MarkLeoTapper.com
The Road to Damascus:
K-Nurse Book One
A Singer of Thrace:
K-Nurse Book Three
Magical Realism for the Twenty-First Century
I have lived more than two dozen lifetimes. I have taken life by sword and knife, by musket and cannon, by automatic weapon, and by spell. I have bandaged wounds, held the hands of screaming patients while their limbs were removed, comforted grieving women over the graves of their children. I have woven magic to defend the weakest and punish the wicked, and sometimes it has cost me my life. I was once a crusader, a warrior of faith. Now I am an atheist knight, a registered nurse, and a sorcerer. My dearest hope for centuries has been to die and stay dead.
Then, for the first time, I became a father, and it made me want to live forever.
The Road to Damascus
Like the others who had rumbled through trauma bay six, his eyes were swollen shut, his neck puffed up like an angry chicken. His fingers and toes had become grotesque sausages with blue-purple nails. He was a flesh balloon at the point of popping. James set the respirator, and Andrew programed the IV pump, before two orderlies in hazmat whites pushed the patient away and brought us a new one, this time a little girl who was already dead.
Between the Dragon and His Wrath