The Devil You Love to Hate — Cover

American Psycho aesthetic. A handsome man in a black suit, knife in hand, blood on his sleeve. The smile is the worst part.

Metaphorical Bodies — Cover

Rain-soaked alley. A body face-down on the asphalt. Neon reflections in the puddles. Raw 1970s exploitation crime.

Void Postal — Cover

Rob Void outside the post office in the Seattle rain. Long wavy black hair, leather jacket, chains, cigarette. A pentagram scratched into the pavement at his feet.

Blacklight Prophet — Cover

Rex, the blacklight prophet of Seattle. Spiritual warfare rendered in paint and rain.

Landon Mortuary — Cover

A colonial mortuary on the edge of the city. The lights are on. Someone is still working.

Lost Hope — Cover

Midwestern dread. A mortuary town with secrets buried in the ground.

The Breeding Room — Cover

Body horror. What happens when science stops asking whether it should.

Subject Three

He occupied the corner chair at the NA meeting. Male, late thirties. Cachexia — the body consuming itself. His wrists were the diameter of broom handles. Kaposi's sarcoma lesions patterned his face and neck: purple-brown, some ulcerated, weeping. The one on his right temple looked particularly virulent. His eyes were open but nobody was home. Present in body only, because the autonomic nervous system doesn't require permission to continue its functions.

Gage

He had the kind of face that used to be beautiful. The eyes were the worst part — pale grey-green, glassy, pupils pinned small. He wasn't looking at you. He was looking at something only he could see.

Rob Void

He wasn't supposed to still be working. He wasn't supposed to know what he knew. The post office was just a cover — it always had been.

The Prep Room

Stainless steel. Formaldehyde. Kane worked in silence at 2 a.m. — the body on the table was a professional hit, three entrance wounds, hollow-point. His job was to make it look like a heart attack.

The Night Delivery

The van came at 2 a.m. It always came at 2 a.m. Landon stood in the loading bay and watched them unload what wasn't supposed to exist.

Gage's Apartment

Gage's living room was a cage, self-constructed, its bars invisible but absolute. The wallpaper had faces in it if you looked long enough. The VHS tape sat on the coffee table — unlabeled, warm to the touch. The static on the TV pulsed. The lamp light didn't quite reach the corners.

The Loop

She lay on the floor. Still. He sat against the wall on the edge of the frame, revolver raised to the side of his own head, arm trembling. The decision had already been made. The loop had already begun again.

The Court of Shame

At the head, on a throne of tangled wires and broken circuit boards: Mr. Void in a judge's robe spun from shadows and static. Before him in a semicircle: twelve versions of Gage, each a mirror of a different broken self. The televisions flickered to life. The word WORTHLESS writhed on every screen.

The Void Has Graduated

Frank sat at the kitchen table with the clean blade and the cloth and the afternoon light. The grotesques had arrived without the door. Rico stood in the corner watching. The box was gone. The membrane was gone. Tony Void had already left the building.

Now You See Me

The red light in the corner meant they were watching. Thousands of them, somewhere in the dark. He had built the stage. He had built the audience. He had built her. She turned to the camera and whispered: 'Now you see me.' The footage uploaded itself.

Rooftop Ceremony

The city below doesn't know what's being decided above it. Rex stands at the edge. The rain doesn't touch him anymore.

Underground Seattle

The adult cinema on the corner had been closed since 1987. The men outside it hadn't gotten the message. Rob stood in the rain and watched the network move — packages, cash, bodies, all of it flowing like water through cracks in the city nobody official ever looked at.

The Figure in White

Original painted artwork by Nolan Robert Stocklin. The Figure — not an angel, not a demon. Something that doesn't have a name yet.

Rex & The Figure in White

Original painted artwork by Nolan Robert Stocklin. A tattooed man with a pentagram burned into his forehead. The Figure reaches across the tear.

The Four

Original painted artwork by Nolan Robert Stocklin. Rex. The Figure. Pastor Todd. His mother. Four forces that shaped one man.

The Rooftop Ritual

Original painted artwork by Nolan Robert Stocklin. Seattle. Rain. A pentagram drawn in chalk and chicken blood. Gang members as witnesses.