“I need to be somewhere where having legs doesn’t matter. Somewhere I could move without having to manoeuvre a stupid wheelchair and somewhere no one needs to help me lie down, get up, or roll around.” “Okay, let’s plan something for next weekend, okay?” Aziz suggested. One of her rare smiles appeared on her face. […]
I flipped my hair over my shoulder to get it out of the way. In the tussle, I’d lost the hairband that kept my black mass of hair out of my face. I killed for a living, and my biggest stumbling block was keeping my long hair out of the way. Beauty was a bitch. […]
But I’ve never liked using the memory drugs to erase the knowledge of battle wounds. Civilians use memory wipes to cast bad memories into oblivion, and so are able to forget a bad childhood or traumatic events. Not soldiers. You learn hard lessons in battle, and you should remember, not forget them. A few soldiers […]
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. […]