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  “Tremain.” The desk shook under my head as something thick and solid made violent contact with it.

  “Wha-huh?” I blinked, sucking in air like the wind had been knocked out of me. It hadn’t. The ecology textbook in my face shook slightly under the hand still gripping it. Why had I fallen asleep again? “Sorry, Professor Watkins.”

  “Don’t be sorry just wake the Hell up, Tremain. You can’t afford to fail the final.” Watkins turned on his heel and paced back to the front of the room. “Everything I lecture about is important to you, not me. I learned this stuff thirty years ago. Go ahead and fail, all of you, like Tremain is going to. You know what I call that?”

  The pair of giggling girls behind me snickered something about flat-bottomed Professors. They had a point, but I couldn’t focus enough on it to even crack a smile. The tap and squeak of chalk on the board made my ears feel like they’d been making out with ice picks. I squinted at the words, trying to make sense of the chalky squiggles. One giant snowfall and I couldn’t concentrate. I could barely stay awake.

  “For you miserable louts who can’t be bothered to look at the board, that says job security.” Watkins tapped the chalk under each word as he said it. “Mine, not yours. I just get paid more when you repeat my class. Exam’s on Monday, so you have today and the weekend to prepare. Get a study buddy. Get your notes and syllabus. Get it under control. Pass so I don’t have to look at you next semester. Get out of here and hit some books.”

  I leaned down to pick up my backpack. A minute later, I sat up again, snorting out the tail end of a snore and wiping a thin string of drool off my cheek. Except it wasn’t a minute later. It was dark outside and the.....

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  I just moved. Not from one town to another, but from one end of the couch to the other end. I don't usually sit on this side, but I'm trying to listen in on the apartment next door. I'm rather particular about where I sit because I like thing to be to the left of me. I need to be able to see what's there.

  The walls of our two bedroom apartment are thin and covered in the standard off-white paint of a rental unit, but I still can't make out the words on the other side. I can only decipher the pitch of the voices.

  One is high.

  One is low.

  Girl.

  Boy.

  And then I hear.....

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  Life through a phone is a lie. Edie imagined the process like a diagram from physics lessons, the one on that Pink Floyd album cover - a beam of white light refracting in a prism, splintering and fanning out as a rainbow.

I mean, how much artifice, she wondered, was crammed into one appealing photograph? She gazed at its seductive fictions in the slightly greasy, warm slab of screen in her palm as she queued at the hotel bar.

Activity in the room whirled around her, messy unkempt sweaty reality, soundtracked by The Supremes 'Where Did Our Love Go?' In this still life, everything was forever image managed and perfect.

Untruth number one: she and Louis looked like they......

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  Frixco de Fiennes scurried across the cobbles into the shelter of the gatehouse in a drizzling dusk as miserable as wet ash. It matched his mood, especially when he saw the dark shape lurking under the cullis, bouncing slightly and swaying left to right: Aggie, nursing her brain.

He sighed and went to them, peeling off his hat and beating the drops from it.

'Aggie,' he said wearily. 'You should not have met me here.'

'None can hear. The guards are in their wee cubbyhole,' she retorted tartly. 'Asleep.'

Frixco cursed silently and made a.....

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  Harper Grayson had seen lots of people burn on TV, everyone had, but the first person she saw burn for real was in the playground behind the school.

Schools were closed in Boston and some other parts of Massachusetts, but here in New Hampshire they were still open. There had been cases in New Hampshire, but only a few. Harper had heard that half a dozen patients were being held in a secure wing of Concord Hospital, looked after by a medical team outfitted in full-body protective gear, every nurse armed with a fire extinguisher.

Harper was holding a cold compress to the cheek of a first-grader named.....

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‘There’s no such thing as monsters,’ he tells her.

 The girl screws up her nose. ‘Look anyway. Please.’

 ‘Okay.’

 She hugs Hoppy Bunny tight as her dad slides sideways off the bed and onto the floor, pulling the duvet to one side and peering into the shadows.

 ‘Nothing there.’

 ‘Are you sure?’

Even at five years old she knows that grown-ups can’t be trusted with this stuff. They aren’t clear about what is and isn’t in the dark.

 ‘I am absolutely, totally sure there’s nothing under your bed.’

 ‘Check the wardrobe.’

 With an exaggerated sigh, he moves across the room and pulls the doors open quickly. Dresses and coats sway violently, like zombie hordes.

 ‘Dad!’

 ‘It’s okay.’ He grabs the clothes. ‘Nothing to worry about.’ He pushes them aside and peers into the back of the wardrobe. ‘Just clothes, no lions or witches.’

 Her eyes widen. ‘Did you think there would be?’

 ‘No. No… I was just being silly.’ He sits back on the edge of her bed. ‘There’s nothing there, darling.’

 ‘Nothing now! What if a monster slides under the door when I’m asleep?’

 ‘Once I kiss you goodnight the room is sealed, nothing can come into your bedroom in the night.’

 She frowns. ‘What about the tooth fairy?’

 ‘Well…’

 ‘Santa?’

 ‘I meant…’ He frowns too. ‘Nothing bad can come in, and Hoppy Bunny’s here to keep you safe.’

 ‘How?’ She looks dubiously at the small stuffed rabbit.

 ‘Hoppy was specially trained, he only lets in good fairies or Santa.’

 ‘Hmmm.’

 ‘Don’t worry, Dani. Mummy and I are downstairs. Nothing bad is going to happen. I promise.’ He kisses her forehead…

… and the memory starts to fade.

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 I stood on the balcony as the first planes came screeching and screaming in. Flying lower than they needed, to get a better look. The view must have been amazing. Plunging low, then high, undulating at something around the speed of sound. Even American Air Force pilots were unable to resist the allure of Paris. Le Top Gun.

 My vista was the Bibliothèque François Mitterrand, The National Library and blue vapoured sky. I peered into clunky, sad and lonely apartments normally filled with small furtive people. People who went to bed understandably early once sated by the nightly variety shows. The buildings were all empty now. Only a few of us had chosen to remain in the city. Fewer again had managed to elude Le Thermo-Nuclear Imagination Facilité, like for fuck sake? This device had scanned buildings inside the Périphérique, the ring road, for two days before the bombing looking for people like us. People who had stayed behind.

 Watching the news on her poxy little Parisian television earlier, pictures of the Paris Périphérique, full of people as they all........

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  “We’re close, another day or two according to the map,” Gilex said without turning.

  “What are our plans when we reach the Circle of Demise?” Utar asked over the howling wind.

  “The plan is simple; once we retrieve the staff of power we'll go after Togan and his dogs. We owe him a debt of blood, don’t you think?” Gilex turned and faced the slightly smaller man with the short reddish hair and beard.

  “He should have killed us when he had the chance.” Utar squinted, and his dark blue eyes and facial expression took on a sinister look.

  “Yes and that mistake will cost him dearly,” Gilex added. “Get some sleep. We have a big day tomorrow. I’ll take the first watch.”

  Gilex was finished with the conversation and turned, staring over the bluff. The wind blew his dark, smoky-colored hair away from his face, revealing a small scar above his left brow. 

  “With all due respect,” Utar began, “Togan is a master swordsman with an army to back him up. We didn’t stand a chance the first time around. What makes you think we’ll do any better even with that staff?”

  “Trust me, we will. Now go get some sleep.” Utar left.

  As he walked back toward his tent, he nodded at several men in passing and entered the small pavilion. Utar walked over to his bed, removed his scale armor and matching boots, and placed his broadsword within reach. He fell asleep shortly thereafter.

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  Anna bursts into the kitchen. “He’s here,” she gasps. The swinging door separating the café from the kitchen smacks her in the butt, but she just stands there fanning herself.

I look up from the tray of cupcakes I’m icing and raise my eyebrows at her. “Who is it exactly that is here?” The question isn’t necessary. I know precisely who she’s talking about. Even though my heart rate nearly doubles in response to her announcement, I act unaffected and return to my beloved cupcakes.

“Detective Hottie,” she breathes out.

Sigh. Detective Hottie, as Anna so affectionately calls him, is the police detective who she’s been trying to hook me up with since my latest relationship crashed and burned. There’s not really anything left to fight for in a relationship when a boyfriend tells his supposed girlfriend he won’t have sex with her until she loses at least twenty pounds and.....

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  On the first day of another horseless summer vacation, Selah rehearsed the “horse talk” she planned to have with Grandpa. She gave it her best shot every summer. A horse would be no trouble.

Grandpa had manicured pastures and a solid old barn. For all of her twelve years, Selah had dreamed of a happily- ever-after life with a horse. She tucked her pale pink T-shirt into her jeans and stared at a poster-size canvas painting on her wall. In the painting, done by her grandmother, Selah was less than three feet tall and leading a brown and white paint horse in from the pasture. Even with only a rope around his neck, he followed her like an obedient dog.

Selah flipped her fingers through her cream-colored hair and bounced down the narrow, dark stairs of the farmhouse. The railing felt smooth with wear, and the boards groaned as if they’d prefer not to be disturbed. Finding no one in the house, she slipped out the screen door. Grandpa’s dog, Skunk, didn’t crawl out from under the porch so the dog was somewhere with Grandpa. As Selah tugged on her cowboy boots, she spotted the black-and-white Aussie dog, nose to the ground sniffing in the brush. Skunk was never far from Grandpa, so Selah strode up the hill toward her. The long and lush pasture grass darkened her pink boots with dew.

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  Jennifer stepped out the back door of the bar carrying bags of trash to the dumpster. Throwing in the bags with a thump, she closed the lid. Sighing deeply, Jennifer rolled her shoulders to release some of the tension from a hectic night at the bar. Turning to go inside, she stopped when she heard hushed voices. “Joe, lift it higher.” “Shut the crap up, Freddie, I’ve got the heavy side. You’ve got the feet.” Peeking around the dumpster, Jennifer saw two men trying to lift a man into the back of a black Lincoln Town Car. Watching with growing horror as they struggled to place a lifeless body in the trunk. Freddie tried to slam the trunk shut only to have the lid pop up again when it hit a protruding shoe. Stifling a giggle, she ducked back behind the dumpster as the two men went into the building across the way. Memorizing the license plate number and type of car, Jennifer looked around to make sure no one was around as she crept back inside the bar out and out of harm’s way. Hurriedly finishing her closing duties, she grabbed her bag and waited by the front door for Ted, the bouncer to close up and make sure no one was following her to her bus stop. “Ted, I’m ready to leave if you could let me out?” Jennifer hoped he would hurry. “Sure, let me turn out the rest of the lights.”

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  A chill ran through her like she’d guzzled ice water. His muscular body drew close and drew her into an embrace. Liz’s heart hammered against her ribs as she sat up and shook herself awake, expecting the dream to end. But it didn’t. She blinked to clear the mist clouding her vision and struggled to reach the light. As she floundered, a notebook tucked next to the arm of the sofa fell to the floor. Papers rustled. Before a scream passed her lips, his hand covered her mouth. 

”Don’t be afraid, Elisabeth.” Fingertips massaged her neck, relaxing muscles taut from months of stress and worry. Hypnotized by the elegant British accent speaking her full name, Liz traced his amorphous face, like she was reading Braille. His skin, stiff as like a doll’s, smelled faintly of salt air. “I’ve missed you.” His beard caressed Liz’s neck as hungry hands traced down her back, slipped underneath her sweatshirt, and glided over bare skin. “Ah, my love.” It had been so long since someone had touched her, wanted her. “Who are you?” she asked, torn between wanting to yell for help and strip him naked. “Soon, soon you’ll remember.” He withdrew into the darkness and vanished. Shivering, gasping, Liz swathed herself in a Scottish woollen throw and clicked on a table lamp. Radiators tinkled. Nothing was amiss. 

At night, every shadow came alive, teasing her as she stood on the threshold between the living and the dead.....

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  Life is full of its little twists and turns. When I was in the 3rd grade the teacher asked all us kids what we wanted to be when we grew up. I told the teacher I wanted to be a pirate. She was mortified and immediately informed me that there were no more pirates and that I should stop day dreaming……… I didn’t take her advice to heart.

Pirate is such an indelicate word anyway, and really only such a small part of what I do, I mean, would you call a master carpenter with years of skill building fine Victorian furniture a nailer, simply because, on occasion, drives a nail? I think not.

My name is Hannibal Greco. My friends call me Salty. In previous centuries I would have been called a rogue, a scoundrel, or a corsair. Today, I’m mostly considered an opportunist by friends and a dirty no good smuggler by competitors and the law. Now don’t go getting all high and mighty. We all have our roles to play. Mine is just a bit more colorful than most.

Take a little while to hang out in my world and hear a story or two that I have to tell before you jump to conclusions. I should warn you though, your suburban perception on things might get tilted just a bit by what you learn. Hell, who knows, by the time I’m through you might actually .........

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  By the time the brandy arrived, I was feeling pleasantly full. The warmth of the restaurant was a far cry from the bitter cold outside, and as Andrews passed the cigars around the room had quietened; it was late in the evening and many of the tables had been full on our arrival were now being cleared away by brisk waiters.

  'And so the letter was nothing?' I said. It was not unusual for Andrews and me to dine out together, but tonight Henry Moore had brought the three of us together and I knew it was not just for the pleasure of our company.

  'Just another to add to the hundreds of others,' he said behind a small haze of smoke. 'They're all worthless. Whoever our man was, he's either.........

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  Anna sensed the ugly on him the instant he came in the door. It wafted from him and surrounded him like fumes from gasoline. With Travis, it always involved the senses, from the vibrations of his movements to the loudness of his voice, from the heat of his temperament to—worst of all—the stench of his addiction. The reek of the alcohol he drank and the pungent chemical smell of an even darker dependency—the one that turned him from regular mean to savage mean—made him ugly, and turned home into a house of dread. It assailed Anna’s nostrils, her eyes, her ears, and her every nerve.

Travis was no more interested in the children than he was in the cat. He treated both in much the same manner, which was with minimal contact except to occasionally kick them aside with a dirty beige work boot should one happen into his path. 

Anna, with the fairness shown by most seven-year-old children, would admit to two things she did like about......

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  Bridget felt a rush of excitement as she watched him emerge through the arrivals lounge at the Elysian Island airport. He hadn’t changed much - the same athletic build and rugged look. And those chiseled features - a strong jaw and firm forehead, a well-defined nose and bright, compelling eyes. God, he looked so sexy. She felt aroused, just by staring at him. His shoulder-length dreadlocks were jet-black and neat and he had a thin pencil-line beard and moustache.

  She couldn’t believe Rudy still had such a powerful effect on her. They hadn’t been together for almost a year. The only thing about him that seemed different was his complexion. His fair skin had darkened slightly and now he looked almost ebony. Bridget resisted the urge to rush forward and embrace him, although it was a struggle. She could just imagine the shocked stares it would have garnered from the two customs officers hovering near the door, not to mention the three couples near her who were tossing their luggage into waiting SUVs. They had left the arrivals lounge ahead of Rudy, although their flight – a private jet - had arrived twenty minutes after Rudy’s, a twin-engine Cessna. Unlike them, Rudy would have been held back at the arrivals desk for questioning and a baggage check, not least because of his dreadlocks. This was, after all, Elysian Island, the Caribbean island retreat which had become synonymous with the rarefied world of luxury; a place that counted among its residents billionaire investors, Hollywood celebrities and even members of some of the European royal families.

The three couples, all Americans, lived on Elysian Island and they were filthy rich, although looking at them no one would think...

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  Black-Winged Stranger Maximus-Róman was not an ordinary Anlight. He was very wise with the ability to sense changes in the near future. No one knew why he was different or what made him this way. He rarely talked about what he sensed and did not share his dreams, in order to keep his community at ease. He was tall, with big, strong wings, brown eyes and dark brown hair. He talked wisely yet sometimes in a confusing manner. His short brown beard, calm voice and confident walk gave an impression of that wise and unusual mind of his. 

  As a watchful leader, Maximus-Róman lived on the coast of Verda Island, which was connected to the bigger Awanland by a bridge. He chose to be at the closest point to the Old Land in case Varkins happened to come—he would be right there to organize any fighting against them. He had his team of numerous well-trained men, strong and ready to protect their community. The team had great fighting skills, and had been training since the day they had arrived on the island.

One of his favourite students was.....

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  Princess Laurel of Gwenlais, finds herself tragically and quickly thrust into a world of danger, so unlike the idyllic and sheltered life she has known. These dangers from an unknown enemy, also unexpectedly throw her into the arms of Caleb, the warrior Prince of Heathwin, the nearby Kingdom with whom Gwenlais has a tense alliance.  The more refined people of Gwenlais, find their neighbors and protectors of the West necessary, but consider them uncouth and sometimes barbaric. The long and bloody feud between Heathwin, and the mysterious, frightening, and misunderstood, race of beings, called the Rabkins, had finally reached an uneasy truce, by the hard-fought and diligent efforts of Prince Caleb. This fragile agreement was soon shattered by an attack from outside; that threaten both Kingdoms of Gwenlais and Heathwin. Laurel and Caleb find themselves, not only fighting for the peace and existence of their Kingdoms but fighting for their newfound love that is imperiled at every turn from a nameless enemy, and their own people as well. Laurel follows her calling by beginning her training in the ancient healing arts of the Ollams. She soon finds that her skills may be needed to heal more than just the physical wounds of others, but also the wounds of the heart, long put-upon by the people of both she and Caleb’s Kingdoms, by the mistrust and bigotries of either side. As they draw closer together, they discover just how far this unknown enemy has gone to tear them apart from within. They must together, find a way to rise above old and long-standing prejudices, and form a much stronger alliance in order to fight against the new enemy from outside of their borders that threatens their very survival.

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  Having escaped one fire, I expected another. I didn't view with fright the flames to come. Fire was but light and heat. Throughout our lives, each of us needs warmth and seeks light. I couldn't dread what I needed and sought. For me, being set afire was merely the expectation of an inevitable conclusion. The fair world, compounded of uncountable beauties and enchantments and graces, inspired in me only one abiding fear, which was that I might live in too long.

I was capable of love, but lived in solitude after.....

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