The Best of Galaxy’s Edge 2013-2014 Read Online Free PDF

perpetrator … but I’m getting ahead of myself.
    * * *
    On Wednesday morning, my cell rang in my cubicle. It was from Jamal, my contact in the Roanoke Society.
    “Yes, may I help you?” I said, trying to sound businesslike.
    “Peter,” he said. “We made contact with Wendy. Sven is chatting her up in a bar right now. We’re going to kill her in a hotel room. You need to leave work now to get ready!”
    “Damn, man!” I whispered. (Try having a private conversation in an office cubicle!) “I’m almost maxed out on leave time. The boss is a peach, but she still needs warm bodies in the office.”
    “Wendy’s calling us, man,” he said. “We’re all making sacrifices. When Wendy walks into our trap, Wendy dies. That’s the deal. ‘Roanoke! ’ ”
    “ ‘Roanoke, ’ ” I whispered, returning the salute. “Okay, I’ll get food poisoning or something. No, it will be a family emergency. I’ll meet you guys at the garage.”
    * * *
    Whenever I had read fiction about secret societies—you know, like the Dan Brown crap—I had never seen anyone comment on how underfunded they were. The Roanoke Society is an entirely volunteer organization. Because of our secrecy, it is not a 501(c) charity to which you can write off donations. We all kick in for expenses. And the amount of free time it burns up is ungodly.
    But killing Wendy is a passion for me. A Wendy killed my brother and his wife 11 years ago, and almost killed me. The Society rescued me, then recruited me. It is the most important thing in my life.
    Still, I do have to work, and it would be so convenient if the frigging Wendys could be made to appear only on weekends, or at least on Martin Luther King’s birthday or Easter.
    * * *
    There are other stories out there, of a type. They’re not even stories, really, just accounts of historical bafflement. They’re related to the locked-room mysteries, although most people who have heard both have not made the connection. The Roanoke Society could publicize the link, perhaps, but who would believe us? And Wendy is quite shy (in a manner of speaking). Her ilk shows up a few times a year, is difficult to detect, and is even more difficult to kill … But as I was saying, the baffling accounts from history:
    Roanoke, Virginia , the first European settlement in that corner of America. Vanished, with no sign of a struggle.
    Mary Celeste, found adrift with no captain, no crew, no passengers.
    And those are just the celebrated ones. There were countless explorers, ships, soldiers in jungles, and others who faced the same thing the Roanoke settlers and the Mary Celeste crew faced. And disappeared.
    Of course they disappeared!
    When you’ve dined on, let’s say, Salisbury steak, peas, and mashed potatoes and licked your plate clean, do you expect to look down and still see the food? It’s been eaten, mate. The food’s gone.
    * * *
    It was a shabby hotel room in a bad part of town. If bed bugs ever became a problem around here, this place would be the epicenter. But there were six of us, four men and two women, and we came down here as a pack, not worrying about the lice, human or otherwise, who infested the area.
    Sven made seven. He was at the bar nearby. To hear him tell it, Wendy had practically molested him with her eyes. He would have been flattered, if she’d been human. He would lure her back here. Meanwhile, it was our job to seal off the room.
    The cheap carpet was at least solid, and the floor underneath was concrete, thank God—no worrying about floorboards. The drywall in the room we’d rented had a few holes in it, and we patched them for free, without management’s permission. It didn’t look all that great, but that was no step down. The window was scratched but unbroken, and like most hotel windows built after air conditioning became widespread (even in no-tell motels), it was molded into the wall and would never open. Just for privacy’s sake, we bound the curtains with some heavy safety