THE RULE OF 3 FINALE_OLD TOMORROWS

All the characters in my BOOK FAIR NOVEL of yesterday

are in this haunting finale so if you guys are back, you might want to read this as well.


THE RULE OF THREE BLOGFEST :
http://jc-martin.com/fighterwriter/2011/10/ren3-final-round-prompts/

reaches its eerie climax NOW!


OLD TOMORROWS :


I am Meilori Shinseen.

Time holds me prisoner. A frozen bubble of it. Maija, my sister, used my concern for her to capture me. I was taken in by her lie that she was in danger.

Awareness is seldom mine. Only when my Samuel leaves Time’s boundaries, as with his excursion here to Renaissance, does my link to my mate lift the gauze of oblivion.

Maija stands gloating, knowing the mayor’s fate will be a mystery for generations. Her cheeks blush with the blood of queens and kings. Was my face ever a’glow with cruelty’s bliss as hers now?

Memories of pleasantries with Caligula, screams of sacrifices on Aztec altars, and of the perfume of a death lotus gorging on a slave in Babylon’s Gardens warn me to withhold judgment for myself.

Maija’s whole body quivers. She is planning something. She never learns. All her days will be old tomorrows where she endlessly grasps for that which cannot be captured only given freely.

Samuel fills my world. Those eyes deep with sad wisdom. He cocks his head, looking at his companions. Seeing him thus, I feel as if my heart will burst.

When he smiles, I decide I would not mind it bursting if only he would turn and smile at me one last time.

Samuel smiles only at Alice Wentworth, who has bloomed like a watered desert rose since last I saw her. Victor Standish is clearly the reason. Victor laughs.

“Captain Sam, you were right. If we hadn’t come, Maija would’ve bought the mayor’s lies and been killed by those ghosts.”

Alice murmurs, “Maija killed by a lie would have been most poetic.”

I curse wordlessly. If she but knew how poetic it would have been.

Maija stiffens as if stabbed and turns to Samuel. “You knew I was luring you to your death and still you came to … to save me?”

Samuel looks sad. “I don’t know any other way to be.”

She bows her head, staring at the red carpet. “You are too noble for this world. I do you a favor with what is about to transpire.”

Alice floats closer to Maija. “I have little love for you and less reason to have it. But I tell you there is a path other than the one you have chosen to gain your heart’s desire.”

Maija’s voice is thick and forlorn, convulsed with scarlet pain. “I know of no other way to be.”

Maija’s head snaps up, cruel resolve freezing her blue eyes. “Attack!”

All the exterior doors burst open. A horde of Ningyo warriors, loyal, not to me their empress, but to Maija, storm in like fluid death. Victor laughs.

“You mean these flunkies you planned to take out the mayor with? Captain Sam knew about them, too.”

Maija frowned, “Wh-What?”

Victor smiles, “Hold that pose, Your Hind-Ass. You’ll make a great Poster Girl for DUH!”

Alice flows right up to Maija, her sharp teeth at my sister’s quivering throat. “Surely, you know Samuel can fold time as well as space.”

My Samuel smiles like a wolf, “We four exist a layer of time back from your assassins, Maija. They can’t touch us.”

Maija husks, “So again you spare me.”

Samuel’s face hardens. “Not hardly. Since I’ve been layered from time, I sense Meilori. You did something to her. I’ll find her. But you ….”

His eyes become windows into Hell. “You I leave a ghost in Time.”

“No!,” wails Maija.

The impossible happens. Samuel’s eyes meet mine. “I’ll find you, Meilori.”

And though oblivion again swallows me, I smile.

(596 words)
***
For Week 4, Empress Meilori Shinseen graciously chose all four of the following prompts:

•The misfortune is resolved/accepted {Maija was not happy about how.}

•Relationships mend/are torn asunder {Sam’s with Maija was torn asunder. Sam comes to realize Meilori did not leave him after all but was a victim of one of Maija’s plots.}

•The final event becomes another secret for generations to come. {No one in Renaissance will ever realize their mayor was a scion of an Old One or discover his true fate.}

•There is a new arrival in town. {The spirit of Meilori Shinseen, the Ningyo Empress and wife of Samuel McCord.}
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If any of you are intrigued with the mysterious Meilori Shinseen, you might want to read RITES OF PASSAGE

which details the tempestuous love affair between Meilori and Samuel aboard a fantasy Titanic in 1853 crossing the Bermuda Triangle.

Aboard that cursed ship you will find : Maija, Fallen (of THE LAST FAE), The Turquoise Woman (of THE LAST SHAMAN), the mother and father of Hibbs, THE BEAR WITH 2 SHADOWS, and...

Samuel's first duel with DayStar, the supernatural Hannibal Lector who crosses over into most of my novels.

Oh, and William Faulkner in the New Orleans of the Roaring Twenties begins and ends the tale. How cool is that?

http://www.amazon.com/RITES-OF-PASSAGE-ebook/dp/B004XQVPYM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1319642886&sr=1-1
***