Seamus Tripp & the Empire City

By Jon Garett

When Seamus Tripp, the owner of Tripp's Imports & Antiquities, Boston's finest shop for exotics and rarities, travels to New York City for a sight-seeing trip, he is caught up in his most dangerous adventure yet: saving the Hedge Wizards of Central Park from the infernal plot of a power-hungry city councilman!

Seamus travels to New York City with his business partner Myron, his nephew Gordon, and his precocious charge Elie Doolittle to see the sights and enjoy a relaxing vacation. But no sooner do they arrive before an old acquaintance reveals a dangerous plot... one so explosive that the plotters will do anything to hide it.
Follow Seamus over, under, and through the streets of New York as he's pursued by corrupt cops, supernatural monsters, and even demons... and where the prize is the spiritual balance of the City itself!

The Adventure of Seamus Tripp & the Empire City is a full, novella length story that can be read in any order with the rest of The Adventures of Seamus Tripp.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jon Garett
• Release date: May 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301032914

Jon Garett

Jon Garett and Richard Walsh are the creators and co-authors of The Adventures of Seamus Tripp.Jon and Richard are both Virgos, and they throw the full planning and attention-to-detail typical of the sign into the world of Seamus Tripp. The stories are woven with humor, a memorable stable of characters, recurring narrative arcs, and - of course - lots and lots of adventure.The authors have been friends and creative collaborators for more than 20 years, with much of their previous creative energy going into roleplaying games, board games, and individual projects.The world of Seamus Tripp represents an equal partnership that blends their shared interests in genre fiction, world religions and spirituality, cryptozoology, and - of course - adventure.

Book preview

Seamus Tripp & the Empire City

By:

Jon Garett & Richard Walsh

Copyright 2013 Jon Garett & Richard Walsh

Cover art by H Elizabeth Killmer

Cover design by Tom Vogel

Chapter One: A Hot Day in Boston

Gordon Tripp reflected that an early spring heat would have been happily received by prehistoric agrarians: hot days meant workable soil, which meant an earlier planting and an earlier harvest. A heat wave in mid-April would have been a boon to those primitive farmers, toiling on their small farms with their families close at hand, just scraping by to survive.

But Gordon was not a prehistoric subsistence farmer with wife and children working at his side. He worked in the North End neighborhood of Boston in his uncle’s shop, Tripp’s Imports & Antiquities, doing daily chores and odd jobs alongside the shop’s housekeeper, Mrs. Doolittle. His life was tedious. While Uncle Seamus and his business partner, Myron Fish, were off on exciting trips procuring inventory and connecting with clients, Gordon was inevitably stuck in Boston, shining the banister or catching rats in the crawlspace beneath the back landing.

To a boy of nearly thirteen years old, living in one of the largest, oldest cities in the country, the heat was oppressive, no matter how warmly it may have been received by his ancient predecessors.

Master Tripp? It was Mrs. Doolittle from the top of the grand staircase in the shop’s front room. If you’re done dusting those bookshelves, I can certainly find you something else to do.

Gordon looked up the stairs through his round spectacles. He could feel a bead of sweat run down his forehead and out onto the tip of his nose.

I’m sorry, Mrs. Doolittle. I’m embarrassed that the heat is affecting me so.

Oh, young Master. Her voice softened. ’Tis a brutish nasty hot day, no doubt about it, and ‘tis a wonder your uncle won’t abide us opening even one window.

It was terribly bad luck that Uncle Seamus had closed up the shop on the very week that the heat spell had hit the city. Just when they should have been airing out the the winter mustiness he had complained that they were letting in all sorts to the shop, though he would not clarify if he meant clients, vagabonds, or something more sinister, and he had ordered all of the windows sealed and the door locked with a Please Knock sign attached to the front.

THWAP! Gordon started from his reveries. He had drifted off again in the heat and had not noticed his uncle enter the room, rolled newspaper in hand.

THWAP! The newspaper came down again.

Got him, said Seamus proudly. That’s my twelfth fly of the day. Since we started cleaning the place up of the pests I believe I’m up to fifty.

The flies were always an annoyance in the spring and summer in the city, and Gordon was not sure what threat they now posed to pique his uncle’s ire.

Though I may be inflating the number. A few have looked very much like previous victims, so I fear I may not be killing them but am instead double-counting them.

You seem to hit them plenty hard to kill them, said Mrs. Doolittle. She had descended the stairs now and was helping Gordon to dust the shelving.

On the other hand, came a voice from behind the counter on the other side of the room, by the parlor. It was Mister Fish, the shop’s accountant and co-owner. On the other hand, if anyone knows about double-counting it’s Seamus.

Gordon found his accounting humor to be very tedious.

Ah, said Seamus to Myron. Just the man I wanted to see.

If you’re requesting another newspaper subscription the answer is ‘no’. You can reuse the pages if it’s just fly-swatters you’re after.

Oh, I’ve been reading them, too. Simply putting them to good use when I don’t find what I’m looking for.

What was he looking for? wondered Gordon. Seamus, the world famous adventurer and explorer extraordinaire, did not generally take any interest in the trivialities of local news.

Seems a waste in either case, said Myron. I don’t know what you’re looking for and what you’re defending us against with these locked doors and drawn shades, but we’re in the North End of Boston, not Whitehall. Myron stopped and cleared his throat. Anyway, we can’t afford this paranoia from you.

I’ve a hunch something is amiss with electoral politics.

Politics? said Myron.

Whoever heard of an election in April? Seamus indicated a headline in one of the papers. Gordon recognized the blocky name in the headline, even upside down: HORATIO PENDLETON, it read, running for office. An acquaintance of his uncle, Gordon remembered.

Myron ignored the headline. Aside from the newspaper waste, he said, "just think of the cost of business of keeping the front door locked: you know that Mrs. Gristmill, for example, will never deign to knock at the door of a business."

Indeed, Mrs. Gristmill, the shop’s best client, had not been around in the week since the heat, and Seamus’s peculiar behavior, had begun. She generally stopped in twice a week to look for new curiosities and exotic supplies, meaning she stopped in to decry some fellow socialite or dig for gossip. Either way, it was good for business: the shop’s and hers.

Gristmill! Seamus exclaimed. Good riddance. It’s high time we stopped catering to those poseur occultists. They wouldn’t know a Valknut from a Vajra. Yet we bow and grovel and pretend they know anything about anything. Doesn’t the grind of it simply crush the soul? Seamus threw up his hands dramatically.

I don’t believe in a human soul any more than you do – Gordon noticed Mrs. Doolittle cross herself, as she always did when Myron and Seamus spoke heretically in her presence " – but I’m sure no matter your