Selznick Serials

A Sample from

Reggie vs Kaiju Storm Dragon Squidbat

Reggie Samson exhaled and smiled as he and Ben Handell passed the automatic sliding doors of the Kaiju Collaborative Response and Defense Agency, Francisco branch office. Reggie waved to Nick at reception as they walked across the lobby toward the elevator.

“Is it weird I’ve been looking forward to coming back to the ol’ bunker after all that time in the great outdoors, Ben?”

“I don’t know.” Ben slapped the elevator call button. “If circumstances were different..? But I don’t need to see another redwood for a while, or dodge any more bullets. Or lightning bolts.” He managed a wan grin. “Ever. I think I’m more excited to finally go home and to bed.”

The elevator chimed. Reggie glanced at his friend as the doors opened and they boarded.

“I’m tired,” he said, “but you look a little green.”

Ben closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and sighed. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I didn’t sleep that well on the plane.”

“Or in the car,” Reggie said. “You were talking in your sleep.”

Ben frowned, more curious than embarrassed. “I was? What did I say?”

“Y’know. Sleepy stuff. Nonsense words.”

“Huh.”

The elevator stopped with a little lurch and the doors opened onto their floor, six levels below the surface.

Ben clasped his partner’s shoulder as they disembarked. “Get out of here as soon as you can, buddy.”

“That’s the plan.”

“I’ll check in with you tomorrow before our formal debriefing. Seriously, man, get some rest.”

Ben was already shuffling down the hall. He raised his hand. “I really want to. I will.”

Reggie was nearly to his own office when Fred Harris popped his head out of his open doorway.

“Reggie! Heard you and Ben got back from British Columbia in one piece. How’s the big ape?”

Reggie grinned, but it felt loose on his face. He was pretty knackered, too. “Well, Fred, you know.” Fatigue had him a little prickly. “He was pissed off.”

Fred mellowed, apparently reading the room. “I bet. You guys all right? I hear you had a human problem, too.”

Reggie nodded. “Straight up eco-terrorists.”

“Jesus..!”

Reggie rolled his eyes and shook his head. “I’ll take King Shango — or just about any kaiju storm — over misguided nut jobs any day of the week. Almost all those idiots ended up dead, anyway. But… sure, we’re all right.” He thought about Ben and frowned. “Tired. Just dropped by to catch up a little, then I’m sleeping until…”

“‘Til it’s time to come back.”

They laughed.

“That.” Reggie agreed. “Anything on your desk?”

“Trash!”

Reggie peeked past him to get a look inside Fred’s office. “Seems neat enough in there to me.”

Fred snickered. “This trash is in the ocean. Ever hear of the garbage gyres?”

Reggie thought about it for a second. “Floating trash the ocean currents gather up, and stuff.”

“Close enough. Turns out they’re breaking up. Or, I guess, ‘reorganizing’ is a better way to put it. Flowing out of the North Atlantic and North Pacific and heading south. And, well… fast.”

Reggie frowned. “Currents don’t work that way.”

Fred touched his index finger to his nose. “That’s why it’s on my desk!”

It was weird, but it was also pretty much just another day at the office. “Crazy! Well, I guess if it’s anything, we’ll all know about it soon enough.”

“That’s how that works.” Fred saluted casually. “Glad you guys are home safe. I’ll let you get to your whatever.”

“Talk to ya!”

Reggie reached his office. His desk was piled with as much mail, reports, and other junk as he’d expected after being gone for over a week.

Not long after his first field assignment demonstrated getting beat up and tossed around was the essence of the gig, he’d made sure his desk chair was the best available. He fell into it with a sigh.

It was damn comfortable. Maybe the mail could wait. Maybe he could just close his eyes for fifteen minutes; turn on the massagers built into the thick, padded back, take a little catnap…

He managed to study the inside of his forehead for less than thirty seconds before a too-recent memory of King Shango popped up: two sloping, ram-horned simian heads looming above the redwoods, framed in a nimbus of lightning, sparks arcing to incisors as long as a man is tall…

“Ooooookay.” Reggie opened his eyes and leaned forward, both palms on his desk. “Maybe not.”

Humanity had dealt with the improbably huge, mysterious, natural-law-defying creatures since the late 19th Century. Society had adapted by necessity.

The human mind had a harder time of it, especially after a proximity event. PKST — Post Kaiju Storm Trauma — was an occupational hazard.

The assignment hadn’t been as bad as, say, Dana Cove, for Reggie — he was at his desk, not in a hospital bed — but he still knew to be extra nice to himself for a few days. His psyche would level off.

Ben, who was one of the Touched (technically so was Reggie, but, again, as Dana Cove showed him, in a way that was situationally specific), would probably recover faster, especially once the guy got some rest.

For now, though, it was probably a good thing Reggie had the pile on his desk to distract him, at least for a little while.

He dug in. The floor coordinator had sorted things in three piles: reports from the field, updates and memos from research / forecasting / monitoring, and outside mail Reggie had arranged to be delivered to the office since he was here or in the field more than he was home.

Happily for humanity, other than the King Shango manifestation in the Pacific Northwest, there had been no other verified recent kaiju storms. Reggie could skip the thin manila folders full of discredited reports and false alarms.

He reached for the second stack of binders, but stopped himself. Dry reports and data analyses were probably best reserved for tomorrow, after he’d hopefully had a good night’s sleep. Fred would have told him if there was anything critical to know, and he’d probably learned everything there was to learn about the ocean trash phenomenon from their brief conversation in the hall.

That left the personal mail, which would require just the right amount of attention and focus: nearly none.

Obvious junk mail went directly into the trash. Bills, he quickly shuffled out and stacked for later. That left a single, thick, padded envelope.

Reggie didn’t remember ordering anything. The postmark was from just before he and Ben had left, and sent from San Diego.

The return address, printed by hand directly on the package, made Reggie chuckle.

“Madame Manakuna? Seriously..?”

He tore it open and removed a bunch of paper-clipped newspaper cuttings, a beat up, photocopied and stapled handmade booklet, and a paperback book, New Spirits For A New Age, by the television psychic herself.

Reggie set aside everything but the book, shook his head, and laughed again. He remembered when “Madame Manakuna” had been a storefront palm reader in Laguna Beach, back in the eighties.

He read the back cover, which brought him up to date: she’d managed to parlay her skills into a daytime television show, lectures, and several books beside this one.

“It’s a living..?” Reggie muttered.

His skepticism was professional. Certainly, psychic phenomena were as real as kaiju, but only in the sense that they were linked in a way not yet understood. Some people, like Ben and, in a frustratingly specific and nearly deadly way, Reggie himself, developed what could only be called a psychic entanglement with, or awareness of, kaiju after a proximity event.

Classic psychic powers, like spoon bending or predicting the future and the rest? Either science fiction, or, in the case of opportunists like Madame Manakuna, surely carnival hucksterism.

A knock on Reggie’s open office door made him look up to see Ben in the doorway. His partner looked even worse than before: his skin was pale, and there was a lot of red in the whites of his eyes.

“Hey.” Reggie waved him in. “You headed out?”

Ben stepped into the office. He held a closed cardboard shoe box in both hands. “Not yet. I—”

“You really, really should, man. Hey, did I ever tell you about that fake psychic Gwen and I went to back in the day? She’s actually some kind of celebrity now! She sent me a book and a bunch of other stuff; haven’t looked at it yet, but I bet it’s gonna be perfect reading for the bathroom…”

“Reggie…”

“Anything going on for you? Or can you get some rest? Seriously, Ben, I’m a little worried about you—”

“Reggie..!”

The box Ben held rattled with such violence, Reggie wondered if it was making Ben’s hands shake, not the other way around.

Reggie stood up. “I think you should maybe sit down, Ben. You look like you might keel over. I—”

The lid of the shoe box popped off. Two buzzing blurs shot out and careened around the office.

Reggie flinched, yelping, and held an arm before his face. He fell back into his chair.

“What the hell, Ben!”

The buzzing things — they had to be dragonflies, or big beetles or horseflies — made a few more busy circuits around the office before alighting on the double-barred brushed steel arm of Reggie’s desk lamp.

Reggie very much preferred that the things weren’t in flight. He hated when a grasshopper or something landed on him; it was gross.

Slowly, cautiously, he lowered his arm and got a look at them.

At first, he thought he was seeing two large, green praying mantises, perched side by side.

He looked again.

Blinked.

They were only praying mantises from the abdomen down.

At the point where their bodies bent from horizontal to vertical (from the waist up, in a way) they appeared to be very tiny, perfectly formed, delicately proportioned women.

“Ben..?”

“Yeah. I know.”

Fighting his squeamish fear the… insectaurs… would launch themselves into the air again, Reggie leaned in for a closer look.

They had straight black hair that hung just over their shoulders. Severe bangs stopped short of delicate, arching eyebrows.

Their eyes were as mantis-like as everything below their waists.

Their “human” skin had a hint of greenish iridescence.

Reggie thought the fact that they had nipples a little ridiculous, followed with the realization that his noticing was just as absurd.

Both insectaurs folded thin arms across those tiny bosoms and cocked their heads to the left.

In unison, they said, “Yes, all right? We are real! You are seeing us! We do not have time for you to gawk!”

Reggie glanced at Ben, who looked even more lost at sea than Reggie felt.

“They talk,” Ben said.

“Yes,” said the insectaur on the left.

“Yes, we talk,” said the insectaur on the right.

Except that they didn’t, Reggie noticed.

Not exactly.

Their minuscule red tulip lips never moved. Rather, the rapid vibrating friction of each creature’s four wings generated a simulation of speech.

“Ben.” Reggie kept an eye on the mantis twins. “Where did you find these..?”

“They, um, came in the mail.”

The mantis twins buzzed in unison. “We are here to warn you! You must listen to us!”

To Ben, Reggie said, “All I got was a book…” To the mantis twins, he said, “Who… sent you? And from where?”

The left mantis twin vibrated, “We come from nowhere. No home.” They exchanged a brief, sad look before buzzing in unison, “That is not important! We come with dire news! You must listen! Are you ready to listen?”

Reggie looked at Ben, who shrugged.

“All right, then.” Reggie nodded to the mantis twins. “I guess we’re ready to listen.”

Ben walked across the office and hunkered down to be eye-level with the mantis twins.

They looked at Reggie and Ben in turn.

“The world is in terrible danger. A kaiju threatens, larger, more terrible than any you have known.”

“So… you… mailed yourself..? here because we help manage and contain kaiju storms?” Something obvious struck Reggie. “You two. You’re some kind of kaiju, too, aren’t you?”

“We are Prasiti. We are for warning.”

Their simultaneous, buzzing speech, which called to mind the most clever trick imaginable performed by the world’s two greatest violinists, had a subtle harmony to it. The wings of the mantis twin on the left sang slightly lower in pitch than those of her “sister.”

“You are in terrible danger. Humanity faces its end!”

Reggie said, “From one kaiju? Even the most powerful kaiju storms are regional, by definition. No one kaiju could—”

The mantis twins buzzed insistently. “Priamata is unlike any kaiju you know! We have said this!”

Now that he had a few minutes to acclimate, Reggie was more fascinated than disturbed by the mantis twins, or alarmed by their warning. A kaiju manifestation naming another kaiju? A kaiju manifestation that communicated directly with human beings using something like speech?

Something remarkable was happening, that was for sure.

He looked at Ben. “We should call Haldwell in, don’t you think? Have the lab coats get some readings on these two?”

Ben held up a hand and addressed the mantis twins. “Prasiti. What did you call it? The new kaiju?”

“Priamata,” they sang.

Reggie saw Ben frown. “I can’t place it, but that name… I’ve heard it before.”

Reggie experienced a little chill.

“Me too, Ben. I heard it from you. In the car. You said it in your sleep.”

The mantis twins shrilly buzzed, “Our song is in your sleep! Your dreams are portents! Priamata is coming!”

Ben straightened his legs and frowned. “I haven’t had a decent sleep since before King Shango.” He looked at Reggie. “At first I didn’t think anything about it. Then… y’know, I figured it was the job…”

The mantis twins bobbed their heads, whisper-thin black hair swaying. “Everyone who can, hears.”

Reggie pieced it together. “You are kaiju. And the Touched have been sensing you…” He said to Ben, “We should find out if Gary and Chuck… what’s his name…”

Ben said, “Chuck Newman. Yeah. We should find out if they’ve been having trouble sleeping. Insomnia. Nightmares.”

“Maybe check with any Touched at the London and Tokyo branches, too.” Reggie looked down, thinking. His gaze fell on the ratty, photocopied booklet Madame Manakuna had sent him.

“Well,” he said. “This is all turning into a thing, all right.”

He held up the booklet for Ben to see.

“‘The Rise of the Dragon-Squid-Bat Preemadha,'” Ben read aloud, causing the mantis twins to trill an inarticulate, excited arpeggio. Ben read on. “‘An Amalgamated Account of Ki-Joo Terror In The Pacific by Howard Lovecraft, For the Amateur Press Association.'”

“Another damn chimera,” Reggie muttered. “Great.”

He leafed through the newspaper clippings for the first time. They all depicted accounts of night terrors, acts of sudden violence, and even suicide. They dated from just before the postmark on the package to about three weeks before.

“Look at these.” He passed the clippings to Ben. The mantis twins fluttered from the lamp arm to roost on Ben’s shoulder, where they appeared to anxiously read along. Ben didn’t seem to notice them.

Reggie suppressed a shudder. “I guess Madame Manakuna’s on to something…” He picked up her book and opened it. A single sheet of lined paper slipped out.

Reggie picked it up off of his desk and read it.

“I guess she remembered me and Gwen,” he said. “She’s dreamed of this new kaiju, too. Says she needs to see us, that she has important information about it.” He looked up from the note. “Says it’s a matter of life and death. Kind of melodramatic?”

The mantis twins buzzed on Ben’s shoulder. “No! It’s very, very serious! We must all go to see Madame Manakuna right away!”

Join The Multiversalists
To Read Installments of
"Reggie vs Kaiju Storm Dragon Squidbat"

A Sample from

Reading "The Amazing Spider-Man"

I’m an author and creator. I write novels and short stories set in one of four (so far) storyworlds. Among other works, I’m the author of the Parsec Award-nominated Brave Men Run—A Novel of the Sovereign Era and the follow up novel, Pilgrimage, two books that owe a great debt of inspiration to The Amazing Spider-Man.

I’ve also worked as an interactive marketing producer helping to design story-driven marketing campaigns for major motion pictures starring folks like Kristen Wiig, Seth Rogen, Mel Gibson and Mila Kunis, as well campaigns as for several television shows that have long since disappeared off your DVR.

In addition to producing and releasing my own works, as a creative services provider I help other creators bring their creative endeavors to fruition, to market, and to an audience.

I’m extraordinarily privileged to work in a field where I can get paid to tell stories. And I know, in my heart, that I wouldn’t be in the position I’m in today if it hadn’t been for comicbooks.

I read my first issue of The Amazing Spider-Man (technically, it was a book called Marvel Tales that presented a reprint of The Amazing Spider-Man number 76) when I was six or seven years old. I found it on a spinner rack in a drug store in McKeesport, Pennsylvania while my grandmother picked up her prescriptions.

I fell in love.

I loved that he was a picked-on smart kid with too-big glasses who would rather study than play sports. That was just like me!

I loved that he wise-cracked his way through tough spots, his wit covering up his fear. That was just like me!

I loved that he was flawed: sometimes selfish, sometimes unkind to his friends, always neurotic and second-guessing himself. That was—hopefully was—just like me!

The Amazing Spider-Man, especially the wonderfully corny, soap-opera-tastic issues written in the 1970’s, was the manual for my young life. I love Peter Parker. The amazing Spider-Man is my hero.

The character taught me a lot about life.

The comicbook taught me a lot about writing and storytelling, and about how to create a storyworld—a creative franchise—that could inspire generations.

In this book, we’ll read the first twelve issues of The Amazing Spider-Man. As we go, I’ll share thoughts, observations, and loving criticism from the perspective of a writer, a creator, and most importantly, a fan.

By reading The Amazing Spider-Man together, I think we can learn things about episodic storytelling, long-form character arcs, and writing fiction. We’re going to have fun, too… after all, it’s comics!

Let’s get started!

Join The Multiversalists
To Read Installments of
Reading "The Amazing Spider-Man"

A Sample from

Worldbuilding for Writers, Gamers, and Other Creators: Star, Planet, Moon

Worldbuilding — sometimes called sub-creation or secondary world creation — is the task / art / craft of designing and representing an internally consistent and realistic setting for use in fiction, video or tabletop role playing games, movies, comics, a transmedia experience… really any type of storyworld.

In each concise volume of “Worldbuilding for Writers, Gamers and Other Creators,” and in the omnibus edition, you’ll find explanations, tools and resources to give your setting a level of verisimilitude that inspires the willing suspension of disbelief on the part of your audience.

We’ll work with a “top down” approach both literally and in terms of the subjects we cover. As we select an appropriate star, muse on the size, mass, and orbit of your world, its geography, climate, weather, biomes and habitats for life (including the sentient variety!) and more, I’ll use one of my own storyworld settings, the Shaper’s World, to provide examples.

Since the ultimate goal is to create a fictional representation of an Earth-like planet, we’re going to keep a broad focus by necessity… but you’re strongly encouraged to delve deeply into each topic via Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/ ), Wolfram Alpha (http://www.wolframalpha.com/ ) and other Internet resources.

Yes, there will be math, but what’s required is more basic than you might expect, and there are lots of tools (hello, again, Internet) to help us in that regard. It’s worth it!

What Is Meant By “Earth-like Planet”

For the purposes of Worldbuilding for Writers, “Earth-like” means the following:

Size and density close to that of the Earth to allow for a gravity suitable for an ecosystem similar to Earth’s
Orbiting in the “habitable zone” of a star and having appropriate orbital characteristics to allow for a climate similar to that of Earth
Having an active, self-replenishing crust to allow for geologic processes similar to Earth
Having an atmosphere similar in composition and density to the Earth
Being an age sufficient to allow for the development of complex organisms, including at least one sentient species

If you’re interested in creating a setting that is anything but Earth-like, you’ll still find the information in Worldbuilding for Writers, Gamers and Other Creators useful — it’s important to understand what’s normal before you push beyond!

Join The Multiversalists
To Read Installments of
Star, Planet, Moon

A Sample from

Indie Author Marketing Infrastructure

This book is for you.

You’ve written a book—maybe it’s your first; maybe it’s your fiftieth—and you’ve decided to self-publish. Other than creating an e-book, at a minimum, and maybe print (paperback or hardcover) and audiobook editions, you’re wondering what else you need to set up.

This book is for you.

You’re on the Internet, of course, and you have a few social media accounts to keep up with your friends and maybe your co-workers, but so far, you haven’t made an effort to build a social media presence as an author. Maybe that’s because you’re brand new; maybe you just haven’t bothered so far. It seems like a lot of work… and for what?

This book is for you!

You’ve seen other authors’ websites, so you have a vague idea that you probably should have one, too… but you’re not sure what you’re supposed to do with it, or how.

This book is for you!

Almost every one of those author websites you checked out want you to subscribe to a mailing list. Is that really necessary? What’s the point?

Yeah, you’ve come to the right place. This book is for you!

What You’ll Learn

This is important: What I’m about to teach you is meant to be as evergreen as anything on the Internet can be. While I mention some particular brands, products, and services in the pages to come, the underlying strategy, tactics, and philosophy don’t require you to choose the products and services I recommend.

This book is about the marketing infrastructure you must establish to have a chance at success as an independent author.

After you’ve read this, you’ll know:

The three integral elements of your indie author marketing infrastructure
How those elements are interconnected and interdependent
Why each element is indispensable and integral

Why Listen to Me?

Hello, dear reader. My name is Matthew Wayne Selznick, and I’m a bona fide self-publishing pioneer and author services provider who’s helped dozens of writers and authors bring their creative endeavors to fruition, to market, and to an audience.

You could say I started self-publishing as a teenager in the pre-digital early 1980s, when I wrote and printed short stories featuring not-so-thinly veiled versions of my friends, ran off photocopies, and shared them around with anyone who’d take them off my hands.

A little later, I founded, edited, and produced print litzines (amateur literary magazines) with a few friends. RFD, Samizdat, and THING were created with primitive personal computers, scissors, and glue sticks. They enjoyed distribution in coffee houses, bars, and record stores across the western United States.

Not long after the dawn of the World Wide Web, I created some of the first webzines (a registered periodical published only on the web), Sovereign Serials, and later, Multiverse Magazine. Both featured contributors from all over the world, and the latter was a paying market. Collected stories from Sovereign Serials were even sold in e-book formats, nearly a decade before the Kindle.

When I completed my first novel, Brave Men Run, in late 2005, there was no question I would self-publish. But I took it a step farther.

Brave Men Run was the first novel in history with a simultaneous debut in paperback, e-book, and podcast formats. A Parsec Award nominee, the favorable fan response to that little book—and the unique triple-threat release strategy—helped me build a global community of friends and fans in the tens of thousands.

After a fruitful detour producing websites, viral features, and apps for motion pictures and television shows from nearly all the major film and TV studios, in 2011 I became a full-time creative services provider helping authors and other creative people… all while continuing to write and release my own novels, short stories, serials, and non-fiction works.

Most of my clients are repeat customers. Many, I’ve had the honor of serving for the better part of a decade.

This book represents foundational, fundamental wisdom and best practices I find myself teaching again and again as a coach and consultant. It seems everyone interested in self-publishing needs to know this stuff.

So here we are. This book is for you, and you should listen to me.

Let’s get to it!

Join The Multiversalists
To Read Installments of
Indie Author Marketing Infrastructure

A Sample from

Four Stories

“You Got Me”

“I almost went the whole day.”

Jerry looked up from his book. Tabitha’s face was slack; her eyes lost in the middle distance.

“What?”

She focused with a start. “I… nothing.”

He closed the book and put it on the coffee table. “It doesn’t look like nothing.”

She shook her head. “Really.” She stood and stretched. “You want some tea?”

Jerry thought it looked like a performance. “No. Thanks.”

She crossed the living room and disappeared into the kitchen. “Well, I’m going to make some tea. You sure?”

“Yeah. But you never drink tea.”

After a moment, her reply came from the kitchen.

“I just want some.”

He heard her open the cupboard, remove the crinkle wrap from the box, and fill the kettle. There was the stony slide of a mug from the cupboard shelf, and there, the mild knock it made when she set it on the counter.

He happened to look at his hands, and was startled to find they were white on the knees of his slacks. He sighed and unlocked his fingers.

“Gig Number Two”

The car, the rain, the ride.

It was a long one, that ride, right down through the center of California, with the ocean far, far to the left, and the desert, the mountains, the rest of the country much too far off to the right.

Just farms, and flat, and the rain, all around.

We made a little convoy: me and Dan in his Volkswagen Bug; Andy in his Econoline van with Stan (the kid), and Ava, who made sure she and I did the three hundred mile trip with a hundred feet of freeway between us.

Dan and I didn’t have much to talk about. He never did, with anyone. Even on stage, he kept his guitar playing out of the way of my bass and Ava’s voice. Whatever else happened, we never had to worry about the guitarist’s ego breaking up the band.

In the car, after the radio stations ran out and the cassette tapes had all been played twice, and then three times, over, I wished Dan had something to say about… anything.

The beat of the wipers across the windshield was putting me to sleep. I tried again.

“So, what do you think we should start the set with?”

Dan shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I guess it should be something fun, ’cause we won’t get more than a couple songs in before we’re shut down.”

I nodded. “Not much chance these friends of Andy’s got a noise permit, is there?”

“Nope.”

Dan drifted away.

I reeled him back.

“What’s the deal with this thing, again? Some ex-girlfriend, or something?”

“Of Andy’s,” Dan said. “Not mine. He met her at the river, and they’d screw around when he went out there to work.”

“Long way to go for a gig.”

“I think Andy’s expecting compensation,” Dan said.

This would be our second gig as a band. The first had been in Andy’s cousin’s garage. Two months later, and we’re driving to the middle of California mostly so he could screw an old girlfriend.

I made an effort to keep the pout out of my voice. “More than the rest of us.”

“Not My Fault”

Brent had saved for weeks so he could treat Sue to the nicest restaurant in town for their six month anniversary, and to tamp down her fears about their relationship once and for all.

Sue was dressed to the nines, reminding Brent why he had gone after her in the first place. Her eyes sparkled in the candlelight as she brought her wine glass to her lips.

“This is nice,” he said.

“Yeah..!”

He reached across the table to take her hand when she put down the glass. “So are you.”

She smiled and tilted her head. “What made you ask me out six months ago?”

“You know why!”

She brought his hand to her lips and kissed his fingers. “Tell me again.”

Brent glanced around the restaurant to see if anyone at the neighboring tables saw their public display of affection. He couldn’t help noticing the woman across the room. She looked like she might be really something.

He brought his eyes back to Sue and grinned. “Okay. You came to Mark’s party.”

“And you were there with that Amelia.”

“Yeah, I was.” Sue’s habit of bringing up Brent’s mistakes irked him to no end. As always, he hid it completely. “But once I saw you, she was no longer an option.”

She chuckled. “Why?”

“‘The Days of Wine and Roses’ by The Dream Syndicate”

Glenn calls me at home, says Jennie’s in a state, that she’s really done this time, really gonna do it. Glenn says she said she was going to the firehouse. That she’d be on the roof, but not for long, he says, you know what I mean?

I’m not so interested in what Glenn says Jennie says or doesn’t say.

Glenn wants me to do something; says I have to.

I don’t have to do anything, not any more, but I throw on my Docs and a flannel and I start walking to the firehouse.

Along the steps leading into my apartment building are these little planters. Last Spring, Jennie planted these flowers there, Cardinettes, roses or something, but they never really took. Too many neighborhood cats digging shit up, and plus I never really watered them like I said I would. I sort of stopped seeing those flowers when I stopped seeing her.

On the way out, I see someone else planted something else. Good for them.

It’s late afternoon. Kids are playing around in front of their buildings. Dudes are drinking forties on their porches. I hate my neighbors, and I hate this city. I wouldn’t even live here, but Jennie wanted me to be closer.

So I moved.

I’m still here.

I turn the corner and pass the Thai place where Jennie and I ate every month. I thought it was a little bit “high school” to celebrate our monthly anniversary, but the first and only time I expressed that opinion sent her straight into one of her week-long Fits of Blackness.

The first night, she wouldn’t sleep, and she wouldn’t let me sleep, either. It was hours and hours of her sitting up in bed, pushing at me, wanting to go over everything and nothing, over and over again, until she heard what she wanted to hear.

I never figured out what she wanted to hear.

Join The Multiversalists
To Read Installments of
Four Stories

A Sample from

CloaK

One hand on the door, Harry Turpin stopped before going into Apex Metaphysical Books. His stomach tightened when he looked through the glass.

Inside, his girlfriend Betty scampered around the counter. Her mouth was wide with laughter Harry could just barely hear.

Behind the counter, her skeletal co-worker, Gabe, gave mock pursuit. In one spindly hand he held a pair of scissors. He made chopping motions in the air and his face was bright with mirth.

Gabe vaulted the counter. He landed right in front of Betty; almost ran into her. They were very close.

It looked to Harry like Gabe said, “Ah ha,” or something like that, anyway, when he snatched the end of Betty’s long brown hair and quickly snipped a lock or two. Betty squealed and darted away.

Harry’s eyes met Betty’s through the glass of the door. He came in as smooth as he possible; of course he hadn’t been standing out in the brisk October afternoon. Why would he do that?

Betty’s smile shifted slightly. Dimmed. She brushed the hair away from her flushed face.

“Harry! I was just thinking about you!”

Harry wasn’t surprised she turned her head when he leaned in for a kiss. His lips grazed her cheek and his stomach notched tighter.

“I thought I’d come see you on the way home from the site,” he said. She didn’t avoid his hug. Harry glanced over her shoulder. Gabe busied himself behind the counter, near the dusty black velvet curtain that obscured the store’s back meeting room.

Betty pulled away. “I’m… um, glad you came by. I was going to call you later, but…”

Harry made himself smile. “Hey, you can still call me later.”

“Yeah.” Betty laughed. “Um.” She looked at her feet, at the wall rack of herbs and essential oils, at the tarot card display and very quickly in Gabe’s direction before she took Harry’s arm and lead him to the door. “Let’s go outside.”

Harry said, “It’s kinda cold…” even as she led him though and onto the sidewalk.

“I don’t mind.” Betty wore a thin black leotard and an ankle-length pleated black skirt. She hugged herself. “I wanted to talk to you.”

Harry dug his hands into the pockets of his paint-spotted blue jeans. “Yeah, okay.”

Betty’s focus skittered, landing anywhere but on Harry. She laughed, a short nervous cough. “I don’t know how to say this.”

Harry let himself fall back against the storefront window. His breath went out in a hard sigh. “That never means good things.”

Betty seemed to study an old bit of gum on the sidewalk at her feet. The Autumn wind played with her hair. She looked up. Her eyes locked on his face, just below his right eye.

“I think maybe… we’re seeing too much of each other.”

Harry moved his head slightly to force her to meet his gaze. She looked away.

“Too… much of each other?”

“Well, yeah.” Betty shrugged. “I think we’re interested in different things.” She glanced over Harry’s shoulder, into the store. Harry had the feeling she was looking at Gabe. For support?

It hardened him a little. “So, what you’re really saying is that you don’t like the time we spend together. Not that there’s too much of it.”

She frowned and finally looked at him, quickly, before looking away again. “Don’t twist it around, Harry. We never really just talk. It’s like you don’t even really want to be in a relationship in the first place, so I don’t know why you’re surprised.”

“Talk.” Harry felt a weight, a constriction, wrap around him. He thought of a straight jacket, which made him think of his mother. “I thought we talked.”

Betty tossed her head. “Yeah, I guess so. But it’s about the dumbest…” Regret crossed her face quickly before irritation reclaimed the territory. “It’s about just everyday stuff, y’know? Your work. Who you saw at the bar. All the same stuff. Nothing real! We never talk about us – how we feel about each other. What’s the point?”

She couldn’t help shivering now. If Gabe hadn’t taken that little bit of hair, Harry absurdly thought, Betty’d be that much warmer right now. “What’s the point? I don’t understand.” Harry really wanted to turn around to see if Gabe was watching. “What do you mean?”

Betty blinked and shook her head. “That’s what I mean, Harry.” She put her hand on the door and leaned in. “I never felt like you wanted to be in love, y’know?”

“What? I –”

“I can’t even really take it personally.” Her lips pressed into an odd, small smile. “I don’t think you have it in you. I’m sorry, Harry. I’ll… I guess I’ll see you around.”

She went inside, made a bee-line for the counter and slipped past the velvet curtain, out of sight.

Through the glass, Gabe looked at Harry and smiled before he followed Betty into the back.

Heavy, laden, Harry shuffled back to his car and sat behind the steering wheel until the parking meter flipped to red; fifteen minutes. He felt nothing.

Join The Multiversalists
To Read Installments of
"Cloak"

A Sample from

Reggie vs Kaiju Storm Chimera Wolf

Reggie and Ben arrived in Dana Cove, California six hours after the kaiju storm had come and gone.

This was actually pretty good time. There was rarely any advance warning of a manifestation, but fortunately seismic sensors planted offshore triggered storm sirens as soon as the beast roughly slouched onto the continental shelf. Most folks in the projected path had time to jolt out of bed and head elsewhere.

The marines at Camp Pendleton had mobilized, but the thing was too quick. A kaiju might appear ponderous and slow on the evening news, but their ridiculous size meant they covered a lot of ground in a very short time. They also didn’t tend to dawdle. With occasional exceptions, they made a bee-line for whatever drew them out, destroyed it, then either turned back the way they came or kept going until they inexplicably disappeared.

This one showed up at three that morning. Reggie got the call at three fifteen, which wasn’t so bad, because he hadn’t been able to sleep anyway. Giant monster attacks beat staring at the ceiling and dwelling on the past any day of the week.

By the time he and Ben were in the plane and on their way to John Wayne Airport, everything was over. The freeway south was hopelessly tangled with traffic. Considering their destination and who he might find there, Reggie didn’t mind the delay so much.

When they finally made the scene, the swath was overrun with post-responders, swarms of insurance agents, FEMA officials, and the media. The post-responder command center took over the athletic field of a high school that sat on a hilltop overlooking Dana Cove. Ben drove into the lot and parked behind an Abrams tank.

Reggie, who had been mostly quiet for the drive, tried to snap out of it when they got out of the car. He hooked a thumb at the tank.

“Remember the first time you saw one of these babies up close?” He grinned. “I used to think they were so big..!”

“Toenail big,” Ben nodded. “Here come our guys.”

A tall, thin man with a disheveled comb-over strode toward them, palm outstretched. Just behind him came an older man in field military dress.

“Ned Yarborough, FEMA,” said the thin man. “This is Colonel Gredley.”

They shook hands in turn.

“I’m Reggie Samson, and this is my partner, Ben Handell.”

Yarborough looked past them to their car. “You came in that?”

Reggie and Ben exchanged a glance. “It’s a rental,” said Reggie.

Yarborough shrugged. “I guess I was expecting one of those VTOL, mecha-things…”

Reggie grinned. “We don’t get to play with those toys in our division. Besides, the manifestation didn’t really last long enough for engagement, isn’t that correct?”

Colonel Gredley nodded economically. “That is correct. Your engagement team at the base is on standby if there should be a need.”

“We’ll find out soon enough,” Ben said.

Yarborough led them through the impromptu village of broad white tents, rows of outhouses, sensor towers, and heavy weapons installations that had obliterated the turf of the high school athletic field. They stopped at the fence on the edge of the hilltop.

“You can get a pretty good look at the swath, here.”

On a day without monsters, it would have been a nice view. You could see most of the town center and all the way to Pacific Coast Highway and the misty ocean beyond. A wide, flat, smoking scar of ruin cut from the water to a shopping center half a mile inland.

Ben said, “Must have gone back to the water.”

“Yeah…” Reggie considered the gaping crater at the end of the swath. It had been a grocery store, if he remembered right. “Look at that. I call digger.” He turned to their escorts. “Any eyewitness reports?”

“Nothing detailed,” Yarborough said with a glance at Gredley, whose head jerked up and down. “It was dark, and power was cut as soon as they knew the thing was coming. Plus, no moon last night.”

Cutting power was always a good idea—it helped limit fires to those caused by ruptured natural gas lines. One orange torch speared up from the swath, but it could have been a lot worse. Reggie wasn’t really surprised that his old stomping grounds (he chuckled inwardly at the expression) had its act together. There were over sixty years of worldwide collective experience to draw on, especially for coastal communities.

“Rough idea?”

Gredley rubbed the silver stubble on his chin. “Well, the reports we’ve gathered indicate it apparently had tentacles, but arms, too—and a head like a wolf.”

Ben looked at Gredley, and then at the huge sinkhole down the hill. A thin layer of smoke hung over it. “Like a wolf?”

Ben’s great grandfather had been there for one of Fenris’ first manifestations in 1945. Reggie himself had been unlucky enough to see the kaiju in Berlin, in ’89. But Fenris didn’t have tentacles.

“That’s all I know. There’re some folks here—locals—who might have a better idea.”

Reggie stared down the hill. The kaiju had stayed pretty close to Doheney Park Road, leaving the street a broken, muddy morass. It took out most of the shopping center, too, but seemed to focus on the grocery store. Would Henry’s Mast still be there? Had Gwen worked the bar last night?

He pursed his lips and sighed through his nose.

“Let’s go take a look at the hole.”

Join The Multiversalists
To Read Installments of
"Reggie vs Kaiju Storm Chimera Wolf"

A Sample from

The News from Bewilder Pond

HARRISON WHEELER

This broadcast of “The News From Bewilder Pond” is sponsored by the Slumber Number bed from ChooseSnooze. It’s the only bed that lets you select your level of comfort: your “Slumber Number!”

And by Milkpowder Buttermilk Biscuits. Look for the bright pale box with the picture of a biscuit on the cover. Milkpowder Biscuits: they’re tasty… and… alacritous!

(AUDIENCE APPLAUSE)

HARRISON WHEELER (CONT.)

It’s been a quiet week in Bewilder Pond, my home town, out there on the edge of the wide open plains.

(AUDIENCE APPLAUSE)

HARRISON WHEELER (CONT.)

Autumn is in the air – it’s sweater weather, especially in the afternoon – and the wind is picking up leaves from people’s lawns… beautiful oranges and yellows and reds, moist with dew, a little soft from sitting on the old, fading summer grass, waiting for that wind to rush in and spread ’em around, usually right after you’re done raking for the day…

It’s the time of year folks start to think about winter, even though Halloween’s not quite come… it’s time to buckle down, to slow down, to not do anything too expansive… you don’t want to plan anything that takes you out-of-doors for too long.

Summer is fine for big things, for long plans, like the days are long… but Autumn is coming. It’s time to be sensible; to be happy with what you have; live off your stocks. Soon enough there’ll be snow, maybe… not a lot of snow, it’s not like we live in Minnesota or anything… but it’s coming all the same.

Karl Kraebach over at Kraebach’s Handy Hardware wasn’t quite ready for Fall… he wanted to do one last Big Thing before he could let go of Summer. His wife Hazel is never surprised by this; it’s what Karl does, going on thirty seven years, now, and she’s used to him getting this itch, this urge, this desire to have one more reason to wear short sleeves.

That doesn’t mean she won’t cross her arms on her bosom and put a little frown on her face, a single line between her eyebrows that appears right around the same time Karl starts pacing the house and… thinking…

That vertical marker is a kind of barometer for their friends. They see Hazel scowling in the grocery store and they just know: Karl’s going to do something, and soon, and, well… we’ll all just see.

Join The Multiversalists
To Read Installments of
"The News from Bewilder Pond"

A Sample from

Canary in a Coal Mine

September 4, 1964

“Tell me my story, Nonni!”

“Oh, Adoette. How many times do you want to hear that same story?” I was only six, but I already knew my Nonni, my great grandmother, would tell me that story every time I asked. It was our way.

I said nothing, only sat on her knee and stared up into her dark eyes. She shifted her legs, and I could feel her bones creak. She was so skinny! She had to be almost eighty, and I was always afraid to sit on her knees. But I also just knew she was stronger than anyone, especially when it came to the spirit world.

She finally gave in, and her eyes seemed to smile at me. “Very well.”

She began rocking in her chair. “Adoette, do you know the story of your name?”

“It means ‘one who is born under the branches of a tree.'”

She nodded. “That is true. But what else?”

“Please Nonni, I want you to tell me.”

Nonni smiled. “Of course you do. But you need to share this story with your children someday.” I crinkled my nose. I did not want babies. But Nonni knew that. That’s why she said it. “The tree is the door to the spirit world, Adoette. And you were named Adoette because you were born under the branches of a Big Tooth Maple on Apikuni Mountain near the border to Canada, where our people began their journey. The Kiowa are proud, and your mother has not forgotten the power of our people. She traveled from Oklahoma to Montana to have you under that special tree… just as her mother did, and just as I did.”

I smiled. I was proud of my mother.

“Montana is our home. We may have stayed here in Oklahoma for two hundred years, but we lived there far longer… and the longer you live in a place, the more powerful a connection you have to that place. You know the story of the hollow log?”

I liked that one. “In the beginning days our people entered this world when we climbed out of a hollow log. But then a fat lady got stuck in the log, and no one else could follow.”

Nonni looked at me with a frowny face. “Fat?”

I had said fat on purpose. I liked her frowny face. “Pregnant.”

“Yes, and that is why our tribe was smaller than many other tribes. But the part of the story that is rarely told is this… that pregnant woman, the Great Mother, is still stuck in the log, and that is why the tree allows us to be one with nature.”

“We can talk to animals.”

Nonni nodded. “Yes.”

“We can talk with those who have passed into the spirit world.”

“Yes.”

“And we can talk to each other without the need for words.”

She smiled one last time, and stared deeply into my eyes. Yes!

Join The Multiversalists
To Read Installments of
"Canary in a Coal Mine"

A Sample from

The World Revolves Around you

It goes back to me and Jane, see? She was my girl. A real peach, one of those bookish types most guys pass over, right? Comes across as real sweetheart… but not so much, if you know what I mean. In a good way. The whole package.

What’s that saying? Y’know? “An angel in the kitchen, a devil in the…”

Well, I’m getting to that, doc. I’m telling the story. This is all part of what happened.

Things were goin’ great with us. Now, you can probably tell, I been around a little, and I think Jane recognized she was getting a pretty good deal, a guy like me, good job, decent looks, someone who could show her a little bit of the world she was always readin’ about. This is a girl who was brought up sheltered… privileged. I mean, she’s the only chick I ever met who asked for a pony when she was a kid, and one shows up the very next day.

I think she saw an opportunity to get a little real world education, being with me, and heck, I was happy to oblige. She was a quick study, lemme tell you, those first few months.

Well, you know how it is with these things. Women start off grateful for the attention, and then it gets all turned around and they start thinking they can make demands. I mean, I enjoyed taking her out on the town, showing her around to all my buddies, goin’ to all my haunts and what not. But this one time, she wants to go to some art gallery or some such, something one of her feminist-bookstore-drum-circle-type friends tells her about, and I gotta tell you, such things do not appeal to me.

I told her, sorry sweetheart, we’re goin’ down to the Kozy Korner. There was a game on and all the guys were gonna be there. I was expected.

Well, yeah, of course we did what I wanted. Like I said, she was grateful for the attention from a real man, not like those swishy college boys she was probably used to. Anyway, how long can you stand around eating cheese and looking at a bunch of color-by-numbers? Damn right we went to the bar.

I couldn’t see the big deal.

Things were fine for a few more weeks, then she starts dropping hints about this lecture about all this Sovereign stuff. Of course, she wants to go. That’s really the first time I started paying attention to all you guys. Honest to Pete, I thought all this crap about people who can fly and read minds and everything was just mass hysteria, like the Moon walk or whatever. But Jane really wants to waste her time – that reporter guy was gonna speak. What’s his name..?

Right, Kass. No kidding, he’s got an office right here at the Institute? Well, if I run into him, it’ll be the first time, since we didn’t go to no lecture. The new Arnold movie opened that night, and I’ve gone to the first showing of every Arnold movie since the one with that Dago shrimp from “Taxi.” I wasn’t about to miss it for some talking head going on and on about a buncha freaks. I want Sovereigns, I’ll turn on the news, you know what I’m saying?

Don’t rub it in, doc. No shit, things are different now. Hah freakin’ hah.

Join The Multiversalists
To Read Installments of
"The World Revolves Around You"

A Sample from

The Sovereign Era: Year One

You Must Be My Lucky Star

by Mur Lafferty

April 18, 1985

Alice stopped coloring “Alice and Corey” on her math notebook when the phone rang. She stretched across her bed and snagged it before her mother could and was delighted to hear her best friend Meredith’s breathy voice on the other end.

“Oh my God, turn on the TV now!”

“I don’t have a TV in my room, butt-head,” Alice said.

“Go get the living room phone, then! I’ll wait.”

Alice sighed and put down the phone. She padded down the hall to the living room where her parents were both staring at the television just as the Washington Monument changed from white to black. She picked up the phone. “So what, is David Copperfield in town?”

Her dad answered, like he always did when she was on the phone in the living room. “No, I don’t really think so…” He didn’t look away from the television, where a man spoke to a stunned group of observers.

Alice shrugged and hung up the phone, retreating to her room to continue her conversation with Meredith in private. “I thought you were gonna tell me Corey had a new movie.” She wedged the telephone against her shoulder and picked up her pen to continue her doodles. She drew a big heart around “Alice and Corey.”

“Are you even listening?” Meredith said. “Didn’t you see what was going on?”

“Yeah, some magician tried to outdo David Copperfield. But he definitely wasn’t as cute as David.”

“You don’t get it. There’s like, people with powers or something. This guy says the people with powers are better than us, and get to go hang out with him at his institute or something, and he’ll beat up anyone who threatens his people.”

“His people? What does that mean?”

Can’t Get There From Here

Jadzia Axelrod

July 15, 1985

I don’t hear much, but I’ve heard this. You want miracles to happen, you gotta take exit 324 on I-95, go twelve miles down Kenesaw Drive, just past Briar Creek, deep into the pine woods, ‘till you see the field of Pontiacs and Buicks and Chevrolets. Supposedly, you’ll find miracles. In reality, you’ll find Wright’s Garage and me keeping some hunk of junk or another from the scrapyard.

Maggie was told she needed a miracle. Maggie had taken her poor, falling-apart LeBaron to the new Gulf station on the edge of Chapel Hill, over to the Daniel Boone Shell and finally to old man Kubichek’s place. Nobody had any luck figuring out why it gave a keel like lovesick alligator once it started, or why it just quit in the middle of the road, with the starter firing on a full tank of gas. The general rust-and-rot aesthetic of the engine was usually blamed, but a specific solution couldn’t be found.

“You’re gonna need a miracle, you want this hunka junk to run proper,” Juraj Kubichek told her. “Miracles a’ that sort only show up in one place.”

So, Maggie turned her car east on Kenesaw, restarted it about four times on the way, and slowly pulled into my clearing of cars, trucks and tractors in the middle of pines and cedars.

“Hear tell you can work miracles.” Maggie threw open the rusty door with a sickening crunch.

“There’s those that’d say that. I just do what the cars tell me to.” I wiped my hand on my pants before extending it for a shake. “Indigo Wright.”

“Maggie Williams. ‘Indigo,’ huh?”

“Yeah, it’s a bit too much name for me, too. Call me ‘Go. Most do. How can I help you?”

“You can listen to this heap of trouble.” Maggie smiled and scratched her close-cropped hair behind her right ear. Sweat made her shirt stick close to her lean torso. “If you have any ideas at all, you’ll have an edge up on every one else I went to.”

“Well, I better give her a listen.” I popped the LeBaron’s hood and leaned forward. “Start it up for me, will you? Let’s see what she says.” Once Maggie turned the key, I closed my eyes.

I let my head go quiet. I put out of my mind the sweat rolling down my back, the smell of rust coming from the engine I had my nose in, the sound of the starter urging the engine to turn over, even the beautiful smile of young black woman with the large Dayglo earrings behind the wheel. My mind was blank.

…corrosion… corrosion of the oil pan… came a voice in my head. …bleach… bleach in the oil… corrosion… corrosion…

My eyes snapped open. “You can quit now. When was the last time you changed the oil?”

“Change it?” Maggie stood up out of the car and bit her bottom lip. “I haven’t changed it, in like, a year. Maybe more. Is that the problem?”

“Not as such,” I said. “Anybody else drive this car?”

Sangre del Sureños

Matt Wallace

November 1, 1985

It didn’t matter who.

Big Feeder marched down the residential section of Granger Avenue, past the houses with their ornate iron bars covering every window. He was nineteen, Mexican, with his newly earned street tag freshly tattooed along the inside of his right arm in calligraphic script. His fingers were curled around the oily, worn grips of a secondhand Smith & Wesson .38 that he made no attempt to conceal.

Manuel Santoyo taught first grade at Suva Elementary and worshipped his three years passed grandfather, Filiberto. The altar on the corner was crowned with an ancient black and white photo of the regal old man. Manuel was preparing to light the candles on the first night of Dia de los Muertos.

Three shots rang out, sounding like tiny atomic explosions on the quiet street corner. The expanding soft lead rounds opened geysers in Manuel’s flesh. His body collapsed over the altar he’d erected, crushing the small toy skeletons and soft yellow marigold petals scattered at its base. His blood mixed with his mother’s homemade mole sauce, both spilled on the sidewalk, and soaked through the sweet ovals of bread he’d set out for the evening’s returning spirits of the dead.

Manuel never saw his killer’s face. The last image reaper-seared behind his retinas was the placa inked into the webbing of skin between Big Feeder’s thumb and forefinger. Manuel knew the identifying gang tattoos. He knew the “13” symbol born by the Sureños, the Southern Californian clickas. But he’d never seen this design before. It was a tiny crimson rosebud. That appeared to be dripping blood.

Big Feeder dropped the pistol. It clattered on the sidewalk. He didn’t run. He simply stood over the slain teacher’s body, waiting. Soon the sirens began blaring several blocks away. Big Feeder never moved. They’d hold him in the county lock-up over the weekend and transfer him to state prison on Monday to await trial. By Monday night he’d be in the bowels of Folsom, seasoned members of the Mexican mafia harvesting the Rush from his blood.

Join The Multiversalists
To Read Installments of
The Sovereign Era: Year One

A Sample from

PIlgrimage

About a year later, I was a celebrity.

It was stupid.

It was bad enough people would do a double take when they saw me in the grocery store, or passed me on the freeway. I was used to that. It’s how it’s been my whole life. When you look like me, it’s just what happens.

A year after Declaration Day, I was lucky if I didn’t see myself as a badly airbrushed artist’s rendition on the cover of The Weekly World News in the checkout line.

Me and Bat Boy, tabloid superstars. Except he’s not real.

I don’t think.

Hard to know for sure, these days.

On Friday, April 11, 1986, a week before the first anniversary of Declaration Day, the lawyers decided it would be a good idea for me and my mother to be guests on The Azarrio Show.

So there I was, Nathan Andrew Charters: household name, boy freak, full-on metahuman and fake Sovereign, roasting under the lights and sweating in a big sticky vinyl chair across the stage from the parents of my childhood rival, who were also trying to sue me and my mother into the poorhouse at best or help the feds throw us in jail at worst.

It was stupid.

My throat clenched as the host, Hank Azarrio, strode across the stage. “Okay, gang… we’re back from commercial in thirty seconds.” He oozed an oily, gunky stink of hairspray, sweat, makeup like swampy clay, and really terrible cologne. I was the only one in the room bothered by that, of course. Just one of my little gifts. “Everybody all set?”

My mother’s “Yes” slipped out of pursed lips. She had righteous indignation to maintain.

Marc Teslowski, doughy and pink, nodded his square head up and down and blinked his piggy eyes. His wife, Jeri, was either terrified or starstruck or maybe both. She smiled with her lips closed and bounced her clenched, knobby little fists in her lap.

Our lawyers straightened their ties and stuck out their chins. The firm had sent Drake Ottman, a young dude with a soap-opera name, to sit in our corner. The name of Teslowski’s guy had slipped out of my head a second after I broke off our cold handshake.

What did stick with me was how he’d tried to avoid my fingernails by curving his hand, even after I’d gone to the trouble of clipping and filing them down for the occasion. I scared some folks. This guy was part of that club.

It bugged me, sometimes. Not so much, that day.

The red light over the studio audience blinked. Azarrio ran his hand lightly across his salt-and-pepper-and-cement hair, licked his bushy gross mustache with a thick, pale tongue, and addressed the live camera.

“We’re back on The Azarrio Show with four people at the center of a controversy directly connected to the story of the century: the remarkable phenomenon of the Sovereigns.”

Azarrio indicated me with a wave of his hand that pushed his stench up my sinuses. I suppressed a gag. As much as I didn’t want to care, I tried to look cool when one of the cameras zoomed in on my face.

“This young man, despite the fact that he probably needs no introduction, is Nathan Andrew Charters—your friends call you Nate, though, right?”

All the makeup in the world couldn’t hide the acne-scar pockmarks cratering his cheeks. I wondered if that acne had made him a pariah when he was a kid the way my… nature… had made me. I felt the corners of my lips twitch up at the thought of a junior Azarrio having his backpack emptied into a trash can.

“Nathan’s fine,” I said.

Azarrio’s eyes narrowed slightly, but the grin beneath his bushy lip stayed steady.

“Nate, here, is at the center of an ongoing legal battle that has captured the fascination of the entire world. How does it feel to get all that attention, Nate?”

Asshole acted like I was six, not sixteen.

Fine. I was getting really good with confrontation.

Imagining my girlfriend, Lina, in the front row of the studio audience of housewives and unemployed middle-aged twits, I pushed down a little flurry of butterflies in my belly and kept my eyes on Azarrio and off the cameras.

“Are you asking how it feels to know the same people who turned my dad into a crazy freak and then tried to kill him are trying to pin two murders on me and him and my mom?”

Azarrio’s eyes glittered. It occurred to me that I was feeding him just what he wanted, but screw it. This whole thing was lame. In for a penny, or whatever.

“I guess it’s gonna feel great, once those people end up in prison and PrenticeCambrian and the government cut us a big check and stuff.”

Red light for me, green light for Azarrio. He addressed the camera.

“Nate’s referring to allegations from PrenticeCambrian—which, by the way, the powers that be want me to mention, is the parent company of some of our affiliate-station sponsors—that his dad, the former scientist Andrew Charters, killed two PrenticeCambrian employees and that Nate himself assaulted a high-ranking executive of PrenticeCambrian subsidiary Tyndale Labs.”

My mother’s scent drifted on the currents of the studio air-conditioning. It was barbed with tension.

“Call them what they were.”

She leaned forward in her chair. I imagined someone in the control room giving the word to put her on camera. “Assassins.”

“Alleged assassins, as I’m sure PrenticeCambrian’s legal team would want us to note.” Azarrio wore a mask of concern and empathy that didn’t match his almost-predatory scent.

I wondered if that was what this was for him—if he looked at his guests like prey to corner so he could extract reactions that would bring high ratings for his time slot.

I hoped my mother kept it together, even if I felt my own irritation scratching like bugs multiplying under my skin.

“Ask Marc Teslowski if there’s any question on that point.” She acted like he wasn’t eight feet away from her. Dude was suing us, too, after all. “It’s his son those assassins,” she hissed the word, drawing it out, “nearly gutted in my mother-in-law’s driveway.”

I don’t think Azarrio liked my mother directing his show for him. Instead of turning his attention to Teslowski, he addressed the camera, smooth as sculpted shit.

“Ms. Charters refers to young Byron Teslowski, the teenaged boy hospitalized after the incident at Kirby Lake left two dead under circumstances that are at the heart of the Charters’ legal battle with PrenticeCambrian, the government, and, in a related but separate case, the Teslowskis.”

Now he faced Marc Teslowski, who held the arms of his chair in a white-knuckled grip. Teslowski didn’t look at me in the same way my mother didn’t look at him.

So, I made sure to stare, hard, at him.

“Marc and Jeri Teslowski,” Azarrio said, “you contend that your son Byron, who the Sovereign claim as one of their own under the controversial Sovereign Compromise, is being illegally held at the Donner Institute for Sovereign Studies near Missoula, Montana.”

“That’s right.” Teslowski spoke through gritted teeth. “Everybody knows that.”

“And you hold the Charters—including Nate’s father, Andrew Charters, a fugitive and suspect in the killings—responsible. How, exactly?”

Teslowski turned to look at me at last. I let the shit-eating grin I’d been holding back push slowly at the corners of my mouth. I kept my eyes on his.

“That punk helped my kid make a break for it—”

Teslowski’s lawyer put his skittish hand on Teslowski’s shoulder. “We intend to show that Nathan Charters,” he made his voice project, “very likely with the cooperation of his father, and on behalf of the Sovereign, conspired to create an opportunity by which the Donner Institute for Sovereign Studies could apprehend Byron Teslowski.”

Our boy Drake spoke up. He had a voice like that DJ on KLOS who plays whole albums on Sunday night: deep and slow. It didn’t fit his face. “As our suit brought against PrenticeCambrian and the United States will show, those accusations have no basis in fact.”

I looked away from Teslowski to glance at the audience. They were getting into our little circus.

Azarrio acknowledged both attorneys with a nod of his head and turned back to Teslowski. “Marc, you and Jeri also have a civil suit against the Donner Institute for Sovereign Studies to get your son back. Why isn’t this a case of criminal kidnapping?”

Teslowski’s face darkened. “The goddamned Sovereign Compromise.” I imagined someone in the control room hitting the bleep button.

Azarrio shook his head and looked as if he wanted to tut-tut into his microphone. His sympathy didn’t reach his eyes.

“Mrs. Teslowski…Jeri…” She went as white as her husband was red. “How long has it been since you’ve seen your son?”

She swallowed and looked at her hands. My smarmy grin felt a little tired. I didn’t have a problem with Byron’s mom. She still had to live with her husband.

At least Byron got out.

“It was…” She glanced past me, I guess to my mother. I didn’t see any blame in her face. Figured. The Teslowskis might be suing us, but it must be all Marc Teslowski’s idea.

“It was May fourth, last year.”

Azarrio seemed to actually soften for a second. “That’s a long time.”

She nodded, birdlike.

Azarrio turned to me. “What about you, Nate? Byron’s a friend of yours…the Donner Institute is assisting you and your mother in your legal battles…have you heard from Byron Teslowski? Maybe chat on the phone?”

“Nope.”

I think Azarrio expected me to say something else. When I just looked at him, he ad-libbed, “Do you think he’s being held against his will?”

My mother said, “You don’t have to answer that—Drake, should he answer—”

“Knowing how things were,” I said quickly before Drake could speak up, “I bet Byron’s fine.”

Marc Teslowski grunted. Azarrio met my eyes like we were partners in his little show.

“Why do you say that?”

Byron Teslowski had made my life hell for years. He somehow made it okay to pick on the weird kid with the odd bone structure and giant eyes when no one would even think of making fun of Tom Harper in his wheelchair or Keri What’s-her-name with one leg all bent and shorter than the other one.

We hit high school, and he filled out, and girls liked him, and he kicked ass at every sport he tried. All along, he kept pushing at me, making sure everybody kept thinking I was the weird kid. He ended up with a whole little gang of jocks and cheerleaders in orbit around his smirking face. I could count my friends on one hand and not need my thumb.

Declaration Day changed everything. I learned some things about Byron. About his dad.

Which is why I helped Byron a year before, but not in the way the Teslowskis thought. It’s also why I answered Hank Azarrio the way I did.

“Because his dad’s a prick.”

A groan of disapproval flowed off the audience. Azarrio, his back to them and fully aware the live camera was on me for the moment, actually gave me a wink. He was quick about it, and made sure he closed his left eye—the one the Teslowskis couldn’t see.

Asshole.

He turned his back on me and faced the audience while a different camera put him in frame.

“Strong words from a young man in the eye of the storm.” His tone hit perfect notes of concerned disapproval. “When we come back, we’ll hear what our audience thinks. After this.”

The lights turned red. We had two minutes. Teslowski made the most of it. He flew out of his chair and loomed over me.

“You little shit. Who do you think you are?”

His belly strained beneath his button-down shirt. It was kind of a stupid move, really, putting his gut right in front of a guy whose fingernails can slice through aluminum cans and “still cut tomatoes like this,” as they say on the knife commercial.

I fought the urge to see how good a job I’d done blunting my nails. I stayed seated. Fucker wouldn’t dare try anything, not with the lawyers all there, not with the studio security guards moving in…not knowing what I could do.

“Mister Teslowski, please sit down.” Azarrio probably wished Teslowski had waited to perform this little show when the cameras were live.

My mother stood up. “You even think of touching my boy…”

I looked over my shoulder, up at her. “Seriously?”

I saw she was as irritated with me as she was with Teslowski. Great. What had I done, other than say what everyone on our side of the stage all thought?

“Marc…” Jeri Teslowski’s protest, if you could call it that, was a little peep.

Teslowski stayed where he was as the seconds ticked away. We looked at each other. The smell of his sweat was thick on my extra-human olfactory glands. He reeked of anger and…yep. There it was.

Fear.

It made my own crawling irritation and frustration with this whole stupid ordeal ratchet tighter. The dense muscles in my thighs bounced with the urge to leap. My peripheral vision blacked as my focus narrowed.

This guy had no idea.

Jeri Teslowski, too quiet for anyone but Marc and my own sensitive ears to hear, said, “Please stop,” in a whisper that was way more disgusted than I thought she had the guts for.

Teslowski slumped in his chair, glaring at nothing, and acted like he hadn’t heard a thing.

Azarrio moved up into the audience. He was unruffled and ready when the lights changed.

“Welcome back to The Azarrio Show, where we’re with two families at the center of a number of legal battles sure to affect relations with the people calling themselves Sovereign for years to come,” he said into the camera. “Let’s see what the audience thinks of all this.”

He found a bald man even softer and fatter than Teslowski. “Hello, sir. What’s your name?”

“Frank.”

“And what do you do, Frank?”

“I’m a corrections officer.”

“A public servant. Good for you.” Azarrio put a hand on Frank’s shoulder. “Do you have a thought you’d like to share, or a question for our guests?”

Frank’s gaze swept past me in the want-to-look-don’t-want-to-stare way I’m very, very used to. “My question is for Mister Teslowski…”

We’d been coached on this. Teslowski grumbled, “Hi, Frank.”

Frank nodded. He had that weird air of bashful excitement I’d seen on so many television audience members; it was strange to watch it in person.

“Hi. Um…why do the Sovereigns say your son agreed to stay at their…headquarters, or…”

“Institute,” Azarrio said helpfully.

“Yeah, their Institute? I mean, if they kidnapped him, what are their demands?”

I almost laughed out loud, which made my mother nudge my chair: a subtle warning for me. How awesome. I couldn’t help but wonder if our lawyers had planted this guy.

“Well…Frank…” I watched Teslowski lick his lips and flare his nostrils. “They’re not going to come right out and say they kidnapped him. Right?”

Frank scratched the side of his head. “I don’t know… I mean, their whole thing is they don’t care about our laws, I thought.”

Azarrio said, “Perhaps the Sovereign would be reluctant to admit to kidnapping, given the somewhat negative opinion of them held by the majority of Americans, according to one recent poll.” He looked at me. “No offense, Nate.”

The camera was on me again, ready for a reaction shot. I tensed my legs to keep them from jumping. The butterflies came back.

A memory from almost a year ago popped into my head. My friend Jason, standing up to Byron Teslowski, even though Jason was about a foot and a half shorter and fifty pounds lighter. That helped.

“None taken. Everybody knows I’m not a Sovereign. Hank.”

Azarrio had a twinkle in his eye that made me want to rip one out and feel it pop between my teeth.

“That’s the assertion of your legal team—funded in part by the Donner Institute for Sovereign Studies itself, we must remember—but doesn’t PrenticeCambrian contest that?”

This particular time, I didn’t mind my mother speaking up. “I don’t think there’s a single person in your audience who doesn’t know the basics of our legal fight.”

Azarrio inclined his head briefly. “You claim there’s evidence PrenticeCambrian conducted human experiments that provided Andrew Charters—your husband—with Sovereign-like abilities…and that Nate inherited some of those abilities.”

“Conducted, and continue to conduct.” My mother’s face twisted with disgust. “The assassins they sent after Nathan and Byron had been turned into…monsters.”

“These…assassins, as you call them…were killed by Andrew Charters, according to the police report filed by an eyewitness—”

My mother kept her tone firm, but civil, like when she tried explaining why I really, really needed to take the trash out for the good of all mankind. “That’s not correct, Mister Azarrio. Andrew killed one of them, in self-defense. The other one died when Lester Brenhurst,” she said the name carefully, as if it was a rotten piece of fruit with a pit that threatened to break a tooth if she bit down too hard, “tried to kill my husband.”

“Allegedly,” Azarrio smiled. He took control of the exchange by turning back to the camera.

“Immediately after the events in question, Andrew Charters disappeared. He remains at large, despite the fact that his testimony could resolve many of the questions at the crux of this drama of corporations, our government, the Sovereigns, and these two families.

“Now, we extended an invitation to both PrenticeCambrian and the Donner Institute to be part of the show today, but their respective representatives declined.” Azarrio put his attention on us again. “It makes me wonder, though: have any of you met the leader of the Sovereign and, it’s said, the most powerful metahuman known…Dr. William Karl Donner himself?”

As if. I shook my head. I heard my mother exhale with exasperation. To my left, the Teslowskis shook their heads as well.

Azarrio moved to stand near Byron’s mom. “Jeri Teslowski, William Donner, quite possibly, has been in daily contact with your son for nearly a year, while you’ve literally counted the days since the last time you heard Byron’s voice. If you could say one thing to William Donner, what would it be?”

I was developing a real healthy hatred of Hank Azarrio. Byron’s mom seemed like she wanted to fold in on herself. Her eyes were wide enough to fall out of her narrow face.

“What…what would I say…?” She looked quickly at her glaring husband, then at her own lap. She shrugged her shoulders.

A vein along Marc Teslowski’s jaw thumped. I found myself fixating on it. I wondered what it would be like to grab it and pull it right off his face like a magic trick with a ribbon…just pull and pull until he unraveled.

My stomach grumbled. It had been too long since I’d fed my hyper metabolism.

Teslowski stepped up for his wife. “I’ll tell you what I would say.” He looked from camera to camera until one moved closer. “Listen up.”

He leaned forward, red-faced, and faced the camera.

“You’re just…you’re just a suit, Donner. You’re a little, small man. I’ve seen the pictures. I could snap you in half.”

Azarrio stage-chuckled. “Those are some harsh words, Mister Teslowski. No doubt under—”

“I’m not done.” He jabbed a fat finger at the camera, at the demigod who, we could all pretty much assume, wasn’t watching.

“You put aside that shit you do, Donner, and let’s see what happens. You be a man, and you give me back my son, and you answer to me.” He stabbed at the camera again. “Then. Then we’ll see, won’t we?”

Teslowski sat back in his chair. I had to give it to him…even if he was an abusive, puffy asshole, if he had any anxiety about threatening a guy who could pretty much literally do anything he set his mind to, he sure didn’t let it show.

Azarrio looked at the audience and shrugged before turning his attention back to Byron’s dad. “Mister Teslowski…are you saying you would challenge Doctor Donner to a…to a physical fight?”

Teslowski’s lip curled. “What is it with this ‘doctor’ thing, anyway? Why does everyone refer to this guy like he deserves our respect? What’s he done to deserve that?”

A few low voices in the audience seemed to agree.

“I mean, do we give that kind of respect to the Ayatollah? To Qaddafi? To Idi Amin?” For a second I thought Teslowski was going to spit on the stage. He swallowed, sneering.

“He’s a punk.”

Azarrio didn’t let it go. “So, you really do want to fight him.”

Teslowski’s fingers pressed the vinyl of his chair. “Jesus! Why don’t we all want to fight him? Why don’t we have all those freaks rounded up and locked away before they do something worse than Philadelphia, or whatever else they’ve got up their sleeves?”

Outright cheers in the crowd at that. Who would have thought Marc Teslowski would be a voice of inspiration, even if it was for a bunch of idiots?

“Hell,” Marc said, “there’s gotta be a few hundred of them at that camp of theirs. Once I get my kid back, why don’t we just firebomb the place? Let ‘em burn.”

“Now, Mister Teslowski,” Azarrio said, “I know the tabloids, talk radio, blame the flooding in Pennsylvania on a Sovereign with elemental powers, but do you really believe that? People controlling the weather?”

Teslowski looked at Azarrio for a beat, then he looked right at me. He spoke slowly.

“They’re…not…people.”

I admit it. Even though I’m not a Sovereign and really didn’t like being lumped in with them, the fucker got to me. I forgot we were in the studio. I forgot we were on television. I forgot about the cameras.

It was just me and this prick.

I was still more or less in my chair, but my ass was off the seat. I leaned forward, knees bent, balanced on the balls of my feet. My arms were out; my fingers curved. I could cross the stage and be on him with one easy leap.

I pulled my lips back, revealing unusually long canines.

I did something I’d only recently learned how to do on demand.

I growled.

I heard the ripple of gasps and exclamations from the audience as they freaked out. My sensorium—the combined input of my hearing and sense of smell—told me the big guys in black T-shirts were emerging from the wings, ready to step in if they needed to. If they did…well, dealing with me would be a lot harder than handling the usual paternity-case dads and jilted lovers.

Marc Teslowski looked about as ready to go as I was. The fact that the guy was so full of frustration he was willing to physically attack a sixteen-year-old kid on national television pulled me out of my own semi-bestial state.

After all, much as I didn’t want to, I could relate.

I flopped back in my chair and shot the audience a nice, friendly, goofy-kid grin; no teeth. Gee whiz, guys, I’m just joshin’!

The security bruisers faded back offstage.

Azarrio’s chuckle was a lot less hearty than last time. “That was a pretty convincing display, Nate.” His hard eyes were just for me. “You’ve reminded us: while the reasons may be in dispute, you are not an ordinary teenager. Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

I shrugged.

“Do you feel human, Nathan?”

My mother snapped, “That’s a ridiculous question. Do you feel Hispanic?”

Azarrio didn’t hesitate. “One hundred percent.” He didn’t look away from me. “Let me be clear. I’m not judging. I sincerely want to know how you, personally, feel.”

The cameras were close. I felt a sweat bloom and cascade down my spine.

“I…I don’t know what that means.”

I found out later we were in the shot together, and he looked a little bullying, until I said that.

“To be human?”

“Yeah.”

I really, really wanted that moment to be over. Thankfully, I picked up a little buzz from the little thing in Azarrio’s ear. He turned, straightened up, and faced a different camera.

“That may be the question we all have to answer, for ourselves, before this story is over,” he intoned. “We’ll be right back.”

We were at commercial.

My mother leaned close to me. “What was that?”

My shirt was sticking to the chair. I leaned forward gingerly. “What?”

“The growling.” She lowered her voice. “Provoking Teslowski. This isn’t going to help in court. Jesus Christ, Nathan.…”

Apparently her voice carried farther than she expected. Marc Teslowski said, “Your snotty son doesn’t scare me, woman.”

She sat up, stiff. “What did you say to me?”

Teslowski gave me a dismissive nod. “The kid. He’s a punk. He’s what you raised. Your fault.”

Jeri Teslowski, just over her husband’s shoulder, looked pitifully apologetic.

My mother was good in a fight, I’ll give her that. She didn’t miss a beat.

“My son is still at home,” she said. “Where’s your boy, Marc?”

It was a pretty great shot. Even if it was barely true.

Join The Multiversalists
To Read Installments of
Pilgrimage

A Sample from

The Perfumed Air at Kwaanantag Bay

Agane met every day of exile with anticipation and grateful delight.

Each bright tahwake promised novelty and beauty. Delicious uncertainty. New vistas, new sounds and smells, and colors, and light.

The wide world!

Nearly the breadth of Kaebrith these past twenty-odd tala; by cabinwagon and boat and fieldtrodder and, when her illness insisted, in the cradle of Dennick’s arms, she had watched it and felt it and breathed it all in.

All these days, tahwake to tahrest, Tala racing and skipping forth and back between the uncountable embers of the night sky… all these generous days with her heartfast at her side, he often taciturn, sometimes garrulous, always tender, careful, and brave. So brave.

Back in Aenikantag, where she had been caged in their home as her freedom and independence contracted, she had raged against the path she trod, crowded by the progression of the illness that held her in place body and mind and heart alike.

Now, Agane accepted and even embraced the toll each day demanded. Their home was this cabinwagon, and the road Dennick so gingerly navigated, and the land… and no matter how much infirmary and pain the Wasting delivered, there were always, everywhere, opportunities for joy.

They were nearly to Old Mound at last, where Kug believed they would find the magn from his youthful past. This memory of Kug’s, Nakanin, had been trained by a wisdom rider from the Alliance of Clans, and his faith that she could cure Agane was resolute.

So their exile was more than a surprising and fortuitous gift of experience. It was a quest.

Especially for Dennick and Kug.

Agane was far from certain this magn, if indeed, she could be tracked through the overgrown paths of Kug’s thirty year-old recollection, could do anything for her at all.

The journey was enough.

Nearly.

She imagined the atrophied cords of her neck and thinning bones of her spine moving her head to look at her heartfast sitting beside her on the wagon bench. Slowly, her wasted flesh grudgingly consented to her intention.

Dennick watched the road, carefully guiding their plainstrodders even as he chatted with her and Kug, who strode alongside the wagon.

Dennick, she knew, held fast to faith.

That, Agane understood, made Kug nervous, though their friend hid it well.

Agane loved Dennick. What else could she do, in love, other than allow his hope to steer them all? His purpose kept him strong, and safe.

If Kug’s healer could be found—if the magn had the lore Kug so confidently assigned her—then it was no folly to believe.

If not…

Well.

Agane was grateful for these days.

Join The Multiversalists
To Read Installments of
"The Perfumed Air at Kwaanantag bay"

A Sample from

Brave Men Run

My super-sensitive sniffer caught the new scent while we all said our hellos. Baby powder and new sweat, plus the mysterious undertone of female pheromones. It absolutely wasn’t Claire. She had never, ever smelled like this. I looked around, confused and enthralled.

Then, the source came walking down the hall toward the living room. She was tall, with a shock of blonde hair done short and curly on top of her head, more Madonna than New Romantic. She had hazel eyes and a wide, smiling mouth, and the smell of her made me dizzy.

Claire said. “Everybody, this is my friend Lina. Lina, everybody.”

I don’t know what else was going on in the room.

I only know that Lina walked directly up to me, stuck out her hand, and said, ″You have the most beautiful eyes.”

I don’t remember taking her offered hand. I was too caught up in the way her own eyes sparkled; the way she managed to never lose her smile the whole time she looked at my weird face.

And she kept looking at me.

I’m used to the uncomfortable, curious stares people send my way. I’m noticeable. I’m different. I know it. This wasn’t that kind of look.

No one had ever looked at me the way she did.

I finally became aware of the lack of conversation around us. The only sound was from the stereo: Sting’s hollow tenor crooned “Walking in Your Footsteps,” again and again.

Claire finally spoke.

“Yeah… um, okay, then. Lina, this is Nate.”

“No one’s ever told me that before.” I silently thanked God my voice didn’t crack. I think I smiled. My lips felt like someone threw wet pasta on my face.

“That makes me special,” she said. “I’m Lina Porter.”

“Nate Charters.” I noticed we were shaking hands, very proper. We laughed about it at the same time, let go, and the moment passed.

My friends moved in.

“I’m Jason.” Lina nodded at him and smiled.

“Claire’s friend from O’Neil High!” Mel tipped an imaginary hat. “Nice to finally meet you.”

“Likewise. But I’m not so much at O’Neil now.” She gave Claire a celebratory wink. “I’m doing independent home study, as of last month.”

Claire said, “So lucky!”

Fonseca gave Lina a quick nod and turned his attention to Claire. “Hey, what are you doing tomorrow night, anyway?”

Claire cocked an eyebrow in his direction. “I’ll think of something,” she said with a laugh. She grabbed Lina by the arm and steered her back down the hall. “C’mere, you!”

They giggled their way to Claire’s bedroom and disappeared behind the closed door. I took a few steps down the hall. If I could put just a little distance between me and the stereo speakers, I might be able to hear their conversation. I didn’t make a habit of spying on people, but I had to know if they were talking about me.

My friends had other ideas.

“Dude, score!” Jason punched me on the arm.

I rubbed my arm, just for show. Jason would have to try pretty hard to hurt me, but over the years I’d learned to downplay my unusual natural strength and other so-called gifts. I always hated calling attention to myself. The fewer opportunities people had to single me out as different, the better.

“It would seem you have a new friend, Nathan,” Mel put in.

“What? You think so? Why?”

On the couch, Fonseca shook his head.

Jason rolled his eyes. “Dude, she was, totally, like, staring at you!”

“And in a good way.” Mel smiled slyly. “Probably why you didn’t realize it.”

I tried to frown at him, but it didn’t get through the goofy grin on my face. “You think?”

Fonseca huffed. “Dude, whatever!”

“’S’matter, Greg,” Jason jabbed, “don’t like someone else getting the attention?”

“Seriously,” Mel said. “At least it’s not Claire giving Nate the eye!”

Fonseca finally got off the couch. “Whatever,” he mumbled. We looked at him. Now that he was up, he had to do something. He dived for Claire’s record box and conspicuously focused on picking one out and putting it on the turntable.

The chiming keyboards and “Hey, hey, hey, heys” of Simple Minds’ “Don’t You Forget About Me” rang forth. Claire burst back into the living room.

“I love this song! I can’t hear it enough!”

We would all hear it more than enough in the months that followed, but right then, it was fresh and different.

Lina came up behind her. She looked at me quickly and a smile flashed on her face. “Isn’t it from that movie?”

“The Breakfast Club.” Claire bopped her head in time to the trotting bass line.

Mel inspected the album cover. “Right – a bunch of kids get detention together.” He smiled wickedly at Jason. “Hey, it’s your life story, Jase!”

“Nyuk, nyuk.”

Fonseca worked his way next to Claire. “Hey, maybe you’d wanna go see it on Friday?”

Next to me, intoxicating and close, Lina just barely whispered, “Oh, please.”

I tilted my head and said quietly to her, “He doesn’t know when to give up.”

She turned to me, eyes wide, that toothy smile back on her face. “You weren’t supposed to hear that!”

“I’ve got really good ears,” I said.

“I’m gonna have to remember that.”

Claire said, “I saw it last weekend already.”

Fonseca stuck out his chest a little. “With who?”

“With my sister, Greg!” Claire rolled her eyes. “I’m so sure!”

“Oh.” Greg went back to the couch. “Okay.”

Lina said to me, “So, have you seen it yet?”

“No…”

“Do you want to see it?”

“Yeah, uh, I guess.” I took the album from Mel. “Huh. It’s got that kid from The Outsiders.”

Mel stroked his chin-pubes. “Um, Nate, I don’t think that’s what she meant.”

I was completely without anything like a clue. It must have been obvious on my face.

Lina put her fists on her hips and stuck out her chin. “I want to, y’know, see it with you, Nate.” She backed off a touch. “If you want to.”

“Oh!” I floundered. This beautiful girl with the narcotic scent was asking me out? “You want…” I felt myself starting to redden.

“I can’t.”

Lina seemed to deflate. “Oh, okay, that’s cool…”

Jason’s mouth dropped open. “Dude..!”

“No, I mean…” I looked at Lina. “I don’t have a car.”

Mel made a theatrical production out of speaking to me from one side of his mouth. “Nate. She asked you out. She. Asked you.”

Lina was all smiles again, and eyes only for me. Every time she looked at me, I felt lighter.

I felt normal.

“It’s no problem,” she said. “I can drive us.”

“Oh.” I smiled back. “Okay.”

Mel spread his arms as if presenting the two of us to the room. “There you go!”

“Is Saturday okay with you?” Lina asked me.

“Uh, yeah… yeah!”

“Good.” She took a pen out of one of the pockets of her flower-print peasant dress and held it ready above the palm of her hand. “What’s your number?”

Mel shouted, “Oh, shit!”

Jason gave him a look. “Spaz, much?”

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“We’re gonna miss the bus!”

I looked at my watch. It was way late. Even if we were on school grounds, we wouldn’t make it to the parking lot in time.

“Crap.”

Lina had a small smile on her face. “You still take the bus? Oh, you poor dears.”

Jason dug in the pockets of his stonewashed jeans and counted change. “I’ve got enough for the regular bus, I think.”

Mel dialed down, but he looked morose. “That’ll take hours.”

I tried to calculate if public transportation would get me home before my mother. If not, I’d need a story to explain why I wasn’t in the parking lot when the bus came.

“Hey, boys.”

We all looked at Lina.

“I’ll drive you home.”

“Yeah?” said Jason.

“That’s capital!” said Mel.

I smiled at her. “That’s great.”

“I have ulterior motives. This way, I’ll know how to get to your house Saturday night.”

Somehow I had forgotten that this gorgeous girl had made a date with me not two minutes ago. “Oh, right…”

Mel put a chummy arm around Lina. “You’re all right, Ms. Porter.”

“My adoring public,” she said. She looked right at me.

Join The Multiversalists
To Read Installments of
Brave Men Run

A Sample from

Light of the Outsider

Dennick waited alone in the receiving room of Vuldt, Mouth of the Plainslord of the Alliance of Clans. For some time, he resisted the impression of eyes boring into the back of his neck.

Enough.

He exhaled sharply, turned around, and looked up.

The tapestry next to the door dominated the wall, ceiling to floor. From Dennick’s position across the room, with pale and dusty morning light filtering down from the open shutters high above, it was an effective and imposing likeness of the Plainslord.

Whether it was an accurate representation, Dennick could not say. This was not his Plainslord. This was not the magn who had taken him in as an orphaned child, who had raised him as one of his sons.

This was not the magn who, unbeknownst to Dennick at the time, had ordered the raid on his parents’ garrison.

Dennick’s Plainslord was more than a year dead.

Though he’d never met Gragag’s successor, Dennick served him as surely as he had the last.

The soft brush of a door opening against carpet broke his reverie. Dennick turned around.

Vuldt entered, black eyes gleaming and a wry grin on his lips. “He doesn’t have my cousin’s shoulders. Or his range with a bow. But of course the latter is determined by the former.”

“What about his wisdom?”

Vuldt stopped, squinting, apparently giving Dennick’s somewhat impetuous question a disproportionate measure of consideration.

“That remains to be seen,” he allowed. “Although… he may match Gragag in foresight.”

Vuldt gestured for Dennick to sit on one of the big, plush floor cushions. Dennick lowered himself down.

Vuldt settled onto one of his own. He took his time arranging his green diplomat’s robe; a political gesture that ritualistically declared that this meeting was Vuldt’s to spend as he saw fit.

Dennick, who had spent many marks patiently idle before many politicians, including and not least the Mouth of the Plainslord, held a pleasant expression on his face, counted the hairs of his foster cousin’s drooping mustache, and waited.

Finally, Vuldt said, “How is Agane?”

Dennick knew the question was no more than a courtesy, and he knew Vuldt knew, too. Vuldt’s practiced adoption of Palace District niceties was even more impressive than his own, but then, the Mouth of the Plainslord had a talent for putting on his neighbor’s clothes and eating from their pantry.

Dennick invested an equal measure of civility in his response.

“Her day seems better than some. At least that was her condition when I left to answer your summons.”

Vuldt nodded minimally—as much as Dennick expected—and got to it.

“You heard about the fire.”

“I saw the smoke. Heard the bells.”

“The city will know this before tahigh: the fire was a distraction.”

Dennick knew he couldn’t rush Vuldt, and any hint he hoped to would have the adverse effect. “I would say it’s distracted everyone in Aenikantag.”

Vuldt’s lip twitched before stretching to a full grin.

“The infant Ranith was taken.”

Despite his general distaste at being Vuldt’s tool, Dennick was intrigued.

“The Alliance..?”

Vuldt shrugged. “If… we… are responsible, I was given no warning.”

Despite his dichotomous role, Dennick inwardly bristled at being included.

“A ransom?”

Vuldt shook his head, dismissive. “No. No person, no state, no organization, has declared any involvement. The kit is gone and people are dead; that’s all the Palace has revealed. I don’t have any reason to think there’s more to it than that, for now.”

“And so?”

“It doesn’t matter why Ranith has been kidnapped. The Palace is in chaos. The Alwardenal tower is gutted. Rumor has it that one of them was injured.” Vuldt’s eyes widened in delight. “Or both!”

Dennick would not have been surprised if Vuldt rubbed his palms together like a child at dessert.

The Mouth restrained himself as he continued. “The only heir of Aenik has been taken from his nursery, and the soldiers protecting the most powerful nation in Kaebrith didn’t even know he was gone until the place burned around them.”

Vuldt leaned forward. “We knew Aenik had grown soft. Now? It’s crippled.”

Dennick shifted on his cushion. Despite a lifetime of practice, he could not manage to feel balanced seated on the thing. “Vuldt… if the Plainslord is thinking of war…”

“I don’t know what he’s thinking,” Vuldt said. “Yet. As his Mouth… and his ears… it’s my responsibility to advise, and to act in the interest of the Alliance of Clans.” He jabbed an index finger in the air. “Our enemy is weak, frantic, and unsettled. Such an opportunity, Dennick, must not be squandered, or be allowed to pass… too quickly.”

Dennick waited.

“By tahigh,” Vuldt said, “word will go out across the city and throughout Aenik… even, I am led to understand, to the Faien and Gundynal outposts… that anyone bringing Ranith home safe and whole will be rewarded with the unfettered gratitude of the Alwardendyn.”

Dennick nodded. “The guard must have their own ideas as to who’s responsible. The entire country will help flush them out.”

“And you, Dennick.”

“You want me to actively search for Ranith?”

“That, and more. The longer Aenik is in disarray and so ineffectual they cannot protect—or find—their own heir, the stronger our position will be.”

“What do you want me to do, Vuldt?”

“Find the kit,” the Mouth said, “and make sure no one else does, and that Ranith is not recovered. Or returns. Ever.”

“Keep him hidden?” Dennick openly scowled. “Send him off to the Clans, you mean, and raise him in secret?”

Vuldt shrugged. “We cannot ignore the fact that a similar strategy has proven beneficial.”

Dennick wanted to break the teeth in Vuldt’s flinty smile into bloody shards.

Vuldt glanced at Dennick’s clenched fists. His smile only broadened. “And what a fine instrument you have been. But… no. I don’t want us to play such a long game.”

His smile flattened.

“If his kidnappers plan to kill him, make sure they succeed, Dennick. If they have other plans, capture the kit, and do it yourself.”

Dennick recoiled. His mouth dropped open.

“What?”

“Ranith must never be reunited with the Alwardendyn. The heir must die, and all of Kaebrith must know Aenik could not protect their son.”

Dennick swallowed bile.

“You want me to murder a child.”

Vuldt’s tone was relaxed, as if he was asking Dennick to fetch him a snack. “Assuming he’s not dead already. Either way, be sure to leave the corpse somewhere public and obvious. Make it a final embarrassment for the palace guard and for the Alwardendyn.”

The proposition physically disgusted Dennick. He shook his head. “You ask a great deal of me, Vuldt. Far beyond the conditions of our arrangement to date.”

Vuldt met his eyes. “Yes.” The smile was back.

Dennick said, “What gives you the confidence I will find Ranith and his abductors before anyone else? Or that, if I do, I will be able to take him from them?”

“You don’t necessarily have to find him first. In fact,” Vuldt considered, “it might make sense to find the person or party most likely to find him, and let someone else do the hard work… so long as they never succeed in the end.”

Dennick stood up as quickly and indignantly as the cushion would allow.

“I will not. Find another.”

Vuldt leaned back, the better to look up at Dennick.

“You will. There is no one quite so capable and qualified as you. So, no, I will not find another, for there is no other to find.” Vuldt’s tone veered toward conciliatory. “I understand you find politics distasteful; the machinations of state…”

“Politics?” Dennick spat the word. He paced. “Killing babies is not politics. Do not—”

Vuldt came slowly to his feet. “This is what I mean.” He tsked. “You have no mind for this. Death has always been an instrument of governance. Babies, the elderly, the weak, the strong.” His eyes hardened. “The ill.”

He straightened his robe. “You will do this, Dennick, and once it’s done… I will not ask for anything else.”

Dennick stopped. “You would release me. The Plainslord..?”

“You were Gragag’s creature, never his.”

Dennick fell silent. A swarm of possibilities careened behind his forehead.

There had to be a way to make this all work.

Vuldt smiled. “That’s got you thinking.”

“What of Agane’s medicine?”

“Well, let me add this wind to the storm between your ears: I have learned of a healer among the Clans who, it is said, cured a boy of the wasting.”

Dennick shook his head, despairing. “Vuldt. Do not… Agane should not…” It could not be true.

Vuldt raised a stifling hand and shook his head. “Do this last thing, Dennick, and not only will you be released from all this covert Palace District drama, I will guarantee passage for you and Agane to meet with this healer.”

Dennick’s hands flapped at his sides.

“How long have you known?” His voice sounded harsh and black to his own ears. “Vuldt. About the healer.”

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s not important. One hears things.”

Dennick understood. The monster had been holding this token until he had something on which to spend it.

Dennick need never again doubt his assessment of his ward-cousin. This last footnote completed a thick tome of abomination and cruelty.

Still.

If there was even a chance to save Agane…

Dennick felt as though a heavy cloak had fallen across his sagging shoulders. If he must wear it, he would make it serve. Somehow.

He spoke from the least part of himself.

“All right, Vuldt.”

Vuldt studied him long enough for Dennick to draw and release four tremulous breaths.

The Mouth of the Plainslord then lowered himself back to his cushion with practiced, deliberately languid grace. He made a show of investigating some undoubtedly imaginary spot on his robe.

“All right, then, Dennick.”

Dennick straightened. “Is that all?”

Vuldt nodded. “Just to say: this is a very delicate situation, all around. The Alliance cannot be seen to be complicit. And, as I said, the heir cannot be allowed to return to his parents.”

“As you said.”

“No. Hear me, Dennick.” He looked up at his instrument. “If you fail… in every way that matters, the result will be the same: you will be released, and Agane will no longer suffer. Do you understand me?”

“You’re threatening her?”

There was no thought driving the impulse. One blink, Dennick stood there, enduring. The next, cushions scattered and he was on one knee, a hand around Vuldt’s throat.

Vuldt’s eyes bulged, but he was calm. He didn’t even raise his hands.

“Who lingers,” he rasped, “near your heartfast while we speak here? Do you wonder? What are their instructions, do you think, should I meet some unexpected… inconvenience..?”

Dennick released him and stood in one smooth, unbroken movement.

He seethed.

There had to be a way to make it work.

There had to be a way.

Vuldt adjusted his collar and threw a loaded look past Dennick, to the door.

“Move your feet, Sword. Things will happen quickly come tahigh, and you’ll need to be nimble.”

Dennick saw the impressions of his fingers on Vuldt’s neck. There might be bruising.

Nowhere near enough.

It would have to do for now.

Dennick found he was not compelled to so much as glance at the Plainslord’s tapestry on his way out.

~

In the minds of many in the Palace District, Dennick was that magn raised as a prisoner of the fierce and bloodthirsty Plainslord of the Alliance of Clans; a victim of violence restored to civilization through deft diplomacy.

Others thought of him as the Sword whose childhood in the Clans gave him martial skills like few others in Aenik; the outsider whose students included most of the Palace Guard.

Above all, everyone knew him as the heartfast of Agane, the most admired and sought-after artist in the city.

Agane’s paintings were part of the Alwardendyn’s private collection and hung in the homes and wagons of dozens of merchants and caravanteers. To hold a gathering and not invite Agane was to risk disappointing your other guests. Last year, when Agane entered the dining hall at a feast celebrating the conception of the heir of Aenik, no one held hand to shoulder with her longer than Alwarden Deanae herself.

Agane was a treasure of Aenikantag. Now that the fact of her illness was widely known and she would likely produce no new work, those who possessed her art displayed it with an uncomfortable blend of delight and shame.

Dennick knew his heartfast’s wealthy admirers viewed him as Agane’s fascinating accessory; the affectation of an eccentric artist. The orphan raised by savages (the stuff of tavern songs!) who still accepted payment to teach others how to fight when Agane’s talent and fame surely brought their household more than enough wealth and status.

Could he even read and write?

The professional respect of the palace guard, and the somehow dismissive fascination of the Palace District elite, served Dennick very well in both his everyday life and the covert efforts he grudgingly pursued as Vuldt’s instrument. That his heartfast enjoyed more attention and affection… he minded that not at all.

Now Dennick’s dual loyalties had finally brought peril to Agane. As if she had no other burden!

Dennick ruminated on all of this, and on the impossible choice ahead of him, as he approached their home. His chest ached.

He passed through their gateway and frowned at the state of their garden. Agane had designed it as a living artwork, but had not been strong enough to tend to it for some time. Whenever she felt well enough to venture outside, she preferred to stay in, where applying pigments to stretched hide would always take priority.

Dennick had suggested hiring some help, but Agane was not ready to let another artist work her canvas. So, as unwanted growth obscured the delicate beauty inherent in its design and designer, the garden grew more and more unkempt. To Dennick, it was still an expression of the artist; a way for the world to reflect on the state of the gardener.

Still. He often wished for a taller fence.

“Agane,” he called as he came into their home, “I have returned.”

He could tell her cheery tone was the product of effort. “Here, Dennick.”

He followed the sound of her voice. The closer he came to her making room, the more he dared to hope. “Are you painting..?”

From the doorway, he saw her standing before her easel. A smile bloomed on his lips.

Her own lips fluttered before she said, “I was.”

He entered the room and saw.

Her arms hung limp at her sides, a pigment stick barely held between stiff fingers. Her legs were oddly placed, as if she had begun to take a step or shift her balance, but stopped. He could see her thighs trembling beneath her trousers.

He held out his arms even as she said, with a hint of apology, “I cannot move.”

He put his big hands at her waist and she sagged into his support. Her legs remained locked in place.

“How long?” Dennick kept an arm around her and gently took the pigment stick from her hand. He tossed it on a nearby table.

“Some time.” Her cheeks reddened. “I… I have to make water.”

“Should I carry..?” She hated that. “Or..?”

Her eyes glistened when she looked up at him. “I think you need to.”

He kissed her forehead and tasted stale sweat.

“Then I shall.”

He cradled Agane’s legs at the back of her knees and lifted her in his arms. Her legs lost their stiffness as soon as her feet left the ground. She sighed through clenched teeth.

“Apparently,” she said, “the episode has passed.”

“Good that I arrived when I did.” Dennick carried her through the hall. “You might have fallen.”

They both feared the day her thinning bones and inexorably defiant muscles finally betrayed her.

Outside the toilet, he said, “Can you..?”

“I can.” She smiled gamely and waved her legs back and forth in the air. “See? Just get me in there and close the door.”

Dennick eased her down. She steadied herself with a hand against the wall.

They stood looking at each other.

Agane laughed.

“You are a good magn.” She shooed him with a wave of her hand. “Out. Close the door. But best you don’t go far.”

“I’ll be right here.” Dennick closed the door between them.

He stared at it and pushed despair down his tight throat.

From within, Agane said, “You weren’t gone long. Anything you can tell your heartfast about your morning, or is it some affair too sensitive to share?”

She was his heartfast in all ways, and had always known her medicines were bought at the cost of his obligation to Vuldt. Still, Dennick flinched when he thought of what had been asked of him.

“Dennick..?”

She opened the door. He knew his face would betray trepidation, but turned away too late. Perhaps he wanted her to see.

“Hm.” She nodded slowly. “You’re troubled.” She held out her hand and he took it. “Come. The worst has passed, but I’m exhausted. Sit with me and tell me what you can.”

The way she took to caring for him when it was he who should be doting on her… he swallowed hard and led her to a couch in their reception room.

Once they were seated, she said, “So. Unburden yourself, my heartfast.”

Dennick squeezed his temples with one hand. “Agane…” He dropped the hand into his lap and she took it in her own. “Vuldt’s schemes have made me into a monster. Or soon will.”

He told her about Ranith’s kidnapping, and what the Mouth of Plainslord had charged him to do.

She did not release his hand. She did not relax, or tighten, her delicate, but firm, grip. The only change was in the brightness of her eyes.

He dipped his head. “I know. I know.”

She made a low sound in her throat. “How can Vuldt expect to be sure you would find the ones responsible?” She shook her head. “You see what this is, do you not? He is finished with you. He wants you to fail. To find a way to be rid of you.”

“It occurred to me,” Dennick said. “Even when I was a child, he was never anything less than dismissive of me, and often unkind. My service to him was the Plainslord’s directive—our Plainslord—but Gragag is gone, and who knows what the new leader of the Clans wants of me? Or Vuldt?”

Agane was silent. Dennick knew she was letting him think, to work through the tangle.

Dennick did so aloud.

“But Vuldt, thistleskink that he is notwithstanding, is loyal to the Clans and an enemy of Aenik creche to coffin. This situation… it’s the best opportunity he’s ever had. To be able to deal a vicious blow to the Alwardendyn and impress the new Plainslord… I cannot believe he would risk that just to doom me.”

He looked at her hand, and her open and kind face. He looked down.

She spoke gently. “You have not told me everything.”

He shook his head. “I have always known Vuldt is ruthless and cruel. Why was I surprised to hear him include you in his trap?”

Agane’s brow creased lightly. “I am the knife he holds at your back.”

“No…” Dennick protested.

“The medicines he provides, then. We know this.”

“Beyond that,” Dennick said, “there are consequences to success and failure, both.”

“He’s threatening you? Really? You could snap him in half.”

Dennick inclined his head and smiled slightly. “Perhaps. But I cannot defend against a dart in the dark.”

He sighed.

“Here it is. Yes, if I refuse or fail and Ranith is rescued and returned to the Alwardendyn, my life—and yours, Agane—is forfeit. But if I succeed—”

She shook her head. “You cannot consider it.”

“Wait, please. If I succeed… my service with him will be completed. He will release me. And…” He sighed again, through clenched teeth. “Agane, there are wisdom riders out there on the plains. They have ways… lore that others have lost.” He put his other hand gently on her own. “Vuldt will tell us how to find one who can heal you.”

Hope flashed on her face for barely a blink before disgust and skepticism twisted her expression. “Dennick, you cannot believe that. He hates you, and delights in his hatred. Even if such a person exists somewhere out there, how could you possibly trust Vuldt?”

“I know. I know!” Frustration and desperation clawed at him and made him twist where he sat. “But if there is any chance at all..!”

“Dennick. Look at me.”

He met her bright, angry eyes.

“You cannot kill a child, Dennick.”

“I—”

“You. Cannot.”

“It might not come to that. I only need to ensure he’s never rescued.” He hated that his next thought was also his strongest hope. “He may already be dead.”

She pulled her hand free of his so she could gesticulate. “And if he is not? There is no path that doesn’t end in Vuldt having you killed, Dennick; can you not see that? What have we to gain?”

He regarded her.

Her face was drawn, both with anger and exhaustion. Shadows smudged her eyes. Her long hair—the color of deepwood that had once shone in health—was heavy and limp with sweat from her earlier ordeal.

She would always be the most beautiful magn he had ever seen.

“Your health.”

“There’s no—”

He held up a hand. “A chance! More than we had before today, Agane! There’s a chance! I heard stories; the wisdom rider in my own camp was undeniably capable of remarkable things…” He leaned forward and tried to retake her hands, but she folded them in her lap.

The rejection wounded him. He fell back, for the moment, spent.

Her face softened. “We should go away.”

He pursed his lips and shook his head. “We cannot run. We are too well known; the city gates will by now be closed to entrance and exit for the duration, and while I might have another option in that regard… we would not be able to move fast enough.”

“Well.” She seemed too tired to be more than lightly offended. “You could.”

“You would be killed by day’s end.”

“Dennick.” She looked at him as if he were stupid. “I am dying.”

“How could I possibly do anything to hasten that?” He felt sick. “Agane, there is a chance you could live! We have been given a chance!”

“No. Even if Vuldt is true to his pledge, I will not pay his price.” Her eyes were wide, angry, and imploring. “Dennick, they are our friends!”

“And you,” he said. “You are my life.”

She pressed her body against his chest. He put his arms around her and kissed the top of her head.

She said, “This is impossible. All of it. We are back at the start: you have no real chance of finding Ranith. And so, no matter what, Vuldt will be rid of you. Of… us.”

There was nothing Dennick dared to say aloud.

Agane added, “I will not give him the satisfaction of a painful death. His assassins will find the job already done.”

Dennick understood. “Do not say such things.”

“I mean it.”

“Even if you mean it. I cannot bear to hear it.”

This was not their first exploration of the topic. Thankfully, she opted for silence. For now.

They held each other for a time. Dennick breathed her in, and thought.

She was almost certainly correct when it came to Vuldt’s ultimate objective, even if Dennick somehow managed to execute the Mouth’s vile plan.

And yet.

Dennick knew from experience that unrecognized options were only revealed in the course of action.

There could be a path upon which everything worked out.

There might be.

But could he go down the road that led to Ranith’s blood on his hands… on hope alone?

Very quietly, Agane said, “You cannot kill a child, Dennick. Please promise me.”

His chest seemed to break apart with perfect love for this magn.

He blinked tears. One fell into her hair. She gave no indication that she noticed.

“There may be another way,” he said. “One unknown to us for now.”

“No matter,” she said. “Please, Dennick.”

He held her tighter, mindful of her aching muscles.

“I promise, Agane.”

Despite her knowledge and acceptance of his secret and irreconcilable double loyalty, and perhaps because of her gradual dependence on it, he had not shared his every act and deed across the years. It was better, sometimes, that ignorance shield them, and their love.

In all their time together, though, he had never directly lied to Agane.

Until today.

Join The Multiversalists
To Read Installments of
Light of the Outsider

A Sample from

Hazy Days and Cloudy Nights:
"How It All Got Started"

MONDAY, JUNE 18, 1984

Alex Kent woke up on his first post-high school Monday morning knowing exactly what he wanted to do with his day.

He wanted to see Angel.

He saw her Friday, the last day of school, forever (for him; just for the summer for her). He talked to her on the phone for a bit on Saturday, like they often did. There was little risk of losing touch with her over the summer. She was his closest female friend.

Not a girlfriend. Just a friend who was a girl.

And yet…

Lately, Alex sensed something shifting when it came to Angel. Today, for whatever reason, that shift felt more like a fast slide, heels first, ass bumping fast on the grass.

Huh.

Eleven days away from his eighteenth birthday and still frustratingly without a car or a license, Alex got on his twelve-speed bike and pedaled. And thought.

Maybe it was the graduation thing. Granted, it still felt like just another summer vacation, but Alex knew it was not.

There was no more school unless he wanted it, and even if he did, with his grades and lackluster attendance that meant junior college for a year or two.

Then there was his father’s prodding for him to get a job, which went from half-serious to a dedicated assault the moment they got home from the commencement ceremony.

Life was about to begin. Adulthood beckoned. Or threatened.

Or… something.

Bottom line: it was in sight.

Maybe it was just Angel. They could talk for hours. He had stacks of her letters and notes from the last two years.

He smiled and felt a little quiver in his belly that was not unpleasant. There was no denying she was stacked to the ceiling… and she had those big, dark eyes.

Alex pedaled down the Abbeque Valley Parkway bike lane and thought. The miles slid by. He turned down her street and braked in front of her house.

Angel stood on the covered porch.

Someone was with her.

“Alex!” Angel walked across the small yard to meet him. “What are you doing here?”

At school, they had greeted each other with hugs as often as his other friends gave each other high-fives, or the finger.

There was no hug vibe today.

“I was in the neighborhood?”

“Yeah, right!”

“Well, I was once I rode here. How’s it going?”

The other person on the porch stepped forward and was revealed to be some dude Alex didn’t know.

A big dude. He had at least a foot on Alex, which made him a foot and a half taller than Angel. His sleeveless sweatshirt was a broad square of gray cotton across his chest. He was blond, like Alex, but this guy’s hair was sun-dyed yellow-white, not Alex’s sandy variety.

Angel made introductions. “Alex, meet Mike Dante. Mike, this is Alex, who is, like, only one of my best friends in the world.”

Alex shook hands with Mike Dante. Mike applied a touch more pressure than absolutely necessary, just long enough to send a message. He wore a friendly, empty smile.

Mike’s eyes carried the same confident challenge Alex had seen so often on the faces of many, many, jock-ass bullying fuckers. “How’s it going.”

“It’s been going great.” Alex hoped his gaze silently communicated, “until you showed up.”

Alex met Angel’s eyes when she looked from one guy to the other. She squinted and smiled, both slightly.

“So, are you on your way somewhere?”

“Nope. First day of summer. First day of everything. Thought I’d come see you.”

Unspoken: It’s the first day of the rest of my life and I chose to get on my bike and haul ass halfway across town to see you.

“Well, I’m honored, Mr. Kent.” Her voice was light, but he noticed the minor confusion in her smile.

Alex was a little confused, himself. What brought him here, again?

Who was this guy?

“So… how do you two know each other?”

Mike said, “Angel and I go to the same church.”

“Oh, that’s cool.”

Mike nodded. “Where do you go to church, Alan?”

“It’s Alex.”

“Oh, yeah, right. Sorry. Whatever.” Another smile-challenge. “So, where?”

“I don’t, really.”

“Oh.” Two letters, one vowel, one consonant, one syllable and about a ton of subtle judgment.

Angel said, “I tried to get Alex to come to mine…”

“Kinda far.” Alex reckoned it was about half as far from his house as the distance to Angel’s house.

Where he had ridden his bike today.

To see her.

Mike tossed a few straws of hair off his forehead. “But you’re a Christian, right?”

“Sure.”

Alex and Angel exchanged a small smile. Alex remembered praying with her for their friend Rod, who everyone thought was under attack from a couple of witches at the school. It was one of those super-dramatic times that bring people together, even if it had all (probably) been in their over-active, hormonally-charged imaginations.

Mike put himself slightly between Angel and Alex. “That’s cool,” he said. “Just not much for church, right?”

“Pretty much.”

“That’s cool.”

Some uncomfortable silence in the front yard, then.

Angel bounced toward the house. “The iced tea should be ready. I’ll bring some out. You guys, like, get acquainted.”

Pretty much at the same time, Mike enthused, “Awesome!” Alex added a jaunty, “You got it!”

Angel went into the darkness of the house. Mike and Alex stared at each other.

“Let’s go sit down,” Alex said.

“You’re probably tired from riding your bicycle.” Mike’s condescension was so precise, he might as well have said “tricycle.”

“Not really,” Alex said.

Lame!

They sat. Alex ended up on a ratty folding chair. Mike claimed one side of the porch swing. The open space to his left was the only place left for Angel to sit when she returned.

Alex felt stupid and small and increasingly pissed off. Again: why had he come here?

Mike glanced toward the house. Angel made noise in the kitchen. Mike nodded at Alex.

“You remind me of… what’s that thing, the wire with the fuzzy stuff on it?”

Alex knew this asshole was trying, really hard, to insult him. He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Mike shot a thick arm at him, index finger first. “I got it!” He snapped his fingers. “A pipe cleaner! You remind me of a pipe cleaner.”

Less than two weeks from being the age when he could vote and get drafted and be tried for bloody murder as an adult, and Alex was being insulted—poorly—by a stupid cross between a surfer and a jock. He might as well be a freshman again.

Was that what post-high school was? You start over, back at the bottom, except now the entire world is ahead of you?

His primary defense mechanism activated: Alex smiled and echoed back, “A pipe cleaner?”.

“Yeah. A pipe cleaner.” Mike nodded. He had his own smile in place: a cheerless, menacing, territory-grabbing smirk. “You guys are just friends, you and Angel. Right?”

“She’s my best friend,” Alex said. He hoped his tone carried a warning. He doubted it would penetrate.

“Awesome. I bet you’d be stoked for her if she got together with a real nice guy.” Mike stretched his arms across the back of the porch swing, poised to encompass Angel’s narrow shoulders when she inevitably sat down.

“All she has to do is find one,” Alex said.

Angel came out. Mike’s arms shot down and and he folded his hands in his lap. Maybe he wasn’t as confident as he came across.

Jerks like him never were.

Alex smiled at Angel. She carried a pitcher of iced tea and three glasses on a tray. She glanced at both of them, and Alex was sure she had the score.

“What are you guys talking about?”

Join The Multiversalists
for Free
To Read 80+ installments of "How It All Got Started"

Start for Free!

Hazy Days and Cloudy Nights:
"How It All Got Started"

More Serial Fiction

The Shaper's World

The Sovereign Era

Daikaiju Universe

MOre Fiction

Non-Fiction

Selznick Serials

Start for Free!

Hazy Days and Cloudy Nights:"How It All Got Started"

More Serial Fiction

The Shaper's World

The Sovereign Era

Daikaiju Universe

MOre Fiction

Non-Fiction

A Sample from

Reggie vs Kaiju Storm Dragon Squidbat

A Sample from

Reading "The Amazing Spider-Man"

A Sample from

Worldbuilding for Writers, Gamers, and Other Creators: Star, Planet, Moon

What Is Meant By “Earth-like Planet”

A Sample from

Indie Author Marketing Infrastructure

What You’ll Learn

Why Listen to Me?

A Sample from

Four Stories

“You Got Me”

“Gig Number Two”

“Not My Fault”

“‘The Days of Wine and Roses’ by The Dream Syndicate”

A Sample from

CloaK

A Sample from

Reggie vs Kaiju Storm Chimera Wolf

A Sample from

The News from Bewilder Pond

A Sample from

Canary in a Coal Mine

A Sample from

The World Revolves Around you

A Sample from

The Sovereign Era: Year One

You Must Be My Lucky Star

by Mur Lafferty

Can’t Get There From Here

Jadzia Axelrod

Sangre del Sureños

Matt Wallace

A Sample from

PIlgrimage

A Sample from

The Perfumed Air at Kwaanantag Bay

A Sample from

Brave Men Run

A Sample from

Light of the Outsider

A Sample from

Hazy Days and Cloudy Nights:"How It All Got Started"

MONDAY, JUNE 18, 1984

Hazy Days and Cloudy Nights:
"How It All Got Started"

Hazy Days and Cloudy Nights:
"How It All Got Started"