Flintlocked

  SCHADE OF MAGIC BOOK 1

  N.P. MARTIN

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental

  N.P. Martin

  Flintlocked

  Schade of Magic Book 1

  Copyright © 2022 by N. P. MARTIN

  info@npmarin.com

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Free Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Unshackled - A Schade of Magic Short Story

  Make a Difference

  Teaser: Infernal Justice (Ethan Drake Series # 1)

  Books By N. P. Martin

  About the Author

  Free Book

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  Chapter

  One

  I’d been dreaming of piloting a flying car through a maze of skyscrapers set against the backdrop of eighties inspired neon dystopia before my alarm went off, rudely yanking me back into reality. And just as I was putting my arm around Amy as well, about to fly off into the sunset on waves of lush synth vibes.

  “Bastard…” I whispered as I pried my eyes open, faced now with the cold light of reality seeping through the curtains into my sparsely furnished bedroom.

  Groaning, I pulled the quilt over my head and nodded off, hoping to fall back into the dream again, and maybe even kiss Amy before I had to wake up. But alas, it wasn’t to be, for the stupid alarm on my phone went off again, seemingly two whole seconds after I closed my eyes.

  “Fuck! All right!” I growled as I turned off the annoying alarm.

  God, another day at shitty work. So damn depressing. At least it was Friday. After today, I wouldn’t have to think about work for another two whole days. The dread of having to return to work on Monday would always be in the background, but I had ways of blocking it out. For now, I just had to get through today.

  I sat up, noticing Snarf, my cat, asleep at the foot of the bed. He had the whole day in the apartment to do whatever he wanted, not having to suffer the hell that was other people.

  “Hey,” I said, nudging Snarf with my feet still under the blankets. “Snarf. Get up.”

  In the dim light, I watched the dark gray furball open his greenish-yellow eyes for a second to stare at me, before closing them and going back to sleep again, curling up tighter as he did so.

  “Yeah, get some more sleep,” I grumbled as I threw back the covers, the cold air hitting my skin, making me shiver. “You’ve got a long day ahead of you doing shit all, haven’t you?”

  Rolling out of bed, I located my Super Mario dressing gown and put it on, glad of its warmth in the still icy room. Trudging out the door, I went to the bathroom and took a piss before heading into the kitchen, turning lights on as I went. The living room stank of weed where I’d had one too many bong hits last night. Probably why I felt like shit this morning. Though, I felt like shit every morning, whether or not I’d overindulged the night before.

  In the kitchen, I made coffee and hit play on the cassette tape inside the small boom box sitting next to the coffeemaker. As I sat sipping the coffee, listening to the warm tones of the latest Dynatron album filling the room, I soon started to feel semi-functional. Lighting a cigarette, I stared down at my phone as I scrolled through my YouTube channel, checking for new comments. When I saw there were none, I opened up a social media app and sat scrolling for a while, shaking my head at the endless stream of inane bullshit, finding myself getting even more depressed the longer I kept scrolling.

  “Fuck you,” I said as I closed the app and slid the phone away, realizing I would have to get dressed for work soon if I wanted to catch the train. Normally, I would have had more time, but my car was in the garage, so I was dependent on public transportation to commute to work instead.

  After finishing my coffee and stubbing out my cigarette, I went into the living room to feed Roysten, my goldfish. Roysten’s small tank sat on a shelf surrounded by my graphic novel and video game collections, which took up most of one wall. Grabbing the little tub of fish food on the shelf next to the tank, I soon stopped and stared when I realized something was wrong. “Oh no,” I said. “Roysten…”

  Roysten was floating on his side just under the surface of the water, clearly dead. A lump formed in my throat as I tried to figure out why Roysten had died. I only got him a few months ago from the pet store down the street. Surely, goldfish were supposed to last longer than this? Maybe it was all the weed fumes. I smoked a lot last night. The living room was like an opium den before I traipsed off to bed high as fuck. Tears welled up in my eyes as I stared at my pet’s lifeless body. “Poor thing…” I whispered as I touched the fish tank. “I’m sorry, Roysten. I shoulda took better care of you.”

  What was I going to do with Roysten’s body? Deposit it into the trash? Flush it down the toilet? What does one normally do with a dead goldfish?

  Leaving Roysten’s body where it was for now, I went into the bedroom and nudged Snarf out of his slumber. “Snarf? Roysten is dead. Do you know anything about that?”

  Snarf, purring slightly, opened one eye to stare at me. Well, to glare at me for waking him up again. His look said he knew nothing about any dead goldfish, and then I realized he had come to bed at the same time as me last night. The bedroom door was closed, so it couldn’t have been him who killed Roysten. “I guess it was just natural causes then.”

  With a heavy sigh, I focused on getting dressed. Finding my creased beige chinos that I’d been wearing all week, the ones with the slight tear in the crotch that I hoped no one noticed, I put them on along with a T-shirt and a checked shirt before finding a pair of scuffed loafers and pulling them over my size-thirteen feet.

  Back in the living room, I stood in front of the fish tank again as I stared at Roysten’s floating corpse, my stomach turning over. I thought about leaving Roysten’s body in the tank until I got home from work, but decided against the idea when it occurred to me that Snarf might eat it while I was out, just like he ate the lizard I used to own.

  Cringing slightly, I reached my hand into the brackish water of the tank and scooped out Roysten’s cold little body, holding it in the palm of my hand for a second as my stomach continued to churn, triggering a wave of anxiety that made me shut my eyes for a second. I stood looking around for a moment, as if there was someone there to tell me what to do with the scaly corpse in my hand, before I ended up popping the dead fish into my shirt pocket. “Don’t worry, Roysten,” I said as I went to look for my backpack. “I’ll give you a proper burial in the park after I finish work.”

  Finding my backpack, I opened it to make sure my graphic novels, Walkman, and Gameboy were inside. Then I turned off the music in the kitchen and hurried to the door to rush out and catch the train to work. But as I got to the door, I realized I had forgotten to leave food out for Snarf, so I rushed back into the kitchen again and opened a tin of cat food, putting it into Snarf’s plastic food bowl by the cat litter tray in the corner of the kitchen. “Bye, Snarf,” I called out as I headed for the door again. “Food’s in the kitchen. See you after work, buddy. Be good.”

  I stood by the front door for a second as I waited for a purr of acknowledgment from Snarf, but all I got was moody silence. Sighing, I headed out, pausing for a second in the hallway to stare at my neighbor’s door, my anxiety increasing. Last night, I heard strange noises coming from in there, almost like someone chanting in an alien language, followed by low rumbling sounds that vibrated the walls. Of course, I had smoked a lot of weed last night, so I couldn’t be sure if the noises weren’t just coming from a loud surround sound system. The man who lived there was strange though. He moved in a few weeks ago. I’d only seen him on a few occasions. He was a tall man with longish, straggly hair who always wore a hat and a long coat. Last time I saw him, he’d been standing out in the hallway when I was just getting home from work. Nearing him, I watched him light a cigarette by pressing his finger against it. That’s how it seemed to me, anyway. I was tired, and my mind had probably played tricks on me. No doubt, the cigarette had been lit already, though that still didn’t explain why he would press his finger against it. When the guy saw me coming, he ducked into his apartment, which was fine by me as I’m not one for small talk. I didn’t know anyone in the
building and that’s how I liked to keep it.

  As I paused outside my neighbor’s apartment to light a cigarette, I stared at the door for a second and listened to the silence coming from inside, my mind wondering what the strange man was up to in there. You know how some people just weird you out for reasons you can’t quite put your finger on, as if there is something really wrong with them deep down? Well, my neighbor was one of those people. Though, come to think of it, enough people probably had the same feelings about me.

  With my cigarette lit, I started walking down the hallway toward the stairs, but stopped when I heard a door opening behind me. Turning, I saw my neighbor’s door open, and then his shadowy form leaning halfway out in the hallway as he stared in my direction.

  “Hey,” I said, raising my hand slowly, a little freaked out at the man’s sudden appearance. In response, he stared at me for another few seconds before ducking back into his apartment and shutting the door.

  “Jesus,” I mumbled, walking on. “Why does he have to live next door to me?”

  Light rain fell, but I still wore my headphones, playing an eighties mixtape in my old Walkman as I trudged down the street with dear old dead Royston still in my shirt pocket. I actually slowed for a moment, thinking my shirt pocket might not be the best place to keep a dead goldfish. But where else was I going to put it? My backpack? He might get crushed in there, and besides, I didn’t want any dead fish smell stinking up my bag and ruining my stuff.

  Up ahead, I spotted a trash can outside a tenement building, and I paused for a second as I considered dropping Royston into it. But that sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach stopped me. Royston had been a good pet, and he didn’t deserve to be dumped in the trash, dead or not. He had earned a proper burial, and I would give him one just as soon as I finished work.

  “Rest easy, Royston,” I said, gently patting my shirt pocket as I listened to Human League singing, “Don’t You Want Me,” through the headphones.

  By the time I got to the subway station ten minutes later, I realized I would be late for my train if I didn’t hurry. Then I would have to listen to Jared, my supervisor, go on about me being a bad employee, which he always did anyway, whether I was late or not. Honestly, I didn’t know what Amy saw in the guy. Why would she go out with such an obvious tool as Jared?

  Running for the train, I decided I didn’t give a shit what Amy saw in Jared, an attitude that would only last until I got into work and had to watch Amy give Jared sly glances and little cute smiles while Jared smiled back and then sneered at me as if he knew I was watching.

  I made it to the train just in time, squeezing through the doors before they closed, even finding a seat for a change as I sat down to catch my breath. When the train took off, I removed my headphones and put the Walkman into my backpack before taking out my Gameboy, a device that was released to market in nineteen-eighty-nine, the same year I was born. The Gameboy had belonged to my dad, who had passed it on to me when I was four, and I’ve had it ever since. Switching on the device, I settled in to play Donkey Kong Land, picking up where I’d left off in World Two, Level Six. After playing for a minute or two, the guy beside me—about my age, dressed in a fancy suit, hair slicked back with a leather briefcase sitting at his feet—shook his head at me and said, “Dude, what are you, like five or something?”

  For a second, I thought he was referring to level five on the game, but then I looked at his face and realized that wasn’t what he was referring to. I politely ignored him as I continued playing, hoping he wouldn’t say anything more. But he did, because some assholes just can’t help themselves.

  “What the hell is that thing anyway?” the guy asked. “It looks ancient. Is that from the nineties or something?”

  “The eighties,” I mumbled.

  “The eighties? Jesus Christ. You know tech has moved on a bit since then, right? The worst game on my phone is better than the shit you’re playing right now. What even is that game?”

  “It’s Donkey Kong Land.”

  The guy in the suit snickered. “Donkey Kong Land? Seriously? What the fuck does that even mean?”

  “It’s just a game,” I said, losing my concentration, losing a life at the same time.

  “Did you just die?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh no, what will Donkey Kong Land do without you?” Fancy Suit Guy laughed loudly, and my face reddened with embarrassment as a few other people on the train smirked at me. I wanted to smash Fancy Suit Guy’s smug face with the Gameboy, smashing his perfect teeth in. Instead, I sat there as my body overheated and my temples pulsed, hoping the asshole beside me got off at the next stop. Thankfully, he did.

  But not before he said, “You can go back to your game now, dork. I think I hear Donkey Dick calling your name.”

  “It’s Donkey Kong, actually,” I said, my face going a deeper shade of red as everyone in the train car laughed at me. To avoid their stares, I dropped my head and went back to playing the game, not looking up until it was time for me to exit the train.

  Leaving the subway, I stopped at a food truck and got my usual plain bagel for breakfast, eating it as I ambled down the street toward the building where I worked, which I reached five minutes later. Outside the building, I paused for another few minutes to have a cigarette, hoping to see Amy on her way in. But as I didn’t, it meant she was already inside, probably talking to Jared right now about the amazing night they’d had at some fancy restaurant before heading home to have rampant sex. Amy was probably still tired after it all. God, the thought of Jared lying on top of Amy made my stomach churn. Why, Amy? Why? If I was a girl, I would rather stay at home with a dildo than have some twat like Jared stick his dick in me.

  Feeling queasy now from smoking my cigarette too fast, I tossed the butt into the trash and turned to head inside the tenth circle of Hell known as Mojo Software Solutions, the place I had spent the last three years of my life working. The place made me want to go on a killing spree, but like everyone else, I needed the money to live, so I had little choice but to endure its hellish torture. Especially as jobs were so scarce these days, a fact that Jared and the other supervisors often rammed down our throats.

  About to head through the front doors, some burly delivery guy walked out before me, pushing on the door like I wasn’t there, the large metal handle slamming against my chest. I cried out in pain, but the delivery guy carried on walking like I wasn’t even there.

  Jesus, what a dick.

  Rubbing my chest, I was about to head inside when I stopped dead, suddenly realizing something. “Oh no…”

  Royston.

  The door handle hadn’t just hit my chest, it had also hit Royston in his checked shirt coffin. Opening the shirt pocket to look inside, I saw a gooey orange mess rapidly staining my shirt. “Jesus Christ…”

  I would have to hit the men’s room before I went into work, try to clean my shirt a little, maybe wrap what was left of Royston in a piece of tissue paper or something. To hide the spreading stain on my shirt, I buttoned up my denim jacket.

  But before I could get anywhere near the men’s room, or even the elevator on the ground floor, I felt a meaty arm slam down on my shoulders. “Zackary,” said a voice that made me grit my teeth and squeeze my eyes shut. “Morning, buddy. All ready for another day in the trenches?”

  “Oh, hey, Jared,” I said, barely bothering to smile. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Well, let’s go, buddy. Customers aren’t going to wait all day, are they?”

  I wished he would stop calling me buddy. I was as far away from being his buddy as it was possible to be, but he never seemed to see it that way. He thought because I was Amy’s friend—her best friend—that I was somehow like family to him or something, someone he was obligated to be nice to, even though I suspected he secretly hated me as much as I hated him. Why else would he seem to revel in hanging all over Amy every chance he got, rubbing it in my face? It was because he knew I was secretly in love with Amy, that’s why. I don’t know how he knew, for I hid my love for Amy well. But somehow, the bastard knew.