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    Vex's Arsenal Vol 1: The Byzantium Outcast
    Vex's Arsenal Vol 1: The Byzantium Outcast
    Vex's Arsenal Vol 1: The Byzantium Outcast
    Ebook41 pages36 minutes

    Vex's Arsenal Vol 1: The Byzantium Outcast

    By Kyt Dotson

    ()

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    About this ebook

    In her ongoing search for magickal artifacts in and around Phoenix, occult detective Vex Harrow makes a strange discovery during one of her favorite hunts--at a yard sale. She procures a strange, bronze statue that seems to have a lot more going on than at first it may appear.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKyt Dotson
    Release dateSep 24, 2010
    ISBN9781458011626
    Vex's Arsenal Vol 1: The Byzantium Outcast
    Author

    Kyt Dotson

    I’ve always disliked introductions—they make me uncomfortable. I’m used to listening, smiling... These always involve too much talking. I could copy and paste something I already have, I’m sure, but I suppose that would be cheating anyone reading. And that wouldn’t be fun at all. Should it be posh or vulgar? Crystalline and perfect in reception or scrawled out with the grace of a child with crayons and chalk... I guess that both would fit equally well, but truthfully, I’d rather avoid the clever. So posh it is. So a metaphor came to me, let’s try an introduction like mixing a drink. All the elements are there: first a spirit—whiskey, rum; second something for substance—soda, juice; and finally perhaps flavor—ice, mint, cinnamon-snap. So the substance... I live in Michigan during the summer and Arizona during the winter, rather particularly like a snowbird, except that I don’t drive. And I don’t quite adhere to that schedule either, I just have friends split between those states and I work in Phoenix. I am Irish by heritage but demure by demeanor. I dress in black because of tradition. I expect to die of heart failure, unless my friends somehow find me immortality. So some flavor... My favorite author is Mary Woolstonecraft Shelley, further that I’ll oft’ refer to her as my adopted mother. I love reading, always have book on my desk, in my pocket, at hand, or simply tucked/tied/wrapped to my notebook and pen. I like Goth Industrial music and Harsh EBM, folk, rock, Celtic. VNV Nation, Covenant, Blutengel, In Strict Confidence, Qntal, and myriad manifold others. And finally the spirit... I am an author—and a glowing one at that; I also write poetry—but nothing worth mentioning. I like street corners and thunderstorms, small furry creatures and libraries, the sound of a thousand feet walking and the smell of morning after a long night. I’ll try not to wax poetic. I am a healer, ex-medic; now if only I could keep everyone from breaking themselves. Most importantly: I love people. Too clever, I suppose, but hopefully entertaining naetheless.

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      Book preview

      Vex's Arsenal Vol 1 - Kyt Dotson

      The Byzantium Outcast

      Kyt Dotson

      Published by Kyt Dotson at Smashwords

      Copyright © 2010 Kyt Dotson

      Discover other titles by Kyt Dotson at Smashwords.com

      ~~~

      Most people keep skeletons in their closets; I keep a bronze statuette in mine.

      The usual people to talk about skeletons in the closet are referring to secrets. Secrets that they don’t want the rest of the world to know. Things like aborted babies, torrid affairs, jilted lovers, back-room bribes over public land... Not me. All of my skeletons are hung in the living room.

      There’s no room in my closet for skeletons.

      The secret I keep in there is about the End of the World. And it’s a skeleton that doesn’t even belong to me personally. The boney hand of this wind-scoured secret can cup the entire globe in its palm, held to the visage of a rictus grin smiling beneath hollow eye sockets. That’s not really the secret, you understand, everyone in the world knows there are people and things out there that want to end the world.

      The secret is how.

      The tale of this particular statue starts on a blazing June day, when the Arizona sun is hotter than an ASU co-ed with heatstroke.

      Sunday. The best day for bargain hunting. Every housewife with a single bit of extra crockery, an extra vacuum cleaner, or a misbehaving child who needs to be taught a lesson, has set up a vast array of junk in her lawn and placed numerous cardboard signs along major roadways with large stenciled letters: Yard Sale.

      The subdivisions in Chandler splay across the countryside, a scrim of too many hamlets grown together like scum spreading across a pond. The houses themselves are squat, unassuming, and lord over well manicured lawns that cost more in precious water to maintain than the lumber and time it took to build the house. Here and there the black and green of the roads, lawns, and side-by-side houses is broken by a large girth of patchy emerald grass—disused community parks with a jungle gym, some stunted shade trees, and a paint-peeling gazebo.

      On this day, the yard sale had been so large that it moved out of the usual confines of the yards and into such a park. The day was so hot I could almost see the grass wilting beneath my feet. Fans were set up everywhere and the housewives had retreated into the shade of the gazebo, only teenage daughters and sons remained among the accumulated junk, proud with their tins of earnings. They ignored the blazing heat as only the youth can.

      I drew curious glances from the teenagers and discerningly distrustful glares from their parents, but apparently even my appearance wasn’t enough to draw any of them out of the comforting shade of the gazebo. Overall, the effect of a black-garbed young woman, wearing white-face and eyeliner painted around one eye was enough to attract attention but not enough to attract a mob. I doubt they missed that I’d driven up in a taxi either.

      Left to my own devices, I poked through the assorted tables without a real plan of approach. I avoided the children’s toys and the appliances;

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