By the time I’d finished foisting the rest of the lhiannan sidhe paperwork off on SSF officers, the follow-up reports from the airport were ready, and my trail was cold. So, I stopped in at the Nameless Diner, had a bit of coffee, and filed through them ( Read more... )

It was late afternoon before I came by Doylen’s, and at that hour, there wasn’t much in the pub except some sunlight and Doylen herself, who was all wide-eyed attention when I came through the door ( Read more... )

Standing in some anonymous building, the tattered skins of pamphlets layered on peeling walls, broken tiles underfoot, I examined the stairwell and then walked quietly through the adjunct hallway. I paused in the back room; this place was probably a restaurant once, but the fixtures were all gone, and the walls had the uncertain, hollow wounds ( Read more... )

While I began the coffee machine ritual, Akiko was getting ready for work. Her professional wardrobe is very sharp, all somber business and careful lines, and she was buttoning up her shirt while her hair worked on getting tangles out, making it look like it was shivering in great waves ( Read more... )

By three in the morning, I finished absorbing the reports, and I had what I expected: more questions. Even with what Akiko told me, there were too many holes to fill. Colin's work turned up some disturbing evidence; metaphysical remnants at the airport showed that, apparently, the people at the gate had all been snuffed out by some sort of terror, ( Read more... )

So much of what I do is reflexive. I check the protective scrolls on my door lintel before I use the lock. I let the door swing open for a moment before stepping in. I always lock and seal the door behind me again. I move carefully through my home, room by room, absorbing everything with all seven senses before I can finally sit down and relax ( Read more... )

Folder tucked under my arm, I walked down an alley leading off the studied elegance of Japantown's main streets, passing doors that never get opened and dumpsters like metal menhirs. I'd exhausted the files at my office about the aswang and its relatives, and I still needed more details ( Read more... )

The narrow hall was clogged with bodies and carry-on bags, sprawled haphazardly in front of the open plane door. Colin and Margaret were there already; he was carefully examining the eyes of one of the corpses, and I could see her inside the plane, quietly talking to someone in the hunched posture of shock ( Read more... )

Pushing through a crowd of sudden emotion, Isabella pressed a finger into the corrugated neck, and found no sign of life, however feeble. As she stood, senses still razor-sharp from the struggle, she noted a brick chapel nearby, where a woman was wiping blood from a messiah’s brow as he dragged his own epitaph down a jeering street. Several stacks ( Read more... )

In this case, just prior to a late-night run. Happened to come across a young cat who looked to me like he was a bit far from home ( Read more... )