Hard Spell (40 page)
Authors: Justin Gustainis
"In fact, it's the fourth one," McCreery said. "Or, at least, the fourth that we know of. Same M.O. every time, with the same ghastly result. All that varies is the technique, and the victim."
The technique varied. I guess that's why whoever was running the show had put out a selection of torture devices for the hellspawn to use. Nothing like variety.
Thorwald took over again. "The going price for one of these videos in the illicit-smut underground is one thousand dollars. To give you some perspective, you can buy one of a four year-old girl being raped for about three hundred." A look of disgust passed over her face, the first genuine expression I'd seen there. "Presumably, each one of the DVDs has sold well enough to keep those producing them in business. The economies of scale are pretty good, from their perspective. Once you've recorded the master, you can burn copies for less than a buck apiece. There's no way to know how many have been put into circulation. And no reason to think these people are going to stop doing it. That, as I said, is the bad news. But, as far as you officers are concerned, there is worse news." She paused for effect, and I wondered if she'd learned that at the FBI academy, or in some college speech class. Maybe she'd been on the debate team – she was the type.
"We have been unable to establish the location where these atrocities were made," Thorwald said. "As with the one you just saw, what's visible onscreen doesn't give us much to go on. However, based on information recently received, we now have reason to believe that at least one of these DVDs was shot right here in Scranton."
Want to know what happens next?
Look for
Evil Dark
by Justin Gustainis
Coming from Angry Robot Books next year!
A member of the Osprey Group
Midland House, West Way
Botley, Oxford
OX2 0PH
UK
High Stakes
Originally published in the UK by Angry Robot 2011 First American paperback printing 2011
Copyright © 2011 by Justin Gustainis
Cover art by Timothy Lantz
Set in Meridien by THL Design.
Distributed in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York.
All rights reseed.
Angry Robot is a registered trademark and the Angry Robot icon a trademark of Angry Robot Ltd.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Sales of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book is coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as "unsold and destroyed" and neither the author nor the publisher may have received payment for it.
ISBN US - 978-0-85766-115-9 ISBN
eBook - 978-0-85766-116-6
Printed in the United States of America
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