The Razor
By J. Barton Mitchell
Genre: Science Fiction
Brilliant engineer Marcus Flynn has been sentenced to 11-H37 alongside the galaxy’s most dangerous criminals; a hard labor prison planet better known as the Razor, where life expectancy is short and all roads are dead ends.
At least until the Lost Prophet protocol goes active…
In a few hours, without warning, prison guards and staff are inexplicably evacuated, and the prisoners are all left to die.
To survive, Flynn will have to rely on the most unlikely of allies – killers, assassins, pirates and thieves – each running from (or maybe towards) their own demons.
A volatile ice pirate, struggling with the guilt of losing her entire crew on the inside, and the fear of having it happen all over again. A man who was once an elite prison Ranger, sentenced to the Razor for murdering his commanding officer, and whose sins have finally caught up with him. An infamous and dangerous mercenary, with the mysterious power to affect and feel through metal, who has come to the planet by choice to find the only person he ever cared about him. And a brilliant, mysterious, old woman named Gable, with terrifying abilities no human should possess, and who just may be the most dangerous inmate on the entire planet.
But to escape the Razor, they’ll have to unravel the dark mysteries beginning to awaken on the surface – mysteries that suggest the planet is much more than it seems. Only Flynn has the skills and knowledge to do so, but he can’t make it by himself.
If they can survive each other, they just might survive the Razor…and claim it for their own.
Thane’s arms curved around his back and he felt the younger vampire trembling as he rested his head on Taku’s shoulder. So easily broken, Taku often forgot what it had been like in the beginning. For him things had been different, he reminded himself. He had already known what it felt like to take a life.
Never Change is a short story that I originally wrote in December 2014. Set in the Demon’s Blood universe it can be read either as a stand-alone or as part of the Demon’s Blood story as a whole. It takes place in Nagasaki in winter 1889 which is Taku and Thane’s first winter together. As a newly turned vampire Thane is still struggling with aspects of his new life; mainly having to kill humans for their blood. He is also disturbed by Taku’s pragmatic approach to this. The entire story is written from Taku’s perspective, showing how he is torn between his desire to protect Thane from the harsh realities of their existence and his responsibility as Thane’s sire to teach him how to survive.
A Quiet Place
Shari Sakurai 