DANSE MARDI GRAS_Friday's Romantic Challenge

DANSE MARDI GRAS

I had never seen Captain Sam so happy. Meilori was back in his arms though it meant a target on my back. Mardi Gras was a thing of laughter within his haunted jazz club once again.

I felt like baying like a happy hound myself. Alice was flowing towards me in a black sleek dress whose long skirt was slit for the tango.

Her porcelain shoulders bare, long blonde hair a living waterfall upon them, long black gloves up past her elbows.

She leaned against me to the tempo of Grace Jones singing “Strange, I’ve Seen That Face Before.”

“What is this tune?,” she whispered in my ear.

“The Libertango,” I smiled.

“I do feel liberated,” she husked, running her toe up, then down my right leg.

“Me, too,” spoke Meilori as she slipped between Alice and me, whipping the two of us away.

Jade eyes which had watched Aztec sacrifices scream for mercy that never came stabbed into me.

“So you are the son I could never give Samuel?”

“We don’t have to be enemies,” I whispered, seeing a concerned Captain Sam taking up a frantic Alice in his arms to continue the tango towards us.

Meilori laughed a thing from nightmares.

“Oh, do not worry, Standish. Once I kill you, I will forget all about you.”

She gazed mockingly at Alice as she rubbed her body against mine, and I sighed, “You can destroy me as an enemy in another way.”

“Really?”

“You can make a friend of me.”

A Harlequin spun me from Meilori’s arms, shaking off her belled hat, long silk black hair tumbling down on colorful shoulders.

Maija. I wondered when she’d show.

Meilori gasped, “But you are dead!”

“Your savage of a husband only managed to kill my followers. DayStar saved me.”

I shook my head as Maija spun me in the female’s role of the tango and snorted, “DayStar doesn’t save. He damns.”

“To revenge myself against my sister, McCord, and you, I welcome damnation.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sam sweep Meilori in his arms as she whispered hurriedly to him. Marshall Hickok took up Alice and danced the tango awkwardly towards us.

Maija swept me down in a sudden dip, wrenched me up against her breasts (Aw, jeez, she didn’t believe in underwear), and hissed into my ear.

“Tonight I will pay you back for that ‘Menage a Trois’ lie you spread about you, your ghoul, and myself in 1834!”

I snapped her out, then back into my arms as the tango heated up. “Hey, I happened to ruin my reputation while improving yours with that!”

“I will kill you slowly for those words.”

“Take a number. It’s a long line.”

Another woman, this time dressed as Marie Antoinette, tugged me out of Maija’s arms. Despite the white wig, I recognized the insane cobalt blue eyes. Empress Theodora, ruler of the European Revenant Empire.

“Royalty first, Ningyo swine!”

My dance card was getting too damn full. Theodora laughed throaty.

“Ah, my subjects are whispering that I am renewing our tawdry love affair. Another lie you have sown about your betters!”

Father Renfield and Sister Magda were twirling effortlessly towards us, their faces grim. So was Sam with Meilori and Alice with Hickok. I smiled grimly.

Lady Lovelace and Margaret Fuller were scandalizing the crowd by dancing together my way. They were too far away to get here in time.

Theodora’s steel fingers squeezed my upper arms tight. She was about to pull apart my arms and make a wish.

I smiled sad. “You’re all alone.”

“My subjects are mixed all through this crowd within Meilori’s.”

“And still alone.”

I dipped her suddenly. Jeez, didn’t any of my enemies believe in underwear? I got a terrible mental image of Major Strasser. If I survived this tango, I was going to have to take a bath in Listerine.

“You are surrounded by toadies who are too terrified to say anything but yes to you.”

Theodora snapped up, pressing me close to her, running her own toe up and down my right leg. “And that is bad?”

“One day, your worshipfulness, you’re going to be at a terrible crossroads, not knowing which way to take. And those toadies’ words won’t help worth shit.”

I smiled wide, taking precise quick, flowing steps between her fast moving high-heeled feet as we moved fluid over the dance floor.

“Then, you’ll think of me, too stupid to lie – even to an enemy.”

Theodora studied me. “You would save my life? Why?”

“Because we’re both street gypsies. You’re just a clever daughter of a bear trainer who slept her way to the top. Me? I’m gutter trash. We’re alike and both alone in ways no one but we will ever understand.”

Theodora flicked flat eyes to Alice, and I shook my head.

“She was raised to be a Victorian lady. Like you, I was raised to survive in a world that didn’t want me to.”

“Alike and alone,” Theodora husked.

Her cobalt eyes deepened, became wet. Before I could react Theodora crushed her cold lips into mine.

“Hey, no tongue on a first date!”

Alice was suddenly by my side. Theodora laughed oddly, linking her arm with an uneasy Hickok. “Standish, you live … for tonight. You have given me much to think over.”

Alice’s pale face became all eyes. “What was that kiss about? What did you do, Victor?”

Sam and Meilori danced to a halt in front of me. I looked into the disturbed eyes of Meilori, sighing, “Followed my own advise.”

{Excerpt from Victor's sixth book, DANSE MARDI GRAS. The 4th & 5th? THREE SPIRIT NIGHT and DEATH AT CHRISTMAS.}

For other entries : http://romanticfridaywriters.blogspot.com/

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(steamy in the middle and towards the end)

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[MY FAVORITE TANGO SCENE}

THE OLD YEAR WAS DYING_Friday's Romantic Challenge

The old year was dying, the tolling bells ringing out its dirge in the night.

Alice squeezed my hand tight,

her death-cold fingers reminding me that I had someone to be strong for.

Shadows were heavy in the LaPrete Mansion's upper dining room.

Of the places I wanted to spend New Year's Eve with the ghoul of my dreams -- this was the very last.

Cezar Prodanescu, wheezing the prelude to his death rattle, spoke from the oak chair at the head of the dining table.

"Victor Standish, you and your ghoul cost me. That building was going to be my last project."

I shook my head. "The thousands of new Katrina orphans needed that place."

"You made the buyers think it was haunted!"

"What can I tell you? My mother's good at making ghosts."

Cezar's son scowled at me. "Because of you we have been made to endure this tedious Romanian ritual."

His wife, sitting beside him, patted his hand. "Andrei, remember your blood pressure."

Cezar snorted, "All you care about, Andreea, is that bearer bond right beside that New Year's Eve Mask."

Her daughter whined, "Grandpapa, must I wear this mask, too?"

He flashed a dying wolf's smile at her. "If you want your own bearer bond, Doina, yes. Besides, I made yours a faerie princess. And you only have to wear the mask until the bells stop."

Her brother glowered at the mask on the table before him. It bore an uncanny resemblance to Alfred E. Neuman. "Look at what he wants me to wear!"

Cezar snorted, "Then, don't wear it, Gavril. But you will receive nothing!"

Reluctantly, Gavril put it on. Andreea looked with disgust at her own mask in the shape of a wrinkled old shrew. She fondled the bearer bond. She put on the mask.

Andrei flicked dead eyes to the pig mask and barked an insult of a laugh. "You have made me wear so many masks, Father. What is one more?"

He put it on. Cezar pointed to the braying donkey mask in front of me. "Wear it and I will call off my lawyers from delaying that orphanage."

I shook my head. "The deal was you would do it if I showed up."

His smile reminded me of a snake's - but without as much humanity. "The deal has changed."

I shook my head. "My word hasn't. I've showed up. No jumping through hoops."

Alice lightly touched her mask on the table top done up like a snake's face. "Victor, the orphans."

Cezar turned to her. "Don the mask, and I will still call off my lawyers."

She took her hand from mine. She picked up the mask, slowly bringing it to her face.

I went cold.

Something was brewing, but I knew Alice. If I told her not to, she would do it out of spite.

Cezar looked nothing so much as a vulture as he watched her, then turned to me. "Tell her not to, boy. You want to."

"I - I love Alice too much to take away her right to choose."

Alice's eyes rimmed in black tears. "So I choose ... you."

She placed the mask down.

Cezar scowled and put his skull mask on.

He slid Alice's mask to Doina. "Wear it, and you will receive ten bearer bonds."

"T-Ten?" She tore off the faerie mask, putting on the snake one.

The tolling bells were reaching the end of their countdown. The Prodanescu clan glared at their patriarch. Alice smiled softly and took up my hand again.

The tolling died away. Andreea wrenched her mask off. Doina screamed wetly. I felt like screaming myself. The mother's face was an exact copy of her mask. Andrei ripped his mask off.

A wet pig's snout quivered at me. Doina sprang from her chair, sending it to the carpet. She raced to the ornate mirror. A snake's face stared slit-eyed back at her. She started screaming in peals I knew would never stop until her last breath.

Gavril just sat shivering in his chair. Alice slowly, slowly reached out to Cezar's mask. As soon as her fingers touched the mask, the rubber band crumbled to ash.

Cezar's skull mask dropped.

Andreea began to titter in gibbering madness.

Though dead, Cezar looked merely asleep.

I turned to Alice. "Next New Year's Eve? No parties."
***

LOVE'S LIGHT IS A PYRE_Sparkles Friday Romantic Post

CONTEST UPDATE :

DINA HOWELL just won ALEXANDER SKARSGARD (ERIC NORTHMAN)'S AUTOGRAPH!

DONNA HOLE just won a photograph AUTOGRAPHED by ANGELINA JOLIE!

REVIEW THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH and enter now to get in on all the other prizes yet to be given!

The icy mists flow like lost love's seeking echoes across the bayou bordering my apartment.

SPARKLES is the prompt for this Friday Romantic Challenge.

Sometimes the magic seems to slip away in the rush of plucking fingers of Christmas obligations and demands.

Fallen, the last fae,

she of the woodfire heart and storm lightning thoughts,

whispers,

"Souls move slowly to their journey's end;

destinations are where we begin again.

Like ships sailing far across endless seas,

trust in starlight to lead the way."

So here is my SPARKLES post from BLACK ROSES IN AVALON

http://www.amazon.com/BLACK-ROSES-IN-AVALON-ebook/dp/B005GQN03C/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1323803244&sr=1-1

where Blake Adamson and Fallen, the last fae, find themselves deep in a dangerous, mystic forest deep within fabled Avalon :

Fallen reached out and grabbed my hand. "Somehow, I feel as if not all the powers of Darkness can separate us now."

I caught Epona, Queen of Unicorns, sharing a haunted look with her mate. Fallen hadn't noticed. And I was glad. She looked so happy that I wanted it to last as long for her as possible.

Something like a premonition, but more certain, swept over me.

And deep down, I knew that this was our first, our last, night. Something terrible was about to happen. So terrible that it would shake the Sidhe nation to its core.

So terrible that it would permanently scar Fallen ... and be the end of me. The Darkness was falling, and I would never see the light again.

I looked up into the twinkling stars peering down on us from between the branches of the ancient oaks above us. 'Oh, Father, may you light the way for Fallen when I can't be there for her, please.'

I waited for an answer of some kind but only got aching silence. I sighed. Maybe that was a kind of answer in itself.

I jerked as Fallen, caught up in her happiness, started to sing. It was ethereal, haunting, yet filled with love and passion and hope. I looked back up into the endless depths of the stars.

Maybe this was the only real answer, to cling to love while it was ours and let the future stay in the wings until it came shambling out onto the stage to reach out for us.

"All time and space are one to hearts in love," sang Fallen, her eyes locked on me.

"Death, pain, darkness but phantoms to be overcome," she trilled, reaching out and squeezing my hand gently as if reading my mind.

Her voice rose, twirled, and caressed me. As her words went from Sidhe to Angelus to some tongue so old that even Solomon's gift didn't translate it.

Then, I realized the tune had changed to the melody Fallen had identified as the lullaby sung to her by her unknown mother.

And the breath caught in my throat as I saw long, delicate wings of ethereal energy fluttering from between her shoulder blades.

Epona's eyes widened as she spotted them at the same time that I did. Azure shivered between my legs as he, too, saw Fallen's sparkling wings of fae magic tremble and beat to the rhythm of her song.

And for a moment, the unicorns slowed their movement to stare at my love just as bewitched as I was by the haunting beauty of her singing. It seemed that the four of us had walked into a medieval tapestry or painting :

A faerie princess, her mortal lover, riding the King and Queen of all unicorns ensnared by the cascading notes sung by Love which cannot truly die.
***

UNDER A VOODOO MOON_Friday's Romantic Challenge

It is midnight by the bayou bordering my apartment. The tolling has died but for the echoes.

Lady Night whispers, "Little Lakota, you think you know. You do not.

The world is not what you believe nor what you wish.

Life has its hungers. So does Death."

Denise and Francine have given us the prompt, HAUNTING, for tonight's challenge.

http://fridaynightwriters.blogspot.com/

My entry, UNDER A VOODOO MOON, is , not too surprisingly, from Victor's sequel - THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH : UNDER A VOODOO MOON.

(Victor and Alice have been flicked back to the year 1826 by the eerie supernatural entity, DayStar, like you or I would brush away knats) :


The blood moon leered down on Alice and me through thick, silent mists snaking above us. The mists were the only things silent across the grassy courtyard.

Drums beat wild rhythms as rocking black men chanted, their wide eyes glazed over. In the shadows of the huge bonfire, black dancers wheeled about, long machetes flashing in their fists.

I was so scared it felt like my skin was about to leap off me and do the Mambo with my skeleton. I knew where we were from pictures in that book on voodoo in early New Orleans :

Congo Square, across Rampart Street from the French Quarter. But a very primitive French Quarter. Place Congo was its name this far back in the past.

I reached out and took Alice’s ice-cold right hand. My heart calmed. With her at my side, I could take on monsters.

With the musk of sweat, alcohol, and hate heavy in the humid night air, Alice whispered in that odd British accent of hers, “Victor, we are in serious jeopardy here.”

Now, when a flesh-eating ghoul says she’s afraid, even a mongrel like me knows that life has just hit a new high in low-down.

The drums suddenly stopped. And every wild eye turned to us.

I winked at her. “You think?”

A tall woman, her black face glowing with deadly grace, spoke soft, yet it carried out across the dancers and slithering snakes on the grass.

But none of them equaled the boa across her shoulders.

“You two do not belong here.”

Alice murmured, “Look at Marie Laveau, Victor. She is such a striking woman.”

I grinned dry, “Even without the snake.”

A small, crooked old man limped to us. “She be right.”

He turned to Alice, his voice gaining an edge. “’Specially you, nzumbe.”

I stiffened. “That’s Myth Nzumbe to you, Fright Face.”

Alice lips got tight. “Is everything a jest to you, Victor?”

I gave her icy hand a squeeze.

“Never you, Alice. But you can’t let monsters see you sweat.”

Alice rose a prim and proper eyebrow. “I never sweat.”

The old man limped closer. “You be half-dead, now, Miss Nzumbe. Soon you be all dead.”

I shook my head. “Don’t count on it, Legba.”

He stepped back an inch. “You know me?”

“I know of you.”

“Then, you knows how powerful I be. I be the origin of life!”

I snorted. “Get real. That would be Elohim. And I’m pretty sure you’re not Him.”

Legba husked, “So sure are you?”

I nodded to the squirming reptiles on the grass.

“Pretty sure. He’s not real fond of snakes. He took their legs away, remember?”

He cackled, “But Erzulie be fond of dem, and she be right behind you, boy. Erzulie, loa of Love and Death.”

I turned to face the tall black woman with scars on her face and smiled,

“That’s a new look for you, Mother.”

“No, child. ‘Dis face be veeery old. And you be in bad trouble.”

I winked at her and copied her accent, “Dat be an veeery old story, Mother.”
***
Katrina sent shock waves through the economy of New Orleans that nearly submerged the city and its valiant citizens. I have donated 100% of the past two months profits of THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH to the New Orleans SALVATION ARMY.

Of every copy of LEGEND I sell from now on, 10% of the profit will go to them as well. So not only do you get an eerie, absorbing story, you help the hurting in New Orleans. How neat is that?
***

WHISPERS ONLY THE DEAD MAY SPEAK_Friday's Romantic Challenge

We are nearing THREE SPIRITS NIGHT

that eve when things can cross over to our world,

none of them lovers of Man ... except as a meal.

Francine and Denise have given us the prompt, WHISPERS, to do with as we please ...

http://fridaynightwriters.blogspot.com/

Three heroes are all that stand between those spirits and this world in the strange city, Renaissance.

Listen to the haunted thoughts of one of them, the one who understands the Hunger that drives them the most : the Victorian ghoul, Alice Wentworth …


There are whispers only the dead may speak. Secrets only the dead may know. Still I do not comprehend why Victor insisted on walking blithely into this ambush.

Not as the living do the dead see :

one moment frozen after another.

It is why we are distanced from the hearts of the living.

Except for Victor Standish.

My Victor, of the gypsy laugh and poet’s heart. Our love breaks the chain of reason. But deep in my dry bones,

I know that love will one night break my heart … as I eat his.

This frozen moment may spare us that …

I see Renaissance’s mayor thrust Maija, who lured us here to be eaten, into the onrushing hungry soul-echoes.

“Ningyo whore! My father’s race cast yours out of their dimension. Did you think I would ally myself with you? Come, Citizens, feast!”

As Maija tumbles to the floor, he laughs, “All you touch you can drain. All that is water you control. They are ghosts, filth. Now, you die.”

Thunder rumbles as Captain McCord growls, “You first.”

His strange Colt bellows. I clutch my ears as if the sound itself would kill me. I watch as the Mayor grabs his chest. I have never seen the like. With the swirling of an open drain he seems to spin into nothingness.

McCord yells, “Maija, they are echoes of life but life still. They shape themselves from mist. What is mist but ….”

She smiles like a released demon, “Water!”

Even I, who live off the flesh of the living, am sickened by the atrocities she inflicts on the screaming soul-echoes.

Victor laughs, “Boy, you guys sure picked the wrong dance partners!”

The survivors laugh themselves as they turn to one who appears helpless. My Victor helpless? Never! Not while I stand by his side.

They halt as I flow to them. They thought me ghoul. Fools. Not ghoul. Not ghost. Not revenant. I am unique.

Shaped by my mother’s mishandling of voodoo to make me a zombie, I became Other … when Victor’s mother took me for hers.

My hunger is about to be satisfied. I stiffen as Victor smiles. This is why he walked into certain death …

to feed the one he … loves. Tears burn my eyes.

I am loved.

I turn hotly to them and whisper words only the dead have ears to hear. “I am not ghoul, leeches. What am I?”

I feel my lips pull up in a Cheshire grin. “I am the far end of the graveyard where the nettles grow. I am the Jester in the Theater of Bone. I AM HELL TO PAY!”

I sweep over them like the Death that took the first-born in Egypt. I flick undead eyes to McCord. He had been speaking to me as well to let me know I could … eat them. So I do.

His strange Colt bellows. Maija laughs hellishly. The soul-echoes scream.

I eat.

Suddenly, ball bearings, washed in the Waterfall of Eden, pepper the air behind me. A blur of movement. I smile. Victor is twirling in what he calls, in his quaint fashion,

a Full Arabian Cartwheel. He lands lightly behind me as three soul-echoes learn that acupressure can kill the undead.

He whispers, “Alice, you have to watch that lovely … behind of yours.”

I whisper back, “Why ever should I do that? You watch it enough for the two of us.”

He smiles wide and kisses me. I wait with dread heart for his lips to flinch from my cold ones. But they do not.

Not even a little.
***

LOVE SEES UNDER THE MASK_friday's romantic entry

The iron tongue of midnight tolls hauntingly beyond my apartment terrace.


The meandering bayou betrays its existence only by the wavering reflection of the almost full moon.


The night-cloaked owl keeps asking its one word question. “WHO?”


Who are we? Who will ever love us?


Francine and Denise gives us the prompt FIRST LOVE to spark this Friday’s romantic post.

http://fridaynightwriters.blogspot.com/


Victor Standish’s lonely heart bleeds the ink that this post is needing. As the story begins, midnight is tolling, too. By the crypt of Marie Laveau.


He has just met the Victorian ghoul, Alice Wentworth, for the first time. Her stomach growling for his flesh, she hesitates to feast on this lonely-eyed teen. She asks what brings him to her graveyard.



I hitched myself up on a marble slab and patted the place next to me. “Pull up a seat. It’s a long story.”


She flowed like mist beside me. I reached out and softly took her left hand. Saying a silent prayer, I rolled my eyes into the back of my head and pressed her hand against my heart. Maybe I could do a type of encore of what had happened in front of Marie Laveau’s crypt.


Sometimes in life you get more than you ask for.


I stiffened as a swirling sea of her emptiness, her loneliness, her joy at being in touch with another hurt spirit swept me up. And I drew her into me,


into my memories of burnt out ends of smoky days laced with pain and struggle, of the withered leaves of others’ masquerades, of the tiny thousand misunderstandings and clumsy gropings of my heart to the life-hardened hearts of others.


The autumn world of my days on the streets came rising up over the dark horizon of my regrets. Lost friends, mocking enemies, the haunted, loving eyes of Mother. The snap of the neck that cost me Suze and brought the mysterious undead Captain Sam into my life.


The yellowed papers of memory curled up around us from Detroit, to Cleveland, to Boston, to that strange bus ride to New Orleans.


The light of relief and hope shot through the black shutters of fear and loneliness as images of me wandering lost through the madness that was Meilori’s. Dim figures of Billie Holliday and Daniel Webster wavered before us like shimmering mirages of fear.


My sort of betrayal by Elu, my being an unwilling teaching aid for Strasser, Toya’s hot jealousy, my losing everything as I decided that for Captain Sam to live I had to die.


The cry of Alice’s lonely heart calling out to me as she struggled to escape her own private hell. Her spooky entrance into my life. My confusion. My own loneliness reaching out to hers.


The circle completing its circuit. Resurfacing from the waters of shared spirits as I gently pulled her hand from my chest. Our fingers parting. The shiver of separation as her pale face looked at me haunted.


I shivered as our union shattered left me soul-cold. Alice was shivering as well. My head was spinning. Something was wrong with my heart.


It wasn’t empty anymore.


What had I done to me?


Maybe you couldn’t see, really see, into someone without it changing you. And you couldn’t show them the you that you really were without the two of you never being the same anymore.


I looked into her strange neon blue eyes. My changed heart skipped a beat. She was looking … looking at me as if she was feeling the same. Her eyelids lowered slightly. Her hand softened around mine. She squeezed it soft. So soft.


A wild thought came to me.


I grabbed all the courage and desperation I had stored in my bruised heart and decided to go for it.


I brought her cold, cold hand up to my lips and kissed it. Her fingers were quivering. Or was that my lips?


Alice’s lower lip trembled. “How could you?”


“C-Could I what?”


She took her hand from mine and softly traced the line of one of Strasser’s cuts on my left cheek. “Turn out so special?”

***

ROCK CANDY CUTS_Friday's Romantic Challenge

The distant clock tower is tolling midnight once again. The rolling thunder is as hollow as its bells.

As hollow as many of us are, carved out bit by bit by the razored acts of betrayal and disilusion.

This is the month of the carved pumpkin - the symbol for the state of love in our hollowed-out world.

Denise and Francine have given us the prompt ROCK CANDY :

http://fridaynightwriters.blogspot.com/
Here is my entry :

Evil often wears sex as a mask. The Venus Fly Trap is rather pretty ... at a distance.

I watched a pretty girl in a pretty short skirt arguing with Captain Sam at his table. He kept shaking his head at her.

He was a gentleman and all. His Stetson was off, sitting on his rune-carved table ... just like she was a lady.

Ada Byron once pointed this famous rock star out to me. "Victor, to say she has the morals of an alley cat is to insult alley cats everywhere."

I smiled so bitter it tasted of salt. I figure the last man who thought her a lady had been blind. I looked around, trying to spot Alice and wash this bit of empty soul from my mind with the sight of the reason I took each breath.

I looked at the black rose on the table beside me. Since Maija, it was the symbol of our love and our trust in each other.

Great. Miss Lust R Us was walking towards me, her hips swaying like the lazy swell of the tide on some island beach. Her shiny skirt was so short it could have been mistaken for a wide belt. Her top was more bra than blouse.

She tugged down on it to give me a good glimpse of her ... flotation devises.

"I'm Rock Candy," she breathed, wetting her open lips.

"Of course you are. And they sell lip balm down the street."

She pouted, wiggling without moving, "Victor Standish, your wit will not save you. Your lout of a mentor has refused to let me sing at Meilori's."

"It's his club."

"As you are his beloved ward. I am going to destroy you."

"Lots of luck with that, she-bitch."

"I am Circe's daughter, fool. No mortal man can resist me."

She raised her eyebrow. No! My mind was fogging, my will draining. Rock Candy smiled like the succubus she was. My eyes tore themselves from hers, falling on the black rose I intended to surprise Alice with.


I heard Alice's voice within the crypt from the midnight I first met her :


'I feel tears bleed from my dead eyes. I will find flesh to tear and rend. I always do.

But love? Never. Never will there be love for the thing that I have become. Never.'


Then, I saw the memory of her walking into Meilori's next to me for the first time :

I saw Alice’s eyes light up upon walking into Meilori’s. She looked like a little girl on Christmas morning. Her jaw dropped in wonder, and she squeezed my arm in joy. I smiled ear to ear. I caught Ada looking at us and brushing away a tear.

I heard Alice murmur, “I could cry such tears as angels cry.”

“Milton’s PARADISE LOST?, “ I asked.

“Close but no. It is from Milton’s LYCIDAS.”

“You’ll have to read it to me sometime,” I said.

Alice turned neon blue eyes that seemed both happy and sad. “No. Rather I would read you something Christina Rossetti wrote.”

She leaned in close and whispered,

“Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live

My very life again though cold in death :

Come back to me in dreams, that I may give

Pulse for pulse, breath for breath.”

And just like that, Rock Candy's spell was broken. I looked at her sad. She would never have what Alice and I shared.

"Good ... not in the moral sense, of course ... just not good enough."

"Impossible!," gasped the succubus.

Suddenly Alice was beside me, her hand going for mine. The other had the black rose in it.

"Nothing is impossible for my Victor!"

I squeezed her hand. "No, Alice, nothing is impossible for US."
***

LOVE IS AN OCEAN WITHOUT SHORES

THE DEEPEST WOUND IS LONELINESS_FRIDAY ROMANTIC CHALLENGE

My entry for Francine's and Denise's Friday Romantic Challenge :

FEARFUL HEART.


http://fridaynightwriters.blogspot.com/

FEAR.

It comes in many forms. Ask a prison warden what a prisoner fears most, and he will answer : solitary confinement.

Yet, all of us exist in the solitary confinement of our minds --

which leads me to my 400 word entry from the YA urban fantasy, DAYSTAR'S ORPHAN. At the end of BLACK ROSES IN AVALON, Blake Adamson makes a terrible mistake, whose consequence lead to LAST EXIT IN BABYLON.

But it also created a "bubble universe" where his life was rebooted and Fallen, the last fae, has just rescued the 14 year old Blake from DayStar's clutches, mangling him terribly with her long claws in the doing of it :


Fallen crabbed slowly back away from me on her knees, still shaking her head in horror.

"N-No. No! Oh, Blake, I told you I-I'd be a hard friend, but not like this!"

I shrugged, trying to hide how much it hurt, "Show me a rose that doesn't have its share of thorns."

"I'm no rose," whimpered Fallen.

"To me, you're as much a rose as the black roses whose perfume you have in your hair."

Fallen shook her head and, with self-hate in her voice, whispered, "I'm no rose."

"Not a tame one, for sure. But don't you know, Fallen? The wild roses have the sweetest smell."

Her long faerie face all eyes, she said softly, "Your lips just twitched, there, Mr. I-Don't-Lie."

I looked at her with so many warring emotions going at it inside me. Did I dare tell her the truth? I saw the lonely, self-hating hurt in those wet green eyes and knew I didn't have a choice.

"It's ... It's not just when I lie that they do that."

"Then, when else?"

Did I have the nerve to say it? "Ah, well, ... they've been known to do it when ... when -"

"When what?," murmured Fallen, edging closer, her green eyes seeming to swallow my whole world.

"When, ah, I'm ... next ... to a pretty girl."

There, I had said it, and I could feel my cheeks blushing. No. Fallen looked miserable. Man, couldn't I do anything right?

One single tear rolled down her cheek. "B-But that's just it. I'm not pretty. I'm not! I'm not even a girl. You heard DayStar. I'm a frea-"

Her next word I knew would break my heart so I didn't let her finish.

I took both of her hands in mine.

"-a wild, beautiful rose," I said soft, and without even realizing what I was doing until I had gone and done it, lightly kissing her fingers, claws and all.

I stiffened. Oh, man, what had I done? -- oh, no.

Big tears welled up in her jade eyes. She just looked at me for what seemed a frozen eternity. Why did I always screw up? Why?

Then, so fast it was a blur, she bent and kissed me softly on the cheek,looking as shocked as I felt.

My lips not wanting to work right, I knew better than to try and say anything, so I just smiled shyly back.
***
SOON THE DETAILS FOR MY MYSTERY MIRACLE CONTEST WHERE ONE LUCKY PERSON WILL WIN A KINDLE FIRE!

WHEN DEATH COMES FOR LUNCH_FRIDAY'S ROMANTIC CHALLENGE

“I haven't trusted polls since I read

that 62% of women had affairs during their lunch hour.

I've never met a woman in my life who would give up lunch for sex.”

- Erma Bombeck.

“The scientific name for an animal that doesn't either run from or fight its enemies is lunch.”

- Samuel McCord

On this day in 1522 Captain Sebastian del Cano returned to Spain, completing Magellan's first circumnavigation of the earth.

Of the five ships and approximately 270 men who set out, only one ship and seventeen men returned.

Captain Sebastian del Cano is the captain of the DEMETER in 1853 when McCord boards her in my historical fantasy, ADRIFT IN THE TIME STREAM.

Denise and Francine has set us the prompt, LUNCH DATE, for the FRIDAY ROMANTIC CHALLENGE.

And so I give you the deck-side lunch on the day of the BALL OF LOVE AND MADNESS whose almost-ending you read in last week's entry. This entry is 400 words exactly :



The only good thing about lunch was the orange juice --

and the way Meilori’s sorcery let it stay untainted in my mouth for as long as I wanted. Missy was taking a nap under the watchful eye of her mother.

Ralph Waldo Emerson couldn’t have made the day better by following Missy’s example. He showed up at the table. But the presence of Margaret Fuller at his side made up for his dour addition to the company.

Daniel Webster sat across from me, wearing his gloom like a shroud. Horace Greeley sat next to him, fidgeting worse than if ants had decided to take up residence in his pants.

Lady Lovelace, Ada Byron, looking like a happy cat with a mouthful of canary, told the new additions to our company what was suspected of the coming evening.

Horace looked even more fit to itch himself to shreds. Ada warned everyone that Maija might have thrown in with Nyx. And when Lady Inari showed up, arm in arm with Maija, the atmosphere of the table felt like a storm about to boil over.

Meilori seemed too reserved. She barely spoke to either sister.

I leaned in towards her and whispered, “What’s going on between you two?”

Lady Inari, showing her ears were as sharp as her teeth, smiled, “You are, Captain. I told her she had to choose between us this morning. She chose you.”

“I’m not your rival, Inari.”

“So you foolishly believe.”

Maija smiled. It was an insane thing, devoid of warmth or anything resembling reason. It gave me shivers.

“The good captain is full of so many deceiving illusions.”

To everyone’s horror, Maija plucked a wiggling worm from her noodles and popped it into her mouth, lustily chewing then swallowing. “Like free will, for example.”

Ada looked troubled. “Sea Sprite, you are only as free as you assume your will to be.”

Maija snorted, “You know the cliche about assume, do you not? I choose not to be an ass.”

Meilori reached over, gently squeezing my hand. “The heart asks of life more than it can give. But that does not stop me from asking.”

I winked at her. “Smart. If you don’t ask, how would you ever get?”

And as Inari watched with feral eyes, Meilori kissed me soft and long. And I was wrong earlier. The orange juice wasn’t the only good thing about lunch.
***

HEART STOPPER

Love.

What is its color? How much space does it take up in our heart?

Doesn't your heart feel near to bursting when you first spot the one you love?

And when it dies, the Grand Canyon seems small compared to the hollowness in that same heart.

Francine and Denise have given us the prompt, HEART-STOPPER, to use this Friday :

http://fridaynightwriters.blogspot.com/

My entry is from ADRIFT IN THE TIME STREAM.

Many have emailed me asking what could possibly destroy such a one as Samuel McCord as Maija threatened last week.

Before she fell in love with Samuel, Meilori had made a pretense of assisting DayStar for her own purposes. But she learns even the pretense carries a steep price.

DayStar has taken possession of her body after the BALL OF DEATH & MADNESS, and he sends her against her beloved.

Samuel is seemingly without a single weapon. We join the festivities at that point :

DayStar studied me like a steak he was about to eat.

“You are weaponless.”

I pulled King Solomon’s knife from its neck sheath. “Not completely.”

He smiled. “Ah, so you want the dying to be up-close and personal, do you?”

His eyes grew dreamy. “Let us slow the pace to this last dance, shall we?”

Meilori spoke low. “You must kill me, beloved, for if you should die by my hand, I would kill myself anyway.”

I locked my eyes on hers.

“This is not going to work out like he plans --- beloved.”

DayStar murmured, “You simply have no idea.”

“Keep telling you. I usually don’t.”

He smiled, and Meilori spun elegantly, holding her bone sword up high with both hands.

And it began.

Eyes.

I felt them on me.

Meilori’s : weeping with an aching love, a hollowing sadness, and utter terror.

Fallen’s : bruised, fearful, yet whispering an unreasoning hope.

Renfield’s : dark, filled with remorse and regret.

Maija’s : blue pools of icy regard in whose depths swam uncertainty and longing.

Meilori wheeled gracefully around me as if to some melody of death only she could hear. Me?

It seemed as if I could hear the trumpets of a bull fight as it reached its bloody climax. I was under no illusions who was the bull in this fight.

I was bone weary, moving with all the skill and stealth of a wounded moose. Meilori was as the wind given life, light, ethereal, and full of death.

And DayStar could move her with even more speed than I could muster.

My gloved hand clutched Solomon’s blade tighter, my fingers feeling numb and sweaty.

Meilori danced about me, meeting my each body shift easily, gracefully.

Her jade eyes seemed to swallow me. Her voice was a wet husk.

“I love you, my Samuel.”

“And I you.”

Fallen whimpered as the tears bled from her hollow eyes. Renfield turned his eyes away.

Maija looked first at me, then at her sister, her blue eyes slowly turning to DayStar with hate. DayStar began to smile wider.

The trumpets only I could hear started to crescendo. The dance was nearly done.

Meilori’s lips worked wordlessly as she fought the possession of her body. Black tears seeped from the corners of her eyes.

“We will meet again where the shadows never fall.”

DayStar laughed. Meilori's jaw firmed. My right hand suddenly became stone.

With uncomprehending eyes, I saw Solomon’s blade in it fly impossibly fast straight into Meilori’s heart. DayStar cursed.

Fallen sucked in a breath. Meilori fell into my arms that were once again mine.

No!

She had taken control of my body as DayStar had taken control of hers. No! This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. No!

She lay limp in my arms. Her eyes rolling up, she tried to speak but couldn’t.

Only a wet gurgle came out. But still I heard her voice murmur within my mind. One word.

One last word.

‘Beloved.’

I heard an animal wail. Wail as if its guts had been scooped out. Then it came to me. No animal was wailing in pain.

It was me.

Me.

And DayStar laughed.
***
Not part of my entry, but this poem by Stephen Crane begins the next chapter. I add it for Andy and my other friends who enjoy poetry.

“Places among the stars,

Soft gardens near the sun,

Shed no beams upon my weak heart,

Since she is here

In a place of blackness,

Not your golden days

Nor your silver nights

Can call me to you.

Since she is here

In a place of blackness,

Here I stay and wait.”

***

FRIDAY'S Romantic Challenge_THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

It is midnight. The moon's face of shadows coyly hides most of it from me.

As the ghost chimes from the distant clock tower toll, she masks even that small glimpse with the SMOOTH SAILING of storm clouds.

SMOOTH SAILING. The prompt from today's romantic challenge from Denise and Francine :

http://fridaynightwriters.blogspot.com/

My entry :

THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM (from ADRIFT IN THE TIME STREAM) --

Samuel McCord is alone. Meilori is off selecting her gown for the night's festivities, the Ball of Love and Madness. It is to celebrate the DEMETER entering the legendary Devil's Triangle.

Samuel is admiring the molten, sleepy head of the dawn peeking up over the horizon. Dr. Stewart, the ship's doctor, approaches him.


Footsteps to my left. I turned. Dr. Stewart. He looked gutted.

“Maija,” he said and explained everything.

“What about her?”

“I - I thought we had become --”

“Maija is like the sea. You never know all about her.”

“I was an old fool.”

“Lot of that going around.”

“Lady Meilori is her sister. I thought you would have some idea of how -- I mean -- just what I might have done to offend Maija.”

“How do you know you offended her?”

“She told me not to come to tonight’s Ball.”

“I’ll be damned.”

“What?”

“She actually does care for you, doctor.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Things are set to get awfully ugly tonight at that Ball.”

“Maija knows this?”

“She’s part of it, doctor.”

He paled. “I knew she had a dark past.”

“Her present’s rather black, too.”

He looked anguished off into the horizon. “I sensed that. Good Lord, how can I be attracted to such a woman?”

“People are never one thing, doctor. There are always several faces behind the mask they show you.”

I reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “One of those faces cares, truly cares, for you. Just be glad it exists -- and that whatever you two share is real.”

He swallowed hard. “But if something criminal is being planned for that Ball, I should be there.”

I shook my head. “No. Let Maija have the knowledge that she saved you, and that in your heart she is still someone worthy of being loved.”

He smiled as if that heart were breaking. “You are not the typical policeman. You are a romantic.”

I put my forefinger to my lips. “Shhh. You’ll ruin my reputation.”

He straightened as if a heavy weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “You’ll be there, won’t you?”

“Yes. I’ll stand in for you.”

He nodded and walked away. Soft footsteps behind me. I turned. Maija. She looked at me intensely for long moments.

“Thank you.”

“De nada.”

“This changes nothing between us. You will still be destroyed by the end of this evening, and I will play my part in it. Play it most wholeheartedly.”

“I would expect nothing less from a future empress.”

She looked hot into my eyes. “Fool! You will hold back against me for my silly attachment to the good-hearted doctor, will you not?”

“I imagine so.”

“It will be your undoing.”

“Probably will.”

“Then why do it?”

I shrugged. “Don’t know any other way to be.”

She studied me. “I shall feel the emptier tonight after what must be done is accomplished. Yours is a face I shall miss, strong without the cruelty of toughness, kind without the bruise of weakness. When I have rid the world of that face, I shall have deservedly earned the hatred of my sister -- and of myself.”

“Then don’t do it.”

She bled a smile. “I know of no other way to be.”
***
Below is the evocative STANDING THE STORM by the piano genius of William Joseph. Endure the darkness at the beginning, and you will reap the light and beauty of the tune -- much like what happens when you find the courage to "stand the storm." Reading my post to the music adds to the enjoyment I think.
For a fascinating interview with

classical pianist and composer Fiona Hawkins :
http://fabulositynouveau.blogspot.com/2011/08/interview-with-australian-pianist-fiona.html
***

THE MAGIC OF FIRST LOVE is our ignorance that it can ever end_FRIDAY'S ROMANTIC CHALLENGE_NEW HORIZONS

Both hands of the clock on the city's distant tower reach up beseechingly to the stars.

Hear the ghost-chimes?

It is midnight, the dark start to a new day,

to NEW HORIZONS.

Come. Sail with me aboard the cursed DEMETER in responce to Francine's and Denise's ROMANTIC FRIDAY CHALLENGE.

http://fridaynightwriters.blogspot.com/

Peek from the the night's shadows upon the first meeting on a 1853 midnight of Samuel McCord and the one great love of his long life, Lady Meilori Shinseen, most feared of all the Ningyos. (399 words)

{Samuel's other than human senses have felt deep pain and hollow loneliness up on the midnight-shrouded deck of the transatlantic steamer, DEMETER.

He has used the teachings of his Apache blood-brother to render himself invisible by wrapping the threads of night around his lean, horseman's body. He goes to investigate.}



I slowed as I spotted a woman, sitting right on the wooden deck by the railing, huddled over something.

I wrapped the threads of night tighter about me and stepped closer.

The faint smell of jasmine tickled my nose. She was in a long, flowing scarlet and black Victorian gown.

I stiffened as the fog thinned enough for me to make out her slanted eyes, not quite Japanese, not quite Chinese, but a beautiful blend of the two.

Her long black hair was styled up, her eyes were cast down. She was stroking a dead seagull, its slender neck bent awkward. I guessed that it had hit the rigging in the fog and killed itself, tumbling to the deck.

The woman spoke, and it was as if her vocal chords were velvet. Her accent. It sent shivers through me. It was like human speech itself was a foreign language to her. What was I getting myself into? Her words were almost lost in the night.

"Poor little creature of air. Like last month, I came upon you too late. Too late."

She spoke as if the two words were a summing up of her whole life. She was one of those haunted-eyed women you attached your own hidden fears and silent sorrows to.

Close-up her eyes weren't cold jade as they had seemed farther away. They were filled with echoes of regret. The coldness had just been a bold front to hide the fact that they'd lost their way a long time ago.

Maybe mine looked the same.

There were disturbing depths of sadness in those eyes. Depths in whose darkness swam the monsters which drive us or haunt us or both.

Those depths whispered of age more ancient than the Aztecs, more dangerous than even my past. They both called and warned at the same time.

She stroked the bird's head tenderly as if afraid of waking it up

and sighed,

"Dreams drift like clouds,

I reach to touch the moon,

I grasp but empty night."

I couldn’t take her in such pain anymore and stepped into view. “Ma’am, you were a blessing.”

She stiffened at my sudden appearance, but said calmly. “How so?”

"That seagull got to die in the arms of one who cared and cried over its passing. How many of us get to die that loved?"

Her face flinched. "Not ... very ... many. And ... too many."

***

WHERE IN MYTH ARE WE? _ FRIDAY'S ROMANTIC CHALLENGE_plus I HATE YOU AS ONLY THE UNDEAD CAN HATE!_Tessa's I HATE YOU blogfest entry

The night tolls with midnight's ghost-bell chimes.

It is Friday once again.

Time to meet Francine's and Denise's ROMANTIC CHALLENGE. This week : CONFUSED

http://fridaynightwriters.blogspot.com/

{My Tessa's I HATE YOU blogfest entry follows this}

My 386 word entry is from BLACK ROSES IN AVALON to blend in with yesterday's post. Blake Adamson traveled to the fabled brothel, THE PRINCESS ALICE

(a "gentleman's club" for the Marquis de Sade at heart),

in Victorian London to whisk Fallen, the Last Fae, away from the sadistic demigod, Abbadon Sennacherib.

Frantic to find some haven safe from Sennacherib, Blake uses an ancient enchanted dagger as a rudder to sail the seas of time and space. But to where?
Trusting an enchanted blade to save the girl I loved from the most evil being I had ever met seemed the right thing to do just a moment ago.

But now I was having doubts. Big ones. “Too Late” ones.

Our table sat in a small glade bordered by towering, ancient trees.

I tried to swallow and couldn't. Bending time and space had never gone so smooth for me before. And instead of feeling good about it, I started to get paranoid. Had Sennacherib helped me? Had he wanted me herded here? I remembered the rage in his voice and shelved that idea. From across the table, Fallen looked slowly about. She whispered in a dead calm way as if quoting from some scroll she had read long ago.

"Each blade of grass stirs with magic. Each branch sways to the breath of eternity. And each path leads to dream citadels whose misty towers murmur echoes of ancient glories never to be reclaimed, yet never to be forgotten."

I forced my throat to work, "What you said."

I sat back in my chair, tilted at an angle on the uneven grass. So this was Avalon? I could believe it. Webster had mocked me as a little poet, but even I was at a loss to describe what I was seeing.

The very air seemed to shimmer with tiny flecks of stardust as arrows of sunlight shot through the dark, hollow cathedrals of centuries old oaks. The thick branches swayed to a breeze I couldn't feel, as if the trembling trees were alive and startled at our sudden appearance. The low splashing of bubbling water came from the shattered remains of a black stone fountain. One lone, haunted-eyed marble nymph stared at me as if in silent warning. I could almost hear the echoes of Pan's pipes lamenting the intrusion of a mere mortal into this realm of faerie.

Fallen husked a whisper, "You really have taken us to Avalon. I - I have never been here ... at least not in what memories are left me."

"L-Left to you? What are you talking about?"

She smiled bitterly. "We of the Tuatha de Danann also know how to bend time and space."

Her eyes grew haunted. "But unlike you, we are left with minds wiped clean afterwards."
***
I HATE YOU blogfest entry : I HATE YOU AS ONLY THE UNDEAD CAN HATE!

http://tessasblurb.blogspot.com/

[From the soon-to-be published, THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH :

Victor Standish and his Victorian ghoul friend, Alice Wentworth, have survived more horrors than a Stephen King movie. Almost. It seems Victor has died saving his hero, Sam McCord.

The angel of Death has come for him. Alice insists on coming along, as do Father Renfield and the mysterious Sister Magda. They are standing at the head of the stairs leading down to the haunted jazz club, Meilori's] :


Everybody and their cousin could read my mind it seemed. Now, it was time to use it for me instead of it being used against me. I focused all the will I had and thought at Father Renfeild :

‘Now, Padre, now! Hold Alice. Hold her tight!’

“Ow, lad,” he snapped. “You didn’t have to shout.”

Alice frowned, “I heard noth ….”

She yelped as Renfield grabbed her from behind. Magda added her arms around Alice, too. I smiled bitterly. My girl sure struggled just the same. Then, she stabbed me with her words as I raced down the stairs.

“I hate you for this, Victor. I HATE YOU!”

She screamed, "I trusted you! Trusted! Do you know how hard that was for me after all these years?"

My steps slowed. "Yes, now you realize what you have done. I hate you, Victor. I hate you as only the undead can hate. I hate you so that there is no pity, no compassion, no ghost of the love you have killed by doing this! My hate will burn long, LONG after you die. I HATE YOU, VICTOR STANDISH!"

I stopped halfway down the steps and slowly turned to Alice, her neon blue eyes flaring and said, “D-Don’t let those be the last words I hear you say, Alice. P-Please.”

Black tears streamed from her strange eyes as she stiffened as if I had stabbed her as she mewed, “Dolt, imbecile, moron, dunce! Of course, I love you.”

I smiled despite my heart breaking. “I like it when you talk dirty to me, Alice.”

She whimpered, then managed to squeak out the words, “You are Victor Standish, and you will find a way back to me.”
***

LOVE NEVER WALKS ALONE_Friday's ROMANTIC CHALLENGE_VOICES

It is Friday once again, and with its arrival comes the Romantic Challenge of Francine and Denise_VOICES.

Blog address : http://fridaynightwriters.blogspot.com/p/challenges.html

My 395 word entry is LOVE NEVER WALKS ALONE from my historical fantasy, ADRIFT IN THE TIME STREAM.

It is 1853 aboard the cursed transatlantic steamer, DEMETER. To save his love, Meilori, and the LAST FAE, Fallen (yes, she is in this novel as well), Samuel McCord has walked through the Door of Nasah (‘testing’ in ancient Hebrew) into utter darkness :



The light of love slipped through the black shutters of this strange realm. It was warm and emerald. The light I saw in the eyes of Meilori. My torch that I would carry in this darkness.

I kept walking.

Meilori’s eyes seemed to waver. I remembered her anger, her warnings, her despair. I clung to our bond, our love bruised but enduring, curling about my spirit like perfumed smoke rising from the embers of our hearts. I would endure. I had to endure. For her.

Laughter. Cold. Brittle. Knife sharp.

DayStar.

I slowed but kept moving ahead. I shivered. Not from the cold, but from a sudden growing warmth within me.

Meilori. Her velvet words spoke inside my mind.

‘Beloved, wherever you are, know this -- you are a great man.’

I started to protest but her soft words stopped me.

‘Hush, I do not have long before DayStar senses I am talking to you. You are Samuel Durand McCord, beloved, and you are a great man.’

I could have sworn I felt the lingering caress of tender fingers on my cheek.

‘You turned your back on war to save innocents. You fought cruel laws, usually to no avail. You have written no symphony save that of your deeds. You have written no poems outside words of comfort to those in pain.’

This time I did feel her invisible lips on mine.

‘Yet you are greater than any general, any composer, or any poet I have ever known.

You are great because you are kind when you could have so easily learned to be cruel. You are great because you love when so little has been shown you. You are great because you are humble when you have the power to be a tyrant.’

I felt my nose tweaked.

‘And finally you are great, not because you never fail, but because you never quit. Now, do not make me a liar!’

And suddenly the blackness was colder because my sense of her was gone. Snatched away like life by a pistol shot. DayStar must have sensed her talking to me.

I burned to go back to her. I knew better. With life in general, and with DayStar in particular, there was no going back. No, I had to bull this one through to the end. Through to my end if everyone’s warnings were right.

***
What I think of as the love theme for Samuel and Meilori :

***

LOVE ALWAYS WEARS A MASK_Friday's ROMANTIC CHALLENGE

It is time again for Friday’s ROMANTIC CHALLENGE.

This time Francine and Denise have given us : SHE LOVES ME/SHE LOVES ME NOT.

http://fridaynightwriters.blogspot.com/

My 400 word entry {early to hopefully spark more entries from others}

is from THE PATH BACK TO DAWN.

Hone Heke, the famous Maori warrior, Kirika, escaped Ningyo princess, and Blake Adamson are fleeing their enemies aboard the cursed Junk, THE BLADELESS SAMURAI.

They have just entered the stormy Sea of Fate. Hone grabs Blake to help him secure the rigging :



Hone grumbled something biologically impossible and tugged me after him and headed to the back of the Junk. The wind was picking up, smelling of lightning and rain.

We staggered against it. He motioned at some ropes. He made a tugging gesture towards his chest and nodded to me.

I got the idea and started cinching them up. He bent down close to my head and yelled above the storm.

“Are you crazy, Blake?”

“People keep asking me that. But why you?”

“Why me? Why the hell Kirika, of all pretty monsters?”

“M-Monster?”

“Yeah, that’s right, monster. Succubus.”

“Suck my what?”

He rolled his eyes and looked like he wanted to strangle me. “You do know what Ningyo’s are, don’t you, son?”

I nodded sadly. “Something like a soul vampire, aren’t they?”

This time he did grab my throat and gave me a shake. “Succubus, idiot. Succubus, as in ‘poke me while I leech you.’ I know she’s beautiful, but so is a coral snake. And you don’t go to bed with either one.”

He balled up his right fist, looking like he was deciding whether to break my jaw or my head. “Do you really have a death wish?”

“You said it yourself, sir. Idun’s Apple freed her from the need to feed.”

He squeezed my shoulder.

“From the need, yes. But not from the desire, son. I know she looks like a beautiful sixteen year old girl. But she’s not, Blake. She’s not even human. She’s a Ningyo, a being hundreds of years old.”

His eyes grew hollow. “Worse, she’s in love with you, son.”

“Worse? How can being in love with me be worse?”

"Because that means she's not thinking straight. She's gonna expect you to act like a centuries old Ningyo male. And when you don't, she's going to feel betrayed. And a betrayed Ningyo is a demon let loose from Hell."

His hand squeezed harder on my shoulder. "You're walking with your eyes wide shut into suicide."

His eyes flicked past my head. My heart sank. I turned around. Kirika.

She was standing stiff, her fingers coiling and uncoiling. Her once lovely face did seem a demon's. How could I unhurt her?

I couldn't. She had heard me being told she was a monster. There was only one thing I could think of that would balance the scales. Balance them and screw up my life.
***
Don't miss the great two sentence pitch contest at BEYOND WORDS :
http://chanellegray.blogspot.com/2011/07/pitch-contest-with-victoria-marini.html
***
***

Friday Romantic Challenge_UP,UP, & AWAY_NEW ORLEANS ARABESQUE

This Friday, Denise and Francine, have challenged us to do a romantic entry on the theme : UP, UP, AND AWAY :

http://fridaynightwriters.blogspot.com/

My 400 word entry is from the sequel to CREOLE KNIGHTS, NEW ORLEANS ARABESQUE.

My best friend, Sandra, loves books like THE BOURNE IDENTITY and THE DA VINCI CODE, so I made the middle of NEW ORLEANS ARABESQUE be a meld of both books.

Samuel McCord kneels by the murdered body of a young prostitute and promises her spirit that he will find those responsible.

Fulfilling that promise takes him around the world :
Amsterdam, Jerusalem, and finally to the secret catacombs beneath the Vatican.

Each face he meets is but a mask, hiding deceit and death. McCord has discovered the Pope is but a puppet. But who is pulling the strings?

With the loss of his beloved wife, Sam is looking for a good death that takes out two monsters : himself and the master puppeteer.

He opens the door to the Pope's bedchambers to ask the man himself :

The bedchambers were everything a Renaissance concubine’s should be. But I was breaking into the bedroom of the current Pope.

The almost dressed woman sprawled lazily on the ornate bed. Her satin dress should have had a case of the bends, it dipped so low in the front.

It was slit clear to her slender waist. A lot of shapely leg showed. The flesh of her breasts was white velvet. Her eyes were blue diamonds. Her long hair a hot sunset.

“Please close the door,” she murmured.

“Bartolomeo Veneziano didn’t do you justice, Miss Borgia.”

“What a flatterer you are, Samuel. And do call me Lucrezia.”

She patted on the red velvet spread beside her. “Sit.”

Her voice was husky with desire. Tough. Since Meilori left me, I was a dry well. I walked to her bed and sat.

Lucrezia had insane eyes. They said she was a law onto herself, and she recognized no code but her own hungers. She studied me.

“Want to see my teeth?,” I asked.

She bubbled the laugh of a psychopath, “Oh, you already have justified the cost of poor Stanley’s life.”

“Was that his name?”

She laughed again. “My second real laugh in untold years."

I doubted that. She probably laughed at the pleas of each victim.

"My, you are a bargain. You didn’t know his name, nor the magnitude of the organization you were fighting?”

“No.”

Her lips twisted Cheshire style. “You didn’t have a clue?”

“Seldom do.”

Lucrezia's smile became full Cheshire. “So you killed a sociopath and took on a worldwide empire -- all for the sake of a raped whore?”

She sneered. “Raping a whore. Is that even a crime?”

“It is to me. She was fifteen years old.”

“She was dead while she lived.”

“She was human. Seeing as how I’m not any more, that means a lot to me.”

“What exactly are you?”

“A monster.”

Her fingers softly stroked the back of my gloved right hand. “You call yourself a monster?”

“Yes. And I’ll suffer the fate of all monsters.”

“Which is?”

“To die alone, unloved, and unmourned.”

Her face flinched as if I had hurt her somehow.

She shook her living waterfall of hair.

“Have you not pieced it together yet? I have studied you ever since you clashed with the Alumbrados in 1847. I have engineered all of this just to meet you.”

She eased closer. “We two are alone as no other on this earth.”

Lucrezia wet her parted lips. “We could share that aloneness.”
***

(Come sit down with me at Meilori's and hear Over the Rhine singing "Sharpest Blade.")

ROMANTIC FRIDAY_FORGOTTEN?_WITH THE SOFT VOICE OF TWILIGHT (388 words)

Once again, it is time to be romantic in a challenge. The challenge this time from Denise and Francine

is to write on the theme : FORGOTTEN.

http://fridaynightwriters.blogspot.com/

My entry is entitled "WITH THE SOFT VOICE OF TWILIGHT" from my urban fantasy, FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE

(a review of which can be seen on the gracious Wendy Ewurum's FABULOSITY NOUVEAU :

http://fabulositynouveau.blogspot.com/2011/06/french-nocturne-book-review-by-roland.html )

Samuel McCord and his best friend, the vampire priest, Father Renfield, are walking across the Katrina-damaged Tulane campus on their way to a rendezvous with Death ( an old tradition with the two old friends.):

With the soft voice of twilight, ghost music sang in my memory. It was accompanied by the chorus of the whispers of the wind from the listening sky.

I closed my eyes. New Orleans was timeless, especially to me with the blood of Death in my veins.

My transformed eyes only told me the truth, and the truth was not what I wanted to see. So I closed my eyes, and for a moment the truth was what I wanted it to be.

Meilori was back in my arms, supple and vibrant, the peach velvet of her cheek nestled against mine. She pulled back to murmur "Beloved."

Slanted eyes looked up into mine, seeming like jade quarter moons waiting to rise.

Her smile was a promise of wicked delights to come in the evening hours before us. And my heart quickened.

Her hand lightly squeezed my gloved one. Her head bent forward, and soft lips tickled my ear.

And we were dancing, dancing as if our bodies were the wind given life. It had taken me a hundred years,

but I had learned to be a damn fine dancer. The firm body in my arms had been ample incentive.

Some moments lose their way and grope their way blindly back from the past into the present. Such a moment swept me up now.

Meilori and I were dancing across this very grass. I had paid a prince's ransom to pry King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band out of Tulane's old gymnasium to play out here under the stars.

Renfield rasped beside me, "Sam, are you doing this?"

"What?"

I opened my eyes and went still.

The speechless shades of a long-gone night whirled and wheeled all around us.

That long-ago evening was replaying itself before our eyes. Renfield and Magda were laughing as they danced beside Meilori and me.

Renfield sighed, "I'd forgotten how your face looked happy."

I looked at my ghostly double, envying him the sheer delight in his eyes. "I'd forgotten how it felt."

The sound of my words settled an old score with truth, and the evening shades slowly faded from sight.

I shivered. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Renfield look wistfully at the disappearing Magda in his own double's arms. I sighed along with Renfield. Some truths were best seen only by starlight.

***