Dark Knight of Connecticut: Year 2012 - Welcome to Bartlett Bay

By Richard Phillip Hoffman

The Bartletts are a wealthy, rich and distant family who had no interest in Ethan Bartlett whatsoever until the two last male members of his family are murdered and he is drawn across the country into the city his ancestors built.

Bartlett Bay, Connecticut is a nice little fishing town, if a bit poor, located on the Long Island Sound and is of no particular note to those passing by on the freeway or landing on the private airstrip to the north, but under that veneer, beyond the smiles and casual banter of the locals, there are secrets and none of them are nice. Ethan, a young but trained monster hunter and magician, is instantly pitted against witches, murderers, cannibal hags, rival hunters, evil magicians and more as he protects the locals, rescues children and uncovers secret after secret which seemed to emanate from the Engelstad in the center, a grouping of trees a few miles in diameter on the outside and maybe a hundred or more inside, where he finds the biggest secrets may well be his own, secrets of a past he did not know he had, that lead him back in time, back to Tudor England and the American Civil War, where he met with the great men and women of the times and helped carve out history itself.

The first year of Ethan Bartlett’s adventures are in the form of six short stories and ten long in a mix of novelettes and novellas that, in addition to his adventures, depict his arrival, his draw into the town’s problems, the forming of his relationships good, bad, romantic and outright hostile, financial problems and all the other difficulties pertaining to life in modern day America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Phillip Hoffman
• Release date: Apr 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005396763

Book preview

Dark Knight of Connecticut

Book One

Welcome to Bartlett Bay

Year 2012

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Richard Phillip Hoffman

PUBLISHED

Richard Phillip Hoffman

Copyright 2012

Richard Phillip Hoffman

PUBLISHERS NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual person, living or dead, business establishments, events or locals is entirely coincidental.

SMASHWORDS EDITION, LICENSE NOTES

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COPYRIGHT

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Table of Contents

Prelude: Death of a Dynasty

Tale 1 - A Tower in the Woods

Tale 2 - A Tall Man Cometh

Tale 3 - The Disappearance of Jessica Downs

Tale 4 - The Cave of Blue Light

Short Tale - A Moment of Pity

Tale 5 - The House on Lollypop Lane

Short Tale - An Unexpected Offer

Tale 6 - The Three Rings

Short Tale - The Final Mistake

Tale 7 - Villains by Firelight

Short Tale - A Secret Grave

Tale 8 - The Murder Parade

Short Tale - Welcome Home

Tale 9 - Lady Day

Tale 10 - The Shadow Over Beechwood

Short Tale - The Two Callers

About the Author

Other Titles by Author

Connect with the Author

Prelude

Death of a Dynasty

It was raining hard on the Fourth of July when Peter Benedict Bartlett and his son Julian Bartlett II, named after his powerful deceased grandfather, were driving back into Bartlett Bay from business in New Haven.

Peter turned off the Interstate 95 southward but instead of continuing down Worthington to Edmonton as usual, he went east down Charlotte Rd toward the expensive neighborhood known as Edwards Grove where Julian’s girlfriend lived. The two of them had some kind of special night planned for the Fourth and Julian didn’t feel like driving.

They crossed over the Orange River and Peter gave a casual glance at some of the creepy tents that housed members of the Savior’s Fold cult who primarily lived some hundred feet or so northward up the river. They were a fanatical Christian group who were both unpredictable and dangerous but from there all he could see were a few white tents and their symbol in the form of a blood-red cross.

The instant Peter turned back, he let out a loud, startled scream.

Something appeared before him, arms outstretched as if embracing the car coming toward it. In his terror, Peter instantly lost control of his vehicle alongside what was the worst possible place in Bartlett Bay and possibly the world: the cursed woods known as the Engelstad.

Peter’s 2008 cherry red Ferrari plowed through the tall chain-link fence that blocked the southern edge of the wood and when he braked, the slid across the muddy ground like it was ice right into a thick tree. Both airbags shot out, saving both passengers, but the car wasn’t going anywhere.

Peter recovered first, feeling a sense of mortification and horror, and looked around the airbag into the forest. The trees belonged nowhere in Connecticut and were fat and wide and with vines hanging down. He never had the nerve to enter himself, but he was told within the tops were so heavy with foliage they could create a canopy thick enough to block out the sun.

The forest is calling me… his mind whispered but he shook it off quickly, terrified by such an abnormal childish thought.

No! cried Julian when he blinked himself awake. "No, I cannot fucking believe this! He slammed his hand several times on the dash, threw open the door and threw himself out in the rain screaming in rage. I don’t need this shit! Not NOW! Not EVER! He turned to his father. I’m supposed to be with my woman now, Dad! This will take hours to deal with!"

Peter suddenly remembered the figure in the road and he quickly scrambled out of the car and looked out beyond the broken fence. He let out a heavy sigh of relief when he saw the figure walking across the opening the car had made was not only human but also someone he knew.

It was Argyle Coughlan, the last of the Coughlan men of Bartlett Bay. He was in his fifties, around ten years older than Peter, with very short dark brown hair surrounding his bald head and a neatly trimmed beard touched with gray. He was wearing a black suit, with a matching tie and black gloves with a long black rain jacket that reached down to his ankles. His shoes were dress shoes, covered in mud, and he was soaked as if he had been walking around in the rain for hours.

The funeral of his son had been a few days before, buried just a few months shy of his nineteenth birthday. Argyle had evidently been extremely upset and had barely eaten or slept for days and remained dressed in the same clothes that he attended the funeral in.

Argyle stopped at the rip in the fence as if to block it, his left hand resting on a mostly upright pole and focused his eyes on them in a way they did not like. Is there going to be a problem here, Mr. Coughlan? asked Peter as he adjusted his expensive black jacket. He hated the rain, his polo shirt and slacks already feeling soaked through, and he did not like the fact he was stuck dealing with this out in it.

Argyle said nothing and thunder struck in the distance behind him.

"Is there a problem, old man?" asked Julian in a half-scream as he took out his black trench coat from the car and wrapped it around himself.

Argyle still said nothing.

Julian suddenly gave him a wide, cocky smile. Are we still angry about your son’s ‘little drinking problem?’ Argyle tilted his head a bit, his expression unchanged. You think— Julian made an exaggerated shrug "—there’s something you want to do that the United States court system could not? He shrugged wider, eyes wide. Not guilty, Argyle. Not guilty. He then frowned and pointed a finger away. So get the fuck out of here!"

Argyle nodded and said, All he wanted to do was be your friend.

Yeah, well, he’s dead now! cried Julian and he looked at his watch and groaned. Call a fucking tow truck already, Dad, and while you’re at it, call the police! Argyle took a deep breath and then continued to look at Julian again in that same blank way. Well, old man, are you going to do something other than eye fuck me?

Argyle looked over at Peter as if expecting to find something more sympathetic in an elder generation or fellow father but there was nothing there. Peter, like his father Julian I, felt the courts were right when they made the right decision.

And the wrong decision was for his son, future heir of the Bartlett Empire, to go to jail for some nobody.

Argyle nodded again, sadness creeping into his face. Say something Peter, he said as he let go of the pole. "Say something about the truth. Anything—please, just anything."

Peter scoffed. "What truth? Yours?" Argyle looked incredibly disappointed and he shook his head in that arrogant high-and-mighty way the trashy Irish Coughlans always did.

How about you? Argyle asked Julian. Anything repentant to say?

Our car just crashed, old man! cried Julian. Unlike your son, we actually have something other than lying around to do!

Argyle sighed, shook his head again in that same arrogant way and then reached into his jacket. Then, after sighing one more time, he pulled out a semi-automatic pistol and fired.

Julian let out a shriek like a girl as the bullet sliced cleanly across his right leg, and he fell against the back of the Ferrari. He was instantly defeated even though he could have likely walked or even ran if he tried. He cried out, "Don’t hurt me! Please! I’ll do anything! Anything!"

Peter felt his bladder release, too terrified to come close to action, and he froze. He had been in the military, most Bartlett men had, but it was a champagne unit and everyone knew it. He had seen about as much action there as he would have working in a salon.

Thus, the several key moments when he could have rushed forward and done something were wasted while he stared as though in a trance.

Why? whimpered Julian. "Why would you do this to me?"

Argyle’s eyes hardened and he raised the gun up to Julian’s forehead. He pulled the trigger, splattering the back of his head against the Ferrari’s trunk, and watched calmly as his body slipped down into the mud. He then walked over, his shoes making squish sounds as he walked, and slowly leaned over. He looked long and hard into the dead light blue eyes of Peter’s only son as they seemed to stare blankly up into the raining sky.

Peter shook his head, unable to believe what he just saw. How could this happen? It was against everything natural in the world, against God Himself. You’re— his mind fought for some kind of logic as Argyle looked at him —going to Hell! Argyle raised the gun toward him and that broke the paralysis. Peter charged away in the only direction he could be certain there was some kind of cover.

He ran into the woods.

His hope, when he finally regained lucidity in his thoughts, was to cross the Engelstad to the other side and flag someone down off the Interstate 95, but it seemed one of the stranger aspects of the forest was true and the woods really did get bigger. He scrambled over roots and under branches for quite some time and, not only did it not end, it seemed only to thicken.

Peter was no woodsmen nor was he remotely dressed as one and after just ten minutes he was covered in mud and bruises from countless slips and falls. Having no choice but to go on he had proceeded for over an hour, screaming, yelling, and wailing with every fall until he hit a root and stumbled out of the trees into a soaked meadow by an overflowing stream.

He cried out in agony, having nearly broken his toes, and looked up to suddenly see a horror he heard rumors of all his life. A great wall of tall hills, or possibly mountains stretched across the north, and on a pass high up between two of the tallest peaks was the dark castle. There was no doubt about it, the clouds had parted from over it alone, and he could see its many black towers and walls silhouetted up into the darkening gray sky.

That castle had been spotted multiple times over the years going back even as far back as the seventeenth century. Who lived there? What do they want? What happens to those who seek it out and who built it?

He heard something behind him and he went west as fast he could, splashing across the ankle-deep stream, and disappeared into some more trees. He chose west because he had crashed farther west than east on the south entrance of the woods leaving the exit closer in that direction.

He also chose west because he would rather run back at Argyle with his loaded gun and get shot before even thinking of going in the direction of that castle.

***

Walk west down Charlotte Rd at five-thirty tonight if you want a chance for your son’s vindication, a woman’s voice had said on Argyle’s answering machine that very morning. It was strange because his wife Alice was home all that morning and the entire day before and had not hear the phone ring once.

Alice did not want him to go and he told her he wasn’t going to but he did anyway. He wasn’t sure why he believed the voice but he did.

He wasn’t thinking about Alice when he stepped out into the meadow and looked around. The sheer scope of the Engelstad was mindboggling and there was that castle everyone whispered about.

He ignored it, which was not the easiest task in the world, and went looking for Peter Bartlett. Argyle knew he wouldn’t have the nerve to go anywhere near that castle but that asked the question of other direction he would have gone. East or west.

That way! cried a voice.

He turned to see a figure standing directly north amidst the trees with the mountains behind her. With the rain, the distance and the shade created by a heavy canopy of leaves it was impossible to determine anything of the figure except that it was cloaked in something dark from head to toe and that it spoke with a woman’s voice.

What?

He went— she pointed to her right, his left, to the west —that way!

Argyle didn’t question it. The voice was the same as the one on his answering machine and she had been right before. He could not think of any possible reason she would suddenly lie and he was beyond carrying what reasons she had for helping him.

***

The stitch in Peter’s side had become unbearable and he leaned up against a tree for a moment. He looked to his right, to a rocky vertical hillside with a jutting overhang. Underneath, were four goblins, all grinning at him. Oh God, no! he cried and he started to stumble away. "Not now!"

They looked like scrawny, short people at four feet tall at the tallest with skin mostly color of greenish-black while a few were ugly mustard yellow or maroon red. Their eyes were all beady and black, their noses crooked and long and they had greasy black hair and long, pointed ears.

The clothes most goblins wore were stolen from children. Those particular goblins’ feet were covered bright sneakers with holes at the ends to let their clawed toes stick out and every one of them wore a hat, three of which were typical baseball caps, but one of them an overly large top hat.

Oh what’s the matter, meat bag? asked one of the goblins wearing a pink t-shirt with a grinning monkey on the front and a backward Connecticut Tigers baseball cap. He pulled out a survival knife from his side. Scared?

Peter could hear the goblins coming up after him, all chuckling eagerly, and he was certain they would soon easily catch up and eat him but then he heard four gunshots. He looked back and saw Argyle moving through the trees past the suddenly dead goblins almost casually. No! Peter cried as he ran away. "No, no, nooo!"

He forced himself to move faster despite the pain and the trees grew wider and the branches higher. He seemed to be moving faster than ever but one look back showed Argyle remained close behind and far better maneuvering through the woods than Peter was. He looked barely winded.

Peter turned back, stepped around a tree, and found himself suddenly facing a ledge beneath a hundred foot raging waterfall he heard coming but hadn’t realized he was running right for it.

It came from the unnatural mountain range in the Engelstad, pouring down a natural staircase over at least a dozen falls until it became the one above Peter. It flowed down past him into a rock-filled pool seventy feet below the ledge and then flowed down another waterfall fifty feet farther below that where it merged into a pool.

To the south, the pool turned into a river, and he knew that after connecting to several other small rivers, it would became the Orange River. It would flow past the Savior’s Fold, down through Bartlett Bay and then out into the Long Island Sound.

Peter was trapped.

There was nowhere to go. Down was death, the pool below being filled with rocks, and the one below that was so much far down he probably wouldn’t survive the jump even it was just water. Upward was a vertical climb to the north through a raging waterfall and, as for climbing, he was pretty sure he didn’t skill for it even if it wasn’t soaking wet from the waterfall and rain.

Even if it could, it would take hours and that would give Argyle Coughlan plenty of time to calmly lean over, point his gun down, and fire.

He turned around, hoping to double back and find another path before Argyle appeared, but he was too late and Argyle stepped out of the woods.

***

There were many good reasons for what Argyle Coughlan was doing.

John Bartlett, Peter’s younger brother, had violently raped Argyle’s younger sister Nadine in the mid-1980s and she had never gotten over it. She had gone from a sweet-hearted romantic to a bad-tempered, embittered spinster who became an alcoholic.

The death of John Bartlett at an ill-fated Halloween party did nothing to appease her or their family as the entire accusation was not only defeated earlier by Bartlett money and power, Peter’s father, Julian Bartlett I, had even gone so far as to somehow brand Nadine as a whore in front of the entire town.

Another reason came from Argyle’s wife. When Alice was a girl, she was given an incurable limp after Anne Bartlett, who was a competing dancer in school, had hit her with a car. Alcohol-related driving laws were not as well enforced back then, MADD hadn’t even been founded yet, and that, combined with Bartlett power, ended it as being ruled an accident and the Bartletts didn’t even have to pay the medical bills.

Sometimes sweet-hearted Alice, who had to give up her dream of being a dancer, even seemed to believe it but Argyle had met Anne Bartlett and, even though she had later become quite an alcoholic, he found himself doubting she was really drunk at the time.

Of course, there was also the family business, the Coughlan Cannery, which had been started by his great-grandfather John Coughlan when he came over from Ireland. Bizarrely, the Bartletts and Le Sueurs, supposed enemies, joined forces to destroy the business they must have viewed as a competitor even though they were both already transitioning on to very different kinds of businesses by then and had little to fear.

With their combined power, they succeeded and the Le Sueurs took over and ran the cannery into the ground, forever destroying the Coughlan family business. The Bartletts had been previously friends with the Coughlans and that was a surprising and very hurtful betrayal. It had cost the Coughlans their greatest legacy.

There were countless other incidents that any number of people in town could have claimed. Sexual harassment, regular harassment, drunk driving, assault, theft, and hell, even closing down that cannery had cost countless jobs and turned Fisher St. into a slum. The Bartletts were never convicted, never even punished. Sometimes they were fined but it was also a token punishment than a real one.

There was only one good Bartlett, James Bartlett: the last who resembled the noble family that the Bartletts used to be. He had acted against his family when Julian Bartlett I had done something very bad to an eight-year-old girl. , Argyle still didn’t know what exactly but it had cost the Bartletts five hundred thousand dollars in the 1950s to silence that girl’s parents.

It was the closest thing to a twentieth-century conviction of that family and James’ father was so infuriated that he disowned James for talking while not so much as getting annoyed with Julian and what did to that girl.

Had James not been disowned, Argyle believed his family’s cannery would still be functional.

Oh yes, there many reasons to kill Peter Bartlett and his worthless son but Argyle personally only had one.

My son will not be remembered as a stupid frat boy who killed himself getting drunk when you are dead, Argyle told him loudly over the sound of the waterfall. They’ll know you crossed the line and they’ll know why you died. They’ll all say that Peter and Julian Bartlett finally crossed the line and got what was coming to them.

"I did nothing wrong!" Peter nearly shrieked.

It wasn’t hot even though it was June but the rain felt as warm as Argyle’s tears. He held the gun tenderly, an unwelcome replacement for a lost child, while the water above came down like a shower that could never make him clean.

"Everyone in the Yale Bartlett House was either your employee’s child or your friends’ child. It was of little difficulty for you to pay off or threaten them into perjuring themselves to ensure your son’s release. I have it on good authority on what your son really did.

"He held down my boy down and forced alcohol down his throat laughing until he choked to death. I know this true because my son did not and would not ever drink. He was always a teetotaler."

Is that what you’ve come for? Revenge?

No, he told him earnestly. Argyle would have been satisfied if any appropriate legal measure had succeeded after the death of his son. He could have accepted a weak sentence, even a slap on the wrist, as long it came with an acknowledgment of guilt and of what Julian had done to his son. The knowledge of his son’s goodness remaining intact would have not made him happy but it would have kept him far from Charlotte Rd at five-thirty that evening.

Killing me won’t bring back your son! Peter cried.

I’m not trying to bring my son back, Argyle replied. "This will only bring back the memory of who he really was and will give some peace to his poor mother who has now lost every dream and hope that she ever had because of your family. Argyle thought about what they had done to all the people in the town and the town itself and his hand tightened onto the pistol. Bartlett Bay will be better without you."

Bartlett Bay cannot exist without a Bartlett! cried Peter. It was not in anger but in fear. "We are this town! You kill the last of Bartletts, you kill this city!" That sounded like something his father would say. It was if the women of his family weren’t real Bartletts.

There is another male Bartlett, said Argyle. Perhaps he’ll be the man his grandfather, your uncle and my uncle-in-law, had been. A man who will use his immense power to help the city instead of using it to bully everyone. He would be a Bartlett like the English aristocrats you once came from.

"That is why you’re doing this? Peter cried out. To put a—to put a Jew in my place?" It was then that Argyle realized that speaking to Peter was a complete waste of time and it had just shortened Peter’s life.

Argyle raised his gun and fired a single bullet into his chest.

It hit dead center and Peter Bartlett, second-to-last of all-male Bartletts, fell backward off the ledge with his arms outstretched. He fell through the air without a cry and died on impact with the rocks below making a very bloody mess. He was dragged away by the water over the next drop where he went bobbling away face-first down the river.

Later that night, he would catch up under the stone bridge not far from where his son’s body.

Argyle tossed his gun into the river and the sound of thunder struck in the distance so loudly it seemed to shake the world.

He backtracked a little and then found a path to walk along the river. He saw no one, not even members of the Savior’s Fold as he walked by their large camp. When he got home, he poured himself a glass of wine, sat down in his cheer and waited patiently for the police to come.

They didn’t come right away even though they would have to have been idiots not to have seen him as the prime suspect. By then, the rain had slowed down enough to give him one last sense of freedom with his wife, but, somehow, ironically, they did nothing. Whatever power the Bartlett men had, the women did not, reinforcing the rumors of Julian Bartlett I’s extreme misogynistic personality. That, combined with the fact several people automatically gave him alibis during the time of the murders set him completely scot-free.

Argyle, Alice and Nadine went downtown around Fisher St. above the boardwalk, looked out over Lighthouse Island past where the ruins of the Bartlett fisheries and the Coughlan Cannery were and watched the fireworks rise up from Lighthouse Island and fill the sky with beauty. It was a small island, and they were close enough so that they could see the ocean and watch the fireworks reflect on the water.

It was one of the most beautiful moments of his life.

***

Escaping justice like a Bartlett after killing a Bartlett was an extra special irony he could never have predicted and the real prize couldn’t have come quicker.

Within days or even less, the people were all saying what he hoped. That the death of his innocent son Linus was the final straw and someone, after years of Bartlett abuse, someone decided to finally end their tyranny before another innocent person was hurt and everyone agreed his son did not kill himself. It felt very much like justice, not real justice such as an appropriate sentence from a judge after a jury conviction, but justice as good as it could be under the circumstances.

A short time later, Argyle heard from a friend at his favorite bar that the last Bartlett was being summoned into Bartlett Bay all the way from southern California.

Tale 1

A Tower in the Woods

The Bartlett Mansion had been standing since the seventeenth century and was one of the oldest buildings in Connecticut.

It was a three-story tall, not including the two giant attics and basement, made of beige brick and in imitation of something square and simple. The windows were shaped like vertical rectangles following that simple theme and there were over a dozen chimneys sticking out over the dark blue roof. The two extended wings later added to the home made the building stretch out across the property like an ominous wall.

Beyond the dark blue double-doors was the giant foyer. It was all three stories tall, incredibly huge, wide and uninviting, with a staircase on either side leading up to a walkway on each level.

It was a dark shadowy room as well, the strongest light coming from the huge square window on top of the platform directly ahead, and the light stretching across the tiled floor along with paintings and statues gave the room a kind of unpleasant cathedral vibe. In the center of the ceiling, hanging from a chain, was a giant unlit glass chandelier shaped like an upside wedding cake.

I think I hate this place already, Ethan Benedict Bartlett said as he looked around himself, each of his footsteps echoing throughout the foyer.

He was a highly attractive eighteen-year-old, average in height and build, muscular with straight, thick dark brown hair that hung down past his extremely light blue eyes. He was wearing a dark blue t-shirt, jeans and black and white Converse shoes. Compared to the people in those paintings he felt incredibly common.

In his left hand, he held his sheathed fifteenth-century longsword wrapped with its partner, a fifteenth-century dagger, which he had a professional made and then personally enchanted. In his right hand was a suitcase of various books, DVDs and a portable DVD player he used to entertain himself on his flight from LAX in Los Angeles, California to Tweed New Haven Regional Airport in New Haven, Connecticut.

So where the hell is everybody? he asked aloud, his voice echoing all around him.

He had let himself in after knocking for ten minutes after a cab ride that he had to pay himself all the way from New Haven. His family had been supposed to pick him but no one had either been nor answered his phone calls.

Hello? he called out and when no one answered, he shrugged and went up to the loft where the rest of his things were waiting.

For some unknown reason, he found it remarkably easy to navigate the house even though he had never been there before and he found his attic on the first try. The east attic was just an ordinary albeit a very large attic while the one on the west had been converted into an extremely comfortable set of rooms that acted as a complete guesthouse within the main house. It included a dining room, living room, kitchen, one master bedroom complete with a bath and shower and a guest room that shared a public bathroom. There was also a small parlor, which Ethan planned to convert into a magician’s laboratory.

It was warm, brown, comfortable and wood with a ceiling of crisscrossed dark brown wooden beams and a floor that was mostly carpeted deep green with pale white tiles in the bathrooms and kitchen. Every room was utterly empty save for the unmovable kitchen island, baths, toilets, sinks and the one king-sized bed in the master bedroom. The windows were large and open, light spilling across the huge open space and from beyond Ethan could hear the sounds of the sea bashing against the cliffs below the house.

His few possessions from California were piled neatly in the corner of the living room delivered a week before. Mostly, they were just his library books, monster hunting and fiction novels, along with his video games, their systems, his computer, and a small flat-screen television all neatly put away in boxes.

That Friday morning he had flown in and if things went right, he would begin his new job working Bartlett & Bartlett to be groomed for upper management on Monday.

Okay, enough fucking around, Ethan told himself. He had seen the bounty sign on a local diner as he went by in the cab and after a quick call on the way to the Bartlett Mansion, he got himself a spot held on a monster hunting team.

They only held it because he was a magician, the job apparently nothing more than a simple daylight troll hunting expedition with three experienced hunters already, but he had nothing else to do for the day and he could always use more cash.

He placed his suitcase on his bed, opened it up, and took out his satchel. Like his sword and its matching dagger, he had personally enchanted it and it could hold ten times the amount of space for its equivalent size. He generally used it just for the magical potions he had made, each in a slender clear vial with as much liquid as a shot glass, his other magical items and a few emergency supplies giving him plenty of extra space for whatever he might find.

The sword and satchel were not his only magical achievement.

Over his young life, Ethan had developed a variety of magical talents. It was possible for anyone to do so but he had a gift for it and it came naturally for him. It was similar to that of a naturally gifted artist who required little to no training leaving and he was told his talent took a decade, possibly two, from what was normally required.

For that alone, he was often accepted into hunting groups.

Ethan had always loved magic and he spent much of his childhood learning spell casting, enchanting, alchemy and ritual magic and although he only had a select amount of each to learn from he had still become quite good and had made a grand study of any magic-related subject that he could find.

Ethan threw off his jacket and put on his adventuring gear which consisted of loose-fitting black pants he could fight in, military boots, the same t-shirt, black fencing gauntlets and a thick black fencing vest which was a high collared, sleeveless Renaissance-like thing with two lines of buttons on the front made out of leather. Ethan strapped his enchanted sword on his left, his dagger on the right, and put his belt satchel on his left behind his sword.

He would have carried a gun too, if he could have. He had turned eighteen last November and it was legal to have almost any kind of gun while on an official monster hunting bounty but even if he somehow had managed to afford a gun’s purchase price, his uncle would have no doubt been furious and would have stopped at nothing to get it taken away.

As Ethan slipped out of the attic and walking down the stairs, he saw a fourteen-year-old girl looking up at him with wide, curious eyes. The sight of her struck him very suddenly and powerfully as the physical incarnation of the female nerd persona. Her dull brown hair hung down in two long braids and she wore a dress of dull green with wide straps, a boring short-sleeved white blouse, thick square glasses and tall socks with small brown shoes.

Hey kid, said Ethan, The 1980s just called. They want their cliché back. She just stared at him in response. It’s a joke. You know, for fun. Laughter.

The girl’s expression did not shift in the slightest. You have my eyes, she said.

Ethan stepped down onto the hall above the foyer in front of a giant square window overlooking the front where she was waiting. It’s because we’re related, he told her. I’m your cousin Ethan and not just some yahoo with a sword robbing your house. She stared at him blankly for a minute. Okay, he added after a moment. How about a question. Why wasn’t anyone picking me up at the airport?

Aunt Anne was supposed to go but she got drunk and passed out.

Oh how lovely, he replied.

You’re prettier than me, she said suddenly. Everyone is pretty than me.

I guess it’s no surprise you lack self-esteem after being dressed as Urkel’s white sister. She looked at him blankly some more. I’m saying you’re not ugly and that whoever told you that dress was a good idea will not be welcome in Heaven.

I’m ugly. Why try and change?

Kid, you are really starting to bum me out, he replied. Tell Aunt Margaret to hire somebody to teach you how to dress. I mean, you’re fucking rich, kid. Shouldn’t you have a lackey somewhere to make you look perfect like the Hilton sisters or some shit?

How should I dress? It’s complicated.

Start with ‘like a girl.’

Boys don’t wear this.

Either do girls. He rested his left hand on the pommel of his sword. Your name is—Lucy?

Agnes Hamilton, she replied and she held out her hand.

Unfortunately, he added as he shook her soft, nervous hand. A pleasure to meet you. I’ve got to go now and kill a troll in your northern woods. The girl’s eyes widened. Yeah, I do that. When’s dinner?

Seven but I’m not sure Wendy’s making anything for you.

I’ll try and make it home in time anyway but I might not. Tell Aunt Margaret not to worry. It felt good to think someone might actually care whether he was around or not. No one certainly did in California.

You shouldn’t go into those woods, said Agnes. There are monsters and—and a witch.

Witches are pussies, Agnes, he told her and smiled genuinely. I’ll be back later, alright. He quickly left, wanting to get away from that house and Agnes’s eyes following him as he left. He kind of liked her but there was something about her that was disquieting. Even a little disturbing.

Ethan had no vehicle so he walked to the diner and as he did, he looked around his new home.

***

The city of Bartlett Bay was founded by Ethan’s ancestors and Ethan had always wondered what it would be like to finally go there and see it with his own eyes. Unfortunately, it had so far proved to be an incredible disappointment.

The sign into town had been promising. It said Welcome to Bartlett Bay in white letters on a dark blue sign with the words Home of Alfred the Thanksgiving Turkey below it. It had all seemed like a promising middle-class New England town but, in the cab and then walking later, he saw that it was simply not the case.

Bartlett Rd was a straight line from the mansion to Edmonton St, a major street that went from east to west, containing many houses and some small businesses. Edmonton St had countless empty buildings. They weren’t falling apart exactly, the city wasn’t that poor, but there was a great deal of for sale and for lease signs on many perfectly good buildings making it appear as if it soon would be. They were old in design but not that old, maybe a couple of decades or less, and that it made seem sadder to him.

As he neared the covered bridge known as Nathaniel Bridge that spread across what the cab driver called the Orange River, Ethan saw a waterfall to the south. Curious, he moved down the slope beside the road, moved along the grassy bank of the river toward the edge, and gripped the chain-link fence so that he could lean over and peer down.

He looked down a hundred feet or more into Lower Bartlett Bay, saw all the closed down fishing-based businesses and noted that they definitely looked poor.

Almost abandoned, there were only a few boats in the Bartlett Bay harbor still floating around in the once lively port and the docks side streets had garbage and refuse scattered all over the place with most of the buildings so far gone it was a wonder they were even standing. The huge cannery and fishery buildings that had once been the lifeblood of the city were still in one piece but even at that distance, it was clear they were a long time beyond functioning. Every wall of the cannery and the fisheries that he could see were covered in graffiti.

Are you out of your goddamn mind, kid? a voice suddenly screamed. Ethan looked over his shoulder to see a slender elderly man with very short white hair with a bald spot at the back yelling at him from the road. He was dressed in a light blue suit with a dark blue tie and he looked furious. "That fence is there for a reason, boy!" he told him fiercely.

What reason’s that, sir? Ethan asked jokingly as he climbed back up the road. The man gave him an unimpressed frown in response and watched him suspiciously as he went one way and the old man went the other.

Ethan didn’t stop again and was soon at the center of town at the cross section of Edmonton St and Worthington St, the latter being the big business road heading down from above the 95 down through Upper Bartlett Bay, Central Bartlett Bay and into Lower Bartlett Bay.

Mandy’s diner, which he felt already felt must be the single last mom and pop businesses remaining in the city, was located on the northwest vertex of the two streets. The giant white sign that said Troll Hunting Bounty – Inquire Within in giant red letters was placed over one of the huge side windows with a number underneath.

The inside of the 1950s diner was bustling with activity, people eating and talking loudly with three waitresses moving around back and forth. He immediately went to the host, a boy about nineteen in red wearing a white apron and a goofy white cap who looked him over casually as he approached, eyes lingering on his sword for a moment. You the magician, Ethan? he asked.

Yeah, he told him. My name is Ethan Bartlett. I’m a fully trained swordsman, a fully trained magician and why the hell is it suddenly so damn quiet? He looked around and saw almost everyone in the room was staring at him suspiciously. What the hell did I just say to make every one you stop and stare at me? They all turned away and the activity began again but was distinctively quieter. Weird.

Two of them are over there, he said and pointed, his eyes looking at him in the same suspicious way everyone else just had. The bounty is set at three thousand dollars to kill the troll and rescue my sister Tori Randal and it is all we can afford, Bartlett.

What exactly happened?

I was out at my girlfriend’s, my mother was working here and my father was out picking up a pizza when a troll destroyed part of our house and stole my sister Tori. We know it was a troll because of the extent of damage and the size of the footprints. One set.

Stole you say?

Stole. She’s still alive. Her eyes narrowed in a challenge. "She is."

That’s odd, he said.

You sound just like everyone else. If it kidnapped her, why would she be dead?

It’s odd for sure. Trolls usually eat people right then and there and it’s usually male adults instead of children and that’s because they’re not afraid of anything except sunlight. It would be much more plausible for the troll to have come in to eat your father rather than your sister. More meat, you know. Children kidnapping or killing is more of a goblin deal.

The topic of conversation clearly upset him. Look, Bartlett, he said. Can you kill the fucking troll or not?

Of course. Trolls are stupid but one shouldn’t be too hard to kill with a team of hunters. He turned around, saw two other members of his group, and sighed. Assuming, of course, my team of hunters doesn’t consist only of snobby assholes.

The two men had been frowning at him from across the diner in a red booth with already a strong dislike of him. Ethan walked up to them and held out his hand. Ethan Bartlett.

The one in the right, a very pretty, muscular man in his early twenties with a cleft chin and long, wavy gold hair looked up at him with a cocky half-smile. He wore a dark blue under suit for plated silver-like armor that resembled something like SWAT armor with heavy black boots. His heavy two-handed sword was leaning up against the side of the booth next to his rifle and he made no move to take his hand. Rory Upton, he told him. Are you some kind of weapon carrier for the real men?

Oh hilarious, Ethan replied and turned to the other man. Ethan Bartlett.

Alan Thorne, he told him and he gave Ethan a similarly cocky smile. He wasn’t nearly as handsome as his friend was but was much bigger with eyes almost as black as his heavy, curly hair. He was dressed in a red version of the same undergarments Rory with black plates instead of red and it made him look almost like a second player in an old video game. He had a heavy double-bladed axe resting against his half of the booth next to a shotgun. "Are you really going to be joining us?"

Ethan cast his Torch spell on Alan’s face and created a bauble of bright white light between his eyes. He jerked back, the bauble remaining where it was, and glared at Ethan. The words were not required to be spoken aloud as Ethan had mastered spell casting to the point where he could simply say them in his thoughts. I’m the magician, asshole, Ethan told him.

Yeah right, replied Alan. You’re probably using some trick magic item you bought on eBay to do make that spell.

Why is it that nobody ever believes me?

Even if you are a real magician trolls are pretty resistant to magic, Rory told him.

I’m still coming and I’m still getting a piece of that bounty.

Rory sucked in air through his teeth. I’m afraid not, he said. I’ll be talking to the woman made the bounty about an unnecessary expenditure of my reward—

He’s going, said a woman from behind and Ethan looked over to see a blond woman around her late forties, early fifties, dressed in a blue t-shirt and jeans. Her eyes had huge rings under them and her face was red from crying. "He’s a magician and I want all the angles covered."

We don’t need a magician, Mrs. Randal—

It’s Francine and I’m not risking my daughter’s life because you want to have a dick measuring contest, she told him. He’s coming and so is she. She stepped aside and Ethan saw a stunningly gorgeous woman come sauntering in

She was tall and pale with long, silky blond hair, bright blue eyes and a muscle structure that a fitness queen would be incredibly proud of. She wore a black form-fitting short-sleeved shirt, brown pants clinging to her long, shapely legs and tall black boots.

Sally here is a professional hunter and has been hunting trolls with her sisters since she was thirteen.

Ethan walked up to her. It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Ethan Bartlett and—

Shut up, the girl told him.

That’s not nice, Sally.

I said shut— she locked her blue eyes on his very aggressively —your mouth or I will shut it for you.

You’re wasting your time with her, said a man at a nearby table. She’s a Bellator woman.

Sally’s eyes remained locked onto his, daring him to challenge her, and her lips slowly curled up into a smug smile when he didn’t.

Figures, Ethan replied. Many people considered the Bellator Mulieres faction of monster hunters perhaps only a step or two below the Ku Klux Klan in violent aggression and on par with the Templar monster hunters for fanaticism.

All Ethan knew for sure was that they were an all-female group founded in the early 1900s, shifted to an extremely violent feminist mentality in the 1960s and lived on communes where no man was ever allowed to step foot in.

Do you guys still believe in the SCUM Manifesto? he asked.

She looked at him with a crazy amount of loathing. "It is time to go now, boy. It’s time to save someone who actually doesn’t deserve to die. She turned Mrs. Randal. We’re ready. These two idiots I can use but I can assure you a magician won’t be necessary."

I don’t wish to take any chances.

Alright, she replied, But if he turns out to be completely useless I will be demanding his portion of the bounty.

That’s not going to happen, Ethan said and all three of them turned and looked at him in an unimpressed manner. I’m not afraid of any of you. You cross me and we’ll have more than words. They all smiled at him as if that idea was just the single stupidest thing in the world.

Enough bravado, said Francine. I’m going to get my sister’s van and I’m going to take you to the woods. You are then going to go in there, hunt down that troll and bring me back my child.

***

The dark blue 1976 van disappeared back down Charlotte St and was gone before the four hunters had entered the forest known as the Englestad. It was blocked by a long, old, rusty chain-link fence that ran unbroken along the north side of the street but where they stood, something had ripped part of it right out of the ground.

Beyond the fence were huge footprints.

Something was wrong with the woods. Ethan had only been in Connecticut for a few hours but he could tell those kinds of trees were geographically normal to the area. The others went in without a word, unaware or uncaring, and Ethan began to follow when he saw a black van park itself on Charlotte St just far enough away that he couldn’t clearly see who was driving.

He shrugged it off as probably nothing and followed the others into the woods.

Rory and Alan walked ahead, following the footprints of the troll, which were so incredibly unsubtle a nearsighted person could easily follow without their glasses, while Sally casually walked behind with Ethan at the rear. After about an hour, the two men slowed down, tired from their armor, and Sally moved ahead and followed the tracks in the same casual fashion they had before.

You don’t have the breeding for a magician, said Rory suddenly. "I doubt you could accomplish any real task involving magic."

Breeding is bumpkiss for magic, Ethan replied. You would be surprised how well a minimum wage working Mexican who can barely speak Spanish can toss a fireball.

I wouldn’t, said Alan. "I would just be disappointed. Incredibly disappointed." He shook his head, disgusted by any thought to the contrary, and started to yap to his friend.

They had been talking and complaining to each other the entire time and it was soon clear that they were from wealthy Connecticut families who viewed the bounty as some kind of fun time that was becoming less fun the closer it came to actual work.

As for Sally, she had said nothing as they walked, her dark red armor as form fitting as the clothes she had worn underneath, and after staring at her backside for several hours Ethan decided that he wanted to be friends. You’ve been very quiet, Sally, he told her as he moved up beside her.

Go fuck yourself, she replied and she adjusted the rifle she carried on her back a bit as if to warn him.

Perhaps later, he replied cheerfully and when she looked at him, though incredibly angry, he found she still had one of the most amazingly beautiful faces that he had ever seen. Seriously, you are incredibly beautiful. Can we go out? Maybe see a movie. See where things go.

Fuck—off.

Perhaps a play. Maybe just dinner.

You don’t want to play this game with me, kid, she stated.

Sally, one, we’re basically the same age, and two, you are seriously too fucking hot just to expect me to give up. She frowned at him. What’s your problem anyway? You a lesbian? That’s cool— she took a deep breath through her teeth, stopped and faced him—is this a no to a date?

"Someday I’ll have children but it will never be with you."

I’m not sure I know what I did to piss you off so much, he replied and saw that her eyes were so full of rage and hate that it was genuinely shocking that she did not hit him. Both of her hands were in fists and shaking, her eyes narrow and hard as blue steel. What is wrong with you?

Don’t you ever cross me, pig! she hissed. I am not some American slut-whore you can pay for sex.

Can you just give it to me for free then?

Sally then did hit him, right across the face and with enough potency to send him stumbling off the path into a tree. She was a strong girl and she knew very well how to throw a punch. He ended up with a black left eye and a mean little bump on the back of his head.

Both men chuckled behind them.

Too far that time, Ethan said and he felt his black eye. You do know that it’s not impossible for most women to refuse politely.

"I shall do as I please, pig," she replied and she shook her head in disgust and walked away. Rory and Alan gave him smug smiles and continued following the footprints that did not seem to ever end.

***

I guess I’m missing dinner down at the Bartlett Mansion, Ethan told the others as they all sat around a fire at nightfall. Rory and Alan were in bad moods, having no food and miserable from their walk the day before, and Sally was as quiet as ever as she ate some rabbit and squirrel she had hunted.

Ethan took out of one of his magic potions called Taste and sprinkled the blackish-brown liquid on one of the ration bars he always carried in his satchel. It made the blandest material taste insanely good but if it wasn’t already bland, it would become nauseatingly rich.

Rory and Alan gave him dirty looks when he did not share his food. Sally also shared nothing and even threw out what she didn’t want but they didn’t dare bother her about it.

There seemed to be something really wrong with that girl. With his cellphone that barely worked in the woods, he found her on an adventurers’ website that rated their sort of adventurers known as www.ratemyhunter.com and it wasn’t pleasant at all.

Every reviewer who met Sally, who oddly had no last name, found her violent, misandristic, vicious, temperamental, touchy, spiteful and very cruel to name simply a few of their adjectives. He himself had very few reviews which were all generally positive relating to magic written by Mexican-American erstwhile companions in English and Spanish but Sally had managed to anger enough people in an almost certainly equally short career to dwarf his information with an almost literary level of complaints.

Other than being very pretty, talented, well equipped and strong there was absolutely nothing good said about her written by men and women of all ages.

The Bellator Mulieres women were crazy but they could be tolerated and useful. They were feminist warrior women who didn’t need men for any reason and that was something someone could admire if one could get past their attitude but Sally was something else. Sally actually despised men and whenever she looked at Ethan, he could see that blind hate in her eyes. He felt that she genuinely wanted to hurt him and for little more reason than just being alive and slightly more annoying than the other two.

How much did that magic potion cost you? asked Rory.

Not much, he replied. I made it myself.

Yeah right.

"Why is it nobody ever believes me when I tell them what I am capable of. It’s just like how they never believe I made this. He reached into his satchel and pulled out his magical map known as a cartographer’s map. It automatically mapped everywhere around him and he could manipulate it with his mind to be as far as out as the continent and as close in as the street. That’s odd."

What is odd? asked Alan.

Says here we’re somewhere in a Guyana rain forest. He sighed and put it away. What a great day following trolls’ feet. How about we go to sleep very close to each other, Sally?

Sally groaned. "Will you ever shut up, you fucking pig?"

No, he replied. You’ve been a hell of tease and I’m tired of you jerking me around.

What the fuck did I ever to do to tease you?

You eye banged the shit out of me in the diner, he told her. Oh, I know you’ve been dreaming about me since the moment we met.

Go fuck yourself.

Ethan gave her his best smile. Four play. Don’t you just love it?

Sally looked at him coldly and shook her head. If you ever lay one hand on me I will make you wish you were never born. Out here, in these woods, I can kill you and no one will ever find the body. You know this is true, yes.

I do, he replied and he wasn’t lying.

Then shut your fucking mouth! she cried and she slipped down onto the ground.

Okay, Ethan told her.

Really?

No! Not a chance! If she had politely told him she wasn’t interested in the beginning, he would have left her alone as sincerely as any gentleman would. However, since she was so nasty, he felt like he would rather die before giving her the satisfaction. If she ever accepted him, he would politely refuse, just to piss her off more.

Ethan slipped down by the fire and used his dagger to carve simple magical runes, letter-like symbols, all around his sleeping area. It was a simple ritual called Protection, one of only three that he knew, and once cast, the symbols dully glowed Ethan’s dark orange and prevented small natural animals, such as snakes and spiders, from coming up to him where he was sleeping.

Then Ethan lied down and used his satchel as a pillow. A quirk of the satchel’s enchantment made it feel like everything inside was as soft as silk, even if they were sharp as blades or made of steel, making it perfect to sleep on.

Tomorrow we’ll find the troll’s cave, said Rory. You are to be at your best, boy.

Whatever you say.

"I’m serious. I’m not having this conversation again."

Maybe if you stop pretending you’re my mommy we won’t— Ethan grunted as Rory landed on him, a survival knife pressed up against his neck —a problem Mr. Upton?

I’ve been listening to your mouth wag all fucking day long.

Yeah, it does that.

He moved the knife against his throat. I’m not going to just sit around and let some fucking Jew tell me what to do.

Well, then I don’t recommend trying to break into Hollywood. Ethan laughed until the knife went deeper. Ah shit.

You think this is funny?

I think it’s hilarious— Ethan felt the knife go even deeper and small lines of blood slipped out. Look, Rory, you need to calm down— he slit the side of Ethan’s neck "—goddamn it."

"You listen to me and you listen well, Rory told him. I am the fucking master of this group. I call the shots. I know the business and I have been trained. Unlike you, I’m not some fucking nobody from fuck-nowhere Connecticut. You cross me once—"

His accent says he’s clearly from California, you moron, said Sally, "And if you command me one time, Upton, just one time, I will cut your balls off and feed them to you. He looked over at Sally, worried. You may continue, she said, gesturing with her hand for him to do so. I give you permission."

What a woman, eh, said Ethan. ‘She will be mine. Oh, yes. She will be mine.’ They looked at him without understanding. "Wayne’s World. Nineteen-ninety. Mike Myers. What, nothing?"

Rory leaned down, his blond hair hanging down onto Ethan’s face. I am a member of the Order of the Autumn Rose. You’re not a real mage. If you were you, would a member of the Umm.

"One, the Order of the Autumn Rose is a prissy little bitch club and two, the Unita Malefici Mundi are a bunch of egotistical fascists and if one of them were here right now, they would demand ninety percent of your piece of the bounty just for the privilege of being in their