87. Gunshot

The wolves scattered when the gun exploded only a short distance from where they’d congregated. A slender, tawny female yipped in surprise and paused just long enough to grab the deer leg she’d procured for herself before darting between a few trees and turning back to see where the noise had come from. She was followed by a large white and grey male who grabbed the other end of the leg and used it to lead the female back several more feet. 

Where the fuck did that come from? True to his nature, the Alpha’s voice ripped through his pack’s minds in a sharp bark. Clara, Brighton, report! 

I’m in the backyard! The tawny female was trying to shake her prize from the mouth of the bi-coloured male. Get the fuck off of it, Right, it’s mine. 

Why don’t you share, greedy bi—

BRIGHTON, REPORT NOW!

The male let go of the leg with a yipping whine and dropped to his belly, ears flatted against his skull. With Clara—I’m with Clara; stop yelling at me! 

Shut the fuck up. Daniela, where are you?

A girl of about thirteen, popped up from one of the nearby bushes, bare as the day she was born, with wild brown hair. “Heeere!” She held her hand up in the direction of the brick house that lay just on the other side of a cluster of trees. Her mindvoice echoed the sentiment. “Scared me clean outta my fur! Could someone bring me somethin’ so I’m not running starkers ‘til my heart settles?” 

There was a sort of buzz as someone acknowledged the naked girl’s request while the Alpha continued his roll call. Aspen, Devon, Corky? What about Topher? Has anyone seen Topher? 

Three young voices sounded and gave their locations. There was a heavy pause while they waited for Topher. 

The tawny female flicked her ears back and forth. Her companion looked longingly at the leg she was holding. 

The Alpha snapped again, Topher, answer me. Another pause. The minds of the wolves buzzed in concern before the Alpha bellowed the missing wolf’s name. The bellow was accompanied by a low, searching howl. 

A couple of unfamiliar voices answered from down the road, but not the voice they were looking for. 

He was with us for a little while, Aspen admitted, we were looking at all of the cars, but then that man came out and we ran; but Topher said he was going to stay and ask about the cars…

God damn it, Aspen, you’re not supposed to separate! The snarling voice of a woman cut in. How many times have we told you that you aren’t supposed to separate when you’re outside of the yard? 

I’m sorry, Felicia; he was really insistent and he wouldn’t come back with us! I can’t just boss anyone I please, and he’s much bigger than me!

The Alpha’s voice overlaid Aspen’s; Clara, take Righton and go down the road to His house and see if Topher’s still there. 

The tawny female complained noisily both in voice and mind, I’m eating, Donny. Make Right go himself. 

If Right goes by himself, we’ll have two missing wolves instead of one—

I can hear you! The bi-coloured wolf put his paw over his nose and groaned in a disgruntled fashion. 

Then why the fuck aren’t you moving? The Alpha spat. Clara, take him and go—is anyone else missing? Felicia, are the little still upstairs with you? 

All but Riella, but she’s with Conny and Morgan at the grocery store. 

As the Alpha and his mate exchanged information, the tawny female dropped her deer leg and flicked her ears in annoyance. When the white and grey wolf made a move for the leg she gave a barking snarl and gnashed her teeth near his face. 

Startled, the male jumped back again and bared his teeth. Don’t boss me, Clara, I’ll rip your ears right off. 

“I thought I told the two of you to go find Topher?” The Alpha came around a big oak with a set of clothing in his hands. He walked between the wolves and kicked the deer leg into a bush. “Leave the god damned leg alone and go before I use it to beat the shit out of you; we have a missing pup and you’re going to fuck around over a front leg—Daniela, where are you?” 

A slender hand emerged and waved. “Here, Donny; don’t come too close though; I think I’m standing in poison ivy.” 

“Oh, honey, why don’t you bother to look before you turn?” 

“I couldn’t! I said I was scared right outta my fur; what did you think I meant?” 

There was a series of gruesome popping and snapping noises as the wolves behind him began to shift back into humans. Donny looked over his shoulder at the pair of adults to make sure they were heading in the direction of the house before going down the street to look for the boy. The last thing they needed was for those two bozos to forget they were naked and start walking around the general public. He should have bought that house in the nudist colony. 

He turned back to the girl in the bushes. “All right puppy, circle ‘round, let’s see what you did to yourself.” He unfolded a white sundress that his mate handed him when Daniela announced that she needed a change of clothing, and he held it out as a sort of shield between himself and girl to save her budding sense of modesty some grief. He turned his head, too, for good measure. 

The girl fumbled out of the bush and grabbed her dress. Donny waited until she said “Ready,” before he turned and looked at her. Her scrawny legs were already turning red. 

“Yep, that’s poison ivy. Damn it, Daniela,” He ran his hand through his hair and noticed that her arms were starting to break out, too.  “All right, come on, let’s go; inside—no, I’m definitely not carrying you, puppy.” He took a step back as she held her arms out to him.

Looking a little hurt, she dropped her arms and started off toward the house. Donny found his mate’s mind. Grab that canister of oatmeal and the box of chamomile tea and dump it all in a tub of warm water. And put towels down on the way to the bathroom, would you?

What the hell happened? Did Topher show up? Is he all right? 

No, Clara and Right should be heading down the street to see if the kid is with the ball of sunshine down the road. Daniela changed right in a bush covered with poison ivy; she’s already tomato red. 

Oh, fantastic. Felicia’s voice had an unkind bite to it. I’ll call Morgan and see if they’re at the store. Maybe they can pick up some calamine while they’re there.

Daniela was holding her arms perpendicular to the rest of her body and waving them slightly by the time that they got to the house. “I’m really itchy!” she complained, turning sideways and passing through the door. She narrowly avoided Brighton and Clara who both looked on transfixed as their dark haired Alpha ushered the girl down a path of towels to the bathroom. 

He spared them a glance that said quite plainly they should already be halfway down the street in his opinion, and said to the girl, “You should have looked where you were turning.” 

She squawked an indignant protest as Felicia intercepted her in the bathroom and shut the door in Donny’s face. 

“I’ll take care of her. You watch the little ones; they’re in the play pen.” 

Shaking his head slightly, Donny headed toward the stairs, kicking the towels into a pile as he went so that Felicia could pick them up later. 

He paused when he passed the window on the second floor landing so that he could watch Clara and Brighton make their way down the road. 

“He better be here,” Clara grumbled when they rounded the bend in the road and approached the yard with rusted old cars strewn across it. “Dunno why the hell he would be; this guy scares the shit outta me.” 

“He likes cars,” Brighton yawned as the wind pushed one of the clouds out of the way of the sun, and he shook his head a little. “Something about his dad being a mechanic or some shit.” 

“Doesn’t stop Him from being scary as fuck,” she muttered as they stepped on the drive. She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted toward the house; “Topher! You better fucking be here!” 

She paced the length of the driveway’s end and eyeballed the house. Brighton plopped gracelessly on the corner of the street and turned the sole of his foot upward so he could pick a rock out from between his toes. “Why don’t you go up to the front door, Einstein?” 

“Why the fuck don’t you?”

“Why are you so angry?” 

“I’m hungry, damn it.” She cupped her hands and called the boy’s name again. 

“Hey check it out,” Brighton tugged on the leg of Clara’s jeans and jutted his chin at the other side of the driveway. A lanky cat with a sleek coat clambered out of the storm drain that rain under the end of the concrete drive and sat down on top of the metal tube. “Ballsy little tidbit, isn’t she?” 

The two wolves watched the cat watch them. 

“You think He’d miss her?” Clara wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist and licked her lips. 

“Maybe. Maybe she’s a stray, though.” 

Clara crouched several inches lower to the ground and watched the cat intently. Her muscles bunched as she prepared to launch out of her skin after the cat, but the moment before she moved, the cat meowed politely at her and vanished. 

The next thing Clara knew, she was fighting for her balance as Brighton gripped one of her legs. “WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?!” He looked up at her, tightening his hold on her leg. She reached down and gripped the male's hair to keep her balance. 

"Let go of me, asshole," she muttered; and then much louder, "TOPHER!" The sooner they could get the pup, the sooner they could go the fuck home. Away from Him and his god damned vanishing cat.

The screen door at the front of the house opened and shut with a creak and a bang. A blond boy of around fifteen or so skipped down the stairs and then strode through the grass toward them with all the confidence of a budding Alpha. Topher wasn’t alone, though. Walking slowly behind him was the broad shouldered proprietor of the house, and He didn’t look very amused at the sight of two wolves grappling at the end of his driveway.

Topher gave Clara and Brighton both a cheeky smile and took a bite out of some white bread sandwich just as Clara managed to remove herself from Brighton’s hold. Clara was going to scold the youth for making her shout so much, but He interjected, coming to a stop several paces from the end of his drive.

“Hi there,” His voice was pleasant, but tight. “Why are you trying to eat my ghast?”

Clara looked at Brighton. What the fuck’s a ghast?

Brighton, in the process of getting up to his feet, made a noncommittal noise, Don’t admit to anything. Admitting to things will just get us into trouble. I say we take the puppy and get the fuck out while we still have our tails and testicles.

I don’t have testicles, moron.

You could have fooled me.

“You know, that’s kind of rude,” He said to them, interrupting what would have probably turned into a lengthy debate. “You should speak up so that we can all hear you.”

Clara bared her teeth at Brighton before she turned the expression into a tight smile directed at Him. “We’re sorry; we didn’t know it was yours.” Whatever the fuck it was. “We came for our boy.” She pointed at the youth who was chewing his sandwich. It was hard not to focus on the sandwich—harder when the wind shifted and brought with it the smell of ham.

Nostrils flaring slightly, Clara debated just abandoning conversation all together and grabbing the sandwich from the boy’s hand. “Can I have that?” Oops, well, so much for manners.

Topher frowned, “Leave me alone, Clara, it’s mine; His mate made it for me.”

 Clara licked the front of her teeth from under her lips and was clearly struggling with some internal debate; sensing her troubles, Brighton brought himself to his full, not quite impressive height, and offered a less strained smile at Him.

He, on the other hand, was looking at Topher, seeming a bit concerned. “You know them, then?”

Topher, still eyeing Clara distrustfully, took another bite of his sandwich and answered with a muffled, “Mmphm.” He nodded so that there was no confusion as to whether or not he was claiming the two nutballs at the end of the drive. Swallowing probably before he should have, he clarified, “they’re my…cousins, ish. Clara, Brighton.” He pointed at each and then looked back at Him with a shrug.

Clara took advantage of Topher’s looking away to sneak her hand toward his sandwich, but apparently He was less inclined to let the boy learn a hard lesson, because he said with great hesitancy:

“Er, you know if you’re hungry…you’re welcome in. We have plenty of stuff for more sandwiches.”

Clara opened her mouth to accept the offer immediately, but Topher said quickly, “They’ll be fine. We only live down the road.”

For a moment, Clara looked mad enough to spit, but Topher was looking pointedly at Brighton and shaking his head very subtly. Clara, having no idea what Topher was trying to say, but recognizing the slight drop of his tone as a young Alpha’s insistence, said very slowly, “Oookaaay….well…I guess that we won’t…then.” She licked her lips as her eyes lingered on the boy’s ham sandwich.

Brighton whined softly, the inhuman sound almost comical as it was emitted from a very human throat. “We should get back,” he muttered, rubbing the back of his head and mussing the short, caramel coloured hair that was there. “Donovan’s in a piss anyway; Daniela ran straight into a bunch of poison ivy when that gun went off.”

“Gun?” Topher looked confused. He finished off his sandwich despite the fact that Clara was practically drooling on his shoulder over it. He looked at The Man, cheeks puffed with his sandwich, as though asking “What gun?”

And then his face brightened. “O’ ta ker,” He made a face, chewed a few times, swallowed, and tried again. “That was a car.” He nodded at The Man. “We were fixing it—well, Deacon was fixing it. I got to turn the key, though! That’s what made the bang sound.” He grinned like he’d just been given the world’s biggest piece of candy. “It was really cool!”

Clara looked at Brighton. Brighton looked at Clara. They both looked at the boy and then at Him and then back at the boy.

“Oh,” Brighton was the first to speak. And then to Clara, Do we tell Donny?

That the bigass hunters he thinks are lurking around here has actually been cars backfiring? Hell yes, if it keeps us from having to scramble around like morons every time it happens.

I meant about the kid being in the car…

I’m sure as fuck not telling him that, but if you want him to bite your butt…

There was an indignant sort of shake on the other end of their connection.

Clara’s stomach grumbled loudly.

“Well, best be off,” she gestured toward the road and looked at two of the three males expectantly. To the third, she said, “We appreciate you watching over him; that was super great of you. If you want to just give us a howe—er, holler, the next time he drops by unannounced, that would be wonderful.” That way they didn’t have to run around like chickens with their heads chopped off the next time Topher decided to tune them out.

He stepped forward with a concerned expression stretched across His face; “Look, if you’re hungry, it’s really no trouble.”

Again Clara found herself thinking of the sandwich and how delicious it probably had been. Stupid Topher. Stupid Donovan. Stupid car backfiring stupidly.

Brighton said, Donovan wouldn’t li—

I KNOW WHAT DONOVAN WOULDN’T LIKE! Clara turned on Brighton and snarled deeply. Brighton haunched his shoulders and scampered passed Clara, grabbing Topher by the front of his shirt and pulling him along.

Clara smiled politely as she could manage at Him. “It’s okay. I have a snack waiting for me at home.”

And then in a stiff sort of fashion, the woman turned and followed the two males down the street.

“You almost came unglued, Clara,” Brighton’s voice filtered back toward the driveway as the wolves walked away, “right in the open where everyone could see you.”

“Shut the fuck up, Moon Moon.”

“You think you’re so high and mighty because Donovan let you use the computer first; well I’m here to tell you I didn’t know that picture was being taken!”

“Meow,” the ghast looked up at Deacon politely and blinked.

Deacon shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t understand it either.”

80. Only Human

This might end up in the third book of The Historian's Archives, but it's for the 100 themes challenge. The prompt was "Only Human" 

______________________________________________________________________

“You’re only human,” he told her solemnly, not bothering to look at her as he spoke. No, he was too occupied with the sketch book sitting on his lap; and he was only talking to her, after all, why waste his time sparing her a glance as he pointed out what he obviously felt to be her greatest shortcoming. 

                

She gave him a look that she hoped would burn his skin clean off his muscles and bones. “You like to throw that at me, don’t you? Despite all of this stuff that you claim I’m supposed to be able to do, all of these reasons why I have to fulfill your list of requirements, you’re quick as fuck to throw my species back in my face whenever it suits you.” 

                

The vampire shrugged and rotated the pencil and wedge eraser in his hand so that he could correct the paper. Then he switched the positions of the two utensils again, and continued drawing. “You remind me of it often enough when you want to make excuses for why you shouldn’t have to do what you were clearly made to do, and yet you’re awfully quick to forget it when it comes to something that you want to do.” 

                

 Now he did look up at her, mis-matched eyes meeting hers in a steady, calm gaze. “I can put emphasis on key words, too, Ophelia. Your oratorical strategies have no effect on me.” 

                

The woman threw her hands in the air. “Never mind.” 

                

 “Don’t worry, I had no plans to.” 

                

They sat in silence that would have been worlds more comfortable if the woman weren’t radiating bitterness and something precariously close to hatred in the general direction of her companion. But the vampire, despite being acutely aware of the woman’s emotions, made no attempt to ease the tension between them. For better or worse, he was content to let her stew in her own dissatisfaction. 

                

 The woman, it seemed, was considerably less so. 

                

“It’s my damn life, Cavan. That’s the difference. It should be my choice what I do with it, what my responsibilities are, where I go and who with and why. I’m not your daughter, your sister—hell, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not even your friend—and I’m sure as a pixie’s tiny bulbous bottom not your responsibility. You shouldn’t get to swan into my world and tell me that I have to do A and B for the rest of my life, but that I’m not allowed to do C and D because it’s not my place—not even if I happen to have some freaky-deaky powers that no one has had in however many years.” 

                

Scritch—scritch—scritch…

                

 The damned pencil scribbling its way across the paper was her only answer, and she wanted to take his sketch book and beat him over the head with it. “Did you hear me, damn it?” 

              

“Yes, mother, I heard you.” 

              

She had just enough time to wonder if the man was determined to out-tone her every time she opened her mouth before the vampire put the book and the pencil down on the table next to his chair. To the woman’s disappointment, she couldn’t see what had been so damn interesting that he practically ignored her presence throughout the entire conversation. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on who you were, she didn’t have time to reflect on the dark blob of an image that she couldn’t quite make out, because the vampire began talking. 

“Your problem is that you still think that you live in the same cutesy, safe little world that you’ve been floating around in for the last twenty-something years. The world where you teach ballet for pennies that you save up so that you can earn a degree in the performing arts one measly class at a time—yeah, I know about that; I did my homework—unlike you, by the way. You still don’t know shit about how to control those powers of yours, and you’ve made a big show of not using them—“ 

“To fight some creepy crawly dream critter? Of course I haven’t, and you’re damn near crazy if you think I will!” 

“Honey, I’m a lot of things, but crazy isn’t one of them. Unfortunately.” 

“You’re such an asshole.”

“You’re changing the subject.”  He was looking at her intently, his elbows on his knees, hands clasped in front of him. She couldn’t read his expression. Frankly, she didn’t know if she wanted to. 

“You think I’m selfish,” she said dourly. 

“No, I think you’re irresponsible. You think you’re selfish—no, obviously you do, or you wouldn’t have accused me of thinking you were.” He raised a hand to stop her from arguing. “I think that you haven’t yet developed an understanding of why it’s important that you take what you’ve been given and actually use it to its full potential, to do what you were actually given the gift to do.” 

“You want me to do that because you think that it will make your job easier.” It was hard to keep the accusation out of her voice, especially when he began to smile at her mid-sentence. 

“Of course I do, darling. I don’t want to keep running around cleaning up after the same beastie which could easily be killed if I could actually get into the Dreamscape to kill it.” He opened his hands and made a small shrugging motion. “But the fact is that it’s just something you were meant to do; call yourself Buffy if that’s what gets you through the day, but don’t live your life being dragged into one supernatural mess after another, always surprised by it because you’re still convincing yourself that things like that just don’t happen to people like you.” He sat back again, picked up the sketchbook and continued drawing.  “I would have thought that you’d want to put yourself in control of your situation.” 

The words hung between them for a few breaths. 

“It’s just a lot to ask of me,” she said quietly, bringing her legs up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. She put her chin on her knees and watched the vampire as he continued to scribble. “I mean, you’re asking me to put myself in prominent danger every time someone has a bad dream. How the hell am I supposed to actually get any sort of sleep at night myself if suddenly I have to worry about everyone else’s nightmares, too? I mean, sure, some of my abilities are really nifty; who wouldn’t want to teleport some place instead of spending three hours on a plane? But overall…I mean…It’s not like I’m immortal or harder to kill…I’ve never weighed more than a hundred and twenty-five pounds in my life, I’ve only just begun learning basic self-defense, and you’re asking me to take on monsters that could be twice my size, more magically attuned than I’ll ever be, and harder to kill than a grizzly when I only have a pocket knife. I mean, I don’t know if it’s escaped your notice or anything, but I’m only—“ she paused and pursed her lips. 

Cavan, to his credit, said nothing. 

100 Themes Challenge #55: Separation

1.

The moment that Fae recognized her brother’s handwriting on the note that slipped into her line of sight, the little Nephilim knew that she was in trouble of a kind she’d never imagined she’d be in.

“Fae,” the human woman’s voice was tightly controlled. Fae wasn’t sure if it was because she was about to cry, or about to stab someone’s earhole with an arrow; both seemed pretty possible, and Fae wasn’t quite at the right angle to see whether or not Morhea had her quiver.

“Fae, what is this?”

Fae’s eyes scanned the letter quickly, just to make sure she was dealing with exactly what she thought she was dealing with.

Yep. That’s exactly what she thought it was. And she felt the keen urge to smack herself in the face.  How is it, she thought, that I’m the one who’s barely spent any time in the human world, but he’s the one that didn’t figure a note like that would upset her?

Unsure how to answer her own question, Fae decided to adopt the rhetoric of Hannah Jaeger’s eldest daughter: because he’s male, that’s how.

Still, she had to think of something to say—something that  wouldn’t require too much explaining. Think Fae, think!

And then her face brightened and she picked the letter up off of the book she was reading and grinned widely. “Looks like a love letter to me; see, look, there’s a little heart at the bottom!”

“It reads like a break-up letter,” Morhea corrected her.

Uh-oh. That was definitely a sad voice. Please don’t cry. I don’t have the slightest idea of what to do if you cry on me…

Fae cleared her throat, “I don’t think it’s a break-up letter, Morhea.” She tried to keep her voice kind; sometimes it was hard to remember that Morhea was a lot younger than she was. Sometimes it was very easy to forget that because she looked younger than Morhea, talking to Morhea like she was the younger party would be slightly belittling. “If it was a break-up letter, I don’t think he’d have put ‘I’ll be back (P.S.  I said that in a Terminator voice.)’” She tapped the paper and chanced a glance up at Morhea.

The woman looked like she’d swung back around from being sad to being annoyed. Fae wondered if she should be a little concerned at the ease with which this particular human sometimes flipped from one set of emotions to the next.

“He didn’t even say where he was going,” Morhea crossed her arms over her chest. “Or what he was doing. Just that it was very important.” She huffed and eyed Fae with a startling fierceness. 

Uh oh.

“What exactly was so very important that he couldn’t send me a text message or wake me up or something, hm? What could have been SO pressing that he had to run off without a word?”

“Nnnephilim…things?” Fae sank in her chair a little bit and raised her book to cover her face while Morhea continued to fume.

“‘Something very important...’ What does that even MEAN?”

Fae opened her mouth to answer and then promptly closed it again. With relief, she realized that Morhea wasn’t looking for answers so much as shouting at the air in the hopes that she’d stumble across some in the process.

“And he had enough time to mention the TERMINATOR but not enough to slip in a ‘hey, by the way I’ll be gone a week. A month. A year.’” This time she pinned Fae with a look that made the Nephilim feel like she was a butterfly on a mounting board. “Just how long will he be gone, Fae?”

Fae curled into a slightly tighter ball in her chair and stared fixedly at the middle of her book.

“Fae? How long is Raith going to be gone?”

Very slowly, Fae lowered her book just enough that she could peek over the top of it. “Dunno?”

“You don’t know.”  Fae was certain it was supposed to be a question. It sounded like it was supposed to be a question. An affirmation of a kind. But it wasn’t a question. It was a needle-like accusation . A blade that pinned Fae down by the belly and wanted to dissect her.

She must have made some sort of sound in the affirmative, because Morhea had very slowly turned in her seat to face Fae dead-on. “But you know where he went.”

Son of a weasel.

“NoIdon’tknowthat, whywouldyouthinkIknowthat, whatevergaveyouthatimpression? Oh, gosh, I’m late for that thing that I said I was going to go to; it was lovely t—“

Morhea took the book from Fae’s hands and snapped it shut. “You know,” she accused. “And I’m not giving you your book back until you either tell me or until Raith comes back.”

Fae eyeballed the book in Morhea’s hands. “I can’t tell you; it’s just—“she shrugged her shoulders, trying to think of some way that she could explain to Morhea why she couldn’t tell her where Raith went without her being offended.

Morhea wilted. “It’s just one of those things.” Back to being sad again. At least she wasn’t scary when she was sad.

Fae shrugged her shoulders and gave a weak smile. “He’d have told you if he could,” she said softly. “And he really will be back; he wouldn’t have bothered to leave you a letter if he wasn’t coming back to be with you.”

Morhea wiped her eyes with the hand that wasn’t clutching Fae’s book. She sniffled softly, then took a deep breath and said, “Well…I’m just…going to have to shoot him when he gets back then.” She laughed weakly but Fae wasn’t entirely convinced that Morhea wasn’t, in fact, making plans to shoot Raith.

Oh, big brother, you better hope that you come back when she’s in a dour mood, or you’re going to be in big, big trouble.

2.

For the first time in almost eight months, Alexa put on the foundation that covered up her freckles. There was no need to have them splotched across her face and shoulders for the world to see; the one person who would notice wasn’t here to know that she was covering them.

Don’t think about it. The voice in her head was firm and she wanted to listen to it, but somehow she couldn’t manage.

She dabbed the sponge in the liquid foundation and pushed her bra strap off of her shoulder so she could cover the freckles that were there, too. Ugly things. It’s a wonder anyone looks at you. Certainly not a surprise that he didn’t stick around.

That’s not true, she told herself weakly. But she took another glob of the foundation and brought it to her shoulder in a hurried, broken motion.

“Why are you doing that?” Deacon leaned up against the door and watched her, his expression somewhere between confused and disappointed.

“Doing what, exactly?” she patted the bronzer compact with the large fluffy brush and swept it along her cheekbones and the bridge of her nose, following the path of her freshly hidden freckles so that the foundation wouldn’t be quite so noticeable.

“Why are you covering up your freckles?” He stepped into the bathroom and moved to stand behind her, putting his hands on her hips and resting his chin on her makeup-less shoulder. He hadn’t shaved yet, and the short stubble on his chin prickled her skin slightly.

“Because they’re ugly?” She was distracted when she answered, so it had taken a moment to realize that the somewhat flippant remark had caused his confusion to become distinct unhappiness.

Tsking softly, Alexa braced the heel of the hand that held her makeup brush against the ledge of the counter and she turned her head slightly so that she could look at his face and not just his reflection. “What’s the matter?”

“I like your freckles.” He sounded almost boyish, but it was the sentiment behind the words that made her pause.

“You do?”

He nodded, his chin still pressed against her shoulder.

“Why on earth do you like them?”

He shrugged his shoulders slightly and wrapped his arms around her, pressing her tightly against his chest. “I dunno, I just do. They’re you.”

The pot of foundation slipped off of her counter top and cracked against the floor, the sound of its impact echoing in the bathroom.

“Shit. God fucking damn it.”

The glass pot shattered at her feet; the tan cream inside it had splattered across the floor, the dark green cabinets under her sink, and up her legs. The white rug in front of the shower had a few thick globs she was certain wouldn’t come out properly.

Gingerly, Alexa knelt to the ground and began picking up the glass pieces. Thirty-eight dollars completely wasted, and they didn’t even make this kind of foundation n any more.

Her fingertips were covered with the cream, the coated glass made her palms slick. Thirty-eight frickin’ dollars and she wouldn’t be able to buy herself a replacement.

She told herself that was why she was crying.

3.

It was the only time of year he went out to open water without kicking up a fuss. He had a small boat that he kept in a storage unit just for the occasion. It was nothing fancy—certainly nothing that was meant for being out in open water, but Cavan didn’t need to navigate the sea to get where he was going; he just picked the boat up and brought it with.

They didn’t have graves. He didn’t think that Rhea would have minded as much, his little girl had loved the ocean, but Kaia had been one of the Earthbound. Giving his wife a burial at sea—especially when she’d been so hesitant about leaving to begin with—seemed unusually cruel.

But the Captain put his foot down at keeping her body for the four weeks that it would have taken them to reach land.

It had been hard not to hate the man as he’d the bodies of his wife, his daughter, and his never-to-be-born son into the weighed down sacks that would bring them to the bottom of the ocean. It was hard for Cavan not to hate him even now.  This would be so much easier if he had a headstone to look at.

“Hello, sweetheart.” Ages ago, barely eighteen, when he’d had to pay for passage on a ship just for a fleeting moment at only approximately the right spot in the open sea, it felt awkward and unnatural to talk to the empty air; but Cavan was old now—much too old for his own good, he thought sometimes—and after more than a thousand years of being able to bring himself to this precise spot, the greeting felt more natural than most of what passed between his lips.

“I know I’m a few days late; I’m sorry. I had to wait for a couple of things to sort themselves out at the office.”

He heaved a breath and ran both of his hands through his hair. The sun warmed his skin a little too much for his own liking, and despite the dark sunglasses that he was wearing, he knew he’d have a headache for several days . Vampires weren’t always as sensitive to the sun as the legends portrayed, but they were as vulnerable to it as any human.

Cavan leaned over the side of the boat, wet his hands in the cool water of the Atlantic, and rubbed the back of his neck.  Then, he turned, and pulled a burlap sack out from under the bench he was sitting on. He fished through a large plastic bag that was settled between his feet, and he showed the ocean each item that was in it before placing it in the bag.

“I brought you your pomegranate. Uhm…” the plastic rustled in the wind, and he pushed it out of the way, “Oh, apples, for Rhea, and some honey for both of you. Bread…Candy. There’s some sort of caramel and a bit of chocolate for you; a bit of hard fruit candies for the kids. I don’t know what The Boy likes, so I’ve just added some little bits and bobs that I thought he’d enjoy.” He pulled a small bear from the bag, a little wooden train whistle, a hand-painted wooden sword. “Mind he doesn’t try to take on any sharks with that; it’s only a toy.”

Each item was placed reverently in the burlap bag, and then Cavan took a deep breath and pulled out another plastic bag from under his chair. “I bought you this,” he held up the dark blue evening gown, strapless, floor length, with subtle beadwork on the hems. And these.” He fished a couple of black boxes from the bag and opened them to show the water a diamond necklace with matching earrings. “They should match the ring from last year.” He put the dress and first box carefully in the bag and then opened the second. “This is for the girl. I know I kept promising to bring her some jewelry of her own, but it’s hard to think of her as anything but four.” The string of pearls joined the rest of the offerings.

Cavan rubbed his forehead and tried not to be too bothered by the sun. He added a few heavy rocks to the bag and then, carefully so that the knots wouldn’t come undone later, Cavan tied and double-tied the burlap bag closed and he eased it into the water.

For a few moments, he held it there, in the water, not wanting to let go because when he did, it would be time for him to go back.

That was the rule, the agreement he had made with himself when he’d been barely more than a child. Once he let go, he had to go back. There was no wiggle room, no time to linger, to delve deep into the past, to think of all the promises that he was trying to make up for not having a chance to keep. Once he let go, he had to return to whatever life he was leading.

And if he couldn’t?

That was another agreement he made with himself, after he’d become a vampire, before he knew how hard it was to actually die. If he couldn’t let go of the bag, he’d follow it down. All the way down to the bottom of the ocean, to the place where the two thousand years of one kept promise had rotted silently away in remembrance of the three biggest pieces of his heart.

For a long moment, he held the bag, then let the weight of it pull him down—to his wrist, to his elbow, to his shoulder…

And then he let go.

The Dreamwalker's Path Cover

Just a brief update

After realizing that my manuscript for The Dreamwalker's Path was over 20,000 words longer than my original manuscript for The Alchemist's Clock, I decided that The Historian's Archives collection will have at least one more book in it (and a gowpen of short stories, perhaps.)

That said, it is with a good deal of pleasure that I announce The Dreamwalker's Path is now in the hot hands of my beta readers. I am taking the next few days to design the cover and a couple of little extras. THINGS shall be posted. ;)

Untitled Work

 I say that this is untitled, but the truth is that it is quite the opposite--in fact, it boasts two titles, neither of which I feel particularly strongly about at present. 

What to say about the piece itself? It started out as something for my Narration and Description course, but I ended up abandoning it and submitting something else. I found it a few weeks after the fact as an untitled document sitting in my Scrap Heap file on my thumb drive, and decided to dust it off and re-dream it. 

In short, it was a study in turning the familiar into the strange. I may develop the idea and turn it into something else entirely later, but for now, here it stands: 

_____________________________________________________________________

            The neighbors were at it again. Three in the morning…every morning…he could hear them through the walls. He rolled over, pulled his pillow over his head to block out the sound, but it was no use. He could still hear them, just on the other side of the wall. 

            A hazard of apartment living: nothing that you do is actually private.

            “What are they doing?” Clara grumbled, clambering clumsily to the edge of the bed and pressing her ear against the wall. He could see her expression by the steady blink of his alarm clock; curiosity and annoyance were both muted by her grogginess.

            He yawned and reached for her. “Eating, I guess. They’re big eaters over there. Eat anything that crosses their path and doesn’t have a Resident’s Permit.”

            “Is that allowed?” She scooted away from the wall and pulled the sheet over her shoulders. “I mean, don’t they have rules against that sort of thing?”

            “They do,”  he tried again to cajole her into laying down, but she sat firm, and the longer he was awake the more he realized that he needed to pee.

            So he swung his legs over the side of the bed and dragged himself up. “They try to keep strict rules about a lot of things, but when you’re royalty—“

            “Royalty!” 

            He continued as though she had not spoken, “you’re allowed to do whatever you like—or eat it.”

            Clara’s eyes turned upward. Curiosity outweighed by contempt, “Animals.”

            By the time he had returned from the bathroom, Clara was out of bed, too, buttoning one of his shirts to cover her bare body.

            The noise from the other side of the wall did not even falter when the community lights buzzed on in the hall outside of his unit. The white lights refracted through the glass panes of the front of the unit, blinding him momentarily. He’d meant to cover the entire wall with a curtain when he first moved in, but shortly after, a law had been passed saying that you mustn’t cover the front of your unit. It impeded bed checks.

            “The guards are coming, Clare,” he said over his shoulder, pulling open a dresser drawer and  retrieving two pairs of soft pajama bottoms. He threw one at Clara. “You will want to cover up.”

            “Ah, she-it,” Clara stuffed her legs into the pants and muttered to herself. “I knew I shouldn’ta stayed the night with you. Now I’ll be dragged back to my own quarter like some…common whore.”

            “Will you cut it out?” He had no use for dramatics so early in the morning. “They’re probably just coming to check on the noise.”

            Clara sniffed. “As if they won’t be able to smell that I don’t belong.”

            She had a point, but he didn’t tell her that.

            The soldiers tromped down the hall, two-by-two, six in all, plus the General himself who headed the march.

            Feeling that, with the General involved, it would be best for him to make an appearance, he pulled his robe off of the back of a chair, and opened his door.

            The procession paused at the door before his, as he expected they might.

            “Routine inspection, General?” he asked, the cool quality of his tone conveying his displeasure more efficiently than annoyance, he felt.

            The General shook his head. “Afraid not, Prime Minister,” he jabbed a thumb at the door. “Unfortunately.”

            The General was a bull of a man with a barrel for a chest and a red face that hid behind a traditional moustache, but when he knocked on the thick oak door of the only unit that did not have a glass front, his enormous hands produced a sound that was awkwardly timid.

            The noise from inside continued.

            This time, when the general knocked, he knocked like he meant it.

            The Prime Minister looked down the hall from one end to the other. Curious eyes peeked through the cracks of their doors. He didn’t know why they peeked. The glass walls hid nothing.

            When he looked back, he realized that the sound had stopped. The oak door was opening. 

            “General.” If the Prime Minister thought that his cool tone conveyed displeasure, then the Queen must be seething.

            The royals were picture perfect. The Queen stood in front, one daughter perched on her hip, the other clung to the opposite leg, and the Consort standing behind them, solemn, and waiting.

It was her blood red hair that defined her as royalty. The man at her shoulder had gained his status by virtue of being her mate and the father of her children—children who had unfortunately inherited their father’s darker locks. Rumour had it that the Queen would eat him, soon, due to his failure to implant a fair haired offspring in her womb.

But that was neither here, nor there. At the moment, they stood in their doorway in the most picturesque of fashions, dressed in white, waiting for an explanation from the General.

“Majesty,” the General bowed. So too did everyone else, from the Prime Minister to the end of the hall. “We’ve been called here to handle a disturbance coming from this quarter.”

The Queen looked from one end of the hall to the other. The daughter on her hip looked as well, but got sidetracked by her mother’s curls, which she took in fistfuls and cooed into.

“I see no disturbance here,” she said at length. “You were misinformed.”

Many a General would falter now, stumble over his words in an apologetic bumble. But this General, with his mustache and barrel chest, stood firm. He had seen the Queen as a young girl, had brought her as a babe to the former Majesty, and had placed the crown on her head when she had come of age. He had sat at the table and watched her eat the heart of her predecessor to gain the compassion that she had lacked. He had given her the news that neither of her twin daughters had been born with the royal blessing, and he had not faltered in the wake of that storm. He did not falter now.

“Majesty, the disturbance is you.”

The Queen drew her lips back, but said nothing.

“Lady, we respect that this is your time to be with your family, but if you could manage to keep it down, we would appreciate it.”

There was an art in the General’s speech that the Prime Minister admired. One never demanded that a Monarch do anything that she did not want to do. One merely suggested she do it if it pleased her to do so. It pleased this particular Majesty to do nothing at all, and so naturally another line of communication had to be carefully forged. By suggesting that she would do something if she could manage, the General had issued a challenge carefully decorated with suggestion. One never questioned whether Her Majesty was capable of doing something unless one wanted it proven that Her Majesty could do anything.

For a moment, the Queen analyzed his words. Then she nodded and made a gesture to her Consort to take their daughters inside, and followed. She had said not a word to dismiss the General and his men, but the bolt sliding into place from the other side of the door was all the command that anyone needed to return to their daily lives.

Prying eyes retreated. The soldiers and their General continued down the hall (poor Clara was espied on the other side of the glass wall and given a ‘friendly armed escort’ back to her original quarter), and the lights flickered out with a tired pphht.

The Prime Minister returned to bed, paused long enough to pull a pair of underwear too skimpy to be his out of the sheets, and settled against the mattress with a sigh.

It was quiet. For the first time in months, it was quiet. And he had worried about making the call! Perhaps tonight, despite the disturbance, he could get a decent night’s rest.

There was a knock on his door.

Cursing his luck, he pulled himself from bed, again, and moved to the door.

It was dark, so even through the glass door, he couldn’t see who stood on the other side.

It wasn’t until she spoke that he realized who she was.

“So,” the Queen purred, reaching out and gripping his throat with a strong hand. She crushed his windpipe before he had a chance to bring his own hands up to defend himself. “I hear that you have a problem with your living conditions.”

Fairy Tales

We rode the giant eagles all the way to the Great Mountain, and we jumped from their backs as we passed over the Black Lake that lay at the mountain’s roots.

Then we swam with the Sea Beast that lived there, taking the time to polish its scales—beautiful and black like the surface of a wizard’s spying orb. We escorted the Beast to the Ball that its step-mother would not let it attend, and cheered when it married the Handsome Prince and turned into a beautiful mermaid.

The Prince escorted us to the dark cake which lead to the mountain’s belly, as a thank you for helping him find his bride, and we left the Prince and the Mermaid to live out their happily ever after.

 The tower was so large and great it acted as a single pillar of support that curved like a spine from the mountain’s base to its peak. We climbed it fearlessly and clambered into the beds we found in the chamber at the top.

The Evil Queen came in then, tucking us in and filling our heads with tales of a Grey World where men and women dressed the same, and people worked after the sun went down, and ate food from bags and boxes.

As she left us, we lay down our heads and watched the sun rise into a peachy sky, and before we turned back into swans, we knew to be thankful for the promise of our Happily Ever Afters.