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.

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.

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.

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.

Do you love reading short stories? What about dark tales with a demonically-possessed X-Box, a skinwalker or a haunted forest?

In Buried Tales of Pinebox, Texas, a dozen horror authors and game designers have gotten together to write tales set in Pinebox, Texas. This sleepy little East Texas town definitely has a lot more going on than the occasional bar fight.

Whether it’s the haunted diner luring weary travelers, the unexplained ‘alligator attacks”, or the crone who just might be hexing neighborhood kids, trouble always seems to be hidden just below the surface. Buried, but not forgotten.–Buried Tales of Pinebox, Texas

Join Editor Matt M. McElroy and unearth these tales of rural horror from a dozen authors including:

The e-book version of Buried Tales of Pinebox, Texas is available now at DriveThruHorror.com and the paperback version is available through Amazon.com.

FlamesRising.com is pleased to present a preview of a few stories in this horror anthology.

Guitar Zero by Shane Lacy Hensley

overnight lows in the 40s drove students to their jackets and sweaters. Cal Griffis was the first one in. He usually was. It wasn’t that he was an early riser—he just didn’t sleep much. Nights were spent delving dungeons in the latest massively multiplayer online game, or scoring headshots in the “kewlest” next-gen shooter on his game console. He’d stay up until one or two in the morning on his games, then get up and moving again by 7 a.m. Cal was a video-game junkie, but that was an acceptable flaw in a computer science major.

This morning he juggled a large coffee on top of his textbook while trying to jiggle open the stubborn lock to the computer lab with his other. Cal’s thick glasses started falling off as he did so, and the heavy bag on his shoulder that held his screamin’ laptop started to slip as well.

Disaster struck. The laptop strap slid off the shoulders of his ill-fitting denim jacket, hitting the crook of his elbow with considerable force. The textbook in his hand up-ended and sent steaming hot mocha latte all over Cal and the lab door. A moment later, Cal’s glasses slid off his face and landed lenses-down in the mess. Cal said something his mother wouldn’t be proud of.

Near blind and covered from crotch to toe in sticky coffee (Cal liked it sweet, so it was extra syrupy), he entered the lab. He couldn’t see, but he knew something was wrong. There was an acrid smell—even stronger than the latte—as if something electronic were overheating.

He could barely make out a black blob slumped at one of the desks.

“Freddie? That you? Wake up, man.”

Cal crossed to the restroom and grabbed a handful of paper towels, then headed back toward the scene of his disaster. “Dude. You fell asleep here again.” Cal stepped toward the coffee and heard a sickening crunch—his glasses.

Another expletive. “It’s gonna be one of those days. That’s the second pair this year.”

A string of expletives followed as Cal cleaned, but Freddie didn’t stir. He remained motionless five minutes later when Cal finally finished.

The college junior went back into the bathroom and rinsed off his glasses. He put them on his face and sighed heavily as he saw twin cracks up both lenses. He could just make out his thin face, stubbly chin, moppy black hair, and piercing blue eyes beyond them.

“Come on, Freddie. Get up. I’ve made enough noise here to wake the dead.”

Cal exited the bathroom and turned on his desktop. It would take a few minutes to boot. He walked to Freddie’s desk and tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey man. Wake up. You okay?”

Freddie wasn’t okay. Cal shook him and gasped in horror as his cohort’s chair rolled backward and Freddie fell awkwardly on the tile floor. There was a disturbing crunch as his skull bounced and Cal elicited his second to last expletive of the morning.

“Freddie!” Cal leaned over and grabbed his sometimes-friend to help him up—certain the fall would wake him—but recoiled quickly. Even through his shattered glasses he could tell Freddie was gone. His eye sockets were two charred holes and his lips were burned black with bright red bloodlines in the dark cracks.

Cal issued his last expletive of the day and called the campus police.

Off Radio by David Wellington

We found Frances Bucknell’s body down at the railroad siding on Sunday, but couldn’t make a positive ID until Tuesday when some kids found her head in a drainage ditch off Cane Bottom Road. In a town like this not even Sheriff Anderson tried holding the information back from the press—there was no point, since gossip moves faster around here than email. Needless to say by lunch time everybody in Pinebox had a pet theory as to how she died.

“Those boys said the head wasn’t cut off so much as yanked out by its roots,” Tiffany Bishop, the bank teller, said. We’d stopped in for a bite at the little diner on Highway 96, the Sheriff and me, and we couldn’t help but overhear the quartet of ladies in a booth right by us discussing the case. Especially since they were staring at us the whole time where we sat at the counter. “That poor girl. She was a student at the university, right?”

“I heard that part of the body was missing. Maybe even consumed.” This from Jane Blewer, and when she said it I looked down at my sandwich in despair. They make a fine chicken salad at Mom’s Diner, with paprika in the mayonnaise, but suddenly I was not hungry at all. Judging by the volume of their voices they weren’t talking to each other. They were talking to us. “I suppose,” she went on, confirming my suspicion, “we will be told it was another one of those ‘gator attacks you always hear about.”

Sheriff Anderson sat up straighter on his stool and swished his coffee around in his mouth like it was mouthwash. He did not respond. I shot Jane Blewer a look that she should have understood, a look that said now is not the time.

Alicia Crowley was next to speak up, though, and she was not the sort to be put off by a meaningful look. “I’ve never heard of an alligator that would take a girl’s head off and carry it four miles into town,” she added. The ladies were after something. Did they know I already had a good idea who the killer was? God, I hoped not.

“Gators do funny things, sometimes,” I said, trying to defuse the situation. The sheriff sighed deeply—he wasn’t enjoying this game. He picked up his sandwich but didn’t bite into it, just stared at it for a while. I suppose he knew what was going to have to come next.

Because the fourth woman at the booth was old Ethel Gastock, who saw a ghost one time and hasn’t stopped telling people about it since. “It seems to me one of those crimes for which no explanation of a conventional sort will satisfy. Deputy Clark,” she said, coming over to touch my arm, “wouldn’t you agree?”

I opened my mouth to answer but the sheriff spun around on his stool then and leaned his bright red face close to hers. “Miz Gastock, I am of the opinion that this kind of conjecture is not helpful in an investigation, especially not at this early stage. And I will thank you not to waste the valuable time of my employees.”

“She’s speaking on behalf of the whole community,” Alicia Crowley said, half standing up in her seat. “I think we have a right to know what’s going on. Why, any of us could be next.”

“At least tell us if there are any leads,” Tiffany Bishop pleaded, pulling her friend back down into her seat.

“Well now, I wouldn’t know,” the Sheriff told her. He looked about ready to pop an artery. I wiped my mouth with my napkin, knowing how this would end.

“Seeing as it’s out of my jurisdiction.”

“They found the body in Golan county,” Ethel Gastock exclaimed. “That makes this your business, sir!”

“It sure was, but then the head was found here in town,” the sheriff said, with a nasty smile. “Which makes it a matter for the Pinebox Police Department. Come on, Clark.” He threw some money on the counter and stormed out into the East Texas sun. I hurried to follow.

I didn’t relish what came next but I suppose there are things that ought to be done in this world and there are things that have to be done, whether they ought to or not. When Jane Blewer mentioned that part of Frances Bucknell’s body had been eaten, I knew I was looking at one of the latter. I waited till the sheriff had his sunglasses on, then I said, “Butch, I’d like to go off radio for a while. Just for the afternoon, if that’s alright.”

He looked across his shoulder at me. “You’d like that, huh?” I couldn’t see his eyes but I knew he was thinking from the way his mouth went flat. “A kind of personal day. Well, I suppose that’s a possibility.”

“Thanks,” I said, and started to turn away.

“An unpaid personal day,” he added.

I just nodded and hurried off to where I’d parked my patrol vehicle.

The Witch of Linda Lane by Ed Wetterman

Mom said Mrs. Jones was just a sweet old lady, but all of us kids knew better.

Especially after what she did to my friends. Of course, no one believed us. We were just kids, and adults are too busy with business and bills to listen to kids.

Well, except for old Leonard. He believed us, but no one believed him. Mrs. Jones had lived forever in the old A-frame ranch house near the railroad tracks. It was yellow with dingy white trim, and the paint peeled so badly that it almost looked like some animal with long, sharp claws had decided to use it as a scratching post.

And cats. She had lots of cats. The place reeked of cat piss and that old, musky smell of someone who had lived too long.

Just before the Fall Festival, we were riding our bikes down the hill on Linda Lane. The last house at the bottom of the cul de sac was Mrs. Jones’s, and her circle concrete driveway was exactly at the bottom of the hill. The Three Amigos, that’s Tommy, Jimmy, and me, would cruise down the hill just as fast as we could, racing the wind and each other. At the bottom we would have to hit our brakes just as we left the pavement for the concrete of her driveway. Of course this left bike marks, but we didn’t think anything of it at the time. Then we would lean our bikes and whip around the circle as fast as we could to build up speed for the ride back to the top of the hill.

Tommy was my best friend. We did everything together. We even shared the same birthday, April 11th, and we both turned twelve years old that year. We played in little league on the Giants, attended the same class in Pinebox Middle School, and his parents took me on a vacation with them the previous summer to Little Rock, Arkansas. We went to a diamond mine and dug for two hours. We found a small one. Tommy and I decided we would be co-owners of it forever. Every week we would pass it back and forth between us. I keep it on my dresser now, right next to the frog aquarium. I can’t bear to touch it anymore. I just can’t.

On our seventh race down, it was Jimmy Berry in the lead, followed by Tommy and me. I usually was last. My bike wasn’t a racer like theirs, but mine was the best trick bike.

We raced full speed down the hill, the mailboxes flying by. As Jimmy pulled out in front, he yelled, “Hell Yeah!”

As we hit the small bump leading from the pavement to the concrete of her drive, old Mrs. Jones herself appeared in the doorway. Her wrinkled old face looked like an angry Halloween mask, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying over the loud hum of bike tires over asphalt. She held something in her left hand and at first I thought she was just waving a stick at us like crazy old people do.

One second we were riding the wind, and the next Jimmy’s front brakes locked up.

Right in front of us, he flipped over the handlebars and swam through the air like a rag doll. When he hit the old lady’s concrete driveway, his head sounded like a watermelon thrown at the ground. Tommy and I laid long, black skid marks while our friend’s body scraped forward, rolling and tumbling.

No, he wasn’t wearing a bike helmet.

How his mother screamed when she got to the scene. The police had covered his body beneath some kind of dark blanket. What I remember the most is the blood.

It seeped onto the concrete drive and slowly spread onto the grass.

The e-book version of Buried Tales of Pinebox, Texas is available now at DriveThruHorror.com and the paperback version is available through Amazon.com.

This preview for was provided and published with express permission from 12 to Midnight. ©Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.

VEINS is a supernatural thriller that combines the fast-paced prose of veteran short story author Lawrence C. Connolly with the soulful character portraits of Star E. Olson.

Fleeing from what should have been a perfect crime, four crooks in a black Mustang race into the Pennsylvania highlands. On the backseat, a briefcase full of cash. On their tail, a tattooed madman who wants them dead.

The driver calls himself Axle. A local boy, he knows the landscape, the coal-hauling roads and steep trails that lead to the perfect hideout: the crater of an abandoned mine. But Axle fears the crater. Terrible things happened there. Things that he has spent years trying to forget.

Enter Kwetis, the nightflyer, a specter from Axle’s ancestral past. Part memory, part nightmare, Kwetis has planned a heist of his own. And soon Axle, his partners in crime, and their pursuer will learn that their arrival at the mine was foretold long ago . . . and that each of them is a piece of a plan devised by the spirits of the Earth.

VEINS Prologue

The second time Kwetis visited her, she found him sitting outside the door of her trailer park home, wings folded against his back, clawed feet curled over the rim of a cliff. At first she wasn’t sure which unnerved her more: seeing that Kwetis had returned to western Pennsylvania, or discovering that her front yard now ended at a sandstone precipice.

Kwetis looked back at her, head rotating to peer between his wings. “I’ve come to thank you,” he said. “You did well, Yeyestani.”

Yeyestani was an old word. It meant teacher. Kwetis was flattering her, which meant he had returned to ask another favor.

He stepped away from the ledge, walking on legs that bent backward at the knees, approaching until he stood just outside her door.

She didn’t invite him in.

“Your friend performed well, Yeyestani.”

“My friend?”

“Johnny Redwing.”

“The Okwe boy?” She frowned. “He’s no friend of mine.”

“Still, he listened when you told him to take the job at the Frieburg estate. He did as you said. That was good.”

“I heard he only lasted a week up there.”

“Ten days.”

“I heard they fired him.”

“That’s right. Mr. Frieburg fired him.”

“So how’s that good?”

Kwetis’s eyes shimmered. An image rose within them, showing Johnny Redwing lying atop Mrs. Frieburg, riding her hard.

“So that’s it? That’s the reason you wanted him up there?”

“Not the whole reason.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Yes, but that’s because for you it’s just beginning. Understanding comes later.” He stepped closer. “You are helping our oohaate,” he said.

“Oohaate?”

“Yes. Do you know that word?”

She had forgotten much of the old tongue, but a few words remained. Oohaate. She remembered her grandmother talking about that. Oohaate. The spirit path. The way that must be followed. It had no equivalent in English, though fate was an approximation.

“So I’m helping you cut a trail into the future?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve come back to thank me? That’s all?”

Kwetis leaned closer. “No.” His face crackled. “There’s more.” He touched her shoulder. His palm was hard, cold. His skin smoldered without heat. “I came to thank you . . . and warn you.”

“About what?”

His eyes shimmered. “Your grandson Matthew is going to die.”

Her heart skipped. Matthew was twenty-two, healthy, recently married.

Kwetis rubbed her shoulder. “But through his death, you will gain a son.”

“Me? A son?” She was seventy-four. “You’re joking.”

“I never joke. Jokes are for humans. I speak only what is, what will be. When Matthew dies, you will raise his son.”

“But Matthew doesn’t have a son.”

“No. Not yet. But he will.”

She felt disoriented. He was telling her too much too fast.

“Here,” Kwetis said. “This will help.” He took his hand from her shoulder and stepped aside.

In the distance, beyond the sandstone ledge, the landscape came alive with roaring machines: coal trucks, conveyors, dozers, draglines.

“Tell me what you see,” Kwetis said. “Tell me if you recognize this place.”

“I recognize it,” she said.

It was the Windslow Surface Mine, a wounded valley that had once been pine-covered highlands. Machines had bulldozed the forest, diverted streams, and cut into the mountain until all that remained was a deep gash rimmed by a curved wall of sheared-off rock to the north and east, pine forest to the south and west. In between was a low wasteland of machine-gouged earth. The locals called it the crater.

But though it was familiar to her, it did not belong where she saw it now, a few dozen feet from her doorstep.

“I’ve moved it for you, Yeyestani.”

“For me?”

“So I can show you another piece of the oohaate.”

Her grandson Matthew worked at Windslow Mine, hauling coal along the ledge roads.

“I’ll show you,” Kwetis said. “I’ll show you how he dies. But you mustn’t try changing it. If you do, the oohaate will fail.”

She watched a line of coal trucks ascending the face of the highwall, climbing a road that wound like a screw thread along the curve of vertical rock. Her grandson drove the lead vehicle, and even though she couldn’t see him through the sun-glared windows, she nonetheless recognized his youthful vigor in the moving machine, as if his essence permeated the metal, radiating down into the steady motion of the massive wheels.

“Keep watching,” Kwetis said. “This is how it happens.”

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the air quivered, trembling with a low-pitched sound, like the sustained ringing of a gong. Seconds passed. The ground stirred, vibrating beneath her. The mine, she thought, the realization coming the way insights sometimes do in dreams. The sound is coming from the mine. The rocks are singing.

To the east, the highwall trembled, its face shivering as the ringing welled into a jagged roar.

Then it happened.

The screw-thread road folded, crumbling beneath the trucks. Wheels lost traction as rock sheared away. And then, slowly at first, the convoy fell. . . .

By the time the full force of the thunder reached her, a quarter of the hillside had calved into the crater.

“Lose a grandson,” Kwetis said. “Gain a son.”

They were inside now, which meant that Kwetis could stay as long as he wanted. It was bad luck to ask a spirit to leave your home once you had invited him inside.

She realized now, studying him as he sat across from her, that he had changed since his first visit. The last time he had been more aloof, less personable. Perhaps this was a different Kwetis, a younger manifestation of the timeless spirit. According to the old stories, such things were possible.

The living room occupied the center of her trailer, positioned beyond a pressboard kitchen and ending at a darkened hallway. The hallway led to her bedroom, and from it came the sounds of her nightstand radio, the one she always played while she slept. She was sleeping now, but that didn’t matter. Her awareness was here, in the living room, with Kwetis.

She leaned forward, looking into his eyes. “Tell me about him,” she said. “Tell me about my great grandson.”

Kwetis had made himself at home. He sat across from her, wings draping the back of a chair, legs folded beneath him. She had offered him coffee, and he had accepted, the cup sitting beside him now, growing cold.

His gaze turned inward at her mention of the boy. When he spoke, he did so slowly, as if sharing information that was at once vast and personal. “Your grandson will name the boy Alex,” Kwetis said. “But Alex will change the name. He will call himself Axle.”

“Axle? Like on a car?”

“Yes. That’s the way he’ll spell it.”

She pictured the rearranged letters. “He will be a clever child?”

“No.” Kwetis seemed to smile, though in truth his wolfish face lacked the subtleties of human expression. “Not particularly. Not at first. He will require considerable guidance, a lot of teaching.”

“I take it he’ll have an interest in cars.”

“Yes. A big interest. It will be part of the oohaate. Very important.”

“But why will I be the one to raise him? Surely his mother-”

“You will challenge the mother’s right to custody,” Kwetis said. “It will not be easy, but she drinks, and she will drink more after the accident. When you challenge her for the child, she will drink all the time.”

“So maybe we should let her keep the child. Maybe it will help her, keep her from drinking.”

“That doesn’t concern us. The oohaate requires that you gain custody.”

“And after custody. Then what?”

“Then you will teach him the old ways, the language and stories.”

“I’m afraid I’ve forgotten those.”

“You’ll remember. They’re in your blood. Trust your instincts. Old memories are like deep rock, there for the digging.” He spoke with his hands, gentle gestures. “Raise the boy well. When he is nearly grown, I will visit you again.” He leaned forward. “That will be our final meeting, Yeyestani.”

She considered that. How old would she be when an as-yet-unborn child reached his teens?

Life is already too long, she thought, not sure she wanted to go another fifteen, twenty years. She was already weary, bone tired, worn to a nub.

Kwetis took her hand. “You look troubled.”

Down the hall, something stirred: weight shifting against sagging springs. She felt the mattress beneath her shoulders, but tried ignoring it. She must not wake up now. It would be rude, possibly fatal.

“You have doubts,” Kwetis said. “You’re wondering if you will live long enough to raise the child.”

“Will I?”

“Yes.”

“Will I do a good job?”

He paused, his gaze softening. “Yes.” Something moved across his face, a shifting shadow that conveyed a sense of respect and gratitude. He seemed poised to say more, but then he released her hand, unfolded his legs, and headed toward the door.

She followed him down a wooden step and onto a clay path that led past a small chain-link enclosure. The size and shape of a dog kennel, the enclosure held a generator and a large gasoline drum. A sign on the locked gate proclaimed that the contents were property of OSM, Federal Office of Surface Mining:

Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted

A pole rose from the generator, supporting an overhead wire that ran toward a square shack with a boarded window. None of these things-fence, generator, wire, shack-were part of her real world. But she sensed they were important. Otherwise, Kwetis would not have put them in the dream.

He passed them without comment, advancing toward the brink of the now-silent surface mine. The machines were gone.

Windslow Mine, she thought. As it will be in the future: quiet, overgrown, forgotten.

Kwetis stepped toward the crater’s edge and leaned forward, balancing precariously, pointing to the eastern slope where a carpet of trees and grass covered a wedge of collapsed wall: the killing ground as it would appear many years after her grandson’s death.

“Other men will die in the slide,” he said, speaking now with the shifting tension in his wings. He looked ready to fly. “There will be lawsuits, claims of negligence. The company will declare bankruptcy, leaving the workers with nothing while the owners walk away rich.”

She stepped up beside him, letting him know that she wasn’t afraid of the sudden fall. She felt safe in his presence, secure in the assurance that she would live long enough to raise a child who was yet to be born.

“This is the mine as it will be,” Kwetis said. “One day, when your great grandson is nearly grown, you will bring him here.” He touched her hand, speaking with his grip. “You will raise him well.”

She waited for him to say more, but instead he withdrew his hand.

“I’m wondering,” she said. “You seem different from last time. Are you-”

He angled forward and leaped away. A concussive snap rose from his shoulders, the sound of wings catching the wind.

The blast hit her, pushing her back.

Dust rose.

She covered her face. Too late. Something had blown into her left eye, burning, becoming worse as she rubbed. She turned away from the ledge, still rubbing, the pain spreading through her, filling her head, traveling with her as she awoke in agony.

By mid-morning, the eye had hardened to a milky white.

Her view of the world had changed forever.

* * * * *

Click here to order VEINS from Amazon.com, and be on the lookout for the sequel, VIPERS, coming soon.

This preview for VEINS was provided and published with express permission from Fantasist Enterprises and Lawrence C. Connolly. ©Copyright 2008. 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.

In this preview, FlamesRising.com is proud to present you with a preview of the new young adult novel LEGACY by acclaimed author Tom Sniegoski. LEGACY is about a boy who discovers his father was a superhero, and he now has to decide whether he’ll take up the mantle and become a hero himself.

Prologue

Twenty Years Ago

He could always see it in their eyes.

The look that said, Why would anybody put on a costume and fight crime?
He wanted to tell the poor slobs, If you have to ask that question, you’ll never know.
You’ll never understand.

The masked man, dressed in the tight-fitting costume of red and black, perched at the edge of an office building and surveyed the city sprawled below him.

Seraph City.

They—the citizens he protected—called him the Raptor, a sleek bird of prey feeding upon the vermin infesting the city.

His city.

They might not have understood him, but they were grateful for what he did, how he allowed them to sleep safely in their beds knowing he was out there.

Protecting them from evil.

The Raptor looked at his partner beside him.

His sidekick.

The newspapers called him Talon.

The Raptor and Talon; it had a nice ring to it. They’d inspired other crime fighters in cities across the world. For there was only so much that law enforcement could do. No matter how hard the police fought, some bad guys would always slip through the cracks.

It was up to the Raptor and Talon, and others like them, to pick up the slack.
Talon noticed that the Raptor was staring at him and met his gaze. “What?” he asked.

“Nothing.” The Raptor turned his eyes toward the rooftop of the building below them.

The object of this evening’s mission.

While the Raptor had indeed inspired the birth of heroes, these superheroes had in turn inspired the birth of a new class of criminal, a kind of evil the world had never seen before.

Flamboyant. Colorful. Powerful. Deadly.

The Raptor refused to accept responsibility for these new and dangerous criminals, convinced they would have arrived even if he hadn’t. The world was changing, and these villains were simply products of that change.

Just as he and the other costumed crime fighters were.

One side couldn’t . . . wouldn’t exist without the other.

“So you think they’re down there?” Talon asked.

The building below them had been designed to be Seraph City’s new convention center, a showplace to announce to the world that a restored Seraph was on the rise. That the dangerous, crime-ridden place of old was a thing of the past.

But that was before construction workers discovered that the earth beneath the building had served as an illegal dumping ground for years, poisoning the area with toxic
waste.

The project had been stopped cold, leaving an abandoned, decaying shell, a perfect home for all manner of vermin.

“They’re down there, all right,” the Raptor confirmed.

He had been searching for the Terribles for more than a week, and finally, thanks to his many informants, he had located his prey.

“Slippery Pete saw the Frightener and the Blade Master going in less than an hour ago,” the Raptor said.

“Good old Slippery Pete,” Talon said with a chuckle. “It’s a good thing he’s more afraid of us than of the Terribles.”

The Terribles had held the city in a grip of fear for weeks.

Their recent armored car attack had left two civilians close to death and another badly burned.

It was high time their reign of terror was brought to an end, and over the last three nights the Raptor had forgone sleep to spend every moment tracking the Terribles.

Now he had found them.

A thrill vibrated through his body as he readied himself to strike. He always felt this way before he went into battle; he always felt this good.

There was movement in the shadows below them, and he and Talon both tensed, watching with predators’ eyes.

The Raptor reached up to his mask, gently tapping the side of his head to activate the Owl’s Eye lenses in his face mask, which turned the night as bright as day.
Below him, lighting up a quick smoke, was the Muscle.

This villain was ten times as strong as a normal man, and twenty times as dumb. He would be the least of their problems.

The criminal finished his smoke and returned to the protection of the nest.

“It’s time,” the Raptor announced, spreading his arms to activate the flight sensors woven into the protective mesh of his costume. Talon did the same, and they leapt from the rooftop, riding the air currents to the unfinished convention center below.

Silently they touched down in the cool darkness of the center’s entryway. A set of double doors secured with corroded, rust-covered chains and padlocks was now all that stood between them and their quarry.

Talon looked at him, a glimmer of excitement in his eyes.

“It’s all yours,” the Raptor said. It was like throwing a bone to a hungry dog.

He smiled as he watched the boy lunge. The strengthenhancing exoskeleton built into the costume he wore allowed the boy to tear the doors from their hinges with ease.

He was good; maybe good enough to carry on the legacy when it came time for the Raptor to step down.

Of course, the crime fighter hoped he wouldn’t need to think about that for many years. There was far too much evil in the Angel City for him to think about stepping down as its protector.

With a powerful leap, the Raptor bounded through the doorway to join his partner. Oddly, there was no sign of the Terribles.

“What, did they see you and surrender?” he asked, coming to stand beside Talon.

“Something’s wrong” was all Talon had to say. Suddenly the darkness was dispelled by a bright, almost blinding light as multiple spotlights set up all around the cavernous first floor were illuminated.

Stunned, the Raptor realized almost at once what he and Talon had done. How could they have been so stupid? So overconfident?

There were five chairs set up across from them, with five people bound and gagged in them. He knew each and every one. They were his agents, his informers, people he used and trusted to collect information to eliminate the criminal element from the city.

Justin Spiewack, the incorruptible beat cop with a wife and two infant daughters; Patricia Doughtery, tough-as-nails reporter for the Seraph Sun; Brucie Mitchell, owner of the Ballentine club, Seraph City’s hottest nightspot; Dr. Lita Coughlin, personal physician to some of Seraph City’s most powerful criminal figures; and Slippery Pete, one of the greatest con men of the twentieth century.

All of them tied to their chairs. All of them clearly terrified as the small digital clocks connected to explosive devices resting in each of their laps counted down the last seconds of their lives.

Eight . . . Seven . . . Six . . .

“What do we do?” Talon asked, his earlier excitement replaced by fear.

Five . . . Four . . .

A thousand and one scenarios ran through the Raptor’s mind. But he knew that none would be successful. “It’s too late,” he said.

Three . . . Two . . .

This isn’t how it’s supposed to be, he thought, frozen in place, feeling the fear emanating from those who had aided him in battle.

The Raptor and Talon were supposed to charge into the dilapidated building, defeat the bad guys, and bring them to justice.

That was how it was supposed to be. How the game was played.

How it always had been.

One.

The world around the Raptor was consumed in fire and smoke, and a sound that could very well have signaled the end of the world.

The end of his world.

Evil had changed the rules.

Chapter One

Even with the industrial-sized fan blowing, it was hot as hell inside the garage of Big Lou’s Gas Up & Go.

Lucas Moore was under the hood of Jeb Dolahyde’s old Ford truck, using a ratchet wrench to tighten the spark plugs he’d just installed. He could feel trickles of sweat tickling the scalp of his shaggy head, eventually dripping down to and across the bridge of his nose. It was days like this when he wished he had the courage to get a crew cut, to shave it all off, but the ladies seemed to like his untamed, curly black hair.

And what the ladies liked, he kept.

He stood up and pulled a red bandanna from his back pocket, wiping the sweat from his face. All he had to do was change the fluids and he’d be done with the first car of the day, leaving only five more to go.

His head pounded and his stomach was becoming increasingly sour. He knew he should probably have something to eat, but the thought only made him queasy. Lucas wanted to blame his misery on the blazing Arizona heat, but he knew it was more likely the beer and whiskey shots from the night before.

He headed to the workstation in the corner of the garage, stopping in front of the fan and closing his eyes. The warm air didn’t provide much in the way of relief, but it was better than nothing.

Head throbbing, he pulled himself away from the fan and dropped the wrench on the workbench. His stomach burbled, and again he considered getting something to eat at the diner across the way, but then he realized that would mean seeing his mother, and he thought better of it.

He flashed back to earlier that morning when his mother had been preparing to leave for work at the Good Eats Diner (also owned by Big Lou). She had started to lay into Lucas about how he had come in drunk, and how he wasn’t even old enough to be drinking, and pretty soon that had led into how he wasn’t doing anything with his life, and how he would never amount to anything without a high school education.

The fact that Lucas had dropped out of high school earlier that year was a real sore spot for his mom, but Lucas saw it as looking at things realistically. He believed high school wasn’t going to teach him anything that was going to help him much in life, especially when he more or less knew he was going to end up fixing cars in Big Lou’s garage anyway.

Dropping out of school had just helped him on his way to an inevitable career path. But try telling his mother that.

He was walking over to a display of radiator fluid when he heard his name called.

Lucas turned to see Richie Dennison and two of his punk friends, Teddy Shay and Vincent Clark, saunter into the garage.

“What can I do for you, Richie?” Lucas asked, taking a plastic container of radiator fluid over to the pickup.

“I told you last night it wasn’t over,” Richie said. He stood with his hands out to either side, like a gunfighter ready to draw.

Lucas’s head immediately began to throb harder. “What wasn’t over?” he asked, setting the container of coolant down in front of the truck and approaching the three.

“You know what I’m talking about,” Richie snarled.

“Playing stupid isn’t going to help you.”

Seeing Richie had begun to stir up some memories from the night before, but they were buried pretty deep. Lucas vaguely recalled making a comment about Richie’s girlfriend. “This doesn’t have anything to do with something I said about Brenda, does it?” he asked.

“I told you never to say her name to me again!” Richie shouted, coming at Lucas with his fists clenched.

Lucas backed up, throwing his hands in the air. “Hey, look, I’m sorry, all right? I don’t even remember what I said. But I’m sorry. Okay?”

Richie smirked and his friends chuckled.

“Figured you’d try to get out of it once your buddies weren’t around to back you up,” he said.

“Look,” Lucas began, “I don’t remember much about last night. . . . I guess I was a little drunk.”

“Not too drunk to run your mouth and talk trash about my girlfriend,” Richie replied.

Lucas thought for sure he was going to throw up. The heat and his hangover were making him feel sicker by the second. “What do you want from me?” he finally asked, trying to keep the annoyance out of his tone. “I said I was sorry. I shouldn’t have talked trash about Brenda.”

Richie moved more quickly than Lucas expected, slamming a fist into his jaw and sending him stumbling to one side.

But he didn’t go down.

“I told you not to say her name,” Richie said menacingly.

Lucas held the side of his face. “I think it’s time for you all to get the hell out of here,” he said, jaw throbbing. He knew he’d been wrong the night before, even though he couldn’t remember exactly what he’d said. He did have a tendency to run his mouth after a few beers, and probably deserved that punch.

But no more.

“We’ll get out, all right,” Richie said as he and his buddies came at Lucas. “Just as soon as we’re done stomping your ass.”

Lucas liked a good scuffle as much as the next guy, but three against one? That just wasn’t right.

He ducked his head low and charged. Teddy tried to hold Lucas’s arms behind his back, but Lucas drove the heel of his heavy work boot down onto Teddy’s sneakered foot. The kid screamed, limping backward, giving Lucas a chance to concentrate on the other two.

Vincent knocked him back with a punch that grazed his cheek, but it gave Lucas the opportunity he needed. He dove at the guy, grabbing him around the waist and bringing him down to the ground. He pinned Vincent to the floor and put everything he had into a punch to the kidneys.

Richie threw his arms around Lucas’s thick, muscular neck, pulling him from his friend, who now writhed on the floor, moaning. Lucas jabbed his elbow back into Richie’s stomach, loosening Richie’s grip enough that Lucas was able to turn and throw a right cross into the guy’s face, sending him sprawling to the floor.

Breathing heavily, Lucas stood unsteadily as he watched Teddy help Vincent up from the floor. Both eyed him cautiously.

“Get out,” Lucas said, spitting a wad of bloody saliva onto the concrete floor.

They didn’t move, waiting as their ringleader got to his feet.

“Don’t make me tell you again,” Lucas warned. He really wasn’t ready for round two, but he didn’t think the three of them had it in them either.

“This isn’t over,” Richie said, his back to Lucas.

What happened next was a blur.

Lucas thought the boy was leaving, but Richie spun around. Something glinted in the glow of the fluorescent lights as he surged toward Lucas. Lucas tried to block the thrust, but he wasn’t fast enough, and suddenly there was an explosion of pain, followed by a cold numbness in his stomach.

Lucas looked down at himself as Richie stepped back. He could see the new hole in his T-shirt, a scarlet stain starting to expand around it.

“What did you do?” Lucas asked, horror beginning to sink in.

He looked up to see the three wearing expressions of shock as they started to back toward the garage exit. Richie was still holding the blood-speckled knife in his hand.

Jeb Dolahyde appeared in the entrance just then, his ample belly making it around the corner before the rest of him. He was taking the plastic wrapping off a pack of discount cigarettes but stopped short when he noticed Richie and then Lucas across the room.

“What the hell…”

The punks bolted from the garage.

Lucas could smell the blood from his wound. He stared at the scarlet blossom on the belly of his T-shirt until his eyes began to blur. For some reason it no longer hurt as much as it had, and he knew that had to be a bad thing.

“Lucas?” Jeb called to him, his cowboy boots clicking across the concrete floor.

Lucas continued to stare at the stain on his shirt, afraid to look beneath the fabric. Outside he heard the screeching of tires as Richie and his friends fled.

“Lucas, you all right?” he heard Jeb ask. “Do you need me to call 911?”

Lucas didn’t answer. He was distracted by the fact that he could no longer feel any pain. Gathering his courage, he grabbed hold of his bloody shirt and lifted it. His exposed stomach was smeared and sticky with blood, but no matter how hard he searched, he couldn’t find the wound.

With a tentative hand he reached down and began to feel around, expecting a lightning bolt of pain that never came.

There was nothing there.

“No,” he said finally, looking up into the concerned face of Jeb Dolahyde. “It… it looks worse than it is.”

It was like he hadn’t been stabbed at all.
.

It was a good thing Lucas kept a spare shirt in the back of his truck. He threw the bloodstained T-shirt into one of the barrels inside the garage.

He quickly returned to the job of finishing Jeb’s truck.

Jeb hovered for a while, asking a lot of questions about what had happened, but he finally gave up and went outside when it became clear that Lucas wasn’t giving any answers. It wasn’t that Lucas was intentionally being rude; it was just that he really couldn’t explain it. No matter how hard he thought about it, he always came up with the same answer.

Richie Dennison had stabbed him.

But if that was the case, why wasn’t he hurt?

Lucas threw himself into the job, changing the radiator coolant, then topping off the fluids for the wipers and the brakes. And all the while, the questions kept right on coming.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t been hurt. He’d been hurt, all right. He’d felt the blade go in—it was one of the most painful things he’d ever experienced. And he’d bled like a stuck pig, too.

But in the time it took Jeb to come into the garage, something had happened.

Lucas cleaned up and tossed the trash into the barrel. He saw his bloody T-shirt among the discarded air filters and auto-parts packaging.

Pulling his eyes away, he went outside to find Jeb.

At first he didn’t see Jeb anywhere, but then he caught sight of the large man ambling across the parking lot of the Good Eats diner with an iced coffee.

“Truck’s all set,” Lucas called out, wiping his hands on the bandanna from his back pocket.

“Good job,” the man said, eyeing him curiously. “You sure you’re all right? That was a helluva lot of blood.”

Lucas forced a smile. “I’m fine. Think I just got a good scrape when me and Richie were fighting. You know how those things bleed.”

Jeb nodded, but Lucas could see he really didn’t understand. Truth be told, neither did he.

Lucas was writing up Jeb’s receipt and collecting his cash when it came over him. He was suddenly absolutely ravenous. As he said goodbye to Jeb, he actually stumbled a bit, catching himself on the corner of Big Lou’s metal desk. His legs were shaky, and he wasn’t sure he had ever been this hungry before.

Placing the BE RIGHT BACK! sign on the door to the office, Lucas made his way across the street toward the diner, wondering if there was enough food in the place to satisfy his hunger.

As he stepped into the air-conditioned space, his eyes scanned the crowded diner for a place to park himself. His mother stood at the back of the restaurant, a full pot of coffee in one hand.

Cordelia Moore was staring at him with eyes that just about screamed he was in trouble. She pointed to a spot that was being vacated by an old man and his wife, and shot him a look that said Lucas had no choice.

The smells inside the diner were overwhelming, and Lucas’s belly gurgled and growled uncontrollably. He had to eat soon.

His mother approached the table, rag in hand, and started to wipe it down.

“Hey,” he said by way of greeting.

“What’s this I hear about a fight over at the garage?” she asked.

“You talked to Jeb, eh?” His stomach was aching, and he almost told her to knock off the small talk and bring him one of everything on the menu.

Almost.

“Yes, I did, and he seemed to think you might’ve been hurt pretty bad.”

She’d finished the table and stood staring at him with those angry eyes, hands on her hips.

“I’m fine,” he said, frustrated that he had to explain himself again. “He knew I was fine…. I told him I was fine.”

“Well, he didn’t seem to think you were fine.” She reached out and grabbed his face. “Let me see.”

He wrenched his face from her hand. “I told you…”

“I know, you’re fine.”

His stomach grumbled so loudly that his mother heard it over the din of the crowded diner.

“Sounds like somebody’s hungry,” she said.

He nodded, pressing a hand to his aching abdomen. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

“How’s about the Hungryman’s Platter and a cup of coffee?”

“As fast as you can get it,” Lucas said, looking up to meet her gaze. “Please.”

She gave him the look again, then turned and headed toward the kitchen to place his order.

“And he wonders why I’m so upset about him dropping out of school,” Lucas heard her grumble as she walked up the aisle. “Big trouble is going to find him one of these days.”

Lucas shook his head as he watched her go. Diners seated nearby had heard her scolding him and were casually looking his way.

“Big trouble, huh?” he called after her. “What kind of trouble would come looking for me here?”
.

The private jet taxied down the single runway of the La Cholla Airpark, coming to a gradual stop in the blazing Arizona sun.

The door opened and a retractable stairway unfolded to the tarmac.Within moments a tall, white-haired figure leaning on a silver-topped cane stood in the doorway, looking out across the private airfield.

“May I help you, sir?”

The gentleman looked over at his pilot, who had joined him at the door.

“No need, Jeffrey,” the man said, limping from the doorway and slowly making his way down the steps.

“Should I arrange a ride for you?” the pilot asked, following.

“I’m way ahead of you,” the white-haired man said from the bottom of the stairs.

A navy blue Crown Victoria appeared just then, driving across the airfield toward them.

“Very good, sir,” Jeffrey said.

The man waited until the driver emerged, walked around the car, and opened the back door.

“Any idea when you’ll be wanting to return to Seraph?” Jeffrey asked as the old man was about to climb into the car.

The old man stopped, considering the question.

“If all goes according to plan, it shouldn’t take long,” he said, then entered the coolness of the limousine.

But one can never tell with things like this, the old man thought as the driver climbed back inside.

“Take me to Perdition,” the old man instructed.

And without a moment’s hesitation, the car was on its way.

Chapter Two

Lucas considered heading over to the Hog Trough for a few drinks after work but thought better of it.

The business with Richie was still gnawing at him, and then there was his mom. Did he really want to have another run-in with her tonight?

Nope, he just didn’t have the patience.

He sat behind the wheel of his truck, windows rolled down to catch the breeze as he headed home for an early night.

This is a good thing,, he thought, driving fast down the bumpy dirt road that would take him to the Perdition Trailer Park (also owned by Big Lou).

Lucas’s mind scrolled through all the things he could do with the extra time tonight—stuff he’d been meaning to do but never quite got around to. He could start the Lord of the Rings books. He’d read The Hobbit, but not the Rings trilogy—although he had seen the movies and thought they were awesome. Or he could catch up on his laundry. Not as fun as reading, but it had to be done. And then there was the whole just-spending-time-with-his-mother thing.

She was a good mother, and she had done a lot for him, but they’d sort of drifted apart in the time since he’d left high school.

He drove slowly through the metal arch that served as the entrance to the trailer park, watching for stray kids and animals. It wouldn’t be the first time one or the other had darted out in front of him.

He pulled up beside the powder blue double-wide he and his mother called home, and saw old Mrs. Taylor sitting in front of her place across the street. By the way she was staring, he knew she was waiting for him.

“Hey, Mrs. Taylor,” Lucas said as he climbed from his truck.

She was wearing a lovely flowered housecoat and a blond wig that sat crooked on her head, like some sort of furry hat, with tufts of gray poking out underneath.

She got up from the white plastic lounge chair and motioned for him to join her.

“What’s up?” he asked, crossing the dusty street.

“Somethin’s wrong with my AC,” she said, bony hands on even bonier hips. “Take a look at it, will ya?”

Lucas didn’t know squat about air-conditioning, but there was no sense in arguing with the lady. As far as she was concerned, he could fix just about anything.

“Sure, no problem,” he said, climbing the three steps to the front door.

He stopped short, peering through the screen at Fluffles, Mrs. Taylor’s nasty cat. The thing had more attitude than a pit bull with a toothache.

“Fluffles is at the door,” he told Mrs. Taylor.

“He won’t hurt ya,” the old woman said. “You just gotta show ‘im who’s boss.”

She was standing beside him, looking in through the door.

“Why don’t you show ‘im?” Lucas suggested.

Mrs. Taylor went in first, kicking at the cat with her slippered foot. “Go on, shoo!” she said.

Fluffles hissed like a cobra, trying to get around her to come at Lucas, but the old woman managed to block the attack.

“Behave yourself, cat!” she exclaimed. Her foot connected with the side of the white-furred beast, sending it running with a shrill squeal.

“I’ll be payin’ for that tonight,” Mrs. Taylor said, walking from the entry through the tiny kitchen and into the living room. “Damn thing will probably suffocate me in my sleep.”

The idea was horrible but not all that far-fetched.

It was stiflingly hot inside the cramped living room. The news blared from an old twenty-five-inch television set in the corner.

“There it is,” Mrs. Taylor said, pointing out the old air conditioner in the wall. “Nothing cool comin’ out of that.”

“Not sure what I can do,” Lucas said, walking over to give it a look. The machine was old, and he was surprised that it had worked as long as it had. When he turned it on, it made a low humming sound, sending warm air out the vents.

On the news, a Chicago woman and her child were describing how they had been saved from an apartment fire by a superhero called the Winged Champion. Lucas looked up, finding himself pulled into the story. He watched the grainy cell phone footage of the superhero with enormous white wings swooping down out of the sky to pluck the woman and her daughter from the rooftop of the collapsing building.

“Wow,” Lucas said.

“Yeah,” Mrs. Taylor agreed. “Wonder if one of them super-types could figure out what’s wrong with my AC.”

Lucas took the hint and returned his full attention to the old woman’s air conditioner. He pulled the plastic face from the front of the unit and curled his nose with distaste.

“Fluffles doesn’t happen to like sitting on the AC, does he?” Lucas asked.

The inside of the unit was clogged with tufts of white fur, the old filter completely covered.

“Matter of fact, he does,” Mrs. Taylor confirmed.

Lucas pulled the filter from inside the AC and brushed most of the fur into a barrel that Mrs. Taylor brought from the kitchen.

“This might help,” he said, putting the filter back. “I think it might’ve just been clogged.”

He reattached the unit’s front piece. “Fingers crossed,” he said, flipping the switch and feeling a blast of much cooler air flow from the vent openings. “I think that did it,” he said proudly.

“You’re a lifesaver,” Mrs. Taylor said happily. She reached inside the pocket of her flowered housecoat and removed a change purse. “How much do I owe you?” she asked, un -zipping the purse and removing a wad of crumpled bills.

“You don’t owe me anything,” he answered.

Every time he did something for the woman, she tried to pay him. But Lucas wasn’t interested in taking the old lady’s money. He knew she barely had enough to support herself as it was.

“What, do you think you’re one of them super-types?” she asked, gesturing toward the television. “Swoopin’ in to save the day?”

Lucas laughed. “Not me,” he told her. “Think of me more as a Boy Scout.”

“You’re too good to me, Lucas,” she said with a smile, returning her small purse to her pocket.

“My pleasure.” Lucas cautiously headed for the door, watching for Fluffles.

“Word to the wise,” Mrs. Taylor whispered. “Think your mom’s been hittin’ the hooch.” She made a gesture as if drinking from a bottle.

Lucas nodded and his stomach sank. He hated when his mother drank; it always ended with her crying.

As he crossed the street toward their trailer, he’d almost decided to take his truck and head to the Hog Trough. But then he saw her, glass in hand, standing in the doorway waiting for him.

And he didn’t have the heart to leave her alone.

* * *

Lucas leaned into the refrigerator, looking for something to eat. He found some old pizza and leftover spaghetti and meatballs.

“Did you eat yet?” he asked his mother, carrying the leftovers to the microwave.

Cordelia was sitting at the small kitchen table, a nearly empty glass of whiskey in her hand.

“I had a big lunch,” she answered, her eyes riveted to the melting ice in her glass.

“Lucas, do you hate me?” she asked suddenly.

He rolled his eyes as he put the spaghetti in the microwave and hit the two-minute button. He hated when she got like this. It didn’t happen very often, but when it did, it was the worst.

“No, I don’t hate you. Why would I?” he said. He could hear the ice in her glass tinkle like Christmas bells. He tried to concentrate on the spaghetti.

“If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be in this place,” she said, her words slightly slurred.

Lucas wondered how many drinks she’d had.

“It’s fine, Ma,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. All I know is Perdition. I don’t know what I’m missing.”

She nodded, getting up from her chair and going to the counter, where the bottle of whiskey was waiting.

“And that’s exactly it,” she said as she unscrewed the cap and splashed more of the golden liquor over the ice. “You are missing stuff… lots of stuff….You’re wasting your life away working in a crappy garage because I wasn’t strong enough to—”

The microwave alarm went off.

“Ma, enough,” Lucas said, replacing the spaghetti in the microwave with a paper plate that held three slices of cheese pizza. “I don’t know why you keep blaming yourself for coming here.”

This was the pattern. She got a little bit drunk and started talking about how she had to run from her past in Seraph City. No matter what he said to console her, it never helped.

And really, Lucas had never blamed her for leaving. Sure, he was curious about the specifics, about a father he knew nothing of, but he always figured she had done what she had to do, nothing more or less than that.

She was adding ice to her drink as he sat down to eat. He didn’t want to talk about this stuff anymore, but when she was like this, there was no stopping her.

“You know how sorry I am, right?” she asked, practically falling into her chair.

“Be careful,” Lucas said, spearing a meatball and starting to eat.

She reached out to touch his hand. Hers was damp and cold from the condensation on her glass, and Lucas almost pulled away, but then realized how that would look to her.

“There’s no reason for you to be sorry,” he said, grabbing a slice of pizza with his other hand.

“I always wanted the best for you.” She had tears in her eyes now. “But I had to get away from the city… as far away as possible or…” She fell silent, staring into her glass once again. And then she had some more to drink.

“Ma, I don’t know how many more times I have to tell you this,” Lucas began. “But I like it here. This is my home. It’s the only home I’ve ever known.”

“But—” she started to argue.

“No buts,” he interrupted. “Perdition is fine. Everything I could ever want is here.” He got up and took his dirty dishes to the sink. “End of story.”

He returned to his mother, put his arm around her, and gave her a kiss on the top of her head.

“You might want to think about making yourself some coffee or something,” he said, heading toward his room. “I’m gonna call it a night.”

And he left her there alone.

Alone with the memories of her past, and what she believed to be her failures.
.

Shaking off the cobwebs of deep sleep, Lucas pulled himself from beneath the sheet and saw that it was after eight.

The garage was supposed to open at eight.

He threw on some clothes, grabbed his wallet and his keys, and pulled open the door to his room.

He half expected to see his mother still sitting at the kitchen table, but from the looks of it, she’d managed to get up and make it out to the diner on time. Lucas half recalled somebody knocking on his door and telling him it was time to get up, but he had decided it was only a dream and had rolled over.

Locking up the trailer, he went to his truck.

Mrs. Taylor was outside again, this time watering her plants in a spectacularly colored housecoat and a new, brunette wig. “Late again,” she called out, and began to cackle.

Lucas shrugged and climbed behind the wheel of his truck. Within seconds, he peeled away from the trailer and was on his way to work.

LEGACY is available now at Amazon.com.

This preview for was provided and published with express permission from Delacorte Books for Young Readers and Tom Sniegoski. ©Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.

FlamesRising.com is proud to offer you a chapter preview for the book Demon Mistress by New York Times bestselling author Yasmine Galenorn. When we asked Yasmine about this new book in her Otherworld series, she mentioned that:

When I was writing Demon Mistress, it quickly became apparent that my tag line for it was going to be both awesome and bizarre. I told my editor that it was going to be, “Revenge of the Nerds meets Hell Boy, meets Lovecraft.” There wasn’t much she could say to that until it arrived on her desk and she read it. Then, she understood, and she loved it. I had a lot of fun with this book, and so far reviews are backing up my feeling that my readers will also love it, too. — Yasmine Galenorn

We hope you enjoy this preview of Demon Mistress, the sixth book in the Otherworld Series.

Chapter 1 of Demon Mistress

Written by Yasmine Galenorn

“Could you at least wait until I open the window to shake that thing?” Iris shot me a nasty look as I yanked the braided rug off the floor and started beating it against the wall. “I can barely breathe, there’s so much dust.”

Chagrined, I dropped the rug to the floor and gave her a sheepish look. Dust didn’t bother me, and sometimes I forgot other people had to breathe. “Sorry,” I said. “Open the window and I’ll shake it outside.”

Rolling her eyes, she lifted the sash and pushed it up as far as she could. I took over, finishing the job. A wash of warm summer air filtered through the open window along with the sounds of horns honking, blaring music, and laughter from a gang of street kids who were smoking weed in the back alley behind the Wayfarer. The air had a happy-go-lucky feel to it, a stir of excitement, like a street party about to spontaneously erupt.

I leaned over the sill, waving to one of the boys who was staring up at me. His name was Chester, but he went by Chit, and he and his buddies had become a fixture around the bar over the past few months. Too young to come in, they hung around out back, and every now and then I’d make sure they got a good meal from the grill. They were good kids—a little at loose ends, but they never caused much trouble and they weren’t gangbangers or druggies. In fact, they kept some of the less desirable elements away from hanging out in the alleys.

Chit waved back. “Yo, Menolly! What’s shakin’, babe?”

I grinned. I was far, far older than he, although I didn’t look it. But like a number of the younger FBH men I’d met, he flirted with every woman who looked under forty, especially if they were Fae. And though I was only half-Fae, and a vampire to boot, he treated me like I was just another one of the locals.

“Just getting around to some long-overdue cleaning,” I called down to him, waving again before I turned back to Iris, who was poking around an old-world trunk that had been hiding in a corner of the room.

Since I now owned the entire building the Wayfarer Bar and Grill resided in, I decided it was time to clear out some of the rooms over the bar and turn them into a paying resource. My sisters and I could furnish them, rent them out to Otherworld visitors, and make a nice chunk of change.

Even though we were back on the Court and Crown’s payroll, money was still going out faster than it was coming in. Especially since we were paying Tim Winthrop for his computer work he was doing for the Supe Community.

The Wayfarer’s second story held ten rooms, two of them bathrooms. And it looked like all of them had remained untouched for years. Piles of junk and thick layers of dust permeated the entire story. Iris and I’d finished one room, but it had taken us two nights to sort through the boxes filled with newspaper and old clothes.

I stretched, arching my back, and shook my head. “What a mess.”

The room had obviously been turned into a storage room, probably by Jocko, who wasn’t the cleanest bartender the Wayfarer had ever seen. Unfortunately the diminutive giant had met an untimely end at the hand of Bad Ass Luke, a demon from the Subterranean Realms.

Jocko had lived in one of the Otherworld Intelligence Agency’s designated apartments in the city and I was pretty sure he’d never slept at the bar. We hadn’t found any giant-sized clothes hanging around. At least not yet. But it was obvious that someone from Otherworld had stayed here at one time, because she’d left a bunch of her things here. I recognized the weave on a couple of tunics. They certainly hadn’t been made over here Earthside.

Iris snorted. “Mess is certainly the word, isn’t it? Now, if you’ll get your albino butt over here, I could use some help moving this trunk.” Hands on her hips, she nodded to the wooden chest she’d uncovered from beneath a pile of newspapers.

Shaken out of my reverie, I lifted the trunk with one hand and effortlessly carried it to the center of the room. Being a vampire had its perks and extraordinary strength was one of them. I wasn’t all that much taller than Iris—skimming five-one, I towered over her by a mere thirteen inches, but I could have easily lifted a creature five times her weight.

“Where on earth are your sisters? I thought they were going to help.”

The Talon-haltija—Finnish house sprite—brushed a stray cobweb off her forehead, leaving a smudge mark from the grime that had embedded itself on her hands. Her ankle length golden hair had been pulled into a long ponytail and she’d carefully woven it into a thick chignon to get it out of the way. Iris was wearing a pair of denim shorts and a red and white gingham sleeveless blouse, with the ends tied together under her breasts. A pair of blue Keds completed her country-maid ensemble.

I grinned. “They are helping, in their own special ways. Camille’s at the store buying more cleaning supplies and dinner. Delilah’s out scrounging up a pickup so we can haul away some of this junk.” I’d left running the bar to Chrysandra for the evening. She knew where I was, and she was my best waitress. Luke was bartending and he’d take care of any jerks that stumbled in. Tavah, as usual, was guarding the portal in the basement.

“Special my foot,” Iris mumbled, but she flashed me a brilliantly white smile. She had good teeth, that was for sure. “Let’s see what this old chest holds. Probably dead mice, with our luck.”

“If it does, don’t tell Delilah. She’d want to play with them.” I knelt beside her, examining the lock. “Looks like we need a skeleton key if you don’t want me to bust it open.”

“Forget about keys,” Iris said. She leaned over and deftly inserted a bobby pin into the oversized hole, then whispered a soft chant. Within seconds, the latch clicked. I gave her a long look and she shrugged.

“What? Simple locks I can pop. Deadbolts, not so much. Life is easier when you don’t have to worry about locks and bars.”

“I would have to agree,” I said, opening the lid. As it softly creaked, the faint odor of cedar rose to fill the air. Even though I didn’t need to breathe, that didn’t mean I couldn’t smell—at least when I chose to—and I allowed the aroma to filter through my senses. Mingled with the fragrance of tobacco and frankincense, the scent was dusty, like an old library thick with leather and heavy oak furniture. It reminded me of our parlor, back home in Otherworld.

Iris peeked over the edge. “Pay dirt!”

I glanced into the trunk’s belly. No dead mice. No gems or jewels, either, but there were clothes and several books, and what looked like a music box. I slowly lifted the box out of the soft cushion of dresses in which it had been nestled. The wood was definitely harvested from Otherworld.

“Arnikcah,” I said, peering closely at it. “This comes from OW.”

“I figured as much,” Iris said, leaning over to examine the box.

Wood from an Arnikcah tree was hard, dark, and rich, with a natural luster that shimmered when polished. Easy to spot by its rich burgundy tones, the color rested somewhere between mahogany and cherry.

The box was fastened by a silver hinge, and I flipped it open, gently raising the lid. A small peridot cabochon, inset on the underside of the lid, flashed as the sound of tinkling notes fluttered out. Not pan-pipes, but a silver flute, sounding the song of woodland birds at the close of sunset.

Iris closed her eyes, listening to the melody. After a moment, it stopped and she bit her lip. “That’s beautiful.”

“Yes, it is.” I examined the contents of the music box. “My mother had a box similar to this one. Father gave it to her. I don’t know what happened to it, though. Camille would know if anybody does. The tune’s a common one, used to lull children to sleep.”

The inside of the music box had been lined with a rich, velvety brocade. I’d seen it used in the skirts of women who belonged to the Court and Crown. A deep plum, the cloth had absorbed the scent of the Arnikcah wood.

I shuddered, finding myself unaccountably sad as I touched the glowing gem fastened to the underside of the lid. Once more, the melody began to play, lightly trilling through the dusty room. I closed my eyes, transported back to the long summer nights of my youth when I would dance in meadow as Camille sang her spells to the moon, and Delilah chased fireflies in her kitten form. We’d come a long ways from those days.

Iris peered into the box. “There’s a locket inside.”

I gently set the box onto the floor and picked up the heart-shaped locket. Silver, embossed with a scrollwork of roses and vines, the heart sprang open as I touched the hinge, revealing a picture and a lock of hair. The photo was definitely Earthside in nature, and was of an elf. A man. The lock of hair was so pale it was platinum. No dye had ever touched these tresses. I held it out to Iris.

She closed her fist around the hair and squinted. “Elf, by the feel. What a pretty pendent. I wonder who it belongs to?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” I said. “What else is in the trunk?”

Iris lifted out the books and the pile of clothes. The books were obviously written Earthside—The Idiot’s Guide To Living Earthside, and American English For Elves.

The clothing had belonged to a woman. A tunic, several pair of leggings, a belt and jacket, a brassiere. I held up the undergarment. Whoever owned this had small breasts. The cloth was elf-weave, that much I recognized.

Beneath the clothes, in the bottom of the trunk, we found a journal. I opened it to the first page. The inscription read “Sabele,” written in a scrolling hand. The name was in English, but the rest of the journal was in Melosealfôr, a rare and beautiful Crypto language from Otherworld. I could recognize it, but not read it. But Camille could.

“This looks like a diary,” Iris said, flipping through it. “I wonder…” She stood up and poked around the room, rooting under the towering piles of debris. “Hey! There’s a bed here, and a dresser in the corner. Want to make a bet this was a bedroom; perhaps for whoever owned this locket and diary?”

I stared at the piles of old magazines, newspapers, and faded liquor boxes. “Let’s clear away all this trash. Just haul it into the next room for now. We’ll see what we find beneath it.” As I replaced the music box and clothes within the trunk, laughter echoed down the hall from the stairs and within seconds, my sister Camille stood at the door, two of her men in tow.

“Pizza!” Camille entered the room, gingerly stepping over a rolled up rug. As usual, she was dressed to impress, in a black velvet skirt, a plum bustier, and stilettos. Morio was right behind her, carrying five pizza boxes, and behind him—Smoky towered over everybody, looking bemused but not entirely thrilled to be tagging along.

Iris jumped up and wiped her hands on her shorts. “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”

“Hush or Smoky might oblige,” Camille said, wrinkling her nose as she gave the dragon a playful look.

He might look like six-foot-four feet of manflesh with silver hair down to his ankles, but when he transformed, he was all dragon under that snow-white veneer. He ate horses, cows, and the occasional goat. On the hoof. He joked about eating humans, too, but none of us took him seriously, although I suspected there might be the occasional missing person we might attribute to him. Whatever the case, Smoky wasn’t just a dragon who could take human form. He was also my sister’s husband. One of her husbands.

Morio, a Japanese youkai-kitsune—fox demon, loosely translated—was her other husband. He wasn’t nearly as tall as Smoky, but he was good looking in a sleek, lithe way, with a pony tail that hung to his shoulders and the faintest hint of a goatee and thin moustache.

Camille had a third lover. Trillian, a Svartan, had been missing too long for comfort and I knew she was worried about him.

“You just hush about my eating habits, woman,” Smoky said, gently patting her shoulder. He indulged behaviors in her that would earn most people a one-way ticket to crispy critter land. Love was supposed to be blind, but I had the feeling in Smoky’s case, he’d come to accept that he’d better develop patience with my sister, or end up miserable.

I frowned at the pizzas. I’d give a lot to be able to eat pizza. Or anything, actually. My ever present diet of blood kept me going, but I wasn’t particularly thrilled with it. All salt, no sweets.

Morio’s eyes gleamed as he pulled out a thermos and handed it to me.

“I’m not thirsty,” I said. Bottled blood wasn’t exactly a taste-treat. Kind of like generic beer. It did the trick but in no way or form could you call it haute cuisine. When I wasn’t hungry, I left it alone.

“Just drink,” he said.

I cocked my head. “What are you up to?” But when I opened the thermos, the blood didn’t smell like blood. Instead it smelled like…pineapple? I hesitantly took a sip. If I ingested anything but blood I’d get horrible cramps.

But to my shock and delight, though it was blood that flowed down my throat, all I could taste were coconut milk and pineapple juice. I stared at the thermos, then at him. “By the gods, you did it!”

“Yes, I did,” he said, a victorious grin spreading across his face. “I finally figured out the spell. I thought piña colada might be a nice change for a first try.”

Morio had been working on a spell for some time which would allow me to taste foods I’d left behind when I died.

“Well, it worked!” I laughed and perched on the open window sill, one knee pulled up to my chest as I leaned back against the frame. As I drank, my taste buds doing a Snoopy dance, it occurred to me that this was the first time in over twelve years that I’d tasted something other than blood.

“I could kiss you for this.”

“Go ahead,” Camille said with a wink. “He’s good.”

Snorting, I set down the thermos and wiped my mouth carefully. More often than not, I ended up with a few spatters around my lips and I preferred not to look like some blood-crazed monster.

“With all due respect to your darling husband, I think I’ll leave his kisses for you. Not really my type,” I said, winking at Morio. “No offense intended.”

“None taken,” he said, grinning. “Next time we’ll try for some sort of soup flavor. What’s your poison?”

“Hmm…beef vegetable would hit the spot.”

Happier than I’d been in awhile, I glanced around the room. “While you guys eat your pizza, I’ll start clearing some of this junk out of here. Iris and I found something curious. Don’t trash anything that looks like it might have belonged in a bedroom or to an elf.”

I piled a stack of magazines in a box and carried them out, dumping them into the room across the hall. Smoky ignored the pizza and pitched in, helping me, as did Morio. Iris and Camille perched on a bench, digging into the Hawaiian style pie.

As we worked, Camille alternated between eating and filling me in on what I’d missed during the day. With the summer solstice so close, the time in which I could be awake and active had been severely curtailed. I was down to around eight hours per night between sunrise and sunset. I’d sure be happy to see autumn and winter again. It sucked having to be in bed by five-thirty in the morning.

“We finally got the wedding invitation from Jason and Tim. They’re holding it during the night just so you and Erin can make it.” She picked up another slice and held it overhead, letting the strings of mozzarella trail into her mouth.

“I’m glad they’re finally getting hitched. They make a good couple.”

Tim had won my respect a hundred times over when I’d had to turn his best friend, Erin. I’d sworn never to sire another vampire, but Erin would have died otherwise, and she made the choice. That’s how I ended up with a middle-aged human vampire daughter. Tim was her best friend. He’d come through when Erin and I’d needed him most, and my respect for him had soared.

“By the way,” I said, “Erin’s selling the Scarlet Harlot to Tim. She can’t work there during the day, so he’s taking over. He’ll open a computer consulting business on the side, now that he’s graduated from college.”

“I know. He told me,” Camille said. “I’ll be sad to see Cleo Blanco fade away, but then again, I never did think he made a very convincing woman. He’s much better looking as a man. Although, he did a good job lip synching to Marilyn Monroe’s songs.”

She licked her fingers and then added, “Oh, yeah, Wade called shortly before we left home. He said he has something he needs to talk to you about. I told him to drop by the bar, so he’ll be over in a bit.”

Shit. I didn’t want to talk to Wade. We’d been arguing a lot lately and distance definitely helped the heart grow fonder in this case. Whether it was the summer heat, or the overdose of sleep, I didn’t know, but we’d been getting on each other’s nerves and the problem wasn’t showing any signs of easing up.

“Great,” I mumbled. “Smoky, can you help me carry this rug? I can lift it, but it’s so long it’s unwieldy for one person.”

Smoky obligingly propped one end of the rolled up Persian rug on his shoulder and I did likewise to the other. We carted it across the hall and tossed it onto the ever-growing pile of debris.

“Where’s Delilah? We need to get some of this crap out of here before we end up with a fire. One stray spark and this place would go up like a match.” I kicked at the rug and it shifted.

“Patience, patience,” Smoky said. “Let me cast a frost spell in here. I can saturate everything with a layer of moisture and make it harder to burn.”

I groaned. “And turn it into a breeding ground for mold. Oh, go ahead. At least I won’t worry so much about fire then.”

An hour later, we’d cleared the bedroom of everything that didn’t seem to belong there. We’d uncovered a bed, dresser, trunk, writing desk, bookshelf, and rocking chair. Everything pointed to the original occupant as being a female elf.

“Who lived here?” Camille asked, picking over the remains of the second pizza. Smoky and Morio had settled into eating, and I could see that the other three pies were about to become history.

I shrugged. “I haven’t the faintest idea. Nobody at the OIA filled me in on whoever held the job before Jocko.”

Iris sat in the rocking chair, rubbing her hand over one of the polished arms. “Would the OIA have that information if you asked them?”

Camille shook her head. “Chances are, even though the organization’s back up and running, the files were most likely lost during the civil war.”

I had to agree with her. “Yeah. Most of the personnel have either been fired or arrested, depending on their loyalty to Lethesanar. Except, interestingly enough, the director of the Otherworld Intelligence Agency. Father told us he was a double agent, but I didn’t know whether or not to believe it. Damned if the information wasn’t correct, though.”

“Jocko’s dead. He can’t very well help us,” Camille said. “Any of your waitresses might know?”

“Doubtful, but that gives me an idea.” I jumped up and headed for the door. “I’ll be right back. Meanwhile, you guys search the room and see what’s in the closets and in that desk. Look for whatever you can find. Check under the mattress, too.”

I hurried down the stairs. While Chrysandra and Luke had come to work for me after Jocko’s death, there was still one person who remembered the gentle giant. Peder, the daytime bouncer, had been around during Jocko’s time. I flipped through the address book that we kept behind the counter and then picked up the phone, punching in his number.

Like Jocko, Peder was a giant. But where Jocko had been the runt of his family, Peder was smack in the middle of being height-weight proportionate for his race. After three rings, he picked up.

“Yef?” His English was still limited and his accent was atrocious, but I knew Calouk, the common dialect used throughout the more uncouth members of Otherworld, and I switched to it immediately.

“Peder, this is Menolly,” I said, my lips tripping over the rough words as I translated my thoughts into Calouk. “I know you worked for Jocko, but do you by any chance remember who was the bartender before him? Did an elfin woman run the bar? Her name would have been—”

“Sabele,” he said. “Yeah, Sabele was the bartender before Jocko. She went home to OW, though. She vanished one day. Never said nuthin’.”

Vanished? That seemed odd, considering the locket and diary left behind. “What do you mean, vanished?”

“She quit. That’s what Jocko told me when he came here.”

That didn’t ring true. I was fairly certain Peder wouldn’t lie to me, but that didn’t mean that what he said was accurate. Giants weren’t the brightest bulbs in the socket and Peder wasn’t the on the gifted end of the spectrum.

“Are you certain? I found a few of her personal things upstairs while cleaning out one of the rooms. Items I doubt she would have left behind.”

“That’s what Jocko told me. He said…he said the OIA told him that Sabele deserted her post. She was really nice, though. I liked her. She never made fun of me.”

His tone told me that—like Jocko—Peder was sensitive to ridicule. Giants were surprisingly emotional, not like trolls or ogres. Oh sure, they were oafs, but they could be caring oafs.

“Do you know if she had any friends around here? A boyfriend, maybe? Or a brother?” The image of the male elf’s face from the picture in the locket drifted to mind.

“Boyfriend? Yeah, she had a boyfriend. He used to come into the bar a lot. I thought they went back to OW together and got married. Lemme think…” After a moment, Peder sighed. “All I can remember is that his first name was Harish. And her family name was Olahava. That help you any?”

“Yeah,” I said, jotting down the two names. “More than you know. Thanks, Peder. And by the way, you’re doing a good job. I appreciate it.” Everybody needed strokes sometimes. Even giants.

“Thanks, boss,” he said. I could hear the glee in his voice.

As I replaced the receiver, the door opened and I looked up as Wade wandered into the room. His shocking bleached-blonde hair was even whiter thanks to a dose of peroxide, and he’d given up the glasses he used to hide behind. He was wearing a pair of PVC jeans—gods know where he got hold of those—and a white T-shirt. A thick shiny black patent leather belt studded with metal grommets rode low on his hips. I blinked. When had he gone punk?

A psychiatrist until he’d been bitten and turned, Wade Stevens was the leader of Vampires Anonymous, a support group for the newly undead. He’d become my first vampire-friend when my sister Camille insisted I join the group.

Lately though, he’d been on edge and snippy and I had no intention of wasting the energy to find out why. I had enough problems to deal with, without adding a moody vampire to the list. Anyway, I wasn’t the coddling-type. His mother did enough of that. In fact, his mother was one of the primary reasons I’d stopped dating him. A vampire herself, she was the perfect antidote to any attraction I’d felt for Wade.

He leaned across the bar. “We need to talk.”

“I’m busy,” I muttered. Avoidance wasn’t my usual M.O. but I had no intention of ruining my mood. “Can we do this later?”

“No. We need to talk now,” he said, his eyes shifting toward red.

Whoa. Touchy, touchy.

“Fine. In the back, where the customers won’t overhear us.” I led him into the office and closed the door behind us. “All right, what’s so damned important that it can’t wait for a few hours? Or days?”

I waited, but he remained silent. Irritated, I started to push past him, intending on returning to the bar but he stopped me, barring my way with his arm.

“Fine. I’ll just tell you straight out, because I don’t know how else to do this. I’ve thought this over and over for the past few weeks, but there’s no way to get around it. I have to put some distance between us or you’re going to ruin any chance I have of becoming regent of the Northwest Vampire Dominion.”

I stared at him, unable to believe what I was hearing. “You’ve got to be joking.”

“No.” He waved me silent. “I’m asking you to quietly withdraw from Vampires Anonymous. Don’t show up at the meetings. And don’t contact me in public…keep all of our communications in private. You’ve become a liability to me, Menolly. And to the group.”

Posted with permission from Yasmine Galenorn & Berkley Books.
Copyright 2009, Yasmine Galenorn. No reposting or copying.

Visit www.galenorn.com for more information on Yasmine Galenorn and her books. Yasmine is very active online, so be sure to follow her on Twitter or on MySpace.

Flames Rising has been offered the chance to bring you a preview of Alex Bledsoe’s new vampire novel Blood Groove.

“You can’t know what’s going on if you’re asleep, I bet ya.”
–”I Bet You,” Funkadelic

Blood Groove, Chapter One

Memphis, Tennessee, 1975

“Shit,” said Patricia. It was an understatement.

“Yes, ma’am,” her assistant Joe agreed, and scowled at the musty odor, strong despite the morgue’s chill.

The body inside the enormous coffin had the unmistakable look of someone buried alive. The limbs twisted in the folds of dry, brittle clothing; the jaw hung open in an eternal cry of despair. But the knife driven through his heart, still gleaming after more than half a century, was what held their attention.

It was solid gold.

Joe moved around the casket taking photographs. The hum of the flash recharger echoed in the silent room. Patricia took a magnifying glass from the table and leaned into the coffin to examine the knife.

“Careful,” Joe said. “One wrong move, we’ve got nothing but a big ol’ pile of dust.”

“Not after only sixty some-odd years,” she said good-naturedly, but he had a point, and she forced herself to be extra cautious.

At first she thought the knife was some ceremonial dagger, but a closer look showed it to be a crucifix, with an inscribed three-inch crosspiece and, visible between the ribs, a base sharpened to a point and flattened into a blade. The artwork was exquisite, with tiny Aramaic characters strongly suggesting a Middle Eastern origin. It was out of her area — she taught pathology — but she still knew impressive workmanship when she saw it.

“Christ on a stick,” Joe said, and wrinkled his nose as he took the film from his camera. “So that’s really a . . . .” He made an exaggerated frightened face. “. . . vampire?”

“No, it’s a crime victim,” Patricia said. “See the knife? He was murdered, allegedly by Sir Francis Colby, sixty years ago.”

Joe put the camera aside. “And they want an autopsy done on him now? Is that Colby guy still alive or something?”

“No, he died quite some time ago. I’m not sure why the museum wants it, but it should be interesting as a technical exercise. You don’t see many corpses like this.”

“You mean ones that might rise from their coffins?”

Patricia scowled at him. “Did you read anything past the first paragraph of my memo?”

Joe rolled his eyes. “Yes. This is the corpse of Baron Zginski, the only man to have ever been legally proved to be a vampire. His trial was one of the first live broadcasts ever in Europe, but no recordings exist, and the various transcripts don’t agree on details.”

“You can read, then.”

“But why are we cutting into him now, after all this time?”

She shrugged. “Professional courtesy. Someone at the museum wants to know the cause of death, and since we’re part of the state system, they don’t have to pay us extra. And you don’t get experience with a body in this condition very often, so if you’re serious about your education, you’d do best to shut up and pay attention.”

She ran her hand along the coffin’s firm, expensive wood overlay. The casket looked like a bulky version of a standard coffin, but they’d had to use a forklift to move it from the Colby Archives warehouse into the medical school’s morgue room to examine it. Under the paneling the coffin was solid metal, probably lead.

“He looks . . . dried out,” Joe observed. “Not decayed. Mummified.”

“Until the rubber dry-rotted, there was an air-tight seal on this thing. The fluids drained out of the body while it was sealed, and when the rubber started to go, they evaporated.”

“He does look like he has fangs,” Joe pointed out.

“Just slightly enlarged canines,” Patricia countered. “My grandmother had teeth just like that and she wasn’t a vampire, either.”

Her eye kept drifting back to the cross. If it was real . . . .

She forced her attention back to the moment. “Okay, we’re pathologists, time to pathologize. Let’s cook some tissue samples and see what really made everyone think this Baron Zginski was a vampire: Porphyria, anemia, or just plain psychosis.”

“There’s no chemical test for psychosis.”

“Your point?”

“It’s nearly six o’clock.”

“You have a date?”

He looked down. “No,” he said pathetically.

“Well, you do now. With a Bunsen burner.”

“I’m your T.A., not your slave,” he said.

Patricia’s eyes widened in mock outrage. She was the only black on the school’s faculty, and one of only three women. But she’d worked with Joe long enough to know he had no idea how appallingly insensitive his remark, intended as a joke, might be. Maybe someday this would change, but now, in 1975, she decided to simply treat it as intended.

“All right, all right, I’m going,” Joe said, and went to gather the test tubes.

Two hours later, while Joe prepared the tissue samples in the lab, Patricia went into the empty teacher’s lounge, poured the last of the godawful coffee and settled onto the green vinyl couch. The museum curator had been kind enough to send along Sir Francis Colby’s original documentation on the Zginski case, in which Colby had been prosecutor (and executioner, as it turned out). She opened the folder and read the first yellowed, handwritten page.

16 June, 1915.

At the time, I convinced myself they were merely lovers meeting for a tryst. Subsequent events would prove otherwise.

Joe tapped on the lounge door and opened it. “You decent?”

“Much as I ever am,” Patricia said.

“Everything’s running right now, so we should have basic toxicology screens pretty soon. I’m going to get something to eat, if that’s cool. You want anything?”

She stood and stretched. “No. I’ll probably be down in the morgue when you get back.”

“Hanging out with the guest of honor?”

“Sometimes you spot new things if you keep looking. Have fun, but be back in an hour.”

“Yes, massah,” Joe said. Patricia merely sighed.

For reasons she couldn’t really pinpoint, Patricia wanted to read the rest of this story in the room with what was left of poor Baron Zginski. Sure, it was morbid, but she was a pathologist, and she’d done her thesis on historical murders. Besides, being a black professional woman in Memphis, she knew just how strong provincial resentment could be; she felt like she and Zginski had something in common. Had anything really changed between 1915 and 1975? Different was still different, and still feared and hated.

She closed the door, buttoned her lab coat against the cold, and dragged a chair next to the coffin.

As promised, I returned to Passelwaithe the following evening with two security measures. One was quite obvious — I brought along an army signalman and his broadcasting apparatus. Passelwaithe was too wrapped up in itself, and this connection with the outside world would prevent any hysterical mob violence. The experiment served two masters: it provided the scrutiny needed to insure justice was done, and it allowed the military to test aspects of their latest equipment with a broadcast of such absurdity that no spy could take it seriously.

I knelt by the fallen vampire. Protruding from his chest was a golden cross, a crucifix found by Richard the Lion Heart on his first crusade to the Holy Land, blessed both in Jerusalem and later in Rome. A metalsmith monk in a distant cloister had reshaped it into a thin-bladed dagger for me, and it had proven too sharp indeed for the luckless continental nosferatu.

Patricia put the manuscript aside and pulled on surgical gloves. She leaned over the coffin and examined the spot where the cross entered the withered tissue. The damage was so slight it was barely visible: just a tiny, thin slit where the blade parted the flesh. She took the handle in two fingers and gently pulled the cross from the corpse. It slid away easily, although she felt a little tingle when it finally pulled free, like a tiny arc of electricity just strong enough to pierce the rubber gloves. When she looked back, the injury had vanished into the folds of the wrinkled, dry flesh.

The cross rested in her hand, solid and heavy, the sharpened end stained black with sixty-year-old blood. She held it under the illuminated magnifier, studying the wealth of detail carved into the soft metal. This was a genuine piece of art, and would make a magnificent display in the university museum. She placed it carefully in a plastic bag, sealed it and put it on the nearest examination table. It looked even more unreal and majestic against the cold, flat stainless steel. She removed her gloves and turned to the final page of the manuscript.

I was charged with murder at the official inquest, but had two factors in my favor. One was, of course, a roomful of witnesses who supported my claim of self-defense. The other was the report of the official examination by Dr. Jermin, establishing that the rate of decomposition in Zginski’s body was consistent with a body that had actually died at least thirty years earlier. No one could explain that, of course, but neither could anyone dispute it.

Baron Rudolfo Zginski was understandably refused Christian burial in the local cemetery. As there was no identifiable next of kin, I claimed the body and stored it in my cellar. I sealed it in an iron coffin, grounded through a lightning rod. I considered burning the body, which is the only way to be thoroughly certain a vampire cannot return. Yet Baron Zginski was such a singular character, I could not bring myself to do so. He had learned to mimic human behavior to an astounding degree, and forced me to rethink many things about which I was previously certain. I knew that, as long as the cross remained imbedded in his heart, the world was safe.

Patricia’s heart raced with excitement. This could be her academic ticket out of this backwater college if she could identify some rational, physiological explanation for the events Colby described, something that showed the face of prejudice in 1915 Wales as clearly as she knew it in 1975 Tennessee. After all, vampires didn’t exist, so it simply couldn’t be that.

She looked up with a start.  An overpowering odor suddenly filled the room.  It was no chemical she could identify, or any organic process she recognized.  She jumped to her feet and peered into the morgue’s darker corners, looking for a spilled bottle or leaking container.  Then she gingerly approached the air conditioning vent.  The smell did not grow stronger near it, which was a relief.  The danger in any educational environment was that some careless or stoned student might accidentally mix two harmless substances into something lethal, and if those fumes got into the ventilation system it could hurt a lot of people.

The odor was, in fact, the scent of recomposition.  Its unique tang was reminiscent of ripening fruit, meat being warmed over a slow fire and blood pulsing from an open wound.  It was the olfactory byproduct of a process so rare that only a handful of people in all human history had ever witnessed it, although none had survived to document it.  The fumes themselves were harmless; it was what they heralded that uniformly proved lethal. 

The smell began to fade almost at once.  Patricia sighed with relief; whatever it was, it was neither extensive nor, apparently, dangerous. Probably the residue of some cleaning chemicals mixed by accident in the garbage elsewhere in the building. She turned her attention back to Colby’s manuscript.

She smiled as she straightened the pages. She could only use excerpts from Sir Francis’ narrative in her professional paper. Whatever his other skills, one thing was painfully obvious.

Sir Francis Colby couldn’t write worth a da –

About the Author:
Alex Bledsoe grew up in west Tennessee an hour north of Graceland and twenty minutes from Nutbush. He’s been a reporter, editor, photographer and door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman. He now lives between two big lakes in Wisconsin, writes before six in the morning and tries to teach his two sons to act like they’ve been to town before. He’s published more than fifty short stories on topics as diverse as big-game hunters, mermaids, modern witches, Victorian gentlemen and country musicians. His novels include The Sword-Edged Blonde and Blood Groove. Visit www.alexbledsoe.com for more information.

Happy Halloween!

Today’s monster is brought to us by author and game designer Jess Hartley (Hunter: the Vigil, Reliquary) and artist Brad McDevitt (Blood!).

Vampires have always been a favorite monster here at Flames Rising.

Reflections

Created by Jess Hartley
With art by Brad McDevitt

No one knew the “real” him.

Everyone says that – that people just can’t see the “real” them – but they had no clue what it was really like. No idea what “different” really meant. The leather soles of his shoes sounded out a slow, steady heartbeat on the sidewalk as he approached the club. It was early, only a few hours after sundown, but a crowd had already gathered. Corralled behind red-velvet ropes, the has-beens and wanna-bes milled restlessly, preening and posing as they waited for an opportunity to make a break into the club itself under the bouncer’s watchful eye. He didn’t bother queuing up, but instead directly approached the mountain of a man who guarded entrance to the club.

The bouncer looked him over, and frowned. For just a second, Max thought he would be turned away. In the heartbeat before the club’s guard responded, Max experienced an avalanche of emotions – surprise, fear, confusion, but most strongly – hope. Then the frown faded from the giant’s eyes and he reached back for the door handle, pulling the door open to allow Max entrance to the club.

Jealous onlookers, trapped behind their fence of scarlet velvet cord, grumbled amongst themselves, but something in their expressions acknowledged without fail that they recognized themselves lesser than the one who had been admitted.

The cacophony of music assaulted Max as he scowled at the waiting crowd before turning and wading into the maelstrom.

* * *
A flock of early birds gathered around his chosen perch, hunched over a video poker game like magpies around a bit of tinsel. He sent them fluttering away in a cloud of black leather and lace, and claimed his place at the far end of the bar. This was his place. From here, he could see everything, and perhaps more importantly, be seen by everyone. The mirrored walls to the left were beyond his peripheral vision, and he could watch the door, his gaze sliding over each individual and group as they entered.

Some he discounted right away. Males in a group, likely too worried about their reputations to succumb easily to his advances. Females in pairs, clinging tightly to one another out of camaraderie or jealousy, prone to cluck and fuss if one attempted to separate them. Singles, both male and female, too old or ill to suit his tastes.

Others he marked as having potential. A young man who entered alone and wandered to a corner of the dance floor to gyrate and weave by himself. Four women, dressed to the nines, who he recognized as regulars. A couple, near stumbling drunk even at this hour, who must have bribed the bouncer well to get in dressed in obviously out-of-place street clothes and sneakers. A gaggle of women who bottle-necked at the entrance where the employee just inside the door checked their identification. Max smiled as he saw what the door guard did not – the young woman who took advantage of the group flocked around the doorman to slip inside with her own (probably non-existent) ID unchecked. She slipped through the dark bar to the bathrooms at the back of the club, and emerged only after the rest of her group had claimed a trio of small tables in one corner of the club. He nodded to himself as her friends brought her back a drink from the bar. Obviously underage, but confident enough at her own tricks to sit back in her chair like she owned the bar rather than hunching over as if she was afraid of being kicked out at any moment. He’d almost decided on her for his target for the evening when the other one walked in. Tall and willowy, dressed in white amid a sea of dark tones, she tossed her hair over one shoulder as the crowd parted before her. A predator, like him, in a field of prey. She noticed him as she made her way to the bar, her gaze starting at the floor and sliding up his form like a caress. She paused when she reached his face, and he thought again, for just a moment, that the unthinkable had happened. But then she smiled, and sauntered towards him. She was just like all the rest.

* * *

“What do you see, when you look at me?”

He leaned in close, nominally to be heard over the cacophony of club music. His lips almost brushed the curve of her ear as he spoke, and he felt her tense and shiver as he pulled back.

Her gaze darted across his features as she sought to answer his inquiry. She started high, sweeping across his brow, then lingered at his eyes before moving lower. She paused again, at his lips, as if savoring the yet-untested treasures she imagined there.

She began to speak, but the things she said were lies, for all she thought them true. He shook his head, feigned an inability to hear her words over the club’s noise, and motioned to the door. She hesitated for a moment, scanning his face again as if searching for any ill intent. Finding none, she nodded and turned towards the door. As he stepped in behind her, hand at the small of her back to guide her to the door, he kept his face averted from the mirrored wall.

* * *

The noise of the club faded as the door closed behind them. He twined his fingers in hers, leading her into the darkness of the alley he’d emerged from not an hour before.

“It will be quieter here. You don’t mind, do you?” His gaze trapped hers as they walked past the mirrored shop window, held her captive from the truth for just a few moments longer.

She shook her head, made submissive noises that were quite out of keeping with her earlier stance. Here, separated from the rest of the crowd, she demurred to the superior predator. That much, at least, she could sense. That much she saw.

He leaned her back against the wall, coming in close as if to kiss her. Instead, his words brushed against her lips, feather soft.

“What do you see, when you look at me?”

She pulled back, frowning. “You keep asking me that.”

“I want an answer.”

“I told you…”

“Tell me again.”

She started in – raven hair, strong brow, dark eyes. With each word he grew more agitated, and she pulled back further, sensing his displeasure. But still she rattled on, lies she did not know were lies spilling out from between her lips. Finally he could take no more.

“WHAT DO YOU SEE?” He knotted one hand in the back of her hair, twisting her face towards the mirrored shop window beside them. She gasped and tried to pull back.

“LOOK AT ME! WHAT DO YOU SSSEE?”

In the reflection, a monster glared back at her. The lipless maw mouthed the words, his serpentine tongue lisping over snaggled fangs.

“WHAT DO YOU SEE WHEN YOU LOOK AT ME?”

Bat-like nostrils flared as he shook her, forcing her to look at their reflected twins in the window. His wrinkled form mocked her flawless skin, and flecks of spittle, foul and discolored, splattered the glass. She strained back, fighting to try to free herself.

“NO! That’s not…” She looked from him to his reflection in disbelief. “That’s not… you.”

Her voice trailed off into silence as the horror overtook her and she lapsed into merciful unconsciousness.

He looked down at her and then at their reflections, disgust creasing his hideous visage. “You don’t know me…” He leaned in, drinking deeply from her. His gnarled teeth left a gaping wound in her neck, and he knew he’d likely condemned her to death. Looking up at his reflection, he saw the monster that always looked back at him. “You don’t know me at all,” he said, as he lowered her body to the ground and walked away.

About Jess Hartley
Jess Hartley is a novelist, writer, and freelance writer/editor in the gaming industry. Her first novel, In Northern Twilight, was a Runner-Up for Pen & Paper’s 2004 Fan Awards in the category of Best RPG-Related Novel/Anthology. Jess has co-authored or developed almost two dozen roleplaying games and rpg supplements for White Wolf Game Studio. Visit www.jesshartley.com for more information on her latest projects.

About Bradley K. McDevitt
Bradley K. McDevitt is an RPG Illustrator and Graphic Designer, his clients include Wizards of the Coast, Postmortem Studios, Fantasy Flight Games, Mongoose Publishing and many more. He recently published a new game, Haiiii-Ya!, and you can find more of his art in the Clipart Critters series.

We have another addition to the Halloween Horror series today. This time author and game designer Will Hindmarch (Damnation City, Things We Think About Games) shows us a twisted little creature with a taste for words…and other horrible bits.

The Deep-Seated Bogey

Created by Will Hindmarch

Not everyone catches the attention of a deep-seated bogey, and if you’re lucky you never will. Once you have a deep-seated bogey, it has you, too. Supposedly the only way to get rid of a deep-seated bogey is to starve it out… but no one’s ever pulled it off.

Deep-seated bogeys are attracted to clutter and junk. They get into attics and closets, where they nest in boxes of worn-out action figures and forgotten stuffed animals. They page through old yearbooks and read the letters you keep. If it’s written in, it’s fair game. Textbooks, journals, autographed novels, unauthorized guides to the Star Wars universe inscribed and given as gifts — bogeys sniff the ink and trace the handwriting with their fingers. The longer these things go unread, the greater the chance you’ll attract a bogey.

First, the bogey becomes infatuated with you. At night, it reads everything you’ve written down that day. It peers over the edge of your bed and watches you sleep. It brushes its fingers up and down your arm and watches your hairs stand up and lay down. It blows in your nose to dry out your snot, and slips hairs between your teeth to help you floss.

Once it has a taste for you, a deep-seated bogey never forgets anything you ever say or write. It learns the way you talk. It sits on the toilet and practices its impression of you.

By now, the bogey is bonded to you. It speaks with your voice. It writes with your handwriting. It reads anything you read. It answers your phone when you’re not there. It makes calls when you’re asleep. It sends email from your account. It sends postcards to people you hoped you wouldn’t hear from again. It sends out asinine requests to people you hardly know on Facebook. It posts on Internet forums and links back to your website.

If you’ve ever said it out loud, your deep-seated bogey can say it again. It doesn’t matter if you meant it or not. The bogey’s got your voice and it only knows what you said.

All this time, the deep-seated bogey’s been changing its body, adding limbs and swapping its hide for things it finds in your old books. Every bogey’s body is different. It doesn’t know what normal is, it only knows what it’s seen and read in your books.

Mine has fingers for teeth. It got the idea from a Jeff Easley painting in an old Dragonlance book I have somewhere. Those fingers grow out of spongy gums behind wide lips that roll back when the digits grope for ankles and faces. It chews with long yellow fingernails, stubborn and hard as mutant big-toe nails, curved and hard like shovel blades. It’s built squat like a toad or a bulldog and is skinned in pachyderm hide. Stiff black hairs sprout up from inside slick and sticky wrinkles. It goes around on four big, misshapen fingers, instead of feet. Its eyes are people eyes.

To shake a deep-seated bogey, never keep a book you’re not reading. Never keep letters. Never write down anything new. Never say anything you don’t mean. And good luck with that.

About Will Hindmarch
Will Hindmarch is a Chicago-born freelance writer and designer with more than fifty professional credits as author, developer, or graphic designer on games, books, and magazines. n 2007, Will co-founded the gameplay-and-story outfit, Gameplaywright Press, with Jeff Tidball. In 2008, Gameplaywright published its first hard-copy title, Things We Think About Games, to critical acclaim within the gaming scene.

We’ve got a new monster by Jason L Blair (Little Fears, Emergence) for the Halloween Horror collection. Be sure to check out his other monster in the series, The Werewolf of Bedburg if you haven’t already.

Meh-Teh

Created by Jason L Blair

The Meh-Teh (or Man-Bear) is a cryptid commonly overlooked by enthusiasts of cryptozoology and paranatural studies. Often assumed to be the same as a Yeti, the Meh-Teh differs from its peak-dwelling cousin in a few ways.

The first way is the most obvious one and that is its hair color. While the Yeti tends to range from white to golden-blond, the Meh-Teh’s hair tends toward black or dark brown.

The second way is less obvious though no less significant and that is that the Meh-Teh is a vegetarian, preferring the bamboo and tree sap to meat and fatty fish that make up its cousin’s mainstay meals. That being said, the Meh-Teh could still kick the ass of even a strong adult human.

The third way is the least obvious and least significant of the differences and involves the Meh-Teh’s affection for spring time, water colors, and the aromatic burning of sandalwood.

The Habitat of the Meh-Teh

The Meh-Teh is native to the subtropical pine forests of the Himalayan mountains and is seen as friendly by the natives. Though due to its skittish nature, it is usually left to forage in peace if sighted. With very rare exception, the Meh-Teh do not venture beyond the mid-region, sticking to the more temperate bases and foothills.

Still, their environment is an elevated one and that has had some adverse effects on the Meh-Teh such as decreased lung capacity and bouts of lightheadedness that can often send the creatures into a usually short but dramatic dizzied fit.

The History of the Meh-Teh

The existence of the Meh-Teh was first documented by famed British explorer Sir Henroi Thustlebum during his unprecedented “14-Man Naked Exploration of the Himalayan Regions of the Chinese Tributary State of Tibet and the Kingdom of Nepal” during the unusually cold summer of 1863.

The story has it that Sir Thustlebum, having long forsaken the original “naked” theme of the exploration (but retaining the theme in the exploration’s name), was venturing out to a wooden region to evacuate his bowels and possibly retrieve some firewood.

Following the former, and during the latter, Sir Thustlebum became horribly lost for his own navigational sense was erratic at best and when topped with a egregious mixture of potent potables such as that regularly consumed by Sir Thustlebum, his sense became downright treacherous.

Desperate to escape the prison of his internal compass, Sir Thustlebum blindly ran around the region calling out the names of his comrades. Sir Thustlebum heard a faint mewling response. Assuming the distance between himself and the caller was lengthy, the brave explorer jaunted quickly toward the noise, only to smack into the barrel-chested trunk of an annoyed Meh-Teh whose sleeping spot has recently been befowled by a creature with an apparent affection for red meat and beans.

In the cool moonlight, Thustlebum saw the creatures massive block-shaped head, wideset eyes, and tall upper lip that ended somewhere inside a sizable underbite.

The beast flung Thustlebum’s own waste at him, hitting the hirsute aristocrat straight in the mutton chops. This sent a now hysterical Thustlebum into a panic. His cries quickly drew the attention of his party who managed to rescue him from the darkness. By the time the others had reached Thustlebum, the creature was gone though the explorer regaled all with repeated tales of the encounter all through the night.

Thustlebum is said to have remarked, “It is a highly unfortunate event that leads me to the discussion of this most vile and inconsiderate beast, but if the price of this incredible discovery is embarrassment to my self-pride then I shall pay it with taxes.”

Hunters flocked to the region in search of the Meh-Teh, possibly to return with a pelt of its highly-treasured hide or a scatalogical tale of their own. While trade of Meh-Teh fur became a lucrative market for some, it was soon discovered the supposed hides were actually dyed fox fur.

Confronting the Meh-Teh

Meh-Teh keep to themselves, timid in the face of civilization’s hustle and bustle, though the lone hiker or small band of missionaries may inadvertently draw the attention of the Meh-Teh by cooking natural grains over a campfire or by playing soft music on an acoustic guitar.

If cornered, the beast will react violently, using its long claws to sweep at anyone who comes within striking distance. Any attempt to communicate in a human tongue could suss out that while the creature does not speak any discernible language, it seems to understand a wide variety of them.

If one does encounter the Meh-Teh, history has proven it best to keep one’s bodily byproducts far from their habitat.

About Jason L Blair
Jason L Blair is a father, husband, video game designer, and aspiring novelist and screenwriter who lives in Madison, Wisconsin, just a few miles from the Flames Rising HQ. He is best known for the award-winning Little Fears RPG. You can check out his list of credits at www.hekeba.com/jason.

Today’s new monster in the Halloween Horror series is brought to us by author and game designer Matt Forbeck (Mutant Chronicles, Ghost Stories). Matt knows a thing or two about little “trick-or-treaters” and adds a twist to a common Halloween night activity. Artist Aaron Acevedo adds a bit of gruesome horror to this entry in his own style.

Just what kind of horror is under the cute little costume?

The Hollow Wee ’Un

Created By Matt Forbeck

“Trick or treat!”

“Oh! Don’t you just look incredible! What a wonderful costume!”

“Trick or treat!”

“Hold a moment, honey. I don’t see your parents. Aren’t you a little young to be wandering around out here on your own?”

“Trick or treat!”

“All right. I suppose if your parents aren’t worried about you, I shouldn’t be either. Here’s some candy for you. Now what do you say?”

“Thanks for treat! Time for trick!”

“What’s that, sweetie? Oh, my—! No! NOOO!!!”

The evening of every October 31, hundreds of thousands of kids across the United States and other parts of the world dress up in costumes and do something they would never do on any other night of the year: knock on the doors of complete strangers and demand treats. Better yet, these strangers not only comply with the demands but sit and wait for their young callers to arrive.

Parents escort the younger trick-or-treaters on their annual quests for candy, while older kids find their own kind of mischief. But who watches after those welcoming strangers?

The hollow wee ’un—that’s “hollow little one” with the dialect stripped out—first cropped up in Ireland, where the traditions of Halloween began. This horrible spirit crawls into the husk of a discarded costume and fills the space with an ectoplasmic force that moves about just like the child that once filled the fancy garments.

An angry and simple spirit, the hollow wee ’un is unused to the effort required to animate a costume. It shambles about slowly and doesn’t care much for words. Whenever it meets someone, it shouts “Trick or treat!”

If someone supplies a treat, the spirit says, “Thanks for treat!” If there are other people about, the hollow wee ’un then wanders off to demand candy from others. However, if the treater is alone, the spirit attacks.

To do this, the hollow wee ’un strips back its mask to reveal that nothing substantial or visible stands inside the costume. While the victim goggles at this sight, the spirit becomes visible as a translucent child made of swirling mist. It sweeps forward, passing through the costume, which collapses to the floor.

The hollow wee ’un then rushes forward through the victim. As its insubstantial form passes through the victim’s body, it removes every bit of sugar from the victim’s blood and uses it to feed its ectoplasmic sweet tooth. The victim collapses and dies moments later as every cell in the body simultaneously starves to death.

Satisfied for the moment, the hollow wee ’un makes its way back to its discarded costume and animates it again. Then it shambles back into the night, looking for fresh, sugary victims on which it can feed.

About Matt Fobeck
Matt Forbeck has been writing stories and designing games since 1989, for which he has garnered over 20 awards. He lives in Wisconsin with his wife, Ann, and their five very substantial wee ’uns. For more about him and his work, visit www.forbeck.com.

About Aaron Acevedo
Aaron Aurelio Acevedo is a full-time artist, author, and game designer living in New York. He is most widely known for his work in the Adventure Games industry. He has worked on the A Song of Ice & Fire, Call of Cthulhu, Deadlands, Dungeons & Dragons, Legend of the Five Rings, Solomon Kane, Warlord, and Wheel of Time properties and produces art and design for bands, comics, dvds, films, games, and concept work. Visit www.aaronace.com to check out his gallery.

Today’s addition to the Halloween Horror series comes from writer, reviewer and musician Jason Thorson.

Taking a bit of inspiration from his passion for music, Jason brings us a new monster.

The Fogcrawler’s Thrall

Created by Jason Thorson

When he was interviewed for the book, “Hunting Ghosts: A Skeptic’s Account of the Paranormal,” Randall Bailleaux spoke about the legend of the Fogcrawler with the same matter-of-fact drawl that he used daily to promote his swamp tour.

“Those fellas from the “Ghost Trackers” TV program might be full a’ crap, but they ain’t stupid, that’s for sure. I told ‘em they had free reign, but they wouldn’t budge. They would not come down here.”

Randall took one last drag from his smoldering cigarette, dropped it onto the dock and smashed it beneath his boot.

“What we got back here ain’t no Casper. It ain’t some tired door-openin’, foot-steps-on-the-stairs apparition. This spook is the grand daddy of ’em all. There are parts of this swamp where you cannot go if you plan on comin’ back. For folks like ya’ll, the Fogcrawler legend is a dream come true and your worst nightmare all at once. Those fellas from the TV show knew that, but I called their bluff. And now I’m calling yours. If you go in there, you will not come back. So go ahead and prove me wrong, Mr. Skeptic.”

***

In 1843 southern Louisiana had a vampire problem. The local aristocrats collectively decided that Lady Fairbone, Louisiana’s preeminent black magic practitioner, was the only viable weapon against the voracious rogue predator lurking about the swamps. Despite Lady Fairbone’s fervent protests, an agreement was begrudgingly struck. She would be freed in exchange for her unique services and if she failed to rid the community of its bogeyman, it wouldn’t matter much as neither aristocracy nor slavery affected the way one tasted.

Lady Fairbone had spent her entire life watching plantation owners, slaves, and free Haitians fight side by side to eradicate the vampires that had followed them to Louisiana after the Haitian Revolution of 1804. When she was younger, Ms. Fairbone preferred not to fight, for she had been compelled by the dark arts. She took to Voodoo the way the others took to wielding a stake, a sword, and a torch. And after years of bloody battles, the resilient few monsters that remained had fled deeper into the swamps, sporadically sweeping in by night to raid the plantations of innocent blood.

By 1840, the vampire threat was embodied by a single creature, a beast so hideous that he devoured his last remaining vampire brethren simply for the sake of convenience. Known as Magnus of the Fog, he had been a lecherous perversion of a man in life and he was a shambling and demonic abomination of a vampire. An enormous creature, Magnus slouched and shuffled forth making him appear much smaller than he actually was. He kept his mass hidden beneath a decrepit over coat, and his gravitational gaze concealed by a rotten court jester’s hat taken along with the jester’s head some centuries prior and in some far off place. Despite his indiscriminate appetite, he preferred little girls, this one. When he had been finished with them he’d skewer their heads atop the large staff he used as a walking stick, replacing them only as they became putrid and fell away. Moreover, Magnus of the Fog feared nothing, least of all men.

On the night of October 31st, 1843, Lady Fairbone reluctantly stood near the water’s edge alone and afraid. Her muscles were wound tighter than springs and her shallow breathes were enabled only by the promising light of freedom dimly flickering about the inky darkness of her thoughts. A cool damp wind rushed in on tendrils of milky white mist causing Lady Fairbone’s pulse to beat rhythmically behind her ears, a loud and primal adrenal hymn.

And then He came.

Magnus slithered up from the water, his tattered wet over coat clinging to him like the hide of a decomposing bull. A shaft of penetrating moonlight enveloped the slouching hulk as he crouched not fifty paces from Lady Fairbone. His pale talon fingers clutched the hardwood walking stick just beneath a totem of three rotten heads, their faces melting in horror and swampy decay. He tilted his large face upward to lock eyes with the lady. His white face featured a grotesque grimace – all shard-like teeth buried in bloody gums beneath sunken eyes, bloodshot and yellow. It was as if an old shark had walked upright out of the Gulf and found its way here, motivated by hunger and guided by a myriad of finely tuned senses.

Lady Fairbone began to chant, “Plight of men, plight of men, plight of men….” She raised her hands, splaying her fingers, her head lolling back and forth on her neck like a pendulum. Magnus gurgled a hideous laugh, deeper, blacker, and greasier than an oil well. Then he hissed like a hurricane gale as he glided like fluid toward the lady with instantaneous speed. In a blink they’d engaged, his huge hands wrapped around her throat, her tiny palms placed on his cold putty-like face.

Lady Fairbone suddenly stiffened and lifted her head, eye-to-eye with the beast. She screamed, “Plight of men!” And with that Magnus let her go and stumbled backward. He belched forth a sickly moan that soon reached a crescendo that then turned into shrieks of agony. And he began to shake.

Plight of Men was a little known and little used spell. It bestowed an object with a soul and Lady Fairbone had just given one to Magnus of the Fog. This was not the soul Magnus the man was born with, but rather it was the immaterial essence of his vampire self. As a logical impossibility or at least a universal paradox, Magnus’ soul became corrupted immediately upon its birth. As Magnus reeled and writhed, frothing and snarling in pain, he snatched up Lady Fairbone with his giant paws and devoured her throat in three huge bites before hurling her head deep into the swamp.

Magnus vomited and then collapsed. He lay there in the mud shaking like a rattle for nearly an hour until at last he died a true death. And so the legend goes. Just before dawn on November 1st, 1843 a most unfortunate thing happened. Magnus of the Fog’s soul left his body, but it did not leave the swamps….

***

When the mini recorder was found, tape intact, it was disturbingly apparent that Randall Bailleaux’s warning fell on willfully deaf ears. The conversation on the tape led the deputies to his swamp tour headquarters at the water’s edge. Randall shuffled out of the shed and onto the dock. Expressionless and gaunt, his face lacked color of its own, but provided a canvass on which auburn smears of dried blood appeared vivid against his pale skin. His clothes were soaked in viscous crimson fluid and his boots were caked with mud.

As Randall turned around and put his hands behind his back to be cuffed, a deputy removed the impossibly ragged and filthy court jester’s hat from Randall’s head and dropped it onto the dock to avoid its pungent stench. Randall bowed his head and was led away.

About Jason Thorson
Jason Thorson is a freelance writer, journalist, and film critic. Several of his reviews can be found right here at Flames Rising. When Jason isn’t watching or writing about horror films, he can be found performing with the band Fogcrawler (www.fogcrawler.com).