The Staff of Steves - a magic item of great power and wonder!

Once upon a time, Steve Miller went to lunch with two luminaries from the gaming industry. While gnoshing on tasty vittles, one of them observed, "Everyone at this table is named Steve."

So was born the legendary League of Steves. (Or maybe the Stint of Steves, or Sleeve of Steves... a Facebook poll about what to call a gathering of Steves did not lead to a clear answer. But it did lead to the inspiration for the most brilliant magic item you are likely to ever to include in a campaign.)

The Staff of Steves

From an idea by Kairam Ahmed Hamdan & Bradley K. McDevitt. 

Design by Steve Miller. Copyright 2015 Steve Miller.

Text in this post is presented under the Open Game License and may be reproduced in accordance with it. 

The Staff of Steves is a powerful item that either comes into existence through a random convergence of supernatural circumstances, or is created by a secret cabal of artificers, drunken fairies, or... well, who knows how they come into being. Like the presence of Steves in the world, the Staff of Steves just is.

This Red Shirt will survive because he has a Staff of Steves.

The Staff of Steves takes many forms, but it is always a slender item, at least five feet in length... you know, a staff. It's specific appearance can be anything from an ornately carved oaken staff to a curtain rod. It has the following game effects:
* Acts as a +4 weapon for purposes of overcoming a target's damage resistance.
* Acts as a +2 staff for purposes of attack and damage rolls.
* Grants a +4 bonus to AC (or Defense Rating) when wielded by a character named Steve.
* Allows its wielder to cast Charm Person 3 times per day (6 times per day if wielded by a character named Steve).
* Allows its wielder to cast Create Food and Water 3 times per day (casts Feast if wielded by a character named Steve).
* Allows its wielder to cast Stinking Cloud 1 time per day (but only after Create Food and Water or Feast has been cast at least once).
* Allows its wielder to read sheet music with unfailing accuracy.
* Allows its wielder to summon a random number of Steves once per day. The Steves are all 3rd level Experts (or similar NPC class), with 15 hit points, armed with clubs or similar blunt objects (1d3 points of damage), and have one or more skills (+6 to the d20 skill check) that is helpful to the wielder. The remain with the wielder, defending and assisting in any way they can (cooking, cleaning, doing paperwork, performing rock music, running roleplaying game sessions, assassinating heads-of-state, boosting of ego) for three hours, until dismissed, or until slain. The number of Steves appearing is 1d6+2.
* It allows a *player* named Steve to have his character reroll 1d6 failed actions per game session. (Rolled at the beginning of the session, as soon as the dice come out. The result must be confirmed and recorded by the GM. If the Steve forgets to roll immediatey, this effect does not apply ).

Note: "Steve" can be male or female, as it can be short for Stephen, Steven, Stefano, Stefanie, Stephanie, and all other variants you can think of.

(If you were amused by the Staff of Steves, please consider supporting Steve (and NUELOW Games) by getting some of the OGL d20 items I've actually put some effort into. Some of them even work in straight games. Click here to see the listings at RPGNow.

A Serial Killer Identified...

From the years 1947 through 1955, an uncertain number of violent criminals, rapists, racketeers, and gangsters were murdered by means of having their throats crushed and necks broken. Most of the victims were from Boston or New York City. The police and other law enforcement officials were generally uninterested in pursuing what few clues that existed regarding this killer's identity, given that the victims were those they considered among the most loathsome citizens of the cities they were charged with protecting.

"Sure--I would take this guy down if I come across him in the act," Homicide Detective Steve Harrison of Boston's River Street Precinct said in 1947, "but I'm not going out of my way for it."

There are at least 92 confirmed victims of this killer, but information I have shows that the count could be as high as 182. It's hard to determine an exact number, because of the disinterest the police at the time had in these cases, and because at least two different mob hit men imitated this killer from 1953 to 1954 -- until one of them himself was targeted and slain by the real serial murderer on Halloween of 1954. The other imitator turned himself into the police for protection.

There were never any suspects in the murders, but detectives in both Boston and New York believed the killer was male due to the brute strength required to break someone's neck with bare hands--which is how this killer dispatched victims. However, numerous reports from New York underworld figures and criminals claimed their stalker was a raven-haired, statuesque woman who hid deadly metal hands in a muff. Subsequently, they referred to her The Muff... although they stated that she called to herself as the Iron Lady. The police at the time dismissed these stories as efforts to smear dead rivals, because of their theory that the killer had to be male.

It's been 60 years since the last victim of this mysterious killer had been claimed. What few people who have cared about this case believe that the serial killer must met a violent end or perhaps been incarcerated... because no one that brutal stops killing.

However, I recently came into a surprise inheritance. You may have read about the passing of philanthropist Doris Parker in 2011. I confess that I did not--not enough comic book, games, or movie tie-ins in her life for it to be on my radar--so it was a surprise when Regina Cox of the law firm Pleasant, Vice & Cox told me that I was named in Parker's will.

My dreams of riches ended quickly, however. Parker had left virtually all her property and wealth to the Parker Foundation started by her niece Penelope Parker (whom I have written about in Kismet & Penny Parker). The one exception were her diaries. Those were left to me, with the note, "For Mr. Steve Miller. I think he is the best person to tell the world the truth about me."

The truth about Ms. Doris Parker is not one the world is going to believe. At least not if it comes from someone like me--a guy who makes things up for a living and who posts wild rants on a regular basis to the internet. I think she must have had a twisted sense of humor, but I am flattered that she must have been reading my posts, The truth that her diaries contained was the answers to a mystery more than six decades old. That serial killer who was active between 1947 and 1955 was not a man. It was a woman. It was Doris Parker.

Parker gained her great strength from a pair of mechanical gloves. She targeted her victims on a mad quest to avenge her father. She stopped killing after she became pregnant and decided that she now had a life other than her own to be held accountable for. (When I say she "stopped killing," I mean she stopped killing personally. Her vast fortune paid for numerous assassinations of notorious criminals and murderers across the globe. If you think of some high profile dirtbag who died under mysterious circumstances, chances are he or she was dispatched by killers in Parker's employ. In fact, Yasser Arafat was the final hit she ordered.)

I'm not going to comment on who her daughter (and grandchildren) are, since they are themselves not aware of the connection. Parker may have felt responsible for the life that she brought into this world, but her diary also indicates that she felt she would be an unfit mother, due to what she described as a "soul-numbing, icy rage that is always just below a very thin cover." Her daughter was placed with one of the few people who had figured out that Parker was a serial murdering vigilante--and was raised by them, apart from Parker. She kept track of her child and grandchildren--even secretly funded scholarships for them--but rarely made contact with the adopted family over the years.

I am running a risk making this post. By stating in public that Doris Parker was not only a serial killer but also responsible for commissioning dozens of assassinations over the years, I could be incurring the wrath of the wealthy Parker family. I could also make myself a target for law enforcement from a dozen different countries. Or terrorists and criminals. All sorts of people have reason to want access to Parker's diaries.

Well, I am not very bright when it comes to my own safety--if I was, I wouldn't be running a series on Shades of Grey titled Mohammed Mondays. I am further going to protect myself by releasing selections from the diaries in a forthcoming book simply titled Iron Lady. It will also feature comic book adaptations of several of Doris Parker's kills. This book is complete and already scheduled for release through RPGNow, DriveThruComics, DriveThruRPG, and DriveThruFiction. The content of that book will demonstrate how explosive the diaries are--at least to those who are "in the know."

I may not be bright, but I'm not crazy. I am placing the diaries in the safe keeping of Pleasent, Vice & Cox. All questions about them can be directed there. Also, if anything were to happen to me, I have left instructions that copies of the diaries are to be sent simultaneously to the FBI, CIA, Interpol, BBC, ABC News, FOX News, al-Jazeera, and Glenn Beck.

However, ultimately, I don't think anyone will take any of this seriously. That's why Parker left them to me. How could anyone take ANYTHING I say seriously? Especially since I'm ending this post with a portrait of Doris Parker by Dan Zolnerowich, who together with Bernard Sachs drew the comics for Iron Lady. Not to mention the fact that I'm providing ROLF! game stats for Parker. Would anyone do this if he was worth taking seriously? (Of course not. But I have been known to give ROLF! stats to inappropriate real-life people in the past, as demonstrated in The Breast Hope for Peace and Super Muslim Bros.)

ROLF!: Doris Parker (aka Iron Lady or the Muff)
(created using rules from ROLF!: The Rollplaying Game and ROLF!: POTS vs PANS)

The Muff/Iron Lady (Female)
Aka: Doris Parker
Brawn 21, Body 17, Brains 7
   Traits: Coldhearted, Dour (Item Based Superpower: When wearing mechanical "Executioner Gloves," all unarmed melee damage dealt is doubled)
   Combat Maneuvers: Basic Attack, Castrate, Disarm, Murderous Mitts, The Look
   Important Stuff Worn/Wielded: Slinky Evening Gown (Clothes, barely covers nakedness). Executioner Gloves (Small Melee Weapon and Clothes, doubles all unarmed damage dealt. Cannot be disarmed, but can be taken off by Parker at will, or removed if she is unconscious).

UPDATE
Iron Lady, the book detailing Doris Parker's first steps on the path to becoming one of the most prolific serial killers in history, is now available. Click here to see previews or to get your own copy.

Help NUELOW Games donate to Oklahoma disaster relief

NUELOW Games's editor L.L. Hundal was greatly saddened by the devastation visited upon Oklahoma this week when the unstoppable forces of Nature tore through communities there. She prompted me to design a ROLF! scenario expressly intended to raise some funds to donate to the relief efforts.

The result was ROLF!: The Tornado vs. Steve Costigan. It is available for sale now, and I urge everyone who plays ROLF! to get a copy. All of NUELOW Games's proceeds from sales on this booklet through the end of September 2013 will be donated to Feed the Children's tornado relief fund. Click here to see previews and to get a copy of your own.

The Tornado vs. Steve Costigan is also one 11 items that are included in a bundle of products we've collected and discounted as part of this fund-raising effort.

If you've never checked out ROLF!, or if you've never bothered to see why I hold Robert E. Howard's humor stories in higher regard than his famous Conan and Solomon Kane tales, now is your chance to discover both at a 45% discount on the total price of the individual items. All proceeds of sales on this bundle will be donated to Feed the Children's Oklahoma tornado relief, and it will be available through at least June 1. If it proves to be a successful fund-raising tool, I'll extend its shelf-life.

When Howard Met ROLF! includes the following products:

Fists of Foolishness -- The first ten stories about sea-faring boxing champ Steve Costigan--a man with fists of steel, a heart of gold, and a head of wood. This book also includes the complete ROLF!-powered roleplaying game The Violent Worlds of Robert E. Howard. Fiction by Robert E. Howard (with one story featuring revisions by Steve Miller), game design by Steve Miller and L/L. Hundal.

Shanghaied Mitts -- Eleven more tales of the boxing exploits and misadventures of Steve Costigan. Includes a game adventure that can be played solo or used with The Violent Worlds of Robert E. Howard or ROLF!. Fiction by Howard (with one story featuring revisions by Miller), game design by Miller.

The Sheik: A Literary (?) Spoof and Battle Scenario: An Arab prince bites off more than he can chew in this spoof of cheesy bodice rippers. Features one of Howard's earliest publications. Fiction by Howard, game design by Hundal.

Bathtime at Bear Creek: Breckenridge Elkins takes a bath once a year whether he needs it or not... but this year's bathtime is interrupted by the nefarious Black Phantom Gang. Includes the very first story featuring Howard's dimwitted cowboy hero, and an additiional little story plus game scenario where he crosses paths with Frank Bolle's Black Phantom. Fiction by Howard and Miller, game design by Miller.

Hammerin' Tongs: Steve Costigan teams crosses paths with Steve Harrison, Howard's hardboiled detective with a habit of catching horrific cases. Game design by Miller.

Cap'n Jack on the Isle of Pirate's Doom: Three Cap'n Jacks join forces with Howard's Caribbean Pirate Queen Helen Taverel in a fight for survival against ninjas and the mysterious Mustache. Game design by Miller

Conan vs. Conan: A joke-slinging late-night talk show host meets a sword-swinging barbarian--will the mouth prove mightier than the sword? Game design by Miller & Hundal.

Pirates vs. Fairies: Howard's legendary pirate Black Vulmea meets the NUELOW Fairies. Game design by Miller & Hundal.

R.L. McSterlingthong and Nikola Tesla vs. the Daughter of Skull-Face: Partly inspired by Howard's "Yellow Meance" character. Fiction by Miller, game design by Miller and Lisa Harding

The Tornado vs. Steve Costigan: The sea-faring boxing champ makes landfall to save a friend's farm by winning a prize fight against Tornado Thommerson... but things don't go quite as planned. Fiction and game design by Miller.

In addition to all of that, we're also donating proceeds on sales on a bundle of our best-selling Oriental Stories anthologies to Feed the Children's tornado relief effort through June 1. Click here for details on the four books featured, and to contribute to a good cause.

Fiction: The Devil in the Dark, Part Two

We now continue our fiction serial. If you missed Part One, click here before reading this post.

And if you like what you read here, maybe you'd like White Fell and Other Stories, a collection of werewolf tales from NUELOW Games featuring the work of Housman, Howard, and Miller.

We hope you enjoy this offering. Please let us know what you think.

THE DEVIL IN THE DARK: A CASE FOR STEVE HARRISON 

 By Robert E. Howard & Steve Miller 

(Copyright ©2012 Steve Miller. All Rights Reserved.)

Part Two: The Cabin in the Woods

Jim Hong was lying face down in a pool of his own blood, his red-dabbled limbs sprawling drunkenly. He was dead.
Harrison rose from his crouch, shaking out and discarding the match. He thought that Jim hadn’t deserved a death like that—he had been a petty crook, but he had never made anyone suffer like he had suffered in his final moments. The detective gritted his teeth, looking at the surrounding forest that hid the thing that had killed him. That it was a man he knew; the outline, in the brief light of the muzzle flashes, had been vague, but unmistakably human. He also knew that it had been too slender of build to be Ku Chang eventhough Harrison wouldn’t put it past the diseased and psychopathic imagination of Chang to conceive of a weapon that could make a wound like the merciless champing of great bestial teeth. It meant there wasn’t just one killer lurking in these woods, but two.
Harrison weighed his choices. Should he risk his life further by continuing to Shen’s cottage, or should he return to the outer world and bring in men and dogs, to carry out poor Jim’s corpse, and hunt down his murderer? It only took moments for him to reach a decision. He had set out to perform a task, and if a murderous criminal besides Ku Chang were abroad in the piney woods, there was all the more reason for warning the men in that lonely cabin and all the more likelihood that it might serve as a lure to one or both of them. As for his own danger, he was already more than halfway to the cabin. It would scarcely be more dangerous to advance than to retreat.
So he left Jim Hong’s body there in the trail, and went on, gun in hand, and nerves sharpened by the new peril. Where he had been moving through the darkness  by choice before, he now did so without option. The flashlight’s malfunction might have been temporary, but when he had failed to locate it on the ground. After using five matches in the search, he decided to save the rest in the box and just brave the night. His reasoning for not keeping his flashlight on still remained—he didn’t want the light alerting his quarry. Either one of them.
His nerves on edge and all his senses heightened in their anticipation of danger, Harrison kept his calm by reviewing what he knew about the situation. Jim Hong had definitely not been killed by Ku Chang. Harrison had the dead man’s word for it that the attacker was a mysterious white man; the glimpse he had had of the figure had confirmed the fact that he wasn’t Chang. This man who had come at Harrison was tall and spare, while Chang was squat and muscular. And the face? Harrison couldn’t remember the face except for a possible falsh of white. It might have been bandaged as Jim had said, or might Harrison have seen a glimpse of monstrous fangs?
He swore under his breath as an involuntary shudder ran through him, causing his wounded shoulder to throb. Walking along a black forest trail with only the stars glinting through the dense branches, with the knowledge that any one of two ruthless murderers by be lurking within arm’s length in the concealing darkness, was bad enough without needing to spook himself further.
He dismissed all thoughts of monstrous fangs, but the recollection of the butchered Chinaman and his tortured screams burned vividily in his mind. Sweat beaded on his face and hands, and he wheeled a score of times, glaring into the blackness where his ears had caught the rustle of leaves or the breaking of a twig—how could he know whether the sounds were but the natural noises of the forest, or the stealthy movements of a killer?
Harrison stopped dead. Some distane away, through the black trees, he glimpsed a faint, lurid glow. It was not stationary; it moved, but it was too far away for him to make out the source. With his hair prickling unpleasantly he watched as the mysterious glow bobbed up and down and vanished.
“You damned idiot,” Harrison growled at himself. That light had been someone walking with a pine-knot torch, but he had let irrational fear seize him again, and he had stood there like a little child afraid of the dark and ghosts. That was probably Ku Chang that he had just let slip away.
Steeled by self-disgust, Harrison moved on, a little quicker that before. He was out of his element, and that was rattling his nerves, but this fear that kept seizing him was going to get him killed if he didn’t control it.
He saw the light of Kai Shen’s cottage gleaming through the pines. While he sighed with relief, he did not relax his vigilance. Many a man, danger-dogged, had been struck down at the very threshold of safety—because what appeared to be safety might be a trap; either one of the killers in the woods could have gotten here first. Knocking on the door, Harrison stood sidewise, shifting his gaze from the door to the shadows that ringed the tiny clearing and seemed to repel the faint light from the shuttered windows and back again.
“Who’s there?” came a deep harsh voice from within. “Is that you, Ashley?”
Harrison knew Ashley was Kai Shen’s man-servant. “No; it’s Steve Harrison—I’m a detective from the River Street Precinct. We met a couple of years ago. Open the door.”
The upper half of the door swung inward, and Kai Shen’s head and shoulders were framed in the opening. The light behind him left most of his face in shadow, but could not obscure the harsh gaunt lines of his features nor the gleam of the bleak black eyes.
“What do you want, at this time of night?” he demanded, his bruqueness seemingly heightened by his perfect and proper British accent.
“I came to tell you that it’s very likely that a dangerous criminal is nearby. He’s a Tong enforcer by the name of Ku Chang. This morning he killed two police officers and a shopkeeper I think you know, Ming Lee. He fled into the forest, and since he’s a superstitious sort, so I think he’s headed here so you can maie him a good luck charm. I thought you ought to be warned and—”
“Well, you’ve warned me,” he said, cutting Harrison off. “Now be off.”
“I have no intention of going back through those woods tonight,” Harrison answered coldly. “I came in here to warn you, but also because I think I can lay a trap for Chang here. If I stay the night—“
“That is out of the question,” Shen snapped. “I never admit strangers into my home, and if this Ku Chang shows up here, I assure you that I have the means to defend myself.”
Shen shifted behind his weight on his feet and Harrison realized that he couldn’t see the other man’s hands. “I’m not a stranger,” Harrison reminded him. “I’m also an officer of the law. I’m going to take out my badge and show you, so relax. See?”
Shen scowled at the small shield in Harrison’s hand. “Just because I’ve met you doesn’t mean I know you. And I don’t care that you’re a policeman. I know my rights as an American citizen, and I don’t have to let you into my house unless you have a warrant.”
“Fine. But— Can I at least ask you to help me clean and dress my shoulder?”
Shen lifted one of his hands to peel back Harrison’s torn jacket. From his shoulders, the detective guessed the other held something heavy—a weapon of some sort. Shen scowled again. “It is not that bad, but— Fine. I will help you, but then you will leave.”
“Sure. Whatever we can work out.” Harrison thought that once he was inside, he could speak with Shen’s servant, Ashley, and get an ally to help make his case in favor of him remaining here, at least for the night. “But let’s hurry. Ku Chang isn’t the only killer out there tonight.”
At that Shen halted in his fumbling at the lower door, and glared at Harrison. “What do you mean?”
“There’s a dead man a mile or so up the trail. The person who killed him tried to kill me. He may be after you, for all I know. The man he killed was guiding him here.”
Shen started violently and his face went livid. “Who—what man?”
“The dead man is Jim Hong; I doubt you knew him.”
“No! The killer!”
“I don’t know. A fellow who manages to rip his victims like a hound—”
“A hound!” The words burst out in a scream. “Ashley! Did you see Ashley out there?!”
“Ashley? No—isn’t he in the house with you?”
“No, you fool! He went to the city for supplies!” The change in Shen was hideous. His eyes seemed starting from his head and his skin was the hue of ashes. His lips drew back from his teeth in a grin of sheer terror. He gagged and then found voice. “You must have passed him in the forest!”
“Not if he was traveling by motor,” Harrison noted, gesturing to indicate the forest behind the cottage, and the road that lay somewhere beyond that.
“Find him! Bring him back here, or I will not admit you!” Shen shrieked.
“Now listen—“
“No!” Shen screamed. He brought his hands above the lower half of the door and Harrison was staring into the gaping muzzles of a sawed-off shotgun. “I know why you wanted to get into my house! You bloody devil! He sent you! You’re his spy! Get out of here!”
“You’re threatening an officer of the law, Shen,” Harrison growled. “This won’t end well for you.”
“Go before I kill you!” Shen shrieked, thrusting the shotgun forward.
“Be careful with that thing,” Harrison grumbled and stepped back off the stoop. He was well aware of what a close-range blast from that murderous implement of destruction could bring, and the livid, convulsed face behind those black muzzles promised sudden demolition. “I’m going. But don’t think you’ve heard the end of this, Shen. I’ll be back. Meanwhile, keep your doors and windows locked—I don’t want you getting killed before the judge has his way with you.”
Shen made no reply; panting and shivering like a man smitten with ague, he crouched over his shotgun and watched Harrison as the detective walked backwards across the clearing. Where the trees began, Harrison could have drawn his gun wheeled and shot Shen without much danger, for his .45 would out-range the old man’s shortened scatter-gun. But Harrison had come there to warn the fool, not to kill him. There was also the issue of the sound of gunfire scaring Ku Chang off—and it really would be more satisfying to see that idiot Shen up on some charges rather than dead.
When Harrison was close to the trees, he turned to the piney dark. As he did, the upper door slammed, and the stream of light was cut abruptly off. He walked a few paces into the forest, drew his gun, and leaned against a tree.
What now? He had beaten Chang here, so his hope of staging an ambush still stood. But was it still the best move? There was someone else in the area, someone who had asked to be led to Kai Shen’s cottage. Whoever it was, he was a killer even more brutal than Chang and someone who had filled Shen with a fear that bordered on insanity. He must have exiled himself to this lonely stretch of pinelands to escape this person. A person who he knew ripped victims to shreds like a savage dog.
But Shen hadn’t come into the woods alone. He had brought Ashley. Ashley might have the answers Shen was unwilling to give. Ashley might also be in danger, because if Shen’s reaction was anything to go by, whoever this person was, he was just as much after Ashley has he was Shen.
With a grunt, Harrison, righted himself and circled around the edge of the clearing, looking for the rutted path that connected the cottage with the highway. When he located it, he again strode into the darkness. As the faint light shining from the cabin’s shuttered windows vanished among the black trees, a curious, chill, sinking feeling obsessed me, as if the disappearance of that light, hostile as was its source, had severed the only link that connected this nightmarish adventure with the world of sanity and humanity.
Grimly taking hold of his nerves, he strode steadily on up the trail, trying to keep as close to its center as he could, trying to pierce the darkness with his eyes and his ears pricking with every sound. At that point the branches interlaced over the trail, forming a black arch through which not even the stars gleamed. As he passed through this even deeper darkness, he heard a branch snap to his left.
Without conscious thought, he whippd his gun toward the sound and fired. The momentary burst of light from the gun’s muzzle revealed nothing but the rutted dirt road and the trees that lined it—and in its aftermath, Harrison saw phantom lights before his dazzled eyes and had the rapport ringing in his ears. But he was sure he heard no other sounds of movement; it must have been his imagination or a sound more remote than it had seemed.
Reminding himself that the gunfire could draw both Chang and the mysterious killer to his location, Harrison started moving again, a little quicker this time.
He reached the highway. There wasn’t much more light out of the forest as there had been in it, but Harrison found the clear view of the stars overhead and the dull sheen of the blacktop that stretched like a lifeline back to the city very, very comforting.
“Next time you get a bright idea like heading into the forest at night,” he grunted, “damn well stop and get a second opinion. At least don’t do it when your partner’s recovering from a bullet to the shoulder.”
Harrison began walking in the direction of the city, again keeping to the middle of the road. It seemed to him that his shoes were clicking on the blacktop with each step, but he knew that had to be his imagination—his relentless foe this night. But he felt fairly safe with his feet on the pavement that was his natural environment… and he knew that he would easily spot and shoot anyone who tried to charge at him from the woods.
He crested a small rise after which the road started a gradual decline to a bend that took it out of view. But in the distance he saw the lights of the city and the ships in the bay. His heart soared at that sight, and he promised himself that he would take his girlfriend Joan to every play, nightclub act and movie she wanted to see; every resteraunt she wantd to try; every art exhibit she wanted “experience” for the next year. Hell, he might even join her at one of those meetings or whateer it was that she had been going to in order to get more in touch with the Chinese side of her background. Likewise, whenever one of the detectives wanted to go for a drink after work, Harrison would not turn down the invitation. However this night ended, he knew that he was going to spent the foreseeable future appreciating everything glorious citylife had to offer. Even the bums, drunks, and grifters.
As he was making these vows to himself, Harrison heard the unmistakable sound of a car engine drawing closer, out of site as it climbed the hill from the city. Soon, twin shafts of light pierced the darkness, first illuminating treetops and then shifting and angling and vanishing moments moments later a pair of headlights appeared from around the bend in the road.
Harrison holstered his weapon and drew out his badge. He planted himself firmly in the vehicle’s path and held it out before him. As the car drew nearer, he shouted: “Police! Pull over!”
The vehicle slowed, and came to a stop. Harrison went to the driver’s side of the sedan and looked in. A square-faced, elderly white man in a dark fedora looked back. he recognized him to be Ashley. In the front seat next to him, much to Harrison’s surprise, was a young Chinese woman. Her dark eyes glittered by the dashboard lights under the broad brim of a hat not unlike one Joan only wore on special occasions.
“Ashley... Miss,” he said. “I am Steve Harrison, a detective with the River Street Precinct.”
“Another checkpoint?” asked the young woman, putting a slim, gloved hand on Ashley’s arm.
. “No, Miss. I came out here to warn Ashley’s employer about Ku Chang possibly heading for his cabin. There’s been a development, so I thought it best to stop you here on the road.”
“Is Mr. Sheng all right?” Ashley asked, his voice carrying a tone of apprehension rather than concern. Harrison also saw the inquisitiveness ebb from his countenance and horror grow there. It was clear to Harrison that he wouldn’t have to go into too many details; Ashley was obviously already concerned about danger to his master.
“Mr. Shen is fine for the moment,” Harrison said. “But I need to ride with you back to the cabin. And, pardon me, but who is the young lady with you?”
“She’s Mr. Shen’s niece.” The answer came tonelessly through dry lips. “Please, get in the car.”
Harrison opened the back door and slid into the car. He grunted at a painful twinge in his shoulder.
“I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Harrison. I am Sarah Shen,” the young woman said, turning in her seat as Ashley set the car moving again. She continued in a cultured accent, “I’ve come down from—oh! You’re hurt!”
Harrison pulled his coat tighter, trying to cover the red that stained his white shirt. “It looks worse than it is. You’ve no reason to worry, Miss Shen.”
“My uncle will take care of you,” she said confidently and sweetly; it was a real struggle for Harrison to not make a bitterly sarcastic reply.
“Whatn was it you were saying about coming down from somewhere?” Harrison asked.
“I’ve come down from New York, because Uncle Kai wired for me to come to him at once—”
“I’ve seen the wire,” Ashley muttered. Harrison got the feeling that an argument was about to restart. “You showed it to me. But I don’t know how he sent it. He hasn’t been to the city, to my knowledge, in months.”
“And I can’t understand why the telegram was sent to me, instead of to somebody else in the family—”
“You were always your uncle’s favorite, Miss,” said Ashley. He turned the car onto the unpaved road leading to Shen’s cabin.
“We should all be blessed with such close relations,” Harrison said, hoping to disrupt the repeat. “But if Ashley wasn’t expecting you, it was awfully lucky that you should arrive on the very day Ashley was picking up supplies—and even luckier that you should happen upon each other."
“Oh, it wasn’t luck. Uncle’s telegram was quite specific in the train I should take. I was leaving the station and abot to hire a car when I saw Ashley coming out of the shipping office.”
“I always check to see if there are packages from the Master’s business interests abroad that I need to collect when I’m in the city,” Ashley muttered. “It’s always my last stop.”
“And you’re always very precise.” Sarah said cheerfully, patting his arm. “Uncle Kai knows that you’re like a Swiss clock when it comes to your routines.” She turned to Harrison and said: “Tell him there is nothing fantastic about me being in the train station at just the time to meet him.”
“I’d need to know a little more about the circumstances, Miss,” Harrison said distractedly, glancing out the window at the black forest, then back to the girl, to look past her at the dirt road being illuminated by the headlights. A large pine to the left stood out from his brothers, leaning drunkenly in the direction of the road; Harrison gathered that is what had blotted out the stars for a stretch as he was heading to the highway. Shen’s cabin was’t far .
“My uncle is a very clever man,” she continued. “He and Ashley have been together longer than  I’ve been alive, so it wouldn’t be difficult for him to arrange it so our paths crossed. He—”
Harrison noticed the sudden rush of movement to the car’s right. Ashley let out a startled cry. Something massive, like the fist of God Himself, shot out of the shadows and slammed onto the car’s hood. The windscreen blasted inward, showering the car’s inhabitants with glass.
The silence that followed was absolute.

To Be Continued...?

Fiction: The Devil in the Dark, Part One

Over the next few days, we're going to present a story revised from "The Black Hound of Death" by Robert E. Howard. We hope you'll enjoy it. Please let us know--that's what we have a comments section for!

(You can read more horror-tinged detective fiction by Howard (with revisions by Miller) in NUELOW Games's Names in the Black Book. Click here to see a preview, or to purchase and download a copy.)

THE DEVIL IN THE DARK: A CASE FOR STEVE HARRISON

By Robert E. Howard & Steve Miller
(Copyright ©2012 Steve Miller. All Rights Reserved.)

Part One: The Death of Jim Hong

There’s no blackness this side of Hell’s abyss as absolute as this, Detective Steve Harrison thought, as he groped along the narrow trail that wound through the densely timbered pinelands.

   He once again found himself entirely too far from his normal beat of Chinatown's River Street Precinct, and the darkess that pressed in around him as he clutched his unlit flashlight in one hand and his pistol in the other still filled him with a creeping dread that maybe there were unseen things lurking in that blackness; things that skulk in the deep shadows and shun the light of day; slinking figures that prowl beyond the edge of normal life. He had faced down drug-maddened Tong assassins, psychopathic killers, and even a crimelord reputed to be immortal, but the darkness of this lonely stretch of forest still filled his mind with vague fears.

   The trail Harrison followed was but a half-guessed trace winding between the walls of solid ebony. He went as hurriedly as he dared, with his ears whetted to knife-edge alertness. But there was stealth mingled with his haste, because he had reason to be wary beyond figments of his imagination. He listened for the snap of a twig under a great, splay foot, for any sound that would presage murder striking from the black shadows. The creature he was hunting, and which he feared might be hunting him, was more to be dreaded than any phantom.

   Earlier that day, Ku Chang, a Tong enforcer had chosen to fight rather than surrender to the law, leaving a ghastly toll of dead behind him. Every available officer and detective of the River Street District and neighboring preceincts had turned Chinatown upside down hunting for him, and all leads soon indicated that he had fled the city for the woody hills beyond.

   Down along the river, bloodhounds were baying through the brush and hard-eyed men with rifles were beating up the thickets. Harrison glanced toward the bobbing shafts of light that pierced the darkness while keeping his own electric torch turned off. The chief of police had directed the officers to focus their search on the river with the assumption that Chang would doubleback and follow the waterway to the sea and steal away on a boat.

   But Harrison was certain Ku Chang had a different goal in mind, because he was more familiar with the people of the River Street District than most of his fellow officers. So while the hunt flowed away in another direction, he plunged into the black forest alone, on a mission that was as much one of warning as of hunting.

   Six months ago, an elderly herbalist and rumored mystic named Kai Shen had quit Chinatown to move to a cabin within mazy pine labyrinth. Shen was reported to create exceptionally powerful good luck charms and Harrison knew that Chang was deeply superstitious like many other of the city’s Chinese. Given the manhunt he was trying to escapes, Chang was sure to seek one of Shen’s charms—and Harrison was certain that he would get get it over Shen’s dead body. If Harrison didn’t intercept Chang in the woods, he was hoping that he would beat him to Shen’s cottage and save the old man from death while putting six slugs in a vicious murderer.

   Harrison stopped dead, all thoughts of what might happen banished in favor of the immediate by sudden shriek that was edged with agony and terror. It came from somewhere ahead of him. Silence followed that cry, a silence in which the forest seemed to hold its breath and the darkness shut in more blackly still. Again the scream was repeated, this time closer. Then he heard the pound of feet along the trail, and a form hurled itself at him out of the darkness.

   He brought up his revolver as he flicked on the flashlight. He squinted against the harsh light and the only thing that kept him from pulling the trigger was the sounds the object was making—gasping, sobbing noises of fear and pain. It was a man, and direly stricken. He blundered full into Harrison, shrieked again, and fell sprawling, slobbering and yammering.

   The form cried out in Mandarin: “Oh, my God, save me! Oh, God have mercy on me!”

   In the pool of light Harrison stared down at blood-splashed body of a burly Chinaman. The hair stirred on Harrison’s scalp at the poignant agony in the gibbering voice and the terrible wounds on the man’s body. Blood jetted from torn veins and arteries in breast, shoulder and neck, and the wounds were ghastly to see, great ragged tears, that were never made by bullet or knife. One ear had been torn from his head, and hung loose, with a great piece of flesh from the angle of his jaw and neck, as if some gigantic beast had ripped it out with its fangs. He was dying, and only abnormal energy rising from frenzied panic could have enabled him to run as far as he had.

   “What in God’s name did this?” Harrison exclaimed. “A bear?”

   But even as he spoke, he knew that there had not been a bear in these woods for more than 30 years.

   The mauled man clawled weakly at Harrison’s knees and stared up at him, recognition dawning on his blood-smeared, contorted face. He moaned something in Mandarin.

   “Speak English, damn you!” Harrison growled, kneeling next to him.

   “Officer Harrison, keep him away! He kill my body, and now he wants my soul! It’s me— Jim Hong. Don’ let him get me!”

   Jim Hong?! The blood and grimace of pain had obscured the man's features, but Harrison recognized him now. He was a small-time crook who hung around the waterfront looking for drunks to roll and sailors to scam. He had occasionally helped Harrison by relaying information from within the insular Chinese community that he needed to put away more dangerous criminals. Harrison barked, “What are you doing out here?! What happened to you?!”

   “He did it!” Jim mumbled thickly, his hands twitching weaking in the flashlight’s harsh glare. “The white man come to me on the dock. He ask for guide to Master Shen’s house. He say he have tooth-ache, so he has head bandaged; but bandages slipped and I see his face—he killed me for seeing his face.”

   “He set dogs on you?” Harrison demanded, for as he looked closer the wounds reminded him of a case last year where a man had killed his wife in just that fashion—by trapping her with vicious junkyard dogs.

   “No, sir,” whimpered the ebbing voice. “He done it hisself— heeeaaggghhh!”

   The mumble broke in a shriek as Jim twisted his head, barely visible in the gloom, and stared back the way he had come. Death struck him in the midst of that scream, for it broke short at the highest note. He flopped convulsively once, and then lay still.

   Harrison checked to see if life had indeed left the prostrate form—but then he caught movement at the edge of the flashlight’s radiance. He brought the light up, but has he did, its light died with a sharp and sudden pop. He was plunged into an immediate darkness that seemed even more eternal than before. The silence was also complete; he couldn’t even hear the baying dogs down by the river.

   He was certain that he had seen a vague shape on the trail some yards away as the light went out. In his mind’s eye, he could still see it standing there—erect and tall like a man. He aimed his gun into the darkness, trying to sight along the barrel he could barely see at a target he could only envision. He opened his mouth to shout a challenge to the unknown person, but no sound came.

   A chill unlike anything he had ever experienced flowed over him, freezing his tongue to his palate and emptying his mind of all thought. It was fear, primitive and unreasoning, and as the longest seconds of his life passed, Harrison stood paralyzed. Years of police training, experience, and his naturally curious intellect brought a small degree of reason back to him, but it was an almost hysterical thought that did nothing to dispel his dread—what sort of devil had he half-glimpsed that should rouse such instinctive terror?!

   Almost without warning, whoever—or whatever—was upon him. The figure had closed soundlessly and it was only the ferocious snarl it uttered as it flung itself against Harrison that gave him a chance to react at all. He pulled the trigger on his gun—once, twice—almost involuntarily and without aim, and its flash dazzled his eyes, obscuring rather than revealing the tall man-like figure that struck at him.

   Then with a crashing rush through the trees, Harrison’s assailant was gone.

   The detective staggered to his feet and whirled to face the diminishing sound of breaking branches. He raised his gun to fire after the man—his analytical mind now once again in full force—but that’s when he became aware of the pain in his shoulder and the warm wetness on his chest.

   Harrison moved to a tree by the trail and squatted. He holstered his weapon and touched his chest and shoulder—his shirt was soaked through and his suit coat was quickly becoming so as well. He swore with anger and surpised pain  as he touched his wound through the shredded shoulder padding of his coat. He fumbled and eventually found a match in his vest pocket. He struck it and examined his injury in the frail light.

   It wasn’t as bad as it had seemed in the dark—another shirt and suit coat were ruined, but his shoulder wound was little more a couple of parallel scratches. But their arrangement caused another chill to sweep down his spine. The thing he had glimpsed, the thing that roused nameless fear in my mind, was the same thing that had killed poor Jim Hong and it had left its mark on Harrison as well. 

Click Here for Part Two: The Cabin in the Woods