Happy Friday!
I want to thank everyone who’s emailed me in the past couple of weeks, telling me how much they’ve enjoyed Feet of Clay and A Port in the Storm, the first two stories in the Nun With A Gun series.
I am having a blast “spending time” with Alice and I’m thrilled that you enjoy her adventures! It always makes my day when I see a comment from someone in my email or a review on the website. You’re more than welcome to email or message me anytime.
Sister Jacobine/Alice Fisher is a very special nun. If you’ve read the first two stories, you know why. If you haven’t, I won’t spoil it here. Given who she is, it occurred to me that she would have a very different take on life than the rest of us.
When they are ordained, nuns take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Also, for them, like the rest of us, the Ten Commandments are a pretty good guide to life.
But, Alice wears Armani suits, carries a Gucci handbag, and kills people. That got me to wondering if there were any other vows or Commandments that she might not be too keen on.
Something to think about, anyway…
Excommunication, Story #3 in the Nun With A Gun series, releases in one week, on Tuesday, September 15. It’s already available for pre-order on all the major retailers and on the Stories Rule Press website.
Here’s a little excerpt from Excommunication to whet your appetite.
Excerpt
EXCERPT FROM EXCOMMUNICATION
COPYRIGHT © MARK POSEY 2020
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Alice Fisher backed her rental car into the space at the far end of the hospital parking lot. It was two a.m. She had plenty of choices closer to the entrance, but she had two reasons for choosing this space.
One row ahead of her was a sodium vapor streetlight which illuminated the parking lot. She’d need the light as she couldn’t risk using the rental car’s interior light.
This parking space also allowed her to keep an eye on her surroundings. The bank of shrubs behind her blocked any view from the street. From here, she could watch the entrance, the few cars in the lot and the comings and goings of pedestrians on the hospital walkways.
The hospital would undoubtedly be watched from outside as well as from within, but she had no other choice. Rafferty’s life depended on her.
She put the car in park, shut off the engine and the lights and slipped the keys into her coat pocket. She sat in the darkness, broken only by the pale yellow light, and scanned the area. She watched for movement where none was expected and for pedestrians who didn’t belong.
Of course, one could never factor in stupidity.
Alice stiffened as a cigarette was lit in a car to her right, equally as far from the entrance as she was parked. The car was also as far away from any of the parking lot’s streetlights as it was possible to get. That only served to highlight the flame from the lighter and, afterwards, the glow from the cigarette’s ember.
She’d deal with whomever was in the car in a moment.
She struggled out of her jacket while remaining in the driver’s seat and tossed it on the passenger seat beside her handbag. She spared a quick glance at the car in the dark and saw the extra glow of the cigarette as the occupant inhaled.
Alice opened her purse and extracted a length of rubber tubing, a syringe, a needle and two test tubes with rubber stoppers. She tied the tubing around her upper left arm and smacked the juncture of veins at the bend in her elbow. She fitted the syringe and the needle together and slid the end of the needle smoothly into the bulging vein then inserted the first test tube.
Blood spurted into the glass tube. Alice watched it fill. Again, she spared a glance at the far-away car. All good, it seemed.
When the first tube was full, Alice swapped it for the second and again watched it fill. When it was done, she set the two test tubes on the passenger seat, tugged out the needle and put it and the rubber tubing back in her handbag. She shrugged back into her jacket, then slid the two tubes and another syringe and needle into her pocket.
Time to go.
She removed the bulb from the overhead interior light of the rental car. No sense in being as sloppy as the cigarette smoker in the other car.
She slipped out of the car, squatted on the pavement and eased the door shut until she heard it click. She’d worry about locking it later. She yanked the Tanfoglio out of the holster on her right hip and reached into the interior pocket of her coat for the suppressor. This situation called for the utmost stealth and while the suppressor didn’t exactly silence the shot, it certainly made it less distinctive.
Alice eased away from the car, slipped behind it and through the bank of shrubbery which lined the edge of the parking lot. She swapped the Tanfoglio to her left hand so it wouldn’t be visible from the street.
She crept quickly down the length of the parking lot until she was directly behind the cigarette smoker’s car. She returned the Tanfoglio to her right hand and slipped through the shrubs behind the car.
She paused to ensure she had not been spotted. It was a cool, quiet night. A light breeze played at the edges of the shrubs. Distant traffic noise brushed her hearing but it wasn’t loud enough to distract her.
She sprang from behind the car, covered the three steps to the driver’s window, and trained the Tanfoglio on the head of the driver.
Fredericks scowled and turned the ignition key so he could operate the windows. His window whined as it opened.
His gaze shifted from the end of the suppressor, barely a foot from his face, to Alice’s eyes. “Where the fuck have you been?”
Enjoy!
Mark Posey