Frankly, I think that claiming to be the cause of the end of the world must be the height of pride. If someone had asked me a couple of weeks ago how I thought the world would bite it, I’d have said global warming, or maybe nuclear war… zombie plague, even. Not in a million years would I have thought it would be a series of bad decisions on my part. Then again, life was simpler back then.
Relatively speaking.
I found myself in the labyrinthine corridors of Portland’s warehouse district on an uncomfortably cold, rainy night—in clothes that were too nice to be wearing out to things like this—glowering at a second story window in one of the older buildings. The kind made of wood siding instead of the newer corrugated aluminum of its neighbors. There was light behind the window, dim and flickering with gods knew what kind of eldritch fuckery.
Warlocks. There’s no lower scum on earth as far as I’m concerned. Not once had I encountered one that wasn’t a blood-thirsty megalomaniac. They fancied themselves masters of the arcane, lords of the underworld; but warlocking amounts to shake’n’bake magic that anyone with a sliver of talent and the right directions can pull off.
Just add chicken and poof, minions from the other side of the Veil, yours to command for the low, low price of your sanity.
They were always found in places like this, tucked out of the way so they could send their lackeys out to do all the dirty work. Something about its ease must have made them think they could get away with murder and mayhem.
If it weren’t for people like me and my uncle, they would.
Rune & Claw Description:
Adam Saint is not prepared to take over for his uncle as Sheriff to Portland’s supernatural underworld. But when his famed (and infamous) uncle Pete Saint turns up murdered and Adam appears to be next on the killer’s list, it doesn’t appear that he’ll have a choice in the matter.
To make his day worse, it seems that the same person responsible for taking down Pete is also minting amateur warlocks left and right—and the body count is quickly piling up. Add to that weretiger Cole Sheppard, who has a pack of angry shifters right behind him, and pushy Detective Vanessa Moreno, who can’t decide whether to arrest Adam or follow him into battle, and Adam’s first week on the job might just be his last.
But there’s other trouble brewing in Portland—and unless Adam can come to grips with his fate, his allies, and the secrets his Uncle has kept from him his entire life, he won’t survive long enough to stand against the tide that is coming and make the choice that could threaten to hurl the world into chaos and stain it red with a sea of blood…
