Black Briar Read online

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Reader’s Advisory

  Welcome to New Gotham

  Black Briar

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Epilogue

  New Gotham’s Grimoire: A Glossary for Readers

  Author’s Note

  Preview of ‘Twas the Darkest Night, A New Gotham Fairy Tale

  Other Books by Sophie Avett

  About the Author

  Dedication and Acknowledgements

  Did you find a typo?

  Copyright

  Black Briar

  A New Gotham Fairy Tale, Briar Saga Book One

  Here be dragons…

  There is havoc and mayhem aplenty in New Gotham, but Sybille L. Prince, for her part, manages to sleep through most of it.

  The spindle witch has already tried living in this world, and found it distinctly wanting. When she must be awake, Sybille spends her time working at Briar Alchemy, mixing potions and poisons for some of New Gotham’s leading storymavens, and caring for unfortunate souls. However, it would seem that Enid the Hag has had enough of Sybille’s constant lack of respect for anything but chocolate, sleep, and sharp, pointy objects.

  Beware the elderly, for they are crafty…

  Suddenly, Sybille finds herself the subject of a monster’s stony gaze. (Oh, gag me--it’s him.)

  One of Club Brimstone’s guardians, Nova is a gargoyle and a dreamspinner, a creature with the ability to walk and bend the astral plane. He’s also Sybille’s ex-lover. To date, he’s been the only one with the strength (and patience) to deal with Sybille's madness.

  Sybille throws every hellacious vision she’s got at the gargoyle, desperate to keep him from haunting her dreams, but the gargoyle is determined she see reason. Not that it’ll be easy. Of course not. (It is her after all.)

  He’s going to have to step into Sybille’s mind, into her world, and onto her turf.

  Beware, good sir, for here be dragons…

  Reader’s Advisory

  This is a dark, erotic fantasy short story. You will not find rampant sex in this short story, but the sex that does take place is served ala leather. If BDSM doesn’t do it for you, this might not be the sexy snack for tea time. Also, when Sophie says “dark,” she means dark. Expect graphic descriptions of violence, all manner of mischief, and a handful of disturbing images served with cake and chocolate. Enjoy!

  Welcome to New Gotham

  There is a place where vampires roam free and the cake and libraries are plentiful. A place where our favorite storybook characters come back from the dead in a re-animated world where books are mere records of all that has come and all that will be.

  A fictitious city near the shores of modern-day New York, New Gotham is a noir mixture of Manhattan and a few small metropolitan cities like DC Comic's Gotham, Modern London, South Boston, or Pittsburgh. Small, big, and sinister. Stark skylights ripping into the twilight with a haunting raven crest. A melting pot for the wicked.

  Founded in the late sixties, New Gotham's charter was drafted as an entire city grid dedicated as a place for paranormal creatures to live "in the open." It is one of the many cities scattered across the globe, operating under the statutes of the United Nation's International Dante Act. Each city is governed on a regional level by a small republic composed of leading members from each of the four factions: the Pack, the Court, the Coven, and the Clan.

  Whether it's to learn about the paranormal creatures stalking its cracked and cobbled streets, or to pick up that love charm, there's a vice for every wicked heart in New Gotham. But beware, for you are welcome in, but you might not make it out…alive.

  A. Potts, the Storymaven

  Black Briar

  “Hope is a waking dream.”

  –Aristotle

  Chapter One

  The brick-faced, two story Richardsonian Romanesque edifice, waiting for the end on the corner of Perrault and Grendel, was unique. It was mostly constructed from stone and heavy black brick, and it was overly large, almost an estate’s manor without the surrounding rolling grounds. Like it had been originally built as large public building, and then, later converted into a small castle right on the edge of Main Street.

  A smattering of quicksilver katanas and dream crystal wakizashis leaned against just about every scandalous wall. The walls were papered with majestic and sprawling tapestries spinning disturbing and suggestive images of angels warring with demons, many of them succumbing to desire themselves. Bloodied and entwined in Hell. Otherwise, the rooms were all mostly bare and dusty from disuse. All of them save one.

  Sybille Prince had been greeted by a skeleton-maid draped in fine, ginger orange geisha silks. She led the spindle witch, swallowed in a vintage Neverwinter cloak, up and up the Victorian spiral staircase, apologizing for the erotic and grotesque art, and the random weapons lying about. When they finally breached the master bedroom, the skeletal maid added with a chatter of her teeth that she wasn’t allowed to touch the lonely decadent desk poised at the witch’s back. Heavy with unmarked books and scrolls, idols and other symbols of pagan, holy, and hellish faith, it groaned and creaked beneath the burden.

  The art, the weapons, the skeleton maid—all were tame. Ordinary in a place like New Gotham. And yet…

  Leather, straps, and silver studs.

  Sybille Prince tilted her head from side to side, as she examined the apparatus suspended over the center of the large king-sized bed. On the rare occasions she’d actually seen a sex swing, thanks to a few of the more creative window displays in her best friend Astrid’s favorite naughty boutique, Serpentine Ties, they’d all been freestanding devices—the kind a witch could put together herself with a pink daisy screw-driver and a set of directions. Though the directions were probably less than helpful given they were mostly written in goblin gibberish and something that looked like Korean.

  Indeed, deciphering instruction manuals was tedium even for the monsters stalking New Gotham’s timeworn and tempest streets. NATO’s International Dante Act had awarded their kind cities where lawless legends could live out in the open, and for the first time in recent recorded history, every manner of badass had crawled from the crack in the crypt.

  But seriously…

  A sex swing? Just…you know…out there for everyone to see?

  The apparatus was a silent omen, probably rescued from the wicked depths of a medieval dungeon and bolted into the bungalow’s fractured plaster ceilings. It hung from a spring she assumed would give to accommodate the weight of its users. Aside from that, it had a convenient—if she could say so herself—cast iron support bar and she counted five straps among the throng of hanging leather: a pair of back straps, butt support, and two leg straps.

  If the ceilings hadn’t been so high, it would’ve been impossible to glimpse anything behind bed poster’s pulled curtains, but the ceilings were high. Very high. And the top canvas was holed in the middle like a skylight, allowing full access and view to the polished steel, iron, and leather, an effective means to tie up and spread…anything. Such a blatant promise of erotic pleasure and punishment to come.

  “Cute.” Sybille nibbled on her chipped black nail polish. The flakes of enamel spotting her pink tongue were bitter, acrid. “Real cute.”

  To think, when she’d first been escorted through the tall heavy teak doors, she’d thought this particular home mild compared to the homes she’d visited throughout her career in mystic medicine. Her life’s work was cryptozoology. Rare trolls, legendary monsters, obscure mythical creatures—she was pretty much a self-taught general physician with a particular fascination with surgical procedures. And really, skill was about her sole redeeming feat
ure.

  Drusilla, her twin sister, was the alchemist and beast tamer, and the hayfield blond was worth her weight in philosopher stones. Together, they’d made Enid’s shop, Black Briar Alchemy, a popular fixture in the city. They sold poisons, edible curses, the adventure’s variety of elixirs, but they also doubled as one of the few shops that catered to the medical needs of the real obscure in New Gotham.

  Most of the monsters they normally treated lived in extravagant gothic castles, fairy burrows and sithens, dens and hovels, and the very occasional tea kettle. Those who lived in a regular houses, apartments, and high-rises, usually sought public health care facilities, like the general hospital, for their procession of butterfly stitches, anti-depressants, cancer cures and superficial Band-Aids.

  “Hell and Creation!” Socrates’ wide wings were silent as he flew into the room through one of its tall, barred windows, “What manner of abomination looms over the bed?”

  It had been nearly a millennia since the sprite had taken the form of a New Gotham dire great-horned owl. Cryptic plumage and a white and black facemask, long and corkscrew ear-tuffs, and bloody orange irises gave him a menacing appearance, but he was still just an imp. Darkling, to be exact. Demonic. Fiendish and smart, but diminutive when compared to the likes of a cheshire or true imp.

  Like all imps, he was a being incapable of maintaining a corporal presence in the mundane realm without a witch’s mercy and patronage—and frankly, she was starting to wonder why she kept him around at all. The fucking thing never shut up. Not ever.

  “Monsters have no shame anymore. No principles.” The owl perched on the ornamented canopy’s sterling silver curtain rods hanging from the ceiling. He swerved his half-dome head one hundred and eighty degrees, peering at the swing, and hooted with unholy outrage. “How are demon supposed to complete?!”

  Sybille opened her mouth to speak, and the bird snapped its beak with outrage, “Speaking of no morals, Enid demands something be done about the squalor that has befallen your loft! Bloody hell, Sybille, she’s blind! Do you know how bad your room has to smell for her to notice? She kept me up half the day squalling about it!”

  A keepsake from the tales of old, Enid the Hag was Briar Alchemy’s owner and New Gotham’s leading expert on poisons, elixirs, and cures. She was rumored to have been a human midwife in a past life, but the tale was too old to know for sure. The blind, craggy old fey had never mentioned the tales circulating about her past, but that probably had more to do with the fact that she was always aching-hip deep in mischief.

  With the exception of her twin sister, the crone was the spindle witch’s only family in the world. Probably, the only person besides her sister and the imp to actually give a real damn about whether she ever did manage to conquer her inner demons and free herself from the terrible tower. Unfortunately, Sybille wasn’t the type who wanted help. From anyone. She wasn’t lost and she wasn’t broken.

  She wasn’t looking to be saved.

  Not by Enid the Hag or Drusilla the Bane. Not by Socrates. And certainly not by a prince—he could go fuck himself and the white horse he rode in on. If there was a tale to be told, it would end on Sybille’s terms. And as far as she was concerned, the dragon could have them—the dragon could have them all. And by the way, she’d get to cleaning her loft when she fucking felt like it. Thanks.

  Feathers flown in outrage drifted to the floor. “And what in bloody hell are you wearing, Sybille?”

  “A masterpiece.” Lifting a thin blonde eyebrow, Sybille lolled her head and smirked at her reflection in a nearby antique mirror leaning against the wall. She didn’t have shit for a body. Neither did Drusilla. Buying clothes was always a shared pain. Everything but spandex was a baggy second skin, hanging and horrible. She blamed infantile malnutrition for that. But in a place like New Gotham, miracles could be purchased down by the docks.

  Upon donning, the Sinister Stitches black nun dress tailored to her slender, lissome form. Cute, short sleeves and the square pilgrim’s bib was trimmed with girlish white lace. The flared mini-skirt ended right at the mid-thigh “fuck-me” line. Paired with a white nurse’s hat, she fancied herself hellish salvation posted on a pair of knee-high, black patent combat boots with six-inch platforms.

  “Behold and worship, sinner,” is exactly what she’d said as she’d modeled her birthday gift from her best friend for Enid on her way out this evening. Oh, the outrage. That Hag’s ass was probably still up in smoke.

  “Ha.” She snorted. “So worth it.”

  Socrates continued to hoot on and on about whatever the problem was now. No, really. He was always talking. Forever talking. Very much like Charles Dickens, she wouldn’t be surprised if he was being paid by the word to annoy her.

  “Why…” Sybille dragged slender dead-pale fingers through her somewhat knotted flaxen hair. “Oh, why am I here?”

  Winds howled and raged, and the rafters creaked. Otherwise, there was no answer. There was no eerie rapping and tapping at the door. No raven appeared upon this weak and weary night. She was alone. In utter darkness.

  Her mouth waned into another long and tired yawn. Is that my answer?

  Trees scratched at the panes and moonlight spilled through the tall, cathedral windows, throwing an ethereal kaleidoscope of olive, dark magenta, and Alice blue across the ceiling. The massive four-poster bed’s stone headboard was awash in chips of blue alexandrite and obsidian crystals. Glittering. Beckoning like a bottomless, cruel ocean. So tired…

  “Are you listening to me, Sybille? You have class tomorrow morning and Baba Yaga will not tolerate another tardy. It seems her pixie has spoken.”

  “Fuck a pixie and a chicken witch.” She flipped him off . “I just won’t go. Besides, I got where I am by doing whatever the fuck I want, and considering I can’t make a move without my phone ringing off the goddamn hook, I think I’ll be all right without her oh-so-valuable wisdom.” She folded her willowy arms and muttered under her breath bitterly, . “Mom would think I was doing all right.”

  It wasn’t exactly true. Well, maybe it was. She just didn’t know for sure. She’d never met her mother—had only heard of her. But, really, who hadn’t? Everyone knew who she was. Her time spent between the sheets was a thing of legend.

  “Hush up with all that nonsense. Baba Yaga is an opportunity of a lifetime.” He crowed, “A chance at classical training. Don’t be ridiculous. We’ve come too far to…”

  Drowning out the bird’s voice, Sybille railed her fingers across the smooth nightstand, short and severely masticated nails catching. Faint pain twinged up her fingers, and she relished it. Maybe the stimulus would keep her from falling face first into some stranger’s bed for a nap. She wasn’t Goldie—she had some respect, but even the curly blonde would admit that the damn bed was…irresistible. The bed skirt was silver taffeta and the overall frame was enormous. It couldn’t have been bought, and then, moved into the room. It had to be made there. It was that big. That heavy.

  Eyebrows squishing together, she reached for one of the supple lace bows tied neatly around the abnormal bedpost, but didn’t dare touch it. It wasn’t asking to be touched. On the contrary…the stone pillars been lovingly etched with monsters and hideous visions of demons. Delinquent lighthouses and the curtains draped in fine gunmetal grey Japanese silk embroidered with silver serpentine dragons. Elegant and grotesque. Eerie.

  Gold-dusted midnight fabric washed the vast expanse of the pillowed mattress, the comforter had been impressed with the very same veins of war, and she could almost feel the bloodshed pulse against her palm. Hemp, linen, and silk blended and woven into fire breathing dragons rolling and roiling amongst the stars—it was like watching the gods claw and bite at the ether of the universe. Or perhaps, they were making love. A glorious show of pervading and everlasting constellations. Such an elegant nightmare.

  This bed, there was a…magnetic quality to it.

  She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but as she leaned forward, slowly surrenderi
ng herself into the swing’s damning shadow, she felt utterly…compelled. Like her skin was withering, chipping away piece by piece. She rubbed her heavy eyes. When was the last time I actually slept?

  “Sybille.” Socrates snapped his beak. Outraged. “You just woke up.”

  That was true…to a point.

  Sleep was never quite restful for a dreamspinner. When you were blessedly cursed with the awesome power to spin a reality all your own, the last thing you wanted to do while you were sleeping was sleep. If she wasn’t engaged tearing her way deeper and deeper into the nightmare, she was busy getting off on someone else’s. Soon, madness would come. It was only a matter of time. One could only rage into the night for so long before the oil dried up, the wick ravaged—flame extinguished. She could already feel it. So much time navigating between what was real and what wasn’t. So many stories to spin, so little time…

  “And behold,” she straightened and carelessly covered another yawn, “I still managed to be here on time.”