Magic’s Perdition Excerpt: Midnight Caller

Issachar moved into the washroom and smirked when he found Adeline at the table, her elbows propped up on the surface where the dead dryad lay, her chin on her fists and her eyes closed. She was also snoring.

Issachar rapped his knuckles lightly on the door frame. Adeline jolted awake with a snort. She blinked blearily at her surroundings until her eyes finally focused on the dragon.

“Don’t tell me it’s morning already,” she said, stretching until her back popped.

“Half-way there, actually. The animals are acting weird.”

Adeline crinkled her eyes in mild confusion. “What? I don’t hear the dogs going off.”

“The woodland animals. They’re fleeing like they’ve got places to be and no time to get there. Could be our blood-man and his machine making a bother of himself.”

Adeline sighed, looking at the side door as though she could glean wisdom from it about what she was meant to do with this news. “Which direction were the creatures fleeing?”

“West, northwest a bit.”

“Oh, Lords,” Adeline breathed, rubbing her face with both hands. When done rubbing, she clasped her hands together and set her chin on her knuckles. She rolled her eyes toward Issachar. “Do you think you’d be able to see our killer if they happened by?”

Issachar shrugged. “Maybe, if they came close enough.”

“I’d rather know for certain if the cause of all the animals panicking is our killer. With how quickly and quietly the killer attacks, I’m not going to allow Milburne and the others to walk into an ambush. Come on. To your room. We’ll wait and see if this killer and their machine happens…”

The doorbell trilled. Adeline froze half-rising from her chair. She looked at Issachar in confusion, and he returned her look with equal confusion.

The bell trilled again.

They both rushed to the door, Issachar reaching it first having been a few steps closer. He peered through the peep-hole, only to see that the porch was empty.

“No one out there,” he said. Which meant that the ringing was coming from outside the gate. Adeline had connected a wire and a ringer next to the gate doors so that she didn’t have to leave the gate open at all hours just for visitors and salesmen (but mostly to avoid salesmen).

Adeline sighed in relief. “Oh, thank goodness. We’d be in trouble if they’d gotten through the gate enchantments. Quick, Issachar, the scrying bowl. Let’s see if we can finally put a face to our murderer, if it is our murderer. Although I don’t know why they think ringing the bell would accomplish anything. I’m not an idiot.”

The bell trilled three times in rapid succession as if the one ringing it were getting impatient. Issachar hurried to the study, meeting a disheveled but wide-awake Charly in her pink flower nightgown coming down the stairs.

“What is it, what’s going on?” she asked as Issachar hurried by. He would let Adeline answer. He grabbed the perfectly polished silver bowl from the top-most shelf and its nest of notes on scrying, hurried to the kitchen, and filled it four inches full of water.

Adeline met him in the kitchen and took the bowl when he was done. “Thank you, Iss.” After setting the bowl on the table, she gave the water a moment to settle, then rubbed her hands together in nervous anticipation. “Right, then. Let’s have a look at you.”

When Adeline had installed the ringer next to the gate, she had personally designed the ringer’s frame, etching two eyes and four runes into the fancy, ornate swirling designs so that one would have to look and look hard to see them. With this design, she had created a second peep-hole of sorts (also mostly to avoid salesmen).

When the water stilled, Adeline breathed out a gentle breath through pursed lips, rippling the surface for only a heartbeat. When the water settled, her face reflected back at her with the perfect clarity of the finest mirror.

Then the water rippled a second time without the aid of her breath, and Adeline’s image vanished, replaced by a new image. Reflecting back at them was the world beyond the gate – the gravel road, the trees, and the darkness of the night outside the pool of light from the gate lamp.

There was no one there.

Magic’s Perdition Excerpt: Falling and Landing

What Adeline had always found fascinating about falling was that it induced a panic that the body didn’t know what to do with. The brain froze, the heart didn’t know whether it wanted to leave the chest or stay right where it was, and the limbs flailed wanting to grab everything and anything, then giving up when they realized there was nothing to grab. Falling was at once a terrifying experience and the most brilliant, as the brain screamed for the body not to die, but the blood pumped making the body feel more alive than it had ever felt as the wind rushed past and the earth swallowed them. It felt like eternity.

In reality, it must have lasted a grand total of two seconds when, suddenly, Adeline found herself standing on solid ground, as the horrified exhilaration slowly drained from her body and confusion took its place. She blinked, waiting while the sudden transition from falling to her doom to landing safely cleared from her mind. She looked around.

“Oh, my, but this is beautiful,” she breathed.

Beautiful and impossible, but then so went the ways of magic. She was standing on an island, but not an island sitting comfortably in the middle of a sea. Oh no. This island was floating in open air, with more such tiny islands scattered about a night sky the blue-black of late twilight, flooded with stars and rivers of stars, and an Aurora Borealis shimmering all the colors of the rainbow in the distance. The air was cool and smelled fragrant with honeysuckle and cherry blossoms. Which it would; each island was a garden, this island with a small pond, two cherry trees, and a wisteria, and flowering lily pads in the pond.

What the islands didn’t have was a way to cross to the next island.

Available on Nov. 11. Per-order at Amazon.com

Magic’s Perdition Excerpt: Clockworks

The workshop was a single-story barn turned garage, housing both the rickety old flatbed truck dotted in rust and the various metal bits and bobs that went into Addy’s clockwork animals – dogs, for the most part, since they were in higher demand, although cats were sometimes ordered for serious mice issues. Addy was at the welding table, hunched and looking almost like a troll in the thick gray-brown coveralls she wore when welding, her body highlighted in the flickering blue light of the torch, and most of her hair hidden beneath a faded pink scarf. Her hair was a little more gray than brown these days, yet even at seventy, she didn’t look a day older than when Issachar had first met her. Magic did that to a sorcerer. Adeline was finishing up a robot dog, he could tell by the thing’s head.

Issachar wasn’t always fond of machines but he supposed Addy’s were impressive enough. Adeline had once said that it wasn’t easy creating a body that moved like the creature it was imitating. But Addy’s machines were more than just bodies set in motion with a little oil or a wind-up key. It was said that her machines lived. Which, of course, wasn’t technically true while, in a way, it was true. Machines couldn’t live, they could only mimic, it just happened that Addy’s machines mimicked to near-perfection. The trick, she had said, was to put the machine with the creature it was based on, and allow the machine to observe and absorb the creature’s behavior. It was a tedious process that could sometimes take months to accomplish, but the result was a far more manageable machine without the need for specific instructions, and without having to summon someone’s spirit to occupy the thing for a time.

It was also possible to seal a spirit within the machine, but that was illegal, as it should be because it was cruel.

Available Nov. 11th. Pre-order at Amazon.com

Magic’s Perdition Excerpt: Adeline and the Dragon

Adeline straightened. Wrapped around the young man’s skinny wrists were a pair of manacles. They were so rusted that even a child could have snapped them off. This boy had been held captive for quite some time, no doubt locked away and forgotten. Yet his hair was short as if recently cut, and he was still alive.

Interesting.

Adeline crouched in front of the boy. The filth and his thinness made determining his age a challenge, but if Adeline had to guess she would have put his age at around twenty or so. She ducked her head, attempting to see beneath the fringe of greasy hair shading his eyes. She smiled.

“Hello,” she said. “My name is Adeline. I promise I’m not here to hurt you. Can you tell me your name, sweetheart?”

The head moved enough for his eyes to dart up and glare at her. They were beautiful, a green as green as the leaves on the trees and moss of the deeper forest.

They were also angry.

Adeline arched an eyebrow. “I suppose that wasn’t the correct question to ask. Listen, it’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you, no one here is going to hurt you.” She reached out with the intent of brushing his hair back and proving her promise.

The young man didn’t move, not his head nor his eyes. But there was, most definitely, a very animal growl rumbling from his person. It was a high sound that was both guttural and clicking. Adeline retracted her hand.

“Sorry,” she said. “Avoid touch, I understand.” She dug into the pocket of her brown button coat and pulled out a pair of tinted glasses.

“Don’t mind these,” she said, holding them up. “Just a little novice creation that comes in handy for seeing the unseen.” She slipped the glasses onto her face.

“Oh,” she breathed in astonished delight.

Adeline still saw the boy, who continued to glower at her with those bright green eyes of his. But surrounding him like mist was a new shape, mostly transparent but not so transparent that Adeline didn’t know what it was she was seeing. It was too large a shape not to know.

Adeline could safely say she had been wrong about the boy’s age.

The lad was a sylphen. A dragon sylphen, sinuous, winged, and shades of green from pale to emerald to dark as the pines, with a mane of green fur down a long neck, flowing as though underwater. Lords, it was beautiful, even partially transparent as it was.

Adeline couldn’t help but gush “Oh, you are gorgeous.”

The sylph’s eyes rolled up into the back of his head. He pitched forward, and Adeline lunged, catching him just in time and leaving her with an armful of filthy, emaciated dragon.

Available Nov. 11th. Pre-order at Amazon.com.

Short Story Saturday: Shortest Armageddon Ever

I was there when the portal opened, when the things came pouring out like entrails from a split carcass. Those things, with their twisted, slick bodies that could not decide if they wished to be animal or man. Things with wolf skulls for heads but the torso of a centipede. A boar-faced grotesque with multiple bony arms like a spider. A slug, its visage so human, so tormented, its mouth forever open in a silent scream. And that was just what I could see of the creatures.

Because, and unfortunately for them, they hadn’t been all that big. I believe the largest had been about the size of a wolf spider, give or take. It was also the beginning of spring, with the birds migrating north and creatures formerly hibernating crawling from their dens groggy and incredibly hungry. And with the weather having been a comfortable sixty-six degrees that day and this being a hiking trail full of people in their large, sturdy hiking boots…

At least it gave us good pictures for our Facebook pages. I’m up to 400 likes.

Short Story: Fluff

No Way was I going to let this October pass without a creepy story.

Fluff

Most of Fluff’s memories were of death.

There were good memories, like mama’s white fur and the salty taste of the meat the Caretakers called tuna. And the Caretakers, like Lieutenant Kell, who kept Mama and Fluff safe from from the Alpha that Lieutenant Kell called Chief. Lieutenant Kell always had to hide Mama and Fluff in a box whenever the Chief came by. They would hold perfectly still and try not to make the meowing sounds that were the only sounds the caretakers seemed to understand.

“Sometimes I swear you didn’t get rid of those cats, Lieutenant,” were the noises the Chief would make.

“They’ve been dealt with, sir, I promise,” were the noises Lieutenant Kell would make.

Then the chief would leave, and Mama and Fluff could come out.

There was also Lieutenant Frost, a female Caretaker, who gave Mama and Fluff the tuna and sometimes a meat they called ham. But it was Lieutenant Kell who had found Mama in the big metal cave full of metal boxes before Fluff was born, who gave Mama a place to have Fluff and gave them food and pettings. Lieutenant Kell was Fluff’s favorite.

Fluff also liked the clear box full of water and shiny swimming things, but he wasn’t sure about the strange walls that showed only blackness and tiny little lights that seemed so far away and cold. It scared Fluff, he didn’t know why.

Thirteen Nails: Episode 3 now up

The next installment of Thirteen Nails is now up.

Episode Three: That’s Magic for You

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Summary: A scary doll and a haunted toy museum. Nick can’t seem to get a break. And as usual, nothing is as it seems.

Excerpt

Nick woke up in the museum in a plastic bucket surrounded by rubber insects and lizards. At least that’s what it felt like – waking up. And unlike the last time he’d gone inside a toy, this didn’t feel like a dream. It felt so real, in fact, that Nick began to panic, feeling a heart pound that wasn’t there. He felt himself start to drift upwards and panicked a second time, forcing himself back down into the rubber snake.

Calm the hell down! Nick snarled at himself. He closed his eyes, only for his eyelids to shoot back open on the realization that he had working eyelids. Nick lifted his head, marveling and fretting over the fact that for being a solid rubber snake his body moved with incredible fluidity. Then he looked down at himself and gaped.

Nick wasn’t rubber. Rubber scales didn’t glitter like he was currently glittering, and they certainly didn’t have the kind of realistic detail he was looking at.

Nick closed his working jaw. He wasn’t a rubber snake at all.

He was a real snake.

In Which the Toymaker got a Make over

Although I did like to old cover to an extent, I also kind of felt like it was too… flesh colored. Plus it made the book – at least to me – come across as though it might be a western. The blue coloring also helps the image to stand out a lot more.

Short Story Saturday: Tug of War (A Tale Told in Pictures)

Tug of War

Starring Bug and Pepper

The string’s been dropped, and they’re off!

Bug takes the lead but Pepper is already moving in for a counterstrike.

And Pepper takes the string! But don’t count Bug out just yet.

Bug has retaken the string! Oh, but hold on, folks, Bug seems like she may be losing interest.

We’re at a stalemate and things are getting really heated. Who will get the string. Who will get the glory. Who will be the Tug of War champion!

Pepper has the string and… Bug has lost interest! Bug has lost interest! Pepper is the Tug of War champion and the crowd goes wild.

The end.

Short Story Saturday: Myron’s Menagerie

Myron’s Menagerie

It was with little regret, and not a drop of hemming and hawing, that Myron came to a decision: playing God was not for him. Contrary to popular belief, genetics wasn’t rocket science. Well, obviously it wasn’t rocket science, rocket science was a whole other field. But while genetics was not for the slow witted nor for those lacking a mountain of Ph.ds, throwing various bits of DNA into the proverbial pot and hoping for the best didn’t seem particularly productive. It had yet to produce a cure for anything, it had yet to tell them something they didn’t already know, nor did it seem fair to take what Mother Nature had worked so hard on for billions of years and muck it all up for the sake of a what-if. It was also unsettling. Very, very unsettling.

Plus there were the ethical ramifications to consider. Just because God could create a duck-billed platypus didn’t mean humanity could go around making parrot-beaked echidnas and butter-fly winged black widows (the black widows had been the final straw, really. Myron had a hard enough time as it was with spiders, then that idiot Doctor Flemming had to go and give the damn things wings). The world wouldn’t be able to deal with his department’s creations. Rabbits, for example, had enough of a struggle hiding from wolves. How fair was it, then, to combine the DNA of a wolf with the DNA of a rabbit and give them the ability to burrow (and yet still crave meat over carrots)?

Then there were the four legged, air-breathing sharks. That was a horror movie waiting to happen.

It was without a second thought that Myron transferred to the less-than-thrilling adventure that was studying amoebas. Amoebas may not have been as thrilling as four-legged sharks, but at least they were safer.

In fact, two weeks in and Myron found himself quite content to stare into a microscope at bristly little blobs floating about in their little liquid world, wholly unaware of the massive being watching them like some inactive deity.

It was as Myron was observing that liquid world that Dr. Elspeth came running into the lab, out of breath and chubby face flushed a color bordering on puce.

“Oh, Myron, you’re going to love this,” Dr. Elspeth gasped in elation, eyes practically sparkling like a kid on Christmas morning. “You remember your old department?” Of course Myron remembered it. Number one, it was hard to forget. Number two, it had been only two weeks since Myron had transferred.

Dr. Elspeth, however, was too caught up in his excitement to care about particulars. “Something escaped. Some kind of… monkey-bird-cat thing…”

Myron looked up from his microscope thoughtfully. Ah, yes, the flying monkey with the face of a cat and a penchant for knocking things off shelves for no reason at all. Myron had been rather fond of that one… when it wasn’t stealing his glasses in order to bat them around on the floor.

“It started knocking stuff down and letting other animals out of their cages. They barely managed to catch everything and I think a few of the specimens were eaten. They’re shutting the department down!”

Myron shrugged. “Bound to happen sooner or later.” And went back to his microscope and amoebas.

Watching those vulnerable amoebas in their tiny world, Myron couldn’t help but think about all those creations he’d had a hand in. What would become of them? Would they be locked away? Or… disposed of? Because they certainly weren’t going to be released.

The brain was such a funny little organ, with thoughts going this way and that like undirected traffic. Here Myron was, wanting nothing more to do with his old department and its creations – creations more at home in some disaster movie in which idiot scientists gleefully rearranged DNA for the sake of it and then unleashing their monstrosities, also for the sake of it – and Myron found himself feeling sorry for the abominations. It wasn’t their fault they existed, and it certainly wasn’t their fault they couldn’t live in the same world where their DNA originated from.

Myron looked up from his microscope and sighed at both the machinations of his brain and his blasted sense of responsibility.

~~~~~

Myron had to wonder about himself, sometimes. He had been quite happy as a scientist, even one who studied boring amoebas. He’d never had a desire to branch out in his career, pursue other interests, expand his horizons and so on and so forth. He most definitely had never entertained the thought of starting a zoo.

But while not all the creations of his department were his, some of them were. And as disturbing as flying spiders and four-legged sharks were, he still had a soft- spot for those cat-faced monkeys and parrot-beaked Echidnas. Since they couldn’t be released into the world, they could, at least, live out the remainder of their existence in comfort.

His former co-workers were more than happy to help, in part because they, too, still cared for their creations. Also in part because they were in need of a job. Besides, who best to handle these creatures than the ones who’d made them?

There was only one setback. Myron knew next to nothing about managing a zoo. He’d been to enough of them as a child, and so attempted to base his current zoo on the zoos of his childhood. But while riding a flying horse tethered to a pole seemed like a good idea in theory, riding a dragon-fly horse turned into a lesson in “how not to panic” when the creature refused to land anywhere but vertically on every available wall. The kids enjoyed it well enough. The parents… not so much. And while the octo-cats were affectionate and harmless, trying to untangle their tentacles from off one’s person was a nightmare.

Also, not only were their too many animals with the ability to talk, but for some reason they only ever picked up on swear words and other insults (also to the joy of the children and the annoyance of the parents). The talking coyotes would belt out the most terrible rendition of any song sang to them, thanks to Dr. Johansen, their creator, who had always enjoyed singing but could never carry a tune to save her life.

There were animals too smart for their own good, forever getting out only to find themselves in something else’s pen – usually an unfriendly something. The wolf-rabbits were digging holes their handlers were forever falling into. The rat-fish kept gnawing on the decorations in their tank. The (literal) spider-monkeys would get their handlers, and sometimes themselves, tangled in their own webs. The kangaroo-cockatoos squawked so loud that guests refused to go anywhere near them until they were behind sound-proof glass. There were also protests, people standing outside the gates waving signs and demanding that the owners stop playing God for the sake of entertainment.

It was a pain, a mess, and made Myron wonder for the fiftieth time what he’d been thinking. And yet…

And yet…

It was also a success. Despite the issues, complaints and protests people still came. They “ewed!” over the tarantula ducks and “awed!” over the tiny bat-bears, then left the zoo cuddling stuffed animal renditions of iguana-lemurs and owl-otters. Once the situation was explained to the protesters, they eventually drifted off (after giving Myron the stink-eye for having created these creatures in the first place).

And while a part of Myron sometimes missed the uneventful world of amoebas, it was a sentiment overshadowed by a feeling of contentment, of having done something important.

Something right.

It seemed to Myron that any idiot with a mountain of Ph.ds could throw DNA together and make something new. But what mattered was what one did with that thing after. It may have had tentacles and scales and was so ugly that nature itself would have fainted at the sight of it. But, damn it all, it was their creations – his and his former departments.

Any of Myron’s employees slash former coworkers who so much as uttered the words “so what would happen if we combined…” would get a swift slap to the head and threats of a pink slip. Myron was finished stirring pots of DNA stew.

But looking after his creations he could live with.

The End