THE VIEWING

About this story

A rental viewing after hours, an agent who is too handsome to be true, and a small black kitten that will not leave them alone — THE VIEWING is the supernatural entry in the quickies shelf: a seduction that is also a hunt, set in a student town, with an ancient matriarch, a ward-mark on his ribs, and a prison called The Ruins waiting in the epilogue. It's filthy in the middle and gothic at the edges, and it plays fair with the reader: every clue is on the page, from the name he shouldn't know to the kitten who never gives up. It ends on a hook that begs a sequel — she wakes up changed, and he has ten years of penance and a vow to finish what he started. Two chapters, one flat, one familiar. The kitten was right. The kitten is always right, and nobody listens until it's too late.