Preview: Sliver of Darkness

Hi guys, Chloe here. Thought I'd give you a preview of my upcoming adventure Silver of Darkness.

ONE: COLOR MY WORLD


2:00am…

I woke up in black and white.

And naked.

Ok, you’re probably thinking I should have known better than to go back to sleeping in the nude after just dealing with that plague-spreading demon a few weeks ago and maybe you’re right. But I’m comfortable that way and it’s force of habit at this point. Usually I’m with Arly anyway, but he’s away for a week at some convention for former cops—I know, how could I pass up so much fun? But it’s strictly a Boys’ Club thingy. Besides, it was a warm night. I’d even left one of the windows to either side of my bed cracked to let in the late spring air.

Well, it was warm went I went to bed anyway. Now it felt incredibly chilled, as if when the color drained out of the world all heat went with it. I glanced down at my forearms, which were covered in gooseflesh, as were my breasts and belly. Oh, and don’t let anyone tell you black and white makes skin blemishes look any better. It does not. It makes them look like anthills.

It dawned on me suddenly: black and white. Everything was in black and white! I jumped out of bed and grabbed my terrycloth robe, which as draped over a corner chair. Let’s just say there’s naked and then there’s naked. And right now I was felling frickin’ naked.

I tied the robe closed and glanced about my bedroom, a shiver rattling through me. Shadows swelled in corners and white-cold slices of moonlight bleeding in from outside fell across the carpet. Everything seemed so…stark, like I just stepped into an old movie and again a shiver went down my spine and clacked my teeth together.

It was happening again, wasn’t it? The supernatural thing. To me.

Crap on a cracker.

I noticed my heart starting to pound against my ribs and that feeling of wanting to pee in my panties coming back. I’d had that feeling way too many times over the past few months and it didn’t get any more pleasant the hundredth time around.

And go figure, Puddin’ Head was sound asleep and snoring his ample cat ass off on the entire right end corner of my bed like nothing whatsoever was wrong. I guess if you’re born with a big yellow fur coat the cold takes longer to sink through. I’m guessing once it did he’d be waking up and grumbling about it for the next few days. As the owner of one trouble-attracting stripper human he expected a number of amenities and heat was one of them.

Another freakin’ shiver.

I wrapped my arms about myself and stared at my closed bedroom door, every instinct inside me telling me I should just go back to bed and ignore all this chilled noir that had suddenly taken over my world.

But I was never very good at ignoring things that bugged the hell out of me. I’ve told you Arly calls me impetuous.

So I took a step towards the door, the carpet like chilled cream between my blue-painted toes. Well, now the blue nail polish just looked kind of dark gray since all color had seeped out of the world.

I stopped, biting my lower lip, and told myself I was probably just dreaming. I was still asleep in bed and maybe should give up watching Classic television before going to bed.

An annoyed grumble came from the end of the bed and I glanced back over a shoulder to see His Majesty had awoken and was not the least bit happy about the lack of heat. I wasn’t sure whether cats could see a lack of color, but I’m sure if he had been able to talk the words that came out of his mouth more than would have made up for it.

“Don’t look at me,” I whispered, a little afraid my own voice would attract something I didn’t want. “I didn’t ask for this.”

He appeared unsympathetic.

“You’ll make someone a good ex-husband somebody,” I whispered, twisting my head back to look at the door.

I sucked a deep breath, took another two steps and gripped the door handle. It was chilled, with the oddest feeling. I don’t exactly know how to describe it but it was like touching…cold film, maybe.

With another breath, I turned the handle and opened the door.

More Chloe News

Ok, guys, you can now order the first Chloe Files novel, Ashes to Ashes, from GP Press exclusively at:

http://www.lulu.com/goldenperils

In about 6-8 weeks it'll be at Amazon and everywhere.

And I think my next adventure will be called Sliver of Darkness. You see, it's about this old time radio show actor who just happened to show up as a ghost in New Salem and cause some trouble. Pretty spooky stuff for me, and wouldn't you know, Arly had to go away for a week so I got left to take care of it all on my own again!

--Chlo

Chloe Updates

Hey, guys, Chloe here. Just wanted to let you all know I have been hard at work helping with my first Chloe Files novel, Ashes to Ashes, which is now available from Golden Perils Press exclusively, but will be hitting Amazon and other online bookstores in about six weeks. We've completely reedited, corrected and expanded it for publication. It also includes a new article about me, and some hints about what's coming up for me in the months ahead.
And I'll be telling you all about a new adventure pretty soon, so be sure to keep an eye out for that! Meanwhile, here's my cover--pretty cool, huh? Oh, and I'll have some cool postcards and bookmarks soon, to give away, too!
Chlo

Epilogue

Where in the World is Arlo Grimm: Epilogue

I’d been awake most of the night and felt pretty much like hell. I spent most of my time at the hospital, half-dozing occasionally in the chair beside Arly’s bed, but each time I even started to drift off I’d jerk awake with latent visions of what had happened in the church and a name on my lips: Angelique Ficatier.

Of course, before going to the hospital, I’d stopped off briefly at home to feed a grumbling Puddin’ Head his dinner and get a new sweater. The Red Lagoon might like half-dressed strippers, but the hospital…not so much.

Arly was going to be in the hospital a day or two, getting his strength back. Nothing was broken and there appeared to be no internal bleeding or injuries, but he was dehydrated, half-starved and battered to a point that would take a week or two to recover from. I’d snuck him in the slice of pizza—black olive, heavy on the oregano—he’d bugged the hell out of me to get him for breakfast—ugh—and the nurse had given me sideways looks the rest of the morning. She hadn’t seen it, but I knew she had smelled it and had pinned me as the likely suspect for smuggled snack foods.

I was running on caffeine and left-over adrenaline. My own wounds had all simply vanished with the destruction of Praetallious except for a few burns, and I had heard on the car radio all plague victims had mysteriously recovered. Doctors were at a loss to explain it. I was not.

I started my car and pulled out of the hospital parking lot. I was going to go home a get a little sleep before coming back in the evening, but first I had something I needed to take care of.

It was another gray day, charcoal underbellies of clouds threatening rain. I had half a notion to stop at the museum and try to get a few more answers out of Genie Lansing, but decided against it. She wouldn’t tell me anything she didn’t want me to know, anyway. I was certain, however, of one thing: she was no normal curator. There was something damned peculiar about her and she knew a hell of a lot more about what was going on, and what would be coming, in New Salem than she was telling.

Six-hundred-year-old-dead-monkey. Pfft. I still didn’t want to believe that but a crawling suspicion told me she hadn’t been joking. She wasn’t really the joking type.
Later. After Arly got out of the hospital. I would let him handle her—though I’d keep a close eye. Couldn’t be too careful with Pixie Sticks. The way she’d looked when she’d talked about him—yeah, right, I trusted her alone with my man.

A few minutes later I pulled into the parking lot at St. Luke’s and killed the engine. Praetallious had said my sister hanged herself after what appeared to be an affair with a priest—Father Lansing. Was the demon lying? Most likely, but I needed to know for sure. And those with the name Lansing weren’t particularly high on my list for trustworthiness, either.

I got out of the car, leaving my backpack on the seat. I went the church, tried the door, surprised to find it locked this time. I stared at it like an idiot for a minute—I think exhaustion was catching up to me and it wasn’t just a blonde moment—then stepped away from the church and peered at the building behind it, which I pegged for the Rectory.

I walked around the church and went up onto a small porch, poked the door buzzer. Footsteps came from within, and I fully expected Father Lansing to answer, but it was an older woman who opened the door. She was heavyset, with graying hair and the look of a woman who had sucked one too many limes.

“May I help you?” Her tone seemed a bit bothered, and she gave me a look like I had sin written all over me. I got that look a lot.

“I was wondering if I could speak to Father Lansing a moment.”

Her brow knitted. “There’s no Father Lansing here, dear.”

Ack, I hated being called dear. “But I just talked to him yesterday, in the church.”

“In the church?” The lines in her forehead deepened. “I sincerely doubt that, Miss. We keep the church locked. Vandals, you know.”

“But I saw him there yesterday.” I made my voice insistent but the fact was I had a gnawing feeling New Salem’s supernatural had just crapped all over me again and I was looking like a first-class fool to this woman.

“You couldn’t have seen Father Lansing, dear. Father Knox leads the flock here.”

Leads the flock. Yeah, great. Who wrote their dialog, anyway? “Do you know where I might find Father Lansing, in that case?” I am pretty sure annoyance came into my tone. Her face pinched. Yup, I was right, and it bunched her Depends.

“Try the cemetery.” I didn’t care for the edge in her voice.

“Cemetery?”

“New Salem Cemetery. Father Lansing hanged himself, oh, must be going on ten years of thereabouts.”

“Hanged himself?” Oh, yeah, if you’re thinking a big rock plunged in my stomach…you nailed it.

“Over at St. Bosco’s.” She leaned in closer, her eyes sparkling with that weird sorta gleam gossips get when they snag the juiciest neighborhood news. “I hear tell he was having an affair with a young nun there.”

I found myself back in my car a few moments later, a bit dazed, exhaustion really hitting me with the news of Father Lansing’s death. So Praetallious had been only half-lying. It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. That meant yesterday I had talked to…

A ghost? It was New Salem after all.

I supposed I should have felt a little relieved, too, because it wasn’t my sister hanging from the rafters. But all I could think about was the fact that again, somehow, she seemed close enough to touch, yet at the same time so far away I would never learn the truth. Was she that nun at Bosco’s? Was she alive? Dead? What about what Lansing had alluded to, about there being choices other than living or dead? I didn’t have a clue what that meant but as I sat there, my forehead pressed to the steering wheel, both hands gripping it until my fingers ached, I suddenly remembered that line from the beginning of Arly’s favorite TV show, Dark Shadows. Only in this case I could substitute my own name for that of Victoria Winters:

“My name is Chloe Everson…and my journey is just beginning…”

Oh, hell, yes, that just about said it all…

Like a Rat Out of Hell

Where in the World is Arlo Grimm Part 37: Like a Rat Out of Hell

The shrieking of the rats was tearing apart whatever was left of my nerves. Nausea coursed through my belly and I wanted to vomit. Pain lashed at every muscle, every fiber. Rats snapped at my legs and the exposed flesh of my sides. One hand hit the altar floor and they nipped at my fingers. Blood ran from small wounds. Pain radiated through my fingers and hands.

The locket…

Only an arm’s length in front of me…and I could not get it.

The heat from within me, from fever, and from without, from the flames, had grown intolerable. I was ready to hit the altar on my face and that would be the end. Rats and disease would consume me long before the flames sweeping through the church cremated what was left of my body.

From the corner of my eye something hurtled past me. Shrieking. Something furry with a singed tail and a mouth full of gleaming teeth and an attitude Cheetah would have been proud off. Bob was suddenly a flying monkey, well, more like a leaping monkey, but to my fevered vision he put any of those rejects from Oz to shame.

Bob landed smack on the demon’s grotesque head, wrapping his arms about the monstrosity, his body covering the thing’s glowing anti-lit eyes for a moment.

“Jesus…” I whispered, knowing the monkey had just given me the only chance I was going to get.

I had virtually nothing in the tank but I used the fumes. I forced myself up, flinging away rats and grabbing for the locket.

Getting it.

My hand closed around the locket and a sudden surge of strength washed through me. Rats vanished and along with them all the wounds they had made in my skin. The greenish boils disappeared and the fever drained from my body as if I had plunged into a cold stream. It was still intensely hot from the flames in the church, but in comparison that heat was nothing, at least for the instant.

It would be the end of me soon, however, if I didn’t move now.

The demon was gyrating, its green-gray mottled hands grabbing at the monkey locked to its head. Bob shrieked as the thing tried to tear him free, as if its very touch was causing him pain.

I came to my feet, shaky, wobbling and lunged, just as the demon hurled Bob. Bob flew again, this time ricocheting off a pew and landing in a furry heap on the aisle floor beyond the circle of flame that trapped Lansing.

I slammed into the demon, and it felt like grabbing a branding iron. I let out a shrill scream and almost jumped back out of reflex, but I knew I wouldn’t get another chance.

I swung the locket up as the demon grabbed both sides of my ribs with blistering searing pain and tried to throw me back the way he had Bob. He achieved it, though I didn’t fly quite as far. But he achieved it an instant too late. Because I had dropped the locket over its ugly bald head.

I hit hard, at the edge of the altar, pain splintering through my hip and side. The welts where his hands had grabbed my ribs faded. I pushed myself up, knowing even if the locket did anything to the demon the flames throughout the church were spreading faster now and would kill me just as surely as Praetallious. Smoke clouded the room, black and billowing. I started coughing, having trouble getting air.

From the altar, Praetallious was doing some sort of weird, shrieky gyrating dance. He could not pry off the locket, couldn’t even touch the thing, in fact. He cast me a vile look, but it was brief, because he was already starting to…

Dissolve. That was the only word I had to put to what was happening. He was dissolving in great sloughing chunks. An arm dropped off and shattered into vanishing fragments as it hit the floor. Then the other arm followed, with the same results. His body just seemed to collapse into itself, crumbling to the altar. The locket melted, gold absorbing into the floor. Praetallious’ head hit last, somehow still shrieking, but like the rest of his now vanquished form shattering to vanishing fragments.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m melting, just freakin’ die already!” I yelled it more to steel my own nerves as I finally reached my feet, than out of anything else. I could barely walk as I staggered down the three altar steps. I couldn’t deny the waves of relief coursing over me at seeing the damn thing going back to wherever it had come from, but I knew any victory would be short-lived if I didn’t get out now.

My eyes met Lansing’s. She was still paralyzed within the circle of flame.

“Get the hell out!” I yelled at her, waving my arm like an idiot.

“I can’t—I can’t!” Terror laced her voice. Something about the flames.

We all have our phobias, I guess.

Without even thinking about it, I hurled myself at her. Right through the first wall of flame, into her, and both of us through the backside of the blazing circle. This time I took a few burns and I was going to need a new bra, but we ended up on the floor together outside that circle of fire.

“We have to get out of here!” I yelled at her, getting back to my feet and offering her a hand up. Well, duh, but what else do you say in a situation like that?

Lansing nodded, some of her terror gone, but I could still see reflections of flame in her eyes and knew she was having a hard time keeping it together. We staggered down the aisle, reaching Bob, who lay unmoving on the floor. Lansing reached down, gently picked him up and cradled him in her arms.

“Is he…?” I asked, suddenly liking that monkey a whole lot better than I had in the beginning. If not for Bob…

“Dead? Yes, quite.” She said it without much emotion, and that struck me strange. I was ready to cry over him and he wasn’t my pet.

Then Bob opened his eyes and I think he might have smiled. It’s hard to tell with a monkey because they always kinda look like they’re smiling. Evilly.

“You said—”

Lansing uttered an uneasy chuckle as we reached the front doors.

“He’s been dead for 600 years or thereabouts. He gets over it…”

We All Fall Down

Where in the World is Arlo Grimm Part 36: We All Fall Down

Something worse and something deadly. The thing was trying to stop me from getting close enough to use the locket and I knew damn well it probably could. I might be special in some way, like Arly, but Lansing had told me pretty much point blank I wasn’t going to be special enough to beat this thing on my own. I was throwing away my life. I should have listened to her but it was too late. Praetallious wasn’t going to let me get close enough to us the locket and the locket, protection for Joan of Arc to the contrary, wasn’t going to be enough to stop the thing from affecting me and eventually killing me.

Because my bare arms were breaking out in sores, now. Patches of green-black flesh bubbled up and sweat streamed down my chest and from under my arms. Whatever plague the thing was spreading was devouring me.

I went to my knees, my legs suddenly too weak to hold me up. The demon laughed, a deep throaty thing, now, nothing like that of a little girl. I started to gasp, my mouth incredibly dry, my lips splitting. I could taste blood and something else, the flavor of rotting flesh that now filled the air. The flavor of disease, decay. The perfume of a demon.

Rats converged on me. They bit at my boots, my jeans. I let out a shriek and the locket dropped from my hand onto the altar. Where the locket had fallen the rats scurried back, leaving a clearing about it.

I have never felt such fear, even with that whole Ficatier and her Sisters of the Snake thing. I knew I was going to die and that was that. Lansing was helpless. Arly was on his way to the hospital but I knew somehow if I didn’t destroy Praetallious that wouldn’t matter, either. Because Ficatier would return and this time…this time there would be no winning for him.

“Jesus…” I whispered, trying to summon whatever was left of my strength before the rats completely overwhelmed me. I reached out for the locket but the rats leaped at my hands and I jerked back on pure reflex.

“You cannot win…” the demon grated in a voice that somehow foolishly reminded me of Jack Palance. “But you can join us…”

I gazed up at the thing, spite and defiance in my eyes. If I was going to die I was going to do it with my honor intact. “Never.” My voice shook; my throat was parched, paining. “Never…”

“Chloe…don’t give up…”

The voice came from beyond the demon and through blurring vision I thought I saw the wavering shape of a little girl.

“Pat…?” I whispered. “Pat, I can’t do this…”

“Go away!” Praetallious shouted, flinging his hand back like some idiot monster in a B-movie. “You have interfered enough!”

The shape wavered, dissolved, and whatever help she might have given me went with it.

Enter Stage Left, Praetallious

Where in the World is Arlo Grimm Part 35: Enter Stage Left, Praetallious

“What the hell is up with that?” I yelled, the last of my nerve deserting me. Now I was really scared and the urge to run grew almost overwhelming. Bob’s incessant shrieking from the pew didn’t help things much. I wanted to throw something at him.

Lansing looked spellbound with terror. A mean part of me briefly thought she deserved it for being such a Pixie Snit, but I was too frightened to hold onto the thought.

“You said Praetallious was pestilence—how the hell can he control fire?” He was a demon, I told myself, and that probably came with a bunch of evil abilities, though usually even the Big Horned Guy didn’t dole out too many powers to one entity.

“He-he has help,” Lansing stuttered, her misty-marble eyes glued to the flame, reflecting its jittering light.

“Who?” My head spun back around to see the Little Miss Demonic’s eyes flashing with anti-light. But within that light I could see something, a dark teardrop of a reflection. And from within the teardrop, vague features, twists of ebony hair and mahogany flesh. And I knew—I knew who was aiding the demon.

“She’s dead!” I yelled, looking back to Lansing. “She’s in Hell, for chrissakes! This can’t be happening!” Oh, yeah, it could. And was.

“He’s channeling her,” Lansing said, some of the composure coming back to her voice and to her face. “Part of her must have survived what Arlo Grimm did to her. That’s why they brought Grimm here.“

Ficatier. Angelique Ficatier. Dead witch walking…oh, crap, just crap. “So much for your blessed sword…” I murmured. Christ, if you can’t cut off a witch’s head and have her be vanquished to H-E Double Toothpicks, what the hell good was an Inquisition sword, anyway?

Dammit, my mind was babbling. I had gotten so rattled I’d lost focus.

My head swung forward, my gaze locking back on the demon. I had faced Ficatier before, and she wasn’t here now. Just a fraction of her was, or trying to be, and I would deal with that later—if there was a later. Praetallious was still the threat. If I didn’t confront him nothing else would matter.

My hand went to the locket and I slipped it over my head. I took the stairs to the alter before I could even think about what I was doing. It was up to me this time. Arlo was on his way to the hospital and Lansing was useless for some reason I couldn’t fathom. Bob was, well, Bob was still being Bob and I’d slap his little monkey ass for it if I got out of this in one piece.

Little Miss Demonic suddenly belted out another one of her goddamn laughs and I shuddered as if it had been a chilled wind that rattled through my body. Sudden squealing and scampering filled the church and I almost froze with the sight of a hundred rats flowing from every nook and cranny, streaming across the altar. More flame leaped from sconces and shot outward, licking at the pews and fast-food debris. Bob let out a different kind of screech this time; I think his tail might have caught fire, but I didn’t dare turn around and look.

Rats were overwhelming the place and flame was lashing everywhere. Little Miss Demonic was changing too, growing, her face mottling at first, then peeling back. Great flaps of flesh fell away to reveal some sort of greenish-gray hide beneath. Her hair dropped out and a moment later all that remained was a mottled skull with patches of green-gray cellophanelike tissue hanging in loose shreds. Its eyes still sparkled with anti-light but now Angelique’s teardrop presence was gone. I had the feeling the demon was on its own. Whatever tenuous hold Ficatier had through him was only temporary, and something told me that was the one good thing I could grasp onto at this point.

The demon had become rounder, bigger, though it was still the size of an adolescent boy, maybe one like Pugsley from the Addams Family. It stared at me, or, more accurately, at the locket in my hand, which was suddenly not just glowing but downright hot.

“Jesus, can’t any of you guys be freakin’ good-looking?” I mumbled, trying to push away the terror running rampant through my mind. This was a freakin’ demon in front of me; the realization hit like a hammer on a thumb. Ficatier had at least looked human…this thing…this thing looked like a reject from one of those bad Leprechaun movies.

My legs started to shake and I got the immediate notion it wasn’t simply because I was frightened. It was something the demon was doing.

A wave of heat washed over me, like I had suddenly developed a 103-degree temperature. I wasn’t sure if it was the result of all the fire now lashing over the pews or something worse.

An instant later I knew it was something worse.