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Category: Fantasy
Description: It's spring break. Demonology faculty have scattered to the four winds except for Neil Torecki and Teddy Whin, who venture into the alchemists' study garden to rescue a lost colleague. They don't know that the garden opens into an ancient prison for dissident alchemists, or that the world's most dangerous possessing demon has taken refuge there, feeding on the prisoners while it plots to take over leadership of a major religion.
eBook Publisher: Double Dragon Publishing/Double Dragon eBooks, 2011 Double Dragon Publishing
eBookwise Release Date: September 2011

Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [613 KB]
Words: 143458
Reading time: 409-573 min.

Prologue

"So tell me," the young policeman said, pausing to lick his pencil point, "when was the last time you saw this god?" He had a smooth face, this policeman, with blond hair slicked back into a ponytail and a loop of gold chain through one earlobe. He looked up expectantly, an expression which smoothed his face out even more until he looked like a blond egg.

"You can't be serious," Father Rameau said. "My God didn't do this! He doesn't commit murder."

"We're not accusing--him, is it?" The policeman made a note and his Academy ring glittered. "But it did happen in his temple. He may have seen something."

"It's not a temple," Father Rameau said. "It's a church. There's a difference." He hoped nobody asked him to explain the difference, because he couldn't have come up with one on the spur-of-the-moment. The policeman looked interested, though, and was just opening his mouth when his partner knocked on the open door. Rameau liked the partner better because he was older and a bit fatter; also, he was respectably dressed in a suit and tie. No uniform and none of the Academy trappings.

"The necromancer says she doesn't have a time of death," he said now.

"Who's examining? I thought we had Magister Klimt."

"Yeah. He says this woman doesn't have a time of death. Parts of her died up to ten years ago."

"Then you can't blame my God," Rameau said, grasping at straws. "We've only been in Osyth for three years. And this church just opened last night."

"No one's blaming any god so far as I know," the partner said. "In the scriptures, when gods kill people they want the credit. If a god had done it, there would have been a press release by now."

Rameau didn't like him any more.