“Flawlessly, my lord. It is an honor to serve you.”
“Yes. I know. And Faust?”
She glanced at the book.
“I’m watching to see. There’s always a chance of rejection, but we did our best to contaminate his—”
The breath caught in her throat. A pinpoint of flame rose from the brittle page, tracing its way across the woodcut. It vanished, snuffed out, but now the picture was different.
Now, the man in chains had the face of Daniel Faust.
Act Five, Scene One, read the text beneath the image. The Thief is taken away to face torment and death at the hands of the False Warden.
“The Play has spoken, my lord.” Fleiss’s fingers trembled as she touched the book. “Faust has been absorbed into the pattern. He belongs to us now.”
Afterword
There’s always more trouble to go around, isn’t there? While the Enclave Job storyline wrapped up in The Living End, now we stand on the threshold of the Battle of Las Vegas. Daniel will be along shortly, just as soon as he deals with that little incarceration problem. And as for the shadowy man with the Cheshire smile, well…you’ll see.
Providing more questions than answers is part and parcel of a new story arc. All I can do is assure you that yes, there is a road map. I have a serious dislike for stories where the creators don’t know the answers to any of their own mysteries and make it all up as they go along (looking at you, X-Files, Battlestar Galactica and Lost), and honestly one of my biggest kicks is setting up little bits of plot that pay off much further down the line. As a reader, I love that “so that’s what that was all about!” feeling of revelation when it’s done well, so as a writer I try to deliver the same when I can.
Of course, I don’t do it alone. Thanks as always to my awesome team: Kira Rubenthaler on editing (any good bits are hers, any lingering mistakes are mine), James T. Egan on cover design (I am not worthy), and Maggie Faid on PR (and keeping me on-task, never an easy feat).
Want to get the advance scoop on new books and projects? Head over to www.craigschaeferbooks.com and hop on my mailing list. You can also reach me on Facebook at facebook.com/CraigSchaeferBooks, on Twitter at @craig_schaefer, or just email me directly at [email protected]. Always happy to hear from my readers. Even if I screwed something up. Which I probably did.
One last thing! If you liked the book (which I hope you did!), would you mind taking a minute and posting a short review wherever you purchased it? Reviews are a huge help in spreading word of mouth and attracting new readers to the series, and the more readers I have, the more books I can write. See? Everybody wins.
Meanwhile, stay braced for the next installment, in which Daniel swears off his criminal ways for good and quietly does his time behind bars, realizing he must pay his debt to society.
Just kidding.
A Plain-Dealing Villain Page 28