The Grey Dawn Caper

It lay there on the bed, a note carved in blood. I didn't need to read it, I knew what it said. Instead I walked purposefully to the bedroom curtain, tore it open, and there she was, two floors below me. Flash of cherry blossom lipstick, smeared across her cheek, her hand pressed against the rear windscreen of the black car, palm towards me, the life lines indistinguishable. Then the engine was gunned, and the car tore away, the tailpipe spewing exhaust which merged with the gray morning fog. She was gone and that was that. I let the curtain fall back down, smothering the outline of my own palm left on the cold hard window pane.

The Finest of Species

She was the finest of species. A magnificent find. Too rare even for a zoo. I kept her in the front room. I admitted no guests, such were the precautions. Food was optimum, the finest caviar, the purest of oils and sweet meats. A delicate combination of yoghurt and medicinal herbs. I cried for an entire day when the mutation took hold. Her disposition changed, became frightful. The last night I awoke just after midnight. She had gnawed through the wall of the bed chamber. Her bite, a pure anaesthetic, meant I came to consciousness when it was already too late - she had entered through my trachea and moved swiftly until wholly feasting on the jugular. As I faded I dreamt of angels and dead branches in snow.

Two No Trumps

The tea tasted acrid. Mr Jengles smiled, 'Do take another sip. Really draw it down.'
'You've poisoned it,' I replied.
'But of course,' said Jengles. 'It's time you were removed.'
He was right. I gulped it down, my Adam's Apple bobbing. I smiled back at him, my teeth stained with blood.
'I think I want to kiss you,' I told him. Mr Jengles looked alarmed, his manacles quivered.
'But... the poison...'
'Exactly. My disappearance is a trump, it takes one equal with it.'
'And that equal is...'
'Exactly.' His eyes were clenched tight as I spat the stagnant blood in his face. He died a minute later. I'd swapped his antidote for spider venom the evening before as he played Bridge on the upper deck.

The Italian Fruit Addler

The phone rang. El Chico, my Mexican contact. He had news. There'd been a fly-over the night before, two of the boys had been pinched, and the third was halfway across the border by now, heading to a hook-up with his family. They'd left a semi-circle of lemons around the body. Lemons without skins, perfectly peeled, freshly preserved. It had the locals spooked.