He hates clowns. His wife thinks they're cute. When they unexpectedly inherit an unimaginable fortune complete with fast cars, fine furnishings and multiple large houses, they learn nothing comes free. The one catch to their apparent good fortune is a clockworks harlequin. Animated and entertaining, the life-size doll initially appears to be nothing more than yet another of his estranged uncle's bizarre idiosyncrasies. Nothing could be further from the truth. No need to wind it. It doesn't require batteries. This life-size clown runs on the power of black magic An insightful short story.

Born to the street and abandoned by his paranoid, drug-addicted mother, a young boy struggles to evade vicious predators who hope to exploit him and insistent authorities who hope to save him. His only ally is his extreme natural intelligence and his only home is the public library. Daily, the noose tightens after his mother, his last link to childhood, goes missing. His future seems as bleak as the cold, hard streets. Then he meets Longbow. In a gritty, existential world rife with threats, a young boy fights to survive. One man has the power to save him. An insightful short story.

Pyatak, in Russian, means "slash five." It is the last stop for the most violent and incorrigible prisoners in the modern Russian penal system. Famously, it is said to have two ways in and only one way out. Inmates enter its cages via a dilapidated, one-hundred-year-old foot bridge or an aging boat. The only way they leave is via their grave. Lately, however, many of its worst have gone missing from their cells, although they never escaped its walls. Something ancient and evil has alighted in Pyatak. A mysterious entity, it is both vicious and insatiable. No one is safe. An insightful short...

1943. World War II. The U.S. government drafted him out of his life of normalcy and complacency into the life of a United States Marine Corps officer. After intensive training, he would serve during some of the bloodiest assaults of the war. The violent rigors of combat would teach him the rules of long-term survival amid the most lethal fighting in human history. Those who failed to learn these lessons would not return home to their families. During the bloody throes of combat, all is fair and the only rules that apply are those that promote survival. In the face of evil, what is the nature...

In a dystopian, apocalyptic future, he is the quintessential survivalist, a heartless loner. The only things that stand between him and death each day are his maxims. He relies on them to manage the violence inherent within a world gone mad, and they are as unforgiving as his soul. Nothing he witnesses or does can bend or break them, until a single unwilling act of kindness alters his philosophy and his outlook with the same stroke of mercy. His maxims keep him alive in a world of harm, no matter the cost or the consequence to those around him. Then she comes along. An insightful short...

Nightland resides within an extraordinary region of time and space bound only by limits of sheer imagination. Its ephemeral pinnacles soar near the apex of human aspiration while its abysmal valleys plunge deeply into the darkest landscapes of global apocalypse. It is alternately violently wild and oppressively regimented. Nightland is older than all of recorded human history and it is many things to come. Remember the past with a robust, bloody gaze when you read "Saga of the Never Seen" and "The Templar Chalice." Linger there awhile to ponder a few of our most disturbing ancestors with...

God's second son. Humankind's second sin. His crime, the first crime. Therefore, the greatest. After he murdered his brother, the bloody stone tumbled from his left hand, and he covered his youthful victim with earth. This, a tale told endlessly throughout eons of human existence. Yet, history has always told it wrong, for his is a story without end. A fallen angel or a cursed man, one incarnate immortal soul walks among humankind through endless centuries of history. He is as irredeemable as he is unrepentant.

Love is a powerful human emotion. The apex of its ideal uplifts the human condition and is called 'inspiration'. Its nadir degrades the soul and is called 'fanaticism'. When the devil walks the Earth in patent leather pumps, a short skirt and all the lacy things a simple man craves, countless lives go awry and evil prospers. One man will do anything for her. Ever for her. The devil is a femme fatale. What is the price of a soul? What is the currency of its purchase? An insightful short story.