The trees had been stripped bare. The carpet of needles and dried leaves crunched under foot as I passed beneath clawing branches. The brittle bark on each misshapen tree trunk had been flayed clean on one side. Some ancient trees had toppled, and the fallen giants all faced the same way, like a ...
The somewhat strained history among the four of us sucked the air out of the car, making it damned difficult to breathe. Stefan wanted to kill Akil. We all knew that. Who knew what Akil wanted? But whatever it was, it wouldn’t complement Stefan’s plan. I wanted them both to get along, just for a ...
Flashlights flicked back and forth deep inside the tunnel. Samuel. “Over here!” I called. I stumbled to my feet and staggered to the crumpled body between me and the incoming FA. Samuel lay still, his eyes closed and face milky pale. I dropped to my knees and touched him without thinking. Instant...
They radiated tension, both watching me like I was wired to explode. I was. The need to devour shifted beneath my skin like the timeless sands I was made of. I am Ace Dante. I am Ace Dante. I am Ace Dante. Over and over I repeated it, overriding the twisting restlessness a...
No, I was different, I had changed. Each twist and turn I knew like the back of my hand. Some chambers swelled to impossible proportions, others had crumbled to little more than dust and debris. Tunnels flowed through intersections, forgotten ticket halls, and dead-end tracks. As though someone h...
She rocked her skirt suit like a fucking celebrity and was just as untouchable. After the chaos of Jesse’s murder and the subsequent police meat grinder, I’d almost forgotten I was supposed to hand the synth over to Bruno in two days. I might have been able to fool her, had the male synthetic not...
It was going to be a quick stand-alone short, in no way connected to the Veil series. But, clearly, Muse wasn’t having any of that. As soon as I sat down to write it, she was there, demanding page-time. She made this story her own. I really had no choice in the matter. I’v...
Sterile surfaces. Clean. Sharp. Bright, cutting lights. Chitec. My processes skipped. Fear lashed through me in a way I’d later study. “One?” Brendan. Friend. He looks worried. Armed: electric pulser pistol. Threat level: mod...
Her darker half is not something she shares often, and indeed, the full extent of her past remains a secret to those around her. It was only after you, dear reader, demanded more (sometime between books two and three), that this prequel took shape. Wings Of Hope certainly wasn’t easy to write. Th...
The car was so well insulated that, while I could see the city bustling by us outside, I couldn’t hear a thing. Throngs of people flowed back and forth over the sidewalks in their rush to get home. They had no idea one of the most powerful demons ever to have existed sat a few yards from them beh...
The music thumped the air and drummed the inside of my skull. I’d had a headache before I’d arrived at the Lounge. Now it was pulsating mass of agony, as though Damien had shifted from my soul and settled behind my eyeballs. My stomach heaved. I gulped back pools of saliva. How many drinks did I ...
As soon as we’d pulled off the main road, I’d felt the crawl of demon stares. Within a few hundred yards, they’d started to spill from the trees. Now, as we rolled forward at a snail’s pace, the demons were everywhere: in the trees, lining the driveway, crouched by the earthen banks. They watched...
He’d packed all of his fiery self back into cargo pants and a white tank top that strained against his obscene physique. His gaze could have stripped my skin from my flesh. He took in the smattering of bruises on my cheek and paused at the red welts where Allard had sunk his teeth in. ...