Dear Reader— We’Re Thrilled About Our Upcoming Books, and Hope You’Ll Love Them Too

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Dear Reader— We’re thrilled about our upcoming books, and hope you’ll love them too. So here’s a sampler of our upcoming books: epic fantasy, urban fantasy, alternate history and steampunk, military science fiction, supernatural noir, horror and post‐apocalyptic, ranging from far distant, magical lands to the hidden places of the Midwest to paranormal adventures in Hong Kong, even into Hell itself. We’ve got new books from Kim Harrison, Richard Kadrey, and Brom, new series debuts from Vicki Pettersson, Jocelynn Drake, Kylie Chan and Ian Douglas, along with returning and debut authors in print and digital. We find books because we start reading a story and cannot put it down—like potato chips, we hope you can’t stop with just one. Enjoy! For more information on current and upcoming books, find us online at www.harpervoyagerbooks, www.twitter.com/harpervoyagerus, and check www.facebook.com/harpervoyagerus for the latest in author news, digital promotions, and more.

All best wishes,

Diana Gill Executive Editor CONTENTS

By the Blood of Heroes – Joseph Nassise

The Janus Affair – Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris

The Taken – Vicki Pettersson

Devil Said Bang – Richard Kadrey

Hidden Things – Doyce Testerman

Angel’s Ink – Jocelynn Drake

“Temson Estates” from Into the Woods – Kim Harrison

Krampus: The Yule Lord – Brom

Carry the Flame – James Jaros

Sin’s Dark Cares – Tracey O’Hara

Bloodstar – Ian Douglas

Blood Riders – Michael P. Spradlin

Earth to Heaven – Kylie Chan

The Old Man and the Wasteland – Nick Cole

HARPER VOYAGER DIGITAL SHORTS

NEW PAPERBACK EDITIONS

BY THE BLOOD OF HEROES The Great Undead War: Book I

May 2012

It’s “Inglorious Basterds” meets “Dawn of the Dead” in acclaimed author Joe Nassise’s alternate history zombie steampunk novel set in the midst of World War I.

“Relentless pacing, nonstop action, and improbable but nifty-sounding military gadgetry (portable personal gliding devices, magnetism grenades) power an unremittingly entertaining story line that with broad appeal for history buffs, horror aficionados, and fans of steampunk.” — Publishers Weekly

“Urban fantasy and SF author Nassise (Eyes To See) raises the alternate history genre to brilliant new heights. This is a treat for zombie and horror fans, military fiction aficionados, history buffs, and steampunk lovers alike, all of whom will be clamoring for the next installment.”— Library Journal

“By the Blood of Heroes is a genre-twisting madhouse of horror, Steampunk SF and zombie madness that is too damn much fun to miss! Buckle up...this is a wild ride!” — Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of Rot & Ruin and Flesh & Bone

“Joseph Nassise’s By the Blood of Heroes is that rarest of books, a genuine game- changer. This book, this whole series, in fact, is a vital leap forward for the zombie genre. Nassise has not only proven his mastery of the zombie essentials, the sense of adventure and the horror of a world gone mad that form the core of the best zombie fiction, but he has done it with such jaw-dropping inventiveness that he’s given the whole genre a new starting point. I would argue Joseph Nassise the most important thing to happen to zombies since Max Brooks, and that’s no hyperbole. He’s really that good. Do yourself a favor and get in on the ground floor with this series, because Madman Burke and his crew are about to take you to hell and back.”— Joe McKinney Dead City and Flesh Eaters.

Chapter One

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Trench 479 The Western Front This godforsaken place! Captain Michael “Madman” Burke set aside the trench knife he’d been using to clean the mud out of the clockwork mechanism that powered his left hand and closed the access panel with a firm push. He’d been at it for almost a half hour but didn’t think he’d done more than move the dirt from one set of gears to another; he knew he’d need a trip to the rear in order to get it properly cleaned. Unfortunately, he wasn’t due for another of those for at least two more weeks and was stuck with his own meager efforts for the time being. Such was life in the American Expeditionary Force. His fingers clicked and clanked as he worked them back and forth, testing to see if his field repair would do any good. There was still some resistance in movement, but not as much as before; for that he guessed he should be thankful. He rolled down the sleeve of his wool uniform shirt and got up from the camp stool he’d been sitting on. A glance at his pocket watch told him it was time to start getting the men up and ready for the morning “Stand To,” as dawn was less than an hour away and the shamblers wouldn’t be far behind.

BloodHeroes_i-vi_i-346_3p.indd 1 1/25/12 1:08 PM It might be March, but the morning air was far more winter than spring, and Burke knew it would have a nasty bite. He pulled his greatcoat out from beneath the blankets he’d slept under and slipped it on, grateful for the warmth his body heat had imparted to the material during the night. The extra heat wouldn’t last long in the cold morning air, but it would at least ward off the initial chill for a few minutes and Burke had been a soldier long enough to know that you indulged in the little things while you could. Helmet and rifle in hand, he stepped out of the makeshift tent to find Staff Sergeant Moore waiting for him, just as he had been waiting every morning for the three years that they’d been stuck here at the front together. “Morning, Charlie,” Burke said. The sergeant gave a noncommittal grunt and handed Burke a tin cup with steam rising off it. The coffee was weak—they’d been using the same grounds for over ten days now—but Moore had put a generous taste of rum into it and Burke sighed in satisfaction despite the taste. “What have we got?” he asked. The sergeant shrugged. “Nothing unusual, sir. McGraw’s men reported hearing movement beyond the wire around 0300, but the scouts we sent out came back without having encountered anyone. Probably just more of what we’ve been getting all week, if you ask me.” Burke nodded. The enemy had been probing their defenses for six days straight. Never anything too serious, just quick little en- gagements that forced his men to react, revealing their locations and letting the enemy get a sense of what they would be facing if they did come in force. Not if, when, he corrected himself. If there was one constant in this war, it was the enemy’s implacable desire for the living. So let them come. His men were more than a match for any German unit, with or without shambler accompaniment. Lord knows they’d had enough practice.

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BloodHeroes_i-vi_i-346_3p.indd 2 1/25/12 1:08 PM The Great War was in its seventh year, but it seemed to Burke that it had been going on forever. He could barely remember what life before it had been like, though he was honest enough with himself to admit that his forgetfulness might have more to do with his own desire to put the past behind him than the length of the conflict. Truth was, after Mae’s death, he just hadn’t given a damn anymore. The days flowed past in an endless haze of gray, one after the other, until he wasn’t able to tell where one ended and the next began. In the end he’d enlisted, not out of some misguided sense of duty or vain quest for glory, but simply to try and feel something again. If he couldn’t feel alive while staring into the face of death, well, then, perhaps he didn’t deserve to live anymore. Of course that had been during the early years, back when a bullet was a bullet and the man you killed with it stayed dead afterward. Once the Germans invented that damned corpse gas, everything changed. The last three years had been particularly brutal. While the Allied powers had managed to hang on to the small stretch of ground won at the end of the Somme Offensive, it had been by only the thinnest of margins. Even now the Americans continued to increase their support of the beleaguered French and Brit- ish armies, sending fresh troops to fill the gaps being carved in the Western Front. As the death toll mounted and the ranks of the opposition swelled, reinforcements continued to arrive; doing anything else could mean certain doom for everything from the English Channel to Moscow. The line had held, but only just. “All right then, Charlie, let’s get the men up.” The two of them began moving in unison down the length of the trench, waking up each man in turn and ordering him to fall in at the fire step, ready to defend his position if need be. And most mornings, that was exactly what was needed. A mere two hundred yards separated the two sides, but that two hundred yards of no-man’s-land was composed mostly of

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BloodHeroes_i-vi_i-346_3p.indd 3 1/25/12 1:08 PM bomb craters, minefields, abandoned trenches, and row upon row of barbed wire, making it some of the most treacherous ground on the face of the planet. Recently, the enemy commander opposite them had made it a habit to order dawn assaults on the section of the Allied line that was under Burke’s command. Which meant Burke had to rouse his troops out of their bedrolls every morning, get them assembled on the raised earthen “step” that allowed them to see over the top of the trench, and wait in the chill morning air for an attack that might not come. There was a peculiar feeling in the air this morning, a tension that hadn’t been there during the past week. Burke had the feeling that the Germans were done testing their lines; an attack was sure to follow, and he sensed that today was the day. As the men scrambled to take their places along the line, Burke had a quiet word with each of them. They were good men, though many of them were relatively untrained, having only recently been sent to the front to replace the losses suffered over the last month. He gave them a few words of encouragement, reminded them that the men on either side of them in the trench depended on their ac- tions, and then left it alone, confident that Sergeant Moore would handle any other needs the men might have. All that was left at that point was to wait to see what the enemy would do. Fifteen minutes later, the man beside him, a corporal named Ridley, suddenly stiffened. “There’s something out there, sir,” he whispered. Burke followed the man’s frightened gaze, out across the mud- dy battlefield to where the first of the barbed-wire emplacements was buried beneath the weight of a thick curtain of fog, but didn’t see anything. After a moment, he heard it. The sound of movement. Out beyond the wire. It was a sound he’d become intimately familiar with over the

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BloodHeroes_i-vi_i-346_3p.indd 4 1/25/12 1:08 PM last few years and one he knew he’d hear in his sleep long after the war was over. “Steady,” he told the men nearest him, and the command was repeated down the line. Any moment now . . . The first of the shamblers emerged from the fog on the far side of the barbed wire, lumbering toward them with the peculiar gait for which they’d been named. Behind it came at least a dozen more, though Burke was sure that was just the first wave. They’d once been men; that was easy to see. Some were still dressed in the tattered remnants of the German uniforms that they’d worn while alive, scraps of gray cloth hanging on their desiccated frames; others were naked, their rotting flesh exposing bone in more than a few places. The control devices they wore stuck out as the only intact thing about them; dark collars that encircled their necks and rose up on the left side of their faces to cover that side of the head in a mixture of leather and electrical components. But thinking of them as men was a grave mistake, however, for they had ceased being anything remotely human the moment their corpses responded to the call of the corpse gas and rose anew, hungry for the flesh of the living and driven nearly mad from their desire to consume it. The control devices rendered them manage- able, but only just. This was fine with the German commanders in charge of the shambler brigades, for soldiers like these were best used as shock troops anyway, fodder to weaken the Allied lines and pave the way for the human divisions that usually followed in their wake. A rifle went off to his right, then several more, but Burke held his own fire, wanting to be certain of his shot, wanting to make it count. Back in the days before the war, most soldiers were taught to shoot for the center mass but that didn’t do much good anymore. Shamblers were long past the point of feeling injury or pain. You could knock one down with a shot to the middle of its chest and it would simply get back up again. Even blowing off a limb didn’t do

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BloodHeroes_i-vi_i-346_3p.indd 5 1/25/12 1:08 PM much good; as long as it could move forward the shambler would do so, dragging itself forward with its bare hands or wriggling its body along the ground. The only way to stop one was to put a bullet in its brain. Even that wasn’t final, Burke thought. Being exposed to the corpse gas would cause the creature to rise once more, which was why his side had taken to burning the bodies of friends and foe alike in giant bonfires after every conflict. The air had become so saturated with the smell of burning flesh that he barely noticed it anymore. Burke had learned through long experience that if you waited until the shamblers got hung up in the barbed wire, you’d have a better chance of making that head shot as they struggled to pull themselves free. He propped the barrel of his weapon on the lip of the trench and used his mechanical hand to hold it steady, sighting in on one of the enemy soldiers that was currently squirming its way through a hole in the wire. A moment to steady his breathing, a few extra ounces of pressure on the trigger of the rifle in his hands, and he put a bullet smack in the center of the creature’s skull. Without hesitation he swung the barrel of his rifle to one side, sighted it on another target, and began the process all over again. His men were firing regularly now, the sharp cracks of their rifles and their shouts of hatred for the undead blending together into a mad cacophony of sound. From somewhere farther down the line came the rattling burr of a Hotchkiss machine gun and he glanced that way, watching with satisfaction as an entire squad of shamblers were cut down in midstride. Once on the ground, it was an easy matter for the sharpshooters to finish them off. Just as he’d expected, however, this first group turned out to be just the tip of the enemy’s attack. Wave after wave of the ravenous creatures followed, attempting to make their way through the hail of gunfire and reach Burke and his men. Behind them came the German regulars, firing from the safety of the back of the pack and not caring if they accidentally hit some of the shock troops

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BloodHeroes_i-vi_i-346_3p.indd 6 1/25/12 1:08 PM that were trying to clear the way before them. Burke kept up a steady rate of fire, alternating with the man next to him when one or the other of them needed to reload and snatching quick moments of rest in between waves of the assault. Some two hours after the attack began, it was finally over. The stretch of no-man’s-land directly in front of them was littered with the still bodies of the enemy dead. Thankfully none of the shamblers had reached the trench itself. If they had, the outcome would have been very different, Burke knew. He reloaded his rifle for what felt like the hundredth time that morning and then, seeing Sergeant Moore making his way back along the floor of the trench toward him, stepped out to greet him. They were still standing there, chatting quietly and comparing notes on how the new men in the platoon had reacted to the attack, when the ground beneath their feet trembled. “Did you feel that?” Burke asked. Moore nodded. “Felt like an earthquake. We get ones like that back in San Francisco all the time.” An earthquake? Burke thought. In godforsaken France? Before he could express his doubts, the ground trembled again, this time with more force. It shook them about for thirty or forty seconds and knocked several of his men off their feet. Rats burst out of their holes all along the sides of the trench, swarming around the soldiers’ feet before charging en masse down its length. Burke had a moment to stare after them in surprise before the ground began shaking for a third time. The makeshift tent he’d been using as a command post collapsed, as did the stockpile of crates containing ammunition and food stores just beyond. The sides of the trench itself even began to shake apart, great clods of dirt breaking free and falling around them so frequently that Burke began to fear that they all might be buried alive before the trembling stopped. He wasn’t the only one with the thought, apparently, for he saw several of his men praying aloud or gripping good luck charms as the shaking continued. A young private named Hendricks scram-

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BloodHeroes_i-vi_i-346_3p.indd 7 1/25/12 1:08 PM bled up out of the trench, silhouetting himself against the sky, only to take a sniper’s bullet through the throat a moment later, his body dead before he hit the ground. Just when Burke thought they wouldn’t be able to take any more, the trembling stopped as the trench wall ten feet in front of him burst open from the inside. Dirt flew in every direction as a strange machine rose into the morning sunlight, the three massive drills attached to its snout still spinning wildly as its tracks drove it up out of the earth. As Burke looked on, stunned into immobility by the machine’s sudden appearance, hatches clanked open along its length and a horde of shamblers spilled out of its dark interior, falling upon the men of 4th Platoon with a vengeance. In seconds it was every man for himself as hand-to-hand combat stretched from one end of the trench to the other.

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BloodHeroes_i-vi_i-346_3p.indd 8 1/25/12 1:08 PM Chapter Two

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Toul Aerodrome Twelve miles away from where Captain Burke was fighting against a horde of ravenous undead, Major Julius “Jack” Free- man stepped out of his tent into the brisk morning, pulling on his thin leather flying gloves as he went. The sun was just breaking through the cloud cover, its feeble light barely visible through the smoke and dust that seemed to be the only constants in this never- ending war. Despite the early hour, the home of the 94th Aero Squadron was anything but quiet. The mechanics had taken the aircraft out of the hangars and had them facing forward down the airfield where they were being prepped for the dawn patrol. The enlisted men were already up, manning the machine-gun pits that were scattered throughout the airfield, ready to protect the Allied aircraft on the ground in case of a German attack. If the enlisted men were up, so too then were the men of the hospital company, ready to drag the wounded to the hospital tents and the dead to the fire pits. The din of men at work filled the air around Freeman. He snorted at himself in disgust at his characterization of the enemy. Germans? Could they even be called that anymore? Each new assault swelled the ranks of the undead, and they had long surpassed the number of living troops left under the German High Command.

BloodHeroes_i-vi_i-346_3p.indd 9 1/25/12 1:08 PM An army of the ravenous dead didn’t care about nationalism; all they wanted was their next meal. Freeman had been involved in the war from the very beginning of America’s support, when the 94th had been activated at Villeneuve in March of 1918. It seemed like a long time ago now. He jammed a cigarette into his mouth and then removed a battered silver lighter from his pocket. It’d been a present from Rick- enbacker, back before the invention of the gas, when this war had only been a war and not a struggle for the survival of the human race. He turned the lighter over in his hands and held it up so that he could read the inscription in the thin morning light. “A Gentle- man and a Flier” it read. Instead of cheering him, the sight of it made the airman shake his head in near despair. Rickenbacker was gone now and Marr with him. At least they had perished in fires on the ground instead of rising to fight against their own men like so many of the others. Facing off in the air against his longtime friend would have been unthinkable. A glance at the weathometer on his wrist told him that it was just after seven, with the air pressure holding steady in the green zone. Another hour and the wind would disperse the clouds enough to fly. Then the real day’s work would begin. Might as well use the time to get some breakfast, he thought. The mess hall was set up in the old farmhouse. His squadron mates—Samuels, James, and Walton—were already there, waiting for the day’s briefing. Not that today’s mission would be any different from the hundreds of others they’d already flown. The aerodrome at Toul was only twelve miles from the front. Nancy lay fifteen miles to the east, Lunéville ten miles beyond that. The highway from Toul to Nancy to Lunéville ran parallel to enemy lines and was within easy shelling distance of their guns, making it difficult for the Allies to move troops and supplies up to the front in support of the men holding the line there. The 94th’s job was to patrol that long stretch of highway and do what they could to keep it clear so that the infantry wouldn’t be cut off.

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BloodHeroes_i-vi_i-346_3p.indd 10 1/25/12 1:08 PM Freeman joined his men as they were sitting down to a breakfast of syntheggs and ham. They both tasted like paste, making it hard to tell them apart once they were in your mouth, but he was glad to have them; all the men were. Real food was growing scarcer than a pig in Berlin. As happened most every morning, the men in the squadron were discussing the enemy, and the argument went round and round without really getting anywhere. There were far more questions than answers. Why did the shamblers crave human flesh? What caused their ravenous hunger? Why did a small percentage of the dead come back as revenants, their physical dexterity, their mental acuity, and perhaps even more important, their memories, all perfectly intact? Understanding the answers to these and other questions was an issue of the highest priority. Solving them could bring an end to the war, but there was no way this group of farm boys was going to manage that. Freeman kept quiet throughout the discourse, just nodding noncommittally over his coffee, for he had nothing new to share on the topic. After breakfast, while the men were still enjoying their coffee, a runner arrived with news that a wireless call had just come in from Nancy. Several enemy aircraft had been spotted heading in the direction of the aerodrome. “Time to earn our pay, boys,” Freeman said as he led the way out of the mess hall and to the field. The entire squadron now flew Spad XIIIs, and while Freeman missed his old Nieuport 28, he had to admit that the Spad was a nice substitute. Introduced in the fall of 1917, it had a maximum range of two hours’ flying time and a ceiling of just under twenty- two thousand feet. Armed with two synchronized Vickers machine guns mounted in front of the pilot, it had quickly become a favorite among the fliers attached to the American Expeditionary Force (AEF). Rickenbacker had flown one until his death, and Freeman had decided to switch to the Spad in tribute to his old friend. Mitchell, Freeman’s mechanic, had the major’s bird in the lead

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BloodHeroes_i-vi_i-346_3p.indd 11 1/25/12 1:08 PM position and wasted no time getting the propeller spinning when Freeman climbed aboard. Being the careful type, Freeman took a few extra moments to be certain everything was in proper condition. He checked the tachometer first, watching it as he opened the throttle and then closed it back down again to an idle, making sure the engine was running normally. His gaze swept over the fuel pump and quantity gauges. Next he moved to the physical controls. Waggling the control column, he tested the aileron and elevator movements, taking them through their full range of movement. The rudder was a bit stiff, but he attributed that to the cold morning air and didn’t give it another thought. A quick tap of a finger on the altimeter, a brush of his hands over the petrol cocks and magneto switches, and he was ready to go. Freeman lowered his goggles, made sure that the lenses were adjusted to the same polarization by nudging the selector on either side of the goggles with the tip of his finger, and then gave Mitch- ell the thumbs-up. When the same signal was received from the rest of the pilots manning the aircraft strung out in a line behind Freeman, the mechanic turned to him and swept his arm forward in a wide arc. Freeman advanced the throttle, watching as the propeller’s flickering dissolved into a darkened haze. The Spad came to life, awkward at first as it tentatively moved onto the grassy field. As the engine surged into a throaty roar the machine picked up speed and its forward motion smoothed out, though the creaking and groaning of the undercarriage didn’t cease until the Spad eased itself off the ground and into the chilly air above. Just a few short minutes later the entire flight of four aircraft was up and headed east, following the roadway. Freeman flew low over the Allied lines, knowing the Jack of Spades painted across the underside of his wings would be visible from his current height to the men on the ground. As America’s top ace, he felt it was his duty to encourage the men every chance he could, and the sight of his distinctive plane was sure to give a lift to those in the trenches below. A dark cloud of smoke was

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BloodHeroes_i-vi_i-346_3p.indd 12 1/25/12 1:08 PM already spiraling upward from an area a hundred yards behind the Allied positions, the stench of burning flesh wafting through the air along with it, and he steered slightly to the east to get away from the stink of the corpse fires. He couldn’t imagine the horror this infantry had to face on a daily basis. How the Germans had gone so horribly wrong in creating that hideous gas was anyone’s guess. It was bad enough up in the air, fighting aircraft flown by pilots who were long dead. How much worse it must be to sit there, mere yards from the newly risen opposition forces, knowing that the other side saw you as nothing more than that evening’s meal. Once when he was laid up in the hospital at Reims, he listened to the survivors of the Battle of Soissons recount their experiences. The opposition made assault after assault, charging out of that venomous green gas and through no-man’s-land as fast as their rotting forms could carry them. The long miles of barbed wire became heavy with bodies and still they came, stepping over the still-moving carcasses of their comrades to rush the trenches, dragging off those Allied soldiers unlucky enough to be near the break in the lines. The Allied troops fell back to the secondary and then the tertiary trenches before the attack had been repelled. While that was bad enough, the descriptions of the Allied dead waking up later the same night in the abandoned trenches and crawling under the wire to assault their former comrades was far worse. Freeman remembered vividly the look on one private’s face as he talked about the horror he felt bayoneting the man who he’d just spent the last forty-five days huddled with in a foxhole and of his shame at then having to burn the body in the bonfires to keep his friend from rising a second time. Remembering it now made Freeman shudder in his seat. Thank God the gas only worked on inert tissue. If it had the same impact on the living as it had on the dead, this war would have been over years ago. As they neared the outskirts of town, Freeman began to climb higher, the possibility of being jumped at so low an altitude by the

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BloodHeroes_i-vi_i-346_3p.indd 13 1/25/12 1:08 PM opposition’s pilots outweighing his desire to boost the morale of the soldiers on the ground. The haze was thick, the cloud cover fairly low, and Freeman wanted some clear sky beneath their wings before they were forced to engage the enemy. Fifteen minutes later they crossed into enemy territory and ended up getting lucky right away. The observation balloon first appeared as a small dark smudge against the blue-green earth below. Reaching up with one hand, Freeman pushed the magnification lenses into place over the left eye of his goggles and took a good, long look at the aircraft ahead of them. The balloon was one of the Caquot styles, a long teardrop- shaped cylinder with three stabilizing fins. There was a symbol painted on the rear fin, but it was too far away to see clearly with the goggles’ current settings. Reaching up with his left hand, he flicked through the magnification selections until the black Ger- man cross painted on the dirigible’s rudder swam into view. They had the enemy in sight; all they needed now was an attack plan. Freeman had the flight in formation at six thousand feet with his plane in the lead, followed by Samuels and James flying parallel. Walton brought up the rear, forming an aerial diamond. He didn’t give the signal to attack, at least not yet. Instead, he craned his head around from side to side, huddled against the rushing wind, searching the sky below for the fighter cover that he knew had to be present. The opposition never sent the balloons aloft without the fighters. They had to be here. And they were. Both aircraft, Pfalz D.XIIs by the look of them, were approximately a few hundred feet below and to the south of the balloon, drifting lazily along as though they didn’t have a care in the world. Freeman waggled his wings, getting the attention of his fellow pilots. He pointed downward at the balloon and then tapped the side of his head with two fingers. He then pointed at the escort aircraft circling below and then at his men.

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BloodHeroes_i-vi_i-346_3p.indd 14 1/25/12 1:08 PM They understood. It would be their job to take on the opposition’s aircraft while Freeman went after the balloon. They all circled back around, staying in the cloud cover until they could bring their planes into position with the sun at their backs. Then as a group they fell into a rushing power-glide designed to bring them up on the enemy as swiftly as possible. Freeman watched the balloon grow larger and larger in his field of vision, his comrades forgotten as he focused on his attack. He covered more than half the distance to the other craft before its crew noticed his presence. He could see them floating beneath the wide bulk of the balloon in their wicker basket, frantically calling the ground crew on the field phone. Those on the ground were equally desperate, rushing to the mechanical winch in the hopes of getting the balloon and its crew pulled out of the sky before Freeman could reach it. With his Vickers guns thundering in his ears, Freeman closed in. Even in the weak sunlight he could see the incendiary tracers arcing away from his aircraft and slashing into the fabric of the balloon. Before he got too close he pushed hard on the stick and banked his Spad, sending it around the edge of the balloon just as a bright arc of color danced along its surface. Seconds later the sky around him was filled with the glare and heat of an explosion as the gas inside the balloon ignited. He looked back to see the observers jump out of the now falling basket, taking their chances of surviving the fall rather than burning up with their craft. He roared in exultation as he watched the flaming balloon crash to the ground atop the moving forms of the ground crew, trapping them in the blaze. That’s four more of the bastards that won’t rise again, by God! For the first time since he began his dive, Freeman noted the whine and crack of the machine-gun bullets coming from the troops below. He pulled back on the stick, taking his Spad up and out of reach of the weapons that were trying to claim his body for their masters. When he was safely at altitude, he surveyed his chariot, finding a

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BloodHeroes_i-vi_i-346_3p.indd 15 1/25/12 1:08 PM good number of holes in the fabric of his wings and several splinters gouged out of the leather-wrapped wood surrounding his cockpit area, but nothing that would suggest he needed to return to the airfield. Satisfied, Freeman looked down once more. Now only one German biplane occupied the sky, and even he wouldn’t be up for long. A thick stream of black smoke was pouring out of the engine and Samuels was hanging doggedly on the Pfalz’s tail, firing as he chased it around the sky. As Freeman watched, the enemy aircraft suddenly collapsed on itself, falling away in pieces to the ground in a graceless ballet of destruction. The flight regrouped, smiles on the faces of the younger pilots. Even the veteran, Freeman, couldn’t help but feel that this was going to be a good day. Both the balloon and the two Pfalzs had been downed in full view of the other pilots in the squadron, so there should be no quibbling with headquarters about credit for the kills. That made for an auspicious beginning. They spent the next forty-five minutes edging their way farther into opposition territory without sign of another aircraft. The cloud cover had retreated a few thousand feet but was still pretty thick so the squadron took advantage of it, hiding their aircraft up among its lowest reaches. It was from this lofty position that they first spotted the damaged aircraft making its unsteady way across the sky below them. It was a lone Fokker Dr.1 triplane, painted a bright red, the black Iron Crosses easy to see. A thin stream of black smoke was pouring out of the engine and the pilot seemed to be engrossed in maintaining control of his aircraft as he fought to keep it moving along a straight path. Freeman knew that only one man in the entire German air force flew a red Fokker triplane; it could be none other than Baron Manfred von Richthofen himself. Flush from their earlier victories and excited at the chance to down the legendary ace, the less-experienced pilots reacted without thinking things over. As if of one mind, they banked over and swept downward at the opposition aircraft.

16 ✪ Joseph Nassise

BloodHeroes_i-vi_i-346_3p.indd 16 1/25/12 1:08 PM Freeman stared after them in shock. What did they think they were doing?! Holding the stick steady with his knees, he snatched up the radio mike with his left hand and cranked hard on the handle with his right, but he saw right away that it would be no use. The radios were not designed for emergency use. It took time to build up a sufficient charge and the squadron would come in contact with the enemy aircraft before he’d be able to get a message out. He had no choice but to follow them down. Freeman watched as the Allied aircraft closed in on the Fok- ker, their Vickers guns winking in the sunlight. They opened up as soon as they came within range. The opposition pilot continued to ignore them, a large mistake, and it wasn’t long before Free- man’s squadron mates blasted the plane right out of the sky. It was at that point that the other side launched its carefully planned surprise. From the west, out of the sunlight, came seven Albatros D.III fighters, their guns primed and firing before the others knew they were even there. Samuels was taken down in that first pass. One moment his Spad was there and the next it was not, replaced by a cloud of inky black smoke and small pieces of fluttering debris. James followed suit only moments later, though he did manage to take one of the enemy with him. From there it became a tenacious duel in the sky, the opposition forces swarming around the two remaining Allied planes in a cho- reographed dance of death and destruction. Freeman and Walton managed to give a good accounting of themselves, taking three more of the enemy aircraft out of the fight in a dazzling display of marksmanship. Freeman had just begun to think that they might survive this encounter when both of his Vickers guns jammed. One minute they were roaring steadily, the next, nothing. Suddenly furious and more than a little bit frightened, Freeman clawed at the charging handles, trying to clear the mechanisms. Once.

By the Blood of H eroes ✪ 17

BloodHeroes_i-vi_i-346_3p.indd 17 1/25/12 1:08 PM Tw ice. Three times. Nothing. Knowing he would be no good in the middle of a dogfight without operational guns, Freeman broke away from the fight, climbing in an attempt to find time to fix the problem. The opposition let him go, choosing to gang up on Walton instead. From his higher altitude Freeman watched the enemy aircraft make short work of his lone surviving subordinate. Walton’s Spad suddenly dipped and headed for the ground in an uncontrolled spin, a clear sign that a well-placed bullet had ended the life of its pilot. Freeman could watch no more. When he turned his gaze away from the destruction below, Freeman recoiled in surprise to find a previously unnoticed aircraft sitting directly off his right wing tip! It was one of the new Fokker D.VIIIs, the “Flying Razor Blades” as the British pilots were wont to call them. The single- wing aircraft was the current pride of the opposition’s air corps and one of the most deadly aircraft in the skies. It could outma- neuver, outshoot, and outfly anything the Allied powers could put in the air. This aircraft was painted a bright red, like the triplane that had baited the trap, but the Iron Crosses on its wings and fu- selage had been replaced with the double-headed eagle and skulls of the Richthofen family seal, the insignia looking stark and menacing against the brightly colored background. The D.VIII was so close that Freeman could see the other pilot clearly, right down to the missing flesh across the lower half of the right side of his face. Instantly, Freeman recognized the true nature of the trap to which his squadron had just fallen victim. The triplane his fellow pilots had exuberantly chased had been a decoy, designed to pull the younger pilots into the fray just as it had so brilliantly done. The flight of Albatroses that had dropped out of the clouds to the rear of the Allied planes had been there to whittle down the Allied fliers, leaving Freeman isolated and alone.

18 ✪ Joseph Nassise

BloodHeroes_i-vi_i-346_3p.indd 18 1/25/12 1:08 PM Ripe for picking by the commander of the enemy flight. Freeman did not wait around to see how the trap turned out. He stood his aircraft on its beam and whipped around in a turn that came close to pulling the wings off. Too good a pilot to be taken in so easily, the other chased Free- man into the tight turn so that the two aircraft were spinning around each other in a vertical helix. Looking directly “up” from his cockpit, Freeman could see straight into the former German’s cockpit, where the other man was looking “down” at him in return. They flew that way for several moments, getting closer to the ground with each revolution as they arced around each other in opposite directions, Freeman sitting hunched against the chill wind while Richthofen ignored both the cold and the centrifugal forces created by their movement. A sudden change in the sound of his engine let Freeman know he suddenly had a bigger problem than the presence of the opposition’s most deadly ace. It was barely discernible at first, just the slightest change in tone and pitch, but he was too experienced a flier to not know that it represented a major problem. His eyes swept over the gauges where he immediately noted the change in fuel pressure. One of the attacks by the Albatroses must have damaged his fuel line, something he hadn’t noticed before now. He was about to pay the price for his negligence. There was no way he could continue this ballet of motion in an aircraft with jammed guns and a faltering engine and he knew it. He waited another moment, watching, until his opponent looked away for a split second to check on his own aircraft’s controls, then broke out of the spin, headed east in a straight line, praying that the German pilot would take the bait. Like a cat with a mouse, the enemy pilot had been waiting for just such a move, and he pounced just as Freeman had hoped he would. As the enemy’s Spandau machine guns began hammer- ing Freeman’s aircraft to pieces, the American launched his own surprise. With a sudden turn, Freeman arced his Spad over into what

By the Blood of H eroes ✪ 19

BloodHeroes_i-vi_i-346_3p.indd 19 1/25/12 1:08 PM first appeared to be an Immelman turn. As the other pilot altered course to intercept his arc, Freeman abruptly turned, steering directly into the German’s path. The enemy reacted quickly, shoving his stick over in an attempt to get out of the way, but his reflexes were not quick enough. The edge of the Spad’s upper wing struck the Fokker’s solitary one. Cloth, leather, and wood flew in all directions as the two aircraft collided and then tumbled away from each other. Freeman fought the stick as it jumped in his hands, trying to get his aircraft under control, but with most of the Spad’s upper wing now shredded, his options were limited. He managed to get the plane into a flat spin, using the entirety of the aircraft’s surface in an attempt to slow his plunging descent, but it wasn’t enough to prevent the crash altogether. He could see a dark space off to his left and he did what he could to angle the aircraft in that direction, hauling on the stick and hoping that the shadow was a farmer’s pond or a copse of trees, or hell, even a wide hedgerow, anything that might give him a bit of a cushion. As the ground rose up to greet him, he prayed the resulting fire would be hot enough to prevent him from rising again. There was a thunderous crash, a moment of agony, and then nothing.

20 ✪ Joseph Nassise

BloodHeroes_i-vi_i-346_3p.indd 20 1/25/12 1:08 PM

Pip Ballantine & Tee Morris

THE JANUS AFFAIR A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel

June 2012

Book two in this Edwardian steampunk adventure series, featuring two secret agents from the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences.

Evildoers beware! Retribution is at hand, thanks to Britain's best-kept secret agents!!

Certainly no strangers to peculiar occurrences, agents Wellington Books and Eliza Braun are nonetheless stunned to observe a fellow passenger aboard Britain's latest hypersteam train suddenly vanish in a dazzling bolt of lightning. They soon discover this is not the only such disappearance . . . with each case going inexplicably unexamined by the Crown.

The fate of England is once again in the hands of an ingenious archivist paired with a beautiful, fearless lady of adventure. And though their foe be fiendishly clever, so then is Mr. Books . . . and Miss Braun still has a number of useful and unusual devices hidden beneath her petticoats.

Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris have been collaborating since 2006 in podcast productions including Chasing the Bard, Weather Child, Billibub Baddings and The Case of the Singing Sword, and Morevi. Their collaborations have won them a variety of acclaim, including a Sir Julius Vogel award and a Parsec award. Their first writing collaboration was Phoenix Rising: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel. The book went on to win the 2011 Airship Award for Best Steampunk Literature of the Year. Together, they enjoy life in Virginia alongside their daughter and five extremely playful cats.

prelude

Wherein the Perils of Train Travel Are Made Plain

t was the smell—the smell of metal baking under a Isummer sun—that alerted Lena to the terrible fact that her getaway had been a failure. The sharp, hot odour burned her nostrils, reawakening the blind panic she had pushed back earlier in the evening. Now it wrapped invisible, chilling tendrils around her throat again. Unconsciously, she touched her face with one gloved hand, wincing as her skin flared under even this lightest of contact. Still, if a light sunburn was the worst she’d got away with, then she would not complain—not with what she had witnessed. Lena had nearly been lulled to sleep with the repetitive rattling of the train, being wedged between its window and a rather rotund woman with a hatbox perched on her lap. Even after what she had seen back in Edinburgh, she dared to take some reassurance once the hypersteam had reached full speed. Her next stop would be London. She would rush home to Adelaide, hold her close, and then together they would pack up Lily and head out from the city. Having a

TheJanusAffair_i_x_1_422.indd 1 3/6/12 3:18 PM 2 pip ballantine & tee morris plan, even as threadbare as hers, added to her sense of security, like that of a babe in a mother’s arms. That was before the scent tickled Lena’s nose, sending her blood into a heady rush. Every primitive sense screamed at her, Run. Run now! Ignoring propriety and decorum, she shoved her way past the damnable woman—not even bothering to excuse her lack of manners as the lady’s ridiculous hatbox tumbled to the floor. Outraged complaints of her fellow passengers packed tight in this third-class car were reduced to distant clatter as she took long strides down its length. Manners and decorum held no consequence to her now. Had they known what she knew—witnessed for themselves what had happened to Maude Wilkinson—they would have understood. Undoubtedly, they would have joined her in a terrified flight. She rested one hand on her stomach while her other clutched at her skirts, lifting them slightly. Her stride grew longer, then faster. Against the momentum of the train she felt that sinking illusion that she was only running in place. Beneath her corset, her heart raced as fast as the random thoughts flashing in her mind. Why didn’t she wear trousers this morning? They would have been so much more efficient when running for one’s life. What of Adelaide, waiting at home? What would her love think if she didn’t come back? Would she believe Lena had abandoned her and their sweet Lily? What if—heaven forbid—the abomination caught her? The desire to live, to escape, choked her throat, so huge that it seemed impossible. Yet Lena had seen so many impossible things today. So many. Too many. She stumbled to the third-class door, and the rush of winter’s chill cleared her mind as well as stirred the passengers unfortunate enough to be in the seats closest to the junction between cars. The bitter cold lingered against her exposed skin when she slipped into second-class. Another two carriages remained ahead, and then came the private compartments of first-class. One more car, after this one.

TheJanusAffair_i_x_1_422.indd 2 3/6/12 3:18 PM the janus affair 3 She concentrated on that as she strode forward. She dared not look back. If she did, she knew the abomination would be there, on her heels. The last thing she would see. The other end of her present car grew closer but on catching a whiff of hot brass in her nostrils, her mind flashed again and again on what horror she had witnessed in Scotland. Much as in third, the second-class passengers closest to the door grumbled and barked at Lena as she continued into the junction. Now in the tiny gangway between cars, the wind biting at her skin, an idea came to mind. To her educated mind. Madness. Nothing, other than madness. “Madness,” she heard herself whisper even as she slipped out of her overskirt and tossed it into the darkness, even as her fingers released the catch on the iron gate, even when her hand gripped the metal rung of the ladder. There was no reason to say it again as her heels locked into the rungs under her, nor when she began to pull herself upwards. Then Lena cleared the top rung and any civilised thought she might have entertained disappeared as the wind struck her hard and relentlessly. At their present speed of seventy miles per hour across Her Majesty’s countryside, the January chill ripped though her clothes, through her chemise; and against her skin Lena felt invisible needles tear into her. She needed to disappear, if only for a moment. Yes, this was madness, but also her only chance. Lena was thankful, still. At least it wasn’t snowing. The phenomenal speed of the hypersteam train was tear- ing at her eyes, yet she dare not spare a hand to wipe them clean. Her gloves, satin creations that were far too respect- able for her current exploits, grasped the roof’s edge, her fingers searching for any purchase. Lena suddenly felt warmth, only to feel the cold for fleeting moments, then warmth once again. Is this what that peculiar extension running along the rooftops of passenger cars was all about? She tried to imagine the train car before her. What else would be up here for her to grab on to? A small chimney? Yes. Somewhere along

TheJanusAffair_i_x_1_422.indd 3 3/6/12 3:18 PM 4 pip ballantine & tee morris her progress, somewhere in the near-darkness, she would see it. Would she catch its scent first? A scream drowned out the locomotive’s rhythmic chuff- chuff-chuff and caused her grip to tighten. Something was happening to the air around her, and in moments each breath caused her to gag and retch. A stale, earthy taste continued to fill her mouth. What was happening? My God, we are in a tunnel! Her jacket could not filter out all of the foul soot from the engine’s main stack; but using its sleeve as a mask, she could at least take small, shallow breaths. Those breaths, though, threatened to choke her. How long was this tunnel? Could she manage to make it to its end? What of the abomination? Was it also following her, or had she evaded it with this daring, if not foolhardy, escape? Hardly a victory if she were to suffocate due to the soot and ash— Another terrifying scream and then the deafening howl returned to her ears. She drew in the hard, cold air, and found a peculiar solace in its chill, its taste, and its freshness. Lena also took comfort in not catching any trace of the sharp, deadly odour that had driven her to this precipice. Maybe she had outwitted her assailant, unlike poor, slow Maude. The world opened up around her, and Lena felt her heart leap into her throat. A hunter’s moon now emerged from behind a curtain of dark clouds, its ivory light reflecting in the water far below. One slip and she would either meet a quick death on the bridge or fall into the abyss of the gorge they now crossed. In this brief second, the train hurtling relentlessly on, humming underneath her like a beast, Lena considered jumping into the night, into the great expanse around her, but that educated mind—the same one that told her to escape via the carriage’s rooftop—conjured images of Adelaide and Lily. No, she insisted. I have to live. For them. Then Lena saw in the moonlight a tiny smoke pipe, de- marcating the end of the car. With her right hand daring

TheJanusAffair_i_x_1_422.indd 4 3/6/12 3:18 PM the janus affair 5 to crack the edge of the vent she held, her left reached out. Through the ruined gloves, she brushed the ladder’s top rung. She looked up, and the gracious lunar companion that had restored her hope was now disappearing into darkness again. Lena fixed her eyes on the ladder. So close. She threw both hands towards it, and watched the fixed iron disappear into the night as the cloud bank high above her devoured the moon. Her world tilted, slow and languid, and then a still- ness wrapped around her like a blanket. Lena pressed her temple and cheek against the ladder; and with a grunt, she pulled herself off the second-class car’s roof. The stinging in her skin, the cold, and the exhaustion all abated. The train rocked Lena back and forth as she descended, as if trying to shake her free of it, but still she managed to drop safely onto the gangway. Lena looked through the finely decorated glass of the car. No sign of the abomination. Now what? Back the way she came? Forward, gambling that it had continued that way to the engine? She kicked open the door of the car behind her, her eyes raking over its passengers who had no clue that mere moments ago she was above them, lost in a Bedlam outside their comfortable, cosy, shared compartment. Lena knew she must have looked terrifying: soot-stained, wearing finery torn by the elements and rooftop décor. Amidst the looks of revulsion, she saw a face looking at her with something different—recognition. “Lena?” the woman mouthed silently. It was the colonial. The sister that she’d been introduced to more than a year ago. She’d taken tea with her only the day before—even though it felt an age past. Lena smiled, relief flooding through her whole body. Finally, Fate had dealt her a decent hand in the form of an unexpected ally. She would tell this sister from the South about Maude and then everything would be all right. Lena took a step, her mouth opening to call out her name, and then the warmth wrapped around her. She only had time

TheJanusAffair_i_x_1_422.indd 5 3/6/12 3:18 PM 6 pip ballantine & tee morris to gasp out, “Eliza, help me!” before lightning flashed, her eyes awash with a blinding brilliance while her skin tingled, her breath catching in her throat. And then they had her.

TheJanusAffair_i_x_1_422.indd 6 3/6/12 3:18 PM Chapter one

In Which Miss Braun Protests Her Innocence and No One Is Fooled

ellington had excelled in debate and the oratory arts Wduring his time at university. His previous experiences in discussing imperative issues and pressing matters of Queen, Country, and Empire had never involved an opponent quite like the one standing over him. The fact that they were holding this debate on the very public platform of the York train station where they had been forced to make an emergency stop seemed to make little difference to his opponent, employing an unknown but hardly unsurprising strategy in keeping the upper hand with him: passionate contradiction. “No.” He tried to murmur as covertly as possible. “Yes.” Her retort was nowhere near as subtle. “No.” “Yes.” “No.” “Yes.” “Miss Braun—” “Oh, come on, Welly—” On hearing that nickname—the nickname that worked

TheJanusAffair_i_x_1_422.indd 7 3/6/12 3:18 PM 8 pip ballantine & tee morris like Paris’ arrow to Achilles’ vulnerable heel—he dared to look up. Those sapphire eyes of hers could easily bend his will as would reeds in a strong winter wind. This time, however, he had steeled himself. “Miss Braun, I can say it for you in the Telegu dialect of India—Kaddu. I can say it for you in Nepalese—Ahaa. The Nandi dialect of Kenya? Achicha. A Mandarin variation? Bu dai. Or would you prefer your homeland’s Maori dialect? Kao. Pick a language that you tend to grasp better than the Queen’s English because I think I am clear as crystal when I say No!” “But Welly—” “Yes, I know, we were right there.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, screwing his eyes shut . . . and he instantly re- gretted the now habitual gesture. The fresh sunburn on his face brought an extra sting. Exactly what had happened on the train, and how it had caused such damage to both himself and his colleague, was a matter he planned to investigate, once he had calmed Eliza down. He stood, and suddenly the need to pace overcame him. Perhaps he also needed to calm his own nerves. No matter how hard he squeezed his eyes shut, that woman bursting into the carriage car still remained etched in his memory. The scarlet in the stranger’s skin revealed to him she had been exposed to the elements, either for a prolonged period or in a brief intense burst at high speeds. He had caught the recognition in her eyes along with Eliza’s reaction just before all went dark in their car, followed seconds later by the crackle of electricity. Thin bolts of blue, white, and violet danced around her figure, caressing her body’s curves and crevices. Then came the flash, followed by the wild panic of passengers. When the car’s lights flickered back to life, the stranger was gone. A stranger to him, perhaps, but not to his Ministry com- patriot. Those closest to the lost woman were left not only horrified, but also slightly burned. Most assuredly, this affair

TheJanusAffair_i_x_1_422.indd 8 3/6/12 3:18 PM the janus affair 9 would fall under the Ministry’s jurisdiction. Or, more to the point, it would fall under a London field agent’s jurisdiction. And here was Eliza’s point of contention, as it always had been since her demotion. She was, officially, no longer a London field agent. Wellington stepped aside as a man working the levers of his Portoporter steamed towards the door. “Eliza, now you know it was sleight of hand and quick thinking that managed to keep our hides as well as our jobs with Doctor Sound last time.” “You forgot cleverness. The tale we spun was quite clever,” Eliza stated proudly, pushing her dark russet hair back into a braid that had come loose. “Be that as it may, we were—and no doubt, still are— held under scrutiny, with that whole Phoenix Society brou- haha. It is imperative we remain on our best behaviour, a feat that you did not exactly manage effortlessly with your shenanigans in Edinburgh.” Eliza huffed. “Tosh, Wellington. Had I shown up for the meeting, I think that would have caught Doctor Sound’s attention.” She snickered. “Now if I had shown up early, that would most assuredly make him wonder what the game was.” “And there we are, missing the point. Once. Again.” Wel- lington clicked his tongue as a thought—a new strategy— came to mind. “Consider then how compromised this occurrence would be if the Director deemed it proper for you to investigate.” Eliza’s brow furrowed. “Come again, Books?” “Much like our previous little adventure outside of the Archives, you are the last person who should investigate this case due to your attachments to it!” He returned to the bench and considered her for a moment. “She knew you!” “She knew me a little. There is a difference.” She rubbed tentatively at her own rosy skin. “I think we will need to get some of that wonderful Ministry cream they issue in the

TheJanusAffair_i_x_1_422.indd 9 3/6/12 3:18 PM 10 pip ballantine & tee morris tropics. I fear I may tan.” She winked at him, when any real lady would have been horrified at the prospect. “Don’t change the subject,” he warned, his eyebrow crooking slightly. “That woman who disappeared in a ball of lightning right in front of our eyes knew your name—and I want to know how.” She finally took a seat by Wellington on the bench, her hands smoothing long azure blue skirts. He secretly wished she would wear dresses more often. The look did suit her quite well. “All right, I confess, I had met the girl previously. We had a few pints at the pub with the Edinburgh Suffrage Chapter, talked a bit about the forward progress of women in our society, and she was making overtures towards me—” “Well, there’s a shock,” Wellington snipped. “Not like that! She was making overtures to me about speaking at her Women’s Society back in London. Her name was Lena Munroe.” “Eliza, must I remind you, you are no longer a field agent. You are my partner and protégé within the Archives. Our responsibilities and priorities remain there.” As if on cue, movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. He recognised the form instantly. “Welly?” Eliza leaned forward. “Welly, you’ve gone ashen. What is it? Do you have the vapours?” With the scent of oil, metal, and steam filling his nostrils, Wellington took in a deep breath and brought himself back to his feet. Eliza was still talking to him, but he really didn’t take in the words. They made no difference now. Eventually, her head turned to see whom had grabbed his attention. “Agent Books.” Doctor Sound beamed. “And our beloved Agent Braun! Archivist and junior archivist.” Eliza quickly rose, and Wellington noted her smile seemed eerily relaxed and charming—even though she loathed the use of her new official title. “Sir, what brings you—” “Oh do not think me a simpleton. An incident occurs on

TheJanusAffair_i_x_1_422.indd 10 3/6/12 3:18 PM the janus affair 11 the White Star’s prototype hypertrain, the same hypertrain that you and your mentor here happen to be riding on, and you believe that it wouldn’t warrant my attention?” “Well, it is late, Doctor Sound,” Eliza said. “We didn’t anticipate you being awake.” “Oh, normally at this hour, I am enjoying a deep sleep after a delightful hot toddy. Strangely enough, I have been having a right bother of a time falling asleep ever since you left London.” Sound turned his attention to Wellington as his expression darkened. “Happens with every trip the two of you undertake, I’ve noticed.” Wellington watched Eliza loose a wink, as her back was now to Sound. Doctor Sound checked his pocket watch, nodded, and then said, “Well, I hope you can regale me with the astounding events that occurred on your train ride home.” “But of course,” Wellington began, about to return to the bench, “After we—” The Director cut him off. “Perhaps we could walk as you give me your unofficial report.” “If you don’t mind, sir,” Eliza added, “It’s lovely to be stationary after the long—” “I insist.” Doctor Sound’s brows furrowed. Wellington and Eliza shared a look; and then with the tiniest of shrugs, the two followed the Doctor down their platform. He shot them an appraising look. “If I didn’t know better I would think both of you had gone to the Indies, not Scot- land.” Wellington managed not to raise his hand to his face. “Sir, it appears whatever happened had some unusual side effects.” “I hope we don’t keel over before luncheon,” Eliza replied brightly. “My friend Marie in Paris is working on some—” “I also hear,” the Ministry Director cut her off curtly, “that you were engaging in some social time with suffrag- ists while you were in Scotland?”

TheJanusAffair_i_x_1_422.indd 11 3/6/12 3:18 PM 12 pip ballantine & tee morris “Yes, sir, but strictly on my time. Not the Ministry’s,” she reassured him. Wellington added, “I saw to that, Doctor.” “I’m sure you did. And this is where you met—” Eliza cleared her throat. “Lena Munroe, sir. A suffragist from London. There was a ladies’ group from the City giving support to an Edinburgh chapter. Strength in numbers and all that. I only met the girl a couple of times, but she was quite outspoken.” “Perhaps one reason you two got along so well, Miss Braun,” Wellington muttered from beside her. Her elbow never failed in finding a pressure point that could steal his breath. Blinking back tears, Wellington remained quiet as a church mouse while Eliza continued. “We met for breakfast along with many of the other ladies from both the London and Edinburgh groups.” “And was this breakfast why you missed the meeting at Deputy Director Wynham’s office?” He saw the muscle twitch in Eliza’s jaw. She dare not tell him what she’d been actually up to, and that the previous day had in fact been when she met with Lena. This, Wel- lington surmised, was his cue; and unsettling as he found it, it was proving easier and easier to lie for Eliza. “Yes, sir. I was already there—” “So he told me in a wireless.” “Ah,” Wellington gestured to Eliza and said, “then he told you that Agent Braun really didn’t need to be there. It was really only a courtesy, since we already had what we needed from their archives.” “The wireless was hardly that detailed.” Doctor Sound then turned back to Eliza, stopping hardly by chance at their train car. “So, Agent Braun, you and Agent Books here collect your case files from the Scottish branch, you board the train, and then—” “And then we settled in for the ride home. I had no idea Miss Munroe was also sharing the hypersteam with us.” Eliza motioned to where she had seen the suffragist appear.

TheJanusAffair_i_x_1_422.indd 12 3/6/12 3:18 PM the janus affair 13 “She burst into our car, saw me, and looked as if she would break down and cry.” “More out of relief than out of despair, Doctor Sound,” Wellington offered. “I do not mean to sound cheeky saying that, but it was true. This woman recognised Agent Braun here, and looked awash with relief.” Doctor Sound furrowed his brow. “Relief?” “Yes, sir. It appeared as if she wanted to tell us something”—Wellington took a deep breath and then motioned along the car—“but then—” “But then, all hell broke loose,” Eliza chimed in. “Really now?” His eyebrows were up again. “And the Gates of Beelzebub just happened to open in the car that two agents of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences occupied?” Doctor Sound pursed his lips. “Fancy. That.” Wellington gave a light shudder. Eliza lifted her chin slightly. After spending months with her, Wellington had observed this usually happened a moment before she did something dangerous. “Sir, I know how this may look—but I can assure you this is completely coincidental.” “Agent Braun, you are, indeed, a force of nature. You do not command the arctic winds to plunge Old Blighty into a harsh winter nor do you call upon the sands of the Sahara to blind the ancient home of the pharaohs. Nay, you attract mayhem, chaos, and anarchy wherever your delicate feet tread. Around you there is no such thing as coincidence.” “Why do you think it is always me, Director?” Eliza protested. “It could be Books. My father always told me to beware the quiet ones!” “Yes,” Wellington grumbled. “In my spare time outside of the Archives, I tend to get into the occasional pub brawl or even the odd boxing match, to work out the tensions.” Eliza blinked. “You? Boxing?” He turned to look at her. “The tension just so happened to arise last summer when I was assigned a charge in my Archives. Do you think that is coincidence?”

TheJanusAffair_i_x_1_422.indd 13 3/6/12 3:18 PM 14 pip ballantine & tee morris “A tiny one.” “That will do, the both of you,” Doctor Sound said, his voice remaining calm, though effectively cutting through the clamour of the train platform. The Scarborough Dasher chugged past them into the station, bathing the area for a few moments in steam. The Director seemed to revel in the atmosphere. He drew in a great breath before continuing. “Whether you meant to or not, you attracted a great deal of attention to yourselves in this fateful moment. From what I have managed to gather from eyewitnesses is that the woman was quite a sight, her eyes fixed upon you, and that was when the screaming started. The screaming, and the lumières fantastique.” “Doctor Sound,” Eliza began, and Wellington’s stomach felt as if it were gripped by a metal fist. “As Agent Books and I were present during this obvious peculiar occurrence, perhaps you could allow us to be lead investigators on this case?” Directly, and to the point. How utterly colonial of her. Doctor Sound tucked his hands into his pockets. “I believe even a junior archivist would agree that, as the peculiar occurrence directly involved you, your judgement and impartiality have both been compromised.” Wellington leaned towards her ear and muttered, “I told you so.” She heard him, but chose not to listen. “Hardly, Direc- tor. As I mentioned, I hardly knew the girl; but for the brief moment that I saw her, she asked me for my help. Asked me. I believe that it is my duty when one of the Queen’s subjects asks of me—” “Stop—right—there.” Doctor Sound raised a finger as Eliza went to protest. “No, Agent Braun, I will not hear another utterance from you on this matter. Once you have offered your account of events, you and Agent Books will return to the Archives, where you will resume your duties unless the primary investigator calls upon you again.” Eliza crossed her arms. “Who would that be?” Doctor Sound motioned behind him, and Wellington felt

TheJanusAffair_i_x_1_422.indd 14 3/6/12 3:18 PM the janus affair 15 a tightness form in his throat as he made out the man strid- ing towards them through the parting steam. “You cannot be serious, sir,” Eliza grumbled. “G’day, Eliza,” Bruce said, flashing her what he apparently believed to be his best smile. “I have a few questions for you.” His eyes flicked over in Wellington’s direction. “Books. Be with you in a moment.” This was going to be the longest interview of Welling- ton’s career at the Ministry. Eliza, once again, displayed her monumental lack of tact. “You cannot expect Campbell here to have the wherewithal to handle this case?” “Oh, I know that Agent Campbell is more known for action in the field rather than investigation; but when I received word on this matter, I was pleased to see him step forward and agree to take on the assignment. Considering his current caseload, I am glad to see such initiative.” The Director turned and actually beamed at the Australian. “How fortunate for the Ministry.” She scowled. The crash made Wellington, Eliza, and Campbell jump. The three turned to see a cart of large, heavy cargo—at first glance, the corner of an armored safe was visible—now covering the bench that Wellington and Eliza had earlier occupied. Two workers were yelling at each other over the scattered remains of the Portoporter. The bench meanwhile had been reduced to a pile of splintered wood and bent iron. “Good Lord,” Wellington finally uttered, “Had we still been there—” “Yes.” Doctor Sound agreed, glancing back at the site of the accident, and then looking back to Wellington. “Most fortunate we stretched our legs, eh Books?” He paused in his reply, tilted his head to one side, and then slowly nodded. “Most.” Why was Doctor Sound smiling at him? “With the strange happenings on your train and the superstitious nature of the working class,” Sound said, motioning to the scattered luggage and twisted bench, “this platform is

TheJanusAffair_i_x_1_422.indd 15 3/6/12 3:18 PM 16 pip ballantine & tee morris only going to fall deeper into disarray. Therefore, Campbell will need to collect statements straightaway—starting with yours.” He considered the two of them for a moment. “Can you do that?” “Yes, sir.” They replied—though Eliza’s was consider- ably less enthusiastic than it should have been. Wellington’s eyes followed Doctor Sound to the incident. It appeared as if the Director was studying the random accident up close, for some strange reason. His attention was immediately yanked back to the broad-shouldered Ministry agent flipping open a small pad and touching the tip of his pencil with his tongue. “Right then,” Campbell began, his tone so civil it was offensive. “May I have your name for the record, Miss . . . ?” “Eliza Braun,” Eliza sneered. “Here, I’ll spell it for you— B-U-G-G-E-R-O-F-F.” Bruce nodded. “That is a beautiful name, miss.” He looked up from his notepad. “Very exotic.” “Eliza, please,” Wellington said, “Agent Campbell here has others to interview before the night’s over. Just cooper- ate.” “Oi, mate,” Bruce snapped, stepping closer to Welling- ton, “I think I can handle her myself. I don’t need some limey offering assistance.” Just as charming as Wellington remembered him. Bruce suddenly spat on the pavement—dangerously close to Wellington’s shoes—before giving him one more warning glare, and turning back to Eliza. She herself appeared ready to explode, perhaps in a grander fashion than her favourite incendiary. Campbell cleared his throat, and resumed his interview. “Now then, Miss Braun—that is right, Eliza Braun, yes? Why don’t you tell me what happened, in your own words.” Wellington checked his watch and looked around them, noting the tired passengers and skittish hypertrain personnel. A long night’s journey home had suddenly become much, much longer, and his bed seemed a very long way off.

TheJanusAffair_i_x_1_422.indd 16 3/6/12 3:18 PM Vicki Pettersson

THE TAKEN

June 2012

New York Times bestselling author Vicki Pettersson begins a breakout new series — a sexy, supernatural noir mystery featuring a fallen angel and a reporter.

“Pettersson hits every note in the familiar duet of a ‘reticent, complicated, darkly sexy man’ and a luscious, plucky ‘girl reporter’.... The resulting irresistibly good yarn proves that there’s still plenty of room for brilliant innovation in urban fantasy.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A sure bet for urban-fantasy readers of all types, but especially fans of Carrie Vaughn, Jim Butcher, and P. N. Elrod.” — Booklist

“Intriguing mix of paranormal, romance and mystery with just enough suspense!” Suspense magazine

“Pettersson’s amazing new series is off to a rocking start with this compelling read.” — RT Book Reviews (top pick)

“Exceptional. Mystery, crime scene drama, and more than enough romance to keep the heart pumping blend seamlessly into an enthralling read that kept me glued to the pages. I can’t wait for the sequel.” — Kim Harrison

“A delectably dark paranormal thriller. I’ve always been a fan of Pettersson’s work, but she knocks it out of the park with this one.” — Kelley Armstrong

“A stylish, atmospheric mash-up of rockabilly and angelic affairs quickly reveals itself to be so much more: The Taken proves that Pettersson is not afraid to explore the darkest corners of the human heart – and that her gift for redemption is unsurpassed.” — Sophie Littlefield

Chapter One

ere’s the thing. Every two-bit Tom and Dick on this Hglorified mudflat thought prostitution was legal in Las Vegas, but that’s never been true. Least, not when Grif was alive. Maybe times had changed—plenty on the Surface had— but it was more likely that the johns were too lazy to trek out to Nye County for a sampling from the legal sexual menu. No, there was too much premeditation in that. But score a lay in some trucker-heavy roach-motel, and a man could tell himself he was the victim of impulse. Caught up in the moment. Just a little ol’ fly snared in Sin City’s glinting web. Grif knew different. People created chaos, not places, and they were damned good at it no matter where they lived. And when this glittering gem of a city teamed up with the world’s

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oldest profession, fantasy piled atop fantasy; it could convince anyone that impulse was a virtue, not a vice. Just one roll of the dice, he thought, checking the number on the warped motel door against the entry in his notebook. Just one sip, make sure to tip. Play hard, enjoy the ride, and be certain to take your secrets with you when you leave. Nicole Rockwell’s last john, however, had taken a bit more. “Help me!” she was yelling as Grif came through the door. Impressive, since she was missing her larynx. “There’s been a terrible crime!” Can’t argue that, Grif thought, gaze skimming the hem of her cheap vinyl skirt. “You Nicole Elizabeth Rockwell?” “Wh-what?” She looked from Grif to the fresh corpse on the bed—her own—then back again. “Yes.” “Right.” He shut his notebook, returning it to his suit pocket. “Come with me.” Rockwell took one good look at his quasi-transparent form and promptly collapsed on the bed. “Wh-who are you?” “Griffin Shaw. I’m here to help.” He hesitated, then jerked his head at her remains. “Sorry I couldn’t get here sooner.” Her expression, blasted and constricted all at once, made his jaw twitch, but he shrugged it off. Guardian wasn’t his beat. As a Centurion, he merely assisted the recently, and violently, deceased into the Everlast. Those who’d been clipped early often had trouble getting there on their own. As Grif well knew. He explained all of this to Nicole quickly, flatly, hoping it would keep the hysterics to a minimum. Given half a chance, females were always either jawing or at the waterworks. Dead or alive. “But I can’t just leave,” she protested when he was finished. “I’m going to a bonfire this weekend, the first one of the spring.

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And my best friend is waiting outside. We’re gonna chill downtown at the Beauty Bar tonight. Unwind a bit, ya know?” She glanced down at Grif’s proffered cigarette. A calming tactic. “Oh . . . thanks, honey.” Something stirred Grif as he bent down and lit her smoke. Probably the shake in her voice, though she talked like a lady, too. Not like most of the rabble he’d been picking up this decade. He snapped the Zippo shut. “Look, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, kid. But you’ve been rooked.” “What?” “You know, you got the dust-off. Killed. Murdered. Clipped. It’s a rough deal, but you’ve had some good times, right? Some wild rides?” He gave a little hip thrust to illuminate the point. “I’m not a hooker,” she said evenly. He let his eyes roam around the sex flop. “ ’Course you’re not.” Blowing out a stream of smoke, Nicole returned his flat stare. “So where exactly is this . . . Everlast?” “Now you’re choosy?” Grif muttered, glancing at his watch. He would’ve turned away, but the walls were mirrored and their reflections overlapped, her horrified heat wrapped over his impassive ice. Sighing heavily, he motioned her to the door. Nicole didn’t move. “What if I wanna do it all over?” “What over?” he mumbled, lighting his own stick. “You know. Life. Earth. Humanity. Come back until I get it right.” “Relax, sweetheart. Mattress time don’t count against you.” That got her back on her feet. “I told you! I’m not a hooker! I’m a photographer—” “Where’s your camera?” “Well, it’s not here, but I have this notebook—” She pointed

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at the dresser bearing a crappy twenty-inch television and a Moleskine identical to his. Except for the blood splatter. “Sure,” he said. “A photographer’s best friend.” The fight drained from Rockwell then, and she slumped where she stood, falling so still the only sound in the room was the soft drip, drip of her arterial blood as it fell from the bed to the floor. “But I’m not done here.” “Just take my hand, kid. It’ll be all right.” She looked at him dubiously. Grif frowned. Sure, his suit was rumpled, but it was clean enough, and his pomade had held at his time of death, though it was hidden beneath the brim of his fedora. A little ginger stubble had sprouted—he’d been offed after five—but if his eyes were hard, they were also clear. All in all, not too bad for fifty years dead. Yet Rockwell remained unconvinced. “How do I know you’re not tricking me? You could latch on and suck my soul down to hell, like in that movie.” “You mean Ghost, right?” A couple of the younger Centuri- ons had explained about that. Some sleeper flick that hit it big a couple decades ago. Now he had to explain himself to every corpse that walked his way. “Look, I’m not a demon, and I’m no ghost. I’m a . . . gentleman.” Nicole blinked. “Lots of firsts for you today, eh, Ms. Rockwell?” Eyes narrowed, she crossed her arms. “Piss off, Shaw. I’m not going anywhere with you.” Grif fought not to grind his teeth. He’d get hell from Sarge if she took it in her mind to hang out here and haunt the place. And he’d be damned—figuratively speaking, of course—if he was going to let her sully his perfect Take record. Besides, she’d

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been dead all of five minutes. She didn’t yet know what was good for her. Grinding his cigarette beneath his heel, Grif said, “What are you going to do, honey? Throw down the ménage in this joint for the rest of eternity? Though . . . I guess it does beat sizzling.” “Sizzling?” “One wrong turn outta here, and . . .” He made a sound, trout frying in a pan. It was a rotten trick but it worked. Nicole shuddered in her demi-cups, then stood and slowly glanced around. “So, that’s it, huh? Twenty-six years of—” “Twenty-nine,” Grif corrected. “—of mortal struggle, and this is how it ends.” Grif made another show of looking at his watch, while peering at Nicole from the corner of his eye. She didn’t look like she was going to leak, he decided gratefully. Instead, she looked like she was going to kick something. She did . . . then dropped back to the bed, and put her head in her hands while Grif began hopping around. “Damn it, lady!” He glared, cradling his throbbing shin. “I’ve had enough of this postmortem crap! Get your lifeless, flabby backside off that bed and follow me!” Now she began to cry. The recently murdered were so sensitive. Sighing, Grif lifted his hat and ran a hand over the top of his head. He could practically hear Sarge’s barked reprimand. Patch it up, Shaw. “Sorry,” he muttered, stealing another glance at his watch. “Fuck you, Mr. Sensitivity!” she yelled. “I’m not following your washed-out, B-movie, pseudo-Five-O ass anywhere!”

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“Careful, peach. Look how you get to spend eternity.” Grif showed his teeth, and though there wasn’t any blood in her ethereal body, Nicole blanched. Then her outline began to shimmer. Not much time left. “That’s right. We’re all stuck in the clothing worn when we die. Kinda makes you wish you’d overcome that latex fetish, huh?” “Oh, God.” Nicole looked up at the mirrored ceiling and fussed with her hair, but it sprang back into the deflowered do she’d been sporting at the time of her death. “Oh, God!” “She’s on her lunch break,” Grif muttered, but his heart softened anyway. He couldn’t help it. He was lucky to have been offed in 1960. He’d watched too many Centurions shy away from mirrors in the Everlast in the decades since. “All right, I have an idea.” It was technically against the rules, but the girl was looking at him with those tearful eyes, and he was looking back, really seeing her for once. Helpless females always got to him. And though Rockwell was a lady of the night here on the Surface, there could be someone waiting for her on the other side. They might not recognize her like this . . . or want to. Besides, he’d been blood and bone once, just like her. In the end, and that’s what this was, they were exactly the same. “All right, listen up. There are some clothes in that dresser over there—” “How do you know—?” “I just do,” he interrupted, “and you’ll move fast if you know what’s good for you. You’re starting the Fade. I can send you back into your body long enough to change your clothes and do something with that mop on your head. But you gotta keep quiet. Your E.T.D. is twelve fifty. If someone hears you rummaging around at one, my superiors will know I interfered.”

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Nicole nodded vigorously. “All right. Get back in.” “In?” “Your body. You gotta line up those pulse points over your earthly remains. Then I can fuel them.” It wasn’t technically necessary, but using her remains was a way to ground her both mentally and physically, giving her the impression of purchase on the Surface even though her spirit was already free. It was like tying a boat to a dock, securing it there even as waves crested around it. Rockwell did as told, carefully settling her ethereal energy atop her body so that it looked like a shimmering chalk outline. Grif listened for a faint click in the etheric, her final pulse point snapping into place, before echoing the action, position- ing his translucent body above hers so their chakras aligned. It required submission on her part, and a smothering of her energy with his own. It was a sensation most loose souls found claustrophobic, but Rockwell didn’t even flinch. Probably used to it, Grif thought, letting himself sink. Vacuumed silence overran the room, blunting even Grif’s celestial senses. Shape and form and sensation blurred as their energies melded as one, and they fell together, burrowing back into skin and cells and tissue and blood. By the time they fully occupied Nicole’s body, her life energy was cocooned safely inside of his. The blood in her core was not entirely still. Her sluggish pulse still lapped like low tide at the shore, not yet aware its efforts were futile. Grif was, though, which was why the sudden explosion of color behind the dead woman’s eyelids rocked him. Then the tang of blood and saliva invaded his mouth, followed by the ache of mortal injury—dulled by shock but still keen—

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and Rockwell’s gaping wounds were suddenly his. Stinging fingertips—she had fought—were also his. The clamminess seeping in to claim the once-warm body made him want to gasp and struggle, and the ache that swelled inside him wasn’t from injury but from a long-forgotten, yet familiar, desire. Life. Grif clenched his jaw, and felt foreign teeth grind together in an unfamiliar way. Pushing that discomfort away, he forced his energy down, past cells and tissue and the molecules that made everything on the Surface so tangible. An instant later, he was facedown beneath Rockwell’s deathbed, alone in spirit, lying in a sticky pool of blood. When he slid out from under the bed, Nicole was already sitting up, literally holding her head. “I feel like shit,” she gurgled. “Well, keep your eyes on the floor, honey, ’cuz you look even worse.” She did, though glared at him first. “And keep yours to yourself.” “Not a show I care to see,” he muttered, but crossed to the window to wait. Clumsy rummaging followed, silence, then exhausted groans and more silence. Grif needed a moment to recover anyway. Rubbing his aching chest, he pulled back one grungy curtain panel. He’d left the pain of mortality behind long ago, and the suggestion of skin over his soul smothered and burned, like he’d been dipped in hot wax. How could he have forgotten this? A movement outside the window caught his eye, and he focused on it like an alley cat spying a rat. He tried to zoom in, but Nicole’s humanity blunted his vision. He’d gotten so used to telescopic eyesight—to all the gifts afforded a Centurion—

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that he was unaccustomed to limited senses. Yet there was just enough residue from the Everlast to see clearly into the blackened winter night, and when Grif finally focused, he couldn’t help but wish for full celestial vision again. If Grif was a B-movie version of an old-school P.I., then this woman was a full-fledged screen siren. Even from a distance, he could make out silky sable hair pulled back from sky-high cheekbones. They rode a round, sculpted face with lips tucked at the center of it like full, pink cushions. And that shape, he thought, as she stepped from the car. Curves like he hadn’t seen on a woman in decades. More hairpins than Mulholland Drive, every sweeping stretch draped in red silk, shimmering in places that made his mouth go dry. Maybe it was just his imagination, but the outfit looked like a throwback to his time, when women wore clothes that made them look like walking gifts instead of unwrapped packages. Mirage or not, he thought, rubbing at his eyes, she was the prettiest woman he’d ever seen. Yet even from a distance, even as she angled her head to reveal a neck as smooth and creamy and inviting as the rest of her, there was a sharpness to her, an awareness of her surroundings as she squinted . . . then looked directly at him. Grif jumped. Did she actually see him? “Shit,” he muttered, letting the curtain fall. It was Nicole’s humanity. He was wearing her life-force, sharing it, as much as she was his. “What?” asked Nicole, sounding startled. “Nothing,” he muttered. They needed to move anyway. “You ready yet?” “Not quite,” she said quickly, halting his turn. “You’re not peeking, are you?”

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Grif just made a sizzling sound through his teeth. The rummaging started up again, more frantic. “Can I ask you something?” she managed, though breathing hard. Each exhalation jerked at Grif’s chest, like someone was cross-stitching his heart. He’d have to return to the Everlast for a jolt of energy before his next Take. “Why can’t I remember who . . . My death?” “Because it was violent,” he said shortly. No need to sug arcoat it. She knew, even if she didn’t want to say it. “It’s the Everlast’s way of protecting your soul so you don’t relive it over and again. You’ll go through a process called incubation, which will rehabilitate you to forget your earthly years.” And, he didn’t add, forever conceal the horrors associated with her brutal death. “Then you can move on to Paradise. It’s all meant to keep you focused on moving forward, not looking back.” “Like you?” No. Not like him at all. “You done?” She blew out a breath, causing a particularly hard jerk on his heart, and made a sound of assent. He turned to find her in front of the dresser, leaning against it, looking uncertain. She’d replaced her hooker-wear with jeans and a tee. Both were still too tight in Grif’s opinion, but classic enough to defy most eras. Her hair had been tamed into a style that made her look only half-dead, and at Grif’s half-hearted thumbs-up, she staggered back to the bed, exhausted from the blood loss. “More to the left,” Grif instructed, squinting one eye as she attempted to resume her previous pose. “Perfect.” He climbed aboard once again, inhaled deeply, and withdrew his own energy, the needle in his heart disappearing instantaneously. Solitary silence reigned inside of him again, though it brought with it an unexpected sidekick: loneliness.

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Damn it, he thought, as he stood, wiping at his mouth to hide his shaky breath. He’d have left her as she was if he’d known he’d have to feel that. But as he rubbed his chest, the last of the energy tethering Nicole’s soul to her body fell away, and she rose again from her deathbed. “Better?” he asked, swallowing hard. If she heard the shake in his voice, she didn’t show it. “Much.” Then, though she hesitated, she reached out and put her still-warm hand in his. “Thanks.” “All in a day’s work.” And despite the ache in his heart, and the ghostly memory of all his mortal pain, he shook it off and led her away. Proof that he really was an angel.

Though ostensibly leading the way, Grif allowed Rockwell to go first. As he’d told her, he was a gentleman, and though he was careful to keep her close—last thing he needed was for the kid to get lost in the moon shadows—he gave her enough space to keep her from feeling flanked, like a dead woman walking. Another calming tactic: the use of doorways to pass from the Surface and into the Everlast. Or if a door wasn’t available, a window. Some sort of passageway a human mind could latch onto to ease the transition. Opening the door to find the cosmos splayed before you like a celestial buffet was shock enough, so it was best if the Take didn’t notice it until it was too late. So Grif kept his hand at Rockwell’s back, and waited for her gasp as he used his celestial power to will the door open at her touch. Yet Grif was the one who jolted at the sight of the grungy

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hallway. He jumped again when it began to bend, rippling in the same way pinned sheets moved in the wind. That wasn’t right. In fact, it was all wrong. “Get back,” Grif told Rockwell, as the ripples merged across from them to form a giant, diaphanous bubble. Features began emerging in the bulge of that apex, pressing through wood grain and peeling wallpaper until they became recognizable as an enormous face. Rockwell stared at the emerging face like it was part of a magic show, wonder and delight replacing wariness. After all, it was her first glimpse of sinless sentience. All she saw was a brilliant smile forming in the wood chips. A nod of welcome in the dip of the giant head. A shimmering film of gauzy Everlast to mask the staggering appearance of one of God’s most awesome creatures. Grif saw fangs and a predatory gleam in an incendiary eye. “Get back!” But Rockwell had already forgotten him. Once a newly gleaned soul glimpsed a Pure—in any form—the Centurion who guided them to the Everlast was just a leaf in the forest of their memory. Utterly forgotten. “Do you know who I am?” The voice ground deep and low with the sinew of the splintering walls. “No,” Nicole said dreamily, stepping forward. “Yes,” Grif replied and reached out to grip Rockwell’s arm, but she’d begun the Fade and merely shuddered as his energy invaded hers. Gaze locked on the Pure, she stepped directly into the undulating hall. This wasn’t right. “Stop, Nicole! It’s an angel!” The hallway cocked sharply at that, casting Rockwell to one bowing side. The face grew more prominent, as if pressing

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against a thinning membrane . . . and Grif realized that was exactly what was happening. The Pure wanted something, but wouldn’t, or couldn’t, breach worlds to get it. Its chin sharpened. “Use my proper title,” it said in that slivered voice. Grif swallowed hard. “A Pure.” “I am of the order of the Powers,” it hissed. “The first of the created angels, kin to the Dominations and Virtues, controller of demons, and guardian of the heavenly pathways.” “Whoa,” said Rockwell. But the voice, with breath as hot as a furnace, was directed at Grif. So was the fiery gaze. “Do you know who I am now?” Grif knew only one angel in the order of the Powers. “Anas.” Keeper of the Gates, the chosen Pure who shepherded mortal spirits into Paradise proper. It was said Anas was the first angel that uninjured souls saw after death, though to say she wel- comed them into heaven was giving her too much credit. From what he’d seen, she mostly ignored the human souls, chin high and gaze distant as they passed through the Gates. But Grif wasn’t at the Gates. Anas—and her big, bulging forehead—was on mortal turf, so he reached forward to pull Rockwell back. But the mouth opened, and the Pure inhaled, lifting Nicole Rockwell from her feet. The woman was like a rag doll sucked into a tornado, gone in an instant, jerked into the fanged mouth, and a throat that was black and specked with burning stars. Grif stepped into the hallway to follow after her. “Not you.” And the walls shifted with a whipping exhalation. Blown from his feet, Grif tumbled back into the mirrored motel room, and the door rocketed shut.

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Heart pounding, Grif just lay there for long seconds. When nothing else happened, he wiped at his eyes, which were suddenly gritty and dry. In fact, his whole etheric form felt like it’d been sandblasted by the hot, needled breath. Even still, instinct and stubbornness had him stupidly rising to the fight. Rockwell was his Take. Crossing the room, Grif motioned to the door again, willing it open with his celestial power. The door didn’t budge. The cosmos didn’t appear. “Fine.” And dropping his head and arms, Grif fisted his hands so that his wings flared with a rip of the silky air. Gossamer-black, dripping dew, sprung directly from the Everlast itself, the wings rose and plunged like a waterfall of spears. He whirled, propelling himself forward until the wingtips caught the door and sliced it from existence. Anas awaited. “Disobedient! Child of wrath!” Her face was inches away, contorted with rage. “No need to get personal,” Grif told her evenly, though the membrane between worlds was now stretched so tight she looked like she was being smothered in plastic. Anas hissed, and her fangs elongated, the sound of wood stretching. “Breath . . .” “Oh, that?” Grif got it now. He was in trouble for joining his energies to Rockwell’s, for reanimating her body with his. He shrugged it off. “That wasn’t breathing. I was just trying to help.” “You donned the sinful flesh—” “It wasn’t really a sin. More like a lapse of judgment—” “You have breath!”

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“I gave it back.” “And now flesh!” He drew a blank until he recalled the grit in his eyes when she blew him back. He looked down, panicking. “You gave me . . . skin?” Her snarl grew to a fanged smile. “You cannot enter the gloaming, Child of Sin. You have no place in the Everlast.” “That’s Child of God to you.” Grif’s eyes narrowed. “And I have wings.” “Ah, that’s right.” She grinned so widely that wood grain punctured the plastic. “I’ll take those.” And she plucked his wings from his body—his flesh—then pushed him so hard that decades rushed by, along with burning stars and rioting universes that roiled around him like debris as he fell . . . fell . . . then landed with a jarring thud. Rockwell’s corpse bounced as he landed on his back, on the bed. Unmistakably, on the Surface. It shocked Grif into losing the breath he didn’t even know he possessed. Then the pounding began in earnest, starting at his shoulder blades, where his wings should have been. It spread like lava through his core and into his limbs, nothing like the lapping low tide of the pulse he’d shared with Rockwell. This was a red monsoon. His veins throbbed and surged as they . . . what? What? “Fill with blood.” Grif turned his head and found Nicole Rockwell’s eyes fixed on him, though her pupils were overtaken by surging flame as Anas stared from the dead girl’s body. His heart leaped again, and his veins pulsed and rushed and, yes . . . Filled with blood. And the yearning ache he’d felt while inhabiting Rockwell’s

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body crested in his chest. Rearing against the pain, Grif felt new flesh stretching over bone. A scream lodged against his unused vocal cords, and he fell still, closing his eyes, trying to hold it all back. “Breathe,” Anas instructed through Rockwell’s corpse. Grif gasped and shivered. This was the animation of skin coupled with life force. This wasn’t just the innate desire to live. This was rebirth. This was life. Clamminess lunged to seize the new oxygen in his lungs. It was only the experience of having been alive for thirty-three years once before that kept the confining flesh from being re- volting. Maybe when it warmed, Grif thought, he wouldn’t feel such a need to run from himself. But blood still clotted most of the virgin veins, and his heart had to struggle to move it. Its amplified thump hammered like the lead bass in a marching band. “Breathe.” The word banged like a pot off Grif’s competing thoughts. Worse were the spasms ripping through his chest. Fear, inse- curity, guilt, and sorrow all huddled in newly exposed corners, naked, cowering things, frightened children trying to pull the covers of the Everlast up to their chins. But the protective coating was slipping away. He knew it, and it was why—even without a true heartbeat or thawed blood or a sense of self and place in the universe—he began to shake in his new flesh. “No . . .” “Breathe,” Anas hissed again. “It hurts,” he managed, squinting into her fiery gaze. “Being clothed in sin does, yes.” “I can’t . . .” The shake of his head, side to side, set the pots

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to clanging again. He had no idea how he heard Anas’s voice above them, only knew that she said, “It will hurt more when you die again.” And a knock sounded at the door. He stilled, looking at Anas. “You must flee,” she said, eyes still burning, breath still scalding. Still merciless. “Why—” She cut him off. “There’s a window in the bathroom. Go while you can.” “But I—” “But you’re lying next to a murdered woman. And you, Griffin Shaw, are alive.” He couldn’t comprehend it, but the burning skin, the pulsing blood, the breath in his chest . . . “It’s too much.” It was all too much. Another knock at the door, louder, accompanied by annoyed voices on the other side. Anas was right; the time for privacy was over. “Just enough then,” Anas said impatiently when he still didn’t move. She pursed Rockwell’s blue lips. Everlast washed over him in a cooling balm and he could sit, and then stand. “It won’t last.” And the burning eyes dulled, then snuffed out completely, leaving behind Rockwell’s black, sightless pupils. Yet the small hint of Everlast had cleared his mind and Grif could see what Anas had, and what anyone else would when they entered this room: a man standing over a woman’s blood- splattered body. Whirling, he darted into the bathroom, and wedged open

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the small, single-paned window. He heard the door to the room open just as he clambered through, and reached the rusting ladder right before screams sounded behind him. Half-falling, half-jumping, Grif hit the ground seconds later, and ran from the voices and the building. He ran blindly. He ran until the sliver of Everlast wore off. He ran until he could run no more.

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DEVIL SAID BANG A Sandman Slim Novel

September 2012

What do you do after you’ve escaped Hell, and then gone back, uncovered the true nature of God, and then managed to become the new Lucifer? Well, if you’re James Stark, you have to figure out how to run Hell while also trying to get back out of it (again). Plus there’s the small matter of surviving. Because everyone in Heaven, Hell, and in between wants to be the fastest gun in the universe, and the best way to do so is to take down Lucifer, aka James Stark. And it’s not like even being in LA is better — a serial killer ghost is running wild, his angelic alter-ago hiding among the lost days of time with a secret cabal who can rewrite reality, and starting to care for people and life again is a real bitch for a stone-cold killer.

“My kind of hero.” — Kim Harrison

“Mark your calendars if you’re as much a fan of these incredibly visionary and savage books as I am.” — Charlaine Harris

“I hope Kadrey keeps putting out Sandman Slim books for the next 20 years. They’re that much fun to read.” — Wired

“One of my favorite sets of fantasy books from the last few years.” — John Scalzi

“This bad-ass supernatural horror stuff is clearly the material he was born to write. Kadrey has an ungodly (literally) amount of fun with Stark’s wryer-than-wry and violenter-than-violent observations and dialog.” — Cory Doctorow

To descend into Hell is easy; Night and day, the gates of dark Death stand wide; But to climb back again, to retrace one’s steps to the upper air—There’s the rub, the task.

—Aeneid, Book 6

In this world there’s two kinds of people, my friend: those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig.

— Clint Eastwood, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

DevilSaidBang_i_xii_1_399_2p.indd 7 6/11/12 11:38 AM “Me and the Devil Blues” “Devil’s Stompin’ Ground” “Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell” “Don’t Shake Me, Lucifer” “Hell Is Around the Corner” “Hellnation” “Up Jumped the Devil”

I punch the tunes into the jukebox and make sure it’s turned up loud. I’ve loaded up the juke with a hundred or so devil tunes. The Hellion Council can’t stand it when I come to a meeting with a pocketful of change. Wild Bill, the bartender, hates it too, but he’s a damned soul I recruited for the job, so he gets why I do it. I head back to the table and nod to him. He shakes his head and goes back to cleaning glasses. Les Baxter winds down a spooky “Devil Cult” as I sit down with the rest of Hell’s ruling council. We’ve been here in the Bamboo House of Dolls for a couple of hours. My head hurts from reports, revised timetables, and learned opinions. If I didn’t have the music to annoy everyone with, I would probably have killed them all by now. Buer slides a set of blueprints in my direction. Hellions look sort of like the little demons in that Hi- eronymus Bosch painting The Garden of Earthly Delights. Some look pretty human. Some look like the green devils on old absinthe bottles. Some are like what monsters puke up

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after a long weekend of eating other monsters. Buer looks like a cuttlefish in a Hugo Boss suit and smells like a pet-store Dumpster. “What do you think of the colonnades?” he asks. “The colonnades?” “Yes. I redesigned the colonnades.” “What the fuck are colonnades?” General Semyazah, the supreme commander of Hell’s legions, sighs and points to a line of pillars at the center of the page. “That is a colonnade.” “Ah.” If the hen scratchings on the blueprints are different from the last bunch of hen scratchings Buer showed me, I sure as hell can’t tell. I say the first thing that pops into my head. “Were those statues there before?” Buer waves his little cuttlefish tentacles and moves his finger across the paper. “They’re new. A different icon for each of the Seven Noble Virtues.” He’s not lying. They’re all there. All the personality quirks that give Hellions a massive cultural hard-on. Cun- ning. Ruthlessness. Ferocity. Deception. Silence. Strength. Joy. They’re represented by a collection of demonic marble figures with leathery wings and forked tongues, bent spines and razor dorsal fins, clusters of eyestalks and spider legs. The colonnades look like the most fucked-up miniature golf course in the universe and they’re on what’s supposed to be the new City Hall. “I have an idea. How about instead of the Legion of Doom

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we put up the Rat Pack and the lyrics to ‘Luck Be a Lady’?” “Excuse me?” says Buer. “What I mean is, it looks a little fascist.” “Thank you.” “That wasn’t a compliment.” I push the blueprints away with the sharpened fingers of my left hand, the ugly prosthetic one on my ugly prosthetic arm. Buer doesn’t know how to react. None of them do. There’s Buer the builder, Semyazah the general, Obyzuth the sorceress, and Marchosias the politician. Old Greek kings used to have councils like this, and since a certain friend hinted I should read up on the Greeks, I have a council too. The last member of the Council is Lucifer. That’s me. But I’ll get to that part later. The five of us are the big brains supposedly in charge of Hell. Really, we’re a bunch of second- rate mechanics trying to keep the wheels from coming off a burning gasoline truck skidding toward a school bus full of orphans and kittens. The Council is staring at me. I’ve been down here a hundred days and still, anytime I say anything but yes or no, they look at me like I’m a talking giraffe. Hellions just aren’t used to humans giving them back talk. That’s okay. I can use that. Let them find me a little strange. A little inexplicable. Playing the Devil is easier if no one has any idea what you’re going to do or say next. They’re all still waiting. I let them. We have these meetings every couple of days. We’re rebuilding Hell after it went up in flames like a flash-paper bikini when the original Lucifer, the real Lucifer, blew out of

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town after sticking me with the job. The trouble for the rest of the Council is that I don’t know how fast I want Down- town back in working order. I say to Buer, “I’m fine with Hellion pride. It’s troubled times, the team’s in last place, and they need a pep rally. Cool. But I don’t want Hell’s capital looking like we’re about to goose-step into Poland.” Obyzuth turns the blueprints around. I still don’t know what she looks like. She wears an ivory mask that covers everything but her eyes, and a curtain of gold beads covers them. She says, “Buer’s designs expand and celebrate many of the classic historical motifs of Hellion design. I like them.” Obyzuth is into the spiritual side of the rebuild and doesn’t usually comment on things like this. I’ve upset her. Good. I say, “This Nazi Disneyland stuff, it’s too cheap and easy. It’s like something the Kissi would dream up.” That’s hitting below the belt. Calling a Hellion a Kissi is like calling Chuck Norris Joseph Stalin. Buer looks like he wants to stuff the blueprints down my throat with a road flare. Obyzuth and Semyazah look at me like they caught me eating cookies before dinner. Marchosias raises her eyebrows, which is about an inch from her challenging me to a duel at dawn. The Bad Dad thing usually works. Hellions are big on pecking orders and I have to remind them regularly who’s at the top. Now they need a pat on the head from Good Dad before things go all Hansel and Gretel and I end up in the oven. “You’re a talented guy, Buer. You get to redesign all of

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Pandemonium for the first time in about a billion years. No one’s going to get a chance like that again. Throw out the Albert Speer bullshit and modern up. When God tossed you fallen bastards into Hell the builders were the only ones who saw it as more than a pile of rocks and dust. Do that again.” I can’t believe I’m learning how politics and court intrigue work. I feel a little dirty. I miss punching pe ople. It’s honest work but I don’t get to do it much these days. Marchosias shakes her head. She’s skinny, pale, and bird- like, but her instincts are more like those of a Velociraptor. “I’m not sure. In unstable times pe ople need comfort. They need the familiar.” “No. They don’t. They need to see that whoever’s in charge has balls and vision. They need to see that we’re making a new, bigger, and better Hell than they ever had before.” Obyzuth nods a little to herself. She says, “I cast the stones this morning, and although I like Buer’s work, if things must change, the signs are in an auspicious alignment for it.” “See? We’ve got auspicious alignments and everything. We’re golden. Let’s draw up some new plans.” I pick up a handful of little crackers from a bowl on the table and pop them one by one into my mouth. Really, they’re fried drytt eggs. Drytts are big, annoying Hellion sand fleas. I know that sounds disgusting, but this is Hell. Besides, if you fry anything long enough, it gets good. The drytt eggs go down like fried popcorn. Semyazah hardly reacts to anything in these meetings and he chooses his words carefully. He says, “You’ve been dis- missing everyone’s ideas for weeks. What ideas do you have?”

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“I worry about this place ending up like L.A. All Hel- lion strip malls, T-shirts, and titty bars. The Pandemonium I remember is more of a Bela Lugosi–and–fog kind of town. When I have to choose between Dark Shadows or fanny packs, I’ll step over to the dark side every time. Have any of you ever seen a Fritz Lang movie called Metropolis?” They shake their heads. “You would love it. It’s about bigwigs that kick the shit out of proles in a city that’s all mile-high skyscrapers, smoke-belching machines, and office towers that look like dragons fucking spaceships. The place is clean, precise, and soul crushing, but with style. Just like you. So that’s everyone’s homework. Watch Metropolis. It’s in the On Demand menu.” That’s right. Hell steals cable. Call a cop. The three most popular TV shows Downtown are Lucha Libre, Japanese game shows, and The Brady Bunch, which Hel- lions seem to think is a deep anthropological study of mortal life. I hope watching the Bradys depresses them as much as being trapped here in Creation’s shit pipe depresses me. “Let’s take a break. I need a drink.” I walk to the bar and sit down. I make the Council hold its meetings here for a couple of reasons. The first is that Hel- lions love their rituals, and trying to get anything done is like a Japanese tea ceremony crossed with a High Mass, only even slower. There’s enough ritual hand waving down here to put the Dalai Lama to sleep. Reason two is this place. It’s Hell’s version of my favorite L.A. bar, the Bamboo House of Dolls. The main difference

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between this and the other Bamboo House is that Carlos runs the bar in L.A. In Hell, it’s my great-great-great-granddad, Wild Bill Hickok. Wild Bill already has a glass of Aqua Regia ready for me when I sit down. “What do you think?” I ask. “About what?” “About what. About the damn meeting.” “I think you’re about to drive them fellers crazy.” “They’re not all fellers.” He squints at the Council. “There’s ladies in the bunch?” “Two.” “Damn. I never did learn to tell the difference with Hel- lions. ’Course they’re all pig-fucking sons of bitches to me, so what do I care if I guess wrong and hurt their feelings?” I don’t think running a bar was ever Bill’s dream job and he’s not exactly the type to throw around a lot of thank-yous, but I know he likes it better here than in Butcher Valley. Bill died in 1876, was damned, and he’s been fighting hand to hand with other killers and shootists in that punishment hellhole ever since. Taking him out was the least I could do for family. “Is anyone giving you trouble? Do they know who you run the place for?” “I expect everyone’s aware by now. Which don’t make me particularly happy. I’m not used to another man fighting my battles for me.” “Think of it this way. This setup isn’t just about me having

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a place to drink. It’s about showing the blue bloods who’s in charge. If anyone hassles you, it means they’re hassling me, and I need to do something loud and messy about it.” He puffs his cigar and sets it on the edge of the bar. There are scorch marks all over the wood. “Sounds like it’s hard work playing Old Nick. I don’t envy you.” “I don’t envy me either. And you didn’t answer my questions.” He’s silent for a moment, still annoyed that I’m asking about his well-being. “No. No one in particular’s been causing me grief. These lizardy bastards ain’t exactly housebroken, but they don’t treat me any worse than they treat each other. And they only get up to that when you and your compadres aren’t around. That’s when the rowdies come in.” “If you hear anything interesting, you know what to do.” “I might be dead and damned for all eternity but I’m not addle-brained. I remember.” We turn and look at the Council. He says, “So which one do you figure is going to kill you first?” “None of them. Semyazah is too disciplined. He saw Hell come apart the last time it didn’t have a Lucifer. I don’t really get a whiff of murder from any of the others. Do you?” I finish my drink. He pours me another and one for himself. “Not them directly. But I figure at least one’s scribbling down everything and passing it to whoever’s going to do the actual pigsticking.” “That’s why I keep the rebuilding slow. Keep the big boys

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busy and scattered all over. Makes it harder for them to plan my tragic demise.” “It’s funny hearing blood talk like that. I wasn’t exactly a planner when I was alive and it never crossed my mind anyone else in the family would ever come by the trait.” “It’s new. Since I moved into Lucifer’s place, I spend a lot of time in the library. I never read anything longer than the back of a video jacket before. I think it’s bent my brain.” “Books and women’ll do that. Just don’t get to thinking such big thoughts you forget to listen for what’s creeping up behind you.” “I never read with my back to the door.” He nods and downs his drink in one gulp. “All it takes is the one time,” Bill says. He looks past my shoulder. “I think your friends are waiting on you.” “Later, Wild Bill.” “Give ’em hell, boy.” The others look impatient when I get back. For a second, I flash on Candy back in L.A. After knowing each other for almost a year, we’d finally gotten together right before I came down here. Managed to squeeze in two good days together. What would she think of Hell’s ruling elite hanging on my every word? She’d probably laugh her ass off. “We did all right today. Knowing what you don’t want is about as good as knowing what you do. Let’s meet back here at the same time in three days. That enough time for you to sketch out some ideas, Buer?” He nods. “I’ll watch your Metropolis show tonight. And have something for you at the next meeting.”

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“That’s it, then. Anyone have any questions. Any thoughts? Any banana-bread recipes to share with the class?” Nothing. Hell’s a tough room. They gather up papers and notes. Stuff them in leather bags and attaché cases. “Thanks for coming.” I head back to the bar, where Wild Bill is already pouring me a drink. I need a smoke. I take out a pack of Maledictions and light one up. It might be Hell but at least you can smoke in the bars. Bill pours a second drink in a different glass and walks away. Marchosias is behind me. She does this after meetings sometimes. She says she wants to practice her English. I don’t mind; after three months of speaking nothing but Hellion, my throat feels like I’ve been gargling roofing nails. She says, “What you said to Buer, that was either very rude or very smart.” “The Devil gets to be both at once. It’s in the handbook. Look it up.” “You caught everyone off guard. I’ve never heard you ever mention the Kissi before. Everyone admires how you handled them, you know. Getting others to do your killing is the most elegant way and you did it masterfully.” In another time and place I’d think she was being sarcastic, but I know she’s not. She gets off on what I did. Why not? I brought the Kissi down here like we were allies, trapped them between Heaven’s armies and Hell’s legions, and wiped out most of them in one big royal rumble. That kind of treachery covers pretty much all of the Seven Noble Virtues. Her making goo-goo eyes at me for it makes me want to punch Marchosias very hard and often.

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I say, “I’m usually more of a hands-on guy when it comes to killing.” “Of course you are. Sandman Slim has an ocean of blood on his hands. ‘The monster who kills monsters,’ isn’t that what they called you in the arena? Now here you are, Lucifer, the greatest monster of them all. Maybe God really does have a sense of humor.” Her eyes shine when she says it. She loves being this close to the grand marshal of the Underworld parade. She’d like to have Lucifer’s power but the thought of it scares her stupid, which makes it that much more exciting. This is why she stays behind. An intimate tête-à-tête with Satan. It’s not getting her any brownie points with me and she knows it, but it makes the rest of the Council nervous and that makes it fun for her. I take a long drag on the Malediction like maybe it’ll start a tornado and carry me back home like Dorothy. “All things considered, I’d rather be in Philadelphia.” She looks at me and then glances at Wild Bill, not getting the joke. Bill ignores her and wipes down another glass. “While I have you here, you’ve never told me why you chose me for your council. Or why you decided to create it. Lucifer—” “The former Lucifer, you mean,” I cut her off. “I’m Lucifer now. That other guy goes by Samael these days and he’s home crashing with Daddy.” “Pardon me. Samael would never have considered working with anyone but his most trusted generals.” “Maybe if he’d asked more questions, this place wouldn’t look like a second-rate Hiroshima. I don’t have a problem

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with getting advice from smart people. And to answer your question, Samael recommended you.” “I’m honored.” She glances over her shoulder. The others are all outside. She’s enjoying making them wait. I say, “Your English is getting better.” “So is your Hellion. You’ve lost most of your accent.” “Someone told me I sounded like a hick.” “Not that bad. But you’ve become more dignified, in every way.” “I’ll have to watch that. Dignity gives me gas.” Over by the door of the bar someone says, “Are you ready to go, Lucifer?” It’s a military cop named Vetis. He runs my security squad. He’s a mother-hen pain in my ass but he’s an experienced vet with his shit wired tight. He looks like Eliot Ness if Eliot Ness had a horse skull for a head. “I’m staying but the lady will be right out.” Vetis goes outside. I nod toward the door. “Your caravan is waiting.” Marchosias straightens to leave but doesn’t move. “You never come back with us. Why not ride in my limou- sine with me? It’s very comfortable and roomy.” All the councilors travel in individual limos and vans between a dozen guard vehicles. It’s like the president, the pope, and Madonna cruising town with a company of demon Wyatt Earps riding shotgun. “Thanks, but I have my own way back.” “You don’t trust me.” “Would you?”

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She picks up her bag. “Probably not.” “Anyway, I like to clear my head after a meeting.” “Of course. I’ll see you in three days.” “It’s a date.” She slides a leather satchel over her shoulder. Rumor is that the leather is the tanned skin of an old political opponent. I call after her. “One more thing. I know one of you is gunning for me. When I find out who it is, I’m going to stuff their skull with skyrockets and set them off like the Fourth of July. Feel free to tell the others. Or keep it to yourself. You’re smart. You’ll know which is best.” She raises her eyebrows slightly. This time in amusement. She gives me a brief smile and walks out. Of course she’s not going to tell the others. Just like none of them said a word to her when I told them. “That got her attention,” says Bill. “I already had her attention. She won’t tell the others, but I want to see if she tells anyone else.” Bill shakes his head. “She’s not going to tell a soul. She’s got a knife tucked up that right sleeve, you know.” “Everyone knows. That’s what it’s there for.” When Bill starts to pour me another drink, I put my hand over the glass. “How do you know she’s not the one making a play for you?” “I don’t. I don’t know about any of them. I’m just stirring the pot and waiting for something interesting to happen.”

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“That sounds like putting your boot up the ass of fate, and that’s a mite dangerous.” I shrug and puff on the Malediction. “I’m locked in a loony bin with God’s worst brats. I have to do something. It’s screw with them or get a dog, and I’m not a dog person.” Bill nods. His eyes go soft like they do when he remembers his life before he took a bullet in the back. “I’m not much for dogs either. I saw an elephant in a tent show once and thought it might be a fine thing to have one of them. Ride up on some Abilene rowdies atop that walking gray mountain and take bets on which of them shits himself first. Yes sir, I’d prefer an elephant to a dog any day.” I push away from the bar and get up. “Look for a big box and a ton of peanuts on your birthday, Bill.” He hands me the leather jacket and helmet I keep behind the bar during meetings. Let the rest of the Council ride through town like Caesar’s army. I’ll take my bike down and do a flat-out burn all the way to the palace. Yes, I have a palace. I’m a rich, pampered prince and politician. I’m everything I ever hated. I slip on the jacket and put on my gloves. Bill watches me out of the corner of his eye, pretending to wipe down the bar. My prosthetic hand and arm are a beautiful horror. A weird combination of organic and inorganic. Like something someone pried off a robot insect. The Terminator meets the Fly. I look at Bill. He nods at my hand. “Seeing that thing disappear always puts me in a pleasant

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mood. No offense, but I keep waiting for it to creep over here and strangle me with my own damn bar rag.” “You have my permission to shoot it if it does.” “Good, ’cause I wasn’t going to take the time to ask.” I grab a handful of the drytt-egg crackers, pop a few in my mouth, and put the rest in my jacket pocket. “Keep your ears open for me.” “I always do,” says Wild Bill. I go out through the rear exit. The motorcycle is parked out back, covered with the dirtiest, shittiest tarp in Hell. No one is ever going to look under it. They don’t exactly have a lot of stock motorcycles Down- town, so I had some of the local engineers build me a 1965 Electra Glide. I’ll give the local boys and girls credit. They did their best, but it’s a lot more Hellion than Harley. It’s built like a mechanical bull covered in plate armor. The handlebars taper to points like they’d be happier on a longhorn’s head. The exhaust belches dragon fire and the panhead engine is so hypercharged I can get it glowing cherry red on a long straightaway. There’s no speedometer, so I don’t know how fast that is, but I’m pretty sure I’m leaving a few land-speed records in the dust. I swing my leg over the bike and kick it to life. I always put on my helmet last. It’s the story of my life that I had to come to Hell to start wearing a helmet. Back in L.A., Saint James, my angel half, hated that I rode bareheaded. All I had to worry about back home was cops. Here it’s the paparazzi. I like my solo rides and don’t want the rabble to know about them. They give me a chance to blow off steam. Plus, I get to

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see Pandemonium at street level without flunkies or political suck-ups telling me what they think I want to hear. I gun the bike and swing into the street. I don’t worry about traffic. The streets are still a bombed-out wreck in this part of town, so most of the traffic is trucks hauling soldiers and supplies. Almost everyone else is on foot. I rev the engine, turn, and blast down a side street, taking the long way back to the palace. Block after block, streets are buckled and houses are knocked off their foundations. But now there’s food in the markets and the burning buildings aren’t the only lights in the streets. I steer around a panel truck where Hellion soldiers are dragging cuffed and shackled looters. The troops aren’t gentle about it. The looters are a bloody limping mess. Fuck ’em. It wasn’t always like this Downtown. I spent eleven years trapped down here, so I got to know the place pretty well. But a mortal named Mason Faim and Lucifer’s generals (Semy- azah was the lone holdout) tried to start a war with Heaven. Bad idea. The city burned. The sky turned black. Earthquakes opened sinkholes that swallowed whole neighborhoods. When I look at Hell, I see L.A. It’s a funny kind of magic. A Convergence. An image of each place dropped over the other. It’s weird but it makes it easier for me to get around. Hellions still see old Hell. They don’t need a Fatburger at 2 a.m. If they did maybe they wouldn’t be such 24/7 dicks. I’m going slow putting the place back together, but I can’t stall forever. I want to keep these devils, plotters, and knife- in-the-back bastards busy. But sooner or later they’re going to finish rebuilding. Until then all I want is to not get assas-

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sinated and to figure a way back to the real L.A. and back to Candy, a girl I left behind. There’s a bottleneck up ahead where two collapsed buildings cover most of the street, their roofs almost touching. There’s a slight incline between the buildings and smooth road beyond. If I hit it just right, I can get the bike airborne a few yards on the other side. I twist the throttle and I’m doing around fifty when I hit the incline. They’re waiting for me at the top. Two of them. The one of the right catches me across the chest with a piece of rebar, and instead of a nice smooth flight on the back of the bike, I’m airborne all by myself, doing a backflip onto the asphalt. I slam down on my gut and look up just as the second attacker gets to work. He runs up a big pile of rubble and launches himself off at me, an armored gorilla in SWAT-team coveralls and hobnail boots. I roll onto my back and try to get up. Too slow. He lands feetfirst on me like he thinks if he stomps hard enough he’ll get wine. Hobnails isn’t finished yet. He kicks me in the side. Long, careful, well-aimed kicks. This guy’s had practice. A second later the guy with the rebar joins him in clog-dancing on my ribs. This isn’t the quiet ride home I’d hoped for. If I was a normal mortal, I’d be dead by now or at least a four-way gimp after Hobnails landed on me and snapped my spine. But I’m not a normal mortal and this isn’t a normal situation. I’m hard to kill any day of the week and I’m even harder now that I have on Lucifer’s armor under my shirt.

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One of the goons has gotten bored with kicking and is looking around for something to drop on me. These assholes are having more fun than if they were at Chuck E. Cheese. I push myself up onto my knees. Going to throw some crazy monkey-style Bruce Lee moves on these guys. Any second now. Soon. But I just kneel there, letting the two idiots kick me. My mind goes blank. I have the sick, dizzy feeling that I forgot something. There’s something I’m supposed to be doing or somewhere else I’m supposed to be. It feels like there’s something crawling around behind my eyes. Maybe I’m just supposed to wait until these guys kick the living shit out of me. Then the feeling is gone. It must have lasted all of ten seconds, but it was long enough for Hobnail and his friend to knock me back on my face. I reach into my pocket, get a handful of the drytt crackers, and throw them. The kicking stops. I push myself back onto my knees. You know how young vampires without any training can be so twitchy and compulsive they have to organize anything you throw in front of them? The same goes for brain-dead Hellions, and these two don’t look like they could run the fryer at McDonald’s. When I tossed the crackers, they went for them like zombies after a one-legged blind man. After all the body shots, I have to crawl a few feet before I can get up. I take off my helmet and set it on the pavement, getting out the black bone blade I always keep hidden in the waistband of my pants. The Glimmer Twins are crouched on the street, pushing the eggs into neat piles. I wrap my arm around Hobnail’s head, pull it back, and drag the blade across his throat. Black

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Hellion blood oozes down over my arm like leaking engine oil. His friend is concentrating so hard on stacking eggs that he doesn’t see the blade until the last minute. I swing and his head pops off and rolls away, coming to rest against my helmet. I go over and look at it like maybe I’m going to have the head stuffed and mounted like a big-mouth bass. I’m waiting for a sound. And there it is. The tiniest tick as a boot comes down on a pebble behind me. I spin and toss the head like a scaly bowling ball. Hellion assassination teams usually work in threes. Seeing as how the first two had the combined IQ of waffle batter, whoever is left has to be the squad leader. He’s taller than the other two, with the same not-bright lizard look you see in a lot of the legion’s grunts. His SWAT body armor is heavier than the others’, so the head just knocks him off balance for a second. He has a Glock strapped to his hip, but he’s making flashy fighting moves in the air with a couple of nasty-looking serrated long swords. He could go for the gun, but he wants to make himself a name by slicing up Lucifer old school. Fucking devils and their fucking rituals. I take a step back like I’m dazzled by his video-game moves. I fought in the arena down here for years. Swords hurt, but after you get cut a few hundred times, they’re about as scary as road rash. Meaning they’re something to avoid if you can but they’re nothing to lose sleep over. Still, they hurt and I’m already hurt. And I lost my snack. He takes the bait and charges. I step forward and catch his wrist with my forearm, deflecting the blade as it comes down on my head. Now that I’m in striking range, the text- book step two of an attack like this is simple: while your

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opponent is busy blocking your downward attack, you step in with a forward thrust of your second blade, skewering him like a cocktail wiener. The only problem with it is that every sentient being in the universe knows it and is ready for it. Instead of attacking, I let him plant a powerful shot in my solar plexus. His blade kicks sparks when it hits the armor and snaps in two. It startles him long enough for me to move a couple of steps and plant a foot behind my helmet on the ground. When he comes back at me, I kick, sending the helmet into his face like a cannonball. I hear bones crunch and he spins around before landing on his face. I stand over him, kick the sword out of his hand, and shove his pistol in my pocket. I grab him by the lapels, spin and slam him headfirst into a pile of rubble. While he’s busy trying to breathe through a crushed face, I rifle his dead friends’ pockets. Empty. They don’t even have dog tags, so I can’t tell what part of the legion they’re from. Their boots and body armor are the heavy kind issued to frontline infantry who are basically cannon fodder. But since the war with Heaven is over, clowns like this aren’t supposed to have time on their hands. Avoiding this kind of fucking mess is why I’m going slow with the rebuilding. Why aren’t these pricks with the rest of the grunts, clearing rubble or rebuilding roads? Did they think if they killed me, one of them would be the new Lucifer? Maybe they were going to share the title—Moe, Larry, and Curly, the Three Infernal Stooges. But not one of this bunch had the imagination or balls to try something like that on their own. Someone put them up to it.

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The one I clocked with the helmet is coming around, so I go back to him. I pick up the unbroken long sword and press it against his throat. “You awake, sunshine?” He grunts. Shakes his head, trying to clear it. “Who sent you?” “No one. I don’t need permission to slaughter mortals.” I lean forward, using my weight to press the tip of the sword into him until he bleeds. “This mortal signs your paychecks, ugly. Guess who’s not getting a Christmas bonus?” He grimaces and spits. “A mortal will never be the true Lucifer. Mortals are spirits, good for nothing but torture and chores you could teach an animal. I curse you and the mortal Mason Faim. At least he promised us Heaven. What have you given us?” “I haven’t cut off your arms and legs and made you into a throw pillow. How’s that?” He tenses. Even with the sword at his throat he wants to lunge at me. This guy is the real deal. A true believer. His type built Auschwitz and had lynching parties back home. Who knows what games he and his friends are playing with souls down here? I take the sword away from his throat and smack his mangled face with the broad side. He groans and doubles over. Lucky bastard. I’d like to be lying down groaning too. My bruised ribs hurt. I toss both of his swords into the nearby sinkhole.

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“You still haven’t answered my question. Who sent you here?” He catches his breath and says, “We came on our own to kill the false Lord of Perdition.” I grab his head and press it back into the rubble. I’ve always been good at telling when people are lying, but Lucifer can see things I can’t and the armor gives me bits and pieces of his powers. It’s mostly sideshow-level tricks so far but I can tell if someone is wearing a glamour to conceal themselves or if they’ve been hexed. I look all the way to the back of the assassin’s eyes. There’s a fluttering inside, like a microscopic strobe light. That’s it. He’s hexed. Someone sent him and his friends out hunting for me and erased their memories so the fuckwits would think it was their idea. I let go of him and sit above him on the rubble. “What’s your name?” He looks at me hard. He really hates being questioned by a mortal. “Ukobach.” I could take Ukobach back to the palace, hand him over to the witches, and let them take his mind apart. They might be able to find something useful inside, but I’m not sure about this guy. Whoever picked these three chose them because they didn’t have an overabundance of brain cells. With an intelligent Hellion or human, even after a memory wipe there’s usually some residual impressions left. Sometimes you can find it if you dig deep enough and aren’t worried about killing them or leaving them a vegetable. But with the power of the hex I saw in Ukobach’s eyes, there isn’t going to be anything useful inside him. I can’t throw him in

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the asylum or jail. I’m Lucifer, after all. Whoever sent him needs a statement. “Okay, Ukobach, here’s where things stand. You ambushed me and you blew it. Your friends are dead and I don’t think you’re much use for information. Plus, your goddamn sword ripped my jacket.” He stares at me. “I’ll make it simple. I can kill you now or I can let you live, but it’s going to hurt. You choose.” Ukobach shifts his weight. He wants to take one last kami- kaze shot at me. I finger the rip in my jacket sleeve. It’s not too bad. I can probably get it fixed. I’m kind of hard on clothes. It’s all the stabbing and shooting. “I’d kill you and every mortal in the universe if I could,” he rasps. “When your souls reached Hell, I’d spend eternity weaving your guts into tapestries of glorious agony and hang them from every wall and parapet in Pandemonium.” “If wishes were horses we’d all have shit on our boots. Choose, Chuck. A quiet death or a messy life.” “I choose life. Any chance to return and kill you for murdering my comrades is worth whatever feeble punishment a mortal can muster.” I nod. “I thought so. If I were you, I might have gone the other way.” He kicks low, trying to sweep my ankle. I take his Glock from my pocket and shoot him in the knee. He howls and rolls around, holding his leg. It gives him something to do while I get to work. I cut six long strips of material from Hobnail’s overalls. I

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use four around his and his dead friends’ wrists. Then I get the Harley on its wheels and roll it back so I can tie the dead men to the rear shocks. I take the last two strips and tie Uko- bach too. He kicks at me and swings his fists as I haul him to the bike, but when he moves, it hurts him more than it does me. I loop my arm through the front of the helmet so I can hold it while I ride. There’s no sense in hiding who I am now. Before I get on the bike, I look down at Ukobach. “This isn’t the kind of thing I normally do, you understand. Back home I’m a bad person but I’m not this kind of bad. Before he left, Samael told me I was going to have to be ruthless to survive, and he was right. People have to understand that if you dance with the Devil you better not step on his toes.” Ukobach looks up at me. I don’t know if it’s pain or fear or general boneheadedness but he has no idea what I’m saying. I get on the bike and start the engine. “And away we go.” The bike creeps forward like it wants to tip over in quick- sand. Even a Hellion motorcycle isn’t geared to drag three full-grown bodies behind it. I give the bike some throttle. It straightens and moves forward. Slowly at first, but it picks up speed as I twist the throttle. When it feels stable, I kick the bike hard and we shoot down Santa Monica Boulevard to the palace. I don’t turn around. I don’t want to see what it looks like behind me.

The closer we get to Beverly Hills, the more Hellions there are on the street. They stare and point as I cruise by. I’m tempted to stop and make a joke about how this is how

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I always tenderize meat, but I keep rolling without meeting any of their eyes. I don’t have to. Seeing their ruler covered in blood and dirt, hauling a few hundred pounds of bleeding bologna behind him, is all they need. The story will be all over town in an hour. By tomorrow there will be rumors that it wasn’t three. It’ll be a dozen men. Fifty. I killed them with a bitch slap and dragged them with my pinkie. The guards around the palace see me coming and step out of the way like the Red Sea parting for Charlton Heston. I stop the bike by the palace lawn, heel down the kickstand, and get off. A hundred Hellion soldiers watch me in dead silence. I say, “This is what happens to assassins.” Soldiers crane their necks or climb onto jeeps and Uni- mogs for a better look at what I’ve hauled in. An officer walks over. I don’t know his name and I don’t ask. He looks scared. “I killed two where they jumped me. One was alive when I started back. Gibbet all three. If the live one is still alive after two days, let him go. Alive and skinless, he’ll still be an object lesson for others.” “Yes, my lord,” says the officer. I start into the palace but turn after a few steps. I can’t tell the condition of the bodies from here. There isn’t much of a blood trail behind the bike. That’s probably not a good sign for Ukobach. The guards stare at me. “One of you take my bike into the garage and have it cleaned and polished.” Not that I’m ever going to get to ride it again now that everyone knows what it looks like. I head inside wondering what Candy would think about

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what I just did. I’m pretty sure she’d understand. She might even approve. She won’t have to, though, because this goes on the long list of things I’m never going to tell her.

In this funny Convergence Hell, Lucifer’s palace is the penthouse of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. I’m not saying my digs are nice, but I am saying that my rooms make Versailles look like an outhouse. Palace security guards ring the inside of the lobby. I give them a nod while tracking dirt, road grime, and blood across the carpets. I head straight for my private elevator. Slap my hand over a brass plate on the wall and the elevator doors roll open. Inside I touch another plate and whisper a Hel- lion hoodoo code. The car starts up, the pulley and wires humming overhead, gently rocking the compartment. It feels good. A Magic Fingers motel massage loosening the tension knots in my shoulders. I move my arms and legs. Rotate my head. The palms of my hands are scraped raw from the fall off the bike, but there’s no real damage to anything but my damned jacket. The car stops at the penthouse. I touch the brass plate again and step out onto the cool polished marble floor. The penthouse is a sight. Like Architectural Digest climbed to the top of the hotel roof and shit out a Hollywood movie mogul’s château. Windows everywhere. Expensive handmade furni- ture. Pricey art. And enough bedrooms and bathrooms for all the cowgirls in Montana to stop by for a pillow fight. I kick off my boots by the elevator. Fuck the lobby carpet. Wash it. Burn it. I don’t care. But I don’t want blood all over my apartment.

DevilSaidBang_i_xii_1_399_2p.indd 26 6/11/12 11:38 AM If you liked that don’t miss the new paperback editions of the first three Sandman Slim novels, coming August 2012, and the first short story in Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim series!

SANDMAN SLIM KILL THE DEAD ALOHA FROM HELL

DEVIL IN THE DOLLHOUSE *Harper Voyager Digital Original* On Sale 7/31/12

James Stark, aka Sandman Slim, has a new job, but being the new Lucifer in town gives fresh meaning to the word Hell. He’s just starting to clean up the old boss’s messes when he hears one of the routes through the Underworld is impassable, with any and all travelers massacred along the road near a haunted fortress way out in Hell’s frontier. Everyone knows it’s the creatures inside, but no one has ever done anything about it. Stark decides it’s time to deal with this situation. It’s not that he gives a crap about massacred Hellions, he’s got to let all the sinners know once and for all that he’s a Lucifer that you better not screw with.

Doyce Testerman

HIDDEN THINGS A Novel

September 2012

A phone call from a soon-to-be-deceased ex-boyfriend launches a young woman on a bizarre road trip to a dark supernatural world hidden beneath America’s heartland in this remarkably imaginative debut novel from an electrifying new voice in contemporary fantasy. With Hidden Things, author Doyce Testerman immediately takes his place alongside Neil Gaiman, Kim Harrison, and Melissa Marr by viewing modern-day America through a glass darkly and transforming our mundane world into a place where unseen monsters and paranormal beings have long inhabited the shadows.

“I loved this book from start to finish. It’s strange, weird and down to earth, all at the same time; chock full of fascinating characters, dark dreams and fantasy elements that deliver a real sense of wonder. What’s not to love?” — Charles de Lint

“Hidden Things reveals the America I want to believe in--dragons on highways, trolls in the hills, motels that lead to new dimensions. I’ll never look at a rest stop the same way again.” — Maureen Johnson, author of the Shades of London series

“Testerman tells a story of a secret world that is sad, sweet, funny, and more than a little twisted. This world of wizened wizard-men and demon clowns will lure you into the shadows, and once you meet the characters who live in those dark strange places you’ll never want to leave. The magic matters here, but it’s the human touch that really brings the book to life.” — Chuck Wendig, author of Blackbirds and Irregular Creatures

A ringing phone jerked Calliope Jenkins out of a sound sleep. She fumbled for the source of the noise, startled and trying to blink her eyes into focus. The blocky red alarm clock LED hovered in the darkness like a bad memory, reading 1:43. On the third ring, she managed to find the handset and roll it off the cradle into her palm. “H’lo?” “Calli,” said the voice on the other end of the line. “It’s me.” She smiled and pushed herself farther underneath the comforter. “Hey. I thought you’d be home and asleep by now.” The strange, hiccuped silence of an interrupted cellular connection broke through the call for a moment. “A few things came up; I’m still out on the road, actually.” “Cripes, really? When—” A murmur drifted from the opposite side of the bed. Calliope half glanced in that direction and lowered her voice. “Hang on a sec.” She got up and padded toward the door to the bedroom, snagging her robe as she stepped into the hallway. “When do you think you’re going to get back?” “I don’t . . . Everything’s pretty complicated.”

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“Complicated how?” Yawning, Calliope shuffled into the kitchen and pulled open the refrigerator door. “Can’t. Too late to get into any of it, anyway. You going to be all right?” She shrugged, still staring blankly into the refrigerator. “I’m fine, except it’s two in the morning.” She could hear him smile on the other end of the line. “Cranky. You should take a shower and wake up.” She pushed hair out of her face. “See, this’s your main confusion. I don’t want to wake up. I wasn’t actually lying in bed thinking, ‘Oh, I wish someone would call and give me a reason to get up.’ I wasn’t thinking anything. I was asleep. I was enjoying it. I’d like to get back to it sometime tonight.” “So . . .” She could hear the smile broaden in his voice. “No shower?” She smiled. “Freak.” “Hardly.” “We could use that for the new ads: ‘Joshua White: where mind and gutter meet.’ You’d be very popular.” “Wrong kind of clientele.” “Because our current client base is so normal.” She frowned at the open refrigerator. “What are you working on right now?” “It’s a new one, kind of. I shouldn’t have taken it.” “Obviously.” Another pause on the other end of the line. “Yeah. Say, I was hoping you could . . . I know it would be a huge hassle for you, but I was wondering if you could talk to Lauren for me and explain what’s going on.” Calliope’s eyebrows drew together; she pushed the refrigerator door shut. “You can’t call her?” “It’s really all I could manage to call you.”

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“Whatever. They only allow you one call before they put you back in with—” “Seriously.” She nudged at the raised edge between the dining room carpet and kitchen tile with her toe. “Can we go back to talking about me in the shower?” “It’s all right if you don’t want to. I’ll understand.” “You’re going to owe me.” She felt the relief on the other end of the line. “I’m going to owe you huge, Calli. Huge.” “Yeah . . .” She wrapped an arm across her midsection, pulling the robe close. “That all you needed to wake me up at two in the morning for?” “That and the shower thing. You’re the best, Cal, I swear. Go back to sleep. Tell your guy I’m sorry about the call.” “ ’Kay.” She glanced out the kitchen window at the pale streetlights. “Just be safe.” “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.” “Sure.” “Safe as houses. Go to bed. Watch out for the hidden things.” Her attention came back to the phone. “The hidden things what?” The line was already dead. Calliope turned her gaze back to the window, the phone forgotten in her hand. Seconds passed before she shivered inside the folds of the robe, set the phone down on the counter, and headed back to the bedroom. The red LED of the clock read 1:48. O The clawed thing took the phone from Joshua. “She sounds . . . nice.”

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Joshua snorted; his eyelids, glossy and dark, sagged. “Sure.” The thing fidgeted, picking at the scraps of clothing clinging to its body. “I’m glad you decided to stay.” “For now.” Joshua was looking at him, but his eyes were unfocused, watching something far in the past; something better. The wind outside pushed at the walls, tested the windows and roof while the creature watched the man. Shad- ows and memories and hidden things scrabbled through the darkness, taunting both and filling the space between them. “Long enough to get this straightened out.” “You mean fix it.” The thing’s face twisted; the damaged side a sneer, the other—the one Josh knew—a sad smile. “I suppose.” Josh settled his shoulders, ignoring his exhaustion. “I made a promise, didn’t I?” “And you always keep your promises.” He turned back to the window of the empty room. “I try.” “You try.” The thing’s voice was bitter. “Not when you won’t—” “Shut . . .” Joshua’s voice was soft. His chin dropped toward his chest. “Just . . . shut up. I’m going to try. We will.” He half turned, really looking at the creature for the first time, then looking away. “Maybe we can’t. If we can’t, I’ll head home and try to figure something else out.” “Head home?” The thing’s face twisted, caught between anger and a kind of grief that was older and much, much worse. “You are home, Josh.” It took a step toward him. “I thought you knew that.” Around it, the snickering, skittering, scraping things grew louder and louder, like locusts in the summer. The sound shook Joshua from his reverie; he looked from shadow to shadow, trying to track the source of the growing noise, his eyes going wide. “Mikey?” Thirteen seconds later, Joshua White was dead.

HiddenThings_5p.indd 4 6/11/12 11:34 AM J b P D H I A D S O Q I N Y C y L H R C y L D S E E M Y A Y R D S E H Y M E S E G Z M C R G R S E M Y F F D C M N I O C E U R E R A Y R d E A X D O T F B T H A S E H Y M T I o J M D I L N L H B I V E S E I R S T y N I P H R I I T O G Z M L G C Z E A c E L M O N N L C R G R J D X W B T U e V Y C S G R S F Q Y R E H A R L E Q U I N I F D C S X T E G StageL O I F OneR I E N D M N I S D R A G O N L O G U I D E O C E O K M W S R M J M Y D E S J U R E X E E T L Q E D F t e s t e R d E r m a n H T P T M W F P G J A X D C L O H R u g e o g p h e t O T F E A c E L M O N N L R J D X B T H W B T U e V Y C S G Q Y R E A S E H A R L E Q U I N I S X T E T I o G L O I F R I E N D S D R A J M D G O N L O G U I D E O K M W I L N S R M J M Y D E S J X E E T L H B L Q E D F t e s t e r m a n I V I H T P T M W F P G J C L O W R S T N E G I O H D T U L O H F D y N I B O J N M V R W Z O Y W Q J P H R W R H Y V S I L P J N F C W O K S

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There was coffee waiting by the time Calliope made it to the kitchen the next morning. Not a good sign. Tom’s way of starting any kind of touchy conversation involved a preemptive peace offering. She filled up a cup and took a drink, keeping her eyes on the mug. “Thanks.” “No problem.” Tom picked at his acoustic guitar while his own coffee cooled in front of him. The guitar was another bad sign; he expected a fight. He’d unconsciously pick up the instrument whenever things got tense, as though using the rigid body as a shield. “You didn’t have to get up—” “It’s no problem,” he interrupted. He turned his attention to the guitar strings. “I was already awake anyway.” It was a simple enough comment, but gave Calliope all the context she needed. “Yeah. I’m sorry about the phone call last night.” Tom’s eyes, barely visible behind lowered lashes, flicked over her clothes. “I assume Josh made it back into town all right?”

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Calliope shook her head. “No, he—” She paused, processing what she’d seen. “Wait, what?” She scowled. “What’s wrong with my clothes?” “Nothing.” His eyes were blue and steady and beautiful and, at that exact moment, annoyed her. He reached for his coffee and took a drink, looking at nothing in particular over the rim of the cup. “You look nice.” Calliope glanced down at the skirt she had on beneath her usual leather jacket. “You—” She cut herself off. He hated it when she analyzed him. “I’ve got a meeting with Lauren.” He dropped his hands and his attention to the guitar strings. “Ah. Lauren.” Calliope set her own cup down, hard. “What?” “Nothing.” He tuned a string. “Josh’s wife, right?” Calliope’s face and chest were hot, her hands cold. “Yes.” Tom strummed a test chord. “I’m . . . sure that will be tough.” He glanced up and caught her expression—raised a hand in a gesture of surrender. “Hey, it’s none of my business.” “You’re—” “I don’t have any right to comment on late-night phone calls with old boyfriends.” “We work—” “Yeah,” he said. “I know.” The tone in his voice—tired the way DMV workers and court bailiffs were tired—stopped her, drained the heat out of her chest. It was the sound of someone who had stopped listening, simply to protect himself. And Calliope felt exactly the same way. The kitchen was quiet, except for a few tuneless chords. “I’m sorry, Tom.” He searched her face, looking for the anger that usually

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accompanied this particular dance. His shoulders relaxed. “Hey, don’t worry about it; it’s a bad morning. I get—” “I should never have asked you to move in.” She walked out of the kitchen, her voice echoing strangely back at her. “Pack your stuff. Get out of my house. I’ve got to go. I’m late.” The house was quiet as she pulled the door shut behind her. O The air around the corner of Bush and Taylor changed when Vikous arrived. It was a distinctly unmagical place—everything from the streets to the sidewalks to the head-down pedestrians colored in various shades of gray—but for a moment, the air changed: filled with a hush stolen from a magician’s audience, thick with the sound of a daydreaming crowd. A bus roared past a double-parked garbage truck, clouding the air with diesel smoke and timetables, and then he was there—hands jammed into his pockets, leaning against the cheap, painted façade of a three-story building as though he had been there all along—maybe he had been there all along, unnoticed. Pedestrians blinked, wondering what they’d been thinking about just then. A few checked their wallets as they walked by. He was bundled in several layers of clothing under a threadbare trench coat, a hooded sweatshirt pulled up to cover his head and most of his face. Black eyes, shining like coat buttons, watched the building across from him. Watched the Jeep pull up outside. Watched a scowling Calliope Jen- kins get out, unlock the door beneath a sign that read white investigations, and go inside. By contrast, no one was watching Vikous. Passersby failed

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to acknowledge his presence even when forced to step around his (unusually large) feet. He didn’t bother making apolo- gies; did not in fact seem to see the other people on the street any more than they saw him. He watched the door Calliope had entered and for several minutes—almost a quarter of an hour—that was all he did. At 8:42, he pushed himself away from the building façade, shifted his shoulders underneath his coat, muttered something that might have been “time to get to work,” and started across the street. He’d made it four steps past the curb when a police car pulled up in front of the White Investigations office. Two uniformed officers got out and went inside. Two minutes later they emerged, Calliope (looking even more grim) walking between them, got back into the car, and drove off. “Great.” Vikous watched them go; it might be accurate to say he stared. “Just . . . great.” O Thirty-five minutes later, Calliope walked into Lauren Hollis- White’s private office, under escort. Two men standing off to the side turned toward the door at her arrival. She ignored them and walked directly up to the woman’s desk. “Lauren.” Calliope’s jaw was tight, her eyes bright. Lauren herself looked drawn and pale, but unsurprised by Calliope’s entrance. She extended her hand without standing. “Calliope.” Her eyes flickered. “I like that skirt.” “Thanks,” Calliope said. “What the fuck’s up with the cops?” Lauren blinked, her arm still extended up and out at an awkward angle. She withdrew her hand and sat back. “It

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wasn’t my idea.” She looked over to the two men who’d been watching the exchange. Her voice was clipped and tense. The younger of the two stepped forward. His dark, curly hair was trimmed neatly and his face was friendly in a sad sort of way. “We apologize for bringing you down here this way, Ms. Jenkins. I’m Detective Darryl Johnson and this is Special Agent Walker.” He indicated the lanky, spare-framed man behind him. “We understand that you left a message with Mrs. Hollis- White’s office this morning indicating you had information regarding her husband?” Calliope nodded. She’d called early, during her drive to the office, knowing she’d get Lauren’s answering service. “Is there a problem? I was supposed to—” She stopped. Lauren, staring out the window, had let out a strangled sound somewhere between a gasp and a sob. Her eyes were wide and damp. Calli turned back to the detective. “What’s—” Agent Walker moved forward. “Miss Jenkins, Joshua White’s body was found at approximately six a.m. this morning, just outside the city limits of Harper’s Ferry, Iowa. Foul play was involved.” The corners of his mouth tugged down, as though he’d bitten into something that had gone foul. “No offense, but we were wondering what you knew about it.” O Calliope dropped into the chair behind her desk and sighed. Afternoon sunlight forced its way in through the dirty window across the room and lit up dust motes floating in its path before it fell, exhausted, across the worn carpet. She glared at the patch of light, then at her skirt. She had no idea why she’d worn it; she’d had no illusions that it would help when she

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met with Lauren, even before everything she found out this morning.

“Josh wanted me to tell Lauren that he was hung up on a job and wouldn’t be back when he expected. He definitely didn’t sound like he was in any kind of trouble.” “You and Mr. White both work in the same private investigation agency, Ms. Jenkins?” “We are the agency.” “I see. And do you know the nature of this new contract?” “No. Josh handled it. I only knew he was headed out of town and when he thought he’d get back, which was last night. I can check the office for records but I think he had everything with him—it was very short notice. Are you absolutely sure—” “Don’t you have family in that area of the country, Miss Jenkins?” “ . . . What?” “You’re familiar with the area Mr. White was found in.” “What? Harper’s Ferry? Not really. It’s hours from my family’s place, and I haven’t been back there in ten years.” “Was Mr. White? Had he been in the region before?” “Yeah. He grew up around there. We drove there, once, a few years ago.” “What was the nature of that visit?”

Calliope stared at her desk and the stack of envelopes she’d dumped across it when she’d opened the office that morning—bills and junk mail. There was only one message on the machine. Calliope hit the playback. “Calli, it’s Josh.” The connection was abysmal, even worse than it had been last night. “Listen, things have gotten a lot more complicated.

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It’d probably be better if you didn’t tell Lauren about what’s going on, at least until I figure everything out.” Calliope stared at the machine. The next few seconds on the message were choked with static and nearly inaudible to her, smothered under the too-loud sound of her own breathing and the thump of her pulse. She started to lean closer, turning her head and lowering her ear toward the speaker to pick out anything she could, but the static suddenly cleared, leaving the recording so clear she could make out the rasp of Josh’s stubble against the mouthpiece. “ . . . get hold of him and he’ll be able to explain most of this to you. I’ll see you soon.”

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Detective Johnson sat back in the chair across the desk from Calliope, a single vertical crease between his brows. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be hearing, Ms. Jenkins, but if you’ll let us borrow the machine, we can take it back and see if the lab boys can work anything out of the static.” Calliope reached over and hit a button on the digital answering machine she’d badgered Josh into buying. An artificial female voice announced “Message left at . . . five . . . oh four . . . ay em . . . Wednesday . . . October . . . thirtieth.” She waited. The two men across the desk from her said nothing. Unwilling to waste any more time on the conversation, she said, “This thing stamps the call according to its own time zone, Detectives.” For a few seconds the two men said nothing, then Special Agent Walker’s eyes widened and he stood up. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me! We drove down here for this?” Johnson jerked a look back at the other man. “Agent Walker?” Walker split his scorn between Calliope and his companion. “There’s a two-hour time difference between here and

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the victim’s location, Johnson. If that thing’s right, the call would have had to have been made an hour after the body was found, probably two to five hours after he was killed.” He jerked his pointed chin toward Calliope. “She thinks she’s got a message from behind the grave.” “Beyond.” Calliope interrupted Johnson’s reply. “The phrase is beyond the grave, and no, I don’t.” She waited until both men had turned back to her. “I think it’s obvious that the man you found wasn’t Josh. He might have had his ID, but Josh must still be alive.” Detective Johnson shook his head, his already sorrowful expression growing graver. “Ms. Jenkins, there was a posi- tive ID: fingerprints, driver’s license photo, and we could get dental if we wanted it. I didn’t bring along the crime scene photos earlier out of respect for Mrs. Hollis-White but let me assure you: it was Joshua White that they found, and he was not about to get up and make a phone call.” Calliope motioned to the machine on the corner of her desk. “Then explain that.” “I can’t.” Johnson ignored the dismissive expulsion of breath from the man pacing behind him. “I’d like to have our boys look at it.” Calliope made a welcoming gesture with both hands. “Go ahead. I’d love to know what’s going on. I’m sure Lauren would as well.” Detective Johnson’s dark brown eyes came back to her. “Ms. Jenkins, I must ask you not to set any false expectations with the family of the deceased regarding this phone call. It would be premature and unkind.” Calliope started to reply, but the detective’s formal tone and serious expression stopped her retort. She didn’t say anything

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as Detective Johnson gathered up the answering machine and left with Special Agent Walker in tow. The federal agent’s narrow face seemed even sharper in the late afternoon light; bitter, like that of a man who’d been told he would have won a grand prize, if only he were taller. Unlike Detective Johnson, he did not wish Calliope a good evening. O Vikous watched the men leave. He scanned the pair—even from across the street, even amid the growing gloom of dusk. Johnson: build like a football player, face like a marriage coun- selor. Vikous’s attention lingered on him for only a few seconds. Walker: looked as though something large had grabbed him by the skull and pulled him through a hole two inches too small for him, as though he’d been stripped of— Vikous pushed his hood halfway back, letting the remains of the daylight fall across his too-pale skin and too-red mouth. His nostrils flared; he sniffed at the evening air like a hunting dog and, like a dog, he growled. The men got into Detective Johnson’s car and pulled into the street. Vikous watched them, shiny black eyes never blinking, until they were almost out of sight. Just as the brake lights of the car flared in the distance, then pulsed to signal a turn, he took three steps, ducked past a pedestrian, stepped around a lamppost, and was gone. O By six o’clock, Calliope knew that Tom wasn’t going to call—he had a gig, and he liked to warm up early. She watched the sky fade away to the reddish brown that was the closest it ever got to night in the city. When the first streetlight began

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to brighten outside, she made a wish, ordered pizza, and got to work. His office was just the same. Josh’s files had always been an amateur shrine to disorganiza- tion. Calliope had tried to get him to invest in a computerized system for most of the last two years, but he’d resisted with the same smile he’d used to get her to take the job in the first place. Calliope stood at the threshold of his office, taking in the stack of folders on the corner of his desk and the overstuffed file cabinets along both walls. They’d always interviewed clients in Calliope’s office. When the pizza arrived, Calliope was still standing in the doorway. She paid the driver, took a deep breath, and marched into the room, flipping on the light as she went. She balanced the box on the windowsill, pulled out a slice, and dropped into Josh’s office chair with the first folder from the stack on the desk, looking for something that mentioned Iowa. The notes in each of the folders were handwritten, tiny snippets of her partner’s voice captured on paper.

Have informed family that Desiree is fine. Got impression they were looking for ‘your daughter’s not dead, just dating a drummer’ discount. Stnd. fee.

Mr. Vaughn has moved to Seattle—needed to “get away”. Mrs. Vaughn did not understand. Has apparently never met herself.

Collected fee for Cal’s skip trace, minus cost of her kicking target Amy Whellan through motel door. Need to talk to Cal about calming down. Not while standing in front of a door.

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Calli smiled as she read. Josh knew she always reviewed her case files, and he’d always used the notes to let her know how she’d handled the job. Reading them now was like talking to him again. Like the answering machine. She wiped the sleep from her eyes and ignored the damp- ness on her fingers. She hadn’t cried—wouldn’t—at Lauren’s uptown law office; she hadn’t while she waited for the cops to come to her own office to hear Josh’s message; she wasn’t going to cry now, when finding out about his latest job was so important to figuring out what was going on. She’d worked through the stack on his desk by eleven and leaned back in the chair, rubbing her neck. There hadn’t been anything of use in any of the files. Most were closed cases. She looked at the desk drawers. Notes in a file were one thing, but Josh had always respected Calliope’s privacy and she had returned the favor. It would feel like going through his wallet, but it was worse to not know. Sliding forward in the chair, she moved the last folder back to its stack on the desk and reached for the top drawer on the left. Someone knocked on the glass front door of the office.

For three seconds, Calliope didn’t breathe. “The bad guys don’t usually knock, Cal.” She stood, moving around the desk with the sort of stride she hoped was a good mix of Confident Woman and who-could-be-knocking-so- late caution. When she stepped through the office door into the waiting room and saw who was on the other side of the glass, her breath caught again. She kept walking to the door simply to keep from freezing in place, flipped the lock, and stood back.

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Lauren Hollis-White shoved her way in behind a gust of cold air, a spot of high color on each cheek. She glared at Calliope. “What the hell are you doing here?” Lauren asked. Calliope blinked. She was fairly sure that she’d never heard Lauren swear before, and she was absolutely certain she’d never seen her in the office. Before that moment, she would have been willing to bet the woman didn’t know where the office was. “I’m . . .” Calliope shook her head. “What are you doing here?” Lauren had already turned away from Calliope and was looking in at Josh’s desk. “This is his office? Jesus, it’s just like at home. Why is the light on?” Without waiting for an answer, she stepped through the doorway. Calliope followed her. Lauren’s eyes moved over surfaces Calliope doubted her hands would ever touch. She ended her visual tour with the old leather couch in the corner of the office, where Josh would occasionally catch an afternoon nap when things were slow. Staring at it, her expression shifted from distaste to outright anger. “What are you doing here?” she asked Calliope again, her voice gone hard. “I’m . . .” Calliope moved to the desk to distract herself from the look on Lauren’s face. “Johnson and Walker came by here earlier this afternoon. They wanted to know if there was anything in Josh’s files that might tell them what he was working on in Iowa, but they got one look at this”—she gestured at the desk— “and asked me to do the digging for them.” Calliope’s knack for tweaking the truth had always bordered on the mythic. “You just decided to help them out?” “I wanted something to do and I knew this would keep me busy.” “Why not go home and leave it for tomorrow?” Lauren asked.

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Calliope watched the other woman’s face. “I kicked my guitarist boyfriend out of my house this morning and I want to give him time to move his stuff out.” Lauren snorted, another first in Calliope’s experience. “Fig- ures,” she muttered to herself as she dropped into a chair beside the desk. Something clicked as Calliope watched her guest brush a strand of hair from her face. “You’re drunk.” She couldn’t keep surprise out of her voice. Another snort. “Hardly.” There was a short pause. “I have been drinking, but I am certainly not drunk.” “There wasn’t enough alcohol in the house,” Calliope said. Lauren didn’t reply. “You figured that since Josh was living out his Sam Spade fantasy down here in the slums he’d have a bottle of . . . what? Rye? . . . stashed in a filing cabinet?” Lauren sat very still, her expression sullen. Calliope watched her for a few seconds, then walked across the room, pulled open a drawer, and withdrew a bottle. She set it down with a thump on the edge of Josh’s desk nearest her guest. “Johnnie Walker, actually.” Lauren stared at the bottle, her eyes slightly damp but un- readable. “Do you have any clean glasses?” she asked without looking up. O “Cold pizza and whiskey,” Lauren commented from the couch. “It reminds me of college.” She glanced at Calliope, sitting in the padded chair behind the desk with her feet up. “I suppose it reminds you of last week.” Calliope ignored the barb. “I’d have to go back at least a

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couple years for something like this.” She took another bite of pizza. “Probably while I was still in the band.” “Oh yes . . .” Lauren dropped her chin to her chest and raised her glass in mock salute. “The band.” Calliope frowned. “You know, you knock it, but you don’t know anything about it. It was . . .” She gestured with her glass. “It was good.” The other woman shook her head, possibly more vehe- mently than she would have an hour ago. “What you don’t understand is me.” She struggled to the edge of the couch. “I don’t like bands.” “Oh,” Calliope said. “I know.” Lauren scowled. “What I mean is, I don’t like bands, or band members, or backstage passes, or any . . .” She shook her head, her hands pressed together in her lap, her lips trembling. “I liked Josh. Just Josh. It didn’t have anything to do with what he did, or how much effort he’d put into something that had never gone anywhere—I liked him despite that.” It was Calliope’s turn to snort her derision. “You didn’t exactly have to deal with it for very long, though, did you?” Lauren’s eyes snapped back to her. “I never asked him to stop.” Calliope’s mouth gave a wry, bitter twist. “And yet.” “He gave that up on his own—I think you knew about it before I did.” Lauren glared at Calliope’s unchanged expression. “Do you honestly think”—she gestured around the room as she pushed herself upright—“that I would have tried to get him to become this? He’s brilliant . . . was brilliant. He could have done anything. This . . . private detective fantasy had nothing to do with me.” Her eyes went to Calliope, then the desk, then seemed to lose focus in a very

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particular way, her expression neutral. “I don’t even know why he did it.” Calliope watched her face. “You don’t look like you don’t know why.” “I don’t.” Lauren shook her head and took another drink, but didn’t meet Calliope’s gaze. “I don’t know why he started this business, I don’t know why he kept at it for two years while it lost money—a lot of money—and I really don’t know why I helped him pay the bills.” “And you don’t know why he hired his ex-girlfriend to work with him.” Calliope’s voice was quiet. “No.” Lauren shook her head, her mouth in a grim line. She took another drink. “No, I don’t know that, either.” “It wasn’t—” Calliope began. “But you know,” Lauren cut in, turning back to the desk where Calliope sat, “that’s not what bothers me.” She pursed her lips, her jaw moving as though she had bitten into something that tasted awful, but which she was too polite to spit out. She moved the tumbler in a slow, flat circle through the air, speeding up the motion as she went, as though she were building up enough momentum to force the words out. “What bothers me . . . is that I don’t know why he ever broke up with you.” She spoke carefully, her voice lower than normal, in that particular way of someone who is trying to speak calmly about something that makes them very angry. Calliope didn’t speak. The silence built up into a tangible thing that seemed to take on a physical presence in the room, forcing the two women to look at each other. Eventually. Calliope opened her mouth to give Lauren an answer—any answer—not even sure what she’d say, but Lauren shot to her feet and turned away, wandering barefoot around the room,

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her eyes looking beyond the paneled walls. “So . . . he was in a band, and I loved him anyway; and then he did this, and I loved him anyway; and now he’s dead.” She trailed off, staring at her empty glass. “I need another drink.” Calliope picked up the dwindling bottle and poured, steadier than Lauren only by virtue of the fact that she was sitting. She pondered what Detective Johnson had said to her about Josh’s message and debated telling Lauren about what she suspected. He was probably right; it wouldn’t do her any good to hear if nothing came of it. She might be a bitch but— “Whoa. Enough. Calli, shit, whoa.” Lauren pulled the glass away just as Calliope pulled the bottle back, splashing some of the brown liquor across the blotter. “Sorry.” She shook her head. “Distracted.” “Yeah.” Lauren took a drink from her brimming glass, grimaced, and licked a few drops from the back of her hand. “I can’t feel my tongue anymore,” she muttered as she turned back toward the couch. She took a few halting steps before coming to a stop. At her sharp intake of breath, Calliope looked up. They both stared at the figure standing in the doorway. Somewhere in the back of her mind a calm, sarcastic voice was telling Calliope that whoever it was had been standing there awhile and that she was a big drunk idiot who was probably about to die. “You left the front door unlocked, before.” The voice coming out of the shadowed hood sounded like the owner had gargled a shovelful of gravel and washed it down with tequila. “Shouldn’t do that. It’s not safe.” Next to him, on the wall, the clock read 1:43 a.m.

HiddenThings_5p.indd 23 6/11/12 11:34 AM Jocelynn Drake

ANGEL’S INK The Asylum Tales

October 2012

New York Times bestselling author Jocelynn Drake launches her breakout new series about a magical tattoo artist.

Looking for a tattoo—and maybe a little something extra: a burst of good luck, a dollop of true love, or even a hex on an ex? Head to the quiet and mysterious Gage, the best skin artist in town. Using unique potions—a blend of extra ordinary ingredients and special inks—to etch the right symbol, he can fulfill any heart’s desire. But in a place like Low Town, where elves, faeries, trolls, werewolves, and vampires happily walk among humanity, everything has its price. No one knows that better than Gage. Turning his back on his own kind, he left the magical Ivory Tower where cruel witches and warlocks rule, a decision that cost him the right to practice magic. And if he disobeys, his punishment— execution—will be swift. Though he’s tried to fly under the radar, Gage can’t hide from powerful warlocks who want him dead—or the secrets of his own past. But with the help of friends, Trixie, a gorgeous elf who hides her true identity, and a hulking troll named Bronx, Gage might just make it through this enchanted world alive.

“Unique and fascinating….In the best tradition of urban fantasy, the continuing Asylum Tales series promises to be intriguing and wildly inventive.” — Kim Harrison

“Puts the Ink in Incredible.” — Simon R. Green

“Gritty, authentic and fast-paced! This urban fantasy series rocks!” — J.R. Ward

The hammer of a gun clicked as it was cocked. ἀ at small, distinct sound sent a shiver through me despite the summer heat shimmering off the sidewalk. My heart skipped. I froze with my right foot on the bottom step leading up to the tattoo parlor—so close to sanctuary, and yet I didn’t have a chance. ἀ e front door was locked. I was trapped, hanging helpless in that second waiting for the gunman behind me to finally speak or send a bullet screaming through the back of my head. “You fucking lied to me, Gage!” snarled my assailant. ἀ e voice sounded familiar, but it wasn’t until I slowly turned around that I realized why my life was hanging by a thread. I had tattooed the man just a co uple of weeks ago and apparently he wasn’t pleased with the result. R ussell Dalton was a large, beefy man full of muscles and a layer of fat around his waist from too many Big Macs and not enough core exercises. He was loud, obnoxious, and cheap. In my opinion, he had gotten what he paid for, but then it looked like he wanted to take his anger and frustration out on my hide, as he remained in the shadows of the alley beside the parlor. “I never lied to you,” I replied calmly, holding my hands open 11

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and out to my sides to show that I didn’t have any weapons. In this world, you couldn’t be too careful. I resisted the urge to look up at the sky, knowing that it was not long after noon—hours away from when the hulking Bronx would be able to get to the tattoo parlor. Damn trolls and their weakness for sunlight. I was on my own for now, but then it was better that way. Just the two of us and no one watching. “You promised me good luck,” R ussell accused. “Since I got this damn tattoo, I was fired from my job, my car was stolen, and my wife wants a divorce. ἀ at ain’t good luck.” “You paid me fifty bucks for a shamrock tattoo the size of a quarter on the bottom of your foot.” Balling my hands into fists, I let my foot fall from the step and turned around to fully face my attacker. “ἀ at was barely enough to cover the cost of the ink and my time and expertise, not to mention the leprechaun hair that I threw into the mix. Do you know how hard it is to get that shit?” In all honesty, I had a contact at a popular beauty parlor across town and for a price she was kind enough to grab samples of hair for me. It wasn’t that hard to get my hands on leprechaun hair. ἀ e only problem was that it so easily turned bad if you weren’t careful. O bvi- ously, my stockpile had taken an unexpected turn. I made a mental note that if I used it again I needed to cut the spell with water from a spring snowmelt or fuzz from a white rabbit to counter the negative energy from the leprechaun hair. Unfortunately, this cheap-ass dirtbag hadn’t paid enough for me to take those kinds of precautions. Hell, he shouldn’t have gotten the leprechaun hair at that price, but I had been in a generous mood. Sometimes I can be a real dumbass when it comes to my clients, but then, my motto was you get what you pay for. “You have to fix it!” R ussell snarled, ignoring my question. “You have to make everything right again!” “And let me guess, you want this work done for free?” I sneered.

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“Damn right for free! You’ve ruined my life!” I took a step forward, and to my surprise, R ussell slid half a step backward into the alley. ἀ at worked for me. I didn’t want this on the street should someone walk by. “If you want good luck, it comes with a price, and the kind of luck you’re looking for is extremely expensive. You blew through my front door demanding lottery- winning luck while waving fifty bucks in my face. You got what you paid for. Buyer beware, buddy.” “You fucking asshole! You’re not the only tattoo artist in L ow Town! I don’t need you!” he shouted, shaking the gun at me. I took another step toward R ussell, backing him farther into the alley. “Yeah, but I’m the best and that’s why you came to me instead of some broken-down backroom operation with dirty needles and shady ingredients.” “You’re obviously not any better!” I had had enough of this shit. K eeping my eyes locked on his, I let the gym bag on my right shoulder slide offand hit the ground with a heavy thud. As I expected, he jerked the gun toward the bag. Taking advantage of his distraction, I edged forward and slammed both of my hands into the hand gripping the gun, knocking the weapon to the ground. Still holding his right hand, I twisted it at an awkward angle while dropping to my knee, putting R ussell on his back in the dirty cobblestone alley. Before he could get his wits about him, I slammed my elbow into his face, feeling his nose fracture beneath my forearm while the back of his head hammered into the brick-covered ground. “Asshole,” I muttered. Standing, I dusted off my jeans and stepped back. “Don’t show your face around here again or I’ll tell the cops what kind of tattoo you really came in my shop for.” Sucking in a deep, cleansing breath, I summoned up a smattering of the energy that swirled around me, begging for my touch. I raised my left hand toward him and clenched my fist, as if I was

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grabbing his shirt, before throwing out my arm. R ussell slid violently down the alley until his head clanged into the side of a Dumpster. My breath froze in my chest and I watched the sky for the tell- tale flash of lightning that would streak across seconds before the appearance of a guardian. I wasn’t supposed to be using magic, no matter how minute. And the guardians were itching for an excuse to put my ass in a sling. I d idn’t need to push my luck, but Dal- ton had gotten under my skin. I was an excellent tattoo artist and I didn’t need his kind of bad karma mucking up my business. After a couple of seconds and no lightning bolt, I relaxed. For now, I remained under the radar and intended to stay there. A large hand appeared from out of nowhere and wrapped around my throat, picking me up and slamming me against the alley wall of the tattoo parlor. A s harp-featured face leaned so close that I could easily make out the silver eyes with a hint of green. Black hair flowed around his face, putting his features in dark shadow despite the bright sunlight. “Gideon,” I choked out as I held on to his hand, trying to loosen his grip before I suffocated. “It’s been a long time.” “N ot long enough,” he said in a menacing voice as he raised his wand and dug it into my cheek. My heart pounded in my chest far harder than when I was facing the barrel of Dalton’s gun. I’d always known I could stop a bullet, but I wasn’t prepared to stop any spell that this warlock was itching to throw in my direction. Apparently, someone had been watching. Fuck. Gideon’s sneer turned into an evil grin. “You’ve been warned more than once that you have been forbidden to perform any of the magical arts. As I recall, you were the one who turned your back on us, saying that you didn’t need us or magic.” Gritting my teeth, I pressed my hands into the wall behind me and kicked Gideon in the chest with both feet, shoving him violently away from me. I immediately erected a protective barrier as I

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slammed into the ground. A wicked flash of energy that shot from Gideon’s wand was deflected by the shield, briefly lighting up the alley. “Before I left, the council agreed that I could use magic in acts of self-defense,” I shouted before Gideon could come up with another spell that would crash through my meager defensive shield. I had always been good at magic, but there was more to it than just being naturally attuned to the energies in the air. Being a powerful warlock took decades of study and I had stopped more than a few years ago. I didn’t stand much of a chance in a magic fight against a warlock like Gideon. He picked himself up off the ground and dusted off his black pants and shirt. Gideon even took the time to shake out his cloak before turning to me. In this day and age, the cloak looked a little ridiculous, but I was no fool. ἀ at thing was woven with enough protective spells that the warlock wouldn’t be caught dead without it. “I saw the fight,” Gideon said calmly. “ἀ e man was already down.” “But not unconscious. I had to be sure that he wouldn’t follow me into my shop where I would still be alone and defenseless.” “We all know you’re never defenseless.” I shrugged, fighting back a smirk. “R elatively speaking.” “You used magic, when you were not permitted, in dealing with this human. You broke your agreement. You’re coming with me.” “N ot today.” I shook my head as I dropped my protective shield and leaned against the wall so my shaking knees wouldn’t have to fully support my weight. “Bring me before the council and they will see that it was self-defense. An unarmed man against one with a gun. ἀ e council would be forced to find in my favor. ἀ ink about it, Gideon. I know you and everyone else in the Ivory Towers is eager to see me dead, but do you really want to waste the council’s time? ἀ ey won’t look kindly on it.” My only warning was a low, frustrated growl before he rushed

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across the alley and slammed my head against the wall. “I will let you go this time, renegade, but we are watching you. We will catch you eventually.” “Try all you like.” Gideon gave a l ittle snort as he stepped away from me. “Why you’ve chosen to live among these useless flesh bags is beyond me.” “ἀ at’s why,” I said in clipped tones. I refused to view humans as little more than chattel. Gideon frowned at me one last time before he disappeared completely, heading back to the Towers, I was sure. E ach continent was dotted with gleaming towers made of white marble and granite that stretched above the clouds. ἀ ese were the elusive Ivory Towers, their exact locations known only to the witches and warlocks who lived in them. And me. I knew where they were and had managed to escape with that knowledge, not that it was doing much good now. Sliding down the grimy wall, I took a deep breath as I tried to slow my racing heart and my trembling hands. I had come too close this time. ἀ at self-defense argument was starting to run a little thin and I had a dark suspicion that Mr. Dalton might have been given a little shove in my direction in hopes of pushing my buttons into using magic. It had worked. I didn’t like being threatened and I didn’t like it when my abilities were questioned. Sometimes I had too much ego and not enough common sense. If Gideon had had his way, I would have been whisked away to the council in the Ivory Towers, found guilty, and executed, all within an hour. Pushing back to my feet, I paused for a second as I gazed down the alley and saw Dalton’s chest rise once with a heavy breath. ἀ en I picked up the gun in one hand and my gym bag in the other. ἀ is neighborhood was getting more dangerous by the day.

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S tepping inside the air-conditioned arctic of the tattoo parlor, I kicked the door shut while dropping my bag, along with the gun, on the floor. I twisted around and slid the dead bolt back into place and glanced around the parlor. ἀ e lobby had dark hardwood floors covered in ancient area rugs with worn floral patterns. An old ceramic fireplace stood against one wall, its mouth covered to hold in the heat during the winter and the cool during the blistering summer months. ἀ e wall was covered in plastic flip boards that held common tattoo designs we had done in the past to give potential clients some suggestions should they need them. But in most cases, clients didn’t much bother with the flip boards, preferring to rely on the knowledge of the artist. A counter with a clear glass case stood before the doorway to the actual tattoo work space. It held a variety of old books and pictures depicting tattoos from the earliest of days, when only sailors were among the clientele. ἀ ey had been handed down to me by the man I had apprenticed under when I decided to open my own shop. A faint hint of antiseptic hung in the air from where Bronx had sterilized most of the surface areas in the back before closing up the night before. Underlying that was the smell of stale magic, which 7

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always made me smile a little. It was a distinct smell that only the experienced magic user could pick up, and I had more experience than I was willing to admit to anyone. I leaned down and threw back the largest of the area rugs near the center of the room, revealing a pentagram deeply etched into the wood floor. Stepping into the center of the pentagram, I closed my eyes but still hesitated. I reminded myself that this type of magic fell under the self-defense clause. Besides, it was a rune spell and the guardians couldn’t pick up on that kind of magic very well. E nergy flowed around me, beating against my skin while trying to push its way into my brain. I started a low chant while keeping my arms lifted slightly at my sides. Magic energy coursed through me for a few seconds before shifting throughout the front room and flowing to the back room and down into the basement, completing my bid- ding. After a second, I dropped my arms back to my sides and narrowed my eyes as I stared at the front door. A slight blue glow that only I could see clung to the opening. ἀ e spell was a small one, allowing me to see through anyone’s glamour as they entered my tattoo parlor. You never knew who was going to walk through your door and I wasn’t taking any chances. I had to recast the spell every day before opening the shop, but it was a small price to pay. Besides, security systems didn’t come cheap, and getting one that included magical defenses was even more expensive since it involved finding a warlock or a witch willing to do a little menial labor. N ot fucking likely. ἀ e deglamour spell had proved itself time and time again, and very few could sense it when they walked through the door. Bronx had before I hired him—I remembered seeing him open the door and pause at the threshold. I had been sitting behind the counter at the time, and I remember seeing the troll narrow his eyes at me before he stepped boldly into the room. I doubted whether he could tell what the spell was exactly, but he knew it was there. I simply

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smiled and shrugged. ἀ e Asylum Tattoo Parlor wasn’t in the greatest neighborhood, and I had every right to protect myself and any colleagues. Bronx never said a word about the spell and I think that was part of the reason I hired him. ἀ at, and he had some of the most impressive shading skills and creative line work I h ad ever seen. His potion-stirring skills hadn’t been the strongest when he had been hired, but he proved to be a fast learner. However, the greatest revelation had come from Trixie. She had given a little shudder when she stepped into the tattoo parlor, but by her expression, I could tell that she had simply waved it off as a cold chill. ἀ e spell had instantly stripped away the glamour spell she had been using, leaving it as little more than a hazy shadow over her tight, lithe form so that I could see she was truly an elf. I had never told her that I knew exactly what she was and had no intention of mentioning it. She was cloaking her true presence for a reason and I had no desire to go digging into something that wasn’t any of my business. Besides, Trixie was good for the parlor. Her long slender legs, revealed by a pair of short shorts during the summer, and her dainty tank tops filled out by perky breasts and topped off with a gorgeous face drew in more than a fair share of repeat male clients. Her sweet, outgoing personality and her skill with a needle made her an amazing package I preferred not to lose, so her secrets were her own. Stepping out of the pentagram, I kicked the rug back and made sure that the corner lined up with the bit of masking tape on the floor I used as a guide to ensure that the rug hadn’t been moved. N o one needed to know about the pentagram. As far as anyone else was concerned, I was just a tattoo artist and didn’t know shit about real magic. I grabbed my gym bag and slung it over my shoulder. ἀ e front door was locked and the spell was back in place. It was time to get to work. In the main room of the tattoo parlor, I flicked on the lights and

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let my eyes travel over the white counter space, the three large chairs, and the rainbow of ink bottles that lined one wall. Everything was neat and tidy, ready for another day. But then, Bronx was very organized and neat when he worked. He had no problem cleaning up the shop before he left at the end of the night. ἀ e only one who might have been more organized and clean conscious was a vampire, but I preferred not to have one on staff. I didn’t need to worry about a staff emberm taking a nip at someone while in the middle of a job. I crossed the room and headed down a n arrow hallway to a windowless back room. ἀ is was where we completed some tattoos while offering clients privacy should the tattoo be in a place that was more than a l ittle revealing. ἀ ere were other, darker reasons for using the back room for tattooing, but then I always figured it was the decision of the tattoo artist to go down that path. I didn’t ask too many questions, particularly since I used this room the most often of the three of us. Shutting the door behind me, I went over to the floor-to-ceiling wood cabinet that covered one wall and pulled it open. ἀ ousands of bottles, vials, plastic containers, and yellowing envelopes filled it. ἀ is was where we kept the main ingredients to stir into the potions needed for the majority of the tattoos people came to get. Sure, some customers just wanted a little ink. But most wanted something extra. ἀ ey wanted the tattoo to do something for them, and whether it was a burst of good luck, a dollop of true love, or even a hex on an ex, we could get it done—for a price. After scanning the vials for a s econd, I p ulled down the one that held the leprechaun hair and glanced at the date on the side. It wasn’t that old and shouldn’t have gone bad on me already. It had to be the source of the hair that was less than . . . prime. In my limited experience, some leprechauns were just plain evil, running more toward their cousins the imp and the hinky-punk than their more compassionate faerie cousins. I had to be careful stirring with this ingredient or I was going to end up shot. Good luck spells were fair-

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ly common, though I generally relied on the leprechaun hair only for the cheap asses. All the same, I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and di- aled L ana’s number down at C url Up & Dye. After a few minutes of mindless chatter and harmless flirting with the stylist, I got her to promise to bring me down a new tuft of leprechaun hair, from a different source this time, in the next co uple of days. For now, I was stuck with what I had and we needed to be careful with it. Slipping my cell phone back in my pocket, I walked over to the back of the room and pulled up the trapdoor in the floor with only a whisper of a creak. Most of the time, a chair was left on the trapdoor to make it look like it was unused, but I suspected that my coworkers were aware of my occasional disappearances down into the basement. Despite the overwhelming darkness, I e asily grabbed the pull chain on the single bare bulb in the basement and jerked it on before touching the dirt floor. L ined up along three of the walls were ad- ditional wood cabinets holding more volatile and rarer items. Some I had been lucky enough to inherit, while others were purchased on the black market. All of them were for my exclusive use, and they were what made me the most successful tattoo artist in town. When you wanted something done right and had the cash to pay for it, it was all about the ingredients in the ink rather than the design on the skin. O n the one bare stone wall was another pentagram spray- painted in black. ἀ is one held the power to attack any intruders. I glanced over the items one time and did a quick check on the spell to see that it was still intact and cast by me. N o one had been down here without my knowledge. ἀ e same tension that coiled in my stomach every day I walked into the shop finally unwound and I breathed a sigh of relief. ἀ e basement held other spells, cloaking special items from view, protecting both them and me. ἀ ere were things down here that pe ople would kill for and ones that were an

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automatic death sentence for possessing without being a witch or a warlock. O verhead, I h eard the sound of the front door opening and slamming shut followed by the heavy pounding of heels across the hardwood floor. I knew that cadence. Trixie was in early. Hurrying up the stairs, I s hut the trapdoor behind me and dropped my bag on it to keep it partially hidden from view. It was time to get to work. “Is there a reason a gun is lying on the floor?” Trixie asked casu- ally as I met her in the main tattooing area. Shit. I’d forgotten about the gun. It was now sitting quite obviously on the floor, beside the front door where I had left it. N ot exactly the best thing to leave lying around a tattoo parlor where any of your more unstable customers could pick it up. “R ough afternoon,” I m uttered, but the words didn’t come out sounding as indifferent as I had hoped; then my eyes fell on Trixie’s outfit for today. Instead of her usual shorts, she wore a pair of jeans with some strategically placed holes and tears. Her top was a black leather bustier that accented the swell of her breasts and left a broad swath of her flat stomach bare. Her long blond locks were pulled back in some twist thing that allowed some thick strands to frame her face. As she turned to drop her bag on the counter, I could easily make out the butterfly-wings tattoo between her shoulder blades. Somehow, they seemed to sparkle in the light as she moved. C lenching my teeth, I ducked my head as I walked out into the lobby and picked up the gun. She was going to be the death of my sanity. I positively ached to touch her, to run my hands along skin I knew would be as smooth as satin, and bury my nose in her neck to drink in her sweet scent. I knew better than to mix business with pleasure. It N E Ve r worked out. N ever. To make matters worse, Trixie had gone out of her way to dis- guise the fact that she was an elf when it was well-known that

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some of the best artists in the industry were elves. ἀ ey had the patience and the natural talent to not only learn to stir a good potion, but to also learn the art. Trixie was hiding, and that wasn’t good under any circumstances. It had been on the tip of my tongue to ask her about it on more than one occasion, but I wasn’t exactly sure how to start that conversation without giving away my own abilities and dark past. Among humans, the only ones who could identify a g lamour spell were warlocks and witches. My hands were tied. For now, I kept my mouth shut and my eyes open, content with her working five nights a week. “What are you doing here so early?” I asked as I came back into the tattooing room with the gun. I opened one of the cabinets on the far side of the room with the toe of my worn black boot, removed the magazine from the bottom of the grip, and threw the gun and magazine in with the others that I had collected over the past few years. ἀ is was a somewhat dangerous business even under the best of circumstances. L uckily, having a troll on staff helped to keep the scuffles to a minimum. “You said today was inventory day. I thought I would come in early and help,” she said with a bright smile. I made some nondescript noise in the back of my throat as I kicked the cabinet door shut, mentally plucking the wings off the butterflies that took flight in my stomach. After working with her for roughly two years, I would like to think that I could get through a workday without acting like a hormone-filled idiot. My shift at the Asylum usually ran from the middle of the afternoon until midevening, while Trixie came in a few hours after me. Bronx didn’t show up until a couple of hours after the sun set and stayed until a co uple of hours before dawn. O ddly enough, these were typical hours for tattoo parlors. N o one worked mornings. Who the hell wanted a tattoo first thing in the morning with their coffee?

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“Are you ever going to do anything about those guns? O r are you just collecting them as mementoes of your past conquests?” Trixie continued. O ne corner of my mouth lifted before I could stop it and I shook my head. “Would you rather I called the cops so I could hand them all over like a good boy?” “And then try to survive the barrage of questions that would ac- company that armory?” she scoffed. “I’d like to stay below the radar of all the local law enforcement.” “Agreed. I’ve got some contacts. I’ll start asking around to see what I can get for them. We could use some new equipment,” I said, letting my eyes skim over the work area while carefully avoiding Trixie. We could always use some fresh ingredients, and some of the tattooing equipment was starting to get worn in such a w ay that we were making personal modifications just so it kept working through a tattoo. I had made some nice cash from this business over the past few years, but it was obvious that it was time to start reinvesting. Walking over to the counter opposite where Trixie was currently perched, I turned on the small television linked to the security camera that looked over the lobby of the parlor. It allowed us to see who came through the door when we were all busy with a chair. It wasn’t completely foolproof—some creatures didn’t show up on camera— but it caught most who wandered through our door. “So are you going to tell me what happened?” Trixie prodded after a moment of silence had stretched between us. I shrugged as I turned to face her. “N othing important.” I finally raised my eyes to look at her again, feeling as if I had better control over myself following the initial shock of her outfit. “N othing important, but it involved a g un,” she said, crossing her arms over her bosom. “C ome on, Gage. Spill it or I’ll get Bronx to sit on you when he comes in and we’ll crush it out of you.”

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“R ussell Dalton caught me on my way into the parlor this afternoon. Seems he’s a little pissed regarding the results of his tattoo.” “Dalton? I don’t remember him.” “C ame in a co uple of weeks ago wanting a good luck charm. He had only fifty bucks on him.” “O h, that idiot!” she gasped. She dropped her hands back to her lap and shook her head at me. “I still can’t believe you took that one.” I sighed, once again forced to question either my sanity or my decision-making process when it came to clients. “I was feeling generous.” “So, I’m guessing the tattoo hasn’t worked like he wanted.” “I put a shamrock on the heel of his left foot. Do you honestly think anything good could come of that?” “N ot really. But then, I wouldn’t expect things to go all that bad for him either.” “Yeah, well, neither did I, but they did. L ost job, car stolen, and wife wants a divorce.” Trixie let out a low whistle as she leaned back against the set of cabinets above the counter that wrapped around the far wall. “ἀ at’s odd.” “N ot really. I put a leprechaun hair in the ink.” “It go bad?” “ἀ at or it was bad to begin with,” I said with another sigh. ἀ is wasn’t how I expected my day to go. “I’ve already called for some fresh, but it’ll be a few days. Just be careful and cut the mixture with something else to counteract it if you happen to use the hair between now and then. Pass the word along to Bronx if you see him before I do.” “Got it, boss,” she said, hopping down from her perch on the countertop.

1515

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“Shall we get started?” I asked, trying to ignore the jiggle of her breasts as she landed lightly on her toes. “Do you want front room or back room?” she inquired, looking over her shoulder at me as she walked toward the front glass counter and bent down so that I could catch the perfect roundness of her rear in the tight jeans. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was doing it on purpose. But she was just switching on the music like we did every day. “Back room,” I bit out, turning to look for the pair of clipboards that held the list of supplies we kept on hand. ἀ e front room held the random necessary items such as paper towels, latex gloves, pe- troleum jelly, needles, and ink. ἀ e processing of the items in the front room took less than thirty minutes and an order form was quickly filled out. ἀ e back room possessed all the unique ingredients that we used in our potions. E ach container needed to be checked, opened, and assessed as to whether the contents were still good or if we needed more. ἀ e back-room check could take up to three hours to process and the order form was even trickier because not everything could be purchased at the local ingredients shop. Some things had to be acquired through a series of back-alley transactions and black- market connections. “If you need any help, just give a shout,” she offered as I turned toward the back room again. “I’ve got it.” “Gage . . .” I stopped and turned half around to see where she was standing, one hand on the glass top of the counter in the lobby. “ἀ anks for not getting shot.” “N o problem. I h ear the job market is a k iller right now.” I winked at her, a wide, devilish grin crossing my mouth. “Asshole,” she mumbled under her breath as she turned back toward the stereo she was fiddling with. I didn’t miss the smile that

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graced her lovely face. Before I could escape into the back room, Beethoven was blasted through the four speakers that were spread around the main tattoo room. I suppressed a laugh when I heard Trixie cursing Bronx’s taste in music. By the time I had shut the door, she had hooked up her own MP3 player to the speakers and Dropkick Murphys was filling the air. Trixie had a thing for both punk bands and bagpipes.

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Aside from nearly being shot in the alley, it was proving to be a slow night. Trixie and I finished the inventory in record time as the parlor remained dead for the first few hours of the night and I passed the next hour on the phone lining up sellers for the few hard- to-get items that I needed to put back in stock. N othing that had to be acquired through the black market, but not all were through the most reputable channels. Just people who were willing to take some risks for the right price. O ne of the things I had learned quickly when I opened this shop was that in order to get the necessary and best resources it was all about the connections you made. I had finished up my phone calls when Bronx lumbered through the front door and shrugged off the massive black leather trench coat he wore despite the heat. But then, even with the sun down, most trolls had a lingering fear of their skin being exposed to the sunlight. Hanging it on the coat stand near the front door, he grunted once at me in greeting before scowling up at the speakers still blaring the Dropkick Murphys throughout the parlor. I smiled as I leaned down behind the counter and picked up Trixie’s MP3 player. I skimmed through her hundreds of artists and albums until I finally settled on a “Best of” Pink Floyd collection. It was a nice

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in-between band that both Trixie and Bronx could live with for the next couple of hours before the bickering began about music choice. “K illjoy,” Trixie grumbled behind me from where she was lying back in one of the chairs with her arm thrown over her eyes. “It can’t be that bad i f it’s on your MP3 player,” I replied as I stepped back so that Bronx could enter the back room. As I moved back to my position in front of the glass case, the front door flew open and four pe ople rushed inside. By the horrified, panicked expressions twisting their faces, I k new they weren’t in the market for new tattoos. In fact, a couple of them gazed around the lobby for a second, looking confused as to where exactly they were. “What’s up?” I asked, coming around the glass case to approach the front window where the four pe ople were huddled together, staring down the street. I was trying for easygoing, but my question came out tight and tense. ἀ e door opened again and two women darted inside. Beyond the front window, I could see more people running up the street and slipping into any store that was open. “O ne of them is down at C ock’s C row,” one woman whispered. As she spoke, she backed away from the window so that she was nearing the shadows of the far corner of the lobby. One of them. At that utterance, it felt as if every muscle in my body tensed painfully. ἀ e world lived in daily terror of seeing one of them. Damn warlocks. Fucking witches. Because of them, fields had been dug up for enormous mass graves during the Great War. Because of them, both unicorns and dragons were now extinct, while others dangled on the cusp. Because of them, we all lived in fear. “Gage?” Trixie’s unsure voice snapped me from dark thoughts, jerking my head around to find her standing in the doorway between the lobby and the tattooing room. She had turned offthe music, blanketing the shop in silence. Bronx stood behind her, a heavy hand on her slim shoulder.

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“Bronx, take these people out the back door and direct them down the alley.” “ἀ e tunnels?” the troll asked, dropping his hand from Trixie. “If they want, but I think this is just going to be an isolated incident,” I said with a frown. I knew the warlocks and witches were aware of the tunnels, because I had learned about the tunnels from them. ἀ e only good thing was that they didn’t know all the en- trances or where all the tunnels led. ἀ ey had been built under all the cities and into the countryside over the past co uple of centuries as a means of escape. I glanced back out the window, looking down the now empty street toward the C ock’s C row bar. R ight now, nothing was happening on the street, but I could make out a form hovering near the entrance to the bar. It wasn’t over yet. “Take Trixie with you to the tunnels.” “I’m staying,” she declared, snapping my eyes back to her. I bit my tongue, fighting the urge to tell Bronx to flip her over his shoulder and carry her out of the shop. I wanted her safe and nowhere near another warlock or witch if I could help it. I knew why someone had appeared down at C ock’s C row and I didn’t think anyone else would be affected, but I didn’t want to take chances with her safety. Turning back toward the people gathered in the lobby, I raised my voice. “Everyone follow Bronx! He’ll show you how to get safely out of the neighborhood. Don’t come back until you hear on the news that everything is clear.” I looked out the window again, staring down the street as I listened to the thunder of feet across the hardwood floor toward the back room. ἀ eir whispers were rough and tinged with fear, which only made me angrier. ἀ ese monsters didn’t deserve to be feared. ἀ ey were bullies, mocking everyone with their powers. When the slam of the back door echoed through the silent shop, I pulled open the front door and stepped onto the first concrete step

AngelsInk_i_x_1_338_blues.indd 20 6/5/12 10:44 AM

If you liked that don’t miss Jocelynn Drake’s two all-new digital original stories!

Prequels to ANGEL’S INK starring Trixie, a gorgeous elf who hides her true identity and a hulking troll named Bronx, friends of the magical tattoo artist Gage.

THE ASYLUM INTERVIEWS: BRONX – On Sale Now

THE ASYLUM INTERVIEWS: TRIXIE – On Sale 9/4/12

Kim Harrison

INTO THE WOODS Tales from the Hollows and Beyond

October 2012

For centuries, the woods have been a pivotal part of the wonder and danger of fairy tales, for once you enter the forest, anything can happen. Elves, druids, fairies—who knows what you will find once you dare step inside? And now, New York Times bestselling author Kim Harrison ventures into the mysterious hidden lands of magic and mystery herself, in her first story collection. Into the Woods brings together an enchanting mix of fiction—half brand-new, never never-before-published stories, and half tales from her beloved, bestselling Hollows. This collection includes an original Hollows novella, “Million Dollar Baby,” about Trent Kalamack’s secret elven quest in Pale Demon, along with two original short stories (“Pet Shop Boys” and “Temson Estates,”) that explore just what happens when humanity and the supernatural collide, and two novelettes (“Spider Silk” and “Grace”) set in new worlds of imagination and adventure. Plus Into the Woods includes all of the previously published Hollows short stories--together in one volume for the very first time.

Step into the woods and discover the magic for yourself.

“I wouldn’t miss a Kim Harrison book for anything.” — Charlaine Harris

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Tank Girl.” – Entertainment Weekly

“A smoldering combination of Alice Waters and Ozzy Osbourne.” — New York Times Book Review

Contents

The Hollows

T h e Be spe lle d 3 T w o G h o st s fo r Sis t e r R ach e l 19 Un d e ad i n t h e G ar d e n o f Go o d an d E v il 103 D ir t y Magic 181 T h e Br id ge s o f E d e n Par k 201 Le y Lin e D r ift e r 221 Millio n D o llar B aby 287

Beyond the Hollows

Pe t Sh o p Bo ys 369 T e mso n E st at e s 403 Spid e r Silk 419 Gr ace 465

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I wrote “Temson Estates” about the same time that I began working on the short that eventually became the first chapter of D ead W itch W alking. I wanted to know what a dryad might be like if the Greek and Roman visions of tree spirits were real, possibly giving a scientific reason for both their absence and possible resurgence. I played with a few ideas here that I went on to use very loosely when developing the Bis/Jenks short, “Ley Line Drifter,” but I liked my dryads here better, which might be why I never took the Hollows dryads any further. That two of the characters have the same names as my to-be editor and her assistant was just plain weird, especially since it w ould be another year or two until I actually knew of their existence. I thought about changing them, but sometimes you just have to let the weird things stay.

ill shifted uncomfortably in the hard-backed chair, hot in the wool suit that he’d bought yesterday in a d oomed at- Wtempt to try to make a good impression. It was itchy, but he wasn’t going to run a finger between it and his neck a second time. H e had a feeling the man who had sold it to him had taken advantage of him, but that only proved yet again that he was totally out of place here among the rich carpets, tooled mahogany, and good manners. T he young woman

IntoTheWoods_2p.indd 403 6/7/12 10:19 AM across from him already thought he was a crass Yank. Maybe she was right. It wasn’t his fault he was here—not that she’d ever see it that way—summoned across how many time zones to sit in a foreign law office and face down these two women over something he had no control over. “I’m sorry, Ms. T emson,” the lawyer said, his voice sympathetic but firm. “Your father’s wish is quite clear. In the presence of a m ale heir, T emson E state cannot fall to you. You retain the house, grounds, and your brother’s considerable offshore investments, but the woods themselves belong to Mr. W illiam T emson.” Ms. T emson, his grandfather’s sister apparently, pressed her lips together in quiet thought. T hough clearly shaken, she was thinking hard, and that worried W ill more than the fire and sparks coming from the young woman at her elbow. She’d been introduced as D iana and was Ms. T emson’s caregiver. T hough to be honest, W ill didn’t think the old woman needed any help. She looked too crafty to die from anything but a curse, as his father would have said. D iana was about his age, dressed so smartly in her shape-fitting, pale cream linen suit that he felt like a used-car salesman. S eeing W ill eyeing her, she squinted at him, her short nails clicking as she drummed her fingers once. “You drew that will up yourself!” she finally said, her accent charming even while furious. “H ow could you lose the T emson E state to some—some—Yank!” she exclaimed. “D iana,” the old woman murmured, and the young woman gave her a look both contrite and defiant. W ill winced. It wasn’t his fault. All he wanted to do was sign the papers and go home. T he money from the sale of the forest would be a godsend, enabling him to finish his master’s with enough left over he could really make a difference. “T here is nothing I can do,” the lawyer said as he stood in the thin light seeping past the wooden blinds. “T he title and everything with it goes to him.” D iana stood, angry and abrupt. “Let’s go, Grandmum.” She turned to him, fuming. “W e are contesting this. If Arthur had known that entitle- ment had been in there, he would have changed it!” Concerned, W ill met the lawyer’s eyes, and the stiff man subtly shook

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IntoTheWoods_2p.indd 404 6/7/12 10:19 AM his head, a sublime confidence in the way he opened the folder and began leafing through the legal papers. T he old woman ignored D iana’s anger, her hands in their stark-white gloves sitting on the table. “You know I can’t let the axes in there, R yan. It would be murder.” Uneasy, the lawyer glanced from the papers to W ill, an apologetic crinkle in his eyes. “Murder?” W ill said, interested as papers were slid before him. “Grandmum, please,” D iana murmured, her entire demeanor shifting to one of embarrassment as she touched the older woman’s shoulder as if to prod her into motion. T he old woman pursed her lips, then finally giving in to D iana’s gentle tugging, she got to her feet. W ill hastily rose, his chair scraping. “She’s a bit creaky in the attic,” the lawyer said a shade too loudly as he handed W ill a pen and pointed where to sign. “She and her brother, God rest his soul, never let anyone in that woods, but it’s yours now. You’ll be selling it . . . I presume? W e don’t handle property transfers, but here is my brother’s card. H e can get you a good price on it.” D iana’s urgent, hushed, and utterly one-sided conversation with Ms. T emson was an uneasy backdrop as W ill signed the last place and handed the pen back. “T hank you,” he said, tucking the card in his pocket. “I’d like to take care of this as soon as possible.” H e wanted to go home. It was too cold and rainy here—too many people. “You cannot log those woods,” D iana said bitterly as the lawyer closed the file and gestured for them all to leave. “W e have worked too long. You don’t understand.” At her words, the woman dug her heels in at the threshold, D iana’s arm slipping from her. Alarmed, the young woman turned as Ms. T emson faced W ill, her gloved hands holding her tiny purse before her and her stance upright and ramrod straight. “D iana,” the older woman said firmly. “You are absolutely right. I would speak with Mr. T emson before we leave.” D iana’s face went white. “Grandmum. N o,” she said, and inclining his head, the lawyer snapped his folder on the table and left. W ill was tempted to mutter some excuse and bolt after him, but D iana’s sudden shift of

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IntoTheWoods_2p.indd 405 6/7/12 10:19 AM mood from angry frustration to one of . . . hidden secrets caught his interest. She didn’t want him logging out the woods, but she didn’t want him talking to Ms. T emson, either. D iana’s eyes flicked between them. “Grandmum . . . H e’s not going to sell it back to you. H e wants the money.” W ill cringed at the emphasis she’d put on the last word, as if it was dirty. Yes, he wanted the money. H e had a lot of things he wanted to do, and being a realist, he knew it took money to make a difference—lots of money. But Ms. T emson’s deep look of concentration worried him. H e’d found old ladies were the most devious creatures on earth. “Call me W ill, please,” he said as he took the woman’s fragile-looking hand, startled at her firm grip in her white gloves. “I’d like to extend my deepest sympathy—” She waved a h and, interrupting him. “Arthur’s passing was a b less- ing,” she said, shocking him when she smiled and touched his arm fa- miliarly. “Your grandfather died from a heart attack five years ago. It just took his body until now to realize it.” Commandeering his arm, she led him out. T o the casual observer, it might seem he was helping her, but she was in complete control of the situation and both of them knew it. D iana lurked behind, walking far too close and making him feel awkward as he held the door for her. She was still scared, too, concerned at what might come out of Ms. T emson’s mouth. W hich was exactly why he hadn’t left yet. Both women went out before him to stand on the wide stoop, hesitat- ing as if for a few last words. T he thin sun struck him, and he relaxed, glad to be out of the gloom and circumstance of another country’s law. “T hank you, love,” his grandmother said with a sigh, seeming to be glad to have the sun about her again as well. “You will picnic with us.” “Grandmum!” D iana gasped, her pale cheeks blushing. “T omorrow. It will be a lovely stomp through the woods,” the older woman said, holding up a hand in gentle, silent rebuke. “I—uh—wouldn’t dream of imposing.” W ill’s eyes flicked to D iana. She was all but baring her teeth at him, thinly disguising it as a smile. “N onsense.” Ms. T emson shifted into his line of sight, smiling as if

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IntoTheWoods_2p.indd 406 6/7/12 10:19 AM they were lifelong friends. “You will be logging out the woods. D on’t deny it. T he offers undoubtedly began before you arrived, and you will find three more at the hotel when you return there. T hey’ve been hounding me for decades. Promise me you won’t allow one marker, not one clawed boot into my . . . your woods until after tomorrow.” H e nodded hesitantly—mistrusting this but curious—and the old woman straightened as if a load had fallen from her, the deep lines about her eyes easing. “I will teach you of trees, young man,” she said in a low voice. “If you let the axes into your woods before you see, the loggers will rob you blind. T hey will say it’s hedge maple and pay you accordingly when what they take is oak and larch and beech as big around as a bathtub. I can’t allow a T emson to get cheated,” she said dryly. “It makes me look like a fool by association.” H e flushed, feeling hot in his new, uncomfortable suit. “R eally, Ms. T emson,” he said. “I was going to do a survey myself before I leave. I went to school to be a forester.” “T hey have a s chool to learn about trees?” she said, her eyes bright and a k nowing smile quirking her lips. “H ear that, D iana? H e went to school to learn about trees. T omorrow then. D iana will bring the tea, I will bring the tree, and you”—she gave him a w icked smile, cornflower blue eyes smiling—“will bring the wine. T wo bottles. D omestic. Make sure it’s domestic.” Confused, W ill shifted his gaze between the two women. Ms. T emson seemed pleased, but D iana still looked scared. Maybe they were going to take him out back and hit him on the head with a s hovel. “W ine, Ms. T emson?” he questioned. “I’ll show you the oldest groves, the thickest stands,” the woman said, her bird-light voice an odd singsong. W ill’s curiosity was piqued as D iana became white. “I’d like that,” he heard himself say, and the old woman took his hand and gave it a motherly squeeze. “Fine,” she said. “T wo o’clock. Good day, Mr. T emson.” She gave him a sharp nod, then sailed regally down the bright walk to the lane where an

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IntoTheWoods_2p.indd 407 6/7/12 10:19 AM ancient R olls waited in the shade, her heels clicking smartly on the cobbled walk, D iana hunched and worried at her elbow.

“T hat will never do, love. You won’t even get through the meadow in those.” Standing at the stone wall separating the manicured smoothness from the wilds, W ill looked sheepishly at his dress shoes poking out from under his jeans. H is boots were two thousand miles away, drying on his back porch. H e hated to fly, hated the damp weather this country was afflicted with, and hated his forgotten history for making someone else’s problem his. But the chance to go stomping about the old-growth forest he had heard about as a boy from his father was stronger than his belief that the two women were going to hit him over the head and bury him—even if there was a shovel propped against the wall beside a slim beech, its roots carefully wrapped in burlap. H e shifted uneasily as Ms. T emson ran her eyes over his faded flannel shirt and worn backpack, nodding as if their disrepair pleased her. Blinking in surprise, he found himself pulled down, and she adjusted the new red cap he had picked up in the gift shop. “O h-h-h-h,” she murmured, the weak sun dappled by her wide-brimmed hat. “T hey’ll like that.” “T hey? T hey who?” “T he dryads, love. T he dryads.” W ill froze. T he sound of boots on the gravel path interrupted his confusion, and he slowly straightened as D iana approached from the nearby manor house. Jeans tucked into heavy boots and a worn green sweater had replaced the stiff lace of the lawyer’s office. H er hair was back in a ponytail, and he thought she looked better this way, even if worry pinched the edges of her eyes. “D iana?” Ms. T emson’s thin voice, sounding like bees, carried well in the hazy sunshine. “Be a dear and show W illiam the stables. I believe Arthur left a pair of boots there. W e won’t see any dryads if he turns his ankle.” “Yes, Grandmum.”

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IntoTheWoods_2p.indd 408 6/7/12 10:19 AM Dryads? he thought. T he lawyer was right. T he old woman was off her rocker. T he slant of her eyes dared him to say anything as D iana set her pack down by the fence and gestured belligerently for him to follow. T he abandoned stables were a g ood step away, and she appeared determined to ignore him the entire distance. “You don’t look anything like your grandmother,” he said, trying to break the silence in as inoffensive a manner as possible. “She isn’t. I just call her that.” Okay, he thought. It was cold and stiff, but it was a start. “T his wasn’t my idea.” Pace fast and arms swinging, she eyed him. “Logging out the woods is.” Angry, she was angry again—not afraid. “I’m not going to clear-cut it,” he said. “My God, you must think I’m a total barbarian.” “Yes, I do.” H e admired her loyalty to Ms. T emson, but this was getting him nowhere. “She was joking. W asn’t she?” D iana turned sharply to the barn, and W ill’s eyebrows rose at her sudden, almost hidden alarm. “About what?” Feeling he was close to it, he picked up his pace to stay even with her, the dark silence of the barn looming over them. “T he dryads.” H er jaw clenched and a flush rose. R eaching for a frayed rope, she gave it a tug and the barn door swung open in a majestic silence. T he smell of old hay and dry rot eddied about his feet. W ithout hesitation, she vanished into the darkness. W ill stepped to follow, jerking back when D iana almost ran into him coming back out. T here was a worn pair of leather boots in her hand, old but serviceable, and she shoved them at him as if wanting to bean him over the head instead. H e grabbed them by instinct, silent as he took in her pressed lips and evasive eyes. “You think there’re dryads in those woods too, don’t you.” Chin lifted, she finally met his eyes. Her eyes are blue, he thought, liking the way she could go from pressed and perfect to capable and athletic.

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IntoTheWoods_2p.indd 409 6/7/12 10:19 AM “ I don’t believe in anything I can’t see except for God,” she said as she pointed to an overturned bucket by the door. “Let’s get one thing crystal. You here was not my idea, and the sooner you leave, the happier I will be. Understand?” Feeling as if he’d won a point, he sat down. “Ms. T emson wants me out here,” he said, and she turned away, arms over her middle, fuming. I’ll be damned if I’m not starting to like her, he thought as he tugged on the boots, the leather cool on his toes in the thick haze of the day. It wasn’t until he was rocking experimentally back and forth in them that he realized she hadn’t answered him. Leaving his dress shoes on the bucket, he followed a belligerent D iana back to the gate, accepting Ms. T emson’s delighted hug in that his feet were the same size as his grandfather’s. T he wide field beyond ending in trees had probably once been a manicured green by machine or sheep, but it was now yellow and brown, tall grasses rising up to his knees. D iana stewed as Ms. T emson clucked and fussed, her sour mood not unnoticed by either of them. It was obvious that Ms. T emson was honey to D iana’s vinegar, but curiosity kept him there. Dryads? W ill wedged the sapling and a surprisingly modern folding shovel into his pack, earning a peck on the cheek. H e was spared the task of making conversation as they crossed the damp meadow. Ms. T emson kept up a nonstop chatter, covering everything from world politics to the life cycle of a sheep tick. She was the sharpest insane woman he had ever met. O nce under the trees, though, she went silent. T ogether she and D iana stood listening. As one, they turned to the east. H e shivered and couldn’t say why. Ms. T emson gripped his arm for a moment, her fingers like cords of steel. “T hat way.” It was a very quiet stomp through the woods. For the first time in his life, W ill felt awkward under the trees. Ms. T emson’s hunched stature, which made her look old in the sun, now served her well, letting her glide around snags and deadfalls with the sureness of a d ance. T here was no path among last year’s leaves, but he was confident the two of them knew exactly where they were. T he trees became taller, their shade grew deeper, and the silence more

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IntoTheWoods_2p.indd 410 6/7/12 10:19 AM profound until it seemed as if they were the only people who had ever walked the earth. N ot a gum wrapper or cigarette butt broke the illusion. W ill looked up and frowned. T he forest had changed while he had been focusing on the little things at his feet. Circles of bare dirt were scattered among the leaf litter. W ithin the sharply defined borders there was no scrub, no twigs, no leaves, nothing. It was mystifying, but he was determined not to ask. D iana’s eyes as she looked back at him were mocking, daring him to speak. H er worry was gone, replaced by . . . anticipation? T he circles of cleared ground became more frequent, turning into patches of moss ringing a tree here, one there. H e knew some trees could extrude a t oxin, stunting or killing anything growing under them. But these were beech, and elm, and oak. And what about the leaves? N o. T he ground had been purposely cleared—right to the root line. T hey topped a small rise, and by an unspoken agreement they stopped to marvel at the past glory of a long-dead tree. It was a tremendous beech, still standing straight and gray, its thicker branches yet holding up the sky. Beneath it, its own castoff twigs and leaves littered the ground, looking disorderly after the pristine green about the other trees. “H ere,” Ms. T emson said, seeming pleased with herself. “W e’ll rest here. “N o, love.” She caught W ill’s arm as he stepped to a nearby cleared circle. “H ere.” W ill’s eyebrows rose. D iana was kneeling beneath the dead tree, un- packing amid the scrub and sticks when a perfectly good mat of moss was a stone’s throw away. “Sit,” Ms. T emson called, patting the checkered cloth. “It’s your grandmother’s tree.” W ill sighed as his backside hit the dirt, and he eyed the sapling they had brought out. If they thought he was going to go soft and sloppy and not log the woods because he had planted a tree with them, they were sorely mistaken. “She planted it?” “N ot exactly.” T ea came with light conversation and terrible, dry crackers. D iana

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IntoTheWoods_2p.indd 411 6/7/12 10:19 AM slowly lost her tension as W ill told her about his life and classes—though he didn’t appreciate Ms. T emson’s nods and insinuating nudges. Even so, it meant more than it should to him when the young woman laughed at the face he made after trying the marmalade. H e reached for the wine to wash it down, and Ms. T emson halted him with a brown, wrinkled hand. “D on’t drink it,” she said. “I’ll put it on the new tree.” W ill stared at her, then at the label. “I bought what the man said,” he protested. “It can’t be that bad.” D iana made a rude sound, and Ms. T emson frowned at her. “It’s fine,” she reassured him, “but it’s for the tree. W e’ll plant it far enough away from the others, but you never can tell. W icked little things, they are.” H e glanced from D iana to the old lady. “Um—Ms. T emson?” “Grandmum always plants a tree when she comes out.” D iana glared at him, daring him to say a word. “T he wine keeps the dryads from pulling it up.” Oh yeah, he thought sarcastically as it began to make a deranged sense. T he dryads. N ot wanting to break the truce they seemed to have found, he simply nodded. “Come, D iana.” Struggling slightly, Ms. T emson rose and reached for the sapling in the pack. “I want your help putting this one to bed. N o, you stay,” she admonished W ill as he grabbed the shovel and levered himself up. “T his isn’t your work.” D iana’s eyes were worried as she took the shovel from him, but it was a new worry, one of the heart. N ot knowing what to make of it, W ill sank back down, resting his head upon his empty pack and listening to the small sounds of the ladies drifting away: Ms. T emson’s high-pitched warble, D iana’s concerned response, the clank of his wine bottles. H e liked both of them, but one afternoon was not going to change his mind. T he forest was going to be thinned out at the very least. If his grandfather hadn’t wanted him to have it, he wouldn’t have given it to him. Still, guilt pricked at him as he leaned back and closed his eyes. H e loved the woods. H e’d grown up surrounded by trees in the mountains out west, studied them at the university, and found a poor-paying job working

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IntoTheWoods_2p.indd 412 6/7/12 10:19 AM with them. H e didn’t care. It was what he was good at, and if he allowed an acre or two of these stately trees to go to the ax, he could manage better. Much better. T he wind in the trees and the long walk shifted him close to sleep, only to jerk awake at the giggle and a tug on his hat. “H ey!” he shouted, snatching a thin arm and sitting up. Shrieks and squeals erupted, and the brown-skinned women scattered. O nly the one who had tried to take his hat was left, crouched as far from him as she could as he still had her wrist. Gasping, W ill dropped her arm. She was like no one—like nothing— he’d ever seen. Looking at her was like trying to track the moon through a mist. H is eyes kept drifting, unable to fix upon her. She was a b lack, frog-rimmed pool smelling of loam and wind, the hushed still point of winter and the quiet growth of summer. Brown as the earth, just as fragile, just as enduring. Eyes like the bottoms of clouds before a summer storm. Innocence. Feral innocence. But wise beyond knowing what wisdom was. “W ho are you?” he breathed. She turned and pointed. From behind the nearby trunks came urgent whispers and frightened, envious eyes. T he girl licked her lips and glanced eagerly at his hat among the leaves. W ill shifted closer. “You want that?” She nodded, making no move to it. A twig snapped, and her head came up like a startled deer’s. “N o!” he cried. “W ait!” But she was gone, and he was left staring at the earth where she had been. “D iana,” he heard Ms. T emson admonish from behind him. “You did that on purpose.” “D ryads?” he mouthed, unable to say it aloud. T here was a rustling, and D iana sat down in his line of sight. She smirked at his bewildered expression, seeming relieved to see it. Ms. T emson carefully lowered her frailty beside her and poured a cup of tea from the insulated bottle. H is fingers gripped the plastic cup numbly as she placed it into his hand. “T ree spirits, love. Your grandmother was one, as was mine. I’m a quarter dryad, but all human.” She sighed.

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IntoTheWoods_2p.indd 413 6/7/12 10:19 AM D iana spooned a glop of marmalade onto a cracker and popped it into her mouth. “She gets moody on cloudy days, though.” “D iana,” she rebuffed gently, then turned to him. “You, W illiam, are nearly a t hird dryad. T hat’s why they came, to see if your grandmother had returned to her tree. T hat, and to steal your hat.” Ms. T emson smiled. “T hey adore clothes. R isk almost anything to get them. I dare say they used to be the cause for many an embarrassed skinny-dipper.” T he sound of her laughter rose like butterflies up into the canopy. It took W ill three tries before he found his voice. “My grandmother? But from—how?” T hen his resolve grew. “N o. I don’t know who those women were, but they weren’t—tree spirits!” “I told Arthur it was a b ad idea,” Ms. T emson was saying. “But he was young and of the belief that love could change the nature of things. And he did love her, I’ll grant you that. H e knew it was possible. It was family knowledge that our grandfather had. . . .” She colored, hiding her embarrassment behind her cup of tea. “My grandfather wasn’t a polished man.” D iana snatched his hat from the ground and picked the twigs from it in agitation. “T hey’re wickedly gullible, believing anything you tell them. If they become with child they can’t return to their tree, seeing as they carry something completely foreign to their nature. By the time the baby is born they can’t return to their tree at all, having grown too far apart from it to accomplish it.” She threw his hat at him in disgust. “T hey don’t live very long after that.” H e’d heard enough. W ill stood, and D iana looked up at him in anger. “You saw them!” she shouted, pointing. “W hat color was her hair? W hat was she wearing? You don’t remember, do you! And you won’t, except for the fleeting breath between wake and sleep! W hy can’t you believe!” H er voice softened. “It’s not hard—to believe.” Slowly, he sank down. She was right. H e couldn’t remember. All he was left with was the way the woman had felt. She was the will to survive given substance, ruthlessly uncaring, an essence, nothing more. She had been too unreal to not be real. W ill’s eyes flicked among the silent, gray trunks. W hat the devil was he

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IntoTheWoods_2p.indd 414 6/7/12 10:19 AM thinking? H e was a biologist, for God’s sake! H e wouldn’t believe in fairy tales! “W here’s the myth that doesn’t have a g rain of truth at its center?” Ms. T emson said, seeming to read his mind as she sipped her tea. “D ryads just happen. Saplings sprouted from the seeds of a dryad tree seem to show them sooner, but not always. T hey’re jealous little mites, pulling up anything within reach of their roots once they’re strong enough to leave their tree.” “T he circles of cleared earth.” H e gave himself a little shake. It wasn’t rational. But her eyes. H e remembered her eyes. “T hey’re beautiful,” he breathed. “T hey’re vicious.” D iana glanced up from her crackers and jam. “If the roots of two dryads mesh, they’ll try to kill each other’s tree.” Making a face, she closed the jar and packed it away. “T hey usually both die.” Ms. T emson drew herself up. “N ow you understand why I let everyone think I’m daft for never allowing an ax into my woods.” W ill looked up. It was a joke. It had to be an elaborate plot. T he cleared circles, the women themselves. “O h, you can tell by looking which trees have come into dryad and avoid cutting them,” she said. “But the reverberations of a tree being cut resounds from root to root until the entire wood feels it.” She frowned. “My grandfather tried selective logging. It sent them into hiding for nearly ten years. T rees have a dreadfully long memory, you know. W e have since learned to keep the meadow as a buffer, making my—ah . . . th e woods into an island of sorts. But you need acres and acres of trees.” H er eyes went distant in memory. “Arthur and I have been planting trees for ages. W e added twenty acres on the fringes and they began talking in sentences. T wenty more and they began to sing, dance, invent nursery rhymes.” D iana had a pinky in her tea, trying to rescue a bug. “H ow clever they are doesn’t depend upon how old the tree is but how close to the center of the woods it sits. W hen one dies, the rest regard the ground as hallowed and won’t disturb anything under it.” Frowning, she gave up and threw her tea away. “R ather superstitious, but it does give the chance for a new tree to take root.”

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IntoTheWoods_2p.indd 415 6/7/12 10:19 AM W ill gave a start, shaking the tea from his hand as it spilled. “It’s a secondary survival mechanism,” he breathed, his schooling taking hold. “I see it now! W hen the density of trees in a closed population passes a critical threshold, space becomes such a limiting factor that the tree needs to find a new way to preserve its territory. It’s forced to evolve a way to step out of itself, to directly influence, to physically defend its domain. H ence the dryads!” W ill leaned forward, his fingers tingling. “T he more trees in the system, the smarter they have to be. And when there’s the threat of logging, they disappear, able to compete using their more mundane defenses. It’s fantastic!” he gushed. H is eyes focused upon D iana. She was smiling, relief making her beautiful. “So you’ll stay? You won’t log the woods?” W ill’s smile faded as reality rushed back. H is gaze went distant into the gray, fog-laced trees. It would be easy to stay, to take the place that others had made, but he couldn’t. T he thought that he had done nothing to earn it would rob him of any pleasure he might find here. “I came to sell the woods,” he said slowly, hating his father for instilling in him so strongly the belief he must make his own way in the world. “I don’t see any reason to change my plans.” Ms. T emson’s cup hit the ground. “But the dryads!” D iana cried. “You can’t!” W ill’s gaze dropped. “Ms. T emson can’t inherit it,” he said slowly. “S o I’ll sell it to her.” D iana’s eyes grew wide in understanding. “But you’re a T emson! You belong here! E specially now that you know.” “N o, I don’t.” H e gestured weakly to the woods. “Like Ms. T emson said, this isn’t my work. T his woods isn’t mine. I was raised surrounded by trees, always knowing there was more, something just out of reach. You can’t imagine what it’s like to suddenly find out . . .” W ill looked beseech- ingly up at the dead branches, searching for words. “Listen!” he said abruptly, desperate for them to understand. “N ow that I can see, I can’t help but wonder, what would the spirit of an ash or a wild hickory of the forests I grew up in look like. T he spirit of a stately hemlock, an entire hillside of birch, the scattering of wild cherries, lighting

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IntoTheWoods_2p.indd 416 6/7/12 10:19 AM the understory with flashes of white in the spring . . . do their spirits even exist anymore? Is it too late? I want to know. N ow that I can see, I want to know! Can you understand?” T he two women gazed at him with the infinite wonder of youth and the eternal hope of the old. “H ow much do you have in your pocket?” he asked his grandfather’s sister numbly. W ith trembling fingers, Ms. T emson brought forth a faded coin purse and extended two coins. Feeling his chest tighten in what might be grief, W ill accepted them. T he thin weight of them rested in his hand a moment, and then he threw them into the woods. T he sound of their fall never reached him. Instead, a delighted cry and a giggle came drifting upon the heavy air, hazy and golden with the unseen sun. “Your lawyer can draw the papers up on Monday,” he said, knowing he had given Ms. T emson her life back, even as he felt something indistinct and indefinable slipping from him. Sitting ramrod straight before him, Ms. T emson silently started to cry. H e said nothing, knowing she’d be embarrassed. D iana begin to fuss over her, sneaking glances at him. “I beg your pardon,” the old woman warbled. “T he cold is seeping into me. I think it best we go.” H elping her up, D iana looked at him with a new light in her eyes, as if seeing him free of the shadow of her fear for the first time. H e held himself back as they moved to leave. Standing apart, he took a shuddering breath. H is hat felt rough in his fingers. W ith a last look, he hung it forlornly on a dead branch and turned to follow them out.

“Plenty of good timber in there, Billy.” “It’s W illiam. W illiam T emson.” W ill scuffed the dry, waist-high grass, looking for the rich loam he knew would be there, smiling as he found it. Sunlight pressed down like a physical sensation, maddening the cicadas into a shrill protest and driving the last of E ngland’s chill from him. From beside him came D iana’s almost imperceptible sigh as she took in the gently rolling hills of his homeland. It had surprised him when she insisted on coming back with him, and even though it was only to help him pick out his land, he hoped she would stay.

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IntoTheWoods_2p.indd 417 6/7/12 10:19 AM T he farmer sucked his teeth, and shrugged. “You want it then?” W ill wrote a figure and passed it to him. T he money had come from Ms. T emson. “A loan,” she had said as she had pressed the check into his hand and strode quickly away into the crush of airport traffic. T he iron- hard look in her eye had forbidden any protest; her stiffly held back demanded they not make a scene. T he man stared at the paper for a quiet moment. “More ’n what I’m askin’,” he said, the scrap clutched in his thick hand. “I want it all. T he entire valley.” “W e-e-e-ell, I was gonna give my Peggy the lake as a weddin’ present. Build her a house.” W ill shifted impatiently. “T hat’s why the extra.” T he man scratched his stubble. “I want to keep the huntin’ rights.” Beside him, D iana shook her head and pulled him down to whisper in his ear. W ill wrote a new figure. “You sure you got that much, son?” W ill nodded. “It’s yours.” T he man’s eyes glazed, and he turned to the rusting pickup. T he door creaked open, and he looked back. “You coming? It’s a long walk into town.” “N o, go ahead.” T he wine bottles were heavy in his pack, and the seeds were light in his pocket, sifting through his fingers like dry rain. “I think we will just stomp about for a bit.” D iana’s hand slipped into his, and the man grinned knowingly. “Suit yourself. W atch out for the snakes, miss.” H e laughed uproariously, revved the engine, and was gone. T ogether, he and D iana stood and listened. Slowly the humming silence of insects, wind, and grass reasserted itself. As one their heads lifted to the lake. “T hat way, I think,” he whispered, and they began to walk.

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IntoTheWoods_2p.indd 418 6/7/12 10:19 AM

If you liked that don’t miss another short story from INTO THE WOODS, available as a digital only download and on sale 9/4/11, before the story collection.

PET SHOP BOYS

From the author’s intro:

I originally wrote “Pet Shop Boys” as one of two possibilities for an anthology. I don’t submit to many anthologies, but this group came to me through my agent, impressed with my Dawn Cook titles, and asked me to try my hand at writing about vampires. This was before the dual nature of Kim and Dawn had been revealed, and I was so tickled they asked that my automatic no turned into a yes. I worked up two shorts, trying to get as far away from the Hollows vampire mythology as I could. Under the advice of my agent that “Pet Shop Boys” had the potential to become a series, I retained it to sit in my cabinet until now. I’ve long loved the idea of the fey living in a world twin to ours, passing through to snare the unwary when the veil was the thinnest. Bringing vampires into the mix was the icing on the cake.

Brom

KRAMPUS The Yule Lord

November 2012

The author and artist of The Child Thief returns with a modern fabulist tale of Krampus, the Lord of Yule and the dark enemy of Santa Claus.

One Christmas Eve in a small hollow in Boone County, West Virginia, struggling songwriter Jesse Walker witnesses a strange spectacle: seven devilish figures chasing a man in a red suit toward a sleigh and eight reindeer. When the reindeer leap skyward taking the sleigh, devil men, and Santa into the clouds, screams follow. Moments later, a large sack plummets earthward, a magical sack that will thrust the down-on-his luck singer into the clutches of the terrifying Yule Lord, Krampus. But the lines between good and evil become blurred as Jesse’s new master reveals many dark secrets about the cherry-cheeked Santa Claus, and how half a millennium ago, the jolly old saint imprisoned Krampus and usurped his magic. Now Santa’s time is running short, for the Yule Lord is determined to have his retribution and reclaim Yuletide. If Jesse can survive this ancient feud, he might have the chance to redeem himself to his family, to save his own broken dreams...and help bring the magic of Yule to the impoverished folk of Boone County.

“Brom is that rare breed: a person who is skilled in more than one area of artistic expression. Here’s hoping that he will continue to share his dark and often beautiful dreams with us for many years to come.” — Christopher Paolini

“Terrific. A wild ride--the idea sounded like a stretch and I’m not sure how many guys could have really pulled it off, but Brom sure has. I loved it. It hooked me and I couldn’t put it down. Plus, the illustrations are amazing.” — Mike Mignola

Krampus_1p_insert_rev.indd 4 6/7/12 9:47 AM S anta Claus . . . How vile your name upon my tongue. Like acid, hard to utter without spitting. Yet I find myself capable of speaking little else. It has become my malediction, my profane mantra. Santa Claus . . . Santa Claus . . . Santa Claus. That name, like you, like your Christmas and all its perversions, is a lie. But then you have always lived in a house of lies, and now that house has become a castle, a fortress. So many lies that you have forgotten the truth, forgotten who you are . . . forgotten your true name. I have not forgotten. I will always be here to remind you that it is not Santa Claus, nor is it Kris Kringle, or Father Christmas, or Sinterklaas, and it certainly is not Saint Nicholas. Santa Claus is but one more of your masquerades, one more brick in your fortress. I will not speak your true name. No, not here. Not so long as I sit rotting in this black pit. To hear your name echo off the dead walls of this prison, why that . . . that would be a sound to drive one into true madness. That name must wait until I again see the wolves chase Sol and Mani across the heavens. A day that draws near; a fortnight per-

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haps, and your sorcery will at long last be broken, your chains will fall away and the winds of freedom will lead me to you. I did not eat my own flesh as you had so merrily suggested. Mad- ness did not take me, not even after sitting in this tomb for half a millennium. I did not perish, did not become food for the worms as you foretold. You should have known me better than that. You should have known I would never let that happen, not so long as I could remember your name, not so long as I had vengeance for company. Santa Claus, my dear old friend, you are a thief, a traitor, a slan- derer, a murderer, a liar, but worst of all you are a mockery of everything for which I stood. You have sung your last ho, ho, ho, for I am coming for your head. For Odin, Loki, and all the fallen gods, for your treachery, for chaining me in this pit for five hundred years. But most of all I am coming to take back what is mine, to take back Yuletide. And with my foot upon your throat, I shall speak your name, your true name, and with death staring back at you, you will no longer be able to hide from your dark deeds, from the faces of all those you betrayed. I, Krampus, Lord of Yule, son of Hel, bloodline of the great Loki, swear to cut your lying tongue from your mouth, your thieving hands from your wrists, and your jolly head from your neck.

Krampus_00i_x_1_353_2p.indd 2 6/7/12 10:36 AM Part I

jesse

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Boone County, West Virginia C h r i s t m a s m o r n i n g , 2 a . m .

Jesse Burwell Walker prayed that his goddamn truck would make it through at least one more winter before rusting completely in two. The truck, a ’78 primer gray Ford F150, had been left to him by his father after the old man lost his long battle with the black lung. A guitar now hung in the gun rack and the new bumper sticker pasted across the rear window of the camper shell read what would hank do. Snow-covered gravel crunched beneath Jesse’s tires as he pulled off Route 3 into the King’s Kastle mobile-home court. Jesse had turned twenty-six about a month ago, a little tall and a little lean, with dark hair and sideburns badly in need of a trim. He drummed his long fingers—good guitar-picking fingers—on the bottle of Wild Turkey cinched between his legs as he rolled by the mobile homes. He drove past a few faded blow-mold Santas and snowmen, then past Ned Bur- nett’s Styrofoam deer, the one Ned used for target practice. It hung upside down from his kid’s swing set, as though about to be gutted and dressed. Ned had attached a glowing red bulb to its nose. Jesse found that funny the first few times he’d seen it, but since Rudolf had been hanging there since Thanksgiving, the joke was wearing a mite thin. Jesse caught sight of a few sad tinsel trees illuminating a few sad living rooms, but mostly the trailers around King’s Kastle were dark—folks

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either off to cheerier locations, or simply not bothering. Jesse knew as well as anyone that times were tough all around Boone County, that not everyone had something to celebrate. Old Millie Boggs’s double-wide, with its white picket fence and plastic potted plants, came into view as he crested the hill. Millie owned the King’s Kastle and once again she’d set up her plastic nativ- ity scene between her drive and the garbage bin. Joseph had fallen over and Mary’s bulb was out, but the little baby Jesus glowed from within with what Jesse guessed to be a two-hundred-watt bulb, making the infant seem radioactive. Jesse drove by the little manger, down the hill, and pulled up next to a small trailer situated within a clump of pines. Upon leasing the trailer to Jesse, Millie had described it as “the temporary rental,” because, she’d stressed, no one should be living in a cramped-up thing like that for too long. He’d assured her it would only be for a couple of weeks while he sorted things out with his wife, Linda. That was nearly two years ago. He switched off the engine and stared at the trailer. “Merry Christ- mas.” He unscrewed the whiskey’s cap and took a long swig. He wiped his mouth on the back of his jacket sleeve and raised the bottle toward the trailer. “On my way to not giving a shit.” A single strand of Christmas lights ran along the roof line. Since he’d never bothered to take them down from the previous year, he’d only had to plug them in to join the season’s festivities. Only all the bulbs were burned out, with the exception of a lone red one just above the door. It blinked on, then off, on, and then off—beckoning him in. Jesse didn’t want to go in. Didn’t want to sit on his lumpy, blue-tick mattress and stare at the cheap wood paneling. He had a way of finding faces in the knots and grain of the veneer—sad faces, tortured ones. In- side, he couldn’t pretend, couldn’t hide from the fact that he was spending another Christmas by himself, and a man who spends Christmas by himself was indeed a man alone in the world. Your wife sure as shit ain’t alone though. Is she? “Stop it.” Where’s she at, Jess? Where’s Linda? “Stop it.” She’s at his house. A nice house. With a nice tall Christmas tree. Bet

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there’s plenty of gifts under that tree with her name on them. Gifts with little Abigail’s name on them, too. “Stop it,” he whispered. “Please, just leave it be.” The light kept right on blinking, mocking him along with his thoughts. I don’t have to go in there, he thought. Can just sleep in the truck bed. Wouldn’t be the first time. He kept a bedroll in the camper for just that purpose, mostly for his out-of-town gigs, because honky-tonks didn’t pay a two-bit picker enough to cover both a motel and the gas home. He looked at the snow on the ground. “Too damn cold.” He glanced at his watch; it was early, at least for him. When he played the Rooster, he usually didn’t get home till after four in the morning. He just wasn’t tired or stoned enough to fall asleep yet and knew if he went in now he’d stare and stare at all those faces in the wood. Sid had closed the Rooster early—not because it was Christmas; Christmas Eve was usually a decent money-maker for Sid. Plenty of lost souls out there who, just like Jesse, didn’t want to face empty living rooms or empty bedrooms—not on Christmas. Like to shoot the son of a whore that came up with this goddamn holiday, Jesse thought. Might be a joyous occasion for folks fortunate enough to have kin to share it with, but for the rest of us sorry souls it’s just one more reminder of how much shit life can make you eat. Only five or six sad sacks had found their way into the Rooster this night, and most of them only for the free Christmas round that Sid always doled out. Jesse set aside his amp and went acoustic, playing all the usual Christmas classics, but no one cared, or even seemed to be listening, not tonight. Seemed the Ghost of Christmas Past was in the room and they were all staring at their drinks with faraway looks on their faces, like they were wishing they were somewhere and sometime else. And since no one was buying, Sid had called it quits a bit after one in the morning. Sid told Jesse he’d taken a hit tonight, asked if Jesse would take an open bottle of sour mash instead of his usual twenty-spot. Jesse had been counting on the cash to buy his five-year-old daughter, Abigail, a present. But he took the booze. Jesse told himself he did it for Sid, but knew darn well that wasn’t the case. Jesse gave the bottle a baleful look. “She asked you for one thing. A

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doll. One of them new Teen Tiger dolls. Wasn’t a real complicated re- quest. No, sir . . . it wasn’t.” He heard his wife’s voice in his head. “Why do you always got to be such a screw-up?” He had no answer. Why do I have to be such a screw-up? It ain’t too late. I can go by the Dicker and Pawn on Monday. Only he knew he didn’t have a damn thing left to pawn. He’d already sold his TV and stereo, his good set of tires, and even the ring his father had left him. He rubbed his hand across the stubble on his face. What’d he have left? He plucked his guitar off the gun rack, sat it in his lap. No, I just can’t. He strummed it once. Why not? Damn thing brought him nothing but grief anyhow. Besides, it was all he had left of any value. He glanced at the wedding band on his finger. Well, almost. He sat the guitar down on the floorboard and held his ring finger up so the gold band caught the streetlight. Why was he keeping it? Lord knew Linda wasn’t wearing hers anymore. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to sell it. As though holding on to that ring might somehow get them back together. His brow furrowed. “I’ll think of something. Something.” Only he knew he wouldn’t. “Abigail, baby doll,” he said. “I’m sorry.” The words sounded hollow in the truck’s cab. Was he really going to say that again? How many times can you say that to a little girl before it doesn’t count anymore? He took another swig, but the alcohol suddenly tasted bitter. He screwed the cap back on and dropped it onto the floorboard. He watched the bulb flick on and off, on and off. Can’t go in there. Can’t spend another night in that hole thinking about Linda with him. Thinking about Abigail, my own daughter, living in another man’s house. Thinking about the present I didn’t get her . . . that I can’t get her. “I’m done with feeling bad all the time.” The words came out flat, dead, final. Jesse hit open the glove compartment, dug down beneath the cas- sette tapes, pizza coupons, vehicle registration, and an old bag of beef jerky until his hand found the cold, hard steel of a snub-nosed .38. He held the gun in his hand and watched the red light flash off the dark metal. He found the weight of the piece to be comforting, solid—one thing he could count on. He checked the cylinder, making sure there was a bullet seated in the chamber, then slowly set the barrel between

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his teeth, careful to point it upward, into the roof of his mouth. His aunt Patsy had tried to shoot her brains out back in ’92, only she’d stuck the barrel straight in, and when she pulled the trigger, she just blew out the back of her neck. She severed her spine at the base of her brain and spent the last three months of her life as a drooling idiot. Jesse had no intention of giving his wife one more thing to accuse him of screwing up. He thumbed back the hammer. The damn bulb blinked on, off, on, off, as though blaming him for something, for everything. He laid his finger on the trigger. On, off, on, off, on, off, pushing him, egging him on. Jesse’s hand began to shake. “Do it,” he snarled around the barrel. “Do it!” He clenched his eyes shut; tears began to roll down his cheeks. His daughter’s face came to him and he heard her voice so clear he thought Abigail was really there in the cab with him. “Daddy? When you coming home, Daddy?” An ugly sound escaped his throat, not quite a cry, something guttural and full of pain. He slid the pistol from his mouth, carefully setting the hammer, and dropped it on the seat next to him. He caught sight of the bottle, glared at it for a long minute, then cranked down the window and chucked it at the nearest pine tree. He missed, and the bottle tumbled across the shallow snow. He left the window down, the cold air feeling good on his face. He leaned his forehead against the steering wheel, closed his eyes, and began to weep. “Can’t keep doing this.”

Je s se h ea rd a jingle, then a snort. He blinked, sat up. Had he fallen asleep? He rubbed his forehead and glanced around. There, at the end of the cul-de-sac, stood eight reindeer, right in front of the Tuckers’ driveway. They were harnessed to a sleigh and even in the weak glow of the glittering holiday lights Jesse could see it was a real sleigh, not some Christmas prop. It stood nearly as tall as a man, the wood planks lacquered a deep crimson and trimmed in delicate, swirling gold. The

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whole rig sat upon a pair of stout runners that spun into elegant loops. Jesse blinked repeatedly. I’m not seeing things and I’m not drunk. Shit, don’t even have a buzz. One of the deer pawed the snow and snorted, blasting a cloud of condensation into the chilly air. He looked back up the road. The only tracks he saw in the fresh snow were those of his truck. Where the hell had they come from? The reindeer all lifted their heads and looked up the hill. Jesse followed their eyes but saw nothing. Then he heard tromping—someone in heavy boots coming fast. What now? A man with a white beard, wearing knee-high boots, a crimson Santa suit trimmed in fur, and clutching a large red sack, sprinted down the gravel lane, running full-out—the way you’d run if something was chasing you. Something was chasing him. Four men burst out upon the road at the hilltop right next to Millie’s glowing manger. Black men, cloaked in dark, ragged hoodies, carrying sticks and clubs. Their heads bobbed about, looking every which way until one of them spotted the man in the Santa suit. He let out a howl, jabbed his club in the direction of the fleeing white-bearded man, and the whole pack gave chase. “What the hell!” The Santa man raced past Jesse, dashing toward the sleigh, huffing and puffing, his eyes wild, his jolly cheeks flush, and a fierce grimace taut across his face. He was stout, not the traditional fat Santa Jesse was used to seeing, but solid through the chest and arms. The pack rushed down the lane in pursuit, brandishing their weapons. Jesse realized their hoodies were actually cloaks of fur, hide, and feathers, billowing and flapping out behind them as their long, loping gait quickly narrowed the gap. Jesse caught the glint of steel, noted nails protruding from the clubs and deadly blades atop the sticks. He felt his flesh prickle—their orange eyes glowed, their skin shone a blotchy, bluish black, and horns sprouted out from the sides of their heads, like devils. “What the f—” Two more appeared, darting out from behind the Tuckers’ trailer, intent on intercepting the Santa. These two wore jeans, boots, and black jackets with hoods. Santa didn’t even slow; he put his head down

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and rammed his shoulder into the first man, slamming him into the second assailant, knocking both attackers off their feet. A gunshot thundered. One of the pack had pulled a pistol, was trying to shoot the Santa man. He—it—fired again. A chunk of wood splintered off the sleigh. “Away!” the Santa screamed. “Away!” A head popped up in the front seat of the sleigh—looked like a boy, a boy with large, pointy ears. The boy looked past the Santa man and his eyes grew wide. He snatched up the reins and gave them a snap. The deer pranced forward and the sleigh—the sleigh actually rose off the ground. “What . . . in . . . the . . . hell?” The Santa man slung the red sack into the back of the sleigh and sprung aboard. Jesse was struck by just how nimble and spry the stout old guy was. The sleigh continued to rise—a good fifteen feet off the ground now. Jesse figured they just might escape when the foremost devil man leapt—launching himself a distance Jesse would’ve thought impossible—and caught hold of one of the runners. His weight pulled the sleigh down sharply, almost toppling it. The remaining five devil men leapt after the first, four of them clam- bering into the back of the sleigh while the last one landed upon the back of the lead deer. The reindeer—rolling their eyes and snorting fretfully—pawed at the air and the whole circus began to spin upward. The pistol went off three more times. Jesse was sure the Santa man was hit, but if he was, he didn’t seem to know it. He let loose a tremendous kick, catching one of the men square in the chest, knocking him into another and nearly sending both of them off the back of the sleigh. The pistol flew from the creature’s hand and landed in the snow. Another devil man grabbed the sack and tried to leap away. The white- bearded man let out a crazed howl and lunged for him, grabbed him, swinging and clawing. He landed a mighty fist into the devil man’s face; Jesse heard the bone-smiting blow all the way from his truck. The man crumpled and the Santa yanked back the sack just as the remaining creatures fell upon him. The sleigh shot upward, spinning even faster, and Jesse could no longer see what was happening, could only hear screams and yowls as the sleigh spun up, and up, and up. He stepped out from the truck,

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craning his neck, tracking the diminishing silhouette. The clouds had moved in and it was snowing again. The sleigh quickly disappeared into the night sky. Silence. Jesse let out a long exhale. “Fuck.” He clawed out a pack of cigarettes from the breast pocket of his jean jacket. About the time he located his lighter, he caught a sound and glanced back up—someone was screaming. The screaming grew in volume and he caught sight of a black speck tumbling earthward.

Th e dev i l m a n landed on the front windshield of the Tucker boy’s Camaro, smashing into the hood and setting off the horn. The horn blared up and down the snowy lane. Jesse took a step toward the car when something crashed down through the trees and slammed through the roof of his mobile home. He turned in time to see the back window shatter and his Christmas lights fall off—that one damnable red bulb finally going dark. Jesse looked back and forth, unsure which way to go, then continued toward the man on the car hood. Lights came on and a few heads poked out from windows and doors. As Jesse approached, the horn made a final sputtering bleat like a dying goat and cut off. He stared at the black devil man, only the man wasn’t really black or really a devil. He wore a crude hand-stitched cloak made from what must be bear hide, and his hair and ragged clothing were smeared in what appeared to be soot and tar. His skin reminded Jesse of the miners heading home at the end of their shifts, their faces and hands streaked and crusted in layers of coal dust. The horns were just cow horns stitched into the sides of the hood, but his eyes, his eyes flared, glowing a deep, burning orange with tiny, pulsing black pupils. They followed Jesse as he walked around the vehicle. Jesse hesitated, unsure if he should come any closer. The strange man raised a hand, reached for Jesse with long, jagged fingernails. He opened his mouth, tried to speak, and a mouthful of blood bubbled from his lips. The man’s hand fell and his eyes froze, staring, unblinking, at Jesse. Slowly,

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those vexing eyes lost their glow, changed from orange to brown, into normal, unremarkable brown eyes. “Now that was weird,” a woman said. Jesse started, realizing that Phyllis Tucker stood right next to him in her nightgown, house slippers, and husband’s hunting jacket. Phyllis was in her seventies, a small lady, and the hunting jacket all but swallowed her up. “Huh?” “I said, that was really weird.” He nodded absently. “See the way his eyes changed?” “Uh-huh.” “That was really weird.” “Yes, ma’am, it sure was.” Several other people were venturing out, coming over to see what was going on. “Think he’s dead?” she asked. “I believe he might be.” “He looks dead.” “Does look that way.” “Hey, Wade,” Phyllis cried. “Call an ambulance! Wade, you hear me?” “I hear you,” Wade called back. “Be hard not to. They’re already on their way. Fiddle-fuck, it’s cold out here. You seen my jacket?” From three trailers over, the Powells’ two teenage daughters, Tina and Tracy, came walking up, followed by Tom and his wife, Pam. Pam was trying to light a cigarette and hold on to a beer, all while talking on her cell phone. “Why’s he all black like that?” Tina asked, and without giving anyone a chance to answer she added, “Where’d he come from?” “He ain’t from around here,” Phyllis said. “I can sure tell you that.” “Looks to me like he must’ve fell off something,” Tom said. “Some- thing really high up.” Everyone looked up except Jesse. “Like maybe out of a plane?” Tina asked. “Or Santa’s sleigh,” Jesse put in. Phyllis gave him a sour look. “Don’t believe the Good Lord approves of folks disrespecting the dead.”

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Jesse pulled the unlit cigarette from his mouth and gave Phyllis a grin. “The Good Lord don’t seem to approve of most things I do, Mrs. Tucker. Or hadn’t you noticed?” Billy Tucker arrived, hitching up his jeans. “Shit! My car! Would you just look at what he done to my car!” Jesse heard a distant siren. Too soon for an EMT. Must be a patrol car. His jaw tightened. He sure didn’t need any more trouble, not tonight. And if Chief Dillard was on duty, that could be a bad scene indeed. Jesse ducked away and headed back toward his trailer. About halfway back he remembered that something else had fallen from the sky, had crashed through his roof, as a matter of fact, and the odds were pretty good that that something might well still be in there— waiting. Another one of them? He couldn’t stop thinking about the thing’s eyes, those creepy orange eyes. He knew one thing for certain: he didn’t want to be in a room with one of those whatever-the-fucks if it was still kicking around. He reached through his truck window and plucked the revolver up off the seat. It didn’t feel so solid or dependable all of a sudden, it felt small. He let out a mean laugh. Scared? Really? Afraid something’s gonna kill you? Weren’t you the one that was about to blow your own damn head off? Yes, he was, but somehow that was different. He knew what that bullet would do to him, but this thing in his trailer? There was just no telling. He gently inserted and twisted the key, trying to throw the deadbolt as quietly as possible. The deadbolt flipped with a loud clack. Might as well have rung the goddang doorbell. Holding the gun out before him, he tugged the door open; the hinges protested loudly. Darkness greeted him. He started to reach in and turn on the lights—stopped. Fuck, don’t really want to do that. He bit his lip and stepped up onto the cinder- block step, then, holding the gun in his right hand, he reached across into the darkness with his left. He ran his hand up and down the wall, pawing for the switch, sure at any moment something would bite off his fingers. He hit the switch and the overhead fluorescent flickered on. His trailer was basically three small rooms: a kitchen-dinette, a bathroom, and a bedroom. He peered in from the step. There was nothing in the kitchen other than a week’s worth of dirty utensils, soiled paper plates, and a couple of Styrofoam cups. The bathroom was open and unoccupied, but his bedroom door was shut and he couldn’t re-

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member if he had left it that way or not. You’re gonna have to go take a look. But his feet decided they were just fine where they were, so he continued standing there staring stupidly at that shut door. Red and blue flashing lights caught his eye; a patrol car was coming down the hill. He thought what a pretty picture he painted, standing there pointing a gun into a trailer. Okay, Jesse told himself, this is the part where you don’t be a screw-up. He stepped up into the trailer, pulling the door to but not shutting it. It took another full minute of staring at his bedroom door before he said, “Fuck it,” and walked over and turned the knob. The door opened halfway in and stopped. Something blocked it. Jesse realized he’d bitten his cigarette in two and spat it out. Don’t like this . . . not one bit. Holding the gun at eye level, he nudged the door inward with the toe of his boot. He could just make out a hunched dark shape on the far side of his bed. “Don’t you fucking move,” he said, trying to sound stern, but he couldn’t hide the shake in his voice. Keeping the gun trained on the shape, he batted at the wall switch. The lamp lay on the floor, the shade smashed, but the bulb still lit, casting eerie shadows up the wall. Jesse let out a long breath. “Well, I’ll be damned.” There was no orange-eyed demon waiting to devour him, only a sack—a large red sack, tied shut with a gold cord. It had smashed through the roof and ended up on his bed. Jesse held the sack at gunpoint as he plucked out a fresh cigarette, lighting it with his free hand. He inhaled deeply and watched the snow accumulate in his bedroom. A few deep drags, and his nerves began to settle. He set a foot on his bed, leaned forward, and poked the sack with the gun barrel as though it might be full of snakes. Nothing happened. Jesse jigged the gold cord loose, pulled the sack open, and took a peek. “I’ll be damned.”

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Where are my Belsnickels?” Krampus strained against his chains, the ancient collar biting into his throat. He craned his neck upward, and there, far up the shaft, he caught a faint glow reflecting off the cavern roof. Moonlight, or the first traces of dawn? He scratched at the lice plaguing his filthy hide, studied the bits of crusty flesh and scabby hair clinging to the tips of his broken fingernails. I am rotting away. While he indulges in life’s pleasures, I die a little more each day. He noticed the tremor in his fingers. Am I shaking? Do I stand here and quiver like a child? He clutched his hands together. And what if they should never return? What then? What chance do I have without my children? There would be no hope, no chance to once again spread my name across the land, and without hope, even I, the great Yule Lord, would eventually succumb to madness. Would wither and fade and he would win after all. “No!” he snarled. “Never! I shall never let him win. If I lie here nothing but a shriveled carcass then so be it, for my spirit shall never rest. I will become a plague upon his house. I will vex him. I will . . . I will . . .” His voice drifted off. He shut his eyes and leaned his forehead against the cold cavern wall. He pressed his palms against the moist stone and

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listened, hoping to sense the vibrations of their running feet through the layers of earth. “The Belsnickels will return,” he said. “They must return. Must bring Loki’s sack home to me.” The light above flickered and his heart sped up. He waited, watched, but knew it was his wishful fancy and nothing more. A draft of cool air drifted down the shaft. Krampus inhaled deeply, catching the faintest hint of pine needles and damp rotting leaves. He closed his eyes, tried to remember what winter dawn in the forest looked like, what it felt like to run and dance among the trees with the crisp cold air biting at his throat. “Soon,” he whispered. “I shall walk sweet Mother Earth once more and they will celebrate my return. There will be festivals and celebra- tions, like before, and so much more.” Memories unfolded, a kaleidoscope of images piling atop one another, a thousand Yuletides past: the drums calling him from the forest; the horns heralding his arrival; the boys and girls, their eyes full of fear and fascination as they adorned him with circlets of feathers and mistletoe and crowned him with holly leaves; twirling maidens that strew his path with fresh pine needles, perfumed him with crushed spruce, and led him through the maze of huts, the parade of boister- ous men clanging sword and shield and yodeling women following in his wake. The doors of the lord’s house opening to him, the smell of roasting boar inviting him in. They would seat him upon a giant wicker throne at the head of the long table and there lavish him with feast and drink—all the honey mead one could hold. Then they would parade their plumpest young women before him, and to the cheers and laughter of all he would mount them, one after another, rutting with them like the beasts in the woods, blessing them with fertile, healthy wombs. And with the people’s devotion and fervor pulsing in his heart, he would herald in Yuletide, usher in the rebirth of the land, and chase away the spirits of famine and pestilence. And the cycle of life would continue ever onward. And soon, he thought, I will be blessing mankind again. But this time it will be these lost peoples of the Virginias. For this new land of Amer- ica has dire need of me, need for me to be great and terrible, to chase away their dark spirits, to beat the wicked amongst them. And I shall, for

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the Yule Lord knows how to be terrible, and I shall be terrible, and they will come to worship me, lavish me with celebration and feast and . . . and again line up their young women for me to glorify. He nodded and smiled, his eyes focused on something far away. They will love me. They will all come to love me.

“Well I’ll be damned,” Jesse said again, then once more for good measure. He could see the corner of a box just inside the Santa sack. He stuck his gun in his jacket pocket and pulled out the box. He grinned. It was a brand-new Teen Tiger doll. “Yes, Abigail, dear, there is indeed a Santa Claus.” He examined the doll. A seductive pair of blue cat eyes surrounded by heavy eyeliner looked back at him from beneath an explosion of glit- tery hair. He was contemplating the appropriateness of the doll’s pouty, cherry-red lips, tiger-striped miniskirt, and exposed midriff, when it struck him how very odd that the doll should be there in the first place. This being Santa’s sack, he’d hoped there’d be toys inside, sure, and he’d also hoped there’d be a Teen Tiger doll, too, hadn’t he? And which one had he been thinking of? He looked at the doll again. “Tina Tiger,” the one his daughter wanted. And there she was, sitting right on top, as though the sack were handing her to him. It’s like the thing read my mind. The hair on his arms prickled and he gave the bag a suspicious look. Okay, settle down. You’re already weirded out enough. He took in a deep breath. He lifted the sack, surprised at how light it was; he could hold it at arm’s length with just one hand. It was about the size of one of those Hefty lawn bags. He shook the snow off and carried it and the doll into his dining room, pulling the bedroom door shut behind him to keep the cold and snow out. Outside, the EMT had arrived, bathing the room in flashing lights. Jesse tossed the bag on the floor, stared at it until he’d finished his cigarette, then pulled over a kitchen chair and sat down. He hooked a thumb into the lip of the sack and held it open, peering cautiously in,

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as though expecting something to spring out at him. The inside of the sack was dark, the black velvet lining quickly disappearing into shadows, allowing him to see no farther than three or four inches within. There was something unnatural about those shadows and the more he studied the dimness the more convinced he became that he wasn’t seeing shadows at all, but a sort of smoke, a dense, swirling vapor. The smoke ebbed and flowed, yet didn’t leave the sack. He prodded the outside of the bag. It felt substantial, similar to the lumpy beanbag chair he’d had as a kid. He could push it this way and that, but it always regained its form. He really wanted to know what else was in there, but felt in no hurry to go sticking his arm into that smoky goo to find out. He peered back inside, thought about how delighted Abigail would be if he brought her not one but maybe a co uple of those little slutty dolls. He swallowed and eased his hand into the mouth of the bag. His fingers disappeared into the smoke, then his hand, then his forearm. He noticed a change in temperature, the inside of the bag being much warmer, and all at once he had an overwhelming notion that the bag itself was alive, that he had his hand in the thing’s mouth, and that the thing might chomp down on his arm like a bear trap. Something bumped his wrist and he cried out, yanking his hand from the bag. He examined his hand and arm like they might be covered in leeches, but they were fine. “Damn it. Stop being such a pussy.” He thought of another one of the dolls—the Asian one with the dragon tattoo—bit his lip and slid his hand back in, pushed inward until his arm disappeared up to the elbow, praying his fingers would still be attached when he pulled them back out. He fished about until he found the object again. It felt like a box. He pulled it from the sack and wasn’t the least surprised to find himself looking into Ting Tiger’s exotic purple eyes. Jesse grunted. Okay, I get it. He thought of the Goth one, then the redhead, retrieving both of them. He didn’t stop there. Just the week before, Abigail had sat in his lap with the Toys “R” Us circular, naming all six of the Teen Tigers, had explained all their superpowers, had told him which ones she liked best and which accessories were must-haves. She went on to clarify just how hard it was for a girl her age to eat,

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sleep, or even breathe without having at least one of these awesome dolls in her possession. A minute later, Jesse had the full gang of Tiger girls lined up across the table, as well as a tiger-striped, red Corvette and two accessory blister packs. And it didn’t take any great shakes to see that all those toys couldn’t have possibly fit in that bag together. The sack’s making ’em somehow. Then it struck him. The bag is making whatever I wish for! His eyes grew wide and he stopped breathing for a moment. Re- ally? Had the heavens really just dropped a magic sack into his lap? He leapt to his feet, jumped over, and bolted the door, then peeked out the front window. The ambulance and patrol car were still out there, but the neighbors had all gone home, well all except for Phyllis, who was gabbing on a mile a minute to the EMT driver. Jesse pulled the shades shut and dropped down in front of the sack, his hand hovering over the opening. He closed his eyes, pictured a diamond ring, and slipped in his hand. There! He clasped a small velvet case, holding his breath as he slowly withdrew it from the bag. His fingers shook so bad it took three tries to pry it open. “Oh, fuck yeah!” he said, holding the ring up to the light. His smile fell. It was a toy—nothing but plastic and painted aluminum. “Dang it!” He shook his head. “Must’ve done something wrong?” He tossed the ring over his shoulder, closed his eyes again, concentrating this time on a watch. He specifically thought of the gold Rolex he’d recently seen down at the pawn shop. The watch he pulled out did indeed say Rolex on its face, but it was still a toy. “Aw, c’mon! C’mon!” Three tin rings, four plastic watches, and a tall stack of play money later, he got the message: the sack only made toys. He slid back against the wall. “Well crap.” He leaned his head against the paneling and stared up at the water stains on the ceiling. “Shit never seems to wanna go my way.” All at once everything that had happened this long, strange evening caught up with him and he just wanted to crawl in bed and stay there. He glanced toward the bedroom. “Probably build a snowman in there by now.” He sighed, plucked the seat cushion from the chair, propped it behind his head, and lay down right there on the floor. He watched the emergency lights flicking through the shades. His eyes wandered over to the dolls. He managed a

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smile. “I got every one of those little super-tramps . . . every single one.” He thought of Abigail’s face and his smile turned into a grin. “For once, baby doll, your daddy’s not gonna be a loser. For once your daddy’s gonna be a hero.” He closed his eyes. “Abigail, darling . . . just you hold on to your britches, ’cause Santa Claus is coming to town.”

“Th er e. At la st, my Belsnickels . . . they return!” Krampus lifted his ear from the stone and stared up the shaft, pulling against his chain like a hound awaiting a feeding. The light above now bright enough that he knew it to be dawn. He could see their shadows approaching. It was nearly fifty feet to the top of the narrow shaft; he wrung his hands together as they clambered down. Where is it? He searched their silhouettes for some sign of the sack. Makwa, the big Shawnee, dropped down first, landing on all fours, his bear fur and buckskin garb torn and soiled, his flesh scraped and bloody. He stood and Krampus clutched his shoulders. “Do you have it?” Makwa pushed back his hood, shook his head. “No.” Three more Belsnickels slipped down: the brothers, Wipi and Nipi, also of the Shawnee people, and the little man, Vernon, his long, bristly beard full of pine needles. They, too, appeared to have suffered dearly. They’d obviously been in a desperate battle with someone or something. Krampus looked from one to the next; none would meet his eye. “You do not have it? None of you have it?” “No.” “No?” They shook their heads, continued to stare at the ground. No. The word cut through him like a shard of ice. No. His knees threatened to buckle. He grabbed the wall to steady himself. “Was it him? Was it Santa Claus?” “Yes,” Vernon answered and the three Shawnee nodded. “Where is he? Where is the sack?” “We did our very best,” Vernon said. “He was terribly strong and crazed . . . it was unexpected.”

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Krampus slid to the ground, cradling his head in his large hands. “There will never be another chance.” The girl, Isabel, dropped down. She flipped back the hood of her jacket, looked from Krampus to the four men. “You didn’t tell him?” No one answered her. “Krampus, the sack might still be out there.” Krampus looked at her, confused. “The sack?” “Yes, the sack. It’s out there somewhere.” Krampus found his feet and grasped her arm. “What do you mean, child?” “We had it. I mean almost. We were in the sleigh, fighting the old man for it, and— Ow! Dammit, Krampus. You’re hurting my arm.” Krampus realized he was pinching her in his distress and let loose. “It was crazy. Santa Claus went berserk. Biting and clawing and . . . and . . .” She trailed off, a look of intense sorrow fell across her face. “He kicked Peskwa out of the sleigh. We were so high . . . I don’t know it he made it or—” She hesitated, glancing at the others. “Oh, he’s most certainly a dead little Indian,” Vernon put in. “We don’t know that,” Isabel shot back. “Unless he sprouted wings, he’s dead. I see no reason—” “Enough!” Krampus cried. “Isabel. What happened to the sack?” “Well, when Peskwa fell, he took the sack with him and—” “So, the sack . . . it is still out there?” “Yes. Well maybe? I mean when—” “Maybe?” “You see, after the sack fell, the sleigh went spinning out of control. It was all we could do to just hang on. A few seconds later we slammed into some trees. We were all—” “And Santa Claus? What happened to him?” “Well I’m trying to get to that.” “Well get to it.” “I’m trying. You keep interrupting me.” Krampus threw his hands up in frustration. “Okay, see . . . hell, where was I? Oh yeah, when we hit that first clump of trees, we were slung out, but not Santa, he clung on. You should’ve seen him, completely out of his gourd . . . ranting and raving at us and at them deer. Them reindeer were all tangled and spooked,

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and off they shot. Up, up and away. Went spinning across the hollow, into the part of the hill where there’s nothing but boulders and drops. Slammed into them rocks so damn hard the sound echoed all up and down the valley. None of us seen exactly where old Santa ended up. But I can tell you sure as shit he didn’t walk off from that. Ain’t no way. He’s dead.” “Dead?” Krampus snorted, then laughed. “Santa Claus dead. No. As sweet as such tidings would be, it takes much more than a hard slap to kill such vileness.” Krampus tugged the stringy hair sprouting from his chin. “But it is encouraging that his sleigh and the reindeer are lost.” He began to pace. “Means there might still be some chance to get to the sack . . . to find it first.” Krampus’s heart began to race. “Yes, certainly there is! You say the sack fell with Peskwa, did you not?” Isabel nodded. “Do you remember where he fell?” “Yes. No.” “Which is it, child?” “Hard to say. I mean there’s no telling. The sleigh was spinning and—” Isabel glanced at the others. They shrugged. “The sack will be somewhere near the body.” Krampus’s voice rose with excitement. “You need to find the body, or where it landed. Should not be that hard to do. Begin your search there. Split up and spread out, and—” He stopped pacing, stared at each of the Belsnickels. “We must beat Santa to it. He now knows I live . . . knows about you. He will be sending his monsters. The sack is the prize. It is everything . . . if he should find it first then . . . well then we are all as good as dead.” He snatched up one of the Shawnees’ spears, handed it to Makwa. “You still have your knives? Good. Take the rifle and pistol as well. You will need them should his monsters find you.” “We lost the pistol,” Isabel said. “Wipi shot him,” Vernon added. “At least three times at close range. I was right beside him. He hit him every time, right in the chest . . . didn’t so much as slow him down.” “No,” Krampus said. “No, I wouldn’t think it would. Now hurry, make haste. Every second counts.” The Belsnickels snatched up a couple of spears and an old shotgun with a broken stock from a pile of tools. They scrambled away up

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the shaft, one after another. Krampus shouted up after them, “Keep a sharp eye out for his monsters. You will know them when you see them. You will feel them.” Then, under his breath. “As they will feel you.”

Je s se pu lled i n to the drive of a small old house with peeling white paint. Linda and Abigail had been staying with Linda’s mother since the breakup. He glanced at his watch. He’d overslept and it was going on noon. He peered into the camper where two garbage bags full of toys sat waiting for Abigail. He grinned, couldn’t help himself. Santa’s crimson sack sat on the floorboard next to him. He stroked the thick, rich velvet. He had a good feeling about that sack and didn’t intend to let it out of his sight. It was magic, and he felt sure that somehow or another it was going to bring him good fortune. He just hadn’t quite figured out the somehow yet, but at the very least he figured he could always sell it, had to be someone out there who needed a toy-making sack. He started out of the truck when something in his jacket clunked against the door. He pulled the pistol out of his pocket. “Shouldn’t need this,” he said, then snorted. “Of course, there’s no telling with Linda.” He stuck the gun back in the glove compartment. Jesse knocked on the front door and waited. When no one came, he knocked again, louder. “Hold your beans,” someone yelled. “Be right there.” He heard shuffling feet, then Polly opened the door and stared at him through the screen. She gave him a pitying look. “Are they here?” Jesse asked. He thought she wasn’t going to answer him at all, when finally she sighed. “Why you wanna go and do this to yourself?” He tried to peek past her into the living room. She looked back over her shoulder. “I ain’t hiding ’em under my couch. I told you they ain’t here. Neither one of ’em.” “Over at Dillard’s,” Jesse said. It wasn’t a question. Polly said nothing. “Damn it!” Jesse stomped his boot on the doormat. “Tell me some-

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thing, Mrs. Collins. Just what the hell does she see in that son’bitch?” “I done asked her the same thing about you once.” “The man’s pushing sixty. You think that’s right? For Linda to be going out with a man near about your age?” “Linda’s never been real good at picking men. At least Dillard’s taking care of her. That’s more than some folks can claim.” Jesse cut her a hard look. “Comes home after work like he should. Has a nice truck. Nice house.” Jesse turned his head and spat loudly. “That house was bought with dirty money.” Polly shrugged. “Better than no money.” “I gotta go.” Jesse turned and started down the steps. “If you’re wise, you’ll steer well clear of that man.” Jesse stopped, turned around, and looked Polly straight in the eye. “Linda’s still my wife, y’know. A little fact that everyone seems to have forgot but me.” “I’m just saying don’t go stirring him up. You don’t need that kind of trouble. No one needs that kind of trouble.” “Well if he thinks he can just take another man’s wife, then it’s my job to set him straight.” She laughed, a mocking sound that set Jesse’s teeth on edge. “Jesse, you wanna think you’re mean, but you just ain’t. That much I do know about you. Now Dillard, on the other hand, now there’s a man cut from mean stock. His daddy was shot six times in his life and is still here to tell about it, while them men who done went and shot him—every one of them’s lying beneath the stone-cold ground. And his granddaddy, well that man was so mean they had to hang him before he was twenty- two. Dillard’s got deep roots in this county, got the law on his side. Can send you away, one way or another. So you need to dial it down a notch while you still can.” Jesse’s face flushed. He didn’t need Mrs. Collins to lecture him about Dillard Deaton, or Police Chief Dillard Deaton, which sounded much more important than it really was, as there were only two full-time police officers in Goodhope. It wasn’t the badge that troubled Jesse but the fact that the man was ear-deep with Sampson Boggs, better known around town as the General. Boggs and his clan ran every sort of racket:

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gambling, dog fighting, prostitution, welfare fraud, and could sell you any drug you could name. Chief Deaton’s sworn civil duty seemed to include keeping the law off the General’s back in return for a cut on the take—been that way as long as Jesse could remember. Dillard’s ties ran deeper still: the Boggs clan and Dillard’s kin had a long, crooked history together. Dillard’s old man had taken those bullets Mrs. Collins had spoken of running moonshine for the Boggses back in the day. Blood ties meant something in Boone County, and feuds and disputes were more often than not settled outside the law. And a man needed to be careful who he messed with, because blood always came first. Jesse, on the other hand, didn’t have much kin left to speak of, and the few he had were of no account. Without kin to back you up you didn’t matter much; that was just the way things worked around here. “What’s going on between me and Dillard,” Jesse said. “Well, that’s a different sort of thing. When a man messes around with another man’s wife, it’s personal. It’s understood he’s crossing a line and what happens after that is between them and no one else. You won’t find anyone gonna argue me on that.” The stubborn left Polly’s face, leaving her looking old and sad. “Jess, Linda’s finally got something. Don’t you go spoiling it for her. Just you leave her be. You hear me?” “Mrs. Collins, you have yourself a Merry Christmas.” Without another look back, Jesse got in his truck and drove away.

Je s se saw no sign of Dillard’s patrol car and let out a breath. He pulled into the police chief’s driveway, parked behind Linda’s beat-up Ford Escort, and cut the engine. The house sat on a couple of nicely se- cluded acres backing up against the river, just on the outskirts of town. Everything had been recently renovated: new bricks and wraparound porch. A late-model white Chevy Suburban sat in front of the three-car garage. “Nice house. Nice car. Amazing what a man can afford on a townie’s police salary these days.”

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Jesse opened his door, started to get out, then hesitated. What the hell am I doing? He realized it was easy to talk big in front of Mrs. Col- lins, but now that he was here he didn’t feel so cocky. He glanced up the road keeping an eye out for the patrol car. Abi’s gifts could wait. Always another day. He shook his head. “I don’t think so. She’s my daughter and this is Christmas. I’ll be goddamned if I’m gonna be cowed by some old limp dick.” He got out and felt naked, exposed. He glanced at the glove compartment, but something in his gut told him bringing the gun would be a bad idea. Instead he walked around, lifted the gate on the camper, pushed his guitar aside, and pulled out the two sacks of toys. He walked up the pathway, stashing the two bags behind the hedge, then mounted the porch. He pushed his hair back out of his face, straightened up his shirt, and pressed the doorbell. Deep chimes echoed from inside. A minute later, Linda opened the door with a big smile; the second she saw Jesse, her smile fell. She wore a plush lavender robe. Jesse noticed right away the frilly lingerie peeking out from beneath the robe. “Santa bring you that?” Linda shot him a cold look and tugged her robe closed. “What’re you doing here?” “Merry Christmas to you too, honey.” “You shouldn’t be here.” She glanced behind Jesse, her eyes anxious. “He’s gonna be back anytime.” “I’m here to see my daughter.” “Jesse, you can’t be making trouble.” Linda lowered her voice. “He’s just looking for an excuse. He’ll take you in this time. You know what that’ll mean.” He did. There were times, when the gigs were slow, that Jesse picked up odd jobs to fill in. On more than one occasion he’d run contraband for the General. The Boone County sheriff was an honest man, wasn’t on the General’s payroll, didn’t care much for Chief Dillard Deaton either. One night, the sheriff pulled Jesse over during a run and that contraband turned out to be three kilos of weed. Jesse ended up in jail. Since it was Jesse’s first offense, the judge let him off with probation

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and a stern warning that any more trouble and he’d serve hard time. Chief Deaton liked to remind Jesse about his probation, about what would happen if Jesse were to get out of line. “Last I checked,” Jesse said, “it wasn’t against the law for a man to visit his little girl on Christmas.” “Jess, please go. I’m begging you. If he finds you here it’ll be bad.” And Jesse caught a note of panic, understood that she didn’t mean bad just for him. “Linda, you’re twenty-six. What are you doing with that old creep?” “Don’t you do this. Not here. Not now.” “Well, okay, fine. But I’m still Abigail’s father and as such I got some say on her welfare, and it don’t set well with me one bit that she’s living under the roof of a man in cahoots with the General.” Linda looked at him as though he’d lost his mind. “Really? Are you kidding? I can’t believe you even said that.” She laughed. “Weren’t you the one sitting in county jail a couple months back? And for what? What was it, Jesse? Running drugs I believe. Who exactly were you in cahoots with?” Jesse flushed. “That ain’t the same and you know it.” She just stared at him. “Besides, I didn’t know it was drugs.” Linda rolled her eyes and let out a snort. “Jesse, I happen to know you aren’t that stupid. Well, okay, I tell you what. I could move her into that little trailer of yours. That’d be a wonderful place to raise her. Don’t you think?” “Doesn’t the fact that Dillard murdered his wife bother you at all?” “He did not,” she shot back, a noticeable edge in her voice. “That’s just talk. Dillard told me what really happened. She emptied his bank account, took his car, and run off. That’s all there is to that. He was shattered by what that crazy woman did to him.” “That’s one side of it. Too bad Mrs. Deaton ain’t around to give her side. Too bad no one ever found hide not hair of her after all these years.” “Jesse, what are you trying to do?” “Linda, don’t move in with this guy. Please don’t. Go back to your mama’s. Let’s give this one more chance. Please.” “Jesse, I’m done waiting for you to grow up. There’s gotta be more

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to my life than watching you pick at that damn guitar of yours. I don’t want to be raising a child by myself while you’re off playing at some scuzzy honky-tonk. That ain’t no kind a life.” “What happened to you, Linda? You used to believe in me . . . believe in my songs.” “How’s that demo coming along, Jess?” “It’s coming.” “Have you sent off any of your songs? Did you ever follow up with that DJ from Memphis, that Mr. Rand, or Reed, or whatever his name was? As I recall he was real keen on your sound.” “I’m still working on it.” “Still working on it? Jesse, that was over two years ago. What’s the excuse now?” “Ain’t no excuse. Songs just aren’t quite ready yet. That’s all.” “How many years have I been hearing that? What you mean to say is you aren’t quite ready yet. Because them songs . . . they’re good songs. But nobody’s ever gonna know it if you don’t let them hear ’em.” Jesse stared at his boots. “Jesse, we been over this until I’m sick of hearing myself say it. You aren’t going nowhere so long as all you do is keep playing to a bunch of drunks in those two-bit bars. You want it, baby, you’re gonna have to make it happen. Gonna have to put yourself on the line. “Look, Jess, some folks is gonna like what you do and some folks aren’t, that’s just the way it is. You can’t go through life worrying about the ones that aren’t.” Jesse felt that was easy for Linda to say, she’d never cared a lick for what other folks thought. It was why she was such a good dancer, because she could just lose herself in the beat, just kick up her heels not caring who was watching or what they might be thinking. She’d never been able to understand that it might be different for him, at least while he was performing. He couldn’t get past all those eyes on him, watching his every move, couldn’t get into the zone, into that magic place where the music and him were one and the same. So yes, perhaps she was right, maybe he was afraid to put himself on the line, but maybe he’d learned that it was better to play good to a bunch of drunks instead of screwing up in front of people who gave a damn. She let out a long sigh. “You won’t send your songs off to no one be-

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cause you don’t ever feel they’re quite good enough and you won’t play in front of nobody that amounts to a hill of beans because they might look at you funny. Jesse, how can you expect me to believe in you if you won’t believe in yourself?” Jesse just stared at her, tried to come up with a reply, something he hadn’t said a hundred times before. “All I know is that I love you, Linda. Love you as hard as I can. Now, you go ahead and look me in the eye and tell me you don’t love me. Do it right now. If you can do that then I’ll leave you be.” She met his eyes, opened her mouth, then closed it, her lips set tight. Tears began to brim in her eyes. “There’s a little girl in there that needs some sort of stability in her life. She don’t need a mom pulling double shifts at the Laundromat, don’t need a daddy dragging in at four a.m. every morning. Can you understand that? Can you not see that there’s more to consider here than just you and me?” A tear fell down her face and she wiped it angrily away. “I gave you every chance. Every . . . damn . . . chance. So don’t you come up here telling me you love me and acting like you’re all concerned about Abigail’s welfare.” “I’ll find a job. A real job. Just tell me you’re willing to give it a shot and I promise . . . promise I’ll quit with the music . . . quit it straight away.” She looked at him like he’d stabbed her. “Quit your music? Nobody wants you to quit. You just need to get a plan and a little faith in yourself. Grow some goddamn balls, Jesse, and go after it.” “Okay, I’ll get a plan . . . and . . . um . . . grow some goddamn balls. Hell, I’ll do whatever it takes to—” “Stop it, Jesse. Stop it. It’s too late. I’ve heard it all before. We both know nothing’s gonna change. Just can’t count on you, Jesse. No one can. You can’t even count on yourself. Now you need to leave. Right now, before Dillard gets back. Before you screw this up too. Don’t make—” “Daddy?” a timid voice called from behind Linda. “Mommy, is that Daddy?” Linda gave Jesse a pained look then opened the door wider. A little girl with long, curly hair, wearing faded flannel PJs, stood peeking into the foyer. The girl saw Jesse and let out a squeal. “Daddy!” she cried and came rushing to him. Jesse scooped her up, spun her around then just hugged her, enjoying the crush of her little arms about his neck. She

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hugged him like she never wanted to let him go. He pressed his nose into her hair and inhaled deeply. She smelled of soggy Froot Loops and baby shampoo and it was the sweetest thing he’d ever smelled. “Daddy,” she whispered in his ear. “Did you bring me something?” He opened his eyes and found Linda staring at him. She didn’t need to say a word; he knew her “you’re gonna let her down again” look too well. Jesse set Abigail to the floor. “Was there something you wanted? I couldn’t remember if there was or not. Last thing I recall you saying was to donate all your presents to charity.” Abigail planted her hands on her hips and screwed up her face like she wanted to sock him. Then her eyes lit up as though just remembering something amazing. “Oh, Daddy, I gotta show you something.” She started away then slid to a stop. She held up one tiny finger. “I’ll be right back. So don’t go nowhere. Okay? Okay?” “Promise,” he said and smiled, but her sincerity pained him. He could see that she was truly afraid he might not be here when she returned. And why not? It’s not like it hadn’t happened before? Linda looked at his empty hands. “Don’t have nothing do you? Put it all toward booze didn’t you?” Jesse tried to look offended. “You’ll just have to see. Won’t you?” Abigail came running back, clutching a doll. “Look Daddy! I got one! I got a Teen Tiger doll!” “Now where’d that come from? Did Santa bring you that?” “No, Dillard did.” Jesse felt as though he’d been punched. He did his best to smile while he looked the doll over. “Which one’s this?” “It’s Teresa Tiger. Ain’t she cool?” “Hmm, I thought you want Tina Tiger?” “I did, but they was all out down at the drugstore.” “Well, I guess she’s pretty a-okay. I mean, if that’s the best the old man could do. I can see how it might be that an old fart like Dillard wouldn’t want to go driving all over Creation to get the one you really wanted. Elderly men like that . . . it’s hard for them to sit for real long on account that they got hemorrhoids.” He cupped his hand and whispered loudly. “Itchy buttholes.”

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Abigail giggled. Linda shot him a sour look and said, “Why don’t you ask your daddy what he got you?” Abigail set her big eyes on him. “Well, Abi, sugar blossom. Did you know that your daddy and Santa Claus just so happen to be real good buddies?” “Nuh-uh.” “Yup, it’s God’s honest truth. Why, we go fishing together every now and again. As a matter of fact we’re such good buddies that he lent me his magic sack. Told me if I knew any good little girls I could give them whatever toys they wanted. Do you know any good little girls?” Abigail beamed, and pointed at herself. “Now, I want you to close your eyes and wish for any toy you want.” Abigail shut her eyes tight. “No peeking,” Jesse called as he stepped back to the bush and retrieved the two garbage bags. Linda eyed the bags suspiciously as he sat them down in front of Abigail. “Okay.” Abigail opened her eyes, saw the two bags, and gave her parents a questioning look. “Go on,” Jesse said. “Open them.” Abigail laid down her doll and pulled open the top of one of the bags. Her eyes grew wide. “Daddy?” she whispered, then opened the bag wider. She just stared, like she was afraid to move or even breathe. She slowly pulled out a Teen Tiger doll, then another, then another, then let out an ear-piercing squeal. She clapped her hands, laughed, jumped up and down, and squealed some more as she emptied all the toys out onto the porch. “Daddy!” Abigail flung herself around his neck. Jesse hugged her back and stuck his tongue out at Linda. Linda was not smiling, she didn’t look happy in the least; she looked like she wanted to jab her finger in his eye. “Abigail, dear,” Linda said, her voice terse. “Could you do me a favor and take all these inside? We don’t want ’em to get messed up.” Linda knelt down and started putting the dolls back in the sack. “Here, just take ’em in. You can open them inside. That way you won’t lose nothing.” Abigail, practically dancing with excitement, dragged one of the

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sacks inside and down the hall. “I’ll be there in a sec,” Linda called. “Just need to have a word with your daddy.” Jesse didn’t like the way she said “word.” Linda sat the other bag inside the door and pulled it shut. She glared at him. “What’d I do now?” “You know exactly what you did,” she snapped. “Where’d all them toys come from? Are they stolen?” She jabbed a finger at him. “Tell me Jess, what kind of a father gives his daughter stolen toys for Christ- mas?” Jesse held her eye. “They’re not stolen.” Linda didn’t look convinced. “They’re not stolen,” Jesse repeated. “And that’s all you need to know. How come you always gotta think the worst of me?” “Are you telling me you bought these?” This seemed to make her even angrier. “You had cash and this is what you went and spent it on? All the things your daughter needs and you buy her toys? Jesse—” She didn’t finish, she looked past him, her face stricken. Jesse turned and saw Chief Deaton’s patrol car coming down the road.

Sa n ta Claus sto od upon the boulder, staring across the snow- covered wilderness, searching the tall cliffs for the easiest means out. His crimson suit was torn, covered in drying blood, but the blood wasn’t his own. A mewling sound came from behind him, from among the pile of mangled beasts. One of the reindeer still lived, its legs broken, its gut busted open, a string of entrails and blood splattered atop the boulders. It began to bleat and bawl, sounding almost human in its suffering. Santa ground his teeth together. “The house of Loki brings nothing but ruin,” Santa Claus hissed. “Krampus, I gave you every chance. Tried to show you charity, show you the path to redemption, but I was a fool to let you live, for once more you have proven there is no grace amongst serpents.” He hopped down from the boulder, walked to the splintered re-

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mains of the sleigh. He shoved a few slats aside until he found a bound burlap bundle. He untied the cord, unwrapped the burlap, revealing a sword and a ram’s horn. “For the death of my brother, my wife, the destruction of the house of Odin, for my imprisonment in Hel, for all the thievery and deceit, all the woe your line has wrought, the last of Loki’s blood shall be stamped from this earth.” He put the horn to his lips and blew; a single, long, powerful note. The deep bass sound traveled through the earth and air, carried up the valley and out across the world. Santa knew his children would hear, wherever they were, even if they were halfway around the world, they would hear. “Come Huginn and Muninn, come Geri and Freki, come you great beasts of ancient glory. Come help me find this devil. It is time to finish what should have been finished five hundred years ago. It is time to bury Krampus for good.” The dying reindeer kicked and pawed at the rocks with its hooves, trying to sit up. Santa grimaced, picked up the sword, pulled it from its scabbard. It was not a thing of beauty but a stout broadsword, a blade meant for killing. He walked over to the reindeer. It stopped struggling, looked up at him with dark, wet eyes, and let out a long bleat. Santa raised the sword and brought it down hard, chopping the deer’s head from its neck with one clean stroke. Santa Claus wiped the blade clean of blood, replaced it into its sheath. He tied the horn to his belt, strapped the sword across his back, and started away, heading south, toward the little town where he’d been ambushed. He knew the sack had landed somewhere in that trailer park and he intended to find it. “Krampus, my dear old friend, you will pay. Your death is mine and I intend to make it a terrible one.”

Th e c ru i ser pu lled in beside Jesse’s truck. Dillard opened the car door and got out. The police chief was a big man, over six feet tall, and while he might’ve been pushing sixty he still looked like he could knock over a tree. He was in his civilian clothes, a pair of jeans and a tan hunting jacket, and while you could never have made Jesse admit

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it, he could see how a woman might find Dillard’s strong jaw and ruggedness attractive. Like a rock, Jesse thought. He looks like the kind of man you can count on. “Jesse,” Linda whispered, her voice urgent. “Please don’t make no trouble. Just go. Please.” Jesse didn’t like it. Linda didn’t seem merely put out, she seemed nervous, anxious. He’d never seen her act like this. Dillard locked steely gray eyes on Jesse, pushed his jacket open just far enough to reveal his service pistol. “Just the man I’ve been looking for.” “He was just leaving,” Linda called, then, softly, to Jesse. “Now go. Please. For me.” She pushed him along. Jesse walked down the steps, across the driveway, and over to his truck. Dillard’s cold eyes followed him the whole way. “Mind holding up there a sec, Jesse? Need a word with you. Linda, do me a favor would you . . . head on in and give us men a bit of space.” Linda hesitated. “Go on now, be a good gal.” “Dillard, I was just hoping that maybe—” “Linda,” Dillard said, a strain edging into his voice. “You need to go on inside right now.” Linda bit her lip, gave Jesse one more pleading look, then hurried inside. Jesse wondered what was going on. The Linda he knew would never let a man cow her like that. Was that the same Linda he’d torn up the honky-tonks with? The same woman he’d seen slug a man for grabbing her ass? Dillard strolled around the cruiser, right up to Jesse, looked him up and down. “Hear there was a spot of trouble out at your place last night.” Jesse said nothing. “You know anything about that? Maybe hear something? See something?” “I did. Saw everything. Santa and his reindeer landed and were attacked by six devil men. They flew up into the sky and Santa tossed one of ’em overboard.” Jesse said all this without breaking a smile. “I think the man you’re looking for has a long white beard.” Dillard frowned, rubbed at a spot on his forehead like he was getting a headache, then just stared at Jesse for a long moment as though

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trying to figure out what he was. “Jesse, I knew your mother and father pretty well, and neither one of them was stupid. How come you turn out that way?” Jesse crossed his arms and spat on Dillard’s driveway. “You just asking me to do this the hard way?” Dillard’s tone made it clear he was done dicking around. “The only thing I’m asking you to do is stay the hell away from my wife and daughter.” Dillard let out a long sigh, like a man dealing with a child. “I think me and you need to have a talk. Y’know, a man-to-man sort of thing, because there ain’t no need for this to go down the path it’s headed.” He pulled out a pack of cigarettes, placed one in his mouth and offered one to Jesse. Jesse looked at the cigarette as though it were poison. Dillard lit the cigarette, took a deep drag, and slowly exhaled. “I understand that this ain’t easy for you, son. I wouldn’t like it if I were in your shoes. Not one bit. So I’m just gonna say it, because someone needs to. It’s over between you and Linda. Linda knows it and I think you know it too. All you’re doing now is making things hard on everyone, especially that little girl of yours.” Jesse bristled. “You two need to get a divorce. Make it official. I’ll even help you out with the paperwork if need be. I’m tired of you making her feel bad. You need to man up and cut it off clean so everyone can move on with their lives.” “That ain’t gonna happen.” “Yes, it is gonna happen. And it’s gonna happen soon, because Linda and me is planning on getting married.” Jesse fell back a step. “What?” “Sorry, son. I didn’t want it to go down like this.” “No!” Jesse shook his head. “I don’t think so. There ain’t no way I’m gonna let that happen. Ever!” “Let me make this plainer. I’m not asking. You understand? We are gonna get married. Just as soon as we get you taken care of, that is. Now there’s a couple of ways of taking care of you, and it’s pretty much up to you to choose.”

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Jesse held up a shaky finger. “Don’t back me into a corner, Dillard. You don’t wanna do that.” Dillard laughed, shook his head. “Jesse, if you had even a tenth of the balls you think you do, you just might be worth a good goddamn. Son, the only reason I haven’t already taken you out of the picture is because you do a little business for the General. You know full well that it won’t take much of anything to put you away. Why, I could slap the cuffs on you right now for whatever reason I fancy and you’d be on your way to prison. Is that what you want?” “You do that and I won’t be the only one on my way to prison.” Dillard’s eyes squeezed to mere slits. “What did you just say?” “I think you know just what I said. You take away the only thing that matters to a man and you got a man with nothing left to lose. A man like that just might start talking.” The side of Dillard’s face twitched. He took a step toward Jesse. “You need to dig the catshit out of your ears, boy, and listen up. There’s more than one way to make you disappear. And no one’s gonna even notice one way or another either, because there ain’t a soul around gonna miss a piece of trash like you.” Jesse gritted his teeth, forced himself to hold his ground, to hold Dillard’s eyes. But he found himself fighting back tears. Had Linda really agreed to marry this old bastard? He glared at Dillard. “I don’t believe it. Don’t believe she’d ever agree to marry an old fuck like you.” Dillard let out another one of his long sighs, then shook his head and chuckled. “Jesse, Jesse, Jesse. Can’t believe I’m letting myself get all worked up over a numbskull like you. I just keep forgetting how thickheaded you are.” He took another long drag off his cigarette. “Let me tell you something about yourself, make it as plain and as simple as possible—you’re a loser, Jesse. A no-account loser. That’s why you live in that tiny rat-trap, that’s why you still drive your daddy’s old rust heap, and, most of all . . . that’s why Linda is done with you. “Now I could tell you this all fucking day, till I’m blue in the face. But it won’t mean beans, because nothing’s gonna sink into that thick skull of yours unless it’s hammered in. So I’m gonna show you. Gonna prove it to you in a way that even you can understand.” Dillard walked back to the front of his cruiser and pulled his pistol from its holster. Jesse tensed, sure the man was about to shoot him dead right there in

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the drive, but he just clicked off the safety and sat the gun on the hood. Dillard then proceeded to walk down the drive, leaving the gun sitting there. He leaned up against the garage door, took a deep drag off his cigarette and looked up at the trees as though he was out enjoying the day and nothing more. Jesse glanced back and forth between the gun and Dillard—he didn’t get it. “Jesse, you know what I’m about to do? Huh?” Dillard chuckled. “I’ll tell you. Right after I finish this smoke. I’m gonna go inside this nice big house of mine, gonna take that pretty wife of yours upstairs and then, and then . . . well I’m gonna shove my big hard prick right in her sweet little mouth.” “What?” Jesse gasped. “That’s right. Gonna make her slobber all over my knob. Smack her ass and make her bark and whine. Now, if you’re inclined to stop me, all you got to do is pick up that gun right there and shoot me. It’s that simple.” Jesse squinted at him, his hands clenched into fists. “What? What the fuck is wrong with you? Fuck you!” “Is that all you got? Son, I’m about to go in there and make your wife choke on my broom handle. Gonna blow my load all over her face. And all you can do is cuss me? If a man done that to my wife . . . said it right to my face like that . . . I’d shoot him dead regardless. Because that’s what a real man does.” Jesse looked at the gun. Dillard grinned. “You won’t do it, Jesse. I know this for a fact. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s taking the measure of a man. Thirty years on the force will do that. And I could tell from the very first time I set eyes on you that you were one of the nobodies that don’t matter squat. A loser. And now Jesse . . . you know it too.” Jesse glared at Dillard, then at the gun, back and forth, his heart drumming. He took a step forward, then another, until he stood right beside the gun. All he had to do was pick it up and shoot. There was nothing Dillard could do to stop him. “C’mon, Jesse. Ain’t got all day.” And the worst of it was Dillard looked so confident, so completely at ease, this was not a man wagering his life, this was one who was absolutely sure of himself.

Krampus_00i_x_1_353_2p.indd 39 6/7/12 10:36 AM Bro m

Jesse’s breath sped up, his hand began to tremble. Do it. Shoot him. But he didn’t and right there, right then, he saw exactly what Dillard was showing him. I am a loser. Don’t have the guts to shoot myself. Don’t have the guts to shoot the man screwing my wife. Don’t even have the guts to send my music off to some jackass DJ. Jesse let out a long breath, fell back a step, and just stood there staring at that gun. Dillard flicked his cigarette butt into the snow, walked up to the hood of the cruiser, and retrieved his gun. He shoved it back into its holster. “Believe it or not, son, I ain’t trying to be a dick. I’m trying to do you a favor, trying to save you years of heartbreak. A man needs to know himself. And now that you can see just the sort of man you truly are, maybe you’ll quit trying so hard to be something you ain’t. Go home, Jesse. Go home to that piece-of-shit trailer of yours and get drunk . . . then do us all a favor and just disappear.” Jesse barely heard him; he just kept staring at the spot where the gun had been. “Okay, Jesse. I’m done with you. Done talking, done wasting my time. I’m going in, and when I look out that window in a few, you and that rig of yours best be gone. And just so we’re clear, just so there ain’t a lick of confusion between us: if you ever set foot on my property again, ever . . . I’ll break every one of your fingers. I mean that. You won’t be playing that guitar of yours ever again.” Dillard turned and walked away, leaving Jesse staring at the car hood.

Krampus_00i_x_1_353_2p.indd 40 6/7/12 10:36 AM James Jaros

CARRY THE FLAME

August 2012

Tomorrow's world is a wasteland, decimated by vengeful nature and disease . . .

And those who rule the ruins worship a cruel and terrible god.

Having survived the terror of the Alliance and the single-minded fanaticism of its hideous religion, a caravan of survivors moves quickly into the Great American Desert, the wastes of what once was America's heartland. With her daughters at her side—recently rescued Ananda and her daring older sister, Bliss—Jessie hopes to find sanctuary in the Arctic, now rumored to be temperate. But their enemies are powerful and relentless, and will not rest until they possess the caravan's most precious treasures: their prepubescent female children, a stolen tanker filled with fuel . . . and a pair of frightened twins, whom the Army of God calls "demon."

But the danger in pursuit pales before the horror that lies ahead when Jessie, the marauder-turned-ally Burned Fingers, and the innocents in their care face the savagery, the madness, and the monsters that dwell in the terrifying City of Shade.

“Gutsy...quirky characters and nonstop action....Tense, terse prose suits the setting and carries the story nimbly along.” — Publishers Weekly

“I really could not put this book down...Jaros does a great job of creating strong, believable women role-models with real emotions...Burn Down the Sky is a fun, well- written, post-apocalyptic quest story that entertains, and I strongly recommend it for fans of Stephen King’s The Stand, the Mad Max films, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, or Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake.” — The Alternative

Chapter One

he horizon darkened by midday. Jessie watched black clouds boil from a ridge in the Great Smokies, moun- Ttains once verdant and lushly green. Thunderheads, most likely, but she knew the charred forests would offer little fuel for lightning. Wildfires had long scorched the southern high country, and the drought-stricken land had not recovered. The trees and brush had turned to cinders and ash, and the ash—the final mute testimony of life, and the eternally empty echo of death—had been cast by the wind to the desolate valleys below. But what turned Jessie away from the raging clouds wasn’t the bleak vision of final ruin, or the potentially lethal force of a crackling sky. It was an elusively subtle scent that tormented her with the darkest, most wrenching memories, and threatened everyone on the caravan with a merciless demise. Burned Fingers joined her. Despite his age—she guessed late fifties, giving him a g ood fifteen years on her—he walked nimbly uphill for a better view, leaving her in the shade of a h ijacked tanker truck filled with gasoline. It baked in the sun near an armor-clad van packed with looted food, water, and gunpowder. Nearby, adults and even the youngest children scrambled

CarryFlame_i_x_1_404.indd 1 5/14/12 12:54 PM 2 James Jaros to chip off sharp lengths of an obsidian wall for knives, traps, and spear tips. Like hunter-gatherers, Jessie thought without irony as she looked from the collection in her hand to the imposing size of the tanker. She saw Bliss, soon to turn fifteen, holding up a flat, slivery rock. The girl reared back to test it as a weapon, like baseball pitchers had once wound up to deliver a strike. But Bliss didn’t let it fly, saving the black glassy stone for when she might need to kill. She caught her mom’s glance and smiled, suddenly a c hild again. Both of them were tall and lean with braided black hair and skin fright- fully bronzed by the harsh, unrelenting rays. Burned Fingers slipped past Jessie so quietly that she found it unsettling. Then he took the disk-shaped rock from Bliss, rubbing the razor edge against his chin; he was one of the few men Jessie had ever seen who still made an effort to shave. After inspecting his salt and pepper stubble, he hefted the rock’s weight to check its balance. “It’ll throw fast and true. And this,” he thumbed the edge, “will split a man wide open.” Words like the blessing of a brimstone prophet. Burned Fingers looked the part with a bone-drawn face that flaunted an unnerving geometry of unforgiving features; raked back, shale-gray hair, and the burned index and middle digits of his shooting hand that had given rise to his nickname. Not unhandsome, his steely looks complemented his manner as much as his fused, arced fingers suited the curved trigger of his sawed-off shotgun, like they’d been burned to bear arms above all else. He could have been stained red, for all the blood he’d spilled, including the blood of Jessie’s husband. She could not look at Burned Fingers without seeing Eden lying by the gate to their camp, bludgeoned, bleeding, dying. The path that had brought the marauder to her side remained grim, enigmatic, haunting. He handed Bliss back a weapon old as the Pleistocene and turned again to the blackening horizon. Augustus moved up beside Jessie and stared at the erupt-

CarryFlame_i_x_1_404.indd 2 5/14/12 12:54 PM Carry the Flame 3 ing sky. “It’s over my camp,” the missionary said slowly, “whatever it is.” The first spoken suggestion that the midday darkness whirling toward them might not be a rainstorm or gales of gritty dust, but a far deadlier force. Jessie closed her eyes, no longer able to deny the scent of seared flesh or the hateful weight it carried. Not a strong stench, not so sickeningly sweet as the smells she’d known only three weeks ago when they burned down the fortress of the religious zealots who’d kidnapped their daughters; but in these stark and pressing seconds the scent felt as real as the soot that colored those clouds. She said nothing about the haunting odor. Maybe Augus- tus hadn’t noticed. Or maybe she was wrong, though her sense of smell had sharpened during these long decades of deprivation, like hearing honed by blindness. They would learn the answer soon enough because the pacifist preacher had shown real heroism during the rescue of the girls, earning him a ride to his settlement. It sat along what had once been the border of Tennessee and Kentucky—the path Jessie and Burned Fingers planned for the caravan’s long, perilous journey north. Burned Fingers had warned that their attack on the fortress would be seen as an attack on the Alliance, a shadowy network of heavily armed outposts across North America. Augustus brought that up to Jessie as he stood by her side, but he a lso reminded her—maybe himself, too—that the Alliance had stayed away from his settlement. “Called us the curse of Cain, and never came around, like being black was contagious.” But moments later the sweet smell thick- ened and he shook his head wordlessly, and she remembered him once adding that the men in the Alliance never left you alone for good, “not if you’ve got so much as a flint knife worth stealing.” We’ve got a lot more than that, she thought, eyeing the tanker brimming with gasoline. We’ve got the Holy Grail of the new Dark Ages, and maybe the only way to get to the new Jerusalem—ar ctic Canada, where land was said to be

CarryFlame_i_x_1_404.indd 3 5/14/12 12:54 PM 4 James Jaros green, and palm trees and crops grew, as well as dates and Kamut and oranges. That “maybe” worried her ceaselessly, kept her looking back as much as she plowed ahead. Made her feel watched by hidden eyes, knowing the Alliance would rake the very coals of hell to retake the tanker and reassert control of the region. Burned Fingers had likened the truck to a “rolling gas station,” and Jessie knew they’d never caravan to the Arctic without it; but she also feared that it would get them massacred. She looked over the adults and children scrambling to add to their cache of weapons, and found it inconceivable that all thirty of them would survive this trip. Far easier to imagine them lifeless as the land they planned to cross. Far worse for Augustus, who might have reason to worry that his people already had been slaughtered, their homes and bodies burned. He had left a wife and twin girls in the settlement, now roundly cloaked by those black clouds rolling ever closer. But the believer had spoken of his twins only of late, and said little else about them, simply that they were “of age,” which meant they were about to start their menses—prime targets for the ruthless zealots who claimed a God-given right to abduct them for procreation. “Grab your stuff and get on board,” Burned Fingers ordered. “We’ve got to get moving.” “But that thing’s coming right at us .” Ananda, Jessie’s twelve-year-old, backed up as she stared at the massive wall of clouds marching toward them. With plaited black hair and darkly tanned skin, she was another pea in the family pod. “And if it’s rain, it could disappear,” her mother replied. “If it doesn’t, we’ll stop when it hits.” Whatever it was, she thought, keeping her gruesome concerns to herself so the caravan could stay ahead of the Alliance—or the mercenar- ies its secretive leadership had sent after them. Might even be marauders from Burned Fingers’ old gang.

CarryFlame_i_x_1_404.indd 4 5/14/12 12:54 PM Carry the Flame 5 Jessie watched everyone gather up their rock shards, hoping that turning them into knives and spear points would keep them busy enough to spare her any cries of “Are we there yet?” from the younger children, a complaint as common now as it had once been in cars and on wagon trains. Cassie’s mourning came to mind immediately; the smallest, frailest girl’s father had been shotgunned to death trying to take control of the tanker. Since then she’d been cared for by her father’s old friend, Maul, a big, bald, fierce- looking man who captained the truck with a s hotgun by his side and pistol and butcher knife in his belt—but who’d wept openly when he knelt next to Cassie to tell her the news about her dad. Similar grief haunted other children climbing aboard the vehicles, including nine-year-old Imagi, a Down syndrome girl, and Mia and Kluani, eleven-year-old twins who took turns wearing a twine necklace they’d macraméd for their father, who bled to death after leading the attack that netted them the van; Jessie had taken the necklace off his body to give to his daughters. She placed her hand on Kluani’s back, guiding her to a berth under the belly of the tanker near her darker-haired sister. Throughout the day, the most fidgety children changed positions with one another, shifting along the sides of the trailer or down below the tanker. Maul, behind the wheel, handed his twelve-gauge to Erik. At thirteen Erik had been given the weighty role of riding shotgun, though the dark-freckled boy recognized that he was mostly an extra pair of eyes for the large man beside him, who handled his weapons as naturally as his forbearers had used utensils. Maul started the truck, and thick plumes of oily black smoke streamed from twin exhaust pipes that rose like horns above either side of the armored cab. In front of them the van started to roll away, carrying three teenage girls blinded by the zealots, but who still cared for three female babies who’d been in their care since birth. Brindle drove the smaller vehicle. He was short, wiry,

CarryFlame_i_x_1_404.indd 5 5/14/12 12:54 PM 6 James Jaros and suffered from a stammer that disappeared only when he swore. He swore a l ot. Tow-headed Jaya, fifteen, rode shotgun for Brindle. Jessie had assigned him to the van, and Bliss to a guard post on the tanker, to try to keep them apart, at least during the day. She hadn’t been entirely successful: during a break yesterday, she chanced upon them clutching passionately; though their hands were busy, their clothes had been on. Bliss took her position at the front of a narrow metal walk- way that ran along the top of the tanker and studied the territory ahead with the sharp vision of youth. She pumped her shotgun as her mother climbed up the trailer’s rear, facing backward on the same narrow grating to watch for creatures that might stalk them. Not all the animals were human. Some, like the playfully named Pixie-bobs, had four legs and fur, beguiling faces, and shocking ferocity. They’d been bred from domestic felines and bobcats, or Lynx rufus, as the wildlife biologist called them when she still had use for Latin. The Pixie-bobs had turned voraciously feral, prolifer- ated in the Appalachians, and hunted in packs of a hundred or more. With little fear of humans, these piranhas of the apocalypse could strip a good-sized man to bone in sixty seconds, a child in less time than it took her to scream, turn, and start to run. After scanning the wretched landscape they were quit- ting, Jessie waved her arm. Bliss relayed the go-ahead to Maul, and the truck rolled out behind the van, keeping enough distance that a single gas bomb, often poisoned with human waste, would be unlikely to blow up both vehicles and all the children. Jessie lifted her eyes to the blanched sky, noting the contrast with the black clouds several miles ahead. The caravan would have to stop when the storm hit, assuming that’s what it was. If the blackness vanished—and they’d seen the most violent looking thunderstorms abscond with the sweetest promise of rain—they’d continue so Augustus could return to his family by nightfall, or see to their remains.

CarryFlame_i_x_1_404.indd 6 5/14/12 12:54 PM Carry the Flame 7 Who are you kidding? Jesse shook her head, understanding for the first time that hope and grief were death’s only real ghosts. It’ll be their remains, if there are any left. Minutes later the smell of burning bodies turned as suffo- cating as the memory of the pyres that had blazed near their marauded camp, flames that granted her murdered friends and loved ones their only leave. She turned to order a halt so they could scout the danger, when Bliss yelled and pointed to the suddenly accelerating advance of the black horizon. Close enough that Jessie startled at t he towering wall of clouds scouring the earth and spitting it to the ethers. In the same instant, she grabbed the grating against a p owerful gust that whipped past the vehicles, darkening the air. She ordered the truck to halt, and saw the van stopping too. Jaya sprang from the front passenger door. How much time do we have? she asked herself. A minute? “Get under the tanker and cover up,” she shouted to the children clinging to the vehicle. They looked frozen with fear. “Go. Hurry! Move!” she bellowed, stepping down onto a metal ladder. The temperature jumped twenty degrees in ten seconds, a heat wave that gave lie to the original, pallid meaning when her long dead relatives could open fire hydrants or lounge in pools to cool off. These were like siroccos, come to life in the last half century and fueled by higher temperatures than the Sahara of old had ever known. The hot winds fun- neled across the hugely expanded Great American Desert, raising inestimable tons of dust; and when they swept over isolated bands of humans, they could choke a child to death and leave her parents gasping. Computer models of the collapse had never predicted such explosive heat, or comprehended chaos theory well enough to explain the mysterious physics of temperature spikes— much less anticipate the vast waves of hot wind that would charge wantonly across the planet, turning it into a labora- tory for meteorological uproar. Jessie had only heard of such

CarryFlame_i_x_1_404.indd 7 5/14/12 12:54 PM 8 James Jaros torrid winds, and had no idea how long they could last or how many lives they could claim. Grit tore at her skin as she climbed off the truck and children cried out around her. She peered through the slits of her eyes and saw the black clouds surge over them like the monstrous surf of an oceanwide tsunami foaming over the length and breadth of the foothills. Struggling to duck under the trailer, she watched the wind rip away a blanket of dust, revealing deep, caterpillar tracks. A tank? She dropped to her knees, like she’d taken a blow to the gut, disbelief in her eyes, dread at her fingertips. An armored tank in this world could crown its owner king. But that’s what it was—a trail of armored murder. No one bothered with bulldozers or other earthmovers with metal treads, not with gas so precious, and slaves to dig and haul away rocks and dirt. Only tanks, with their turrets and flamethrowers, got to guzzle fuel. In the dark realm of weapons, they had become the one-eyed man in the land of the blind. She looked up, terrified that she’d see the beastly creation barreling through the blackened air, crushing everything in its path; but she couldn’t even make out the child beside her, and knew that she would have to try to save the girls from the immediate threat of the storm. She joined their huddle under the truck and demanded a roll call, relieved when everyone—including Ananda and moon-faced Imagi—offered their names, barks muffled by the clothes they breathed through and the siren of wind lashing the trailer’s struts and ladders. Then Jessie remembered Bliss and called for her, too. The girl didn’t answer. “Bliss?” she wailed. Another gust blasted the tanker truck, and the girls in the tight circle gripped one another and drew closer, each one instinctively trying to burrow her way to the center, where she would be less likely to find herself ripped loose by the wind. To Jessie’s horror, the truck screeched, like metal shear-

CarryFlame_i_x_1_404.indd 8 5/14/12 12:54 PM Carry the Flame 9 ing. She reached up and felt a wild shudder, sickening with fear that it had been smashed by the armored tank, whose tracks lay so near, and that gas would spill down and an inferno would engulf them. But her hand couldn’t remain on the metal long: the child she’d been holding blindly to her left screamed above the howling and started to slide away. Jessie pulled her back with enormous effort. The metallic screeching ceased a beat before another gust slammed them, and the group shifted en masse toward the rear of the trailer. The wind was agonizing, like a wall of tornados drilling them with dirt, dust, and pebbles hard as buckshot. But it brought no gas, no fumes, and they pressed ever closer together, their every breath suffused by the now sulfurous smell of the dead. Jessie’s hold on the girl who’d almost been swept away made her hand ache and the child cry, but she never relented as shrieking wind slammed the group backward again and again, eternal seconds of biting terror. She feared the pum- meling would drive them out from under the trailer’s narrow cover and tumble them like weeds through the charred forest. Instead, her back struck one of the big rear tires. Arms throbbing, she held three or four girls—she couldn’t tell exactly—and felt others forced against the hard axle. She pitied them, heard their agony, but as much as she could tell, the hellacious wind had not yet torn apart the group. But where’s Bliss? Jessie moaned when she remembered Jaya jumping out of the van, sensing right away that back at the obsidian wall the two of them had planned a rendezvous in what they hoped would be rain. To dance in it? She rolled her head in despair. They know better. Every child in the camp had been warned about heat storms. And this one had uncovered the tank’s tracks, and brought the stench of burning bodies. She could smell the dead, taste the bitter waste, and then

CarryFlame_i_x_1_404.indd 9 5/14/12 12:54 PM 10 James Jaros her ears filled with the harsh clanging of metal tread and the deep rumble of an engine powerful enough to move the armored tank’s massive weight and howl louder than the screaming wind. The earth itself began to shake beneath her, and she knew the machine that had laid those tracks was only feet away, rolling closer with every second.

CarryFlame_i_x_1_404.indd 10 5/14/12 12:54 PM

Chapter Two

very living element—and every slab of steel that surrounded Jessie—vibrated violently. The air itself rang Ewith bedlam. Another screech rose from the gasoline tanker, right above her head; and she thought surely this time the armored tank would rip the trailer in two and that she and the girls would be smashed or burned to death in the next instant. She jammed her back against the big tire, as if a sudden stiffening of muscle and bone could thwart 100,000 pounds of cannon and guns, flamethrowers and grisly murder. But the metallic screech stopped, fast as a wince in the overriding darkness. The earth and tanker truck still shook, but not as severely, and in seconds that played against an infinity of fear, the harrowing engine noise of the armored tank was swallowed by the wind and soot still lashing the trailer’s struts and ladders. She stayed bunched-up with the girls between the rear wheels, ears ever alert for the tank. In a daze of dread and fatigue she noticed three lulls in the storm, gazing at a n ight sky brilliant with a band of chalk- white stars burning with grace notes of unseen mercy. But three times the wind wiped the heavens from her eyes, leav-

CarryFlame_i_x_1_404.indd 11 5/14/12 12:54 PM 12 James Jaros ing her with a renewed fear of the tank: Where was it? What were they doing? Waiting for daylight so they can murder us without blowing up the gas? At dawn the storm lifted and the sky blazed blue as the oceans at the dawn of the century, when the most tranquil turquoise waters masked the bleached rot of coral reefs. She uncurled herself from the girls’ sleepy limbs and found a strip of freshly chewed-up earth alongside the gasoline tanker. Above the tracks she saw two deep horizontal scrapes, one near the front and one that passed right above where she’d huddled. The latter extended to the end of the tanker and explained the abrupt silencing of the screech. She figured the cannon had gouged the side, swung away from it, then gouged it again as the crew tried to outrun the storm. Rolling through blackness, it would have been easy enough for them to think they’d struck a r ock wall—if they even noticed the impact in the blinding, deafening chaos. The scrapes also indicated the direction taken by the armored tank. Her eyes quickly trailed the tread pattern down the same slope the caravan had traveled yesterday. The tracks ran near or over the ones she had spotted as the storm descended. The memory turned her toward a thin gray curtain of smoke still hanging over where Augustus said his camp stood. But where was the tank now? Over a ridge? Hiding behind a hill? It would have been forced to stop, too. She couldn’t imagine that it had kept blundering blindly through a land pitted with deep gaps and steep drop-offs. She looked around again. Not a soul. Only a preternatu- rally bright and silent dawn after a terrifying night. The wind that forced them to find immediate shelter had flattened even the hill’s brittle, charred forest. Boulders had ceded to gusts and rolled into gullies or were piled against larger rocks, forming huddles likely to last eons. Yet all around her she saw a desert forming rapidly, a thousand years of parching compressed to hours by grinding heat and wind. In a coruscating flash, the blue sky blanched, as if incin- erated. She rubbed her eyes to see if her vision had failed,

CarryFlame_i_x_1_404.indd 12 5/14/12 12:54 PM Carry the Flame 13 but the atmosphere—poof—ha d simply returned to its most pallid appearance. Then she worried that the tank cannon had come alive; but no, it wasn’t that, either. Bewildered by what she’d witnessed, and uneasy over what it might mean, she checked on the sleeping children before rushing to peer inside the cab. Maul and Erik were still resting in their tight, protected hub. No sign of Bliss. She searched all around the truck, then hurried to the van, about a hundred feet away. Augustus was crawling out from under the engine, dark skin paled by dust. “We’ve got to get moving,” he said, glancing behind him, to the sides, everywhere at once. “Something’s still burning.” He raised his eyes to the pale smoke about five miles away. “My wife, my girls. Dear God, let me find them. Alive.” Jessie put her hand on his broad shoulder. “Didn’t you hear the tank last night? It came right through—” “Tank? No, I never heard that. The storm was so loud I could hardly hear myself think. Was it coming from there?” He pointed to the gray smoke. “I’m not sure,” she hedged. “We won’t know till—” “Oh, God.” He dropped to his knees and hung his head; in prayer, she guessed. “We’ll go there,” she said. “I promise. But I’ve got to find Bliss.” He looked up. “Your girl’s missing? In this?” His eyes widened, but looked emptier for the effort, like he’d seen a holocaust—or imagined one coming. A nod was all Jessie managed before she turned and threw open the van’s driver door, shaking Brindle. “Where’s Jaya?” The scrawny, bearded stammerer opened his eyes on the empty seat beside him. Then he swung around, as if puzzled by the blind girls and babies crowded among the crates of dried fruit, produce, and smoked meats. “He’s not back there,” Jessie said. “Goddamn h-h-him. H-H-H-He jumped out b-b-b-before I—I could st-st-stop h-him.”

CarryFlame_i_x_1_404.indd 13 5/14/12 12:54 PM 14 James Jaros “Bliss is gone, too.” She gazed at the hills, noticing that dust had collected in scores of uniform lumps against a sharp slope; but her eyes dropped at once to the tank tracks. Burned Fingers ran up, pointing to them. “That was close. Very close,” he said. “You see the side of the tanker?” she asked him. He looked over and swore in surprise. “It couldn’t have been more than three feet from me and the kids.” “I thought I he ard one but I w asn’t sure till I s aw the tracks.” “They could have taken Bliss and Jaya,” she said. “They’re gone.” He nodded. “But I doubt the tank took them. That crew couldn’t see any better than us. The electronics in those things are shot to hell. They don’t have any night vision, but they do have firepower that could blow us all to hell.” He spoke from experience: his hand had been burned decades ago after commandeering an M4 Sherman. “No, those kids are out there. That’s my thinking.” “You been out looking?” “Yup, and they could have been sucked up to the sky for the tracks I could find, except for those things.” He snorted at the tread marks. “You can bet that tank’s looking all over for us, blasting their flamethrowers every chance they get. You smell those bodies?” He glanced at t he smoke above Augustus’s camp. The black missionary kept his eyes averted. “You sure that’s what it is?” Jessie asked. The scent, like the smoke, had thinned; and she couldn’t stop herself from hoping. “Are you kidding? You never forget it.” Burned Fingers held up his scarred hand. She forced herself to rally: “We’re going to search for Bliss, Jaya. They would have tried to escape the storm somehow.” She looked at Augustus. “You know this area, right?”

CarryFlame_i_x_1_404.indd 14 5/14/12 12:54 PM Carry the Flame 15 “Sure, but if my people are still there,” he raised his eyes to the pall, “they’ll know who’s around.” “That’s a big ‘if,’ ” Burned Fingers said. “We’re not leaving here without my daughter,” Jessie as- serted. “It might be revenge,” Augustus said, as if he’d never heard her; his eyes were emptier than ever. “They saw me with you.” He meant at the battle to rescue the girls. “They couldn’t miss me, and they’re looking everywhere for us. My camp would have been a target. If they took that thing—” He stopped talking when his eyes landed on the tank tracks. Sorrow never sounded deeper. “Sorry, Augustus,” Burned Fingers said, “but my guess is that they did their burning and were heading back when they passed this way. It’s the most obvious route, right? But if I were doing this . . .” Meaning, when you were doing this, Jessie thought, roiled by the abrupt reminder of the man he had been. “. . . I would have left the sickest fuck I had behind, in case whatever I was looking for showed up. There are only so many places you can drive with a truck full of gas, and they know that. And I’d tell that sick fuck to get word to me right away. So the longer we stand around here, the worse it could get.” Burned Fingers leveled his eyes on Jessie. “I’d also be picking off stragglers. You can use them in all kinds of ways. Our best option is to move on, the sooner the better.” “No way. We’re searching.” “Every minute we stay gives them more time.” “We don’t even know if there’s a ‘sick fuck’ out there. We might have some time.” “You smelled it. No sick fuck? Are you kidding? I wouldn’t go betting any farm in the Arctic on that.” Burned Finger’s voice rose, and a baby in the van began to wail. “The Alli- ance is doing everything they can to get that tanker back. Look at that.” He pointed his sawed-off at the tracks. “They sent a tank after us. Me, you, him?” He glanced at Augustus. “They might give up on us, but not a truck full of gas. They

CarryFlame_i_x_1_404.indd 15 5/14/12 12:54 PM 16 James Jaros might not see the likes of that for another year. Two. I knew we never should have stopped once we had that thing.” “And what? Leave my friends behind? The ones who survived your attack, so maybe they could be slaughtered by other madmen?” Some grief you couldn’t put aside, but Burned Fingers never even blinked. “Everyone will get slaughtered if we don’t move. What are we going to do? Spend days looking while they’re looking for us? We’ve got to get out of here.” “I’m not talking days.” “Would someone shut that kid up,” Burned Fingers shouted into the van. He looked back at Jessie. “You want an hour to find those two horn dogs? Fine, take an hour. I’ll even go with you, but I won’t be party to any more than that. We leave everyone else to fight off the hordes. We’re risking everybody for those two.” The baby’s cries grew louder. Jessie said nothing. She’d take the hour and go from there—alone if she had to. Burned Fingers turned away and yelled, “Oh shit,” before slamming the door on Brindle and pulling Jessie to the ground next to the van. Augustus dropped beside them. A single gust swept the scalded hillsides and barreled into the caravan, shaking the armor by Jessie’s head. She, Burned Fingers, and Augustus grabbed the plating to keep from being swept away. Then she looked over and saw the girls still clinging to one another under the trailer. Sky quake. She had seen one years ago. A storm’s after- shocks, land and sky sharing the same affliction: the two poisoned as one by heat. The gust passed, and they looked up to see the atmosphere turn purely orange. Not tinged with mauve or purple or red—the orange of soot-stained skies in evening verse. Orange. Like the citrus supposedly growing in the far north. Jessie had never seen the sky color so quickly or completely. Pale? Yes, but not this. Then the orange vanished as fast as

CarryFlame_i_x_1_404.indd 16 5/14/12 12:54 PM Carry the Flame 17 a wraith, and the sky lightened again, casting a thin screen over a fuzzy urinous sun. “What was that?” Jessie asked. “You’re the scientist,” Burned Fingers said. “You tell me. It’s been a crazy morning up there.” He stood and startled her by extending his scarred hand. She took it. “I’m a biologist, not a climatologist, but it could be methane.” Jessie brushed herself off. “There was always a big worry that if enough of it came up out of the oceans, it would start drifting over land. Doesn’t matter, we’ve got to get going.” “Doesn’t matter as long as it doesn’t blow us up,” Burned Fingers said. “That or the tanker.” He threw open the door on Brindle finger-combing his long beard. “How fastidious. I hate to interrupt your groom- ing, but did pretty boy happen to say where he was going? Or were you too busy primping to ask?” “Ass-h-h-hole.” Jessie wasn’t sure whom Brindle insulted: the marauder with the sawed-off or Jaya, who’d been riding shotgun. “H-H-He j-just j-jumped out and r-ran off.” Burned Fingers whistled to the dogs. Hansel hopped over on his three legs. The marauder elbowed Jessie. “Tell me, can Stumpy the Wonder Dog actually track?” She nodded, but looking at Hansel’s eager face gave her little hope. “I don’t have a scrap of her clothes to get him started. Everything she owns is on her back.” “Yeah, well Jaya’s ass was on that seat.” Burned Fingers pointed past Brindle. “Let’s give him a g ood sniff. It’s a dog’s life anyway.”

In the first sweep of the storm, Soul Hunter watched the boy and girl stumble toward a ravine that had once been part of a bird sanctuary. The wind had forced them far from their vehicles, and pressed their clothes against their privates, offering hints that would fever his imagination—and torment his soul—through the night.

CarryFlame_i_x_1_404.indd 17 5/14/12 12:54 PM 18 James Jaros The pair ducked into the rugged, rocky depression, passing within feet of where he h id. Though the air darkened and the gusts screamed, Hunt, as his brothers in the Alliance called him, didn’t let his eyes stray; and he saw the wind whip her shirt up around her neck before the boy’s hands could stake their own claim on her godless skin. But the two of them hid their other filthy secrets behind the scrim of darkened air. Hunt glimpsed only their desperate lunge into a U-shaped boulder pile on the far side of the ravine. He would have liked it for himself, but couldn’t risk confronting them in blinding conditions. So he’d hunched down, back against the leeward side of a broad rock, and endured the onslaught of grit and bits of burned branches till he sat buried to his waist. In the darkest hours, he heard moans that might have been the wind; but as the night passed he grew certain that he was listening to their obscene, open-mouthed orgy—gasps and outcries that filled him with the same animalistic urges that had brought his Lord’s merciful vengeance upon the stained peoples of the earth. As first light grayed the sky, he prayed to God Almighty to deliver him from the burden of temptation. And he took solace in knowing that only he and God had witnessed her bold display, and that nothing—nothing—ha ppened that wasn’t part of His plan. The Lord Thy God had granted him, Hunt, a full second of her naked heathen chest. Not the boy’s naked parts—hers. For a reason. A reason. God the Father wanted him to desire the woman in the girl’s budding body. To draw his eyes to her. His attention—to her. His needs—to her. She was a beauty. Hunt had seen that, been moved by it, too; but he was always wary of the evil that could afflict him in an unguarded moment, when his thoughts turned to nakedness and tantalized him with the lone temptation that above all others must be resisted—the apple of Eden that hung low and hard and heavy on a strong young tree with smooth firm limbs.

CarryFlame_i_x_1_404.indd 18 5/14/12 12:54 PM Carry the Flame 19 A beauty, a beauty, a beauty, he repeated to himself, as if these fraught words were the blunt instrument of prayer itself. But even insistence of the most desperate kind couldn’t hold off his most disturbing voice, the one that hailed from Satan. It appeared like a b oa and swallowed her beauty whole: But so is the boy. So . . . is . . . the . . . boy. Hunt’s mouth narrowed with thirst. He drank water, as if to wash away his incipient sins. Then he offered God His most hallowed prayer—Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us—to no greater effect. Rueful and unnerved, he unwrapped a Colt .45, a vener- able revolver at least a hundred years old. An heirloom long worshipped with gun oil and bore brushes, and prized above all other bequests by ancestors wise to the wickedness of the world. He was delivered of their loins and heavenly be- liefs, and gave thanks every day that he hadn’t been born to Pagans, Jews, Catholics, Muslims, or any other smutty faith that visited the stains of the father upon the sons—and warred with good men born again of God-given grace. Generations had handed down the Colt to Hunt, yet it still gleamed in the strange stirrings of the coming day and the last leavings of starlight, catching glimmers of both on a blue steel barrel. Hunt had fired it fourteen times, always at close range, harvesting the sweet fruit of death. The Lord had commanded him so, and he was a vassal of the Almighty, never more than on the day when he’d tracked down the stolen wares of the Alliance, and he would savage two more of the unforgiven. The tank with its big gun had searched for the gas and failed—and was reduced to simple retribution against the compound cursed by Cain—while he, Hunt, with only a motorcycle and the revered Colt, had suc- ceeded. The “Supreme Soul Catcher,” His Piety once called him. And so he was. He stepped from behind the broad rock, gaining ground silently in the dust that had blown into the ravine. But he didn’t head toward the sinners. He retreated about seventy

CarryFlame_i_x_1_404.indd 19 5/14/12 12:54 PM 20 James Jaros feet to an old wagon road that wound down the gap’s widest wall. Grotesque doings back there, the worst that he had ever seen; but he had to attend to the evil—or whatever scourge it might be—as much as he had to unmuzzle his hound for the strict commands of the day. A beauty. A beauty. A beauty. So . . . is . . . the— Hunt refused to reckon with the boy, but the more he fought the arresting allure—hairless face and hidden genitalia—the more he imagined the worst that can befall a man of True Belief. Breathless even more, he turned and stared at them one more time. Still sleeping. Easy to take unawares. But she’d carried a s hotgun—the boy nothing but his raggedy shirt and chopped-off pants, which made Hunt weak to consider. Half his age and burning with sin, a child of heathendom, a child of hate. Hunt thought of the long line of imperatives stretching from heaven to him. And then he imagined all manner of unraveling. He warned himself that a s truggle over their flesh would mean another struggle over his soul, for he had often gleaned what he would do, and begged forgiveness from God—before plunging ahead with foul demands on His most fallen. Alone, then, in the vastness of his pure grieving conscience, he’d punished his seducers with knives and hungry vermin. And as they lay as waste, bound and gnawed and suffering still, how many times had he—of his own accord, no other—dropped to the broiling earth and crawled till his knees bled and his hands boiled with blis- ters, purging his guilt and giving thanks to the one merciful Lord? Only to be tested today. No. He would spare nothing of himself for these two. He had to take them back to the old military base, to the stone chapel where the iniquitous were baptized with the blood of their confessions, and dangled as ransom when they could utter no more answers.

CarryFlame_i_x_1_404.indd 20 5/14/12 12:54 PM Carry the Flame 21 When the tanker and van were retaken, the last of the unholy herd carefully slain, he would walk the boy and girl to the most sacred killing field. There he would claim his final earthly reward for keeping watch on the path to Cain’s children, where fire had burned the accursed—and now drew the murderous plunderers to their pending destruction. Richer rewards still would await him in heaven. So he swore off the girl’s bare chest and the boy’s pun- ishing appeal. He would not force them to commit the ob- scenities that had spared him Wicca disease—and ravaged so many of the sodomites who’d ended their lives in his hands. The righteous had named the virus after the demon females—witches all—who had set the sickness loose on a world full of unsuspecting men. These were good fathers and brothers of faith, though females were the first to fall, as God in His infinite wisdom had so justly decreed. The Lord had granted immunity to only a t iny percentage of men. Most of the others, even believers rich with prayer and constant pleading, were cursed with the plague and seethed with vicious hallucinations—grotesque visions that trig- gered murderous and suicidal impulses before the stricken killed others, themselves, or perished in the agonizing grip of the disease. The only way to have sex and appease God Almighty was to wed girls right after menarche. For their first twelve periods, they knew their own immunity—and the only purity of their otherwise damnable lives. Or—and now Hunt breathed audibly and gave himself pause—he could pierce his own soul by having sex with boys, yes, boys, who had not known the deadly pulse of penetration, who had kept themselves clean for the likes of him. No, you won’t. Promise me you won’t. Resolve precious and slippery as semen, he h urried the last few steps to the wagon trail and untied a tarp that covered the old Harley 74 and a side car, and a rattly trailer with five gallon gas cans lining the outside like an ammo belt. Rising behind the battered red cans on one

CarryFlame_i_x_1_404.indd 21 5/14/12 12:54 PM 22 James Jaros side was a faded picture of a fly fisherman defaced by black graffiti. The trailer’s roof had been cut off with a blowtorch, the top of each side sculpted into pikes. The rear was open, the bed almost filled with matching, century-old aluminum and Plexiglas telephone booths laid next to each other. Hunt had just enough room to edge between the booths. Even with the tarp, thick dust had coated the glass. He swept it away with his hand, feeling contaminated by the nearness of his touch to the twins. They were conscious, but he wasn’t sure whether one could be awake and the other asleep. He reviled the very sight of them. Not just the devil’s black skin or the burns on their body. No, he r eviled far worse than skin color or scars or identical dark eyes. He reviled a fact so fearsomely present at first glance that he’d known in the same repulsive instant they had to be resurrected from their near death—and the imminence of hell ever after—so he could take them to the base and parade them before His Piety. Parade what? He studied them. The Devil’s own seed? So many mysteries with these two, beginning with their number.

Bliss awoke with an arm wrapped around Jaya, the other resting as peaceably on her shotgun. The storm had forced them to seek cover in a ravine or canyon, visibility horrid by the time they stumbled down there. A thick layer of dust coated their bodies, but she figured it had kept them safely hidden. Even so, she listened intently before lifting her head and brushing off her face. Carefully opening her eyes, she spied the day’s first light, faint and swift, stealing across the sky. A dun layer draped the boulders that rose around them on three sides, softening their appearance. She realized with a start that they were lucky to have found a trail and not stepped off the edge.

CarryFlame_i_x_1_404.indd 22 5/14/12 12:54 PM Carry the Flame 23 She lifted her shotgun knowing that she didn’t dare work the action till she’d blown away every last particle of dust. I’ll huff and I’ll puff, she smiled, and I’ll blow your house in. Thinking of candles, she counted fingers on her hand and realized it was her birthday. Fifteen! You made it. How many times in just the past few weeks had she thought she’d be killed? And here she was—more alive than ever—with a boyfriend. She eyed Jaya resting under the powdery blanket, priz- ing him as the most joyous gift of her life. The hard length of him still felt hot in her hand, and his presence lingered from the long glorious minutes when her mouth, full and heavy and rich with want, made her so crazy that she’d almost ripped off their clothes in the dust and dirt and sweat and stones. But Wicca had stopped her as surely as it had shut down procreative sex among the tiny percentage of the world’s population that had been spared the pandemic. Only after she and Jaya had settled last night, satisfied by touch and taste, had she begun to feel watched. So eerie a sensation that she’d stared into the blackness and scolded herself. No one can see you. You can’t see two feet in this. But the grim feeling returned now. She looked at a r ock wall rising right behind them, and knew that anyone could spot them from above. She wasn’t thinking of her mom, but Jessie came to mind immediately. You’ve got to get back. She’ll go nuts if she finds out you’re gone. Gone where? The question scared Bliss. How long had they stumbled around, oblivious and aroused, seeking a refuge for touch—and her first intimations of love—in a land of blood and fire? Bliss looked up again, searching for a familiar marker, and saw orange blaze everywhere at once. She sat silent and astonished, an ancient eyeing an eclipse, a child of storms and stony seas.

CarryFlame_i_x_1_404.indd 23 5/14/12 12:54 PM 24 James Jaros

The forbidding sky had come alive with ghosts and spirits and strange colors. Evil doings all. His Piety would know their foul portent, but Hunt rose from the dust, spitting its filthy taste from his lips, already certain that Satan’s fiery breath had gripped the air he breathed, like the dark one’s madness gripped the soul and twisted it into a raging fist of sin. Eyes retreating from the sky, he r eturned to the twins, fearful and clinging to each other, and looked at t he dog locked in the booth beside them. The beast’s eyes lit up, so ready to do his duty that there could have been two of him. The metal muzzle would have to remain on the creature till his bark posed no threat. A “hound of Hades,” His Piety had described the dog. “We have dominion over the beasts, and we rule their animal ways.” It was true, it was in the Bible, like God Himself, and he knew it was a fool’s damnation to think otherwise. To devi- ate from scripture was to be a de-vi-ant. To suffer as one. Look at the world. Look at it. There could be no disagree- ment. True Belief protected him from himself, made him turn from temptation. Yes, you will. Do not doubt it. The boy and others no less despicable were the reason for the “Sealing of Sight.” The tainted ones looked right at you, so boldly, so coldly, it was like they could read your secret thoughts, making the plucking of eyes essential for the saving of souls. No less had been claimed for the “Deformation of Faces,” a sacrament conducted on the Risen Day of Easter for all the women who flaunted their beauty by enticing worthy, rever- ent men from the greater glory of God. Hunt had long believed it unfair to disfigure only females; surely, from what he’d known, the faces of the boy and his conniving lot deserved far worse for the abominations they caused among God-fearing men. But he’d never spoken of extending the sacrament. Not a word to anyone. Only to God Almighty in the fever clasp of his most private prayers.

CarryFlame_i_x_1_404.indd 24 5/14/12 12:54 PM Carry the Flame 25 He unlocked the booth and gripped Damocles by the muzzle, shaking the hound’s long pointy snout, then slipping his finger through the cage to check his teeth, white as right. “Getting excited, boy? Huh? You got a mission, too.” The sleek leggy beast stood and bristled with pleasure, muscles rippling down his long dark back and flanks. “I’ll take this off,” he said, and gave the muzzle another hard tug, “when we’ve got them good and ready.” What else are you going to take off? Shaking off Satan in the day’s first sun, he chained the dog to the trailer. From a corner pike he took down a ball of rusty barbed wire and cut a length long enough to bind the boy’s hands. He repeated the effort three times, for feet and hands must be bound on both of them, as they were on the twins. He checked the lengths again, and considered cutting them to give the boy and girl crowns. The twins had worn theirs well, pretend crowns for their pretend Jesus. That’s whom they’d been praying to when he’d found them in the smolder. True spawn of the Devil, they’d been hard to burn. “You have no claim on the Son of God,” he’d bellowed as he’d wrapped wire around the twins’ heads, a coronation that did not end until their brows bore the same red streaks as the One True Son. “So you must pray for forgiveness.” Damocles pulled hard on his chain. The dog wanted to do his duty. His master stared at the telephone booth that had kenneled him, and now waited to be filled. Like you, the most disturbing demonic voice taunted. Just like you. Filled with the red heat of your animal dreams. Hunt cocked the Colt’s hammer.

CarryFlame_i_x_1_404.indd 25 5/14/12 12:54 PM Tracey O’Hara

SIN’S DARK CARESS A Dark Brethren Novel

August 2012

An ancient darkness has risen from the ashes . . . and terror has been loosed upon an unsuspecting world.

Forensic witch Bianca Sin has never seen anything like it: homeless teenage girls torn to pieces by dark magic in the cold shadows of the city. More terrifying still is the symbol written in blood on an alley wall—the unmistakable seal of the Dark Brethren.

Teaming up with NYPD homicide detective Lancelot McManus and an elite task force headed by the shapeshifter Oberon DuPrie, Bianca knows her worst fears have finally come to pass. A new war of annihilation is looming that will plunge the worlds of vampire, shapeshifter, and human into chaos—and two adversarial tribes locked in uneasy truce will need to take up arms together to save the children. Trust will be essential for Sin and McManus, as the hunt forces them to confront their deepest terrors.

For the ultimate evil is no longer approaching.

It's here.

Tracey O’Hara grew up in reading Steven King, Raymond E. Feist, and J. R. R. Tolkien where she developed her taste for adventure and the paranormal thriller. When she’s not writing, reading, or listening to heavy metal, she spends time with her husband, two sons and three cats. The author of Night’s Cold Kiss and Death’s Sweet Embrace lives in Australia.

1 Rising Sin

Bianca Sin strode past the flashing emergency-vehicle lights to the crime tape strung across the alley entrance and nodded to the uniformed police officer whose name she couldn’t remember. “Hey Dr. Sin,” the young officer said, lifting the yellow crime tape. “He’s waiting for you.” She smiled her thanks as she ducked under the tape, making her way to where the man who’d summoned her stood talking to a couple of uniforms. “Hey McManus, you look like shit,” she said. He smiled and leaned one hand on the hood of the squad car as he dug into his coat pocket to pull out a pack of cigarettes. “Sweet talk will get you everywhere, Sin.” She painted on her biggest how-you-doing smile and slowed her stride. His square jaw was covered with at least a few days’ growth, and by the circles under his eyes and his rumpled suit, he hadn’t been home in a while either. The shabby appearance might look unprofessional, but she knew it was most likely because he’d been working for several days without a break. His ice blue eyes, though somewhat bloodshot, still pierced with a s harpness few

Sins Dark Caress_i_x_1_326.indd 1 5/14/12 3:25 PM 2 TRACEY O’HARA others possessed, reminding her why he was one of the city’s top homicide cops. Bianca turned her smile on the other two. “Barnes, Jones, how you guys doing?” Officer Barnes returned her nod. “Not too good after seeing this one, Dr. Sin.” He lightly tapped his partner on the stomach with the back of his hand and tilted his head to the crowd gathering at the perimeter. Jones nodded and the two officers moved off. McManus pulled a cigarette from the pack with his lips and fished out his lighter. “This one’s real messy,” he exhaled in a cloud of smoke. “Whatcha got?” “A homeless woman, split like a can of corn for the baby surprise inside.” He scrubbed a hand across his bloodshot eyes. “It’s the second in as many weeks.” “So why’d you call me in?” “You’re the expert on that magic crap, and there’s a symbol I need you to check out. It could be witchcraft, but there’s something different about it,” he s aid, his nose crinkling. They’d worked together for years, been friends for almost as long, and never once had McManus hid his dislike for thaumaturgy, or those who used it. “Hey,” someone yelled from behind. They both turned as a blond reporter pushed forward past the yellow tape, only to have the two uniforms step into her path. “Excuse me, Dr. Sin—Trudii Crompton WTFN News— can I have a few words?” the reporter yelled as she tried to force her way past Barnes and Jones. “I’ll give you two. No comment!” Bianca called over her shoulder, and leaned toward McManus, dropping her voice. “Get rid of her, will you?” He flicked his cigarette butt on the ground and stamped on it before sauntering toward the reporter and her camera-

Sins Dark Caress_i_x_1_326.indd 2 5/14/12 3:25 PM SIN’S DARK CARESS 3 man. “Come on—you know the rules—take it back to the perimeter.” “But Detective McManus—” the blonde protested. “Move back, Miss Crompton, or I’ll have you taken in for obstruction,” McManus said. She straightened her shoulders, defiance flashing in her eyes as she lifted her chin. “You can’t do that.” “Maybe not, babe.” He slid his hands into his trouser pockets, opening his crumpled coat to reveal a c rumpled suit. “But where would you rather be when the story breaks? Here or downtown in lockup?” The reporter’s lips thinned and a deep frown creased her perfect brow. Bianca smiled and turned away. She didn’t know what Ms. Crompton took offense to more, being threatened or being called “babe.” McManus had a k nack for deliberately pushing a person’s buttons when they pissed him off, and the reporter was taking the bait. As Bianca approached the cordoned area, her skin grew clammy, the hairs on her arms stood on end, and nausea washed over her. She rounded the corner and bright crime scene lamps lit the area in gory detail, turning the alley into a slaughterhouse. Blood pooled around a p ale body lying amidst the congealing viscera, but that wasn’t what made her stomach churn. Burning bile rushed up her esophagus with a d ark ur- gency. She ran, putting as much distance as possible between her and the crime scene so she wouldn’t contaminate it. The contents of her stomach gushed out of her mouth and hit the filthy ground, just missing her shoes. Footsteps came up from behind. “You all right?” McMa- nus asked, genuine concern softening his expression. She reached into her pocket for a t issue and her hands shook. “I’ve never seen you pavement pizza at the sight of blood before. You’re not going soft on me, are you?” He took the

Sins Dark Caress_i_x_1_326.indd 3 5/14/12 3:25 PM 4 TRACEY O’HARA tissue from her hand and cupped her chin as he wiped her mouth, his brow creased in concentration. “We’ve seen a hell of a lot worse than this.” “It’s not the blood.” She pushed him away gently and bent over with her hands on her knees as her head spun again. “Something dark happened here, not just the murder.” The remnants of black energy radiated from everything surrounding the body. “That’s why I called you in,” he said, rubbing gently between her shoulder blades. “How’re you feeling now?” Nausea and dizziness subsided. “Okay I think.” She took back the tissue to clean herself up and smiled her thanks. The smile he returned remained a little uncertain. “You had me worried there for a minute.” “You’re not going ‘soft’ on me, are you, McManus?” “Never.” He winked. “Come on, I’ve got something to show you.” Bianca followed him back to the body and dropped to a squat. Dark blond hair was tacky with drying blood that pooled around the dead girl’s head, and her lower abdomen was just an empty cavity. Her old clothing was mismatched and grubby, like someone who’d been on the streets for some time, but her frozen features held an innocent youthfulness, almost untouched by the squalidness of a homeless life in dark back alleys. “Goddess, she’s around sixteen or seventeen at the most.” She looked up at McManus and swallowed the urge to puke again. “We got an ID?” “Not yet,” McManus said. “We’re still questioning the other bums in the area, but no one is admitting to knowing her, let alone seeing anything that happened.” “What a surprise—” Bianca froze as she glanced past Mc- Manus to the wall behind. “So whatcha think?” the detective asked when he s aw where her gaze was directed. “Satanists?”

Sins Dark Caress_i_x_1_326.indd 4 5/14/12 3:25 PM SIN’S DARK CARESS 5 “I wish,” she whispered, uncurling from her crouched position and pulling a cell phone from her pocket. “What’s up?” the deep voice rumbled through the ear- piece after the second ring. “How soon can you get the team downtown?” “About a half an hour,” Oberon replied. “Bad?” “The worst,” she said, then gave him the address and slid the phone shut. “Why’d you have to call him in?” McManus asked. The whole time her eyes remained firmly fixed on the symbol, painted in blood. “Because we’ve seen this before.” All too recently. There was no mistaking the mark of the Dark Brethren.

Sins Dark Caress_i_x_1_326.indd 5 5/14/12 3:25 PM

2 Darkness this Way Comes

The heavy rumble of a H arley-Davidson engine grew closer, a single headlight clearing a path for the large black SWAT van that followed through the crowd of onlookers and media. The team had arrived. “You called him in, you deal with him,” McManus said, and walked away slightly pissed. Bianca sighed and made her way toward the newcomers as the buzz from the gathered press rose in renewed interest with their arrival. Oberon DuPrie pulled the motorcycle up beside a squad car and kicked out the stand before cutting the engine. Antoinette Petrescu climbed from behind him and smiled widely. “God, Oberon, I r eally gotta get me o ne of these,” she said, running her fingers through her newly shorn Nordic- blond hair. Oberon swung his long leather-clad leg off the bike and stood to his full seven-foot height, towering over the Aeternus female. “I don’t know what Christian would say about that.” “He can say what he likes, won’t make any difference,” Antoinette said with a grin. Oberon turned to Bianca. “So is it what I think it is?”

Sins Dark Caress_i_x_1_326.indd 6 5/14/12 3:25 PM SIN’S DARK CARESS 7 Bianca nodded and dropped her voice low enough so it didn’t carry beyond them. “Looks like we might have another Dark Brethren death.” Antoinette’s expression sobered as she looked over her shoulder at Kitt Jordan climbing from the passenger side of the black van. “Same M.O. as the campus killer?” “No, but just as bloody.” Bianca glanced over at K itt. “Does she know?” Oberon nodded, his own eyes filling with concern for his surrogate sister. “I gave her the chance to stay behind.” “Do you think she’ll be able to handle it?” Antoinette asked, looking at the forensic pathologist. “The campus killer was so close for her.” Kitt swept her silver white and gray-black-streaked hair out of her eyes with one hand and raised the other in greeting, her smile a little strained. “It’s been several months since Nathan’s death.” Oberon pulled the Bluetooth headset from his ear and glanced over his shoulder. “And she’s a lot stronger than she looks. Be- sides, Cody’s here if things get too bad.” “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Bianca said, her eyes flicking to the blond surfer boy climbing out of the van’s driver seat. “Because I have a feeling this one’s going to get real messy.” “I think I’ll go check out the surrounding area,” Antoi- nette said as she walked off. “Hey,” Bianca called after her. “I thought you were flying out to meet Christian?” “Tomorrow night.” The Aeternus’s smile beamed as she skipped a backward step and held up two thumbs. “Two glorious weeks of sand, sea, and sex in Miami.” “Okay.” Oberon put his hand on Bianca’s shoulder. “Show me the body.” “This way,” she said, and led him through the crowd, past the crime tape and into the seemingly normal alleyway, until they turned the corner.

Sins Dark Caress_i_x_1_326.indd 7 5/14/12 3:25 PM 8 TRACEY O’HARA The dark magic pressed in on her again, bringing on the same nauseous feeling. But this time the dark energy seemed to move back, as if pushed away by some invisible force field. Her cobalt blue pendant grew quite warm against her skin. Weird. She wrapped her fingers around the stone encased in a gold fitting and looked at it closely. It seemed to hum with energy. “Bianca?” Oberon said with some force. “What?” “I asked when the body was discovered,” he said, a frown creasing his brow. “Are you all right?” “Um . . . yes.” Her voice shook a little. She cleared her throat to shake off the odd feeling and gather her thoughts. “When . . . ?” Oberon dropped to look at the dead girl. “Just over two hours ago now,” McManus said, coming up behind them, still not looking pleased. “The owner of a nearby diner found her when he was closing up.” An azure luminescent tear beaded in the corner of McMa- nus’s left eye. Luckily, Oberon was still focused on the body and not on the detective. She leaned closer to McManus. “You have something in your eye!” McManus turned his back to them and took a handker- chief from his pocket. “Any sign of the infant?” a voice asked. Oberon stood and turned around. “Chancellor Rudolf, you didn’t need to come all the way down here. I’d have sent you a report first thing in the morning.” An elderly man stood with his hands behind his back, looking up at the symbol on the wall. “I wanted to see for myself.” He turned to Bianca, his gaze drawn to the charm around her neck. Then he lifted his eyes to hers and smiled. “It’s good to see you again, Dr. Sin.” “You too, sir,” she replied.

Sins Dark Caress_i_x_1_326.indd 8 5/14/12 3:25 PM SIN’S DARK CARESS 9 “And this is?” He smiled quizzically at t he man by her side. The detective stepped forward and held out his hand, everything appearing normal again. “Detective McManus, Homicide.” “McManus, I’d like to introduce Chancellor Rudolf, who’s just been promoted to the Five in CHaPR,” Oberon said. “Promoted! Ha! That Akentia can be very persuasive.” A strange expression flashed across the old man’s face as he took the detective’s hand. He frowned, then covered it with a smile. “More like bullied into it.” “Princess Akentia, the Aeternus?” Bianca asked. “Um, yes.” The old man recovered his composure quickly, but not before another rather nervous glance at her pendant. “The same.” She touched the necklace protectively. Why was he so interested in her family heirloom? “Rudolf is the closest thing there is to an expert on the Dark Brethren,” Oberon explained. “He helped us out on the campus killer case several months ago.” “Good to meet you, sir,” McManus said. “So, young man,” Rudolf said. “What do you think happened here?” McManus straightened and looked around. “One theory is it’s a black market baby-stealing racket.” “But you don’t think so?” Oberon glanced between them. McManus shook his head again. “I don’t know why, but it just feels . . . off somehow.” “And you’d be right.” Rudolf nodded to the bloody symbol painted on the wall. “This has the seal of the Dark Breth- ren.” “And you say this is the second victim?” Oberon asked. McManus nodded. “The other was found down by the tracks, several blocks from here, but we’re pretty sure she was killed elsewhere and dumped. The scene was nowhere near as messy as this one.”

Sins Dark Caress_i_x_1_326.indd 9 5/14/12 3:25 PM 10 TRACEY O’HARA “Can you send both the reports to my office?” Oberon handed him a card. McManus took it. “You can have them tomorrow. Okay?” “I guess it will have to be.” Oberon turned to the chancellor. “I’d like to get your input too, Rudolf.” The old man nodded. “I’ll do what I can.” “Excellent, let me walk you to your car.” “Thank you, Oberon.” The old man’s eyes fell to her pendant again, then he smiled before turning away. “Creepy old man,” McManus said as soon as Oberon and the chancellor were out of earshot. Bianca turned and punched him in the arm. “What the fuck, McManus? You’re doing Neon Tears now?”

Sins Dark Caress_i_x_1_326.indd 10 5/14/12 3:25 PM Ian Douglas

BLOODSTAR Star Corpsman: Book One

September 2012

From New York Times bestselling author Ian Douglas comes a new military SF series about the elite units of recon Marines and S/R Corpsmen who infiltrate alien worlds ahead of major military strikes and planetary invasion to gather intelligence on both the local environment and on the psychology and biology of the enemy.

In the 23rd Century, war is still hell . . .

Navy Corpsman Elliot Carlyle joined up to save lives and see the universe. Now he and Bravo Company's Black Wizards of the interstellar Fleet Marine Force are en route to Bloodworld—a hellish, volatile rock colonized by the fanatical Salvationists who desired an inhospitable world where they could suffer for humanity's sins. Their penance could prove fatal—for the Qesh, a strange alien race detected but still mysterious for six decades, have made violent first contact.

Suddenly countless lives depend upon Bravo Company—perhaps even the fate of homeworld Earth itself—as the Marines prepare to confront a vast force of powerful, inscrutable enemies. And one dedicated medic, singled out by an extraordinary act of valor, will find himself with an astounding opportunity to alter the universe forever.

“Douglas knows his SF.” — Publishers Weekly

Ian Douglas is the author of the popular military SF series The Inheritance Trilogy, The Heritage Trilogy, The Legacy Trilogy and the Star Carrier series. A former naval corpsman, he lives in Pennsylvania.

Chapter One

I’m just glad I’m not afraid of heights. Well, at least not much. Our Cutlass hit atmosphere at something like 8 kilometers per second, bleeding off velocity in a blaze of heat and ionization, the sharp deceleration clamping down on my chest like a boa constrictor with a really bad attitude. I hadn’t been able to see much at that point, and most of my attention was focused simply on breathing. But then the twelve-pack cut loose, and my insert pod went into free fall. I was thirty kilometers up, high enough that I could see the curve of the planet on my optical feed: a sharp-edged slice of gold-ocher at the horizon, with a deep, seemingly bottomless purple void directly below. We were skimming in toward the dawn with all of the aerodynamic efficiency of falling bricks. The Cutlass scratched a ruler- straight contrail through the black above our heads, scattering chaff to help conceal our drop from enemy radar and lidar assets on the ground. The problem with a covert insertion is that the covert part is really, really hard to pull off. The bad guys can see you coming from the gods know how far away, and you tend to make a lot of noise, figuratively speaking, when you hit atmosphere. But that’s what the U.S. Marines—and specifically Bravo Company, 1st Battalion. the Black Wizards—do best.

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 1 4/26/12 12:28 PM 2 Ian Douglas “Deploying airfoil,” a woman’s voice, a very sexy woman’s voice, whispered in my head, “in three . . . two . . . one . . .” Why do they make our AIs sound like walking wet dreams? My insertion pod had been a blunt, dead-black bullet shape until now, three meters long and just barely wide enough to accommodate my combat-armored body. The shell began unfolding now, growing a set of sharply back angled delta wings. The air outside was still achingly thin, but the airfoil grabbed hold with a shock akin to slamming into a brick wall. Deceleration clamped down on me once more—that damned boa constrictor looking for breakfast again—this time with a shuddering jolt that felt like my pod was shredding itself to bits. The external sensor feeds didn’t show anything wrong, nor did my in-head readout. I was dropping through twenty- two kilometers now, and everything was going strictly according to . . . what the hell is that? Red-gold ruggedness seemed to pop up directly ahead of me, looming, night-shrouded, below—and huge, and I stifled a shrieking instant of sheer panic. It was the crest of Olympus Mons, the very highest, most easterly slopes catching the rays of the Martian dawn long before sunrise reaches the huge mountain’s base. That twenty-two kilometers, I realized with a shudder, was measured from the areodetic datum, the point that would mark sea level on Mars if the planet actually had seas. Olympus Mons, the biggest volcano in the solar system, rises twenty-one kilometers from the datum, three times the elevation of Everest, on Earth, and fully twice the height of the volcano Mauna Kea as measured from the ocean floor. I was skimming across the six nested calderas at the summit now, the rocky crater floor a scant couple of kilometers beneath my fast-falling pod. The calderas’ interior deeps were still lost in midnight shadow, but the eastern escarpment, seemingly suspended in a mass of wispy white clouds, caught the light of the shrunken rising sun, and from my vantage point it

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 2 4/26/12 12:28 PM Bloodstar 3 looked like those vertical rock cliffs were about to scrape the nanomatrix from my pod’s belly. In another moment, however, the escarpment was past, the 80-kilometer-wide caldera dropping behind with startling speed. The plan, I’d known all along, was to skim just above the volcanic summit, a simple means of foxing enemy radar, but I’d not been ready for the visual reality of that near miss. My pod was totally under AI control, of course, the sentient software flexing my delta wings in rapid shifts far too fast for a mere human brain to follow. The pilot was taking me lower still, until the escarpments behind loomed above, rather than below. Olympus Mons is huge, covering an area about the size of the state of Arizona, and that means it’s also flat, despite the summit’s dizzying altitude. The average slope is only about five degrees, and you can be standing halfway up the side of the mountain and not even be aware of it. The slope was enough, though, that it put the bulk of Mount Olympus behind us, helping to shield us from enemy sensors ahead as we glided into the final phase of our descent. The active nano coating on the hulls of our pods drank radar, visible light—everything up through hard X-rays—giving us what amounted to invisibility. But no defense is perfect. If the enemy had known what he was doing, he’d have had whole sensory array farms across the mountain’s broad summit—not to mention point-defense lasers and antiship CPB batteries. Hell, maybe they did and we were already dead in their crosshairs. My sensors weren’t picking up any hostile interest, though. I wished I could talk to the others, compare technical notes, but Captain Reichert would have burned me out of the sky himself for breaking comm silence. Follow the download. Ride your pod down. Leave the thinking to the AIs. They know a hell of a lot more about it than you do. Two hundred kilometers farther, and the base escarpment of Olympus Mons, a sheer five-kilometer cliff, slipped past

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 3 4/26/12 12:28 PM 4 Ian Douglas in the darkness. Across the Tharsis bulge now, still descending, beginning a shuddering weave through the predawn sky to bleed off my remaining speed. The three-in-a-row volcanoes of the Tharsis Montes complex slid past. Then the Tharsis highlands gave way to the broken and chaotic terrain of the Noctis Labyrinthus, a twelve-hundred-kilometer stretch of badlands where we did not want to touch down under any stretch of the imagination. I swept into the local dawn, the sun coming up directly ahead with the abruptness of a thermonuclear blast, but in total silence. “Landing deployment in twenty seconds,” the sexy voice told me. “Great. Any sign of bad guys picking us up?” “Negative on hostile activity. Military frequency signals from objective appear to be normal traffic.” “That,” I told her, “is the sweetest news I’ve heard all morning.”

Download Mission Profile: Ocher Sands Operation Damascus Steel/ OPPLAN#5735/15NOV2245

[extract] . . . while Second Platoon will deploy by squad via Cutlass TAV/AIP to LZ Damascus Blue, location 12o 26’ S, 87o 55’ W, in the Sinai Planum. Upon landing, squads will form up individually and move on assigned objectives utilizing jumpjets. Units will be under Level-3 communications silence, and will if possible avoid enemy surveillance. Second Platoon Objective is Base Schiapareli, located on the Ius Chasma, coordinates 7o 19’ 30.66”, 87o 50’ 46.40” W. . . .

The Black Wizards’ LZ was on the Sinai Planum, south of Ius Chasma, some 3,500 kilometers southeast of the

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 4 4/26/12 12:28 PM Bloodstar 5 summit of Olympus Mons. This was the scary part, the part where everything could go pear-shaped in a big hurry if the bastard god Murphy decided to favor me with His omnipo- tent and manifold blessings. “Double-check me,” I told her as I ran through the final checklist. I saw green across the board projected in my mind. “All CA systems appear functional,” the voice told me. She hesitated, then added, “Good luck, Petty Officer Car- lyle.” And what, I wondered, did an AI know about luck? “Thanks, girlfriend,” I muttered out loud. “Whatcha doing after the war, anyway?” “I do not understand your question.” “Ah, it would never work anyway, you and me,” I told her, and I waited for her to dump me. Half a kilometer above the red-ocher desert floor, my AIP-81 insertion pod peeled open beneath and around me as if at the tug of a giant zipper, and abruptly I was in the open air and falling toward the Martian surface. But not far. The delta-winged pod continued to open somewhere above me, unfolding into an improbably large triangular airfoil attached by buckyweave rigging and harness to my combat armor. The jolt when the wing deployed fully felt like it was going to yank me back into orbit. The ground was rushing past, and up, at a sickening pace, and I resisted the urge to crawl up the rigging to escape the blur of rock and sand. Then the autorelease fired and the harness evaporated. My backpack jets kicked in, the blast shrill and almost inaudible in the thin atmosphere, kicking up a swirl of pale dust beneath my boots as they dropped to meet their up-rushing shadows. I hit as I’d been trained, letting the armor take the jolt, relaxing my knees, letting myself crumple with the impact. And I was down. Down and safe, at least for the moment. My suit showed full airtight integrity, I couldn’t feel any pain, no broken

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 5 4/26/12 12:28 PM 6 Ian Douglas bones or sprains or strains from an awkward landing. I stood up, just a little shaky on my feet, and took in the broad expanse of the Martian landscape, brown and rust-ocher sand and gravel beneath a vast and deep mid-morning sky, ultra- marine above, pink toward the horizon. I was alone. Even my girlfriend was gone, the circuitry that had maintained her abbreviated personality nano-D’ed into microscopic dust. Well, not entirely alone. Somewhere out there in all that emptiness were forty-seven men and women, the rest of my Marine insertion platoon. First things first. Navy Hospital Corpsmen are the combat medics of the Marine Corps, but our technical training makes us the sci-techs of Marine advance ops as well. Plan- etology, local biology and ecosphere dynamics, atmosphere chemistry—I was responsible for all of it on this mission, at least so far as Squad Bravo was concerned. I knew what the answers would be. This was Mars, after all, and humans had been living here for a couple of centuries, now. But I drew a test sample into my ES-80 sniffer and ran the numbers anyway. Do it by the download. Carbon dioxide, 95 percent, with 2.7 percent nitrogen, 1.6 percent argon, and a smattering of other molecular components, all at 600 pascals, which is less than one percent of the surface atmospheric pressure on Earth. Temperature a brisk minus 60 degrees Celsius. Exotic parabiochemistries powered by the unfiltered UV from the distant sun. Thirty parts per billion of methane and 130 ppb of formaldehyde— that was from the microscopic native critters living at the lower permafrost boundaries underground, the reason we’d abandoned plans to terraform the place. Gotta keep Mars safe and pristine for the alien wee beasties, after all. I recorded the data, exactly as if we had no idea what was on Mars, and uploaded it to the squadnet. I also needed to— “Corpsman, front!” The voice of Corporal Lewis came over my com link. “Marine down!” Shit! “Moving,” I said out, my voice sounding uncom-

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 6 4/26/12 12:28 PM Bloodstar 7 fortably loud within the confines of my helmet. I called up the tacsit display on my in-head, getting my bearings. There were ten green dots—the one at dead center was me—and one off to the side flashing red. I turned, getting a bearing. Private Colby was that way, 2 kilometers away. Corporal Lewis was with him. “I’ve got you on my display,” I told Colby. Under a Level-3 comm silence, we were using secure channels— tightly beamed IR laser-com signals relayed both line of sight and through our constellation of micro comsats in orbit. The setup allowed short-range communications with little chance of the enemy tapping in unless he was directly in the path of one of our beams, but we were still supposed to keep long-range chatter to an absolute minimum. I took a short and lumbering run, kicked in my jets, and flew.

Service Manual Download Standard-Issue Military Equipment MMCA Combat Armor, Mk. 10

[extract] . . . including alternating ultra-light layers of carbon buckyweave fiber and titanium-ceramic composite with an active-nano surface programmable by the wearer for either high or low visibility, or for albedo adjustments for thermal control. Power is provided by high-density lutetium-polonium batteries, allowing approximately 300 hours service with normal usage depending upon local incident thermal radiation. Internally accessible stores carry up to three days’ rations of air, water, and food, which can be extended using onboard extractors and nanassemblers. Service

stores of cryogenic hydrogen and oxygen [crH2/crO2] can be carried to further extend extraction/assembled expendables. Combat armor mass averages 20–25 kg, though with

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 7 4/26/12 12:28 PM 8 Ian Douglas

full expendables load-out this may increase to as much as 50 kilos. . . .

Flight Mode Mk. 10 units are capable of short periods of flight depending on local gravity, or of jet-assisted maneuvers in a microgravity environment. The M287 dorsal-mounted

jumpjet unit uses metastable N-He64, commonly called meta, as propellant, stored in crogenically inert high- pressure backpack tanks. Proper maintenance of meta HP fuel tanks is vital for safe storage, transport, and operation of jumpjet units. . . .

Marine combat armor isn’t really designed for flight, especially in-atmosphere, but the Martian air is thin enough that it’s close to hard vacuum, and my “flight” was more a series of long, low bounds across the rocky, dark red-brown terrain, aided by the low gravity—about .38 of Earth normal. That meant I got more boost for my buck, and just a few quick thruster bursts brought me down in the boulder-strewn field where Private Colby was curled up on the sand, his arms wrapped around his left shin, with Corporal Lewis at his side. I’d checked his readouts during my flight, of course—at least when I wasn’t watching my landings to avoid doing what I suspected Colby had just done to himself—landing like shit and breaking something. Just because you weigh less than half what you do on Earth here doesn’t mean you don’t still have your normal mass, plus the mass of your combat armor. Bones can only take so much stress, and a misstep can snap one. Colby’s data feed showed he was conscious and in pain, respiration and heart rate high, suit intact. Thank the gods for that much, anyway. A breach in the suit brings with it its own list of headaches. “He hit a rock, Doc!” Lewis said, looking up as I slid to a halt in loose sand. “He hit a rock coming down!” “So I see. How you doing, Colby?”

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 8 4/26/12 12:28 PM Bloodstar 9 “How do you fucking goddamn think I’m fucking feeling goddamned stupid-ass bullshit questions—” I had already popped the cover on Colby’s armor control panel, located high on his left shoulder, and was punching in my code. Before I hit the send key, though, I hit the trans- parency control for his visor, then rolled him enough that I could peer through his visor and into his eyes. “Look at me, Colby!” I called. “Open your eyes!” His eyes opened, and I looked at his pupils, comparing one with the other. They were the same size. “Your head hurt at all?” I asked. “Goddamn it’s my fucking leg not my head Doc will you fucking do something fer chrissakes—” Good enough. I hit the send key, and Colby’s suit auto- injected a jolt of anodynic recep blockers into his carotid artery. Nananodyne can screw you up royally if you have a head injury, which was why I’d checked his pupils and questioned him first. “Can we get him up on his feet, Doc?” Lewis asked. “Don’t know yet” I said. “Gimme a sec, okay?” I jacked into Colby’s armor and instituted a full scan. In- frared sensors woven into his skinsuit picked up areas of heat at various wavelengths and zipped a picture of his body into my head. The data confirmed no pressure leaks—those would have shown up as cold—but there was plenty of bright yellow inflammation around his left shin. No sign of bleeding; that would have appeared as a hot spot, spreading out and cooling to blue inside the greave. Colby was relaxing moment by moment. Those nanonarcs target the thalamus and the insular cortex of the brain, switching off the doloric receptors and blocking incoming pain messages. Heart rate 140 and thready, BP 130 over 80, respiration 28 and shallow, and elevating adrenaline and noradrenaline, which meant an onset of the Cushing reflex. His body temp was cooling at the extremities which meant he was on the verge of going shocky as blood started pooling in his core. I told his suit to manage that—boosting the heat a bit and

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 9 4/26/12 12:28 PM 10 Ian Douglas gently relaxing the constriction in the arteries leading to the head to keep his brain fed. That would hold him until I could take a close-up look at his leg. In the old days, there wouldn’t have been much I could have done except locking his combat armor, turning his left greave into an emergency splint. If the patient wasn’t wearing full armor, you used whatever was available, from a ready-made medical wrap that hardens into a splint when you run an electric current through it, to simply tying the bad leg to the good, immobilizing it. By keying a command into Colby’s mobility circuits, the armor itself would clamp down and hold the broken bones in place, but there was one more thing I could try in order to get him up and mobile. I reached into my M-7 kit and removed a small hypo filled with 1 cc of dark gray liquid. The tip fit neatly into a valve located beside his left knee, opening it while maintaining the suit’s internal pressure, and when I touched the button, a burst of high-pressure nitrogen gas fired the concoction through both his inner suit and his skin. Nanobots entered his bloodstream at the popliteal artery, activating with Col- by’s body heat and transmitting a flood of data over my suit channels. I thoughtclicked several internal icons, deactivat- ing all of the ’bots that were either going the wrong way or were adhering to Colby’s skinsuit or his skin, and focused on the several thousand that were flowing now through the anterior and posterior tibial arteries toward the injury. I wanted to go inside . . . but that would have given me a bit too intimate of a view, too close and too narrow to do me any good. What I needed to see was the entire internal structure of the lower leg—tibia and fibula; the gastrocne- mius, soleus, and tibialis anterior muscles; the tibialis anterior and posterior tibial arteries; and the epifascial venous system. I sent Program 1 to the active ’bots, and they began diffusing through capillaries and tissue, adhering to the two bones, the larger tibia and the more slender fibula off to the side, plating out throughout the soft tissue, and transmitting

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 10 4/26/12 12:28 PM Bloodstar 11 a 3-D graphic to my in-head that showed me exactly what I was dealing with. I rotated the graphic in my mind, checking it from all angles. We were in luck. I was looking at a greenstick fracture of the tibia—the major bone that runs down the front of the shin, knee to ankle. The bone had partially broken, but was still intact on the dorsal surface, literally like a stick half broken and bent back. The jagged edges had caused some internal bleeding, but no major arteries had been torn and the ends weren’t poking through the skin. The fibula, the smaller bone running down the outside of the lower leg, appeared to be intact. The periosteum, the thin sheath of blood vessel- and nerve-rich tissue covering the bone, had been torn around the break of course, which was why Colby had been hurting so much. “How’s he doing, Doc?” The voice startled me. Gunny Hancock had come up out of nowhere and was looking over my shoulder. I’d had no idea that he was there. “Greenstick fracture of the left tibia, Gunny,” I told him. “Shinbone. I have him on pain blockers.” “Can he walk?” “Not yet. He should be medevaced. But I can get him walking if you want.” “I want. The LT wants to finish the mission.” “Okay. Ten minutes.” “Shit, Gunny,” Colby said. “You heard Doc. I need a medevac!” “You’ll have one. Later.” “Yeah, but—” “Later, Marine! Now seal your nip-sucker and do what Doc tells ya!” “Aye, aye, Gunnery Sergeant.” I ignored the byplay, focusing on my in-head and a sequence of thoughtclicks routing a new set of orders to the ’bots in Colby’s leg. Program 5 ought to do the trick. “How you feeling, Colby?” I asked.

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 11 4/26/12 12:28 PM 12 Ian Douglas “The pain’s gone,” he said. “The leg feels a bit weak, though.” He flexed it. “Don’t move,” I told him. “I’m going to do some manipu- lation. It’ll feel funny.” “Okay . . .” He didn’t sound too sure of things. Guided by the new program download, some hundreds of thousands of ’bots, each one about a micron long—a fifth the size of a red blood cell—began migrating through soft tissue and capillaries, closing in around the broken bone until it was completely coated above and below the break. In my in-head, the muscles and blood vessels disappeared, leaving only the central portion of the tibia itself visible. I punched in a code on Colby’s armor alphanumeric, telling it to begin feeding a low-voltage current through the left greave. Something smaller than a red blood cell can’t exert much in the way of traction unless it’s magnetically locked in with a few hundred thousand of its brothers, and they’re all pulling together. In the open window in my head, I could see the section of bone slowly bending back into a straight line, the jagged edges nesting into place. The movement would cause a little more periosteal damage—there was no way to avoid that—but the break closed up neatly. “Doc,” Colby said, “that feels weird as hell.” “Be glad I doped you up,” I told him. “If I had to set your leg without the anodyne, you’d be calling me all sorts of nasty things right now.” I locked the nano sleeve down, holding the break rigid. I sent some loose nanobots through the surrounding tissue, turning it ghostly visible on the screen just to double-check. There was a little low-level internal bleeding—Colby would have a hell of a bruise on his shin later—but nothing serious. I diverted some anodynes to the tibial and common fibular nerves at the level of his knee with a backup at the lumbosa- cral plexus, shutting down the pain receptors only. “Right,” I told him. “Let me know if this hurts.” Gin- gerly, I switched off the receptor blocks in his brain. “Okay?”

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 12 4/26/12 12:28 PM Bloodstar 13 “Yeah,” he said. “It just got . . . sore, a little. Not too bad.” “I put a pain block at your knee, but your brain is func- tioning again. At least as well as it did before I doped you.” “You’re a real comedian, Doc.” I told his armor to lock down around his calf and shin, providing an external splint to back up the one inside. I wished I could check the field medicine database, but the chance of the enemy picking up the transmission was too great. I just had to hope I’d remembered everything important, and let the rest slide until we could get Colby back to sick bay. “Okay, Gunny,” I said. “He’s good to go.” I know it seemed callous, but a tibia greenstick is no big deal. If it had been his femur, now, the big bone running from hip to knee, I might have had to call for an immediate medevac. The muscles pulling the two ends of the femur together are so strong that the nano I had on hand might not have been enough. I would have had to completely immobi- lize the whole leg and keep him off of it, or risk doing some really serious damage if things let go. The truth of the matter is that they pay us corpsmen for two jobs, really. We’re here to take care of our Marines, the equivalent of medics in the Army, but in the field our first priority is the mission. They hammer that into us in training from day one: provide emergency medical aid to the Ma- rines so that they can complete their mission. “How about it, Colby. Can you get up?” The Marine stood—with an assist from Lewis and the Gunny. “Feels pretty good,” he said, stamping the foot experimentally. “Don’t do that,” I told him. “We’ll still need to get you to sick bay, where they can do a proper osteofuse.” “Good job, Doc,” Gunny told me. “Now pack up your shit and let’s hump it.” I closed up my M-7 and dropped both the hypo and the sterile plastic shell it had come in into a receptacle on my thigh. They’d drilled it into us in FMF training: never leave

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 13 4/26/12 12:28 PM 14 Ian Douglas anything behind that will give the enemy a clue that you’ve been there. While I’d been working on Colby, the rest of the recon squad had joined up about a kilometer to the north and started marching. Gunny, Lewis, Colby, and I were playing catch-up now, moving across that cold and rock-strewn desert at double-time. According to our tacsit displays, we were 362 kilometers and a bit directly south of our objective, a collection of pres- surized Mars huts called Schiaparelli Base. If we hiked it on foot, it would take us the better part of ten days to make it all the way. Not good. Our combat armor could manufacture a lot of our logistical needs from our surroundings, at least to a certain extent. It’s called living off the air, but certain elements—hydrogen and oxygen, especially—are in very short supply on Mars. Oxygen runs to about 0.13 percent in that near-vacuum excuse for an atmosphere, and free molecular hydrogen is worse—about fifteen parts per billion. You can actually get more by breaking down the hints of formaldehyde and methane released by the Martian subsur- face biota, but it’s still too little to live on. The extractors and assemblers in your combat armor have to run for days just to get you one drink of water. The units recycle wastes, of course; with trace additives, a Marine can live on shit and piss if he has to, but the process yields diminishing returns and you can’t keep it up for more than a few days. So Lewis and I doubled up with Colby. There was a risk of him coming down hard and screwing the leg repairs, but with me on his right arm and Lewis on his left, we could reduce the stress of landing on each bound. We taclinked our armor so that the jets would fire in perfect unison, and put ourselves into a long, flat trajectory skimming across the desert. Gunny paced us, keeping a 360-eye out for the enemy, but we still seemed to have the desert to ourselves. And four hours later we reached the Calydon Fossa, a straight-line ditch eroded through the desert, half a kilo-

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 14 4/26/12 12:28 PM Bloodstar 15 meter deep and six wide. It took another hour to get across that—the canyon was too wide for us to jet-jump it, and the chasma slopes were loose and crumbling. But we slogged down and we slogged up and eight kilometers more brought us to the Ius Chasma. It’s not the deepest or the most spectacular of the inter- laced canyons making up the Valles Marineris, but it’ll do: Five and a half kilometers deep and almost sixty kilometers across at that point, it’s deep enough to take in Earth’s Grand Canyon as a minor tributary. The whole Valles Marineris is almost as long as the continental United States is wide back home—two hundred kilometers wide and ten kilometers deep at its deepest—where the Grand Canyon runs a paltry 1,600 meters deep. The view from the south rim was spectacular. But we weren’t there for sightseeing. We rendezvoused with First Squad and made the final approach to Schiaparelli Base. I stayed back with Colby while the others made the assault, but everything went down smooth as hyperlube. The whole sequence would have been a lot more exciting if this had been a real op, but the bad guys were U.S. Aerospace Force security troops, and Ocher Sands is the annual ser vice-wide training exercise designed to work out the bugs and accustom our combat troops to operating in hostile en- vironments against a high-tech enemy. I can’t speak for the USAF bluesuits, but we had a good day. Despite Colby’s injury and a bad case of the scatters coming down—someone was going to get chewed a new one for that little SNAFU—all eight squads pulled it together, deployed without being spotted, and took down their assigned objectives, on sched and by the download. An hour later we had a Hog vectoring in for medevac. I rode back up to orbit with Colby. And it was just about then that the fecal matter inter- cepted the rotational arc of the high-speed turbine blades.

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 15 4/26/12 12:28 PM

Chapter Two

For a century now we humans have been lurkers on the Ga- lactic Internet, listening and learning but not saying a word. We’re terrified, you see, that they might find us. The EG-Net, as near as we can tell, embraces a fair portion of the entire Galaxy, a flat, hundred-thousand-light-year spiral made of four hundred billion suns and an estimated couple of trillion planets. The Net uses modulated gamma- ray lasers, which means, thanks to the snail’s-pace crawl of light, that all of the news is out of date to one degree or another by the time we get it. Fortunately, most of what’s on there doesn’t have an expiration date. The Starlord Empire has been collapsing for the past twenty thousand years, and the chances are good that it’ll still be collapsing twenty thousand years from now. The Galaxy is a big place. Events big enough to tear it apart take a long time to unfold. The closest EG transmission beam to Sol passes through the EG Relay at Sirius, where we discovered it during our first expedition to that system 128 years ago. The Sirius Orbital Complex was constructed just to eavesdrop on the Galactics—there’s nothing else worthwhile in the system— and most of what we know about Deep Galactic history comes from there. We call it the EG, the Encyclopedia Ga- lactica, because it appears to be a data repository. Nested

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 16 4/26/12 12:28 PM Bloodstar 17 within the transmission beams crisscrossing the Galaxy like the web of a drunken spider are data describing hundreds of millions of cultures across at least six billion years, since long before Sol was born or the Earth was even a gleam in an interstellar nebula’s eye. It took us twenty years just to crack the outer codes to learn how to read what we were seeing. And what we’ve learned since represents, we think, something less than 0.01 percent of all of the information available. But even that microscopic drop within the cosmic ocean is enough to prove just how tiny, how utterly insignificant, we humans are in the cosmic scheme of things. The revelation shook humankind to its metaphorical core, an earthquake bigger than Copernicus and Galileo, deeper than Darwin, more far-reaching than Hubbell, more astonishing than Randall, Sundrum, and Witten. And the revelation damn near destroyed us.

“Hey, e-Car!” HM3 Michael C. Dubois held up a lab flask and swirled the pale orange liquid within. “Wanna hit?” I was just finishing a cup of coffee as I wandered into the squad bay, and still had my mug in hand. I sucked down the dregs and raised the empty cup. “What the hell are you pedaling this time, Doob?” I asked him. “Nothing but the best for the Black Wizard heroes!” “Paint stripper,” Corporal Calli Lewis told me, and she made a bitter face. I noticed that she took another swig from her mug, however, before adding, “The bastard’s trying to poison us.” Doobie Dubois laughed. “Uh-uh. It’s methanol that’ll kill you . . . or maybe make you blind, paralyzed, or impo-

tent. Wood alcohol, CH3OH. This here is guaranteed gen- u-wine ethanol, C2H5OH, straight out of the lab assemblers and mixed with orange juice I shagged from a buddy in the galley. It’ll put hair on your chest.” “Not necessarily a good thing, at least where Calli’s concerned,” I said as he poured me half a mug.

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 17 4/26/12 12:28 PM 18 Ian Douglas “Yeah?” he said, and gave Calli a wink. “How do you know? Might be an improvement!” “Fuck you, squid,” she replied. “Any time you want, jarhead.” I took a sip of the stuff and winced. “Good galloping gods, that’s awful!” “Doc can’t hold his ’shine,” Sergeant Tomacek said, and the others laughed. A half dozen Marines were hanging out in the squad bay, and it looked like Doob had shared his talent for applied nanufactory chemistry with all of them. Highly contra-regs, of course. The Clymer, like all U.S. starships, is strictly dry. I suspected that Captain Reichert knew but chose not to know officially, so long as we kept the party to a dull roar and no one showed up drunk on duty. The viewall was set to show an optical feed from outside, a deck-to-overhead window looking out over Mars, 9,300 kilometers below. The planet showed a vast red-orange disk with darker mottling; I could see the pimples of the Tharsis bulge volcanoes easily, with the east-to-west slash of the Valles Marineris just to the east. Phobos hung in the lower-right foreground, a lumpy and dark-gray potato, vaguely spherical but pocked and pitted with celestial acne. The big crater on one end—Stickney—and the Mars Or- bital Research Station, rising from the crater floor, were hidden behind the moonlet’s mass, on the side facing the planet. The image, I decided, was being relayed from the non-rotating portion of the George Clymer. The Clymer’s habitation module was a fifty-meter rotating ring amidships, spinning six and a half times per minute to provide a modest four tenths of a gravity, the same as we’d experienced down on Mars. “So what’s the celebration?” I asked Dubois. He always had a reason for breaking out the lab-nanufactured drink- ables. “The end of FMF training, of course! What’d you think?” I took another cautious sip. It actually wasn’t too bad. Maybe that first swig had killed off the nerve endings.

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 18 4/26/12 12:28 PM Bloodstar 19 “You’re one-eighty off course, Doob,” I told him. “We still have Europa, remember?” FMF—the Fleet Marine Force—was arguably the most coveted billet in the entire U.S. Navy Hospital Corps. To win that silver insignia for your collar, you needed to go through three months of Marine training at Lejeune or Pendleton, then serve with the Marines for one year, pass their physical, demonstrate a daunting list of Marine combat and naviga- tion skills, and pass a battery of tests, both written and in front of a senior enlisted board. I’d been in FMF training since I’d made Third Class a year ago; our assignment on board the Clymer was the final phase of our training, culminating in the Ocher Sands fun and games that had us performing a live insertion and taking part in a Marine planetary assault. After this, we were supposed to deploy to Europa for three weeks of practical xe- nosophontology, swimming with the Medusae. After that, those of us still with the program would take our boards, and if we were lucky, only then would we get to append the letters FMF after our name and rank. “Not the way I heard it, e-Car,” he said. He took a swig of his product straight from the flask. “Scuttlebutt has it we’re deploying I-S.” I ignored use of the disliked handle. My name, Elliot Car- lyle, had somehow been twisted into “e-Car.” Apparently there was a law of the Corps that said everyone had to have a nickname. Doob. Lewis was “Louie.” I’d spent the past year trying to get myself accepted as “Hawkeye,” a nod both to James Fenimore Cooper and to a twentieth-century entertainment series about military medical personnel in the field from which I’d downloaded a few low-res 2-D episodes years ago. “Interstellar?” I said. “You’re full of shit. This stuff’s rotting your gray cells.” “Don’t be so sure about your diagnosis, Doc,” Lewis told me. “I heard the same thing from a buddy in Personnel.” “You’re both full of it,” I said. “Why would they send us?” “Our dashing good looks and high intelligence?”

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 19 4/26/12 12:28 PM 20 Ian Douglas “In your case, Doob, it probably has to do with a punishment detail. You on the Old Man’s shit list?” “Not so far as I now.” “So what’s supposed to be going down?” Dubois grew serious, which was damned unusual for him. “The Qesh,” he said.

Download Encyclopedia Galactica/Xenospecies Profile Entry: Sentient Galactic Species 23931 “Qesh”

Qesh, Qesh’a, Imperial Qesh, Los Imperiales, “Jackers,” “Imps” Civilization Type: 1.165 G TL 20: FTL, Genetic Prostheses, Quantum Taps, Relativ- istic Kinetic Conversion Societal Code: JKRS Dominant: clan/hunter/warrior/survival Cultural library: 5.45 x 1016 bits Data Storage/Transmission DS/T: 2.91 x 1011s Biological Code: 786.985.965 Genome: 4.2 x 109 bits; Coding/non-coding: 0.019.

Biology: C, N, O, S, S8, Ca, Cu, Se, H2O, PO4 TNA

Diferrous hemerythrin proteins in C17H29COOH circu- latory fluid.

Mobile heterotrophs, carnivores, O2 respiration. Septopedal, quad- or sextopedal locomotion. Mildly gregarious, polygeneric [2 genera, 5 species]; trisexual. Communication: modulated sound at 5 to 2000 Hz and changing color patterns. Neural connection equivalence NCE = 1.2 x 1014 T = ~300o to 470o K; M = 4.3 x 105 g; L: ~5.5 x 109s Vision: ~5 micrometers to 520 nanometers, Hearing: 2 to 6000 Hz

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 20 4/26/12 12:28 PM Bloodstar 21

Member: Galactic Polylogue Receipt galactic nested code: 1.61 x 1012 s ago Member: R’agch’lgh Collective Locally initiated contact 1.58 x 1012 s ago Star F1V; Planet: Sixth a = 2.4 x 1011m; M = 2.9 x 1019g; R = 2.1 x 107m; p = 2.7 x 106s 7 2 Pd = 3.2 x 10 s, G = 25.81 m/s

Atm: O2 26.4, N2 69.2, CO2 2.5, CO 2.1, SO2 0.7, at 2.5 x 105 Pa Librarian’s note: First direct human contact occurred in 2188 c.e. at Gamma Ophiuchi. Primary culture now appears to be nomadic predarian, and is extremely dangerous. Threat level = 1.

We’d all downloaded the data on the Qesh, of course, as part of our Marine training. Know your enemy and all of that. Humans had first run into them fifty-nine years ago, when the Zeng He, a Chinese exploration vessel, encountered them while investigating a star system ninety-some light years from Sol. The Zeng He’s AI managed to get off a microburst transmission an instant before the ship was reduced to its component atoms. The signal was picked up a few years later by a Commonwealth vessel in the area and taken back to Earth, where it was studied by the Encyclope- dian Library at the Mare Crisium facility on the moon. The Zeng He’s microburst had contained enough data to let us find the Qesh in the ocean of information within the Encylo- pedia Galactica and learn a bit about them. We knew they were part of the R’agch’lgh Collective, the Galactic Empire, as the news media insisted on calling it. We knew they were from a high-gravity world, that they were big, fast, and mean. And with the ongoing collapse of the Collective, we knew they’d become predarians. The net media had come up with that word, a blending of the words predators and barbarians. That was unfortunate,

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 21 4/26/12 12:28 PM 22 Ian Douglas since in our culture barbarian implies a relatively low technology; you expect them to be wearing shaggy skins, horned helmets, and carrying whopping big swords in their primary manipulators, looking for someone to pillage. As near as we could tell, they were predators, both ge- netically and by psychological inclination. Their societal code, JKRS—which is where “Jackers,” one of their popular nicknames, had come from—suggested that their dominant culture was organized along clan/family lines, that they’d evolved from carnivorous hunters, that they considered themselves to be warriors and possessed what might be called a warrior ethos, and, perhaps the most chilling, that they possessed an essentially Darwinian worldview— survival of the fittest, the strong deserve to live. The fact that their technological level allowed them to accelerate asteroid-sized rocks to near-c and slam them into a planet was a complementary extra. These guys had planet-killers. The Crisium librarians thought—guessed would be the more accurate term—that the Qesh constituted some sort of military elite within the R’agch’lgh Collective, a kind of palace guard or special assault unit used to take out worlds or entire species that the Collective found to be obstreper- ous or inconvenient. But with the fall of the Collective, the Qesh were thought to have gone freelance, wandering the Galaxy in large war fleets taking what they wanted and generally trying to prove that they were the best, the strongest, the fittest—something like a really sadistic playground bully without adult supervision. That change of status must have been fairly recent— within the last couple of thousand years or so. According to the EG, they were still working for the Collective. And for all we knew maybe some of them were, way off, deep in toward the Galactic Core, where the R’agch’lgh might still be calling the shots. Our local branch of the EG Library hadn’t been updated for five thousand years, however, and evidently a lot had happened in the meantime.

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 22 4/26/12 12:28 PM Bloodstar 23 The Galaxy was going through a period of cataclysmic change, but from our limited perspective, it was all taking place in super-slow motion. “What,” I said. “The Qesh are coming here?” “My friend in Personnel,” Lewis said, “told me there’d been a call for help from one of our colonies. The colony is supposed to be pre-Protocol, so . . .” She shrugged. “Send in the Marines.” It made sense, in a horrific kind of way. Commonwealth Contact Protocol had been developed in 2194, and it laid out very strict rules and regs governing contact with new species. Partially, that was to protect the new species, of course. Human history has a long and bloody tradition of one culture stumbling into a new and eradicating it, through disease, through greed, through conquest, through sheer, bloody-minded stupidity. But even more it was to protect us. We were just at the very beginning of our explorations into the Galaxy, and there were Things out there we didn’t understand and which didn’t understand us—or they didn’t care, or they simply saw us as a convenient source of raw materials. Over the course of the past fifty years, we’d taken special steps to screen our civilization’s background noise, and the AI navigators in our starships were designed to purge all data that might give a clue to the existence and location of Earth or Earth’s colonies if they encountered an alien ship or world. A Qesh relativistic impactor, it was believed, could turn Earth’s entire crust molten. We did not want to have them or their Imperial buddies showing up on our doorstep in a bad mood. The problem was, the barn door had been open for a bunch of years, and the horses had long since gotten loose. Radio and television signals were expanding into interstellar space at the rate of one light year per year, in a bubble now something like six hundred light years across. Technology researchers liked to insist that the useful information/noise

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 23 4/26/12 12:28 PM 24 Ian Douglas ratio drops off to damned near zero only a couple of light years out; anyone out there listening for a juicy young pre- spaceflight civilization probably wouldn’t be able to pick our twentieth-century transmissions out of the interstellar white noise—but the kicker was the word probably. We just don’t know what’s possible; the EG mentions galactic civilizations out there that are on the order of 5 × 1016 seconds old—that’s longer than Earth has been around as a planet. I don’t think it’s possible for us to say what such a civilization could or could not do. But things get uglier when it comes to our pre-Protocol colonies. There are a lot of them out there, scattered across the sky from Sagittarius to Orion. The earliest was Chiron, of course, at Alpha Centauri A IV, founded in 2109. They’re all close enough to Earth to have signed the Protocol shortly after it was written, but there are plenty of colonies out there that for one reason or another have nothing to do with Earth or the Commonwealth. Many of them we don’t even have listed, and if we don’t know they exist, we can’t police them. But if they were established before the year 2194, they probably still have navigational coordinates for Earth somewhere in their computer network. And someone with the technology to figure out how our computers work, sooner or later, would break the code and they might come hunting for us. Our only recourse in that case was to go looking for them. If we could contact them and get them to agree to abide by the Protocol, great. But if they didn’t . . . well, as Lewis had so eloquently put it, Send in the Marines. “Now hear this, now hear this,” a voice said from the squad bay’s intercom speaker. “All hands prepare for one gravity acceleration in ten minutes, repeat, ten minutes. Secure all loose gear and reconfigure hab module spaces. That is all.” “That was fast,” Dubois said.

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 24 4/26/12 12:28 PM Bloodstar 25 “Yeah, but where the hell are we going?” I wanted to know. I looked at Lewis. “Your friend have any word on that?” “Actually,” she said, “from what he said, hell is a pretty good description.” In fact, though, our destination turned out to be Earth. Most of the hab space on board an attack transport like the Clymer is dedicated to living space. She carries 1,300 Marines besides her normal complement of 210 officers and crew, and all of that humanity is packed into the rotating ring around her central spine, along with the galleys and mess halls, sick bay, lab spaces, rec and VR bays, life- support nanufactories, and gear lockers. They didn’t tell us, of course. After doing a quick check to make sure anything loose was tied down or put away— Doobie’s hooch went into a refrigerated storage tank in an equipment locker forward—we strapped ourselves standing against the acceleration couches growing out of the aft bulkhead. Ten minutes later, we felt the hab wheel spinning down, and for a few moments we were in microgravity. I could hear a Marine down the line being noisily sick— there’s always at least one—but I stayed put until the Clymer lit her main torch. There was an odd moment of disorientation, because where “down” had been along the curving outer floor of the hab wheel, now it was toward the aft bulkhead. The bulkhead had become the deck, and instead of standing up against our acceleration couches, now we were lying in them flat. The viewall was reprogrammed to show on what had been the deck. Under Plottel Drive, we were accelerating at a steady one gravity, but “down” was now aft, not out toward the rim of the wheel. They let us get up, then, and we spent the next hour learning to walk again. We’d been at .38 Gs for two weeks. I was half expecting Alcubierre Drive to kick in at any time, but hour followed hour and we continued our steady acceleration. Thirty-four hours later we were ordered to the

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 25 4/26/12 12:28 PM 26 Ian Douglas couches once more, and again there was a brief period of microgravity as the Clymer ponderously turned end for end. That gave us an idea of where we were headed, though. There’d still been a good chance that we were headed for Europa, as originally planned. At the moment, however, Jupiter and its moons were a good six astronomical units from Mars—call it 900 million kilometers. Accelerate at one gravity halfway from Mars to Europa, and we’d have reached the turnover point in something over forty-two hours. A thirty-four-hour turnover—I ran the numbers through my Cerebral Data Feed in-head processors a second time to be sure—meant we’d covered half the current distance to Earth. Which meant we were on our way home, to Starport One. Once we were backing down, thirty hours out from Earth, though, we received a download over the shipnet on a planet none of us had ever heard of.

Download Commonwealth Planetary Ephemeris Entry: Gliese 581 IV “Bloodstar”

Star: Gliese 581, Bloodstar, Hell’s Star Type M3V M = .31 Sol; R = 0.29 Sol; L = .013 Sol; T = 3480oK o Coordinates: RA 15h 19m 26s; Dec -07 43’ 20”; D = 20.3 ly Planet: Gliese 581 IV Name: Gliese 581 IV, Gliese 581 g, Bloodworld, Salva- tion, Midgard Type: Terrestrial/rocky; “superearth”

Mean orbital radius: 0.14601 AU; Orbital period: 36d 13h

29m 17s o Inclination: 0.0 ; Rotational period: 36d 13.56h (tide- locked with primary) Mass: 2.488 x 1028 g = 4.17 Earth; Equatorial Diameter: 28,444 km = 2.3 Earth

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Mean planetary density: 5.372 g/cc = .973 Earth Surface Gravity: 1.85 G Surface temperature range: ~ -60oC [Nightside] to 50oC [Dayside] Surface atmospheric pressure: ~152 x 103 kPa [1.52 Earth average]

Percentage atmospheric composition: O2 19.6, N2 75.5,

Ne 1.15, Ar 0.58, CO 1.42; CO2 1.01, SO2 0.69; others <500 ppm Age: 8.3 billion years

Biology: C, N, H, Na, S8, O, Br, H2O; mobile photolithoau- totrophs in oxygenating atmosphere symbiotic with sessile chemoorganoheterotrophs and chemosyn- thetic lithovores in librational twilight zones. Human Presence: The Salvation of Man colony established in 2181 in the west planetary librational zone. Salvation was founded by a Rejectionist offshoot of the Neoessene Messianist Temple as a literal purga- tory for the cleansing of human sin. There has been no contact with the colony since its founding.

“Jesus Christ!” Lance Corporal Ron Kukowicz said, shaking his head as he got up out of his download couch. “Another bunch of fucking God-shouters.” “Shit. You have something against God, Kook?” Ser- geant Joy Leighton said, sneering. “Not with God,” Kukowicz replied. “Just with God’s more fervent followers.” “The download said they’re Rejectionists,” I pointed out. “Probably a bunch of aging neo-Luddites. No artificial lights. No AI. No nanufactories. No weapons. That’s about as harmless as you can get.” “Don’t count on that harmless thing, Doc,” Staff Sergeant Larrold Thomason said. “If they’re living there they’ve got technology. And they know how to use it.” “Yeah,” Private Gutierrez said. “You can tell ’cause they’re still alive!”

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 27 4/26/12 12:28 PM 28 Ian Douglas Thomason had a point. The planet variously called Salva- tion and Hell was a thoroughly nasty place, hot as blazes and with air that would poison you if you went outside without a mask. We’d been lying inside our rack-tubes as we took the download feed—“racked out” as military slang puts it. That allowed for full immersion; the virtual reality feed that had come with the ephemeris data suggested that the numbers didn’t begin to do justice to the place. The recordings had been made by the colonizing expedition sixty-four years ago, so the only surface structures we’d seen had been some temporary habitat domes raised on a parched and rocky plateau. Bloodstar, the local sun, was a red hemisphere peeking above the horizon, swollen and red, with an apparent diameter over three times that of Sol seen from Earth. Everything was tinged with red—the sky, the clouds, and an oily-looking sea surging at the base of the plateau cliffs. And the native life. With the download complete, we were up and moving around the squad bay again. My legs and back were sore from yesterday, but I no longer felt like I was carrying an adult plus a large child on my back. Private Gerald Colby, at my orders, was wearing an exo-frame; they’d fused his broken tibia in sick bay an hour after his return from the Martian surface, but Dr. Francis had wanted him to go easy on the leg for a week or so to make sure the fix was good. That meant he wore the frame, a mobile exoskeleton of slender, jointed carbon-weave titaniplas rods strapped to the backs of his legs and up his spine—basically a stripped- down version of the heavier walker units we use for excur- sions on the surfaces of high-gravity worlds. The rest of us had been working out in the bay’s small gym space, getting our full-gravity legs back, and taking g-shift converters, nanobots programmed to maintain bone calcium in low-G, and blood pressure in high-G. Marines on board an attack transport like the Clymer had a rigidly

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 28 4/26/12 12:28 PM Bloodstar 29 fixed daily routine which included a lot of exercise time on the Universals. I shared the daily routine to a certain extent—they had me billeted with Second Platoon—but today I had the duty running sick call. It was nearly 0800, time for me to get my ass up there. I rode the hab-ring car around the circumference to the Clymer’s med unit and checked in with Dr. Francis. Clymer sported a ten-bed hospital and a fairly well ap- pointed sick bay. In an emergency, we could grow new beds, of course, but the hospital only had one patient at the moment, a Navy rating from the Clymer’s engineering de- partment with thermal burns from a blown plasma-fusion unit. “Morning, Carlyle,” Dr. Francis said as I walked in. “You ready for Earthside liberty?” “Sure am, sir. If we’re there long enough.” “What do you mean?” I shrugged. “Scuttlebutt says we’re headed out-system. And they just gave us a download on a colony world out in Libra.” He laughed. “You know better than to believe scuttlebutt.” “Yes, sir.” But why had they given us the feed on Blood- world? The doctor vanished into a back compartment, and I began seeing patients. Sick call was the time-honored practice where people on board ship lined up outside of sick bay to tell us their ills: colds and flu, sprains and strains, occasional hangovers and STDs. Once in a long while there was something interesting, but the Marines were by definition an insufferably healthy lot, and the real challenge of holding sick call was separating the rare genuine ailments from the smattering of crocs and malingerers. My very first patient gave me pause, though. Roger Howell was a private from 3rd Platoon. His staff sergeant had sent him up. Symptoms were general listlessness, head-

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 29 4/26/12 12:28 PM 30 Ian Douglas ache, mild nausea, low-grade fever of 38.2, lack of appetite, and a cough with nasal congestion. It sounded like a cold. When I pinched the skin on his arm, the fold didn’t pop back, which suggested dehydration. “You been vomiting?” I asked. “Diarrhea?” “No, Doc,” he replied. “But my head is really killing me.” “You been hitting the hooch?” Those symptoms might also point to a hangover. He managed a weak grin. “I wish!” When I shined a light in his eyes, trying to look at his pupils, he flinched away. “What’s the matter?” “Light hurts my head, Doc.” I didn’t press it. Photophobia with a headache isn’t unusual. “You get migraines?” “What’s that?” “Really, really bad headaches. Maybe on just one side of your head, behind the eye. You might see flashes of light, and the pain can make you sick to your stomach.” “Nah. Nothing like that. Look, I just thought you’d shoot me up with some nanomeds, y’know?” I had a choice. I could call it a mild cold and have him force fluids to take care of the dehydration, or I could look deeper. There was a long list of more serious ailments that could cause those kinds of low-grade symptoms. I pulled a hematocrit on him and got a 54. That’s right on the high edge of normal for males—again, consistent with mild dehydration. I took a throat swab for a culture, checked his blood pressure and heart rate—both normal—and decided on option one. “You might be coming down with something,” I told him. I reached up on the shelf behind me and took down a bottle with eight small, white pills. “Take these for your head. Two every four hours, as needed.” “Yeah? What are they?” “APCs,” I told him. “Aspirin.” “Shit. What about nanomeds?” “Try these first. If you’re still hurting tomorrow, come to

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 30 4/26/12 12:28 PM Bloodstar 31 sick call again and maybe we can give you something stronger. In the meantime, I want you to drink a lot of water. Not coffee. Not soda. Water.” “Shit, Doc! Aspirin?” Yeah, aspirin. Corpsmen have been handing out APCs since the early twentieth century, when we didn’t even know why it worked; the stuff inhibits the body’s production of prostaglandins, among other things, which means it helps block pain transmission to the hypothalamus and switches off inflammation. And the “something stronger” would be a concoction of acetaminophen, chlorpheniramine maleate, dextrometho- rphan, and phenylephrine hydrochloride—a pain reliever, an antihistamine, a cough suppressant, and a deconges- tant. Nanomedications can do a lot, but in the case of the old-fashioned common cold, the old-fashioned symptom- treating remedies do just as well and maybe better. We don’t automatically hand out the cold pills, though, because there are just too many creative things bored sailors and Marines can do to turn them into recreational drugs. You can’t get high on aspirin. Howell looked disappointed, but he took the bottle and wandered out. Next up was a Marine who was having trouble sleeping, even with VR sleep-feeds in his rack-tube. Four hours later, I was getting ready to go to chow when a call came over the intercom. “Duty Corpsman to B Deck, eleven two. Duty Corpsman to B deck, eleven two. Emer- gency.” I grabbed my kit and hightailed it. And I knew I had big trouble as soon as I walked into the berthing compartment. It was Private Howell, screaming and in convulsions.

Bloodstar_i_x_1_358_1prb.indd 31 4/26/12 12:28 PM Michael P. Spradlin

Blood Riders

October 2012

Civil War vet Jonas R. Hollister is recruited by the U.S. government to hunt down and destroy an ancient tribe of vampires that is terrorizing the frontier territories of the Wild West in this action-packed new novel from New York Times bestselling author Michael P. Spradlin.

“Michael Spradlin’s BLOOD RIDERS lives up to its name. Here is the history of the Old West written in blood and laced with dark humor, all set against a backdrop of ancient evil and a struggle for survival. So strap on your six-shooter and saddle your horse, you’re in for the ride of your life.” — James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author

Michael P. Spradlin is the author of the New York Times bestseller It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Zombies and Every Zombie Eats Somebody Sometime, as well as several children’s picture books, the novels and manga volumes in the Spy Goddess series, and the Youngest Templar novels. He lives in Michigan with his family.

Chapter One

Eastern Wyoming Territory August 1876

It wasn’t right, that’s all Captain JonasHollister could tell. Three hundred yards away, two wagons were overturned and smoldering with arrow-riddled bodies strewn about. Not far away from a still smoking campfire, a horse lay dead in the dust. He couldn’t tell if the dead people had been shot or scalped from this distance, but something was wrong. The dead horse. Lakota raiders would go to any lengths to avoid killing a horse. An animal they could use. And there were no birds. Buzzards should be everywhere, but there wasn’t a o ne in sight. It was just before dawn and in the low light the camp looked like it had been attacked a while ago. Jonas Hollister returned the small spyglass to his saddlebag and raised himself up in his stirrups to stretch.

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He and his eleven troopers had been riding patrol for nearly forty-eight hours with little rest. Three days ago a young girl had wandered into Camp St- urgis, not far from Deadwood in the western South Dakota Territory. She was delirious and nearly dead. She had cried and screamed and wailed nonsense, until she finally fell into a deep, fitful sleep in which, the regi- mental surgeon told the colonel, she had fretted over “blood devils.” The colonel had sent Hollister into Deadwood to look into it. He’d learned a party of settlers had left Deadwood heading west toward Devil’s Tower, over in Wyoming Territory, a few days before the girl had stumbled into the fort. Some of the town folks remembered a young girl, about nine or ten years old, who had been with them. Maybe it was this girl, maybe it wasn’t. No one could say for sure. No one remembered their exact destination. Deadwood was booming after all; wagons and pe ople were moving in and out all the time. So the colonel told Hollister to pick a sergeant and take a platoon and check it out. And it seemed they’d found what they were looking for. “Cap’n?” Hollister heard Sergeant Lemaire ask him. Le- maire had silently ridden his horse right up next to him without his noticing. The man moved like a g host, one of the reasons Hollister had wanted him in his company. “Sergeant?” Hollister replied. “Shouldn’t we see to them, sir?” Lemaire asked. “Yes, Sergeant, I suppose we should.” “Is there something wrong, Cap’n?” Lemaire swiveled in the saddle to look at Hollister. “Can’t say for sure, Sergeant. But yes, something feels wrong,” Hollister replied. He drew his Colt from his holster, snapped open the cylinder and checked the load. “Sir?” the sergeant asked, his voice indicating concern over Captain Hollister’s mood. “Your orders, sir?” Hollister let out a long, slow breath and stared down at

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the ruined camp. His heart was pounding. In truth, every instinct was telling him to turn his horse and ride like hell for Camp Sturgis without looking back. “Tell the men to advance carbines. You ride with me toward the center of the camp. Tell Corporal Rogg to take the left with four men and, have Private . . . what’s the new kid’s name . . . Hawkins?” “Harker, sir. Private Harker,” Lemaire answered. “Harker. He’s green, but seems steady. Have him take the other four and approach the camp from the right.” “Begging the Cap’n’s pardon, sir. But . . .” “I know, Sergeant, something isn’t right down there. Tell the men to stay sharp. Order them to wait until you and I start forward before moving out.” “Yes, sir.” Sergeant Lemaire deftly turned his horse and gave the command quickly, efficiently, and with zero wasted effort. Just like always. It was getting lighter. Yellow and red had started to fill the dark eastern sky as the wind picked up. Hollister didn’t usually believe in what his mother had always referred to as “blasphemous nonsense,” but for just an instant he thought the wind carried whispers: a quiet moaning, like a lost soul crying out for mercy. Hollister shuddered, worried that he was losing his mind. He heard the squeak of leather as the platoon spurred their horses, moving along the ridge and into position. He checked his load again, rolling the cylinder along the blue sleeve of his cavalry blouse, and snapped it shut. “Ready, sir,” the sergeant reported. He didn’t wait for the captain, but spurred his horse and trotted gently down the slope toward the camp. Lemaire knew Hollister was no sha- vetail. If he said be careful, then careful Lemaire would be. The prairie grass was burned off to knee height in the late, dry summer. If it had been spring, when the rains came, the grass would have been ten to twelve feet tall and an entire company of soldiers could have ridden past this camp a

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dozen times and never even noticed it, if not for the smoke. No one made a sound as the men approached the camp. Hollister hadn’t spotted any movement, but he k new the Lakota wouldn’t leave anyone alive. How the girl had managed to escape was a mystery. Perhaps she’d been able to hide somehow. But whatever happened here, it was clear the girl had witnessed it. And what she’d seen had been two counties past horrible. Lemaire and Hollister reined up at the edge of the camp, not far from one of the overturned wagons, when Hollister spotted another thing that bothered him. The two wagons had been tipped over, and a few articles of clothing scattered about, but most of the supplies and tools were still lashed to the sides of them. A Lakota raiding party would have torn through everything, looking for food, whiskey, ammunition, and anything of value. Something must have spooked them. But what? And one of the two was burned but not completely—it was just smoldering. It was almost like someone wanted them to be spotted. And the one wagon remaining upright? Jonas couldn’t get a handle on it. Nothing added up. He looked closely at the two arrows protruding from the nearest body, a woman who lay sprawled facedown in the dirt about ten yards away. Even in the dim light of predawn he recognized the markings on the shaft: definitely Lakota arrows. The woman had been shot in the lower back and in the leg. From where he stood, he still couldn’t tell if she’d been scalped, but the arrows hadn’t killed her, unless she had bled to death from the wounds. Every instinct in Hollister’s mind and body was telling him to pull back. To run. The wind howled louder and in his imagination he thought it called out a warning to him. He stepped slowly and gently toward the woman, kneeling when he reached her side. She wasn’t breathing and there was a dark red stain where her face lay buried in the grass and dirt.

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“She’s dead,” he said to Lemaire. “Yasser,” the sergeant replied. “Looks like all of them are, sir.” “If this is Lakota work, it could be Fool’s Elk and his bunch. Instruct the men to surround the camp, and tell them to keep a sharp eye out. Wouldn’t be the first time he’s tried to ambush a rescue party. You and I will check the victims.” “Yasser!” Lemaire shouted out orders. Hollister studied the bodies. It would be sunrise in a few minutes, and the thought of sunlight made Hollister feel safer for a r eason he couldn’t identify. He stood, making his way toward the center of the camp Another body lay near the fire. This one was a young man, maybe in his late teens or early twenties. He wore wool pants and a white poplin shirt with black suspenders. Like the woman, he was facedown. A single arrow protruded from his back. Again, most of the shaft remained sticking out of his body. It had not gone in deep enough to kill him, and there were no signs of gunshot wounds. But he had the same dark red stain, seeping into the grass and dirt near his face. And he still had his hair. Hollister started thinking maybe it wasn’t Lakota at a ll who had done this. It might have been somebody else trying to make it look like a Lakota raiding party. Ever since gold had been found in the Black Hills, hordes of men had rushed in and there weren’t enough legitimate claims to go around. Some just packed up and went home. Some turned to thieving. A few did worse. Hollister looked to the east. The sky was getting lighter by the minute. He counted six on the ground, plus the girl who had staggered into the fort. And who knew how many cap- tives had been hauled off if it was Lakota? Why not burn the other wagon? Who ever did this took the horses or cut them loose, but why leave a perfectly good wagon for someone to scavenge? Hollister couldn’t really blame the Lakota for being angry.

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They’d been promised this land forever and had been lied to every day for the past forty years. You push a man far enough, he e ither breaks or he s tarts pushing back. The Lakota were far from broken. So why leave a perfectly good wagon for some other white person to come along and use, to tear up more of their land with cattle and plows? Why, indeed? “Sergeant? Anything?” Hollister asked. “No, sir. All dead, sir,” Lemaire replied. Hollister waited, hoping and praying for Lemaire to speak, to confirm his suspicions and recommend leaving immediately. But if the sergeant noticed anything, he didn’t say it. Hollister was about to order the sergeant to begin a burial detail when he noticed movement out of the corner of his right eye. His four troopers were spread out, dismounted and grasping the reins of their horses. Each man held his carbine at port arms and stood with their backs to him, following his orders to keep an eye on the horizon. But the ambush didn’t come from the horizon. It came from inside the camp. Almost faster than Hollister could see, two of the bodies he hadn’t inspected yet rose from the ground and launched themselves at his troops. The bodies moved impossibly fast for a human being—not the least dead guys—and each one snapped the neck of the trooper closest to him with a wicked cracking sound. Hollister couldn’t speak. Couldn’t shout out a warning in time. For some reason his brain kept telling him that these people were dead bodies. They grabbed the next troopers and snapped their necks as well, but this time, instead of letting them slump to the ground, each one took a dead trooper by the shoulders and bit into his neck. Hollister watched in horror as these dead things ripped the flesh from the throats of his men with their teeth. “Sergeant, open fi . . .” Hollister raised his Colt, point-

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ing at the corpse attacking one of his men. But there came a sharp blow to his arm as someone grabbed him and attempted to twist his gun from his grasp. It was the woman who had lain dead on the ground only moments before. “Sergeant! Retreat! Get out of here!” He cried, struggling to free his arm from the grip of this shockingly strong woman. Off to his left he could see Sergeant Lemaire, locked in a struggle with the young man in suspenders who, also, had definitely been dead. A shot went off somewhere, and Hollister heard a scream. He struggled with the woman, not understanding her incredible power. How was it possible? She held his arm with one hand and he thought she might break it if he wasn’t careful. He then looked—really looked at her—and knew why he had been right to feel afraid. Her throat was a mass of twisted, bleeding flesh that appeared to be healing itself. Something was wrong with her face and eyes, which had turned bright red, and her mouth grew to an alarming size as she opened it and fangs descended from her gums. He couldn’t move his gun arm. He heard more shouts and the sounds of muffled struggles. For some reason it struck him as odd. Hollister had seen his share of hand-to-hand combat in the war years earlier. He’d killed men up close and he knew he should be hearing the screams and wails of fighting and dying men. Grunts and groans at least. But it was eerily silent. A quick glance to his left showed Sergeant Lemaire had been pummeled to the ground. Hollister tried to shake the woman loose but couldn’t, he was going to lose his grip on the Colt and die if he didn’t do something fast. With des- peration he reached down, feeling for the arrow stuck in the flesh of her thigh. With all of his strength he pulled hard on the shaft and jerked it free. Momentarily confused, his attacker loosened her grip on

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his gun arm and tried to stop his other arm; but before she could prevent it, Hollister had hit her straight in the chest. He pushed with every ounce of his strength and finally felt it pass her ribs and enter her heart. The woman—body, creature or whatever she was—shrieked in agony and let go of him immediately. She staggered backward, her hands suddenly like talons, clawing at the wooden shaft piercing her flesh. Hollister watched in disbelief as she threw back her head, howling a d eath scream like none he’d ever heard. Then she disappeared. It took him a moment to realize the woman’s body was gone. On the ground where she had stood an instant before was a pile of ashes, the clothes she had been wearing, and two Lakota arrows. Hollister looked at the four troopers to his right. They were dead; he knew it already. The creatures continued feeding, ripping flesh and lapping up the blood as it still flowed from the veins of his men. He raised the Colt and took aim. His bullet took one of the creatures square in the back, knocking it and the trooper in its grasp to the ground. He fired again, missing the second creature as it dropped the body it held and dived behind the closest wagon for protection. “Cap’n.” He heard a m ournful groan from behind. He turned to see Lemaire, on his knees in the clutches of the boy wearing suspenders, the boy’s arm around the sergeant’s neck and throat. “You killed Caroline,” it said to him. But it wasn’t a human voice; it was a strange whispering sound, from deep in its throat. Hollister didn’t answer, he raised his Colt and fired a bullet into the center of the boy’s forehead, and he flew backward, his grip on Lemaire relinquished. As Hollister staggered toward Lemaire, he saw the same thing had happened to his troopers stationed on the other side of the camp. Two of them were dead on the ground and the others were being attacked by whatever these things

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were. Hollister nearly tripped as he bent to pull Lemaire to his feet. “Cap’n!” Lemaire shouted, pointing behind Hollister. Hollister whirled about to see another one of the creatures nearly upon him. He lifted his gun and pulled the trigger. The bullet took the thing square in the chest, knocking it off its feet. “Open fire! Open fire!” Hollister commanded. But only he and Lemaire remained alive. “Sergeant, shoot!” There was no response and Hollister turned in horror to see another creature, taller and bigger than the rest, suddenly tear- ing at t he flesh of Lemaire’s neck. He had no idea where this one had come from. The sergeant’s eyes were open and empty. His arms and legs still moved and flailed against the being holding him, but he was already dead. Hollister shot the attacker, his first bullet taking him high in the shoulder. The creature stood up straight and faced Hol- lister, blood and flesh covering its mouth and chin. Hollis- ter shot again and again. Both bullets entered the creature’s chest, but it didn’t even flinch. He was a giant. Hollister was six feet four inches tall and the thing towered over him, at seven feet tall, at least. It had shoulder-length white hair and the wind seemed to pull it behind him like a cape. His eyes blazed red and his mouth was elongated; fangs descended where teeth should be, just like the woman Hollister killed moments before. It was all wrong. Don’t let it touch you, Hollister thought. He was out of bullets. It kept coming forward and Hollister threw his pistol at the beast, but the heavy Colt bounced off its head with no effect. Keeping the thing in sight, he backed slowly away in the direction of the horses. A q uick glance over his shoulder showed his own mount still standing there, pacing nervously at the edge of the camp—disturbed by what was happening, but too well trained to leave its master. Lemaire had just broken a mare two weeks ago and the not-quite-tame horse

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had skittered away. Jonas thought of turning and running, but instinctively knew the creature would be upon him the moment his back was turned. Reaching into his boot, Hollister pulled out his Bowie knife with one hand and drew his saber with the other. Most times he d idn’t carry the sword as it only got in the way. But the colonel was a stickler for it, always insisting officers carry one on patrol. And for some reason, the saber seemingly gave the creature pursuing him more pause than the other weapons, for it slowed its advance. Its gaze locked on his and it made him feel like a frightened buffalo calf staring into the eyes of a wolf. “You have taken one of ours,” the creature said to him in a voice tinged with anger and hatred. It made Hollister cringe to hear it. He found himself losing his breath and he tried to calm himself, but he was too afraid. “You killed my men!” Hollister shouted at him. “Yes. We feed,” it replied. “My followers feed. And you have taken one of mine. Caroline. You will die for this.” “Murdering bastards! I’ll kill you all!” Somewhere Hol- lister found the courage to step forward and take a mighty swing at the man with his saber, but the creature dodged it easily. Hollister had overswung, and with his next step backward, tripped over something and fell to the ground on his back. Without warning the creature was straddling him, pinning his arms to his sides. The creature struck him with a fist the size of an anvil. Holister felt his nose crunch, and the warm taste of blood filled his mouth as it hit him again. Hollister screamed in agony at the fangs descending toward him. He knew he was going to die and he wished to close his eyes against it but found he could not. Suddenly and without warning the creature straightened up, looking off to the east. Hollister was stilled pinned beneath him, struggling to free his arms. But day was breaking as the sun topped the horizon and light spilled across the

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prairie. The creature shouted out something in a language Hollister had never heard and stood up. For a moment, Hol- lister thought he saw smoke coming from the fiend’s skin and clothing, but was sure his own loss of blood must be playing tricks on him. “Some other time,” the creature hissed at him, “for Caro- line.” He moved backward toward the camp, into the shadows and away from the advancing sunlight. The smoke coming from his clothes and body disappeared. Hollister sat up and watched in horrid fascination as these living monsters moved among the camp, dragging the bodies of his dead men behind them. Each body, in turn, was tossed into the back of the upright wagon effortlessly, as if it were a sack of flour from a general store. Six creatures remained, including the one with the white hair. He counted his blessings they hadn’t all attacked him at once. All of them moved with speed and precision, as if it was important for them to make some unknown deadline. They had taken four of the dead trooper’s horses and cut loose the saddles, hitching them to the wagon. The white- haired giant looked back at Hollister as he donned a long robe he had pulled from the back of the wagon. The robe covered him completely and before raising the hood, he studied Hollister again. He took a few tentative steps in his direction. “Another time. For Caroline,” it reminded him. It stood there staring at Hollister for a long moment. Hollister felt as if the giant man were toying with the idea of finishing him now instead of waiting. It looked down at its robe and then off to the east and the rising sun. For a reason he didn’t understand, it left him there in the dirt. In two steps it vaulted into the seat of the wagon. The other creatures had disappeared into the back, and Hollister could hear awful sounds coming from behind the canvas covering. He stayed on the ground, too terrified to move, watching

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until the wagon disappeared from sight. Hollister tried to stand, to reach his horse and give pursuit, but had taken a frightful beating. His head was bleeding and the pounding was so loud in his ears, he thought his skull might cleave in two. “Bastards!” he shouted. “I’ll find you! I’ll kill yo . . .” the world spun and he c ollapsed in the dirt, flat on his back. As he drifted into unconsciousness, the morning sunlight washed over him like a blanket and the last thing he remembered was its warmth on his face.

From a s mall hillock to the west, Shaniah watched and waited. She knew the troopers were doomed the moment they approached Malachi’s camp, but there was nothing she could have done to stop it. Not yet. Malachi and his group were feeding, drinking what the Old Ones called Huma Sangra—the name for human blood in the ancient language of her people—and growing more powerful every day. Though she was strong and nearly an immortal herself, she did not feed on human blood, and because of it, could not match their speed and strength. It frustrated her to stand idly by with Malachi so close. But she would not be able to end it now. The human who’d survived intrigued her. Though it was the sun that had saved him, he had fought bravely, and she’d watched in fascination as Malachi hesitated briefly, cautious of the human and his saber. One of the few ways to kill an Archaic was to cut off its head, but there was no way for the man to have known that. She rode into the camp. The man was still alive, but she would be gone before he r egained consciousness. Stand- ing over him a moment, she pulled her hood wide in order to study him more closely. He was a handsome man, for a human. For a brief instant she thought his eyes opened and he looked at her, but he had been beaten so severely that she was sure he was only semi-conscious at best. His eyes closed

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again. She could not stay much longer. The leather gloves and cloak she wore were too warm in the morning sun, but she would die without them, for she was a creature of the night, an Archaic herself. Malachi had captured and turned a b and of settlers. Humans were turned when they were bitten and then drank the blood of an Archaic. The change happened in a few hours. Some could not survive the process and those who proved unable were merely drained of their blood and their bodies discarded. She had watched for three days, unable to stop Malachi or help any of the humans they had fed upon. Malachi had then used his new recruits to stage a scene looking like a L akota attack. They waited for a r escue party to show up, with the intent to feed upon or turn more humans. Malachi was becoming more and more daring, gathering more and more followers. Shaniah inspected the camp, peering inside the wagon, looking for any clue of where Malachi might be headed. She remounted her horse, turning the great stallion west. The animal, named Demeter, was one of many that had been specially trained since birth not to fear her kind. He would not spook or shy away from her as most creatures would, and as a result the horse had saved her life on more than one occasion. She could not ride for long in the sun and heat, even with the cloak, and would need to find a place to hide until the night came. Then she would think about Malachi again. Where he might be going next and what his plans were. And more important: how to stop him.

BloodRiders_i_x_1_390_design.indd 13 5/31/12 9:07 AM Kylie Chan

EARTH TO HELL Journey to Wudang: Book One

October 2012

The first book in an addictive new urban fantasy series of gods and demons, martial arts and mythology, from the author of White Tiger.

It is eight years since Xuan Wu, God of the Northern Heavens, living in Hong Kong as wealthy businessman John Chen, was exiled from the mortal realm. Emma and John's daughter, Simone, are facing a new series of threats. Leo, their best fighter, is sitting in Hell, but when they journey below to persuade him home, nothing is as it appears. On Earth, Simon Wong, the Demon King's son, is no longer around to trouble them, but his associates have taken over Simon's underworld activities. The otherworldly stones are being targeted and are in danger of their kind being completely destroyed. It seems that the Demon King is the only one Emma can turn to for help...

Publishers Weekly featured Earth to Hell as one of the Top 10 Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels for Fall 2012 in this week’s Fall Announcements issue:

“Kylie Chan’s Earth to Hell takes place several years after her Dark Heavens debut trilogy and sends series heroine Emma on a challenging new journey through the world of Chinese mythology.”

And after Earth to Hell look for books two and three in the series: Hell to Heaven (November 2012) and Heaven to Wudang (December 2012).

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The Serpent slides through the black icy water of the Antarctic, wreathed in permanent darkness.

The Turtle hides from the weak Arctic sun beneath the ice.

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chapter 1

‘ ow,’ I said gently, ‘concentrate. You’ve done it Nbefore. This time, bring the chi out as slowly as you can. Feel the rubber band pulling it back.’ Apple bit her lip and the glowing yellow ball of chi floated out of her outstretched palm. Emma, emergency, the stone in my ring said. Some third years have run into trouble. They raided a prostitution den in Mong Kok that was holding sex slaves, and instead of humans running the show they met up with demons. They need help. ‘Let the chi go, Apple,’ I said, still very gentle. The chi floated back down into Apple’s hand and she sagged. ‘Take a break now, and don’t try it again without supervision,’ I said. ‘I’ve been called away, so we’ll end it there. Head back to the Folly and have a rest.’ Apple nodded. ‘Yes, ma’am. Thank you.’ I patted her shoulder, then quickly rose and spoke urgently to the stone as I charged out to the stairwell. ‘Get Marcus to bring the car around the front. I’ll meet him at the ground floor. Which Masters are free?’ ‘Sit, Park, Lee and Edwards are there already. The demons are holding the students hostage. It’s a standoff,’ the stone said.

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I jumped over the balustrade to the empty space in the centre of the stairwell, twenty storeys to the ground. I fell at maximum speed until the floor loomed below me, then slowed my fall, levered one foot on the railing and jumped down to the landing in front of the ground floor door. ‘Demons holding third years? They must be big,’ Isaid. Do you need us? General Ma said into my head. The demons holding your students are quite large. ‘Aren’t you dealing with a demon attack on the Horse Village?’ I asked via the stone. The Majia are handling it well, General Ma said. If we bring in the Princess we will be ﬁnished very quickly and be back in Hong Kong within the hour to help your students. Western Horsemen are on their way to assist us. ‘Can the Horses and Horsemen handle it?’ I said. ‘I don’t want to take Simone out of school unless it’s absolutely necessary, you know that. She’s skipping a lot of school with these attacks as it is.’ They can handle. ‘Head back when you’re relieved, and we’ll see if we need your help. How long do you think it will be?’ About an hour and a half. ‘See you then.’ My Lady. It took nearly forty-five minutes to reach the area of Mong Kok where the students were being held hostage. Marcus wound his way through the narrow, busy streets of the area and dropped me outside the brothel, then went off in search of a car park. The brothel had a large sign outside advertising the prices: White Russian 500; Fair Skin Thai 400; North and South Chinese 300. Two of the Masters, Sit and Park, stood outside the brothel with a group of five or six seniors, looking up

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at the second-storey windows. The brothel was a blackened concrete apartment building, 1950s era, with small barred windows on each floor. The ground floor was occupied by a microscopic mobile phone shop, all pristine white tiles and blazing lights. The brothel’s single front door had a steel gate, which now hung open. Plain narrow concrete stairs led up inside. ‘Where’s Edwards?’ I said. ‘Around the back in the alley with another couple of seniors,’ said Lee. ‘What do we have here?’ ‘Six level fifty to sixty demons. A couple of them appear to be Mothers. They’re holding a team of third years who came in to practise on them and were taken by surprise.’ ‘Mothers? Damn. Anybody hurt?’ ‘One of the prostitutes tried to escape and a demon smacked her down; she’s probably concussed,’ Sit said. ‘A couple of the students sustained some severe injuries when they were taken — these demons hit them hard with some sort of energy blast.’ ‘The police aren’t aware of what’s going on? We won’t see uniforms and guns roll up?’ ‘No,’ Park said. ‘What do the demons want?’ ‘Free passage.’ ‘That’s all?’ ‘Yes. We’re just waiting for you to give the go-ahead on either a raid or to let them go. We’re prepared either way.’ ‘Recommendation?’ ‘Let them go.’ ‘Can we take them down without hurting any more girls or students?’ Park hesitated, then, ‘No.’ ‘Let them go.’

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‘Ma’am.’ Park concentrated, and the teams moved into action. Sit and Lee went upstairs to deliver the deal to the demons. A bus appeared around the corner and stopped outside the brothel. ‘Demons took off,’ Park said. ‘Lee has taken a recording.’ ‘Good.’ Three more of the seniors with us charged into the building and up the stairs. Two of the four third-year students who had been held hostage came limping down the stairs, obviously nursing injuries. They made for the bus. ‘By your leave, ma’am,’ Park said, ‘we’ll take the other two injured students directly to the infirmary.’ ‘Go,’ I said. Park and Lee went into the building. The seniors who had run up the stairs shortly before came down escorting ten or so prostitutes. The girls were tiny and slim; some of them only looked about fourteen or fifteen. There were no Europeans, only Thais, Indonesians and Chinese. They were obviously terrified as the seniors guided them onto the bus. A few bystanders watched, curious. One of the seniors jumped off the bus, walked over and loudly told them in Cantonese that this was a police plainclothes operation and to move along. The bystanders grinned but continued to watch, unfazed. ‘Update on the Horse Village,’ I said to the stone. Under control. A squad of about ﬁfty demons attacked the village, but the Horses held them off. Three Horses were killed and four were injured before the Generals arrived to help. ‘Tell General Ma we have a lid on things here and he’s not needed,’ I said. We have been called to another attack anyway,

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ma’am, Ma said. A phoenix has called for help — a Mother is outside her nest and threatening her clutch. ‘Can they make it in time?’ I said. If we move now we may make it, but we will be cutting it close, Ma said. ‘Need help?’ Simone could be there immediately to protect these chicks, Ma said. It is the phoenix’s nursery; she thought it would be safe in this remote area, but some Mothers have found it. She and her children are ﬁghting but there is a large number of demons after her clutch. He hesitated a moment, then, This looks very bad. Please allow us to send in Princess Simone. Help, General Danahuo, a woman’s voice said into my head. All of my babies are here, and a Mother and sixteen of her demon spawn are attempting to break into my nursery. Her voice became strained. Help! ‘Can you relay, stone?’ I said. ‘Let me see.’ ‘Networking …’ The stone’s voice trailed off. ‘I have a link. The phoenix has a sentient stone Shen as a jewellery item. Oh! It’s Glauconite, I know this one. Bringing up an image.’ A phoenix appeared in front of me, transparent against the buildings and people around me. She bowed, spreading her scarlet wings; royal blue and purple peacock-like feathers rippled among the flaming red pinions. ‘General Danahuo,’ she said. She gestured with her head to her left. ‘There they are. They threaten my clutch.’ She was standing on a barren, rocky hillside somewhere in southern China. About twenty metres down the slope, some red-garbed warriors fought with a band of demons. A Snake Mother stood behind the demons; the top half of her body was human, but with the skin flayed off, while the bottom half was an

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enormous black snake with clear gelatinous toxin oozing from between her scales. She must have been close on four metres in length; a really big one. I gasped when I saw the demons she was controlling — fake stone elementals. They appeared to be made of rough- hewn blocks of granite held together with an invisible force. They were about two metres tall, had featureless faces and moved with disturbing smoothness as they battled the phoenix’s defenders. ‘More of these things!’ Edwards said as he approached me from the back of the building and saw the projection next to me. ‘Who’s making them? They keep popping up everywhere!’ ‘I’m surprised they sent stone to fight the phoenix’s guards,’ I said. ‘Wouldn’t water be more effective against fire?’ The guards, wearing traditional all-red Chinese armour, were fighting valiantly with both swords and phoenix fire, but the demons outnumbered them about three to two. None of the guards had fallen yet, but they were obviously losing the battle — the stone demons were completely unharmed by their weapons and fire. ‘Tell Simone,’ I said to the stone. ‘Tell her where to go.’ Thank you, ma’am, both the phoenix and General Ma said at the same time. The image of the battle snapped off. On it, Simone said into my head. It was only PE anyway. ‘I’ll go on the bus with the girls,’ I said to the stone. ‘Tell Marcus to take the car back. How are the injured seniors?’ In the inﬁrmary back at the Academy, the stone said. Serious injuries but not life-threatening. There’s some debate about whether to send them to hospital.

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‘What does Regina say?’ I said as I got onto the bus and sat next to Edwards. Edwards, as usual, wore a pair of plain slacks and a business shirt without a tie. His bald head, glasses, and paunch made him look like a fifty-year-old schoolteacher — and deceptively harmless. The driver pulled away from the kerb and into the traffic. Regina says hospital. ‘Damn, we can’t afford this. If they don’t go to hospital what are the consequences?’ They will just receive better care in hospital,the stone said. Regina doesn’t have the facilities to deal with this type of fracture. I hesitated. We would be asked too many awkward questions if the students were checked into a hospital. ‘Stone, get me Bai Hu, please.’ Ma’am, the White Tiger said into my head. ‘Ah Bai. We have two badly injured students and Regina wants to hospitalise them. Any room in your clinic?’ Stand by. His voice returned a couple of minutes later. Either of them demons? No, the stone said. Human. Ah shit, the Tiger said. Well, okay, I’ll take them. A Horseman is on his way to get them. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Why do you always want my injured demon students?’ The Tiger didn’t reply. ‘He has a group of his children researching demon nature,’ the stone said. ‘Dear Lord, he’s not doing any genetic experimentation on them, is he?’ Nah, just having a look inside, the Tiger said. They’re moving way ahead of us in breeding research,

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they always have. I thought it was about time that we caught up. ‘Breeding?’ I said, horrified. ‘The Tiger is breeding demons?’ Edwards said. No, no, of course not, the Tiger said. We just collect them as we go along. Some of yours would be fun to have — a few of yours are the results of some very interesting breeding experiments. That’s why they have so much free will and have joined you in the ﬁrst place. ‘You hurt one hair on any of my demon students’ heads and your tail is in serious trouble,’ I said. ‘Hear, hear,’ Edwards said quietly. ‘He’s not breeding them, he’s collecting them and doing research,’ I said for Edwards’ benefit. ‘He wants some of ours ’cause they’re the result of some “interesting breeding experiments”.’ Edwards leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms. ‘No way is that bastard laying his paws on any of my students. My kids are not guinea pigs.’ I promise I won’t hurt them, Jim, the Tiger said. Edwards gave an excellent British harrumph. ‘The psychological damage of undergoing that level of medical examination would undo all the good work we’ve done in getting these kids over what they’ve endured in Hell. The Tiger can piss off, he’s not getting any of mine.’ What if they volunteer? the Tiger said. ‘Oh, now that’s clutching at straws,’ Edwards said with amusement. It’s like a holiday for them, Jimmy, the Tiger said. You know how nice it is out here. Let them come and check it out. His voice became eager. How many good demon students do you have anyway? ‘None of your damn business, and shut the fuck up,’ Edwards said. He winced. ‘Sorry, ma’am.’ His tone was

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amused as he spoke to the Tiger again. ‘Get lost. You’re not getting any of my demons.’ ‘You’re not getting any of the Academy demons,’ I added. ‘Get your own. And if I send any over to you for medical attention and find that you’ve experimented on them, your tail is mine.’ Fine thanks I get for helping you out here, the Tiger grumbled in my head. Just one or two — ‘No!’ Edwards and I said at the same time. Fine! ‘Oh, and Ah Bai?’ I said. What! ‘Thanks for looking after these students for me, my friend. Most appreciated.’ Stop sounding like Ah Wu, he said, and went quiet. ‘Be interesting to see what he’s finding out about them,’ Edwards said. ‘I’ve always been fascinated by demons. Never knew they existed when I was back in the UK, but I must have run into a couple of them without realising.’ ‘You think so?’ I said. ‘It follows. Demons are often in on the nasty stuff that goes on.’ He nodded towards the prostitutes, who cowered in their seats at the back of the bus as the students tried to explain to them that they were no longer slaves. ‘We were often called in to deal with this sort of thing.’ ‘Ever run into any nasties that seemed more dangerous than your average felon?’ I said. ‘That gave even a group of trained fighters like yourselves a tough battle?’ He thought for a moment. ‘Never had anybody that didn’t drop when we shot them, and demons would be unaffected by guns.’ He hesitated. ‘But some of them did seem tougher. We were given extensive training, and it’s like they were too.’ He shrugged. ‘Stronger, faster, smarter. A match for us. Could have been demons.’

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‘But if you shot them, they fell down,’ I said. ‘Never had any explode into demon stuff?’ ‘Never,’ he said. ‘Must go back to the UK and have a look one day.’ ‘I’ll come with you,’ I said. He harrumphed again. ‘Neither of us have the goddamn time, ma’am. We’re both flat out keeping our people here safe from the Demon King and his little kiddies.’ I sighed. ‘I know.’ I touched the stone. ‘How’s Simone doing?’ ‘Let me see,’ the stone said. ‘She’s just arriving there now.’ ‘Can you link me up, please?’ Simone appeared as a small image in front of us, running downhill towards the demons from where the phoenix was standing guard at the entrance to her nest. She was wearing her school PE uniform — a pair of green shorts and house T-shirt — and carrying her father’s sword, Dark Heavens. The sword was completely without adornment on either the handle or the blade. It was slightly too big for her but it was her weapon of choice. As she closed on the demons, she lifted into the air, her tawny hair flying around her. She raised Dark Heavens horizontally above her head, and held her left hand up, her first two fingers pointing towards the demons, ready to use chi energy if necessary. She flew lightning-fast over the Snake Mother, somersaulted directly above it and sliced diagonally through its skinless body. It fell in two pieces, the snake part writhing across the ground, the human hands scrabbling at the gravel. Simone landed in a crouch, and I was breathless for a moment thinking she had hit the ground too hard. She spun and rose and launched shen energy at two nearby

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demons, blinding white blasts that destroyed them. The red warriors that had been fighting the demons stepped back in shock and raised their hands. About six of the fake stone elementals remained. Simone ran to the centre of the battle, concentrated for a split second, then rammed Dark Heavens into the ground. Her hair flew up, the gravel lifted from the ground around her and a shockwave spread outwards from the blade of the sword, creating a visible ripple in the stony ground. When the shockwave hit the warriors, it knocked them off their feet; but when it hit the demons, it completely shattered them. They fell to the ground in shards of stone. The shockwave stopped and the gravel that had been flying around Simone dropped to the ground. She pulled her sword free, and walked back up the slope to the phoenix. The red warriors rose and checked the area; the demons had all been destroyed. Simone shared a few short words with the phoenix, then they touched wing to hand, the flaming feathers doing her no damage. She nodded to the warriors, who saluted her, then she shot straight up into the air and disappeared towards the north, leaving behind a trail of vapour. I thank you, Madam General, the phoenix said into my head. You and the Princess have saved my babies. I am your servant. ‘Tell her she’s welcome,’ I said to the stone, and the image of the phoenix snapped off. ‘Never ceases to amaze me how such a sweet young lass can kick so much serious arse,’ Edwards said. One of the seniors called to us from the back of the bus. ‘A few of these girls don’t speak anything but Indonesian and Thai, and one is Vietnamese. We need your help, Masters.’

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Sit moved to the back of the bus where he talked to the girls in Putonghua. Nevertheless, they all understood him. ‘I envy the Immortals,’ Edwards said. ‘Then you’ll never join them,’ I said. He shook with a short, silent laugh. ‘I know.’ ‘If you want to take the time to go and cultivate the Tao, it’s your choice,’ I said. He considered for a moment. ‘One day maybe. They all encourage me to go and cultivate the Tao on the Mountain, living on pine nuts and spring water, but I don’t think I’m ready for the Art of Navel Gazing. I’m just having too much damn fun here.’ I nodded. ‘Just so you know. If you feel the time is right, then go. They will help you.’ ‘Thanks, Emma,’ he said softly. He shifted to sit more upright. ‘Nearly there now. Let’s work out what to do with these poor girls.’

Nick Cole

OLD MAN AND THE WASTELAND

*Harper Voyager Digital Original*

June 2012

Forty years after the destruction of civilization . . . Man is reduced to salvaging the ruins of a broken world. One man's most prized possession is Hemingway's classic The Old Man and the Sea. With the words of the novel echoing across the wasteland, a survivor of the Nuclear Holocaust journeys into the unknown to break a curse. What follows is an incredible tale of survival and endurance. One man must survive the desert wilderness and mankind gone savage to discover the truth of Hemingway's classic tale of man versus nature.

Nick Cole is a working actor living in Southern California. When he is not auditioning for commercials, going out for sitcoms or being shot, kicked, stabbed or beaten by the students of various film schools for their projects, he can often be found as a guard for King Phillip the Second of Spain in the Opera Don Carlo at Los Angeles Opera or some similar role. Nick Cole has been writing for most of his life and acting in Hollywood after serving in the U.S. Army.

One

It was dark when he stepped outside into the cool air. Overhead the last crystals of night faded into a soft blue blanket that would precede the dawn. Through the thick pads of his calloused feet he could feel the rocky, cracked, cold earth. He would wear his huaraches after he left and was away from the sleeping village. He had not slept for much of the night. Had not been sleeping for longer than he could remember. Had not slept as he did when he was young. The bones within ached, but he was old and that was to be expected. He began to work long bony fingers into the area above his chest. The area that had made him feel old since he first felt the soreness that was there. The area where his satchel would push down as he walked. He thought about tea, but the smoke from the mesquite would betray him as would the clatter of his old blue percolator and decided against it. He stepped back inside the shed, looked around once, taking in the cot, patched and sagging, the desk and the stove. He went to the desk and considered its drawers. There was nothing there that should go in his satchel. He would need only his tools. His crowbar, his worn rawhide gloves, his rope, the can of pitch, the tin of grease and his pliers. Not the book. But if I die. If I go too far or fall into a hole. If my leg is 5 Nick Cole broken then I might want the book. He dismissed those thoughts. If you die then you can’t read. If you are dying then you should try to live. And if it is too much, that is what the gun is for. Besides, you’ve read the book already. Many times in fact. He put the book back in its place. He went to the shelf and opened the cigar box that contained the pistol. He loved the box more than the gun inside. The picture of the sea, the city and the waving palms on the front reminded him of places in the book. Inside the box, the gun, dull and waiting along with five loose shells, an evil number, rattled as his stiff fingers chased them across the bottom. Moving quickly now he took the old blue percolator and rolled it into the thin blanket that lay on the cot. He stuffed them both inside the worn satchel, reminding him of the book’s description of the furled sail. ‘Patched with flour sacks… it looked the flag of permanent defeat.’ He shouldered the bag quickly and chased the line away telling himself he was thinking too much of the book and not the things he should be. He looked around the shed once more. Come back with something. And if not, then goodbye. He passed silently along the trail that led through the village. To the west, the field of broken glass began to glitter like fallen stars in the hard-packed red dirt as it always did in this time before the sun. At the pantry he took cooked beans, tortillas, and a little bit of rice from the night before. The village would not miss these things. Still they would be angry with him. Angry he had gone. Even though they wished he would because he was unlucky. Salao. In the book unlucky is Salao. The worst kind. The villagers say you are ‘curst’. He filled his water bottle from the spring, drank a bit and filled it again. The water was cold and tasted of iron. He drank again and filled it once more. Soon the day would be very hot. At the top of the small rise east of the village he looked back. Forty years maybe. If my count has been right.

6 The Old Man and the Wasteland It was an old processing plant by the side of the highway east of what was once Yuma. It was rusting in the desert before the bombs fell, now it was the market and pantry of the village. Its outlying sheds the houses of the villagers, his friends and family. He tried to see if smoke was rising yet from his son’s house. But his daughter-in-law would be tired from the new baby. So maybe she is still sleeping. If his granddaughter came running out, seeing him at the top of the rise against the dawn, he would have to send her back. He was going too deep into the wasteland today. Too dangerous for her. Even though she knows every trick of salvage? I might need her. What if I find something big? ‘I may not be as strong as I think, but I know many tricks and I have resolution.’ My friend in the book would say that, yes. He would send her back. It was too dangerous. He adjusted the strap wider on his shoulder to protect the area above his heart where the satchel always bit, then turned and walked down the slope away from the village and into the wasteland.

7 Two

He sang bits of a song he knew from before. Years hid most of the lyrics and now he wanted to remember when he first heard the song. As if the memory would bring back the lost words he’d skipped over. Time keeps its secrets. Not like this desert. Not like the wasteland. In the rising sun, his muscles began to loosen as his stride began to lengthen, and soon the ache was gone from his bones. His course was set between two peaks none of the village had ever bothered to name after the cataclysm. Maybe once someone had a name for them. Probably on charts and rail survey maps of the area once known as the Sonoran Desert. But such things had since crumbled or burned up. And what are names? He once had a name. Now the villagers simply called him The Old Man. It seemed appropriate. Often he responded. At noon he stopped for the cool water in the bottle, kept beneath the blanket in his satchel. Still mumbling the words of the song amongst the silent broken rocks, he drank slowly. He had reached the saddle between the two low hills. Where had he first heard the song? He wondered. Below, the bowl of the wasteland lay open and shimmering. On the far horizon, jagged peaks, beyond those the bones of cities. The Old Man and the Wasteland For seventy-eight days The Old Man had gone west with the other salvagers, heading out at dawn with hot tea con leche and sweet fry bread. Walking and pulling their sleds and pallets. In teams and sometimes alone. For seventy-eight days The Old Man had gone out and brought back nothing. My friend in the book went eighty-six days. Then he caught the big fish. So I have a few days to go. I am only seventy-eight days unlucky. Not eighty-six. That would be worse. Every canyon silent, every shed searched, every wreck empty. It was just bad luck the others said. It would turn. But in the days that followed he found himself alone for most of the day. If he went down a road, keeping sight of the other teams, they would soon be lost from view. At noon he would eat alone in the shade of a large rock, and smell on a sudden breeze their cookfires. He missed those times, after the shared lunch, the talk and short nap before they would start anew at what one had found, pulling it from the earth, extracting it from a wreck, hauling it back to the village. Returning after nightfall as the women and children came out to see this great new thing they could have back. This thing that had been rescued from the time before and would be theirs in the time of now. Forty years of that, morning, noon, and night of salvage. It was good work. It was the only work. Until he found the hot radio. His first years of salvage were of the things that had built the village. On early nights when the salvagers returned and light still hung in the sky, he could walk through the village and see the things he had hauled from the desert. The door on his son’s house that had once been part of a refrigerator from a trailer he and Big Pedro had found south of The Great Wreck. The trailer someone had been living in after the bombs. There were opened cans, beer and food inside the trailer. Cigarette butts in piles. That had been fifteen years after the war. But when they opened the door it was silent and still. An afternoon wind had picked up and the trailer rocked in the brief gusts that seem to come and go as if by their own choosing. Big Pedro did not like such places. The Old Man never asked the why of

9 Nick Cole how someone salvaged. He accepted this of Pedro and together they’d worked for a time. Outside he heard Pedro asking if there was anything. The Old Man knew he would find a dead body. There were always dead bodies. Salvage and dead bodies go hand in hand. The trailer rocked for a moment, and as The Old Man adjusted his eyes to the dim light within, he waited for salvage to be revealed. This was how one salvaged. Just waiting and watching a thing. A wreck, someone’s home or a railway shed. In the desert it paid to wait. A quick choice owned you. A wrench, a hammer, and one might not see the saw. Too often the wealth of the past could distract one from what was really there. He had seen piles of money, gold, jewelry, pornography. What good were such things now? But in the trailer there was a story. There was always a story of salvage. In a wreck, one could see the skeletons crushed under the weight of their possessions as the vehicle left the highway. Rolling over and over in the dirt and down a culvert. To lie trapped for years. Waiting for ambulances that would not come. Rescue that could not rescue itself while mushroom clouds broke the unbroken horizon. On that day when everything changed. On that long ago hot afternoon when Big Pedro waited outside in the sighing wind, all was quiet inside. He stepped in, closing the door behind him. There was no life here. Just dry dust and the shed skins of the rattlers that seemed everywhere at times and then at others could not be found. All the cans were crushed, all the cigarettes that lay in neat piles had been smoked down to the filter. Whoever had lived here had brought these cans and cigarettes from the cities. Beer and cigarettes, possibly a gun. Cans of food. But it had been too little. Whatever one brought for the destruction was always too little. The Old Man had seen it, would see it a thousand different ways. In the wrecks and the sheds and the boxcars and the fortified gas stations how long can any supplies last? Could anyone during those two weeks, when a new bomb fell on a new city each new day, could anyone have known that the ter-

10 The Old Man and the Wasteland ror would never end? That life as one knew it would never return. No, even I did not know it. Next week the government will come, things will return to normal. Next year. In two years time. One day you stop waiting and you begin to salvage. What your crowbar can bring up from the desert is the only thing you can expect. Whoever once lived in that trailer had refused to believe things would never be the same. It was a tale of smoked cigarettes near a smashed radio in the corner. Alcohol through the long night as angry winds struck at the sides of the trailer like some giant moving in the outer dark. Tomorrow became next year and next year became too much to bear. Eventually, whoever it was left, and that was all the story that remained and could be told truthfully of the trailer. What happened after, a gunshot at the end of a broken leg, sunstroke, exposure, insan- ity; those also were stories The Old Man had seen in the desert. But who could connect one to the other? One learned after the bombs, to stop needing answers or the ends of stories. There was little salvage in the trailer. What remained was obvious. The refrigerator. Who could take that where they were going? Unless there was power of a sort where the journey, or the flight as it felt, ended. But in The Old Man’s village there was power, sometimes. Soon he and Big Pedro, sweating, had the refrigerator out on the cracked and broken highway, east of the Great Wreck. It took the better part of three days to get it back to the village. Word spread among the villagers that something big had been found. The Old Man and Pedro were bringing something back. On the last day, two hours after dawn the villagers began to arrive in pairs and groups along the broken highway, their curiosity unrestrained, uncontainable. The haul back became a carnival. By nightfall, remembered The Old Man, a pig had been killed; precious few of them then. All through the night Jason the Fixer worked, cursing coils and elements. At midnight the thing began to hum and two hours later there was ice.

11 Nick Cole In the hours leading up to dawn, in the main hall of the old factory, The Old Man was the first to stand in front of the open door and feel the cold. How many years had it been since he stood in front of an open refrigerator door in the middle of the night, feeling that precious cold caress the dust caked lines of his face? He didn’t remember, he didn’t care. The cold was enough. ‘We would have that for all of our lives’. That’s what my friend in the book said when he and the boy talked of taking the great baseball player fishing. He understood. ‘We would have that for all of our lives’. Now The Old Man took another drink from his water bottle. That night of the refrigerator, the days ending in a carnivale of roast pig meat and ice seemed long ago. Something that happened to a hero who was not him, did not look like the old face in the pieces of mirror on the few days he chose to shave each week. He looked at the bowl of the wasteland. It seemed empty and void. A place of nothing. I must go into it. I am cursed by that hot radio. They never said you could not salvage with them again. They didn’t need to. From the Great Wreck to the village and as far east as The Gas Station he would no longer salvage, though no one salvaged in the east anyway as it was considered evil. Even the gas station which lay on the far side of a small town that burned to the ground for no reason anyone could remember in the days of the bombs, held little salvage. Further east the bombs had fallen. Anything from there was as bad as the hot radio. The village would allow no salvage from there. So he could not go east, and west and south was for the village. He must go north. North lay the wasteland. He rolled his water bottle back into his thin blanket placing it back in the patched leather satchel. He placed the wide brimmed hat he always wore back atop the stubble of his scalp. There was nothing in the wasteland. No salvage ever came of

12 The Old Man and the Wasteland it. Treks into it returned with nothing or never returned. The sun was high above now. Adjusting the strap, he set off down the rocky slope, dodging lone black volcanic rocks that had dotted the landscape long before the bombs, before the Spanish, before the Anasazi.

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