The Hand of Fate #25b

In the shadowed heart of a traveling carnival, Madame Lizette guards a wax museum filled with horrors too real to be mere art. When she summons a werewolf and a tiger woman through forbidden rites, the line between spectacle and terror blurs—until fire consumes her, echoing the fate of her ancestors.

In the shadow of a late 19th-century laboratory, a young assistant to the brilliant botanist Professor Marcus Keeler pushes the boundaries of science—cultivating plants with a hunger that defies nature. When his experiments spiral beyond control, the very flora he studied turns against him, leaving him at the mercy of his own creations—until the professor arrives to pull him from the grasp of the garden’s deadly embrace.

In "Rendezvous with the Phantom Gypsies," a young boy haunted by memories of a past he can’t quite grasp flees the orphanage where he’s been raised, only to stumble upon a gypsy camp during a fateful journey with a traveling salesman. What begins as a strange encounter with a wedding procession quickly spirals into violence and fire, leaving the boy the sole witness to a tragedy that echoes through time. The story unfolds like a dream half-remembered, blurring the line between past and present in a haunting tale of guilt, memory, and the shadows that follow.

In the late 19th century, the trading ship *Palar* sails from Bombay to New York, carrying a full cargo and a secret that will haunt its captain. When Captain Holland casts a sick native overboard, he doesn’t realize the debt he’s owed will follow him across time—returning years later in a form he never expected, and a sickness he can’t outrun.

In the chilling tale "The Witch's Wicked Words," fugitive crook Louie Brink flees a violent past only to be hurled into 1450, where he faces a far more terrifying fate—accusations of witchcraft from a fanatical mob. With no escape and the noose tightening, he must confront the ultimate choice in a time and place where his crimes are as damning as his sins.

In "When His Number's Up...", a reckless businessman named Guyle Kraft narrowly escapes one disaster after another—fire, electric shock, falling debris—only to survive even a murder he commits. When fate finally catches up to him in a crushing avalanche, the story’s chilling conclusion hints at a long-overdue reckoning.