GenoWars: Caesar VS Alexander

Ever wonder who would win in a pitched battle: Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great? Wait no longer! In my new series, GenoWars, I imagine in a world in which the greatest leaders in the history of the world are brought back to life to fight it out. In this first episode, Julius Caesar battles Alexander the Great to determine who is the greatest commander of antiquity.

The novella is available in our Online Store in both ebook and audiobook versions.

Origins: A Vampire Chronicle

Prologue

I know you. I have watched you for thousands of years. More years than I can perhaps recall at times, when I struggle to contemplate the enormity of my own existence, of my own time. Yet, you are something different. Certainly, you are different from me. But, then again, those differences go without saying as you shall no doubt soon discover.

I knew you when man's world was so but an infant. The world was a much quieter place then. Sometimes, when I think back through the mists of the centuries and try to determine the innumerable differences, the silence must be one of the greatest, if not the greatest. When I first came into this world, an event I can no longer recall but I will speculate on further shortly, you could hear the stillness of the world. The wind rustled through the leaves on the trees, over the blades of grass upon the ground, and caressed the mane of a nearby horse. If you held your hand out just so, as though you were reaching to touch someone who was simultaneously so close and yet had never been there, you could hear the soft breeze slipping through your own fingers, like fine sand. You could hear your own breath, especially on cold winter mornings in the purplish-black just before the dawn. I do miss the stillness. I miss the sound of my own breath, of my own steps.

Yet, in spite of the fact that most of my contributions to the noise of this world ceased so long ago, the world is now decidedly loud. Even in the woods, it seems the sounds of mankind are never far away.

Imagine, you used to be able to just sit. Sit. For hours if you liked. And only your thoughts would fill your mind. Now, well, now one cannot sit in silence for more than a fleeting moment before some cacophony interrupts.

All this is to say the world is so much tighter than the world I once knew. You can feel it. It presses upon you like a sweater shrunk in the wash. It crushes down upon your shoulders like sacks of earth or sand. It is the weight of all that sound, of all the commotion, of all the, well, life. For you see, reader — and I must call you that for I know not who will read these pages — centuries ago there was less life, or I suppose at least a different kind of life. The greatest cities in the land of my birth held no more than one or two thousand humans. Those cities would not pass for the smallest of hamlets today, they might not even warrant a gas station.

But with all this life comes this tightness, this feeling that no space remains on this planet which is currently not being used by someone. Or, at the least, that has not been used by someone. When I was young, reader, you could walk a path never walked before. You could touch a rock never touched before. There was an emptiness but also a newness that was so intoxicating to the senses. Perhaps that is the fascination with traveling to the moon, though, as I sit here writing these thoughts, that seems the furthest thing from anyone's mind, including my own. And I, reader, I have the luxury of time.

Now nothing is new. Certainly, there are new gadgets. You have your technology, which is all fine until it destroys you. Or, rather, until you destroy one another with it. But is that new? Are your ideas new? You can send information across the globe in a matter of seconds, but does any value in that speed remain if the information simply spreads the same hate? Would you not rather that information move more slowly? There is a value in such slowness, I think. A slow-moving snake is easier to slice in twain. A fast-moving cobra will fill you with venom before you can react. And causing more pain and suffering is what you use your technology for.

But, I digress and I beg your apologies. The purpose of this prologue is to introduce ourselves. Well, to an extent I suppose such is the purpose of all these volumes. I wish you to understand me as I finally go to take my leave of this world and, in my own way, I wish you to better know yourselves. Humans have many talents. I have had the fortune of observing them over these many thousands of years. But, your greatest talent, I should think, is your undeniable ability to ignore your faults. Humans can bring joy into this world. You can bring life into this world. You can honestly and emphatically change things for the better.

Yet, all while you do this, all this bettering, you ignore why you do it. Moreover, you conveniently ignore the reality that better for some means worse for others. I believe after several thousand years on this planet I can count on one hand the number of times a human has undertaken any activity with the goal in mind of improving the lives of everyone on the planet.

Not that most of you can conceive of humanity as everyone on the planet. Indeed, when you speak of such you generally mean those within your relatively proximity. Or perhaps those who swear allegiance to the same piece of, often tattered, cloth. Or, of those who just so happen to look like yourselves. And, all the while, I have been watching you.

But who am I? That is a story that will take many thousands of pages I am afraid, dear reader. This is only the first volume. We will get there. Try to have patience, though I know such is not your strong suit. I shall introduce myself in due time. Yet, before we get to me, I want to finish with what I have learned of you.

Humans are of intense interest to me. First, because, long ago, I was human. Second, because you are my primary source of life. Third, because you are the most incredible combination of ignorance and unabashed self-confidence of any creature I have yet to come across. The first two reasons are stories for further pages in this work. I will tell of my life as one of you in due course and my transition to my current state. Then, I will tell you how I killed one of you for the first time.

But, first let me provide for you a few general observations that frame my telling of this story, which is as much a story of you as much as it is of me. Humans, it seems to me, have an almost infinite capacity to forget, perhaps this internal wiring is on purpose.

I met a man once in Paris. The year was 1923. (I, unlike yourself, am completely sure of every date and of the details of every event which has ever happened to me.) It was several years after the war. My complete retelling of the war will have to wait for another time, but suffice it to say that those of my kind fought on both sides — sometimes changing back and forth as it suited them. I, on the other hand, have more iron in my commitments, but, as I said, that is a tale for another day.

I was sitting in a small cafe on the corner of the Rue Balzac and the Rue Beaujon, about an eighth of a mile from the Arc de Triomphe. It was April 24, 1923, and a lovely spring afternoon. The temperature was not above sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. (As an aside, while writing these pages I sit in a modestly sized apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Hence, I shall, in most cases, use American standards for all things measurable.) The sky was the same soft blue of the ancient fleur-de-lis of the French kings of old. There was a soft breeze coming up the Rue Balzac from the direction of the Seine.

Not that I could feel the wind, of course. But, I could see the leaves were rustling ever so slightly, leading to such a conclusion. I sat at an iron table just outside the cafe. The seat would have been a little uncomfortable, had I been able to feel discomfort. The top of the table had been painted a soft white, but I discerned the telltale signs of deep red rust underneath. As I sat, I sipped at a delightful glass of Chateauneuf de Pape, which I drink as much for the irony as for the taste.

I noticed a man sitting not two tables away. He was, perhaps, in his middle twenties. Not handsome, but neither did he resemble Quasimodo come back to life. He had soft brown hair and a lean build. He looked like the kind of young man who would quickly identify himself as a poet or painter. The kind of young man who would be working for the family business once said family's patience for his youthful dalliances wore off.

But, as I have said, none of those attributes were remarkable. What was, however, was the reality of his missing left hand. He had done quite an admirable job of hiding it and I guessed many a passerby probably had not noticed the wound at all. I, on the other hand, saw and appraised the lost hand before he even sat down. Nay, I believe I saw it when he came around the corner.

"Monsieur," I called over to him, raising my glass.

"Yes?" he answered jovially enough for someone who had just been addressed by a complete stranger.

I nodded towards the bottle of wine on my table. "Would you join me for a glass? I have more than I need or want."

The young man smiled. "I'll never turn down a Chateauneuf de Pape. And, if I am correct," he said while getting to his feet, "that is 1899. A good year."

I moved a chair for him to sit, pretending the action of sliding the wrought-iron chair was difficult for me. "You have a good eye, Monsieur. It is in fact."

The young man took a seat. I was impressed with how well he was able to hide the injury. Was I not aware of it already, I might not have noticed how it ever so slightly impacted the manner in which he took the chair. Fortunately for him, I realized he must be left-handed.

I raised my hand for the waiter, who quickly brought another glass and poured the wine for the young man.

"Merci," I called to the waiter as he left. Settling myself, I looked at the young man more closely now. Maybe not a poet, I thought. Maybe more of an accountant. Not betraying my knowledge of his missing hand in the least, I causally sipped my wine. "Where did you serve in the war, Monsieur?"

The young man somewhat absentmindedly tugged at the empty sleeve at the mention of the war. "Eighth infantry."

I nodded. "I see. Your family must be proud."

He sipped his wine. "I suppose. My brother died fighting at Vimy Ridge. My sister died of the flu three years ago. So," he paused for a moment and swirled the wine in his glass, "if they are proud of me in particular, it is more out of default than anything else."

I studied the young man for a long while. He had premature wrinkles on the sides of his eyes and graying hair at his temples. He will be dead before the decade is out, I thought to myself. War kills in many ways.

I decided to press on. "Where were you injured?"

He shook his head. "In the war."

I leaned forward. "Yes, I see. But where? I fought as well you see."

He looked at me, incredulous. "For whom?"

"For Britain, believe it or not. You see, I've kind of stayed on after the war."

"Are you from the colonies then, Monsieur?" he asked.

"In a manner of speaking, I suppose I am."

The young man took another long sip from the wine. "And you had the good fortune to emerge unhurt I see."

At this, I paused for a moment. I looked at him now like a scientist might study a new specimen. He was wearing a white shirt that had grown beige around the collar for overuse and under washing. It had once been starched to a neat point but was now wavy like a napkin carelessly tossed aside. Other than the injury, he wore no medals — though he must have some — nor any other indication of having served.

"Not all injuries are visible," I said after a while.

He laughed. "True, very true."

I leaned forward on the table now, looking down I could see the rust from the underside wearing off on my pants. I brushed at it absentmindedly. "But, the hand. How did you lose it?"

The young man said nothing. I saw him look out across the street where a happy couple was walking down the Rue Balzac, hand in hand. For a long while, I assumed he would say nothing more. I would not have blamed him. You see even then I had seen more men die and more wounds inflicted than I can ever hope to count. Though, if you forced me, I could tell you about them all. Memory can be a curse. Little did I know in 1923, I had not yet seen the worse humanity had to offer.

"You know," said the young man at last. "I really don't know. One moment I was reaching for the barbed wire to clear it away. The next," he clicked his tongue, "well, the next I woke up in a hospital bed."

I leaned back now. "Perhaps it is best not to remember."

"Perhaps," he whispered in a tone so soft that, did I possess remarkable hearing, I would not have heard him.

"Perhaps," I said, taking the bottle of wine and refilling his glass, "it is best to continue moving forward."

He gave a low chuckle. "Huh, sure. Forward to our glorious future. For whatever it's worth." He looked at me more intently now, leaning forward. I could smell the wine on his breath and realized this was not his first bottle today. "You know I volunteered. I volunteered to go to protect our damned glorious future. And now what future is there for me?" He looked around. "What future is there for any of us? At least we all get to die someday. Get some rest."

I stared down into my wine, unsure for once what to say. I considered just agreeing with him, though agreeing would be a lie as, until very recently, I assumed I would never die; again, that is.

But then I thought such an agreement would serve little purpose. His mind was made up regardless. Decade? I thought, he probably wouldn't last the week.

"Find value in what you can," I said at last. "Trust me, imagining what might have been is an errand that only ends in regret. And that, I can tell you, is nearly worse than any memory."

That was almost a century ago now, but I still remember that young man's unwashed collar.

I got his name, do you know that, reader? I got his name and followed up with him. Do you know I was wrong? He lasted more than a week. That was April. He hanged himself in June.

So if memory is a curse for you, as it is for me, I understand why you so often reject it. Yet, that only leaves you with the alternative of inventing your own history, an alternative you choose with remarkable regularity. Again, I cannot say that I blame you. Do you know what I have seen over the past several thousand years? The hypocrisy of your species is deeper than the deepest parts of the Pacific Ocean.

From the start of the world, in my time, you used images and ideas of gods and goddesses — oh yes, long before you decided there was only one — to justify horrific atrocities. Tell me, reader, if all-powerful and omnipotent gods do exist, why is it that they depend on mere mortals to do their bidding? Either these gods, as you call them, are vastly more powerful than yourselves, or they are not, is that not true? Does the man wait for the carpenter ants to lift the board? If Osiris or Zeus or Shiva or Yahweh are completely invincible, which given there are multiple versions of them I assume they cannot all be at the same time, then why do they need you to murder your neighbor?

You call me monster. You say I am a nightmare. Perhaps so, but, if it is the case and you are correct, then you are the nightmare of nightmares. The things I watched your kind do would make the worst of my kind cringe and, let me you, there are some of my kind you deserve the titles you heap upon us.

When your gods were no longer enough to justify your cruelty, you turned to lines drawn upon a scrap of parchment. You called then kingdoms, nation-states, city-states, and empires. You decided because someone who, for all practical purposes is just like you, was born fifty feet to the north, they deserve to die. Humans, you worship men like Alexander the Great (who was a terrible drunk by the way) and Napoleon (who I did not know personally but I can surmise) and hundreds of others like them for their capacity to slaughter. Yet, you fault the wolves for thinning the weakest of the herd. Did your great conquerors take only the weak and the sick? The rivers of blood that could be filled by their battles would stretch up and down your world, if only you could see them. And all this for glory. All this just to move one line on your pointless insignificant map a little further. May I ask you if that village, now south of the precious line on your map belongs to you now and, therefore, is now part of your glorious empire, why did you burn it down in the first place? Worse still, why will your enemy burn it down once more before “liberating” it?

And when nationalities fail and religion is imperfect to feed your never ending blood lust, you turn to the most minute of differences between yourselves as justification. In my thousands of years, you cannot fathom the different arguments I have heard justifying why someone deserves to be your slave. You say they were conquered. You say they are black or even slightly darker than you. You say they have the committing the penultimate sin of being born a woman. You have redefined this particular justification so many times even I, with my nearly infinite capacity for remembrance, cannot recall all the reasons you gave for enslaving someone.

And yet, all your justification comes down to one thing. It is because I can. And when you cannot, someone will do it to you.

Such is the beginning of what I know about you, reader. Most you will disregard my assessments; most will disregard the warnings. That has always been the way and will continue to be the way long after I am gone. But, like a man leaving those with whom he has just completed a long journey, I felt you deserved, at least, to know about the cancer slowly consuming you from within.

Before I begin the story, however, I think it best, reader, if we cover the basics. For, as much as I have had thousands of years to study you, you know shockingly little about me. I am not obsessed with names. I cannot be. I have been called so many names over my time on this earth. I remember the Eastern Romans, titled quite erroneously the Byzantines by the way, used to call me Vrykolakas. The Greeks, always in love with their naming, had three names for me: Empusa, Lamia, and Striges.

The Babylonians, not far from where my story begins in earnest, by the way, called those like me Lilitu. Interestingly this turned into Lilith in Hebrew, though I must tell you, in spite of how that name remains potent in popular culture, I never met one of my kind with her name. I did know a group of females like me whom I met in Prague in 1323 who gave rise to the folklore of the Estries in the Hebrew tradition. So some stories are not too far afield, I suppose.

But mentions of me go far beyond Europe and the Near East. The Mayans called me the Camazotz. The Australians called me Garkain. The Jubokko in Japan. In India, I am the Pichal Peri. Sri Lankans call me the Riri Yaka.

Yet, I think you know me by my most famous name, Vampire. Now, I know what you are thinking, this story must begin in Transylvania. First of all, you are thinking of Vlad Dracula. He was quite a real person. I should know, I met him. He, however, was the ruler of Wallachia, not Transylvania. So let us start this relationship with the correct facts and names, shall we?

And no, this is not a story about Vlad the Impaler. His is a fantastic story though and I implore you to look it up if you do not know anything about the actual Vlad. He has a fascinating reputation in history and popular culture, some of it well-deserved, and, should you be of Turkish descent, dear reader, he would be no friend of yours.

The story you know of Vlad Dracula, or Count Dracula I suppose, was all pure invention and I think we might as well dispense with some of the more obvious misconceptions about my kind straight away. Dracula, penned by Bram Stoker, is both immensely irritating to me personally and extremely helpful to my existence. As they say, the devil's greatest mischief was in convincing the world he did not exist and, to the idea that vampires are purely fictional, Bram Stoker is my greatest publicist.

For the purposes of simplicity, vampire is the term I shall use to denote my kind throughout the remainder of this work though, as I mentioned earlier, many cultures have different names for those who hunt in the shadows. No doubt you wish to know what we call ourselves. Sadly, you would be disappointed to find we call ourselves nothing. Only mankind is obsessed with setting such arbitrary ideological boundaries. You are humans. We are not. That is enough.

As I was saying, I have noted but a few of the myriad cultures who recognized the existence of vampires or vampiric creatures. Some of these folk traditions are accurate. In what was then referred to as Prussia, in the mid-eighteenth century, a coven of vampires (yes, popular fiction did get that term right, much as I suppose a blind man endless tossing darts will eventually hit the board) slaughtered an entire village, leading to vampire hysteria. In that same century in Serbia, a father turned vampire created quite the stir by subsequently undertaking to turn his son. Both incidents led to, quite real, fears about a rise in vampires in their local communities.

Luckily for me, an alcoholic Irishman is always to be found when services are needed. Bram Stoker located old maps of Wallachia, discovered the past of Vlad Dracula, and invented his wonderful story out of whole cloth. I am not a fan of epistolary novels, but, in the case of Dracula, I must make an exception. It is a good story, but hardly any of it is true.

I think, then, it makes some sense for us, dear reader, to run through the simplest of the errors here and dispatch them forthwith. The more complex mistakes or half-truths, for again, even the fool must be right sometimes, we will leave for our narrative and I shall endeavor to explain them to you as best as I am able. Again, I do not believe in an all-powerful deity, for surely such would destroy me, and nor do I purport to be one. So I can only give you such answers as to my nature as my experience and intelligence allow.

Error number one: Vampires are deterred by garlic. This is baseless. I love garlic. While vampires, technically, lack the ability to taste, other than blood, I still enjoy the aroma. To those who love garlic, I highly recommend Julia Childs' garlic mashed potatoes. They are, tongue in cheek, to die for.

Error number two: all vampires are sensual. We are not. We are as diverse as humankind. If you are an overweight businessman when you become a vampire, an overweight businessman vampire you remain. You do not become an underwear model simply by virtue of the fact you have turned into a vampire. Vampirism stops the growth of the human body where it is, though how exactly that works we will get into more in the course of our narrative.

Error number three: vampires come from the Balkans and I use the term, Balkans, to avoid the whole Transylvania versus Wallachia quagmire. Either way, so far as I know, vampires originated with me. And I, as you shall know in a few short moments, am not from what you call Europe. However, I should note that I cannot prove definitively I am the first vampire. It is a contention I advance herein and, at the end of all this, you must decide: do you believe me or not? That is your choice.

Error number four: vampires can be deterred by silver. So far as I know, this is false. Or, at least it is so for me. I, for example, am wearing a lovely silver locket around my neck as I write this.

Error number five: vampires hate Christian things. This one requires more explanation. I, for example, predate the man know to history as Jesus of Nazareth by around three thousand five-hundred years. Moreover, I met him, and he had some good points, though, I am not sure he would agree with most of the ways in which his name is being used today. In that way, he and I are oddly similar. Furthermore, I have visited many churches and cathedrals in my life and if you have not been to see the magnificent cathedral at Chartres, you simply have not lived. I have nothing against Jesus of Nazareth or his ideas nor does anything related to the Christian god impact me in the least. In fact, I find many of the paintings and sculptures of the Renaissance quite beautiful. This error I place once more squarely at the feet of Stoker as I understand the man had certain religious leanings. Yet, dear reader, please know I predate most, if not all active religions and philosophies in the modern world and I take no position as to any of them.

Error number six: vampires can transform into bats. This one is simple. No, we cannot. I am not sure where this fanciful notion came from. Nor can we fly or levitate. I would have much appreciated that magical power, but have it we do not. At least, I never met one of my kind who can perform either of those feats.

Error number seven: vampires can only be killed with a stake through the heart or by cutting off their heads. Yes, certainly cutting of something’s head would kill anything. However, being burned alive, shot repeatedly, or exploded would also do the trick. Suffice it to say, vampires can be killed many of the ways humans can.

I suppose it would be easier to list the methods that will not cause a vampire to die. Again, vampires are not super-human, a fact I will discuss more momentarily. The things that do not result in the destruction of the vampire are, if you think about them, fairly obvious. Nothing that causes death by asphyxiation will destroy a vampire. We do not breathe. Thus, no hanging, no smothering, no choking. I, for one, once choked on a chicken bone for nearly six months in 1574. It was not pleasant, but I did not die. Nor can vampires die of poisoning. Oddly, even drinking the poisoned blood of a human, or one who is suffering the effects of a lifetime of alcohol poisoning, does not appear to impact us. I am not sure why this is. I myself tried consuming cyanide, arsenic, and ricin to no effect. Finally, and this should go without saying, vampires do not die of old age. I am over five thousand years old. And I feel as well as ever.

Now, I should point out, vampires can die of starvation. It has been known to happen, in fact, with some regularity. There are those who grow wearily with eternal existence or those who become disgusted with their own parasitic being and wish to end this prolonged afterlife. The most common way vampire suicide has been accomplished to date has been refusing to eat. It takes much longer than with humans, but it can be done.

Once, I met a vampire in a tiny village along the Adriatic Coast nearby Split, where the Roman Emperor Diocletian once retired to tend cabbage as his empire collapsed. This vampire had become seriously depressed with her lot in life. All her family and friends had long since died, as had their children, and their children's children until she knew no one in this world who had even the most remote of connections to her prior life. Unable to cope, she began to starve herself. That was in 1788, I recall the date perfectly well for it was one year before the French people threw off their medieval yoke, catapulting Europe into modernity. I had occasion to pass her way again in 1803 when Europe was first beginning to feel the sting of a young gunnery captain named Napoleon Bonaparte. This vampire was, fifteen years later, much reduced in her energies, but still able to move. I came back once more when all the wars of the early nineteenth century had burned themselves, and entire generations of human beings, out. It was 1816. This time I found no one in the village who could tell me of the strange old woman who once lived on the outskirts of town. I went to her dwelling and found only her long whithered remains, skeletal, and translucent. I buried her on a nearby clifftop overlooking the sea, both out of pity and concern that her strange remains would one day be discovered.

Error number eight: vampires possess super-human strength. I will discuss this more in the narrative, but we do not. We are stronger and faster than humans, when at full strength. But, at our best, that amounts to perhaps triple the strength or speed of the fastest or strongest human. Movie depictions of us jumping from mountaintop to mountaintop or flying through trees like lightening are simple fancy, nothing more.

Error number nine: vampires can hypnotize people. While this would be extremely helpful, it is not true. Yet this is another aspect of Mr. Stoker's narrative for which I am grateful, however, as many humans think it is true to the extent that they actually believe you have hypnotized them.

Error number ten: if vampires exist, so do all other manner of supernatural creatures. Perhaps this one is due to modern popular culture more than any other of the errors I have thus far delineated. Most people today believe that, if vampires exist, so must werewolves. I have walked nearly every mile of this planet throughout every single century and never saw a werewolf. Nor am I sure I would even know one if I were to see one at this point as historical depictions of the creature vary wildly. Regardless, I have never encountered a being that transforms via the full moon. Should you truly desire to find a creature that transforms itself under cover of darkness, you need look no further than yourselves, dear reader. Humans have quite the penchant for changing their behavior when they no longer believe they can be seen.

I suppose I should point out here that, same as werewolves, I have not encountered any number of other magical creatures passed down through folktales and fireside stories since time immemorial. There are, to name a few, no unicorns, zombies, griffins, centaurs, hodags, dragons, orcs, or banshees. As to witches, I suppose much depends on one's definition. If a fourteenth-century herbalist doing her best to combat the Black Death is a witch, then yes, there are witches. If, however, a witch is one who communes with the devil and casts spells, there are not. Simply because a woman wishes to live her life outside the norms of society, that does not make her a witch, no matter what the seventeenth-century Puritans believed and no, Joan of Arc was not a witch. She was an illiterate peasant girl who believed she saw visions. Nothing less. Nothing more.

As to the other aspects of vampires, I will explain those within these pages. There are explanations, or at least my attempt at explanations, for many of the larger questions but I think those fit best within the narrative itself as many of them depend upon my independent experiences.

Thus ends my best efforts at a sort of introduction. I am well aware that many of you may not believe what is contained within these pages. However, suffice it to say, it is not my job to convince you of anything. It is solely my duty to tell you my story before it is forever lost to the world. For simplicity's sake, I will tell my story, as Lewis Carroll once suggested, by beginning at the beginning and proceeding until the end. Then, I shall stop.

Every story has a beginning, even one so old and long as mine. This story begins thousands of years ago in a part of the world you now call the Middle East, but which in my day was referred to many as Sumer. We begin there. We begin with my humanity, at its loss.

The Resort

From time to time I write short fiction. Here’s a fun short story with a twist.

“If you like Pina Coladas! And getting caught in the rain!” 

“Billy Jo!” Matt called over his shoulder, seeing the older man approaching the edge of the cabana bar. He was wearing his classic Hawaiian shirt - three sizes too large, which was saying something considering that Billy Jo had to be pushing two-fifty at least. The older man threw his considerable weight down on the stool next to Matt. He nodded to the bartender, a young Caribbean man as thin and fit as Billy Jo was fat. Billy Jo’s belly bumped up against the stone bar as he kicked back his first beer. At least, his first I’ve seen today thought Matt. To be fair, Billy Jo’s face already had the tell-tale reddish hue that told Matt this was absolutely not Billy Jo’s first beer this morning. Then again, who was he to judge? He’d been at the bar most of the morning. Whatever, he thought, it’s my vacation. If I want a morning beer with my tacos I’ll have a morning beer. It sure won’t be like that when I get back to Ohio. 

“How’s it hanging partner?” Bill Jo asked, slapping Matt on the back as he signaled the bartender for another beer. Matt liked the guy in spite of their many differences. Matt was at least twenty-five years younger than Billy Joe. Matt still had all his hair, a blond scruff that sat unruly about his head this morning. Did I comb it this morning? He couldn’t remember. Did I comb it last night? He couldn’t remember that either. Plus, Billy Jo was outgoing and jovial where Matt was pensive and quiet. That’s part of the reason they got along so well: Billy Jo did most of the talking. Matt wondered whether they’d be friends in real life. He meant, back home of course. Vacation was still, after all, real life. 

“I’m good, man. Another day in paradise, you know.”

“Feel you there partner.” He took a large pull from his second beer. “Feel you there. Say, when you headin’ back?”

“Tomorrow,” said Matt. “At least, I think tomorrow. I’ve got to check my ticket again. I can’t seem to find my phone but I’m sure it's in my suite.”

“Huh, you kids and your phones. You know what? When I was your age, probably back in the eighties I’m guessin’, we didn’t have no phones like that. Ours were attached to the walls. And, if you wanted to call a girl, you had to talk to her ma first, or, worse, her dad might pick up. That was rough.” He took another drink. For a moment Matt thought he might get to talk but the older man continued. “We ain’t got no, what’s it called, twinder? That right?” He looked at Matt through bloodshot eyes. “That what it’s called?”

“Tinder,” Matt said. “Close.”

“Ah, close enough,” said Billy Jo, who promptly finished his second beer. “What you up to today?”

“Same as yesterday,” said Matt. “Sun, beach, booze. What’s more to life?”

“You got that right, my man, you got that right. I figure I’ll do the same. Soon I’ll be back in Cleveland, working at the factory, pumping out brake pads.” He looked off into the rising sun over the ocean and squinted. “Or do we even make breaks? I can’t rightly recall right now. Doesn’t matter. What matters is,” and here he clapped Matt on the shoulder again, “you and me is here now. And there’s no place I’d rather be.” 

Matt found himself walking along the beach and wondering: was he supposed to leave tomorrow? Again, he found it hard to remember. He’d need to check his ticket for sure tonight. He took another sip some his drink, something with coconut, and looked out across the ocean. The sea was a soft blue-green, the kind that the leaves look like in early spring if they had a little dusting of wet snow. Fresh and new. It even moved like a waving forest in the breeze. I’ll have to come back here, he thought, when I’m ready for another vacation I’ll come back. 

“Matt, what’s up man?” Said a voice behind him. 

Matt turned to see Ramsey coming up along the edge of the beach. Ramsey was a young man, maybe twenty, full of life and energy. He was fun to be around, especially after dark. No matter the night, Ramsey always had stories the next day about his various exploits. 

“Oh,” said Matt turning around to face the young man. “Hey, what’s up with you?”

“Nothing much,” said Ramsey coming closer to Matt. He was dressed in his usual linen pants. No shirt. Ramsey, whose six-pack was his pride and joy, never wore a shirt when he didn’t have to. “But man, I gotta tell ya about last night.” 

“Oh yeah?” Said Matt with a little smirk. “Big night eh?”

“For sure man! You don’t remember?” 

Matt thought for a second. Last night? Was he out with Ramsey? Maybe… He couldn't be sure. “No way man. Us? Last night? I don’t think so.” 

“Bro, sorry but it’s true. You and me,” he paused and jammed both hands into his pockets, revealing yet more abs, “and the ladies yo!” He broke into a gigantic smile. 

“Ha,” said Matt, “now I know you’re lying. No way any ladies would be about this.” He pointed to his own, definitely not six-pack abs. 

“Dude, you kiddin’ me?”

“Why?”

“You hot bro! The ladies love you! Remember Saturday?”

“I honestly don’t.” He honestly didn’t.

“Of course not! You be boozin’ bro!” Ramsey gave Matt a playful punch on his shoulder. “Man, but right now I wish you did!” He gave another massive smile. Matt liked this guy. He was genuine. Sure, Ramsey could be a bit… well… douchie but he was still fun to be around. The kid was twenty after all, what could you expect. 

“Whatever bro,” Ramsey continued, “we goin’ out for sure tonight!” 

“Oh man,” Matt started, “I don’t think I can. I leave tomorrow.” 

“Fuck that!” Said Ramsey throwing his hands in the air looking like a football referee calling a touchdown. “Ain’t nobody ever too hungover to fly. You ain’t flyin’ the plane, right?”

Matt gave a bashful smile. “Nah, I’m not.”

“Then last I heard,” Ramsey threw his arm around Matt, “no one too drunk to read no in-flight magazine.” He smiled again at Matt, who felt himself giving into Ramsey's infectious personality.

Dong. Dong.  

Both Matt and Ramsey stopped, looking back towards the resort. 

“Time for malaria pills,” said Ramsey shaking his head. “Only part of this place I hate. Wish we could just get rid of those mosquitoes or something. I don’t mind it too much. But tastes like ass for sure.” 

Matt smiled. “You know what ass tastes like?”

Ramsey smiled back. “Bro! Nice.” 

And with that, the two men walked back to the resort. 

“Mr. Johnson. Mr. Smart. Good to see you!” Said one of the resort activity guides to Matt and Ramsey. 

“Yo brother!” said Ramsey giving the young man fistbump. “How you doin’?” 

“Oh, I’m fine sir. Fine. Thanks for asking. Oh, line for malaria pills to the left.” He pointed the way.

“Thanks, brother,” said Ramsey. “Worst part of this place.” 

“Oh, worst for sure,” said the guide to the two men. “Worst for sure. See you at the club tonight?”

“You know it!” Said Ramsey, who gave the employee another solid fist bump before walking past. 

“I hate this part,” said Matt, head down.

“Me too man, but you gotta pay for paradise, you know? We could have eradicated these things if we wanted.”

Matt scratched his head. “I think we tried. Didn’t we? I’m not sure.” 

“Yeah, me neither.” 

“What’s up, partners!!!” 

A joyous Billy Jo joined the two. He threw his arms around the two of them, hugging each close before releasing them. “Pill time eh?”

“Yup,” said Matt.

“Then drink time my man!” Said Ramsey.

“Well,” said Billy Jo pointing down with one hand towards the other holding a beer, “I won’t have to wait too long for that.” 

Both Billy Jo and Ramsey hi-fived. “Hell yeah!” said Ramsey. 

The three reached the front of the line. A young woman stood behind a counter. She was extremely attractive and, from what they could see, wearing only a bikini top. 

“Pills?” she asked. 

“Sweetheart,” Billy Jo started, “I’ll take whatever you give me.” He swallowed down the two pills and chased them with his beer. The girl smiled back. 

“You going out tonight? I see you on the dance floor?” Ramsey took the pills and washed them down with the cups of water sitting on the side of the cabana. 

“Maybe.” She said with a wink that meant “Definitely”. Then she turned to Matt. “Pills?” 

“Yeah,” he said, “thanks. Appreciate it.” He took the pills in the little white cup. “Will you?”

“Huh?” she said, already looking to the next person in line.

“Are you going out tonight?” Matt looked expectant at the young woman. 

“Oh,” she flipped her hair as though realizing he was still there, “of course! See you there.” He wasn’t sure. 

Back at the cabana bar the three men sat and drank. 

“Dude,” started Ramsey, “I am totally going to hit that tonight!” 

Bill Jo laughed. “No way partner. I mean good luck. But no way. Matt, now maybe.”

“Why?” asked Ramsey his face a little hurt. “Because he’s white?”

“Oh,” Billy Jo looked equally hurt. “Nah partner. Come on, don’t do me like that.” 

“Don’t do you like what? Like you ain’t no racist-”

“Hey,” said Matt. “Come on. Just let it go.” Matt eyed the nearby security office eyeing them. “Let’s just drink.” 

“Fine,” said Ramsey.

“Cool partner,” said Billy Jo. 

Ramsey looked at Matt, “You took your pills, right?” 

Matt considered the unconsumed pills in his pocket. “For sure. Yeah. Why won’t I? Don’t want to die right?”

“Good,” said Billy Jo, “that shit’s serious partner. I don’t want to have to go with you to no Mexican hospital.”

“We’re in the Caribbean asshole,” said Ramsey while flagging down the bartender. “This is like, Cuba, or the Virgin Islands. Or whatever.”

“You sure?” asked Billy Jo.

“Yeah,” said Matt, “he’s right. I remember flying into an island.” Did he though? Now he wasn’t so sure. Matt looked out at the sun setting over the ocean. Suddenly, he had a thought. “Hey, Billy.”

“Yeah.”

“Wasn’t the sun rising when we were at this bar this morning?”

“Yeah.” He took another pull from his beer. 

“Well,” he looked at the sun again, “it’s just. Well, should the sun be setting over the same ocean that it rose over? I mean, doesn’t the sun rise in the east and set in the west?”

“Man, you too fucked up for your own good,” said Billy Jo. 

“For once,” said Ramsey clinking glasses with Billy Jo, “we agree.” He took a long drink from his glass. “Hey, where ya’ll want to go to dinner tonight?”

Matt sat in his room alone on his luxurious feather-down bed staring at the two pills. Where was his ticket? He couldn’t find it anywhere. In fact, he couldn’t find his passport or anything related to his coming here. Upon closer inspection, nothing in his room even bore the name of the resort. It was as though none of it even existed. 

But it did. Clearly it did. He was here. He had breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He remembered that much. But, the more he thought about it, the more he realized he did not remember anything from before today. Sure, he vaguely remembered the things Billy Jo and Ramsey talked about. But he remembered them in the way that one remembers something from TV, something that was on when you were falling asleep. He couldn’t see himself in any of it. 

He fixated on the pills. More and more he fixated on them. Now that he thought of it, he’d never even seen a mosquito anywhere near the resort. So, why the pills? But all the same, his head began to ache. He should take them, he thought. He should take them to get rid of the headache if nothing else. All the same… 

Matt leaned back in his bed. He wouldn’t take them, he thought. If he could get to sleep without them then he wouldn’t take them. 

It was that thought that carried him off to sleep. 

Matt sprung up from his bed, awakened by the sound of screaming. “What the fuck?” he thought to himself. Maybe someone was hurt. Maybe some guest was injured kayaking or something. 

But then he looked around. Matt quickly realized he was no longer in the resort. He was… somewhere. He had fallen asleep on a small metal bunk held to the wall by a rough chain. The walls were rough concrete. The floor that same concrete and, well, Matt didn’t want to think what else. 

His head was still ringing. What had happened? Where was he? He got to his feet and moved towards the door. It was nothing more than a rough-cut doorway in the middle of more poured concrete. He couldn’t see a window anywhere. He must have gotten into a fight. Maybe they had gone out to bar in town. Maybe… He wasn’t sure. Wasn’t sure about anything. 

Matt began to grope his way down the hallway. There were more rough-cut doorways. No doors. Most of the rooms were empty. The few that were occupied were so by sleeping men. No one that Matt could get help from.

Finally, Matt came to the end of the white, concrete hallway. He turned the corner to the left and came into a large open space. There were metal picnic tables strewn about the room in no particular order. A few men were standing around in blue uniforms eyed him wearily. Matt nodded and entered the room, taking a seat at one of the tables. There were a few men around, but none he recognized. 

“Shit. I don’t even speak Spanish.” he said to himself looking down. How am I going to get out of here? Plus, he thought, I have no idea why I am here to begin with. He touched the side of his temple. His head was throbbing. Matt fought the urge to cry. I just want to go home, he thought. 

Then he looked up. In the corner of the room was the section of the concrete that had been cut out. It looked, he thought, like a bar. Matt stood up and walked over. The man standing behind the counter looked exactly like the young man from the bar in the resort. Only, this young man was wearing a military-style blue uniform and, instead of alcohol, he held a pitcher of water in one hand and several stacked solo cups in the other. 

Matt sat down. “Uh,” Matt said haltingly, “hey.”

“Drink, sir?” asked the young man, who barely looked up from his phone which was laying on the back edge of the bar.

“Sure,” said Matt. 

The young man, without looking, dropped a solo cup onto the bar and filled it with water. Then he pushed it over to Matt.

“Thanks,” said Matt taking the glass. Matt began to look nervously from side to side. Suddenly this was looking too familiar. 

“How’s it hanging partner?” Matt heard from over his shoulder. For a moment, Matt was frozen. He knew the voice but did not want to turn around. A hand fell upon his back. He knew it. 

“Partner, you gonna talk to me?” 

Matt turned. What he saw nearly made him vomit. It was Billy Jo, exactly the same. The face, the drunken expression, everything. But, not completely. In place of the oversized Hawaiian shirt and board-shorts was an orange jumpsuit. Matt looked down and realized he was wearing the same thing. 

“Billy…” Matt started in a daze, “when, when did we get here?”

“Me? Partner, I been here all week. Best all-inclusive in the Caribbean. You? Yesterday I think. Want a beer?” He motioned to the man behind the stone half-wall who poured water into a solo cup and slid it over to Billy. “Ah,” Billy said. “Love that Mexican beer.” 

Matt looked bewildered. “Beer, but Billy that’s just…” Suddenly the young man behind the bar snapped to attention. “Gross. I mean gross. Mexican beer is terrible.” 

“What? Fuck off, hombre. We drank a gallon of this shit yesterday. What’s your issue?” He pounded the rest of the water and slid the cup back over. The young man dutifully refilled it - never taking his eyes off of Matt. 

“Oh,” said Matt, “for sure. Sorry, I totally forgot. Sorry. I… I just-” 

“What’s up bitches!” came a voice from behind Matt. 

Before Matt could turn around Ramsey was sliding onto the stone bench next to him. He looked exactly the same but wore the same orange jumpsuit as Billy. As he slid into the seat next to Matt, he noticed a badge on Ramsey’s shoulder. It read: “Ramsey King. Child Pornography.” Matt looked around Ramsey towards Billy Jo. Billy Jo had a similar badge. It read: “Billy Jo Thompson. Aggravated Assault. Hate Crime Enhancer.” 

It took a moment, but Matt finally looked down. He had his own badge: “Matthew Reading. Extortion/Money Laundering”. He took a deep breath and looked back up at the man behind the bar.

“You ok, Mr. Reading?” the young man asked. 

“Oh, just fine,” Matt said. 

“You forget your malaria pills?” the young man leaned in. He reached inside his coat pocket and withdrew two pills. “Cause I got two more. Just in case.”

“Thank you,” said Matt, for a moment holding the pills in his hand. 

Then, a familiar song came over the loudspeaker. It blared: “If you like Pina Coladas…” 

“Man, I love this fucking song! Turn it up!” said Billy Jo, pounding Matt on the back. 

With that, Matt shot one last glance at the young man across the stone bar and swallowed both pills.     

Star-Crossed

Star-Crossed, the second novel in my Shakespeare mystery series, is due out in September, 2020. But, for those who would like a sneak peak, here is the first chapter.

Sunday

6:00 AM

Celia felt the breeze on her left cheek. It was soft and slightly salty. She breathed in. Once. Twice. The air that filled her nostrils was likewise a little salty and earthy, like the smell inside an old and damp warehouse by the ocean. 

Her head lolled back and forth. Her neck felt extremely sore. She moved it a little more and winced with pain. 

Ugh, had she fallen asleep on the couch with the window open again? Her apartment was close to the water. Sometimes, when there was a solid wind off the ocean, her apartment would smell like a combination beach slash Red Lobster for days. 

She reached up to see if she could massage her neck… and froze. 

Her hand, her hand could not reach her neck. She couldn’t move her hand at all. Something was wrong, something was very wrong. 

She tried to reach up with her left hand now, but she couldn’t move it either. 

Her eyes flew open. She wasn’t in her apartment. She wasn’t inside anywhere. She tried to scream, but the gag in her mouth muffled her cries. 

Panicked, her eyes started to frantically search around her. Immediately she saw that both of her hands were bound to something that looked like a hospital gurney. Except, this one looked like a gurney you would see in a haunted house that had gone with the hospital theme. It was ancient and rusted, the pad, which she could barely make out underneath her, was stiff and badly yellowed. The whole apparatus creaked as she attempted to sit up.

Only, she couldn’t sit up. Her calves were bound to the thing just like her hands. And rolling off was not an option because there were three large leather straps across her body, one over her chest, another just below her stomach, and a third across her knees. The best she could manage was to lift her head enough to look at her surroundings. 

What she saw both confused and terrified her. She wasn’t inside. At least, not exactly. She was inside a building, but the building had no roof. Some of the walls were crumbling and very few of the windows she could see had glass. The walls that remained looked old, very old. They were made of that burnt red brick so typical of buildings in the city that were built in the nineteenth century. She looked up through where the roof should have been and saw one or two seagulls soaring above her. The blare of a nearby ship’s horn confirmed her suspicions: she was near the water. Very near. 

But, wherever she was, she had never been there before. A tear fell down her cheek. She had never been this terrified before in her life. How did she get here? All Celia could remember was going out to get a few drinks with her friends and then going home. 

Only, now that she thought about it, she couldn’t remember actually getting home. She was GOING home that was for sure. She remembered walking down the street outside the bar. She remembered ordering a ride. She remembered getting in the car. She even remembered that the driver had offered her a bottled water, which was very nice and she had taken and then… 

Nothing. She did not remember anything after that. She searched every inch of her mind to try and come up with some reason why she was here. Some explanation. But, all she could remember was getting into the car… 

Celia was well-liked. She didn’t think she had any mortal enemies at least. Certainly not someone who would leave her out here to die strapped to an old hospital gurney. She tried to fight back tears but then realized there was no point in that. She tried to cry out again, but that was pointless. Wherever she was, there was no one close enough to hear her guttural cries muffled by the rubber strap pulled tightly through her mouth and secured around the back of her head.

That’s it then, she thought. I’m going to die. I’m going to die out in the middle of nowhere because some sick psychopath-

“Awake are we?” 

The voice from behind her stopped her thoughts like a car going full speed slamming into a concrete wall. Everything stopped. She waited, unable to see whoever had just spoken to her. 

“Come now,” the voice said, soothingly, “nothing will come from nothing, speak again.”

Celia lay still, so paralyzed with fear she might not have been able to move even if she were not firmly tied to the gurney. 

“Oh,” the male voice continued, “that’s right. The gag. You can’t answer me, can you?”

She heard the shuffling of footsteps and whoever this came closer. She did not recognize the voice in the least but heard another sound as well. It sounded like another hospital bed or something with wheels being rolled over rough gravel. She turned her head from side to side, but could not see anything.

Then, whoever it was moved to her left and a long shadow fell over her. She turned her head to her left and looked. 

There, a few feet from her was a young man she had never seen before. He had long, dark hair, far too long to be fashionably for a man, at least amongst her friends. He also had a full beard. Not a little stubble, but like a full mountain-man beard. He looked like a deranged lumberjack. Celia wasn’t sure exactly what image would have been pleasing for her at that moment to conjure in her mind’s eye, but deranged lumberjack definitely wasn’t it. He was wearing a plain, nondescript long-sleeved shirt and a tattered old baseball hat with what looked like a big C on it. But, she couldn’t be sure about that. 

But, as he came closer she noticed something else that jogged her memory with all the force as though she had just been tossed into an icy cold bathtub. It was his eyes. His eyes were like ice. They were such a light shade of blue they bordered on silver. Now, she remembered. She remembered being struck by those same eyes last night. 

They were the eyes of her driver. They were the eyes of the man who had given her that bottled water. Now she realized why she could not remember anything and how she had gotten here. Her blood ran cold with the thoughts of what was going to come next. Celia wasn’t an idiot. She had been to all the safety talks when she was an undergrad. She had seen all the videos. She had even heard stories from some of the other girls in her class - though those were second hand at best. Another tear dropped slowly down her cheek.

“Hello, Celia,” the man said, now standing alongside her. 

He paused and then made an exaggerated gesture of shock, slapping both his palms to his cheeks like the boy in that Christmas movie her parents always loved so much. 

“Oh no,” he said, “did I get the wrong girl? Are you not Celia Villareal?”

She tried to shake her head as vigorously as she could. Maybe she could still get out of this. 

“Oh wait,” he continued, removing a black object from his pocket. “I’ve got your phone, not to mention your purse and driver’s license.”

He pressed the outside edge of the phone and it activated, revealing a picture of Celia and her sister from a visit the month before. She watched as the man stared at the picture, a cloud of unadulterated hatred passing over his face. 

He bent down so that his face was close to hers. She could feel his breath now and felt her pulse quicken a little more. 

“No, Celia. It’s you. I know it’s you,” he sighed. “You see I’ve been following you for a long time.” He caressed the top of her forehead and she winced. 

“Oh, don’t worry, dear. This isn’t that kind of thing. You’re not my type. No, I’ve been watching you because you are part of something bigger now. I don’t expect you to understand. You see, all the world’s a stage, and the men and women merely players.”

He stood up again. 

“And your part just got a lot more important, though you probably didn’t know it. Your life was definitely a comedy. Taming of the Shrew I’d guess. You would make a perfect Bianca. So sweet. So lovely.”

He turned and grabbed the edge of whatever he had been dragging behind him and pulled it closer. 

Celia could see it now. It looked like one of those things they have in hospitals for people who need fluid. What’s it called? An IV drip? 

“You know, now that I think about it, Taming of the Shrew is perfect. You have to suffer because of your sister. It’s not your fault really. And I do feel bad about that. But, as I said, we’re all just playing parts. And, sadly, this comedy is about to become very much a tragedy.”

To Celia’s horror, as he was saying this the man took a large needle out of a case. He attached the needle to the end of the IV drip and then started to apply some kind of topical solution to her forearm. 

Celia jerked as hard as she could. She thrashed her head back and forth. But, nothing. It did nothing. She was tied too securely for any of it to do any good. 

“Just a little poke,” he said, as he jabbed the needle into her vein and secured it with a piece of medical tape. 

It hurt. Celia felt her heart pounding. What was in the bag? What was attached to her? Oh, she wanted to go home so badly. 

“Now,” he said, straightening up and rubbing disinfectant on his hands. “I suppose you should know the rules. This is going to be disappointing to you, but you are almost certainly going to die.”

Celia tried to cry out again, but could not. She pressed her eyes shut as tight as she could, forcing more tears out and down her cheeks.

“But, not for ABSOLUTE certain.”

She opened her eyes again.

“Your sister is going to have the chance to save you. But, to do that she has to prove she is smarter than me, which, sorry to say, she isn’t. You see we started this little game a few years ago and we simply must finish it.”

Celia felt a wave of relief. Her sister was the smartest person she knew. She was a full professor at an Ivy League university. She would come to her. Celia was sure of it. 

“Now,” the man said, “ultimately she’ll have a day or so.” 

He paused and gestured to the clear bag. “You see, that IV bag is full of a solution. A solution that will kill you if it hits its saturation point, which it won’t for a bit yet. Forty-two hours to be exact. So big sis will have forty-two hours, give or take. Actually quite a lot of TAKE because I have to be far from here when I send the message. But, don’t worry, I’ve accounted for that in the game. You’ll see, it’s quite fair really. If she solves the puzzle in time then you have nothing at all to worry about. If not, which, again, is likely, then I’d make my peace now.” 

Celia closed her eyes. God, she’d be anywhere but here right now. Anywhere but here. 

“But, listen to me,” he said laughing, “here I am wasting time. First things first, we have to record a little video for big sis and send it to her. Now, where is that phone.”

He tapped his pockets in an exaggerated fashion like someone who was playing charades and trying to get the other players to guess “lost.” 

“Ah, here it is,” he removed the phone from the pocket he had just put it in. “Now, just need to open it.”

He pressed the fingerprint button on the phone to Celia’s outstretched, bound hand. The phone blinked on and opened. 

“Great! Now, of course, it’s on airplane mode right now, wouldn’t want any fancy detectives doing any cell phone tower work and spoiling all the fun, would we?”

He smiled and her blood turned colder somehow. 

“So, ready? All smiles now!”

Download it on Amazon HERE

If It Were Done: A Shakespeare Mystery Series Novel

April 23

3:23 AM

Her feet pounded the sodden earth as the leaves and spring growth tore at the edges of her dress. 

“Get back here!” Emily heard from behind her. Not as far as the last time she thought. Not as far. 

Tears already streaked her face where now a fresh cut was slowly, but steadily, bleeding onto her sweaty face. Her stomach felt ready to leap out of her throat, which, given the amount it was burning, did not sound so bad. Anything would be better than that maniac catching her, she thought. 

In the near-total darkness of the early morning it was almost impossible for her to see where she was going. Every way she turned was the same looking tree, the same looking moss, the same looking fresh growth. Frankly, she didn’t care where she was going so long as it was away. Far away. Far away from him. She was not familiar with the arboretum at all and, at this exact moment, she could not think of anywhere she’d rather not be more than exactly where she was. 

She could not suppress the thought that she had somehow stumbled into one of those horrible B-rated horror movies. She figured at any moment a branch or a root would catch her foot and then it would be all over. Of the latter part there was no doubt. He had made that much clear. What she could not understand was why. Why? Everything had been going fine. Then a few wrong turns of phrase, a little too much alcohol. Who knows. 

But right now none of that mattered. Precisely none of it. Now, all that mattered was staying ahead. Ahead. Just a little ahead. Ten feet. Five feet. It honestly didn’t matter she just needed to get to someone else, anyone else, before he got to her. 

Her feet skidded to a stop in the spring mud. She had lost her shoes a long time ago and thank God for that as she would have stood no chance, is there such a thing as a negative chance she thought, of getting away. In front of her now the path went two different directions. She had no idea which was the one that would take her back towards the sorority house and which would take her deeper into the woods like some sick fairy tale. Hansel and Gretel. Something like that. Except this time, she thought, there is no gingerbread house. Nope. Just a crazy person who was, at least, eighty pounds heavier than she was and a hell of a lot stronger.

“Emily!!!!!!!” The angry cry came again. Closer again, she thought. Much closer. 

Ok, I’ll go right. Why not? She thought to herself and then tore down the right path as fast as she could. Maybe he’d go left, she thought. Maybe. Then again tonight had not exactly been her lucky night, had it. She thought about screaming again. But she’d already done that. Many, many times. And no one came. Maybe no one could hear her. I mean, she wondered, who would be out in the middle of the arboretum at three in the morning? Other than serial rapists. Not a good thought. She could feel her legs burning now. Emily was no track star but she had run every other day since she was a junior in high school so it wasn’t inconceivable she might get away. Especially if he went left. God, she prayed, please say he went left.

“Awwwww… come back please? Just for a second.” She heard as though he were only steps behind her. 

Guess he didn’t go left. And, again, she felt the hot tears come into her eyes. More branches struck out at her now from all directions. She was well off the path now. 

That can’t be good, she thought. I’ll just keep going. I’ll just keep running straight and keep going until I run straight through the woods and back out onto one of the quads. I’ll just keep - 

At that moment the ground gave out underneath her and, in its place, there was only water. And mud. Plenty of mud. Mud so thick and black she swore it was tar. Suddenly, she had an image from the natural history museum that her elementary school insisted on taking her to every year: of a giant wooly mammoth trapped in the tar pit while wild dogs waited around the edge for the inevitable. 

Emily quickly realized that she had run directly into one of the many ponds that dot the arboretum. She plunged her hands and arms into the water, groping at the mud and fighting to gain some sort of a foothold. She fought her way to her knees successfully, her torn and disheveled dress now completely soaked and covered from the knees down with a thick, black mud.

None of that mattered right now though. All that mattered was getting away and she still had time, she knew that. Somewhere deep down she knew it. He had been behind her for certain. She did not know how far but he had been behind. There were hundreds of paths through the arboretum and there was no way he could have known which direction she went. Emily sloshed her way back to the bank, used both hands to press back the cattails at the edge of the pond, and was punched directly in the face.

A pain so searing that she thought nothing could be worse exploded in her nose. She stumbled backward, completely dazed and unable to think. She hit the water a second time - this time back-first. She sat down hard in the mud as though she were throwing herself onto her sofa after a particularly long and boring lecture or difficult exam. She sat up gasping for air. Her lungs felt as though they might just burn away. That she might just cease to exist because it hurt so much for them to go on working. 

But, then Emily realized how badly she needed them. He reached out and wrapped his hands around her throat and Emily struggled to scream. For the first time, Emily believed she was going to die. 

She opened her eyes in spite of the water and mud to try and look at him. All she could see was a shadow. A shadow amongst the darkened woods behind. She tried to reach out to the trees, to anything.  

“I’m sorry,” she heard him say. 

Then, with both hands, he thrust her head below the water and everything went dark.

If It Were Done: A Shakespeare Mystery is available for purchase on Amazon.

Kindle Version

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Audio Version

The Agency: Crisis At Kadesh

The Agency is a series of young adult novels designed to foster and encourage an interest in history for young people. They are designed for children as young as ten, but can be read by adults as well. I strive to ensure that everything in them is as historically accurate as possible.

Chapter One

The Substitute

Cassidy’s alarm on her phone blared its usual rat-a-tat-tat. It was the machine gun of alarms. 

Rat-a-tat-tat! 

Without opening her eyes she groped her nightstand for the phone. Her hand found, in order, three hair ties, a quarter, a broken pencil, a working pencil, her math textbook, and then the edge of her phone, which she promptly knocked off the nightstand and onto the floor. 

Rat-a-tat-tat! 

She heard the dull thud as it hit, briefly swinging on its charging cord before it pulled loose. 

“Crap…” Cassidy said to herself. 

The last thing she needed was her mom mad at her for cracking her screen. They’d have gotten a cover for it, but it was a bit too expensive. Instead, Cassidy’s mom had just warned her to be careful. In hindsight, glass and plastic were probably safer bets than the promise of a thirteen-year-old. 

Cassidy opened her eyes and rolled over on her side so she could see over the edge of her bed. Her mat of unruly auburn hair temporarily blinded her, but she swept it aside with one hand and looked down. There, on the floor, was her phone, safe and sound, un-cracked and unbroken. 

“Thank God,” Cassidy said. 

She reached down and grabbed the phone. Its screen illuminated as she brought it up to her face. The picture of her and her mother from Colonial Williamsburg last summer flashed, as well as the time: 7:03 AM. Cassidy groaned. Time to face the day as her dad always said. 

She sat up and kicked her legs over the side of her bed. She looked out towards the window which, as of yet, was still covered with its cheap blinds, drawn shut against the breaking dawn. Cassidy stood, stretched, and walked over to open them. It was not the most beautiful view in the history of the universe. Her window looked out over… well, nothing. 

It opened directly onto the stone wall of the building next door. But, if she looked up at the right corner of the window she could usually make out how sunny it was. It was relatively early, but she saw nothing other than a brightening sky on what she hoped would be a warm spring day. It was early April, but this last winter had held on for dear life, the piles of snow outside their apartment building had only recently bid their final adieu. 

Satisfied that she had an outfit that was both relatively clean and would work for weather in the fifties, Cassidy slipped on her sandals and headed to the bathroom to get ready for the day. She walked across the short hall and clicked on the bathroom light to inspect the night’s damage. 

She looked like a cat that had somehow made it through the dry cycle. Her thick auburn hair was little more than a mass on top of her head. She took one look at it and realized that today was not going to be a day for glamor. She opened the top cabinet drawer, took out one of her many hair ties and a brush, and got to work. 

As she brushed she leaned in to have a look at the rest of her. No new pimples, that was good. But the old ones were still hanging out. Cassidy had never been pleased with her appearance. She was tall for her age, equal to almost all the boys in her class with the exception of her friend Jay who was already pushing six feet. She didn’t have braces and she guessed she had that going for her. Though that was really more of a cost thing than anything else - she would need them at some point. 

She did have her father’s eyes though. Bright green. They were her favorite part of herself and one of the biggest reasons she was happy that she did not, at least not yet, have to wear glasses. She finished brushing and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. 

“There,” she said, “done. Definitely not going to win any beauty contests today, but hey, can’t win ‘em all.” 

A few minutes later Cassidy walked into the kitchen wearing the same T-shirt and tights as Monday. Today was Thursday, so she hoped that no one would notice that this was a complete repeat outfit. She doubted anyone would. She wasn’t really popular or important enough at her school for anyone to care what she was wearing. 

“Good morning, Cassie!” her mom said as Cassidy entered the kitchen. 

Her mother already had her scrubs on for work. She worked at a nearby clinic as a physician’s assistant. The hours could be long and sometimes in the summer, she worked twelve-hour shifts to earn enough time off for the two of them to take a short vacation. Ultimately, they both always agreed, it was worth it. 

“Hey, mom.” 

“Sleep well?” 

“Yeah, I could have slept a lot more.”

“You and me both, sister. Cereal ok?” 

Her mother opened the refrigerator door and produced a carton of milk. 

“Oh,” Cassidy said, “yeah that’s fine. I’m honestly not that hungry.” 

Her mother frowned. 

“Well, too bad. You need to eat something. It’s five hours until you get lunch and that’s too long to exist on good feelings alone.” 

She opened the cabinet and produced a box of cereal which she slid across the table to Cassidy. Cassidy took the box, poured the cereal into one of the bowls from the dish drying rack by the sink, and went for the milk. 

“I know,” Cassidy said. 

She took the milk and poured some into her bowl of off-brand-Cheerio-style something or other and waited for it to soften. 

“Do you have to work late tonight?”

“Yeah,” her mom stretched as she said this, and Cassidy knew she was tired already. 

“Probably only ‘till like eight though. You good to make yourself something for dinner? There are some cans of soup and a couple of other equally delicious options in the freezer.” 

Her mother shot Cassidy a wry smile. 

“No worries mom. I got this.” 

She took a spoon full of cereal, judged that it had softened sufficiently so as to not injure her, and ate it. 

“Speaking of you getting this,” her mother began, “you got that math test today, right?” 

There was a pause as Cassidy stared down into her cereal. “Yes. Third period.” 

“How are you feeling about it?” 

“Pretty good. It’s algebra though. Not my best.”

“But you studied right?”

“Yes, mom. Yes, I studied. I went for extra help during lunch yesterday and Jay helped me some after school.” 

Cassidy could feel herself starting to tear up. “Look, I’m trying as hard as I can alright.” 

Her mother stopped packing her lunch and walked over to her, putting her arm around her. “I know Cassie, I know. I just want the best for you, you know that right?” 

Cassidy nodded. 

“And,” her mother continued, “if you do better in math then you can probably get into one of those magnate high schools. And you know you need math to-”

“Be successful in life,” Cassidy interrupted in a monotone voice. “To get into a good school. To become a doctor or a lawyer or,” now she dropped the voice, “or a Wall Street trader or become some other stupid thing that society cares about!” 

She slammed her hand on the table and cereal spilled over the edge of the bowl. There was silence for a moment. 

“Look, Cassie,” her mother began, “I don’t like it any more than you do. I know you like history and stories and all that but no one pays for that stuff anymore. I don’t even know what you’d do for a job.” 

“I could be a teacher,” Cassidy looked up eagerly at her mother. 

“You could,” her mother began slowly. “But then you’d have to live in a little apartment like this one.”

“I like our apartment.”

“In not the best part of town.”

“I like our neighborhood.” 

“And you’d always be trying to just get by, sweetheart. I don’t want that for you. Plus,” she paused. 

“Plus what?” Cassidy asked. 

“Plus, people would always look down on you. People only care about professions now that make a lot of money. If you don’t make money nowadays, no one cares about you. Don’t you want to be respected?” 

“Dad was.” 

And now the room went completely silent. Cassidy could hear the soft whine of some kind of emergency vehicle passing outside. Her mother brushed at her eyes. 

“I know,” her mother whispered. 

She turned back to continue preparing her lunch. “I know.”

“And I could be too!” 

“I know you could. You might. Might. But I don’t want might for you. I want for sure.”

“And I want to be FOR SURE happy!” 

“But you’re never going to get that talking about people who have been dead for thousands of years! This isn’t a movie. This isn’t one of your dad’s Montana Jones films.”

“It’s Indiana Jones, mom. And I know those aren’t real.” 

“Sorry. I just want the best for you. Can you just promise me that you’ll try your very best? This means a lot. You’ll be in high school next year and then everything counts.” 

“I know mom. I will, promise. I want to do well too. But, when you suck at something it’s kinda hard to want to do it all the time.” Cassidy stood up and put her bowl into the sink. She walked over and picked up her backpack. 

Her mother turned to her. “Oh, I know. Believe me.” 

She walked over to Cassidy and kissed her on the forehead. “I know.” 

Cassidy entered PS 317 exactly two minutes before the first bell. Never super early, she thought to herself, but never late. Cassidy hated being late. It was a character trait she had inherited from her mother. Her mother was never late. She always told Cassidy that being late was a sign of disrespect to those whose time you were wasting by making them wait. 

Cassidy made her way to homeroom. She rounded the corner into the science hallway and made for Ms. Gray’s room. Ms. Gray was one of the eighth-grade science teachers and Cassidy’s homeroom teacher. 

“Good morning Cassie!!!!” Ms. Gray said as she saw Cassidy approach. 

Ms. Gray exuberantly welcomed her (and every student for that matter) to homeroom each and every day. Ms. Gray was one of the youngest teachers in the school and had only been there a year or two. As a result, she always dressed much more formally than some of the other teachers who had been around since Reagan was President. Today she was wearing a smart yellow skirt and a white dress shirt. She looked at Cassidy with that same warm smile that always brightened Cassidy’s day, no matter how many math tests she had. 

“Morning, Ms. Gray. Looking good.”

“Why thank you Cassie. You know I appreciate it. Looking good yourself.” 

“Thanks. But we both know I wore this same thing on Monday.”

“Why fix what’s not broken?” She gave Cassidy the same warm smile again.

“True. Good point.” 

“I wish you would wear your hair down more often though, Cassie. It’s so pretty.” 

“Pretty hard to comb through you mean.” 

Ms. Gray laughed. “I get you there. You could always walk my path.” Ms. Gray brushed at the edges of her short-cropped blond hair. 

“I suppose,” Cassidy said. “But then people would start comparing us and I’m not that pretty.” 

Ms. Gray blushed. “Awwww… Thank you, Cassie, but don’t say that. You are lovely just the way you are.” 

With that, the bell rang and the two of them continued into the room. Cassidy walked to the lab table that was her homeroom seat. 

She shared the table with Samantha Young. Cassidy and Samantha got along well. They weren’t friends and Samantha, a major track athlete had a completely different group of friends. But still, they could always at least exchange some pleasantries. 

“Hey,” Samantha said. “How are you?”

“Oh fine,” said Cassidy sitting down. “Be better when it’s the weekend.”

“For sure. Plans?”

“Not yet. I don’t remember if my mom has to work or not. You?”

“Track team is supposed to have an early meet if it doesn’t rain too much. Or snow. It’s early so this one doesn’t count for anything yet. I wouldn’t be shocked if they canceled it.”

“Hope they don’t for your sake. You’re going to break the school record for the hundred-meter at some point this season. We all know it.”

Samantha smiled. “Thanks. Appreciate it.”

“Alright, ladies and gentlemen!” started Ms. Gray. “Morning announcements. Let’s see.” 

She looked down at her tablet. “No birthdays today. Looks like chicken sandwiches for lunch. Or, whatever they are claiming is a chicken sandwich.” There was a murmur of laughter at that comment. “Everyone in algebra has a test today. And, it looks like Mr. Miller is out sick so they’ll be a sub for those of you who have him for history.” 

Cassidy groaned. She liked Mr. Miller and history was her favorite subject. He had been friends with her father and the two of them got along really well. She was really looking forward to history today with her math test looming on the horizon. She wondered if it was a bad omen. 

“Alright,” continued Ms. Gray, “those are all the announcements I have so if you need help with anything science-ish let me know. Otherwise, I know a lot of you have that math test today so it would not hurt to spend a little extra time studying.” 

Cassidy could not help but notice that Ms. Gray looked directly at her as she said that last part. Ms. Gray knew that Cassidy struggled with math, even though she was a pretty good science student - so long as it wasn’t physics, which Cassidy hated as a science subject, feeling it was just math in disguise. 

With that, Cassidy took her algebra textbook out of her backpack and opened it to the review section.

Cassidy slumped down into a chair at the cafeteria table, her tray of chicken sandwich-ish before her plus her government-regulated serving of fruits and vegetables. She just sat and stared into open space. 

“Hey, sassy Cassie! You home?” A voice called from her left, snapping her out of her dream-like state. 

“Huh. Oh, hey Jay.” 

She scooted her tray over a little bit to make room. 

Jay Thompson was Cassidy’s closest friend at school. At least closest not historical or literary friend from a book or movie. She had plenty of those friends, but Jay was the only one who existed in the real world. 

Jay and Cassidy had known each other since they were in kindergarten. Jay’s dad had been good friends with Cassidy’s dad since Jay’s dad was an Assistant Professor of Education at one of the local community colleges. Plus, Jay’s mom was a nurse so their mothers got along really well. Cassidy would have dinner at the Thompson residence on the weekends if her mother was working late. 

Her friendship with Jay, though, was a bit of an anomaly. Jay was tall and athletic. And super smart. He was good at every single subject. He shared his mother’s intense, deep mahogany eyes and his father’s booming laugh. Everyone loved him. Cassidy was always grateful he stayed her friend, even though at times it seemed they had less and less in common. 

They had history though. Jay’s dad was as much into the past as he was into his son’s future. He taught all the aspiring history and social studies teachers - that was how Mr. Thompson knew Cassidy’s father. Sometimes, when Cassidy went over to Jay’s for dinner, she would spend the whole time talking to his father about something they learned in history class, much to Jay’s chagrin. 

“So…” Jay broke in, “how did it go?” 

Cassidy’s shoulders slumped. “How do you think it went? Terrible. Like always.”

“Oh come on, Cass. She hasn’t even graded them yet. Don’t fail yourself before the teacher even has a chance to.” 

“Oh fair enough, I suppose I should give the executioner her chance. I won’t go all Cleopatra quite yet.” 

“How did she kill herself again?”

“Snake. An Asp, if you must know.”

“Yikes,” Jay said as he opened his lunch. “I hate snakes.”

“Oh, ok Indy.” Cassidy smiled. 

“Ha,” Jay laughed, “knew I could get you.” 

A broad smile flashed across his face - it was the smile that everyone loved him for. 

“Besides,” he continued, “it’s one test, Cass. One test in one class.” 

“Tell that to my mom. I’m on the edge between a B and a C in algebra. If I bombed that test I’m screwed. And my mom wants me to apply to magnet schools for the fall. I’ll never get in with a C or lower in math.” 

“That’s not true. I know a guy-”

“Oh please, don’t. Everyone knows ‘a guy.’ I wish this guy had a name by the way.”

Jay smiled again. “Fair enough. I get you. Faulty evidence as my dad would say.” 

“I can almost hear him now.” 

“Well, cheer up. We’ve got history last period.”

“Yeah, but Miller’s out sick. We’ll probably just watch a video or read something that I’ve either already read or would have read on my own anyway.”

“Man,” said Jay, taking a bite out of his sandwich, “just not your day I guess.” 

“Guess not,” Cassidy said and pushed back her tray. 

A man in a sleek, black suit and narrow tie nodded to Cassidy as she entered her history class for last period. For a moment, she was certain he had winked at her behind his thick, black-rimmed glasses. Cassidy looked perplexed, but entered nonetheless and found her way next to Jay in the middle of the room. 

“Is that our sub?” she asked, leaning over her desk.

“Yeah, I guess so,” said Jay. “Didn’t realize school was recruiting from the cast of Men In Black.”

“I know right?!? I gotta say, he’s a much better dresser than Miller.” 

“And a heck of a lot better than our normal subs. Those guys usually look like they were literally just grabbed off the street and forced into the job. Like, literally. Remember our math sub last week?” 

Cassidy suppressed a laugh. “Yeah, old tracksuit suit mc’neon. That was fun.” 

Jay broke into laughter, “Hey, at least you're not his wife.”

“God, I hope no one has THAT job,” said Cassidy, laughing and sitting down as the bell rang. 

The classroom door shut and the man Cassidy assumed was their substitute walked to the front of the class. She guessed he was in his late thirties or early forties. He had short black hair that was graying at the temples. He had a very angular face and was immaculately clean-shaven. He wore a pair of black-rimmed glasses that looked too old for him. They looked like something that a much older man, someone in their mid to late sixties, should be wearing. 

He scanned the room. Then his eyes fell upon Cassidy and Jay. Cassidy couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw the slightest murmur of a smile at the corner of his mouth. Then, in an instant, it vanished, replaced by the stone gaze he otherwise had held since entering the room.

“Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. I am Mr. Sung. I will be your substitute teacher for the day,” he said with a clearly noticeable British accent. 

“Oh my God,” mouthed Cassidy to Jay. 

“Greatest. Day. Of. My. Life.” He mouthed back.

“As you are no doubt aware Mr. Miller has quite taken ill.” Cassidy glanced over and, with every word, Jay seemed more and more awestruck. “Thus, I have been retained for the purposes of providing you with substitute instruction.” 

“Huh?” said Dylan Merkle, one of the least interested and enthusiastic students of all time, from the back of the room. 

“Pardon,” Sung continued, “I am your substitute teacher.”

“Ah. Got it,” said Dylan, slumping down further into his chair.

“As your substitute, it is, generally, my duty to provide you with some form of instruction.” 

The class shifted uneasily, everyone had just assumed there would be a video. 

“However, today I come with a great opportunity.” 

Cassidy and Jay glanced at each other as he continued. “As you know, in just the span of a few short months you will begin your high school careers. For many of you, that means applying to one of the many magnet schools in the city.” Cassidy looked down at her desk, as though she needed that reminder right now. “Some of you may or may not be aware that some of those schools require examinations for admittance.” 

Cassidy was well-aware. And well-aware she would not be getting into any of those schools. 

“I come here today from one such institution,” Sung said and began to pace back and forth in front of the room, staring off into the middle distance as he spoke. “The test you may now take-”

“What?!?!” Dylan suddenly shot up in his chair. “A test, bro? But you’re a sub. Aren’t we going to watch a video or something?” 

“Relax, young man,” Sung continued, “This examination is purely optional and will not impact your academic prospects whatsoever.” 

“Huh?” said Dylan.

“Your grades idiot,” said Regina, one of the brightest students in the class. 

She or Jay were likely to have the highest GPA out of anyone in the entire grade. 

“You don’t have to take it,” Regina said. “Not that it could possibly drive YOUR grades any lower.” 

“Shut up,” said Dylan.

“Enough,” Sung stopped pacing and stared at the two. They immediately silenced. 

“The young lady’s translation is, however, accurate. If you do not wish to take the test, you need not. That being said, evidently, according to state law, I cannot release you. So, if you choose not to take the test, please sit in silence. You may read or prepare for your courses tomorrow.”

“Can I lay down and sleep on the floor?” asked Dylan. 

Regina face-palmed. 

“I don’t know young man, is this kindergarten?” asked Sung with a sarcastic smile. 

Regina smirked. Dylan blushed. Cassidy and Jay looked intrigued. Both wanted to go to magnet schools. Maybe, this was a chance after all. Jay raised his hand. 

“Yes, young man?” 

“Sir, can I ask what the test is about?”

“Certainly,” began Sung, “it is a historical examination.” 

Cassidy shot up. Did he say history? She could do history. 

“Specifically,” Sung continued, “if you must know, New Kingdom Egypt.” 

There was absolute silence. Regina looked aghast, they hadn’t studied that since sixth grade. 

“Now,” finished Sung, grabbing a stack of papers, “would those who wish to take the examination please raise their hands?” 

Ultimately, only three kids took the test. 

Jay winked at Cassidy as he raised his hand and muttered, “Wanna bet on it?” under his breath. 

“You’re on. Pizza?” Cassidy responded as she raised hers. 

“Nah, I want Chinese tonight,” Jay winked again. 

“For sure,” Cassidy said in a low voice, “I’d love YOU to buy me dinner.” She winked back. 

Sung gave them both packets and moved to the front to give Regina hers. Cassidy knew she didn’t like history that much, but Regina had never found a test she couldn’t master and she certainly wasn’t going to let Jay outpace her if she could help it. 

Cassidy looked down at the packet. Oddly, there was not a place for her name. She looked at Jay who caught her gaze, but only shrugged. 

She opened the packet. It appeared to be multiple choice. The first series of questions were really easy and Cassidy heard as both Regina and Jay turned over to the second page ahead of her. It was little kid stuff. Like: what was the ruler of ancient Egypt called? A pharaoh duh, thought Cassidy and circled C. 

Jay turned to page three and kept going. Regina looked up in dismay, it was getting harder for her. Cassidy finished the second page and turned to the third. It was more multiple-choice, but the questions were harder now. You had to know the names of different pharaohs and sometimes the Greeks and even the Romans who came after Egypt’s sun had set as an independent kingdom. Cassidy was catching up on Jay now who had slowed. She remembered recently watching a documentary on ancient Egypt on a Saturday night - yes, she thought, her social life was truly Kardashian level. But, now it was helping her. She rolled through ten questions on the Ptolemies as she watched Jay slow to a crawl and Regina put both hands to her temples. 

With about ten minutes left of class Cassidy had reached the final page of the test and it was entirely about New Kingdom Egypt. New Kingdom Egypt was tough. Cassidy remembered that it was the period of the Egyptian Empire and that it was relatively brief. But, that was about it. It had nothing to do with the pyramids. If it had anything to do with the Sphinx we didn’t know about it. Still, Cassidy was moving through the questions with enough time to finish. She glanced over at Jay who, in spite of slowing down, was only a few questions behind her. 

Then, she came to the second to last question. She looked at the options. And she froze. The question was straight forward: Whom did Ramesses the Great fight against at the Battle of Kadesh? She knew the answer, it had been in the documentary and she was pretty sure she had talked about it with Jay’s dad fairly recently. The answer was the Hittite Kingdom, which no longer exists. The only thing was, that wasn’t one of the answers. The answers were: (A) The Greeks, (B) The Romans, (C) The Nubians, and, (D) The Babylonians. None of those were right. 

Cassidy furrowed her brow. She double-checked. Yup, same answers and none of them correct. She looked at the clock: there were only a few minutes left. 

Then, she looked forward and noticed that Sung was staring at her. As she looked at him he did not look away. His hands were folded over his desk and his eyes were locked on her. She looked down at her page again, decided, and wrote the correct answer before circling it. She finished the final question, which was an easy one about Cleopatra, and pushed the packet forward. 

Then she looked at Jay. He looked confused. He kept glancing at the clock and down at his page. Cassidy looked forward: Sung was looking at Jay now. 

Suddenly, Jay stood up. He grabbed the packet and strode forward. There was only about a minute left. Jay said something to Sung in a hushed voice. Sung pointed down at the page. Jay said something else. Suddenly, Sung nodded and held out his hand. Jay looked briefly confused but handed him the packet nonetheless just as the bell began to ring.

The Agency: Crisis at Kadesh is available on Amazon in both Kindle and print versions.

Kindle Version

Print Version

The Agency: A Whole New Kind of Marathon

The Agency: A Whole New Kind of Marathon is the second novel in the series. This time, Cassidy and Jay find themselves transported back to ancient Greece and struggle to ensure that the Greeks win the Battle of Marathon.

Chapter One

A Sort of Graduation 

“Ouch!” 

Cassidy reached up and practically forced the comb out of her mother’s hand. Today was the eighth-grade graduation ceremony and Cassidy’s mom had decided that her unruly auburn locks were going to be less Rapunzel today and more Snow White. To accomplish this task, however, required herculean efforts of brushing that had nearly resulted in Cassidy attending the ceremony bald. 

“Sorry,” her mother said in exasperation. “I’m doing the best and I hate to remind you-”

“Then don’t.”

“But,” her mother continued anyway, “this would be a lot less of a mess if you combed through it more than once a decade. Her mother continued brushing, holding the hair she was working through in her left hand while brushing with her right.

“I heard you the first twelve times mom,” said Cassidy. “But that would mean waking up even earlier for school which, we both know, is not going to happen.”

Her mother sighed. “You could just brush it at night too you know.”

“Instead of what?” Cassidy turned around in the chair to look at her mother, who was abruptly forced to stop her brushing. “Instead of studying? Or reading? Or, I know, maybe eating. That’s it, I’ll just quit eating.” She turned around to face the mirror once more. “I’m going to be ever so popular.”

Her mother sighed again and continued brushing once more. She realized this was not an argument that she was going to win and it was better to just move on. 

“Are you excited?” asked her mother moving on to the final third of her hair - they had been at this for nearly an hour. 

“To leave middle school? Uh, yeah. Am I excited to leave the most awkward years of my life behind me.” She paused for emphasis. “I guess excited would be one way to put it.” 

Her mother shook her head and said, “You never know what you have until it’s gone. You might look back on those words one day with regret.” 

“Regret what?”

“Well, there’s your friends for starters.” 

Cassidy realized that her mother really meant FRIEND. Jay and Cassidy were going to two different magnet schools in the city. Cassidy did not have good enough overall grades or extracurriculars to get into Jay’s school and, she figured, he wasn’t going to slum down to hers. 

Nonetheless, Cassidy had gotten into a magnet school: NYC School for the Liberal Arts. Her mother was ecstatic. In fact, Cassidy wasn’t sure if she had ever seen her mother so happy. Cassidy, for her part, was massively relieved. She wasn’t sure whether it was her scores that got her in, her essay, which was quite good she had to admit, or her association with the Agency. 

About two months ago Cassidy and her best friend Jay had been inducted into a secret society called the Agency. The Agency was committed to ensuring that the past stayed where it should: in the past. And that it stayed as it should, not with alterations. Occasionally, this required agents, like Cassidy and Jay, to pass back into time and space and keep history from changing. 

So far they had only had one mission. Cassidy and Jay had traveled back to New Kingdom Egypt and saved Pharaoh Ramesses the Great from failing to go with his army to the Battle of Kadesh - a decision that would have resulted in enormous Egyptian casualties and might have had drastic additional consequences. There was no way of knowing. 

Regardless, Cassidy and Jay had saved the day. They had uncovered a plot thicker than anything they could have imagined and Cassidy herself wound up having to confront one of Ramesses’ key generals in front of the pharaoh himself. It was an experience she would remember for the rest of her life, but not something that she really wanted to repeat anytime soon. 

Since then there had been nothing. At first, both Cassidy and Jay had expected their contact, Reginald Sung, to walk in the doorway at any moment with some new catastrophe, some new mission. But, to their sometimes joy and sometimes, if they were being honest, disappointment, he didn’t. They had not heard anything from the Agency in over two months now. 

Beyond the missions themselves, there was the prospect for Cassidy of finding her father. Until two months ago she had believed that he was dead: dying in some distant city as a result of a terrible car accident. But, then it turned out none of that was true. Cassidy’s father, a history teacher, had been an agent, just like she was now. 

Moreover, he was Reginald Sung’s partner and had been lost somewhere in medieval Florence. Every single day Cassidy waited for some sign that Sung and the Director, the leader of the Agency, had decided now was the time for them to search out and find her father. And, against all hope, bring him home. 

“Yikes,” her mother continued, “earth to Cassie. You alright in there?”

Cassidy suddenly realized that she had been zoned out for at least the last two or three minutes. It happened a lot to her now but that was okay, her mother and everyone at school were accustomed to her tendency to become lost in thought. 

“Oh,” she said, “yeah, sorry. What was that?”

Her mother set down the brush and began running her fingers through Cassidy’s, now beautifully combed, hair. 

“Friends. Friends Cassie,” she said, “aren’t you going to miss those at the very least?”

“Jay is still right down the block mom,” she said, “and besides him there honestly isn’t anyone that I am super close to. Maybe a change in scenery will do me good. I’ll be around more people who think like I do.”

Her mother put her hand on her hip and gave her a doubting look.

“Alright, maybe not think EXACTLY like I do but at least closer, right?” 

Cassidy looked expectantly at her mother for some reassurance. 

“Oh Cassie,” she began, “I’m not sure you’re going to be with people who truly connect with who you are until college. So you got another four years, girl. But, I agree with you, this is bound to be better.”

Her mother took two steps backward, examining Cassidy from behind and in the mirror. She smiled, obviously liking what she saw. Cassidy so rarely bothered to even try to look decent that the prospect of her with freshly brushed hair in a beautiful dress clearly excited her mother. Her mother put her hand on Cassidy’s shoulder and drew her hair back.

“Oh,” she said, “you look simply beautiful.”

“Mom… Really? Do we need to do this?”

“Do what? Comment on the beauty of my only child?” She paused. “Yes, yes we do actually. I don’t get a ton of days like this you know.”

Cassidy reached over and placed a hand over her mother’s. 

“Yeah,” she said. “I know, mom. I know. Seeing you happy makes me happy.” And that was completely true. 

“Awww…” Cassidy’s mom said with a smile, “thanks, love.” Then, after another pause, “I’m just so very proud of you.”

“Of me?” asked Cassidy. “For what?”

Her mother shot her a “don’t fish for compliments” look and then continued, “For getting into this amazing school. I know you really had to work at it and I’m so proud of you. I wish we had the money for some kind of spectacular vacation or some other way to reward you.”

“Don’t worry about it, mom.” Cassidy stood up and turned around so she could face her mother directly. “This is my reward. Just hearing you say all that is enough to make me cry. I just love you so much.” 

And, at that, they both began to cry. 

About twenty minutes later Cassidy walked into the kitchen, fancy dress on and ready to go. 

“Oh,” her mother put her hand to her chest, which Cassidy felt like was a bit much, but whatever. 

“You look like an angel.”

Cassidy blushed, “Thanks mom.” 

She had to admit, she did look good. She was still one of the taller girls in her grade and her green dress matched her eyes which certainly left an impression. Maybe I’ll dress like this more often, she thought. Either way, it did feel good to know that you looked good. 

“Hold on,” her mother said, “I want to get a picture.”

 She rushed off to grab her phone off the kitchen table. 

Cassidy looked around, “What would you prefer as the background? Maybe our super fancy Ikea couch? Or, maybe the open window showing our luxurious view? (said view was of the solid brick wall of the building next door.) Hmm… Or,” now laughing, “my literally never once cleaned bedroom? All those models shooting in Maui will be beating down our door for the chance to shoot here in no time.” 

“Very funny young lady,” said her mother. “We’ll get some nice pictures later I know. It’s supposed to be a beautiful June day today but I want to make sure I get the first picture and,” she paused, “if I’m being honest, I’m not totally sure I trust you not to mess up your hair.” 

Cassidy laughed and moved in front of the window for a picture, “Fair point, mom. Fair point.” 

Cassidy walked down the block towards her middle school for the last time ever. It was a little bittersweet, she thought. Sure, middle school had not been the best days of her life - at least she hoped to all that was holy they weren’t the best days of her life - but she did have a great friend in Jay and the two of them had found the Agency this year so, all in all, not bad. Not bad at all. 

Plus, Cassidy was only too well aware that none of this counted. Next year every single quiz and test would count towards her ultimate goal: a college education. She knew her mother did not have the money to send her and Cassidy did not want to take out thousands upon thousands in student loans so that meant she needed to get a scholarship. And, to get a scholarship, she needed really good grades. So to an extent, today was the last day she had the luxury of not caring, and, if she was being honest, there had been some comfort in that. 

“‘Sup Cass!” Cassidy heard Jay’s familiar voice behind her and turned to see him half-walking half-jogging down the sidewalk. 

Jay was dressed in a full suit, which Cassidy had never seen him in other than at her dad’s funeral, a funeral which she now knew was a fake anyway. He wore a smart black suit that strangely reminded Cassidy of Reginald Sung, their contact at the Agency who wore a very similar cut. Jay’s giant smile beamed at Cassidy who smiled back, it was impossible not to smile when Jay smiled at you. 

“Hey,” she said, “looking good.”

“Thanks, Cass, you look amazing!”

“Yeah, I clean up alright.”

“For sure, for sure.” 

Jay caught up with Cassidy and now the two were walking next to each other as the school building came into view. Her mother had been right, it was going to be a beautiful day. Everything was in bloom and it must have been at least sixty degrees already, though it was barely nine in the morning. They were very lucky indeed.

“You remember the schedule?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Cassidy said. “We go to our homerooms to go over the plans for the day again-”

“For like the thousandth time,” Jay interrupted. 

“Try millionth,” Cassidy said with a smile, “then we all head down to the auditorium to practice the graduation-”

“I think they call it ‘ascension’ or something,” Jay said. “I think they’re hoping no one sees this as like the end of our educational experience or anything.” 

“Makes sense,” said Cassidy thinking of some of her less ambitious classmates. “Well, whatever it is called we go down walk through this thing again. As though getting in alphabetical order was THAT hard.”

“Cass,” said Jay, who stopped and grabbed her arm in an overly dramatic gesture, “remember who you go to school with.”

Cassidy smiled, “Right. Fair point. Anyway, after our practice we go to the cafeteria for pizza and then wait for our parents to get here. More or less.” 

“I love that I never have to listen to instructions Cass,” Jay smiled, “you always got my back.”

“Good morning non-graduating graduates!” Ms. Gray beamed at the class. 

She was by far the most enthusiastic person in the room. Then again, thought Cassidy, I guess if I was staring down the barrel of three months of paid vacation I’d be pretty happy too. Her dad always felt energized at the end of the academic year and Cassidy had no doubt Ms. Gray felt the same way. Cassidy hoped she might be able to see Ms. Gray again, if only for a visit.

“Now,” Ms. Gray continued, “we have a full plate of items to discuss again this morning. Look, I know we’ve been over this about ten thousand times already but, let’s face it, the administration would look terrible if you guys messed this up today and hence,” with a dramatic wave of her arms, “we’re going to go over it all again. From. The. Top.” 

Cassidy put her head down on her desk, and waited for it all to be over. 

“Wow was that boring,” Jay said to Cassidy as the two of them walked into the cafeteria. It was only eleven in the morning but Jay looked exhausted. Cassidy knew how he felt: if you knew perfectly well how to get in a line and follow incredibly basic directions then this all got tedious very quickly.

“Get used to it my friend,” said Cassidy, “we still have plenty of ceremonies, including high school graduation, to go.” 

“And there you are absolutely right,” said Ms. Gray, coming up behind Cassidy. “You see the thing about ceremonies is,” now she put an arm around each of them and whispered in a conspiratorial manner, “you’re never done with them and someone will always, ALWAYS, mess them up. Hence, the rehearsal dinner!”  

“Huh?” said Jay.

Ms. Gray smiled, “Nevermind. You’ll see young man, you’ll see.” 

The three of them continued on into the cafeteria. The other two grades were both on field trips today, which was intentional. It made it a lot easier to have the ascension ceremony with tons of parents in attendance if sixth graders were not running around screaming. 

“Oh,” Ms. Gray continued, “I sure am going to miss you guys. You’re going to do so well next year. I’m so proud of you.”

“Thanks Ms. Gray,” said Cassidy, “We’re really going to miss you too. You’ve been amazing.”

“Yeah,” said Jay, “honestly I hated science until I had you.”

Ms. Gray stopped and put a hand over her heart. “Awwww…” she said, “thanks so much! That just makes my day.” 

The three of them continued walking to the front of the cafeteria where a pizza delivery guy was talking cardboard boxes of pizzas out of a heating unit. Odd, Cassidy thought, it looked like he’d never done it before.

“Where did they get pizza from Ms. Gray? Local place?” asked Cassidy. 

She shook her head, “No actually. We were going to, but late yesterday this new place donated all these pizzas and agreed to bring them over too. Well, you know how strapped for cash the school is so they were like, sounds good. And so we have free, kind of random pizza.” 

“That’s cool,” said Jay, “what’s the name of the place? Maybe I’ll convince my parents to go there.” 

Ms. Gray smiled, “That’s nice of you Jay. I think it’s called: Always on Time Pizza.”

“Huh,” said Cassidy, a bit haltingly now really trying to see the delivery guy, “interesting name…”

“Yeah,” said Jay, stepping forward with a quick, quizzical look at Cassidy, “interesting…”

And just then, complete in pizza delivery outfit, Reginald Sung turned around and smiled.

The Agency: A Whole New Kind of Marathon is available on Amazon in both Kindle and print formats.

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The Agency: Murder in Macedon

In this third installment in the series, The Agency, Cassidy and Jay travel back in time to save Alexander the Great on the eve of his father’s assassination. Along the way the are forced to confront just how far they are willing to go to succeed in their missions.

Chapter One

Hot Town, Summer In The City

“Jordan let go of the ball!” Cassidy shouted at the kid. 

He was only seven but could be so infuriating when he would not cooperate. It was mid-July and Cassidy was halfway through her summer job helping to run a day camp for young children in the city whose parents had to work. It wasn’t a bad job. Most days Cassidy actually had fun going to work. But, not all days. Such, Cassidy figured, is the nature of working with kids. 

The boy released the ball which then flew up in the air as Cassidy wrenched it back over her own head. She watched as it soared across the playground and nearly struck another day camp counselor in the head. The counselor turned around abruptly, his hand flying to the back of his head where the ball had nearly hit him, looking to see where the errant object had come from. 

“Sorry Shawn!” Cassidy called. “That was me. Had a little issue over here.” 

The young man smiled and waved back to show he understood. “No worries!” 

Cassidy let out a deep sigh. She looked down at her watch, it was only ten in the morning. She still had hours to go. This, she thought, was going to be one of those long days. 

On days like these Cassidy found it impossible not to let her mind wander - especially to memories of her two missions with the Agency. The Agency was a secret society of time travelers that Cassidy and her best friend Jay joined earlier that year. 

Since then, Cassidy and Jay had participated in two missions. The first was to ancient Egypt where Cassidy had uncovered a conspiracy to keep Pharaoh Ramesses II (otherwise known to history as Ramesses the Great) from participating at the Battle of Kadesh. Cassidy had discovered that one of the pharaoh’s closest generals was actually conspiring to prevent Ramesses from leading his own troops, which would have led to a disastrous Egyptian defeat. Instead, thanks to her, Ramesses led the Egyptian forces, as he was supposed to, and history was saved. 

Their second mission had been, well, different. Rather than a mystery, their second mission was more of a test of will and endurance. This time, Cassidy and Jay were sent back to ancient Greece to ensure the Spartan army did not fight at the Battle of Marathon against the Persians. In the alternate version of history they had seen, the Spartans fought at the battle, only to change sides and betray the Athenians, leading to a Persian victory. 

That mission, however, did not get off on the right foot. For reasons no one, not even Reginald Sung or the Director - Cassidy and Jay’s two main contacts at the Agency - understood, the two of them had been separated. Jay showed up in Athens while Cassidy ended up in Sparta. The entire mission turned into a struggle in which the two of them had to find each other once more. It turned out, in doing so, they also successfully completed their mission. Not without some struggle, Cassidy remembered, gingerly touching her hair. Cassidy’s side of the mission had turned into a no holds bar professional wrestling match with a future Spartan queen. It had not been fun. 

On days like these Cassidy could not help but think about when their next mission would be. Or even, where they might be headed. After their first mission, Cassidy discovered her father, who previously she had believed to be dead, was also an agent and was lost somewhere in medieval Florence - or so that was everyone’s best guess at least. Medieval Florence was the last place that her father’s partner and their main contact at the Agency, Reginald Sung, saw him. Every single day Cassidy wondered if they might get a mission to medieval Europe so that she might have a chance to find her father. 

Though, to be fair, right now Cassidy would rather be anywhere but here. Again, she did not mind the camp and realized her job was important. It was just time travel was a lot more exciting than chasing elementary school kids around a playground all day long. 

She supposed she should not take it for granted though. Looking up at the morning sky, it looked like it was going to be another beautiful summer day in New York City. Soon it would be September and Cassidy would be back at school. Thanks to her association with the Agency, she had been accepted to a prestigious magnet school. But, her best friend Jay was going to a different school. For the first time in their scholastic lives, they would not be together and that made Cassidy sad. 

“Hey Cass,” another counselor called from a few feet away, snapping Cassidy back to reality. 

She turned to see who was speaking. “Oh, hey Danny. What’s up?”

“I forgot the popsicles back at the building. Would you mind running back and grabbing them?”

“No problem,” said Cassidy. Then with a smile, “Or, should I just tell the kids you forgot them and watch them tear you into pieces?”

“Very funny,” Danny said. “Though you are right, that is exactly what would happen.”

“No worries,” Cassidy said. “I’ll run and grab them right now.” She turned to go.

“Thanks,” he called after her, “you’re a lifesaver. Literally!” 

It was about a fifteen-minute walk back to their main building and Cassidy welcomed the break. It gave her a chance to think and clear her head a bit. In the last few weeks Cassidy had read everything she could get her hands on about medieval Europe and especially Florence. She wanted to be completely prepared if and when their next mission took them anywhere near her father in time. She read about the Black Death, the Medici family, and the monk turned reformer: Savonarola. Medieval Florence, it seemed, did not lack for interesting characters. Honestly, part of her wanted to go to just meet some of these people. 

Cassidy rounded the corner to the street that housed their building. It was not a large building and was owned by the church next door. Mostly, it was just a place to store things and for some parents to pick up their kids at the end of the day. 

It was a small, brick-faced building crowded into a street of much larger buildings. Its size disparity actually made it look like kind of an afterthought, as though someone forgot to put a building there, realized at the last minute, and just used whatever leftover materials were on hand to quickly construct something. Cassidy was sure it would be torn down at some point in the next several years. 

She bounded up the five stone stairs and into the building. Cassidy waved at the lone secretary and walked down the hallway to the fridge where the popsicles would be. The fridge itself was ancient, probably from the late eighties. It had a bulky metal handle and Cassidy was certain it was not up to modern safety standards, but it still worked so they kept it. Inside were the popsicles, exactly where Danny had put them this morning, and then had forgotten to take them back out.

Cassidy leaned in to take them when a voice from behind jolted her and she nearly struck her head on the fridge’s top-shelf. 

“Cass?” asked the secretary behind her. 

“Yeah?” said Cassidy, getting her bearings. “Sorry, you startled me. What’s up?”

“Oh sorry,” she said, “it’s just that there is a man here who says he has a question about the program.”

“A question about the summer program?” asked Cassidy. 

That’s odd, she thought, the program was nearly halfway over. It was peculiar that someone would be asking about it now. 

“Yes,” continued the secretary, “and he asked to speak to one of the counselors.” 

“Oh,” Cassidy stuttered out a response still a bit confused though as to why someone would be here now to ask a question, “sure, that’s fine. I can help him, I guess.” Cassidy walked out of the small room, past the secretary and into the hallway. She walked back down the hallway towards the front of the building. 

There, waiting for her at the counter, was Reginald Sung. 

Twenty minutes later Cassidy and Sung were getting off the train near the public pool where Jay was lifeguarding that summer. Cassidy, with Sung in tow, quickly delivered the popsicles and then told Danny that Sung had brought news that her mother needed her home for a family emergency. Danny did not ask any questions and told Cassidy he and the other counselors could easily handle the rest of the day without her. 

Sung was dressed in his usual black suit, crisp white shirt and narrow black tie. It was the same outfit Cassidy saw him wear the first time he came to their school. 

They did not speak much on the trip over. Sung merely told her there was a mission and that they needed to get Jay and head to the Agency as fast as possible. Luckily, Jay was working only a few stops over on the subway so the trip had not taken long.

Cassidy and Sung made their way up to the concrete entrance of the pool but did not have to go inside. Fortunately for them, Jay was sitting on a bench outside the pool, dressed in red swim trunks, flip flops, and a white T-shirt, eating a sandwich. He stopped chewing abruptly when he saw them and stood.

“Cass,” Jay said, coming forward to meet them, “Sung, what’s up? Is there another mission?” 

“Well,” said Sung, “I am not here for a social call young man. Nor,” he gestured to his suit, “am I dressed appropriately for a swim. So I suppose a mission is the only other logical conclusion.”

“Thanks,” said Jay, grabbing his backpack, “I appreciate the seven layers of sarcasm on that one, but next time you could just say yes and we could move on with our lives.”

“I could,” said Sung with a smile, “but what would be the fun in that.”

Cassidy grabbed Sung by the arm. “So, is the mission to medieval Florence? Is there a chance we could rescue my dad?”

Sung shook his head. “I am afraid not. Unless he has traveled very far in time indeed.”

“So,” said Jay, “where are we going? What’s the mission?”

“I would prefer,” said Sung slowly and deliberately, “that we discuss those details back at the Agency.” 

He opened his suit coat to reveal a small hand mirror in his breast pocket. It appeared to be the same mirror that they had used to go to the Agency from their middle school a month or so earlier. Agents could use mirrors made with sand from the mystical passage pool to travel back to the Agency. 

Sung nodded towards a small alley nearby. “Shall we?”

The Agency: Murder in Macedon is available on Amazon in both Kindle and print formats.

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