Happy Holidays! We're Still Alive!

Coming into 2013 the world is still here.  So, that's pretty swell.  That being said I let a lot of important things fall off the radar this year and I don't want to let that trend continue into next year!  I'll be looking to post updates, stories, articles and book reviews throughout 2013.  I look forward to sharing many stories with you all in the upcoming year, but until then, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Christopher Chance: Sorcerer's Assistant - First Quest

Maybe I should just start updating the story on Mondays?  Honestly this totally slipped my mind yesterday even though it was ready to go. Hope everyone enjoys chapter 5 - First Quest.  Chapter Six - Pederson coming up next week from Plotgap Publishing.  - Josh Kemp

Christopher Chance: Sorcerer's Assistant - First Quest

               The next six months went by at a snail’s pace.  Days blurred into days, and little broke up the monotony.  I had been thrust, kicking and screaming, into a new world.  For a good long while I wasn’t sure if it had been the best thing for me or not.  Martin was, in equal parts, a madman, magician and philanthropist in my eyes at the time.  I wasn’t sure if he was going to kill me or enslave me with another spell or if he really was as good as his word and had just been playing it safe with me.  My only real recourse in the situation was to learn EVERYTHING I could about the supernatural world I was now a part of.  When he was around, Martin was only too happy to help.

                We relocated to his mansion.  It took me less than an hour to get the things that I actually cared about from my crap apartment.  I had a good bitter laugh over that as we drove away.  My new home was an enormous, Victorian structure near Boston.  It was all enormous elegant spaces and high pointy windows. There was more than enough room for twenty Martins to live comfortably together.  With only two of us the place felt like solitary confinement.

                A non-functional TV that looked to have been built sometime in the fifties and scratchy radios scattered in odd rooms were about the only semblances of “modern” living to be found throughout the masion.  There was a garden with an extensive set of neatly landscaped paths.  There was, however, no basketball  court, tennis court or anything else I might have entertained myself with.  Martin himself was frequently absent, jetsetting across the nation to one supernatural emergency or another.  So basically what I am getting at is that I got a lot of reading done.

                I still had what I consider a healthy level of paranoia about Darius, the demon I’d so recently ticked off.  Martin’s assurances aside I wasn’t comfortable with the thought of something like that looking for me, even casually.  The reading I was doing on the subject of demons was definitely not helping, and so I wasn’t all too excited to be seen out and about in Boston.  So I read more. 

Martin had libraries upon libraries of books stored in the place, some of them original and unique.  You could find the strangest books in there, everything from treatises on Faeries and Egyptian Masonic rituals to modern medical text with arcane annotations in the edges.  There were even some scrolls of hide, wrapped around golden rods that I was too terrified to handle.  All of this was located in his expansive collection.  At first it was more than a little overwhelming.  Martin had never put any sort of organizational system into place after he moved to America, since he’d never had any intention of taking on another apprentice.  I was not an apprentice, rather some sort of strange middle ground.

                Still, I dove in as best I could, starting with a few slim books that Martin recommended as helpful for beginners.  From there the whole collection just sort of fell into place bit by bit.  There were several tomes and treatises mentioned in the books I first read, and with a little leg work I managed to pull most of them from Martin’s collection.  These gave me some new questions, so I went through the books until I found a likely one and I read that too.  I read like a fiend.  I think that was the point of cooping me up alone in that mansion.  Well I only half think so.  I’m not sure even Martin plans that well though.

                Planned or not, at the end of six months I had a rough working understanding of Magic, some of the more common entities I might run across, and a crash course in defending myself from them long enough to run away.  I also had a newfound respect for exactly how much I was going to have to learn.

                It was just about then that Martin came back, half the hair on his head, beard included, singed off of his face.  He did not take my commentary with good humor, and soon shaved the remainder of his patchwork face.  While doing so Martin grumpily commented “You have no idea boy, no idea at all, the difficulties one must undergo to grow a beard.  At least a good beard, a wizardly beard.”  I couldn’t help but laugh at the whole process.

After that though, he was right into business.  There were tests he wanted to run, blood samples he needed, hair clippings, fingernail clippings, urine samples.  It was sort of like going to the proctologist in its uncomfortable intimacy.  Luckily that phase didn’t last too long.

                Within a week he made it official.  I had no wizardly talent, and no magical proclivities that he could see.  On the plus side he did declare me fairly strong and quick, of decent intelligence, and “the most stubborn jackass I’ve ever been cursed with.”  But he said it in a sort of loving way.

                Once that was over, life was actually pretty amazing for all of a month.  I ate better than I ever had in my life, lived in a mansion and learned magical things that all seemed very grand and adventurous in a vague kind of way.  My brush with Darius seemed far away, distant and a bit unreal, despite my current employment in the service of a wizard.  That all lasted until March. 

It had been raining consistently for some time.  Weeks of unrelenting drizzle and gray skies were not uncommon for the season, and I was more thankful for the patches of sun we had been getting than I was upset at the moist atmosphere.  The particular day Martin called me into his study, one of the few rooms of his mansion that I was not allowed complete access to.  It was situated on the third floor in a corner of the sprawling manor and overlooked gardens below.

I knocked on the door, just a quick rap before twisting the knob myself and entering.  Martin stood at the window, distracted by some unknown sight in the Garden below.  “Damnit Desmond,” He muttered softly enough I don’t think I was supposed to hear him.  “Who said you could come in?” he barked at me.

“Oh, sorry Martin.  Let me just go back to my rooms and await the almighty wizard’s summons once more.”  So I’m a bit disrespectful of authority, sue me.

“Oh… It’s nothing terribly important, simply your first quest.”  He grinned when he said that, something childlike and impishness breaking free from his wrinkled face.

“Quest?  What’s this about quests?  I’ve been doing well on the books and stuff, haven’t I?”

“Yes, Christopher, on the books you have been doing fine.  However life is not lived in books, as you well know.  Currently, I have business in South America, business that can only wait a short period of time.  Nearby I have detected the presence of a rogue earth elemental that is playing hell with the town of Pederson in Missouri.  I will need you to deal with the elemental before it causes any more difficulties or disrupts one of my wards.”  When he finished speaking, Martin strode to the end table that rested by a heavily cushioned Lazy Boy and began gathering a few papers from it.  His manner suggested he believed our conversation was finished.

“Uh Martin… what are you talking about?  You said it yourself, I don’t have any kind of magic.  What the hell do you expect me to do against an earth elemental all by myself?  Do you know what those things can do?”

“Yes, Christopher, I know precisely what they can do.  You are supposed to know that as well.  Or have you been very cleverly faking your studiousness of the past several months?”  Martin straightened from gathering the papers and eyed me from beneath a steeply arched eyebrow.

Damn old man had me there.  “Well it can cause tremors, whole quakes if it is powerful enough, shift rocks or piles of rocks, move and manipulate basically anything made of rock or dirt.  Oh, and in their physical form they are ungodly strong.”

“Accurate enough, if slightly less than eloquently stated.  So, how would you go about handling such a creature?”  Somehow I sensed a trap, and I definitely didn’t like it.

“Well… I, unlike you, would probably have to lay out a big summoning circle, get some mystical mumbo jumbo set up from someone who did have a spark of magic in them and lure the beast into the trap.  Once it was in a circle I’d probably have to figure out some more mumbo jumbo to get it into an amulet or ring.  Either that or appease it.  Or find whoever summoned it and make them send it back.  Or I could kill them, I guess, but you know me.  I’m not so much the cold blooded type.  Hey Martin, why do you think people always store spirits in jewelry?”  I realized I was babbling and my mouth shut with a click of tooth on tooth.  Martin was either happy with my answer or entertained by it.  Either way he was smiling ear to ear.

“I feel, my good Christopher, that you have proposed a number of excellent options.  Do be sure to inform me how they work out in Pederson upon my return.  You have your keys for the home and access to your discretionary fund.  This should be more than ample to see you on your way to Pederson.  As I stated earlier, time is of the essence on my own venture.  Until we meet again.”

                With that Martin literally vanished.  I didn’t know at the time that teleporting around expends a vast amount of energy.  He probably just turned himself invisible and walked out of the room.  Wizards, I tell you.

                That night was the first and only night I ever tried to resist an order Martin gave me.  Still frightened about the idea of confronting a spirit on my own I determined that I would stay at the mansion and wait until Martin returned in a more reasonable mood.  Turns out that was a big mistake.

                It started out as just a little bit of a headache.  I didn’t think much of it.  Before the sun had set that night I was feeling my bones grind every time I shifted and my head felt like it was weighted with a million tons of constantly crashing gravel.  As each hour passed the feelings got worse.  Soon all I could do was lay in bed moaning piteously as every inch of my body quivered from throbbing pains.  At one point my addled mind pondered if this was from the geas laid upon me by Martin.  No sooner had I thought of going on the mission than all of my symptoms faded.  It was so dramatic and sudden that I couldn’t help but take notice.

                I experimented with it for the rest of the night.  What a hellaciously miserable time that was.  Actively resisting the compulsion proved to bring on effects much more suddenly and sharply.  Thanks to my bull headed refusal to accept defeat I finally collapsed into  sleep a miserable, shuddering and sweat sogged mass, determined to get on a plane to Pederson as soon as humanly possible when I woke.

Christopher Chance: Sorcerer's Assistant - Meeting the Family

Hello everyone! Sorry for the delay in posting the latest edition of Christopher Chance: Sorcerer's Assistant.  I got hung up with some real life complications... Excuses excuses... shame on me... In any case I hope you all enjoy this most recent part of the story here on the Plotgap Publishing/Josh Kemp blog!

Christopher Chance: Sorcerer's Assistant - Meeting the Family

                Martin didn’t argue with me for a second.  It’s because Martin knows what it means to be family.  We rushed out the door, Martin in the lead already scooping car keys for a surprisingly pristine classic mustang.  Within moments we had roared out of the parking lot and I was directing Martin towards home.

                Home wasn’t where I lived any more, but I had never really felt anywhere else I lived was really home.  I’d spent the first eighteen years of my life laughing, crying, loving, playing, and everything else that came with childhood in that house.  It was where my father had died.  It was the crux of my world, my cornerstone.  The idea that my family could be in danger had brought back my wits and my vitality to some degree.

                Throughout the trip Martin kept asking how much further we were from my Mom’s place.  He turned on some music at one point, a drone I paid no attention to.  Other than that, the thing I remember the most is the smell of the rain; the deep, fresh, and vital smell of a fresh rainfall.  I found that smell comforting and I’m still not sure why.  After minutes that stretched to eternity we were at my home. 

The car hadn’t fully stopped before I was out of the door and rushing to the front door as fast as my legs could carry me.  Behind me Martin called out “I’ll be just behind you, don’t want to cause any more alarm than is necessary, and the area doesn’t have any stench of magic.  Tell your family I’m a friend.”  The words barely registered to me.

                My Mother’s house is a quiet, unassuming single story home with three bedrooms and two baths.  It was a godawful prefab, and literal copies of it could be found throughout the locality.  Painted an unassuming brown, with a quaint and unassuming garden it could be anyone’s home.  The door was where my mother allowed herself a splash of color.  Some pizzazz if you will.

                Currently it was painted brick red and there was an array of garden gnomes happily frolicking in diorama fashion on the porch.  I pushed the door open without knocking, surprised to find it locked.  My Mother usually didn’t lock her door before I got into the business of wizards assistant.  Anyway, I started pounding and yelling for her to open up in sheer panic.  She was probably scared half to death, and for sure she thought I was crazy.

                When My mother did open the door, the wide eyed and heavily freckled face of my kid sister in the living room behind her, I bull rushed her with a hug instantly.  I was sobbing.  I hadn’t cried before that point in the night.  Seeing my mother and sister okay, the smell of the rain, and the safety of home finally let me release the pain of the violence I’d seen.  To this day I cannot forget the faces of those who died at Spencer’s.  They were the first of many that would come to haunt my dreams.  Some that I tried to save, and couldn’t.  Other’s who I killed.  A few, even, who I wanted to kill but couldn’t.

                Mom led me into the living room, and a seat on the couch.  Her quiet shushing won out over my hysterics, her gentle calm able to influence my own mood somewhat.  When I was recovered somewhat I realized that several minutes of sobbing had gone by, and also that my kid sister was staring down the only bona fide wizard I knew, insisting that he was not coming in.

                “Tara, it’s okay.  He really is a friend, and he’s here to help.  There was… some trouble at the bar tonight.  I helped him out of a jam and he wants to make sure nothing bad happens because of it.  Let him in.”

                A suspicious look still written across her face, Tara removed her bodily blockade of the door and grudgingly allowed the old wizard entry.  Martin’s appearance explained his arrival several minutes behind my own.  He was dressed in a spotless suit, complete with Rolex watch and designer shoes.

                “Mom, Tara, this is…”

                “Mr McDermott, very pleased to meet you both.” Martin interjected over my introduction.

                Martin proceeded to explain to my Mother and sister how he was a high ranking executive at an international investment company who was visiting family in the area.  How, while having a beer and a meal he had been accosted by men of dubious moral virtue who had hoped to secure certain insider trading information from him that could have earned them millions of dollars.  Then he praised me rather heavy handedly, stating I had saved him from kidnapping through great personal bravery.  Unfortunately these actions might incite vengeance from individuals so unscrupulous as to attempt a kidnapping in the first place.  Therefore he would like to give them a generous sum of money and his deepest personal thanks.

                All in all the whole thing went over better than I ever could have imagined it would.  My mother clearly found Martin charming, and seemed to set aside her usual pragmatic nature in his presence.  She gladly believed his far-fetched tale right up to the point where he excused himself for a breath of fresh air and bowl of pipe tobacco.  On his way out the door he motioned for me to follow, using a cane I was sure he hadn’t brought in with him.

                The late hour had cooled the air from its earlier summer heat, and a subtle chill was in the air.  Martin marched away from the house with a grim purpose to his steps, not pausing until he was far from my families earshot.  There he turned to confront me, his walking stick scratching in the gravel of the driveway, clearing it away and revealing dark earth beneath.

                “Young man, it should prove no great difficulty hiding your family.  Darius will not forget the injury you caused him, but it was so minor that beyond a pittance attempt to locate you I truly doubt he will go further from his purpose to harm you.  Just in case we have taken precautions to avoid his further involvement in your life.  If I were you I would flee should I ever encounter him again, but barring that, you are now safe.  Which begs the question, what next?”

                I was flummoxed by the question.  “What next?  What do you mean what next?”

                “To the best of my knowledge you are unemployed.  You have no need to attend to your family as they will be provided for.  No girlfriend.  So what are your plans?”  Throughout our interchange the stick continued scratching away the gravel, revealing patterns of earth and also, I noticed, forming strategic mounds of stone, such that rough pyramids fell on specific locations.

                “I… I don’t really know.  Get a job, I guess?  I guess I hadn’t had much time to think about it.”

                “Well, I want you to think about it.  I want you to think about it now, very seriously and very hard, because I am about to offer you a once in a lifetime opportunity.  Mostly because I like you and your family reminds me a bit of my own in a strange way.”

                “You see, you are going to have to make some tough choices, and learn some important lessons over the next year or so,  because you’ve been noticed. “

                “The magical community is not a large one, and a young, unknown who was able to shrug off the will of one of hell’s high lieutenants is going to receive a lot of offers.  From succubi, warlocks, dragons, angels, demi-gods… maybe even God, though you don’t seem the sort.  Anyway, if you’re really lucky you’ll get an offer from someone like me.  Someone who will offer to guide you to your full potential without abusing your trust or seeking to manipulate you. 

 

Here Martin ceased to simply speak.  His words took on a strange, ritual, intonation, and he began something that sounded somewhere between a song, a prayer and a chant.

                “Bound, now, be, in a circle of stone.  Heed my call or else heed none.  Servant hence, serve my will.  Hence forth from now seek no ill, or circle’s binding strike thee down.  Servant take this stony crown.”

                For the second time in my life I saw ostentatious use of magic.  The magical symbols Martin had scribbled into my driveway flared to brilliant golden orange light, and the tiny mounds of gravel transformed into diamonds.  The very air around me seemed to thicken, and suddenly there was a transparent barrier surrounding me.  “Martin?  Martin what in the FUCK is going on here?  What are you doing?”

                “I need to be sure Christopher.   I’m sure you understand.  You saw how those others in the bar were bent to his will.  I need to be absolutely sure that you aren’t in league with Darius.  So, swear to serve me, to raise to hand against me, or pass knowledge that you think might harm or hamper my will.  Swear on your power, your will, and your soul.  Swear now or so help me God I will destroy you as I might any demon against which I have battled!”

                To say I was stunned would be the understatement of the century.  I was absolutely aghast.  Bear in mind I was still reeling from a psychic trauma, and altogether new to the whole spell slinging thing.  Otherwise I might have been  a little better prepared for such a betrayal.  Even as a newbie though, I knew he was deadly serious.  So I did the only thing I could do.

                “I swear to serve you, under all of your conditions.”  I felt like I lost a part of myself saying those words, and I don’t know why to this day.  I don’t regret them, not precisely.  I do sometimes regret the happiness that taking up service for the old magician has cost me though.

                The rest of the night went very well.  Smoothed over by Martin’s glib tongue and money, my assurances, and I suspect a bit of magic our cover story went un questioned, and the next morning moving trucks showed up to take my mother away.  I said goodbye an d then there was a world of things to attend to.  Training, tests and quests would all become a part of my day to day existence in the days that followed.

Strange Awakenings

                “Wizards?”  His question was absurd, and my disbelief must have shown clearly on my face.  When Martin responded it was with a note of exasperation that hadn’t been there before.

                “God above, does no one believe in Magic any longer?  I burst into your bar practically screaming ‘I’m a wizard’ and hurling spells against a demon.  Even with all of that you still can’t wrap your head around the fact of Magic? Yes Wizards, do you truly know naught of wizards?”

                “I… well…uhhh…” I continued to stammer unintelligibly at Martin for a moment before he cut me off with a snort and one sharp and dismissive wave of his hand.

                “Nothing?  Truly you know nothing of the ephemeral?  Are you a priest perhaps? Yogi?  Wiccan? Meditate frequently?”

                “Priest? No… why, what…  Listen, buddy, I have no clue what you are talking about.  Now, let’s get back to why I am not calling the cops right now.”  My nerve had finally returned enough from Martin’s too startling entrance that I was able to assert myself in the conversation.

                “And tell them precisely what?  That two strangers burst into your place of employ and held a magical duel?  At best you’ll be considered ‘addled’ and at worst complicit in the murder and arson that occurred there.  Also, once the police have you in custody I would be hard pressed to maintain the protective wards that are currently preventing Darius from finding you.  Finding and eating you… most likely.”

                “Eating me? Magical Duel?”  My stricken expression was all the answer Martin needed regarding my ignorance of the arcane.

                “Get dressed, and get comfortable… this may take some time.”

                It did.  Take a lot of time that is.  After I got over the initial hump of simply accepting that what he was saying could be true there was still a lot to explain.  The main thing that he got across to me, though, was that although humanity had willfully forgotten the arcane, the Arcane was still around.  Martin was a wizard, close to two hundred years old, and as he explained it one of the last real ‘good guys’ left.  Wizards are a rare breed normally, and in modern society it is a lot easier to use Magic for greed, rage, lust or out of the desire for pure personal power.  Most practitioners developed in secret with no master and were eventually killed by their own ignorance; devoured or enslaved by something other than Human.  Something like Darius.

                Darius was a demon.  A literal Hellfire and Brimstone devil, come to earth to reap a wicked harvest.  Martin didn’t go too incredibly far into their past, but I gathered they had a fair amount of history.  At the time I was not properly impressed by this fact.  Later on down the road, after I’d had a chance to meet up with some of the smaller scale spooks we would deal with, I came to understand.  Surviving even one direct encounter with a demonic force, much less doing so with one’s soul intact, was a major feat.  Surviving the ongoing enmity of a powerful, immortal, and amoral being classed Martin as a top flight wizard, maybe the best alive.

                “This has led me to some very interesting hypothesis regarding you, my young friend.  You, with no magical training as far as you or I know, were able to resist Darius’ mental compulsion and overcome his defensive wards.  Granted, your choice of weapons made his ward less effective, but still… It should have stopped you some distance from him.  Barring that an unprotected mortal that struck Darius through that ward should simply have dropped dead.  You, however, did neither.”  Martin concluded.

                “Alright… So what does that mean?  Like, this Darius, should have swatted me like a fly from what you’re saying.”  My voice trembled with the fear and excitement that had been building inversely to my sinking disbelief.

                “Well, primarily it is a good thing, better than being dead by a significant margin in this wizard’s humble estimation.  As far as the specifics go… I can’t be quite sure without further inquiry.  The strongest possibility is that you are gifted to some degree or another and unwittingly shielded yourself.  Alternatively you might have some sort of friendly elemental or ancestor spirit you’ve attracted to yourself and they chose to intervene.  Honestly, right now I don’t know enough to give you a good answer.  Do you have any family in the nearby vicinity?”

                I was instantly on guard.  Martin seemed friendly enough, but I get more than a bit protective of my family.  Beyond that my head was still spinning with my newly gained introduction to the Arcane.  “Why do you ask?”

                “Two reasons, my young and magically ignorant friend.  The first is that they could still be in some danger.  Darius ripped a handful of your hair out while you were unconscious.  I have shaven your head and burned the trimmings with branches of Ash and Aspen.  It should prove ample protection for yourself from Darius’ attempts to track you.  However… he still might conceivably use the hair to attune to your family, a fate I would most certainly like to spare them.”

                “The second reason is that your bloodline might give me some clue as to the nature of your resistance to Darius’ brutal charms.  Now, time is not of as vital of concern to us in regards to the defense of your family as yourself.  The spells and incantations needed to locate them will take our hell spawned foe some time to prepare… still… Family?”

                “Portland… My Mom and Sister live in Portland.”  I managed to say in the process of scooping the hotel’s phone from its cradle and hastily punching in the number of my Mom’s house.  My blood was pounding hot in my veins.  Throbbing inaudible pulses through my body, sent surging by adrenaline.  When the line clicked over to the answering machine I shot out of bed, pulling on my clothes in a rush.

                “Martin, nobody is picking up, we’ve got to go!”

Christopher Chance Sorcerer's Assistant: A Strange Awakening

Christopher Chance: Sorcerer's Apprentice A Strange Awakening
By: Josh Kemp

When I woke up, it was in two sections.  My body came awake first, against my minds better judgment.  Every section of me throbbed in a dull way, except for my wrists. Those were red hot rings of agony.  My head felt strange against the pillow, my scalp shaven and smooth so skin rested on cloth. I was startled by these unfamiliar circumstances.  I came jerking awake and thrashing briefly, not sure at all of where I was.  The memories of what had preceded my black out came rushing back to me with a physically painful jolt that staggered me back into the bed with a flop.

                I was in a bed.  This fact, at least, was a comforting sign.  You generally don’t get beds for people who you are going to kill, or who are dead.  In the moments before I blacked out I wasn’t sure if I had expected to wake up at home from a bad nightmare, in the bar surrounded by wreckage, in a hospital.  Hell, I wasn’t incredibly sure that I would wake up at all.

                Waking up in a fairly comfortable hotel room bed had not been on my radar.  This was a Holiday Inn, cheerful lettering on the stand up pay-per-view menu on my bedside table happily proclaimed.  There was a picture of a sail boat resting on the wall opposite me, another surefire indicator of hotel space.  Done in faded pastel colors and unique by itself, somehow the painting managed to be the same as every other half assed piece of “art” hotels and corporate offices display with manufactured pride.

                Throughout my rushed examination of my surroundings, the pain had been slowly building.  Both of my wrists throbbed in low waves of pain.  My head pounded in time with my pulse, each wave building in intensity until I was physically ill from the agony.  I did my best to lay still, keeping my eyes half lidded to block out as much brightness as possible, and given time the pain subsided.

                There was a phone next to my bed as well and, when I eventually was able to move, I slowly scooped it from its base and cradled it to my ear.   Even this simple act left me barely able to resist the pain that was continuing to tell me what a stupid idea moving in any manner was.  I didn’t see Martin come in, wasn’t even aware he was there, until he chimed in and interrupted me from dialing 9-1-1.

                “I don’t think that’s such a great idea, Christopher.”  His voice rang with gentle authority.

                I whirled to face the newcomer as quickly as I could, fresh waves of newly intense pain washed over me as a reward for my sudden action.   This sent my vision down a long black tunnel that led towards unconsciousness from which I was barely able to pull myself back.

                Through my terror I couldn’t recognize Martin.  Given what I know about psychic trauma now, I’m surprised I thought of 9-1-1.  Hell, it’s a damn miracle I woke up at all.  Darius had done the equivalent of smashing through my head with a psychic tornado.  He hadn’t been trying to extract anything from me, or preserve my sanity in any way.  After I dumped that grease over him he had simply reacted, lashing out at whatever had hurt him.  You don’t take a mental ass whooping from a real live demon and walk away totally intact.

                Anyway, the point is that, while I remembered in a hazy way the events of the night before, my head was still not right.  Martin’s intrusion into my reality, even as gentle as he was trying to be with me, sent me skittering back into the corner of the room furthest from him and sobbing.

                “Shh, shhhh Christopher, it’s alright, you’re safe now.  It’s alright.” As Martin spoke he approached me slowly, his hand extended, showing me he was not threatening. He kept his manner calm and carefully composed, in the same way you would a new pet that is frightened of you.

                My hands held in front of me, clutching the blanket so that it formed an entirely useless wall in front of me, I stammered.  “St.. stay away fr.. from me…”

                A brief frown crossed his face before it returned to a friendly mask.  “Christopher, you were hurt.  Do you remember the bar?  Do you remember how you helped me?”

                I was able to calm down, if only slightly.  “I want to go.  I remember you, sure, but I don’t know shit about you, or that other dude… No offense, or anything…”

                “Indeed.  Well, the opposite is now true of both Darius and I.  After your little intrusion in the bar both he and I felt compelled to learn a bit more about you, Christopher Chance.  Before I go any further, I want you to be assured that I vow I will do all in my power to protect you and your kin.  Do you understand?”  Martin’s voice was solemn, the voice of a man speaking an often recited prayer.

                “Uh, yeah… yeah sure, whatever you say.”  I wasn’t sure he was entirely sane, and thought it would be best to play along with what he was saying.

                “Good.  Now, Darius is not going to be happy with you, and worse than that, he pulled a chunk of your hair out.” 

                “My hair?  What does that have to do with anything?”

                “More than you think, with it he could…”  Martin stopped abruptly, and then a look of startled curiosity flitted across his face, and he spoke again.  “Young man, tell me truly, what do you know of wizards?”

 

Plotgap Publishing.

Men and Monsters is the first chapter of a serialized novel that was begun, but never finished, in 2010.  I've removed it from the blog it initially had been a part of and will be re-posting the older chapters to the Plotgap Publishing blog over the next few weeks.  One chapter will come out every Sunday.  Once that has been completed We'll expand into new material!  I hope everyone enjoys the story.

-Josh Kemp

Men and Monsters

                I was only twenty two the first time I witnessed real evil, when I learned that the monsters in the dark are real.

                I was working at a small hole in the wall bar in Oregon called Spencer’s.  Hardwood floors, a deafening sound system, cheap drinks and Karaoke three nights a week – Spencer’s had everything that every other cheap bar does, and not much to distinguish itself aside from the regulars.  On the night in question there were maybe seven people at Spencer’s.  Don and David, two burly construction workers that came in for drinks after work about twice a week, Jenny, a cute blond gal I liked that came in a bunch with a bunch of different guys but who I never worked up the nerve to talk to, her date, an older guy whose name I never learned, Craig the bartender with his generous smile and way of working tips out of women, and me, Chris Chance, dishwasher and fry cook extraordinaire.

                There had been a slow parade of folks through there earlier, but they had cleared out by the time he arrived.  Even in the back room I knew it when he showed up.  It was, well, just a feeling more than anything else.  Like… Goose bumps, the sort they say are caused by someone walking over your grave.  Or that sense you get at night after you’ve watched a scary movie, the feeling that someone is watching you.  Only about a thousand times more intense.  All I know is that I went from bored, sweating and grilling up some burgers for Don and David to stark, abject panic in a half a heartbeat.  One moment I’m standing there, the next my stomach is in my shoes and I’m eying the back door, which I leave open for ventilation, like it is my best and only escape route.  I shook the feeling pretty quickly, I even sort of chuckled about it a minute afterwards.  Damn foolish of me, and I’ve since learned not to ignore those sorts of impulses.

                I finished cooking and turned the grill to low.  The back of Spencers’ is usually muggy at best, and it got stifling when the kitchen was in full swing.  That night, though, there was a chill to the breeze coming in through that cracked back door.  Sharp enough to cut through the kitchen’s heat, cold enough to make me kick the door prop to the side as I made my way to the order window.  I caught a glimpse of the stranger when I placed the burgers on the counter for Craig to serve up.

                He was tall, with dark features, and I suppose handsome.  Though describing him as tall dark and handsome doesn’t do the man justice.  He was impressive.  There was a presence to him that commanded the eye, a brooding power that thrummed in the air around him.  As soon as I set my eyes upon him they were locked there, commanded to remain until he returned my gaze and I was able to jerk my eyes away awkwardly, faintly embarrassed to have been caught staring.  Back in Black by ACDC had just come on the juke box.

                I can’t really remember much about the hour or so that passed before the second stranger arrived.  I guess that means there isn’t much worth remembering, huh?  Just another slow night at Spencer’s?  I know that sometime during that hour I ducked away on my break and toked up.  I used to smoke pot all the time during my breaks at work, and when I came back I was lit, happy and expecting nothing more than a few more hours of boring inactivity.  Maybe fifteen minutes later my assessment of the evening underwent a rapid revision.  That was when the second stranger showed up.

                That first man, well, he walked in and the only warning we had was that eerie feeling and shiver of cold that ran through the joint.  There was no mistaking it when the second stranger, who I later came to know as Martin Corrish, came in.  He slammed through the doors so hard I heard them hit the wall from the kitchen.  A second later he was yelling out in his raspy voice. “Darius! Where are you, hell-spawn?  The time has come to feed the maggots!”

                I rushed up front when I heard this.  Wouldn’t you?  Martin was standing in the doorway of Spencer’s, looking especially crazed that evening.  His iron grey beard thrust out from his face in tangles, his hair was the same color and hung to his shoulders, with a few braids scattered amongst the otherwise un-styled mop.  His unkempt hair framed an oval face with bright red cheeks and pudgy features that might have appeared jolly on another man.  On Martin these cherubic features only served to add to the impression of psychosis his previous statement and the clothing he was wearing already conveyed.  Oh, right, his clothing.  That evening Martin was dressed in his full regalia, with all the accoutrements of his trade.  A long blue robe that had its length emblazoned with astral symbols, a sharply pointed conical blue hat, and a gnarled yew staff topped with a blue crystal.  Dangling from these main pieces of Martin’s wardrobe or hung about his wrists, neck, belt, really basically everywhere and anywhere on his person, were maybe three dozen assorted charms and tokens that ranged from small pieces of crudely carven wood to diamond pendants that looked like they cost a small fortune.

                If you had asked me at that point which of the two strangers was crazy, all my money would have been on the freak in the blue night gown.  That is, until the first stranger, whose presence had vanished from my mind with jarring entrance of this apparent madman, stood and spoke.  “Martin, you impudent whelp.  You’ve dared to follow me after our last meeting?”  His voice was like steel gliding over silk, soft with an aura of menace.  As soon as he spoke the rest of the room fell silent.  Literally, the jukebox even stopped playing, sputtering to a skipping stop.  The same sense of cold that had accompanied his arrival was back, but this time it was palpable, even visible.  A fine sheen of frost spread over the floor, out from the soles of the black clothed stranger’s expensive leather shoes, gliding over the ground to coat the stool, table and floor surrounding him and taking up perhaps a five foot radius.  Then he smiled.

                While his face had been handsome only moments before, somehow the smile changed it.  His features twisted, writhing like a coiled mass of serpents to form something wholly different, wholly alien from the calm handsome features of moments before.  When I saw his smile I swear to God my heart stopped.  Seeing him smile was like waking up from a bad dream to find your nightmare silently staring at you from the foot of your bed.  Very, very unsettling.

                The smile broke the silence, too.  Rather, I did when I stumbled backwards from my vantage point by the high counter that separated the kitchen from the bar area and yelped out “Holy shit!” At the top of my lungs.  But, that definitely broke everyone’s trance, and as I was tripping onto my ass, I was hearing everything happening at once out in the bar.

                Craig’s voice first, barking out a statement he would never finish.  “What the hell is…” a wet crunch, like pounding an apple with a hammer terminated this statement and then Jenny was screaming.  As I scrambled to my feet, desperate to get a look at what was going on outside the kitchen, every single hair on my body stood on end.  A pressure seemed to build up in the room, like taking off in an airplane or going over a mountain pass, but it went past that point.  By the time I got to my feet, maybe two seconds, I could feel the intensity of the pressure in my ears, my eyes, my nose, I could damn near feel it compressing my whole body.

                Back on my feet I could see the strange conflict unfolding in the bar made even more surreal because of the pale blue light that emanated from Martin’s staff and washed the room in azure.  The stranger, Darius as Martin had called him, stood in a thickening sheet of frost that was looking more like ice.  One of his hands was thrust up towards the sky, the fingers clawed into a strange gesture; the other hand was pointed in the direction of Martin with pointer and index finger extended.  With his second hand Darius was weaving some sort of pattern in the air, faint tracers of ethereal black followed his fingers intricate weaving.  For his part, Martin seemed slightly less active, circling the bar through a clutter of tables and stools with his staff extended, blue crystal brightly aglow.  The faces of both men were bent in snarls of concentration, and their eyes were locked.

                I looked around the bar, trying to find what had become of the rest of the patrons.  Don and David were easy to spot, but they just added to my already incredible confusion and fear.  The two large men were standing slack jawed and vacant eyed behind Darius, completely motionless and without expression.  Jenny was clutching at her man of the evening wildly, her mouth bobbing up and down like she was trying to work up a scream but had something lodged in her throat.  Her date looked just as frightened to me, grabbing at Jenny just as desperately as she clutched at him.  I didn’t see Craig until last.

                He was laying face down on the ground, a pool of crimson blood growing rapidly beneath him.  I’ll never forget that moment, it was the first time I saw a dead body.  You know the first thing that went through my head?  Who is going to clean all that blood up?  I guess that was just shock, but at the time I felt cold, inhuman.  Craig and I hadn’t been close, but he was a good guy, you know?  We got along is what I’m trying to say.  And there he was, dead feet away.  Not in a casket all groomed and presentable, but face down in his own blood with the stench of piss and excrement starting to rise from his body, and all I could think was that I sure as hell wasn’t cleaning it up.

                I got stuck on Craig, I couldn’t stop staring at his body.  I remember there was a crackle and a huge wave of heat, like a bonfire had sprung into being in the middle of the bar, and pulse of green light that washed over me with a physical force, sending me stumbling back from the window.  I was still staring at Craig’s corpse through all of this.  I finally snapped out of it after about five seconds, trust me that is a lot longer than you would think in a touchy situation, and it was the pressure popping that sparked my return to reality.

                That green light that had hit me was more a physical force than a light.  As it fluctuated from dim to bright so did the pressure that seemed to accompany it.  The light, which had been growing in intensity for about two seconds, reached its brightest point and with this the pressure on my body that it seemed to exude was beyond painful, it was crippling.  Even so my mind pushed it aside, still struggling with the more tangible reality of Craig’s death.  Everything else was too crazy to think about.  The things going on simply were not possible.  Yet, there they were in front of me, as large as life.

                When I finally snapped off of Craig’s body and back to what was going on around me, Fred and Ed were stalking towards Martin, who backed away kicking stools and chairs in front of them to slow them down while he swung his staff in wide arcs.  Bolts of blue lighting, like the sort you see inside the globes you can touch and make energy trails, shot from the tip of the staff into the air in a high arc that went over the two construction workers heads before darting down at Darius.  Each was intercepted in turn by one of the black tracers he had conjured over his head.  Each impact sent forth one of the painful waves of green light and pressure.

                As Ed made a lunging grab for Martin’s staff, the arcs of energy stopped, and in that second two of the tendrils shot out and into the chests of Jenny and the date, both of whom fell to the floor flopping mindlessly like fish in a net.

                Martin howled, and with an animalistic fury began bludgeoning Ed with one fist while yanking at his staff savagely, desperate to get it back.  I remember my one thought of that moment very distinctly – Oh fuck this.  Over and over again as I scooped up the tub of boiling grease and rushed out into the bar.  I almost slipped on Craig’s blood, I still have the scars from slopping some of the grease onto my wrists in the rush.  The dark stranger, Darius, never saw it coming.  A gallon or so of boiling grease being dumped over Darius’ head like Gatorade on a victorious football coach was apparently a bit of a distraction for him.  A little more sever of a distraction than having his staff grabbed was for Martin, and Darius dropped to the ground, unleashing a primal scream of agony that built in volume, pitch and intensity until I fell to my knees screaming along with him.  My ears felt like someone had jammed an ice pick into each of them right up to the handle and then I fainted.