Tales from the Magitech Lounge by Saje Williams

Author:Saje Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Published: 2007-12-07T00:00:00+00:00

Act II

The Past

Episode I: Out of Time

Jack

My name is Jack, but you already knew that. I put together this little tome so I could share my odd little family with you all and I hope you’ve enjoyed the introductions.

Things have now come full circle and I sit here feeling a mixture of grief and elation because I’m still here to tell the final tale of this collective memoir. Some of us were not so fortunate.

The fateful evening when it all began started pretty much like any other. The daytime crowd had drifted away as my night regulars began arriving at the Lounge. First in the door were Rio and Stormchild, which should have been a warning in the first place. It was a Saturday night and they never came in on the weekends.

A few minutes later Hades and his goblin pal, Vex, came through the back door. I usually keep it locked, but such things are hardly an impediment to a mage with Hades’s talents. The ebon immortal lifted the goblin onto a stool and ordered a burger basket for him.

Vex grinned across the bar at me, far happier than he’d been the first time I’d seen him. He’d been terrified out of his wits. Not that I can blame him for that. First he’d witnessed a dragon eating a guy in the park, then been pursued by the creature, then had been rescued by the very being responsible for turning him into what he was.

It had been a rough night for the poor little fellow and I was glad to see him in a much better frame of mind.

By eleven, the place was jumping. I think every regular we’d ever had decided that night was a good one on which to make an appearance. If I believed in such things, I would say it was fated, but of course I think that it’s a cop-out to say so. The universe isn’t that orderly. Not this one, anyway, and I have serious doubts about the rest of them as well.

I noticed with a bit of surprise that the goblin-mage, Kate, had shown up out of the blue and was currently deep in conversation with Vex. Looking around, I realized that a lot of our patrons were starting to pair up, and that left me feeling a little sorry for myself.

Then again, I wasn’t the only member of the staff who didn’t have a significant other. Neither Kevin nor Boneyard had managed to pair up with anyone, though most of the regulars now had someone special. I felt a bit bad for Kevin, actually, since I knew he carried a torch for Steph, who’d been making time with Hades.

It didn’t seem to bother Kevin much though. In his shoes I’d have probably been at least a little cold to Hades, if not to Steph herself, but he’d forged something of a friendship with the former villain. They were still working together teaching Anya, my adopted daughter, the art of magic.

It also didn’t hurt that both of them had a background in medicine.

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.