Hard Corps (Quentin Case Book 2)

by John Hook

  Guido was waiting by the pool. Saripha rested on a raised platform Guido had erected of wood next to the pool. She had been dressed in simple white linens, which flowed over her softly, covering her wounds which had been wrapped in a white gauze-like material.

  We all stood around the pool. Myself, Rox, Izzy, Kyo, Blaise, Sidney, Zeon Taka and Paul. We stood in a circle looking at ourselves in the glassy water.

  None of us said anything. We knew why we were there.

  Guido had carefully and lovingly prepared her body with oils. We could just catch the sweet scent on the breeze. I had wondered what we would do with the body. The idea of burying her here in the soil of this awful place seemed wrong.

  Guido looked up at us.

  “We have lost one of our great lights. Light never truly ceases to be. If we keep the light in our hearts we won’t get lost in the dark.”

  He then said something more quietly in a language I had never heard, looking directly at Saripha.

  He picked her up gently and placed her in the water. The mirrored surface rippled around her. For just a moment it seemed as if she would just float there forever. Then she started to sink, slowly, the water covering her. As I looked, I realized the water was deep enough that there seemed to be only darkness below. Saripha sank deeper and deeper until, at last, she faded from sight, and the surface became a still mirror again.

  Inside, Guido had prepared a small wake with some of Saripha’s real food. We ate, amazed by the real food even if we didn’t need it, and agreed we would create a “Rockvale Cuisine” using the recipes. We laughed, exchanged memories of Saripha, and cried together. At one point Paul came over to me. I prepared myself.

  “Quentin.” He was having trouble meeting my gaze. Then he finally looked up. There was pain in those eyes, but there was something else.

  “How are you holding up, Paul?”

  “I am sorry for my anger earlier.”

  “Paul, it’s okay.”

  “No, actually it is not. There is no question that I don’t see eye to eye with you on your approach to things here. But to accuse you of this was reprehensible and cruel. I was angry, but it had no place being directed at you.”

  “Probably seemed like it did at the time. I had already beat you to it.”

  Paul nodded.

  The apology was real and heartfelt, but that was as much as he could take. He moved off and sat quietly thinking.

  Finally we all climbed into the wagon for the ride back to Rockvale.

  It was morning. I sat in front of my “office” with Rox sitting close and Izzy joining me. We often sat here and talked about things or watched to see if a new arrival would show up. They always ended up coming from the mountain past here where we sat.

  “So, now what?” Izzy asked. His tee shirt had a cartoony image of the Jackal Manitor with his throat torn open and the caption “Beep Beep.”

  “I think mostly we should take it easy for a bit. Eventually I need to return to Zaccora to meet with the others. We decided the Dirty Glass was a good central location for all to meet. We have all this territory now and we have to figure out what we have to do to hold onto it.”

  “How are you doing with all this now?” Izzy asked.

  “You mean, am I still blaming myself for Saripha?”

  “Okay, let’s start with that.”

  “I think only time can heal that wound. What worries me is I now have this reticence to involve others in my fight.”

  Izzy shrugged.

  “Should be easy now. The worst that can happen is we turn into protos. You’ve done it twice.”

  “The thing is, I lost myself. If it wasn’t for Saripha, I might still not be me anymore.”

  “And you don’t want to lose anyone else.”

  As I sat, staring at the ground, I heard an unexpected sound. In fact, it actually alarmed me because it was so out of place. I hadn’t heard a sound like that since I had died.

  “Hello.” Rox said, her eyes wide. “Where did you come from?”

  Walking up to us was an exotic looking cat with tortoise-shell coloring. She had a sleek coat and golden eyes. Every time you looked at her coat, the splashes of color had changed. She opened her mouth and let out a sound like rust hinges.

  “Rox, do we have cats in Hell?”

  “Apparently we do now, but I have never seen one.”

  The cat strolled casually up and rubbed herself on my leg as she walked by. I reached down to pet her, but she suddenly crouched and showed her fangs, hissing.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t. Rooni is a fine guide, but otherwise quite intolerant of humans.”

  Now I thought I was hallucinating. My head snapped up so fast, I think I hurt my neck.

  “Quentin?” Izzy sounded shaky.

  Approaching us from the same direction that new arrivals came from was Saripha. Her eyes were bright, her silver hair hung to her shoulders. She was dressed, as she often was, in a blue cotton blouse and jeans. Although her eyes still showed a certain ancient wisdom, she looked about ten years younger.

  I was speechless.

  She walked up, ruffled my hair and laughed, and then hugged both Rox and Izzy.

  I jumped up.

  “How?” was all I could get out.

  Saripha had a look that suggested compassion for my puzzlement.

  “You’re one of us.” I’m a little slow, but I was catching on. “You died and were sent here anyway.”

  “Actually, not at first. Luckily I found a guide who could locate this world.” Saripha nodded her head toward the tortoise shell cat, who was simply sitting in the middle of the path alternately glaring at everyone and ignoring everyone. “However, that’s a story for another day.”

  She held out her hand. I took it.

  “You chose to die because you knew you could come back.”

  Saripha tilted her head and looked at me. “No, actually I didn’t know that at all. I knew it was possible. I chose to die because I had become a liability for the resistance.”

  “Is that what we are?”

  “Never seen anyone resist as much as you.” Izzy laughed.

  “Yes. You refuse to simply accept your fate no matter how inevitable. And then it becomes less inevitable and you begin to change the world around you. You can’t do that if you are worried about losing me because I’m human.”

  “You thought I was going to give everything up.”

  “You might have. Maybe not. You might have come to your senses. However, it was going to be hard for you, maybe too hard. So like many around you, I made the choice I had to make because I believe in what you are doing and I could not take the chance that you would trade all that for my mortality.”

  “It wouldn’t have worked anyway.”

  “No, it wouldn’t have. He would have killed me whatever you did. I also took that away from him. I decided my fate, not Baron Steel.”

  “I have so many questions.”

  “I bet you do.” Saripha winked.

  “Saripha.” I realized there was something it might be important for her to know.

  Saripha looked at me, concerned. She had caught the gravity in my voice. “What is it, Quentin?”

  “After you—left us. Guido killed the jackal-headed Manitor.”

  Saripha’s face became grave as the implications of that information settled in on her.

  Finally she said: “I guess we should go and talk to Guido about this.” Her tone was flat, but it carried a quiet intensity. Then she brightened again. “There will be time enough for that soon. Let’s go see Paul and the others.”

  We headed into town. The cat Saripha called Rooni looked about and slowly, showing no urgency, followed behind us as if she owned the street.

  There will be consequences… and secrets revealed!

  Coming in 2014

  Hard Reign

  Book 3 of the Hard Case series!

  I love to talk with my readers.

  hookstories@gmail.com

  Read how
it all began in the first volume of the Hard Case saga!

  Hard Case

  Available exclusively as a Kindle eBook:

  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0054DW2ZO

  “The heat was off again. What a stupid little problem to end your life with.”

  Quentin Case is a writer of pulp fiction and action heroes in New York City, but mostly his life involves getting to the next rent check. All that changes when he dies and finds himself transported to a world that seems to be Hell. Literally. However something changed in Quentin when he crossed over. He is angry at being where he ended up and he plans to fight demon and devil alike to hang onto his small piece of humanity.

  Hell seems deceptively—normal. Nonetheless, this is a world where human souls are the torture toys of demons and manipulated by psychotic magical beings. Many lost souls have withdrawn to being little more than tormented automatons. Somehow, Quentin has found a small group of souls living precariously off the grid. He has found companionship, even love.

  There is pain, sudden violence and dark magic here. Quentin is determined to mount a revolution and take the fight to the devil himself if he has to. However, unless Quentin can learn this world's secrets, he and the small group of souls he has allied himself with will learn that there are worse things than dying.

  A blend of horror, science fiction and high adventure, this is a gritty fantasy story with character, humor and twists and turns that will intrigue and astonish you.

  About the Author

  John Hook is the pseudonym of John Warner who started out as a freelance magazine writer and editor in New York City in the 1970s and early 80s, right out of high school. He later picked up a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology. He spent the next years doing research and teaching as both an assistant professor and an adjunct professor. He now works as a policy and program analyst. Although everything he has done has involved a good deal of writing, he has only recently begun producing novels.

  He lives in Northern Virginia with his wife, two dogs and a cat (Bandit, not Rooni).