At Least He's Not On Fire: A Tour of the Things That Escape My Head (14 page)

The factory manager got up and walked around the desk, closing the office door gingerly. He sat back down, and produced a clean sheet of letterhead paper from a stack. He picked up a pencil, and started to jot notes.

"What are you doing?" Geoff asked.

Bradley looked up and scratched his beard with dirty fingers. Geoff thought there were a few new gray hairs. Quite a few.

"First, we plan."

*****

"He sleeps in a dormitory in the basement," Geoffrey told Mr. Bradley two weeks later. It was then deep into the core of the humid New Jersey summer, and the heat was crushing in the mid afternoon. The sun bored through the slats in the window shade like daggers made of flame. Glasses of iced tea one after another did their best to fight against the dehydration, but it was a lost cause until the sun went down.

Bradley looked over the notes Geoff had written earlier and nodded. They had their plan.

The manager spoke, "My mother once told me that the vampires are weaker during the day as they sleep."

Geoffrey didn't know how to respond, so he nodded. He felt his heartbeat quicken.

"We go now. We do this and end it all. Today, Thomas Edison meets his end Geoffrey, and we will either be hailed as heroes, or criminals should we do this wrong."

"I don't know if I-"

"You've no choice. Take the cane, I'll get the torches. Today, we use only the light that fire provides us. Edison's electric light will not shed justice in this, the good Lord's matter," Bradley stood, and for the first time, the manager looked confident. Righteous. Just.

Geoffrey grabbed the brass headed cane and followed the man out into the hallway towards the stairs that would take them down to where Edison's cold, dark lair was.

*****

Edison's body was in a container that looked exactly like a seven foot long water chest. A large padlock hung from it, but Geoffrey knew it to be false. Like the chest it hung from, it was all only for the sake of appearance. A single ornament designed to dissuade the viewer from the real purpose of the chest.

In his left hand Bradley held the lit torch they had made from a scrap of wood, a handkerchief, and some of the vodka the Russian immigrants from the factory drank so freely. It burned bright and clean, casting orange light and black shadows across the finely appointed apartment. In his right hand Bradley held a large cross. He made the sign of the holy trinity and motioned for Geoffrey to approach the chest with him.

The young man held his breath, his heart hammering away. Adrenaline coursed through him, electrifying his every nerve and muscle, much like Edison's loved energy might. He had never felt so alive, or so close to death. It was a queer exhilaration.

"Open it," Bradley said quietly.

Geoffrey walked around the newly minted vampire slayer and took the torch from him. He handed off the hawk headed cane and with a nod, lifted the padlock, raising the lid of the water chest as well. Bradley had already unscrewed the spike from the cane, and had it at the ready.

"Good afternoon Mr. Bradley," said Edison from the corner of the room, several feet from the chest. His voice was low, and full of malice.

Bradley spun, producing the holy cross at the area of the bedroom Edison had spoken from. Geoffrey lifted the torch to try and shed more light on the vampire, his hand shaking like a leaf blowing in a pre-storm wind. The shadows, impossibly black and thick, peeled away from the corner of the room like a cloak unfurling. The darkness was unnatural, and the torch's flame did little to pierce it. Edison took a step forward into the room, his fangs bared casually. He looked omnipotent.

"In the name of God I command you to hold still unholy beast, creature of the night, Satan's spawn!" Bradley shouted, his voice booming with a religious might Geoffrey was astounded by.

Edison's eyes flared like the torch's flame, and he rooted his feet to the floor. He was held firm.

"I have come to you as an agent of our holy God to end your murderous ways! I shall drive this stake made of ash into your dead, evil heart, and I shall stop this blasphemy of the living order!" Bradley raised the head of the cane high, showing it to Edison as he might show a shard of the holy cross itself. Edison's eyes showed something Geoffrey had never seen, and never expected them to; fear.

"Be gone, foul demon of Satan!" Bradley yelled, and he brought the stake down into Edison's chest.

The wooden stake busted apart against the white shirt Edison wore as if it were made of tissue paper. Tiny shards of wood fell impotently to the floor as Mr. Bradley' hand thumped into Edison's flesh. All that remained in it was the brass hawk's head. The factory manager, full of the fury of his holy God, had done no more than wrinkle the vampire's shirt.

Edison smiled, and wordlessly backhanded the man hard enough to twist his head completely around. Geoffrey stood, open mouthed, watching Mr. Bradley's face contort and twitch, turned entirely around to the wrong direction. Beyond that, he watched as Edison caught the body from falling, and sank his teeth into the limp neck of the dying man. There was a wet, sucking sound as all of the man's vitae was drained from him. It took less time to turn Mr. Bradley into a dried husk than Geoffrey imagined it would’ve.

Edison dropped the carcass on the floor as he might've discarded a spent cigarette. He looked up at Geoffrey and smiled once more. Geoffrey lowered the torch, and stood his ground, frightened of what would happen next. Edison walked slowly over towards him, stopping when he was mere inches away.

"The cane?" Edison asked.

Geoffrey swallowed. His whole life hung in the balance, and his next words would tip it one way, or the other, "Balsa wood. I switched it earlier today when Mr. Bradley was at lunch."

Edison smiled, "Very clever. I always knew he disliked me. Even before I was turned into a vampire. He was so poor at hiding his faces. A good poker opponent though."

Geoffrey smiled, and beamed.

"Well done my young boy."

"Anything for science Mr. Edison. Anything."

"Make your arrangements for travel. Your parents think you're going to Germany to school. You won't be seeing them again, ever."

"Very good sir."

"It will be nice to have reliable help here in the laboratory Geoffrey. Now all that's left is a body double to pretend to be me. Someone to grow old, and marry, and be seen during the day when I cannot be out and about. We'll start that search immediately after you've become as I am."

"Very good sir."

Edison put his arm lovingly around the young man and the two gazed at Mr. Bradley's desiccated body. "The sacrifices we make for science."

The Wrath of the Orphans

Book One of The Kinless Trilogy

Many moons ago I was involved in the gaming industry as a playtester, rules designer, and developer. I loved it, but the money was meh, and when the company I was working primarily for was bought out, I was told I could relocate to the west coast for a meager wage, or I could be let go.

It wasn't worth moving, so I set myself free like the proverbial butterfly on the wind, and moved on to the existential crisis brought on by the layoff, the death of my father, and other things that conspire against us each and every day of our lives.

Looking at the bright side of that, while I was in development I had side projects. If you haven't figured out by now that I love role playing games, I do. Pen and paper, video game, you name it, I'll give it a whirl. I own hundreds if not thousands of RPG books, and I've always wanted to design my own. Isn't that every gamer nerd's dream? To create a game for others to enjoy?

Enter the world of Elmoryn. I created the entire world, and hundreds of years of its history for a game that has yet to be made. In fact, sitting on the hard drive of my laptop right now is nearly three hundred thousand words of game rules and glorious content that are more or less ready to go. Someday, I'll get it assembled, and perhaps something will come of it. I'm also happy that I get to create this world with my friend Alan MacRaffen. He does all the maps, editing, and also helps ensure that the world makes sense, and works on levels that my brain can't comprehend properly.

On the heels of AUD's explosion I decided to write novels set in the world I'd grown to love. The Wrath of the Orphans follows the twins Malwynn and Umaryn as they experience the horror of having everything they've known and loved taken from them at the start of a war that they can't seem to escape. Chaos reigns over them, and they are lost to it.

And if you can't escape that chaos, BECOME IT.

Wrath is a dark fantasy. I mean dark. Think Tarantino meets Tolkien. The twins twist, change, and in their pursuit of vengeance they leave no stone unturned, no bone unbroken, and reduce themselves to the very thing they claim to hate so much. Wrath is their journey from top to bottom, and how they claw their way out of the terrible prison of vengeance they've buried and locked themselves under.
 

As I write this, book one is released, and book two, The Motive for Massacre is about to be released. I'm incredibly proud of this world, the magic of it, and the future it could have if more people gave it a try. As with all fantasy settings, the first few chapters are tough, because they're slower, with lots of world building and required exposition. Once you get past the somewhat drier stuff, the book really takes off.

Enjoy.

- Chapter One -

A WRETCHED AFFAIR

“We’re almost out of time. We need to move faster!” The young man said, panic ripe in his voice. He carried a small woman in his thin arms. Her head hung limp, and the arm not pinned against the man’s chest swung to and fro lifelessly. She was dead.

Ahead of him ran his younger sister. They’d just entered the fringe of the small village their farm was on the outside of. New Picknell. Quiet and safe New Picknell. As the son carried the dead body of his mother at a jog, the smaller sister searched out for the single home that would contain their salvation. The home of New Picknell’s lone Apostle resident.
 

“Catherine!” The daughter yelled, her voice cracking from the emotion she’d been expending since her mother’s death. “Catherine we need you!” They would have to cross the entire town to get to the small farm Catherine’s family lived in. Theirs was a good sized home still inside the town’s edge, still protected from solitude and the wilds of Elmoryn.
 

A woman stood up from her seat at a washboard, letting the wet laundry slide down into the metal basin. She saw the siblings running as fast as they could manage, and her face went pale. She reached down beside the washbasin and produced a mallet. Her lungs inflated to holler a warning, “Dead body in the city! Dead body in the city!” After screaming her warning she clutched the mallet to her chest. Her anxiety decreasing, she retreated to the safety of her home, where she shut the door, and barred it.

As the frightened pair ran through the small village the doors of homes either slammed shut, or swung open with an adult standing in the frame. Everyone was armed, and stared at the body in the boy’s arms. They feared it. They feared what it could become. They feared what it would become if their journey took too long.

“Catherine! Catherine!” The daughter screamed again, losing what was left of her already bruised voice. Other voices joined her, sharing the tremendous urgency. The screams of "Catherine!" were nearly deafening by the time they reached the dirt street that ended at the wooden fence that marked the edge of the family farm they had been seeking.
 

“Catherine please, come quick!” The son yelled, his arms failing. He had been carrying his dead mother for almost an hour at nearly a sprint, and his young body was well past its limit.

His voice pierced the home and a black haired woman opened the door. Her face was calm, reserved, and full of a timeless poise that instantly spread relief to all those in a panic outside her home’s fence. As she stepped outside her door and walked down the finely laid stone path to the sturdy gate she moved with purpose, and confidence. Her trip ended just as the daughter and son reached the gate. The Apostle flipped the latch on the gate and pulled it open, motioning for the son to bring the dead body to a stone bench that was curiously placed just off the stone walkway. Its purpose was not for sitting.

“How long has she been gone Nickolas?” Catherine asked calmly, gathering the fabric of her long cream colored dress to her hip. The garment flowed in the warm, late summer breeze. The stink of the dead body hadn’t yet come, and inside the yard the only scent was that of freshly cut grass.

The young man, Nickolas, panted as he put his mother’s body down on the polished granite slab. She looked very small and almost stately as he arranged her arms at her side. “I don’t know. She was hit by a rotting timber in our barn. It fell on her from the hayloft and struck her dead. We found her and came running as fast as we could. The trip here alone was an hour. She could’ve been dead for a few hours more.”

“Where is your father?” Catherine asked in a slow and steady cadence, inspecting the dead body with tender care. She had done this many times, and this was her way.

This time, the daughter replied, her voice almost entirely gone now, “He left early yesterday to bring a small harvest to the rails. He won’t be back until tomorrow at the earliest.” She coughed a dry cough and shed a thick tear down her cheek.

Catherine winced, “That’s a shame. He will be heartbroken, as I’m sure you both are.” She put a reassuring hand on the shoulders of the siblings. From the other side of the fence the town’s residents that were brave enough to watch had formed a line against the thick wood separating Catherine’s property from the town proper. Pitchforks, shovels, hammers, and even a few swords and axes were in their hands. They stared intently at the body on the granite surface just a few feet away.