It was noon. Dantalion peered at the time on the computer screen and nearly sighed in relief. He skipped breakfast this morning. A decision which left him both starving and grumpy. Being a literary agent was a blessing and a curse. He enjoyed reading, but even that could be a tedious task considering how much slush he had to shift through on a daily basis. He could only handle seeing so many chosen ones and love triangle manuscriptsin his inbox.
He stood up and stretched his long legs. Nearing the window, Dantalion studied the streets below and noticed the heavy traffic. Cars dotted as far as his eyes could see. The bane of metropolitan existence. Behind him, Dantalion could hear the familiar footfall of the assistant—or whatever official position he held, he wasn't too sure as to what he actually did around the agency—coming towards his office. Sure enough, the door flew open without so much as a courtesy knock.
"Daaantalion," greeted Gilles, loud enough for everyone in the building if not the entire publishing world to hear.
"What is it?" Dantalion asked, his voice low. He yawned at his own faint reflection in the window and longed to go home early even though that meant pushing all his work onto another day which he would surely later regret.
Gilles sauntered over to Dantalion's cluttered desk and plopped down on one of the tidier, less mountainous edges. "Oh my, silly, we do this every day. You ask what I want and I say I'm collecting orders for lunch. So what do you want besides my beating heart?" Gilles fluttered his eyelashes, but still Dantalion kept his back facing him.
"I don't think my stomach will find your heart very agreeable, so don't go carving it out for me. Save it for Baalberith. It's not as if he has one of his own." Dantalion scowled thinking of that man, one of his biggest rivals in the industry.
Their rivalry—in no simpler terms—was due to Baalberith's constant bragging about his superstar clients, including his own nephew who scored a million-dollar advance deal—uncommon for most authors. He once looked up to Baalberith, but now he glowered every time he thought or spoke of him. Dantalion now had an impressive list of clients, but still something was lacking. He was looking for that one client who could give him higher prominence, one that would keep that cigar eater up at night in sweats.
Gilles groaned, arching his back dramatically as if he was swooning from Dantalion's rebuff. "If you change your mind, I'm always available."
"I want the best pizza in the city," Dantalion finally blurted, turning around to rummage in his wallet for money which he had left lying next to his keyboard. He fished out a fifty-dollar bill and tossed it to Gilles. "Everything on it."
"Everything such as pineapple?" Gilles jotted down his request in a small notebook with a wry smile.
Dantalion cast him a dark side-glance. "Get the hell out of my office."
Gilles hopped off the desk and walked briskly towards the door. "Well, I'm off." He grinned over his shoulder. "Don't miss me too much while I'm gone."
"As if," muttered Dantalion as the flamboyant man disappeared into the hall.
Once again, he was alone in silence except for the occasional thump and bump coming from the other offices. He slumped back down in his chair and eyed the disheveled mess in front of him. He willed it to clean and tidy itself, each stack of forms and manuscripts sorting itself into appropriate sections. But, of course, that didn't happen. He was only human after all. Magic was only real in books.
Gathering his willpower, he began the tedious task of sorting and throwing away unnecessary things. It took him a good ten minutes, but he felt feeble like he had just finished heavy yard work in the blistering heat of summer. He was a little extra sometimes. He admired his handiwork and smiled to himself. Amon and Mamon, his two interns, would be impressed. Too bad it was their day off.
His stomach growled. It would still be a while before Gilles returned. His pizza alone would require a waiting period of at least twenty minutes let alone everyone else's requests which might take the Frenchman halfway across the city. Perhaps he should have just gone and picked up a burger and some fries himself.
He shook his mouse, awaking the dozing computer. There was no use focusing on the hunger. He could use this time to clear out his inbox. It was likely he would be sending his typical rejection response a dozen times over just as he did every day.
Dantalion scrolled to the bottom of his inbox, grimacing at the thought of the new forty-five emails he received within the last few hours. He clicked on the oldest and skimmed the first few lines of the query letter. It was an automatic rejection.
He replied with the standard message: "Unfortunately, this is not for me. I wish you the best in finding an agent to represent your work." He repeated this process for the next seven queries.
Dantalion almost always felt bad about sending rejections, but some of the queries were absolutely terrible as well as the sample writing. The number one reason for rejection, however, was simply because the senders did not follow his guidelines—the very guidelines written in bold below his profile on the agency's website.
Just one more email and he'll call it quits. Dantalion's eyes settled over the headline: "QUERY: The Epic of the Dead King – Fantasy." He clicked and read through the query letter word for word. It was solid, he had to admit. But Dantalion remained neutral. Good query letters didn't mean the writing was quality. It just meant the person had a decent sense of an idea and some editing skills. Lord knows how many unedited letters he had gotten over the years—not to mention just this week.
The five sample pages were pasted into the body of the email as per guidelines. That alone made Dantalion sigh in relief. He leaned forward and gave the sample pages his full attention. The hook was there. The writing was excellent. The pages were motivating enough to keep reading. It was also a genre he represented. He was keenly interested in mythological creatures, especially gods.
He hesitated briefly and typed a response to—he paused looking at the signed name. Gilbert "Gilgamesh" Allingham. He rolled his eyes. Did that guy really call himself Gilgamesh? He shook his head. Authors were a strange bunch after all. William Twining, one of the authors he represented, had the tendency to talk to himself in public—usually concerning money.
Dantalion stared at the screen blankly before finishing his reply: "Dear Mr. Allingham, thank you for your submission. I am interested in reading your manuscript. Please send me a full. You may send this as an attachment. I will send you a confirmation once it reaches my inbox. Please note, it may take up to thirty days for me to get back to you concerning the manuscript."
It had been a long time since he requested a full manuscript and it felt good to feel confident about someone's work. He hoped the rest of the book was as interesting as the sample. Just as he hit send, Gilles barged through the door in tow with his delicious smelling pizza.
Don't take too long, Allingham.