QSFer E. H. Lupton has a new MM historical urban fantasy out, Wisconsin Gothic book 3: Troth.
Sam and Ulysses have finally moved in together. Unfortunately, the new apartment is not quite the safe haven they’d hoped for–their neighbors have a ghost problem, and the building has a spider infestation. To make matters more complicated, Ulysses’s brother Laz is back from Vietnam, and he’s not happy about Sam’s presence in Ulysses’s life.
Laz’s anger isn’t their only challenge. When their magical bond starts acting up, Ulysses’s increasing discomfort and attempts to fix it drive a wedge between him and Sam just when it becomes apparent that the spiders are no accident and a shadowy cult may mean them harm. Maybe they’re not done with Sam’s grandfather, Julius Sterling, after all.
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Excerpt
The problem was that every time Ulysses got everyone calmed down, Laz went and opened his mouth again. The guys weren’t even angry at him, per se—they were young and scared and on their way to the draft board pretty soon. If only Laz would stop goading them, Ulysses could buy a round of beers and everything would be fine.
“I just don’t think you have the balls for it,” Laz said, and the biggest and drunkest of the guys grabbed a bottle off the bar.
It was an empty bottle, so when he turned it upside down, no one got beer on their shoes, and the fact that Ulysses was clutching at that probably indicated how badly things were going. The guy was easily Sam’s height and two hundred fifty pounds; he looked like he worked construction when he wasn’t harassing hapless ex–Air Force captains in bars. Not, in other words, the kind of person Ulysses would have chosen to pick a fight with.
“I’m not going to stand here and be insulted by some fascist,” the guy growled, and that stung. Ulysses bit back an angry reaction.
“You’re free to leave,” Laz drawled. The area immediately around them seemed to be holding its breath. Ulysses wished desperately for a bouncer. And then—
The bartender dropped a glass, which shattered. Laz startled badly, head whipping around, and then he bent forward with a broken noise of pain, clutching his temples. Everyone stared at him, Ulysses with concern, one hand hovering uselessly an inch above Laz’s back, the rest with something between suspicion and pity. Laz straightened up an instant later, eyes wild and searching for Ulysses.
“We have to go,” he said.
The huge guy took his moment and swung the bottle like a baseball bat. In a move that could only have been guided by foresight, Laz snaked a hand up and hit the inside of the man’s forearm, hard. The man yelped, in pain or surprise, and two seconds later Laz was holding the bottle while the man staggered back, hand clutched to his chest. Laz raised the captured bottle like he was about to break it over the guy’s head. His erstwhile attacker flinched.
“Be careful,” Laz said, arresting his momentum just above the man’s head. “You could hurt someone.” He spun the bottle, set it gently down on the bar, and took off at a dead run.
It was a warm night and the door to the bar had been propped open. Laz didn’t break stride as he exited and took off down the street. When Ulysses made it out, he looked down the line of streetlights to see Laz sprinting after a man in a dark suit, who was himself running after—
Sam.
Ulysses ran, gasping, after them. Sam was usually pretty fast, but he kept checking behind him, which tugged him off course and slowed him down. He was glancing over his shoulder as he reached the intersection with East Wash and stepped into the street without looking. Ulysses winced, hard, heart racing at the squeal as a driver slammed on their brakes. Sam danced away from the car, somehow unhurt. Even from far up the street Ulysses could hear the driver curse.
Sam took a shuffling half step farther from the hood, raising both hands in a mea culpa gesture, and then started running again. The delay had allowed the man in the suit to close the gap, and halfway down the next block he stretched out his hand to catch Sam’s arm.
Ulysses tried to draw breath to shout a warning—couldn’t—but then Laz was there, coiling himself to leap.
An instant later the man was on the ground, grappling with Laz. Ulysses looked at the two of them, grabbed Sam’s hand, and pulled.
“We can’t just leave him,” Sam hissed.
“He can handle himself.” But even as Ulysses got Sam moving, the stranger was throwing Laz off of him and jumping back to his feet. He looked wildly at the two of them. Ulysses stepped between him and Sam, pulling the switchblade out of his pocket, and the man retreated a pace. A large, dark car rolled up, and he dashed into the street and jumped into the passenger side. Seconds later it took off in a squeal of rubber.
Laz, halfway through getting up, winced at the sudden noise. Ulysses walked over to offer him a hand. “What the hell was that?” he asked. When Laz just stared at him, he added, “How much of that did you see, back in the bar?”
“I don’t know,” Laz said. He ran his hands over his scalp, as though he had enough hair to get disarrayed. “Bits.” He scowled. “Aren’t you forgetting to say something? Perhaps thank you, Laz, for saving my boyfriend?”
“Thank you for saving him,” Ulysses said automatically. “But since when does your foresight work like that?”
Laz shrugged. His chest was still heaving from the run, but the openness had left his face again. “It comes and goes.” He bent to tie the laces on one of his boots, then got up again, a little stiffly. “Speaking of, I’m going to go find a drink. Somewhere that’s not infested with motherfuckers like those guys back at the Sett.” He spat. “You coming? Or—” he cut his eyes over to Sam, who was still standing where Ulysses had left him, face pale in the lamplight. “Guess you got other problems.”
Something tense and unhappy settled into the pit of Ulysses’s stomach. Sam didn’t say anything, just looked at the two of them, lips pressed together. When Ulysses looked back at his brother, Laz was already walking down the street.
“Laz!”
“See you around,” Laz shouted over his shoulder, waving one hand lazily. He didn’t turn back.
Author Bio
E. H. Lupton (she/they) lives in Madison, WI with her family. Her debut novel, Dionysus in Wisconsin, was shortlisted for the 2024 Lammy award. Her poems have been published in a number of journals, including Paranoid Tree, Utopia Science Fiction, and House of Zolo’s Journal of Speculative Literature. She is also one half of the duo behind the hit podcast Ask a Medievalist. In her free time, she enjoys running long distances and painting. Find her website at ehlupton.com.
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