Soul Remains Read online

  Soul Remains

  Terribly Serious Darkness Book Two

  Sam Hooker

  Contents

  Previous Books by Sam Hooker

  Cast

  Ever Hereafter

  Old Bones

  Blood Economy

  The Circle

  That's No Damsel

  Skeleton Key Circle

  Puppies Most Vile

  Witchery

  Pub Rules

  Inner Peace

  Goblin Anthropology

  Rescues and Abductions

  Castle on the Border

  The Handler

  Bureaucratic Horror

  Dating

  Eternal Boredom

  What Dwells in the Dark

  Lucille

  Abattoir Park

  Infernal Bureaucratic Fulfillment

  The Serpent of the Sky

  In Disgrace

  The Carpathian Agreement

  Wink and a Bob

  Goblins Marching

  Fog of War

  Tidying Up

  Roman's Wager

  New Digs

  Enter the Bard

  Coming Home

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  This Book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  ISBN (print): 978-1-7329357-2-3

  ISBN (ebook): 978-1-7329357-3-0

  ISBN (mobi): 978-1-7329357-4-7

  * * *

  Illustration by Lian Croft

  Cover design by Najla Qamber

  Edited by Lindy Ryan

  Interior Layout Design Rebecca Poole

  Publication date April 23, 2019

  Black Spot Books

  * * *

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and are products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual events, or locales or persons, living or dead are entirely coincidental.

  For Shelly, the Myrtle to my Sloot.

  Previous Books by Sam Hooker

  Peril in the Old Country (Terribly Serious Darkness, Book 1)

  * * *

  The Winter Riddle

  Cast

  Sloot Peril, a late accountant and award-winning worrier.

  Roman Bloodfrenzy, Spymaster of Salzstadt for the Carpathian Intelligence service.

  Myrtle Pastry, Sloot’s late girlfriend, who was in life possessed by a philosopher of no renown.

  Lord Constantin Hapsgalt, father of Willie and late Eye of the Serpent, who was skipped over for Soul of the Serpent by his son’s untimely demise.

  Lord Wilhelm “Willie” Hapsgalt, the recently deceased Soul of the Serpents of the Earth and Sloot’s employer.

  Mrs. Knife, a deranged lunatic who is as dangerous as she sounds. She became the Eye of the Serpent by murdering Willie.

  Gregor, a necromancer who’s been up to no good for over a thousand years.

  Vlad Defenestratia the Invader, 37th of her name, ruler of Carpathia and the greatest warrior ever to have lived.

  Greta Urmacher, paramour of Vlad the Invader and wife of the late Willie Hapsgalt. It’s complicated.

  Nicoleta Goremonger, a ghost, who was in life court wizard to Vlad the Invader. Her wardrobe could be seen from space.

  Dr. Arthur Widdershins, the aforementioned philosopher. You’ve never heard of him.

  Nan, Willie’s late nanny, who was under the magically-induced impression that Willie was perpetually 6 years old.

  The Domnitor, long may he reign, despotic ruler of the Old Country.

  Winking Bob, proprietor of the Four Bells, queen of the black market, and “honest” businesswoman extraordinaire.

  Edmund, Bob’s personal bodyguard and veritable dictionary of legal disclaimers.

  Flavia, Sloot’s handler in Uncle, Salzstadt’s rebranded Ministry of Truth.

  Grumley, a deceased fixer for the Serpents of the Earth.

  Sir Berthold Kriegstockente, a Keeper for the Skeleton Key Circle.

  Franka, apprentice to Sir Berthold.

  Hans Schweinegesicht, financier to Constantin’s mother, the late Otthilda Hapsgalt.

  Geralt Schlangenkessel, financier to the late Constantin Hapsgalt.

  The Steward of the Skeleton Key Circle, of whom little is known beyond his position and expertise in the Book of Black Law.

  Agather, witch and proprietor of the Witchwood in the forests of Carpathia.

  Bartleby, a very old necromancer who insists that vampires are cool.

  Turk, proprietor and publican of Turk’s.

  Barry and Gus, a pair of formerly living guards at the Old Country-Carpathian border.

  King Lilacs, ruler of the fairies.

  General Dandelion, leader of the fairy army.

  Sladia Peril, Sloot’s mother.

  The Coolest, who require now introduction. They know everybody.

  Igor, a gremlin with aspirations.

  And some other people as well, but there’s not going to be a test or anything.

  Ever Hereafter

  It was all grey. All of it. It occurred to Sloot that it hadn’t always been grey—everything, that is—but in that moment, he couldn’t conceive of what else it might have been.

  Sloot panicked. At least that reflex was working as expected. He was lying in a grave. Well, on a grave would have been more accurate. If he were going for full marks, he’d have said above. He was hovering not quite far enough above a grave to trigger his standard-issue fear of heights, but even an inch of hover was enough to get the old hyperventilation reflex into gear. Until now, hovering hadn’t been part of his repertoire.

  He didn’t hyperventilate, though. That would have required lungs. He couldn’t recall exactly how long it had been since he’d had that bizarre conversation with Fairy Godmother—whatever her real name was—but it had been long enough for Sloot to have forgotten that he was dead.

  “Dead,” he said to himself, trying to wrap his mind around it. Sloot was dead, floating above a grave, bereft of lungs in an altogether grey landscape, and inexplicably craving a house in which he might wander indefinitely, moaning or rattling chains or something.

  Sloot was a ghost. He’d schedule an exam with a physician at his earliest opportunity to confirm it, but only because that was what you did. Most of a physician’s job was confirming the maladies people already knew they had. Without that they’d have precious little to say to anyone, aside from how to treat those maladies. Sloot was assuredly dubious that a cure for death was available to anyone, necromancers aside.

  Sloot continued to panic. He lay there, staring up at the grey, silently pleading with his mind to grasp the enormity of it well enough to afford him the strength to sit up.

  It wasn’t working. His mind worked tirelessly at maintaining steadfast denial about the entire state of affairs, leaving him frozen in repose. After a while—which could have taken a few seconds or an eternity, Sloot couldn’t tell—there was a lull in his panic. It didn’t abate altogether, but it gave him just enough wiggle room to have a bit of a ponder.

  “Why?” he pondered. Not why would he want to sit up at all, but why should he be in any hurry to get on with it? He was dead. If there was any benefit to having shuffled off the mortal coil, shouldn’t it be that there was no longer a need to hurry? His time was his own! That hadn’t been the case in a long, long time, not since he’d established his own rigorous sleeping schedule when
he was four years old.

  “Stay up as late as you want,” his mother had said. Far from learned in the ways of the world, Sloot knew enough to be staunchly opposed to that sort of lackadaisical routine. That way led to hooliganism, he just knew it.

  But now … did the dead get to have jobs? He tried to amend the thought to “must the dead have jobs?” but he simply didn’t have it in him. His body didn’t get the work ethic in the divorce, it seemed.

  How long had he been lying there? He wasn’t sure. Time didn’t really seem to pass here. Well, it did, but there was no way to know how much. He had no frame of reference, like riding in a coach with no windows on a very smooth road. And the horses were wearing wool slippers. It was a bad metaphor, but he didn’t care to do any better.

  No, he had a job. He was sure of it. As much as he tried to rationalize that people didn’t keep turning up to work after they’d expired, he still felt the lingering dread that he was late for something, or that there was work left undone.

  The distraction seemed to have helped. He’d forgotten to panic for long enough to feel up to sitting. He tried flexing his abdominal muscles in the standard practice associated with rising to a seated position, but it was no good. He lacked abdominal muscles.

  Panic restored. It was comforting, in a uniquely Sloot Peril sort of way.

  Eventually, though, he managed it. He discovered that there were ethereal equivalents to standard muscle movements. They weren’t that different, really. Not in any way that Sloot wanted to consider at length, in any case. That way led nothing but more panic. Denial had been a favorite coping mechanism of Sloot’s in life, and he was glad to see that it still worked in the afterlife.

  Sloot sat up. No color but grey in any direction, which Sloot didn’t find disagreeable, per se. What he remembered of colors he associated with extravagance.

  It wasn’t a very large graveyard, something Sloot felt was suspicious. Setting aside why graveyards would exist in the afterlife in the first place, and given the unfathomable number of people who’d died in the course of history, shouldn’t there be millions of headstones there?

  Sloot shook the thought from his mind, adding it to his growing list of things to ponder later. Or, preferably, not at all. His capacity for denial hadn’t failed him yet, so there was hope.

  The little graveyard sat atop a hill, which was one among a number of other hills, rolling, grassy, and grey. They seemed to stretch on forever in every direction. The only other things that he could see were the roof of a house and a dark forest beyond that. Fortunately, at least one of his preconceptions was fulfilled when he moved closer and found a large two-story house beneath the roof. The relief was nearly sufficient to make him forget he’d floated over the hills to it instead of walking, but that was not the sort of thing one forgot lightly.

  The house was grey, which came as no surprise. It seemed familiar to him, though he was sure he’d never seen it before. It was as if a house he’d previously seen had a distant cousin he was meeting for the first time.

  No, that wasn’t it. It took a moment—which could have been ages, it was hard to tell—but he ultimately realized that he was home.

  He went inside. More grey, from the high grey ceilings, down the grey paisley wallpaper to the grey wainscoting, and ending in the dark grey wood—or an ethereal approximation thereof—beneath his feet. The little entryway led into a long hall, which one might expect in a large house such as this one. However, Sloot had sworn off having expectations for the foreseeable future, given the way things were going.

  He floated along the hallway, looking into the rooms on either side of it as he passed. They were mostly empty, though a few had bits of furniture in them. It was as though someone had moved into it from a much smaller place, and spread their furniture around as evenly as possible for the time being.

  There was a large living room at the end of the hall. He hadn’t expected to run into anyone there, much less someone he knew.

  “You’re noticing the grey thing,” said Nicoleta. “Please tell me that you remember colors? No one else seems to.”

  Nicoleta had had a flair for color before she, along with most of the people who’d attended Willie and Greta’s wedding, died in a maelstrom of goblins and shambling undead. She’d also had a firm grasp on the arcane workings of magic and could do some truly powerful things with it, but it had been her dazzling wardrobe that had really set her apart from run-of-the-mill wizards, whose robes were the amalgamated color of everything that had gotten on them since the last time they bothered to put on fresh ones. Most of it was soup.

  “Sorry,” said Sloot. “I remember that there was more than grey before … before...”

  “Oh, no,” came a pained wail from across the room, “not Sloot, too!”

  “Oh,” said Sloot, “sorry, I should go then?”

  “No, no,” said the voice that had wailed before, which he now recognized as belonging to Myrtle. “I’m just sad that you died, that’s all.”

  Sloot blinked, or would have, if he had eyelids anymore. It’s more accurate to say that his soul performed all of the expression of confusion that went along with a very slow and deliberate blink, and the netherworldly manifestation of his soul gave the appearance of having done so; however, the physical act of blinking never took place in the strictest sense. No eyes were moistened.

  Explanations of the rote classification of metaphysical phenomena aside, Sloot was having trouble determining what Myrtle was trying to say. She’d been his girlfriend in life—he was fairly sure of it—so it stood to reason that she’d be happy they were both dead, so they could be together. Perhaps she’d not really been his girlfriend? He’d never had one before they’d done all of that kissing. He tried remembering whether Central Bureaucracy had a form that needed filling out, Declaration of Romantic Intent or somesuch, but he couldn’t recall.

  “That doesn’t mean I’m not glad to see you,” said Myrtle, as if reading his thoughts. She smiled in a way that would have warmed his heart, if he’d still had one.

  Sloot took comfort in that, as well as some small measure of solace in his continued capacity to indulge in a bit of gut-wrenching worry. He considered that he no longer had guts to wrench, but tried to put the thought out of his mind. He’d need to curb the specificity of his inner monologue if he wanted to get anything done.

  Oh, but that was worrisome. What was there to get done? His inner monologue returned to the matter of jobs, and whether the dead had them. He hoped so, lest his wealth of accounting knowledge go entirely to waste.

  A very angry voice shouted a truly vile swear word from elsewhere in the house. In the direction from which he’d just come, in fact. It would be just Sloot’s luck, only just given his own house, and already there was someone filthying it up with goblins.

  “There’s something familiar about this,” said Sloot.

  “It’s just Constantin,” said Nicoleta, referring to the elder Lord Hapsgalt, who had recently been perhaps the richest person alive, and head of a nefarious secret society known as the Serpents of the Earth. “He’s been at it for a while.”

  “No, the house. I can’t have been here before, can I? I’ve only just died.”

  “I was wondering the same thing,” said a very tall and gangly ghost with a ridiculous recurved moustache, whom Sloot had never seen before.

  “Sorry, have we met?”

  “That’s Arthur,” said Myrtle.

  “Arthur … not the philosopher that you were possessed with? Or is it ‘by’? Oh, bother. Ahem.” Sloot paused. “Not the philosopher who possessed you?”

  “The very same!” said Arthur. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to the Hereafter soon enough.”

  “Like you know,” said Myrtle. “You may have been dead a long time, but you haven’t been here any longer than the rest of us.”

  “I’ve been here longer than Sloot,” said Arthur defensively. He may have technically been correct, but so was Myrtle. She’d witnessed
the executions at the end of the Philosophers’ Rebellion, one of whom had happened to be Arthur. Just as the guillotine was doing its job, the two of them made eye contact. Instead of moving on to the Hereafter, Arthur possessed Myrtle, who had been just a little girl at the time. It wasn’t the worst fate that could befall an orphan, but she’d had trouble making friends after that. No one wants to talk to the five-year-old who won’t shut up about existentialism.

  “Why are you pronouncing ‘Hereafter’ like that?” asked Sloot. “All properly, I mean.”

  Arthur shrugged. “It didn’t occur to me to do it otherwise. Surely you know about Eierunglück’s Treatise on Instinctual Pronunciation.”

  “I do not,” said Sloot, who was uncertain that he possessed any instincts at all, linguistic or otherwise.

  “Well, it’s mostly used for ostracizing foreigners,” said Arthur, “but it’s got some practical applications.”

  Constantin shouted more swear words from elsewhere in the oddly familiar house. Sloot cringed again, both for the goblins that were sure to result, and for his particular dislike of the swear word that literally meant the smell of rotting fruit, but was used by the wealthy as a pejorative for anyone who had little enough money that it could be easily counted.

  “Relax,” said Nicoleta, “there are no goblins in the Hereafter.”