Another short from my collection SALSA NOCTURNA, Protected Entity follow half-dead investigator Carlos Delacruz and his partner Riley Washington as they check into some mysterious killings in Harlem. This story first appeared in Crossed Genre Magazine's first series, issue 24 (November 2010). You can cop SALSA NOCTURNA here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KKDAI3K

A combination of a novel, a memoir and a travelogue, both fiction and non-fiction, a globe-trotting adventure full of sentiment, music, low budgets, trains, encounters and lifestyle, the author confronts his memories - and the miracles - on the page, and embarks on a new trip to celebrate Christmas in Japan in 2014. This is a flawed attempt at aligning the past from two years ago and the present: the musician, the dreamer and the writer, the philosopher, together in one place. Follow his adventures in Japan, and within the soul. Based 100% on true experiences. Keep an eye out for attached photo and video content From the author of featured acclaimed novel, "Espresso Love" and the pioneer of the English cell phone novel movement.

Those who bargain with butchers never return. Dalen lives in a land crisscrossed with interconnecting rivers, both above-ground and underground. When his sister goes missing, mere days before her intended marriage, Dalen’s family assumes that she drowned. But the truth is far stranger than that. Narea, the daughter of a neighboring family, claims she hears his sister’s voice emanating from a sinkhole in her room, and that she is alive. Dalen’s sister has bargained with butchers, a half-forgotten race that lives in the rivers’ depths. With the help of a magic onion, Dalen sets out to find her. But in order to do so, he must make his own bargains…

Imperial law enforcer Amaranthe Lokdon is good at her job: she can deter thieves and pacify thugs, if not with a blade, then by toppling an eight-foot pile of coffee canisters onto their heads. But when ravaged bodies show up on the waterfront, an arson covers up human sacrifices, and a powerful business coalition plots to kill the emperor, she feels a tad overwhelmed. Worse, Sicarius, the empire's most notorious assassin, is in town. He's tied in with the chaos somehow, but Amaranthe would be a fool to cross his path. Unfortunately, her superiors order her to hunt him down. Either they have an unprecedented belief in her skills... or someone wants her dead.