Michael Warren Lucas has published over fifty books, despite society's best efforts to stop him. His other titles include Apocalypse Moi, the Prohibition Orcs historical fantasies, and the 80s SF satire Laserblasted.
INHUMAN HEROISM
This collection from critically-acclaimed author Michael Warren Lucas proves that bravery comes in every shape, and not all of it is two-fisted or even two-legged. Maybe it's orcs learning baseball, or a young boy absorbing wisdom from interdimensional bats. If the only animal in the entire universe looks like a harmless chipmunk, you better ask yourself why, and when a dog's ghost starts reciting 19th-century French surrealist poetry, you'll need a whole new kind of bravery.
No matter your wings, paws, or whiskers, you need courage.
But whatever you do, don't piss off the rats.
Michael Lucas is probably the only living writer I know who can give Robert Jeschonek a run for his money in the land of skewed perspective. French poetry? Interdimensional bats? Of course. But a collection of Michael's stories wouldn't be complete without an orc or two. And a rat. There's always a rat... – Kristine Kathryn Rusch
"An inspiration, frankly. A great and terrible inspiration."
– Lilith Saintcrow, author of Coyote Run"Michael Warren Lucas might have one of the most twisted and innovative minds in fiction that I have had the pleasure to read."
– Dean Wesley Smith, Pulphouse editor"Recommended if you like B movies, pulp fiction, pew pew pew, and/or Terry Pratchett."
– DeAnna Knippling, author of the Alice’s Adventures in Underland seriesOne sip told me that my tea had finally come out perfect.
My stomach couldn't handle coffee since I took that bullet in Saudi Arabia, and Sardines the chef got outraged whenever anyone expressed an antipathy towards the Most Holy Bean, so I'd been making tea with an electric kettle in my snug attic room. This new Sumatra Black promised to kick harder than a mule, if you let it steep just long enough.
Two seconds too long, though, and the acids come out to eat your taste buds.
One delightful sip soothed my tongue and filled my nose, and my pager buzzed.
Timing is one of my boss' many talents. Don't ask what happened last time I almost got laid.
And pagers? Yes, pagers. He wouldn't have cellphones or Internet in the place. Ask him why and he'd go on and on about not allowing any incarnation of Tagiriron admission to the manor. I don't know if that's true. Some of his bullshit is just chaff.
The pager had one word. RATS.
Maybe a client?
I groaned, scalded my mouth with a chug of tea, dumped the rest in a bottle, and stuck it in my tiny private fridge.
Getting from my attic room to the boss' sanctum meant lowering the ladder, avoiding Magrat the Mayhem Maid as she "cleaned" the third floor, taking either the narrow twisty servants' staircase with its they're-not-ghosts or the main stairs with the now-those-are-ghosts, through the gallery of I'm-telling-you-those-are-paintings-not-real-people, down the freakishly wide spiral staircase that escaped from a 1950s Hollywood spectacle, and crossing the main hall.
That marble floor's tried to murder me twice.
The second time, with a knife.
Until recently, I didn't believe in any of this tripe. Today, I didn't want to bother with it.
A December morning sun poured over the oaks and maples surrounding the manor. It was just warm enough for this Northern boy to have the window cracked, but cool enough you might think winter would decide to fire a blizzard across Georgia just for funsies. A perfect day to climb down the trellis. My left calf ached from the accident, but it was getting stronger and using it helped. I hiked the broad wooden porch surrounding all four sides of Whackadoo Manor until I got to the front, sucked a few deep breaths of cool forest-scented air, and sauntered into the separate entrance he kept for potential clients.
The boss's study was an exercise in what-the-hell.
Most normals noticed the rats first. They hit you square in the nose. It's not a bad smell, but it's unmistakably ratty. Mad Hamish the rat valet works half the night cleaning the cage, but the human brain has primeval circuits that catch a whiff and shriek protect the harvest. The cage covered an entire wall, twenty feet long and fifteen high and two deep, all full of shelves and ramps, corrugated tunnels and knotted ropes and puzzles guaranteed to develop a young rat's intellect and agility.
And maybe fifty pet rats. I don't even try to count any more.
Then there's the glass-fronted bookshelves stuffed with the sorts of books that can only be called ancient tomes. Paintings executed right on the plaster walls: the Tree of Life and Death complete with Sefirot and Qlippot and a few extra hand-scribbled notations, a ziggurat marked up in an alphabet that wasn't ours or Greek or Hebrew or Russian, a Tiffany lamp worth more than I earned in my whole "straight" career, shelves choked with knickknacks and gewgaws and random stuff that might be harmless souvenirs or might rip your soul out.
The boss was sitting in one of the giant overstuffed chairs in front of the huge natural stone fireplace. The only people I've ever seen thin as him had starved to death the day before, but he ate like a Kodiak bear. For a change, his sweat pants didn't have extra holes and his T-shirt didn't look stained. He had an arm across his chest, with a brown-and-white rat stretched along it, the kind with the big round ears sticking out the side of their head. A dumbo, they're called. You can't live in Whackadoo Manor without picking up loads of useless knowledge, like the different types of pet rats and how to identify each of the six kinds of human sacrifice.
He was petting the rat, of course. I had no idea if the rats were part of his power, part of his gimmick, or if he could afford to indulge a sincere affection. Maybe they were in charge.
In the other chair sat the kind of woman that glued my tongue to the roof of my mouth. Eyes like chocolate, skin like caramel, and dammit maybe if I'd gotten breakfast she wouldn't look so delectable.
No. She would. I ripped my eyes away before I started to drool. "You rang?"
"Good morning, Luggage," he said.
She even snorted sexy. Dammit. I needed to not notice that. She wore a pricey pantsuit that hugged her runner's form and the kind of makeup that takes an hour to look like it's not there.
"Not my real name," I said.
She focused on me with a sniper's gaze. She had great posture and breathed with deliberate slowness, and I needed to get my head in the game because every time he sent me out I damn near got killed. That's why he had me. So he could play with his rats and his weird-ass books and enough occult paraphernalia to make Gandalf drool, while I went to sweat and bleed to work his miracles.
She gave a nearly subliminal nod. My two hours of brutal martial arts practice a day must have satisfied her. "You work for him?"
I nodded. My treacherous eyes caught her left hand. No wedding ring.
In the game, man. Focus.
She said, "One could make a case that your employer calling you Luggage would constitute workplace harassment." Her voice had that abstract tone lawyers and philosophers use when they want to present an idea and see if you jump.
"You won't get a real names from anyone here." It was always best to get this part over real quick. "We all use names chosen randomly from a list of Terry Pratchett characters." All but him, of course.
"And you accept this?"
Was she so thoroughly fubar that she'd have to move in? My pulse tripped. Yes, yes, getting involved with your housemates was a terrible idea no matter what Magrat the Mayhem Maid declaimed every time I came within shouting distance, but the thought of this woman living here tightened my throat anyway. "The reasons are real."
