by Joshua Bader
Epilogue
I was still walking with a limp when Valente’s Christmas party rolled around. The party was Inner Circle only. That meant two things: One, everybody thought they were a big shot; two, the cost of the buffet and bar could have fed all the starving kids in Africa for the next decade.
I wanted to think I was the exception to the inflated ego norm of the room. I wasn’t. I was on the arm of a beautiful woman considered dangerous even by the standards of these lunatics. My inability to discuss how I lost the top of my left ear to frostbite or where I picked up my limp made me mysterious. In absence of facts, rumors flowed. My favorite held that I had called forth an ice demon to snow under Wall Street for 48 hours, allowing Valente to avoid what otherwise might have been disastrous financial losses. I wasn’t about to correct them and not just because I wasn’t sure what had happened that night myself. In a room full of assassins, telepaths, and corporate espionage experts, professional demon summoner was a reputation to be envied.
Veruca and I were doing all right, though I’d hurt her feelings by not inviting her along for the wendigo hunt. I had told her most of what had happened, but I thought she thought I was holding out on her. Nobody likes a story with an unknown ending. We still got along well, with her spending most of her off hours in my apartment, but it felt like there was a distance growing between us.
I could have closed the gap, but I didn’t. I knew what Veruca was and accepted her as she was. She didn’t know what I was. Making a pact was one thing…but I knew now how woefully inadequate that description was for me. Yog Soggoth, an ancient evil from beyond the limits of reality, lived inside of me. I didn’t make a deal with the devil. I was the devil.
The night of the storm changed that relationship, too. For my part, I had finally come to grips with what I was: part-Harvard dropout, part Old One. For its part, Yog Soggoth understood his limitations. He needed me, though I’m not sure either of us understood why. It was like he had one tentacle in me and another still firmly anchored in his prison beyond the walls of the universe. Without me and my body, he might as well still be trapped there.
Something had changed regarding Sarai that night, too. I had poured through countless deceased Jane Doe reports, tales of women with amnesia, and other reports Valente had sent my way. But in my time in the Shadowlands, the time when Yog Soggoth and I were one, I felt…something. Sarai was alive, even if only in my dreams. Yog Soggoth had done something with her, hidden her somewhere, maybe even tucked her away in whatever prison Yog Soggoth had rotted in since the creation of the world. I still didn’t know what had happened to her, but I did know there was a chance to get her back.
THE END
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The following acknowledgements will most certainly miss multiple people of great importance… You have my sincerest apologies for the oversight and my deepest gratitude for your contributions.
I want to thank my wife and daughters for their patience and tolerating those times when I disappear into the solitude of my writing. They are both my reason for publishing and my surest ground when I need to return to reality. Josiah, you missed out on this book (aside from a few kicks from inside a pregnant belly), but I assure you, you’ll have your chance to get in on future acknowledgements.
I want to thank both Yelena Casale and Tina Moss for their help in editing the book and their belief in my voice. I hope this is the beginning of great things for all of us. I would be remiss not to include all the City Owl Press authors and the group Facebook discussion for their encouragement and inspiration.
I certainly did not invent the genre of urban fantasy. While I first met it in the works of C.S. Lewis, I owe a deep debt to Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Jim Butcher, and Laurell Hamilton for developing both the genre and my imagination. If my characters are half as real to the reader as Harry Dresden or Anita Blake are to me, then I am honored.
I owe a debt to those groups of gamers who let me practice and develop my storytelling voice and the individual names would overwhelm the size of this page. Whether it was in my home, yours, or at one of our live action settings, I thank you for the opportunity and hope you all had as much fun as I did. Tim and Joe, I owe special thanks to both of you.
A special thanks to Norman Public Schools for giving me the time that I needed to finish this project.
About the Author
Joshua Bader is a retired professional vagabond wizard who now leads a much more settled life in Oklahoma City. He dabbles in the mystic arts of writing, mathematics education, pizza delivery, and parenting. He shares his sacred space with his wife, two daughters, three dogs, and a cat, with a baby boy adding to the chaos in April 2016. Josh holds a masters in psychology from OU, but his wizarding license has been temporarily suspended due to a suspicious frogging incident.
About the Publisher
City Owl Press is a cutting edge indie publishing company, bringing the world of romance and speculative fiction to discerning readers.
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