“It’s all right,” she told him. “It doesn’t hurt.” He squinted more closely at her than most did when she said that sort of thing. Most, when she said it, leaned back in relief, smiled in faithful praise. Turned whatever… Continue reading

I woke up that morning in what had become the usual sticky haze of dread, five hours of sleep sawn apart by moaning, senseless dreams, to find that the vines had finally started prying their way around the door. A… Continue reading

It was Rochelle’s idea to leave a card out for it. Just a plain, ordinary library card sitting on the checkout desk, with a pamphlet and bookmark and one of those fancy new pens, the whole shebang. It couldn’t hurt,… Continue reading

It seemed like a clever name at the time. Cocking a gun called Just You Wait makes a man a little bolder no matter how many are shooting back at him. But lately, the nickel-wrought wink of that name on… Continue reading

She had spent the morning in most of her EV suit, and in prayer. In her quarters, covering her bases in a way that would have horrified, scandalized, and, worst of all, deeply disappointed the Catholic grandmother who had raised… Continue reading

“I have to say,” said the illustrious figure sitting across the desk from him, “I didn’t expect this level of…intense suspicion from the Chosen One.” “It isn’t suspicion,” he lied, spinning the ballpoint pen atop his thumb with practised ease.… Continue reading

“Just one more job,” they mocked, following after him as he tried to stalk away across the tarry black. “How stupid could you be? Since when is there just one more job and then everything will be roses and champagne?… Continue reading