The Novella Life of Illuscia Nester Himawari

    “What are you thinking about?” Patrick was driving, and he tended to be quiet for long stretches when we were on the road, but this latest stretch of silence was a record even for him. He glanced at me, a ghost of a smile flickering on his face as he gave a small shrug. “Just wondering how likely this is to be another waste of time. Another goose chase.” I let out a small sigh as I nodded. “I know it’s frustrating. The data we got from Tattersall, even combined with your own research and my contacts…we’re looking for something…” I trailed off as I saw his jaw tighten. “Say it. We’re looking for something that might not exist.” I put my hand on his arm. “No. I didn’t say that. I worry it could be true, sure, but I don’t really believe it. We know there are ways into the Nightlands, right? Jason found a way there, and…” I swallowed and forced myself to go on. “And Josh found a way through Martin.” He met m...

    Loss is supposed to mean the absence of something. You lose your keys or some money or someone you love, and whether they are truly gone or you’re just unaware of their presence, their loss is supposed to be subtractive. And in some ways it is—your peace of mind is less or your happiness is stolen. At its worst, loss takes your life’s reason to be. But loss isn’t just a void. When you lose something that truly matters, it’s a tangible presence that takes with one hand while giving with the other, wrapping its cold arms around your shoulders as its weight bears down on you. It gifts you with guilt and regret and sadness, all the while whispering in your ear hard truths and sharp little pledges of loyalty. Promises that unlike that which you had lost, it will never, ever leave you. It's been thirty-four years since I lost Rebecca. Thirty-four years since I felt such pain and desolation that I felt sure it would break me in two. Thirty-f...

    The smells of burnt gunpowder and blood filled the car as Patrick climbed into the backseat. The driver, Lewis, knew better than to ask questions, but I still saw him flinch in the rearview mirror, his eyes instinctively glancing back to find the source of the death smell that had drawn so near. Patrick met his gaze momentarily, giving him a brief nod before looking at me. I turned my attention to Jason’s grandfather, but not before seeing Lewis visibly pale as he lowered his eyes and started the car. “Was there anything?” I could see by his expression, as well as Jason’s absence, that it hadn’t gone well, but there are degrees of success and failure. The first two sites hadn’t directly helped find Jason except through the process of elimination, but there were petabytes of data that had been recovered as well. Something so voluminous and well-encrypted, while not necessarily useful in the short-term, might be invaluable later on. Particular...

    That’s not my Jimmy. The man that went with Emily to get revenge, to bring back the Reaper so we could interrogate him, punish him…that man is gone now. The one that came back…I don’t know what to call him. Jimmy claims he became an Ascendant during the trip, and that certainly might be true. He is stronger now, and he has powers of some kind—when he came back, he started giving orders, and everyone close to him has obeyed without question. They cleared the basement level except for guards and stuck Emily in one room and the young man Jimmy brought back in the other. Any ideas of a chain of command in the House or the massive Tattersall office building we’re in have been abandoned where he’s concerned. He commands, and they obey. I have only talked to him twice since they came back. When he first arrived, he recognized me, but was indifferent and strange. He was handling Emily and the man roughly, and he gave me little more than...

    There was a tinny crackle of static and then Jason’s voice. The electromagnetic shielding around the vault’s speakerbox only enhanced the sense that my grandson’s voice was coming up from a very deep well or some shadowed corner of a distant moon. Given the circumstances, I don’t know those wouldn’t be preferable options. “Are you all right, Jason? Be honest.” I tried to keep the worry out of my voice, but knew I only partially succeeded. Jason’s first words when he activated the speaker outside the vault had been “The Gravekeeper is out. I’m going with him.” Given that, I considered anything short of stark terror and mindless panic a feat of restraint. “Yeah, I’m okay. It will be okay. He thinks I know things that I don’t, so he’s going to take me so he can question me more.” I felt anger shoving aside my worry. “Torture you, you mean. Try to get inside your head and take you over, perhaps.” A longer pause and then anoth...

    Crossing over the gateway that Emily had created with her Ascendant form was always stomach-turning, and it didn’t matter that I had travelled with her during several practice runs in preparation for this day. Walking through some kind of magic gateway from one place to another just wasn’t something your body got used to, I guess. Still, I didn’t know how much of my current state I could contribute to the method of transport. I was bursting with a combination of fear, anger and excitement at finally confronting the Reaper. Aside from myself and Emily, Polly had given me eight of the best trained House members she had—nine people and Emily herself were the most we’d found the girl able to get through before she had to revert to her human, terrestrial soul form. But the members were all former or current military and were loaded down with top of the line weaponry and gear. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but between the team I had and the element ...

    Patrick, the thing you and Jason need to realize from the start is that I don’t know a lot about the Nightlands. Not really. Part of what I know comes from what me and Martin experienced over the years of doing the heart mask rituals. Some of it comes from being connected to an extensive network of people fascinated with occult knowledge and practice. And there are tidbits of information that were gained as a side effect of us learning more about the House of the Claw and its beliefs. It may actually be easiest to start there, as that information is the sparsest and the least reliable, both because it is second or third-hand information about a deranged cult’s belief system and because what I know about the House of the Claw, even after our efforts to learn as much as we could since we were abducted all those years ago, doesn’t amount to very much. The House of the Claw believes that the soul is comprised of three parts....