09/09/2024 Snippet, THE LAST DAYS OF UNHOLY TOLEDO.

Unholy Toledo! Please also note that the cathedral in question is being desecrated. Because, again, Unholy Toledo.

The Whore’s Fane
(Our Lady, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Cathedral)
Unholy Toledo
(Toledo,Ohio)

Babylon was falling, but it had not yet hit the ground.

Under normal circumstances, the trip to the putrid jewel of the See of Iniquity would have taken no more than an hour. That night, it took two. There were desperate men on the streets that night, and many lunatics driven mad by the siege and palpable dread in the air. Several confrontations had ended in swordplay in the sullen dark.

 All three men were winded, but no more than that. Maddox and Nat were both seasoned fighting-men, facing wretches with rags for armor and snatched-up clubs for weapons; and, whatever else the Monsignor’s faults were, he was not shy about wading into a fight.

He stuck to his crozier, though, avoiding any expression of arcane power. “Others may be looking for us still, or they may be not,” he deigned to explain, after their second fight. “Even if we have avoided notice, I will need to hoard my magic for the trip below.”

He looked at both of them, then snorted. “Ah. You both have already guessed that our path was underground.”

“Yes,” rumbled Maddox. “It was that or try to go over the walls, and if I wanted to commit suicide I’d have done it three weeks ago and got ahead of the crowd.”

09/08/2024 Snippet, THE LAST DAYS OF UNHOLY TOLEDO.

Gotta get back into this one.

The Eighth Sin

The food was wretched at the tavern, but even the cheapest beer was good. So was the marijuana, cocaine, and opium, but neither sensible fighting-man indulged in those. From the looks of things, there were few sensible men or women in the Eighth Sin tonight. The usual smells of depravity and stale vomit were fighting a losing battle against the reeks of despair, desperation — and fresh vomit.

That suited Maddox. He leaned forward, careful not to whisper or look furtive. “That trull you knew, before. How might we find out more about the thing she was holding for you?”

Nat was an old hand at the game of speaking without using what the Old Americans called ‘key-words.’ “I don’t know. She didn’t talk much about what she did, or where she was from. Just that she once served someone who had what we wanted to have. Without her, we’re on our own.”

09/05/2024 Snippet, THE LAST DAYS OF UNHOLY TOLEDO.

It just popped into my head.

The boggart was a scrawny, slimy thing, and even a year ago it would have fled at the sight of a child. Now, it brazenly fed on the corpse in the alley, its body shivering in excitement as it gnawed. Not even the presence of a warrior with a knife in his hand advancing on the filthy beast seemed to disturb it.

Its outraged howl when a harsh hand ripped it from its meal turned into a shriek of pain as it was driven face-first into the ancient, rotting brick of the alleyway. The warrior’s companion winced at the sound of bones snapping from the impact, but said nothing as his friend’s blade buried itself in the boggart’s side.

“Mind its bile,” he did say as the warrior dexterously avoided both the foul spew from the beast’s guts, and the slightly-barbed tail trying to at least make one last strike in death. “Tis said they were bred to sicken those that slew them.”

“Not my first boggart, Nat,” the warrior grunted. “Won’t be my last, neither.”