I remember waking cold, wet, shaking all over. And pain. Confusion. Something horrible lurked just beneath the surface of my mind, looming toward realization. Something so horrible that I wouldn’t be able to...

It hit me suddenly. Pendergast, intent on freeing me, trying to accomplish that and watch all the doors and corners at the same time. Me, seeing the approaching danger but able to make only unintelligible sounds through the gag. But it was enough to alert him, and I saw him hesitate for a split second, making the choice to cut my last binding before whirling to save himself. A fatal sacrifice. Not at all surprising, given what I had come to know about him.

I saw the gun being raised, saw Pendergast, rushing low in desperation, toward the point-blank powder burn that would surround the wound that would kill him. I do not remember thinking anything at that...   read more »

There came another knock at the door.

Greg Kawakita glanced up irritably from rabbit serum he was purifying. The knocking sounded again, hesitant and rapid. Kawakita slipped his shoes back on and hurried over. He wasn’t expecting any of his regular buyers, but that didn’t mean this might not be a new client. At the door, he paused and checked loaded a clip into the small handgun he kept nearby. Just in case.

For a moment Kawakita didn’t recognize the man on the doorstep, shifting his weight from side to side and glancing around apprehensively at the surrounding darkness of the docks. He was no cop, though, nor some drug lord’s thug looking to get rid of competition.

Kawakita replaced the handgun in its hiding place and opened the door, smiling. “You made it! I’m so pleased.”

The visitor stepped inside hurriedly, then froze, looking surprised at his own impudence. It had...   read more »

He hurt everywhere. He had been battling against the pain for some time, willing it away, forcing it from his conscious thought, but now he had nothing left to battle with. He recognized this as fact. His wounds hurt, all of them, his face, his hands. He tried very hard not to move at all, not his head, or his arms, not even to shift his weight. For a while the strategy worked,...   read more »

“Charles? Are you alright?”

Charles DuChamp struggled against the blackness that had enveloped him with such sickening swiftness. He tried to open his eyes, but the pain forced them to stay shut.

The voice came again, more insistent, but also familiar.

“Charles? Charles?” A cool, dry hand touched his face. “Wake up, Charles.” The voice, soft, mellifluous, with a syrupy New Orleans accent, started to break through the fog that clouded DuChamp’s brain. A sudden surge of elation coursed through his heart when he finally thought he recognized the voice.

“Aloysius?” whispered DuChamp. “Is that you? I thought—.” He opened his eyes to stare at the man bending over him, and cold dread cut through him like a knife.

“I’m afraid not, Charles. Aloysius is otherwise…occupied.”

“Diogenes. B-b-but…you’re supposed to be—.”

“Dead? Such rumors have been greatly exaggerated, I’m afraid.”

DuChamp, his heart pounding in his chest, struggled to back away from Diogenes, but his...   read more »

She wondered if she was anything more to him than part of the house. If he, as vigilantly observant as he was, noticed her. When she thought about how long it took him to become aware of her presence in the house, even after she started appearing on the main floors, she thought he would never really see her.

Sometimes, right after Father had gone, she would wonder if she was a ghost. If she wasn’t real. He wasn’t even the one who noticed her first, it was Proctor. Dear, old Proctor. Her only friend beyond Aloysius, and she doubted very much if Proctor thought of her as a friend.

“Good evening, Constance.”

Her heart leaped, and she spun around to watch Aloysius glide into the den. She smoothed her modest green dress, and walked over to his side. He leaned over and kissed her. She tried to keep a prim face...   read more »

She screamed, screamed bloody murder.

No.

She screamed, her hands flying to her mouth to try to

No!

She screamed, unable to stop the

NO!

She screamed.

Maybe.

She screamed. Jeff’s face turned a shade of red thatohbullshitbullshitbullshit

Lee stood up, stretching. Enough for today. It just couldn’t be forced. It was like sex that way, it either worked or it didn’t, and if it didn’t, no amount of pretending would make it right. Time to do something physical, work the kinks out. She decided to pull some weeds. At least it would get her out into the spring sunshine and fresh air before the rain they’d been calling for all week started. She’d made her preparations for the rain and waited for it for four days; it was beginning to appear that the weathermen had all graduated from the same lousy correspondence school of weather prognostication.

She looked down at her denim cutoffs and green tank and figured...   read more »

Proctor heard his name called as he was walking back toward the kitchen, and promptly turned in his tracks. The voice, quiet as always, came from the study. But there was just the slightest tone in that voice. Revealing none of the misgivings that had risen in the short distance between the rooms, Proctor pushed the door open and entered. “Yes?”

His employer sat at his desk, idly twirling a dry sprig of mistletoe between his long, pale index finger and thumb, occasionally brushing it thoughtfully against his chin. His eyes, normally a blue so faint as to almost appear silver, had a darker cast about them. “Proctor, do you remember the woman who gave me this mistletoe last December?”

“Of course.”

“Describe her to me.”

“Medium height. Athletic build. Dark brown hair, thick, worn loose but tucked behind her ears. Bright brown eyes. A scarf in shades of green and gold about her...   read more »

Rick Mathies surveyed the crime scene with a sinking feeling. “Crime scene” seemed a mild description for what lay before him. This was not some run-of-the-mill homicide, two drunks knifing each other in a bar or a hunting “accident” as was expected in a place like Winstead. This was insanity.

Mathies watched Charlie Quinn, his deputy sheriff and acting crime scene tech, photograph the bodies of the victims. Quinn was a veteran of a NYPD crime scene unit who had moved to Winstead to “escape the horrors” of big city crime and to enjoy “semi-retirement” with a small town police force. Mathies doubted he was enjoying anything at the moment.

Mathies’ radio crackled to life. He heard the rather subdued voice of Ed Brandt, the deputy guarding the entrance to the property.

“Rick, the coroner is here.”

“He’s going to have wait just a few more minutes, Ed. Charlie is still processing the...   read more »