's suffering that much more real." -Unelemental

"Cloatos: Very interesting dynamics, very interesting world building. The Unnaturals the small things the monsters, it is great. Basileus: Very well crafted monster. When he plays around: terrifying. When he stops playing around: intriguing." -Ian Drash

"It's gorgeous. I like Basileus and his blatant psychopathy and sadism the most." -Alphaleph