This didn’t have to be demons from hell.
Easing the clip back into the grip, I gently worked the slide to chanber a round and leaned back in my chair. Might be pure coincidence that a visitor came exactly at midnight and fog blanketed the city. Hey, anything was possible. I tightened my grip on the Glock, disengaging the safety.
Then again
. . .
The footsteps thumping along the hallway stopped right outside my door. There was a short pause, and then somebody politely knocked twice.
“Excuse me, I saw the light under your door,” a soft feminine voice said. “May I use your bathroom?” She sounded sweet and southern. Pure corn pone and hominy grits. A delicate flower of the South. “The one in the lobby is broken, and I really have to pee something fierce. Please?”
“Just a sec,” I answered cheerfully, aiming at chest level where the heart would be on a human being.
Yeah, she was from the South, all right. Straight down south. Near the core of the planet.
Hell.
—From “Falling like Gentle Rain” by Nick Pollotta
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Also Available from DAW Books:
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edited by Denise Little
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