“Final meal choice, Dunbar. What do you want?”
Vic Dunbar lifted his head. He’d thought long and hard, trying to decide between steak and spaghetti. “Got anyone who can cook a good steak?” Nothing beat Lady Love’s cooking, but beggars couldn’t be too picky.
Kate, his prison guard, narrowed her eyes at him.
Darkness hangs around me in the twelve-by-twelve-foot room like the sour coating of lemon on my tongue.
“Can you tell us who did it?”
Detective Smith motions toward the glass pane, the only source of light flooding the room. A chalky film grits against my teeth.
I lick my lips and assess the five men
Abe could feel the waitress’s eyes creeping toward the case notes as she hovered over the booth.
“Milk or sugar?” she offered.
“Just the coffee.” Abe snapped the folder shut in an aggressive motion. He had long since lost any patience for nosy onlookers and saw no need to treat them with tact.
Gossip shouldn’t feel like a responsibility.
I didn’t want to be the one to tell Stephen, but duty came in odd packages, and he needed to know. So, I squared my shoulders and pushed open the touristy saloon-style doors.
Pausing just inside, I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply.
The conservatory would be positively majestic if not for the body lying in the center.
Mr. Jerome Arkwright had noticed a peculiar aroma as he stepped into the conservatory that morning. Usually, he could smell the imported orchids as soon as he entered the wispy glass room, but an acrid odor masked their fragrance.
My radio buzzed. A body had been discovered in the gray sector. Hopefully it would be a quick study since my shift ended in an hour.
“Officer Toki!” An elf, his face partially obscured by dark hair, flagged me down as I reached my squad car. “Wait up!”
“I’ve got a call.”
Forin would do it this time. Master the All-Gate. And prove his father’s doubts wrong. All the other Gates were limited, only allowing travel between two specific worlds. Heck, sometimes you had to travel thousands of miles just to get to that world’s Gate. The All-Gate would change that. Forin could think of a place,
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Few places in Scarabburgh were built for Atlas beetles. Rhino’s Pawn was no exception.
Calvin ducked through the door, taking care not to snag his horns—two on his thorax and one on his head—on the narrow, wooden frame.
A short rhinoceros beetle stood behind the counter, a ring through the horn on his head.
The figure didn’t show its face. Just stared at me from the void-like eye cavities of a ghoulish white mask. “Don’t be afraid.” The mask distorted its voice, and I trembled. It stepped toward me then crouched to my level. “You’ve lost much, lad.”
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The Main Event: Me versus Sea.
A fight to the finish—probably mine. My opponent is the ocean.
Water’s a liquid? Tell the riptide that. Solid as a giant’s fist, it hauls me farther out every second. To defeat me, the riptide doesn’t drag me under. It doesn’t have to.
He was invisible.
At least, that’s how they treated him.
Roman sat in the weathered rocking chair on his front porch, a light spring breeze tossing his thinning hair. The late afternoon sun raced to hide its face from the world. He sighed.
All was right when he sat in his favorite chair.
“For heaven’s sakes, Afrin, you’re the worst archeologist I’ve ever laid eyes on!”
“I’m a detective, Abraham,” I said, fingering my brimmed hat.
He folded his arms, his eyes on the vista around us. “Four months we’ve been hiking in the Andes—and for what?”
“The Egg of Creation,” Pedro said.
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