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All Chapters of Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast: Chapter 11 - Chapter 17

17 Chapters

CHAPTER TEN

Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast/Crystal Lake Publishing

CHAPTER TENThis was in Paris.“She was small,” they’d say. “Chinese or Japanese. Asian, definitely. I think.”“Her hair was sort of dark, maybe,” the other witness would remember, the officer jotting the useless tidbit down.“Was she younger? Older?” he’d say, pen in hand. “What age range would you say she was? Any idea?”A shrug.Twenty years after Hong Kong, twenty years after the leaders of The Triad had fallen in one fell swoop, twenty years after Lucky had entered the warehouse a victim and emerged a legend, she’d become the woman seen, but never remembered.“Yes, it was a woman,” one witness after another would say before stopping in confusion. “But I just can’t . . . I don’t . . . ” and they’d give up, unable to clearly recall the assassin who’d stabbed and sliced and slaughtered in broad daylight.Back in Hong Kong, the Triad was in chaos. Uncles on mainland China, in Canada, even in the United States and as far away as Eastern Europe were all angling to be Father now,

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast/Crystal Lake Publishing

CHAPTER ELEVENShe couldn’t stop crying. The tears trailed down her cheeks and onto her chin, the tissue soaked and useless from wiping her nose.“There will be other chances, yes?” Samuel said in his heavily accented English. He kneeled in front of her, his hand calmly stroking her thigh as she sat on the edge of the bed. “And if no, then, perhaps an adoption could be best, I think, no?”Lucky shook her head. No. No children. She would never risk it. The seven children the shadow had stolen over the past four years hadn’t been enough. She could feel it. The dark wanted something more. Something rich with experience.Simple death isn’t what fed this ravenous dark. It savored surprise and regret. The awareness of the end approaching. The panic growing as the limbs became weak and the vision clouded. The overwhelming stillness of the eternal silence as the world grew quiet. The darkness demanded tears, confusion, dread. The last moments of a life lived.A child who was still safely

CHAPTER TWELVE

Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast/Crystal Lake Publishing

CHAPTER TWELVEI still remember,” Lucky said before taking a long drag from her Echo, the hungry ghosts swarming Eidolon below. “You lied because I still remember.”She’d fled Paris for America. Had given the dark what was promised. Fed its hunger. Had felt nothing, but still had dreams, nightmares, thoughts. Could still see her husband in tenuous shafts of light or the corners of steamy mirrors. Could almost catch his name when she first woke or when exhaustion forced her to stop and think and consider. The guilt was growing. The regret was strong. Had she the chance, the choice, to do it all again, she . . .But no.The thought was banished.A year ago, she’d settled on Eidolon. Soon thereafter, her shadow grew silent. Its hunger no longer drove her. Her ledger black, she could breathe easy.She glanced at the seething mass of vitriol clogging the street below. It stretched from curb to curb, one end to the other. Their bodies, torn and gashed and trembling, reaching as far as

APARTMENT 1B

Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast/Crystal Lake Publishing

APARTMENT 1BBULLETMonday, 3:24 PMFive blue. Seven red. Four yellow.He blinked the sleep from his eyes. Lifted his head from the mattress. Saw the shit hole on Eidolon Avenue he called home. The TV with the cracked screen sitting on the plastic crate. The yellowing walls with the rust colored streaks running from ceiling to floor. The scattered pizza boxes and cheeseburger wrappers. And his friends . . .five blue, seven red, four yellowsitting on the cheap ass coffee table.That’s right, he thought. They were all there.Five blue. Seven red. Four yellow.He stretched and turned to the window. Kicked the sheet away from his legs. It was raining. And late.Fuck.Hated that job anyway.And FUCK his foot hurt.He sat up and turned his leg.What the fuck?A new tat. A snake. A small snake. A fuckin’ cartoon-ass fuckin’ garden snake or something. Some punk ass shit a prom queen flyin’ on Molly would get before getting fingered in the back of some quarterback’s Chevy.And

APARTMENT 1C

Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast/Crystal Lake Publishing

APARTMENT 1CCLICKMonday, 3:24 PMThey’d made love, once, when she was warm. Now she sat at the kitchen table, her silence speaking volumes.“I’m sorry,” he said for the umpteenth time.Nothing.He’d discovered her an hour ago at the foot of the stairs in the lobby.Hair a soft brown, eyes large and kind, skin pale and freckled. She’d sat facing the mailboxes, lost in thought, her lithe body, despite the rainy afternoon, in a sleeveless sundress, her small feet in strappy sandals.Although he saw her many times before, strolling the park or sipping coffee in the cafe, he’d never approached or spoken with her. There’d never been the chance.Until now.And she was perfect.Then again, they always were in the beginning.Not wanting to startle her, he approached cautiously.Seeing him, she stood. “Oh my goodness.” Her heel caught the hem of her dress. “I’m sorry.” Balancing on one foot, her hand gripping the railing, she fought to wrestle it free. “Just let me—”“Here.” He o

APARTMENT 1D

Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast/Crystal Lake Publishing

APARTMENT 1DANNIVERSARYMonday, 3:24 PMWe are a walking history of our failures,” Marta said as she snapped the napkin open and laid it across her lap. “A stumbling catastrophe of unbelievable screw ups that, as you can plainly see, screwed us up.” She laughed, the tight smile on her gleaming lips held a moment longer than needed. “Really, it’s just been an endless array of aborted endings. Until now, I mean.” Her pudgy hand lifted her champagne glass—her sixth, but who was counting?—in yet another toast to the elegant man seated to her side. “And for that, we thank you, Mr. Peabody.”“I promise, this time we’ll get it right,” the stranger said with a small nod.Even here, surrounded by the decay that was Eidolon, he seemed to fit. Untouched by the yellowing walls and the splintered baseboard, the brown stains running from the ceiling or the thin windows that rattled when the wind blew and rain pelted the glass, as it did now, this Peabody was neither tall nor short, neither han

APARTMENT 1E

Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast/Crystal Lake Publishing

APARTMENT 1EUMBRAThere was something living in the walls.Still wearing her only black dress, a rose taken from the cemetery in one hand, her bright pink backpack in the other, she’d watched the stain in her new bedroom. Round and raised in the middle, like a bubble, it was different than the others.And it was alive.She’d known it the moment she’d walked in. Had felt it as she’d turned to put her backpack on the creaky bed. Had expected, when she first saw the stain two weeks ago, to see a face, two eyes, lips, a nose and cheeks and teeth, pushing from the wall.But there’d only been a wide brown circle. A stain that wasn’t a stain. One that wasn’t long and dark like the others. One that hadn’t dripped from the ceiling to the floor. One that sat alone, removed from the others. Just like her.“What kind of name is ‘Umbra?’” were the first words Gran had said when the big lady with the onion bagel breath first dropped her off. The State had decided this was where she had to be

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