Last week I returned to my weekly podcast, Heat Flash Erotica, after a few months off. For the last three years, I wrote and podcasted a new short story every week. It was great fun, but by the end of the third season, I was exhausted and burnt out on short stories so I took some time off to work up a new project. The result is a novel called “The Little Death,” a story about telepaths, conspiracies and murder. The main character, Agent Robin Helki, is an esper working for the Fifth Precinct police department in the city-state of New York. She’s been called in to gather psychic evidence at the scene of a violent death, but what she finds only leads to a bigger mystery.
I’m still writing the story, but at 54000 words, I thought I had enough to start podcasting an episode a week. Episode 01 of “The Little Death” went online last Friday. You can find it here, and either download it to play on your MP3 player or listen to it on your computer. Episode 02 has been recorded and will be available next Friday. Until then, here’s an excerpt from the upcoming episode.
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Excerpt from “The Little Death,” episode 02 – Dr. Hurston Jones
The elevator glides to a halt. I step out into an empty corridor. Room seven is the fourth door on the left, the only door up here with a light shining out underneath the crack. I knock twice and prepare to wait. How long I’m left standing there in the corridor ought to tell me just how deep in trouble I am, so I’m surprised when the door swings open almost immediately. The man who holds it open gives me the false smile of a predator sizing up its afternoon meal.
“Agent Helki,” he says. “Please come in.”
I know this man. I follow him into the room, racking my brains to think of where I’ve seen him before. He wears a dark grey suit, dark enough to make him blend in with the shadows in the dimly lit room. He’s balding, but with his hair cropped close rather than combed over in a futile attempt to hide his gleaming scalp. A pair of oval spectacles perches on the bridge of his nose, and he would almost look bookish if it weren’t for the way he moves. Every motion is precise and graceful like a cat. Underneath the suit I get a sense of a body honed to razor’s edge. As he settles behind the massive wooden desk that dominates the room, the glow of the desk lamp catches on his spectacles. For an instant, the lenses are transformed into a pair of luminous orbs. I’m reminded of my dream in the van and I shiver.
“Have a seat,” he says mildly. He gestures to the only other chair in the room. I settle on the edge of the seat. It’s narrow and stiff-backed and saturated with the memories of its previous occupants, everyone of them as scared and uncertain as I am now. I shouldn’t be picking up on their feelings, not when I’m wrapped up in my coat and gloves, but I’m so damned raw after reading a dead woman’s final thoughts, and this chair is awash in fear. I’ll bet the man on the other side of the desk knows it too. I can tell by the way he’s smiling at me.
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And that’s it for this week! The full episode will be available in MP3 format at http://www.heatflash.libsyn.com this Friday. Stop by then and give a listen.
