He was out of the life, but someone had questions, and couldn’t leave him alone….
Month: August 2015
The Marked Princess (3)
Play Dead
The audience grew silent as the houselights finally dimmed.
The darkness settled over them like a worn, well-loved cape across the shoulders, providing an intimacy and warmth in the small theater.
A single spotlight, silver white, hit the center of the stage, and in the middle of it stood a man with a knife protruding from his throat.
Rivulets of blood widened and thinned in time with his heartbeat, and his head was down, his black hair hanging limp and greasy in front of his face.
He looked up, and his eyes were gone, the crimson ruin of his sockets turned toward the audience in all their grisly glory.
Some screamed, some turned away, some fainted, but none left.
The actor shambled toward the front of the stage, and those in front shrank back from his grim visage as he seemed to look at them one by one, and smiled affably, for all that his lips were swollen and his teeth were gone.
“I can hear your heartbeats, feel the heat of your blood rushing to your faces; the tang of your sweat is in the air like bitter brine, mixed with perfume that smells like sweet tea.
“You, dear audience, are a study in contrasts. You fear me, but don’t run, because you’ve paid to see me here.
“Here I am. Are you pleased? Do you have your money’s worth?”
He waited, and some began to sob as they rose to leave.
He smiled again.
“So soon? You’re being rude. You haven’t met my wife yet. Honey?”
A woman emerged from the opposite side of the stage, her torso split, organs shining wet and red in the spotlight, her head at an odd angle, with a short piece of rope still wrapped in a thick coil around her neck.
“What crime did I commit,” she said, “that they treated me so?”
She went and stood beside the man, and they held hands.
She kept her free hand around her body to hold her organs in, and blood cascaded over her arm as her knee buckled, but the man held her firm.
“Can anyone help us?” she said.
The people in the back began to scream, and cries of “Let us out!” reverberated through the theater.
“They’re rude, honey. They want to go. Can you hear them?”
“I can hear them. Shall we release them?”
“I think we should.”
No one was left in a seat as the audience scrambled, screaming and crying, for the door.
“You haven’t finished watching the play; there are more of us,” the eyeless man said.
From the balconies and exit lobbies, other actors and actresses in dead makeup shambled toward the captive audience.
As they fled to the exits, they found the doors locked, and the cast, about one hundred in all, shuffling toward them, hands outstretched to tear, fanged maws opened wide as they salivated over their crumbling chins.
The man and woman called from the stage as the dead cast members began to tear the people to bloody strips.
“Thank you for coming,” the eyeless man said.
“We hope you’ve enjoyed our play,” the disemboweled woman said.
They took a slight bow, and came down the stairs to take part in the killing, the white spotlight following them as far as it could, before it went dark.
© Alfred W. Smith Jr. 2015
In the Presence of the Queen (Chapter 2)
In the Presence of The Queen
Trace (3)
3)
Trace pushed himself up, quickly set his clothes right, and extended a hand to Lydia, who smiled at the gesture.
He turned his back as she adjusted her clothes too.
“Such a gentleman,” she teased.
He smiled, but she couldn’t see it.
“Thank you for not leering, after…”
He just nodded.
“So many men just stare…”
“I get it; you don’t need to explain.” He remembered the view the king had as she knelt before him…
She nodded, finished dressing.
“I’m sorry, Lydia. I was…”
“Trace, I swear, if you say ‘weak,’ I’m going to thrash you. We’re not betrothed.”
She laughed, “We’re not even lovers, in the real sense of the word, and we’re certainly not family.
“You were tense, and I…helped you.”
He smiled again, and this time she saw it, and returned it.
“So what happens now?”
“You help me solve the murders, and we’ll take…
View original post 570 more words
THIRST (3)
Author’s Note: Because although you didn’t ask, I wrote it anyway…Chapter 3
Trace (3)
3)
Trace pushed himself up, quickly set his clothes right, and extended a hand to Lydia, who smiled at the gesture.
He turned his back as she adjusted her clothes too.
“Such a gentleman,” she teased.
He smiled, but she couldn’t see it.
“Thank you for not leering, after…”
He just nodded.
“So many men just stare…”
“I get it; you don’t need to explain.” He remembered the view the king had as she knelt before him…
She nodded, finished dressing. “I’m done.”
He turned around.
“I’m sorry, Lydia. I was…”
“Trace, I swear, if you say ‘weak,’ I’m going to thrash you. We’re not betrothed.”
She laughed, “We’re not even lovers, in the real sense of the word, and we’re certainly not family.
“You were tense, and I…helped you.”
He smiled again, and she returned it.
“So what happens now?”
“You help me solve the murders, and we’ll take it from there.”
She turned it over a moment.
“Fair enough.”
“Who’s the child? What’s his name?”
“Arrick, but he’s asleep by now.”
“We’ll have to wake him up.”
“I wouldn’t; his mother’s a bear of a woman, in temperament. If she thinks you’re up to no good, I warn you, she really will thrash you; I haven’t seen you in action, but if you lock horns with her, unless you use magic, you’re not sure money.”
“Where are you going after work, you know all this stuff?”
She grew peevish from something she sensed he was implying.
“I’m not riffraff, Trace. I have to navigate the back roads sometimes; they’re not savory places. You’re not the only one with an edgy circle of friends and rivals.”
“Fair enough. I didn’t mean anything by it, Lydia. No need to get defensive, at least with me.”
“Forget it; no offense taken. Let’s be on with it.”
“You know this place better than I do.”
“And I know that you’re a mage, and I need not wander creation to find what you can easily summon.”
Trace found his respect for her growing; for a serving girl, she had a bit too much spine, and he found himself wanting to know more about her, but in her reprimand she overlooked one very simple truth, and he teased her with it now.
“But Lydia, you know what he looks like.”
“Oh.” She reddened, and he smiled, and she swatted his arm playfully as she walked out ahead of him.
**********************
Lydia knocked, and Arrick’s mother answered, not pleased at the late night interruption.
“Arrick? I’ll not wake him!”
She went to slam the door in their faces, and it didn’t budge.
Hissing, she clutched her wrist at the sudden resistance to the force of pushing it.
Trace moved in, and something in his eyes brought Arrick’s mom to a quivering stillness.
“Wake him.”
She turned away, leaving the door open so they could see her, and she woke Arrick, who rose quietly, and rubbing his eyes, looked at the stranger standing in the door. The blonde girl next to him he knew from the kitchens. She was kind to him, and snuck him chocolate treats; sometimes he shared them with his mother, but sometimes he didn’t, though he always felt guilty then.
“Arrick, you know what happened tonight at the banquet, right?” Lydia prompted to warm him up to the subject as he continued staring at Trace.
“Yes. The king and queen were killed.”
They were taken aback by how articulate he was for his age.
“You saw who did it, Arrick?”
“No. Their head was covered.”
“Was it a male or female?”
“A female; there was a perfume smell.”
Lydia smiled at that, and as his story unfolded, Trace realized the murderer was far more powerful than he thought.
This was going to be a battle of wills as much as a physical war.
And now there was Lydia to consider as well.
If she still wants to go….
Trace’s lips twisted in a rueful smile, but then he noticed Arrick’s face paled.
*********************
There was a perfume smell, and it receded, along with the unnerving weight of the kitchen girl’s subtly threatening stare, which she gave him over the mage’s shoulder.
She would kill him if he told the truth; Arrick didn’t doubt that for a second. In the doing, she would not be kind, and it would not be a treat.
How could he be a mage, and not feel the evil emanating from her? She was standing just over his shoulder.
Arrick grew cautious, and his first instinct was to protect himself and his mother.
“All I saw, sir, is whatever you saw me see in your vision. I didn’t follow whoever it was.”
“That’s fine,” said Trace, not believing it for an instant.
Arrick wondered if she’d seen his knee sticking up; he’d slid on the floor up against the cabinet, and had to bend his knees.
Lydia shifted restlessly.
“It’s late, Trace.”
He spent a moment longer staring at Arrick, then turned to Lydia.
“All right.”
He turned back to Arrick and put his hand out, and Arrick shook it lightly.
“Thanks for your help, Arrick.”
He shrugged as his mother all but stumbled over him to close the door.
“So what happens now,” Lydia said, another nervous smile on her face.
“I’m going home; the royal brats haven’t left yet, so you’ll stay here. Meet me tomorrow, late morning, and we’ll pick it up from there.”
“What if someone comes to kill me later?”
“You can handle yourself, Lydia. Don’t pretend otherwise; there’s more to you than you’re letting me see.”
He walked past her, and left her staring after him, though she said nothing, and didn’t try to catch up to him.
She looked at the closed door once more, her eyes narrowing, and then, smoothing out the frown, she went back to her own place, and went to bed, a knife under the pillow.
And dreamed of Trace.
His naked back was to her, and she slipped the knife from beneath her pillow…© Alfred W. Smith Jr. 2015
Beyond Panic 