Azazel - Back Cover

Azazel - Book 3 of the Jeremiah Stone series - Coming out March 3: 

With Jeremiah near death and Limbus under attack, Azazel looks to be on the verge of changing the world, but Azazel has more enemies than friends. Despite his immortality, he still can be beaten and it’s up to Limbus to figure out how. While plans are made to counter Azazel, Limbus can’t forget about Opus Wright. As Limbus twists and turns his way through New York while trying to protect his girlfriend, Melissa, and get to know his mother, Isis, he also realizes he’s got more enemies than friends. Moreover, the fallen angel Azazel’s plan has consequences no one has anticipated.

In a hospital several states away, Jeremiah recovers, but finds himself trapped by the FBI. Knowing he has to escape and find Limbus before Opus does, he struggles to enlist Agent Tom Rice to his side. Agent Rice, however, feels as if he’s been pulled into a battle larger than he ever imagined and knows siding with Jeremiah will probably cost him his job. And possibly his life. Nevertheless, he tries to play both sides of the coin as Opus Wright, the demon Hades, and the fallen angel Azazel, try to corner Jeremiah and anyone who’s helping him.

But how do you defeat a creature who can’t die?

Valhalla - excerpt from draft

His uniform was crisp. His posture formal. His appearance immaculate. He was purely a professional military man, devoted to his country to the core, and it showed in his straight-forward, unwavering gaze. In every way, his external demeanor was passive, just as it needed to be in order to represent the steadfast nature of his soul while also reflecting the half-dozen row of ribbons upon his chest.

Internally, however, his thoughts were anything but passive. He, Major Marcus ‘Mack Truck’ Keller, was at his court-martial hearing for a litany of charges, most of them included death in some heinous form. He didn't care about the deaths he’d caused or his repeated charges of insubordination to his superiors. What angered him, what made his internal organs curl in hate like a viper ready to strike, was the fact his government had called upon him and his elite squad to correct a problem as they had done a dozen times before. This time, however, the very same government had the nerve to deem his actions excessive in a time of war.

War.

Unlike congress, Major Keller believed war had no rules of engagement. There was only the mission and in that there was only success or failure. There was never compromise. There was never good enough. There was only one rule he demanded besides perfection; survival of the team. If you were shot at, you returned fire and you didn't care if the enemy hid behind civilians. You didn't care if they were held up in schools. You didn't care if a few of the innocent fell to protect the whole. And in his case the whole was his men, his squad.

His squad!

It was almost a cliché to call them the best of the best of the best or even elite. They were hand-picked by him, trained by him personally, and their missions were chosen by him. They were the one-thousandth of one percent who joined the military, and even then ninety-nine percent of those failed his evaluation. And like him, they sat bolt upright accepting their fate. It was a shame only three of his squad remained. What only these four men know, however, was they were the best four the military had ever created.

Each of them was a trained killer. Each of them spoke at least four languages. Each of them scored an IQ of over 150. Each of them had no family. Each of them had nothing to lose except their honor. And yet each of them accepted their fate with the utmost professionalism, though it was their honor at stake.

Just how they got here was something none of them could forgive. Instead of their government trusting their patriotism, trusting them to come peacefully, they were waylaid during a routine physical after mission completion. Drugged and dragged halfway around the world only to be woken an hour before their trial began.  That was two days ago.

Everything up until this point had been meticulously planned and therefore couldn't be due to the results of their last mission, which had been the hardest yet. It was a mission in which only a quarter of his men survived. No, this had been organized at the highest levels. Acted upon by men far superior to those Major Keller normally dealt with. It all meant their fall was orchestrated at the executive level, but just how high up the chain of command the order had come from was the one thing Major Keller didn't know… yet.

“Major Keller, Captain Sharp, Captain Cummings, Captain Hirsch; do you have anything to say for yourselves before the verdict is given?”

Major Keller stood, coming to rigid attention before the judge. “I only wish to convey that my men and I served our country in a capacity in which we were trained to do, following orders from the highest levels against enemies of the greatest dangers, and we were successful. And despite the outcome of this…trial, we will continue to do so.”

Judge Richard Harrison frowned at the somewhat implied, however subtle, threat, but he couldn't respond. Besides it being unprofessional, this trial had to go off without a hitch. Those were his orders. Though he disliked this farce of a judicious court-martial, his continued career hinged upon this going smoothly. He, however, wished he could respond and call this what it was, a mockery of the justice system, a system he’d served for thirty years. “Do the Major’s words speak for the rest of the defendant’s?” He paused for a second for a response, but there was none. “Very well then, let it be noted none of the other defendants have anything to say.” Then, with practice hands, he opened the piece of paper the jury had placed before him only minutes before.

“Defendants, please rise,” the bailiff announced causing the three other men on trial to stand beside their commander.

“It is the verdict of this court the four defendants; Major Keller, Captain Sharp, Captain Cummings, Captain Hirsch, be sentenced to death on Valhalla. May God have mercy on your souls. Court’s adjourned.”

Humor Me

So I've been sick lately with the flu which has made me miss a few posts because I feel bad enough I don’t even have the energy to write, until now. And by now I mean four days into my recovery. This is not a kind illness. But as I've been bed ridden, I've been asked more than a couple times how I feel. Most often my answer is – I fell like shit! But now I have to ask myself, in which contexts does shit feel and how does it relate? So let me describe this in greater detail for you so you can completely understand the magnitude of how bad this flu is as it relates to a turd.

This is the kind of shit that’s been stuck in your bowels for three days festering like an egg left outside in scorching summer heat for a week until the smell makes you gag.

This is the kind of shit that lingers for an hour at the lip of your sphincter refusing to extricate itself as you try not to breathe its noxious fumes for fear of passing out.

This is the kind of shit that feels like your passing a grapefruit, stretching and tearing every fiber of your being, ripping every sense of decency from you as you desperately try to push it out only to have finally come free with a small ‘plop’ of disappointment.

This is the kind of shit that smells so bad you wish you could extricate yourself from its presence the second it broaches the surface. It’s the kind of shit no one would try to claim.

This is the kind of shit that even men don’t give high-fives for.

This is the kind of shit which garner comments like – what crawled up your ass and died?

This is the kind of shit that immediately ends a first date and any chance for a second.

This is the kind of shit that leaves you in terror of being more than five steps from a bathroom for fear of shitting yourself.

This is the kind of shit the CDC could use as a bio-weapon.

This is the kind of shit that, even after you've flushed it away, you have to remain on the throne despite the stench because you feel another one’s hidden up there somewhere that’s going to ruin your day if you move.

This is the kind of shit that makes you contemplate the necessity of ever eating again.

This is the kind of shit that you can smell through solid walls.

This is the kind of shit that makes you curse building architects for not adding one more stall on your floor just for times like this.

This is the kind of shit that permeates your cloths so it follows you around all day.

This is the kind of shit that makes you clinch your cheeks together and shuffle quickly because you know as soon as it starts there's no stopping it.

This is the kind of shit that only a deep scrub in a shower can remove.

This is the kind of shit that makes you sit back and contemplate shit for no other reason than you’re too dragged down to think of anything else.

I hope that explains just how fetid I feel.

An Excerpt from Burden - Draft

“Bruised ribs, fractured left eye socket, some internal bleeding,” a voice says near me. “Whoever worked him over did a good job at keeping him alive.”

I try to open my eyes but only one functions allowing some dim light to enter into my brain pushing back the shadows. In the blur I see three figures standing away from me, one in a white coat and two others in dark clothing with patches. As my vision clears slightly I can somehow recognized the two dark men as the police officers who questioned me at the bank about my apartment being robbed. The third man in white must be my doctor.

“Is that your professional opinion, that they wanted him alive?” one of the two policemen asks.

“I’ve seen enough drug related attacks and gang beatings to know whoever did this too him wanted him to survive, if just barely,” the doctor answers.

“Did he have any drugs in his system?” the second cop asks.

“No, nothing,” the doctor replies.

“Anything else strange about this,” the first questions.

“Yeah,” the doctor answers. “He had his wallet on him which was full of money so obviously they weren’t after that.”

“Where’s the wallet now,” the first asks.

“It should’ve been put in the hospital safe,” the doctor answered.

“Anything besides that,” the second cop asks.

With a shake of his head the doctor answers, “No.”

“We’ll need to see the wallet and whatever else was on him at the time,” the first policeman says.

“He’s waking up,” the second policeman says.

Through blurred vision, I can see the three move around the bed nearer to me. Immediately the doctor tries to blind me by flashing a light into my eyes which I jerk away from though the movement only exacerbates the pain I feel despite whatever drugs I’m being pumped full of. Then ever so slowly the conversation I just heard seems to register within my mind, especially the accounting of my injuries.

“Drazan Cvetko,” the doctor says as he looks at my chart. “You’re in the hospital. You were beaten pretty badly, but you should be okay. Do you understand me?”

I try to answer, to even move my mouth, but it’s impossible so I only nod. That tiny bit of movement, however, sends surges of pain down my spine.

“Try not to move,” the doctor says. “Your jaw was dislocated and you’re in a neck brace so remain as still as possible. Just blink once to let us know you’re okay.”

Like out of a movie I blink once though I’m far from okay. I’ve been beaten, battered, and abused all my life, but never this badly. Every muscle and joint hurts whereas my breathing is labored. And even though I’d love to take a deep breath to clear the heaviness out of my lungs, the simple rising and falling off my chest causes pain. In fact, just the pumping of my heart seems to hurt.

“Are you in pain?” the doctor asks.

Of course I am you idiot I think to myself, but I only blink once. At my response I see the doctor check the flow on the IV and adjust it slightly before his face returns to me.

Bad Feelings

There’s something dark out there, something terrifying. Granite could feel the monster at the edges of his perceptions. But the reality of it all was there were no monsters, not in the traditional since. True monsters were fables, possibly based on horrific events, but born of the imagination. They were fictitious, without real substance. The monster Granite felt was not one of these. It was real, though it was human.

This human, however, was not natural. It survived on pain and torture, not of itself, but of others. It feasted upon suffering. It reached euphoria through killing. And from what Granite could tell upon first observation, this monster was good at killing. So good, in fact, a background in surgery might be something he'd look into tomorrow. Maybe it would give him his first list of suspects, though he doubted any of them would pan out. And all the while the real killer would laugh from behind the scenes as he watched Granite fumble for clues. This much Granite knew.

But what to call this...thing, he wondered. Unfortunately, Granite didn't have the chance to give this creature a name, though the press had, which unset the balance even more because Granite knew this human monster was going to thrive on this notoriety. It was going to feast on the publicity making it hunt victims in a rushed way in order not to lose the media’s attention. The worse part of it, Granite knew, was this person would garner copycat crimes which would only hinder the investigation further, his investigation.

But that was the nature of the beast.

So, against the media’s will, Granite didn't refer to this creature, this haunter of the night, this macabre machine of death, by the name the media had given it – The Symbolic Slayer. Even the thought of the name made him mind roll in absurdity had it not been for the seriousness of the crime. Instead, he just labeled the man a murderer, a killer, though sooner rather than later the word serial would be added. Just how soon it was coming, he didn't know, but he suspected it wouldn't take long. That he was sure of, though he kept these thoughts to himself.

On the other hand, he wanted to strangle whoever had come up with this label no matter how appropriate it appeared. And whoever the killer was, he’d created a ghastly sight using the victim’s body parts and blood to create some sort of demonic symbol and grisly totem. Even now, miles away and long devoid of its visage, the scene scratched at the back of him mind like an infection as he wondered who was next and what would be the tie between the victims. Only then could Granite start to narrow down who the murderer could be, but if the man took this much pride in his work then he was sure to be careful as not to leave an easy trail. However, whoever did this did so with a purpose and as vague as it may be it’d eventually cause him to be captured. The only question was how many victims would lose their lives before those tiny interlocking pieces formed the right picture leading him to the mastermind behind it all.

That would be his test, his moment, because he doubted anyone else in his department had the systematically logical, intensely detailed, and patient mind like he had. That was the true reason he was called Granite, for his rock-steady nature, though few remembered that part of him. They only saw his size and stern face before forming their mistaken opinion of him and the source of his nickname. He knew, however, this case was going to test his very core, his inner self, and he couldn't, wouldn't, fail at the prospect.

But who would do this? What kind of person tortures someone for pleasure? What does it take to chop someone up out of joy?