First Pages: Shadow Life by C.M. Simpson

Shadow Life is the first short story to be found in An Anthology of Those Who Walk Among Us. It is also available as a stand-alone short story.

Jalaya is a story of family, long-standing love and of sacrifices made for the sake of community, duty and loyalty. It is a story of heroes, fire-fights, wits and courage. And it is the story of a last battle in a ten-year war.

Shadow Life is available as part of AnAnthology of Those Who Walk Among Us, and also as a stand alone title at Smashwords, Kobo, Kindle, iTunes, and Nook.

First Page: Shadow Life

I took a short cut down the alley. The moon was full, the night was late and I was alone. None of these things worried me.

There were things in the night and in being alone that would have made me tremble with fear had I not known them so intimately. Things that still gave me shivers in spite of, and because of, my knowing them so well.

My lover waited for me in the alley but, by the time I reached where she was to meet me, she was dead. I saw the blood, one of her shoes flung carelessly on the ground and a strip of her dress caught on the edge of a fire escape two floors up.

I remember climbing the stairs of the fire escape, bile a cold lump in my throat, and my heart hammering in dismay as I retrieved the scrap of dress. My lover had planned a night of ‘pleasure untamed’ judging by the sequined green velvet she had worn.

I looked down from the fire escape at the shoe and the blood spray on the wall and alley floor and shivered. Somehow the secrets of the dark didn’t seem so safe anymore.

Nicola hadn’t known them. I hadn’t had time to tell her, had been sworn against telling by the Lady herself. I had sworn on pain of ... something worse than death.

Then, as I climbed back down to the shoe, clutching the scrap of velvet in my hand, I remember saying over and over to myself, “But I didn’t tell her. I didn’t.”

I remember, too, the velvet mockery in the laughter that greeted me as I picked up Nicola’s shoe.

“You don’t have to now,” it teased. “She knows all about us now.”

END EXTRACT

If you would like to read more, Shadow Life is available as part of AnAnthology of Those Who Walk Among Us, and also as a stand alone title at Smashwords, Kobo, Kindle, iTunes, and Nook.