But when he finally opened it, the balance was zero. Zero. Had they been hacked? But there were no records of transactions out—or in—since he’d last sold some of Bob’s ephemera. Which made no sense. People should be tripping over themselves. There were so many other Derricks out there. Fans who had either read the books from the beginning or heard about them early on through word of mouth or come to them later when the word of mouth became a roar. And since the TV show, even more had fallen down the rabbit hole. Realized Swords and Shadows was a much better place to spend your time than the real world.

The sample on the dark web did not allow for comments. But that didn’t mean people didn’t have them, as Derrick discovered when he clicked on Reddit’s Swords and Shadows thread to gather clues as to what was happening.

People were clearly interested. The reaction to the excerpt from Bob’s first chapter had been swift. And withering. Dozens of people, maybe even a hundred, had read the sample paragraphs Derrick had posted, the words that had thrilled him to the marrow, and then come back to Reddit to leave dismissive comments.

What was that crap?

I wouldn’t let anyone PAY me to read that.

Talk about purple prose!

It reads like a bad mashup of every Swords and Shadows cliche.

R. M. Haldon wouldn’t touch that with a ten-foot pole.

What did they do—hire someone on Craigslist or Fiverr?

That’s simply bad fan fiction.

Was that a joke?

The more Derrick read, the angrier he got. What Bob had written was good. Better than good. Derrick was sure of it.

The phone rang, startling him. His mom. Mud and moon, Derrick swore to himself. “Hi, Mom!” He tried to add a lilt to his voice. If she didn’t know what was going on, he wasn’t going to tell her.

That hope was dashed a second later. “I just checked the account. Why is there no money in it?”

“These things probably take more time than a pair of socks.”

“Where are all those so-called fans of yours? No one is buying. I don’t understand. People were willing to pay a hundred for a piece of used dental floss, but they won’t buy the book everyone’s been asking for?”

Derrick had reached his own conclusions. “Yeah, but those things were different. We had pictures of him using the items. People seem worried that this is just fan fiction.” And it was true there was a lot of bad fan fiction out there. Half of what went on at Mysts of Cascadia was basically bad fanfic.