[Sorry for all the delays in writing this. I'm finding myself strangely discontented with and overwhelmed by this story. It's much more a pure adventure story than my other, more whimsical offerings, and the plot is an order of magnitude more complicated (Gah! My mathematical upbringing is showing!), so overall, I'm feeling...buried by Lord of the Manor. In other words, it's kicking my behind. In other words, writing is hard.
[But I get to meet new characters, and let's hope that this new challenge will make me a better writer. Charge.
[As a side note, I've decided that it's pretty ridiculous that I haven't found an agent yet. It's time to start really shopping Fat Tony around again. Sure, Tony and Sarah and all don't really fit in Seven Cities, Wisconsin, but that's okay. There are worse fates than having to write more about Fat Tony and Tucson.]
Bunch popped out through the hole under the Noon Clock, munching on something. Crooks decided he really didn’t want to know where the round demon found his snacks. It was one of those mysteries that should be left alone--like what, exactly, all the ingredients are in ice cream. Guar gum? No one wants to know what guar gum is.
"Seems that the new Lord pulled it off," said Bunch around a mouthful of something vaguely green.
"Good to hear," said Crooks, slumped in his chair. He had a headache like a foam bat beating him behind the ears, over and over. Not exactly painful, but he had no plans to go anywhere in the near future.
"Though I expect you already heard about it," said the Head of Information and Gossip, looking at Crooks through level eyes. What exactly was THAT supposed to mean? The former Master of the South Wing decided his head hurt too much for guessing games.
"Why would you say that, Bunch?" he asked, rubbing at his temples.
"You know it's none of my nevermind what you do or who you talk with," said Bunch, rubbing at his stomach, "but I've been hearing things."
"Of course you've been hearing things. You have dozens of tumbles scurrying around the manor that think bringing you gossip is the best game since tag rolling."
The round demon chuckled. "Tag rolling IS fun, I confess."
Crooks narrowed his eyes. "You haven't been doing any of that recently, have you?"
"Not to YOUR tags, nossir. Wouldn't dream of it. Of course not."
Crooks sighed. "So tell me what you've been hearing, Bunch."
"Oh, just bits of this and bits of that, Master, bits of this and that. That you have someone working for you who may not be exactly who he seems to be. Just the rumors you hear."
"Interesting," said Crooks, holding very still. "And who says that my friend isn't who he seems to be?"
Bunch shrugged, wrinkling up his ugly face. "Let's just say I hear a bit of this and I put it together with a bit of that, and I start to puzzle out that things aren't always as they seem. Like commercials for razors."
"I'm still not sure I understand," said Crooks.
"They're not actually shaving, see. I figured this out the other day. They've already shaved, then they rub on new shaving cream, and then they drag the razor over their faces for the camera crew, and it looks smooth as butter. But they're not shaving, and that's how I figure it, and there it is."
"That wasn't what I was referring to, Bunch."
"I know it wasn't, Master Crooks. I know that. But, you know what you're about, and I'm just along for the ride, so if you decide you can trust your help--even if they aren't who they say they are--then, like I said, it's none of my nevermind."
Crooks closed his eyes and rested his throbbing head against the back of his small throne. "If this is your way of asking me about Sticks, then I'll put your mind at ease: I trust him completely."
"Like a blind man with his seeing-eye dog then, sir."
Crooks smiled. "Something like that, Bunch. Something very much like that."
Walk crouched on the chair next to Talk and Micklewhip, peeking around the back to get a glimpse of Tickertape and that very frightening demon with all the knives. He hardly dared to breathe and didn't even risk a whisper to the other two. That demon looked like she'd cut his words right out of the air and chase them straight back to him.
"Chief Quirk Plenipotentiary over Dishes and Sundries," she said. "Do I have it right?"
Tickertape looked calm--way more calm than Walk could ever imagine being. "Yes, Mistress Noise."
She paced back and front of the small table where she'd dropped the quirk. "I've seen you before, haven't I?"
"I'm not very memorable," said Tickertape in a quiet voice.
"Don't play with me, quirk. I'm not a fan of games. Where have we met?"
"I used to work for Rope Feast."
"Hah!" There was genuine mirth in the tall demon's laugh, though it wasn't kind humor. "That old sack? That's right! You were at his side, weren't you. Did you make his armor?"
"Yes, mistress."
"Wonderful! Delightful. Spectacular." Noise Feast clapped her hands together and tilted her head to the side, and Walk guessed it was supposed to be cute, but there were too many sharp edges to her, and his brain hiccupped to a halt at least three steps short of 'cute.' "Rope loses one of his chief quirks, and then I find him. Don't you find that marvelous, Finder?"
"Yes, mistress," said the long-nosed demon, from out of sight behind a couch. The two flickers were also perched on furniture close to their mistress, leaving plenty of shadow around the room, but Walk decided he'd tell them thank you later. Much later.
"Tell me, Finder, is this quirk what we were looking for?" Noise Feast's eyes were hungry, like flickering fire reflecting flickering fire.
"I think so, mistress."
The mistress demon's eyes snapped down to glare where the Finder must have been. "Be sure," she said.
"I've told you, mistress, and I'm not going back on what I've said. My Right and Privilege was for finding what was lost. This quirk wasn't lost, so I'm guessing at shadows and tugging on clouds, and if you don't like it, you can find yourself another Finder." There was trembling in the voice, but determination as well. Walk wasn't sure he could be half as brave.
Noise Feast glared for long enough that Walk started imagining frightening things happening, involving knives and screaming--but then she looked back to Tickertape.
"I suppose that explanation will have to do," she said. "You, my dear little Chief Quirk Exemplary, are apparently my key for finding the Study."
Tickertape looked up at her, and she looked back down at him, and Walk wondered what the Study was. He knew the North Wing was a different place from the South. He'd even heard that rooms in the North Wing hardly ever moved, and that the last hole into the motherworld had been more than five years ago. He found those rumors hard to believe, but since seeing the shadow in the Great Hall, Walk was starting to believe that there was more to the world than he had ever dreamed.
Tickertape was still looking up at Noise Feast. The larger demon's eyes narrowed.
"Aren't you going to say anything, quirk?"
"I'd be glad to help you, but I have a question first."
Noise feast snorted. "Cheeky. I suppose I could like that--but not very much or very often, if you take my meaning."
"Yes, mistress," said Tickertape.
"Tell me your question, quirk."
"What is the Study?"
Noise Feast glared down at him, and it was all Tickertape could do to swallow back the panicked gurgle that tried to hurl itself up his throat. He WANTED to help her--he really, truly did. He had never been more frightened in his life, not even when a Ravenous Grok had burst through from the motherworld and swallowed up the entire set of broken china that Tickertape had just pieced together. That had been terrifying, sure, but then the Grok had been sucked back into the chaos that all demons sprang from, and was gone. Tickertape hadn't even had time to be really frightened.
Noise Feast was different. She was covered in edges, her emotions filled with sharp angles, and her fingernails were painted with rainbows. For some reason, that bothered Tickertape more than all the knives strapped across her body. It made her seem off balance. Crazy. Yes, this time Tickertape was filled up with terrified, and he had plenty of time to enjoy it.
Somewhere behind him, a flicker laughed.
"Did I mention," said Noise Feast, "that I am not fond of games?"
Tickertape swallowed again, and opened his mouth to say something, but no sound came out. The mistress demon leaned in close to him, her eyes bright and too close and too large.
"Take me to the study, quirk. Take me there now."
"I," said Tickertape. "I...I...I...." Why weren't his words working? What was the matter with him? He should be saying something--ANYTING! He found himself scooting backwards across the table on his bottom and hands, knowing THAT was a bad idea, too, but unable to stop.
Almost too fast for his eyes to follow, Noise Feast lifted her arm and slammed it down onto the table between Tickertape's legs. He froze. The fabric of his apron was pinned to the wood by a long paring knife. A large, two-tined kitchen fork, strapped to the mistress demon's forearm, was driven into the wood so ferociously that the wood had splintered, one spike on either side of the quirk's left leg. Tickertape didn't dare breathe.
"Mistress," said a voice. Tickertape blinked, processing the sound. It was the Finder's voice.
"What!" snapped Noise Feast, still glaring at the quirk.
"It is quite possible that the quirk knows nothing about the Study."
The Mistress of the Feast of Din smiled, but there was nothing sweet about it. "Would you care to explain then, why I'm wasting my time here?"
"As I told you, Mistress--"
Noise Feast jerked her head sideways and snarled at the Finder. Tickertape heard the long-nosed demon cough then go on.
"As I...may have forgotten to mention, I brought you here because I felt that the key to finding the study was here. That quirk has something to do with it, but he may not know about it."
"Your point, Finder."
"Instead of," the Finder cleared his throat, "doing anything drastic and...irreversible, why don't we bring him with us and find out what he knows?" Noise Feast's eyebrows went down, and Tickertape hoped that was a thoughtful expression on her face. The Finder went on. "As an added bonus, moving on would take us further from Master Silver's territory."
Tickertape watched for an incredibly long seven heartbeats--he could feel each one of them, battering his ribs--while Noise Feast did nothing. Well, a bit of holding still, and maybe a breath or two, but other than that: lots of nothing.
Then her hand closed around his chest, swept him into the air, and dropped him onto the carpet. Stunned, Tickertape gasped as Noise Feast turned away.
"Bring him," she said, and was gone.
The quirk coughed, his stomach muscles heaving as they tried to pull air back into his lungs. Gentle hands helped him up and all his parts gradually started working the way they were supposed to. He looked up at a flicker, perched on the back of an overstuffed chair. He thought the little imp was grinning, but it was hard to tell with the halo of fire behind the flicker's head. When the imp waved, Tickertape didn't bother to wave back. Instead he turned to the Finder, who had helped him up.
"Thank you," he said, then broke into a fit of coughing. The Finder patted him on the back until he got his breathing under control again.
"Shall we go?" asked the wrinkled demon, handing Tickertape a kleenex out of one of his many pockets. Tickertape realized his nose was running, and he took the tissue with a thank you. With Noise Feast out of the room, he felt his panic fade--not much, but enough that he started looking around, trying to decide on the best way to run. The Finder was bigger than a quirk, but he looked plenty old, and Tickertape figured he could get a good head start and be gone before the older demon could do much more than yell.
"Let me straighten your clothes," said the Finder, leaning in to brush at Tickertape's sliced apron and rumpled shirt. His long nose went past Tickertape's head and his mouth stopped a breath away from the quirk's ear.
"I know you're thinking of running," he whispered, "but please don't. It wouldn't go well for me, and I'm a bit old to try to escape with you. Also, I don't think we want to give Mistress Noise any reason to go looking around the room, do we?"
The Finder leaned back and looked at Tickertape with sad, old eyes, then glanced at a chair on the far side of the room. The chair where Talk and Micklewhip had fallen asleep, where Walk had collapsed on the carpet, and where they'd been smart enough to stay hidden--unless they were still sleeping. Who knew?
Tickertape felt his shoulders sag. He tried to pull them back up, but they didn't make it very far. "Right," he said. "Let's go."
The Finder patted him on the back. "Straight spine, little one. At least there's one square meal a day in it for us."
Tickertape tried to pretend that it would be nice to eat at Din Feast instead of Lynch Feast for a change. He decided he wasn't much good at pretending anymore.
The last flicker followed Tickertape and the Finder out the door, and the room was dark again, lit only by trailing moonlight slanting in through the windows. Walk sagged down onto the white sheet that covered the chair. Talk slipped down off the other arm of the chair and looked at him with wide eyes, while Micklewhip turned himself over and looked up with eyes just as wide. Both seemed to be asking, WHAT DO WE DO NOW?
Walk wanted to scream, I DON'T KNOW! He couldn't do that, though, could he? First off, you don't scream at lags--nobody is THAT mean--and second, screaming might bring back that scary mistress. Walk wasn't sure which demon he wanted to avoid more: the shadow, or Noise Feast.
Almost more unnerving was the fact that Talk was looking at him that way. Before the old Master had died, Talk always had something to say. Trying to shut her up was like trying to put out a flicker: possible, but it took real commitment. Now she had nothing to say. It had been Walk's plan to cross the Great Hall--look how that had turned out--and Walk's idea to ask Tickertape for help--which wasn't exactly bad, but not a screaming success so far. Walk HATED making decisions, but it looked like it was his turn again.
"We have to," he started, then stopped. He cleared his throat. Have to what? "We have to follow them," he said, then blinked at his own insanity. Why would he follow that sharp-edged mistress demon?
But just like the plan to cross the Great Hall, Talk took his plan and put it in motion. She'd been the one leading the way to the Great Hall, the one who had found the quiet saw, the one who had chosen where to cut. Walk couldn't have stopped her if he'd wanted to, and again, Talk was already in motion. She was helping Micklewhip off the chair, dangling him off the edge from one of his feet, low enough that the lag could drop comfortably down onto his broad hands. Then she grinned at Walk, as if to say, THIS WILL BE GREAT, and was gone over the edge of the chair.
"This will be a disaster," whispered Walk to himself.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Cheat Sheet Update
My brother converted the page into a spreadsheet that you can find right here. Thank you so much, everyone who's helping on this!
Friday, June 18, 2010
Lord of the Manor -- Character Cheat Sheet
I don't know if anyone else has started, but I was in need, and Liz went ahead. If anyone wants to contribute to the Lord of the Manor Character Cheat Sheet, there is the link. (I've already learned things from it that I'd forgotten.)
Thanks, Liz!
Thanks, Liz!
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Lord of the Manor -- Section 13
[We're over 30,000 words now for the book. Normally that would mean we're about half-way done. This time? Not so much, I don't think. Still so many exciting things to do and demons to meet! (Besides, Maddie hasn't even called her parents to try to explain what is going on. Or to lie, as convincingly as possible. We'll have to see which.)
[Family reunion stuff is still going on, as crazy as ever. Well, slightly less crazy than ever. So I'm trying to really button down and get moving on the projects that will some day earn me money. Here's today's section. Enjoy.]
"I'll fetch some snags and a firk to tend to your injuries," said Silver, offering two glasses of water on a new, polished tray. Michael wondered if the demon had some kind of power that let him conjure clean glasses and plates out of thin air. He supposed it wasn't likely, but after what he'd seen in the last ten hours, he was having to mix up his definitions of 'likely' and 'unlikely.'
As the butler disappeared around a corner down the hall, Michael reached up to feel a cut on his scalp and then cringed as he got a good look at the back of his hand. It had been bad enough in the broken moonlight, but seeing it under electric white light was disturbing. A part of his brain noticed exactly how wide the cut was, another part wondered how much blood he'd lost, and a third decided the bulbs in the modest light fixture overhead must be full-spectrum, because the light was very white. White light. Dark blood. Michael swallowed.
"Hey," said Maddie. "You okay?"
"Oh, sure," said Michael. "I used to play rugby back home, so getting beat up is second nature to me. Also football. And kick boxing. This is nothing." He looked over at Maddie, pulling his eyes away from his hand. She was staring at him.
"Did you just make all that up?" she asked.
"Absolutely," he answered.
"Oh," she said. "I thought it was kind of funny, but I didn't want to laugh if...you know...."
"Don't worry about it," said Michael. "I know I'm small. And I've got all the muscle of a goldfish. But I'm trying really hard not to cry right now, and if I think about ANYTHING seriously, I'm afraid I'm going to crack, so why don't I tell you about the time I climbed Everest?"
That got a hint of a real smile out of the girl, and Michael decided he liked how the smile looked. In other words, it wasn't just her legs that were nice. In other words, Michael was way too short for her. Inside he sighed, but managed to keep it from showing up too much on the outside.
"Sure," said Maddie. "Tell me about your trip to Everest."
"It wasn't just TOO Everest," said Michael, carefully not looking at his hand, or at his left leg, which the air demons had given special attention. "I went to the top. Twice."
"Twice?"
"Absolutely. What, you think I'd leave that man there, all alone, with the injuries he had?"
"Injuries," said Maddie, thoughtfully. "Do tell."
"Well, it all started with the yak attack," said Michael, watching the story take shape in his head.
"Yak attack. Sounds like a band name."
"Not a bad idea," said Michael, "but they didn't have instruments. Just tusks."
Maddie looked puzzled. "Tusks? On a yak?"
"Did I say 'tusks?' I meant horns. Antlers. Antler-horns, which is exactly what yaks have."
"Have you ever actually SEEN a yak, Michael?" Maddie was outright smiling now and Michael charged on.
"That's what I'm trying to tell you about, but you keep interrupting. So we were maybe five hours from the summit when the yaks attacked with their sharp antler-horns. The Doctor was grievously wounded."
"Grievously?"
"Grievously and gratuitously wounded. I begged him to let me take him back down the mountain, but he wouldn't hear of it. He wanted to make it to the top." Michael stopped and rubbed at his nose, which was suddenly itchy. His hand came away with new blood streaked across it. "That's disturbing," he said. He felt something like panic make his stomach quiver, but Maddie came to his rescue.
"So what did you do with the Doctor?"
"Right. The Doctor. I strapped him to my back with duct tape. Then, over the protests of my Sherpa guide, I carried my old friend to the top of Everest."
"That's remarkable."
"You bet. In fact, in mountain climbing circles I'm known as 'the Remarkable Michael.'"
"So why did you go to the top of Everest a second time?"
"I had to leave the Doctor in the igloo I built for him, cutting the ice with my pocket knife."
"Those must have been very small blocks of ice."
"That's where my championship Lego building skills came in handy."
"Unbelievable," said Maddie.
"No, really," Michael said. "I actually do have decent Lego skills. I once built a model of Thomas Jefferson's home for a school project. Funny how I can't remember its name."
"Monticello."
"Oh, of course. Monticello."
"What happened next?"
"When?"
"On Everest."
"Everest," said Michael. He realized he was looking at his hand again, and it was still bleeding, and he thought he should be putting pressure on it, but he was so tired. Was fighting with air demons supposed to make a person this tired? He'd have to ask Sticks. Where was Sticks? A burst of adrenaline pushed the fatigue back and Michael looked around frantically.
"What is it?" asked Maddie, looking around as well.
"Sticks. Where's Sticks? Did he come in?"
Maddie paused, thinking. "I saw him pull the door closed, and he was inside, but...I don't know where he went."
Michael sagged back against the wall. "I guess that's okay. He said he doesn't get along too well with Silver, so I guess he took off."
"Silver?" asked Maddie.
"The butler."
"Did you call?" asked the bat-winged demon, standing at Michael's elbow. The boy jumped and hit Maddie's arm with his elbow, hard.
"Sorry!" he apologized. "I was surprised. I didn't mean--"
"It's okay," said the girl, rubbing at her arm. "You hit between cuts."
"Oh, good," said Michael. "Wait, I didn't mean it was good you got cut, I just...good." Michael wished he had learned how to shut up. He knew it was a valuable skill, but his mouth always seemed to run on for at least a sentence or two after he'd run out of anything intelligent to say.
"Speaking of cuts," said Silver, "I've brought Hem, Seam, and Globule to help with your injuries." The butler indicted the three imps next to him in order with an upturned hand, and Michael realized he was staring.
There WAS a certain amount to stare at. Hem and Seam looked mostly human--other than being around five inches tall. Hem, a boy, was dressed in a neatly tailored purple suit with waistcoat, while Seam, a girl, had some kind of candy-striped, Goth look going. The really remarkable thing about them, though, was their hair.
All their hair. Lots and lots and piles and twists and bundles of hair. Hem's fell in modest brown and black braids down his back to his knees, then back up to his shoulders, then in coils around his shoulders, then down to loops around his left arm, and then Michael lost track. He didn't even know where to start trying to untangle Seam's rainbow cacophony of twists and frizzes and twirls and ponytails, dyed every color that he had ever seen hair, and then some. And, sticking into Hem's hair in orderly rows, and out of Seam's hair in unexpected clusters and spikes, were pins and needles. Michael wondered what would happen if he waved a strong magnet in their direction.
Next to the two imps--were they snags or firks?--was a taller imp, older looking, maybe over a foot tall, dressed in what looked like a wash-rag converted into an oversized bathrobe. He had a cheerful face, bushy eyebrows, and what had to be one of the worst colds Michael had ever seen. The imp's nose was red and runny, and he dabbed at it constantly with a handkerchief that already hung wet and heavy in his hand. The imp, Globule, smiled and winked at Michael, and Michael tried to smile back.
"Well then," said Silver, "if you could please stand, young Master, then Globule can get started."
"Started doing what?" asked Michael.
"I beg your pardon for not explaining," said the butler. "Mister Globule is a firk, first class, specializing in the cleansing of wounds, hands, and doorknobs--in other words, he is clearly an expert."
"Come now, Master Silver," said the firk in a surprisingly bass voice, his face some mixture of modesty and pleasure. "I clean things, and that's good enough for me."
"Trust me, young Master," said Silver. "He is up to the task, and one of the most gentle of the firks I have found. After his ministrations, Mister Hem and Miss Seam will take care of the rest."
"The rest of what?" asked Michael again, not sure he liked the look of the needles sticking out of the girl imp's hair.
"Some things are better done with little consideration," said the butler. "Please, stand."
There was a bit of metal in Silver's voice, but Michael would have called it 'steel' instead of 'silver.' He found himself standing, and Globule walked around him, looking him up and down.
"Not too bad," said the jovial imp, wiping at his nose. "I've seen worse, coming in from discussions with the air demons. We'll have you fixed up in no time."
"Shouldn't you take care of Maddie first?" asked Michael, caught somewhere between chivalry and a very strong desire to not get poked with needles.
"Lord of the Manor first, young Master," said Silver. That was the end of that discussion.
"Now then, little Lord," said Globule. "I think the best way to do this is to have you sit down and hold still. Nothing we can't take care of while you're resting, and that way the little ones only have to climb up for the cuts around your head. But first let me...."
Then the larger imp hacked, leaned in to Michael's left calf, and spat a blob of whatever comes out of an imp's mouth right onto one of the larger cuts.
"Hey!" said Michael, lifting his leg away, losing his balance, and bracing himself against the wall with his hands. "That stings! I mean...it stung. Oh."
"What?" asked Maddie.
"It doesn't hurt so much anymore," he said. Michael looked down at Globule, who was grinning wide enough for Michael to see the imp's fangs.
"Firk, first class," said the imp. "Don't get spit like that without quite a bit of practice, not to toot my own horn too loudly." He bobbed his eyebrows up at the boy, then launched another blob of spit at the other leg.
"Have a seat, young Master," said Silver. "The snags are artists as well, in their own way. Shall we make their job as easy as possible?"
Michael watched as Seam yanked a long, magenta hair from a twist on the back of her head, threading it through the eye of a wickedly curved needle. Then he realized he was sitting, and then he realized his eyes were closed. All the fatigue he'd felt before pressed down on his chest and weighed his head down. Some detached part of his brain wondered if this was what it was like to faint.
[Family reunion stuff is still going on, as crazy as ever. Well, slightly less crazy than ever. So I'm trying to really button down and get moving on the projects that will some day earn me money. Here's today's section. Enjoy.]
"I'll fetch some snags and a firk to tend to your injuries," said Silver, offering two glasses of water on a new, polished tray. Michael wondered if the demon had some kind of power that let him conjure clean glasses and plates out of thin air. He supposed it wasn't likely, but after what he'd seen in the last ten hours, he was having to mix up his definitions of 'likely' and 'unlikely.'
As the butler disappeared around a corner down the hall, Michael reached up to feel a cut on his scalp and then cringed as he got a good look at the back of his hand. It had been bad enough in the broken moonlight, but seeing it under electric white light was disturbing. A part of his brain noticed exactly how wide the cut was, another part wondered how much blood he'd lost, and a third decided the bulbs in the modest light fixture overhead must be full-spectrum, because the light was very white. White light. Dark blood. Michael swallowed.
"Hey," said Maddie. "You okay?"
"Oh, sure," said Michael. "I used to play rugby back home, so getting beat up is second nature to me. Also football. And kick boxing. This is nothing." He looked over at Maddie, pulling his eyes away from his hand. She was staring at him.
"Did you just make all that up?" she asked.
"Absolutely," he answered.
"Oh," she said. "I thought it was kind of funny, but I didn't want to laugh if...you know...."
"Don't worry about it," said Michael. "I know I'm small. And I've got all the muscle of a goldfish. But I'm trying really hard not to cry right now, and if I think about ANYTHING seriously, I'm afraid I'm going to crack, so why don't I tell you about the time I climbed Everest?"
That got a hint of a real smile out of the girl, and Michael decided he liked how the smile looked. In other words, it wasn't just her legs that were nice. In other words, Michael was way too short for her. Inside he sighed, but managed to keep it from showing up too much on the outside.
"Sure," said Maddie. "Tell me about your trip to Everest."
"It wasn't just TOO Everest," said Michael, carefully not looking at his hand, or at his left leg, which the air demons had given special attention. "I went to the top. Twice."
"Twice?"
"Absolutely. What, you think I'd leave that man there, all alone, with the injuries he had?"
"Injuries," said Maddie, thoughtfully. "Do tell."
"Well, it all started with the yak attack," said Michael, watching the story take shape in his head.
"Yak attack. Sounds like a band name."
"Not a bad idea," said Michael, "but they didn't have instruments. Just tusks."
Maddie looked puzzled. "Tusks? On a yak?"
"Did I say 'tusks?' I meant horns. Antlers. Antler-horns, which is exactly what yaks have."
"Have you ever actually SEEN a yak, Michael?" Maddie was outright smiling now and Michael charged on.
"That's what I'm trying to tell you about, but you keep interrupting. So we were maybe five hours from the summit when the yaks attacked with their sharp antler-horns. The Doctor was grievously wounded."
"Grievously?"
"Grievously and gratuitously wounded. I begged him to let me take him back down the mountain, but he wouldn't hear of it. He wanted to make it to the top." Michael stopped and rubbed at his nose, which was suddenly itchy. His hand came away with new blood streaked across it. "That's disturbing," he said. He felt something like panic make his stomach quiver, but Maddie came to his rescue.
"So what did you do with the Doctor?"
"Right. The Doctor. I strapped him to my back with duct tape. Then, over the protests of my Sherpa guide, I carried my old friend to the top of Everest."
"That's remarkable."
"You bet. In fact, in mountain climbing circles I'm known as 'the Remarkable Michael.'"
"So why did you go to the top of Everest a second time?"
"I had to leave the Doctor in the igloo I built for him, cutting the ice with my pocket knife."
"Those must have been very small blocks of ice."
"That's where my championship Lego building skills came in handy."
"Unbelievable," said Maddie.
"No, really," Michael said. "I actually do have decent Lego skills. I once built a model of Thomas Jefferson's home for a school project. Funny how I can't remember its name."
"Monticello."
"Oh, of course. Monticello."
"What happened next?"
"When?"
"On Everest."
"Everest," said Michael. He realized he was looking at his hand again, and it was still bleeding, and he thought he should be putting pressure on it, but he was so tired. Was fighting with air demons supposed to make a person this tired? He'd have to ask Sticks. Where was Sticks? A burst of adrenaline pushed the fatigue back and Michael looked around frantically.
"What is it?" asked Maddie, looking around as well.
"Sticks. Where's Sticks? Did he come in?"
Maddie paused, thinking. "I saw him pull the door closed, and he was inside, but...I don't know where he went."
Michael sagged back against the wall. "I guess that's okay. He said he doesn't get along too well with Silver, so I guess he took off."
"Silver?" asked Maddie.
"The butler."
"Did you call?" asked the bat-winged demon, standing at Michael's elbow. The boy jumped and hit Maddie's arm with his elbow, hard.
"Sorry!" he apologized. "I was surprised. I didn't mean--"
"It's okay," said the girl, rubbing at her arm. "You hit between cuts."
"Oh, good," said Michael. "Wait, I didn't mean it was good you got cut, I just...good." Michael wished he had learned how to shut up. He knew it was a valuable skill, but his mouth always seemed to run on for at least a sentence or two after he'd run out of anything intelligent to say.
"Speaking of cuts," said Silver, "I've brought Hem, Seam, and Globule to help with your injuries." The butler indicted the three imps next to him in order with an upturned hand, and Michael realized he was staring.
There WAS a certain amount to stare at. Hem and Seam looked mostly human--other than being around five inches tall. Hem, a boy, was dressed in a neatly tailored purple suit with waistcoat, while Seam, a girl, had some kind of candy-striped, Goth look going. The really remarkable thing about them, though, was their hair.
All their hair. Lots and lots and piles and twists and bundles of hair. Hem's fell in modest brown and black braids down his back to his knees, then back up to his shoulders, then in coils around his shoulders, then down to loops around his left arm, and then Michael lost track. He didn't even know where to start trying to untangle Seam's rainbow cacophony of twists and frizzes and twirls and ponytails, dyed every color that he had ever seen hair, and then some. And, sticking into Hem's hair in orderly rows, and out of Seam's hair in unexpected clusters and spikes, were pins and needles. Michael wondered what would happen if he waved a strong magnet in their direction.
Next to the two imps--were they snags or firks?--was a taller imp, older looking, maybe over a foot tall, dressed in what looked like a wash-rag converted into an oversized bathrobe. He had a cheerful face, bushy eyebrows, and what had to be one of the worst colds Michael had ever seen. The imp's nose was red and runny, and he dabbed at it constantly with a handkerchief that already hung wet and heavy in his hand. The imp, Globule, smiled and winked at Michael, and Michael tried to smile back.
"Well then," said Silver, "if you could please stand, young Master, then Globule can get started."
"Started doing what?" asked Michael.
"I beg your pardon for not explaining," said the butler. "Mister Globule is a firk, first class, specializing in the cleansing of wounds, hands, and doorknobs--in other words, he is clearly an expert."
"Come now, Master Silver," said the firk in a surprisingly bass voice, his face some mixture of modesty and pleasure. "I clean things, and that's good enough for me."
"Trust me, young Master," said Silver. "He is up to the task, and one of the most gentle of the firks I have found. After his ministrations, Mister Hem and Miss Seam will take care of the rest."
"The rest of what?" asked Michael again, not sure he liked the look of the needles sticking out of the girl imp's hair.
"Some things are better done with little consideration," said the butler. "Please, stand."
There was a bit of metal in Silver's voice, but Michael would have called it 'steel' instead of 'silver.' He found himself standing, and Globule walked around him, looking him up and down.
"Not too bad," said the jovial imp, wiping at his nose. "I've seen worse, coming in from discussions with the air demons. We'll have you fixed up in no time."
"Shouldn't you take care of Maddie first?" asked Michael, caught somewhere between chivalry and a very strong desire to not get poked with needles.
"Lord of the Manor first, young Master," said Silver. That was the end of that discussion.
"Now then, little Lord," said Globule. "I think the best way to do this is to have you sit down and hold still. Nothing we can't take care of while you're resting, and that way the little ones only have to climb up for the cuts around your head. But first let me...."
Then the larger imp hacked, leaned in to Michael's left calf, and spat a blob of whatever comes out of an imp's mouth right onto one of the larger cuts.
"Hey!" said Michael, lifting his leg away, losing his balance, and bracing himself against the wall with his hands. "That stings! I mean...it stung. Oh."
"What?" asked Maddie.
"It doesn't hurt so much anymore," he said. Michael looked down at Globule, who was grinning wide enough for Michael to see the imp's fangs.
"Firk, first class," said the imp. "Don't get spit like that without quite a bit of practice, not to toot my own horn too loudly." He bobbed his eyebrows up at the boy, then launched another blob of spit at the other leg.
"Have a seat, young Master," said Silver. "The snags are artists as well, in their own way. Shall we make their job as easy as possible?"
Michael watched as Seam yanked a long, magenta hair from a twist on the back of her head, threading it through the eye of a wickedly curved needle. Then he realized he was sitting, and then he realized his eyes were closed. All the fatigue he'd felt before pressed down on his chest and weighed his head down. Some detached part of his brain wondered if this was what it was like to faint.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Lord of the Manor -- Section 12
['Sup, yo. Now that I know my stories are set in Seven Cities, WI, it's probably about time for me to make some kind of map for myself. Also, I might have to pay attention to weather patterns in Wisconsin (unless Seven Cities is in the part of Wisconsin with a climate exactly like the climate of Utah Valley.)
[Also, I'm not sure whether I'm one-hundred percent behind this whole 'describing characters and places' thing. It's a heckuvalot of work to be interesting in my descriptions, where the characters tend to take care of funny dialog all on their own.
[Ah well. Growing pains.]
"Do you think that was the new Master?" asked Walk, pressing his cheek against the glass to look toward the door where the boy and girl had escaped back into the manor house. The glass was cold against his cheek, and he wanted to pull away--too many demons of the air were still clinging to the walls outside, still flitting past with teeth and angry faces--but he wanted even more to be sure that the boy and girl were all right.
"I don't know," said Tickertape. Walk pulled his face back, leaving a white cloud from his breath, and looked at the little quirk.
"But...he was human, right?" Walk didn't have too much experience with humans. As far as he knew, the old Master was the only human who had ever lived at Daimon Home. "Do you think the girl is the new Master?" he asked.
"Can't tell you that, either," said the quirk. "They both seem too young."
"Young?" asked Walk, lifting his eyebrows. "They're huge! They're as big as major demons. Especially that girl."
Tickertape shrugged. "Humans don't grow like we do. They can reach their full growth while they're still basically kids, but then they stop growing."
Walk was surprised. That seemed too strange. Demons kept growing long after they'd reached the age where they could be considered adults. "You mean they stop growing at all?"
The quirk gave a short laugh as he stepped to the edge of the window sill. "They may grow some around the waste, but from what I hear, that's from eating too much."
Walk put his hand over his empty stomach. HOW COULD YOU EVER EAT TOO MUCH, he thought to himself, sure that he never could. As creatures of chaos, demons technically didn't HAVE to eat to survive, but that didn't mean they didn't enjoy it--or that it was extremely uncomfortable to go without food for very long. Walk looked up and saw Tickertape looking at him.
"Yeah, I've been thinking about food, too," said the quirk. "If either that boy or that girl is the new Lord, they might be able to help us out in the food department. Shall we go try to find them?"
"Yes, please!" said Walk. "Oh. Wait. Talk and Micklewhip." He looked over where his friend had fallen asleep on a giant chair, cuddled next to the lag. Micklewhip snorted and turned over onto his head, then settled back to sleep.
"I suppose we shouldn't wake them," said Tickertape, sitting down again on the window sill. "Though how they slept through all that, I'll never understand. Why don't you get some sleep, too, Walk. New Master or not, nobody is going out again tonight. The morning will be plenty early to go find our new Lord."
"But I'm not sleepy," said Walk, then realized that sleepy was exactly what he was. Now that things had calmed down and the battle outside was over, his arms were heavy at his sides and his feet sore. "Maybe I will lie down, now that I think about it. You going to go to sleep?"
Tickertape stretched his legs out then let his heals fall back down to bump against the wood of the wall. "Soon, I think. I don't sleep as much as I used to. It's something that happens to quirks as we get older. We like to stay up, tinkering."
Walk looked around the room, with the furniture covered in sheets and the vases on the tables and paintings like black stains on the walls. "But...there's nothing to tinker with here."
The quirk shrugged. "Doesn't stop me from staying awake. Sleep, Walk. It's a good way to forget about being hungry."
The minor demon nodded and climbed down from the window. Before he realized it, he was lying on the carpet in the middle of the room. It was so thick and soft, and he thought that he might climb up into one of the chairs, but that would be so much work. Too much work. He wanted to stay awake longer, though. He didn't feel safe, yet. He was supposed to, once he got to the North Wing, but it seemed like nothing was quite what it should be. Not since the old Master died.
When had he closed his eyes? he wondered, and then he heard someone, somewhere, snoring.
Tickertape looked down at the snoring demon and sighed. He hadn't slept that easily for months. Wakeful nights had been fine when he'd had his own little workshop off the kitchen, when he was Chief Quirk Exemplary and Plenipotentiary Over Dishes and Sundries, his own staff of under-quirks busily smashing and bashing and wiring and polishing around him. He felt his fingers flexing, anxious for the tools he'd left behind when he'd fled from Rope Feast. What had he been thinking?
Somewhere things HAD to be better. That's what he'd been thinking. Maybe they would be, but he wouldn't find that place tonight. Might as well lie down while he had the chance. He kicked himself away from the window sill and landed on the thick carpet, looking around to find a chair to serve as a bed for the night--though, as a matter of fact, Walk's choice to sleep on the carpet wasn't a bad one. Tickertape shifted his booted feet, feeling the thick weave squish underneath with a faint whisper of sound.
And then there was actual whispering. The quirk froze, straining his ears. No, he hadn't made it up. Someone was whispering. Someone was coming toward the room. Tickertape's eyes flickered over to the shadowy lump that was Walk, then up to the chair where Talk and Micklewhip slept. The chair was faced away from both doors into the room, and there was a couch that was likely to hide the demon on the carpet from any casual observation, especially in this dark. That only left Tickertape out in the open, and he took care of that as quickly as possible, scampering over to the couch and under it, crawling on hands and knees until he had a decent view of both doors. Then he froze and tried not to breathe. Or not to breathe too much. He'd settle for breathing quietly, he decided.
The voices were coming closer. A woman's voice, angled and sharp, one that Tickertape recognized. He could still hear her laugh as her fist jerked Rope Feast's head sideways: Noise Feast. The quirk pulled deeper back into the shadow.
The other voices he didn't recognize. One had the clipped, precise diction of a tag, but a third was rounder and richer, and Tickertape couldn't place it. Probably a minor demon of some sort. He could see them coming now, or at least he could see the flicker of light from a flicker or two, casting warm shadows into the room.
"You're certain we've been here before?" asked Noise Feast. She sounded annoyed. Of course, from everything Tickertape had heard, she was ALWAYS annoyed--except when she was fighting. That was something she enjoyed, and too much, from Tickertape's point of view.
"Yes, Mistress Noise." That was the tag talking. "I have it recorded right here, that we moved through this room sixteen days ago at the third turning and a quarter after the Feast of Din. 'Nothing unusual, and the Finder reported nothing unusual.' Right here in my notes, all of it clear in green and white. Would you care to--"
"No," said Noise Feast, cutting him off. "Of course I wouldn't care to." Tickertape cringed in his hiding place. That voice was like nails and glass, and the quirk found himself thinking almost fondly of Rope Feast's round, loud anger. "So, Master Finder, would you care to tell me why we're back in a room you pronounced unremarkable only sixteen days ago? When did you make a mistake? Then, or now?"
"I tell you what I feel, Mistress Noise, and that is the best I can do." This was the richer voice--the minor demon, if Tickertape's guess was correct--and there was resentment in the sound. "I tell you again and again, my Right was for Finding and Recovery, and the old Master's Study wasn't lost. He HID it, and my Right was never for finding hidden things. That's theft, not recovery."
"Finding the Study is whatever I tell you it is," said Noise Feast, and now her voice was cold nails and frosted glass. "You will find me the Study, and I will claim the Kitchens, and that fat slug Rope Feast will come crawling to me. THAT is why we are here, and THAT is why you will find out what is so important about this useless, unremarkable room, and you will do it right now."
The Finder's voice was a whisper, and if they hadn't been just outside the door, Tickertape wouldn't have heard it at all. "Yes, Mistress."
The hiding quirk swallowed as the hunting party finally entered the room. The first imp he saw was a flicker, leading the way, with the candle strapped to his back burning his hair away in a long, bright flame. Tickertape had always found flickers slightly disturbing, though they seemed to enjoy the hint of danger--well, danger in general, actually. Always climbing onto high things like chandeliers, flaming the whole way.
Next through the door was a minor demon that must have been the Finder. Old, clearly, with a face that was wrinkles piled on wrinkles, with wrinkles in between and four horns on top, poking through his gray hair. His hands were clasped behind his back, his shoulders hunched with age, his eyes bright and his long, long nose twitching, sniffing the air. He had on a worn backpack and pants covered with pockets, some of them bulging--with lost items found, Tickertape supposed.
Behind him came the tag, eyes wide behind glasses that some quirk had cobbled together for him from what looked like decorative glass pebbles. He was carrying his Book of Lists and looking nervous. Actually, come to think of it, it was normal for a tag to look nervous--things get out of order so EASILY--but the master demon walking behind him was enough to make any imp nervous.
Noise Feast was beautiful like a wasp, long and angry. She was also a walking cutlery drawer, knives strapped everywhere, sticking out at angles and threatening to take a bit out of anyone walking too close. This wasn't a demon who looked at you with soft eyes and asked for a hug. Behind her was the last flicker, keeping his distance as he looked around the room cheerfully. Tickertape envied the kind of world view that could make a demon happy just to walk around with his hair on fire.
The entire procession stopped, looking around a room that seemed more like it was darkened with flickering shadows than it was lit with flickering light. Tickertape pulled back under the protecting couch and hoped the Finder would admit that, in fact, there WAS nothing remarkable about the room at all. The quirk watched Noise Feast's soft leather shoes and tried to think bland thoughts.
"We're here, Finder," said the Mistress of the Feast of Din. "Now tell me what has changed to make this room worth my time?"
"I'm not certain, Mistress. I'm working with hints and possibilities--no need to get angry, Mistress! I'm doing my best for you--and I feel that the key to finding the Study is somewhere in this room."
"Well then, I suppose I can't ask for more," said Noise Feast, though something in her voice said that she certainly COULD ask for more. "Up, flickers. We'll search the room again, but make it quick. I’m never happy this close to Silver’s territory, the old bat."
Tickertape heard two gleeful cackles as the little burning imps ran for the decorative ladders built into the walls of most every room in the manor house. He knew it would only be moments before they were hanging from the ceiling, and only moments more before Walk, Talk, and Micklewhip were discovered. He wasn't sure what came over him--the insanity of responsibility, he supposed--but before he knew it, he was scampering out from under the couch, dodging around a foot stool, and pounding the carpet with his feet as fast as he could. He picked a path that kept as much furniture as possible between him and Noise Feast, but he didn't try to stay quiet. In fact, he realized he was shouting, a long, drawn out battle cry of his ancestors--well, it was more a high pitched squeal like a baby bag without a rock to dissolve, but it seemed to be doing the trick.
Bolts and screws, but that master demon was fast! Her hand lashed out over an armchair to grab at Tickertape, but one of her knives caught on the white sheet covering the chair, and the quirk had half a heartbeat to duck away. Somewhere above a flicker was cheering him on--or cheering someone on--and Tickertape caught a brief glimpse of the tag, staring at him with eyes so wide that the glasses exaggerated them all the way out to ridiculous. Then he was out the door and in the darkened hallway. He didn't know where to run, but 'someplace else' was sounding like a good enough destination to get started with.
Then he was jerked backwards off his feet and lifted into the air, twisting from his own shirt, the fabric biting into his armpits and neck. It was getting hard to breathe, and then he was staring into the shadowed face of Noise Feast and he stopped trying to breathe at all.
"And what, exactly, are you, my little quirk?"
[Also, I'm not sure whether I'm one-hundred percent behind this whole 'describing characters and places' thing. It's a heckuvalot of work to be interesting in my descriptions, where the characters tend to take care of funny dialog all on their own.
[Ah well. Growing pains.]
"Do you think that was the new Master?" asked Walk, pressing his cheek against the glass to look toward the door where the boy and girl had escaped back into the manor house. The glass was cold against his cheek, and he wanted to pull away--too many demons of the air were still clinging to the walls outside, still flitting past with teeth and angry faces--but he wanted even more to be sure that the boy and girl were all right.
"I don't know," said Tickertape. Walk pulled his face back, leaving a white cloud from his breath, and looked at the little quirk.
"But...he was human, right?" Walk didn't have too much experience with humans. As far as he knew, the old Master was the only human who had ever lived at Daimon Home. "Do you think the girl is the new Master?" he asked.
"Can't tell you that, either," said the quirk. "They both seem too young."
"Young?" asked Walk, lifting his eyebrows. "They're huge! They're as big as major demons. Especially that girl."
Tickertape shrugged. "Humans don't grow like we do. They can reach their full growth while they're still basically kids, but then they stop growing."
Walk was surprised. That seemed too strange. Demons kept growing long after they'd reached the age where they could be considered adults. "You mean they stop growing at all?"
The quirk gave a short laugh as he stepped to the edge of the window sill. "They may grow some around the waste, but from what I hear, that's from eating too much."
Walk put his hand over his empty stomach. HOW COULD YOU EVER EAT TOO MUCH, he thought to himself, sure that he never could. As creatures of chaos, demons technically didn't HAVE to eat to survive, but that didn't mean they didn't enjoy it--or that it was extremely uncomfortable to go without food for very long. Walk looked up and saw Tickertape looking at him.
"Yeah, I've been thinking about food, too," said the quirk. "If either that boy or that girl is the new Lord, they might be able to help us out in the food department. Shall we go try to find them?"
"Yes, please!" said Walk. "Oh. Wait. Talk and Micklewhip." He looked over where his friend had fallen asleep on a giant chair, cuddled next to the lag. Micklewhip snorted and turned over onto his head, then settled back to sleep.
"I suppose we shouldn't wake them," said Tickertape, sitting down again on the window sill. "Though how they slept through all that, I'll never understand. Why don't you get some sleep, too, Walk. New Master or not, nobody is going out again tonight. The morning will be plenty early to go find our new Lord."
"But I'm not sleepy," said Walk, then realized that sleepy was exactly what he was. Now that things had calmed down and the battle outside was over, his arms were heavy at his sides and his feet sore. "Maybe I will lie down, now that I think about it. You going to go to sleep?"
Tickertape stretched his legs out then let his heals fall back down to bump against the wood of the wall. "Soon, I think. I don't sleep as much as I used to. It's something that happens to quirks as we get older. We like to stay up, tinkering."
Walk looked around the room, with the furniture covered in sheets and the vases on the tables and paintings like black stains on the walls. "But...there's nothing to tinker with here."
The quirk shrugged. "Doesn't stop me from staying awake. Sleep, Walk. It's a good way to forget about being hungry."
The minor demon nodded and climbed down from the window. Before he realized it, he was lying on the carpet in the middle of the room. It was so thick and soft, and he thought that he might climb up into one of the chairs, but that would be so much work. Too much work. He wanted to stay awake longer, though. He didn't feel safe, yet. He was supposed to, once he got to the North Wing, but it seemed like nothing was quite what it should be. Not since the old Master died.
When had he closed his eyes? he wondered, and then he heard someone, somewhere, snoring.
Tickertape looked down at the snoring demon and sighed. He hadn't slept that easily for months. Wakeful nights had been fine when he'd had his own little workshop off the kitchen, when he was Chief Quirk Exemplary and Plenipotentiary Over Dishes and Sundries, his own staff of under-quirks busily smashing and bashing and wiring and polishing around him. He felt his fingers flexing, anxious for the tools he'd left behind when he'd fled from Rope Feast. What had he been thinking?
Somewhere things HAD to be better. That's what he'd been thinking. Maybe they would be, but he wouldn't find that place tonight. Might as well lie down while he had the chance. He kicked himself away from the window sill and landed on the thick carpet, looking around to find a chair to serve as a bed for the night--though, as a matter of fact, Walk's choice to sleep on the carpet wasn't a bad one. Tickertape shifted his booted feet, feeling the thick weave squish underneath with a faint whisper of sound.
And then there was actual whispering. The quirk froze, straining his ears. No, he hadn't made it up. Someone was whispering. Someone was coming toward the room. Tickertape's eyes flickered over to the shadowy lump that was Walk, then up to the chair where Talk and Micklewhip slept. The chair was faced away from both doors into the room, and there was a couch that was likely to hide the demon on the carpet from any casual observation, especially in this dark. That only left Tickertape out in the open, and he took care of that as quickly as possible, scampering over to the couch and under it, crawling on hands and knees until he had a decent view of both doors. Then he froze and tried not to breathe. Or not to breathe too much. He'd settle for breathing quietly, he decided.
The voices were coming closer. A woman's voice, angled and sharp, one that Tickertape recognized. He could still hear her laugh as her fist jerked Rope Feast's head sideways: Noise Feast. The quirk pulled deeper back into the shadow.
The other voices he didn't recognize. One had the clipped, precise diction of a tag, but a third was rounder and richer, and Tickertape couldn't place it. Probably a minor demon of some sort. He could see them coming now, or at least he could see the flicker of light from a flicker or two, casting warm shadows into the room.
"You're certain we've been here before?" asked Noise Feast. She sounded annoyed. Of course, from everything Tickertape had heard, she was ALWAYS annoyed--except when she was fighting. That was something she enjoyed, and too much, from Tickertape's point of view.
"Yes, Mistress Noise." That was the tag talking. "I have it recorded right here, that we moved through this room sixteen days ago at the third turning and a quarter after the Feast of Din. 'Nothing unusual, and the Finder reported nothing unusual.' Right here in my notes, all of it clear in green and white. Would you care to--"
"No," said Noise Feast, cutting him off. "Of course I wouldn't care to." Tickertape cringed in his hiding place. That voice was like nails and glass, and the quirk found himself thinking almost fondly of Rope Feast's round, loud anger. "So, Master Finder, would you care to tell me why we're back in a room you pronounced unremarkable only sixteen days ago? When did you make a mistake? Then, or now?"
"I tell you what I feel, Mistress Noise, and that is the best I can do." This was the richer voice--the minor demon, if Tickertape's guess was correct--and there was resentment in the sound. "I tell you again and again, my Right was for Finding and Recovery, and the old Master's Study wasn't lost. He HID it, and my Right was never for finding hidden things. That's theft, not recovery."
"Finding the Study is whatever I tell you it is," said Noise Feast, and now her voice was cold nails and frosted glass. "You will find me the Study, and I will claim the Kitchens, and that fat slug Rope Feast will come crawling to me. THAT is why we are here, and THAT is why you will find out what is so important about this useless, unremarkable room, and you will do it right now."
The Finder's voice was a whisper, and if they hadn't been just outside the door, Tickertape wouldn't have heard it at all. "Yes, Mistress."
The hiding quirk swallowed as the hunting party finally entered the room. The first imp he saw was a flicker, leading the way, with the candle strapped to his back burning his hair away in a long, bright flame. Tickertape had always found flickers slightly disturbing, though they seemed to enjoy the hint of danger--well, danger in general, actually. Always climbing onto high things like chandeliers, flaming the whole way.
Next through the door was a minor demon that must have been the Finder. Old, clearly, with a face that was wrinkles piled on wrinkles, with wrinkles in between and four horns on top, poking through his gray hair. His hands were clasped behind his back, his shoulders hunched with age, his eyes bright and his long, long nose twitching, sniffing the air. He had on a worn backpack and pants covered with pockets, some of them bulging--with lost items found, Tickertape supposed.
Behind him came the tag, eyes wide behind glasses that some quirk had cobbled together for him from what looked like decorative glass pebbles. He was carrying his Book of Lists and looking nervous. Actually, come to think of it, it was normal for a tag to look nervous--things get out of order so EASILY--but the master demon walking behind him was enough to make any imp nervous.
Noise Feast was beautiful like a wasp, long and angry. She was also a walking cutlery drawer, knives strapped everywhere, sticking out at angles and threatening to take a bit out of anyone walking too close. This wasn't a demon who looked at you with soft eyes and asked for a hug. Behind her was the last flicker, keeping his distance as he looked around the room cheerfully. Tickertape envied the kind of world view that could make a demon happy just to walk around with his hair on fire.
The entire procession stopped, looking around a room that seemed more like it was darkened with flickering shadows than it was lit with flickering light. Tickertape pulled back under the protecting couch and hoped the Finder would admit that, in fact, there WAS nothing remarkable about the room at all. The quirk watched Noise Feast's soft leather shoes and tried to think bland thoughts.
"We're here, Finder," said the Mistress of the Feast of Din. "Now tell me what has changed to make this room worth my time?"
"I'm not certain, Mistress. I'm working with hints and possibilities--no need to get angry, Mistress! I'm doing my best for you--and I feel that the key to finding the Study is somewhere in this room."
"Well then, I suppose I can't ask for more," said Noise Feast, though something in her voice said that she certainly COULD ask for more. "Up, flickers. We'll search the room again, but make it quick. I’m never happy this close to Silver’s territory, the old bat."
Tickertape heard two gleeful cackles as the little burning imps ran for the decorative ladders built into the walls of most every room in the manor house. He knew it would only be moments before they were hanging from the ceiling, and only moments more before Walk, Talk, and Micklewhip were discovered. He wasn't sure what came over him--the insanity of responsibility, he supposed--but before he knew it, he was scampering out from under the couch, dodging around a foot stool, and pounding the carpet with his feet as fast as he could. He picked a path that kept as much furniture as possible between him and Noise Feast, but he didn't try to stay quiet. In fact, he realized he was shouting, a long, drawn out battle cry of his ancestors--well, it was more a high pitched squeal like a baby bag without a rock to dissolve, but it seemed to be doing the trick.
Bolts and screws, but that master demon was fast! Her hand lashed out over an armchair to grab at Tickertape, but one of her knives caught on the white sheet covering the chair, and the quirk had half a heartbeat to duck away. Somewhere above a flicker was cheering him on--or cheering someone on--and Tickertape caught a brief glimpse of the tag, staring at him with eyes so wide that the glasses exaggerated them all the way out to ridiculous. Then he was out the door and in the darkened hallway. He didn't know where to run, but 'someplace else' was sounding like a good enough destination to get started with.
Then he was jerked backwards off his feet and lifted into the air, twisting from his own shirt, the fabric biting into his armpits and neck. It was getting hard to breathe, and then he was staring into the shadowed face of Noise Feast and he stopped trying to breathe at all.
"And what, exactly, are you, my little quirk?"
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Lord of the Manor -- Section 11
[Your reward for your patience is another section today. Enjoy.
[Also, you may not have known, but 'amused' only has one 'm,' and 'managed' only one 'n.' It's amazing what you can learn from spell check.]
"What is he?" asked Michael. "Some kind of demon king?"
"More like a queen bee," said Sticks. "A king bee? A bee lord. Whatever. Can you just grab him? Getting him down here wasn't exactly easy."
Michael wasn't moving, so Maddie shoved the tray into his hands and took a firm grip on the demon king's shoulders. She jerked as Sticks scampered up her arm, his bare feet feeling slightly like sandpaper, gripping her skin. Then he launched himself through the air in a graceful leap to Michael's shoulder.
"And now," said the small bodyguard, "we go inside."
Maddie adjusted her grip--under the wings? what about the claws on his arms?--and finally pinned the air demon's arms to his side. He moaned softly, and shifted, and Maddie was grateful he was stunned. She lifted and grunted--the demon king was heavier then she expected--and noticed he smelled like pine and cold, though she hadn't ever thought that cold had a smell before. She felt no heat from the fire around his head. She held him up at arm's length, his wings pulsing absently and obscuring her vision, and she looked around.
It was quiet.
"Now THAT is creepy," said Michael, then he closed his mouth, as if embarrassed that he'd dared to open it. Maddie understood the feeling. After the chatter and taunting and singing, the cursing and shouting, the rush of hundreds of wings, the quiet was heavy with the weight of an unholy church. There were no more flying demons, but stretched across the lawn, clinging to the bushes and the manor house, filling every branch of the nearby trees, were hundreds of air demons, their wings perfectly still.
Their eyes on Maddie.
"What do we do?" she whispered.
Sticks started to talk, coughed, and changed his voice to a whisper as well. "We walk slowly toward the door, and you keep a good grip on his lordship there."
"But they're on the path, too," whispered Michael.
"They'll move," said Sticks, but his whisper lacked confidence. "You go first, Maddie."
Maddie nodded and stepped around Michael and toward the light peaking out through the stained glass window near the servants' entrance. Ten feet to the nearest demons, then eight feet, six, and Maddie found her steps getting smaller. They were glaring up at her, eyes bright. One demon, his tear-drop wings like a moth's, flexed the talons on his hands, open and closed, and showed no sign of moving.
"Keep going," whispered Michael.
Of course. That was easy for HIM to say. The black butterfly wings brushed against her arms, surprisingly firm and dry, and she took another step. She was looming over the creatures now, like Godzilla on his way into Tokyo, but she suspected Godzilla hadn't felt quite so nervous. She took another step.
And the sea parted.
As the demons backed away, a quiet rustling, Maddie breathed out, not realizing until then that she'd been holding her breath. Step, and the crowd backed away further. Another step, and a real path was beginning to appear.
"You're doing great," whispered Sticks, and Maddie found herself laughing--a voiceless, disbelieving, terrified kind of laugh. A girl demon dressed in what looked like thistles spat at her, but kept her distance. Maddie decided she could handle that. They could be as mad at her as they wanted, as long as they stayed back. The quiet pressed in on Maddie's ears, without even the usual city noises of cars and buzzing street lights to erase the emptiness. Just step after step, and the parting demons, and her own blood, loud in her ears.
The door was closer. Much closer. Maddie started to hope, and her eyes kept flicking between the demons in front of her and the door that was now maybe thirty feet away.
The demon king shook his head, sharply, side to side, and flexed his arms out against Maddie's hands. She kept her grip--not easy to do, but she managed--but she stopped walking. Froze, actually. Everything froze. The air demons stopped, watching. The demon king relaxed, and Maddie started walking again.
"You'll never make it inside," said the demon, his voice a pleasant tenor.
Maddie froze again and jumped as Sticks landed on her shoulder.
"Of course we will," said the bodyguard. "You're the master demon, here, and they won't willingly hurt you, or let you be hurt."
The master demon laughed, his ribs shaking under Maddie's fingers. "This one won't hurt me. Anyone looking at her can tell she doesn't have the stomach for it."
Sticks' voice was hard next to Maddie's ear. "She may not, but I certainly do."
The master demon's voice was still amused. "Of course you do. I've seen you before and know what you're capable of. But you're not the one holding me. And, now that I've had a chance to rest, neither is she."
Sticks started to shout something, but Maddie couldn't tell what before the master demon jerked his head to the side, sinking his teeth into Maddie's finger. At the same time he bucked in her hands, slamming her hands apart with his arms and snapping his wings back, buffeting Maddie in the face. She tried to keep her grip, but it was too much. She dropped him and staggered back.
Sticks tried to leap from her shoulder, but her shift threw him off balance and he missed his target, crashing into a small crowd of demons as the master demon lifted up into the sky, laughing.
"Run!" shouted Sticks, grabbing a demon with dove wings and hurling him into a cluster of creatures rising into the air. They were all taking to the air, like pigeons in a park, and it was almost beautiful, but their screaming was too terrible for that. Wailing, shouting, and the playfulness was gone. They wanted blood.
Maddie ran. She didn't know if Michael was behind her, or where Sticks was, but her legs were pumping, and she knew it wasn't far to the door.
It was too far. The first cut was on her arm, and she tried to strike out as she ran, but hit nothing and lost her balance, lurching forward. The second cut was on the back of her leg, just above the tendons. It hurt worse than any cut she could remember, but at least she could keep running, struggling to stay on her feet. How far could the door be?
The third demon to hit her didn't just cut. He collided with the side of her head, and the world surged up to crash into her ribs and hip.
THAT'S IT, she thought, trying to swat away the demon and get onto her hands and knees, both at the same time, and she couldn't manage either. She knew she was shouting, but couldn't hear herself. Something scratched her ear, and then her arm beneath her elbow, and then Michael was standing over her and shouting, swinging the platter just as awkwardly as he'd swung the broom. Suddenly Maddie could hear him. "Back off! Back off! Back OFF!" he yelled, over and over.
And the demons did.
At least enough of them for Michael to help Maddie to her feet. They ran toward the door--only feet away!--that opened in front of them, Sticks hanging from the door knob. Maddie was the first through, then Michael, and then the door closed, and Maddie sagged to the floor, her back against the wall. Michael dropped the tray and it clattered to the stone tiles. The stone was cool under Maddie's hands, and it felt good as she breathed, in and out, almost gasping. Michael leaned against the wall and sagged down next to her, their shoulders touching--well, his shoulder pressed against the side of Maddie's arm--and Maddie was grateful for the contact.
"We made it," she said.
Michael nodded.
"Welcome back, Master Aches," said the demon butler, standing in the hall with his suit impeccably tidy and his wings neatly folded. "Am I to assume that we'll be entertaining tonight?"
[Also, you may not have known, but 'amused' only has one 'm,' and 'managed' only one 'n.' It's amazing what you can learn from spell check.]
"What is he?" asked Michael. "Some kind of demon king?"
"More like a queen bee," said Sticks. "A king bee? A bee lord. Whatever. Can you just grab him? Getting him down here wasn't exactly easy."
Michael wasn't moving, so Maddie shoved the tray into his hands and took a firm grip on the demon king's shoulders. She jerked as Sticks scampered up her arm, his bare feet feeling slightly like sandpaper, gripping her skin. Then he launched himself through the air in a graceful leap to Michael's shoulder.
"And now," said the small bodyguard, "we go inside."
Maddie adjusted her grip--under the wings? what about the claws on his arms?--and finally pinned the air demon's arms to his side. He moaned softly, and shifted, and Maddie was grateful he was stunned. She lifted and grunted--the demon king was heavier then she expected--and noticed he smelled like pine and cold, though she hadn't ever thought that cold had a smell before. She felt no heat from the fire around his head. She held him up at arm's length, his wings pulsing absently and obscuring her vision, and she looked around.
It was quiet.
"Now THAT is creepy," said Michael, then he closed his mouth, as if embarrassed that he'd dared to open it. Maddie understood the feeling. After the chatter and taunting and singing, the cursing and shouting, the rush of hundreds of wings, the quiet was heavy with the weight of an unholy church. There were no more flying demons, but stretched across the lawn, clinging to the bushes and the manor house, filling every branch of the nearby trees, were hundreds of air demons, their wings perfectly still.
Their eyes on Maddie.
"What do we do?" she whispered.
Sticks started to talk, coughed, and changed his voice to a whisper as well. "We walk slowly toward the door, and you keep a good grip on his lordship there."
"But they're on the path, too," whispered Michael.
"They'll move," said Sticks, but his whisper lacked confidence. "You go first, Maddie."
Maddie nodded and stepped around Michael and toward the light peaking out through the stained glass window near the servants' entrance. Ten feet to the nearest demons, then eight feet, six, and Maddie found her steps getting smaller. They were glaring up at her, eyes bright. One demon, his tear-drop wings like a moth's, flexed the talons on his hands, open and closed, and showed no sign of moving.
"Keep going," whispered Michael.
Of course. That was easy for HIM to say. The black butterfly wings brushed against her arms, surprisingly firm and dry, and she took another step. She was looming over the creatures now, like Godzilla on his way into Tokyo, but she suspected Godzilla hadn't felt quite so nervous. She took another step.
And the sea parted.
As the demons backed away, a quiet rustling, Maddie breathed out, not realizing until then that she'd been holding her breath. Step, and the crowd backed away further. Another step, and a real path was beginning to appear.
"You're doing great," whispered Sticks, and Maddie found herself laughing--a voiceless, disbelieving, terrified kind of laugh. A girl demon dressed in what looked like thistles spat at her, but kept her distance. Maddie decided she could handle that. They could be as mad at her as they wanted, as long as they stayed back. The quiet pressed in on Maddie's ears, without even the usual city noises of cars and buzzing street lights to erase the emptiness. Just step after step, and the parting demons, and her own blood, loud in her ears.
The door was closer. Much closer. Maddie started to hope, and her eyes kept flicking between the demons in front of her and the door that was now maybe thirty feet away.
The demon king shook his head, sharply, side to side, and flexed his arms out against Maddie's hands. She kept her grip--not easy to do, but she managed--but she stopped walking. Froze, actually. Everything froze. The air demons stopped, watching. The demon king relaxed, and Maddie started walking again.
"You'll never make it inside," said the demon, his voice a pleasant tenor.
Maddie froze again and jumped as Sticks landed on her shoulder.
"Of course we will," said the bodyguard. "You're the master demon, here, and they won't willingly hurt you, or let you be hurt."
The master demon laughed, his ribs shaking under Maddie's fingers. "This one won't hurt me. Anyone looking at her can tell she doesn't have the stomach for it."
Sticks' voice was hard next to Maddie's ear. "She may not, but I certainly do."
The master demon's voice was still amused. "Of course you do. I've seen you before and know what you're capable of. But you're not the one holding me. And, now that I've had a chance to rest, neither is she."
Sticks started to shout something, but Maddie couldn't tell what before the master demon jerked his head to the side, sinking his teeth into Maddie's finger. At the same time he bucked in her hands, slamming her hands apart with his arms and snapping his wings back, buffeting Maddie in the face. She tried to keep her grip, but it was too much. She dropped him and staggered back.
Sticks tried to leap from her shoulder, but her shift threw him off balance and he missed his target, crashing into a small crowd of demons as the master demon lifted up into the sky, laughing.
"Run!" shouted Sticks, grabbing a demon with dove wings and hurling him into a cluster of creatures rising into the air. They were all taking to the air, like pigeons in a park, and it was almost beautiful, but their screaming was too terrible for that. Wailing, shouting, and the playfulness was gone. They wanted blood.
Maddie ran. She didn't know if Michael was behind her, or where Sticks was, but her legs were pumping, and she knew it wasn't far to the door.
It was too far. The first cut was on her arm, and she tried to strike out as she ran, but hit nothing and lost her balance, lurching forward. The second cut was on the back of her leg, just above the tendons. It hurt worse than any cut she could remember, but at least she could keep running, struggling to stay on her feet. How far could the door be?
The third demon to hit her didn't just cut. He collided with the side of her head, and the world surged up to crash into her ribs and hip.
THAT'S IT, she thought, trying to swat away the demon and get onto her hands and knees, both at the same time, and she couldn't manage either. She knew she was shouting, but couldn't hear herself. Something scratched her ear, and then her arm beneath her elbow, and then Michael was standing over her and shouting, swinging the platter just as awkwardly as he'd swung the broom. Suddenly Maddie could hear him. "Back off! Back off! Back OFF!" he yelled, over and over.
And the demons did.
At least enough of them for Michael to help Maddie to her feet. They ran toward the door--only feet away!--that opened in front of them, Sticks hanging from the door knob. Maddie was the first through, then Michael, and then the door closed, and Maddie sagged to the floor, her back against the wall. Michael dropped the tray and it clattered to the stone tiles. The stone was cool under Maddie's hands, and it felt good as she breathed, in and out, almost gasping. Michael leaned against the wall and sagged down next to her, their shoulders touching--well, his shoulder pressed against the side of Maddie's arm--and Maddie was grateful for the contact.
"We made it," she said.
Michael nodded.
"Welcome back, Master Aches," said the demon butler, standing in the hall with his suit impeccably tidy and his wings neatly folded. "Am I to assume that we'll be entertaining tonight?"
Lord of the Manor -- Section 10
[A small section, but much better than nothing, and it's time to start posting again. I'm going to try to pick up the pace, but there is a family reunion about to get in the way.
[I need a T-shirt that says something like, "I'd rather be writing." Or, "I look like I'm listening to you, but in my head the story goes on."
[Something like that.]
"Watch your backs," said Sticks with a broad smile, "and run FAST!" That was all the warning they had before he leapt onto the handle of the broom, sprinted up the shaft, and launched himself into the air, grabbing the leg of a passing creature. Then he was gone into the dark.
"What was that?" asked Michael, staring after the small man. "What do we DO?"
Maddie kept her grip on the tray with one hand and put the other on Michael's back. "I think we run fast," she said, and pushed.
Apparently that was all it took to get the boy moving. Maddie wasn't sure why she thought he was younger than she was--well, duh, obviously it was because of his size--but she wondered how young he really was. Had anyone said? He seemed vulnerable as he led their little charge, both hands gripping the broom. She'd have to show him how to really hold it later. Assuming they got through all this.
Maddie swiped at her bloody forehead with the back of her hand and kept close behind Michael, trying to look behind and ahead at the same time. It was hard to not look ahead. Actually, it was getting hard to not look behind, too. A group of the creatures, wings pulsing as they hovered, were following them, laughing and chanting. Maddie couldn't quite make out the words, but she thought they were rhyming with 'cut.' One girl-creature with wings that scattered moonlight in rainbows laughed and laughed, snorting in through her nose. They were just out of reach, just too far for Maddie to lunge back and take a swipe at them. Instead, she kept one hand on Michael's backpack and the other firmly around the handle of the tray.
"I'm never delivering pizza here again," she muttered.
Michael grunted, swinging the broom in front of him, mostly missing, but connecting far too often with plastic smacks that were answered by high pitched cursing. He was moving ahead with good speed, Maddie thought. But then he slowed. Then he stopped, and Maddie stopped with him.
"What's going on?" she shouted, her eyes still on the swirling, taunting crowd hovering behind her.
"I can't get through!" Michael shouted back, and Maddie looked over his head toward the door. At least, she assumed that was where the door was. All she could see was a swirling cloud of black. A feathered black, a webbed black, glints and hints of butterfly wings, or just plain fly wings--but all-in-all it was simply black. She heard snickering behind her and ducked as something caught at her hair. Maddie realized that the creature could just as easily have cut her, clawed at the back of her neck, or her ear, or her legs--why hadn't she worn long pants?--but it hadn't. The creatures knew they'd won, and now they were toying with her.
"Sticks!" yelled Michael. "Where are you?"
"Sticks!" chattered the cloud of creatures in front of them, above them, behind them. "Sticks! Sticks? Where ARE you, Sticks? This old man, he played six, he played knick-knack on my Sticks!" More snorting and more laughter.
Michael swiped again with his broom and gave a startled shout. Maddie turned her head in time to see a cluster of the flying things grab the bristles of the broom, stopping it in mid swing. Then, quick as a bat, one creature with a crazy, iridescent afro scurried down the handle of the broom and swiped at the boy's hands, leaving bloody trails across his knuckles. Michael lost his grip and the broom lifted into the night and was gone.
Maddie leaped after it, grabbing with her right hand, but too late--and then she was jerked backwards into a tug-o-war over the silver platter, the fingers of her left hand barely hanging onto the handle by their tips. One winged thing grinned, teeth unnaturally bright in the cloud's shadow, and skittered over the tray to give Maddie's hands the same treatment Michael got just seconds before. Maddie's instincts told her to pull away, but her hand wouldn't let go of the tray. The motion around her seemed to slow down, her vision narrowed to a tunnel, seeing only the sharp shine of the creatures claws. She could already feel them raking across her fingers.
Then Michaels fist lurched into the tunnel of her vision and sent the claws spinning into the darkness. Maddie grabbed the tray handle with both hands and used her bodyweight to slam the tray into the ground. The two things still clinging to the platter didn't let go in time, and sprawled on the ground, stunned. The creatures above them laughed and pointed, mocking their fallen comrades just as much as the two humans they were going to pick to pieces, cut by cut.
But not yet, apparently. Maddie held up the tray, ready to swing at any bat wings or bird wings or bug wings that flew too close, but none came.
"Ow," said Michael, shaking his hand. "That demon was HARD."
"Demons?" said Maddie. "That's what these are? I guess that makes sense--ow! Your hand!"
Michael had stopped shaking it long enough for them both to get a good look. The back of his had was slick and dark, and the trails left by the claws were ugly, ragged patches of black in black on pale skin.
"That sucks," said Michael.
"We need to get you inside," said Maddie.
Michael nodded, still looking at his hand. "Yeah. Totally. I just don't know how. Do you?"
"Incoming!" shouted Sticks from above. Maddie jerked her head up in time to see a hole open in the demon-cloud. Down through the gap hurtled a larger demon than most of their tormenters, broad black butterfly wings illuminated by a glow from what seemed to be a crown of flame around the creature's head.
Maddie and Michael jumped back as the thing crashed to the ground between them with a graceless thump. Standing on the air demon's back was Sticks, a broad grin on his face.
"One ticket to freedom, delivered at your feet," he said, indicating the groaning demon beneath him with a broad sweep of his arm. "Well, not exactly 'freedom,' but at least a ticket inside."
“Did you kill him?” asked Michael, shock on his face.
Sticks blinked at him—Maddie could tell only by the liquid light reflecting off the small demon’s eyes, gone and back, gone and back. “Can’t you hear the groaning?” asked the small bodyguard. “Now hurry and pick him up.”
[I need a T-shirt that says something like, "I'd rather be writing." Or, "I look like I'm listening to you, but in my head the story goes on."
[Something like that.]
"Watch your backs," said Sticks with a broad smile, "and run FAST!" That was all the warning they had before he leapt onto the handle of the broom, sprinted up the shaft, and launched himself into the air, grabbing the leg of a passing creature. Then he was gone into the dark.
"What was that?" asked Michael, staring after the small man. "What do we DO?"
Maddie kept her grip on the tray with one hand and put the other on Michael's back. "I think we run fast," she said, and pushed.
Apparently that was all it took to get the boy moving. Maddie wasn't sure why she thought he was younger than she was--well, duh, obviously it was because of his size--but she wondered how young he really was. Had anyone said? He seemed vulnerable as he led their little charge, both hands gripping the broom. She'd have to show him how to really hold it later. Assuming they got through all this.
Maddie swiped at her bloody forehead with the back of her hand and kept close behind Michael, trying to look behind and ahead at the same time. It was hard to not look ahead. Actually, it was getting hard to not look behind, too. A group of the creatures, wings pulsing as they hovered, were following them, laughing and chanting. Maddie couldn't quite make out the words, but she thought they were rhyming with 'cut.' One girl-creature with wings that scattered moonlight in rainbows laughed and laughed, snorting in through her nose. They were just out of reach, just too far for Maddie to lunge back and take a swipe at them. Instead, she kept one hand on Michael's backpack and the other firmly around the handle of the tray.
"I'm never delivering pizza here again," she muttered.
Michael grunted, swinging the broom in front of him, mostly missing, but connecting far too often with plastic smacks that were answered by high pitched cursing. He was moving ahead with good speed, Maddie thought. But then he slowed. Then he stopped, and Maddie stopped with him.
"What's going on?" she shouted, her eyes still on the swirling, taunting crowd hovering behind her.
"I can't get through!" Michael shouted back, and Maddie looked over his head toward the door. At least, she assumed that was where the door was. All she could see was a swirling cloud of black. A feathered black, a webbed black, glints and hints of butterfly wings, or just plain fly wings--but all-in-all it was simply black. She heard snickering behind her and ducked as something caught at her hair. Maddie realized that the creature could just as easily have cut her, clawed at the back of her neck, or her ear, or her legs--why hadn't she worn long pants?--but it hadn't. The creatures knew they'd won, and now they were toying with her.
"Sticks!" yelled Michael. "Where are you?"
"Sticks!" chattered the cloud of creatures in front of them, above them, behind them. "Sticks! Sticks? Where ARE you, Sticks? This old man, he played six, he played knick-knack on my Sticks!" More snorting and more laughter.
Michael swiped again with his broom and gave a startled shout. Maddie turned her head in time to see a cluster of the flying things grab the bristles of the broom, stopping it in mid swing. Then, quick as a bat, one creature with a crazy, iridescent afro scurried down the handle of the broom and swiped at the boy's hands, leaving bloody trails across his knuckles. Michael lost his grip and the broom lifted into the night and was gone.
Maddie leaped after it, grabbing with her right hand, but too late--and then she was jerked backwards into a tug-o-war over the silver platter, the fingers of her left hand barely hanging onto the handle by their tips. One winged thing grinned, teeth unnaturally bright in the cloud's shadow, and skittered over the tray to give Maddie's hands the same treatment Michael got just seconds before. Maddie's instincts told her to pull away, but her hand wouldn't let go of the tray. The motion around her seemed to slow down, her vision narrowed to a tunnel, seeing only the sharp shine of the creatures claws. She could already feel them raking across her fingers.
Then Michaels fist lurched into the tunnel of her vision and sent the claws spinning into the darkness. Maddie grabbed the tray handle with both hands and used her bodyweight to slam the tray into the ground. The two things still clinging to the platter didn't let go in time, and sprawled on the ground, stunned. The creatures above them laughed and pointed, mocking their fallen comrades just as much as the two humans they were going to pick to pieces, cut by cut.
But not yet, apparently. Maddie held up the tray, ready to swing at any bat wings or bird wings or bug wings that flew too close, but none came.
"Ow," said Michael, shaking his hand. "That demon was HARD."
"Demons?" said Maddie. "That's what these are? I guess that makes sense--ow! Your hand!"
Michael had stopped shaking it long enough for them both to get a good look. The back of his had was slick and dark, and the trails left by the claws were ugly, ragged patches of black in black on pale skin.
"That sucks," said Michael.
"We need to get you inside," said Maddie.
Michael nodded, still looking at his hand. "Yeah. Totally. I just don't know how. Do you?"
"Incoming!" shouted Sticks from above. Maddie jerked her head up in time to see a hole open in the demon-cloud. Down through the gap hurtled a larger demon than most of their tormenters, broad black butterfly wings illuminated by a glow from what seemed to be a crown of flame around the creature's head.
Maddie and Michael jumped back as the thing crashed to the ground between them with a graceless thump. Standing on the air demon's back was Sticks, a broad grin on his face.
"One ticket to freedom, delivered at your feet," he said, indicating the groaning demon beneath him with a broad sweep of his arm. "Well, not exactly 'freedom,' but at least a ticket inside."
“Did you kill him?” asked Michael, shock on his face.
Sticks blinked at him—Maddie could tell only by the liquid light reflecting off the small demon’s eyes, gone and back, gone and back. “Can’t you hear the groaning?” asked the small bodyguard. “Now hurry and pick him up.”
Monday, June 7, 2010
Seven Cities, Wisconsin
I've been an absentee author. I apologize. I've been working through all the massive emotional work of moving to Utah, and it's been overwhelming. Also, I came back to the wonderful land of grasses. There is grass everywhere in Utah. Grass in sidewalk cracks, grass covering the fields, and in all the spaces between the grass, there's more grass.
On behalf of my allergies, I give you all a grand and glorious 'hello.'
At the same time, though, I've been trying to develop a direction and course for my writing career. Authors and agents both say that there is a difference between the life of a writer before and after publication. Before publication you are free to write whatever you want, without contracts or deadlines (or royalties). After--well, you get the picture.
Also, there's the matter of 'brand loyalty.' It's easier to create a following for the 'Andrew Cannon' brand if I write something in a consistent genre, whether it's young adult fantasy or adult fantasy. If I'm skipping between genres, I face the battle of trying to gain a following in two camps. Now, I'm not saying I couldn't do it, but it's going to be hard to sell that idea to an agent or publisher, and I don't want to be hard to sell. I want to float down onto the shoulders of agents and editors like manna from heaven. The floating kind of manna. That doesn't hurt when it lands on you.
And so, after weeks of thinking and praying and wandering around in confusion through a maze of boxes with labels like 'A's Files' and 'Random Toys, Papers, & Lamp,' I have reached a solution: Seven Cities, Wisconsin.
It may not be Seven Cities. It may end up as Five Cities, Wisconsin, or maybe only Four Cities (since that's how many I know about for certain at the moment), but what I do know is this: Seven Cities, Wisconsin, is the city where Pete and The Dog live. It's also where Perry and Brie live, Daimon Home is just outside the city, and it is also the place where a man named Practicality has accidentally become a god. Mr. O runs a news stand somewhere downtown, and there are two gregarious hit men who wander the less savory parts of the city in search of things that shouldn't be there (and you all haven't met them yet). There's also a group of teenagers who travel through the different cities, delivering messages, and a boy who goes everywhere with a demon on his shoulder (though his parents don't quite approve).
This is all possible because the Seven Cities are all in different worlds, and they happen to meet in Wisconsin. The Cosmic Center of the Universe.
It took me a while to get here, but now that I'm here, it's time to start writing again. Welcome to the Seven Cities. I hope you enjoy your stay.
On behalf of my allergies, I give you all a grand and glorious 'hello.'
At the same time, though, I've been trying to develop a direction and course for my writing career. Authors and agents both say that there is a difference between the life of a writer before and after publication. Before publication you are free to write whatever you want, without contracts or deadlines (or royalties). After--well, you get the picture.
Also, there's the matter of 'brand loyalty.' It's easier to create a following for the 'Andrew Cannon' brand if I write something in a consistent genre, whether it's young adult fantasy or adult fantasy. If I'm skipping between genres, I face the battle of trying to gain a following in two camps. Now, I'm not saying I couldn't do it, but it's going to be hard to sell that idea to an agent or publisher, and I don't want to be hard to sell. I want to float down onto the shoulders of agents and editors like manna from heaven. The floating kind of manna. That doesn't hurt when it lands on you.
And so, after weeks of thinking and praying and wandering around in confusion through a maze of boxes with labels like 'A's Files' and 'Random Toys, Papers, & Lamp,' I have reached a solution: Seven Cities, Wisconsin.
It may not be Seven Cities. It may end up as Five Cities, Wisconsin, or maybe only Four Cities (since that's how many I know about for certain at the moment), but what I do know is this: Seven Cities, Wisconsin, is the city where Pete and The Dog live. It's also where Perry and Brie live, Daimon Home is just outside the city, and it is also the place where a man named Practicality has accidentally become a god. Mr. O runs a news stand somewhere downtown, and there are two gregarious hit men who wander the less savory parts of the city in search of things that shouldn't be there (and you all haven't met them yet). There's also a group of teenagers who travel through the different cities, delivering messages, and a boy who goes everywhere with a demon on his shoulder (though his parents don't quite approve).
This is all possible because the Seven Cities are all in different worlds, and they happen to meet in Wisconsin. The Cosmic Center of the Universe.
It took me a while to get here, but now that I'm here, it's time to start writing again. Welcome to the Seven Cities. I hope you enjoy your stay.
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