THERE IS IN THE NIGHT THE RUSTLE AS IF OF WINGS

From the living nightmare world of a 12 year old Sammy Clemens in Missouri 

to

a nocturnal campfire visit from Pele beside a 31 year old Mark Twain in the Sandwich Islands 

to

a cursed archaeological dig in 1895 Egypt with Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Nikola Tesla, and his alien wife, Empress Meilori Shinseen

Samuel McCord has seen untold horrors.

The worst is yet to be unveiled: the monster within the woman he loves with all his heart.

The End is coming.  The portents murmur in the stars.  Death is on the breeze, and madness dances in the darkness.

Awakened Evil slithers from its opened crypt.

Can one cursed Texas Ranger manage to save the world AND his marriage?

The answers are in the next SAMUEL McCORD adventure:

COMING SOON

DEATH IN THE HOUSE OF LIFE

{Cover courtesy of the genius of Leonora Roy}

It is the time of death, disease, and war in Egypt --

normal conditions for all of its 5000 year history.

The year is 1895.  Ten years earlier General Gordon died in the seige of Khartoum, fighting alongside McCord-Pasha. 

Six months later,  Muhammad Ahmad, the self-proclaimed Mahdi died mysteriously.

Many whispered, "McCord-Pasha still lives."

In 1895, cholera has killed 150,000 -- among them those who would enslave the peasants and seize the land for themselves.

The whispers increase, "McCord-Pasha is angry."

Lady Meilori Shinseen, millennia ago called Sekhmet, merely smiles.

It was said that her breath formed the desert. As a Ningyo, able to manipulate all fluids, Sekhmet and her people happily drained the land dry.

Now, Sekhmet has returned for her aegis and should she succeed, nations will tremble before her and thousands die.

And with the genius, Nikola Tesla, at her side, Sekhmet may well possess her aegis again.

McCord-Pasha has to think of a way to save the world without destroying his marriage

while keeping British operatives from re-capturing Oscar Wilde, whom he and Samuel Clemens just broke out of Reading Goal.

But beneath the ruins of Tanis slumbers Something that should never be awakened.

Once again, the world is on the brink of Chaos with only the wits and courage of McCord-Pasha to push it back.

This November I will be working on this novel.  Not for NaNoWriMo. 

This novel has seized me, and it will not let me go.  Wish me luck on it.  I will still write my posts never fear.  :-)

CREEPY FREEBIES THE TRIQUEL

Check out the full descriptions of Creepy Freebies at Milo James Fowler’s blog: In Media Res

Milo is proud this Friday to  host
 Ellie Garratt, Jeff Chapman, Anthony J. Rapino, and Lyndon Perry.

and of course
as fellow participant, I offer yet another FREE BOOK: 

 

"Look not out to the sea at night.

Nor listen to its awful murmurs

hints of drowned souls

'Neath its ink-black waves.

 

Ancient is the sea.

Older than Man.

Reluctant to give life.

Eager to take it.

 

The Sea binds us to her,

whispering in odd gleams upon waves,

hiding cold life which reigned long before we knew

our lungs were not gills.

 

Look not deep under its dark ripples

Nor upon its slick, black bottom where

Nameless Things worship stone idols,

praying for the land to sink,

and they again to reign."

 

- Meilori Shinseen.

 

FREE THIS FRIDAY
AND
ALL THIS WEEKEND!

 

 

http://www.amazon.com/RITES-OF-PASSAGE-Roland-Yeomans-ebook/dp/B004XQVPYM/ref=pd_sim_kstore_1

 

Samuel McCord's earliest adventure,

hunting a murderess wearing the face of her victim

and sailing into the Bermuda Triangle

aboard a ship filled with the undead.

For a limited time, you can catch up on E J Wesley's
Moonsongs series for just .99 cents (regularly $2.99) -
Moonsongs Anthology 1 (books 1, 2, & 3) is on sale October 15th - 20th at Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

W is for OSCAR WILDE_Lost and Found in the Past

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde

(16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900)

was an Irish writer and poet.

After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s.

Today he is remembered for his epigrams, plays and the circumstances of his imprisonment, followed by his early death.

But not in my mythos. Oscar is all too alive, holding court in his own chambers deep within the haunted jazz club, Meilori's.

Here is an excerpt of Sam McCord visiting him for what may be the last time from CREOLE KNIGHTS:


I looked around me. Everyone was so caught up in their own words and thoughts that they hadn't even noticed my arrival.

Oscar, dressed as always as the most colorful of peacocks but as tall as an ostrich, was bending his head next to the hot sunset of Cora's hair.

He laughed. Then, he smiled and spoke to both the courtesan and de Morny in a gossip’s whisper.

"You ask what I stole from the good Captain. Why his words, of course. One evening I spied what he was writing to his beloved Meilori and quite brazenly used them in my letter to my wife, Constance, that I was writing at the same time."

Cora hushed, "You actually read one of his love letters to Lady Meilori?"

"Indeed and borrowed from it quite boldly. What were those words now? Ah, yes:

'What can I tell you by letter? Nothing that I would tell you in person. The message of love travels not by pen and ink. Your presence here would not make you any more real, for I feel your fingers in my hair, and your cheek brushing mine. The air is full of the music of your voice, my soul and body seem no longer mine but mingled in some strange way with yours. I feel incomplete without you. Always and Forever, Samuel.'"

 "Of course I signed my own --"

Oscar tilted his head, stiffened as he heard the chiming of my spurs. His eyes met mine. He turned pale.

"S-Sam, I meant no harm."

"None taken, Ostrich. In fact, I'm honored that a poet like yourself didn't feel diminished borrowing from an weary pilgrim like me."

Cora's fingers went to her mouth. "Sam, you look --"

"--like hell? You just came from the Demeter. Me? I came here through my night club in New Orleans ... a few years after that voyage."

Comte de Morny wasn't called the shark of Paris for nothing. His mind was quick. His eyes even quicker.

"How few would that be, Captain? Your face seems about the same. But your eyes ...."

"They've seen a few more sights than they wanted, Comte."

Oscar looked uncomfortable. "You can't blame them for being curious, Uncle Sam. It never hurts to ask."

I made a face. "Unless you ask for hurt."

Oscar looked pained. "I would not have had you heard me talk about Meilori, Sam. I know when she left you seven years ago --"

Cora looked shocked. "S-She left you? But you and she are so much in love."

Oscar snorted, "Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same."

Cora frowned, "You two are married? And still she left you?"

I shrugged. "She seems to think my heart left her first."

Cora's long fingers tenderly touched my cheek, staring up at me. "No one who could see the loss in your eyes would believe that."

Oscar sighed, "One of the many things you learn in prison is that things are what they are and will be what they will be."

DeMorny cocked his balding head. "Meaning?"

"Meaning that selfishness is not living as one wishes but demanding that others live that way as well. Meilori wanted Sam to be both what he is and what she wanted him to be. An impossible demand."

"Maybe," I said. "Or maybe I threw away a treasure because I wasn't smart enough to find a way to keep it."

Oscar's sad eyes bored into mine. "Ordinary riches can be stolen or lost. Real riches cannot. In your soul, Sam, are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you. Not even by you. The love you still have for Meilori is one of those things."

I grasped his shoulder firm. "That's why I come here, Ostrich. You help put things into perspective for me."
***

MANKIND SHARES A SOUNDTRACK

Mankind shares a soundtrack.

Science assures us of that.

Experts in all fields are singing the same tune.

Anthropologists, evolutionary biologists, neurosurgeons, and psychologists


 have all come to the same conclusion while taking different paths to reach it.

They believe the "musical" area in the brain created human nature.

Music is as universal as language.

It predates agriculture. Some scientists believe it even existed before language, its melodies promoting the cognitive devolopment necessary for speech.

Americans spend more money on music than they do on prescription drugs or sex. The average American spends more than five hours a day listening to it. Obviously, it is important to us.

It is important to FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE as well.

 http://www.amazon.com/FRENCH-QUARTER-NOCTURNE-ebook/dp/B004YTMNRG

And with a title like that that, it should come as no surprise. It is important to the lead character, Samuel McCord, too.

It is no coincidence that he owns a jazz club. A jazz club he named after his wife, Meilori.

Music to him has become a remembrance of shadows, an echo of times spent with friends, and a glimpse into a time when he was loved.

He is a monster who mourns the loss of his humanity. So much so that he nutures it in the souls of those who pass his club, lost and hungry.

McCord sees life in terms of music.

When he first views the flooded streets of New Orleans, he hears Bette Midler singing, "I think It's Going To Rain Today," especially the refrain "human kindness is overflowing."

He championed the tragic jazz legend, Billie Holiday. His wife's favorite song was Billie's "You Go To My Head." He often hears it throughout the novel.

And when he is facing his death before overwhelming odds, he once again hears that song before murmuring the one name he promised himself would be the last on his lips : "Meilori."

Here is the Canadian legend, Diana Krall, singing YOU GO TO MY HEAD:  {I like to think of this video as Diana rehearsing in the smoky haze of Meilori's.}

I is for INARI_Twilight Women

Inari.

Fox goddess. Let not her path cross yours.

And should any foxes fall into your hands, let your fingers be gentle lest the fate of the Death Stone descend upon you.

Inari has an important place in Japanese legend.

She appears a seductive woman, going from life to life. Inari is a bewitching creature of alluring but destructive power, a Japanese version of Fata Morgana.

Here is how Samuel McCord met her aboard the cursed Demeter in RITES OF PASSAGE:



A voice both silky and dangerous spoke from the darkness to my right. "Laughter, Meilori? I have not heard that from you in so long I believed I never would a--"

The tall woman in the green and gold Victorian gown stepped out of the fog and stopped in mid-sentence. Her fingers went to the odd necklace of tiny, elegant mirrors about her neck. She stared at me. I stared back.

It might have been impolite, but it wasn't every day you saw a lady whose shadow told the truth behind the illusion.

Behind her head was a shadow, not of a woman’s long hair, but the wrinkling muzzle of a fox.

I forced the shock and fear from my face. She wasn't the first Animal Person I had met in my travels. But Elu had taught me in the Pajarito Mountains that the fastest way to get dead was to show weakness or fear in front of them.

I sighed. Elu had tried to warn me this hunt was different. But I never listened - until it was too late.

The fox-woman pulled herself up tall and bristled, "And what do you think you are looking at?"

Obviously, she had woven some spell that disguised her from humans. Unfortunately for her, I wasn't human. Not anymore. But there was no point in letting on I could see through her disguise, though her look said she had guessed I could. Best to keep her guessing.

"Reckon I'm looking at the Lady Inari your friend mentioned."

I saw her feral eyes narrow. I sighed as I looked deep into them. Though they glittered with the promise of violence, they held depths hollowed out by pain and grief.

She cocked her head at me, her eyes opening in more ways than one. "Compassion from a human?"

"Has that really been so rare, ma'am?"

"Yes."

I nodded. "For me, too, for what it's worth."

Lady Inari husked, "And how have you handled it, fleshling?"

"Badly. Got tired of being hurt, of being let down by hope. So I've retreated deep inside myself. Deep down where my spirit can't be destroyed completely."

Meilori asked low, "And does it work?"

"Not really. I got what I wanted but not what I needed. My blood-brother warned me if I keep on staying deep inside myself I’ll go blind."

Lady Inari frowned, "How blind?"

"Blind to all the things that make life worth living."

Meilori said, "I would like to meet this blood-brother of yours."

"He ... passed on."

She whispered, "Then, you, too, are alone."

Inari's head jerked up at that, and to keep things from getting out of hand, I said, "He's always with me."

Meilori nodded and looked tenderly at Lady Inari. "As with me as well."

That looked like it pacified Inari some, and Meilori turned to me. "It ought to be different for beings such as we."

"There is no ought," I smiled sad, "Life just is. You often time will find that things don't turn out the way you planned."

The two women looked at each other. The twilight seemed to grow darker around them, closing me out.

They seemed to have been born to live in the night. "Twilight Women" Elu called them. He had warned me to stay away from such.
***

D is for DEMETER_Breathtaking Passage

http://www.amazon.com/RITES-OF-PASSAGE-ebook/dp/B004XQVPYM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1332708974&sr=1-1

THE DEMETER.

The cursed transatlantic steamer where, in 1853, Samuel McCord first met the love of his life, Lady Meilori Shinseen and his Moriarty, DayStar.

Here is a scene that describes its fabled saloon:

I hushed in a breath.

Meilori chuckled soft. "Indeed, Demeter's saloon is one of a kind, Samuel."

Lady Inari, the fox woman, purred, "Yes, it has been said it is the most beautiful room yet seen on an Atlantic liner."

I had no words.

The place seemed fit for Queen Victoria. White marble vaulted ceiling, a marble dome pierced with scarlet stained-glass, and polished oak walls, adorned with gold-trimed runes and patterns from Assyrian myth.

Long, white clothed tables, lined with plush, thick cushioned chairs. Mirrors, ornate and glittering from the spinning chandeliers, gleamed from the freshly varnished walls. Shelves of liquors, wines, and other beverages dotted the spaces where paintings from old masters left them room.

The room was enormous, at least 50 feet wide and a 100 feet long. The walls I would have guessed to be ten feet high. Their dark, polished wood were lightened by windows, mirrors, and vertical nicello panels.

The white marble ceiling soared up into a long, rectangular vaulting arch, peaking at what seemed about 25 feet. I studied the Renaissance-styled stained-glass windows which curled up and down across the arch.

They depicted much too graphic scenes of the war in Heaven, Lucifer being cast down, and fallen angels having rather a good time at the expense of mortals. Gas lights between the inner and protective outer windows gave them a nightmarish life of their own.

I felt a chill in the marrow of my bones.

At the half-moon of gabled space between the lower walls and the top of the arch was an enclove where a small group of musicians held court with classical melodies.

The sprawling saloon was dotted with clustered groups of the aristocracy of Europe and Britain and the elite of America. I recognized a few from my travels and reading.

Being what I was, I could see the fires of life kindle in hues of vanity, greed, and cruelty around their bodies. I barely gave them a moment of my attention.

My gaze was riveted on the other half of the occupants. The half whose bodies were without one flicker of life-fires.

The undead half.

Meilori saw the look on my face and misunderstood, smiling, "Breathtaking is it not?"

I nodded, not having the proper words.

Breathtaking was certainly the word for how I felt about the view. It made me fit right on in with the flat-eyed predators I was watching. They had stopped taking breaths long, long ago.

Elu had tried to warn me.

This wasn't a pleasure cruise. It was a stocked pond. And I had paid $2000 to jump into the middle of it. Kind of put a whole new meaning to the words : Let The Buyer Beware.
***

SHAPE OF HER HEART_Friday's Romantic Challenge

She wears my ring.

That is Friday's Romantic challenge given us by Denise Covey:

http://romanticfridaywriters.blogspot.com/

This is an excerpt {444 words} from NEW ORLEANS ARABESQUE (from a chapter told through the eyes of Victor Standish):

The shouting was deafening. "Mei-lo-ri! Mei-lo-ri!"

Sam and I hurried out of my room to the balcony, overlooking the front of the jazz club. I swallowed hard. It was filled to overflowing with Ningyos brandishing swords in a frenzy of devotion to the regal wife of my father, Sam McCord.

Sam rasped, "She wears my ring."

I looked up. "That's a good thing, right?"

"It is the ring of King Solomon."

I went cold. "The one that controls demons?"

Meilori answered for me as she called out to her devoted followers. "Long have you questioned me marrying a barbarian. But see? Now, I possess his ring that will have an army of demons sweeping the world clean of the filth of humanity. Clean for us to rule!"

Sam's face looked like he'd been gut-shot. "No. No."

Meilori's face beamed as she spoke, "When first I met the barbarian, he was wearing this ring. And I knew to possess it, I first had to possess him!"

This was ancient Greek tragedy plotting worthy of Medea or Elektra. I looked to Sam. He weaved as if faint. I went a little crazy. No one hurt Captain Sam when I was around.

"Yo, she-bitch!" I yelled, walking across the balcony, right up to her.

"No,Victor" rasped Sam. "You don't know the shape of her heart."

I said, "What shape does a vacuum have?"

Meilori sneered at me. "Speaks the bastard son of my husband."

I laughed, "Better than your son, your Hind-Ass. There aren't enough scalding baths in the world to wash me clean if I were yours."

She reared back her ring hand, her fingers now straight to slap me. Sucker. I moved through the seconds, plucking Solomon's ring from her finger, tossing it back to Captain Sam.

Beside Meilori, dagger in hand, her Prime Minister gasped, "Impossible! No one can take Solomon's ring as long as the wearer lives!"

I snorted, "Sure they can, your pompousness. Anyone who doesn't want the ring for him or herself can do ...."

Sfumato.

I saw it hit the Prime Minister as fast as it did me. With him standing behind Meilori, his dagger took on a whole new meaning.

This whole scene had been a ruse, planned by Meilori and Sam. Meilori could take Solomon's ring from Sam because she hadn't meant to keep it in the first place. This had all been a set-up to draw out the real ....

"Traitor!" snapped Sam, and I heard his Colt bark once.

The Prime Minister reeled to the carpet dead, the dagger still in his hand. Meilori arched a cool eyebrow to me.

"Standish, despite what the arrogance of youth believes, we adults know what we are doing."

Her brows knitted together dangerously. "Now, about that 'she-bitch' remark ...."

I sighed. Ever have one of those lives?

I'M HEARING VOICES + FRIDAY ROMANCE CHALLENGE

BLOOD WILL TELL HAS JUST HIT #23 ON AMAZON'S TOP 100 BEST SELLING CONTEMPORARY FANTASY BOOKS!

http://www.amazon.com/BLOOD-WILL-TELL-ebook/dp/B0050219BW

I'M HEARING VOICES challenge is :

Emotion Flash Fiction -

Emotion is the engine of a story. Pick an emotion and in a flash fiction piece of 250 words MAKE us feel it! We want to connect with your character.

It is also time for another Friday ROMANTIC CHALLENGE given by the always fascinating Francine Howarth and Denise Covey.

Today's theme is THE LONG, COOL APHRODIASIC.

My 400 word entry is from the sequel to my CREOLE KNIGHTS :

NEW ORLEANS ARABESQUE (in the process of being written.)

The cosmic conjunctions have aligned. The Nameless Ones strain at the unraveling barrier between them and our world.

After 7 years, Maija has released her sister, Meilori, from the bubble of frozen time in which she encased her in a trap of deceit.

Why?

To see her face when she tells Meilori that her beloved Samuel McCord lies dead by the tentacles of an exiled Nameless One he killed before dying.

The undead rabbi, Ben Teradion, is comforting the devastated Ningyo. He is Death’s measure to stop the invasion of The Nameless Ones.

Maija turns to mock the rabbi with the truth of his role, not realizing you simply cannot kill a man whom Death will not take. Shrouded in the Threads of Night, Samuel McCord, bleeding and battered, stands invisible beside her :

Maija laughed. “Death saved you for tonight, rabbi, to speak the name God gave Himself, that when uttered outside the Holy Temple would rend the very universe.”

Ben Teradion said, “No!”

Meilori whispered, “Death has come to revel in the end of life. For her, the death of the entire universe would be ecstasy.”

Ben Teradion husked, “But then --”

Maija nodded. “Nothing stands in the way of the Ningyo Empire to re-enter our home plane.”

The rabbi cried, “No! The Nameless Ones would return to our world!”

“Who cares?”

Meilori gestured, black energy hissing at the ends of her fingertips. “Samuel would have cared.”

The other Ningyo’s circled her as Maija husked, “Now, you die.”

I dropped the Threads of Night. “Don’t make me spank you.”

Maija yelped, “McCord!”

Meilori took a half-step back. “Samuel!”

“Do I know you?”

She looked as if I’d knifed her, and I regretted my joke. “For seven years, what got me around each corner was the hope of seeing you there waiting for me.”

She mewed like a kitten and rushed into my arms, her lips hungrily seeking mine. An electric connection completed deep inside me. The world made sense again.

I was home.

A trilling vibrated around us. Maija’s portal was opening.

I heard feet. The Ningyo’s were about to jump us.

“Padre, trust me. Say God’s name!”

Maija leapt forward. The rabbi bellowed.

His lips worked as if he shouted one word, but I heard the sentence he said two thousand years before as he burned before the Roman emperor.

“The parchment burns, but the words fly free!”

The sound flowed into nothing human --

as if Life had come to know itself by the simple act of hearing it.

It came from all directions. The lower notes rumbled as if from the depths of the earth. Higher vibrations trilled as if from the stars in heaven.

I was a human tuning fork, the marrow of my bones trembling. The vibrations cascaded around me and Meilori in a waterfall of sound.

Her jade eyes, first wild with fear, soon grew as deep as the love I felt for her and she for me. A sunburst exploded with us in its burning honey center.

For the first time in two hundred years, I felt warm. Meilori smiled, then kissed me.

The universe might be ending. I didn’t mind. In her arms, I was finally home.
***

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."

***

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 :

***

COMING HOME_NEW ORLEANS ARABESQUE

It is time for another Friday ROMANTIC CHALLENGE given by the always fascinating Francine Howarth and Denise Covey.

Today's theme is COMING HOME.

My 400 word entry is from the sequel to my CREOLE KNIGHTS : NEW ORLEANS ARABESQUE (in the process of being written.)

The cosmic conjunctions have aligned. The Nameless Ones strain at the unraveling barrier between them and our world.

After 7 years, Maija has released her sister, Meilori, from the bubble of frozen time in which she encased her in a trap of deceit.

Why?

To see her face when she tells Meilori that her beloved Samuel McCord lies dead by the tentacles of an exiled Nameless One he killed before dying.

The undead rabbi, Ben Teradion, is comforting the devastated Ningyo. He is Death’s measure to stop the invasion of The Nameless Ones.

Maija turns to mock the rabbi with the truth of his role, not realizing you simply cannot kill a man whom Death will not take. Shrouded in the Threads of Night, Samuel McCord, bleeding and battered, stands invisible beside her :



Maija laughed. “Death saved you for tonight, rabbi, to speak the name God gave Himself, that when uttered outside the Holy Temple would rend the very universe.”

Ben Teradion said, “No!”

Meilori whispered, “Death has come to revel in the end of life. For her, the death of the entire universe would be ecstasy.”

Ben Teradion husked, “But then --”

Maija nodded. “Nothing stands in the way of the Ningyo Empire to re-enter our home plane.”

The rabbi cried, “No! The Nameless Ones would return to our world!”

“Who cares?”

Meilori gestured, black energy hissing at the ends of her fingertips. “Samuel would have cared.”

The other Ningyo’s circled her as Maija husked, “Now, you die.”

I dropped the Threads of Night. “Don’t make me spank you.”

Maija yelped, “McCord!”

Meilori took a half-step back. “Samuel!”

“Do I know you?”

She looked as if I’d knifed her, and I regretted my joke. “For seven years, the hope of seeing you again got me up each morning.”

She mewed like a kitten and rushed into my arms, her lips hungrily seeking mine. An electric connection completed deep inside me. The world made sense again.

I was home.

A trilling vibrated around us. Maija’s portal was opening.

I heard feet. The Ningyo’s were about to jump us.

“Padre, trust me. Say God’s name!”

Maija leapt forward. The rabbi bellowed.

His lips worked as if he shouted one word, but I heard the sentence he said two thousand years before as he burned before the Roman emperor.

“The parchment burns, but the words fly free!”

The sound flowed into nothing human --

as if Life had come to know itself by the simple act of hearing it.

It came from all directions. The lower notes rumbled as if from the depths of the earth. Higher vibrations trilled as if from the stars in heaven.

I was a human tuning fork, the marrow of my bones trembling. The vibrations cascaded around me and Meilori in a waterfall of sound.

Her jade eyes, first wild with fear, soon grew as deep as the love I felt for her and she for me. A sunburst exploded with us in its burning honey center.

For the first time in two hundred years, I felt warm. Meilori smiled, then kissed me.

The universe might be ending. I didn’t mind. In her arms, I was finally home.
***

FRIDAY ROMANTIC CHALLENGE_THE NIGHT I DIED

Due to my work schedule, Thursday has become Friday!

Don't you hate when work does that to you?

Denise and Francine have given us the theme, LOVE HURTS :

http://fridaynightwriters.blogspot.com/

My 399 word entry is from CREOLE KNIGHTS :

Samuel McCord is walking deep into his club to face what he believes will be his last showdown. Before he dies, he wants to say goodbye to an old friend, Oscar Wilde.

Sam is wearing the spurs of Hephaestus. The first artifact the Olympian made. A gift for Aphrodite. A gift which maimed him. Finding them long ago, Samuel had given them back to Hephaestus, hoping the Olympian could undo the past.

Not even Olympians can do that miracle. And so, Hepaestus both loved and hated Samuel for the attempt.

In the chamber which is Wilde's eternal party, Samuel finds him speaking to the courtesan Cora Pearl and Count de Morny, old friends from his days aboard the cursed DEMETER :

I walked into the chamber. The piano changed tunes mid-chord. Beethovan's Moonlight Sonata began.

I turned to see who was playing. I saw grim features under shaggy brows. Hephaestus.

Oscar Wilde was bending his head next to the cold sunrise of Cora's hair. He laughed. Then, he smiled and spoke to both the courtesan and Count de Morny in low conspiratory tones.

"You ask what I stole from Samuel. Why his words, of course. One evening I spied what he was writing to his beloved Meilori."

Cora hushed, "You actually read one of his love letters to Lady Meilori?"

"Indeed. What were the words? Ah, yes :

'What can I tell you by letter? Nothing that I would tell you in person.

The heart of love travels not by pen and ink. Your presence here would not make you any more real, for I feel your fingers in my hair, and your cheek brushing mine.

The air is full of the music of your voice. My soul and body seem no longer mine but mingled in some strange way with yours.

I feel incomplete without you.

Always and Forever, Samuel.'"

Hephaestus glanced at my spurs as he played. The Olympian's fingers sparkled magic.

A day seven years dead echoed around me. The night Meilori left me. The night I died.

Hephaestus had been playing the Moonlight Sonata then, too. He must truly hate me to make me relive it.

Once again I smelled her jasmine perfume, looked into jade eyes narrowing in rage, heard her velvet voice becoming ice.

"You are leaving my side for her?"

"I'm only trying to make sure the adoption goes through, Meilori.Eve is Mossad. I'm having to pull every string I have left in Israel to insure ..."

" ... your whore has a family for you."

"No, Meilori. You're my family, my world."

"I ... I cannot give you children -- so you make that wanton ..."

"You know Eve's not that way."

"I know? I have seen how she looks at you. You must think me blind. Kiss me, Samuel. Kiss me the liar's kiss that says 'I love you' but means you only love yourself."

She slapped me and stormed out of the chamber and into the night, taking with her my soul.

I jerked at the memory. The pain jolted me back into the present. Hephaestus smiled.
***

ADRIFT IN THE TIME STREAM

Come. Sit with me at McCord's table. He will arrive eventually.

Who am I? Once that question would have disturbed me.

But since my friendship with McCord, I understand that the artist should have a different ambition than to be remembered.

It is my ambition to be, as a private individual, abolished and voided from history,

leaving it markless, no refuse save the printed books.

I wish I had enough sense to see ahead thirty years ago,

and like some of the Elizabethans, not signed them.

It is my aim, and every effort bent, that the sum and history of my life, which in the same sentence is my obit and epitaph too,

shall be them both: He made the books and he died.

Who am I?

I am William Faulkner,

and much of my perceptions were shaped here in McCord's legendary jazz club, Meilori's.

Meilori’s :

the center, the focus, the hub; sitting looming in the center of the French Quarter’s circumference

like a single cloud in its ring of horizon,

laying its vast shadow to the uttermost rim of horizon; musing, brooding, symbolic and imponderable,

tall as clouds, solid as rock, dominating all: protector of the weak, judge and curb of the passions and lusts, repository and guardian of the aspirations and hopes of the helpless.

Here, McCord and I would talk about everything :

How words go straight up in a thin line, quick and harmless,

and how terribly living goes along the earth, clinging to it,

so that after a while the two lines are too far apart for the same person to straddle from one to the other.

That sin and love and fear are just sounds that people who never sinned nor loved nor feared have for what they never had and cannot have until they have forgotten the words.

The world in minuscule would be scoured by our words. The shadows themselves seemed to gather around our table to listen to us where glass and bottle clinked.

The three potted palms around us hissed like dry sand in the dark moving air.

I can hear him still :

“All life asks is to look at it and listen to it and understand it if you can. Only the understanding it isn’t really important.

The important thing is to believe in life even if you don’t understand it.”

I can hear him laugh.

“Not that you’ll ever get it quite right. But that’s all right. Because tomorrow

Life is going to be something different, something more and new to watch and listen to and try to understand …

and even if you can’t understand, believe.”

Believe.

Know.

I thought I knew what I believed in about life. Until that night when McCord asked me to his table to talk of a mysterious 75th year anniversary.

He talked of impossible things in such a way that I believed. He held his tale fixed yet vibrant so that seventy-five years later, when I, a stranger looked at it, it moved again since truth is living.

If you would be caught up in his narrative as I was caught up, read ADRIFT IN THE TIME STREAM.

If you would gaze upon the timeless beauty of Meilori, alas, you cannot. But one mortal woman comes close ...