Spells, Salt, and Steel - Season One by Larry N. Martin & Gail Z. Martin

Author:Larry N. Martin & Gail Z. Martin [Martin, Larry N. & Martin, Gail Z.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781729429884
Google: GgDQzAEACAAJ
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: 2018-10-30T00:00:00+00:00

3

“Let me get this straight. Your son was using an ancient grimoire to raise the dead, and you thought it was part of a role-playing game?” I stared at the woman who sat at her kitchen table, twisting a dish towel between her hands.

“It looked hokey, and I figured it was fake, all right?” Veronica Ellerbee replied, looking up at me with red-rimmed eyes. “I mean, it had a fake eyeball in the middle of a leather cover, and a bunch of weird drawings and mumbo jumbo. I thought he’d gotten one of those Caves and Cryptids games and was putting together a campaign.” She knocked back a slug of the whiskey I had poured for her. “I thought if he had friends over to play the game, he’d get a social life.”

I wasn’t even sure where to begin. Telling her that the eyeball wasn’t fake and that the leather was human skin probably wouldn’t make her feel any better. If he’d tried to use that particular book for an RPG, we were lucky not to be up to our armpits in wraiths and werewolves.

“Do you know where he got the book?” I asked. Father Leo had already picked up the grimoire for safekeeping, and a consulting witch-psychologist was debriefing Taylor to assess whether his soul had been permanently tainted or whether he could be rehabilitated. Spell books like the one he was using for his “game” are nasty business, and if they don’t drive the user mad, they can eat away the soul and send the would-be witch on a spree of murder and mayhem.

“There’s a used bookstore he likes—goes there a lot to play tabletop games with his friends, and he gets the books he needs to run his adventures,” Mrs. Ellerbee said. “Taylor’s a good kid. He does his homework, finishes his chores, keeps his grades up. He saves up his allowance and mows lawns to get money to buy stuff for his games.” She sniffed and wiped her nose.

“I thought he was safe since I knew where he was and the kids he played those games with,” she went on. “I remember years ago, people said that playing games like that would turn you into a Satanist, but I never thought...”

I shook my head. “It’s not the games,” I replied. “Trust me. I play Caves and Cryptids with a Roman Catholic priest every couple of weeks. It was the spell book, not the game itself.” I didn’t mention that having an actual exorcist in your quest party comes in handy for the rare occasions when it turns out someone used a real incantation in the game master manual.

“Why would they sell things like that to a minor?” she wailed. “I buy my romance novels there, and they make kids show ID if they want to buy any of the racy books.”

I scrubbed a hand over my face, feeling like I’d been awake far too long already. “My guess is that the shop got the book by mistake and thought it was fake, like you did.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.