Liam Davis & The Raven

Liam Davis & The Raven

Anyta Sunday

First published in 2014 by Anyta Sunday

Buerogemeinschaft ATP24, Am Treptower Park 24, 12435 Berlin

An Anyta Sunday publication

www.anytasunday.com

Copyright 2013 Anyta Sunday

Cover Design 2014 Caroline Wimmer (Streiflicht Fotographie)

Content
Edited by
Teresa Crawford

Line
Edited by
Lynda Lamb

Copy
Edited by
HJS Editing

All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced without prior permission of the copyright owner of this book.

All the characters in this book are fictional and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

This book contains explicit sexual content.

To Pittsburgh, for all the adventures we shared together . . .

Chapter 1

Freddy Krueger was the reason I was sitting in the back of some guy’s car, speeding to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

I replayed the evening’s events over and over, but if I had really thought about it—difficult with the burgeoning concussion—the point of no return had passed that morning . . .

Man Dead a Week in Central Pittsburgh Apartment

I lingered at the newspaper stand with the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette—
paid for and
tucked tightly under my arm—nudging the strap of my messenger bag. The headline begged me to come closer and check out the lurid report.

A breeze folded the corner of the paper, hiding half the columns and making it impossible to read at my current intellectual-who-shouldn’t-care-for-sensationalist-reporting-but-no-o
ne-has-to-know-I’m-actually-riveted distance.

Pushing up my glasses, I glanced
to either side of the empty pavement. Empty, save the vendor, but he was tucked behind his stand scratching at his Sudoku. Quickly, I sidled closer to the rickety red rack. I lifted the flap of paper and scanned the first paragraph:

A man has been found dead in his apartment. Police say he appears to have been dead for close to a week. The body was discovered after neighbors complained about insistent whining from the deceased’s near-starved cat. . . .

“Ya gotta be kiddin’!” the vendor chimed in a heavy Pittsburgh accent, pushing in his racks under the safety of overhead balconies. I lurched away from the rack, from the cat that, despite being “near-starved,” hadn’t yet started chewing on his owner. . . 

“
Ya know it’s goin’ to rain,” he said, stretching a finger toward the thick gray clouds in the distance. As if to emphasize his point, a gust rolled down the street, rustling the papers and whistling through the gutter grates.

“Better be on my way, then.” If I hurried, I’d miss the
downpour. The clouds appeared lighter around the city’s prominent Cathedral of Learning, close to where I was heading.

Maybe I’d be lucky.

Readjusting the strap of the messenger bag carrying my essentials—laptop, pens, notebook—I hurried toward campus while scouring the articles on the first pages of the
Post-Gazette
.

Some of the headlines
lacked zest and catchiness, something that I wouldn’t let happen with
Scribe
this semester if I got promoted to features editor.

When
I got promoted to features editor. If I wanted the apprenticeship at my father’s firm, I had to prove I could hold an editorial position—for two consecutive years.

I swallowed the lump of excited nerves that’d been bundling in my throat all week and hurried toward the large
, concrete block of hideousness that housed the magical world of the student magazine.

Just a few pathways stretched
between me and my reporting assignments for the semester. Maybe I’d be reassigned the student politics column I wrote last year. Or, since the final year of my undergraduate studies had finally accepted me into its embrace, maybe the chief would give me my promotion—

Clash! Thunk!

I hit metal and tumbled, landing with a smack against the pavement. The newspaper ripped. A tingle of pain burst through my wrists and everything blurred. An amused voice sounded from my left, and I shifted into a crouch, brushing the grit off my grazed palms.

A guy in a black
-and-silver wheelchair sat with his arms folded. “If you wanted to catch my attention, you could’ve started with ‘hello’.”

“I didn’t see you,” I said, plucking up my glasses and getting to my feet. The frames were a little scratched, but not too bad. I slid the
glasses back on.

The spiky-haired guy
smiled. Tattoos of hummingbirds trailed up his arms, and his pierced brow was spectacularly arched.

“Sorry,” I said, collecting the paper and folding it. “Are you all right?”

“Better than you are.” He rolled his wheelchair back a few feet and then forward again. “Chair’s good too. Word of advice, watch where you’re going next time.”

Well
 . . . he had a point. I should be more observant, especially considering I prided myself on noticing details others tended to overlook.

Someone behind me caught his attention, and he waved. Sparing one more amused glance my way, he rolled around me and up the path.

A splash of rainwater hit my nose. The clocktower in the distance chimed the hour.

I jogged the remainder of the path just as
the splashes snapped into a downpour.

Sopping
, I scurried into the concrete block of hideousness.

Surely, t
he day could only get better.

With its flaky wallpaper and threadbare carpet,
the
Scribe
boardroom provided a wonderful view of the proudly-towering neo-gothic Cathedral of Learning. Twelve clever minds seated at an oval table readied to make the room my favorite place in the world.

I slipped into the room
, and a whiff of tension hit the back of my nose with a tickle. Editor-in-Chief, Harry Benedict, settled his steel gaze on me, flustering me at once.
Yes, sir, I know exactly what you’re going to say
—

“
Nice of you to finally join us, Liam. Make it a goal this semester to pay as much attention to punctuality as to your impeccable reports.”

Jack Briggs and Marc Jillson
—kings in here because they ran the most successful opinions and party page columns of the last decade—sniggered across the notebook-studded table.

Jack calmed down and
Jill came snorting after. Hannah, next to him, shifted her notes, though she should have lifted her notebook to protect her face from the discharge rushing her way.

I swung off my
messenger bag, shrugged out of my wet sweater, and palmed the cool metal back of the last free seat as the chief gave Jack and Jill a bland stare that shut them up quite nicely.

“Let’s cont
inue, shall we? Right.” Chief Benedict opened the frayed leather binder before him, thumbing the worn spine with tender strokes. “This year we are going to have a few structural changes.”

My pulse picked up, ringing in my ears.
The chief came sharply into focus. He stroked the beard he’d spent the last year cultivating—to stop pulling the hair on his head—and scanned the paper before him.
Changes.
Yes. This was it. His gaze lifted straight to mine. Any second now, he’d promote me to the position I’d worked toward my entire undergraduate education.

He
pursed his lips and leaned back in his chair. One by one, he looked at us: content editors, copy editors, and columnists. But he lingered on me, and surely that was a spark in his eye?

“Tell me, what are an editor’s best attributes?”

Was he drawing this out on purpose? Perhaps he was demonstrating how to hook an audience. Heat thickened in the room, the frictional anticipation of twelve ambitious student journalists. Come on, chief.
Look at me. Let me answer, and then we can get on with the promotion.

The chief
laid his gaze on Jack. The lucky son-of-a-gun. “Vision,” Jack said, shrugging his broad shoulders like it was obvious. “The ability to see beyond what the magazine
is
to what it
could be
.”

“Good. What else?”

Chief was really going to milk this today, wasn’t he?

Jill’s turn
. He whipped his sandy bangs out of his brown eyes with a jerk of his head. His slightly upturned nose made him look as arrogant as he was. “He must be able to draw in readers with eye-catching headlines and choose the most evocative photographs and captions.”

“He
or
she. Good.” Chief Benedict swiveled his gaze to me with a subtle raise of his brow.

I returned it.
“They must also understand the technical aspects of publishing.”

The
Scribe
quarters were my second home. Maybe even my first, since I knew it better than my own apartment. Some nights I stayed here until the wee hours of the morning and didn’t leave campus at all. I knew this place. All the ins and outs. Everything.

C
hief knew that too.

He
narrowed his eyes, and glanced at his binder. Again, he stroked the spine with his thumb. “
And
,” he continued, “editors must not only be exceptional writers. They must be creative. They must be able to see the team’s creative vision, then help
materialize
that vision.”

He picked up a
sheet of paper, and the light from the windows behind him made the paper transparent. What did it say? Were those names? If the chief would just tilt—

“
With that in mind, I’m doing something a little . . . unexpected this semester.” He rested the paper back in the folder. “I’m reassigning most of you to new positions. Something that I feel will challenge you, broaden your horizons, and make you better columnists and editors.”

G
etting the features editor position would definitely be a good challenge. I straightened my glasses and pulled out the pen I always,
always
carried in my pocket. Grabbing my notebook, I was ready to take notes of the new structure.

Jack roll
ed his eyes and pulled at the black Desperado T-shirt that hung loosely on his frame. If he were an ounce less of a prick, he’d be an interesting guy to have a conversation with; as it was, he needed taking down a peg or two. If I ever got to be executive editor, I could do it, too.
Oh yes, my pen is mightier than any sword . . .

“Jack
,” Chief Benedict said suddenly, “say goodbye to the opinions column and hello to politics.”

I stilled
, my pen scratching to a halt against the fresh page of my notebook. “Jack, politics?”

“Me, politics? But you need me for the
opinions—”

The chief drew a sharp line in the air that
silenced Jack. “Hannah will take over opinions for the semester.” Jack gripped the table, his lips parting as if to start protesting again, but the cold, staunch stare of Chief Benedict made him hold his tongue. Instead he jerked back violently in his chair and raked a hand through his short black hair.

I blinked down at my page.
Just a minor blow
. I didn’t need to run the politics column if I got the features editor position. That would take up most of my time anyway. I probably wouldn’t have time to contribute regularly.

The chief
kept delegating the new positions, earning some wide smiles alongside the disappointed scowls.