Ghosts are fugitives, only seldom making appearances in mortal consciousness to avoid detection by the hunters that would drag them kicking and screaming into the light. They are mostly trying to avoid eternity, be it Heaven or Hell, for they cannot stand to exist forever.

Sitting in the small ghost of someone recently dead, their target's-eye view, reviewing the scene and seeing for yourself how as they give it up, their blood turns to the familiar white of surrender. This one was easy, you think, and you sink them in deep water just in case.

To the High Gods, the cosmos is splattered with viscera that care is taken to avoid. The stars reek of protons and alpha particles, their obscene radiation contaminates the surrounding parsecs. They distend into swollen novas and smear their base, simple elements across time.

As threats to the Earth become more pronounced, witches renegotiate their deals with it and the Moon. The number of deft practitioners dwindle but their powers are proportionally reallocated. Give us sight by burying our fingertips in the dirt. Give us brimstone fire, sulfur,

God's children, yes, but not infants -- an experiment in imbuing matter with life which we must prove can order itself to rightness. Like a parent may watch a child precariously navigate some dangers to see how it will fare, maybe suffering exists because faith goes both ways.

How long did you think you would hide from me? Did you not know that the stars are my very own eyes? Did you not think I would put children behind my artillery were it the surest way? That I would split the earth and drain the oceans into its molten heart to fetter out and

You've made a repair to your vehicle without offering a blood sacrifice to the machine god to seal in your effort. The thing works, but the machine god creeps out at night sharpens your knives, loosens your stair rail, knocks thumb tacks onto the floor until the debt is paid.

My summoner has many teeth. Some are sharp, old gristle caught between them, so sharp that they draw blood if you clap your eyes upon them too quickly. Some are ground flat, tables that invite you to run your hand over them to feel how the masseters have polished them to shine.

I open my shop at sundown and offer a palette of psychological armaments, weapons to gird the psyche, words to put a look in your eyes that falter your enemies at a distance. They come dearly, but they may buy you a split second when the time comes to stretch your knife.

Prayer is like bomb making, to be done with immaculate clarity, precise measurement, and unwavering discipline. Intention is gently tamped down with earnest execution, else the thing may detonate in your face in a material attempt to show you the error of its conception.

The priest calls out for us to bow our heads in prayer; I shoot my gaze sideways for a moment and from under your open eyes I see a glint of regicide.

Operator life is quiet these days. I'd abandoned my post long enough, no doubt, but it seems many of us have. There are reasons for this, but as I watch rain trickle down the vines of overgrowth and puddle on my cracked concrete floors, as I hear my dishes creak and moan while

I'm reclaiming a MiG in Hangar 3, running my hands through its tefzel wiring, gently replacing broken pins, feeding it fresh fluids. We're learning a lot about each other. It has three tally marks on its side. "Who were they?" It shudders, "Friends under orders." I have many tally marks along my

Many thousands of feet of arteries that I've removed and rerouted, joined and fed downward into the earth where they chance upon a lake of black blood. The hearts I've collected pump it underneath my skin and I strike a line to watch it seep out. It takes to a flame easily. The good stuff.

God threatened to never flood the world again, no more restarts, from here on out it's completely in our hands. To be righteous among the unrighteous is considerably harder without good examples and I wonder if any of us have ever met someone we could call good.

Cut your swathes of trail narrow and give mine a wide berth, cross my path only over treetops or through rivers, for I can feel you distantly stepping on my footprints like a spider feels her web, do not darken my hall of thought with your silhouette, and take care that you are always downwind of my

I've crawled through a mirror, fearing I may have left something behind. It was a lowly kingdom anyhow. I'm not sure if I'll move my volumes from that side to this, or if this side of the pale might take to a different flavor. I'll go and visit, of course, and maybe come back with the good ones.