Samples / Teasers
The Demon's Mistress
She came to an antique white door, trimmed with what looked like real gold leaf.
The guard said, “Stop. Stand still,” then unchained and removed Sefira’s corset while her partner stood five yards back with the control rod ready. “OK, go. Knock first.”
Sefira hesitated. The guard at her back prodded her with a manacle. The advice Yvette gave popped into her head: “Do what I do, Mistress. Fuck the hell out of ’em. Give ’em climaxes to remember and scars to regret.” Sefira smiled. It was a long shot, but perhaps she could goad this infernal being into getting carried away, into destroying her. Dark lords weren’t known for their restraint. She knocked.
The Only Possible Saint
The devil-girl stopped her grotesque violation of the monster’s corpse and twisted to look at her. She pulled her tails from the monster’s nostrils; the ends were spike-like and covered with grey sludge. She had one grey eye with a vertical iris and one wrecked, empty eye socket. Her bald head had no ears that Kristi could see, just the two slightly curving horns.
“Kristi? Are you alright? Oh shit, you’re bleeding!”
Kristi gasped. That voice. She knew that voice.
The Devil's Puppets
With a shout, Balam charged, raising his great axe above his head. As Kat pivoted, lifting the two bloody bolts on threads of power, she saw Gabriel’s subtle gesture, signaling her to wait. As the fallen lord swung the axe down, Gabriel stepped forward, intercepting the haft with their left hand and stopping the blow cold. With a jerk, Gabriel wrenched the weapon from Balam’s grip. The captain flicked it away, twirling in a graceful arc toward the sea. The dark lord’s bellow was cut short as Gabriel grasped his throat and lifted him from the ground. He did not flail, and Kat saw why: at his sternum the great spear tip pierced his armor. A trickle of black blood ran down the spear’s shaft. Gabriel pulled the spear back and threw the fallen at Satan. The Devil dodged, and Balam tumbled and bounced thirty yards past him.
“Go home, child,” Gabriel said. “This tete-a-tete is only for the adults. Come at me again at your peril.”
The Angel's Ward
The cold, light tailwind terminated. Not fell, not faded, the moving air stopped as if an open window had been slammed shut. Hana whirled around and sped to a large, barren shrub just east of the pond and lit on a branch. The warrior focused and sharpened their senses like the edge of a well-stropped razor. The angel listened to the well-known soundscape of the domain. It changed. There! Some of the voices of the natural world just disappeared. What is happening? Fear and anxiety gripped Hana.
Hana silently sang the little ditty sung long ago to the children to calm them during storms. Then they took off and changed to their blessed form, flying straight up. The angel climbed several hundred feet above the trees, then drifted like a falling leaf.
There. North. There. Northeast. East too.
Blood of the Fallen
“You have stood at the edge of utter darkness too long. Your decisions have endangered not just that unfortunate boy, but too many others. Your heart wears its death shroud.” The captain shook their head. “I am not a dark lord that sends monsters out just to kill.”
“You, you go too far, Uriel!”
Sefira thrust out her hand to stop Gabriel. “Truths, painful truths I have long borne. Here is my judgment: you abandoned me and all those captured to torment you cannot fathom. Oblivion rejected my prayers. I would be lost in the darkness but for those who loved me. Except one,” Sefira pointed at Gabriel, “Satan has taken my loved ones from me. You have a simple choice: send me to harm Satan or bear the blood of those trying to stop me.”