Thane of Hearts, Final Chapter
The days following the discovery of the dead priest were tense. Rafn was the Valraven. Of this I had no doubt, and the knowledge scared me. The great _Wyrm of Midgard_, _Fenrir_ the wolf, _Ratatosk_ the messenger; marvellous beasts of wonder live in...
Between Winters, Part XVI
**Between Winters, XVI** Straddled across his warhorse, and at a comfortable distance from the battlefield, General Ted Arbinger watched his greyrobes march across the plains south of Iunas Blessing. With every step they created a fiery inferno, and...
The Casebook of Dr. Exeter, Chapter Three
**III - THE FOOL** I am certain that you understand the dilemma I was in. Not only had I acquired a book of such exquisite rarity that its mere existence was widely considered hypothetical - an illusionary work thought up by dreamers and fantasts,...
Carter Wolf - a Fall from Grace , Part I
"Carter?" "Speaking." "Quinn here." Quinn? I reached for the remote and put _Kind of Blue_ on pause. Quinn is one of the few people outside of my family who knows about my condition. He's also chief inspector of the Oakenford Police, and possibly...
Night is the Time for Killing
## Night is the Time for Killing. Inspector Quinn loves coffee. Cappuchino, espresso, cortado - just give him a decent cup of joe and he'll love it with a passion that makes you suspect him of being secretly French. Only, I don't have hard proof to...
Cry me a Murder, pt 7 - The Other Side of Zero
Cry Me a Murder. Chapter VII. _The Other Side of Zero._ Morning. I needed a smoke, I needed coffee, I needed a drink and I needed to puke. My stomach cramped up from last night's good bourbon and bad judgement. I'd been so eager to solve the...
Cry Me a Murder, Part III - a Strange Crunching Underfoot
**A Strange Crunching Underfoot** _Previously: In that moment, a loud scream rang out from somewhere inside the hotel, and we froze mid-sentence. It was a man__'s voice, but it wasn't the howl of a human in agony, or a desperate wail of sorrow; It...
Dig my Grave in Reno, part one
Chapter one. When Pablo Cardoso discovered a small gold nugget in his washing pan, he blessed his good fortune. He had panned the streams trickling down the mountain of Aqua Caliente for the better of six months, and soon he would have enough pesos in...
Murder at the Speed of Life #1
I Whenever somebody brought up the subject of death during conversation, Dianne Walsh would politely change the topic, or make an excuse to walk away. To Dianne, death was an event that belonged within the confinements of crime fiction. It was a...
Murder at the Speed of Life, part 2
V There is an average of five million car crashes across the USA every year. 30,000 of them are fatal, making up a total of 47,000 corpses because people don't like to die alone. Tonight, Chad Scanlon added to that statistics by ramming his rented...
Murder at the Speed of Life, part 3
**VIII** I once shared a train with a guy who had seven people inside his head. He wore a pair of worn blue jeans and a faded T-shirt, and he talked to himself in seven voices. People talk to themselves all the time, but that don't make them crazy,...
The Fire Without. (Part 2)
If Lester Finch had known he would be a corpse by lunch, he would have bought himself a pastrami sandwich. But he shuffled past the Jewish deli, ignored the German bakery and paid no notice to the French Patisserie. Far from being a food nationalist,...