The Darkling Thrush by Josh Lanyon

New this morning from Loose Id. A magickal novel of looking for love -- and dangerous books -- in all the wrong places.

ISBN: 978-1-60737-563-0
Author: Josh Lanyon
Cover Artist: Croco Designs
Price: $5.99

BLURB:
Fed up with his desk duty in the Imperial Arcane Library, book hunter Colin Bliss accepts a private commission to find The Sword’s Shadow, a legendary and dangerous witches’ grimoire. But to find the book, Colin must travel to the remote Western Isles and solve a centuries’ old murder.

It should be nothing more than an academic exercise, so why is dour -- and unreasonably sexy -- Magister Septimus Marx doing his best to keep Colin from accepting this mission -- even going so far as to seduce Colin on their train journey north?

Septimus is not the only problem. Who is the strange fairy woman that keeps appearing at inconvenient times? And who is working behind the scenes with the sinister adventuress Irania Briggs? And why do Colin’s employers at the Museum of the Literary Occult keep accusing Colin of betraying them?

As Colin digs deeper and deeper into the Long Island’s mysterious past, he begins to understand why Septimus is willing to stop him at any price -- but by then, it’s too late to turn back.


From Loose Id

EXCERPT:


The letter was addressed to Mr. Colin Bliss.

It sat on my desk, propped against the framed photograph of me and Antony. This reminded me that, as we were no longer “an item,” I really needed to dispose of that photograph of me and my chief. It was bound to look a trifle kiss-ass, and I’d already done enough of that in every conceivable form.

I picked up the cream envelope, studied it. There was no return address, which seemed curious. Brown ink. Another curiosity. Librivenators like myself -- in fact, most of the Societas Magick -- used blue. Other branches of the Arcane Services used purple. The general populace favored black. I couldn’t think of any particular significance to brown. Perhaps the author simply liked the color. The problem with book hunters is we see a mystery every time pen is set to paper. One of the problems, anyway. I’d heard I had others. In detail from Magister Septimus Marx.

The handwriting was spidery and elegant. Absently, I turned the envelope over and tried to peruse it. I can’t say I felt any kind of premonition. After all, my kind of trouble would hardly announce itself with heavy stationary and a fine hand. Who handwrote letters these days of the Varityper? Let alone letters like this one, which offered fleeting impressions of genteel age and sumptuous living: an elderly person…male…an elegant drawing room with heavy velvet drapes, marble topped chests, and a spread of tarot cards on the table…

I picked up the pearl-handled letter opener and slit the envelope open.

Dear Mr. Bliss,
Allow me to introduce myself. I am Aengus Anstruther, and I have the honor of being the presul of the Museum of the Literary Occult in London. I hope I am not being unduly modest in assuming that you are familiar with our own humble efforts to preserve the written heritage of our metaphysical past….

Amateurs. All too often their helpful efforts were merely a guise for private collectors appropriating magical texts that more properly belonged in the official libraries. I glanced at the bottom of the note to see Mr. Anstruther was requesting a donation. He was not. I continued reading.

You, of course, are the gifted author of Secret Societies and Subversive Movements and the discoverer of Sir Florian Botolf’s memoirs. Recognizing that we share a certain fascination with lost treasures and written lore, and I would very much like to formally make your acquaintance and, perhaps, propose a small but intriguing venture if you will be in town on the afternoon of the 13th of this month. We are having a private showing of the Botolf Grimoire, and I would like to invite you to a viewing here at the museum at two o’clock. If you can attend, please confirm by telecom.

Sincerely,
Aengus Anstruther

The Botolf Grimoire. Mr. Anstruther certainly knew with what temptation to bait his hook. Not that I wouldn’t have been interested in a peek inside the Museum of the Literary Occult. It was one of several such places I’d hoped to visit when I first arrived in London eight weeks earlier -- before I’d been distracted by other things.
I frowned at the date, double-checked my calendar. The 13th was the following day. Not a lot of warning.

Now that I was no longer in favor, taking off for an afternoon might prove problematical -- or perhaps not. I had the impression that Antony preferred as much as possible to forget I still existed. It was Basil, Antony’s brother and the procurator of Leslie’s Lexicons -- a front for our local branch of the Imperial Arcane Libraries -- who was most likely to pitch a fit if I disappeared for the afternoon when I was supposed to be squirreled away in my cubicle translating and transcribing ancient texts. The least interesting part of the job for me. I liked the hunt.

I studied the number listed and then dialed it on the upright telefon on my desk, confirming shortly after with a curt young woman that I would indeed be available to attend the private showing at the Museum of the Literary Occult. I’d been hoping for just such an invitation, but had never been able to determine who exactly the presul was over there -- not that I confided that to Miss Mildew, nor would she have been interested as she obviously couldn’t wait to get back to organizing paper clips.

Hanging up the telefon, I glanced at Antony’s photo again, and turned it face down on the desk. He’d always looked rather supercilious in that picture, although at the time he’d gifted me with it, I hadn’t noticed -- I’d thought he just looked like his mind was on Important Matters.

When I glanced up again, Antony was standing in the doorway -- and his expression matched the one I’d just buried in papers.

“Basil seems to feel there’s a problem.”

Terrific.

I asked coolly, “With my work?”

“With your attitude.”

Can anything be more awkward than being dumped romantically by one’s superior? This is why one avoids office romance if one has half a brain. Too bad for me my little head got what the big head should have.

I said, “I have no attitude, Antony. I’m here to do a job and I’m doing it to the best of my ability.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Antony said, looking anything but glad.

He continued to stand in the doorway and frown at me.

“Was there anything else?”

“No.”

I opened Nesta Webber’s excellent resource, Weird Words, and picked up my pen to make notations. I felt Antony watching me, but still he said nothing. Tall, lean, handsome in an inbred way like so many of the English aristocracy; Antony had sandy-colored, thinning hair, blue eyes, charmingly crooked teeth. What in the Name of All was it about him I found so irresistible? Even now when I couldn’t stand him.

When he finally turned away without speaking, I felt that inevitable lurch of disappointment. “Antony,” I said, and I winced inwardly at the urgency of my tone.
He paused, meeting my gaze. It was not an encouraging look. I said, “I’ve been invited to a special showing of the Botolf Grimoire at the Museum of the Literary Occult tomorrow afternoon. Is it all right if I take off early?”

“You’ve been invited?” He considered this, and said at last, “Of course. If you’ve actually received an invitation, you must go.” He hesitated. “I believe Magister Marx is also attending. You might have a word with him. Perhaps you can go together.”

“All right.” No way on earth was I going anywhere with that arrogant, judgmental bastard Septimus Marx.

Antony went. I rested my forehead in my hand, pretending to stare at the blank pages before me. Two months ago I’d arrived in jolly olde England as part of the colonial exchange program between bureaus of the Societas Magicke. And about four and a half minutes after I’d first arrived at Leslie’s Lexicons -- the dusty and labyrinthine monstrosity which served as the public face of one of the most extraordinary collections of arcane and occult tomes in the Empire -- I’d met Antony Leslie, the presul.

Antony was charming and handsome and knowledgeable -- and I was a long way from home. He took me to dinner, explained and thanked me for the important work we colonials were doing for the society -- and mankind -- and then he’d taken me back to my hotel and treated me to some of the best sex of my life.

Our affair lasted seven weeks. In addition to being charming, handsome, and knowledgeable, Antony was married. It hadn’t seemed like a problem initially. If there was a problem, it was Antony’s, right? But seven weeks later, seduced and abandoned (as they used to say in ye good old days) and having managed to thoroughly isolate myself from my colleagues, I began to understand that it was my problem too, and I had displayed some staggeringly awful judgment. Not least in falling for a man who wore ties as wide as Antony’s.

So I really didn’t need Septimus Marx looking down his long and arrogant nose at me or curling his thin mouth in one of those sneering smiles because he’d turned out to be absolutely right about…well, pretty much everything.

Marx also worked at Leslie’s Lexicon, although I was never quite sure at what. He was a Magister, a master of some field of study within the Societas Magicke, the branch of the Arcane Services that dealt with written magic. I suspected he was one of the dreaded Vox Pessimires, one of those taxed with the terrible job of destroying those magical texts too dangerous or powerful to remain in circulation -- or even on the shelves of the Imperial Arcane Libraries. Even if it was true, no one would admit it. The identities of the Vox Pessimires were protected. Perhaps it was necessary job, but most of us within the Societas Magicke found it despicable.

Which was probably why I was willing to believe it of him. Marx was often “in the field.” Although in his case being in the field seemed to encompass everything from conferring with black market book sellers to retrieving stranded colleagues -- which is how we happened to meet the day I arrived on English soil. Marx picked me up at the aeroport. He had been unimpressed then, and he was -- if possible -- less impressed now.

And I tended to agree with him.


From Loose Id