Regular readers of this space may recall that a while back I published the first chapter of the rough draft of Thin Spots, my novel-in-progress. Since that time, I’ve reworked the story structure and as a result come up with a new first chapter that not only works better but is more fun, to boot. I’ve also come up with a new second and third chapter, which I’ll post here later. Anyway, here it is. (Remember, it’s completely unedited, so just take the typos, etc. in stride.) Enjoy!
One
Alistair Hyde Naycock Templeton-Smythe was incensed. He had found a spot on his robe, a patch about two inches square where the deep purple of the velvet had somehow faded to a shade lighter. Negligence is what it was. It was all these foreigners that had taken over the dry-cleaning business. They bought everything they wore at Wal-Mart—what did they know about fine fabrics, or care? Your money was all they wanted, with their exorbitant prices and their pretending not to speak good English. Daddy had moved the family to America for lower taxes and bigger business, not to be robbed blind by the offspring of inferior peoples.
“Brumby!” he shouted. “Brumby, to me! Instantly!”
Templeton-Smythe heard the little man’s thumping run in the hallway and in a moment his tentative knock. “Sir?” came the quavering voice, “You called?”
“Of course I called! Come in here at once.”
Brumby, a diminutive man with a hooked nose and large, watery eyes, complied. “Sir?”
Templeton-Smythe shook the offending fold of cloth under his house-boy’s nose. “What is this, Brumby? How did this happen?”
Brumby peered closely at the robe, inclining his head until the tip of his nose almost touched it. “’This,’ um, sir? My apologies, but what is ‘this’?”
“Are you blind, man? It’s got a stain. You took it to be cleaned, therefore I expect you to have an explanation, which I am even now awaiting.”
Brumby licked his lips. “It’s always been there, sir.”
Templeton-Smythe began tapping his foot on the floor.
“The faded spot, sir. Always been there. You recall this was an e-Bay purchase. ‘Nearly new,’ I believe was the description.”
Templeton-Smythe’s tapping foot snapped up and delivered a sharp kick to Brumby’s shin. The little man grimaced, but did not cry out. “Damn you, Brumby, for allowing such a thing to happen. E-Bay, indeed. Have this rag burned. Now bring me my second-best robe, the one with the crescent moons and stars. A fellow wants to look his best when he’s conjuring wealth, power and immortality, don’t you agree?”
“To be sure, sir.”
The foot-tapping resumed. Brumby scuttled to the walk-in closet and after a few moments’ rummaging brought out the robe. It was dark burgundy decorated with loud yellow stars and half-moons. Some of the moons had scowling faces. Templeton-Smythe inspected it and wrinkled his nose.
“A bit musty, isn’t it?”
Brumby rubbed one palm against the other. “It’s just back from the cleaners, sir, as of Thursday.”
“Hmph. You’ll find us a new cleaner, Brumby. White people such as ourselves. And none of these recent Eastern Eurpoean imports who haven’t shed their accents yet. I don’t care how far you have to drive.”
“Is a Southern accent acceptable, sir?”
Templeton-Smythe raised an eybrow. “Are you mocking me, Brumby?”
The little man took a step back. “Oh, no, sir. It’s just that I may know of a place, but the owners possess that particular, um, patois.”
“Very well. Southern will do, as long as it’s a refined accent. I won’t have any white trash cleaning for me, either. Understand?”
“Yes, indeed, sir.”
“Then get out and make ready to receive our guests.”
Brumby bowed deeply and left the room, shutting the door softly behind him. At the end of the hallway, he paused at the head of the stairs and uttered a low growl. A wisp of acrid gray smoke drifted out of his left ear.
“By the bowels of Beelzebub,” he muttered. “I yearn for the day our positions are reversed, Alistair Hyde Naycock Templeton-Smythe.” He took a deep breath then and hurried downstairs to prepare for the coven’s arrival.
***
Having shed the annoying company of the help, Templeton-Smythe went to the flat-screen TV opposite his bed, applied pressure to its top right corner and then stretched to apply equal pressure to the lower left corner. There was a faint click and when he stepped away from the TV it swung away from the wall, revealing a safe behind it.
Templeton-Smythe worked the combination, which required a dial, a keypad and a fingerprint scan, and removed a stick, shaved of all its bark and inscribed with a repeating series of runes. He held the stick close to his lips, whispered a phrase to it and then inserted the tip of it into his left ear for a count of three. He then put everything back and as the TV clicked into place against the wall, a panel in the floor slid open revealing another safe like the first.
Inside the floor safe was a panama hat, size 8 ½, black. Templeton-Smythe knelt, lifted the hat from its hiding place, placed it gingerly on his head and went to stand before the mirror, where he adjusted the chapeau until it was securely centered on top of his head
Templeton-Smythe’s little group of cohorts was called The Coven of the Black Hat in honor of the genuine magical artifact now adorning his pate. It had been dyed black by the original owner, an Ecuadorian shaman that Grandfather Templeton-Smythe had procured it from while scouting mining properties early in the twentieth century. That the old man had procured it by means of murdering the shaman was a closely held family secret, as was the belief that the hat’s dire origins had increased its powers. Grandfather had also acquired a servant on the hat expedition, a man by the name of Dominick Brumby. A Brumby had been in the service of the Templeton-Smythe patriarch ever since.
Templeton-Smythe took the burgundy cloak from the bed, fastened it around his shoulders and practiced swirling it in front of the mirror while making a series faces he found stern, or mysterious, or both.
“Brilliant,” he said. “No wonder they follow me so willingly.” He double checked the robe for spots and the hat for centeredness, and then headed downstairs to greet his guest and start the night’s festivities.
***
To become a member of The Coven of the Black Panama Hat, one had to meet strict requirements. You had to be a bosom friend, benefactor, or essential business associate of Alistair Hyde Naycock Templeton-Smythe, the permanent High Priest. This was not an easy hurdle to jump as the man circulated only in the most stratoshperic of circles. You had to be white, in the Western European sense of the term, which seemed an easier mark to hit at first but often proved to be more difficult when you were subjected to the required DNA trace. You had to be eminent in your field, which was required to be one that might be of some benefit to Templeton-Smythe. These restrictions kept membership in the coven small, but potent, which was just the way he liked it.
Brumby had already ushered the members into the drawing room, where they were drinking ancient scotch and speculating in low voices about the business of the evening. Templeton-Smythe paused outside the closed doors and whispered an incantation, a glamour to give him an added appearance of puissance. It’s working, he thought, feeling a tingling beginning where the hat touched his head and travelling all the way down to his toes. It was both warm like whiskey in the belly and cold like a raw winter wind. It also gave him a raging boner.
He threw the doors open, spreading the folds of his cloak open like a pair of blood-red wings. As one, the coven stepped back, gasping, open-mouthed at the vision of magical power before them. All that is, except for Pepper Hynes Jernigan, of the Virginia Jernigans, who had been standing just inside the doors. He dropped his glass, which shattered on the marble floor and then fell over on the shards, which shredded his hands when he threw them out to catch himself. Jernigan’s howls of pain and the smear of his blood on the tiles distracted the coven members and spoiled the grand effect, glamour or no glamour.
“Do get up, Jernigan, you great clot,” the High Priest said. “Brumby! Cleaning! Instantly!”
Brumby appeared with a Dyson vacuum cleaner, mop and bucket. He helped the unfortunate Jernigan to his feet and shook his head at the mess. “Blood on the tiles, sir. Not particularly good for tonight’s, um, effort, sir. Incompatible.”
Templeton-Smythe raised his boot to give Brumby a kick in the pants, but thought better of it and settled for bad temper instead. “Don’t lecture me, you houseboy. Make this mess go away so that we may begin. In the meantime, let the candles be lit.”
The coven members, with the exception of Jernigan, who was busy extracting tiny shards of glass from his hands, dispersed throughout the room to light a series of black candles. Brumby finished his work and switched off the electric lights, leaving the room in flickering dimness.
Templeton-Smythe swished his cloak and stepped to the center of the room. “Wizards of the Black Hat, let us gather as one,” he said.
The coven did as they were bid, joining hands around the High Priest, who knelt and drew a wide circle on the floor and a pentagram in its center. Then he rose and turned slowly through three hundred and sixty degrees as he addressed them.
“Tonight, my wizards, we take the first step towards untold wealth, power and, perhaps, immortality. Tonight, we take the first step in a series of summoning that will lead us to command of legions of dark beings. With them at our beck and call, our influence will be limitless. We will build the world we all envision.”
“I hope it includes sutures,” Jernigan carped.
“Sutures, Jernigan? We’ll do better than that! What about a new hand? What about four new arms with hands that can crush skulls?”
“I’m in,” said Jernigan.
“Then let us continue. Tonight we summon a victim, a sacrifice to the darks gods. Concentrate. Imagine a young man, here in the unholy circle, at our mercy. Now, chant with me! O-rah-mey-dah-koo-cha! O-rah-mey-dah-koo-cha!”
The chant rose in volume and intensity. The faces of the coven were pinched in scowling concentration. Glass rattled in windows, a chill breeze arose in the room and Templeton-Smythe felt the black hat quivering on his head.
In the library, on the far side of the entrance hall, Brumby raised a telephone handset to his ear and dialed. “Pizza Haven? Yes, this is Dominick Brumby, I’m on file. Right. Could you deliver me three large house specials, no bacon? Thank you. Oh, and is that nice young man on the motorbike delivering tonight? That’s wonderful. He’s always so polite and prompt. Good-bye now.”
Brumby hung up the phone. “O-rah-mey-dah-koo-cha, indeed,” he said to the bookshelves.
