Blog Tour-Heist by Kezzy Sparks
A thrilling introduction to the dark mystical world of Melanie ‘Breaker’ Perkiss, Buffalo NY’s most capable witch hunter and spell lifter.
In this debut installment, a
dark mage acting on behalf of a vengeful ex has magically removed the genitals
of a man and vanished, leaving him wiped clean down there. And unfortunately
for the victim, he is set to wed…now imagine saying ‘I do’ while in that
deprived state.
No wonder when a shell-shocked
and heartbroken Casey walks into Melanie’s office to report the incident, the
witch hunter immediately goes on a chase, risking her own life as she encounters
dark creatures and malevolent spirits in the city’s darkest corners.
The pressure is indeed on Mel:
the wedding is fast approaching and leads remain few. Will she be able to
corner the mage, recover the taken goods and save a doomed marriage, while
bringing the conspirators to justice?
Excerpt
One
I guide my ex-trooper Crown Victoria into its allotted
space, then walk toward the office. There is something in the air today, and my
right hand has been twitching ominously. To many, such twitches don’t signify
anything—just a bunch of nerves fluttering, they say—but myself, I interpret it
as a call to action. And usually I am right.
The door to my unit is made of a lower grade
of maple, stained in amber and then varnished. Near the top is a sign with my
name on it. MELANIE PERKISS, it
reads in bold caps, then below that is an image of a claw hammer, with the
words The Breaker scribbled beside.
It’s a cryptic enough thing, and many
newly hired people working in this building often ask me what is it that I
break, a word they utter while making quotation marks with their hands.
“Curses,” I reply, not shy to promote
my type of business.
“That, really?” they further say, “is
it a line of work?”
“Yes.” I often oblige them with a
smile and then add, “I lift spells, too.”
That statement often elicits
mystified grins, because to many, a spell and a curse are almost the same
thing, but in my world they are different.
The conversation often doesn’t end
there; it continues with them asking how it is that I know there is a curse
here or a spell there to be dealt with. To which I reply by giving them the
real jaw dropper: that I am a witch hunter—and that’s how I tell.
“For real, a witch hunter?” they
exclaim, wiping the pavement dirt off their fallen jaws. “In this day and
age?”
“Yeah,” I say, “right in this
freakin’ new millennium.”
At this point you should see how they
shake their heads and roll their eyes like they have seen some phantom from a
bygone century. Yet I, Melanie Perkiss, know what my calling is, and I have an
actual office to work in.
At the door, I produce a key. I could
have used my magic door-opener that pretty much can unlock any door, but I
prefer to save it. I always save it; that makes good sense.
My fingers twitch again as I go in.
Even though today is a Tuesday, it’s the first day of my working week, so I
wonder what’s calling me to arms so early on. Really, in our business, big
things usually happen on Fridays or Saturdays but not so much on Sunday or Monday,
so what then could have occurred, or is occurring? I must wait and see.
The office is quiet, except for the
soft fall of feet in a corridor to the back. I work alone, with no boss or
assistant, and there is no one to say good morning to, or ask how the weekend
was. Witch hunting can be such a lonely job, but also a potentially rewarding
one, I must add.
My eyes land on one of the most
important fixtures in here: a fish tank on a stand to the north wall.
In there is Mr. Gillz, a companion
fish of mine that I adore very much. His type is the flowerhorn cichlid, and
that species can be colorful and attractive, but to me that is not the most
important part. The real deal is that Mr Gillz here is magical and spiritual,
just like all cichlids can be if handled the right way by the right hands. He
warns me of impending supernatural disasters, and sometimes he hints at the
potential outcome of a particular magic case I may be working on.
“Hi there,” I wave at him, gazing
into his fluid chambers.
He slowly rises to the surface,
brings his mouth out of the water, and blows a weak bubble, then sinks back in.
Something isn’t right. His sluggishness points in a bad direction.
Even so, I raise my hand to blow a
kiss back, but just at that moment, my desk phone rings. Immediately I abandon
the fish. It’s my practice to answer every call that comes no matter what.
“Hello, Mel,” a strange male voice speaks. “I
need your help. I can’t see my… um… things.”
“Things, what things?”
At first I imagine someone has swiped
the man’s wallet or IDs by means of magic, so he needs help finding them.
Magic, of course, is the key word, because if it’s regular crime, I don’t deal
with that. It's for the regular police.
“My… you know, downstairs,” the voice
says mournfully.
I get a hint, and wonder then turns
into shock. What other things can exist downstairs on a man, except—to put it
in black and white—a dick and balls?
“You can’t see your…um.” I still find
it hard to speak the exact words.
“Yes, my…dick and...” he says.
“Nuts.” The word just escapes, and
guilt bites into me.
He grunts. It’s true then.
Yikes, what could this thing be?
The easier thing to imagine is that
someone has cast a spell on him that prevents him seeing that part of his
anatomy. Some bad curses can be like that; you just fail to see certain things
but it doesn’t mean they have been lost. If it’s like that then, we could work
a fix.
“Something wrong with your eyes,
buddy?” I ask with hope, even if I’m still afraid it could be worse.
“No, my eyes are perfect. My things
just aren’t there.”
God, don’t tell me... “Hold on,” I say.
Panic grips me. His genitals could be
gone, for sure…
Kezzy Sparks is a Toronto based
author and writer. HEIST is his debut fiction in the long-form. He enjoys
reading as well, and lists works by Jim Butcher, Stephen King, Benedict Jacka,
Dan Brown and Kevin Hearne as some of his personal favorites.
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