Titan_Kingdom of the Dead_An Epic Novel of Urban Fantasy and Greek Mythology

by Daniel Mignault

  There were bigger, badder wards I could have used, like the one I'd placed on the window behind my desk, but those required a lot more magic and a lot more time. Since I wasn't expecting an attack, I didn't see the point.

  I took the birdcage elevator down. It was one of those turn-of-the-century contraptions that gave the Mireton Building its charm. The birdcage was only slightly faster than taking the stairs, but a lot less work.

  During the descent, I checked to make sure I had everything I needed: the photograph of Veronica Whately that Constance had given me after agreeing to my fee, the witch cult brochure that had their address printed on it, my smart phone, keys, and wallet, right down to the half-eaten roll of breath mints. I popped one and closed my eyes, savoring the wintry taste and listening to the elevator's gears. I like white noise. There's something comforting about the hum and whir of machines. They do what they're supposed to. There's security in that.

  I got off on the second floor and walked to the landlady's office. The building was owned by Agnes Mireton, an eighty-seven year old busybody. She had a shrewish disposition somewhere between salty and venomous, depending on how late I was with the rent. Right now, I was almost a month past due, so I expected her to be positively serpentine.

  Maybe it seems ridiculous for a wizard to be afraid of an old woman, but I'm nervous around anyone who has power over me. Agnes Mireton had the power not just to verbally abuse me, but to evict me—something she'd threatened to do many times. What saved me was she'd have a difficult time replacing me. Half the building was vacant and not likely to fill up soon, if ever. Like I said, Pioneer Square isn't the best neighborhood.

  I steeled myself, then knocked on the landlady's door.

  Agnes answered on the third knock, the angry yips of her twin poodles, Fred and Ginger, annoyingly loud in the background. The landlady’s long white hair was stretched back in a bun so tight it seemed to pull some of the wrinkles out of her face. “Well!” she snorted. “It's about time. You got my money, Mr. Wizard?”

  I ignored her usual dig at both my name and profession. Instead, I opened my wallet and handed her nine of the ten bills my new client had paid me. “Sorry, Agnes. I've only got nine. I can have the rest in a few days.”

  Almost like she had a magic of her own, the landlady's beady eyes stared straight past my hand to the remaining hundred dollar bill poking out of my wallet. “Seems to me you got ten. You wouldn't be holdin' out on me, would you?”

  “A sweet old lady like you?” I smirked. “Not a chance! It's just that I need this money to cover expenses.”

  “A thousand's half of your rent,” Agnes retorted. “That extra hundred could pay your expenses, or it could buy you something even more precious.”

  “What's that?” I asked.

  “My goodwill.” Before I could blink, the old woman snatched the bill from my wallet.

  “Hey!”

  She stuffed my thousand dollars down the front of her blouse. “Hay is for horses! I got expenses too. This building don't run itself.”

  “It doesn't run at all,” I said, but Agnes had already shut the door. The poodles kept yipping.

  The problem wasn't just that building was old, but the very ley line that drew me to it had a tendency to draw other things. Things with less manners and personality than myself came to feed on the energy radiating from the basement. Basically, the building was a magnet for the supernatural. While the Mireton's low prices attracted people, they were just as quickly repelled by all the paranormal activity going on.

  It even got to me from time to time. For example, shortly after I moved in, I'd walked into my office one night to find the ghost of a morbidly obese accountant sitting behind my desk banging away on an antique adding machine. It turned out the ghost was a previous tenant who'd died of a heart attack during tax season. His “unfinished business” was completing all the returns he'd left unfinished. Apparently, he just couldn't let his clients down, even in death.

  I'd tried to ignore him at first, but the problem wasn't just that the ghost was sitting at my desk, but that he wouldn't shut up. He kept mumbling numbers and tax codes and banging away on his adding machine. Then he'd mop his forehead, clutch his chest and make gurgling noises. You wouldn't believe how long it took that guy to “die” each night.

  I was finally able to get him to go into the light by convincing him it was an ambulance coming to take him to the hospital. The dead are stubborn, and nothing if not single-minded. You know when he bought that story? After he'd completed the last tax return and I promised to make sure his clients got them. Naturally, the returns were as ghostly as he was. They disappeared along with him when he went into the light.

  There'd been a few other incidents just as annoying but far less amusing. The worst one was when a few demons tried to use the ley line to slip from their dimension into ours, and demons being demons, they hadn't been satisfied just escaping themselves. No, they'd tried to widen the portal and bring along a few thousand of their friends! I'd put a stop to that. Ghosts may not make the best tenants, but demons are even worse.

  I wondered if Veronica really was possessed, and if she was, was it a by a ghost or a demon? Of course, there were other, even worse things it could be. Nameless alien horrors from beyond the stars, for one. The kind of things that could strip your sanity bare and leave you a helpless, gibbering wreck.

  “Got change?” a voice asked. It belonged to a grubby man with greasy hair. Not even the rain could wash him clean.

  “Got change?” the homeless man repeated. His voice was a broken record, his brain caught in a loop as fierce as any ghost's.

  I handed him a quarter. “Sorry. The landlady already beat you to my bankroll.”

  “Landlady,” the man echoed, as if I had it so lucky. This guy wouldn't last five minutes with Agnes. I left the man standing there to harass the next person to come along. Two blocks later, I was at my parking garage.

  A plump seagull was strutting around my car picking at crumbs. I kicked it away. It squawked angrily, then flapped off. Those damn birds were a constant menace. If the rain didn't get you, the seagulls would. Their crusty white droppings were everywhere. Except on my car, and only because I'd cast an anti-bird shit spell on it.

  I took a moment to appreciate my 1978 Pontiac Firebird Esprit with its copper mist paint job. It was my pride and joy, exactly like the car James Garner drove in The Rockford Files. I was always a shy, lonely kid growing up. Other kids came and went, but TV characters were my only real friends. The only ones I could understand; the only ones who never let me down. James Garner's wisecracking, hard luck character, Jim Rockford, was one of my favorites. In fact, Rockford was my inspiration to become a private eye. I knew detective work wouldn't be a glamorous life, but it would be an interesting one that would give me a chance to help people while putting my powers to the test.

  I hadn't always lone-wolfed it. I'd tried working for the Bloodstone Agency my first years, apprenticing under old Rudolph Bloodstone, the head of the company, but his managerial style turned out to be more like Saruman than Gandalf, so I quit. That hadn't gone over too well, and I'd had a few run-ins with Bloodstone operatives over the years. There'd been a few nasty clashes, but we'd eventually settled into an uneasy truce. Which was pretty rare for a wizard war.

  I climbed behind the wheel of the car and turned the key. The engine purred. It was time to pay the Sisters a visit.

  Warlock Rising Sneak Preview Chapter 3

  FULL NOVEL RELEASES SEPTEMBER 14, 2018

  The Sisters of the Way were located in a modest, dark brown bungalow along the West Seattle waterfront. It was a nondescript location screened off from its neighbors by a high hedge and metal fence. Several well-placed trees further obscured the location from the street. Since it's generally bad form for a private detective to park directly across from a surveillance target, I had no way of seeing into the compound. Instead, I was parked a few doors down.

  Waiting.

  A l
ot of people think being a private eye is all fast-talk and throwing punches. They get that from movies and TV. The truth is most of the time, you're doing surveillance. Ask any cop; he'll tell you stakeouts suck. They're boring. You're sitting in your car eating bad food and peeing in bottles, hoping for something to happen. I'd been parked outside the Sisters' compound long enough to have done both.

  I googled the Sisters on my phone. There was only one result. It led to their official website, but the site was bare bones, a simple landing page to “Sign up for membership information and important spiritual news.” There were no pictures of the cult members or their leader, and no more information than was in their brochure.

  I turned my attention back to the bungalow. From what I'd seen in my initial drive-by, the house was typical for the neighborhood. It was all one floor except for a small attic built into the sloping roof. The pillared veranda had a porch swing and barbecue. It even had Christmas lights. Like many homes in West Seattle, there was no driveway, so I had no way of knowing whether any of the cars parked along the street belonged to the witches or not. I made note of a black sedan and gray panel van as the likeliest cult vehicles. Constance had mentioned her sister drove a red Mini Cooper and had given me the license plate. Unfortunately, Veronica's car was nowhere in sight.

  The other thing missing from the house was signage announcing the cult's name. The whole set-up was so damned normal it set off alarm bells in my head. Seriously, any witch trying this hard to be this normal had to be all kinds of messed up. I should know—I'd tried to be “normal” for years.

  When you're as eccentric as me, pretending to be normal is like committing the slowest suicide ever. So if the Sisters really were witches and not the charlatans Constance claimed, they had to be really committed to put on this kind of act. Most cults wouldn't bother trying to blend in. They'd set up shop in some out of the way location that offered greater control over their members. Someplace that gave them room to grow. This bungalow did none of that. That told me either there weren't many members or else the cult kept its headquarters hidden elsewhere. Probably in some creepy forest where they could light bonfires and dance naked under the moon.

  That made me think of Constance for some reason, and in a most impure way. That red hair, those green eyes, and all the rest. Without clothes. Without guilt.

  Seagulls flapped and shrieked overhead, pulling me out of my fantasy. It was getting dark. I yawned, stretched, and decided to try a little magical snooping. I could have done it sooner, but it's slow and uses up a fair amount of energy—energy I might need later. That's why I preferred to do things the old fashioned way. The Rockford way. Only my butt was numb and I had nothing to show for it.

  So I leaned back and closed my eyes. Concentrating. I slowed my breathing, getting into that quiet, meditative state that took me down, deep inside myself. The sound of the ocean grew dim, becoming part of me, the waves my heartbeat, the wind my breath. When I was well and deeply under, I gathered my energy and rose up, out of my body. I had to roll my astral form from side to side to wriggle out. Then I was sitting on top of my physical body.

  Superimposed.

  Invisible.

  A living ghost.

  I got up, my astral “head” poking through the Firebird's roof. There was no need to open the door; I simply walked through the car into the street. From my spine trailed my ghostly “silver cord,” a kind of psychic extension used to reel myself back into my body to make sure my spirit couldn't get lost. It had an almost infinite length, expanding as needed, and no matter how far I traveled from my body, it never dragged on the ground. It just floated in mid-air.

  The silver cord was extraordinarily strong as far as astral constructs went, but it wasn't unbreakable. Getting your cord cut was one of the risks of astral projection. A cut cord made it difficult to get back into your body. Fortunately, that kind of damage was rare on Earth. It was more of a concern the further you traveled into other dimensions, other realities. There were things out there that couldn't wait to chew through your lifeline, and others that fed on it.

  A tricked-out monster truck passed through me as I stood in the street. Electric banjos filled the air. I felt a slight shiver from the contact and I imagine the driver felt the same, though he'd just crank up the heat and forget about it. If he'd been sensitive to the supernatural, he would have seen or at least sensed my “ghost” and swerved to avoid me. But the truth is, most people who drive monster trucks don't have much in the way of sensitivity—psychic or otherwise. That's because the more firmly rooted you are in the physical world, the less insight you have into the supernatural. It's like trying to be good at sports and philosophy. I'm not saying it can't happen, but it's rare.

  I drifted across the street toward the bungalow. My senses were on high alert, probing for defenses or signs of counter-surveillance. I knew my chances of being spotted were slim if I kept my distance and didn't try to enter the house. About the only way one of them could see me was to be astral at the same time as me, which would be incredibly bad luck. I couldn't rule out the possibility, so I broadened my search to probe above the house and below the street. An astral sentry could be lurking anywhere. Fortunately, I sensed no one.

  What I did notice was the plumbing under the house. One of the first things you learn as a wizard is that non-living spirits can't cross running water. The reason living spirits can is our physical bodies, which we're still connected to, contain water. There are other reasons you'll hear, such as water representing life and purity, but I'll spare you the metaphysics. All that matters is running water serves two essential purposes: keeping non-living spirits out, or keeping them in. That's how houses stay haunted. It's not because ghosts don't want to leave, it's because they can't figure out how. Now demons, on the other hand, they get it. That's why they eventually figure a way out of any location they're summoned to. They can follow you around like that for years. You move and they stop bothering you for a few hours, a few days, maybe even a few weeks. But sooner or later, they break out and find you again.

  Most houses have a network of pipes under them that confuse the hell out of non-living spirits, but that's not what they're built for. This bungalow's pipes, on the other hand, had been carefully planned and arranged with spirits in mind. It was a perfect, unbroken defense of running water, like a psychic moat. I was impressed and wished whoever built the Mireton had thought of that.

  So, what did this revelation mean? It meant that the people that designed the house knew what they were doing. It meant they were smart, which almost certainly implied they held a degree of magical power. They also valued their privacy; the running water acted as a 24/7 barrier against uninvited incorporeal guests. But not against me.

  A related question—but one I had no answer for—was who built the house, how long ago, and was that person the current owner? That was a job for my physical self at the Hall of Records. Maybe I could even acquire a blueprint. I considered the idea briefly. That's what Rockford would have done, although he almost certainly would have tried bluffing his way into the cult with a fake business card first.

  Being a wizard, and not much of a people person, I decided to forge ahead with my current plan. Times like this made me wonder if I was a detective playing at being a wizard or a wizard playing at being a detective. Maybe I was a little of both.

  There was one more thing I noticed: the metal fence was made out of iron. Iron—poetically referred to as “cold iron”—was a well-known disruptor to non-living spirits. Again, it was something to do with iron representing blood of the Earth. Cemeteries were surrounded by iron fences to keep ghosts in and demons out. So the cult had a double barrier; one water, one iron. If the water ever got shut off, the fence would serve as a back-up.

  Whistling the theme song to The Rockford Files, I stepped through the metal gate onto the driveway. I'd made it about halfway down when the song died on my lips. It turned out the cult hadn't limited itself to warding the property against the no
n-living, but against wizards too. I was staring down at a spirit trap that had been intricately disguised inside an ornamental design in the driveway. Just like the protection ward I'd placed inside the Eye of Horus on my office window. But unlike mine, which was created to keep things out, the cult had built theirs to keep things in.

  I was doing my best “mime in a box impression” when the front door opened and the witch came out.

  She cocked her head, gave me a grim smile, and said, “Hello, Mr. Warlock. We've been waiting for you.”

  Want to find out what happens next?

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  WARLOCK RISING

  by

  JACKSON DEAN CHASE

  — Available September 14, 2018 in eBook and Paperback —

  Glossary

  Anton: A ruthless inquisitor who serves the New Greece Theocracy. He raped Mark’s sister Lucy and tried to capture Andrus and Mark to feed to Cronus. Before he could succeed, Lucy stabbed him, allowing Andrus and Mark to escape. First seen in Book I.

  Archieréas: The high priest of Cronus who serves as administrator, pope, and president of the New Greece Theocracy. The current office holder is Enoch Vola. Pronounced Ar-CUH-ray-us. First seen in Book I.

  Centaur: Monsters that are half-horse, half-goat-man, with the horns of a ram. They serve as cavalry for the Titans. First seen in Book I.