C. E. Murphy - No Dominion - A Garrison Report

Stone slipped near my head. I twisted just enough to see what was coming at me.

The golem. The one I’d blown the leg off but hadn’t killed. Stone was patient, crawling down the mountainside toward me while I fought the father demon. I closed my eyes, thought fuck , then whispered, “Hoo-ah,” and opened my eyes again, because damned if I was going to die with my eyes closed. I had one last frag. At least I could take the bastard with me. Inch by painful inch, not much faster than the golem was moving, I tugged my backpack out from under me and dug down for the frag. When the golem was five feet away, I pulled the pin.

At the count of five, the golem disintegrated in a shower of blue.

At the count of eight, the frag did not go off. It should have. I was still staring in bewilderment at where the golem used to be. I hadn’t put the pin back, or even thought to. Stones rattled, sliding and cracking against one another as footsteps pushed them out of the beds they’d settled in. I stayed on my back, clutching a grenade that should’ve gone off. Thin white clouds spun across the sky. If Asag had re-amalgamated and was coming back, I was in trouble. He didn’t seem like the type to creep up cautiously after one defeat, though, and I was sure he hadn’t destroyed his own golem.

My spine hurt.

After a minute or so a face intruded into my line of vision. Green eyes, a thin scar on one cheek. Pixie-cut hair scattered with iron grey that stood out sharply against the original black. A few lines around the eyes and mouth, but not that many for a woman pushing fifty.

When I was a kid, I’d thought she was beautiful. Now, as an adult, I could see she wasn’t. Attractive, yeah, but not beautiful. Her nose was too beaky, her chin too sharp, her height too great and her shoulders too wide for anybody’s idea of conventional beauty. Put it all together, though, and I still thought she was beautiful. Some of that was hero worship. Some was the power that lit her from within. But mostly it was just Joanne Walker, who had taught me there was magic in the world.

Politely, even solicitously, she said, “Mind if I take this?” and removed the frag from my death grip on it. Only when she lifted it did I see a glimmer of silvery-blue magic stuffed in the pin hole, keeping it from detonating. She gave it a casual toss that had great upper body strength behind it, and a few seconds later it exploded at a safe distance. Then she looked down at me. “I hope you don’t mind me putting the kibosh on that last thing. I’m sure you could have handled it, but I was in the area. I take it you defeated the bad guy?”

I nodded.

She crouched. Her hands dangled in front of her knees, above my sternum. “Got your ass kicked doing it, too, hm?”

I nodded.

“Couldn’t wait a couple hours for me to get down here to help, huh?”

I shook my head. Joanne grinned. “Yeah, I wouldn’t have either when I was your age. I didn’t. All the time, I didn’t. I tell you, Ash, hook up with one of the Holliday kids. Get a little mojo on your side to go with the impressive martial arts skills. Clara’s single.”

I closed my eyes. Joanne laughed out loud and ruffled my hair. “Good news is you’re only bruised all to hell and back, sweetheart. Hang on a second and let me patch you up. It’ll make getting out of here easier.”

The drink-of-water-in-a-desert magic rushed me. It pushed away all my aches and pains, until I could tell my spine hurt because a rock was sticking in it. My feet were numb because of the rock’s location, not because I’d shattered anything. I exhaled deeply, more relieved than I wanted to admit.

Joanne curled her hands around mine and pulled me to my feet. I was four inches shorter, twenty years younger, and with far less magical aptitude than she, but she punched my shoulder like we were equals. “You okay?”

“I think so.”

“Good. There’s a diner with the best milkshakes in Washington about twenty or thirty miles back up the road. Let’s go there and you can tell me all the ways you’re more awesome than I am.” She turned and slipped back down the mountainside, sending scree in bouncing waves before her. I followed more slowly, testing muscle and reflex reactions in the wake of the beating I’d taken. Nothing hurt anymore. I felt like I was fresh out of bed, ready to face the day.

I picked up a tiny stone and winged it at Joanne, catching her on the butt. She yelped, rubbed it, and turned around. “What was that for?”

“I just wanted to say if I had to slay the demon, you’re buying the milkshakes.”

Joanne grinned and waited for me to catch up. Then she slung an arm around my shoulders and tipped her head toward the distant diner. “Absolutely, darlin’. It’s a date.”

We hobbled down the hill together, and went for milkshakes.

Urban Shaman

Winter Moon*

Thunderbird Falls

Coyote Dreams

Walking Dead

Demon Hunts

Spirit Dances

Raven Calls

Mountain Echoes

No Dominion**

Shaman Rises (Dec 2013)

*contains the novella “Banshee Cries”

**A Garrison Report

Heart of Stone

House of Cards

Hands of Flame

The Old Races: Origins

The Old Races: Year of Miracles

The Old Races: Aftermath

Baba Yaga’s Daughter & Other Tales of the Old Races

Truthseeker

Wayfinder

The Queen’s Bastard

The Pretender’s Crown

Easy Pickings

A Walker Papers/Jane Yellowrock rossover novella

Don’t Read This Book

Dragon’s Lure

The Phantom Queen Awakes

Running with the Pack

How to Write Magical Words: A Writer’s Companion

There are literally hundreds of people to thank for NO DOMINION, but some of you have earned a special and particular shout-out:

Russ Smith, a long-time friend who was NO DOMINION’s first backer

Chrysoula Tzavelas, another long-time friend who mananged to sneak in as the last pledge/upgrade

Bryant Durrell, without whom none of my crowdfunding projects would have ever happened, and who also tipped this crazy ride over the $20K mark

Erica Olson, who told me to squee more

Fred Hicks/Evil Hat Publishing, for the InDesign tutorials that helped put this book in your hands

Mary-Theresa Hussey, my Walker Papers editor, who not only edited NO DOMINION as well, but whose faith and interest in the project was such that she bought in—even after I told her I’d send her a copy of it anyway

Kyle Cassidy & Charles Summerfield, for bringing Gary to life in the cover art

Patrick S. Dixon, Angie Middleton & Paul-Gabriel Wiener, for lending me photography for the calendar

Jim Hameister, for going above and beyond the call of duty

Tom & Rosie Murphy, my parents, who not only did beta-reading & editorial commentary on NO DOMINION, but babysat as well, which became critical as the story ballooned from a 30K novella to a 60K book

and

Ted Lee, my husband, who was serenely confident that in fact everyone would like to read Gary’s story, and who was, as usual, right.

Angela N. Hunt,Adrianne Middleton,agrimony,Aidan Barron,Ailsa,ajah

Alana Leahy,Alecia Ramsay,Aleis Maxim,Alice Ma,Alicia Bennett

Alis Rasmussen,Alison Marlowe,Allison Davis,Althea Clark,Amanda