Is my birthday, so I share some of a thing what is not going to be finished anytime soon. It's part of the trilogy Pale Blood starts, and will be written in a mix of first and third person (the narrator is sorry they can't begin this story for you, but they are terribly busy just now).
I give you 'Light Thieves'
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That fancy little auto may have been much smaller and faster than ours, but it was getting awfully close…with no signs of losing interest.
“And whose fault is this?” Delilah asked–more sneered, but who could blame her.
I didn’t need to answer, and she would’ve clocked me if I tried…but it was my fault.
I couldn't help it! We had jars upon jars of the shine and there was no time when we grabbed it to really look. So, as soon as we were free of the transport, and free of the drones, I looked. A peek, really! Worth it, if you asked me–and someone would, later, probably with knuckles involved.
The light I held was as warm and golden as my mothers told me the suns used to be. It was like a vidstream of those old middays made whole and real and it was in my hands.
We had done the impossible.
No more harsh LEDs and falselight lamps for us, we could pop a jar and bask in true sunlight whenever we wished. And, in the back of our lumbering van–their light and warmth hidden by a thick lead blanket–were roughly a hundred more just like it. We had the soft glow of the moons on a clear night, the gentle golden light of somrise, the glimmer of somset; we had it all. Well, a little bit of it all, but we knew how to get more.
Set for life, as they say.
So long as we lost the leech on our heels, which looked less and less likely as the starless night stretched on. Narrow streets weren’t built for big vans, and with so many autos going hover there wasn’t much street left for our wheels as it stood. Nevermind the trash that littered our part of the dome, which was piled some three of mes up in spots.
And, of course, that fancy auto chased us nose-first into one.
Delilah screamed and cursed when our van fishtailed. I didn’t much mind though, what with paradise in my fingertips. Besides, he hit the face of a burnt out skyskraper while my Delilah managed to scrape us along all its rusted metal and into an empty parking lot. We were safe, no need to get bent out of shape over it.
Until our hanger-on got out of his auto, that is.
He screamed when he leapt from that tin can, it was almost feral how he howled, and then he booked it for our trunk. I got the go-ahead I wanted; a short nod and a deep grunt, and slipped out the top of our van–the dealer that sold it to us called it a ‘skylight’, said it was made to soak in the suns…and the name felt just about perfect.
Unfortunately, while I was slipping under the leech’s vehicle, he was shattering our windows. But with my Delilah at the wheel, that wouldn’t be all that shattered.
She had him covered. I, however, was in charge of making sure the lumbering oaf didn't get any further. His pretty little auto slapped hard enough to dent its slick front-end, but it still purred plenty when I dug into it. And plenty more when I high-tailed it back to the passenger's seat before he noticed it driving away without him.
"What you have is worth a hundred," he growled at my cackling laughter and stiff finger as we drove off.
“’What you have’,” I said, laughing still and turned to Delilah, “if he only knew.”
She said nothing, but her bloodied knuckles cracked tighter on the steering wheel.
I kept my mouth shut and my hands off the merchandise for the rest of the trip.
