Read The Five Faces (The Markhat Files) Online
Authors: Frank Tuttle
The Five Faces (The Markhat Files) (28 page)
“An even thousand crowns for watching rich folks drink. I think you just bought yourself a finder, Mr. Prestley.”
“Surely you have a pair of those awful domestic beers hidden away in your icebox,” said Evis. “I believe we have a toast to make.”
I hurried to the back, knocked damp sawdust off the bottles, and together Evis and I toasted my regrettable return to honest work.
Evis stuck around and drank beer and we talked dates and times, which I dutifully scribbled onto my notepad. He wrapped himself in black silk and darted back out into the sun maybe an hour later, leaving me to my thoughts.
A thousand gold crowns in good solid gold coin. All for a week of work that, on the surface, seemed to involve nothing more perilous than lounging around a floating casino while maintaining an aloof air of menace.
A thousand crowns, though. That’s a lot of money, even in Rannit’s booming post-War economy. A fellow could live quite well on a fraction of that.
Which meant someone high up at Avalante considered the threat of violence against the Regent quite real. Evis didn’t seem to agree. But he hadn’t blinked when I’d upped the ante, either, which meant his bosses had instructed him that money was no object.
“An even thousand crowns,” I said aloud. Darla would be thrilled. We could put a fancy slate roof on our new place on Middling Lane. Hell, we could tear the house down to the last timber and build it back again with twice as many rooms and still have money left over.
If, that is, a fellow lived long enough to collect his shiny gold coins.
I pushed the thought aside, gathered up the empty bottles, and eventually followed Evis out into the bright and bustling light of day.
Saving the love of her life could mean letting her inner darkness out to play.
Blood of an Ancient
© 2013 Rinda Elliott
Beri O’Dell, Book 2
Beri O’Dell is on a mission. She has to rip back into a hell dimension fast, but needs two things first—the blood of an ancient and a fix for her friend Blythe’s magic, which careened out of control after the battle with the Dweller.
Finding ancient blood isn’t easy when the old ones are rare and unwilling to donate. She needs to find Blythe’s former mentor…except the woman has lost her mind and joined a traveling band of singing witches.
That’s not the only magical monkey on her back. Nikolos is imprisoned, and after a screwed-up spell lets her witness the horror that has become his life, her fear for him grows by the day. Now there’s another problem—a powerful being unleashed during the battle with the Dweller likes her gluttonous new existence, and will kill anyone who threatens it.
But Beri has a few tricks up her costumed sleeve, even if it means mining the darkness of her soul to set everything right…and get Nikolos back in her arms.
Warning: Sleazy ancients. Random fires. Nosy teenage hackers. Hints of off-screen torture. Battles with...Beri doesn't know what. And one scary boyfriend who keeps inching toward insanity.
Enjoy the following excerpt for
Blood of an Ancient:
Later in the day while Blythe packed, I rummaged in a greenhouse I discovered behind the house. It was obviously under construction because no actual plant life resided inside, just a lot of boards and tools. I assumed Nikolos planned to build more of the long tables he had in here. There were two.
The sprite was still sleeping—I hoped—in the windowless bathroom, but I needed something to put him in for the trip. I wasn’t letting him out of my sight. Who knew when we’d find another ancient?
I ended up building a kind of rudimentary mini-coffin. It wasn’t pretty, but I glued the hell out of every corner so I was sure no sunlight could get inside. We couldn’t just keep him wrapped in shirts the whole way.
I was wondering if vampires could suffocate later as I watched Blythe pull up a search engine. Dooby and Castor had grocery shopped, so Blythe and I made a quick dinner of sandwiches and chips before settling in front of the computer to find this band.
“The witch who answered the phone said the band is called Staglina.”
It wasn’t hard to find them. They must have been popular because they came up on the first search page. Their website was a dark, serene blue with an image of the moon hovering over an ocean. There were no concert locations, no band member biographies…nothing but a link to a video.
Blythe clicked and sat back with a thump against her chair when the music started. So did I. My heart pounded harder, warmth filled my chest. Women’s voices raised in a harmony like nothing I’d ever heard filled the room. Castor and Dooby left the table where they’d been poring over the ancient spell book translations and approached the computer.
We all waited until the last note played, then I released a shaky breath. “Whoa.”
Blythe shook her head. “Sophie can’t be in that. This is magic.”
“Of course it’s magic—they’re witches.” I managed to stop myself from rolling my eyes. I was trying not to do that so much around Blythe with her habit of stating the obvious. I did catch Phro’s eye roll in my peripheral vision. The goddess couldn’t care less about the little witch’s feelings.
Castor leaned over my shoulder and used the mouse to restart the video. He turned the speakers down. “Look at their faces.”
I squinted at the small video. All I saw was a blur of women in blue dresses. “What faces? This is obviously a poorly recorded phone video from a concert.”
“And Staglina linked to it?”
I shrugged. “Sure. Why not? That song alone would pull a lot of people to their concerts.”
“Nothing around them is blurred—just their faces.”
The stage, the trees behind it, everything else showed up sharp and crystal clear. “Creepy.”
“Suspicious,” Blythe replied. “Wonder what Staglina means?” She clicked back to the home page. “And why wouldn’t they have a concert listing? I was told Sophie called them from Alabama. Some small town near Birmingham.”
“I think Staglina is Norse.” I searched the memories of my stint with an obsessive Norse mythology fascination. I’d been trying to find a troll and got completely caught up in the old stories. I wouldn’t be telling Aphrodite this, but I never got quite as fascinated with the Greek myths. “I’m sure Nikolos has some books on Norse myth in his library, but I think I remember it having something to do with a chain and anchor.”
Blythe clicked on another page. Empty again. “I don’t get it. What kind of band has no useful information on their site? How are fans supposed to find them?”
“See if you can find a mention of their concert.” I took a bite of the ham sandwich, enjoyed the extra kick of sharp cheddar. “Maybe someone who went to the last concert blogged or something.”
An hour later, all we had was the location of the last show in Alabama and that came from a small news piece on cops being called out to break up a concert they couldn’t find.
Blythe sighed and stretched her neck back and forth. “I’ll stay on this and read comments on the video page. There were hundreds.” She picked up a potato chip and crunched it.
“Have fun with that. Comment sections on any website never fail to sap at my belief in the general goodness of human beings.” Grimacing, I reached for the mini-coffin I’d built. “I’m too tired to deal with that little creature in the bathroom tonight. Have Elsa or Castor… Wait.” I turned to Dooby, who’d gone back to the book. “You have power over the dead, right, Dooby?”
He looked up. “Yeah, but vampires aren’t technically all-the-way dead.”
“Do you think you could figure out how to feed him so he doesn’t starve before we can get to the spell?”
He shrugged. “Sure. Give me the little coffin.”
I didn’t trust that ornery expression but I walked over and gave the box to him, then walked to the door. “Hey Blythe, don’t stay up too late. We have a long trip tomorrow.”
“In the car?” Blythe avoided my gaze.
Suspicion gave me sudden goose bumps. “I think taking a vampire sprite on an airplane would be a bad idea, don’t you? Why?”
“Nothing. I just don’t like long car rides. But before you go to bed, I want to try something.”
I waited for her to go on. Tapped my foot when she didn’t.
“I think I know how you can see Nikolos again. I have some yerba santa. If we pour boiling water over it and pour it over your ankhs, I think he might come to you in your dreams.”
Even the thought had my heart pounding hard. “Let’s do it then.”
It only took a few minutes to boil the water and strain the concoction over my necklaces. It took me forever to fall asleep because I couldn’t help wondering if it would work. I wiggled so much the sheets tangled about my legs.
When I finally slept, I realized that once again, Blythe had gotten a spell wrong. Instead of Nikolos coming to me…I went to him.
The Five Faces
Frank Tuttle
When Death writes your name, there is no erasing it.
The Markhat Files, Book 8
It starts as a typical day in the park, with Markhat tracking a bully the law won’t touch, and promising a little girl he’ll find her missing dog, name of Cornbread.
But as the sun sets over Rannit, a new menace creeps out with the dark. There’s a killer on the loose, and Markhat the finder suspects magic behind the murders. Each victim receives a grisly drawing depicting the place, time, and manner of death. Not a single victim has escaped the brutal fate drawn for them—and now Markhat’s own death-drawing has arrived.
The mighty Dark Houses are also falling, one by one, as terror grips Rannit’s streets. Even sorcerers are dying, their magic failing, their blood spilled as easily as that of any other.
With time and hope running out, Markhat races to outwit a creature that can see outside Time itself. Before the picture of his own death becomes stained with real blood.
Warning: The dance moves described herein are not intended for novice trolley operators, and the Publisher assumes no responsibility for any loss of ornamental waterfowl, carrot-enhanced undergarments, or wheeled bathing contrivances. The preceding sentence should be read in the voice of Morgan Freeman and to the accompaniment of a competent string ensemble.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
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The Five Faces
Copyright © 2014 by Frank Tuttle
ISBN: 978-1-61922-230-4
Edited by Holly Atkinson
Cover by Kanaxa
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: June 2014
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