“Good old Sage Faru huh?”
I nodded. “Good old Sage Faru.”
Zero rolled the whisky tumbler around in his hand, staring down at the dark liquid. “I don’t know…we just lost a lot of good guys. Money aside, I ain’t sure the others will want to stick around with your team. You ain’t exactly brought us good fortune since you hired us.”
“You’re their leader Zero. I haven’t known you long, but I can already tell that they respect you. If you ask them to help us, they’ll follow you.”
Zero gave a chuckle. “Appealing to my ego. I like it.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Maybe.”
I could hear footsteps behind me and turned to see Delagio, Hollie and Danny approaching. They were wearing a number of bandages from the wounds they had sustained in the battle. Hollie had her arm wrapped around Danny’s waist, and he was leaning on her for support. There was a patch of gauze wrapped over his right eye; I felt a flash of guilt when I remembered how after the battle I’d been unable to transfer my gift of healing to fix his eye without Gabriella’s amplification of my powers. If she were here then not only could I have stopped him going blind in one eye, but I could have probably saved a lot of the people who died.
Zero patted me on the shoulder and started to move away from me. “Ask me again when we reach the shores of Yornheim,” he said. “I’ll give you your answer then.”
The mercenary walked past the Guardians, giving them a nod as they crossed paths. They all came to a stop next to me, settling down against the railings and looking out into the distance.
“Hey kid?” said Zero. I turned around to look at him. “You’ve got me curious now. Let’s say I did agree to come with you. What’s next on the agenda?”
“Rescuing my friends and then destroying everything and everyone Hades cares about.”
Zero gave a chuckle. “Sounds fun.” The mercenary drained the last of his whisky and then vanished from view.
I turned to stare back out across the expansive stretch of ocean, with the fractured remains of Orion at my side.
The fate of Orion will conclude in The Rising.
Coming summer 2016.
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Bonus
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WANT MORE EXCITING STORIES FROM THE HASEA CHRONICLES? THEN LOOK NO FURTHER THAN:
WITHOUT A HEARTBEAT
THE FULL LENGTH NOVEL FEATURES SCARLETT AND IS SET IN THE VICTORIAN ERA. MIXING GOTHIC HORROR, ACTION AND STEAMPUNK THE TENSE PREQUEL SHINES AN ENTIRELY NEW LIGHT ON THE WORLD OF THE HASEA:
Not much is known about the mysterious Vampire, Scarlett. Until now.
The year is 1872. A darker, more unforgiving Alliance is working in the shadows, struggling to keep order on the streets of London. Meanwhile in Ireland, a young girl is about to take up a position as scullery maid in the sinister Oakley Manor. It is a decision that will alter her life forever and send her on a path of destruction and death.
A path that leads right to the Alliance.
READ ON FOR A SAMPLE CHAPTER
PROLOGUE
A silver-eyed man stalked across the skyline of Belfast, following his nose rather than his eyes.
The town around him seemed to breathe in unison, the calm breath of countless sleeping humans pouring from every direction.
He had no breath to call his own.
The man slipped from shadow to shadow, sweeping across the rooftops of the ramshackle houses like a fog. Somewhere nearby a clock tower chimed midnight, the clanging of its bell a harsh reminder of his delay.
Much longer and they’ll notice my absence.
He had been given an important job to do and so far that evening he had done it badly. One target left bleeding out in an alleyway, surrounded by policemen with terrible timing and not a single clue between them. Another was a drunken lout who had stumbled from a tavern to take a piss on the street, retching and burping as he released his stream. An easy target one would assume, but one who somehow had the wherewithal to slip from the silver-eyed man’s grasp when a friend had piled out the tavern to find him. The fool had run blindly through the streets, screaming at the top of his lungs, only to fall headfirst into the Lagan River. He had drowned of course, churning up water and splashing in the darkness while the silver-eyed man watched from a position of safety, unable to rescue him. Most of these people weren’t even worthy of the gift he wanted to give them, but so far he was running out of options.
He would not make a mistake the third time.
The scent he followed was a strong perfume that was almost overwhelming in its potency. It was joined by the taint of sweat that came from working long hours in a bad profession. However, neither of those things were what had drawn the silver-eyed man’s attention – he was following a darker part of the scent, one that justified his divine work. He drew closer to the source, the trail visible to him in the darkness as a silvery wave, which hovered and undulated in the air.
Soon afterwards he picked up sounds, his keen ears twitching like an animals. The sounds were words, and harsh ones at that, full of swearing and accusations. Speeding up, he hopped from rooftop to rooftop with expert precision, until he was peering over the top of the docks; the masts of the many ships stretching out in front of him like skeletal trees. Below was his target – a girl he knew worked at the bordello nearby. She was young, far too young to be in the profession she had found herself in. In the back of his mind a sensation stirred - something similar to sympathy, but far duller. The girl was pressed with her back against the wall, trapped by two men who were the source of the noise.
“Give me back mah money ya thievin’ whore.”
“I already told ya, I don’t ‘ave it!” insisted the girl, staring wildly between the two men.
One of them, tall and loaded with the muscles that came with dock labouring, shoved her hard into the wall. Her head snapped back, thudding against the stone. A rose of red bloomed from beneath her mousy hair. The big one’s friend – a short man with a stout gut formed of years of hard drinking – was scowling like a petulant child.
“You took it while we was cleanin’ ourselves up,” he barked.
“I only have what you paid me. You spent the rest on ale!”
“You stole it and we want it back.” The dockworker snatched her bag – a garish red to match the dress she barely wore. The strap snapped and the contents spilled onto the dock floor. Among the strewn items were a few pennies. Not enough money to do much of anything with, but the men snatched it from the ground regardless, stuffing it into their trousers.
“No, that’s mine!” the girl howled, attacking the men with a sudden ferocity, hitting and clawing at any part of them she could reach. Her nails raked across the face of the smaller one, drawing blood.
“Bitch!”
He responded by punching her in the stomach. Gasping, the girl collapsed to the ground, heaving and crying as the men proceeded to kick her relentlessly, all the while shouting abuse.
The silver-eyed man thought to himself for a moment.
Allow this poor wret
ch to die here tonight, or intervene and risk detection?
He could bear witness no more – what little left of a conscience he had would not allow it. Spilling over the rooftop like a yawning shadow, he landed without a sound behind the men. He seized the smaller one’s head at each temple and squeezed, crushing it as if it were an egg. Before the larger man could make a sound, the flesh of his throat was torn asunder, and he fell next to his friend, twitching as his life spilled out of him. The girl was screaming hysterically as the man knelt down and retrieved the coins from the dead men’s pockets. He held the blood-soaked pennies out to the cowering girl. His eyes flashed in the darkness.
“I believe these belong to you.”
The girl did not take the coins. Instead, her eyes rolled back into her head and she passed out. The silver-eyed man regarded her for a moment. Well, at least this makes my task easier.
As gently as he could, he picked the unconscious girl up and jumped back onto the rooftops, allowing the shadows of Belfast to swallow them both.
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About the Author
Stuart was born in the smoky outskirts of London but now lives in the little ol' city of Worcester. After years spent running the rat race, in 2008 he knew it was time to start working on the novel he’d been threatening to write since he was 16. Several scrapped storylines, a year in college and one English and Creative Writing degree at the University of Birmingham later, The Awakening landed. Stuart was more shocked than anyone when it became a sleeper hit and set him on an entirely different and far more exciting path through life than he ever expected.
Cut to 2015. Five books, a novella and several short stories down, Stuart spends most of his time in his flat in Worcester, continuing to pen the Hasea Chronicles series, as well as new science fiction/fantasy stories, all whilst avoiding the addictive siren call of daytime television.
In addition to the on-going HASEA Chronicles series, Stuart has written The Golden Wing - the first book in the children’s fantasy series Tommy and the Simbots.
The Veil is his fifth novel.
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