The doors were locked at Cebo’s Tapas Bar & Restaurant. I tried not to be annoyed. It was typical for Marcos to be late to a meeting he scheduled. One took it in stride. A price of doing business with a colorful character. I’d never begrudge Marcos the opportunity to make a grand entrance. But I wasn’t happy about standing outside of a closed business, banging on its security gate, when everyone in the area knew it was closed. It didn’t look good. I didn’t like being remembered. I knocked …

“Another hot dog?” Tommy asked me.
I shook my head at the old man. I’d had three of the damned things already. Each one had been like a log. Tommy loved them, but they were wasted on me. I was more convinced than ever that professional chefs shouldn’t make hot dogs. They turned out beautifully, but I never knew whether to eat one or have my picture taken with it. I rubbed the angry, sore wound on my chest and wondered if I really wanted to add on layers of heartburn.
Tommy …

There was nothing that morning that told me my life was about to change. Well, unless the sharp stench of sweat was a portent of things to come. I was late for a baseball game and in a bad mood because of it. It was early. I stood before a group of clueless recruits, glaring at them. If their flesh had been served to me for appetizers I would have found the dish lacking. I’d been pulled for a random orientation class and forced to address the roomful of derelicts …

Sample Chapters
( 01 | 02 | 03 )
The character of Crewe has been with me for a long time, but I’ve only recently started to write with him to any extent. For the most part, he’s a response to the god-awful vampire Rock star drivel of Ann Rice and the sub-culture that rose up around it, not to mention Stephenie Meyer’s horrifically bad Twilight series.
I suppose you could say that I like my vampires to be something more than a bunch of fluff and discontent. Give me …

I laid my trust with a brother
but he smiled and laid me low.
I hid my pain from a mother
She wailed that I treated her so.
I knelt before a lover
who lamented my selfish ways
So I knelt before my maker
that he might end my days.
Words are trouble. Life is pain.
If all go well, it reverses again.
When hearts are heavy you speak no more
they watch and wait and listen for
Those weak willed indescretions
that lead the gods to contend
You’re a waste of time and oxygen,
a wraith that simply pretends
that you’re a human being,
of flesh …