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    At The Crossroads: Uncollected Anthology, #13
    At The Crossroads: Uncollected Anthology, #13
    At The Crossroads: Uncollected Anthology, #13
    Ebook68 pages33 minutes

    At The Crossroads: Uncollected Anthology, #13

    By Kristine Kathryn Rusch

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    About this ebook

    When Kailani arrives in Greenwood, Mississippi, for her latest job, she knows she faces a daunting task. With her job at Abracadabra Inc. on the line, she determines to rise to the challenge.

    But when she tries to find the magic shop she has been sent to investigate, she finds nothing but mysteries and mirage.

    She worries her magic will prove insufficient to penetrate the deception. Until she realizes her magic might be the least of her fears.

    Part of Mystical Melodies, an Uncollected Anthology.

    "Kristine Kathryn Rusch is one of the best writers in the field and 'Dragon's Tooth' does not disappoint…Rusch gives us a delightful tale here!"

    —SFRevu on Dragon's Tooth: An Abracadabra Inc. Novella

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWMG Publishing
    Release dateJul 13, 2017
    ISBN9781386216148
    At The Crossroads: Uncollected Anthology, #13
    Author

    Kristine Kathryn Rusch

    USA Today bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. Under that name, she publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov’s Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award. Publications from The Chicago Tribune to Booklist have included her Kris Nelscott mystery novels in their top-ten-best mystery novels of the year. The Nelscott books have received nominations for almost every award in the mystery field, including the best novel Edgar Award, and the Shamus Award. She writes goofy romance novels as award-winner Kristine Grayson, romantic suspense as Kristine Dexter, and futuristic sf as Kris DeLake.  She also edits. Beginning with work at the innovative publishing company, Pulphouse, followed by her award-winning tenure at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, she took fifteen years off before returning to editing with the original anthology series Fiction River, published by WMG Publishing. She acts as series editor with her husband, writer Dean Wesley Smith, and edits at least two anthologies in the series per year on her own. To keep up with everything she does, go to kriswrites.com and sign up for her newsletter. To track her many pen names and series, see their individual websites (krisnelscott.com, kristinegrayson.com, krisdelake.com, retrievalartist.com, divingintothewreck.com). She lives and occasionally sleeps in Oregon.

    Read more from Kristine Kathryn Rusch

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      Book preview

      At The Crossroads - Kristine Kathryn Rusch

      At the Crossroads

      At the Crossroads

      An Abracadabra Incorporated Story

      Kristine Kathryn Rusch

      WMG Publishing

      Contents

      At the Crossroads

      Newsletter Signup

      About the Author

      Also by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

      Mystical Melodies, an Uncollected Anthology

      The Nightly Dance Aboard the Ship of Wonders

      Communication Breakdown

      The Fairy Boy Band

      Journal’s End

      The Last Night at the Crowley

      Street Song

      When the Music Plays

      At the Crossroads

      Ninety-seven degrees, and so humid the air felt like a live thing—a wet, disgusting, heavy live thing. Kailani stood at the edge of the curved road, the asphalt pale and gray in the heat. Just behind her, the red air-conditioned Ford Something Or Other she’d rented with Abracadabra Inc.’s money. Just ahead of her, a parking lot covered in pale blond gravel, tire tracks suggesting most people turned around here, and headed back to Greenwood proper.

      Not that this wasn’t part of Greenwood; it was. The oldest African-American neighborhood in the entire town. The blue-and-gold Blues Trail sign not too far from here gave a thumbnail history on this neighborhood, called Baptist Town because—the sign said—one part of the town was anchored by McKinney Chapel M. B. Church, the other part by a former cotton compress, whatever

      that

      was

      .

      She might look like she belonged in this neighborhood—and genetically, at least, part of her did, but she was Hawaiian born and raised. Part Native Hawaiian, actually, which was what people in Honolulu focused on. Or rather, haoles in Honolulu focused on that. Here, she was just another dark face in a town filled with dark faces.

      A bead of sweat ran down the side of that dark—well, golden, really—face of hers. She’d dressed for the heat. She wore a headband around her unruly curls, keeping them off her skin. Her shirt—white to reflect the sun, very thin cotton to keep her cool—was short-sleeved, so she wouldn’t offend someone by wearing something too skimpy. Cargo pants—not shorts, because she had no idea what she was going to run into, and she wanted to keep her legs protected.

      The only concession she made to her mission, if she could call it that, were the thick-soled athletic shoes she wore with a pair of extra thick knee socks, which were making her much too hot

      right

      now

      .

      She’d give anything to crawl back into that car, crank up the AC, and drive as far from here as she possibly could.

      But, Abracadabra had told her this was her last assignment if she didn’t step up, the last full month on her contract, the last pay period before she had to give up that outrageous salary they’d been paying her for the past two years.

      Failure that

      she

      was

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