Balladeer (The Eternal Dungeon)

"Yeslin stood irresolute. Tangling with torturers seemed the ultimate in danger."

Sometimes it takes an outsider to point out the obvious.

Once an abandoned street-lad, Yeslin Bainbridge has become a young man with a mission: to lead the commoner laborers in a fight against the elite men who exploit them. He knows exactly where to start his mission.

The Eternal Dungeon. Here elite torturers and guards force commoners to offer confessions to crimes they may or may not have committed. Here laborers aid the torturers and guards, unaware that they are being manipulated. Here, if anywhere, Yeslin can make his initial mark on the queendom.

But he faces many challenges: Officials who seek to hide the dungeon's secrets from outsiders. Dungeon traditions that foil efforts by outsiders to learn the truth. Most of all, Yeslin faces his own conscience, for he knows that, if he is to fulfill his mission, he must lie to the person he loves most.

This novelette can be read on its own or as the fifth and final story in the "Balance" volume of The Eternal Dungeon, an award-winning historical fantasy series set in a land where the psychologists wield whips.

Excerpt

He said quickly, "I'm no gossip." No gossip indeed. He was something more important than that, but it would take time to explain himself to the stokers.

"Aye?" Wade's eyes were narrowed. "Who are you, then? You ask a lot of questions. You don't answer none."

So he told them. No names, but he told them about his family, and about his new family after that, and how all that had ended. By the time he was through, the men were all relaxed again.

"Aye, well." Leo scratched his head. Being an indoor worker, he was capless, wearing the rough denim uniform issued to all the dungeon's stokers. From what little Yeslin had seen, the dungeon's elite didn't dress much better. "The fates will do that to a man: take him up to the heights, then drop him again. 'Least you're not all sour about it."

"Nay," Yeslin replied, scooping up more coal with his shovel. "These things happen. 'Tis probably for the best. I wouldn't want to be one of them."

He expected emphatic nods, even if some of those nods came from hypocrites who would gladly have embraced the wealth of the world if chance wandered their way. What he received instead was indifferent shrugs.

This was going to be more difficult than he'd anticipated.

He tried again. "So the torturers— The Seekers. They treat us well?"

There were uneasy looks then, among the stokers. Leo said quickly, "Well enough."

"Oh, come now, Leo," said Jerry, a married man who was inclined to talk at length about his six young ones. "Be honest. You're as worried as the rest of us."

"Worried?" Yeslin raised his eyebrows.

"'Bout our jobs," said Curt. "There's talk of 'lectrifying the whole dungeon – of doing away with the coal furnaces. Doing away with our jobs."

"It's all rumor," said Leo with a growl.

"What are you going to do if it's true?" asked Yeslin.

Wade shrugged. "Look for other stoking jobs, in the lighted world. What else can we do?"

"Well . . ." said Yeslin slowly.

But Leo cut him off. "Listen!"

Everyone stood still. Away down toward the end of the corridor came a sound, indefinable at first, then growing louder, like the rustling of a thousand pieces of paper in a clerk's office.

"Work's done for the night." Leo tossed his shovel aside. "The day shift will be coming 'long in an hour or two. Let's go eat."

He had not learned what he needed to know. To steal time, he pretended that his boot had come untied. Kneeling down, he said, "Boss Man gives decent hours. Only eight hours of work."

Wade snorted. "In the summer. Come winter, it's fourteen hours."

"We follow the sun," Curt explained, bringing out a face-cloth from his trousers pocket to wipe the coal dust from his face. "Those were bats you heard, returning at dawn to the cave this dungeon lies in. In the summer, they come home soon. In the winter, they seem to stay forever in the lighted world."

"Seekers and guards, they follow the same hours." Leo frowned down at Yeslin, who was continuing to fiddle with his bootstring.

"Aye?" said Yeslin, taking care not to raise his eyes. "Well, that sort of schedule must be easier for the young Seekers than the old Seekers. Or do they have young Seekers?"

"Oh, aye," said Curt, walking blithely into the lure. "Youngest one is twenty-three. That's Mr. Taylor."

His fingers tightened on the bootstring, to the point where he almost cut himself. "Aye? Don't think I've seen him. Does he live in the dungeon?"

That prompted more laughter from the stokers. "All the Seekers live in the dungeon," said Jerry, his voice kindly. "None of them leave here. Least of all Mr. Taylor. He's the High Seeker's love-mate—"

"That's enough!" Leo's voice turned sharp. "The High Seeker, he won't stand for gossip, and neither do we. That's our pride, or have all you forgotten that?"

There was a murmur of acknowledgment from the other stokers. They looked shame-faced now, especially Jerry. Leo turned his attention back to Yeslin. "You're the worst man at boot-tying that I've ever seen in my life. You need a hand there?"

"I've broken the string." This was true enough; Jerry's remark had caused Yeslin to suddenly jerk his hand. "No worries; I got an extra string in my pocket. You go ahead. I'll catch up."

"Don't linger," Leo warned. "Boss Man don't like us staying in the inner dungeon after our work is through. Okay, lads—" He slammed closed the door to Yeslin's furnace and turned to the others. "Let's get our meal pails open, and see what we've got, and then steal from Jerry's pail."

Jerry yelped. Laughing, Ward said, "Well, if you will marry the best cook in the Alleyway district . . ."

They all closed their furnace doors and retreated toward the north end of the corridor, disappearing from view as they turned the corner. Yeslin waited until they were all gone before replacing the string, as swiftly as he could. Then he stood up. His heart was still beating hard.
 

¶ Available as an e-book (HTML, PDF, Kindle, ePub): Balladeer.

A MATTER OF TRUST by AC Katt

EXCERPT – Drawer 67

Antonio thought he was clever, but was in truth foolish, gullible and vain. He left Trenton and Bear for the bright lights of the Big Apple. Six months later, Bear received a call from the Sixth Precinct of the NYPD to come to the city and identify the body. The police found Bear’s address clutched in the hand of a boy dumped in an alleyway off Seventh Avenue behind Weng-Feng Wok, a local Chinese restaurant. The owners, Misters Weng and Feng, discovered the body when they took the kitchen garbage out to the dumpster after a 3:00 a.m. closing. Bear vividly remembered the scene.

A Detective Sergeant by the name of Patrick O’Malley, a wiry Irishman from Homicide, brought Bear into the squad room.

“Take a seat, Mr. Drummond. As I explained to you on the telephone, we found your address clutched in the victim’s hand.

“Have you ever seen this before Sergeant O’Malley?”

“Unfortunately, this young man is not the first found in that condition in this precinct.” O’Malley responded. The Detective Sergeant laconically pointed to the pictures of young men pinned to a corkboard on a wall of the room, visible from every desk.

“All of their faces were beaten and cut to a point beyond recognition.” O’Malley continued.

Bear grimaced.

“You can make the ID from a photo.” O’Malley suggested sympathetically.

“No, I’d rather see him and be certain.” Bear said as he silently prayed the man in the photo was not his former sub.

They took a Squad Car for the silent ride to the City Offices of the Chief Medical Examiner. Bear was in a fog of guilt and remorse. O’Malley ushered him into the cold room followed by one of the assistant coroners.

Bear shivered. The bodies of the victims were stacked in drawers that were piled four high and consumed the entire back wall of the room.

O’Malley spoke, “Drawer sixty-seven.”

The assistant opened the drawer and slowly drew the sheet from the body.

Bear gasped, and then gagged. O’Malley grabbed his arm.

“Do you recognize the victim?”

“Yes, it is Antonio Rialto.” It was Antonio, but an Antonio Bear would not have been able to identify save for a birthmark on his lower left abdomen.

O’Malley spoke again, “You’re sure.”

“Yes I am sure, I remember the crescent shaped birthmark, it was unique.” Bear gazed at his former sub. The dark Botticelli angel’s face was riddled with deep cuts made by a serrated knife. Both eyes were black and even after time in the cold drawer, swollen shut.”

The assistant coroner spoke, “The autopsy showed every rib was broken and the lung perforated. They shot out his kneecaps and his whole body is covered in welts. He was whipped.”

Bear was lost in thought, tears coursed down his face; more poignant for his silence. He did not notice his wet cheeks. The beautiful boy in drawer sixty-seven was provocative, mischievous and so very alive in his memory. He was just twenty-six. The toy had failed to please.

O’Malley grabbed Bear’s arm and ushered him out of the room handing Bear his handkerchief. Bear was thirty-two years old and had not cried since he was sixteen. He made a silent vow, I will never cry again.

Bear turned to O’Malley, “You’ll get this bastard?”

“With your cooperation…” O’Malley countered.

“Anything you need,” Bear replied between clenched teeth.

On the ride back to Trenton, the tears coursed down his cheeks as he repeated his mantra, I will never cry again, I will never cry again, I will never…

Buy this book from XOXO Publishing

The Dark Tide by Josh Lanyon

NEW RELEASE TODAY!

ISBN: 978-1-60737-490-9
Series: Adrien English Mysteries; Previous Book: Death of a Pirate King
Genre: LGBT Romantic Suspense
Length: Novel Plus
Cover Artist: Croco Designs
Price: $7.99

BLURB:
As if recovering from heart surgery beneath the gaze of his over-protective family wasn’t exasperating enough, someone keeps trying to break into Adrien English’s bookstore. What is this determined midnight intruder searching for?

When a half-century old skeleton tumbles out of the wall in the midst of the renovation of Cloak and Dagger Bookstore renovation, Adrien turns to hot and handsome ex-lover Jake Riordan -- now out-of-the closet and working as a private detective.

Jake is only too happy to have reason to stay in close contact with Adrien, but there are more surprises in Adrien’s past than either one of them expects -- and one of them may prove hazardous to Jake’s own heart.

EXCERPT:
We reached the bookstore. I thanked Lauren again, lifted a hand in farewell, and let myself into the big, empty building.

It was warm and very still inside. The heady scent of old books floated with the dust motes in the fading light. Old and used books have a particular scent -- very different from new books. That evening it was a mix of old leather, worn cloth, crumbling paper, and wood polish. It smelled like home. I couldn’t imagine willingly leaving Cloak and Dagger ever. Maybe they could stick me under the floorboards when I was done.

I walked over to the plastic wall dividing the bookstore from the other half of the building. There was no sign that the cops had been there during the day. No sign anyone had. Perhaps that was good news.

I went upstairs and unlocked my flat. It was too warm and stuffy upstairs, a bit too redolent of cat. I opened the windows to catch whatever evening breeze there was.
What had been the rush to get here again? Everything was exactly as I’d left it. As it would always be.

I sat down on the sofa, and Tomkins leaped onto the cushion beside me, rubbing his face against my arm.

“Miss me?”

Apparently so. Well, there was no accounting for taste; I’d be the first to admit that.

I dealt with the litter box, fed the cat, decided I’d opt for a snack later, considered having a drink, reconsidered, and returned to the sofa, where I stared at the ceiling for a time.

What the hell was my problem?

If I’d wanted company, why hadn’t I stayed at Lisa’s?

I listened to the distant street sounds as this part of town began to roll up the sidewalks for the evening. I listened to the building settling in for the long evening, stretching out wooden joints, cracking its knuckles.

“Oh, what the hell,” I said.

Tomkins briefly abandoned his pursuit of an ailing fly to throw me a curious look as I rose and went to the phone.

“He’s probably not even home,” I told him.

Tomkins offered no opinion. He sat down to watch, as though my dialing a phone was one of the most fascinating things he’d ever witnessed in his brief life.

The phone rang on the other end.

Once.

Twice.

I closed my eyes, trying to decide if I was going to leave a message.

“Riordan.”

I opened my eyes. Funny how the sound of his voice could still make my heart speed up. You’d have thought I’d be over it by now. You’d have thought wrong.

“Hi.”

“Hey.” One syllable, but his voice warmed perceptibly. “How are you doing?”

“Okay.” I wondered how long it would be before that statement was true.

“Yeah?”

I didn’t think there was any telltale note in my voice, yet his single questioning word held instant and complete discernment. Sometimes I thought Jake, ironically, knew me better than about anyone on the planet.

“Not really,” I admitted. “Did you hear about yesterday?”

“The skeleton in the wall? I heard.”

You could take the boy out of the police force, but you couldn’t take the police force out of the boy.

“We had another break-in too. That’s why I’m calling.”

His voice didn’t cool exactly, though it lost warmth. “Yes?”

“How’s the PI biz?”

He said colorlessly, “I got my first case yesterday. A woman wants me to follow her ex.”

“He’s already her ex?”

“Yeah.”

No wonder his voice sounded flat. “Are you going to take it?”

“Yes.” And clearly it was not up for discussion.

“Do you think you’d have time for another case?”

He sounded almost wary as he asked, “What case? Who’s the client?”

“Me,” I said. “I want to hire you.”