Into the Wild: A 1920's Noir Urban Fantasy Short Novel

By Filip Wiltgren

The tough private investigator. Her femme fatale client. And the monster out to get them.

Nobody goes into the wild, the grey deadlands between the five worlds. But when a blonde with a bag full of gold and city's biggest crime lord on her heels comes to me for aid, I can't turn her down.

Maybe I’m soft, or maybe I’m crazy, because when the bullets start flying and every gun in town is turned against us, the wild may be the safest place left. Of course, having my client turn out to be a gangland assassin on the run improves the odds a bit...

Into the Wild is a noir 1920’s urban fantasy with snappy, quick-witted protagonists, multiple worlds, gangsters, monsters, guns and magic. If you like an equal dose of Glen Cook's Garret P.I. and Larry Correia's Grimnoir Chronicles, you'll love Into the Wild.

Get it now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LVE Press
• Release date: Nov 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9789189545007

Book preview

Into the Wild

A Hellman & McAulffie Short Novel

Filip Wiltgren

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LVE Press

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Copyright

Into the Wild - A Hellman & McAulffie Short Novel by Filip Wiltgren

Published by LVE Press www.lvepress.com

Copyright © 2021 Filip Wiltgren www.wiltgren.com

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by copyright law.

This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Cover by S. M. Savoy.

Dedication

For Leannie, Valerie, and Elvin, with pride.

Chapter 1

1

Nobody goes into the Wild. I said as much to the blonde standing in front of me.

Aren't you a guide, Miz. Hellman? she replied. Hellish Hellman, no?

She was good-looking. Tall, maybe an inch or two on my own five-foot eight, and well-muscled. A doll face the color of caffè latte and dark eyes that sparkled with mischievous mirth. Smooth calves topped by a tight, dark-blue cotton skirt that promised more, with a matching jacket on top.

A class act like her had no business being in my basement office. It wasn't even my basement, but a rented space with unpainted, cracking red bricks and the dusty smell of dry rot in the stale air. I had a camp bed hidden in the old cupboard on the side. Home, bitter home.

I go through the Wild, Miz...? I left the title hanging but she didn't oblige. I hate it when they play coy.

Look, I continued. I can take you to Oberon, Skye, or Nevis. That will cost you five hundred. If you show me you can take care of yourself, I'll take you to Perdition for a thousand, gold, in advance.

She didn't seem fazed by the cost. Instead she pulled up what I called my nice chair, an old, worn number with peeling paint and two broken slats in its back, and sat down, crossing her legs. The pose caused her skirt to migrate north. She didn't pull it down. Her perfume added a touch of violets to the air, but couldn't quite mask the smell of dry mold and flagging paint.

I do not wish to go to Perdition, Miz Hellman, Blondie said. I wish to go into the Wild.

She placed a long-fingered hand on her exposed knee. Her nails were pearlescent white, short and well-manicured. They sparkled, as if some Nevis mage had ensorcelled them. Blondie was everything I wasn't. It was like looking into one of those funny mirrors that twists everything around. For a moment I could hear mother's voice, scolding me to be more ladylike. She'd have loved Blondie, but to me the nails, the skirt, the smile, all of it was a perfect mask. And whatever she was hiding, that mask was going to get Blondie eaten in the mists.

The Wild was the gray, washed out places between the worlds. I'd traversed it often enough as a guide, herding people from the City to Nevis or Skye, keeping to the army-maintained paths, and being careful to burn anything that didn't look right.

I'd even been to Perdition, twice, and lived to tell the tale, and I'd fought the incursions of the Wild while in the army. I was good, and I knew it.

And I didn't send people with too much money and too little sense off to get killed. Blondie might have been lacking in the sense department, but she'd been courteous, and being rich wasn't a reason to die, at least not to me.

Besides, I found myself liking her. She had that kind of aura. So I tried to scare her off.

Lady, I said, if you want to die, there are faster and more pleasant ways to do it.

Not if the Landlord finds you, Miz. Hellman.

I felt a grin crawl across my face. So much for my soft heart. This was the dumbest angle I'd heard since Rob No-nose complimented me on my itty-bitty titties in an attempt to get me into the bag. The Landlord hated my guts, but I wasn't big enough a threat to his underworld empire for him to come gunning for me.

Miz., I don't know what you think you've got, but you're sitting in a chair with a broken back, looking at a woman wearing third-hand army fatigues and owning exactly six ria and eighty-seven sen.

Now Blondie laughed, a sound like champagne glasses clinking. I wondered if it was her normal laugh, of if it was as much of a mask as her skirt and expensive nail polish.

So if I wished to extort someone, Blondie said, I should have picked a better target, is that what you're saying, Miz. Hellman?

Yep, and you're starting to annoy me so beat it before I beat you, I said.

I don't think you would, said Blondie. But we're getting off on the wrong heel, so this is what we are going to do. I will give you a hundred ria- she magicked a gold double eagle from her glossy, black leather shoulder bag, and plunked it down on my desk -and then you are going to treat me to dinner at the finest restaurant in Ten Pillars. And you can keep the change.

I picked up the double