Priest. Professor. Musician. Vampire. Long a prisoner of the Church, John Hance is damned to eternal life drinking the blood of Christ instead of the blood of humans. An enigmatic girl becomes his student at the obscure college where he's taught for nearly seven years. She knows too much about him. Is she insane or ingenuous? Or is she a divine emissary sent to remind him that, sometimes, justice is something else? Whenever a frightened young singer opener her mouth to him for the first time, Hance remembered Mary Guaire. She had made the same noises when Marsden tightened the bejeweled garrote around her throat, turning the Queen of the Night's aria into a mess of bubbling squeals as the sparkling chain severed the route between breath and life. The lamentable business had occurred long ago, when people played fortepianos and electricity was an experiment with lightning. But every time Hance had cause to envision Mary Guaire, he could never entirely dispel the impulse to
Welcome to the workshop! No hype. No glitz. No trying to impress. Just stuff. And word-flinging. Lots of word-flinging. Beware of falling excerpts.