It's a Rhondulus

The opening looked a lot like a sea anemone - the sphincter was made up of triangular membranes that quivered and contracted when touched. Brogan gingerly peered into the hole, using the wand that he still carried, and poked until it extended a little wider. It was a window alright, but very hard to see into - he wanted to glimpse the real General and find where he was operating out from.

The weight of the beast's tail might collapse down upon him at any moment. Nervina came to look over his shoulder into the portal - his eyesight was superior to detail, and very good seeing through the dark as well.

"My God" he exclaimed stepping back fast, "it's a Rhondulus controlling the General...".   He whispered then: “and not a mortal at all”.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series 

The Deeper a Magic is, the More Normal it can Appear

Sometimes when deep magic is before you, it can be taken as something quite ordinary. Only when looking back does one question what had just taken place, and make note that it had been queer or unusual. The deeper a magic is, the more normal it can appear.

For Marley this was one of those times, as she stood and stared at the creature before her - half man, half beast - almost attractive ... but no, she would not let her thoughts take her there (as he had hoped) - for it did not, and would not, could not, feel natural.

His chest shone with the oil that had dripped down in trickling beads, as the girls began front and back to smooth it into his leathered skin.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Born into the Moment's Reality

When Puck told a story it was always a good one.
When he described a scene it was as if you were actually there.

Puck could project what it was he saw in his mind's eye right before you, and with a holy-o-graphic imagination the vision would shimmer and transform itself into a living history, as though plucked from the Akashic archives, born into the moment's reality.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series 

A Snake that Bore a Head at Both Ends

He recollected the moments leading up to this sharp loss - the plain before him glittered magnificently with metal as far as he could see - with thousands of armoury that glanced and crashed all around him. Smoke and blood clogged the nostrils, madness seized the collective mind, and with thoughts no longer, this body of men were committing themselves into an empty and frenzied end.

Within the grace of the moment, time appeared to slow, and Red saw an arm raised above him - he waited tediously to feel the slice.

He had been distracted in a second by a curious image inscribed on the skin of that arm ... of a snake that bore a head at both ends, curled round with one head devouring the other.

The arm descended heavily and with that strike the helmet flipped back to reveal his attacker...

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

The Dark-hearted

The dark-hearted are not vampires, ghouls, or any such other - they are simply humans gone bad: who have been morally challenged, have battled and lost - men and women who have forsaken all that truly matters - no longer being able to take in a sunrise, or care for any other … not even for themselves. 

Empathy, virtue, cheerfulness and nobility are crudely exchanged for their wretched desires. And just as an artery to the heart can become clotted, selfishness over time closes those portals where the light of life can come in through to nourish the soul.

—  Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

One Magnificent Truth

There is one deep magic, one great secret, and one magnificent truth: Life is like that.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series