Speakeasy Dead: a P.G. Wodehouse-Inspired Romantic Zombie Comedy (Hellfire Universe Historicals)

by Vicky Loebel

  Luella Umbridge (1906- ): Clara’s best friend from childhood, daughter of Dr. George Umbridge, Luella practices the gentle spiritualist magic she learned from her mother. Her soul has been linked through a wooden ankh to her spirit guide, Gaspar, since age three. Like Clara, Luella is reaching adulthood by overreaching her abilities.

  Magic: A supernatural effect, specifically when it occurs in the living world. Magic requires a source of power (hellfire or karma) and either a witch or demi who can shape that power into a spell. Demons provide the hellfire, but cannot do magic themselves.

  Magic is an entangled system. The beliefs of any observer affect the outcome of a spell, which is one reason witches tend to prefer dark, secret locations.

  Magical Legacy, Bernie’s: A box, inherited from his father, reported to let something completely random out into the world each time it’s opened. Maybe something good, maybe not. Bernie has no interest in experimenting.

  Miss Pinn: A venerable lady recruited by Priscilla to be one of Clara’s dance-contest judges.

  Mr. Edward Aimsley: Ned’s father, owner of Aimsley’s Dry Goods, and one of Clara’s dance-contest judges.

  Mr. Vargas: The Falstaff Ninepin Fellowship’s Hungarian janitor who lost everything, including most of his marbles, during the Great War. Content now to drink apple brandy and sweep floors.

  Mr. Wu’s Fine Advices: Legal offices inhabited by a string of Mr. Wus since the nineteenth century. The original building burned along with the adjacent Falstaff Ninepin Fellowship building and most of the rest of Falstaff during anti-Chinese riots in the late 1800s. As part of the rebuilding effort (partly thanks to the influence of the coven) race relations took on a conciliatory tone, and Falstaff earned a reputation for quiet, unselfconscious integration.

  Mrs. Lund: A venerable lady recruited by Priscilla to be one of Clara’s dance-contest judges.

  Ned Aimsley: The same age as Clara and Luella (three years younger than Bernie), Ned was their inseparable playmate and companion until Bernie moved on to college and Ned had to leave school to work in the family dry goods store, two doors uphill from the Fellowship.

  Ninepin Bowling: A version of bowling in which eight pins are arranged in a diamond around a larger central kingpin. An old-world religious tradition, carried on by the Woodsens’ coven, is to write whatever troubles you on the kingpin and then wallop the heck out of it.

  Pentagram: A five-pointed star, often constructed of some form of hellfire, used primarily by warlocks to channel high-energy magic.

  Personal Spiritual Assistant (PSA): A high-karma demi (genie) who works under a demon with only loose supervision. PSAs can cast spells, shape-shift via hellfire into preset physical forms, and travel along data lines. Although only a full demon has hellfire blood, PSAs have resources in the form of hellfire charms and an allowance of karma.

  Priscilla Woodsen (1896- ): The half-sister closest in age to Clara who has been given the breathless task of trying to raise and govern her younger half-sister throughout childhood. Priscilla’s response to her middling position in the family ranks has been to bury herself in an alchemy lab and specialize in distilling whiskey, gin, and apple brandy.

  Reincarnation: One of two options provided by angels for dead humans to select after their souls have been processed through Hell by hard-working demons. Creatures like demons, ghosts, genies, and zombies who remain in the afterlife are never again offered these options and die permanently, as far as anyone knows, if they’re destroyed.

  Ruth: Demi (or genie) belonging to the demon Hans whose favored forms are the cheetah and spotted tabby cat. Although shape-shifting is common among demis, Ruth is believed to be the product of an unfortunate biding between a human soul and an actual cheetah.

  Sex for Karma, Trading: The ultimate union of life and afterlife, intimacy between a living human and a demon offers pleasure and a renewed sense of self-worth to the human while directly supplementing the demon’s karma. Because Hell and the afterlife are tied up with human belief (and what humans believe about Hell can be ugly) there are less savory versions of the sex-for-karma practice.

  Spiritualist: A human who practices ghost magic. This consists, among the initiated, of having one’s soul linked to a trinket or charm to which a spirit guide (ghost) is bound. The ghost and human, together, create a symbiotic form of magic that lacks the firepower of hellfire but is much lower risk. Among the uninitiated, spiritualism consists of a lot of hand-waving, self-deception, and chicanery.

  Spirit Guide: A ghost that has permitted itself to be bound to a spiritualist trinket and then—through that trinket—attached to a living spiritualist. Unlike most supernatural bindings, the spiritualist does not own the ghost or have the power of command. The relationship is symbiotic and not always cooperative.

  Stoneface (Harry) Gibraltar: A Chicago gangster; the Hollywood Grand Hotel’s bootlegger, supplying the cheap rotgut booze they mix with Dr. Umbridge’s jake spirits to create the Hollywood Grand’s signature Jacques cocktail.

  Summoning: The magical retrieval of a supernatural creature, usually a demon, usually out of Hell. A witch who successfully summons a demon is reclassified as a warlock and becomes subject to the laws of karma.

  Warlock: A witch (male or female) who has successfully summoned a demon. Becoming a warlock subjects a living human to the rules of karma. Many demons volunteer to be summoned and (temporarily) bound to do a warlocks’ bidding. This not only gives the demon the opportunity for a little guilt-free mayhem—the warlock has to pay the karma bill—but also opens negotiations for the warlock’s soul. The vast majority of warlocks end up as demis.

  Witch: A living human (male or female) who uses hellfire to perform magic. Witches have no innate access to hellfire and must bargain for it with warlocks, demons, and demis.

  Woodsen Family: Matrilineal family, the eldest of whom is always a sorcerer possessing vastly increased magical power. In Speakeasy Dead, Eleanor is the family sorcerer. When she dies, her closest living relative will inherit the gift.

  Zombie: An undead demi, often ownerless or abandoned, whose soul is bound to his or her corpse as long as there’s enough karma to keep flesh together and then bound to wherever the corpse rots apart after that. Although brains are considered a delicacy, the laws of karma usually prevent zombies from eating living people.

  About the Author

  Once a systems programmer for NASA, Vicky Loebel followed a logical progression from computer scientist to technical writer to urban fantasy author before finally settling in as a demon from Hell, because it isn't who you know, but whose soul you own that really matters. Vicky is the author of award winning amateur fiction and an avid reader of anything written with panache. She lives in the human world with a rotating cadre of four men on the slopes of Mt. Lemmon, Arizona, and on the internet at www.vickyloebel.com.

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to thank my editor, Dusky, for her sharp eyes, patience, and support. Thanks to beta readers Sherri Butler, Julia Richards, Alison Hentges, and Carol Lynn, and to proofreaders Linda White, Caroline Mickelson, and Kristina Waters. Special thanks to my critique partners Janni Lee Simner, Larry Hammer, and Jill Knowles who deserve shiny rewards for reading drafts. Thanks to Douglas Harper’s fascinating and indispensable Online Etymology Dictionary and to the extensive fashion advice at http://www.vintagedancer.com/1920s/. Finally, big thanks to the Saguaro Romance Writers (Tucson RWA) where enthusiasm is never more than one meeting away.

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  Table of Contents

  Prologue: Falstaff Gazette,
Sunday July 13, 1924

  I: Follow the Swallow

  II: It Had to be You

  III: Jazz Vampire

  IV: Love Sends Little Gifts of Roses

  V: Where the Lazy Daisies Grow

  VI: Don’t Advertise Your Man

  VII: Under the Chicken Tree

  VIII: How You Gonna Keep ’em Down on the Farm

  IX: My Buddy

  X: Stumbling All Around

  XI: You Cannot Make Your Shimmy Shake On Tea

  XII: Hard Hearted Hanna

  XIII: Who’s Sorry Now?

  XIV: Yes! We Have No Bananas

  XV: Japanese Sandman

  XVI: Give Your Little Baby Lots of Lovin’

  XVII: He’s the Hottest Man in Town

  XVIII: I’d Rather Charleston

  Epilogue: Do it Again

  Sample: Keys to the Coven – Prologue

  Hellfire Universe Glossary

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Connect with Vicky