Cursed Souls Blood, Brains & Rock'n'roll

Chapter 1 To whet the appetite

The clock was showing nineteen forty, and Daniel Molloy was beginning to worry. "Where the hell is he?" he cursed to himself. Molloy had never been patient, and certainly not cautious, in the matter of his investigative journalism. In fact, it was these character flaws that were the reason why he was now in a small town called Springwood, sitting in his Eldorado Cadillac parked across the street from No. 666 Bachman Street, pursuing a story of questionable value and veracity. If he had been a little more careful in his attempts to expose another celebrity, perhaps his life story would have taken a very different direction and the mention of his name among professional journalists wouldn't have aroused such open contempt.

The old days, when the press called Daniel Molloy "Destroyer of the Colossus" have already left behind, as well as the fabulous fees that the editors of various magazines were happy to pay him for any "dirty" details about the life of some new-appeared actress or singer. As Molloy himself believed, the main duty of a great journalist was to bring the truth to the masses, to the common people. But for some completely inexplicable, and most importantly stable coincidence, the truth, which brought to the editor Daniel Molloy, was always related to information about who from the celebrities sleeps with whom, who cheats on his other half, who is a relative of whom, who hasn't been to church for a long time, who is a fan of illegal drugs and alcoholic beverages, and everything else in the same way. To be fair, it should be noted that Molloy did have a talent for getting the information he needed almost out of nowhere. He would probably have made a great spy if he had decided to make a career in the military, but the soldier's lifestyle never seemed tempting or interesting to him. The craft of journalism on the contrary seemed to him the only path in his life on which he could achieve greatness. However, this path didn't lead him to greatness; because of his tactless antics and interference in the private lives of many celebrities, Molloy constantly received endless subpoenas.

Court, as everyone knows, isn't a pleasant thing, and the fact that Molloy was always the defendant didn't do his reputation any favors. As time went on, the number of subpoenas and lawsuits grew, but Daniel Molloy believed that sooner or later all those one-day stars and those who should have left the stage long ago would simply give up on him and obediently continue to provide him with the sensations he needed. But, like most things in this world, all these legal proceedings required a very immodest investment of money, much of which was received by Molloy's many lawyers, as he was often faced with several lawsuits at once from people whose honor, they believed he had defamed. Sometimes it even got ridiculous: Molloy was sued by people he had never met in his life and whose private life, even if it became public, would be of no interest to anyone. And yet, as time went on, his financial health only got worse due to the fact that even his lawyers couldn't find a legitimate excuse for his provocative behavior. At one very unpleasant moment, Molloy discovered that he didn't have a single dime left in his bank account, which meant that he would no longer be able to pay his lawyers' fees, nor would he be able to compensate those individuals who were lucky enough to win their cases in court.

And as if that weren't enough, the number of lawsuits against Molloy skyrocketed after news of his sudden but natural bankruptcy became the most discussed topic in social circles. As if to mock the bankrupt, many celebrities, whom he had managed to mess up in his time, brought lawsuits against him for amounts so small for themselves that they wouldn't even notice if such amounts suddenly disappeared from their pockets. Such lawsuits were a kind of taunt to a defeated opponent, and Molloy understood this perfectly well. He also understood that even such small sums of money were an impossible burden for him, and in the near future his articles would be only interesting to people from the yellow press, whose headlines sounded something like "She cheated on him with an alien who turned out to be his sister's brother", or "My husband is a ghost and leaves behind unwashed dishes and ectoplasm". For him, such a scenario was like a personal insult and was the first alarm bell that he had probably taken a wrong turn somewhere along the road to the greatness.