Prompt: Librarian by day, bounty hunter by night

Sarah-Jo yawned without warning and felt her jaw crack as it stretched wide. She covered her mouth and ducked her head, hoping none of the library patrons had seen her. She continued checking in returned books and filing them on the sorting cart when the doors swooshed open. Glancing up with a welcoming smile, she froze, then slowly slid of her rolling seat and onto the floor, praying they hadn’t seen her.

Three large men, obviously carrying. She didn’t know them personally, but she had been looking at their photos all week on the bounty boards. What in the world were they doing in the Carteret County public library, 20 minutes before closing?

Sarah-Jo glanced up to find Kellie looking down at her with an amused twist to her bright red, silver-studded lips. Counting on the drama-queen’s sympathy, Sarah-Jo whispered, “My ex just walked in with two friends.”

Kellie looked over the library, frowning. “You mean the three big guys at the back computer?”

Sarah-Jo resisted the temptation to look as she fished her cell phone out of her back pocket. What were they doing on a computer in here? This just didn’t add up. She wasn’t sure she could claim the bounty if she called in backup, but she knew what these guys were capable of doing, and there were too many civilians in the building. She thumbed 9-1-1 as she whispered up to Kellie, “Stay cool. Announce early closing. I’m calling the cops.”

Hearing the click, she looked up into the barrel of Kellie’s pistol. “I’m sorry, Sarah-Jo. I can’t let you do that…”

TBC?

Note:
Whoa! Kellie took me by surprise! What the heck is going on here!

Dogs in House	Houdini
Music	Lake Street Dive, “You Go Down Smooth”
Time writing	20 minutes
May word count	3,759

Prompt: Connoisseur of Emotions, Take 2 or Part 2

…Continued from Take/Part 1

Beth-Ann stood on the carpet in front of the enormous dark wood desk. She had studied the intricate inlay, surreptitiously glanced at the man behind the desk and the decoration in the room, from the overloaded bookcases to the simple sculpture on a pedestal, to the large art hanging on the walls. In danger of becoming restless, she returned her attention to the man, to find him examining her.

He waved his hand at the row of decanters on his desk. “Do you know what these are?”

They appeared empty, though sealed. She wrinkled her nose. “How do you bottle emotions?”

He laughed. “Clever girl. Yes, these are some of my favorites. Would you like a sense?”

Wrinkling her brow in confusion, she leaned closer. “How can I--?”

He waved her to silence as he picked up a bottle and lifted the stopper, waving it in front of his face with an appreciative sigh. “Ah, yes, a delicate tristesse. Here, just wave it from the bottle toward your face. Close your eyes, and let your sense take it in. They’ll know what to do.”

Beth-Ann arched one eyebrow, then the other, trying to make sense of his suggestion that she could sense an emotion from the bottle he held. She shrugged and leaned forward, waving her hand from the bottle toward her face. Suddenly, she felt a frisson as a gentle sadness washed over her. But with it came a kind of quiet…not happiness…satisfaction?

She looked up to find him watching her closely. He leaned back with a broad smile. “Ah yes, you get it, That, my dear, is tristesse. We have no exact word in English. Happy sadness, some call it, but I prefer satisfied sadness—”

She started at his use of her own words, and he clapped his hands. “Excellent! You do indeed ‘get’ it, don’t you, my dear. Did you know there are over 100 different kinds of emotions? And while there are over a dozen kinds of love, there are far more kinds of fear. I am a collector. A connoisseur. My life’s work is to collect every different emotion that humans experience. Some are easier than others, you might imagine. And of course the inverse is also true: Some have much more value than others. Now, please, have a seat, and tell me what you want to sell me.”

Beth-Ann finally sat at his invitation, sinking into the soft cushion and leaning back against the perfect curve of the chair. Rubbing her hands along the velvet pile of the arms, she arched her brows again. “Oh, I don’t want to sell you anything…”

He leaned back in his own chair. “Well then, you are wasting my ti—”

“I want you to teach me. All of this.”

Without a word, he leaned down and opened a drawer behind the desk. Pulling out a glass decanter, he tugged at the lid and breathed deeply into it, sealing it tightly. Sliding it across the desk, he stared at her like a bug under a magnifying glass. “Here. Sense this. It’s not often I can capture genuine surprise…”

Dogs in House	Houdini
May word count	3,493

Prompt: Fate Weaver, Part 2

…Continued from Part 1

“She’s blind to the things of this world,” Renaudin said bluntly, pushing past the pain on their faces. “But her eyes are filled with gastring, the light strings of destiny that the Fates weave across all our lives. She sees more than we ever will.” As their faces lit with unexpected delight at the news, he pushed on. Now was the time to force their hands. “She should stay here, my children, where we can teach her to see the gastring and all its meanings, to become a Fate Reader.”

The parents looked from each other, to their child, to him. They stammered and stuttered, but Renaudin pressed his advantage, and soon they kissed the girl – whom he never let out of his arms – and stumbled out of his study, following a page he summoned while they dithered.

Alone with the girl, Renaudin turned her face to the setting sun shining through the window. Through this angled gaze, he could almost see the gastring filling her eyes. “I didn’t tell them everything, child. You’re more than a Fate Reader. Much more. But it won’t be easy. Let us begin immediately.”

Without hesitation, he plunged her head first into the bowl of lemon water, holding her head below the water while she thrashed and kicked futilely. Her movements became more frantic, then more clumsy, then slowed until they finally stopped altogether.

Renaudin pulled her out and cradled her against his chest, ignoring the water soaking both of them. He carried her to his reading chair by the great fireplace and sat, rocking her gently back and forth. There was nothing to do now, but wait.

The girl stiffened, then coughed. Sitting up in his arms, she looked around, taking in their surroundings. Gazing up at Renaudin, she spoke clearly, “I can see you, father. But I still see the gastring. How is this?”

Renauldin hugged her, a broad smile spreading across his face. “You will always see the gastring, child. You were born a Fate Reader.” He hesitated and looked away.

“What is it, father?”

Steeling himself, Renaudin looked back, directly in her eyes. “You have a great destiny, my child, but it will not be an easy one. You must die and be reborn in each element. Then you will be one of the most powerful of all, a Fate Weaver.”

The girl cocked her head, considering with an apparent wisdom beyond her years. As if reciting, she said in an eerily grownup voice:

Death by Water to see the worlds of Man.

Death by Air to see the worlds of Nature.

Death by Earth to see the worlds Beyond.

Death by Fire to weave the worlds Entire.

TBC?

Dogs in House	Houdini
Music	Jordi Savall, The Celtic Viol, Vol 2
Time writing	1 hour
May word count	2,971

Prompt: Fate Weaver, Part 1

Renaudin rinsed his hands in the bowl of refreshing lemon water and splashed some on his face. As he closed his eyes, the gastrings arced from both outer edges toward each other, and he felt his eyes cross trying to watch them. He lifted his eyebrows with interest. What were the Fates bringing?

A page knocked and pushed open his study door. Renaudin wiped his face dry and turned as the page led in a young couple, the woman carrying a toddler in her wiry arms. The young girl, Renaudin guessed by her long blond ringlets, turned in her mother’s arms and looked ahead, but did not seem to watch the page moving in front of them. He stopped, bowing to Renaudin, and the couple abruptly stopped behind him and clumsily bowed in turn.

Renaudin waved the page away as he moved closer to the couple. He schooled his deep baritone to neutrality. “Why do the Fates bring you here, my children?”

The woman glanced back to the man, who gulped, then straightened his shoulders. Good, Renauldin thought. He despised simpering fools.

“It’s our girl, Hawisa. Midwife says she’s blind. But she seems to see, sometimes. Priest Ingrannus said bring her to you. We brought a goat to offer…”

Renaudin nodded thanks. Ingrannus was aan old friend, and no fool. He wouldn’t have sent the girl without reason. Renaudin motioned them forward. “Bring her over to the window, and let’s have a look.”

As they neared, the girl leaned forward in her mother’s arms, reaching out to Renaudin. Both the mother and father looked surprised, but Renaudin took her without comment, resting her slight body on his forearm and bracing her back with his palm. He tucked his other hand under her chin and tilted her face up to his.

They locked eyes, and he was gone. His study disappeared, only the girl remained in his arms. Together, they were floating still and moving through brilliant-colored space at breakneck speeds. Lights flashed and arced all around them. Renaudin struggled to find the patterns, anything he recognized. The girl laughed and pointed. She stretched out her hands and lights flew into them, swirling up her arms and glowing around her body until Renaudin had to close his own eyes, or go blind.

He drew in a ragged breath, and they were back in the study. Renault stared at the girl, avoiding looking into her eyes again. He glanced at the parents, standing slack-jawed in front of them. The woman wrung her hands and reached toward her child. “Please, father, what is it? Is she—”

Continued in Part 2…

Dogs in House	Houdini
Music	Jordi Savall, The Celtic Viol, Vol 2
Time writing	~1 hour
May word count	2,971

Prompt: Connoisseur of Emotions

Beth-Ann stood in front of the brownstone steps and looked up and down the street. This early on a Sunday morning, there was no one out on this quiet street on Beacon Hill, but the sun had risen, and the guy who’d written down the address had been very clear with his instructions, however reluctantly given.

She shrugged and tucked the paper in her jeans pocket as she climbed the steps and rang the doorbell. Hard to believe this whole brownstone was a single home. She’d never been in one that wasn’t divvied up into apartments, at least one to a floor. She looked up the face of the four story brick façade and noticed a purple pane of glass. She smiled, remembering the walking tour group she’d pickpocketed awhile back. The guide had been explaining about that old glass from England having, what was it? Too much manganese that changed color in the sun. Her grin broadened, thinking that was more chemistry than she remembered from her high school class.

The sound of locks clicking open startled her back to the brownstone door, and she fought a surprising nervousness as the door slowly opened. An old lady, dressed in a long sleeved white blouse and floor length plain back skirt, stood in the door and regarded Beth-Ann for a long moment, saying nothing. Suddenly unsure of what to say, Beth-Ann swallowed once, twice, opened her mouth to introduce herself, then shut it, confused. The old lady raised her eyebrows. With neither a smile nor frown, she said, “Oh, yes, you’ll do. Come in, then.”

Beth-Ann stepped through the door, wondering if she should introduce herself. The lady didn’t seem concerned about her name or why she was here. She thought of the guy who’d given her this address. “You sure?” He’d asked with his face screwed up. She thought he was questioning her, but with a sense of alarm, she wondered if he’d been warning her…

“Come this way,” the old lady said, walking across the foyer without a backward glance. Beth-Ann followed her, her curiosity pushing away her concerns. She’d never been in such a nice place. It looked like something out of a fancy movie, with a chandelier hanging from the two story ceiling, and a curved staircase along two-thirds of the wall. There was an open door to the right, but the lady led Beth-Ann to a hallway opposite the front door, under the stairs. As she reached the stairwell, she saw there were shelves on the back of the steps, filled with different small bottles. A curious display…

They walked into the hall, and Beth-Ann thought she’d never seen anything so wonderful. Both walls seemed recessed, and lined floor to ceiling with bookshelves. The old lady walked too quickly for her to read any titles, but she wished she could just stand there and look at every one.

Continued in Part 2...

Dogs in House	Houdini
Time writing	Too damn long
May word count	2,087

Prompt: Octopus Games

I rolled into the parking lot a little later than I meant—4:20am—But there was no sign of the fish market delivery truck, so I was safe. Rick wouldn’t hesitate to call my boss even at this hour if I kept him waiting. He was good like that.

As I entered through the kitchen, I turned off the alarm systems and tossed my gear on the counter. I’d have to scrub everything down before I started food prep, even though it had all been scrubbed down the night before. I’d worked in fast food and a few fancy restaurants during college. They had nothing on food prep safety here.

Still no sign of Rick—I couldn’t be late, but he kept his own schedule. I unlocked the back door and went out to say hi to my aquarium favorites. Trudy and Nelson, the nurse sharks, were snoozing against the sandy bottom of the big tank. Elvis, one of the green moray eels, bobbed in and out of his hiding place in the rocks, but he didn’t come out to see me. Snagglepuss, the sawtooth shark, was resting on top of the glass tunnel as usual. I walked on through, enjoying the quiet.

Yogi, the green sea turtle, looked up from his nesting spot and blinked sleepy eyes at me, then tucked his bill back under his flipper. I laughed, thinking he looked like my roommate, Sam, complaining “Five more minutes! Just give me five more minutes…maybe ten…”

Ah, Janis, another of the green morays, swam along the tunnel to greet me. I waved my arm in a slow circle, and she followed the motion, undulating her long body in a loop, keeping her head exactly the same distance from my hand. Unnerving, really. I was glad to be out here. I wiggled my fingers and slid them off the glass as I left the tunnel, heading for my favorite morning greeting.

As I approached the two-story glass, I stretched my arms wide and leaned against it, pressing my forehead on the cool glass. Aurora appeared through the dark water, and as she swam toward the glass, I felt her sonar thrum down my body from head to toe. She swam up and dropped her tail down so we were almost even, her fins stretched out opposite my arms. Her rounded melon quivered, and her mouth was open in the familiar beluga grin. I smiled back and waved my arms up and down, imitating her fin stoked. “Good morning, gorgeous. Now, I better check on Harry.” Aurora backed away and nodded her beak up and down before swimming back into the dark water. I headed for my last stop on my morning circuit, the octopus tank.

And, great. No sign of Harry. I walked around the tank and pulled out my pen flashlight to shine in his coffee can cave just to be sure. Damn, damn, Damn, An octopus can get through any opening its beak will fit through. We had yet to find a tank that Harry Houdini couldn’t escape. Trouble was, one day it was going to get him killed. Now, where was the sneaky fellow? I felt a drop on my head and looked up just in time to see Harry stretched out, falling onto my face, and wrapping his tentacles around my head…

TBC?

Dogs in House	Houdini
Time writing	40 minutes
May word count	1607

Prompt: someone cleans out their closet only to find something extremely unusual

“Davey, go pull everything out of the closet in your room. I want to wash the walls down before we put your stuff in there.”

Davey groaned. “But Mom!” She just gave him That Look and pointed upstairs. Davey stomped toward the stairs. When he hit the first step, his mother said, “Thanks, Davey. I really appreciate your help. Get the closet cleared out, and you can take a break and go look around the block for other kids, okay?” Davey refused to look at her, but he nodded and then continued upstairs.

He didn’t remember the house, but Cassie said they had come to visit their grandparents when Davey was two, before Daddy went to Afghanistan. She remembered a Christmas tree in the living room, and the pass-through window from the kitchen to the dining room. That was eight years ago. Daddy was gone, and now his parents, too. He didn’t understand why they had to come live in this stupid big old house.

There were four bedrooms on the second floor. Davey and Cassie were in the back two. She shared a bathroom with Mom, which meant Davey got the second bathroom all to himself. That was pretty cool, he guessed. He had a big walk-in closet, too. But it was filled with his grandparents’ junk, like the rest of the house. They were trying to go through everything. Mom called it organizing. It felt more like moving stuff from one room to another. But Davey knew better than to argue when she was slinging That Look.

They’d already gone through all the clothes, so Davey turned on the closet light and started pulling things off the shelves that lined the wall opposite the door. None of it was very interesting to him, as he carried armload after armload out into his room and spread it on the floor. When he got to the top two shelves, he pulled in his desk chair to climb up.

Reaching up to the top shelf, his hand knocked against something hard that scooted away – he followed it and clasped his fingers around a small box. Tugging it off the shelf, he carried it down and sat on his bed to open it. An old style cigar box, with pictures criss-crossed in a collage. Davey lifted the lid and peered inside. A handful of baseball cards, a few letters, a fishing lure, and a man’s ring with a tiger eye stone. Davey slid the ring on his finger and picked up the cards.

Cassie burst through his bedroom door. “Davey—”

She looked around in confusion. “Davey? Oh, Mom is going to kill you for sneaking out, you brat!” She backed out of the room and disappeared down the hall.

Davey pulled off the ring and stared at it. “Wow. What was that?”

Dogs in House	Houdini, Brindle
Music	Santana on youtube.com
Time writing	40 minutes, distracted
May word count	1,047

Prompt: a hairdresser who moonlights as an assassin; problem: there’s an ogre loose in town

Alyce wrapped the last white whisps of Mrs. Kendrick’s hair around her smallest roller and slid the pin gently against her scalp. As she was helping her elderly client out of the chair and over to the old-fashioned helmet hair dryer, she saw people running down the street with looks of horror and fear as they glanced behind them. That couldn’t be good.

“Now, Mizz Kendrick, you know this old hair dryer takes awhile, but it’s the most gentle one I’ve got for your beautiful, delicate hair. Do you want a magazine? Or would you like a light blanket and you can just take a little nap?”

Mrs. Kendrick smiled up her and patted her arm. “Aren’t you a dear. I’ll take a blanket and close my eyes for a bit. I didn’t sleep well last night. There was something rooting around the house. Sounded like a hog, or a bear.”

Alyce raised her eyebrows. “Really? Well, you could call Joe Peterson to come walk around your property.” Joe was one of the town’s most prolific hunters. Alyce had to keep a sharp eye out for him when she was working her other job.

More people ran past the window, and Alyce hurried to get Mrs. Kendrick settled under the hair dresser and a blanket. She’d be out like a light for thirty minutes. Alyce didn’t think she’d need more than twenty.

She swept aside the back curtain and pulled her Glock out of its holster, tucking the long barrel in the back of her waistband. She slid her twin Hissatsu blades into the custom sheathes inside her black leather Dehner boot shafts. On her way out the back door, she shrugged into her black leather jacket and felt the snub-nosed Ruger in the left wrist holster, where she could drop it down into her palm with one jerk. Something was freaking people out. Alyce liked to be prepared.

Jogging down the back alley of the main street shops, she kept a sharp eye and listened closely for any commotion. Four blocks down, behind Ralph’s used bookstore, she stopped and listed. Something was in the side alley. Eating? Noisily.

Alyce knelt and slowly peered around the corner. Oh. Eww. Was that Ralph’s black lab? The ogre tossed a bloody hunk over its shoulder, and it rolled toward Alyce. Yep. The ogre’s shaggy back was toward her, its mottled fur tangled with leaves and brambles. It was full grown, at least seven feet tall. Not a giant. Thank the gods for small favors. It raised the dog’s body up, and Alyce blinked, unwilling to keep that visual. It must have been starving, because it paid no attention to the sounds from the main street, and it clearly hadn’t heard Alyce’s approach.

Shaking her head, Alyce pulled back and stood. Great. Ogres were tough SOBs. She tugged out the Glock and thumbed the safety. With a jerk, the Ruger dropped into her left hand. If she needed the Hissatsus, she was already dead. She thought about running back to her store for more firepower, but then she heard a wet thud from the side alley. The ogre had finished its sloppy meal.

Alyce held her breath, but it was too late. She could practically see her scent molecules flooding through the air into the alley toward the ogre’s giant nose flaps. Dropping into a fighting crouch, she was ready for it to charge down the alley toward her.

TBC?

Dogs in House	Houdini, Brindle
Time writing	45 minutes, including some research
May word count	576