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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.”
***
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.")
