Epilogue

I was still walking with a limp when Valente’s Christmas party rolled around. The party was Inner Circle only. That meant two things: One, everybody thought they were a big shot; two, the cost of the buffet and bar could have fed all the starving kids in Africa for the next decade.

I wanted to think I was the exception to the inflated ego norm of the room. I wasn’t. I was on the arm of a beautiful woman considered dangerous even by the standards of these lunatics. My inability to discuss how I lost the top of my left ear to frostbite or where I picked up my limp made me mysterious. In absence of facts, rumors flowed. My favorite held that I had called forth an ice demon to snow under Wall Street for 48 hours, allowing Valente to avoid what otherwise might have been disastrous financial losses. I wasn’t about to correct them and not just because I wasn’t sure what had happened that night myself. In a room full of assassins, telepaths, and corporate espionage experts, professional demon summoner was a reputation to be envied.

Veruca and I were doing all right, though I’d hurt her feelings by not inviting her along for the wendigo hunt. I had told her most of what had happened, but I thought she thought I was holding out on her. Nobody likes a story with an unknown ending. We still got along well, with her spending most of her off hours in my apartment, but it felt like there was a distance growing between us.

I could have closed the gap, but I didn’t. I knew what Veruca was and accepted her as she was. She didn’t know what I was. Making a pact was one thing…but I knew now how woefully inadequate that description was for me. Yog Soggoth, an ancient evil from beyond the limits of reality, lived inside of me. I didn’t make a deal with the devil. I was the devil.

The night of the storm changed that relationship, too. For my part, I had finally come to grips with what I was: part-Harvard dropout, part Old One. For its part, Yog Soggoth understood his limitations. He needed me, though I’m not sure either of us understood why. It was like he had one tentacle in me and another still firmly anchored in his prison beyond the walls of the universe. Without me and my body, he might as well still be trapped there.

Something had changed regarding Sarai that night, too. I had poured through countless deceased Jane Doe reports, tales of women with amnesia, and other reports Valente had sent my way. But in my time in the Shadowlands, the time when Yog Soggoth and I were one, I felt…something. Sarai was alive, even if only in my dreams. Yog Soggoth had done something with her, hidden her somewhere, maybe even tucked her away in whatever prison Yog Soggoth had rotted in since the creation of the world. I still didn’t know what had happened to her, but I did know there was a chance to get her back.

THE END

Thank you for reading! Did you enjoy? Please leave a review on your favorite retail site! And find book two of the Modern Knights novels, TWO WIZARD ROULETTE available now, and find author Joshua Bader on Facebook.

Being a personal wizard to a multinational CEO isn't all fun and games. When Colin's not busy with assassins and his own inner demons, there's amnesia potions and odd jobs like hunting down a serial criminal or two.

If the billionaire boss was bad, the relationship between Colin and his demon-blooded girlfriend Veruca has been downright turbulent since last winter's freak blizzard. It doesn't make the situation any easier that his favorite FBI contact looks exactly like his missing, presumed dead, fiancé.

All of that would be enough to keep Colin busy. But when a dangerous gambler with magical powers of his own, and his demoness consort, start fleecing Vegas casinos for millions, Colin finds himself trapped in a high stakes game of two wizard roulette.

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