Ajax Stewart in Werewolves of Mass Destruction – Excerpt
Not long ago, another issue of The Consortium's speculative fiction magazine A Consortium of Worlds came out. Inside is the first professional example of a character and story type that has rattled around my head for the better part of five or six years. Werewolves of Mass Destruction introduces (more or less) my modern pulp hero, Ajax Stewart Engineer of the Impossible. It also introduces Verity Sooth, Freelance Reporter of the Weird. Here's an excerpt of the story. Let me know what you think and go pick up aCoW3 if you like it. There's a lot of other amazing stuff in there as well sure to thrill and chill. And now...on with the show!
Intrepid readers, you've been with me through so much. You were there when I posted definitive proof that the Loch Ness Monster was more Nestor than Nessie. You read with bated breath how I discovered through personally harrowing danger that the chupacabra is willing to suck the bodily fluids of a lot more than goats. You thrilled as I worked my way backwards from Area 319 all the way back to Area 57 (so close!). And you thrilled with me to discover that the Men in Black were an elaborate cover-up maintained by the Men in Plaid.
I enjoyed experiencing and writing about those adventures as much as you did reading about them. But, patrons of the Bizarre Bazaar, I assure you they are small potatoes compared to the shocking turn of events that began with me about to be sacrificed -- burned alive, actually -- by a druidic offshoot of the Irish Republican Army. I do not well play the damsel in distress, but I assure you, intrepid ones, that I was in deep distress when my “hero” arrived. I must admit, though, I never expected to have my life saved by a grown man the world once called a Teen Science Detective...
- Excerpt from Verity Sooth's Bizarre Bazaar Blog
Verity sat thirty feet in the air behind the “bars” of wicker cage. Her rattan prison made the chest cavity of a man-shaped figure created from bundles of straw. She wondered if, after everything else, this was how it would end, burned to a cinder by a bunch of IRA terrorists-turned-druid-wannabes so they could get in on the international occultic arms trade. The bonfire was starting to get hot even up here, and its smoke combined with the incessant drone in Gaelic to give her a migraine. And she was already irritable, what with the whole about-to-be-murdered thing.
“Could you guys throw some lighter fluid on that fire to hurry this thing up?” she yelled down at the circle of thirteen men wearing rough robes. “If the fire doesn’t get me, I’ll probably die of embarrassment just being this close to you yahoos.”
The men ignored her and continued to chant. Moon and firelight glinted off wavy daggers and the points of the stag antlers worn by--and Verity inwardly snorted in derision just thinking this--the Archdruid. She slumped backward and felt the whole wicker man sway with her movement. She wished her last-ditch attempt at getting rescued had worked. She’d always wanted to meet the Engineer of the Impossible, ever since she was a kid.
“Wow,” a non-Irish, non-chanting voice said from far below her. “Is this an honest-to-goodness wicker man ceremony? And right next to a trio of standing stones, too? I expected the beauty and history of Ireland to astound me, but I sure didn’t expect to get a show like this.”
Every hooded head turned toward the voice, and Verity scrabbled around, trying to see who spoke. The distance, the smoke, and the angle kept her from getting a good look at the man, but she couldn’t help feeling a flutter that she might not die here tonight. The Archdruid, stupid, giant, antler headdress and all, stepped in the direction of the voice, waving his arms and making angry noises in the same way Verity’s grandmother used to if somebody got too close to her azaleas.
“This is a sacred rite,” the Archdruid began in his thick brogue, “ye cannae be trespassin’ here!”
“You mean this isn’t some sort of reenactment for tourists?”
“Naw, mate, this is the real deal. And we cannae let ye wander off to tell a bobby, now can we?” The other robed men began to drift away from the wicker man and surround the newcomer. “So I guess the wicker man gets another sacrifice in addition to this nosy reporter.”
“A reporter?” The voice sounded amused. “Oh, good, I was afraid I’d stumbled on the wrong set of idiots bent on burning people alive.”
Verity finally saw something of the voice’s owner, but it was a blur that darted into the circle of bonfire light and toward the Archdruid. A fist shot out and vanished into the dark recesses of the Archdruid’s hood. There was a sound like a sledgehammer hitting a side of beef, and the antlered man flew backward a couple yards.
There probably weren’t ten men in the world who could throw a haymaker like that, and Verity had only sent word out to one of them. Her desperate attempt to call for help must have worked, because Ajax Stewart was on the scene!
The night filled with the sounds of fighting punctuated by the same thunderclap sound of Ajax’s punches, the tearing of cloth, the snap of bones, and the screams of men. Verity couldn’t see any of it, which frustrated the heck out of her. The only thing she could see was the prostrate form of the Archdruid starting to stir.
She watched as the robed and horned figure stood, shook its head to clear it, then took up a chant again. She stared in horrified fascination as a reddish, glowing ball of fire coalesced between his outstretched hands.
“Ajax, look out!” she screamed just as the fireball flew from the man’s hands and in the direction of the fight. The night lit up with baleful light and the air sizzled as the ball flew across the distance. It nicked the wicker man and added crackling, fiery fury to the bonfire that already worried at the straw figure’s ankles. There were screams of pain and fear, and Verity started to think she wasn’t saved after all. Until she heard a rich baritone yell up to her.
“Thanks for the heads up.”
The Archdruid began chanting again, and wisps of flame gathered between his palms. The flames from his previous onslaught now licked up the side of the wicker man. The floor of Verity’s cage began to smoke heavily. She couldn’t wait on Ajax now. She’d be Cajun-style reporter before he finished dealing with the spell-slinging Archdruid.
She threw herself against the side of her cage facing the Archdruid, then flung her whole weight back against the opposite side. She focused all her energy on causing the wicker man to sway back and forth, ignoring the fact that the flames seared holes in the floor of her prison as two, three, and four more bolts of eldritch fire seared the night air.
Within half a minute, the stench of burnt rubber joined the smell of smoke as the soles of her sneakers started melting. But she had the wicker man bowing so that the chest cavity that held her was perpendicular to the ground. As it bent steeply over the Archdruid, Verity threw herself toward what had been the top of her cage. She heard the satisfying crack of the straw effigy’s support pole snapping under her weight. The noise caused the Archdruid to look up, and even his shadowy hood couldn’t hide wide, terrified eyes from Verity as her flaming cage hurtled downward.
The wicker man hit the ground--and the Archdruid--with a literally bone-crunching impact. A swelling cloud of dust blinded Verity, and she doubled over, coughing. Flames snapped closer to her face, but she couldn’t catch her breath enough to make a run for it.
Verity was still coughing when Ajax snapped the thick, wicker bars of her cage as though they were toothpicks and heaved her out of its blazing confines. “Well done, Ms. Sooth. That sorcerer was giving me some trouble. I’d probably have sorted him out, but thanks for saving me the trouble.”
“No--cough--thank--cough--you,” Verity rasped. She blinked away the dust that caked her eyes and got her first good look at Ajax Stewart, Engineer of the Impossible.
He was big, over six feet tall and heavily built, but with obvious brawn rather than needless bulk. He had a head of thick, dark hair, and his clean-shaven face held chiseled features right down to the cleft in his chin. A shirt torn open across the front in the struggle with the robed hooligans revealed rock-solid muscles and a bulging bicep. He wore a longish leather pouch at his left hip that might have been a gun holster but looked too long and bulky. It connected seamlessly to a belt with the most complicated and technological buckle she’d ever seen. She caught herself staring and shook her head, a blush coming to her cheeks.
Ajax opened his mouth to say something but was interrupted by a howling roar that echoed across the Irish heather. A shiver of fear went down Verity’s spine, but Ajax simply rolled his eyes and turned toward the sounds of massive, stomping footsteps reverberating through the night.
Coming over the hill, framed by the fat gibbous moon, was the silhouette of an ill-shaped man. At least twelve feet tall, the figure looked like it was made entirely of bulging knots of muscles, awkwardly put together and sometimes working at cross purposes. They pulled in odd angles against crooked joints, rippling beneath the mottled skin. The face was framed by shaggy, lank hair that hung in front of red, piggy eyes. The nose was snoutlike and the mouth was a jagged line broken by tusks jutting from the lower jaw. As the thing came over the hill, it saw Ajax standing near Verity, bellowed a challenge, and hefted the great, two-handed, doubled-edged axe it had slung over its shoulder.
Ajax muttered, “I can’t believe these poseurs managed to summon a troll.” He patted Verity on the arm and said, “I’ll be right back, Ms. Sooth.”
Before Verity could protest, Ajax broke into a dead sprint toward the troll. She took a deep breath to yell for him to stop. But her tortured lungs couldn’t handle the sudden inrush of air. All she managed was another chest-wrenching coughing fit.
As Ajax ran toward the behemoth, it swung its gargantuan ax toward him in a two-handed, overhead chop that whistled through the night air. Ajax dodged to the left, and the axe blade slammed into the earth next to him, digging a furrow three feet deep. The ogre’s arm muscles strained against the stuck ax head, trying to haul it back up. The ground held it fast for a moment, just long enough for Ajax to leap lithely onto the axe handle.
The handle must have been a small tree trunk in its former life, so balancing on it as he sprinted up its length barely taxed Ajax’s agility. The ogre yanked the blade free, flinging the handle backward and catapulting Ajax high into the air.
Ajax reached into the leather pouch along his leg, pulled out a handful of black powder that glimmered in the moonlight, and flung it into the eyes of the ogre. The monster dropped its axe and clapped its misshapen claws over its eyes. A screaming roar tore from its throat as Ajax sailed over its head in a comfortable arc. He dove toward the ground, landed in a roll, came to his feet, and whirled to face the monster.
The ogre spun, its eyes even more bleary and bloodshot, its face a twisted mask of rage and pain. Empty of the ax, clawed hands grasped the air with murderous intent. Both combatants tensed, ready to rejoin the battle.
But an out-of-breath, red-faced Verity stood between them with her hands thrown up over her head, a palm turned to each of the fighters.
“Stop!” she screamed.
Both fighters froze in their tracks, looking confusedly from Verity to each other and back again.
Verity turned to the ogre first. “Ungus Bonecracker, I don’t think Queen Mab sent you here to get your behind handed to you by a human, did she?”
The ogre actually managed to look sheepish. “No, miss.”
Verity turned to Ajax. “And you, mister man of action. Did it ever occur to you to ask if the monster was on our side before you attacked?”
Ajax fidgeted under Verity’s glare. “Um, not really. I mean, it’s never come up before.”
“Really?” Verity asked, a quizzical look on her face.
Ajax shrugged.
Verity sniffed. “I suspect you’ve missed out on some opportunities to make friends, then.” She turned back to the ogre. “Ungus, go back to your queen and tell her I’ve found the men who hunted the wee folk from her court. Thanks to the help of my friend, Ajax, they won’t be bothering her subjects, or anyone else, ever again.”
Ungus glared at Ajax. “Manling threw cold iron in my eyes. Ungus must break his bones.”
“Didn’t you hear me? He’s the main reason those men won’t be killing your Unseelie brethren anymore. It was all a big misunderstanding, and I want you two to shake on it and leave as friends.”
Ungus and Ajax looked at Verity in disbelief. Verity wiggled her eyebrows up and down at Ajax and motioned with her head. Ajax sighed and stepped forward, offering his hand to the monster.
Ungus eyed it warily, but Ajax brushed the hand on his pant leg and held it up. “No more iron filings, see? It’s clean.” Ungus peered at it closely, then engulfed Ajax’s hand in a gargantuan paw. They pumped once. Ajax was afraid Ungus might tear his shoulder out of the socket if they had to shake again.
“Now get going,” Verity told Ungus as she hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “Mab will want to hear your report.”
Ungus Bonebreaker hefted his humongous ax over his shoulder and stalked back over the hill. Verity watched him go, then turned to find Ajax staring at her.
She held out her hand. “My turn, I guess. I’m Verity Sooth, blogger of the bizarre.”
Ajax shook her hand. “Ajax Stewart, Engineer of the Impossible. I’m a fan of your work, Ms. Sooth.”
Verity blushed. “I’ve been anxious to meet you for a while as well, Mr. Stewart.”
“Ajax, please. Anyone who’s friends with Queen Mab can call me by my first name.”
Verity shrugged. “Call me Verity. I owed Mab one. Besides, I did not like the idea of men preying on her littlest fairies. Unseelie or not, pixies are just little mischief makers. They don’t deserve what those guys were doing to them.” She shuddered. “Well, obviously you got my Tweet.”
Ajax nodded. “I did, and just in time too. I’m happy to rescue somebody from certain doom, but your Tweet mentioned a lead on something I’d be especially interested in.”
Verity nodded. “Do you know why those guys were hunting Unseelie fairies?”
Ajax shook his head.
“They were harvesting their blood. Do you know anybody who might be interested in buying cut-rate Unseelie Fae blood?”
Ajax’s face darkened. “Thule Reich.”
“Got it in one.”
“I hate those guys.”
“I know. That’s why I called you.”
“I’m glad. Do you have their contact?”
“I do, but I’ll only give it under one condition.”
Ajax looked unsurprised. “And that is?”
“You have to take me with you.”
He sighed. “Yeah, that’s pretty much what I expected.”
Verity beamed at him.
Ajax looked toward the smoldering burial place of the Archdruid and then toward the pile of his minions Ajax had trussed up next to it.
“Let’s talk to my friends at MI5 and make sure neither of us is going to jail over this business tonight. If we can dodge that, then you’ve got yourself a deal.”
Verity nodded and tried to look cool. On the inside, though, she was squealing with excitement. This would be the story of the century. Engineer of the Impossible Brings Down the Greatest Mystical Menace of the Last Century.
And Verity Sooth will be there to live-tweet the whole thing. Assuming the ex-Nazi nihilist necromancers don’t kill us, that is.
