The Dark Man

By Kristine Kathryn Rusch

An investigative reporter trying to survive the collapse of the news industry, Condi now works for the Organization of Strange Phenomenon Ancient and Modern. They pay really well and respect her terms. Terms like allowing her to expose the "strange phenomenon" as a hoax.

But her latest assignment proves different. Rome holds more mysteries than she expects.

Including not one but two mysterious figures.

What she discovers about each might change her view of the world forever.

"Kristine Kathryn Rusch is one of the best writers in the field."

—SFRevu

• Language: English
• Publisher: WMG Publishing
• Release date: May 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201703530

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

USA Today bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. Under that name, she publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov’s Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award. Publications from The Chicago Tribune to Booklist have included her Kris Nelscott mystery novels in their top-ten-best mystery novels of the year. The Nelscott books have received nominations for almost every award in the mystery field, including the best novel Edgar Award, and the Shamus Award. She writes goofy romance novels as award-winner Kristine Grayson, romantic suspense as Kristine Dexter, and futuristic sf as Kris DeLake.  She also edits. Beginning with work at the innovative publishing company, Pulphouse, followed by her award-winning tenure at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, she took fifteen years off before returning to editing with the original anthology series Fiction River, published by WMG Publishing. She acts as series editor with her husband, writer Dean Wesley Smith, and edits at least two anthologies in the series per year on her own. To keep up with everything she does, go to kriswrites.com and sign up for her newsletter. To track her many pen names and series, see their individual websites (krisnelscott.com, kristinegrayson.com, krisdelake.com, retrievalartist.com, divingintothewreck.com). She lives and occasionally sleeps in Oregon.

Book preview

The Dark Man

The Dark Man

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

WMG Publishing, Inc.

Contents

The Dark Man

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Also by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

About the Author

The Dark Man

Condi stepped out of the internet café, an ice-cold bottle of Coke in her hand. The street was dark except for the light spewing out of the café’s door. Motorcycles were parked to her left, squeezed between Smart Cars that had slid bumper-first into slots too small for a regular car.

In America, this would be called an alley, if someone deigned to dignify it with a designation at all. Crooked, covered with uneven cobblestone, winding uphill between darkened and graffiti-covered buildings, the street felt more like a path between main roads.

The internet café didn’t help. It was the only business still open at 11 o’clock at night, still open and still doing business. The hotel across the way locked its doors promptly at nine, something she thought unfair in Rome, which like most Mediterranean cities, remained awake and active long past midnight.

Fortunately, Condi was staying in a slightly more upscale place on the Via Purificazione, another alley-like side street in a slightly more desirable neighborhood near the Via Veneto. She wasn’t there for the shopping; she wanted to be as close to the American Embassy as possible without paying Westin Excelsior prices.

Not that money was an object. The Organization of Strange Phenomenon Ancient and Modern was paying for everything, including the tiny, expensive bottle of Coke resting damply in her right hand. She had an unlimited expense account, and a salary fifty times higher than her going rate as one of the Rocky Mountain News’s best reporters—back when there had been a Rocky Mountain News.

Condi glanced over her shoulder. Inside the café, which wasn’t really café at all—just three narrow rooms of computers and two vending machines—the waif who ran the place was surreptitiously checking the information Condi had left on her computer screen.

The waif, with her big brown eyes, round cheeks, black-black hair, looked like a cute Italian kid straight out of La Dolce Vita, or at least she did until you factored in the piercings, the tattoos, and the leather bustier, which seemed just too hot to wear in this strange 100-degree Roman autumn. Condi had already clocked out, leaving the screen on a UFO social networking site filled with wackos.

The waif always captured