Alrighty. It's time for a new start. I had spent almost two months working on piecing together an intricate plot from scratch. Well over 20k words in back story writing, as well as about 10-15k in actual plotline workings. Then I got 10k words into the story and realized I hated it. Then I sat for about two weeks, realizing why I hated it, and realized yet again, I was trying to work as an outliner and summary writer, which I am now quite confident I am not. This part I have already hit 10k words by the point of posting this, and am fairly certain this is ALOT better. And I even thought up a great title.
This is based off of my original Eternity's Reach, so I threw that storyline into the woodchipper and picked and choose different parts that I still liked and put together here. In other words, expect some names from original characters to show up, as well as new cast members too.
Content Editing:
1. Keep an eye out for anywhere that refers to Zapporo as being a "duke". Initially he was, but he got downgraded to a "marquis".
2. How do the characters seem? Does Augustus seem Southern enough?
3. How about Quentin? It's early in the story and I may not have really fleshed out his "voice", but he is supposed to be a man's man. James Bond, but with a sense of Chivalry and honor, as opposed to a mind of vice and blood.
4. Does the setup between Norman and Zapporo seem well thought out enough?
Line Editing:
1. Any awkward sounding parts?
2. Any telling versus showing that ruins the scene?
Chapter 1
Norman West clutched his coat tightly to him and he shuffled through the abandoned junkyard. His reanimated bodyguards surrounded him closely, but if something went wrong, he wasn’t terribly convinced they could keep him safe. For what good a dead body was, a living body was always better. Get in, get the stuff, get out, he reminded himself.
Several more steps brought him into a large open area of the junkyard. A flicker of movement in the darkness caught his eye, and the reanimated shifted warying, unknowing if they should be jumping into action or not. The movement continued and he saw a shape materialize out of the darkness walking towards him.
Excellent, this must be my contact, he thought and he felt his muscles relax. Only a little.
The figure soon turned out to be a humanoid figure, about nine feet tall. He was covered in a massive coat that fell to his feet. A fine pin-striped suit covered his form underneath the coat, and a grey fedora covered the being’s red head. Fine black tufted hair poked out beneath the hat, and yellow eyes gleamed out of the darkness down at Norman. He got the distinct impression that Marquis Zapporo was not impressed with what he saw. Think what he wants.
“What’s the words?” Zapporo asked.
“Daisy fields,” Norman responded without missing a beat. That was what his contact had told him to say. Zapporo was supposedly the biggest arms and black magic smuggler both in and out of the Infernal realms. Personally meeting the big guy himself was somewhat an honor.
“You got the stuff?” Norman said.
“Of course I do. It wouldn’t behoove me to not see to it personally. The Guild has been cracking down on shipments. Papa John himself has been nosing around business,” Zapporo said in his unearthly voice.
The Marquis reached into one of the pockets of his coat and pulled out a small bag. A flick of the wrist sent it flying towards Norman. He tried to catch it and failed utterly, instead knocking the bag into one of the guards. He scrambled to pick it up and was relieved to see that it had not spilled.
“Hamadryad dust. Fresh. Should be exactly what you’re looking for. You’re lucky. My last shipment got seized out of Dysporia,” Zapporo said.
“Is it pure? You’re asking a fair price,” Norman said as he gazed into the bag.
Zapporo snorted. “Of course it is. Dust a little of it on your rotting friend there and see if it isn’t. But don’t cheat me. You know what happens to cheats.”
Norman was already grabbing a tiny pinch of the dust. Supposedly Hamadryad dust had what his contact had said was “distilled essence of life.” Something that would make his reanimated more agile and able, and less chaotic and maddened. He had almost been killed several times by rogues. He tossed a handful of dust into the face of the closest bodyguard. Immediately the reanimated stood straighter, and looked dead ahead. Its muscles tensed and it gripped the club at its side more tightly. Norman willed it to move, and it did. No longer did it have the shambling gait he had so often seen. Had he not known otherwise, he would have thought it was alive. A wide smile stretched across his face.
“Satisfied?” Zapporo said.
“Immensely,” Norman responded. He began searching for his pouch to pay the devil with. Not ordinary money. The Hierarchy of Hell had no use for American currency. Souls had once been used, but now so many flowed in; inflation had turned them into valueless remnants for the Abyssals. Marquis Beelzebub, the devil in charge of the Abyssal Treasury had changed the currency of Hell to something more solid. Norman tossed the bag of gold drachmas towards Zapporo.
A heartbeat before the bag reached the devil, a burst of rock ruptured the ground below the gold bag and shrapnel knocked the parcel wide of Zapporo. The open bag hit the ground spilling golden coins all over the area that glinted off of the lights from some remote area of the junkyard. The reanimated tensed toward the new threat, and Norman spun, looking for their attackers.
Two solitary figures stepped out of the twilight and into view. One was a balding portly invididual with drooping moustaches that were finely waxed. The white garment that the man wore looked like a combination between a landed gentry outfit that was common with antebellum Southern Aristocrats, and a plain ministerial robe. The outfit was common enough, but generally on loyalist mages back during the War of American Succession over five decades ago. But the only person that wore that is…
“Augustus Broussard,” Norman snarled between clenched teeth.
“Son, you’d best be keeping your teeth together, lessen’ you want to be made an example of,” Augustus said.
“He’ll be made an example alright, sure as sure,” the other figure said.
His gait was that of young and cocky youth, probably no less than twenty years old. Prime meat for one of Norman’s reanimated save for the fact that he wasn’t dead. Yet. The youth shifted forward and the light caught his features. The haircut, the jaw, even the eyes gave it all away.
“To what do I owe the dismal pleasure of the aquatiance of meeting both the great Augustus Broussard, and Crown Prince of the American Empire, Quentin Roosevelt?” Marquis Zapporo interjected.
Quentin was said to be his father’s son in many aspects, and the way he held himself, the way he talked, everything about him, confirmed that to Norman. Two of the most powerful American mages stood in front of him, and all he had was a small cadre of Reanimated.
“Forge Mage and Tempest Mage. I had heard you were doing the Guild’s dirty work. I’d never figure the pair of you playing at inquisitors,” Norman said.
Augustus’s hands crackled, and what few hairs remained on his head stood erect as static electricity filled him. A single directed gesture sent a bolt of lightning into one of the reanimated. The massive discharge disrupted the once dead heart of the Reanimated and it fell to the ground in a convulsive mass.
“Boy, we’re not playin’. Less you got yourself a certificate stating that this… exchange is valid, then you’re in trouble today. ‘Sides, we got your number, Norman. Necromantic magics are banned by Guild Convention 7,” Augustus said.
“What I do is not magick,” Norman spat the last word out. “It is the future of medical science, and you’ll all be remembered as those who stood in the way of the future.”
“Enough. Do you have the certificate or not?” Quentin asked.
“Of course I do,” Norman said, reaching inside his coat. What came out was no piece of paper but a vast smoke bomb that he hurled between himself and the two mages. Within a flash and a puff of smoke, he was gone.
Quentin gave a smug smirk as he looked toward the great Marquis standing before him.
“Don’t you worry. We’ll deal with dear old Herbert when we’re done here,” Quentin said.
“Norbert,” Augustus corrected from off to the side.
“Norman,” Marquis Zapporo growled. His eyes narrowed towards Quentin as the demon tried to figure his game.
“Herbert, Norman. Who gives a rip? It’s the same thing,” Quentin said.
“Hardly, but the matter is not relevant at the time being. For the moment I have pests in my face, and a mole I need to dismember,” Marquis Zapporo said.
“A mole? How did you know?” Quentin asked.
“I didn’t, but you just confirmed it. This meeting was discreet. Confidential. And yet I find two Guild Inquisitors on my doorstep.
“Well then I’d hate to have to hold you up, suh,” Augustus said, walking out into the open. The Marquis looked towards him, and his eyes narrowed further. The rotund man didn’t look like a threat, but Zapporo evidently knew enough about Augustus to be wary. The two of them alone stood little chance in stopping Zapporo’s escape.
“You forget, that when I do business, I never come unaramed,” Marquis Zapporo said, taking a step back.
The Marquis snapped his fingers and several large shapes loomed out of the darkness. Quentin immediately identified several types of demons, as well as the more elite devils. The devils were dressed after the same manner as Zapporo, in wide coats and pin-striped outfits. All clutched Tommy guns in their big beefy hands. A half dozen lumbering gargants stood behind them. Their ebony skin disappeared into the darkness leaving just the crackling fiery veins that criss-crossed their skin and odd angles. Trails of fire followed their eyes as they shifted on their feet.
Below them, at first Quentin thought he saw a swarm of newsies off the street. But as he got a closer look, he saw the deeply red skin and malicious looking eyes on every single one. Igniters. And evidently they had infiltrated the Newsboys. That could cause problems down the line.
Marquis Zapporo’s mouth curled into a menacing grin. “Now, that I have you attention, it might surprise you to know that I have no intention of killing you all tonight. That would be a foolish effort on my part, and a great way to bring the Guild down on my head. So here is what the deal is. I’ll leave first. When I am away, the fellas around me will leave as well. Then you will be allowed to go.
As the Marquis finished speaking he pulled out a fine cigar, an Arturo Fuente if Quentin was any judge, and stuck it in his mouth. Without reaching for a lighter, or in fact any visible movement on the Marquis’s part, the end lit up red and smoke began whispered out from the tip. The Marquis took a long puff as he savored the flavor before he went on.
“Of course, if you want to fight now, who am I to stop you? Only understand there is only one inevitable conclusion,” Marquis Zapporo said.
Augustus snorted. “And what would that be, suh?”
Marquis Zapporo blew out a fine cloud of smoke as he looked from Augustus to Quentin. Finally he stuck the cigar back between his gleaming sharp teeth.
“Well, for starters, you could certainly take down a few of my boys, but you couldn’t stop them all. You’ve already spoiled the element of surprise, and given the fact that I remain in such close proximity, you haven’t blown my whole consortium apart. Now were I to kill you, I doubt I could touch even a secondary Colony planet without one of your watcher’s finding out fast enough to send a strike team. And unfortunately in my line of work, one finds that they need to go places. The end result being, I don’t want another job, and you don’t want to be dead,” Zappro said with the cigar still in his mouth.
Zapporo took a step back, and the Devils clustered close, with their Tommy Guns still raised. The Demons blocked the view between Quentin and the Marquis. He’s not getting away that easy. Time to show my hand, he thought.
“Unfortunatly, there is one thing you didn’t account for either,” Quentin spoke out loud.
“Only one thing?” Zapporo ‘s voice carried above his henchmen. “If it turns out I only did one thing wrong tonight, I’ll be greatly surprised. Good evening, sir.”
“Well, see the issue is, that us two aren’t the only ones here,” Quentin called back.
Zapporo must have stopped because the column of devils and demons fell still. That was the cue that Quentin was waiting for.
“Now!”
