The Skilled Clown’s Fear is a light-hearted horror short story about a clown named Clarence.

All clowns have some fears–silent audiences, broken props–but only poor Clarence seems haunted by this fear…

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Read The Skilled Clown’s Fear for free in the Stories section of my substack for a limited time or get it here for your ereader. Enjoy!

It’s here! Corbin Kohl Adrift In Hell is now available in paperback! Hang out with Corbin Kohl as he navigates his new life in a weird place that might be Hell—except it’s awfully fun.

Who’s Corbin?

Corbin Kohl is in Hell.

At least, he thinks he is. With the scorching heat, the fiery Pit at the center of the City, and his new, unpaid gig for so-called “Management,” it seems like a solid guess.

Corbin’s first assignment involves a Victor, one of Management’s most wanted. Unfortunately, the rascal has powerful abilities Management never bothered to mention. Pursuing him will demand more from Corbin than an average “Twister service” can set right.

Still, for a guy who just wants to get home again, this hellish assignment presents an opportunity. Management has secrets. But more importantly, it hides vulnerabilities. And Corbin’s first assignment might provide a clue to getting out of this infernal place.

Then again, it’s kinda fun here. And this might be the first time in years that Corbin has felt like himself.

Hang out with Corbin Kohl in a place that might be Hell—except it’s awfully fun.

For fans of Jim Butcher’s light-hearted side and those who would love a Stephanie Plum-style adventure in Hell, this book is for you. Grab your copy and join the fun!

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Thank you for reading!

The next full newsletter should come out November 6th. See you then!

I’ve got a new book coming out! I think you’re going to like it! I like it. It was challenging to write–in the best kind of way!

I’m doing the cover reveal tomorrow in my newsletter (but, let’s be honest… if you poke around my site you’ll probably find it 😇). If you’re not on my newsletter yet, you can join here.

I hope to see you there, and if you like what you see, let me know in the comments!

Corbin is out in the world! I thought I’d celebrate by sharing his first chapter!

Who’s Corbin?

Corbin Kohl is in Hell.

At least, he thinks he is. With the scorching heat, the fiery Pit at the center of the City, and his new, unpaid gig for so-called “Management,” it seems like a solid guess.

Corbin’s first assignment involves a Victor, one of Management’s most wanted. Unfortunately, the rascal has powerful abilities Management never bothered to mention. Pursuing him will demand more from Corbin than an average “Twister service” can set right.

Still, for a guy who just wants to get home again, this hellish assignment presents an opportunity. Management has secrets. But more importantly, it hides vulnerabilities. And Corbin’s first assignment might provide a clue to getting out of this infernal place.

Then again, it’s kinda fun here. And this might be the first time in years that Corbin has felt like himself.

Hang out with Corbin Kohl in a place that might be Hell—except it’s awfully fun.

For fans of Jim Butcher’s light-hearted side and those who would love a Stephanie Plum-style adventure in Hell, this book is for you!

Chapter 1

The hotel’s sliding glass doors slid open with a soft whir, letting in a fresh whiff of sulfur. It stunk, but I was getting used to it.

The woman who stepped inside had beautiful knees.

Most people’s legs have funky joints. You notice that kind of thing around here, in the City. Either the knee fails to connect the thigh bone to the shin bone in one smooth, straight line, or the joint is so swollen it looks like a big gnarly burl on a heat-worshipper tree.

Not this woman. Excellent knees.

She walked them toward me, heels clacking on the lobby’s pink marble floor.

I was sitting in a cushy red wingback chair, one in a circle of four set between two pillars, just beyond the end of the front desk. Behind me, the lobby opened up to the elevators. A breakfast room stood off to my left. They’d served me a pretty good French toast earlier. I could still taste the syrup.

I wiped my hand down my mouth to remove any sweet, sticky dribbles and sat up straighter in my chair‍—then reminded myself to act casual.

It was hard. The Hotel Burning Bright’s concierge and front desk attendant had both looked up from their posts, to my left, to watch the woman stride past. Their uniforms were pale red, a gauzy lightweight material I’d noticed last night when I’d checked in but was coveting now. The early morning weather girl on Channel 7 had said the day was going to be another scorcher.

No way… ya think?

I’d woken in my room on the eighth floor in the middle of the bright night, in part thanks to an extra heady whiff of the perpetual rotten-egg stink of sulfur; in other part thanks to the construction crew on the street below starting up their front-end loaders and jackhammers well before the witching hour. As if they could beat the heat.

Maybe they knew something I didn’t.

Right now, outside the hotel lobby’s floor-to-ceiling windows, the morning was already so hot that last night’s rain (or what passes for it) was evaporating from the sidewalk in rainbow-tinted rivulets, like steam off a boiling pot.

So not only was it hot out, it was humid.

I’d dressed in blue Bermuda shorts, the kind with a zip fly and five pockets, like pants only hemmed above the knee, and a white polo shirt, the three buttons undone. Both were a thick, chafing cotton. I’d chosen form over function, thinking it would help me fit in with the hotel’s clientele. So far, so good. In the hour I’d been sitting here, I’d seen only a handful of guests in the lobby, and all of us were wearing our sweat-worthy best.

Except the woman.

The woman wore a white cable-knit sweater and gray wool skirt, a thick winter weight. Strange choices, but high quality. Clearly, the woman knew how to get ahead around here.

I’d been wiping the sweat from the back of my neck every couple minutes, already wilting in the heat, but I didn’t see any perspiration on her. Her wavy, sun-blond hair was still light and bouncy at the roots. Her legs still dry, even in that wool skirt. The hemline skimmed just above her bare knees. It had a slit on one side, and as she walked toward me, a sliver of the skirt’s white lining flashed with every other step.

Flash.

Flash.

A gray thread dangled from the top of the slit‍—it was coming undone‍—and the slit’s extra length revealed that her legs did indeed flow in one straight yet supple, curvy line, from hip bone to the tips of her toes‍—the nails of which were painted white and peeping out of strappy white heels.

She raised a hand and waved, her face brightening into a smile. She was probably late twenties, maybe thirty. She had a heart-shaped face and a heart-shaped mouth, but her nose was on the prominent side, and it had a droopy tip that didn’t quite gel with her other features and yet only made her face more interesting.

She wasn’t waving at me, of course. But I was spared the internal debate about whether or not to sneak a glance behind me to see who she was meeting, when a man stepped out from behind my left shoulder. From the elevator, probably, except I hadn’t heard it ding.

He had on a long-sleeved cream linen shirt, khaki pants, gloves, one of those wide-brimmed hats with a flap to protect the neck, and dark sunglasses. Inside. I cracked a smile.

Could be that my first real assignment was nothing more than a final test.

Or a prank.

Back home, I would’ve camouflaged my smile by running my finger up the screen of my phone, pretending to be amused by some piece of content rather than the mark, but I didn’t have a phone here. So I rubbed my face like I’d had one hell of a night and was still working on destroying the evidence.

The man, still wearing his doofy hat and glasses, gestured to my right, to where a half wall separated the lobby from a dimly lit bar. The bar’s neon lights on the back wall were off, and no one stood ready to tend guests‍—service wouldn’t begin until two o’clock that afternoon‍—but the area itself, with its black high-top tables and chairs, was still open to lobby spillover.

The woman nodded and veered course toward the bar‍—without first greeting the man in the hat with a hug or a kiss or even a handshake.

Interesting.

Especially since she was still smiling wide.

Was it a real smile? I supposed it could be, depending on what she was here to exchange. Not being close enough to read her eyes, I couldn’t make an educated guess.

I wasn’t worried about the man seeing me, not with that giant hat blocking his motion perception. But I waited for the woman to walk close enough to the bar that her back was to me to start scanning her legs, the backs of her knees, her calves, and, as I leaned to the left just enough to peer around a red wingback chair, her ankles.

And there it was.

A tattoo.

But the circular design was not what I’d expected. The woman’s white shoe straps wrapped around the ankle, making it hard to see the detail, but if her tattoo was indeed of a sea-goat, then its horns were depicted curved, following the line of the sea-goat’s spine and transformation into a fish tail. The design looked like a circle from afar.

As the woman walked further away from me, I squinted, trying to make the tattoo appear as I needed it to be. Was that circle a sea-goat?

But it had to be it, right? This had to be her. How many people willingly tattoo their Achilles tendon? The spot had to be painful. Not to mention, how many women were meeting someone in the Hotel Burning Bright this morning? The only other people I’d seen in the last hour or so, aside from me, doofy-hat guy, and hotel personnel, were a handful of tired people trudging to and from the continental breakfast or checking in at the front desk.

No, this was her. It had to be. Right place, right time, right tattoo as far as I could tell, right location on the ankle.

Which meant I was truly in the presence of Amlathea.

Whoa.

But was this the right guy?

Amlathea reached the bar first and stood just inside the entrance, waiting for him to get there, too.

Still no physical contact. For some reason, that seemed odd to me.

Again, the man in the hat held out a hand and gestured her further inside the bar, toward a table in the back right corner. She complied, and as he followed her, the man looked over his shoulder and scanned the lobby‍—the bellhops carting luggage in from valet, the marble pillars holding up the second floor. As his sunglasses-covered gaze passed over me, I heaved a bored sigh and shifted my weight to the other hip, switching up which leg was crossed over the other. Nope, I’m not expecting to get up any time soon. I rested my chin in my palm, my elbow on the red wingback’s armrest, and kept my eyes focused on the sliding glass doors, letting my peripheral vision take over.

Amlathea reached the table in the back corner and attempted to scooch around it, to take a seat that would put her back against the wall. But the man slithered an arm around her waist. She looked over her shoulder at him, her brow wrinkling in confusion, but she let him pull her away from the table, closer to the wall‍—and out of my sight.

Ah hell, they were making a run for it. I launched out of my armchair and ran for the bar.

The bar’s side wall was decorative, dimly backlit rock. But a vertical rectangle of much brighter light was shining down its middle, revealing the sidewalk outside the building and the street beyond. The rectangle quickly thinned into a sliver, until the hole in the wall disappeared completely, the bar’s temporary exit closing behind them.

Right man. Definitely the right man.

For a split second I thought about running back through the bar, across the lobby, and out the front door. But that would only work out for me if they, too, were running around the building toward the hotel’s front entrance.

Unlikely.

I heaved a heavy sigh, resigning myself to act on my only option.

I’d had success with sliding glass doors during training. Sure, glass was the easiest material to work with, but it still hurt like a mother.

But I’d done it.

I could do a hotel wall, too. Sure I could.

Here I go.

Watch me do it.