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COVER SUMMARY
How To Eat An Alien Banana, Mae
Powers
Every alien lover needs to read this instructional
on slurping up the intergalactic delicacy.
The Watchers,
Mila Ramos
Watchers are sworn to uphold the Sacred Draleigh Coven.
Selene is their Enforcer and Protector. Yet the Coven never
prepared her for one thing – Michael.
Avignon,
Chris Cumo
Two doctors pursue the killer plague across continents.
A climax of lust, sex and death comes with the discovery of
the real killer in Venice.
My Soulless
Mate, Luna Carrol
Rhiannon can't live long without a soul to feed upon,
but Alexander Noceo causes new feelings. Can she risk her
existence to be with Alex?
Prince Of The
Forest, Connie Keenan
Anne doesn’t believe the legend about the
mountains hiding a dark secret—until it leads her into the
path of Otis, the town’s brooding loner.
Anna, Lisa
McDonald
Anna spent centuries wandering the planet, searching for
company through lust and blood, but all she had found was
death, until she met Pete.
Back to the Top
EXCERPTS
The
Watchers
by
Mila Ramos
Prologue
Leaning up against the massive tree trunk, Michael inhaled
the crisp, cool air in a series of rapid breaths. Sweat
dripped off his forehead as his muscles went through spasms.
He took a momentary break. When he left work early that
afternoon he already knew he would never return. When his
bosses found out in the morning he was gone, along with the
biological serum, a red alert would immediately be issued.
His lab, and all his years of research was destroyed, but it
would not matter at all. He would be the main suspect and
his name would be in the same sentence as thief, a traitor
and who knew what else.
That is until
it all fell apart.
* * * *
He had worked
as a scientist for the government the past 10 years, lived
by the beach four more years before that and went under the
name Nathaniel Hazen. Such a strange thing, one might say,
to call himself Nathaniel Hazen when his given name was
Michael Trelawney. Then again, there were stranger things
about him than just the change of his name. For instance, he
maintained a special storage station in Texas that contained
items of great secrecy. Hence, the change of name. But if
prompted to confide in anyone the circumstances that forced
him to start a new life, he knew that it would take too long
to explain.
At first, he
worried someone from his past would know what he was, who he
was, but nothing came up to indicate his true identity. He
never saw any of his people nor did he see or feel anyone
following him. Even though ten years is a long time, it
still doesn’t stop one from looking over his shoulder. For
the most part, he kept his life neatly tucked away, with no
paper trail. He lived a quiet life and dedicated all his
energy to his research. But now that had all changed. Now
that he was once again Michael Trelawney, the things he took
great pains to hide would come out.
As a man on
the run, he took only those things important to him. He
stopped by his home, packed up as much as he could, picked
up his black Labrador, Hunter, and continued heading west.
He didn’t want to leave, he liked the life he made for
himself as Nathaniel Hazen, but the decision was out of his
hands. As he sped down the interstate, he looked in the rear
view mirror again and took a deep breath. Everything he
owned sat in his front seat. He carried his laptop that
stored his entire body of research, all the money from his
now-closed bank account, Hunter and a few other provisions.
None of it
would have happened if he never made up that biological
agent. If he wasn’t so dead set in making that serum, and
spent more time researching just what it was for, he would
have seen the clues. All along, he knew the government was
interested in his special gene location research, but was
too naïve to think it could be used against him. He wanted
to use it for something good. He wanted to use it to show
the implications of genetic markers, how they can trace
paranormal gifts within each and every human being on the
planet. All the bugs had been worked out; all the sequencing
and exams had been reviewed, analyzed and processed for
publication. It was going to be the single biggest
accomplishment of his life. His addition would state he was
a viable member of society.
Not anymore.
Two weeks
before he was to present the agent in a National Conference,
news trickled in about his newly designed experimental serum
through the office gossips. The serum was never going to be
used to as a gene locator. It was to be used as a gene
pin-pointer. It was to be used to located and seek out the
Draleigh Coven and anyone associated with them.
He lived in a
world where a paranormal existence was an abomination of
life. The Coven they sought consisted of were angels.
Angelus Draleigh was its name. It was a secret society to
some but in truth a specie that aided humankind towards the
goal of peace and tranquility between all races. The
Draleigh were gifted and many of those gifts were coveted by
humans. Many wars were fought for the capacity to practice
their magick and power.
He couldn’t
let that happen, and originally intended to take the serum
and run. This though didn’t happen either; someone had
beaten him to the idea. Now, he would pay. By morning he
would be branded a traitor by his employers, and fellow
coworkers. By midday, mercenaries would be after him, if
they weren’t already. It wouldn’t be long before the
government themselves tried to reproduce the serum, change
some of its properties, and maybe even make it deadlier than
before. He guessed they may have already done so since its
disappearance.
His only
chance was to get to the Coven and speak to Selene. He
needed to reach the Enforcers and the Coven before it was
too late. Only then could he explain the full weight of the
horror meant to be unleashed. He needed to reach the one
person who could help him. True it had been years since they
seen each other. She would listen though; Selene understood
things that even he could not grasp. At least he hoped she
would listen to him, things didn’t necessary end well
between him and Selene.
-----------------------------------------
Avignon
by
Chris Cumo
“My God, she’s little more than a child,” said Dr. Peter
Garrett as he examined the corpse of nineteen-year-old
Cassandra Aston. The dark swellings at her throat, armpits
and groin coupled with the stench of blood stoked his fear
that the bubonic plague had claimed her life.
Garrett had seen plague before: two fatal cases in
Bangladesh. But this was different. The Astons weren’t
third-world peasants eking out a living. They were the
richest family on Long Island, where not a single case of
plague had been reported in more than 200 years.
The oddity of Aston’s death demanded confirmation. Garrett
insisted that the body go to Dr. Maurice Thompson, chief of
pathology at New York Presbyterian Hospital. Two days later
Garrett, his nerves frayed by the delay, called the
laboratory.
“I’d have gotten back to you sooner, Peter, but I wanted to
repeat the serological tests to be sure of my results.”
“So you’ve detected the plague bacillus, have you?”
“I’m afraid it’s premature to speak of plague. Her body is
free from bacterial infection. In fact it has no pathogen of
any kind.”
“Impossible, Maurice. We’re dealing with nothing more than a
lab error. Repeat the tests again.”
“I could redo them ad infinitum but the result wouldn’t
change. I’ve been a pathologist nearly thirty-five years and
I can tell you with certainty that Aston’s body has no trace
of disease. Her symptoms notwithstanding, she did not die
from plague or any other infection. Something else must have
killed her.”
But what? The question cast a malevolent shadow over Garrett
as he flew back to Atlanta, where he was a research fellow
at the Centers for Disease Control. Next morning he went to
Dr. Jessica Anderson, chief of bacteriology.
“Peter, my intrepid young researcher and rising star in the
constellation of medical science: you look positively
gloomy. Surely nothing can vex you?”
“Death vexes me. Cassandra Aston did not die from plague.
Thompson confirmed the absence of any pathogen in her body.
She is as disease free as she is dead.”
“Who will take solace in this news?”
“The worms that feast on Miss Aston.”
“Peter, you are a perfect Hamlet. So serious and morbid at
the same time.”
Then matters stood frozen in time, as though Hamlet had
fallen silent after his soliloquy, when news of five strange
deaths in Tunis reached the Centers for Disease Control.
Both Garrett and Anderson went right away but found all five
already buried.
“Disinter them at once,” Anderson commanded James Sanders,
minister of public health.
“Must we desecrate their graves?” pleaded Garrett. “They
died horribly enough.”
“They are dead. What harm can we do them?” Anderson put her
hand on Garrett’s shoulder to steady his nerves. She desired
him more than she could admit to herself. He was more than
her colleague; he was a gentle man and quite handsome in
moments of vulnerability.
Finally they were able to examine those victims who had died
mysterious deaths. The subterranean army of microbes and
worms already had begun to devour the corpses. All bore the
signs of plague. Donning gloves and mask Garrett bent down
to examine each corpse. One was a young man who Garrett
thought looked oddly like Aston. “How old was he, Mr.
Sanders?”
“I’m not sure, perhaps twenty. We’ve interviewed everyone at
the hotel where they were found but no one has told us much.
We don’t even know whether any of the five were related.”
“What do you know about them?” snapped Garrett in
irritation.
“The man you’ve examined probably bled to death. We found
pools of blood near his mouth and eyes.”
In the worst cases of plague, Garrett knew, victims bled so
much internally that blood gushed even from their eyes.
Victims in such distress often had hallucinations of Satan
coming to snatch them to the Underworld.
“We also know from a woman we interviewed,” continued
Sanders, “that all five had been to Cesca Cabrini’s concert
last night, and later to a nightclub.”
“When?”
“The night of their death.”
“Peter, we must get them to pathology at once,” interrupted
Anderson. “Mr. Sanders, how far is the nearest hospital?”
“Two miles.”
“Good, take them there. I will do the serological tests
myself. Peter you will help me prepare the tissue samples.”
But the tests again revealed nothing.
“What are we to make of this?” Garrett ran his hands through
his hair, as he always did when exasperated. “Has some
phantom killed these five and Aston too?”
---------------------------------------------------------
My
Soulless Mate
by
Luna Carrol
As Rhiannon,
daughter of Hades, approached the tent a man exited. She
paused to watch him. The warm glow of the tent danced behind
him. He wasn’t the one calling to her.
Alexander Noceo, commander of the failed attempt to defend
Sparta against the Roman invasion, needed air. For hours he
had sat at the bedside of his closest friend and lieutenant.
How the man was hanging onto life stood beyond reasoning.
There was a slight breeze in the air. Thank the gods for
that at least. The sweat on his brow immediately began
evaporating. His closely cropped hair remained damp from the
sweat.
The camp of makeshift tents, tall torches, campfires, and
groaning men was not a familiar sight to him. He was used to
men slapping one another on the back while raising wine to
him; victories defined his identity and career.
Scanning the vision of his dying men, Alex blamed himself.
Perhaps if he had been more experienced, perhaps if he had
moved quicker, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…
* * * *
Rhi could see that he was in deep thought. He worried about
the things he saw. She knew, though, that there was no
reason to fear death. It was life that reeked of suffering.
Death brought release for most.
She moved closer to him, knowing that her presence could
bring some peace of mind. She smiled softly to herself as he
breathed deeply and closed his eyes.
He appeared to be an impressive man. His body was forged by
battle and yet bore no deforming scars. As a Spartan he was
accustomed to battle, she had seen enough to know. His hair
was dark, and cut in a military fashion, close to his head.
His face, cleanly shaven and defined with sharp lines and
angles. But it was when he opened his eyes once more that
she paused and stared. If not for the red edges and dark
circles, his brown eyes could cause a woman to forget her
self-control.
For a moment she wanted him to see her. She wanted him to
want her as much as she wanted him. No, it was best that the
living never see her. Although death wasn’t anything to be
feared, her presence would cause too many questions. She
would, no doubt, be hunted like the many other things man
destroyed because they misunderstood them.
Alex blinked and stared right at her.
He couldn’t see her, could he? Had her brief desire to have
him see her allowed him to? He rubbed his tired eyes and
blinked once more. Obviously not seeing anything he walked
right past her.
With a sigh of relief, Rhiannon walked into the tent.
* * * *
The body was lying on a crude, wooden table. Not exactly the
comfortable death bed she would want. Trauma beset souls as
they departed their shells. As if sensing her, he turned his
face slightly toward her. It was always like this for those
who suffered. They could see her and felt drawn to her
inexplicably.
She ran her fingertips over his barely breathing body. The
blood from his wound had been cleaned. He had obviously been
struck in the heart. Mortal medicine could not save him.
She licked her lips lightly. Her eyes turned blacker than
any night. Hungrily she climbed onto the tall table, her
black dress pulled taut over her thighs and buttocks. On all
fours she inched from his feet to stare into his near
lifeless eyes.
“Tell me your name.” Her whisper was no more than a breeze.
“Brutus.” His eyes appeared bright blue and slightly rounded
with fear.
“Do not be afraid of me, Brutus. I’m here to help you.”
“Help…” She covered his mouth with her own. A gentle kiss,
deep and passionate. She could feel her sex swelling with
anticipation. Sliding her hands to either side of his face,
her hips began to move in a rounded motion. She was so
hungry and the hint of soul that she could taste was so
pure, so deeply satisfying, that she could exist for at
least two maybe three days on it.
She was wet. Her release and his death were so connected now
that the moment his soul transferred to her would mean an
orgasm. It was coming. She groaned slightly as the soul
slipped from his mouth and into hers. Her woman’s center
throbbed now. That delicious feeling of needing to be
touched, but knowing that the moment it was then a touch
wouldn’t be enough. She pressed her center against the man’s
groin area. Perhaps she should have had him physically, too.
She was thrown from his body, the shock stunning as she hit
the ground.
“What the hell are you?” Alex’s voice resounded closely to
her.
------------------------------------------------------
Prince Of The Forest
by
Connie Keenan
“Legends and folklore. Need any more proof that it’s all
nonsense?”
It was a rhetorical question, nothing new considering the
source. Alan Pinter, the veterinarian I worked for, didn’t
believe in anything. Not as far as I could tell, anyway, and
I’d worked for that cold fish for over three years.
Yet Dr. Pinter’s voice sounded like nothing more than
background noise. My attention was drawn instead to the
odd-looking creature dying on the table in Examining Room
Two. Even so, my gaze kept drifting to the man who’d brought
in the fragile animal. A man I’d seen throughout my life,
though we’d never exchanged more than a few words with each
other in all that time.
“I don’t give a damn ’bout legends,” he muttered to the vet.
“Just do somethin’ for him.”
My boss, more used to giving orders than taking them, glared
at him as he peeled off his gloves.
“Do what? There’s nothing anyone can do for the animal,” he
said. “Hit by a pickup, internal injuries. I doubt if that
thing will make it through the night.”
“He,” the man corrected him. “Not ‘that thing’. He
won’t make it through the night.”
“Eh, fine. Guess I need sensitivity training now. He
won’t make it. He’s also done terrorizing this town, that’s
for damn sure.”
I frowned. “This is the Mountain Devil?”
“I assume so. Pretty harmless devil, eh?” Pinter scoffed.
“People around here are so ignorant. No such thing as
devils. Or God, for that matter. It’s just an ugly dog.
That’s all. Big, mangy, ugly dog.”
His name was Otis, the man who’d brought in this mass of
ratty fur. Not a very romantic name for a man—Otis. He was
the last of the Ledbetters, a rather strange family who’d
lived for years in the brooding mountains surrounding our
small Midwestern town.
The Ledbetters not already dead rotted in prison . . . or so
the local rumor mill would swear on a stack of Bibles.
Only Otis remained. A tall, lanky scarecrow of a man, he
kept to himself. He didn’t talk much and rarely smiled,
which added to his austere demeanor. I’d always been a
little afraid of him, and I wasn’t the only one, either.
Now, though, he didn’t look quite so scary. I watched his
hands, long and thin, roughened by work—he was a carpenter,
and a good one, that nobody could take away from him—gently
stroking the dog’s fur. Otis’ eyes met mine when he realized
he was being watched, and I saw the corners of his mouth
twitch in irritation.
“So that’s—that’s it then?” he demanded. “We’re just gonna
let him die?”
I knew Pinter could be nasty if questioned about his
superior opinions and methods, so I quickly answered the
question as best I could.
“To keep him alive, Otis, would just be putting off the
inevitable,” I explained softly. “It’s kinder, at this
point, to let nature take over.”
The sight of Otis’ lower lip quivering stunned me. I saw it
then; this undeniable, terrible sadness in his eyes. But
why? The dog didn’t belong to him. He’d told us he found the
creature on the side of the road, injured and bloodied.
He quickly recovered, eyeing me sternly. “In that case, I’ll
take him.”
“That’s not really necessary. We’ll take care of—”
“Uh-uh. He ain’t dyin’ in some vet’s cold office. No, sir.”
Not wasting any time, he swept the dog into his arms with a
tenderness that I would never have expected. “I’ll make sure
he gets a decent burial.”
Behind Otis’ back, Pinter rolled his eyes at me and
shrugged. Evidently he was done with our last client for the
day—but I wasn’t.
I followed Otis and managed to step around him before he
reached the door, opening it for him. To my surprise he
hesitated, turned to me and mumbled, “Thanks. ’Night, Anne.”
He remembers my name? I wondered. I offered a smile
in vain because I sure didn’t get one in return.
It was hard not to watch him as he headed back to his SUV,
placing the animal gingerly down on an old blanket he’d
spread out in the cargo area. Otis glanced at me one last
time, a much softer look than those eyes of steel gray-blue
had given me since he’d arrived. Then he disappeared back up
the road, to his home tucked away somewhere in those thick,
wooded mountains.
-----------------------------------------------------------
The glint in Anna’s eyes, as well as the coppery taste in
her mouth, reminded her of what she had become over the
years. She was bitter towards mortality, yet tolerant of it
for the sake of personal existence. She needed mortals more
then they needed her, and yet, her quest for one companion
never seemed to end. Year after century, she had still come
up empty, until this clouded night.
It was unclear what happened this time, two hundred and
fifty some odd years after her birth in to kindred society,
but this mortal was different. The saloon was a bitter
reminder of the simple life mankind practiced for centuries
before the turn of the industrial revolution. It was one of
the last remnants of a smoky bar with thickly coated wood,
painted with clear coat many times over.
She sat at the end, reminiscing about many nights spent
here, being preyed upon by many a hungry man, only to turn
the tables and make them her evening meal. Everything was
wood inside the saloon, sans for the illumination of neon
advertising the liquor companies handed over to be stocked
on the walls, across the mirrors and under the bar itself.
This wasn’t an average walk in bar however, it was more
upscale, attracting what Anna called the ‘young republican’
type crowd, although it was by no means the trendy spot of
the city.
It had sat in the same spot since 1879, when a young
Irishman had come to the United States looking to make an
honest living. She remembered meeting the owner, Douglas
McDonald, and his sweet dreams of success in the United
States. This husband and father, sadly enough, fell ill to
flu, eventually dying at the young age of thirty eight.
It was a hard life for his wife, running the family, running
the Tavern, and for a brief moment, she had actually felt
sorry for the woman, and had a thought of relieving her of
it all through simmering, vampiric heat, but the cause and
effect of her actions would be felt tenfold in a city that
thrived on tabloid gossip and headline shockers. To find a
family of four left behind would expose her, and so she left
well enough alone.
The saloon had been handed down, generation after
generation, and was one of the few family owned
establishments left in the city, with converted apartments
still above to house them. Her emerald eyes took in the aged
décor, lights that seemed to hang loosely, and she could
swear the building inspector could really shut this tavern
down at any time as occasionally a bulb would flicker in
protest about being on all day and night.
Her lushly pink painted nails tapped lightly against the
bar, as if expecting something to happen at any moment, and
with her sitting alone, something usually did. She had seen
many a man come and go by her wayside, fashions changing
over the years, attitudes, even the scents of the city
seemed to evolve as time passed by.
It started as fresh cut grass and moving dirt way back when,
charring to coal at the turn of the century, and with each
rainstorm, the build up of grit seemed to wash away,
renewing the process all over again. Now, all that remained
inside was a musty, aged smell, laced with stale liquor,
cigarettes and the occasional wisp of a plug in air
freshener that seemed to relieve the senses of the aged
structure. Though, her travels took her long and far for
extended periods of time, she always came back here and her
seat was always ready to be taken.
A handsome visage of a man approached, dark from head to toe
as he spoke with a slight accent, one that was probably long
forgotten as a child to him. He introduced himself as Pete,
short version of Peter coming from a popular 18th
century Russian name, reminding her of long walks through St
Petersburg, the window to Europe, before the Petrograd riots
of 1917. He spotted her relaxing in the smoky lounge looking
particularly bored. What sustained her interest in his
approach was the personality that exuded from his presence.
Eyes turned to him as he walked, fancying his raven locks
cropped neatly, eyes the color of iced sapphires and the
swagger of an Irish hooligan. He seemed an easy meal, but as
she watched him, she was suddenly not hungry; at least not
for sustenance in her belly. There was desperation at work,
and when he approached with an introduction, a simple smile
made her crave it even more.
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ISSN1-1555-5496 Vol,06-25