Local Heroes: Keith Murphy Urban Fantasy Singles, #1

By Peter M. Ball

A Keith Murphy single set after the events of Crusade. Also available in the short story collection These Strange and Magic Things.

 

Keith Murphy's doesn't understand professional wrestling, and he doesn't care to try. But when paying back a debt means figuring out how a demon is feeding on the crowds at the local indie show, the hitman-turned-mage finds himself up against a creature far more powerful than he expected.

With the aide of a conflicted academic and his new partner, Holly Langford, Keith must set aside his guns and climb into the ring to become the hero his city needs once more.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brain Jar Press
• Release date: Jun 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393283843

Peter M. Ball

Peter M Ball is the author of more than fifty short stories and six novellas, along with essays, RPG material, articles, and poetry. His short stories and non-fiction have appeared in venues such as Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, Shimmer, Dragon Magazine, Writing Queensland, and Apex Magazine, and has been included in several Year’s Best anthologies. He’s previously taught creative writing at Griffith University and the Queensland Writers Centre, spent five years as the manager of the Australian Writers Marketplace, and convenes the biennial GenreCon writing conference in Brisbane, Australia.

Book preview

Local Heroes

Local Heroes

A Keith Murphy Urban Fantasy Single

Peter M. Ball

Brain Jar Press

Things You Can’t Pay Back

Gold Coast summers are a little slice of Hades on earth. Endless weeks of scorching days and humid nights, the temperature pushing forty on the Celsius scale. A punishing, sweltering heat that makes you regret being alive, the moisture thick enough to chew up and spit out if you’re willing to risk prolonged activity. Then the tourists descend, a plague of biblical proportions: on the beaches; on the streets; constant treks across the mountains and constant theme parks. Tourists in the fucking Hell Bar, obliging me to deal with them every damned night.

The holiday crowds reminded me why I first left all those years ago. Those self-indulgent fuckers got me think real hard about fleeing the Coast again, even if staying put was safer for a man in my situation.

I was thinking all those kinds of thoughts the morning Holly Langford cornered me at my latest safe-house. I climbed out of a cab at four AM, crossed the sun-blasted grass that masqueraded as a yard. Didn’t spot Langford parked on the front step, dreadlocks pooled around her skinny arse. Killing time with a Winnie Blue she’d smoked down to the filter.

I stopped short and wondered how the fuck I’d missed her. It wasn’t like Langford blended, not in the white-bread coastal suburbs pressed up against the shoreline. Six-three and stalk-thin, piercings through nose, lip and brow. Tattoos covering exposed skin long since worn to leather by hard living. Some of that ink I knew real well, tether marks that connected Langford to the other world and channeled the raw stuff of magic into our dimension. Other tats were decorative, or camouflage to keep the unwary from recognizing her as a sorcerer.

Langford sucked on her cigarette and eyed my approach. Took your time.

Didn’t know about the meeting.

You’re still late. Langford exhaled a final cloud of smoke and flicked the butt across the yard. She hauled herself upright with the cast-iron railing and looked me over, blocking my path to the door.

I halted at the bottom stop. Thought I gave you the spare key?

No smoking apartment, Langford said. And it would have fucked your wards. Of course, that would be a fucking a mercy killing, way you handle defenses. There’s a real strong argument for establishing protection that can actually keep threats out—you might try it sometime.

And live in a world where you don’t show up, unannounced? Inconceivable.

Funny. Langford stepped away to allow me access the flat. Just open the door, eh?

I stifled a yawn and obeyed. Twelve hours working the bar meant I wasn’t inclined towards visitors, but Langford wouldn’t give a crap. Refuse the people you owe debts to in my line of work and bad things happen, especially when you’re in so deep that paying it off was a pipe dream.

My flat was a bare bones operation. One bedroom, ensuite bathroom, a small kitchenette. Habits of a lifetime meant I didn’t keep much there. A handful of clothes, four second-hand books, enough weapons to hold off a demon attack if I got very lucky. A go-bag, tucked beneath the bed, ready bail on the place in a hurry if the situation demanded.

Langford