Sigils of the Old God
By- J.P. Moore
Genre- Epic Fantasy
Published By- Dragon Moon Press
Publication Date- November 2nd
Jamesport, Rhode Island, 1895 ...
Listen carefully. You may hear whispers of the city’s mysteries just below the howling of the wind through the rafters of the abandoned fish market. Odd creatures serve a witch in the haunted salt marshes. Sigils of ancient and forgotten magic mark the cliff overlooking the bay. A ruined stone tower of unknown age stands in the square. Do not speak too loudly of these mysteries, lest the Old God send his servants to silence you.
Fear Jacob, the most loyal and gifted of these assassins. He has killed many, from babbling ex-sailors who uncovered too many secrets in dark and faraway lands, to millionaires’ wives who summer in mansions on the cliff and wander one step too far into the occult.
But peer into Jacob’s eyes and you may see a hint of doubt. You may discover what you have suspected all along.
History is a lie.
The world is not what we think it is.
And, it is all about to come crashing to an end.
About the Author
J. P. Moore lives and writes in southern New Jersey. Though his characters would feel right at home in the dark and mossy tracts of the Jersey Pine Barrens, the setting that he enjoys with his wife and three children is a long way from the worlds of his novels and stories. Moore's settings are on the brink. Their histories are lost, or misunderstood. Their futures are uncertain. All of the heroes are gone. Only the unlikely heroes are left.
He saw skulls. These lay with other
bones, a sprawling sculpture of slaughter. Where he saw figures, most seemed
human with two legs, two arms. But some had other limbs. Still other odd
shapes--curves in the spine, spikes from the femurs, extra joints in the
fingers. Fans like the sails on the back of a fish spread from some shoulder
blades. Wings.
Jacob clenched his jaw.
Fear sparkled in his gut as he gazed
at the bones. Some of them bore deep cuts and scratches. In some areas, thin
stalagmites rose from the bones to catch milky drips that fell from the
darkness above, from the invisible ceiling.
"Fossils," he whispered.
He stepped onto the pile, following
the string of light bulbs
. A taut twang shot through the
bones, like the cracking of ice on a winter lake. Beneath this sound, he
imagined the hollow, wet cracks of the ancient bodies splitting and the screams
of these creatures. The devil's cherubs, these malformed, scrawny things
hovering on giant insect wings, snagged in a net and slain, discarded here. All
around him, now--cries and screeches had buried themselves in the smooth rock
and in the pockets of air between the bones. Each step released them.
Panic flared. He opened the cylinder
of his revolver. Two bullets. He walked and, his hands shaking, reloaded the
gun. He dropped bullets into the pile. They fell through the gaps and cracks,
gone forever. Four in the cylinder, now. That was all.
What beast, he wondered, had lived
in this place and taken these creatures into its gullet? Now slithered off to
the sea or sky, space itself, or deeper into the cliff.
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