by E. G. Foley
In two shakes of a rattler’s tail.
* * *
“Well done, Nathan! Ha ha!” Shemrazul wore a devil’s grin from ear to ear, horn to horn. His laughter reverberated through the Ninth Pit. “My boys! Did you see them?”
Ignoring the groans of the damned all around him, he turned to his court of imps and lesser devils at the bottom of the canyon, where the lava river flowed.
“I’ll be free in no time.” Once Wyvern took power, Shemrazul knew that his loyal son would gladly give him full possession of his body.
His consciousness in a willing servant’s body—like in the old days, how it used to be with Garnock.
He could hardly wait.
And then, for the rest of Wyvern’s natural existence, Shemrazul would be grooming Jake as the next body for him to inhabit.
Ah, it was going to be great fun breaking out of here in the not-too-distant future and becoming the Dark Master himself, more or less. After all, if you want something done right…
It was then Shemrazul noticed that his buoyant mood seemed to have alarmed his slavish followers.
They awaited orders; he was always happy to give them.
“Find my grandson,” he commanded the strange collection of creatures gathered around his cloven hooves. “I want to know where Jake and his little friends went.”
“Shall we kill them, master?” a hunchbacked imp with blue, pointy ears asked eagerly.
Shemrazul hissed and swatted the idiot into the river of lava with his dragon tail. “Anyone else care to ask a stupid question?”
“N-no, master! No questions!”
“You are tracking him! That is all,” Shemrazul said, rolling his eyes. “Do not lay one claw on that boy. He is mine.”
“Buuuut sire? Didn’t the lad just spend the whole battle fighting against us?” asked a monstrous blob.
Shemrazul narrowed his eyes and exploded the blob with a wave of his clawed finger just for annoying him. “How many eons have we been here, and still, you understand nothing? Dunces! The boy now has blood on his hands. Remember?”
With that, Shemrazul smiled down at the cowering, doomed soul of a gold-toothed pirate in a black bandana.
Dead scarcely twenty minutes after falling off The Dream Wraith into the fire, the pirate’s ghost looked bewildered. He didn’t seem to realize yet quite where he was, what was going on.
Oh, he’d learn. Shemrazul smiled at his latest victim. The pirate had been a criminal and a murderer in life. Where else did he expect to land?
“Er, but sire?” One of the hook-nosed red devils in attendance scratched his head with his pitchfork, looking confused.
“What?” Shemrazul growled. What a cruel punishment it was, being confined for all time with such frustrating henchmen.
The red devil lowered his pitchfork. “It’s just—the boy didn’t mean to kill this man, Your Awfulness.”
“So?” Shemrazul retorted. “When has that ever stopped me?”
Indeed, undeserved guilt was his specialty. They didn’t call him the Accuser for nothing.
“Aye, he’s right, sire!” said a thing with two skinny legs attached to a globular body with one eye. Even after several thousand years, Shemrazul still wasn’t sure what it was. It gestured at the pirate. “Jake’s killing this chap was just an accident.”
“Besides,” the blue-eared imp chimed in, climbing out of the river of lava, his flesh already growing back, “this fellow did try to take the lad’s head off with a cannonball.”
“Oh really?” Shemrazul rumbled. Leaning forward on his skull-covered throne, he peered down at the dead pirate. “Is this true?” he demanded with a scowl, pretending like he didn’t already know. Terrifying new arrivals was one of the few joys left to him. “You tried to shoot the future leader of the Dark Druids with a cannon? My grandson?”
The pirate yelped, stammered, and backed away.
Shemrazul’s endless adamantine chains clanked and uncoiled as he lifted a cloven hoof high and smushed the pirate with a deafening bang. “That’ll teach you.”
His henchmen laughed and cheered.
“Now, go!” he ordered them. “Find Jake! Search the globe, but tell me where he’s gone. Keep your eyes on him, once you’ve tracked him down. And when the time is right, we’ll bring the dear boy home…”
The End
Coming Soon!
Wickedness has seized the upper hand.
Will goodness fall? Join Jake and his friends in the pulse-pounding series finale as the gang is thrust into an unimaginable confrontation with the forces of evil, and where the young Lord Griffon will ultimately come face to face with his most menacing enemy yet…
THE DRAGON LORD
The Gryphon Chronicles: Book 7
The Complete Gryphon Chronicles Series:
Book 1 – THE LOST HEIR
Book 2 – JAKE & THE GIANT
Book 3 – THE DARK PORTAL
Book 4 – RISE OF ALLIES
Book 5 – SECRETS OF THE DEEP
Book 6 – THE BLACK FORTRESS
Book 7 – THE DRAGON LORD
And don’t miss out on the holiday fun…
It’s Jake’s first Christmas with a family, but nothing’s ever quite what you’d expect. Celebrate a Victorian Christmas with a Gryphon Chronicles holiday novella.
JAKE & THE GINGERBREAD WARS
Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men…And Gingerbread Men?!
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
E.G. FOLEY is the pen name for a husband-and-wife writing team who live in Pennsylvania. They've been finishing each other’s sentences since they were teens, so it was only a matter of time till they were writing together, too.
Like his kid readers, “E” (Eric) can't sit still for too long! A bit of a renaissance man, he’s picked up hobbies from kenpo to carpentry to classical guitar over the years, and holds multiple degrees in math, science, and education. He treated patients as a chiropractor for nearly a decade, then switched careers to venture into the wild-and-woolly world of teaching middle school, where he was often voted favorite teacher. His students helped inspire him to start dreaming up great stories for kids, until he recently switched gears again and left teaching to become a full-time writer and author entrepreneur.
By contrast, “G” (Gael, aka Gaelen Foley) has had one dream all her life and has pursued it with maniacal intensity since the age of seventeen: writing fiction! After earning her Lit degree at SUNY Fredonia, she waited tables at night for nearly six years as a “starving artist” to keep her days free for honing her craft, until she finally got The Call in 1997. Today, with millions of her twenty-plus romances from Ballantine and HarperCollins sold in many languages worldwide, she’s been hitting bestseller lists regularly since 2001. Although she loves all her readers, young and old, she admits there’s just something magical about writing for children.
You can find the Foleys on Facebook/EGFoleyAuthor or visit their website at www.EGFoley.com. They are hard at work on their next book.
Thanks for Reading!
Join Our Mailing List!
Would you like to receive an email alert when our next book is available?
Click here to sign up for the E.G. Foley Mailing List
The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 6: The Black Fortress
Copyright © 2019 by E.G. Foley.
All Rights Reserved.
Cover Illustration by Josh D. Addessi.
Cover Design by Kim Killion.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, recorded, or stored in any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher, except for brief quotations for review purposes.
IF YOU ENJOYED THIS BOOK, PLEASE CONSIDER LEAVING A REVIEW TO SHARE YOUR OPINION.
E G Foley, The Black Fortress