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Wayne Kyle Spitzer

He went into the kitchen and poured her a glass of water. “How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”

“I’m not hungry,” she said. She seated herself slowly, tentatively. “Two, maybe three days. Ever since Sister Samain wrested control of the coven from the Council. Thank you …” She took the glass from Jeremiah, still looking at the paintings. “They’re all done by the same hand, aren’t they?”

He took off his wide-brimmed hat and studied them. “The same eye. Sometimes Jasper’s hand shakes uncontrollably and I have to steady it with my own. Other times I am his hand, and he tells me what to do.” He laughed a little. “He says that I am an artist, just as he. But even I know it’s the eye that sees, not the hands.”

She continued staring at them. “No, I don’t think that’s true. These pictures have lines of grace … look, see how the fingers are elongated, and tend to curve up or down depending on the position of the body. They dance upon the canvas … surely you can see that. I think you paint them together, Jeremiah.”

He swung the strap of the respirator over his head and set it on a mantle. “I’m just his hands.” He moved to leave the room again.

“Just? But hands are for feeling,” she said.

He paused at the entrance to the hall. “And they’re for killing, too.” Then he disappeared into the dark.

And she thought, It’s the heart that kills, Jeremiah. The hard one by slaying others … and the soft by slaying itself. Then she pushed it from her mind.

Hobb's End Books

The Witch Doctor Trilogy

The Dagger and the Chalise

A series of enormous explosions rocked the grounds and Jeremiah hit the deck, pieces of glass and other debris raining down upon him, pattering his shoulders. Thump! Ka-thump! Thump!

Now it is too late to turn back, he thought to himself, and wondered if Satyena, wherever she was, were laboring under the same yoke: the yoke of wanting to destroy a thing while at the same time yearning (paradoxically) for its embrace. Then he was up and running, running for the base of the cliff, wanting to look back and yet too terrified to do so, a Bible quote from one of Kill-sin’s sermons echoing in his ear: But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

The Shadow, the Siren, and the Sage

She steps to within a few feet of me. “The Power—do you have it? How about identity? Orientation? Do they know—the men, that is—do they accept it?”

I hesitate, questioning my own motives. At last I say, “No, they do not—know, that is. I came to them before puberty. As for acceptance, they accept that I am a man with androgen insensitivity syndrome; a man who’s face resembles a woman’s. That is all. As for having the Power … my eyes have begun to change, at night, but clearing as the day goes on—if that’s what you mean. Now … please. Details.”

She looks at me as though having achieved a minor victory. “That’s how you found me, by accessing the hive mind, though you wouldn’t have been aware of it. So, you’ve stayed among them and killed for them in order to survive, but now all that’s changing. Isn’t it?”

I don’t say anything, only continue to stare at her.

“And it is changing—make no mistake. That’s how M24 progresses. Your eyes will remain white longer with each passing day—until the transformation is at last complete.” She scans my face as though attempting to read my thoughts. “Tell me, Witch Doctor. What will you do when that day arrives?”

The Witch Doctor Trilogy

The Witch Doctor Trilogy

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