TODAY IS TOO LATE

by Burke Fitzpatrick

  Azmon imagined Tyrus falling. Hard to believe his friend was gone. After all these years, the battles and the wounds, had Lilith found a way to kill the Damned?

  “Did you kill Tyrus?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  The dead thing would not answer. Azmon drew a rune of misery on her chest and spoke words of power. Lilith writhed on the ground, but she did not know for sure. He had been alive when she died.

  “Did I not say my daughter was more important? Why did you attack him?”

  She gasped. “He attacked me!”

  That was Tyrus. Azmon could imagine him, outnumbered, beasts in front of him, elves at his back, and yet he charged the most dangerous sorcerer on the field. A sadness, a sense of loss, filled Azmon. His friend was irreplaceable.

  Lilith’s chin jerked toward him. “Kill me.”

  “Kill you? My dear, you are already dead.”

  Lilith’s face twisted in agony. She writhed on the ground. The denials and crying began, and Azmon waited for them to pass. The freshly dead were like babies in their way, unable to control their emotions, experiencing everything for the first time.

  “Please. Release me.”

  “Your skills are too rare to waste.” Azmon imagined what kind of beast he might create with such a sorceress. Materials like these let him push the limits of a construct. “I see a new creature, less beast, more graceful.” He thought through the runes. “Not as powerful as Tyrus, but far more clever. A beast capable of hiding in plain sight.”

  “No.” Lilith wailed. “Not a beast.”

  “Hush.” The patterns became too complex to hold in his mind. He needed parchment to continue calculating and time to prepare, but the possibilities excited him. “I offer you a redemption, Lilith. You will rescue my daughter.”

  THE END

  A note from the author

  Thank you for reading Today Is Too Late. If you have time please consider leaving a review at your favorite bookseller’s website. Your feedback helps me write, and helps people find my work.

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  Origins of The Shedim Rebellion

  The Hobbit and Dante’s Inferno warped me at a young age. Later on, I discovered Conan the Barbarian, Paradise Lost and Le Morte D’Arthur.

  I wanted to write about archangels casting rebel angels out of Heaven without rewriting the Old Testament. So I invented my own world, changed a lot of the names, and added a few of the traditional fantasy races. I played with angelic folklore and reimagined the Nephilim as traditional fantasy races. The Shedim Rebellion became a mash-up of literary classics, pop culture, and my own brand of weirdness.

  While researching rabbinical demonology, I discovered these biblical names:

  Tyrus: strength, rock, sharp

  Azmon: bone of a bone, our strength

  Ishma: named, marveling, exalted

  Marah: sad, bitter

  Dura: generation or habitation

  Lael: the mighty

  Shinar: the plain on which Babylon was built

  Moloch: king or ruler

  Pathros: persuasion of ruin

  Rosh: the head, top, or beginning

  Gadara: a place surrounded or walled

  Samos: full of gravel

  Tyrus’s story began as a courtly romance inspired by the Arthurian Legends. I wanted to explore a darker version of Sir Lancelot du Lac, a brutal anti-hero who regrets his fall from grace. Through edits, I discovered the bigger story of rescuing a baby from demons.

  My experiences from surviving cancer also worked into the story. The way Tyrus is hard to kill, how he responds to etching when others don’t, and his constant struggle with pain all echo my year in chemotherapy. I packaged it in an outlandish story, but the roots come from a very personal life and death struggle. Telling my cancer story with elves and dwarves seemed easier than writing a memoir, and I think everyone will agree that it is much more entertaining.

  Acknowledgements

  A small team of freelancers helped make this book possible, and it was a joy to work with all of them. I want to thank Red Adept Publishing for their help editing and proofing the book. I'd also like to thank Clint and Jonathan for their amazing artwork.

  About Burke Fitzpatrick

  Burke Fitzpatrick finished his MFA in Creative Writing in 2007. A life-long student and workaholic, he holds two other degrees in Graphic Design and Computer Information Systems. In 2010, at the age of 32, he survived a battle with cancer and used fantasy worlds to escape chemotherapy. After cheating death he added “stop wasting time and write those damn books” to his bucket list. He lives in Spokane, Washington.

  COMING SOON