Dream Thief Two


 
 
 
 
 Dream Thief
 
 AUGUSTUS DERLYTH: OCCULT DETECTIVE
 BOOK TWO
 
 
 
 
 BLAZE WARD
 
 
 
 KNOTTED ROAD PRESS
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Author’s Note
 
 
 
 
 
 You will encounter occasional British spellings of things, as the main character is extremely English.
 
 
 
 
 For Stone, the original Derlyth
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Contents
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Chapter 1
 
 
 Chapter 2
 
 
 Chapter 3
 
 
 Chapter 4
 
 
 Chapter 5
 
 
 Chapter 6
 
 
 Chapter 7
 
 
 Chapter 8
 
 
 Chapter 9
 
 
 Chapter 10
 
 
 Chapter 11
 
 
 Chapter 12
 
 
 Chapter 13
 
 
 Chapter 14
 
 
 Chapter 15
 
 
 Chapter 16
 
 
 Chapter 17
 
 
 Chapter 18
 
 
 Chapter 19
 
 
 Chapter 20
 
 
 Chapter 21
 
 
 Chapter 22
 
 
 Chapter 23
 
 
 Chapter 24
 
 
 Chapter 25
 
 
 Chapter 26
 
 
 Chapter 27
 
 
 Chapter 28
 
 
 Chapter 29
 
 
 Chapter 30
 
 
 Chapter 31
 
 
 Chapter 32
 
 
 Chapter 33
 
 
 Chapter 34
 
 
 Chapter 35
 
 
 
 
 Read More
 
 
 About the Author
 
 
 Also by Blaze Ward
 
 
 About Knotted Road Press
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Chapter One
 
 
 
 
 
 Augustus looked around Farouk’s somewhat famous but largely hidden tearoom, deep in UnderLondon.
 He would have liked to be able to say that he’d learned something from the arrogance of this past spring. He would, however, be lying. He was not above fabrications and misdirections, mind you, but not to himself. Never to himself.
 The overestimation of his abilities that had nearly caused him and his friends to be captured and destroyed as part of a certain affair both here in London and in the north of England.
 For weeks, he’d risen in the morning to shave his greying whiskers smooth and study the face thus reflected. Seen the lines that hadn’t been there in his decadent and somewhat dissolute youth. Wondered if perhaps forty-eight was too old to yet be in this business.
 Should he retire to a life of quiet ostentation and research, rather than undertaking those activities that certain folks so disgracefully called tomb robbing? Perhaps write a memoir, careful to leave out all the details that might cause him to yet be prosecuted? Or burned at the stake?
 Perhaps a few treatises on the sorts of esoterica that was his stock and trade?
 But then, redemption had arrived. And from the most unlikely of sources.
 Capital, that. And grandly epic in the timing. He’d risen one recent morning to a note from an old friend, asking for assistance to translate a tome thought to be Middle German, when it had in fact ended up being a rather obscure Slavic dialect, written by some ancient scholar who had puzzled his way through an even older argot phonetically.
 It had ended up being a copy of Gelderstein’s Daemonica.
 Augustus had never seen an original copy of the master tome. Only copies of copies, often fragmentary at best, and usually mistranslated at that.
 The original, of course, was in safe hands under lock, key, and several rings of holy power designed to repel the sorts of silly buggers that might use it for fell purposes.
 Augustus approved, though there were times he would have liked to have consulted it for answers to certain esoteric questions that occasionally arose in his own research.
 And then he had access to a copy himself.
 Gelderstein had proposed a classification schema for certain fell creatures, ranging upwards from the most mundane haunts up to several proposed Princes of Hell. And he’d even gotten a number of those correct.
 Best of all, he’d numbered them, rather than using the Greek lettering system that everyone else had taken to, making it easy to quantify a beast without having to work at it.
 The thing that had taken the sister of the Duchess Dudley had ended up being about a Six. At the time, Augustus had thought her a Four at best, and thus had fallen prey to ego, thinking himself the equal of a Five with the assistance of his two cohorts, Captain Digby and Lady Claudette.
 That she had been a Six suggested that his own power had grown to a stage greater than he had anticipated. Equal to some of the truly dangerous monsters out there, merely with the tools, trinkets, and articles he carried about himself on a normal day. An Eight was within his power, with a bit of work and a week or two of solid preparation.
 Not that he would summon such a thing himself. At that scale, they tended to be incredibly arrogant, but rather boring conversationalists. Intent on power in all its possible manifestations, rather than tidbits of knowledge that tended to be the cash of the lesser incarnations.
 His ego had gotten him in over his head. He was willing to admit that. But against a Six, not a Four. And he’d not only survived, but sent the bitch back to the hell that she deserved.
 Again, with the help of a few inestimable friends.
 Thus, his bout of depression had parted like Moses at the water’s edge, leaving him sunnier than usual this last week. Bright. Chipper, even, though that might be pushing things the slightest bit.
 Still…
 Of course, that was probably the thing that set those gods of dark, British irony against him. At least today. Man getting perhaps a shade above himself. Knock him down a peg. Or three, depending.
 He eyed the stranger across the room. Not a face he knew, but Zahid had admitted the man to Farouk’s