The Sword of Michael, Book One in a new, hard-hitting contemporary fantasy saga by Marcus Wynne, hit shelves on November 4, 2014, but Baen Publishing has decided to provide readers with an exclusive teaser chapter of the book. Fanboy Comics is excited to be able to share this preview with you, and we hope that it will interest you in checking out the book!
Synopsis:
Marius Winter fights evil every day, when he’s not smoking cigars with his spirit allies or lingering in bed with his beautiful girlfriend.
He’s got the best for back-up: a special operations soldier to watch his back, a Wiccan priestess for a girlfriend, and a drop-dead gorgeous biker babe who just happens to be the shamanic equivalent of the CIA . . . and that’s not even counting his spirit allies.
He needs them all in a fight against a powerful sorcerer sent by the Ruler of Hell, Belial, a.k.a Lucifer. In the battle to rescue the souls of his friends and lover, he must storm the gates of the underworld and fight through the Seven Demi-Demons of Hell to the deepest dungeons – where Belial dwells.
Excerpted from The Sword of Michael, a novel by Marcus Wynne. Copyright © 2014 by Marcus Wynne. Published by Baen, distributed by Simon & Schuster.
CHAPTER 2
My name is Marius Winter. I am a shamanic practitioner. A shaman, though by tradition I can never refer to myself that way. Shaman is a title bestowed by the community I serve. That title is earned through serving the community in the shaman’s roles: ceremonialist, artist, storyteller, healer, warrior, leader and keeper of knowledge. These roles are not sharply defined like a job title in the Middle World. In the shamanic world roles are blurred, defined by Spirit, and there are many shades of gray in the spectrum between the Dark and the Light.
Sometimes, depending on what Spirit brings to your door, some or all of those roles might merge. For instance, a healer may be called upon to be a warrior to provide the service of protecting his community from the attack of Dark Forces. This is the most dangerous and challenging shamanic work of all.
Depossession.
What some call exorcism.
For a reason known only to the Great Spirit, this is the work that comes to me.
In partnership with the healing spirits, my job is to remove the lost souls of dead humans, spirits, entities, demons and extraterrestrials from those who come to me seeking help. To send those possessing spirits back to where they came from and to be a channel for the healing of those who’d been infested by those forces.
I call myself a depossessionist.
I’d once had business cards made with that as my title along with “I depo . . . if you don’t pay, I repo . . .” I ended up getting rid of them because I thought it too pretentious and the humor lost on my clients.
You need a sense of humor to survive in this business.
Shamans die doing this work. Illness, madness, accidents, heart attacks, violence done to them by the possessed, taken by the Dark Forces . . . possession. These are the risks. If you’re blessed, very lucky and damn good, you might just live long enough to die of old age in your bed, surrounded by those you’ve loved and those who’ve loved you.
