“Ah,” the bandaged man spoke more, it seemed, to himself than Devlin, “two of you, better in some ways, worse in others.”

Devlin almost laughed aloud when he heard Marty muttering as the big longshoreman barged his way onto the scene from the warehouse that backed on to the yard. Devlin’s relief was short-lived, though, as the bandaged man reached inside his coat with a gloved hand.

Devlin clumsily snatched up the scattergun and brought its double-barreled snout to bear on the stranger, but instead of looking down the barrel of a pistol as he had feared, the bandaged man was holding a strange ochre colored stick in his gloved hand. No, not a stick, but a flute–a strange, uneven flute that looked for all the world as if it was made out of honeycomb.

Confused and uncertain, Devlin could only watch as the man seemed oblivious to Marty’s hulking form reaching out to grab him from behind. The bandaged man put the strange flute to his lips, and Devlin knew with a terrible, crushing certainty that he should have fired when he had the chance. He hadn’t pulled the scattergun’s trigger, and now he was done, just done.

Hunting in shadows

Fantasy Flight Publishing is pleased to announce the upcoming released of Dance of the Damned , a novel set in the Arkham Horror universe! Miskatonic University librarian Daisy Walker has just received a letter from an estranged friend, awakening a long-forgotten nightmare of her past. Forced into a deadly search, Daisy must face horrific memories as she attempts to solve a dark mystery. Her fate will soon intertwine with bounty hunter Tony Morgan, tasked with a dangerous job by a secretive employer. Can these two unlikely heroes discover the truth amongst twisted agendas, a sinister cult, and eldritch horror?

Dance of the Damned , a novel by Alan Bligh, is the first dark tale in The Lord of Nightmares Trilogy . Bligh has written for various roleplaying games as well as the Imperial Armour book series of science fiction wargaming expansion for Forge World.

For more information on this upcoming macabre tome, visit our The Lord of Nightmares Trilogy website , and be sure to look for Dance of the Damned on store shelves in the fourth quarter of 2011!