He Who Laughs

By Philip G. Morgan

The eerie laughter echoing across the graveyard was the least of his problems!

Murderer's Acre: the home of the peculiar and the destitute. Dotson has just arrived, his young charges in tow, seeking shelter in an odd town that overlooks a vast necropolis. The townsfolk cower in fear as a giggling entity picks them off in the night, and Dotson may be the next victim!

If that wasn't bad enough, the hired killer Mr. Cold is hot on his trail. And it seems someone has taken to impersonating Dotson's “other half”!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Philip G. Morgan
• Release date: Jul 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310179488

Philip G. Morgan

Philip Morgan has always had a big imagination; ever since he was a child he could be found drawing, writing and making up stories about anything. He is also an avid reader and fan of games and entertainment, drinking in everything as fuel for his own ideas. Morgan lives in New Mexico with his wife and cats.

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He Who Laughs

By Philip Morgan

Copyright © 2015 Philip Morgan

Smashwords Edition

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Blood dripped thickly from Mr. Cold’s blade, beating a steady tattoo into the rocky sand. He pondered this as he looked across the bleak expanse.

That had been perhaps the fourth or fifth group of ragged highwaymen that had attacked him since he left Cobalt Prison a few days before. He had gone there seeking information on this urban phantom the newspapers called the Brass Valiant; a ghost that had plagued his employers the last few months. It occurred to Mr. Cold, whose real name was Xetlan Coldgrass, that in the last twenty years as a mercenary he had never been bested in combat. True, most of his opponents had not been experienced fencers, just vagabonds and thugs like the bunch currently bleeding out on the desert floor before him, but really – was a genuine challenge too much to ask?

Xetlan sighed, giving up on his simple philosophical musings as he wiped his thin blade on the already filthy coat of one of his victims. Once he’d put it back in its scabbard, he set about patting down the bodies for valuables.

Sorry, boys, Xetlan said aloud, but you know how it is these days. What’s mine is mine, what’s yours is mine, hard times and all that. When one of the men groaned, not quite dead, Xetlan gripped the man’s skull and focused his cold energy until the highwayman’s eyes shattered like glass.

The robbery turned up few rewards: a mix of coins, a pair of cheap silver rings and a gold earring; very little to take to the gambling table. At least one of the men had a flask of whiskey on him, which Xetlan uncorked with a smile and drank dry in a few swallows.

Tossing the empty flask away, he turned his boots north once again and continued on his way toward the town of Murderer’s Acre, the most likely place his target would have gone. His visit to the high-security