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    Endless Gateways: Vol 1 Iss 2
    Endless Gateways: Vol 1 Iss 2
    Endless Gateways: Vol 1 Iss 2
    Ebook71 pages59 minutes

    Endless Gateways: Vol 1 Iss 2

    By D. Anthony Brown

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    About this ebook

    A hall of endless portals, each unique, each hiding its own truth. One gate leads to another, leading to unexpected paths. Behind one of these doors is terror, behind another is a place of soulful contemplation. Just watch your step, for there is no going back... There is only going forward to the next gateway...

    A compilation short fantasy stories from Claudia Blood, M T Occhio, and D. Anthony Brown — of past lives and alternate realities, of far away worlds and places close to the heart, of wickedness and humor.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHermit Muse Publishing
    Release dateApr 14, 2014
    Endless Gateways: Vol 1 Iss 2
    Author

    D. Anthony Brown

    D. Anthony Brown is a writer in Minnesota. He's been to school a few times, but now days he mostly teaches himself new things; such as how to play the guitar, tarot, and whatever topics interest him at any given moment. He is an avid reader and an addicted gamer. He may be contacted at his website: danthonybrown.com.

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      Book preview

      Endless Gateways - D. Anthony Brown

      Endless Gateways

      Vol. 1 Iss. 2

      Stories by

      D. Anthony Brown

      M T Occhio

      Claudia Blood

      About the Authors

      Copyright Information

      Table of Contents

      Copyright Information

      Endless Gateways

      Volume 1, Issue 2

      Smashwords Edition

      Published by: Hermit Muse Publishing

      Cover image by: Indigocrow/Big Stock Photo

      Cover design by: Hermit Muse Publishing

      All stories are original to this anthology.

      Nice Tree, Copyright 2014 by Claudia Blood

      Sophie and Mrs. Tuttle, Copyright 2014 by M. T. Occhio

      Cuts Both Ways, Copyright 2014 by D. Anthony Brown

      This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

      Introduction

      Spring time represents a new revolution in the year, when things change and grow in ways that are expected. It’s time to file taxes (at least in the United States) and make new financial decisions. The snow is entirely melted where I live, and new life is taking root everywhere. Soon the brown grass will be green, trees will grow back their leaves, and the mosquitoes will be out for blood.

      Things can also evolve in unexpected ways. The story I originally intended to write for this anthology took a far more complex turn than I anticipated, and that work now appears to be a short novel—much too long for Endless Gateways. The story I eventually contributed morphed into an avenger tale, something I had not intended when the idea for Cuts Both Ways first germinated.

      All of us contributing to Endless Gateways can probably say something similar: our work as storytellers takes us on unexpected journeys. The journey is often like driving on a narrow mountain road with a steep drop off to one side (hopefully on the passenger side!), and doing so without a road map or any clue where the summit is. So, enjoy the view while we figure out where we’re going…

      Cheers and happy reading!

      D. Anthony Brown

      Writer and publisher

      April, 2014

      Cuts Both Ways

      by D. Anthony Brown

      1

      Marion knelt over the decapitated body, shooing away the black feathered scavengers, and held a handkerchief to her mouth and nose. She was used to the dead; being an Erinyes—an avenger—she had seen her fair share of mutilations, murders, and grotesqueness. The headless body was no different, yet something was off, and it smelled different from regular murder victims.

      The body’s gender was unknowable. The loose brown slacks, spattered with blood, were of the type common among the peasant working classes. Marion pressed her hand on the abdomen, the body squishy and pliable, already bloated. She saw it now, what she had smelled: a black aura surrounding the body like a gauzy charcoal shroud. The pungent aura seeped into her clothes and skin, through the handkerchief, onto the iron shield on her back and all the weapons on her belt.

      This scene—mutilated body, dark magic, the smell worse than death—was familiar to Marion, but only because she had been touched by it so often recently.

      A taint. But much more. In the rotten odor, underneath the putrid tang, was buried something… divine. No mere mortal had killed this person, just like the twelve others who had been thrown out in the public streets and back alleys during the last year by an unknown culprit.

      All of those men and women—every one of whom murdered viciously, limbs severed, torsos jaggedly cleaved in half, often decapitated—had the same foulness seeping from their death wounds. Now their souls flitted about Marion’s head, non-intelligent balls of light flickering invisibly to all but Marion herself, keeping her constant company from dawn to whenever she slept. Each cried unhelpfully the same word in her ears and brain.

      Vengeance.

      The lights were no longer even metaphysically distinguishable to her. They lacked individual characteristics now, except for differing shades of light. Some were more violet, others were dark as midnight on a cloudy day. Others yet had no color, only pales blobs of energy. None of the lights had personalities anymore. They were too long dead, the geas holding them to Marion preventing them from reincarnation until vengeance was complete. But something else entirely was preventing them from crossing the River, as unresolved cases were likely to do. The long dead were bland company for an Erinyes, since they no longer had a purpose.

      Yes, the body before her now was different from the normal victims. But it was the same as the souls spinning around her head. They could not rest, nor could they provide her the information she needed to complete the investigation and send them on their way to be reincarnated. Every wronged soul had patchy knowledge at best of the circumstances of its own murder.

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