Jazz, Monster Collector in: The Lizard Wears Black (Season 1, Episodes 10 & 11)

By RyFT Brand

Jazz: Monster Collector, the serialized adventures of Mirth’s only deferred species bond collector. Stories just the right size for your commute, lunch break, or anytime you want a fast, exciting read. Want more? Follow episode by episode as Jazz seeks to uncover the secret force behind the inter-dimensional takeover of the planet she loved, a little place called Earth.

Episodes 10 &11- The Lizard Wears Black:

Double Issue! Jazz is desperate for money as her friends are counting on her to save them but she can’t rescue anyone without her flycraft and the Enforcer Corps have impounded it. So Jazz heads off on a wild dragon chase, hoping to collect a lizard’s head, but ends up a dragon sacrifice. Everyone’s going to lose something, and one member of the team is going to lose their life. Tune out the static and tune into Jazz

Jazz, Monster Collector, Season One: Earth’s Lament:

Jazz is a deferred species bond collector, which is a polite way of saying, Monster Hunter. She hunts them and whenever she can she destroys them. Her hatred for the Orcs, goblins, trolls, and fairies that live side by side with humans on the magically conjoined planets called Mirth runs deep. But only Jazz knows why, how deep, and what she’s willing to do to express it. But Jazz’s greatest enemy is the invisible power behind the hostile takeover that destroyed the Earth that she remembers. And that’s one enemy Jazz probably won’t live to face.

A fast paced futuristic serial with a touch of noir and a lot of trouble.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tricorner Publishing
• Release date: Apr 23, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310962035

RyFT Brand

RyFT Brand is one of the pen names of writer Robert F Thompson. He lives, writes, wonders, and wanders from Bucks County, Pennsylvania. His first novel, A Book of Beginnings was published in 2001. he's just so weird.

Book preview

Jazz, Monster Collector in:

The Lizard Wears Black

season one, episode ten

RyFT Brand

Tricorner Publishing’s Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014

This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to

persons living or dead are purely coincidental.

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it. This book may be reproduced, copied, and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoy this book, please return to smashwords.com to discover other works by RyFT Brand. I thank you for your support.

JAZZ, Monster Collector

Season One: Earth’s Lament

RyFT Brand

Episode-10: The Lizard Wears Black

Part One

I was strolling up Angelglo Avenue, on yet another wild goose chase, or, in that instance, alleged dragon hunt. Even then I doubted there was much hope of collecting a bond—dragons were extraordinarily rare on Mirth. Still, I had a better chance of finding one of those than a goose. I especially doubted the source of my information, a goblin captive that I’d pried the information out of, but I was desperate. Lives, my friend’s lives, were hanging in the balance.

The sun was shining, the temperature was mild, and the air was fresh. Of course this was exactly how the magically controlled weather of Nittsburg always was, at least in the shopping district.

The crowds were out in force, sporting stupid grins, making mindless conversation, and, of course, shopping—totally playing into the farce. Nothing about Mirth’s gleaming human cities was, in fact, real, especially the shopping district. A few of the stores here were run by human hobbyists, dullards idling away their purposeless lives, little more than recreationalists of old Earth. Most stores though were staffed by deferred species, tamed and broken monsters, little more than slaves.

The humans spent lavishly because, as long as they followed the Peoples Conduct Codes, and who wouldn’t follow the codes as they were all in place to create a seeming human paradise, they would have all the credit discs they wanted, everyone here was rich beyond their wildest dreams.

Me, I was consistently broke. Yeah, I had trouble following the rules.

The Nittstropolitans gave me and my companions a wide birth. Most ignored us completely as they’d been trained to ignore anything off-color, but some gave us a dirty stare or a grumbled remark.

Ass hats.

We were way off color. Me, a woman decked out in padded, leather battle gear, helmet, gloves, knee-high plated boots, the rucksack with the tall antenna on my back, and armed to the teeth. Mickey was behind me and slightly to my left. Even on a dimensionally conjoined pair of planets with a massive monster population, Mickey stood out as unique. He was seven-feet tall, covered in brown hair, and had a dark skinned, ape-like face. He’d stuffed himself into a long trench coat and a slightly oversized fedora, apparently trying, and failing, to conceal himself. And one of this big foot’s big feet were artificial—he’d lost the original in a disagreement with yours truly and I wasn’t certain he wasn’t looking to take a little piece of me in exchange.

Beside the sasquatch, Parry, my secretary, scampered along, trying to keep up and failing to conceal his nervousness. He was short and slight for a man. I was surprised that he’d never had magical augmentation to match the ‘super model’ looks most Mirthlings sported. He was probably too pain sensitive and too scared to go through the process. Then again many Mirthlings were horrendously, glutinously fat—also a magical augmentation. There fat was a sign of social standing. The fatter the human the more pseudo power said human had. I say psudo power because this was all a lie, the vast wealth, the bountiful food, the eternally perfect weather. There was a force, an unseen authority, directing that whole wretched play and I’d dedicated this, second life of mine, to exposing that force and killing it if I could.

And, after all that time, I’d never been so close to…or so far from that goal. I had a lot to accomplish and not nearly enough time to accomplish it in. But before I could even start I had to make some money—a lot of money, and fast.

Mickey touched me on the shoulder and pointed.

I turned and nodded to my companions, an unspoken