The Lady, the Lake, and the Long Sword

Police Lieutenant Edgar Campbell knew his time was up. Was. Had been. His chest and side punctured in a hail of gunfire by a man on so many drugs he could've started a pharmacy. Even now, Edgar could feel the shard of hot metal lodged within his rib. He could barely breathe. He was sure there was no blood left to even think, with the amount covering the seat of his patrol car, and the hands of his partner Mark, who had patched him up. Mark was in the passenger seat, white as a sheet but unwounded. His eyes had not left Edgar's wounds for the entire ride. Not back to the station, or the hospital- nothing they could do now but dumb him down and maybe give a few more unfeeling minutes. No, no. Work to do. Driving down back roads, coaxing the car to the red "Empty" line and far beyond, going far past the speed limit. Eighty, ninety, one hundred miles per hour. Power lines and houses whip by. Trees. All signs of civilization gone. Edgar swerves, slams on the break. The car skids, grumbles, almost flips- stops. Mark's fingers slowly unwind from the sides of his seat.

"We're here," Edgar says through a mist of blood. He attempts to pull himself out of the car under his own power and manages only to fall onto the grassy field he's stopped the car on with a soft, pained grunt. Mark charges out of the car, jumps the hood, and pulls Edgar to his feet. Edgar points.

A lake. Shining broad and glorious in Mark's eyes. A bright, brilliant blue- the color of the sky during childhood adventures traipsing through a forest long since bulldozed for some mini-mall or another. A tear rolls down Mark's cheek before he gets proper hold of himself. Edgar, one arm looped over Mark's shoulder, stumbles forward. At the very edge of the lake he lets his weight drop, sliding away from Mark to kneel in the wet dirt. On Edgar's belt, the following things fit snug:
Standard issue sidearm. Nine millimeter. Matte black.
Mace, one can, with carry pouch.
Handcuffs, two pairs, plastic. Non-standard, but personal choice is personal choice.
Various electronics- a taser, communications devices. So on.

Car keys. Mark hears them jingle as the driver falls. Mark goes just a shade paler. The sound of their patrol car rumbling behind them fills Mark's ears. Mark reaches down and touches his own copy of the keys. He shivers.

Also on Edgar's belt is a simple and non-descript advice: A telescoping black baton, used more often than Edgar ever would think necessary. Never without explicit and extreme reasons, but used. With numb, fumbling fingers, Edgar pulls this from its pouch and flails his hand in the air weakly- as if he had flicked it with the strength and expertise of his prime, the baton flies out to its full length, light from the lake glinting off of its length. He traces his finger along the handle. A worn strip of duct tape navigates its length. Written on this tape is the word "Caled." Edgar had never bothered finding out what it meant. The tape had been there since he acquired the baton. Here. Decades ago, as a recruit.

With a weak grunt, Edgar manages to fling it towards the lake, spinning and shining, until it is caught by a hand covered in green and grey scales. The hand and baton sink beneath the waves, but the two officers can feel a pair of eyes on them, from under the slowly darkening lake.

The shield next. Edgar's badge, currently with no less than five bullets crumbled against its golden facade. Flipping it like a card, the badge glides beautifully just over the surface of the water before dropping into the water unceremoniously.

Edgar smiles, then, and finds the stretch the lean up enough to clasp a brotherly hand onto Mark's shoulder.

"Get out of here, kid. You'll break your curfew," Edgar smiles with bloody teeth and sinks back into the dirt to stare at the lake's dim light, as the light leaves his eyes.

Intermission: The Suit, pt 1.

Up at the crack of dusk. Hilarious, he thinks. To someone who's never heard the joke, certainly. Graveyard Shift had been another good one for about five minutes. He lets out a dry laugh and laces his shoes. No calls today. No double shifts. No extra hands. (Funny for far longer than it should have been.)

No big accidents. Pity.

Shirt tucked. Belt buckled. Tie.. tied. What is the action for ties? He wonders, not realizing he's spoken aloud. Jacket on. Slick black number. New. Unsullied. Middle button only. As an afterthought, he attaches a pair of tasteless cufflinks from his mother: A tombstone on the left, a skull and crossbones on the right. Pretty funny, eh? She had genuinely looked at them and thought her son would wear it. So he did.

His hair-combing, a stall in any case with unmanageable follicles, took twice as long as it should have, to make up for expediency in deciding which button, to button. He glanced at the clock and smiled. Quarter to eight. Fifteen minutes to drive for half of an hour to work. He would have to speed. As he always did. The car unlocks with a soft, strange noise: The music from the exact moment lightning strikes Frankenstein's monster, from the version the man saw as a child. The music is pitched down and chopped into a manageable almost-beep. Nothing in back to slow the drive, either.

He had carpooled, just once, with a coworker who shared his shift. Just once. Are you trying to get us killed? He remembers that he smiled, at that moment, and said no in a voice that was completely genuine. What, then, was he doing on the highway, cleaving time into manageable chunks through sheer speed, in the company car?

Don't do that! Sixteen. Driving practice with his mother. He zooms right up to the nearest car, switches lanes right behind them, at double their speed. Bumpers nearly kiss before momentum pulls him up onto the median, driving through dirt and grass.

This is how the man drives: One near collision to the next, like a beam of light over mirrors.
Swerve.
Back bumper of a red sports car.
Swerve.
Driver side door of an ugly white pickup.
Swerve.
Left turn, rear view mirror passes a hairs breadth from an incoming car's.
Swerve.
Attach, parasitically, to the backdraft of an eighteen-wheeler barreling erratically down the road, unknowing.

Miraculously, he arrives at the mortuary under his own power. From the glovebox he takes a small pad and paper, and adds a small tick mark. There are over a thousand of these such marks.

Myths and Legends

They say the Hive was carved out of the bulk of an old great Whale, beached just after the days ended. They say it was covered in dirt from some catastrophe, to be excavated, nearly a century later, by some punks barely old enough to remember the end of the end, when the battles were wars and the weapons blazed whole towns.

They say a lot of things. Looking at this Hive, in this place- the thick steel bones re-purposed, if only technically, to support pockmarked skin serving as a roof. This Hive is a well-hidden and open secret among the freeholders of this stretch of the west. A densely populated cave torn from the hammers of what came before. A writhing tumor of metal and drugs and sweat, too far deep for the ocean to reach, if it still came this way.

I weave through the press of flesh while shielding my eyes against the glare of cobbled together lights and glowing vials. The music is oppressive, the dancers are drugged and wild with arms flailing. Everyone is armed.

Somewhere in the savage pulse of flesh and scavenged woofers is the man I need to find.

Scry, Pt. 2

Mess of discarded data. Junk emails. Spam. Down the lines. Out. Deeper down past the over-violence of twelve-year-olds on death match. Cherry-pick data for choice parts. Picture here, snatch of text there. Lives left floating in the digital gulf. No time. Strains of song six drift down even here. Twenty minutes tarried in the public domain. Unprofessional, but perhaps worth time. Twenty more minutes of synth-mix.

Find the pipe. Piggy-back output past the dividing line where everything becomes input. Far from home now as song seven slips seamlessly through. Few clocks here are accurate. Trying to discern meaning simple instills jet lag of a kind. An opening to the left, push through. Surface.

Look out. Video sans audio. Greyscale. Numbers gone, no conversations to be had. Pure data formatted for the human eye. Controls elsewhere but output stream from the source. Office building security camera. Empty room. Song eight. Ride the output to a node. Trace a fatter line. Surface.

Son et Lumiere. Full visual spec. Meeting room spycam. Plant the hose, hold on to it. Drag the output end out and through. Surf back to public domain. Song nine. The long one. Ride to a webcam. Video blogger rants the conspiracy of the day. Slide through their space, plant the output of the hose. Their terminal will siphon data silently. Record relevant retrieval data. Song nine closes and the album begins to terminate as song ten begins. Ripcord. Automatic shutdown.

Scry, pt 1.

Stumbled into the apartment with a box full of parts. Heard strains of a canine symphony as the back end of jeans closed the door.

Spread the parts out on the floor. Get the screwdriver and dismantle a size three haul of parts alternatively archaic and gleaming, factory fresh. Check the archaic against the book, assure genuine status. That one, there. Paid five dollars to a dealer that didn't look like he knew what he was doing. The device, supposedly early 90s external modem, cracked open. Hollow except for a small card of circuitry. Rage flares, subsides. Check everything against the book. Huge tome of components material and somatic. Methods to the madness of industrial technobabble. The card is listed. Still early 90s. Game cartridge. Excellent.

Stow the rest, fish out transistors and a single chip from their stasis in an icicle box in the deep freezer. Chip chosen for form this time. Eight vestigial strips of metal oriented down on either side, at once insectoid and polygonal. Old. older than its owner and worth more on the market. New age spider stolen to bless this crawl over optic webbing.

Transistors and spider-chip in the ashtray. Sharp smell of burning plastic filling the hermetically sealed room. Single terminal composed of netbook, two monitors, jiggered power supplies. No record to spin. Discs themselves impossible to buy, let alone turntable parts. Substitution is half the damage. Cleverness the other. Replace two parts freestyle jockeying with one part thumb-drive playlist over tinny speakers. Sound is important. The straining synthetic of song one, titled in some ironic stone-age hackerspeak.

Some things are timeless. Delicate flat disk of glass, delicate etchings spiderwebbing the surface. Open tray. Spin the disk. Take a deep breath. Close eyes. Say the words.

"Hello, world."

The Outskirts 1.

The man closed his eyes. Sniffed the air. Clenched his fists. Where? To the east. The smell was wrong. Wrong in his city. His city. Audacity. Punishment. Kill. Kill. Snap. Bite.

He shook his head, shoved the feelings back down. Made human take over. His face relaxed from the rigid snarl that had taken it over. The man took off to the east, running fast as his legs would take him, and for a moment, a flicker in time, a man driving the same way could've sworn a huge wolf was keeping pace with his car. The driver blinked and it was just a man sprinting, full tilt, mouth twisted into a grim rictus smile.

Grass left long untended swayed. The outskirts. Unwatched, untended, untainted. Projects had sprung up to build malls and shopping centers and other such, but over the years they always seemed to simply fade away, unbuilt. A few sparse trees burned red by the November wind. The homes and stores of the city in the short distance. The highway on the other end. Smelled wrong. Wrong. His lip twitched. He snarled. His mind howled. Something wrong was in his sanctuary. Where w- He froze. Behind him. Inches. He could feel it. Something inhuman. Enemy. Food. Tresspasser. Eat. Eat. He forced himself calm. Turned slowly. Fought down the instincts saying form and smell did not belong to each other. A woman. Eat. Slight. Kill. Completely unintimidating. Tresspasser. White hair. Howl. An overcoat with straight jacket in its ancestry, covering the feet and buttoned up to the chin. Rip. Straight white teeth. Tear. Humorless smile. KILL. Barbed tentacles emerging from sleeves instead of hands. Shit. That voice was human. The wolf read it as surrender and took over.

Claws closed on thin air. Dripping fangs barely avoided biting their own tongue. In the feild, the man took a defensive stance born of time spent street fighting. He carefully wiped a bead of canine drool from his lip. It was laughing at him. Soft. Subtle. His ears barely had to make an effort. The wolf again. Gnashing teeth and flailing claws. Got it. Eat. The wolf held up its kill triumphantly in massive claws. The human sighed. Turned the thing in his hands. Coat. Hair. Skin. Nothing inside but a mass of black blood. Behind him, the thing laughed. The wolf tried to take control again. The man let it- to a point. Human mind guiding the hulking form. The wolf howled its rage in the background. A man's tactics. Feint. Charge. Dodge, Circle. Wolf's speed. The thing raised an arm. Smile threatening to split its face in two. Shit.

From the split in the beasts face came an unslaught of tentacles. Tendrils. Segmented stingers like a scorpion's tail. Latched onto trees. Pulled. Extracted itself. The man paused to fight down vomit. It had eyes everywhere. The woman smiled. The thing from her face screeched. Whipped out tentacles. Grasped trees. Ground. Pulled itself towards the man. The thing wearing a woman's skin floated towards him. Raised its arm. Fire. The wolf howled, rolled out of the way.
Broke. Ran.

Aftermath, Partner to LupineBridge

Joe stretched, having been watching the light of the setting sun play across her hair. He was only vaguely aware of how long he’d been standing there, while Serci picked berries from the plant with her quick, careful hands. He should be helping, but Joe knew himself. He knew how clumsy he was, how often he’d wrecked a plant almost irreparably, in the few times Serci could even get him to touch the things. No, it was all he could do to watch her in her element. He wanted desperately, of all things, to ask her for a race. He got close, though. It would be worth not playing along and getting her more upset with him to see her sprinting through the forest in all her perfection.

And she was upset, wasn’t she? He had known her for long enough to know when she was upset, and when she was trying to hide it. She always did that. She knew he knew, but even still. Joe supposed it was just a game women play. Perhaps he should perform a study on the mental behaviors of genders within the human, elven, dwarven, a- Joe shaked his head, trying to get back to the present situation. How was he going to figure out just what was wrong without just yelling the question? This may be difficult. Ah, well. Never one to run from a challenge, Joe began trying to formulate a plan.

“Ah, well,” she was talking again. Joe’s ears actually twitched in anticipation. “Found a seed, though.” She stood, self-consciously wiping her hands on the back of her pants. Joe grinned under the helmet. He’d asked her why she’d done it once, and had come to the conclusion that she had no idea she did it every time she touched dirt, or plants, or a felled animal. She did it quite a lot, and Joe found it adorable every time. Part of him was regretting his choice in fields of study. If he hadn’t gone for golemancy, he could’ve studied how the mind works. He would be able to get right down to what was bothering the poor woman, and fix it, or at least address it properly. Though, Joe thought, if he hadn’t gone for golemancy, they wouldn’t be in this situation to start with. Damn.

His ears twitched. This phenomenon must be studied. Oh! It happened when she talked. She was saying something. Pay attention, Joe told himself, in that odd trance state he found himself in, when he got to thinking almost anything at all. He snapped out of it. He remembered Serci had called it his genius meditation, and almost sank back into it, but every ounce of brainpower he had was focused on her words, now. Talking was good, talking gave insight into problems.

“Deeper into the forest, or back?” Serci was watching him thoughtfully. Some sarcastic part of him almost said gee, shall I explore an interesting forest with my Serci, or go muddle about in some town? but was reined in before the rogue thought could cause any major damage. Besides, going deeper into the forest meant more time alone with Serci, something he had needed for… ages, years? Joe didn’t remember.
“Deeper, perhaps?” he said it hopefully, knowing she would come up with some excuse to go back to town. If they got back to town, she might wander off before he woke up, and he’d have to find her all over again. She was probably sick, the poor thing. No, he’d figure this out and save her. They were walking, him cautiously, trying very hard not to run into something or trip, and make a fool of himself. Serci was mostly at ease, and graceful at always. There was something about her usually smooth movements. Something he saw in some of the simpler golems and people that are afraid. Afraid? Was there something in the forest that Serci would be afraid of? Is that why she’s so tense, here? No, she would say something. What would she be afraid of that couldn’t be mentioned to him? Oh. Joe paused a moment, shoulders slumped. But, why? He resumed following her, trying to ponder his way through this. Well, if that was it, it wasn’t some odd mental problem and he could ask her.
“Careful,” he only halfway heard her.

“Why?” Joe looked to her, head tilted, the helmet muffled the crack in his voice. He didn’t even realize it sounded like he was asking her why he should be careful until she shot the goblin. Good shot, too. Probably would’ve stabbed him in the leg if Serci wasn’t as good as she was. By the time Joe even realized what had just happened, she was already inspecting a mushroom patch. “You’re quite good at this.” She looked up at him quickly, blushing ever so slightly. Joe almost giggled. She was complimented, and being Serci, changed the subject.
“This is called Redfoot. None I can salvage, though,” she was pointing at the mushrooms, and Joe dutifully listened, even if his mind was a million miles away from mushrooms, of all things, at present. She actually frowned. Had she noticed? “No.. I was entrusted to protect something.” Joe frowned. He had an idea of what it was, but if she was going to play dumb, well.

“The forest?” he tilted his head and glanced about. It was an impressive forest, but still just a forest to Joe. She stared at him for a long moment, and everything went silent.

“Namely, this,” she took a spear from a bag that was most certainly not large enough to hold it, and held it out to Joe. It was a very magic spear, but to Joe, who could barely look at such weapons without cutting his own limbs off, just a spear. Maybe she would be happy with him, if he learned to use such things, and was able to wield the spear in her protection? She was testing him, that must be it! First things first, Joe needed to learn to use weapons besides his own machinations. Serci might teach him, or expect him to learn on his own. Bother. “I failed, in part of its protection. Or succeeded, I guess.”

Serci was talking about him, he just knew it. How could he have thought she meant the blasted spear. Well, at least she knew she succeeded, right? Maybe he could least impress her with the spear. She shivered. Maybe he should’ve gotten them a room at an inn. She was cold and it was his fault and she was expecting him to talk.
“Well, you seem to wield it well,” if there was one thing Joe had learned, was that eventually, complimenting Serci paid off.

Intermission: Christmas, The End.

December 25, 2009. 12:01 am
It was easily twice Sam’s size, though he couldn’t really be sure. Every time he tried to look at it, his vision blurred slightly, just enough to be noticeable. He was sure, however, that the thing was jagged and cold. Looking on it, his blood chilled, and a shiver ran down his spine, only in part to the freezing air in the throne room. Winter stood, a series of delicate cracks proclaiming its separation from the throne. It held a sword made of i- Sam frowned, squinting his eyes and looking for a hand. No, Winter’s arm terminated in a comically oversized icicle. Sam actually giggled, before he remembered the ice was stinging his face.

At the sound of the laughter, Winter opened one of its mouths and the wind screamed its anger. It threatened to blow Sam over, but he stood his ground, clenched his teeth, and held his sword high. The air shifted and Winter was upon him, swinging and stabbing with its pointed arm. From somewhere, Sam found the speed to match its attacks with the simple blocks his father had taught him. This went on for a long while, the second, closed mouth of the thing holding a sadistic grin. Sam caught a blow on the flat of his sword, held it and laughed loudly. It was half from exhaustion and half from the pure ridiculousness of his situation. Sam had looked up and seen the toy sword he was fighting with. The thing did not like that, and it screamed with both of its mouths, and Sam could feel the encroaching darkness get just a little closer.

Sam let out a yell of his own, breaking the counter and swinging desperately, his sword coming back with slivers of ice stuck to the plastic blade. The thing tried to block, and its pointed arm snapped in half, the toy sword biting into what Sam could only assume was Winter’s heart. Frost and fog streamed from the wound, and the fingers around Sam’s heart first relaxed, then disappeared entirely. The king shuddered once, and started to crack in places. Sam withdrew his sword, and strode into the now calm hallway.

December 25, 2009. 6:35 am
Sebastian, son of Sam, crawled out of his brand new big-boy bed, sneaking carefully up front. He wanted to try and sneak a peek at his presents, and knew his mother wouldn’t be awake so early, and his father either wouldn’t be home, or would be deep asleep on the couch. Either way, Sebastian was seeing just what had been brought in the night. Sebastian frowned in confusion as he eyed the much-abused toy sword leaning against the tree. It was almost as tall as he was. Something was up. In fact, he could swear he saw a pair of black boots behind the tree…

“Aren’t you supposed to be asleep, big guy?” Samuel stepped out from behind the tree, grinning at his son.

Intermission: Christmas, Part 5.

December 24, 2009. 10:45pm
Sam took a step, his boots crunching into the snow and ice coating the floor. It sunk in a few inches before hitting the slippery floor. Slowly and carefully, he walked the first few steps into the hall. Wind rose up and sent ice and snow whipping at his face. Behind him, the doors slammed shut and locked. Sam clenched his jaw, held an arm before his face, and kept moving. He was almost there. The walk seemed to take days, reminding Sam that time flowed however it wanted, here. Halfway through the hall the wind rose fiercer, the hall becoming a whirlwind of ice and clumps of snow. Within that wind was a malevolent howling. Sam knew in his heart that the sound was what a pleased demon sounded like.

An animal part of Sam’s mind told him to turn back, to run. He was surely making a mistake. Someone else was meant for this. No, no. It had to be him, and it had to be now. Sam tightened his grip on the toy sword. Turning around now, straying from the instinctual path even by inches meant getting lost in the storm. Getting lost in the storm meant a lot of things for a lot of people, none of them. Sam took another step, and walked headfirst into a pair of heavy wooden doors. He took the holly wreath from his hair, now frozen, and pushed it into the space between the doors. He pushed, and twisted, and the holly shattered. The doors followed shortly after, cracking slowly and finally simply falling over into a pile of frozen wood shards. The thing was waiting for him on its throne.

Silver Signs: Part 4.

A woman lay in the alley. Or, the remains of one did. Her throat was cut deep and I could see bone through the slash. My eyes trailed down to her abdomen, which lay open. That was too much for me, and I clenched my eyes shut, leaned against the alley wall, and wretched. It hurt to do, mentally and physically. My throat and eyes burned, and I let out a sob against my own will. Silas patted my back, coughing, and pressed a mint into my hand. He had thrown his coat over the woman, and it was already soaked through with blood. I looked away, and noticed there was blood on my sleeve.

I looked back at the wall, squinting. It was covered in blood. A slowly drying and browning version of the spiraling blue symbols I had seen this morning. An image of the moon pulsed in my mind and I went lightheaded. I backed away and rubbed my eyes with my hand, coughing again. Stumbling out of the alley, I slumped against a building and pulled out my cell phone, dialing 911. I got a busy signal.
I got a genuine goddamn busy signal, on the only emergency number. Shit. Silas stumbled out after me, cursing at his phone.

“Can’t get it?” I looked up at him. He shook his head. “Hoof it, then,” I murmured and stood, walking towards the police station. Silas wasn’t looking so good, so we had to stop about halfway there for him to vomit into a trashcan. Apparently the drinks weren’t helping him, anymore. Somewhere nearby, glass broke. We both broke into a run, Silas cursing every few steps.

Intermission 1. We.

They each pulled on a red cloak, clasping them with a golden pair of antlers. They adjusted their belongings underneath and pulled up their hoods. They had something to tell the king. The hurried by, names and insignias and coins passing through their hands and into that of the guards. What they had to tell the king was very important. They even managed to get into the castle, with enough gold from one, and a few words and names and titles from the other. They were a boy and a girl, and they were on a mission.

Their words were the most important the king would hear.
Inside the castle, they drew off their hoods. Guards nodded to the young man, and bowed slightly for the woman. Their words alone weren’t important, after all. They didn’t even have to say a word or pass a coin, inside the castle. This was good, coins only went so far. Two big doors barred entry to the main hall. There was a big golden pair of antlers scribed into the door. A halberd wielding guard was posted on either side of the door. Seeing the pair was all they needed, and the halberds were moved out of the way, and the doors pushed open.

In the hall now, the pair walked quickly and purposefully down the thick line of carpet that ran from the door to the king’s throne. The walls were lined with the king’s personal guard. Red armor and stag helmets and big, heavy swords and axes. A fast look told the young man that there were eight in all. The king himself had a sword leaned against his throne. He smiled when he saw the pair, proudly. The king was getting old. He had used to be a warrior. Over the course of his rule, he had done many bad, bad things.

The pair of youths knew this. They had something important to tell him about this very thing. The boy spoke first as the pair went to one knee.

“Father, we have something very important to tell you. I pray you have the time?” The prince looked up plaintively, chewing his lip.

“I always have time for you, Roan. Your bride as well, of course,” the king smiled proudly. His son was to be married.

“There are members of your kingdom who do not support your actions, father.” Roan, the prince, looked up worriedly, glancing at the guards and then locking eyes with his father. “You are not safe here.”

“My guard will protect me, Roan. Know how paranoid you get, but it is unwarranted.” The king followed his sons gaze to one of the elite guard, who gave a prompt salute. The king looked down at his son. He’ll be a ruler yet. If only he could deal with the blood. Nothing to be done of it but hope his son was ready when he himself died. The king knew this for a certainty.

“You may do well to look beyond your guards, father. Perhaps over your shoulder?” The prince looked up, eyes narrowed. The king did not like this. He did not like this at all. Wait, where was the girl? The king, fearful now, stood from his throne and made a theatrical show of looking over his shoulder. Behind him,in the air was the princess. His son’s fiancé. No, not in the air, she was on his throne. The woman was on his damn throne with a… a bow? Where was the arrow? The king watched long enough to see the feathered end of the missing arrow sprout from his shoulder, before he pitched forward into the waiting arms of his son. Something warm and wet was pouring onto his stomach. The king felt dizzy. His son lay him down on the carpet. Where did it come from? A bounty from a brutal campaign in the north; the king’s first war. That was it. The king nodded, looking up at his son. Prince Roan held a bloody dagger in his hands.

“I’m sorry, father. The country cannot take another year in your hands,” The prince leaned down, plucked the crown from his father’s head. The elites approached weapons ready. The king turned to them, smiling beatifically. “Will two of you dispose of this corpse, for me?” The king’s elite guard moved to obey.

Silver Signs Part 3.

The bar is half full despite being well before noon. Pale-faced men and women in ties and pantsuits mill about dimly. No one says a word. The bartender sets a glass in front of me and fills it. The bottles have all been opened, most of them drained. He fills another glass for himself. The bartender during the day must be a different guy than I remember. This one is dressed as formally as I am, tie and all. There’s blood on his cuffs.

“Hey, guy,” I look up at him, head tilted to one side. “Where’s Lucius at?” The man shrugs.

“Dunno, place was open, so…” he trails off, looking guilty. “I’m Silas, though.” Silas reaches across the bar to shake my hand. He looks around suspiciously at the other patrons for over a minute. Silas leans down to whisper to me. “So what’s going on? Do you know? No one here really talks.”

“No, what’s going on?” I look him over for any obvious weapons, leaning slightly away.

“Well, I heard something about the end of the world, so it might be that. I figure though, it’s some kind of government thing.” Silas grins proudly at those claims. I have to stare at him for a long moment. I remember the angel, and suddenly the first option seems almost obvious. I suppose at this point I owe him a secret.

I tell him about the angel. What I can remember of it. The entire story almost sounds less crazy out loud. Telling it makes me need another drink, which I get. By the end, I notice my hands are shaking. Silas simply nods and pours me a third drink.

I head out, and walk for a few minutes before I notice Silas beside me. He was pointing at the moon and wincing. I glance at it and check my watch. It’s daytime, just before noon. The sun is out, too. On the other side of the sky was the moon, big and shining and possibly made of cheese.

“So? Atmosphere trick, right?” I looked over at Silas, then up at the moon. My eyes felt strained. They started to water and I couldn’t look at it anymore. Next to me, Silas was rubbing his fingers over his eyes, grimacing. A man hurried out of the alley, wearing a scarf, a trench coat, and a wide brimmed hat. It was a little summer for that sort of getup, wasn’t it? His footprints were red. I watched him go. He must have been sweating like a pig under all th- Red? I ran to the alley he had emerged from and immediately regretted it. Behind me, I heard Silas gasp, groan, and lose his breakfast on the sidewalk.

Silver Signs, Part 2: Pact and Paranoia

Wolves are howling somewhere outside. I check the clock, six-thirty. I yawn, peel the diodes from my sweaty neck and peek outside. The sun is rising, but the moon is still out and full, right where it was last night. Looking at it makes me feel uneasy, so I close my blinds, shower, and dress. I vaguely remembered something odd happening and some funny dreams last night.

By the time I’ve left for work, the day before is a comfortable blur. The moon still lingers in the sky, opposite the sun. I pull on some sunglasses, hurrying away from it and toward the train station. A wolf howls somewhere. I shiver.
The office is emptier than yesterday, which was emptier than the day before. People simply keep disappearing. Not showing up. It doesn’t get reported anymore. Who to report it to? Besides, if people want to lose their jobs, that’s their problem. I heard the other day that it’s happening all over the city. It did seem like there were less people on the street, come to think of it. I also heard the people that disappear are sometimes found naked in the woods, insane. These thoughts lead me to realize my boss has been gone for two full days. I decide to check in on him.

The air in the office is stale. His computer is still on, two days of undone paperwork splayed across his desk. These forms and files are covered in ink, as if someone flung it from a well in some sort of avant garde art experiment. I think that’s what you call it. It occurs to me slowly that the ink is spread in a few repeating symbols. Written, not flung at all. These symbols, in a spiral pattern, cover his desk. There are upwards of sixty (guessing here) ballpoint pens on the floor next to his desk. I have no doubt that they’re empty. The pattern of ink continues down the sides of his desk and onto the walls. Likewise, I have no doubt in my mind that Mark is gone forever. This is when it occurs to me that there is no one around to record my time, or sign my paychecks. I may as well be unemployed. I sigh, loosen my tie, and head to the bar.

Silver Signs, part 1.

I saw an angel today, I think. He was slumped in an alley with bloody feathers all around him. A sword the size of a street sign and the color of magnesium sat across his lap. A half empty bottle of something foul was in one of his hands. He looked up at me with cracked lips and smiled.

“I want to go home,” he told me. I tossed him a wadded up ten, feeling guilty. It (for what I saw was certainly not human now) laughed harshly and spoke in a voice that at once soothed my soul and clawed at my mind. Its wings swelled and spread as it spoke, many pairs of then flapping and shining. I saw for an instant what it must have been before it became the broken man I saw before. Something in my mind fractured, screamed. It was a man again, smiling beatifically and a small bit mischievously. “Can you see the stars, child?” The voice clawed at the already broken parts and I nodded dimly. My world narrowed to a thing that may have been an angel (or the devil himself) and the bricks he leaned against. “Those of us who wait are waking. Things will not be well for a time, and I am sorry for this,” the light of mischief left his eyes and he looked to the ground. The pain and the salve left his voice and he laughed again, the crackling left of a man without even his sanity left. “Go home, kid,” the angel drank amber from his bottle. I watched him for a moment, horrified, before I made myself scarce.

Adhesive diodes stuck carefully behind my ears. Jolts from the radio pumped lights and sounds straight to my brain. I dialed in to something relaxing, went to bed in my clothes. The angel? The mirage, more likely, brought on by stress surely, had shaken me. I chuckled at how foolish I felt, and the radio’s noise followed me to sleep.

I was watching a woman, hovering somewhere above and behind her. She sits stoic, somewhere in some city, in the same night as I sleep in. I knew this in the floating, offhand way you know anything in a dream. Legs crossed, eyes wide, open, and watering from a dozen lit candles, she waits. An hour passes and the big clock strikes eleven. The room has grown hot. A bead of sweat runs from her temple and she can hear the city’s heartbeat. She still waits, unmoving. This will work, she knows. Part of me knows it as well. All such things work, with patience and belief. They always have. We know this as well. Her heartbeat pounds loud in my ears and hers. It merges with the city’s sounds. Something about the night tears, and a mind reaches through, ignites mine. It seems to have affected her too. She has slumped, her eyes are wider, and she’s panting.