A round-faced man who might have looked more at home in a butcher's or a grocer's shouldered his way in to talk to Newkirk. No divination required; the wizard remembered him from the past. He was an Ultra liason.

"Broadview. How are things at Bletchley?"…

Sundown, NM - Authorities report that a 180 metric ton blue whale fell from the sky last night and crushed longtime resident Maggie Mae (89) as she slept.

Chief Mike Bartlett, of the Sundown Police Department, states that no credible explanation for the …

He licks his lips in anticipation, ignoring the searing pain of his torn tongue and the coppery taste of blood in his mouth. Carefully he reaches forward with both hands and takes hold of the box, gripping the top four corners between his thumbs and foref…

The box rests on a small, round table, perfectly centered on its rough surface. The man who purchased it stands across the room, leaning with one shoulder against the wall, staring at the box without really seeing it, lost in contemplation. Before him lie…

Malika hesitated just a moment, then nodded. Dawn was beginning to break over the mountains on the horizon, and she knew -- without quite knowing how she knew -- that most of the deathless would either be taking shelter for the day or be banished back to …

The church in Trien was a handsome stone edifice, built sturdily in decades past and carefully maintained since; the tall arches lifted Orthael's spirits by their apparent timelessness. There was a flicker of candlelight visible through the windows, and t…

"The bargain is this," I began. "A truce. An end to this petty war that began with my ancestors, that has led to so much death."

"NEVER!" the god roared, cutting me off. "WE WILL HAVE OUR VENG--"

I held up my blade again and said nothing. The god's mout…

Malika woke with a start, sitting bolt upright. Morduth was in her hand, ablaze with blue flame that crept up over her hand and wrist. As always the flame did not harm her. Rather it brought her comfort and warmth, and she reveled in its light.

Mistress…

She came to him in a dream, like she always did. She was assigned to him and the dream state was the quickest avenue of communication between realms. She didn't usually have any sort of proper message for him, she was just there to, essentially, comfort h…

He could feel her tenuous caress across his skin, cool and teasing. He turned slowly but never saw her except perhaps as a brief flicker of motion in his peripheral vision. In the diffuse and dim light, shapes at the limits of his vision often turned out …

Despite the situation, Orthael exhaled in deep relief. This, now, was a question that he had heard before. From widows, from parents, from orphans - even, on dark nights, from himself.

"Oh, swordmaiden. The Flame has always been with you. Through all tha…

He aligned the glyphs in his head in a manner that he thought made sense. He drew them out onto a piece of paper and realized that they didn't.

He had been having trouble deciphering this language for months. Being the head of linguistics for the univers…

She was startled to notice they weren't icicles but tears. The Ice Queen didn't understand this emotion of "sadness." She'd certainly heard of it before, but she was quite certain she had never experienced it. Everyone said her heart was as cold as ice, b…

It was the smell of geraniums that called it to mind again after all these years. My kid had picked a handful for me. I got a whiff of them and the years peeled back.

I had to water the garden, and I loved the geraniums best. I sang to them, I read them…

Judgement was diverted from its biographical investigation by the unfamiliar presence of old magic. Perhaps that was not an accurate description, for the weapon was sure that it had been familiar once, and that in that time the magic had not been old at a…

"She'll call." My girlfriend patted my shoulder comfortingly.

"No, she won't. She's stubborn like that; Taurus and all." I stared down at the blank screen of my cell phone.

"Well if she doesn't, forget her."

"Forget her!? She was the only person who di…

Story is marked as mature

Northern Territory, January 1933

Hot lazy arvo here in outpost 606. The Dust Cloud looming on the horizion. It hasn't moved since our arrival. It might move at any second but. That's why we're here.

The men are running out of patience and grog. I wond…

After the Shadowed Valley, at the foothills of Mount Piru, I first saw the Ten Thousand Stares.

That is the literal translation. It is in fact a staircase, older than memory. Starkly simple yet curiously elegant grey slabs of stone, with matching baniste…

Without confidence, I judged that it was my second day on the stair, and I was running low on food and water. Many of my supplies were sinking somewhere down in the valley mires. I shuddered at the memory of my escape.

When the twilit grey dulled, I rest…

I felt around the sides of my neck. She was right. The skin there was sore, tender to the touch. My suspicion of her seemed justified and came flooding back. I was choked recently and she finds me, leash in hand? I don't know if it was guilt or what that …

A glint of dark light. A pitch-black night sky, if you will, crisscrossed by dark galaxies, stars, constellations, darker even than black...

Nick awakens with a full-body shudder, and the monitor starts beeping furiously. A moment later, the pain hits h…

Thing is, this piece I'm writing, bares my entire soul. It involves you and me and all that we love and hold dear. It's told from my perspective, one that I think you need to hear.

But if I let you read it, I am crucifying myself. The sacrifice it entai…

Jacqueline signaled the bartender for another mojito. “It's not obvious to me.”

“Since your attack on Isla Quiribi, F.A.C.E. has split and some enterprising splinters are exploring a kind of freedom that didn't exist under Dr. Whitman.”

“You need me to …

"Eve?...if ya ask me, God set 'er up fer failure."

"...bless 'er heart, but Eve never loved me. Well, she loved me like a person loves another, 'specially since there was so few of us. I suspect she was...more of a fella', in the romance department."

"M…