Fanfic Friday

“The Demon with My Face”

(One of the first chapters I wrote about Alondra the Vampire Huntress. Any resemblances between any of the characters in this story and more famous pop culture characters should be obvious -- though my first draft of this chapter made the connection even more obvious than it is in this chapter. I hope you all enjoy it.)

Chapter One

There is a demon in the world. It wears my face. I know it is not me because I am not a demon. But it is the demon's face that other people see, not mine. And even when I myself look into the mirror, I never see my face. Only the demon's.

My name is Alondra Verano. I used to be normal.

It’s only when I grew older that I learned that I was different. That I was always different. That I always would be different.

I almost killed myself that day. Instead I took a bottle of sleeping pills from the local drug store and took them all in one gulp, only to find myself spitting them out fifteen minutes later.

My parents came home and found me lying by the downstairs toilet. They sent me to the modern-day equivalent of an exorcist and then they put me in a mental hospital. There the doctors continually told me that I never saw what I obviously saw and that I never heard what I always heard.

It was not until the day that a specialist came in to interview me that I finally learned the truth. That I was a Chosen One.

I kinda laughed at that point because both my parents were cradle Catholics and though there had been rumors of Sephardic ancestry in our family's distant past, few of the younger generation -- including myself -- ever took such rumors seriously.

Then the specialist stopped smiling and said that he did not mean that kind of Chosen One. No, I was of a different kind.

The man came from a distant city -- apparently a city located within my home state -- though his accent told me that he himself had come from someplace far further. Apparently there was others like me in this place. Two, in fact -- though in fact, there were only supposed to be one.

He wanted me to come with him and train with the other two. That it would not be good for me to be alone. I had a special gift but such a gift would be useless to me without training. At least that's what he said.

At that point, I would have agreed to anything to get out of that place.

And yet...

"Let me speak to my parents," I said. "And my sister. And the rest of the family."

The man from far away frowned. "That... would not be advisable. The more your family knows, the more they'll be in danger."

"Bullshit," I said, despite myself. "I want to at least talk to my mother."

"You mean the loving mother who committed you to this facility in the first place?" he asked.

"She had her reasons," I said, feeling somewhat strange because I was actually defending actions taken by my mom that I hated.

And yet something about the stranger made me want to fight back. Almost as if he knew something about me that he had no right to know. And yet it was something that I had to know as well. And if I didn't know it, I'd never be free -- no matter how many times I was released.

"Okay," he finally said. "You can see your mother."

Cuento de Mi Id

“I Don't Want to Start Any Blasphemous Rumors, But I Think That the Muse Has Got a Sick Sense of Humor”

Alondra was dreaming again when she had the vision. It was a white palace adorned with purple pennants and there were servants throughout the place, dressed in green and gold. On a balcony overlooking the countryside, there stood a princess clad in a purple dress looking up at a full moon. She was gazing at a silver lake and chanting words that seemed quite familiar to Alondra...

It was then that she woke up. She reached for the notebook by the bed to write down the details of the dream while it was still fresh in her mind. But before she could write down the first words, a baby started crying.

It was her sister's baby but her sister was not home. So Alondra had to get up and see what was wrong with the baby. Did it need a new diaper? Or a fresh bottle?

Alondra could not tell. But she changed its diaper just in case and then she gave it a bottle when it kept fussing.

By the time the baby went back to sleep, it was almost time for Alondra to get ready for work. Alondra really wanted to write down her story first but she just knew that she had to take her shower now or else she would not get a chance to take one this morning.

Besides, the story was still intact in her brain. She just had to get it down on paper.

After her shower, there was no time to write because then she had to get dressed. Then she had to brush her hair. And do her makeup. Then she had to eat breakfast, only no one else was up yet so she had to cook her own breakfast first. Finally she had time but no, she didn't because she had to leave for her job at the local coffee shop or else she would be late. And her boss hated it when she came in late.

Oh, well, Alondra thought. I'll write at the coffee shop.

When she got to the coffee shop, there was no time to write because she had to wait on customers. It seemed unusually busy this morning -- not just during the morning breakfast rush and the lunch rush but in-between as well.

Ironically, one of her customers was herself a writer. She was a middle-aged redhead who continually stared at her laptop as if it held the answer to all the mysteries of the universe. Alondra thought about asking her for advice about writing, but every time she had the chance, the expression on the woman's face always discouraged her.

At long last, Alondra's work was through and she had the chance to go home. Now she finally had time to write.

But as Alondra opened her notebook and started to write down her dream, she had trouble remembering little details. Had it been a large palace or a small one? Purple pennants or green? Silver lake or blue?

Was this story really worth writing down? Alondra wondered. It had seemed so vivid this morning but now...

As Alondra read over the few words she had written, it was all she could do to keep from weeping.

xxx

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, the redhead who had been in the coffee shop was in her apartment trying to think of a story to write in order to justify her art grant.

But for some reason, the words would not come.

Indeed, no words had come all day.

And all week.

And yet people all around her seemed to find plenty of stuff to write about.

Life is so unfair, she thought. Why does everything always happen to me?

Fanfic Friday

"Coming Never to a Theatre Near You"

And as Kate gazed at the mushroom cloud that was erupting over the western horizon of London, she suddenly realized that this really was a last Christmas...

Novela de Mi Id

“In Fear and Trembling”

Chapter Seven

The hairy one proved to be a gentler lover than she had imagined. The first night had not been one of pain like her mother had warned and as succeeding nights wore on, she began to realize that her husband was quite gentle for a man who looked like a beast.

Nevertheless, there came a night when she awoke to find him staring out their bedroom window, his face focused on the distant moon.

“Come to bed, my heaven,” she said.

“I can't.”

“What is it?” She pushed away the blankets and walked over to him.

He was murmuring something. “I was conceived in darkness and raised in darkness. Now I conceive yet another in darkness and so on forever and amen.”

“What is it?” she said again.

He turned to look at her, and suddenly, despite her long white robe, she felt quite exposed. His attention seemed focused on the small triangular slit that had been made in her robe below the waist. It was a conception dress, to put it quite bluntly, and yet the way her husband looked at her now made it quite clear that conception was not quite on his mind.

“You are quite beautiful,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“Too beautiful.”

“I don't understand.”

“They will separate us in the end. The beauty and the beast only live happily ever after in fairy tales.”

He stared at the night sky again. “Someday I will burn and so will all my children. But you -- you will be spared.”

“Why are you talking like this?”

“I have decided to go to the New World, away from the eyes of the Mother Church.”

He grasped her hand. “I want you to come with me.”

“Why?”

“Because you are my wife.”

“No,” she said. “I mean, why are you fleeing the kingdom?”

He looked away from her. “You would not understand.”

“Yes, I would. Just tell me.”

He turned toward her again.

“I am cursed.”

“Why do you say that? Because you're hairy?”

He shook his head and then fell silent.

Then he pointed.

On a path in the garden below their bedroom window, the bones of a small animal shone in the moonlight.

“I did that,” Don Felipe said. He looked at her again. “And God help me, someday I may do it again.”

Fanfic Friday

"Jim Morrison's It's a Wonderful Life"

The banker awoke at dawn.
He put his boots on.
And he walked on down the hall.

He stopped at the room where his brother Harry slept.
And then he...

Then he stopped at the room where his Uncle Billy slept.
And then he...

And then he walked on down the hall.

And he came to a door
and he looked inside.

"Mary?" "Yes, dear?" "I want to kiss you."

"Violet?" "Yes, George?" "I want to..." *Makes unintelligible noise*

Novela de Mi Id

“In Fear and Trembling”

Chapter Six

The next morning a sexless one appeared at the door. “Come with me,” it said.

He was escorted down a long black corridor to a solitary stone chamber. The furnishings were much simpler in this chamber than in the one in which he had slept the night before. For one thing, there were no windows or wall coverings and the floor was bare stone. The only piece of furniture was a wooden chair; its only source of heat was a modest fire. A brown-robed man sat in the chair. Besides him was a yellowing human skull. The man's head seemed almost as hairless as the skull. His hood was down and around his neck could be seen a crucifix and a rosary.

“Good evening,” the man said. “I am Father Jerónimo.”

The man patted the skull beside him and waited for an answer. When none was forthcoming, he continued. “I have heard that you have some objection to the Mother Church.”

Father Jerónimo patted the skull again. “Why is that?”

He replied, “For years, I have been a prisoner in the royal dungeon. Did the Mother Church lift a finger to help me? No. Why then should I be especially grateful to it for anything?”

Father Jerónimo frowned. “You owe the Mother Church more than you know. It was we who fed you and educated you. It was we who gave you clothes and arranged your marriage. Your own father cared little whether you lived or died. You saw that for yourself at the ceremony.”

“You mean that old man was my father?”

“Of course,” said Father Jerónimo. “But then I suspect that you had already guessed as much.”

He said nothing.

Father Jerónimo continued. “Anyway, the one reason you are here today is because of the Mother Church. Otherwise, you would have been exposed at birth.”

The hairless old man smiled and noted his visitor's reaction.

“What of my mother?” he asked.

“She died while giving birth to you, her only child,” said Father Jerónimo. “Why else do you think your father resents you so?”

He stared at Father Jerónimo, his assurance suddenly shaken. He took a step forward. “Why do you tell me this?"

“Just a warning,” said Father Jerónimo. “You are a good man in spite of your unalterable handicaps. Our kingdom needs good men like you to rule it. Especially since we are on the verge of becoming an empire. However, what she does not need is would-be heretics spitting in the face of her supporters and dragging the kingdom down to ruin. After all, we are first and foremost a Christian country. Our ways are Christian ways. Take care not to mock them for even you are not indispensable.”

Father Jerónimo patted the skull again. “Heed the lesson of the memento mori. We are all mortal. Never forget that.”

He just stared at the old man again.

“You are dismissed,” said the priest.

He just stood there.

“I said you are dismissed.”

He still did not move. “My name,” he said.

“What?”

“Say my name.”

“Very well,” said the priest. “You are dismissed, Don Felipe. But take care never to darken my door again.”

He smiled again. “You seem to forget that it was you who had invited me to come here.”

And with that, he left.

Fanfic Friday

"Buffy and the Minstrel"

(A more upbeat chapter from an edited version of a story originally written for another site. The story, of course, is set in an alternative universe and any resemblance to pop culture characters in our own universe should be fairly obvious.)

As Buffy, Laurel and Sir Roderick entered the inn known as the Violet Moon, they were greeted by an one-eyed proprietor named Alexis Harris as well as by his lovely blonde wife Anastasia.

However, they were also enticed by the sound of a lute playing in a nearby room.

"Oh, cool," said Laurel. "They have a minstrel."

"Not just a minstrel," said Anastasia. "We have the great Australis, Aus for short. He plays here all the time -- except for nights of the full moon. For some reason, we can never get him to work on those nights."

Buffy could not help drifting in the direction of the music. She did not hear such music too often in her line of work and given all her current worries, she welcomed the chance to drown herself in the work of a master minstrel.

At least she did until she realized what she was listening to.

"Eighty men died and eighty men fried!" sang the minstrel. "Now their ashes are buried on the countryside. Ten, twenty, fifty or more. The bloody red dragon kept rolling up the score. Eighty men died trying to kill that freak. The bloody red dragon of Coven -- "

"You're playing that song?!" exclaimed Buffy.

"Hey!" said the redheaded minstrel who called himself Australis. "What's wrong with that song? I get more requests for that tune than for any other song that I play."

"'Rover vs. the Red Dragon' is not the type of song I want to listen to tonight," said Buffy.

"Why not?" asked Australis. "Don't you like songs about dragon slayers?"

"Hello," said Buffy. "I am a dragon slayer. But that song about some dog fighting a dragon -- "

"Hey!" exclaimed Australis. "For all you know, it might have actually happened that way."

"But it didn't," said Buffy.

"Well, at least folks around here find it entertaining," said Australis.

"Folks around here aren't going to be fighting a dragon tomorrow," said Buffy. "Don't you have any tunes that aren't dragon-related?"

"I'm guessing 'Sympathy for the Dragon' and 'Pfft the Magic Dragon' are out of the question," said Australis.

"Yes, they are," said Buffy.

"In that case, let's see... 'Play with Fire', 'Light My Fire', 'Ring of Fire', 'I'm on Fire', 'We Didn't Start the Fir --'"

"Don't you have any songs that aren't fire-related?" asked Buffy.

"Sure," said Australis. "'Momma I Just Killed a Man'."

"No," said Buffy. "I mean something's that more upbeat."

"Well, there's always the classic tune 'Here We Are Now, Entertain Us'," said Australis.

"That sounds cheerful," said Buffy. "Play that one."

Novela de Mi Id

“In Fear and Trembling”

Chapter Five

That night they were left alone in a large bedchamber. The carpet and the drapes were all in bright red; the ceiling was inscribed with angels. On the wall beside the bed was a tapestry depicting the Annunciation and the Wedding at Cana. He remembered learning about these events from the sexless ones when he was a child but he was not sure why they were deemed appropriate for a tapestry in this room. Behind the bed and above the headboard was a wooden cross upon which a hook-nosed figure clad in a loincloth was nailed. This figure, too, was familiar to him from his childhood teachings but it still made him uneasy to look at it -- perhaps because no such figure had ever been used to decorate his cell when he was growing up.

He and his bride were silent as they entered the room. The sexless one who had escorted them inside leered as it departed and made a gesture of farewell.

His bride was the first to sit upon the bed, her white dress clashing with the red blankets and bed curtains. She pulled aside the blankets; the sheets beneath were pure white. But of course, she thought. Then she gazed upward at the eyeless angels.

Behind her, she heard the sound of shuffling feet. Her groom cleared his throat. “I suppose it's time,” he said.

He started to undress.

“No, not here,” she said. “Turn your back first.”

“But we are man and wife,” he said.

“The angels are watching,” she said and then she pointed upward.

“But those are only painted figures.”

“But they have human eyes.”

She turned toward him. “You still don't understand, do you?”

He shook his head.

“The Church, your father -- they will have men and maids watching us. To see that we conform to the Holy Law.”

“Why is that a matter for them?” he said. “I was taught that it was a matter between us and God.”

She winced. “It is. But God does not always punish the ungodly; that is the Holy Church's role. And if the Holy Church did not do its part, we might soon fall into...” She paused. “...bestiality,” she weakly finished.

“I still don't understand.”

“The servants are watching us to see that we couple in the approved manner. For if we do not, we imperil our very souls and they will feel obliged to report us to men who will save us from ourselves -- at the cost of our very lives." She paused again. “Do you understand?”

He smiled. “No, I don't. What harm can the two of us do to the Mother Church in our marriage bed? Surely the ceremony has already proved us to be good Christians.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Many a nonbeliever has called himself a Christian after the Reconquest yet still eschewed ham and pork. Some such folk even retained a separate set of dishes for Sabbath days. No, a good Christian must be Christian in all parts of his life -- and not just in public.”

“And the servants are here to see to that?”

“Yes, of course.”

He walked over to the wall, bowed to the crucifix, gently removed it from the wall and kissed it. Then he drove it upward into one of the angel's eyes. He heard a shriek of pain for his trouble.

“Bless this room and all in it,” he said, repeating words he had heard in his childhood, “For who knows what evil things lurk without?”

His bride's face contorted in fury. “You fool. You risk not only your life but mine with such blasphemy.”

“On the contrary, I am the Heir. You said so yourself. The one who shall someday rule this great kingdom. For me, there is no such thing as blasphemy.”

“You fool. Even a Prince of the Blood is not exempt from the stake.”

He smiled. “Tell me this. Did these men who watch us so closely care so much for my immortal soul all those years I was imprisoned?”

“That was different. You were born quite ill, or so the old folks said. Your father was not sure that you would survive.”

“So he locked me away from all mortal men and treated me like an animal -- just in case.” He smiled again.

He dropped the crucifix and walked toward the bed.

“What are you going to do to me?”

“That which a man usually does to his lawfully wedded wife.”

“But the servants...”

“Should get their own women.”

He started to undress her.

“No. Wait. I can do it. Please. Stand back.”

“You seem most frightened, my dear.”

“The tales I have heard the servants telling about you. About the encounter you had with the village girl. She said you were a sodomite.”

He laughed. “I'm afraid I don't know that word.”

“That you were a boy-lover. An eunuch. One who is incapable of physically making love to a woman like me.”

He smiled. “I know not what those first two parts mean, but I assure you that the third part is not true. And you will soon find out just how untrue it is.”

“Will I?”

He stared at her, his shirt half-unbuttoned.

“Certainly.”

Fanfic Friday

"Jamie Has a Premonition"

(Another edited version of a fanfic chapter originally written for another site. This one is set in an alternative universe and was written during one of my recent periods of hospitalization. Any resemblance of the characters in this chapter to certain pop culture characters in this universe should be fairly obvious.)

Jamie Madigan had always lived in fear of dying by fire. It did not help that her own mother -- hardly the kindest woman who ever lived but still in her own way a loving parent -- had died by fire, executed by the Watchers Council for charges that were considered either legit, bogus or unbelievable, depending on whom you talked to.

Jamie still remembered standing in the crowd, silent with stark raving fear, as the flames had consumed her mother. She had kept expecting her mother to do something -- to call out a curse upon her executioners, to extinguish the flames with a sudden rain storm, to do anything apart from what she actually did -- which was to die screaming as a crowd composed of her former friends and clients silently stood by and watched her burn.

That was just two years ago but after all this time, her mother's screams still echoed within Jamie's head and though part of her told herself that her mother had deserved her fate -- that she had done great harm to a great many people -- another part of her told herself that no one -- no matter how bad -- should have to die the way that her mother did.

Perhaps that was why she chose to reach out to the dragon slayer. Up until this night, Jamie had believed that all dragon slayers were arrogant little women whose sense of entitlement made your average princess seem quite humble. Yet tonight she had not seen such a creature. She had seen a frightened little girl who was trying very hard not to sound like a frightened little girl. A girl who, like Jamie, feared death by fire -- and had no idea what to do about the imminent prospect of such a death.

Jamie liked to think that she had dealt with her fear by striving to prove herself the exact opposite of her mother. Instead of performing black magic, she performed white magic. Instead of using her powers to perform evil deeds, she used them to perform good deeds. And yet despite all that, she had always lived in fear that it would not be enough. That, in the end, the Watchers Council would consider her to be as guilty as her mother, no matter what she did, and send her to the stake to burn.

But by helping the Slayer, she was helping herself. At least, that's what Jamie told herself. After all, the Watchers Council might be a corrupt bunch of hypocritical old bullies but even they would not be foolish enough to execute someone who had actually proved to be of use to them. After all, they might need her help again in the future.

And yet despite all that, Jamie could not help thinking: what if the spell wasn't enough? What if Buffy wasn't able to defeat the dragon? Death by dragonfire did not seem like much improvement over death by Council fire.

So Jamie walked outside of the Violet Moon and watched Buffy fight the dragon, only to see poor Buffy flung off into the wilderness. Great Goddess, Jamie thought. Is Buffy dead? Did my spell just ensure that Buffy would die a different type of death by dragon than the one Buffy had originally feared?

No, wait, thought Jamie. Dragons are almost indestructible. More importantly, Buffy in her dragon form was almost indestructible. And even if she wasn't, there was no way a mere flick of the dragon's tail could have killed her.

Buffy was still alive, Jamie thought. She just knew that had to be true.

Indeed, she could see Buffy in the air right then. She was flying back to the village in the opposite direction from which she had been flung but she was returning.

But wait!

Why would Buffy be flying in from that direction? And why was she ignoring the big dragon that had just knocked the stuffing out of her. And more importantly, why did this Buffy look so different from the Buffy Jamie had seen much earlier?

A nasty thought crept into Jamie's head. And though she knew that she should be using her powers to defend herself, she could not help but just stand there as she watched the approaching dragon.

And as the dragon drew closer, Jamie found herself unable to move. In fact, she seemed unable to do anything save focus on just two thoughts:

1. The small dragon flying in her direction was not Buffy.

2. Jamie really was about to suffer the same death by fire that she had always feared.

Novela de Mi Id

“In Fear and Trembling”

Chapter Four

At dawn, they awoke him for the ceremony. He was brought to the great stone baths where the sexless ones unceasingly scoured and scrubbed him until he was achingly clean. Then they dressed him in fine silken underdrawers and lavender trousers. A hairshirt -- so redundant in his case -- and a silken shirt of purest white were chosen to cover the bit above his waist. Around his waist they tied a black sash and upon his head they placed a gold crown. They also gave him a cape -- a simple one made of red silk.

Then they looked at him and they saw that it was good.

On the way to the chapel, he felt nervous. His head was pounding as if it resonated with the beat of a giant pendulum. His mouth felt dry and feverish and his palms sweated as if he was in the midst of a great desert.

When he reached the door of the chapel, he noticed his bride standing at the far end by the altar. She was clad in a white dress and a wreath of flowers was around her neck.

A sacrifice, he thought.

And he wondered what had made him think of that.

The sexless ones prodded him forward. Reluctantly, with the air of a vain yet cowardly actor, he walked forward, trying to keep his feet and face pointed straight forward. As he neared the altar, he looked away from the black-clad sexless one standing there and gazed more at his bride standing on the right.

He walked right up beside her and the sexless one gestured for him to stop. He did so.

A black-clad old man whom he had not seen before came forward out of the shadows and stood beside him. In his hand was a gold ring with a red stone embedded in it.

The old man gestured and from out of a darkened alcove, music played. An invisible choir sang words he could not recognize.

Then the old man gestured again.

And the sexless one spoke.

Once again he did not understand the words being spoken yet every so often, the old man prodded him and whispered in his ear the words he was to say.

Then at last, the sexless one asked him in normal language to join hands with his bride and he did so. Her hand felt hot and sweaty but she did not draw away. However, her eyes kept looking at the old man with an expression of fear.

He wanted to say something to reassure her but he knew not what to say.

Then the sexless one uttered some more incomprehensible words and gestured. The old man handed him the ring.

The sexless one said a few more words and then gestured for silence. No one spoke. Then it continued and at the end of its speech, it pantomimed placing a circle on its ring finger.

The old man prodded him again. He looked down at the ring and realized what the pantomime had meant. He placed it gently upon his bride's finger. He tried to reassure her with his eyes but she kept evading his gaze.

He thought he heard her whispering words to herself but the words she said made no sense. I am not here, she said. This is all unreal. I am far away, dreaming in my bed, and I am not here.

The sexless one spoke again and then stopped and clapped its hands. It smiled and pantomimed a kiss.

He bent forward to kiss his bride and felt only hot, sweaty skin.

It should have been better than this, he thought.

The sad look in his bride's eyes told him that she felt likewise.

Then the old man slapped him on the back. “Congratulations, my son,” he said.

The old man shook his hand and retired into the darkness. It was only the sight of the sexless ones bowing in the old man's direction that told him that the old man had been someone of importance. And it was only the sight of his bride that told him that he had not dreamed this.

Fanfic Friday

"Interlude with a Vampire"

(A brief and edited excerpt from a fanfic story involving a certain famous pop culture character. And of course, Buffy Summers.)

Buffy couldn't find Giles at any of the usual places and she had even more trouble trying to find Willow or Tara as well so instead she went to the Bronze to cool her heels while waiting for either Willow or Tara to show up.

As Buffy sat down at the bar, she ordered herself a Shirley Temple. After the day she had had, Buffy was tempted to order something stronger but years of training under Giles made certain habits almost automatic. Besides, every time she thought seriously about drinking large amounts of alcohol, she remembered her experience with Black Frost Beer, an experience that her friends still kid her about. Not to mention that weird dream where she drank a large number of wine coolers in her dorm room and then went out to -- No, she really did not want to think about that dream right now.

"Buy a girl a drink?" she heard a voice ask her.

Buffy turned and saw a young blonde girl who appeared to be around five years old sitting on the bar stool next to her. She looked familiar for some reason, but the only thing that came to Buffy's mind was the way the girl's face reminded her of a young Kirsten Dunst.

"Aren't you a little young to be in a bar?" asked Buffy.

"Aren't you a little young to be so judgmental?" replied the blonde. "Besides, I'm a lot older than I look."

"Sure you are," said Buffy. "Why don't I buy you a soda instead?"

"Make it a V-8," said the blonde. "For some reason, I prefer to drink tomato juice right now. It's not as delicious as my normal drink but then you're not likely to offer me that so I'll settle for the tomato juice."

"Okay," said Buffy.

After she placed her order, Buffy turned once more toward the blonde and said, "Hi, I'm Buffy Summers. And you are?"

"Claudia," said the young blonde. "No last name. Just Claudia."

"That name sounds familiar," said Buffy. "Have we met before?"

"No, I usually don't come here in the daytime," said Claudia. "The tunnels are a bitch to navigate and then I have to deal with all the Minas and so I usually --"

"Minas?" asked Buffy.

"Yes, Mina," said Claudia. "As in Mina Harker, founding member of the most famous group of vampire slayers ever."

"Well, I wouldn't say that was quite true," said Buffy. "So what do you have against vampire slayers?"

"Well, they're always harassing me and my friends," said Claudia. "Not that I hang out with Louis and Lestat as much as I used to -- especially since that whole near-death thing -- but still certain things get old and --"

"Get out of town!" cried Buffy. "Did you say Lestat? Does that mean you're that Claudia?"

"I don't mean I'm Claudia of Flatbush," said the young blonde. "Anyway, I sometimes think this visit to Sunnydale was a bad idea. For a vampire town, it is not at all what I expected. In fact, the longer I stay, the more I wish I had made a right turn at Albuquerque."

"Oookay," said Buffy. "But if you hate vampire slayers so much, why are you sitting next to me?"

"Why shouldn't I sit next to you?" asked Claudia. "After all, it's not like -- Son of a bitch! You are! My Minadar must be off today. I could have sworn that you Slayers were usually only called one at a time. At least that's the way I've seen it work since Mina Harker retired."

"Well, there used to be another Slayer apart from me but she's -- er -- away right now," said Buffy.

"Oh, really?" asked Claudia. "Is she a middle-aged dark blonde who looks a bit like that gym teacher in the original Carrie? Because I could have sworn that I saw a woman like that earlier in the day when I was peeking out of one of the tunnels."

"That sounds like you're describing my mom," said Buffy. "Which couldn't be right because she's as far from a vampire slayer as you can possibly get."

"That's what I thought when I first saw her as well," said Claudia. "But then I saw her walk and her body language seemed to have 'vampire slayer' written all over it."

"That couldn't be right," said Buffy. "To do that, she would have to --"

Just then, their drinks came. Buffy turned away to get them and when she turned back, she noticed that Claudia was no longer sitting right besides her. In fact, there was no sign of her whatsoever in the Bronze.

Novela de Mi Id

“In Fear and Trembling”

Chapter Three

That night they sent a servant into his cell to anoint him for the ceremony. She was a dark-haired girl dressed in a long red skirt and a white blouse and her breath stank of garlic and fermented fruit. At the entrance to his cell, she hesitated, swaying as if caught by a sudden breeze. Then she took a swig from the small green bottle she carried and entered, making the same strange gesture with her hands that the sexless ones did.

She knelt before him and uncapped one of the small flasks she had tied to her waist. Pouring its contents into an open palm, she looked up at him.

“Kneel," she said, and beneath her words, he detected a bit of nervous laughter.

Nevertheless, he knelt and stared at the woman as she in turn stared at him.

“I bet you're a very big man,” she said.

He blinked.

“Please undress,” she said.

“But, señora, I --”

“Don't worry,” she said, averting her eyes. “I have seen men undressed before.”

Slowly and nervously, he divested himself of his clothing, keeping one eye on the woman all the while. Once he was fully naked, he knelt down once more and saw the woman turn to look at him.

“So big,” she said. “So very big.”

“What do you mean?”

“Never mind. It matters not. Come closer. I must anoint you.”

“Very well.”

He moved forward. Now he was almost touching her. The woman reached out with the palmful of oil and began rubbing it upon his chest.

He flinched.

“Haven't you ever been touched by a woman before?” she asked.

“No. That is -- I don't think so.”

The woman smiled. “By tomorrow night, all that will be changed.”

She rubbed harder, rubbing the oil over his arms and shoulders and down toward his back and buttocks. "So very big, she kept saying. It was almost a chant.

When she touched his sex, she almost laughed.

Then she looked at him and smiled

“Quite the little innocent, aren't you?”

“I know not what you mean.”

She smiled. Then she bent down and kissed him upon a most private place.

“Señora!” he cried.

“Hush, my hairy one,” she said. “I am not a señora. I am a señorita.”

She kissed him again in the same location.

“But this -- this is wrong.”

“This is the way it has to be.”

She took another swig from the green bottle by her side.

“Come to me, my darling.”

“But --”

“Kiss me.”

“But I am to be married tomorrow.”

“I know. That's why they sent me. As a test.”

Her breasts were half out of her blouse, shimmering like great white moons. Her skirt had been detached and kicked away. Beneath it, she wore nothing save a patch of short black hair.

So that is what a woman looks like, he thought.

Then she kissed him and her tongue invaded his mouth and her hands grabbed hold of his sex and she engulfed him with her hairy legs until --

He pushed her away.

At first, she stared at him in disbelief.

Then she frowned. “So they left behind a few eunuchs, after all,” she murmured.

She crawled forward again.

“Don't touch me,” he said.

The woman smiled slyly at his warning gestures. “You needn't bother. This was all for your convenience, not mine. Tomorrow on your wedding night, you'll face a similar challenge. I could have helped you with that but ---”

She shrugged. Then she reached for her skirt. Her white buttocks, turned toward him, looked like two giant half-moons.

He reached for them. “So beautiful,” he said.

She looked behind her and smiled. “A boy-lover, huh?” she said.

She pulled away from him. “I thought as much.”

“I know not these words you keep using,” he said.

She smiled again. “You should. I get the feeling that you will be hearing them a lot.”

She stood up and refastened her skirt, leaving the empty green bottle behind on the floor of the cell.

As she readjusted her blouse, he crawled toward her. “Please, don't go,” he said.

He grasped her knees.

She looked down at him. “Let go.”

He did so. And watched silently as she left the cell.

An hour later, the sexless one grinned as it brought him his supper. “Pretty nice, huh?”

He only looked at the black-clad figure, not seeing it, not seeing the tray, not seeing the door or the walls or the bars or anything. Save darkness.

Fanfic Friday

"It's a Wonderful Life: An Alternative Ending"

That night, after a long day of breaking rocks and cursing Uncle Billy, George Bailey lay on his prison bunk and dreamt of libraries.

And librarians.

And hydrangea bushes.

But mostly of libraries, thanks to that damned Hays code.

Novela de Mi Id

“In Fear and Trembling”

Chapter Two

“My wife,” he stammered. “But I have no wife.”

“I am the one our elders have chosen for you. Not that you could not have chosen for yourself, but... Anyway, I'm the one who has been chosen for you.”

“I see.”

“No, you don't. You are the heir to a powerful empire. It is your duty to produce an heir as well so that there will be someone to carry on in your place after your death. I am to be the mother of that heir. Do you understand?”

There was something about her crisp, clear enunciation which disturbed him. He felt as if she was talking to a child.

“And you agreed to this?” he asked.

She lowered her gaze. “No, I did not. Not at first.”

She looked at him again.

“Not that you are not attractive in your own way but --”

She looked down again.

“I had always hoped to be able to choose my own lovers. But my father never gave me that privilege.”

She looked upwards again.

“Instead he gave me to you.”

“I see,” he said. “And who is your father?”

She looked downward again.

“You don't want to know.”

Fanfic Friday

"It's a Good Strife"

"But if you do that, Mr. President, all the crops will die!"

"You gentlemen want to go into the cornfield?"

"On second thought, that was a good thing you did, Mr. President. That was a very good thing."

Novela de Mi Id

“In Fear and Trembling”

Chapter One

His first memory was of advanced age -- of large, white, wrinkled hands holding and kneading his body like a loaf of dough.

Then there were the faces -- large, pale, moonlike things that peered at him from out of the darkness.

Then came the tutors. Tall, thin, sexless things hidden in black robes who made funny gestures with their hands every time he grew frustrated with them.

For an embarrassingly long time, they gibbered at him in an unknown tongue, communicating all the while with their hands until he was able to echo the syllables which issued from their mouths. After that came reading and writing and sums.

Then came the next step. They took him out of his darkened chamber and took him into a room filled with light. They gave him clothes that were finely woven and helped him put them on.

Then they took him into another golden room where a girl awaited. At least, that is what he thought it was, judging from the pictures in the books they had shown him. The girl was tall and slim and no doubt they considered her beautiful. Having never seen such a being before, he really could not say.

She had long blonde hair and around the crown of her head was a wreath of white flowers. She was clad in a white linen dress and he could not help wondering what lay beneath it. Did she have two legs like him or was she solid from the waist down?

As he observed her, his guardians pushed him forward and he struggled to keep his balance. Then he walked toward her.

The girl's blue eyes opened wider as he approached her. Was she frightened of something? And if so, of what? He looked over his shoulder but saw nothing there that he thought to be especially frightening or even unusual. No doubt, it was one of those feminine mysteries the sexless ones had talked about.

He knelt down to talk to her. The girl drew away. His face contorted in surprise. Surely she was not frightened of him? Was she?

He came closer. She drew back more. She was frightened -- of that, there was no doubt.

He tried to echo the words his tutors had taught him. They came out in a low, guttural tone.

“I will not harm you.”

The girl still trembled but now she seemed more puzzled than scared. Hadn't she ever heard a man speak before?

She looked down at the floor in front of her.

“But you're so big.”

“Big things are not necessarily dangerous,” he said. He stuttered, wanting to say more but not knowing the proper words.

He decided to ask her the obvious question.

“Who are you?”

The girl looked at him again. "Did they not tell you?”

“No,” he said.

Her face had a strange expression. Not quite fright, not quite anger, but something... sad.

“I am your wife.”

Fanfic Friday

“The Aftermath”

Ever since that all so memorable day at Camp Chippewa, little Amanda Buckman's hair has turned white. She still screams when she sees a lit match and she has grown very thin.

As of this writing, her parents are considering taking her to see the renowned therapist Dr. Sue Snell, since Dr. Snell has a reputation for being an expert on bad dreams.

Cuento de Mi Id

“The Sacrifice”

Oh great! The Huntsville Express.

Shut up. The most they can get you for at this point in time is hitchhiking. Just play it cool and everything will be all right.

All right? Half-ounce of sinsemilla in my knapsack and you say everything will be all right?

Of course, it will. Just don’t act suspicious.

But if the cops search my bag?

They won’t if you give them no reason to--and by the way, don’t call them cops--call them policemen.

Well, all right.

It hadn’t been a good day for Martin. The Texas sun had decided to celebrate the Fourth of July early, and that had meant blast furnace temperatures coupled with a nonexistent breeze along a highway where the nearest shade trees were on the other side of the acre-long cotton fields. Not that there was a lot of green stuff to impede his way -- all the plants Martin had seen so far were brown and wilted--but there was no way he could hope to flag down a ride from the shade and he had no intention of walking all day in this heat. Now his first ride of the day had proved to be a cop car and Martin was already envisioning himself behind bars when the driver pulled up besides him and lowered the passenger window.

“Hey there!” said a good-ol’-boy-type in the shotgun seat. “What brings you out this way on such a fine sunny day?”

“Oh, nothing, Officer,” said Martin. “I’m just waiting for a friend.”

“Your friend live around here?”

“Well, no. Not really.”

The white policeman grinned and opened the passenger door. “Why don’t you come on in and tell us all about it?”

“Uh, no, thank you,” Martin replied. “My ride will probably be coming by any second.”

“Suit yourself,” said the policeman. “I wouldn’t linger here too long if I were you. You might get picked up for hitchhiking.”

Martin thought a minute. “On second thought, maybe I can use a break from the sun right now.” He climbed into the back seat almost eagerly, and tried not to jump when he heard the door slam behind him.

Take it easy. You’re just among cops; you haven’t been charged. They still have to read you your rights so don’t worry until that happens.

“You headed down Brewster way?” the first policeman asked as he reentered the vehicle.

“No,” Martin replied. “Dallas.”

“Close enough,” said the policeman, and he signaled to his partner, a short dark Latin man.

The car took off silently and Martin thought it rather nice to be out of the sun for a change. Not only that, but the car had air conditioning too.

Then he remembered where he was and looked up at the cop riding shotgun.

The policeman smiled. “Don’t worry, son. I was young once too. I bet you thought me and Frank here were going to arrest you, didn’t you?”

“Well, the thought did cross my mind.”

“Forget it. Anyone hitchhiking nowadays has enough to worry about with all the weirdos on the road without getting hassled by the cops. Don’t you agree?”

“Well, I’m not exactly in a position to disagree with you.”

The policeman laughed. “That’s great. “ He extended his hand. “My name’s Bob Smith. This here’s my partner, Frank Gonzalez. What’s your name?”

“Martin Lucas.”

“No relation to Henry Lee, are you? No? I didn’t think so. You probably wouldn’t admit it even if you were.”

“No, I guess not.”

“So what brought you to our part of the country in the first place, Martin?”

“Well, my girlfriend and I were driving up from Austin and we had a spat. She took off with the car and left me behind at a rest stop. I’ve been on the road ever since.”

“That’s quite a shame. Don’t you have any kin here abouts that you could have called for a ride or something?”

“No, not really. Most of my folks live in Dallas and the rest live out of state.”

“That’s a real shame. I don’t suppose there’s any chance of your girlfriend coming back for you?”

“Well, if she hasn’t come back by now, I really doubt she’s going to be.”

“That’s a shame. Well, I guess you can always catch a bus from Brewster. Me and Frank are headed that way and we’d be glad to drop you off at the bus station.”

“Much obliged.”

“Oh, think nothing of it. If we can’t help each other out, who’s going to do it for us?” Bob turned and contemplated the view ahead. “Rotten weather we’re having, isn’t it?”

“Not really,” Martin said, “not if you like sun.”

“The folks around here don’t. There’s been too much of it lately--and not enough rain. This here’s farm country. A few more weeks of weather like this and half the folks around here will be ruined.”

“That’s a shame,” said Martin, trying to sound sincere.

“Yes it is. Most of these folks have their whole lives invested in these farms--but you don’t want to hear about that--do you?”

Martin shrugged.

Bob continued “Anyway, at least they’re a lot better off than the Anderson kid.”

“The Anderson kid?”

“Yeah. Virginia Anderson. Prettiest little thing you ever did see. Would have turned sixteen last May.”

“Last May? What happened to her?”

“Went out on a date with the local quarterback. Her first one, oddly enough. Both of them missed curfew so their parents started calling around. Turned out the boy had been killed. Strangled to death.”

“Jesus. What happened to the girl?”

“Well, she was killed, too, but the killer took his time with her. Used her in every orifice, if you know what I mean, and left a few new ones to remember him by. Her parents had to request a closed casket.”

“Jesus,” Martin said again. “What could have made somebody do something like that?”

“There’s no telling, son. There’s a lot of strange people in this world. Like that guy ‘Zodiac’ out there in L.A. He killed all those people back in the ‘60’s to supposedly prevent an earthquake. The cops out there never did catch him Might even have been a her for all they know.”

“Well, how about this guy? The one who killed Virginia and her boyfriend. Did you catch up with him yet?”

“No, not really,” said Bob. He turned to look at Martin. “What makes you so sure it’s a him?”

“I dunno,” said Martin. “I just got that impression from your story. After all, you did hint that the girl was raped.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Girls can rape too; they’re just more creative about it.”

“Oh. Well, I suppose you’re the expert on this kind of thing. Who do you think did it?”

“Well, presently the most popular theory around the stationhouse is that some sort of wandering vagrant did it.”

Martin’s chest tightened. “What makes you say that?” he forced himself to say.

“Well, it obviously wasn’t anyone in town. That girl was so popular that only someone passing through would dare to commit a deed like that and not risk getting caught.”

“Oh, I see,” said Martin. “So you figure some sort of hobo did it?”

“Or a hitchhiker,” said Bob.

“Oh.” Martin started to think fast. It was bad enough to be flirting with a possible drug charge but if the cops suspected him of murder, they’d put him away for sure.

Take it easy. No one’s accusing you of anything yet. We’re living in the post-Miranda era, remember? He can’t force you to admit to something you didn’t do and anyway you were at Padre last May. Take it easy.

Martin tried to tell himself that his conscience was correct. He had nothing to worry about. He had a lot of things to feel guilty about but not murder. Not murder.

He began to relax.

Then Bob asked him, “Do you come up this way often?” and his chest tightened again.

“What makes you say that?” he asked in what he hoped was a casual tone.

“I don’t know,” said Bob. “It’s just the way you spoke of your girlfriend made me think you must be a frequent visitor to these parts.”

“Not me. I can’t afford it.”

“You came down this time, didn’t you?”

“Uh, that was just an one-time-only thing. Actually I’ve never been out this way before.”

Bob’s eyes hardened. “Seems to me you and your girl must have a weird relationship if this is the first time you ever visited her.”

“Well...” Nice going! “Actually she just transferred to UT this fall. Before that, she lived in Dallas.”

“Oh, I see.” The expression on Bob’s face told him he was not entirely convinced but he remained silent.

Martin turned to look at the scenery. They were coming into a different area now. There were more trees now and they came up to within a few feet of the highway. Bob suddenly pointed to something up ahead.

“There’s the spot where we found the Anderson girl,” he said. He turned toward Martin. “Would you like to see it?”

Now what? Martin wasn’t in a position to refuse.

“Okay,” he said without enthusiasm.

Frank pulled over and Bob and Martin got out. Bob let Martin go into the woods ahead of him.

Oh, great! Now Frank’s going to have the perfect opportunity to search my knapsack.

Shut up and act casual! You’ve got more important things to worry about, remember?

“It’s just a few feet ahead,” Bob said. “You can’t miss it.”

Up ahead Martin saw a clearing which looked like the spot Bob might have been talking about. He started to turn to ask Bob if that was it when he stumbled over something hidden in the leaves. A dead log, he thought--and he cursed. He started to get up, gazed at the object he had tripped over…

“What’s the matter, son?” asked Bob, coming up behind him. “Haven’t you ever seen a gen-u-wine murder site befo--Jesus!”

The object Martin had tripped over was a body--a woman’s body. The woman was blonde, apparently in her late teens or early twenties, and the stab wounds on her chest and belly were still oozing fresh blood. From her shorts and halter top, it appeared that she had been dressed for hitchhiking. If so, she apparently did not get too far.

“We better call the police,” said Martin.

Bob behind him nodded.

“Her wounds look recent. There’s probably a good chance we can catch whoever did this while he’s still in the area.”

“What makes you think we didn’t catch him already?” asked Bob.

Martin turned. “This is no time to joke. A girl has been kil--” His voice froze. Officer Bob had drawn his gun and was aiming it straight at him.

“What is this?” he said.

“Looks to me like we caught us a killer.” Bob grinned.

“You’re crazy. I’ve been with you guys all this time.”

Bob chuckled. “Oh, come now. The wounds aren’t that recent. How do I know you didn’t do this before we picked you up?”

“Are you kidding? You picked me up miles away from here.”

Bob shrugged. “You could have walked.”

“Through miles of open country? Why would I establish a stupid alibi like that? Anyone could have seen me. Even you guys--” Martin broke off. A horrifying thought just came to him.

Bob kept grinning, his gun still on Martin. “Come to think of it, you were nervous about something when we picked you up.”

Martin panicked. “That’s because I was carrying drugs in my bag. Would I admit something like that to you if I was really a murderer?”

“You might,” said Bob, and then Martin knew it was hopeless.

“All right,” he said, raising his hands. “I give up.”

Bob smiled. With his gun still on Martin, he took something from beneath his jacket and dropped it on the ground. “Pick it up!”

Martin’s blood turned cold. “You gotta be kidding!"

“Pick it up,” said Bob, and he fingered the trigger. “Don’t make me do this.”

Martin looked down at the object Officer Bob had thrown at his feet -- a butcher knife sealed in a plastic bag, its blade covered with blood. He looked at Officer Bob again and then ran.

If I make it to the woods, he thought, I can beat him. I don’t care if these woods go all the way to Texarkana, I can still outrun him. He can’t stop me. I haven’t touched the knife. There’s no way he can get away with this. No way in Hell--

Just a few feet behind him, Officer Bob cocked his gun and fired….

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

Frank was still waiting in the driver‘s seat when Bob returned from the woods. “How did it go?” he asked.

Bob smiled. “Better than I thought it would. Not only did he confess to the murders, but he admitted to being a dope fiend, too.”

He got in and Frank started the engine. “Any problems?” Frank asked.

“No, not really.” Bob turned to look at Frank. “You don’t sound too happy.”

Frank shrugged as he pulled onto the highway. “I just can’t help thinking about what’s going to happen if there’s an investigation.”

“Fuck the investigation. We had one last time and they never found out anything. Why should they find out anything this time?”

“Well, suppose they did?” asked Frank.

“Why should they? We’ll probably be public heroes . Who’s going to want to mess with a rep like that?”

Frank frowned. “I just can’t help thinking nothing good’s going to come of all this.”

Bob chuckled and looked up at the sky. “Well,” he said, pointing upwards, “something good’s already happening.”

As the patrol car disappeared down the highway, a parade of clouds began to appear in the sunny sky. Soon they began to darken. As the first raindrops fell, a clap of thunder could be heard echoing across the landscape like celestial applause. There was no lightning to accompany it.

Fanfic Friday

"King Kong: An Alternative Ending"

"It wasn't the airplanes that killed him. It was the corrupt workings of our profit-driven economic system."

"You mean--"

"That's right. It was booty that killed the beast."

Cuento de Mi Id

“Final Vengeance”

(This was my first attempt at writing a short story for publication. I would like to think that I have improved a bit since I first wrote this but I guess that's up to you all, the readers, to judge. Anyway, I hope you all like it.)

The moment Joe Mesey reentered the old neighborhood, he knew that his coming back was a mistake. Not for any foolish, sentimental reasons -- it’s hard to be nostalgic about growing up in a slum -- but because his return was all too easy. He had expected an all-out attack the minute he entered his old stomping grounds; instead, he was simply ignored.

As a member of mankind’s true oldest profession, a self-styled professional assassin who euphemistically referred to his calling as the “retirement business” and who commanded top dollar for a kill, this was a bit of an insult. He had expected a neighborhood crawling with cops -- or worse; instead, he found an area of deserted streets and neglected tenements -- a place seemingly as devoid of life as the dark side of the moon.

It was an eerie feeling. Had Joe been a lesser man, he might have turned the car around and searched for more populous surroundings. But he was on a mission here -- a personal mission. He had returned to this neighborhood to kill a man. A man whom he had killed a long time ago...

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

The room was filled with more candles than a religious shrine and their acrid scent and flickering light made Joe uneasy. He kept peering into the shadows of the old man’s living room as if expecting to see something lurking there. Nothing was there, of course, but the way the old man kept bowing his head and peering into his little grey book made Joe uneasy. And he hated being made uneasy. Especially by a little old man who was destined within a matter of minutes to meet the Maker about which he endless prattled.

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the realization that the old man had said something. He looked up at the white-haired figure and smiled inwardly at the idea of this little man in the black suit and skullcap doing him bodily harm. As powerful as he may have once been, now he could not harm a flea.

“Pardon me, he said. “I didn’t hear that last question.”

“I was asking whether you had considered the consequences of your actions, Mr. Mesey,” the old man said in a voice that was stern yet moderate.

“Of course, I have. I simply waste you and then my boss gives me a lot of money. What’s to consider?”

“Hasn’t the thought of punishment ever entered your mind?”

“Not really. The cops won’t be able to prove a thing, and nothing you can do can change that.”

“I wasn’t talking about earthly justice.”

“Oh, really?”

“Doesn’t it ever bother you, Mr. Mesey -- the number of men you’ve killed?”

“Of course not. Why should it?”

“Fear of the dead is a centuries-old tradition,” said the old man. “Some say it dates back to Neanderthal man.”

“Well, that may be the case with some people, but I’m more like a surgeon. I live with death every day. It doesn’t scare me a bit.”

“If I were you, I would be scared. Murder is the supreme taboo; you have committed it not once, not twice, but times beyond counting.”

“You’re one to talk,” said Joe. “Before you retired, you were in the rackets, too. You know how it is.”

“Yes, I know how it is,” said the old man, gazing at his folded hands. “But I never killed anyone directly. And when the ghosts of those I did kill indirectly began to prey upon my conscience, I knew it was time to leave.”

The old man looked Joe in the eye. “But it’s still not too late for you. The powers that be love a repentant sinner as long as he’s sincere.”

Joe smiled. “That’s nice talk for a dying man but I intend to live a long time.”

“Maybe not as long as you think.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I have taken the liberty of making certain arrangements in case my little talk with you should fail.”

“Oh, I see. Like a sealed letter to the D.A. left in the hands of your attorney?”

“Nothing so crude, I assure you,” said the old man. “Besides, I’m sure a man in your profession has sufficient connections to get such a letter swiftly discredited. No, my arrangements are of a more final and irrevocable nature.”

Joe laughed. “If that’s meant to scare me, it didn’t work.”

“It wasn’t meant to scare you -- now.”

“Listen, old man,” said Joe, pulling out his gun. “I’ve had about enough of this Jewish superstition nonsense you’ve been giving me.”

“Jewish? Who said it was Jewish?” The old man’s voice took on a sepulchral tone. “The faith I follow is older than Judaism.”

That’s when Joe’s gun went off. The first bullet hit the old man in the chest; the two followup shots hit him in the belly and the groin. Joe never knew whether his shots were the result of anger or blind panic, but the results were the same. One dead Jew (or so-called Jew, if his last words were correct) who had time to do little more than glare and mumble an inaudible curse before succumbing to the permanent paralysis of death. Hardly the formidable adversary he had anticipated.

“I hoe you prepared well for the afterlife, old man,” Joe said as he stood up. “Because you’re going to have all eternity to enjoy it.”

He left the house quietly, but not before giving some thought to the arrangements the old man had mentioned. However, search as he did, he could find no trace of any hidden cameras or tape recorders in the old man’s residence...

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

The old apartment house where he used to live was boarded up now -- a victim of urban renewal. Gazing at the crumbling exterior brought back many memories for Joe. Memories of living with his old man -- an embittered widower with five children to raise. A man who had sought refuge in a whiskey bottle and who used his youngest child -- Joe -- as a punching bag until the day Joe fought back and caved in his father’s skull with a tire iron. Yes, the place did bring back a lot of old memories -- none of them good.

He smiled grimly and attacked the boards on the front door with a tire iron. As the ancient nails reluctantly began to yield, he once more looked around the neighborhood, expecting any minute to see a cop -- or something -- appear around the corner to question him about his activity. But none appeared. Joe seemed to be the only person around in what should have been a crowded slum neighborhood. It was as if he was in the land of the dead.

Joe shuddered. He was normally not an imaginative person -- in his line of business, you couldn’t afford to be -- yet something about that last phrase -- and the way it popped into his mind, unsummoned -- made him uneasy. Especially when he looked back upon certain recent events...

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

The first clue Joe had that the old man‘s arrangements were not just talk occurred in Chicago. He had heard the old line about being able to meet almost anyone in the world by standing on State Street, but he never expected to see Vinny McCloskey there. And for a very good reason -- Vinny had died six months ago.

When he first confronted Vinny with this information, Vinny seemed as shocked as Joe. His eyes went blank; he appeared to be remembering something.

Then he remembered.

“You!” he screamed. “You’re the one who killed me.”

Within an instant, Vinny’s hands were around Joe’s neck, choking him with the strength of the violently insane and the insanely violent. Vinny was a big man; his hands were the size of steam irons. Killing Joe should have been as easy a task for him as cleaning fish. But it did not work out that way. Joe had been around too long not to be prepared for the unexpected; he freed himself with a blow to the groin -- then pulled his newly-purchased revolver and fired a bullet meant for a prominent state witness into Vinny’s chest.

At this point, Vinny smiled -- the vacant smile customarily associated with the hopelessly insane -- and then he collapsed. For a moment, Joe was aghast. After all, even the most blasé hitman does not meet dead people on the street every day. Then he took Vinny’s pulse. The bullet wound Vinny had just received was not necessarily a mortal one, yet he was already dead.

Needless to say, the witness job was blown. No one had witnessed the confrontation between Joe and Vinny, but that didn’t mean the cops would not be interested if they ever caught wind of it.

And what of the body? Although Joe managed to safely dispose of it without being seen, that still did not account for its presence. Surely he had not just killed the real Vinny; after all, the real Vinny was supposed to be feeding the worms in a South Side cemetery. That meant the man he had killed was an imposter, no doubt made up to look like Vinny with the help of a clever plastic surgeon. But an imposter with Vinny’s height and build? Possible, Joe thought, but not probable. Which meant...

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

The last board came off with an angry screech. Now the door was open and he could seek shelter from the open street. Yet Joe was not satisfied.

If he was right, the man he came to kill would be lurking inside, safe from the summer heat. It unnerved him to realize how matter-of-fact he was handling the whole situation. Had his own boss told him a similar story, he would not have believed him -- even if his life depended upon it. Yet here he was, standing outside his old apartment house, treating his long-dead father as a potential adversary…

He pushed the door open with his foot, holding the tire iron ready in case of attack. None came. Inside the entrance hall was nothing but dust and silence.

As Joe stepped inside, he again held the tire iron ready to ward off a sudden attack. But -- again -- none came.

Perhaps I only dreamed the first incident, he thought. Perhaps I was wrong and the old man’s curse was only a figment of my imagination.

Then Joe thought again and shook his head. For he remembered Frank Lupesco...

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

It had happened at a men’s room in the Miami Airport. Joe was combing his hair before boarding a flight to San Juan when he felt himself being seized from behind. Without warning, he was whirled around and thrown against the opposite wall. Before he could recover, a knife was at his throat, and on the nape of his neck, he could feel the hot breath of the man standing directly behind him.

That’s when Joe moved. Stomping down hard where he guessed his assailant’s left foot to be, he reached up at the same time and grabbed the knife-bearing hand. Its skin felt cold and clammy -- like a dead frog -- but he did not let that prevent him from bending the hand back against the waist until the knife dropped. And the bones broke.

Joe’s assailant was curiously silent for a man who should have screaming in agony.

Instead, the only thing Joe heard was “It’s not that easy, kid.”

The voice was familiar, but not the face. When Joe turned around, he found himself staring into a bleached parody of a human face, the type of scarred and tattered face you’d expect to see on a man who had spent the last seven months on the bottom of the Hudson River, not on a living person.

Then the man smiled -- if you could call what he did smiling -- and Joe recognized the familiar lop-sided grin of his former mentor, Frank Lupesco. It had been Lupesco who had gotten Joe his first job in the “retirement business.” Frank had taught Joe everything he knew. Taught him so well that when Frank retired and decided to turn state’s evidence, Joe was the one chosen to bring him down. And he did. Seven months ago.

And here Frank was, standing before him, smiling as if his broken wrist was a mere scratch.

“This one’s for you, kid.”

With frightening suddenness, Frank lunged forward and grabbed Joe by the throat with his other hand. Pressing his other forearm against Joe’s throat as well, he pinned Joe against the wall and started to squeeze. Joe’s face began to turn blue; he was running out of time. In desperation, he punched his opponent in the stomach. His fist went all the way through.

As Frank let go, Joe was too relieved to do anything but stand and watch Frank’s body collapse in upon itself like a punctured balloon. Too late he thought of questioning him; by then, his body was merely a pile of decaying flesh awaiting disposal.

That’s when Joe realized that the plot against him was more than simply an elaborate scheme of vengeance. Even the best plastic surgeon could not have instilled such qualities into a Frank Lupesco lookalike. The man who did had to be a person who had experience dealing with the supernatural. A man who not only had such experience but who also possessed a grudge against him. Somebody like -- like -- the old man!

By then, the old man’s name had faded away from Joe’s memory, but he still remembered that scene in the room full of candles, and he also remembered the old man’s ominous last words.

At first, it seemed ridiculous -- an old-fashioned curse at work in the twentieth century. And yet it was the only explanation which made sense. If only there was some way to break the curse...

Then it came to him. The curse was operating in a pattern: confront Joe with all his previous victims, in the order of their deaths, and have the attacks increase in intensity. Considering the number of people Joe had killed in his lifetime, such a pattern could easily wear him down before it ended. And sooner or later one of the victims was bound to get lucky and kill him.

But suppose he short-circuited the curse. Instead of waiting for the victims to go after him, he would go after the victims. And the most obvious one to pursue would be the first one -- his father. The only one he had killed for free...

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

The sun was going down now, and there was still no sign of his old man. He smiled at the irony -- the old man had intended to avenge his own death by using Joe’s own old man to kill him. Perhaps he had been counting on the power of nostalgia to prevent Joe from delivering the fatal blow. Well, it won’t work, Joe thought. There was no love lost between him and his father. He killed him before and he could kill him again.

Then it occurred to him -- what if this was exactly what the old man had wanted? For Joe to come up here to New York and face the ultimate challenge? Joe had not been attacked since that day in Miami. The trip up here had been way too easy -- almost as if he was being set up.

He scoffed at this thought. There was nothing to fear. He had a loaded revolver in the highest caliber and absolutely no reason not to use it. Everything he had experienced so far told him that the old man’s walking cadavers were still vulnerable to gunshots. There was nothing to fear.

And then he heard it. A quiet, scraping sound like dead leaves rustling across the sidewalk. No footsteps -- just a quiet, rustling sound. Then the doorknob turned. Joe slowly drew out his revolver and aimed it at the front door. This is going to be easier than I had anticipated, he thought. Then the door opened...

Joe’s first thought was that it was all a trick. That the old man had anticipated his actions and sent a stranger to take him by surprise. After all, Joe might not remember every single man he killed, but he certainly would have remembering icing a woman. Then he looked beyond the woman’s black dress and veil -- recognized a face which he had seen only once before, in a wedding portrait kept by his father because it was the last picture taken of her before she died in childbirth. And suddenly he knew why the old man was so certain that Joe would not be able to kill her.

He had time to say only one word before the first of many blows fell: “Mother.”

Fanfic Friday

"Dawn at Dusk"

Dawn was still standing by the kitchen sink as she cleaned the gasoline off of her hands when Kennedy came into the house from the back yard.

"Dawn," she asked, "have you seen Spike today? It's almost time for our nightly training exercises and I don't see him anywhere."

"I don't think Spike is going to participate in any more training exercises," said Dawn. "He and my sister had a big fight yesterday and I believe that he's decided to move on."

"A fight?" asked Kennedy. "Was that what all the shouting was about yesterday?"

"Probably," said Dawn with a shrug.

"So that explains all the bruises on her arm," said Kennedy. "He didn't try to -- "

"Well, he tried, but he didn't succeed," said Dawn. "Once again my sister was too strong for him, which is just as well since he'll never be doing that again."

"What do you mean, 'again'?" asked Kennedy. "And how do you know that he'll never be doing it again?"

"Oh, just a hunch," said Dawn. "Buffy is not the only one in this household who has visions. By the way, there's a notebook on the table full of phrases in Cantonese that I found on the Internet. I figured that as long as Chao-Ahn is staying with us, we might as well find some way to communicate with her."

"Why, thank you, Dawn," said Kennedy. "That's so thoughtful of you. But why didn't you let Giles or Willow do that?"

"Because there are some certain things that need to be done that Giles or Willow -- or even Buffy -- can't -- or won't -- be bothered to do," said Dawn. "And apparently that is my job now -- to do the things that need to be done that others seem unwilling to do. Now if you'll excuse me, Kennedy, I need to go clean up the basement."

"Yes, I suppose you'd better," said Kennedy. "It smells like somebody's been burning trash down there."

"Yes, that's one way to put it," said Dawn with an enigmatic expression on her face.

Cuento de Mi Id

“Love Among the Runes”

(This was one of my many early attempts to write a proper horror story. It is surprising how dated many of the pop culture references are, which is something I consider weird since I did not originally intend this story to be a period piece. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy it.)

“But I love you,” Kenneth said, tugging at her coat.

“But I don’t love you,” said Katherine. “That’s just the point.” She pulled her coat out of Kenneth’s grasp and continued on her way.

“Why?” asked Kenneth. “Why don’t you love me?”

“I don’t know ‘why’ I don’t love you,” said Katherine. “I just don’t. It’s not something you can make happen just like that.” She snapped her fingers for effect.

Kenneth just shook his head. “I don’t get it. I love you. Why don’t you love me?”

Because true love is not like exchanging gifts at the office Christmas party, she wanted to say. But she didn’t say it. Somehow she couldn’t bear to hurt him by being that harsh with him, even though he deserved it. Perhaps she really did love him, after all.

Don’t be ridiculous, she thought. Just because I don’t want to hurt his feelings doesn’t mean I love him, and even if it did, I certainly don’t love him in the sense that he means. In any event, love isn’t something you receive upon demand. How did that song go? “Lose your love when you say the word ‘mine’”? Or was that “you can’t hurry love”? It didn’t matter. The fact still remained that you can’t force someone to love you. Yet Kenneth was determined to violate that basic law of nature.

He clutched at her coat one more time. “Won’t you please reconsider?”

Katherine forcibly pulled the coat fabric out of his hands. “I have reconsidered,” she said. “And the answer’s still no.”

Kenneth started to step toward her again, then reconsidered and stepped back. Good, thought Katherine. He’s learning.

Kenneth’s mouth opened as if he was starting to say something but he apparently thought better of that, too, and closed it. “I hope you never fall in love with someone who doesn’t love you back, Katherine,” he finally said.

“I’m sure I won’t,” she replied.

Kenneth couldn’t resist trying one last time. “I really do love you, you know.”

“Oh, please,” Katherine muttered under her breath. She turned on her heel and stalked off toward the parking lot. If Kenneth wanted to play the role of the tragic lover, that was his business. But Katherine had no interest in sticking around to play the cold-hearted love interest. She had her own life to lead.

Halfway to her way, a cold November breeze induced her to put her hands in her pockets. As she did so, she discovered a small piece of paper in her left coat pocket. Kenneth’s handiwork, obviously. He must have slipped it into her pocket while she was taking to him. No wonder he had been tugging at her coat so much.

She pulled out the piece of paper and unfolded it. She might as well have left it in her pocket for all the good it did her; the note itself was obviously written in a foreign tongue, in letters so strange Katherine could not even recognize what language it was written in. Nice going, Kenneth, she thought. You go to all this trouble to slip your favorite lady a love letter, and you don’t even bother to write it in English. Very impressive.

She crumbled up the note and tossed it away. Within seconds, the wind had caught it, and the note was blown halfway across the parking lot. Perfect ending to a perfect day, she thought. Then she reached into her purse for her car keys…

By the time she got home, there was a blinking red light on her answering machine. No way I’m answering that, she thought. You don’t have to be the Amazing Kreskin to guess who that was.

She hurriedly undressed and took a quick shower. While she was in the shower, she heard the phone ring yet again, but she ignored it. The phone rang yet a third time after she got out of the shower.

She let the machine get it again.

“Katherine,” said the voice on the machine. ”You must call me back as soon as possible. My number’s 972-435-9075. It’s a matter of great importance. Please call me back.”

Katherine sighed. Everything was a matter of great importance to Kenneth. Didn’t he have a life of his own? He probably did, she realized upon reflection. The problem was that at least half of it revolved around dreams of her. As if she was supposed to be flattered that Kenneth picked her to be his dream girl. Face it, Kenneth. You’re no Brad Pitt. And anyway, I don’t want a man who loves only me. I’m not sure what I want, but it’s definitely not you.

She thought about the party she would be attending tomorrow night. The odds were that the men she met there would be no improvement over Kenneth, but there was always a chance. And besides, where is it written that you had to “settle” for second-best? Katherine was always having to “settle” for things. Well, no more. This time she would take control of her life.

The phone rang again. This time she picked it up.

It was Kenneth. “Thank God you’re home. They’ve been watching us, you see, and they must have slipped something in your coat pocket--”

“What’s with this ‘they’, Kenneth?” she interrupted. “Is this another scheme of yours to get me to go out with you? Because if it is--”

“No, it isn’t,” Kenneth replied. “I swear. It’s just that they’ve been following me for the last two days, and just tonight, I noticed that they’re starting to follow you, and--”

“Who’s ‘they,’ Kenneth? Some schoolboy chum of yours?”

“No, they’re this -- Well, you won’t believe me when I tell you this, but I used to belong to this group, see, and they were really into mythology, see--”

“Is this going to take long?” Katherine asked.

“No, it’s not. You see, they’re after you now because they’ve seen us together, and they must think we’re boyfriend and girlfriend. Anyway, I saw one of them hanging around the coatroom today and --”

“And then you conveniently remembered that in time to give you an excuse to come over to my house,” said Katherine. “Thanks, Kenneth, but no thanks. I’m not going out with you no matter what silly story you conjure up. And stop flattering yourself. Your friends must be the least observant people on Earth if they think we’re boyfriend and girlfriend because at no time did I ever give you or any third party any reason to think that we were. Now leave me alone before I call the police.”

“But what about the not--?” Katherine hung up on him.

Great, she thought. Now Kenneth was inventing conspiracy theories to get close to her. If this kept up, she might have to seriously consider changing jobs. Surely her current paycheck wasn’t worth this hassle.

The doorbell rang. Katherine checked the peephole. No one on the front porch. Probably high school kids pulling another prank. If she ever got her hands on that Kenneth…

The phone rang again. It was Kenneth, of course, mumbling something about a note in her pocket. If he was so sure someone else had slipped a note into her pocket, why didn’t he tell her about it earlier? He must have seen her throw it away. That’s why he was so upset. Well, he should start getting used to rejection, thought Katherine. She certainly had.

She turned the TV on and sorted her mail by the light of a Cheers rerun. Just bills and junk mail again. She sighed.

At least the sound of canned laughter drowned out Kenneth’s voice. Maybe she’ll get lucky, and he’ll run out of quarters.

The doorbell rang again. Those darn kids again. Or maybe it was Kenneth. Maybe she should get her mace... No, she could handle him.

She peered out the peephole again. The porch was empty. It was kids, she thought. Or was it? Maybe she should start taking Kenneth’s bizarre story seriously. No, that’s exactly what he was expecting her to do. Perhaps he had set this whole thing up as part of some sadistic prank. You never could tell. Sure, Kenneth looked like a nice guy on the surface, but underneath? Who could tell? Remember Jodie Foster? Forget it. If Kenneth thought sadistic pranks were going to drive her into his arms, he had a long wait coming. If he kept it up, she‘d just call the cops on him. She wasn‘t born yesterday, you know.

The phone rang again. She turned the sound up on the TV. There. That showed him.

Then the doorbell rang again. Katherine got her mace. Next time it rings, she thought, I‘ll be ready.

She glanced out the front window. She thought she saw a white-faced figure dressed in black, but it turned out to be a piece of paper stuck on a bush. Then the wind blew, and the paper vanished.

The phone rang. This time she picked it up.

“If you don‘t stop harassing me--” she started.

“Katherine,” Kenneth interrupted, “you must get out of that house. They know where you live.”

“I‘m warning you, Kenneth--”

“No, I‘m warning you. There‘s still a chance if you still have that note. Just give it to me and I can--”

“I threw it away.”

“What?”” Kenneth sounded stunned.

“I threw it away. And I must say that I‘m getting sick and tired of all these pranks you keep pulling, Kenneth. I know you feel rejected, but I thought that you would be a better man than that.”

“But I‘m not -- Oh, I see. They‘re doing it.”

“Who‘s ‘they,’ Kenneth?”

”The guys I told you about. The ones who are into black mag--”

Katherine hung up on him.

The doorbell rang again. This time Katherine strode right up to the door and pulled it open in time to catch a miniature figure kneeling on the doormat.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

The kid looked up. “That man down the street told me to do this.” The kid pointed down the block.

Katherine walked out onto the porch and caught a glimpse of a solitary figure standing beneath a distant streetlamp. Kenneth, no doubt.

“Go away,” she said to the kid.

She locked the door behind her and ran to the phone. That was it for Kenneth, she thought. Now she was going to sic the police on him.

The doorbell rang.

She ignored it.

Someone tapped on her window. She ignored that, too.

An operator answered and put her on hold. Just like a Tonight Show joke, she thought.

The tapping grew louder.

She turned and saw Kenneth at the front window.

The operator came back on the line.

“Come quick,” she said. “There’s a man outside and he’s trying to break into the house.”

She hurriedly gave the operator her name and address and then hung up. Kenneth was gone from the front window. But he could still be outside, she thought.

The doorbell rang again.

“Go away!” she shouted.

Something thin and white emerged from beneath the front door. It was a note. “Get out of the house,” it said.

She crumbled it up and threw it away.

Then the phone rang. She ignored it. She thought about the back door. She rushed back to check on it.

When she got back to the living room, the doorbell was ringing again. She peered through the peephole. There was a cop on the front porch, peering into the bushes.

“Thank God,” she muttered.

She hurriedly unlocked the door. “You wouldn’t believe what has been going on here tonig--” she started to say.

Then the cop turned toward her. The first thing she saw was a face that looked like a crumbled sheet of paper.

Fanfic Friday

“The Funeral”

The four of them had rarely driven this far away from home before that day and since they were unfamiliar with the territory, it was no big surprise that they got lost. By the time they made it to the funeral home, it was after sunset and the service had already started so Ned and the others had to stand awkwardly outside the chapel until it was over.

Not that there was a large turnout. There were only a small handful of friends and relatives who turned out to wish a final farewell to the deceased, a young blonde women in her early twenties who had apparently fallen from a great height. Plus there was a British-looking gentleman in a tweed suit who looked like a high school librarian while in the corner, a white-haired man in a black leather coat stood against the wall while seeming to put a significant distance between him and the various containers of holy water near the chapel entrance.

Ned waited until the service was over and the crowd was leaving before he walked up to the coffin. After looking around to see if anyone was watching, he then gestured to his partner Emerson who got out his stop watch and waited for Ned to make his next move. Then Ned immediately touched his left forefinger to the corpse while his other two friends, Charlotte and Olive, stood and watched.

The young blonde woman in the coffin opened her eyes and looked around in panic.

"Where am I?" she asked. "How did I get here? What happened to Dawn?"

"I'm sorry, miss, but we only got a minute and we have some questions to ask you," said Ned.

"I don't understand," said the woman. "What did you do with my sister? Where are my friends? Who are you people?"

"Can't you see you're frightening the poor girl?" asked a voice from behind Ned.

Ned turned and saw that the white-haired man had not only stayed behind but was also walking toward him.

As he got closer, Ned just smiled and tried to look him in the eye. But the white-haired man just glared back at him.

"You don't understand," said Ned. "We suspect a case of foul play here and we have to ask the victim some questions before her time is up."

"Why would her time be up in a minute?" asked the man in a deceptively smooth tone.

"Because I have this ability," said Ned. "If I touch a dead person once, they come back to life. If I don't touch that person again within a minute and make him or her dead again, then something dies in his or her place."

"It's time," said Emerson.

"That's it," said Ned. "Time to touch her again."

At this point, the white-haired man smiled and said, "You try to do that and I'll break your bloody neck!"

Cuento de Mi Id

“The Harrowing”

It is said that there are seven gates through which one must pass on the way to the underworld and that at each gate, one must discard an article of clothing to demonstrate one's vulnerability to the Ruler of the Underworld. Whether the rules were the same for men as well as for women, Theadora did not know. Nor did she know what became of one's clothing after it was discarded. She only knew that somewhere during the course of her journey, she had evidently miscounted. Either that or the sages were wrong -- there were eight gates through which she must pass.

At the first gate, she abandoned her shoes. The path before her was still strewn with small rocks and pebbles yet she deliberately chose to bare her feet before she bared any other part of her body.

At the second gate, she stripped off her stockings.

At the third, she took off her earrings.

At the fourth, she slithered out of her skirt, and at the fifth, she discarded her blouse.

At the sixth, she unhooked her bra and walked topless into the increasing darkness.

At the seventh, she shivered in the cold as she looked up at what had to be the largest gate she had ever seen in her life. The path was made of smooth stone now but that was not what bothered her. For after she walked through this gate, she would be naked. Not just naked, but butt-nekkid, nude, bare as a baby's bottom, sky-clad, naked as a jaybird, in puris naturalibus, wearing only a smile, clad in her birthday suit, in the altogether, adorned by air, decorated by dew, dressed in nothing and wrapped in emptiness. She had nothing more to abandon.

And yet on the other side of that gate, she came upon an even larger gate.

She rubbed her hands together and felt something on one of her fingers. But of course. Her wedding ring. She mumbled a quick prayer of forgiveness to her departed husband and took off the ring. She would never see this ring again, she thought. As it hit the stone ground besides her, the gate slowly opened and before her sat the Ruler of the Underworld. A figure that few people could view without going mad and that few madmen could view without going catatonic.

In a glacial voice the figure bade her step forward.

Theadora did so, shivering in the dark cold.

She knelt before the figure as the elders had taught her and murmured her prayer.

Then she waited.

After a wait in which every second seemed to take a century to pass, the Ruler spoke.

“What... do... you... want?”

“I want...”

Suddenly her throat went dry. What did she want? Part of her wanted to run away -- to scream and run back through the eight gates before it was too late. But that was too easy. It also seemed too much like the type of thing that the thing on the throne would want her to do.

She looked upon the unspeakable once again. Dared to look it in the eye. The thing was older than old, so wrinkled that Theadora could hardly tell if it were a man or a woman. It wore a wrinkled robe that threatened to fall apart any second and reveal the creature's nakedness. Its hair was just short enough to disguise its gender -- too long for a man, too short for a woman. Theadora got the feeling that the Ruler had been old when the Creator Herself had been young. She then got the feeling that the Ruler might even have once ruled the Upper World in a far older past, before its world was replaced by the present one and its powers confined to the world of the dead.

“I want my mother,” she said.

The Ruler smiled. It was an evil smile, one that hinted at infinite malice, but it was a smile.

Then the Ruler laughed. For centuries it seemed to laugh and then it would pause for a moment and start right up again.

Then it stopped.

“Are...you...sure?” it asked.

“I am,” said Theadora.

“Very...well,” said the figure on the throne. “Come... to... me.”

Theadora walked forward. The figure stood up, dropped its robe, and glanced down at Theadora, no doubt expecting an expression of shock or alarm.

Theadora refused to let the tiniest expression cross her face. Not even when the creature embraced her. Not even when it kissed her. Not even when it thrust its tongue between her teeth and its hands between her legs and pressed her upon the hard ground.

The ruler's embrace was cold. Very cold.

And then...

“Arise...” It said.

It sat back upon its throne and wiped itself with the remnant of its clothing. “Go... back... through... the... gates..."

“By... each... gate... there... will... be... a... piece... of... cloth-... ing..."

“Put... it... on...."

“Do... not... look... back..."

“If... you... ev-... er... re-... turn... here... a-... gain... you... had... bet-... ter... be... plan-... ning... to... stay...”

The ruler seemed to be smiling, but Theadora could not tell.

She turned, dabbed at the liquid between her legs, and walked up to the last gate.

There on the ground lay a ring.

She bent down to pick it up, not caring what sort of view she gave to the figure who sat behind her. As she put on the ring and walked through the gate, the mighty gate closed behind her.

Keep walking, she thought. Keep walking.

At the next gate, there was a scarf.

At the one after that, a pair of earrings.

Wait a second, she thought. I don't like this trend.

At the fourth gate, there was a pair of shoes.

Wait a minute, Theadora thought. It is almost as if it wanted me to stay naked.

At the fifth gate, there was a bracelet.

At the sixth, a pearl necklace.

At the seventh, a bra.

And at the eighth...

At last, she thought. A dress.

She ran forward into the sunlight.

Reached behind the gate to pick up the dress.

The gate closed.

Leaving her in sunlight...

And in the middle of a busy intersection.

“Wait a minute,” she thought. “I didn't enter through here. The Lord of the Underworld tricked me.”

As the eyes of a hundred passersby stared at her, she tried to put on her dress.

But as soon as she put it on, she heard...

“For heaven's sake, Theadora. How dare you act like that in public!”

She turned toward the voice.

Saw a pale figure standing in the middle of the intersection.

Then the gate re-opened and a mighty wind blew the figure away into the darkness beyond.

“Wait!” Theadora shouted.

The gate closed.

Nothing remained to mark its existence but her memory.

She was still pounding on the pavement where it had existed when the men in the white coats arrived.