Incident 2134-1107-2351 · South mill

Chapter 1, Illustrated

The opening of Ashes in Neon as a comic. Every word in the panels is from the book.

Page 1. A dead mill on a river at night. Sheriff Elias Cormac sits in his car, called in on his personal line. Deputy Reyes waits at the tape: she's inside; a scavenger pulled her out of the reeds. A scavenger with a sparking temple jack twists copper wire. Cormac: He moved her. Reyes: He didn't know, sir.

Page 2. Cormac ducks under the tape into the lamplit mill and crouches near the water. A girl's open palm is carved with three curved lines, interlocked, like claws. He had seen those marks before: on children, in a mill yard, under a sky full of smoke.

Page 3. Reyes has pulled the old incident logs from the Trials. Cormac's handset shows the Oracle form: gang altercation, probable; disposition close. All it wanted from him was his thumb. Approved. Case closed. Thank you, Sheriff. Reyes: Sir, those cuts aren't gang work. Cormac: Reyes.

Page 4. Lena Vasko comes in through a gap in the back wall and moves through the dark mill. Violet threads are caught under the dead girl's nails. Lena watches Cormac's thumb come down on the screen. Without turning, he says: Vasko.

Page 5. Lena: Runaway? Is that what you're calling this one? Cormac: This is a crime scene. You need to leave. Lena: Is it? Because I just watched you close it. Cormac: If you start pulling at this, you won't be able to stop. Lena, leaving through the wall: Your graveyard's getting crowded, Sheriff. Cormac, alone in the lamplight: Let the river have her, Lena.

The rest is in the book

Ashes in Neon, a dystopian noir thriller. Out November 1.

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