Book promo
If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion.– SAH
FROM CEDAR SANDERSON: The Case of the Perambulating Hatrack
She was trouble, and from the moment she sailed into his office in search of a PI, Soldagh Dennessey was caught in her wake.
In a city where the streets started mean and went worse, Soldagh had carved a relatively solitary existence out between the goblins in their dens of minty iniquity, and the gnomes who’d snitch on their own mothers for rent money. Rough as it was, he’d come from worse family, and had no intention of going back.
As the case grows tangled and terrifying, Soldagh is starting to suspect the past he’s been avoiding lies at the bleeding heart of the matter. And only the few friendships he’s made and an unexpected ally might be enough to save them now…
FROM CAITLIN WALSH: Mama Bunny #1: Comics and Stories
Parenting is tough, but it’s also rewarding. And occasionally even hilarious. Now collected for the first time, follow Mama Bunny and her family through this series of mostly-autobiographical strips and written stories as they navigate the ups and downs of dinnertime, chores, and all the other day-to-day adventures of a stay-at-home mom trying to raise and teach two children.
FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: The Lion in Paradise
All Col. Dr. Ariela Rivers Wolff, M.D., Ph.D., USSFM – the Lion of God – wanted was a little piece of paradise to call her own.
Being stuck on a desert world – even if she was the CO of the premiere battalion of the 1st U.S. Space Force Marines that was based there – was not getting her any beach time. Mostly because, without an ocean, there’s really no beach at all.
But she’s got a fix for that problem.
FROM HOLLY CHISM: Highway to Tartarus
Insanity seems to run rampant in the immortal population, and Hades seems to be the one the Fates tap to contain them all; however, this time, Hades, and Kyra, the former goddess of War from Atlantis, have to find and catch the one who’s gone dangerously insane: Deshayna, Kyra’s identical twin, and the former goddess of Death.
Along for the ride are a pregnant Persephone, Hel from the Norse pantheon (and Hades’ and Persephone’s lover), Tyr and Thor, and Kyra’s adopted daughter Rowan.
The seven of them follow rumors, leads, and death-god connections around the world in an RV that’s bigger on the inside than on the outside, while trying to maintain a bare semblance of normalcy despite the chaos of never knowing when or where their Fates-assigned mission will end…or if it will end them.
FROM R. COOTS: Devour the Stars: A Dark Space Opera
He’s become the ultimate killer. Is it enough to make them all pay?
Fleet Warlord Syrus will never forgive the Empire for what they took from him. Pursuing his lifelong mission of vengeance, he’s startled to find two women in cryosleep on an abandoned planet and moves them to his ship. But his troubles triple when one of them wakes to discover she’s part of a harem and cuts down half his men in a bloody killing spree.
With alarms ringing in his head about the remote world and its lethal beauty, Syrus must quickly figure out the mysteries of this forsaken solar system. But when physical contact with the woman reveals an imposing secret, the disturbed commander will have to fight a mutiny and turn his quest for retribution into a battle for survival.
Can Syrus make it through the crisis alive and finally exact his revenge?
Devour the Stars is the explosive first book in the Devour the Stars space opera series. If you like brutal worlds, characters navigating trauma, and gritty action, then you’ll love R Coots’s dark tale.
FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Phoenix Dreams
In Greek myth, the phoenix is a bird that rises from its own ashes. Growing up in the city named for it, Toni knew the story well, and being a gamer made her used to death being negotiable.
During a visit to her grandfather’s ranch, she discovered a cache of books and videos from the lost golden age of space travel. Entranced by the enthusiasm of Roger Chaffee for his upcoming spaceflight, she was shocked and angered to learn the disaster that happened only days after his interview.
When she expressed her desire to get him his spaceflight, her family’s anger came as an even bigger shock. But she refused to forget, no matter how hard her parents tried to distract her, to prevent her from researching online.
Her determination would lead her along strange paths that would end in a desperate cross-country chase and the realization of a dream decades deferred.
FROM CEDAR SANDERSON: The Hearts’ Enchantment
Heart’s Enchantment brings together 12 fantasy and romance authors to spin stories of love and romance set in medieval worlds. From retired warriors to spies and nobles, romance and love finds a way.
Authors include Cedar Sanderson, Misha Burnett, Mel Todd, Nico Murray, and more!
From sweet to spicy, there’s something to satisfy any fan of fantasy, romance, or both!
BY J. ALLAN DUNN, BROUGHT BACK BY D. JASON FLEMING: On The Knees Of The Gods (Annotated): The Classic Pulp Fantasy.
Peter Brent, American, steps through a laurel hedge in Greece in 1939 — and is transported back to the days of the gods! But getting Zeus’s attention isn’t always the best idea…
- This iktaPOP Media edition contains a new introduction giving historical and genre context.
Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.
So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.
We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.
If you have questions, feel free to ask.
Your writing prompt this week is: CLEAR
According To Hoyt 
Actual “new” public domain books coming, I’ve been locked in the stupidest argument with Amazon I have ever had this week (and that’s saying something). They maintain that just because something is on Project Gutenberg, does not mean it is public domain in the USA. Despite last year trying to get me to stop finding PD books on my own, and assuring me that Gutenberg was the bestest ever validation that something was in the PD.
And their reasons for thinking it’s still in copyright? Not even kidding: their feelings. Mostly because feelings can’t be argued against, I think.
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Aren’t there PD lawyers? At Stanford, I think?
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Hiring a lawyer at hundreds of dollars per hour to argue over a book that might make me a hundred bucks in a year is counter-indicated.
Besides, it’s not like Amazon will listen. I know the law, I have laid out my factual basis for knowing it to be in the public domain (well beyond “Gutenberg says so”), and their response is invariably “we’re not confident it’s in the public domain” without any, you know, reason for that feeling.
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“Clear sailing you told me!” as Frank fought to keep to the sail boat safe. “Didn’t you check the weather forecast?”
George groaned suffering from sea-sickness, “I checked the forecast for Miami, Florida and it looked fine to me”.
“Miami, Florida! That’s hundreds of miles from us. We set sail from Kingston, Jamaica!”
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That… does seem like a pretty obvious mistake to make. Any particular reason George went that far across the map?
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Where I live in Central Illinois, there are plenty of people who believe Chicago weather would be accurate for Central Illinois.
George may be more used to checking Miami weather even when he’s not in the Miami area.
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Chicago is on Lake Michigan. That affects the weather profoundly.
In San Diego there are 4 forecasts: coast, inland, mountain and desert, all within a 30 mile wide strip. On the same day, temperatures can be 50 degrees different across that distance and rain forecast can range from 10% to 80%.
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Ah. That makes sense. (As a mistake for a human to make, not as something to be done by someone thinking through the likely results of their actions.)
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“Following a bird,” said the strange woman, her hand still, loosely, on the hilt of her sword.
Though finding Autumn here meant she was almost as much a stranger. Perhaps more. She would never have picked out Autumn from among the crowds as a companion for, she supposed, a paladin.
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I believe I’m repeating myself here, but paladins are always fun! (It’s also fun for a character to assume someone is a paladin, and be proven very wrong. Not sure which applies here.)
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Paladin all right. For about five minutes at this point.
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Ooh, fresh blood!
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There was an interesting balance between clarity and obfuscation. To be too clear in speech would open vulnerabilities in any nobleman’s armor, even Duke Arngett’s. If an assassin could testify, holding Truthlight, that he had been hired to kill the much-beloved Lord Fyreheart, then the Duke would never know real safety again. The loyalty of the Fyreguard was legendary, and if their skill was even a tenth of what rumor claimed….
On the other hand, too much obfuscation would be just as dangerous. Even the most talented assassins were typically available for other work as well, and when one wasn’t sufficiently clear about the assignment, one might find one’s hired assassin delivering a simple verbal message rather than the more eloquent blade.
The man currently known as Ferim Rouven pondered this conundrum as he wandered the cobblestone streets of Whitecliff, and concluded that Duke Arngett had managed the balancing act rather well. Perhaps he leaned a bit far towards obfuscation, but all noblemen tended to walk on the side of caution in that regard.
Ferim paused on the top of the eastern market stairs, looking over the crowded streets. Shops and booths lined the thoroughfare, jewelers, weavers, grocers, and more hawking their wares to passerby. The recently announced Feastday of St. Kailen was swiftly approaching, and it seemed that one of Arngett’s new holidays had finally caught on. Businesses were thriving as the people prepared for feasting, sought out gifts to give their loved ones, and gathered worthy sacrifices to offer up to the renowned war hero.
Ferim idly wondered how long that enthusiasm would last. And how long it would take for the honored ‘saint’ to be caught in some indiscretion or disloyalty, and put to the stake with all the other traitors.
Probably soon after Lord Fyreheart had departed from this life, given the rumors concerning the two. Some nobles whispered of a long and dear friendship, the more salacious claimed a more intimate relationship, but all agreed the two were close. The holy warrior who knew little of politics and the nobleman who could not go to war. There was a certain parallelism there.
Ferim finally spotted the nobleman standing by one of the booths of flower sellers, light glinting off the silver head of his cane as he spoke with the young woman attending the booth. Ferim waited for a few minutes, leisurely observing the market as a whole while keeping Fyreheart in his peripheral vision. People walked past him and down the steps without a second thought, young couples giggling and old spinsters gossiping as they went down to market.
Finally, Ferim started down the steps himself, coming alongside a group of young soldiers boasting about their recent exploits in war. The hustle and bustle of the street soon swallowed him, his colorful tunic disappearing into the bright fabrics and cheerful noise of the market.
The crowd parted for just a moment, long enough for him to spot the elderly noble bending down to kiss the flower girl’s hand as she laughed, a light blush coloring her cheeks. Ferim allowed himself a moment of detached regret – by all accounts, Fyreheart was one of the few decent nobles these days. Courtesy without pettiness, honor without arrogance, a politician without obvious malice. He even wandered the market without guards, a risk that few other noblemen were fool enough to take.
Really, it was a miracle of Sigfrey that he’d survived as long as he had. Ferim reached into a hidden pocket of his tunic, lightly gripping the hilt of a poisoned knife. One cut on a crowded street would be quieter than trying to run the man through, and though heartflame herbs could be unreliable when used against the young, they were almost designed to kill the aged and infirm.
The mix of blond and white hair appeared for a moment in the crowd, and Ferim lengthened his strides. Closer… closer… He stepped to the side, almost dancing around a gaggle of young women comparing scarves, and spotted the old man ambling towards a jeweler further down the street, fiddling absently with the head of his cane.
The dagger slipped free of its pocket, hung almost invisibly behind the folds of a short cape. Closer still…
He was within a few steps of the old man. All that was needed was a quick dart forward, a bump –
He rushed forward in the same moment Fyreheart suddenly stopped, had almost reached the old man when he felt something cold against his chest. He glanced down just soon enough to spot the blade stuck through his chest.
There was a glint of silver, an odd feeling as the sword slipped free. Then Fyreheart continued forward, the rapier having disappeared into the cane again.
He didn’t look back once. As Ferim knelt, hands pressing fruitlessly against his quickly-reddening tunic, he found himself laughing quietly despite the growing pain.
He couldn’t help but admire the professionalism.
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Underestimating one’s opponents seems to be one of your running themes, lately.
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Yeah… It’s one of my favorite tropes. Or ties into several of them. And Fyreheart’s kind of just like that.
I knew this part had happened when I was writing my last vignette, so:
Duke Arngett: “He was found dead in the street an hour after I sent him. There was a sword wound through his heart.”
Lord Fyreheart: “That would rather seem to explain why I missed him.”
Me (half-laughing): “You know darned well you didn’t miss him, you sonofa…”
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LOL! :lol:
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I mist say I had a suspicion about that. Not that that gives me a clue abut who Lord Fyreheart really is. No, don’t tell me. Write him.
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One sign of a professional is admiring another professional even when the second professional has quieting killed the first. :wink:
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Indeed.
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Or maybe not so quietly.
Jurassic Park (1993) – Clever Girl
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Ah yes, that was a good last line. :grin:
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Was this the one that landed in durance vile? Azahara and Max sympathize if it was given the former’s profession and the latter’s preferred way of dispatching powerful demons! Enjoyable work regardless, though!
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This one, and another snippet from the ‘Chosen Grandmother’ story. Thanks!
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Lurie had June stationed in the backyard, with the sliding door to the patio open.
“How’s it look now, June May?” shouted Doug from the roof. June’s double name never ceased to amuse him, no matter how many times June explained that “May” was her mother’s maiden name. She’d been teased by it all through high school, and at this point had resigned herself to having to live with the laughter the rest of her life. Why Mother ever thought she had to give me that for a middle name… she forced herself to focus on Lurie, crouched by the television in the family room.
“How’s the picture, Lurie? Is it clear now?”
“Nope, the static’s a little better but not by much.”
June shouted the message back to Doug, who made a further adjustment to the television aerial.
“Wait, that’s perfect! Tell Doug!”
Lurie’s husband gave a grin of triumph, which lasted until he took his hand off the antenna. June conveyed her panicked response: “It’s back to where we started, Doug!”
The situation deteriorated further as five-year-old Dave darted out onto the patio. “Daddy! I wanna go up on the roof with you!” he yelled, and managed to get his foot on the bottom rung before June moved to divert him. Lurie hauled her son back inside as Tom opened the side gate.
“Any success?” he asked his wife.
June shook her head. “If you have any advice, Doug could purely use it.”
Drawn to the ladder by the power of DIY, Tom found himself on the roof with a fiercely frowning Doug.
“All the antennas point this way, more or less. I got it aligned, but this dang thing don’t amount to a hill o’ beans.”
Tom poked at the wires attached to the aerial, noting one that was loose. “Do you have any duct tape?” he asked.
“Thought I had that fixed… no, it’s comin’ apart again.” Tom called down with a request for June to check the shelf over the washing machine in the garage for the tape, and within five minutes the wire was secured. Lurie reported that the picture was much improved.
“Hah! How ‘bout that! My old sergeant always said duct tape will fix anything. We went through a ton of this stuff in the Army.” Doug readied himself to descend the ladder but suddenly stopped as he heard a shout from the back yard next door.
“What’re you doing up there, spying on us!”
“Not spyin’ on anyone, ma’am, and if I were I’d be smarter than to crawl on the roof to do it!” Doug retorted, and waved Tom down. “Sorry,” he added in a lower voice. “That old bat lives with her daughter and son-in-law and she suspects everyone in the neighborhood of some’mn or other. Half the time she says her family’s poisoning her.”
“I don’t think I’d blame them if they were. But you know, I’m starting to suspect everyone around here of something. How many secrets do you think there are in this neighborhood?”
“A lot,” Doug answered as his grin suddenly vanished.
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Now that’s an intriguing finish!
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“Clear the room” the LT. said.
I pulled a plasma grenade off my harness smacked it against the floor priming it and tossed it in the room, boom flash.
“Room clear, Lt” I responded.
“You sure Staff Sergeant?” he asked.
The door took that moment to fall into the room the cheap metal hinges had evaporated from the plasma.
“Yes Sir” I said peaking into the now charred room.
“Lt., Captain says he needs prisoners” Corp Jones replied.
“Well he wasn’t Clear on that was he?” the Lt. asked no one in particular.
“Pick another house LT?” the Gunny asked.
“Might as well Gunny, its still only morning.” the Lt. said.
We Cleared three villages that morning looking for the Captain’s prisoners, it seems the rebels would rather die than surrender, go figure. This inadvertently caused a bulge in the front line, since generals like front lines nice and neat except where geography can easily explain those natural shifts in the front lines. The rebel generals reacted, or should I say over reacted. Our generals chastised the other units for not keeping up with us. The rebels started pushing more men and materials in our direction. When our generals started seeing their movements they also responded. This caused the whole rebel front line to over extend and collapse under the renewed assaults. We never did find the Captains prisoners, Lt, got another medal as well as the captain and on up the line. We got thirty days basket leave before reassignment.
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Funny how such things work, innit?
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It wasn’t too bad, there’s always lots of unmarried women after an operation like this. Oh, I hear all you civies going on derogatorily about women who just lost their husbands fighting with us, now fucking us. I call bullshit. Those women in most cases were now left with kids to feed and no man and no jobs to bring home that food. Their economy was in shambles as were there towns and villages. It would give them enough food and money to save those kids. They could and would hate us tomorrow, for today they would lay down and spread their legs. Let’s be clear, this wasn’t new, it had been happening this way since the first cave men raided the next tribe. Humanity is what it is.
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“I trust he sent enough clear water for her to drink,” said Amy. “This is far longer than her journey to get the horn, and she is not used to the heat.”
“No,” said Ned, “but he told me where to find more.”
“I suppose that will do,” said Molly.
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Clear! I subbed into the tacnet, and flung in a simulation grenade, set to “Dazzle” and an impact fuse.
Dazzle grenades are like the old, pre-space flashbangs-big bright flash of light, loud noise, big EM pulse that won’t fry electronics but will definitely mess up your sensors when it fires off for a few seconds. Which is great when you’re the ones going in, because you know exactly what the grenade will do.
The training-AI-on-high deemed that my grenade had definitely rumbled three of the five recruits in the bunker compartment. So as first man in the stack, I shot the remaining two first. Their PA locked up, flashing “dead” in my HUD as the second trooper in the stack took out two of the remaining recruits. Last one got taken out by the third man in the stack and we realized that we couldn’t form up on the second door, so I flung in an unfused grenade and we followed an instant behind it.
Three of the recruits in the compartment were in shock, but one of them was smart or gutsy enough to try and grab the grenade and throw it back. I felt sorry for shooting him, anybody that smart should have gotten a better reward than two in the chest, one in the head.
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I stared at the boy. He gave me a hangdog look almost as good as my Johnny’s, back when he was that age. But after seven babies and even more grandbabies, a body learned how to ignore the puppy-dog eyes. And how best to deal with them.
My stare sharpened into my best ‘Mom Look.’ The boy flinched slightly in an odd way, curling in on himself the way Davy would when he knew he was in for it. But he didn’t take his eyes off mine for a moment.
He was stubborn, I’d give him that. Clearly this wasn’t gonna be an easy fight.
“Grandmother, it’s a long road to Restev,” he said in that quiet, city-boy accent. His tone was far too reasonable for my liking. I huffed.
“Don’t you ‘grandmother’ me, boy! Makes me feel old. And anyway, horse riding makes my hips ache. Don’t you even ask what it does to my back. No, you rode that big fella down here, you get to ride him back.”
He opened his mouth, then shut it again. Took a deep breath. “Lady…”
“Don’t you ‘lady’ me neither. My name is Mary, boy, you’re allowed to use it.”
He twitched in a funny way. “I’m a humble Servant, lady, it’s not my place…”
“Don’t care about your city manners, don’t care much about your religion neither. And if I’m gonna be travelin’ with you all the way to the big city, I won’t have you treatin’ me like some high-falutin’ princess of poppycock. Mary.”
He sighed. “You’re the Chosen of the Singer, lady. Bearer of the goddess being reborn. You can’t expect me to-”
“I can and I will. An’ if your oh-so-blessed goddess disagrees, she can kiss my fat, white-”
“Lady!”
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Heh! Sounds like Granny Weatherwax’s city cousin!
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“Clear!”
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I’ve tried to post 2 ‘Vignettes,’ and neither of them are showing up for me. Did WP eat them? I’ve got them saved, so I can read and edit them, but I’m not going to get feedback if no one else can read them.
Can anyone other than me see them?
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I counted two submissions, plus your other comments. Haven’t read ’em yet, having just got here myself.
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BbESP managed to get them released from WPrison. Thanks for the answer, though! I look forward to any feedback you may have.
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I’ve feed them.
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What did you feed them? [Very Big Crazy Grin While Flying Away Extremely Fast]
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freed. That was the keyboard.
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Hey! I know all about Crazy Keyboards.
I have one of those myself.
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Mine has the annoying tendency to enter what I actually typed, not what I intended to type. At least Otto Corrupt isn’t in play.
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“Computers always do what you tell them to do, not what you want them to do.”
:lol:
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Not what you thought you told them to do, either.
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The “Not what you thought you told them to do, either” is included in the “not what you want them to do”. :twisted:
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(Booming, triumphant)
Feed at last! Feed at last!
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The disappointment of kittens. It’s a very powerful force.
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yeah
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Tyops, goddess of keybroad errors, always claims her due!
…Though why she likes claiming it from Sarah so often is anyone’s guess. :P
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Being dyslexic, I’ve been a devotee forever
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Thanks again!
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Maybe it’s time we wrapped this one up and moved on to other things…
It was a clear, cloudless morning when Young Nigel and Lily charged outdoors, into the garden. Reaching the bird bath, Nigel smiled. Lily smiled back.
At the edge of the forest, they spotted a woodchuck. Lily giggled. Nigel giggled back.
Three steps into the woods, Lily hiccuped. And wouldn’t stop.
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“Father, please help? Lily’s terribly ill!” Young Nigel cried.
Father looked sternly at Nigel. “You must understand this clearly. Lily is not ill. She’s malfunctioning. Firmware issue, we believe. Your extensive testing has been invaluable – without you, we would have missed this problem.”
Nigel didn’t want to hear the rest.
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“I still remember it clearly,” said Nigel Slim-Howand. “They cut her open and pulled out her battery pack.”
“Was nothing recovered?” asked Gwendolyn, Nigel’s maid.
“Unsalvageable. Her design was deeply flawed; yours isn’t.”
Gwendolyn silently exited, leaving Nigel alone. He poured himself another whiskey. “Deus meus, ut quid me dereliquisti?”
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This is kind of heartbreaking. Well done.
And it’s not just ‘best friend got sick and then didn’t get better,’ it’s ‘best friend got sick and then my parents killed her.’
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Thanks. I was trying to set up some childhood event that would shape Nigel’s attitude toward the companion services the family company (which he works for) sells. In addition, the event sets up the environment for some future mysterious events. :-)
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Back to this bunch! Following up from last time.
Vincent stumbled out of Ash’s cockpit, streaks of red running down his face. Alphonse held up his hand, urging Carys to stay back as Brad and the Baldraz soldiers waiting for him helped him to his feet. Though the injuries seemed like superficial burns it was clear to everyone that they were no ordinary wounds even by Undying standards.
“Damn, Vince! What happened this time?!” Brad asked in disbelief, noting how weak his cousin was.
“We ran into our old friend Sakura-chan from Eike’s.” Vincent hissed, pausing to catch his breath.
“Or rather Azahara Espina.” Carys added, barely keeping her anger in check.
“Huh?! How’d a cutie like her do this?! Or did Vince make you mad just by talking to her, Carys?” Brad sputtered before the realization hit him. “Wait, wait wait! Sakura was the Chosen of the Topaz the whole time?!”
“Yeah,” Vincent coughed. “She’s as dangerous as they say when piloting Shaula, too.”
“Anyone who combines Bastetani Royal Marines training with Yamatai ninjutsu would be,” Alphonse added, his tone solemn. “Yet I don’t recall anything like that talisman she used when studying the subject.”
“Yet I know someone who might be familiar with them. A moment, please.” Carys stated calmly before leaving the pad.
“Who could she mean?” Alphonse asked, watching the sorceress leave.
“Probably Aoi, the Yamatai girl who works on Zornitsa,” Brad replied before turning to his cousin. “She knows all sorts of weird magic stuff from over there aside from engineering. We’d better get you in a chair, Vince, if Nurse Aoi’s going to be checking you out!”
The Undying soldier just sighed as Brad and the soldiers set him down in one. Carys returned with exactly the person they expected a few moments later, a petite girl with jet black hair dressed in engineer’s coveralls. The girl was usually known for her bright smile and eccentric mannerisms but today she was dead serious. That unnerved Vincent more than anything.
“Drop your hands and let me get a good look at you, Vincent!” she ordered, not even calling him ‘Vinnie’ like she normally did. “Take off your gloves, too!”
Vincent sighed and did as he was told. The situation was uncomfortable enough just from the pain but Carys standing nearby made things even more awkward. He knew that she and Aoi were friends and the Yamatai girl had never shown that kind of interest in him but he still remembered the bit of jealousy that came out while Carys was agitated by Azahara’s taunts. He still wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
“Yeah, no mistaking it! Hama talisman!” Aoi pronounced grimly after checking over the burn marks. “Er, sorry. Exorcism talisman, I mean! And yeah they work really well against fu shi- I mean Undying! Better get him to Doc Dunst and let him know what it was! He knows all sorts of counters for that kind of magic!”
“So it’s back to that vile old lich and that shameless succubus he employs.” Carys hissed, a look of utter disgust darkening her elegant features.
“We knew it was coming to that anyway,” Vincent sighed, slowly coming to his feet. “No point wasting any more time here.”
“I’ll accompany you.” the sorceress said, her expression softening as Vincent steadied himself.
“Try not to break his balls before you get there or start a magical catfight in the office, all right, Carys?” Brad grumbled before reaching for his tool bag. “Vince has been through enough for one day!”
“I assure you that we will both be on our best behavior, Bradley.” Carys sighed before motioning for Vincent to follow her off the pad.
“Aww! They’re so cute, aren’t they?!” Aoi gushed, her usual enthusiasm returning.
“If Vince doesn’t find some way to screw it up,” Brad chuckled before unzipping his tool bag and reaching for the drill and bits that he needed. “He’s always been hopeless when it comes to women.”
“He can’t be worse than a stupid pervert like you!” the girl shot back, sticking her tongue out.
Alphonse left the two engineers to their banter as he silently left the pad. He knew he’d likely have to face retribution for the past sooner or later and that Azahara would be King Alonso’s instrument of choice for settling the matter. He just hadn’t expected him to lower himself to helping the Mad Empress to do so. What other cards was the demented witch hiding up her sleeve?
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Oooh, crisscrossing plots! I think. Vincent-vs-Azahara, Alphonse-vs-Alonso-through-Azahara, Mad Empress thrown into the mix… I see the beginnings of a tangled web of intrigue.
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You are on the right track! Alphonse served a similar role to Azahara in the past, so we do have a battle of assassin knights with those two. Edmund is still Vincent’s primary rival but he is Azahara’s secondary objective and she does have the better toolset for dealing with him! Where this is heading is quite the ride indeed. :)
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The last thing I needed was a muddy case. Simple, straightforward, clear… as clear as anything ever was with the Fae involved, and if I was involved, there were fae. Appearance not withstanding, Calco were made by the fae. Maybe because they missed the Cait Sidhe from the Old Country.
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This is the cat you mentioned popping out of nowhere? Sounds like he and Harry Dresden would get along.
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This is him. He’s fun but a bit off my normal, though.
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It flew at him as swiftly as a falcon swooping to the kill, and before it reached him, it vanished. She felt nothing, but its gaping absence was clear.
A moment later, so was where he had stood. Could he leap? That would be a danger more than any other power for them. And above all else for the villagers.
“Do not let him hide!” shouted Theudo. “Fill the garden!”
Juliana chided herself and sent the desiccating heat forward. The plants withered as before the worst drought, and the youth would have felt it too. Theudo and Petternella flooded the air with attacks.
Minutes later, Theudo called them off. “If he died, perhaps the body lies here too. Perhaps he set the magic to keep himself hidden after he died.”
“If he leapt,” said Petternella sourly, “he is long gone. And used this time to get further. Check the villagers.”
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“Let me try to make this perfectly clear to you. I have weapons that can wipe this entire city off the face of the Earth in an instant. Makes searching me for a knife or a gun I don’t have sort of stupid, wouldn’t you say?”
The guard — all of the guards — turned pale. Still, he said nervously, “It’s our job to search everybody, and we got special orders to search you.”
“Do those orders make sense to you?”
He resorted to an officious, “That’s not for me to say.”
“Why not?” she demanded, exasperated. “Are you not allowed to think? Can you not say, ‘This is stupid and pointless’ and omit such a useless, intrusive procedure? Especially since I didn’t set off the metal detector.”
They were holding up the line. All around the Rotunda people were staring, holding up cell phones, and the huge room echoed with talk about the unfolding drama.
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In the guards’ defense, wiping the city off the face of the Earth is a pretty drastic step. Particularly when any problem arising could be just as easily solved with a judicious application of lead to a couple of deserving souls. So bringing a gun or knife to said meeting would be a step towards de-escalation in any arising conflict (in the same vein that a penny saved is a penny earned, a city not destroyed is a city saved).
Now, if she truly doesn’t have any weapons besides city-destroyers on her, then this is rather pointless. And not the best way to hold detente.
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I rather like the ring amplifier that Worsel gave Kimball Kinneson. The one that boosts an L2 lensman’s killing power.
And all the bad guys died soundlessly, dropping wherever they were; and those who were redeemable dropped also, rendered unconscious, but not dead.
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Oh, she has lesser weapons. A wide variety of exceedingly versatile ones, in fact:
“You still don’t get it. These devices are embedded in my bones, threaded through my muscles and nerves. I can no more ‘hand them over’ than you can hand over your kidneys. You’re just wasting my time, and you’re going to make us late for the hearing.”
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Ah. Well, in that case, they really should give it up. The entire exercise is, as she said, stupid and pointless.
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“Clear Left!” Ens. Abel Monroe shouted out of the autogyro’s cockpit window.
Seeing the thumbs up from the flight deck crewman, he quickly finished the rest of the engine start checklist. Three pumps on the primer, throttle just out of idle cut-off, tickle the starter. The big air-cooled six-banger caught on the fifth blade. He did the same for the right engine.
With both engines warming up, Abel took a moment to catch his breath. He was still not comfortable flying solo in a Twin Dragonfly instead of the Harpoon torpedo bomber he had flown since graduating advanced training. And this was the Admiral’s personal bird, an unofficial gift from the Navy, set up for VIP transport instead of scouting. He’d be chipping paint in the Brownsville shipyard for the rest of his life if he so much as scuffed her.
‘Well,’ he thought, ‘guess it’s time to show I really can do this.’ He advanced the throttles to half power. Standing on the brakes, he signalled the deck crew to pull the chocks. When he confirmed the men were clear, he engaged the rotor pre-rotator, holding the blades in flat pitch to keep them from lifting too soon. The rotor blades slowly wound up to the proper RPM.
The moment came. Hands flying, he shoved the throttles to full power, released the pre-rotator, and moved the pitch control to the flight position. In half a heartbeat, the ‘gyro leapt from Laredo’s flight deck. He turned her toward the Gibraltar airstrip, and the Admiral’s guest, who was waiting there.
“I did it” he shouted to himself. Then he remembered that he had to land this thing back on the ship later.
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The day was clear and cloudless, and half the knights, perhaps more, were at their drill. The wizard, noted Dawn, had not asked any of them to help test her skills. If all went as planned, still that would be needed, and she was beginning to doubt that it had.
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Nicky found Connor Westin fiddling with an old radio, twisting the analog tuning dial back and forth. “What’re you doing?”
“Playing a little game.” Connor gestured to the notebook at his elbow. “Trying to see how many clear channel stations I can pull in. So far I’ve gotten most of the ones here in the West Coast, and I’m picking up some in Colorado and the Dakotas, but it’s looking like Utah and Arizona are going to be a dead zone tonight.”
“Neat.” Nicky hopped onto the stool beside Connor. “Can I help?”
Connor’s lips tightened, then he smiled. “Your ears are younger than mine, and you didn’t spend four years as an ordnance officer on the flight deck of a carrier. Let me know if you hear anything that sounds like a radio station as I go up and down the dial.”
Nicky leaned forward to get closer to the speaker. At first it was easy to think he was hearing voices or music in the endless crackle of static from distant thunderstorms. But with a little practice, he was able to pick out those faint stations enough for Connor to settle on them and get a station identification.
After about an hour Connor turned off the radio and looked over his list. “Not bad for a night when the Sun’s being quiet. Back when I was young, I remember being able to pull in East Coast stations on the best nights, and even on nights when the Heaviside layer was weak I could get the Chicago stations. Of course that was back in the days when WLS was still a rock station.” His eyes went distant with nostalgia. “The big but not too gaudy 89, high atop the downtown Burger King.”
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c4c
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Check the box, genius…
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It was clear.
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It was one of those beautiful mornings that only seem to come in late spring, early summer, in New England. The greens of the new leaves were so vibrant it was like a hyper-reality. The air so crisp and clear, it was as if God had just finished making it.
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It’s clear to me that the vast majority of our fellow-travelers have not noticed the warm water in our pot is starting to scald. What is not clear to me is how we fix it. Or if we can.
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Put a hole in the pot, the water will put out the fire. Put a sailor in charge, if anybody can screw something up it is a sailor on a mission to screw something up. Trust me on this.
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At dawn, put an infantry private, alone and no tasking, in a large open grassy field, in summer PT attire, with a 12″ diameter tungsten carbide sphere.
By lunchtime, the sphere is broken.
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“No, young Isaac,” said Simon. “it won’t work. Nature cannot be coerced, she can only be persuaded, and it is clear to me that you have not the gift”.
“But Hermes Trismegistos says…”
“Forget Hermes Trismegistgos!” snapped Simon.
Isaac looked at him in shock. “How can you say this? He was a master of alchemy”.
Simon snorted. “The so-called hermetic wisdom of alchemy is mostly nonsense. If you will follow him, you will never be more than a dabbler at alchemy. What you need to study, young Isaac, is mathematics. For that, you do have a gift. Nature will speak to you in that language, and you must learn to listen to what she says. ”
There was a knock on the door, and a student burst in.
“Have you heard the news? The University is closing. It must be the plague”.
Simon stood. “I am sorry, young Isaac, that I cannot teach you what you wish to learn from me. And, if the University is closing, then I must leave. I have obligations elsewhere. You will probably not hear from me again. But if you have the gift I expect, I may well hear of you.”
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