WHAT IS MORE REAL THAN REAL?

How does a writer make science fiction {or fantasy for that matter} real? This does not preclude movies or TV, for without the script all you would have are good-looking actors gazing at one another -- or into mirrors. More likely the last.

Well, for one thing, you have to make the science plausible. And let's face it, some writers are better sellers of the impossible than others. It's why we have gotten the presidents we have in the past. Let's nail those dastardly speech-writers with rotten tomatoes, shall we?

But all joking aside, the science in the tales has to be internally consistent, not change from page to page. Still more importantly, life must be seen taking its toll. Heads must rock back by the thrust of the rockets. Nausea must make stomachs feel like high-tide in zero gravity spins.

Life must hurt. It does for all of us. It must for the characters we watch or we will not believe in them.

We will not buy a story where there is cause without effect. That is why STAR WARS seems more real {despite its space opera elements} than STAR TREK. The blast doors have scorch marks. The Millenium Falcon has dings and dents. Solo must whallop the door facing of the cockpit to jar the tangled wiring loose enough to fire up the engines. The good guys lose, die, and the survivors feel it in their guts. A father cuts off the right hand of his son. Children, a whole school of them, are cut down by one evil man with a light saber. The evil emperor wipes out the Jedi and rules the galaxy for a generation of terror and oppression.

In life, the bad guys sometimes win. If science fiction or fantasy is to be experienced as "real," then night must fall as it does in the day of each of us. Isn't the true thrill of the dawn based on the depth of darkness to the night preceeding it?

That is why, in a strange way, science fiction can be more "real" than literary fiction. Gene Roddenberry tackled subjects like prejudice, duplicity in war with its betrayed trust of innocents, pacifism in the face of threat, and religious intolerance at a time in the sixties that no other TV show could have done. And because Gene tackled those subjects that were all too real to his audience, the crew of the Enterprise became real to the viewers as well.

VOYAGER lost sight of that fact. One episode whole shuttles would be destroyed, the ship itself broadsided by raking lasers. And the next week, the ship would be spotless and a new shuttle would be gleaming in the bay. BATTLESTAR GALATICA showed us wires hanging from the ceiling of the battered starship episode after episode. Mistakes of crewmen would hound them from show to show. Just like our own mistakes follow at our heels for years. Even more, it showed Mankind's arrogance and callousness coming back in the form of his children, the Cylons, to teach humanity that payback is a terrible thing to waste.

Each of us are heading to that last great Exit. Some of us are closer than we realize. As we walk, are we awake or asleep? THE MATRIX and TOTAL RECALL, to mention two Sci-Fi movies, ask that question of us. It is a question that only we can answer. Good science fiction can broaden our perspective to answer it more truthfully.

Again, I am musing in preparation for my two talks at the CON DU LAC Sci-Fi convention here in Lake Charles in June. Come check out its website, will you? http://www.condulac.net/.

And there was one excellent fantasy movie that connected to viewers because it paid attention to the details of life : its losses, its loves, and its enduring hope that the next dawn would be brighter if only you would not give up.




And readers, never give up. Never. Your dream may be waiting for you just around the corner if you will only take those next few steps. Keep walking. Keep trying. I'll be pulling for you that your dream clasps your hand in the darkness, pulling you into the light, Roland

CAPTAIN OUTRAGEOUS

CAPTAIN OUTRAGEOUS. That's the working title to the Young Adult novel I'm currently writing. Think Auntie Mame meets The Twilight Zone meets Hondo.

A twelve year old abandoned boy has become something of a Ulysses by necessity. A smart remark on his lips and trouble at his heels. Always one jump ahead of street gangs, foster home agents, and assorted petty criminals, Victor Standish finds himself in a strange section of the French Quarter where his fast thinking may not be fast enough. Two storms are coming. Katrina is one. The other is a brewing war in the Shadowlands where neither side may be the right one.

And in the center of them both is the mysterious undead jazz club owner, Captain Samuel McCord. Can the boy trust him? And can either one of them survive the coming storms? And what will be the price if they do?

The only things that are certain : Victor's knack for getting into trouble, his wise cracks, and the growing bond between him and the undead former Texas Ranger, Captain Samuel McCord.

Here is the first chapter :

Chapter One

WHERE THE SHADOWS ARE HUNGRY
I was at the wrong end of a dead end alley in the French Quarter. But don't get any romantic images in your head. It was the kind of alley where wino's holed up in to die.

Which was fitting seeing as how I was going to die there.

I wasn't alone. There were four punks right in front of me. Butt ugly. Mean mad. My friends they weren't. In deep shit I was.

Story of the twelve years of my sorry gypsy life.

The leader {picture a phone booth with a head on it} cracked his meaty knuckles. "You're dead, shrimp."

Sad to say that wasn't the first time I'd heard those words. What was even sadder was how many times I had heard them. But in a way that was a good thing. I had thought my way out of each and every one of those other times.

But not this time. The game plan wasn't me living. It was them dying.

Phone Booth in front of me had killed Old Suze. Now, she and I hadn't known each other for very long. But the old lady had taken pity on me when Mother had dumped me at the bus station and split for the 5th time. I kept count. You keep track of those sort of things.

How Mother kept finding me from city to city I never knew. Why she dumped me I knew. A new boyfriend. She never kept one long.

Which wasn't surprising. She was attracted to bad boys. And guess what? Bad boys are ... bad. Duh. But she kept thinking each guy would be different. Did adults lose some of their gray cells when they lost their pimples?

Most times alone on the streets were bad. But not this time. Old Suze had shown me the ropes of the French Quarter, the gangs to avoid, the restaurants to visit late at night, and the streets to never, but never, walk alone after midnight. And this alley was on top of that list.

She had even told me why. I thought her crazy. Then, she led me here one hot night and let me see for myself. Then, we ran like hell. For an old lady she sure had been able to hoof it. But she had reason. We both had.

Now, she was dead. And as fast as life stops making sense, my fingers became fists. Phone Booth and his goons would pay.

"Didn't you hear me, shrimp? I said you were dead."

A part of me was already dead, for my voice didn't shake a bit. "You made two mistakes, Baboon Face."

His beady eyes became slits. "You talkin' to me?"

"You see any other Baboon Faces here?"

I flicked my eyes to his snickering buddies, then back to him. "Oh, yeah, you do. Well, you, the Baboon Face with the most teeth. You."

"You are so dead."

I smiled faint. This was the alley Old Suze had warned me that the shadows were hungry. The shadows that were moving all around us. The punks were too pissed to notice. Baboon Face had a huge shadow slipping right up behind him. He was all eyes for me. Good.

Now, to stay alive long enough to watch the shadows feed themselves on these murderers. 'I'm not asking to live, God. Just let me see these punks die.'

The shadow behind him rose tall, growing strange clawed arms that reached forward. I smiled wider. At least I'd see the coward who snapped Old Suze's frail neck get eaten.
"You crazy? What you smilin' for?"

"You made two mistakes, Baboon Face. You killed my friend. And then, you chased me to this street before you got your fix."

"What the hell you talkin' bout?"

"Hunger. Fear. They draw the Shadows."

"What shadows?"

"The Shadows that kill."

"The only thing that's gonna be killed is you."

He lunged at me. I danced away. I'd had lots of practice -- from Mother's boyfriends, the perv's on the streets, and the cops. I dance real good. And fast.

Phone Booth was fast, too. Just not fast enough. The Shadow behind him swallowed him in a blur. It looked part glistening insect and part nightmare. Mostly nightmare. He screamed as it wrapped its jagged arms around him. He was lifted clean off his kicking feet, disappearing into the darkness as wet sucking filled the alleyway.

Funny. All of a sudden, his buddies weren't all that keen on killing me anymore. Screaming like little girls, they wheeled around to run. And they did run -- smack into the shadows that surged over them like a black wave of silent death. The shadows melted one into another until they were a black riptide that sucked the three punks under. It was creepy. I thought their screaming would be loud. But it wasn't. I only heard muffled cries that turned into whimpers. Whimpers and sobs that went on for what seemed like forever.

Then, nothing.

Mother kept telling me there was one thing I didn't know. Enough. This was one of those times I thought she just might be right. For a change.

The Shadows began circling me. The circle slowly tightened. Sometimes "oh, shit!" just doesn't cover it.

I frowned. I wasn't afraid. No, really. I'd had my fill of living on the streets always scared. To die right now would be a relief.

Besides, the punks hadn't seem to take too long to die. And that seemed way better than starving slow on the streets without Suze. And I sure wasn't hungry -- not after all I'd seen in the past hour. Then, why were the Shadows drawn to me?

The circle of insect-like Shadows drew in closer. Were they trying to scare me? Fat chance. Sure, it had sounded the way they killed hurt something awful. But I had been hurt by experts. Let them do their worst. I'd have the last laugh. I wouldn't make a peep dying.

It would all be over for me soon. No more running from perv's, cops, and gangsters. I felt my shoulders straighten from the weight that soon would be off them. It would be over for me. Over. I smiled.

The circle of Shadows tightened around me. I swallowed hard. This was it. Had I really been idiot enough to have said I wasn't scared of dying? I'd lied.

Then, suddenly he was beside me.

He you ask? I heard him called a lot of names in my times with him. Most the kind you don't use in church. But I always called him "Captain Sam." Even now, hearing those words in my mind, I smile. And my heart becomes so hollow it hurts -- for I remember.



Tall. Dressed all in black. From his wide Stetson to his long broadcloth coat, his silk shirt, his tie, his vest, jeans, and cowboy boots. His gloves were even black. I frowned. Gloves? In the heat of summer?

But his hair was moon-white, though his face seemed barely fifty. His eyes. God, his eyes. They seemed to have seen all the pain in the world and to have felt every scream. His wolf face hardened, and he spoke in words of distant, rumbling thunder.

"You know who I am. You know what I can do. Back off!"

And they did. Not just backed off. They ran clear away back down the alley. My mouth got all dry, and I couldn't seem to swallow. Who was this man who could terrify the Shadows that I'd just seen kill so quickly? I hadn't been scared before. But I got scared then.

He looked down at me, and his rock face softened. Those haunted eyes of his seemed to sparkle in the moonlight. And then, he winked.

"Next time, son. You might want to leave yourself a back door."

All at once, the weight was off my shoulders. I smiled. And I hadn't even had to die.

***********************************************

In a world that seems to have no place for honor, heroes are hard to come by. To me, one name will always mean hero : John Wayne.

THE FABRIC OF DREAMS

The fabric of dream. It is interwoven throughout the tapestry of science fiction. Yes, and throughout the mural of fantasy as well. But if you walked the hills of DreamLand for very long, you would come upon the towering spires of Science Fiction. It is inspired by the question 'What if {fill in the blank with a list of wondrous possibilities.}' Science itself would not exist if rational observers of Nature did not ask "What if?" or "Why?"



So Science Fiction owes its existence to dreamers who stare up at the stars or gaze within themselves, asking "What if?" I asked what if evolution went micro instead of macro? What if red blood cells became intelligent? How would they feel about the madness we thrust them into? Then, I thought further. What if the earth were invaded, not by alien beings in saucers, but with alien blood pumped unknowingly into our veins on operating tables or in dentists' chairs? And that was how my story, BLOOD WILL TELL, came into being.



I will not bore you with snippets. Issac Asimov took us into the microverse of blood with FANTASTIC VOYAGE. We brought our science with us. But sadly, we also took the darkness of the human soul as well.



Why am I musing along these lines? Well, I am speaking at CON DU LAC, the Sci-Fi convention in Lake Charles, this upcoming June. And like last June where I gave two talks and appeared on one panel, I am going to give two new views into the world of science fiction and fantasy. Last year, I talked the first day on the impact and philosophy behind STAR TREK. The next day, I talked on the eternal questions and philosophies behind all science fiction, about its present, and about its possible futures. You can check out what this year's convention will entail at this website : http://www.condulac.net/website/.



Why do we dream? The answer is elusive and hard to pin down. Harder still to get philosphers to agree upon a common one. All I know is that when we cease to dream, we will cease to be human. I am listening to Concerto de Aranjuez Adaigo. I think some of you may enjoy listening to this as well :

Then, where there are dreams, there are nightmares :

TO RULE THE DARKNESS

To rule the darkness. That is what all of us must do. The darkness within.

But some are foolish enough to desire to rule the darkness without and the creatures who live within it. To accomplish that mystics all through history have searched for mythical objects of power : the helmet of Hades, the girdle of Aphrodite, and the ring of King Solomon, said to bring the wearer command over demons.

Too powerful to fall into the wrong hands, it was hidden in the lost mines of King Solomon in the legendary Ophir. But even the location of the fabled Ophir has become lost. Until stumbled upon by the one man who could care less about power or wealth, the haunted Texas Ranger, Captain Samuel McCord.

So as irony would have it, McCord ended up with the fabled ring of King Solomon and promptly refused to use it. But let him tell you of it from the incident in his cabin aboard the cursed DEMTER where he is getting dressed { from RITES OF PASSAGE }:


I looked out at the eye of night peeking at me through the curtained, round window. A part of me wanted to curl up in a little ball and try to find some peace in sleep. But I had promises to keep.

Time to go to that Count's celebration.

I got dressed, feeling the absence of my hip holster and its Colt. Maybe because of that I reached into my saddlebags until my fingers found what the Captain had been so interested in. The fabled ring of King Solomon.

I pulled it out and put it on the ring finger of my left gloved hand. I knew better than to look on it straight on. I had tried often enough in the past. But my eyes kept slipping off, never getting a clear look. It was as if the eyes of Man weren't meant to see the design. Only creatures of darkness.

Every so often, I would try to see it. As long as I couldn't, it meant I was still human deep down inside myself. Not being able to stop myself, I tried again. A weight seemed to lift off my chest as my eyes slid painfully off of it. Still human.

{Later on in the evening, McCord is escorting the mysterious woman, Meilori Shinseen, to a grand ball. She, her best friend, Lady Inari, and McCord are halted by the approach of the undead wife of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ellen Tucker. And once again, McCord is tempted by the power of King Solomon's ring.}



A breath from the grave seemed to breathe out from my left. I turned to face it and found it was a her. Odd. Death always seemed to wear a woman’s face in my life.

Except for Rachel. She’d had no face at all.

Just a little shorter than Meilori, this woman had the wild, wanton look of a repressed minister's daughter gone bad. Her brown hair a tumbled waterfall cascading down her shoulders, it barely hid a plunging neckline of ivory flesh that somehow looked clammy. Her smile was cruel, but less so than her brown eyes.

And of course, since this was me we were talking about, she didn't have one ember of life flickering around her body. Worse, somehow she seemed familiar. Yet, she ignored me completely. She smiled like a shark at Meilori and spoke in a haughty whine.

As she spoke, the hidden world behind her glittering eyes seemed to be changing and darkening. "I knew one day you would get yours, Meilori."

"That is Lady Meilori to you, Tucker."

"Tucker? Is your memory fading like your beauty, Meilori? It is Emerson."

Meilori smiled colder than her eyes. "You forget, leech. Til death do you part. And you have died and so have parted."

The undead woman called Tucker spoke low. "Soon, very soon, my betrothed and I will be re-united."

Inari covered a false yawn with a lazy hand. "Tucker, did you have something to say, or were you merely wasting our time as usual?"

Miss Tucker started to speak when it occurred to me why she seemed so familiar. "I've seen you before."

Her thin lips curled. "That line was old when you were young."

I shook my head. "Not actually seen you in person really. But I saw your tiny portrait in the pocketwatch of Henry."

She frowned, "Henry? There are a million boring Henry's in this world."

"But only one I nearly threw overboard into the Atlantic."

She sneered, "And that should mean something to me?"

"It should. Seems even though you were married to another man, poor Henry couldn't get you out of his heart."

She yawned, "How utterly boring."

I felt my face go tight. "He was a good man. He deserved a better woman to lose his heart to."

"Remind me to care next century."

She turned to Meilori. "And, as for you, bitch, Lord Hasatan has ordered you to come to him. Now."

Her smile seemed skull-like as she murmured, "You are finally going to get yours."

Meilori turned sick pale, as did Lady Inari. Whoever this Lord Hasatan was, he had to be wicked, indeed, for an Animal Person to fear him. I shook my head again.

"No, she's not."

Tucker's eyes became slits. "Stupid human, who are you to tell the Gray Man anything?"

The Gray Man? I smiled like the happy wolf I felt. Finally, I was going to lock horns with that one.

"You tell The Gray Man that if he has a grievance with Lady Meilori to take it up with me first. She's under my protection. He gets her only through me -- that is if he has the grit to take on a man for a change."

Meilori became bleach white. "Samuel, do not! You have no idea what Lord Hasatan can do."

Tucker hissed, "Take your own message! Who do you think you are to order me?"

I slowly raised my left hand, the chandelier's light striking fire from King Solomon's ring. The ghoul flinched as if stabbed, her eyes never leaving the ring on my gloved hand. Her shoulders started to bow, though I could tell she was fighting the lowering of her body. The back of my scalp started to prickle. This felt wrong.

No. I never owned slaves or cottoned to those who did. Each person was entitled to the freedom to choose. And I wouldn't take that right away from even such a thing as the undead creature that was facing me. I lowered my hand.

"Let me re-phrase that. Please, if you would, tell Lord Hasatan that I request he take up with me his grievance with Lady Meilori before he talks with her."

Tucker raised her eyes, though she kept her head lowered, giving her hot eyes a wolfish look. "Why request when you could command?"

"Because there has to be a difference between me and those I fight, else what's the point?"

"You are a fool!"

I smiled, "I don't think you'll get an argument from anyone I know about that."

Her eyes drank in Solomon's ring. "I will gladly tell Lord Hasatan about your stupidity, so I can watch him tear that ring off your bloody corpse."

"It's been tried before. I'm still here. Those that tried aren't."

But Tucker hadn't heard. She had already spun away, moving away towards the opposite end of the saloon. I tried to see who might The Gray Man be from the direction she took. But she was soon lost in the tangle of bodies. I felt Meilori tug on my arm. She was furious.

"I did not ask you for help."

"It wasn't necessary. No lady I escort gets threatened without me standing up for her."

She slapped me. The fact of it stung more than the blow. "When I need defending, I will let you know. Now, I will deal with The Gray Man myself."

And with that, she was off in a huff. Lady Irani hurriedly followed her. She looked back at me over her shoulder. "Do you have any idea what kind of fool you are?"

"Is there more than one kind?"

She didn't answer. She was too busy catching up to Meilori. Soon, they were lost in the crowd as well. But from the mirror beside me, Elu answered for Irani.

"Yes, there are, Dyami, and you are all of them mixed up in one. Why did you mention King Solomon to that oaf of a captain in the first place, much less wear that ring? Now, all on board know you have it. You have become a walking target for every would-be tyrant."

"It seemed the thing to do at the moment."

His bear eyes rolled. "I would tell you to shoot yourself in the foot, but you have already done that."

I turned to tell him what he could do with his wisdom-in-hindsight. But he was gone. It seemed no one wanted any part of my company - even me.

I studied the saloon around me. Rubies and diamonds sparkled on ivory throats and wrists like drippings from the sea. The low rumble of the engines was muffled by the rise and fall of conversation and music, the ebb and tide of desire upon destiny. The people milling through the chamber seemed to be talking against the darkness that pressed in on them or pushed out to escape from within them. Or maybe it was only my own darkness I felt pressing hungry against the window of my soul.

****************************************

And with all this talk of rings of power, why not watch a music video from one of my favorite movies?

GHOST SHIP IN THE NIGHT

As I drove home tonight over the lonely strip of interstate intertwining into the dark oblivion where the lances of my headlights died, I looked up into the sky. Great waves of clouds washed over one another in misty billows. It felt as if a night of dark intent was coming. No, more than that. As if an age of dark intent seemed to be crouching just beyond the known horizon. And I thought of the beckoning sea with her whispered mysteries and tragic legends.



And those musings led me to thoughts of my fantasy Titanic tale, RITES OF PASSAGE. The story of the cursed voyage of the transatlantic steamer, Demeter, in 1853. A journey where my hero of FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE first met the one great love of his life, the mysterious Meilori Shinseen, born of stardust and the sea. A passage where McCord fights his first duel with the enemy who is destined to become his life-long foe, DayStar. A being claiming to come from a realm beyond the boundaries of Time itself.



The weather was crisp outside my van. Not at all like awakening Spring but more like the brittle chill of Autumn. And that in turn made me think of the scene in RITES OF PASSAGE where a wounded McCord walks through a plane of existence not of this world to discover the identity of a murderer that both friend and foe warn will destroy him. But not to do so would destroy the love of his life. And that means there is no question that he will walk this strange realm until he finds the truth that will save Meilori and destroy him. 'Fair Trade,' he thinks :



****

I expected to see a good many unpleasant sights when I walked into the darkness that lay beyond The Door of Nasah. After all, I had a Jesuit education of sorts, courtesy of the Soyoko from so many years ago. So I knew that nasah was ancient Hebrew for testing. It had been used to describe those poor wandering Israelites bickering and stewing their way across the desert to the Promised Land.

And you know how well that went for them.

But since this is me we’re talking about. I didn’t get a single one of the things I expected. Story of my life. And undeath.

I was walking in a place forgotten by feet. Or so it felt to me. The darkness slowly bled to a lighter hue of gloom.

I paused, brooding in this twilight world, not knowing where to place my steps. I strained my eyes. I could almost make out the smudged silver of a far horizon.

What had I said to myself earlier? That I figured the folks who entered this realm made their own walls. Maybe that was what I was doing now.

Was I walking through the burned-out ends of the smoky days of my past? A dark forest of memories was lanced through, not with sunlight filtered through thick branches, but with images of pain and struggle. My pain. My struggle. I almost felt the crunch beneath my feet of the withered leaves of others’s masquerades. I did seem to feel, like the lash of snapping branches against my cheek, the tiny thousand misunderstandings of my best efforts and the clumsy gropings of my heart to the life-hardened hearts of others.

I knew then that I was indeed walking through the Autumn world of my past, rising above the dark horizon of my regrets. The yellowed leaves of recollection curled up around me as I walked slowly forward : Sonora, England, France, China, Australia, New Zealand, and even India.

The light of love slipped through the black shutters of my guilt and loneliness. 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. Images swirled around me. Revolving doors, showing the faces of an ever-growing army of enemies. Refracting light of clues, guesses, fears of the truth I finally realized I did not want to know.

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. For us.

Laughter. Cold. Brittle. Knife sharp.

It swirled all about me. And as fast as fingers become a fist, a chill blackness swallowed me. I slowed but kept moving ahead. I shivered. Not from the cold, but from a growing warmth within me.

I slowed even more. Meilori. Her velvet words spoke within 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 he 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 a small boy. You fought cruel laws, usually to no avail. You have written no symphony but that of your deeds. You have written no poems outside words of comfort to those in pain.’

This time I did feel her lips on mine. ‘Yet you are greater than any general, any politician, 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 to 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 to celebrate life, 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. She could be in serious trouble. I ground my teeth. I had to get back to her.

But I figured turning back would only lead me to a deeper darkness. If there was one ugly lesson I had learned in all my wanderings and mistakes, it was that with life in general, and with DayStar in particular, there was no going back. None at all. No, I had to bull this one through to the end. Through to my end if everyone’s warnings were right.

But there was another lesson I had learned. The majority was usually wrong. Usually.

I took a firm step forward, and the ink shroud around me lifted. I was back in the Autumn world. But it no longer held any restrains of regret for me. How could there be any? Meilori’s love was here with me. And besides I had always liked Autumn despite its warnings of the white death of winter biding its time impatiently.

Autumn’s crisp breath stirred the unseen leaves with whispery lamentations. Their graves provided a crackle and rustle as my feet stepped upon them while I made my way through Autumn’s colors more than landscape. The very air filled my nose and lungs with the tang and wrinkling of leaf bonfires, of ripened apples making the heavy branches hang their heads as if in mourning for ice storms to come.

My ears prickled as I could have sworn I heard the leathery flutter of pheasant wings, the still happy liquid singing of a meandering stream, and the sad lament of a sparrow facing hunger. The red and gold of this world murmured to me of happier times as I had tramped lonely hills and haunted forests. And a peace filled me. The peace which is the reward of completing the long gauntlet of summer. The quiet dark that precedes the winter of the soul which lurks just around the next bend. A time for binding recent wounds and old -- and forgeting them, along with the misfortunes that had brought them.

I took another step. I stopped. Autumn had ended. My winter of the soul lay before me.

I lay before me.

I had gone into the past. Stepped right past the boundaries of time’s firm grasp. The evening of Rachel’s murder was bidding me a dark welcome.

An instinct born of this cruise told me that DayStar had not expected me to make it even this far. I stiffened. Cornered in fungus, his voice mocked me in the confines of my mind.

‘No matter, McCord. Now you end.’

I whispered, “Maybe si. Maybe no.”

********************************************

I am of three minds like a winter tree in whose branches sit three blackbirds. Or of three novels actually : FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE, RITES OF PASSAGE, and THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS. I wrote all three concurrently. Trust me on this, bloggers. If ever you are tempted to do such a thing, take two aspirins, go to bed, and pull the covers over your head. But it was instructive to do such a thing. When I wrote on one, a plot snarl from another would smooth out in my mind. And it helped me place in perspective the epic scope of my undead hero's long life.

Since at heart I am a romantic, I'm listening to Celine Dion singing -- you guessed it -- "My Heart Will Go On." In case you might want to listen, too --

DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE SUPERNATURAL?

Do you believe in the supernatural? There are two answers to that question, of course. One that you believe in bright sunlight. And the one that you fear is true in the shadows on a strange, moonlit street.



I know. I've had too many occasions to walk the dark streets of the French Quarter at night. I wasn't suicidal. I was broke. I saw street crime naturally. I also saw glimpses of things my rational mind refused to consider.



To focus my mind off those glimpses, I tried to make a list of movies with scenes involving lone walkers at night in the growing fog. Word to the wise. Don't do that. It really doesn't help. At all.



New Orleans has been called a Twilight City, for it rises from civilized slumber to bustling life at night. Performers often line the streets, pushers sell their brands of death, prostitutes promise sex as if it were love, dancers weave through the partiers on the street, and music throbs through the veins of the French Quarter. If the undead do exist, they walk lazily down streets in front of buildings dating back hundreds of years. In that sense, they would be at home. It is we the living who could be thought of as intruders there.



New Orleans is famous for its "Cities of the Dead." Since the city is below sea level, it is filled with above the ground tombs instead of graves in the moist earth. One of the most famous of these "cities" is St. Louis Cemetery #1, established in 1789 and considered by many as being the final resting place of the infamous voodoo Queen, Marie Laveau. But Samuel McCord would tell you differently. He still visits her occasionally if the situation is dire enough to warrant risking suicide.



Friends have asked for an encore of a dark scene of the supernatural from FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE. Samuel is walking to the Convention Center the first night after Katrina. A wheelchair-bound woman has told him of the raping of women and young girls by drunken gang members. It is a tale he must check out for himself. Long ago he was unable to prevent the murder of his own sister, and he is compelled to rescue each young girl he sees in danger.



***

As I made my way down the flooded street towards the Convention Center, I looked up at the full moon. It seemed closer than civilization or any semblance of rescue. If there was to be any help for those suffering at the center, it would have to come from me.

I had heard the Superdome was in equally bad shape. I shook my head. To get there, I would have to head north where the water was still chest-deep over the streets. It would take a miracle for me to help those at the Convention Center. The Superdome was on its own. I might be monster not man, but I was only one monster. And Maudie had bought my help with her bravery and her disregard for her own safety.

As I waded along into the night, the black mists curled and creamed in the humid darkness like an unspoken fear trying to form itself on the edge of consciousness. A trick of the thick air, the moon of blood leered down upon its reflection on the dark waters of the flooded street. Ripples of its long bloody image flowed from the floating dead body of a cat, looking like fingers caressing its kill. The cat’s death apparently hadn't been pretty nor was its corpse. The night became colder than it should have been. Much, much colder.

Rind, the Angelus of Death, whispered in my blood. “At night the dead come back to drink from the living.”

I didn’t need Rind to tell me that the night was not my friend. Too much death had happened too recently. Spirits, lost and angry, were walking beside me. Torn clothing. Hollow eyes of shadows. Sharp, white teeth. Long, writhing fingers slowly closing and unclosing.

Because of Rind's blood in my veins, I could see them slowly circling, hear their trailing, splashing steps behind me, feel the heat of their sunken, hungry eyes upon my back and throat.

Were they soul-echoes, mere refracted memory of a will? Or were there such things as literal ghosts? Just because I could see them didn't mean that I understood what they were.

I turned the corner and came upon the startled, fragile grace of a too-white egret standing alert in the middle of the flooded street, staring back at me. Its long sleek neck slowly cocked its sloping head at me. Then, gathering its huge wings, it launched itself into the air with its long black legs. I saw the spirits of the dead around me longingly stare after its curved flight of grace and freedom into the dark sky. I watched with them.

I felt a tug on my left jacket sleeve. I looked down. My chest grew cold. The dead face of a little girl was looking up at me. Or rather the face of her lost, wandering spirit, her full black eyes glistening like twin pools of oil. Her face was a wrenching mix of fear and longing. She tried to speak. Nothing came out of her moving lips. Looking like she was on the verge of tears, she tugged on my sleeve again and pointed to the end of the block. I followed her broken-nailed finger. I shivered.

She was pointing to her own corpse.

I took in a ragged breath I didn’t need to compose myself. The Convention Center would have to wait. I had sworn a long time ago that no child would ever ask my help without getting it.

A haunted singing was faint on the breeze. Somewhere the dead had found their voices. I nodded to the girl’s spirit and waded to her corpse, the force of the rushing flood waters having washed it up onto the sidewalk and against a store front where it slowly bobbed in place. I saw the girl’s spirit out of the corner of my eye, studying the shell of flesh she had once worn. Her head was turned slightly to one side. The expression to her face was sorrowful and wistful at the same time. She pointed again.

I followed the broken-nailed finger. A rosary all wrapped up in the balled fingers of her left hand. She gestured sharply, then looked at me with eyes echoing things I did not want to see. I nodded again and kneeled down beside the girl’s swollen corpse. I pried the rosary loose, wrapping it around the fingers of my own gloved left hand.

I looked up at the girl’s spirit. She just stood there frowning as if in concentration. Her brow furrowed, her tiny fists balled, and her jaws clenched. I could swear beads of sweat appeared on her ghostly forehead.

I jerked as suddenly guttural words were forced from the long-dead throat of the corpse at my boots. “T-Tell M-Mama ... peaceful now.”

And with that, she looked up into the night. I followed her eyes. She was looking at the retreating body of the egret slowly flying into a filmy, billowing cloud. I looked back to her spirit.

She was gone.

“I promise,” I said to the empty night.

Where had she gone? Had her spirit held itself together just long enough to pass on those words of good-bye to her Mama? Was her soul flying alongside that oblivious egret slowly evaporating within the filaments of that cloud? Or was she finding out the truth about the Great Mystery that haunted me still?

I had no answers. Only more questions. Questions in the dark.

*******************

And here's a video from Concrete Blonde, warning about the shadows of New Orleans.

************
Photo from : Photobucket-hallowedbethyname-69.

HAUNTED NEW ORLEANS

Friends have asked how the jazz club, Meilori's, is enchanted. It is the crossroads of three major ley lines, mystic lines of energy, allowing it to be the portal to another plane of existence. What exactly that plane happens to be is a matter of heated conjecture by many in New Orleans. It is much like the question of who or what is answering the questions on a Ouija board.



At first glance, New Orleans appears but a hodgepodge of streets. Look closer. First laid out by the French, the city bears the mark of Masonic training : the city's plan is based on phi {the proportion of life}. A walk down Bourbon Street triggers your chi {life force} with the ley line extending from New Orleans to Dublin, London, Brussels, Kosova, Haifa {Israel}, and Amman Jordon. If you are versed in the paranormal, you know that New Orleans connects dimensionally like no other city in the world. Or so it is said.



Some believe that the theory of dark matter implies the existence of alternate universes. Think of it. Between your nose and this computer screen could exist heavens, hells, lost dimensional wanderers, or entire galaxies. Impossible? Right now, dozens of radio and television waves are coursing through your head. You just can't see or feel them. A much more detailed explanation of New Orleans' mystic importance is written by Peter Champoux. Check his site : http://geometryofplace.com/NewOrleans.html



Now, for a glimpse within Meilori's :





CHAPTER FOURTEEN

RIGHT TURN ON DEAD

I move in all kinds of circles, meet all sorts of people. I learned

engraving from a counterfeiter, accounting from a swindler.

A succubus once tried to teach me the tango. But nothing doing.

I didn't have the hips for it.

- Samuel McCord


I turned around and faced my newly re-minted night club. Meilori’s was back. And it had only taken a small fortune to make her return breath-taking. Luckily, I had stumbled across more than a few lost treasures in all my manhunts. When the last owner of a fortune is several centuries dead, it made giving it back harder than just keeping it. But I spent it wisely. Or tried to.

My night club sparkled in the dim illumination of spinning, sparkling chandeliers. Meilori’s stood on a busy French Quarter corner. But even so, it seemed to go on for much longer and wider than it appeared from the outside.

Which made sense. It was wider and longer within than without. Courtesy of Rind, the Angelus of Death, my place led into a dimension that only a few could enter and from which even fewer could return. Everyone was safe who stayed up front. Those who ventured deeper did so at their own peril. The sign to my place read : HERE BE MONSTERS. TO VENTURE DEEP WITHIN IS TO CHANCE NEVER RETURNING AT ALL.

Not that many paid much attention to the words, mind you. But they had only themselves to blame if they never returned from the shadows. Besides, New Orleans had lost a good many visitors long before my place showed up. The city had just lost a site more since then was all.

Hicock was playing poker in the far table, his new spectacles gleaming on his nose. He nodded. I nodded back. He gestured to an empty seat beside him. I shook my head. I kept my gambling limited to my life not cards.

Major Strasser, immaculate in his black Nazi uniform, sat closer to me. I ambled to his table. He smiled with sharp white teeth.

“Still hold Casablanca against me?”

“Not so you notice. Remember I shot you in your withered heart, not in the acupuncture point that could have killed you.”

“Just so. Is it really the year 2005 out past those doors?”

“Yes, but I’d advise against going out there. Go back the way you came. You’ll still have years of blood and madness across all of Europe if you return that way.”

He stared at me curiously. “You know how the war ends?”

“Yes, everybody loses.”

I turned from him and made my way to the gleaming bar. And yes, if you are wondering --- there were mirrors on the walls -- when you could see them. Each table surface was reflective as were the steps of polished marble scattered in random spots along the length of the red carpet sweeping it seemingly into eternity. Elu got lonely sometime. And he also got --- hungry.

What can I say? Meilori’s is that kind of place.

I was in my dress black western suit. Black shirt, black tie, vest, long coat, slacks, boots. Even my broad Stetson was black. I sighed. I missed Sammy in his all white attire. Samuel Langhorn Clemens was probably having them all in stitches somewhere in a far better place than my night club of the damned. I blinked back hot tears. Sixty odd years is a long time to know a friend. I missed him.

I slowly moved through the room that seemed to become larger, wider, deeper the longer I was in it. The president of France sat with his young love. They were chatting with Marie Antoinette, her slender throat neatly stitched so well only I could see the slight scar of the incision. She smiled coldly at me.

I tipped my Stetson to her and moved on. That was one of the problems to my night club. Every aisle led to a place you’d rather forget. Every table brought back memories of what you had done or should have done.

And every woman reminded you of another woman. Or in my case, one woman. The only woman. Meilori.

Off to the left was one of my internet jazz stages. Erin Bode was singing in the middle of its spotlight. She was an up and coming jazz vocalist. She didn’t like to be type-cast as a jazz vocalist. There were worse things to be called. I should know. I had been called most of them.

I liked her. Meilori would have, too. Erin had called me up and volunteered to sing at my place. She had wanted her fee to go to the Katrina Relief Fund. All the money from the live internet feeds of tonight and the nights to follow would help the hurting in my adopted city.

As Erin was singing “Alone Together,” Toya swayed up to me. I smiled wide at her, the image of the six year old I had found out by my dumpster settling over her Cleopatra features. Skin the color of milk coffee gleamed under the swirling lights above us. Her black dress was so short that it could have qualified as a long blouse. Any shorter and it would have been a wide belt. Tonight she was dressed as a buccaneer. Lafitte would have made her captain of his ship, if not his heart.

**************

Right now, I'm listening to Alison Moyet singing "All Cried Out." She is an inspiration to many of us who have fought the battle of the bulge. Her weight struggle has taught her why the first syllable in diet is die. Check out her website http://www.alisonmoyet.com/. And if you're interested in seeing her do the song I'm listening to check this out :