Word came in this morning from Sean O’Reilly, publisher at Arcana Comics, that Candice Crowe will be released as an original graphic novel instead of a five issue comic series.  The coloring of what was originally the fifth and final issue is being completed as I write this and the complete work should see publication later this fall/winter.

Here’s the official blurb:

“For the last six months my life has been sliding out of control, but even in my worst dreams I’d never imagined that it could get this bad.

My father’s a drunk.  My boyfriend’s a selfish pig. And a week ago, my best friend “committed” suicide. To top it all off, I have to climb into some weird freakin’ suit every few hours to keep from looking like a reject from Dawn of the Dead.

My name’s Candice Crowe.  Welcome to my messed-up life.”

Candice Crowe’s just your average American teenager until the death of her mother and the stress of her best friend’s alleged suicide causes her previously dormant powers to surface.  Telepathy.  Telekinesis.  Extreme strength and agility.  Everything a girl could ask for, really.

Gifts like these always come with a price, however, and for Candice it means she’s forced to wear a special suit every few hours to keep her skin from necrotizing from the inside out.  Still, she’s determined not to let that put a damper on either her love life or her dreams of being a rockstar.

But first, Candice intends to find out what happened to her best friend, Claire, and heaven help anyone who gets in her way.

I really enjoyed writing CC and I’m looking forward to seeing it hit the store shelves.  Here’s a look at some of the completed art..

There’s nothing quite like it. That feeling of walking into the bookstore and seeing your name on the cover of a new release sitting there on the shelf. It’s pretty damn magical, if I do say so myself.

But there’s also nothing quite like the feeling you get when, after waiting for weeks, sometimes months, you finally get a response from the editor or agent to whom you submitted your latest work and…it’s another rejection. Even worse, there isn’t any helpful feedback – no sense of where you went wrong or what you can do to make it better. How are you supposed to improve if no one is telling you what you’re doing wrong? How are you supposed to make yourself stand out from the thousands of other submissions they are receiving?

I know, you say to yourself, I’ll sign up for one of those live workshops. One taught by a team of successful authors. Surely they can help me, you think. But every workshop you look at costs hundreds of dollars per session, never mind what it will cost to travel and stay in the hotel for the week. By the time you’re done you’ve spent well over a thousand dollars. Who can afford that?

There has to be a better way. You know what? There is.

It’s called the Summer Writing Intensive and it’s taught by two successful authors, Jon F Merz and Joe Nassise, who have sold more than thirty books between them in the last eight years to publishers such as Simon & Schuster, Harlequin/Gold Eagle, Kensington, St. Martin’s Press, HarperCollins and Tor.

You want to be confident the next time you submit your work. You want that submission to generate interest; for that editor or agent to sit up and take notice. Ideally, that interest will turn into an offer of publication and eventually, later on down the road, you’ll be the one walking into that bookstore looking for that first sight of your new book on the shelves, waiting for a legion of crazed readers to buy it.

The Summer Writing Intensive can help get you there. Best of all, you can do it from your own home at a fraction of the cost of other writing retreats.

The workshop consists of eight live webinars; each focusing on a key element of the writing craft that you need to know in order for your manuscript stand out from the rest and to make your career what you want it to be.

Each webinar session will be an hour long and will include handouts and real-world examples to illustrate the point of each lesson. As a participant you’ll be able to ask questions and interact during all of the sessions, allowing you the opportunity to learn from your fellow participants as well as from the instructors. Transcripts of each session will be available after the workshop for you to refer back to at a later date, so you’ll always have the material on hand when you need it.

Here’s a quick look at the sessions and what you’ll be focusing on in each one:

Story Structure: Crafting a Plot that Begs the Reader to Keep Reading

In this lesson you’ll learn:

• How proper structure is necessary for a story to work
• Why conflict is the key to any story, regardless of genre
• The three pillars of plot that support your story
• The best ways to build complications that make sense and increase the conflict

Living, Breathing Characters: Make Your Heroes and Villains Come Alive

In this lesson you’ll learn:

• Techniques to design and execute character arcs in your stories
• How to give your heroes larger-than-life qualities
• The proper use of backstory and how to provide context to your characters’ actions
• How to create villains that your readers love to hate

Pacing: Getting to the Climax is Just as Important as Having a Good One

In this lesson you’ll learn:

• How to craft an effective hook to open your story
• The importance of adding tension to every page
• Why so many books sag in the middle – and what you can do to prevent it from happening to yours
• Five ways to craft a knock-out ending

Action Scenes: It’s a Gun Fight not a Ballet

In this lesson you’ll learn:

• The basics of a fight: emotion, adrenaline, and tactics
• Armed and unarmed fighting for writers
• Structuring your fight scene so it leaves the reader breathless
• Does it make sense? Understanding anatomy and how the body responds to being punched, pulled and crushed

Revision: Sharpen that Knife, Baby!

In this lesson you’ll learn:

• How proper structure can keep your revision work to a minimum
• Specific techniques to organize your revision work so that you don’t waste unnecessary time
• How to know what to revise and what to leave alone
• Ways to polish the good stuff to make it great

Proposals: In Order to Sell, it has to Sing

In this lesson you’ll learn:

• The three key elements of a great proposal
• How to write a synopsis that grabs them by the throat and won’t let go
• How to write a query letter an agent or editor will actually read – then act upon!
• Ways to craft a proposal package that will have your editor or agent wanting more

Social Media Marketing: Using Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to Build Your Career and Promote Your Work

In this lesson you’ll learn:

• What’s behind the Facebook craze and why it’s important to you
• The difference between a solid Twitter presence and a poor one
• How using LinkedIn can enhance your career and provide opportunities you might have otherwise missed
• How to measure and monitor your social media impact

Digital Editions: Stop Leaving Money on the Table

In this lesson you’ll learn:

• What you need to know before putting digital editions of your work up for sale
• Tips and tricks to properly format your book for sale on the Kindle
• How to get format and upload your book for sale on the iPad
• Ways to promote and publicize your digital editions to make the most of your offerings

The techniques Joe and Jon will be teaching in the workshop have helped them write and sell successful novels in a variety of genres – here’s just a sample of what they’ve published recently:

Better yet, the workshop has been designed with the would-be author’s pocketbook in mind. You get:

• Eight sessions focused on improving your craft
• Handouts and real-world examples to help you put the techniques into action
• A written transcript of each session
• Feedback and advice from two bestselling writers

All for just $125.00

The workshop begins July 21^st and runs through Sept 8^th, meeting each Wednesday night. Sessions start at 9:00 pm EST and run for an hour. (If you have to miss a session, the workshop transcript and materials can be sent to you following the session.)

If you’re thinking about submitting your work in the next few months, you don’t want to miss the Summer Writing Intensive. We’re limited to 100 slots, so get your registration in early!

Announcing a brand new ebook of four thrilling tales from Jon F. Merz and Joseph Nassise…

4 for FRIDAY

Four tales – 20,000 words of pure adrenalized mayhem – available only for an extremely short time: FRIDAY for the incredibly amazing price of just $2.50

Available in any ebook format (pdf, epub, mobi, ltf) 4 for FRIDAY ships right away, as soon as you order it!

Contents:

Barlow’s Game – On the streets of monster town, one veteran agent tracks an elusive killer and finds much more than he bargained for…
Roadside Memorials – What we do for the living, isn’t always right for the dead…
A Peaceable Mind – What happens when a simple assassination turns out to be anything but?
Siren Call – Sometimes it is best not to disturb that which lies dreaming in the dark…

PLUS, exclusive introductions to the stories direct from the authors themselves.

Don’t wait! Get 4 for FRIDAY right now by choosing your file format and then clicking the Buy Now button below. There are no plans to offer this ebook for sale anywhere else except direct from the authors.

File Format

PDF MOBI (Kindle) EPUB LRF (Sony)

My next Rogue Angel adventure, The Dragon’s Mark, will be available in early September and I’ve received this low resolution scan of the cover art to share with you all.  (Update with a new, high-res image thanks to my marvelous editor!)

I’m very happy with it, given what the book is about, and I think the tagline “For everything light, there is something dark” is just perfect!

The Dragon's Mark

One of the guilty secrets I’ve been keeping for the last few months is that Bad Moon Books will be releasing a trade paperback omnibus edition of the Templar Chronicles trilogy. The book will sell for somewhere between $25.00 – $30.00 and will contain the complete English text of all three Templar novels – The Heretic, A Scream of Angels, and A Tear in the Sky.

Here’s the really cool news – I recently heard from Roy at BMB and he tells me that we’re looking at having the books available by the end of July/early August!

Typesetting on the volume is nearly finished and it will be going to the printer shortly after that, which means pre-orders will start in just a few weeks. What this space for more information as we get closer to the date.

For now, though, let me leave you with the gorgeous cover art created by Kip Ayers. He’s done a marvelous job and I can’t wait to hold a copy of this book in my hands!

Back on April 27th I started posting one chapter a day from my 2003 novel RIVERWATCH.  I thought it might be a nice way to give back to some of my fans while at the same time introducing others to my fiction in a way that doesn’t require them to lay out any cash or even much effort.  Subscribe to the feed and voila – every day a new chapter in a book that was nominated for both the International Horror Guild Award and the Bram Stoker Award.  How much easier can it get than that?

So here we are at day 17 and I’m starting to wonder if I should bother continuing.  There hasn’t been a single comment or tweet on any of the entries, so I don’t know if people are enjoying the posts, bored with the story, or just completely indifferent to the entire concept.  Traffic to the site has jumped a little, but not by much, so it doesn’t seem to be attracting new readers, although this could be simply be because I haven’t had time to get out there and promote it all that much.

With all that said, I’ve decided to leave it in your hands.  If you want to see the daily posts continue, leave a comment below.  If I don’t receive any feedback one way or another over the next couple of days,  I’ll probably stop the daily posts and simply put up a single link to download the ebook as a whole.  That way people still get to read the book (and finish the story they’ve started) if they want to.  Who knows – maybe more of you will like that approach anyway?

RIVERWATCH

Damon spent his first twenty minutes on the scene interviewing Jake and Katelynn. After telling them he’d be in contact shortly to follow up, he let them go home and turned his attention to the scene itself.  He had a lurking suspicion for the last several days that they’d missed something at the first two crime scenes, something special, something that would provide that one important clue he so desperately needed. This time he intended to take no chances.

If it’s here, he thought with grim determination, we’ll find it.

He ordered the officers to take up watch at the gates to the estate with the command that they admit no one but the coroner and the state police forensic squad. Officers searched the house thoroughly looking for any sign of the owner, to no avail. Hudson Blake was quickly put at the top of the Sheriff’s suspect list and an APB was put out on him with a “wanted for questioning” alert.

It wasn’t long before Strickland arrived, alerted personally as he’d been by Damon via radio just after the call came in. Ed came up the drive in a hurried walk, his black doctor’s bag in one hand and his crime scene kit in the other.

Damon turned toward the house and matched his stride, filling Ed in on the details as they went in.

On the second floor they stopped at the entrance of the room before entering, letting initial impressions sink in. Roughly forty square feet, the room looked to have once been a study. A desk was pushed flat against the wall off to the right, next to a small table. Bookshelves partially lined two of the other walls. A glass shelved display case stood between the bookshelves, filled with medieval weaponry. The fourth wall, directly opposite the door in which they were standing, was split in the center by a set of open French doors.

In the middle of the room a large circle had been drawn on the polished wood floor with some kind of white powder or sand. In the center of that circle, a second design had been similarly laid out. A bejeweled sword was thrust point first into the floor inside the latter. A dark stain coated the blade’s surface and a section of the floor several feet wide surrounding the tip of the blade. The light from the morning sun coming in through the open balcony doors glistened off the precious stones set in the weapon’s hilt and cast a long, cross-shaped shadow across the floor in their direction.

Beside him, Damon heard Strickland whisper, “What in the name of God…?”

Once Damon tore his gaze from the strange tableau in the center of the room, he noticed what had sparked Strickland’s outburst.

Small amounts of blood were splashed in odd places throughout the rest of the room: on the spines of a book, on the front of the desk, on the gossamer-like curtains that blew in the slight breeze coming through the open doors. The headless corpse of a small animal, possibly a cat, lay in one corner as if carelessly tossed there. A small gilded cage stood incongruously on the desktop beside a revolver.

A man’s lower leg jutted out from behind one of the open balcony doors.

Thinking of the other recent crime scenes, Damon found himself hoping there was a body attached to that leg.

“Ed,” he said aloud, pointing out the limb to his companion, who was still staring in amazement at the condition of the room. The two men made their way to the balcony, being careful not to disturb anything as they crossed the room.

On the balcony they discovered the mutilated body of a middle-aged man. Like the Cummings, large chunks of flesh were missing from the corpse. However, this time the killer had added a new twist. Several weapons, obviously taken from the weapons case in the next room, had been thrust violently into the body and left there, reminding Damon of pins in a pincushion. One corner of Damon’s mind began absently cataloguing the weapons; that’s a broadsword, and an epee, and a dirk…. He shut the voice off quickly.

“Recognize him?” Strickland asked.

“No, but we’ve got a positive ID.”

The man’s face was twisted in a savage expression of fear and pain, partially splashed with blood. Damon told Strickland that Jake had provided a confirmation that the man was Charles Turner, Blake’s butler.

Strickland set his bags down on a clean section of the balcony and opened one up. Withdrawing a pair of thick rubber gloves, he pulled them on and then knelt next to the body to begin his examination.

Damon gave him a few moments to do the prelim, and then asked, “What do you think?”

“No question it’s the same killer. Exterior soft organs gone; eyes, tongue, etc. Chest cavity penetrated, probably find a few organs missing from there as well once I open him up on the table. What I can’t figure are these weapons.”

“Pre or post?” Damon asked, referring to whether or not the weapons had been used while the victim was still alive.

Ed gave it some thought. “At a guess I’d have to say he was still alive when they were used. There’s some evidence of bleeding around the wounds themselves, though it is hard to be sure. From his facial expression there is no question the poor bastard suffered.” Ed shook his head in frustration. “Then again, they could all be post-mortem. Wounds of that type should have bled one heck of a lot, yet the floor beneath him is practically blood-free.” He looked up at Damon. “I can’t say either way until I open him up.”

When Ed bent again over the body, Damon left him to his task and walked back into the room. He surveyed the damage and then headed over to the dark stain in the center of the room. As he got closer to it, several details became clear.

The stain was obviously blood; that was immediately apparent. And though partially obscured by the blood, Damon could see that the design laid out on the floor was actually a pentagram enclosed by a circle. The material with which it had been created was probably salt or colored sand, he guessed. It reminded him of the Hopi sand paintings he’d seen once on a trip out West.

The symbolism troubled him. A pentagram inside of a circle was not all that common. He didn’t like the implications. Back in Chicago he’d encountered the symbol once before, during a rash of cult-related homicides. The killer had been deep into the occult, the murders took place as sacrifices in the midst of a black mass. Is that what happened here? Damon wondered. Was Turner the sacrificial victim in some occult ceremony? Had his death taken place here, inside the room, and his body dragged out onto the porch once it was no longer needed? If so, why? Damon gritted his teeth in frustration. This one was like all the others; too many questions and not enough answers. Starting to be the story of my life, he thought.

Being careful to avoid disturbing anything, Damon moved closer to get a better look at the sword. The blade was roughly three feet in length, most of which was stained with blood. The weapon’s hilt was covered with what looked to Damon to be precious stones, though they might have been fake; he certainly wasn’t one to tell the difference.

All in all, it was an impressive weapon. As were the others in the room. Blake must be quite a collector, Damon found himself thinking.

The thought froze him in place.

Damon stood and moved over to the display case. Some weapons were still in their proper places, but the majority lay in a reckless heap on the floor in front of the case. He looked them over carefully, taking his time, examining the set-up. He counted those he could see, then did his best to mentally place them in their proper places with the help of the identification tags inside the case and his own knowledge of ancient weapons. He did this three times, each time arriving at the same result. If he included the sword in the center of the room and those still in the corpse outside, he came up one short. Another sword of approximately the same length as the one in the center of the room was missing.

Had the killer taken it with him?

Damon moved around the room, bending to look beneath the furniture and the bookshelves, making certain he hadn’t simply overlooked it. Beneath the shelves closest to the display case something glinted in the light from his flashlight. Something red.

Damon withdrew an extendible pointer from his breast pocket and used it to fish the object out into the light.

It was a necklace. A gold necklace on which hung a ruby-red stone of considerable size. The chain itself was broken and stained with more dried blood. Damon guessed that it must have been torn off and flung aside during a struggle, and wondered whose it was. Blake’s? Turner’s? The murderer’s?

He used the pointer to push the necklace into a clear plastic evidence bag he withdrew from another pocket, and marked with his pen, noting the date, time, and location he found it.

At that point Strickland came back in from the balcony. “Okay. Here’s what we’ve got. Turner’s wounds are definitely consistent with the other killings. Rigor has set in, but hasn’t left yet, so we know that his death took place sometime in the last twenty-four hours. There’s no sign of post-mortem lividity on the body. A full autopsy should provide more answers, but for now my guess is that he was killed in this room and moved out to the balcony afterward.”

The sound of Damon’s radio interrupted him.

“Wilson here.”

“Nelson, sir. The CSC team is here. And, uh, so is the press.”

Shit.

“Send up the team. Hold the press at the gate, do not, I repeat, do not let any of them onto the property. We’ve got a crime scene to protect here. Tell them I’ll be right down to talk to them personally.”

He replaced the radio on his belt and looked over at Ed.

The coroner nodded, a grim smile playing across his face. “Have fun.”

“Yeah,” Damon responded dryly, and went downstairs to face the music.

PREMONITIONS

Katelynn awoke the next morning with a nagging suspicion that something was wrong. The dream remained with her still and all through breakfast images flashed before her, reminding her of the horror she’d seen. The face of the man on the balcony kept playing itself over and over again, haunting her, until she knew she would have to do something about it.

Although she was reluctant to admit it to herself, she knew that face in her dreams.

She saw the scene again in her mind.

The open balcony doors.

The symbols etched out on the floor.

The man standing in the center of the room, blood covering his face and chest, a sword held in his right hand.

She’d seen both eager anticipation and sudden fear in his eyes.

Katelynn couldn’t deny it any longer. There was absolutely no doubt in her mind that the man in her dreams had been Hudson Blake.

She saw enough in the local news and had even gone to his estate to try and interview him at the start of her thesis. She could still recall his haughty dismissal of her request and the way he’d slammed the door in her face in dismissal.

What was he doing in her dreams?

Katelynn ate her breakfast, mulling it over, then picked up the phone and called Jake. She told him that she had something important to speak to him about, something that she had to do in person, and asked if they could meet. Jake agreed and told her he’d be at her place within the hour.

Good to his word, Jake arrived just on time. She let him in, and the two of them walked through the kitchen and out onto the deck, where they took seats next to each other on the patio chairs. It was a gorgeous morning, but the heat of the sun did nothing to thaw the chill in Katelynn’s bones.

“I want to go over to Riverwatch.”

Jake could see that she was agitated. “Why?”

“I want to try again to get Blake to give me an interview for my thesis. I thought maybe you could help out.”

Jake laughed. “Hell, Katelynn. The man can’t stand me. You’d probably have better luck going without me.”

“No, I don’t think so. He hired you, didn’t he? Maybe with you there he will be more apt to say yes.”

Katelynn didn’t like lying to Jake. He was a friend and deserved better, but she knew that if she told the truth, he would laugh in her face. Jake was too firmly rooted in reality to believe that something like premonitions could exist outside their weekly Swords and Sorcerers sessions. She wanted him there because she had a nagging suspicion that something would be horribly wrong when they arrived at the Blake estate. Jake had always been level-headed in a crisis, and she needed that rock-solid support if it turned out that she was right.

He protested for several more minutes, but eventually Katelynn wore him down. He had the day off due to the continuing police investigation at the Stonemoor estate. He had yet to hear when they would be resuming work, so he could use that as a pretense for going to see Blake. Reluctantly he agreed, if for no better reason than the fact that he enjoyed her company and had nothing better planned for the morning.

Jake waited while she cleaned up her breakfast dishes, then they went out to the Jeep. Loki was waiting inside and Jake let him out to greet Kate for a moment before they all climbed back inside.

The ride to Riverwatch passed in companionable silence, with an occasional chuff from Loki at a passerby on the street he found particularly interesting. It was a sunny morning, and Jake was feeling pretty good about things in general. He had time off from work with pay, money in his pocket, and good friends. He did his best not to think about the events from earlier in the week, not wanting to ruin the beginning of a great day.

When they arrived at the estate, Jake pulled into the drive and down to the front of the house. He parked directly in front of the entrance, knowing that it would probably irritate Charles, which was okay by him, and got out of the Jeep. Katelynn did the same. Before she could shut her door, however, Loki pushed his way past, shot up the front steps, and began barking furiously at the door.

“Shit!” Katelynn exclaimed.

“Don’t worry about it.” Jake said, shutting his door. “Just leave the door open a minute and I’ll get him back inside.” He called to the dog, fully expecting him to return. He’d trained the Akita well, despite the aggravation and the time it had taken. Having such a large dog made the training mandatory in Jake’s view and since being trained Loki had always obeyed him. This time was no different. The dog stopped barking immediately and trotted back to Jake’s side. But instead of climbing back into the car, Loki stood close to Jake, his attention fixed on the mansion’s front door, growling low in his throat.

Jake had only seen him act this way on one other occasion, and that had been when a burglar had tried to break into his home. Something was wrong, that was clear.

Jake squatted down next to the dog. “What is it, boy? What’s in there?”

The Akita looked at him, and then turned back to the door, growling once again. He took a step or two forward, looked back at Jake, and growled a third time.

“Something’s wrong, Katelynn. He never acts like this. I think we should go.”

“Go?” Katelynn asked. She hadn’t taken her eyes off the dog since he’d leapt from the car. A heavy, suffocating weight was slowly settling on her shoulders as she realized that her suspicions had been correct. Something was terribly wrong here, and Katelynn had a hunch she knew just what it was.

“We have to go inside,” she heard herself say. It sounded to her like her voice was coming from a distance, and she wondered if she’d even said it aloud.

Apparently she had. “Inside? What the hell for?” Jake replied.

“Someone might be hurt, Jake. We can’t just leave.”

“The hell we can’t. If it’s got Loki this upset, I’m not going inside.” He turned toward the Jeep, intending on doing just what he’d suggested, when Loki made his own opinion known. The dog dashed back up the steps and jumped up, putting his front paws against the door.

Much to everyone’s surprise, the door opened beneath him and dumped the dog into the foyer. With a cacophony of barking, the Akita disappeared inside.

“Oh, shit!” Jake exclaimed as he chased after him.

Katelynn followed.

Loki must have gone straight upstairs because Jake could hear barking from somewhere above once he was inside. He raced up the steps to the second floor. Loki’s barking became deeper, more strident, and Jake knew that the dog had found whatever it was he had been looking for.

* * *

Back in the foyer, Katelynn glanced around.

Instinctively she knew the house was empty. She knew it with a certainty that surprised her, and this only served to heighten her discomfort. She was frightened for both Blake and his servant, beginning to think that what she had seen in her dreams had been a premonition of harm for them both.

Somewhere up above, the dog’s barking became more urgent.

Katelynn glanced into the closest rooms. If anyone had been in the house, they would have heard the commotion and come to investigate, but every room she checked was empty. Satisfied that her observation had been correct, Katelynn returned to the entryway and started up the steps to the second floor.

* * *

As Jake reached the second floor landing, he glanced down the hall to find the dog standing in the entrance to the very last room. Loki stopped barking and stared at him, obviously waiting for permission before entering.

Jake was not going to give it.

“Come boy,” he said firmly.

The dog stood his ground.

“I said, Come.”

Loki paced back and forth, whining in his throat. It was clear he was not going to obey the command.

“You’re going to regret this,” Jake said through clenched teeth, his anger rising. The last thing he needed was to be caught here in his employer’s house with his dog. He would be out of a job quicker than he could blink. Shaking his head in frustration, he started down the hall.

As soon as Loki saw that Jake was coming toward him, he turned back to face the room, but did not enter it.

When Jake reached the door, he saw why.

* * *

Katelynn came up the stairs, calling their names. She reached the second floor landing and saw Jake and Loki down at the end of the hall. “What’s going on?” she called.

Jake jumped, and then turned to face her. “Stay there, Katelynn. You don’t want to see this.”

“Don’t want to see what?” she asked, ignoring him.

She started down the hallway, her fear growing with each step.

Jake came forward and tried to stop her, but she slipped by his grasp, needing to know, needing to see.

The room was just as she’d seen it; the bookcases, the symbols drawn on the floor, the sword standing upright in the center of the room, except now the room seemed to have been splashed with blood. It was everywhere, and the stench of it must have been what had drawn the dog. Across the room, Katelynn could see the body of a small animal in the far corner. Through the open patio doors the lower portions of a man’s legs could be seen lying on the balcony.

Loki growled softly.

“Is he..?” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the question.

“I don’t know.”

“We’ve got to find out. What if he needs help?” It was the right thing to do, but in her heart Katelynn knew the man was already beyond help.

Jake nodded and started forward.

Katelynn watched as he made his way across the room and out onto the balcony. He disappeared from view behind the partially opened door and then emerged a few moments later. He saw her looking at him and shook his head, letting her know there was no help to be given.

“It’s Blake’s butler,” he said, when he rejoined her. “We’d better find a phone and call the police.”

Taking hold of Loki’s collar, Jake led the way back down the stairs and into Blake’s study where he knew he would find a phone. He gave the details to the 911 operator and was told to wait outside until the Sheriff arrived.

Back in the Jeep, Jake thought about what he’d seen upstairs. He hadn’t really needed to go into that room, hadn’t really needed to discover if the man they’d seen on the balcony had been dead or alive.

He’d already known.

Once you’ve seen death up close, he thought, you can recognize it anywhere.

Despite the sun shining high overhead, the day was no longer as bright and beautiful as it had been when they’d left Katelynn’s.

It had gotten considerably darker.

In the back seat, Loki looked up into the sky and growled low in his throat.

A WITNESS IN THE DARK

On the other side of town, something stirred.

He awakened slowly, ponderously, like a dragon aroused from its enchanted slumber.

He blinked his yellow, cat-like eyes, once, twice, three times.

A voice was calling to him in his mind, a voice he didn’t recognize.

If it had been the old man, he simply would have ignored it, having already decided he would deal with the old fool when the time was right. But this wasn’t the Elder, nor one of his own kind.

So who then?

As far as he knew, the old man and he were the only survivors of the Age of Creation.

Therefore, it had to be a human.

The notion filled him with mild amusement.

Curious, he closed his eyes and relaxed, sloughing off the earthly restraints imposed on his body, sending his awareness soaring out into that dark realm that separates this world from the next; that place out of time, out of space, where the physical laws of reality no longer have any meaning.

In that realm he was free to travel wherever he willed and he used the summons as a beacon, honing in on it, following it to its source.

What he saw there surprised and delighted him.

It also aroused his hunger.

Taking to the sky, he headed in that direction.

* * *

In her dream, Katelynn was standing in the cemetery.

It was late at night.

The moon was hanging in the sky, a baleful eye in the darkness. Its cold blue light touched the edges of the gravestones around her, sending their long, solemn shadows across the dew-wet grass in perfect rank and file, reminding her of an army standing watchful and still.

A grim, motionless army.

The air was heavy with their silence.

Feeling this silence all about her, Katelynn grew afraid.

Without knowing why, she began to run, slipping in and out between the gravestones as she raced desperately across the wet grass. Her heart was thumping wildly and the need to scream rose dangerously in her throat.

She managed to stifle it in time, knowing that if she let it loose that he would hear her.

That thought startled her and brought her up short in her headlong flight to lean against the nearest tombstone.

“He’ll hear me?” she asked herself, with a moment’s rational thought. “Who will hear me?”

She didn’t know. But she did know he was there.

Behind her. In the darkness.

Coming for her.

She had to get away!

A whimper of fear escaped her lips as she pushed away from the headstone and began running again.

The silence behind her changed; became the silence of fear, thick and lazy.

The air grew colder.

She had the unmistakable feeling he was closer now, relentlessly closing the distance between them, and she glanced around frantically, knowing he was out there but unable to find him.

And then she fell.

* * *

The night grew still.

Even the trees seemed to be holding their breath, standing immobile, frozen in place.

The light breeze that had been blowing moments before suddenly died.

The crickets stopped their singing.

From where he knelt in the middle of the floor, Hudson Blake opened his eyes and looked around the room.

He was alone.

But he didn’t expect to remain that way for long.

The beast was coming…

The feeling that someone was nearby, watching, struck him suddenly, and he instinctively cringed, reacting to the presence on a primal level, animalistically aware of the nearness of danger.

Coming…coming…coming…

His mind screamed at him to run but he remained where he was, believing he was safe as long as he stayed within the confines of the protective circle he’d created. He grasped the stone tighter between his hands, his knuckles leeched white from the effort, and repeated the name again and again in his mind, calling out to him.

Moloch…

Moloch…

Moloch…

Abruptly, he realized he was no longer alone.

The warmth of life slowly seeped from his frame as he saw the shadow that fell on the wooden floor, the shadow of the large hulking beast that crouched on his balcony rail, its wings swept wide in the moonlight.

Blake could only mutely stare as icy terror swept over him with the swiftness of a cyclone, but it was too late for thoughts of escape.

Moloch had arrived.

* * *

The dream shifted, wavered, and then coalesced.

No longer in the cemetery, she found herself standing on a railing. Behind her a thirty foot drop over the balcony stretched away to the ground below. A pair of open French doors faced her, and through them she could see an older man kneeling naked in the middle of the floor. His chest and face were stained with a dark, crimson crust.

Dried blood, she realized, as its tangy aroma reached her nostrils. Her mouth twisted into a wide, cruel grin.

Her tongue flicked forward, caressing her upper incisors, feeling their length and sharpness.

What the hell? a distant part of her mind wondered.

A voice not her own spoke, and a chill ran up and down her spine at the icy menace in its words.

“Give me the stone,” it said.

A hand, her own but not her own, reached forward and uncurled its fist.

She saw with growing horror that it wasn’t human.

There were only four fingers, each one tipped with a razor sharp claw, and when they curled into the palm and back out again, gesturing, she heard them clicking together like the rasp of steel on steel.

Her breath caught in her throat as she tried to scream…

She awoke, gasping for air, the sound of her scream still ringing in her ears. Something clutched at her out of the darkness, twined itself in and out of her legs, and she screamed again, thrashing her limbs frantically, fighting off whatever it was with strength born of desperate fright.

With a start she realized she was merely tangled in her bed sheets, the material clinging to her sweat-drenched skin.

“Oh, my God!” she said, her chest heaving as she fought to control the wild beating of her heart.

“It was a nightmare, just a nightmare,” she mumbled as she slumped back against the headboard, drained and exhausted.

Unlike most dreams, this one stayed with her; most of the details etched firmly in her mind. It had been shockingly real and frightening. She couldn’t imagine what had caused it; she hadn’t had such a vivid dream in years, certainly not one so violent.

Or so strange.

She sat up and glanced at the clock.

Three-thirty.

Hours before daylight yet.

She lay back down, willing her body to relax. In time her shaking finally stopped and her breathing lost its ragged edge, returning to its normal rhythm.

Though she hadn’t expected to return to sleep that night, her exhaustion worked to her advantage. Eventually the gentle sounds of her own breathing lulled her to sleep as easily as a child listening to a mother’s lullaby.

At her breast the red gemstone shone brightly with a crimson light all its own.

Across town, Moloch, the beast the stone had connected her with, continued with his bloody assault.

A SUMMONS IN THE NIGHT

Midnight.

The night was still.

Hushed.

Expectant.

The moon hung low on the horizon, looming there as if poised on the edge of a long drop. Since it was early in its ascension, it filled the sky, a vast ball of incandescence that punched a hole in the night’s blackness.

Standing on his balcony, the smooth flagstones beneath his feet damp from the evening’s chill and glistening with the silvery blue light of the moon, Hudson Blake gazed out into that darkness, watchful and vigilant.

As he watched the darkness, he felt it watching him in return.

He sensed it was hungry.

Turning away, he reentered his study through the set of French doors that led to the balcony, and crossed the room, picking up the withered journal that lay open on his desk. The book’s leather binding was stiff and laced with cracks, its pages fragile, yellow with age and neglect.

He read aloud the entry written on the open page.

“To summon the Beast, one must make a true and worthy sacrifice. An offering of that which is most precious to the denizens of the pit must be made swiftly and without hesitation. Once the blood has been shed, if ye are of sound mind and valor, you must take up the Bloodstone in both hands, cupping it between the palms, with the left hand, the Hand of Vengeance, above the right, the Hand of Righteousness. Repeating the words of the unholy incantation contained herein, reach out with the very essence of your now damned soul and call forth that which you desire.”

He’d read that passage more than a hundred times, and the words fell from his lips with the ease of long familiarity.

Having made a substantial study of ancient, mystical traditions, Hudson dismissed most of the text as bullshit. Such rituals were mainly for show, to bolster the performer’s image in the eyes of the uninitiated.

But as the best lies often contain a kernel of truth, so too did the description of the ritual contain the clues needed to bring it to its proper fruition. And in this instance, Blake was certain he had correctly identified them.

The remarks about the crystal were the key.

Carefully laying the book back onto the desk, Hudson reached up under the collar of the shirt he wore and removed the necklace that was hanging about his neck. The dark stone that dangled on the end of the chain spun in the air like a pendulum, sending off tiny flashes of crimson whenever it was touched by the room’s light.

This was the crystal to which the journal had been referring.

The Bloodstone.

He stared at it now, wondering as always where his ancestor, Sebastian had obtained it. Years earlier he’d shown it to several prominent jewelers. None of them had been able to identify the type of stone or its country of origin. Ever since, it had held a particular fascination for him and he’d often gaze at it for long periods of time, attempting to unlock its secrets.

What he did understand was that it was the stone itself, not the ritual or its flowery incantations that would allow him to communicate with the beast his ancestor had known as Moloch.

He held it up to the lamp, shining the light on its ruby surface. Deep inside the stone, he thought he could see movement.

His eyes narrowed as he looked closer.

There! Something had shifted position deep within its depths.

But what?

While he yearned for the answers, he knew they were really not all that important. Only what the stone would allow him to do was.

He leaned over the desk and reread the vital line in the journal.

“…reach out with the very essence of your soul and call forth that which you desire.”

At first, the line had confused him. How does one reach out with the essence of his soul? But after a time he came to realize that he was seeking a deeper meaning than necessary, that the words needed to be taken in the literal sense. Medieval writers had seen the mind and the soul as one, so the passage was actually referring to the mind. Thus reaching out with his soul really meant reaching out with his mind.

He believed that somehow the crystal channeled his thought patterns, much the same way as an antenna will channel radio signals.

All that he had to do to reach Moloch was think about him.

It should be that simple.

He’d tried it before however, without success. His failure with the stone and his inability to find the hidden vault had caused him to dismiss the entire legend of his ancestor’s winged familiar as so much fantasy.

But now that the vault had been found, he was convinced that the journal’s contents were true.

Maybe it was my doubt all along that prevented the connection.

The discovery of the body in the basement of Stonemoor had added fuel to the flames of his beliefs, and after getting all the information from Caruso that he could, he decided that there was only one possible explanation.

The journal was true; the beast did exist.

And with the death of that vandal, it seemed to have returned to the world after hiding itself for so long.

Not that he cared about the fool who had been killed, that wasn’t important. What was important was the fact that at last he’d be able to prove the family legends that had intrigued him all of his adult life. The end of his search was finally in sight.

His fingers itched to seize the power in their bony grasp.

He first learned of the beast’s existence when he’d found the journal years before, hidden in a niche in the fireplace in one of the mansion’s unused rooms. Upon reading it, Hudson scoffed at the information it contained, but later found himself irresistibly drawn back to its musty, yellowed pages again and again, his mind alight with the possibilities he saw there. It was in the journal that he also learned of his ancestor’s pact with the Beast, and the awesome powers it employed for him. Dreaming of possessing such knowledge for himself, he set about to learn if what the journal contained was true.

Tonight he would finally know.

It was time to begin.

Holding the crystal in one hand by its slim gold chain, he moved to the center of the room.

On the floor at his feet rested a number of objects. Considering what he was about to do, he decided to take certain precautions.

Blake was not a deeply religious man and never had been. When he was younger he scoffed at the idea of God and his army of heavenly hosts. Likewise, if there was no God, then there was no Satan, and no demonic army with which to corrupt man from the salvation that supposedly awaited him.

As he’d grown older, he discovered the power that a religious leader can hold over his followers, particularly religions of a darker nature. He joined one after another, studying the craft, learning from those above him before ruthlessly replacing them, taking their power for his own. All those years had slowly but surely convinced him that there was some truth to what the leaders preached. He had become convinced that there was another realm of reality separate from our own, which could be tapped into with the right methods. It didn’t matter what you called it; the supernatural realm, the astral plane, the Other Side, whatever. It was there. Waiting to be made use of. Of that he was certain. Once he made this concession, it was only a short step to believe that this other realm was populated by beings of which we have little knowledge. Hudson felt it was through encounters with creatures from the Other Side that led man to invent religion. After all, what is religion but the attempt to explain that which man fears and doesn’t understand?

Although he still scoffed at the old rituals with their trappings of mysticism and their elaborate schemes to protect the summoner from the very powers he sought to invoke, he did not abandon them entirely. After all, what if there was some validity to them? Could he take the chance and leave himself vulnerable to the very creature he sought to summon and harness for his own use?

No.

That would be foolish and Hudson Blake was anything but a foolish man.

He replaced the crystal around his neck so that he would have both hands free. Shedding the long, black robe he was wearing, he carefully folded it and laid it aside. He took up a small clay bowl in both hands and moved to the open floor space immediately in front of the French doors.

He held the bowl upright in front of him at arm’s length as if in silent supplication, remaining that way for several long moments.

Lowering his arms, he dipped his left hand inside and took up a handful of the fine white salt that filled the bowl. He knelt on one knee and slowly began to let the mixture fall from his grasp to form a smooth, unbroken line on the floor. Once his hand was empty he repeated the process, inching backward as he went, bit by little bit, until a circle eight feet in diameter was laid out around him.

Satisfied, he stepped out of the circle, carefully avoiding making contact with the powder so its integrity as an unbroken circle would remain intact, and returned to the small pile of objects a few feet away.

Bending, he picked up a small cage and a leather wrapped parcel of considerable length. A large black cat lay curled inside the cage and hissed warily as he lifted the cage, watching him with liquid green eyes that accused without words.

Blake grinned.

He hated cats. Always had. He went out of his way to use them in his rituals, taking a sadistic delight in ridding the world of as many of the foul little beasts as he could. With the two objects in hand, he reentered the circle, again carefully stepping over the boundary, and moved to the center, setting the cage at his feet.

He unwrapped the second object, tossing the covering it had been wrapped in outside the circle. The sword swept free of its scabbard with a soft reptilian hiss, and the sound of the steel scraping against the leather sent the blood quickening in his veins. This was the part of the ritual he liked best, and so he waited a few minutes, letting the anticipation he was feeling build until it was a raging river surging against the mental damn of his will.

When the time was right, when his excitement had reached the proper fevered pitch, he straightened and raised the weapon aloft.

Naked, with the moonlight rippling across the silver blue steel of the blade and a light breeze stirring the edges of his hair like the touch of unseen phantom fingers, Hudson Blake began to sing.

The song started as a low murmur, the sound of the wind whispering through the river reeds, but it built with power as he went, getting louder, stronger, until it grew into the roar of a thousand voices all crying out at once.

In the midst of this, he withdrew the cat from its cage. It hissed and spat at him, scratching his forearm with its claws, but he ignored the attacks. He made certain he had a firm grip beneath its forelegs and then held it out at arms-length, away from his body, still singing all the while.

He drew the sword over his shoulder until he could feel the soft kiss of the blade against the bare flesh of his lower back.

Suddenly, abruptly, he stopped singing.

The silence was thick with tension, the air in the room seeming heavier than when he’d begun, filled now with a vibrant energy.

The cat met his gaze with its own.

Understanding passed between them.

The sword came whistling down, cutting through the air with an eerie shriek.

The cat’s severed head fell at Blake’s feet with a soft, wet sound.

Blood sprayed from the stump of its neck; a hot crimson fountain that splashed Hudson’s face and upper body.

Moving quickly, he held the sword beneath the cat’s upended corpse, turning it like a spit on a barbecue so that the entire blade was covered with blood before the river stopped. When the blood ceased to flow, he tossed the corpse across the room.

With the dripping blade he unhesitatingly traced a pentagram inside the boundaries of the circle he had created earlier. According to custom, as long as he remained inside the symbol he would be safe from harm.

Not being the type to risk everything on one toss of the dice however, Blake stepped clear of the circle and retrieved the last object he’d left on the floor. The Smith and Wesson felt satisfyingly heavy in his hands.

He hoped he wouldn’t have to use it.

Returning to the circle, Blake laid the pistol down between his feet. With his other hand he thrust the sword point-first into the floor in front of him so that it stood upright without any support.

He knelt and meditated for several moments, clearing his mind of all extraneous thought.

When he was ready he reached up, cupped the Bloodstone between both palms, and called out with his mind into the dark night, summoning the beast to his side.