Tag Archives: short ficion

a dangerous path to a surprising end

A brand new FREE short story from the Eidolon Avenue universe.

A heartbroken widow. An infamous building. A darkness desperate to feed. This is Eidolon Avenue.

Young, bereaved and abandoned, the recent Knickerbocker Crash having taken more than just her savings, Mrs. Artatlan Fogoly considered herself lucky to have found a room to let. But when devout visitors refused to darken her door and an impossible stain appeared on the wall, what had felt like the beginning of something new and wonderful soon became a dangerous path to a surprising end.

The Realtor, an Eidolon Avenue Short, is the tale of how a heartbroken widow turned into Eidolon Avenue’s constant revenant. A siren call for those destined to end their wretched days in that wood, those bricks, that stone. The captive wraith who opened the door and brought the damned home to die.

And what of those wretched damned? Their stories are found in Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast as well as the upcoming Eidolon Avenue: The Second Feast.

This story is merely a glimpse of Jonathan Winn’s work, so if you enjoy this introductory story, be sure to pick up Winn’s Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast, available from Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales from the Darkest Depths.

You can get it here.

Eidolon-The-Realtor-COVER.png

I’ve been bad

She watched the stain. “I’ve been bad a long time, I think.” She traced it, running her finger all around the edge. Wondered if it tickled. “I can say that to you because you’re a friend. I think that maybe sometimes I can be sorta bad. Sometimes.”

– Umbra, Eidolon Avenue, Apt. 1D

Eidolon-Umbra-crop

Jan 2016 from Crystal Lake Publishing

Visiting a Wounded King

Sometimes, in the middle of all this work, it’s easy to forget how I got to where I am today. What books, what early efforts, helped pave the way to the writer I am today.

So, with that in mind, I decided to pay a visit to The Wounded King, the first in The Martuk Series, an ongoing collection of short fiction inspired by, and based on, Martuk … the Holy. And wouldn’t you know it? It’s a damn good book!

Here’s a small taste:

They were dying.

First, my father, the First King, tongue swollen, his words thick, his body scarred and wounded.

Now my brother, the King, bloodied, beaten and blind, half-buried in a mountain of stained silk.

And I, the Almost King, walking this familiar maze of shadows with my quiet guilt, the cavernous halls aglow in torchlight as I turned and then turned again, losing myself in the echo of my footsteps.

Yes, much like they swallowed the sun, the Dark Gods were gobbling my family up, bite by bite.

And together, she and I, we were helping them.

My stomach lurched and heaved, the rancid taste of vomit on my tongue and in my throat as I swallowed.

And then swallowed again.

The Wounded King Final - cover