The Year of the Knife by G.D. Penman

Author:G.D. Penman [Penman, G.D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Meerkat Press, LLC
Published: 2017-01-14T16:00:00+00:00

July 17, 2015

The streets of Nashville were still under martial law and would remain so until a decision was made about what to do with the gorilla demon, since between Sully and the vamps, they’d disposed of the other three. Local magicians had checked the stability of Sully’s little trap and had even reinforced it with several rings of other materials, but the problem remained that it was in the middle of a big crossroads next to one of the Empire’s biggest film studios. People were starting to get tetchy about it.

After escaping a certain flaming death, Sully had checked into a motel on the opposite end of town where the normal human beings—and in Nashville, that meant those not involved in the entertainment industry—tended to gather.

Her night was spent in various conference calls: first with Deputy Director Colcross, then with a very agitated General in Her Imperial Majesty’s Armed Forces. Then there was a magus, who seemed to be only partially mentally present—which was par for the course—and finally, for one memorable moment, with Marie, who had called when Sully was waiting to talk to a demonologist in Newcastle and startled her out of her shell-shock.

The demonologist had turned out to be a wasted call, since his helpful theories turned out to be things Sully had already explored with Leonard. A few of the vampire squaddies visited when she was finally starting to consider sleep, looking to trade a few stories and share some surprisingly good whiskey that they had plundered from the rubble of an upmarket bar. They couldn’t drink it but they seemed to think they owed her a favor or two.

* * *

The next morning, after no more than an hour’s actual sleep, Sully took a cheap and nasty portal from the University of Nashville back to her apartment for a shower and a quick change of clothes. Then she went back to work, or as she was increasingly calling it, home.

The IBI offices were usually a flurry of activity and raised voices. The fact that Sully’s return was met with dead silence was a clear sign that news had traveled ahead of her and had made the rounds of the office. She ignored her coworkers, who followed her every movement with owl-like attention, and headed down to the basement to run ideas past Leonard before she had to explain to the Deputy Director why her trip to Nashville to conduct an interview had turned the city into a demonic war zone.

She found the door to the lab locked, and her patience, which had the tensile strength of tissue paper on the best of days, snapped. She didn’t even bother to unlock the door, she just shot a burst of flame from her fingertips that burnt away the entire handle and locking mechanism. Then she stormed inside. Leonard had been busy; the chalk boards were filled with equations and variables, and he had even rolled in several spares which were well on their way to being filled too.

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