Geoffrey the Very Strange: Merseton Tales, #1

By Angel Martinez

An outcast necromancer and a half-demon clerk need to save the world from seashell zombies. No pressure.

 

Everyone's always told Aspic that trouble can't help following him because of his heritage. Determined to put the lie to half-demon stereotypes, he's finally landed a good, quiet job as an herbalist's clerk where the owner trusts him to man the shop alone. What could go wrong selling coriander and thyme?

 

When Geoffrey first enters the shop, Aspic finds the little man's eccentric appearance startling, then intriguing. Geoffrey explains, in stops and starts, that he is a theoretical necromancer researching replacements for blood magic. His current line of inquiry involves seashells—do they have any in stock? Aspic's co-workers warn him that Geoffrey is a walking disaster, but he finds himself more and more drawn to a necromancer concerned with ethical death magic.

 

Geoffrey's first impression of the half demon shop clerk is that his brain is as fluffy as his bright pink hair, but Aspic's persistent appearances at Geoffrey's lab soon let him see the kind heart underneath the façade of friendly nitwit. Aspic's company isn't that bad, and he is someone to talk to during the frustrations of one failed experiment after another. Failed, that is, until something finally goes right—and then terribly, horrifyingly wrong.

 

This book contains theoretical necromancy, unexpected spell outcomes, some extraordinarily angry seashells, and a guaranteed HEA.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mischief Corner Books
• Release date: Mar 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201798444

Angel Martinez

The unlikely black sheep of an ivory tower intellectual family, Angel Martinez has managed to make her way through life reasonably unscathed. Despite a wildly misspent youth, she snagged a degree in English Lit, married once and did it right the first time, (same husband for almost twenty-four years) gave birth to one amazing son, (now in college) and realized at some point that she could get paid for writing. Published since 2006, Angel's cynical heart cloaks a desperate romantic. You'll find drama and humor given equal weight in her writing and don't expect sad endings. Life is sad enough. She currently lives in Delaware in a drinking town with a college problem and writes Science Fiction and Fantasy centered around gay heroes.

Book preview

1

THE VERY STRANGE CUSTOMER

In his defense, Aspic had been working for Talondon's Herbs and Sundries less than two weeks, so he didn't know any better. When he thought about it later, his coworkers vanishing on suddenly pressing errands should have been a red flag the size of a draft horse, but at the time, he'd been too busy taking mushroom inventory for their desertion to register.

Arrhythmic tapping on the shop's doorframe was the first hint of something not quite right. On such a beautiful spring day, the door had been propped open, and a black placard nearly Aspic's height sat outside the shop with OPEN written in fanciful lettering decorated with vines and birds—Heliotrope's work. The shop was unequivocally, without a doubt, open. Customers wouldn't have any reason to knock.

With a tiny sigh, Aspic placed his pad over the basket of snakeskin grisettes so he wouldn't lose his place in the mushroom count, gathered up his best customer smile, and turned toward the door. The smile scampered off in shock at the sight of what had been tapping. What in that moment instead of who, since the personhood wasn't at all a certainty. A pile of scraps occupied the lower-left portion of the doorway, tapping carefully on the frame. When the pile rose, it resolved into an outlandish, floor-length coat made of feather-shaped fabric scraps of every color and clashing pattern imaginable, interspersed with glittering bits of glass. A broad-brimmed hat completed the look, though the material appeared to be holly leaves rather than cloth.

Can I help you, erm… citizen?

The person-being still tapped, muttering, Spider sprites. Sebaceous beasts.

Human, probably. When the person turned, Aspic revised his assessment to human male, probably. He wore thick, wire-rimmed spectacles, but the lenses were a gradient of garish purple, darker toward the top and gradually lighter toward the bottom. The shadow of that hat did an excellent job of obliterating any other identifying characteristics.

Aspic hoped his smile wasn't frozen as he repeated, Can I help you with something?

The person stared at him or possibly through him for a long moment that made the hairs on Aspic's arms itch. Half-demon. Probable ghour demon heritage. The person tilted their head. Possible pink rose-petal dye.

Excuse me, sir, but that's really personal. And the pink hair is natural, thank you. Aspic's customer service voice had slipped, and he fought to regain control. Getting fired wasn't in the plan that day. He was about to repeat his question, sweetly, when something crawling in the customer's leaves caught his attention. Is there… something living on your hat?

Geoffrey! Mr. Talondon roared from the back room. You leave your damn bug-infested hat outside my store!

The customer, presumably Geoffrey, hunched farther inside his feather-rag coat. The sebel beetles are beneficent, Mr. Talondon. They won't harm anything.

I don't care if they're moon-cursed gold beetles with gold-plated wings and gold blood who shit gold! Mr. Talondon had stomped out to the front counter, his face dark with rising anger, the hair on the backs of his hands a little too long and thick and getting thicker by the moment. Hat out now, Geoffrey!

The bundle of rags scurried out, and though Geoffrey returned without his hat, he'd pulled his coat up over his head. Aspic's brain invented a hundred reasons for this from a hair day from hell to tentacles growing out of Geoffrey's head. Hey, he looks more or less human. Doesn't mean he is.

Aspic first glanced at Mr. Talondon, who nodded and shambled back to his office before addressing Geoffrey again, What can we help you find?

This shop isn't warded. Underneath the coat, Geoffrey's head twisted right to left as if he could take in all the shelves at once. What magic shop has no defenestrative wards?

No idea, sir. But this isn't a magic shop. We sell herbs and spices. Dried flowers and seeds. That sort of thing.

Geoffrey's stare clearly conveyed you idiot without a word uttered. It was a look Aspic had seen enough to recognize even behind dark glasses. Right. Geoffrey obviously lived here, since Mr. Talondon knew him. He knew what the shop sold. Shells.

Sure. Don't make it easy for me. Of course, sir. We have nutshells for your garden path. Or beetle shells for dye—

"No, shells," Geoffrey barked out, the hand not keeping his coat on his head waving wildly.

Aspic's thoughts froze. He couldn't think of any other shells, and the customer was going to start getting angry because Aspic wasn't clever enough. Um…

Sand. Water. Shells!

Oh, seashells. I'm sorry. He was sorry, since he should have thought of something so obvious, but more importantly, that was How to Talk to Customers. We don't have any in right now, but we could order some? How many do you think you need?

Geoffrey pointed to one of the tall baskets that held cattails.

You'd like a bushel's worth?

The strange little man held up three fingers.

"Three bushels?"

He nodded sharply and hurried out of the shop. Tempting, to go to the door to make sure he continued walking down the street rather than vanishing in a puff of smoke, but after their conversation, Aspic had trouble getting his feet to listen to him. He was still staring at the doorway when Heliotrope popped around the counter.

Convenient.

Your first Geoffrey the Very Strange encounter! Her pointed little gnome ears wiggled at him in amusement. Now you officially work here.

That's his name?

It's what everyone calls him.

Aspic twitched his tail and smacked her on the hip. You deserted me. Traitor.

Trial by fire. Everybody has to learn to deal with the town eccentrics. She tried to punch him in the shoulder and couldn't quite reach high enough. At least she missed his elbow.

Oh great, Aspic muttered, rubbing his arm. Eccentrics. Plural. So what's his story?

He's a necromancer—

"What? You let them in town?"

Cool your horns. Heliotrope waved a hand at him as she climbed onto her stool behind the counter. Theoretical necromancer. Interested in the occult science of death, not taking over the world. He has some weird ideas, but he's harmless.

Uh-huh. Necros are never harmless. Why does he need his head covered?

His hat and coat have special wards. Protection. Not sure against what. Probably other necromancers. Never met a necro who wasn't paranoid. Heliotrope shrugged. His beetles won't hurt the stock—he's right about that. Dire just doesn't want other customers seeing bugs in the store.

Aspic wasn't sure he would ever be comfortable enough to call Mr. Talondon by his first name, but Heliotrope had known him for years. And his speech, um, issue? With the wrong words?

I think it happens more when he's nervous. She had the gall to wink at him. "I think you made him very nervous."

Not like I can help how I look. Aspic struggled to keep his smile from sliding away.

Oh, sweetie. I didn't mean he was scared of you. Well, not in the scared-of-demons kind of way.

He met her gaze, eyes dancing with laughter, and finally caught on. "Oh. Oh. Flattering, but nothing close to any of my types."

Heartbreaker. Heliotrope snickered, then pulled the book of suppliers out from under the counter. Now. Let's see who can get us a bulk order of seashells.

Paranoid. Aspic understood that. He still couldn't get used to walking home from work with his head uncovered, his tightly curled pink hair a glaring beacon that in other towns, in other counties, would've been a klaxon call to the constabulary, to every bigot within shouting distance, that here was someone different, someone who didn't belong.

Merseton… This town had little in common with any other place he'd been. Here, his employer was a lycanthrope who didn't care who Aspic was as long as he worked hard and didn't eat the stock. His co-workers were a gnome, a minotaur, and a sylph. The blacksmith was a fire elemental. The baker, a kitchen witch. Griffins ran the town's cozy little library.

It was a classic small town with two cobbled roads—Marigold Street and Mallow Street—and a cute little square with a fountain where the roads intersected at the center of town. Unpaved or gravel side streets and alleyways led to more residences and the town's single livery stables. The town only had a single anything when Aspic thought about it.

Shops were located on either Marigold or Mallow with residences in between and on the edges of town before the land gave way to the surrounding farmland, and finally, thick evergreen forest. The entire population, including the farms, couldn't have been more than three hundred people.

He whistled softly as he pushed open the gate to the rooming-house garden. Mrs. Pickle, his hedgehogfolk landlady, nodded to him before she went back to weeding her turnips. Sometimes, he helped her in the garden—they would chat and share the slugs they picked off the lettuce—but today he felt wrung out. The necromancer incident had been more than a little unnerving.

Nap before dinner. Just a quick one.

Get fired from your new job yet, Ass-pick?

Great. Aspic closed his eyes for a deep breath and dredged up his social smile again as he found the speaker at the top of the stairs. His obnoxious pixie neighbor must have finished early at the glassblower's. Hello, Cormac. No. Not yet.

Just a matter of time. Cormac pointed at him. "You are gutter trash. Mrs. Pickle might have a soft spot for you, but Dire Talondon's going to figure it out soon enough. I've seen enough of your kind to know. You'll always be trash, demon spawn, and they'll kick you back into the gutter soon enough."

Cormac cackled as he flew down the stairs and out the door, the carved bone necklace that declared his lineage clacking musically, his dragonfly wings shimmering in the late-afternoon sun.

Pretty wings. Pixies were always pretty. Cormac was devastatingly beautiful, but his heart was full of muck. Also, he reminded Aspic of an old boyfriend. The temptation factor had plummeted the moment they'd met, and Cormac had opened his mouth.

Now his heart hammered from the mild confrontation. A nap would turn into staring at the ceiling and replaying every awkward or horrible conversation in his life. That would lead to all the memories of hiding from beatings or hiding from the heavy booted steps of soldiers or hiding from the latest batch of humans who wanted to run him out of a city or worse. No nap, then.

He left his good shoes by the front door and went back out to the front garden to kneel across the vegetable bed from Mrs. Pickle.

Don't let him get under your fur, hoglet. No person is trash, Mrs. Pickle said in her wheezy, soft voice. Cormac was born bitter and mean.

Aspic had long given up protesting hoglet. He'd insisted to Mrs. Pickle when he'd first moved in that he wasn't a child, but she'd just shrugged and said forty years was terribly young still for a demon.

Being half demon didn't seem to enter into her calculations. That was all right. The endearment had grown on him.

Chickweed's getting into the carrots. Mrs. Pickle pointed with her gardening trowel, her elegant little paw-hands encased in yellow ducky gardening gloves that day, and Aspic didn't need further instructions.

He moved down to the carrots and began to weed. Helping Mrs. Pickle struck him as the right thing to do—slug sharing aside—but he also found having his fingers in the warm earth, the rhythm of finding the root and pulling one of those pleasant, repetitive tasks that calmed him. Knitting was another, but he didn't have enough money for yarn yet. Soon.

Mrs. Pickle had just gathered up her tools and the herbs she'd cut in her basket when an odd rustling came from near the garden shed on the side with the water pump. At first, Aspic dismissed it as a swift or a swallow going after bugs on the shed's sun-warmed slats. But when the rustling, the fluttering gained a metallic clang, Mrs. Pickle scampered toward the sound with Aspic hurrying after.

The clanging came from the copper watering can beside the shed, the whole can rocking as something bumped frantically against the insides. Mrs. Pickle leaned over the opening