With thanks to Stephanie Burgis, Fran Wilde and Kate Elliott It was a large, magnificent room with intricate patterns of ivy branches on the tiles, and a large mirror above a marble fireplace, the mantlepiece crammed with curios from delicate silver bowls to Chinese blue-and-white porcelain figures: a clear statement of casual power, to leave […]
Listen well, oh best beloved, for I have much to tell you before the tide comes in, and there will come a time when you are called to recite it, word for word, whether I am here or no. Listen well, and remember what I tell you: In the long-ago, when the sea blossomed with […]
The letter from my grandmother arrived twenty years after she died. It—and its contents—were completely unexpected. “She left me her house,” I told my mom. “Well, you ought to be able to get decent money for it,” she said. “That’s the catch. I have to live in it for a year first. Otherwise the money […]
The Indy Metro bus came to a shuddering halt and deposited Celeste Burroughs at her stop. A plastic shelter enclosed a bench printed with the words “Embrace Mortality.” Celeste looped the cord of her earbuds around her thumb then unwound it, careful not to pull the cord free from her pocket, where it trailed, not […]
I’m trying to piss against a wall when the vampire bites me. Trying because drunk-me can barely hold a glass, much less maneuver a limp prosthetic cock. My attacker holds me like he did on the dance floor, one arm wrapped around my chest, this time digging into my ribs. I struggle against his supernatural […]
I am a first generation Japanese Canadian immigrant. I gratefully reside on the unceded traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples: the Musqueam, the Skwxwú7mesh, and Tsleil Waututh Nations. It was an unusually warm night for mid-March and I had left the glass patio door open to let in the fresh air. I’d already heard […]
This is the original timeline. You know, the one all of us came from. So we can’t do anything to it, or we won’t be born to invent time travel. We can only meddle with other timelines. This is the original timeline. We’re trying to fix things. Unfortunately for you, if we ever do manage […]
The client lies slumped across my shoulders. I have an arm around his thigh, another around his upper arm. His immaculately tailored silk pajamas are soft against my hand. They must feel amazing on his body. Right now, the client may as well be a loaded barbell, except his body gives and his weight shifts […]
The basement of Satellite City’s main library was made up of several levels dug deep into the earth. Even this early, several hours before dawn, each level was filled with scholars poring over old documents, students fetching and carrying, and stewards and handmaids scurrying about. Alia flashed her cartouche at the attendant on duty and […]
I am starving. Performing miracles for you—manifesting money from the air; deconstructing diseases; repairing broken bodies, imbalanced minds—costs me energy, and entropy nickel-and-dimes my soul day by day. So my hunger never leaves me, only grows. And there is no food for me here; I have foresworn eating anyone else. I am resigned to die. […]