• Tom Doherty Associates
Cold PlagueSee larger image
See Hi-Res Jpeg image


email/print EmailPrint


Share this book with friends through your favorite social networking site. Share:           Bookmark and Share
Add this title to your virtual bookshelves at any of these book community sites. Shelve:             
sign up to get updates about this author
 add this book's widget
to your site or blog

About The Author

Daniel KallaDaniel Kalla

Daniel Kalla is the international bestselling author of Pandemic, Resistance, Rage Therapy, and Blood Lies. He works as an emergency-room physician in Vancouver, British Columbia.

photo: Jeff Petter
Daniel Kalla's Website Daniel Kalla's Website

Stay In Touch

Sign up to recieve information about new releases, author appearances, special offers, all related to you favorite authors and books.

Other Books You Might Like

cover Pre-Order
Of Flesh and Blood

Forge Books
cover Buy

More formats
eBook
Blood Lies

Forge Books
Ben Dafoe, a young emergency-room doctor and part-time crime-scene consultant for the Seattle Police Department, is haunted by addiction. Two years earlier, a...
cover Buy

More formats
eBook
Resistance

Tor Books
No treatment. No cure. No hope Once it seemed as though penicillin and other antibiotics had won humanity a lasting victory over harmful bacteria. But now...
cover Buy

More formats
eBook
Rage Therapy

Forge Books
A compelling psychological thriller that probes the darkest compulsions of the human mind. Dr. Stanley Kolberg was not just murdered. His lifeless body was...
  
cover Buy

More formats
eBook
Pandemic

Forge Books
Genesis of a Plague Right now, in a remote corner of rural China, a farmer and his family are sharing their water supply with their livestock: chickens,...
  
cover Buy

More formats
eBook
American Detective
An Amos Walker Novel
Amos Walker Novels

Tor Books
Hardboiled detective Amos Walker returns for his nineteenth outing in his most challenging case yet.
  
cover Buy

More formats
eBook
Bright Futures
A Lew Fonesca Mystery
Lew Fonesca

Forge Books
Lovable everyman Lew Fonesca, the Man Who Makes Things Work in Sarasota, is once again faced with cases that try his patience and test his sanity. A local...
  
cover Buy

More formats
eBook
Wild Turkey

Forge Books
Phil Lansdale has problems. He's out of a job, his son's a pyromaniac, and his wife is running out of excuses as to why she comes home six hours late from work...
  
cover Buy

More formats
Audio eBook
Complications
A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science

Picador
In gripping accounts of true cases, surgeon Atul Gawande explores the power and the limits of medicine, offering an unflinching view from the scalpel’s...
cover Buy

More formats
eBook
Hungry Girl
Recipes and Survival Strategies for Guilt-Free Eating in the Real World

St. Martin's Griffin
Do you want to eat burgers, chocolate cake, frozen margaritas, fudge, and French fries—and still fit into your pants? Is life not worth living without...
cover Buy

More formats
Audio eBook
Evermore
The Immortals
The Immortals

St. Martin's Griffin
Since a horrible accident claimed the lives of her family, sixteen-year-old Ever can see auras, hear people’s thoughts, and know a person’s life story by...

EXCERPT

Excerpt

Philippe Manet’s eyes jerked around the room. Sometimes he saw a crucifix on the wall or a pole beside his bed, and at other times there were two of them, side by side or one on top of the other. He had no idea where he was. But that was nothing new. Philippe hadn’t known for weeks. He no longer recognized his mother or his sister. Sometimes he didn’t even respond to his own name when the nurses spoke to him.

“The water it wills the way . . . ,” Philippe began to say, but his words sputtered into a garble of nonsensical French.

He was vaguely cognizant of his own incoherence. He was also aware of the shadowy figure of a woman standing by his bed. Or was it two women?

“Georges knows, and Sylvie, too,” he said to her. “The water! It wills . . .”

A smell drifted to Philippe, and he stopped trying to speak. Something pleasant, even comforting. His eyes swung back and forth over his own hand until he felt dizzy. A plume of smoke drifted above his fingers. A wisp of a memory. Then it was gone.

A soft but cold hand gripped his fingers. The woman was nearer now. There was something familiar about her, but her presence conjured a contradictory sense of vulnerability and security. She spoke to him, but somewhere between his ears and his brain the words were lost. The woman was smiling. Or was she laughing at him? Philippe could not tell.

Then he noticed the lit cigarette, or possibly two, between his trembling fingers. And that sight relaxed him as much as its welcome aroma. He wanted to bring it to his lips, but his hand wouldn’t cooperate. Exhausted and nauseated from the double vision, he closed his eyes and let his head fall back on the pillow.

He began to drift off, but he was awakened by his own involuntary cough.

The odor was far more intense now. Foreign. An incomprehensible sense of danger welled inside him. His hand felt hot.

Philippe tried to focus on his fingers. The woman was nowhere to be seen—he had already forgotten her, anyway—but a flame flickered between his fingers. The pain engorged his hand. He jerked his arm away, but the searing discomfort had already spread to his back, buttocks, and thighs.

The smoke was thicker, breathing harder. Philippe gagged on the acrid smell of burning flesh, not comprehending that it was his own skin on fire. But enough of his brain function endured to experience the agony. He searched frantically for the right words. Instead of a cry for help, other words tumbled from his lips: “The water wills . . .” His cough choked off the rest of it.

He looked down and saw four legs engulfed in flames. The pain was immeasurable. With what little air he had left in his lungs, he unleashed a piercing scream.

But the roaring fire consumed his dying shriek as efficiently as it had the curtains.
 

Copyright © 2008 by Daniel Kalla. All rights reserved.

You May Also Be Interested In

cover Buy

More formats
Audio
Xenocide
Volume Three of the Ender Quartet
Ender Quartet

Tor Books
The war for survival of the planet Lusitania will be fought in the hearts of a child named Gloriously Bright. On Lusitania, Ender found a world where humans...
  
cover Buy
Winter's Heart
Book Nine of 'The Wheel of Time'
Wheel of Time

Tor Books
The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and go. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow. Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of...
cover Buy

More formats
Audio
Children of the Mind
Ender Quartet

Tor Science Fiction
The planet Lusitania is home to three sentient species: the Pequeninos; a large colony of humans; and the Hive Queen, brought there by Ender. But once against...
  Bonus