I worked steadily, determinedly to the Great Wall of China Chinese food restaurant on the corner of Chapman and Harbor. As I passed a tai-kwan-do studio, the little restaurant came into view.

  Almost there. Just across the street—

  Damn, missed the light. I checked my watch. Twenty-three minutes and counting. At the corner, with Mercedes and Hondas and a city bus whizzing by, I waited among a small group of mostly college students. It made sense. The college was down the road to the right. Almost all of them immediately whipped out their cell phones the moment the light had turned red, some thumbing out numbers and texts and others playing games.

  I stood with them, easily a head taller than most. I didn’t feel a need to whip out my cell phone. I didn’t need the chronic wistful glance confirming Amanda had not texted, just as she had not texted in all the months before. I felt only a need to dash through traffic and put my lunch order in—

  The hair at the back of my neck prickled again, and I shivered. I absently rubbed my arms, and as I did, I spotted her across the street.

  An old lady. Her back bowed like a harp. Angry gray hair hung like dead weeds from under a wool cap. She looked like a witch, complete with a hooked nose and a missing front tooth. A bent coat-hanger of ugliness in a Goth-trash fashion show.

  And she was staring. Openly staring at me.

  Was she the source of the goose bumps and chills? I didn’t know, but there was something else about her.

  Do I know her from somewhere?

  Maybe I was hallucinating. I had started doing that a few months ago. It was freaky as hell, and I was certain it had something to do with my drinking. Either that, or those ghostly blobs and shapes I saw during my late-night binges really did exist just on the periphery of my vision.

  Or maybe you’re going crazy. The simplest explanation is usually the right one.

  As I debated my sanity, standing there on the street corner, the real world got crazier than my head could ever have dreamed.

  She stepped out into traffic.

  Cars screeched to a stop. Horns honked. A truck swerved hard and went up on the curb and into some bushes. Had those bushes been people, they would have been injured or killed.

  She doddered shakily across the street. She used a cane and she didn’t seem to give a damn about the cars piling up around her. I didn’t hear any actual collisions—I’m always alert for accidents, thanks to my job—and the further she got across the busy boulevard, the more clearly the coming cars saw her, and they were able to brake without hitting anything, her included.

  She was headed, I was certain, for me.

  My heart was hammering hard in my chest like a convict in a tin box, and I had broken out in a cold sweat. My throat was tight and my breathing was restricted. I swallowed with difficulty and opened my mouth to suck in some air.

  Christ, I should really quit drinking.

  But I couldn’t deny she was real, or that she was heading straight for me.

  Horns honked. Someone shouted out a driver’s-side window. Most drivers seemed to resign themselves to a crazy old lady in their midst. A few seconds of delay and distraction, and maybe entertainment if they were lucky, and she’d be across the road and they could all get on with their life-and-death business.

  And now she was across the street, and she stood in the littered gutter in front of me—

  Who is she? Somebody my ex knows? That would make sense. They’re obviously both crazy, and like attracts like.

  Of course, at one time, I had been highly attracted to my ex, as well.

  I held my breath, rooted to the street corner. In front of me, the crosswalk light signal had turned green. The students were pouring across the street. I should be pouring with them, heading to the Great Wall of China.

  But I didn’t move. Instead, I found myself staring down at the old lady as she approached me.

  I definitely know her.

  I didn’t know whether to run or help her up onto the curb. She didn’t give me time to decide.

  She gripped my hand. And when she did, it all came back to me....

  Jimmy and the mouse.

  Cursed

  is available at:

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  Also Available:

  Judas Silver

  An adventure novel by

  J.R. Rain and Elizabeth Basque

  (read for a sample)

  “Thirty pieces of silver Burns on the traitor’s brain; Thirty pieces of silver! Oh! it is hellish gain!” —William Blane

  Chapter One

  A soft breeze swayed in the olive trees in the peaceful desert garden, but it did little to ease the man who stood in silent prayer. He was young, in his early thirties, and he knew the fate that was about to befall him. He embraced it with faith, but still, he was sad to have to leave this world so soon. He’d wanted to stay longer.

  So, he waited, prayed and meditated. He glanced up at the heavens with a never-ending wonder. The stars shone brightly, a billion of them, even more, he knew.

  This man, dressed in a simple white robe, stood a short distance away from the others. He knew many things that they did not. He’d done his best to teach them. Teach them...though there was so much more.

  He took a deep breath. It couldn’t be helped; this was his destiny. He prayed for courage and strength.

  Sooner than he’d expected, another man approached. He had called himself a friend. Soldiers waited in the shadows, thinking the man in white did not notice them.

  The one who called himself a friend came up to him and kissed him on the cheek in greeting. The man in the white robe returned the gesture with all the understanding he could muster.

  Immediately, armed guards stepped out of the shadows and seized the man in the white robe.

  ***

  Two crosses had been erected, with two men nailed to them. The man in white had been stripped of his robes. Now wearing only a loincloth to cover him, he was laid upon a third cross. He tried not to resist. He tried to think of his Loving Father. He tried to remember that this would soon all be over with....

  Still, he cried out in pain as one hand was nailed to the cross, then the other. The nails drove painfully through the bones of his hands.

  Next, his feet were positioned, one on top of the other. He braced himself for the third nail, but the pain was excruciating.

  Before they raised him to hang upright, the men cruelly set a crown of thorny wire atop his head as a sort of joke. The man kept silent.

  From far away, hidden from the watching crowd, the betrayer watched, too. He was the one who had called himself a friend. He was the one who had told the soldiers to seize the one he’d kissed in greeting the night before. He was the one who had been paid thirty silver coins: the mere price of a slave. He had been greedy.

  Now, he saw this courageous man erected upon the cross, and he was utterly grief-stricken. What had he done? But there was no going back now, and he knew it. He knew he was a betrayer, and watching the man who had always been kind to him tortured in such a fashion drove him mad. He pulled at his own hair, ripping some out, and stumbled away in his own selfish grief.

  ***

  Wild-eyed, he who had been paid thirty silver coins threw the gilded doors wide open, entering the temple with unrivaled guilt. He boldly walked up to the priests, ripped a leather pouch from his hip, opened it and threw the silver coins down on the marble floor. “I do not want this blood money!” he screamed, and fell to the floor, sobbing. The silver coins scattered in every direction.

  The man knew he could not live with himself for the great evil he had done, so, in his insanity, he decided to commit another unforgivable crime.

  It was night again. He fastened a rope around the branch of a tree. The branch hung out over a rocky cliff, which dropped straight down into a churning black sea, alive with glowing whitecaps.

  He tried not to think now, tried not to think of the horrible, unforgivable betrayal he had committed. But he couldn’t get the image of the man on the erected cross out of his head. Indeed, these were his last thoughts as he tightened the noose around his own neck. He paused only a moment, looking down to the sea below. Then he leaped off the cliff, and out into space...

  ***

  One of the Silver Coins rose and began to rotate slowly in mid-air. The others, one by one, hovered as well. They darted back and forth, swirling around and around. The Coins finally converged and spun in a silver vortex of energy. The vortex pulsated with a malevolent force, as if somehow, they were alive.

  Chapter Two

  Limerick, Ireland

  Present Day

  Trey Jordan moved quickly but silently through the old, dark hotel corridors, searching for the stairwell. He paused at an intersection, unwilling at this point to consult the blueprints of the ancient place. Instead, he searched his mind to recall which way.

  Left. Trey briefly glanced behind him. “She’s gonna miss out,” he mumbled, irritated. He turned the corner. The antique stained glass at the end of this hall gave view to a thick door. It was obvious this section of the place was barely used. As he clicked on his flashlight, two mice scurried under the door before him.

  Trey reached for the handle and brushed a spider web from his face. A fat, black spider scrambled away into a dark nook. Trey shuddered.

  He heard Karen approach. She slid up next to him, planted a big wet kiss on his lips. He shrugged her off. “You’re late.”

  “Don’t be such a stickler, Trey,” the blond responded, contemplating the spider. “I’ve always had a fascination with black widows, myself. First, they seduce their mates, and then they devour them. Poetic justice, wouldn’t you say?”

  Karen’s grin was distorted by the colored glass. She patted Trey’s smooth-shaven face and added, “Shall we, darling?”

  Trey stared after her as she turned the door handle quietly and entered the stairwell. “Whatever you say, you crazy bitch,” he mumbled not-too-quietly.

  He closed the door behind him. Karen switched on her own flashlight and frowned. “Really, such harsh words, after I gave you one of the best nights of my life last night?”

  Trey moved past her, guiding the way down the spiral stone stairs. “We’re working now.”

  “Men. Can’t even do two things at once.”

  “Yes, I can, if you remember.”

  Three flights down, the air was cold and damp.

  Both dressed in black from head to toe, the two thieves were nearly invisible. Neither made a sound; not even their breathing could be heard.

  Karen followed a little more closely now as Trey shone his light through the basement.

  “It’s on the left, I believe,” she whispered into his ear.

  “I know.” He ignored her playful tone. His light shone onto a sign that read: Kitchen.

  “This is it.” He tried the handle. Locked.

  “I don’t suppose you have a key?” Karen asked.

  Trey grinned at her. “Always.” Trey lifted his foot and drove his boot heel hard into the lock. Something inside cracked. He kicked it again, and the door swung open.

  “I thought world-class thieves picked locks,” Karen commented.

  “Only in the movies,” he retorted. “This is how we really do it.”

  Trey took Karen’s hand and led the way into the pitch-black kitchen, scanning the room with his flashlight. A huge old stove took up one corner, pots and pans hanging from the ceiling. Rats had made nests in the old fireplace beneath; Trey kicked a dropped pan to frighten them away. A thick wooden table that had once served as a chopping counter stood firmly in the center of the room. Trey retrieved his blueprints and laid them on the table.

  Karen glanced about, unimpressed. “The old kitchen, I’m hoping.”

  “Yeah, even this old hellhole has an updated one above,” he mumbled, holding the light in his mouth to better spread the old and tattered map. He glanced from the map to the huge metal icebox in the far corner. “Behind there.”

  “Of course,” Karen said wistfully. “Why wouldn’t it be behind the heaviest refrigerator in Ireland?”

  “Quit your bitching and help me.”

  Together, they eventually managed to push aside the massive metal icebox. Trey shined his light upon the wall – old brick and mortar. Karen leaned back on the table, arms folded while the master thief studied it for a moment.

  Trey shrugged, and gave the wall a side kick. Mortar crumbled and bricks fell. He gave the wall another few kicks, enlarging the hole. Then he began removing excess bricks.

  “Are you going to help me or not?” he asked over his shoulder. “Afraid you’re going to break one of those pretty nails?”

  “Oh, all right.” Karen moved beside him, pushing away the old bricks.

  Soon, they’d formed a small, dark archway. Trey stepped boldly through; Karen reluctantly followed.

  They found themselves inside a cold, dank storeroom lined with heavy stone shelves and strange, rectangular boxes. Trey stepped over to one, wiped away centuries-old dust to reveal a nameplate:

  Martin O’Connell — May He Rest in Peace

  “Caskets.” He frowned, shining his flashlight around. “God, I wonder how old these are?”

  “They’re everywhere,” Karen said as more came into their view. Dozens of ancient caskets lined the heavy shelves, some stacked upon others. Some were broken open, revealing grinning skeletons in tattered clothing. Some of the caskets had simply turned to dust, leaving whole skeletons reclined in heaps of bones. Rats scuttled before the light, dashing through dark eye sockets and empty ribcages.

  Karen shivered, but Trey’s stony face revealed nothing as he walked deeper into what was obviously a long-forgotten mausoleum. Karen stayed close to him, clearly unnerved by the human remains.

  The two burglars continued down another hallway and into another room. There, the caskets were lined up more neatly, most made of stone – sarcophagi.

  “Probably one of these older ones,” Trey announced. Both of them could feel the eerie, haunted vibe of the place. Trey started with the first row on the right, brushed away dust from its nameplate. Karen took a deep breath and began working the other side, the two moving methodically down the aisles.

  “Here, take a look at this,” Trey finally said. Relieved, Karen moved to his side again.

  This casket, made of pure white alabaster, seemed to radiate a white light.

  HERE LIES SAINT PATRICK,

  WHO BROUGHT THE WORK OF GOD TO THE UNBELIEVERS

  She glanced up at him, clearly pleased. “Is this it?”

  “Only one way to know for sure,” Trey answered. With some effort and the help of his small hammer, they removed the heavy lid and leaned it on the floor.

  Judas Silver

  is available at:

  Amazon Kindle * Amazon UK

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  About the Author:

  J.R. Rain is the international bestselling author of over ninety novels, including his popular Samantha Moon and Jim Knighthorse series. His books are published in five languages in twelve countries, and he has sold more than 3 million copies worldwide.

  Please visit him at www.jrrain.com.

  Join his newsletter here.

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  About Matthew S. Cox:

  Originally from South Amboy NJ, Matthew S. Cox has been creating science fiction and fantasy worlds for most of his reasoning life. Since 1996, he has developed the “Divergent Fates” world, in which Division Zero, Virtual Immortality, The Awakened Series, The Harmony Paradox, and the Daughter of Mars series take place.

  Matthew is an avid gamer, a recovered WoW addict, Gamemaster for two custom systems, and a fan of anime, British humour, and intellectual science fiction that questions the nature of reality, life, and what happens after it.

  He is also fond of cats.

  Please visit him at www.matthewcoxbooks.com.

  Follow him on Amazon.

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  And read his blog here.

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  J. R. Rain, Vampire Empress

 

 

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