K. Marvin Bruce

  “I thought you said she was safe from Wednesday here!” Terah was frantic. “I said probably,” Calum sighed.   “There’s something afoot.   That much is clear.” “How do we find her?” Calum turned to face the younger man.   “I’m not sure that we can.” Real panic hit Terah now.   Having been with Lindsey so long he couldn’t face this homeless life without her.   He simply couldn’t imagine it.   “Why not?   What about your library?” “You’ve got to understand.   The supernatural is beyond human control.   I’ve got books on all kinds of supernatural subjects, including missing persons and remote viewing.   Missing persons are seldom found—some of them may have been taken elsewhere.   Remote viewing only works when an adept has a target, a place.   If your psychic connection with her is strong enough, you might be able to reach her somehow.   Otherwise we’ve got an entire world—perhaps even universe—in which to look.   ...

  Terah awoke with a scream.   His own.   Or it would’ve been, had any sound emerged.   He was paralyzed on the comfortable bed.   His opened eyes could move, however, and he saw in the dim light, other people.   Small people.   Incongruous in the modern room with Medieval touches.   Although he’d had no interest in the paranormal back in his teaching days, he had no trouble recognizing aliens.   The word “greys” even echoed in his mind.   They were all around the bed, regarding him with their wrap-around eyes.   Their skinny bodies seemed to be covered with tight-fitting clothing and their bulbous heads were enormous.   Their long fingers reached for him and he couldn’t move. He hadn’t drawn the drapes and milky moonlight spilled over the scene.   He wasn’t levitating.   He wasn’t aboard some spaceship.   He was in a house—a place almost as foreign as a flying saucer these days—but a house with occult appurtenan...

  His face was peering in the crevice of the cave.   Terah started, sitting upright and rising in defense of his friend.   Demons must sense human weakness.   They attack when you need recovery time.   He didn’t know how to fight, but he would.   Then the face was gone.   Terah added some fuel to the fire and tried to let sleep take him.   The fears that defined him, that stitched him together, had culminated in the threat to Lindsey.   Struck by lightning—his heart had stopped when he saw her on the forest floor.   She was younger, and she should survive longer, more easily than a guy his age.   He knew he had much to offer that they world had already rejected.   He just wanted to settle down with Lindsey, protect her.   But he knew this couldn’t be.   Still, he could be the best partner he could.   She’d shown herself to him without a speck of self-consciousness.   There were married couples who didn’t kno...

  Terah rushed up and stood protectively in front of her.   Scanning the woods, he saw nothing.   “What is it?” he whispered urgently. “Let’s keep goin’,” Lindsey said.   “Night’ll be settlin’ in soon.” It had been a cloudy spring day and the woods were encased in shadow.   Trees had begun to leaf out and spotting a cave, or at least a protective jumble of rocks wasn’t easy.   The encroaching darkness drew Terah’s thoughts back to Wednesday.   He ached with hunger but knew complaining would help nothing.   She had to be feeling it too. The Pennsylvania hills here were ancient.   Americans equate mountains with the Rockies, new and sharp.   These ancient eroded Appalachians had hosted dinosaurs in their day, but time had worn them down.   The elements and their constant falling and blowing were even now breaking rock to dust.   “There are some cave systems around here,” Lindsey said, “but not many.   There’s Crystal Cave an...

  Wednesday stood menacingly in the night.   The convent didn’t deter him.   Nothing would.   Conditions were right so that Terah could see him.   Lindsey hadn’t ever stopped.   Now he stood in the basement room they’d designated as their sleeping quarters, leering.   As a matter of safety they continued to share the same room, but chastely.   Wednesday clearly had other things on his demonic mind. “Why isn’t he doing anything?” Terah asked in the dark.   He couldn’t believe how calm and frightened he was. “Most of the time he doesn’t.   You saw him attack me at the asylum, but I’d never seen him do that.   Who knows what the end game is for demons?” “I wish I’d paid more attention to the supernatural while I was studying religion.”   The irony remained like a miasma in the heavy air.   Scientism had neutered the humanities, but to those able to see that only meant denial of what all people experienced.   “Do you supp...

  Terah couldn’t see Wednesday.   He was beginning to wonder if Lindsey was stable at all.   Long ago he’d realized that what people recognize as sanity is really a degree of functionality rather than a clean bill of mental health.   No one was rational all the time.   Even Vulcans had to deal with pon farr.   And they were fictional.   Terah had known people who’d believed in aliens.   Otherwise sane, sensible, individuals.   Was believing in demons and ghosts and sprites so different?   He must’ve been thinking aloud. “In high school they told us people evolved to survive, not to reason out the universe,” Lindsey said.   “Science says evolution disproves religion, but doesn’t that challenge science too?   I mean, evolution’s based on rational observation, and that observation tells us reason’s a survival technique, not an end in itself.   Logic’s just a tool.   Even scientists fall in love.” That word in her mouth m...