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Abraham van Helsing is the most famous vampire hunter in literature, and while he vanquished the Count, he may not have been the best father. His daughter Anneke is on the hunt for the creature who killed her father (she happened to be the only person to see this haunting creature), which has helped to…

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Chapter 4

 

Atlas XIV

 

Jethro checked on the status of his unit. They had reorganized the TOE in the aftermath of taking the vast ship. Now he had another headache to deal with.

Each fire team had a block of sectors to monitor and act as SWAT. So, one fire team had nine sectors to respond to. It was a lot of ground to cover. They were on ten hours, off four, and then on for another ten. They were also on call. They each had up to six robots to control, but the robots were not as good as an actual fellow soldier.

They were backstopped by Marines in powered armor in a few hot spots but they were few and far between. Many of the powered armor troops had to also guard critical areas of the ship.

Marines and MPs were guarding specific areas or acting as a liaison with the Horathians that they had deemed trustworthy. There had been a few incidents and several Marines had been killed in an ambush, but so far nothing too earth shattering.

There were NCIS and JAG teams scattered about the ship too, doing interviews. They and the engineering teams were the most annoying. They had to have guards too and some were damn annoying. A couple of the JAGs wanted a personal escort of Cadre.

Not going to happen, he thought sourly.

<<(O)>>

Bast monitored Jethro's emotional state along with a host of other things on her list. She was being pulled in a variety of directions just like the other AI. They had gotten support from the ship AI, but it was still an ongoing struggle to keep up with all of the demands for their attention. Luckily they had some support from the ships in the fleet. Batmobile's ship AI, Alfred, and some other ships had come into the main bay and docked in order to directly help in the network.

She was looking forward to the downtime to allow her to process and sort through the mess. An organic would think of the downtime as rest and recovery, and many still did not understand just how vital it was for her kind as well as their own.

<<(O)>>

Sergeant Sabu McClintock liked the enemy combatants. Well, okay, the ones that were dumb enough to carry a weapon and fight back. He couldn't do much about the ones that gave him a dirty look at the moment.

The die hards were the ones that were making things oh-so-difficult and yet simplifying things at the same time. They were outing themselves and painting targets on their backs. But they were keeping him busy. It was the ones in the crowds, the sneaky shits, that had some of his people worried. They were fully expecting a knife in the back at any turn.

It was enough to make any good soldier paranoid. They could only let their guard down in areas that were completely cleared of Horathians. Even then peace and security was relative; they'd had a couple of incidents of people trying to slip explosives into safe zones, or blow plasma conduits to flood areas with plasma that would destroy everything that it touched.

He'd heard about the guy who'd strapped explosives to a baby and tried to hand it off to a corpsman.

Nice people, he mused darkly.

Well, it was to be expected; after all, they were technically uninvited guests. Not really guests, he corrected himself, new landlords.

At least they'd gotten the leaders to bed. All of the Horathian leadership were in stasis. The theory was that by cutting off the head of the snake the body could thrash and cause some damage but not cause as much trouble.

Honestly, he didn't see them as a snake. More along the line of a flock of headless chickens.

If they ever did find another leader, things could get sticky.

He had another two hours on shift and then he was down for four hours. He was looking forward to a break though he dreaded looking into his sister's status. Word was that they were going to decide if they should try to rebuild her here or ship her back home for Zuhura and the medics to do the job.

Considering how complex it was to regenerate limbs and other bits, his money was on shipping her back in stasis. That was a shame; she should share in the victory. Or at least help cleanup after it, he mused.

Typical, he thought as he keyed a memo.

"Really? Writing a reminder to tease your sister about leaving her mess to clean up?" his AI teased.

"Something like that," he said as he finished the memo and then got back to work.

<<(O)>>

Major Snorkle nodded as he read the latest reports. So far they were holding. Naval officers were taking charge. Integrating the sleepers into their ranks was both helping and a hindrance. Many were suffering time-related trauma. That was fully understandable, though they needed to be identified and either given the chance to process off duty or find another coping mechanism while still remaining useful.

The medics had offered to put some who had been suffering severe symptoms back into stasis; however, that had backfired. They'd had a couple of violent incidents. Fortunately, none fatal.

One of the best things that they had going for them was that the enemy was unorganized and uncoordinated. They couldn't communicate with each other well. Attempts to do so were identified, monitored, and forces were directed to capture them once their locations were narrowed down.

He rolled his shoulders. The one spot of good news was that all of the injured were off ship, in hospitals, or in stasis like Suqi McClintock. The captured Horathian leadership was as well.

He'd feel a lot better when they were off ship too. For the moment, they were stored in the stasis bays that had formally held the previous Federation skeleton crew.

<<(O)>>

Minotaur watched a civilian shipyard worker break down. She cried softly until a coworker found her and then knelt to talk to her. He made certain she was not going to become violent and then tagged a bot to monitor the situation before moving his attention elsewhere.

The AI was seeing that a lot with the civilian side. The AI had set up their own forums with things to watch out for and people to check on regularly. He had shielded his principle from such unwanted attention. Ox was still struggling with some of his PTSD but had a handle on it. Throwing himself into the work helped a great deal.

Speaking of which … he noted the JAG officer approaching Ox and hit record. "This should be interesting," he stated for his principle's ears as he alerted him to trouble coming his way.

<<(O)>>

"This should be interesting," Minotaur's voice said for his ears only. The Tauren's big ears twitched and then he saw an icon on his HUD coming up behind him.

"You there, Cadre," the attorney stated.

He turned. The woman was dressed in a skinsuit with body armor strapped over it. She had a sidearm strapped to her hip and a helmet.

"Make sure that there are no power interuptions to the number six grid. The last flux burned out a life support module."

"How?" a navy tech argued. "They should be buffered, right?"

"They bypassed the breakers and hard wired it into the net."

The human tech grimaced and then shook his head. "Stupid."

"Stupid, yes. In a hurry or just lazy. Either way, we don't have the spares right now to replace the breakers so we're flying without a net. So beware."

"You there," the strident voice said.

"Dismissed," Ox said as he turned to the lieutenant.

"Yes … Lieutenant Yerenski?" he asked mildly. A message from Major Snorkle's AI asking for a status report came up on his inbox along with six others from naval officers.

"I need to get to the number six hold and interview the prisoners there."

"Yes,  ma’am, it is that way," he said as Minotaur pulled up a map to indicate the direction. "Take the port corridor and then get to the lift, then down seven levels. There are security teams at the lifts to direct you if you get lost."

"Or she could use the map on her HUD," Minotaur said for his ears only.

"I require an escort," she stated. "Clear your schedule. I'm assigning you to my security detail for the duration."

"I'm afraid not, ma'am."

Her face clouded. "I'm an officer giving you a direct order, Sergeant …," her face cleared as he felt her reach through her WiFi to tag his ID implants. "… Chief Warrant Officer Ox?" she asked. She blinked and then her eyes went wide. Instinctively, she came to attention as the ID tag showed a CMH icon. "Ah …?"

Ox blinked slowly as she came to attention. He normally resented how some people reacted to his having the medal. He now understood why Jethro tried to hide it. But in this case, it was proving amusing and useful.

The Congressional Medal of Honor award meant that he was supposed to be saluted by anyone else who had not recieved one irrigardless of rank. They were also generally deferential to him. He could see her embarrassment as her cheeks flushed as she came to attention and saluted.

He came to attention and returned the salute.

"Sorry, Chief, I didn't recognize you."

"Not a problem," he stated mildly.

"It's not like there are a lot of Taurens in the Cadre," Minotaur said acidly in his ear. He flexed his jaw slightly to let the AI know that the sidebar wasn't helping.

"Ma'am, if you don't have a map, I can upload it to you. We are currently in a safe zone. There are no Horathians in this bank of sectors."

She frowned but then nodded reluctantly.

"If that is all?"

She nodded again. She still looked embarrassed.

"Good. I've got to get back to work. I need to be in four places at the same time," he said as he huffed a theatrical sigh and left. "Yes, Major, I'll be there," he said loudly enough for her to hear.

She blinked and watched him leave.

<<(O)>>

So, let me understand the types of Life Sigils we have seen.

Continuous Sigils – The Armsmen and Hobbs. They work on free essentia and direct it via the sigil to work on whatever it is supposed to work on. Unless, of course, you have a Haywire Sigil.

Triggered Sigils – The drucraft Doctor. These work when activated on a subject that the wearer channels essentia through to direct to perform something on either themselves or a 3rd party. This is the case the skill of the channeler matters. I assume medical drucrafters have a range of Sigils to work on different parts/systems of the body.

Somebody like Stephen could make a death Sigil, because he is not being paid for his shaping. Right?

Everyone hates Wicked the dog. Wicked, the aptly named baggage, who arrived with the next door neighbor’s daughter and granddaughter after they escaped his bastard son-in-law.

Wicked barks all the time—until the day he gets kidnapped, and the entire neighborhood spirals out of control.

“The Disappearance of Wicked”  is available on this site for one week only. You can get it as a standalone ebook, or in the anthologies Little Troublemakers, Crimes Collide Vol. 4, and Series Collide Vol. 2.  Enjoy!

The Disappearance of Wicked Kristine Kathryn Rusch

First, let me preface my story by telling you that none of us liked Wicked. He was an obnoxious little yappy dog, with long curly white hair that needed trimming and a propensity for peeing on anything vaguely foodlike, from a bag of groceries in the open trunk of a car to the kibble set out for the neighborhood cats. He barked most of the time he was awake. When he wasn’t barking, he was yipping, a sad little high-pitched sound that was twice as annoying as any bark could be.

Even Isabel, the dog he lived with, an elderly female mix about the size of a Lab, hated him. Isabel, who faithfully guarded our neighborhood hilltop for the past thirteen years, would slink away whenever Wicked was outside, as if to say, Don’t look at me. I have nothing to do with that smelly, undisciplined little thing.

None of us had much to do with Wicked, not even his so-called owner, Ike Maize. Ike had inherited the dog from his daughter, Roxy, who was going through a messy divorce. Ike and his wife Stella promised to care for Wicked while Roxy went back to California to move her things to Oregon.

I had assumed Roxy would get an apartment when she got to Oregon. Instead, she showed up with the furniture and a six-month-old no one had told me about. The divorce wiped her out financially, so she moved in with her parents.

And that meant Wicked stayed too.

I work at home and am usually immune to the neighborhood noise pollution. I’m not the kind of man who investigates each blaring radio or early morning chain saw. Normally, I play my own stereo so loud that I don’t hear much during the day.

But I could hear Wicked. Nonstop. Barking, barking, yipping, and barking.

By the end of the first day, I wanted to strangle the little thing. By the end of the third day, I spent more time glaring at Wicked than I did working. By the end of the week, I was actively plotting the dog’s death.

I’m an inventive plotter. The critics say that’s one of my (only) strengths as a novelist. In fact, they claim I’ve been on the bestseller list for the past ten years because I can plot better than anyone else in the business.

Outwardly, my home does not reflect the wealth that my plotting skills have brought me. I kept the same footprint—as my realtor likes to say—and built up to make three full stories It’s quite a redesign, but it fits into the neighborhood—or it pretends to.

And that’s all that matters to me.

Because I don’t want to leave the Crest Hill Subdivision. This house was the first house I ever bought—and I vowed not to sell it. Back then, it was a simple split-level, built in 1972, and not remodeled in twenty years. I pulled the orange and green shag carpeting, remodeled the kitchen by myself, and turned the free-standing garage into my writing office, which I still use without many modifications.

In fact, the free-standing garage/office is the problem. The walls are thin because here on the temperate Oregon Coast, houses don’t need insulation. I haven’t replaced the cheap windows I put in during my first redesign, which is why I can hear that early morning chainsaw and the blaring truck radio.

Normally, I don’t mind.

But that was before Wicked.

It was all before Wicked who, oddly enough, changed my view of the neighborhood forever.

***

The Crest Hill Subdivision was built on a sandy ridgeline, 700 feet above sea level, several blocks east of the Pacific Ocean. The story of the subdivision is a story of neighbors—common in most places around the country, but extremely uncommon here on the Oregon Coast. In Seavy Village, three out of four houses are vacation rentals or second homes. These houses are full every Fourth of July. Two-thirds are full on Thanksgiving. A third are full during spring break.

Seavy Village has housing for forty thousand people, and hotel rooms for twice that many, but its year-round population is 7,000. Most neighborhoods are entirely empty most of the time or have only one year-round family residing on those quiet streets.

Crest Hill Subdivision has always been different. We are a small enclave in a sea of empty houses. All twenty houses in Crest Hill are owner-occupied.

For the most part, we get along. We have an annual barbeque at Dave the Plumber’s. When we see each other during the rest of the year, we always wave. If we have time, we stop on the street and chat.

Not a week goes by without a group of us gathered in front of the mailboxes, exchanging the village gossip, and catching up on each other’s lives. We watch out for each other as best we can, and sometimes we even babysit each other’s children or feed the pets during the occasional long weekend.

When my money started pouring it—and it did pour: one minute I was scrambling to make my mortgage, the next I was talking to my broker about various places to store excess cash—I could have built a true mansion on a cliff face overlooking the ocean. But every bare piece of property I looked at, every tumbledown house that could be replaced for something better, existed in that sea of empty houses.

I didn’t like that much isolation, so I stayed in Crest Hill, along with Ike and Stella next door, the Sandersons one house up, Old Mrs. Gailton across the street, and Annalita Carmica on the corner. We formed the foundation of the neighborhood and over time, we acquired even more full-timers. Dave the Plumber and his wife (whose name I always forget), Joyce the Hollywood Producer who retired to her dream house, and the McMillians who bought, for a song, a McMansion that lost its view to the six-plex.

We’re a pretty quiet bunch who lived in very safe place—or so I thought, in those days before Wicked moved in.

***

The morning Wicked disappeared seemed like any other. I had trudged through the rain from my back door to my freestanding office, a hot mug of coffee in one hand, and an offering to the Goddess in the other.

The Goddess was the elderly cat who lived alone in my office. She bit the hand that fed her each and every day. I was inordinately fond of her, enough that I put up with her nasty temper and her inability to get along with anyone, including me.

She spent that morning in the library window, watching Wicked, as she often did. She hated the barking more than I did. Once, she had seen him peeing on one of her dishes that I had set down outside. She had pushed the screen out of the window, then attacked him, beating him so badly that I had to go over to Ike and Stella’s and offer to pay for Wicked’s trip to the vet.

That’s when I learned how much Ike hated Wicked.

“Let the damn dog suffer,” he said. “He’s got to learn that the world isn’t his toilet.”

During Wicked’s stay on the hilltop, the Goddess glared out the library window—the only room in my office that had a good view of Wicked’s yard—and occasionally made little growling noises. Mostly, she seemed to believe if she stared hard enough, Wicked would feel her anger and shut up.

It spoke to my desperation that daily I wished she did have magical powers. I wanted something to shut that damn dog up.

About 11 o’clock that morning, I got my wish. Wicked let out one of his sad yips, followed by the strangest bark I’d ever heard. It was high pitched and sharp, almost sounding startled. Then he let out a long half-bark, half-yowl that seemed more like a human scream than a noise any dog was trained to make.

That sound didn’t end. It got cut off. I leaned back in my office chair and listened, waiting for the barking to begin again.

It didn’t.

Instead, I heard the squeal of truck tires against gravel. Rocks pelted my newly built fence (good fences make good neighbors; they also keep out little peeing yappy dogs).

Then silence.

After a moment, the Goddess sprinted across my desk. She landed in my lap, meowed in my face, and pawed at my hands. I hadn’t seen her that agitated since a yellow tom sprayed one of the rose bushes outside the office’s sliding glass doors. So I followed her into the library.

She jumped onto the window ledge and pressed her face against the glass.

I peered out. From this one window, I could see over the fence and into the Maize’s yard. No truck sat in the driveway, even though I had heard one. Isabel, the elderly dog, was sitting on the walkway to the back door, head tilted to one side.

I didn’t see Wicked.

The Goddess was murping, a sound she made when something in her universe was out of order. I frowned, my stomach knotting in a little ball.

I realized I recognized that sequence of sounds.

I hadn’t heard it in years, not since the Maize’s daughter was little and Ike drove up the driveway too fast one afternoon, running over one of their cats.

He scooped the bleeding, broken creature into his arms, placed it on the floor of the truck, and then backed out of the driveway, peeling away as fast as his old Ford one-ton could go.

He made it to the vet’s in record time, but it was still too late. He’d crushed his daughter’s favorite cat beneath the wheels of his truck and it took months for her to forgive him.

Now, I figured the same thing had happened. Right in the middle of her messy divorce, one that threatened to spill into a long custody battle over her own daughter, her father runs over the dog she has loved since she moved away from home.

Ike had to be devastated.

I really didn’t want to be there for him—there were some things that were beyond neighborly, even in Crest Hill Subdivision—but I knew I had to investigate, just in case my writerly imagination had leaped to the wrong conclusion.

I let myself out of the office. The morning rain had turned into a light drizzle, the kind that looks harmless but actually can soak you within five minutes.

Red and gold leaves littered my driveway. Sometime during the night, a raccoon had clearly pulled part of a white plastic trash bag through the slight hole in my garbage can’s lid, scattering plastic food containers and paper plates across the yard.

I ignored the mess and walked to the fence. It was a picket fence, painted brown, with the pickets rising over six feet, so that few people could see over the top of them. I pulled open the gate in the center and stepped into the Maize’s unpaved driveway.

The rainstorm had left the ground so wet that the retreating truck had torn up deep grooves in the muck. I walked to the edge of them, expecting to see some pieces of white curly hair ground into the dirt or maybe a bit of blood on the already wet rocks. Maybe even a smashed collar or the impression of a small dog’s body in the dirt.

To my disappointment, I saw none of that. I didn’t even see Ike’s footprints in the muddy gravel, although mine were clearly visible.

I frowned and looked up. Isabel, who was used to me, stared at me, a matching frown on her large doggy face. I couldn’t tell if she was perplexed to see me standing on her driveway or if the truck’s quick retreat had surprised her.

I clasped my hands behind my back and walked farther up the driveway, so that I could peer inside the garage. No injured Wicked lying on his side on the concrete. No impish brown eyes peering at me through the small window beside the garage door.

Nothing barked, nothing yipped.

The silence was profound.

Isabel sighed, seemingly in relief, and put her head between her paws. Again, I couldn’t understand the reason for her emotion. Relief that a human was on the case? Or relief that Wicked had finally shut up?

Or both?

I felt no relief. The depth of my Wicked hatred surprised me. Part of me really wanted to see that dog dead. I had never actively wished anything dead before, not even the raccoons who constantly defeated each garbage can I bought.

I had hoped to find evidence of that dog’s demise.

Finding none disappointed me.

But at least, something had forced Wicked to become quiet. As I peered into my neighbor’s garage, I realized I should accept the gift.

I hurried back to my office—after stopping briefly to clean up after the raccoons—and had the most productive day I’d had in the month and a half since Wicked had moved in.

***

The silence didn’t last.

As I microwaved the take-out I picked up for dinner, someone knocked on my door. Even though our neighborhood was close, very few people knocked. The UPS guy knocked every morning, and the newspaper delivery boy knocked once a month, but almost no one else came to the door.

I pressed stop on the microwave and walked to the door. The door was solid core, with no peephole, something I’d meant to remedy. So opening it always contained, for me, a small bit of adventure.

Someday, my vivid thriller writer’s imagination told me, the person on the other side of that knock would be a serial killer, coming to attack me. My logical mind told me that serial killers didn’t knock, but my vivid imagination would counter with the fact that thieves often did, just to see if someone was home.

Fortunately, the person waiting on my stoop wasn’t a serial killer or a thief.

It was Ike.

He was a big man with long, graying hair that showed his hippy roots. He slouched on a good day, but this evening, he was nearly bent in half.

He gave me a sheepish half smile. “I don’t suppose I can ask you a question.”

“Sure,” I said. “Come on in.”

I stepped back and he walked in, careful to stay on the throw rug I put over the hardwood at the start of every rainy season. Even though we had been neighbors for more than fifteen years, we hardly went inside each other’s homes. I couldn’t remember the last time he had been in mine.

He looked at his mud-covered shoes as he said, “My daughter sent me over here. Seems Wicked is missing.”

His voice had the right combination of sincerity and loss, but he wasn’t meeting my gaze.

“Wicked stopped barking about 11 this morning,” I said.

Ike looked up, frowning at me much the way his elderly dog had when I stood in their driveway.

I told Ike the entire story, such as it was, leaving out, of course, the Goddess’s odd attack and her murping sounds, as well as my desire to see Wicked’s blood seeping into the muddy tire prints.

“A truck?” Ike repeated.

“I thought maybe it was you,” I said. “You know, that whole incident with the cat.”

He winced. “No one lets me forget that. I didn’t mean to hit the damn thing.”

“No one ever does,” I said, then realized I wasn’t being neighborly. “You want a beer?”

“I want an entire keg,” he said tiredly. Then he smiled at me. “But a bottle will do.”

I got him a Rogue Brewery Pale Ale from the fridge, then kicked out one of the dining room chairs. “Sit for a minute.”

“I’ll track all over,” he said.

“Who cares?” I said, catching myself before I added, I have a housekeeper who worries about such things. I had a lot more money than my neighbors—hell, these days, I had more money than the entire town—but I didn’t try to call attention to that.

Although it was hard not to notice in my maple and cherry kitchen, with the matching formal dining table, the brand new appliances, and every cooking gadget known to man lining the kitchen counters. Not that they saw those.

What they usually saw was my one and only toy. My late-model Jag, which I replaced each and every year.

He sat down and took a sip from the longneck bottle.

“That goddamn dog,” he said. “If my karma determined that I had to run over only one animal with my truck, why did it have to be Roxy’s kitten? Why the hell couldn’t it have been Wicked?”

“If the neighborhood had known you were looking for volunteers….” I said, letting my words trail off.

He looked up at me, startled. Then he realized I was joking. He leaned against the table, resting his elbow against the tablecloth my housekeeper insisted on changing every Tuesday.

“There were times I might’ve looked,” he said. “The Bastard—” That was his nickname for his daughter’s soon-to-be ex “—trained the little fucker, or didn’t train it, as the case may be. Wicked loves my daughter and that baby, and will guard them with his little doggy life, but other than that, he isn’t a dog at all. He’s a goddamn menace. He doesn’t shut up, he pees all over everything, he tears up the furniture.”

“He’s still a puppy,” I said, not exactly sure why I was making excuses for a dog I hated.

“A puppy?” Ike said, sitting upright. “Are you kidding? Wicked is three years old. I’ve been trying to train him all month. It’s not working.”

Obviously, I nearly said, but didn’t. No sense in causing my neighbor more pain.

“I haven’t heard Wicked since that truck,” I said. “You’d think if he got injured or snuck into the woods, we’d hear him.”

“You’d think the entire town would hear him,” Ike said. “I’m hoping the little bastard ran off.”

The little bastard, trained by the Bastard. I had never put Ike’s language together before. He hated Wicked not just because he was an uncontrollable dog, but also because the dog represented an uncontrollable soon-to-be ex-son-in-law.

“If Wicked did run off,” I said, “he did so chasing that truck. Silently.”

“That dog isn’t quiet about anything,” Ike said. Then he paused for a moment before adding, “You thought I was driving that truck?”

I nodded.

His frown grew deeper. “Not many trucks sound like mine. Did you see it?”

“Nope,” I said, taking another sip of my ale. “I heard it. It sounded big and heavy, like yours does when it comes up the driveway. But you usually don’t peel out. In fact, the only time I ever heard you peel away down the driveway was—”

“The cat incident,” he said tiredly. “I know.”

He started to take a sip from his beer, and stopped.

“The Bastard,” he said.

“Hmmm?” I asked. I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the soon-to-be ex or the little dog.

“The Bastard,” Ike said to me, slowly, like he was having a realization. “He used to peel.”

I sipped. Thought. Remembered.

He did peel. It was one of the noises I had gotten used to. Roxy had started dating the Bastard in high school. It became one of those neighborhood dramas, something everyone in Crest Hill Subdivision talked about, since the Bastard came from a family of do-nothings on the wrong side of town.

In a town of 7,000, the wrong side is pretty low-key. We don’t have murderers, thieves or knife-wielding maniacs. Our do-nothings are well named. They’re freeloaders who try to live on county money without doing any work. If they do get a job, from an unsuspecting out-of-towner, they lose that job within the month.

The Bastard’s family was pretty notorious. Entire generations lived in a small trailer on an expensive lot near the ocean. They wouldn’t move, no matter how much developers offered them, and they wouldn’t work either. Mostly, they sat outside—rain or shine—and drank, throwing their empties into an ever-growing pile in a part of the yard that had once housed a driveway.

The Bastard had that bad-boy charm. At least, that was what fifteen-year-old Roxy had thought. She had been a straight-A student, and remained so, graduating at the top of her class, earning several partial scholarships—enough so that the Maizes could send her to the school of her choice in California.

The Bastard followed. By this point, he had dropped out of high school, lost three jobs, and had his first DUI. Yet for her, the charm remained.

For Ike, who complained about him every moment he got, the Bastard was a gigantic version of Wicked, peeing all over the neighborhood, then barking and yipping when anyone else got in his mangy little way.

When the Bastard followed Roxy to California, I stopped thinking about him.

“I thought he was still in California,” I said. That was what Stella had told me one morning when we met at the mailboxes, both of us picking up our rain-soaked copies of the Oregonian.

“He went to live with his mother in Vegas,” Ike said.

“Oh, jeez.” I didn’t even have to ask how that was working out. When you took do-nothings and gave them the opportunity to get rich quick for very little effort, they spent every dime they hadn’t earned on penny slots and the upcoming big win.

“Yeah,” Ike said. “Good riddance, I thought. But he threatened to come back and get his things. I told Roxy to get a restraining order, but she thinks he doesn’t have the balls to drive all the way up here.”

“But you think he does,” I said, trying to keep the surprise from my voice. I agreed with Roxy on this one. A third generation do-nothing wasn’t going to drive across three states just to retrieve his things. That would take too much effort.

“Yeah, I do,” Ike said. “He’s a mean, weasly little bastard who thinks my daughter is something he owns.”

He took the final sip of his beer and sighed.

“I’m not the smartest man in the world,” he said, “but I’ve seen guys like him before. When they think they’re losing the only things they own, they get dangerous.”

I hadn’t thought of that. Ike was right; sometimes do-nothings became violent and possessive. I hadn’t seen that in the Bastard, but then I hadn’t done much more than exchange a few sentences with him in a little more than five years.

“Why would he take Wicked?” I asked.

Ike gave me a chilling glance. “Because my daughter loves that horrid little dog. Although for the life of me, I have no idea why.”

***

In the next few days, the Wicked saga became the focus of neighborhood gossip. From Dave the Plumber, I heard that Ike had the cops searching for the Bastard’s truck. From Old Mrs. Gailton, I heard that Roxy had been getting threatening phone calls. From Stella, I heard that Roxy had finally hired an attorney to finalize the divorce and to get that all-important restraining order.

The whole family believed that the Bastard had stolen Wicked, although the chief of police, Dan Reilly, thought the little dog had finally run away.

“Good riddance,” he said. “The nasty thing peed on my leg one afternoon.”

We had run into each other at the local A&P. We stood in the fresh fish aisle, which smelled of both fish and cocktail sauce. Twice during our conversation, the butcher snuck us bits of a steak he was cooking up in the back.

“We’re looking for the Bastard, of course,” Reilly said. He was a big man with gym rat muscles. They made him look formidable in his gray-green uniform.

As he spoke, I smiled to myself. Ike had everyone in town calling his daughter’s soon-to-be ex the Bastard. “But I doubt we’ll find him. He knows better than to come back here.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“He’s got a bench warrant,” Reilly said. “You didn’t know that?”

“No,” I said. “Does Ike?”

“Now he does.”

“What did the Bastard do?” Even I had picked up the phrase.

“Robbed the Cruise Inn one Friday night using his father’s .45. Got away with about one hundred dollars, but the crime’s pretty serious. See, it’s—”

“Armed robbery,” I said. “A felony.”

Reilly’s eyes twinkled. “Forgot you write about this stuff.”

Usually I write about bigger things. Stockbrokers taking down entire corporations and having hit men after them; the President surviving assassination attempts; and, of course, my biggest seller, the serial killer truck driver working the Pacific Northwest who finally gets caught by the plucky female cop from the Oregon Coast.

“How come I never heard about this robbery?” I asked.

Reilly shrugged. “The Cruise Inn doesn’t want anyone to know how easy they are to rob. Or how often they do get robbed.”

“How often do they get robbed?” I asked.

“At least once a month. We leave it out of the police report as per their request.”

I shook my head, this time letting my amusement show. These things happen in small towns. In fact, when I moved to Seavy Village, Ike Maize told me that the best way to get your news was to talk to the locals. The paper didn’t cover most of the interesting stories, since we were a tourist town and we didn’t want our tiny crime waves to scare the tourists away.

“How long has he had that warrant?” I asked.

“Since before he went to California,” Reilly said.

At least a year then. “Why didn’t you tell Ike? He knew where the Bastard was.”

Reilly sighed. “I thought about it. But Ike and Roxy fought about the Bastard enough. Ike almost lost his daughter because of it. So I never said anything to Ike, although I did find out where the Bastard and Roxy lived. I tried to get someone down there to act on the warrant, but they wouldn’t. Seems a $100 theft, even if the thief used a .45, is small potatoes to them.”

I wondered how much anguish it would have solved for the Maizes to have the Bastard arrested in California. But that would have been before the marriage went south, and Roxy might’ve gotten stuck, like so many women did, waiting for her man to get out of prison.

“What if he has come back to town?” I asked.

“I would’ve heard about it,” Reilly said. “Everyone’s looking out for him.”

“Now they are,” I said. “But a week ago? I had no idea this was going on. Neither did anyone else in Crest Hill. And we were the ones most likely to see him.”

“He’s not in town,” Reilly said. “You can take that to the bank.”

If I took it to the bank, I wouldn’t be able to deposit it. Much as I liked Dan Reilly, he was a placeholder chief of police, one of the local boys made good until the out-of-town replacement showed up like she was supposed to do sometime in the following spring.

Reilly, for all his certainty, really didn’t know much about police work. He knew Seavy Village, and nothing else. Usually, in this town, that was enough. But bench warrants, armed robbery, and hints of violence took the Bastard out of the local small-time range and into something much more dangerous.

Something I really didn’t want on the other side of my fence, not even for a short, dog-stealing visit.

Still, I didn’t hear any more trucks except Ike’s reliable one-ton. Occasionally Isabel barked, but those were welcome-home barks for her family or her standard warning to the UPS guy not to get too close.

The Goddess and I worked every day. I progressed on the latest book. She growled at the raccoons. We both had a productive week.

Until we heard a truck zoom its way up the Maize’s driveway. The Goddess murped at me as she ran from the double glass doors to the library window.

I didn’t go to the library window at all. I hurried out of the office, grabbing my cell phone along the way.

The truck I heard was bigger than Ike’s. It was one of those with the double-long bed. I had no idea what kind it was—trucks aren’t my specialty—but I called this kind, which stood higher, wider, and longer than most trucks, penis shrinkers. I figured any guy who wanted one of these was overcompensating for something, and the overcompensation was worse if he actually found the dough to buy one of these monsters.

I had already dialed 911 as I approached the fence. Through the slats, I could see the Bastard. He had stepped out of the truck’s cab, leaving the door open. The truck was running, and even over the roar of the diesel engine, I could hear the dinging of the warning bell, reminding us all that the keys were in the ignition.

The Bastard ignored the sound. He was one of those guys who changed from a thin, somewhat good-looking teenager to a muscular, menacing twentysomething.

As I reached for the gate’s handle, I saw Roxy step out of the garage. Isabel was barking, a strange, frightened bark I hadn’t ever heard from her. She blocked Roxy’s path, but Roxy went around her.

Roxy, still carrying baby weight around her hips and stomach. Roxy, carrying the baby—now a cute blond toddler—tightly in her arms.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” she said in a frightened voice as the 911 dispatch answered on my cell.

I stopped, softly gave my address, and said, “We need police up here immediately. We have a felon with a bench warrant against him in my neighbor’s yard, threatening everyone he sees.”

Then I pulled the phone away from my ear, opened the gate, and stepped onto the Maize’s driveway.

The Bastard whirled toward me. He had something white and bloody in his arms, and I realized that was Wicked. I couldn’t tell if the dog was alive or dead.

“Go away,” the Bastard snarled at me. “This is a family matter.”

“It’s a neighborhood matter,” I said loudly, hoping the 911 dispatch could still hear me. “You’re not supposed to be on Ike Maize’s property. There’s a restraining order against you.”

I said all of that for the 911 dispatch, not for the Bastard. Still, he glared at me with so much anger that my pulse started to race.

“Is that Wicked?” Roxy asked, her voice shaking.

“Stay back,” I said.

But her question had turned the Bastard back to her.

“Yeah.” He tossed the dog onto the driveway. The dog bounced on the gravel and then, appallingly, whimpered.

Time and time again, I had imagined horrible, hideous ways to kill that dog, but now that I saw it in front of me, I ashamed for myself and terrified for the dog.

So was Roxy. She ran to the dog, and as she did, the Bastard ran toward her.

“Roxy, don’t!” I yelled, and I ran toward both of them.

But I was too far back. The Bastard grabbed his daughter from Roxy’s arms and raced for the truck. He cradled the toddler against his chest as he jumped into the cab, pulling the door closed.

“Noooo!” Roxy screamed, running for the truck. I ran for it to. She got there ahead of me, grabbing the door handle.

The Bastard shoved the truck into reverse and sped up, sending gravel in my direction. It hit me like sharp needles, but I kept going.

Roxy lost her grip, falling backward.

For one horrible moment, I thought he was going to back over her, but he didn’t. He put the truck into drive, and sped off down the driveway.

I reached her side a moment later. Her knees and hands were scraped and she sat there, defeated, staring at the truck down on the road.

“Here,” I said, thrusting the cell phone at her. “I’ve already called 911. Give them the license plate and the make of the truck. I’m going after the Bastard.”

I didn’t give her time to argue. As I ran back through the gate, I realized I should have told her to call her dad as well. I hoped she was smart enough to figure that out.

I ducked inside my house, grabbed my car keys and sprinted for my one indulgence. That Jag could outperform any other car in Seavy Village. And it could outperform a penis shrinker too.

I slid into the driver’s seat and started the car in the same motion. It purred into life, the engine ready to go at whatever speed I wanted.

I peeled down my driveway—something I had always wanted to do, but never dared to, not in this quiet subdivision. I turned right at the bottom of the driveway, thanking whatever developer had designed this place for the long twisty road that took us out of the subdivision to the highway.

I could just see the truck at the intersection. He didn’t come to a full stop—he was kidnapping his daughter after all—but the stupid Bastard had his signal on.

He was turning left. To the straightaway that would take him out of Seavy Village and down Highway 101, away from the police and into a kind of legal no-man’s land.

He pulled out and for the first time, I cursed the fact that I had given Roxy my phone. I wanted to tell the dispatch what direction he was going in.

Of course, in this tiny town, he only had two choices—north or south. The smart direction was south. Anyone with a brain would think of that straightaway and legal no-man’s land.

There, in the miles between Seavy Village and Whale Rock, the Seavy Village Police Department lost its jurisdiction. For ten miles, only the state police could arrest anyone. Then the Whale Rock police took over.

The state police, underfunded and undermanned, never patrolled that section of the highway. If they had to come in to make an arrest, they often had to come from another part of the county—sometimes from another part of the state.

When I reached the intersection, I didn’t stop either. I turned left, sliding behind a black Subaru and in front of a bright blue Smart Car. The Smart Car slammed on its brakes, but I was already in the other lane, heading south at 80 miles an hour, double the speed limit.

There weren’t a lot of cars on the road, but there were enough that I had to weave and dodge around them, moving from the southbound lane to the passing lane to the shoulder in the areas where I could see far enough ahead to make sure there were no cyclists on the road.

The hotels and convenience stores, the kitschy restaurants and antique stores sped by me in a blur. My engine roared as I shifted into the final gear, cranking the speed up to 100 miles per hour.

I had never driven these roads this fast. Part of me hoped someone would report me to the police—I could lead them on a goose chase to the Bastard, and then, since they were already on the scene, they could arrest him for the state police.

Part of me prayed that I wouldn’t hit anything or anyone. If I hit someone going this fast, I’d kill them. My Jag was so well built that I’d probably survive, but I wasn’t sure I could live with myself.

Then I thought of that little girl. I had only gotten a glimpse of her, even though she lived right next door for the past few weeks. Tiny, blond, quiet for someone that age, on this afternoon, she had been wearing a pink dress that showed her chubby legs.

Those legs were probably coated with Wicked’s blood, rubbed off from the Bastard’s hands.

I shuddered, gripped the steering wheel tighter, and pressed hard on the accelerator. I continued to weave, continued to pray, and finally, as the road narrowed and curved up the mountain between Seavy Village and Whale Rock, I saw the truck.

It was hard to miss with that extended back end. A lot of young men in Seavy Village loved those trucks, but most couldn’t afford them.

It had to be the Bastard.

I drove even faster.

The truck moved closer at a rapid pace.

Now if I swerved, I would hit the guardrail, maybe bounce over it and fall wheels over roof all the way to the ocean. Or if I crossed into the northbound lane, I would hit the mountainside.

I wouldn’t survive either of those.

My breath caught. I had to make myself exhale and think. I couldn’t force the Bastard off the road because he had the toddler with him.

But there was a wide area in the road about eight miles from this point, where another road—coming from the east—intersected it. I could force him down that road, away from the ocean.

That road dead-ended into a large parking lot that led to a state park.

I zoomed up to him, then around him, hoping that he was smart enough to stop or turn when he came across an obstacle. He knew these roads better than I did, and I hoped that would influence his driving as well.

When I reached the road that formed a T with the highway, I glanced east. The road was as wide as I remembered. Someone driving fast could make a quick turn—even if that someone was in an extra long truck.

I stopped only a few yards away, turned on my flashers, and blocked both lanes. I kept watching both lanes, hoping that the first vehicle to approach—on either side—was the Bastard’s truck.

Of course, it wasn’t. A minivan heading north pulled up and stopped. A middle-aged man with a paunch and graying hair got out. He walked around to the driver’s side and knocked on the window.

“You okay?”

“No,” I said. “Move away from my car.”

“You can’t block the road.”

In the distance, I saw the truck. I pointed at it.

“You see that truck? The man in there is wanted for armed robbery. He kidnapped the baby in the car with him. I’m trying to force him to stop. You got a cell phone?”

The man was looking at the truck, squinting. “Yeah.”

“Call the police. Tell them that you’ve seen the gray long-bed truck that everyone’s looking for. Tell them he’s gone into Whale Cove State Park. Can you do that?”

“Um—”

“Because I’m going after him and I need backup.”

The truck had nearly reached the T. He was at the point where he would see the car blocking the highway. At that moment, I realized it was good to have the middle-aged man alongside my Jag. The Bastard wouldn’t know I was waiting for him.

He turned east, just like I expected him to. His truck was too big to make a U-turn. The drive to the parking lot and back would allow him to drive north again.

“Move!” I said to the middle-aged man.

Smart guy, he ran behind my car, so that I could zoom after the Bastard.

My initial plan had been to follow the Bastard down to the parking lot, but as I drove the few yards, I realized that was stupid. The best thing I could do was park in front of the T. He’d have nowhere to go.

I parked over both lanes of the state park road, blocking it, my Jag facing north.

Then I shut off the ignition, set the parking brake, and got out.

I was only a few feet away when the Bastard crashed into my car. The sound was tremendous, overpowering everything, the scream of metal on metal.

His truck shoved my car toward me. I had to dive into the ditch between the highway and the mountainside to get out of the way. My car rolled and then hit the guardrail.

The Bastard turned north and drove away as if nothing happened.

I lay in the ditch. I had landed in cold brackish muddy water. I made myself climb out slowly, my heart pounding, my breath coming in short gasps.

I never expected him to hit my car, not with the toddler in his truck. I thought he’d get out, scream at me, and stay busy until the police showed up.

Maybe I’m not as good a plotter as the reviewers say I am.

I pulled myself up by my hands, then got onto the state park road and walked to the highway. I stood beside the highway, looking north, probably as forlornly as Roxy had looked as the Bastard drove off with her baby girl.

In the distance, I heard sirens.

I turned, slowly, and saw the middle-aged guy with the van. He was walking toward me, clutching a cell phone.

I refused to look at my Jag.

“That was like a monster truck rally,” he said. “I kept expecting him to drive over your car.”

He sounded almost excited. His cheeks were flushed. As he got closer, I realized he was probably younger than I was. All I had seen before was the gray hair and paunch. I’d missed the roundness to his cheeks, the brightness of his eyes.

Or maybe that came from the adrenaline brought on by witnessing an accident.

“He did enough to my car,” I said without looking at it. I didn’t want to know exactly what happened to it. I knew the moment it hit the guardrail that he had totaled it.

Because of my vivid imagination, I did not want to know what the driver’s side looked like. I didn’t want to have nightmares about what might have happened to me had I been inside.

The middle-aged guy waved the cell phone at me. “They said that they already had reports on the guy and they were heading this way. They said that they’d catch him now that he turned around. You forced him back to Seavy Village, you know?”

I knew. That hadn’t quite been my plan—I didn’t have a plan past blocking the road and waiting for the police—but it would have to do.

I would rather have the police take down the Bastard with the baby in the truck than have me do it.

“How’d you know what was going on with the guy?” the middle-aged man asked.

“I was there when he took the baby.” I suddenly felt very tired. My whole body hurt.

I wanted to go home. It meant I would leave the scene of an accident, which was a crime, but not a major one if no one got injured.

I had a hunch I could talk my way out of that one.

And even if I couldn’t, I could pay the damn fine.

“Can you give me a lift?” I asked the middle-aged guy. “I want to go home.”

The middle-aged man grinned. “I’d be happy to,” he said. “Just don’t ask me if you can drive.”

***

The middle-aged man, whose name was Tom Yates, chattered all the way to Crest Hill. I figured it was a nervous reaction and let him talk. I had him let me out at the bottom of Maize’s driveway—for some reason I didn’t want him to see my house—and then I waved as he drove away.

He had told me he was going to the police station to make a report. What a good citizen he was. I figured they could come to me if they wanted to talk.

As I reached the top of the driveway, I was stunned to see Ike’s truck, two police cars, and an ambulance. One of the paramedics was working hard on something on the ground.

It took me a moment to realize he was bandaging up Wicked.

Ike wasn’t around. Neither was Roxy.

But a uniformed police officer—a man I recognized but didn’t know by name—walked over to me.

“You the famous writer neighbor?”

“Yeah,” I said tiredly.

“I didn’t expect you here, sir,” he said. “I thought you’d be by Whale Cove State Park.”

“I was. But the other guy at the scene offered to drive me home.”

The policeman stuck out his hand. I stared at it a moment before taking it. He shook hard, then let go.

“You’re a real hero, sir. They have the baby. She’s fine. The Maizes have gone down to the station to get her.”

“So they caught the Bastard,” I said.

“They did. He’s going away for a long, long time.”

I hoped so. I hoped that the legal system worked the way it was supposed to. I would testify against him, that was for certain.

But I didn’t say that. I just nodded at the police officer and walked over to the paramedic.

“Didn’t know you guys worked on dogs,” I said.

“That girl,” he said, “she was hysterical. Dispatch thought she had been injured and sent me up here. She asked me to work on the dog. How could I say no?”

I looked down at the stretcher. Wicked’s eyes were glassy and he was panting. The paramedic had bandaged his back legs.

“That guy who took the dog—he cut its tendons in its back legs. Knew what he was doing too, because he stayed away from major arteries. This poor thing’ll probably never walk right again.”

Wicked’s gaze met mine. He was clearly in pain. He whimpered.

Lifting his leg was probably impossible now. He wouldn’t pee on my groceries again. He probably wouldn’t ever run again.

I never thought I could feel sorry for that dog, but I did.

“I’ve got him stabilized,” the paramedic was saying. “Can you let Ike know I’m taking the dog to Seavy Village Animal Clinic? They’ll know what to do with him.”

“Think they’ll have to put him down?” the officer said from behind me.

“No,” the paramedic said. “He’s not a horse. You don’t have to shoot him just because he’s injured his leg. Right, buddy?”

To my surprise, he put his hand gently on Wicked’s side and Wicked didn’t even try to bite him. The dog closed his eyes. His tail thumped.

“I’ll tell Ike,” I said. I wasn’t sure he’d be happy. But he would have a different dog than the one he hated. Wicked would never be the same.

Neither would Roxy. I only hoped her daughter wouldn’t have lasting scars.

Knowing the Maizes, they would do everything they could to make that little girl feel loved and wanted, not the product of some felon who had seduced their only daughter.

The paramedic wheeled the stretcher into the back of the ambulance, got in beside it, and pulled the double doors closed. The ambulance backed up in the very tracks left by the Bastard’s truck, then eased carefully down the driveway as if its cargo were as precious as an injured human being.

The officer watched from beside me. Then he looked at me and frowned. “You okay?”

“Tired,” I said.

“No kidding. You did a great thing.”

I hadn’t done anything great. If anything, I’d been reckless and stupid, letting my vivid imagination get away with me, making me think I could be as heroic as the people I wrote about.

“What do we do about my car?” I asked. “It’s crumpled on the side of the road by Whale Cove State Park.”

“I’ll take care of it,” the officer said. “And we’ll need you to make a statement whenever you’re ready.”

“I’m ready now.” I wanted this incident behind me.

I didn’t want to think about Wicked or the Bastard or Ike’s helpless hatred of both. I wanted to go back to my office and use my vivid imagination to create stories.

I thought it would be easy to go back. But I found I couldn’t shake the memories. Which is why I’m writing this.

Wicked is home. He’ll limp badly, and he’ll be a mostly indoor dog. The incident changed his temperament—or, as Ike says, being helpless has. Wicked lost all the aggression that made him the nasty little piece of work that he was.

Roxy’s divorce went through. The Bastard pled out to the minimum on both kidnapping and the armed robbery. He’ll be gone for years.

And the neighborhood has gone back to normal. Except that people ask me for advice now, as if my impulsive moment has given me some kind of wisdom.

Actually, Old Mrs. Gailton says they don’t see me as wise so much as the neighborhood leader. The mayor of Crest Hill Subdivision.

Apparently, it’s an appointed position. It’s certainly not one I want.

I blame Wicked. If it hadn’t been for the little bastard, I’d still be the mostly invisible weird writer who lives next to the Maizes, not the thriller writer who channels James Bond in his off-time.

So I hide in my office with the Goddess. She hunts raccoons again, having no interest in Wicked now that he’s not barking incessantly.

I have a little more interest. Sometimes I wonder what he went through in his last days with the Bastard. Sometimes I wonder if Wicked realized he meant nothing to the man who had trained him. And I wonder if the little dog had wanted to die when the Bastard tossed him onto the driveway.

I’ll never know, and Wicked will never tell.

He’s quiet these days. Isabel actually stands guard over him, as if she understands the changes too.

Sometimes in the middle of the afternoon, when no one’s around, I go to the Maize’s yard and pet him.

I have the sense that, ever since the incident, Wicked needs comfort.

And I know that I do too.

 

The Disappearance of Wicked

Copyright ©  by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Published by WMG Publishing

Cover and Layout copyright © by WMG Publishing

Cover design by WMG Publishing

Cover art copyright © amoklv/Depositphotos

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. 

All rights reserved. 

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. 

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

Any use of this publication to train generative artificial intelligence (“AI”) technologies is expressly prohibited. The author and publisher reserve all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

The tour of Kair Toren continues. Today we bring you a portrait of Doran Arvel, the head of the Arvel household and current Lord Commander of the Defender Order.

Ahem. Let us brace ourselves. This one is amazing. All of Helena’s work is amazing, but this one is really amazing.

Of all the Eight Families, the Arvels had the best reputation. Doran, in particular, was viewed as the kind of knight all others should aspire to be. Brave, honorable, a gifted general dedicated to his duty and devastating in battle. The main character to put all main characters to shame. The Golden Knight.

The gorgeous art is by Helena Elias. Click to enlarge. It’s worth it.

As we passed the keep’s staircase, a blond man in ornate white armor stepped
out of the doors at the top and began walking down the stairs as if he owned
the entire place. A beautiful blue cloak draped his shoulders. Another knight
followed him, keeping a respectful distance. Arvel. Had to be.

“Is that Lord Arvel?” I asked.

“Yes,” the knight said, his voice clipped. “Lord Arvel does not receive visitors
unless there are special circumstances.”

Perhaps he thought I would charge up those stairs to fangirl-rush Arvel.

“No worries, sir. I have no plans to ambush the Lord Commander.”

You can meet Lord Arvel and other interesting people in This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me. Fourteen days left.

The post Art Reveal: Lord Doran Arvel first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

Only in the Realm of Zadrya do readers get to see sentient, murderous plants as side characters with notable personalities. Now, it's time to see some amazing artwork of the most well-known varieties as of book two, Wrath & Desire.

It’s more comfortable than it looks…

I sure hope so.

So is this. Comfortable, I mean.

How is he even doing that?

What did I do in a previous life to saddle me with four brothers?

Firefly

For a show that hardly anybody watched (it was reportedly 98th in the Nielsen Ratings for 2002-2003. The TV Guide Ratings page has it at 125th, and Fox’s lowest-ranked show), that one word carries a lot of weight 23 years later.

Fox famously aired the double-length pilot, which set the show up, as episode eleven, and then canceled the show, leaving three episodes unaired. It was also placed in the legendary Friday Night Death slot (where they also buried the far-more deserving The Adventures of Brisco County Jr).

The crew got to reunite and wrap things up two years later in the movie Serenity (which killed off two cast members). There were hopes to do more movies, but even after cutting the budget from $100 million to $39 million, it lost money in the US (98th) and barely broke even worldwide (111th). And  the Serenity (which is the ship: Firefly is its class) was grounded for good.

But over the years, Firefly came to be the definitive ‘cult classic,’ and the cast became fan convention staples. You can find all kinds of Firefly info on the web. And both streaming on Hulu, and Prime, the episodes are in order, which I HIGHLY recommend for viewing. Novels, board games, graphic novels — interest remained alive in more Firefly ‘stuff.’

I mentioned that Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk started a weekly podcast (Once We Were Spacemen), which is geek heaven. They’ve had several Firefly members on, and other folks from their careers. I love it.

THE BUILDUP

On February 23, a story/vid dropped on their IG page. Nathan Fillion knocks on the door of what looks like Gina Torres’ (Zoe) on-set trailer. She asks “Does this mean it’s time.” He replies, “It’s time.” She looks up wistfully, and Fillion looks confusedly at the skies, as if for Serenity. They both say ‘okay’ a few times and it ends. My response was “Holy crap! What’s happening?”

The Firefly fandom lost its collective mind and speculation was immediate. While a full-blown revival has been a dream for two decades, common thoughts were a gathering at a convention, or a reunion on Fillion’s show The Rookie, or on a podcast.

Two days later, Fillion shows up at Morena Baccarin’s (Inara) house. She is currently starring in the Fire Country spin-off, Sheriff Country. This one is cute, as Fillion is in his The Rookie uniform. And she answers in her sheriff uniform. He flashes that boyish smile and starts to comment they’re both in their uniforms, and she cuts him off with “You son of a bitch.” “He’s startled. “Are we doing this?” “Oh. We’re doing this.” More gravely serious head nodding.

Firefly fans were abuzz after the Gina vid. Now, with two, clearly something was going on. And the stakes has been raised.

There is a new line of Firefly Funko Pops coming out, and the cynical dismissed this new ‘thing’ as leading to pushing the Funkos. While that’s certainly not beyond the realm of possibility, Fillion had to know that would be an incredibly disappointing payoff after generating so much excitement.

Two days after that (now it’s February 27), Fillion knocks on Sean Maher’s (Simon) door. Maher peaks through, opens the door, says “We don’t want any,” then shuts it and goes back inside. Filion makes a despairing face, knocks again, points at his face with a “It’s Nathan” expression as Maher opens the door. The ‘It’s happening’ thing repeats. Maher gets blown out his doorway by the wind.. The long looks during the head nods, the little extras: these are fun for the cast and fans.

March 2, he’s at Summer Glau’s door. She speaks in very River fashion, and says that she knew the day would come as she stares off into some other place. Deadpan, Fillion says, “Yeah. Still a little creepy when you do that.”

Two days later and he’s knocking on Jewel Staite’s (Kaylee) door. She smiles and says “Shiny,” which makes Nathan smile. More odd head nodding.

March 7, he knocks on Adam Baldwin’s (Jayne) door. Baldwin is wearing Jayne’s orange and yellow hat. Fillion is holding the same hat, and he looks at his and tosses it aside. Both men finish with “Okay then.”

SIDE NOTE – I’m LOVING all this Firefly activity. Fillion and Tudyk have commented that the Joss Whedon who is a pariah now, was not the guy they knew. And that they’d absolutely work with him on a new Firefly. Baldwin appeared on Castle before he got more openly far-right. Clearly, they feel he’s still a part of Firefly. Don’t bother with comments about your dislike of them or their whatever views. I’ll delete them. This is a celebration of Firefly, whatever directional wing they identify with.

On March 12, Fillion shows up at Alan Tudyk’s (Wash) house. He tells him he’s not doing it without him, and Tudyk is so excited he slaps him. They have a very ‘them’ exchange. If you listen to their podcast, they have been real-life friends since Firefly, and they’re fun together.

Since Wash died in Serenity (if that’s a spoiler, I’m not sure why you’re even reading this post), it was uncertain if he would be part of this. Since the two are buddies, I assumed somehow they’ll find a way, even if it’s some kind of continuation series. Maybe he’ll be voices of characters, or a robot, or whatever. But I was happy to see Tudyk get an appearance.

Sadly, Ron Glass (Shepherd Book) died in 2016. So, no visit for Book.

There’s been nary a word about Joss Whedon. It was HIS show. He created, wrote, directed, produced, and even did music for it. Depending on what IT actually is, it’s hard to imagine a new live-action iteration, without him. As I mentioned above, the two have said they would work with him again (and on their podcast a week ago, Felicia Day spoke warmly about Whedon. Not everyone who has worked with him dislikes him). So, we’ll see.

Over 57,000 comments have been left on the various vids, including some from the cast. Nerd culture social media has been posting vids and texts and threads about this. Setting aside whatever IT is, Fillion and Tudyk have handled his brilliantly. From coming up with the idea of generating buzz with each cast member appearing ‘live,’ to feeding out the vids a few days apart for a couple weeks, keeping momentum going: it has worked!

AND NOW, FOR THE PAYOFF…

I wrote all this March 14 – the day before announcement at DC’s Awesome Con. I hope it conveyed some of the excitement and buzz that was going on. How from a couple decades of it just being a yearning among fans, into genuine hope somehow, in some shape, Firefly was coming back.

It is!!!!

The news was revealed at the reunion panel, and Once We Were Spacemen released a video from Nathan (with bits from the rest of the cast). The plan is to make an animated series.

JOSS

Fillion has Whedon’s blessing. Presumably this means he won’t be involved.

THE RIGHTS

20th CenturyFox/Disney said yes to the project.

SHOW RUNNER

Tara Butters and Mac Guggenheim are married, and they met through Firefly. Their individual producer credits include Agent Carter, Law & Order: SVU, and Arrow. They’re on board.

SCRIPT

“Athenia,” written by Butters and Guggenheim. Ready to go.

ANIMATION HOUSE

They’ve got ShadowMachine on board. They did Robot Chicken.

HOME (WHERE WILL IT AIR?)

There’s one not-so-minor road bump left. No one has picked it up. 20th Century Fox or Disney could have made it their own property and greenlit it. They didn’t. I’m a big fan of Almost Paradise, from Dean Devlin (guy behind Leverage, and The Librarians), and he couldn’t find a new network when it was canceled after season two. Youtubers have stated definitively that it will be on Disney, since they own the rights. That’s an assumption. And given Nathan SPECIFICALLY said they’re looking for a home, an erroneous one. Fact check, fanboys.

TIMELINE

Fillion said that he’s not interested in post-Serenity stories. With Wash and Shepherd dead, I certainly get that. The stories will take place between the end of Firefly, and Serenity. The nine authorized novels took place in that span. I believe some of the graphic novels did, as well. Those were all hit and miss for me, so I’m not invested in them being adapted for the new series. Original stories are fine. Or picking and choosing: I wouldn’t mind some of the novels being used. The Magnificent Nine was a Firefly version of The Magnificent Seven. That’s a winner.

SOOOOO…..

I’m excited. I’m reading that Hulu decided to cancel a planned Buffy reboot (never seen that show). But it proves nothing is guaranteed. Fillion is pitching it through his production company. Clearly, it’s got some quality names attached, with lots of inside connections. And a plan is in place. And an animated series certainly seems more doable than a live-action project. Those that are disappointed it’s not a live-action reboot, are living in a fantasy world. Reality precluded that in multiple ways. An animated series, with the original cast, still isn’t a done deal. But I don’t see how we could realistically have expected more. And Fillion and company delivered on all that buildup.

A life-long D&Der, I think Vox Machina is garbage, but it found a geek home on Prime. And there’s always SyFy (yes, it’s still around).

Firefly fans have wanted something since the day it was canceled. This is as solid as could have been reasonably hoped for. Gonna be a massively missed opportunity if it doesn’t happen. But the pieces are in place to get someone to say ‘Yes’ and then air it.

 

THE COLD HARD REALITY: Firefly had poor ratings. Serenity lost money at the domestic box office, and barely broke even globally. Firefly fans have been loud over the years. But they had better show up and make this a ratings hit, if they don’t want it cancelled quickly.

Fan numbers and dollars didn’t support Firefly, or  Serenity. Those are facts, however much Fox screwed up the show, or promoting Serenity. There are no excuses for Browncoats not to make this a smash hit if it happens. A third financial failure and cancellation will establish that there is a core of fandom, but that Firefly isn’t a commercially viable project. Viewers and dollars matter. Not many properties get three chances.

 

IT’S A NEW IDES OF MARCH!

March 15 was the Ides of March. If this had been a disappointing ‘thing,’ it would have been linked to the Ides forever, like when Brutus and his buddies chopped up the first Caesar salad. Instead, if the animated series happens, it can make The Ides of March a happy day. Well, not for Caesar…

Can’t stop the signal. And the Browncoats are gearing up to support this. Let’s hope it happens.

Bob Byrne’s ‘A (Black) Gat in the Hand’ made its Black Gate debut in 2018 and has returned every summer since.

His ‘The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes’ column ran every Monday morning at Black Gate from March, 2014 through March, 2017. And he irregularly posts on Rex Stout’s gargantuan detective in ‘Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone.’ He is a member of the Praed Street Irregulars, and founded www.SolarPons.com (the only website dedicated to the ‘Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street’).

He organized Black Gate’s award-nominated ‘Discovering Robert E. Howard’ series, as well as the award-winning ‘Hither Came Conan’ series. Which is now part of THE Definitive guide to Conan. He also organized 2023’s ‘Talking Tolkien.’

He has contributed stories to The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories — Parts III, IV, V, VI, XXI, and XXXIII.

He has written introductions for Steeger Books, and appeared in several magazines, including Black Mask, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, The Strand Magazine, and Sherlock Magazine.

You can definitely ‘experience the Bobness’ at Jason Waltz’s ’24? in 42′ podcast.

Your blogs on Beginners guide to Drucraft speaks volume of the in depth background knowledge behind writing the books of IoM. I realize reading your novels I have barely scratch the surface of what it TAKES TO WRITE A NOVEL
Keep at it

A complete set (18 issues) of Avon Fantasy Reader, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and published 1947-1952

Donald A. Wollheim edited a magazine between the years 1947 to 1952 called Avon Fantasy Reader for Avon Publishers. There were 18 issues, publishing mostly reprints.

Erik Mona reviewed the first issue of Avon Fantasy Reader for Black Gate back in 2023.

I’ve never seen a copy of any of these, but in the late 1960s, George Ernsberger selected some of the best stories from the magazine for two paperback volumes. I believe there were only two. Here are some quick looks at the paperbacks, which I own and have read.

[Click the images for fantastic versions.]

The Avon Fantasy Reader and The 2nd Avon Fantasy Reader, edited by Donald A. Wollheim
and George Ernsberger (Avon Books, January and February 1969). Covers by Gray Morrow

The Avon Fantasy Reader (1969), Avon Books. Contains,

A very short Foreword by Ernsberger
“The Witch from Hell’s Kitchen” by Robert E. Howard, which features a Conanesque hero named Pyrrhas
A Northwest Smith story by C. L. Moore called “Black Thirst”
“A Victim of Higher Space,” by Algernon Blackwood
A fine story by Nictzin Dyalhis called “The Sapphire Siren” (or “The Sapphire Goddess” in Echoes of Valor III)
“The Voice in the Night” by William Hope Hodgson
“The Crawling Horror” by Thorp McClusky
“The Kelpie” by Manly Wade Wellman, which is one of his better stories

The 2nd Avon Fantasy Reader (1969): Contains “The Blonde Goddess of Bal-Sagoth by Howard, and also has stories by C. L. Moore (Northwest Smith again), Zealla Bishop, Clark Ashton Smith, Donald Wandrei, Edward Lucas White, Robert Bloch, Laurence Manning & Fletcher Pratt, and Sax Rohmer.

Back covers to The Avon Fantasy Reader and The 2nd Avon Fantasy Reader

“The Black Kiss” by Bloch was excellent, and very Lovecraftian in feel. Several of the stories had that kind of edge to them.

Overall, these two collections are more horror than Sword & Sorcery, although Howard’s two stories fit S&S. The title, “The Witch of Hell’s Kitchen” doesn’t suggest S&S but the tale’s other title perhaps does — “The House of Arabu.” I found both collections generally enjoyable.

I also love these cover illustrations, both of which are by Gray Morrow.

Charles Gramlich administers The Swords & Planet League group on Facebook, where this post first appeared. His last article for us was  The Sword & Sorcery of John Jakes. See all of his recent posts for Black Gate here.

In reply to Bill.

I usually don’t settle on a name until after the edits are done, since to me it’s just “part 4 of the ongoing story”.

In reply to Bill.

Also any news on the Book#4 edits or even a projected title for Book#4? It’s frustrating for a book to be just known as “4” rather than having an exciting/evocative title!

Life Sigls enhance (or impair) the way that the human body functions then is there a way to produce Sigls that improve the various drucraft skills?

Will the Hobbs and Joanna characters feature more in Book#4/#5? I was rather hoping that these characters would appear more in the developing storyline…

 Sitrep:

So, J10 is off to Goodlifeguide who said they will get it back to me by the end of the month. So, on track there.

I am past the half way point writing the current manuscript. It is a bit of a struggle here on out though. Not fun. There are a lot of ships and stuff to keep track of.

In other news, it is unseasonably hot... or soon will be here on the west coast. Way too dang early to be kissing 95 let alone nearly 100 later in the week! GRR! I hate hot weather!

On to the snippet!  

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Chapter 3

 

Triang

 

Jones checked the news with an eye to what they'd missed. The team had dispersed after the Antigua job. Much to his annoyance, the Feds had gotten a bit more than they'd like. The client was most likely not going to be happy.

If he wasn't careful, he might find himself on the wrong side of a cleanup spree. He had participated in them before. He never wanted to be on the wrong side but knew that it was a risk of the job.

The colateral damage had the media up in arms. The Feds had plastered images all over the media. There was no mention of DNA. So much for cyber covering their tracks, however. They had been lucky to get out of Antigua at all.

Well, the good news was that they'd had some partial success and turned over the DNA samples to the lab goons. He had not been offered a bonus, and he'd been wise enough not to ask about it.

If he got out of the area alive, he'd be quite content and call it a win.

<<(O)>>

Triang orbit

 

“There was no viable DNA in any of the samples that were recovered, sir,” the tech reported.

Nigel Mosfet was surprised and alarmed. He was unsure how that was possible. He frowned and then realized in the haste of the situation there might have been cross-contamination. Besides, it wasn’t like it had been a sterile environment to begin with. “Contaminated?”

“No, sir, no DNA. Not a trace of the target DNA. The only DNA we found were from the team which we filtered out.” He looked offended. “I ran the test three times to confirm.”

“How is that possible?” Nigel scowled. “All beings shed hair, skin … There should have been something!” He flapped his hands in distress.

“Unknown.” The tech frowned. “It could be that the hairs lacked follicles. I don’t understand the lack of skin cells.”

“Clearly we need to figure it out if only for our own uses in the future. So look into it.”

The tech nodded, looking slightly relieved to not be in trouble. “Yes, sir.”

Once the tech had retreated, Nigel frowned as he leaned against the chair. He tried to frame the report but he didn’t know how to do it without it coming back to bite him.

The one bit of good out of the report was that he couldn’t get called on the carpet for the failure. The general couldn’t ream his ass through the ansible. But the delay was hardly comforting. It just put off the inevitable.

He sighed softly and then selected a program. He selected a sympathy card in the pre-determined selection. He used his cipher to write three code words into the innocuous message and then read it. It looked good enough so he hit send.

What happened next was out of his hands.

He frowned. Well, that wasn’t quite true. He knew he had another mission coming up. But he could and probably should tidy up some loose ends.

Two of the mercenaries had come out on the passenger liner with the samples. Jones and Smith. Well, not Smith, he had links to the senator and was too useful. The review he’d seen had shown that Smith had done just about everything right.

He frowned thoughtfully and then called Smith in.

“You summoned me?” the agent asked in mild amusement.

Nigel turned to him. “Yes, I take it you heard?”

“Heard?” the lead agent asked mildly.

“Never mind then. Thoughts on fallout?”

“Moderate. They got better images and video than I’d thought.”

“I know.”

“I have a couple of agents on Antigua. I can have them work on some quiet cleanup.”

Nigel nodded thoughtfully. “We need to get into those files and erase them,” he warned. “All evidence needs to be contaminated or destroyed.”

Smith nodded. “That will be tough and won’t come cheap.”

Nigel frowned. “I’ll check with higher on a budget.”

Smith nodded.

“What about the operatives that got out?”

“All extracted successfully as of last report in. Four are headed south to ET. They’ll get lost there.”

Nigel frowned but then nodded. If they didn’t get picked off by the mobsters, they might get picked up by the Feds. If they did, they might have to do something about loose ends later.

The ET connection would obscure the real client, however, he reminded himself. But it would draw attention to unwanted parties.

“The good news is that it had the desired effect,” Smith said.

Nigel blinked as that statement penetrated. “In what way?” he asked.

“The side client wanted the heat off of his home. He got it. The target’s mother raced home in a courier. Word is she just got there.”

Nigel blinked and then pursed his lips.

“You know this how?”

“Saw it on the news a few minutes ago. I was actually coming to tell you.”

“Ah.” Nigel thought about it and then nodded. “Funny how she made the news.”

“The connection to her illustrious husband and of course the recent attack on her family no doubt,” Smith stated.

Nigel nodded.

“What about the operative that came in with you?”

“He’s solid. Laying low. Waiting for orders. Possibly expecting the ax to fall.”

“Paranoid?”

Smith snorted. “Wouldn’t you be in his shoes?”

“True,” Nigel admitted. “I’ll find out from higher if they want a general housecleaning. You and I both know that they won’t be happy.”

Smith froze. He turned to Nigel. “I take it the samples had issues?” he asked slowly.

Nigel just stared at him.

Smith’s Adam’s apple bobbed briefly and then he nodded slowly. He was internally kicking himself for not checking the samples sooner. “Good to know. Though I don’t understand how that could have happened.”

“Be more careful in the future.”

“Definitely,” Smith said fervently. “Most definitely.”

<<(O)>>

Arcane Arts and Cold Steel (Pulp Hero Press, December 24, 2025)

David C. Smith is a name that speaks to lovers of sword & sorcery, if not with the power of a Karl Edward Wagner, then not far behind, and if you love the genre but don’t know Dave’s name…1) Shame on you; 2) Let me get you up to speed.

A powerful writer of the genre’s last great flowering in the late 70s, Dave’s Tales of Attluma — a sunken lost continent — have spanned five decades, chronicling multiple eras in the lost land’s history — including its destruction — beginning with the epic saga of Oron and most recently, the Unforgiven-esque Sometime Lofty Towers, which I will go on record as calling the best s&s novel since the Elric-fixups, and with more emotional punch.

The Red Sonja series by David C. Smith and Richard L. Tierney (Ace Books, December 1981-May 1983). Covers by Boris Vallejo

Dave is also the man who, with another S&S giant, the late Richard L. Tierney, successfully took one of the most vapid characters in S&S — Roy Thomas’s sexing up and dumbing down of Robert E. Howard’s Red Sonya into Marvel’s Red Sonja — and wrote a brilliant, six-volume work-for-hire that are worth the sometimes high prices they command in used bookstores.

Finally, his Literary Biography of Robert E. Howard is one of the most important pieces of Howard scholarship produced in the last twenty years.

Sometime Lofty Towers by David C. Smith (Brackenbury Books,‎ December 2025). Cover by Saša Đurđević

All of which is saying, Dave knows this genre inside and out. Not just its history, but how to write it.

And that bring us to Arcane Arts and Cold Steel: Writing Sword-and-Sorcery Fiction (with a foreword by BG‘s very own John O’Neill).

Advertised as “Part master class, part genre analysis, Arcane Arts and Cold Steel is written for authors who want to write bestselling sword-and-sorcery for a modern audience.” This is true, but the publisher undersells the book’s power. Yes, the book has a lengthy appendix in which Dave speaks directly to the aspiring writer and reveals his tool kit, and an interview transcript where he speaks to both his career, his long hiatus, and the lay of the S&S writing landscape today. But the core of the book is something much more.

Tales of Attluma by David C. Smith (Pulp Hero Press,‎ December 24, 2025). Cover by Tom Barber

Beginning with a short, concise history of the genre, Dave gets into what IS sword & sorcery fiction, not by trying to create a list of characteristics (Brian Murphy and the late Howard Andrew Jones already did yeoman work here), but by the working nuts & bolts that is usually reserved for snobby lit-crit books.

Smith sees sword & sorcery as the ancestral descendent of myth cycles — Gilgamesh fighting Humbaba, Theseus & the Minotaur, the adventures of the Argonauts — as those tales are immediate and personal, whereas high fantasy is more akin to the great epics.

The Sorcerer’s Shadow by David C. Smith (Zebra Books,‎ September 1978). Cover by Doug Beekman

Like Howard Andrew Jones, he sees the immediate predecessor of the genre in the historical adventure fiction of the late 19th century and first years of the 20th century: the work of Haggard and Lamb, the pantheon of pulp writers in Adventure and Argosy, that all coalesced as a young man from west Texas synthesized those experiences, the successful John Carter and Tarzan pennings of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the weird horror he already wrote and created the characters of Solomon Kane, Kull and Conan, launching a new genre along the way.

Drawing on a century of fiction — from the foundations laid by Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber, to the gritty reinventions of Karl Edward Wagner and Charles Saunders, and into the “New Edge” renaissance pioneered by Howard Andrew Jones, Smith looks at story structure: character & setting; plot & scene construction; style, voice, and tone; the use of horror & the supernatural; even the role of the inhuman as character and lens on human issues. Like a lit-crit academic, he digs deep into these topics through extensive examples from real published sources.

The Shadow of Sorcery by David C. Smith (Wildside Press, March 5, 2026). Cover by Mike Hoffman

And this is the first gold mine. Yes, of course, we see Howard, Leiber, Moorcock and Wagner being cited and examined, but there are as many — or more — examples from the writers of Smith’s generation, such as Adrian Cole, Richard Tierney and Charles Saunders, and even more from active writers today: Jason Ray Carney, Milton Davis, John Fultz, Bryn Hammond, Schuyler Hernstrom, John Hocking, the late Howard Andrew Jones, Dariel Quioge, Jason M. Waltz, Clint Werner and more.

Where the work differs from the usual lit-crit manual is that the author is actually a major figure in the genre he is analyzing and has an actual love of the material he is not afraid to show. This is not some dry, literary analysis of sword & sorcery as literature — this is a paean to the genre, to the power of *genre* fiction and *plot* to do all of the things usually reserved for pure literature.

Flame and Crimson: A History of Sword-and-Sorcery by
Brian Murphy (Pulp Hero Press,‎ January 16, 2020). Cover by Tom Barber

Along the way we get snippets of genius from a century of writing, and I guarantee you’ll find stories and writers you never knew about. But you will also see why the oft-maligned “genre” can be powerful literature in its own right, even when its first goal is — gasp — entertainment. You will also find that there is a clear pattern of what makes sword & sorcery a distinct sub-genre, the defiant “attitude” coined by Jason M. Waltz in his massive anthology Neither Beg Nor Yield, making this a perfect companion volume to Brian Murphy’s Flame & Crimson: A history of sword & sorcery.

It’s rare that we get to see a genre analyzed by one of its own luminaries, even rarer they then sit down and tell you how to hone your writing for that field. This is a delightful read that serves on many levels and deserves the praise it is receiving.

 

Is it practically used when developing a new sigl to use a nervous systhem enhancing sigl to get better results? I must but wonder, if having ten people sitting around a manifester and enhancing them would give better results?

I assume one could also get the protegé status easier, with such a setup?

I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.

Nowhere Burning by Catriona Ward

Mogsy’s Rating: 3 of 5 stars

Genre: Horror

Series: Stand Alone

Publisher: Nightfire (February 24, 2026)

Length: 304 pages

Author Information: Twitter

Catriona Ward has built a reputation for writing horror that’s strange, unsettling, and often surreally disorienting by design. Nowhere Burning continues following in that same vein, though in this case, it might have gone a bit too far, pushing the story into hazy disjointedness. As a result, I didn’t quite take to this one as much as I’d hoped, finding it occasionally difficult to stay invested in what was happening from one section to the next.

In one major thread, we follow Riley, a teenage girl on the run with her younger brother Oliver. Desperate to escape their abusive foster home, she decides to seek out a place called Nowhere, rumored to be a safe haven hidden deep in the mountains where runaway children can live off the grid. The place, however, comes with its own dark history. The land once belonged to a reclusive actor named Leaf Winham, who built the sprawling ranch retreat years earlier. But what was meant to be a private sanctuary eventually became the center of a horrific scandal before a devastating fire consumed the property. All that’s left now are the burned-out ruins and the bad memories and ugly rumors that have grown around them.

In addition to Riley’s story, a couple others also run alongside in tandem. One follows a pair of filmmakers digging into the ranch’s past for a documentary, interviewing people who were connected to it from before the fire and trying to piece together what really happened. Another thread looks back at Leaf Winham and the early days of the estate, hinting at the secrets that shaped its creepy reputation. As the novel moves between these perspectives, details about Nowhere, its former inhabitants, and the events that led to its ruin gradually come together, showing how past and present collide.

Unfortunately, with so many separate threads and sudden jumps in time, the plot can start to feel a little choppy and hard to follow, and not every storyline gets the space it needs to fully develop. Riley’s is by far the most compelling and arguably the most important; some of the others, however, feel less essential. These came and went like side narratives that only appear in short bursts to give background information before shifting back to Riley’s perspective, which I started looking at as the “main” story. At least her chapters had plenty of emotional themes to anchor them, like her love for Oliver and her determination to secure a safe place for them to live. This was not the case with the “before” and “after” storylines, whose purposes were less defined and didn’t hold my interest as much.

That said, Ward still does a solid job creating a strong sense of place. The isolated mountain setting gives an unsettling edge right from the start, and once we get to the section where Riley finds Nowhere, the behaviors of the young people living there make things feel even more off. And no wonder. Bad things have happened in this place, and the kids here now have had bad things happen to them. The book is heavy with themes of trauma, abuse, and the misery that leads people to make desperate choices when they feel trapped with no way out. It can be difficult read at times.

At the same time, the nebulous tone that defines much of the author’s work can make the reading experience frustrating. The story often hints at deeper, hidden meanings without fully explaining how everything fits together. Granted, it’s clear that some of the vagueness is intentional, since there are secrets buried in the timelines before and after Riley’s storyline that don’t connect until the very end. And yet, the confusion it leads to doesn’t always feel rewarding since the story withholds too much information for too long.

In the end, Nowhere Burning ended up being a bit of a mixed bag. The premise is intriguing, the setting works well, and Riley makes for a strong central character. But the crowded structure and hazy storytelling kept the book from fully coming together for me. I’ve enjoyed Catriona Ward’s previous books (even the more surreal ones!) but this one might end up being my least favorite. Fans of her dreamlike style may still enjoy the ride, but for me this one ultimately landed somewhere in the middle.

Do the planetary associations have any actual meaning of some kind? Or is it just old mythology that carries over from when drucraft was probably thought of in more religious/mystical terms?

Im away from home so i cant dig through notes for dates, and some of them are pretty unspecific because when they happen exactly isn’t hugely important. I’ll give you a few with hard dates that align with canon events. In chronological order:

The Good Storm: 1879

A Surfeit of Annas

Zachary’s Day Out

The Beautiful Ajatara

Who the Wolf Loves: 2007, detailing the events of around 1975-1990

Too Wise to Love

City of Broken Hearts

Judgement of King Kieran

The Time of Two

Bred in the Bone

We did better than expected on the Three SF Books Kickstarter—and that’s due to you backers! We’ll let the credit card process progress through Kickstarter and then send out the surveys in the next week or so.

Thank you so much!!!