by Dean Floyd
The journey down seemed way quicker than the journey up and was probably because all necessity for sneaking had been cast aside. Before long I could see the threshold, the dolmen that led from this world into the spooky unknown, and back to our world. It was just within reach, that we were going to make it with the Dullahan on our heels.
Out of my peripheral vision I realized the Dullahan was galloping ahead of us. He’s going to cut us off, I realized. The headless horse rider brandished his spine whip, lashing it back and forth, daring any to try to make it past him into the dolmen.
Nehemiah handed Rob to me. He eyed me with one of those piercing gazes and I knew, I just knew that he had a bad plan. “Get them through Sean,” he said. “We only have one shot at this.”
The wizard approached the black rider. The skull tucked away under the headless rider’s arm grinned and the mouth opened. The skull exhaled and dark smoke billowed out. The horse pawed the ground, then reared up, neighing with the volume of a plane engine.
Nehemiah stood his ground and raised his staff. His trenchcoat billowed in an unseen wind and dark purple magic rippled all around him. The Dullahan raised its spinal whip and struck my friend. There was a flash of light and I feared the worst, but then I saw the wizard standing unscathed. The horsemen noticed to and came back unleashing a relentless attack. The spinal whip rained down on Nehemiah again and again, each strike dashing against the wizard’s orb of Chaos magic, each strike creating embers of magic like the striking of hot iron on an anvil.
Nehemiah's knees bent and his elbows locked under the weight of the attack. Then as the Dullahan tried one more lashing, Nehemiah positioned his staff so that the whip wrapped itself around the staff several times, locking in place. The Dullahan tried to tug his whip back, but the wizard held firm.
Even from where I was I could see purple sparks flying from the crack in his staff, brighter than welding sparks and I had to shield my eyes because of them.
“Now Sean!” yelled the wizard. “Get them through.”
I lead the charge as we all ran past the wizard and the horseman.
All of a sudden there was an amethyst explosion like Fourth of July fireworks. The black wizard cried out, his staff splintering into thousands of shards. I screamed like I was yelling at a referee for a bad call during the playoffs. "No, Nehemiah!"
I wanted to run back to him, to throw him over my shoulder and drag him through the threshold. But I couldn't because at that moment the cracks spread like a spider’s web over the stone slabs. Chunks of stone began falling to the ground, tumbling down like a casino detonation. Dust billowed into my lungs and I hacked and coughed as if I could dislodge the pain from my heart as well as the dust from my lungs. Suddenly all light was gone from the direction we had come there was nothing left to do but run towards the light far, far away at the other end of the Between that led to the threshold to Earth.
As we crossed the Nothing, I looked for the light, the telltale sign that we were heading in the right direction and not running endlessly through the dark infinity. I was worried that we would not see the light. I was not prepared to see more than one exit. As we crossed the Nowhere I saw the light shining through the dolmen ahead, but I also saw other light streaming in through other exits, other dolmens.
Charice’s hand tightened on mine. “Which way Sean?”
“Uh...” I said. “There was only one way in last time.” I looked to the right and to the left. As far as I could see in the darkness to the left and right were more openings. “Tain, get us home boy.”
Tain began sniffing but groaned as if he was unsure of himself. Then he picked up a trail and bolted off. I hope he’s right.
My dog led us to an exit. The light pouring from it was still nightlight, but the darkness inside the Nothing was so thick that the nightlight was glaring. “Everyone through,” I said. “Go, go, go.”
I pushed the last of the tattered and bruised victims through the threshold. Turning I looked back into the darkness for my friend, but I couldn’t see any sign of Nehemiah.
Charice grabbed my shoulder. “Sean—”
She couldn’t finish, but I knew I had to let go and walk through.
As we were about to cross through Tain stopped turned looking at another exit to our left. He barked twice, then turned in a circle and wagged his tail. What could possibly make him happy here?
I crouched by him and asked, “What is it boy?”
Movement beyond Tain caught my eye and I saw a small group of people moving in the Nothing quite a distance away, exiting their own dolmen. What the heck? Had part of our group split off and gotten lost?
As the group was moving through their exit I saw the silhouette of woman about my height. As she stepped into her threshold light reflected on her Auburn hair.
Tain barked and I stepped towards the woman. Anna? My breath caught in my throat and goosebumps covered my body. The woman disappeared through her threshold.
Before I could ponder it I heard hoofbeats again.
The wizard emerged from the darkness running at top speed.
“He’s alive,” I yelled.
The Dullahan's steed was in a full gallop behind him now and was about to trample my friend underfoot.
“Sic ‘im boy!” I commanded Tain. My dog obeyed and charged the Dullahan head on, not a fearful bone in his canine body. He leapt up and clasped his jaws on the skull, pulling the rider from the saddle in the process. He wrung his head back and forth, violently shaking the skull. When he let it go, the skull tumbled away into the darkness.
The headless rider tried to whip Nehemiah again, but his aim was terribly off without his skull. Nehemiah caught the whip around his arm. Even as the bone cut into his trenchcoat, Nehemiah drew his gun with his other hand and fired a shot, expertly hitting the Dullahan’s whip-hand. The horseman dropped the whip and we all ran through the threshold.
Once on the earth-side of the dolmen, Nehemiah wielded the whip, powering it with his Chaos. He lashed out at the dolmen striking the slabs repeatedly until they tumbled in on one another, closing off the threshold.
He fell to his knees in the marshland mud and I did the same.
“I thought you had gone full Gandalf on me,” I said.
Nehemiah shook his head. “Nah. Not this wizard,” he gasped. “Never go full Gandalf.”
“Not much of a wizard without a staff though,” I said.
“Don’t forget me,” said a tiny voice. I’d totally forgotten I was cradling Rob with one arm.
“You pulled through huh?” I asked my Hob.
“Yep. Looks like I’m still locked into this life debt thing,” he said.
I smirked and said, “Bummer.”
Rob looked past me and nodded. I turned to see Charice standing there awkwardly. I discarded Rob like a wet blanket. “Oooof,” grunted Rob.
Charice fell into my arms. Tears streamed down her face. I let her sob for a while, then said, “I’ll try to make the third date better. I promise.” Despite everything I managed to get her to half sob, half laugh. I could have kissed her, but the timing didn’t seem right. Plus there were a bunch of strangers surrounding us in a smelly wetland marsh in in the middle of the night. Instead I gave her phone back to her. “You dropped this and you probably have some missed calls.”
“Wizard,” I said. “How are we going to get all these people home?” There were seventeen survivors, not including my party of friends.
“My boat can only fit five to six at a time tops,” Nehemiah said.
“Man we’re grasping at straws,” I said. I noticed the mist had cleared now that the dolmen was destroyed. “Let’s just call the cops and report that the missing people turned up on Skaggs Island,” and under my breath I said, “...and when they get here do the MIB thing.”
“Uuuggghhh,” he groaned.
Chapter 26
Payment, Pain, and Power
As soon as all of the cops, ambulances and firetrucks figured out where the survivors w
ere on Skaggs Island, my friends and I left on the wizard’s boat.
He wasn’t able to remove anyone’s memory, but he did mask our departure, making us invisible with Chaos. With the stories the survivors would live to tell, we would be just one more detail in a highly improbable story.
As I rowed back to the boat launch I told Nehemiah, “We did it man. We crossed over to their turf and saved lives. We even stopped the lord of the dead."
"Psssh," said Nehemiah. "Stopped? More like pissed off. We're on his blacklist now."
"But at least we closed the Threshold."
"I closed the Threshold," he said. "Almost cost me my life. They'll just open another one. All we did is apply a band aid to a deep wound that needs stitches. We didn't fix anything."
"But—" I started.
Nehemiah cut me off. "I'm not finished talking. You almost got all of us and yourself killed Sean. I know you were trying to spare everyone else but we could have tackled Donn together."
I hung my head. "I guess you were right. I was a little gung-ho."
"But," he sighed, "ultimately we saved some lives. That wouldn't have happened if you didn't convince me to help."
I smiled. "So are you going to ditch me again until next week?"
“Me ditch you?” said Nehemiah. “No, next time I have an emergency you’re helping me for sure. Plus you owe me a new staff.”
AFTER WE GOT BACK TO my car, Charice asked me if I was alright. My burst of Luck empowerment had seemingly healed most of my surface wounds.
She had blood stains on her clothes and her purple blouse had tears on the shoulders. “Where are your cuts?” I asked as I inspected her.
She hugged herself reflecting on what happened. “When Donn was blasting me, I felt—”
“Pain?” I asked.
“And power,” she said.
“Are you alright?” I asked her. “That was dark magic he hit you with.”
“Besides all these emotions and needing a shower, I’m okay,” she said. “My wounds are healed, but my back is killing me.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I know a good chiropractor.”
END
Review
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BAD LUCK
DOWN ON LUCK is the next story in the Shamrock Samurai series, but there is a not-so-secret story that happens in between Folktale 1 and Folktale 2.
If you’re anything like me, you love extra features on DVDs and Blu-Rays. If you’d like to go behind the scenes of TOUGH LUCK feel free to head over to my website and check out an all new side story, BAD LUCK featuring Nehemiah as the main character.
BAD LUCK is Nehemiah's perspective covering the events during TOUGH LUCK and OUT OF LUCK. Basically, it bridges the gap between the two stories and unveils a huge revelation about Nehemiah's past. You don't want to miss it!
This story is not featured anywhere else, only on my website. This is for your eyes only.
Go to DeanFloyd.comlearn more about the FREESTORY and become a Shamrocker!
The Future of the Shamrock Samurai Saga
I want to sincerely thank you for reading Out of Luck. I worked hard to make sure this was an entertaining experience for you.
Murphy’s Law says that whatever can go wrong will go wrong. That’s definitely been the case for the whole production of this story. I had two writing programs crash on me, a busy schedule at the full time day job, the birth of a new baby, a teething-terrible-two-year-old, busy holidays, and flu season. I was the one out of luck. I’ve really got to start naming my stories in my favor so that they don’t end up as self-fulfilling prophecy for me.
I don’t know if you could tell, but I had a blast coming up with this story. It was a ton of fun to write, both because of what happens within the story, and what this story sets up. I'm not going to lie. I have grandiose schemes for this series. Huge. Massive. Brandon Sanderson BIG! Okay. Maybe not that big.
Out of Luck is the groundwork for where all of these stories are going. And I promise this isn’t the TV show LOST.
One of my goals with this series and any spin offs is to provide you with a quality story that takes place in a shorter word count. I don’t know about you but I don’t always have time to delve into a Wheel of Time door-stopper-length book (I love WoT, don’t get me wrong). Sometimes I just want to read something short, face paced, and fun. I wanted to provide you stories like that as well, that you can quickly digest when you have some down time here or there.
While paying homage to some of my favorite short story and novella characters (Elric, Conan, John Carter of Barsoom, Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser, etc. ) I also wanted to make sure that each story has a definite story arc and does not end on a major cliffhanger, just minor ones.
I’m taking this series places. So stick with me. This is going to be a good ride.
See you soon,
Dean Floyd
PS. Don’t forget about that review!
Recommendation
A fellow author (and award winning I might add) Ryland Thorn is also doing shorter Urban Fantasy in the form of a serial story, The Daemonicon Chapters. I’ve read his first two stories and like them a lot. If I could elevator pitch it to you, it's like if Batman and Batgirl were half-demon half-human, used magic and guns, and lived in a gothic, Hellboy-type of world. That’s my pitch anyways. His is much better. While my work is clean, his is a little more PG-13 (about what you would expect in today’s Marvel movies). You can find his work here.
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