The Mortal Sister

The hero crumbled to the ground. He was going to die. The monster had him. She struck a blow to his knees. Another to his back. His body obeyed, as if commanded by the monster, to fly, across the grotesque reliquary of her solace. The wind had left him. And with it his fate. He knew the battle had ended.

His friends were still wandering her lair, fear consuming them. Each searched the labyrinthine halls, separate and alone. They had been tricked, duped by the monster’s cunning. How could they have been so careless? Their foe had had ages of solitude to let her madness fester. How were they so naive to think they could best her?

Every would-be hero that had ever trespassed her home was now dead. None had ever returned. Their bodies were strewn about like monuments of her power, shrines to her hatred. The grim garden that was her home was matched only by her aspect. The fallen were memorials to her, warding away the cowardly, and tempting the foolish. She was terrible and cruel.

The hero pulled his legs, one by one, into a natural position. He sat, destitute, and panting against a pillar. His strength had failed him. His valor betrayed him. He checked the small pouch at his side. It still held a single golden coin. There was at least some solace. He put one hand on it, taking comfort in the money. At least after his last breath escaped him, he could pay the ferryman passage into hell.

The hero wished he could warn his friends. He would scream for them to turn back. He would have them return home, return his sword and shield to his mother. At least then maybe she would know he had tried. She might have found comfort in his death, will in his story. But she would never be free.

Anger was fire inside him. Anger was ice inside the monster. It fueled her pain and scraped against her fragile sanity. She craved to feel the crunch of his bones against her again.  She coveted the warmth in his blood. She smiled as she searched for her prey. She had slammed him across her cathedra, off the dais of her throne and into some recess of her temple.

The hero had managed to scramble away as she recoiled, invigorated by the blow. She screeched as he clamored for safety. Why forgo the inevitable? Belief was now no more useful to him than the layer of dust that coated the chamber. He had disturbed it with his arrogance. His pride clashed with the scene like a sword through a mirror.

The monster called for him by name. She taunted him as she slithered around the columns and corpses. She tempted him to betray his friends. To give up the last glimmer of hope he possessed.

He abandoned the dignity of his position and clutched his sword. He pulled his shield over his eyes like a blanket. The hammered bronze was glinting from his fading torchlight. Even the flicker of the tiny flame was dying. But the monster lingered. The vault became silent.

The stygian foe explored her familiar halls. The finely polished marble gave way to terrific volcanic formations and cavernous growths. The natural spikes leered at the questers as if nature had placed them with subterfuge. It felt as if the heavens had planned this moment, as if the earth had crafted them, ages before, for this purpose alone. The cave had no other purpose than to stand as a forgotten tomb.

The monster struck with her eyes closed. She wrenched the head from its supple shoulders and cast it aside imagining the horror forever engraved on his face. Bow and arrow knocked the ground. She refused to release the body. She wrapped her arms around the figure and shattered the bones. Somehow the feel of them snapping underneath the flesh reminded her of a lifetime past. She stood the broken man, like a marionette on its feet, eyed it approvingly and left it standing on its feet.

The second adventurer shivered from fright as he heard the rough sliding of scales across the thin sea of dust. Panic and tension collided inside him. He swung his sword in wide sweeping circles around him. His hand shook as his blade clanged against stone. His arm outstretched in a perfect gruesome posture, the monster attacked.

She rammed into him with her body. Chests pressed together, pinning him against stone. He screamed as his skeleton and bowels ruptured. The beast breathed in deeply. The man became silent, another statuesque testament to the evil that had become her.

The last companion was a woman. She was pretty, golden hair with a strong but feminine body. The monster grabbed her by the neck from behind. She squeezed. The girl gripped the monster’s putrid wrists. Their eyes locked. Neither turned away until the victims legs stopped kicking and hung, already beginning to stiffen. The monster pulled her arms free from the rigid grip that held them. There was reminiscence in the ways she had been held. Something again of a former life.

She dragged the body with her. Perhaps she held special meaning to the hero. The beast moved, leaving great streaks in the dust behind her. She could already smell the hero. She could feel his heat dissipating in her frigid den. She could sense the pulsing in his chest. It grew more rapid as she approached. He could sense her too.

The hero prayed in his heart. The gods had led him on. They had led him to believe. They had given him gifts. But now he was forsaken. So great was their betrayal that now, even in the very moment of his demise he prayed to them. He no longer even possessed his own will as he once had. All was lost.

The torch across the hall diminished to nothingness. As the last of the light fled from him he saw the monster.

She felt a strange presence inside her. Something with which she had once been familiar. Though she had known it once before it was a sharp, new sensation. Just as it had been last time. But then it had been lower. She let go of her load. Time fell from her perception. Her memories flooded her vision. For just an instant, her life as a girl came back to her. She was fair. Perfect skin, lusciously molded. Her hair was golden. She was raped.

The man had seduced her, but might have had her willingly. That was not his way. He hurt her. He put evil inside her. And she was a monster. She was hated. She was feared. Not even her sisters came to her. They mourned her but they rejected her. This is what she had become. A monster.

The corpse of the girl she had now destroyed crashed to the ground. The hero screamed. The sword exited her neck. The room spun as her head rolled to the floor. She saw her body fall. She saw her children spout fourth from her neck. She saw the hero looking at her, through the reflection in his shield.

League of Utah Writers - roundup

if you havent heard of this youre missing out! if you have but didnt go youre stupid.
it was awesome!

first time pitching to agents for me and i think i did pretty well. i sort of botched my second pitch but i think i salvaged it by the end. after all, she did request a full manuscript. well see how it goes.

anyway, my advice to anyone who is even on the fence about writing a book....GO TO A WRITING CON!

I have one character who may or may not even be able to die in the traditional sense. And then i have another who can. Many, many times. 

I LOVE writing such lines as:
- "besides, she was only going to kill her the one time." 

- "The cat hadn’t died for weeks."

- "Life doesnt give you nine tries." "It does for me."


already nine chapters in to my second novel: Homunculus and The Cat!

writing habitually

today is my "dedicated writing day." im plugged in to the meager veins of downtown salt lake city, pretending its new york. music blares at high volume as i sit, overlooking a grocery store. this has become my favorite place to write. the new mall across the street for when i need to get out, tons of food below me when i get hungry. and sometimes, if im lucky theyll come around with the free sushi samples.

where do you like to write and how do you psyche yourself to get the most done?

my goal for the day: 3k words (not strenuous but still means a novel in 6 months)

(and now i think i have warmed up)

New logo for the series

Homunculus and The Cat pt. II

The cat does not die in this story. Not again. With only eight lives left, one small step toward prudence, the cat decided not fly into the sky during a dragon fight. She did not try to steal milk offerings from the various temples to the gods and goddesses around the city. And she was especially wary of shadows and purple light.

After pouncing the shikome, the days, mostly the afternoon and evening portions, were consumed securely lounging on her new favorite apartment ledge. She frequently watched the human couple that lived inside argue, always slamming doors and sleeping alone. They would have to have sex sometime, every other couple in Alexandria did. Even most of the singles in the city had guests over for no other apparent purpose.

The cat wasn’t exactly interested in watching, she was just curious about the habits of other creatures. She was still a very young cat and the world, her brand new, unsoiled litter box. She wanted to know what was in the corners, and down at the bottom.

She was alone, and very much at home in the bustle of one of the biggest cities on the Mediterranean. She had come from the east, along the coast, up the Nile, and down from the floating pyramid of Henen-nesut where she was born and given a name. She was a rare creature, a winged cat, and the rest of her litter had all been poached. Her mother had run off and left the kittens for dead. This was not uncommon and it left little to no scar on the cats to whom this happened, even intelligent winged kittens.

A salty sea fog had ambled into the city that evening and wafted around the buildings, even as high as the cat’s perch. All she could think about was seafood, crayfish from the river and eel from the shore. To hell with her mother. To hell with her home, floating pyramid or not, she was a cat. She belonged wherever the hell she pleased. Right now she was pleased by the silence of the couple on who’s patio she sat.

She wiggled her slender body and flexed her feathers out, each apart from the other. Finally the humans had shut up. The cat hadn’t been paying attention to their argument and noticed when it stopped. She didn’t remember anything breaking or slamming and this puzzled her.

The cat pondered diagnosing the situation, but thought better of it. Her threshold for the unknown had been diminished for the past few days. Since dying, she thought of death more and more often. Worried about losing life number seven, she sank a little into herself. That homunculus had warned her that the Japanese death gods, or whatever they were, would be back, for her.

“And here they are!”

The cat hoped they couldn’t fly, as she leapt, body totally stretched, off the towering balcony and away from the scent of death, she had only just noticed. She doubted her luck. She at least hoped that, in the world of the living, the magic of the dead would at least be slow and weak. But was she one step out of the realm of the living having died once? What about that homunculus, who wasn’t even a real human? Was he really alive, or just animated?

Wings fought against the salty warm oasis air. The cat flew over a temple. She considered petitioning the gods. Death was on the menu for everybody sooner or later, asking an immortal to postpone one of hers didn’t seem fitting.  She didn’t even know what god to ask anyway, certainly not a death god, or the god over who’s temple she flew. Serapis; patron of the Great Library. What good would he be? And she had no idea what god in all the world was patron of flying cats. The information felt suddenly important and silly to have never received. She felt flawed, and self-conscious, able to die again.

The cat was a good flyer though, and she thought perhaps she had gotten away. As the wind whirred in her ears and she passed the old city walls, she looked behind her. Nothing. The skies were littered with late night carpet-traffic, gryphons and sphinxes, and Mediterranean dragon, but no shades or wisps or whatever the death gods were.

The cat landed for a drink from the city canal. It wasn’t much farther to the lake. She thought she had heard somewhere that the dead shunned water. Maybe she would be safe there.

Her lungs pumped like bellows in a foundry as she landed on the bowsprit of some sturdy vessel in the lakeside harbor. The harbor was relatively quiet. Foremen shouted obscenities and commands at the other dockworkers. Her head was a mess. Uncertainty teased the corners of her mind. The cat had been chased before, but not by anything that could sense the pungency of each and every one of her seven lives. She must have stunk to the gods of death. The fact that she was living exposed her, it was a beacon to death.

She was exhausted emotionally. The past week had been too much. Something about dying had taken all her strength. She had to stop and hide. And she wanted a nap. Maybe the ship would set sail and she would wake up in the sun, en-route to Babylon or maybe even further. The cat fell asleep on the bowsprit, her unease still gnawing on her mind, a carving of a mermaid beneath her.

The cat woke up falling. A ship’s length away, mast height, she watched as her perch zoomed away. She wasn’t flying in her sleep, but had been thrown. Weightless in mid-air she righted herself and dove ungracefully into the water. The impact was harsh on her sore wings. She hadn’t just strained the muscles in them in her escape. They felt broken. The bones were hollow and brittle, but they would help her float.

With minimal effort in survival, she popped her head above the surface of the lake. Everything was muffled and distant as if she was still underwater, but she wasn’t. She realized what force had removed her from her sleep. Bits of the harbor floated in the lake, on fire. It wasn’t the work of dragon either. Huge chunks of the wooden piers and warehouses were missing altogether. Bucket brigades on their industrial-sized flying carpets had already begun fighting the fire and rescuing the injured.

“Should have gone to Atlantis.”

The cat doggie-paddled her way to the shore and slumped over a rock. Her instinct was to fall back asleep and she would have if it weren’t for the boy who approached her.

“Hey,” he called, “you alright?”

The cat meowed.

“Sorry I blew you up. You didn’t lose a life did you?”

“I don’t think so, who are you?”

“Good. Tyro.”

The cat understood Tyro to be his name. Why he would be called the apprentice was anyone’s guess but he seemed genuinely relieved that she hadn’t died.

She couldn’t quite place him. Capriis maybe, or fusang? He was definitely half Asian of some kind, but whether the other half was Atlantean, Viking or Mayan remained a mystery.

“Can I pick you up?” His voice was young but a little scratchy. Maybe the blast had impaired her hearing.

“Not much I could do about it in my condition is there? But I guess so.”

“It’s ok,” he assured her, “I’m trying to help you.”

As soon as he had her in his arms he ran, full sprint down the street, away from the harbor wreckage. She couldn’t help but purr with the soft bounce of his arms.

“Good thing the water here is so protected, or they’d already be out looking for us.”

“Did you-“

“Yep. Didn’t mean to though, I saw some poachers, they wanted your feathers. Had to do something but it got out of hand.”

“My feathers?” the cat was dumbstruck.

“You must be younger than you look.”

“Eight weeks.”

“And you’re already out on your own?”

“Mother disappeared, I fell off the pyramid and hopped on a merchants cart. Next thing I knew I was in Alexandria.”

“It’s a miracle you haven’t been caught already. People would kill for your wings.”

The cat stared up at him. He had slowed down a bit to facilitate the conversation.

“Soon they’ll change. They won’t be grey anymore. They’re magic. They will change colors anytime you want them to, like a chameleon.”

“Chameleon sounds like something I would eat.”

“You should know about this already. I bet your mother was poached. It’s good that found you.”

 “So you can steal my wings too?”

“I’m not going to steal your wings. In fact I promise to protect them, and you.”

The cat was silent. This was new, and she had no instinct for it.

“While we are on the subject, how many lives have you lost?”

“Just one, last week.”

“Damn! I mean seven weeks is way too early to lose your first, but in Alexandria all alone it’s a wonder you haven’t lost more How did you lose it.”

It was a personal question and he shouldn’t have asked but he had saved her from at least another so he ventured the intrusion. The cat had no feelings about it and she had never been taught to guard this information.

“I pounced a shikome.”

Tyro stopped dead. He changed direction and ran up a side street.

“Where are you going?”

“Not to take you back to your pyramid. The shikome…” He said with incredulity. “You can’t go back now. No, I’d better take you with me to Atlantis.”

“That’s what the homunculus said, to find him in Atlantis.”

To this Tyro said nothing, but the cat could see his resolve and he began sprinting again.

The cat purred and fell asleep.

Homunculus and The Cat

This story begins with the death of the cat. This particular feline perished, not peculiarly, by way of curiosity. It was a young cat, barely a year old, by any scale, with an above average intelligence. Specifically one that afforded a heightened awareness of danger as it knowingly pounced Japanese death right in her putrid, sinewy face.

Alexandria. Egypt. A block or so away from the, Great Bibliothek, the cat basked in the nighttime heat. Sulking lazily on a shelf of some brand new apartment building like an aristocratic stray, the cat licked her paws. She disposed of the hairball in the usual way. Fairy was only her second favorite food; the wings always tickled on the way back up. But she had eaten sushi for a week straight and needed a change.

The cat yawned and squinted patronizingly at the human couple inside the apartment arguing over something neither of them could remember. Her coat was solid steel grey and its shine, graphite. A door slammed inside the flat and then another. There was nothing left to see, no dinner and a show combo for her tonight.

She stretched a pair of slightly lighter grey wings and closed her green eyes. The cat yawned again. She didn’t particularly feel like flying. This building was pretty posh and besides, there was always a chance the couple would get over themselves and each come crashing back into the room for some make-up sex.

“They’re probably not the type,” the cat with wings judged. “Neither of them looked very kinky anyway.”

She scanned the sandstone skyline for something else to do. It was a half-hearted and vain attempt. Maybe she’d just have another bloody nap. All the tourists were in bed for the night or else at some nightclub where she couldn’t harass them.

The cat was in the middle of a curse directed at the jackal-bouncers of the Lighthouse, one of Alexandria’s top establishments, if you don’t like dancing with locals, when a shadow seemed to move beneath her.

She loved new things and the smell that drifted from the flat below was a new thing. However unpleasant it was poignant to know about it. Also new was the way her hairs began to stand on end.

“I must investigate,” she whispered spiritedly.

The apartment below had all of its lights put out but something inside was moving. The cat located an open window and watched. It was hard to see in the dark even for her, but there was suspicion growing that had not trouble with it at all. In fact, the more she thought about it the more the darkness seemed somehow artificial, or at least false in some way. It was made or forced upon the room, light and shadows in all, covered with an added layer of tangibility. She’d better make a move or the stagnation of the cloud, as she thought it must be, would get the better of her.

Crouching and calculating she found the opportunity she was looking for. She pounced. All at once her victim screamed, over a dozen glass lamps burst from their repression, and she caught sight of what she had ambushed.

Presently she was ripped from its face of polluted flesh that rotted away and exposed bone and loosened several maggots. She landed on the floor and though made of hardwood it felt soft as a cloud. She retched. Not another hairball this time. Uncontrollable disgust seethed out from her bowels as the last of the wet-mummy’s shadow struggled to cling to her. But an unknown light was prevailing, vanquishing the stench of the unknown. The zombic fiend recoiled from some newly lit lamp and leapt out of the window. A second one followed.

Under an eerie purple haze that grew from the lamp, the cat’s vision blurred and she lost her footing.

“You saved my life!”

The cat could barely see, but whatever was speaking to her didn’t sound right. It sounded distant and as if it was missing something. It was short, humanoid and wheezed a bit like a summoning gone wrong.

The cat couldn’t help close her eyes.

When she opened them again dawn had struck like a hammer on the anvil of the night. The small man was sitting beside her stroking her soft fur and scratching under her wings.

“That was your first life wasn’t it?”

The cat blinked her green eyes.

“eight left.”

‘Great,’ she thought, ‘now I’ve got a pet human.’

“I want you to know I’m forever in your debt,” the midget said to the cats disgust.

“Look,” she started to say, “I didn’t mean-”

“If you ever need anything,” He cut her off. And he wasn’t a midget, or even a man for that matter. She realized now what he was. He was artificial. Manmade. False-human. An alchemist’s atrophy.  He was a homunculus. “look me up, I’ll be in Atlantis, at the homunculus sanctuary.”

The cat just stared at him, like she were an oracle gazing into his soul, except he didn’t have one, he was a homunculus.

“Also in case you are unaware,” would he not shut up? “those things that attacked me were shikome, minions of Japanese afterlife. And they’ll be back. Stick around here and they will find you.”

As the homunculus stood up he handed her the purple lamp that had warded off the Shinto demons.

“Ask for Gregor.”

The cat blinked in acknowledgement.

The door closed on its own behind Gregor, one of the many small luxurious features of the posh apartments the cat had just invaded.

After a moment of silence and pondering the cat decided to find some more sushi.

“Shikome,” she said aloud, “eight lives left, what are the odds?”