Excerpt from 'Behind The Mask'

Christopher walked through the cemetery in the gathering dusk, blowing on his hands in a vain attempt to warm them. Snowflakes settled in his short, blond curls and on the shoulders of his worn gray overcoat, and clouded his vision when he blinked them from his eyelashes. Part of him wished he was in his cozy apartment, curled up on the couch with a mug of hot chocolate, waiting for Jimmy to come home from work. But this was his ritual, and he had never missed a year. No snowstorm would prevent him from honoring his father.

Head down, he strode past the grand mausoleums that were the final resting places of the city’s great and good. The powerful, the wealthy, the benevolent. Those who had tolerated the likes of his father for as long as it had suited them, until they had turned around and…

Sighing, Christopher fought to clear his mind of the bitter thoughts that threatened to crowd in. Much as he longed to take a crowbar to these overly ornate tombs, smashing their granite and marble façades to pieces, that wouldn’t solve anything. His father would still be dead, and Christopher would continue to live in the shadows, prevented by the will of those who governed Mokum City from fulfilling his destiny.

He paused by a weathered stone angel, whose wings and outstretched arms were covered with a thick dusting of snow. A young woman wearing a bright scarlet woolen cap stood at a nearby grave, clearly wrapped up in her own thoughts. The headstone appeared newly carved, the soil heaped in a prominent mound, and Christopher realized she must have suffered a recent bereavement. Was it just his imagination, or were her pale cheeks streaked with tears? It gets easier, he wanted to tell her, knowing that was only half a lie. But he moved on, not wishing her to look up and spot him.

His father was buried in a quiet, out of the way part of the cemetery, with only a small wooden cross to mark the location. No grand tomb for Michael Chase. It was hardly surprising, when so many in this city would like to pretend that he had never existed, even though his legacy still lived on in the lives he had saved and the crimes he had prevented.

Christopher sank to his knees and took a single red rose from the inside pocket of his coat.

“Hey, Dad,” he muttered, laying the flower down on the sunken, snow-shrouded earth of his father’s grave. “I’m here to visit you again. Just like every year. Hard to believe it’s been another twelve months and nothing’s changed.” He smiled to himself, a sudden thought lifting his bleak mood. “Well, that’s not entirely true. I met someone. We’ve been seeing each other for about nine months now. I think you’d really like him.”

He stopped, wondering how his father would have taken the news that his only son was gay. Well, he hoped. Michael Chase—at least, the version of Michael that lingered in Christopher’s fading memories—had been a kind and tolerant man. All he’d have wanted was for Christopher to be happy.

And Jimmy makes me very happy… A brief smile crossed his lips at the thought of his boyfriend. Jimmy would be hard at work now, mixing drinks and chatting with the customers in his downtown bar, oblivious to the fact that Christopher had made his annual pilgrimage to the cemetery.

His eyelids flickered shut as he pictured Jimmy. The way a lock of his unruly red hair fell over his striking, ice-blue eyes. The cute smattering of freckles across the pale skin of his shoulders. The soft, almost astonished gasp he gave when Michael took the tip of his cock between his lips…

Realizing that his dirty fantasies were in danger of running away with him, Christopher turned his attention back to the grave.

“I don’t have any other news, Dad. Mayor Van der Sloot is still in charge of the city. And would you believe he’s running for re-election again? Honestly, the guy must be like a hundred now.” His chuckle was sour. The remark wasn’t much of an exaggeration. “But I guess he loves power too much to ever want to give it up. Even though he should be rotting in a jail cell for what he did…”

A high-pitched scream came from somewhere behind him. Christopher rose, turning to see the woman he’d noticed earlier struggling with a burly, black-clad man. She was trying to prevent him from pulling her tan purse out of her grasp, but the man was too strong for her. He grabbed the bag and set off at a run toward the cemetery gates.

The woman looked around, her eyes wide and her movements frantic. Spotting Christopher as he walked in her direction, she sobbed, “Please, you’ve got to help me. Everything’s in that purse. My wallet, my cell phone…” She clapped a hand to her mouth. “The last photos I took of my husband are on that phone.”

She didn’t have to say anything further. Without thinking about what he was doing, Christopher was off and running after the mugger. He had closed more than two-thirds of the distance between them in a matter of seconds, sprinting so fast his feet barely made a dent in the carpet of snow beneath him. Then realization kicked in. What the fuck are you doing?

Excerpt from 'Riptide' 

Between the sunlight warming his face, the briny scent of the sea and the squawking of gulls in the distance, Rami had to admit the afterlife wasn’t half bad. At least he thought that until a blunt object poked him in the shin.

“Think he’s dead.” 

The poking happened again, more insistently this time, and a shadow fell over him.

“Hey, mister! Are you okay?”

A groan was the best Rami could do by way of answer, yet even that was enough to send the two diminutive, blurry figures above him scrambling back. He blinked and the blurs resolved into a pair of kids, beach-attired and rosy with too much sun. They were maybe twelve or thirteen years old, on the cusp of adolescence yet already making strides in pissing off the elderly.

Rami winced as one of them shoved a phone in his face.

“Sick!” The camera clicked. “That’s going on Instagram, dude!”

Under different circumstances, that would’ve bothered Rami. 

There was nothing normal about waking up waterlogged and covered in kelp, sand sticking to the hand he dragged over his face. “Where… Where am I?” 

“Are you a drunk?” one of the boys piped up. “My dad says—”

“Is this Envern?” Rami scrubbed the grit from his eyes. He blinked and found that he recognized the pier jutting out over the water. The beach bordered by lighthouses at both ends. Stoneway Island just a couple of miles off the coast. 

This was Envern, he wasn’t dead, and the last thing he remembered was getting swept off by a roiling sea. 

The kids traded dubious glances when he mentioned that last part. 

“I’m not crazy,” Rami snapped, pushing to his feet. He staggered, clothes stiff with salt, and tried not to feel as though he was protesting a given. “There was a storm…”

“Sure,” said the kid with the cell phone. “But unless you’re an Olympic swimmer or something, there’s no freaking way you came back from that. Come on,” he told his friend. “I’m bored. Let’s get out of here.”

Rami watched them go. He had been in the water. He was certain of that much. And with that certitude, another rose from the depths of hazy recall. He remembered a man, dark hands wrapping around and under his arms, yanking him from the surf as though he weighed less than a feather. 

His face hovered above Rami, indistinct but for the corona of lightning slashing the sky, limning him in blue-white incandescence. 

“Who are you?” Rami murmured as the memory faded.

The current lapped at the shore and offered no answers.

Excerpt from 'Saving the Day'

“Why are you on the floor?”

My eyes were closed tight, I had no idea who was talking to me. My head hurt and I needed to vomit. My whole body ached. I wanted to see who was speaking, but I was having issues controlling my body. I squeezed my eyelids tight, then opened them. My lashes fluttered. Light was coming through. Was that an angel peering over me? Was I dead?

I am totally getting ahead of myself. A lot had happened for me to get to the point where I was incoherent on the floor. Let me take us back to the beginning.

It was 1980. My parents were given the news that my mom was having twins. Surprise! They didn’t run in either family, so it was a bit of a shock. My brother and I were born a few months later. Okay, that’s a little too far back, but I did say I was going to go to the beginning.

Now we are in 1995 and my brother is concerned that the family dog is talking to him. I didn’t believe him. I mean—who can talk to animals? We didn’t live in a comic book. But that was the year I first healed someone. My friend Sally wrecked her bike. I put my hand over her knee and seconds later I was throwing up in a bush and her knee was as good as new. So, I kind of started to believe my brother.

Enough backstory. It’s 2017. The only people who know about my powers are family. We—my brother and I—were taught to never show our powers. Our parents didn’t want us to be locked up somewhere and studied. Plus, who would believe us? I could show it off by healing someone. In fact, I wanted to. My passion was the medical field, but my family had talked me out of pursuing a career in medicine. They’d said it would be too tempting to help everyone. Instead, I went into business with my brother. I did all of the office work and oversaw the staff to let him focus on fixing the animals.

One of the things the comic handbook doesn’t say is that the side effects are horrible. If I heal little things, I vomit. Big things? It can take me down for days, sometimes weeks. It just depends on what I’m healing. I never really know how my body will react. It isn’t like there’s a study out there that shows after effects. People like me don’t exist.

Today had started off like any other day. Isn’t that how the story is supposed to go? I’d been sitting in my boxers watching superhero movies and eating junk food. I was ready to throw a pizza in the oven for a late dinner when I got a call from my brother. He’d gone the veterinarian route. At least he could use his ‘gift’ in a way I couldn’t. He didn’t have side effects either, lucky bastard. Guess that’s what I get for being born first—a whole two minutes. Fuck my life, right?

There was an issue with a cat. I guess her owner was sick. I don’t know what my brother expected me to do about it—I didn’t use my powers. I felt selfish some days, but I had to believe we all had an expiration date and me dragging things out only gave them a little more time. Did healing always work? No. Which was why I stayed away from hospitals. It was too tempting.

“What is it you’d like me to do?”

“You can heal animals too. Come fix this cat so the owner has someone to comfort her before she dies.”

“You know I’m not your on-call healer, right?”

“And I’m not some paladin ready to roll the twelve-sided die, just get your ass over here!” Jimmy hung up.

Days like this, I wished I was an only child. Of course, I was going over there. I didn’t like sick animals any more than I did people but animals were usually easier. They didn’t talk back—at least to me—and they couldn’t give away my secret. Another upside was, I didn’t have as much of a reaction with the furry ones.

I grumbled while getting pants on. Started cursing my brother as I got into my car. Mumbled to myself as I pulled into the parking lot. Slammed my door shut getting out of the car and stomped my way to the building. I was being a child, but it was no pants Sunday! I was supposed to be watching silly superhero movies and wishing I was with them, doing good in the world instead of running to my brother’s office. It was the little things. I got my good deed in by helping some of the animals, if I needed to. I might grumble and pretend to not want to help, but I did. My brother knew this, so maybe I was his on-call healer, but it didn’t happen very often because my brother’s good at his job. I hated when it was an animal’s time and there wasn’t anything I could do, but we do have expiration dates.

I was not prepared for what I walked into. I don’t like surprises. My brother knew that, but it seems…he just didn’t care.

Excerpt from 'Flying with the Stars'

James

It had been a while since the puddle of tears around my feet had dried up. All right, that was a bit of an exaggeration, but a break-up was never easy, was it? I’d been to hell and back and was now determined to find myself a new bloke, although new was hardly the right word. I wasn’t sure if the one who had been there all along would be interested in me, but in the meantime, I was going to go out for a drink and a dance to get myself feeling more like the old James. The pre-Gareth James, who was confident but not big-headed. Did that version of me even exist anymore? I didn’t know, but I could try to find him again, couldn’t I? Be him?

Deep down, though, my confidence was still a bit ropey, but I’d told myself day after day lately that I could do this, get back in the saddle. A bugger of a little whisper in the recesses of my mind said I couldn’t. Now luckily, those kinds of whispers made me stubborn. Made the diva in me come out.

So tonight I was off to Dance Fest, where I’d always felt at home, but the problem was, Gareth liked the place, too. There was a strong chance he’d be there, but I was fucked if I was going to hide away any longer. I’d bump into him at some point, was bound to, so now that I felt stronger emotionally, I might as well come face to face again with him tonight.

I’d already done my hair, black quiff held up by wax, and my outfit consisted of jeans, a tight gray T-shirt and comfy black shoes. I’d had to hype myself up in order to get ready tonight, but now I’d convinced myself to dive back into the game I reckoned nothing was going to get me down.

Shame I’d let things get me down after Gareth, beating myself up, blaming myself, but since the fog of self-pity had lifted, it was clear that I couldn’t have made him stay. He’d been intent on leaving me for that bloke with nipples the size of cigar stubs and there hadn’t been a thing I could have done to stop it.

“Oh, we’re not going down that road again, are we?” I muttered and zipped my jacket up. “And fuck it, if he prefers cigar stubs to slim cigarette filters, he’s most welcome to them.”

Many times over the past couple of months I’d told myself that in order to change my insecure way of thinking, I needed to grow my confidence back—like it’s a plant or something, Jesus—so that the doubting comments in my head became fewer and fewer and were eventually replaced with positive ones. Difficult as that might be, it was a journey I was willing to take. Anything to make me grab life by the sexy, hairy balls again and enjoy myself instead of drowning in despair.

And the despair. It had been enough to send anyone round the bloody bend.

My drama bone has certainly healed and is in full working order.

I gave myself the once-over in the full-length mirror. “Christ, you look like…well, I don’t know. Someone desperate, needy.”

But I was desperate—desperate to get my love life back on track. Desperate to be my old self again—the lively, up-for-a-laugh fella who said inappropriate shit but got people smiling.

I grabbed my wallet on my way out of the bedroom. My flat was a warren with rooms sprouting off the central hallway. The front door was at the end, so I gave myself a good talking to and walked down there, eager to be out of this place. I wanted to thrust myself into the night, be with people I’d avoided socializing with for too long now, and get rip-roaringly pissed up on some cocktails with names like Take Me, I’m Yours, or Up for Anything Once.

And I was. Up for anything once. And if it meant trying the onces with a certain bloke, all the better.

He’s just a mate, though.

Sod off.

Excerpt from 'Unseen'

Rory carefully placed the empty syringe into a kidney bowl on a wheeled metal table at his side then snapped off his latex gloves and put them next to the bowl. When he turned back to his workstation, though, the monkey he’d just injected had disappeared.

He blinked, as though his eyes were not functioning correctly and that closing and opening them again would do a hard reset. Like doing a restart on his PC when it acted up. Unfortunately, in the case of his eyes, it didn’t help. He tried again, just to be sure. No such luck. The monkey was still not there.

Shaking his head, he looked around the laboratory. It wasn’t very big, and there was nowhere to hide. Not for a creature the size of Arnold, anyway. Even an escaped mouse would be pretty easy to locate. Rory wondered if perhaps he was asleep and dreaming—vivid and bonkers dreams were a constant in his life. A swift pinch of his arm answered that question. Muttering, he rubbed the afflicted area, the cotton of his lab coat soft beneath his fingers.

He frowned, then frowned some more as a thought occurred to him. A thought so unbelievable, so ludicrous that he couldn’t understand why it had even popped into his brain.

Because it’s the only possible explanation.

He shook his head. No, it wasn’t. There was a perfectly rational explanation for Arnold’s sudden disappearance. He wasn’t where he’d left him, but although he was smart, there was no way in hell he could have escaped the lab. It was impossible. Rory reached into his pocket and clasped the hard plastic of his security pass between his fingers and heaved a sigh of relief. The very idea of a monkey—albeit a tame, friendly one—wandering around the City of London didn’t bear thinking about. And neither did the consequences.

Determined to disprove his silly idea, Rory began searching in earnest for Arnold. It took all of five seconds—he wasn’t underneath the workstation, or behind the large storage unit at one end of the long room. All of the cupboards were closed and locked, and the keys still hung securely on a lanyard around Rory’s neck. There was nowhere else the animal could have gone. 

Rory scratched his head, the scientist in him still desperate not to resort to believing the thought that was now flashing on and off in his mind in strobe lighting, unwilling to be ignored any longer.

Invisible. You’ve turned Arnold invisible.

No. No way. He was trying to cure a lethal disease, not create some Harry Potter-esque potion for invisibility. But it was a cloak that made them invisible in Harry Potter, wasn’t it, not a potion? He tutted and sighed, then shook his head. I’m losing the fucking plot, here. I need to go home and get some rest. Maybe I’m overdoing it.

There was one small problem, though. Before he could leave, he had to find the damn monkey. Arnold had been injected with some potent drugs, and although Rory wasn’t expecting him to experience any further side effects, he certainly wasn’t going to risk having the creature anywhere near the general public. He was trying to save lives, not put them at risk. Plus, Arnold himself would be in danger out there—he could get hit by a bus or a car. Which would be highly likely, given the drivers of said buses and cars wouldn’t be able to see him.

Oh fuck, this is really happening, isn’t it?

Returning to his workstation, Rory then leaned forward and gripped its cold, metal edges, taking a couple of deep breaths to calm his racing heart and mind. In this state, he could barely comprehend what had quite clearly taken place, never mind try to work out exactly how. All he could do for now was deal with the fallout.

Excerpt from 'The Angel on the Northern Line'

Once upon a time, saving the world had been easy. There were heroes and villains, right and wrong, and no matter how thorny things got, good always saved the day.

Once upon a time, there had been a place for superheroes. 

Once upon a time, long, long ago.

Back then they’d lit up a million childhood dreams, their stories caught forever on fading newsprint and flickering newsreel. They’d been there as boys had been slaughtered in their millions on distant French and Belgian fields. Some had been glimpsed in the skies or in the shattered cities of the second great war, miraculous acts of heroism little more than dewdrops in an almighty, unstoppable ocean.

They had never been legion but they’d been there, clad in dazzling costumes and shining armor, hands on hips on the cover of glossy magazines, flying above the clouds to ease a plane safely to earth or standing firm though an earthquake rocked the world around them. Once there had been the woman from Nebraska who had been able to read minds from half a continent away, the teen from Madras who had flown faster than any airplane, the infant who’d spat fire from the palm of their hand. Once, there’d been something to believe in.

It had given people hope.

So what had become of those heroes?

For every one of them that had chosen celebrity and a home in the Hollywood Hills, another had faded into the world of whispers and bedtime stories. Some said that they had never been real at all, but were actors who could convincingly play the idol, hired by governments desperate for an injection of propaganda. Others claimed that they had been spirited away by their own sides, sent off to colonize distant stars or drilled down to the center of the earth. One or two held on to the hope that they were still among the people, still saving lives and doing good but doing it quietly, those bright costumes consigned to the bottom of the wardrobe with last year’s winter coat.

But nobody ever thought of the Northern Line.

Yet it was here, on a freezing Friday evening in December 1955, that a hero could be glimpsed, should anyone be looking. Not that anyone would know the man who used to be Mithras, of course, because this particular hero—tall, broad-shouldered, still attractive in that careless kind of way—had raised blending in to an art form. At an age when most men were doing their best to preserve their looks and keep their waistlines at bay, Christian Winter was doing all he could to be just another man on the Northern Line. Despite the unremarkable suit and coat, the hat brim pulled down low over his eyes, he was still plagued by that undefinable something that he couldn’t quite lose. Perhaps it was the way he moved, the swift sureness of his passage through the late rush hour crowds, the smooth speed with which he navigated the crush, nimbly dodging this way and that as he made his way down the rain-spattered stairs into the underground, leaving the freezing streets behind.

The crowds on the platform were thinning out just a little as evening approached and he dutifully took his place among them, peering along the line for the train simply as a matter of a habit. He could see everything in that pitch darkness beyond the tunnel mouth if he let his eyes adjust, could hear the vibration of the train on the rail—a comedown for superpowers that had once saved whole battalions, perhaps, but useful as a commuter nonetheless. For a moment, Christian lifted his hat and ran his hand through his silvering hair, then he listened, tuning out the world and tuning in on the rails instead. The bustle of the commuters dimmed and he focused on the sound of the oncoming train, glad to hear that it was close by.