About Far, Far Away:
In a land far, far away… In a distant galaxy… Once upon a time…
These are all ways to begin fantastical tales of love and adventure. Gateways into the realms of imagination. In this anthology, we bring together authors from all over this world to transport you into the worlds they’ve created.
Travel through space and experience infinity three hours at a time. Explore dangerous caverns for the source of a deadly disturbance. Get stranded on a mysterious island from which no one returns, then learn to survive on a distant planet while you hope for rescue.
In this far-reaching, magical collection love allows you to see in colour, time is vast but fragile, and changing minds and hearts in Ancient Rome is only one stop on an epic journey across time, space, and reality.
Stories Included in the Anthology:
“Piece of Mind” by L.R. BradenAbout Far, Far Away:
In a land far, far away… In a distant galaxy… Once upon a time…
These are all ways to begin fantastical tales of love and adventure. Gateways into the realms of imagination. In this anthology, we bring together authors from all over this world to transport you into the worlds they’ve created.
Travel through space and experience infinity three hours at a time. Explore dangerous caverns for the source of a deadly disturbance. Get stranded on a mysterious island from which no one returns, then learn to survive on a distant planet while you hope for rescue.
In this far-reaching, magical collection love allows you to see in colour, time is vast but fragile, and changing minds and hearts in Ancient Rome is only one stop on an epic journey across time, space, and reality.
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“Simeon Investigations.”
“We have your
minion,” said an inhuman voice. A demon’s for sure, unless it had been
synthesized. It sounded like shards of broken glass jangling in a paper bag,
but I could understand it. What I couldn’t understand was how anyone could
kidnap Eyre without getting their asses handed to them. Gun or no gun.
“Who are you?”
More broken glass
sounds, but no words. After a few seconds I realized it was laughter. At last
the voice answered. “We would be foolish to divulge our true name. Call us
Émigré.”
“What do you
want?”
“We have a job
for you.”
I felt a flash of
red rage. My little pet fire elemental, Spark, flared up in sympathy from its
urn on the windowsill, and I thought I might just burst into flame myself.
“You stupid
infernal-plane motherfucker! I charge a hundred an hour. All you had to do was
clear a check and I’d work for you. But now–”
“Now we have
leverage, yes?”
“Let me speak to
him.”
“Certainly.”
Brief silence,
and then Eyre came on the line. His voice was weak. I wanted to reach through
the phone and tear broken-glass-voice to pieces with my hands.
“Hey, Nora,” he
said. “I’m really sorry about this. They got hold of my sigil somehow. They
know what I am.”
“Eyre,” I said,
“listen to me. I’m coming for you. Don’t fight them yourself.” I was thinking, Not till I get there.
“No fear of
that,” he said. “It’s – you’ll have to see. They say they’ll let me go if you
work for them. But I don’t think–”
Eyre’s voice cut
off and broken-glass-voice resumed.
“Nora Simeon is
known to us as a hunter of demons. She was contracted to hunt the demon
Barbatos. She fulfilled her contract and killed the mighty demon Azriel.”
Actually, it was
Eyre who had the final word against Azriel, but there was a lesson there I
wanted this demon to learn.
“I’m a PI. An
investigator. Barbatos was just a missing person job. But listen carefully.
Azriel would have been in no danger from me, except she attacked Eyre. My
partner, Eyre. I’ve got nothing against demons these days. Not unless they
kidnap my friends. Do you understand me,
Émigré?”
A pause. “Yes.”
I knew even as I
was saying it how stupid it was. But I couldn’t help myself. I was too damn
angry.
“If anything
happens to Eyre, I will destroy you, too. Count on it. But if you release him right now, I might just let you live.”
A longer pause.
The phone was slick and uncomfortable in my hand. Then: “Very well.”
“What?”
“Come to us. We
will release your minion into your care. We – do not wish to be destroyed. We
are used to negotiations in our world and – and we realize that we now exist in
your own. We wish you to do a job for us. We will pay. We did not believe you
would listen to us if we solicited your services without leverage.”
“Okay. Where are
you?”
“We are located
at...” Another pause, and I heard indistinct jangling noises away from the
phone. “Yes. 87th Street and York Avenue. The red building. Apartment 18E.”
Demons on the
upper east side. Why not?
“All right,” I
said. “I’ll be there shortly.”
Yet more silence,
like it was thinking about saying something else. Then: “Goodbye.”
I smelled
something burning, turned my head to see a thin swirl of black smoke rising
from around Spark’s pot. The tiny elemental had gotten so hot from my emotions
during the call it had scorched the paint right off the windowsill. Fortunately
it was a metal sill and frame, with nothing inflammable nearby. Spark had been
growing stronger lately, more in the last few months than it had during the
previous ten years since I’d summoned and bound it as my first and only
successful feat of sorcery. I shook some powdered incense into the elemental’s
urn as a treat, and like a dragonfly made of flame, it flew up and spiraled
around my body, leaving only a faint sensation of warmth behind. Spark had
already forgotten my rage of a moment before. Any other time I would have
stopped to play with it, but not today.
I returned to Eyre’s desk and retrieved his pistol, a massive old Colt M1911, made sure it was loaded and safe, and dropped it into a tote bag along with his phone. My own compact Ruger went into its tailored holster. Maybe Émigré was telling the truth about letting Eyre go, but if it wasn’t, I’d have something to say.
Laurence Raphael Brothers is a writer and a
technologist. He has published over 25 short stories in such magazines as
Nature, the New Haven Review, PodCastle, and Galaxy's Edge. His WWI-era
historical fantasy novel Twilight Patrol was just released by Alban
Lake. For more of his stories, visit https://laurencebrothers.com/bibliography,
or follow him on twitter: @lbrothers.
