Excerpt from "Beggar's Canyon - Myca's Story"

The two walked in the front door and immediately hesitated. The entire interior of the shop was
covered in spiderwebs. They filled the shelves, the corners, the rafters, the windows, everywhere they looked were spider webs. Even more disturbing was that in all the webs they could see spiders of all sizes. One web had tiny little black spiders crawling over it. They were tiny, but there were hundreds of them. Other webs contained large spiders the size of a man’s thumb. One was a bright yellow with what appeared to be a red skull on its back. Myca gasped as she saw some of the webs held a spider larger than her hand.

“I miss the roaches and rats,” Florian whispered.

“What is this place?” Myca said.

“It’s my shop, and ain’t it lovely,” a voice said from a back room.

A moment later a man emerged from the darkness. He had to duck to get under the doorframe and shift his body to the side to fit through the door. He was easily the largest man either Myca or Florian had ever seen. He wore a full beard that covered his throat and a good portion of his chest. His hair curled well down past his shoulders and looked thick enough, and was large enough, to hide a small animal, or two.

“I’m Leo,” the man said in a deep but very friendly voice. “What can I do for you? Maybe a little widow’s poison, some ringtail venom, or maybe you be needing some skin crawler lotion.”

Myca forced a weak smile. “Um, no thank you,” she said. “We are actually just looking for someone and we were told we might find her here.”

“Who would that be? I know most everyone in the canyon,” Leo said. “At least the regulars.”

“Her name is Korret,” Florian said, then flinched as a moth made the mistake of flying too close to a web.

“Korret you say? Yeap, she’ll be here directly,” Leo said. “Can I get you anything in the mean time? Maybe something to drink?”

Myca’s eyes continued to dart from one spider to another. She could not decide which presented the most immediate threat and tried to watch them all. “No thank you, I think we are good,” she said.

“Good being a relative term,” Florian said.

Leo chuckled. “No reason for concern. All the really poisonous ones are upstairs.”

“Great,” Florian said, obviously not sharing Leo’s confidence.

“Ah, speak of the angel, there she be,” Leo said.

Myca and Florian turned as a woman entered the shop. She was taller than average and had some bulk to her as well. She had long blonde hair that was a bit matted and tangled, but framed a face Myca was sure men once found very attractive. The years had not been kind to the woman and showed themselves in the lines and deep wrinkles around her eyes. She hesitated at the door as Leo spoke.

“Korret, these two young ones are looking for you,” he said.

Korret’s hand slowly moved to the large knife she wore on her hip. Her eyes darted from Florian to Myca, and settled on Myca’s weapon. “What can I do for you?” she asked in a gravelly voice.

“We just need a little information,” Myca said, holding up both hands.

Korret squinted and looked at Myca a little closer. “You the little tart that broke ol Timber’s nose and got him walking all crooked?”

“I wouldn’t say I was a tart,” Myca said.

Korret shrugged. “That was Timber’s word.”

“I don’t know his name, but yes, I guess I did do that,” Myca said, curious how Korret would take this admission.

“I’d say you need to watch out for him,” Korret said. “But he ain’t gonna be walking nowhere for a few days. What can I do for you?”

As she finished speaking Korret moved past Myca and took a seat at the counter. She seemed oblivious to the spiders as Leo passed her a steaming mug of dark liquid. “We heard you are having some trouble with a ghost or spirit,” Myca said.

Korret stiffened and her eyes narrowed. “More than trouble,” she said. “What is it to you?”

Myca shrugged as she realized her next statement was going to sound a little foolish. “We want to try to help,” Myca said, deciding there was no reason to dance around the subject. “I’m not sure what we can do, but we would like to try.”

Korret looked at Leo, then back at Myca. “I’m not sure what you could do either,” she said. “I have tried everything, but you are certainly welcome to try. He’s been raising all kinds of holy hell around here. Just last week a youngster started mouthing off that the spirit was no big deal. That night the spirit made an appearance and pushed the boy into a cookfire. Poor devil nearly burned to death. Won’t never have full use of his hands again.”

“I didn’t know spirits could physically harm people. I thought they just, scare you,” Florian said.

“This one does more than scare you, he will kill you if you give him half a chance,” Leo said. “Comes screaming out of the tombs most ever night. People afraid to come in the canyon, business is bad, way bad.”

“I done tried everything,” Korret said. “I made an offering, did a seance, tried a cleansing, even sacrificed two goats and chicken. Nothing worked, just seemed to make him madder and madder.”

“Any idea what he is upset about?” Myca asked.

Korret shook her head. “Nope, not a clue. Has to be something that happened in the tombs recently though. Spirits don’t just turn mean and vindictive, something set him off, something set him off real bad.”

“Any idea who he is, well, who he used to be?” Florian asked.

“You know, he don’t exactly talk much,” Leo said.

“He screams about his wife and about the devil, but you can barely understand any of it. When he is on the prowl your first priority ain’t to be trying to talk to him.”

“You say he comes out of the tombs at night?” Myca said.

“That’s right,” Korret said. “You can hear him coming from somewhere way back deep. Has to be one of the last grave rooms they dug out before they stopped using the tombs. No telling which one. Some of the rich folks disguised the entrances to keep the looters out. Poor folk graves would be back there too, but in different rooms.”

“If we went in there, how would we know where to go?” Myca asked. “Are there any markings to go by?”

“Sure there are,” Korret said. “One of the last areas carved out had a circular lobby, an atrium. In the center is a stone column covered in serpents.”

“Serpents? Real serpents?” Florian asked.

“No, carved out of stone. The craftsmanship is remarkable,” Korret answered.

“So, you have been there,” Myca said. “You could show us the way.”

Korret smiled and shook her head. “Oh, I could, but this old girl ain’t going nowhere near those tombs, certainly not into the depths. To be honest, I been thinking about taking a little trip down to the Castle Crete.”

“You don’t need to go nowhere,” Leo said. “This spirit will get tired, sooner or later.”

“It is getting worse and worse. Every time it attacks it is worse and someone gets hurt,” Korret said. “Might just be time to give this place to the spirits. It was made for them after all.”

“You two are going to fix this, right?” Leo said, putting his massive arm around Korret.

Myca smiled. “We are going to try,” she said. “We are going to try.”

Beggar's Canyon - Myca's Story will be released on 1 March 2023. The eBook version is available for pre-order on Amazon.com