Woo-hoo! Last night I crossed the 50,000 word mark, meaning that for the third year in a row, I won NaNoWriMo! I wrote almost six thousand words yesterday AFTER working at the day job. It was hard, and exhausting, and I’ll probably not want to do that in the future, but of course the bright side is that I’ve won, and now I can relax. I’m going to keep writing, to hit my personal goal of writing every day in November, but it doesn’t matter how many words each day. I could write one, and that would still count. (I’ll probably end up with at least 100 per day. Even with glossing over, I have some story wrapping up to do).

So, in celebration, I give you another excerpt! This is way, way unedited. Meet my major villain, Eric Morrow, “The Shadow Man”:

Thanks to a quick internet search, he found his boys in the Saint Michael Medical Center morgue. They’d been taken there after someone called in a fight to the police, and the police had showed up to find two headless bodies. Someone had figured out, or been very lucky in guessing, that his boys were healers. Unless Mar had bragged about it. Sometimes his boasting got the better of him.

Eric showed up at the morgue and told them he might be able to identify the two bodies they’d brought in two nights before. Drinking buddies, he said. The nurse on duty called a doctor, and the doctor let him know that the police were going to want to talk to him if he in fact did know the deceased. Eric said that he understood, and the doctor led him down to the morgue.

Two lockers were opened, two bodies slid out. The doctor warned him that the sight was gruesome. The autopsies weren’t complete, and their heads were still detached. Eric nodded, and the doctor unzipped the body bags. Those were his boys, all right. He looked between them and summoned up a touch of crocodile tears. “Yeah, I know them. Could I have a few minutes alone?”

“Sure. I’m sorry for your loss.” The doctor touched a hand to his shoulder and walked away. Eric waited until he heard the door close. He went to Clifford first. Reliable, steady Clifford. Eric pushed the man’s head firmly onto his neck. Would two days be too long? He waited a few seconds, studying the ragged flesh, waiting for signs of healing.

Maybe it had been too long … maybe ol’ Cliff needed a bit of magic to kick start his body. Eric looked around and found a scalpel lying on a table. He went over and grabbed it, bringing it back over to the body. Eric sliced the end of his index finger and dripped the blood onto the torn flesh of Clifford’s neck. “Come on, Clifford … wake up, my boy.” Drip, drip, drip. The drops of blood fell, bright red onto the pale flesh and dried blood of Clifford’s neck.

One small piece of flesh latched on to another. Another connection was made, and another. The flesh knit itself together faster and faster. “That’s it.” Eric smiled. Clifford’s pale, cold flesh started to warm. Eric moved on to Mar. The wound on his index finger had started to close, so he sliced it open again. Holding Mar’s head against his neck with one hand, he dripped blood onto the neatly sliced hole between neck and head. This had been done with a blade, or something very sharp. Clifford’s neck had been torn and chewed as if by an animal. The two very different methods of severing the head made Eric think that there had been at least two people involved in hurting his boys. He was very eager to find out what the story was from them.

The blood from his index finger dripped onto Mar’s neck, bright red against the pale dull colors. “Wake up, Mar. Your boss is here.” It took a little longer for the flesh to respond, reaching out to bridge the gap between head and neck. Eric watched, fascinated.

A gasp behind him, a thump, and gurgled moaning. Clifford was awake. Eric turned around and looked into the panicked wide eyes of Clifford. “Quiet, or you’ll attract attention.”

Clifford calmed and nodded to show his understanding. His neck would take at least a few more second until it was healed enough to allow him to talk. Eric turned back to Mar. In a few seconds, he drew in a gasping, ragged breath and his eyes flew open. Eric made sure that he was the first thing Mar saw. “I’m here, don’t worry. Let yourself heal.”

Mar opened his mouth, trying to speak. A rough, gurgling sound came out of his throat. Eric put a finger to his lips. “Shhh.” Mar settled down.
“Boss,” Clifford said, his voice raw. “They killed us.”