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[firstreads]

Title: Untitled

Summary: Keaton is a young man who suffers from anxiety and is trying his best to survive the treacherous environment that is high school. He does have a few friends now including a girlfriend that is all he could ever ask for which puts him in a much better place than his middle school years, but of course he still has the struggles of daily life, for him those involve buying makeup from a public place because occasionally wearing it boost his self esteem.

Word Count: 574

Genre: Realistic Fiction (teenage life)

Author’s Notes: This is the first time I’ve written for fun after some long months so all feedback is appreciated even if you think it’s horrible! Just be sure to tell me what you think would make it not horrible!

Chapter One: 

I reach into the pocket of my tighter-than-average jeans and pull out my phone as relaxed as I can for being past the half-way point unto an anxiety attack. Shuffling a bit farther into the Walmart makeup aisle, I keep browsing my phone while actually looking for the concealer I’ve been getting for the last couple months. I found it. No one else was in the aisle, I could just reach out for it and shove it behind the cover of the cheap notebook I had already picked up, then go through self-checkout and no one would ever know. That would most definitely rip one of the dreaded parts out of my day.

No that would be too easy, of course a middle-aged woman, probably drunk off her husband’s success, stumbles in to buy more of whatever she uses to act like she’s still twenty-two and “hip.” After noticing her enter my sight, I rush to my phone and act as if I’m calling someone. I wait a few moments as if it’s ringing and then start up a conversation with my “girlfriend.”

“Hey jelly bean, what was that stuff you wanted me to get again? Like concealer or something?” I say directed to the lifeless phone pressed against my lovely cheek. Another little pause and then I say a muck of “okays” and “yeps”which is followed by the stereotypical goodbye a straight guy would say to his cheerleader girlfriend or whatever. I grab what I had already picked out but now it was for my “girlfriend” and the middle-aged woman knew that so no one could judge me, a high school guy that has to keep hold of his manhood, for buying and wearing a little makeup. Or that’s that I thought. 

Amy Magnol shot her too small self around the corner of the aisle that was gladly partnered by the middle-aged lady, who I had started to become fond of just because she didn’t start unneeded conversation like some other desperate middle-aged people I had encountered, and myself. Amy jumbled her belongings and captured a picture of me on her phone which she probable recently used to call a real person. She had proof that I bought makeup. Fuck.

“Aw it’s so cute when boys buy what their girlfriend needs!” she said in a somewhat annoying and panic-educing voice.

“Ha ha yea, you have to keep them happy somehow I guess.” I mumbled out in amazement that she didn’t assume the concealer was for me.

“Well this is just too adorable to pass up, you’re going on my Instagram Keaton, so more guys can get a clue on what to do!” she told me this in a range of tones that makes me think she was proud of her rhyme. Amy quickly changed directions in search of something else that would keep her followers satisfied. I on the other hand casually sprinted to self-checkout and was in my car before anyone else from school could recognize me.

This was just an average day for me as a high school student with crippling anxiety. Actually having friends now and even a loving girlfriend (yes this one is actually real and not just a fake phone call) helps oh so much. I’m way farther than when I was in middle school but life is still tough, especially when you’re a guy that wears makeup to not feel like an ugly piece of shit.

[firstreads]

Title: Gilded (working title)

Summary: Athene is seventeen, Princess of Oseira, and knows exactly where her life is headed. She will take the throne, make alliances, and defend her mountain kingdom from all who would seek to conquer it - especially the lords of Lanosia, to the south, who would stop at nothing to gain the wealth that Oseira holds. But a surprise attack by a band of mercenaries leads to the murder of the Royal Counsel, the imprisonment of the royal family, and the seizing of the throne. Athe is forced to flee - not with her soldiers, but accompanied only by Aren, the heir to a Lanosian nobleman. And finding an army to help retake her kingdom is easier said than done, when Athe still doesn’t know who hired the mercenaries, or who it is that will stop at nothing to have her dead. She’s just got to hope it’s not the very people she plans on seeking help from…

Word count: 5,243

Genre: Fantasy

Warnings: Mild violence, discussion of sex, mention of dub-con (that didn’t occur)

In a dark, smoke-filled room, in a castle within a cliff, a girl fought.

Athe threw herself to the side as a gloved fist whistled past her ear, the world tumbling over as she hit the ground hard with one shoulder. Even if it did stop her from getting punched in the nose, it wasn’t the most painless move ever. She rolled and came up onto one knee, grimacing and shrugging her throbbing shoulder slightly, and barely registered the soldier in front of her before his fist slammed into the side of her head. The sharp spike of pain from the studs breaking her skin was making her dizzy, but she had just enough sense left in her to take advantage of his now unbalanced stance and drive her elbow into his groin to send him staggering back a few paces. Foul play, maybe, but it worked.

Athe took the opportunity to scramble to her feet, raising one hand to the side of her head to check the damage done. It took a bit of squinting through the dim, smoky torch light, but as far as she could see there was only a faint smudge of blood decorating her fingertips. She tried shaking her head to clear the ringing in her ears, which turned out to be not such a good idea after all since it only ended up intensifying the dull throbbing that was steadily building up behind her eyes. She circled the soldier slowly to keep him in her sights, and felt a smirk cross her face as he eyed her warily. Because really, sixteen year old girls aren’t that intimidating.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see more soldiers laughing and making bets in the crowd, and shot them a brief glare through the tight ring of mailed bodies that hemmed her in. A few light brown curls tickled her cheek and Athe huffed slightly out of the corner of her mouth, trying to blow them back from her face. Keeping a wary eye on the soldier in front of her, she tucked the majority of the strands back into her braid and, just like usual, let her hand drop back to the spot on her hip where her dagger normally resided. Except for once, the sheath was empty. Right. Forgot about that. Athe felt a slight flush rise into her cheeks which, judging by the smirk on her opponent’s face, she didn’t quite manage to hide quickly enough. Trying not to meet his eyes, she caught sight of a familiar blade resting unattended on a table at the other side of the room through a gap in the crowd. If she made a run for it, she might just be able to catch them off guard-

The soldier spoke suddenly, his voice cutting through the beginnings of her plan. “Ready to lose?” he asked with a challenge in her voice.

Athe flashed him a knife-slash smile in return, baring her teeth, and was gratified to see his grin fade slightly. “Are you?”

She rushed him before he could answer to cheers from the soldiers around her, catching him unawares and ramming her elbow into his throat. Maybe she wasn’t playing fair, Athe thought, but who cared? It wasn’t as if anyone was keeping track. Even if they were, it wouldn’t change the fact that anyone with even the slightest bit of sense should use every advantage they can get, otherwise they deserved to lose. He staggered slightly, gagging, but his fingers dug into her arm before she could pull back, hard enough to bruise. A boot slammed into the back of her knee as he scythed a leg out from under her, and Athe felt her feet skid out from under her. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to wear her old boots after all, she thought distantly as the worn soles slipped on the polished stone, and then there was no more time for thinking as her back slammed into the cold floor and the breath rushed out of her lungs with a grunt.

Athe stayed sprawled for a long moment, lungs burning as the soldier planted one foot on her stomach and raised his arms in victory. He was acting like an absolute bastard, and there were coins clinking somewhere in the crowd above her as someone cashed in a bet. The sound just served to irritate her more, so as the soldier relaxed she threw herself half-upright and dislodged his foot from her stomach. He stumbled and Athe hissed out a breath as his heel landed, probably deliberately, on the back of her left hand. She reached up with her right to jab rigid fingers into the pit of his stomach then wrapped one arm around his legs and surged to her feet as he gasped for air, driving a shoulder into his chest as she did so. The man crashed to the ground with a yell, and Athe grinned at the laughs and jeers from the soldiers around them even as he seized her arm and dragged her down with him. Once on the ground, though? She’d never regretted her slight frame more than when she was fighting like this, and that’s the truth.

To be honest she wasn’t even sure how the soldier so easily reversed their positions, but he did. One of his dark calloused hands pinned her wrists at one side of her body, kneeling across her legs to keep her pinned. He didn’t need to make it worse, she thought, irritated. I’m trapped enough as it is. He twisted his other hand into the neck of her linen shirt for good measure, pressing her spine into the hard ground. Athe sank her teeth into the inside of her cheek, glaring up at the young soldier as he grinned unrepentantly at her. She could hear the crowd beginning to count the seconds and readied herself to flip the soldier off from on top of her, but the sound cut off abruptly as a door slammed open. She craned her neck backwards, the crowd parting to reveal a familiar figure.

The soldiers bowed as the man passed them, murmuring “Your Highness,” but he ignored them in favour of glaring down at the pair on the floor. He wasn’t saying anything, but the silence was eloquent enough. Athe closed her eyes, resigned to what was to come, and felt the grip on her shirt and wrists loosen. Cracking an eye open, she saw the soldier bowing the best he could, and she seized the opportunity to wrap a leg around his waist and flip them both, kneeling heavily on his stomach to keep him down.

He groaned and doubled up, and Athe pressed the heel of her hand to his throat and smiled triumphantly up at the man stood over them. “Hello, Papa.”

His eyes narrowed a fraction as she scrambled to her feet, and she felt her smile drop a little. Apparently even winning wouldn’t help her case.

“I don’t suppose you want to tell me what exactly you’re doing in the guardroom?” he asked, his tone leaving no doubt that he expected an answer.

Athe eyed him warily. This was not the reaction she was expecting. Congratulations, maybe, or corrections to her technique, but most definitely not criticism. “Is this a trick question? I was sparring, same as I normally do.” Someone in the crowd passed her the sleeveless crimson tunic and plain dagger that she had discarded at the start of the sparring bout, and she slipped the weapon back into its sheath. “Is there anything wrong with that?”

“There is when your mother’s been searching for you these past three hours. Elinor didn’t think you’d have the nerve to come here-” He raised an eyebrow, and she winced slightly, knowing all too well what it heralded for the next few minutes. “-but I knew better. I think you’d do well to come with me now.” He turned to face the guards with an arched brow. “And you all have places to be within the next hour, so jump to it.” The group of soldiers all saluted, and Athe mock-saluted as well. Why not? If her father kept issuing orders like that, she should at least make a show of obeying them. He shot her a glare and she made a face at him before flashing a smile back at the guards and hurrying after her father. “Do you have to be so mean to them?”

“I do when I’m their commanding officer, yes.” He looked across at her, slowing his pace now they were out of sight. “What I really want to know is why you thought it necessary to spar on today, of all days.”

Athe managed to wave a hand airily as she shrugged on the tunic, not bothering to lace the front closed. “I’m not stupid, Papa. I know it’s Feast Day. I’ll still have time to get ready.”

“Did you realise when on Feast Day it was?” her father asked drily.

She opened her mouth to retort that as a matter of fact it was barely past noon, just as she glanced out of a slitted window. It was a familiar view out over the valley, resplendent in autumnal reds and golds, to the mountains beyond. Complete with the sun sinking below the tallest peaks. Oops. “Oh-”

“If the next word out of your mouth is something you learnt in the guardroom,” he warned. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“Bother?” Athe finished a little lamely. This was not going as planned. “Papa, I honestly didn’t realise! It was barely past midday, I just wanted to fit a bit of practice in.” Please, please, she thought desperately, let him not mind…

“Save it for when you need it,” he said with a dry laugh, and Athe rounded the corner only to shrink back again. Her mother was there. Wonderful. A hand planted itself solidly between her shoulderblades and her father pushed her out into the wider corridor. She shot a dark glare back at him and mouthed traitor, but he just grinned. Alright, she got the message. Time to face up to it.

“Thank you, Michalis. I’m so glad you could join us, your Highness,” a voice said behind her, and Athe flinched and turned around slowly. Elinor’s arms were folded, which was never a good sign, and Athe couldn’t help but notice that she was wearing formal robes rather than her usual plain gown, and her hair was twisted up into the elaborate braided style designed to secure the heavy crown she would be wearing at the feast. Maybe the time really was later than she thought. “It is one hour until the Feast starts, you must be there at least half an hour before, and you have been sparring,” her mother continued, expression never changing. Time for damage control.

“Hello, mother?” Athe offered, doing her best to bob a curtsey in her worn breeches. Judging by her father’s muffled snort behind her, it didn’t quite work. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realise how much time had passed…” She let her eyes widen in the expression that Olven always said made her look like a hunting-hound that had just been kicked, and Elinor’s expression softened a little.

“It’s nothing that hasn’t happened before to all of us. I expect you to be on your best behaviour during the Feast, though, do you hear me?”

“Yes, mama,” she said, dropping her gaze a little then lifting her eyes again. “I’ll be good as gold, I promise. Not a hair out of place, not a foot out of line, everything else like that.” Kicked-dog, kicked-dog…

Michalis swatted her lightly on the arm. “Alright, that’s enough. Go on, call it training, see how long it takes you to get back.”

Athe broke into a run, cutting through the main entrance hall for speed. Guests were still arriving for the week of feasting, servants loaded down with bags and boxes, so Athe just kept her head down and pushed her way through them, narrowly avoiding an elbow to the gut. Her dodge took her straight into the path of a young man, dark-haired and strangely accented, who moved to block her route as she tried to sprint away again. “These bags need taking to-” Athe rolled her eyes and barged past him mid-sentence, leaving him spluttering in her wake as she reached the small door set far back into the rough stone.

She sprinted through the maze of passageways, hastily apologising to the servants that she passed - it was their passage after all - until she reached the door backed with dyed-red wool that was her destination. Athe pushed it open and poked her head round uncertainly, only to meet the piercing gaze of the old woman within.

“It’s me, Hilda,” she said a little unnecessarily and more than a little uncertainly, sliding round the door into the richly upholstered room.

“I can see that, Highness,” the old nurse said drily. “You were meant to be here three hours ago. Now go on, go and sit down so I can sort out that hair of yours.”

Athe grinned and threw herself into a chair, knowing all was forgiven. She had total faith that Hilda would be able to make her look passably royal in time for the Feast - after all, she’d had to do the same job for Elinor and any other female member of the family. Hilda untangled the girl’s hair, tutting as her fingers encountered the cut just above her eye.

“You need to take much better care in sparring, Highness,” she warned. “Before you know it, you’ll end up with scars all over that pretty face of yours.”

“Everyone’s got scars, Hilda.” Athe winced slightly as the bone comb dug into her scalp, then reached up behind her to poke the thin white line on the woman’s cheek. “See? You’ve got one. There’s nothing wrong with them.”

“Scars are a sign that you lost a fight,” Hilda pointed out, but Athe rolled her eyes expressively.

“At least they show that you actually fight in the first place. At this rate I’ll be the only Queen in history who gets the throne with no evidence of ever fighting in her life.”

Hilda just slapped her lightly on the back of the head. “Go on, get washed.”

Athe tugged off her shirt and breeches behind the patterned divider that separated the wooden washtub from the rest of the room, but didn’t bother removing the short cotton trousers that she - along with most women - wore under most of her clothes, especially if she were going to be wearing breeches. After a moment’s reflection, she decided not to unwind the strips of cloth that she wore under her shirt whilst sparring, either. With any luck, she’d be able to get some practice in during the feast - if her parents weren’t looking, at any rate.

“So who was it giving you that cut?” Hilda asked as Athe began to sponge off the grime and sweat of the last few hours. The girl could hear her rummaging through a chest, pulling out clothes.

“It was Olven,” Athe answered, a little indistinctly since she was scrubbing the half-dried blood from her face. “Why?”

Beyond the screen, the old nurse tutted. “I’ll have to have words with that young guard of yours.”

“What do you mean, of mine?” Athe straightened up and glared indignantly at Hilda over the top of the screen, trying to force down the flush that threatened to rise to cover her cheeks. “Olven isn’t mine.” She deliberately suppressed the memory of what had happened the year before as she stepped back into the main part of the room, where Hilda was waiting with a towel.

“Say what you will, Highness,” she commented as Athe dropped the robe and let Hilda towel her dry, “but I recall back in my youth, everyone always sparred with the one they had an interest in. It gave you an excuse to get your hands on them, you see.”

Athe felt herself go red, silently thanking the gods that she was facing in the other direction as Hilda scrubbed the water off her back. “I don’t think that’s an appropriate thing to be saying in front of the Princess,” she said, trying to sound aloof and probably failing.

Hilda just laughed. “Arms, please, Highness.” Athe stretched her hands above her head and let the old nurse drape a fine linen dress over her head, long-sleeved and reaching to her ankles. “It’s nothing you don’t know about already,” she continued, ignoring Athe’s indignant snort and instead rooting through a chest to find an overgown. “You’ve had more than enough young men trying to bed you already, and you’re only sixteen.”

“Seventeen next week,” Athe pointed out, taking the crimson fabric and draping it over her shoulders.

“How could I forget,” Hilda said drily, “when it’s your fault that the feasting is being extended for another week?”

“My point,” Athe said, rummaging through a box to find the gold brooches that had been a gift from her father’s country, “was that I’m the princess. The next queen. I need to make a political marriage, and I can’t risk getting involved with anyone. Not some noble who wants to go up in the world by getting a princess pregnant, and certainly not a guard.”

Hilda pinned the filigree brooches to Athe’s shoulders, fixing the sleeveless overgown in place, then reached for a belt. “And after you get married?” she asked with an arched brow, wrapping the finely tooled leather around the girl’s waist to keep the open sides of the overgown in place.

“Once I’ve got a lawful heir, I can do what I want,” Athe said firmly. “That’s the law, remember? Once you’ve done your duty to your family and husband’s family, you can be with whoever you want. Whether he chooses to do it is another matter, and none of my business.” She hesitated for a second. “Did you ever…? Back when your husband was alive I mean?”

“We both did,” Hilda said. “There’s no shame in it. We had children, of course, but we never exactly loved each other. We were friends, and we stayed friends.” She steered Athe across to the stool, already beginning to separate sections of hair to braid. “That’s the best way, really. If you have to marry, at least marry someone you can stand to live with.”

“I might not get the choice,” Athe remarked, opening a box in front of her and rummaging through the circlets she found there. “Which one shall I wear tonight?”

“One that matches your eyes would be best.” Hilda expertly pinned the braids out of the way to twist the remaining hair into a bun at the nape of her neck. “Just pick one.”

“They all match my eyes,” Athe pointed out. “That’s the point of my entire wardrobe, isn’t it?” She picked out an elegantly twisted crown of gold and passed it back over her head to her nurse.

“And very pretty eyes they are too.” The voice came from behind Athe, from the doorway. She craned her neck backwards to see her mother just entering.

“Aren’t you maybe a little biased in that?” she asked, grinning at her.

Elinor came to stand beside her daughter’s chair and kissed her lightly on the cheek. She was still in her formal robes, of course, with a heavy cloth-of-gold cloak draped over one arm and the gold state crown hanging from her hand. “I apologise for being sharp with you earlier,” she murmured. “I was just concerned. This is an important occasion, and you are representing our nation.”

“It’s - ow - it’s alright,” Athe told her, wincing slightly as Hilda pulled at her braids to pin them into the bun. “I understand. I’ll be more careful for the rest of the week.”

“You’d better be,” the queen warned, but she was smiling. “I came to tell you that you need to come down to the antechamber ready for going into the hall. The guests are already assembling.”

“I’ll be there,” Athe promised. Elinor kissed her again and quickly left, already calling something to one of the noble ladies that formed a part of her entourage. Athe sighed heavily as Hilda tugged at the gold circlet, ensuring it was held in place by the pinned braids. “How long would you say I’ve got?” she asked.

“Long enough to get to where you need to be,” Hilda informed her. “Now go on, be off with you. Your sisters should be here by now.”

Athe turned quickly in her chair. “I knew Korina would be able to make it, but Ingrid too? I thought she was needed in Aklimedes?”

“The Embassy can take care of itself for a little while.” Athe turned quickly to see her father leaning against the door, watching her.

“When exactly did you plan a systematic invasion of my rooms?” she inquired. “Mother’s only just left.”

“We should have planned it better then,” Michalis commented, not moving into the room any further. “I must have just missed her. I came to make sure you got here and didn’t get inexplicably diverted elsewhere - completely accidentally, of course.”

“Of course.” Athe regarded herself in the polished silver of the mirror for a second, adjusted the crooked circlet where it was pinned beneath her braids, then stood and brushed herself down. She took the golden dagger that Hilda proffered her, slotting it into the sheath, then took her father’s arm and smiled up at him. “Shall we?”

~~~~~~~~

Aren shut the heavy wooden door with a crash, surveying the bags that had been deposited on the floor by a guard. A servant would be along shortly to take care of everything, he’d said with a brief bow, and left straight away.

“What took you so long?” asked a harsh voice from the other room. Aren poked his head through the adjoining door to see a man in his late fifties, grizzled and road-weary, sat on a chair with one leg held stiffly in front of him.

“Garrick,” he greeted his uncle. “And I had to find someone to carry the rest of the bags after you dumped them all on me, didn’t I?”

“Could always carry them yourself,” Garrick pointed out, making a face as he rubbed his thigh. “A young spritely thing like you, not some old veteran of a thousand border clashes.”

“It might be a good idea to maybe not mention the thing about the border clashes,” Aren murmured, mindful of the fact they were technically in enemy territory, “considering we’re currently on the other side of said border and some people might just take a little bit of offense at, you know, you killing people.”

“It’s all over now.” His uncle waved a hand at the room they were in. “And if they were that easily offended they wouldn’t have invited a Lanosian border lord and his heir to live in their palace for a week.”

“I think it’s probably called being diplomatic,” Aren said drily. “Besides, I don’t think people are that well disposed towards Lanosians in general. When I was trying to get someone’s attention in the hall this one girl walked straight into me, and when I started to talk she just walked off - although ran might be a more accurate term. Glared daggers at me whilst doing it, too.”

“Everyone here has to do border patrols at some point,” Garrick reminded him. “Most people will have known someone killed.” He paused for a second. “Getting on the good side of the girls already then?”

Aren rolled his eyes. “Don’t remind me. Still, even though I am Lanosian, I would have expected a servant to show at least a little respect.”

“Are you sure she was even a servant? Oseirans aren’t known for their kindnesses, of course, but they’re usually not so candid about it.”

“I’m presuming she wasn’t a noble, considering she was wearing a shirt and breeches.” Aren tried to think back to what he’d seen of the girl in the brief second. Shirt and boots and breeches, red tunic, hair braided. There had been something off as well, something wrong, but he couldn’t place it now.

“You’d be surprised,” Garrick remarked. “They do things differently, this side of the border. A proper warrior race, the Oseirans - you have to be, up in the mountains. No country is going to last long if the women-folk mince around in dresses and skirts all the time.”

“Yes, but-” Aren was interrupted by a knock on the door in the other room, the instigator of which turned out to be a pretty, buxom young woman, in a plain grey overgown with a red stripe around the hem.

“Lord Garrick?” she asked with a curtsey and a bright smile.

“My uncle is,” Aren told her, holding the door open for the servant girl to pass into the room. “He’s rather tired from the journey.”

“Not so tired I can’t stand, you young upstart,” Garrick grumbled as he appeared at the door, keeping his weight awkwardly off his sore leg. “You the maid we’ve been sent while we’re here, then?”

“Yes, my Lord, although I’ve been allocated several suites beside your own - so I won’t be here all the time.” She made a slightly apologetic gesture. “The castle is very busy, what with the Princess’ coming-of-age celebrations.”

“It’s fine,” Aren said, flashing what he hoped was a winning smile at her. “I’m sure you’re very good at your job.”

“Just as you say, sir,” she agreed cheerfully. “I’ll be coming in in the morning to light the fire - it gets cold in the morning with winter coming in - and to put in the bedwarmers at night. I’ll deliver any meals you order, if you don’t want to eat in the main hall-” She rattled off a list of duties, and concluded with “but being a personal servant isn’t in my orders, my Lords, so I won’t be helping with dressing and so on. I can send a manservant if you wish, though.”

“We’ll be just fine,” Garrick said, nodding at her. “What’s your name, lass?”

“Brenna, my Lord.”

“Alright, Brenna. How will we send for you if we need something?”

She pointed up at a hole in the stone ceiling of the room, a rope hanging from it. “That leads to the kitchens and servants’ hall. If I’m not there at the time someone else will come.”

Garrick gave the hole a calculating look, lips moving silently as though in calculation, then nodded. “Alright. You can leave.”

“Thank you, my Lord.” Brenna smiled and bobbed a curtsey to them both, then started for the door.

“Brenna!” Aren called after her, stopping her at the door. She waited for him to approach.

“Yes, sir?”

“Tell me - and it’s fine if the answer is no - do you happen to offer any…” He hesitated trying to think of a way to say it. “Other services, at all.”

She didn’t look offended at all, just smiled brightly at him. “Sorry, sir, but I don’t. Not that it’s against the rules, though, so some might.”

“Are you sure you won’t make an exception at all?” he asked a little plaintively.

“Not at all, sir, no. You’re not the only one to ask me that today, either, and some of the others weren’t quite so polite in the asking of it.” She tapped the small but sturdy dagger that hung at her hip. As Aren stared, she added cheerfully, “Anyway, sir, you can call me if you need me for anything, but I’ve got my young man waiting for me down in the servants’ halls.”

With that, Brenna turned and headed off down the corridor, hips swaying, and Aren watched her retreat with a faintly regretful expression.

“Not like the girls back home, are they?” Garrick said drily as his nephew closed the door again.

“Not exactly, no,” Aren admitted, “but that’s not a bad thing. Imagine how many less bastard children there would be if women were allowed to go armed.”

Garrick shot the hole in the ceiling another look. “You might want to explain exactly what you mean by that, lad.”

Aren stared at him for a second. “What do you- Oh. No, definitely not. I swear.” At his uncle’s look, he added, feeling the heat rise in his cheeks, “I mean, there may have been a girl or two, but I never forced any of them, and they’re not pregnant. I checked afterwards.”

Garrick nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Good to know we’re on the same page then, and you’re not discussing anything else.”

“What else is there to discuss?” Aren asked immediately, and Garrick ruffled his hair as he limped past him on the way back to the other room. He scowled. “Don’t do that. We’ve only got ten minutes or so until we need to get to the feast.”

“It wouldn’t be such an issue if you had it cut occasionally,” his uncle told him as he pulled his travel-stained tunic over his head and straightened his undershirt before extracting a fine forest-green tunic and shaking it out. “You look a mess.”

Aren smoothed his dark hair and shrugged. “What’s the point? It’s not as if I’ll be heading to court any time soon.” He caught the blue tunic that Garrick threw at his head and got changed, talking all the while. “You always say that being neat isn’t as important in the borderlands as it is down in the city. Besides,” he looked sideways at his uncle, “if you’re going by what looks a mess, you need to shave.”

Garrick rubbed his scruffy iron-grey beard defensively. “It keeps my chin warm. Winters up in the mountains are cold.”

“Right. Anyway, you’re not allowed to comment on my hair again unless you get rid of that rat on your chin.” He ducked the empty sword scabbard that Garrick lobbed at his head. “Oh gods, grow up. You’d do terribly at court. At least I know how to behave in polite society.”

“Mainly because your mother won’t let you do any different. She’s a scary woman when she wants to be, that Dimani.”

“If I knew that was all it took, I would shout at you in various Kanaian dialects more often.” Aren adjusted the dagger at his hip, frowning. “Are you sure we can’t take swords?”

“Positive. Oseiran swords aren’t the flimsy things they carry down at the Lanosian court - they’re designed for killing, not decoration. Daggers at all times, but swords only when you’re in a situation when you would need to use one. That’s the rules, and I don’t fancy being summarily arrested for being a threat to the Queen.”

“But swords for travelling is fine?”

“Travelling, being in the city, being up in the mountains where the bandits are - things like that. Anyway, are you coming? We’re going to be late for the feast, and feasting is one thing the Oseirans don’t do by halves.”

“Do they do anything by halves?”

Garrick went to ruffle his nephew’s hair again, grinning as he ducked. “You’re learning. Now hurry up, or you’ll miss all the food.”

[firstreads]

Title : Untitled

Summary: A newly christened priest finds himself in the middle of a series of paranatural assaults, chief among them his framing for the murder of a bishop by a mysterious Tall Man. During his travels through the USA, he meets a homeless youth who faces similar attacks, and together they attempt to both escape their pursuers and discover the cause of the string of supernatural problems in the nation.

Word Count : 1084

Genre: Horror/thriller

Warnings: murder, almost sexual assault, mild ableism (?)

“On the day Martin Callaghan joined the clergy, God disowned the Earth.

Now, this came about by no fault of Martin’s. The lad wasn’t particularly nice, but there was nothing about his joining of the church that would lead to the Father’s sudden abandonment of his flock. No, like many of God’s actions, the basis of this about-face was inherently unknowable. Perhaps somebody committed a particularly heinous sin that day. Perhaps God was simply tired of babysitting. Whatever the cause, the fact remained. Martin joined the ranks of the Lord’s army on the day it was disbanded.

Not that the citizens of Earth realized anything was amiss; at least, not at first. For all intents and purposes, life seemed to continue as it had for the millennia previous. Bakers continued to make pastries, lawyers continued to defend and prosecute criminals, jackasses continued to shout outside of abortion clinics. Civilization continued to dance its short, violent, eclectic jig over the face of the planet and everybody clapped along.

The day came, however, that God’s lack of affection began to show itself. It was subtle and widespread, consisted of strange crackpot theories from impressionable children and the members on the fringes of society.

A small town in Wisconsin found itself the center of a media firestorm when a church janitor discovered, while cleaning the basement, a pyramid of charred bodies painted blood red. Kneeling at the foot of the pyramid was a local homeless woman, naked as the day she was born and smelling of motor oil, muttering prayers under her breath. The janitor only heard a snatch of her sinful sermon before calling the authorities, but he managed to testify to the police when taken into questioning about the snippet he had caught. He had understood as little as they did about her pleas of acceptance to a - no, the - "Lidless One.” Locals later said that they never would have expected it from her. She was crazy, sure, but it was a pedestrian insanity.

On the other side of the world, seven year old Yu Haan in Taipei kept her parents up every night for a week through her refusal to sleep in her own bed. Her parents chalked it up to a particularly bad nightmare: she had burst into their room in tears, blubbering about a “terrible thing” she had seen when her thirst woke her up in the middle of the night. On the third night of this, her mother turned to her husband. “Maybe we should see a psychiatrist,” she said irritably, “because what normal little girl dreams about getting choked by her own damn dog?”

Five days later, the Haan family was discovered dead in their bedroom. The cause of death was determined to be strangulation. Inspector Eric Tien investigated their murders; in his case report, he indicated his sadness at having to put down their pet dog. He normally loved animals, but this one kept trying to attack him. Maybe it had rabies or something.

That wouldn’t explain why it took six shots to go down, though. Wasn’t even a big dog. It had to be sick with something, Tien reasoned, something that made it go a bit crazy. It had those glassy, listless sick eyes. He continued to search the house for clues about the murderer. The case was never solved, despite his best efforts.

Around the same time as these incidents, two teenager lovers in London, England, got in a heap of trouble with their families for making love along the banks of the Thames. Not helping their situation was the farfetched story they told after having been caught in this premarital intercourse.

The pair had been dating for about four months before deciding to consummate their relationship through sex. Both of them coming from large, relatively conservative families, the couple knew that neither of their houses would be a suitable place to do it. But if not in bed, then where should they do it? They quickly ruled out a whole host of locations. No restrooms; neither one of them was any kind if fucking hooker or heroin junkie. None of their friends would be willing to risk lending their basements to their horny compatriots. Their options were limited.

In the end, they decided to eschew privacy altogether and took each other in a secluded section of a local park adjacent to the Thames River. They began to amateurishly explore each other’s bodies in the cool shade underneath a young tree. Unfortunately, neither one was able to achieve climax before looking over into the muddy waters of the river beside them and noticing the enormous, crooked mouth grinning out disembodiedly at them. The piercing screams of the damned that accompanied it could also have been described as a “boner killer.”

Both teens also described a feeling like the planet swirling underneath their feet as they struggled to pry their eyes from the malicious glee of the river’s inhuman smile. The more they stared into the misshapen, dirty teeth, the more they found their minds gravitating to the horrible things they had the potential to do to each other. All of the myriad ways to exploit the other, things that would make any decent human being retch in their own mouths, whipped through their head as if from a communion with some Charles Manson-esque twisted mind.

Soon, the mouth, apparently satisfied with its perversion of the youths, sank back into the murky depths of the current. The two teens reported to their parents that it was like waking up from a trance. They neglected to mention the position they found themselves in (stark naked, one with their fingers hooked behind the other’s teeth, the other firmly squeezing the other’s testicles), but couldn’t avoid the fact that they had somehow managed to lose track of five hours from when they began their lovemaking.

It was obvious to all concerned that drugs must have been involved. Their parents bemoaned the state of the youth these days, and sentenced both to a longer punishment than they had ever experienced. Fortunately for the kids (or so it was assumed) no legal action was taken against either, and that day eventually faded into obscurity.

Small, unexplainable situations like these began occurring all around the world, following the fateful day that one man became a priest. None of these occurrences were ever linked, but it was obvious that queer things were beginning to happen, and nobody knew this better than Father Martin Darius Callaghan.“

[firstreads]

TALLEZAR Book 1: The Darkfire Burns

Wednesday, October 29 2127. Brooklyn, N.Y.

A FORTY-FIVE CALIBER ROUND makes a distinctive sound. It rocks the room, reverberating off the walls, and whines past your ears as if it were in pain when it misses. Then the scent of sulfur kidnaps the air, cordite palpable along the line of your tongue. A magazine full of hollow-points taught Tyler the lesson as they ricocheted around his head. 

Making the distinction between calibers was difficult enough for a normal man; a silencer would’ve made the feat impossible. But Tyler Haggerty was no normal man. His sensitive ears snatched the sound out of the air before the bullets met his chest and he dove behind the shambles of a couch aging in the middle of the seedy Brooklyn apartment. 

“What the hell’s wrong with your face?” said the shooter as he crouched defensively, frantically ejecting a spent cartridge from his machine pistol, eyes glued to the couch waiting for his target to make a move. The cartridge slid down his matte black leather sports coat until it hit the tip of his ebony snakeskin shoes, leaving a fresh brown nick at the toe. 

The move would come too quickly for shooter to react as Tyler grabbed the remains of a cracked vase sitting at his feet and tossed it at the exposed bulb protruding from the ceiling. The porcelain met glass and a tiny puff of smoke could be seen for a split second before the room fell black.

The shooter swung his weapon wildly in the shadows weaving lines of bullet holes into the plasterboard. The darkness was his enemy, but for Tyler it was a friend. The only thing that shone within the sea of ebony was the ambience of his blue eyes glowing.

“What the hell are you!” the shooter shouted, watching the blue oblong lights swirl around into the air as Tyler flipped over him, catching his arm around his neck in midflight – landing with the shooter’s head pulled over his shoulder, the rest of his body hanging against his back as he fell unconscious.

“I’ll let you know when I figure it out,” he replied to his now silent inquisitor.

Summary: Torn from the only life he knows, Tyler seeks revenge and the truth. 

Word Count: 366 words Genre: science fiction (Optional) Warnings: violence

Please direct followers to visit this link to download the complete chapter 1 for free:

http://darkscape.com/projects/tallezar-the-darkfire-burns/

Thank you!

[firstreads]

Title: Untitled (for now) Summary: The story, at the beginning, follows three separate groups of awkward teenagers a week before they go to a large city for a competition, after failing to enter a much more prestigious one. In this week, large things happen to them and they have no time to adjust, because they have to go on this trip. When they come out of baggage claim at the airport, they sees a man waiting with a sign that says “— Competition.”  They follow the man to a car, which they assume has been sent by the hotel. As they talks with the man, they gradually realize that there has been a mix-up and the man was actually waiting for the contestants of the other competition, and are heading to it!  But the other competition sounds so much more interesting than theirs, that they all decide not to reveal the mistake… (I haven’t decided what kind of competition, if you can’t already tell)

Words in this chapter: 297

Genre: Young Adult, idk what else?? maybe there’ll be some romance but ??

Warnings: smoking mention (the book is written in short journal entries, kind of a stream-of-consciousness deal)

Murray, 1-8, 6:28 PM

If you know me, you’d think I can dance. The way I move normally–spinning on my heels, dodging and moving around things hips first, putting my foot straight up in the air when I bend over–would make you think that I would be a really good dancer. But the truth is, I’m not. I’m really not. I try to be, though; I practice in the shower, secretly (because, really, no matter how you explain it, dancing in the shower sounds kinda dirty) and I try to follow along to the beat, but in the end, I either end up looking like a white dad or a stripper whose on her first night. Either way, people end up looking away with secondhand embarrassment.

-

It was at Callie’s studio. We (the entire “robotics team”, minus Ashlee, who was outside smoking) were sitting around, three equally non-productive activities instead of the homework we were supposed to be doing: 1) Quietly and slowly helping Cal with her new song, talking about our favorite and least favorite pictures from last years yearbook (while flipping through it, so technically, two actions in one), or scrolling horror blogs on Birdie’s phone and shouting out small portions of the posts that creeped us out the most.

When, suddenly, which is frankly the only way she does anything, Cal sprung up. “Actually, I just had a major religious epiphany. Thank you, Jesus.” She dramatically blew a kiss at her ceiling. “Let’s go.” She raised her arms above her head and walked out the room.

Julio, who was in the middle of reading us a post about a lost episode of Goosebumps, shrugged, and without looking at us, followed her. Before I knew it we all had (but what else is new?).

[firstreads]

Beyond Here Lies Nothing

Summary: A young woman searches for paradise in the post-apocalyptic wilderness of North America, accompanied by a deserter from an enemy faction and hounded by his former allies.  Word Count: 2676 Genre: SF/Post Apocalyptic

A detachment of Regulars arrived as she haggled at the trading post, a dozen men in grey coats with longshot rifles and lean black dogs.

Lily watched through the glassless window as they split into pairs and started going door-to-door, and a stone dropped into the pit of her stomach. The annual draft had ended months ago. Why were they here?  

The shopkeeper straightened the monochrome Coalition flag on the wall, brushing dust from the faded image of the rearing dragon. His eyes alternated between his customer and the tattered curtain hanging in the doorframe.

Lily tugged her shapeless knit hat down over her dense black curls. This wilderness outpost had more trees than people. She’d assumed it was safe.

“C’mon, how much,” she demanded, hands hovering, thin brown fingers poking through unraveling gloves. Her youth was lost behind the lines at the corners of her mouth and the iron in her dark brown eyes. She stood ready to bolt.  

He tossed the roll of wire down, shaking his head.

“It’s copper,” she snapped. It wasn’t, but even though the water in this region had been rad-free for a generation, she needed to eat something besides boiled tree bark and razor grass.

The shopkeeper stared down his nose.

Lily’s hand dipped into an inner pocket of her coat and came up clutching two battered red plastic tubes, dull brass end caps gleaming in the cold morning sun. Their faint, acrid smell mingled with the scents of smoke and unwashed skin.

Their gray-market dealings slid into black as the shopkeeper whistled. “Live?”

“Yeah, and they ain’t reloads either.” She kept her fingers curled in a protective cage over the shells. “Gimme that big water jug, two MREs and some firestarters. Throw in that blanket too.”

Heavy feet trod the weathered planks outside and she shoved the shells into her pocket, heart thudding against her ribs. Below the curtain, she saw the hem of a long, dark wool coat over black boots gone gray with sticking mud.

Operative.

The boots paused, then pivoted as their owner wrenched the curtain open and marched inside.

“How can I help you, sir,” the shopkeeper asked in a greasy tone that made Lily want to vomit on her boots. Her hands curled into fists and she kept her head down.

“I seek a fugitive.” The Operative stepped up to the counter, leaving a mud track across the floor. Lily glimpsed fair hair and pale skin above the trademark black uniform as he flashed the screen of a scanner.

When the man dribbled words of apology and denial, the Operative spun on his heel and brandished the little machine at Lily.

She glanced at the battered palm-sized screen, barely registering the blurry image of a man with white-blonde hair and vacant eyes before shaking her head, unable to speak.

Her eyes traveled up, past the silver insignia on his collar; his eyes were corpse-blue, pale and empty in his lean face. She was hyperaware of the long knife sheathed at his right side, the pistol holstered on his left.  

A Regular burst through the doorway, and the Operative’s sleek blonde head snapped around. “Report.”

“We found the healer, sir.” The man was younger than her, face flushed like a winter apple beneath his gray cap. His terrified, excited eyes flickered from her to the Operative.

“Show me.”

The man in black strode away without another word. The Regular scrambled after him like a puppy, and Lily slumped against the counter.

The shopkeeper wiped sweat from his face, all traces of the sickly-sweet demeanor gone. Now he just looked sick. A shrill scream sounded from the street, punctuated by howling dogs, and his face grew three shades greyer.

Without these supplies she would die before she reached the border.

Lily’s hand crept toward the scrap metal knife at her belt, but the shopkeeper set a wooden cudgel down on the counter and jerked his chins at a side door. “Get those out of my shop,” he said, nodding at her pocket.

The Regulars herded everyone into the square, shouting orders. A man broke from the crowd and sprinted down the street, and the flat crack of a pistol shot sent ragged crows wheeling up into the coal-gray sky. Lily ducked between two lopsided shacks in the confusion.

She cinched the straps of her pack tight against her narrow shoulders and got ready to run, but the old familiar pain cracked through her left leg and she fell to her knees behind a rusted rain barrel, breathing through her nose.

The Operative moved through the turmoil in the square like a knife, two Regulars tailing him with an old man suspended between them, feet dragging. They threw him to his knees in the middle of the street.

“Where is he.” Operatives didn’t ask questions, they didn’t make requests. They gave orders.

“Dead,” the old man rasped. The white of his beard turned red as blood trickled down the lines and seams of his face. “I burned the body.”

“Where is he.”

“Dead. I burned the body.” The Regulars took a tighter grip on the man’s arms, like he was going somewhere.

The Operative drew his gun. Maybe thirty-five people watched as he pressed the barrel against the old man’s forehead. Thirty-five was enough to fight back, if they’d had the will, but there was none. “Where is he.”

“Dead,” the healer began, but the gunshot cut off the rest of his words. His body slumped into the red mud. Then the screaming started and the pain didn’t matter anymore.

Lily ran and didn’t stop until her weak leg collapsed, sending her tumbling into the dead leaves and drying mud. No time to rest. She limped away, covering ground until she couldn’t hear the shouts or the gunfire, but the smell of burning followed her.

–

The morning she found the dead man started the way the last three mornings had. Snow fell soft as ash on the shells of buildings broken centuries ago, and if the sun rose somewhere above the haze, she didn’t see it.

Lily shook off her tarp and threadbare blanket and folded them into her pack. The stabbing cold stole her breath as she swung over the rusted guard rail. She’d follow the old road to the river, then she’d follow the setting sun across the Wasteland until…

Until she arrived in a shining city on seven hills, somewhere between the mountains and the sea. Somewhere no one knew her name or her face, or the things she’d done.

It felt like she traveled the same stretch of road in an eternal circle through a landscape of unchanging grays and whites. She passed ruins built on ruins, the bones of the old world propping up the fresher corpse of the new.

Some buildings predated the Collapse, others rose from its scraps, but in the tired gray light of early winter they all looked the same – like broken teeth in a shattered jaw.

As she left the last remnants of civilization behind, the world faded to drifted snow, skeletal trees, and silence. Even before the world ended, this part of it had been deserted.

Nothing broke the stillness except her breathing and the crunch of snow beneath her boots, and she was so used to the monotony that she almost overlooked the body in the ditch.

Lily stared, unimpressed. It was human, and it was dead. The corpse lay face-down in a drift of churned, bloody snow. Poor bastard dragged himself right to the edge of the road and–

She narrowed her eyes. Yes, the snow-dusted shape next to him was a pack, full and bulging. Grinning, she slid down into the ditch. It took all her strength to flip the corpse over, and she was panting and dizzy by the time she started searching the pockets.

Then she saw the dead man’s blue-tinged face and froze.

He was the fugitive the Operative had been hunting. She recognized him by his stubbled hair, so blonde it was almost white.

Lily brushed clinging snow from his face, wondering why the Operative was after him, but the slight movement of his chest chased supposition away. Frowning, she touched the icy skin under his jaw and found a slow, weak pulse.

For a moment Lily imagined having someone to talk to and walk with, before common sense gained the upper hand. If he lived he’d end up being bad news. Most people were.

So she did the smart thing and took the coat off him, and then she ripped his pack open and just stared.

A blanket and tarp. A medkit. A folding knife and a lighter. Slick brown plastic packets of food. A collapsible lantern that fit in her palm. Excitement tingled in Lily’s hands; whoever he was, he’d just saved her life.

By the time she’d repacked everything, he was hardly breathing. Nothing she could do for him. He’d be dead before noon.

She packed up and moved out, trying not to think about how long it had been since she’d sat and talked with somebody, or about the way his heart had beat under her fingertips.

Nothing she could do.

Nothing you could do in Omaha either, right? Lily hated that small mocking voice. She supposed it might have been her conscience, once. Just keep walking. Let him die. You won’t even notice a little more blood on your hands.

She sighed, swore, and stomped back along her tracks to slide down into the ditch.

“Wake up.” Lily shook his shoulder. It was stiff from cold or imminent death. “Can you hear me?”

Nothing. Not even a twitch, just the weak flutter of a pulse. She should walk away. Even as she thought it she was covering him up, slapping his face in an attempt to get a response.

He moaned, and his eyelids fluttered. She stared at him, mouth gaping, before slapping him harder. “Wake up!”

His eyelids rose halfway and after a moment he focused on her, eyes as blue and cold as his skin.

“Stay awake or you’ll die,” she commanded, and he kept staring.

They needed shelter. If she couldn’t leave when he was unconscious there was no point doing it now that he was awake. She could make a lean-to out in the trees, far enough from the road for a fire… she squeezed the lighter as she thought it over.

He’ll die and you’ll feel worse, she thought. Or the Operative is gonna catch up and kill you.

If she tried to keep him alive, though, she could loot the inevitable corpse with a clear conscience. If Coalition showed up, she’d just hand him over. With her common sense and shriveled morality in agreement, Lily unfolded the tarp and laid it out next to him.

“I’m gonna move you,” she said, wondering how the hell she would manage. He probably weighed twice as much as she did. “Can you walk?”

The man shook his head once and fell still again, air rushing out of him in a puff of condensation.

He was slipping away; she raised her hand again, but lowered it as his eyes rolled open. “I’m going to pull you, but you gotta help me. Count of three.”

It took four counts of three, but between the two of them they got him onto the tarp, leaving behind enough blood to convince Lily she was wasting her time.

“Keep your damn eyes open,” she grunted, bent double as she struggled to start the tarp moving. She fell twice before finding a spot with thick enough brush to screen them from the road.  

Lily rigged the canvas up to a deadfall tree, straightening with a hand in the small of her back.  Her bad decision was unconscious again. She summoned the last of her energy and dragged them both inside.

Light. She unfolded the lantern and pressed a small button at its base, flooding the shelter with soft illumination. The tiny piece of civilization might have moved her, once, but she set it aside and piled snow in the opening of the lean-to. The heat of two bodies would be enough until she could risk a fire.

When she’d finished the man was shivering, a good sign. He was pawing at his bloody shirt, and that was a bad one.

“Easy. Let me see.” She tried to remember how to make her voice soft and soothing, tried to keep her hands gentle. The cloth was stiff with dried blood and stuck to his skin. Lily flicked open the knife she’d taken from his coat.

He tensed, but his blank face and eyes didn’t change.

“If I wanted to kill you I would’ve done it already,” Lily said, slicing his shirt up the front.

A mess of stained bandages covered three crossed gashes across his abdomen. Beside the fresh wounds were pale white scars and thin red ones. She saw more on his hands and forearms, another beneath his eye.  

“Somebody didn’t like you,” she remarked, sifting through the neat packages in the medkit. Gauze was obvious, and maybe antiseptic, and antibiotics were always in the red bottle. There were needles for suturing, too, but she hoped she wouldn’t have to use them. “It’s gonna hurt, now.”  

To his credit he didn’t move or make a sound as she cleaned the wounds. He hadn’t spoken yet and didn’t seem likely to start. Worse, he looked too pale and his eyes were closing again.

“I’m Lily,” she said as she worked, trying to keep him conscious. “What’s your name?”

“74.” His voice was low and hoarse, without inflection. A dead, machine voice.

Lily paused with her hand mid-swab. “The hell kind of name is that,” she asked. He didn’t answer, so she resumed her work and he watched her without showing a sign of pain. She looked at the curved needles, then shut the medkit and settled for bandages.

She forced a few precious antibiotic tablets into him before he drifted into a fitful sleep, sweat gleaming on his forehead.

Lily watched him in the dim lantern light, wondering what he’d done to merit the search party she’d seen. She folded her knees against her chest with a groan. There was a knot in the middle of her spine and an ache in her shoulders.

Her eyes dragged shut, and when they opened again the sun was down and violent gusts of wind battered the canvas. 74 stirred when she touched him, opening his eyes and staring like he’d forgotten where he was and why.

A word creaked out from between his dry lips. “Water.”

She held the battered canteen out to him but it slid through his fingers. Lily sighed, unscrewing the top and holding it up for him, tilting it as he drained it dry. “I saved your life. You remember?”

He nodded carefully, his hand going to his bandaged chest. “Why.”

“Dunno. I almost didn’t,” she said, and he blinked up at her without surprise or judgment. Then they were both quiet, and she chewed on the inside of her cheek, breaking the silence with, “Where’d you come from?”

He didn’t answer.

So much for someone to talk to. Lily peeked under the dressings on his chest; the bleeding had all but stopped and the redness and swelling had gone down as well. Must be the Coalition drugs – they had stockpiles of the good ones, from Before.

“How’d it happen,” she asked, to fill the silence.

He struggled to keep his eyes open. “Knife,” he rasped.

Lily remembered the blade at the hip of that Operative in the settlement and second guessed all her choices. She was determined to ask why the Coalition was after him and what had happened, but of course 74 was unconscious again.

She curled up in the corner of the tent with her head propped up on her hands, bone deep weariness overtaking her.

She dreamed of long knives, of men with sharp smiles and cities melting like candles.

�bߚcvS�)]

[firstreads]

Title: “I Have Seen”

Genre: Young Adult Fantasy/Science Fiction

Words in this chapter: 770

The air of Vale was brisk in the mornings, just when the sun began to rise. My apartment carried that same sort of chill. I didn’t bother turning on the heat much these days. It really wasn’t worth the effort.

I slowly pulled myself out of bed and slipped on my rings. I never liked sleeping with them on. One good thrash, and I have a nice lovely gauge across my face.

The crisp, silent mornings of Vale were perfect for meditation. Perfect for honing my craft, down to a fine-edged blade that could easily kill if needed. I could still hear the way my brother would chide me, telling me to go sharper, pointier, more fine-tuned than I ever thought I could. To concentrate, to push everything aside and FOCUS.

It was this time in the morning, just as the sun was rising, that I thought most about Alexander. A pang of guilt ran through me. He was still in that house, at the edge of town, all alone except for a care taker. Neither our father nor my mother visited him often, and I was far too busy to manage it.

If I had time today, I’d stop by. Make sure he’s doing alright.

After meditation, I got myself ready for work. Hmm. Skirt suit or pants suit. Skirt suit or–who am I kidding, skirt suit. I’ve worn pants for long enough. Any chance to wear a skirt is fine by me.

The ride in was uneventful. I biked down to the train station, then took the subway down to the office. The trains were oddly quiet. It was to be expected, after what had happened yesterday.

It had happened after I had left the office, and was officially off the clock. And we’d done a damn good job covering it up, for the most part. No news program had covered it, but I knew that some people knew. I could feel it in their minds, overbrimming with thoughts of what happened.

It was like I was right there, really. Right there, wehn that… that person appeared. Impossibly tall. Impossibly thin. They had hovered over their handiwork for a few moments, surveying the crowd and their reactions.

Some people had lost their hearing temporarily in the attack, the explosions leaving nothing but distinct ringing. For those that still had their hearing, they could hear… the silence. Valen silent was more startling than anything. There were no honking horns, no yelling people, no screeching brakes. Just… the hum of powerful CASP energies.

And as the sirens began to wail in the distance, the figure floating above the exploded ruins of the old police station said clearly, into everyone’s minds, “This is only the beginning.”

When I had first learned it had happened, I was already on the scene, trying to scrub the memories from these people’s minds. No one could talk about this. We had to cover it up. We had to find this person, this person that was completely off our scale of measuring CASP, and destroy them. And we didn’t need people panicking about them.

As I stepped into the office, a stack of paperwork was thrust into my hands. Great. Just what I needed. My boss gave me a stern look when I looked in her direction with puppy-dog eyes. No whining my way out of this.

I moved to my desk, and saw on the whiteboard a single word written there in red ink. The handwriting was… unfamiliar. I’d never seen this handwriting. Some of the scientists were examining it, looking for residual traces of CASP.

The paper work fell to the desk with a heavy fwumph. I scratched my head briefly and asked aloud, “What’s a ‘Vidi’ and why’s it on the board?”

Alpha Smith, my partner, shrugged. His desk was covered in the same paperwork, and he didn’t look like he had the luxury of sleep last night. He replied, “It was there this morning. We don’t have any red ink, anywhere.”

I puzzled over that. “Why no red ink?” Alpha gave me a condescending look. Oh right. He’s colorblind. “Sorry.”

“S'okay.” He took a deep sip of his coffee and said, “We’re thinking the bomber put that there themselves. Give us a lead, or at least a name to go off of.”

Vidi, huh. I considered the name, and matched it up to the composite images I had generated from people’s memories. Vidi could suit them, I suppose.

Whatever it is, I’ll be better at hunting them now that I have a name. A face would help, but a name works.

[firstreads]

50 Lives Immortal

Title : 50 Lives Immortal Summary: Travis, a sixteen year old fond of horror films, forms a demon deal with Mammon in exchange for fifty lifetimes and time traveling abilities. However, Mammon finds a loophole in the deal, and Travis dies over and over again, being reincarnated into fifty lives before being dragged down to Hell. Word Count: 3,449 Genre: Young Adult/historical fiction/fantasy

Birthdate: May 17th 1998, Washington USA

Given Name: Travis Bennet Eston

Current Age: 16

Last night Travis had a dream about bats.

It was unusually vivid, and, though he hated to admit it, freaking terrifying. He didn’t even know his subconscious was capable of something like that. Who has it in the back of their head that they’re going to be ripped to shreds by large, angry bats screaming ‘moron will have your goal’? He liked bats. They were cool. And they certainly didn’t have big glowing orange eyes like in the dream.

He poured cereal into a bowl, frowning. At least he didn’t think they did. He shuddered as he imagined the bats again. Dang it, bats had better not be ruined for him.

“Move.” Sheila said from behind him. She stood in the middle of the kitchen,, still half asleep, with her pyjama leg twisted and her curly brown hair, the same as Travis’, a mess. She glared at him until he moved, and she got a bowl from the top cabinet. She looked around crossly, focusing on the cereal box in Travis’ hands, and took it. She poured herself a bowl, filled it with milk, and went back upstairs.

“Good morning Sheila.” Travis yelled after her.

“Freak!” She yelled back.

He sighed, taking an apple from the basket. He got a spoon and gathered up his breakfast before heading upstairs after Sheila. She sneered at him and shut her door loudly as he walked past, making the boyband posters taped to it move. His sister was very much a teen queen, for barely being a teen at all. Tween queen. She liked boybands and that stupid romance vampire series.

The door to his parent’s was open, the bed neat and a few dress shirts on the floor. The room was dark, cold, and very empty. His parents had been at work for hours now, even though it was a Saturday. They worked all week, Sunday and Saturday, too.  Always gone, always working.

He balanced the apple under his chin as he shut the door softly. The empty room kind of made him uncomfortable. He went into his own room, locking the door behind him, and set down the cereal and the apple on his desk before grabbing his computer. All “secret agent”, he typed in the password,  it’snotthatidon’tdislikeithere.

As the password was accepted and his computer woke up, he grabbed the cereal and ate a big spoonful. The computer beeped and his english project popped up. It only took him a moment to decide against working and to watch a movie instead. His desk clock said it was a little after eleven. He could procrastinate for a while before starting it. English could wait. Now was the time for horror films.

It was a little embarrassing to admit, but Travis loved horror films. Cheesy, low budget, just all around bad horror films that wouldn’t make you scared even if you were in it. They were the best thing ever.

He pulled up one he had seen a million times and put his earbuds in, propped the computer against his knees, and started watching. It was a Summoning Gone Wrong, with the college students and the Latin and the screaming and being pulled into the shadows.

About halfway through the movie, Sheila slammed on his door.

“I’m going to a friends house.” she shouted, not even really checking to make sure he heard her. “Don’t tell mom and dad.”

“Fine.” he shouted back, and he heard her running down the stairs. The door slammed, and he sunk back in his pillows. There was the nice feeling when you know the house is empty except for you. Now he could laugh as loud as he wanted to.

When the movie finished, he set the empty bowl on the floor and grabbed the apple. As he peeled the sticker off the next movie started playing automatically. He didn’t usually have them on a playlist, but this movie had demons in it, and it wasn’t half bad. He liked watching it right after the summoning-gone-wrong story, since it was interesting to imagine a story where a demon summoning went wrong. Demons would be different from ghosts, since you could get something out of summoning them. A demon deal movie would be awesome.

He laughed. Maybe he could try coming up with a movie script for a demon deal gone wrong. He could start it out with the bats from his dream. Of course he’d have to change what they were saying- ‘moron will have your goal’ wasn’t very scary.

How did you even summon a demon? As he watched, two teenagers found this old book of spells and just chanted latin and put some of their own blood in a bowl. Poof. A huge goat like guy with yellow eyes. The kids told him to kill someone at their school, and the demon did, but then it didn’t stop killing. In the end the two main kids managed to find the reverse spell and saved the day.

It was kind of stupid of them not to have the reverse spell ready. If he summoned a demon and it went wrong, he’d have the reverse spell. And he’d have a better command for the demon than just killing people. Like immortality. Or time traveling. Probably both, since demons were pretty powerful in the movies. He could summon one, and make it give him immortality and time travel abilities, and it would be his servant.

A smile crept across his face. It wouldn’t hurt to try. If it didn’t work, he could laugh about it later. And if it did…

He picked up his computer excitedly and pulled up google. how to summon a demon to use as a servant. He pressed the enter key, and after a second the search pages popped up. A bunch of gaming sites, and a few that his virus protection raised a red flag on. Finally, after a bit of searching, going far into the depths of google, he found a fairly legit looking site.

Summon a demon. Instructions on how to summon, control, and bind a demon to you, so that it may fulfill your wishes.

He clicked on summoning instructions.

The page was long and very specific. Goat milk, and your most prized possession. Both check. His mom liked goat milk because it was healthier or something, and he had something in mind for the prized possession. Strand of hair from a young girl. He could get some from Sheila’s hairbrush. There were a few plants and other ingredients, but nothing he couldn’t get. There was paint to draw the circle in his room, and the real silver knives were downstairs. He wasn’t sure what dogwood looked like, but a quick search on a new tab made him realize the tree right in front of his house was the right stuff.

It took a few minutes, and he wasn’t sure if the goat milk smelled right, but soon he had everything gathered on the floor of his room; his computer humming softly on his bed with the picture of the demon summoning circle on the screen. He poured black acrylic paint onto a paper plate he had found in the kitchen cabinet and set to painting the circle. He wasn’t a very good artist, but it ended up looking pretty close to the one on the screen.

He set the candles along the edges of the outer circle, forming a triangle with them. At the top of the triangle, he set the bowl with all the ingredients inside it. In the middle of the circle was his most precious possession; a leather wallet he had bought when he was extremely small. It was old and cracked and kind of failed as a wallet, but it had sentimental value.

According to the instructions he was doing everything right, but he checked it several times before settling down in front of the bowl and picking up the matchbox with shaking fingers.

“Omnes in inferno sunt Daemonibus, Venite tibi, Et mandavero et praecepero tibi; Nunc age, Qui mihi ministrat, me sequatur.” He said, lit a match, and dropped it into the bowl of ingredients. It went up with a small flash and a bad smell.

But nothing else.

He sighed, disappointed. He had really wanted it to work. It would be so cool having a demon; even cooler being immortal and a time traveler.

He turned to his computer. Maybe he had done something wrong. Scrolling through though, nothing seemed out of place about his spell. Maybe he pronounced the latin wrong?

“Omnes in inferno sunt Daemonibus,” He started again, turning back to the circle and shutting his eyes in hope. “Venite tibi, Et man-”

“I already heard you.”

Travis jumped, his eyes popping open. There was someone in the circle.

The man stuck his hands in the pockets of his suit, his big orange eyes scanning the room. They were burnt orange brown, like pumpkin pie, and matched his tie. His face with thin and his short, curly hair charcoal grey, like his suit.

Apart from his eyes, he was a perfectly normal looking businessman.

“Um.” Travis said.

The man sighed. “By Satan. Are you an idiot?”

Travis straightened indignantly. “Of course not!”

“Then don’t say ‘um’.” He snapped. “What’s your name?”

“Travis.” He answered. It just slipped out of his mouth.

The demon smirked. “Full name?”

“Travis Bennet Eston.” He said immediately, and paused. The site had said something about introducing yourself to the demon. Ask its name first.

Welp.

“What’s your name?” Travis demanded the demon.

The demon’s eye twitched slightly in annoyance. “I am Mammon, one of the seven princes of Hell and the personification of greed and material wealth; demon of tempters and ensnares.”

“Greed?” Travis asked.

“You summoned me with…a wallet, I believe.” Mammon said, pulling his hand out of his pocket. He was holding a small leather wallet, a bit singed around the edges.

“That’s mine!” Travis exclaimed.

Mammon slipped it back into his pocket. “I know. But it’s mine now. Small price to pay for summoning me. Wallet equals money, which equals material wealth. My territory in Hell. Which means I was dragged from torturing souls to this place, all because of a beat up wallet and some kid.” He eyed him distastefully.

Turning away from Mammon, Travis pulled up a new tab on his computer and typed into google the demon’s name. There were a lot of dictionary sites, but wikipedia was at the top. He clicked on it, and was extremely disappointed by the shortness of the page. Most of it was why he was called “Mammon”. There was a bit about how he was sometimes referred to as a god, but that was it. There was a link to ‘The Seven Princes of Hell’, which said something about Mammon being classified as the demon of greed.

Travis checked the demon summoning website. No list of demons, no names; nothing.

He had summoned a demon; an actual demon, and he had no history on it.

Welp.

“So,” Mammon said. “What do you want?” He sounded impatient, like he couldn’t wait to go back to torturing souls.

“Uh,”

“Full sentences, if you don’t mind. I’m a busy person.”

He couldn’t get anything out. He couldn’t remember what he had done this for.

“Well?” Mammon demanded. “Hurry up. It’s uncomfortable in here.”

“So, I tell you what I want, you fulfill it, and then you go back to Hell?” Travis asked.

Mammon raised an eyebrow. “You summoned me without knowing how it works?”

“Maybe. I just found this site, and hey, it worked!”

“But anything beyond that?”

Travis chewed his lip. “Not…. really.”

Mammon sighed deeply, rubbing his face. “Idiots. All humans are idiots.”

“Hey! I didn’t mess up the spell, did I? And aren’t you a little too disrespectful?”

“I don’t take orders from humans unless I have to.” Mammon said disdainfully. “You get one wish. If you want me to be nice, then I’ll leave now.”

“No!”

Mammon sighed. “You really don’t know anything. I can’t leave the circle until you allow me. Downside of summoning. But it does keep me from frying your brains as punishment for summoning me. Which, in your case, is a plus. I am so very good at brain frying.”

Travis swallowed nervously.

The demon continued “So unless you break the circle, or let me go back to hell, I can’t leave. Or fry your brains. I suppose I should commend you on an excellent demon trap.”

“Thanks?”

“Now that we’ve got that out of the way,” he said, ignoring him. “What could you possibly want that would make you summon a demon?”

Travis couldn’t think of how to put what he wanted into words. Mammon was tapping his grey shoe against the floor, avoiding the lines of the circle. He looked extremely uncomfortable, and very impatient.

“Well?” Mammon demanded again. “What do you want?”

“Immortality.” he blurted out.

The demon raised an eyebrow. He seemed genuinely surprised. “Well well well…” He said, putting both hands in his pockets. “So the boy wants to live forever. I’ve never been asked for that before. Usually they just want money and power.”

“I want to be an immortal time traveler.” Travis finished. His stomach felt funny; like he had eaten something bad.

Mammon stared at him. “An immortal, time traveler.” He repeated. “Living forever, and going anywhere in time.” He frowned deeply. “Why does that sound familiar…? Something to do with a box?”

“Is it possible?” Travis asked, jarring Mammon out of his thoughts.

“No.” The demon said immediately.

He felt himself shrink. “But you’re a demon!”

“That doesn’t mean I’ll all powerful. You should have summoned Beelzebub, or Azazel. Astaroth even.”

“Are they stronger than you?”

Mammon’s cheek twitched in annoyance. “I’m strong. I’ve dragged millions of souls to hell. I’ve corrupted empires; killed some of the most powerful men in history! I am a prince of Hell!”

Travis flinched, expecting something to go up in flames or the floor to cave in underneath him. Nothing happened.

Mammon scowled. “I am strong, but I will not make you immortal, or a time traveler. Lucifer doesn’t like it when we do stuff like that. That fiasco with Henry the Eight…”

“You granted Henry the Eighth with a wish too?”

“No, that was Leviathan. That whale will grant anything to anyone.”

“Okay then.” Travis said, and Mammon looked at him curiously. “I’ll just make you go back, and summon Leviathan.”

Mammon’s expression suddenly changed. It was something like desperation, but also a kind of hunger, if that made sense. “No.” He said quickly. “No.”

“Why?” Travis asked, surprised that had worked. “Do you have a quota to fill, or something?”

“Lucifer doesn’t like it when we get summoned and don’t do anything.” Mammon said reluctantly. “It wastes time.”

“So if I send you back, you’ll get in trouble?”

“Yes.” Mammon muttered through gritted teeth. “Although I’d prefer if you didn’t infantilize it.”

“Sorry. So will you make me immortal and time traveling or not?”

The demon shifted his weight. “Do you know how demon summoning works?”

“Well… You summon a demon, and it grants a wish.”

“That’s a jinn.” Mammon sighed. “Demons are a bit different. We give you whatever you want. And you get to live your life, for ten, long years. Then, when the years are up, we come to collect. There’s no getting out of it, no take backs, no ‘that’s not what I wanted’, no complaints or excuses.”

Travis hesitated. There went the reverse spell. “I’m guessing you don’t want money.”

Mammon smirked. “You know something, at least. So you can understand why me giving you immortality and time traveling doesn’t quite work.”

“Yeah, but-”

“How about I do this.” Mammon said, taking one hand out of his pocket and holding it up in offering. “I’ll skip some rules. You can live for much longer than a normal human, and be able to time travel, but you have to let me brand you.”

“What?”

“Brand you. I’ll put my mark on you, so that I can find you wherever and whenever you are.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“Because you’ll have a certain number of lifetimes.”

“So I won’t be immortal?”

“You living forever would be unfair. I’ll give you fifty lifetimes, and then your time’s up. I would like to be able to find you if that happens. That’s my offer.”

“But-”

“Going once.”

“Wait-”

“Going twice…”

He held up his hands. “Hold on!”

Mammon stopped, looking smug. “The brand won’t hurt for very long.”

Travis chewed his lip, thinking. Immortality would be awesome, even if it wasn’t exactly immortality. He would still live fifty times longer than was fair. That was five thousand or so years. Never dying, never growing. And the fact that he could still time travel was great. Mammon couldn’t catch him and send his soul to hell if he didn’t die.

“O-Okay.” He breathed.

Mammon smiled smugly. He extended his hand. “I don’t think you’d appreciate me kissing you, and I hate that aspect. Shake on it?”

Travis reached inside the circle, and grabbed Mammon’s hand. It was warm and firm, nothing like he expected. They shook hands, and Mammon’s dark orange eyes flashed.

He felt a searing pain on his arm. He dropped the demon’s hand and backed up, gasping for breath.

Mammon rolled his eyes. “It isn’t that painful.”

Travis ignored him, sucking in breath through his teeth and looking at his arm. A symbol was burned into it, sort of like a fancy backwards five with a slash going through it. The skin around it was red and angry.

“It will fade soon.” Mammon continued “And then it will look almost like a scar. Or a birthmark.”

Travis poked at the symbol. It was starting to hurt less. “So now you’ll be able to find me wherever I am?”

“Just so.”

“Kind of creepy.”

Mammon shrugged. “Lucifer won’t be so mad at me now.”

“Oh yeah. You need to go back.”

“If you’d be ever so kind.”

“What do I do?”

“Just scratch out part of the circle, and I’ll be on my way.”

Moving slowly, he reached out with one foot and rubbed at the circle. It took a moment, but the paint finally gave up, and a thin line was scratched away.

Mammon visibly relaxed, sighing deeply. “That’s better. I do hate being confined like that.”

“So do you vanish into thin air, or-”

Mammon vanished. The room stank of sulfur, and there was a dark spot on the floor where the demon had stood. The bowl and candles and paint circle was gone however, and he felt different.

Travis grinned. He had made a pact with a demon, was now a time traveler and would live for fifty times longer than normal. And he had a cool symbol on his arm.

The mail truck honked outside. There must be a package. Bouncing up and down a little, he ran downstairs. The milk was still sitting on the counter. He’d grab it when he got back inside, and then he’d try experimenting with his new ability. He went outside, picking his way across the yard. The mail person had just shoved the package into the mailbox, which was far too small for it. He frowned, walking over carefully; his feet were still bare, and reached for the package.

He heard a car honking furiously, and tires screeching on the road. He turned just in time to see the car; a big black truck, headed right towards him. He couldn’t move. He was terrified.

The truck rammed right into him. All he could feel was pain. It wasn’t like he thought being hit by a car would be like. His body hit the ground and then his head, and stars erupted in his vision. His insides felt wrong. Blood leaked down his forehead.

He lay there, bleeding, as the truck started moving again. It sped away down the street, leaving him on the sidewalk. Someone, one of the neighbors, screamed. His leg was bent funny, and both arms. Everything hurt, hurt so bad he was convulsing. His vision started to dim just as ambulance sirens started to sound in the distance.

The ambulance stopped in front of his house, the paramedics jumped out and checked his pulse. Did CPR. Nothing. Then the police came, and started asking questions around the neighborhood as the paramedics put his body into a bag.

And so the boy named Travis Bennet Eston died; October 2, 2014.

Birthdate: May 17th 1998, Washington USA

Given Name: Travis Bennet Eston

Current Age: 16

  Last night Travis had a dream about bats.

It was unusually vivid, and, though he hated to admit it, freaking terrifying. He didn’t even know his subconscious was capable of something like that. Who has it in the back of their head that they’re going to be ripped to shreds by large, angry bats screaming ‘moron will have your goal’? He liked bats. They were cool. And they certainly didn’t have big glowing orange eyes like in the dream.

He poured cereal into a bowl, frowning. At least he didn’t think they did. He shuddered as he imagined the bats again. Dang it, bats had better not be ruined for him.

“Move.” Sheila said from behind him. She stood in the middle of the kitchen,, still half asleep, with her pyjama leg twisted and her curly brown hair, the same as Travis’, a mess. She glared at him until he moved, and she got a bowl from the top cabinet. She looked around crossly, focusing on the cereal box in Travis’ hands, and took it. She poured herself a bowl, filled it with milk, and went back upstairs.

“Good morning Sheila.” Travis yelled after her.

“Freak!” She yelled back.

He sighed, taking an apple from the basket. He got a spoon and gathered up his breakfast before heading upstairs after Sheila. She sneered at him and shut her door loudly as he walked past, making the boyband posters taped to it move. His sister was very much a teen queen, for barely being a teen at all. Tween queen. She liked boybands and that stupid romance vampire series.

The door to his parent’s was open, the bed neat and a few dress shirts on the floor. The room was dark, cold, and very empty. His parents had been at work for hours now, even though it was a Saturday. They worked all week, Sunday and Saturday, too.  Always gone, always working.

He balanced the apple under his chin as he shut the door softly. The empty room kind of made him uncomfortable. He went into his own room, locking the door behind him, and set down the cereal and the apple on his desk before grabbing his computer. All “secret agent”, he typed in the password,  it’snotthatidon’tdislikeithere.

As the password was accepted and his computer woke up, he grabbed the cereal and ate a big spoonful. The computer beeped and his english project popped up. It only took him a moment to decide against working and to watch a movie instead. His desk clock said it was a little after eleven. He could procrastinate for a while before starting it. English could wait. Now was the time for horror films.

It was a little embarrassing to admit, but Travis loved horror films. Cheesy, low budget, just all around bad horror films that wouldn’t make you scared even if you were in it. They were the best thing ever.

He pulled up one he had seen a million times and put his earbuds in, propped the computer against his knees, and started watching. It was a Summoning Gone Wrong, with the college students and the latin and the screaming and being pulled into the shadows.

About halfway through the movie, Sheila slammed on his door.

“I’m going to a friends house.” she shouted, not even really checking to make sure he heard her. “Don’t tell mom and dad.”

“Fine.” he shouted back, and he heard her running down the stairs. The door slammed, and he sunk back in his pillows. There was the nice feeling when you know the house is empty except for you. Now he could laugh as loud as he wanted to.

  When the movie finished, he set the empty bowl on the floor and grabbed the apple. As he peeled the sticker off the next movie started playing automatically. He didn’t usually have them on a playlist, but this movie had demons in it, and it wasn’t half bad. He liked watching it right after the summoning-gone-wrong story, since it was interesting to imagine a story where a demon summoning went wrong. Demons would be different from ghosts, since you could get something out of summoning them. A demon deal movie would be awesome.

He laughed. Maybe he could try coming up with a movie script for a demon deal gone wrong. He could start it out with the bats from his dream. Of course he’d have to change what they were saying- ‘moron will have your goal’ wasn’t very scary.

How did you even summon a demon? As he watched, two teenagers found this old book of spells and just chanted latin and put some of their own blood in a bowl. Poof. A huge goat like guy with yellow eyes. The kids told him to kill someone at their school, and the demon did, but then it didn’t stop killing. In the end the two main kids managed to find the reverse spell and saved the day.

It was kind of stupid of them not to have the reverse spell ready. If he summoned a demon and it went wrong, he’d have the reverse spell. And he’d have a better command for the demon than just killing people. Like immortality. Or time traveling. Probably both, since demons were pretty powerful in the movies. He could summon one, and make it give him immortality and time travel abilities, and it would be his servant.

A smile crept across his face. It wouldn’t hurt to try. If it didn’t work, he could laugh about it later. And if it did…

He picked up his computer excitedly and pulled up google. how to summon a demon to use as a servant. He pressed the enter key, and after a second the search pages popped up. A bunch of gaming sites, and a few that his virus protection raised a red flag on. Finally, after a bit of searching, going far into the depths of google, he found a fairly legit looking site.

Summon a demon. Instructions on how to summon, control, and bind a demon to you, so that it may fulfill your wishes.

He clicked on summoning instructions.

The page was long and very specific. Goat milk, and your most prized possession. Both check. His mom liked goat milk because it was healthier or something, and he had something in mind for the prized possession. Strand of hair from a young girl. He could get some from Sheila’s hairbrush. There were a few plants and other ingredients, but nothing he couldn’t get. There was paint to draw the circle in his room, and the real silver knives were downstairs. He wasn’t sure what dogwood looked like, but a quick search on a new tab made him realise the tree right in front of his house was the right stuff.

It took a few minutes, and he wasn’t sure if the goat milk smelled right, but soon he had everything gathered on the floor of his room; his computer humming softly on his bed with the picture of the demon summoning circle on the screen. He poured black acrylic paint onto a paper plate he had found in the kitchen cabinet and set to painting the circle. He wasn’t a very good artist, but it ended up looking pretty close to the one on the screen.

He set the candles along the edges of the outer circle, forming a triangle with them. At the top of the triangle, he set the bowl with all the ingredients inside it. In the middle of the circle was his most precious possession; a leather wallet he had bought when he was extremely small. It was old and cracked and kind of failed as a wallet, but it had sentimental value.

According to the instructions he was doing everything right, but he checked it several times before settling down in front of the bowl and picking up the matchbox with shaking fingers.

“Omnes in inferno sunt Daemonibus, Venite tibi, Et mandavero et praecepero tibi; Nunc age, Qui mihi ministrat, me sequatur.” He said, lit a match, and dropped it into the bowl of ingredients. It went up with a small flash and a bad smell.

But nothing else.

He sighed, disappointed. He had really wanted it to work. It would be so cool having a demon; even cooler being immortal and a time traveler.

He turned to his computer. Maybe he had done something wrong. Scrolling through though, nothing seemed out of place about his spell. Maybe he pronounced the latin wrong?

“Omnes in inferno sunt Daemonibus,” He started again, turning back to the circle and shutting his eyes in hope. “Venite tibi, Et man-”

“I already heard you.”

Travis jumped, his eyes popping open. There was someone in the circle.

The man stuck his hands in the pockets of his suit, his big orange eyes scanning the room. They were burnt orange brown, like pumpkin pie, and matched his tie. His face with thin and his short, curly hair charcoal grey, like his suit.

Apart from his eyes, he was a perfectly normal looking businessman.

“Um.” Travis said.

The man sighed. “By Satan. Are you an idiot?”

Travis straightened indignantly. “Of course not!”

“Then don’t say ‘um’.” He snapped. “What’s your name?”

“Travis.” He answered. It just slipped out of his mouth.

The demon smirked. “Full name?”

“Travis Bennet Eston.” He said immediately, and paused. The site had said something about introducing yourself to the demon. Ask its name first.

Welp.

“What’s your name?” Travis demanded the demon.

The demon’s eye twitched slightly in annoyance. “I am Mammon, one of the seven princes of Hell and the personification of greed and material wealth; demon of tempters and ensnares.”

“Greed?” Travis asked.

“You summoned me with…a wallet, I believe.” Mammon said, pulling his hand out of his pocket. He was holding a small leather wallet, a bit singed around the edges.

“That’s mine!” Travis exclaimed.

Mammon slipped it back into his pocket. “I know. But it’s mine now. Small price to pay for summoning me. Wallet equals money, which equals material wealth. My territory in Hell. Which means I was dragged from torturing souls to this place, all because of a beat up wallet and some kid.” He eyed him distastefully.

Turning away from Mammon, Travis pulled up a new tab on his computer and typed into google the demon’s name. There were a lot of dictionary sites, but wikipedia was at the top. He clicked on it, and was extremely disappointed by the shortness of the page. Most of it was why he was called “Mammon”. There was a bit about how he was sometimes referred to as a god, but that was it. There was a link to ‘The Seven Princes of Hell’, which said something about Mammon being classified as the demon of greed.

Travis checked the demon summoning website. No list of demons, no names; nothing.

He had summoned a demon; an actual demon, and he had no history on it.

Welp.

“So,” Mammon said. “What do you want?” He sounded impatient, like he couldn’t wait to go back to torturing souls.

“Uh,”

“Full sentences, if you don’t mind. I’m a busy person.”

He couldn’t get anything out. He couldn’t remember what he had done this for.

“Well?” Mammon demanded. “Hurry up. It’s uncomfortable in here.”

“So, I tell you what I want, you fulfill it, and then you go back to Hell?” Travis asked.

Mammon raised an eyebrow. “You summoned me without knowing how it works?”

“Maybe. I just found this site, and hey, it worked!”

“But anything beyond that?”

Travis chewed his lip. “Not…. really.”

Mammon sighed deeply, rubbing his face. “Idiots. All humans are idiots.”

“Hey! I didn’t mess up the spell, did I? And aren’t you a little too disrespectful?”

“I don’t take orders from humans unless I have to.” Mammon said disdainfully. “You get one wish. If you want me to be nice, then I’ll leave now.”

“No!”

Mammon sighed. “You really don’t know anything. I can’t leave the circle until you allow me. Downside of summoning. But it does keep me from frying your brains as punishment for summoning me. Which, in your case, is a plus. I am so very good at brain frying.”

Travis swallowed nervously.

The demon continued “So unless you break the circle, or let me go back to hell, I can’t leave. Or fry your brains. I suppose I should commend you on an excellent demon trap.”

“Thanks?”

“Now that we’ve got that out of the way,” he said, ignoring him. “What could you possibly want that would make you summon a demon?”

Travis couldn’t think of how to put what he wanted into words. Mammon was tapping his grey shoe against the floor, avoiding the lines of the circle. He looked extremely uncomfortable, and very impatient.

“Well?” Mammon demanded again. “What do you want?”

“Immortality.” he blurted out.

The demon raised an eyebrow. He seemed genuinely surprised. “Well well well…” He said, putting both hands in his pockets. “So the boy wants to live forever. I’ve never been asked for that before. Usually they just want money and power.”

“I want to be an immortal time traveler.” Travis finished. His stomach felt funny; like he had eaten something bad.

Mammon stared at him. “An immortal, time traveler.” He repeated. “Living forever, and going anywhere in time.” He frowned deeply. “Why does that sound familiar…? Something to do with a box?”

“Is it possible?” Travis asked, jarring Mammon out of his thoughts.

“No.” The demon said immediately.

He felt himself shrink. “But you’re a demon!”

“That doesn’t mean I’ll all powerful. You should have summoned Beelzebub, or Azazel. Astaroth even.”

“Are they stronger than you?”

Mammon’s cheek twitched in annoyance. “I’m strong. I’ve dragged millions of souls to hell. I’ve corrupted empires; killed some of the most powerful men in history! I am a prince of Hell!”

Travis flinched, expecting something to go up in flames or the floor to cave in underneath him. Nothing happened.

Mammon scowled. “I am strong, but I will not make you immortal, or a time traveler. Lucifer doesn’t like it when we do stuff like that. That fiasco with Henry the Eight…”

“You granted Henry the Eighth with a wish too?”

“No, that was Leviathan. That whale will grant anything to anyone.”

“Okay then.” Travis said, and Mammon looked at him curiously. “I’ll just make you go back, and summon Leviathan.”

Mammon’s expression suddenly changed. It was something like desperation, but also a kind of hunger, if that made sense. “No.” He said quickly. “No.”

“Why?” Travis asked, surprised that had worked. “Do you have a quota to fill, or something?”

“Lucifer doesn’t like it when we get summoned and don’t do anything.” Mammon said reluctantly. “It wastes time.”

“So if I send you back, you’ll get in trouble?”

“Yes.” Mammon muttered through gritted teeth. “Although I’d prefer if you didn’t infantilize it.”

“Sorry. So will you make me immortal and time traveling or not?”

The demon shifted his weight. “Do you know how demon summoning works?”

“Well… You summon a demon, and it grants a wish.”

“That’s a jinn.” Mammon sighed. “Demons are a bit different. We give you whatever you want. And you get to live your life, for ten, long years. Then, when the years are up, we come to collect. There’s no getting out of it, no take backs, no ‘that’s not what I wanted’, no complaints or excuses.”

Travis hesitated. There went the reverse spell. “I’m guessing you don’t want money.”

Mammon smirked. “You know something, at least. So you can understand why me giving you immortality and time traveling doesn’t quite work.”

“Yeah, but-”

“How about I do this.” Mammon said, taking one hand out of his pocket and holding it up in offering. “I’ll skip some rules. You can live for much longer than a normal human, and be able to time travel, but you have to let me brand you.”

“What?”

“Brand you. I’ll put my mark on you, so that I can find you wherever and whenever you are.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“Because you’ll have a certain number of lifetimes.”

“So I won’t be immortal?”

“You living forever would be unfair. I’ll give you fifty lifetimes, and then your time’s up. I would like to be able to find you if that happens. That’s my offer.”

“But-”

“Going once.”

“Wait-”

“Going twice…”

He held up his hands. “Hold on!”

Mammon stopped, looking smug. “The brand won’t hurt for very long.”

Travis chewed his lip, thinking. Immortality would be awesome, even if it wasn’t exactly immortality. He would still live fifty times longer than was fair. That was five thousand or so years. And the fact that he could still time travel was great. Mammon couldn’t catch him and send his soul to hell if he didn’t die.

“O-Okay.” He breathed.

Mammon smiled smugly. He extended his hand. “I don’t think you’d appreciate me kissing you, and I hate that aspect. Shake on it?”

Travis reached inside the circle, and grabbed Mammon’s hand. It was warm and firm, nothing like he expected. They shook hands, and Mammon’s dark orange eyes flashed.

He felt a searing pain on his arm. He dropped the demon’s hand and backed up, gasping for breath.

Mammon rolled his eyes. “It isn’t that painful.”

Travis ignored him, sucking in breath through his teeth and looking at his arm. A symbol was burned into it, sort of like a fancy backwards five with a slash going through it. The skin around it was red and angry.

“It will fade soon.” Mammon continued “And then it will look almost like a scar. Or a birthmark.”

Travis poked at the symbol. It was starting to hurt less. “So now you’ll be able to find me wherever I am?”

“Just so.”

“Kind of creepy.”

Mammon shrugged. “Lucifer won’t be so mad at me now.”

“Oh yeah. You need to go back.”

“If you’d be ever so kind.”

“What do I do?”

“Just scratch out part of the circle, and I’ll be on my way.”

Moving slowly, he reached out with one foot and rubbed at the circle. It took a moment, but the paint finally gave up, and a thin line was scratched away.

Mammon visibly relaxed, sighing deeply. “That’s better. I do hate being confined like that.”

“So do you vanish into thin air, or-”

Mammon vanished. The room stank of sulfur, and there was a dark spot on the floor where the demon had stood. The bowl and candles and paint circle was gone however, and he felt different.

Travis grinned. He had made a pact with a demon, was now a time traveler and would live for fifty times longer than normal. And he had a cool symbol on his arm.

The mail truck honked outside. There must be a package. Bouncing up and down a little, he ran downstairs. The milk was still sitting on the counter. He’d grab it when he got back inside, and then he’d try experimenting with his new ability. He went outside, picking his way across the yard. The mail person had just shoved the package into the mailbox, which was far too small for it. He frowned, walking over carefully; his feet were still bare, and reached for the package.

He heard a car honking furiously, and tires screeching on the road. He turned just in time to see the car; a big black truck, headed right towards him. He couldn’t move. He was terrified.

The truck rammed right into him. All he could feel was pain. It wasn’t like he thought being hit by a car would be like. His body hit the ground and then his head, and stars erupted in his vision. His insides felt wrong. Blood leaked down his forehead.

He lay there, bleeding, as the truck started moving again. It sped away down the street, leaving him on the sidewalk. Someone, one of the neighbors, screamed. His leg was bent funny, and both arms. Everything hurt, hurt so bad he was convulsing. His vision started to dim just as ambulance sirens started to sound in the distance.

The ambulance stopped in front of his house, the paramedics jumped out and checked his pulse. Did CPR. Nothing. Then the police came, and started asking questions around the neighborhood as the paramedics put his body into a bag.

And so the boy named Travis Bennet Eston died; October 2, 2014.

[firstreads]

Blood Harbor (Book One in the Charm City Saga)

Title: Blood Harbor (Book One in the Charm City Saga) Summary: Baltimore. The Charm City. Underneath the charm and the rich history, exists another world: the World of the Preternatural. Vampires, Werewolves, Mages, Fae, and other Supernatuals live in a delicate balance that is maintained through an unsteady peace. Seth Miller has learned to navigate this world and make a name for himself. A bastard vampire turned without the consent of the Vampire King of Baltimore; meaning that his very survival is a testament to his wit and force of will. Both, however will be tested when he’s made to take on as a ward, Dani Silver, a young vampire with a similar story to his own. The dark handsome stranger, the foggy memories, the insatiable thirst. Together they must uncover a mystery that could have serious consequences for the Preternaturals of Baltimore. Word Count: 3880ish Genre: New Adult (Supernatural Thriller) Warnings: Dubious Consent, Blood and Gore, Blood Drinking, Murder… so much murder Author’s Note: I actually have a completed first draft if anyone is interested in reading it please let me know. My writing partner and I would love some feedback from people that don’t love us.

————————

My story starts the night I died.

“Excuse you,” she exclaims, trying to push past me, with her gaggle of bitches trailing behind her. They’re all in mini dresses and covered in body glitter. And as I eye their shiny heeled shoes, and their giant purses, I think to myself, Why does L.A. follow me wherever I go?

“There is this thing called a line,” I tell her, as nicely as I can, all things considered.

That stops her and she gives me a look that I’m all too familiar with. The “Do you know who the fuck I am?” look. The short answer is: I don’t care. I don’t. I couldn’t give one single fuck who you are. Rude is rude. Period.

And I have half a mind to tell her just that. However, it’s in my best interests to keep a low profile. So I’m not typically one for dramatic overtures, and I don’t spend much time out. Unless it’s for business. I always have time for business. But I live simple. I like simple. Which makes an evening out at a nightclub sort of an unusual event for me.

And now this bitch is ruining it.

She rolls her her eyes as she continues on by me. “Maybe for some low rent bitch, like you.”

I could have gone to some quiet piano bar, listened to some live jazz, and nursed the one drink I allowed myself on rare occasions like this. But I don’t like to stand out. Blending in serves my lifestyle nicely. And small crowds don’t give me the kind of anonymity that a large room full of bodies does. A 20ish year-old at an old man bar always draws attention. And if I had to politely tell someone old enough to be my grandfather that I am not a lady of ill-repute (at least in that way) one more time…

But I digress.

I could’ve have let her behavior go. I should let this go.

“I mean, just look at your dress…”

I take a moment to tell myself the bigger person would rise above. A good person would let this go. But I’m not exactly one of the good guys.

With my left hand I push at her shoulder, putting enough pressure on her that her attention is drawn there. While she’s distracted and still moving forward, my right hand slips into her purse. I take the clutch and pull it out as she moves on by, covering my prize up with a coat. Then I just wait for karma to catch up.

“ID,” the doorman says.

She searches her purse for it and as I suspect is starting to wonder where she could have dropped her clutch.

“It was in here,” she tells him.

“But it ain’t in there now.” It’s not a question.

It doesn’t stop her from answering him. “No, but I’m 21. Aren’t I, Stace?”

“Stace” nods. “She is.”

“Well, no ID, no entrance,” the doorman says. “If your friends have ID they can come in.”

She scoffs. “But they won’t. They’re not going to leave me. Right, Stace?”

Stace is already handing the doorman her ID. “Sorry, Ashley.”

“Brooke? Margot? Are you guys fucking kidding me right now?”

“Sorry, Ash. But Stacy drove us and we have our IDs…” Brooke or Margot replied.

And then they are gone.

Which is right around the time I hand the doorman my ID. He eyes it curiously for a moment.

“What’s your middle name?” he asks, eyeing it curiously for a moment.

I smile, playfully and ignore Ashley’s death gaze. “Oh come on, I think you can do better than that.”

“Alright…” he says. “What’s your zip code?”

“92104,” I reply.

His eyes narrow. “Where’s that in San Diego?”

“North Park…” It seems like he’s fishing for a little more, so I add, “Basically, Hipster Central.”

When the doorman smiles, I know I have him. “It’s why I moved… Fucking hipsters.”

Ah, a native. That happens sometimes. Always have to have an answer for one of those. And it explains why he wanted a little more from me.

A fake ID only works a finite amount of times before someone spots the forgery. Even if I had been over 21, the ID would have still been a fake. And no one would have paid it any mind. But I’m 19 and I look 19. Hell, I still get carded to see R-Rated movies. Which is why I stopped paying for movies all together.

And who wants to pay 20 dollars to see another poorly done adaptation of a Twilight rip off, anyway?

As I’m about to enter, I throw a look Ashley’s way and smirk. “By the way,” I tell her. “I’m rocking the hell out of this dress.”

The dress in my usual color: dark. But not my usual style; as it is in fact a dress and not jeans, a t-shirt, and a pair of boots that had seen better days. I would have called it short. But comparing the length of my outfit to what I see some of the other girls in here are wearing, I’m actually being conservative in my knee length black dress. I got it because I like the cut, a plunging neckline and a slit that ran up the right side that had just the right amount of slink to it. So it shows off some of my assets, while still leaving some things to the imagination.

As I take in the scene, I remind myself I’m celebrating. It’s my last night in Baltimore and I feel the need to dress to the nines. After all by morning I’ll be somewhere else entirely. Miami, maybe. Or Boston. Chicago could be nice.

I don’t stay in one place for very long. It’s easier that way. No strings. No obligations. No unwanted attention.

After a quick search of Ashley’s clutch, I find just enough cash to make tonight interesting without spending any of my own money, so I flagged down the bartender.

“Hey gorgeous, what will you have?” he asks, all smiles and false charm.

“What’s good?”

He grins. “I make a mean Cosmo.”

I shake my head. “Naw. That’s a bitch drink.”

He laughs. “It’s a bitch drink, huh?”

I nod. “Yeah. And a basic bitch drink at that… I want… A Jameson on the rocks.”

“Whiskey? Seriously?” he asks.

I frown. “What?”

He lets out a shaking laugh. “Sorry, sweetheart but in that dress, I just had you pegged for whole different type altogether.”

I grin, proud of myself. “At least I got that part right…”

He pours my drink, I slip him a 20 and wave off the change.

“That’s all you, hun,” I tell him and he nods.

“Cheers…” he replies. “Come back and see me. I’ll give you another one on the house.”

I smile and take a sip. This would be my only drink but it’s nice of him. It’s just not one of those kind of nights. Not when I have another itch to scratch.

“Are there any pool tables here?” I ask.

“You gotta cut through the dance floor. And then go upstairs. First door on your right,” he informs me. “But you don’t want to go up there. Especially, in that dress.”

“What’s wrong with my dress?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Nothing. And I won’t be the only one that thinks so.”

“You’re sweet,” I tell him. “But I can take of myself.”

And at least that’s true. The ID, the dress, the flirty glint to my eyes; that’s all fake, just a carefully placed mask I’m wearing while I’m here. At the poker game earlier everyone assumed I was just some little rich girl spending daddy’s cash and having a bit of beginner’s luck. Twenty-five grand worth of beginner’s luck. But still, they weren’t upset about it. They smiled and laughed as they lost their money to a lie. By tomorrow, the proprietors of that card house will find out I am a new, but familiar face at a few other establishments like it. And if any of the others had figured out I was counting cards… Well, not counting cards. I don’t count cards. But it doesn’t matter how many times you tell someone it’s not counting it’s remembering, they don’t believe you. Go figure, right?

I guess it’s a good thing the plan is to leave in the early hours of the morning anyway. Safer that way.

I wade through the sea of people on the dancefloor, and keep my hands to myself. Although I can use a crowd like this to my advantage, picking pockets in an enclosed space never works out well unless the thief can make a quick and clean exit. Since I didn’t case this place first, I don’t want to be caught somewhere unfamiliar without an escape route. So I refrain from doing what I’d normally do in clubs like this. Besides, it’s difficult, though not impossible to steal with a drink in one hand.

It’s just like the bartender said, up the stairs and the first door on the right. I know I’m in the right place from the way I’m regarded; with suspicion. I’m an outsider, a new face. I roll my eyes, and feign boredom. After as far as any of them know I’m waiting for a boyfriend.

Luckily, there’s an empty table in the corner. I can see why. The table’s too close to the wall on one side. A seasoned player won’t go near a ratty table like this. But I’m not a season player tonight. I’m just some groupie waiting for a boy that is conveniently not going to show up. After I showcase my lack of skill, someone looking to either get lucky or get paid will take the bait.

“Ah, yo’ girl…” Check and mate. “You lookin’ for someone?”

“I was meeting someone…” I reply. “At least I thought so. I guess now, I’m being stood up.”

“His loss…”

I haven’t turned my back to face him yet. It’s all a part of the con. I’m not a pretty girl. So the dress, the drink, my body language… I use the tools I have to get what I want.

“Are you looking to play a game?” he asks.

“I’m not very good…”

I can hear the grin in his voice. “I can teach you…”

“I’m sure you could…” I tell him. “But…”

“I think the lady would prefer a more challenging opponent.”

It’s the newcomer’s deep baritone voice that catches my attention. Though, I fight the urge to roll my eyes at his words, I turn around with a smirk and a raised eyebrow. “I think the lady can decide for herself.”

In retrospect playful and coy probably isn’t the way to go. But I am on a natural high. I am on a hot streak. I can’t lose.

The newcomer smiles, bright but with an edge of mystery. “That I do not doubt, Ms…”

“Just call me Dani…”

“Short for Danielle?” he asks.

I shake my head. “Danica, actually.”

“Unusual…” he says.

I shrug. “It’s more common than you think.”

“It’s a beautiful name.”

He extends his hand toward me and when my fingers slide over his palm I feel a jolt, a spark between us. He smiles and I do my best not to start blushing like an idiot. But I can’t deny the instant pull he has over me. I remind myself that he’s just another mark. And as a strict rule, I don’t allow myself to be attracted to a mark.

“I’ll take your word for it,” I quip.

So, I rack ‘em. He breaks. I decide we’re playing by killer rules.

“It’s simple,” I explain. “You pocket a ball, you’re fine. You don’t, you lose a life, and you put 5 bucks in the pool. Sound fair?…”

“More than fair…” he says as he lines up his next shot. “So I’m curious, where did you learn to play?”

At first it’s the same, all-too-familiar dance. He says something witty, I offer my aloof retort. Rinse and repeat. It’s all a front. Because despite this being expressly against my rules, I am interested at the word go. And he doesn’t really give a shit about my life’s story.

So of course, I make something up. College student, bartender, aspiring actor. I wear so many masks, play so many characters that it’s hard to keep things clear sometimes. So I follow the rules. I try to keep the lies simple; nothing too complex. I never over explain anything. I never go into vivid detail about any aspect of my life.

He smirks and leans against the table. “Care to make this really interesting?”

I keep my expression neutral. “Interesting how?”

“For tonight…” he says. “Let’s agree to not to lie.”

That gets me. Not too many people can call my bluff. So I’m impressed. But it also throws me off. My whole life is based on my ability to lie and lie well. And when someone calls me out, I’m looking for the nearest dark corner to retreat to.

I don’t. Instead, I nervously fish out my pack of cigarettes and light one. “That’s not a very good idea.”

He smiles but his gaze darkens. “That’s what makes it fun.”

To tell the truth this is where things get hazy; just a blur of laughter, booze, and the occasional electrified touch that raises the hairs on my arms. Reality slams into me some time later with my back pressed against the door of my motel room and his lips crashing into mine.

How did that happen? How did we get here?… This is all wrong…

The voice that tells me something is off is summarily ignored because… oh… my… god… It’s not his looks, because I don’t remember a single physical thing about him. Only I know that he’s taller than me from the way I’m angled. Even in the heeled boots I feel like I have raise on my toes just to kiss him. So he has to be taller than me. Also I don’t go for short men. It’s one of my few swallow vanities. I’m not a giant. It’s not hard to find a male 5’7” or taller. But I digress.

It’s not his looks that render the reason center of my brain about as useful as soupy jello. It’s his hands, the way he mummers my name, it’s the edge of darkness to his words. It’s exciting and dangerous, like playing with fire.

Despite my chosen profession, I don’t take unnecessary risks.

“Open the door, Dani,” he whispers, before his lips claim mine again.

“Then stop touching me…” I reply, my voice a little too breathy for my liking.

He steps away shaking his head, and chuckles. “As the lady wishes.”

I blush at his words and try to mask it with an eyeroll as I tear myself away from him. I’ve never been the giggling school girl type. I’ve never really been to school. But that’s neither here nor there. I’ve had lovers before… all three of them… I’ve even been in love before, or at least thought it was love. But this doesn’t feel like that. It feels I’ve been drugged. And to tell the truth, I like it.

If I had known… But I suppose this is the point. I don’t know. I’m not supposed to know.

I turn the key, lead him inside, and try not to appear so eager. Or worse… apprehensive. Because I don’t do this. I don’t invite people into my base of operations, my traveling inner sanctum. It’s a safety precaution. The less people that know where I sleep at night, the better.

The places where you feel the safest are actual where you’re the most vulnerable. And I should have remembered that. I should have remembered my training. I should have remembered all of the lessons I learned at the cost of my blood, sweat, tears, and innocence.

I should have. But I don’t.

I feel like I’m floating. My head is spinning. And God help me, I want him.

His voice is the only thing I can focus on. It acts like my anchor. “Lock the door, Dani.”

I nod, and do as he says. Suddenly, he’s at my back and his hand are in my hair, sweeping it away from my neck.

“Dani,” he purrs, as he unzips my dress. “Dani, the thief… Dani, the card shark…”

My stomach knots. If this is what I think it is, then I’ve fallen for the oldest trick in the book.

“Shh…” He pushes the dress straps aside and lays the gentlest of kisses my shoulder. “It’s not what you’re thinking.”

“What is it, then?” I manager to ask, pushing past my fear. I don’t make a move. Because if I struggle I might be rewarded with a knife to the kidney. Or worse. So I am still, trying to slow my heart rate, and control my breathing.

“I was at the card game,” he confesses. “I saw you play… I was impressed.”

“Oh?” I don’t let my guard down. I’ve been shaken down before. It’s the cost of doing business, sometimes. The truth is that despite all of my precautions, all of my contingency plans, there are people that are just flat out better than me. Period.

“You play an aggressive game, Dani,” he continues. “You play cards like someone with a death wish.”

Okay. Now, I’m scared.

I turn around, because if I’m going to be killed, I want to face it head-on. And when he doesn’t stop me, I put my hand on his chest and push him away from me.  And the distance helps. I feel like I can breath again.

“It’s not just the cheating…” he tells me, his words knotting in my stomach. “You rarely bluff… when you play cards. I know you lie about everything else. That being said, when you do bluff… it’s almost impossible to tell.”

I should throw him out on his ass. But I don’t. I can’t explain it but I feel drawn to him. It doesn’t stop me from arching an eyebrow at him though. “That is sort of the point.”

He chuckles. “Yes, I suppose it is. I’m just saying you play like someone with nothing to lose.”

I shrug. “That’s because I don’t. I mean, this is it. No family. No friends. Just enough money to get to where I need to go next.”

He nods. “So you’re an orphan.” When I frown he shakes his head. “No, I don’t mean it as an insult, Dani. Like I said, I’m intrigued by you. That hasn’t changed.”

I cross my arms over my chest and lean against the door. “I’m not someone’s case study.” He cocks his head to the side in confusion. “I’m not here for your fucking amusement.”

He shakes his head again. “Is that what you think? I’m not amused by you, Danica. You perplex me.” He pauses. “And you remind me of someone lost to me.”

“You know, you’re about ten words from being kicked the hell out of here, right?”

He laughs. “Better make them, count then?”

I unlock the door. “Five words away…”

He closes the distance between us and looks down at me. His fingers brush my lips. “Dani…”

My eyes narrow. “Four…”

“I’m not your enemy…”

I study him for a moment. And though I can’t remember any physical detail about him, I remember seeing the sincerity in his eyes.

His hands drops to the doorknob and I stop him. I step in and place his hands on the small of my back. I slide mine up his arms, draw him against me, and raise up onto my toes.

“Prove it,” I whisper, brushing my lips against his.

After that it’s just a blur of discarded clothes, skin, and the kind of kiss that hits like a fist. It’s real a shame that I don’t remember this part in detail because this part of the story (through slightly verging on over-sharing) is actually kind of lovely. Not to say that I haven’t had better. But I’ve also had worse, and this… this is nice.

It isn’t what he does but how. The self-assurance he displays is alluring and perhaps a little intoxicating. It’s the only clue I have that he’s older than me. Boys my age tend to be more than a little insecure. The constantly checking in with me to make sure this wouldn’t be another story for the gossip circle grows tiresome after awhile. So there’s something to be a said about a partner who is confident in their abilities.

“Dani…” he murmurs into the crook of my neck, eliciting a low moan from me.

Then I feel something sharp pierce my skin. I gasp and at first arch into it. It feels… confusing. My fingers dig into his shoulders. My heart begins to race. And it’s only when it’s already too late that I realize I’m bleeding.

I fight back. I try to push him off of me. And I think I get a few good shots in but it’s like I’m being held by steel chains and slamming my fists into a brick wall. I can’t move. I can barely breathe.

“Please…” I plead.

He pulls away and I can’t even register what my eyes are seeing.

“What…?” is all I’m able to get out.

He hushes me. “Dani, I know you won’t understand the kind of gift I’m offering you. Maybe you never will.” He bites into his wrist and places it to my lips. “But know tonight you will die. I will kill you, Dani. It’s your choice whether you’ll rise again or be just another unclaimed orphan Jane Doe.”

He leans in and kisses me on the cheek. “You’re a slave to your routine, Danica. Drink and finally be free.”

I look up at him and whatever I see there tells me there is salvation in his blood. And so I drink. It’s awful but I don’t stop. I can’t stop. Not until he pulls away and I whimper.

“Wh-wh-…” my words fails me as the effects of the blood loss become too much.

He sits up, pulling my limp body with him. One strong arm braces me against him, as he brushes the hair from my face with the other.

“I think you know what I am now Dani,” he says. “And what comes next.”

I open my mouth to tell him to stop but no sound escapes me. His fangs pierce my skin and I sag in his embrace as he drinks deep. My eyes flutter shut and I take my last breaths to sound of him draining me dry.

I’m dying. There’s no fighting it anymore. There’s no reason to even care.

I would like to say I see some light at the end of a long tunnel. But there’s nothing. Not light. Not darkness or fiery torment.

Just his voice.

“This isn’t death… This is life anew… I’ve given you Ambrosia. And now it’s time to run with the gods.”

And then there is blood.

So much blood.

[firstreads]

Earth At War: We Are Legends

Title: Earth At War, We Are Legends

Summary: When humans are betrayed by an alien race, it’s up to an all female military unit and a ragtag resistance force to save our country.

Word count: 1703

Genre: Sci-fi

—

“Sir, I’m reporting something large and black flying overhead the base,” said a South Korean officer, speaking to his superior, a general. “It’s almost box shaped, rectangle I think, and I don’t know how it’s staying up. I don’t see any kind of thrusters or engines but it’s floating towards us.”

“Standby,” ordered the general. “We’ll try to make contact with it, it looks Kaandan.”

The officer shook his head. “This isn’t any Kaandan ship I’ve ever seen. Theirs are usually… More like human craft.”

There was silence on the line for a short period of time. “We aren’t able to make contact,” said a third voice, from the communications department. “But their comm channel is of Kaandan origin.”

The Republik of Kaanda was an alien empire that had offered to put colonies on Earth in exchange for help fixing the environment and other issues, and both of the Koreas had accepted Kaandan colonies. Except they hadn’t been given permission to move their military in, except for a small force to defend colonies from any troubles.

“Sir, the object is coming closer, what are we to do?” asked the officer. Suddenly, a large gap opened in the object and several fighter jets flew out from it, approaching the South Korean base. They fired with some kind of electric based weapon, and a guard tower exploded, sending the officer to the ground. “We’re being attacked, I repeat, the Kaandans have attacked us!” he shouted.

But the radio was dead. One of the planes had activated an EMP that somehow only effected the Koreans. “Shit,” cursed the officer, Yong Gim. “Fire at those planes!” he commanded his men, and they tried to shoot down the low flying fighters.

One soldier was able to shoot the tail of a fighter, making it spiral out of control and crash into the perimeter of the base, exploding into a large ball of flames. Yong ran to the courtyard, where other officers were filing out to see what was going on.

“We’ve lost contact with Seoul!” he heard someone say, and the planes swooped around for another bombing run. Jong picked up the rifle of a dead Korean soldier and fired, hitting the cockpit of a plane and making it crash into the plane next to it, exploding both of them.

He could feel the heat of the explosion on his face as debris rained down, and it looked like the Kaandans were returning to their ship to regroup. “Everyone onto the transports, we can’t hold this base!” shouted a general, and the rest of the soldiers obeyed.

“What’s going on?” asked Jong, looking for the nearest transport.

“I don’t know any more than you do,” sighed the general. “But if this is what we think it is, a betrayal by the Kaandans, we have to secure Seoul.”

——- “What’s the fuck happened in Seoul?” asked President Karim Rudy, of the United States. He was in a briefing room full of advisers and a large TV on the wall played CNN, showing a aerial shot of Seoul. There were black plumes of smoke rising from some of the taller buildings, and if you looked closely you could see broken roads and cars that were flipped over, as well as many dead bodies.

“The Kaandans backstabbed them,” explained Jeremy Speights, the Secretary of Defense. “Reports directly from South Korea say that a base was assaulted by a Kaandan starcraft which then traveled to Seoul and released an invasion force.”

“What… is this invasion force made of?” asked Karim, scratching his chin.

“We don’t know exactly, however some Koreans have reported that the enemy is using powered armor. You know that video game, HALO? They said the Kaandan elite soldiers had armor something like the soldiers from that game.”

“What shall we do about the Kaandan colonies in our country? We can’t allow them to stay after they’ve attacked our friends and proved to be untrustworthy,” said Karim.

The Director of the CIA, Thomas Perez, nodded. “We’re working on expelling them from the country, we just have to finish the paperwork side of things.”

Kaanda had major colonies in Maine, Massachusetts, Virginia, southern California, and Colorado as well as small ones in many other states. The largest colony, in Virginia, had four million citizens and was the state’s largest city.

Karim turned to Jeremy. “Call up the national guard in states with colonies. We have to be prepared for-”

Someone ran inside the briefing room urgently. “The Kaandans just attacked Richmond,” he said quickly. “They have a lot of men on the ground, and one of their rectangle ships in the sky.”

Karim sighed. “Call up the soldiers in that area… Air Force, Navy, Marines, Army, whatever, just get everyone on duty.”

——- The normal army was having trouble mobilizing. The Navy couldn’t do anything against Kaanda. And therefore, tasked with defending Richmond were the Virginia National Guard, an elite all women unit called the Banshees(who were in D.C at the time), and one Marines company.

“What exactly do you do?” asked Kyle Kelly, the leader of the Marines company.

Liza O'Connel, leader of the Banshees, shrugged. “We’re involved with all three of the main branches, but mostly the Army and Air Force. New too, they just brought us together last year.”

“I did not sign up to work with a bunch of girls to fight aliens…” sighed a guardsman.

Liza didn’t say anything, not wanting to start a fight. “It is what it is, we’ll probably be in LA by the week’s end anyway. Right now, we’re supposed to establish air superiority.”

Of the seven Banshees, four were pilots and stood up. “Our time,” chuckled one of them, high fiving another as the four left to head to the airstrip. From the way they acted around each other, it appeared that those two were a couple.

“Kris, Jennings, get in the air first! Fly the V-14s, those new experimental ones, you two can follow after them,” ordered Liza and the four nodded.

Kristine Fulham was an ace pilot, the best in the group, and her girlfriend Jennings(only the officers know her first name) specialized in close air support. Together though, they were quite a team.

——- “Kris, look out!” shouted Jennings over the radio. “There’s a enemy on your six, you have to pull up NOW!”

Kris pulled up in time to avoid getting hit by a Kaandan fighter jet. There were roughly four in the area, protecting two dropships from the Banshees. “Where are these bastards coming from?”

“The big rectangle ship…” sighed Jennings. She locked into a enemy jet and fired a homing missile, which spiraled through the air and hit its target. The jet exploded and debris cracked the windshield of Jennings’ jet. “My cockpit is cracked, I gotta go back down,” she explained.

Kris nodded. “Fine, I’m going to take down those dropships. Keep them busy on your way back, ‘kay?”

Before Jennings could answer, Kris did a one eighty and pushed the throttle forward, picking up speed. The Kaandan fighters were not as maneuverable, and she got a head start. She had a lock on both of the dropships, she just had to fire…

Boom! At the same time the rockets hit the dropships, a plasma burst hit the back of the V-14 and killed the engines. “Please don’t let this really be happening,” muttered Kris as she tried to hit the eject button. It seemed to not work for a few seconds, but then it did, and just in time too because the plane started falling apart.

——-

“Status report?” asked Kyle, talking to both the Banshees and the Guardsmen over radio. They had secured downtown Richmond but night had fell and a war was going on in the suburbs.

“All good from downtown,” said a guardsman. “We wiped out the last hostiles just now.”

“We lost Kris,” sobbed Jennings, and nobody was quite sure how to react. “She died taking out a couple of dropships.”

Kyle sighed but smiled weakly. “Those ships, they carry elite forces. Your friend, she saved so many lives by taking them down.”

A Marine cut onto the line. “Sir, there’s a squad of Kaandan elites heading our way, we may need to bring in artillery support.”

“That’s the problem, we don’t have any… Jennings, can you get back in the air and bomb the aliens?”

Jennings was clearly distraught but she said OK. “Just give me some time to get to your location.”

“Make it quick, the elites are closing in.”

——- Smoke filled the air as the Marines deployed a smokescreen to mask their movements. They could hear confused shouts in the Kaandan language, and Kyle killed one of the elites by lobbing a grenade at him, which went off before he noticed it.

Kyle ducked behind a burnt out car, and saw a Kaandan body lying by him. This species had royal blue skin, and purple eyes, but other than that they had evolved like humans. However they were on average taller and stronger, especially the elite forces. This dead soldier had to be at least 6'9.

Kyle snapped from behind cover and fired his rifle from close range at a enemy who was approaching, making the soldier collapse. He ripped off the soldier’s helmet, shooting him in the head to finish him off. Kaandans wore black metal helmets with a clear visor that displayed a HUD. Curiously, Kyle took off his own helmet and put on the alien one, and when the HUD booted up, it displayed biological info about body health. There was a diagram that showed each part of his body and its health, as well as his blood sugar level and other things.

Interested, Kyle put on his own helmet and put the alien one in his bag to explore further another time.

A loud noise could be heard from above as a jet flew overhead and dropped a trail of small bombs onto the enemy soldiers in the distance. Explosives were the easiest way to kill Kaandans, as shown here. The whole unit was wiped out and the Marines began celebrating. Kyle high fived a Sergeant and sighed in relief.

“Looks like the city is safe for now. Now we play the waiting game to see when the reinforcements come…”

——- Kris was not dead. However she felt like she might be soon, because she was stuck in the middle of a forest with no food, no water, and no phone. Her phone had been in the plane when it was destroyed.

“You can do this,” she told herself. “Just remember survival training…”

The first rule of survival was to find shelter. So that’s what she went off to do.

[firstreads]

Beetle in the Box

Title: Beetle in the Box

Summary: I’m not sure where this is going yet.

Word Count:

Genre: Fantasy, Adventure, Sci- Fi, Fiction, Young Adult, New Adult

Chapter One

There’s nothing quite like the cold. People always say it’s a harsh beast that gnaws at ones fingertips and nose, that breathes ice into lungs to preserve one’s internal organs to feast upon later. People say its dark, yet carries a warm fire that can be felt when it gets too close. It carves bones into totems and splinters, and makes figures beautiful in their moments of death. I happen to like the cold, but no one would expect anything less of me: The Seer of Whitepine is shaped by it so they can better fill their post.

Every day at sunrise I would wait, my bare feet planted at the base of the steps leading to my lodging, for the dirt under me to wake. When it snowed, which it did almost every day in the barren months, when the sun shone, sending its smoky warmth into houses, I would be there. Never had I neglected my duties to wait for the earth to awaken so I could use its strength to provide help to the inhabitants of Whitepine. Sometimes, the ground stayed quiet, sleeping under its trees and ice and animals. On those days, I did not tend to anyone, for I could not help them. Until the last light tilted out of the sky, I would wait for the stirrings of the dirt beneath the world, just in case. These days were rare, and I didn’t very much like them because I had to turn the people away.

Jak Bexly came to me every morning, carrying along with him two bowls full of porridge sweetened with brown sugar. He sat with me, either on the front steps or at the small wooden table inside. If I provided the tea, the special black blend that I used for Cleansings, he would provide breakfast, much to my appreciation. Jak was convinced that he was followed by dark magic, although I could not see it in the slightest, and insisted on the tea with every bowl of porridge he gave me. The tea was easy enough to make and the food was rich and warm, so I had no issues sharing it and my time with him. The other people in Whitepine weren’t as vocal and forthcoming about their own renditions of their perceived involvement in magic. I would get the occasional prime cut of deer from the butcher and his wife after a Reading or a new wool undershirt from the tailor after clearing negative energies from his shop. I lived as they did: the same clothes, the same lodgings and furniture, the same food because I was a part of Whitepine.

My position at Whitepine was to assure the soundness of magic within the town itself and the area surrounding it. I did Readings, private sessions of healing where I would assess damages and solutions to problems; Cleansings, where I would turn dark energies into good and allow good magic to flourish; and I went into Trances, where I would sit and become one with the fabric of everything, seeing the actions of the world unfold in front of me like a winter quilt being placed on a bed before the cold could set into one’s bones. Every Seer throughout the realm, there was one in each town and city, had a different set of skills. Mine were tied to auras and perceptions, and I was placed at Whitepine because of my specific abilities. The Alchemists, an order of spiritualists, were the largest power in the realm. They placed Seers to give people guidance in the ways of magic, and so the people wouldn’t run amok amongst themselves. The Alchemists were feared in some places, but they only acted for the greater good of the people. The Seers were their voices, and through their guidance the realm became safe and more advanced than a previous age of people who fought in wars and were not united.

People often didn’t see the good of the Alchemists or magic. And I, unfortunately, had a part in that for some of the people of Whitepine. Wren Sarrif was one of the few who came to me to ask for advice or questions about non-magical matters. Her questions stemmed from curiosity to rival a scholars and I could, some days, only give her minimal answers. She was a farmer’s daughter, the youngest of four children, and often snuck away from her duties to come see me, much to my delight. When it grew dark outside, I would see her back to her father’s house and deliver her, barely able to keep her eyes open, to her mother. She was eight when she started running down the dirt and cobblestone road to ask me why the sky was blue, how she could make a flute to sound like a swallow’s song, or if dogs liked cooked or raw meat better. I got in the habit of making lunch for two and saddling my horse as the sun set so I could get her home on time. I always warned her against coming to see me so often because of the dangers the road possessed, and I know her mother did the same. But the girl couldn’t get her questions to go away. She couldn’t stop herself from running up the steps to my front porch and knocking on my door until I answered.

Out of nowhere one night in the middle of October, the cold winds started their moaning early, bringing with them moisture. By the time morning came, three feet of snow had been piled onto the packed ground. It didn’t stop snowing all day and I had denied my magic from more than a few people because the ground could not awaken. I waited until mid-afternoon before I started to worry for Wren. I could not leave my post in case the earth woke, so I could not look for her. I sent Jak, who came back with no answers. He fetched the farmers, the butcher, anyone able to help look for her after the sun started setting in the sky. I could do nothing but feel the sleeping ground. Just before the light left the sky, the dirt flashed awake for a fraction of a second as a scream pierced through the trees. I ran, feet bare, toward the sound to find the search party… circled around Wren. The cold had frozen her. Her small fingers were curled around a piece of parchment, damp from the snow. I managed to extract the document before her father drove me back with a pitchfork. It had been his scream I heard. “Why didn’t you stop this!? You know she was coming to you! You bastard, you could have done something!” his voice broke with an ugly twisting of his face and a sob. I said nothing. I looked at her twelve-year-old, frail body, reduced to nothing more than a life-sized figurine and said nothing.

Trances don’t tend to manifest without the Seer being prepared, but as I stood barefoot, bare chested, in the cold, one drove me to my knees. It always started with the feeling of a blazing sun hitting me in between the eyes. My vision would blur and whiten, giving way to conjured images in my head. All of my muscles would contract and relax at the same time, causing me to feel as if I was floating and being pressed into a small space simultaneously. What I saw as I dropped to my hands and knees was Wren. Small, fragile, intelligent, sharp Wren. I saw her falling as she ran down the road to see me. I saw her not get up. I saw how she died and how she lived in the same moment. Later, after I had gotten back into my house, I opened the parchment. Written in sloppy, but legible writing was a poem. It was smudged, both from her hand and from the snow that had once graced the page, but still legible.

You have ruined me.

With your swallows tongue,

You lynx tail,

You have ruined me.

Out of all of the natural echoes

Of wolves and wrens and wild sounds,

Your throat screams out songs much sweeter.

Because of you,

I cannot find the words to express,

To pretend,

To feel the taste of your demon mouth.

A rambling mind is what I have to torment me.

Because you have ruined me,

I can feel your wonderfully maddening thoughts pressing against mine,

And I am forced to succumb to your affliction.

You have brought me to the side of the sea

Where the Wild Things are.

I had let her borrow my books even if she struggled to read them. And I had read this poem to her a thousand times because it was one of my favorites. At the bottom of the poem it read:

Guy-

I know you love this poem, so I thought I would write it down for you. You can put it next to your teapot so you can always remember me.

-Wren

And I cried.

            Eventually the farmer’s wife came and left a basket of potatoes and carrots on my porch. And eventually I was welcomed back into their home to provide my services again. But after Wren, I was careful about who I encouraged to come see me. Magic works in mysterious ways, and if one is not careful about what one hears from it, the world can be affected. I could not allow any more dark magic into Whitepine. And I made that clear to anyone visiting me that magic and stability was my first priority. I still did Readings, Cleansings, and allowed myself to go into Trances. I even started employing new forms of magic, such as Tarot cards and Runes, given to the Seers by the Alchemists. But to engage in any more would be too much. All I could allow in my house that was reminiscent of a student, was Wren’s note next to my teapot.

[firstreads]

Wastelanders

Title: Wastelanders Summary: On a distant planet the remnants of a once noble civilization are left to scrap and squabble as they try to survive a continent now choked by deserts. Can a brazen, stubborn warrior and her prisoner-turned-only-companion survive their barren wasteland of a home (and perhaps discover a secret plan their forebears left behind?) Word Count: 2,137 Genre: Young Adult/Sci-fi

      Sand, bleached white under the stark light of the full moon, shifted beneath heavy leather boots as they moved slowly across the dunes. A group of ten men and women, all dressed in armor cobbled together from old military vests and riot gear, thick leather and metal plating, moved forward across the desert in a horizontal formation, twenty feet of space between each crouched figure.

       A few hundred meters ahead, their destination loomed up into the night sky—a towering sandstone cliff, its face scoured smooth by the wind and sand. Set into the cliff’s base was what the men and women were slowly working their way towards: a large vault type door set deep into the rock and painted to match the surface. A56 was just barely visible across the door front, in bold black lettering faded and chipped away, leaving the designation almost unrecognizable.

    A sharp whistle from one of the men at the center of the advancing line caused the group to come to a halt. Another whistle, and everyone dropped to the sand, sinking into the loose dirt and becoming almost instantly invisible to any eyes that might have been watching them from the cliff. After a moment one of the men at the end of the line rose, propping himself upon one knee as he hefted his weapon over his shoulder. The rocket launcher’s black surface glinted in the faint light as the man adjusted it, head tilted to peer through the scope.

    The next few seconds seemed almost engorged with the anticipation of the men and women still lying in the sand, watching as their companion lined up his shot. One man licked his lips, nearly panting in his excitement. Further down the line a woman caressed the set of knives at her hip.

    In the next second the silence of the desert was shattered by a bone shaking boom as the man launched his weapon. A cloud of exhaust billowed out behind the massive gun, the recoil knocking the man down onto his back.

    Ten pairs of eyes watched the smoky trail of the rocket as it whistled towards the vault door. The impact was spectacular, the explosion sending a shockwave of sound back at the hidden people, kicking sand up into the air. The sound of the giant steel door cracking in half was like the echo of rifle shot, magnified to nearly deafening levels as the great barricade gave way. Great chunks of sandstone crumbled loose and rained down into the ravaged doorway, fissures spindling away from the gaping hole in the cliff face.

    The ten hidden people leapt up from the ground, screaming and cheering as they charged towards the opening. The man in the center, who had given the whistled commands, paused just long enough to turn back and motion to the desert behind him with a sweeping gesture before joining the charge.

    The desert responded with an explosion of sand as dozens upon dozens of hidden men and women surged up out of hiding places, appearing as if they were growing from the very ground beneath their feet. Their screams and roars joined in with their fellows further ahead as they charged towards the cliff, a wild hodgepodge of weapons raised above their heads.

    The wail of sirens picked up only seconds later, signaled by the vault’s breech. Flashing red lights glowed atop the cliffs, and blinding floodlight burst on from alcoves hidden within the rocks. From within the cliff came men dressed in sophisticated black Kevlar armor, black goggles pulled down over their eyes and heavy helmets covering their heads. Everything—their jackets, helmets, weapons—were emblazoned with the bright yellow letters: A56 ITF.

    The first row of uniformed men, six bodies wide, dropped to one knee in a line spanning the width of the hole in the cliff. In unison, they lifted weapons onto their shoulders; narrow, silver tube shaped guns that looked like the much more highly sophisticated brother of the desert man’s rocket launcher. Mirroring one another’s movements, the uniformed guards popped the scopes up on their cannons, tilting their heads to sight down the length of their weapons. Then, one after another, they fired.

    The cannons fired with a soft sound, like a loud puff of air, releasing a small glowing blue projectile that arced over the sand, a tail of brilliant white light blazing along behind it. The orb soared over the heads of the advance group, landing instead within the larger army further back.

    For a moment nothing happened. A few of the advancing men hesitated, eyeing the orbs warily. They seemed unsure of how they should react, if they should maybe attack the strange thing or just continue the charge. It seemed, at least to the men who’d stropped to consider it, as if the weapon had been ineffective.

    And then a sudden, echoing twang filled the desert air.

    A second later, and the place where the orb had landed exploded with bright blue light. A massive ripple of sand hurtled away from the explosion, engulfing those who were too close and burying them under tons of suddenly displaced sand. Some of the desert army stopped, trying to use weapons as shovels to dig free their comrades, but most simply continued forwards.

    One after another, the blue orbs landed among the mass of the army, explosions of sand and light carving circular areas of devastation into the human swarm. It was as the last of the round of orbs landed that the first of the advance group reached the officers, lead by a dark-skinned young woman wielding a long handled axe over her shoulder. With a scream she swung the axe at the first officer she reached, the thick blade cutting clean through the man’s chest armour.

   Wrenching her weapon loose, the woman turned away from the crumpled corpse and swung at the man to her left. Unlike his companion, this man was prepared for her attack, shoving his cannon forward to take the axe’s blow. The collision of metal on metal reverberated back up the handle of the woman’s axe; jarring her arms to the point that she almost lost her grip on her heavy weapon.

    Grin splitting her lips, she pivoted, sweeping her blade under the man’s raised arms and sheathing its edge in his midriff. Shoving the man’s body aside, she continued forward, advancing on the opening in the cliff face.

    More guards filtered forward to replace those who’d fallen, but the small space from which they flowed proved a disadvantage as the woman and her companions blocked the entrance with their flashing array of haphazard weapons. Gun shots echoed as one of the fighters rushed the guards, getting in close to fire through the gap between they vests and helmets. Another fighter followed on his heels with sharpened pitchfork. The woman with her axe stayed close behind them as they advanced.

    The guards struggled against the onslaught as their weapons, built for range, failed them against the desert warriors who knew their weakness and continued to push in close. Over a dozen of the warriors had made it through the breech before the guards finally retreated, heading for a small doorway a dozen feet behind them.

    “Stay with them!” someone shouted and the warriors at the front of the charge thundered after the guards. A heavy metal rod, fashioned with long spikes, caught one of the fleeing guards in the shoulder and brought him down while another was pulled back and brought down with fists encased in steal. The woman with the axe ran through the fallen pair, lunging at the door as it started to slide closed.

    She, along with three guards, slammed into the sealed entryway. Screaming her frustration she swung at one of the guards who dodged, stumbling into one of his companions before they both managed to turn and bolt down a metal walkway on their left, the third guard taking a similar route on the right.

    “Follow them!” the woman yelled as she whirled to follow the lone guard, “they’ll lead us in!” She didn’t wait to see if anyone listened as she took off after her target.

    The guard fired after her as she ran, using a handheld version of the cannons the other guards had wielded. The small blue bullets whizzed past the woman, the walkway beneath them shuddering as the guard’s shots struck metal railings instead. The woman stayed on him, unfazed by his wild shooting.

    Up ahead someone was shouting, and she could just make out a man in a blue jumpsuit standing at a place where the walkway vanished into the bunker’s protective inner wall. Another doorway, just like the woman had expected there would be. She picked up her pace, hefting her axe, and in front of her the guard did the same.

    “Come on, come on!” the jumpsuited man was shouting, waving for the guard to hurry. His fingers were flying across a panel of flashing lights and buttons, gaze darting between the guard and the warrior right behind him, but never to his work.

    The heavy steel door was already sliding shut when the guard reached it and slid through.

    “No!” the woman shouted as she lunged after the man, only to have something knock her aside. As she fell the ground she could hear the door slamming shut. Above her a weight pushed down on her and hands fisted in her shirt, pulling her close.

    “Let go of me,” she hissed.

    “What do you want with us?”

    “To destroy you and take everything you have,” the woman told him. “Now let me go.”

    “I don’t want to hurt you,” the man in the jumpsuit whispered, warm breath ghosting her cheek, “But I’m afraid and I’m kind of desperate and I will never do anything to hurt the people I’m in charge of.”

    “Let me go,” she hissed, reaching for his wrists.

    “I can’t,” he said. “Not without knowing you won’t do anything to hurt the people inside here.”

    “I’ll kill you,” she warned, grabbing his arms. He grunted but held firm under her tight grip. “I’ll break your wrists.”

    “Please leave,” he whispered.

    The crunch of broken bones filled the small space and he yelled as his wrist crumpled under her fingers.

    “Don’t make me break the other one.”

    He was panting, gasping as he tied to work through the pain. She pushed him away.

    “Please, no,” he whimpered. She ignored him, back turned as her fingers found the control panel the boy had carefully guarded.

    “What do I do?” she asked.

    “Leave. Leave and don’t come back.”

    “That’s not what I asked.” She pressed a few of the buttons, trying to remember the sequence he’d used. The panel beeped and flashed, a series of colors sending a message she couldn’t decipher. “What’s it saying?” she demanded.

    “It’s telling you that you can’t get in,” the boy gasped. He was kneeling against the wall, hunched over his injury. “The doors can’t be opened, I already told you that!”

    “I’m getting a little tired of all the useless noise you’re making,” she said. Turning back to him, she hauled him up by his jumpsuit. She grabbed his wrist, already swelling, and he screamed. “Tell me how to get through!”

    “It’s locked down!” he shouted. “You can’t, I swear, no one can.”

    “But you can,” she snapped. He was already shaking his head.

    “I locked it. No one can get through. It has to be opened from the other side.”

    She yelled wordlessly, throwing the boy back to the ground.

    “You won’t show me, but maybe you’ll show my leaders,” she said. Gasping through his pain he looked up at her.

    “Who?” he asked.

    “You’ll meet them soon enough. For now…” She swung her axe back and the boy cried out, turning away from the flashing blade. Twirling the weapon, she brought the handle down against his skull, the crack of the impact dulled by the small space. His body went limp.

    Moving quickly, the girl slammed her axe through the uncooperative control panel and then gathered the boy to her, slinging his unconscious body over her shoulder. Trying to get information from the undergrounders hadn’t usually proved a successful endeavor, but this one seemed like he might know more than the rest.

    “At least he’s being quiet,” she said, ducking out of the small room and down the winding corridor. The sounds of fighting drifted from further off, and Kaya’s makeshift entrance was unguarded as she slipped through and out into the purple night.

[firstreads]

The Rain From The Dragons

     Wynter stared out of the window at the small cold raindrops. They landed everywhere covering our world in an everlasting wetness. He turned around and slid down the wall, facing his sister Ember. “Tell me a story, Ember.” He asked. Ember, who was lying on the floor with her hands under her head, turned her head to meet Wynter’s eyes. Her black hair delicately surrounded her face and charmed her light blue eyes that sparkled with creativity, “What type of story?” She questioned. Wynter leaned his head up against the wall and thought for a few moments. “Where does the rain come from?” He asked. Ember smiled and turned her eyes back towards the ceiling as lighting streaked across the sky.

        “Where does rain come from? It comes from dragons in another world.” Wynter made a confused face and looked back at Ember. “How does the rain get here?” Ember thought for a moment, “It’s so obvious, Wynter. In between worlds is a piece of glass separating them. We call our glass the sky. And right above our glass is the dragon, which is where they live. Sometimes the dragons get sad and when they cry, their tears are like diamonds. When the tears fall they crash upon our glass and shatter; then they fall upon our Earth.” Wynter tilted his head up and looked at the water streaming down the window, “So the dragons tears are our rain?” Ember nodded her head softly and Wynter brought his head back down, “Why do they cry, Ember?” Ember stopped smiling and looked Wynter right in the eyes. “They miss their homes; their real homes.” Ember stood up and walked over to the window, her blue dress swaying with every step, “Their real homes were on a nice soft green ground that was cold in sometimes and warm in others. Their real homes were full of rocks and covered with salty tasting water. But in their land a new species came, the dragons called this species, people. They got along with the people there, and even let them have all the land they wanted. Except one island. This island was where the dragons lived.” Wynter tilted his head up to see Embers face. She was desperately looking out of the window, “Ember, why did the dragons leave if they loved their real homes so much?”

           Ember looked down at Wynter, “Because we-they-they were forced out. The people decided that they didn’t need or want the dragons any more. The dragons didn’t understand the people’s change of heart after a millennium of years together and this caused great conflict. The dragons and the people raged war on each other for hundreds of years trying to win back the earth from the opposite sides. One by one the dragons were killed off and the ones left alive were afraid of the oblivion of death for themselves and ones they loved, if they stayed. Many dragons would say that the native people tried to kill off as many in dragon form as possible because they were jealous that they could turn into the people form as well, and they didn’t want them dying in their people form. As many off the dragons started leaving though some of them turned into their people form and were able to live with the people without being noticed. But they still, of course, miss their old dragon families.”

          Wynter looked back down at his feet and Ember stared through the window as thunder rolled through the sky, “Do the dragons also make the thunder?” Ember sighed, “Oh, yes of course they do. The thunder is when the dragons bang their wings, feet, and tails against the glass to try and break it; so that they can come back.” Wynter was very quiet, “What did the dragons look like?” Ember smiled brightly at this question, “Well, the dragons were of magnificent size. Their scales were harder than any rock imaginable, and they overlapped each other like an extraordinary puzzle. Their scales were all different colors that ranged from the purest white to the darkest blue. Their eyes were always yellow though. When the dragons changed to their people form they were able to choose their appearances. Except in the royal family. They always had black scales and red eyes, so that they would stand out. And in people form they had black hair and blue eyes with just an indent of red underneath.  Many of the dragons agreed that the royal family was fair, and they tried hard to be.” Ember turned around and slide down the wall next to Wynter.  

         Wynter gazed over at her black hair and the red tint under her blue eye color. She smiled at him,” Wynter I don’t think that the dragons are ever going to stop crying. Dragons never forget anything, especially the day they were forced from their world.” Ember leaned over and reached into her pocket on her dress, pulling out a small mirror and handed it over to Wynter; who took it cautiously and looked at his reflection. He had black curly hair, and eyes that looked like his sisters; light blue with a red tint underneath. “The only dragons that wouldn’t remember, is the ones that were too young at the time. But you weren’t too young, so why don’t you remember?” Ember turned away from Wynter’s shocked face and just sat listening to the growing sound of the shattered dragons tears that were covering our world in an everlasting remembrance of the crying that dragons who miss their homes; their real homes.     

[firstreads]

Pity the Children Chapter One (2268 words)

Sirens screamed. A police cruiser’s flashing lights cut through the smog for a moment before the pollution resettled, thick and cloying. But with evening came lengthening shadows and a faint coolness that thinned the ever-present haze. It also came with a spike in criminal activity in the lower rings, rivaling the energy consumption in the upper. Right now the elite would be rubbing elbows in towering skyscrapers over the latest fashionably vintage-inspired meal, sipping neon concoctions, only to retire to quiet, plush lounges full of open windows and crisp, clean air, to press on a Euphoric patch. Or if the company was particularly pleasant, something from the Aphrodisia line. In the lower rings where Jon called home there would be no need for pleasantries – Moods would be bought or traded or stolen, slapped on to let the wearer run rampant over the heightened chemical effects of their emotions. Jon knew this and was not bitter. He was resigned.

He was sitting in his rat-trap of an office in the Tenth Ring, section C, contemplating a stiff drink when she walked in. If it wasn’t such a cliché, he’d almost be impressed: she was dark-skinned with a tumble of black hair falling down her back and a pair of dark, smouldering eyes, wrapped in a dress so dark green if might as well be black, shrouded in an air of quiet, fearful desperation. She was every client he’d ever wished he’d had – something out of a black and white holovid from ages past. He raised his glass to her and tipped it back, letting cheap whiskey wash across his tongue and down his throat, burning all the while. Ice clinked when he set his glass back down.

            “Are you Jonathan Wilde? The private detective?”

            His gaze slid to her again, swept up and down and lingered absently:  mid-twenties; scuffed shoes, poorly-concealed bags under her eyes, a certain self-consciousness in the way she shifted away from his put-upon leer. She fidgeted with the Life-Band peeping out from beneath the cuff of her coat, traced her long brown fingers over the seamless metal band and tapped the tips of her lacquered nails against the darkened display screen.  The screen lit up in a cool wash of blue light but the usual chime wasn’t present. She’d set it to silent. The woman checked her wrist before she pulled her sleeve back into place. The screen darkened once more.

            She offered an apologetic smile and tucked her hair back behind one ear. She was reluctant to remove the clear air-filtering mask that covered her nose and mouth, and her first breaths were shallow and slow; testing. Jon sat back, assured of his building’s filtering system – the air here was as clean as the landlord could get it on a budget. It hadn’t killed anyone yet, at any rate. The chair creaked and he rubbed the palm of his right hand over the warm metal of his own Life-Band. It hummed faintly under his touch, the only clue that it was functioning normally; otherwise, the screen was dark and the speakers muted. He was being monitored, he couldn’t escape that, but he’d set the blasted thing to keep from notifying him if someone tried to contact him.

            “I should be at work soon,” she said. Jon figured it was just to fill the quiet. “That’s all that was – a reminder.  I have to be quick about this.”

            “And this is…?” he let the question trail off into pointed silence just to watch her react. She drew closer, high heels clattering. The cheap make of them left scuff-marks on his floor, black smudges like the mascara that ringed her eyes with tiny flakes. But she met his gaze and though her lips trembled her eyes were unflinching and intent. Jon sat up straighter in return, his expression falling into something that might be described as professional in the right light.

            “I need you to find my brother,” she said. “He has my daughter.”

            Jon took another drink, fingers curled too-tightly around the glass. “That so?” he asked. He jerked his chin, “Sit down, miss. You have a name?”

            She sat, perching at the edge of the seat like some strange, mournful bird. “Rarity,” she said, with a rueful smile. Jon shared her grimace. Twenty years ago, it’d been all the rage to name your child something unique, something eye-catching, especially in a city where so much was made grey and worn by the ever-present pollution. What were children but bright hopes for a bright future? “I go by Rae,” the woman went on. “Rae Jones.”

            “Jon Wilde. You have the right place, Miss Jones.”

            She looked him over and he let her stare, just lifted up his chin a bit and met her gaze steadily. She smiled faintly, the motion twitchy and plastic all at once. He raised his glass to cover a wince – women shouldn’t fake smiles, he thought – and if she noticed, she didn’t say anything. “You know, I sort of thought so,” she said at last, musing. “A little place in the wrong section of town, falling apart on the outside – yes, I thought so. It just sort of fits, you know?”

            He didn’t, actually, but he let her have her musings.

            “I just – I’ve always been close with my brother,” she went on, faltering. She tugged at her hair again, fidgeted with her Life-Band. “He’s not the best guy – he’s made some trouble for himself, but he. He tried to clean himself up for Lily. My daughter. When she was born – it was like he wanted to be a whole other person. So I don’t understand…”

            “What happened, Miss Jones?” Jon asked. He poured a second measure of whiskey into a tumbler and pushed it across the scarred surface of his desk as she blinked hard, her eyes over-bright. Her hands shook when she reached for it, but to Jon’s great relief she didn’t start to cry. She took a mouthful of whiskey and continued steadily, not meeting his eyes.

            “I last saw him yesterday. I had an all-night gig at the bar where I work. I’m a singer. I – he’d done it before. Babysat, I mean. It was only one night. I told Lily that we’d have breakfast together when she woke up and she… When I called he didn’t pick up. I went to his apartment, thinking that he’d just put his Life-Band into sleep mode, but he wasn’t there. No one was.”

            “Was anything touched?”

            “No – he was just gone. Like he’d packed a bag and taken off.”

            Jon sat back and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, tugging at the curls there. “I take it he’s not one for weekend trips?”

            “No. He’s never been out of the city.”

            “You daughter – Lily? Tell me about her,” Jon said.  He shifted slightly and tapped at his Life-Band, setting it for an audio recording. He watched Miss Jones as she watched him, expecting her to protest, but she only shook her head slight and took a deep breath.

            “She’s nine,” she said, wavering. “I – I had her young. Fifteen, I was fifteen. She, um. She’s big for her age, with curly black hair, like mine, and brown eyes – big brown eyes. She wears her hair long, past her shoulders. Um. She has a beauty mark, here,” and she tapped her fingers under her left eye, at the outside corner. Her fingers shook, her eyes wet, and Jon looked away for a moment until the urge to comfort her passed. “And she was wearing – um. Blue jeans and a purple sweater, the last time I saw her. Does that help?”

            Jon nodded. Rae drained her glass and he topped it up without thinking. His guts churned and he stopped the recording on his Life-Band. He felt sick, right down to his bones. Just a kid – she was just a kid and she was gone.

            “Will you help me?’ she asked at last. She wiped at her eyes before the make-up could run in muddy streams down her face.

            Jon let the silence stretch for a bit as he thought about it. Missing people he didn’t often do – there was too much legalese and red tape he’d have to navigate if he actually found them. And that was a pretty big if. But that kid…

            He sucked his teeth and eyed Rae again. “Why not go to the police?” he asked. “They’re better equipped than me, more men to do the job. You might have better luck with them.”

            “I didn’t-” she broke off and gulped her drink. Her lips gleamed wetly, red. She heaved a steadying breath before she continued, “Neb – Nebula – he had some trouble with the law. Assault, possession. He dealt Moods most often though; cooked up a batch of Edgy products a few months ago and sold them for penny-credits.”

            “He was a Mood-Swinger?”

            “A good one,” she replied, wincing. “He has a gift with chemistry – but he’s terrible with people.”

            When he only watched her, unblinking, looking for a shudder or a twitch or a tell, she bore in with patient silence, sipping her drink with the glass cupped in both hands. Her hands stopped trembling quite so much after she swallowed. Jon wondered if she had a past with drink, and filed that thought away for a more opportune moment; leave no stone unturned, all that. The way she was knocking back was enough cause to worry, he thought.

            At last, she chose her words with care, flicking her hair back, “Neb is a Mood-Swinger, yeah, that’s no secret. He’s pretty well-known on the lower East side, with friends in unexpected places. I didn’t want to do anything that he could get wind of. He has my daughter, Mister Wilde. He might be my brother but he has my baby.”

            “You didn’t want to go to take chance. Just in case,” he said, nodding. Understandable, he thought. Our cops are so crooked you’d need a hammer and a month of Sundays to straighten them out; if Nebula had any sort of cash at all, he could cover his tracks using the good old boys in green.

            “Right,” she said.

            Jon sucked his teeth and wondered about this man, who’d kidnap a child from family and then just up and disappear. It didn’t make sense – why do it? “I take it there wasn’t been any demands?” he asked.             “No, nothing.”

            “Was his place disturbed?” Jon pressed. ”Anything out of the ordinary? Every detail helps, Miss Jones. Anything you can tell me might help.”             But she only shook her head, clinging to her glass. “No, not that I can recall. It was like he just took off. I’m so sorry but I don’t remember – it’s all a bit of a blur. It’s been a long day.”

            “I’d like to see for myself, if you don’t mind,” he said. She looked startled at that.

            “You mean you’ll help me?” she asked. He nodded and a faint, trembling smile broke over her face like dawn. “Thank you, Mister Wilde – thank you so much! It’ll be no trouble to give you access to his flat. I’ll just add you as a guest to the roster and you can drop by whenever, let me just…”

            She fumbled with her Life-Band with shaking fingers. The screen lit up red and it chirped loudly – “Sorry sorry that’s my alarm I’ve really got to get to work.” – and she banished it with a few swipes of her fingers and a low vocal command. Jon watched with mild interest as she changed the security list of those allowed through her brother’s front door, wondering. They didn’t live together, so having this sort of control over someone else’s locks was strange. Then again, if they were as close as they seemed, if made sense that she’d have a degree of control over who would see her daughter when she was safe at her uncle’s. Jon tucked the factoid away for further study later and kept his suspicion off his face as the woman glanced up at him again, smiling.

            “You’re in,” she said at last. “I’ve pinged you his address and given you access to his building. Just state your name at the door and let the lock scan your Life-Band for confirmation and it’ll be no problem. And – and I’ve attached a photo of Lily.”

            “Thank you.” He cleared his throat and rose when she did, gathering her coat more tightly around her and slipping the air filtering mask from her pocket. She slipped it over her nose and mouth, the motions practiced and easy. Her breath clouded the translucent material before, with a quiet hiss, expelling. She smiled at him. He offered a strained mimicry in return. “We’ll be in touch,” he said. “And we’ll decide on my fee when you have more time for it.”

            “Yes – yes of course. Money’s no problem – I’ll pay anything. Just send me the bill and I’ll pay it. Thank you, Mister Wilde. Excuse me please, though – I’m late to start my shift.”

            She didn’t bang the door shut behind her. That was something, at least. Jon sunk back into his chair and pinched the bridge of his nose. The remains of his whiskey went untouched. Right, he thought. So I’ve got two missing people and a limited amount of time to find them, one of which is tangled up in the criminal underbelly of this godforsaken city and rich enough to cover his tracks. The other is a child.

            Well. Best get to work.

[firstreads]

Curse of the Rohkai

Title: Curse of the Rohkai Chapter word count: 4294 Genre: Fantasy YA

Chapter One: The Sorcerer’s Purse

The sorcerer had barely a hint of stubble on his chin, only the signature white robes declaring his importance - but more importantly, a fat blue purse swung under the folds of his cape. He turned to examine a new book on the stall and the purse appeared again. Every time he moved there was another flash of blue and every time Jak edged a little closer. A hand grasped his shoulder and tried to tug him back into an alleyway, but he shrugged it off.

“Don’t be an idiot.”

“Let off, Dee,” he snapped, refocusing on the sorcerer. His belly ached, and that purse promised food and riches to last days.

“D’you want more time in the cells? Might be they won’t let you out this time if it’s a sorcerer you robbed! No way you’d get away with it.”

“Maybe not on his own. But he’s got us, ain’t he?” Kaari beamed up at Jak and the scowling Dee, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

“What’d the others say if we came back with a sorcerer’s gold?” Jak added, ruffling Kaari’s hair and lifting an eyebrow at Dee. Kaari’s fist lashed out for his shoulder and Jak groaned, rubbing it. Kaari might be small, but she hit hard. The glower in her face told him she had not forgotten their earlier argument, despite her words to back him up.

“What’d they say if I went back to tell ‘em you got caught by the guards again?” Dee retorted.

“Help me or not, I’m going after him.” Peering around the corner again, he found the sorcerer walking away. “Now!”

Hurried footsteps from behind reassured him that Dee was going along with his plan, so he put the other thieves out of his mind and focused on strolling nonchalantly down the street. Everything else blurred out with his focus solely on the sorcerer, whose purse still swung into sight in time with the man’s steps. The streets were mostly empty, everyone busy watching their relatives be Tested, but Jak moved effortlessly through the occasional swarms of staring country bumpkins. His prey only slipped out of sight when a large cart trundled in front of him. Jak pocketed an apple off the back of it as he pushed past, finding the sorcerer again examining some books on display.

Jak slid against a wall, creeping co close to the sorcerer he could make out freckles on his nose. A thin blade slipped down from within his sleeve and into his hand, pressed firmly against his leg so it was invisible to everyone milling past him. Flicking his eyes down the street he located only two guards, who were busy chatting to each other. They thought they had the easy shift today, avoiding the Testing going on in the squares. Jak bared his teeth in a grin, eyes flicking back to the sorcerer. He waited.

“Hey sir. Sir.”

The sorcerer spun to stare down at the boy who had just appeared next to him. Dee stared back up, eyes wide and hand stuck out. He was starting to get too tall to pull off the innocent kid look, but his scrawny appearance worked in his favour. Kaari looking forlorn next to him did wonders.

“You got any money?”

The sorcerer’s eyes flicked from side to side and he took an uncertain step back. “I… uh…”

Jak snorted at the sorcerer’s stuttering. He must be barely qualified; he didn’t yet have the arrogance that always came hand in hand with those white robes. This was going to be too easy.

“I’m hungry, sir. Me ma, she…” Dee sniffed, rubbing away nonexistent tears with one hand. Jak inched closer. “I dunno where she went. And me little sister, she’s so hungry!” Kaari nodded with big eyes, rubbing her stomach. “Please sir…”

“Oi!”

Dee flinched and stumbled a step back, his eyes meeting Jak’s for a second before the shopkeeper hurried out, one beefy hand raised to swing for Dee. Kaari yanked him back just in time to avoid the blow.

“Think you can use my shop to beg off my customers and I won’t notice?”

Dee ducked and backed quickly away, tripping over Kaari’s feet. His caught Jak’s eyes and gave a minuscule shake of his head, eyes silently shouting at Jak to give up on this crazy idea - but they were so close now. And he was so hungry…

“Rian scum! Don’t let me catch you hanging around here again! Hey - guards! Over here! These kids are a menace!”

Heart thrumming in his chest, Jak stepped closer again. One hand tugged at the Creator charm around his neck, willing everyone to stay focused on the shopkeeper and Dee and Kaari. The Guards were hurrying over now, and the shopkeeper had caught hold of Dee’s arm and was holding him firmly in place, continuing to shout at him about disturbing his customers. Kaari had disappeared and even Jak couldn’t see where she’d gone. He pushed aside his worry and focused on the sorcerer. Kaari would not thank him for losing their money because he’d been worried.

No one paid attention to the sorcerer now - every city newcomer in the street was far too interested in seeing what might befall the captured boy.

“What’s he done? Whatcha done, Rian?” one the Guards snarled, grabbing Dee by the other shoulder.

Jak slid one step closer then reached beneath the sorcerer’s cape, finding the purse almost immediately. Knife ready in his fingers, he cut straight through the cord, braced for magical pain. The purse dropped into his hand, heavy with the promise of a reprieve from hunger. And nothing happened. No falling to the ground in agony. No puff of magic smoke. The sorcerer didn’t even shift a little - he had no idea what had just happened. Holding his breath in disbelief, Jak stashed the purse quickly in his pocket and backed away up the hill, his heart only beginning to slow again when it had been a good minute with no one shouting after him. He had the purse of a sorcerer. A sorcerer! He resisted pulling it out right now to see what riches were inside as images of gold and diamonds flashed through his mind. 

He spun when he heard a shout, only to realise it was directed at Dee again - he still hadn’t escaped. A dense crowd had gathered further down the street, some yelling insults and others just there for the entertainment. Jak sighed, but made his way back down in the direction he had just come from. He didn’t try and squeeze through, instead scrambling up some stacked crates so he had a better view over people’s heads. Dee was still being held by both the shopkeeper and one of the Guards, while the sorcerer looked on with a bewildered expression.

Glancing around for ammunition, his hand brushed against one bulging pocket - not bulging from the purse, but bulging from the apple he had taken from that cart. He pulled it out and bounced it in one hand, testing its weight. It was a shame to lose it… but with the money in his other pocket, he could afford to lose an apple. He hefted it up, then threw it with all his power. It flew threw the air in an arc before landing solidly on the Guard’s head. He stumbled, losing hold of Dee - and Dee spun into action, kicking the shopkeeper and yanking his arm free. Kaari popped up from nowhere to punch the Guard in the stomach, freeing Dee’s other arm. They turned as one, scrambling like spiders up the wall of the shop and onto the roof. A few members of the crowd half-heartedly reached out but they were too fast, and within seconds had disappeared. Then heads started turning to hunt for the source of the apple, and suddenly a whole crowd was pointing at the other Rian boy perched on top of a load of crates.

Jak jumped without thought, scrabbling for the edge of the roof until he had a firm hold. The rough edges scraped his hands, and then the rest of his arms as he pulled himself up onto the roof. The curved, clay tiles were loose and one slipped under his foot to crash on the street below, but he struggled up and away from the shouts below. Rolling over the peak of the roof onto the other side where he could no longer be seen, he heard a particularly loud wail.

“My purse! They took my purse!”

Laughing, Jak slid down the rest of the tiles and jumped across the narrow alleyway onto the next roof. The purse was secure in his pocket and that sorcerer was a fool if he thought he was ever going to see it again. Tomorrow, he would not be going hungry.

* * *

Several streets away, Jak caught up with Dee and Kaari. They came to a stumbling halt opposite each other, all gasping for air from running. The shouts of the guards could still be heard in the distance, but first Kaari began to laugh, then Jak and finally Dee.

“Why’d they bother? They know they ain’t never gonna catch us,” Little Kaari grinned, leaning against a grubby wooden wall as he caught his breath.

“You’re crazy Jak,” Dee said, shaking his head but smiling. “If we’d got really caught-!”

“Looked to me like you were pretty close to caught ’til I helped out.”

“Oh please, I’d have got away easy without you,” Dee spat back. “And it’s not like I’d have got caught at all if you hadn’t thought it was a good idea to rob a sorcerer. And for what?”

Plucking the purse out of his pocket, Jak dangled it in front of him. “For this.”

Dee grabbed for it but Jak spun away, pushing it safely back in his pocket. Kaari’s hand snaked out and Jak slapped it hard. “Nu-uh. It’s stayin’ safe with me till we get back.”

Dee rolled his eyes, running a hand through tangled black hair and shaking his head. “Sure, Jak. So we goin’ or what? I wanna see what’s in that!”

Jak nodded, as eager as his friends, and the three of them set off in a jog towards the outskirts of the city. Revelling in anticipation of examining the contents of that purse, the boys soon arrived at their latest home without further incident. It wasn’t much – a few wooden beams with two threadbare carpets draped over it – but it was certainly better than their last home after it had been knocked down by the city guard. Inside were the other members of their little group; Hans and Bhen, crouched under a few layers of ragged blankets and having a tug’o’war over a silk scarf that hadn’t been there this morning.

“Jak’s back!” Hans called, the first to notice their return. He scrambled out of the shelter, swivelling the scarf around his wrist to yank it out of Bhen’s grasp. “Did ya get much? We thought the guards had got you, you’re late!”

“Oh, y’know, not much. Average day. Few coins,” Jak began with a nonchalant shrug. “Robbed a sorcerer.”

Hans’ eyes popped out and a second later Bhen appeared as well.

“A sorcerer?”

“No way, Jak. You’re havin’ us on.”

Jak smirked and produced the purse from his pocket. It swung perfectly in time with the whistling wind and he held it high as Kaari attempted to grab it again.

“Jak, come on! Let’s see what’s inside it!”

Jak ducked into the shelter and the others followed, Dee tugging aside a bit of their carpet roof to let light in. The sun was setting fast - there would be no extra food tonight, whatever was inside this purse. Now Jak wished he’d kept the apple.

He pulled on the golden cord, marvelling at the softness of just the fabric. The bag alone would buy them each a meal. He tugged the scarf away from Hans, ignoring his protests, and placed it on the ground. Jak tipped the purse upside down and silver coins showered out, covering the scarf. Three rings and a tiny crystal on a chain landed too, alongside several crumpled pieces of paper covered in scribbles and ink smudges. Eight hands reached simultaneously to grab for coins but Jak’s fingers were already on the pendant, pulling it over his head to join the many others around his neck. He tapped each of them, counting and checking for damage.

“Oi Jak, you better not be keeping that!” Bhen said. “That could buy us-” Jak lifted his chin defiantly. “You sayin’ I don’t do the best for us?”

The others fell silent. Jak watched Bhen closely for any sign he might attack. His little gang of thieves held a tenuous peace based on mutual desire for food and protection in numbers, but with pickings getting scarcer over the last year Bhen had been on edge more than usual.  Bhen’s dark eyes narrowed as he met Jak’s stare.

“Just sayin’ what good’s ever come of those lucky charms. Might as well make real use of them.”

“S’pose you want me to sell the Creator too?” Jak’s fingers clutched the pendant in the shape of the sun, the symbol for the Creator inscribed on it. “What good’s he ever done you, eh? Think you’re okay to turn your back?”

Bhen shifted, his eyes darting to one side. “Never said that, Jak.”

Jak settled down on his haunches, his hand dropping. “I’ll sell them if we get desperate. Real desperate. Okay? No harm keeping a little extra back, just in case.”

Bhen shrugged, his eyes still hard as he grabbed a handful of coins.  “We met a sorcerer today as well. We went to the Testing,” he announced.

Jak’s eyes widened and Kaari cried out.

“That’s not fair! We’re not meant to go! If they can go why can’t I, Jak?”

“That was stupid,” Jak growled at Bhen, flinging a hand out to cover Kaari’s mouth. She bit down and he swore, releasing her.

“Not stupid for me and Hans,” Bhen replied. One untidy eyebrow lifted tauntingly, daring Jak to deny it.

“What was it like?” Kaari asked, shoving Jak’s arm out of the way to shuffle closer to Bhen. Bhen quirked his eyebrow at Jak again and Jak bit his tongue, holding back the urge to punch the other boy.

“It was basically a long, long wait,” Hans said. “Guards tried to kick us out for bein’ street rats but sorcerer stopped them, said everyone could be Tested.”

“I told you they wouldn’t stop us being Tested for that!” Kaari said with a glare at Jak.

He shrugged, settling against the wall of their shelter and waiting for the story to be over. It was going to take the Creator’s will to convince Kaari in a few months’ time not to go to Testing after this - and it had been days of arguing to start with. Dee sat next to him, pulling a pile of coins closer to count them.

“We got to the front and this sorcerer lady took our hands. Dunno what she did, but it tingled. And–”

“We’ve got Rohm in us,” Bhen said, puffing out his chest. Jak’s stomach flipped over and he schooled his face into neutrality. “Enough to do magic too, not just feel it.”

“Still not enough they’d take us in though. She said we weren’t worth teaching.” Hans sighed and sprawled across the floor. “Bhen tried to argue, then we got kicked out by the guards for good.”

“I bet the Magi wouldn’t turn us away. If we went on one of those ships to the Empire…”

“Good thing we did something useful today then, or we wouldn’t have eaten,” Jak muttered, loud enough for them all to hear. Bhen rolled his eyes but Hans ducked his head in embarrassment.

“Next time. Next time I’ll go,” Kaari whispered.

Jak opened his mouth to object then closed it again. There was no point starting that again now. Both Kaari and Bhen’s eyes were on him, challenging, so he rolled over and tried to block out every fear that crawled through him, wanting to be heard. Food. The guards. Kaari. Testing.

He shook his head to clear it and lifted the new crystal, turning it and watching as light seemed to bounce off the inside. Symbols had been carved into it and he peered closer, scratching one with a dirty fingernail. This wasn’t just an ordinary crystal. There was magic inside it. He gripped it in one fist and closed his eyes, willing the magic to move into him..

* * *

Jak came to slowly, curling up under his thin blanket even as shivers overtook his body. The ground was damp and that moisture had transferred through his shirt and trousers, chilling him to the bone. Determined to sleep a little longer he kept his eyes closed, until a tiny squeak sounded in his ear.

He slammed his hand at the mouse as he jerked up, scowling when it disappeared back into the shadows where it would likely remain for only a few moments. His stomach grumbled loudly and he stumbled blearily to his feet. Dee crouched by the entrance, staring out at the drizzle that slowly but steadily drenched everything left outside.

“D’you ever sleep properly?” Jak asked as he held up his new crystal pendant to what little daylight there was, surprised to find the symbols glowing brighter today than they had last night.

“D’you ever stop obsessing about your little charms?” Dee asked, turning his head to watch.

Jak held up a hand protectively to the multitude of charms hanging on threads around his neck.

“They’re good luck! Even ma said so.”

“Your ma said so about that Creator charm, not the rest o’ them. The Creator’s different, ‘course he’s good luck.”

“You wait till we’re rich, then say me charms ain’t good luck.”

“When that day comes, I’ll be gettin’ me own good luck charms,” Dee commented wryly. “Now are we gonna get us this feast or what? Let’s go see Conrad, have the food waitin’ for the others when they wake.”

The rain hid the view of the distant Academy of Sorcery they usually had as they walked into town. Morning had only just arrived but Duberg bustled with fishermen hauling in their early catches and merchants trundling carts of goods. They paid no mind to the two scruffy Rian boys strolling past, so long as they stayed out of the way.

Conrad’s pawnshop approached on the right and they hurried across the road, puddles splashing up against their ankles and failing to avoid the traffic altogether.

“Oi, watch it!” a man leading a pony shouted after them. Obscenities followed them as they ducked through the entrance together, a bell ringing loudly above the door.

A middle-aged man with greasy hair almost as dark as their own looked up as they entered and grinned toothily, putting aside the necklace he had been examining and beckoning them to the counter.

“Well, if it isn’t my two favourite boys! What’ve you got for me this time?” “You better not cheat us again, Conrad,” Jak said with a scowl he hoped was fierce enough to convince the man, holding out the three rings. “We almost got caught gettin’ this stuff for you.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, my boy. Now… oh, I see. Hmm… not great quality… and fake at that… this isn’t looking good, boys. Just costume jewellery.”

“This stuff’s from a sorcerer!” Conrad motioned sharply at Jak to be quieter but he squared his shoulders instead. He was tall enough to look Conrad straight in the eye now. “You say that ‘bout everything we bring you,” he growled. “Not good value, ruined, worthless, but it ain’t! I see that necklace selling for triple what you gave us!”

“Well kid, this is the way it is,” Conrad replied, turning his back on them to place the rings in a drawer. “You’re a thief. You’re a Rian. No one wants to buy things that a thief or a Rian has touched and I gotta take that into account. This is a business I run, not a charity. Two copper shillings is the most I can offer you.”

“What? That’ll barely feed us a few days! You think we eat air?”

Conrad snorted as he dropped the coins on the counter. “Well I dunno what you Rians eat, do I? Wouldn’t surprise me if that barbarian blondie of yours ate air, how pale he looks. Now do you want the money, or do you want me to call the guardsmen and say I got two thieves here trying to sell stuff that ain’t theirs?”

Jak snatched up the coins, his muscles quivering. Dee tugged at his arm, pulling him away from the counter and towards the door.

“That rat’s bastard is practically stealing from us!” Jak cried out as soon as they were on the other side of the door, pulling free of Dee’s hold. “We gotta find someone new to sell to.”

“And get handed over to guardsmen the moment they realise we’re thieves? Conrad knows we’re stuck with him.” Dee scowled as they made their way down the street to the nearby market. “We’ve got the other money, remember? The silver.”

“You know if we use silver the guards’ll be called like that.” Jak snapped his fingers, gesturing with his other hand at the dirty, threadbare clothes they wore. “Ohhh… you smell that?” He sighed, breathing in the aroma of freshly baked bread.

Dee nodded as shouts started on the other side of the market square. Jak turned his head, curious, to see guardsmen gathering and beginning to push through the crowd.

“Someone’s in trouble,” he murmured to Dee, but the grin was wiped right off his face when he saw a sorcerer behind them – the same fresh-faced man he had stolen from yesterday.

“That’s them!” the younger sorcerer shouted, his finger waggling towards them.

Jak bolted, Dee right behind him as together they scrambled and shoved to get away from the crowded street. A few hands reached out in the feeble hope of reward money but the moment they were away from the crowd, their pace increased tenfold. Unfortunately, so did the guards’ and with a chill Jak realised they were being outrun by men larger and stronger.

“Split up!” he yelled at Dee, darting into an even smaller alleyway and knocking aside a stack of crates in an attempt to hinder the guards’ progress. Seeing an uneven wall on one side he jumped up for it, scrambling for handholds as he climbed as fast as possible, hands slipping against the wet surface. He’d be safe on the roof – guards never followed him there. He hooked one leg over onto the roof, gripping a tile with both hands to haul himself up. A hand caught his ankle.

“Get off!”

He kicked wildly, struggling to pull himself further away from them even as his fingers slipped. Someone yanked hard on his ankle and the tile slipped straight out of the roof, sending him crashing over the edge and onto the cobbles below.

Jak groaned as the pain shot through his arm and shoulder, but still he tried to get up and run. He couldn’t be caught – he couldn’t go in the cells again. Hands grabbed him roughly and forced him to his feet. He kicked hard but hit nothing, the street swimming in front of his eyes. His leg gave way but the guards holding him wouldn’t let him fall.

His vision cleared, revealing the sorcerer frowning down at him.

“What’re you gonna do to me?” he cried out, not really expecting an answer as he pulled against the guards’ hold.

The sorcerer said nothing, simply holding out one hand and twitching a finger towards him. Jak felt something tugging against his neck seconds before the chain snapped. His new pendant soared into the sorcerer’s waiting hand. He waited, terrified, for a reaction. Stealing was one thing, but stealing from a sorcerer and being caught with the goods?

“My Lord, is that what was stolen?” one of the guard officers asked.

The sorcerer turned the crystal in front of one eye with an anxious expression. Finally, he nodded.

“Yes. Thank you, guards. You have been most helpful.”

The officer bowed deeply. “It was an honour, my lord. We will escort the boy to the Academy of Sorcery to await his trial.”

Every muscle in Jak’s body froze.

“Um… okay. Yes, thank you.”

The sorcerer darted one nervous glance at Jak before turning on his heels and hurrying away.

“Ask me, you don’t need a trial,” the officer snarled, snapping manacles around Jak’s wrists. Jak gulped in a breath as the guards hauled him out of the alleyway. “If it was up to me, all you Rians would be chained up and put to work.”

Jak tried to snap out of it, pulling shaky arms against his captors. He could run with chains on. He’d done it before.

A baton swung around. Jak ducked just in time to avoid a blow to the head that would have knocked him out cold. The officer pushed it into his face instead, bearing his teeth.

“Try anything, rat. Anything at all, and maybe you won’t even make it to the cells.”

Spit landed on Jak’s cheek and dribbled down his face. The officer smirked, smacking him so hard around the head that the world began to spin again, then turned to carry on walking. He whistled a tune, nodding and greeting people as the guards behind him dragged Jak through the streets and towards the Academy of Sorcery.

strolling nonchalantly down the street. Everything else blurred out with his focus solely on the sorcerer, whose purse still swung into sight in time with the man’s steps. The streets were mostly empty, everyone busy watching their relatives be Tested, but Jak moved effortlessly through the occasional swarms of staring country bumpkins. His prey only slipped out of sight when a large cart trundled in front of him. Jak pocketed an apple off the back of it as he pushed past, finding the sorcerer again examining some books on display.

Jak slid against a wall, creeping co close to the sorcerer he could make out freckles on his nose. A thin blade slipped down from within his sleeve and into his hand, pressed firmly against his leg so it was invisible to everyone milling past him. Flicking his eyes down the street he located only two guards, who were busy chatting to each other. They thought they had the easy shift today, avoiding the Testing going on in the squares. Jak bared his teeth in a grin, eyes flicking back to the sorcerer. He waited.

“Hey sir. Sir.”

The sorcerer spun to stare down at the boy who had just appeared next to him. Dee stared back up, eyes wide and hand stuck out. He was starting to get too tall to pull off the innocent kid look, but his scrawny appearance worked in his favour. Kaari looking forlorn next to him did wonders.

“You got any money?”

The sorcerer’s eyes flicked from side to side and he took an uncertain step back. “I… uh…”

Jak snorted at the sorcerer’s stuttering. He must be barely qualified; he didn’t yet have the arrogance that always came hand in hand with those white robes. This was going to be too easy.

“I’m hungry, sir. Me ma, she…” Dee sniffed, rubbing away nonexistent tears with one hand. Jak inched closer. “I dunno where she went. And me little sister, she’s so hungry!” Kaari nodded with big eyes, rubbing her stomach. “Please sir…”

“Oi!”

Dee flinched and stumbled a step back, his eyes meeting Jak’s for a second before the shopkeeper hurried out, one beefy hand raised to swing for Dee. Kaari yanked him back just in time to avoid the blow.

“Think you can use my shop to beg off my customers and I won’t notice?”

Dee ducked and backed quickly away, tripping over Kaari’s feet. His caught Jak’s eyes and gave a minuscule shake of his head, eyes silently shouting at Jak to give up on this crazy idea - but they were so close now. And he was so hungry…

“Rian scum! Don’t let me catch you hanging around here again! Hey - guards! Over here! These kids are a menace!”

Heart thrumming in his chest, Jak stepped closer again. One hand tugged at the Creator charm around his neck, willing everyone to stay focused on the shopkeeper and Dee and Kaari. The Guards were hurrying over now, and the shopkeeper had caught hold of Dee’s arm and was holding him firmly in place, continuing to shout at him about disturbing his customers. Kaari had disappeared and even Jak couldn’t see where she’d gone. He pushed aside his worry and focused on the sorcerer. Kaari would not thank him for losing their money because he’d been worried.

No one paid attention to the sorcerer now - every city newcomer in the street was far too interested in seeing what might befall the captured boy.

“What’s he done? Whatcha done, Rian?” one the Guards snarled, grabbing Dee by the other shoulder.

Jak slid one step closer then reached beneath the sorcerer’s cape, finding the purse almost immediately. Knife ready in his fingers, he cut straight through the cord, braced for magical pain. The purse dropped into his hand, heavy with the promise of a reprieve from hunger. And nothing happened. No falling to the ground in agony. No puff of magic smoke. The sorcerer didn’t even shift a little - he had no idea what had just happened. Holding his breath in disbelief, Jak stashed the purse quickly in his pocket and backed away up the hill, his heart only beginning to slow again when it had been a good minute with no one shouting after him. He had the purse of a sorcerer. A sorcerer! He resisted pulling it out right now to see what riches were inside as images of gold and diamonds flashed through his mind.  He spun when he heard a shout, only to realise it was directed at Dee again - he still hadn’t escaped. A dense crowd had gathered further down the street, some yelling insults and others just there for the entertainment. Jak sighed, but made his way back down in the direction he had just come from. He didn’t try and squeeze through, instead scrambling up some stacked crates so he had a better view over people’s heads. Dee was still being held by both the shopkeeper and one of the Guards, while the sorcerer looked on with a bewildered expression.

Glancing around for ammunition, his hand brushed against one bulging pocket - not bulging from the purse, but bulging from the apple he had taken from that cart. He pulled it out and bounced it in one hand, testing its weight. It was a shame to lose it… but with the money in his other pocket, he could afford to lose an apple. He hefted it up, then threw it with all his power. It flew threw the air in an arc before landing solidly on the Guard’s head. He stumbled, losing hold of Dee - and Dee spun into action, kicking the shopkeeper and yanking his arm free. Kaari popped up from nowhere to punch the Guard in the stomach, freeing Dee’s other arm. They turned as one, scrambling like spiders up the wall of the shop and onto the roof. A few members of the crowd half-heartedly reached out but they were too fast, and within seconds had disappeared. Then heads started turning to hunt for the source of the apple, and suddenly a whole crowd was pointing at the other Rian boy perched on top of a load of crates.

Jak jumped without thought, scrabbling for the edge of the roof until he had a firm hold. The rough edges scraped his hands, and then the rest of his arms as he pulled himself up onto the roof. The curved, clay tiles were loose and one slipped under his foot to crash on the street below, but he struggled up and away from the shouts below. Rolling over the peak of the roof onto the other side where he could no longer be seen, he heard a particularly loud wail.

“My purse! They took my purse!”

Laughing, Jak slid down the rest of the tiles and jumped across the narrow alleyway onto the next roof. The purse was secure in his pocket and that sorcerer was a fool if he thought he was ever going to see it again. Tomorrow, he would not be going hungry.

* * *

Several streets away, Jak caught up with Dee and Kaari. They came to a stumbling halt opposite each other, all gasping for air from running. The shouts of the guards could still be heard in the distance, but first Kaari began to laugh, then Jak and finally Dee.

“Why’d they bother? They know they ain’t never gonna catch us,” Little Kaari grinned, leaning against a grubby wooden wall as he caught his breath.

“You’re crazy Jak,” Dee said, shaking his head but smiling. “If we’d got really caught-!”

“Looked to me like you were pretty close to caught ’til I helped out.”

“Oh please, I’d have got away easy without you,” Dee spat back. “And it’s not like I’d have got caught at all if you hadn’t thought it was a good idea to rob a sorcerer. And for what?”

Plucking the purse out of his pocket, Jak dangled it in front of him. “For this.”

Dee grabbed for it but Jak spun away, pushing it safely back in his pocket. Kaari’s hand snaked out and Jak slapped it hard. “Nu-uh. It’s stayin’ safe with me till we get back.”

Dee rolled his eyes, running a hand through tangled black hair and shaking his head. “Sure, Jak. So we goin’ or what? I wanna see what’s in that!”

Jak nodded, as eager as his friends, and the three of them set off in a jog towards the outskirts of the city. Revelling in anticipation of examining the contents of that purse, the boys soon arrived at their latest home without further incident. It wasn’t much – a few wooden beams with two threadbare carpets draped over it – but it was certainly better than their last home after it had been knocked down by the city guard. Inside were the other members of their little group; Hans and Bhen, crouched under a few layers of ragged blankets and having a tug’o’war over a silk scarf that hadn’t been there this morning.

“Jak’s back!” Hans called, the first to notice their return. He scrambled out of the shelter, swivelling the scarf around his wrist to yank it out of Bhen’s grasp. “Did ya get much? We thought the guards had got you, you’re late!”

“Oh, y’know, not much. Average day. Few coins,” Jak began with a nonchalant shrug. “Robbed a sorcerer.”

Hans’ eyes popped out and a second later Bhen appeared as well.

“A sorcerer?”

“No way, Jak. You’re havin’ us on.”

Jak smirked and produced the purse from his pocket. It swung perfectly in time with the whistling wind and he held it high as Kaari attempted to grab it again.

“Jak, come on! Let’s see what’s inside it!”

Jak ducked into the shelter and the others followed, Dee tugging aside a bit of their carpet roof to let light in. The sun was setting fast - there would be no extra food tonight, whatever was inside this purse. Now Jak wished he’d kept the apple.

He pulled on the golden cord, marvelling at the softness of just the fabric. The bag alone would buy them each a meal. He tugged the scarf away from Hans, ignoring his protests, and placed it on the ground. Jak tipped the purse upside down and silver coins showered out, covering the scarf. Three rings and a tiny crystal on a chain landed too, alongside several crumpled pieces of paper covered in scribbles and ink smudges. Eight hands reached simultaneously to grab for coins but Jak’s fingers were already on the pendant, pulling it over his head to join the many others around his neck. He tapped each of them, counting and checking for damage.

“Oi Jak, you better not be keeping that!” Bhen said. “That could buy us-” Jak lifted his chin defiantly. “You sayin’ I don’t do the best for us?”

The others fell silent. Jak watched Bhen closely for any sign he might attack. His little gang of thieves held a tenuous peace based on mutual desire for food and protection in numbers, but with pickings getting scarcer over the last year Bhen had been on edge more than usual.  Bhen’s dark eyes narrowed as he met Jak’s stare.

“Just sayin’ what good’s ever come of those lucky charms. Might as well make real use of them.”

“S’pose you want me to sell the Creator too?” Jak’s fingers clutched the pendant in the shape of the sun, the symbol for the Creator inscribed on it. “What good’s he ever done you, eh? Think you’re okay to turn your back?”

Bhen shifted, his eyes darting to one side. “Never said that, Jak.”

Jak settled down on his haunches, his hand dropping. “I’ll sell them if we get desperate. Real desperate. Okay? No harm keeping a little extra back, just in case.”

Bhen shrugged, his eyes still hard as he grabbed a handful of coins.  “We met a sorcerer today as well. We went to the Testing,” he announced.

Jak’s eyes widened and Kaari cried out.

“That’s not fair! We’re not meant to go! If they can go why can’t I, Jak?”

“That was stupid,” Jak growled at Bhen, flinging a hand out to cover Kaari’s mouth. She bit down and he swore, releasing her.

“Not stupid for me and Hans,” Bhen replied. One untidy eyebrow lifted tauntingly, daring Jak to deny it.

“What was it like?” Kaari asked, shoving Jak’s arm out of the way to shuffle closer to Bhen. Bhen quirked his eyebrow at Jak again and Jak bit his tongue, holding back the urge to punch the other boy.

“It was basically a long, long wait,” Hans said. “Guards tried to kick us out for bein’ street rats but sorcerer stopped them, said everyone could be Tested.”

“I told you they wouldn’t stop us being Tested for that!” Kaari said with a glare at Jak.

He shrugged, settling against the wall of their shelter and waiting for the story to be over. It was going to take the Creator’s will to convince Kaari in a few months’ time not to go to Testing after this - and it had been days of arguing to start with. Dee sat next to him, pulling a pile of coins closer to count them.

“We got to the front and this sorcerer lady took our hands. Dunno what she did, but it tingled. And–”

“We’ve got Rohm in us,” Bhen said, puffing out his chest. Jak’s stomach flipped over and he schooled his face into neutrality. “Enough to do magic too, not just feel it.”

“Still not enough they’d take us in though. She said we weren’t worth teaching.” Hans sighed and sprawled across the floor. “Bhen tried to argue, then we got kicked out by the guards for good.”

“I bet the Magi wouldn’t turn us away. If we went on one of those ships to the Empire…”

“Good thing we did something useful today then, or we wouldn’t have eaten,” Jak muttered, loud enough for them all to hear. Bhen rolled his eyes but Hans ducked his head in embarrassment.

“Next time. Next time I’ll go,” Kaari whispered.

Jak opened his mouth to object then closed it again. There was no point starting that again now. Both Kaari and Bhen’s eyes were on him, challenging, so he rolled over and tried to block out every fear that crawled through him, wanting to be heard. Food. The guards. Kaari. Testing.

He shook his head to clear it and lifted the new crystal, turning it and watching as light seemed to bounce off the inside. Symbols had been carved into it and he peered closer, scratching one with a dirty fingernail. This wasn’t just an ordinary crystal. There was magic inside it. He gripped it in one fist and closed his eyes, willing the magic to move into him..

* * *

Jak came to slowly, curling up under his thin blanket even as shivers overtook his body. The ground was damp and that moisture had transferred through his shirt and trousers, chilling him to the bone. Determined to sleep a little longer he kept his eyes closed, until a tiny squeak sounded in his ear.

He slammed his hand at the mouse as he jerked up, scowling when it disappeared back into the shadows where it would likely remain for only a few moments. His stomach grumbled loudly and he stumbled blearily to his feet. Dee crouched by the entrance, staring out at the drizzle that slowly but steadily drenched everything left outside.

“D’you ever sleep properly?” Jak asked as he held up his new crystal pendant to what little daylight there was, surprised to find the symbols glowing brighter today than they had last night.

“D’you ever stop obsessing about your little charms?” Dee asked, turning his head to watch.

Jak held up a hand protectively to the multitude of charms hanging on threads around his neck.

“They’re good luck! Even ma said so.”

“Your ma said so about that Creator charm, not the rest o’ them. The Creator’s different, ‘course he’s good luck.”

“You wait till we’re rich, then say me charms ain’t good luck.”

“When that day comes, I’ll be gettin’ me own good luck charms,” Dee commented wryly. “Now are we gonna get us this feast or what? Let’s go see Drakin, have the food waitin’ for the others when they wake.”

The rain hid the view of the distant Academy of Sorcery they usually had as they walked into town. Morning had only just arrived but Duuvi bustled with fishermen hauling in their early catches and merchants trundling carts of goods. They paid no mind to the two scruffy Rian boys strolling past, so long as they stayed out of the way.

Drakin’s pawnshop approached on the right and they hurried across the road, puddles splashing up against their ankles and failing to avoid the traffic altogether.

“Oi, watch it!” a man leading a pony shouted after them. Obscenities followed them as they ducked through the entrance together, a bell ringing loudly above the door.

A middle-aged man with greasy hair almost as dark as their own looked up as they entered and grinned toothily, putting aside the necklace he had been examining and beckoning them to the counter.

“Well, if it isn’t my two favourite boys! What’ve you got for me this time?” “You better not cheat us again, Drakin,” Jak said with a scowl he hoped was fierce enough to convince the man, holding out the three rings. “We almost got caught gettin’ this stuff for you.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, my boy. Now… oh, I see. Hmm… not great quality… and fake at that… this isn’t looking good, boys. Just costume jewellery.”

“This stuff’s from a sorcerer!” Drakin motioned sharply at Jak to be quieter but he squared his shoulders instead. He was tall enough to look Drakin straight in the eye now. “You say that ‘bout everything we bring you,” he growled. “Not good value, ruined, worthless, but it ain’t! I see that necklace selling for triple what you gave us!”

“Well kid, this is the way it is,” Drakin replied, turning his back on them to place the rings in a drawer. “You’re a thief. You’re a Rian. No one wants to buy things that a thief or a Rian has touched and I gotta take that into account. This is a business I run, not a charity. Two bronze shillings is the most I can offer you.”

“What? That’ll barely feed us a few days! You think we eat air?”

Drakin snorted as he dropped the coins on the counter. “Well I dunno what you Rians eat, do I? Wouldn’t surprise me if that barbarian blondie of yours ate air, how pale he looks. Now do you want the money, or do you want me to call the guardsmen and say I got two thieves here trying to sell stuff that ain’t theirs?”

Jak snatched up the coins, his muscles quivering. Dee tugged at his arm, pulling him away from the counter and towards the door. “That rat’s bastard is practically stealing from us!” Jak cried out as soon as they were on the other side of the door, pulling free of Dee’s hold. “We gotta find someone new to sell to.”

“And get handed over to guardsmen the moment they realise we’re thieves? Drakin knows we’re stuck with him.” Dee scowled as they made their way down the street to the nearby market. “We’ve got the other money, remember? The silver.”

“You know if we use silver the guards’ll be called like that.” Jak snapped his fingers, gesturing with his other hand at the dirty, threadbare clothes they wore. “Ohhh… you smell that?” He sighed, breathing in the aroma of freshly baked bread.

Dee nodded as shouts started on the other side of the market square. Jak turned his head, curious, to see guardsmen gathering and beginning to push through the crowd.

“Someone’s in trouble,” he murmured to Dee, but the grin was wiped right off his face when he saw a sorcerer behind them – the same fresh-faced man he had stolen from yesterday.

“That’s them!” the younger sorcerer shouted, his finger waggling towards them.

Jak bolted, Dee right behind him as together they scrambled and shoved to get away from the crowded street. A few hands reached out in the feeble hope of reward money but the moment they were away from the crowd, their pace increased tenfold. Unfortunately, so did the guards’ and with a chill Jak realised they were being outrun by men larger and stronger.

“Split up!” he yelled at Dee, darting into an even smaller alleyway and knocking aside a stack of crates in an attempt to hinder the guards’ progress. Seeing an uneven wall on one side he jumped up for it, scrambling for handholds as he climbed as fast as possible, hands slipping against the wet surface. He’d be safe on the roof – guards never followed him there. He hooked one leg over onto the roof, gripping a tile with both hands to haul himself up. A hand caught his ankle.

“Get off!”

He kicked wildly, struggling to pull himself further away from them even as his fingers slipped. Someone yanked hard on his ankle and the tile slipped straight out of the roof, sending him crashing over the edge and onto the cobbles below.

Jak groaned as the pain shot through his arm and shoulder, but still he tried to get up and run. He couldn’t be caught – he couldn’t go in the cells again. Hands grabbed him roughly and forced him to his feet. He kicked hard but hit nothing, the street swimming in front of his eyes. His leg gave way but the guards holding him wouldn’t let him fall.

His vision cleared, revealing the sorcerer frowning down at him.

“What’re you gonna do to me?” he cried out, not really expecting an answer as he pulled against the guards’ hold.

The sorcerer said nothing, simply holding out one hand and twitching a finger towards him. Jak felt something tugging against his neck seconds before the chain snapped. His new pendant soared into the sorcerer’s waiting hand. He waited, terrified, for a reaction. Stealing was one thing, but stealing from a sorcerer and being caught with the goods?

“My Lord, is that what was stolen?” one of the guard officers asked.

The sorcerer turned the crystal in front of one eye with an anxious expression. Finally, he nodded.

“Yes. Thank you, guards. You have been most helpful.”

The officer bowed deeply. “It was an honour, my lord. We will escort the boy to the Academy of Sorcery to await his trial.”

Every muscle in Jak’s body froze.

“Um… okay. Yes, thank you.”

The sorcerer darted one nervous glance at Jak before turning on his heels and hurrying away.

“Ask me, you don’t need a trial,” the officer snarled, snapping manacles around Jak’s wrists. Jak gulped in a breath as the guards hauled him out of the alleyway. “If it was up to me, all you Rians would be chained up and put to work.”

Jak tried to snap out of it, pulling shaky arms against his captors. He could run with chains on. He’d done it before.

A baton swung around. Jak ducked just in time to avoid a blow to the head that would have knocked him out cold. The officer pushed it into his face instead, bearing his teeth.

“Try anything, rat. Anything at all, and maybe you won’t even make it to the cells.”

Spit landed on Jak’s cheek and dribbled down his face. The officer smirked, smacking him so hard around the head that the world began to spin again, then turned to carry on walking. He whistled a tune, nodding and greeting people as the guards behind him dragged Jak through the streets and towards the Academy of Sorcery.

[firstreads]

The Millsville Five

A/N: I am including the introduction to this story as well as the first chapter if that is allowed. Both parts are rather short, but I feel that the introduction on its own is not the story, yet the first chapter without the introduction is lacking in story-telling. Please let me know if this is not allowed and I will attempt to adjust accordingly.

Introduction

 The Little Rocky Mountains are neither mountains nor rocky. They are, however, little. Everything is little in Millsville. The streets are little, the homes are little, the shops are little. In fact, the only thing that isn’t little is the mark that this town is making on the map of greater southern Indiana.

The year is 1929.

Millsville is beginning what they call “The Long Road of Promise.” The premise of this supposed and metaphorical road is that Millsville has some of the finest soil for a hundred miles in any direction. The men and women who pioneered to this previously uncharted territory some fifty years before wrote of how rich the ground was with iron and nutrients. According to one Angus Little, the leader of the Explorer’s Pack, and the man who founded Millsville, one could grow absolutely any crop here, and not only would it be successful, but it would also be “…nigh on impossible to keep the crop from being among the most unique specimen of its kind in any competitive farmland in this country.”

Indeed, Millsville had promise. That was never in question. In 1922, Mayor Warren Taylor commissioned the construction of five processing plants in the foothills of The Little Rockies based on said promise. Once construction actually began, the population of the town nearly tripled. People came from all around the country overflowing with this irrepressible hope of a better life. These brave families spent their savings on a home, land, investment. They started families so that by the time they were in the corn or bean or peanut business, they would have free labor readily available. They gave everything in hope based on The Great Promise of Millsville. And in the end, that was their downfall.

In 1922 when Mayor Taylor gave his commission, the town was well-off. It was full of wealthy families, investors, those eager to get their hands on a new, promising start to wealth. It was the dream of every man, woman, and child to have tea with the Rockefellers. To own a skyscraper in New York City. To have a car. To never have to worry about money, nor to allow their children or their children’s children to fear for their financial security.

But now, seven years later, half-built mills stand abandoned in the foothills. The construction company halted labor, citing their personal lack of funds and inability to work without pay any longer. It seemed to be happening more and more lately. Businesses were backing down, closing while others were flourishing. It was as if some people knew something was about to happen. And when it did happen, it was towns like Millsville that took the brunt of it.

For the most part, the simple farming families that made up the population didn’t understand what the broadcasts meant when it was reported that the stock market had crashed. They didn’t understand their investments anyway, having entrusted their finances to the kind faces of First National Bank of Millsville, Indiana. They were told that their savings would be sewn now, reaped later, produce profits tenfold, and give the family everything they’d ever wanted. As farmers, the words made sense enough for them to trust the banks. But now they were confused.

Mayor Taylor, a man the town had trusted for seven years now, stood before the men and women at the town square and explained it all. He used the phrases, “We shall prevail!” and “This trial shall make us stronger as a people!” with all generosity. But when one resident asked when they would see their money, the mayor’s words suddenly fell less eloquently upon the group.

For three hours, he dodged the facts. He said that even he himself was not sure what the true outcome of the crash would be. He assured all of those who stood around him that he would look after them, and that as their leader, he would do everything in his power to restore things to the way they once were.

The people had no reason to believe that he had no idea whether or not he could come through on his promise. They couldn’t have imagined that in the months to follow, the mayor would resign, businesses would close, many of the families would abandon the town, and Millsville as it once was would cease to exist.

The police station was the first to go. With crime on the rise, many of the men resigned their posts, or they transferred to nearby cities where they were less likely to become casualties. For months, the police station searched out new recruits, but as families left, the prospects were few, and then finally, there were none at all. Mayor Taylor’s resignation was the nail in the coffin. The police station became volunteer only, and completely insufficient to serve the needs of the town.

The post office soon fell apart as well. After that, the general store downsized until it sold only the most inexpensive, bare essentials. The beauty parlor became only Miss Maisy working out of her front room, then not at all. The ice cream shop closed completely. The nickelodeon was abandoned. The schools, library, and grocers all shut down due to insufficient funds to keep them running. In a matter of a year, Millsville went from being the most promising little town in the Midwest to being the laughing stock of Indiana.

In 1932, the population had dwindled to a mere three hundred residents. Livestock was no longer a part of the formal head count, and neither cow nor pig could be seen anywhere on all the farms that somehow still stood on these grounds. Many of the larger homes had been without occupants – or at least, without paying occupants – for months. The ones that were still inhabited were a privileged few.

The story that follows is not that of a town’s fall, nor of its rising. It is the story of those who rose in spite of the destruction around them. It is the story of a family not of blood, but of a stronger bond.

It is the story of The Millsville Five.

Millsville no longer exists. The Five no longer exist. But the story of their triumph, their fall, their gains, and their losses will be an eternal tale in the annals of local legend. And though there are some who believe that they are simply that – legend, and nothing more – there are those of us who’ve been sure to record their story. It is absolutely vital that the world hear of them. Perhaps there is no greater example of triumph in difficult times than this.

 Chapter One

Her hair was like her father’s: short, blonde, and always unkempt. She didn’t like it short, and she never had. But as a child, she’d caught lice at school every fall, and her mother got into the habit of keeping it short and manageable. Even though elementary school was now almost six years in the past, she still wore it this way. Perhaps it was just the convenience. Perhaps it was in memory of her mother. Whatever the reason, Bette Kinsella’s hair was like her father’s.

She tried for a long time to look like Jean Harlow. She sharpened a lead pencil so finely that she could fabricate the look of Harlow’s lashes. The lipstick collection her mother left behind made achieving the classic pout as simple as she could have hoped. But that hair… she never could resolve that. And so Bette determined to grow it as it was, keeping it close to her head and chopping it whenever the ends became unruly. People were sporting this look everywhere a decade ago. Perhaps it would come back.

Luckily for Bette, the company she kept wasn’t one to judge. Her four closest friends had their own troubles, and hairstyles were among the very least of them.

For example, there were the Brooks twins. Iris and Rose, both sixteen, were not identical, but they had almost identical problems. One of those problems was the fact that their mother, whom the Kinsellas had hired five years before as a housekeeper, hadn’t had employment since The Crash. In those three years, however, the Brooks family stayed in the Kinsella home, resumed their duties for as long as they could, and eventually became a second family to Bette. After all, Mrs. Kinsella’s death was completely unexpected and tragic, and when Mr. Kinsella transferred his business to “The Attic,” Bette was, more often than not, alone. In these moments, Angelina Brooks and her daughters would take Bette under wing and give her the life that every young lady deserves. They arranged dances, afternoon teas in the shade, and even sat atop the rafters of the half-built mills and pointed out which young men they found attractive. None of these activities was ever formal or elaborate, of course, but it was enough for a girl of sixteen to find some solace in a time of trouble.

And then there was Mallie. Magalakutway Perez, Half Shawnee, half Mexican, and the first of the town to make Bette’s acquaintance. It was before The Crash, before Millsville was what it was. Mallie saw the Kinsellas admiring the construction of their home and approached Bette with caution. Two girls of twelve, no matter their differences, can become friends very easily if only one of them will try.

“You might not want to build here,” she whispered into Bette’s ear.

Bette turned around, her blue eyes suddenly locking with Mallie’s hazel orbs. “What? Why not?”

“This is an old Indian burial ground,” Mallie said eerily. “Curses will fall on your family for generations and generations. Your children’s children will reap the pain that is being sown here this day.”

A striking fear invaded Bette, and she felt her hands becoming sweaty, warm, her stomach aching. “Really?”

Mallie laughed for three solid minutes, walking around and surveying the job the workers had done on the house. “I’m only joking,” she said. “My name’s Mallie. I’ve never really been down in town before today, and I thought it might be fun to give you a scare.”

It could have been considered a cruel trick, but as time passed, Bette found that Mallie liked to pull this prank as often as possible every time a white family moved to town.

She’d even done it as recently as Laura, who had only moved to Millsville three months before the crash. Laura Kepler, her parents, her fourteen siblings, and their dog were all in the process of moving into a modest little home in the foothills, very near where Mr. Kepler would be working, or so everyone thought. As soon as they moved in, Bette made her acquaintance, believing that they should be friends. Bette was desperate for friends, and girls her own age were scarce in the town. Bette and Laura were acquainted and enjoyed their friendship for a full week before Mallie showed up to change things.

Laura spotted Mallie across a cornfield that had been recently planted, and at the sight of her in what Laura perceived to be native dress, she asked Bette if they should be afraid.

Bette laughed. “Magalakutway is the least harmful person you will ever meet.”

While Laura struggled to say the name correctly, Mallie had found her way across the field, ominously staring down her newest victim. “How!” She exclaimed in her deepest, grittiest tone.

“Please don’t scalp me!” Laura begged. “Please! I have a family!”

Mallie’s laugh, now one that was familiar but still lovely music to Bette’s ears, rang louder than usual. “You’re too easy!” she said to Laura before introducing herself. “Oh boy, I can’t wait to meet the rest of your family!”

Bette thought Laura might faint, and she wrapped an arm around her, explaining that Mallie was, as she’d said before, the least harmful person Laura would ever meet.

And it would always be true.

These five girls, however diverse each one was from the next, formed an unbreakable bond very quickly. Iris and Rose enjoyed the freedom they found in walking around town with Bette and Laura without anyone pointing them out, telling them to leave the shop because of their skin color. Of course, this was in the days when the girls all went to shops, and when there were shops to be gone into. Now all around them was desolation. It was a ghost town. It was a failure as an idea and the result of it was worse than any could have imagined.

 It was on one particularly cool autumn morning that Bette put the green lantern on the porch – a symbol to her friends that there would be a meeting that day. Slowly but surely, Rose and Iris found their way from the guest house into the main one, and Mallie and Laura, who looked every day to see whether the lantern was out, trudged up the hill into the grand home. By now, the girls all knew better than to say anything about the fact that, despite the lack of food, heat, or maintenance in the Kinsella home, the house and land they owed seemed far beyond their means. From the outside, it would appear that was true. But ever since the girls discovered The Attic, they knew better than to acknowledge its existence.

Mallie was the first to speak, as was typical. “Alright,” she started, seating herself in the parlor and gesturing for Bette to sit beside her. “What is it today? A fishing trip again?”

“Please tell me it’s not more fishin’,” Iris pleaded softly. She slumped into the chair by the window and looked over at Rose for validation.

“I dunno, I didn’t mind it much,” said Rose. “Sure, the fish cleanin’ is gross, but it pays off. That was some of the best fish I’d ever eaten in my life, the way Mama cooked it.”

“It’s not fish,” Bette spoke as she landed beside Mallie. “It’s a job. A big one.”

“How much do we make from it?” Laura asked. For the first time, she seemed to perk up.

“None. It’s not paying. Not in money.”

“In what then?” Mallie asked smartly. “Wampum?”

Bette cast a sideways glance toward Mallie and shook her head. “Experience. Life experience. The kind of thing you can’t learn in school.”

“Oh,” Iris scoffed. “So this is a job for your daddy? Why didn’t you say so?”

“Another job for your dad?” Laura asked, increasingly becoming more bewildered at the thought. “No. Absolutely not. Every time we do a job for your dad, something happens.”

“It’s been a while, girls!” Bette begged. “Please! I’ll be going with you this time!”

The room fell silent, and each girl looked at the one beside them. Collectively at last, they looked to Bette.

“How far do we have to travel?” Mallie asked.

“And do we get to use the Ford? We can’t take the train again if we get chased back like last time.” Rose was leaned forward as she asked, intent on the answer.

“It’s in Louisville,” Bette explained. “But before you complain about the distance, you should know we do get to use the Ford this time. So long as I drive.”

“How long?” Iris spoke after a brief thoughtful silence. “How long will this take? And while we’re at it, what exactly is the job?”

Bette looked the girls over, then stood again in the midst of them. “If we hurry, we can make it there and back in a day. Louisville’s only thirty miles or so anyway, and if we leave early enough, we’ll be done and back by suppertime.”

“And the job?” Rose repeated her sister.

“It’s a shipment. The guys who usually bring the stuff here ran into a little trouble.”

“A little trouble?”

“Got arrested, more like.”

“We cannot get arrested, Bette!”

She tossed her hands in the air in exasperation. “Stop talking! Listen to me, will you?”

Four pairs of eyes gave her their full attention.

“Who’s going to suspect a group of girls in pretty frocks, hm?” she asked, feigning a sweeter voice, very much out of character.

“Anyone who notices that two of us is black and one of us is Injun,” Iris answered. “Laura and I will play like we’re sisters, see. We’ll say we’ve brought the help from our wealthy home back in Indianapolis. We’ll stop at the hotel, where they’ll graciously check us into their best suite. When they see the Ford, believe me, they’ll know we’re good for the credit.”

“And then what?” Mallie asked. At present it seemed she was the only one who was even slightly willing even to hear how the plan would work.

“Then at two fifteen on the button, there’ll be a knock at the door. We won’t have to answer. All’s we’ll have to do is leave. The car will already be packed, and we’ll drive back home. Easy as pie.”

“And I assume we’re delivering booze, right?” Iris asked. Her voice was quieter now. It seemed she had resigned herself to the fact that of course she was participating in this. But she didn’t have to like it.

“I made a point of not asking Daddy what we’re moving.”

“Well unless it’s prostitutes, I think we know it’s booze.”

As Rose spoke, the rest of the girls looked at her harshly. Except for Bette, that is, who was looking down at the floor.

“I can’t help what my father does to keep us living,” she said quietly. “We have a home, and we haven’t starved yet. If The Attic is what it takes to make that happen, then you can be sure I’m gonna help however I’m needed.”

Rose felt the searing gaze of the others and relaxed back into her seat. “Fine,” she said humbly. “Sorry. Your daddy’s done good by me and Mama and Iris. I guess I can’t look a gift horse in the mouth, can I?”

The rest of the girls fell silent, slowly looking back at Bette with expectation.

“We leave in the morning,” Bette said. “I can do it myself, but there’s power in numbers, Daddy says. And besides, he’s doing business here tomorrow. I think it’d be best if none of us were around for that.” She panned the small group, noting each hesitant stare. All but Mallie seemed as though they’d rather chop off their own foot than do anything for Fred Kinsella. Sure, there was that time the coppers chased them to the state line in the car when they dropped off a mysterious package at an inn at Evanston. And sure, maybe there’d been inquiries about town with a group that was sure their tools had been lifted by a couple of girls. And yeah, there were other examples, too. Plenty of them. But when Bette needed something, somehow or other, all of the girls were there for her. Even when it was, as it often was, actually a favor for Fred.

“Who’s in?” Bette asked.

Mallie stood without hesitation. Iris and Rose looked at each other from across the room, nodded, and then stood. Laura looked back down at her feet, biting the inside of her cheek.

“In or out, Laura?” Bette asked. “And don’t tell me your folks’ll mind, because we both know they won’t even notice you’re gone.”

“They’ll notice,” she mumbled. “They just won’t care.”

“In or out?” Mallie repeated.

“Can I use a fake name?”

Mallie and Bette exchanged looks. “Why?” they asked in unison.

“I don’t know. For fun.”

“What name did you have in mind?”

“Anabelle Lee.”

“Like Edgar Allen Poe?” Rose smiled, almost laughing. “You think people won’t know it’s a fake name?”

“Can I do it or not?”

“What the hell, Laura, do what you want.” Mallie never tried watching her language around the others. She knew they didn’t care for it, but she believed that was only because they weren’t used to it. She was determined to change that.

“Fine,” Bette agreed. “From now ‘til tomorrow night, you’re Annabelle. Are you in?”

As a broad smile painted her lips, she stood proudly. “I’m in!”

[firstreads]

Title - Irish Problems Fandom - Hetalia [A Human AU/Mafia AU Genre: Romance (Male Slash), Comedy, Action Summary: The irish Mafioso Harry O'Connel is distressed - His business is almost ruined and his enemies are only waiting for him to break down. Luckily, his best friend got a solution - Asking another mafia boss for help! Of course Harry isn’t very happy about having to trust somebody from their business, but when he meets Michele Vento, most important Mafioso of whole sicily, things get even more complicated - Because Vento wants a bit more from the Irish. While Michele’s trying to get to Harry’s heart through awfully many layers of british sarcasm, irish temperament and straight-ness, an english colleague is seizing the opportunity to get rid of both of them… Word Count 1st chapter: 1869

A/N: The story is uploaded to two pages, where every chapter is made up by three scenes. The one i am submitting here is an exception - it is the prologue and the first chapter which is the only one made out of only two scenes. Prologue: „This is the most humiliating thing this bastard could ever do to me” the Irish spat. “Oh, I think not. Quite hopeless, yes, but I was never closer to you” the Sicilian voice behind his back responded and Harry grid his teeth in anger: “I will kill that English bastard! Make his life hell and then kill him!” “Mind If interrupt you, but we got a bigger problem” Michele said. “What?” he snarled. “The Saltwater will ruin my shoes.” Now he heard it too. Water, pouring into the box. Harry moaned. Chapter 1 - Irish Problems The man who had bought that house almost a century ago had been displeased with how simple it was. Surely, it had been an entire house with three floors and a front yard, which had been much back then, and he had worked for it. Hard, too hard for a house like this, although nobody would have believed him since he couldn’t have told anybody. This hadn’t been Chicago and he wasn’t Al Capone. It had been Dublin and his name had been Darragh O’Connel. The first man who grew up in this house hadn’t minded that it had been a red brick one like all the others in the street. The door had been painted blue, just like the windowsills and it had looked really pretty this way. And although it had looked pretty this way, one day in the year after his father had passed away, Aaron O’Connel had decided to paint it green and planted ivy for it to grow on the facade. And the ivy still entwined around the wooden trellis drilled into the bricks of the front, the windowsills were still green just like the door when Aaron had been gone for four years. His son didn’t mind the look of the house either, he actually did not care about it all. Harry O’Connel had far worse problems occupying his mind than how the ivy slowly started to grow over the window of his study. “Why? Why is it like that?” Harry complained, ruffling his hair. “When the state economy is in a bad condition then the Mafia has it’s time! Damn, we’re in Ireland! The people are poor, they’ve always been and they would have always sold their soul! And now? Bullshit!” Chewing on his lower lip he looked out of the window. Why was it so difficult being a mafia boss nowadays? Or has it always been but everyone from his dad to his Scottish colleague and friend knew something he didn’t? They better told him because if there wasn’t something happening soon, he could go and look for a new job. Or rather find himself a nice graveyard, there was more than one person who would put him six feet underground when he was defenceless. “You should get help Harry”, Paddy said and Harry rolled his eyes. “I can’t be helped in any way anymore but thanks for your concern for the poor sinner” he replied to his bodyguard. The huge red-haired man leaning against the wall beside the window lifted his shoulder for a deep breath and let them drop again, an annoyed frown on his face but it faded quickly. “I meant help for the business. It would be hard, nearly impossible to manage that all alone.” Harry looked upwards and thought about it, then he put one elbow on his desk and leant his face on his hand, continuing to stare at the cloudy sky outside. “And where could I get help from?” he asked. “From another one of us!” Charlie said, entering the room. He lifted his head to look at his childhood friend and bodyguard, who was grinning like a cat. Harry was used to it but in quite a lot of situations, this face could ruin his mood. The other young Irishman kept grinning: “I just waited for the catchwords to make my entrance.” “Wanker” Harry spit, way less amused than the following giggle from Charlie, and started tapping his fingers. “From who, I may ask? Don’t be silly, Charlie. Our business is corrupt, false and cruel, means that – aside from Gavin – pretty much everyone who hears I need help is just a wolf spotting the injured lamb, no matter how much sheep clothing they’ll wear!” “Face the facts, pal”, Charlie gave back. “You’re an injured lamb both ways and we all know way to well of those English wolves that will get us sooner or later if we don’t do anything.” A frustrated moan slipped from Harry’s lips and he buried his face in his hands. “Ah, but don’t make your headache worse” the other man said and pulled a note out of his suit pocket. “I’ve already did … things.” “Things? Charlie, it ended more than one time in a mess when you did ‘things’, what kind of things?” Paddy asked and Charlie looked a bit annoyed at him: “It did not end in a mess, old man, and the kind of things like asking for help.” “Tosser, don’t do that shit without me” it came from Harry, who still had his face covered. “I’m still your boss, I decide what we’re going to do here.” “All you did recently was complaining and whining about everything, I think that pretty much tells us what kind of decisions you were and would be making - none. But anyways, I” Charlie waved with the note, “have this nice phone number which could free us from all the stress. I asked around our informants a bit and a Sicilian colleague called Vento seemed to have eyed at the north of Europe for quite a while. So I arranged a few things” he glared at Paddy, who buzzed out something along the lines of “We’ll see, Charlie”, before turning back to Harry: “And now it’s up to you, to call him.” Harry had parted his finger at the “But anyways” now putting down his fingers completely: “And that is the number of this Vento?” “Exactly” Charlie replied, his smug grin turning into a frown and he took a closer look at the note. “Or the number of the cute guy from the pub yesterday, I am honestly not so sure anymore.” “And we saw, Charlie” Paddy quietly commented with a smile while Harry groaned and reached out: “Give me the fucking note, there is a 50/50 chance I’ll kick you either way, no matter who’s on the other end of the line.” “This is the most idiotic thing I’ve ever did! These Italians must all have got sunstroke!” Harry ranted and threw a stone into the shallow waves of the harbour of Dublin, sitting on the edge of the dock while they waited for the Sicilian. This Vento had been surprisingly co-operative when he contacted him and Harry had has a bad feeling about it. It got worse when he said, he would send one of his men to tell him details for their actual meeting. They lived in the 21th century, there was no need for such thing as a stupid face-to-face just to say that they were poised for helping them. “It’s pretty old-schooled, yes”, Paddy grunted and the younger one looked at him. The Northern Irish was a hunk of a man, being two metres tall and in his late 40’ies, his dirty orange hair tied to a short ponytail and usually stubble on the rough face. Harry had known him for almost his whole life by now and since his father died four years ago, he was really thankful for his company. A faint resigned smile appeared on his face and he looked in the water. Of course they weren’t alone, other bodyguards were placed all around the place in case it was a trap. “But really, it’s like a bad detective novel! Meeting at the harbour at midnight. We even have full moon! One more cliché and I’m gonna throw up, I swear” he muttered and threw another stone. “Well, cliché doesn’t mean it’s a bad novel” Paddy said, earning a face from Harry that had a bugged out “Seriously” written it. The older man only shrugged: “Just my share of life experience.” A few minutes later, the little headset earphone in Harry’s ear started: “Sir, somebody entered the 3 Branch Road South. Long coat, hat, frizzy hair. Dark skin, too, but I’m not sure. Seems to be our man.” Harry smiled and got on his feet: “Indeed. Keep an eye on that guy, Connor.” A short “Sure, Sir” ended the conversation or at least switched to another channel since Harry could see how Paddy was listening concentrated. Two minutes later he looked over to one point in the huge large black shadows the warehouses cast: “There he comes.” Harry shoved his hands in his pocket and waited, trying to see what would come out of the shadows, but it was too dark to see anything there. Finally a person appeared from the pitch-black. The man was slender, but not too tall. Maybe one or two centimeters taller than Harry. Long coat, hat. The frizzy hair was brown and tied to a loose ponytail. His skin was tanned. “Buona sera, signori” he said with a soft, but deep voice. Italian, no doubt. “Good evening, sir. I hope your trip from Sicily over here wasn’t too troublesome” Harry answered with a faint smile, hopefully not too fake smile. The other man smiled back, lifting up the front brim of his hat. His eyes were not lidded nor wide open and although it was still dark, Harry could make out the colour. It was some sort of very light brown, actually coming really close to dull gold. The fringe was side parted, he also had a curl on the right side. “Fortunately not. But I didn’t come all the way for small talk, now did I?” “Of course not” Harry said. “So, how are the things on your isle? Does your boss still want to help me?” The Irish could have sworn that the guy had chuckled for a second. “Sí. And he pays for the trip. This Sunday, 13.40. Flight 34. Booked for Callahan. You better not forget that.” “How could I.” “Are there any other eventualities you need to clear up now? I want to remind you that further information on where to meet in Palermo will be sent your way once you arrived there.” “Well, I’m not too sure if this counts as eventuality but may I ask why your boss sends somebody to come here? That’s a tad suspicious, don’t you think?” Harry replied with a faint but definitely challenging smile. The man looked over the harbour, over to the lights of the other side it: “He wanted to get a glimpse of what is the future surroundings for our potential cooperation are.” Then he smiled again at Harry: “I think he will like this island very much; it isn’t Sicily but it does look beautiful here as well.” Harry wanted to laugh, yet just grinned instead: “I feel like I should reply with a ‘Thank you’ but that still are quite fishy reasons, aren’t they?” The other shrugged: “Who knows? Maybe they are, maybe it’s more important than you think Signore O’Connel.” He raised his arm and pulled his coat sleeve back a bit, revealing a watch. “And I hate to be rude, but I didn’t plan on staying long here and should actually hurry back to the airport now.” “Then I don’t want to hold you up, I wouldn’t like to be the guilty one when you miss your flight, Mister.” Just now he realised that he didn’t know the Sicilian’s name. The man smiled once more, turning around and raising one hand: “I wish you good night, Signori!” He disappeared into the shadows again, Harry still staring at the point where the man had went. A soft wind got up. “We still get help and were not assassinated. Victory all along the line I would say” Paddy said dry, obviously having a bad feeling about the whole thing. Harry stared into the shadows were the man had disappeared. “Indeed” he said in the same tone.