“Risa?” The hacker’s little voice crackled with static, echoing in the otherwise silent corridor.
“I’m sorry, Tamashī. Risa’s going away for a while.”
She ended the call and glanced at the blank black device in her hand. It contained a file that might show her Pavo’s last minutes of life. She had no interest in watching it right now. Perhaps never. A robotic gesture tucked the little slab of technology away in its pouch in her weapons harness. A part of her hoped Walsh had set her up for an ambush so she could kill something.
After ten minutes of waiting, she strode toward the exit. The Front didn’t matter anymore. She didn’t want to be anywhere near Garrison. Maris, she’d kill as soon as yell at, and she couldn’t face Kree.
She’d failed her father, unable to avenge him when she’d learned the truth.
I will not fail Pavo. Someone is going to die.
Risa stepped into the elevator at the end of the hall, turning to face the silver cylinder as it closed. The violet-eyed Phantom stared back at her.
Everyone wants the Angel of Death? Here I come.
Thank you for reading Hand of Raziel, Daughter of Mars 1.
To everyone at Curiosity Quills, thank you for giving me the opportunity to share this story with the world.
Also, thanks to Lisa Gus for helping out with the Russian dialogue.
To Kate Bystrova, many thanks for being a wonderfully thorough editor for this book (including the Russian parts!), and putting up with my incessant emails and questions.
Merethe Najjar for proofreading!
Thanks again to Matthew Graybosh for the idea to use bracket quotes for implant communication.
Born in a little town known as South Amboy NJ in 1973, Matthew Cox has been creating science fiction and fantasy worlds for most of his reasoning life. Somewhere between fifteen to eighteen of them spent developing the world in which Division Zero, Virtual Immortality, and The Awakened Series take place. He has several other projects in the works as well as a collaborative science fiction endeavor with author Tony Healey.
Matthew is an avid gamer, a recovered WoW addict, Gamemaster for two custom systems (Chronicles of Eldrinaath [Fantasy] and Divergent Fates [Sci Fi], and a fan of anime, British humour (<- deliberate), and intellectual science fiction that questions the nature of reality, life, and what happens after it.
He is also fond of cats.
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Chiaroscuro, by Matthew S. Cox
Father Antonio Molinari is a Vatican priest tasked with investigating claims of the supernatural. While investigating a possession, he discovers a vampire child who seems very much a little girl and not a fiend. Curiosity draws him close; compassion proves fatal. He awakes as one of the undead he once hunted.
Trapped in the shadows away from God’s sight, he struggles to cling to his faith while searching for meaning in God’s plan and a way to save the soul of an innocent child―before the darkness claims his.
Silent Clarion: Before Starbreaker, by Matthew Graybosch
(http://bit.ly/1QSI3Nl)
My curiosity might get me killed. I thought I needed a vacation from my duties as an Adversary in service to the Phoenix Society. After learning about unexplained disappearances in a little town called Clarion, I couldn’t stop myself from checking it out.
Now I must protect a witness to two murders without any protection but my sword. I must identify a murderer who strikes from the shadows. I must expose secrets the Phoenix Society’s executive council is hellbent on keeping buried.
Gyre, by Jessica Gunn
(http://bit.ly/1GL6BHj)
In a world defined by an ancient war between Atlantis and Lemuria, one young engineering prodigy and a fledgling archaeologist are all that stands between the warring factions and the keys to time-travel they seek. But neither side counted on agents from both factions falling in love, or exactly how far they’d go to thwart their heritages and save what matters most.
Artificial, by Jadah McCoy
(http://bit.ly/20bceUx)
In this Bladerunner meets The Walking Dead debut, eighteen-year-old Syl lives in the ruins of Earth’s first colonized sister planet. By day she searches abandoned skyscapers for food, but at night genetically-spliced, flesh-eating bugs—the Cull—come out for a meal of their own. When Syl is abducted and her own DNA spliced, slowly turning her into one of the Cull, she discovers the androids who destroyed her world aren’t nearly as dead as everyone thought.
Appetizer:
Book Cover
Title Page
Author's Note
Main Course:
Chapter One: A Test of Loyalty
Chapter Two: Complicated
Chapter Four: Motivation
Chapter Five: Labor Dispute
Chapter Six: Dead in the Water
Chapter Seven: All Amped Up
Chapter Eight: Faith in Darkness
Chapter Nine: Superstitions
Chapter Ten: Off Balance
Chapter Eleven: Revenge Runs Deep
Chapter Twelve: Into Death’s Arms
Chapter Thirteen: Mutually Beneficial
Chapter Fourteen: In The Dark
Chapter Fifteen: Happy Birthday
Chapter Sixteen: A Spirit in the House of Sin
Chapter Seventeen: Human
Chapter Eighteen: General Inquiry
Chapter Nineteen: Lies Within Lies
Chapter Twenty: Styx and Stones
Chapter Twenty-One: Destiny by Choice
Chapter Twenty-Two: Broken
Chapter Twenty-Four: A Future Uncertain
Chapter Twenty-Five: False Flag
Chapter Twenty-Six: Checkmate
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Aftermath
Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Other Woman
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Deal With the Devil
Chapter Thirty: Deadgirl
Chapter Thirty-One: Two to the Head
Dessert:
Acknowledgments
Closing
About the Author
Copyright & Publisher
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