Blazing the Trail

By Phil Morgan

When a werewolf is killed, pyrokinetic monster-fighting agent, Cassidy Blaze is sent to navigate the paranormal underworld to find out why. While tracking down the mystery, she encounters an adventurer who can see the future, a ghoulish mobster, a monstrous beast, a man who thrills in hunting the paranormal, and an ancient God planning to destroy the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Phil Morgan
• Release date: Jan 17, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311546715

Phil Morgan

Phil Morgan is an artist, author, martial artist, and stand-up comic. He lives and works in central North Carolina where he is far too recognizable in the local bars.

Book preview

Blazing the Trail

Phil Morgan

Copyright © 2016 Phil Morgan

All rights reserved.

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Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Prologue

I’m going to let you in on a secret.

Monsters aren’t a figment of your imagination or a scary story you hear at a slumber party. They aren’t some slimy CGI creation on a movie screen. They haunt more than just abandoned factories, grimy alleys, and creepy old mansions. Far more.

It’s all real. All the monsters from the fairy tales, all the ghosties and ghoulies and wee beasties, and some of them are way too close for comfort.

You don’t see them often because they have their own place. It has lots of names but most everybody just calls it the Shadow. Technically, there is a treaty, an agreement struck ages ago. The monsters stay in the Shadow and leave man’s affairs to man. In return, mankind doesn’t show them who the real monsters are.

Sometimes, a monster is allowed through for this reason or that and as long as all the permits are signed and all the rules followed? Everything works out fine.

Sometimes though, something slips through, using those holes in the world where the laws of reality have worn thin. When that happens, death and destruction usually follow. There really are things that go bump in the night. It’s my job to go and check out the noise.

Yeah, you heard me right. I stand between regular humanity and those creatures of nightmare and legend, a bulwark against the tide of death and sin and every other bad thing you can imagine.

And a few you can’t.

My name is Cassidy Blaze. That’s not my real name, of course. What sort of secret monster-fighting agent is going to use her real name? One that doesn’t stay a secret monster-fighting agent for very long.

I work for a sort-of secret organization that’s been around a lot longer than most countries in the world. What I mean by sort-of secret is the fact that every major government and religion knows about us. Every major magickal whackjob, every major doomsday cult, every stripe of ghost or goblin knows about us. It’s just you regular people who are out of the loop.

When a government needs some high-priced hitman like Allen Crowley or supernatural bounty hunter like Harry van Helsing? We arrange the meet. When some cutthroat capitalist needs a few dozen redcap goblins to crank out the latest hunk of consumerist junk? We issue the work visas. When some vampyre is about to be run out of a podunk town and needs to relocate? We provide a new drinker’s license.

Officially, we don’t exist but then, the things we oversee, license, and occasionally kill don’t either. Officially. We are called the Cerberus Convention, because people who make ancient pacts are terrible at naming things.

I’m the computer and technology specialist, though knowing about smart phones and tablets isn’t enough to get me a gig with the Convention. To work for Cerberus, I need to bring something more to the table than being able to whip up a spreadsheet or hook up a network.

In my particular case, I’m a level one pyrokinetic. I have the ability to control any open flames around me, nothing more, nothing less. I can’t summon up fireballs or infernos. I have to keep a lighter handy if I wanted my power to work.

Being able to control fire and having access to more advanced tech than a nerd girl could dream about in three lifetimes sounds really handy when dealing with the supernatural. Don’t get me wrong, they are but there are things out there fire can’t burn, things that computers can’t understand. Cerberus realizes this. Which brings me to my partners.