“One hundred twenty-one, one hundred twenty-two, one hundred twenty-three…” Scrooge muttered, his thin lips pursed as he stacked the last coin. He paused, squinting at the desk with rheumy eyes. Last time he counted, there had been 124.
“Who stole my sovereign?” he thundered, slamming
Accountant Barnaby Rudge plunks a thick file folder onto my desk. “I’m finished with Pickwick’s papers, Mr. Scrooge.”
“About time.” I pull a leather-bound ledger from the drawer. “Now process Dombey & Son.”
“Certainly—there’s just one thing.”
I scowl. “Do you still have great expectations of going home early for Christmas? Humbug!
The corpse on the table had a melted eye socket, no pulse, and a sticky note on its forehead that read: Don’t eat Carl’s yogurt.
Mariana Vale adjusted her gloves. “You’re contaminating a crime scene, Luke.”
Luke James, wearing two left shoes, a NASA hoodie, and a baseball cap that read “Rebel Alliance Flight School,”
Therrus wanted to hate the cold.
Thick snow spilled over the tops of his snow boots, soaking his socks and numbing his shins and feet. The frigid air assaulted him, stinging his hidden scales and causing his holographically projected skin to turn bright red. He took a deep breath, the wintry Connecticut chill sharp in his lungs
“You, too?”
Therrus ignored the she-human who spoke although he couldn’t help noting her voice was young-sounding, wry, and almost laughing, but with an edge of something else.
Something what? Didn’t concern him. The number one rule for Civarans visiting Earth: do not under any circumstances engage with the humans.
I didn’t know what hit me.
Only moments before I had been reveling in the frost crunching beneath my sneakers and admiring Earth’s rising sun. Technically I wasn’t doing anything that was prohibited. It just never occurred to my superiors that any Civaran would willingly venture into freezing temperatures. As a reptilian, I’m cold blooded, so this was imprudent at best.
The wooden attic floorboards cradled the dying body of Mr. Evergreen.
“What happened, sir?” I set down my candle and wicker basket, palms sweating. Long shadows raced across the floorboards, the light illuminating a knife. The smell of moth balls and old cedar flooded my senses as I knelt. This was not an accident.
Dorian Gray stepped through the shimmering portal, the air of the Nexus Hub a crisp, metallic tang compared to the musty London alley he’d just vacated. Another dimension, another opportunity. His reflection in the polished chrome walls was, as always, flawless. The Nexus, a sprawling interdimensional crossroads, was a haven for those seeking new experiences, new pleasures.
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“As you can tell, the Wild West was a very fascinatin’ place,” the teenaged tour guide said with a fake cowgirl accent and a tone that sounded like she would rather be anywhere else. “And over here, you can see an original journal entry that shows just how superstitious these folks really were.”
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No one in New York paid attention. He liked that.
He also particularly relished this post-rain sunshine.
Taking a deep breath, Dorian started toward the waterfront. This was his ideal way to start the day. It had been for a century.
Immigrating to New York had been his best move.
Count Wilde approached me one day with the deal of a lifetime.
He refused to reveal where he was from or how he got his wealth, but his technology was far more advanced than anything I had ever seen.
All he requested from me was room and board while he did his research.
“Oh, good, I caught up to you! I was afraid I’d be too late. No, please don’t go—that door is always locked anyway, so you can’t get out that way unless you find someone with the right tune key. And there was something I wanted to talk to you about.”
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