Excerpt: Albatross

When one wants to do something disastrous the best time is right around midnight. For two reasons: one, everyone is either asleep or inside and two, it’s the most classic time to be doing anything dastardly. So naturally when Mrs. Beatrice Dare escaped out of her house with her two young daughters this was the time she did it. She ran to the corner, quickly looked around; double checking for curious eyes, held tight to her daughters’ hands and they disappeared.

While this was very odd, it was not the weirdest thing that happened that night on Duruy Lane. Not even minutes later a boy of no more then fourteen years old appeared on the other side of the street a sword in his right hand and a locket in his left. He walked to the dead center of the street and looked up at the sky.

“I’m here . . . Bring it on!” He whispered stuffing the locket into his pocket and bracing himself as eight white masked - men appeared in a circle around him.