The Attack

By Cassandra Jones


He stared hard at the table as he tried to recall his attacker. The pain in his head was unbearable. He had already taken some aspirin, it had done nothing to help the headache, or his bad mood. He just wanted the nightmare to be over.

The police officer standing across from him was  getting restless. They had been in this room for the last two hours. He just couldn't seem to recall anything about this whack job. The guy had jumped him in a dimly lit alley.

Nate looked at his hands on the table. They were covered in scratches. The knuckles on his right hand were busted open from trying to fight back. He had a knot on the back of his head from being rammed into a wall.

“Do you remember anything about the attack at all?” The officer leaned against the wall.

“Not much,” Nate confessed. “It was almost dark in that alley.”

“Why did you go through a dark alley anyway?” He crossed his arms over his chest.

“Because I live a couple streets from there.” Nate shook his head. “I was trying to get home quicker.”

What was with Officer Attitude? Did he think Nate deserved what had happened? How would he feel if he had been attacked?

“Why go through the alley though?” The officer started pacing back and forth. You could have walked on the street like everyone else.”

“It comes out next to my apartment building.” Nate sighed. “I was in a hurry.”

“A hurry for what? Were you involved in a drug deal or something along those lines?”

Seriously? That's where he was going with this? That was crazy. Nate didn't do drugs and he didn't allow them in his apartment. He didn't have a clue why he was attacked. He knew it wasn't for anything like that.

Nate took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. He just wanted to go home and see his wife and daughter. He wanted a hot shower and some sleep. Instead, he was stuck here at the police station being treated like a common criminal.

“No.” Nate raked a hand through his hair, the action making his head hurt worse. “I was going to see my daughter. Today's her birthday and I had to work late.”

“So, you're not involved in anything shady?”

“Of course not.” Nate started to stand up. “Can I go now?”

“Yes, but I'll be in touch. Let me know if you remember anything.”

Nate walked into his apartment building fifteen minutes later. He wasn't ready to see the look on his wife's face when she saw him. She worried that they lived in a bad neighborhood.

He went down the hall to his apartment and froze? Why was the door open? He felt the fear creep up his spine. His pace quickened as he got closer.

He took a deep breath, stepping inside. The place was a mess. Furniture was overturned and pictures were on the floor. He started into the living room when he saw them.

His wife was sitting on the sofa, holding their daughter. One of his neighbors was with them.

“Lisa, what's going on?” He walked over to them.

“Nate?” She looked at him, the fear in her eyes. “Someone broke in. What happened to you?”

“I'm fine.” Nate kissed her cheek. “Are you?”

Lisa shook her head. His daughter looked at him. He was sure Hayley would remember this birthday for a long time.

“Did they take anything?” Nate picked Hayley up, sitting next to Lisa.

“No, but they left this.” She handed him a piece of paper.

Nate read it in disbelief. What on earth was going on here? What had his brother done?

“Why are they saying they want your brother?” Lisa chewed her lip. “What did he do this time?”

“I don't know.” Nate confessed.

He had no idea what his kid brother had done this time. Luke had always been in and out of trouble. Nate was always getting him out of whatever mess he was in. He hadn't talked to him in a couple weeks. That gave him time to do something really stupid.

“I'm calling him.” Nate grabbed the phone.

“Nate, you have to get him to stop this.” Lisa wiped her tears away. “That note says they'll be back.”

What it actually said was if Luke didn't cooperate his brother would be dead, along with his family. Nate had to stop that from happening, somehow.


A Cloudy Afternoon in the Northwest

By ROSTI
We sit on a cloudy, warm winter day,
Ablaze with the passion of summer
Deep within our beings.

Remembering a bud that opens
In the spring rain to adorn
The bough of the tree it rests upon.

And though there are grey clouds
Slithering eastward to dump
A foot of snow upon the nearby foothills,

Still we recall the warm breeze of summer
Upcoming, always moving forward
With a long, languid evening stirring our soul.

We're still in its bosom, warm and safe
Despite the flurries and gales
Upon us from the north.

And summer will bring a new year
One step closer to our next chapter
Writ by fate or destiny or dumb luck.

Never very obvious
So as to always entertain and amaze
With its convoluted path, ever-grateful

Of the succor that is bestowed
Upon us from its unfathomed place
Where dreams and nightmares are made.

But for us, dreams…


© Richard A Martin, Jr., MD, CPC, 2017


The Bus That Never Came

By Irene Bassett


To us that year a bitter and cold winter came.
We teens dashed ‘round, your coat black and mine red,
In the snow that was as a pale white.
From the clouds, it came, swiftly and gently falling,
Heading down to the ground.
Above we had gentle grey waves in the sky.

Above us we heard the cry of birds in the sky,
We looked up and to us a strange vision came.
High above our heads fluttered a scarf towards the ground.
It was a beautifully crafted thing, silken and red.
You reached and interrupted its graceful falling,
And saw across the street a young woman in a coat of white.

She waved a hand that was gloved in white,
And she smiled to you, with a sparkling eye, blue as a clear sky.
I could see that in that moment your heart for her was falling,
Head over heels, and when she beckoned you came.
I could see from where I stood your cheeks aglow with red.
She explained she was waiting for the bus when you asked why she sat on the ground.

So you joined her there, and sat down upon the ground.
And ‘round her pale neck of white,
You wrapped that slash of red.
You two talked until night darkened the sky.
And then talked some more until the last bus came.
It was plain to see that you were both in love falling.

And because you were both together falling,
You decided again to meet here on this very ground.
When the sun rose and the dawn with it came,
No matter if there lay again the snow’s white,
You’d meet here again to watch the sun rise into the sky.
Your lips were twin pilgrims that joined into roses red.

I felt stir within me the color of anger – red.
For you, I had so long ago had been falling,
With you ever so blissfully unaware even as we lay staring at the sky,
Our backs against the cold, wet ground.
Even within the carefully folded notes on paper that was white,
Feelings that I desired from you never came.

The green of jealousy and the red of anger mixed and held their ground.
And in the wee dark hours of the falling snow, I created a lie that was not white.
I awoke you after the sun was high in the sky and told you the bus never came.

Everyman


by G Dean Manuel

Special Agent Fitz Montgomery slammed the dossier on the table. "Why don't you start with telling me who you are?" He was dressed like a classic Gman. Pressed suit, tie, white dress shirt, the whole ball of wax. You could almost picture him in the bullpen with his jacket off and sleeves rolled up, hands on his hips. He fixed the man seated across from him with a hard stare.

"Are you trying to interrogate me or ask me out?" the other man said. He was dressed in a black trench coat, loose collared shirt, and slacks. He was a pencil-thin man, all angles. He sported a perpetual five o'clock shadow. He favored the agent with a lop-sided grin that was all snark.

"Maybe you want to take this a bit more seriously. The people I work for..."

"I know who you work for, mate," the other man said an obvious Cockney timber to his voice. "You mind if I smoke?"

"You do not want to piss me off!"

"Piss you off? I'm just being me ol' charming self." A cigarette had appeared in his hand. He smiled slowly at Fritz and lit his cigarette. He did so without the aid of lighter or match, just covering it with his hands and puffing.

"Parlor tricks? Is that supposed to be intimidating?"

"Naw, son, that ain't intimidating. I'm plannin' on being intimidating in a bit."

"Who are you?"

"That's the question, isn't it? Why don't you call me Charles? Yeah, Charles will do just fine," said the man, leaning back in his seat and taking a long pull from his cigarette.

Agent Montgomery opened the file on the table. He scattered several photos. "These photos. You're in each one."

Charles shrugged. "Sure, why not?"

"These photos go back as far as 1864!"

Charles looked him dead in the eye. "Your point?"

"How can you be in them?"

"Well, that's a good question," Charles said, leaning forward, resting his elbows on the table. "Easy answer: Those people ain't me, mate."

"We've had these photos processed through facial recognition software. Several different kinds. The lowest match was still eighty-seven percent. These photos are of you." Fritz crossed his arms.

"Well, now you done and got all serious on me. Whatcha do that for?" Charles said, flashing his grin but it didn't reach his eyes. "The answer to your question, let's just say you aren't ready for it, capiche?"

"I'm ready for whatever you have to tell me, Charles."

"Bah... you young uns are all alike," the man in the trench coat said. "I'm ready to learn the secrets of the Universe and it's many planes of existence. Oh, no, this tentacled horror is eatin' me face off! You aren't ready, lad. Trust me. Plus, you don't really have time to hear the whole story."

"How so?"

"Well, in the next two minutes, two men will walk through that door. They'll flash a badge and tell you they are taking over the case. My suggestion to you: Walk away."

"I don't know what you take me for..."

There was a knock at the door.

Agent Montgomery looked at Charles in surprise, who merely smiled and inclined his head. When Fritz turned to answer the door, Charles' facial expression became serious. Charles was on the move before Agent Montgomery opened the door. With a thought, he freed himself from the cuffs that connected him to the table.

"Bloody hell," he swore under his breath. From one of the many secret pockets in his trench coat, Charles produced some chalk. He quickly sketched an outline of a door and a few arcane sigils. He focused, as he'd been taught, and whispered the words of the incantation.

Two men stood at the doorway being blocked by Special Agent Montgomery. One of them looked past the agent and saw what Charles was doing. He immediately hit Fritz in the throat, causing the special agent to clutch at his throat and drop to the ground, gasping for breath.

Charles looked over his shoulder as he opened the doorway he had conjured. He threw the pair a cheeky smile and wink. "Better luck next time, fellas!"

"Noooo!" one of the two screamed. "You will open the portal to the queen!"

Charles turned completely about and gave a wave. "Noooooooo, I won't," he said as the doorway closed. He took a moment and looked around, trying to determine where he ended up. He took a deep breath through his nostrils. His nose crinkled. Bangalore, definitely Bangalore. He started walking, putting distance between him and his portal site.

Pulling out a cellphone, he punched in a number. It rang for a few seconds and then was picked up. "Tommy?"

"Gerald," said Tommy Twilight.

"They found me again, mate."

Tommy sighed. "I'm in the middle of an investigation. Where are you? I'll pick you up after I get done."

"Bangalore."

"Really? You know Aishwarya still lives there and I'm pretty sure she still hates me."

"Can't be helped, mate. You know what happens if they catch me."

Tommy swore. "You know, if you quit being a royal douche bag, maybe you'd have more friends to call when you were in trouble. Meet me at the Bannerghatta National Park. There is a portal close to there."

"Thanks, mate." He hung up the phone.


Rudvar's Journey

By Bernadette Flynn


It was still quite early in the day. The sun was just beginning to warm the valley floor as Rudvar, the Hob, slowly made his way back down to his cosy barrow, far beneath the deep, red soil. He had spent the morning caring for the many plants, trees, and animals that shared his valley home. He didn’t work alone either. Many other members of his clan, as was Bolgar tradition, had also been out and about, ranging across the valley floor and ensuring that everything was just as it should be. Hobs were caretakers of a sort. Instead of caring for home and hearth though, as was more commonplace throughout Hob society, the Bolgar Clan had chosen instead, to live out their long lives giving mother nature a helping hand. His people had found, over the centuries, that there was a much better existence to be had, far distant from all the bustle and hubbub of crowded town and city life.

Many people, across both of the realms, thought of Hobs as a lazy, slow-witted race. Rudvar and his people paid them no mind. After all, at the end of the day, when all was said and done, his clan had the most beautiful home in the world. Every day they did just enough work to keep it that way, and that sounded pretty damn sensible, at least to Rudvar's way of thinking anyhow.

The small arched stone door to his own barrow was located just off the main clan hall, conveniently close to the kitchens too, a fact of which Rudvar never failed to remind the other members of the clan, any chance he got. Squeezing his large form through the small entrance, he walked over to the central firepit and poked the dying embers back to life. Adding a handful of dry sticks and a couple of large, oak logs to the gently crackling glow, he made his way slowly across to his soft, cosy bed. Yawning loudly, he plumped up the pile of dry grass until it was just right, before rolling gratefully into its cosy embrace, and falling, almost at once, into a deep untroubled slumber.

Rudvar was abruptly woken from his nap sometime later, by a violent shaking and what sounded very much like a thunderstorm and a rock slide all rolled into one. He attempted to sit up, but the shaking knocked him straight back down again each time he tried. Rolling to his side, he crawled from the hollow that held his bed and out into the main room, skirting the firepit as he made his way slowly to the outer door. Soil rained down upon him as he went, making it very hard to see and breathe in the near darkness. It seemed that all of the pitch torches lining the walls of the clan hall had been smothered under the thick cloud of choking dust and debris. It was so dark, in fact, that although he could hear the muffled cries of alarm coming from other clan members throughout the warren, he couldn’t even see where his own hands were on the stone floor right in front of his face. It felt like the whole world was raining down on them. If the shaking didn’t come to an end soon, there would be nothing left of his ancestral warren. In fact, if the shaking didn’t come to an end soon, there might be no one left to live inside of it either! Suddenly, there was a huge tearing sound from somewhere above his head. Forgetting that he couldn’t see anything, Rudvar raised his eyes to try to discover the source of the horrid sound. As he did so, he felt a flash of searing agony when something heavy cracked painfully into his forehead, and then there was only darkness.

When he finally came to, it was with total confusion and the worst headache he had felt in all of his years. It seemed that dusk had fallen at some point while he had lain there unconscious. He could feel a light breeze upon his skin, telling him that he had somehow ended up outside of the warren. Although his eyes were still half-blinded by the dust, he could already tell that the light around him was dim and nothing like the sunny, bright morning he could still picture so clearly in his mind’s eye. He raised a still trembling hand to his pounding head, and when he brought it away a moment later, his thick fingers were smeared with an unpleasant, sticky paste of his own blood mingled with the deep red soil. It covered most of his body in a thick blanket. He was very lucky that his Hob skin was so much thicker than most of the other races, and that their bones were far sturdier too. A blow to the head that was hard enough to make a Hob bleed was usually also hard enough to kill any non-Hob outright.

Climbing free of the uncomfortable bed of soil and stones, he pushed himself to his feet and blinked away the last of the dirt that was obscuring his vision. The moment his eyes cleared, he stared around himself in horrified amazement. The warren was gone! There was no grand clan hall in which to hold their celebrations, no kitchen left where Hob cooks could prepare their lavish feasts, and worst of all, no comfortable warm barrow with its soft, grass bed and crackling fire pit. There was nothing at all left of the place that he had been proud to call his home. It felt to Rudvar that, from one moment to the next, his peoples’ entire existence had simply been erased from the world. A single, fat, warm tear slipped unnoticed down his dust-covered face, followed a moment later by a second, leaving red, wet tracks in their wake. Dragging his gaze away from the emptiness that had once been his ancestral home, he scanned the area around him, eyes searching desperately in the dim light for the rest of his clan. Had there been a cave in? No, he knew already that couldn't be the case. If it had been so, then he would have certainly been buried alive under several hundred tons of stone and earth now, his life journey and all of his worries at an end.

Finally, he caught a glimpse of movement over by a large pile of rubble, where he thought the grand clan meeting chamber had once stood. For the first time in his life, Rudvar found himself running. Hobs didn’t usually move much faster than a slow, lumbering walk - there had simply never been the need before. He felt the need now though, and nearly flew at a stumbling run over the scattered piles of debris. Finally, he slid to a stop in a small cloud of dust at the feet of Galden, spiritual leader of the Bolgar people.

"What has happened here Galden? Why is this happening to us?’ His voice was even more gravelly than normal, due to the dust still making his lungs feel heavy, and more so because of the vast well of despair that had sprung  deep within his soul. Galden, he saw, had several small cuts and bruises over his heavily lined face and arms, but aside from those few marks, the clan elder seemed  otherwise uninjured.

"I do not know the why my son, but the what I can shed some light upon; I think...” He pointed a single gnarled finger skyward. Rudvar’s gaze followed in the direction to which the old Hob pointed, desperate for any answer at all that would help to quiet the panicked questions screaming inside his mind. What he saw up there, high above them, only added to his despair and confusion. About ten metres above their heads and still rising, he could clearly make out patches of the decorated stone ceiling that had for centuries been the pride of the clan. The ceiling had been created over too many generations to count, with each generation adding something new to its intricate design, telling the proud story of his people. Up until today, its beauty had graced the great hall, where untold numbers of feasts, celebrations, and meetings had been held beneath its magnificent arches. His own coming of age had taken place below it, as had the worst day of his life to date: when he had tearfully carried the broken body of his father to the high dais for the gloaming rites. It seemed that his entire life thus far had passed beneath that ceiling, and now, along with everything else he had ever known, or had ever wanted to know, it was gone.

Seeing the unstoppable tide of emotion rising within the young Hob, Galden laid his hand upon Rudvar’s shaking shoulders.

"All will come right Rudvar. You must place your trust in the ancestors now. They will ensure that our people will rise again, as and when the tides of fate allow.” Galden's words would normally have set his mind and soul at ease, but today Rudvar couldn’t find the same comfort in the elder’s unshakable faith and calm tone. He couldn’t help the flash of anger inside his chest at the knowledge that someone or something had done this to his people, nor the bitter realisation that the ancestors, who he had put his faith in his entire life, had been either unable or unwilling to do anything at all to stop it. It shook the very foundation of everything he thought that he knew, as if the ceiling of his own inner faith had been ripped from him, sent soaring skyward, along with the home which he knew deep in his heart that he would never again be able to set foot in. He tried to mask his inner turmoil, but his words as he replied to Galden sounded clipped and tense even to his own ears.

"As you say Galden. What do you require of me? Is every member of the clan accounted for?"

Galden got slowly to his feet, waving away the instinctive offer of Rudvar’s arm to steady him.

"Thank the Ancestors, yes. No clan member will face the gloaming this day.” He walked over to the edge of the large ledge that Rudvar hadn’t even realized they were standing upon, and gestured down into the expansive bowl-shaped crater that now fell away a handful of centimetres in front of their feet. The crater was huge, giving a clearer visual scale to the vast mass of rock and soil, which was now floating somewhere high above them. It blocked out the blue sky completely, casting a dismal shadow over all of the land below it. He swallowed back the sour taste of bile, realising, that area now comprised almost the entirety of the beautiful valley which he remembered. No wonder it had felt like dusk, Rudvar thought bitterly. Beneath the floating island it would always be dusk. There would be no more sunny mornings, no more wildflowers, or rolling meadows of sweet smelling grass. Even the handful of animals and birds, who had not fled the initial wave of destruction would be forced to leave. The lack of food, and others of their kind would see to that soon enough. Oh, how he wished he could be just like one of those birds, able to spread his wings and leave all of his sadness and heartache behind him, in favour of new lands, far from the reach of such an evil as this.

Even if he could leave this place somehow though, he knew with certainty that his people could not follow him. Before this day the clan had lived the same simple lives as all of those Bolgar who had come before them. If there had ever been a pioneering spirit within his clan, then its flame had long since been extinguished. Even now, he could see some of his people far down in the bottom of the crater gathering what little they could from its rough, uneven slopes in a vain attempt to try and build some form of shelter from the cold, dust-laden wind. In a week or two those crude, muddy shelters would become more substantial dwellings, and not long after that they would become homes of a sort. To be just so, was intrinsically bound up in the very nature of the Hob race, after all. Yes, his people would adapt to their new bleak surroundings, and without a single grumbled complaint, they would make what they could of their new, very different existence.

Not Rudvar though. He had known, somewhere deep within his soul, as he stood watching his beloved home disappear into the clouds above, that he was changed now. What that would mean for him, he didn’t yet know, but whatever happened now, he knew two things for certain: Firstly, he would never abandon his clan, especially in the face of the evil that they now confronted. Secondly, from this day forth he was going to spend every single moment in an effort to find some way to restore his people, and the future generations of Bolgar Hobs, to the unspoiled way of life that they had earned, and worked so diligently to protect since the very founding of their people.

Yes, today would mark the first new beginning of many for Rudvar the Hob.  



The Request


by G Dean Manuel

Tanner was having a hard time focusing on the screen as he logged into Facebook, more out of habit than any true desire to know the extraneous events of his online community’s day. As he muddled through the different alerts, he caught his reflection on the monitor. At 21, he wasn’t bad looking, especially after the acne he had fought all his life began to recede, but he also wasn’t a Greek god made flesh. He was on the thin side, scrawny if he had to use a word, and there was a certain air that seemed to cling to him, one that pointed to his lack of experience. Not that he minded being a virgin at 21 but it made him feel like a sideshow attraction amongst his friends, who all seemed astounded that he would have waited so long. But then, who could blame them in this day and age.

Tanner tried to give more than apathetic interest in the screen in front of him as he scrolled through the different updates of his many “friends”. As he clicked on the upper right, moving from his newsfeed to his profile, he sighed to see that his profile was headed by an update that he didn’t post. He read the update indifferently, noting that, once again, it was a gay joke. For supposedly heterosexual men, he and his friends made an obscene number of gay implications amongst each other, he thought.

Tanner was just about to close the window to get some much needed rest when he noticed one of the icons light up red on the left-hand side of the screen. It was the friend icon and he found his interest piqued for the first time in a while, so he forestalled his plans for sleep just a little bit until his curiosity was sated.

Tanner clicked the red icon, which immediately brought down nothing he noted sourly. Big surprise, Facebook’s lagging, he thought. As he waited, he ran through his head who might have sent him a friend request, trying to think of all the people he knew that might be sending him a friend request. A need for sleep severely limited his cognitive abilities but he was still able to put together a short list of suspected friend requesters, that is why he was taken by surprise when the name finally appeared on his screen.

Euterpe Praxia.

Tanner wracked his brain, but he was fairly certain that with a name as strange as Euterpe, that it would stand out. Curiouser and curiouser, he thought. He glanced down at the time: 11:45pm. Maybe he had a little time for a trip down the rabbit hole, he thought with a smile. He didn’t have to be at work until 3pm the next day, and even with his poor sleeping habits, that was plenty of time.

Clicking on the picture of Euterpe, he was immediately greeted with a personal message from her. It read:

You don’t know me; at least I’m pretty sure you don’t. I saw your name and immediately wanted to know you, though. Tanner is such a… sexy name. Anyways, I hope you take a chance on this friend request, I know how things are online these days. I promise I’m not a creepy old man and I’m not selling anything, just a lonely Greek girl reaching out across the Net. Anyways, I will understand if you can’t but I hope you will! <3 Euterpe

A look of captivation fell like a mask across Tanner’s face as he read the words. As he finished, he shook his head, feeling dazed, as if he just woke up. Tanner found this disconcerting, though a bit pleasurable, as he had never been one of those whose interest was captured by words. He found himself needing to know more about this mysterious girl. He used her picture as a portal to her profile, then clicked on Photos and browsed. Tanner gave a low, involuntary whistle of appreciation. If these were actual pics of Euterpe then she was certainly a hottie, Tanner thought. Long, black hair that framed a perfectly oval face with seafoam blue-green eyes that seemed to capture him whenever he looked at them. She had an olive complexion, with a tight stomach and long legs that seemed to be twin stairways to heaven. The more Tanner saw the more Tanner wanted, her beauty entrancing him. Tanner found himself consuming the pics that she had and finding himself hungering for more once he got to the end of her online collection.

Tanner felt ashamed as he began to rub the hardness at the front of his slacks, his face burning red in humiliation at how easily he was aroused by pictures of a woman he had never met that were only barely erotic; her most provocative were bikini pics. Feeling the stiffness in his pants, he decided that there was no reason not to accept this vixen’s friend request if she made him feel this way from only a few lines and pictures, what would her status updates do to him?

No sooner had he accepted the friend request than a chat box opened at the bottom of the screen. He stared at it with barely restrained lust, the words not quite making it to the part of the brain that could translate them properly. When he finally realized that he should actually read what she wrote, he took a couple of deep calming breaths and read:

Euterpe: I thought you’d never accept my request, lover! I’ve been waiting all day for someone to talk to poor, lonely Euterpe… I’m sooooo alone and I find myself having to, how do you say, take care of myself?

Tanner groaned out loud as he read her words, swearing to himself he could hear her voice, husky and sultry, inside his head. How did this woman do this? Tanner had never felt so helpless against the opposite sex. Never having had a woman physically touch him, Tanner was for the most part immune to what a woman would do, never having experienced it himself, he didn’t know what he was missing so it really didn’t concern him. And yet, this woman, who was just words and pixels on a monitor, had somehow awakened a desire within him from a halfway across the world!

Tanner found his eyes once more drawn to the screen as words start appearing once more in the chat box:

Euterpe: Hey, Tanner, baby, you still there? I’m lonely and just want to chat with you! Please don’t make me beg!

Tanner took a deep breath, felt a chill run down his spine, and started typing:

Tanner: Uhm, yeah I’m here.

Euterpe: Are you scared, honey? No need, Euterpe is a nice girl!

Tanner: I’ve just never done this before with anyone, it's my 1st time doing anything like this.

Euterpe: Ahhhh! So sexy, a virgin! And what exactly are we doing, Virgin Tanner?

Tanner: I don’t know.

Euterpe: Well, if you want, Euterpe doesn’t mind making sexy with you… but only if you want to…

Tanner took a deep gulp of air, finding the situation becoming too intense for his liking. Without thinking, because thought would draw him back in, he shut down his computer with the power button and sat back, noticing for the first time how much he was sweating. Did that just happen, did a girl he didn’t even know almost turn him into some sort of sex slave? Shaking his head, he walked away from the computer, thinking now would be a good time for sleep. As he stripped to his night clothes, some sweatpants and a wife beater, he almost jumped out of his skin when his phone started ringing, playing Justin Beiber’s Kiss and Tell.

Tanner looked towards the clock and was dismayed to see that it was near 2:15am. Had that much time really passed? And who would be calling me this late? Tanner thought. Tanner flicked his gaze down at the phone, noting that all it said was Unknown Caller, not even a number. Despite his trepidation, Tanner flipped the phone open. “Hello,” he said hesitantly.

“You stopped talking to me, lover,” the husky and sultry voice, that had been confined to his head until now, said.

“Who is this?” Tanner said nervously, fearing he knew the answer. The very sound of her voice had him rehardened instantly, he noted with apprehension. He almost went crazy with lust when he talked to her online, what would happen in an actual conversation on the phone?

“Euterpe, silly, we got disconnected online… Luckily, you had your phone number as part of your profile or I would have had to wait to hear from you,” she purred into his ear via the phone. Tanner gasped and she giggled. Each intonation she made seemed a caress that caused him to shiver in anticipation of more.

“Why me?” he croaked out, his words hoarse with desire.

“Ohhhh, Tanner, baby, why not you? You are so cute and lovable and no one has ever tended to your needs! I just want to make you feel good, is that so bad?” Euterpe said, her voice enthralled Tanner, causing him to begin to bubble with unreleased sexual tension. “But there is no need to worry now, my little man. Euterpe knows where you are now, she can visit you, you can welcome her in your dreams. We can release you from all those many years of sexual oppression…”

Tanner didn’t know what else to do, didn’t know how else to fight it, so he did the only thing he could think of, he passed out.

Max Mercury: A Night Out


by G Dean Manuel

Max reclined back in the nice chair. He liked this restaurant, Capes, partly because it fed his ego. It catered exclusively to top celebs. Only the A-list superheroes got in here. He frequented this and many places like this, his superspeed coming with a high metabolism which meant he needed to eat often. But you'd never catch Max Mercury at a Burger King, he was better than that. Everything about his life had to be exclusive... well except his woman. At least he was never exclusive.

Max was broken out of his reverie when he was nudged. He turned to see who had hit him, maybe even give it a piece of his mind, but no one was there. When he turned back, a napkin was sitting in front of him. Max looked around, half believing a camera crew was going to pop out and tell him he was being punked. With no camera crew was forthcoming, he gingerly lifted the napkin in front of him. His body was a mass of potential energy ready to erupt into kinetic in a moment's notice. Nothing happened.

Max stared at the napkin confused. Then he turned it over and saw the writing. It was in clean, crisp hand and read:

Danger.

Get out now while you still can.

Max was now sure he was being punked. Max Mercury in danger? It was a laughable thought. He was a premier member of the Liberty League, one of their flagship heroes. He was a god of speed, renowned the world over! How could he be in danger?

He stood up and looked around the room. What he saw disconcerted him a little. He was the center of attention. That alone would not have concerned him. He loved being the center of attention. He was Max Mercury. It was when he noticed that over three-quarters of the people in the room were nothing more than robotic dolls. How had he not noticed?

He wasn't worried. Again, he was Max Mercury. He shifted himself into overdrive. He had heard many people talk about whether he was always moving at super speed or not. He didn't. He consciously controlled whether he moved to superspeed. Life passing by like a DVD on slow-mo all the time could not possibly be somebody's idea of cool. Anyways, he kicked himself into overdrive. Time slowed. Well, his perception of time sped up. There were eight people that weren't dolls. Each was reaching for a weapon, at least that is what he assumed. He stood there for a moment, watching them all. He had a cocky half-smile plastered to his face. Bringing only eight against Max Mercury? These people obviously didn't know who he was. He waited just to show off. Seconds inched pass. Languidly, Max started off but he was abruptly shunted out of overdrive. Time came flooding back to its own pace.

Max hit the ground in an explosion of air, his lungs emptied by the impact. He heard the unmistakable sound of two laser blasts going off above him. The waiter, that Max had pretty much ignored, had tackled the stunned superhero straight to the floor. The man, solid and sturdy, the polar opposite of the lithesome Mercury, was rummaging in his apron. "You told us that you'd be less than useless without your powers," the waiter said.

"I'm Max Mercury, I'm never useless!" Max mumbled.

The waiter favored him with a deprecating look. It disappeared with a smile when he found what he was looking for. He pulled out a small chunk of highly polished silver and gripped it tightly in his hand. He threw Max a wink. Then his skin... rippled. Suddenly he was a moving silver statue. "Stay down."

"What else am I going to do?"

The waiter stood up. Immediately the four assailants targeted him. There was the hard whine of the guns charging then the pop of their discharge. The first shot hit him straight on, bounded off and hit the man on the right. That assailant's shot was fired reflexively and hit the waiter on the shoulder. It glanced off, striking the man behind him. The other two shots veered off into the walls.

A blood-curdling yell preceded the blade of a gladius erupting from the chest of one of the remaining assailants. A woman dressed as a waitress, with a savagely gleeful expression, kicked the body off her sword, launching it across the room. It crashed into the wall with a sudden thump. A blue orb slammed into the ground, shattering into a million pieces.

Max Mercury felt his body slam back into overdrive. He looked at the three remaining people in the room. A man with a laser gun. Woman with a sword and a serious hard-on for a fight. Metalman. The last two hadn't tried to kill him. In fact, they were trying to help him. A fraction of a second, he was at the elbow of the gun-wielding thug. He relieved him of his laser.

"So, what do we have here?" Max said playfully. Before anyone blinked, he had disassembled the gun and had it neatly arranged on the table. "Interesting... this works on a double fusion matrix!"

Metal man's fist crashed into the face of the last assailant. The man dropped bonelessly to the ground. "You shouldn't be looking at that."

"Why not?"

"Future tech," the wiry woman said.

"Well, it looks interesting," Max mumbled like a child being admonished.

"Sir, I just want to tell you that I deeply regret my part in what happens next," the metalman said, looking truly contrite.

"What part?"

"Distraction."

"Distra-" That is when Max felt the needle pierce his skin. He had just enough time to turn around and look accusingly at the grinning face of the female warrior before crumpling listlessly to the floor.

"You know you shouldn't take so much pleasure doing that, Valeria." the metalman said.

"Oh, hush, it isn't like it will hurt him, Switch."

"We better get to work. That'll only keep him out for thirty minutes."
اس نے دو عورتیں اسی وقت ہی کی ہیں
Half an hour later Max rubbed bleary eyes. He'd fallen asleep? His week had been quite packed, it was plausible. He smiled ruefully. A speedster running himself ragged. He found the waiter and asked for his check.

"You didn't order anything, sir. You almost immediately fell asleep and I didn't have the heart to wake you," Switch told the bewildered hero.

"Oh, then can I get ten orders of spaghetti, four orders of the lemon chicken zitti, six loaves of bread with that awesome mix of herbs and spices, and fifteen orders of tiramisu. Just need a snack," Max said, flashing Switch a smile.

"Of course, sir."

"Hey, call me Max."

"We will have it ready in a few minutes, Max." said Switch. He headed back to the kitchen and placed the order with the cook. Both the cook and the actual waiter looked very confused. They had been put in stasis thanks to Static. Switch barely spared them a glance. They would recover.

Valerian was standing in the back and nodded to Switch as he approached. "You ready?"

"Sure," he said, "let's go back to the future." After he made the comment he looked at her.

"What?" she asked as she caught him staring at her.

He sighed. "I know you are like a thousand years old but you really need to sit down and watch a movie."

Valerian looked at Switch and lifted her lip in a sneer. "Your movies are pathetic. Now back in Greece, we had such plays!"

"Not Ancient Greece again! I think I'll pass and just make the temporal jump earlier, damn the consequences."

Valerian rolled her eyes. "I am Valerian, war priestess of the goddess Athena. I have no time for your silly 'movies'." She opened her mouth to say more something when the scanner she was holding beeped. "Saved by the gong..."

"Bell. Saved by the bell."

"Let's just go back home."

"Yes, ma'am."

With a crackle of temporal energy, they disappeared.

Pleasure and Death


by G Dean Manuel
I walked into the diner, it certainly wasn't what I was expecting. It had all the hallmarks of a fifties diner. Jukebox. Waitresses in poodle skirts and bobby socks. Even that powder blue and white coloring. It really wasn't his style. He chose this place for my benefit then. I can't really argue with his choice but I'm more than a little put off that he knows me so well. It isn't like we run in the same circles.

I went to the table he had chosen for us. We might have been siblings but we couldn't be more different. He was dressed in all black and not like cool black. Somber black. Everything about him, from the cut of his jacket to the contours of his face, was severe. Like, he didn't just look at you, he bore a hole into you with his eyes. I was definitely not a fan. I didn't like the guy even if we were related.

I, on the other hand, was the epitome of edgy cool, if I do say so myself. I was wearing a t-shirt that had the 'No Drama Llama' on it that was tucked into a black skirt. I complimented my outfit with black hose and combat boots. Finally, the piece de resistance was the hat on top of my head. I was the cool chick on this block... ;)

He looked up at me and our eyes met for an instant. I had to look away. You know how eyes are the windows to the soul? All I saw in his was more black.

"You're early," he said.

"Hey, I know, D, but I wanted to be the only person in history that was early to meet Death!" I laughed at my own joke.

"You know, Pleasure, I do not like being called D," he said impassively.

"Ugh, whatever," I said, throwing him a scathing glance.

"As fun as these little family get-togethers are, maybe we should get down to business."

I sighed. "There's a guy... I just want to know when he's going to die."

Death cocked his head at me and said simply, "Why?"

"He's suffered so much during his life, I want to make his last moments... fun," I said, holding out a small hope that my big brother would understand. His eyes narrowed. "Why has he endured so much hardship?"

"Just had a hard..."

"Don't presume to lie to me. I'm Death, the end of all things. Who is this man?" Death said, his eyes blazing with a black flame.

"Hey, calm down! You are going to upset the lessers!" I said.

Death and I were part of an extended family of sorts. It was huge. Not all of us got along all the time either. Death and I were not at odds, so we were cordial with each other. But there were others that did not get along with each other. Like I didn't understand Sadness and she didn't get me. We weren't enemies per se but we also didn't associate. Not like Death and Life. They hated each other. There was only one of us that I couldn't stand. Suffering. "The name," Death said, leveling his gaze at me like a loaded weapon. It was effective. He was one of the elder six and not someone to mess with.

"Trevor Mendel," I squeaked.

Death sat back and froze in place. I knew he was sifting through his mystical storage box of a mind to see what he had on the kid. In a moment, his eyes refocused on me and he said, "He's one of Suffering's dolls."

"I know."

"Maybe, but do you understand?"

"Yes."

"I don't think you do. You don't understand that if those dolls weren't in place, Suffering would drown the humans. There would be no balance. That is why we set up dolls, people whose whole lives are given over to Suffering. We sacrifice a few to make sure that the many are not overrun. This cannot be tampered with for even a moment. You need to understand this, Pleasure."

"Okay, I get it."

Death sighed. He was having a hard time dealing with me. I was younger, I came much later to our family. Not as young as some, I was still young compared to someone like Death. He was practically here from the start. "Have you read man's Bible?" Death asked.

"Not really. Not my style."

Death nodded having assumed that would be my answer. "Have you at least heard about Noah and the flood?"

"Everyone's heard about that... they even made it into a movie."

"That story is based on the birth of Suffering. During his birth, his powers ran rampant and unfocused. Wave after wave of suffering covered the world. It was a figurative flood. We, the elder Constants, were only able to shield a few humans from the damage. The rest died. We were able to finally constrain him. But he always manages to break loose and then spreads suffering across the globe.

The dolls became our solution. Focus him on a few individuals. Suffering doesn't stop but it is manageable. The dolls lead horrific lives. They are tortured at every turn. But their sacrifice keeps the world safe. Suffering is focused on them. From birth to death. You give them any sort of release, you could cause him to become unfocused. Unfocused is bad for the world. He has the kind of power that is very hard to fight," Death finished. I was astounded. That was the longest thing I'd ever heard Death say at once.

I took a few moments to absorb what I was being told. I hadn't been around for Suffering's birth. I hadn't ever been told or seen any of us do anything like that. Death didn't joke around and he didn't lie. He didn't need to, he was Death. I sighed. I was going to have to leave Suffering alone from now on. "Why didn't anyone tell me that messing with him could result in a cataclysm?" I asked, slightly peeved. I was never told the important things until later. "Because you never did anything that would cause that until now. In fact, you helped by opposing him. While a majority of his psyche is focused on the dolls, you engage the portion that isn't and that is good," Death answered.

"You mean, knowing what I now know, I'm supposed to go about my business as usual?"

Death nodded his head in a 'that's exactly what the hell you are going to do' way. "That is the reason for your existence. You were created with the purpose of opposing Suffering."

"I was created to oppose Suffering?" I huffed.

"Oh, don't get all up in arms. We were all created with diametric opposites. I was created to oppose Life. She was created to oppose me. We are balances that hold the other in check. You are Suffering's balance."

"So, I'm just supposed to go around opposing him?"

"What? No, you do what you are meant to do. Promote pleasure. You oppose him by existing, just as he opposes you by existing. Just look around you."

I looked around. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. People were laughing and carrying on like they always did. Eating and smiling. "What am I supposed to see?" I asked.

"Do you really think that this is how humans normally act around Death?"

I looked around again. "They are happy because of me?"

"Well, the short answer is yes. The long answer is involved and debatable."

"You don't smile much, do you? Or see others smile?" I asked. I started pushing... myself towards Death. I wanted him to smile.

"Stop it."

I put on an innocent face and said, "What are you talking about? I'm not doing anything..."

He leveled his gaze at me like a lance and reiterated once more, "Stop it."

"Why? What's so wrong about wanting to see you smile."

"Because the world isn't ready for me to find Pleasure in what I do..."

I left with a quickness after that.

Demonshock


by G Dean Manuel
Content Warning: Language/Sexual Innuendo

His heavy combat boot crashed against the door with a resounding thud. Twelve pairs of eyes turned to the door and looked suitably intimidated. Grime was a fairly large man with a craggy, leathery face that would not win any modeling contracts. He wore hobnailed combat boots, the hobnails having a disconcerting amount of dried blood, and green fatigue pants that were tucked into the boot tops. The pants bulged outward with Kevlar inserts. He wore a t-shirt with the band logo for Suicide by Dragon emblazoned on the front over an extra thick Kevlar vest. At his hip was belted, in an Old West rendition gun belt, one of the biggest, meanest looking pistols known to man. The six-shot shooter looked like it could be used to hunt elephants. Overall this, Grime wore a black leather duster with silver thread runes along the hem and lapel and festooned with fetishes. With a cigar in his mouth and waving an FN P90 in the air, he grinned madly and said, “Knock, knock motherfuckers! Avon calling!”

He immediately followed with three angry bursts from the submachine gun. The three forward most gangbangers fell in a spray of blood. Everything froze for a moment. These were members of Tal Veraut, a new age demon/human gang that claimed the northeastern streets of Los Luce de la Muerte, an almost five-block piece of the Forgotten Maiden quarter. These particular gangbangers had holed up in an abandoned cathedral dedicated to Saint Anne. The church had definitely seen better days and better uses. Most of the pews had been reduced to piles of kindling and most decorations had either been taken or broken by looters and vagrants. The ground was littered with empty liquor bottles, spent needles, and other varied drug paraphernalia. This gang certainly liked to party. Grime noted with some relief that all the eyes currently on him were human but was disappointed that none of them was his target. That would have made things easier. “You assholes wanna make this easy and just give up?”

The moment collapsed into itself as time reasserted its claim on the universe. Gangbangers grabbed for guns and made for cover. Grime shook his head and dived for cover also. Bullets were just beginning to fly as he slipped behind the first column. “I’ll give you one more chance to just drop your guns and tell me what I want to know!” Grime said magnanimously.

“Screw you, you dick-nosed cunt! You shot Shitbrix, Dogbuscuit, and Kevin!” one of the gangbangers screamed from behind a pile of broken pews.

Grime paused for a moment and stole a glance around the corner of the column he was hiding behind to glance at the three bodies of the men he’d shot. He puzzled briefly over which one could be Kevin. “One of these guys is actually just named Kevin?” he asked incredulously.

“Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!” the man screamed hysterically, “Don’t fucking talk about Kevin. Kevin was good people, always had the good stuff when you needed a fix! He just wasn’t that creative with names. But reliable, Kevin was reli…” The gangbanger seemed to lose steam in the middle of his rant, looking around confused as he found himself out in the open having abandoned cover in the midst of his hysteria. His eyes nearly popped out of his head when he realized, which was the same moment that Grime popped around the corner and let a three-round burst loose on his face.

Before returning to cover, Grime gave the room a quick scan and was not pleased with what he saw. Most of the gang had taken up a defensive position behind meager cover. Three of them were huddled around an open box and were sticking ampoules in their arms. Grime swore under his breath and realized that time was now not on his side. He gripped one of the fetishes on his jacket, a turtle whose shell was made of diamond and muttered a few words under his breath. Suddenly, his skin took on a hard gritty appearance. The spell wouldn’t stop bullets but didn’t need to; it would work to stop him from bruising. Grime popped out of cover, gun leading the way and was greeted with “Die, motherfucker!” and a hail of lead.

Grime grunted as the bullets tore into his t-shirt. His body jerked spasmodically as six men unloaded their clips on him at close range. In moments, his t-shirt was shredded. The men’s frenzy reached a fever pitch as they watched bullet after bullet strike unerringly. The thing about bullets was they were very hard to defend against magically. Only the most powerful wards stopped bullets and these required so much power that the user could not do much else but maintain such a ward. So Grime didn’t try to stop the bullets. Instead, he charmed his Kevlar vest to attract metals and used another spell to make his skin denser, taking much of the bite from the force of the strike.

The six gangers were less than thrilled when they realized after unloading their clips into the man, he still stood looking little worse for wear. Most had stepped out from the meager cover they had sheltered behind in their excitement. He took a deep pull on his cigar, favored the men with a fierce grin and said, “Maybe you should have taken me up on my offer.”

The men barely had time to scream as Grime unloaded on them. Bullets flew from the FN P90 like angry wasps, spat out in three round bursts. As the last of the six fell, grabbing at his groin in agony, Grime turned his attention to the three that huddled around the open crate. What he saw was more than a little disheartening. The three were now more caricature than man. Eyes bugged out of sockets with more white showing than iris. Veins throbbed on muscles grown much too large to be contained by mere apparel. The tattered remnants of their clothing hung loosely from each of them. They had taken on an ebony hue, looking more akin to polished obsidian than human skin.

“Fuck me, demon juicers…” Grime muttered under his breath. Certain parts of demons had different effects upon the human physiology when ingested. Demons were beings of primordial power and tended to be infused with primal chaotic energies. This made the ingesting of such things powerful but not altogether healthy. Demon juicers were people whose bodies had grown accustomed to the use of designer demon “drugs”. The effects of these drugs tended to be more powerful and the changes more radical. This, of course, shortened their life expectancy substantially but these were people that didn’t want to live forever, just wanted to see everything around them burn.

He discarded his FN P90 in favor of his Ka-bar, as it would be useless against their toughened hides. Runes flickered to life along the blade with an eldritch glow. He got down in an alley fighter’s crouch. The first of the three stalked straight towards him, unheedful of the blade in his hand. Grime noted that its hands were becoming claw-like. He smiled. He really hadn’t mixed it up like this in a long time.

Just as it bore down on Grime, arm raised to slash, the hands now fully claws, he shot his left hand forward and barked a guttural word in an Infernal dialect. There was a whooshing sound as a ball of pure force erupted from his outstretched hand and hit the lead juicer in the chest with a blow equivalent to that of a wrecking ball. The man shot back with a startled oomph, bowling over his two friends and crashing with a sickening thump against the far wall. Before the other two could even stand, Grime was on one of the prone figures. He drove the knife down, putting his full weight behind the blow. The knife met the resistance of the hardened dermis but it only lasted for a moment as Grime’s continued pressure and the magical enhancement of the blade parted it. The blow caught the juicer directly beneath his shoulder blade, finding his heart with a sick ease. The juicer jerked spasmodically once. Grime pulled the blade free and turned in time to find the other man getting warily up to his feet.

The man’s features had taken on a distinct ophidian cast, his eyes yellow and slitted. A forked tongue flicked between his lips, tasting the air before him. The juicers arms had become more sinuous and he moved with a hypnotic swaying. Grime smiled grimly at him and gave him a ‘come at me’ gesture with his free hand. The man let out an animalistic hiss and charged, surging forward in a deceptively fast weaving manner.

Grime set himself to take the charge head-on and was surprised when the juicer stopped in front of him, the snake man's momentum broken abruptly. The juicer twisted to the right, his legs not moving but his upper torso swiveling and bending around Grime’s left side. Grime desperately threw himself to the right, narrowly avoiding the rake that would have taken him at his side but merely left tatters of his shirt and Kevlar. The snake man’s upper body followed Grime’s dodge, leaving him barely any time to recover from the surprising attack. Grime mounted a desperate defense with the Ka-bar, only just turning aside the follow-up attacks.

Grime grinned like a madman when the juicer tried to chomp at him, fangs unfolding to their full-length, roughly the size of a man’s finger. Grime stabbed out with his empty left hand, two fingers extended to press into the crook between the man’s two eyes and nose. The juicer froze momentarily, his eyes turning awkwardly to the two fingers settled in between them. The slitted eyes flicked back at Grime in confusion and he smiled wickedly. He barked another word in Infernal and threw himself back off his feet, hitting the ground on the back of his shoulder, using his momentum to force himself into a roll. The snake man made to follow but stopped in mid-motion. His eyes widened and he clutched at his head. The man’s face contorted in horror and fear twisting and turning in dazed aimless motion as, with sickening cracks, his skull bulged outward. He stopped his useless movement and turned to lock gazes with Grime, who had settled on one knee. The grim reality of his situation settled fully upon the man and he let loose with a howl of anger and fear. His cry was cut short when, a moment later, his head exploded.

Grime flinched back reflexively as he was showered with blood, bits of bone, and gray matter. He wiped the foul concoction from his mouth and eyes. Sparing a glance for his gore spattered clothing, he said, “Fuck. Why don’t I ever move far enough away?”

His inspection was interrupted by the distinct whine of an opening door from behind him. He whirled, standing up in a fluid motion with his turn. He transferred his knife to his left hand in a quick toss and pulled a Ruger Super Redhawk. The gun was battered and probably had seen better days but he didn’t carry it because of its looks. This was the type of gun you could beat someone senseless with and be assured that it would still fire with admirable accuracy. He scanned the back of the church but didn’t see anything immediately apparent.

Just when Grime resolved to stalk forward cautiously, he caught sight of movement from behind one of the few remaining support pillars. As the figure stomped around the pillar, Grime swore to himself, “Shit. Fuck. Screw my sideways with a baseball bat dipped in jagged glass and hot sauce.”

The thing coming around the corner was like a Lovecraftian fusion of the Predator and a young Mr. Universe Arnold Schwarzenegger on steroids. Its skin was a mottled, nauseating grey-green. Its huge head was home to a pinched face with a four-corner mouth that looked like a man’s nightmare version of a vagina. The demon’s eyes were set far back in its skull, beady and a glowingly, jaundice yellow. The demon’s muscles seemed to be almost restrained by its mottled hide, making it seem to be flexing all the time. It sported vicious looking claws like little knife blades. The thing was almost completely nude, only wearing a simple thong around its neck threaded with teeth, ears, eyes, and other body parts. Grime tried to avert his eyes from the spectacle happening below the demon’s waist. Bouncing from thigh to thigh, the biggest cock Grime had ever had the displeasure of seeing swung like a stunted third leg. It hung to just above the demon’s knees and was full of Rasputin wonderful adornments. Twisted and gnarled, it had spines sprouting along its length that would fold down towards its base, each between ½ an inch to an inch. He didn't want to imagine what those would do to a woman's insides though, Grime had no doubt that the demon could bludgeon someone to death with his package.

“You couldn’t have covered up before coming out here, you puke colored dung heap?” Grime spat venomously.

The demon stopped for a moment and seemed to recognize its own nakedness for the first time. “Bad time you come,” it said in badly accented patchwork English. It grinned and Grime almost wretched when the nightmare vagina mouth and the monster cock conjured an image that would certainly haunt his dreams for days to come. Momentarily caught in the thrall of his imagination, Grime hardly registered the fact that the demon had picked up a discarded pew and was currently swinging it at him.

Grime barely had time to think how bad this was going to hurt before he was tumbling ass over head in the air, to hit the ground a few feet away and bounce a couple more times for good measure. Grime was surprised when he didn’t feel anything break and thanked his earlier spellwork for taking most of the damage from the blow and collision with the floor. He quickly regained his feet, barely sidestepping the pew as it came crashing down on the space where his prone form had previously occupied. He cursed as he realized that he had lost hold of his Ka-bar and took scant comfort in the weight of his Redhawk in his right hand. He raised it though and popped off some shots, hoping to at least distract the demon as he scanned the floor for his knife.

The bullets hit the demon with as much effect as throwing pebbles at a tank. It swung the pew at Grime again and rolled desperately underneath it. He kept firing until its six shot chamber was empty, hoping for a soft spot. He snapped his left hand forward, spitting another guttural infernal word. A powerful gale force wind shot from his outstretched palm that became a scintillating shower of sparks that barely sizzled on the demon’s grizzled hide. It had been a fleeting hope, Grime knew, demons being highly resistant to any and all magic. He jumped over the pew as it came swinging in to sweep him off his feet. His timing was off by a second, the pew catching him in his trailing leg with jarring force. The blow caused him to flip over in mid-air, hitting the floor with an explosion of air from his lungs.

He was still trying to catch his breath when he heard the crash of the pew and felt the demon’s clawed hands on his shoulder. He was lifted from the floor like a rag doll, brought face to face with the demon, his feet dangling at least a foot from the ground. He gagged as the demon’s breath hit him full force in the face, smelling like a charnel house. His hands came up from his waist, grabbing at the demon’s shoulders, finding purchase on the necklace. Grime did the only thing he could think of at the moment, hammering down frantically at the monster’s dick. The demon roared in pain as his heel connected, released its grip with one hand and backhanded him into the air. Grime twisted desperately in the air and hit the ground in an awkward roll, clumsily getting to his feet.

The monster growled low in its throat, crouching down and spreading his arms in a gesture that was universal for ‘I’m gonna fuck your dead corpse’. Grime tried to smile but ended up grimacing in pain. He pointed at his finger, which was encircled by a pin and pointed at the demon. The demon’s head turned quizzically then the grenade Grime had hooked on his necklace detonated. Grime raised his hands to protect himself from debris.

When the smoke cleared, Grime saw that the demon stood looking down at the wound on his chest in shock. The wound leaking thick black blood and was possibly serious but by no means fatal. Grime threw his hands up in frustration and shouted, “You have got to be shitting me!?! What does it take to kill you?”

Grime’s eyes found his Ka-bar and he decided on one last perilous gambit. He screamed savagely and blitzed the demon. The demon was surprised for a moment but its surprise gave way to supreme unconcern. The demon’s brow furrowed in bemusement and it looked about for a few precious seconds before returning to look at the man charging him unconcernedly. Grime tore at his palm with his teeth, mentally dropping the spell on his skin. He spat a chunk of his flesh out of his mouth. The demon looked confused but was still completely unconcerned. Its expression didn’t change as the Ka-bar came flying into his uninjured right hand at his magical tug. The demon merely stood with a slightly bemused expression plastered on its face.

It barely responded as the Ka-bar shot down, plunging to its hilt into the wound that had been in the process of closing. Grime used the blade to wedge the wound into an open gape and shoved his opened palm onto the gash. Muttering over his hand in Akkadian, Grime screamed as his blood erupted from his wound and fountained into the demon. He quickly clamped down on his pain and closed down the flow of his blood before he depleted himself more than he could survive. Grime pulled the Ka-bar from the wound and it began to close rapidly, the healing rushing forward like water from a broken dam.

Grime stumbled away from the demon, barely keeping his feet. Waves upon wave of nausea gripped him and he slammed to his knees as the world tilted violently. The demon stared at the wound then at Grime and he saw hatred gleam unrestrained in the demon’s yellow gaze. It began to stalk ponderously towards his kneeling form having decided that it had let this mortal live long enough. His head swam, his vision blurred and full of so many black spots he briefly thought that the world had begun to darken of its own accord. Grime fought to focus, fighting against the rising tide of unconsciousness, until his world narrowed to the demon that was drawing perilously close. As the demon came within arm’s reach of Grime, he lifted his balled hand weakly in the air. Before the demon could do more than paw empty air above him, Grime unclenched his fist and muttered another word through gritted teeth.

The demon straightened in a great jerking motion, overbalancing and stumbling backward. It roared in uncontainable pain as spikes of Grime’s blood pierced its skin from the inside out. It stumbled into one of the still intact support pillars, almost knocking it down with the force of its impact. Clenching his fist once more, the blood spikes retreated back beneath the demon’s skin. He focused once more until his world consisted of only the demon’s eyes, unclenched his fist once more and muttered the word once more. Blood spikes erupted from the demon once more, this time behind its eyes. They made a sickening popping sound as they were freed from their sockets to dangle like Dali clocks from the blood spikes.

As he clenched his fist once again, one of the eyes fell straight away to the floor with a wet plop. The other, still attached to the socket, slapped against its cheek, swinging disgustingly back and forth. Grime sneered, reflecting that at least now he barely noticed the demon’s swinging phallus. He blinked and felt everything go momentarily askew. When the world reoriented itself he found himself on his ass and knew he didn’t have long before he passed out. He had to end this soon and just hope that there weren’t any more surprises lying in wait for him. He wrapped himself in iron bands of will and raised his hand once more in the air, barely betraying a tremor. He pinpointed his concentration, narrowing it into a scalpel fine blade of determination and opened his hand one more time. He forced the word past his lips, the effort of speaking making him nearly swoon.

Grime flopped lifelessly to the ground as this last piece of magic left him beyond drained. The effect on the demon was instantaneous and gruesome. Blood spikes erupted from the dome of his head and chest simultaneously. Each bore pieces of gray and red clumps of tissue. The demon fell boneless to the ground about three feet from Grime. He looked at the demon, the world starting to become fuzzy, making him remember the time he had found the barely received porn channel, so distorted that it was more impressions of people fucking than people fucking. His mind was becoming so disconnected from the act of living that he was being assaulted by random thoughts.

Mustering himself, he tried to evaluate his situation. Demon dead? Check. Going to survive? Doubtful. Why? Through the haze of his misfiring mind, he realized it was because most of his blood was currently sticking out of the demon. He tried to rally himself to gather those stray pieces of himself that he had left there. His old CO was right, he thought dazedly, he was always leaving pieces of himself everywhere.

He stretched towards the demon’s corpse, desperately willing his blood to return to him. He delved deep within himself, trying to find untapped reserves of magics to call his blood back. It was no good; he had drained himself quite completely in the fight. He had used too much blood and too much magic to hold himself together to have any left. Even empty as he was, blood will call to blood, and the blood spikes slowly dissolved into a mass, flowing down from the demon to pool on the floor. It began a slow, inexorable path towards his outstretched hand.

The fierce grin faded from his face and he slumped as unconsciousness finally claimed him. The rivulets of blood stopped about a foot from his hand.

Wishing


by G Dean Manuel


"Gary, wait up!" said Lloyd. He tried to pedal faster but Gary was still outpacing him by a good clip. At twelve, he was what his mother liked to refer to as rotund. His breath was already coming in explosive gasps from trying to keep up with Gary.

"Come on, Lloyd, or we'll miss it!" Gary threw the comment over his shoulder. Opposed to Lloyd, Gary was in much better shape. Gary was a bit of a nerd and so had much practice speeding away from older bullies intent on giving him a beatdown.

Both had decided to chase the end of a rainbow today. It was something that they had tried before with no success, the rainbow had always disappeared before they had found it. Gary and Lloyd came from the wrong side of the tracks and found themselves wishing that they had been born under different circumstances. They knew if they could just find the end of the rainbow there would be a pot of gold and it would change their lives for the better. Gary swung off his bike, dumping it on the ground before he had fully stopped. He broke into a run as Lloyd stopped, breathing heavily, and ambled off his bike. He sighed. "Damnit!" he cursed under his breath. At twelve, it was the strongest one he felt comfortable saying, fearing, even out in the middle of nowhere, that an adult might overhear.

He arrived at the edge of a clearing that Gary had stopped at. Gary looked back and cut off any questions with a finger to the mouth. Lloyd tried to be silent but his bulk kept him from "creeping". He winced at the snapping of every twig and was sure that his heart was beating so loud as to be audible from space. When he finally caught up with Gary, he finally saw what he was staring at.

It was a leprechaun. Green suit and buckle hat, stockings and old-fashioned buckle shoes, wielding a shillelagh.

"I can hear you boyos plain as the sun in the sky... why don't you come over here so we can have a wee chat?" the leprechaun said and the boys could hear the smile in his voice.

Gary looked to Lloyd and motioned with his head to the tiny Irishman. Lloyd shook his head vehemently, his eyes wide with fear and distrust. Gary sighed and grabbed Lloyd by the wrist and drug him into the clearing. "Come on, loser, this is what we've been waiting for."

"Gary," Lloyd said, his voice pitching to a whine, "We don't know anything about him!"

"He's a leprechaun. We found him, we get his gold."

"Well, that be a wee bit of a misrepresentation. You found me, that's right but I don't have any gold to give you," the leprechaun said with a wide toothy grin.

"What do you mean there's no gold??" Gary asked angrily.

"Well, the legends get a bit of the story wrong. Our gold is a leprechaun's most treasured possession. It is also the source of our power. We don't just drag it around to every rainbow. No. But..." the fairy let his voice trail off.

"But what?" Gary asked.

"I don't think I should tell you. You look like a mighty fine pair of friends and I wouldn't want to come between you."

"He's right, Gary. We should just leave, something just isn't right here!" Lloyd pleaded, grabbing Gary's arm.

Gary jerked his arm free of Lloyd's weak grip and moved towards the leprechaun. "What do you mean? How would you come between us?"

"Well, it certainly been no small source of strife between the two of you, lad," the tiny man said, a malicious twinkle in his eye, "When you discovered that I could grant you one wish and one wish only."

"Okay, we can make one wish work, we'll just make it for something we can share," Gary said, smiling reassuringly at Lloyd.

"Oh, heavens, if it was only that simple," the leprechaun lamented. He threw up his hands in exaggerated exasperation. "But only one of you can have the wish."

"That's fine," Lloyd sputtered, "I don't want the wish. Gary can have it."

"Oh, boyo, I wish it was that simple," the leprechaun said, giggling at his own joke. "I wish, heh," When both boys stared at him with puzzled expressions, he sighed explosively, "Oh, come on now. A leprechaun wishing? Oh, nevermind. Anyways, both of you caught me. I can't properly grant a wish until one of you is no longer in the picture."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Lloyd whined.

The leprechaun shrugged. "One of you has to kill the other to claim the wish."

"Gary, let's get out of here. This is crazy, we aren't going to kill each other for a wish."

"Damnit Lloyd, why did you have to follow? I can't walk away from this... My mom, she's real sick. Gotta a tumor in her head. I need the wish to save her. This is my one chance."

"What are you saying, Gary?"

"I'm saying goodbye, Lloyd," Gary said, turned towards Lloyd. He pulled his pocket knife from his front pocket, opening it in one quick motion. He laid his left hand on Lloyd's shoulder and smiled reassuringly at him.

Lloyd began to cry and swing his head from side to side. "Please don't," he sobbed, "I'm your best friend, Gary!"

"I wish I was a better friend," Gary said and sank the knife into Lloyd's belly. He marveled how easily it sank in, the flesh just parting to the sharp blade. He helped his friend to the ground and leaned in as Lloyd tried to speak.

"I– I understand," Lloyd said, his breath coming raspy and shallow. Gary watched the light flicker and fade from his eyes.

Gary sat there for a moment looking down at his friend's lifeless corpse. He wiped his nose and stood. In a quiet voice, he said, "I think I'm ready for that wish."

"So, you wanting a cure for your ma, is it? What's she got? Cancer? AIDS?" "Oh, ummm, no, I wish to be rich."

"What do you mean? What about your ma, sick as she is?"

"That was just something I told him so he didn't think I was doing it just to get rich."

"You are one cold young man. So, it is riches you wish, then? Well, all right, easy enough," the leprechaun said. He made a great show of snapping his fingers and smiled. "It is done. Riches will come your way. I think it is time that I made me exit, don't really trust a lad who'd murder his best friend for money." The leprechaun got up and walked away.

"Hey, how do I know that you did what you said you would?"

The leprechaun stopped and didn't turn. "Oh, you'll be rich, don't you worry one bit. My name is Seamus McTaggart and a McTaggart always does what they say they will."

Before Gary could say anything else, the old fairy disappeared. Just winked out of existence. He noticed that the rainbow was gone as well. He sighed and turned to Lloyd. He would have to do something about that.
この男は死ぬだろう
Gary went back to his life but found that nothing had changed. He still lived on the wrong side of the tracks. No riches every lifted him from the slums that he lived. Eventually, as he grew older he forgot about Seamus and the riches he was promised. He never spared Seamus or poor dead Lloyd a thought as the years rolled on.

When he was twenty-one, Gary went to jail for a string of robberies that he had committed. He had killed four people in the course of robbing seven stores. He was given two concurrent life sentences. Gary served fifty years of those sentences before being paroled.

One of the first things he did, once he was free, was went and purchased a lotto ticket. He was shocked when he returned the next day to find that he had won. When all was said and done, taxes had been removed, he had won fifty-nine million dollars. He immediately went to the bank to put away his money and start enjoying it.

He was surprised to find a face from his past waiting for him in the foyer of the bank. Seamus leaned against one wall, twirling his shillelagh in his hand. "Well, there you are, rich as promised."

"It's been over fifty years!!!"

"Well, fifty-nine to be precise. One million for every year between now and the day you killed your best friend," Seamus said.

"Took you long enough."

"Oh, no, boyo, it took exactly as long as it should have. Now, head in, Time's ticking away!"

Gary shuffled into the bank and tried to ignore Seamus' words. The whole time they were opening his account, he felt uneasy. Jittery. He tried to pass it off as excitement. He knew better. It was anxiety. He told himself that Seamus was just messing with him.

Finally, he had the account open and he headed towards the exit of the bank. Before he made it, he saw a young, chubby boy that looked naggingly familiar. Then the boy turned and Gary saw Lloyd as he remembered leaving him that day. His skin was the grey of the grave.

Lloyd opened his mouth and screamed.

Gary grabbed his chest and fell over dead.

Seamus chuckled.