Edward sagged. ‘Well, that settles it, doesn’t it? My son’s a hero. My daughter can make light shine from her hand.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘What is it you do, Josie?’
‘I… run very fast, sir,’ Josie replied. ‘They call me Fleet, as in “fleet of foot.” I can run over water and up the sides of buildings at almost four times the speed of sound. Jekyll wanted me because if I hit something at that sort of speed, I survive and the thing I hit usually doesn’t.’
‘I see.’
‘That explains why you found it so easy to visit Brian while you were living in Bethesda,’ Felicity said, smirking.
‘Um, yes,’ Josie agreed. She looked back at Edward. ‘You think Brian’s a hero, sir?’
Edward nodded slowly, almost reluctantly. ‘Any man who’s willing to invade a secret government facility to save the woman he loves has got to be some sort of hero.’
‘He saved you before that. When that alien came in here and Cygnus threw him out again. The alien would have shot you all if Brian hadn’t made his gun malfunction.’
‘Ah… I did wonder why some high-tech blaster decided to fail just at the right moment.’ Edward’s gaze fixed on his son. ‘This is going to take some adjustment, son.’ He glanced at his daughter. ‘Quite a lot of adjustment. But I’m willing to try. Perhaps some of my ideas are a little… old-fashioned.’
Brian could think of a few other words for his father’s beliefs on the matter, but if the man was willing to try… ‘Well, maybe we could start with Beth coming to the Union HQ on Saturdays with us. She can learn to use her powers. Even if she doesn’t end up using them for anything, she should learn how. And maybe you could come with us one week. If you see what the others are like, what the Union people are like when they’re not on TV. Then maybe you’d feel better about Ultras. All of them, even the ones as powerful as Cygnus and Twilight, are just people.’
‘People who don’t wear much in the way of clothes,’ Felicity said, getting a giggle from both Josie and Beth.
Edward’s face finally cracked into a smile. ‘That was always the part I liked,’ he said, and there was more laughter.
From the shadows in the corner of the room, Andrea watched the exchange, nodded to herself, and slipped back into the greater darkness. Zap was going to be okay. Another life had been put back on track.
‘That’s making quite a big assumption about the boy’s father,’ Midnight said from somewhere just behind Andrea’s left ear. ‘He still might–’
‘Shut up, Midnight,’ Andrea said softly. ‘Just for one night, let’s believe things can turn out to have a happy ending.’
‘Well, just for one night…’
Epilogue
Los Angeles, CA, 2nd June 2017.
The fact that Belphegor was going through his second plate of food with some gusto was an indication that things had turned for the better as far as the Seven Princes were concerned. There were still just five of them at the meeting, but business was going well. Their competition in San Francisco was a thorn in their sides, but there had been little to disturb them since Mink had put them on to an attempt by the Four Queens to move into Los Angeles.
Lucifer sat at the table with a smile on his face. He had an announcement to make, but he was waiting for the right moment, which would be when Belphegor moved on to his third lunch. As the plate was brought out by one of the fat man’s mind-controlled slaves, Lucifer got to his feet. ‘Gentlemen, I have good news. I have found a replacement for our incarcerated brother, Beelzebub.’
‘Do we really need another Beelzebub?’ Asmodeus asked. ‘Our influence hasn’t diminished badly since we lost him.’
‘Your efforts to maintain that influence have been noted, Asmodeus, but the replacement I’ve found comes with some very attractive advantages even you would find difficult to duplicate. I’ll call him in and you can see.’ Turning, Lucifer gestured to one of the women with the blank looks. She opened the doors behind her.
A column of twisting, writhing blackness moved in through the doors. If you looked very closely, there seemed to be a humanoid shape in the middle of the column, but any details were entirely obscured and it might have just been a shadow.
Asmodeus lurched to his feet, his face paling visibly. ‘Have you gone insane, Lucifer?! What is this?’
The shadows fell away, twisting down around the figure within them until there was nothing left. The man was dark, swarthy perhaps. His hair was short and black and he had a short beard carefully trimmed around his jawline. He was attractive in a dark, slightly malign way. His eyes were probably brown, but they were so dark as to almost be black, and he dressed all in black too.
‘This,’ Lucifer said, ‘is Mister Iain Jankowski. He used to belong to the Shadow Court, but he left them during Twilight’s absence, and he took all his toys with him.’
‘What possible use could we have for one of Twilight’s ex-flunkies?’ Asmodeus demanded.
‘I am very good at uncovering secrets,’ Jankowski said. His voice had an accent, probably Eastern European, but too faint to be certain. ‘There are many things I know, or can find out, which could be useful to the Seven Princes.’
‘Name just one,’ Asmodeus said, his tone a challenge.
Jankowski smiled. ‘What if I were to tell you that I can give you the real identity of the mysterious heroine known as Mink.’
###
I was born in the vicinity of Hadrian's Wall so perhaps a bit of history rubbed off. Ancient history obviously, and border history, right on the edge of the Empire. I always preferred the Dark Ages anyway; there’s so much more room for imagination when people aren’t writing down every last detail. So my idea of a good fantasy novel involved dirt and leather, not shining plate armour and Hollywood-medieval manners. The same applies to my sci-fi, really; I prefer gritty over shiny.
Oddly, then, one of the first fantasy novels I remember reading was The Dark Is Rising, by Susan Cooper (later made into a terrible juvenile movie). These days we would call Cooper’s series Young Adult Contemporary Fantasy and looking back on it, it influenced me a lot. It has that mix of modern day life, hidden history, and magic which failed to hit popular culture until the early days of Buffy and Anne Rice. Of course, Cooper’s characters spend their time around places I could actually visit in Cornwall, and South East England, and mid-Wales. In fact, when I went to university in Aberystwyth, it was partially because some of Cooper’s books were set a few miles to the north around Tywyn.
I got into writing through roleplaying, however, so my early work was related to the kind of roleplaying game I was interested in. I wrote science fiction when I was playing Traveller. I wrote “high fantasy” when I was playing Dungeons & Dragons. I wrote a lot of superhero fiction when I was playing City of Heroes. I still love the idea of a modern world with magic in it and I’ve been trying to write a novel based on this for a long time. As with any form of expression, practice is the key and I can look back on all the aborted attempts at books, and the more successful short stories, as steps along the path to the Thaumatology Series.
Recently I took the big step of quitting my day job and taking up full-time writing. My favourite authors are Terry Pratchett, Susan Cooper, J.D. Robb, and Kim Harrison. Kim’s Hollows books were what finally spurred me to publish something, even if the trail to here came by way of Susan, back in school, several decades ago.
For More Information
Take a look at the Witches and Ray-guns blog: http://witchesandrayguns.wordpress.com
Links to book vendors and other information can be found there, along with a view on what I’m up to and when it might happen.
Other Books by this Author
The Thaumatology Series
Thaumatology 101
Demon’s Moon
Legacy
Dragon’s Blood
Disturbia
Hammer of Witches
Eagle’s Shadow
Ancient
Dragonfall
The Other Side of Hell
For Whom the Wedding Bells Toll
Vengeance
Anthologies in the Thaumatology Universe
Tales from High Towers’ Study
Tales from the Dubh Linn
The Aneka Jansen Books
Steel Beneath The Skin
The Cold Steel Mind
Steel Heart
The Greatest Heights of Honour
The Lowest Depths of Shame
Hope
The Ultrahuman Books
Ugly
Shadows
Hunting Mink
Frostburn
Guardian
True Dark
Liberty
The Unobtainium Books
Kate on a Hot Tin Roof
The Reality Hack Books
Reality Hack
The Fox Meridian Books
Fox Hunt
Inescapable
DeathWeb
Criminal Minds
Emergence
The Ghost in the Doll
Eden Burning
Dominance
The Hellas Find – December 2018
The Princeps Venator Books
Hunter’s Kiss
Be My Valentine
The Gunwitch Books
Gunwitch: Rebirth
The Children of Zanar Series
The Zanari Inheritance
The Misfits Series
Misfit Magic
Misfit Witchcraft
The Sondra Blake Series
The Vanity Case
The Shil the Huntress Books
The Eyes of the Huntress
The Twilight Empress Trilogy
The Iron Princess
Table of Contents
Part One: New Beginnings
Part Two: Undercurrents
Part Three: Faith
Part Four: Iron Cap
Epilogue
Table of Contents
Part One: New Beginnings
Part Two: Undercurrents
Part Three: Faith
Part Four: Iron Cap
Epilogue