Read Shreiber and Tome: Unlucky Vamps Page 14

Shreiber and Tome: Vessels.

  1. Dead Men With Excellent Penmanship.

  Lil paused in her work and looked up. A strange scent had suddenly filled her office. She sniffed the air, and called to her partner across the room.

  “Mike?”

  Michael Tome, ex-warlock and natural scryer, looked up from where he was pretending to work. “What?” he asked irritably.

  “Can you smell that?”

  Tome sniffed the air, then himself. “Not me.”

  “I didn’t say it was...”

  “I mean, I have bathed today, unlike some people.”

  “What are you implying?” Lil asked. “I’ve been working all night, haven’t I? Besides, even on my worse day I can honestly say I’ve never smelt of...” She sniffed the air again. “Formaldehyde? I’m strictly a lavender girl.”

  Her intercom buzzed.

  “Lil,” the tiny voice of their secretary Amy came through the speaker. “Ders a guy here askin for you.”

  Lil stared at the speaker. “Are you holding your nose?”

  “I’m sending him in, den I’m getting some air,” Amy replied with infinite patience. ‘I think he’s a client. But I’m not sure.”

  “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “I tried dat already.”

  “Oh, just send him in,” Lil said finally. She rolled her eyes.

  “I told you we should have hired that imp,” Tome told her. “Amy’s good. But she lacks the sort of qualities one looks for in a minion. All you need a few strokes of a whip, and an imp is yours for life.”

  “I thought you said they were impossible to house-train?”

  “A few newspapers would sort that problem out. Bloody hell, what is that smell?”

  The door to their office opened, and their visitor entered carrying with him the mystery scent. The man was tall and incredibly gaunt. The angles of his skull were all too visible beneath his dour face. His skin was pale, but tinged with a slight green hue, and his white hair was receding back across a high forehead. His outfit struck Lil as the kind normally seen on a particularly manic depressive undertaker. Black suit and tie, and a white shirt. A bowler hat was held in his hands, and he twisted it nervously.

  The smell was overwhelming now, and clearly coming from the man. He stared about the office with glassy grey eyes, and did not blink once. Then his gaze fell onto Lil, and she felt shivers run down her spine.

  “Can we help you?” Lil asked, trying to breathe through her mouth while appearing not to.

  The man nodded, then cleared his throat with a dry rattling sound that made her wince.

  “Brains,” he said.

  Lil and Tome exchanged looks.

  “Come again?”

  “Brains,” the man said solemnly.

  “See,” said Tome. “That’s what I thought he said.”

  “Brains,” the man repeated, this time with a hint of impatience. He sighed, again with an unsettling dry rush of air through unused passages, and reached into his coat pocket. He pulled out a folded sheet of paper and handed it across the desk to Lil.

  Lil unfolded the paper warily, and read through it.

  “What’s he want?” Tome asked.

  “It says his name is Zachariah Jones,” Lil read. “Good afternoon, I’m sorry I cannot talk to you through normal methods, but my current state of undeath sadly prevents the use of speech in anything but a descriptive sense. My name is Zachariah Jones, and I wish to hire your services. I am a good friend of Mister Eldred Holden, for whom you have previously performed a service...”

  “Holden...” Tome said thoughtfully. “The guy that wanted to know if his wife was cheating on him with his evil double? Except, turned out he was the evil double, and his whole family was being replaced by evil doppelgangers.”

  “Brains,” Zombie Zach nodded.

  “That family had more duplicates than Paris Hilton’s porn movie.”

  “But we got it in the end,” Lil remembered. “And all we needed was a permanent marker. Anyway.” She turned back to the letter. “I was told you were very skilled investigators and a situation has turned up with which I require aid. I have heard that you specialise in cases that involve the supernatural, and as you can imagine from looking at me, my situation is quite, if you will excuse the expression, out there.

  “Please allow me to explain further. I was murdered in 1932 over a gambling debt I had failed to pay. For reasons that I am unable to satisfactorily explain, I returned from the dead as a zombie. It is not a lifestyle as exciting as the movies make it out to be. I retain all of my senses and memories but now have a one word vocabulary which, you can imagine, makes conversations quite difficult. Especially around vegetarians. The only job that I could get was as a grave digger. I have since taken over as caretaker of the Verdant Hills Cemetery, where I ensure that the inhabitants have no reason to come back as I did.

  “I do not ask to employ you for myself, for I have long since come to terms with my lack of life lifestyle. There is a matter of greater importance that I need your help with. A few days ago, my great-grand daughter went missing. She was always a troubled young girl, but I fear the worse, especially as her disappearance may be my fault.

  “I have recently attempted to reconcile with my long estranged family. Sarah, my great-grand daughter was particularly reluctant. I did make an effort, and a week or so ago I gave her a present that I thought she would appreciate. It was a small silver pendant with a red stone in its centre. Very goth. Sarah did not say anything, but I could tell she liked it. However, not long afterwards, she became quite sullen and introverted. At least, more so. Her mother told me that she was acting quite strange, even for a teenager. She would stay out later than she was allowed. And I am told she redecorated her room in a manner her mother tells me is quite frightening. Then she disappeared, and the police have no clue. They assume that she is just another run away, but I know something evil has befallen her. And I just know it has to do with that pendant.

  “Sarah’s father was against my involvement, and they do not know that I am attempting to hire a private detective. But I feel so guilty, and I am afraid I may have caused my family to suffer greatly.

  “I have little funds, but I am prepared to pay whatever is necessary if you help me find Sarah.”

  Lil looked up from the note to the zombie.

  “I’m very sorry for your loss,’ she said gently. ‘But we don’t really specialise in missing persons.”

  “If she were a terrier,” Tome added, “we’d be all over it.”

  “Is there any reason why you think Sarah’s disappearance is in any way, um... unnatural?” Lil asked.

  Zach nodded. “Brains,” he said with feeling.

  “The pendant you gave her?”

  “Brains.”

  “What was so special about this pendant?”

  Zach reached into his pocket and pulled out another sheet of paper which he again handed to Lil. As she unfolded it, Tome came over and looked over her shoulder.

  On the paper was a detailed drawing of the pendant, surrounded by notes made in Zach's’ neat script. The pendant was apparently a circle of silver. Engraved on the front was a strange hexagonal shape made up of six lines of neat, linked writing of some unknown language. On the back was a series of curved lines running up and down its surface. Placed in the center of the pendant was a small tear drop shaped stone, blood red in colour. All this Lil discerned from Zach's careful notes. He was apparently quite meticulous.

  “What do you think?” she asked Tome.

  “Looks nothing special,” Tome said. “But there is something vaguely familiar about it...”

  “You didn’t sell it to him did you?” Lil asked suspiciously. Tome had a habit of selling dodgy witch charms when she wasn’t looking.

  Tome sighed over-dramatically. “You have no faith in me whatsoever, do you? My days of underhanded malfeasance are well and truly behind me.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since Amos
Zane discovered the Anasasi Witch charms I sold him weren’t made using the traditional components.”

  “And what were they made of?” Lil couldn’t help but ask. History had taught her to assume the worst when it came to Tome.

  “Afghan,” Tome replied.

  “Rug, or hound?”

  “Hound. I mean who would have thought the evil git knew so much about Native American enchantments. Or breeds of idiotic dogs. To be fair, where was I suppose to get locks of hair from a virgin, cut off under a full moon?”

  Lil shook her head. “So, I guess you aren’t the only miscreant selling bogus magical charms in this city. Who’d have thought it, someone else with as little morals as you.”

  “And muscling in on my territory,” Tome said with annoyance. He turned to Zach. “I don’t suppose you remember who sold you this thing?”

  "Brains,” Zach said, and nodded at the sheet on Lil’s desk. In the corner was written: Honest Hjel the Jeweller, along with an address.

  Tome frowned. “I’ve heard of the place, but I could have sworn it was downtown,” he said.

  “Brains?” Zach asked expectantly.

  Lil took this to mean: Will you take the job?

  “What do you think, Mike?” she asked her partner.

  Tome shrugged. “I’ve got bugger all else to do today.”

  Lil gave Zach her most reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, Mister Jones. I can’t offer any guarantees, but I can promise you that if your daughter is still in the city, we’ll find her.”

  What shape she would be in however, Lil thought, was out of their hands.

  “Okay, Lil,” Tome said enthusiastically. “Let’s go kick some evil arse. And if there’s time, some good arse as well. No sense in leaving them out. What’s first?”

  “Well... The easiest thing to do would be to let you scry for her. But first, we need to clear up a few things...”

  The 84th precinct house of the Chapter City Police Department had recently had a makeover. Its glass front was now shiny and clean, as if to reflect the law enforcers within: Transparent, modern and streamlined.

  And most likely on the take, if the rumours were true. The 84th wasn’t exactly on the front line of the war against crime. Most of the crimes reported were against bankers, stockbrokers, and other sorts who could afford a new BMW every year. Most of the crimes committed by them tended to disappear in the time it took to transfer a few funds.

  Lil pushed through the glass revolving doors and found herself in a foyer that belonged in some swanky new government building. There was no graffiti, no mysterious stains of long lost vomit or blood, no message board with wanted signs pinned up. There weren’t even any suspicious looking perps in hand cuffs lurking about. Lil was disappointed. It was like she was let down by every cop show she’d ever seen.

  She caught the elevator up to the Robbery/Homicide Division. The room was filled with empty desks, all of them arranged in inhumanly neat rows, and so clean one could actually consider doing work on one. All of the desks, that is, except one hidden conveniently at the back.

  Lil made her way over to where Detectives Louis Franco and Maria Richards “worked”. Louis was a big man who always seemed to have a stain of some description down his front. He was so slovenly that Lil, a woman whose idea of cleaning was, if you can’t see the stains it was clean, considered herself a neat freak by comparison. His desk was carefully stationed so that visiting officials who looked in from the outside couldn’t see the piles of unfinished paper work, the take out food wrappers and the pair of old sneakers that had sat on his desk for as long as Lil knew him, and whose presence could never be satisfactorily explained. It wasn’t like Louis ever ran, he’d probably keel over and just die at the thought of chasing down a suspect. But there were the sneakers, awaiting the day that hell finally froze over and Louis got up and exercised his fat butt.

  Maria Richards was the complete opposite of her partner, neat and methodical. Her desk always adhered to regulation cleanliness. On the surface, she was a pretty brunette who looked younger than the thirty four years her files listed as her age. But as Lil knew well, squeaky clean Maria had her secrets.

  “Hey, Lil,” Louis greeted her. “What new exciting case is Chapter City’s greatest private dick working on today?”

  “Your murder if you every call me a private dick again,” Lil replied. “Have you ever considered renting your desk out? You could make millions if you let other cities dump their garbage there as well.”

  “Don’t give him ideas like that, Lil,” Maria chided. “You know what it’s like working downwind from him as it is?”

  “What you talking about?” Louis said with a hurt tone. “I happen to have a natural, masculine scent.”

  “A grown man should not smell of McDonald’s. Do you sweat secret sauce or something?”

  “Hey, the ladies like my scent just fine.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Lil put in. “Right now, it’s taking all of my self control not to throw myself on you. Self control and... is that a pickle on your tie?”

  “Hey, I wondered where that went,” Louis said in surprise and peeled the former contents of his lunch off his clothes. Then ate it.

  Maria made a face. “See what I have to put up with?”

  “You think you’ve got it bad? You have met my partner Mike Tome, right?”

  Maria opened her mouth to reply, but instead looked at her partner eating a pickle that had most likely been on his shirt for several hours, then thought about what she knew of Tome.

  “Okay you win,” she admitted to Lil. “So why are you here?”

  “Can we talk in private?”

  Maria nodded towards the observation room.

  “What, I’m not good enough to talk to any more?” complained Louis.

  “I just don’t want to be distracted by your musk of two all-beef-patties is all,” Lil replied.

  “Breaking my heart, babe.”

  Maria led her into the dimly lit room overlooking the interview rooms. She closed the door firmly behind her.

  “So how’re things?” Lil asked.

  “Oh, can’t complain. I get plenty of exercise and lot’s of perps to eat,” Maria replied.

  “Yeah, the change in scenery suits you.”

  “I know. A diet solely of crack addicts is murder on the hips. So did you come for small talk, or do you want me to disembowel someone for you?”

  She smiled playfully as she said this, but Lil had no doubt she meant every word. She and Tome had known Maria was a demoness for years. It helped to have someone in the police force that they could easily blackmail. Not that Maria was never anything but useful.

  Maria Richards was actually Maira Riktor, a descendant of a warrior demon clan that had been exiled from the Lower Realms after the rebellion of Lucifer Morningstar in Heaven and his subsequent fall. According to Tome, her clan had fought the fallen angel and his minions to the death, and with the fall of the original demon lords and the rise of the Devil as ruler of Hell, had been forced from their home rather than submit to his will.

  The arrival of demons on earth resulted in what Tome like to call, Happy Hour. Chaos, destruction, murder, only now there were demons present as well. Not that anyone noticed. Big scary men who killed and pillaged without provocation weren’t just welcomed in some parts of the world, they were made kings. Why anyone would think Vlad the Impaler was human was anyone’s guess.

  Many years of interbreeding with humans left the few remaining members of the clan such as Maira Riktor looking almost normal. The demon side only came out on rare occasions. Usually heralded by the hunting, killing and eating of flesh of some poor bystander.

  Maria tried to overcome her demonic heritage by only killing criminals. And in a place like Chapter city, there were plenty. Working in the 84th gave her access to a better class of criminal, usually someone actually worth killing and eating.

  Lil always tried to overlook this side of her. She’d seen the demonic half in all its h
orrible glory, but tried to focus on the human side. Maria Richards was a kind, caring woman, and a good cop when she wasn’t dining on her suspects.

  Besides, Lil liked the idea of a half demon and a half angel being friends. Opposite sides coming together in harmony for the common cause of making fun of Michael Tome.

  “I don’t suppose you know of a missing persons case that came in a couple days ago?” Lil asked. “Sixteen year old girl, thought to have run away from home.”

  “I seem to recall hearing something like that,” Maria said. “Considering how fast a missing persons case can become a homicide, I try to keep in touch.”

  “The girl’s great-grandfather’s dead.”

  “So are most peoples.”

  “This one is still walking around.”

  Maria nodded in understanding. “Now I remember. The guys in missing persons were drawing straws to see who had to interview him. Zombies aren’t bad, provided you stay up wind.”

  “Zombie Grandfather just hired me to help track her down,” Lil explained. “I was hoping I could get a look at the file.”

  “You’re kidding right?” Maria asked. “You want me to sneak you a copy of a police file?”

  “It would save me a lot of time. Besides, the police aren’t exactly going to look hard into this. They think the girl’s a runaway.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “Call it a hunch. I’m like a magnet for weird, why would this come to me if it wasn’t funky?”

  “I suppose,” Maria conceded. “And you’re wrong, actually. As of this morning, missing persons are giving the case their full attention.”

  “Why the change?” Lil asked.

  “A couple of FBI agents from Sub-Human Control were asking about it. You know that guy Ryan? The one who hates you? He and that woman Santiago seemed to think there was something not quite right about the runaway theory.”

  “Like what?”

  Maria shrugged. “Not my department. Hey, is Santiago the one who has a thing for Mike?”

  “Yep. You wouldn’t think it would you?”

  “No, she looks so normal. Anyway, because the FBI are interested, the police are damn sure not going to let a couple of Feds take over the case. If it turns out something bad has happened to the girl, better if it looks like someone at least tried to find her than just pawning it off on the FBI.”

  “Wow, I never knew inter-agency politics was so interesting.”

  “It’s like a daytime soap, only more bitchy.”

  “But seriously, what would make Hugh Ryan take an interest? I mean, the guy isn’t exactly with an excess of imagination.”

  Maria shrugged again. “Who knows? Like you said, weird gravitates towards you.”

  “Look, Maria,” Lil said. “I know this is asking a lot...”

  “But you want me to spy on missing persons and keep you up to speed.”

  “More or less.”

  “Fine,” Maria sighed. “Because I like you. And you were considerate enough not to bring Mike along.”

  “He doesn’t like going into places where everyone has a gun and hates him.”

  “Which brings up another question. Have you spoken to the family yet?”

  Lil shook her head. “That was my next stop.”

  “Don’t bring Mike there either. Situations like this need someone with tact...”

  “Don’t worry,” Lil told her. “I gave him the perfect job.”

  “She could have at least lent us the car,” Tome complained. “It’s not like the police station was that far. Only a few miles...”

  “Brains,” agreed Zombie Zach.

  On the plus side, Tome reflected, travelling on the bus with a rather ripe smelling zombie at least guaranteed you some space. The other passengers had all eventually drifted to the back, and sat with their faces covered. Tome thought that was silly. A little formaldehyde never hurt anyone.

  “Brains,” Zach said.

  “Oh, I know, mate. Don’t get me started.”

  “Brains.”

  “You said it.”

  There were a few muffled cheers as they disembarked at their stop.

  “Was it around here?” Tome asked.

  “Brains,” Zach said. He led them down the street.

  Tome read the address on the paper again. The more he thought about it, the less sense it made. He could have sworn the place was in another part of town.

  Zach stopped dead. Tome looked at the address on the paper, then back at the alley between a fried chicken shop and a florist. The shop they wanted was Honest Hjel the Jeweller, number 102. The chicken place was 101, and the florist 103. There was no other shops on the street.

  “You sure this was it?” Tome asked.

  “Brains,” Zach nodded.

  “Did he operate out of a trash can?”

  “Brains!” Zach snapped irritably.

  “Okay, okay. Keep your stitches on.” Tome fished into one of the many pockets of his grubby black trench coat and took out his pendulum. It was a small pointed crystal tied to a piece of string, and the most useful tool a natural born scryer like him could use.

  He held it out and let it twirl, letting the auras of the place draw into him. He felt... Jovial, happy. He could smell polish and incense. There was something... shiny? It pleased him...

  “Oh, for God's sakes...” he said. He nodded to Zach. “This way.”

  They set off into the alley, and Tome stopped them halfway down. On the walls were large black markings that rose up six feet on either side of them. The markings were a mixture of strange Celtic symbols and runes, and a weird linked script. On closer examination, Tome could just make of the words Honest Hjel the Jeweller hidden in the scrawl.

  “That cheap little...” Tome sighed. He put away his pendulum, and pulled out a small pull string bag. He took a small handful of white powder from the bag, and blew it into the air, directly in the space between the two columns of writing. The air rippled like water.

  Tome rolled his eyes. Rippling air? Who still used that? Bloody showboaters, that’s who.

  “Come on,” he told Zach. He stepped into the shifting column of air, and instantly found himself in the dingiest looking shop he had ever seen.

  “Brains?” Zach asked in surprise.

  “Relax. It was a space-time portal. The cheap sod who owns this place just doesn’t want to pay rent so he sets up a fake store front in an alley somewhere, and makes a portal behind it. When you enter the store, you just pass through the portal and end up...”

  “Welcome, welcome...” came a suddenly call.

  They turned to see a little man enter via a set of stairs that led to the upper floor. He wore a white tunic, a fez, and a disconcerting smile that showed off his impossibly white teeth.

  “I am Honest Hjel, and welcome to my...” he froze, the smile locked on his face as he saw Tome. “Shit,” he said.

  “I knew it!” Tome said triumphantly. “Crazy Ed, what the hell are you doing?”

  “I could ask you the same thing,” replied Honest Hjel, AKA Crazy Eddie Lightfoot, purveyor of Anasasi Magic Charms. “This is a respectable shop, Tome,” he said, all of the joviality going out of his voice. “We don’t need the likes of you here. Beat it.”

  “Respectable? You?” Tome snorted. “Please. What game are you playing?”

  “Unlike some people, I do have a proper legitimate business here.”

  “Selling demonic jewellery?”

  “Well, what the hell am I supposed to do? That jerk Ryan raided my warehouse and stole all my pony hair. What am I suppose to make charms out of?”

  “Afghan worked well.”

  Crazy Eddie gave him a cold stare. “Dog hair? Are you insane? Everyone knows you’re only supposed to use pony.”

  “I thought,” Tome replied, “you were supposed to use the hair of an Anasasi maiden, cut off under a full moon on the night she reaches womanhood?”

  “Oh really? Do you see any Anasasi maidens around here, Tome? Do
you think I keep them hidden under my sofa, or what? It’s pony, or nothing.”

  “Pony, dog, who can tell the difference?”

  “Remind me,” Crazy Eddie said coldly. “How many of your limbs is Amos Zane planning to break? Two or three?”

  “Oh, you know it’s all four,” Tome replied, nonplussed.

  “See, that’s your problem, Tome. No imagination. You’re stuck pulling off the same old schemes day after day. Well, I’m moving up in the world. I’ve got my own business now, with my own shop...”

  “Fake shop,” Tome pointed out. “This is your basement isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, man. Because I can afford to rent an actual shop peddling plaited pony hair. What planet do you live on?”

  “Brains,” Zach interrupted. “Brains.”

  “Good point, sorry,” Tome said.

  “What did he say?” asked Crazy Eddie.

  “He said: “Brains”. Weren’t you listening? But he’s right. I’m not here to argue... about this anyway. I want to know everything about this.” Tome held up the drawing of the pendant.

  Crazy Ed looked at the drawing closely. “What about it?”

  “Did you sell it then, you dodgy twat?”

  Crazy Ed rolled his eyes. “Maybe.”

  “Brains!”

  “Okay! I sold it to him. But buyer beware, man. Just because you didn’t know it was a fake...”

  “Fake?” Tome interrupted. “It’s a fake?”

  “For thirty-three fifty plus tax it had damn well better be,” Crazy Ed replied. He sighed and led them to the counter. That is, the several wooden crates he set up to act as a counter. “Look,” he started. “It’s like this. After my little... brush with Johnny Law, I ran into an old friend of mine from down below... And I don’t mean Australia.”

  “I got it, Ed,” Tome rolled his eyes.

  “I mean Hell,” Ed clarified. “He’d landed himself in some trouble, and was looking to rid himself of some, shall we say, objects of questionable ownership.”

  “If there’s a better kind of object, I haven’t found it,” Tome agreed.

  “Well, you understand then. Who was I to pass by this opportunity?”

  “You’re only human.”

  “Exactly. It’s not like I’m hurting anyone. I saw a chance to go straight... well, straight-ish, at any rate, and I took it. I mean, it’s not as if any of this stuff is authentic, I mean, come on!” He reached behind the counter and held up a white teddy bear. “The guy tried to tell me this was Azaezel’s teddy bear. Seriously!”

  “What a load of crap!” Tome said. “Everyone knows Azaezel’s bear is brown!”

  “I know! With the little black eyes that consume your soul...”

  “The cutest killing machine in the Lower Realms, everyone knows that!”

  “So what’s the harm, eh? It’s all basically crap. Well, except for...” he trailed off.

  “Except for?”

  Crazy Ed put the bear away, and pulled out a small bundle of cloth that he reverently laid down on the counter.

  “When I first saw this, I admit I was a little surprised,” he said. He unwrapped the cloth carefully. Inside was the pendant that Zach had bought before.

  “Brains!” Zach said accusingly.

  “Hey, calm down, man. Like I said, if you didn’t realise it was a fake...”

  “Hold it,” Tome said. “You’re telling me you sold Zach here a fake?”

  “If you let me explain, yes I did. I could tell he wasn’t going to afford the real deal. He’s dead after all. And along with the real thing here, I got my hands on some nice little duplicates. Real quality stuff though,” he added. “Real fake silver and everything.”

  “Really. What exactly is this thing?”

  “Far as I can tell, the emblem of some demon.”

  “Which demon?”

  “Tome,” Ed said patiently. “I’m just a simple Anasasi boy trying to make a living in the stupid white man’s world. Demonology is your department. I just make the crappy charms that losers like you think keep you safe.”

  “May I?” Tome asked, picking up the pendant anyway.

  “Hey!”

  “Ooo,” Tome said in tones of awe as he examined it. “Wow... This is something...”

  “Put that down! That's worth more than your sorry ass, Tome. When I sell it I’m going to be a millionaire.”

  “Really?”

  “We’re talking tens of millions here, man. You know what a real piece of jewellery from the Lower Realms is worth up here? I could buy and sell Bill Gates ten times over...”

  “With this fake?”

  Ed went rigid. “Fake?”

  “Yes. Fake. As in, not real. As in, not worth anything. As in, you sold the real one to Zach for thirty-three fifty, you pillock! Plus tax. Call yourself a business man...”

  Crazy Ed looked at the pendant in Tome’s hand. “You sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. Knowing crappy magical artefacts is what I do.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Ed swore. “Damn, shitty, crapping...” He stopped and looked at Zach. “Say, would you be interested in a refund?”

  “Brains.”

  “That a yes or a no?”

  “I think that’s a “get stuffed, mate”,” said Tome. “Since your salesmanship is about as good as your witch charms, would it be worth my while asking you for the name of this demon that sold you all of this crap?”

  “Greg.”

  “Greg?” Tome repeated. “His name is Greg?”

  “Honest. And he was a devil, not a demon, and I don’t know where he is. After he offloaded his goods, he split.”

  “Well, thanks anyway, Ed. Much obliged.”

  “Brains,” said Zach. They made their way back to where they had originally materialised.

  “Oh, by the way...” Ed lowered his voice into a conspiracy-like whisper. “I just might be able to get my hands on some pieces of the original cross,” he said to Tome. “You know of any interested markets?”

  “Sure,” said Tome brightly. “I know plenty of stupid people. Catch you later.”

  Before he left, Crazy Ed called out again. “Tome!”

  Tome turned around. “Yeah?”

  “Before you go, can you do me one favour?”

  “For you, Ed, anything.”

  “Nothing big. Just give me back the pendant, you thieving bastard.”

  “Pendant?” Tome played innocent.

  “In your pocket.”

  Tome pulled out the pendant he had carefully pocketed after examining it. “Oh, would you look at that,” he said in surprise. “How did that get there? I tell you, these demonic pendants have a mind of their-”

  He suddenly stepped backwards into the portal and vanished, taking the pendant with him.

  “Get back here!”

  Zach paused to give Crazy Ed a cold look.

  “Brains,” he said sternly, then stepped through the portal and disappeared.

  Ed looked at the empty space and sighed.

  “God, I hate that guy,” he muttered.

  Also by the Author:

  The Hollow.

  “From now on, you lot will be referred to as Pond Scum, until you prove that you are capable of extending more intelligence and arcane talent than real pond scum. When I call for you, Pond Scum, you will drop whatever you are doing and come running. Understood?”

  Everyone has their reasons for joining the Imperial Legion. Some seek fame. Some are just running from something. You sign the scroll, take the Legion bronze, then you learn to hit things with a sword.

  But when Serrel Hawthorne joined the Imperial Legion, the last thing he was expecting was to be selected for battlemage training. Now he and seven other misfits are going to have to learn how to weave the magical ether, and preferably not kill each other in the process. Of course, their gruff sergeant might just do that anyway, if they keep annoying him.

  And the biggest threat any of them will have to face, is always going t
o be the one within themselves.

  Mages call it the Hollow. It is there, inside everyone, waiting to swallow them whole. It will kill you if you let it. But you have to climb out of it yourself.

  The Hollow: At the Edge.

  “Well, Fresh Meat, welcome to the Hounds. Don’t get comfortable. I expect your stay to be short and messy, with a bloody end.”

  In the continuation of “The Hollow”, a rebellion has broken out in the mysterious and magical land of Elsbareth, known by most as the Faelands. Serrel Hawthorne, newly trained battlemage in the Imperial Legion, finds himself separated from his fellow trainees and on the way to a war with a group of battle hardened soldiers who mildly detest him, a sergeant who hates him, and two dogs that just might eat him. And the least said about the man called Dogbreath, the better.

  The Faelands were always known as the home of elves and strange beasts. But no one is prepared for what’s waiting for the Legion across the sea. Surviving his squadmates is only the start. Here there are real monsters, things that should not be. And soon Serrel has to face up to what he must do, and what he must become to not only survive the coming battles, but save the people he cares about. It will take all his skill at spellcasting, and that might not be enough.

  And through it all, the Hollow waits within.

 
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