The power of the Spectre was still a new thing to the man once known as Ra's al Ghul. His efforts to comprehend the being now bonded to his very soul had met with small progress thus far ( Read more... )

Ostensibly the room was being used to store lab supplies while the hospital's monolithic bureaucracy made its lethargic crawl through the red tape involved in reassigning its purpose. Previously however, the room had been used by the pharmacology department and as such it contained many of the tools he required. Other more exotic materials he had ( Read more... )

They couldn't be seen, not directly. Only in the corner of the eye, between heart beats could you detect their passing. Like heavy moth wings they fluttered in the neglected corners of empty rooms and in the still of the night when no one was watching did they creep from their hidden places and feed ( Read more... )

Over a century ago, the fearful townspeople of Batesville formed a mob and murdered an innocent Illini woman who had the misfortune of being accused of witchcraft. With no grasp of English, she had no recourse to refute the accusations and in truth it would have mattered little if she could. The color of her skin and the ways of her people had ( Read more... )

The neon sign advertising the diner's name flickered irregularly as the aged device teetered upon the edge of failure. The pink and blue light it emitted erratically was washed out in the glare of fluorescent illumination within. The deep red upholstery covering the seats of the counter stools and booths bore little resemblance to its varnished ( Read more... )

It was dark. For a few seconds, Father Adam puzzled over why it should be dark, then he realized his eyes were closed. It took another heartbeat to remember how to open them, and with the return of that memory came others: how to sit up, how to check his head to confirm that the throbbing pain was not accompanied by blood, how to recognize where ( Read more... )

The flight of stairs felt rickety and unsound. Every step felt as if it would give way beneath his feet as the pair made their way up to the second floor. A definite chill that belied the warm weather of the evening outside had settled in about them. Adam's skin crawled with goose bumps and he could see his breath on the still air. His companion ( Read more... )

The kitchen was a musty affair. The lack of cobwebs felt wrong given the tarnished look of age everywhere. Ray's admonitions had given him cause to notice the incongruities of the advanced state of decrepit wear evident in the fixtures and features of the house. The more he thought about it, the more it unnerved him ( Read more... )

The sound of his footsteps punctuated the brisk pace of his stride along the concrete sidewalk. Errant weeds poked through the cracked surface. Old tree roots had tunneled under the walkway for years and had transformed the once flat footpath into an uneven and broken trail of fractured cement. Despite the abundant water table so close to the ( Read more... )

The Eighteen Hands of Lo-Han. It was the foundation of the arts he developed over a lifetime, his first lifetime at any rate. There were other more difficult and demanding techniques, but this was the foundation. Swift and graceful like wind over water, his body moved as the ancient form played itself out again and again. It helped him to find his ( Read more... )