Now Before the Dark (Terribly Serious Darkness Book 3)

by Sam Hooker

Demons nearly always started at 99th level, but Sloot was the opposite of lucky. Not simply unlucky, which would have been a massive improvement. Sloot had the sort of anti-luck that evil wizards wished their curses would cause.

But introspection tended to unbottle old feelings, and what was the point of bottling them up if you’re just going to confront them later?

Sloot reasoned that the Coolest must have temporarily patched the hole that Roman had poked in the Dark. That was how the goblins had been finding their way into the Old Country all this time, following the siren’s song of foul language, discourteous behavior, and improvisational comedy.

On the other hand, neither would asserting the truth. Even if Arthur were capable of admitting that he was wrong, his professional code of conduct would compel him to play devil’s advocate and argue the point nonetheless.

but there’s no such thing as magic.” “You were dead,” said Sloot. “Allegedly,” Arthur retorted. “You lived—or, well, resided—with wizards in the Hereafter. You have to remember that.” It’s widely accepted that the worst thing anyone can say to a philosopher is that they have to do something. You might as well tell them to get a job.

Cobblestone streets so clean you could eat off of them, patrolled by city guards eager to make someone do so.

Igor drew in another breath. “The jeweler’s shop used to be a butcher’s shop. Honestly, is context entirely lost on gremlins?” “I dunno,” Igor shrugged, “I’m a bard. A gremlin would probably say that they understood quite well, but that wasting your time with inane questions was an effective means of sabotage.”

It was like a box of corners had fallen off a cart, and whoever found them used the savings to convince the building inspector to look the other way.

Frankly, neither would have surprised him. He gave a wry smirk at that. He’d always wanted to be a person surprised by neither of two things.

rail against everything from the Domnitor, long may he reign, to the consistency of pudding and the audacity of those who dared to eat it.

Salzstadt’s reality never stood a chance of living up to his dreams, like the unathletic children of serious boulderchuck fans.

Sloot found himself sitting on a bench that he needed to believe had once been clean.

“Try not to think too hard about it,” Igor warned. “Ley lines can only tolerate so much rationality. You’ll cause the train to throw an axle.” “But wh—” The question was cut off by everyone else on the train shouting in incoherent agitation or throwing partially rotten vegetables at him.

They left the train and emerged from a cave whose mouth looked suspiciously like a fanged skull. Not suspiciously—predictably. It was Carpathia, after all.

His demonic instincts urged him to strike a bargain with this mortal, but he had no idea where to begin. He imagined it was like asking a girl to dance. The only people who could manage it must have read some sort of manual, and he hadn’t.

The conversation that unfolded left Sloot feeling that simple answers were things that happened to other people.

They’d shown initiative, which Sloot understood to be a particular brand of toadying that came easily to people who were bad at their jobs.

Sloot started hyperventilating but was interrupted by the smell of an upscale brothel dipped in honey.

“Objection,” said Roger, his eyes flashing with murderous intent. “I wouldn’t want to speculate.”

“It’s not that simple, ma’am,” said Scabrot. Good, thought Ms. Sarcophage, considering herself a proud casualty in the righteous war on efficiency.

Agather assured him they had a long way to go before Sloot simply didn’t know how to dance. At present, he seemed to have taken lessons in how to not dance.

“Ahem,” said someone among the crowd. Most of them looked barely old enough to enter a pub at all. Arthur sighed. “And ladies. I suppose I’ll have to get used to saying that. Gentlemen and ladies. Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it?

Artists get along with abstract, and they’re prone to doing things like, well, doing things. They’re capable of making signs and often willing to walk around with them.

Reality is now being perceived by a non-mind on behalf of sentient beings.

It was a farce at best, but throw it on a plate with enough ketchup, and you’ll get someone to swallow it. “That sounds bad,” said Sloot. “How do we fix it?”

“Sorry,” said Walter the Undying. “What did I tell you about controlling perception?” asked Flavia. “Oh, right. I meant, you had that coming,

but it reminded him of the way the tip of one’s nose itched if one thought about it hard enough.

On behlf of eveyone reading this and then feeling it, may I say, God damn you.

Igor explained along the way that in the absence of bureaucracy, people find ways to get along with each other without books full of statutes or the threat of litigation.

That’s how things end up getting written down, and then it’s all ‘that’s not what they meant when they wrote that.’ It’s not natural, keeping people honest like that.”

Though civic statutes demanded he extoll the superiority of the Old Country in all foreign affairs, Igor was right. No one did foreboding like Carpathia. If you so much as squinted at a Carpathian shadow, a wolf would howl in the distance.

“Not everything can be treated with the utmost importance,” said Dandelion. “No,” Lilacs agreed, “wouldn’t be fair to the matters of actual utmost importance.”

“Right! Oh, those were the days, veren’t they?

Is he putting on the accent? Or this a typo?

vell, like Villie said, he usually doesn’t go into rooms this … cozy.” “Small,” said Willie. “I said ‘small.’ And I didn’t say ‘depressing’ because that would be rude. And ‘rude’ is just the truth when it’s said by poors.”

She’s tough as nails, the queen of the goblins, but you’re like one of those … what do you call them? Big deal in a thousand years or so. Some nations have them just for pointing at other nations, but they’d be mad to ever use them.

everyone has free will. That’s the problem. When people’s wills collide, it stands to reason one must triumph over the other.”

if you expand that concept to include everyone in the universe … basically, you get bureaucracy.”

“Father vasn’t a creative man,” said Bartleby. “Good,” said Constantin, who thought of creativity as a withering ailment that doomed youths to sell painted driftwood in open-air markets.

For demons, it’s more like organized crime. Anyone who gets mixed up with it is bound to end up at the bottom of a river sooner or later.

What?

Vampire bureaucracy didn’t specifically fall under the auspices of his mission, but Sloot made a mental note to see if he could amend things to provide them a bit of red tape. Red tape was good for bureaucracy. It prevented accidents from speeding.

“You passed it again!” shouted Constantin. “You’ve got the direction sense of a newborn baby!” “And you’ve got its bladder control,” Nan retorted. “No one can control a Hapsgalt man’s bladder, sir! You’re lucky mine doesn’t thrash you within an inch of your life for your insolence!

He wasn’t just a resident, he was a denizen. He had a grasp of the hasty generalizations and knee-jerk reactions that beat instincts any day.

Disembodied observer, was he? Essentially godlike power within the realm? Ha! This was Sloot Peril they were dealing with. He’d not be lured into a sense of security so easily.

If there was one thing you could say about the Witchwood, you’d do well to keep it to yourself.

“And whyn’t shouldn’t I’ve?” Agather demanded.

Sloot nearly had a heart attack on his way up to the 9th level, which was the hell for prima ballerinas who couldn’t remain humble.

“It’s complicated,” Sloot began. “You see—” “We’re not here to steal anything,” said Myrtle, having been driven to confession either by pragmatism or to avoid letting Sloot try politics.

Sloot nodded. He didn’t like where this was going. There was going to be existentialism, he could tell.

Igor hurled a swear word toward the Prime Evils that smelled like rotten fish processed through the guts of rotten cats.

“See you Monday, then?” asked Gutsbag. “Probably not,” said Myrtle. “There are Mondays in the Inferno?” Sloot mused. “There are only Mondays in the Inferno,” Gutsbag corrected him. “Anyway, good luck. Not that it exists.”

“Ooo, I do love poetry,” said Yellow with a wicked grin. You would, thought Sloot. He was convinced that poetry had been invented in the Inferno and found its way up to the coffee shops in the Narrative for the expressed purpose of ruining coffee. As if cappuccinos needed any assistance.