The Monster of Elendhaven
Page 11
“That’s the third one this month! What else was done to her?”
“Just that. It’s not like the last one.…”
“Oh, that ghastly business with her face … cut her lips off in two pieces. What do you think he means by all this, the murderer?”
“I don’t think it means a thing. It’s the age that we live in. Those poor dears … they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, that’s for sure.”
A pause in conversation, and then: “Do you think this will be the last one?”
John had to bury his face in his coat to keep from laughing. What self-absorbed idiots, he thought, so bored with their lives that they hungered for news of mutilated women. Unwise to dream of death in a world where someone has the power to make those dreams come true. You never knew when the man sitting next to you on the train was an honest-to-god monster.
At the station, John was stopped by the ticket master. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember you getting on. May I see your ticket, please?”
John did not have one. He’d gotten on legally in Elendhaven but jumped the connection when the security wasn’t looking. He shot the man his biggest, sharkiest grin and slapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it,” he said.
The ticket master got an odd look on his face, all watery and half-asleep.
“Go on ahead,” he murmured, eyes sliding right off John. Ah, that was more like it.
As John jumped the gap to the platform, he heard one of the passengers behind him begin coughing. He took a deep breath of Sandherst air: it was crisp and smoky, filled with steam and noise. It was nothing like Elendhaven, this city with wide streets and sandstone buildings and fountains that spit up clear water. The train station was bustling with hundreds of people from all walks of life: cottons to silks, silver changing hands, middle-class women with smartly dressed children waddling after them like a line of ducklings. Oh yes, there was mischief to be done.
Whistling to himself, John put his hands in his pockets and disappeared into the crowd.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JENNIFER GIESBRECHT is a native of Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she earned an undergraduate degree in history, spent her formative years as a professional street performer, and developed a deep and reverent respect for the ocean. She currently works as a game writer for What Pumpkin Studios. In 2013 she attended the Clarion West Writers Workshop. Her work has appeared in Nightmare magazine, XIII: Stories of Transformation, Apex Magazine, and Imaginarium 3: The Best Canadian Speculative Fiction. She lives in a quaint historic neighborhood with two of her best friends and five cats. The Monster of Elendhaven is her first book. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
I. Johann
II. Florian
III. The Sorcerer
IV. The Thing with no Name
V. Elendhaven
VI. The Black Moon
VII. Flora
VIII. Hallandrette’s Son
IX. John
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE MONSTER OF ELENDHAVEN
Copyright © 2019 by Jennifer Young
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Jeffrey Alan Love
Cover design and hand-lettering by Christine Foltzer
Edited by Carl Engle-Laird
A Tor.com Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
120 Broadway
New York, NY 10271
www.tor.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-22568-9 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-22535-1 (ebook)
eISBN 9781250225351
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First Edition: September 2019