“I love it!” Claire's voice always annoyed Byron. Not only was it high pitched, but it also carried the airs that only a sheltered childhood full of money could create. She may be a great agent, one of the best, and she may have made him (and herself) a ton of money throughout the years, but that didn't mean he had to like her. “Really?” he asked, not really caring, but figuring that it was the path of least resistance in this scenario.“Oh yes. I bet I can wring half again what you made from your last one out of those misers at Billings and Jordan.” Billings and Jordan was the publisher who had handled his last two books, and in his opinion, they had always been fair to him, and far from miserly. “Not to mention the movie deal.”“Movie deal?”“Oh yes, yes. As soon as I finished reading your sample pages, I picked up the phone and called my people in Hollywood. They told me t

“This is highly unusual,” Warden Geoffry Thomas said, stunned. He was a large man, both physically and in terms of personality, also had a long, droopy mustache. So of course, everyone called him Warden Walrus, though never to his face. “I am aware,” Norma conceded, sitting on the other side of the warden's desk. “But I think I am in a unique position to help the girl, in a way no one else can.”“You are aware, Miss Schelle, we have rules against our employees becoming too emotionally invested with our inmates?”“I am, sir. But I am also aware it’s all of our jobs to help our inmates rehabilitate, and if one of us sees an opening, I feel we should do our best to assist the inmate.”The warden paused for a moment, contemplating. “I suppose these rules are in place to avoid sexual or romantic contact, which would give the prisoner untoward power over our employees.&rd

Well, that was weird.  Byron came to consciousness at his desk, which was in and of itself not an unusual occurrence, but it wasn't usually preceded by a spiritual visitation from a convicted killer. Did any of that actually happen? He wondered to himself. He might have drifted off long before he thought, and since Janice was on his mind since the phone call, it’s quite possible he dreamt the whole thing. He touched the side of his coffee cup, finding it cold. He remembered getting a fresh cup right before the (visitation?) dream started, so he knew he had been out for quite a while. He was about to get up to refresh it when his computer screen caught his attention.  ***Hey bYron. Sorry I suck at typing. No tipe to fix mistakes. I suck at speklling too, even though I read a lot. Ha ha. You probably think you just had a weird dream about me or maybe you're going crazy

Byron got away scot-free. There had been questions, hundreds of questions asked by dozens of very frustrated officials. Each one of them was pretty sure that things didn't go down like he said, but were unable to prove otherwise. As far as anyone could prove, it was a simple combination of sudden aggression, deep planning, exploitation and laxity of the staff who had become complacent in the absence of any real problems for some time. Maybe they'll actually do their jobs now. Byron thought to himself. Before someone dangerous gets out.Claire was even more ecstatic about the book now, dreams of cash born of tragedy filling her mind. She wanted the publisher to put a sticker on the front of the book when it was completed, screaming something sensational about how the pages contained the most authoritative look at the escaped mastermind beauty. It was all the better, Claire insisted, if Janice Rosse was never caught, keeping the mystery alive and

 Janice stood at the side of yet another suburban road, wet, slick, and cold due to the light but persistent rain that was falling. She was more or less looking like your typical teenage girl. For the first time since the escape she began to think about what she had done and what was left to do. Everything up to this point, as hard as it had been, was little more than preparation, setup work for the main event. What is about to come sure to be even harder. Sure, she knew where the demon was, and it wasn't far at all from where she was, a few hours on foot at most. But what was she going to do when she got there? Could she really defeat a demon just because she had done some half-assed research? She hoped so. “Hey, hey miss?” The voice came from somewhere in the rain, and Janice spun around looking for its source. She found a man, (not quite yet reaching elderly but just past his prime) wearing an old-fashioned suit