A thin man with graying hair and round glasses waved at me with a hand over his head when I reached the top. He was standing under a lone tree that had grown on the top of the hill, the only tree left in the whole cemetery. The rest had been removed to make space […]
Confined to a wheelchair, her main pleasure appeared centred on being alone outside. Unable to get out of bed at night, she would roll herself onto the carpet in the early hours of the morning to drag her body to the terrace door. The nurse would find her on the floor, staring at the ocean […]
Blue and red lights suddenly danced on the street at the alley entrance, and we both froze. The battle between us was one thing; neither of us wanted the police involved. I didn’t, because my work had a lot of moral pitfalls. The vampire didn’t, because when a vampire and a human were caught in […]
“There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result” Winston Churchill once said. There is great truth in that statement, especially when considering the alternative. Flesh and blood cannot stand up to a speeding, burning piece of lead. Nor can it survive a laser frying muscle and bone with the precision of […]
The cemetery was gloomy, even when the sun was bright overhead. We’d been warned to stay away as children – the ghosts could drag you under and you’d never see the light of day again. With what we knew of magic, we believed them. Now the stories seemed ridiculous. Gray tombstones sprouted from the ground […]
She spared some thoughts for the man responsible for her misery, a man she had loved, a man who had become an assassin. He could have killed her, but he didn’t. Why, had been the question that had superseded every other since the shooting. She couldn’t get him out of her mind. She loathed the […]
The vampire tried to dodge me and escape, but I had the upper hand. I knew about the vampire’s speed; it had underestimated mine. I was in front of it before it could get past me. It skidded to halt, gaping at me. In a life-and-death fight, there isn’t a lot of time for questions. […]
Her once vibrant, blonde curls lay flaccid around her head like a scarf of despair. Her once lovely face was now the portrait of the all-consuming pain she had endured for the past several months.
Posing as another agent, and using the pretext that I had an urgent message to deliver to her from Sir Gillian, the guard planted in front of the door of her suite let me in after checking my CIA ID. The name I used then was Antoine Gironde. “What do you want?” Talya asked brusquely […]
Fern was being stupid. I knew why she wanted to get out. Hell, we had seen her fire – her eagerness to leave – since she was a child. My mom used to warn her mom that she was going to be trouble. She should have been a fire talent and left earth to the […]