About Us

Past and Present Short Stories

Memories in Green - -Wild Violet
Fall issue, '04

Love Requited --Simulacrum                                 January issue, '05

Welcome to the Neighborhood --             Nocturnal Ooze, April
isssue, '05

Flesh Gallery -- Bloodcookies, April
issue, '05

Pied Piper -- Alien Skin, June, '05

Requiem Mass -- Fifth Dimension, June, '05

The Hollow -- Forever Underground, Oct., '05

A Gnawing Problem -- Lost Souls -- Sept., '05

Ozymandius Redux- Martian Wave, Oct., '05

The Dark at the Edge - Dawnsky #6,Nov., '05

Fire Gods - Silverthought, Nov., '05

A Taste of Wormwood - Nocturnal Ooze, Oct., '05

Mark of Caine -- Aiofe's Kiss

The Hunger -- Night to Dawn, Mar. , '06

Ties That Bind -- Bondage Anthlogy, Sam's Dot Publishing, Mar., '06

Flesh and Sympathy -- Vampires2,issue 1, Jan., "06

Blood Dawn -- Vampires2, issue 2, Apr., '06

Cyber-whore -- Neometropolis, June, '06

Gravity Sucks -- Androids 2, July, '06

Fear Itself --Rogue Worlds Magazine, Sept., '06

Darwin's Children -- Ecotastrophe Anthology, Sept., '06

Stars Cry, Too -- Best of Neo-Opsis Anthology, Nov., '06

Will o'Wisp -- Fifth Dimension, Mar., '07

Blood Dawn II: Dana's Revenge, Vampires2, Mar., '08

PSI Knight --- Alien Skin, June, '08

Tit for Tat -- Androids2, Mar., '08

Welcome to My World - Neo-Opsis, 2009

Cuatheomac - Night til Dawn, March, '09

Bibliography Page

Completed Novels

God Seed -- Publish America,
Dec. '05

Father Blood: Demon Spawn -
www.lulu.com, Nov, 2007

Occam's Razor

The Pools of Yarah

The Tenth Plague

Ye'iitsoh: Night of the Blood
Beasts

Hell Rig

Oracle of Delphi

In The Works

The Children of Yarah

Intulo

True Pahaana

Hell Fire

Third Tide

The Tortured Land (Book II of
The Oracle of Delphi)

Shadow Walker

Requiem Mass
and
Ozymandius
Redux were
both nominated
for the James
Baker Award by
Sam's Dot
Publishing, but did
not win.

                                                                            Lift Thy Burden
                                                               By J.E. Gurley

Ira Potter ached for his dead wife with a burning passion that he now knew had been missing from their
daily lives. It wasn’t that he had ignored her – they had many wonderful times together – it was just that
things could have been so much better. He could see that now but this act of hindsight brought no
comfort to his sorrow.
Each day he wandered through life as if the spark that kept his body moving was gone. He just didn’t care
anymore. There was a hollow deep inside that seemed to suck up every little bit of light and life, leaving
him walking inside a dark cloud of despair.
That was, until she came to town.
Ira saw her walking down the sidewalk and immediately noticed the look of pain and anguish in her eyes. It
was look he recognized, but her expression told of suffering far beyond what most could endure. Her back
bent as though she carried a great burden. She was a pretty woman, he noticed, or had been once upon a
time. Now, she looked plain, unadorned.
She walked with slow measured steps, planting each foot firmly before taking the next. Ira watched her
approach, mesmerized by her appearance.
She passed a young couple, arguing loudly about some inane thing, carried away by the heat of their
passion. As the woman drew abreast of them, they stopped suddenly, looked into each other’s eyes as if
seeing for the first time the person they had fallen in love with. They held hands and walked away, unsure
of what had just taken place but eager to take advantage of it.
The woman swayed, almost fell but the couple offered no assistance, indeed they completely ignored her.
Her sigh was the sound of winter descending on the land, bitter cold winds leeching the last life from the
dying landscape.
She raised her arms to the sky in an imploring manner, then, dropped them uselessly by her side. She took
several more steps.
An old woman Ira knew slightly, Madge Simmons, he thought her name was, came from the drug store and
stopped in front of the woman, rummaging through her purse. Ira knew that she, like him, had lost a mate
and like him, now lived half a life. Before, she had been vibrant, caring, working tirelessly for the
community. Now, she kept to herself, coming to town only for more pills to ease her pain.
Madge stopped her rummaging and looked around with an odd expression on her face. She saw Ira and
smiled slightly in quiet recognition, but continued to look around as if she had forgotten something. She,
too, ignored the woman standing beside her.
Madge suddenly began to cry but Ira knew by the sound that they were not tears of anguish. They were
tears of joy. She pulled a handkerchief from her purse and walked past Ira, smiling broadly at him. He
watched in amazement as she walked into the local community center.
Ira turned his attention to the strange woman. She was in pain. Her face was contorted and she was
moaning. He went up to her.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
The woman jumped as though shot. She stepped back several steps and stared at him, mouth agape.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She continued to stare, working her mouth several times before speaking. “You … you can see me?”
“Of course. Why should I not?” He remembered the odd way in which the others had acted. “Are you
invisible or something?” he said jokingly.
“Yes.” She delivered her answer with no humor.
“I don’t understand. Who are you?”
“I was once called Osira, daughter of Phraein. Now, I am called Gula.” She hung her head and shuddered.
“Gula,” he repeated. “It seems I’ve heard of that name.”
She smiled. “I was born over 5000 years ago on the banks of the Euphrates in the city of Ur, the simple
daughter of a cloth merchant. When my father died suddenly of heat stroke, I cursed the gods. It was my ill
fate to insult the Goddess Aja, the Sun Goddess. In revenge, she made me Gula incarnate, the Healing One,
doomed to travel the land, healing those whose paths I cross.
“To remind me that even goddesses are not perfect, I must take on the burden of pain of those I heal.”
Ira was beginning to think he was the brunt of some macabre joke.
“I find this difficult to believe,” he laughed. “Who are you, really?”
Something changed. This time, when she looked at him, he could see the misery of the ages reflected in
her weary eyes, eyes that had seen many centuries and many lands. He could see the pain hovering over
her like a black cloud, pressing her to the ground.
“My God,” he exclaimed.
“Don’t speak so freely of gods and goddesses,” she warned. “They exist as long as we believe. They have
the power over us that we give them.”
“But … but what about you? How long do you have to walk around with this awful burden?”
Her smile, he saw, cost a great deal of effort. “Until no one believes.”
She turned to walk away. He reached out a hand to stop her.
“Why can I see you?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Perhaps it is because you, too, carry a heavy burden. I saw yours and
was ready to accept it as I have these others, but I could see that you clung to it like a cherished memory.”
“No,” he cried, suddenly ashamed. “I don’t want to walk around with this guilt any longer but I can’t … how
can I…” He looked at her in confusion.
“What is one more ache or anguish to she who carries the burden of the world upon her back?” She
reached out her hand and touched his brow. Immediately, Ira could feel the pain and sorrow pour from him
like a fountain, the bitter waters erupting from the hollow place inside. Gula cried out and clenched her
fists as the cloud above her shuddered with the increase of so much pain.
He reached out a hand to steady her.
“No!” she cried. “Do not touch me.”
She continued her endless journey. Ira could see small clusters of people standing around in front of the
shops and felt sorry for Gula. She had taken the pain and anguish of his loss upon herself and yet made
room for even more.
As she slowly walked up the street, only the vaguest memory of his pain remained to remind him of his
encounter. Slowly, she, too, began to disappear, both from his view and from his memory.
Ira Potter smiled. It was a beautiful day out. It was as if some dark cloud had suddenly passed overhead,
freeing the sky.

Read excerpts from my latest novels, the
Oracle of Delphi, and Shadow Walker,
below.

                                                                             The Oracle of Delphi
                                                                                       Chapter 1
                                                                                          Delphi

Moon clouds, soft pink with wispy veins of iridescent clotted blood, curled upon themselves and pursued
one another across the pale orange-ocher sky, riding the high winds. Soon, the triple suns would rise, one
after the other, and erase the fragile nocturnal clouds from the day sky. Dust from the Spring Blow, kicked
up by the frequent storms and picked up by the ascending currents, stained the sky overhead, providing a
dazzling backdrop for the scintillating clouds. Far to the east, a thin azure line ran just above the horizon
indicating clearing skies, a beacon toward which to strive.
Tad de Silva eagerly scanned the distant horizon as he rode atop the neatly stacked sacks of grain, bales of
brightly died cloth and baskets of dried fruit and vegetables, hoping for some sign of the mystical city for
which they were bound. The rolling gait of the avian-like karth pulling the two-wheeled cart made focusing
with the oculars difficult.
“It’s still mor’an’ a day away yet, Tad,” cautioned his uncle, Wilbreth de Silva, from the driver’s seat of the
cart. The studded metal band around his head matched those worn by the two karth. The band allowed him
to keep a tight control on the edgy creatures among the other draft animals of the Caravan by sending
soothing thoughts to their receptors.
Tad brushed back his long brown locks and sighed. “I thought we would see it by now. You said Delphi was
as big as a mountain and as wide as the sea.” His voice growled with the youthful exasperation of long
sojourns.
His uncle laughed and slapped his knee with one large, calloused hand. He looked at Tad with his large blue
eyes, the same color eyes Tad had. “Well, I might have stretched it just a bit, boy, and I was just about your
age when I first went there. Everything looked bigger then. But, it’s plenty big. Just now, it’s over the far
horizon. We should be there by dusk tomorrow. You’ll see the lights of the Black Tower first, just as I did
those many years ago.”
Tad replaced the ocular in its niche in his pouch and took a sip of water from the water skin hanging on the
side of the cart. First, he had to beat off the accumulated layers of fine red dust. The dry plains through
which they now traveled were a series of ancient dry lakebeds interspersed with low, crescent shaped red
dunes slowly crawling toward the city, pushed even further by the Blow. Soaring snow-capped mountains
rose like staggered steps on each side of the ancient lakebed, funneling the winds over the dry plains and
keeping the dust trail they raised following them like a crimson shadow.
The large Caravan raised a vast choking cloud of dust that invaded every pore of his body. It hung in the air
like a fine, gravity defying mist, hardly stirred by the light morning breeze. The twenty wagons and carts and
the weary group of Haffa pilgrims following on foot closely behind them moved invisible inside a veil of their
own making. Tad wondered if their cloud was visible from the tall walls of Delphi.
The Caravan was an odd assembly of squeaky two-wheeled carts, ponderous draft wagons, small, multi-
wheeled Quarn sungliders and light, one-wheel sledges drawn by horses, oxen, avian karth, heavily armored
reptilian drakken, canine-like mastiffs and a few drissel, strange, shaggy sloth-like creatures from the deep
forests to the south. At the offset of the caravan two months earlier, a few steam-powered and gasoline
driven carts had accompanied the Caravan, but those had broken down along the way, victims of the lack of
water and frequent mechanical failure. Of the self-mobile conveyances, only the small Quarn sungliders had
held up to the journey.
Each sunglider, an eight-wheeled steel rail upon which rested a blown bubble of xaras plant resin, held ten
diminutive Quarn. A large solar sail spread upon a solitary mast provided power to tiny electric motors on
each wide wheel, which moved the vehicle forward at a human trot, much faster than the pace a Quarn could
run on two legs. The ever-prevalent dust hid the three suns and reduced the sail’s efficiency until the
sungliders barely outpaced the Haffa at the rear of the column. The batteries were so depleted they seldom
lasted past last sunset.
Twice each year trade Caravans made the long weary trek from various far-flung provinces of Churum to
Delphi, the largest coastal city and seat of power. With them marched scores of pilgrims eager to see the
Tomb of Saracen, fabled ruler of Delphi before the Dark. No one now remembered if Saracen was Terran,
Quarn, Plin or Mennas, but the enigmatic Haffa who had chosen him as their own made up the majority of the
pilgrims.
Tad peered through the dust haze to the rear of the Caravan at the group of Haffa barely visible plodding
slowly on the sun-baked dirt. Scarcely reaching Tad’s chest in height and covered with a soft, downy fur
ranging in color from russet to almost golden, the Haffa closely resembled Terran orangutans except their
shorter arms were definitely not designed for arboreal living. They wore small leather aprons about their
waists. Their sex was indistinguishable to an outsider. In addressing them, they preferred the title ‘Ta’ or
Enlightened One. Like most of the people in the Caravan, a fine layer of dust obscured their true color.
“Why do they come, Uncle?”
“The Haffa are a proud people, small in stature but proud. Their holy book, the Tiata Ta, claims the Haffa
were the first to discover Chrybdis long ago, even before the Terrans arrived, but their name for Chrybdis
was lost in time. They ruled seven worlds then, trading throughout the galaxy.” Wilbreth’s face darkened.
“Then came the Dark.”
Tad nodded. Not much else could be said about the Dark. History was too fickle for truth to have survived
unscathed; instead, only scattered tales, each more fanciful than the last, purported to explain the end of
time. All that was known for certain: All races fell from grace to become scavengers or worse as the skies
darkened, the world shook and all communication with other worlds ended.
In the over five thousand years since, no one had ever tried to make contact with Chrybdis. No ships arrived
from the outside. Slowly, the scattered races of Chrybdis had risen from small bands of nomadic herders to
farmers to an early Industrial Age level.
“I see,” Tad replied quietly, mulling over what he could remember of tales he had heard. “Do you think
anyone else survived?”
His Uncle Wilbreth looked at him and sadly shook his head. “It is said the Dark came from the center of the
galaxy and swept outwards. Chrybdis is at the very fringes of the galaxy. Perhaps its effect lessened by the
time it reached here. Perhaps the very perverse gravity anomalies that drew men here in the first place
shielded Chrybdis, but the other worlds … I don’t know.”
Tad knew from the tone of his uncle’s voice that his uncle thought they were alone in the universe.
“Alone,” Tad repeated. The word echoed silently in his mind, sounding hollow and haunting. After a few
minutes of somber reflection, he asked, “Why have you not returned to Delphi in all these years?”
His uncle snorted out a rough laugh. “A simple enough question but the answer is not so simple. Delphi is
…well; Delphi is a world unto itself. They give little thought to the world around them. It is a city of cheap
pleasures and the pursuit of those things your poor father so often warned you against.”
Tad could barely remember his father face, dead since Tad was just six. He had a vague image of a tall man
with sad eyes and even sadder smile, thin, gaunt cheeks and thinning black hair. His mother followed soon
after of a broken heart, or so his uncle and aunt had claimed. Others spoke of a fever of the mind.
“He said Delphi was evil.”
“Evil?” His uncle nodded. “Maybe, but mostly just not Godly.”
His uncle’s answer confused him. “Isn’t that the same as evil?”
“Well, evil is one thing and there’s evil enough in the world, but just not caring what happens to others is
another. The people of Delphi have no One True God to worship and care little what happens after death.
They live each day in pleasure or seeking pleasure, some few seeking pleasure in the pain of others.
Whether, evil or un-Godly, they care little for their souls.
“It is a wondrous place, mind you, filled with magic and beauty and art and things almost unimaginable, but
do not let it burrow under your skin and fester. I stayed too long and felt its sickness grow in me. I returned
to the Black Mountains before I lost my soul. We Terrans are few and are despised by many races for what
they think was our part in bringing the Dark upon them.”
“Did we, bring the Dark, I mean?” Tad had often pondered this question lying in the dark; in that twilight
realm between fast sleep and wakefulness when answers to such bold questions seem attainable.
His uncle shrugged his broad shoulders. “Who can say? Man explored deeper into the heart of the galaxy
than most other races. Who can say what we found slumbering there? I heard tales of civilizations so old
they no longer needed corporeal bodies. They existed as pure energy and swatted man back to the Fringes
as we would a swarm of irritating flies.”
Tad thought on this. His uncle seldom spoke on things such as this while on the farm within earshot of Aunt
Wilena. She would growl at his uncle, wag a finger in his direction and say, “Now don’t spook the boy, Wil.
Ghosts and goblins are enough without dark tales from history.”
A few times, such as while fishing or out hunting, he would speak of the past in hushed tones, especially
after his uncle had drunk a few cups of elderberry cider
“Terrans came to Chrybdis more than a century after the Geck wars, drawn by the gravity anomalies
between Chrybdis and her sister planet, Scylla. Lots of things could be manufactured in a gravity anomaly
that couldn’t be manufactured anywhere else – soft data crystals, polarized heavy water molecules for
energy. We had a vast empire of worlds then running all the way down the Lesser Arm, pointed like a finger
at the heart of the galaxy, and we were eager for one more. We were a young race, vigorous, cocksure and
full of ourselves. Some say foolish. We weren’t ready for what we found in the Core.” He would always take
another sip of cider as if to brace himself and say, “The Dark swept it all away, every blessed thing. We had
to fight the other races for survival. We might have to again. Old grudges linger long on Chrybdis.” Then he
would sing old songs and speak no more of the past.
Some of the things his uncle spoke of were mysteries – polarized heavy water molecules, data crystals. He
suspected they were just words from some old book. “The Quarn say we stole their world.”
His uncle looked at him. “Some say the Haffa stole it first, forcing the Quarn into hiding. Terrans might have
been a bit heavy handed in their dealings, but the Quarn wanted nothing other to be left alone and so we did.
We built cities and factories on the ruins of their abandoned Warrens and pretty much ignored them.”
“Until the Dark.”
“Yes. After the Dark, every intelligent species had to stand together or fall. The infighting and blaming came
much later. To this day the Quarn remain apart from all others except for an occasional foray into Delphi or
other cities for things they can no longer produce.”
Tad glanced back at the slow moving sungliders. “I wonder what they think of us.”
His uncle shrugged. “Who knows how a Quarn’s mind works? They stay out of everyone’s way and keep a
low profile. There’s a few renegade Quarn running with Marauders, I hear, but I ain’t ever seen one.”
Tad struggled with the mental image of a meter-tall Quarn holding a crossbow in its tiny four-fingered paw
as it attacked a caravan and quickly gave up. The Quarn never showed emotion, though he imagined they
must have them, and never carried arms. The Quarn offended no one. That was their defense.
A commotion from the head of the Caravan attracted Tad’s attention. He could hear a horn blowing over the
constant creaking of the carts’ wheels. He turned to his uncle.
“Trouble?” he asked.
“I see no one arming themselves,” his uncle said as he slowly reined in the karth, using his mind to soothe
their anxiety.
“I’ll go see,” Tad yelled, jumping down from the cart and racing ahead.
“Wait!” his uncle called uselessly, shaking his head at his nephew’s youthful exuberance.
At the fore of the Caravan, several carts had pulled off to the side of the worn path, forming a barricade of
sorts. Four Saddir, armed with rifled muskets, stood atop the carts.
“What is happening?” Tad asked the Saddir driving the lead cart. The Saddir looked down at Tad with his
almond-shaped silver eyes. Tiny scintillating flecks sparkled in the reflected light. Tad recalled the Saddir’s
name was Hanat. The Saddir’s long white hair was braided into a single strand that draped over his shoulder
like an epaulet. His creamy white skin was mottled with red dust where not covered by his leather and chain
mail armor. His hand rested easily on the pommel of his long sword. The handle of a single-shot pistol
protruded from his belt. He looked very much the fighting man.
The Saddir nodded ahead. Tad looked and saw riders, dozens of them, headed their way in their own cloud
of dust. His heart raced.
“Marauders?” he asked. Small bands of Marauders often attacked caravans. That is why the Saddir were
hired to escort them to the city.
In a voice as soft as a breeze, Hanat said, “They ride two abreast like soldiers. I think they are from Delphi.”
“Delphinium Guard,” Tad whispered, straining to get a good look. He had heard of them but had never seen
any. They never ventured as far as Casson at the foot of the Black Mountains where he lived. As he watched,
the Delphinium rode to the head of the caravan and stopped. Their dust cloud melded with the caravan’s,
creating a red shroud that blocked out the sun. The officer in charge, another Saddir older than Hanat,
ignored the dust. He lightly touched his breast with his clenched right hand. Hanat repeated the gesture. Tad
noticed several decorations of honor on the Saddir’s metal breastplate and the mark of a Captain of the
Guard on the sleeve of his tunic.
“Welcome to Delphi,” the captain said. “You will have a safe, easy journey from here. The road is safe.”
“We thank you,” Hanat replied. “You rode here just to greet us?”
The Saddir captain’s silver eyes narrowed. “No, we ride much farther, to Lakspur. There have been reports
of Marauders about. We go to cleanse the land.”
As the two Saddir spoke, Tad looked at the company of men. There were a few Terrans and Amazon-like
Lilith among the group. Tad was amazed at the dark beauty of the Lilith but also feared them. They were
fierce warriors with little regard for men. They conceived their young in ancient cloning tanks, disdaining the
seed of men. Most of the group was Saddir or Laconnii, also known as Gecks, huge reptilian creatures who
spoke no language but their own and followed no one who could not speak it. The Gecks were a warrior
race once at war with Terrans but that was long ago.
“Go with my blessing,” Hanat said, touching his breast again.
The Captain eyed Hanat for a moment, whispered, “Korath,” nodded and turned away. Tad noticed the
manner in which Hanat’s eyes glowered at the word.
Before he rode off, the Captain of the company glanced over at Tad. He spoke to Hanat again. “This Terran
is tall and strong for his age. He would make a good addition to our company.” He waved his hand and the
group rode off.
Tad swelled with pride. “Did you hear that?” He yelled at Hanat as the Guard rode away. “He said I could be
a Guard.”
“Be calm, young Tad de Silva,” Hanat cautioned, his eyes following the Captain. “Before you can enter the
Delphinium, you must complete two years as servant to the Guard, then two more as apprentice weapon
smith. It is hard and thankless work designed to strip you of your pride in order to forge you as a weapon.
The Delphinium have no companions but fellow Delphinium.”
“Were you a Delphinium?” Tad asked cautiously, remembering the odd eye contact between the two Saddir.
Hanat was silent for a moment before answering. His silver eyes glinted as he spoke. “Once, long ago, but I
betrayed someone dear to me and felt I could no longer serve with honor. Instead, I now ride shotgun on a
Caravan.” He laughed. “It is a fitting end for a failure,” he said with bitterness. Tad did not stop him as he
stalked away.
On the way back to his cart, Tad passed one cart with a Terran driver, an old man named Hugh Suitor,
bringing metal scraps to the city’s foundries. He saw a double-barreled shotgun lying across the man’s lap
and smiled.
“Ready for trouble, I see, Mr. Suitor,” he said.
“Better ready than dead,” the scrapper answered with a cackle.
  Tad pointed to the wagonload of scrap metal. “Do you get much for such things?”
“Good steel is worth much, iron less, copper depends on the market.” He pointed to small ingots of a silvery
metal. “Now palladium is worth its weight in silver.” He cackled again. “I imagine I’ll leave broke again this
trip.”
Tad had never seen so much palladium, a heavy metal used in manufacturing ships rudders and bow
sprints. “Broke? But this is worth a small fortune.”
“Ah, lad, you’ve never seen the gambling halls of Delphi, have you? Near naked women sit on your lap and
whisper sweet things in your ear while you roll dice or bet on gladiatorial events. For a few ounces of gold,
Plin Mages can return your youth for a day. I’m old, but I ain’t so old I don’t remember my youth. It’s worth a
few ounces of gold to feel young and robust again.” He whistled loudly and shook the reins to move his
team of horses forward.
Tad waited until his uncle’s wagon caught up, then climbed aboard. “The Saddir captain said I would make
a good Guard,” he bragged.
“Did the Saddir captain tell you only two out of fifty make it to the ranks of Delphinium and that the average
life of a Guard is eight years?”
“Eight years?” Tad was shocked.
“The Delphinium roam the outlying provinces. Their life is hard and there are many Marauders, as well as
simple bands of bandits and thieves. All will kill for weapons, food or just for the pleasure of it. The
Constabulary protects the city proper, not the Delphinium. That’s what you should be, a Constable.” He
laughed. “They’re usually fat and lazy and live long lives.”
“There’s no glory in being fat and lazy,” Tad replied.
“Glory? Ha! Glory is for the long dead. A fresh corpse is just dead meat.”
Tad rode in silence. His uncle’s words disturbed him. If not a Guard of the Delphinium, what could he be?
He had already decided there was no reason to return to Casson. His uncle had enough hired hands to
handle the farm and there was no school there beyond middle school. He could become an apprentice, he
supposed, though to what Guild he would apprentice, he did not know. Like most lads of sixteen, he
dreamed of glory, but knew he would probably have to settle for a life of years of hard work to become a
metal smith or a cook or a merchant. None seemed to offer much opportunity for adventure.
The Caravan was so near the city that they chose to eat midday meal on the go rather than camp, just as
they had chosen to ride throughout the previous night. Everyone was eager to reach Delphi. Cold
sandwiches would have to suffice for his and his uncle’s their lunch. Tad complained to his uncle that he ate
more dust than meat with his sandwich.
Corycia, the large yellow sun was near its zenith. Cleodora, Corycia’s smaller blue-white dwarf sister star,
had risen an hour later and was hand’s breadth from the horizon. It’s highly elliptical orbit around Corycia
made it rise and set twice each day, providing a warm glow hours after Corycia’s setting. Melaina, the third
star in the strange celestial triad, was merely a blue speck suspended just above the horizon during the
summer months and below it in winter. At times it was not as bright as Chrybdis’ sister world, Scylla. Melaina
would not set fully entirely for two more years when Chrybdis moved closer to Corycia in its solar dance. All
three appeared only as hazy blobs of light in the dust-laden sky.
By late afternoon, Tad noticed the dry plains began to give way to scattered groves of trees amid fields of
high grass. Small streams, at first red with dust, then later crystal clear as they progressed, crossed their
trail. The draw animals stopped frequently to enjoy their first long drink in many days. At one of the larger
streams, a few of the travelers, especially the Haffa, took the opportunity to bathe. Though hours of daylight
remained in the day, by mutual consent the Caravan made early camp. Abundant water and grazing for the
animals made the stream a suitable spot.
Tad found a small pool away from the others and stripped naked. Plunging into the cool, clear water
revitalized him after days on the dry plains. He swam underwater until his long black hair felt clean for the
first time in weeks.
“I thought you weren’t coming up.”
He looked up in shock and saw Sira Han looking at him from her perch on a boulder. He tried to hide his
nakedness but the water was too clear and too shallow. He covered his groin with his hands and tried to
look less uncomfortable than he felt.
“Did you come to spy on me, Sira?”
“As if you were the only Terran in the Caravan, eh, Tad?” she replied icily, folding her arms under her ample
bosom.
“Hand me my clothes.”
She picked up his shirt and pants and threw them at him. “I won’t touch your undergarments,” she laughed.
“They have seen better days.”
Tad danced on one foot trying to pull on his wet pants underwater. He walked out of the water, grabbed his
undergarments from the rock and dropped them in the water with his shirt.
“There! I’ll let them soak a while,” he said.
Sira produced a bar of soap from a pocket in her apron. “Use this to clean them.”
“Aren’t you going in?” he teased.
“When you are finished and return to the Caravan, I’ll bathe,” she said.
“I could stand guard,” he suggested. “There may be wild animals about.”
She laughed. “None as wild as you, I’ll bet, Tad de Silva. Now wash your things and give me my soap before
the entire Caravan finds this spot.”
Tad rubbed the bar of soap on his shirt and under garments until they were nice and sudsy. He beat them
on a rock to pound out the dust and grime, and then rinsed them. “I’ll dry them later,” he said, slinging the
wet clothes over his shoulder.
“What about your pants,” Sira teased.
“I think I’ll keep them on, thank you,” he said with a laugh. He tossed her the soap. She caught the slippery
bar deftly with one hand. They had played catch a few times on the journey and she was quite good at it,
better than him actually. Her hand-eye coordination was remarkable. He watched as she walked ankle deep
into the water, pulling up her dress as she waded, and wondered what she looked like without the long,
bulky dress and high collar she wore most days. She had fair skin with a few scattering of freckles on her
cheeks and arms and long reddish-blonde hair. She was almost as tall as he was and surprisingly strong for
a girl.
She had kissed him once, just a peck on the cheek, but her lips had been soft and warm and his skin
beneath her lips had tingled for an hour. Most girls in his village were stocky and broad of hip, plain of face
and more interested in the weekly washing than running in the fields or climbing hundred-limbed jujaw trees.
Sira loved to explore and run.
Sira traveled with her parents from the Province of Stiringly Astor on the Astor River far to the south to
Delphi to join the University as a second-year student. She and Tad had whiled away the boring hours on
the long journey, drawn together at first as two of the few Terran youth in the caravan, and then later out of
mutual attraction.
“I’ll see the others don’t intrude,” he yelled over his shoulder, “but keep a watch. I wouldn’t want to have to
come back later to pick up your gnawed bones.”
When he returned, the Caravan was undergoing a transformation. New canvas was brought out of storage,
replacing tattered and filthy wagon covers. People swept away the dust and washed the sideboards clean of
weeks of mud and dirt, preparing for the entrance into Delphi. A few even repainted their carts. The coming
of the Caravans was a big event in Delphi, celebrated by the city for days with dancing, singing and games.
He found his uncle grooming the ostrich-sized karth. He picked up a soft brush and helped wipe down their
brilliant plumage. The karth were hard to handle as draft animals, even with the control bands, but saddled
they provided rapid transportation, faster even than horses. Tad had raced them for fun in village events.
The pair was named Flick and Flack.
“Flick seems to have a sore foot,” his uncle said, “Probably a stone bruise. Would you fetch me the
ointment?”
Tad went to the back of the cart and pulled open the drop tailgate. There, beside the ointment, was a
package bearing his name. He opened the cloth bundle and found a new suit of clothes, probably
laboriously stitched by his aunt. The pants and matching short brown jacket were made of tarim fibers,
tightly woven for a light, almost waterproof garment. The cream-colored shirt was of cotton, comfortable and
durable.
“What’s this?” he called out.
“I thought you might want to look your best as we enter the city, first impressions and all.”
“Thank you,” he said as he handed his uncle the ointment. “I’ll change now since I’m clean.”
He rummaged through a trunk, found his best leather boots and polished them until they sparkled. Donning
the new clothes, he walked around the Caravan showing off. He saw Sira; wet hair hanging down her back,
returning from the pool.
“How do I look?” he asked, slowly turning to model his suit.
“How handsome!” she said. “Are you going courting?”
He ignored her. “I want to look grand for our entrance into Delphi. I’ll bet there will be dozens of good
looking girls there.”
“I’m sure they won’t have eyes for a hick rube from the sticks like you.”
Her words stung him like nettles. Harsher than he had intended, he answered, “At least I won’t have to wear
a black skull cap and robe like you university students. You all look like pall bearers at a funeral.”
Sira’s face reddened. She turned and strode quickly to her wagon.
“Sira!” he called after her, but she didn’t hear. “Stupid oaf,” he said to himself. “Hurt her feelings for sure.”
Her needling was a light-hearted jest, meant only to rile him, but his lack of confidence leant undue truth to
her words. He was ashamed of his background but could do little to change it. His schooling had been
broken into classes between harvests and she was a second-year college student. He had struck back at
her like a slighted child. He considered going after her, but the horn signaling dinner sounded.
He did not see her that night. She remained in her wagon and did not eat. He explained his plight to his
uncle.
“Don’t worry too much. Your tongue was barbed and struck home but I’m sure she will understand when
she thinks on it. Be sure to speak with her tomorrow and apologize.” He thought for a moment and reached
for a skewered potato roasting over the fire. “Perhaps she is as uncertain of fitting in as are you.”
Tad had spoken of his fears to his uncle before, but the thought that Sira might be afraid … “But she won
honors in her school.”
“Stiringly Astor is a small town, larger than Casson, yes, but still small compared to Delphi. It will be a big
step for her.” He pulled the potato from the skewer.”
Tad thought about this, thought of his plans. “You’re right, Uncle. I just assumed she was eager to begin
University.”
His uncle tossed the hot potato from hand to hand and blew on it to cool it. He looked at Tad. “Starting a
new life away from friends and family is a hard thing.”
Tad felt his uncle’s eyes probing him as if he had guessed Tad’s secret thoughts. “I will ask her to ride with
us tomorrow.”
His uncle bit carefully into the steaming potato and nodded. Tad reached for the butter urn and retrieved his
own hot potato. He split it open, lathered it with rich, creamy butter from the farm, one of the commodities
they had brought for trade, and sprinkled it with a pinch of salt and hot pepper flakes. The potato, slightly
yellow inside and sweet, tasted more like a desert than a meal. The cart contained a dozen bags filled with
white potatoes, yellow, purple and red potatoes and golden yams from their farm.
Few agricultural provinces could rival the Spindrift Valley for production. Casson sat at the head of the
valley, near the foot of the extinct volcano that provided the valley with its rich soil. The De Silva farm, one of
the largest, occupied nearly a quarter of the valley. Tad could walk the valley from end to end in half a day
past lush rows of corn, beans, squash, potatoes, tomatoes, flax and cotton. Canals carried nutrient rich
mountain water from Cass River to each field. Canals and holding ponds made excellent swimming holes in
the hot summer months.
“Do some of your magic,” his uncle said.
Tad was always pleased to perform for his aunt, uncle and friends. On the Caravan, his magic had whiled
away many hours after dinner. Some tricks were simple sleight of hand tricks learned after many hours of
practice, but a few of the conjectures seemed to come to him easily, more easily than they should have.
He began with a few relatively easy card tricks and worked his way up to making coins disappear and
reappear in thin air. By the time he started working the smoke balls, a dozen people had gathered to watch.
He was disappointed that Sira was not among them.
He reached into the column of smoke rising from the fire, grabbed a handful and patted it into a small ball.
He slowly bounced the ball between his open palms, like a juggler. He placed a finger into it and gently
began it spinning until it assumed a saucer shape. Carefully, he concentrated on the smoke, willing it to
obey him. Lightly caressing the spinning saucer with his finger, he adroitly broke it into a dozen smaller
spheres that danced like sprites.
At last, tiring, he allowed the smoke revert to its natural form and drift into the night sky. Amid the applause,
as he rubbed his forehead where the tickle always came after such a performance, he also heard a few
muttering, ‘Mage’. He ignored them. After all, it was a simple trick perfected over the years. He imagined
others could do it if they tried.
That night, as his uncle softly snored and dozens of other camp noises floated in the still air, Tad lay awake
and thought of Delphi.
Delphi, older than the Dark, bigger than the mountains surrounding Casson, would be an adventure, a
delving into mysteries beyond his provincial home. Delphi was a living, breathing organism comprised of
every disparate race on Chrybdis thrust together in mutual mistrust for common need. Part Heaven, part
Hell, Delphi had been a beacon on his mind’s horizon for years, drawing him as sweet nectar drew the
hummingbird or pollen the bee. He had gathered tales of Delphi in snippets from his uncle, from memories of
his father, from neighbors and passersby, from anyone willing to spend a few minutes remembering or
imagining. Half of what he knew was fantasy and the other half pure conjecture, but all of it was Delphi and
by first sunset tomorrow, he would see it rising from the plains.
# #

                                             Shadow Walker
                                                        1

  Darkness lay draped over the city like a blanket of fog, suffocating glass and brick
tombstones in folds of ebony, trapping in the daytime heat and stink and smog and erasing the
night sky. The few functioning streetlamps were feeble nursery nightlights, creating more
shadows than they dispelled. It was a night of shadows and within those shadows things moved
furtively, swirling the deep darkness like mist.
  A man emerged from the shadows. The shadows clung hungrily to his cloak like living
cobwebs, tattering as he pulled away. A puff of foul air, the stench of the grave, followed him.
His face, half hidden by his dark scarf, revealed only his eyes, twin points of darkness deeper
than the night surrounding him. He turned and faced the shadows from which he had just
emerged. A face appeared, twisted and distorted, the features barely recognizable but clearly
not human. Outsized enraged eyes glowed blood red and a long, sinuous tongue flicked back
and forth between rows of needle-point teeth in a mouth too wide for the sallow face. Two
fleshy slits above the mouth served as nostrils, opening and closing as the creature breathed.
  “Almost, Tanner,” the creature hissed angrily. “Sooner or later I will have you and feed on
your soul. The shadows are mine. Trespass at your own risk.” The tongue slid across the
needle teeth, leaving a trail of slimy saliva while accentuating their sharpness.
  Tanner stood silent for a moment before responding. His voice was soft and steady as he
spoke, his Midwestern accent clearly distinguishable. “Nice try, Seeker. I come and go as I
please. Accost me at the risk of your miserable life.” He reached into the folds of his cloak and
pulled out a large caliber black pistol with a dark wooden handle. “It’s loaded with tracer rounds.
They light up the place like a full moon.”
  Seeker hissed in anger.
  Tanner replaced his .38 in his shoulder holster and slowly pulled out a pack of cigarettes and
his lighter. He placed a cigarette in his mouth, snapped open his lighter and struck the wheel.
Seeker screamed and threw his hands over his eyes as the lighter flashed into flame reflected
in his crimson eyes. He withdrew into the shadows, which swirled and drifted away like mist,
leaving only the night. Tanner blew a puff of smoke into the shadows, adding insult to injury.
From the shadows, as if from a distance, he heard Seeker’s voice.
  “Next time Tanner.”
  Jon Tanner whistled softly, threw down the cigarette and ground it into the asphalt with his
heel. He didn’t need to get hooked on tobacco again. Ten years as a smoker was long enough.
He carried them just to piss off Seeker’s minions and throw off their sense of smell. He stood
and stared at the alley into which he had emerged. He sniffed the air, catching the scent of
water nearby and the aroma of restaurants. He walked to the edge of the alley and glanced at
the street.
  “Looks like East 23rd near Park Avenue,” he noted. “I’ll have a hell of a time getting a taxi this
time of night.”
  He hoped he didn’t have to walk all the way to his East Village apartment. He had done
enough walking the last two days to last for awhile. He slammed his fist into his open palm.
  “Damnation! The bastards were waiting for me! How the hell did they know where to find
me?” He spoke aloud, not caring who might overhear him, though the streets were deserted at
this early hour.
  Seeker and his minions had almost managed to trap him in a small copse of deadwood a mile
from the nearest shadow exit. Luckily, minions were not very intelligent and were easily
distracted by the scent of a piece of fresh, bloody meat. He had found on more than one
occasion that a couple of pounds of cheap steak could be a lifesaver.
  He managed to flag down a taxi by standing in the middle of the road and playing chicken.
Luckily for him, the driver was a foreigner. A native born New Yorker would have taken his
challenge more seriously and ran him down. He held up a fifty to show he was friendly. The
driver’s eyes lit up as he recognized the dead president on the bill with his suddenly hawk-eyed
vision. He smiled as he rolled down his window just enough for tanner to slip the fifty to him.
  “Where to, Mister,” he called out cheerfully in his heavily accented voice. He sounded
Pakistani, but Tanner wasn’t sure. He could have been Afghani, Iraqi, Kuwaiti – any of those ‘I’
countries, or any of the ‘Stan’ countries for that matter. He was too tired to care.
  Tanner collapsed into the back seat and closed his eyes. His head throbbed and his back
ached. “Take me home.” He gave the driver his address.
  The next thing he knew the driver was calling out to him. “Hey, buddy! We’re here.”
  Tanner looked up, nodded, and gave the driver an extra ten, producing a broad grin (He
never knew when he might need a late night taxi again). He fumbled for his keys, dropped them
on the steps, cursed under his breath as he bent to retrieve them; then opened the door and
half dragged himself up the narrow stairs to his second floor apartment using the fifty-year old
rickety railing. His legs felt like they had concrete blocks chained to them and his right arm
throbbed every time he pulled himself along the rail. Inside his apartment, he breathed in the
room’s stale, musty air tinged with the stink of week old garbage, stepped over a pile of bills on
the floor shoved under his door by his well-meaning next door neighbor and headed straight to
the coffee pot, flicking on lights as he went. He did not like shadows.
  When he turned on the kitchen light, an army of roaches scrambled for cover. It seemed they
made better use of the apartment than he did. He had spent three nights there in the past week
and a half. The remainder he had been either in Shadow Realm or in East Harlem at the
mission.
  He didn’t know if Shadow Realm had another name; he had never bothered to ask its damned
denizens. The Church had a name for it though– Purgatory, but Shadow Realm was his name
for the realm behind the deep shadows of the night where nightmares lurked. He had
discovered Shadow Realm as a child when his father had punished him by confining him in the
hall closet, a deep dark room filled with strange objects and odd smells. Seeking a way out, he
stumbled upon a land of shadows. Other shadows led out of his new Shadow Realm. It took
several beatings before he realized not everyone believed in Shadow Realm or could cross
over the boundary between light and dark.
  As a youth, he had explored Shadow Realm, gleefully using the land between shadows as a
shortcut from one place to another. It was not until later that he learned he was not the only
person in Shadow Realm. He ran across the pitiful dead, lost souls awaiting judgment, the
Purgs, as he called them. Then he had met Seeker and his horde of flesh eating minions.
Shadow Realm became a little less inviting.
  The coffee grounds were old and the tap water brackish, but he was in no mood to complain.
He filled the coffee maker and sat back to wait as it spat and gurgled as it did its thing. He
pulled off his cloak and checked his arm where one unlucky minion had gotten a bit too friendly,
unlucky because Tanner had doused him with holy water and stood back as the minion
exploded. Three deep parallel gashes ran down Tanner’s upper right arm. They were already
beginning to fester. He reached in his pocket pulled out a bottle of holy water, his last one, he
noted. He poured it liberally over the wounds. It stung like hell as the blessed water cleansed
the wounds of their foulness. He was pleased to see they were already beginning to heal.
Before he had discovered the amazing healing attributes of holy water on Shadow realm
injuries, he had managed to rack up a few nasty scars on his back and legs on which penicillin
had little effect. He had almost died of infection more than once.
  Soon, the aroma of hot coffee filled his little kitchen, forcing back the less pleasant odors. He
used his last clean cup and filled it to the brim, no cream, and no sugar – black as the night. He
supposed he would have to wash dishes someday, but it was so much easier to visit the diner
down the street. The food was decent, the coffee hot and the always smiling blonde waitress
had big tits, all look and no touch, but that was alright. No one fondled the Mona Lisa either but
the lines to view it were always long.
  While he sipped his coffee, his only vice since he had given up cigarettes the year before (He
did not consider liquor a vice), he went and grabbed his mail, tossing each one in the trash as
he scanned its sender. Most were bills. A few were pleas for money from charities. His bank
automatically paid his bills, if he had any cash left in his account. He should check on that soon.
As for the requests, he had learned a long time ago that charity began at home. No one had
ever done anything for him without payback and most of his clients eagerly sent him on his way
after paying him off, and jobs had been scarce lately.
  He paused as he held out one long official-looking blue envelope with the seal of the
Archdiocese of New York. He shrugged and ripped it open.
  “Dear Mr. Tanner,” it began. “We have need of your particular services. A mutual friend
recommended you to us. If you are interested in a job, please contact me as soon as possible.”
  The note was short and sweet, telling him nothing. It was signed, however, by Cardinal Hugh
O’Reiley of the office of the Archdiocese. He guessed the mutual friend was Father Degas
down at the Harlem Mission, the source of his holy water. There was one thing about the
Catholic Church – the checks didn’t bounce. He checked his watch. Three a.m. He had time for
a nap, a shower and, rubbing his rough face, decided to add a shave.
  He laid his .38 Smith and Wesson on the table beside the sofa, scattering the handful of extra
tracer rounds beside it, kicked of his shoes and lay down. It would take too much effort to
undress and go to bed. Besides, he wasn’t sure he had replaced the sheets on the bed the last
time he stripped it in one of rare cleaning frenzies.
  As usual, his dreams were filled with dark creatures and horrors beyond that which most
people could imagine. Shadow Realm was no place for the idle curious or the squeamish. The
more one ventured into it, the more it impinged on the little darkness of sleep. It was no frontier
for discoveries or land of opportunity. It was the stuff nightmares were made of and if
summoned, they could follow you into the real world.
  The Church had known about Shadow Realm for centuries, though they had called it by
another name – Purgatory, where lost souls go before that final dive into the depths of hell. A
soul could be retrieved from Purgatory and sent on its way to heaven, by prayer or by bodily
fetching it out. Once in hell, however, all bets were off. The reach of the Church didn’t extend
that far. There were doorways in Shadow Realm, backdoors to hell. You had to be careful
which doors you opened.
  Tanner was a Shadow Walker, one of that rare breed of persons that could cross the
boundary between the light and the shadows behind the light. There were not many: Over the
centuries there had been less than a score. Some had been priests; some common people. A
few relics of the Church were potent in Shadow Realm – holy water was one, prayer to a lesser
degree if undertaken by a true believer. Fire did not work properly in Shadow Realm, or
flashlights, but Tanner had discovered that tracers do. Crosses were less than useless. The
evil that stalked Shadow Realm was far older than Christ, older even than the Church. It had
been there before God called forth the light from the darkness, dividing the night from the day.
He had at the same time unwittingly created the shadows, releasing some of the foulest dark
creatures of hell upon the land.
  Tanner was no believer and had little use for those who did. He barely believed in himself.
Holy water worked, so he used it. Prayer might work for others, but not for him. He placed his
faith in his wits and his .38 Smith and Wesson. So far, both had served him well. He gladly
accepted money from the Church in exchange for work performed, but he didn’t buy into any of
their great Holy Crusade nonsense. He killed minions simply because he liked to watch them
die.
  He awoke from his nap no more refreshed than when he had gone to sleep. A shower and
shave helped some; hot coffee helped more. He rummaged around in his closet and found a
clean shirt and pants. He brushed off his dirty boots and combed his long black hair before
stuffing it under his broken down black fedora. The day was sunny but he carried his cloak and
scarf. He never knew when he might need them. It was always chilly in Shadow Realm. He
walked to the subway and took a train to First Avenue, where the Archdiocese was located. He
flinched a little at the shadows as the subway flashed by the tunnel lights, imagining eyes
watching him.
  He drew countless stares from passersby in the Archdiocese lobby. At six-two, Tanner was
tall and lanky and his hat added inches to his height. Tanner was no pretty boy, by any means
and he knew it. His rugged face looked as though he had lost a fight or two, but it was his eyes
that drew people’s attention. As dark as coal, they revealed nothing of the man behind them but
seemed to stare disconcertingly into the observer’s heart.
Cardinal Hugh O’Reiley was a big man, not fat but massive, over six-feet tall and at least 285
pounds, compared to tanner’s 180. His slightly askew nose made him look like a retired prize
fighter. This much he and the Cardinal had in common, Tanner noted wryly. The Cardinal
greeted Tanner with a smile and held out his hand to shake. Father Degas must have informed
the Cardinal of Tanner’s lack of conviction; he did not offer his ring to kiss.
  They were in the Cardinal’s office, a dark unostentatious room plain to the point of boring,
with only a hanging crucifix, a portrait of the Pope and a few marble statues of the saints to
lighten its drab decor. The Cardinal sat in the shadows behind his massive dark oak desk big
enough to be buried in and offered Tanner a chair across from him. Tanner moved the chair
deliberately to the only patch of light in the room cast by a small wall sconce.
  “It was good of you to come, Mr. Tanner. Father Degas has told me so much about you.”
  The Cardinal’s light-hearted, friendly manner bothered Tanner. He knew it was aimed at
winning his trust and friendship. He didn’t need any more friends. He decided to ruffle the
Cardinal’s feathers.
  “Yeah, did he tell you I prefer cash? But I’ll take a check if you think the Pope’s good for it.”
  Without missing a beat, the Cardinal replied. “I have five thousand dollars in this top drawer,
all bills smaller than a hundred, your preferred denominations I believe.” He smiled. “Father
Degas told me you were a cynic as well as a non-believer.”
  “Aren’t they both the same thing, Cardinal?”
  The Cardinal nodded. “Perhaps, but I think cynicism is a learned trait, where lack of faith is
simply a lack of knowledge. How can you see what you see and not believe?”
  “Oh, I believe what I see, Cardinal. I’m no fool and maybe there is a God somewhere. I just
don’t think God gives a damn. If he created man in his image, he probably got bored pretty
quick and went off to look for some goddess or something for a roll in the Ever After. That’s
what I do when I’m bored.”
  He was disappointed by the Cardinal’s reaction. The Cardinal threw back his head and
laughed, deep and sonorously. When he had finished, he said, “Father Degas said you were,
as he put it, a trip. I can see why. I imagine you two have gone many rounds together.”
  “He tried to convert me once. We split a bottle of sacramental wine and called it even. Now
we have an understanding.”
  “I see. Well, I suppose your sense of honor makes you trustworthy.”
  Tanner snorted. “Honor? I can’t afford honor. I do my job because if I don’t, I die. That’s
incentive enough, though the cash helps alleviate the pain and suffering.”
  “You Shadow Walkers are a strange breed. There have been a few Shadow Walkers in the
Church over the centuries, of course, but most are secular like you. Oh, well, down to
business.” He spread his hands palm down on the desk, thumbs touching. “We have need of
your services, Mr. Tanner.”
  “We?”
  “Archbishop O’Shay and I.”
  Tanner snorted. “Jesus, are all you holy rollers Irish?”
  Cardinal O’Reiley interlaced his beefy fingers like a steeple over his chest and leaned back in
his chair. “We Irish have remained Catholic in spite of centuries of intrusion by the faithless
English. We tend to take care of each other.”
  “So I gathered.”
  “One of our Shadow Walkers is missing.”
  Without missing a beat, Tanner replied, “Then he’s dead meat.”
  The Cardinal shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. He is alive and is being held prisoner
somewhere in what you refer to as Shadow Realm.”
  Tanner was intrigued. “What makes you think so? Seeker and the others like him don’t keep
flesh and blood prisoners. They feed them to their minions.” Tanner had met lost souls in
Shadow Realm, had even spoken to a few for clients, but never a flesh and blood. He knew
there were other Shadow Walkers out there, but he had never met one of them. Shadow Realm
was a big place, almost a mirror image of the real world – almost. It was an easy place to get
lost in without a map. He kept his map in his head with every exit he had discovered over the
years. It had saved his life on several occasions.
  “His sister spoke to him in a dream,” the Cardinal blurted out.
  Tanner smiled. “Bull shit! She had a dream, all right, but it wasn’t a vision. It was a nightmare.
Save your cash, Cardinal. The man’s dead.” He started to rise from his chair but the Cardinal
motioned for him to remain seated.
  “I don’t think so, Mr. Tanner. They are twins. He has the ability to cross between shadows, as
you do. She has the ability to see into the shadows in her dreams. She is what you might call a
Dream Walker. Her dream spirit can enter Shadow Realm, but not her body.”
  “Mmm. That’s a new one on me, Cardinal, but the answer is still no. He’s minion meat by
now.”
  “Father Degas said you would refuse.”
  Tanner laughed, more of a snort than a chuckle. “He knows me pretty well.”
  “Very well, I will offer you ten thousand dollars. Does that entice you more?”
  Tanner whistled. “That’s a lot of cash for a quick snatch job. What is this Shadow Walker to
you?”
  “He is special to us, to the Church. That is all you need to know. Will you accept this job?”
  “Cardinal, for ten thousand bucks, I’d bring you back Satan’s goatee.”
  “There is a caveat,” the Cardinal said unlacing his fingers and leaning forward.
  Tanner’s eyes narrowed as he leaned forward to counter the Cardinal’s move. First they get
you to stick out your neck; then they bring in the axe. “What’s that?”
  “His sister must accompany you into Shadow Realm.”
  Tanner grew livid. He stood quickly, shoving his chair behind him. “No way in hell! I work
alone. I ain’t dragging no crazy broad into Shadow Realm. No way!”
  “She can pinpoint her brother’s exact location. It will save you time.”
  He considered it a moment; then shook his head negatively. “It’s still too risky.”
  The Cardinal reached into the top drawer of his desk and pulled out four stacks of bills. “Here
is twenty thousand dollars. It is my final offer.”
  Tanner looked at the four neat stacks of bills. They seemed to glow with an aura like the aura
above the figure of Christ on the crucifix hanging from the wall behind the Cardinal. He could
smell the printer’s ink luring him like a broad’s cheap perfume. Twenty thousand was a lot of
dough, but taking a woman into Shadow Realm would be dangerous for both of them. Was he
willing to die for twenty grand? He grinned inwardly, not letting the Cardinal see. Hell yes. He
had risked his life for less often enough.
  Tanner pulled the chair back into position and sat down. He looked the Cardinal in the eye.
“Throw in a couple of bottles of holy water and you got a deal. I figure the Archbishop’s blessing
might have more kick than Father Degas’s. He’s a good man, but he just runs a flophouse and
soup kitchen for lowlife’s. Hell, the Archbishop has the ear of the mayor and a shit load of
congressmen. Maybe he’s got better pull with the Man.”
  “Do you mean God, Mr. Tanner?” the Cardinal asked, incredulous.
  “Hell no, I mean the real Man, someone who can fix my overdue parking tickets.”
   The Cardinal frowned and slid the stacks of money across the desk with a smile. “You do not
drive, Mr. Tanner.”
Tanner ignored him. He grabbed the stacks of cash and slipped them into his cloak pocket.
“Where do I find this Dreamer?”
  “I will send her to you. Go back home and wait.” He stood. “Come, I’ll fetch you your holy
water from the Archbishop and have him say a prayer for you.”
  “The holy water will be enough, Cardinal. Save the prayers for someone who cares.”
  As he walked out of the Archdiocese building wearing his cloak, the holy water in one pocket
and the money in the other, he smiled at how nicely they balanced each other. One would keep
him in food and liquor and pay the rent; the other might save his life. On his way home, he
made one quick stop, the liquor store, the owner of which was one of the few men he allowed to
call him by his first name.
  “Long time no see, Jon,” the owner called out as Tanner walked in, ringing the bell hung over
the door. “Been vacationing?”
  The owner, Stan Wiskowski or something like that (Tanner could never pronounce it) was a
good man. He asked few questions and didn’t expect an honest answer to any of them. Tanner
liked him for that. “You could say that. Give me my usual.”
  Wiskowski rummaged on the shelf behind him filled with bottles of all sizes and colors, pulled
down two quarts of Jim Beam, double bagged them and slid them through the window.
“Kentucky’s finest,” he said.
  “I drove through Kentucky on the way here from Nebraska,” Tanner replied. “Smelled like
horse shit.”
  Wiskowski laughed. “Jesus, Jon. You got nothing good to say about anything, do you?”
  Tanner held out one of the bags. “Good old Jim Beam.” He placed them in his cloak pocket,
opposite the holy water, not out of any religious conviction; he just did not want them to break.
He pulled a couple of bills off of one stack out of Wiskowski’s sight and slid them under the
bulletproof glass protecting Wiskowski from robbers, though Tanner knew Wiskowski kept a
loaded .45 on a shelf just below the window pointed at any would-be robber’s chest. “Here’s a
hundred. I owe you about that. Keep the rest.”
  Wiskowski took the money, folded it without counting it and shoved it a shirt pocket. “Jesus,
Jon. I trust you. You’re one of the few bastards I sell to on credit. I guess it’s your irresistible
charm.” He laughed so hard it shook his ample belly.
  “See you when I run out.” When Tanner walked out the door, Wiskowski was still laughing.
“Bastard must get cabin fever behind that bulletproof glass all day and half the night,” he
remarked to no one in particular.
  Outside, no one paid him any attention. Two grizzled old men sat on the steps passing a
bottle of cheap wine back and forth. A kid, no older than fifteen and looking like he hadn’t had a
decent meal all month, tried to beg a dollar from him. “Get a job kid,” he snapped, but when the
kid walked away, he thought better of it, called him back and handed him a ten. “Go get a
decent meal before you sniff it up or whatever you do for jollies. You look like a freakin’ walking
corpse.” The kid grabbed the money before Tanner could change his mind and dashed away
without a thank you. “Yeah, thank you, too, bastard,” Tanner yelled out after him. The kid
turned around, running backwards and shot him the bird. Tanner considered pulling out the .38
and winging the bastard, but tracers cost too much. “Stay out of the shadows kid,” he yelled
instead.
  Back at his apartment, he opened a window to drive out the musty smell and set out the stinky
garbage in the alley to mingle with all the other foul alley odors. He met his neighbor, Hildy, as
he was coming back up the stairs. She stood at the top of the landing just close enough to the
edge for him to get a tantalizing view of her creamy thighs beneath her short skirt. Her ample
breasts pushed her red pullover to its limits. He shook his head in wonder at all the male
testosterone in the air at the office where she worked as a secretary. Hildy had a thing for him
and he had returned the favor once or twice in the past, but she was a bit too clingy for his
tastes. Still, he couldn’t shake her. She wasn’t bad looking when she bothered to fix herself up.
Tanner knew he was no great catch himself, but that didn’t mean he would stoop to boffing bar
flies or hookers, so he often went without. As usual, she reeked of tobacco. He didn’t mind the
odor so much except it made him want a cigarette.
  “Hey, Jon,” she said. “Long time no see.” She reached up her hand and lightly patted her
hair. He noticed it was shorter and a little blonder than usual, just as she hoped he would.
“New hair style, Hildy?” he asked as he came up next to her, towering over her by at least six
inches.
  She beamed at him. “Why, nice of you to notice, Jon. Gonna be around long?”
  “Probably not. Got a job coming up later today. I’ll be out of town a while.”
  “Big case?” Hildy had guessed he was a private investigator and he hadn’t bothered set her
straight. It accounted for his gun and his strange comings and goings.
  He nodded. “Enough to pay the bills.”
  “Enough to take me out for a drink some night?” she pouted.
  “We’ll see Hildy.” He jerked his thumb back up the stairs. “I gotta take a nap. If a lady buzzes,
let her in will you?”
  Hildy’s face reddened a shade and her eyes narrowed. “A date?”
  He laughed. “Hell no! Just some broad involved with the case.”
  Hildy smiled. “Okay, Jon. See you later, I hope.”
  Tanner was glad he had escaped unscathed. Hildy could be a bit over protective or jealous or
whatever attitude rejected ex-girlfriends adopt. He had a few regrets about their short-lived
relationship; she was certainly no slacker in the sack. It was just unfortunate that she just
couldn’t let well enough alone. He was a man with no roots and not much of a future. Any
woman deserved better than along-term relationship with him.
  His nap didn’t happen. He couldn’t get the fact that Seeker had found him so quickly on his
last outing out of his mind. In ten trips, he had avoided Seeker and his minions, even the Purgs
and the Replicas. He knew the minions hunted mainly by scent, but he hadn’t changed cologne
or his bathing habits; nothing to put them on his scent. Whatever the reason, it would make this
job more difficult, even without the added responsibility of a Dreamer.
  He had never met a Dreamer, but he had heard of them. They could not cross the shadows
like he could, but they could astral project their consciousness and a facsimile of their bodies to
Shadow Realm. Once there, they would seem solid enough to any observer and any damage
they endured there could affect them mentally, making them a vegetable or a nutcase. But in
the face of danger, they could instantly return to the real world; whereas Tanner and his fellow
Shadow Walkers had to locate and utilize a likely shadow doorway.
He hated these kinds of trips into Shadow Realm. He would have to scout around looking for
his snatch. That’s where the trouble came in. If the other side wanted this Shadow Walker badly
enough to keep him prisoner, then they would expect someone to come to his rescue – a
possible two-for-one deal of which he wanted no part. Usually, he worked as a special courier,
no questions asked; pick up the customer’s parcel and deliver it almost instantly to the proper
address. He had met a few shady characters in the process, but they usually paid in cash. Less
often, he located the recently departed for clients and asked them questions – who killed you,
what the Swiss bank account number was, what did you do with the car keys.
  Once or twice the Church had hired him to free souls. He imagined the Church had received
large cash donations in return, but maybe that was just his natural cynicism. He had never tried
to rescue a flesh and blood.
  He heard the buzzer and then heard Hildy open her door. She buzzed open the entrance
downstairs. He sat and waited as soft steps padded up the stairs. He smiled to himself knowing
Hildy would be watching from her barely opened door. He let his Dreamer knock twice before
going to the door. When he opened it, he was stunned. She was a real looker, about twenty-
five years old, 5’5” with long, silky hair so black it seemed to shine as it brushed her tanned
bare shoulders. She had slightly Asian features and a lithe dancer’s body that managed to draw
his attention from her face. He looked her up and down twice before stepping aside, just in case
he had missed something the first time.
  She cocked her head to one side and glared at him. “Seen enough?” she asked gruffly, as if
his reaction was nothing new to her.
  “For now. You my Dreamer?”
  She frowned. “I’m not your anything, Bub. My name is Kan Li Mien and I’m here to guide you
to my brother, Tim.” She looked him over; then checked out his apartment resting her eyes a
moment each in turn on the newspapers littering the floor, the dirty dishes plied haphazardly in
the sink, and the twin bottles of Jim Beam sitting on the coffee table. “The Cardinal warned me
about you, Mr. Tanner. Let’s get one thing straight. I’m here to rescue my brother. I paid good
money for your help. I don’t need any of your sexist bullshit.”
  He smiled. “Hmm, feisty, too. Hope you keep your good humor where we’re going.”
  “I’ve been to Purgatory before.”
  “Ever dealt with Seeker or a minion?”
  “No, but …”
  “Then don’t try to browbeat me with your experience,” he snapped. “You’ve just got your mind
to lose and it must be pretty screwed up to start with or you wouldn’t be doing this. Me, I go in
full flesh and I intend to come out with all of it intact. If you go all gangbuster on me or prove to
be too big a nuisance, I’ll leave your pretty little ass there in a heartbeat and get out when I can.
Got it? I’ll just keep a thousand or so for my trouble. You can have the rest if you can still count
it. I don’t take money for delivering souls to Purgatory, just bringing them back.”
  She stood with her fists clenched and her legs spread wide as if she wanted to attack him, but
she said nothing. Tanner liked that. She showed restraint. She might just make it after all.
“We leave tonight,” he added. “I’ve got a handy entrance nearby. You can meet me in Shadow
Realm.”
  She glanced around at the disarray and wrinkled her nose. “You want me to trance here?”
  Tanner got a little miffed. Sure it was a dump, but it was his dump. “I feel safe here. I don’t
know your place, so yeah, here.”
  She sat down, looking pointedly at the liquor. “Are you going to offer me a drink?”
  He pointed to a half empty bottle of Jim Beam. “Help yourself. There might be a clean glass in
the kitchen.”
  He heard her rummaging in the kitchen and running water in the sink. She returned several
minutes later with two glasses and some ice. “There wasn’t anything clean in there. I washed a
couple of glasses, though I don’t know how clean they are. Does your water come straight from
the river or do you have a special filter filled with crap?”
  He smiled. “I don’t drink the stuff myself. Sometimes I bring in bottled water for ice and
coffee.” He shrugged. “I’ve been busy lately.”
  She poured two fingers into both glasses, adding another finger to Tanner’s when he pinched
his fingers together and spread them apart to indicate more. “A two-fisted drinker, I see.”
  “Lady, if you did what I do for a living, you’d drink too.”
  She held out her glass. “Been there, done that, if only in my dreams.”
  “Yeah, I forgot. How’d you get started in this racket?”
  She took a sip and sighed. Tanner downed half of his with one gulp. “When I was a little girl, I
kept dreaming about a dark place, a land of shadows. No one believed me until I began to tell
them things I couldn’t possibly know, things I learned from the walking dead in Purgatory. My
brother believed me, but I didn’t know at the time he could walk through shadows. I spent some
time in a hospital, if you know what I mean. Later, I sold my talents to wealthy ladies tired of
séances and Ouija boards. The Church heard about me through my brother, who had gotten
religion by then and worked for the Vatican as a Shadow Walker.”
  “Tough life. You got religion, too?”
  She looked at him for a moment, her lips drawn tight. “I believe in Purgatory, if that’s what you
mean.”
  “Good. I don’t want no Jesus freak giving me grief over wasting minions or an Overseer if I get
the chance.”
  She shook her head. “You’ll get no grief from me. Kill as many of the bastards as you can. I’m
a Dreamer. I can’t carry in any weapons but they give me the shakes.”
  This time Tanner smiled. “But I can carry one in for you.”
  She held his eyes with hers for a moment and cocked her head to one side before returning
his smile. She held out her glass. “Wen Lie! That means ‘To your health’ in Chinese.”
  Tanner held out his glass. “Wen Lie!”