How does this story start? It starts with the thought that my stories rarely lie down in the page in an effective way right from the start, that the story often goes through significant revisions until I find the right beginning. Just as this paragraph …

I keep only one mirror in the house and I'm not entirely sure why. I should have destroyed it when I destroyed all the others. It's an antique hand mirror that's been in the family for four or five generations at least. Perhaps I value that link to my pas…

Osterley took a much more compact submachine gun for herself, slipped it into a leather shoulder bag and then they moved straight to the teleport circle for transport. The watch had changed by now, and a harassed-looking youth who looked like he was barel…

The preparations were brief and to the point. Broadview insisted that Newkirk take a pistol, which the wizard took with distaste before tucking it into an inner pocket of his jacket.

After a few minutes, Beckton appeared in the company of two military po…

Hair dark and damp were stirring in the wind

and I sat on a rock and looked at her

naked back as night made his descent.

The reddening sky background to flocks of gulls;

no voice, nor song of other son of Man

was to disturb our tendersome farewell.

A round-faced man who might have looked more at home in a butcher's or a grocer's shouldered his way in to talk to Newkirk. No divination required; the wizard remembered him from the past. He was an Ultra liason.

"Broadview. How are things at Bletchley?"…

The duty watchman waved them out of the circle sharply. It flashed white, the challenge and countersign were exchanged, and two men in arctic uniforms appeared. A third was supported between them, furs dark with blood. Medics rushed forward.

Neatly stepp…

Newkirk understood all too well. Everyone who had any sort of relevant experience pre-war had become drawn in to the all-encompassing project. He presumed that they had at least been partly successful, and if so then safeguarding such a source on the enem…

The wizard was shaken out of his reverie by Ellesmere, who led them into a large room filled with teleprinters. The rapid-fire rattle of inked metal on paper was everywhere, though it faded a little as they made their way over to a large map table further…

Veron Gerrick scrolled through the palace alerts looking for anything that demanded his personal attention. Much of his staff had been inherited from his mother and their loyalty had transferred to him when he had assumed the position of High Lord. They w…

I'm in a fun house. I've always like how the good ones play with perception. It reminds me of the Get Smart opening: expectation and subversion in a fun way. And they're so enthusiastic. Not the operators necessarily, who've seen this millions of times, b…

Being held was a new experience for Ares and he didn't like it much. At some deep level, he understood that he was supposed to like it but he didn't. He squirmed.

When his mother held him to her breast, he understood that he was supposed to suckle. Inste…

Roger had been in the cradle of the Marula tree's branches for three days. Muscles ached unevenly across the map of his back, and in knotty pockets in his thighs and arms. Below, the thick savanna grass moved in waves as if strings in a grand harp played …

I have a screen door that doesn't open. The sliding glass door sit between the kitchen and the backyard patio, little more than a translucent wall. At the edge of the property is a chain link fence that separates my property from a steep grass-covered hil…

I knew what the endgame amounted to. What I didn't know was precisely when the endgame was going to begin.

The first arrived when I was unconscious. When I came to, I finished off my canteen and tossed it aside; a ruffle of feathers on the other side ale…

Five men stood around the pool of greasy black tar that used to be Zach Cho. Everything had happened so fast. Even with their suspicion, no one could have foreseen human flesh blackening and sagging like hot taffy. There weren't any bones or organs. All t…

Start with a knife, a tree, a candle, a corpse. Start with a dead bird and its dead feathers spread out about it, mites crawling across it.

Start with the spark of a match being struck; the brown honeycomb scraping, smudging phosphorous and chlorate toge…

It's difficult to grow up. Shoot, it's difficult to even figure out what that means. I suspect that the act of growing up is rooted in pain. Pain that is unfair, unique to you, callous, and solely your responsibility. From the white-hot shard of ice whose…

I get up and dust the bits of asphalt from my ripped up pants. Five feet behind me is Viv. I pinch my eyes closed as I turn, trying to control my accelerating heartbeat. Five feet behind me and five feet below rock, to be exact. I force my eyes open and …

He gently shook his canteen and judged that the water might last until perhaps sundown. If he didn't find a creek soon, tonight would be dry and tomorrow would be more difficult than usual. He took a small sip of tepid water, then closed the canteen tight…

I burn my old poetry.

My shame is hotter than the fire.

I think:

You cannot cut down a tree and leave the earth empty.

You cannot cut down a tree and not plant a new seed.

He could feel her tenuous caress across his skin, cool and teasing. He turned slowly but never saw her except perhaps as a brief flicker of motion in his peripheral vision. In the diffuse and dim light, shapes at the limits of his vision often turned out …

Story is marked as mature

In the darkness when man does sleep

and a pallid moon is the only company he keeps

the waves are calm, the silence deep,

but in his dreaming heart is only greed.

Our candles burn low crying tears of soft wax

but we rejoice for it is our time at last.

Tim…

Superficially, the last evening we were together had started out well but I sensed something of a distance separating us. I wanted to discuss it but she gently shushed me every time the subject came near to being spoken aloud. The subtext of finality grew…