Blood Lite

I lifted my eyebrows in surprise. "You aren't upset?"

"By the time you get to be my age," she replied, "you've either worked out your insecurities, or they're there to stay.

Besides. I simply must know how this happened."

I shook my head and then smiled at her. "I ... my friends needed help."

She looked back and forth between the Alphas and Molly. "And still do," she said, nodding sharply. She came in and, as the only one actually wearing shoes, began pick­ing up pieces of fallen glass from the broken window, liter­ally rolling up her sleeves as she went. "Shall we?"

It took most of the day to get Molly to the hospital, gather the materials needed to fumigate Kirby and Andi's auras, and actually perform the work to get the job done. By the time they left, all better and psychophage-free, it was after seven.

"So much for our day off," I said.

She turned to consider me. "Would you do it differ­ently if you had it to do again?"

"No. Of course not."

She shrugged. "Then it was a day well spent. There will be others."

"You never can be sure of that, though, can you?"

Her cheeks dimpled again. "Today is not yet over. You mourn its death somewhat prematurely."

"I just wanted to show you a nice time for a day. Not get bogged down in more business."

Anastasia turned to me and put her fingers over my mouth. Then she replaced her fingers with her lips.

"Enough talk," she murmured.

I agreed.

About the Authors

KELLEY ARMSTRONG is the author of the Other-world paranormal suspense series. She grew up in Ontario, Canada, where she still lives with her family. For more on Kelley and her work, check out her website at www.KelleyArmstrong.com.

JOE R. LANSDALE is the bestselling author of thirty novels and numerous short stories and articles. His work has been turned into film, most notably with the cult classic Bubba Ho-Tep and for Showtime's Masters of Horror series with his story "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road." Forthcoming from Knopf is his new novel, heather Maiden.

LUCIEN SOULBAN is a flight of God's fancy. He doesn't exist. He doesn't live in Montreal and he certainly didn't write for Horrors Beyond 2 or for video games like Rain­bow Six: Vegas. At best, Lucien is a rote, grabbing random words and sequencing them like some form of literary eugenics. By reading this, you're feeding the delusion of his existence: that he has substance. Great... now you've done it. Are you happy? He thinks he's real. P.S.: Lucien also never wrote four novels, including Desert Raiders and Dragonlance: The Alien Sea ... the smug bastard.

CHRISTOPHER WELCH is a happily married freelance writer, reporter, and reviewer originally from Akron, Ohio. He currently lives in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, where he works for the local newspaper and news radio station. He earned a BA and an MA in English from the University of Akron, with a minor in creative writing. Welch's creative works have appeared in various small press and professional publications. His most recent fiction has appeared in Dark Wisdom magazine and the anthology Catopolis. His story in Blood Lite is more autobiographical than he likes to admit.

MATT VENNE received his BA in English from UCLA, and his MFA in Film from USC. His screenplay for Near Dark is being produced by Michael Bay (Transformers), and his Masters of Horror episode "Pelts" (based on the F. Paul Wilson short story) was directed by Dario Argento (Suspiria). Matt is currently adapting Stephen King's Bag of Bones for Mick Garris (The Stand) to direct and Guillermo del Toro {Pan's Labyrinth) to produce, wrote an episode of Fear Itself "entitled "Spooked" for Brad Ander­son (Session 9) to direct, and is writing the next install­ment of the Rambo franchise for Sylvester Stallone. Matt and his wife, Bry

DON D'AMMASSA is the author of Blood Beast, Ser­vants of Chaos, Dead of Winter, and four other novels, as well as three nonfiction books and more than one hundred short stories. He was the book reviewer for Science Fiction Chronicle for almost thirty years. Don is currently writing full-time, at least when he's not reading.

MARK ONSPAUGH is a native Californian who grew up on a steady diet of horror, science fiction, and DC Comics. He's written a whole lot of screenplays, and was one of the writers of Flight of the Living Dead. He knows people expect horror writers to be lurking misanthropes, but hasn't lurked since leaving LA. He lives in Los Osos with his wife, author/artist Dr. Tobey Crockett and two off-kilter cats. He hopes that, by the time this book is published, he has retired to a private island in the South Pacific.

J. A. KONRATH is the author of the Lt. Jack Daniels thrillers, the latest of which isFuzzy Navel. He also edited the hit-man anthology These Guns for Hire and wrote the horror novel Afraid under the name Jack Kilborn. Vist Joe at www.JAKonrath.com.

F. PAUL WILSON is the award-wi

CHARLAINE HARRIS writes the New York Times best-selling Sookie Stackhouse novels and the Harper Co

STEVEN SAVILE won the Writers of the Future Award in 2002. Since then he has gone on to publish novels in six different languages. He has worked with the popular Doctor Who, Torchwood, and Primeval television shows in the UK, most recently with the novel Primeval: Shadow of the Jaguar, and the audio drama Torchwood: Hidden. He has also written four novels for Games Workshop's War-hammer fantasy series and two Celtic fantasy novels in the Sldine series. He doesn't fantasize about killing his wife. Honestly.

During WILL LUDWIGSEN's adolescence, teachers and guidance counselors placed even odds on him end­ing up in a mental hospital or prison. He now works for the federal government, thereby fulfilling both predictions at once. When not writing horror nonfiction for them as a training consultant, he writes horror fiction for Weird Tales, Cemetery Dance, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Maga­zine, and other venues your mother warned you against. If you're working on a graduate thesis in sociopathology, his website at www.will-ludwigsen.com is a treasure trove of research material.

JANET BERLINER is the Bram Stoker Award-wi