One of the most powerful sorcerers in Europe, Picasso had only increased in might since he married the Russian witch and allied himself openly with Lenin. His fame had grown as an artist, too. Few could match his ability to create art from paint or from clay. Or from flesh.

I had been his first masterpiece. He raided the final battlefield of Compiègne for the parts of dead men to stitch together with his sorcery and fil vitalitié. There were others, new lives from the dead flesh of French, Germans, Russians, and Americans like me. At least that’s what he told me, though I never saw them. Picasso inevitably tired of his toys. After only a short time, he released me without warning to the uncertain safety of post-war Paris.

Nor the Moonlight by Andrew Penn Romine is part of the anthology Broken Time Blues and is a truly poetic short story set in Post-war Paris. I loved the atmosphere of the decadent city, the dark mood full of despair that so nicely reflects the feeling of the city trying to rise from the ashes of the war. The style is very unusual for a genre like dieselpunk which often relies on action. This is nearly an intimate story, but with all the elements and certainly the mood of dieselpunk.

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