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Synopsis

Grimsby, a junior Auditor in the government-sanctioned, magical Department of Unorthodox Affairs, must do all he can to fight for the innocent...

When a magical illness begins to afflict children in Boston, the Department of Unorthodox Affairs tasks junior Auditor Grimshaw Griswald Grimsby with uncovering the source and--together with his partner, the grizzled veteran Huntsman Mayflower--putting a stop to it by any means necessary.

But their efforts to determine the origin of the spreading malady are soon complicated by the emergence of ancient and strange beings that Grimsby and Mayflower have never encountered before. To uncover the truth, they will have to turn to old acquaintances and allies and delve deep below Boston, into the city of monsters that lies beneath, and travel to the unfathomable reality of the Elsewhere.

Burdened by his own troubles, both past and present, it will take all Grimsby's skill, iron, and no shortage of magic to stop this apparent plague and save those who have been afflicted.

Assuming it's not already too late.

Excerpt

One

Grimshaw Griswald Grimsby pressed his oversize glasses back up on the bridge of his sweat-slicked nose. Glaring red light pooled in through the window, drawn into harsh, jagged lines by shards of broken glass that still clung to their ornate tracery of black stone. The room seemed empty and infinite in the scarlet Elsewhere glow, but the shadows around him seemed to tremble and writhe at the periphery of his vision. Yet, no matter where he focused his spectacled gaze, everything was still.

Though Grimsby knew better.

Inside this place was a monster.

He just didn't know where. At least, not yet.

But he would find it.

The smooth floor was strewn with small objects: tiny dolls carved out of black wood, dice made of charred bone, scattered puzzle pieces of leather that seemed to tremble in the dark, and more.

At the room's center was a magnificent bed, its surface shining black marble, with a pillar at each of its corners, all holding up a shaggy canopy of thick, dark fur. The bed had no other element of softness to it. No blankets or pillows, no warm or welcoming surface. It was sharp and rigid, its frame engraved with small figures that seemed to be running from large, misshapen forms.

As Grimsby drew closer, he saw that the figures were children. The image began to move. The children ran and laughed and played in dreadful slow motion. Then a creature crawled into the image, moving with the frantic precision of a spider, making its shape hard to determine. One by one, the heedless children were caught and vanished within its sprawling form-until finally the beast retreated, leaving the marble surface smooth.

Grimsby shuddered, his skin puckering into gooseflesh. He waited for a moment to see if the image would reset itself.

Instead, the bed's whole frame suddenly rattled.

He took an instinctive step back, drawing the cold iron knife sheathed on his belt with his left hand while Impetus flared to life as deep heat in his right-his good hand.

Grimsby stood for a long moment, his fingers wrapped around the knife's grip, his body tense, ready for some threat to reveal itself.

Instead, the bed returned to quiet stillness.

Grimsby's eyes narrowed. He did not return the knife to its sheath, instead finding small comfort in the cool iron against his palm-but even a little went a long way in this dark place.

"Where are you?" he muttered, the sound of his own voice another small comfort.

Despite his words, the creature did not reveal itself. He realized the bed's rattle was a warning, like that of a snake's tail.

His quarry was hiding. It was an opportunistic predator, feeding off the terror it inspired in the children it tormented, who were unable to defend themselves. It had no interest in confronting an adult.

Let alone a witch.

It wanted him to leave. And, in fairness, he wanted much the same.

But this was his job.

And it wasn't his first time.

In fact, over the past few months, Lantern-Light Apartments had been plagued by no fewer than six spirits-each of which he had dealt with in turn.

He knew what he was doing.

Or perhaps that thought was just another of his small comforts.

Either way, those comforts had begun to add up to something at least vaguely akin to confidence, and that was enough to drive the predator into hiding-but where?

He shook himself until he focused. His fingers tightened around his knife, making his joints pop. His readied Impetus pulled warmth and power into him, drawn from the reality-warping realm of the Elsewhere itself.

The heat in his chest redoubled, and so did the sweat-though neither was helped by the well-tailored gray-black suit he wore. He felt the magic rush through him, trailing through his veins like someone was tracing them with a hot iron, but the pain it brought was familiar, even welcome.

It meant he wasn't defenseless.

Far from it, in fact. He was an Auditor. This was his job.

And though it wasn't exactly his favorite part, it was the most necessary.

He leaned down and pressed a finger on his right hand to the floor. After a small effort of concentration, dim blue light eked forth from his fingertip like luminescent ink, coalescing into a symbol that held meaning to no one but him. It likely wouldn't be of use, but he had learned that it never hurt to have an errant Bind rune around.

He checked that his watch was securely fastened to his wrist. It was cheap, but the metal had taken his engraving well, though it was battery powered, so its hands did not turn here in the Elsewhere as those of a true mechanical watch would have.

He then took the measure of his exits.

The only way out was the door on the far side of the bed-that or the window. Hopefully he wouldn't have to use that exit again.

He took a deep breath. Then, with power in his right hand, a knife in his left, and the waiting word of a spell on his lips, he dropped to one knee, peering into the quiet dark beneath the massive bed.

He saw clearly through to the dull red light of the other side.

Empty.

"Where are you?" he muttered, this time a hint of nerves creeping into his voice.

The bed shifted again.

And so did the fur canopy above.

He looked up from the ground to see the fur split, as though invisible twin combs were parting its center to either side. Then, with a wet, sucking sound, a seam peeled apart to reveal a single luminously black eye.

Grimsby felt his heart in his throat, but more than that, he felt utterly stupid.

Anyone would expect the monster beneath the bed.

So this one had lurked above it.

It was smarter than the others. And much bigger.

Even as the thoughts flashed through his mind, the creature struck. Prying one clawed limb from the top of a bedpost, it lashed out, its body stretching impossibly as though it had no bones to burden its form.

Grimsby managed to throw his left arm in the way.

The thing's talons couldn't pierce the silver-threaded cloth, but even so, that simply turned claw into cudgel. The blow bludgeoned its way through his guard and into his chest, knocking his knife from his grip and flinging Grimsby away, sending him rolling over the black stone floor in a clatter of macabre toys, dredging up a cloud of ash as he did.

He barely had enough time to register that he had dropped his mother's knife when his back struck the wall beneath the window and stars burst into his dazed vision.

He shook himself, drawing in a sharp breath, only to cough on ash-laden air.

Instinctively, he raised his right arm toward the bed, Impetus at the ready. The heat flowed through him as frantically as the blood pumped by his pounding heart. It flooded his body like adrenaline, and though it felt like heat where it flowed, it turned to sharp agony as it reached the scars on his left arm. He felt them grow red-hot under his sleeve as wayward power spilled into them.

He pushed the familiar torment away and kept his eyes combing the dark. He expected some charging onslaught from the creature, but between the hazy air, the red light of the window behind him, and the darkness of the room, he saw nothing, save for the glimmer of the edge of his knife on the ground beside the bed.

Something skittered in the dark, just beyond the bounds of the scarlet glow.

Then he saw a red reflection of light, twisted by the dark orb of the creature's eye, revealing Grimsby's own face.

His reflection looked more determined than frightened-though only just.

Then the spirit pounced.

Its eye closed as it burst forth from the dark like a massive severed hand covered in fur. The span of its limbs was wider than Grimsby's own, all five splaying out in an effort to trap him.

Grimsby clenched his right hand, and blue light bloomed between the seams of his tightened fingers as he shouted, "Bind!"

A cobalt thread appeared, drawn between his palm and the rune he had left on the floor, now on the far side of the creature.

The line pulled taut instantly, and like it was a rip cord, Grimsby was jerked out of the window's pooling light and, much more pertinently, out from underneath the descending spirit.

His shoulder felt as though it might have been wrenched from the socket as he was dragged haplessly over the floor like a fish on a line. As the rune on his palm met its match across the room, he heard the creature collide heavily with where he had been. He turned to see its body thrashing madly like a molting spider, its talons screeching and scraping over the floor as it scrambled to find him.

He managed to pry his hand back enough to wave away the Bind, and the line of blue light snapped and sizzled to orange and then nothing.

Behind him, the spirit had gone silent, and Grimsby looked back just in time to see its palm split and reveal the eye once more. It cast about for a moment before locking onto him, and, as if it were enraged he had slipped past while its lone eye was closed, the spirit let out a shriek, all its limbs shuddering.

Across its hide, more black orbs bubbled to the surface, until dozens of small, dark eyes covered its body.

It would not lose sight of him again.

Grimsby decided right about then that it was time to run.

He paused only long enough to collect his mother's knife, sheathing it before leaping over the bed; managing to scramble past its width without pause, he crossed what remained of the room and burst through the heavy door and into the hall.

He, fortunately, did not have eyes all over his body and so could not see the spirit behind him.

But even with only a solitary pair of ears, he could hear it gouge over the floor and tear apart the bed as it gave chase.

It was faster than he was.

After all, it had more legs, too.

Grimsby just had to hope it didn't have much of a brain.

At the hall's end was a mirror he had noted on his way in-his intended escape route.

And on the ground before it was the binding circle he had inscribed on the floor. It glowed in the same dull blue that his runes did, the color at odds with the usual scarlet of the Elsewhere. He was relieved, and perhaps a little surprised, that it hadn't yet faded.

With luck, it would trap the spirit within long enough for him to destroy it.

Even without, it should at least buy him a few seconds.

Talons screeched over stone as both of his ears agreed that the thing was right behind him.

Grimsby screwed his eyes shut and pumped his legs harder. Fortunately, years of pedaling his bike around Boston had left them no strangers to exertion-unfortunately, they were nowhere near as fast without his trusty ride.

Even so, he reached the circle and charged straight past its silvery blue outline. He felt a prickling pain over his skin, like he had run through wire mesh that had given way, but only reluctantly. The air inside the circle was strangely electric, and he could somehow taste pennies on his tongue. The sensation made his attention waver, and his foot caught from a misplaced step, sending him tumbling forward. He fell out of the circle's bounds, leaving it behind him, between him and the spirit. The strange sensations dissipated just in time for his head to crack into the mirror and send stars across his vision.

Fortunately, the glass did not shatter.

He crumpled to the floor, his forehead pressed against the cold glass. With dazed effort, he twisted to see the spirit through his crooked glasses. It hurtled down the hall toward him. But even with its many eyes, it took no heed of the circle.

Not much of a brain after all, Grimsby thought.

It crossed into the circle's boundary, and as it did, its fur began to stand on end.

It came to a halt and reared up over him, fingerlike limbs splayed to strike. Its countless eyes seemed pleased-a disturbing emotion to see on such a creature, especially one that lacked eyebrows.

The largest of its eyes split its palm once more, though this time the eye itself split again, like a second lid, revealing consecutive rows of unending teeth that seemed to go far deeper than the creature's body should allow.

For a moment, Grimsby feared the binding would fail-after all, the others before it had, and that had been with spirits that had paled in size compared to the spirit before him. But he had been working for months to improve his design, and this was his best yet.

Surely, it would hold.

Then the spirit lunged forward for what his internal monologue promised wasn't the last time. Before it could reach him, however, its limbs struck what was like a pane of curved glass, shimmering into existence only while it was in contact with the spirit.

Its blows were deflected, coming just short of Grimsby's throbbing legs, leaving the creature to squeal and squirm in what appeared to be a half dome of hopefully-not-too-evanescent glass.

Grimsby took a few gasping breaths before adjusting his glasses as he examined the dome.

"Huh," he muttered. "The book said it should be a cylinder."

He managed a breathless chuckle at the unusual geometry, but it was cut short as the spirit lunged again-and this time he could have almost sworn it got closer.

Grimsby climbed to his feet and took an instinctive and prudent step back. But even despite the adrenaline, even despite the fear and dull pain he felt, underneath there was a surge of hope.

His binding had worked-all that was left was to hold the monster long enough for true daylight from the mirror to destroy it.

And if the binding worked here, then perhaps there was a chance it might work again.

On something much bigger.

His hand unconsciously slipped beneath his tie, to the locket hidden under his shirt.

His train of thought derailed as the creature ceased its thrashing.

It began to shudder, as it had before when he had evaded it, and suddenly its fur began to molt and peel away, revealing skin that glistened with unusual patterns like a butterfly's wing rendered in shades of black. Its body seemed to engorge on nothing, growing until it strained at the circle's confines.

Copyright © 2027 by James J. Butcher

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