- Dame Rinda
Readers on Deadline (ROD) is a monthly Deadline Dame feature where we post an intriguing image and invite readers to be inspired and share the results in up to 250 words right here in the comments. The deadline is next Wednesday, November 12th by midnight! The Dames will pick the one that most intrigues us, post that entry in the next month’s ROD along with a link to that writer/reader’s site. And you get a prize!
“What happened?” Jack asked, rubbing the faint lines in his forehead.
“I took care of the ghost,” Trace answered, with a huff of impatience.
“The bullet holes?”
“I couldn’t get the door open. It was locked.” Jack didn’t point out that he could have just picked the lock.
“And the slime?”
“Ghost puke.”
Jack blinked, finally turning to face Trace. The demon blinked wide gold eyes at him. One slim black eyebrow rose.
“Ghosts are spirits. They don’t eat or drink, so therefore they don’t puke,” said Jack, feeling a bit smug.
Trace snorted. “So what is it then?”
Jack looked back down at the puke. Hell. He was already calling it puke.
“It’s not puke,” he grumbled.
“You keep on telling yourself that. Now, if we are done here, how about we go before the landlord shows up?”
Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Its not puke!” Trace rolled his eyes, and spun away from the doorway.
“Denial,” he called over his shoulder as he strolled down the hallway. Jack would follow, after he reassured himself that it wasn’t puke, and that he was right.
Betrayals
Dru Anderson’s parents are long gone, her best friend is a werwulf, and she’s just learned that the blood flowing through her veins isn’t entirely human. (So what else is new?)
Now Dru is stuck at a secret New England Schola for other half-vampire teens like her, and there’s a big problem—she’s the only girl in the place. A school full of cute boys wouldn’t be so bad, but Dru’s killer instinct says that one of them wants her dead. And with all eyes on her, discovering a traitor within the Order could mean a lot more than social suicide.
When murderous vampires start showing up and the body count begins rising, Dru has to figure out who to trust and when to run–or tonight might be her last…
To learn more about this series, visit Dame Lili’s site here!
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Are you sure it isn’t out yet? I saw this in my local bookshop the other day, so I bought it.
Was it not meant to be there?
Great picture!
Reena’s hearts thudded against her ribcage with the insensible panic of a trapped creature seeking escape. She crouched deeper into the shadow of the loaded hospital cart pressing herself flat against the sterile wall panel and praying her white hospital suit blended enough for a casual room sweep.
Booted feet slapped dully against metallo floor panels. She stilled, holding her breath as the sound grew louder – Close…so close! – before finally dimming as the patrol passed.
She heard the slap of weapons against thighplates on that pass. They must be narrowing down their search.
Desperate, she lifted a hand and waved it in front of her face. Her slitted pupils contracted painfully as she forced them to focus and her hand left a glowing trail in her vision. Damn. The drug hadn’t worn off completely.
A radio squawked, a harsh voice barking orders to a guard she hadn’t even known was nearby.
She had to chance a jump. Worse than risky, drugged as she was, but she had to take the chance.
Closing her first set of eyelids, the shimmering curtain wavered in and out of focus. Firmly, she reached forward and grasped at the glow, fingers slipping against the not-fabric. She leaped.
“I’ve got her, sir!”
A hand on her foot. Her jump slowed, pressure warping her arms, her face, her body. Beads of glittering water formed on her suit, the curtain shredding under pressure. A rip and she was falling, her jump totally out of control.
Where would she land?
The veil stretched like water to surround her as she passed through.
It couldn’t be real she thought. This cannot be happening.
But yet, as she felt it the veil give and allow her through, she knew it was. She knew with every fiber of her being that she was no longer just laying in the hospital bed waiting to die. She had entered a new time, a new world, and with it came a new chance at the life she had lost hope in having.
She couldn’t feel the weight in her lungs that the tumors had made. Couldn’t feel the intense suffocation. She felt only free, light as a bird, and ready to soar.
One more word would blow her away. She was already fragile as the dust castles time and neglect built up under the ratty old couch.
“Yes, Grandmother,” she said. All she ever said. All she was allowed to say through the rain of filth and abuse and demand. But the truth peeped through the cracks. You’re not my grandmother. You’re a monster wearing her skin.
The exchange had happened gradually, some thing sneaking into her grandmother’s skin. The doctors called it idiopathic dementia, gently suggested care facilities and in-home care services. Her grandmother’s assorted relatives had been happy enough to pick through the house for valuables and leave Sigi in charge.
From the corners of eyes squeezed nearly shut, Sigi could see the things coming, creeping in to take her place. Spiny, shadowy things she couldn’t look at directly. With each bit of herself that blew away, the things grew bolder, came closer. First, they had taken her grandmother and left a stranger behind. She would be next.
“Worthless, lazy moocher! Where’s my supper?” The plaintive cry rose high over the sound of water running over dishes. Slowly, a hand turned the knob and stopped the deluge.
“Coming, grandmother.” It wasn’t Sigi anymore. She was shifting and drifting on the wind like so much dust.
Hot damn. *dances* I was hoping my darlings Jack and Trace would catch ya’lls attention. Now I will have something new to read while I wait for my shoulder to heal.
My email is faustinblack@gmail.com
I am AMAZED at the evocative images the Dames keep finding, and the wonderful creativity it unleashes. In other people. I’m not going to come close to anything like ‘ghost puke’.
It’s not technically out for a couple of weeks, but some bookstores put books out early.
Lol. Ghost Puke was all that came to mind when I looked at that pic.
Haha, excellent piece, Faust! It was a very amusing read! Good luck with your shoulder
Thanks, I’ve been writing about those characters since highschool. And about my shoulder? All I can say is archery can be a dangerous sport.
She never quite knew when the moment would come, the instant when the worlds would blur and she would be pulled from one side to the next. The first couple times it happened it hurt like she was being ripped open, like her skin and boned were separating from each other.
Lindy had given it a name the fifth time it happened. Jumping: she was a jumper. She thought it was general enough to cover it until she figured out exactly why this was happening, and if it involved any sort of time travel.
But the last two times had been different. When she jumped she ended up in a cold, dark place where all she could see were these people that weren’t exactly people, they were shells of what used to be a human being. The first word that came to mind when Lindy saw them was ‘zombies’.
She had become a shimmer in the wind, existing on the line between the living and the dead, which could be blurred in ways a regular person couldn’t imagine.
Immortality, eternal youth, and magic at my fingertips it was a deal any girl would be crazy to pass up. The downside was living in the world’s smallest apartment. Some Djinn get roomy 4th century lamps, but I’m just a beginner. And let me tell you trying to cram my six foot frame into a perfume bottle seemed less and less like a possibility. Transmogrification is the technical term, and so far I wasn’t pulling it off.
“Focus Anna, allow the rest of the world to melt away. Visualize moving the molecules of your body closer and closer together,” Victor said. As if any warm blooded female could concentrate with tall, dark, and ripped whispering over their shoulder.
We had been at this for hours and it was the last test I had to pass to graduate from prospect status to active Djinn. I sucked in another deep breath, closed my eyes, and tried to embrace that inner spark that is pure magic.
“I can see it, I said exhaling. Just barely like a tea light, but its there.”
“Good, now reach out and take it, hold it up and see through it.”
I cupped the light in my palm bringing it up to eye level. At first I was captivated by the dancing sparks that created the multi-colored flame. Then I lifted my eyes to a world on a microscopic level, every atom of my body in sharp focus.
Gathering the energy around me I reached out and Changed.
She knew what was happening. Faith has known since she was old enough to understand and be ready for it. Though, no amount of training, no amount of time could ever prepare her for the pain and the loss that surged through her now.
Faith could feel the transformation starting, rippling through her bones making her shudder and fall to her knees.
The wind whipped through her black hair combing each strand. Her bones shuddered again and a sizzle sprang in the air. She knew it had started, and when it started there would be no stopping it, no redos. This was it.
Through sheer force of will she got back to her feet, wanting to go down with a little dignity at least. The white of her shirt mingled with the darkness that surrounded it.
She looked at her fingers and could see the flesh and bone dissolving into a white mist that hovered around her body. Inch by inch her arms and legs grew shorter and shorter, until only her biceps and shoulders were left. The sky rumbled and spit rain down on her. The droplets fell to her shirt and slid down disappearing into the white fog.
Up and up it kept crawling making her a mist; dissolving her existence. The pain was gone now, but Faith…Faith was gone.
Sarya held in her hand a small glass box. Beads of water dotted its surface. She’d finally managed to trap the ghost inside. Finally, after a three week hunt and an hour-long battle.
Yet the ghost still refused to back down. She kept bending and twisting, white cloak billowing around in waves, long midnight hair trailing behind her.
Sarya watched the beads slide off. Ghosts hated water. At least the ones who’d died by drowning.
“Little thing looks pissed,” John noted, taking a closer look.
“Come on, let’s get out of this house before it collapses.”
John tried to tap the glass.
“No!” Sarya screamed.
A bright glow filled the room, and he was thrown back. The box fell, cracking into hundreds of shards.
Not a good sign. The boxes were unbreakable when activated. Ghosts triggered activation. As long as the ghost was trapped, the box could not break.
“John!”
Sarya ran to him, expecting to see a John-shaped hole in the weak wall, but he was on the floor.
She should have run then. The ghost would be angrier—and more powerful—than ever.
John started to twitch. Sarya stumbled back as he rose, head down.
“Sarya,” he whispered, his voice joined by another. “Help me.”
Sarya wanted to scream, but it was suddenly so, so cold.
Their eyes met. His were…white. No iris, no pupil.
“Help me,” he repeated mockingly. This time Sarya heard the girl’s voice over John’s.
He stepped forward.
And she ran.
The door to the morgue banged open and Dr. Carlisle’s voice rang out in the chill room “What in the blue eyed world have you got there?”
Dr. Hadao didn’t even look up. “Nixie,” she said.
Carlisle peered at the delicate form on the steel table, noting her slightly pointed ears, pale gold skin like sunlight sparkling on water even in death. He nudged his student. “You’re in luck, lad, not often you get to see one of these.”
“Wait ‘til her next of kin show up,” said Pearce, Hadao’s assistant. “Think we have a big enough baggie for them to take her home in?”
Hadao’s dark eyes bored into his. “If I have to waste more of my budget on sensitivity training for you I will cut out your heart and roast it on a spit.”
Pearce snorted. “Who needs sensitivity training? How can you offend dead…things?”
“Do you not remember the werewolf and the hairball joke in front of his family?”
“Aw, come on, how often do you see a werewolf with a bald spot?”
Ignoring their bickering, the student leaned over the nixie. “How’d she croak?”
Another sensitive soul. Hadao sighed. “She was found on Gonzales Bay beach. I’m just starting the post mortem, but I believe she drowned.”
“But she’s a water spirit. How could she drown?”
“Nixies are fresh water creatures. Gonzales Beach is on the ocean. Nixies drown in salt water.”
“Ironic, isn’t it?” Pearce said, grinning.
“It’s not ironic. It’s murder.” Hadao said.
When people say they want to fly, or be free up in the sky. They usually mean in an airplane right? That’s what I thought when I asked a genie to grant my wish. But of course words have a million meanings, this was no different.
I honestly wouldn’t have minded the mistake except every time I flew threw a cloud [no I don't have control the genie is horribly cruel about that] I get water on my face, only I the complete moron would forget that in the sky, it’s cold and the clouds are made up of water.
Of course, only I the complete moron would trust a random stranger that claimed they lived in a toilet and helped people for a living. If I did manage to get home I would never hear the end of my older brothers’ laughter.
Life sucks when you have older brothers that hunt vampires for a living, [take my word and don’t try it out, because like I said, it sucks!].
My heart was breaking as I sat down on what I supposed was the floor, although I couldn’t see it through the swirls of white mist. Ignoring the disapproving glares and foot shuffling I drew my knees up to my chest and tried to make myself as small as possible. I couldn’t bring myself to feel bad for those waiting behind me; I was trying to come to terms with my whole life crumbling apart. Eventually a stern looking woman approached me and loudly cleared her throat.
“Jennifer Cooper I presume?” she snapped at me. I nodded, without meeting her eyes.
“You are holding the line up Jennifer, you are going to have to pull yourself together and move along”. I shook my head as hot tears filled my eyes.
“I’m sorry but I can’t. I won’t leave him.”
The woman stared at me for what seemed like a very long time. The people behind me held their breath expectantly.
“You do realise what will happen if you don’t move along?” she said. I raised my head and nodded slowly. Yes I knew what would happen. I would go back to Alex but it wouldn’t be the same. I would be trapped forever between worlds, neither alive nor dead, unable to speak or touch him. I would watch him meet somebody else, get married and grow old and all the while I would be nothing but a whisper on the wind. I didn’t care, it was enough.
[...] Jumper is my “entry” and the others can be read on the November RoD page. [...]
Former FBI Agent Hanna Mathews wasn’t sure what to think when she received the call from her former partner Kris Pringle to come to a crime scene. She’d left the FBI after she had a friend betray her to a vampire. Now she works as a consultant for whatever law enforcement agency that needs her talents; talents of the paranormal variety.
The last thing she expected to see would be a girl that was half jelly wrapped in a sheer ivory curtain. As an agent and a witch, she’d seen some pretty bizarre crime scenes but this one takes the cake. She thought the day they’d found an eighty-year-old man stuck in a brick wall was strange.
After ten minutes of being disconcerted she turned to Kris and said. “Sorry, this is just too bizarre for me.”
Tomoe followed Sensei into the back room. She tightened her gi, as was her habit when nerves forced her hands through repetition. She had never been invited past the gym floor in the dojo before, and Sensei seemed more intimidating than usual.
Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the dimness, and she blinked again. No, there was no trick, the wall was a sheet of wet darkness, as if someone spilled a bottle of ink from the ceiling. Instead, this darkness pulsed with a subtle rhythm that almost matched her heart, until she gasped. Now she could visualize texture to the darkness, as if it was a chain-link fence.
“Kurayami no kusari” murmured Sensei, “you would say, the chains of darkness.” Tomoe felt it pulling her nearer, and she paused a step to look at Sensei. “I believe it to be what you seek, and what seeks you,” he said sadly.
She turned to face the darkness, and could make out her reflection, but it was not quite her, it looked older and more determined. The pull was stronger now, physical, and she reached her hand to touch it, expecting an oiliness, but instead, she felt herself pulled through. She spun and recoiled, but it pulled her back into a hollow embrace, into inescapable darkness. She saw Sensei’s eyes, wet and mournful, as she was enveloped. “Have care, musume” were the last words she heard.
Her eyes widened. Daughter? How could he leave me in here?
I think I just ate a child. First there were the little fingers—crunchy delights—but then the arm slid in and I was gone. So was she… Who was she? I don’t know—I don’t seem to understand anything anymore.
He would know what is happening. My sweet, sweet, beloved husband, darling man: where have you gone? Why have you left me in this place, this soulless place, all alone? I wanted your children, I did, but then you left and I was all alone in this warped place and I don’t understand anything anymore.
I wanted children; I always had. I could feel the baby in my arms when I stood at the alter with you. He was so close to my heart and he didn’t even exist. My heart pounded under the white satin of my mother’s wedding dress and I dreamed of our children. I loved you, but you left me all alone.
There was a baby and then another, but they liked to grow cold in my arms and they never stayed. You left me all alone with cold babies. You were gone and there were no more babies to hold. I decided to leave you too.
I waded out into the river in my wedding dress. It was very cold.
There were children. They were not mine and they did not mean to stay in the river but I kept them. I wanted them and now they will be with me always.
One didn’t survive the dark outskirts of outer space. Only the crazy jumped head first into the unknown. Call her insane, but Myana felt the black calling for her. It urged her further from humanity and closer to the edge. She was driven to explore the outermost reaches and discover the secrets so far out.
Numerous warnings to be cautious went unheeded. She had survived for five years already. There was nothing out here she couldn’t withstand. Cold, heat, barren lands, and asteroid belts were of little importance. They couldn’t take her down. She felt invincible.
So when she spotted the void twisting and reaching with greedy black fingers through a dusky cosmos, her heart pounded a frantic rhythm in her chest. She had to see it. This was her chance to touch the dark and make her mark on history. Devon’s warning not to go went unheeded as she stepped into her space suit. Excitement made her deaf to everything but the siren song of the black hole.
Myana couldn’t swim fast enough towards it. It gently tugged at her the closer she got, enticing her forward. She was intoxicated by the thrill.
Almost there.
She felt herself stretching as she approached the void- it wasn’t entirely unpleasant as the black hole embraced her as it’s own. She smiled. Devon would be panicking right now; but she couldn’t bring herself to care about anything else as she was pulled apart and into the abyss.
Bloody furrows scraped my back under the demon’s rough shove. I gasped, and his hot breath filled my lungs. I hastily blew it back out. Smelled like an onion mustard sundae, topped with limburger. Ewww.
His voice whispered in my ear, sweet words I tried to ignore.
“Take it,” he crooned. “Take it and fame, fortune, mates are yours.”
My eyes swerved to the red glowing pen he held.
“Everything you’ve ever wanted can be yours. All you have to do is take it.”
My eyes froze, caught in his golden gaze. And still I couldn’t speak, couldn’t think.
“You want riches? Adoring fans? Write it.”
I found my voice. “I just want to write books,” I mumbled.
He laughed, eyes crinkling in amusement.
“Ah, you humans. Never fail to amuse me.” He raised the pen to eyelevel. “Whatever you write will happen. Want to be a famous novelist? Take the pen, and write it.”
“I’m already writing,” I feebly protested, not trusting the demon’s offer.
He flicked his wrist and my eyes widened as I recognized my work. He chuckled indulgently.
“Is this the best you can do? Inspired by what? A woman eaten by a wall? A dirty car? Green slime? Losing memories?” He shook his head, and my work went up in flames.
“You can do so much better,” he whispered, offering the pen.
My mouth opened, but no words came. My hand trembled as I reached towards the pen, full of indecision. Could I? Should I?
I’m slightly over the word limit, but decided to post it anyways. Enjoy!
-Shelly Holder
http://www.shellyholder.blogspot.com
******
It wasn’t that she failed, exactly. Not quite. It was just… well really, it was just an aberration…
Oh, bloody bells, she had failed. A simple transfiguration spell, and she failed. Ended up a bullet shaped ornament, as useful as modern art and about as pretty. Not anywhere near the crystal ball she was aiming for.
“Jan! Jan, what happened? You ok?”
She didn’t bother replying to her brother. It was his idiotic idea that got them here in the first place anyways.
“I knew this was stupid! Just like all your idiotic schemes! I swear, Jan…”
All for such a simple trick. Just a few gigs, a few well-paying customers–
“Hey! Answer me!”
–just turn into a crystal ball, utter a few mumbo-jumbo nonsense phrases to any fool fool enough to go to a fortune teller, and…
“Jan! I’ll tell the Lord Wizard!”
Dammit, they could have been rich.
“January, I’m leaving– NOW!”
“Aw, shuddup. I’m working on it,” she finally answered. “Leave me alone.”
“No! I told you we should have gone to him on this one! You never listen to me,” Tommy said.
“Such a momma’s boy, always running and crying to the Lord Wizard, and yet we always do just fine on our own.”
“Yeah? Can you get back on your own?”
She hesitated.
“That’s it– I’m going to go get him,” Tommy said.
“No!”
“Why not?” he demanded.
“Yes, petite, why not?” another voice added.
Jan stared in horror at the Lord Wizard advanced into the room, amusement and resignation flickering across his thin face.
“Oh, mes enfants, what mischief have you been up to now?”
Congrats Faust, great entry!!
Dottie
When Yuki was five years old, she would scream, “Faster, Mommy, faster!” Then she would wait for the peak of the spinning wheel’s arc, and leap. Leap with the excitement that would course through her young body before she would come crashing to the ground laughing, dancing with the thrill.
Now, at her twenty-fifth year, the smoky-eyed beauty with just a hint of mischief in her soul, danced around once more. Daringly she whispered the enchantment, feeling the magic course through and around her like electricity filling the air.
“Kimiko, can you see it, can you feel it?” She called giddily, her mind spinning much like the merry-go-round of her childhood.
“The magic runs through us with flashes of color …. blue, violet, red.” Kimiko circled around gazing with amazement as the magic poured forth from her sister’s slender form surrounding her like a cloud.
Yuki grinned as she focused her will, drawing on the power, her heart racing as she raised her eyes to the heavens. She was blessed with the magic that had been renewed in her spirit, bringing together her life force with her ancestors of old.