Border, KS

The door they walked through lead in to a large hallway, rather than directly in to a room. It was decorated like an office rather than a club, well lit in contrast to the bar behind them. The sheepish looking guard escorted them down it, passing two doors on their left that were signed as […]

They ended up waiting for a little under an hour, with Walter checking his phone with increasing frustration as the night wore on. He was getting text messages from Andre and Leah about some of the situations developing in the city, and none of them were particularly good. “Every tactical unit in the city is […]

The moment Walter opened the door to the Black Rabbit the music hit his ears. He had been braced for the kind of aural shock that most clubs portended, and was pleasantly surprised when it was only audible rather than bracing. It was some kind of jazzy number, with a woman singing words he couldn’t […]

The club in question was called the Black Rabbit, and it was located—like so many other trendy establishments—in the Old Market. This at least was at the border of the district, basically the end of one of the red brick streets that constituted the vibrant evening destination. Beyond it to the west were normal streets […]

“Dad,” Antigone said breathlessly as she followed them down the stairs toward the door. “I have to go to the hospital,” she repeated. “We need to talk about that before you go.” Walter turned to look at his daughter, sighing. She had changed after school in to sweat pants and a tank top, and didn’t […]

There were, Walter reflected, really only so many different kinds of dark suits that a man could own before they started to blend together. His wardrobe could very much have been appropriate for the FBI, or for a sartorially conservative view of a politician. He had some black, dark gray, and dark navy suits; sure […]

CHAPTER 8: SPEAKING EASY   “So what does one wear to meet vampires?” Walter asked as they pulled in to his driveway. Most of the drive home had been spent in a silence absorbing the the events of the last hour or two. It hadn’t been a tense silence, but a silence of processing and […]

“Bullshit,” Ashland pronounced with a decidedly annoyed air. It was a little over an hour later, and Walter and Ryan had both just finished simultaneously giving their statements to the police officers who had arrived as backup at the lab. They were cleared, and based on the statements the head of Border Internal Affairs had […]

Walter and Ryan moved in to the next room smoothly, with Ryan moving in an almost crouch and Walter coming in over his shoulder. From behind them they heard the angry, pained grunting of the man they had left zip-tied in the hallway. But the room they had come from, with the files and the […]

Things swiftly went from bad to worse. Walter and Ryan rolled in to the hallway to find themselves facing another gun, this one a handgun held by a tall and beefy man with a confident look on his features. He was backed up by two other men, all of them wearing dark and vaguely tactical […]