by J. S. Morin
But Dr. Grace and I had bigger issues to sort through.
As I reclined on her chaise lounge, the off-white paint of the ceiling stared back. “I should be the millionaire with the book deal and Hollywood interviews. Judy doesn’t even like talking to people she doesn’t know.”
“Uh, huh,” Dr. Grace replied, jotting down notes. “It’s perfectly understandable to feel jealousy regarding peers who find sudden success in a field you feel ownership around. But it’s important to focus on your own well-being, not what happens to other people.”
Dr. Grace wasn’t exactly as I pictured her. For one, she didn’t wear glasses, let alone little wire-frames on a chain. She was also younger than I expected, with a bob haircut and gold stud earrings. Everything about her said, “I’ve got my shit together; trust me to sort yours out.”
I could see why Judy trusted her.
“It all happened, you know. All the crap in the papers and online. For once, they didn’t even manage to exaggerate it. If anything, I was on the inside. I saw shit you wouldn’t believe.”
“Uh, huh. Go on.”
We’d covered this ground before, but it felt good saying it out loud to someone who wasn’t going to just dismiss it out of hand. Even if Dr. Grace didn’t believe a word I said, I knew it was true. This was my therapy session, not hers.
“There was nothing like it. The rush of the city at the speed of a fighter jet, so fast I had to learn all new landmarks because every blur was unique but utterly unlike how it looked in real time. It’s like in Star Wars—the jump to hyperspace—except the stars were painted by van Gogh. The way Judy writes it, it sounds like an amateur YouTube video, sped up in time lapse.”
“Uh, huh.”
“You know the shadowlord from the TV series?” I asked.
“I don’t watch the show,” Dr. Grace replied. “But I’m familiar with the idea.”
“He talked to me. I didn’t know at first that it was really him, but eventually I figured it out.”
“And how did you do that?” she asked.
I took a long breath. This was tiptoe territory. To her credit, Judy’s story had smoothed out certain wrinkles in our troubled lives, not the least of which were mine and Tim’s legal hiccups. But nothing prevented me from getting committed for psychiatric evaluation if I mentioned the voices in my head advocating murder.
“Stuff he said. His fear of the Chinese. At one point I think he slipped and practically told me flat out. I think maybe he wanted me to know, but I didn’t want to admit that I suspected.”
“Think back,” Dr. Grace said. “How long have you had this fear of the Chinese?”
“It’s not Chinese, like the ethnicity,” I said, sweeping my hands to indicate myself. “I’m half-Chinese, in case you hadn’t noticed. I mean the cabal of Chinese shadow agents working out of Chinatown. The anarchists who murdered Martinez got paid to take her out. They were just a force of chaos. The gang who worked for my father had plans for the shadowlord; they wanted to control his power and keep it for themselves.”
“I see…”
I kept on going for most of our hour-long session. Reminiscing was so much nicer than living those events in the first place. I left out tidbits like my involvement with the nythantos that splattered on the expressway and the body found floating in the Charles. The former I’d save for a dull session down the road; the latter wasn’t ever coming to light if I had any say in it.
“And Matt, are you still hearing this voice in your head?” Dr. Grace asked.
With a shrug, I replied. “Sure, now and then. I mean I know it’s just my imagination. Makes it pretty easy to ignore. Still, it keeps me up some nights, just not shutting up.
Dr. Grace reached for a notepad, separate from the spiral bound pad she used during our sessions. I waited as she scribbled. “Matt, this is a prescription for Dormatine. It’s new on the market. You’ll find the primary effects similar to the Clozapine you’d been taking.”
She fixed me with a stern look. I’d admitted in our first session that I’d self-medicated.
Holding up my hands in surrender, I offered a reassuring smile. “Hey, I’m off that trip. The side effects were a bitch, anyway. Hey, what are the downsides of this new stuff, Dopatine?”
“Dormatine,” Dr. Grace corrected me. “It can cause nausea, reduced appetite, loss of interest—”
“Interest in what?” I cut in. Euphemisms bugged the hell out of me when they came to my health.
“Specifically sex,” Dr. Grace replied smoothly. “But the drug affects everyone slightly differently. I’d like you to get this filled and follow the dosage schedule listed. It may take a day or two for you to notice an improvement. Don’t go off schedule, or you can risk adverse reactions.”
“Like hearing voices in my head?” I joked, sitting up to take the slip of paper she handed me, along with a pamphlet from her desk titled Dormatine, Take Back Control.
“This isn’t a joke, Matt. I know you think you’re funny, but mental wellness is a serious matter. I want you to promise me you’ll follow those directions.”
“I promise.”
“All right. I’ll see you next Tuesday. Same time. Happy Thanksgiving.”
I stuffed the prescription in my pocket and headed to a corner pharmacy to get it filled. Dr. Grace’s receptionist called it ahead for me, so the pill bottle was ready and waiting when I arrived.
“You’re not going to do it, are you?” the shadowlord whispered.
Tossing the pill bottle a couple times and catching it, I let that shadowy bastard sweat a little. I swear, one time I saw a wisp of impotent shadow take a swipe at the bottle, trying to knock it into a sewer grating.
I caught the T home. Clara was already there, making pies to put in the freezer for Thursday. Before moving in with her, I never would have pegged her for a baker, but she had talent for anything she put her mind to.
“How’d it go with Dr. Grace?” Clara asked, sweeping past with an apple pie, fresh from the oven, and kissing me on the way by.
I took out the pill bottle and waggled it to make a rattle. “Anti-voices-in-my-head pills.”
Clara’s relieved sigh shot a pang of regret through me. She wanted to forget the shadow incident ever happened. Every few nights, she’d wake with nightmares and latch onto me.
As if I could still protect her.
“I hope they help,” she said with a supportive smile. “You got time to help before heading to work?”
“Yeah. Just a minute,” I replied, heading for the bathroom.
Work these days was helping Reggie get his new pizza place on its feet. We weren’t quite going to be partners since I was broke and he was flush with insurance money, but I was pitching in to make the new storefront ready for the Christmas shopping season.
Tap water poured from the faucet.
I popped the child-safe top on the pills.
The directions were two capsules, twice a day, with food. There was a two-week supply in the bottle.
Shaking out two pills, I held them cupped in my hand.
“Don’t. You’ll regret it.”
I shook my head, not wanting Clara to hear me talking to myself.
Judy had paid for my therapy out of the advance on her book deal. I went to her therapist. Doctor-patient privilege aside, I had no doubt in my mind that Judy knew I got that prescription and knew that I’d filled it. My bank account, my medical records, all of it was digital and therefore vulnerable.
“The stories won’t be as strong. Judy is a weakling writer. I can help you with a new story. Not Shadowblood but with the same power. You can be the heir that Shadowblood deserved.”
The pills stopped halfway to my mouth.
“You won’t go in blind this time. You’ll be the one in control from the beginning. You can shape this world, bring magic back the way it suits you best.”
My hand closed.
“You think I wanted to control you? I’m not so singular of mind. I am all shadow
s. I’m not a person like you. I am the incarnation of night. All I want is to frolic across the Earth once again, like I did in ages so long past that your histories cannot recall them. I want a story for mankind to believe in. You can write that story for me, and I’ll happily live whatever world we create together.”
The shadowlord was a con man. But enemies always cast one another in the worst light. How could I dispute any of what he said? It all fit with how he’d treated me all along.
Out from under Judy’s disapproving eye, with the help of the shadowlord—and maybe a pen name—maybe I could do this.
I set the pills beside the sink and took a piss. In Clara’s tiny apartment, there was no disguising the sound. That was the plan.
Just as I flushed, I dropped the two pills into the water and watched them swirl down.
I was done writing Keith Damon detective stories.
My next book would bring back the shadows.
Author’s Note
Shadowblood was born out of two events. The first was the death of Robert Jordan (most famous for being the author of the Wheel of Time series) and its subsequent completion by Brandon Sanderson from notes left behind for him to use. The second was the emergence of Game of Thrones as a TV phenomenon.
I connected the two, considering what would happen if a show as popular as Game of Thrones was the catalyst to spark the show’s magic to life in the real world, and the show itself killed the author. How would the fans react? Who would take up the mantel of replacement author? What would happen if a fantasy TV show ran amok on the streets of a modern city?
The main characters in the series were all subtle nods to creatives. Patricia Martinez was named after two high-profile fantasy authors with unfinished series: Pat Rothfuss and George R.R. Martin. Judith Karen Granderson, the young wizard and stand-in series finisher, was named after J.K. Rowling and Brandon Sanderson. Tim Boucher was named in honor of Jim Butcher (Boucher is just the French equivalent). Last but not least, Matthew Stanford Lee, mopey anti-hero who doesn’t know how to handle his newfound power, was named in honor of Marvel icon Stan Lee.
The “Matt” part was just because I liked the name. Since I had to live with it all book, I figured I owed myself one just for the sake of liking it.
In part, I wrote Shadowblood Heir in the first person because it fits well with the urban fantasy vibe. But mostly I did it for two different reasons.
One: I wanted to show the inner workings of a mind teetering on the brink of madness.
Two: for the challenge. In all my prior writing, I’d written from a third person perspective with multiple point-of-view characters.
This time, I wanted to tell a more paranoid story, and to help reinforce that, I didn’t want you nice readers getting to see the objective truth from someone else’s eyes.
There was also a teensy tiny cautionary tale in Shadowblood Heir, meant for all the fantasy authors out there: finish your stories before they come to life and kill you!
Books by J. S. Morin
Black Ocean
Black Ocean is a fast-paced fantasy space opera series about the small crew of the Mobius trying to squeeze out a living. If you love fantasy and sci-fi, and still lament over the cancellation of Firefly, Black Ocean is the series for you!
Read about the Black Ocean series and discover where to buy at: blackoceanmissions.com
Twinborn Chronicles: Awakening
Experience the journey of mundane scribe Kyrus Hinterdale who discovers what it means to be Twinborn—and the dangers of getting caught using magic in a world that thinks it exists only in children’s stories.
Twinborn Chronicles: War of 3 Worlds
Then continue on into the world of Korr, where the Mad Tinker and his daughter try to save the humans from the oppressive race of Kuduks. When their war spills over into both Tellurak and Veydrus, what alliances will they need to forge to make sure the right side wins?
Read about the Mad Tinker Chronicles and discover where to buy at: twinbornchronicles.com
Robot Geneticists
Robot Geneticists brings genetic engineering into a post-apocalytic Earth, 1000 years aliens obliterated all life.
These days, even the humans are built by robots.
Charlie7 is the oldest robot alive. He’s seen everything from the fall of mankind at the hands of alien invaders to the rebuilding of a living world from the algae up. But what he hasn’t seen in over a thousand years is a healthy, intelligent human. When Eve stumbles into his life, the old robot finally has something worth coming out of retirement for: someone to protect.
Read about all of the Robot Geneticists books and discover where to buy at: robotgeneticists.com
Sins of Angels
Co-written with author Matt Larkin, Sins of Angels is an epic space opera series set 3000 years after the fall of Earth. With the scope of Dune and the adventurous spirit of Indiana Jones, it delivers a conflict that spans galaxies and rests on the spirit of brave researcher Professor Rachel Jordan. Follow the complete saga, and watch as the fate of our species hangs in the balance.
Read about Sins of Angels and discover where to buy at: sinsofangelsbooks.com
Shadowblood Heir
Shadowblood Heir explores what would happen if the writer of your favorite epic fantasy TV show died before the show ended—and the show was responsible. If you wonder what it would be like if an epic fantasy world invaded our world, this urban fantasy story might give you that glimpse.
Read about Shadowblood Heir and discover where to buy at: shadowbloodheir.com
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About the Author
I am a creator of worlds and a destroyer of words. As a fantasy writer, my works range from traditional epics to futuristic fantasy with starships. I have worked as an unpaid Little League pitcher, a cashier, a student library aide, a factory grunt, a cubicle drone, and an engineer—there is some overlap in the last two.
Through it all, though, I was always a storyteller. Eventually I started writing books based on the stray stories in my head, and people kept telling me to write more of them. Now, that’s all I do for a living.
I enjoy strategy, worldbuilding, and the fantasy author’s privilege to make up words. I am a gamer, a joker, and a thinker of sideways thoughts. But I don’t dance, can’t sing, and my best artistic efforts fall short of your average notebook doodle. When you read my books, you are seeing me at my best.
My ultimate goal is to be both clever and right at the same time. I have it on good authority that I have yet to achieve it.
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