Jak Barley-Private Inquisitor Series: The first four books in the Jak Barley-Private Inquisitor series. Pay for three books and get a fourth one free. Private Inquisitor Jack Barley gets no respect as dubious investigations drag him into contact with dreadful phantasms, irate harpies, malicious mages and royal plots.

Jak Barley-Private Inquisitor Series: Fantasy

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BLURBS: Jak Barley-Private Inquisitor Series

Jak Barley-Private Inquisitor and the Temple of Dorga, Fish Headed God of Death

As a private inquisitor, Jak Barley’s job is fairly mundane-finding errant debtors and missing property, or proving the unfaithfulness of roving spouses. It’s not a vocation that makes many friends.

Though a frequent patron of dark, wretched bars seldom visited by the more fastidious citizens of Duburoake, he still can be squeamish about some things – such as ghosts and rabid magicians.

Barley’s latest cases are just that more upsetting, dragging him into contact with sinister specters, malicious mages, irate harpies, creepy death deities and royal plots.

Jak Barley-Private Inquisitor and the Case of the Seven Dwarves

Private Inquisitor Jak Barley wonders if his drinking cohorts at the King¹s

Wart Inn are playing an elaborate prank on him. What else is he to think

when seven dwarves want his help against a wicked witch they blame for

poisoning an innocent young maiden staying with them named Frost Ivory?

Jak Barley, Private Inquisitor and the Case of the Dark Lords Conspiracy

Private inquisitor Jak Barley is ready for some down time after battling Ghennison Viper Mages, being attacked by piss dragons, and fighting off priests of Dorga the Fished Headed God of Death. That is why Jak was not a bit amused to have a scruffy mage insist that he is to be one of a group of questers decreed in an ancient prophecy that must cross the icy Alf Mountains to foil the return of the Old Gods.

Jak Barley-Private Inquisitor and the Case of One Damned Thing After Another

Jak Barley, private inquisitor, hates cases involving damned creatures like vampires and zombies, but that’s just what he finds himself helplessly in the middle of.

EXCERPTS: Jak Barley-Private Inquisitor Series

Jak Barley-Private Inquisitor and the Temple of Dorga, Fish Headed God of Death

The slow ride through the night was depressing. The bone-chilling dampness made me draw my canvas cape tighter. I was tired, cold, and bruised. The disheartening slaughter weighed heavily upon me. The alluring memory of the redheaded fortuneteller’s warm nest of quilts made the venture seem all the more wretched.

“How did you guess I seek vengeance?” Mahvan had pulled her horse up next to me.

“Guessing had nothing to do with it,” I replied halfhearted and by rote. “A trained private inquisitor reads subtle signs and cues as easily as if they were inked script on a grand bishop’s vellum.”

“Vague words to hide behind,” she snapped.

I laughed at the words, the same I’d spoken to Lorenzo only hours before.

Mahvan must have thought I laughed at her, for her retort was laden with ire. “You find me humorous, Master Barley?”

I remembered her hidden weapons and the proficiency in which she dispatched an attacker. “No, my lady. Just an errant thought.”

This time I would not relent to a beautiful face. Why the gods toy with me so, I do not know. Too many times I have lain out my well-crafted deductions, only to find I had reached the right revelation but by a wrong path.

“As with a stage illusionist, a private inquisitor seldom reveals his methods. Let us just say that I observe obvious signs an untrained eye will miss. Once explained, I’m afraid my deductions would suddenly plunge from the realm of wonder to a more mundane plane.”

She remained silent and I wished I could view her face. Our discussion was lightening my heart, as it is often when speaking to a beautiful woman.

“You are of high birth,” I explained, keeping to safe ground. “You have rid yourself only recently of jewelry, so speaks the light rings of skin about your fingers. Your speech also gives you away, as well as your obvious unease at the informality of being addressed by your bestowed name. Would you rather I call you mistress or lady?”

“You find me prissy?” she snapped.

I was relieved to have sidestepped her queries.

“I hardly think that word would describe a maiden who travels as a boyish follower of Dorga, carries a battery of hidden weapons, and uses those same arms with the skill of a Hoonnish assassin.”

“Are you for hire?”

I grimaced. The last thing I wanted to do was reduce my status from fellow traveler to that of a common hireling.

She mistook my hesitancy. “I can pay you. I am not without resources, despite my current appearance.”

“It is not that my lady…”

“Mahvan,” she corrected.

“I, ah, have many commitments when we arrive at Stagsford. I had not thought to work. To take on a case now…”

“I see, please excuse me if I trouble you with my problems,” she interrupted again, this time more coolly. “I should have realized you take not just any task.”

“Why, no, er, yes. It is not…”

“And I am sure you have more important things to do than aid some helpless maiden in distress. I have heard private inquisitors are a reticent sort, made reserved by their unpleasant tasks.”

“Well, that is not wholly true,” I sputtered, wanting to defend my trade. “We private inquisitors are not without feelings…”

“You will help me as a friend then, Master… Jak?” she said with a voice groping for hope.

“Ah…”

“Thank you. We will talk more of this tomorrow.” She nudged her mount and dropped back with Eli and Chaatiguin.

Jak Barley-Private Inquisitor and the Case of the Seven Dwarves

“This reminds me of a humorous fable,” I observed while eying Snot, the dwarf, with suspicion. “A priest, a shaman, and a soothsayer walked into a tavern. The innkeeper looks up at the three, pauses, and says, ‘Is this some kind of joke?'”

The dwarves eyed me in what appeared to be honest befuddlement.

“What I’m trying to say is, you wouldn’t be joking me, would you Snot?” I continued the conversation as I meaningfully fingered the hilt of the short saber hanging from my belt.

The squat dwarf (of course all dwarves are short and stout) vigorously shook his head no. So did his six brothers lined up behind him. They were a grimy band. I had arrived before any of them were able to wash off the coal dust after a long day at their small mine. The shaft was located halfway up the hill behind their quaint little cottage.

I hate quaint.

They looked at up at me with what appeared to be a heartfelt faith that I could help them. That was questionable enough. Dwarves and puppy dog eyes do not go together. The little beggars are usually a villainous lot, digging about for whatever their stock specializes in. Those furrowing for precious metals and jewels make up the greediest and least trustful broods.

But these were coal dwarves, looked down upon by their more affluent cousins. Since coal dwarves are not averse to trading the fruits of their labor, they also mingled the most freely with humans.

Still, I felt as if my cronies at the King’s Wart Inn were setting me up for a jest. I turned again to the glass coffin containing the pallid, young woman. Her beauty made my chest tighten, a feeling alike to the way a very sweet confectionery can make your teeth ache.

Her skin was as white as her hair was black. The girl’s garb matched her features, a black dress with a front that plunged to reveal a white blouse strained by her full breasts. Until now, I would not have believed anyone could have had such an innocent and yet seductive face–open like a child’s, but with just a hint of adult sensuousness about her mouth

I turned again to Snot, so named because he seemed always to be suffering from a cold. “I will take the bait. What happened to your Frost Ivory?”

“A wicked witch fed her a poison apple.”

“I am out of here,” I said with renewed wariness. “That is it. Seven dwarves, a spellbound maiden, and a wicked witch. Do I look to be the fool? Next you will be telling me that…?

I stopped dead in my rebuke. Several bluebirds had swooped in to drop a wreath of heather and violets upon the coffin. At the base of the glass encasement lurked two doe-eyed bunnies, the missus wearing an apron and bonnet. They were wringing their little rabbit paws and forlornly gazing up at the still figure.

It was too much. The husband hare in the straw hat was not quick enough. I dove and caught the rascal before he could dart into the surrounding shrubbery.

“All right, my fine furry fellow. What be this charade? What jest do you play?”

His reply was but a squeak. I shook him once then glanced to see the dwarves staring at me in alarm. I looked back to the rabbit to see it gaping at me in stark terror.

Jak Barley, Private Inquisitor and the Case of the Dark Lords Conspiracy

Its purplish tongue darting out to test the fetid air of the narrow alley, the four-inch long jackal lizard wove an intricate course through the garbage strewn about the damp cobblestone. Disappearing for a heartbeat beneath a shattered herring barrel, the small hunter emerged to fling itself to a moss-swathed brick wall and scamper with its tiny talons to a windowsill. Red pupils expanded briefly at the sight of its quarry.

The slight, furtive figure was hastening down the shadowy back street, shoulders hunched while tightly grasping the hooded cape at her neck. She paused to look nervously over a shoulder. To her ears and jade green eyes, the lane was empty except for the scuttling of rats amidst the heaped garbage already picked over by street urchins and now awaiting the weekly patrol of rubbish trolls.

The lizard’s quarry exited the alley onto a broader avenue lit by irregularly spaced gas lamps and the light seeping out from around the shades and curtains of the neighborhood’s cramped warrens. She paused again to squint up and down the street as if trying to penetrate the shadows that clung to the myriad doorways and small courtyard gates.

Nervously licking her lips, the hooded figure rushed up a flight of worn stone steps to a narrow, thick door also partially hidden by the shadows. It appeared a sinister black, but on a sunny day the entrance was a festive red trimmed in green.

The jackal lizard had only two things in common with the door. By night the creature appeared black and if it ever ventured into the clean light of day, it would prove to be red. It wasn’t a festive crimson, but more the scarlet of a seeping, broken blister. Its job completed, the tiny reptile turned to retrace its evening journey.

One hour later, another hooded figure emerged from the alley. Instead of the panicky air of the early walker, this cowled form strode with boldness through the gathering fog. A gas lamp momentarily illuminated the gaunt features of the stranger. An observer might be startled by the freezing grey eyes or arrogant, thin lips. But what would first draw any eyes was the black tattoo of a lizard across the shadowy figure’s forehead. Or at least it first appeared a tattoo – until a closer look would reveal the image to actually be restlessly shifting and stirring.

Minutes later, there was a startled shriek from behind the red and green door – to be followed by a tormented, drawn-out cry that sent everyone in earshot scrambling to check the locks on their doors and windows. The hooded figure left as arrogantly as he had arrived.

This scenario was to be replayed several times within the next three weeks in the city of Duburoake.

On the fourth venture, the jackal lizard was agilely darting among the feet of the unwary as it traversed a busy avenue in pursuit of a maiden barely out of childhood. The long cape failed to hide her slim figure and lustrous red hair spilling out from beneath her hood. The young woman muttered occasional apologies when she inadvertently collided with others in her anxious haste to get home.

The jackal lizard leaped a street curb and dashed beneath a cluster of outdoor tables, stools, and the thickly booted feet of the patrons of the King’s Wart Inn. It paused to flick its purple tongue for traces of its prey’s scent when a looming shadow descended to bring a blackness harsher than any gaslight shadow.

~ * ~

“By the dozen teats of the goddess Gendra, you almost spilled my ale,” I yelped in admonishment as I grabbed for the teetering stein. Lorenzo Spasm had violently shoved the scuffed wooden table aside and brought his heel firmly down upon the ale garden’s flagstone. Somewhere off in the crowd of celebrants for the St. Drubel’s parade a strangled scream erupted above the din. I watched as Lorenzo lifted his boot to reveal the squished remnants of what appeared to be a small, red lizard.

“Nice going,” I admonished my friend. “You just stomped some harmless creature seeking nothing more than to eat one of the numerous cockroaches that plague the King’s Wart Inn.”

Lorenzo ignored my reproach to stare intently at the remains. I glanced to my half-brother, Olmsted Aunderthorn, to see that he was also closely observing the deceased lizard.

I took another sip of the cellar-cooled ale. “I guess we could call Tem Rouster. He collects road kills, dries them, soaks them in cheap cologne, and sells them to cab drivers to hang in their coaches as air flavorer to ward off the scents of his more malodorous patrons. Now that I think of it, such a fragranced bauble would not be a bad thought in this establishment’s water closet.”

Both of my friends ignored my witty banter.

“What?” I asked in puzzlement.

“That be a jackal lizard, Jak,” Olmsted answered.

Even in my slight ale buzz, his reply brought me up on my stool. “A jackal lizard, here?”

Lorenzo stood and peered into the crowd of drunken revelers. The street was lit by numerous torches installed just for the evening festival. Olmsted and I followed suit. Where there was a jackal lizard, there was bound to be a Westian Lizard Wizard. My friend abruptly waded into the throng.

The significance of the dead lizard and the earlier shriek finally sank in. Westian Lizard Wizards were notorious for blending their evil arts with those of assassins. Talk on the street was that one was in Duburoake plying his nefarious trade. A recent spate of mutilated corpses seemed to back up the conjecture.

I hurried to catch up with my friend, though following him in the densely packed mob wasn’t easy. Drubel was the patron saint of brewers, which not only made him one of the more popular holy figures, but his devotees a rather raucous bunch. I emerged into a gap in the crowd – it was created by the celebrants frantically backing away from a wildly swaying figure.

I had never seen a Westian Lizard Wizard in real life, but there was no mistaking the cowled figure for a black order of necromancers. Across the brow of the mage was the lizard shaped indentation, now missing its customary passenger. The Lizard Wizards were the only magicians to carry their familiars in such a novel manner.

Judging by the muffled screams and curses emanating from the warlock, the death of his cold-blooded companion was extremely excruciating. He was pressing the heels of his hands into his temples. Thin rivulets of blood seeped from where he had raked his long, dirty nails across his cheeks.

The deranged mage froze in his pose of anguish to glare intently at Lorenzo.

“You!” the wizard shrieked at my friend. “You are the one who killed my lizard.”

While other observers of the mini-drama pressed even farther away from the crazed wizard, Lorenzo calmly stood his ground and responded, “We’re going to make the little bastard into an air flavorer.”

The wizard gritted his teeth and drew in a ragged breath. “What?” he asked in bewilderment, as if Lorenzo had just told him that wet birds do not fly at night.

“I’m afraid all those splintered little bones would make it unfit to eat, so we’re going to dry it, soak the flattened carcass in cheap cologne, and hang it in the water closet at the King’s Wart Inn to ward off the lingering odor of urine.”

The mage’s mouth spasmed several times before releasing another horrendous shriek.He pulled a hand from his head to thrust his arm toward my friend. This caused a further panic among the revelers. I similarly retreated. No one wanted to be around wizards when they were pointing fingers. It was not only impolite, but deadly.

Jak Barley-Private Inquisitor and the Case of One Damned Thing After Another

A guard dressed in the dark blood red of the Shaynee clan was calling to us from the other side of the iron-barred gate. He wore a helmet that reached past his ears and with a T-shaped opening in front, as well as a mail tunic, which seemed like excessive wear for a private guard.

“We have a special delivery for this address,” said Lorenzo as he climbed down from the wagon. “I have the order right here.”

The guard suspiciously squinted at the parchment and then called to his sergeant. He probably could not read. The sergeant looked it over.

“I have no notice of a shipment today,” he said. “You will have to come back after I ask the captain.

“This be a special overnight delivery,” Lorenzo replied in a bored voice. “We aren’t delivering ham and biscuits from the local eatery. Our order parchment says it has to be delivered within twenty-four hours.”

“What be in it?” the sergeant said as he stood on tiptoes trying to see into the back of the wagon.

“Count Dracula.”

“What?”

“It says Count Dracula on our work order.”

The guard opened a small door within the larger gate and walked to the wagon while cautiously clutching his sword hilt. Our freight was a narrow wooden container the shape of a coffin, which it was.

“I know of no Count Dracula to be visiting the Shaynees,” said the sergeant as if it were the most normal thing for company to come calling in a coffin.

“Now sergeant,'” said Lorenzo in a confidential voice of one insider speaking to another, “we know we cannot open this in daylight.”

He looked us over. We wore no weapons. The sergeant must have decided the two of us harmless enough when considering the security at the mansion.

“Bring him in, then.”

He turned and motioned for the guards to open the gate. We climbed back on the wagon and urged the pair of horses into the enclosure. The sergeant ordered two guards to accompany us. The major two requirements for working picket at the Shaynee estate must have most been size and nastiness. All the guards so far looked like two humans had been shoved into one skin and they were fighting to get out.

“Do not stray from the lane,” snickered one of our chaperones. “There are fire drakes patrolling the grounds during the day and the Shaynees keep them half famished. Yah should ah seen what they did to the charwoman last week.”

A circle drive in front of the manor boasted a fountain. In the center was a bigger than life statue in white marble. It depicted a skeletal figure with a shrewish grimace and it bore an ancestral resemblance to Bidner Shaynee.

“There’s a certain majesty that runs in the family, don’t you think?” Lorenzo observed to no one in particular. “Look at that heroic vapid gaze and weak chin that speaks of years of intergenerational breeding that is so common among our illustrious and anemic royalty.”

The guards about us shifted nervously at any mention of the vampire family and one seemed relieved when it came time to hop from the wagon and run to the two massive doors where he rapped on a bronze doorknocker. The doors opened to reveal several more guards, these armed with crossbows. Behind them stood a doorman who would have topped seven feet if he had a neck. It looked like someone had chewed off his nose. The two nostril holes were surrounded by a crater of scar tissue.

The doorman belligerently pushed his way through the guards. “What have we here?”

“Count Dracula,” replied Lorenzo.

“Count Dracula?”

“That be on the shipping order.”

“Who be Count Dracula?

“Hey, I’m just the hauler. My job description doesn’t include socializing with my freight. Last week I had to ship Barnabas Collins and let me tell you that was no picnic.”

The Shaynee house servant walked to the back of the wagon and examined the coffin. “Bring it in.”

Lorenzo looked affronted. “Hey, we are teamsters, not common laborers. It be against guild rules for us to unload the cargo.”

The doorman gave a venomous look. “I said bring it in.”

“All right, all right, Lurch. Don’t get your nose bent out of shape. Oops, sorry about that.”

The guards around us froze with fearful looks upon what could be seen of their faces within the helmets. It was obvious they had never heard such backtalk to the freakishly mutilated servant. It be one thing to sass a regular doorman in a fashionable quarter of town such as Vanella’s Maxzerum, another to do it at the creepy domicile of the undead. I felt like smacking Lorenzo.

The doorman stood impatiently for a dozen heartbeats. “Then get on with it.”

We slid the casket out of the wagon and Lorenzo took the head while I took the foot of the coffin. We followed him into a cavernous room so dimly lit that I could barely make out any details. After several turns through an equally dark hallway the doorman ordered us to lower and open the coffin. I held my breath as a guard unlatched the lid and swung it open. I could feel sweat dribbling from my armpits.

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