The Novella Life of Illuscia Nester Himawari

    Every true practitioner of black magic knows where that road leads, and while they’ll spend a great deal of time, money, and effort learning how to avoid or limit any time in Hell, they get very squeamish when it comes to the details of the place itself. How it works. Its history and nature. Even obviously useful things like how magic works there or the Realm’s geography. I first recognized the willful blindness these assholes seem to share a few years ago, and once I did, I saw a small crack I might fit through. I started directing more of my secret efforts to gain occult knowledge toward information on Hell itself, and while it was scarce, it was out there. The stuff didn’t exactly read like a travel guide, and much of it was very odd and obscure, but over time I developed quite a bit of knowledge of the place. For instance, I think I mentioned before that Hell didn’t start when Lucifer and his angels fell there. It already existed, alt...

    “So one day Jim Morrison of The Doors died in Paris, and as you’d imagine all of his family and friends were heart-broken, especially his wife.” “Um, I don’t think Jim Morrison was married when he died.” Uncle Teddy gave me a withering look of disapproval. “He’s telling a joke, Cora. Don’t be rude.” I glared back at him as I sunk further into my chair with folded arms. I didn’t like the direction this was heading at all. First this asshole shows up, comes in like he owns the place (past magic wards that I thought would have kept him out), and then when I tell Heckle and Jeckle to stop him, he somehow freezes them in place and tells me he’ll kill them if I don’t call them off. The worst part was, I could tell he wasn’t bluffing. He could do magic in here, and given the fact that he was the person that recruited Teddy into the life of a Dollmaker all those years ago, I thought it was fair to say he wasn’t a good guy. I held out som...

    “Belief is a disease.” There were murmurs of laughter in the lecture hall, the scattered pockets of filled seats tittering softly before going back to rapt attention. The man on the stage, Dr. Lester Pickett, smiled indulgently at his audience before continuing. “No, it’s true. Now, some of my colleagues frown upon me saying that. Others try to define it as a necessity, a social mutation or even a mental illness. But I believe it is both simpler and more complex than that. It is a disease.” He was pacing now, using his microphone like a practiced stage performer, which I supposed he was. He was in his element—dressed in a sharply-tailored brown coat and slacks, speaking in cultured, non-regional tones that barely betrayed hints of his Mississippi backwater roots, he was confident and handsome with just enough sleaze filming the top to make him interesting. Most of the girls and some of the boys in the room looke...

    When the demon-killing, superhero asshole hit me, it hurt a good bit. Kind of like I would imagine getting shot wearing a bulletproof vest. The fact that it was meant to cave my chest in wasn’t lost on me in retrospect, but the dull, aching shock of concussion and pain distracted me for a moment. That moment was all he needed to zip over and rip out Cora’s throat. I felt rage filling me as I saw her gushing body topple to the ground like a lifeless doll. I didn’t have time for that kind of anger now though. While the protections I’d already put in place had cushioned the attack and robbed it of any physical inertia (hence why I was still standing instead flying back like I was in a bad martial arts movie), the attack was only partly physical. If he got his hands on me and went to work, he could very well kill me before I was ready to die. Raising my hands and trying to force a friendly smile, I called out to him as he rounded on me...

  “Do you have somethin’ ta offer?” I was standing in a bright patch of afternoon sun, but it felt like the whole world was cloudy and gray as I looked at the creature that had asked me the question. It was…Well, I don’t know what it was, really. Just looking at it, I’d describe it as a large homeless man made out of garbage and decay, full of dirt and trash and dead things. But it was more than that too. Its green eyes of broken glass flashed with intelligence, and when its silver hypodermic teeth parted, the words that slipped between them were rough but knowing. I think it was that dry, almost business-like tone that made looking up at it worse. It drove home the point that I was the interloper here, not it. It knew what was going on, what the rules were, what its role was. I was traveling purely off a combination of Abraham’s shoddy notes, educated guesses, and a determination to not give up on getting Teddy back. It would have to b...

    Imagine two 18-wheelers carrying full loads of toxic waste. They are at opposite ends of a two mile stretch of road, barreling towards each other as their engines whine and their wheels smoke in protest. Imagine them plunging headfirst toward each other, only the destruction of the other on their cold, metal minds. Now imagine you are sitting on a raggedy couch between them. The thing about magic is that it is entirely different than what you see in the movies or on t.v. Instead of lightning bolts and fireballs, you get a dead, unnatural silence that reminds me of the minutes before a sudden and terrible storm begins to roll in. Rather than glowing wizard staffs and billows of smoke, you get an oily residue that suffuses the air as it thickens with something malignant and wrong. That silence? That icky dirty feeling that makes your skin crawl and your teeth feel too big for your head? That’s two opposing wills fueled by years of ritual...