Cover art for the anthology “Fantastic Schools Familiars”

First of all, I got cover credit, so I’m really happy. My short story “Dead Cat Fever” will be featured in the Wisecraft Publishing anthology “Fantastic Schools Familiars.” This is part of a much larger series in which I’m only sparingly represented. I promise you that my protagonist Daphne and her familiar Skinner aren’t nearly as cute and appealing that the pair on the cover, but they’ve been through a lot.

“Who’s there?” Daphne looked at the front door but turned away again so she wouldn’t have to look at Oren and Fatima’s corpses. Besides, even if she had to run, she didn’t want to step on them or in all that blood. She’d have to go back through the kitchen. But then she’d have to look at Hanna.

“Daphne?” The little voice sounded hopeful.

“Who are you?” She took a step back toward the hallway.

“Help me, Daphne. Hurry.”

Whoever it was knew her, but it could still be the killer. She was breathing too fast. Her mouth tasted terrible. It felt like a million degrees in the house.

“Daphne, they’ll come back once they realize you weren’t here. We’ve got to run.” The voice was starting to sound stronger.

She hadn’t realized she was walking forward until her fingers touched the bedroom door. Old blue paint flaked off as she pushed it open.

She heard the flies. They must have been buzzing around the bodies all along, but she only noticed them now. David was on the floor at the foot of the bed. There were a dozen or more stab wounds in his chest and his throat had been cut open just like Gabe’s.

Daphne squinted making her vision blurry. Maybe if she didn’t really see the nasty mess, she could stand it without puking again.

“Where are you?” she called.

“Look down.”

She’d almost stepped on Skinner. David’s familiar was a black cat, well, black except for a white blob of fur stretching from his chest and across his tummy. Typical house cat size. You’d never know he held the spirit of a demon. At least David said it was a demon.

The white fur was stained red with clots of blood on his side where he’d been cut open. The slice was four inches long. She could see the ribs inside and some organs underneath. The flies were landing all around it and zipping off again. Daphne looked at what she thought might be one of his lungs but it wasn’t moving. Then his pained orange eyes blinked and his mouth moved.

The cat was dead but the demonic spirit “Skinner” was still alive inside.

Daphne, my fifteen-year-old runaway adept comes “home” from grocery shopping for her motley crew of magical Oliver Twists and their barely more talented Fagin to find everyone violently murdered. The familiar Skinner is still “alive” but only because it is possessed by a demon. The cat’s body is rapidly deteriorating and if the spirit can’t be freed in time, it will be trapped for eternity inside the corpse. But there’s something worse. David, there leader had a magical tome that was the source of his power and it’s missing. Anyone possessing the occult book could potentially take control of a city or even a nation.

Can Daphne and Skinner escape death and stop the thief so they can save themselves and possibly the world?

The anthology will be published sometime in early to mid October 2025. I’ll provide more details as they come in.