Carnival of Stone: A Novella (The Soren Chase Series)

by Rob Blackwell

  “It was you,” Glen said. “You triggered the explosion that buried them. You said you’d ‘looked into’ the Carnival of Stone, but you were actually there. That’s how you knew so much about it. You helped stop it the last time.”

  Terry didn’t respond, just looked calmly back at Glen.

  “Did Soren see this?” he asked.

  “Briefly, but I covered up your face with my thumb,” Glen replied. “He didn’t notice.”

  Glen thought he heard Terry let out a nearly imperceptible sigh.

  “Here’s what I don’t understand,” Glen said. “That was almost eighty years ago. And it’s hard to tell for sure, but you look almost the same age as you do now. How is that possible?”

  Terry replied by tearing the photograph into small pieces while Glen asked the question that had been haunting him ever since he’d seen the photo.

  “Just how old are you, Terry?”

  Terry didn’t respond.

  Epilogue

  Lochlan ducked into the bar in downtown Washington D.C., careful to scrape his boots on the mat by the door. He knew how his boss hated it when things got messy.

  Unfortunately for him, the situation was far from clean. He should have killed Soren or at least tried to take him in, but after he saved his and Keevan’s lives, he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead, he had formulated a plan. Either it would work—or he was one dead leprechaun.

  He waved to Curly behind the bar and proceeded through two sets of doors and then down a back stairwell. He maneuvered through a maze of hallways until he found a dimly-lit brick room that looked like it had once been a bomb shelter. Maybe it had.

  The room wasn’t illuminated by electric lights, but outfitted with candles hung along each wall. The boss was at the far end, talking with a young man Lochlan had never seen before.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Rakev, I’m so sorry,” the man was saying. “It will never happen again, I promise.”

  Silas Rakev stood more than six feet tall but in the candlelight he seemed even taller, towering over the young man before him. Rakev was lean but muscular, with brown hair and a thin goatee. He clapped his hand on the young man’s shoulders and smiled.

  “It’s quite all right,” Rakev said gently. “Everybody makes mistakes.”

  The young man looked shocked and pleased. He backed away from Rakev slowly, practically prostrating himself before the man.

  “Oh, thank you, Mr. Rakev,” the man said. “Thank you. I won’t fail you again. You won’t regret this.”

  Rakev gave the kid an easy, warm smile.

  “I know I won’t,” he said.

  The young man fled from the room, a relieved expression on his face. Lochlan stood to the side and waited for what he knew would come next.

  “Oh, Gary?” Rakev said.

  The young man had just reached the stairway when he turned around. Lochlan never blinked, but he never saw Rakev cross the room. He knew the boss couldn’t teleport, but he moved so quickly the effect was almost identical. One minute he was on the other end of the room and the next he was standing just outside the stairway directly in front of the young man.

  What happened afterward was nearly as fast. Rakev extended a single finger across the man’s throat, and Lochlan watched as blood began seeping down the man’s chest. There was a shocked look in the kid’s eyes and he put his hands to his throat. He gurgled and then fell to the floor, thrashing for a few moments before he bled out. Rakev stood over him, watching without comment.

  He turned to Lochlan.

  “I just love that bit!” he said, and he sounded almost like a kid himself. “He actually thought I was going to let him go. Did you see the look on his face? Priceless! It’s like he’d never seen a movie with a bad guy before.”

  Rakev pumped his fist into the air, looking very pleased with himself. He only paused a minute to lick the blood from his finger. To Lochlan, it looked just like a normal finger, not a weapon capable of slitting someone’s throat. Yet somehow Rakev had done so without any apparent effort.

  “Ahhhh,” he said. “You can taste the mixture of fear and hope in this. I should really find a way to bottle it somehow.”

  Rakev wasn’t a vampire, but his obvious pleasure at tasting the kid’s blood still unnerved Lochlan.

  “I really want to do that again,” Rakev said after a moment.

  He moved across the room—again so quickly Lochlan couldn’t follow him—and now stood at a desk along the far wall. He punched a button.

  “April, do we have anybody else around who’s failed me lately?” he asked. “Someone we could send down here for a little chat? That was so great. But I need to go slower this time, give myself more time to savor it.”

  Rakev waited a half a beat before he looked up as if a thought had occurred to him. He punched the button on the intercom again.

  “Never mind,” he said. “I just remembered something.”

  Rakev looked right into Lochlan’s eyes and darted suddenly across the room in an instant.

  “I already have you here, don’t I?” Rakev said, the smile falling from his face. “You failed me too.”

  Rakev towered over Lochlan, looking down at him. He knelt down and looked right into Lochlan’s eyes. Rakev extended a single finger to Lochlan’s throat.

  “Well? Anything to say?” Rakev said.

  “I did fail ya,” Lochlan replied as calmly as he could. “We didn’t find the boy. And I don’t think we will, either. The trail has gone cold.”

  There was a soft chuckle from Rakev.

  “Like your body soon will be.”

  “Now don’t be hasty, Mr. Rakev,” Lochlan said, raising his hands in supplication. “I have something that might change yer mind.”

  Rakev laughed again.

  “Oh, I want to hear this,” he said. “I wanted the boy for a reason. He’s part of a plan. And I don’t like it when I can’t complete my plans. It makes me unhappy. And hungry.”

  Rakev disappeared across the room again and punched the intercom button.

  “April, could you send me down something to eat? Make sure it’s not half-dead this time, though, will you? I hate it when they don’t struggle.”

  Lochlan blanched. He had no idea what Rakev ate, but he didn’t intend to be here to find out. After a second, Rakev was towering over him again.

  “Ya knew there was something in those hills,” Lochlan said. “A cockatrice.”

  “I heard the Council was running an operation up there,” Rakev said. “I hope you’re going to tell me you fucked it up. I’ll still kill you, but it will be far quicker if I know you made those assholes squirm.”

  “We killed the bitch,” Lochlan said.

  Rakev threw back his head and laughed.

  “Shit, really? God, I wish I could see the look on Rippon’s face when he tells The Council about it,” Rakev said. “Seriously, I’m really sorry I still have to kill you. Well, not that sorry. Like I feel a pang of regret somewhere, maybe in the way, way back. Mostly I’m kinda curious what the inside of a leprechaun looks like. But, you know, there’s a little regret there, so that’s something for you.”

  “Not so fast,” Lochlan said. “I brought you a present. Something I think the Council may have wanted, but I’ll give to you if you let me and me brother live.”

  Rakev’s eyes practically shone with an expression of greed, lust and excitement.

  “Now this is getting interesting,” he said. “Tell me quick. I don’t want to be disappointed.”

  Lochlan nodded once, giving Keevan the signal. His brother appeared in mid-air, having teleported from the top of the steps. Rakev wasn’t impressed by the trick; he had far more powerful ones at his disposal. But the teleportation had been necessary. What Keevan held in his hands was heavy and nearly as large as he was.

  Rakev looked at it with wide eyes.

  “What is that beauty?” Rakev asked.

  Rakev’s whole face glowed with joy. He looked like a kid on Chri
stmas morning who had found exactly what he wanted underneath the tree. Lochlan understood in that moment that he was safe. Rakev wasn’t going to kill him, he could sense the danger pass. What he had just delivered was even better than obtaining the boy.

  “We brought you back a present,” Lochlan said.

  The item in Keevan’s arms pulsated with greenish light.

  “We helped destroy most of them, but Keevan stole one,” Lochlan said. “And it’s yours now, boss. You’ll love what’s inside. It’s a gorgon egg. And very soon you’ll have your very own gorgon army.”

  More Information

  Do you want to know more of Soren Chase’s story? Please leave a review here! Every review makes a difference.

  Carnival of Stone is the second novella about paranormal investigator Soren Chase. To read the first, Closed at Dark, you can sign up for Rob’s email newsletter here and receive it for free! You can also purchase it for Kindle here.

  To discover more of Soren Chase’s secrets, also be sure to check out the full-length novel, The Forest of Forever. Soren’s investigation into the haunted Reapoke woods may be his most dangerous case yet. Hired to find a missing girl and unlock the forest’s mysteries, what he discovers is far darker than he imagines and forces him to confront his tragic past. Review: “The perfect blend of paranormal, suspense and mystery. I couldn’t put it down.” Buy it on Kindle here!

  To be notified of Soren’s next adventure, The Pretender, be sure to sign up here so you don’t miss its release.

  And for another great series (that shares some characters with this one), check out The Sanheim Chronicles, Rob’s highly-rated bestselling Dark Fantasy novels for Kindle. Also available on audiobook.

  Acknowledgments

  This novella primarily comes out of a trip I took two decades ago to an abandoned silver mine in the Czech Republic. Our tour group huddled into a small elevator and descended deep underground. We then walked through a medieval mine with tunnels so narrow you had to squeeze yourself through parts of them.

  At one point, the tour guide asked us to turn off our flashlights, leaving us in the most complete darkness I’ve ever encountered. At that moment, a thought popped into my head, “What if something is down here with us? Something ancient.” After that, I was much less enthusiastic about the experience.

  This marks the third Soren Chase adventure I’ve written, and the one that I had the most fun writing. That’s partly because it allowed me more time to establish Glen and Soren’s relationship. Something about their dynamic always makes me laugh. But I also got to throw together two of my favorite mythical creatures, leprechauns and gorgons, into the same story just to see what happened. The process was exciting and hopefully I’ve delivered a unique take on both.

  As for what happens next, check out Closed at Dark and The Forest of Forever if you haven’t yet read them. Carnival is set between the two, but it also serves as a bridge between Forest and the next full-length novel in the Soren Chase series, The Pretender. That novel is due out soon—be sure to sign up here to be notified when it is released!

  As always, I want to thank my wife Maia for her support in writing this, and her assurances that I hadn’t gone off the rails in writing a book with leprechauns and a gorgon in it.

  I also want to thank my editor, Evelyn Duffy, for her eagle-eye for mistakes and her suggestions on how to make this better. I want to give a shout-out to my beta readers, all of whom made valuable contributions: Jenny Roahen Rizzo, Daniel Wolfe, Dan Gasink, and Brian Gill.

  Finally, this novella is dedicated to all of you who leave reviews. My books would not be nearly as successful without you. I know several authors who claim they don’t read reviews, but I read and digest every one. Thank you so much for your ongoing support.

  Copyright 2015 by Rob Blackwell

  Cover by Travis Pennington

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This work is entirely fictional. Any similarity between characters and persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and pretty much all in your head.