“Chupacabra hunting. Murder. Vacations aren’t supposed to turn out like this.”

Sands and Storms, it really has been that long! Ten years since Dead Silver arrived on the scene! A harrowing Urban Fantasy Mystery, Dead Silver was my first full-length book release (One Drink was a novella) and did quite well for itself at the time, though it’s long been overshadowed by books like Shadow of an Empire, Axtara – Banking and Finance, and of course, Colony.

Overshadowed though it may be now, at the time Dead Silver was a very important step for me, proof that One Drink wasn’t some one-off event, never to happen again. It was proof to the public and my few (at that time) readers that not only could what they’d found in One Drink be replicated, but improved upon and expanded. That this “Max Florschutz” guy wasn’t just a tiny flame that, like so many others, would appear once and then never be seen again.

Which to many of you now might not seem like much. But at the time? It was a really big step for me, and I was facing down internet trolls who’d decided they wanted nothing more than to see my name and my—at that point—lone book vanish from the internet forever. Dead Silver was a blow to those detractors, and its success, though small, the point where they began to cease and quest for easier prey.

That and the book holds a special place in my heart for other reasons too. Dead Silver marked a lot of firsts for me. The first time I’d cold called people for research, for example. I’ll never forget the bewilderment on the other end of the phone from that New Mexican sheriff I called, and I never even got his name, but I am grateful he spent a couple of minutes on the phone with me answering my questions about jurisdiction and authority between various law keeping agencies. Or the bemused nurse at a local hospital who provided me with nursing terms for various implements for the portions of the book where several characters spent time in the hospital.

Or that delightful hour I spent reading up on heavy mining equipment so that I could make sure the equipment shown in the mine was accurate to the real thing, an hour which for months afterwards confused my Google metrics (I think they’ve mostly just given up trying to make sense of my searches these days). Simply put, I’ll never forget Dead Silver, and it’s hard to believe it’s been ten years.

Many today haven’t read it, and sales-wise it’s fallen by the wayside. A humble shaman solving a missing persons mystery in New Mexico doesn’t have the same head-grabbing energy to it the way Colony does with its interstellar espionage and artificial alien worlds, or Shadow of an Empire with its incredible hard magic system and horseback shootouts, or Axtara – Banking and Finance with its whole premise. Dead Silver is a little more grounded.

A little. It does have ancient Aztec guardian skeletons animated by blood magic, after all. Oh, which as long as I’m reminiscing, did lead to one of my favorite early reader messages, letting me know that they’d finished Dead Silver in a two session blitz, and hadn’t felt safe going out after dark for three days.

So, you know, giving readers new fears and all that.

Joking aside, Dead Silver being ten is kind of incredible. I know it’s not had much spotlight in a long time, and some of you newer readers may not even have known it was a book I wrote as a result. But … since it is the tenth anniversary of its release, why not give as many as possible the chance?

So, this week, Dead Silver is 99 cents. Yeah, you read that right. A 451-page novel is ninety-nine cents. Which puts it’s price in 1994 dollars (something I’ve held as a solid price point in the past) at forty-seven cents. That’s right, if it were 1994, you could get Dead Silver for two quarters.

Now it’s four quarters. That’s inflation over the last thirty years for you.

Now, I can already hear some of you saying “Yeah, but it’s listed as a sequel, and I never read One Drink either, so …”

Well, you don’t have that excuse either. Because One Drink is free. Yeah, you read that right? Free. Zero dollars. Zero pennies. No tax. Just grab it and go. Just, you know, don’t forget Dead Silver while you’re at it, because that’s the whole reason you’re here.

So yeah, in celebration of the tenth anniversary of Dead Silver‘s release, grab it and its predecessor, my first two books, for a total of $0.99.

For more on Dead Silver, including a retrospective, some review quotes, and even the entire first chapter, hit the jump.

Happy tenth, Dead Silver. I’ll always remember you fondly.

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The History of Dead Silver: For a look at the crafting of Dead Silver, from what prompted me to write it in the first place and how the various elements came together, check out this once Patreon-Supporter Exclusive post from about six years ago. It goes into a lot more depth about how the mystery of Dead Silver took shape, and some early discussion of how influential it was on my writing career.

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Review Excerpts:

“… [Dead Silver] has a healthy number of twists in it. The twists don’t just come out of nowhere, though. The author does a great job of sprinkling clues about what’s really going on throughout the story. He doesn’t hold your hand enough to make the twists boring or predictable, but there are enough clues for you to let you feel clever when you occasionally guess right about what’s going to happen next.”

“I knew ahead of time that this story would be better than One Drink, but at the time I didn’t know just how much better.”

“… a real gem of a contemporary fantasy/mystery story. The book boasts a colorful mix of detective story, adventure, horror, and magic.”

“An excellent supernatural mystery written with a very similar style to Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files.”

“I would not recommend it as good bedtime reading for anyone who could get spooked easily at night.”

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Chapter Preview

I’m not an adventurer, I reminded myself as another sun-faded mileage marker flew by my Land Rover. The air-conditioning was set at max, burning through extra fuel with every passing mile as my old car struggled to overcome the baking heat from both the overhead sun and the cracked pavement beneath it. But even at full power, I still felt a little less comfortable than I normally would have, not warm enough to sweat, but too warm to be completely at ease. I’m not an adventurer.

I had to remind myself of that fact because at the moment, my life was starting to feel like an adventure. I was further from home than I’d ever been, driving through the deserts of the American Southwest on my way to some small city in the middle of southern New Mexico, all so I could help a friend of mine solve an animal control problem. I was tired, hungry, and I knew I smelled after having been crammed in my vehicle for the last few days, but I could deal with it. It was no worse than camping in the New England woods after all. Except that the smell was a bit different.

But I wasn’t in my house in New England or even in my backyard tending to my garden, using my innate talents to coax the plants to make bigger and better produce. No, I was sitting in a Land Rover heading down the longest, straightest road I’d ever driven with the hot sun beating down around me. No wonder I felt like some sort of adventurer. For me, this was uncharted territory.

And the life. I could feel it all around me: a fainter presence than at home, but there nonetheless. Some of it was so different it was almost alien, nothing like the creatures and plants I was used to interacting with. It was sparse, more spread out, but at the same time vibrant and active, as if the plants and animals were trying to match their stone surroundings in color and durability. There was life out there unlike anything I’d ever touched before. In fact, if what Rocke had told me over the phone turned out to be correct, there was life out there that no one had ever touched.

Which was why I was heading down a nearly featureless highway in the August heat in my battered old Land Rover, staff at my side, and looking for a small city called Silver Dreams. According to the story Rocke had told me, the place was aptly named. A couple of families who’d thought for certain that they’d found a silver vein that was going to make them all rich had settled it back in the 1800s, and they’d originally called it the somewhat overdone “Silver Springs.” Instead, the vein had proven to be almost as empty as the settlers were hopeful, but they’d stuck with it and found just enough silver to bring around three-thousand people or so to the town. But the name “Silver Springs” had quickly faded into “Silver Dreams,” once most of the townspeople realized that their dreams of hitting it big were just that: dreams. There was still just enough silver at the mine to keep the town from truly drying up, so the place had persisted, despite being in the middle of nowhere.

Maybe “middle of nowhere” is being generous, I thought as I passed another mile marker. I could see a faint line ahead of me on the horizon, a distant spot that was growing with each passing moment into what was probably the start of the valley I’d found earlier on the map. At least I hoped it was the start of the valley. I’d already been stuck in my car for the last two days, and I was past ready to get out and stretch my legs a little. Once again, I found myself wishing that I could have flown, but that hadn’t been an option for me since the last time I’d tried. The staff I’d owned at the time, I’d discovered, was considered a “possible weapon” by some overzealous TSA agents, and rather than let me depart the airport in peace, they’d decided to snap my staff in two to avoid “any possible dangers.” While the aftereffects hadn’t been any worse for me than a nasty stomach flu, I’d taken the warning to heart. As soon as I’d gotten my hands on another staff, I’d sworn to never take another airline flight as long as I lived.

 I shifted in my seat as my Rover continued onward, dutifully pushing towards the horizon. A quick glance at my watch showed that I’d been on the road for almost seven hours since that morning. Unless I’d missed a turn somewhere along the way—which was highly unlikely, as there had only been a few real options since I’d started—I’d be reaching Silver Dreams in another hour. I let out a sigh as I turned to look out the window. It couldn’t come soon enough. A chance to stretch my legs, walk around for a bit, and see what nature had to offer while I was somewhere completely new.

It was all a little exciting, and I had to remind myself once more that I wasn’t on some sort of adventure. What I was walking into was serious, and I’d need to treat it as such. Well … sort of serious.

The trip hadn’t started out that way. A few days earlier, I’d been sitting on my porch, feet propped up on the railing and a new paperback clutched in my large hands, when my phone had started ringing. As usual, I let it ring once or twice before reaching for it, a trick I’d learned early on that made me seem busier than I usually was.

“Hawke’s Humane Pest Control Services,” I said as I picked up the phone. “An Unusual solution to the usual problems.”

“Ha!” a familiar voice on the other end of the line said. “Nice catchphrase. You come up with that yourself?” For a moment I was stunned by surprise, but then my mouth caught up with my amazement.

“Jacob Rocke?” I asked, dropping my feet from the porch and leaning forward. “Is that you?”

“You’d better believe it, Hawke,” Rocke said. There was no mistaking the no-nonsense tone to his voice, or the dry, sarcastic hint of insolence that seemed to exude from the phone. It was him all right.

I’d run into Jacob Rocke twice before: once tracking down a missing child in the woods, and once when he’d come to me looking for information to help him track down a ghostly wolf. The first had been a simple enough excursion. Each of us had been hired by one of the missing girl’s separated parents and had run into each other in the woods. We’d pooled our talents, and between our varied skill sets, had managed to track the girl down as well as figure out why she’d disappeared in the first place.

The second time we’d met had been nearly two years later, and the situation then hadn’t been nearly as simple as our first meeting. Rocke was a “spook,” a slang title given to private investigators or officials who worked under license for the government agency that monitored Unusuals in the United States. He was one of the few people I’d met who’d actually lived up to the interpretation of that name: gone the moment you looked away, already on to his next job. It wasn’t that he was anti-social, exactly. He’d been friendly enough during the brief time we’d worked together, but he was focused on his work before all else. I’d even given him some flack over it when he’d shown up looking for my help with the ghost wolf.

Then again, after getting caught up in his case and seeing exactly what sort of stuff he dealt with on a regular basis, I’d come to understood his focus on his work. There was no telling what kind of damage the necromancer we’d tracked down might have done if Rocke hadn’t gotten involved, but she likely would have killed several more people at the very least. Rocke’s view of the world wasn’t one I wanted to have, but I could respect it.

“So,” I said as soon as I’d recovered somewhat. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this call? Work? Or are you calling just to catch up?”

“What? Can’t it be both?” Rocke asked from the other end of the line.

“I don’t know,” I said, chuckling. “Can it?”

“Heh,” Rocke said. “Feel like eating your words? Because in this, it is both. How’s the weather up there? Nice?”

“I wouldn’t complain,” I said, eyeing the clear blue sky from under the edge of my porch’s overhang. “It’s a little humid, but that’s about it.”

“Feel like trying somewhere dry?”

“Maybe,” I said, a bit of hesitation coming into my voice. “This isn’t going to end with me taking on some sort of necrotic horror hand-to-hand again, is it?”

“Oh, come on,” Rocke said, stressing his voice so strongly I could almost hear his eyes roll. “You had an axe. I’d hardly call that ‘hand-to-hand.’ And no, this job wouldn’t.”

“So it is a job,” I said, putting a little satisfaction into my voice, although feeling a little disappointed—as well as a little irate—at the same time.

“And something you’ll find interesting,” Rocke said. “I promise you, it’s not like the last job.”

“All right, so what is it, then?” I asked, putting my feet back up on the railing and opening my paperback up. I wasn’t exactly feeling appreciated so far, but I wasn’t about to hang up on him, either. I figured I could read my book, hear him out, and then politely decline.

“Well, I’m in New Mexico—” he started.

“New Mexico?” I asked. “Desert, hot, New Mexico?”

“Yeah,” he said. “This little place called Silver Dreams—”

“Uh-huh,” I said, only half-listening as I flipped past a title page.

“—and they’ve got an interesting wildlife problem down here.” I nodded reflexively as I rifled through the paperback’s pages for my spot, the cheap paper making a faint rasp against the thick calluses on my hand.

“A lot of the people down here have farm animals, mostly as a hobby,” Rocke continued, oblivious to the fact that I was splitting my attention. “And they called me up because some of them have been turning up dead.”

“Dead. Sounds like your kind of case,” I said as I searched for my place.

“Not quite,” he said, and I could just hear a faint smugness in his voice. “In fact, this one’s more up your alley.”

“Oh? And why’s that?” I asked.

“Because I only know of one thing that hunts down farm animals and sucks their blood dry,” Rocke said.

I snapped my eyes away from my book, every bit of my attention focused on his words.

“And I’m betting,” he continued, “that you’d be very interested in helping me catch a legendary chupacabra.”

I tossed my book to one side, not even caring that it missed the small end table next to me and instead went skidding across the bare wood of the porch. Rocke was right. I was eating my words, along with my disinterest and any unkind thoughts I’d had about him in the last minute or so. And I was perfectly content to chew and swallow if he was telling me the truth.

“You’re sure?” I asked, leaning forward in my seat. “A chupacabra? A legitimate chupacabra?”

“No joke,” Rocke said, his voice as light as I’d ever heard it. “You know that there’s still that fifty-thousand dollar reward for anyone who can catch one, right?”

I knew it. I’d been the one who’d told him about it, back when we’d first met. It had been on the news at the time. A fifty thousand dollar reward to be the first one to catch a live chupacabra so it could be studied? A rash of people had rushed to the Southwest hoping to catch the world’s first live specimen. But no one ever caught anything, and public interest had moved on to the next big thing.

But the prize was still out there.

“Let me make sure I’m hearing this right, alright?” I said, clearing my head of momentary flights of fancy. “You’ve got the first chupacabra case in years, and you want me to come help you catch it?”

“Got it in one,” Rocke said. “I figure I owe you for that mess with Dorati, even if I was paying you for it. You’re always telling me to take a break from work, and I can’t get much more of a break than trying to catch a chupacabra the middle of a desert.”

“Except that you’re getting paid to do it,” I pointed out.

“So?” Rocke said. “It’s still a vacation compared to anything else. But when I realized what I was looking at, I figured I’d give you a ring, see if you felt like pitching in. You did make a pretty solid case for why you’d have a better shot at finding it than anyone else.” Apparently my enthusiasm for the case had left more of an impression than I’d thought.

“You’re sure it’s a chupacabra?” I asked, the memory of his last “simple job” coming to mind. “No vampires?”

Rocke let out a laugh. “Are you kidding, Hawke? In New Mexico? Give me some credit. It’s killed a dog and a goat so far, and I even got a picture of it.”

That clinched it for me. I took a quick look around the front porch. I could afford to take a week or so off, couldn’t I? It wasn’t like I had any big jobs lined up, and as long as I left a stern warning with the local wildlife before I left, they’d probably keep out of my garden.

Even if the chupacabra turned out to be a less substantial event than Rocke hoped—not that I didn’t trust his word, but we would hardly be the first to try and catch one—a vacation wouldn’t be a bad idea. My job was hardly stressful, but I hadn’t left New England since I’d returned from college. Why not spend some of the extra cash I had laying around and take a drive across the US?

“So, are you in?” Rocke’s voice pulled me away from my thoughts. I’d forgotten how to-the-point he was.

“Yeah,” I said, leaning back in my seat, already planning what I’d need to do before I left. “I can leave by tomorrow morning. It’ll take me two or three days to get there, but I can do it.”

“Excellent,” Rocke said. “I’ll see you then.”

Despite the relatively little amount of preparation that I actually had to perform, I had stayed true to my initial impressions and left early the next morning, coaxing my Land Rover out onto the freeway and heading west with the rising sun at my back. I’d left some memorable warnings with the local wildlife and gotten some amused responses in return. Something told me I’d probably be missing some corn, at the very least, when I returned.

And now, two days later, it appeared that I hadn’t gotten lost on my journey after all. The hazy break I’d seen on the horizon was opening up into a massive valley nestled between several mesas. I slowed my Land Rover as the road began to turn and dip, beginning its long, snakelike descent down into the center of the valley, where a brown, sprawling smudge of loosely connected buildings marked what I hoped was Silver Dreams.

*             *             *

It wasn’t hard to find the motel that Rocke was staying at. Although I’d called and gotten the name from him the day before, he’d warned me that I wouldn’t have to look hard to find it. As soon as I saw the place, I understood that he hadn’t been joking.

The Last Chance looked about as cliché as its name sounded. It was a long, low, squat building that looked like it had been built in the fifties, from the angled roof overhang shading the windows to the half-buried tires used as parking barriers. It was also—if its proud billboard was to be believed—the only motel for fifty miles. True or not, the attitude might have had something to do with the generally less-than-appealing state of the place. As I pulled into the parking lot, gravel crunching beneath the Rover’s tires, I ran my eyes over the building proper, taking in the faded, patchwork paint peeling away from the walls, the weeds growing in the parking lot, and the dusty, dirty build-up on the windows.

Still, Rocke’s battered Subaru sat in the lot. This was the place I’d been looking for, however questionable it appeared. I brought my Rover to a stop and climbed out, letting loose a sigh of relief as blood rushed into my legs. After so many hours sitting in the car, even standing was an act of bliss. And even though I felt like I’d stepped into an oven, I considered leaving my air-conditioned Rover more than a welcome trade-off for the ability to stretch my six-foot–seven-inch frame.

I spent a moment stretching my arms and legs while walking back and forth across the gravel lot, mostly just to relish the feeling of being free once again. But after a minute or two I could already feel myself starting to sweat under the scorching heat, and I decided to go ahead and check in. I debated locking my Rover, but a quick look at the hundreds of feet of open desert in all directions overruled my more habitual inclinations.

The motel lobby was almost its own structure, connected to the lower portion of the motel, but without any sign that it there was a means to travel from portion to the other without heading outside. I climbed up the wooden steps to the front door, running my hand along the rough wooden railing and feeling the cracks in the sun-baked wood. The wood creaked under my weight, and I briefly wondered if I was going to be the lucky customer who ended up putting his foot through a step.

Despite the questionable noises it made, the porch held, and I smiled as I pulled the door open. A blast of cool air rushed over me, so chilled that I almost shivered. I stepped into the lobby, my eyes slowly adjusting to the relative dimness of the interior after the harsh, bright sunlight of the outside world. Maybe they were saving on lighting, to afford the air conditioning that kept the place so cool.

Once my eyes had adjusted to the low light I saw that the inside of the motel, in sharp contrast to the outside, was actually pretty nice, if a little small. A bored-looking young man in his twenties sat behind the counter, his attention fixated on a laptop that wasn’t entirely visible from my angle, a large pair of headphones covering his ears. The other half of the room was occupied by the usual motel decor: two large chairs and a coffee table covered in old magazines. I’d always suspected that most places that had magazines sitting on a table in their waiting areas had collected their reading material by checking around at old libraries to see what was being thrown out, and The Last Chance’s meager collection didn’t do much to dispute that idea.

Still, I wasn’t there to read old magazines, although I’d probably find some time to at least browse their covers later. I took a few steps up to the counter. The kid’s eyes darted up towards me and widened slightly in surprise, and he leaned forward, fingers tapping away at his keyboard. Whatever show he was watching stopped, and I caught a brief glimpse of a peppermint candy in what looked like a suit on the screen before he snapped the lid shut.

“Hi,” the kid said, pulling his headphones away from a shock of blond hair. “Welcome to the Last Chance. You looking for a room?”

“Yeah,” I said, reaching into my back pocket and pulling out my wallet. “How much are they a night?”

“Sixty-seven dollars each, if you’re only staying for a night or two,” the kid said, reaching underneath his counter and pulling out a stack of paper atop a clipboard. “If you stay for three days, you’ll get a five dollar discount, and another two dollar discount past five days.”

“So sixty bucks a day then?” I said, flipping my wallet open and checking my meager cash supply. Hopefully there was an ATM in town somewhere. The trip out had taken a bit more cash than I’d expected, mostly for gas.

“As long as you’re staying for more than five days,” the kid said, nodding. I nodded and pulled two fifties and a twenty out of my wallet. Might as well start by paying for more than the first day.

“As long as I’m over five days, sixty bucks a day, or do I have to stay for another five days?” I asked, holding the bills between my thumb and forefinger. Might as well clarify before I locked myself into a deal.

“As long as it’s over five days, sixty dollars a day,” the kid said with a nod. He flipped the clipboard around and snapped a pen down on it, the sharp clack cutting through the faint hum of the distant air-conditioning. “But you need to pay in advance for that rate.”

Ouch, I thought, the hand holding my wallet pausing on its way back to my pocket. Then I shrugged. “Can I give you one-twenty now and the other one-eighty later today? I need to hit an ATM.”

“Sure,” the kid said. “There’s one downtown outside the bank.”

“What bank?” I asked as I set the money down and grabbed the pen. I glanced over the paperwork I was signing, but it was pretty straightforward. Just the standard agreement to pay for damages the room incurred before you left, the usual stuff. I scrawled my signature on the dotted line and slid the clipboard back towards the kid, making sure to put my cash on top before I did.

“Ingrim’s,” the kid said as he glanced down at the papers I’d signed. “At least, it used to be. It got bought out by Wells Fargo a few years back, but everybody still calls them that.” He picked up the pen, made a note, and then noticed my name. “Hawke Decroux?”

I nodded. “Yeah, my buddy should have mentioned I was coming. Jacob Rocke?”

“The guy in room one?” the kid asked, giving me a curious look. “No, he hasn’t said anything.”

“That’s odd,” I said, frowning. “I talked to him yesterday afternoon and he said he’d let you know I was coming.”

“Well, I haven’t seen him,” the kid said. “Maybe he forgot?” He spun around in his chair, cash in hand. Then he stopped. “Hey,” he said, looking up at me with a curious expression on his face. “Are you a spook too?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m not.” I was telling the truth, technically. Spooks were licensed investigators of the unusual, and I wasn’t that.

“Oh, just a buddy then?” the kid said. I could hear the disappointment in his voice.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Me?” he said. “Larry. Larry Bards.”

“Nice to meet you, Larry,” I said, extending my hand. He looked at it for a moment before extending his own. I wrapped my hand around his, taking care not to squeeze too hard as I gave it a good shake that traveled up the kid’s shoulder.

“Nice to meet you too,” Larry said, wincing as I let go of his hand. Apparently I’d once again given it a little too much shake. “And uh, here’re your keys. You’re in room number two.”

“Thanks,” I said, catching the keys as he tossed them to me. The keychain attached to was a copy of the billboard outside, proudly proclaiming the motel’s name through thick, clear, and heavily-scratched plastic. “Oh, and Larry,” I said as I half-turned towards the door.

“Yeah?” he asked, pausing with his headphones halfway back on his head.

“Not all Unusuals are spooks,” I said, giving him a grin before turning and pushing the door open. I waited until I heard his stunned outburst before letting out a laugh, half-wondering if he would follow me out the door with a collection of questions.

But he didn’t, apparently deciding that he’d either get a chance to talk to me later or that he wasn’t that interested. Or maybe he was one of those people who was scared of Unusuals like myself. He hadn’t sounded that alarmed about Rocke, though, so that probably wasn’t it.

I was squinting pretty badly by the time I made it back to my car, my eyes taking much longer to readjust to the sunlight than they had getting away from it. Fortunately, I’d planned ahead and packed a pair of heavy-duty sunglasses along for the trip, so once I reached my Rover I gave my eyes a much needed break. Once they stopped watering, I grabbed my duffel from the backseat and—this time locking my Rover—headed for my room.

As I approached the abnormally squat building, I realized why it had looked so odd to me earlier. Part of it was underground; a good third of it, in fact. I walked down the concrete steps leading to my room, giving the building a much closer look now that I was actually planning on entering it. My earlier appraisal of the exterior’s condition hadn’t been far off, though after checking in at the lobby, I had somewhat higher hopes than I’d initially held. Still, the outside of the building was pretty shabby. Bare concrete stared out at me in patchy clusters, and cobwebs pressed up against the outside of the glass. The window shades for my room were down, so I couldn’t get a good look at the inside, either.

I slid the key into the lock, and to my surprise, it turned easily. I stepped into my room, my fingers automatically groping for a light switch on the wall, and a moment later, light flooded my temporary home. Thankfully, like the lobby, it was in much better shape than the outside would have indicated. A large king-sized bed sat against one wall opposite an old—but large—television atop an Ikea dresser, and there was a decent amount of floor space between the two. A floor lamp stood by the head of the bed, casting just enough light towards the far side of the room that I could easily make out the door to the bathroom as well as an air conditioner humming merrily away on some sort of automatic system.

I tossed my duffel on the bed and headed for the bathroom, pausing at the doorframe just long enough to make a cursory check for any signs of animal life in my room. I couldn’t pick up anything out of the ordinary; although there was a family of mice close nearby, they didn’t seem to be interested in my room. Not at the moment, at least.

A few minutes later, refreshed and feeling far more alive than I had been so far on my trip—Not adventure, I reminded myself—I took a seat on the side of the bed and pulled out my cell, checking to see if I’d missed any messages from Rocke. Nothing. Not even a text. And I did have service, though it wasn’t exactly fast service. Nonetheless, service was service, and I didn’t have any messages waiting for me. He hadn’t met me outside either, and I’d halfway expected him to. Especially since his car was parked in the lot. Silver Dreams hadn’t looked that large coming in, but as I’d gotten closer, it’d become apparent that the town was pretty spread out. Short of a bicycle, the best way to get from one end to the other in any short amount of time would be driving.

“Well,” I said, slapping my hands down on my thighs as I rose, “maybe he’s next door.” It was possible he’d fallen asleep or gotten caught up in something. Or heck, maybe he was just waiting next door, doing equipment maintenance or working on something. I couldn’t hear anything, but for all I knew that just meant that the walls were thick.

I figured it wouldn’t hurt to check before I got any more settled into my room, so after a moment’s search for my sunglasses, I left the room, walked next door to room one, and gave the door a nice, even knock.

Nothing. I knocked again. Still nothing.

Odd. Maybe he was out walking somewhere. But it didn’t quite fit. I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed Rocke’s number, waited for a moment as the call connected, then held it up to my ear. It only took a moment for the familiar buzz to start on the other end of the line.

Moments later, I heard an answering ring from the parking lot. I stopped for a moment, my head coming up, and then the ring came again, right in time with the dull buzz coming from my own phone. Unless I had a second phone in my Rover, there was only one place the call could be coming from.

I climbed up over the concrete barrier that held back the parking lot, ignoring the scrape of gravel against my hands. Another ring, and Rocke’s phone went to voicemail. I hung up and redialed his number as I moved towards his car. Once again the buzz started, mixed with the answering ring from his car. I cupped a hand against the hot glass of the side window, shading the glare somewhat so I could get a better look inside. There, sitting on the passenger seat with its battery indicator flashing a dull red in time with the ringing, was Rocke’s phone.

So where was he? I hung up and slid my phone back into my pocket, frowning. I couldn’t claim to be an expert on Rocke’s habits, but everything I knew about him and his almost ridiculous penchant for extreme preparedness said that he wouldn’t have left his phone sitting in his car if he’d known it was missing. It just wasn’t his style.

I pushed back up against the glass, checking to see if there was anything else sitting in the car, and felt the door give in with a slight click. I pulled back in surprise. Sure enough, the door hadn’t been fully shut. In fact, as I reached out and tested the handle—snatching my hand back as the hot metal burned against my skin—I realized that it wasn’t even locked. There was a worrying feeling in my gut now, and I fought the impulse to open the door and see for myself if anything was wrong. I was a shaman, not a private investigator or a police detective.

Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, especially since Larry had mentioned he hadn’t seen Rocke in a while. I turned and looked back at Rocke’s, and then over at the lobby. Maybe it was time to take a look in room one.

But first, I was going to get my staff.

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For those of you who’ve read Dead Silver, I hope you enjoyed this look back! And for those of you who’ve just found it, well, grab it while it’s cheap! If you’ve found this later and missed out, well … Sorry, but it’s still something like four bucks when it’s not on sale. Pretty good for the content you get.

Man, in two more years I’ll have to do one of these for Colony. That’s gonna be weird.

Eh, maybe it’ll have a game adaptation by then.

Thank you for enjoying this trip down memory lane! I’ll see you guys Friday with the news!