Wayne shook the thought out of his mind. It didn’t matter either way. She could have her games. He was beyond content in ignoring them.
What did matter was that they had gone out. The Elysium Order would surely be scouring neighboring cities for any vampires that managed to escape their wrath.
At that moment, Wayne made a decision. They couldn’t stay in Detroit any longer. The moment the girls returned, he would head out, find a large van that could have its windows blacked out, and they would drive. They would drive as long as they needed.
Clear to the other side of the country if they had to.
Author’s Note 005
All of the following is completely optional to read. This is no narrative. It in no way affects the story. I’m mostly going to ramble for a few words.
Hello, thanks for reading.
Book six will continue as scheduled. No intermissions or interludes. Tune in next time for 006.001.
I hope you enjoyed our brief interlude to Lansing. I definitely enjoyed writing it. It was fun to take a break from the events surrounding Brakket and Hell. Wayne is actually one of my favorite characters despite his relative lack of prominence compared to the other main characters.
You may have noticed that there is still a mystery surrounding Lansing. Wayne got in and he got out, and we now know what happened to reveal magic to most of the world (even if it hasn’t had much impact on the main story just yet), but we don’t know how events started or why. And really, I hadn’t intended to focus on either of those two questions.
This entire arc was originally going to be an Extra chapter. Wayne laying in his hospital bed after the Book 3 events at Zoe’s home, he reminisced about meeting Zoe while a certain vampire stopped by to visit. While it could have been squeezed down to a single full-sized chapter (similar to Nel’s Extra chapter), it read like a history book. Everything was so condensed and compressed that it wasn’t fun to read.
Besides, that version had no real personality to Serena or Sarah.
So, while writing this, I thought that perhaps it would be a good idea to do a Wayne part two at the end of book six. The Lansing portion wrapped up nicely, but there is still more.
However, I no longer think that’s a good idea. Latest chapter views took a moderate sized dip over the last few chapters. So I probably won’t do that anytime in the near future.
I’ll look for other solutions, but for now, we’ll be going back to Eva and Brakket Academy. I hope you enjoy book six!
Now for some side notes:
So, not much to say in terms of side announcements, but then, this was a short book and the last Author’s Notes was a mere two weeksish ago.
First, another thank you to everyone who has donated through either Patreon or PayPal. It actually hasn’t been long enough for Patreon to tick over, but I appreciate it all the same.
I’d like again to point out that a good amount of referrals to this story come from Top Web Fiction. As such, I would appreciate any extra votes in my direction. It is a quick click once a week and helps a lot.
And, like I said in the previous notes, if you like another story more than mine, go vote for them. If their referrer list is anything similar to mine, they’ll appreciate it.
Anyway, enough babbling. On to the trivia section!
– Serena is the second character able to manipulate perception in some manner or other, the first being the jezebeth that attacked Zoe. The jezebeth was a more complete illusion, but Serena counts. Zagan is a powerful guy who could kill you with an absent thought, but to me, these two are scarier. Are you thinking what you think or what they want you to think? When Wayne was beating down those vampires in 005.002, was that actually Serena on the ground? Or was she standing off to the side, watching how he reacted and maybe ready to attack? You just never know.
I don’t know if that is really trivia given it is a sort of personal thing, but this was a short book, not much to talk about.
-More reading recommendation:
Skulduggery Pleasant (tvtropes link). A young girl meets a skeleton! He’s actually a detective. Time for some adventures! Perhaps for younger audiences, but that doesn’t mean it is bad.
It’s a book series that has actually been published, meaning you’ll have to buy it rather than read it free online. Sorry about that. I’ve actually only read the first book, but it was pretty good. The rest will have to go on my ever-increasing reading backlog.
Stats:
Chapters: 5 (+zero Extras)
Wordcount: 23,424 (according to WordPress’ built in word counter (including Extras))
POV counts (max of one count per chapter (including Extras)):
Wayne: 5
That’s all, thanks for reading book five. I hope you enjoy book six.