Jabberwock Jack

by Dennis Liggio

  Books by Dennis Liggio

  Manic Monday

  Dane Monday deals with weird stuff. Mad scientists, sorcerers, robots, time-travelling cats, cyborgs learning the concept of love, and more. Whether it's a death ray, a doomsday ritual, or simply magic gone wrong, Dane Monday is there to stop them. He's even got a rogue's gallery of megalomaniacal villains who want revenge. Armed only with his wits, some reluctant allies, and a satchel full of gadgets, Dane steps forward to save the city of New Avalon.

  While investigating an abandoned building, Dane encounters the remnants of a magical ritual shortly before the building explodes in spectacular fashion. Narrowly escaping this destruction with his new ally, the aspiring journalist Abby Connors, Dane follows the threads of this mystery while evading a menagerie of homicidal robots, kidnapping thugs, and the wrath of a mad scientist. At the bottom of it all is a scheme to destroy New Avalon involving a century-old architect, a historic hotel, and something not of our world.

  Can Dane and Abby brave the dangers and the strangeness to save the city of New Avalon? Find out in Manic Monday!

  Excerpt at the end of this book!

  The Case of the Dead Girl in my Apartment

  When Jake arrives home to find his not-quite-girlfriend Melody murdered in his apartment, things seem like they couldn't get any worse. But when the killer, a ferocious man turned monster, is still there and looking for something of Melody's, Jake fights for his life, just barely getting out of the apartment to safety. Now he's on the hook for the murder of Melody. To clear his name, his college friends put together a reluctant Mystery Gang: Anna, the mystery-obsessed Criminal Justice Major; Eva, Jake's best friend and escapee from New Avalon's high society; Nathan, cynical Philosophy Major; and Thomas, the weird Physics grad student from across town. Together they investigate the murder and the object they murderer was looking for, stumbling onto something bigger and stranger than they ever imagined. Monsters, memory wipes, magic, men in black, and a secret war of Good versus Evil for the fate of the city and possibly the world. Mysteries have never been this strange.

  Damned Lies

  Damned Lies is the true story of things that never happened. It is a fictional memoir of fantastic events. It is a chronicle of self-cloning, of adventure, of magic, of bare-fisted hobo boxing tournaments, of zombies, and more. It's the autobiography of a wild summer adventure out beyond the fields we know. It's the secret of what's hidden in a government bunker, it's the story of helping a nun with a crossbow hunt a vampire, it's the explanation of why you can't have that death ray you really wanted. It's a cautionary tale of just why cloning yourself is a really terrible idea.

  Damned Lies is a big fish story for those who don't fish. It's a shaggy dog story for cat lovers. It's the scifi fantasy humor memoir we'll all wish we dictated on our deathbed. It's why we can't have nice things.

  Damned Lies Strike Back

  Damned Lies Strike Back follows in the great tradition of sequels in that it is bigger, bolder, and dripping with franchise potential. Like a good sequel, it answers all the unanswered questions of the original (except for the ones it doesn't). It is exactly the sequel this world needs.

  This time around, our intrepid hero and friends battle the evil apocalyptic plans of his homicidal clone and a dangerous cult. At the same time he is facing his clone in the present day, he recounts the story of his first year in college where he formed a mystery gang to stop the nefarious plot of evil college professors. It all leads to a climactic sword fight and then a desperate epic battle against a true evil that we all know well...

  Damned Lies of the Dead 3D

  Damned Lies of the Dead 3D is not the zombie novel we need, but it's the zombie novel we deserve. In 1995, Austin, Texas was nearly wiped out by a zombie outbreak. This fact has been long suppressed, but the truth cannot be silenced. Now there is a firsthand account from our intrepid hero of just what happened... and how he survived. Only the dead know the truth...

  The Lost and the Damned

  There is a darkness waking up in the Bellingham mental hospital. Around this evil, the building is twisting and distorting, becoming a place of monsters and murders. With each death, the darkness grows stronger. Doors are opening to other times and other places, reality is shifting.

  Into this comes John Keats, a private detective more accustomed to catching infidelity than missing persons. In pursuit of a half a million dollar bounty, he has tracked down missing rock star Katie Vanders to Bellingham, but he has no idea what waits inside. It should have been easy money: go in, get the girl, and leave. But now that he is in the hospital, he has no way out. The exits are blocked, the hospital is falling apart, and something is chasing him. Even after finding Katie, there is no escape from this trap. His rescue mission has become a game of survival as the hospital twists apart across time and space.

  As deadly secrets are uncovered, a malevolent intelligence is awakening. Can John and Katie figure out how to stop it and escape the hospital, or will they find themselves forever lost in darkness?

  Voices of Madness

  Compelled by screaming voices, sorcerer William Drake travels across America in a desperate attempt to free himself from his misery. But the end of his pain may mean the resurrection of a god long banished from our world. Ripped apart and trapped, this god has gone mad over the centuries.

  As Drake carries out his plans, there is collateral damage. People die, prized possessions are stolen, vengeance is sworn. His actions disrupt the lives of four unlikely heroes who band together in an awkward alliance to stop him. Armchair occultist, Taoist exorcist, college dropout, and punk rock musician - they are a strange set of companions, but they're all that stand between Drake and the mad god.

  Will these four heroes stop Drake in time? Or will the voices spur Drake on to the resurrection of a cosmic madness?

  Cowards and Killers

  "In the end, most of humanity are one of two things: cowards or killers."

  When Michael died, there was no Heaven waiting for him, no eternal rest. There were only two choices: Hell or killing his fellow man. Waking up after death in his own bed, he began receiving calls from a mysterious voice. The voice offers a simple option: become an assassin and kill those it designates. Refuse and the power that keeps him in the world will be removed... and he'll go straight to Hell.

  Coward or killer, he accepts the deal. In a black suit and tie that conceals his identity with a black gun that never runs out of bullets, he is their assassin. But he is not alone: there are other tortured souls who have agreed to the same bargain. They are all Hell-bound; only by killing their targets before the timers on their phones count down do they postpone their fate.

  But this is a fate Michael won't accept. Together with other agents, he plots to rebel against the mysterious voice and the blood-soaked deal. But can they really win this fight when the voice holds all the cards? With each kill, his humanity slips away. Is there a way to escape, or do all roads lead to Hell?

  Cthulhu, Private Investigator

  Cthulhu's partner, Dagon, has been found floating dead in the water at the docks. The Elder Gods have given him three days to find Dagon's killer, or Cthulhu is going to take the fall for it. Starting on the trail of a femme fatale that had hired Dagon, Cthulhu begins searching for the Pnakotic manuscripts and finds himself on everyone's hitlist. Navigating a web of lies and betrayal, he becomes involved with a rogue's gallery of untrustworthy Old Ones who are after the coveted Silver Key. As things hurtle towards their inevitable confusion, he discovers to what deadly lengths the others will go to obtain the Key.

  Excerpt from Manic Monday

  Death Ray

  "Damn you, Monday!" shouted Professor Honnenheim.

  The mad scientist looked like a dramatic villain, standing on a platform in front of a his gigantic control console with his robotic drones buzzing around him. The air stank of burning ozone from the drones' plasma weapons and the smoke of destroyed electronics, the latter due to Dane Monda
y's sabotage. Honnenheim continued his tirade against his nemesis. "Once again you thwart me in my plans! Have you no respect for legacy? It is not just for me that I want to build a death ray! No, it is the Honnenheim family legacy! I build it to fulfill the dreams of my father, his father, and his father before him!"

  This was true. Ever since someone first had the concept of a death ray, the Honnenheim family has been committed to building one. The exact enemies to be destroyed with the death ray has changed over the years: the king's tax collectors, unruly peasants, Nazi invaders, the US government, and those trying to stop the various Honnenheim men from building said death ray - typically angry mobs with torches, government agents, and heroes. Despite these setbacks, in each generation, one Honnenheim had stepped up to the challenge of building a death ray, be it in their original Austrian village or now in the United States. The Honnenheim family had emigrated from Austria fleeing a trumped up charge of wiping out a village. That was a lie. Only half the village had been destroyed. Since moving from Austria, the family's doomsday plans had grown to encompass more than just death rays - now it included stun rays, incendiary lasers, plasma cannons, death-dealing vehicles, and of course the ever useful robots.

  It was not surprising that any man who had ever carried the title of "Professor Honnenheim" had not died a natural death. Many of them also did not deserve the title Professor. Being heir to the Honnenheim legacy was a dangerous job. Professor Honnenheims have died by fire, explosions, electrocution, death ray misfire, and once by strangulation by a confused robot who had been taught how to love. The current Professor Honnenheim seemed close to carrying on his family's time honored tradition of unnatural death as short circuiting machinery behind his platform exploded, causing him to momentarily duck as he leveled his haughty accusations at Dane Monday. The professor was saved by the R-36 infantry robot behind him, which took the full force of the blast. That robot fell forward onto the console, sparking circuitry falling out of it.

  "I don't care about your family traditions!" shouted back Dane Monday, hiding behind a piece of machinery that was charred with plasma blasts. "You're trying to build a death ray! It's a ray built exclusively for causing death, particularly to your enemies - who tend to be pretty much anyone you disagree with! Don't you see why that's a bad idea for everyone else?"

  "I'm not sure you've thought out all the positive applications of a death ray," said Honnenheim, pushing away the shorted-out bulk of the R-36 robot to press a button on the console. Panels opened in the walls and more flying drones spilled out.

  The drones had been why Dane had taken cover in the first place. He had faced the R-36s before and knew all their weaknesses. Honnenheim's robots always had weaknesses. The professor spent more time creating new models than iterating on past models and fixing problems. So there was always some random weakness. For example, consider the drones that whizzed about the laboratory on small helicopter-like propellers. Honnenheim had equipped them with plasma weapons - a good idea in theory. But these plasma weapons were more massive than the small drones' frames could easily support. This meant that for them to fire their guns, they would have to stop moving, wait for their swinging chassis to stabilize, and then fire. This allowed Dane a few seconds to find a new place to take cover, putting some part of Honnenheim's machines or control panels between him and the drones. As the group of drones in front of him stopped to stabilize, he dove behind another console which still had the detached arms of an R-36 holding on to the controls, the rest of its body in pieces on the floor below.

  "There are no positive applications of a death ray!" replied Dane, pulling the back panel off his blackened jamming device. It had failed spectacularly when he had tried to use it a few minutes ago. Putting his screwdriver in his mouth, he yanked out the faulty wire and circuit board, then swapped them with replacements from his satchel. He quickly stripped one of the wires.

  "Of course there are!" said Honnenheim thoughtfully, his voice raised above the sound of drone whirring, plasma blasts, and explosions. "For example: elimination of one's enemies. Destroying all obstacles to your agenda. Fulfilling your familial legacy. These are all very positive outcomes."

  "Not for your enemies!" said Dane, stalling. "And it seems everyone is your enemy!" Dane reattached the stripped wire to a different spot on the jamming device. It was hacked together by his friend Jaya and running off an unstable energy crystal won in a poker game from an occultist associate named Alastair. While he had been glad that Alastair couldn't hold his liquor which made him a bad poker player, at this moment Dane wished that he wasn't trying to jury-rig magical technology into non-standard electronics. He was pretty sure that the mystic energy crystal did not use any of the I-triple-E standards the jamming box used. For all he knew, it was going to blow up in his face. Again.

  "Of course it's not good for my enemies!" replied Honnenheim. "My enemies should feel my wrath! Everyone else needs to bow down and let me run this world! It's for their own good! I can easily eliminate war and poverty though my robot legions and a fully functional death ray!"

  Dane sighed. This old line of thinking again. Whether the opponent was a technological genius with multiple advanced degrees, or they were an arcane sorcerer drawing power from artifacts and sacred geometries, or just simply a regular person who had stumbled upon something fantastic, they still always ultimately corresponded to one of two essential evil schemes. Either rule the world or destroy the world. Sure, they might say they just want revenge, world peace, safety for their children, an end to ecological destruction, the crippling of the Western free market, or just more freedom for the working class, but dig a little deeper and it was always about ruling or destroying the world. Always.

  Closing up the rewired device, Dane hoped this would work. A short while ago, the device had worked beautifully and the jamming had disabled half a dozen drones guarding the building. However, that was only moments before the jammer sparked, caught on fire, and coughed grayish-green smoke into Dane's face. He also hoped these drones were on the same operating frequency as the ones he had previously jammed. It had taken an hour to find the frequency when he tested it on the ones outside the building. He didn't have the time to go through every frequency on the dial now.

  Dane jumped out from behind the console as a second plasma volley rained down on the spot he just vacated. The drones rotated to face his new position and began charging their weapons again. Dane pushed the button on the jammer defiantly.

  When nothing immediately happened, he winced, expecting either to be vaporized in a blaze of plasma or have the jammer light on fire and spit smoke in his face again. Possibly both.

  Instead he heard the whirring noises of the drones slowing. Like dominos, the whole line of the drones dropped one by one, clattering to the ground. They almost looked like children's toys - if you excluded the large, imposing, and still-smoking plasma cannons on them.

  Honnenheim paled and stared at the line of disabled drones with shock. “My-My drones! What have you done to my beautiful drones?”

  Dane rolled his eyes and grabbed one of the drones from the ground. He tore the plasma cannon off it and then yanked off its propeller. He hefted the remaining robot body in his hand, essentially just a camera with a CPU and power pack. With one swift movement, he threw the robot at Honnenheim. Despite the unbalanced nature of the robot body, it struck true and hit Honnenheim in the head. The professor clutched at his forehead, and then swayed, his balance lost. He toppled off his platform.

  Taking this opportunity, Dane grabbed at a nearby ladder and climbed up to the top of the catwalk next to the massive barrel of the death ray. It hadn't been fired yet, but it would soon if he didn't stop it. Before he had revealed his presence, Dane had watched as Professor Honnenheim set the coordinates for Akron, Ohio - which was a strange choice of targets for Honnenheim's New Avalon-based lab. Dane didn't know what real or imagined slight the people of Akron had inflicted on Honnenheim, but nor could he think of any reason why an enti
re city would deserve obliteration by death ray.

  There was no abort button on the console or digital interface, but this was not surprising. Mad scientists were not ones to think about cancellation or aborting a countdown. Even if they had, they were always afraid of a James Bond type showing up to jam the scientist's head onto the abort button. Thankfully, being an evil genius did not mean they were also masters of UI or backup protocols either, so stopping their doomsday machines was always possible if you were willing to engage in a carefully refined technique Dane called Push Every Button.

  It had worked almost every time before. He'd go as far as to say it never failed.

  Dane turned every dial on the console to maximum, pressed every button, and then held down any contradictory buttons (on/off, up/down, death/life, shrink/enlarge, chocolate/vanilla). It took thirty seconds of frantic and deliberate fiddling, but eventually the console screen went red and started filling with strange characters.

  Dane laughed. It never failed. He was always amazed that the scariest doomsday device could be thwarted by the equivalent of dropping a cat on the keyboard.

  He looked down to where Honnenheim was laying on the floor of the platform rubbing his head. Pulling the screwdriver from his pocket, Dane pried off the face of console and yanked off all the wires on the circuit board. Then he pulled out the circuit board itself and tossed it off the catwalk, where he heard it land with a satisfyingly ugly clatter. Because mad scientists were control freaks and because they trusted no one, there was always just one main console without backups. And the most fantastically elaborate doomsday device in the world was always worthless without the main console.

  By this time, the death ray was billowing even more smoke. Alarms were now blaring, filling the entire lab with spinning red lights. As the alarms grew louder, it was clear that the death ray was going to explode. This was how it always worked. Doomsday weapons didn't just shut off when they got bad data or had a minor malfunction, they always exploded in spectacular fashion.