Excerpt: Wendigo (working title)

There are many who seek sanctuary, and for many, many different reasons.

There is a girl whose marriage at thirteen was forcibly consummated by her husband. She fled the city in shame. First, her husband sent family members to beg her to return. She refused. Then he sent soldiers to carry her back. With her considerable dowry, she paid mercenaries to kill them. Finally, he sent assassins.

There is a death dealer, an assassin, who had been raised with blood and the edge of knives. He was baptized by the blood of an earl. He killed his first man when he was ten and his first woman at twelve. Under the tutelage of his guild, he learned methods of torture and the dance of death. When he turned thirty five and wanted to retire, his guild turned on him. He escaped with a price on his head, literally.

There is a firebreather, who in a fit of madness set fire to his home and killed his wife and two children. Spiraling further into insanity and grief, he wandered lost and bereft through the countryside.

There are addicts. There are orphans, many of them. There are prostitutes.

And on a greying, humid day, there is a demon.