The Best Paranormal Crime Stories Ever Told Read Online Free Page B

used to be. All my experience, all my years of service, all the things I’ve done for them, and the Authorities were going to give me a gold watch and throw me on the scrap heap. Now; when things are worse than they’ve ever been. When I’m needed more than ever. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.
    â€œSo I decided I would just take what I needed, to make myself the greatest Detective that ever was. With my new abilities, I would be unstoppable. I would go private, like John Taylor and Larry Oblivion; and show those wet behind the ears newcomers how it’s done . . . I would become rich and famous, and if I looked a little younger, well . . . this is the Nightside, after all.
    â€œShed no tears for my victims. They were all criminals, though I could never prove it. That’s why there was no paperwork on them. But I knew. Trust me; they all deserved to die. They were all scum.
    â€œI’d actually finished, you know. The werewolf would have been my last victim. I had all I needed. I teleported in and out of the Library, which is why no one saw me come and go. But then . . . you had to turn up, the second-best detective in the Nightside, and spoil everything. I never should have agreed to train you . . . but I saw in you a passion for justice that matched my own. You could have been my partner, my successor. The things we could have done . . . But now I’m going to have to kill you, and the Governor. I can’t let you tell. Can’t let you stop me, not after everything I’ve done. The Nightside needs me.
    â€œYou’ll just be two more victims of the unknown serial killer.”
    I surged forward with a werewolf’s supernatural speed, and grabbed the front of Ms. Fate’s black leather costume with a godling’s strength. I closed my hand on her chest and ripped her left breast away. And then I stopped, dumbstruck. The breast was in my hand, but under the torn open leather there was no wound, no spouting blood. Only a very flat, very masculine chest. Ms. Fate smiled coldly.
    â€œAnd that’s why you’d never have guessed my secret identity, Sam. Who would ever have suspected that a man would dress up as a super-heroine, to fight crime? But then, this is the Nightside, and like you said; we all have our secrets.” And while I stood there, listening with an open mouth, she palmed a nausea gas capsule from her belt and threw it in my face. I hit the stone floor on my hands and knees, vomiting so hard I couldn’t concentrate enough to use any of my abilities. The Governor called for two of his golems, and they came and dragged me away. They threw me into a cell, and then nailed the door shut, and sealed it forever.
    No need for a trial. Ms. Fate would have a word with Walker, and that would be that. That’s how I always did it.
    So here I am, in Shadow Deep, in the dark that never ends. Guess whose cell they put me next to. Just guess.
    One of these days they’ll open this cell and find nothing here but my clothes.

Star of David
    PATRICIA BRIGGS
    â€œI checked them out myself,” Myra snapped. “Have you ever just considered that your boy isn’t the angel you thought he was?”
    Stella took off her glasses and set them on her desk. “I think that we both need some perspective. Why don’t you take the rest of the afternoon off?” Before I slap your stupid face. People like Devonte don’t change that fast, not without good reason.
    Myra opened her mouth, but after she got a look at Stella’s face she shut it again. Mutely she stalked to her desk and retrieved her coat and purse. She slammed the door behind her.
    As soon as she was gone, Stella opened the folder and looked at the pictures of the crime scene again. They were duplicates, and doubtless Clive, her brother the detective, had broken a few rules when he sent them to her—not that breaking rules had ever bothered him, not when he was five and not as a