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WINNER of Best Horror: Occult novel in the 2019 AMERICAN FICTION AWARDS. HONORABLE MENTION in the 2018 SPR BOOK AWARDS The lurking shadows feasted on the weak, infecting those who cared little to resist. Their possession drove them to madness, spewing the vitriol of the King. Iconography, scripture, prayer, these proved helpful, driving the demons back with that which they sought to deflect. There were those, though, who sought to raise the clawed hands of evil, to benefit their own pleasures, to steal power, to ensure everlasting life. Unrelated victims, their numbers erratic, were left empty for others to find. A warning at first. Letters followed; instructions, ingredients. Soon, a trumpet call for the hidden to feast on the carrion, to rise to the mountains and perform the sacred ceremony. In the bowels, past the Gates, they would enter the sanctuary of the rotten mutt, sacrifice the Mistresses, and call upon a dark presence. The feathered wings of their past had unfurled slowly; three children, running from responsibility, finding solace in justice and servitude, drowning in the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. They too were called, the memories rotten but the sensation still fresh. Back to where it began, now; a truth they wished to ignore. Forced to descend into their own sins, they discovered the truth of their origin, a single moment shaping their whole lives, leading them all back into the familiar embrace of the Devil.

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