Return of the Stone

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With the void left by the end of the Harry Potter franchise finding some people–myself included–looking to shell out a hundred bucks this December for another hit of that sweet JK Rowling goodness and others scrambling for the black tar heroin of the Urban Fantasy genre, there’s never been a better market for two-fisted paranormal adventure.

And that’s a good thing for me, since the first installment of my first novel cycle, The Chronicles of Solomon Stone: Book One: Enter: Solomon: Stone Me Deadly will be hitting shelves at a bookstore near you soon!

Yes, we’ve experienced some delays in getting the adventures of the World’s Greatest Half-Vampire Half-Wizard Private Detective off the ground, but it looks like the time is right for the book to be available by Halloween. I mean, HBO’s got that new vampire thing with Rogue in it or whatever, and that’s doing okay, right? So in order to keep up interest, tonight, I’m offering another special excerpt of what I’m sure you’ll agree is the greatest work of literature in the English language, featuring all-new illustrations by Dave Campbell and Matthew Allen Smith!!

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you…

 

Chapter VII: One Stake… Medium Rare!

 

 

“Damn!” swore Solomon Stone mannishly, banging his hand on his desk in frustration. He looked over the papers and documents that were spread over the oak surface in his study at The Cosmodrome, the converted planetarium/skate park he used as both his home and his office. He’d run up against some tricky mysteries before, but this was taxing even the half-vampire senses that fueled his keen mind.

“Bangers an’ mash, Solomon! It just don’t make sense!” squeaked Minxy Flatbush, her bosom heaving as she leaned over to study the papers with her womanly eyes.

“Shut up, baby. I’m trying to think.” His brow furrowed, making him even more handsomer than before, and Minxy tried to control her sexy urges. But he was right. There would be time to bone later… if they survived.

“The murders had to be committed by someone inside Sinistech, but none of their employees–evil though they may be–have the raw savagery and power to pull it off.” Solomon stared at the pages, his eyes sharp like an eagle’s but also deadly like a shark’s, thoughts racing far beyond his mental speed limit. “Unless someone outside their normal workforce could get access… My God!”

Minxy shrank back, her femininity recoiling from his sudden outburst, the loudness of it breaking her from a self-induced trance of totally dirty thoughts. “Blimey! What is it?”

“Temps, baby,” said Solomon, grabbing a handful of bullets from the candy dish. “Vampire temps.”

 

* * * *

 

The righteous sound of squealing tires filled the air as Solomon Tokyo Drifted into a parallel parking space.

“Jings!” exclaimed Minxy bustily, her rack rising and falling in perky allure as she caught her breath. “What is this place?”

Solomon got out of the car, patting down his Pockets of Boundless Storage to make sure he was fully equipped to be a total badass in any situation. His eaglish yet sharky eyes raked up the building in front of which he stood, noting its distinct shape as lightning crashed in a dramatic manner overhead.

“This, Minxy… is NosferaTemps.”

The building looked like someone had dropped a LEGO Castle set onto the top of a LEGO City set: A skyscraper that ended in crenellated stone walls towering above the streets of New Jack City. It was a place of evil and hopelessness. And yeah: Solomon knew right away that there were a ton of evil vampires all up in that bitch.

He stalked almost pantheretically through the double doors, not surprised that they were unlocked as this was a place of business for vampires, who are traditionally regarded as creatures for whom the night functions much like the day for most normal people, except those who have night jobs or insomnia or whatever, with Minxy following jigglingly behind.

The guy at reception moved to stop them, but his actions were as futile as a fish trying to escape a net by flopping around really hard but he can’t because he hasn’t seen Finding Nemo and doesn’t know that only working together can help in a situation like that, and Solomon dispatched him easily with moves that he’d learned during his childhood traveling in the Orient, from monks… or possibly ninjas. Solomon grabbed the keyring from the receptionist/guard’s belt and moved quickly to an express elevator with Minxy in bouncy tow.

A few short moments later, the doors hissed apart with a whisper, revealing a lushly appointed office with lavish furniture that was probably very expensive. A ledger was open on the desk, and Solomon moved to it quickly, his piercing eyes flashing over the complex information that was no match for his Half-Vampire Detective mind.

“Blimey, Solomon! It says here that they did have staff on site the day of the Sinistech Murders!”

“I know, baby. We’ve just cracked this case wide the fuck open.”

Or had they?! Because just then, a previously hidden panel in the wall slid open, and out stepped this seriously smoking hot lady with dark hair and a rack that was totally bitchin’. She wore some kind of crazy bondage outfit with chains or something, and held a whip menacingly.

“Zo you haff fallen unto mein trap,” husked the new lady, heels clacking against the carpet.

“Jings!” cried Minxy buxomly as Solomon shoved her out of the line of fire, her skirt flipping up to remind Solomon out of the corner of her eye that this leather-clad whipvixen wasn’t the only hot girl in the room.

Solomon gritted his teeth, his flashing eyes piercing in the dark room. “Snooky Lesbiano. My old vampire nemesis. Looks like I picked the wrong day to leave my uzis at home.”

“Ze same,” said Snooky Lesbiano with a smirk. “Und who is zis crumpet uf a girl you have brought me?”

“Leave her out of this. This fight’s between you and me.”

Snooky Lesbiano’s smirk grew into a bigger smirk, then something more like a smile as she cracked the whip. “Perhaps, Solomon… Or perhaps it is between you… und us.”

A bunch of vampires–like ten or twelve–entered the room, each in business casual with bloodstained polo shirts or sensible slacks. It seems this company was offering temporary employment… and permanent death.

“Kill zem!”

A normal man may have been able to clear a holster a fraction of a nanosecond faster than Solomon , but then, Solomon wasn’t drawing a normal weapon. His hand dove into his Pockets of Boundless Storage and emerged in a blur wrapped around the grip of his custom Colt M1911, a handgun crafted from the steel of Heaven itself–or was it Hell? But there was another modification: The wand of Solomon’s Father, Zechariah Stone, who had vanished under similarly unexplained but I assure you completely unrelated circumstances as Solomon’s mother, Diane the Vampire. It was welded to the top of the slide, pumping eighty thousand volts of pure magic into each round of .45 ACP.

“Bang bang, motherf–” said Solomon.

“BANG BANG!” said Solomon’s gun.

But the vampires weren’t his target. Even the dynamic gunplay and skateboard skills of a half-vampire private eye wouldn’t hold long against a room full of vampire temps, and his bullets went straght through the picture window, shattering it. The vampires recoiled vampirically, and Solomon grabbed Minxy’s wrist, lugging her to the window and leaping out into the night.

For a moment, as gravity began to pull him down like a cartoon coyote, Solomon wondered if he’d made the right choice, but there wasn’t time for regrets now. The ground was rushing up to meet them at 9.8 meters per second squared. That was science. But Solomon Stone wasn’t a scientist.

He was a Badass.

 

TO BE CONTINUED…?

 

 

BONUS FEATURE: Behold the Cosmodrome!

 

(Click for a larger version)

 

57 thoughts on “Return of the Stone”

  5. with moves that he’d learned during his childhood traveling in the Orient, from monks… or possibly ninjas.Perhaps the monks were also ninjas. Gorilla ninjas.

  7. F**K!
    I was just thinking of black tar heroin this evening. I wanted to refer to that black sticky stuff but I couldn’t remember what it was called — I wanted a stronger phrase than simply “chasing the dragon”. But now if I use it, it will be a obvious case of plagiarism.

    I’ll read the story tomorrow, quietly confident that it will KICK ASS. Thanks!

  8. I was just thinking about stalking pantheretically this evening (or was it parenthetically?). Some ominous portent must have been affecting our subconsciousnesses awesomely.

    BTW, all the extra swearing makes this even better than the last one, because it makes Solomon a more identifiable protagonist. Fucking identifiable, that is!

  11. I love the artwork. The front cover of the guy getting his eyeball punched out is priceless! This is clearly why humans evolved opposable thumbs.
    To draw awesome stuff.

  13. Have you ever watched Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace? It was a kind of spoof 80s horror TV series from a couple of years back here in the UK, but with introductions from ‘author, dreamweaver, visionary… plus actor’ Garth Marenghi and talking heads interspersed throughout.

    http://www.surfthechannel.com/show/television/Garth_Marenghis_Darkplace.html

    It’s like a less face-kicky version of this, but the credits still have a montage of the main characters holding guns, despite it being set in a hospital.

  15. Long-time listener, first-time caller.

    Sir, this truly is the GREATEST work in the English language that I have ever read. From now on I shall insist that everyone I know attempts to Tokyo Drift into paralell parking spaces!

    …And Darkplace is amazing! “I know how you feel, hombre. When I heard my wife died I could barely finish my lunch.”

  18. I’ve been jobhunting for ages, and now my problems are solved.

    Do you think NosferaTemps are hiring?

  21. Best piece of writing since Chandler but, couldn’t Solomon pull a car battery out his pouch and really put the hurt on those temps!!

  25. Did anyone else watch a lot of Danger Mouse growing up? That’s where I first encountered the useful “sidekick who needs the plot explained to him, when not being captured by the villain” device. Good old Penfold. I’ve cast all subsequent sidekicks, from Alfred to Watson, in his image.

    Minxy is proving to be a difficult fit…

  27. ” It seems this company was offering temporary employment…and permanent death.”

    You’ve got next year’s Pulitzer Fucking Prize right there.

  28. Damn you, Snooky Lesbiano! DAMN YOU!!!!

    I am sure her evil and sexy plan is to steal Solomon’s eaglish, sharky eyeballs and make nunchuks out of them.

  29. “A bunch of vampires–like ten or twelve–entered the room.”
    Solomon doesn’t need to impress us with his fancy english counting. Solomon can only count to zero, because that’s how many vampires will be left when he’s done.

  30. So, who do I give my money to in exchange for a book of that calibre?

    and that was very darkplace-esque, as in I loved it. …who were possibly ninjas. is very Darkplace, and so, WHO DO I PAY?

  33. Are the 20 pages of Fan Service featuring Minxy included or do they only come with the Deluxe limited edition which costs $75 more?

  35. “The guy at reception moved to stop them, but his actions were as futile as a fish trying to escape a net by flopping around really hard but he can’t because he hasn’t seen Finding Nemo and doesn’t know that only working together can help in a situation like that, and Solomon dispatched him easily with moves that he’d learned during his childhood traveling in the Orient, from monks… or possibly ninjas.”

    This is a truly amazing sentence. I bow to you, Mr. Sims.

  37. Chris: I’m seriously worried about you, man. First the Batman contest, then ROM, then Solomon Stone all in quick succession… where do you go from here?

  38. AWESOME. I’d say this should be a comic book but really… sometimes no picture is worth a thousand words of Simsian goodness.
    I salute you, sir.

  40. In case any of the darkplace fans don’t know there was a follow up series called man to man with dean lerner

  42. His eaglish yet sharky eyes raked up the building in front of which he stood, noting its distinct shape as lightning crashed in a dramatic manner overhead.

    And yeah: Solomon knew right away that there were a ton of evil vampires all up in that bitch.

    It seems this company was offering temporary employment… and permanent death.

    Various fiction/non-fiction writers in unison: GAME OVER, MAN! GAME-FUCKING-OVER!

  44. Almost, dl, but Eragon sets a pretty high hurdle, even for Mr Sims.

    ( All joking aside, Eragon is probably the worst written best selling book in existance. Dire. Makes Rowling look like Jonson.)

  47. I’ll admit to be a bit concerned as to how you could possibly continue at the level of batmanchuks comp, but seriously… you HAVE to actually write this `book’ and publish the fuck out of it. It’s about time the world had a best seller that deserved its title.

  48. “I know, baby. We’ve just cracked this case wide the fuck open.”

    Or had they?!

    Is that the narrator from the Batman TV show? I thought so.

  50. “…out stepped this seriously smoking hot lady with dark hair and a rack that was totally bitchin’.”

    This, sir, made me snarf water out my nose.

    And I also vote “pantheretically” as awesomest adverb.

  51. This was good, but this?

    ”It seems this company was offering temporary employment…and permanent death.”

    This was great.

  52. OK, I just heard on the news that Snooky Lesbiano was gay. Dammit, that’s just not ok, Sims! Impressionable kids, corruption of family values and all that noise!

  53. Who do you see playing our hero in the inevitable movie version, Sims?

    I was thinking Bruce Campbell, circa 1980 something.

  56. I would buy this book.
    Probably more than one copy – for friends and brothers-in-law.

    Please get it published.

  57. Verily, the awesomity overwhelms me. Is it okay if I appropriate “pantheretically” to describe my ninja movements? I was once undead. (I got better. Sort of.)