~ Spotlight ~
HOPE AND HAPPINESS MAY NEVER DIE... BUT PEOPLE DO...
It's never a good sign for the living when the dead rise & leave empty graves behind. In this of zombie tales Murphy & friends face down a jinn's death wish; Moni the Graveyard Angel tries to close down a brothel offering dead women to their clients; in Camelot, the Infinite Jester learns the cauldron of life is not all it's reputed to be; Agent Karver must face down one of his dead that has left her grave; a vampyre zombie & a tiny necronate cause trouble in the Crimson Midnights; the Council of Thrones calls upon Nemesis to ensure a solider answers for his part in a genocide; in the alternate future of the Mysticaust the honored dead rise to defend Uncle Sam against a traitor; in the past Faerie soldiers forever scar young Terrorbelle & kill her mother for a darker purpose; Zombielicious lets her marital strife spill out onto the streets of New York; a mother asks Hex to kill her baby, but the infant's already dead & eating the neighbors; the Soul for Hire learns the hard way that a bullet for the dead isn't always enough to stop them; & Hell's Detective must capture a demon possessed zombie before it slaughters more innocents.
The patrons of Bulfinche's Pub speak out on EMPTY GRAVES:
"A STUNNING ACHIEVEMENT! IF I HAD TO BE BURIED ON A DESERT ISLAND, THIS IS THE BOOK I'D BRING," - MURPHY'S MOM.
"MORE FUN THAN A DIRGE," - MONI, the Graveyard Angel.
"ALMOST AS HOT AS ME," - the corpse known as ZOMBIELICIOUS.
"NOW THAT I'VE READ THIS, I CAN DIE HAPPY. THAT WAY I'D NEVER HAVE TO READ IT AGAIN," - Negrel, Hell's Detective
It's never a good sign for the living when the dead rise & leave empty graves behind. In this of zombie tales Murphy & friends face down a jinn's death wish; Moni the Graveyard Angel tries to close down a brothel offering dead women to their clients; in Camelot, the Infinite Jester learns the cauldron of life is not all it's reputed to be; Agent Karver must face down one of his dead that has left her grave; a vampyre zombie & a tiny necronate cause trouble in the Crimson Midnights; the Council of Thrones calls upon Nemesis to ensure a solider answers for his part in a genocide; in the alternate future of the Mysticaust the honored dead rise to defend Uncle Sam against a traitor; in the past Faerie soldiers forever scar young Terrorbelle & kill her mother for a darker purpose; Zombielicious lets her marital strife spill out onto the streets of New York; a mother asks Hex to kill her baby, but the infant's already dead & eating the neighbors; the Soul for Hire learns the hard way that a bullet for the dead isn't always enough to stop them; & Hell's Detective must capture a demon possessed zombie before it slaughters more innocents.
The patrons of Bulfinche's Pub speak out on EMPTY GRAVES:
"A STUNNING ACHIEVEMENT! IF I HAD TO BE BURIED ON A DESERT ISLAND, THIS IS THE BOOK I'D BRING," - MURPHY'S MOM.
"MORE FUN THAN A DIRGE," - MONI, the Graveyard Angel.
"ALMOST AS HOT AS ME," - the corpse known as ZOMBIELICIOUS.
"NOW THAT I'VE READ THIS, I CAN DIE HAPPY. THAT WAY I'D NEVER HAVE TO READ IT AGAIN," - Negrel, Hell's Detective
- Excerpt -
Argus did his usual recon of the target. McMillian didn’t bother much with bodyguards or vests. He barely bothered looking up and down a street before he left a building. It was too easy.
City born and breed, the Soul for Hire didn’t know much about looking gift horses in the mouth, but if he did, he was the type who would be checking for plastic explosives disguised as teeth.
Because it looked so simple, he did extra surveillance, but McMillian was still as sloppy with personal security on day five as he was on day one.
Day six was when Argus took the shot. As a hitman, he obviously did sniper work. With the marksmanship gifts the Devil had given him in exchange for his soul, it was child’s play. Within the physical specs of a weapon’s force and range, he literally couldn’t miss. It didn’t mean the target couldn’t shift or something couldn’t suddenly block the bullet’s path, but Argus was a professional and accounted for that.
Still, he did not take a life, even that of another killer, lightly. Whenever feasible, he tried to do the deed up-close and personal. It was one of the few times he took off his sunglasses. At the moment of death, even a scumbag deserved the respect of being looked in the eyes by the man who killed him. Of course, his safety and continued freedom often dictated a different approach, but McMillian seemed like a cakewalk.
Of course, strolling on a cake big enough to walk across would be akin to walking through a swamp filled with sticky sweet quicksand.
Argus stepped out of an alley, his gun already pointed at McMillian’s face. He waited until their gazes met, and then put a bullet between the big man’s eyes. McMillian’s cranium did the familiar snap back and the big man hit the pavement. Argus knew the damage a bullet could do at point blank range when it went into a skull, and there hadn’t been enough blood spatter for a head wound. The Soul for Hire mentally wrote it off to low blood pressure. Sure, the big guys tended to have high blood pressure, but there were exceptions to every rule.
Argus left through the alley, planning to disappear out the other side, when another rule was broken. The man who had a bullet rip through his skull got up off the pavement, brushed himself off, and began to play with the wound using his index finger.
Despite his better judgment, Argus stopped his escape to watch. There was no question that he hadn’t missed, and the hitman’s brain was speeding to re-assess the situation. Bored with fingering his torn flesh, McMillian looked up and noticed the man who had just shot him. He waved with his free hand, smiling with an expression of purest glee. The flesh had already started to mend, so when McMillian took his finger out of the crater in his head, it made a slurpy pop. Not bothering to wipe the brains off his digit, the dead man cracked his knuckles and took a single step toward the Soul for Hire.
Argus was the kind of cool and tough that intimidated other tough guys, but he wasn’t stupid. You didn’t stay and blindly shoot at something that had already proved that bullets don’t hurt it when a perfectly good escape route was available, so he turned and ran. The dead man stopped, choosing to stay put, but the sounds of McMillian’s laughter chased the Soul for Hire for hours.
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