"I am glad to see that you survived!" C:\ said, hugging me warmly.

"Who's this nut?" Acrylic asked, an annoyed edge to his voice.

I ignored him for now. "We lost one."

C:\'s brow furrowed. "Fetus?"

I nodded.

"We tried, boss," noted Hard Drive, quietl…

Hard Drive jumped in the backseat and positioned Acrylic in a wrap hold. "Okay, wake him."

I kicked him in the heel again and after a whine and a moan, his eyes fluttered open and he began to squirm.

"Gerroff me!"

"Acrylic. Look at me!" I got right in his…

I could only watch as Hard Drive jury-rigged the defibrillator to serve as a power source. The old red tool chest in the garage was full of both automotive tools and computer parts—cables, chips, drives, discs. He grabbed a few cables and opened up anothe…

Hard Drive's sobs racked his body as he buried his head in his arms beside the still, milky white form of Fetus on the table.

I fumbled with the small cylinders I'd removed from her body without even pausing to consider how they were a part of her. I kne…

The heavily-rusted sign over the garage read "HAL'S AUTO REPAIR", and the address above the front door, which read "462", was missing bottom half of the 2. Spraypaint coated the lower half of the decaying brickwork on the ground floor wall.

Hard Drive ho…

A spirit stood less than three feet from her door, waiting.

It was the old man again, the one she supposed had drowned. His wispy hair and long white beard were matted with sea water. Salt crusted his bloated blue lips and his tattered clothes were drip…

Jonathon woke to the sound of insistent knocking. Everything was dark: his room, the world outside his window, the hallway beyond his open door.

Knockknockknockknockknock--

The sound was definitely coming from within his room. Heart racing, he crept out…

The house appeared abandoned. It was spacious, boasting of what looked to be a dozen rooms, but falling apart. Broad windows, glass gray with dust. An iron plate set into the brick walls proclaimed the house as belonging to F. The massive front door was b…

The cell was small and stone. Although the occupant was a thin woman, her presence filled the room to overflowing. I could feel it in the hallway. I set my chair down just out of arms reach from the thick iron bars, removed my hat and sat down. I smoothed…

Ear splitting sirens shrieked through the night. My little girl, frightened, shot up out of our bed of pallets. Bright lights flashed in unpredictable series, blinding when they exploded and again after they vanished, swallowed by the ever present dark. E…

"Oh you thought our world was the dark reflection of yours?" The man laughed. "That's quite the reversal. Your world is so terrible that we exile the worst of our criminals to your world."

That stopped my accusations flat. "What?"

"Any being that cannot…

"Take care of her, Woost," said the faerie, lifting off from the pillow and flitting to the window. "She's important in ways only she will be able to understand."

"I will be the very air she breathes," the elemental promised.

"I know you will." And then…

"What happens now?" asked Woost.

"Nothing," said the faerie, landing on the pillow next to the infant's head. "Now we wait. And make plans. And hope for the best. Nothing can happen until the child comes of age, anyway, not now that she is bonded and sea…

A spark of green faelight flitted through the nursery window as the last rays of day faded from the sky. At its a center a faerie, no bigger than a single mote of dust. It flew around the room once, twice, three times, before finally settling on the edge …

One of these crazy old nights, before the sun comes up. The wicked wind whispers and moans.

A boy with fiery eyes is waiting for an angel in white.

He found out a long time ago what a woman can do to your soul, but this voice keeps whispering: "She was j…

The boys from the backstreets walk together, moving in one direction - in sync, living lives in the west.

The girls shop for spices and bangles, supreme in the knowledge that they are the children of destiny.

Over at the pet shop, a kitten explodes atom…

Dinner was terse.

Another Tuesday night, another dinner hosted by my parents. Generally, I looked forward to our Tuesday nights. My parents were both good cooks. I loved both of them, though it took me a long time to grow up and appreciate them.

Financi…

I have erred.

Jeopardised my mission in a way I haven't for so very long. Cleaned it as well as I could, didn't I?

I did.

Yes I did.

No matter - they will find it, with their crime scene specialists and their Luminol and their databases and their traine…

Out in the garden on a sunny day surrounded by flowers I sat. The aroma of roses and climbing clematis didn't blot out the smell of my own shampoo. The hum of bees busily gathering nectar an undertone to the bird song announcing their territories and call…

Story is marked as mature

I found myself momentarily unable to move. This was not a sensation I had experienced before, and it startled me in a way that I am still unable to fully articulate.

My faculties rebooted. Clarity, Zeiss-ground crystalline, instantaneously regained. Secon…

Story is marked as mature

"C'mon man, I need you on this!"

KG had been pleading for 20 minutes. I could feel myself drowning in his desperation.

"This is crazy, KG. How many hits you think we can score from robbing a goddamn convenience store??"

"Enough, man. Enough for now. We …

The cube was less than two inches square, yet somehow heavy enough to thwart Rachael's best efforts at forcing the door. Persistence unrewarded, she knelt and reached her hand through the gap, the appendage instantly transformed by her damaged synapses in…

With one socked foot, Rachael pressed against the glass door tentatively, listening hard. Her eye was scanning the glass of the door, or the room beyond, perhaps; her eye kept being drawn to the misty gray form of the silver backed hairbrush--if that was …