tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22808086552964086782024-02-20T14:01:54.900-05:00Lex & LiaStories of the Mage and the RavenSpherical Timehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02435055266803359329noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2280808655296408678.post-84021971643506175792008-12-06T22:41:00.001-05:002008-12-06T22:41:00.913-05:00Episode 24: Real LessonsLia headed for The Strip flying low over the building toward the Stratosphere Hotel’s tower. She’d been there only once or twice since she’d run off in the night looking for Lex.<br /><br />She knew that he’d probably had to move on. He’d been running. Both of them had been running. And to a certain extent she wanted to go back to running again, leave Mohan’s pack and go back to the “good old days” when it was just her and Lex.<br /><br />In the books that she’d read with Annabelle, when someone did what Lex did, you swore vengeance against them. It was one of the reasons that she thought Lex was so sad.<br /><br />But he’d never hurt her. In fact, he’d done everything that he could to make sure that she was okay and if she found him she’d do everything in her power to make sure that she was okay. He’d been working so hard to support them before she’d run away.<br /><br />If she had too she could challenge Mohan and force him to let her bring Lex back to the pack compound. She could buy him some real clothes instead of the ratty jeans and jacket he always wore and he wouldn’t have to worry about food or money ever again.<br /><br />And if anyone so much as hinted at trying to bite him she would rip out their throats with her bare human hands. It wasn’t like he wasn’t unusual for a human. Lia was sure that Lex could have contributed significantly to the pack if they would let him.<br /><br />She just wanted to see him happy and not worried anymore. There had to be something that she could do to make that happen, something that she could say that would make him understand that she didn’t hate him for what he’d done but that she loved him for caring about what it meant to her.<br /><br />She flew into the MGM amusement park and settled behind a trellis and next to one of the outer walls and resumed human form. No fuss, no feathers. No nudity. She was often thankful that was one of her gifts.<br /><br />She didn’t have any money. Annabelle or Miss Chi-Wong always paid for everything and since she wasn’t supposed to be out by herself anyway they wouldn’t bother giving her an allowance. She probably could have tried to picked pockets or something but she really didn’t want to get caught. She’d have to call Miss Chi-Wong to come get her out of trouble and even the thought of that made her wince.<br /><br />So she wandered to the exit and found a daily ride pass armband from a family that was about to leave which was good enough. She just wanted to ride the rides and remember the day that Lex had brought her here.<br /><br />She went on a few roller coasters and even though she could fly now it was still surprisingly fun. Lex had always smiled on the steepest hills and now she threw up her hands and screamed with the rest of the passengers when they took a quick turn.<br /><br />It was another evening so she didn’t have to wait long between rides. Even though the sun set it didn’t deter her from the roller coasters. She could see almost as well in the dark as most people could in the day.<br /><br />It started to cool down but she didn’t want to leave yet. She was just hungry. She could shift into her raven form and then come back but decided to see if she could figure out some way to get food from one of the food courts.<br /><br />She took a seat at one of the tables with a bored expression on her face and looked around. There a few groups of boys a few tables over and they weren’t bad looking. She pointedly made a point of not looking or talking to them.<br /><br />Despite eying her for a few minutes, it wasn’t any of the groups of boys that approached her but a guy.<br /><br />He was tall pale and blond and gorgeous. He was wearing a tight black shirt and jeans and looked like he was about twenty four. He was also incredibly familiar looking.<br /><br />“Can I join you?”<br /><br />Over the smell of grease and broiling cheese came another set of smells. The strongest one was . . . aftershave? An expensive one she would have guessed, because the guy smelled something like Mr. Mohan. It was covering something else.<br /><br />The smell of carrion and rot.<br /><br />The blond guy was a vampire.<br /><br />She stiffened for a moment. “Aren’t you a little old to be hitting on teenagers?” she said.<br /><br />He politely laughed and then sat down anyway. “Oh, I doubt you have any idea. I’m just a little curious what a werewolf is doing alone in the middle of this tent after dark.”<br /><br />Well, crap. “I’m not—,” she started, but he interrupted.<br /><br />“Let’s not pretend. You can probably smell me just as easily as I tell what you are. What exactly are you doing here? This area is most definitely off limits to Mohan’s activities. Whatever business you’re conducting here, you didn’t check with your pack leader or he would have told you that.” His incredibly pretty blue eyes were trying to bore into her and he was doing something to try to make her speak.<br /><br />“I’m not here on business,” she said, genuinely surprised now, and looked directly into his eyes. “It’s . . . my day off. I came here to relax,” she lied.<br /><br />There was a sea of old power behind those blue eyes but Mr. Mohan could pull the same trick. Lia had long ago learned to resist him and suspected that the vampire didn’t realize that could push him off so easily.<br /><br />At her answer it was vampire’s turn to look surprised. “Relax?” he asked and she watched his face for some sign that he didn’t believe her.<br /><br />“It’s an amusement park,” she said. “I’ve been riding the roller coasters.”<br /><br />He blinked, as though he hadn’t realized that and glanced around. “Uh, well, what are you doing just sitting here then? It looked like you were waiting for someone.”<br /><br />She sighed. “Actually, I don’t have any money and I was going to try to get one of those guys over there to buy me dinner.” She looked at the vampire and realized that he seemed familiar. “Which they won’t do now that they’ve seen me talking with you,” she added.<br /><br />The vampire looked at the group of guys that was now studiously avoiding her.<br /><br />“Oh. Look, I’m sorry for that. If you want, I can buy you something to eat.”<br /><br />She hesitated wondering if he was lying to her the same way that she’d lied to him. “I’m not going to let you bite me,” she said and wondered if vampires could fly.<br /><br />“Uhg. Bite you? No thanks. No offense, but you all taste like wet fur to me.”<br /><br />He thought she was a wolf then. He could tell that she was a werecreature, but he couldn’t tell what kind. She wondered if feathers tasted better to him than wet fur.<br /><br />A guy was approaching their table. He was wearing a security guard uniform. “Everything all right?” he asked Lia.<br /><br />“Sure,” she said. “He’s my uncle.”<br /><br />“I just saw her as I was passing through and thought I’d say hi,” the vampire added easily.<br /><br />The security guard looked at her and then at the vampire. She was small and had dark skin and hair. He was tall, pale and blond. The security guard and the vampire’s eyes met for a moment and the security guard smiled. “Of course. Sorry to bother you.”<br /><br />From the outside it was a little more impressive than it had been when he’d been focusing the same powers on her. She could do that to other lycanthropes but didn’t know if she could do it to a human. The vampire had stopped trying to coerce her after she’d told him she’d been riding the roller coasters and she supposed it would be rude now that he was trying to be nice.<br /><br />He stuck out his hand. “I’m Edward.”<br /><br />She reached out. “I’m Lia.”<br /><br />As they shook his eyes widened. “I didn’t recognize you,” he said, “without the made up hair and the dress.”<br /><br />“You were at the meeting,” Lia realized. “With Lo. You had a computer.”<br /><br />Edward nodded.<br /><br />“You look a lot different without a suit on,” Lia said. He looked like a clothing store model actually. Not her type at all but still very handsome.<br /><br />“Thanks,” he laughed.<br /><br />“No, er, that was supposed to be a compliment,” she said, and then looked back at the stalls that lined the food court. “Er, about dinner . . . ?” she prompted him.<br /><br />“Yeah, sure, what do you want?”<br /><br />She ordered a burger with everything on it, a giant soda and reveled in the first real fast food that she’d had in ages. Mohan’s chefs were more likely to serve her veal than a simple burger. The food was good but sometimes she missed the junk food.<br /><br />She offered some of the curly fries to Edward, but he thanked her politely and sat without eating.<br /><br />“You guys don’t eat a lot, do you?”<br /><br />Edward shook his head. “We don’t need to eat. Well, burgers and that sort of stuff.”<br /><br />“But you drink blood.”<br /><br />“I’m sort surprised that you’re not grossed out by that.”<br /><br />She rolled her eyes. “You should see some of the things that I’ve eaten when I’m . . . not human. It’s hard to be grossed out after your first few mice.”<br /><br />He nodded understandingly. “I can understand that. You just don’t look like the kind of girl that doesn’t get grossed out by drinking blood or eating small animals.”<br /><br />She looked down at her flowery jeans and shrugged. “I guess so.”<br /><br />Lia ate for a while in silence until Edward asked, “You don’t get out much, do you?”<br /><br />She examined him again, and then shook her head.<br /><br />“The reason that you didn’t know that this was technically our territory was because you didn’t tell anyone where you were going?”<br /><br />Lia nodded, and sighed as she swallowed. “I think the correct term is “run away,” she said, miming one of Annabelle’s most common phrases.<br /><br />“I’d heard one or two things about that, now that I think back,” Edward told her. “Why do you run away?”<br /><br />Lia looked at him and shrugged.<br /><br />“Do they not feed you or something? From the way that you’re eating it looks like they haven’t given you food in years.”<br /><br />“No . . . they treat me fine. I mean, I have private chefs and they have tutors and stuff. I just don’t necessarily feel comfortable there.”<br /><br />“What about Mohan?”<br /><br />She looked at Edward, confused.<br /><br />“How do you feel about him?”<br /><br />“He’s just . . . Mohan. He’s okay I guess.”<br /><br />“You aren’t part of his pack, are you?”<br /><br />She shrugged, not sure what he meant by that. She was part of the pack. She lived with them, after all, but she suspected that Edward meant something else.<br /><br />“See, that’s an answer by itself. You don’t feel much loyalty to him. If you’d been a member of Mohan’s pack you would. You wouldn’t run away. You resisted me earlier, when you lied about coming here to relax.”<br /><br />Lia thought about shifting and flying away but Edward had been friendly to her so far but she couldn’t stop herself from reflexively tensing a bit.<br /><br />Edward caught her wrist but made it look like he was just laying his hand on hers. Even with time slowed for her she hadn’t seen him move. His skin was cold and she tried to lift her hand but without even appearing to tense a muscle Edward kept her wrist glued to the table.<br /><br />“I don’t know why he’s allowing it, but Mohan isn’t the kind of guy to be tested forever. You may have been his pet for two years but sooner or later he’s going to get annoyed and he’s going to add you to his pack by force. You’re strong, you resisted me, but Mohan is an Alpha wereborn. He was born to lead a pack and if you throw your will up against his, you won’t be able to resist him. It doesn’t seem like you want him to do that.”<br /><br />She slowly shook her head. He looked around and when she looked back she winced.<br /><br />“Do you know why he’s keeping you?”<br /><br />She shook her head.<br /><br />“The witches, they don’t like wereravens. I thought you were just a wolf until you introduced yourself but if I was a witch I would have attacked you outright. The raven is sacred to them and they say that wereravens are a defilement.”<br /><br />He gave her a look. “That’s what they say, but the real reason is that you terrify them. You have a lot to fear from Mohan, but at least he’ll keep you safe. If the witches find you they’ll kill you without hesitation and if you’ve been going around Las Vegas like this then you’ve been extremely lucky so far.”<br /><br />He let go of her hand and she immediately stood. He hadn’t hurt her and he’d just told her stuff that she hadn’t known.<br /><br />Carefully, she picked up the last few bites of the burger and bit into it. The entire time she kept her eyes glued to Edwards.<br /><br />“For a teenager,” he said after a moment, “you do have a few surprises.”<br /><br />She finished the burger.<br /><br />“What do you suggest then?” she asked after a sip of her soda.<br /><br />“Don’t piss off Mohan. If you keep on ticking him off, he’ll eventually crush you like a bug.”<br /><br />“I don’t like being kept locked up.”<br /><br />“Nobody does,” Edward said vaguely and Lia could see that there was something in his eyes when he said that. “But sometimes you have to do things that you don’t want to do to get what you want.”<br /><br />“What do you think I want?”<br /><br />Edward focused back on her. “I’m sure I have no idea, just as you have no idea what I want. But if you want to avoid waking up one day and wanting to do everything in your power to serve Mohan, I would learn from him. He’s a powerful guy and no matter how much you dislike him you could learn a lot from him.”<br /><br />Lia sat in silence for a moment considering his words.<br /><br />“Thanks for dinner,” she finally said.<br /><br />“No problem,” Edward said.<br /><br />He walked her to the gate. She walked a few more blocks alone before she shifted and made her way back to the compound.<br /><br />Slipping back into the compound was surprisingly difficult. She’d never done it before on her own.<br /><br />The clock read midnight before Annabelle entered the room and found her reading her math textbook.<br /><br />“I thought I’d get a jump on tomorrow’s lessons,” Lia said.<br /><br />Annabelle said nothing but before she turned and stalked out of the room her face had turned the color of a fresh salmon sushi.Spherical Timehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02435055266803359329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2280808655296408678.post-13510835750573232482008-11-30T21:28:00.002-05:002008-12-04T18:12:07.791-05:00Episode 23: Capture and ControlBliss showed up with four sisters in two SUVs. At six fourteen they were alone in front of the adobe building. At six fifteen there was a sixth person.<br /><br />Bliss was the first one to approach the body on the blanket. It was Lex. He was naked and unconscious.<br /><br />There was the raised bump of a spider bite on the side of his neck. In a few days that would be gone like it had never been, even though it had been red and raised for a long time.<br /><br />Bliss rolled him over. Along the skin over his spine was a red tattoo. To Bliss it meant nothing, but she knew what to do with it.<br /><br />They rolled him up in the blanket and lay him in the back of the SUV on a foam mattress that they’d just bought at Target.<br /><br />Justina Bybreak sat by the boy’s side in the SUV. She’d been Maiden in her coven near San Francisco, but had given up that position after her mother died and moved home to Las Vegas. Her father had been outraged, first to find out that Bybreak’s will excluded him and that his daughter was dropping out of medical school to join his mother’s business.<br /><br />Bliss smiled at the girl as the car started to move. She was in her early twenties and everything that a good witch usually wasn’t: tall, blond and stunningly beautiful.<br /><br />Bliss had told her how her mother had died. And then forbid her from hurting the boy.<br /><br />Justina was already stroking the side of his face with a sharp fingernail.<br /><br />*-*-*-*-*<br /><br />As soon as Lia penciled in the last answer to her homework she stood up and changed into some comfortable clothes.<br /><br />At first it had been very nice to wear beautiful dresses all the time. They were such beautiful clothes that wearing them made her feel like a movie star and they’d only gotten nicer in the last few years. Annabelle’s selections had been nice for a girl that looked eight but it turned out that Miss Chi-Wong had a surprisingly sophisticated sense of fashion and one of the few ways that she was willing to spend time with Lia was to buy her clothes.<br /><br />But the dresses were limiting. They were made to stand out and she realized after a while that they were not much more than prison uniforms.<br /><br />Even the “regular” clothes that Miss Chi-Wong bought her though were very nice. The jeans that she was wearing were from a private label and up each side were embroidered flowers. Her white fuzzy blouse was one of the softest fabrics that she’d ever felt and over that she’d pulled a sweatshirt with a brilliant flower on it.<br /><br />There were werewolf guards at the doors to her rooms, not to mention throughout the building. Ever since she’d been escaping Mohan had been putting a guard on the roof too although that was the easiest guard to evade.<br /><br />She went to the door and put her hand up on it and concentrated.<br /><br />Most of the wolves were just normal humans when they hadn’t shifted. A few had improved senses, or could shift part way between wolf and human, but most of them were just ordinary people.<br /><br />Mohan wasn’t. Michael wasn’t. Lia suspected that Chi-Wong wasn’t. Neither was Lia.<br /><br />She thought of bubbles and fuzz and fog and anything else that came into her head and pushed them through the door and into the guards on the other side. They wouldn’t see the images, or understand exactly what was happening, but it worked.<br /><br />After thirty seconds of concentration she opened the door and slipped through the oblivious guards. She still had to move slowly and quietly while the guards daydreamed.<br /><br />The elevator had a camera and so did the stairs. Mohan was serious about his security.<br /><br />She had a couple of routes out of the building but the easiest by far was the kitchen window.<br /><br />There was a much larger and more impressive kitchen down on the main floor of the building that could cater to large groups and meetings that Mr. Mohan sometimes held in the conference rooms on the first floor but the little kitchen up on this floor was what normally fed Lia and provided snacks and lunches for the guards.<br /><br />Usually the evening guy was a jerk and Lia would have had to fuzz him out as well but today was a Sunday and the weekend guy was a thin Hispanic werewolf named Jaime. He was wearing a white apron and looked up in surprise as she came in.<br /><br />She nodded to him. “Hola Jaime. ¿Como esta ustedes?” she said. Spanish wasn’t one of her lessons, but even among the servants of the werewolves Spanish seemed to dominate. She’d learned a few words out of self defense.<br /><br />“Bien, Senorita,” he replied and then said something quickly and sighed.<br /><br />“Yeah, afraid I need to use the window again,” she said.<br /><br />She moved toward it, and he moved between her.<br /><br />“No, Senorita. Senor Mohan no quiere que te vayas.” He doesn’t want you to go, he was telling her.<br /><br />“Yo quiero.” I want to go.<br /><br />Jaime looked at her, as though he couldn’t believe that she had desires other than what Mohan wanted. Yeah, Mr. Mohan was scary, but he wasn’t that scary.<br /><br />“I’m sorry, Jaime,” she murmured and then remembered how to say it in Spanish. “Lo siento, Jaime.”<br /><br />He bared his teeth for a moment, but she didn’t flinch. She tensed her muscles and things slowed down a bit, and she reached out her hand and touched his face, along his jawline. There was a spark and he was hers.<br /><br />He was trying to change, and she told him not to. There was a growl in his throat but it was just a human growl.<br /><br />She relaxed and time went back to the way that it was supposed to be. Jaime flinched at her hand on his face. He looked confused for a moment, then surprised and then scared.<br /><br />“Lo siento, Jaime,” she said. <span style="font-style: italic;">Go over and stand by the wall for a moment</span>, she said in her animal voice. It was easy to command something like that, it wasn’t even words or language she just had to picture it. Jaime moved back, suddenly aghast and she continued. <span style="font-style: italic;">If they ask you, I never came into the kitchen.</span> She frowned. That was a more complicated image and she couldn’t say that in Spanish.<br /><br />Well, if she had to hope that he’d understood. She shifted into the raven and fluttered the counter before she realized that she’d forgotten to open the window.<br /><br />Well, there was Jaime now. She sent and image and he came over, unlatched the window and she flew out into the daylight.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Continued next week . . . </span>Spherical Timehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02435055266803359329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2280808655296408678.post-63073747466208262992008-11-17T22:13:00.002-05:002008-12-04T18:11:45.154-05:00Episode 22: Deals and PoliticsBliss left the dessicated collection of animals and insects in front of the door of the small adobe house. They weren't required, and they weren't part of her current bargain, but they couldn't hurt either. There didn't appear to be anyone home but that was deceiving; it never looked like anyone was home.<br /><br />"Grandmother?" she called out. It would have been rude to try the door and Bliss didn't particually want to touch the house if she didn't have to, so she just stood there in the cool evening.<br /><br />There was no response and no movement in the little home except for the swaying of the grasses that grew right up to the walls. Sometimes Spider Woman was in the mood to talk to Bliss and some days she was not.<br /><br />The old spirits, the ones that were written about in legend, were always a fickle bunch. Some were touchy about the fact that they'd mostly been supplanted in the modern world but some had learned to get along.<br /><br />Some were dead. In fact, most were dead.<br /><br />Ideas had power, swirling around in people's brains, and when enough people all had the same ideas, they could give birth to things that were not human but alive and powerful. If the people stopped believing though, the spirits would die. Humans were the special case: they would keep living if whether you believed in them or not.<br /><br />Spider Woman was amazingly resilient. She'd not only lived long enough to set her foot in with the new agers, she'd managed to keep some of her powers. In this area of the world there weren't many spirits that could say that truthfully.<br /><br />So Bliss used her when she could. There were some things the spirits could do that the "mortals" could not, and vice versa. What Bliss could arrange through a few telephone calls or an internet search was often enough for surprisingly complicated bits of knowledge or powerful magics. The price for this particular assistance had been unusually difficult.<br /><br />After five minutes, Bliss pulled an envelope out of her purse, went over, and stuck it in the door frame. It wouldn't get lost, she was sure of that. Spider Woman would get the envelope even if she had to chase it across a hundred miles of Nevada desert. Bliss smiled at the image.<br /><br />But this resolved her debt, finally.<br /><br />She turned to walk back to the car where Iron Dog was waiting but before she took more than four steps she heard the door open and turned.<br /><br />Spider Woman stood there, holding the envelope. Considering the trouble that Bliss had gone through to get what was inside Spider Woman looked unmoved.<br /><br />"This is it?" The spirit woman asked.<br /><br />Bliss nodded.<br /><br />Spider Woman slowly and carefully opened the top of the unsealed envelope and pulled out the paper inside. There was just one and she unfolded it carefully.<br /><br />"You've fulfilled your end of the bargain, Bliss," she said at last, putting the paper away and holding the envelope gingerly. "And my lawyer?"<br /><br />"I sent him a copy as well," Bliss said. "And the developers won't bother you again. My sisters and I have made absolutely sure of that."<br /><br />"When do you want delivery? Now?"<br /><br />Bliss shook her head. "We can arrange for tomorrow. No mistakes this time."<br /><br /><br />*-*-*-*-*<br /><br /><br />"Lia's run away again," said Annabelle to Miss. Chi-Wong.<br /><br />Chi-Wong sighed. "Have you notified Michael?"<br /><br />Annabelle nodded. "Mohan's not going to be happy."<br /><br />"No, of course not. But he won't be surprised. What happened this time?"<br /><br />"She'd been good all morning, I swear I'd been watching her like a hawk nearly since she'd woken up, but she seemed to be enjoying her lessons and she doesn't usually try to run when it's the middle of the day, you know that, so I went to the bathroom and left one of Michael's pack to watch her--."<br /><br />"Is the guard hurt?"<br /><br />"Just unconscious."<br /><br />"Moon be damned . . ."<br /><br />"She didn't hit him. I don't know how she managed it this time."<br /><br />"She's getting to be completely uncontrollable. True, the fact that were have her is an important continuing bargaining chip with the Ladies but we can't keep. . . ." Chi-Wong paused. "I will tell Mohan. You know some of the places that she goes, join the hunt. If we can find her before the markets close, he may be willing to overlook your negligence."<br /><br />Annabelle nodded and excused herself. Chi-Wong arched her fingers and rubbed the bridge of her nose.<br /><br />All the different shapeshifters were linked through their shared human side. Werewolf, Weretiger, Werellama, they all eventually fit into the hierarchy. You dominated them once, they stayed dominated. If you were at the top of a pack, those under you were nearly completely loyal.<br /><br />Mohan seemed oddly reluctant to break the girl though, and Chi-Wong had absolutely no idea why. That was what you did with new wolves. You put them in their place and they became quietessent.<br /><br />Wereravens were rare, and the gift used to create them was rarer. In Chi-Wong's opinion whatever insane shapeshifter had thought it was a good idea to infect a child with lycanthropy, especially wereravenism, should be slowly boiled to death over the course of years by the witches. The problem was that the only person that she knew that could offer the "pure gift" of species undifferentiated lycanthropy was William Mohan.<br /><br />She'd seen him use it to create Weresnakes out of rattlers. It wasn't a particuarly pleasant experience, and Chi-Wong had only been an observer. For the participants it was extremely painful and sickening, even for the giver.<br /><br />Considering that the girl had shown up at Mohan's doorstep, it was hard to believe that he hadn't had something to do with her creation, but he still maintained that he hadn't. He pointed out that of all things, why would he have created a wereraven? Even two months before they'd found her their relationship with the Ladies hadn't required the sudden addition of a threat. They'd even considered killing her in her sleep since then to try to win the support of Bliss back.<br /><br />If the old witch hadn't been such a caniving bitch, they might have gone through with it even.<br /><br />So now they were left with what amounted to an toxic waste covered wild animal caged in the house. Lia didn't want to be kept, couldn't be easily dominated, and was constantly trying to run away. The Wolves as a group couldn't just let her go because that would permanently fracture their relationship with the Ladies. And, despite their reputation for random violence and as much as Chi-Wong hated to admit it, none of the Wolves really wanted to murder another shapeshifter, especially a child.<br /><br />So why didn't Mohan want to just dominate her and be done with it? At least then he could tell her to stay put and she wouldn't have a choice in the matter. It was if he thought that her usefullness in negotiations would go out the window if she was broken but how would the ladies even know that if he didn't tell him? Chi-Wong had no idea.Spherical Timehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02435055266803359329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2280808655296408678.post-17693157287597120792008-06-08T19:30:00.000-04:002008-06-17T19:39:17.648-04:00Episode 21: Beyond & BehindThe bird was covered in sizzling energy, and hitting it burned Bliss' bare hands, but she did out of desperation.<br /><br />Despite her flailing and the bird's apparent ability to be all around her at the same time, it took her several more seconds of pecks before her hand finally connected with a wing, and the bird fell backward.<br /><br />It didn't even land on the ground though, flapping off and stirring up the dust, and circled around slowly and lazily, until Bliss realized it was going to swoop around to attack her again. It was big, the largest Raven that Bliss had seen before, and she knew it.<br /><br />She reached down, to where the mirror that she'd been holding was, and flung it up in front of her.<br /><br />The bird was already coming back, it's claws and beak stretched out in front of the vanishingly black wings, and it nearly collided with the mirror.<br /><br />There was a brilliant flash, illuminating the dusty landscape and the huge bird swooping down on Bliss.<br /><br />The silent explosion knocked Bliss off her feet, and when she opened her eyes and looked around, the bird was gone.<br /><br />She'd lost her trademark smile when the bird, or the girl, or whatever it was, had attacked her, but she resumed it now. It wasn't necessary to let the others know that she'd been flustered. Besides, everything had gone well enough.<br /><br />Careful not to look directly at the open door, Bliss crawled on hands and knees over to the small structure, felt for the doorknob, and closed the door. She'd come back later to finish her part of the deal.<br /><br />She stood, swept the dust off of her with a flick, and set about trying to wake up the other witches.<br /><br />*-*-*-*<br /><br />There was no single moment that Lex awoke. When he finally realized that he was in fact awake, he seemed to know instinctively that he'd already been conscious for several minutes.<br /><br />He tilted his head, and saw a fire going in a hearth. Despite that, the air on his face was sort of cold. He tried to move closer to the fire, and someone moved to help him.<br /><br />He might have fallen asleep again, or he might not have, but he felt safe and warm, and he relaxed.<br /><br />Eventually the other person moved away, and he drifted for a bit longer.<br /><br />When he finally sat up, the fire was still burning but the air was still cool. He was in a little room that didn't look so much like a room in a house but more of a spherical tent or a cave. Everything, including the little ledge near the fire on which he was balanced, curved in multiple directions.<br /><br />The walls were fuzzy, and two of them were covered with big blankets, like the Navajo blankets that he remembered from the state fair back in Texas. Across from him, there was a wall covered with shelves of little clay and glass pots and vials and other bits of things. There was half a buffalo skull up on the top shelf, and an entire section of it seemed to hold little twigs and sticks. At the bottom, under the shelves, were old books and piles of yellowing newspaper.<br /><br />There was movement in the other room, and then a Native American woman entered. She was dressed in a brown dress with a black apron over it and had long dark hair gathered back in a braid.<br /><br />Lex shivered involuntarily and pressed himself away from her. He felt that something was wrong although he couldn't say exactly what.<br /><br />She smiled at him, and held out a black glazed mug. "Have some tea. Really, you shouldn't be bursting into people's houses, you know."<br /><br />"You're not a witch?"<br /><br />The woman laughed. "No, of course not. Call me Grandmother."<br /><br />His eyes narrowed and asked for a second opinion.<br /><br />A moment passed and the woman drew a three legged stool over and put the mug on it, within easy reach of Lex.<br /><br />Sora? He said again to the inside of his head, and then again.<br /><br />He must have looked surprised because the woman laughed slowly. "You're looking for the enchantment, aren't you. It was a complicated little thing. I can understand why she made the deal that she did now. The thing that I don't understand is why you let it in your head." She shook her head. "Bad medicine, that. More likely to kill than to cure, whatever it was that you wanted out of it."<br /><br />"What did you do?"<br /><br />"I took the knot out of your head."<br /><br />"I thought you said that you aren't a witch."<br /><br />"Witch? No. Just a Grandmother and a weaver by trade."<br /><br />"I want it back," Lex said stiffly.<br /><br />She shook her head. "Had to cut too many of the threads. Can't be fixed now." Her eyes went up to the shelf and Lex's gaze followed. Among the bottles and other objects he spotted a little figure of sticks and bits of black and white string.<br /><br />Some of the threads were cut, and it slumped over on it's side. The woman's words sunk in and he suddenly realized that Sora's voice was gone, probably for good.<br /><br />He tried to stand, and at that moment realized that he was wearing nothing under the blanket. He sunk back down, wondering how long he'd been in the house and how long his only ally had been dead, and he recalled why he'd come.<br /><br />"Where is Lia?"<br /><br />The woman blinked at him. "Who?"<br /><br />"Lia. One of the witches called her the raven."<br /><br />The woman shook her head. "The Raven? She's not here. Hasn't been in this lifetime. She may be back soon, she may not. Always was solitary, that one, and suffers for it."<br /><br />Lex ground his teeth. "What does that <span style="font-style: italic;">mean</span>? What does everyone know that I don't? I mean, there are enough secrets out there, vampires and werewolves and witches and all of them seem to know immediately what all of it means, but nobody has thought to clue me in."<br /><br />"Their shapes are important. Wolf or Bear or even Cat, although that one was not one we knew before they were brought from the east. The shapes determine who they are, either by choice or by force. Ravens . . . they're old birds. Some of the oldest, and they control powerful magics. They're present at the end of things, and their presence is greatly feared by the ladies. She'll live and die of magic and have some powerful influence in her short life. At least till one of the great ravens comes, and that . . ." the woman laughed again softly.<br /><br />"Then it will be Dreamtime again," she finished and she looked at Lex with an almost angry gleam in her eye.<br /><br />To Lex, it seemed like more riddles, but one like, that Lia would have a short life, stood out like fire in his brain. He glanced around, wondering if he could use the buffalo skull as a weapon when the older woman finally moved again.<br /><br />"You should have had some tea," she said. "It settles the mind and it would have made this ever so much easier. Still, Grandmother Spider keeps her promises."<br /><br />Lex jerked back, as though he'd been hit as he finally woke all of the way up and realized that the Native American woman had been only a dream. She was only there in the loosest sense, and also in her position was a six foot long black spider with gleaming red eyes. Two of her legs caught him, pinning him to the ledge of stone and web and as her torso pressed against him he felt a pain on his side. He tried to roll away but as he looked up at her suddenly bloody teeth the room seemed to spin again.<br /><br />He closed his eyes but the warmth was no longer enough to make him feel comfortable.Spherical Timehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02435055266803359329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2280808655296408678.post-70467036026097711962008-05-22T20:35:00.000-04:002008-06-17T19:40:50.030-04:00Episode 20: Outside of the DoorThe driver of the cab kept looking up into the rear view mirror at him, and despite the warm dry heat of the Arizona late winter he kept the plastic panels between the front and the back of the cab firmly shut.<br /><br />Lex didn't care. He'd been picked up in a bad section of town, and he'd eventually been forced to offer the cab driver $300 to drive him outside the city. In advance.<br /><br />Still, the cab driver was nervous. He obviously didn't trust the young man in the back seat. Lex sat with his hands held in front of him, looking out of the window into the now dark night. Except for the horizon glow over his left shoulder the lights of Las Vegas were gone.<br /><br />It wasn't dark in Lex's eyes though. Viewed through invisibly woven spells, he could see every detail of the road, and something was urging him onward.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I have a bad feeling about this</span>, the voice said, but Lex didn't reply. He could feel her out there, the familiar presence. Lia was nearby.<br /><br />The cab driver pulled to a stop, and Lex glanced at the road ahead. There was a cattle guard in the road, and above it was stretched a heavy chain from which hung a "No Trespassing" sign.<br /><br />"Can't go any farther," the Cabbie said.<br /><br />Sora's voice, through Lex's body, flickered a glyph at the chain and frowned when it did nothing.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">It's protected</span>, the voice relayed.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Can you do something about that</span>? Lex asked silently.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Not without looking at it</span>.<br /><br />He opened the cab door without thinking and got out, walked over to the chain. It didn't even have a lock, and so Lex reached out to grab it and throw it aside.<br /><br />As soon as he'd touched the metal, the cab behind him roared. He twisted around to see the cabbie pulling back down the road they'd come up.<br /><br />Lex dropped the chain and started to run, but the cabbie swung the car around and pealed out, showing him with loose bits of gravel and sand from the road.<br /><br />Sora's voice pushed at him to relinquish control, but Lex didn't allow it. The cab didn't matter. He turned back to the chain.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">How are you planning to get us home</span>? the voice inquired, but Lex didn't have an answer.<br /><br />He started to unchain the opening between the fences before he realized that it didn't matter now that the cab was gone. He ducked under the chain and started to walk up the dirt road.<br /><br />There were animals out at night. Rabbits and mice watched him from the brown grass and under the scrubby juniper bushes. They paused as he came into view, hoping that pausing in the dark would protect him.<br /><br />He wasn't after them though. All he cared about was finding Lia, and the familiar feeling of her was getting slowly closer.<br /><br />He was walking slightly uphill, and after fifteen minutes or so on the dark road he took off his coat before it became drenched in sweat, but he didn't pause until a gust of wind floated down from above him carrying words.<br /><br />". . . waiting out here in the dark . . ."<br /><br />Just like one of the mice he'd passed, he froze as the voices continued.<br /><br />". . . back to the fire . . ."<br /><br />". . . angry at us . . ."<br /><br />". . . stupid . . ."<br /><br />". . . not going to happen anyway . . ."<br /><br />". . . <span style="font-style: italic;">dangerous</span>, out here alone . . . killed Bybreak . . ."<br /><br />There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, and Lex bit his lip.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">It's a trap</span>, said Sora's voice, stating the obvious. Lex though, could feel Lia, just up ahead. Only a little bit past the ridge line.<br /><br />Without movement to warm him up, his sweat soaked clothes felt like ice.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Time for some new tricks</span>, he told the voice.<br /><br />Slowly he turned around, shielding his hands from view behind his jacket and began to sketch out the runes that the voice fed him. The first set was a minor magic to keep his feet from making noise. Then a minor rune of invisibility, one that would make the shadows around him deeper (<span style="font-style: italic;">Any more</span>, the voice warned him, <span style="font-style: italic;">and the witches will be able to sense the magic that went into it</span>). Finally, he sketched out a circle in his mind, filled it with the basic runes that he would need.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">You'll need more</span>, Sora's voice said, <span style="font-style: italic;">sketch out five or six</span> . . .<br /><br />Alex reached out, his hands on either side of the circle, and concentrated. Carefully he felt around the edges of the circle. There should have been nothing to feel, the blue lines were only faint traceries of energy, but there was. With his fingernails he slowly peeled away the top of the circle, and everything in it peeled away as well.<br /><br />Two identical rune circles floated in front of him.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Oh</span>, said Sora's voice. <span style="font-style: italic;">I didn't know that was possible</span>.<br /><br />He copied the rune a half dozen more times, and then gathered them together, holding them like a stack of plates, each floating about half and inch from the next.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Time to go</span>, Lex thought.<br /><br />He slipped off the road and around the left side of the hill where he thought that the witches waited. Even with the magic, he stepped carefully, not wanting the rustle of his clothes or the sound of scraping against a plant to give him away.<br /><br />There they were, leaning against the rocks, with a view of the road. Two women, young looking, both with dark hair and wearing heavy wool coats. They were obviously supposed to be keeping watch for him, but neither of them was paying much attention. They were still murmuring back and forth, and every once in a while one would glance down the hill.<br /><br />They were looking right into the glow from the Las Vegas lights, Lex realized. Whenever they looked down the hill, their eyes had to adjust to the light, and he could have made it most of the way up the road before they would have spotted him.<br /><br />He took the top magic circle, sketched the activation rune with one hand, and gave it a flick. One of the women yawned.<br /><br />Another rune, another flick.<br /><br />The first woman leaned heavily against the rock, and slid to the ground. The other looked at her in surprise for a moment before collapsing herself. They barely made a sound and they weren't hurt, they were just asleep.<br /><br />Lex frowned. If either of them had hurt Lia, he wouldn't just be putting them to sleep.<br /><br />He crept up the road slowly, examining every bush and stone for signs of life, and listening carefully for any further giveaway sounds.<br /><br />He crested the hill, and saw a flicker of light.<br /><br />A bonfire had been built in the middle of the road, just before it ended before a small house. It was <span style="font-style: italic;">the</span> house, the tiny one from his dream. The tall cactus was there, half illuminated in by the bonfire, but the house looked empty and dark. There was no light coming from the little window, like there had been in his dream.<br /><br />Around the fire were women, all bundled in clothing, some with their hands out toward the fire. One or two of the faces illuminated by the fire Lex recognized from that night in the mansion with Soraperion.<br /><br />There were at least ten, and there was already magic in the air. Around the red-orange glow of the burning wood he could flashes of blue.<br /><br />There was no sign of Lia, but the feeling of familiarity was almost overpowering. It was there in front of him somewhere.<br /><br />One of figures was holding something, and she suddenly looked up at him and Lex saw that it was Bliss.<br /><br />The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and at the same moment he felt something wrong beside him.<br /><br />He threw himself to the left, and something whistled through the space where his head had been. It was the Native American, the one from the mansion, the one that had gone with Bliss into the hole after Soraperion. He was dressed in black, like a ninja, and in his hands he carried a wand or staff or some wooden dowel. He raised it, and Lex automatically flicked one of the spell disks he'd been carrying at the large man.<br /><br />A split second to sketch the activation, and it flashed to life, wrapping itself around the man in a glowing string of blue runes. The man shook his head, as though he were trying to stay awake, and the spell fell to pieces. He didn't look tired.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">He's protected too</span>, the voice shouted in his head.<br /><br />Lex's hands clenched, and in the left palm he felt dirt crunch. He flung it up at the man above him just as the staff came down again.<br /><br />The rod hit him in the shoulder with a sharp crack, and Lex fell backward, howling with pain. At the same time, the dirt had hit the Native American in the face and it was obvious that his eyes weren't protected from that. He stumbled back.<br /><br />Sora's voice didn't wait for Lex to recover. He slipped into enough control to cast without having to feel the pain.<br /><br />He flung out the arm that had just been struck, causing Lex to cry out in pain, but also sending the remaining spells down the hill toward the women standing around the fire. He sketched out the activation, and the things burst into spinning disks of azure light.<br /><br />Lex rocketed to his feet, jerked upright through his telekinesis, and at the same time he grabbed at all of the empty dirt that he could see and shoveled it up with his powers. The Native American was pelted with more dirt, and then with a gout of fire from the next set of sketched runes.<br /><br />The fire had no more effect than the sleep spell had, but the dust forced the man to shield his face.<br /><br />Another telekinetic blanket caught a slew of spells from around the fire, and he quickly started to itch again. <span style="font-style: italic;">Crap</span>, he thought, but Sora's voice had a solution this time. A complicated rune of protection, a word, and it went away.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Why didn't you do that last time</span>? Lex thought, annoyed.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">No runes, no speaking, no movement, remember</span>?<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Right</span>, he thought and went back on the attack.<br /><br />More useless fire sprang from his hands, but that was only a distraction. With his telekinesis he grabbed the man and <span style="font-style: italic;">jabbed</span> as hard as he could.<br /><br />It was like a wire effect from one of those Chinese movies. The Native American popped up and backward, flying up at least twenty feet before falling heavily to the ground.<br /><br />Sora's voice was already sketching heavy protection spells, the first few of which caught fire, ice, hissing bolts of electricity and javelins of darkness.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Me them, you him</span>? Sora's voice asked.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Duh</span>.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Fair fight then</span>, the voice responded.<br /><br />At least one of the women had been caught by the flying sleep spells, and now a series of loud explosions occurred in the air in front of those remained. Some, like Bliss, seemed unaffected and others shrugged it off but four of the women went sprawling backward into the dirt. Only one tried to sit up, but was caught with a purplish bolt of something to the head and went down again.<br /><br />The Native American rushed back into the fight as the witches returned attacks while Lex's hands sketched his next moves. The wooden rod came down at his head, but telekinesis stopped it dead, and jerked it back, twisting it in loops.<br /><br />The man twisted his arm, trying to compensate, but the telekinesis didn't have to worry about things like arm joints. Already off balance from the sudden stop he toppled over as the staff was ripped from his grasp. It hung in the air for a moment, and then began to attack the Native American, hitting him viciously over the head until he stopped trying to get up.<br /><br />Lex's hands finished their complex dancing, leaving a crescent of linked runes. They pulsed momentarily and expanded, growing diffuse until they'd melted away.<br /><br />Then there was a rumble, and the ground around the fire shook. Fingers of sharp stone shot up in the midst of the witches, throwing them around like dolls, and from their points they glowed with electricity which arced out, slicing through the dolls.<br /><br />Only Bliss was left standing, untouched in a circle of clear ground, the lightning ignoring her. She looked at her scattered sisters, and then slowly bent her knees, leaning back into a position that reminded him of a karate pose, placing the hand mirror that she was holding on the ground at the same time. She didn't kick or punch though, she just raised her arms into a defensive posture and looked at him.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">She hasn't attacked us yet</span>, Sora's voice pointed out. <span style="font-style: italic;">She's just stood there for the entire time</span>.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I wonder why</span>? Lex thought to himself and then out loud he called, "Why didn't you attack with the others?"<br /><br />Bliss shrugged slowly. "It's good for them, to be in a fight against someone creative with magic. They spar amongst themselves, but only know a few tricks and think they've mastered magical combat. You have the range of a Mage, the speed of cheetah, the creativity of an artist."<br /><br />His mouth opened a bit, and she gave him a level look. "Why so surprised?" she asked.<br /><br />"I didn't expect you to answer my question."<br /><br />"How will you ever learn if I don't?"<br /><br />He looked at her closely for the first time. She was smiling, just as every other time he'd seen her, but she seemed serious enough.<br /><br />"Are we going to fight?" he asked her after a pause.<br /><br />"Of course."<br /><br />They stood facing each other for a few more moments and then he asked, "Uh . . . should I count to three or something?"<br /><br />"You can start whenever."<br /><br />"Oh."<br /><br />Sora's voice murmured, <span style="font-style: italic;">That sounds bad</span>.<br /><br />So Lex raised his arms and hesitated at the still form of Bliss.<br /><br />Then he sketched the first blue line in the air, and her arms whipped into action.<br /><br />The first of Lex's shields were just getting up when the first of Bliss' attacks struck them. Instead of vanishing they clung to the invisible barriers, pressing on them and eating away at them like acid. A jab of telekinesis disrupted the spell that was eating away at his defenses, but it was all that Sora's voice could do to work up new protection spells before the next volley of light and heat hit him in a shower of iridescent bolts of lightning.<br /><br />All of the other witches that he'd fought had been slow. They'd chant something, and Lex would have three or four spells sketched and away before they'd finished their first. Now the tables were turned. The ground around him splintered and cracked. The dry bushes burst into flame for a moment before disintegrating away to dust. The air filled with the smell of ozone. And Bliss never hesitated, continually throwing spell after spell at him.<br /><br />Sora's voice finally managed to throw an attack between multiple protection spells, but it did nothing. Bliss almost negligently canceled it out with a flick of her wrist.<br /><br />So Lex lashed out with his telekinesis, driven by the resurgence of adrenaline as beams of energized air flickered around him.<br /><br />Bliss countered that as well.<br /><br />And then she hit him back with her own telekinesis.<br /><br />Lex threw up a blanket around himself but Bliss poked at it with her own abilities, blows that made what he'd done to the Native American look like a friendly pat. They were <span style="font-style: italic;">sharp</span> pokes too, as though she was forming her abilities into two foot long needles.<br /><br />Lex concentrated, trying to harden the blanket into a wall, but each time his concentration slipped Bliss was right there, probing and the jamming her powers home, ripping his shirt to shreds, and his skin beneath it.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">She's . . . better . . . than . . . we . . . are . . .</span>, the voice managed in between spurts of heavy concentration, and Lex could feel that he was correct. Her attacks were layered, building up from the energy of previous attacks, and their defenses were not. Not to mention that if Lex himself lost concentration, she could rip his defenses apart with her telekinesis.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The door</span>, Lex thought back, but it looked hopeless. It was behind Bliss, much too far, and with each volley of destructive magic it looked even more out of reach.<br /><br />Then then sky moved. Flickered, a bit, behind where Bliss stood.<br /><br />Something <span style="font-style: italic;">resolved</span> out of the darkness, like it had been just made. Lex and the voice were busy with other things, but for a moment it seemed to Lex like another attack. Perhaps another witch hidden by the darkness.<br /><br />It didn't aim for them though. It lanced straight for Bliss and passed through her magical barriers like they didn't exist. The runes composing them turned from blue to red in an instant, and then faded completely.<br /><br />Bliss had a moment to look around, and then she screamed.<br /><br />Whatever hit her seemed to burst apart, a mass of inky blackness and claws, and the attacks against Lex ceased.<br /><br />Lex ran for the door. Sora's voice, suddenly free for attacks, began to rain spells back at Bliss. Some of them were cast aside, but some finally found their mark.<br /><br />Lex was almost there, almost to the door, and the presence of Lia . . . even though it was weird now. It echoed oddly, as though she wasn't just behind the door. But Lex didn't have time for that. He reached the handle, not even considering that it could be locked, and flung it open.<br /><br />Golden light was through the door, and he flung himself into it, warmth seeping up at the same time that everything faded to black.Spherical Timehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02435055266803359329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2280808655296408678.post-75346473997258988092008-04-18T15:54:00.000-04:002008-06-17T19:40:11.002-04:00Episode 19: Raven DreamsAt first the beautiful rooms and dresses and the attention from Annabelle was enough for Lia but since her Hunt, she'd been restless and preoccupied.<br /><br />Annabelle was annoyed. She'd picked up on Lia's mood and her own irritation was showing.<br /><br />"This is important," she said, mindlessly waving the hot air in the room around with her hand.<br /><br />Lia focused on the book for just a moment.<br /><br />It was Math, but her attention slipped away again before Annabelle even registered her look.<br /><br />"If you do the problems on page 187, we can take a break . . ."<br /><br />Lia stood up abruptly, and Annabelle started.<br /><br />"I need to go to the bathroom," Lia told her.<br /><br />Annabelle nodded slowly, as though she didn't want to do so, but thought of acceptance, and thought it toward Annabelle.<br /><br />It was a trick that she'd learned from Mr. Mohan. Everywhere he went he exuded power and authority, even when he wasn't doing it consciously. For her it was always an effort, but she found it was just as effective. Annabelle would nod and follow her suggestions. Once, at dinner, she could have sworn that it had worked on Miss Chi-Wong and Michael but only until Mr. Mohan had entered the room.<br /><br />She'd only done it that one time around Mr. Mohan, and that was enough. His smell had been . . . scary, like he was angry. He'd seemed nice enough still but Lia had felt so sick with worry throughout the dinner that she'd thrown up in her room later.<br /><br />Lia got up and slipped out of the empty office that they used for lessons, made her way to the bedroom. Instead of the bathroom, she went to the window.<br /><br />They were high up, six stories at the very least, but the height didn't scare Lia any more. She pulled on the crank to open the window but it didn't budge. She looked for a lock or a catch, but couldn't see one. She pushed harder but there was still no movement. A bit more, harder, harder, and suddenly the crank made a cracking noise and spun loosely on it's bolt.<br /><br />The window opened a fraction of an inch. A few more cranks, and she had a few inches of space. Not nearly enough for a girl to slip out.<br /><br />But fine for a bird.<br /><br />She shifted. It was effortless now, like rustling her feathers before taking flight, and she hopped up to the open window frame.<br /><br />The sun caught her glossy black feathers. She examined the gap momentarily, and then slipped out into the air.<br /><br />It was a colder day outside than it appeared, but as a bird it was perfect. A few flaps and she was soaring away from the tower of apartments.<br /><br />-*-*-*-<br /><br />Lex was lying in a pile of blankets on the floor in a cheap hotel room on the northern side of Las Vegas.<br /><br />With the help of Sora's voice, he could have still be staying in the penthouse apartments, but he suspected that these little clapboard places were safer. Less likely to be watched by the vampires and the witches . . . and possibly the werewolves.<br /><br />If they even existed.<br /><br />Sora's voice told him that they did. That they could be harmed and restrained by silver and wolfsbane, transformed at the full moon, and weren't necessarily wolves.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">They can be just about anything</span>, Sora's voice had informed him. <span style="font-style: italic;">Lions, Tigers, Bears, Sharks, and even birds and cats and dogs</span>.<br /><br />The problem was, there was no evidence of them. Everywhere Lex turned he seemed to run into the vampires and the witches, but he hadn't see hide nor hair of the werewolves. If they existed, they blended into the normal Las Vegas underworld without a flaw.<br /><br />He'd been searching for them for days, but no one that he spoke to could point him in the right direction, and he didn't want to press the issue for fear of drawing unwanted attention to himself.<br /><br />He closed his eyes, willing himself to sleep, but his mind kept getting drawn back to the werewolves. Why on earth would they be keeping Lia? Did they eat humans? It had been months since he'd last seen her. What if she'd already been eaten?<br /><br />Bybreak didn't seem to think she was dead. She'd called Lia "the raven."<br /><br />He wanted to believe that it was because of her black hair. Anything else was unthinkable.<br /><br />He wrapped himself tighter in the blanket, crushing the black feathers that he'd found when Lia disappeared in his fist.<br /><br />-*-*-*-<br /><br />He was standing in one of those impossible positions from a comic book on the top of a grand tower. All around him were glittering lights and suspended crystals refracting the light. They were drops of rain, he knew, although he didn't know how he knew.<br /><br />There was howling, but not the howling of wind. It was the howling of of a creature dying.<br /><br />He stepped down from the building onto the road below, and first saw the bird.<br /><br />It was black, and against the night it shouldn't have been visible, but it seemed to jump out at him against the otherwise uniformly dark night. In this frozen world, it was the only other thing that was moving.<br /><br />It looked at him with golden yellow eyes, and he knew the bird. He recognized it, and it recognized him.<br /><br />He followed where it flew, each step allowing him to cover a mile or more of ground, but always in the same direction: south out of the city, beyond the bright lights of the . . . .<br /><br />There was nothing out here except for Lex and the bird, and he was chasing it furiously. There was a flicker of feathers here and there, always just out of his reach, and suddenly he found himself alone in the desert.<br /><br />There was one of those big branching cactuses standing alone in the soil next to a small building. A house maybe, but it couldn't have contained more than one or two rooms. There was no car, only a bit of a dirt trail, and only a small window filled with golden light.<br /><br />He reached for the handle, still angry, but he had trouble with the knob. It wasn't locked, he just couldn't reach it, as though he was too far away. As though he were a child.<br /><br />Then the door opened, light pouring through it, and he had the sensation that his mother was coming through. . . .<br /><br />-*-*-*-<br /><br />. . . Lex jerked awake, gasping, sweating heavily in the little cocoon that he'd built for himself.<br /><br />There was something compelling about the dream. It was a map, and at the end of it was . . . something that he needed to find.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Are you there? </span>he asked Sora's voice and got back a groan and an acknowledgment.<br /><br />"We're going out," he added aloud.Spherical Timehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02435055266803359329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2280808655296408678.post-45438302412374459862008-02-24T19:39:00.000-05:002008-04-28T00:59:41.189-04:00Episode 18: Three FactionsThey held the memorial on the third day, appropriate for someone that had risen to the rank of Matron in such a powerful Coven.<br /><br />Bliss, as usual, refused to oversee the ceremony, which meant it was up to the Maiden, Belle Aldecott, to run things.<br /><br />Belle was relatively new to the coven though, just having moved from Boston, and her training was mostly theoretical. She had to read the memorial and the spirit convocation from a book, and didn't add a personalized epigraph to it. Several of the other coven members looked uncomfortable with the formality of the ceremony when this was a woman that they'd known for years.<br /><br />Bliss smiled as she stood just outside of the glade. It wasn't any personal resentment against Bybreak for dying, Bliss always smiled.<br /><br />Mistress Greenwood approached her glaring fiercely, but not doing a very good job. Bliss was substantially more threatening than the thin, bitter looking Greenwood could ever hope to be, and she would smile the entire time.<br /><br />"There was nothing that you could have done?" Greenwood hissed. She wasn't the first to ask, but she would likely be the last. There were few others in the Coven that could stand up to Bliss, even if she wasn't actively trying to be threatening.<br /><br />Bliss shook her head.<br /><br />"Say it."<br /><br />"There was nothing more I could have done to save Bybreak from herself," Bliss said happily.<br /><br />Greenwood tilted her head, tasting the words, trying to find a lie but there was nothing there to find.<br /><br />"And the boy."<br /><br />Bliss turned her attention full onto Greenwood, who shrank back suddenly, as though Bliss' big white teeth in her toothy smile sent forth a chill.<br /><br />"What about the boy?" Bliss inquired.<br /><br />Greenwood opened her mouth, closed it, and finally asked, "Are we going to search for him?"<br /><br />There was a long pause.<br /><br />"No," Bliss said. "We're going to use him for bait."<br /><br />-*-*-*-*-<br /><br />Mr. Lo sat quietly in the shadows of the hotel lobby. In Las Vegas so many people lived in artificially lit Casinos nearly all of the time that it was easy to forget that there was daylight just beyond the thick walls. Inside, day and night meant close to nothing.<br /><br />It was so easy for vampires to blend in, to sit and gamble with their heightened senses in the false twilight. To enjoy a floor show and then vanish into the tunnels that connected the various hotel properties to each other and several of the vampire's holdings.<br /><br />Lo liked to sit and watch the people come and go. A few were happy, having just won money or attended a wedding, and some were saddened by losses at the tables or waking up to find that they'd enjoyed too many free drinks the night before.<br /><br />He wore a suit but people's vision slid right over him. If he was important, he wouldn't be sitting in the lobby of a hotel by himself and he certainly wouldn't be relaxing and reading a paper. The few people that could recognize him would not disturb him unless it was vitally important.<br /><br />So when his secretary Miriam appeared, he put down his paper at once.<br /><br />Miriam was tall and blond and wearing a silvery evening gown even though it was just past eleven a.m. She looked remarkably beautiful, even compared to the usual Las Vegas girls, and men's heads turned as she walked along. She was young though, only about fifty years dead, and she still had something of the predator to her. The men looked, but discreetly, and no one dared to approach her.<br /><br />"Sir," she said softly as she approached, and then sat delicately on the chair beside him. "I got a report from . . ." She looked around. "From our friend with the Ladies."<br /><br />"About the death of their Matron?"<br /><br />She nodded. "A name came up. One that I think you might recognize." She took a slip of paper from her slim valise, and held it out.<br /><br />Lo looked at it and frowned. That was deeply disturbing.<br /><br />"The wolves haven't reported seeing him in the area that they're patrolling for us," he said.<br /><br />"It happened to the West, in the Executive Airport annex. He's on the move, obviously, but he seems to be out of our area for the time being."<br /><br />"Sue said that he was last seen in the presence of One of the Five."<br /><br />"Ah," said Miriam. "I have more on that as well. Our same friend says that the incident that happened at the Coven house on the 26th involved both that one and also <span style="font-style: italic;">him</span>," she said as she gestured with the slip of paper.<br /><br />Lo tried not to let his surprise show. "I thought that one of the two attackers died in that incident. And if the boy killed their Matron he must have been the one that survived the attack."<br /><br />Miriam nodded slowly as Lo's undead mind churned.<br /><br />"Soraperion was not the weakest of the five," he said at last, softly. "And so far the boy has survived encounters with two full vampires and Mistress Bliss twice. And he killed the Matron of the Coven during one of those encounters."<br /><br />"Do you think that the boy is a trap?" Miriam asked.<br /><br />"For whom? Me? Bliss? The Ladies in general? The only faction left unaffected is the Wolves, who seem to have had remarkable luck avoiding such a problematic person so far. If you'll remember what happened at our last meeting, it would seem that William is already trying to bait the Ladies on one front. Why not another?"<br /><br />"Should we let this take its course then?"<br /><br />Lo shook his head. "Not necessarily. The Ladies have uncommon influence in this dark city. If we have judged the game correctly we may be able to turn these machinations to our advantage in the long run." He thought for a moment. "Cancel the Wolves' patrol of our area, but double the lookout of our own thralls around the Southwest section. Call for a Family conference, in the usual place, for the day after tomorrow."<br /><br />He picked up his paper again and Miriam, always so good at reading people, took her clue to leave, followed by the adoring stares of several men.<br /><br />-*-*-*-*-<br /><br />Mohan woke late, rolled out of his elaborate bed, and slipped on his calf skin slippers.<br /><br />Michael was outside the door, waiting for him. He'd slept through his alarm: he knew that, but he hadn't expected Michael to be here already.<br /><br />There were no clocks, mechanical or electric, inside of his bedroom. The buzzing of electric devices sometimes bothered his sensitive hearing.<br /><br />He dressed quickly, stepped outside, and took the proffered watch, wallet and cell phone from Michael. He checked the time and found that he was indeed quite late.<br /><br />"Breakfast with the Marcandos?"<br /><br />"I delayed it until tomorrow."<br /><br />"The business reports?"<br /><br />"I have them."<br /><br />They made their way downstairs. Miss Chi-Wong was waiting patiently in the limo. As always, she looked absolutely flawless and completely unflustered by Mohan's late appearance. Sometimes Mohan suspected that she wore her makeup and a suit to bed.<br /><br />"There has been a delay in the most recent cocaine shipment, of course," she said. "And the witches are already looking for a replacement for Bybreak."<br /><br />"Wonderful," Mr. Mohan responded. "Have we heard anything else?"<br /><br />Chi-Wong shook her head.<br /><br />"That is interesting," Mr. Mohan said. "Bybreak was definitely a calming influence on the Coven, especially with Bliss running roughshod over the rest of them."<br /><br />"They'll come, eventually." Michael mumbled.<br /><br />"But when?" Mr. Mohan said. "That's the question. We have a deadline, after all."Spherical Timehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02435055266803359329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2280808655296408678.post-67380423322565002002007-11-10T19:44:00.000-05:002008-04-28T00:57:26.987-04:00Episode 17: Spiders and WebsThere was enough cocaine in the warehouse to supply the city of Las Vegas for two months, bundled into bales and stacked into thick white walls of blow.<br /><br />Lex had hidden behind one of the larger walls in a little alcove formed by the rounded corners of the bales. The hundreds of kilos of powder was packed so tightly that it felt like stone against his skin.<br /><br />There were no witches in the room. If there had been when he broke in, he would had to let Sora's voice fight for it and they'd been coming up with new tricks to use against him.<br /><br />The men moving the stacks of cocaine with fork lifts were just heavies for the mob. The witches wouldn't come all the way out here at night unless something was wrong.<br /><br />So they should be almost here.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Ready?</span> he thought.<br /><br />Sora's voice didn't bother to make a response, but on the edge of his consciousness he could feel the presence waken.<br /><br />Outside there was the noise of an jet taking off from the Las Vegas Executive airport, and then in the background there was a car engine roaring closer. Lex wiped his sweaty hands on his shirt.<br /><br />There was a squeal of tires in the front and all three of the men in the room suddenly ran for the back door, pulling guns from their holsters as they ran. There hadn't been a warning and, as far as they knew, it was the cops.<br /><br />*Bang* went the door, and a woman in a black dress with a red shawl was standing there.<br /><br />The men raised their weapons, but only for a split second before dropping them back down to their sides. They knew what the shawl meant, probably better than Lex did.<br /><br />The witch stalked into the room, peering from side to side, but there was nothing to see now. Lex wasn't using the least bit of magic, and hadn't since Sora's voice tipped off their intrusion system. Two men, both easily six feet tall, black and covered in muscles followed her.<br /><br />"Mistress Bybreak?" said one of the men. "Is there a problem?"<br /><br />She waved him to silence. "Out!"<br /><br />All three of the mob heavies started toward the door, and the witch and her men spread out among the cocaine boxes.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Time to go</span>, thought Alex, and mentally stepped back, letting the voice take over his body.<br /><br />The witch was the most dangerous of the three left in the room, but she was also the target. The voice didn't think they'd get a second chance at this, and he didn't want to risk messing up this opportunity.<br /><br />"Well?" demanded the woman once the door had closed.<br /><br />"I don't see anything," the first black muscle man said as he peered down one of the aisles.<br /><br />"Me neither," said the other.<br /><br />"He can't have left. I would have felt him pass back through the perimeter." She lifted her thin face and closed her eyes. Lex recognized her now, she'd been one of the witches that had gone down the hole after Soraperion when he'd died in pursuit of his box.<br /><br />Alex gestured with one hand, tracing out a rune. At the same time, the part of him that was him reached out and grabbed a metal bar leaning against one of the stacks of cocaine with invisible hands.<br /><br />The bar twitched, but didn't fly up like it was supposed to.<br /><br />The completed rune blazed and took hold. The voice said something to release the spell and it blazed toward the man standing closest to the witch and slammed into him. He collapsed, cracking his head against the concrete floor.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Are you going to . . .</span> started the voice, but Lex reached out with his mind again, suddenly terrified by the absolute uselessness of his telekinesis. As hard as he could he thought, <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">SLEEP</span>, at the other man. There was a pause and then that man dropped to the ground as well.<br /><br />The witch's eyes snapped open. She raised her arm and a ball of crimson fire flew toward Lex. He was still in his hideyhole of cocaine bags, and the bloody fireball burnt through the plastic wrap. The sudden acid smell of burning cocaine seized him. Desperate to avoid the toxic cloud, he pushed forward, through the wall of coke and out into one of the open spaces.<br /><br />The voice was still sketching runes into the air, but now Lex was gasping for air. He flicked them at her anyway, but they didn't do much without the words to support them. <span style="font-style: italic;">I could use some backup here, kid</span>, the voice thought at him.<br /><br />The first thing that popped into Lex's head was the bar that he'd been supposed to hit the man over the head with. He grabbed it with his telekinesis and threw it at her, and this time it worked. It was the danger, the adrenaline, that was powering him.<br /><br />He expected her to try to catch it with her own abilities, like Sue had done in the alley way with the knife, but she didn't. She just stepped to one side, and the bar flew past her harmlessly. She gestured at him, almost negligently, and suddenly the world skewed and Lex's body went completely limp and fell to the floor.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Crap!</span> said Sora's voice in his head.<br /><br />The witch seemed to think that she'd neutralized him, but she'd been in the hole when Lex had been fighting the other witches in the mansion. She didn't even pay attention to Lex, she went over to the black man and felt his neck for a pulse.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">No hands, no mouth, no magic</span>, the voice said.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Except my other stuff</span>, Lex thought back.<br /><br />His body lifted up, buoyed by his abilities. His arms held out like a scarecrow, his head hanging to one side. His clothes rustled as he moved, and the witch suddenly turned back around, her eyes wide.<br /><br />Lex's telekinesis propelled him forward, his feet hanging inches above the floor. Bybreak raised her own arm, and he bounced off something that appeared between them.<br /><br />But the metal bar was behind her and, before she could do anything else, he picked it up and hit her over the shoulders with it. She screamed with pain, looked back, and the metal bar just fell apart into dust.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I hope she can't do that to me</span>, Lex thought to himself.<br /><br />She looked shocked that he'd obviously been affected by her spell but hadn't been reduced to helplessness.<br /><br />"They told me," she said aloud. "They told me, but I didn't believe them. I just thought they were making excuses for their failure. After all, we defeated the Mage himself. How three of my sisters failed against one untrained mageling puppet was unbelievable, but I'm beginning to understand."<br /><br />He said nothing, but then he couldn't say anything: the muscles of his voicebox were paralyzed with the rest of him.<br /><br />"I am impressed, though," she said. "You're more resourceful that I imagined."<br /><br />She was doing something, gathering herself for another spell, and this time it was going to be a big one.<br /><br />He couldn't think of anything to do except throw up his telekinesis like a blanket in front of him. She gestured, and there was an invisible pressure against this blanket. For a moment his abilities seemed to stop it but then Lex felt an itching at the bottom of his feet.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I need the spell you were going to use</span>, he thought at the voice. <span style="font-style: italic;">I need it now!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Without your hands or your voice . . .</span> Sora's voice began.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Now!</span> Lex yelled internally. <span style="font-style: italic;">I have to try it!</span><br /><br />Four runes appeared in his head along with two spoken words, just as the itching turned into a burning sensation along the soles of his feet.<br /><br />He lifted a hand, but with his muscles paralyzed, he couldn't seem to created the glowing runes. But they were magic and so was the telekinesis. There had to be a solution there.<br /><br />The burning was moving up his legs now, and out of the corner of his eye he couldn't see anything happening, but the pain was intense, as though he was being burned at the stake. Bybreak was watching him carefully now, but not doing anything else. She was waiting for him to try something.<br /><br />Lex's eyes darted around the room, at the walls of cocaine, looking for another metal bar. None were visible, but as the pain reached his chest an idea popped into his head.<br /><br />One of the bales of cocaine exploded with a muted *bamf*, showering the room with a cloud of powdered cocaine.<br /><br />Bybreak's eyes darted to it immediately, and then back to Lex. He hadn't moved a muscle to attack her, not that he could while hanging limp in the air.<br /><br />Powder rained down, and then another exploded, and another, filling the air with a mist of finely powdered drugs.<br /><br />Bybreak gestured, and a bubble of clear air formed around her. More cocaine bags exploded, but her eyes remained locked on Lex, and the longer they did so, the more painful the burning sensation became, sneaking up his back like a slow moving fire.<br /><br />In the powdered cocaine surrounding Bybreak, runes were etching themselves. She was so focused on him, waiting for his attack, that she didn't even see it coming.<br /><br />Internally, Sora's voice and Lex shouted the words in the silence between Lex's mind.<br /><br />There was a flash of blue light, and Bybreak looked down to see that she was surrounded by runes nine feet long. She had a moment to blink, and then she stiffened and fell backward. Lex was dismayed to see that the inch of cocaine on the floor cushioned her fall. He would have rather she hurt herself.<br /><br />The pain and the paralysis vanished, and so did his telekinetic ability. He dropped to the floor, and he overcompensated trying to keep himself up and toppled over. The cocaine wasn't nearly as thick around him, and didn't provide nearly the same protection for him.<br /><br />Still, he rolled to his feet, kicking up little swirls of coke dust and limped over to her, careful not to disturb the patterns of cocaine on the floor.<br /><br />One of Bybreak's arms had twisted behind her back as she fell, and he basically sat on the other one, using his right hand to lean on her lower throat. If he was as careless as she had been, he was screwed.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Wake her up</span>, he ordered the voice, and a few seconds later she sputtered awake. She was confused at first, but with Lex holding her down, she got the picture real quick.<br /><br />"I have some questions," Lex said.<br /><br />She frowned, gritted her teeth, but nothing happened. Whatever Sora's voice had done to her, it had worked just fine, despite the unorthodox activation. She said nothing though.<br /><br />Lex leaned forward, putting his weight on his hand and slowly cutting off Bybreak's air. She struggled, but she was weak from whatever the voice in Lex's head had done. She started to keen, and Lex realized that she was trying to scream.<br /><br />"Talk," he ordered her. "And tell the truth." He relaxed the pressure, and she stopped whining. "Do I have to do it again?"<br /><br />Bybreak shuddered. "No. What are your questions?"<br /><br />"Do you work with the vampires?"<br /><br />"No."<br /><br />"Then . . . you don't?" He hadn't expected that answer.<br /><br />"No. Not usually. Whatever alliances exist between the witches and the vampires are temporary and arranged from region to region."<br /><br />"But the witches control the drug trade here in Las Vegas?"<br /><br />"Yes. The Vampires control the prostitution, and the Werewolves control the paid violence." His surprise must have been evident on his face because she laughed shallowly. "You didn't know about them, did you?"<br /><br />"The Wolves," he said. "Yeah, I knew about them."<br /><br />"Liar," she said.<br /><br />"Who controls the gambling?"<br /><br />"This is Las Vegas, <span style="font-style: italic;">all</span> of the factions have a hand in the gambling."<br /><br />He shook off the answer to the question. "What was Soraperion looking for?"<br /><br />Her face went hard suddenly. He pressed lightly, but she didn't say anything so he leaned in harder. She was almost blue when he let up, but she still didn't say anything.<br /><br />"I <span style="font-style: italic;">will</span> kill you."<br /><br />She smiled again, and she didn't have to say what she was thinking again.<br /><br />Last question. "Where's Lia?"<br /><br />She frowned. "Who?"<br /><br />"The girl! Where's the girl?!"<br /><br />"What girl?"<br /><br />"There was a girl," he said, and he started to press down again, although not enough to choke her completely. "But after . . ." he said, thinking about the night on the Strip with Martin the vampire, but stopped. "She disappeared. I've scoured every bloody inch of the city, and I can't find her. You're the only ones that could be protecting her."<br /><br />Bybreak's eyes narrowed. "Lia, you said?" she whispered through pale lips.<br /><br />Lex grabbed her by the collar of her dress and pounded on her upper chest. "Damn you!"<br /><br />"The raven. Your girl is the raven," Bybreak said in a grotesquely happy tone. "No wonder you can't find your little friend."<br /><br />She laughed shallowly again. "I would give her up now. The wolves have her, and they don't let go of prey easily."<br /><br />There was a noise by the door, and Lex looked up to find another woman standing in the door. It was Bliss, the witch with the yellow shawl. The one that he suspected had actually killed Soraperion.<br /><br />Sora's voice slipped nearly instantaneously into control of Lex's body, but even then it was nearly too late. A protection spell caught most of the fire that Bliss threw at him, but not enough to keep the cocaine from breaking out into poison smoke again.<br /><br />Lex roared something and spun a whirlwind between his hands, sending a tornado of smoke and stinging powder at the older witch.<br /><br />She ignored it: the air parted around her harmlessly. She geared up for another spell, but Sora's voice and Lex's hands were too quick. He flung himself up and out and her spell sizzled through the space that he'd occupied.<br /><br />He landed on top of a twenty foot high tower of stacked blow, kicked the bales forward, and then exploded them all as he jumped backward toward the metal wall of the warehouse. Huge clouds of white filled the air, and Bybreak's scream was cut off by the falling metric ton of cocaine.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I wasn't lying when I said I'd kill you</span>, he thought to himself, fiercely proud of having proved her wrong.<br /><br />Another spell blew open the back wall as he filled the air inside of the warehouse with bolts of ricocheting lightning, and then made for the chain link fence.<br /><br />He found the gap in the fence that he'd used earlier in the evening, and tried to launch himself through. His pants caught on the edges, and caught off balance, he slammed to the ground.<br /><br />He twisted onto his back, struggled with the loop of cloth that was tangled in the fence, and looked up.<br /><br />Meredith Bliss was standing on the roof of the warehouse, her eyes showing up above her yellow scarf were looking down on him.<br /><br />He froze, waiting for her attack, but she didn't. She raised no hand, no unnatural wind stirred.<br /><br />His numb hands struggled with his jeans, separated the wire from the fabric, and then slowly pushed his way through the fence.<br /><br />They looked at each other for a moment as the last of the noise from inside the warehouse died away. Then Bliss turned away, disappearing behind the edge of the roof.<br /><br />Lex scrambled to his feet and ran, trying and failing to comprehend what had just happened.Spherical Timehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02435055266803359329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2280808655296408678.post-2236460904438369732007-11-03T17:48:00.000-04:002008-04-28T01:05:27.968-04:00Episode 16: The HuntMichael stood in the desert in front of her with four of his men. Three of them carried weapons, rifles with long scopes, but one of them had stripped down to nothing but black shorts.<br /><br />It late evening, and it was cold, but Michael had told her that she would be warm enough once she'd changed. Annabelle had still refused to come out of the car.<br /><br />Lia was wearing black shorts and a black top as well, but she was wrapped in a blanket to protect her from the chilly wind. It was late February, but Michael didn't even seem to notice the cold. He stood in his usual black leather jacket hanging open.<br /><br />"Do you understand?" he asked her again, and she nodded again for the fifth time.<br /><br />The man in black shorts was Simon. Mr. Mohan had been waiting for him for nearly a month, but there had been a problem with his paperwork as he crossed the border. He had a funny accent, and he had an odd sense of humor that seemed to drive Mr. Mohan crazy.<br /><br />"Almost ready, lass?" he asked her, and she looked at him. He wanted to change, Lia could tell because of the way he smelled and the way his bare feet scratched at the soil.<br /><br />He was important, but not as important as Mr. Mohan. Annabelle had said that he was rare and special, and that was why Mr. Mohan had flown him all the way from Ireland to participate in Lia's Hunt.<br /><br />She'd been allowed to watch one of Mr. Mohan's hunt. Afterward, in the car on the way home covered with blood Mr. Mohan had explained that sometimes they had animals brought in for the Hunt, but that if he preferred to find an animal that on his own. He said it was harder that way, especially to find something that would feed a tiger.<br /><br />There was a tingle in her neck and she turned to look over the car toward the last clouds. There was silvery light there, and suddenly she could see the sliver of the moon.<br /><br />Automatically she resisted the change, fighting against it, crying out as the pain hit her. Last night she'd managed to stop herself from changing all night, but tonight was different.<br /><br />Simon reached out. "Let 'it come, dearie," he said, in that strange accent of his.<br /><br />She took a deep breath and then stepped out of the blanket, forcing herself to relax into the change as she did so.<br /><br />One moment she'd been Lia, but now she was two things. She was Lia the girl still, but that was all clinging on to Lia the raven.<br /><br />Lia the raven spread her wings and flew off into the night. Behind her she could smell fur and knew that Michael had changed, and something else that she couldn't place.<br /><br />There were some bushed not that far away, and she easily found her footing among them. Lia the girl had read about ravens. They weren't supposed to be good night fliers, but Lia the crow didn't seem to have any trouble.<br /><br />Something moved, and she looked. There was an owl next to her on the branch with huge brown feathers and massive yellow eyes. It turned to look at her, and blinked.<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">Okay there, lass</span>?" said the Simon part of the Owl. It didn't make a sound, but the part of her that was Lia the girl could still hear him clearly. She tried to respond, but when she did Lia the bird struggled against her.<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">Wait, wait</span>," the other bird seemed to indicate and it looked around and then took flight. Raven Lia followed after it, trying to stay quiet in the darkness but not doing nearly as good of a job as Owl Simon did.<br /><br />Lia the raven didn't seem to have a sense of time, and quickly Lia the girl lost track of how long they'd been flying. Owl Simon flew in odd patterns that Lia the raven didn't like. They weren't natural and Raven Lia was hungry but Lia the girl poked at the mind of Lia the owl until they followed along after him.<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">There.</span>"<br /><br />There was more information packed into that word than just the human connotation. It described something that couldn't be put into human language.<br /><br />The Raven lanced down out of the darkness toward an unremarkable patch of gray. Her talons went *<span style="font-style: italic;">tha-thick</span>e* into the fur, and her head came down on the struggling mouse's neck. "Cgrrrr . . ." she croaked. The mouse was still alive, still moving, and she shifted her weight, flapped, and struggled. Under her, something small went *pop*.<br /><br />The mouse stopped struggling.<br /><br />A beat of her wings and she hopped to one side. The Owl was looking at her from a nearby bush, and she watched him warily. It was <span style="font-style: italic;">her</span> kill, her kill.<br /><br />She poked at it, tearing it open, and began to eat from the warm little fuzzy body.<br /><br />Something shivered down Raven Lia's back, under the glossy black feathers. As bits and pieces of the animal were gorged down, something odd was spreading out into her feathery limbs.<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">Lia</span>," the Owl said, but the Raven didn't respond. She was still eating, and eating well.<br /><br />A few more moments passed, and he tried again, "<span style="font-style: italic;">Lia? Lia</span>?"<br /><br />She croaked menacingly, but didn't look up at him.<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">Lia</span>!"<br /><br />She tilted her head up and sideways, staring at him with her left eye. "<span style="font-style: italic;">Simon</span>?" she finally asked back.<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">Yes, it's Simon</span>."<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">I'm eating a dead mouse</span>."<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">Yes</span>."<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">Huh. Why am I doing that?</span>" she asked.<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">Because of the Hunt. Do you remember</span>?"<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">I am Lia. Lia is a human, and a bird. The Hunt</span>. . . ."<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">It is a ceremony to bring your two halves together. You are of one mind now. You can send your thoughts out, just as I can. You can control your changes now, and resist changing with the full moon.</span>"<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">I am Lia</span>."<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">You are. Can I approach</span>?"<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">It is my kill</span>."<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">I will respect it</span>."<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">Then approach</span>."<br /><br />Simon the Owl lifted off his bush silently and drifted down to the ground like a feathery brown snowflake. He tilted his head, and hooted softly, and then hopped closer.<br /><br />Lia looked up at him. He was looking at her, and his mind was . . . creeping toward her, like a spider, and she could feel it coming. Lia the human would have waited to see what he was doing, but the Lia/Raven flicked her mind out at him before he could reach out for her.<br /><br />The Owl stiffened and fell over, struggling against her. "<span style="font-style: italic;">No no no no no no no . . .</span>" the human consciousness howled. "<span style="font-style: italic;">NO</span>!"<br /><br />The Raven kept one eye on him, watching seriously as the Owl flapped and twitched along the dry ground. She pecked again at the dead mouse.<br /><br />Wereism had originally been a curse hundreds of years ago, Annabelle had taught her during her classes. Witches wanted servants, and binding a human body with an animal gave them control over stronger and more powerful servants than normal humans.<br /><br />Then came the wereborn, those born into their powers. They were free of the magical compulsions of the witches, and they had authority and power over others of their kind. They took control of the wereturned, and broke away from the witches.<br /><br />Wereborn.<br /><br />The Owl gave a final spasm and then finally came to a rest in a heap, his perfectly groomed feathers ruffled and dirty from the ground.<br /><br />Lia hopped over to him.<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">Mistress</span>," he said. "<span style="font-style: italic;">Mercy</span>." For the first time she realized that the voice she heard in her head didn't have the accent. Her human mind was just turning it into words because she was used to speaking.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">That will change</span>, she thought to herself and then sent back "<span style="font-style: italic;">There is still some of the mouse left</span>."<br /><br />Slowly, as if exhausted, the Owl rolled to his talons, and painfully hopped over to her kill. He stared at her with one eye for a moment, confirming that it was alright with her, and then pecked at the meat.<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">The other humans will ask about this when we return</span>," the Simon Owl said.<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">What is the answer</span>?"<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">You are strong. I could not dominate you</span>."<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">I dominated you</span>."<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">That is a dangerous thing to say</span>."<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">Why</span>?"<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">Because of the games that werehumans play. They fight for power, if not in their animal skins, than in their human skins. They will see you as a threat to their power. You should not have been able to dominate a wereborn on your first Hunt</span>."<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">Then I will dominate them</span>."<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">All of them? Even Michael? Mohan</span>?"<br /><br />Lia fluttered her feathers. She thought of her sense of Michael, Miss Chi-Wong, and Mr. Mohan. They were powerful, especially Mr. Mohan, and dominating even Simon alone had been difficult. She could hope to dominate them with their extensive experience. Not yet.<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">Then we will not tell them that you are</span> . . ." she sent a concept that her human mind did not know the word for.<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">Subservient</span>."<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">Yes</span>."<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">I will have to go back to my home</span>." Rolling green fields and strange lights and smells accompanied the last word.<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">Yes</span>."<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">But, if you need me . . . you have only to call on me. You are my mistress. When you call I will come</span>."<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">Yes</span>."<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">We should go. They will be looking for us soon</span>."<br /><br />Lia paused. She'd come together now, and her raven senses were now connected to her human mind. In the distance, very far away, she could feel things looking for her, hunting for her. On most she could smell the stick of disgust and hatred toward her.<br /><br />But her feathers would protect her. Nothing that was searching for her could see through the sheen and the reflection of her feathers. She wouldn't have to worry about that . . . yet.<br /><br />Lia hopped closer, pecked at the mouse a final time, and then flapped off into the night toward a waiting Michael and his men, followed by a dusty owl.Spherical Timehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02435055266803359329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2280808655296408678.post-4002922695336565112007-07-15T19:05:00.000-04:002008-04-28T00:54:08.575-04:00Episode 15: Unfinished BusinessLex relaxed back into the couch. It was so cushy that it almost swallowed him.<br /><br />There was a television on in the background but Lex couldn't get invested in the story so he'd come over to the window. Why should he care what the morons on television would do to impress some stuck up bitch? It wasn't like they were going to suddenly fall in love as soon as the cameras went away.<br /><br />The whole hotel room--no, the hotel <span style="font-style: italic;">suite</span>--was loud. There was another television in the bedroom, and even one in the bathroom. Despite the soundproofing he could hear people moving around in the rooms around him.<br /><br />It hadn't occurred to him that Soraperion's dumpy little apartment was so quiet, but compared with the hotel rooms that he'd been staying in recently it had been a silent paradise.<br /><br />There was a knock on the door, and when Lex answered it he found a pizza guy standing there.<br /><br />The guy's eyes automatically flickered past Lex and into the room, and his eyes widened. From the door he could see through the living room with the big fluffy couches and out through the floor to ceiling windows that looked out over the strip. A week ago, Lex would have been even more impressed than the pizza guy was.<br /><br />Lex flicked out a wad of cash and handed the guy a fifty. He could have just stolen the pizza, or Sora could have taken over for a few moments and made the pizza guy forget he'd ever delivered it but Lex wanted to use some of the money he'd picked up. Why have it if you didn't use it?<br /><br />The pizza guy handed him the pizza, and when he looked down at the money he started to object, but Lex just said, "Keep the change" and shut the door in the guy's face.<br /><br />It had been surprisingly easy to get money with the suggestions that Sora's voice provided. With magic, he could make people see what they wanted to see, or sometimes what he wanted them to see. He could go around a casino and skim coins or even chips away from people without being noticed. He could walk through the walls into a bank vault, or just make people give him money. In only a few days he'd built up a few thousand dollars worth of spending money, and that was beyond the money that he'd paid for the hotel suite.<br /><br />There was a stirring at the back of his head, and Sora's voice spoke up. <span style="font-style: italic;">Still awake</span>? he asked.<br /><br />"Yeah."<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Something bothering you</span>?<br /><br />"I don't know. Yeah, I guess."<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Tell me about it</span>.<br /><br />"There was this girl, back before I met Soraperion."<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Reeeeeally</span>, Sora said, and Lex blushed.<br /><br />"Nothing like that. She was only fourteen. I . . . uh, well, I was taking care of her because she didn't have anyone else left. She disappeared from our apartment a few weeks after we arrived in Las Vegas."<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Did she run away</span>?<br /><br />"She didn't seem like the kind of person that would just run away. I thought something bad had happened to her, but I searched around the neighborhood and I couldn't find her."<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Soraperion was looking for his box, you are looking for your friend. What's her name anyway</span>?<br /><br />"Lia. Celia, actually."<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">We'll find her then. I'll show you a few simple locating spells first, and there are always non-magical options. Money talks</span>.<br /><br />Lex got up and got the book out of his suitcase. He'd originally bought it for clothes, but he hadn't bothered to really buy anything other than a a black shirt and a black pair of jeans in one of the stores on the main level of the hotel. He'd never really had money to fool around with before, and he'd spent more on the shirt and pants than he had per month for the apartment where he and Lia had lived in.<br /><br />He laid the book out, and flipped it open. Like usual, the book opened to a set of blank pages in the middle. If you didn't ask it for anything specific, it <span style="font-style: italic;">always</span> seemed to fall open to a blank page.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">We're going to be doing a finding</span>, Sora said.<br /><br />"Findings," Lex said, and the pages of the book blurred until it had reached the right pages.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Most of this is specific stuff for whatever Soraperion was looking for, but we should be able to use it to find your friend as well.</span> The voice seemed to be looking over the pages with him, and it nudged him.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">That symbol is the basis for a finding spell. It looks like a web because that's what it does. It creates a web, and each strand goes off and looks in a different direction. If any of them touch your friend, or come near her, then it will send a message back to the middle of the web, where we'll be waiting for it.</span><br /><br />A symbol appeared in his mind, and Lex dutifully copied the symbol out into the air in front of him, until a web formed in the air.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">De ja vu</span>, Sora said as the search spell begun to take form. Lex paused, remembering how single minded Soraperion had been as he pursued the box, and then shook off the feeling, and continued to follow Sora's directions.Spherical Timehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02435055266803359329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2280808655296408678.post-12988022247468812762007-06-06T16:00:00.000-04:002008-04-28T00:52:05.005-04:00Episode 14: Partial SurvivalLex shivered in the cold apartment.<br /><br />The electricity seemed to died with Soraperion, and now that he was gone so was everything in the apartment. Even the heat and phone had ceased to work.<br /><br />As tired as he was it had taken him an hour to get through the front door. Soraperion had never seemed to lock it, but apparently there had been some fairly heavy-duty magical seals on the door and more protecting the apartment. The ones that were still functioning would prevent people from finding Lex, but he didn't know how long they would last.<br /><br />Everything magical connected to Soraperion was disintegrating. The more complex it was, the faster it dissolved. The car wasn't working any more, and the voice in his head was hanging on by a thread.<br /><br />That was really odd. He'd thought it was Soraperion controlling him. The voice sounded like Soraperion. It had his knowledge, but it wasn't Soraperion. Soraperion didn't seem to be afraid of dying but the voice was terrified of slipping away.<br /><br />Lex had been carrying around the shell pendant for two days, since the night that Soraperion raided the witches mansion. If he even thought about setting it down, the voice would freak out. There were deep marks on his palm now from the rough pattern on the outside.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">We should get moving again</span>, the voice said.<br /><br />"Fuck that," Lex murmured.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">You'll get your second wind and be fine</span>.<br /><br />"I'm already on my fourth or fifth wind. Can't I just go to sleep already?"<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">If you go to sleep, I might not be here when you wake up</span>.<br /><br />"'s fine with me."<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">You don't mean that</span>.<br /><br />Lex sat silently, thinking curse words at the voice.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">You don't mean that either. I can see your underlying emotional patterns as well as your thoughts</span>.<br /><br />Lex groaned, and slowly pulled himself to his feet. His head was blurry and his muscles ached. He hadn't slept in more than forty hours now and he was feeling bad, despite all that the voice had tried to do for him.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Lights</span>, the voice said.<br /><br />Lex sketched the symbol, and murmured the word. Light filled the room, and spread across the bookshelf.<br /><br />The shelves were perfectly visible. It was plain wood, and thicker than it needed to be. It was a normal piece of furniture except for the rows of still shadowy books that were untouched by Lex's weak light. The shadows not only prevented Lex from touching the books, they'd knocked him over onto his broken arm, giving him shooting pains for hours.<br /><br />The voice was trying to get a book off the shelf. It seemed to think that as soon as it got the book everything would be okay. Lex could feel how desperate it was getting.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">We're going to try </span>Leomachand's Unbinding, the voice told him, and provided the symbols.<br /><br />Lex began to carefully sketch with his left hand, but he wasn't nearly as dexterous as he was with his right.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Ach</span>, the voice said suddenly, and the symbols suddenly tattered and faded away into nothingness. <span style="font-style: italic;">You let your hand drop and it skewed the horizontal line there. Let's try it again</span>.<br /><br />"You haven't explained how a book is going to help us here."<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">It will help</span>, it said again for the sixth time. It didn't sound conceded or bitter, just worried.<br /><br />He started sketching again, but screwed up again almost immediately. The voice said nothing, but Lex could feel how upset it was.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Do you want me to take over for a moment</span>?<br /><br />Lex paused. They'd had to do that to get into the apartment, eventually. The voice had surrendered control as soon as they were through the door too. It wanted to be helpful, because it needed Lex's help if it was going to last much longer.<br /><br />"Let me try again."<br /><br />He tried, but with only one symbol to go the entire thing flared and vanished.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Uh-oh</span>, said the voice, and suddenly the darkness spread out from the books and into the room. It grew tentacles of mist like substance and started waving them around.<br /><br />"Uh-oh?" Lex echoed, but the tentacles were reaching out for them.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Quick, you need to cast</span> . . .<br /><br />It was already too late to sketch something though, so Lex just reached out with his other abilities and grabbed all of the writhing tentacles and held them together in a bunch.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Oh</span>, the voice said. <span style="font-style: italic;">That works too, I suppose.</span><br /><br />After a few moments, the tentacles evaporated.<br /><br />"What was that?" Lex asked.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Security, I suppose</span>.<br /><br />"Shouldn't you know?"<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Why would I know</span>?<br /><br />"Aren't you Soraperion?"<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Not really</span>.<br /><br />"What's that supposed to mean?"<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I'm just a fragment of himself that he split off and left behind. I don't have most of his memories, just a bit regarding magic. I'm more you than him at this point anyway.</span><br /><br />Lex shuddered. "You mean you're feeding on my soul, don't you."<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I don't know. . . . Are you still going to help me?</span><br /><br />"Yeah, why wouldn't I?"<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">It's just that I don't think that most people would be comfortable with something else feeding on their soul</span>.<br /><br />Lex shrugged. "I'm not using it."<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Can we try again</span>?<br /><br />"Sure," Lex said, but he didn't raise his hands. "Do you know which book you need?"<br /><br />The voice paused, and Lex could feel him considering the shelf. <span style="font-style: italic;">The black one on the third shelf, fourth from the left</span>.<br /><br />Lex couldn't see the color of the cover in the shadows of the magical bookshelf, but he could see which book the voice was indicating. He frowned.<br /><br />"The spell keeps me from taking books off the shelf, right?"<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Apparently</span>.<br /><br />Lex frowned, concentrated, and gestured. The book rocked back and forth and tipped slowly off the shelf, falling outside of the shadows. It was indeed a black book. To Lex, it looked like a big version of one of those Bibles that people leave in hotel rooms.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Well</span>, the voice said with a surprised tone, <span style="font-style: italic;">I wish you'd mentioned that you could do that before</span>.<br /><br />"What do I need to do?" Lex asked as another wave of exhaustion crashed over him.<span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br />Open it</span>, the voice pleaded.<br /><br />Lex took an unsteady step forward but the room swam. He got down and crawled over to the book, and flicked the cover open.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Can I speak</span>? the voice asked.<br /><br />Lex relaxed a little bit and let the voice come forward.<br /><br />"Transference," his voice said, although he wasn't the one talking.<br /><br />The books pages seemed to move of their own accord, flipping quickly through the pages until they'd reached the correct section.<br /><br />The pages were full of complex runes and symbols. Lex thought he recognized some of them, but most of them were phenomenally complex. He felt something tug on his arm and realized that the voice was silently asking for his permission to take more control. Lex let him . . . it further in until it had the control it wanted.<br /><br />His hand flickered up and began to sketch complicated magic runes that corresponded to some of the symbols in the books. They would glow for a moment, and then some of the shrank down and some of them expanded. It took Lex a moment before he realized where he'd seen something similar. The shell device had looked like that, with multiple layers of magics all working together.<br /><br />He was so tired though, that he couldn't bring himself to be concerned about what the voice was doing, and he didn't want to distract it by asking.<br /><br />The voice was working so quickly, not bothering to explain itself to Alex as it went. Alex tried to listen to the voices thoughts, but the voice seemed to be holding three or four things in its mind at once.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">. . . where the source is isolated from the origin by a dimensional differential . . .<br /><br />. . . paralinear translations are possible, although difficult, but require the influx of additional focii as well as a stable destination matrix . . .<br /><br />. . . into a recursive collapse loop, which is avoidable through the addition of a superintendent actuality . . .<br /><br />. . . structured to utilize the helicoid pattern, as well as the radial ties . . .</span><br /><br />The forming shape looked like a flower, with petals of delicate blue glowing veins.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Alright, it's done</span>, the voice told Lex. <span style="font-style: italic;">Just stick your hand in the middle of it</span>.<br /><br />"Should I say something?"<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I'll do all of that for you</span>.<br /><br />Lex took his hand and placed it in the middle of the pattern. It fluttered like tissue paper in a faint breeze.<br /><br />The voice took his mouth again and began to speak. Only a few words into it he felt a huge rush of power, just like the one when the spell had hit him the first time. Pain seared through ever inch of his body, running along his nerves into the tips of his fingers, his toes, and even down through his optic nerve into the edges of his eyes.<br /><br />The voice was trying to tell him something, but he slipped again into a blissfully dark sleep.<br /><br />He woke up slowly. There was light coming through the slats of one of the window blinds. There was a memory of pain, and the voice shouting something at him.<br /><br />Lex sat up. "Hello?"<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Hello yourself</span>.<br /><br />"You're still there," Lex said, relieved.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><br />Yup.</span><br /><br />Lex paused, and then realized something was different.<br /><br />"I can't hear your thoughts anymore."<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Nor I yours, I'm happy to report</span>. <span style="font-style: italic;">I thought that this might make it easier on the both of us, so I made it so that we weren't so closely tied together. I'm still here, and you can still talk to me, but we aren't quite as mixed together as we were</span>.<br /><br />"What was it that you did? I remember something about transfering something . . ."<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I was Soraperion's spell, which meant that I started to unravel when he died. All I did was move myself so that I'm your spell now</span>.<br /><br />"Oh. OK. Does that change anything else?"<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Not really</span>.<br /><br />Lex pulled himself up and looked around. He tried to look at the wards that surrounded the apartment, but he couldn't see anything there.<br /><br />"I can't see magic like I could last night."<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">You can see it just fine. The wards have completely unraveled now, so there's nothing there to see. Oh, and I think it was two nights ago. You were exhausted.</span><br /><br />Lex sketched a blue circle in the air, and it hung there gleaming in the faint sunlight. "Wait, if the wards are gone . . ."<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">We aren't protected anymore. If you have anything you want to take, get it and let's get out of here.</span><br /><br />The voice only wanted Lex to take a couple of books. He took his dirty change of clothes, stuffed them into an old backpack that he'd found in the hall closet, and then they went out the door. He didn't look back at the apartment once on the way out.Spherical Timehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02435055266803359329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2280808655296408678.post-5108265749804378062007-05-27T00:27:00.000-04:002008-04-28T00:50:07.549-04:00Episode 13: Finders Keepers<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lex lounged on the couch.<span style=""> </span>He'd finally found it a few days ago, and it was more comfortable than his cot.<span style=""> </span>It had been buried under a metric ton of books, but it was real leather and exceedingly soft.<span style=""> </span>Soraperion hadn't even noticed when Lex had shifted the books around so he figured the old mage wouldn't mind.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Soraperion was searching again.<span style=""> </span>Lex could see him through the doorway to the workshop, sitting at the round table in the center of the room with his books spread around him, still tracing runes in the air.<span style=""> </span>The patterns were more complex now than they'd been before, and they were still getting more and more complicated as he worked longer.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lex had finally begun to wonder if he should run away again.<span style=""> </span>Soraperion provided him with some protection, but he'd learned a trick or two since he'd been attacked by Sue.<span style=""> </span>If he could make it out of <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Las Vegas</st1:place></st1:city>, he might be able to escape them entirely.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">It was early in the morning, and Soraperion didn't own a television.<span style=""> </span>Still, he might as well wait for sunrise . . .</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">From the workshop came a yell.<span style=""> </span>Soraperion was standing, and there was something glowing in the air above the books.<span style=""> </span>The runes had contracted into a spherical crystal, and inside was a wooden box.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Soraperion laughed, his grin so broad that tears streamed down his face.<span style=""> </span>"There it is, there it is."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lex stood, coming into the workshop and looking down at the box.<span style=""> </span>"What is it?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Soraperion sighed deeply, still smiling like a clown.<span style=""> </span>"It's immortality, of a kind."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Like a vampire?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"No.<span style=""> </span>Not at all.<span style=""> </span>Have I told you anything about Vampires?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"They won't attack you if they're afraid of you."</p>Soraperion smiled as though Lex had made a joke. "I meant, about where their powers come from."<br /><br />"No."<br /><br />"Vampires are consumed with the hunger for blood.<span style=""> </span>The older and more powerful the vampire, the better he or she will have controlled their hunger and turned it into something that they can use to fuel their abilities and powers.<span style=""> </span>This, though, is something that doesn't require that same damning hunger or impose the same half-life limitations."<span style=""> </span>Soraperion reached out and touched the bubble, which flickered and then vanished. <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Where'd it go?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Soraperion laughed.<span style=""> </span>"That was just an image. A guide to the real thing.<span style=""> </span>So we follow where it points."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Now?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Yes," Soraperion looked around the room, and then down at himself.<span style=""> </span>He was wearing one of his brown work robes and as far as Lex knew he was still working off a few moments sleeping at his bench from the day before.<span style=""> </span>"Get dressed," he ordered Lex, and then swept toward his bedroom.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lex was already wearing his only clean set of clothes.<span style=""> </span>Since he'd moved in with Soraperion he'd only scrapped together one change, and when it was dirty he still wore his old jeans and jacket.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Soraperion returned a few moments later wearing a heavy black robe and carrying a tall silver staff.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Downstairs, the gray car was pulling around.<span style=""> </span>It didn't have a driver and Lex suspected that Soraperion didn't know how to drive at all.<span style=""> </span>How it guided itself was a mystery to him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">They both got in the back seat of the car, Soraperion laying the staff across their laps.<span style=""> </span>Soraperion gestured, and the car set off in the night, and Soraperion made a set of gestures.<span style=""> </span>A circle of pulsing blue runes appeared in the air, and as they drove Soraperion gave instructions to the car, which drove through the darkened streets of <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Las Vegas</st1:city></st1:place>.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Soraperion growled at every red light, and finally, out of the outskirts of the city they reached a gate and the car stopped.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Come along," Soraperion said, and got out of the car.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The gates were iron and heavy, supported by two huge stone posts and walls extended into the grayish twilight on either side.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Soraperion looked up at the gate, and spoke a word.<span style=""> </span>The bars glowed blue white for a moment.<span style=""> </span>He shook his head.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"They have no imagination," murmured Soraperion.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Who?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He gestured at the gate vaguely.<span style=""> </span>"The bars are enchanted."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"So what do we do?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Soraperion walked over to one of the stone pillars that bordered the gate.<span style=""> </span>He turned to Lex and gestured for him to follow.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">As Lex approached, Soraperion cast a spell.<span style=""> </span>Something hit Lex from behind and he stumbled, but Soraperion caught him and pushed him forward at the same time.<span style=""> </span>They stepped forward through the stone.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">There was a roar and something pitch black spun around him, like a swarm of minute bees.<span style=""> </span>He could feel them glance off of his skin and then spin around him.<span style=""> </span>Soraperion pulled him forward and through the darkness, his feet slipping and sliding on what felt like marbles until he fell out in the silent night on the other side of the wall.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Enchanted the gate, but they didn't do anything to the walls," Soraperion said smugly.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lex looked wide eyed at the stone.<span style=""> </span>There was a gaping hole in the stonework, but as he watched tiny pebbles of gray stone gathered back together and resolidified with a murmur.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Soraperion shook one last bit of stone off his cloak.<span style=""> </span>It flew back to the wall and clicked into place, leaving the pillar completely whole again.<span style=""> </span>Then Soraperion turned and started walking up the driveway, and Lex followed along behind.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Do vampires live here?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"No.<span style=""> </span>Witches."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The house came into view around the curve of the driveway.<span style=""> </span>The building was huge, four stories high and it had parapets like a castle.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">There was a circular road in front of the house, and Soraperion walked right into the middle and stood there, looking at the building as though he wasn't worried about anyone seeing him.<span style=""> </span>He gestured, and the circle that he'd conjured in the car reappeared, but now he enlarged it, adding symbols on both sides at once, and speaking forcefully.<span style=""> </span>The noise seemed to be trapped in whatever he was building in front of him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The pattern of lights grew larger, until it was a plate of moving runes three feet across, when suddenly it collapsed together and flared brightly.<span style=""> </span>The box had reappeared, and it was pulsing.<span style=""> </span>As he looked, Lex realized that a trail of blue fire, part of the nimbus that surrounded the box, was slowly flowing off toward part of the building.<span style=""> </span>It was pointing to the third floor, to the left of the door.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Aaaaaaahhhh," Soraperion sighed, and then turned to Lex.<span style=""> </span>"When we go in, I'll be very busy.<span style=""> </span>I want to give you this.<span style=""> </span>If you're in trouble, open it, and it will protect you."<span style=""> </span>He fished something out of his pocket with his free hand, and handed it to Lex.<span style=""> </span>It appeared to be a small shell clasp, like a locket.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"I think I'm prepared then." Soraperion said.<span style=""> </span>"Nothing more to do now except retrieve the box."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He turned back to the house, and they walked toward the door.<span style=""> </span>As Soraperion approached it, he gestured with his staff and something white flashed, and the door disintegrated into dust, blowing backward in a boom.<span style=""> </span>Somewhere in the house a keening wail rose, almost like a baby crying. It wasn't natural though: it never stopped for breath.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Just inside was a darkened room.<span style=""> </span>Soraperion spoke a few words, and lights sprang up, dancing through the hallways until the entire place was filled with brilliant grayish yellow light.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The entryway was huge.<span style=""> </span>It was two stories high, and at the back of the room was a marble grand staircase covered with a red carpet.<span style=""> </span>There was even a crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Someone bounded out of one of the hallways but encountered a ball of fire from Soraperion's staff and crumpled screaming to the floor.<span style=""> </span>Another bolt of white light collapsed the arch of the hallway through which the man had come.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lex stared at the burning figure, suddenly wishing that he hadn't come along, or at least that there was something he could consciously do to protect himself.<span style=""> </span>The scream from the burning body trailed away and the the form twitched a few times before going still.<span style=""> </span>The scent of burned blood washed over him and he gagged and almost threw up.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Soraperion gestured at another hallway and a latticework of iron grew into place through the stonework entrance like a metal creeping ivy.<span style=""> </span>There were voices from that direction but no one appeared through the gaps in the metal.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Don't want to make the same mistake they did though," Soraperion said to himself and swept his staff out.<span style=""> </span>There was another burst of light and this time red and a crimson haze spread out and painted the formerly white surfaces with dark ochre slick.<span style=""> </span>There was a smell almost like burned oil from a car.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Third floor I think," Soraperion said to Lex.<span style=""> </span>"Come Along."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">They went up the stairs, and at the top of the stairs they headed left through an opulent hallway.<span style=""> </span>Lex could hardly stop himself from looking around at the fancy surroundings even though he knew that he should be looking out for more people.<span style=""> </span><i style="">I wish I was rich enough to live like this</i>, he thought to himself, trying to imagine it but failing.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Soraperion's conjured lights were floating in concentrations around one of the doors in the hallway, which turned out to be another stairwell.<span style=""> </span>They climbed one floor, and went through into a darkened hallway.<span style=""> </span>Soraperion summoned more lights, and they continued.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">At the end of the hall was a plain door made of wood.<span style=""> </span>Compared to the others that lined the halls it looked rather ordinary.<span style=""> </span>It didn't even have simple paneling and wouldn't have looked out of place in a warehouse to Lex.<span style=""> </span>Soraperion gestured with his staff again, and there was a boom, but the door didn't budge.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Better," he said and began to cast runes in front of him, spinning them together like thread until he had a knot of them in his fist.<span style=""> </span>He gestured, almost like the glowing ball was a yo-yo, and it jumped forward at the door.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">For just a split second Lex could see the heavy yellow and purple spells glowing spells protecting the door.<span style=""> </span>Soraperion's knot spell splattered against them and the blue runes began to eat through the protection spells and through the door itself like acid.<span style=""> </span>Within a few moments the door was a melting pile of sludge, and Soraperion stepped through.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">There were in a large room, and it was filled with shelves that contained gold, jewels and pieces of artwork.<span style=""> </span>Soraperion gestured, and the heavy shelves pushed out to the edges of the room.<span style=""> </span>At the far end was a tapestry.<span style=""> </span>The mage gestured again, and the tapestry was flung aside, revealing a safe door.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Soraperion examined the door, and frowned.<span style=""> </span>"Very good actually.<span style=""> </span>This is a passageway.<span style=""> </span>Very clever."<span style=""> </span>He looked at Lex.<span style=""> </span>"Stay here.<span style=""> </span>If someone comes in, use the device.<span style=""> </span>Do you understand?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lex nodded, swallowing.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Good then."<span style=""> </span>Soraperion reached out and took the handle of the vault.<span style=""> </span>There was a noise so loud that it flung Lex backward, and a five foot circle around the safe jerked down, pulling Soraperion and the safe out of sight into a black hole that opened up in the floor.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">And then there were a few moments of silence.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lex went over and looked down through the hole.<span style=""> </span>Despite the magic lights that Soraperion had conjured, the sides of the hole were so deep that it vanished into darkness.<span style=""> </span>"Soraperion?" he called and when there was no response, he tried louder.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Nothing.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lex backed away from the hole, and looked around at the treasures that surrounded him.<span style=""> </span>A few weeks ago he could have sold anything in this to pay for Lia and himself to live comfortably for a year.<span style=""> </span>Now the idea of taking something was pointless. Soraperion would care for him, and even if Lex left, he wasn't sure that Soraperion couldn't simply kill him from a distance.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">As he thought about it, he couldn't quite understand why he'd followed Soraperion.<span style=""> </span>True, the mage had taken him in and protected him from the vampires, but breaking into this house, killing those people in the hall seemed extreme.<span style=""> </span>It was wrong. They could sit in jail for years although Lex wondered if the authorities had any prison that could hold Soraperion.<span style=""> </span>Or himself, for that matter.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">There was a commotion at the door that Soraperion had melted, and Lex turned to see a group of people stumble through the door.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Most of them were women wearing night gowns, but one of the women, the one in front, wore black robes that reminded Alex of Soraperion's robes only she wore a yellow scarf around her neck.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">She was short, and a little bit overweight, and she was smiling kindly.<span style=""> </span>She reminded Lex of an aunt that had always been nice to him as a child.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Who are you, dear?" she asked.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lex didn't know what to say.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Hold him," the woman said pleasantly, and two men started out from behind her toward him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lex's fingered fumbled with the catch on the shell device, and for a second he thought he wouldn't get it open before they reached him.<span style=""> </span>Suddenly, his fingers worked the clasp and the two pieces opened.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">There was a spell inside.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The runes were tiny, much too small to be written by Soraperion's fingertips.<span style=""> </span>The glittering thing expanded, and Lex realized that this was by far the most complicated thing that he'd ever seen constructed out of runes and light.<span style=""> </span>There were libraries of letters, and for a moment he could almost make out that each individual rune was composed of thousands of smaller runes.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The spell floated for a moment.<span style=""> </span>Time for Lex slowed to a crawl.<span style=""> </span>It was like the two men were fighting through molasses, but he couldn't look away from the little glowing thing in his hands.<span style=""> </span>He wondered for a moment if it would throw fire at the witches and their men, or if it would act like the spell that had broken through the door.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The spell shivered, flickered, and then poured into Lex.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He screamed immediately from the pain.<span style=""> </span>He was pretty sure that he was unconscious and he could no longer sense the room around him.<span style=""> </span>There wasn't even a satisfactory noise to reassure him that his lungs were fine and working and that despite the pain he was still alive and screaming.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">When things faded back into view, there was a slight blue tint and blur to everything that he could see, almost like he was underwater.<span style=""> </span>A hand flickered up, and the two men coming toward him were thrown back into the far wall.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Meredith Bliss," said Soraperion's voice.<span style=""> </span>"You haven't changed a bit."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"And neither have you, Soraperion," the woman with the yellow scarf said happily.<span style=""> </span>"Still using interesting people, I see."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Do you like him?"<span style=""> </span>Soraperion said, and Lex's hand lifted in front of his face.<span style=""> </span>Lex suddenly realized that Soraperion's voice was coming through his mouth.<span style=""> </span>He tried to move, but as he struggled he realized that he was no longer in control of his own body.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"An untrained mage," she said.<span style=""> </span>"Also an untrained warlock, and perhaps a hint of something else as well.<span style=""> </span>There are not many people that are so many things.<span style=""> </span>It's much too bad he fell in with you."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lex's body shrugged.<span style=""> </span>"I knew that he'd come in useful sooner or later."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Meredith looked back at the people gathered behind her.<span style=""> </span>She gestured five of them forward, two pretty younger women, one older woman, and two men.<span style=""> </span>"Kill him," she ordered them, smiling.<span style=""> </span>"Bybreak, you and Bear are with me."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The people that she'd ordered stepped forward, the women raising their arms and beginning to chant and the men pulling knives out of their coats.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lex felt himself smirk, and he began to struggle again, but whatever had hold of him was not letting go.<span style=""> </span>He sketched out a combination of wind and fire runes, and as they formed under his fingers he spoke a word of power and the simple spell expanded out into a sheets of fire, filling the room.<span style=""> </span>The older witch finished her counterspell in the nick of time, and the flames stopped just short of the women.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">One of the younger women, a pretty brunette, finished with her spell and launched it.<span style=""> </span>It wasn't much of a spell.<span style=""> </span>It would have stopped Lex's heart and he couldn't let her do that.<span style=""> </span>He flicked it back at her and concentrated on the next woman, a blonde, as the brunette stumbled, gasping.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">She was trying something slightly more ambitious.<span style=""> </span>A seething ball of fiery plasma erupted in front of her, and streaked out at him.<span style=""> </span>Lex sketched a barrier rune against fire, and let the ball harmlessly burn against it.<span style=""> </span>He sketched a similar barrier rune but this time added a complex set of energy specifications onto it, and flung it at the opening to the hole.<span style=""> </span>Bliss had been making her way toward it, but now she slowed and was forced to examine the impediment.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The old witch had finally finished her first offensive spell.<span style=""> </span>She didn't want to attack Lex directly, so she dissolved the floor below him instead.<span style=""> </span>Lex could have prevented it, but instead he sketched a set of air runes and flew up as the floor turned to sand below him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Now that he was airborne, there were certain things that he had to guard against.<span style=""> </span>He launched a series of protective spells, and then sent a series of force runes at the women.<span style=""> </span>The older women and the recovering brunette managed to block, but the blonde was caught in the middle of her second spell, a real doozy, and she was slammed back into the wall.<span style=""> </span>Her unfinished spell sputtered and exploded, surprising the brunette, who flinched back and stumbled again but still managed to keep her feet.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The old witch launched a wave of ice at him, but he just swung the fire protection rune around, and her ball of cold was eaten by the blonde's fire spell.<span style=""> </span>Yellow light flared for a moment, and a ribbon of golden light raced out and caught his arms.<span style=""> </span>It was a smart trick by the brunette but not enough to catch him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">A few carefully chosen words dissolved the bonds but by then one of the men was in attack range.<span style=""> </span>He jumped up, stabbing with his knife at Lex's floating legs, but one of Lex's protection spells guarded him.<span style=""> </span>Before the man could jump again, he gestured, and the man dropped his knife, sitting down in the middle of the battle with a blank look on his face.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Bliss was almost through Lex's barrier but from below came a brilliant blue light which filtered through the glowing mesh of the spell and resolved into a creature that resembled a spider, if only spiders had eight scorpion stingers instead of legs and were six feet high.<span style=""> </span>A large man with long dark hair and tattoos, a Native American perhaps, stepped in front of her, and started to defend her with a staff or spear of some kind.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The Brunette had conjured a nifty looking knife from her position still sitting on the ground. She balanced it for a moment while she spoke to it, and then launched it at him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"<i style="">You don't want to do that</i>," Lex said to the knife, which paused mid flight.<span style=""> </span>"<i style="">Aren't you more comfortable back with her</i>?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The knife seemed to realize its mistake and shot back toward the dark haired witch.<span style=""> </span>Whatever spells she'd enchanted it with were effective.<span style=""> </span>It cut through her own protections like butter and thunked into her shoulder with a happy <i style="">splortch</i>.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The second man was almost on him.<span style=""> </span>Lex floated higher, momentarily out of reach and then flicked a fireball at him.<span style=""> The man's </span>protections stopped it just above his skin, but the fire quickly heated the knife to a dull red.<span style=""> </span>He screamed and dropped it, which he seemed to realize was a mistake about the same time his protections shattered and the remaining fragments of the fire burned deep into his skin.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The old woman had been working for a few moments, and she raised her hands.<span style=""> </span>A wave of something black passed over him.<span style=""> </span>It was like all of Lex's hairs were on fire, and on the inside he screamed again.<span style=""> </span>On the outside though, he just smiled.<span style=""> </span>"Not very effective," said Soraperion's voice, and he summoned a slew of firey arrow heads and fired them in her direction.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He glanced over at the barrier.<span style=""> </span>The spider creature was dead, and Bliss, Bybreak, and the Native American were gone.<span style=""> </span>Oh well, nothing for him to do about it now.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The arrow heads had paused inches away from the old woman's outstretched hand, but she was sweating, and the arrowheads hadn't dropped yet.<span style=""> </span>The brunette, even with the knife in her shoulder, managed to gesture and shout something, and the arrowheads all dissolved into smoke.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">As they vanished he sketched out a series of things.<span style=""> </span>Water and air swirled together and were modified with a set of brilliant electricity runes.<span style=""> </span>Lightning flickered out toward all of the women, but it only struck the already unconscious blond woman. He was hoping to surprise them, but another woman, middle-aged and with her red hair tied back with a white scarf stepped forward with just enough time to put up a defense.<span style=""> </span>The bolts of lightning bounced off of her magics and into the shelves lining the walls, vaporizing several expensive looking works of art.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Two against one wasn't nearly a fair fight for the witches, but with the brunette still helping out with defense they were just managing to keep themselves alive against Soraperion's Lex puppet.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Down below there were noises, bangs and booms, and the occasional gust of colored smoke.<span style=""> </span>Inside Lex struggled and struggled, but the spell had complete control of him.<span style=""> </span>With Soraperion's spell inhabiting him he understood the runes though.<span style=""> </span>The magery made perfect sense to him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He also realized that the runes were all Soraperion knew.<span style=""> </span>Everything was done with runes and modifiers and spoken words to add subtle variation and power.<span style=""> </span>Lex had never needed any of that before.<span style=""> </span>The part of Lex's mind that was still Lex looked around the room as Soraperion's Lex looked at the hole after a particularly loud bang.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Behind him on one of the shelves was a golden statue.<span style=""> </span>As Lex's head turned away, he couldn't see it any more, but that didn't matter to what he had planned.<span style=""> </span>He still struggled with the Soraperion Lex so that it wouldn't get suspicious, but he also reached out with his simpler telekinetic powers, grabbed the cow statue and jerked it forward.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">For a second, he was worried that nothing would happen, but suddenly there was a shock and he fell out of the air, sprawling out on the sandy floor and seeing stars floating before his eyes.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">With Soraperion Lex distracted, Lex suddenly found himself winning.<span style=""> </span>One of his arms grabbed his other arm.<span style=""> </span>For a moment, Lex wasn't sure which one he controlled, but neither was Soraperion Lex.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">There was mostly silence in the room though.<span style=""> </span>The witches were looking at each other and at Lex, lying on the floor, his arms clasped together.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Did you do that?" the middle-aged witch asked the older witch.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"I don't think so," the older witch said, looking at him.<span style=""> </span>"Stay back, it might be a trick."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Inside his head, Soraperion's Lex was still struggling with the real Lex.<span style=""> </span><i style="">If you don't allow me to take over, they're going to kill you</i>, Soraperion's voice whispered.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><i style="">They can try</i>, Lex replied.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><i style="">I can protect you</i>, the voice said almost desperately.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><i style="">So can I</i>, Lex bitterly replied.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">A lick of probing fire glanced off of Soraperion Lex's remaining protections, most of which had vanished when Lex had knocked himself on the head.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He sat up, and looked at the women.<span style=""> </span>There were lots of objects around.<span style=""> </span>Behind the women, coins, boxes, statues and vases jumped off the shelves and started pummeling them viciously.<span style=""> </span>The middle-aged witch let a bolt of something fly, but Lex lifted a hand and it glanced off like it had bounced off a mirror.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><i style="">I need to get out of here</i>, Lex thought to the voice in his head.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><i style="">You have to wait for Soraperion</i>.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><i style="">Aren't you Soraperion</i>?</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The voice didn't respond.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Suddenly, the lights in the room flickered and went out and the floor shook.<span style=""> </span>The Soraperion voice in his head suddenly began to buckle and fragment, even though Lex had ceased to struggle with it moments earlier in surprise.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He also felt his understanding of the runes fading away.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Internally, he grabbed the edges of the voice, which seemed to cling back.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><i style="">Help</i>?<span style=""> </span>It suddenly seemed to think at him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><i style="">I need a way out</i>, Lex reminded it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><i style="">This symbol, this symbol, and then say "Yona calla 'hrippe</i>.<i style="">"</i> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex started to sketch.<span style=""> </span>Even with the voice showing him how to move, the symbols didn't come effortlessly, like it had under Soraperion's control. He had to take the time to carefully sketch them so that they wouldn't be ruined.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">As he started the second rune, something rose out of the hole.<span style=""> </span>It was the woman with the yellow shawl and the Native American, and neither of them looked hurt, or even as though they had a hair out of place.<span style=""> </span>Bliss was carrying the box Soraperion wanted in one hand, and a bloody red staff in the other hand.<span style=""> </span>She looked over at the women, and then over to Lex as though surprised to find them both alive.<span style=""> </span>Before she could raise her hands, Lex's fingers finished the final line.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Yona calla 'hrippe!" He shouted, and suddenly the runes flared.<span style=""> </span>Something jerked him straight out of the building through the wall, sending stone and plaster exploding outward.<span style=""> </span>He flew down the driveway, over the gate, and landed heavily in the gravel next to the car.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><i style="">Can you move</i>? inquired the voice.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lex groaned.<span style=""> </span>He tried to move his arm, but he couldn't.<span style=""> </span>For a moment he thought that Soraperion's voice had taken over again, but it was just hanging at an odd angle.<span style=""> </span>He'd hurt it when he landed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Instead of his arms he used his head.<span style=""> </span>His powers dragged him to his feet, opened the gray car's door, and propelled him inside.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The voice said, <i style="">It will only take instructions from Soraperion.<span style=""> </span>Let me use your voice</i>.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex complied.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Home," Soraperion's voice ordered, and the car started and began to drive away from the gate and the house of witches beyond it.</p>Spherical Timehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02435055266803359329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2280808655296408678.post-63250845288316952242007-05-20T00:48:00.001-04:002008-04-28T00:48:09.772-04:00Episode 12: On Display<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lia knew that Annabelle was approaching before she knocked on the door.<span style=""> </span>She could smell the lavender perfume and the faint scent of her conditioner from down the hallway now.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Annabelle would come in the morning, make sure that she was dressed and cleaned up, and then they would do lessons, like a private school just for Lia.<span style=""> </span>In the evenings, <st1:city st="on">Mr.</st1:city> Mohan would often come by her room.<span style=""> </span>He would sit down across the table from Lia and ask her how she was.<span style=""> </span>They would talk for a few moments, and then Mr. Mohan would look into her eyes, say a few words, and leave.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">What the words were depended on the day.<span style=""> </span>"Remember," was common, but so were "Learn" and "See."<span style=""> </span>Often, when he would speak, she felt a rush of something indescribable, and afterward she would feel extremely powerful, like she didn't have to be afraid of anything.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Her ability to smell other people had developed a few weeks back.<span style=""> </span>She's mentioned it to Annabelle, and she suspected that Annabelle had told Mr. Mohan, although he'd never mentioned it directly.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">It was nearly time for Mr. Mohan to come home, but some of the smells were wrong.<span style=""> </span>The cooks hadn't come in, and they weren't preparing dinner yet, which they <span style="font-style: italic;">always </span>did for Mr. Mohan.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Annabelle entered.<span style=""> </span>Lia was sitting at the desk with a paper and a box of crayons.<span style=""> </span>She'd never had one with <i style="">all</i> of the colors before, and it was her favorite thing in the room, even more than the dresses, even though she knew that was probably sort of childish.<span style=""> </span>Today she was drawing a thin figure in a black and red jacket.<span style=""> </span>He was smiling, but not big like Annabelle or Mr. Mohan smiled.<span style=""> </span>It was a thin smile, and even though she'd only seen it once or twice she could clearly remember it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Who are you drawing?" Annabelle asked, politely.<span style=""> </span>She looked.<span style=""> </span>"Your friend again?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lia nodded.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Well, we still haven't found him, but don't worry, I talked with Michael and his people are out still looking.<span style=""> </span>I'm sure we'll find him." Her voice was soothing, but they hadn't found him yet.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lia put the crayon back in the box, careful to make sure that it went in the right spot.<span style=""> </span>Annabelle had showed her how to open all of the drawers, and Lia opened the top one and put the drawing of Lex with all of the others featuring him.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Mr. Mohan would like you to accompany him to dinner tonight.<span style=""> </span>Would you like to do that?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Sure."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"You're going to be going to a very nice restaurant, so you'll want to be on your best behavior.<span style=""> </span>Mr. Mohan asked that you wear something blue, and I thought of that new light blue dress that we bought the other day."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Annabelle went to the closet and Lia followed her.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">About twenty minutes later, Lia was read to go.<span style=""> </span>This light blue dress wasn't as fancy as the dress she'd worn the first day, but it was softer and there was beautiful dark blue stitching around the edges.<span style=""> </span>Annabelle had tied up Lia's hair and put some dark red chopsticks with blue birds to hold it together.<span style=""> </span>When she looked in the mirror, Lia thought she looked like a movie star.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Annabelle brought her downstairs, and then helped her into Mr. Mohan's limo, but didn't get in herself.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Aren't you coming?" Lia asked, surprised. Annabelle seemed to be with her all the time.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"No, not tonight.<span style=""> </span>But Miss Chi-Wong will be there tonight.<span style=""> </span>She'll take care of you."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Annabelle closed the door and the limo set off.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Inside the limo, there were all sorts of cool things.<span style=""> </span>There was a sunroof that opened, although Lia was barely tall enough to see the tops of buildings as they went passed.<span style=""> </span>There was a television, and there was also a phone, and a box of cold bottles of water.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lia flipped through television channels until they reached one of Mr. Mohan's offices, not one that Lia had seen before.<span style=""> </span>As soon as they pulled up, the door opened, and Miss Chi-Wong slid inside, followed shortly by Michael and several of his men, and then finally Mr. Mohan.<span style=""> </span>As they entered, Lia scooted toward the front of the vehicle, until she was pressed up against the glass window to the driver.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">All of them were dressed very nicely.<span style=""> </span>Michael and his men wore tuxedos, Mr. Mohan wore a heavy black coat that looked very expensive and<span style=""> </span>Miss Chi-Wong was wearing a blue-green dress that looked beautiful on her, but looked strange with the briefcase that she was carrying.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Miss Chi-Wong looked at the dress and pressed her lips together, but she didn't say anything at first.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"What did Annabelle say about tonight?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"She said that Mr. Mohan wanted me to come to dinner."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"This is an important dinner.<span style=""> </span>There will be a lot of very important people there.<span style=""> </span>You're quiet, which is good, but if you talk, always say sir or ma'am."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Okay."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Miss Chi-Wong frowned.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Yes, ma'am," Lia tried again.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Mr. Mohan's assistant nodded grudgingly.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Instead of pulling up on a street to let them out, the limo turned into a garage.<span style=""> </span>The driver rolled down his window and talked to a man at a booth, and then they drove through a darkened set of corridors until they reached a place where the room widened and there were pale yellow lights.<br /><span style=""><br /></span>When they stopped, all of them got out of the car.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Two of Michael's men went ahead, followed by <st1:city st="on">Mr.</st1:city> Mohan and Michael, then Miss Chi-Wong, and Lia, and finally Michael's last two men.<span style=""> </span>They swept through the glass doors so quickly that Lia was just on the verge of having to run to keep up.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Inside the building, it was like a palace.<span style=""> </span>The floors glittered like black glass, and the walls were marble and gold.<span style=""> </span>There were huge paintings on the walls.<span style=""> </span>Some of the paintings were just shapes and colors, but others had people, some wearing costumes that made them look very old and some that were naked.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lia's nose got a hint of several strange smells, like oil and eggshells, coming from the paintings.<span style=""> </span>She wondered if they were worth a lot of money. They certainly looked like they were.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Through the grand hall they arrived at a stairway.<span style=""> </span>Michael's men started right up, as though they knew the way, and again all of them followed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">There were men in tuxedos standing at the top of the stairs who hauled open two large metal doors.<span style=""> </span>Beyond, there were lots of tables, filled with people wearing tuxedos and fancy dresses.<span style=""> </span>As the eight people in Lia's group marched by, the people in the restaurant stared at them and some of them whispered to each other.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Only a few of the people looked at Lia, frowning and looking generally unfriendly.<span style=""> </span>Most of them watched Mr. Mohan. Lia felt like she wanted to melt into the floor but Miss Chi-Wong reached out and took her hand and Lia felt a little better, as though she didn't have to worry about the people looking at her. Miss Chi-Wong could handle them.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">They came to the far side of the restaurant, and this time there was a golden door that glowed in the yellowish lights.<span style=""> </span>Mr. Mohan gestured, and two of his men opened the door.<span style=""> </span>The two men behind Lia also fell away, and only four of them entered the room; Mr. Mohan, Michael, Miss Chi-Wong and Lia.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">There was a huge table in the room, much to large to have fit through the doors.<span style=""> </span>Lia wondered how they'd gotten it in, but she realized that it might have been built for this room.<span style=""> </span>It wasn't quite round, it had three sides, each of which looked like it could fit ten or twelve people. There were only three people sitting on each side though, both with a larger figure standing behind them.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The three seated on the left were all women, wearing robes and covered with colored shawls. <span style=""> </span>The closest woman was wearing a bright yellow over her squat frame, and she seemed lost in thought.<span style=""> </span>The middle woman wearing red was extraordinarily average looking.<span style=""> </span>She would have been right at home in a school or a library except for the fancy clothes.<span style=""> </span>The furthest woman from her was thin and wearing a bluish shawl, much darker than Lia's dress.<span style=""> </span>She seemed very familiar but Lia couldn't remember where she'd seen her before.<span style=""> </span>Behind them there was a huge man.<span style=""> </span>He looked like an Indian guide from old western movies but there were patterns tattooed all over his skin.<span style=""> </span>As Lia looked at the tattoos they seemed to shift and change and Lia could almost smell a fifth person under the musk of the man's scent.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">On the other side, to the right of the seats that looked like they were for Mr. Mohan and Miss Chi-Wong, two men and a woman were sitting.<span style=""> </span>The man in the center was middle aged and Asian and very good looking and the woman that hung onto his arm was beautiful and blonde.<span style=""> </span>The other man sitting at their side of the table was younger and white, and there was a slim computer in front of him, and he was typing away.<span style=""> </span>Behind them was a large white guy wearing sunglasses.<span style=""> </span>Lia barely had looked at them when the smell of rotting flesh filled her nostrils.<span style=""> </span>She almost gagged, but managed to restrain herself.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Mr. Mohan seemed to have smelled it as well.<span style=""> </span>He turned back, and ushered Lia forward.<span style=""> </span>She came forward, her eyes watering, but when she touched Mr. Mohan's hand the smell suddenly reduced to a manageable level, as though his presence had pushed it away.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He gestured for her to come up and sit at his right had side, even holding the chair for her.<span style=""> </span>Miss Chi-Wong sat on Mr. Mohan's other side and like the man sitting with the pale people she pulled out a computer and set it on the table in front of her and set to typing.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Mr. Mohan," said the woman sitting in the middle to the left as she looked at Lia, "who is this?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"This is Lia," Mr. Mohan said.<span style=""> </span>"She is under my protection."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The Asian man chuckled.<span style=""> </span>"Have you got yourself a toy, William?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Mr. Mohan smiled.<span style=""> </span>"I'm not nearly as twisted as your associates, Lo.<span style=""> </span>Lia is an heir, actually."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The woman in red exchanged looks with the woman in blue, and looked back at Lia.<span style=""> </span>"An heir?<span style=""> </span>May I inquire as to what her totem animal is?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Lia is a were-raven."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">There was a creaking scrape as the woman wearing the blue shawl stood up.<span style=""> </span>She was looking intently at Lia, and there was a buzz.<span style=""> </span>Lia looked into her eyes and found herself starring into two fiery yellow orbs.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The fire stretched out between them for a moment, washing over Lia and reminding her of where she'd seen the woman before, in the empty parking lot.<span style=""> </span>She remembered flying and the blood on the woman's face as her claws tore into her.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">This time though, there was no love to save her.<span style=""> </span>Instead, something inside Lia struggled to burst out through her skin.<span style=""> </span>She felt feathers everywhere.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><i style="">I can eat you</i>, Lia thought to herself desperately.<span style=""> </span><i style="">I can claw your eyes out</i>.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Then she was back in herself.<span style=""> </span>Nearly everyone was standing, except for Miss Chi-Wong and the dead boy with the other computer.<span style=""> </span>The woman in blue rocked back as though she'd been struck, nearly collapsing into her seat.<span style=""> </span>Behind her, Lia could smell fur.<span style=""> </span>Michael had probably changed partway.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"ENOUGH," Mr. Mohan said before anyone else could move.<span style=""> </span>He looked at the woman in red.<span style=""> </span>"Control your sister, Mistress Bybreak."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The woman in red looked at the woman in blue, who's eyes were still narrowed and looking at Lia.<span style=""> </span>"Belle, stop," she said softly, and the blue woman tore her gaze away from Lia and nodded momentarily. She sat down, and kept her eyes down on the black wood of the table.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lia realized that she was standing too.<span style=""> </span>She sat back down in her big wooden chair, and Michael stepped forward to push it back in.<span style=""> </span>Mr. Mohan sat down next, followed by the dead people and then the women in red and yellow.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"I'd heard rumors that you were looking for an heir," said the woman in red.<span style=""> </span>"A bird, barely a predator at that, is an odd choice.<span style=""> </span>Not one of your spawn, Mr. Mohan?" She sounded polite, but there was something about the way that she said 'spawn' that Lia didn't like.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He shook his head. "Lia is wereborn."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The Asian man chuckled again, but didn't say anything.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"She's young though.<span style=""> </span>How old are you, Lia?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lia looked up at the woman in red, who was trying to conceal her interest.<span style=""> </span>"I'm thirteen, ma'am," she said, trying to sound the same as the woman in red.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The woman in yellow smiled.<span style=""> </span>"She looks younger," she said to no one in particular, but she said it in such a pleasant fashion that Lia smiled momentarily.<span style=""> </span>"And so polite for a young one."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"I think that's enough introductions for today," Mr. Mohan said.<span style=""> </span>"It's time we got down to business."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The woman in red and the Asian man nodded.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Miss Chi-Wong stood.<span style=""> </span>"This meeting is called to order.<span style=""> </span>The Vampires have called this meeting, and control the agenda, but is there any other pressing matter first?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"No," said the woman in red.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Miss Chi-Wong nodded, made a note, and then said, "Mr. Lo."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">As she sat, the Asian man stood.<span style=""> </span>"I'm sure that you're aware through your own channels that the <i style="">plague</i> has reached <st1:place st="on">North America</st1:place>."<span style=""> </span>Mr. Lo nearly spat the word.<span style=""> </span>"As such, there will be major movements of our people in and out of this area for the next month."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"If I recall correctly," the woman in red said, "the last time we sat here you assured us that the Europeans would be the last group of vampires to arrive in the city for some time.<span style=""> </span>I'm beginning to feel nervous about having so many of your people here, Mr. Lo."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"We have followed the proper--," the blond woman started to say, but Mr. Lo gestured for her to be silent, cutting her off.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"I understand your concern," Mr. Lo said.<span style=""> </span>"By way of apology I've arranged for the western District's contract to be offered to the Capriesi family at fifty on the dollar."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The woman in red paused as though she was thinking, and then nodded.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"And for us?" Mr. Mohan asked.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"I have a slightly more . . . long term contract that I wish to negotiate with you.<span style=""> </span>I'd like to send Chris to your office, and let him work out the details with Ming some time this week."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The woman wearing yellow spoke up suddenly.<span style=""> </span>"Uh, uh, uh," she said happily, wagging her finger.<span style=""> </span>"That's within the scope of this meeting.<span style=""> </span>Fess up."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Mr. Lo frowned, but nodded.<span style=""> </span>"I need to hire a team of your boys to patrol a section of my area."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Which area?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Between the airport and 515." </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Mr. Mohan looked at Miss Chi-Wong.<span style=""> </span>"We have two teams available," she whispered, although not softly enough to keep the other two groups from hearing her.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Mr. Mohan nodded at Mr. Lo.<span style=""> </span>"Double standard rate."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Mr. Lo frowned, and then nodded.<span style=""> </span>The blonde woman didn't look happy, either, but the other boy didn't say anything, he just typed away at his computer.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Miss Chi-Wong stood up again.<span style=""> </span>"Any further business?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"I have one thing," said the woman in red.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Miss Chi-Wong made another note, and then said, "Mistress Bybreak?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The woman in red stood and looked around.<span style=""> </span>"Prices are increasing on all markets by five percent."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Mr. Lo looked extremely annoyed and even Mr. Mohan looked upset.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Why?" Mr. Mohan asked.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"The price of oil is going up."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"And that results in a five percent increase?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"It does when your entire product is being flown in private jets."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"<i style="">All of it</i>?" Miss Chi-Wong said.<span style=""> </span>"How is that even feasible?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"The road blocks by the police on I-40 are causing this, aren't they" said Mr. Lo.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The woman in red nodded at Lo, and then turned to Miss Chi-Wong.<span style=""> </span>"Bribing people at the <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Executive</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Airport</st1:placetype></st1:place> is more expensive than at LSV, but it's safer for the families at the moment."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Mr. Lo sat back, but <st1:city st="on">Mr.</st1:city> Mohan leaned forward.<span style=""> </span>"Fuel has increased by three percent this quarter.<span style=""> </span>I think that we would all find that a fair compromise."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The woman in red shook her head.<span style=""> </span>"I think you should check your numbers again, Will."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Three and five."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"For both of you?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Mr. Mohan looked at Mr. Lo, and then nodded.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Three and seven, then."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Mr. Mohan leaned back.<span style=""> </span>"Done."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Mr. Lo winced. "We could make arrangements for I-40--."</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Mr. Mohan looked at him, and shook his head, and Mr. Lo stopped talking.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The woman in red sat, and Miss Chi-Wong stood.<span style=""> </span>"Are we finished?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Both Mr. Lo and the woman in red said yes.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Then this meeting is closed," Miss Chi-Wong said.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Quick as usual," Mr. Lo said as he raised his glass, and suddenly the doors opened.<span style=""> </span>There were people with food all around them.<span style=""> </span>"You're all welcome to stay for dinner, of course."<span style=""> </span>Except Lia noticed that nothing was offered to the dead people except a bottle of something dark that was set in front of the Asian man. Whatever was in the bottle smelled wrong, not like wine at all. It took her a moment to recognize it: Blood.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The three women stood.<span style=""> </span>"Thank you, Lo, but I'm afraid we have other business."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The woman in blue, deprived of the table, kept looking quickly at Lia and then looking away, making Lia uncomfortable, but the woman in yellow smiled at her.<span style=""> </span>"We'll meet again later, dear," she said and they swept out the door.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Can you stand the smell?" Mr. Mohan whispered to her.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">She nodded.</p>"Then we shall stay for dinner. I'll have someone find you a menu, and if there's anything at all that you want, just tell the waiters."<br /><br />She nodded, and looked at Mr. Lo. He was sipping his glass of blood, but his eyes were fixed on her. This night had been about her, she was sure of it, but she still couldn't understand why.Spherical Timehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02435055266803359329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2280808655296408678.post-41878436749449375192007-05-12T13:35:00.000-04:002008-04-28T00:45:23.200-04:00Episode 11: Talking Without Words<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Soraperion sat at the diner table across from Alex, who was watching his hands carefully.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Soraperion hands flickered in the air, as though he was using sign language, but instead of conveying meaning, Soraperion's fingers left glowing runes etched in the air. The longer Alex stared at the symbols, the more familiar each symbol seemed, as if he could name it and its function.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">If he could watch them long enough, Soraperion's hands seemed to suggest that they could explain the universe.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Soraperion himself, however, was not nearly as forthcoming. In the four days since he'd picked up Alex, he'd barely said a hundred words. Alex had given up asking questions, and had taken to watching his hands, and the symbols streaming from them.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Last night he'd tried to do the same thing, and managed to create a few anemic symbols. Unlike Soraperion's dancing shapes that glistened and gleamed for long seconds, Alex's had faded quickly into nothingness.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The server came over, refilled Soraperion's coffee, and asked Alex if he wanted another lemonade. She ignored the symbols, and Alex suspected that neither she nor the other occupants of the restaurant could see Soraperion's magical display. Perhaps they just didn't want to see it, although Alex thought it was hard to miss.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Soraperion had promised to train Alex, but so far there had been nothing of the sort. Soraperion had arranged a bed in the spare room of his apartment, and twice a day he would take Alex to a restaurant, but most of the time he was lost in his magic.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He was looking for something, that much Soraperion's hands and symbols had made clear.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The problem was that Alex couldn't figure out exactly what Soraperion was looking for. Something important, obviously, but even Soraperion seemed to have only a vague idea of what it was. He seemed to be repeating a set of criteria over and over again and the symbols were slowly working their way through the universe to find the object.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex had been starring for hours at the symbols and he finally broke away to blink, and finally noticed someone looking at them.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">It was a woman wearing black.<span style=""> </span>Her hair was pulled back into a dark braid and her skin was unusually pale.<span style=""> </span>She hadn't gotten anything to drink, but had moved over to one of the booths across from Alex and Soraperion and was sitting with her legs up.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex's eyes flickered to the windows and saw that the sun had dipped down under the horizon.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Soraperion," Alex said.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The older man looked up at the woman, and then went back to what he was doing.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Ignore her," he said as his fingers resumed their dance.<span style=""> </span>"She won't bother us."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Why?" asked Alex.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Too his surprise, Soraperion answered his question.<span style=""> </span>"She's afraid of me," he said to Alex.<span style=""> </span>"I doubt that she found us on purpose or she would have brought backup."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">His eyes flickered up from his work.<span style=""> </span>"She's not a very old vampire anyway."<span style=""> </span>Soraperion had purchased an apple from the basket on the diner's counter, but he hadn't touched it yet.<span style=""> </span>Alex had seen him do the same thing before.<span style=""> </span>He would eat the apple later, back at his apartment, between meals.<span style=""> </span>With one hand, he nudged the apple toward Alex.<span style=""> </span>"Take this over to her," he said.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"What?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Take the apple over to her.<span style=""> </span>Tell her that it's a gift from me."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"You're not serious."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"She won't hurt you with me sitting right here.<span style=""> </span>Take her the apple.<span style=""> </span>I want to see what she says."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex reached out, picked up the apple, and then stood and walked over to the woman in black.<span style=""> </span>Her eyes were darting quickly back and forth between Alex and Soraperion.<span style=""> </span>As he approached, she smiled and he saw the elongated teeth and almost stopped but he forced himself to keep going. He didn't want to embarrass himself in front of Soraperion.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">At her table he stopped and reached out, offering her the apple but unable to speak.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"What's this?" she finally said.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"It's a gift.<span style=""> </span>From him."<span style=""> </span>Alex nodded back toward Soraperion.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">She looked down at the apple like it was a snake, and then looked back up at Soraperion.<span style=""> </span>Alex could see the older man look up from his work, nod to her in a friendly fashion, and then look back down at his work.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The vampire swallowed, and for a moment Alex could see the terror in her eyes as clear as day.<span style=""> </span>She reached out, and with a shaking hand she took the apple from Alex.<span style=""> </span>Alex had half expected the thing to explode or kill her, but she just put it down on the table and looked back up at him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Thank you," she stammered.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex stood there for a moment in the uncomfortable silence that followed and then returned to the table with Soraperion.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"What did she say?" the older man asked.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"She said 'Thank you.'"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"See.<span style=""> </span>They can be pleasant enough, if they're afraid of you.<span style=""> </span>I'm sure she won't even report this to her superiors."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Why wouldn't she?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"Her superiors would be very upset with her for just letting us walk away.<span style=""> </span>If she pretends like she hasn't seen us, she won't get in trouble for not killing herself in a futile attempt to fight me."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex looked at the woman, who was still looking at them from across the diner, the apple resting on the tabletop.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"What are you?" he asked Soraperion.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Soraperion's fingers paused again, and he looked up at Alex.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"I'm a mage, just like you, boy."</p>Spherical Timehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02435055266803359329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2280808655296408678.post-8999961793968425372007-04-24T02:06:00.000-04:002008-04-28T00:43:33.986-04:00Episode 10: Claws<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lia awoke in the largest, softest bed that she had ever seen before in her life.<span style=""> </span>Instead of the rough ceiling of the apartment, the bed had a little roof of sky blue cloth above it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">She sat up and looked around.<span style=""> </span>The room looked like it was from a movie.<span style=""> </span>The walls were covered with pale blue and gold wallpaper, and there were big bright paintings hanging on them.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">There room was huge.<span style=""> </span>There were two large windows along the wall to her left, and the sun was streaming through the pulled drapes.<span style=""> </span>To her right was a sitting area with two chairs and a couch.<span style=""> </span>There was a table with a mirror, and a mirror on a stand next to that.<span style=""> </span>In front of her, across the room, was a desk.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">She had to go to the bathroom, and she could see one through an open door to the left of the desk.<span style=""> </span>She used the facilities, came back into the room, and flopped on the bed.<span style=""> </span>Where was Lex?</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">There was a creak at the far end of the room, and a woman entered the room.<span style=""> </span>She was wearing a blue powder suit that went perfectly with the wallpaper and carrying a notebook in her hands.<span style=""> </span>She looked up at Lia, and she smiled.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Hello,” she said pleasantly.<span style=""> </span>“You’re finally awake.<span style=""> </span>Are you hungry?<span style=""> </span>You’ve been asleep for a long time.<span style=""> </span>Five whole days, actually.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lia nodded.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Tell you what then, why don’t you get dressed and we’ll go down and get something to eat for breakfast.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lia looked down at herself.<span style=""> </span>She was wearing long white shirt made of flannel or something similar.<span style=""> </span>“I don’t have anything else.”<span style=""> </span>The white shirt wasn’t hers either, but she wasn’t sure if the woman knew that.<span style=""> </span>She still thought that all of her surroundings could be a dream.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The woman went to one of the doors in the wall, and opened it.<span style=""> </span>It was a walk-in closet, and it was filled with clothes that appeared to be her size.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Why don’t I pick out something for you,” the woman suggested.<span style=""> </span>“What is your favorite color?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Blue.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The woman ran her hand along the shelves for a moment, and she pulled a beautiful blue dress out.<span style=""> </span>It was fancier than anything Lia had ever owned before.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Wow,” Lia said breathlessly.<span style=""> </span>“Wow,” she said again when she couldn’t think of anything else.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“I’m Annabelle,” said the woman.<span style=""> </span>“What’s your name?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Lia.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“It’s nice to meet you, Lia.<span style=""> </span>Is that short for something?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Celia.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“What is your last name, Lia?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Rodriguez,” she said.<span style=""> </span>Annabelle seemed nice enough, and while she helped Lia into the brilliant azure dress, Lia asked, “How did I get here?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“You don’t remember?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lia shook her head, and Annabelle brushed it out of her face.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“I’ll let Mr. Mohan explain that to you.”<span style=""> </span>Lia frowned.<span style=""> </span>It was like a fairy tale, and she was old enough to know that fairy tales were just stories.<span style=""> </span>Annabelle continued on before Lia could ask another question.<span style=""> </span>“You have lovely hair, Lia.<span style=""> </span>I’ve got a ribbon that would look lovely on you.”<span style=""> </span>She ducked back into the closet for a moment and came back with a ribbon that perfectly matched the dress.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">As she tied up Lia’s hair, Annabelle asked about Lia’s parents.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“They’re dead,” Lia said sadly, thinking of her mother.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Who takes care of you, then?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Lex.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Lex?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Alex.<span style=""> </span>He’s been taking care of me since my father died.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Does he live here in <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Las Vegas</st1:city></st1:place>?” asked Annabelle pleasantly.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lia nodded.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“He must be very worried about you.<span style=""> </span>Do you know his phone number?<span style=""> </span>I could call him and let him know that you’re okay.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“We didn’t have a phone.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“An address then?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lia gave her the address and number of the apartment.<span style=""> </span>Annabelle paused momentarily to write in her notebook for a notebook.<span style=""> </span>She looked up and smiled.<span style=""> </span>“I’ll make sure that one of Mr. Mohan’s assistants stops by and makes sure that Alex knows that you’re safe.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Is this where Mr. Mohan lives?” Lia asked, wondering again how she had woken up in this fairytale.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“In another section, but yes, Mr. Mohan lives here.<span style=""> </span>There you go.”<span style=""> </span>She gestured to a mirror.<span style=""> </span>Lia went over to it and looked in.<span style=""> </span>The face staring back at her seemed subtly alien peering out over the blue dress.<span style=""> </span>She hadn’t worn a dress in years, not since her mother died, and even then it hadn’t been a dress like this.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">There was a tap on the door, and another woman peeked through.<span style=""> </span>“Anna?” came the voice.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Come in.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The door opened, and a frowning older Asian woman entered.<span style=""> </span>She was dressed in a black suit.<span style=""> </span>The only color was from her brilliant red lipstick.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“This is Miss Chi-Wong, Lia.<span style=""> </span>She’s another of Mr. Mohan’s assistants.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Miss Chi-Wong nodded stiffly and then said, “Mr. Mohan is waiting.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Perfect timing then.<span style=""> </span>Come on, Lia.<span style=""> </span>Would you like to meet <st1:city st="on">Mr.</st1:city> Mohan?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lia nodded.<span style=""> </span>Annabelle took her hand and led her out of the room.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The corridors fit the room that they’d exited.<span style=""> </span>There was dark wood everywhere and there were paintings on all of the walls, although these were more about battles instead of flowers.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The hallways were wide, and Annabelle led her through them until they arrived at a set of double doors.<span style=""> </span>Annabelle opened one of the doors and ushered Lia through.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">There was a long stone table in this room, and there were a few people sitting around it eating and talking.<span style=""> </span>Two of them were very familiar, and Lia’s eyes were drawn to the one at the head of the table.<span style=""> </span>He had blue eyes and was listening to another man with black hair.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“. . . devaluation of the peso, of course.<span style=""> </span>I don’t foresee any real problem, but I suggest divesting ourselves of what we can before there are any more issues.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The man with black hair finished and the people at the table looked at Lia and Annabelle.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The man at the head of the table stood and approached her smiling.<span style=""> </span>She had seen him before, both times in dreams.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Our guest is awake!” said the man with blue eyes, beaming with happiness.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Mr. Mohan, this is Celia Rodriguez. Lia, this is Mr. William Chander Mohan.”<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Just Will for you, Celia!”<span style=""> </span>Mr. Mohan stuck out his hand, and Lia shook it.<span style=""> </span>“Do you prefer Lia?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">She nodded, nervous again in front of so many new people.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Mr. Mohan looked around, and gestured to the others.<span style=""> </span>“I think we’re done for now.”<span style=""> </span>Most of the people at the table stood, gathered their things, and left, leaving only Mr. Mohan, the man with black hair, Annabelle, and Lia.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“There’s breakfast.<span style=""> </span>What would you like, Lia”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Do you have pancakes?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“We certainly do.<span style=""> </span>Miss Leigh?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Annabelle nodded, and then knelt by Lia.<span style=""> </span>“I’m going to go tell the chef.<span style=""> </span>If you need anything I’ll be just around the corner, okay?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lia nodded again.<span style=""> </span>She left, and Lia turned back to Mr. Mohan.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Welcome to my home, Lia.<span style=""> </span>I hope you were comfortable.”<span style=""> </span>Mr. Mohan gestured for Lia to take a seat at the table, but he stood next to his own seat.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">She nodded.<span style=""> </span>“How did I get here?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Very direct.<span style=""> </span>First things first then.” <span style=""> </span>He blinked, and as he opened his eyes again, everything slowed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">His eyes were an unbelievably pure blue color.<span style=""> </span>The same color that was in the walls and in the sky in the winter.<span style=""> </span>As Lia looked into them she felt swept away, as though there was a rush of water pouring out of him and filling the room with torrents of bitterly cold water.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Remember,” Mr. Mohan said, and Lia did.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Oh,” she said.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Mr. Mohan had obviously expected something more.<span style=""> </span>She looked at him, and found that his shoulders had tightened.<span style=""> </span>The other man, the one with black hair, was also starring at her intently.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“I flew here,” Lia said.<span style=""> </span>“I was a bird.<span style=""> </span>A raven.”<span style=""> </span>She could remember everything perfectly now.<span style=""> </span>The air along her feathers, and the first time she’d seen him on the terrace.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“That’s right.<span style=""> </span>You are a wereraven, a person that can change form, as are Michael and I.<span style=""> </span>That makes you very special, Lia.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lia sat for a moment as the last bits of her memories solidified and came together.<span style=""> </span>“Why couldn’t I remember before?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“You were too wild.<span style=""> </span>Eventually you will learn to master it yourself but at the moment I have mastered it for you.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">She could remember the cage now.<span style=""> </span>They’d caged her when they brought her here.<span style=""> </span>She’d even seen the cage on a table in the hallway outside of her room but hadn’t recognized it at the time.<span style=""> </span>“Are you holding me prisoner?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“You are an honored guest, Lia.<span style=""> </span>We do request that you stay until you understand your gifts and abilities, but after that you are free to go if you wish.<span style=""> </span>If you wish to stay, you could do that as well.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“What about Lex?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Who is Lex?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“He was the one taking care of me.<span style=""> </span>He’s having trouble finding work.<span style=""> </span>Could you help him find a job?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Mr. Mohan nodded.<span style=""> </span>“Did you tell Annabelle?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Yeah.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Annabelle will send someone to find him and invite him to come here.<span style=""> </span>Once I have met him, I will see what I can do. Until then, you have much to learn.<span style=""> </span>I tried to awaken your mind when you came to me on the full moon, but you fell asleep instead.<span style=""> </span>If you are to be safe, you need others of your own kind around.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Are you also a . . . wereraven?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“We are lycanthropes, but not wereravens.<span style=""> </span>I am a weretiger and Michael is a werewolf.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Really?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Mr. Mohan gestured to Michael.<span style=""> </span>Michael stood, pushed his chair back in, and then came around the table.<span style=""> </span>Lia twisted to look at him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Michael shivered, and suddenly he dropped down.<span style=""> </span>He shivered, and suddenly there was wolf, nearly as tall as Lia’s shoulder and covered with black fur.<span style=""> </span>Its eyes were gold.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lia looked at it wonderingly and then reached out slowly.<span style=""> </span>Michael bared his teeth but Lia ignored him.<span style=""> </span>He looked at Mr. Mohan and then back at her and allowed her to run her hand through his fur.<span style=""> </span>It was very thick and coarse and he smelled funny, like ink from a printer almost.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Good girl,” Mr. Mohan said proudly.<span style=""> </span>He gestured, and Michael backed away and became human again.<span style=""> </span>He returned to his chair without saying another word.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Why weren’t you frightened?” Mr. Mohan asked Lia.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“He wouldn’t have hurt me.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Michael is many things, but safe is not one of them.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lia frowned.<span style=""> </span>“He knew that you were watching.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“That he did.<span style=""> </span>You are a brave girl, none the less.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“What happened to his clothes?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Michael is unusually skilled in that regard.<span style=""> </span>His clothes become part of his wolf form, and then change back when he becomes human again.<span style=""> </span>I cannot change with clothing, and neither can most shape shifters.<span style=""> </span>All of us have different skills.<span style=""> </span>For instance, I can do this.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He held up his hand, and the fingers changed shape, becoming vicious looking pale claws with silver fur running along his hand.<span style=""> </span>“Some of us are able to partly change or to gain certain attributes from our avatars when we are still human looking.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“What can I do?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“We don’t know yet.<span style=""> </span>We’ll learn that as we go along.<span style=""> </span>Tell me, Lia, were you ever attacked by a raven?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lia shook her head.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Are you sure, not even when you were an infant?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lia shook her head again.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“There are some people that are born lycanthropes.<span style=""> </span>I am one.<span style=""> </span>They tend to be very powerful.<span style=""> </span>Did you ever see one of your parents do anything unusual?<span style=""> </span>Heal from a cut or burn very quickly, or change shape?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“No.<span style=""> </span>But . . . I don’t remember my mother very well.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“What about your father?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lia bit the inside of her lip but said nothing.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Mr. Mohan paused, and then smiled.<span style=""> </span>“Never mind that for now, then.<span style=""> </span>I would like to instruct you.<span style=""> </span>There is a month before the next full moon, and you will feel compelled to change then.<span style=""> </span>Hopefully you will be prepared before that time.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Annabelle re-entered the room, and held the door open for a Hispanic man carrying a tray of food.<span style=""> </span>There were pancakes and fruit, as well as yogurt in a tall glass dish and a huge glass of orange juice.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“I’m sorry, but I must go.<span style=""> </span>I have much business to attend too.<span style=""> </span>We will talk later, Lia.<span style=""> </span>Until then, if there is anything you need, Annabelle will be happy to provide it for you.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Thank you,” said Lia automatically.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Mr. Mohan and Michael both left.<span style=""> </span>Michael nodded to her politely as he passed her, but he didn't look happy.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">When they left, Lia began to eat, but she was still wondering where Lex was.</p>Spherical Timehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02435055266803359329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2280808655296408678.post-43486443285377758132007-04-15T18:30:00.000-04:002008-04-28T00:41:35.433-04:00Episode 9: Out of the Frying Pan<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex walked along the alley toward the coffee shop with his shoulders hunched and the hood of his jacket up.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Someone stepped out of the darkness in front of him, and Alex stopped dead.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Hello freak,” said <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Cali</st1:city></st1:place>.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex turned, but the other end of the alley was already filled with two guys as big as <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Cali</st1:city></st1:place>, and they were coming toward him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Cali</st1:city></st1:place> wasn’t approaching him though.<span style=""> </span>He was smiling and showing his teeth, which were normal enough, but something resolved out of the darkness behind him.<span style=""> </span>It was a woman, thin and Asian, with short black hair.<span style=""> </span>She was wearing something tight and black that gleamed when she moved.<span style=""> </span>She was very beautiful.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Is this him?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Cali</st1:city></st1:place> nodded.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“He doesn’t look so tough.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“He nearly killed Martin.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The woman laughed, but she did it without taking her eyes off of Alex.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“You are Martin’s type,” she said, looking him over.<span style=""> </span>“Maybe a little on the old side though.”<span style=""> </span>She smiled.<span style=""> </span>Her teeth were not normal.<span style=""> </span>She had fangs.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">She moved, walking toward him, and Alex realized that she didn’t make any noise when she moved.<span style=""> </span>She glided along the darkened alley way, but around Alex instead of toward him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Who are you?” she asked.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex didn’t say anything.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“<st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Cali</st1:city></st1:place> told me that your name is Lex.<span style=""> </span>Is that right?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex nodded.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“My name is Sue.<span style=""> </span>Do you belong to one of the other factions, Lex?<span style=""> </span>The Ladies or the Wolves?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He shook his head.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“You aren’t a Hunter,” said Sue.<span style=""> </span>She smiled again, and Alex wanted to shiver.<span style=""> </span>“You are very good at avoiding us though.<span style=""> </span>Most people wouldn’t last a day with an entire clan of Vampires looking for them.<span style=""> </span>How long has it been for you?<span style=""> </span>Six days now?<span style=""> </span>Amazing.<span style=""> </span>You must be quite exceptional.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex took the time while she was speaking to look around.<span style=""> </span>The buildings were older, made from concrete.<span style=""> </span>There were no doors, windows, or even ladders.<span style=""> </span>There were a few dumpsters behind Sue and <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cali</st1:place></st1:city>, but none of them was tall enough to allow him to reach a roof.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">When he didn’t respond, Sue continued.<span style=""> </span>“Why don’t you come with me, Lex?<span style=""> </span>We could always use someone like you.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">She was doing the same thing that Martin had done.<span style=""> </span>Her voice was hypnotic, but as soon as he’d seen the fangs he’d expected something of the kind.<span style=""> </span>She had been beautiful before but now she was stunning.<span style=""> </span>She smiled and Alex wanted to smile back.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He had to distract her.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The lid of one of the dumpsters behind Sue lifted up, and then dropped back down, banging loudly.<span style=""> </span>Lex didn’t wait to find out if she was distracted.<span style=""> </span>He ran for the two people blocking off the other end of the alley.<span style=""> </span>Hopefully they were just human.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">They didn’t smile or show their teeth as he approached him, but they raised their arms.<span style=""> </span>Lex ran straight into the nearest one, kneeing him in the gut.<span style=""> </span>He fell over.<span style=""> </span>The second guy approached, and Lex snapped his hand forward and up.<span style=""> </span>They guy raised his arm instinctively to protect his eyes, and Lex kicked him in the nuts.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Easy enough.<span style=""> </span>He started forward but Sue was standing there, quite calmly, watching him and blocking his exit.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Beautiful,” she said. “You’ve met one vampire and you’re already nearly immune to our call.<span style=""> </span>You would make a powerful subordinate.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“A what?” he said before he could help himself.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“<st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Cali</st1:city></st1:place>, Francis, and Drake here are all . . . minions.<span style=""> </span>They aren’t vampires, but they share in a bit of our power.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“I don’t want that.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Perhaps then you would like to become immortal yourself then?<span style=""> </span>A vampire?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lex shook his head.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Too bad,” Sue said.<span style=""> </span>Then she rushed him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">She was extraordinarily fast.<span style=""> </span>Lex threw himself back and still barely managed to avoid her first punch.<span style=""> </span>His body felt like it was trapped in glue, but that didn’t matter much.<span style=""> </span>She jerked away from him like she’d been caught by a fishhook, and was thrown across the alley into the far wall.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lex stepped forward.<span style=""> </span><st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cali</st1:place></st1:city> was standing away from them with his hands in his pants.<span style=""> </span>When he saw Lex starring at him, he took a step back, his eyes wide.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The other two humans were getting up though, so with a flick of his hand Lex sent Sue flying into them, sending them all sprawling.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The two humans went back down as the thin vampire collided with them, but Sue rolled, and came up standing.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">She was smiling.<span style=""> </span>“Better,” she said.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">And then something hit him from behind.<span style=""> </span>Lex started to twist, but whatever it was hit him again, harder, knocking him down.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">It was a paint can, floating in the air.<span style=""> </span>It came for him again, but he caught it with his own powers.<span style=""> </span>From the other side of him, Sue had drawn a knife from somewhere in her clothing.<span style=""> </span>She flicked it up and then threw it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He managed to catch that too, but as he did so he let go of the paint can, which immediately attacked him again, and the knife struggled in his mental grip, trying to get through to him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Telekinesis does not particularly impress me,” Sue said.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lex raised an arm to ward off the paint can, which was battering him, and tried to concentrate on multiple things at once.<span style=""> </span>The knife shivered, but Sue wouldn’t let go of it.<span style=""> </span>However, one of the men at her feet suddenly jerked up, as though he'd been yanked by a set of puppet strings, and lunged at her.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Sue threw the minion to the side, and he impacted with a sickening crunch on the alley wall.<span style=""> </span>The second one had risen, but before he could be hurled at her, Sue was past the figure, leaping for Lex.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lex dropped the man, and tried to catch her, but she was forcing herself forward with her own telekineses, toward him.<span style=""> </span>Her mouth opened wide, wider than should have been possible, and she hissed at him.<span style=""> </span>Reflexively Lex brought up the knife with his left hand and slammed it into her.<span style=""> </span>Whatever concentration she needed to maintain her powers vanished and she dropped down out of the air.</p>Lex paused, breathing heavily. A human wouldn't have been able to survive that.<br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Sue rolled over and then slowly rose at an impossible angle like vampires in movies did until she was standing again.<span style=""> </span>The knife had been driven to its hilt into her shoulder, just below her breastbone.<span style=""> </span>She smiled at him, reached up, and then pulled it out.<span style=""> </span>It wasn’t even bloody, and the wound healed as Lex watched.<span style=""> </span>“The knife is silver,” she said.<span style=""> </span>“Silver can’t hurt vampires.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“I’ll remember that,” Lex promised, and then dropped the dumpster than he’d been silently maneuvering twenty feet above her.<span style=""> </span>Sue barely had time to look up as the thing came down, and it crushed her into the pavement.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Down the alley Cali</st1:city></st1:place> turned and ran away from Alex. Alex ran too, in the opposite direction.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He barely reached the end of the block when more shapes materialized out of the darkness.<span style=""> </span>He looked down the cross streets, but there were figures on all of them.<span style=""> </span>Standing, looking at him.<span style=""> </span>If they were all vampires, or even if one in five was a vampire, Alex was in trouble.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He was straining for breath, like he’d picked up the dumpster and carried it forty feet on his back, he wouldn’t be able to run very far. He needed to find some place to hide, but with so many of them out there . . .<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Suddenly there was a gray car.<span style=""> </span>It avoided the dark shapes in the streets and pulled up about twenty feet in front of him. The vampire minions had paused as it appeared, and were now waiting to see what was going to happen.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The man that stepped out of the back door of the car was familiar.<span style=""> </span>He was large, but older, and he was wearing thick black robes.<span style=""> </span>He looked around at the shapes, and said quite clearly, “I think the vampires are interested in you, boy.<span style=""> </span>Perhaps you should come with me.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Sue was there.<span style=""> </span>Part of her face was torn off, and her left hand hung limply at her side, but it was definitely her.<span style=""> </span>“He’s mine.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The large man looked at her.<span style=""> </span>“I claim him.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“For what faction?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The man rolled his head back and laughed.<span style=""> </span>“I do not belong to one of your silly little factions.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Sue’s bloody lips peeled back from her fangs, and she hissed again.<span style=""> </span>“No faction, no protection.<span style=""> </span>You will hand him over to me if you do not want to face the wrath of the vampires.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The man laughed again, and then he held up his hand.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">There was nothing in his hand, but he held it cupped as though there was something.<span style=""> </span>There was a momentary pause and Alex felt a huge rush of something.<span style=""> </span>It seemed to come from everywhere, as though a wave was crashing around him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">And then, in the man’s upraised hand, a tiny little light flickered to life.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Sue’s eyes widened, and she screamed “One of the Five!”<span style=""> </span>Then she took a step back.<span style=""> </span>She was standing in the street, but the shadows seemed to surge up around her, and when they settled back she had vanished completely.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The little brilliant pinprick of light glistened for a moment and then suddenly it flared into a roaring sphere of light, illuminating everything as though it was day for a moment.<span style=""> </span>Several of the other shapes had turned to run when Sue had shouted, and others had just vanished completely, but all of the ones remaining in the light started to shriek in pain.<span style=""> </span>For a few moments there were twelve figures standing in the roads crying out, and then they were dust, leaving Alex and the large man alone in the street.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“What did you do?” asked Alex.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“It’s a nifty trick.<span style=""> </span>I’ll show you how to do it, if you want.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Who are you?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“I am Soraperion.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“I’m Lex.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“They may be gone at the moment, but perhaps we should leave.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Smile,” Lex said seriously and after a pause added, “please.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Why?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“So I can see your teeth.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“There are better ways to tell vampires, but that will do for now.”<span style=""> </span>Soraperion smiled, showing off his teeth.<span style=""> </span>They were normal.<span style=""> </span>“Will you come with me now?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lex nodded, and he followed Soraperion into the car.</p>Spherical Timehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02435055266803359329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2280808655296408678.post-84403745265432843682007-04-08T03:44:00.000-04:002008-04-28T00:39:24.380-04:00Episode 8: The Bus Stop<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">It was almost sundown and he was worried that he wouldn’t get back to the apartment in time.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The boys from the drag had been watching his window as soon as the sun had set for the last two days.<span style=""> </span>They hadn’t tried to get into his apartment yet, but it had only been a matter of time before they caught him out after dark.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex sat in the hard plastic seat of the bus, holding the black feather gently in his fingers.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He was still worried that they had been the ones that taken Lia.<span style=""> </span>What if Martin had taken her?<span style=""> </span>He shuddered.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He didn’t think that they had.<span style=""> </span>Martin didn’t seem like the little girl type, and it hadn’t been until the next night that one of the boys followed him back to the apartment and they had started the night vigil outside of his window.<span style=""> </span>If they had, they would have used it against him.<span style=""> </span>Offered her back if he would come out, but they hadn’t done that either.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He only had two more nights before he had to be out, and he still didn’t have the money.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex could survive on the street, as long as the guys from the drag didn’t get him.<span style=""> </span>He had before.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Everything was supposed to have changed with Lia.<span style=""> </span>Everything was supposed to have been better.<span style=""> </span>Maybe if they’d used the money to buy bus tickets.<span style=""> </span>Maybe he should have left Lia in the garage, to be found by the police.<span style=""> </span>What had he thought he was doing?</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He’d thought he was protecting her.<span style=""> </span>Alex had convinced himself that he could, and he hadn’t been able to protect her.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He’d spent the last two days looking for her.<span style=""> </span>His feet were sore from all of the walking, and he knew every shopkeeper within a block and every tenant of the building by sight.<span style=""> </span>He’d searched every alley, and today he’d even ridden up to The Strip and walked all of the places that they’d visited looking for her.<span style=""> </span>Except for the MGM amusement park.<span style=""> </span>He didn’t have enough money for entry anymore.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">There had been black feathers in her bed, and when he he’d searched through the drawers next to the bed he found a few more.<span style=""> </span>If it was a message, it wasn’t one that he understood, and he couldn’t think of what else it could be.<span style=""> </span>Why feathers?<span style=""> </span>Why so many of them?<span style=""> </span>There were eight, altogether, and he’d wrapped them into a bundle and kept them in his jacket pocket.<span style=""> </span>When he found her, he would give them back to Lia.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">It was going to be too late.<span style=""> </span>The sun was sinking too fast.<span style=""> </span>He wouldn’t have time to walk back from the bus stop.<span style=""> </span>Damn it.<span style=""> </span>What if Lia came back looking for him?<span style=""> </span>He wouldn’t be there.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">There was nothing he could do about that now.<span style=""> </span>If he tried to get back to the apartment, Martin’s boys would find him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">When the bus stopped at the station that would lead back to his apartment, he stayed seated, but he twisted to look back toward the dark building where they’d lived.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><i style="">I’m sorry Lia</i>, he thought to himself.<span style=""> </span><i style="">I’m sorry</i>.</p>Spherical Timehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02435055266803359329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2280808655296408678.post-85512541576688192802007-03-31T04:07:00.000-04:002008-04-28T00:40:12.422-04:00Episode 7: Loss<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sexual Content Warning</span>, if you care about stuff like that</span>.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex carefully watched Lia, and when he was sure that she was asleep, he put on his jacket and slipped out of the building.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“The drag” was between rows of warehouses.<span style=""> </span>A set of streetlights ran down the center of the unfinished median, so that customers could see the merchandise along the edges, and then retreat into the darkened side streets for the transactions.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">It had just been chance, that the apartment that he had found was so close to the drag.<span style=""> </span>Or at least this version of the drag.<span style=""> </span>There was another one for the female hookers, and there was another area for more “exotic” tastes.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex had been nervous all day, but for the last few days he hadn’t even managed to get someone to listen seriously to him, and the money was running out.<span style=""> </span>Rent was due again in only a few days, and he needed more time to find a job.<span style=""> </span>There had to be something out there to do.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He licked his lips as he saw the lights of the drag, and then he turned the corner.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">There were a few guys standing around, some of them in the light, and some standing in the shadows of the buildings.<span style=""> </span>There were a few cars, trolling back and forth, stopping beside one of the boys.<span style=""> </span>They would talk for a few moments, and then the kid would either get into the car, or the driver would move on, looking for something more his tastes.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex hadn’t worried about what to wear.<span style=""> </span>The t-shirt and the jeans were all that he had.<span style=""> </span>Some of the boys wore tighter pants, but Alex realized that he didn’t look entirely out of place.<span style=""> </span>The only thing was, they moved differently than he did.<span style=""> </span>Alex noticed things like that, after the years on his own.<span style=""> </span>To them, it was no big thing anymore.<span style=""> </span>This was their workday.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex moved into the light, and started walking along the alley, and tried not to think about what he was doing.<span style=""> </span>If it was daytime, and he was walking home to Lia, everything would be okay.<span style=""> </span>All he had to do was pretend that nothing was going to happen.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">With his hands in his pockets, he pulled the jacket tighter, trying to pretend that he was cold.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The guys walking the drag looked up at them as he passed.<span style=""> </span>Some of them looked really young, babies compared to him.<span style=""> </span>The youngest ones, the ones that were fourteen or fifteen, were the ones wearing the most colorful outfits, and Alex couldn’t look them in the eyes.<span style=""> </span>They were Lia’s age.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Two of the older guys stepped out of the shadows.<span style=""> </span>The first one was nothing special.<span style=""> </span>He might have been around Alex’s age, or maybe a year or two older.<span style=""> </span>He was thin, with blondish hair.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The other guy was out of place.<span style=""> </span>He was Hispanic, with slick back hair, wearing a thin black wife beater, showing off a set of arms as big around as Lia’s waist.<span style=""> </span>He looked like he spent all day in a gym.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex’s eyes flickered around.<span style=""> </span>The other guys trying to work the strip were looking away, and some had stepped back into the shadows.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Who are you?” the big guy asked.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Lex.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The big guy reached out as he approached, and gave Alex a shove, sending him sprawling backward in the street.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“You’re on our turf,” the thin one said.<span style=""> </span>“You can’t work the drag without permission.<span style=""> </span>Can he, <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Cali</st1:city></st1:place>?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Nope,” the big guy said, and kicked him in the side.<span style=""> </span>Alex gasped, and curled up into a ball.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Stop!” he shouted as <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cali</st1:place></st1:city> drew his leg back again.<span style=""> </span>The kick never came.<span style=""> </span>“How do I get permission?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“We’ve got a smart one here,” the thin one said.<span style=""> </span>“You want to talk with Martin.”<span style=""> </span>He pronounced it “Marteen.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Are you Martin?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The thin one laughed.<span style=""> </span>“I’m Crazy K.<span style=""> </span>But you look like Martin’s type.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cali</st1:place></st1:city> grabbed his jacket and pulled him to his feet.<span style=""> </span>Alex’s eyes were still watering with pain.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Crazy K pointed, and when Alex didn’t step forward right away <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cali</st1:place></st1:city> bent his wrist and forced Alex forward.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">There was a light in this alley, and Crazy K knocked a few times on the door, and then opened it.<span style=""> </span><st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Cali</st1:city></st1:place> pushed Alex again, making him stumble over the step into the room.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex had expected a warehouse with boxes, but he found himself in a red office.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Everything was crimson.<span style=""> </span>The large desk to his right was stained a brilliant ochre, and the walls were hung with a blood red fabric that gleamed like velvet.<span style=""> </span>Aside from the desk, there were couches, three of them in varying cherry hues, and a few chairs.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">There was a kid on the couch closest to Alex.<span style=""> </span>He was on the younger side, and he had dark hair.<span style=""> </span>His eyes were closed and his mouth was open slightly, and his arm dangled down to the floor.<span style=""> </span>He looked almost like he was asleep.<span style=""> </span>Alex noted that his pants were unbuttoned and felt his stomach tighten.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Who is this?” a voice like butter said.<span style=""> </span>Alex’s attention shifted up and he found himself looking at a man, dressed entirely in red and black.<span style=""> </span>The clothing looked old, like he’d stepped out of a history book or a costume party.<span style=""> </span>He had long hair, pulled back in a ponytail, and pale skin.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“I’m Lex,” he bit out.<span style=""> </span>This was Martin, it had to be.<span style=""> </span>And Martin had the most interesting eyes that Lex had ever seen.<span style=""> </span>You kept eye contact on the street to challenge, but looking into Martin’s eyes he couldn’t look away.<span style=""> </span>Martin was so perfect looking, so powerful, that Alex just needed to look at him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“He wanted to work the street,” Crazy K said.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Martin flicked his wrist, and Crazy K was suddenly gone, leaving Martin, Alex, and the unconscious boy on the couch alone.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“You a runaway, Lex?” Martin asked.<span style=""> </span>He had an accent, but Alex didn’t know it.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Yeah,” he said, and it was the truth.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“You need money?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Yeah.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“And so you came out to the drag?<span style=""> </span>Why did you come all of the way out there?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“I couldn’t find another job, and the rent is due in a few days.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Oh, that’s terrible!” Martin said, and Alex felt so embarrassed.<span style=""> </span>He’d resorted to selling himself to make the rent.<span style=""> </span>Martin must think that he was such a pathetic failure.<span style=""> </span>He lowered his eyes, tearing up. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Don’t cry!” Martin said, and he reached out, raising Alex’s chin.<span style=""> </span>His skin was cold to the touch, as though he’d been outside only moments before.<span style=""> </span>“Don’t cry little brother.<span style=""> </span>You can work for me.<span style=""> </span>Wouldn’t you like that?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex nodded.<span style=""> </span>Working for Martin would be so wonderful, and he could keep his apartment and protect Lia, and everything would work out.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Let me see you, little brother,” said Martin and his fingered Alex’s coat.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“You want me to . . . get naked? In here?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Don’t you want to let me see you, Lex?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex did.<span style=""> </span>He unzipped the coat, Martin pointed to one of the empty couches, and Alex let it drop.<span style=""> </span>He pulled off the t-shirt, underneath, and for the first time realized how warm it was in the office.<span style=""> </span>He let that fall on the couch as well.<span style=""> </span>He kicked off his sneakers, and then peeled off his socks, scrunched them up, and stuffed them in his sneakers.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He reached for the button of his jeans, and stopped, frozen. Martin had taken a step back, but his eyes seemed to be everywhere.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Are you nervous, little brother?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex nodded.<span style=""> </span>He wanted to say something, but his teeth were so tightly pressed together he thought his jaw would break.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Don’t be nervous, little brother.<span style=""> </span>After all, if you want work for me, you’ll have to do more than this.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex took a deep breath, and undid the button.<span style=""> </span>With one motion he pulled down his pants, and the shorts underneath, and then stepped out of them, leaving himself naked in the middle of the room.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Martin released his breath, almost like a sigh. “See, that’s not bad, is it Lex?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lex shook his head.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Martin moved forward slowly, and caressed Alex’s cheek with his hand, and Alex shivered.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“What do you want to do, Alex?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“I . . . want to please you.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Oh, that’s wonderful.<span style=""> </span>And what would you do to please me?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Anything.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Martin’s hands slid down his sides, still as cold as ice.<span style=""> </span>Alex wanted them to warm up soon, but he couldn’t say anything.<span style=""> </span>Martin wanted Alex to please him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Anything?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex struggled to agree, but again he felt himself at a loss for words.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Lie on the couch.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex walked to the couch, feeling his body flaunt itself in Martin’s vision, and lay down in it.<span style=""> </span>It was so soft, and upholstered in velvet, just like the walls.<span style=""> </span>Martin walked with him, keeping his hand gently on Alex’s skin the entire time, and kept their eyes locked together.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“I’m so hungry,” Martin whispered to him.<span style=""> </span>“So hungry.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He ran his cold hands up and down Alex and Alex shivered again.<span style=""> </span>Then he smiled, and there was something wrong with his teeth.<span style=""> </span>He bent down as though he was going to kiss Alex, but his face slid past Alex’s.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">There was a sharp pain in Alex’s neck.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">And then a blistering realization hit him.<span style=""> </span>He was lying naked in this sicko’s office and the guy was biting his neck.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Martin’s hand was still running over Lex’s body, and Lex caught it in his and twisted it as hard as he could.<span style=""> </span>Martin pulled away, surprised, and Lex pushed him back as hard as he could.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Martin stumbled back and Lex sat up, furious.<span style=""> </span>Martin’s eyes were wide with shock, and down somewhere deep inside Lex felt something bubble up, some desire for Martin even now. He was so beautiful . . . </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">No.<span style=""> </span>His teeth were fangs.<span style=""> </span>He was a vampire.<span style=""> </span>Lex had seen enough bad horror movies to know that.<span style=""> </span>Lex shook his head, and forced the emotions down.<span style=""> </span>Martin gasped.<span style=""> </span>“Lex!”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The wooden desk rose off the floor.<span style=""> </span>Martin looked at it, and then back at Lex. “You want to please me!” Martin said, almost desperately.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lex frowned, biting his lip. It wasn’t just Martin in his head, and that made him even angrier.<span style=""> </span>The desk rocketed forward, snapping computer cables like they were threads and slamming directly into Martin, crashing into the wall.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lex held the desk there for a moment, then pulled it back and slammed it forward again, and the desk splintered.<span style=""> </span>Then he let it fall to the floor and Martin slumped forward over it, bloody.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Papers thrown from the desk were still settling when there was a knock on the door.<span style=""> </span><st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cali</st1:place></st1:city> poked his head in.<span style=""> </span>His eyes widened as he saw the mess and Martin, and he pushed the door all of the way open and rushed forward.<span style=""> </span>Lex’s first instinct was to cover himself, causing him to flinch away from the charging guard.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Less that a step from Lex, <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Cali</st1:city></st1:place> was caught back, like he’d been caught by an invisible net.<span style=""> </span>He rose onto his tip toes, gasping for breath, and stood there for a moment before being thrown backward.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He fell to the left of the door, knocking his head against the wall where the desk had been only moments before, and slumped to the floor unconsciousness.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Lex turned and saw Crazy K standing in the door, his face white.<span style=""> </span>Lex raised his hand, but Crazy turned at ran before he could do anything.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Then he was alone again.<span style=""> </span>He waited, but none of the other boys came to find out what was going on, so he slipped forward and slammed the door shut.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Where Martin had bitten him was bleeding slightly, but Alex ignored that.<span style=""> </span>He quickly pulled his clothes back on, tied his shoes up, and then ran from the building.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The lights running up and down the drag were still lit, and now Alex could see that the full moon had risen in the sky.<span style=""> </span>There was no one in sight.<span style=""> </span>All of the boys had scattered, and the drivers had vanished with them.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Again, Alex found himself running home in the middle of the night.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">This time there was no pretense of silence.<span style=""> </span>He took the stairs two at a time, and clattered through the door, and then slammed it shut behind him, terrified.<span style=""> </span>He leaned against it, like someone was going to come bursting in behind him, and quickly slid the locks into place.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He was gasping for breath, but stood there, leaning against the door until he was sure that there was no one behind him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He slumped down on the couch, but he didn’t undress.<span style=""> </span>Instead he took his thin blanket and wrapped it around his clothed form as tightly as he could.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">It wasn’t until the next morning that he discovered that Lia was gone.</p>Spherical Timehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02435055266803359329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2280808655296408678.post-26816448228304915272007-03-25T00:58:00.000-04:002008-04-28T00:30:10.428-04:00Episode 6: Three Weeks of Pennies<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Two days working in a pawn shop, two days doing odd jobs for the super of an apartment building, three days working the nights at a junkyard, and even a day bussing at Luca’s Italian Restaurant, Alex was no closer to steady employment.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">There were days between the jobs, and he would beat himself up, going over sentence dozens of times in his mind.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The pawn shop owner had been crazy.<span style=""> </span>At the beginning Alex could forgive himself because he could blame the owner’s insanity.<span style=""> </span>He had searched Alex before and after the shifts, and the second day, when Alex dropped a cheap ring in a pile that Alex was carrying for him, he’d accused him of trying to steal it.<span style=""> </span>He’d threatened to call the cops, and Alex had walked away, seething in anger.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Then there was the job at the apartment complex, but at the end of the second day the guy had tried to renegotiate what he paid Alex six times, and at the end of both days he had only paid Alex half of the agreed amount, promising that he’d get around to getting the rest of it soon.<span style=""> </span>However, after two days mopping up crap from overflowed toilets, Alex told the guy that he wasn’t coming back until he paid him what he owed.<span style=""> </span>He’d gone back three times, and each time the super had made some excuse, exhorting Alex to work more before he paid him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex had caught the drift.<span style=""> </span>He was desperate, but he wasn’t stupid.<span style=""> </span>Half a day’s pay for a full day’s work just wasn’t worth it to clean up shit.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The junkyard had been the best job.<span style=""> </span>The guy had hired him after barely looking at his ID.<span style=""> </span>He was paid cash, after work, and the owner, Gervasi, didn’t try to stiff him on the pay.<span style=""> </span>Of the three guys and two dogs that guarded the yard after dark, Alex was the smallest by weight.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Gervasi had been having problems with thefts on the lot at night for the last few months, and Alex’s biggest recommendation seemed to be that he was new to the area.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">They stationed him in a little booth on one corner of the property.<span style=""> </span>It had no electricity and no heat, and in the in the middle of the night the desert wind seemed to blow in and howl through every orifice in the yard.<span style=""> </span>Alone, in the dark, with piles of rusted metal and the wind, Alex jumped at every noise and stiffened at every flutter of paper or trash.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex tried to be brave, but after the second night, even Lia knew that he was terrified.<span style=""> </span>She’d tried to massage his shoulders, but she simply wasn’t strong enough to get the knots out of his shoulders.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">It didn’t matter though.<span style=""> </span>On the third night, Gervasi was robbed again.<span style=""> </span>Nothing within Alex’s line of sight had been touched, but instead of firing Saul, who was the old guy working the gate (and had nodded off the first night before he’d even finished training Alex), Alex was dismissed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Less than a week ago, knowing that he didn’t have enough money to keep the apartment another month, he’d finally walked out to the Italian restaurant and asked for a job.<span style=""> </span>He’d cleaned up best that he could, and he’d worn his nicest clothes.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The hostess was named Tina, and she introduced him to the manager.<span style=""> </span>They didn’t need anyone, per se, but with Tina spinning her curls behind him, the manager had offered him a job.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The first night was going well.<span style=""> </span>The cooks teased him but treated him fair.<span style=""> </span>His two waiters, Paula and Lamar were willing to explain things and he went along.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">And then Eli had shown up.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He was sitting at a table with another pretty woman.<span style=""> </span>She was older, but you couldn’t really tell until you were up close.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Eli didn’t notice him at first, but he eventually flagged Alex over for water, and as Alex poured into his glass with a shaking hand, he looked up, saw Alex’s face, and his eyes turned into ice cubes.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Eli didn’t say anything, but his eyes followed Alex away from the table.<span style=""> </span>His food was prepared and delivered without incident, and Alex was beginning to think that perhaps Eli would just let him be.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">There was a party of two tables down and Paula convinced him that he could deliver everything with one trip.<span style=""> </span>They loaded up one of the huge oval trays, and Alex carried it to the table, straining under the weight.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Eli pushed him as he passed where he and his girlfriend were sitting.<span style=""> </span>He wasn’t sure how, exactly, because Eli hadn’t seemed to notice him as Alex passed him, but one moment he was concentrating on keeping the tray upright, and the next moment he was staggering forward, the tray just ahead of his hand.<span style=""> </span>He tried to grab it back, but the eight plates and four side dishes flew ahead of him.<span style=""> </span>One plate struck a man in the side of his head, another bounced off the table into a woman sitting across the table.<span style=""> </span>Food was everywhere.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">It was then, after what seemed like the worst had been done, that Alex realized that he was still moving.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He slammed into the diner nearest to him, a pre-teen girl, and then fell heavily on the table.<span style=""> </span>The entire thing seemed to gasp under his weight, and then something broke and the hard surface seemed to give out below him.<span style=""> </span>All of the drinks on the table slid in all directions, drenching Alex and the people sitting at the table.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Despite all the broken glass, Alex wasn’t cut at all, and no one was hurt.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">In the end, he’d destroyed nearly two hundred dollars in plates and glasses, a two hundred dollar table, and the manager promised that the restaurant would pay a hundred dollars or so in cleaning costs.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Instead of taking it out of his pay, the manager had fired him on the spot, in front of all of the patrons of the restaurant.<span style=""> </span>Alex managed to make it into the kitchen, having to push through the kitchen staff that had gathered at the door to see what had happened, before he started sobbing.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Paula caught up with him before he left completely.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Here,” she said, slipping him twenty bucks.<span style=""> </span>“You earned it.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“What about all the stuff I broke?” he managed to say through the tears.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“I saw the guy behind you.<span style=""> </span>It wasn’t that hard to figure out what happened, the way he was smiling like an idiot.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Instead of going back to the apartment he wandered around for a few hours, trying to come up with some story for Lia.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">By the time he stumbled through the door, Lia should have been asleep, but she was still awake, watching television.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“What are you doing?” he asked.<span style=""> </span>He’d hoped that if he got home late, he wouldn’t have to deal with her.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Waiting for you,” she said, “How was the restaurant?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He shrugged, and her smile fell a little bit but didn’t go away.<span style=""> </span>She got up, came over and hugged him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">They stood there for a moment, and she said: “You smell like noodles.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“I need to take a shower.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">“Alright,” Lia said.<span style=""> </span>“But make it quick.<span style=""> </span>There’s a scary movie marathon on, and I can’t watch it unless you watch it with me.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Alex smiled, touseled her hair, and then went to take a shower.</p>Spherical Timehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02435055266803359329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2280808655296408678.post-1127013245024362262007-03-20T17:36:00.000-04:002008-04-28T00:27:45.741-04:00Episode 5: Feathers<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">There was something going on below her.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">She preened, setting the feathers into place, but part of her attention was focused on the men.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">One made a grand gesture, but the other wasn’t intimidated and stepped forward, shouting.<span style=""> </span>There was a flicker of sliver in the light, and then a splash across the wall.<span style=""> </span>In the silver of the full moon there was no color to it, but she could smell the metallic tang of blood like she was on top of it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">She thought he would run after that, but he didn’t.<span style=""> </span>He spoke into his phone, and then leaned against the wall, cleaning the knife.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">It wasn’t that he was brave, because she could smell his fear when he’d spoken on the phone.<span style=""> </span>It was even stronger than it had been when he’d been threatened.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He didn’t have long to wait before the car arrived.<span style=""> </span>The driver got out and opened the back door, and a woman got out.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The woman didn’t look right, or feel right.<span style=""> </span>She wore a dress, but not one of the little dresses that the streetwalkers wore.<span style=""> </span>It looked more like a sundress, and over it she wore some sort of shawl.<span style=""> </span>She was very thin, and her skin was stretched so tightly over her frame that it made her seem younger.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><i style="">What happened?</i> she said, and then, <i style="">Obviously, so explain it to me</i>.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">That was odd.<span style=""> </span>Usually in the dreams the words didn’t make sense to her.<span style=""> </span>The dreaming part of her wanted to listen to the man too, but the part that was awake still couldn’t make sense of him.<span style=""> </span>He groaned and lamented, but all she understood was the feeling: abject terror.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The woman listened—untouched by the cold and the darkness—and when the man was done she reached out and laid her hand on his shoulder.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">In the dreams, she was usually isolated behind the black eyes, but now she was afraid.<span style=""> </span>The woman’s hand burned with bitter frost, and the man couldn’t help but to release a keening cry of pain.<span style=""> </span>He tried to pull back, but the woman’s grip held him fast for a moment until he threw the whole of his weight into pulling away.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">He fell against the wall where he had been leaning, but instead of leaning he slid to the ground.<span style=""> </span>The shoulder of his jacket was white, and as he reached up with his hand it flaked away under his touch.<span style=""> </span>He was crying now, quietly, but the pain was partially distracting him from the fear.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The woman turned to the mess and gestured and said <i style="">Be consumed</i>, but she spoke it to the ground and the walls.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The body seemed to relax, which was odd considering that it had already been splayed out dead, but it shrugged a moment as the earth opened up and swallowed it, drinking the blood and chewing on the bones.<span style=""> </span>Then it was over, and the there was no sign of the dead man.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">She’d kept her perch throughout this, but now the woman looked around, and that terrified the part of her that was awake.<span style=""> </span>She took flight.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">She was no owl.<span style=""> </span>Her wings beat loudly against the darkness, but not as loudly as her pounding heartbeat.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">She flapped and flapped, until she was in another part of the city altogether and her wings burned from the exertion.<span style=""> </span>She relaxed, and spotted a wooden fence between the yard separating two parking lots.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">As soon as she landed though, she knew that she’d made a mistake.<span style=""> </span>There was no car, no humans that her eyes could find in the dark, but something was still watching her.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Between one breath and the next, the woman was there.<span style=""> </span>Not close enough to harm her, but standing in the dark.<span style=""> </span>Her face was white, and she clutched the shawl tightly.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><i style="">Who, who, who?</i> the woman asked.<span style=""> </span><i style="">Who, who, who?</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">If there was some response, it was garbled.<span style=""> </span>She wasn’t sure who she was supposed to be in this dream.<span style=""> </span>The woman didn’t seem satisfied and she frowned.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">Then she opened her eyes so wide that the white surrounded her irises, and they changed from brown to a brilliant yellow with red flickering at the edges.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><i style="">Come</i>, she implored.<span style=""> </span><i style="">There is so much that you can do for me.<span style=""> </span>Come and be mine.<span style=""> </span>Give yourself entirely to me.</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">It washed over the dreamer, and it was so absolutely reasonable and desirable.<span style=""> </span>It made so much sense.<span style=""> </span>She opened her wings, and it felt like sparks of love and respect flowed down them into her.<span style=""> </span>The woman stepped forward, singing <i style="">Come, come, come.</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">She sprang from the fence, flying right into the embrace of the woman, and when she reached the heart of the golden sea of devotion and contentment, the part of her that was awake vicious attacked.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">The woman screamed as claws and beak tore into her.<span style=""> </span>The taunt skin snapped back and the smell of blood surrounded them.<span style=""> </span>She raised her hands, but there was nothing that she could do against the huge flapping black wings.<span style=""> </span>She struck out, missed, and tried again.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">This time she caught on the edge of the wing, and the bird broke off, flying away.<span style=""> </span>She didn’t flee this time.<span style=""> </span>Whatever disturbed the waking bird had been washed away by the blood on her talons.<span style=""> </span>A little victory, but a victory.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">When Lia awoke, there were a few black feathers in her bed.<span style=""> </span>It wasn’t the first time, but there were more than normal.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">She shivered at the strange dream, and then she gathered up the feathers, and threw them in the trash in the bathroom before Lex could find them.</p>Spherical Timehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02435055266803359329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2280808655296408678.post-61318784525008227582007-03-11T03:40:00.000-04:002008-04-28T00:25:16.792-04:00Episode 4: The StripAlex had never been a morning person, but he woke up before the sun rose the next morning.<span style=""> </span>Lia had pulled the sheets and blankets on the bed loose again, and was curled up in them like they were a cocoon, still asleep. <p class="MsoNormal">The two hundred dollars that Lenny had given him was still in his pocket, and he was hungry so he walked down the street to the diner.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Dana, the waitress that had suggested he try to get a job with Eli, was already gone for the day by the time that Alex arrived.<span style=""> </span>If she had still been there, he’d considered waiting until she left.<span style=""> </span>He didn’t want to think about what happened the night before.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The morning waitress was Gabe.<span style=""> </span>She was only a few years older than Alex, relatively pretty and didn’t speak English very well but when she smiled at him it made him smile back.<span style=""> </span>She brought him his order to go, but didn’t charge him for the coffee and slipped him a little bag of sugar cookies.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Feliz Navidad,” she said, and Alex realized that it was Christmas.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">He left Gabe a good tip, bought a paper from a machine and then walked back to the apartment.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alex had ordered a variety of things.<span style=""> </span>He didn’t really know what Celia liked yet, and decided it was better to be safe that sorry.<span style=""> </span>He’d ordered an extra breakfast burrito for himself, and his coffee.<span style=""> </span>He’d bought an orange juice for Celia, and they’d put the entire order into one of those cardboard caddies.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It was a Sunday paper, and there was an entire employment section, but most of the jobs were in casinos on the strip.<span style=""> </span>Each one had a huge list of jobs from dealers to security, but Alex knew that if you worked at someplace big and nice, they would ask for two forms of ID, references, and they might even run background checks.<span style=""> </span>Alex didn’t have a real ID or references, and if they ran a background check on him they’d never hire him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">There wasn’t much else that he was qualified for.<span style=""> </span>He circled a few places, mostly the smallest ads or the ones that gave the vaguest descriptions of the work.<span style=""> </span>He needed a job that wouldn’t ask too many questions.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">He’d gone through most of the section when Lia woke up, and came into the room yawning.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alex tossed her the bag of sugar cookies.<span style=""> </span>“Merry Christmas.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">She smiled.<span style=""> </span>“Thanks Lex!”<span style=""> </span>She tore open the little bag and bit into one of the cookies.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“There’s real food too,” he said, pointing to the bag.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Lia offered him a cookie, but Alex refused and she quickly finished him off and then moved onto the bag of food.<span style=""> </span>She didn’t seem choosy, and she finished off the remainder of the food like a vacuum.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">When she was done, she looked at him.<span style=""> </span>“What are we going to do today?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“What do you mean?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“I want you to take me to go see all the big hotels and casinos.<span style=""> </span>I haven’t been out at all, and you haven’t seen them either.<span style=""> </span>Besides, you can’t go look for a job today, it’s a Sunday.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alex shrugged.<span style=""> </span>She was probably right about finding a job on a Sunday, and he hadn’t seen the hotels and the casinos yet.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Las Vegas</st1:city></st1:place> warmed up during the day, but that wasn’t the largest change.<span style=""> </span>They got off the bus between the MGM Grand and the Tropicana, and it was almost like stepping into another world.<span style=""> </span>All of the buildings were so different and strange.<span style=""> </span>Lia said she’d never seen so many people before. There were people everywhere, walking around in garish clothes taking pictures of everything even though it was Christmas.<span style=""> </span>Alex guessed that this was probably a light day, considering the time of the year, but if it got much busier the sidewalks would have been nearly wall to wall people.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Lia was most impressed by the architecture.<span style=""> </span>She wanted to go inside all the buildings, and look at everything.<span style=""> </span>They visited the talking fountain in Caesar’s Palace, saw the huge fountain outside the Bellagio and walked over the moat in front of the Excalibur.<span style=""> </span>They went inside the pyramid of the <st1:city st="on">Luxor</st1:city>, saw the gardens inside the Mirage, and saw the <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Emerald</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">City</st1:placetype></st1:place> replica inside the lion of the MGM Grand.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It was warmer during the day, and around lunchtime Alex was able to take his windbreaker off.<span style=""> </span>Lia had found out that the MGM had its own amusement park, and because she was so excited Alex bought them admission.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The amusement park wasn’t nearly as busy as the street.<span style=""> </span>In fact, compared to the trip that Alex had taken to Six Flags back when he was in middle school it was positively dead.<span style=""> </span>Alex could see where the park employees would have set up truncheons to accommodate huge lines, but for most of the rides there were only ten to fifteen waits or less.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Lia had never ridden a roller coaster before, and she was so excited about it that the ride attendant let them ride it twice in a row and then they they’d waited through the lines twice more.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The park finally closed around five.<span style=""> </span>For the last half hour what little crowd there had been seemed to melt away.<span style=""> </span>Alex and Lia rode a water ride, which Lia had decided was her favorite because the boat that you rode twisted every which way in the water and the scenery was so detailed there was always some new skull or monster in the water that you hadn’t seen before.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Lia couldn’t stop talking about everything on the bus ride back home, and the other people on the bus smiled at her as she spoke.<span style=""> </span>All the enthusiasm made her seem younger than she was, and even Alex couldn’t help but smile when she described the magicians on the third floor of the Excalibur castle.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They got back to their apartment, and Alex went out for dinner.<span style=""> </span>There was a real Italian restaurant, or at least a better restaurant than the diner a few blocks further on, and Alex decided to bring dinner home from there.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The hostess took his order, and as Alex sat on a bench around the corner from the entrance as he waited for it.<span style=""> </span>At some point another guy came in and Alex peeked around the corner.<span style=""> </span>The newcomer was wearing jeans, and a light coat and a headband of all things.<span style=""> </span>The hostess seemed to recognize him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Hey Phil, are you working tonight?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Of course,” he said with a voice that was older than he looked, as though he smoked all the time.<span style=""> </span>“You’d think that everyone would be angels on tonight of all nights, but I guess all the guys get so stressed with their families during the day that they need some fun at night.<span style=""> </span>Last year I made four bills in a couple of hours.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alex’s ears pricked up.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“How are the others?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Phil shrugged.<span style=""> </span>“The same as always.<span style=""> </span>Indy and Chris were picked up the other night by that new pig, but they only had to spend the night.<span style=""> </span>They almost got Mickey too, and if they’d caught him it would have been his three strikes.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“That new officer’s been in here with his wife,” the hostess told him.<span style=""> </span>“He seemed nice enough, but then again he ain’t got nothing on me.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“It’s going to suck for a while, until they transfer him or he starts taking tricks.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“He came in with his wife,” the hostess said again, and this time she stressed the wife part.<span style=""> </span>There was a pause, and then both of them cracked up at once.<span style=""> </span>“Do you want me to try to slip something into his food if they come in again?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Eh, if he really is honest, he won’t be around for long anyway.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Ah, there it is,” said the hostess.<span style=""> </span>“Your usual is up.<span style=""> </span>Take care, Phil.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Phil exited out the door, and Alex watched which way he walked.</p>Spherical Timehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02435055266803359329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2280808655296408678.post-30837324276357450682007-03-04T00:15:00.000-05:002008-04-28T00:20:21.902-04:00Episode 3: Looking For Work<p class="MsoNormal">“Don’t stay up late watching TV, ‘Lia.” Alex said.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">She looked over at him and nodded, and then went back to the cartoons on the television.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Celia insisted on calling him Lex, and so he’d been calling her Lia.<span style=""> </span>Instead of annoying her like it annoyed him, Celia seemed to like the nickname, and used it all of the time now.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">After leaving <st1:state st="on">Madrid</st1:state>, Alex wanted to get as far away as possible from the tiny town, so they’d driven the old truck west into <st1:state st="on">Arizona</st1:state>, following I-40 until they’d seen an exit for <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Las Vegas</st1:city></st1:place>.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They’d stayed in another small motel on the outskirts of <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Las Vegas</st1:city></st1:place> their first night, and in the morning the truck wouldn’t start, so they left it and took a cab to another section of town.<span style=""> </span>The next morning he’d found a small set of furnished apartments that rented by the week.<span style=""> </span>They manager, a bitter looking man that barely came up to Alex’s jaw, had insisted on four weeks rent up front, which had used most of the money that Alex had taken from Lia’s father’s garage.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">With so little money left, Alex had been asked around about odd jobs.<span style=""> </span>An older waitress named Dana on the evening shift at the diner down the street from the apartments had suggested that he check with Eli.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Eli turned out to be at the local bar.<span style=""> </span>Alex’s ID said that he was twenty-one, and it was a good fake, so he’d slipped in and found Eli sitting in the back of the bar with a pretty woman on his lap.<span style=""> </span>Once Alex had managed to get his attention, Eli sized him up, and had given him an address and a time.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It was after ten when he slipped out of the apartment, and everything seemed dark.<span style=""> </span>There were street lights, of course, but it seemed like they were having trouble pushing through the air.<span style=""> </span>They only would illuminate a few yards at most, and then they would just quit fighting and give up.<span style=""> </span>If there were any stars, they were invisible for the same reason.<span style=""> </span>Only the moon was visible, pale and rising in the distance, but even it couldn’t break through the shadows. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The address turned out to be a restaurant, and there was already a truck waiting at the back entrance, with it’s lights on and seven guys standing around.<span style=""> </span>They were all a lot larger than Alex was.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">One of the guys, probably as wide as he was tall with arms that looked like they could break Alex in half, looked up at him as he approached.<span style=""> </span>“Who are you,” he barked.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“I’m Lex,” Alex told him without thinking, and the paused, wondering if he could correct himself.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The muscular guy laughed.<span style=""> </span>“I’m Lenny.<span style=""> </span>What can we do for ya, Lex?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Eli told me to come, and he might give me a job.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“He did, did he?<span style=""> </span>You look like you’d do better working the drag.<span style=""> </span>I don’t need no more pretty boys that can’t fucking lift squat.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alex didn’t say anything, but he swallowed as Lenny laughed.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">“What do you say boys, should we give the kid a try?<span style=""> </span>It is Christmas Eve, and I’m feeling charitable.”<span style=""> </span>The other men chuckled.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">He turned and tossed a set of keys to one of the other men, who opened up a big rolling door in the side of the restaurant.<span style=""> </span>Just inside the door were a set of boxes, each about the size of a stereo or a small TV, but without any marks on them.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Tell you what, Lex.<span style=""> </span>You load one of these into the truck by yourself, and I’ll give you a job.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alex didn’t like Lenny’s smile, but he went over to the pile of boxes, and tried to lift one.<span style=""> </span>He jerked on one, and it barely moved an inch.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Whatever was in the boxes weighed a lot.<span style=""> </span>Maybe three hundred pounds or so.<span style=""> </span>Alex had seen hundred pound bags of cement, and he guessed whatever was in these was only slightly lighter.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Crap.<span style=""> </span>Fucking hell.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">If he had help, he probably could get one of the boxes into the truck.<span style=""> </span>He took the box, and carefully tipped it off the pile so that it was on the ground by itself, and then dragged it over to the truck.<span style=""> </span>He was already sweating, but now all he had to do was lift the box up into the truck.<span style=""> </span>He could do that.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">He squatted down, put his arms around the box, and threw his entire body into lifting the box.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The box tilted, and for a moment Alex thought he was succeeding, but it still wasn’t off the ground.<span style=""> </span>His back strained until he thought is was going to burst, and he let go, and the box thumped back against the asphalt.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The people around him were laughing, and Alex didn’t even turn to look at them.<span style=""> </span>He had to try again.<span style=""> </span>He had to get a job, even if it was loading drugs, or whatever the hell you load into trucks in the middle of the night, because Lia was counting on him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">His eyes were watering as he gripped the box again, remembering what Lia had looked like, her father’s body still warm on the floor near her.<span style=""> </span>She had her hand to her cheek where her father had hit her to send her flying like a rag doll.<span style=""> </span>She’d been afraid at first, but when he just stood there, looking at the man on the floor, she’d pulled herself up and came over to him and pulled him away.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Lia trusted him, for whatever reason.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alex felt something twist inside, and he reached down and took hold of it.<span style=""> </span>Something surged through him, and he was in that state again.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The men around him were still laughing.<span style=""> </span>Let them laugh.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Lex stood up, and the box came with him.<span style=""> </span>It wasn’t a struggle, it was just an annoyance.<span style=""> </span>If he wanted to, he could have lifted the truck up and tossed it around like a toy.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">He reached out, and set the box inside the truck, then jumped up, and gave it a kick, sending it sliding back until it hit the front wall.<span style=""> </span>He turned, and saw the men looking at him.<span style=""> </span>They weren’t laughing now, they were starring at him with eyes wide with fear. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Lex jumped down from the truck.<span style=""> </span>They were all so weak, like bugs.<span style=""> </span>He could annihilate them if he choose . . . </p> <p class="MsoNormal">He blinked, and he was just Alex again.<span style=""> </span>There was a moment of disorientation, and he grabbed the truck to steady himself.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">What was he doing?<span style=""> </span>Oh, yeah, of course. <span style=""> </span>He’d lifted the box by himself.<span style=""> </span>They had to give him a job now, right?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Lenny’s face had hardened into a mask.<span style=""> </span>He’d been laughing before, but sometime during the blur that had been him lifting the box, he’d stopped.<span style=""> </span>He was looking at Alex with something in his face, something that made Alex want to try to hide.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">One of the other men turned to Lenny, and said something in Spanish under his breath.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Another one of the men said, without taking his eyes of Alex, “Have you ever seen a Vamp that looks like him?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Lenny also kept his eyes on Alex.<span style=""> </span>Slowly, as if he thought Alex was armed, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet.<span style=""> </span>“We don’t want no trouble, kid.<span style=""> </span>I’ll give you double pay for tonight, two hundred dollars, if you leave now.<span style=""> </span>We’re with the Ladies, and you and your friends don’t want that kind of mess.<span style=""> </span>Right?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alex didn’t understand what was going on, except that he wasn’t getting the job.<span style=""> </span>He nodded, and Lenny fished two hundred dollar bills out of his wallet and held them out.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alex stepped forward, his eyes on Lenny’s hand, and the men around Lenny took steps back.<span style=""> </span>Only Lenny managed to keep his place, and even he flinched when Alex snapped the money out of his hand.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alex backed away, back into the darkness. Crap he was tired now, even though he’d slept most of the afternoon because he thought it would help if he didn’t fall asleep at Eli’s job.<span style=""> </span>When he got to the edge of the parking lot, he turned and ran for the apartment.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The dark streets flashed past, and when he reached the building he tore up the stairs, flung himself down the hall, and burst through his door.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">He closed the door behind him, locking it, and then slumped with his back against the door, sliding down until he was sitting on the floor.<span style=""> </span>What the fuck had happened back there?<span style=""> </span>Something not good, that was sure, although the two hundred would at least feed them until he could find something else.</p> <div style="border-style: none none dotted; padding: 0in 0in 1pt;"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="border: medium none ; padding: 0in;">He got up, and the room spun and swam.<span style=""> </span>He shook his head, trying to clear himself of the dizziness, and stumbled over and fell onto the couch.<span style=""> </span>As soon as his eyes closed, he was asleep.</p> </div> <p class="MsoNormal">Lia woke when the door opened.<span style=""> </span>She quietly got out of bed, went over to the door, and saw Lex fall on the old sofa.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Lex?” she asked, but he didn’t reply.<span style=""> </span>She looked at the clock.<span style=""> </span>He’d barely been gone for forty-five minutes, and she’d only been in bed for half and hour.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">He didn’t respond, but he was breathing.<span style=""> </span>She pulled off his shoes and his thin coat, and then wrapped him in a blanket. Lex hadn’t said anything, but she could see that he got cold easily.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">When he was tucked in on the couch, she went back to the bedroom, and sat on the bed for a bit.<span style=""> </span>Now that she’d been woken up, she didn’t feel tired.<span style=""> </span>Even though Alex had told her not to, she slid out of bed and opened the window. Their apartment was on the fourth floor, even though the screen was missing nothing could come through the window unless it flew up.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Lia lay back in her bed, letting the dry cool air flow over her, and began to dream.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">She hopped to the open window, and then up to the still, and looked down at the ground.<span style=""> </span>Heights had never bothered her, although they’d bothered her father something fierce.<span style=""> </span>She opened her wings, and launched herself, flying, out over the apartment buildings and into the darkness.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">She could see what Lex had called The Strip off in the distance.<span style=""> </span>There were big buildings there, covered in lights, but to her vision they were the color of dull stone, uninteresting.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">She flickered down the street past the 24 hour diner where they’d been eating for the last few days.<span style=""> </span>The woman there that had recommended the job to Lex was not as pleasant as she was supposed to be.<span style=""> </span>She kept flying until she was among larger buildings.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">There, at the top of that one, there was green.<span style=""> </span>She flew up and up and up and found herself among fruit trees.<span style=""> </span>She landed on one of the branches, and looked around.<span style=""> </span>There were three men talking, but she wasn’t listening to them.<span style=""> </span>Whatever they were saying, didn’t concern her.<span style=""> </span>Instead, she caught sight of a small grass hopper in the dirt surrounding the trees.<span style=""> </span>She peered at it for a moment, and suddenly pounced down on it, crunching it in her beak.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">As she swallowed the bug, she realized the terrace was quiet.<span style=""> </span>She looked up, and one of the men at the table was looking at her.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">He was taller than the other two men, and larger.<span style=""> </span>He was wearing a very expensive dark suit with a blue shirt and had the most piercing blue eyes she had ever seen.<span style=""> </span>Lia looked at him for a moment, and then hopped back to the railing.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“What is it,” one of the men was asking.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Another lycanthrope,” the man with blue eyes nearly whispered.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Both men started up from the table.<span style=""> </span>“Where?” asked the shorter of the two men.<span style=""> </span>He had greasy black hair, and dark eyes, and he was wearing a red pullover.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The other man also had black hair, but his was impeccably styled into a crashing wave.<span style=""> </span>As he looked around the terrace, his eyes seemed to shift from brown to a pale gold.<span style=""> </span>Like the first man, he was also wearing a suit, but it seemed simpler, and wasn’t quite so complimentary.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“The bird?” asked the one with golden eyes.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Blue eyes nodded.<span style=""> </span>“I don’t think she’s fully aware yet.<span style=""> </span>But she heard my call.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Full moon isn’t until tomorrow night.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“This isn’t her first time then,” said blue eyes.<span style=""> </span>“She must be a wilder.<span style=""> </span>Probably doesn’t even know that she’s a lycanthrope.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Do you want me to catch her, sir?” said the one in the sweater.<span style=""> </span>He was edging closer to the railing.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“No,” said blue eyes.<span style=""> </span>“Now that I know that she’s out there, I’ll find her again.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“What is she?” asked the one with golden eyes.<span style=""> </span>“A crow?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“A raven,” blue eyes said, and then frowned.<span style=""> </span>“Corvus corax.<span style=""> </span>They’re rare, but not unheard of.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Greasy black hair suddenly lunged at her, but Lia let go of the railing, and was airborne.<span style=""> </span>She flapped a few times and disappeared into the night.<span style=""> </span>As she circled upward, she saw golden-eyes slap greasy black hair hard enough to knock him over, and then look up at her.<span style=""> </span>In the darkness he shouldn’t have been able to see her, but he looked right at her, and somewhere in the back of her mind she could hear him whisper.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="">Come back, come back</i>.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And then he was out of sight.</p>Spherical Timehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02435055266803359329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2280808655296408678.post-71249586800901977592007-02-25T19:43:00.000-05:002008-04-28T00:17:20.066-04:00Episode 2: Night in Madrid<p class="MsoNormal">Alex woke with a start.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">He wasn’t dreaming.<span style=""> </span>There was light coming through the window.<span style=""> </span>There was a digital clock on the bedside table, and Alex pulled it over and looked at it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">12:34.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">He couldn’t have slept for more than twelve hours, he was still tired.<span style=""> </span>So it had to be past midnight.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">He’d slept in his jeans because of Celia.<span style=""> </span>His old sneakers were by the bed and his red and white windbreaker was on the chair, and Alex pulled them on.<span style=""> </span>Celia had left the key next to the television, and he grabbed it and put it in his pocket.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Then he slipped out the door.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on">Madrid</st1:state></st1:place> had come alive.<span style=""> </span>The motel sign was dark now, but large flood lights lit up the main street, and strands of Christmas lights were everywhere.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alex stumbled forward, and then shivered, his skin prickling into goose bumps.<span style=""> </span>In the desert, things got cold at night, and <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Madrid</st1:place></st1:state> was no exception.<span style=""> </span>The windbreaker wasn’t nearly enough, and Alex suddenly wished that he had one of the sweaters that his mother in law had given him for Christmas for all of those years.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">He walked toward the lights, and was surprised to see how many people were walking the streets.<span style=""> </span>There was a Saloon, and the door was open.<span style=""> </span>There was shouting from within, and the clink of glasses.<span style=""> </span>Someone laughed uproariously.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">In the row of shops, there had been a soda fountain.<span style=""> </span>He could see people drinking milkshakes through straws through the well lit window.<span style=""> </span>Across from that, the galleries that had been dark were lit, and people were sitting on the porches, pouring drinks and calling out to people walking by in a friendly manner.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">In the street, vendors had appeared, filling the road that Alex had driven down only a few hours before.<span style=""> </span>The stalls and carts were filled with strange items, from crystals on strings to scrolls to meat on sticks.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Looking at all of the things, he’d been distracted from the people, but as he got closer, it suddenly jumped out at him that there was something very wrong with the people that filled the street.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">A couple passed him by, and Alex starred.<span style=""> </span>The man was wearing a suit, but not a modern suit.<span style=""> </span>This one had a bowtie and a vest, and a pocket with a chain, and he was wearing a bowler hat.<span style=""> </span>The woman had her hair up, and she was wearing a fancy green dress with lots of embroidery and carrying a parasol.<span style=""> </span>She looked at him as she passed him, and as Alex shivered he realized that she wasn’t even wearing a coat.<span style=""> </span>The dress was short sleeved and the only thing around her neck was a black choker.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">There were others, that were wearing clothes in the same fashion as the couple, and there were others too.<span style=""> </span>Up in front of the soda fountain, leaning on the railing of the walkway, were creatures covered in fur.<span style=""> </span>Behind one of the stalls there was a man with no eyes trying to sell a plate of some kind to a woman that was seemed to be wearing a suit of vines.<span style=""> </span>Striding through the crowd was a large man wearing thick black robes, and people parted the way for him.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alex felt horribly out of place, but the view was enthralling, like he’d stepped into a movie.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">A woman saw him, and she laughed.<span style=""> </span>She was tall and even paler than Alex and wearing a yellow dress that nearly shimmered, and she muttered something to the women that she was with and then approached him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Hello dear,” she said.<span style=""> </span>“Are you cold.<span style=""> </span>Would you like Sara to warm you up?”<span style=""> </span>The other women giggled, their eyes slithering over him.<span style=""> </span>Their looks made him even colder, and he took a step back, but the woman in yellow reached out for him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">There was something about her, and Alex looked into her eyes.<span style=""> </span>They were like burning liquid gold, and without thinking, Alex took the hand that she offered him.<span style=""> </span>Her skin was soft, but it was also colder than ice.<span style=""> </span>Alex gasped without thinking, and flinched back and the woman laughed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Sara,” a heavy voice said from behind him.<span style=""> </span>“Stop playing with the child.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Oh, Darius.”<span style=""> </span>She stomped her foot, but the only sign of it was that it set her skirts shaking.<span style=""> </span>“You’re no fun.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“He probably belongs to someone.<span style=""> </span>Otherwise he’d be caught by the sleep.”<span style=""> </span>Alex turned, and found that the speaker was an eight foot tall brown bear with piercing blue eyes.<span style=""> </span>The bear took two steps forward, and then bent down and smelled him.<span style=""> </span>“I don’t smell a fresh mark.<span style=""> </span>You aren’t supposed to be out here, are you?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alex shook his head.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The bear grinned.<span style=""> </span>“I bet you thought you’d just pop out and see the festivities, didn’t you?”<span style=""> </span>He turned to the pale woman and said.<span style=""> </span>“They strain their leashes, especially on the festival nights.<span style=""> </span>He doesn’t smell too healthy, and they haven’t even come up with the feast.<span style=""> </span>If you eat now, you won’t be hungry later.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Will you escort me then?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“It would be my honor, Sara.”<span style=""> </span>The bear offered an arm, and the pale lady took it.<span style=""> </span>They began to walk away, and the bear looked back at Alex, and gave him a shooing motion with a paw.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alex turned, and began to walk away.<span style=""> </span>He wanted to run, but somehow he knew that would be a bad idea.<span style=""> </span>He was a sheep that had wandered into a den of wolves and then somehow walked out.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">He slunk over to the side of the road, past the darkened office of the motel, and to room seven.<span style=""> </span>He fumbled in his pocket for the key, and he was so nervous that he had trouble with the lock.<span style=""> </span>He slipped inside, dead bolted the door, and barely taking the time to take off his shoes he slipped into the bed and pulled the covers over his head.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">This had to be a dream, but it wasn’t vague enough.<span style=""> </span>He was still wearing his windbreaker and he could feel the cold zipper biting at him through his thin t-shirt.<span style=""> </span>He unzipped it, and pulled the covers down for just long enough to toss it back onto the chair, and then pulled him up again.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">He rolled up into a shivering ball, and waited for the morning.</p>Spherical Timehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02435055266803359329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2280808655296408678.post-69317073930262883112007-02-25T19:37:00.000-05:002008-04-28T00:15:55.684-04:00Episode 1: Beginning of the Road<p class="MsoNormal">Alex Mercer was exhausted, and up ahead there were more curves in the road.<span style=""> </span>He needed to find some place to stop before he ran off the road.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Beside him, the girl sat silently, looking out at the dark that was passing them in the truck.<span style=""> </span>She was calm, like she was driving home with her brother.<span style=""> </span>Looking at her, you might have thought that the two of them did this all of the time.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">No one would have accepted that they were related.<span style=""> </span>She had dark brown hair and skin, and large dark eyes, and she still had the roundness of a baby in her cheeks despite her age.<span style=""> </span>She was young, but not as young as she first appeared.<span style=""> </span>It was her size that had fooled Alex at first.<span style=""> </span>A fourteen or fifteen year old should be bigger.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alex was nineteen.<span style=""> </span>He had dark hair, but his skin was lily white compared to the girls, and he had greenish eyes.<span style=""> </span>He wanted to look over at her, but he didn’t.<span style=""> </span>He kept his barely open eyes on the road.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They’d been driving for hours in the old truck.<span style=""> </span>Neither had spoken a word since they’d started out.<span style=""> </span>She hadn’t even asked where they were going.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alex was about to pull over when he saw something odd ahead.<span style=""> </span>There was a chain link fence ahead, and behind the fence, that was a baseball field.<span style=""> </span>Not a big one.<span style=""> </span>Probably for a little league team.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">That made no sense.<span style=""> </span>They were in the middle of nowhere in <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">New Mexico</st1:place></st1:state>.<span style=""> </span>In order to have a team, you had to have people.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The road turned before the field, and Alex found himself in a town.<span style=""> </span>There was a sign, carved from wood and painted, that called the place <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Madrid</st1:place></st1:state>.<span style=""> </span>Population was 110.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">There were no side streets.<span style=""> </span>Houses, most of them two stories with big porches, lined the main street.<span style=""> </span>In the sickly light of the trucks headlights he could see the signs for galleries in front of a few of them.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The main street continued on for a way.<span style=""> </span>Off to his left there were a set of shops with a raised wooden walkway.<span style=""> </span>To his right there was an old train caboose. Then the road turned right, and Alex saw the motel.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It couldn’t have been more than ten rooms.<span style=""> </span>He counted, slowly, and came up with eight rooms visible, but the lights were on and the sign announced vacancies.<span style=""> </span>He was so surprised that he almost drove by, but managed to pull the truck over and stop.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The clerk looked up in surprise when Alex walked in.<span style=""> </span>There was a clock on the wall, it said half past eleven, which seemed unbelievably early to Alex that he just looked at it in wonderment for a moment.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“We don’t take credit cards,” the man said, looking at him.<span style=""> </span>“If you’ve got a check, I’ll take that this late.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“How much,” Alex asked.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Thirty.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alex didn’t argue.<span style=""> </span>He pulled a few bills out of his windbreaker looked at them for a moment.<span style=""> </span>Two twenties.<span style=""> </span>He handed them over, and the guy started to count out change.<span style=""> </span>Thirty, not including tax.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It came out to thirty four something, and Alex took the change and put it back in his pocket.<span style=""> </span>There was more money, if he needed it, but no one had to know that other than him.<span style=""> </span>It was the first time in a while that he hadn’t been worried over every penny, but once you’d gotten to that point it was hard to let go of the feeling.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“I hope two twins’ okay” the clerk said as he handed over the keys.<span style=""> </span>“I don’t have nothing else.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alex nodded.<span style=""> </span>He hadn’t thought of that.<span style=""> </span>He would have slept on the floor, but he was glad that he didn’t have to.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">There was a sound behind him, he turned, and found the girl standing in the door, carrying that pink backpack that she’d so efficiently gathered earlier.<span style=""> </span>Alex looked back at the clerk, and tried to think of something to say.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Hello,” the girl said, “I’m Celia.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Mike,” the clerk said, and nodded politely.<span style=""> </span>“What are you doing out here so late?” he asked, which was one of the questions that Alex didn’t want to answer.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“We’re driving home,” she said before Alex could stammer out something.<span style=""> </span>“We just started out to late, and I don’t want to drive any more.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Mike the clerk smiled and his eyes flickered to Alex, and Alex knew the look.<span style=""> </span>If Alex had said it, he would call the cops once they were out of sight.<span style=""> </span>He was watching the television, had there been something on the news?<span style=""> </span>Had someone seem them earlier?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alex forced himself to keep smiling, and forcing his voice into a friendly tone he said, “He’s the key, sport.”<span style=""> </span>He tossed the thing to her, pausing only to check the number.<span style=""> </span>Seven.<span style=""> </span>“I’ll park the truck.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Mike relaxed back.<span style=""> </span>The whole exchange was so normal that it couldn’t have been faked, except that it had been.<span style=""> </span>Alex felt numb inside.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alex parked the car, and then went to room seven.<span style=""> </span>He knocked, and the door opened.<span style=""> </span>Celia moved out of the way and let him in.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The room was old.<span style=""> </span>Everything had become gray with age, even though there were traces of color.<span style=""> </span>Once upon a time the carpet would have been soft and yellow and the walls had been white and blue. There were watercolors in frames over the two beds, but they’d become gray as well.<span style=""> </span>Even the lights over the vanity at the back of the room were gray.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Celia crawled onto the bed furthest from the door as Alex closed the door.<span style=""> </span>She opened her bad, and pulled out a teddy bear.<span style=""> </span>Not one of the modern ones with the super soft real fur.<span style=""> </span>This one was old, and Alex had never seen anything like it.<span style=""> </span>The skin was brown cloth, and the eyes were actual buttons.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Hugging the bear to her, she leaned over and put the bag beside the bed. <span style=""> </span>Then she looked at Alex.<span style=""> </span>“I need to brush my teeth.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">He looked around.<span style=""> </span>He could go back and ask Mike if he had a toothbrush.<span style=""> </span>It would fit in with their story.<span style=""> </span>He didn’t want to though.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Not tonight.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Okay.”<span style=""> </span>She pulled back the covers, and slipped under them.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Alex sat on the other bed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Finally, even though he wasn’t sure if she was still awake, he said.<span style=""> </span>“I’m Alex.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Celia shifted in bed to look at him.<span style=""> </span>“I’m Celia.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">There was a silence.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Nice to meet you, ‘Lex,” she said, and she smiled while she said it.<span style=""> </span>And then she turned back over to go to sleep.</p>Spherical Timehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02435055266803359329noreply@blogger.com0