Month: November 2017

The Bolsheviks storm the Winter Palace overthrowing Kerensky’s provisional government (no, the Bolsheviks did not overthrow the Czar, that was Kerensky), bringing about the nascent Soviet Union that would be the lurking shadow on world politics for the next 74 years with influence still seen today.

The train set in motion that day brought us:

The Red Terror, under Lenin.  Up to 1.5 million killed.

The Holodomor under Stalin, up to 12 million killed.

The Great Purge, also under Stalin, another 200 to 600 thousand killed (almost trivial by comparison–but this included a lot of people like experienced military commanders which would come back to haunt them later).

The German-Soviet non aggression pact of 1939, giving Germany a period of peace to the East so he could focus his forces on the conquest of France to the west, thus helping encourage the start of World War II.  Yes, WWII was pretty  much inevitable by this point, but this may well have hastened the start, lengthened the war, and led to more death and destruction.

The Soviet invasion and subjugation of the Baltic States.

Millions of unnecessary deaths in World War II (those experienced commanders purged up above?  Yeah.  Those.  Throwing masses of bodies at the enemy is no substitute for competent, experienced leadership.  You might win in the end–as they admittedly did–but only at a far higher cost than otherwise.)

The subjugation and oppression of Eastern Europe under the Warsaw Pact.

The communist revolution in China, including the “Cultural Revolution” and “Great Leap Forward” (what an ironic name) that lead to the deaths of over a hundred million people.

Communist revolutions in Cuba and Central America, leading to yet more death, destruction, and oppression.

Communist revolutions in Southeast Asia, leading to the Khmer Rouge and the killing fields.

“Socialism” being imposed in Venezuela leading to widespread hunger and misery. (And at this point we’re only hitting select examples, the rot has spread so widely.)

All that, from the results of November 5 (Gregorian Calendar) 1917, making this arguably the blackest day in all of history.

Johann Schmidt has used many names over the centuries.  Currently he was going by Adrian Jaeger, a young college student.  But something strange has been going on at the university, something involving his old enemies that he only knows as shadows.

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The big man turned and looked at us through mirrored sunglasses.

“Becki, how nice to see you.  And this is?”

“Coach,” Jeff said, “this is a friend.  Adrian Jaeger”.

“Jaeger?” The coach smiled. “That means ‘hunter’ in German, does it not?”

I shrugged.  I knew quite well what the name meant but the youth I was pretending to be likely would not.

He held out his hand. “Aleki Ata.”

I did not hesitate.  A shadow riding a human had to depart its human host to touch me.  I took the hand.

“Pleased to meet you.”

Inside, my mind was racing.  The coach, and now one of the team members, both clearly ridden by shadows.  Had they known somehow that I was coming or was it just chance that I encountered a nest doing, whatever it was they do.

I tried to release Ata’s hand but he held tight.  He jerked me close, so that his mouth was near my right ear.

“What a pleaseant surprise…Johann.”

My eyes opened wide.  I pulled back.  The lights went out.  I tugged but Ata still held my hand fast in his grip.  By the dim light spilling around the curtains I could see Ata reaching for his glasses.

I’d left the magnesium flare in my right pocket.  Stupid.  I could not reach it with my right hand secure in Ata’s mitt.

I am not a fighter.  One does not live as long as I have by getting into fights all the time.  I avoid fights.  But neither does one live as long as I have without being able to fight at need.  I lifted my left knee then stomped forward into Ata’s knee.  I then raked the edge of my shoe down his shin.  As his leg started to fold, I turned, twisting my right hand up.  I continued to pivot and drove the heel of my left palm into Ata’s wrist.  His grip, loosened in reaction to my kick, popped loose from my hand.  I drove my hand down into the pocket of my pants and dove aside, hoping to avoid the tendrils of shadow that he knew were protruding from his eye sockets.

I succeeded.  My hand wrapped around the magnesium flare, withdrew.

I struck the flare.  Light blazed forth.  Tendrils of shadow recoiled, not just from me.  Some, I saw, reached for Becki but those too recoiled.  Beck stood, her eyes wide for just a moment before her left arm rose to shield her eyes.  Her right arm hung limp at her side.  On the far side of the room Jeff stood, his mouth agape, his face cast into stark relief in the actinic light.  Daryll still lay on the bed, his arms across his eyes, his mouth open in a soundless scream.

I had to think fast.  The flare only gave me a few seconds of light.  My first instinct was to run, get away before the thing riding Ata could recover.  But the shadows kept their existence as secret as I kept mine.  That meant Jeff and Becki…

“Run!” I shouted.

Neither Jeff nor Becki moved.

I dove onto the bed, reaching across to grab the front of Jeff’s shirt.  I pulled.  It was like pulling on a tree, firmly rooted in a mountain.

“Run,” I said again.

Jeff stumbled, his arm still shielding his eyes but he started to round the bed in the general direction of the door.

I pushed myself off the bed but pulled up short.  Daryll had grabbed the edge of my sleeve.  I jerked away, harder.  Fabric tore.  The sleeve came off in Daryll’s hand.  I whirled and placed a hand on Becki’s shoulder, turning her toward the door.

“Run,” I said yet again.  I moved my hand from her shoulder to the small of her back as I chivied her toward the door.  We reached it just ahead of Jeff.

The fluorescent lights of the hallway provided what seemed a dim illumination after the brilliance of my flare.  Bright purple after images from the flare rendered me nearly blind but I could hear people shouting, see others running toward us.

I turned in the direction I remembered for the exit and pushed Jeff and Becki in that direction.  I did not have time to let my eyes recover naturally.

I pulled the vial of elixir from where it hid behind my belt.  The lesser elixir of life would serve for this purpose but even so, I dared not waste the little I had.  When I confirmed Jeff and Becki were moving, I twisted off the cap of the vial.  I tipped it to moisten a finger tip then flicked a few drops into first my left eye then my right.  My vision cleared immediately.

Hospital personnel were running for the room we had just vacated.  Strangely, nobody was paying any attention to us.  I moistened my finger with the elixir again and flicked some into Becki’s eyes, then into Jeff’s.  They both stopped as their own vision cleared.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” I said.

“What…what was that?” Becki said.

“Later,” I said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

I grabbed her by the arm and pulled.  She followed me.

Jeff hung back. “But…”

“Later,” I said again. “I’ll explain everything letter.  Right now, we’ve got to get out of here.”

The light leaking past the door to Daryll’s room died as the flare within burned itself out.

“Now!” I said.

Becki came with me.  Jeff followed.

The lights in the hall went off.  Gloom filled the hallway, broken only from the light leaking from open doorways along its length.

“Scheisse!” I whispered.

Door.  Where was the door?

I’m not going to say much about this because you usually start off with confused and contradictory stories.  For the most part I’m going to invoke the 72 hour rule.

First off my prayers go out to the victims and their families.  May the Gods grant comfort to the survivors and may the fallen find rest in The Shining Lands.

What we do know is that the alleged shooter was former Air Force (and this just angers me to no end).  Apparently he was Dishonorably Discharged, which is the equivalent of a Federal felony conviction.

Again, may the victims and their families find comfort and peace.

 

Our custom in our family is that I take the family out for one major “eating out” a month, someplace that’s relatively nice while not too expensive.  Sometimes it’s one of the more elaborate buffets.  Sometimes it’s a “family style” sit down restaurant.  And sometimes it’s some form of ethnic cuisine.

This time, however, my wife wanted to go up to Chicago.  We could have a late lunch at a place she had picked out (more on that later).  We could go to the Japanese shopping center she likes.  And we could also visit the (free:  It Says Here.  Again more on that later) Lincoln Park Conservatory botanical gardens.

Okay.  I’m game.

First off, it’s about a two and a half hour drive just to get to the near side of Chicago.  But, Okay.  We get to the botanical garden.  Apparently there is free parking on the street.  I can parallel park.  Sort of.   I don’t hit anything, when I try but it generally takes several tries to get it right.  Sorry, but I’m very good at driving the car forward and have the Autocross trophies to prove it.  Backwards, not so much.

Only problem is that there were no spaces available.  I drive around trying to find a spot.  Nothing.  Oh, look, there’s a small parking lot associated with the conservatory.

Wait.  What’s that?  $26 to park there.  Well, given the level of traffic it’s either drive around hoping to pull up behind someone just as they’re pulling out (good luck with that) or park here.  Still, the Conservatory is free so it’s not that bad as a total price.  I pay and we park.  We go to the conservatory.  We go through the conservatory.  I don’t think we missed anything but in less than a half hour we’re done.

That was…not much for that $26.  As we exit I look to the left.  Oh, there’s a Lincoln Park Zoo.  Also free admission.  Since I want to get my $26 worth, I direct the family over there.  We don’t see the whole thing and a lot of the animals were in for the colder months (and so not out where we could see them) but by the time everybody is ready to go to lunch I figured I’d gotten a reasonable return on that $26–at least in terms of the time spent.

Back at the car I punch in the location of the place my wife wanted to go for lunch.

20 minutes to go three miles by car?  Yep, traffic is that bad.

Also turns out my wife wanted to stop at a beauty supply place a couple of doors down from the restaurant. (Ulterior motive?  Imagine my surprise.)

And once again parking.  I drive around and around looking for a place.  Nothing.  Finally my wife suggests maybe just letting her out so she can grab a couple of things and I can just circle around and pick her up out front when she’s done.  We can get lunch at someplace near the Japanese shopping center. (Considering that I’d probably still be circling if I’d insisted on finding parking, this was probably wise.)

Between one way streets and “through traffic prohibited” and streets that cut across at an angle rather than a rectilinear grid, getting turned around so that she wouldn’t have to cross the street when I picked her up proved a challenge.  She called to say she was ready before I’d managed it. (The traffic did not help.)

I pick her up and punch Mitsuwa Mart into the GPS.  40 minutes.  25 minute delay because of accidents.

Sigh.

Forty.  Minutes.  Later. We arrive in the vicinity of Mitsuwa Mart and we start circling looking for a place to eat.  We’re just about to give up and simply go to the store and get something at their food court (hard for me to make out there given my dietary restrictions–mostly rice and noodle based dishes) we find a Korean place.  Yay!  We can manage.  And I buy the family a very late lunch.

The place is almost next door to Mitsuwa (I started circling the wrong way to see it immediately) so from that point we just hop over to the store where my wife does her shopping (and I buy my daughter Athena a few things that strike her fancy).

From there, returning home is relatively straightforward.  No accidents.  No insane traffic.  No attempt to have to find some damn place to park or navigate streets designed by Escher.  Just some tolls and for those we have a transponder.

And so home returns the travel-weary wanderer.

 

Let’s just say that was quite disappointing when I found out what it actually ways.

Some years back I had a problem with being sleepy all the time.  I wasn’t quite nodding off at the wheel of my car, but at my desk, when watching movies (no matter how involving), reading, trying to write (I don’t think my fiction is soporific), and pretty much anywhere.

My doctor at the time ordered a “sleep study.” For this, I went into a clinic where they wired me up like a hi-fi nut’s stereo system and I was supposed to sleep that way through the night.  Well, I managed to sleep with all those wires hanging off me and a few days later we got the results.

I didn’t have Sleep Apnea.  My blood O2, however, did go down while I was sleeping, enough that it interfered with getting a restful night’s sleep.  Also enough to cause potential long term health effects.  Bad juju that.

They prescribed 2 l/m of oxygen at night and an oxygen concentrator was ordered.

This doesn’t completely get rid of the daytime sleepiness and, so, another test is ordered, a “multiple sleep latency” test.  In this I go in for the night.  They wire me up and I sleep in the clinic (this is to make sure I get a good night’s sleep), then the next day I stay–I can read, watch TV, etc. but several times during the day I’m supposed to lay back for a 10 minute “nap”.  The idea is to see if I actually fall asleep for those naps.  I do, for every one.  Diagnosis, “hypersomnia” which I call in my own head “Narcolepsy lite.”

They prescribe a medication, Provigil, to fight off the daytime sleepiness.  However, first dosage costs $70/month and that’s just the insurance co-pay. (There’s an alternative medicine, but it’s not only more expensive, but more strictly controlled so the pain in the keester factor in getting it would be much higher.) The first dosage is inadequate so they go to a stronger dose, which has a co-pay of $100/month.

Eventually, I decide this is ridiculous.  I get the same effect, a lot more cheaply, with caffeine.  So we cut out the provigil and I go back to drinking a lot of caffeinated beverages.  I can’t stand coffee.  I can tolerate tea.  And I actually like diet colas.

Several years later, a number of my health concerns were better under control we we tried an abbreviated test.  I wore a blood oxygen monitor overnight and, surprise, surprise, my blood oxygen was okay.  Yay!  I could go off the oxygen (and get rid of the monthly co-pay for the machine rental).

Fast forward several more years.  I’m having the same symptoms again.  The caffeine isn’t doing it.  So my doctor (different doctor since we switched to a different practice in the interim) orders another sleep study.  This time they send over a “home sleep study kit” from Novasom.  It has a gadget that I wear around my wrist when I go to bed.  A blood O2 sensor (basically a light shined through the fingertip) is taped to one finger and plugged into it.  A breathing sensor hooks just under my nose.  And a “breathing effort” strap wraps around my chest.  They all plug into the unit and I sleep wearing it.

It was actually a lot less invasive than that original sleep study.  A lot less in the way of wires and cables hooked up to me.  And, being self contained and worn on my body, turning over in bed doesn’t leave me all tangled in the cables.

In the morning you plug it into the charger which is a signal for it to transmit back (cell phone connection I suspect) the results to the “head office”.

Then repeat that for a second night.  They say they get more accurate results with a two-night study.

Once you’re done, you pack it back in its box, stick the return address shipping label on it, and the unit goes back to, I presume, be cleaned up and sent to the next poor sucker who’s having trouble getting a good night’s sleep.

So now we wait for the results.

 

Here’s a list of my current active projects. (I probably have twice as many “back burnered”–I need to learn to write faster.)

The Beasts of Trevanta

The Changeling War is over, the magic that permitted wizards to create nigh unstoppable hordes in The Hordes of Chanakra has been dispelled, to late, however, to save the kingdom of Aerioch.  But the King still lives, as does his son, the swordsmistress Kaila, her wizardly father, and Kreg, the strange outworlder.  As they set on the path to restore lost Aerioch they find a foe never before seen.  Strange, savage beast-men roam the land, slaughtering or enslaving all they encounter.  Can they survive these strange creatures and begin the task of restoring Aerioch to her former glory?  Do even the gods know?

Wranglers.

Filling the awesome appetite for materials to feed a booming spaceborne economy is a monumental task.  To fill that need are the Wranglers family businesses that roam the asteroids in ion drive spaceships seeking asteroids rich in the heavy metals vital to industry.  They find the asteroids, mark them with identifying beacons, and divert their orbits down to any of several receiving stations.  But when marked asteroids fail to arrive, Tom Bardeau and his family must find out why before bankruptcy forces the sale of their ship and Tom becomes simply an employee working to someone else’s rules.

Dhampyre the Hunter

Dani Herzeg was a private investigator out of Nashville, but some cases were more private than others.  One of her tasks was to find, and kill, rogue vampires whose actions threatened to reveal the secret of their existence.   But when a case goes badly wrong, Dani finds keeping the secret the least of her problems as the death toll mounts in ever more public, ever more savage, ways.

Alchemy of Shadows

Johann Schmidt has gone by many names over the centuries.  An alchemist, whose very blood is the true, fabled philosopher’s stone.  But through the years he has been chased by mysterious beings he only knows as shadows.  He does not know what they want, why they pursue him.  He only knows that they want him and will destroy anyone who gets in their way with a freezing touch that not even the Elixir of Life can cure.

---

Unfortunately, I don’t have an ETA on any of these.  They’ll be done when they’re done.

 

This work has been back-burnered for the time being.  I need to work out a few issues with it, plus I’ve got too many balls in the air right now anyway as it were.

Still, enjoy.

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I belong to a club, an exclusive club. You can’t buy into it. No amount of money will get you membership in this club. No study or application will gain entry. Entrance is only by birth.

Members of the club, like me, have one thing in common. Somewhere along our maternal line one of our ancestors had congress, willingly or not, with a demon and, as a result, bore a female child.

My name is Molly Joyner.  I am a witch.

I am not a “Wiccan”, a worshipper of an Earth Mother Goddess, attempting through rituals and spells to harness forces of which I have only an inkling, secure in the belief that the Universe is a friendly, happy place if only we live in harmony with it.

The Universe is not a friendly place. Demons are real. Their blood flows through my veins. It is a source of power. It is also a curse.

Some of my sisters, other members of this club, other witches, work with the demons, spreading their influence in the world. Others oppose them, turning powers spawned of demon blood against their brood.

I stand against the demons. That is why I was in this seedy bar working as a cocktail waitress.

“Here you go, Hun.”  As I set the Guiness Extra Stout down, one of the men at the table pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “Sorry, Hun.  No smoking here.”

The man looked up, squinting at the brighter lights from the bar behind me.  Mid-thirties, with light brown hair.  More than a five o’clock shadow, call it an eight thirty shadow. “You’re shitting me?”

I shrugged. “Indiana law.  No smoking in places of business.  You’ll have to take it outside.”

Swearing softly under his breath, the man stood up. “Watch my drink, Paul.”

Another man, a bit older with dirty blond hair thinning on top, waved a hand. “Yeah, yeah.”

The woman next to the older man scooted closer to him.  She peered up at me, her eyes narrowing. “You’re new here?”

I smiled. “Started here today.  Carlyle’s, on the south side, closed down so…” I forced myself not to hold my breath as I wondered if she saw through the hint of glamorie.

“Good luck.” Her voice was friendly but her expression anything but. “This place can be rough, but you can make good money.”

She appeared to be a young woman, mid-twenties.  Brunette hair swept back from the sides of her face and falling to the middle of her back.  Her eyebrows formed high arches above her heavy blue eyeshadow.  Bright pink lipstick shaded to deeper red at the edges of her full lips.

That would be her own glamorie, of course.  She hid it well.  Not a hint of magic showed through.

“Can I get you anything else?”

“Yeah, a martini, shaken not stirred” The woman waved her hand airily.

I forced myself not to roll my eyes and jotted down the order. “Be right back.”

I handed the ticket to Mike at the bar.  He looked down at it then back up at me. “We have society here today?”

I shrugged and grinned.

Mike sighed and selected a bottle of gin.  I recognized it as the cheapest brand.  He measured some into a Cobbler shaker along with some vermouth.  After giving the shaker three halfhearted shakes he poured the mix into a martini glass and dropped in an olive, speared on a little plastic sword.

I set the drink on my tray. “Thanks, Mike.”

Back at the table, Paul sat alone scrolling through some text document on his phone.  I set the martini down in front of the woman’s place and waited.

Paul grunted and pulled his wallet form his hip pocket. “How much.”

I quoted a price.  He set the amount on the table, paused, then dropped an extra one on top of it.

I scooped up the money and tucked it into my apron. “Thank you.”

He grunted and turned back to his phone.

I straightened.  Where had she gone?  Toward the door?  No, not there.  I looked to the rear and saw her heading toward the bathrooms.  Before she reached them she sidestepped behind one of the privacy walls.  I spotted her a moment later, skirting the row of booths toward the front of the bar and the exit.

Turning, I hustled back to the bar and set my tray down. “Mike, I’m taking a short break.”

From where he was drawing a beer, he waved in my direction.  I wiped my hands on a bar towel then hustled toward the front door.

Outside, a few people clustered around the entrance to the bar but neither the woman nor the man I sought stood in sight.  I chewed on my lower lip for a moment then turned to the left.  Overflow parking lay in that direction, running around to the back of the bar.  I trotted in that direction and turned the corner.

None of the lights in this part of the parking lot worked.  Only the full moon, half veiled by clouds, illuminated the lot.  A spark of red light between the dumpster and the back wall of the bar drew my attention.

I curled the fingers of my right hand into a precise gesture and whispered the words of a simple spell, sharpening my eyesight allowing me to see in the shadow.

I saw the woman, Paul’s companion standing in front of the other man who had come in with Paul.  She stood facing him, her right hand raised and covering the man’s face.  He leaned back against the front wall of the bar, his arms hanging listlessly at his sides.  A half-finished cigarette hung between the first two fingers of his right hand.  The woman, the witch looked my way.  Only now she did not look to be in her mid-twenties.  Wrinkles spread in a fan from the corners of her eyes.  Others crossed her forehead.  Deep lines ran from the sides of her nose to the corners of her mouth.  Her hair was no longer blonde, but gray and thinning.  To all appearances she was in her sixties.

I raised my hand to my face, feigning an expression of surprise. “Oh, pardon me.”

The witch pointed her left hand in my direction.  Dim blue light shone at her fingertips. “You saw nothing.  Go back inside.”

I felt the force of her compulsion pressing against me.  I took a step back.  She turned back to the man.  I started to turn, as though to return to the front but keeping close watch on her as I did so.  In a moment, her attention returned to the man in front of her.  His eyes rolled back, his jaw hung open.  He moaned softly and his hips began to twitch.

In that moment, with the witch’s attention fully on the mind she was invading, I struck.  I stabbed out with a lance of magic, slipping past the witch’s unconscious defenses and paralyzing her.

Released from her control, the man slumped to the ground disoriented.  It would be several seconds before awareness returned to him.  Long enough.

“Hey!  What’s going on back there?”

I turned my head at the voice.  Another man stood about twenty feet away, his left hand upraised in my direction, his right behind his hip.

Swearing softly, I released the witch and stepped back, shifting my attention to the man, freezing him.  What had he seen?

The witch turned to face me and stepped back as well. “So.  You’re one of us.”

“Not one of you.”

She cast a glance in the direction of the newcomer then back to me. “I’ll leave you to deal with the witnesses.  Another time.” She faded back into the shadows and disappeared.

“Son of a…” I looked at the man I held frozen and pushed with a compulsion. “You saw nothing.  Go about your business.”

I then turned to the other man at my feet.  He looked up at me, his eyes dropping, his face slack.

“You okay?” I held a hand down to him.

He blinked, staring at my hand then turned, ignoring my hand and pushing himself to his feet. “What did that bitch do to me?”

He looked down at the cigarette still in his hand.  I nudged him mentally.

“She dosed my…” He spat then tossed the cigarette into the dumpster.

“Are you sure you’re…” I held out a hand to him again.

“Get away from me, whore.”

I raised my hands and stepped back.  He staggered back toward the front of the bar.

“What did I just see?”

I jumped at the voice.  I looked back over my shoulder.  The man I had frozen, that I thought had compelled to leave, stood unmoved, his right hand remaining behind his hip.  As I turned to face him and took a step forward.  He took two steps back.  His hand swept out and forward revealing a small semi-automatic pistol.  He brought the pistol around until it was pointed at my sternum.

“Stay where you are?”

I raised my hands up next to my shoulders, showing him my open hands.

“There’s no need for that.” I put another compulsion behind the words.

The barrel of the gun dipped then returned to line.

“What are you?”

I frowned.  Not only was this not going like it should, but I was using entirely too much magic.  He was not leaving and especially was not forgetting.

“I’m no threat to you.” Another compulsion, pushing the truth of my words.

“How did you?” The gun wavered.

I pressed my advantage. “It’s okay.  I’m one of the good guys.”

The gun drooped. “One of the?”

“Wouldn’t you just rather forget all this?”

“This is entirely too crazy to forget.” The gun dropped to his side. “But I’ll give you a chance to explain.”

I sighed and sagged against the wall.  With the way he was resisting the compulsions I needed time, time to find a way to preserve the secret. I looked over my shoulder at the bar.  Well, the job had merely been a cover, and that blown already.

I looked back to the man. “Would you care to discuss it over coffee?”