Caspar sits up on his sofa. His crocheted blanket, his lumpy cushions. He’s bathed in the stormcloud static of his crummy old television set. Lying on his chest is the paperback he was reading, t...
2025-01-22 00:29:21 +0000 UTC View Post“Do you like being here?”
Ajax turns his head as the platform rises through the hab block. “On this lift, or on the Pike?”
“On the Pike.”
“Nowhere else I’d want to...
2025-01-20 05:01:48 +0000 UTC View PostThey dress Grant in a black and scarlet tunic, with a high, asymmetric collar. A tight cut. He’s not sure if that’s just for the flattering drape or because he’s at least a foot taller than e...
2025-01-19 03:07:24 +0000 UTC View PostTonight is the night. Grant’s more grateful than ever for his guitar to keep his hands from fidgeting and picking the threads out of his coveralls.
No motion on the cameras. He waits for Ba...
2025-01-19 01:40:41 +0000 UTC View PostTwo more shifts pass.
He brings in more things for Batty. He brings her a map of Earth. She examines it with her head cocked.
“This is Earth. Uh, Home.” He taps the paper. “Earth....
2025-01-18 19:44:38 +0000 UTC View Post“Remember the 90% of your training?” Drake parks himself in a folding chair across a card table from Grant. “You’re about to get the last 10. But it’s time to sign another NDA. This is th...
2025-01-18 04:35:29 +0000 UTC View PostA month from now, Grant will remember, as he feels the cool metal of his wife’s gun kiss the back of his skull, his final days on Earth. He’ll wish he’d spent more of them on the surface, in ...
2025-01-17 23:05:26 +0000 UTC View Post“I am sorry that we’ve lost Jordan. She was a good soldier.” Adaire’s voice echoes through the warehouse they’re squatting in. “And I don’t mean to imply that mine is the greater woe....
2025-01-16 19:27:56 +0000 UTC View PostA burst of gunfire, so rapid that it morphs into one buzzing shriek. A chunk of the cart the size of a watermelon is sheared clean off. Each bullet hole flowers to the size of a fist. Secondary exp...
2025-01-13 19:19:43 +0000 UTC View Post“I am so, so, so, so, so sorry,” Caspar says. “Mrs. Tilliam, I never intended to harm a hair on your head. And I am so—”
Rebecca laughs. “It’s okay, Mr. Cartwright. Tru...
2025-01-11 20:21:29 +0000 UTC View PostRebecca Tilliam collapses onto the hotel room couch with a groan of relief. She drops her suitcases and carry-ons in a pile of leather and canvas around her. “What a lovely room, Carol.” She sh...
2025-01-05 03:16:16 +0000 UTC View PostCaspar pulls the seared flesh from the bone and chews its crispy skin. A bursting pop of flavor, sumac and Northward oregano. Hot damn, that is delicious.
He holds the thin wing bone in his h...
2024-12-31 01:01:09 +0000 UTC View PostThe bathrooms in the Hall of the Pious Crusaders are the cleanest in any public building Caspar’s ever used. Marble and enamel and brass. There’s these newfangled taps that can tell when your h...
2024-12-30 00:00:41 +0000 UTC View Post“So.” I scoot my cardinal out from my back rank. “Barn door. What’s your review?”
“It’s uh. Tight. It’s good.” Caspar sips his rooibos and rubs his chin as he surveys the bo...
2024-12-17 22:19:38 +0000 UTC View Post“It’s good.” Jordan chews the slice of cake. “Tastes a little beer-ish.”
“Caspar said yeasty,” I say.
“Well, he’d know. Mister house-husband.” She drops the fork on ...
2024-12-17 02:34:51 +0000 UTC View PostMy molluscan prime form flits through the air beside Bina’s hairy, cetaceous bulk. Below us, Saoirse sidewinds through the ruins of Heaven. Above us, Salome floats like a polar star. Our scout-fo...
2024-12-11 07:18:29 +0000 UTC View Post“Step one is hide them bullet holes, I’d say.” Jordan puts her hands on her hips as they survey the van. “Bet a tapestry would do it. Couple saintly garlands.”
Caspar sticks a finge...
2024-12-06 15:24:55 +0000 UTC View PostUp and at em, Dee, says Niva. Packmistresses don’t sleep in.
I’m not the packmistress. I’m just your sister.
You are the packmistress, Dee. And you don’t h...
2024-12-03 02:30:54 +0000 UTC View PostThe warlocks are used to taking their bathroom breaks without a bathroom at this point (and Peat Moss never learned). Despite the complaints of their hostages, they avoid civilization once they’v...
2024-12-02 21:13:48 +0000 UTC View PostAnise bends her arms inward. The little pooch of her stomach over the band of her yoga pants stretches taut as her peachy butt arches. “Now we slooowly come back to neutral,” she says. “Left ...
2024-12-01 19:35:05 +0000 UTC View Post“We can’t just leave him in the woods.” Caspar presses his steepled fingers to his lips. “He’s a person. He’s a child, even.”
“We have a missing fuckin’ archbishop ...
2024-11-28 06:26:30 +0000 UTC View PostBina plows into Saoirse, bowls her to the ground, and with a vicious spring trap bite, tears her head from her shoulders.
The rotten flesh in her lupine mouth flowers explosively, and spreads...
2024-11-22 22:12:58 +0000 UTC View PostIn the wake of their resounding victory at Hanem Canyon, a very nice elf in a very nice outfit—all slashed sleeves and silk—delivers an invitation to Pack Voraag and their charges...
2024-11-21 04:30:09 +0000 UTC View PostHello again, dear reader. If you’ve skipped to this chapter, welcome back. The short version is that Caspar and I admitted our love for each other and then went at it like rabbits. Humanity has <...
2024-11-19 01:23:32 +0000 UTC View PostAnise awakens tangled in a cocoon of blankets. Nick has tossed all of the sheets from himself in the night and is starfishing, his left side drooping off the edge of the bed. A lance of light from ...
2024-11-17 04:51:13 +0000 UTC View PostThey decide to try the remote manipulation spell that Dee bought at the gate to Vatramor. Sion and Nick huddle over the sheaf of papers, puzzling out the oddball guitar part implied by its leylines...
2024-11-14 03:34:19 +0000 UTC View PostThank you as always, noble patrons. Fair warning: this one is explicit.
Caspar turns over and creaks the four-poster bed he’s awakened in. A breeze drifts across him from a window op...
2024-11-11 05:58:42 +0000 UTC View PostAdaire sits down on a barrack bench across from Caspar, her legs wide and slouchy like a cock-of-the-walk trooper. “So, Mr. Caspar. How long have you been at the warlock game?”
Caspar’s...
2024-11-09 20:26:40 +0000 UTC View Post“She didn’t…” Anise is scrambling for an excuse. “We’ve had a long trip up. And she’s hangry.”
“It’s okay.” In the dim light formed by the room’s lambent candles, Conn...
2024-11-08 01:09:23 +0000 UTC View PostCaspar sits bolt upright, breathing hard. His mouth hangs open. He touches his cupid’s-bow philtrum, where a moment ago my lips lay on his.
He’s back. Oh, no. Oh, shoot. Should he not hav...
2024-11-05 19:24:47 +0000 UTC View Post