Man in the Middle (short story)
The sky over the demon world is broken. Lightning licks the strange geometries of cloud. Around you rises the demon-city Akargath, warped crystal and flame, thorns and razor wire. And this is the nice part of town.
A short story in horror anthology Shared Nightmares, published 2014. Set directly after Three Parts Dead, Tara Abernathy is moving into her office as in-house counsel for the Church of Kos when she discovers a remnant of the God Wars trapped within the church.
To figure out the problem and set up intra-office communication (think telegrams, but with rat brains and nightmares) she dives into a tangled web of nightmares and finds herself confronting God Wars level Craft.
I really enjoyed this story - anything with more Tara is a plus in my book - and it’s lovely to see a bit more slice of life content rather than world-ending plots. However, I’m just not a short story gal. I want more, always.
Summary of Shared Nightmares
(From publisher)
In Shared Nightmares, twelve authors— including New York Times bestseller Larry Correia, #1 Amazon bestseller Michaelbrent Collings, Prometheus Award winner Sarah Hoyt, Campbell Award nominee Max Gladstone, and Hugo nominee Howard Tayler—take you to the dark side of the dream world, where phantasms and fears become frighteningly real.