Hammer of the Gods

In which Bill flogs one of his recent novels by offering free chapters.

I’d like to introduce you to one of my recent prose novels, because I think you might find it interesting, and because, capitalist mercenary that I am, I’d like to entice you into buying it.

The Story

Hammer of the Gods is about the adventures of a modern day mercenary fellow named Tom O’Harrow. He’s a half-breed, being the bastard son of Queen Mab of the Unseelie Court, and True Thomas of Earth, possibly immortal (he just celebrated his nine-hundredth birthday), and banished to our world long ago for war crimes.

Via a client of dubious character, Tom comes into possession of the magic Norse hammer named Mjölnir, missing since the Battle of Ragnarok, which took place over a millennia ago. His assignment is to find someone who can get the hammer working again. Unfortunately all the powers of Earth and other realms know he has the hammer and they want it for their own ends. With half-fallen gods, monsters, government agents, and fairy realm badasses all after his scalp, Tom is going to have a tough time staying alive long enough to complete his mission.

Here are the first four chapters, to help you make up your mind:

Chapter One

On a Darkling Plain

The chair arrived first, Siege Perilous, full of ghosts.

Rumor has it she’d seduced it to her whims. Others claim she’d reprogrammed it. Maybe they’re one and the same. The chair was massive and cold, carved of a piece from a single cyclopean block of adamant from the deepest underhall of the Mountain King. Its back rose high and imposing. Names were inscribed upon it, like a cenotaph.

            A breath, maybe two passed and then I could make out a woman in its seat. She’s had many names. Too many to easily count. Almost too many to remember, because the list grows as the bodies pile up. The names she used at the moment are Sierra, Mooncrash, Dogshadow, and Cortez, in that order. Each name was a prize of war. A tribute to a respected enemy, dead by her hand. If you’ve known her long enough and she likes you, if you say it with respect, she’ll let you truncate the lot to Smodoc.

            She’d cut her hair into a short bob since last I saw her. It was yellow as always, as bright as a sun. Her skin was pale, with a light spatter of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She wore black, except for a cuirass of bronze, which was dull brown and green, left unpolished in an age. A crown of stars circled her head, orbiting counter clockwise, flickering visible sometimes, mostly not. She wore a ring of power on the third finger of her left hand. A sidearm named Max rode low on her right hip, in a black holster fashioned and oiled for a quick draw.

            Siege Perilous sat in the middle of a dead field, in the dead of night. Corpses had littered the field, the last time I was here, but they were long gone by now. The crows and other scavengers had done their work and departed centuries past. Half a moon sat low in the sky.

            Smodoc sat tiny in the chair, almost dwarfed by it. She had to scoot forward in her seat for her feet to reach its base. She dismounted, boots in the mud, to walk among the memories of the dead.

It’s her devotion (and perhaps her fate) to pick over the fields where great battles have taken place. Born dead, revived only after much effort, perhaps she has an affinity for such places. But it’s only heroic death that calls. The sites of disease, famine and natural disaster bore her.

            At least that’s what I heard, from someone who claimed to know. She doesn’t discuss her past with anyone.

“Guard,” she said to the chair, as she left it.

Seven ghosts rose from the chair, stationing themselves around it. “None will be allowed to sit,” one of them said, “though there are many here who’ve earned the right to try.”

“Still?” she said, pausing to look back at the watchman. “Nary a bone nor scrap remains.”

“The days are long past when the cold women would come to select among the dead and cart the honored ones off to their high halls. Now, with nowhere else to go, their doom is to remain here forever.”

“Oh,” she said, “but maybe not so bad, all things considered. At least those forgotten are seldom disturbed. And the battle here was glorious. There’s some comfort to be had in that.”

She didn’t wander the field for long, perhaps realizing there was nothing left for her here. Battlefields are where she plies her trade, but only before they’ve been picked clean. She doesn’t precisely look for treasure among the fallen, but she’ll take what treasures she finds, provided they’re valuable and portable enough. A fat purse is always helpful, in a strictly utilitarian way, but it doesn’t evoke her passions. Collecting weapons, unique and mighty, is where her heart lies.

In time she noticed me, standing at a distance, on a small rise overlooking the plain. Walking with more of a purpose now, she came to join me.

“Tom,” she said, a shadow of a smile.

“I hear you’ve been looking for me,” I said.

“Yeah. For some time. I expected you sooner.”

“Not because I haven’t tried. You don’t make yourself easy to find.”

“By design,” she said. Then, “Let’s walk.”

We walked silently for a time. She was only a few inches over five feet, but in good shape. She set a good pace, even though we were more or less walking without direction. Then she spotted something glinting in the muck, so we headed that way, in case something of worth had survived the ages. It turned out to be an old Coke bottle – old in this case being only a year or two.

“A place not entirely forgotten after all,” I said.

“Damn all carnage tourists,” she said. Then, when she’d had time to ponder the implications of my comment, “You could hear me, when I spoke to the captain of my guard?”

“Good hearing, good eyesight,” I said. “A couple of the benefits of my disreputable heritage. Are you ready to discuss why you wanted to see me?”

“In a hurry, Tom? Not on the run again, are you?”

“No, but I was on my way to Stonehill’s when it occurred to me to check for you here.” She looked puzzled at that, so I said, “Word has it you’ve been coming here often of late. Are you troubled by something?”

“No,” she said. “Nothing beyond a desire to be alone, which comes over me every once in a while.”

I knew that feeling well enough.

“Well, this place seems as alone as alone can get, but you might want to find a different spot. Your recent visits have started a rumor that there’s something big still here, some great thing overlooked before. I suspect expeditions are afoot.”

“Idiots.”

“Hopeful idiots,” I said. “You’re one of the people those in our community pay attention to. A trendsetter, or I guess that’s what they used to call them. An influencer now, I think. It’s hard to keep up with the ever changing argot of the short-lived.”

“Folks should mind their own business.”

“Perhaps, but then I’d be mostly out of a job. What can I help you with, Smodoc?”

“How busy are you?”

“Nothing pressing at the moment,” I said.

“Good. I want to hire you then, but I didn’t know you’d be here just now. I didn’t come prepared.”

She started heading back towards the Siege Perilous. I lagged behind, not sure if I was invited to follow along. Besides, I’m hesitant to interact with ghosts, and hers were still on duty, surrounding the chair. I don’t much like the company of ghosts, having created too many of them in my time.

“I didn’t bring it with me,” she said, “so I’ll have to fetch something first. Are you still on your way to Stonehill’s?”

“Sure.”

“Good, then stay there until I can meet you.”

I watched her go. She took her place back in the seat of the chair and gathered in her guards. Shortly afterwards the chair faded from view, taking her with it. Then I turned to make my own more pedestrian way away from the field. I had a long way to go, along lonely roads.

Chapter Two

In The Sunset, After the Sun Set

I hadn’t precisely lied to Smodoc. I wasn’t technically on the run, because that implies an active pursuer. But I did want to lay low for a few days, just long enough to weigh whatever news might come out of Austin. By this time I expected the local authorities to have discovered what happened there, but I entertained hope my part in the affair wasn’t yet known, nor would it ever be.

            So, I dropped in on the Sunset Bar and Inn, resigned for once to pay the usurious prices Stonehill charges for his guestrooms. My plan was to stay until things blew over, if there were in fact things in need of blowing over.

            The place was busy, which wasn’t unusual. The Sunset’s become the unofficial gathering place of the Weirds, those of us who by choice or necessity dwell within the deepest heart of the supernature, and from whose ranks I draw the bulk of my clientele.

            With my first glance around the main room I recognized one well-known albino prince from a dying race who still owed me money from long ago. He must have seen me come in, because he immediately moved to seat himself far across the room, with his back to me. I didn’t mind that at all. The relatively small amount he owed was more than worth a lifetime of never having to speak to him again. I silently wished him success in his eternal campaign of debt avoidance.

Heliophobes and lycanthropes were here in abundance tonight, which was in fact unusual, because they don’t often get along. Ordinarily, through means opaque to me, they work out an informal schedule, taking turns, where only one group or the other are in attendance on any given evening.

One by one, or in small clusters, they moved out of the main room, headed towards one of the larger private rooms, where one vampire and one thrope stood guard at the entrance. No doubt another summit meeting was nigh. I didn’t expect anything to come of this night’s efforts, any more than it already had in an endless array of prior meetings and negotiations. Though the heliophobes had long ago tamed their base natures enough to join larger society as productive, and even celebrated, members, the thrope packs remained thugs through and through, contrary to their recent efforts at public relations. There was scant common ground for the two groups to build upon. Good for them, I suppose, that they kept trying.

“I’ll be damned if it isn’t Saint Thomas of the Harrowing!” a voice boomed at me from out of the crowd.

Smiling his ever-affected smile, Yen Yen Longkongbu appeared from behind a curtain of people, trapping me into a personal moment before I could make my escape. Over a starched, ruffled white shirt, he wore a bright yellow three-piece suit, with decorative stitching at the collar and cuffs. He was smoking and had perched a lit cigarette in his mouth, a prop in an attempt to account for it.

“Hello, Yen,” I said. “You do know ‘saint’ is intended as an epithet among my people, right? Were you trying to insult me?”

“Oh dear heavens no, my boy. Never in a day or a decade. And all this time I assumed it was a term of respect.”

“Derision, through and through,” I said.

“My embarrassment is vast. I have to confess I’m so often baffled by the intricacies and hidden complexities of your many mud-bound languages. They’re barely navigable to a non-native speaker such as myself. The layers, my boy. The endless layers of formal meaning, which are obscured by regional patios, and then still malleable as used by smaller, more intimate groups. All is water, though it’s often disguised as stone.”

“You just have to recognize sarcasm when it’s used. Once you learn that, our languages get easier.”

“And therein lies the trouble, Thomas. In the higher realms we don’t use sarcasm. Why would we? But in any case, you have my deepest, most humble, apologies.”

He looked neither embarrassed nor apologetic. He and his kind were among the princes of the supernature. Conversation with one of us lesser creatures was merely a game to Yen, improvement of his erudition being the only goal. Context and consequence weren’t really part of the game.

“In the future Tom will be just fine, or even Tom O’ Harrow, if you absolutely need to.”

He would absolutely need to. One-syllable utterances are a cheat to one so enamored by the sound of his own voice.

“How have you been, Yen?” I said. “Still doing the Red Dorakeen bit, I see.”

“Hmm? I don’t follow you.”

“Human drag.”

“Oh yes, very much so. It’s become indispensable, if one is going to continue to dwell among the aboriginals. And I do so love it down here. So many divergent, exotic communities to explore, and I’ve barely begun. But would-be Beowulfs and Seigfreids abound. Precocious, bloodthirsty scamps hiding around every corner. So I must perforce keep a low profile. One must endeavor to fit in, neh?”

            I held my tongue, determined not to comment on his flamboyant definition of keeping a low profile. That would have invited further exploration of the subject, while I was already looking for a polite exit from the encounter. If only I could get him to borrow money he could never repay, since that worked so well with the albino prince. But, upholding the stereotype of his kind, Yen was already vastly rich in a way I could only dream of.

With as much subtlety as I could muster, I looked for an escape route, before he could make a (almost obligatory by this time) Saint George reference. Luck was on my side for once. I spotted Smodoc seated alone at a table, impatiently looking my way.

            “Terrific to see you, Yen, but I have to – ”

            “Champagne! What you have to do is join me in a glass. No! A bottle!”

            “I’d love to, but I’m here on business tonight, and I’m afraid I’ve been keeping my appointment waiting. Please forgive me.”

            I moved fast, while I could. He made a speech about how there was nothing to forgive. Most of it broke up as it followed me through the crowd, as I made my way to Smodoc’s table.

            “Makes sense that you’d beat me here,” I said. “You have that instant way to get around, while I – well, I don’t.”

            I took a seat opposite her. She still wore the circling stars, but had traded the traveling clothes for a dress, simple, black, and sleek.

            “I’d have liked to offer you a lift, but there are consequences to sitting in the chair that I doubt you’d want to face.”

            “I fully understand.” And I did. Before she got her hands (and fanny) on it, the Siege Perilous was, among whatever other purposes it had, a machine for weeding out the sufficiently brave and noble from the riff raff. According to legend at least, it visited instant death on anyone unworthy who sat in it. I entertained no doubts that I’d be numbered among the unworthy.

            “I didn’t beat you here by much, in any case,” she said. “I had some things to clear off my plate first.” That’s when I noticed there wasn’t a drink already in front of her. Even in a big crowd, service is pretty good here, so she must have just sat down. I looked around for a waitress, but didn’t immediately see anyone. I did however notice several patrons eying us with varying degrees of interest.

            “We’re getting attention,” I said.

            “I was worried about that. It’s why I wish we could have met sooner. I suspect word’s already gotten around about what I might have found.” She indicated a carrying case by her feet, about the size of a businessman’s briefcase, but fatter. It was made of light metal and reinforced at every corner, edge, and hinge. Its handle looked like it was built to withstand some heft.

            “Hard to keep a secret in our community,” I said.

            “Which brings us to why we’re here,” she said. “I don’t want the attention that’s about to come my way, enough so that I’m willing to pay you to take it off of my hands. What do you know about the ancient weapon called Mule Joiner?”

            My look of confusion must have answered for me.

            “Yeah, I know, my pronunciation is shit. But you know what I mean. For the past couple of years I’ve been poking around the various battlefields of Ragnarok, which had lain untouched because – ”

            “Because no one can get to them,” I said. “Their bridge of many colors was broken.”

            “Rainbow Bridge. Bifrost.”

            “Cutting those old places off forever,” I finished.

            “Nothing is forever. I was able to go where no one else could, because the Siege Perilous needs no bridge, gate, or pathway. It takes me directly to wherever I desire.”

            She smiled a smile of avarice that warmed the cash box I’d long ago installed where my heart used to be.

            “I had it all to myself, and I found so much.” With a proud thump, she lifted the case onto the table. Then she leaned in close, and her powerful gravity brought me in to match. “Tom, I found everything!”

            In hindsight it was stupid of the two of us to look so conspiratorial in a public place, when the actual stakes were so high, but I was too distracted at the time and didn’t realize it until days later.

            “You’ve got the hammer,” I said.

Whatever she was about to say next got interrupted by our waitress, bearing gifts.

“Welcome back, Tom,” Rosemary said, flashing her best smile. “It’s been awhile.”

She’d arrived with two glasses and a bottle of the Mollydooker 2016 Enchanted Path, a cabernet and Shiraz mix that I’d enjoyed on previous visits. “You looked busy,” she said as she opened and poured, “so I took the liberty of selecting this from your private locker.”

Since when did I rate a private locker at The Sunset? I eke out a reasonably good living, but I’ve never had the kind of wealth one needs to ascend to those heights. Was Rosemary trying to help me look important in front of a client? She was always authentically friendly, but this was something new. The unexpected development both pleased me and put me on my guard. She found space for the bottle and two glasses on our small table, most of which was taken up by the weapon case.

“Let me know if you want anything else. Maybe a dinner menu later?”

 “A glass of water would be nice,” Smodoc said.

“Right away,” Rosemary answered, but she didn’t dash right off. Instead she leaned down close to whisper in one ear.

“Be careful, Tom,” she said. “Max knows you’re here tonight and he’s on the warpath.”

Her lips brushed my ear as she spoke, light as a shade’s promise. One more distraction in a night of them. This was undoubtedly why she was being extra nice, knowing that Max was about to lower the boom.

When Rosemary was safely gone, Smodoc said, “Who’s Max?” I made a mental note to include pretty good hearing among her list of powers.

“Chief cook and bottle washer.”

When her expression showed she didn’t understand the idiom, I added, “The manager of this place and its sommelier. Doesn’t like me much. Fortunately the owner does.” Not quite the truth, but not entirely a lie either. The owner owed me a few favors for past services. That’s near enough to friendship for my needs.

She seemed to consider that for a moment, before she continued on the previous tack, "This is why I need you, Tom. This may be the ultimate weapon, the prize of all prizes, but in its current state it’s useless to me.”

“Too heavy?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. This is the real thing, not a movie prop. Anyone wearing the Járngreipr, the iron gloves, can wield Thor’s hammer, and I’ve got them too. Look inside.”

I did that, being as discreet as I could in a crowded bar. There were combination locks on each clasp, but they were both set to a row of zeroes. I snapped the case open and lifted its lid. There were indeed two articulated metal gloves snapped into the lid’s top, along with a leather and metal belt, elaborately carved in what I assumed to be old Norse designs. I was careful to look but not touch. I don’t do well with cold iron.

But the deeper bottom half of the case was empty. There was a foam rubber setting, carved to hold a big hammer-shaped object, but no actual hammer to fill it.

“Where is it?” I said.

“Right here, but like I said, useless.”

She pulled the necklace chain from around her neck, removing it over her head. A small charm, in the shape of what might be the legendary hammer, dangled from it. She dropped the necklace and its charm in my hand and let me look at it.

“I don’t get it. Is this some sort of key that opens where the real – ?”

“This is the real thing,” she said. “For someone tangentially at least in the mythology business, you really should study the literature a bit more carefully. Among all of its many powers, the hammer could shrink down to this size and be tucked away, for easy carrying. I understand a small pocket in that belt, was its original owner’s hiding place of choice.”

“Ah, it was this way when you found it.” Even I can catch on, eventually.

“And I don’t know how to restore it to its useful size. But someone, in all the worlds does, Tom. Find him for me.”

She took my hand in both of hers and closed my fingers around the chain and its miniature hammer.

“Why me?” I said. “You know the same people I do. Probably more so. And you can get to many of the places I’m no longer welcome.”

“I have other important business.”

“What?”

“Private business. Are you going to do this? You’ll be well paid.”

Having given the wine time to change in the glass, I took a sip, searching for the initial blackberry intensity and delicate coffee finish its champions boasted.

"I’m not much of a detective," I said. “I don’t think I’m the man for the job."

"Of course you are, or if not you’ll have to become him.”

"I charge a pretty dear fee for my services."

"I only deal in weapons. But the death plains of Asgard yielded so many other things. Ever see a full sized ship you can fold up and put in your wallet?”

“Not recently.”

“Do this for me and you can have your pick of the other treasures I recovered.”

She stood up, leaving the hammer in my hand and the case on the table.

“Now, I’ve been too long in this place. Inquire for me at any chapter of the Panthan Club when you’ve done it. I’ll come as quickly as I can.”

Without further comment, she turned and walked out of the bar, leaving behind her untouched drink, numerous worshipful glances from throughout the room, and the case, half filled with valuable contents. Apparently I missed the part where I agreed to accept the assignment.

I finished my wine, stood up and took the case.

Chapter Three

The Man Who Wasn’t Ivanhoe

Max intercepted me before I could escape into the night.

“Let’s have a chat before you go,” he said.

“I don’t think so, Max. I understand you’re not fond of me, and cherish any opportunity to tell me why, in detail. But I’m under no obligation to put up with it.”

I’ll be damned if the little man didn’t step in front of me as I tried to go out the door. Where do nature’s stunted find the courage for such foolish bravado?

“True, you’re under no obligation,” he said, “but Rob won’t go along with my decision to ban you for life, until you’ve at least had a chance to plead your case. If you want to leave, please do. In fact I encourage it, because I get my way, having tried, and that closes the book on you forever. Otherwise follow me up to the office and let’s get this distasteful business done with.”

The little guy had me in check. Sure, he could be bluffing, but I had no way of knowing, and couldn’t risk banishment from The Sunset.

Max led the way, winding a path through the crowded tables on the main floor, until we reached the curving stairway leading up to The Sunset’s VIP level, where I’m not often welcome. The stairs had an intricate wrought iron railing, molded into the shape of twining grape vines. It was lovely and impressive, but I was careful not to touch it as we ascended, even though the weapon case threw off my balance just a touch. Being a half-breed, I’m more immune to iron poisoning than most of my brethren, but naked contact with so much cold iron would still give me a headache I’d spend days getting rid of.

If the ground floor was arrayed like any good wine bar slash restaurant, the upper floor looked like an old world club lounge. Beyond a dozen discrete islands of overstuffed leather chairs, small side tables and low bookcases holding priceless first editions and original objects d’art, was the door to Robert Stonehill’s office. Max knocked once and entered, not waiting for a reply.

The office was tidy for the most part and smaller than I’d imagined it would be. Built in, floor to ceiling bookshelves accounted for two of the walls and a few freestanding Ikea shelves took up part of a third. Advanced skirmishers for the built-in shelves to come.

The floor space was dominated by two desks, set at right angles to each other. One desk was covered with the books and paperwork, the usual paraphernalia one might associate with the business of running a bar. The other desk held The Bell, The Book, and The Candle, right out in the open for anyone to see.

Those three items were why so much tricky business was conducted in Robert Stonehill’s place. As long as he owned Bell, Book and Candle, no one would dare cause trouble here. Light The Candle and all magic ceased to function in the building, including magical protections that stood the test of every other possibility of disruption. The most powerful combat sorcerer was reduced to childlike vulnerability while The Candle burned. Even gods found themselves temporarily godless.

If that weren’t enough to discourage unruly behavior, one ring of The Bell would instantly and violently banish all visitors from the premises. Anyone not a member of the protected staff would find himself suddenly in a random outside place, in some entirely random world. More than one former customer had yet to find his way home from wherever he’d been tossed when The Bell had last been rung.

The Book was another piece of business entirely. Unlike the other two items, it wasn’t part of the protective gear. The bar made a small fortune every night, but The Book was Stonehill’s chief source of income. In some way never adequately explained to a relatively uneducated non-practitioner like me, The Book was in fact all books, including some that were never written. The powers and principalities of many worlds drop true fortunes in Stonehill’s lap for the privilege of spending a few hours’ (supervised) browsing time with The Book.

Robert Royal Stonehill sat at the confluence of the two desks, in front of a large, half-circle, one-way window that looked out over the main floor. He was named, or so he once told me, Rob Roy because his father was quite the fan of Sir Walter Scott. Had he been born first he’d have been named Ivanhoe. “Something my poor brother got saddled with,” he’d said, once upon a time. “That was enough to ensure he grew up mean enough to go the military route.”

I’d never met brother Ivan, but Rob Stonehill didn’t look the military sort. Not at all. He seemed entirely too humble a fellow to control such powers he had within arm’s reach. It took me more than a decade, and a bottle of very fine brandy, to coax the story from him on how he’d come into possession of these artifacts. Then a few years later, once more in his cups, he spun a completely different tale of their obtaining. And then another and another, down through the years of our acquaintance. Made me wonder if there were any truth to the Ivanhoe story too.

I remember once, when a landed prince of the Sliding Worlds tried to hire me to steal all three treasures from The Sunset’s office. After discretely informing Stonehill of the plot, I never saw that fellow again. Lucky, I suppose, that the Sliding Worlds had a sprawling royal family replete with any number of redundant and superfluous princes.

Stonehill looked up wearily from his paperwork when we came in. There were bags under his eyes. As ever, he slouched in his chair, an undernourished Atlas with the weight of the world perpetually draped around his shoulders.

“Tom,” he said, with an audible sigh.

“Robert.” I set the weapon case down by my feet, close enough to remain in contact with it. I didn’t worry either of these gentlemen might make a grab for it, but the greater the treasure, the more comprehensive and generic the amount of paranoia generated by it. The actual weapon, intended to ride in the case someday, was in my coat’s left pocket.

“It would be a great joy to me, if after all these years, you and Max might find some way to get along with each other.”

“I’d be more than happy to do that,” I said, and meant it, since most of my clients came to me through their doors. “But Max – ”

“Thinks you’re a low thug,” Max finished for me.

“What is it this time, Max?” Stonehill said.

“Did you hear about that ugly affair in Austin?” Max said. “That was Tom O’Harrow and his minions.”

“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” I said. “I had nothing to do with whatever it is he might be referencing. Nor would I be disposed to discuss it, if I had.”

“It was you,” Max said. “Everyone knows it was you. It’s all they’re talking about downstairs.”

“Prove it.”

“I can, if you’ll let me look in The Book,” Max said, turning to Stonehill. “These mercenaries always sign contracts with each other, so they can pretend it makes their crimes legitimate. The paper on their latest job will be in there somewhere, if you’ll let me look for it.”

“I don’t think so,” Stonehill said. “Once you go looking for contracts and legal documents in The Book, it could set a precedent that caused all contracts, receipts and loose documents in history to end up in there. I’ve enough trouble finding anything now. Besides, we aren’t going to start using The Book to check up on our customers. Tom has always behaved himself here, and that should be our only concern.”

I felt ridiculous, and more than a little resentful, standing there, letting Stonehill settle our squabble as if he were the father of a pair of spoiled brats. I was older by a factor of centuries than both of these men. In my time on this Earth I’d been so many things, including a surgeon, a scholar, a scientist, a king and a soldier, that last one many times over. One would think I’d have achieved a reasonable level of maturity, along with the respect it automatically commanded, and yet tonight our arguments rose no higher than the level of, “Oh no I didn’t! Oh yes you did!”

While I seethed, Stonehill continued, in a voice that made it clear he’d much rather be doing anything else as well.

“My understanding is all of those bodies in Texas were wanted criminals anyway.”

“So what?” Max said. “That only means I wouldn’t let them in here either. But this one is just the same.” He pointed at me, just in case Stonehill had forgotten who he’d dragged up here to accuse. “That’s the type he runs with. He never does anything good. Never anything charitable. He only wants to line his own pockets off of the misery and misfortune of those who come to him for help. And every time we let him use our house to set up his schemes and crimes, we’re part of it, getting his dirt and filth all over us.”

“Oh,” I said, getting it at last. “I realize now what this is really all about.”

“Perhaps you’d care to enlighten me,” Stonehill said.

“Max has his causes,” I said.

Max had been brought in to run The Sunset seven years ago, after old man Clarke finally retired to spend his fortune and spoil his grandchildren. Since that day he’d pestered me with requests to do free jobs for the sorry collection of poor and wretched souls he kept dragging into the place. Needless to say I’d always demurred. A jumped-up bartender’s charity cases weren’t my concern. Risking my fool neck for pay was already a stupid way to make a living. Doing it for nothing more than a stranger’s gratitude and his idiot patron’s good wishes was nothing short of lunatic.

“He should help out,” Max said.

“Help?” I said. “What can you possibly mean by that, implying that you also carry some of the weight? How so? In the grand scheme of things, Max, what have you ever done that matters? Ugly end of the field or not, at least I’m actually in the hero game while you’re just one more anonymous Joe on the sidelines, under the mistaken impression that watching the game is the same as being part of it.”

“Can the two of you stop sniping at each other, long enough to work out some reasonable compromise?” Stonehill said. Then he turned to me and I knew in that instant I’d lost the argument. “Max is right, Tom, at least to the extent that you do use this place as your free office space. You meet your clients here, and conduct an awful lot of business.”

“Only because you’ve gone out of your way to make The Sunset the one safe place in which to do it.”

“It’s supposed to be a safe place to sell wine and food,” Max said. “Period. You take advantage!”

“Oh, then I guess I didn’t see a bunch of high mucky-muck vampires, not to mention the pack leaders of the Volsungs and the Moondogs take over the entire Blue Cellar Room downstairs to negotiate their latest ceasefire.”

“Nevertheless it seems reasonable,” Stonehill continued, “to charge you something for the use of our facilities. A token payment. Max will gather his pro-bono cases together, and you can spend an afternoon interviewing them. Pick one to help, on the house as it were, and you’re covered.”

“Covered for a year,” Max said, actually pantomiming the act of putting his foot down.

“Okay, one charity case a year,” Stonehill said. “That’s fair.”

Having no choice but to agree, I did.

“I choose which job I take out of whoever he flings at me,” I said.

“Certainly.”

“I’ll put the word out and have them here in a few days,” Max said.

My turn to put a foot down.

“You’ll have them here tomorrow or not at all,” I said. “Otherwise you can go ahead and blacklist me. In case it escaped your notice, I just accepted a real, paying job, and I can’t put that off forever, waiting on you to get this circus act of yours organized.”

“Also perfectly reasonable,” Stonehill said. “Max will have them here by tomorrow afternoon. Until then, you can stay in one of the guest rooms, comp.”

Max’s instantly sputtering expression made up somewhat for the meagerness of the all-too-tiny concession Stonehill threw my way at the end.

Chapter Four

The Berlin Thing

Three days earlier I’d marked my 900th birthday while in Austin Texas, overseeing the ransom drop in the infamous Baby Wilke kidnapping. Not the celebration I would’ve chosen, but I controlled neither clock nor calendar on that particular job. After days of meticulous negotiation, the exchange took place in the wee hours of a hot and sullen Thursday night. We’d settled on the old Cold War Berlin rules, oft proven, simple and straightforward, with no room for accident, improvisation or misinterpretation.

In a long, mostly straight, mostly uniform alleyway, formed from the service and delivery space between two back-to-back strip centers, Boone’s crew entered from the northeast end. At about the same time we entered from the southwest end, walking in from Anderson Lane. He brought his allowed five killers. I brought five of mine.

Of course Boone would cheat – already had, in fact. He’d insisted on this alley as the exchange site, and had plenty of time to place more men along the rooftops of both strip centers, with vantage to fire down on us in a perfectly enclosed kill box. A double cross was the only reason he’d want to conduct our business in the heart of a major population center, as opposed to finding a wide-open field out in the middle of nowhere, where sneaking up on the opposition wouldn’t be so easy.

I was fine with Boone’s double cross though. In fact I’d counted on it. I needed him to bring his entire crew, not just the five covered under the rules.

Since I’d planned all along to cheat too, a sort of mutual fairness still pertained. It was just a matter of dragging this out long enough for my unauthorized extra players to locate and creep up on each of his.

Both groups stopped about a hundred feet apart, deep enough into each end of the alley so as to be out of sight of any late passersby, but each party separated enough from the other to constitute the minimum safe distance required by the Berlin Rules. I carried the strongbox and took the opportunity to set it down. Fully loaded, it was more than two mortal men could lift, which put it at just about the upper limit of what I could carry. I was glad to be rid of its weight, if only for a few minutes.

Even in the dead of night, the air was thick and still topped a hundred degrees. I had no idea what the official humidity count was, but it was high. I could map the sweat snaking down the inside of my shirt in a number of individual trickles. I stood, watched, stretched my tired arm muscles, and waited. By mutual understanding, Boone’s side had the first move.

From down the alley one of Boone’s men started forward, alone. Without taking my eyes off of the opposition, I waved Pinch ahead to do the same for our side. Pinch and Boone’s man passed each other at the midway point and kept walking, but only after shooting each other the surly, tough-bastard glances that seem to be required by gentlemen in our most ungentle profession.

Boone’s man kept coming towards us until he stopped about thirty feet away. Down at the other end of the alley, Pinch did the same, stopping a similar distance from Boone and his remaining four thugs.

Now it was my turn.

I picked up the strongbox, carried it out to where Boone’s man waited for me, and set it down again. The strongbox was none of his concern. That would come later, after the search. As the principals in this exchange, the two who’d be in close proximity to each other until the deal was done, Boone and I were the only ones not allowed to come armed. Our job as leaders was to put our own bodies on the line to make sure the others, those who were packing weapons, never had cause to use them.

Taking his time and caring nothing about my dignity, Boone’s man searched me thoroughly – expertly. He smelled of stale tobacco and tooth decay. My only comfort, during this most uncomfortable phase of the evening’s activities, was that down the way a bit I could see Pinch giving Boone the same treatment. Pinch was my chosen man for this part of the job, for which I’d employed him many times in the past. He was ever only so-so in a brawl, even less reliable in a knife fight or shootout, but no concealed weapon would pass his humiliatingly intrusive hands-on scrutiny.

Boone’s man was every bit as skilled at the search as Pinch, but he operated under a terrible disadvantage. There was no chance he would find the underpocket I carried because, even though it was permanently attached to me, it didn’t actually exist in this world. That’s where the weapons I wasn’t supposed to have were secreted.

When both men finished and signaled that we were clean, Pinch began escorting Boone to the center of the alley, while my escort did the same, not offering to help me carry the strongbox. It was a reasonably wide alley. A grass-edged drainage ditch cut through it just off center, running down the alley’s full length. There was black muddy sludge in the bottom of the ditch, a remnant of all the crap scooped up during the last heavy rain.

Once all four of us had arrived at the alley’s dead center, I was able to set the strongbox down for the last time, which I did gratefully.

“No weapons, no protection,” Boone’s man said, feigning bored indifference, another thing most professional tough men feel obligated to do.

“No weapons here either,” Pinch said, “But, under his clothes, he’s packed on layers of body armor. Full coverage from the neck down. Ballistic cloth. Anti-blade ceramic inserts. A couple of things that might be spell-guards. I’m not positive about those. Outside my area of expertise.”

“Not against the rules,” Boone said, in his low reptile voice.

So then, Boone’s play would occur while both of us were still out in the open. It’s more or less what I expected, but good to have it confirmed. I’d get shot down instantly. He’d hit the deck, covering his head with both arms, and thus be relatively safe when the balloon went up. But I still had a little time. None of the deadly stuff would happen until he knew he had his ransom. I was safe as houses until then.

“I don’t mind,” I said. “He’s got to be miserable wearing all that nonsense in this heat. Serves him right for not being the trusting sort.” In fact, his ballistic armor would actually help me later on, when the bad stuff happened. Bully for him.

Boone was tall, at least a good inch taller than me. He had short brown hair that had gone almost entirely gray. He’d already been stout, before he’d piled on the body armor under his oversized slacks and trench coat. Now he looked positively rotund. His eyes were dark, expressionless and unflinching. If he was at all uncomfortable in the heat of the night, he didn’t show it.

“You’re excused,” Boone said, and when I said nothing to contradict him, both of the escorts, his man and mine, turned to walk back to their respective lines.

“Everything’s going fine,” he said, once both men were back where they belonged. The two of us were left standing dreadfully exposed in the center of everyone’s deadly attention. Not exactly fine, but it’s what I needed.

He looked down at the strongbox.

“Looks big enough. Got the key?”

Moving very slowly, I reached up with both hands and drew the small leather string from around my neck, pulling it out from under my shirt and carefully over my head. I held it out for him. The key dangled at the end of the loop.

Boone didn’t reach out to take it. He stood at least a full pace away.

“Just drop it on the lid,” Boone said.

I did that and said, “I’m comforted by a careful man. It speaks of professionalism. One thing we don’t need tonight is a lot of amateur cowboy foolishness.”

“If it’s all here, I’ll give the signal. My men will fetch the child. He’ll walk out to join us, and then we’ll go our separate ways.”

He lied convincingly. I’ll give him that much.

“Please take a step back,” he said.

I did as he asked. He knelt in front of the strongbox and took the key in hand. He paused then, and I would have thought him a rare breed of superman if he hadn’t. If our side planned a double cross, it would almost certainly involve the strongbox and some deadly thing rigged inside it to go off when he opened the lid.

After a moment though he seemed to resign himself, as if to say, these are the risks that come with the profession we’ve chosen. He turned the key in the lock, raised the lid, and for the first time I witnessed an unplanned, unfiltered expression light up his face.

He smiled broadly as he saw the wide-open bed of the strongbox, filled to the brim with coins of pure silver.

Just then I heard a distant strain of music, just a few ephemeral notes of Liapunov’s final Prelude and Fugue for piano. I realized it was in my mind, rather than actual audible sound, more like the memory of a favorite song than the song itself. It was Claudia’s signal that the door had been shut, and all targets were fixed and enclosed within. We were free to begin at any moment, though it was up to me to act first.

Still crouched in front of me, Boone raked both hands through the heavy silver coins, plunging them deep into the pile, before raising them again, letting the coins chatter happily to each other as they fell through his fingers, back into the strongbox. Gradually his smile gave way to a look of puzzlement.

“Too much,” he said, then fell silent again before starting over. “There’s too much here.”

“Yeah,” I said. “When all was said and done, you hadn’t asked for enough. We had to bring extra to cover everyone.”

“I don’t understand.” He looked up at me. Seeing something he didn’t like in my eyes, his merely puzzled expression turned dark and serious.

“Mister,” he continued, “whatever it is you’re up to, you need to know one thing. The only way young Billy Wilke is ever going to walk down this alley, into your arms, is if I’m completely satisfied. Do you understand me? If anything makes me unhappy, anything at all, maybe you die and maybe I die, but the one absolute certainty in this whole troubled world is that the Wilke boy dies.”

He placed a hand flat on the top of the silver pile as if he were about to pronounce judgment on it. “And get this; too much money makes me just about as unhappy as too little, because I don’t know of a single reason anyone would willingly overpay a kidnapper, and that turns me more than a little suspicious.”

“Then let me explain,” I whispered down to him. “In point of fact, the only way the Wilke boy is ever going to walk down that alley into my arms is if he spontaneously rises from the dead. We didn’t come here to buy his safety; we were hired by his mother to avenge his murder. You were supposed to be professionals, but someone in your crew screwed up and killed the boy, or let him die. That was your first critical mistake. The bigger one was when you decided to bluff it out and try for the money anyway.”

I had his full attention by then. Knowing his widening eyes were locked on mine, I let my right hand drift down into the invisible opening of my underpocket. He didn’t see my hand seem to disappear at the wrist as it crossed the measureless gulf from one world to the other.

“And the reason there’s more money here than you demanded,” I said, “is because it was never meant as a ransom. It’s the payroll for the small army Mrs. Wilke hired to make sure not one of her son’s killers gets away.”

Even before I finished speaking I was in movement. I crossed the space between us faster than a pureblood human could, faster, or so I dearly hoped, than any of his hidden ambushers could follow me with a riflescope. As I moved, I drew my hand free of the underpocket, bringing my favorite dagger into this world with me.

I barreled into Boone at full speed, knocking him backwards, flat onto his ass. At the same time I slid my knife into his lower belly. Then I dragged the blade upwards, through guts, muscle and ribcage. Special ceramic inserts or no, none of his armor could protect him from my weapon, for it was the blade named Famir Galga, the Gallows Thief. It was forged of Norn silver in the early time of the worlds by Queen Mab’s own smith. It could cut through battleship steel as easily as paper.

I didn’t pause then. Once he was gutted to my satisfaction, I grabbed his body with both hands, hit the tarmac and rolled for all I was worth, pulling Boone’s carcass, along with me. I kept us rolling, locked together, until I’d landed in the muck at the bottom of the drainage ditch, with Boone on top of me, covering me from the immediate consequences of what I’d just done.

Then, as the sensationalists like to say, all hell broke loose.

Shots from above panged and pocked all around me, and impacted with dull, wet thumps into Boone’s body, which still covered mine. I’d thoroughly destroyed the front half of his ballistic armor, but the backside was intact. Combined with the full thickness of his dead meat and the drainage ditch’s steep walls, it afforded me a truly fortuitous amount of protection.

Buried under the bigger man, and wedged as low as I was, I couldn’t see a thing, but I heard the battle’s progress in exacting detail. Spooky Joe skittered along the rooftops in his inhuman way, cutting and slashing, making soft wet sounds wherever he went. Micah fired wildly from down in the alley, exactly as he was supposed to do, encouraging the bad guys to keep their heads down. That gave Nell Sparrow the time to pick off victims, one by one, with her ghost arrows, which would fly true, but then disappear after their mortal work was done. Her bowstring sang a low, sweet tune with each shot.

Fat Duck and Mike Hodiak took fewer pains to be quiet. They screamed their trademark battle cries as thrown bodies began to rain down from the rooftops, impacting the alley floor with loud, bone-cracking finality.

The others moved in, my lovely crew of killers, employing blade, claw and fang, each according to the dictates of their diverse training and natures.

I could hear everything because my senses are better than most, second only to the thropes. And the heliophobes too I suppose, even though they don’t count. When one marks the dangerous elements of both nature and supernature, vampires and their ilk can be dismissed out of hand, because they, whom I understand we’re supposed to call Hemo-Americans now, never act up. They’re bound by the First Covenant to stay out of the violent professions. Added to that, the swift and certain dooms guaranteed by their own draconian Dietary Laws keep them from even the most minor illegalities.

Vampires don’t have to break the laws, because it would take a moron amongst them not to get filthy rich in entirely acceptable ways. They become flawless surgeons who can perform a procedure in a fraction of the time any mortal doctor could hope to do, or ballet stars of incredible grace, whose talents will never fade with the years. Or they excel in any other of a limitless number of professions. If they could show up on film, or other recording technologies, they’d dominate Hollywood and the music industry too.

Less than fifteen seconds passed between the first shot and the final execution. When the murdering was done, and I’d pried myself out from under Boone’s body, we gathered the dead in the center of the alley.

First things first. “Anyone hurt?” I said.

“A few cuts,” Hodiak said. “Superficial though. Nothing to worry about.”

“Big Mike lets his enthusiasm get away with him,” Fat Duck said. “If you’d visit my dojo, even for a week or two, I could teach you more control.”

Hodiak was about to answer, in an old and comfortable argument that had occupied them for years, but Halfwolf Johnny chose that moment to interrupt, saving me from having to do so.

“Did we get them all?” Johnny asked. There were more than a dozen bodies laid out, side by side, on the tarmac. Some had been cut into parts that had to be more or less reassembled when we moved them into their current place of repose.

“Questioning my competence?” Claudia said. “I didn’t close the door until I made sure everyone was inside the theatre of activity. No one got out after that.” Claudia Nevermore was our combat sorcerer, a decorated and fully licensed private hero who thought she was better than the rest of us mere killers-for-hire. Who knows? Maybe she was. But she had two different mortgages on an expensive Seattle home, and another six years left on a truly crushing set of student loans to service each month. Distasteful as it might be working our side of the tracks, she couldn’t often turn down the big paydays that the occasional mercenary job offered.

“No one’s questioning anything,” I said, in a voice that cut off possibility of continued argument. Post battle adrenaline was still high and wanting further outlet, an inescapable byproduct of our brief, ugly activities. “We don’t have time to spare on the standard bickering, before the authorities start showing up. Speaking of which,” I said, looking at Claudia, “How’s our clock?”

“Not too bad,” she said. “I couldn’t suppress the sounds of gunfire entirely, without creating a series of spells that would cause more problems than they cured, but I was able to baffle the noise, and add a bit of misdirection. Anyone who calls the police is going to be confused as to where the ruckus came from.”

“So that buys us a bit more time,” I said, “but we won’t count on it. Let’s divvy out shares and be on our way.”

“What about the bodies?” Micah said.

“No need to dispose of them this time,” I said. “Mrs. Wilke wants them found, investigated and turned into the biggest headlines possible. As long as nothing definitive can be pinned on her, she wants the world to know that she took care of her son’s murderers.”

“Good for her,” Nell said.

“A problem with that, boss,” Johnny said. “One of them is a makeman.” He pointed out the biggest body in the line of the dead, which did in fact turn out, on closer examination, to be a makeman. It was a huge and misshapen thing, stitched together from mismatched parts originally belonging to a dozen different souls. “Big government bounty on them. Ten thousand or more.”

“Then by all means, show up at the Federal Building in a week’s time and try collecting,” Pinch said.

“They promise no questions asked.”

“Let us know how that turns out,” Hodiak said, kneeling down at the strongbox to start separating out the shares. Mike Hodiak was the only one trusted enough by all of us not to cheat the count. He was a terror in battle, but seemed to have few ambitions outside of it. He lived frugally, almost monastically. I’d known and worked with him more than a decade and had no idea how he spent his wealth. “First, ten percent off the top for Tom.”

“How’s that fair?” Micah said.

“Every time?” Pinch said. “Every time you have to ask?”

“Mercenary’s standard contract,” Nell said. “The same contract you sign before each job. Ten percent goes to the one who brings in the job.” She pronounced her lines without inflection. This conversation had become almost a ritual by now and she had no more passion to give to it.

“Except that he also gets a full share afterwards too?”

“Because I didn’t stay in the rear with the gear,” I said. “I walked into the alley tonight same as you, putting my ass on the line, same as you. The finder’s fee and the combat share are two different payments covering two different jobs.” I wasn’t as successful keeping my irritation at Micah out of my voice. He was a decent enough gunman, always steady under fire, which made up for a lot, but I was beginning to wonder if he weren’t replaceable.

Hodiak didn’t let the time worn argument keep him from his work, which he performed swiftly and with an improbable dexterity for a man of his size. After separating out the initial ten percent, which I immediately started scooping into my underpocket, where its weight wouldn’t affect me, he divided the rest into fourteen identical piles.

While he did that, Claudia went from person to person, spritzing each of us with something from a plastic spray bottle. She described it as an evidence destroyer, an expensive and sophisticated potion that would selectively eat away at anything, even on a microscopic level, that could link us to the bodies or any other part of the night’s business.

“This won’t be a hundred percent against a competent forensic sorcerer,” Claudia said, as she worked, “so the best course of action is not to get yourself in a position to be tested. Split up, head home alone. Don’t go anywhere to drink and celebrate and talk up your manly prowess.” That last part she directed specifically at Micah, who expected medals and accolades for every action. Lacking that, he liked to recount his heroic deeds in mercenary bars.

When she was done with us, Claudia turned her attention to Boone and the other corpses with the same spray bottle treatment. She searched the corpses as she treated them, stripping and pocketing anything that looked like it might be remotely magical – part of her contracted bonus for agreeing to work with a bunch of lowlifes. When she was done there she doused the area in a more general way, misting the air with her potion until the spray bottle was nearly empty. She saved the last bit of it for the empty strongbox.

By the time she was finished Hodiak was too. We each scooped up our shares and began to walk away, in as many different directions as the city would allow.

“No one stays in town overnight,” I added, as a final benediction.

That’s it for the free preview. If you’re intrigued enough to seek out the full novel, you can find it at Amazon, as a printed book or an e-book. If you get it and like it, please tell your friends. If you get it and love it, maybe consider writing a review in one of the many places available to do so. If you get it and hate it, please tell your enemies. Why shouldn’t they have to suffer like you just had to?

The sequel to this novel is in progress. Someday soon I’ll tease you with the first chapter – unfortunately full of spoilers.