Barrick is lost behind the Shadowline, facing all the terrible dangers and mysteries of that magical twilight land. Briony is alone in a treacherous foreign court, struggling to survive with no weapon left to her but her wits. And in the midst of all this, something unbelievable is awakening underneath Southmarch, something powerful and terrible that the world has not seen for thousands of years.

In this third volume Barrick and Briony, along with Qinnitan – the Autarch’s desperate, escaped slave – a loyal soldier named Ferras Vansen, and a tiny handful of other folk, ordinary and extraordinary, must find a way to save their world, or else witness the rise of a terrible new age – an age of unending darkness.

Flames Rising has a short excerpt from this new novel by Tad Williams.

Shadowrise is available at Amazon.com.

Shadowrise by Tad Williams

Briony would have been one of the first to admit that the throne room back in Southmarch might be dignified, even impressive, but it was not awesome. The ceiling was full of fine old carvings but they were hard to see in the dark chamber except on festival days when all the candles were set blazing. The ceiling itself was high, but only in comparison to most of the rest of the rooms – there were higher ceilings within many of the great houses of the March Kingdoms. And the colored windows that in her childhood had formed her strongest idea of heaven were not even as nice as those in the great Trigonate temple in the outer keep beyond the Raven’s Gate. Still, Briony had always thought that there could not be much difference between her home and the other royal palaces of Eion. Her father was a king, after all, and his father and grandfather had been kings before him — a line that went back generations. Surely the monarchs of Syan and Brenland and Perikal did not live much more grandly, she had thought. But since she had come to famous Broadhall Palace, Briony had quickly lost her illusions.

From the first hour of her capture, as the coach surrounded by a troop of soldiers had passed through the portcullis and gate and onto the palace grounds, she had begun to feel foolish. How could she have thought her family something other than rustic — the same sort of faded, countrified nobles that she and Barrick had found so amusing back home? And now she stood beside Jino in the throne room itself, the voluminous chamber which for centuries had been the heart of the entire continent, and which still was the capitol of one of the most powerful nations in the world, and her own witless pretension was a bone in her throat.

The Broadhall throne hall was vast, to begin with, the ceiling twice as lofty as that of Southmarch’s greatest temple, carved and painted in such wonderful, startling detail that it looked as though an entire population of Funderlings had worked on it for a century. (That was exactly what had happened, she found out later, although here in Syan they called their small people Kallikans.) Each brilliant window stained with sun-bright colors looked as big as the Basilisk Gate back home, and there were dozens of them, so that the huge room seemed to be crowned with rainbows. The floor was a swirling pattern of black and white marble squares, an intricate circular mosaic called Perin’s Eye — famous throughout the world, Erasmias Jino informed her as he led her across it. She followed him past the huge but empty throne and the company of armored knights in blue, red and gold who all stood solemnly against the throne room’s great walls, still and silent as statues.

“You must permit me to show you the gardens at some point,” the marquis told her. “The throne hall is very fine, of course, but the royal gardens are truly extraordinary.”

I take your point, fellow — this is what a true kingdom looks like. She kept her face cheerfully empty, but Jino’s high-handedness griped her. You do not think much of Southmarch or our small problems and you want to remind me what real grandeur and real power look like. Yes, I take your point. You think my family’s crown is no more impressive than the sham crown of wood and gold paint that I wore on the stage.

But the heart of a kingdom is not small just because the kingdom is, she thought.

Jino led her through a door at the back of the throne room, this one surrounded by a group of guards in different, although complementary, shades of blue and red to those lined along the walls of the throne room. “The King’s Cabinet,” said Jino, opening the door and gesturing for her to go in. A herald in a brilliant sky-blue tabard embroidered with Syan’s famous sword and flowering almond branch, asked her name and title, then stamped his gold-topped stick on the floor.

“Briony te Meriel te Krisanthe M’Connord Eddon, princess regent of the March Kingdoms,” he announced, as casually as if she were the fourth or fifth princess who’d come through the door that day. For all Briony knew, she might have been: two or three dozen guards, servants, and beautifully dressed courtiers filled the richly-appointed room, and though many of them watched her entrance, few showed any signs of overwhelming interest.

“Ah, of course, Olin’s child!” said the bearded man on the high-backed couch, waving her forward. He was dressed in serious, dark clothes and his voice was deep and strong. “I see his face in yours. This is an unexpected pleasure.”

“Thank you, your Majesty.” Briony made her bows. Enander Karallios was the most powerful ruler in Eion and looked the part. He had gone a little to fat in recent years, but he was a big man and managed to carry it well. His hair was dark, almost black, with only a little gray, and his face, though rounded by age and weight, was still strong and impressive, brow high, eyes wide-set, his nose strong and sharp, so that it was still quite possible to see why as a younger man he had been considered a very dashing and handsome prince indeed. “Come, child, sit down. We are pleased to see you. Your father is dear to us.”

“Dear to all of Eion,” said the woman in the beautiful pearled gown beside him. This must be Ananka te Voa, Briony recognized, a powerful noblewoman in her own right, but also, and far more importantly, a mistress to kings. Briony was a little shocked to see her sitting at Enander’s side so openly. The king’s second wife had died some years ago, but the gossip Briony had heard among Makewell’s Men suggested that he had only taken up with this woman recently, after Ananka had left her old lover, Hesper, the king of Jael and Jellon.

Hesper the bloody-handed traitor…!

Briony, who had been in mid-courtesy, almost lost her balance as she thought of him. There were few men in the world Briony would have seen tortured, but Hesper was one of them. She couldn’t help wondering whether Ananka been at his side when Hesper had decided to imprison Briony’s father Olin and then sell him to Ludis Drakava? Looking at the woman’s sharp, hard eyes, it was easy enough to believe.

“You are both very kind,” Briony said, doing her best to keep her voice even. “My father has always spoken of you with the highest regard and love, King Enander.”

“And how is he? Have you had word from him?” Enander was toying with something in his lap and it distracted her. After a moment she saw the bright little eyes peering out from beneath his heavy velvet sleeve. It was a small animal, a tiny dog or a ferret.

“Some letters, yes, but not since I left Southmarch.” She couldn’t help wondering what the two of them were thinking. They acted as though this was any other audience — did they not know her situation? “Your majesty is doubtless aware that I left my home…well, let us say I did not go by choice. One of my subjects…no, one of my father’s subjects, Hendon Tolly, has traitorously seized the throne of the March Kingdoms. I suspect he murdered my older brother, as well as his own.” In truth, Kendrick’s death was the one crime she could not with certainty lay against Hendon Tolly, but he had admitted his role in his own brother Gailon’s death.

“Lord Tolly says differently, as you probably know,” said Enander, looking troubled. “We cannot take sides – not without knowing more. I’m sure you understand. Lord Tolly claims you ran away, that all he does is protect Olin’s remaining heir, the infant Alessandros. That is the boy’s name, is it not?” he asked Ananka
“Yes, Alessandros.” She turned back to Briony. “You poor child.” Ananka was handsome, but she used too much powder – it accentuated the lines of her thin face rather than hid them. Still, she was the kind of woman who had always made Briony feel like a clumsy, stupid little girl. “How you must have suffered. And we have heard such stories! Is it true Southmarch was attacked by the fairies?”

King Enander gave her an irritated look, perhaps because he did not want to be reminded of Syan’s old debt to Anglin’s line in the fairy-wars of the past.

“Yes, it is true, my lady,” Briony said. “And as far as I know, still true…”

“But we hear that you hid yourself among a company of peasants and escaped — walking all the way from Southmarch! How clever! How brave!”

“In truth, it was a company of players…ma’am.” Briony had learned how to swallow an angry reply, but it did not taste good. “And I was not escaping the siege, but my own treacherous…”

“Yes, we have heard – quite a story!” Enander cut her off before she could say more. It was not an accident. “But we have had only the barest bones – of course, you must flesh them out for us soon. Ah-ah,” he said, lifting his hand when she might have spoken again. “But no more talk now, my dear — you must be exhausted after your ordeal. Time enough for everything when you are feeling stronger. We will see you tonight at supper.”

She thanked him and made another courtesy. So, she wondered, am I a guest? Or a prisoner? It wasn’t entirely clear.

As Lord Jino led her out of the King’s Cabinet, Briony fought against anger and unhappiness. Enander had received her kindly and courteously, and so far the Syannese had treated her as well as she could have hoped. Had she expected that the king would stand up, declare undying loyalty to the blood of Anglin’s line, and immediately equip her with an army to go back and overthrow the Tollys? Of course not. But she also had the distinct feeling from the king’s mien that such a thing wasn’t only to be delayed, it was never going to happen at all.

Briony was so immersed in her thoughts that she nearly walked into a tall man coming across the throne room, headed toward the chamber she had just left. As she started back he reached out a strong hand to keep her upright.

“Apologies, Mistress,” he said. “Are you well?”

“Your royal Highness,” said Jino. “You are back before we looked for you.”

Briony straightened her clothes to cover her confusion. Royal Highness? Then this young man must be Eneas, the prince. She felt her breath getting a little short as she looked up. Was this truly the boy she had thought about so much during that year of her childhood? He was certainly as handsome as the prince she had imagined, tall and slender but wide-shouldered, with a tangled mass of black hair like a horse’s mane after a long, fast ride.

“There is much to tell,” the prince said. “I rode fast.” He looked at Briony, puzzled. “And who is this?”
“Highness, allow me to present Briony te Meriel te Krisanthe…” Jino began.

“Briony Eddon?” The prince interrupted him. “Are you truly Briony Eddon? Olin’s daughter? But what are you doing here?” Suddenly remembering his manners, he grabbed her hand and lifted it to his lips, but his eyes never left her face.

“I will explain all later, Highness,” Jino said. “But your father will want to hear your news about the southern armies. Did everything go well?”

“No,” Eneas said. “No, it did not.” He turned back to Briony. “Are you dining with us tonight? Say yes.”
“Y—yes, of course.”

“Good. We will speak more then. It is astounding to see you here. I was just thinking about your father – I admire him greatly, you know. Is he well?” He did not wait for an answer. “Jino is right, I should go. But I look forward to our conversation later.” He took her hand, kissed it again, a mere brush of his dry, wind-chapped lips, but looked at her as though he meant to memorize her every feature. “I told them you would grow up a beauty,” he said. “I am proved right.”

Briony watched Eneas go, staring after him for several moments before she realized her mouth must be hanging open like that of some Dalesman sheepherder getting his first view of a real city. “What did he mean by that?” she said, half to herself. “He couldn’t have even known I existed!”

Jino was frowning a little, but he did his best to turn it into a smile. “Oh, but the prince would never lie, Highness, and certainly he would not stoop to flattery.” He gave a rueful laugh. “He means well, and he is of course a splendid young man, but in truth his courtly manners leave a bit to be desired.” He straightened and extended his arm. “Let me show you back to your rooms now, Princess. We all look forward to the honor of your company again at supper, but you really should rest after your terrifying journey.”
Briony’s own courtly manners might be a touch rustic by Syannese standards but she understood what Erasmias Jino was saying well enough: Please, child, get out from under my feet so I can see to more important business – the business of a true kingdom, not a backwater like yours.

It was another reminder that Briony was at best a distraction for these Syannese, but more likely an annoying problem. Either way, she had no power here, nor any friends she could count on. She let herself be led back across the gleaming, echoing throne room, through groups of staring courtiers and the more discreet but just as interested servants, already thinking about how that balance might be changed for the better.

* * *

This preview for was provided and published with express permission from DAW and Tad Williams.

Shadowrise is available at Amazon.com.

The world ends with the flip of a switch. The thundering storms strike across the world, searing the earth, leaving destruction in their wake. Few will survive. For the folks living in Temperance, Illinois the nightmare is just beginning. When the sky roils in luminous colors, the people of the small town begin to die, and Randall Clay decides to escape. What he didn’t expect was the dead to come back to life or the nightmare that came after that.

Elder Signs Press has offered the first two chapters from this new zombie tale for Flames Rising readers to enjoy. Pallid Light: The Waking Dead is available now at Amazon.com.

Pallid Light by William Jones

Chapter 1

The room disappeared in a flash of blackness, hiding the apartment in a heavy gloom. I smiled. Dark places never bothered me. I’ve lived most of my life in them—sitting in cells, hiding in the shadows. No, the light had always been my problem. No matter where I went, I needed to bring my own darkness.

But tonight it wasn’t the city-wide power outage that sent something cold crawling up my spine. It was the strange lights.

A hard storm rolled in from the west, bringing with it streaks of lightning, booming thunder, and a thick curtain of rain. It also brought red and blue lights—neon heavens.

“Rand, you there?” The voice was followed by a hammering on my apartment door. Fat drops of rain exploded against the window. I waited a moment, watching the sky, the lights, the streets. Sensing the strangeness.

“Rand!” The apartment door rattled again. “Let me in.”

“Turn it down.” I dropped off the wooden stool before the window, and moved toward the door. My pace was slow, really just to taunt Cada. She lived in a constant State of Emergency. I thought about that. Funny how people lose it when anything unusual happens. But she was like that before the storm.

“What do you want?” I opened the door, leaning to the side, avoiding her fist as it missed its target. “Pretty good swing.”

Her blue eyes widened, eyebrows forming a hard line. “Why the hell didn’t you answer?”

“Just did.” I pulled the door wide, waving her inside. “You know, you look like one of those fish that inflates when you’re angry. Maybe a little cuter though.”

“I’ve been calling,” she said.

“Ha. Guess the phone is dead. Or maybe I threw it away.” I shrugged.

She hoisted a finger at me, then pointed a different selection at the window.

“Have you seen what’s going on out there? No power and half the city’s flooded. And you’re sitting here, playing hermit and joking.”

“Who’s joking?”

Thunder shook the apartment. Another wave of rain tapped against the windows like a million anxious fingers. And the strange lights glowered above the storm.

She stomped across the floor, running shoes squishing with each step. “While you’re here doing . . .doing—” she threw her hands in the air— “doing God knows what, everyone else is sandbagging, trying to keep the town from washing away. Think about it, Rand. No power. No lights. No alarms. And you. . . here. . .in Temperance. Alone. If anything happens, anything . . .you’re taking the fall.”

After I’d moved to Temperance, Cada Finch befriended me. She was one of those types who thought loners needed friends, when really she was the one in need. Always the hero of some lost cause. This time the cause being me.

Cada just wasn’t made for Temperance. I wasn’t either. But a small town in Illinois, skirting the edge of Lake Michigan seemed like the perfect spot for an ex-con. Yeah, I still don’t get the “ex” part. Once a convict, always a convict. Jackson, Temperance, choose your prison.

“So you’re saying the town thinks I’m going on a killing spree?” I flashed a smile, strolling to the fridge. Flattering.

“No,” she answered abruptly. It seemed like the rest of her sentence caught in her throat. “No, not that. But really weird stuff is going on and they’ll pin you for it.”

I laughed, pulled a beer out, twisted it open. “You think I give a damn?” Took a swig, and returned to my seat.

Water flowed down Bridgeway Drive. It already crested the curbs and was swelling onto the sidewalks. I looked at the sky, it still glowed in unnatural colors. Hues of blue and green with jagged red lines of lightning.

“Does that look like an aurora to you?” I pointed the bottle at the sky.

“It’s just lights reflecting off the clouds.” She approached me. Wet, short strands of blonde hair clung to her face. The sweatshirt and jeans she wore repeated the trick but with her rangy body. “I saw Gordon Cleary tonight,” she said matter-of-factly.

I gave it some thought. For a few seconds, I wondered which was stranger: lights reflecting off clouds during a power outage, or Cada seeing a dead man.

* * *

“I was at Greene’s store buying some Marlboros when the power died. Figured I’d need some batteries. Dave brought out a flashlight to help me find them, and that’s when Gordon walked past the front window.” Cada dug into her pocket, pulling out a crumpled pack of smokes. Water wrinkled fingers rifled through them. “Jesus, Rand, he was still dressed in his suit from the funeral home.”

She patted her pockets. I pulled out my Zippo. Her hands and face trembled as she tried to align the cigarette with the flame.

“Thanks.” Cada pulled deep and exhaled a stream of smoke, spilling out like dragon’s breath. “Dave didn’t see him, but I did. And he really wasn’t walking. It was more like someone was pulling him along like a puppet.” She took another drag. “Something’s wrong out there.”

Something did feel wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Not quite yet. And I didn’t want to mention it to Cada until I knew what it was. That had always been my thing. All of my life, just before things went sideways, I sensed it. Handy, sure. Handy enough to get me locked away for murder. But thanks to a fucked-up system, I got out on a mistrial. That one I didn’t see coming.

“It was probably somebody pulling a joke,” I said. “Dead men don’t walk. . . except in prison.”

As if to counter my words, glass crashed downstairs.

“What’s that?” Cada asked. Her State of Emergency just went up a notch.

“Sounded like a window.” Plenty of experience with breaking windows. And whoever broke this one didn’t care about being quiet.

Cada started pacing again, puffing like a train. “Where’s the guy downstairs?”

“Eric? He’s mostly not home.” Actually, I didn’t care for the prick. He always eyed me. Definitely had an itch to see me locked up again. I wouldn’t be surprised to find newspaper articles about me hanging in one of his bedrooms, accompanied by thumbtacks with strings stretching back and forth showing my whereabouts. I knew his kind. They were the fucking crazy ones.

Mixed with the rumble of thunder was the crashing of furniture. Maybe a yell or two.

“Shouldn’t we check on him?” Cada asked, halting.

No. “Yep. Right,” I sighed. I went to the door, Cada trailing. “You stay here.” I gestured at the couch. “Keep a spot there. And if you hear me tell you to run, you move.”

Temperance was a small town. Certainly not big enough for this much mystery in one night. Hell, it wasn’t big enough for more than one apartment building. When I moved in, I hooked a second floor flat on a side street. It’d been a boarding house years ago, back when trains existed. I guess it’s what most people would call cozy. I called it fucking inconvenient. Dorothy Ford owned the place. And she wanted it to stay just the way it was in the 1800s—it’s that old. No cable, no satellite. A phone, and a useless rooftop antenna was as high-tech as the place got. Of course, I understood why an ex-con lived in Dorothy’s historical museum of dead thrills, but why Eric Walker? A man with an expensive car, nice suits, and enough money to vanish for weeks—why would he live there?

Like I said, I knew the type. He was hiding something. And as I marched down the narrow stairwell, I hoped his secret didn’t decide to pay a visit.

When I reached his door, it was slightly open. I peered through the crack. Glimpses of furniture, paintings on the walls, and shadows were visible in the sickly glow cast through the windows. Now and then, a brilliant flash of lightning uncovered a darker recess.

Pushing gently, the door opened with a creak that was quickly swallowed by the marching of the rain. To my left, one of the bay windows was shattered. A stream of water rolled over the jagged edges of glass, pooling on the hardwood floor.

From the bedroom I heard the tumble of something hard—muffled by the ceaseless rain.

“Eric?” Calling for him went against my every fiber. But I wouldn’t put it past him to be sitting on the other side of the door, shotgun leveled. Waiting.

He knew my history, like most people in Temperance. And like most, he didn’t like me. No problem, I didn’t like most of them.

With soft steps, I moved across the room. The only weapon I had was a pocket knife. Mostly useless. And if I pulled it, I was on shaky ground—prowling through a flat in the dark, uninvited. Not worth it.

I halted at the bedroom door. It too stood ajar, but the angle was wrong. Couldn’t get a view inside. I rapped on it once, and waited. I thought I heard mumbling, but in the roiling rain it was hard to tell.

Slowly, I pushed open the door. There lay Eric. Flat on his back, sprawled across the floor, blankets spilled over the bed, folding beneath him. At his sides were two locals. Teenage punks who wanted to be tough, but who were afraid to leave the protection of a small town. They liked to mouth-off at me, knowing all the while they were safe. And I’d never seen them when their eyes weren’t glazed. I’d dubbed them Stoned and Stoner.

They ignored me. Hunched over Eric’s body, they pawed at what remained of Eric’s insides. His gut was split—clawed open. And the two punks unraveled his intestines, gnawing and chewing them.

A knot formed in my stomach. And I’m the monster?

Blood glistened on the floor, gushing outward. Their wet faces shone in the greenish light of the storm.

This was seriously fucked-up.

Then one turned his gaze toward me.

Chapter 2

It was Stoned who clambered to his feet first, swaying back and forth. The other continued working on Eric’s eviscerated corpse.

The world spun for a split-second as I tried to understand what I saw. It wasn’t the blood, or the gore. I was used to that. I came from a world of darker horrors—decapitated heads in a bag, butchered torsos, knapsacks filled with limbs. And the agonized wails of the mothers and wives who discovered their loved ones. No, butchered bodies didn’t bother me as much as the horror-struck face of a mother who’d found part of her son in a bag, sent as a message.

And somehow this was different.

Stoned stumbled forward. A vapid gaze set on his face. Sneering lips revealed crimson teeth. Without him saying a word, I knew what he wanted. Another meal.

“You can’t be serious,” I said, pushing the door wide open. It bumped against a wall stop. “What a bunch of sick fucks. What the hell are you high on?” I wondered if Eric’s secret was some sort of designer drug.

A tepid growl came from Stoner. Maybe he was trying to talk, maybe not. I didn’t much care. What I did know was the guy downstairs who didn’t like me was dead, and was being eaten by two brain dead punks. Somehow, this was going to come down on me. That’s the way the world worked.

Then Eric sat up.

“Shit!” I stepped back. “You’re alive?”

A thick red liquid spilled from his mouth, dribbling down his chin, stringing into his open abdomen. Guess that answered my question.

None of this fit together in my head. Everything inside me screamed, “Get out!” But there was that feeling. That dark chill touching my spine. There was also a thick stench.

I raised my hands. “Ok fellas, I’m leaving. Have at it.” I stepped backward, eyeing Stoned, who seemed to finally get his footing.

With Eric upright, the second teenager turned his attention to me. He struggled to stand, slipping on the slick floor. With each move, gore spewed from his mouth, followed by a guttural hacking.

I backstepped into the living room, already knowing how this was going to play-out.

Stoned bolted forward, as though spurred by an electrical shock. His arms reached outward, fingers clawing the air.

I sidestepped, lifting my booted foot and pushing it against his knee. It made a crunchy sound, then he squeaked. I grabbed his shoulder and pushed, sending him down, face first on the floor.

Keeping my eyes on the other two, I planted my boot on the back of his neck. “Stay there,” I said to Stoned, “or I’ll put you down.”

He gurgled. The others made growling sounds.

I pushed with my boot, thinking Stoned might warn the others away. Instead, he uttered nonsense sounds. Eric and his new pal kept coming.

In the ghoulish light they looked dead. And Eric, innards drooping to the floor, dark blood washing down his legs, by all rights should be dead. It made less sense with each passing moment.

My thoughts whirled as though the storm outside had entered my head. Things had become so unreal, I had no choice but to accept them. I knew how the cops would explain them later, and that explanation involved me.

I started to lift my foot from Stoned’s neck. Then I thought it over. Eric ambled toward me, guts dragging on the floor, a stupid half-smile on his face. There’s no good ending here.

“Fuck it,” I said. “Never liked you anyway.” I stomped on the kid’s neck. It popped as my foot pushed into the soft flesh.

In two steps I was on the next teenager. Maybe if I kept him alive he’d talk when he came down from his high. No. It didn’t work that way for you.

I grabbed his throat, pulling him forward, and clocked him on the head with my elbow. He dropped like a ragdoll. Meanwhile, Eric was still taking robot steps across the floor. He plodded ahead, one foot in front of the other, swaying from side-to-side like walking a ship in a storm.

Saving him time, I stepped forward, and hammered a fist into his nose. The bone cracked. Blood oozed. And he didn’t blink.

I looked at his blue and bloodied face. There was something more than emptiness there. I wasn’t sure what. Maybe a little bit of Eric. Maybe a little bit of what he was hiding. His lips turned upward ever so slightly into a snarl. And for the first time, I’d noticed a faint glow in his eyes.

“Not happening,” I said.

He reached out—arms slow and stiff.

I grabbed his thumb and twisted, expecting him to drop to his knees in pain. Instead, he clawed at me with his other hand, coming closer, teeth snapping.

His guts dangled from his abdomen. And he kept moving. Obviously, my mind was muddled. Of course he wouldn’t feel any pain—he was beyond that.

I didn’t know what Eric was hiding, but I had always sensed a darkness in him. Drug dealer, serial killer, kidnapper—didn’t make a difference. I saw it there, and despised it.

“Bad day for you,” I said. With a free hand, I clamped onto his collar, pulling his head back. He gurgled, red spittle seeped from his mouth. I released his thumb, locked both hands on his head, and twisted. His neck snapped. Finally his body stopped squirming. I pushed him away, letting what was left of him tumble to the floor.

This was not how I’d expected my visit to go. Thought I might help the asshole. Maybe this was his secret, I decided. Some kind of cannibal and drugs scene. But it didn’t make sense. He was a traveler. He’d keep his secrets far from Temperance.

I knew something was up before I’d arrived. I knew it the minute the storm started. And something told me this was just the beginning.

I had a few minutes before Cada started worrying and decided to go looking for me. I scanned the flat. There was no use trying to clean up. And all of this was still going to land on me, unless I found something pointing in another direction. I had the one teenager who might tell the truth—doubted that. Figured I’d look around the place. Maybe find whatever Eric had hidden. The situation was beyond the point of getting worse.

Knowing the tricks, I headed to the bedroom, skirting the macabre decorations on the floor. Checking the dresser drawers was a waste of time. Amateur stuff. I didn’t bother. But I did take his car keys sitting in a bowl on top of the dresser. I had to hoof everywhere, and it looked like I might need to move a bit faster unless things turned around.

Outside the storm persisted. Loud cracks of thunder shook the building. The rain continued its ceaseless dance upon the roof and ground. It created a constant thrumming.

I opened the closet. On the top shelf there was a shoebox. It was too obvious to hold anything damning—but I still hoped. Inside I found a 9mm Beretta, three magazines, and a half empty box of cartridges.

Probably has a permit. I took the pistol, pushed in a clip, and stuffed the rest into my pocket. Just then, a familiar feeling settled over me. How many times had I followed this path? Getting ready to run. It was supposed to be over when I was locked up. And I’d told myself it would never happen again when they let me out.

Like I said, I bring my own darkness with me.

Right now, things needed to keep moving. I had to keep those thoughts at bay. One after another, I yanked clothes from the rack in the closest, tossing them aside. Eric wasn’t going to make this easy.

Mixed with the tattoo of the rain was the sound of a footfall from behind. I turned. In the doorway stood Stoner, eyes hollow, jaw slack. His face was painted in blood, as was the hoodie he wore. One foot plodded forward. He burbled some sounds. Maybe they were words. I sensed a rhythm. A shape to them. It wasn’t English. Regardless, his intent was clear.

I pulled the pistol from my belt and chambered a round.

* * * *

Pallid Light: The Waking Dead is available at Amazon.com.

This preview for was provided and published with express permission from Elder Signs Press and William Jones.

Let the games begin!

These thirteen original stories by veterans of the fantasy realms take role-playing games and universes to a whole new level.

From a teenager who finds a better future in virtual reality; to a private investigator hired to find a dying man’s grandson in the midst of a virtual reality theme park; from a person gifted with the power to pull things out of books into the real world; to a psychologist using fantasy role-playing to heal his patients; from a gaming convention where the real winners may not be who they seem to be; to a multi-layered role-playing game that leads participants from reality to reality and games within games-these imaginative and fascinating new tales will captivate both lovers of original fantasy and anyone who has ever fallen under the spell of role-playing games.

Flames Rising is happy to present a selection of excerpts from Gamer Fantastic which is edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Kerrie Hughes. Gamer Fantastic is available now at Amazon.com and DriveThruFantasy.com.

Rescuing the Elf Princess Again By Ed Greenwood

The time for skulking in shadows was done. At last.

“Longblade! A longblade seeks your blood!” Shouting my battle cry, I spun my sword around my head and sprinted into the throne room.

Kraug Blood of Seven Chiefs, our battle leader, was already bellowing bloody multi-species murder and hacking his way through the main double doors, hewing their stout wood and the blue plate armor of the broad-shouldered knights guarding them with like ease. Ironclad arms and heads fell severed, bouncing, as his moaning, magically-flickering Sword of the Dragon’s Fang sliced and danced.

Saeralil the Velvet Viper—she who jested with me daily, fondly and tirelessly, our usual yammerings echoing two snarling cats—was already leaping down from the balcony, torchlight glimmering on her glossy black catsuit and the knives she was hurling, as they spun sharp and whirling death across the high-vaulted chamber.

More knights fell, her knives in their faces, and behind them the tapestries on the far side of the hall billowed out, aglow with holy fire, as the two stout priests of our band advanced behind them, forcing the heavy fabrics to split and yield, flooding the great room with golden light.

Silhouetting the evil King Thulsrand Droum the Usurper in his high-spired crown, as he snarled in fear and ran right at me.

Wiser for perusing the plans of Dawnspire Castle long-dead dwarven stonemasons had left graven on their own tomb underlids in the Temple of the Hammer God, I had come through the one door Droum had thought was secret. His way out—if he ever needed it—into the dark labyrinth of hidden passages that spread spiderweb-like through the thick castle walls.

Secret no longer.

Now, when his very life was in peril, I alone barred his escape.

His imperial face was frantic as he came, and he hesitated not an instant. His arms swept up, and his pet slayers streaked out of his sleeves.

Two deadly flying snakes came darting at me, jaws gaping.

I danced to the left and sliced back to my right. Only to pull my steel back, beneath an arching serpent that hissed in triumph, turn my blade’s edge upwards, and slice up unto the rafters, hard.

Halves of severed serpent tumbled, shrieking. Gore sprayed, and through it plunged the other flying fangs, arcing in the air to swerve in and bite at my face.

Roles We Play By Jody Lynn Nye

The middle-aged gentleman caller was so agitated the parlormaid had to clear her throat gently twice to make him surrender his silk top hat. He snatched the offending object from his head and thrust it at her without looking. She exited the room silently, her prize in hand, and closed the door behind her.

“Herr Ernest, you cannot be serious,” the man continued the diatribe he had begun at the door. “All of Zurich is laughing at you, if not all of Europe!”

“Please sit down, Herr Dromlinn,” said Professor Gerhard Ernest, a stocky, bearded man in a brown tweed suit. His large, gray eyes were deceptively placid behind the pebble lenses of his spectacles. “I am serious about all my researches. About what may I enlighten you?”

Dromlinn did not sit down. Instead, he paced. He stopped to stare at the brown, paisley-patterned wallpaper, then out the window at the carriages and narrow-wheeled horseless vehicles, and spoke without turning around. “I am your friend, so I am the one sent by our other colleagues to warn you. They say that you will not be permitted to present a paper at the Science Foundation. What you have sent as your proposal is nonsense.”

“It is not nonsense,” Ernest said, with a smile. He leaned back in the upholstered armchair and folded his hands together on his knee. “You know as well as I that the study of psychoanalysis takes on many shapes. We are learning the pathways of the mind. I knew it would sound strange when I wrote my proposal. I thought at least that my colleagues would be open to yet one more means of investigating those deepest secrets we yet lack.”

Dromlinn turned and made a noise as if he was spitting. “Make believe is for children.”

Ernest shook his head gently. “We are all children at heart, Herr Dromlinn. Are we not the sum of our parts?”
“But this is playing, not psychology. We believed you to be serious about finding a cure for mental disorders. This is 1910, not the Dark Ages. You seek a return to the primitive days before science?”

“Play is often a way children work through their concerns. If you have never listened to your daughter scold her doll as she herself has just been scolded, then you do not understand that. I seek to use such a tool to unlock disease. I believe the mind is a powerful force against the disorders of the body.”

Griefer Madness By Richard Lee Byers

Cosmopolis was the city that belonged to every world and none. Or at least that’s what the brochure said, and to give the place its due, it looked like it. A castle covered in gargoyles rose next to a derelict spaceship. Gunslingers, ninjas, and vampires stalked about, and a Tolkien-style dwarf fenced a sci-fi adventurer, battle-axe against laser sword.

Hoping an aerial view would help me find Jason, I’d chosen the persona of a superhero who could fly. But now, sharing the sky with angels and a wizard in a turban piloting a magic carpet, I realized height alone wouldn’t do the trick if the kid’s virtual-reality mask completely changed his looks. As many of them did.
So I shut off my goggles, and all the heroes and monsters, me included, turned into ordinary people in green coveralls. We flyers dangled from a spider web of steel rails, steering by shifting our weight inside our harnesses.

I took a fresh look at the concourse below me, the central area accessing all the “lands” devoted to the various live-action role-playing genres. Whatever games Jason felt like playing, he had to pass through here. But I still didn’t see him.

Maybe because he’d already passed through. If he hadn’t completely changed his looks, it might be worthwhile to go back down to the floor, show his photo around, and ask if anyone had seen him.

I was still considering it when my goggles switched back on of their own accord. A red dot pulsed before me, warning me I was under attack.

Supposedly you couldn’t be attacked in Cosmopolis unless you were willing. But I was a newbie. I’d never visited this or any LARP park before, and maybe I hadn’t adjusted my settings properly.

I looked around. The sorcerer sitting cross-legged on the flying carpet was throwing bursts of fire at me.
“I don’t want to do this!” I shouted. He just thrust out his hands and hurled another blast.

My harness jerked me upward into a spherical structure of rails raised above the ones I’d been traversing, and Carpet Boy hurtled up after me. The hollow ball was an arena. Players could fight there without getting in the way of other flyers.

* * * *

Gamer Fantastic is available now at Amazon.com and DriveThruFantasy.com.

This preview for was provided and published with express permission from DAW. Volume copyright: Copyright © 2009 by Tekno Books and Kerrie Hughes.

A thrilling epic about an ancient clash reignited in our time- between a hidden society and heaven’s darkest creatures.

Sister Evangeline was just a girl when her father entrusted her to the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in upstate New York. Now, at twenty-three, her discovery of a 1943 letter from the famous philanthropist Abigail Rockefeller to the late mother superior of Saint Rose Convent plunges Evangeline into a secret history that stretches back a thousand years: an ancient conflict between the Society of Angelologists and the monstrously beautiful descendants of angels and humans, the Nephilim.

For the secrets these letters guard are desperately coveted by the once-powerful Nephilim, who aim to perpetuate war, subvert the good in humanity, and dominate mankind. Generations of angelologists have devoted their lives to stopping them, and their shared mission, which Evangeline has long been destined to join, reaches from her bucolic abbey on the Hudson to the apex of insular wealth in New York, to the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris and the mountains of Bulgaria.

Rich in history, full of mesmerizing characters, and wondrously conceived, Angelology blends biblical lore, the myth of Orpheus and the Miltonic visions of Paradise Lost into a riveting tale of ordinary people engaged in a battle that will determine the fate of the world.

Flames Rising has a short excerpt from this new novel by Danielle Trussoni. Angelology is available at Amazon.com and DriveThruHorror.com.

Angelology by Danielle Trussoni

Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, New York City

Percival Grigori tapped the tip of his cane as he waited for the elevator, a rhythm of sharp metallic clicks pounding out the seconds. The oak-paneled lobby of his building—an exclusive prewar with views of Central Park—was so familiar that he hardly noticed it any longer. The Grigori family had occupied the penthouse for over half a century. Once he might have registered the deference of the doorman, the opulent arrangement of orchids in the foyer, the polished ebony and mother-of-pearl elevator casement, the fire sending a spray of light and warmth across the marble floor. But Percival Grigori noticed nothing at all except the pain crackling through his joints, the popping of his knees with each step. As the doors of the elevator slid open and he hobbled inside, he regarded his stooped image in the polished brass of the elevator car and looked quickly away.

At the thirteenth floor, he stepped into a marble vestibule and unlocked the door to the Grigori apartment. Instantly the soothing elements of his private life—part antique, part modern, part gleaming wood, part sparkling glass—filled his senses, relaxing the tension in his shoulders. He threw his keys onto a silk pillow at the bottom of a Chinese porcelain bowl, shrugged his heavy cashmere overcoat into the lap of an upholstered banister-back chair, and walked through the travertine gallery. Vast rooms opened before him—a sitting room, a library, a dining hall with a four-tiered Venetian chandelier suspended overhead. An expanse of picture windows staged the chaotic ballet of a snowstorm.

At the far end of the apartment, the curve of a grand staircase led to his mother’s suite of rooms. Peering up, Percival discerned a party of her friends gathered in the formal sitting room. Guests came to the apartment for lunch or dinner nearly every day, impromptu gatherings that allowed his mother to hold court for her favorite friends from the neighborhood. It was a ritual she had grown more and more accustomed to, primarily because of the power it gave her: She selected those people she wished to see, enclosed them in the dark-paneled lair of her private quarters, and let the rest of the world go on with its tedium and misery. For years she had left her suite only on rare occasions, when accompanied by Percival or his sister, and only at night. His mother had grown so comfortable with the arrangement, and her circle had become so regular, that she rarely complained of her confinement.

Quietly, so as not to draw attention to himself, Percival ducked into a bathroom at the end of the hallway, shut the door softly behind him, and locked it. In a succession of quick movements, he discarded a tailored wool jacket and a silk tie, dropping each piece of clothing onto the ceramic tiles. Fingers trembling, he unbuttoned six pearlescent buttons, working upward to his throat. He peeled away his shirt and stood to full height before a large mirror hung upon the wall.

Running his fingers over his chest, he felt a mélange of leather strips weaving one over the other. The device wrapped about him like an elaborate harness, creating a system of stays that, when fully fastened, had the overall appearance of a black corset. The straps were so taut they cut into his skin. Somehow, no matter how he fastened it, the leather cinched too tightly. Struggling for air, Percival loosened one strap, then the next, working the leather through small silver buckles with deliberation until, with a final tug, the device fell to the floor, the leather slapping the tiles.

His bare chest was smooth, without navel or nipples, the skin so white as to appear cut from wax. Swiveling his shoulder blades, he could see the reflection of his body in the mirror—his shoulders, his long thin arms, and the sculpted curve of his torso. Mounted at the center of his spine, matted by sweat, deformed by the severe pressure of the harness, were two tender nubs of bone. With a mixture of wonder and pain, he noted that his wings—once full and strong and bowed like golden scimitars—had all but disintegrated. The remnants of his wings were black with disease, the feathers withered, the bones atrophied. In the middle of his back, two open wounds, blue and raw from chafing, fixed the blackened bones in a gelatinous pool of congealed blood. Bandages, repeated cleanings—no amount of care helped to heal the wounds or relieve his pain. Yet he understood that the true agony would come when there was nothing left of his wings. All that had distinguished him, all that the others had envied, would be gone.

The first symptoms of the disorder had appeared ten years before, when fine tracks of mildew materialized along the inner shafts and vanes of the feathers, a phosphorescent green fungus that grew like patina on copper. He had thought it a mere infection. He’d had his wings cleaned and groomed, specifying that each feather be brushed with oils, and yet the pestilence remained. Within months his wingspan had decreased by half. The dusty golden shimmer of healthy wings faded. Once, he had been able to compress his wings with ease, folding his majestic plumage smoothly against his back. The airy mass of golden feathers had tucked into the arched grooves along his spine, a maneuver that rendered the wings completely undetectable.

Although physical in substance, the structure of healthy wings gave them the visual properties of a hologram. Like the bodies of the angels themselves, his wings had been substantial objects utterly unimpaired by the laws of matter. Percival had been able to lift his wings through thick layers of clothing as easily as if he had moved them through air.

Now he found that he could no longer retract them at all, and so they were a perpetual presence, a reminder of his diminishment. Pain overwhelmed him; he lost all capability for flight. Alarmed, his family had brought in specialists, who confirmed what the Grigori family most feared: Percival had contracted a degenerative disorder that had been spreading through their community. Doctors predicted that his wings would die, then his muscles. He would be confined to a wheelchair, and then, when his wings had withered completely and their roots had melted away, Percival would die. Years of treatments had slowed the progression of the disease but had not stopped it.

Percival turned on the faucet and splashed cool water over his face, trying to dissipate the fever that had overtaken him. The harness helped him to keep his spine erect, an increasingly difficult task as his muscles grew weak. In the months since it had become necessary to wear the harness, the pain had only grown more acute. He never quite got used to the bite of leather on his skin, the buckles as sharp as pins against his body, the burning sensation of ripped flesh. Many of their kind chose to live away from the world when they became ill. This was a fate Percival could not begin to accept.

* * *

Reprinted by arrangement with Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., from Angelology by Danielle Trussoni. Copyright © 2010 by Danielle Trussoni

Angelology is available at Amazon.com and DriveThruHorror.com.

It’s not the end of the world-it’s just zombies.

With the help of a morning show shock-jock who has recently turned into a zombie and the burnt-out walking remains of a businessman, Chris becomes the backbone of a fight for undead rights among the fear, prejudice, and uncertainty dividing the living and the not quite dead.

Apex Book Company has offered a small excerpt from this new zombie tale for Flames Rising readers to enjoy.

The Changed is available now at DriveThruHorror.com.

The Changed by B.J. Burrow

A refreshing, slow-moving brook cut through the middle of a picturesque field. Bright pink flowers covered the banks of the stream as if blown there casually by God. Cotton-white clouds moved lazily overhead as Alan Sands opened a picnic basket, commenting, “I feel incredibly corny.”

He pulled from the basket a container of potato salad and Wendy Larson laughed. “For a horrible second,” she said, “I thought you were going to hold up corn on the cob.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I was going to make you take me home.”

“So,” Alan said, walking on his knees toward her, his denim shirt stretching tightly over his broad shoulders and strong chest, “our relationship is one bad pun away from falling apart.” He leaned over and kissed her.

The sun had begun its slow melt into the horizon, painting the gently running stream with sunset, bathing Wendy’s soft face golden, making the blond highlights in her hair shine.

She spoke against his lips. “You’ve got a three pun limit.”

They broke the kiss and he smiled. His dark, silky hair fluttered in the cool breeze. “I won’t risk it. The punishment is too great.” He cocked an eyebrow, and she laughed again. Alan began unpacking the rest of the picnic basket. It was their fourth date and things were going extremely well.

Near his parked car, up the sloping hill, a cow crossed the dirt road, heading toward them in a slow, easy gait.

Wendy opened the potato salad and asked, “Did you make this?”

Alan shrugged. “I like to cook.”

“Is this German potato salad?”

“Nein.”

“You don’t play fair. German potato salad is my favorite.”

“Ve have vays of finding dees tings out.” He smiled: an embarrassed, cute smile. They had yet to sleep with each other but she decided right then and there that she would ask him into her apartment at the end of the night.

He continued, losing the German accent, “I also have macaroni salad, a home-made olive spread for the sandwiches, and, for dessert, chocolate cheesecake.”

She stared at him. “You have got to be joking.”

He shook his head, suddenly serious. “I’m not joking at all.”

She said, “This is good, but I’m afraid it all hinges on what you brought to drink.”

“I anticipated this.” He placed the macaroni salad on the traditional red and white checkered blanket and turned to the ice chest.

Wendy glanced at the approaching cow. “Looks like we’ve got company.”

Alan looked up, following her gaze. “He’s been hassling me, saying you’re his girl and I should step off.”
“He does look like some of my exes.”

The sun obscured the animal’s features, but they could see its jaws working a cud, its tail swishing back and forth. Alan thought, Don’t come over here and drop a load, you bitch. Still on his knees, he pulled out a bottle of red wine, a bottle of white, and a Budweiser from the chest, holding them up proudly as he faced Wendy. “Red, white, and American, all made this year.”

“I am impressed,” she said, laughing and glancing again at the cow. “I hope you brought three glasses.”

“Monday morning, we’re filing a restraining order. Have you called the cops on him before?”

“I think it’s a she.”

“Oh, God, you’re a lesbian?”

She laughed as he duck-walked toward her, carrying the bottles. “I must kiss you again. I can’t help it.”

She turned her face, pointing to her cheek. “Only here. I’m not that kind of girl.” He kissed her cheek, lingering a little. When he sat back, she asked, “What, no tongue?” but then gave a start; the cow was right on top of them.

Her words came in a quick burst—”What’s wrong with its eyes?”—and before Alan could look, the cow dipped her head forward and bit off his right ear.

Alan shrieked, dropping the bottles, and reaching for the gushing wound. The cow head-butted him, knocking him flat onto his back. Wendy screamed, throwing herself against the cow’s flank, trying to push the beast away. Alan began to rise, but the cow calmly lifted a hoof and stepped on his chest, pinning him to the ground.

He gave a groan that quickly turned into a wheeze as something in his chest cracked.

“No!” Wendy yelled, pushing, pushing, pushing as hard as she could against the cow. The animal would not budge.

The cow, taking her time, finished chewing Alan’s ear, swallowed, and lazily bent her head back down. Alan jammed his hands under her jaw, but the cow easily overpowered him, lowering her head to take off the left half of his face in a slow, slobbery bite. Alan’s scream climbed, stretching into a shrill warble. He beat his fists against the unflinching cow’s chest.

Wendy, crying, grabbed the cow’s leg and jerked at it. The cow swallowed, bent her head, and took off Alan’s lips and nose.

Wendy stood. She stared at the horror. At Alan’s panicked eyes. The blood bubbling out of his face. The white bone of his cheek. His fists beating at the animal.

She turned and ran for the car.

A floor-to-ceiling wall decal of James Dean hung next to a fifties retro “Duck and Cover” poster, telling children that the best way to survive a nuclear blast was to hide underneath their desks. Lava lamps stood on either side of a sixty-inch television. Mike Tabor, in front of the television, steadied himself on a Wii balance board, a shot glass full of whiskey in one hand, the Wii remote in the other. He called out to his roommate, “I got this, I got this! Get ready for your next shot, bitch!”

The reply came from the back bedroom: “It ain’t over till it’s over, ass-bag!”

Mike concentrated hard on the game, but he had already taken four shots of Maker’s Mark in thirty minutes, just one less than Paul Rameriz. Mike waved his arms, spilling his whiskey—“Shit,”—and, his concentration broken, lost the game. “Fuck!”

Paul emerged from the hallway laughing, carrying a crossbow and ready to fire, an arrow with a Shuttle T-Lock Broadhead nocked into place. Mike refilled his glass and downed it, making a face. He said, “Your turn, ass-flap.”

“We’re tied now.”

They were both currently skipping their Introduction to Political Science elective.

Mike said, “One more game, winner takes all.”

“Because you’re a pussy?”

“I don’t want to get so drunk I don’t remember the concert.”

“I don’t care if you remember it.”

“What are you doing with the crossbow?”

“Where’s the phone book? I wanna see if the arrow will go through it.”

“Cool. I think it’s by the phone, dude. Hey, don’t…” and then a ‘twang’ sounded and Mike looked down at the end of the arrow sticking out of his chest, dead center.

Paul shrieked.

Mike gurgled, dropping to his knees, dropping his shot glass, dropping his mouth open.

Paul reflexively fell to his knees as well, close to his friend. He shouted, “Don’t touch it! I saw this on a show! If we don’t remove it, you’ll be fine! The shaft will actually stop the blood loss.”

Mike coughed out a spatter of crimson against Paul’s glasses and fell onto his side, his hands weakly crawling toward the arrow.

“Dude, don’t touch it! Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, I’m sorry, man, I am so sorry!” Paul began crying.

Mike convulsed.

He shuddered.

Finally, he fell still.

And then abruptly sat back up, snapping, “You fucking idiot!”

“What?”

“You shot me!”

“I’m sorry. I am so sorry!”

“Call 911! Hurry!”

“Oh.” Paul staggered to his feet. On his way to the phone, he asked, “It doesn’t hurt, or something?”

Mike looked down at the yellow feathered end of the arrow sticking out of his chest, speckled with blood, then back up at his roommate. He replied softly, “It doesn’t hurt at all anymore.”

In Chicago’s Saint Luke’s Medical Center, an unconscious man lay on an operating table, his chest open, two doctors working on him. The heart machine beep, beep, beeped, flat-liiiiiiiined.

When the anesthesia wore off, the man, feeling nauseated but in no pain, woke in the morgue, covered by a sheet. He jerked into a sitting position. Black, sandy liquid rolled out of his open chest cavity. “What?” he asked, his voice thick. He touched the jagged opening in his chest.

He saw the other covered bodies, feet sticking out, toe-tagged. He looked down at his own toe-tag and leapt off the table, shouting, “I’m gonna sue! This door, it’s mine!” He kicked open the door and started down the hall; people staring, some screaming, all trying to get out of his way. He pointed, bellowing, “That plant, it’s mine! I’m suing this hospital for everything it’s worth!”

Off the coast of Alaska, three fishermen stood on the deck of their boat, watching a swordfish refuse to die, fish eyes rolling, head beating the deck.

A minute.
Two.
Three.
Four minutes, five, would you look at that, the damn thing won’t die.

In the Bahamas, a man on his honeymoon finally swam free of a vicious undertow two miles from his hotel. He walked back for drinks, water pouring out his nose and mouth, his skin white like a soggy tortilla.

A suicide in France stood in her claw-footed bathtub filled with blood and water. Sobbing, she washed herself clean.

In Japan, a car hit a small child. The girl rolled against the undercarriage, flesh tearing from her body, and popped out the other side, dazed, no longer in any pain, but crying for her mommy.

The strawberry incense made Christian’s nose itch and his throat tickle, but he smiled anyway because it made Erin happy. She dropped onto the couch next to him, placing the lighter back in her pocket, saying, “Remind me to get some more. That’s the last one .”

“I’ll pick some up tomorrow.”

The smoke, a spastic white ribbon snapping off the orange glow at the end of the stick, quickly filled Christian’s efficiency apartment, choking the oxygen in the living room, clinging to the air in the kitchen, and seeping into his bedroom to pool onto his pillow to give him a restless night.

Erin gave Christian a quick kiss, scooted her television tray closer to the couch, and asked, “Are you ready?”
All the lights were off except for the television. Christian loved the way the blue screen tinted Erin’s pale face, making her eyes gleam, making the valleys in her black hair darker, the peaks almost white. “Rock and roll,” he replied. The blue tint turned his blond hair green.

Open Chinese food cartons marched along the backs of their television trays, along with a decorative ceramic sake jug with matching miniature cups. They lifted their cups, clinking them together. “Bonsai.”

Christian hit play on the DVD remote and the Friends disc, Season Two, began to cycle, its menu appearing. Erin said, “We’re on ‘The One with the Breast Milk.’”

“I know. I always remember.”

“And yet I always tell you. Are you already tired of that? Two years after we’re married, you’re going to demand a divorce.”

“I will not,” he said, leaning over, kissing her neck.

“You just watch.”

Christian retorted in his dumb-guy voice, “Yeah, you just watch.”

She laughed and he selected the episode. On Saturdays, they had created their own night of classic NBC programming. It had been Erin’s idea, but they had both bought the DVDs, excited, debating over which shows would be the perfect ones to fill the night. They started at the beginning of each series and were watching them in order, with Friends in the lead spot, followed by The Office, then Seinfeld, and topped off with Homicide.

The show was just about to begin, the screen black, when the phone rang. Christian quickly hit pause.

Annoyed, Erin asked, “What?” Christian stood without answering, pushing his tray back. Erin said, “We don’t interrupt—”

“The shows haven’t officially started yet.” Christian picked up the cordless. “Hello?”

Christian’s dad, Shane, asked in a flat, dead voice, “Are you watching this?”

“Watching what?”

“Turn on the TV.”

“What channel?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Shane breathed heavily, noisily.

Christian picked up the remote and Erin stared at him, obviously not happy. He asked his father, “What’s happening?” as he switched back to regular television.

A news anchor looked at the camera with worry, saying, “…first reports from the hospitals. This is not contained to one area, but appears to be nationwide. Possibly worldwide, I’m being told.” At the upper left of the screen, the word LIVE floated.

“What’s going on?” Erin asked.

The anchor continued, “This is not an elaborate hoax, as I’m sure you realize, but…” He took a deep breath. “This may be the most significant event in the history of the world.”

Erin asked, “What’s going on, Christian?”

“What’s going on, Dad?”

Shane didn’t reply. The anchor continued to speak. “We’re going live to our colleague Larry Sherman in New York. Larry?”

They cut to Larry Sherman, standing in front of Bellevue. Larry looked haggard. He kept glancing at his surroundings, not interested in keeping his focus on the camera. Police, SWAT, and fire trucks flanked the hospital. Larry said, “Thank you, Charles,” then turned to the Indian man standing beside him. “Can you help explain what is happening, Dr. Patel?”

Dr. Patel offered a pained smile. “I can’t explain, but I can say, without a shadow of doubt, that the dead are coming to life.”

Night sat heavily over East Texas, creating a sweltering, damp blanket. Smoke from fires desperately wanting to become infernos rolled above the small town of Henderson. Floyd Brown and his wife, Tara, drove little-used back roads, avoiding most of the rioting.

The cemetery resided on top of a hill overlooking the burning town. Floyd eased his Ford pickup past the wrought-iron gates, his eyes sweeping the headstones, the trees, the inky shadows.

Tara said, “Hurry.”

Floyd didn’t respond, his thick, scarred knuckles tight and white around the steering wheel.

Tara, a red-headed wisp of woman, punched the dashboard. “Get us there!”

They followed the unlit road, winding through the graveyard. He pointed to a backhoe parked near a dark building. “I’ll use that. Faster than the shovels.”

Tara’s face twitched, nerves pulling and snapping under her skin, her eyes fluttering, a spastic tremor popping, popping, popping in her cheek.

He parked the car and Tara jumped out. Floyd called, “Honey, be careful,” but she was gone. He moved to the backhoe, his senses on edge. He couldn’t hear anything but the crickets chirping. Overhead, finger-thin clouds scratched at the moon.

The keys weren’t in the backhoe. He checked the door of the building and found it locked. He lifted a heavy steel-toed boot and smashed the door open. An alarm beeped five times before letting out an unending wail.
Tara, running past a blur of headstones, heard the wailing and for a brief moment her heart leapt, thinking it was the cry of a woman in pain before realizing that it was just an alarm. As she reached her daughter’s fresh grave, she stumbled, falling to her knees. Her hands became claws, digging at the black dirt. “Hang on, baby! Hang on!” she shouted.

The backhoe behind her rumbled to life.

Floyd maneuvered the vehicle skillfully, and in ten minutes he had uncovered the steel vault surrounding the coffin. Tara jumped into the grave, touching the cold metal. “She can’t get through this!”

Floyd jumped out of the backhoe, retrieving his welding kit from his pickup. He slid into the grave, handing a pair of goggles to his wife.

Tara clutched the goggles, but did not put them on.

He sparked the torch and went to work, cutting through the vault.

After fifty excruciating minutes, he was able to push enough of the vault away to reveal the upper half of the cedar coffin. Tara scrambled past him, throwing open the lid.

Jane Brown lay as she had the last time they had seen her, with papery hands folded over young breasts. Her cheeks had sunk dramatically, her cake makeup going grey. Tara stroked Jane’s icy face, whispering, “Open your eyes, baby. Open your eyes for us.”

But Jane never did.

* * * *

The Changed is available now at DriveThruHorror.com and Amazon.com.

This preview for was provided and published with express permission from Apex Book Company.

Walk the line between magic and madness in Erin M. Evan’s passionate story about the dragons of the City of Splendors…

The God Catcher is gripping tale of identity, intrigue, and obsession set in the classic City of Splendors and presented by Forgotten Realms campaign setting creator and celebrated author Ed Greenwood. You don’t want to miss out on this exciting glimpse into what the latest edition of the Realms has to offer.

The God Catcher is available now at Amazon.com.

Flames Rising is pleased to offer a short excerpt from this new Forgotten Realms novel.

The God Catcher by Erin M. Evans

“Heavens to Hells,” Lady Aowena Hedare cried. She leaned out of the window that overlooked the street of the God Catcher.

“What sort of neighborhood is this?”

“A good one,” Tennora assured her aunt, though it was hardly a neighborhood—more the accidental square created where Sul Street met a funny little jog off Market Street that to Tennora’s knowledge had no agreed-upon name. A hearth-house, a dry goods store, and a few far-shippers were tucked into the surrounding buildings, but the tenement the locals called the God Catcher was the neighborhood.

“Doesn’t look that way to me,” Tennora’s uncle Eckhart said, peering over his wife’s rounded shoulder. He snorted through his thick moustaches. “Or sound like it.”

“I promise,” Tennora said, “this isn’t normal. It’s a very nice neighborhood.”

But of course, the one day she’d managed to set aside for her aunt and uncle, to prove to them once and for all that she wasn’t living in the midst of criminals and coin lasses, everything had to fall apart. Tennora had planned everything carefully—she always planned carefully. She’d spent the whole morning trying to make certain the visit would be as uneventful as possible. Set the table ahead of time and arranged the chips to all face her own seat.

Beaten out the rug beneath the table. Spent an hour assembling little morsels of bread and salty ham so that her aunt wouldn’t notice she was out of butter. Cooked and cleaned and pressed so that everything would go well.

“How could that happen?” Tennora said.

“Spellplague,” she spat, and then drank from her mug as if to rinse the taste of the word from her mouth.

It wasn’t fair, Tennora thought, to hold her accountable for the madwoman standing in the street and screaming up at her apartment.

“What is she saying?” Aunt Aowena asked. “Plaque Clock? Brack Rock?”

“I believe it’s ‘Blacklock,’ ” Tennora said, stifling a sigh. “Aundra Blacklock. The landlady.” She pointed up at the arm of the God Catcher, stretched out above them.

Years before, Tennora’s apartment had been part of a glorious statue controlled by the Lords of Waterdeep. The Walking Statues were famed for protecting the City of Splendors against invaders.

Then the Spellplague erupted and drove the statues mad. The God Catcher had been headed to crush the market, the very heart of its city, when a wizard—the Blackstaff, they said—turned the ground beneath it into mud. Its leg sank, and the statue collapsed, its arm reaching up toward the heavens, and froze. The leg remained, a passage into the sewers below. The body curled over its other knee had been built over with new construction, and a set of stairs wound its way up the outstretched arm. But the calm stone face regarding the sphere, the muscles of its shoulder, and the long column of its pale gray arm remained visible.

Twenty feet above the statue’s open palm a sphere without a visible door floated—the home of Aundra Blacklock, proprietor and sorceress, and the source of the madwoman’s ire.

“She could at least enunciate.” Aunt Aowena sniffed.

“If that is the sort of person your landlady is acquainted with,” Uncle Eckhart said, “I shudder to think of the sort of ruffians she’s rented to.”

“No offense, dear,” Aunt Aowena added.

“I don’t believe they’re acquainted,” Tennora said. The woman had the red-faced, uncomprehending look of pure rage that the mysterious Aundra Blacklock frequently inspired in people who didn’t know better. Aundra kept to herself, unapologetically so.

Tennora could count on one hand the number of times she’d spoken to the raptoran landlady—once when she’d rented the apartment in the God Catcher’s shoulder, and twice when Aundra had flown down to Tennora’s window to pick up the rent payments in the early evening hours. If the woman wanted Aundra’s attention, she was going to be waiting.

The madwoman scooped up a piece of broken pavement from the street and hurled it at the God Catcher. It hit Tennora’s neighbor’s shuttered window. Aunt Aowena squealed, and Tennora fought the urge to scream.

“Why don’t we just sit back—” she started to say.

“Ah!” her uncle interrupted. “There’s the Watch. About time.”

A carefully prepared highsunfeast lay forgotten on the table.

But, Tennora thought, perhaps it was not all bad. The disturbance outside had interrupted her aunt’s latest attempt to convince Tennora to return home with them to the North Ward.

“You’re not truly happy here,” Aunt Aowena had said, ignoring the cashew soup Tennora had spent most of the morning preparing.

“How could you be? Shabby, shabby place. The air has to be terrible on your poor lungs.”

“I’m certain the air is quite the same here as in the North Ward,” Tennora said.

Aowena ignored her. “I’ll tell you what—Eckhart and I are looking for a tutor for your cousins. You can move back in with us and we’ll even give you spending coins, like a little salary. How does that sound?”

“It’s very kind,” Tennora replied, even though it wasn’t kind in the least. It was an easy way for her aunt to educate Tennora’s four cousins and an easier way to slip her back into the house. “I know I can always count on you, Aunt Aowena, but—”

Her aunt clapped gleefully. “You can move into the Griffon Room! And we’ll introduce you to all the best young men—don’t want to be a tutor forever, do we now?”

Tennora’s thoughts unavoidably slid to the last young man she had been introduced to. Ballinton Marchenor, a third son of that family, an officer of the guard who spent the better part of the last evenfeast she’d attended regaling her with the geography of the sewers he patrolled. He had been very eager and sweet, called her Lady Hedare as he was supposed to, and took her hand with an earnestness that suggested he didn’t do that often. Tennora had found it too cruel to tell him that while she was sure he had many nice qualities, he was an utter bore and still smelled of the sewers.

She concentrated very hard on not making a face. “That is kind of you as well. But I’m afraid my studies—”

“Tut! There’s no point to a lovely young girl with your means wasting her time with wizardry. I always told your mother—”

That was when the madwoman started screaming, and although it didn’t seem like a charitable thought, Tennora was glad the madwoman had saved her the unbearable chore of explaining to Aunt Aowena that she didn’t want to live in the North Ward and teach arithmetic to her snotty cousins while empty-headed young men squired her around ballrooms. That she wanted to continue studying wizardry in her apprenticeship
at the House of Wonder.

It also saved her the embarrassment of admitting she wasn’t studying wizardry anymore, that her apprenticeship had been ended.

“They’re not going to—” Aowena broke off with a squeal. “Oh Eckhart, they’ve got their swords out!”

“There, there, my dear. They won’t do anything upsetting.”

Judging by the way Aowena squealed again and covered her eyes, Tennora suspected the Watch couldn’t cross the square without being “upsetting” to her aunt.

Add it to the list of things that upset her, Tennora thought, along with me moving away, learning something useful, having friends I wasn’t introduced to at a party at the Roaringhorns’, and wearing my hair like this. Ever since Tennora’s parents had died of a featherlung epidemic when she was fifteen, she had been struggling to find a way to please her aunt and uncle without making herself miserable. The idea of telling Aunt Aowena about losing her place at the House of Wonder, a school for wizards, made Tennora wish she could trade places with the madwoman.

She leaned over Aowena’s shoulder to look out the window.

It was a grayish, drizzly day, and the silvery armor of the Watch seemed faded and insubstantial in the gloom. The captain of the patrol was inching toward the woman. She slung another pebble up at the God Catcher.

“All right, mistress,” the captain called. “Put your hands on top of your head and come along quietly. No need to disturb the God Catcher further.”

The woman turned to him with a contemptuous grace and looked the captain over as if sizing him up. She was too far away and spoke too softly for Tennora to hear what she said next, but the captain stepped back as if jolted and shouted an order to surround and subdue the madwoman.

“Oh!” Aowena cried, her eyes riveted on the advancing guards.

“It’s just too terrible to watch!”

The Watchmen slipped through the crowd, ordering the bystanders to step back and clear a path. The woman seemed to coil, preparing for the attack, relishing it—though Tennora suspected that was only her imagination. Who would relish such a thing?

The patrolman behind the woman sprang forward and twisted her arm behind her back. The woman slipped from his grasp, fluid as an eel. A second patrolman with ginger hair peeking out from his helmet snatched her around the waist and tried to lift her off her feet—and got a heel to each knee for his trouble. He dropped her but managed to hold tight to her waist.

“She ought to be ashamed of herself!” Uncle Eckhart said.

“Making such a scene! Didn’t her mother ever teach her to respect her betters?”

It would be more useful, Tennora thought as the madwoman twisted against her captor, if her mother had taught her to fight off an attacker. The guard holding the madwoman had positioned himself perfectly for a sharp punch to the kidney—She caught herself in the midst of the thought.

I would never do that, she reminded herself. Just because she’d made a point of learning to protect herself when she’d moved deeper into the city and away from her family’s guardsmen didn’t mean she fantasized about using those skills.

Except, a little part of her said, you just did.

The first guard and one of his comrades—a woman with a brown braid down her back—grabbed the madwoman by the wrists. The captain shouted for her to stop resisting and come along. The madwoman’s laughter rang through the courtyard.

She broke the woman’s grip and sprang backward. She cast a hand high over her head. And then she vanished.

The Watchmen all fell back, staring at the empty space. Something powerful had just happened, to be sure. Tennora leaned out the window, scanning the crowd for any sign of the woman—there were spells that let a body move through the air with a thought, but not too far. The Watch seemed to be thinking the same thing. They spread through the crowd, searching the bystanders. She might have been invisible. A disturbance in the air, a phantom brush against an arm, the sound of fabric sliding against itself—there were clues, to be sure, but no one seemed to notice anything amiss.

Only that the woman was gone—no trace, no trail, no aftereffects.

A shiver ran up Tennora’s spine. Something powerful indeed.

“Well,” Aowena said. “I do hope she’s learned her lesson. Now, what were you saying about your studies, dear?”

An hour later, after the street had calmed down and the Timehands chimed tharsun, Aowena and Eckhart finally went home to the North Ward, thanking Tennora for the visit and reminding her that the position of tutor was still available.

“But don’t count on it forever, dove,” Aowena said, handing the coachman her handbag. “I do need to fill it soon.”

“Never mind her,” Eckhart said once Aowena had stepped into the coach. “You’re always welcome to come home, tutor or not.”

“Oh!” Aowena cried, sticking her head out of the window. “I nearly forgot! We have a trunk for you. I told them to send it this morning, but you know how the servants can be.”

“What trunk?”

“Oh, they found it tidying up the Phoenix Room—that was your mother’s room, remember, dear?” Aowena’s tones had not, to the casual observer, changed, but to Tennora’s practiced ear the enmity Aowena had felt for her late sister-in-law rang clear. “It was pushed back under the bed, behind all her boxes of clothes.”

“What trunk?” Tennora asked again.

“Just some old things of your mother’s,” Aowena said. “I thought you might like to have them. It should come by this evening.”

Tennora tried not to look too surprised. Those things of her parents’ that hadn’t been destroyed to ward off the disease were kept at the Hedare family manor—where they belonged, according to her aunt and uncle. She had some few relics of their lives: a portrait of her mother, her father’s silk handkerchief, the quilt that had lain on their marriage bed. The trunk was likely full of odds and ends, bits of junk that her mother had wanted out of sight and out of mind. Probably trinkets of her life before she’d married into the noble family.

Still, it had been hers.

Tennora agreed to watch for the errand boy and no, she wouldn’t let anyone else into her home. She kissed her aunt and uncle on the cheeks, went back to her apartment, locked the door behind her, and sat down in front of the window to watch the rain that had started pouring down in earnest. A fitting complement, she thought, to the past two days. She tugged at a loose thread at the hem of her skirt.

All her worries came back to her in a rush: There would be no more lessons. There would be no more chances. She closed her eyes, the afternoon that had ruined her life running through her mind.

She had been in the library of Master Rhinzen Halnian’s tower, researching for a test on enchanted objects. Carefully balancing on a wobbly step stool, she scanned the shelves for a book she’d found mentioned in a footnote—Ritual Development and Magical Restraint. Not a book she needed, to be fair, but the footnote—itself in a book she had not strictly needed to be studying—implied intriguing information about how imbuing magic in items often created drawbacks if the ritual was more powerful than the caster intended. Master Halnian’s test wouldn’t ask anything about magic item creation, she was sure, but Tennora’s curiosity begged to be sated.

Behind her someone cleared his throat. Startled, Tennora looked down at a handsome young man wearing blue robes similar to her own.

Cassian Lafornan was a fellow apprentice to Rhinzen Halnian.

If there was a better-looking young man anywhere in Faerûn, Tennora hoped they kept him locked away somewhere to avoid riots. He had soft brown hair and hazel eyes so bright and warm, Tennora felt as if she were melting when he looked at her.

She had not—of course—told Cassian any of that.

“Coins bright, Cassian. You scared me. Can I help you?”

At that moment the stool wobbled. The young man reached out to steady her, grabbing her hands. Warmth flooded Tennora.

“All right there?” Cassian asked, giving her a charming smile.

“Yes!” Tennora said. “I mean, thank you. This old stool is . . .They should replace it.”

Cassian gave her a curious look, and Tennora blushed as he helped her down.

“I was just looking for a book,” she said, mentally kicking herself.

What else would she have been doing up there? Bird-watching?

“Do you really need another?” Cassian asked, casting an eye at the table Tennora had been using for her research. Books lay open on still more open books, hanging over every edge. “You have nearly the whole library there.”

Tennora smiled nervously. “Well, there are a lot of references and . . . I just like books?”

He smiled back. “You certainly do. Master Halnian sent me. He wants to have a word with you. He’s in his study.” Cassian looked at the mountain of books. “He sounded urgent.”

“I’ll just . . . clean them up later,” Tennora said. “Thank you. For telling me.” Before he could answer, Tennora rushed out of the library.

Bloody Sune’s spit, she thought, pressing a cool hand against her face. Why did he make her act like she had all the social graces of a hobgoblin? Tennora knew she was pretty enough, knew she had plenty of interesting things to say—yet when faced with Cassian . . . she might as well be a hobgoblin.

In the hallway, she passed another student, an elf girl called Shava carrying a tray of used glasses and half-finished sweetmeats away from Master Halnian’s study. Tennora stopped her.

“Is he upset?” she asked.

“Not a bit,” Shava said. “He seems to be in a better mood than usual.” A weight came off Tennora’s shoulders.

Remembering that feeling of relief, Tennora cringed.

The door to Master Halnian’s study was open. Her master stood in front of a row of windows that faced the sea and was high enough in the tower to spy the gray edge of the water and catch the smell of the salt breeze if the windows were open. Shelves of books and strange artifacts lined two walls. Behind Master Halnian’s divan he kept an array of particularly precious items behind glass—a sword with an amethyst in the hilt carved like a sleeping face, a crown made of silver bones, a collar set with a moonstone the size of Tennora’s fist that Master Halnian had said was a piece of the Songdragon’s armor from the Wailing Years.

They all scintillated with waiting magic.

On the wall farthest from the windows, the symbol of the dead goddess still traced the stones—a ring of seven stars around a plume of red. As she often did, Tennora took a moment to study it, reverence in her memorization of the fading paint and chipped stones.

“Master Halnian?” Tennora said. “You wanted to see me?”

The eladrin wizard turned abruptly. “Tennora. Please sit,” he said with a smile. She slid into the chair opposite him. “Tennora,” he said, taking a seat behind his desk. He said her name like a sigh. Tennora’s heart squeezed—she was in trouble.

She ran through the last tenday—nothing stood out. But the look of concern on Master Halnian’s face was unavoidable.

“Tennora, there’s no easy way to say this. I’m afraid I’m going to have to release you from your term of study,” he said.

The words struck her like a slap to the face. “I-I’m sorry?”

“I don’t believe this is the proper . . . path for you. I know you are very passionate about learning the Art,” he said. “But I simply cannot condone keeping you here. You see, when Lord and Lady Hedare first brought you to me, I had thought . . . well, my dear, you have a certain grace in your physical movement. It does not translate to your casting.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that the practice of the Art should be like a dance, an opera, a synergy of motion and sound and magic. What we have left is fragile and fickle. It deserves care and focus. You, my dear—how shall I put it? You yank on the threads of the Weave as if they were leashes and the spells errant hounds.”

“But . . .” Tennora said. “But isn’t there anything I can do? I mean, I’m studying very hard—”

“Yes, yes,” Rhinzen said. “You’re a very intelligent girl. Very quick. But being clever is only a part of mastering the Weave.”

“Isn’t that what you’re supposed to be teaching me?” Tennora asked. “I can sense it—I can—it’s just that sometimes the spells don’t quite work right. That happens to everyone.”

“You more than most,” Rhinzen said. “I am glad to see your eyebrows have grown back, by the by.”

Tennora blushed. “It wasn’t so bad as all that.”

Rhinzen stood and paced behind her, studied his artifacts.

“The matter is simple, my dear. Some of us are gifted with an understanding of the Weave. And some of us are not. That is the way things are, and neither you nor I can change that any more than we can make ourselves dwarves!”

“But I . . . I know I can. I just need—”

“Waterdeep needs quality wizards. What would we have done if Ahghairon’s spells didn’t work quite right? Where would we be if the Songdragon’s armor had been enchanted by mere amateurs?”

Exactly where we are now, a small voice in the back of Tennora’s mind said. The Spellplague came, with or without you.

Out loud, she said, “Master Halnian, I promise you I do not take this lightly. Give me another chance. Please. I have wanted to be a wizard all my life.”

“Tennora, please.” The eladrin set a hand on hers. “Make certain you tidy the library before you leave.”

And that had been that. She was unsuited to the Art. She had wasted whole years trying. It didn’t matter how much she wanted or tried or studied. Master Halnian wouldn’t take her back. Everything she’d loved, everything she’d studied for so long, had been pointless.

She thought of her fellow students—especially handsome Cassian. He’d go on to great things, probably marry some elf girl with no hips, Tennora thought bitterly. One who could cast a fire spell without burning anyone’s eyebrows off.

She watched the rain fall and the clouds drift by, becoming darker and stormier with each passing sigh. It was as if her life had stopped.

Her stomach gurgled as if to remind Tennora that her life had not stopped and that she still had to figure out what she was going to do next. A meal, a pint, and some sympathy seemed like an excellent plan to start with, and Tennora rose from her seat to look out the window.

The view encompassed the square and its jumble of ancient and rebuilt architecture. People tended to forget anything was even there, sandwiched as it was between busier streets. Tennora adored it. The history of Waterdeep peeked out of every corner.

Where other areas of the city had been rebuilt with care, the street of the God Catcher made do with what it could, picking up bits and baubles from the ruins. A section of cobbles made from a fallen tower, the window arch still intact. A wall that jutted proudly between two buildings, surpassing and supporting them both. An ornate street lamp, just in front of the hearth-house, that hadn’t been lit in a century.

Tennora squinted into the rain.

Under the street lamp, the madwoman waited.

Something about her made Tennora want to close the shutters and crawl back into bed. If Tennora went out, the madwoman would seize her, she felt sure. She might scream a banshee’s scream, and then rip her—Tennora shook her head. What in the Nine Hells was getting into her? She looked at the woman standing in the rain. Just a woman—she didn’t even seem to carry a weapon. Though whatever she’d done earlier had clearly been some sort of spell. . . .

The hearth-house—and a hope for capping off the dreary day with a better evening—waited beyond the dark street lamp and its mad sentinel. If Tennora moved quickly and kept her distance, she could probably avoid speaking to the woman at all. She was quick. She knew how to avoid people, how to slip by with a demure smile and be on her way. It wouldn’t be difficult at all. She buckled her stormcloak and snuffed out the candles—and with them the concern lingering in the back of her mind.

Her staff rested in the corner by the door. Tennora let her fingers trace the hard lines of the wood grain.

She left it and slammed the door shut behind her.

* * *

The God Catcher is available now at Amazon.com.

This preview for was provided and published with express permission from Wizards of the Coast.

FlamesRising.com is pleased to present an exclusive preview of a new anthology put together by Kerrie Hughes and Martin Greenberg. THE GIRL’S GUIDE TO GUNS AND MONSTERS includes several of your favorite urban fantasy and paranormal romance authors including: Lilith St. Crow, Anton Strout, Tanya Huff, Jim C. Hines, Mickey Zucker Reichert and Elizabeth A. Vaughan.

Featuring several new heroines that aren’t afraid to do the “rescuing,” this collection of thirteen short stories is all about empowered female characters. Now, you can read an excerpt from three of these stories.

The Girl’s Guide to Guns and Monsters is available now at Amazon.com and DriveThruHorror.com.

Best Friends by Lilith Saintcrow

“You can’t be serious.” I pushed my bangs back fretfully, I hadn’t had a trim in ages. I wanted to wriggle out of my damp bikini top, but I hadn’t brought a T-shirt. “He’s just your stepfather. Or going to be, anyway, since your mom’s…well.”

Kate sighed, a sound of sharp metal frustration. “Look, do you think I’d be telling you if I wasn’t sure? I’m not crazy, Becca.”

I eyed her for a long critical moment, sucking on the straw. Finished my chocolate milkshake, set the paper cup down, and slid my shades down the bridge of my nose. We both smelled like chlorine and sunscreen, because you can’t ever wash pool-smell out of your hair in the showers at the Y. Kate’s blonde braid dripped, soaking a dark patch through shoulder of her Frexies T-shirt. Her burger was half-eaten. She hadn’t even touched her fries.

It was unheard-of. Usually Kate finished her potato products first, and a healthy helping of mine as well, world without end, amen. But today she had a few lone survivors on her spread-out cheeseburger wrapper.
She hadn’t been eating much, lately.

It was a ninety-plus day, but I shivered. “Okay. So what are we gonna do?”

Kate’s face crumpled. For a moment I was sure she was going to cry, so I looked down at the ruins of my lunch, just to give her some privacy.

But Kate just picked up a napkin and blew her nose. A hot breeze from the Tasty Freeze parking lot made the tattered umbrella over our table flap. Everyone else was inside enjoying the air conditioning. Sitting outside on a day like this could fry your brain.

“He’s awake sometimes during the day, even if he never goes outside.” Kate’s voice was small, as if she was six again. “He hates garlic, too. And at night he’s just bouncing off the walls. Mom thinks it’s cute. They’re really into each other since she brought him home.”

It was what she’d said before. But my gaze came up and fastened on Kate’s hand. She’d taken to wearing that fashionable buckled leather cuff everywhere, even into the pool. Now it lay on the table, getting lighter as it dried, and the two marks on the pale underside of her wrist where she hardly ever tanned had worn, white-looking edges. Their centres were dark and angry, though. Scabbed over.

Right where they taught you to take the pulse in First Aid.

Kate made a restless movement. “I thought he was just creepy. But he…God.”

“He just comes in your room while your mom’s gone, right?” That was important, though I couldn’t say just why. “Is she…acting weird? I mean, weirder than normal?”

“She’s tired a lot.” Kate hunched her shoulders. “He’s got money, says she doesn’t have to work. She’s about ready to agree. Her shifts are pretty long.”

“Yeah.” I sucked on her straw thoughtfully, making a weird bubbling noise. “But if she’s home more often…”

“She’s so tired.” Kate’s eyes came up, and she stared significantly at Kate. “You know?”

As tired as Kate looked, probably. Dark circles under her eyes. Worn out.

Drained.

The sunshine was hot, but it didn’t touch the ice inside my stomach. “Okay,” I said again. The exact same way I said it every time Kate had a problem. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure something out.”

Lupercalia by Anton Strout

A lot of people had walked through the doors of New York’s Serendipity on East Sixtieth Street over the years, but it was doubtful than any had come in with a crossbow strapped across their back. In that respect, Leis Colchis was singular. Her roommate Helen Leda certainly didn’t have one on her. Helen hadn’t even realized Leis had one until she took off her winter cloak in the restaurant.

“Is that what I think it is?” she whispered. “I’m pretty sure our R.A. would tell us that we’re not allowed to have one of those in our dorm room.” Although no one was paying attention to the pretty, long-haired blonde with the weapon yet, Helen figured it was only a matter of time.

Leis turned to her. “Good thing we’re not on NYU property then,” she said. Leis dropped her cloak onto a bench by the front door and released the crossbow’s strap.

Helen grabbed Leis’s arm. “You’re not going to hurt anyone, are you? I know you’re pissed with James and everything…”

Leis pulled away from her dark-haired roommate with ease. Helen’s grip wasn’t strong enough to hold on, and for once the petite girl wished she was a little stronger so she could restrain her friend.

“Relax,” Leis said. “I’m not going to hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve it…”

Before Helen could ask her what the hell she meant by that, Leis strode into Serendipity’s dining room. It was packed to the gills, full of seated couples and families doing the tourist thing. The ceiling was white pressed tin, and just below it hung the restaurant’s famous Tiffany glass structure that was a mix of pop art, twisted wires and glass butterflies. Helen thought it stood out against the whitewash of the surrounding walls like a wrecked car on the West Side Highway. Red hearts of all shapes and sizes were stuck to every wall.

As Helen watched Leis walk through the crowd, a few heads turned. Helen shook her head. Leis was stubborn over simple stuff, like policing who ate what food in the common room fridge. God only knew what she do if she found James in here…

Helen watched the crowd fall silent as Leis wandered through the tables. The wait staff didn’t quite know what to do about a woman with a crossbow in the shop. They just stood there, holding large cut crystal chalices filled with their signature frozen hot chocolates, an iced slush of chocolate topped with a mountain of whipped cream drizzled with even more chocolate on top. They were so huge a small child could probably bathe in one of them. Helen looked closer at the tables around the room. Practically every table had one or two of them on it.

Never having tasted one, Helen was curious, but turned back to Leis, who was looking at one particular couple a few tables away where she had caught the eye of the man sitting there. Leis dashed over to it and grabbed the well-dressed man by his tie, pulling it tight. The woman he was sitting with started to stand, but Leis pointed her crossbow at her and used her foot to kick her back into her seat.

“Hey!” the woman shouted.

Leis shot her a look over the crossbow that killed any further outbursts.

No Matter Where You Go By Tanya Huff

“I overheard a couple of uniforms talking today.”

Her head pillowed on Mike’s shoulder, palm of her right hand resting over his heart, Vicki made a non-committal hmm.

“There’s been some vandalism in Mount Pleasant Cemetery the last couple of nights.”

She tapped her fingers on sweat-damp skin to the rhythm of the rain against the window, wrapping it around the steady bass of his heartbeat. “You don’t say.”

Mike closed his hand around hers, stopping the movement. “Someone dug a small firepit on a grave and cremated a mouse. The officers responding found wax residue on the gravestone, chalk marks on the grass, and evidence of at least four people.”

“Uh huh.” Vicki rose up on her left elbow so that she could see Mike’s expression. He seemed to be completely serious. Although the pale spill of streetlight around the edges of the blind provided insufficient illumination for him to see her in turn, his eyes were locked on her face, waiting for her to draw her own conclusions.

“You think some idiot’s trying to call up a demon.”

“I think it’s possible.”

“And you think I should…?”

He shrugged, a minimum movement of one shoulder. “I think we should check it out.”

“We?”

His fingers tightened, thumb moving down to stroke the scar on her wrist. “I don’t want you there alone.”

She had a matching scar on the other wrist, a pair of thin white lines against pale skin, a reminder written in flesh of a demon nearly unleashed on the city by her blood. But that had been years ago, when Vicki Nelson, ex-police detective, not particularly successful private investigator, had only just discovered that creatures out of nightmare were real.

“Things have changed.” Turning her hand in his, she stroked in turn the puncture wound on his wrist, already healing even though it had been less than an hour since she’d fed. “I’m pretty sure vampire trumps wannabe sorcerer.” When he didn’t answer, merely continued to look up at her, brown eyes serious, she sighed. “Fine. A vampire and an exceedingly macho police detective definitely trumps wannabe sorcerer. Worst case scenario, it won’t be much of a demon if all they’re sacrificing is a mouse. We’ll check it out tomorrow night.”

Dark brows rose. “Why tomorrow? It’s barely midnight.”

“And it’s pouring rain. They won’t be able to keep their fire lit.”

“So tonight…”

Vicki grinned, tugged her hand free, and moved it lower on his body. “Well, if you’re so set on not sleeping, I’m sure we’ll think of something to do.”

* * *

The Girl’s Guide to Guns and Monsters is available now at Amazon.com and DriveThruHorror.com.

This preview for was provided and published with express permission from DAW.

The blue dragon, Lazuli, lives to torment the villagers of Sandon’s hometown, Hartfall. He demands more and more riches until the Baron, Sandon’s father, has only one thing left to give: himself. Lazuli will arrive at midnight to take the Baron away. Sandon has only one hope left: the gold dragon that sits atop a ledge above the village, silently watching. In one legendary battle Lazuli magically petrified the gold dragon, once Hartfall’s sworn protector. But Sandon is sure he can find a way to awaken the beast. In the dead of night, he sneaks out onto the gold dragon’s ledge. And there he stumbles onto a secret that throws everything he thought he knew about his home and his family into question. Can Sandon unlock the secret of the gold dragon in time to save his village–and his dad?

This next installment of the series inspired by The New York Times best-seller A Practical Guide to Dragons shows just how much a young boy can do when he realizes that the strength of a gold dragon may lie inside himself.

Flames Rising is pleased to offer our readers an excerpt from this book by R.D. Henham. Gold Dragon Codex is available now at Amazon.com and in digital format at DriveThruFantasy.com.

Gold Dragon Codex

Chapter One

Sandon sighed and tried to keep his unruly horse from leaping ahead of the others. They’d ridden out from the keep under his father’s flag, the blue banners snapping all around them. His father rode at the front of the team, a grim look on his face beneath the upturned visor of his shining helm. All six of the keep’s guards, as well as their commander and Baron Camiel, thundered down the road with Sandon. They rode toward the village, the pounding of their horses’ hooves blending with the rattle of their heavy plate mail.

Beside Sandon, one of the men blew a hunting horn in a brisk military hom-hom-hom to announce their passage.

With lowered swords and charging steeds, the baronial guard plowed into the assembled bandits without mercy. Sandon raised his weapon as he’d been taught, slashing at a bandit who tried to duck beneath his charge. “Have at you!” he cried, the light timbre of his voice breaking high above the battle cries of his father’s more experienced soldiers. Sandon swallowed back another yell, aware that he sounded like a puppy in a pack of wolves. One bandit thrust at him with a long dagger, but Sandon turned aside the blade with a sideways flip of his sword. Sandon glowed with pride at his success and glanced to see if his father had noticed. The baron was, as always, surrounded by the brightest of his soldiers, issuing orders to his men even as the bandits broke and ran. Sandon’s smile faded.

“Well done, Sandon!” His uncle, Vilfrand, rode up next to him. His horse half reared in the excitement of battle, whinnying an echoing war cry as Vilfrand laughed. “Looks like we’ve got them on the run!”

The bandits weren’t interested in a fair fight— and definitely not one where they were outmatched by their opponents. They screamed and ducked as the guards attacked, diving for the shrubs and trees on both sides of the ill-used road. Some of them paused a little longer to exchange blows with the soldiers, but none could fight for long against the well-trained men.

A few blows got through, but rang out uselessly against the heavy plate mail.

“Keep at them, men!” the baron commanded. “Don’t stop until we teach these louts their place!”

“Aye, m’lord baron!” Vilfrand intercepted one, catching the fleeing bandit in the shoulder. His blow tore the man’s rough shirt, slicing through to the skin beneath and scraping through to the bone. The bandit screamed, dropping his dagger and fleeing into the woods with redoubled speed. “Ride with me, Sandon! They won’t stand for long!”

The baron turned his back again, shouting quick commands to the guards. “Michil, Jonas—into the woods after them. Don’t go far, just keep them running. Gart, Denton, keep an eye on this one.” The baron leveled his eye at the single man still standing in the center of the road.

“What about me, Dad?” Sandon pushed his horse forward into the circle of soldiers, straightening proudly.

Baron Camiel hardly glanced at him. “Stay back with your uncle.”

The lone man wore battered chain mail and a worn leather belt. His boots were scuffed and dusty. Despite his weary appearance, the man stood firmly—sword in his hand, backpack at his feet and a thin trickle of blood staining a long dagger tear through the leather of his pants leg. The two guardsmen that stayed behind took up combat positions to either side of him.

“They’ve fled, sir,” one of the soldiers reported.

The baron nodded sharply, swinging down from his chomping war steed. His shining black boots puffed up twin clouds of dust from the road as he faced the last of the bandits. “I see we have a brave one,” snarled Baron Camiel. “You’ll swing for this. Banditry’s a crime in these lands, as in most of Solamnia. Captain, take him into custody.”

“As you wish, Baron Camiel,” Sandon’s uncle replied, shoving back the guard of his helmet. He was a black-haired, mustached man with sharp blue eyes.

He leveled his thick sword at the man standing within the ring of horses, ready to spit him as if he were a chicken. “Surrender, bandit, or we’ll sentence you where you stand.”

“I’m no bandit,” the man spat. He tossed his head, throwing back dirty blond hair. “I’m a soldier, like you.”

With a quick flick of his wrist, he blocked Vilfrand’s sword, tossing the sharp end of it aside and snapping back into a fighting crouch. “Or, maybe better.” The soldier grinned as Vilfrand’s weapon clattered to the ground.

Captain Vilfrand reddened. “Soldier?” he snapped.

“Half of these bandits were soldiers before they turned to thieving after the war. That’s no assurance you’re anything other than a black-hearted scoundrel. And don’t give me any lies about ‘heroism’ and ‘hard times.’ We’ve all got hard times, especially the people in Hartfall—you’ve no right to mercy.”

“I didn’t ask for any,” the soldier grunted, keeping his short blade raised. The man was breathing heavily, perspiration trickling down his cheeks, but his cold hazel eyes never blinked. Sandon could see that he was an unpleasant-looking fellow, with high cheekbones and thin lips clenched in a pained grimace. His hands were still and well trained, calloused where they grasped the hilt of his weapon. His eyes met the captain’s squarely, never blinking. Whatever else he was, Sandon thought, the man was brave.

The baron reached up to pull off his helm. He was a thick, square man, shorter than the others, burly through the shoulders where his brother, Vilfrand, was lean. His armor, like that of the guardsmen, was old and dented in places, but well cared for. Blue eyes gleamed at the man on the ground. “Who are you?”

The soldier didn’t lower his weapon, nor did he take his eyes off the soldiers’ swords. “Just a traveler, passing through.”

“Passing through?” Baron Camiel snarled. “The Solamnic road ends here. They stopped building it hundreds of years ago when they couldn’t get through the mountains. Hartfall is a dead end. People come here to trade for our harvests, and then they take them back to Solamnia. Only the bounty of our fields,” he said with cruel regret, “ensured that we saw travelers every season. Now that the fields are gone… so, too, are the many visitors we once welcomed.”

A soldier? “Were you in the War of the Lance? Did you serve with the Golden General or the Knights of Solamnia?” Sandon’s voice broke as he asked the question, but he was too excited to care.

“Your commander’s got six men with swords pointed at me, kid. I’m alone, wounded, and weary to the bone.

I’ll say I was in any war you want and served wherever you think is interesting,” rumbled the weary soldier, “as long as you get these idiots to let me go.”

“Watch your tongue before the baron of Hartfall!”

The captain’s eyes flashed.

“Father”—Sandon pointed at the insignia on the hilt of the soldier’s sword—“look at his weapon. That’s the sigil of the Knights of Solamnia!” Sandon jerked off his helm and slid to the ground beside his father.

At fourteen, he was lanky and gangly but starting to fill out into his father’s squareness. He squinted at the heraldry on the soldier’s sword eagerly, marking every symbol in his mind. “I’ve seen it before in the history books—that’s the mark of a knight. I never thought I’d see a real one,” he said wonderingly. He blinked, taking
the soldier in again. Sandon noted the rigid stance, the man’s courage in the face of overwhelming odds.

Could it be?

“That is the sigil.” The baron looked at the soldier more sternly. “But he’s no knight.”

“Suit yourself.” The man shrugged and lowered his stance, ready to renew the battle.

“Did one of you men give him that wound?” Sandon pointed at the soldier’s leg. When the soldiers shook their heads, glancing around at one another, he reached to grip his father’s arm. “We didn’t give it to him. Uncle Vilfrand can attest that he’s no slouch with a sword, so he didn’t give it to himself. If that’s true, then the bandits must have given it to him. That wound’s too fresh to be more than a few minutes old. If he was fighting the bandits, then he’s not one of them.”

Relaxing a bit, Captain Vilfrand nodded and looked the man over again. “It would explain his competence,” he said through gritted teeth.

“The bandits could have turned on each other after they took the merchants’ goods.” The baron wasn’t willing to back down. “Wolves eating wolves.”

“But, Father, he has the right to ask for succor,” prompted the boy, turning large brown eyes toward the soldier. “A soldier of Solamnia, in our homeland, bearing the sword of a knight—”

“A stolen sword, likely,” growled the baron.

“He can ask to stay. If he does, we have to give him room and board for three nights.”

“Sandon!” The baron gripped his sword hilt, exasperated. “We can’t trust this man!”

Sandon sheathed his sword and stepped out past the row of horsemen’s blades. He lowered his voice and spoke to the soldier. “We don’t have much, but you’d get a few square meals, a bath, and a roof over your head. It’s got to be better than camping on the road with an open wound.

Just ask for succor, and by law, he has to provide it.” The gruff-looking soldier glanced back and forth among the captain and his men, the baron, and the boy.

In a much louder tone of voice than Sandon’s, he said, “What makes you think I’d be willing to sleep under a dishonorable man’s roof?” With a scowl, he jerked his thumb at Baron Camiel.

“How dare you!” shouted Captain Vilfrand, leaping off his horse and striding forward. “No man insults the baron of Hartfall!” He moved protectively toward his brother, scooping up his sword from the dusty ground.

“Just say the word, Camiel, and I’ll silence this wretch once and for all.”

The baron’s blue eyes shone darkly. and he clenched the hilt of his still-sheathed sword. The heavily armored guards had snapped to attention again, armor rattling as they raised their weapons aggressively. Captain Vilfrand stepped between his family and the wounded soldier, pushing forward to cross blades with the traveler, his ice blue eyes snapping with cold fire.

“Succor.”

The soldier’s word took them all by surprise.

Frozen midattack, the horsemen glanced at the baron in confusion. Sandon spoke first. He jumped on the word, repeating it as loudly as his cracking voice allowed.

“Succor—he asked for succor! Stand down!” Sandon ordered, glancing at his father to see if it was all right.

Red tinging his cheeks from the insult, the baron pulled his clenched fist away from his sword.

“Dad.” Sandon met his father’s fierce stare. “You promised.”

There was a long pause before Baron Camiel nodded sharply to his son. He shot a bitter glance at the soldier and replied, “Granted.”

The captain did a double take, eyes wide and angry. “Sir?”

“You heard the boy, Vilfrand. Stand down.” The baron reached for his reins and tugged on them a bit more roughly than necessary as he swung back into the saddle. He fixed the traveling soldier with an icy stare.

“Because I can’t prove you’re guilty of banditry—or anything other than rudeness—I’ll grant your request. But you should know that I’m not doing this because the law requires me to aid the soldiers of my homeland because I’ve nothing to prove you are what you claim to be. You’re on very thin ice, brigand,” the baron snarled.

“Watch your step.”

“And I, for my part”—the rough soldier gritted his teeth and said the formal phrases—“swear to do no harm and aid in all ways while I am your guest . . . even if you are an idiot.”

Ignoring the black looks from everyone involved, Sandon beamed.

The baron growled orders through clenched teeth, barely keeping his temper in check. He jerked his horse around viciously and the animal grunted in surprise.

“Escort this soldier back to the castle,” he snarled. “Make him a bunk in one of the empty barracks.”

Shoving his broadsword back into its sheath, Captain Vilfrand remounted and barked orders to his men. “Form up!” He spurred his beast forward and joined the baron on the road back toward the keep. The others milled about a bit, readying themselves for the slow pace of the soldier’s limping walk. Not one horseman offered to give him a ride.

Sandon tried to give the traveler a small smile. “They’re not always this bad. Trust me.”

The soldier pressed his sword slowly into the scabbard at his waist, fingering the sigil on its hilt as he tucked it away.

“Doesn’t matter to me.” He reached for his backpack, slinging it over one shoulder and trudging forward. “I won’t be here long enough to hold a grudge.”

* * *

Gold Dragon Codex is available now at Amazon.com.

This preview for was provided and published with express permission from Wizards of the Coast.

A Tale of The Darkness!

Go back to the turn of the 20th Century and read a tale of lost love, the depravity of man and powers beyond our understanding in the tradition of H.P. Lovecraft! Salvador Gomes is a broken man. He has lost his beautiful wife and young daughter in a fire and now spends restless days and sleepless nights looking for solace. In desperation, he makes a bargain with “The Shadow God,” but every bargain has its price…

Flames Rising is pleased to offer our readers a five page preview of The Darkness: Shadows & Flame one-shot, which will arrive in stores this Wednesday, January 20.

Click the images for a larger look at each page:

About The Darkness:

Created by Marc Silvestri, Garth Ennis and David Wohl

Mafia hit-man Jackie Estacado thought he had it all figured out. After he did his first “job” for the family at 16 years old he knew that, although short, his life would be filled with money, sex, and power. But on his 21st birthday, Jackie inherited the family secret an unholy power known only as The Darkness–that would change his life forever. Now virtually unstoppable at night or in the shadows, he is master of his dark domain.

Little does he know, that the Darkness now has plans of it’s own for Jackie.

Visit TopCow.com for more information.

First published in 1999, This is My Blood is David Niall Wilson’s first and most important novel. It is a retelling of the gospel from a very different perspective. When jesus goes into the desert and is tempted by the devil, there is one temptation added. One of the fallen is raised as a woman to tempt him with the flesh. Instead, the woman, named Mary, falls in love with Jesus and his promise of returning her to Heaven.

Cursed to follow him and drink the blood of his followers, Mary walks a fine line between her desire to love and support the Christ, and her burning need to return to Heaven. This novel takes the world of faith, which was the world of men, and of the apostles, and shows it through the eyes of a fallen angel – one who has, in her own words, walked the roads of both Heaven, and Hell. She doesn’t believe there is a God…she knows.

Flames Rising is pleased to offer our readers an excerpt from this dark tale. This is My Blood is available now at DriveThruHorror.com.

Prologue

I suppose that I still love him, but not as I did. He fell from grace, burning and beautiful — defiant, but that falling chained his spirit. He chose to rail against the heavens, gnashing his teeth in futile anger at his imprisonment.

My own dreams, which may be empty, are of being free.

Lucifer would see it too, if he would but look. It has been promised to all of God’s creatures, great and small. I am one such creature, and I burn to claim my birthright.

When the kingdom men named Hell was born, many of us followed him there to lick our wounds and recover from the war. Whatever the religious leaders might tell you, whatever you might believe, it was war. The angel of light did not depart as an ember, but as a brilliant star, a power to singe even the hands of God.

It has been eons since I walked that tortured road, but it is there that my story begins. Perhaps, when the day of reconciliation arrives, it shall end there as well. That is not for me to judge. I know only this; it was through a man, and through Christ in the guise of a man, that I found hope. For this hope, if for nothing else, I inscribe this history.

It is possible that nothing shall ever be the same when my soul is bared, that I will be consumed in fire for my impudence. It does not matter. The weight of this story is too much to bear, and the only other who shares it has chosen silence.

We have drifted apart. Most of his time is spent in solitude, but he has left his mark. It is no wonder; he is half-crazed with boredom and lost to despair. His road and mine are not the same.

He is born of man, of the earth, I of the heavens. Though we share a curse, we cannot long abide one another’s company.

I dream for him as well, for I was created to greater strength. His own dreams too often fall to despair.

The apostles who told this tale before me had their own interests in mind when they recorded certain events. Much was left to the winds and drifting sands, forgotten. Only one among them ever penned the truth; only one among them had a great enough heart and the enduring love to care. That was Judas, named the betrayer.

He paid an awful price for a truer faith than most men will ever know. The Book of The Gospel, According to Judas, was burned on the second day after Jesus rose from his grave. There was only a single, hand-scribed copy, and he had failed to conceal it well. He never bothered to recreate it.

The others were jealous and afraid. They never trusted their own faith, knowing from the example of their master’s death how men would see them, and fearing how it would mark them in the eyes of God.

It was Peter, possessed of Lucifer himself, who set the blame for their Lord’s death on Judas’ shoulders. He felt it necessary to discredit Judas, and to remove his testimony.

Such is the pride of men. Perhaps they are more like the fallen angel of light than they have let themselves believe. It has always amazed me how the glaring holes in the life of their savior, and in the teachings of His disciples, have been so carelessly and pointedly overlooked. Nothing is harder to believe than that which is not desired.

At the time of Christ’s death, I was unable to explain why Lucifer did not seize the chance to have the truth recorded. Now, after watching the product of his intellect unfold, it has become obvious. He may be bitter, but he is brilliant.

Man might have reacted differently, had they known the truth. This senseless bending of facts and flailing of spiritual arms has brought centuries of amusement to those below. Entire lifetimes have been spent twisting ancient wisdom to serve the desires of mortals.

Though I see the weakness that is inherent in man, I am less vindictive than my former lord. I do not hate men for their gift of salvation, no matter how they might scorn or waste it. I do not hate the All-Father for my exile. In any case, few enough will listen to my story that it will not disrupt the general flow of humanity. As I have said, the thing least easy to believe is that which is not desired.

A great deal happened between the fall of light and the events of the gospel. The game of creation by one and corruption by the other began almost immediately, and Creation itself was batted about some, in the early stages. That fact alone has caused its own levels of chaos.

In some cases, the details of these conflicts were as minute and fragile as sub-atomic structures that developed flaws, or microorganisms that evolved in directions far from those originally planned. Lucifer was banned from Heaven, but his proximity to the Earthly works of his enemy gave him great freedom to annoy and antagonize.

While this was never directed at mankind, it has hewn a trail of pain that has led to the very brink of destruction. Games are not restricted to those of lower thought patterns, neither are the emotions of envy or greed.

Lucifer watched the arrival of the Christ upon the Earth with deep interest, and some concern.

Well aware that he could not prevent it, and unwilling to forego the amusement, he set about sowing the seeds of jealousy, fear, and distrust that would later lead to the crucifixion.

A small mountain of dead children grew on Christ’s birthday, sacrificed by those who feared the birth of a King. Satisfied with his handiwork, Lucifer sat back and watched.

Men are given to strange excesses. The dead children were a tragic example of this. I saw it as a shame. Lucifer saw the destruction not at all. His eyes were turned Heavenward, searching for a sign of the anger he knew his actions would spark. I walked the Earth in his shadow.

I will not apologize; I am not responsible. I will not dwell on the years prior to my tale, though certain events will require explanation. To avoid personal prejudice, to which I freely admit, I will use passages of The Book of Judas, which I hold embedded in my memory. I have walked the roads of both Heaven and Hell, seeing much. My memory will suffice.

In the Christ, Lucifer saw another part of his enemy, another work to corrupt. I saw beauty, a piece of what was forever lost to me. Perhaps even then, before his light had opened to me, I sought salvation.

Lucifer saw none of that; his hate had become too great. I saw, and I loved. The Christ, too, was very beautiful.

Chapter One

Jesus replied, “Away from me, Satan, for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, andserve him only.’”

The devil laughed and gestured, raising from the sands a Temptress. “See here the things craved by man,” he said, waving his arm to include the cities below.

“You are Son of man, does she not please you?”

And Jesus, seeing that she was fallen from Heaven, and sorely used, beckoned to the temptress, saying, “For all who would follow me, there burns a light in my father’s house.”

And the Temptress fell to her knees, forsaking the Devil and his darkness. In an awful rage, Lucifer laid upon her a curse, bringing a great thirst which could be sated only by the blood of man, and saying, “Feast upon the fruits of his labor, for I say unto you, you shall be his undoing.”

Then the devil left them, and angels came and attended Jesus.

Fleeing into the desert, the Temptress wept.

I was drawn up from Hell. I was not consulted, nor were my feelings taken into account. I was scooped up as a child might be, dragged from one level of existence to another and held there, immobile, as my master spoke.

Lucifer often walked the middle regions, which were closer to that which we had lost than those the rest of us inhabited. The Earth was a revelation to me. The first thing that met my eyes was beauty. I was dazzled by the light of the sun, struck speechless by the wonder of thousands of tiny glittering crystals that made up the sand. It was indeed a different world. After so many years of condemnation, I hoped, just for an instant, that a doorway had opened to Heaven.

Lucifer gestured at me, an object, not really seeing me at all. Then he turned to the Christ, and he smiled.

“You see her, Godson,” he sneered, his words awash with the bitterness of his defeat. “You know what she is.”

“You have taken the form of a man; I have brought her forth as a woman.”

He released me then, and I fell to my knees, feeling the bite of the sand. The heat of the sun beat down on my back, and I felt the soft caress of a breeze across my skin. I felt no different, but I was. What I had been before, what I had been born to, was pure essence. What I had become was material. I looked down at my body, my arms, the legs that folded beneath me.

The Christ watched me with His great sad eyes to see how I would react. Would I, too, sneer at Him, or would I try to seduce Him with the human flesh I’d been granted for that task? I found that I wanted to go to him, to hold him, but not to sneer. Never that.

“Is she not beautiful?” my master asked. “Does she not make Your mortal loins burn . . . Your human heart flutter?”

Jesus looked at him, the sadness deepening, and then back to me. “There is a place for you still,” He said softly. “If you but believe, I promise you, there is hope.”

I felt a strange sensation building, a physical sensation — this part of my corporeal existence caught me completely unaware. I remained on my knees, taking in the extent of his promise, letting the thought of that which was forever lost wash through me and drain out into the burning floor of the desert beneath me. It was too much.

“You have no such power,” Lucifer sneered again. “Empty promises, lies, even, from one who names himself the Son of God. You cannot take her back with you; He will not have her.”

I ignored these words, casting them from me in anguish, and I began to crawl forward. The sand burned me — scraped the skin of my legs — and yet I continued. I was lost in the Christ’s eyes, drawn to them, and I felt a great weight lifting from my heart.

It didn’t matter if it were a lie. It didn’t matter if He tried and failed. All that mattered at that moment was the sensation of liberation, the knowledge that I was loved. It filled the emptiness that had grown within me with dizzying swiftness, flowed through the veins of my new mortal frame, pulsed in my temples and blurred my sight. If all He could offer was that moment in time, I was His. If there were nothing more, so be it — there was nothing whence I had come to compare with it.

I crawled nearer. My hand — my human hand — reached out to meet the advance of His own. I was lost in His eyes, lost in His love. It shone from Him, as light and beauty had once radiated from Lucifer. I couldn’t draw back, couldn’t resist the chance. In the end, the choice was never mine.

Our skin was so close at last that I felt a tingling in the air, a bonding. There was light — such light as Lucifer himself could never have produced, even in the prime of his glory. It surrounded me, separated me from all else, and cleansed me. I wept. I leaned forward to take that hand, and to bow down in supplication.

Then the fire struck, and my mind grew dim.

There was pain. Such pain I had never experienced, even in the fall, for that was more the pain of loss and rending. This was the pain of man. A wall of fire, heat that would have melted the very sun from the sky, shot between us.

I sensed the Christ, but I could no longer see Him. I could still see the overwhelming light that was His essence, but I could not reach it. Perhaps He could have reached me. Perhaps He could have walked through the flame, pushed aside the pain, and stretched out His hand to claim me, but it was too late.

If I would not be Lucifer’s vessel of temptation, I would become a sharper, more potent weapon.

I became a curse. I did not hear the words Lucifer spoke. I did not see his eyes, or those of He whom I now loved, and yet I felt them. I felt the changes coursing through me, my spirit parting and re-forming once more. Changing.

I screamed, pulling every bit of my essence free from the nether regions that still bound me and putting it behind my voice. The light vanished, the heat departed, but I continued to scream.

I was a shell, a shadow spirit with no hope. I was bereft of all that had been mine. I felt the subtle lines that bound me to them both becoming brittle, cracking and falling away.

It was a death, a rebirth. Death is the curse of mankind, but I knew it in that instant, and I cowered from it. I don’t know, to this day, how men go on, knowing that one-day they will die.

Even with the promise of salvation, it is terrifying. For me, it was without hope.

“If you love Him,” Lucifer ground out, advancing on me with eyes of pure flame, his voice crackling like thunder across the desert, “go to Him. I free you of all things, save one. My curse.”

“Look upon her, Son of Man,” he cried, spinning madly and leaping to the top of a large stone to look down upon us. “Look at what Your ‘love’ has wrought. She will be Yours, and You hers, and I tell You now it will be Your undoing.

“I lay my curse upon her. She will follow Your steps as long as You dwell upon the Earth. She, too, will have a place between man and the gods, and she will hunger! She will hunger for that which you fight to preserve. She will thirst for the blood of mankind — the lives, the very souls You seek to save will be her bread.

“She will see no sunrise, nor walk the roads of day; the shadows shall be her home. She will leap forth from those shadows, drawing the blood from Your ‘flock’, while magnifying the weight of her own sin.

“You may love her as you will, it will not matter. She will never be allowed beyond the realms of Earth. It is written; it is law. She is fallen, as I am fallen, and there will be no forgiveness for her.”

I turned to the Christ in anguish, pleading with my eyes, but already the light of the sun was eating at my flesh, dissolving my body. I felt an emptiness stirring within me, becoming tangible, becoming a lust — a hunger that ate at my very being, maddening my thoughts and burning through the chill, bloodless veins of my body.

Perhaps He could have set me free, had I gone to Him then, but I could not. The anguish and the pain were too great. With the light of His love strobing in my mind, that last sight of His eyes snared in the tangling webs of my thoughts, I turned, and I fled. I fled Lucifer’s blinding rage and his mocking laughter. I fled from the burning strength of the sun. I fled from the hunger, but not far enough. Not ever.

I flashed across the desert, the speed of my form rising from my need and the essence that was still mine, though dim and subdued, though cold and sealed from my sight. I was a flash of lightning, a drop of quicksilver slipping through the Earth.

Mountains rose before me, and I ran to them, scrabbling up the sides and searching, groping for any crevasse that might shield me from the sunlight that threatened to bring me to dust.

I was ashamed of what I’d become, appalled that I was so weak and powerless, so easily used, but I was not ready to surrender; to become one with the Earth; to await the coming judgment in torment. Not for Lucifer, not for the Christ. I would fight as long as there was hope.

I slid over the stone, ripping my flesh, which I found no longer felt the pain as it had, and slithered down into a ravine, where I finally found release.

There was an opening, barely large enough for me to enter lying on my belly, and I crawled into it without question. I sensed other presences there, sensed anger and fear on a very low level. I ignored them. The pain was like ice being hammered into my skin and forced through the veins.

The shadows lessened the burden and made it possible to endure the discomfort.

There was a cost, of course. My master had been thorough in his curse. I no longer felt the burning pain of the sun’s embrace, but was consumed by the hunger. As my flesh mended itself and my strength and sanity returned, the hunger grew incrementally.

It was no less painful, no less horrifying, and I knew I would not be able to hold out against it for long. I would have to feed, and I knew the words he’d spoken would prove true.

Nothing but the blood of those who walked this plane of existence would satisfy me. Nothing would save me from the fate of the dust but the warm, flowing nectar that pulsed from their hearts, and slid beneath their skin. I thought of the Christ, and I thought of His offer. I dreamed of His love.

Now I was an abomination, a creature of shadow and darkness, a lesser being even than I had been in Hell — beneath Him. My hope was shattered, lost in the utter blackness of that small cave, and I screamed again, the sound ripping from my throat, blasting through the mountain and shaking its very roots. I sensed the lower presence that I’d felt before entering the tunnels cowering, backing away from me, and I tasted the warm, rich blood that flowed through its veins in the dank air, but still I ignored it. It was not the answer, not the sustenance I craved. It would never do. Whatever it was, it was safe with me — safer than I if I didn’t find my way out of those mountains and into the world of man that very night.

I felt my spirit slipping levels — draining down toward the base existence of the creatures in the shadows — and I fought it. I would feed, and I would walk in shadows as a mortal, whatever it took to survive, but I would not become like them. I would not become an animal, moving from one kill to the next, from meal to meal without regard to past or future. The animals were put upon the Earth to serve, clothe, and feed mankind. Mankind would be the same to me.

I was never the burning star that Lucifer had been, but I had walked the roads of Heaven and Hell, and I would not bow down — not to any but the lord who’d offered me hope. Not until the light He’d shown me was extinguished altogether, until His love was proven to be the empty lie that Lucifer claimed it to be. Perhaps not even then. As I have said, the Christ was very beautiful.

I sensed Him nearby, walking the Earth, and Lucifer as well. It was beyond my former master to forego any chance to attack, or to warp that which came from above. I knew he would fail — as he knew — and I knew the anger, the frustrated, bitter rage that would follow. It no longer mattered, as long as I remained shielded from his eyes, as long as I was less than nothing in his thoughts. His anger would not be for me.

I crept deeper into the mountain. Somehow, in that cramped space, I found a way to turn myself toward the opening. I lay still in the cool damp earth. I did not want to call attention to myself, not on this world or the next. I wanted to lie there until the sun died for the day, to crawl out into this new world I would call my own, and to feed.

Beyond that, I had no plan, and no strength to map one out. I would do as I was cursed. I would follow where the footsteps of the man they called Jesus led me, the man that was a God, and I would pray, throwing myself at His feet, doing what He bid even unto physical death in the hope of salvation.

The night would call to me soon enough, and the hunger had me dazed. As the sun burned above, I felt myself drift into darkness. I slept.

* * *

This is My Blood is available now at DriveThruHorror.com.

This preview for was provided and published with express permission from David Niall Wilson and Macabre Ink Digital. All rights reserved.

FlamesRising.com is pleased to present you with the first chapter of a book entitled THE MERMAID’S MADNESS, which was written by acclaimed author Jim C. Hines. Billed as a dark fantasy version of “Charlie’s Angels,” the series highlights Talia (Sleeping Beauty), Snow (Snow White) and Danielle (Cinderella) in new and interesting ways. THE MERMAID’S MADNESS is the second in the series, and features a dangerous trip to the land of the mermen and mermaids to rescue the body (and soul) of their beloved Queen.

The Mermaid’s Madness is available now at Amazon.com and DriveThruFantasy.com.

THE MERMAID’S MADNESS

Chapter One

Princess Danielle Whiteshore of Lorindar clung to the rail at the front of the ship, staring out at the waves. If this wind kept up, she might become the first princess in history to welcome the undine back from their winter migration by vomiting into their waters. The weather had been mild for most of the morning, but the skies had changed as the sun passed its peak. It was as if the sea now took a perverse glee in tormenting her.

“Drink this.” Queen Beatrice’s voice was sympathetic as she climbed up from the main deck, a steaming tin mug in one hand. She pressed the mug into Danielle’s hand. “Tea laced with honey, just the way you like it.”
The queen had discarded the royal gowns of court for clothes that bordered on improper. With her dark blue breeches and loose, pale shirt, she could almost have passed for a sailor. A worn blue flat cap covered her hair, save for a few wisps which fluttered by her ear like tiny gray banners. Only her long jacket, decorated with white ribbon and trimmed in gold, marked her as royalty. That and the silver necklace she wore, which held a black pearl the size of Danielle’s thumbnail.

Anyone could see the queen’s delight at being out to sea. If not for the rules of propriety, Danielle had no doubt Beatrice would right now be climbing the rigging with the crew or manning the crow’s nest to watch for merfolk.

For undine, she corrected herself. That was what they preferred to be called.

Casual as Beatrice’s attire was, she looked far more comfortable than Danielle. Danielle’s handmaids had packed for her, and they apparently had as little experience at sea as Danielle herself. The heavy cloak and cream-colored gown might have been acceptable for a casual day back at the palace. Here on the ship, she was constantly struggling to avoid tripping over her own skirt. Spray from the waves clung like tiny glass beads to the purple velvet of her cloak. She was tempted to ask permission to raid the queen’s wardrobe.

For the moment, she merely sipped her tea and did her best to keep from throwing up. The honey wasn’t enough to mask the more pungent taste of ginger and other spices.

“Too strong?” asked Beatrice.

“Not at all.” Danielle forced herself to take another drink. She had grown spoiled over the past year. Living with her stepmother and stepsisters, she had been lucky to brew the occasional cup of lukewarm tea using leftover leaves, and honey was a luxury remembered only from her most distant childhood.

Beatrice laughed. “Snow never has learned to make proper tea.”

“What did she put in here?”

“I’ve learned it’s best not to ask. She said it would help your stomach.”

Though Snow White’s culinary skills left much to be desired, Danielle trusted her. Snow had saved her life the year before, after all. The least Danielle could do was drink her overly pungent tea.

If nothing else, the tea helped wash the salty taste of the sea from her mouth. She took another sip, then turned to watch the Lord Lynn Margaret following in the distance. The Saint Tocohl trailed them on the opposite side, the three ships forming an elongated triangle in the sea.

“You’ll adjust.” Beatrice clapped a hand on Danielle’s back in a manner more fitting a deckhand than the queen of Lorindar. “I do feel for you. I’ve never suffered from seasickness, but when I was pregnant with Armand, I spent three months unable to eat anything more exciting than oatmeal. Even then, it was an even wager whether I would keep the oatmeal down.”

“Yet in spite of your sympathy, you still chose to inflict this misery on me?” A year ago, the mere thought of joking with the queen would have driven Danielle to her knees to beg forgiveness. Now she narrowed her eyes in mock anger. “I never imagined such cruelty from you, Your Majesty.”

The laugh lines on Beatrice’s face deepened. She leaned closer, lowering her voice. “If I wanted you ill, I’d let your husband take the helm.”

Danielle grinned and cupped her eyes as she turned to search for the prince. Though Beatrice had formally given command of the ship over to her son, Prince Armand had yet to take the wheel. The last time Danielle saw him, he had been inspecting the cannons on the right side of the main deck.

The starboard side. Armand had inherited his mother’s love of sailing, and while they both tried to hide it, neither Beatrice nor Armand could conceal their amusement when Danielle stumbled over yet another nautical term.

Beatrice folded her arms on the railing and leaned out, peering into the water. “I spared you this voyage in the fall when Jakob was born, but there are limits. King Theodore can avoid these journeys if he chooses, but as future queen of Lorindar, you must be presented to the undine.”

Her words brought Danielle’s nausea back in full force. She gulped the rest of her tea and took a deep breath.
“Also, it was past time you set foot on this marvelous galleon.” Beatrice’s eyes positively twinkled. “It was named in your honor, after all.”

“Yes, I know.” Danielle remembered her horror the first time Armand broke the news. “They couldn’t come up with anything better than the Glass Slipper?”

The queen shrugged. “I’m told The Midnight Pumpkin was also discussed.”

“There was no pumpkin! I never–” Danielle caught herself. “You’re teasing me again.”

“Perhaps.”

Danielle frowned. Beneath the queen’s exuberance, she sounded distracted. Her smile faded too quickly, and she kept turning away. Normally, Beatrice gave her undivided attention to whoever she was with, whether that was an emperor or a stablehand. “Bea?”

“Does the tea help?” Beatrice asked without looking up.

Danielle nodded. “Why didn’t Snow make some when we first left?”

Another absent smile. “Over one hundred young, strong, hardworking sailors crew the Glass Slipper. You should be grateful Snow remembered you at all.”

From a platform near the top of the front mast–the foremast–came a shout. “Undine ahead!”

All at once men were racing about, hauling ropes and furling the sails. From the quarter deck, Armand cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Ease away tack and bowline! Stand by to take in fore topsail!” He waited a beat, watching the men work, then yelled, “Haul taut, and up topsail. Stand by on main topsail!”

He might as well have been speaking a foreign language, but Danielle could hear Beatrice whispering the commands along with him.

Danielle leaned back, studying her husband. His sleeves were pushed back, exposing the lean muscles of his arms. Armand had allowed his dark hair to grow longer over the winter, and Danielle still hadn’t decided whether or not she liked the new beard. It filled out his narrow features, but tended to tickle at inopportune times.

Smiling at the memories, Danielle edged around the foremast to the very front of the railing, trying to stay out of the way as the crew climbed up to take in the sails. Nobody had ever warned Danielle how crowded a ship could be. The three masts–four if you counted the bowsprit spearing out from the front of the ship–all trailed ropes and rigging, as though a giant spider had spun its web over the entire ship. With eight cannons secured to the main deck, as well as the longboats, there was hardly room for two men to pass each other.

Danielle watched as her friend Talia made her way across the deck. The chaos didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest. She glided through the crew like she had been born at sea, though from what Danielle knew of Talia’s past, she hadn’t even set foot on a sailing ship until her late teens when she fled her desert kingdom in the south.

Shortly after Talia’s birth, fairies had bestowed upon her a number of gifts, not the least of which was supernatural grace. Danielle might have been jealous if she hadn’t also known the price Talia paid for those gifts. Few knew the true story of Sleeping Beauty, how her century of slumber had been broken by an awakening to make nightmares pale.

“Are you ready?” Beatrice asked, drawing Danielle’s attention back to her responsibilities as princess.

“Does it matter?” She knew she shouldn’t be nervous. All she had to do was stand there . . . stand there and represent the entire kingdom of Lorindar. She who had spent most of her life in rags, with only the birds and the rats for company. Her short time as princess of Lorindar couldn’t overcome a lifetime as Cinderwench, and there were still times she thought this new life a dream, an illusion to be swept away come midnight.

“Not really, no.” Beatrice gave her a reassuring smile.

To the undine, nobility flowed from mother to child, so it was the queen who was most revered. The former queen of the undine had passed away several seasons earlier, leaving the husband to rule, but they still expected to be greeted by the queen of Lorindar. The queen, and now the princess as well.

Danielle should have been presented the year before, but she had been touring the kingdom with Armand when the undine returned to Lorindar’s waters. She had planned to see the undine in the fall, when they left for warmer waters to the south. Her stepsisters had ruined that plan, kidnapping Armand and enslaving Danielle, then trying to steal her unborn child. Even after Danielle returned home, she had been in no condition for a voyage at sea.

She touched her stomach, remembering the dark magic her stepsister Stacia had used to rush her pregnancy along. Danielle had been terrified of what that magic would do to her son. She still thanked God every night that Jakob had been born healthy. No healer could find the slightest problem, and even Snow assured her he was free of any taint or curse.

Beatrice offered her hand, gently guiding Danielle to the railing at her right. “Lorindar is fortunate to have such a princess.” Turning back toward Armand, she raised her voice. “Lorindar would do well to have a less distracted prince, though. Hurry, Armand!”

Armand was already making his way toward the bow. Etiquette didn’t actually require his presence. Indeed, he could have stayed behind with King Theodore, who was known to have the same reaction to sailing as Danielle. But Armand was his mother’s son, and rarely passed up the opportunity to sail.

Behind him, two sailors lugged a wooden chest. The chest was watertight, sealed as tightly as the ship’s hull with pitch and beeswax.

By tradition, Lorindar presented the undine a gift each year to welcome them back from their winter migration. For as long as King Posannes had ruled, that gift had been a chest of strawberry preserves. Last year, Posannes had given Beatrice the pearl she now wore in return, saying he had gotten the better part of the deal.

“Man the yards!” Armand shouted. The crew in the yards came to attention, arms held back so they could grasp the ropes for balance. It was an impressive salute, over fifty men stretched out on the horizontal beams which held the now-furled sails.

Talia climbed onto the forecastle, then stepped aside to make room for Armand to follow. The prince leaned down to haul the chest after him, aided by the men below.

“There.” Beatrice rested one hand on the rail as she pointed toward the distant shapes. “Where is Snow? I wanted her here as well.”

If not for Beatrice, Danielle would have mistaken the undine for rocks in the water. Only their heads and shoulder broke the surface. They swam in an inverted V formation, reminding her of geese.

Without warning, they disappeared beneath the water.

“What happened?” asked Danielle.

Armand stepped toward her, sliding one hand around her waist. Such informality would have earned stern words from the chancellor back at the palace, but such rules were less important here at sea. Danielle leaned against him, the warmth of his body a pleasant contrast to the cool winds. He pointed to the waves where the undine had vanished. “Watch.”

The lead undine launched into the air, arching over the water and disappearing with hardly a splash. Two more followed, leaping even higher than the first. Faster and faster they flew from the water in pairs, so close Danielle was amazed they didn’t collide.

“There are more than I remember,” Armand commented. “I wonder if another tribe has joined with Posannes’.”
“Perhaps,” Beatrice said, frowning.

Armand flashed a boyish grin as he turned around. “Load the cannons!”

On either side of the main deck, men jammed long rods down the cannons, packing the powder into the barrels. They hadn’t bothered to haul cannonballs up onto the deck, as this was only a show for the undine.
“Wait.” Beatrice was still studying the water, though the undine were too far away to make out any detail.
“Hold!” Armand shouted. To his mother, he asked, “What is it?”

“I’m not sure.” Beatrice sounded troubled, but uncertain. She started to say more, then shook her head.

Armand watched Beatrice a moment longer, then turned back to the crew. “Ready salute!”

The men used ropes and pulleys to haul the cannons into position at the edge of the deck, the barrels protruding through wide gaps in the railing.

Armand glanced at the queen again. When she didn’t speak, he raised his arm and shouted, “Fire!”

At each cannon, men brought long poles with burning fuses over the cannons. The resulting explosions sent a shudder through the Glass Slipper. The cannons bucked from the recoil, straining at the ropes. Dark smoke billowed from the sides of the ship. Danielle wrinkled her nose at the burnt-metal smell.

“I’m sorry,” Armand said, still smiling. His tone sounded not the slightest bit apologetic. “I forgot to tell them to only use half a charge.”

“Yes. I seem to recall you ‘forgetting’ last year, too.” Beatrice shook her head. “Your eyes are younger than mine. Do any of you see King Posannes?”

Talia stepped to the railing on Beatrice’s left, peering through the smoke. “Not yet. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I hope,” said Beatrice. “But you should get down to the main deck. All of you.”

By now, the breeze had begun to clear the worst of the smoke, and the undine were close enough for Danielle to make out individuals through the haze. Their skin was a deep tan, a few shades lighter than Talia’s. Most were bare-chested, the men and women both, though a few wore tightfitting gray skins that left their arms uncovered. Some wore weapons, mostly knives and slender fishing spears, secured to harnesses around their arms and chests.

A single mermaid surfaced ahead of the rest.

“Who is that?” Armand stepped past his mother, cupping a hand over his eyes. “Where is Posannes?”

“Armand, I said–” Beatrice’s lips tightened. “Talia, get him out of here.”

Armand moved to the railing. “If there’s a threat, I have to–”

He yelped in surprise as Talia kicked the back of his knees. She caught his collar as he dropped, dragging him toward the ladder.

Armand reached around to grab her wrists, trying to pry her hands free. With a shrug, Talia released her grip, dropping him. Armand lurched to his feet, and Talia shoved him backward. His heel hit the chest of strawberries and he fell again, tumbling down onto the main deck below.

“Talia!” Danielle peered down to see her husband sprawled atop two fallen crewmen. “Are you all right, Armand?”

“He should be. I aimed him at a deckhand.” Talia hopped over the chest, following him down.

“You too,” Beatrice said to Danielle. “Quickly. Get Snow.”

Danielle started to obey, then turned back to take the queen’s hand. “If there’s danger, you should leave too.”

Beatrice shook her head. “Please, Danielle.”

The sea just ahead of the ship exploded in a fountain of white spray. The lead mermaid arched through the air, higher than any of the others had leapt. Perhaps her twin tails gave her greater strength, or maybe the others had simply held back.

“Lirea,” Beatrice whispered.

A scream tore from Lirea’s throat, a ragged, furious sound that pierced Danielle’s ears, nearly driving her to her knees. Danielle lurched forward, grabbing Beatrice’s arm and pulling her out of the way as Lirea cleared the railing.

The mermaid twisted to avoid the lines. She staggered as landed, ramming the butt of her spear into the deck for balance. Her tails were gone, replaced by feet. Even as Danielle watched, the fins running down the outside of Lirea’s legs flattened against the skin and disappeared. The scales on her feet and ankles sank into her skin, leaving faint trickles of watery blood. The rest of her scales remained, like purple mail protecting her legs and waist.

Lirea was thinner than the other undine. Her skin clearly outlined her ribs and collarbones. Had she been human, Danielle would have guessed her to be in her late teens. A worn harness crossed between small breasts. A dagger hung on one side of the harness, the handle jutting forward. She wore a necklace of polished oyster shells which appeared far too large for her slender form. A small gold hoop shone in one ear.
Before Danielle could move, Lirea leveled her spear at the queen. She coughed, spitting seawater onto the deck, then said, “You’re trespassing in our waters.”

Her voice was hoarse, as if she were recovering from a nasty cold. Danielle started to move between them, but Lirea swung her spear, cutting Danielle’s arm. Blood seeped into her sleeve.

“You’re looking well, Lirea,” Beatrice said calmly. “Where is your father?”

Lirea moved closer, driving Beatrice back until she stood against the railing. Lirea glanced at the chest. With a look of disgust, she placed a foot against the chest and shoved. It slid from the forecastle and crashed onto the main deck. “We are undine. We have no need for human fruits. If you wish to travel our ocean in peace, you’ll bring us gold. Gold and my sister.”

“Your sister?” Beatrice glanced at the main deck, where Armand and the men had already gathered with crossbows and spears.

“Don’t play games with me,” Lirea said. “I hear everything. I heard you conspiring with Lannadae and my father, just as I hear them planning to attack.” She jabbed her spear into Beatrice’s side, hard enough to make the queen gasp. A small circle of blood darkened Beatrice’s shirt beneath her jacket.

“It’s nothing,” Beatrice whispered, waving Danielle back.

Lirea turned to face Armand and the crew. “Take another step and she dies.”

Armand raised his hand. “Let my mother go, and I will–”

“I am queen of the Ilowkira tribe,” Lirea shouted. “I will speak to your queen and her alone.”

“You killed Posannes.” Beatrice ignored the weapon pressed against her ribs. “Just as you killed Levanna.”

Water dripped down Lirea’s face, making it appear that she was crying. “They betrayed me. Every day, the waves whisper of their treachery.”

Motion near the rigging caught Danielle’s attention. Talia was climbing one of the lines on the port side. She was already high enough to jump to the forecastle, but even Talia wasn’t fast enough to stop Lirea before she could kill Beatrice. Not without something to distract Lirea.

Danielle knew little of ships, but she had been to the docks often enough to see the rats climbing the ropes and scurrying over barrels and crates, just as she had seen the cats prowling the docks in search of prey. Every vessel was home to far more than the crew.

All of Danielle’s life, animals had helped her. Doves and rats assisted with her chores, cleaning the fireplace or picking slugs from the gardens. Years later, those same doves had blinded her stepmother and scarred her stepsisters. When her stepsisters kidnapped her, the rats had helped her escape.

It was then, imprisoned by her stepsisters, that she had learned to speak to the animals without words. She didn’t know how or why they understood her. Perhaps it was another gift from her mother, like the glass slippers and the silver gown she had worn to the ball. All Danielle knew was that they came to her aid.
Never taking her eyes from Lirea, she called in silence. Help me, my friends.

“Your father told me what happened to you,” Beatrice was saying. “He wanted to help you.”

“I’ve had enough ‘help’.” Lirea’s words were like needles stabbing deep into Danielle’s ears. “Give me Lannadae, and we will allow you to return home. Refuse and we will hunt you all, from the smallest fishing boat to your mightiest warship.”

Beatrice bowed her head. “Your father loved you, but he was no fool. How did you do it, Lirea? How did you kill him?”

“He forced me to it!” There was no mistaking the tears trailing down her cheeks now. “He thought of me as a twisted freak, a perversion who should have been left to die. I know what he would have done if I hadn’t stopped him.”

“He only wanted you to be well again. To be happy.” Beatrice started to reach for the spear. Lirea tensed, and Beatrice drew back her hand.

“That’s what he told me,” Lirea said. “But I heard the truth behind his words.”

A stifled exclamation from the main deck drew Danielle’s attention to the three rats scrambling up the ladder. Armand had grabbed another crewman, stopping him from crying out. Armand met Danielle’s eyes and nodded. Armand was unarmed, but a twitch of his finger signaled the others to ready their weapons.

Lirea didn’t notice as the rats climbed the starboard ladder onto the forecastle and raced through the puddles left by her arrival.

Hurry.

Lirea spun, thrusting the long horn on the end of her spear at Danielle’s stomach. “Surrender Lannadae, or we will kill your crew, starting with this one.”

Danielle raised her head, trying to match the queen’s calm, though her hands were shaking.

“Killing her won’t end your pain.” For the first time, anger hardened the queen’s words.

Danielle readied herself. Now!

The first rat sank his teeth into the back of Lirea’s unprotected ankle. At the same time, Danielle swept her arm up, knocking the spear away.

Lirea stumbled toward the railing as a second rat latched onto the side of her foot. She swung her spear, striking the third rat.

“Take her!” Armand yelled, grabbing the ladder.

Talia was faster. She dropped to the forecastle and kicked low to sweep Lirea’s legs from beneath her. While Lirea recovered, Talia grabbed Danielle’s arm and flung her into Armand. The two of them fell together, to be caught by the crew below.

Armand jumped to his feet and grabbed a crossbow from one of the men. “If you get a clear shot, take it.”
“Your Highness, the undine are attacking the ship!”

Armand swore. “You four, stay with me. Everyone else get to the sides. Raise anchor and signal the Tocohl and the Margaret. Their archers will have a better angle to shoot the undine off our hulls.”

On the forecastle, Talia was trying to get to the queen, but Lirea had already recovered. Lirea jabbed twice with her spear, driving Talia back and keeping Beatrice trapped at the front of the forecastle. The third time, Talia twisted sideways, catching the shaft and yanking Lirea closer. Talia stepped forward and drove the edge of her other hand into the mermaid’s throat.

Danielle had seen Talia drop men twice her size with that move, but Lirea merely staggered, stumbling into the pinrail that circled the foremast. The undine must have stronger throats, or else their windpipes were better protected.

Talia hadn’t released her grip on the spear. A quick kick to Lirea’s wrist broke her hold, and Talia yanked the spear free. She spun the weapon overhead and swung.

Lirea jumped around the mast, colliding with Beatrice and knocking the queen into the railing. Beatrice caught herself, then rammed her elbow into Lirea’s side. Someone cheered as Beatrice shoved the mermaid back toward Talia.

Lirea pulled her knife from her harness, slashing wildly. Talia rapped the shaft of her spear against Lirea’s wrist, then stepped back, using the tip to cut Lirea’s arm above the elbow. Lirea barely avoided the follow-up thrust, which gouged wood from the rail.

“Hurry,” Danielle urged. She wanted to help, but knew she would only be in the way.

Beatrice was keeping the mast between herself and the two fighters as she tried to get to safety. The queen was a capable fighter, but Talia’s skills were inhuman. Armand was already shoving his way to the edge of the forecastle to help her down.

Lirea screamed again, the sound so painful several men dropped their weapons. Even Talia staggered back. Still screaming, Lirea thrust her knife at Talia.

Talia twirled out of the way, then swung the spear in a wide arc to crack against Lirea’s back, breaking Lirea’s scream and the spear both.

The impact flung Lirea directly into the queen, driving them both into the railing. Lirea stepped back, and Danielle’s heart knotted.

“Beatrice,” Danielle whispered.

Lirea’s knife was stuck deep in the queen’s chest.

“Mother!” Armand started toward the ladder, but one of the crew pulled him back.

The broken spear dropped from Talia’s hands, surprisingly loud as it clattered to the deck.

Lirea stared at her hand, still wrapped around the hilt of the knife. She screamed again, a wordless cry of anguish which blurred Danielle’s vision. Through watery eyes, she saw Lirea yank the blade free and fling Beatrice toward Talia before leaping from the ship.

Talia caught the queen and lowered her gently to the deck.

Armand was first up the ladder, followed closely by Danielle. Talia already had both hands over the wound, trying to stop the flow of blood.

“She’s still breathing.” Talia’s voice quavered.

“Someone fetch Hoffman,” Armand shouted.

“No!” said Talia. “Get Snow.”

“I’m here.” Snow was already climbing up from the main deck, her face even paler than usual.

“I called for my surgeon, damn it!” Armand stared at his mother’s crumpled form. Danielle could see him fighting to maintain his self-control.

One of the men fired his crossbow into the water. “Your Highness, the undine are leaving!”

Danielle reached out to touch Armand’s arm. “Snow is a skilled healer. She’s helped Beatrice before.”

“My mother is dying,” Armand replied, his voice flat. “Hoffman is–”

“Your mother trusts these women,” Danielle said. “So do I. Please let Snow save her.”

Snow wasn’t waiting for his answer. She knelt beside the queen and spread her hand over Talia’s. “Press harder. Everyone else get back and give me light.”

“Will she live?” Talia asked.

Snow didn’t answer. She touched her choker, a band of oval mirrors connected with gold wire. Light flashed from the mirror in the center, illuminating the wound. “Pull your hand away now.”

Talia drew back, and Snow clapped her own hands down over Beatrice’s chest. Her hair fell like black curtains to obscure her actions.

“Talia?” Danielle asked.

Talia’s hands had begun to shake. She picked up the broken spear and stepped toward the railing.

Danielle followed. “What are you doing?”

Talia jumped lightly onto the rail, one hand holding a line as she searched the water.

“They’ve already fled. You’ll never catch them.” Danielle reached out, but Talia slapped her hand away with the spear. “Even if Lirea remains, she’ll kill you. You can’t fight them in the water.”

Talia might as well have been deaf. She paced along the rail, every step deliberate.

“Snow will save the queen,” Danielle said. “Don’t leave me to explain to her why you threw your life away.”
If Danielle hadn’t been watching so closely, she would have missed the faint slumping of Talia’s shoulders.

“The sea folk have been known to poison their blades,” whispered one of the crew.

Snow shook her head. “It’s not poison.”

Armand stood. The crew fell silent as he turned to face them. “Make sail for home.”

When leaving the docks at Lorindar, he had shouted orders for a quarter of an hour. From the way the crew worked together now, unfurling the sails in near silence, those detailed commands had been little more than a formality.

“What about her?” One of the crew gestured at Talia with her crossbow. “It was her who fought the mermaid and got the queen stabbed.”

Talia turned on the balls of her feet. Her expression made Danielle pray the man had already prepared his will and made peace with God. Then Talia looked at the queen. She bowed her head and dropped to the deck, her anger disappearing.

No, Danielle corrected. The rage wasn’t gone. It was simply turned inward.

“I said take us home.” Armand’s voice was soft, but the crew scrambled to obey. He crouched beside Snow. “What can I do to help?”

“Give me space,” Snow snapped.

Danielle took Talia’s hand and pulled her toward the ladder. It was a measure of Talia’s shock that she didn’t resist as Danielle led her away.

* * *

The Mermaid’s Madness is available now at Amazon.com and DriveThruFantasy.com.

This preview for was provided and published with express permission from Jim C Hines and Daw Books. ©Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.

FlamesRising.com is pleased to present you with another exciting fiction preview for the dark fantasy novel DARK KNOWLEDGE. Written by Keith Pyeatt, this dark fantasy e-book is about a struggle between good and evil.

Read the first chapter in this new paranormal thriller from Keith Pyeatt.

DARK KNOWLEDGE Chapter One

You are my punishment.

The memory stood clear and complete, beautiful in its sharp definition against the fog of Wesley’s mind. He waited for it to dissolve, like memories always did, but this one remained solid.

Wesley’s body tingled as if particles of energy raced through him. He’d braved this journey inside himself many times recently, certain something wonderful waited behind the swirling fog but unable to catch even a glimpse. Now his greatest desire–a clear thought–offered itself. He absorbed his prize quickly, hungrily.

The memory played again. This time he recognized his mother’s words, heard her whispering voice, saw her sad eyes close. Then the meaning of her words became clear.

You are my punishment.

The racing particles inside him gained weight and jagged edges. They tore at his insides. Wesley tried to purge the memory, but it was part of him now. He tried to ignore the meaning, but there were no other thoughts to distract him, no comforting memories to soften the impact. The first clear realization of Wesley’s life wasn’t a prize at all. It was poison.

The fog parted to expose four statuesque objects. Haze obscured their details, but their color bled through, tinting the wisps of clinging fog emerald green–the bad color.

He needed to leave. His mother had told him many times to run from the bad color, but a sudden warm breeze stirred and lifted the fog, revealing more towering thoughts. The landscape of his mind became a downtown skyline of brightly colored buildings with smooth, irregular surfaces. Wesley couldn’t remember seeing the structures before, yet he recognized them and for the first time knew why he’d come here. They belonged to him. They were the promise he felt in the fog.

Fresh excitement dwarfed his pain and fear.

Then the colors paled. The world lost detail.

Wesley tried to refocus, afraid of losing a chance he might never again be offered. It was no use. Even the thought that had revealed its meaning became a ghost. He tried to remember its message–something about his mother–but it was already lost.

Emerald light overwhelmed everything then faded, taking a world of promise with it, but leaving a friend in its place.

###

“You having a bad moment, Wes?” Bobby asked.

Wesley opened his eyes, but he stared straight ahead at a wall, confirming Bobby’s suspicion. Wesley was zoned out, in another of his trances, the fourth since Bobby first noticed them a week ago.

Bobby rested his hand on Wesley’s right shoulder, barely touching him. Like most residents at Brookside Group Home for the Mentally Challenged, Wesley responded well to physical contact, but a preoccupied resident was easily jarred. Bobby made his presence known a little at a time, first by adding weight to his touch, then gently squeezing.

Wesley blinked twice. He turned his head and gazed at Bobby with cloudy green eyes. “Hi, Bobby.” His speech was slurred, unusual for Wesley. He used the back of his hand to wipe his lips.

“Were you sleeping?”

Wesley shook his head.

Bobby moved in front of him. If Wesley had been on medication, Bobby would have asked the doctors to examine the dosage. “Can you tell me what year it is?”

“Nineteen ninety-six,” Wesley answered without hesitation. “November.”

“That’s right.” The knot in Bobby’s stomach loosened, but Wesley’s difficulty in shaking off the trance had him worried. The previous three had left him quickly. This one lingered. “You look like you’ve been off in another world.”

Wesley nodded vigorously. His eyes cleared.

“Visiting other worlds, huh? Well, don’t stay away too long. I’d get bored here without you.”

Wesley’s grin widened, broke open, and stretched into his goofy smile. It infected Bobby’s face, making him return a smile despite his concern. He sat on the couch opposite Wesley’s chair, and the cushion crinkled under his weight. Thick, clear tape covered the roadmap of cracks in the yellow vinyl. This was new. A ripping noise across the room drew Bobby’s attention. Henry Barton, owner of Brookside, bent over a vinyl chair and smoothed a strip of tape over the seat cushion.

“He must have decided against buying new furniture.” Bobby nodded at Henry. “Maybe he’s cutting back expenses so he can raise my salary.”

He waited for Wesley to recognize the prompt. Wesley’s recent fascination with jobs, with the idea that Bobby and the other aides were at work when at Brookside, had him studying the aides’ conversations. Bobby had taught Wesley what to say to any mention of a raise.

He delivered his response perfectly. “You sure deserve it, Bobby. You work like a dog around here. I know that much for sure.”

“You got that right, buddy. Speaking of work, you ready to train for your job?”

Wesley grumbled, imitating the aides when their breaks ended, but his eagerness shone through. He quickly gave up posturing and sprang to his feet.

With no other aides around and a good line still on his lips, Bobby decided to tease Henry as they passed. Wesley wouldn’t mind the repetition.

“You must have decided to give me a raise instead of buying new furniture. Good choice.” Bobby carefully used the tone of voice Wesley would recognize as a joke. Wesley liked being included, whether he understood the joke or not.

“I’d live within your current means if I were you,” Henry said. He stepped back to examine his work and frowned. “We need new furniture. Nice try, though.” He winked at Wesley.

Wesley’s smile cracked open, and he released a single “huh” of laughter.

“Worth a shot,” Bobby said, nudging Wesley. Wesley returned the nudge.

“I need to speak with you once you get Wesley situated.” Henry’s expression was more serious than usual. “Come by my office.”

“Sure,” Bobby said. He and Wesley headed down the hall. The closer they came to the training room, the faster Wesley walked. His eagerness made the extra work of preparing him for a job worthwhile. Wesley would soon be a volunteer at the Goodwill used clothing store. Bobby hoped the job would build Wesley’s sense of purpose and pride, especially since he was so preoccupied with the concept of work lately.

As always, Bobby had prepared the training room before getting Wesley. Clothes lay scattered across tables and overflowed cardboard boxes. Wesley stood in the doorway and surveyed the room.

“Looks like a lot of work for you today.” Bobby waited for the reaction Wesley gave every day.

Wesley clucked his tongue. He entered the room, looked carefully around him, and behaved exactly as Bobby had taught him. He cleaned his usual spot on his usual table and began gathering strewn clothes. He would fold and sort by function: shirt, pants, sweaters and coats, socks, gloves. Then he would spread the clothes out on the display tables and begin emptying the cardboard boxes.

He seemed focused now, but Bobby couldn’t stop thinking about the trances and wondering what caused them. Stress? Stress over this job training?

Wesley tossed a folded woman’s blouse onto a pile and looked up for Bobby’s approval. At just over six feet tall, with broad shoulders, a thick neck, and ten pounds of extra weight around the middle, Wesley looked like an athlete a half dozen years past his prime. His short brown hair had receded, but the exposed forehead only served to emphasize masculine facial features that belonged in a machine shop or garage. Not here.

“You’re doing great,” Bobby said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Okay.” Wesley gave Bobby a quick smile and began folding a man’s red cardigan.

Bobby found his boss seated behind his desk.

“We need to talk about Wesley,” Henry said. “His mother called.”

Bobby clenched his teeth. He’d met Lydia only twice, but he remembered her vividly. “I didn’t think she kept in touch.”

“Haven’t heard from her in eight years, not since Wesley was admitted.” Henry shook his head. “Not once. I don’t know what she wants. She says she’s just curious about how her son is doing. I hate to be–”

The phone rang.

“I’m expecting a call from Dr. Strunk.”

Dr. Strunk, a State of Virginia psychologist, monitored Brookside residents. Henry’s conversations with him were usually lengthy. Bobby half rose. “I’ll wait outside.”

“No, you’re fine.” Henry waved him back down. “This should be quick.”

Bobby listened to Henry’s end of the conversation closely enough to learn Brookside was getting a new resident, but most of his attention remained on eight-year-old memories of meeting Wesley. And Lydia.

She had arrived unannounced with Wesley in tow. This was back in 1988, only three months after Brookside first opened in a cinder block building in downtown Roanoke, near the old train tracks. Bobby had been nineteen, and it was his second week on the job. Henry was across town lining up services for the new facility, so as unqualified as Bobby felt about explaining Brookside’s group home philosophy to a potential client, he took a deep breath and began.

Lydia waved him silent. “Save the sales pitch,” she said. “I don’t need it. Most mothers are rid of their sons after eighteen years. This one’s twenty-two. He’s yours now.” She shoved Wesley, pushing the center of his back with her extended fingertips. Wesley stumbled forward a step. He looked lost and completely helpless.

Lydia spun and sashayed out the door. Bobby chased after her, trying to sound calm as he explained she couldn’t simply drop off her son and leave. Lydia never so much as glanced at Bobby as she drove away.

Wondering how Henry would react to this situation, Bobby returned to the lobby and found Wesley staring out the window into the empty parking lot. He mouthed something–it could have been “come back”–before clouds moved over his eyes, hiding anything that might be awake behind them.

Henry eventually tracked Lydia down and worked things out between her and the state. Wesley was admitted, but it would be a year before Bobby could coax a word out of him, three years before Wesley began routinely interacting with other residents. Now Wesley was far more advanced than anyone imagined eight years ago. Instead of sullen, he was cheerful and animated, freely sharing his highly contagious goofy smile.

Bobby still wondered what had suppressed that wonderful smile. What slowed Wesley’s development all those years? Although Bobby still questioned what had been done to Wesley, he remained certain who had done it: Lydia.

“Bobby?”

He looked up to find Henry off the phone and staring at him. “Sorry. I got thinking about Wesley’s mother.”

“She leaves a strong impression, doesn’t she? Nasty woman.”

Nasty was the right word, but Bobby also remembered a strange, sensual quality when he first saw her. That impression ended the moment she spoke. Her mouth was a weapon. Her lips were mean, living gashes in her face. They sometimes rippled before she spoke as if she tasted each phrase before shooting it from her mouth with deadly accuracy.

Bobby shook the image from his mind. “I think she blamed Wes for her unhappiness.”

Henry nodded. “Happens. Unfortunately.”

“You don’t think she wants to take Wesley out of here, do you? Back into her care?”

“No idea.” Henry tapped the desk with his index finger. “But I had the same thought. I called my lawyer earlier today, just in case.”

“What did he say?”

“She’s Wesley’s mother. Without graphic proof of mistreatment, it’d be hard to stop her.”

“It’s not right,” Bobby said, suddenly aware of the bottom of his stomach.

“Lydia may want nothing more than to see him, but I want to be prepared for the worst. My lawyer says her complete absence might give us grounds to resist her. Not much, but maybe enough to discourage her.”

“I can’t believe she’d want him back, not after the way she left.”

Lydia’s departure was Bobby’s strongest memory of her. Henry, Bobby, and Lydia had met in the tiny, windowless conference room in the old building. A battered oak table filled most of the room. Lydia sat alone on the side of the table by the door. Henry and Bobby sat across from her. Henry signed his name to the admittance papers, slid them across the table, and encouraged Lydia to read them before signing. After a moment of defiant hesitation, she signed the unread documents and shoved them back. Bobby signed as witness.

Lydia stood and declined an offer to see Wesley before she left. She huffed at the open invitation to visit her son whenever she liked and took a long drag on a cigarette. After exhaling a stream of smoke that mixed with the haze floating above the table, she dropped the cigarette onto the tile floor and crushed it under a scuffed patent-leather shoe.

“He’s been my punishment for twenty-two years,” she said, spitting the words at Henry, “but I survived. You think I plan to give him another chance at me?” She sneered as she looked from Henry to Bobby and back. “No, you boys took him. Now he’s yours.” She hesitated and cocked her head, obviously delighted at their shocked silence. Her lips rippled then parted for her final blast. “And if there’s something you pray to, start praying.”

* * * * *

Dark Knowledge is available now at DriveThruHorror.com. This preview for was provided and published with express permission from Keith Pyeatt. ©Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.

Larry Hama, the legendary mastermind behind G.I. JOE, makes his debut at Archaia! In this standalone tale presented in a graphic novella format, renowned treasure hunters Alaric Moebius and Basil Fox embark on an adventure that takes them from the deepest jungles of New Guinea to the deserts of Libya in search of a mysterious hidden pyramid that contains the power to end the world!

Featuring breathtaking art by Adam Archer (Spooks) and Lizzy John (Rest, Halloween), this unforgettable one-shot introduces readers to a terrifying, exciting new world created by Ryan Schifrin (Spooks)!

Preview of The Devil’s Handshake from Archaia Comics:

THE DEVIL’S HANDSHAKE
Written by Ryan Schifrin, Larry Hama
Art by Adam Archer, Lizzy John

Full Color – $5.95 – 48 pages
Mature Readers (16 and up, contains mild violence, adult situations and adult language)

Visit www.archaia.com for more information.

Edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Kerrie Hughes, ZOMBIE RACCOONS AND KILLER BUNNIES is a collection of anthologies that explore the darker side of your favorite woodland creatures like raccoons, bunnies, snakes, bats and more! For this collection, the short stories range from humorous to gory and everything in between. Additionally, the stories explore multiple genres like modern horror and science fiction. Before we offer you a few samples of select short stories from this horror anthology, we’d like to highlight the titles in this book, which was published by DAW in October 2009.

Ninja Rats on Harleys

Written by By Elizabeth A. Vaughan

It was a dark and stormy night.

Well it was, damn it. The cold air slapped me in the face as the glass doors of the ER waiting area slid open. Any warmth my tattered bathrobe held was gone in an instant as the wind wrapped around me. The rain had stopped for now, but the entire parking lot gleamed under the lights, as did the ambulances, their flashing lights reflecting off the puddles and my van.

My bloodstained slippers were soaked as I slapped across the parking lot. I cradled my purse and those damned discharge instructions as I fumbled for my keys. I opened the passenger side door, set the purse carefully on the seat, and then slammed that sucker shut with all my strength.

I was pissed, and who could blame me?

Nothing like being attacked in your own home by a hideous, stinky white possum and his ninja hench-rats at an ungodly hour of the morning. We’d fought them off, Wan and I, with naught but our bare hands and a bottle of toilet cleaner.

Well, okay, Wan had a sword. And he killed most of them. But I’d done my fair share, although it was my own blood on my slippers.

Wan is a mouse. An ancient Chinese mouse, as far as I can figure. He hasn’t been very forthcoming. He’s been good company since he moved in about a month ago. He was teaching me tai chi and I was teaching him football. I had to admit, it was nice to have someone around…to have company. And yes, my social life does suck that bad.

He talks. Did I mention that?

At any rate, a few hours ago, we’d been attacked by people…animals…who also talked and who clearly knew more about Wan than I did. One of the rats had bitten through my finger, hence the visit to the ER.

Slamming the door had not been the best idea, since Itty and Bitty, my poor little white dogs had been cowering under the seats in the back. They scrabbled up, put their feet on the window and howled for attention.

My cowardly fat white Westies, who tend to fart when under stress. I opened the rear passenger door and petted and cooed over them for a minute, paying attention to the slash on Itty’s nose. The possum had gotten her at one point in the fight, but it was only a slight scratch. I got them calmed back down, shut the door, and headed around to mine.
Wan was standing on my purse when I heaved my weary body into the driver’s seat. He stood at the summit, his sword over his back, his arms crossed over his chest. “We should stay and talk with the learned doctor, Kate.”

The doctor also seemed to know more about what was going on than I did. I sighed, looking at the ambulances. “Wan, he’s going to be busy for quite some time. I want to go home and take a shower.”

“He possesses knowledge that we do not have,” Wan argued. “Why do we leave a potential ally behind us?”

“Because my hand hurts,” I snapped. “Because I’m filthy, and tired, and the dogs are scared.” I struggled with my seat belt using my bandaged hand. “Because that nurse said that the Doctor would be working on those accident victims for hours. Because I’m not drinking that hideous coffee, and because…” I snapped the belt in place and turned to glare at Mr.-Holier-Than-Thou-Talking-Mouse. “Because I don’t know who is friend or foe until you tell me what the hell is going on!”

for lizzie

Written by Anton Strout

Godfrey heard the sound of a voice calling his name before noticing someone standing next to his giant oaken desk, but as usual his brain didn’t register it or the fact that it was female until the sound of it became more stern.

“Godfrey!”

Before looking up, the senior most archivist finished scribbling down the last of his thoughts into the moleskine notebook in front of him. One of the newer assistants in The Gauntlet stood there. She was an Asian girl with dark brown almond shaped eyes and long black hair pulled back into a pony tail. Probably to keep it out of her face or to keep it from falling against the pages on some of the older books, Godfrey thought. He was pleased to see that she had taken the precaution, given the stack of books she was carrying. It didn’t take much to set off rapid deterioration down in these caverns beneath the Department of Extraordinary Affairs and the oil in hair could be just as destructive as fire.

The girl was definitely attractive, maybe only a few years younger than him, but right now, she looked a bit perturbed.

“Yes…?” he started, fishing around for a name in his head. Godfrey thought it might be Clarice.

“Chloe,” she offered.

So close, he thought. “Of course,” he nodded, causing his straight black hair to fall across the top of his black horn rims. He pushed the hair away from his face. “Can I help you?”

She hoisted the stack of books in her hands up. Against her tiny frame, they looked like she had stolen them from a giant’s library. “These are for you. From those two guys up in Other Division. You know…the one with the stripe in his hair and that other guy who’s always in the leather jacket? He looks like one of the Village People.”

Godfrey smiled. “That would be Connor and Simon.”

Chloe stared at him blankly.

“They’re two of the few people around here who treat us as something more than glorified librarians,” he said. “They’re okay. They were my personal saviors during that whole zombie debacle during Fashion Week, one of the few times I ever saw any action around here.” He stood up and took the books from her. “Thank you.”

Pushing piles of notebooks, file folders, and other tomes out of the way, Godfrey placed the new pile down on top of his desk. He arranged them carefully, making sure his view of the small glass terrarium wasn’t obstructed. Once Godfrey had sat back down, Chloe pulled the top book off of the pile.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she said, holding it up. “Fairy tales? Since when does the Department of Extraordinary Affairs keep fiction on hand? Especially down here with all the serious research?”

Godfrey pulled it away from her and placed it back on top of the pile. “Who says it’s fiction?”

Chloe smiled at him.

“Great,” she said. “When I get back to the coffee shop, I can’t wait to see what fairy tale creatures start chatting me up.”

Godfrey laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. The actual creatures from those books don’t really exist…that I know of, anyway. But the object lessons inside those stories…well, that’s a different matter. Some of our field agents could learn a thing or two about leaving a trail of breadcrumbs…”

“With my luck, I’d end up getting the Three Little Pigs instead of Prince Charming,” Chloe said, giving Godfrey a look of bemused frustration. An awkward energy passed between them, one that Godfrey couldn’t quite put his finger on. All he noticed was how long and painful the sudden lull in the conversation was becoming and also how red Chloe’s face had become.

Thankfully, Chloe’s eyes shifted to the terrarium as if noticing it for the first time, and Godfrey felt the sensation ease. She knelt down in front of it, searching for whatever was inside. Godfrey felt a swell of pride when she finally spied the tiny golden creature curled up in one corner.

“Is that…a snake?”

Bone Whispers

Written by Tim Waggoner

Kevin Blancmore slowed as he approached the old graveyard. It had been almost forty years since he’d been here last, and the place looked as if it hadn’t changed in the slightest during that time. It was not a thought that provided comfort.

Kevin braked and pulled his Nissan Altima—on which he was two payments behind, not that it mattered anymore—onto the side of the road in front of the graveyard’s black wrought-iron gate. There was no parking lot—the graveyard predated the road by nearly a century, he guessed—and Kevin scarcely had enough room to get his car off the road. There wasn’t a lot of traffic out here in the country, and he doubted he’d have to worry about someone coming along too fast, not seeing his car, and broadsiding the damned thing. But even if they did, what did he care?

Kevin turned off the engine and pulled the keys out of the ignition, but instead of getting out of his vehicle right away, he sat for a moment, staring out the windshield and listening to the car’s engine tick as it began to cool. He wasn’t sitting there because he was afraid, though he supposed he had good reason to be. And he wasn’t nervous, not even a little. He felt nothing, and that was the reason he sat behind the wheel of his car, hesitating. Considering what he had come here to do, or more to the point, to find, he should feel something. A moment like this…well, it was why the word momentous had been created, wasn’t it? It was potentially life-altering in the profoundest of ways and should be marked as such, if only inside his own heart. But just because he was aware that he should feel something didn’t mean he would. It seemed he was as dead inside as any of the graveyard’s residents, and all that remained was for the rest of him to catch up.

He unlocked the driver’s side door and climbed out of the car.

The weather in southwest Ohio in early June could range from cool and mild to hot and sweltering. But that was Ohio, where the weather changed as often as people’s minds. Unfortunately for Kevin, it felt more like mid-August, the air steamy, thick and damp. Even worse, he still had on the suit he’d worn for Nancy’s graduation, and the instant he emerged from the Altima’s air-conditioned environment, sweat began beading on his forehead and pooling beneath his armpits. He considered leaving his jacket and tie in the car and rolling up his shirt sleeves, but even though he would be more physically comfortable, he decided against it. A momentous moment like this called for a certain level of formality, so the suit would stay on and he’d just have to endure the discomfort. He could do that; after all, he’d had a lot of practice. An entire lifetime’s worth it seemed sometimes.

Let’s have a pity party for Kevvy-wevvy, he thought. One, two, three—awwwww!

Half amused and half disgusted at himself, Kevin walked across the uneven grass that covered the small strip of land in front of the graveyard—Looks like the county’s behind in their mowing—and stepped up to the gate. The graveyard was enclosed by a salmon-colored brick wall that measured five feet high, nine feet on either side of the gate and at the wall’s four corners where conical black-brick turrets pointed skyward. Kevin thought the graveyard’s designer must’ve been going for a somber yet dignified effect, and he couldn’t say the man had missed. The gate was in fact a pair, held shut by an ancient rusted padlock. Not locked, though. The padlock hung open on the gate, just as it had done during Kevin’s childhood. He wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that the padlock rested in the same exact position that it had then, untouched by hands all these long decades. Human hands, anyway.

A metal plaque was bolted on the turret to the right of the entrance, its surface dingy, the letters worn some but still legible.

QUAKER BRANCH MEMORIAL BURIAL GROUND. EST. 1957.

Kevin knew the date referred to the construction of the wall. The graveyard itself was much older.

Click here to order ZOMBIE RACCOONS AND KILLER BUNNIES. This preview for was provided and published with express permission from Tekno books and Kerrie Hughes. ©Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.

September 19th, 2008. The Large Hadron Super Collider in Cern, Switzerland is about to go operational. Humanity is poised to re-create the very same conditions that resulted in the Big Bang and the birth of the universe. Physicist and Cern team member Kate Prosper notices something in one of the tests, a temporal anomaly with no reasonable scientific explanation. Meanwhile, truck driver Alain Murais would do anything to save his dying son, who is suffering from leukemia. But he’s out of money, insurance and time. Kate and Alain’s paths will end up on a collision course not only with one another, but also the mysterious Steward. Before the Day is over, no one will ever be the same…

Written by Ian Edginton
Art by Lee Moder
Cover by Dale Keown, Frazer Irving

Here is a sneak peek at this new comic from Archaia:

Days Missing #3 is on sale in comic shops Wednesday, Oct. 28.

For more information visit Archaia.com today!

Welcome to the thirteenth and final installment of 13 Doors: an exclusive look behind the door at the upcoming Little Fears Nightmare Edition – The Game of Childhood Terror.

Door #13: Closing the Door

Last Thursday, I received a package in the mail. It was small, about 7×10, and around an inch thick. I peeled back the perforated strip and unfolded the cardboard with little regard for ceremony. Inside, sitting before me, was the culmination of months of hard work, late nights, long discussions, and a lot of called-in favors. 192 pages of blood, sweat, tears, wood pulp, and ink. It was my proof copy of Little Fears Nightmare Edition.

And I didn’t know what to think of it.

I mean, for the past eight years when I’ve said “Little Fears” I meant “that game I released back in 2001.” The squarish one with the brown and black cover. The one with the Kings and the Demagogue and the controversy. The one that proved to me I could write and publish a game. The one that changed my life and got my foot into the door of an industry I have come to know and love. The one people remembered when they heard my name.

This isn’t that game. This is something else. It’s a different shape. It’s thicker. It has more words and a different cover. It has a different system and different ideas. It doesn’t look like the old game; it doesn’t play like the old game. Little Fears had grown up and it felt like I was staring at a stranger.

I wasn’t expecting this.

I was expecting elation, relief, excitement. This was everything I had been working towards but, up until the moment I was holding the book in my hands, it had been a series of doc files. It was a collection of words and tifs in an InDesign file. It was potential. Now it’s real.

I sat down with the book and held it in my hands. I turned over the pages and looked at the words I had written. It’s just so different.

It took me a while to accept that this game was now what I would be talking about when I said “Little Fears.” The original would always be there, a big part of my life, but this was the future. This was the reinvention I had been turning in my head for the past too many years. As the days passed and I spent more time with the book I came to accept the fact this was a new stage in my life. That maybe this could do for me what the original had eight years ago: prove that I still had something to say when it came to games.

This is a good game. A fun game. This is Little Fears.

Here I am now, the day after the last pre-order was received, waiting for boxes of this book to arrive at my door. From there, I’ll ship them to folks who have been waiting a damn long time to get their hands on this game. Folks who probably doubted more than once that they’d ever see this new so-called “nightmare” edition. I was one of them. This time last year I certainly didn’t expect to be holding a new book of mine in my hands.

The PDF will go live next Monday on DriveThruRPG.com and that will be the final step towards releasing Little Fears Nightmare Edition into the world. The long-gestating dream turned into reality. The start of something new and, I hope, something great.

When I started this column 13 doors ago, I set a deadline. The book needed to be done by the time I put these words you’re reading right now to print. And it is. And all those late nights seem worth it. I hope you all agree.

And with that, I’m closing this final door. You’re welcome to visit whenever you wish but I won’t be in these rooms any longer. I’ll be crafting new doors that lead to new places, some to new realms of Closetland and some to other places entire.

Thank you all for taking this journey with me. You made it possible, worthwhile, and fun. But the journey’s over and I’ve other places to be. Stick around as long as you like.

Just turn off the lights when you leave, okay?

About Little Fears
Little Fears is a pen and paper roleplaying game that was released in 2001. In it, players portrayed children aged 6-12 who fought monsters that came to our world from a place called Closetland. A completely overhauled version, Little Fears Nightmare Edition, is currently in development. Partnered with Flames Rising, Jason L Blair (the author of Little Fears and Little Fears Nightmare Edition) will provide 13 exclusive looks beyond the door at the new edition including fiction, art previews, and more.

For more information, visit www.littlefears.com.

List of Previews for Little Fears: Nightmare Edition

Thank you to everyone who has entered through the thirteen doors leading up to the release of Little Fears: Nightmare Edition. If you’re just starting your journey, here is a full list of previews for you to explore:

• Closing The Door: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 13
• Turning the Pages: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 12
• Hiding Under the Covers: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 11
• Show Me Something: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 10
• Light of Day: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 9
• Cover Me: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 8
• Picture Day: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 7
• Keys to the World: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 6
• Rebuilding Closetland: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 5
• Creatures in the Library: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 4
• Monster Factory: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 3
• Kids These Days: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 2
• Little Fears Grows Up: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 1

Welcome to the twelfth of the 13 Doors: an exclusive look behind the door at the upcoming Little Fears Nightmare Edition – The Game of Childhood Terror.

Door #12: Turning the Pages

I hope you all enjoyed last week’s PDF preview of Little Fears Nightmare Edition. Because, this week, we have another excerpt from the book. The following seven pages are from Chapter Three: Someone to Watch Over Me, the game moderator chapter. Click the link below to download the PDF.

I hope you enjoyed this preview of the game! Be sure to come back next week for the thirteenth and final door and the last preview of Little Fears Nightmare Edition—OUT OCTOBER 19TH!

Pre-Order Note

There’s less than a week left to pre-order Little Fears Nightmare Edition! Save $12 on the Book + PDF Bundle, get FREE shipping, and a FREE copy of the Campfire Tales #1 PDF supplement.

See www.littlefears.com for details.

About Little Fears
Little Fears is a pen and paper roleplaying game that was released in 2001. In it, players portrayed children aged 6-12 who fought monsters that came to our world from a place called Closetland. A completely overhauled version, Little Fears Nightmare Edition, is currently in development. Partnered with Flames Rising, Jason L Blair (the author of Little Fears and Little Fears Nightmare Edition) will provide 13 exclusive looks beyond the door at the new edition including fiction, art previews, and more.

For more information, visit www.littlefears.com.

List of Previews for Little Fears: Nightmare Edition

Thank you to everyone who has entered through the thirteen doors leading up to the release of Little Fears: Nightmare Edition. If you’re just starting your journey, here is a full list of previews for you to explore:

• Closing The Door: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 13
• Turning the Pages: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 12
• Hiding Under the Covers: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 11
• Show Me Something: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 10
• Light of Day: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 9
• Cover Me: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 8
• Picture Day: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 7
• Keys to the World: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 6
• Rebuilding Closetland: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 5
• Creatures in the Library: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 4
• Monster Factory: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 3
• Kids These Days: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 2
• Little Fears Grows Up: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 1

Welcome to the eleventh of the 13 Doors: an exclusive look behind the door at the upcoming Little Fears Nightmare Edition – The Game of Childhood Terror.

Door #11: Hiding Under the Covers

This week we’re going to take a cue from last week’s preview and show you something directly from the book. But instead of a cut and paste, let’s check pages straight from the book.

The following seven pages are from Chapter Two: To Be Young Again, the character creation chapter. Click the image below to download the PDF.

I hope you enjoyed the preview! Come back next week for another door and another preview of Little Fears Nightmare Edition—OUT OCTOBER 19TH!

Pre-Order Note
Less than two weeks left to pre-order Little Fears Nightmare Edition! Save $12 on the Book + PDF Bundle, get FREE shipping, and a FREE copy of the Campfire Tales #1 PDF supplement.

See www.littlefears.com for details.

About Little Fears
Little Fears is a pen and paper roleplaying game that was released in 2001. In it, players portrayed children aged 6-12 who fought monsters that came to our world from a place called Closetland. A completely overhauled version, Little Fears Nightmare Edition, is currently in development. Partnered with Flames Rising, Jason L Blair (the author of Little Fears and Little Fears Nightmare Edition) will provide 13 exclusive looks beyond the door at the new edition including fiction, art previews, and more.

For more information, visit www.littlefears.com.

List of Previews for Little Fears: Nightmare Edition

Thank you to everyone who has entered through the thirteen doors leading up to the release of Little Fears: Nightmare Edition. If you’re just starting your journey, here is a full list of previews for you to explore:

• Closing The Door: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 13
• Turning the Pages: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 12
• Hiding Under the Covers: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 11
• Show Me Something: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 10
• Light of Day: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 9
• Cover Me: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 8
• Picture Day: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 7
• Keys to the World: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 6
• Rebuilding Closetland: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 5
• Creatures in the Library: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 4
• Monster Factory: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 3
• Kids These Days: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 2
• Little Fears Grows Up: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 1

Welcome to the tenth of the 13 Doors: an exclusive look behind the door at the upcoming Little Fears Nightmare Edition – The Game of Childhood Terror.

Door #10: Show Me Something

So far in this column, I have talked about how Little Fears has changed, who the characters are, a little about the Monsters and Closetland, things that have inspired the design and fiction, shown some of the art that will be in the book, and revealed both Veronica’s excellent cover and the release date.

I’ve pretty much covered everything. I can’t think of anything else to say.

Thanks for stopping by.

Or, I suppose, I could show you what’s actually in the book.

Yea, that sounds good. I’ll do that. Below are the first 1,417 words of Little Fears Nightmare Edition. I hope you like them.

Gregory dug in his heels, putting all 68 of his pounds behind them. The snow from last night crunched under his weight and soaked through the canvas of his secondhand shoes. He bit his upper teeth into his lip and focused hard on the faint glint in the distance. He had to strain his ears to hear past the rushing wind but the beast’s distinctive growl carried far on the early morning breeze.

“Yes, you are,” the creature said, mocking him. “After all, your fear made me.”

Knowing Fear
The world is a scary place, especially for children. The world around them is strange, full of rules that seem to be always changing. There are so many things they can’t do, they can’t say, they aren’t allowed to talk about or see. The world to them is an open door leading to a room they can only enter in tiny steps.

The world they live in is full of rules but those rules are not their own.

But in their dreams, in their imaginations there are no rules. No boundaries. No curfews, no bathtime. They can play in the mud, dance in the rain, free from all the rules that restrict their daily lives.

And these dreams give life to so many things. Flights of fancy, fairy tales, and the distant realms only an untamed imagination can unlock. It is a world full of doors.

Behind these doors are knights and princesses, high castles guarded by dragons, magic railways, young warriors with mystical creatures in brightly-colored orbs, wizards and witches whose daily drudgery is made tolerable because they are learning magic, not math or history. It is a place where childhood has no limits and where the kids are kings and queens of their own world.

But behind these doors, lies something else. Beyond the towering mystical spires that stretch toward the heavens, past the gruff and grumbling ogres whose rough exteriors belie their generous hearts, hiding in the shadows, where the even the rats don’t go, are monsters.

Monsters born of fear, of belief, of the world to which children escape when the real world becomes too confusing, too confining, for them. When there is too much pain or frustration, the children twist their nascent feelings inward, tying them into knots. And when the knots unravel, a monster is born.

These are not fictional, fanciful creatures. These are not just make-believe menaces. These monsters are real. They are alive. They eat and breathe and claw and grab and scream into the wind. They hunger and hunt and track and kill. Their eyes glow red beneath the bed. Their dagger-like fingers scratch at the floorboards, peeling away soft wood with every scrape of a nail. They break toys and bones. They dirty up rooms and they dirty up minds. They shut the latches tight. They shatter windows and door frames. They whisper naughty little ideas into gentle minds drifting off to sleep.

You don’t see them so you don’t believe they exist. Truth is, these monsters can only be seen by those who have the capacity to believe. By those whose minds are not caged by rational thought. But that doesn’t mean we’re all safe.

Though born of it, these monsters are not confined to the worlds of imagination. They have a home outside the minds of cautious children. It is a place of darkness, abandonment, loneliness, and misplaced trust. Empty playgrounds sit in perpetual darkness and the swings sway lazily out of habit while twisted vines pull the metal off the monkey bars.

Forgotten flags flap in the still wind. Shadows appear suddenly just on the other side of the window–then disappear just as quickly. Squeals of laughter dissolve into screams before all is replaced–suddenly–by silence.

In the emptiness of an old house, children hear it.

In the darkness under the bed, children see it.

It is the glint in a strange dog’s eyes. The uneasy grin of a passing stranger. The space between their smile and their mother’s heart.

It is the shaking of tree limbs seen in a lightning flash. It is the old toy once though missing that reappears out of nowhere–broken. It sits at the dinner table where a parent should be. It is the cackle of the schoolyard bully. It is the dividing line between childhood and adulthood.

It is the place you can’t see when you’ve decided to grow up.

It is a place called Closetland. It is a child’s Hell.

Things That Go Bump
Monsters take all sorts of shapes and forms. There are those who are tentacled beasts, with gaping maws and slavering jaws, clutching claws who attack without pause. There are those who hide inside other things: the possessed dog at the junkyard whose throaty howls ring in your ears; the gurgling beast that lives in the sump pump whose burbling moans echo through the pipes; the cold-eyed stranger on the long walk home who glares at you with suspicion and threat; the dolly on the nightstand who refuses to sit up straight and who, you swear, cackles when the moon is just right; the grass around the gravestone that you feel wrapping around your ankles when you stand still too long.

Monsters often hide in plain sight. That is what makes it so easy for grown-ups to not see them, to dismiss the fanciful stories told by children, to tut-tut and hush-now whenever their young son or daughter tells them a story that goes beyond their belief.

Sometimes, even other children cannot see the monsters. Children who haven’t the time to be children, who must grow up and harden their hearts to childish things. There are even some children who have seen too many monsters and simply cannot stomach seeing any more.

Those Who Fight Back
But the monsters do not go unopposed. There are children who are strong enough, smart enough, brave enough, or simply foolish enough to stand against them. Sometimes these children are brave boys and girls—those who know the monsters are real and seek them out wherever they may hide—but just as often they are would-be victims who find their hidden resolve and manage, despite themselves, to stand against the monsters.

This game is about those children. Whether they are questing knights or just unlucky enough to be in a certain place at a certain time, they are all heroes. And you will tell their stories.

Pre-Order Note
For those who haven’t pre-ordered a copy of Little Fears Nightmare Edition yet, let me sweeten the deal. Originally, the first 25 people to place direct pre-orders would receive the first PDF supplement, Campfire Tales #1, for free through DriveThruRPG. Well, that’s changed.

Response to the new edition has been so strong, I’ve decided to extend the free PDF supplement to everyone who places a direct pre-order by October 12th, 2009. This $5 PDF supplement contains three spine-tingling episodes for Little Fears Nightmare Edition and is scheduled for release in mid-November. But you can get it free with your pre-order (on top of the free shipping and/or discounted corebook PDF price).

See www.littlefears.com for details.

About Little Fears
Little Fears is a pen and paper roleplaying game that was released in 2001. In it, players portrayed children aged 6-12 who fought monsters that came to our world from a place called Closetland. A completely overhauled version, Little Fears Nightmare Edition, is currently in development. Partnered with Flames Rising, Jason L Blair (the author of Little Fears and Little Fears Nightmare Edition) will provide 13 exclusive looks beyond the door at the new edition including fiction, art previews, and more.

For more information, visit www.littlefears.com.

List of Previews for Little Fears: Nightmare Edition

Thank you to everyone who has entered through the thirteen doors leading up to the release of Little Fears: Nightmare Edition. If you’re just starting your journey, here is a full list of previews for you to explore:

• Closing The Door: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 13
• Turning the Pages: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 12
• Hiding Under the Covers: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 11
• Show Me Something: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 10
• Light of Day: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 9
• Cover Me: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 8
• Picture Day: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 7
• Keys to the World: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 6
• Rebuilding Closetland: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 5
• Creatures in the Library: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 4
• Monster Factory: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 3
• Kids These Days: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 2
• Little Fears Grows Up: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 1

Welcome to the ninth of the 13 Doors: an exclusive look behind the door at the upcoming Little Fears Nightmare Edition – The Game of Childhood Terror.

Door #9: Light of Day

It’s strange to be this close to the release of Little Fears Nightmare Edition.

I’ve been talking about it for years and thinking about it for even longer. And now it’s just a little over a month away.

It’s at the point now where the things left are mostly business- or marketing-related. (This article for example.) Pre-orders for the book and PDF open today and that’s nerve-wracking. This is the moment where I find out if Little Fears Nightmare Edition has been worth all the work, whether this path makes sense. This is the official entry of the book onto the market. After pre-orders come orders and after a while it’ll simply be another product for sale.

All the work, the rushing, the headaches, the heartbreaks, the late nights, and it all comes down to a stock code, a price tag, and the hope that the book takes off. I’ll move to other projects (some of which will be Little Fears Nightmare Edition-related). Every once in a while, I’ll come across the cover image, a review, or see a sale come in and I’ll have a wistful memory of times like this.

I’ll probably have forgotten about just how crazy weeks like these past two have been.

A lot of work has been done lately to get some legs under not only the book but the underlying company, FunSizedGames (which is the name under which I’m publishing it). I’ve been going over different printing deals, reviewing PDF distribution contracts, putting together logos and paperwork, compiling shipping information, and talking to select retail outlets about carrying the book. Somewhere in there, I attended the wedding of the only matchmaking attempt I’ve ever made.

I’m planning promotion, the release party, and how to sustain and vivify sales after the honeymoon phase.

As a one-man band, I have to be really smart about money, production, and how I spend my time. I’ve been in the game industry for eight years. I’ve been lauded, burned, and let down. I’ve worked my ass off on projects that will never see the light of day, dropped the ball on others, and made a lot of friends. I’ve given a lot of pitches, shaken a lot of hands, and demoed ’til my throat was raw. I’ve talked to gamers, game designers, and game store owners for hours on end, getting their side of the business. I didn’t take notes but I like to think the salient points stuck with me. I gained a lot of experience, good and bad, and I thought long and hard about all of that when drafting how I would move forward with Little Fears Nightmare Edition and FunSizedGames today.

I decided I’d release the game in expanding phases. Each phase would open more and more sales avenues. I’m starting simple in the beginning. For the physical books, you can get them from me or one of a few select retail partners. For the PDF, you can get it through DriveThruRPG.com.

Leisure Games is sponsoring a version specific to the UK and Europe (and I’m directing all the international customers to them). I’m working to get retail support in key areas of the US. I have a few signed up already. These are stores run by friends, folks I trust, or that come highly recommended. I’ll add more and more as they come. I don’t think I’m selling gold or precious diamonds but I do want to support those retail shops that have been good to me and that are contributing something unique to the industry.

(Of course, I don’t know every shop in the US. If you have a local store that you think might be interested, use the Contact form on littlefears.com to clue me in.)

As stated, you can always order directly from me. If you do, I might just scribble something in the book. You never know. I hope you don’t mind.

With time, I’ll add more and more sales avenues—there are some big ones that spring instantly to mind—but the present is all about sustainability, caution, and control. I’m trying some new things (new to me at least) with this venture. I took some dumb risks with the original Little Fears and while most of them paid off, I’m not in a position to take that same level of risk.

Too much of my life, sweat, and blood has been poured into Little Fears Nightmare Edition to be cavalier at this point. I’ve worked hard on the concept, the system, and the writing to not take that same level of consideration with the production and sale of the book. I wouldn’t say I’m being cautious but that’s not too far from the mark.

I care a lot for this book. I care a lot for the fans, both those old—who supported the original and kept on my case about the Nightmare Edition—and the ones I’ve yet to make. I care about the industry. It’s been good to me. It welcomed me warmly when I was a 24-year old with a weird little book about kids fighting monsters. I’m humbled that it still remembers me.

This wasn’t the article I intended to write. I went off-script with this one. It’s late and I’m tired and I’m standing next to Mr. Frost in the middle of that winding road. I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep. That’s one of the best lines ever written right there.

Pre-orders will open today, probably around 10a or so at LittleFears.com. They’ll run until October 12th. I hope you’ll consider putting your faith in me and the game. It’s a good one. For a long time, I thought Normal, Texas might be the best game I’ll ever design. Now I’m not so sure about that. I think this one might be a contender. I look forward to hearing your opinion on that.

About Little Fears
Little Fears is a pen and paper roleplaying game that was released in 2001. In it, players portrayed children aged 6-12 who fought monsters that came to our world from a place called Closetland. A completely overhauled version, Little Fears Nightmare Edition, is currently in development. Partnered with Flames Rising, Jason L Blair (the author of Little Fears and Little Fears Nightmare Edition) will provide 13 exclusive looks beyond the door at the new edition including fiction, art previews, and more.

For more information, visit www.littlefears.com.

List of Previews for Little Fears: Nightmare Edition

Thank you to everyone who has entered through the thirteen doors leading up to the release of Little Fears: Nightmare Edition. If you’re just starting your journey, here is a full list of previews for you to explore:

• Closing The Door: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 13
• Turning the Pages: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 12
• Hiding Under the Covers: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 11
• Show Me Something: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 10
• Light of Day: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 9
• Cover Me: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 8
• Picture Day: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 7
• Keys to the World: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 6
• Rebuilding Closetland: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 5
• Creatures in the Library: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 4
• Monster Factory: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 3
• Kids These Days: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 2
• Little Fears Grows Up: Little Fears Nightmare Edition Door 1