Fixing Mr. Styx (The Grim Arcana #3)

By Geoffrey Thorne

The city of Arcana sits on the edge... of this world and the next... of magic and physics... of everything you wish for and everything you fear.

It is a wonderful place, full of sorcerers, magical creatures and even the occasional god.

It is a terrible place, full of sorcerers, magical creatures and even the occasional god.

Everything that has ever terrified anyone from under a bed or the creepy house at the end of the street or their own nightmares has passed through Arcana before coming into the world.

It is ruled by the Arcanas, major and minor, powerful beings who keep the peace between dark and light. Neither good nor evil they watch over the city that bears their name enforcing the Law of Balance with swift, often brutal, hands. Or talons.
But, lately, the Arcanas have been slipping.

The Balance isn't being protected as it should. Demons not only walk the Earth they sit next to you at the diner, licking your soul.
It's bad; Book of Revelations bad. Mayan Calendar bad. Necronomicon bad.

The Balance is shifting.

Someone has to keep the Balance if the Arcanas won't.

Someone has to protect this world from the things of the Other.
That someone is Grim.

He and his friends- Dex... the tough guy, Flora.. the witch, Sherman... the thief, Belladona... the huntress and Mr. Sun... the merchant- place themselves in the breach, holding back the dark things and the bright things before they can get into the world.

The Grim Arcana tells their stories. Find out who lives, who dies and who (or what) the hell Grim is anyway in these stories set in a world that is enough like ours to be familiar but different enough to steal your soul.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Winterman Project
• Release date: Oct 14, 2010

Geoffrey Thorne

Geoffrey Thorne is a screenwriter, producer, actor, and the author of the Star Trek tie-in novel, Sword of Damocles.

Book preview

Fixing Mister Styx

By Geoffrey Thorne

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2010 Geoffrey Thorne

So the only real question, said the thing in the sharkskin suit from across the table, is will you take the job or will you not?

Sherman, not wanting to seem too eager, let the air settle between them while pretending to consider.

He did need the money– he somehow always needed money– and he certainly could use the opportunity to pick up some new toys, but there was something about these creatures and their offer that just didn’t sit well.

Maybe it was because he knew they were demons rather than the leg breakers they aped.

Sherman had a thing about demons. It involved never spending more than a couple of minutes in their company if he could avoid it. Generally, he found it unhealthy to commit himself to even that much time.

Still, he thought, ruefully replaying the last few weeks in his mind, it was sort of his own fault that he was even in a position to hear their offer. He was just too greedy and just too damned good at his job.

For somebody who guarded his privacy like a pitbull standing over a pound of raw burglar, Sherman sure managed to get people talking.

He’d hardly completed his work for the ladies of The Heavy Bliss coven– a little job involving a few ounces of silver nitrate making its way into the water supply of the werewolf pack that had set up on the city’s outskirts– before a stringer for the Shatter Grrls had tracked him down.

You do good work, said the waify little chicklet whose skin was barely more than an excuse for her menagerie of exotic tats. Wanna do some for us?

Of course he did. The covens might be a little twitchy but they paid well; sometimes they paid in gold, sometimes in sex, but always well.

The S-Grrls were so pleased with his help in positioning them to win their turf war with Those-Crazy-Japanese-Chicks-Whose-Name-He-Could-Never-Get-Right that Someone had obviously mentioned Sherman’s role to Somebody Else.

That Somebody, whoever or whatever they were, had sent this pair of badly-glamoured proxies to offer Sherman even more work. Who said word-of-mouth was the lowest form of advertising?

The two bruisers– they were definitely bruisers no matter what they really looked like under the thin magical veneer– had arranged to meet him at The Meridian, a tumbledown little eatery to which he’d taken a liking.

The Meridian still served Hyborean Cola, something almost nobody did anymore, and that made the place aces in Sherman’s book. There were precious few things Sherman actually loved in the world. The honey-and-ginger flavor of a Hyborean in the gold can was near the top of the list.

Though it was certainly a bit seedy, you couldn’t really call The Meridian a dive. It wasn’t posh enough for that. Seeing it squatting there between the seductive neon of The Acheron Theatre and the faux seaside ambience of Big Louie’s Fish Fry was to understand that some buildings could be as reptilian as any python or crocodile.

Sherman liked it for meetings because the ambience seemed to bug the magical types as much as it did the run-of-the-street Joes. More, even.

Another bonus was that The Meridian, more than any other place he’d grabbed a meal, seemed to have more than its share of doors.

Aside from the doubles at the front, there were two singles apiece on either side, two more doubles at the back and big service elevator connecting the cellar to the side alley. None of them was ever locked as far as he’d seen. Any of them would serve as an exit should he suddenly require a quick one.

Sherman was always thinking about exits– the quicker the better.

The primary thing he liked about The Meridian was the fact that Bitsy worked there. He’d never spoken to her, of course, not unless you counted ordering the occasional drink or burger. He doubted she remembered him ten minutes after he’d paid his check. He had never been the kind of guy that stuck in a girl’s memory.

He’d always been a spindly sort, hence the overlarge leather duster he almost always wore. His skin was both ruddy and pale but not in that attractive porcelain way that at least a few people seemed to like.

His eyes were too big; his face was too long and his hair could have doubled as a hawk’s nest if it wasn’t attached to his head.

He had a habit of fidgeting with his jacket’s many pockets that gave the impression that he was always in need of a match.

He would have been