Excerpt: Holy Rollers: Immortals

In the shadows of a dark doorway, a skeletal hand clicked the button which started the clock on a plastic stopwatch. The stopwatch had cost one dollar and seven cents, with sales tax, at a nearby bargain store. Although Death loved the elegance and drama of an antique hourglass quietly counting down the time until her target’s final moment with the hiss of rushing sand, a cheap stopwatch kept more accurate time and was much better at surviving the rigors of the job. Orchestrating an appropriate death, after all, was hardly a sedate pastime, and a stopwatch does not shatter when dropped, leaving an awful mess of sand and glass. Plus, cheap plastic stopwatches are much easier to come by than ornate hourglasses in this day and age.

At the current moment, Death’s target was walking ever closer to the crosswalk and his imminent demise. Four blocks away, a small red car full of drunken teenagers was speeding toward the same intersection, eager to reach the Taco Bell before the drive through closed for the night. Death ticked off an item on her clipboard. The soon to be dead man stopped at the edge of the crosswalk, as the light had just changed. He knelt down and retied his shoes. Death made another check mark on her plan. So far, everything was right on schedule.