Cat Rambo's Blog, page 46

Several New Classes, Plus On-Demand Content

mountains in the form of evening dress

I’ve just posted the latest round of classes, October through December, and wanted to call out a couple of highlights.

Because the Literary Techniques for Genre Fiction has been so much fun to teach, I’ve added a follow-up class with more techniques and lecture about sentence-level devices, Literary Techniques for Genre Fiction II.

Rachel Swirsky, one of the most talented writers I know, will be joining me for a special workshop, Re-Telling and Re-Taleing, focusing on drawing on mythology, fairy tale, and other common stories in one’s writing.

Because my friend Caren keeps telling me I should, I’ve added a Reading Aloud workshop to teach you how to pick and adapt work to read, how to prepare, and how to perform.

I’ve also added my first on-demand class, an amplified version of the Literary Techniques for Genre Fiction class on the Fedora Platform. My intent is to have on-demand versions of all of my existing classes plus some of the mini workshops I’ve done in the past up within the next six months. Stay tuned for an additional exciting project to be announced in December.

My Report from Sasquan: Mostly Glorious and So Many Thank Yous

And we’re off!

For once I’m going to try to write a con wrap-up while it’s still (relatively) fresh in my head.

Caren and I arrived Wednesday evening and checked into the Davenport Grand, which was the same hotel as the SFWA Suite. We headed up there immediately after dumping up luggage to consult with SFWA Volunteers Extraordinaire Cat Greenberg and Terra LeMay. Heading out for food, we ran into the inimitable Ken Scholes, which was unfortunately just about the only time I saw him other than in passing at the con. After that I hung out in the SFWA suite for a while but we went to bed pretty early, since I knew it was going to be a long convention.

Thursday morning started with early AM swapping back and forth of mail about SFWA stuff and then I wandered down to Stroll with the Stars, where I saw some of my very favorite people in the world and met lots of new friends. Spokane was beautiful along the river — lots of visual interest and pretty things. Stu Segal led the amble while David Gerrold, Vonda N, McIntyre, Lawrence M. Schoen, Stphen Segal and Tom Smith were fellow walkers.

After that I went off to the board meeting. Thank you for coming, Jenn Brozek, Susan Forrest, Matthew Johnson and Susan Pinkser, as well as to Kate Baker and Bud Sparhawk for being willing to attend virtually. While the SFWA board meets sort of continuously in the form of a discussion forum on the SFWA boards, it’s nice to meet face to face and get to talk about things quickly. Because there wasn’t a full assemblage of us, we just did it in one of the SFWA suite rooms, which seemed to work well and saved us money, which I always approve of. I had to duck out of the meeting and go off and talk to the con folks after lunchtime about a table issue (this was not the smoothest con we’ve ever had, particularly with hotel difficulties, but we muddled through.)

Rainbow power!

Later that evening Caren and I wandered over to the Doubletree for a party and I finally got a chance to talk to David Gerrold, who I thought was SWELL. He had generously donated an extra booth to SFWA, which was very kind, as well as donating auction items for the Charity Auction here as well as the upcoming one for the Nebulas, so I wanted to get a chance to talk to him. As a longtime Trekkie it made my inner fan flail in helpless happy but he also is just sweet and nice and I’m a fan of his other work, particularly nonfiction The Martian Child.

We had a great time hanging out, including with Charlie Finlay, who is the man who finally allowed me to crack The Mag of F&SF, and Gay and Joe Haldeman, and watching Connie Willis hold forth on Primeval from her perch, along with other illuminaries like Bob Silverberg and Larry Niven. Sometimes I have OMG fangirl moments and they were coming fast and furious.

Friday morning I did the Writers Workshop with Toni Weisskopf and Tex Thompson. An advantage of groups like that is getting to hear other people’s takes on the same material, and it’s always educational, particularly when it’s a chance to listen to someone who has been in the industry as long as Toni has. That was lots of fun and I think our three participants had a great time and (hopefully) learned a little. Bud Sparhawk was originally scheduled for this and I missed seeing him at this con, since usually we hang out a lot, along with SFWA staff Kate Baker and Steven H Silver, who were sorely missed.

With Rebecca Moesta and Hugo nominee Kevin J. Anderson, whose WordFire Press tribe consistently rocked the convention.

I had a baseball panel later that day with Rick Wilber, Louise Marley, and Bradley Lyman. The panel was jam packed with people and had plenty of lively discussion. I had to confess my own odd take as a sports fan: I don’t really root for either team but rather whoever is up at bat, which may be the legacy of growing up in the vicinity of the Chicago Cubs.

I do adore baseball novels and will here append some of my favorites: Brittle Innings by Michael Bishop*, The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. by Robert Coover*, The Southpaw and Bang the Drum Slowly by Mark Harris.

* means it’s speculative fiction and heck yeah I’ll claim that Coover for the genre whether he meant it to be or not because it is. The Harris book, particularly the second, just hits its out of the park in terms of dialogue and plot and structure.

I’m ordering Rick’s Field of Fantasies: Baseball Stories of the Strange and SupernaturalField of Fantasies: Baseball Stories of the Strange and Supernatural right now, which he had there and which contains stories by T.C. Boyle, Ray Bradbury, Gardner Dozois, Karen Joy Fowler, John Kessel, Stephen King, W.P. Kinsella, Louise Marley, Kim Stanley Robinson, Rod Serling, Harry Turtledove, and others, holy smokes what a lineup!

Admiring Mike’s rocket bling.

Met up with Mike Resnick, who has appeared on the Hugo ballot a breathtaking 37 times, winning 5, after the panel. We ventured out into the hazy afternoon along the riverwalk to talk about some SFWA stuff and came out of that excited about some prospects. I’m a longtime fan of Mike’s, not just of his excellent work, but of the way he helps newer writers, consistently extending a hand by collaborating with or publishing them. As SFWA President, I’m trying to make sure that the org’s moving forward in a way that makes (almost) everyone happy, so I wanted to talk about how we could use some of SFWA’s new marketing resources to help with the committee that Mike has ably headed for so long, the Anthology Committee. I’m looking forward to working with him on the SFWA projects we discussed.

I read that evening, and decider to do “The Subtler Art” from the Blackguards anthology, because it’s short. It was a little too short, actually, and I probably should have gone with my original choice, the Owlkit story, which appeared on Patreon. Overall, though, I thought it went very well and there was decent attendance. I was so fried at that point that I don’t think I did my best at reading. For people who enjoyed that story, there’s another Serendib one coming out soon from Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

This was about the time the smoke got positively post-Apocalyptic and I texted Wayne not to come, since he is asthmatic and I’d heard of other people having to leave. Jilly Dreadful and I went to the Broad Universe Rapidfire reading run by Marta Murvosh (so great, and such a smorgasbord of talent!) but had to duck out because of air quality issues. We found there weren’t many refuges, so Jilly headed back to her hotel and Caren, Danielle, and I went to hang in our room and talk for a while.

Dangerous smoke!

We had a couple of key personnel drop out at the last minute, but our Operations Director Kate Baker did her best to provide resources from afar. (The hotel wasn’t sure of what to make of the constant flow of boxes to my room, but they were very good in general about bringing them up and being friendly and ready to help. Similarly, between the convention center staff and the Sasquan volunteers, there was always someone who knew which way to point me (which was good because it was a slightly bewildering complex and there were four! Davenport hotels.

I’ll provide some public highlights of the SFWA Business Meeting in another post. For now, I’ll just say that it was swell, the the chocolate covered rice Krispy treats were delicious, and everyone seemed to be in pretty good spirits. It was at this meeting that I learned of one stupid attempt to harass SFWA and there were a couple of minor things later on, but generally I think people understand that a) SFWA doesn’t run the Hugos, that b) we have members all over the spectrum and that c) we were there to see old friends, meet new ones, and find out what the org was up to.

Mainly we were able to report on some very real things we’ve done to help professional writers over the course of this year, including the model magazine contract that will be released this week, which not only includes a sample contract but which explains each clause/set of clauses and talks about why it matters. Efforts like that, aimed at protecting the rights of writers, showcase how SFWA works for the benefit of writers.

Other new stuff mentioned include the mentorship program that is in the works, the New Release newsletter, more SFWA chats, a membership manual, and enough other stuff that I’ll stop here and just leave it at what I said there, “It’s one month and 22 days into my time as leader, and I think we are doing pretty well overall.” We also reported some progress on some past frustrations. Many people came up to me over the course of the convention to say they felt as though the organization was on the right track and a number of folks indicated they had just or were about to renew their memberships (sometimes to use the SFWA suite, but that’s as valid a reason as any, IMO).

With Jo Walton, pre Kaffe Klatsch

The Kaffeeklatsch was tons of fun, and I got to have a pic taken with Jo Walton just beforehand, yay!

Saturday night Caren collected me at the WordFire booth and she, Danielle Gemballa, Camille Griep and I scampered over to Azteca in time for happy hour margaritas. After that we retired to the SFWA suite to watch the Hugos up there — the stream was going in both rooms, I opted for the quieter one, which did seem to be lagging a few seconds after the other one. We’d hear a shout and then the next moment find out a major moment had happened.

It was a different experience up there somehow, and reinforced the feeling of community that is one of the things I love about F&SF fandom. Congratulations to the winners, to the nominees, and to the voters. Congratulations to the Sasquan organizers for making it through this far with no one’s head exploding.

With Eric Flint.

The autographing the next day was a lot of fun, and I got to hang out and chat with Eric Flint (another fangirl moment), Carrie Patel, and Dan Wells. Afterwards I ran around like a nut for last minute SFWA Auction details. The auction, auctioneered by the amazing Ellen Klages, went well, and raised money (considerably more than previous auctions) for SFWA’s Givers Fund, which is exactly what we wanted, so hurrah!

A last swoop by the booth to pay for my auction purchases (earrings by Elizabeth Anne Scarborough and a print of the SFWA honey badgers by M.C.A. Hogarth and Ursula Vernon!) and then Caren and I gradually made our way out of town. We’d thought to grab food along the way, but the sky was ominous and the smoke pressing, so we just pushed through, fueled by more beef jerky.

For me, it was the best Worldcon ever and part of that was a chance to get some good work done, to talk with so many of you and get your impression of how SFWA is doing this year. So many people came up to say they were pleased with the org or to volunteer to help with particular initiatives. The overall experience was particularly surreal after seven weeks in CA seeing only a few people each week but it was survivable.

As for the controversies, here is an expansion on something I said elsewhere:

My impression is that the asterisks were intended to mark this as an extraordinary year — which it was, at least I think we can all agree it was way outside of the norm. Much later someone mentioned the sports interpretation to me, and FWIW, I don’t believe that was the original intent. It was a year that should be marked — a record number of Worldcon memberships; five kerjillion words of blog posts, including some people who should have been working on their fiction; and new heights of media attention for genre fiction.

I agree that the gesture was hurtful to people who read it that way and that somewhere along the line even up to the last moment, someone should have realized that interpretation and said woah, wait a minute, let’s think a little harder about this. But there have been incidents throughout on all (not both, because there aren’t two sides, there are a lot, all with varying stakes) whee people needed to be saying that. I found the flyer attacking SFWA that was distributed in the freebies area (and I will point out for the 500th time this year that SFWA has nothing to do with the Hugos) a wee bit eye-roll-evoking myself, as I’m sure the several people on the Hugo ballot that are SFWA members or board officers did as well.

Perhaps the best lesson is for all sides to take the need to think things through before we post or talk or whatever and make sure we’re saying what we want to be saying before we put it forth. I know that I always try to go take a long walk before I post anything in anger. We need more kindness and forbearance to get past what’s happened unless we want that schism to last and by we I mean everyone working or reading in fantasy and science fiction. I’ve been heartened by the number of people who’ve spoken out to say that maybe it would be a good idea to ignore the trolls and outliers in Crazyland and go ahead and celebrate the commonalities that 99% of us have.

There were a lot of unifying moments in the con. Jenn Brozek posted a gracious and reasoned tweet: “I didn’t win a #HugoAward but I am pleased people voted as they believed they needed to, There are other years and other nominations.” And Jenn can say, I think, no matter what, that she belonged on the ballot, because her book Chicks Dig Gaming was long-listed.

So. There’s my two cents worth. Thanks to everyone who made my con awesome.

Shouts out to my beloved tribe, especially to:

Rachael Acks, who was dapper and resplendent simultaneously, and who rocked the hizzouse as a volunteer.
Quincy J. Allen (one more apology for forgetting my banner, and it will be there at Rose City Comicon!)
Kevin J. Anderson, always unruffled and resplendent and whose Tribe was as ever functioning like angelic clockwork machines.
Bob Angell, with hugs and squeals of delight. Looking forward to seeing you in September.
Annie Bellet – you are so beautiful and I cannot wait to see the rest of the sleeve filled in.
Carol Berg, who is the match of anyone else currently writing big fat fantasy novels. You should read some of her stuff if you’re not familiar with it.
Lou Berger – Mr. We Are All SF, who is brave enough to nudge me when I go too far.
David Boop – my apologies for being so scarce but we will talk soon about the book.
Jonathan Brazee, who introduced himself as the 2nd person admitted under the new indie-published qualifications – it was such a pleasure sir!)
Jenn Brozek, who has my admiration for her class and professionalism.
Dave Butler, who calmly explained every historical inaccuracy in his book with a fan and was as ever dapper and charming.
Wesley Chu – thank you for introducing me to your wife!
Neil Clarke, who has been kicking ass in multiple ways lately and who is always pleasant SFWA suite conversation.
Brian Dolton, who put up with a chaotic auction scene with cheer and good will. I love you now go write a story, Brian
Jilly Dreadful, you are amazing and we are going to conquer the world.
Eva Eldridge, I am looking forward to continuing to work with you as well as talking about fermenting with your husband!
J.T. Evans, I’m looking forward to check out the Pikes Peak conference, nice chatting with you.
Cynthia Felice, who explained the Ombudsman position that she has been so capably filling for five years
Eric Flint, who I amused with my hippie badge ribbons and provided great conversation during the autographing.
Danielle Gemballa, who was an integral part of an awesome con
David Gerrold, for graciously giving us a booth as well as contributions to the SFWA Givers Fund and for just being as charming a man as I have ever met.
Cat Greenberg, thank you for running the SFWA suite with your mad skillz and coping with the ups and downs of a particularly recalcitrant hotel (we will do a physical run-through of the space next time.
Camille Griep, who savored the surrealness of the monstrous margaritas at Azteca
Caren Gussoff, the best roommate ever, who kept my head from exploding on more than one occasion
Gay Haldeman, who has graciously stepped up to be the new SFWA Ombudsman and is just the sweetest woman ever
Joe Haldeman, who ruined Caren for all other fangirl moments.
Jean Johnson, thank you for the books, I loved the first one and am looking forward to the read so much!
Sharon Joss, I think your card is the coolest of them all.
Ellen Klages, OMG talk about above and beyond and who put up with my surliness when I thought she was sending me across the street and up into the Grand for a $3 donation. Ellen, you are composed of awesome and stardust.
Anaea Lay – apologies again for not recognizing you at first in the hazy Spokane light
Vonda McIntyre, who has more presence in her little finger than a thousand emperors
Christie Meierz, lovely to meet you in person! I hope you and your husband had a good time in the SFWA suite.
Rebecca Moesta, we did not get enough time together, but I appreciated the moments we did.
Nina Niskanen, looking forward to seeing you in Finland!
Carrie Patel, great to share the autographing with you
Sarah Pinkser, so awesome to finally meet your wife. I was playing your song “Too Many Questions” for Caren in our room because it is one of my all-time favorites.
My (not-crazy aunt) Nona Rambo and the always charming Carl and Lyndall
Mike Resnick, who put up with one of my fangirl squee moments and is just the most amazing and gracious man ever.
Dave and Teri Robison – lovely to share the stroll with you and get to hear Dave’s familiar voice for the first time in person!
Bryan Thomas Schmidt, I’m looking forward to hearing more about the exciting projects you’ve got going, sounds like this should be a great year.
Arley Sorg, we WILL have our wine next time, Arley, I swear.
Ramon Terrell, always the smoothest dressed man at the con
Tod McCoy, who made Caren swoon with a hand kiss.
Tegan Moore, looking forward to seeing you in the writing group!
Elizabeth Anne Scarborough, who was so kind and gracious in the face of Danielle, Caren, and I fawning on her.
Alex Shvartsman, who is always a pleasure to talk to and who is doing great things with his publishing house
Janine Southard, who shared time at the SFWA table in the Dealer’s Room with me
Tex Thompson, whose book I am looking forward to enormously
Jeremy Tolbert, who keeps the SFWA website and forums running and sometimes answers emails even before I’ve sent them
Alexi Vandenberg, who is always several steps ahead of things when it comes to Wordfire wrangling
Tamara Vining, who not only filmed the SFWA Charity Auction but bid on several things
Josh Vogt, who generously shared his beef jerky with me so I could spent more time at the Wordfire Booth
Peter Wacks, the rockingest editor around, imo.
Sean Wallace, one of the minds behind the SFWA cookbook (we sold a bunch, and if you didn’t get yours, hold tight, I’m about to send out a mailing tomorrow to find out who still needs one)
M. Darusha Wehm – thank you for the book, I am looking forward to the read!
To the short dark woman glowering at me near the dealer’s room on Sunday afternoon, I hope your day got better.

With some of the Wordfire Tribe. Thanks, everyone!

And for so many people I only got to see in passing: Charlie Jane Anders, Astrid Bear, Greg Bear, K. Tempest Bradford, Aliette de Bodard, Scott H. Andrews, Brenda Carr, Beth Cato, Ximena Cearley, Brenda Cooper, Katie Cord, Janet Freeman Dailey, Wendy Delmater, Bill Dietz, Steven Gould, Elyse Guttenberg, Randy Henderson, Travis Heermaan, Patrick Hester, Leslie Howle, Kameron Hurley, Christy Johnson aka the mysterious Folly Blaine, Karen Junker, Kan Kenyon, Scott Lynch, Nick Mamatas, John W.S. Marvin, Nancy Jane Moore, Mike Navrati (although I do have a great beard pic), Raven Oak, Sunil Patel, John A. Pitts, Matt Rotundo, Erica Satifka, Dave Smeds, Eric James Stone, Michael Swanwick, Mike Underwood, Gordon van Gelder, Jo Walton, Yang-Yang Wang, Blaze Ward, Martha Wells, Fran Wilde, Christie Yant (SQUEEE TY for the shoutout and viva la revolución.)

To all the people I missed, my apologies. It does not in any way mean I do not hold you in high esteem but only that I keep remembering your names when not at the keyboard.

I am writing a separate volunteer and auction donor appreciation post as soon as I get all the lists of volunteers but cheers to our auctioneer Ellen Klages and to all the generous SFWA Charity Auction donors. Any sense of order about the auction is due only to Kate Baker, who valiantly coped from afar, Brian Dolton, Ellen Klages, Terra LeMay and the other volunteers who stepped forward at the last moment. We made roughly twenty times what SFWA has made at previous Worldcons, and the auction money goes to tyhe Givers Fund, which feeds SFWA’s Emergency Medical Fund, Legal Fund, and other grants programs.

To former students Rachael K. Jones and Usman Malik you should check the Hugo long list if you haven’t because you appear on there. So much love for you – I am proud and unsurprised. Congrats to the others appearing in the long list.

Retreat, Day T-7

Willow, sleeping in her net.

It feels like I have been here a shorter time than I have, but it’s been great and I have gotten so much work done. I’m filling in gaps on Hearts of Tabat right now and happy with its progress. I wrote a bunch of stories and one poem. I walked on the beach and among the redwoods, and I got to spend time petting a bunny, and watching deer. I saw a grey fox and a barn owl swooping along late at night and covey after covey of quail, including a mama with six bitty little perfect quail running as fast as they could to keep up with her. Tonight I’ll lie out under the stars and watch the Perseid meteor shower from probably the best vantage point I’ll have in my life.

I spend literally less than a day at home, then get a haircut in the morning and head off to Sasquan in Spokane with my bestie, the fabulous Caren Gussoff. I’ve posted my convention schedule here, and if you’re wondering what sort of SFWA events I’ll be attending, here’s a video about that:

I’m working on a blog post about how to create videos like that — it’s much easier than you think. But you should make time for the SFWA auction, because there are some frickin’ amazing and very much one of a kind things for sale, including authors doing your voicemail message, supplying creative profanity, critiquing stories, and Tuckerizing (including one award winning novelist’s very first Tuckerization ever.) And lots of signed books, including ones from Worldcon toastmaster David Gerrold, George R.R. Martin, and Guest of Honor Vonda McIntyre.

I’ll also be spending a good bit of time at the Wordfire Press booth — please stop by and say hi (and buy a book if you like — I’ll have copies of both my new novel and story collection Near + Far!). If you’re coming to the con and are a vegan or vegetarian, here’s a handy list of food options.

In various news, Rappacini’s Crow will be reprinted in the BCS Best of Anthology and Abyss & Apex has accepted a novella that Bud Sparhawk and I wrote together, “Haunted.”

Tor.com had a nice piece about the SFWA cookbook — I’ll have copies of that with me for sale and there will be copies at the SFWA table in the Dealers Room and in the SFWA suite.

Here’s a piece from what I’ve been working on lately, near the beginning of Hearts of Tabat:

“Why do you always pick this teahouse when you are troubled?” Leonoa asked.

Adelina’s eyebrow raised and she smoothed a hand self-consciously over the garnet silk of her blouse. “I wasn’t aware that I did,” she said. And then, with mock severity, “That is the peril of associating with artists, Gilly. They are often dangerously observant.”

Gilly laughed nervously.

“But it makes sense. At one point,” Adelina said, “I became convinced that I was aberrant.”

Leonoa gave her a sidelong glance, but Adelina continued. “I thought I was different from all the other merchant children of my age, in that they all seemed very concerned with some sort of invisible game of unexplained points.”

Gilly frowned in noncomprehension.

“They all cared deeply about this game, and part of it was caring what other people thought – or more importantly, said – about each other. And I, honestly and completely, did not care what most people thought of me. My mother, the nurse who had raised me until the age of thirteen, my poetry tutor… I did care about what they said, but no one else.”

“You were a prodigy,” Leonoa said wryly.

Adelina shrugged. “Perhaps not a prodigy. But I was one of those children who are capable of discerning the layers of adulthood mysteries that were truly not mysteries at all but simply things that adults were either too busy or bored or whatever to explain or which they thought were inappropriate for children for some reason or another.”

“Was there a moment of revelation?” Gilly asked. Her eyes were downcast, her voice a little lower. She’s flirting with me.

Adelina checked Leonoa’s expression and the wry flicker when the little woman realized she’d been caught amused and watching.

Not this one. Ah, Vyra Serena, send me someone eloquent, who loves words and will woo me with them, not innuendos and touched knees.

“I was given a child’s catechism of the Trade Gods,” she said, pulling her leg away from Gilly’s as she sat back.

Gilly looked nervous in the way one sometimes does when anticipating someone else is about to reveal some overly religious sentiment. Leonoa, who had heard this story before, maintained a polite, amused silence.

“The Trade Gods are an analysis of the way the world works,” Adelina said. “The ebb and flow of coin, of trade, of wants and necessities. Everything is there in the religion, because that is what it is. It is not that a God who is the personification of Coinage or Surplus or Fairspeaking, walking the street, the way the ignorant speak of such things.” She rolled her eyes. “Every religion is that – a way of understanding and teaching about the world.”

“But there is a natural order to things,” Gilly protested. “Surely someone came up with that.”

Adelina shook her head, one quick definite shake. “Not at all. As you said, a natural order, one that could not but happen to arise. It is the only thing that could given the circumstances.”

Gilly chewed her lip in perplexity, trying to summon a reply.

“It is not so,” Leonoa said. “There is no natural order, just happenstance. The reason that Humans are elevated over Beasts is that we are more numerous and they have not been able to successfully ally.”

Gilly’s eyes widened.

“Please,” said Adelina. “Before you get us all hauled in for Abolitionism, at least lower your voice when making such pronouncements.”

Leonoa pursed her lips but took a silent sip of tea.

ETA: And HEY I am part of this great Women in SF Bundle through the end of the month. Catherine Asaro, Janis Ian, Nancy Kress, Vonda N. McIntryre, Linda Nagata, Jodi Lynn Nye, Mike Resnick, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Judith Tarr — holy smokes can you really pass that up when you can get all that for as little as $15?

Patreon Story: Snakes on A Train (Steampunk)

Fantasy scene with steampunk style in the forest

Hello! If you’re new to this blog, this story is part of my Patreon campaign, which you can support here.

This story is a prequel to Her Windowed Eyes, Her Chambered Heart; I’m working on a third involving Elspeth and Artemus. Other stories in this world include Rappacini’s Crow and Clockwork Fairies.

Snakes on a Train

Elspeth folded her hands in her lap, trying to keep her brows from knitting. She hated trains.

They were dirty, with bits of smut and coal blown back from the massive brass and aluminum steam engine pulling them along, and engrimed by successions of previous passengers.

They were noisy, from the engine’s howl to the screech of the never-sufficiently-greased axles as they rocketed along the steel rails with their steady pocketa-pocketa-pocketa chug seeping up through the swaying floor.

And they were oppressively full of people, all thinking things, all pressing down on her Sensitive’s mind, making her shrink down into the hard wooden seat as though the haze of thoughts hung like coal-smoke in the air and if she sank low enough, she’d avoid it.

She glanced over at her fellow Pinkerton agent, who returned her look with his own slightly quizzical if impersonal gaze. All of the curiosity of their fellow passengers was directed at him, perhaps the first mechanical being they’d ever seen, with silver and brass skin and curly hair, eyebrows, and moustache of gilded wire.

“They shouldn’t be keeping us back here,” she said for the third time in as many minutes. “If we’re his assigned bodyguards, they should let us up to inspect his compartment.”

“The porter said he’d tell them we were here,” Artemus said in precisely the same tone he’d used the first two times he’d said these words.

Elspeth sighed. Even as she did so, the porter entered the car and signaled to them.

“You go up two cars,” he said, and pointed.

They made their way through the creak and sway of a car identical to theirs, then the narrower corridors of a sleeper car. Artemus knocked on a doorway and they poked their heads into a compartment where their package stood with his daughter.

That package, one Joshua McCormick, was a short, brawny little man who held himself with a terrier’s alertness. His hair had retreated from the majority of his freckled brown scalp, but still tufted over his ears, which supported the frames of two brass-rimmed spectacles, the left one wider rimmed and more elaborate than the right. His daughter Belinda was unpacking McCormick’s trunk with an assistant’s familiarity. As Elspeth watched, she unfolded a trunk and set it against the wall so the myriad of tiny drawers and bottles it held were accessible, held in with straps against the train’s constant jostle.

Artemus said, “Sir, do you intend to undertake experiments here on the train?”

Professor McCormick shook his head, brows knitting. He folded his arms and glared over at his daughter. “Belinda. It’s true. I won’t be doing much on the train. If you unpack all of that, it’ll just be in our way.”

The daughter’s stiff shoulders told Elspeth of the daughter’s resentment. But she relaxed as the lack of emotions battering against her mind confirmed what they’d been told was a the case: the girl was a psychic null, whose thoughts could not be sensed and who would be able to withstand most mental powers.

It was one of the things she valued about Artemus – the absence of thoughts twitching her one way or another. She was looking forward to spending time with Belinda McCormick, if not her father’s roil of pride and greed and anger.

The Professor wheeled to address Artemus just as roughly. “I’ve told your superiors that your presence is unnecessary.”

Another thing Elspeth appreciated about Artemus as his ability to keep his voice modulated where Elspeth knew irritation would have wasp-whined her own tone. “I’m sure that’s true, sir. But there are definite and established dangers and not every train headed from Baltimore to Seattle has made it to its destination. Your expertise is important to the War Effort, and so we’ve been hired to make sure you get there as quickly and smoothly as you can. If you relax and let us proceed in our efforts, you’ll find the journey goes quickly and with a minimum of fuss.”

The Professor’s attention swiveled ponderously between the two of them.

“What sort of dangers have presented themselves?” he demanded, brows beetling in suspicion. “Not the made-up panics from the papers, mind you. The real dangers.”

“There have been instances of werewolves, which were responsible for the recent derailment of a train. And lizard-wizards, more than one.”

“Snakes?”

“That is the name some call them by, yes.” Artemus’s voice remained glassy smooth. “We have twelve hours before we reach Kansas City. I’d suggest you get settled and then go to sleep as early as possible. I’m told many people find the rattle of the wheels soporific.”

McCormick looked offended by the reminder of Artemus’s mechanical state. “And what are you? Is someone operating you remotely?”

“I’m automatous. This is my partner, Elspeth Sorehs.”

“A Hasidic.” The Professor’s eyes assessed Elspeth frankly, and his thoughts pawed at her. She forced down her reaction. He couldn’t know that what he was thinking was offensive. That was what almost all men did, thought in terms of what they would have been able to see if the fabric and stays were stripped away, how cupable her breasts, her thickly fleeced her thighs, this one no less than any other. She looked down at the floor.

“You will be in the cubby across the way?” the Professor addressed her.

“I will,” she said. “Mr. West…” She stressed the honorific and surname in a way that ratcheted the older man’s brows further upward. “Mr. West will be watching the corridor outside your cubby. He is unsleeping.” It would be a rare creature indeed that made its way past Artemus.

“The train will serve a late dinner in forty-five minutes,” the Professor said. “You will join us.” He turned and went back into the room where his daughter stood.

Elspeth rolled her eyes at Artemus. She stuck her head in their own compartment, eying the tiny bunks.

“Well, it’s snug,” she said. She sniffed at herself, ruefully noticing the sour tang to the fabric. That was the worst part of traveling, the lack of bathing facilities.

“There’ll be a bathhouse in Kansas City, and a four hour wait there, plenty of time,” Artemus said. “No need to act as though we were venturing into the heart of the wilderness.” His eyes glittered phlogiston-blue in what she’d learned to call his pranksome mood. “I’ll bet you that he says three things to offend you before the soup arrives. What do you think, my dear Hasidic?”

She sighed. “All in a day’s work,” she retorted. She retreated into the compartment. At least there was time to change before dinner.

She wore sea-green to the meal, a silk-cotton blend that maintained its shape better than most garments when traveling. When she saw Belinda McCormick’s pale brown silk taffeta, trimmed with Bruges, she wished she hadn’t bothered, particularly when the professor’s eyes flicked over her, assessing the color against the dark hue to her skin, pronounced after a month in Baltimore’s sun.

Swarthy little girl, but sometimes those burn the hottest, he thought with a mental picture that kindled fire in her cheeks.

The table’s center held a wire and ivory basket for a spray of fresh flowers and the condiments: cut glass containers of red and yellow and green sauce, tiny shakers of salt and pepper. She fixed her eyes on that. To her right, Belinda was a welcoming, quiet void. She found herself leaning and glanced over to find the girl looking at her with steady, inquisitive…invitation or naïveté? So hard to know, sometimes.

The other passengers spoke and chattered as they ate turtle consommé, a special Coast-to-Coast salad, and chicken-fried steak. Glasses of sherry were served round, though no one at their table took any. The Professor spoke primarily to his daughter, checking to make sure she knew the details of his trip, and what days and when he would be where. Artemus maintained his usual polite detachment.

Elpseth did the same. When a fat man lurched up from his table, at first she didn’t react, lulled by the train’s motion into a half-doze that barely noticed the warmth of his anger. Artemus, though, stood with immediate grace, interposing himself between the newcomer and McCormick.

“Necromancer!” the fat man spat at the Professor, who looked up but continued to chew his steak, placid-jowled and incurious as a cow. “Our President is not content to have sent the dead into the field against their own brethren, but now you assist Abraham the Unholy by raising the dead to bind them into machines.” He pushed at Artemus, who budged not an inch. “Whose soul is bound into you, demon-machine?”

“No one’s but my own, I assure you,” Artemus replied.

Someone at one of the watching tables laughed and the angry man blushed, taking a step back. The steward appeared, taking his elbow to guide him out. The situation stopped ticking with menace as Artemus returned to his seat. The windows rattled in their frames, coffee cups clinked in after-dinner saucers, and they sped on along the prairie.

Elspeth removed herself at one point, vanishing to the johnny-car and returning with cheeks flushed.

Artemus leaned over as she sipped coffee to murmur, “What happened?”

She leaned back into her chair, trying to look official as she whispered into Artemus’s aluminum-cast ear. “A woman wanted to know what you were like in bed, offered me money for you.”

“And?”

“And!? Should I pimp you out in order to make a little extra income along the way?”

He shrugged. “It’s all data.”

“You don’t even know what to do, let alone have the equipment to do it!”

He quirked an eyebrow. “I am given from certain ‘blue’ materials that digital and lingual stimulation is sufficient. It’s not as though the act would be about my own pleasure after all, other than the frisson of new experience. Still, I am told it is a valid way to persuade a witness or ally.”

His tone remained impersonal but his eyes flickered an amused blue. She jerked away from him and turned her attention to Belinda.

“What do you hope to do in Seattle?” she asked.

The girl toyed with the food on her plate. Elspeth thought she’d eaten a few bites at most, perhaps even less. “I will continue to act as my father’s assistant, of course,” she said hesitantly.

“Of course you will,” her father interrupted. His own plate shone; he’d used a roll to scrub the last of the gravy from the cold white china. He stared at Elspeth.

She doesn’t keep kosher, his undermind said. I wonder what else she is…unconventional in.



***

After dinner, Elspeth lingered, sniffing hungrily at the draughts of cigar smoke that wafted her way.

“Think it’s safe enough?” she overheard at her elbow. She craned her ears to listen.

“There was a werewolf attack last month, but since then they’ve put up silver,” the other man said. The deck of cards riffled before he dealt them out. They whispered across the white linen tablecloth.

“And Snakes?”

“Snakes?” The other man spat out a laugh. Black stubble hazed his jaw. He caught Elspeth’s eye and gave her a vulpine grin, sizing her up. Raising his voice, he said, “Snakes are what they use to scare passengers into behaving. Don’t go anywhere by yourself, because you might get et. That’s just a way to keep pretty ladies from getting lured into shadows for kisses from nice men.”

Elspeth refrained from joining the conversation. As a Pinkerton agent, she’d met plenty of supernatural creatures. She knew there were a few werewolves, or rather shapechangers, that lived in the wilderness in small families. She was less worried about Snakes, even though the semi-mythical creatures were blamed for nearly every disaster that claimed human lives.

In either case, this wasn’t like England, overridden with all manner of creature, including werewolves, fairies and vampires.

The Professor sat puffing a cigar, working it with tight jaws. When it finally had burned to an inch’s worth of stub, he caught Elspeth’s eye and nodded at her to follow him as he rose. His mind revealed nothing other than the last of the tobacco’s tang and a weary readiness for his bed.

She followed him through the several cars housing those unfortunate enough not to have the price of a sleeper, relegated to the hard wooden benches fastened to the walls. They smelled of sweat and cheese and garlic and stomach gas and she sensed herself perceived by minds sleep-clouded by motion and time spent staring forward waiting to arrive.

Outside the two compartments, the Professor paused.

Elspeth waited.

He looked everywhere but at her. “I want you to speak to my daughter.”

“About?” His embarrassment burned in her stomach, incandescent as lava.

“She has always lived with me. Her mother died when she was three. Our domestic situation has made her isolated in a manner that has warped her.”

“Such as?”

“She has become forward in unexpected ways,” he said. His pink skin deepened in tone and he wiped at his brow with a crumpled silk handkerchief.

“The suffrage movement appeals to many young women who feels their own lives are circumscribed,” Elspeth supplied. She’d seen this struggle before, including in her own family when she’d announced she planned to become a Pinkerton agent.

He shook his head. “There are many movements affecting the young nowadays. I was thinking more of the…” He hesitated, picking the words as carefully as making change out of a purse. “The movement that some people call Free Love.”

Elspeth tried to school her face into a lack of expression, but a brow crept upward despite herself.

“She wishes to practice Free Love?” she said, very carefully. Where was Artemus? But her partner had said he wished to check the rest of the train. She wondered if he was looking for the woman who had offered Elspeth money for a couple of hours with him.

The Professor’s hand flapped in the air like a trapped bird searching for windows of escape. “Tell her…tell her that things are not as simple as she would like to think when it comes to defying societal mores. For women there are consequences and they come when least expected or desired.” He sighed.

There was something in his mind around all this that made Elspeth uneasy, but she nodded. They exchanged slight bows and retired into their compartments.

Artemus was back within a half hour, ready to set up watch. Elspeth did not question him as where he had been. Her partner’s inability to sleep was a definite plus. It made simple sense to always have him be the one watching in the small hours of the night, when his human counterpart might fall prey to drowsiness.

So many pluses to partnering with him. Before him, she’d been assigned to a former Army colonel who had never quite gotten over the shock of working with a woman. For Artemus that had never been an issue, and chivalry was impersonal with him, a matter of his metallic brain and body outshining any human’s, gender notwithstanding.

They’d spent a week last spring in the Pinkerton Academy and she’d had a chance to speak with other female agents, despite how few and far between they were. Chloe Louisiana was a mulatto and former slave who always partnered with another woman, a half-Shawnee who’d been raised in England and whose name was Persephone Godschild. They were all united in their hate of the only other female agent present, a southern sharpshooter, Belle Cheatham, whose disdain they had all dealt with in the past.

“You’re lucky to have Artemus as your partner,” Chloe had said. She glanced over at Persephone, who’d nodded. The three of them had been sitting in a classroom, comparing notes and waiting for an instructor in ballistics to arrive.

Elspeth hadn’t understood. Back then she’d seen it as punishment, assigning the odd psychic to the only thing capable of dealing with her. She went back and forth on whether the assignment was punishment or praise. It felt like either with equal frequency.

***

She lay in bed. A thought occurred to her and she pulled herself out of the narrow bunk to press her face up to the cold glass of the tiny window. Outside the vast plains were silvered with moonlight and the train’s long shadow raced beside them. Faint clouds seined the starry sky and somewhere a wolf howled.

Artemus shifted in the hallway. He’d heard her, she suspected, and wanted her to know her he was there if needed, without saying it outright.

Another one of the little gestures that seemed so unmechanical.

She returned to bed and lay there. The train said chuggadiggity-chuggadiggity-chuggadiggity and she dropped into sleep counting the syllables of that complex beat.

***

Someone scratching on her door woke her. She gathered her wrapper around her nightgown and slid the door open.

Belinda, in her own wrapper, embroidered with pale blue flowers and uncoiling ferns. No Artemus in the corridor, but the light in the other room suggested he was there with the Professor.

“Do you smoke?” Belinda said in a low whisper. Her eyes sparked as Elspeth nodded, and she held up two cigarettes in a conspiratorial way. ”They’re talking. We’ll go indulge.”

Outside, they sparked cigarettes alight with phosphorus matches in the doorway’s shelter before moving to stand on the swaying platform as the dark world hurtled past.

Belinda exhaled. The smell of the tobacco flickered in Elspeth’s nostrils. “You know what I want in Seattle?” she said.

Elspeth shook her head. It was so refreshing not to be able to pluck the answer out of the other’s head, mystifying and giddying all at once, trying to figure out answers from clues as fragile and fleeting as cigarette smoke.

“I want to have a friend. Maybe several,” Belinda said. She reached out with her free hand and scraped the back of her index finger along the soft flesh of Elspeth‘s inner arm.

Elspeth’s heart jumped in her throat. In her mind, the Professor’s voice said, …the movement that some call Free Love. She didn’t react to the touch and after a long moment, Belinda leaned back against the railing and took another puff from her cigarette.

Elspeth had opened her mouth to reply when something lunged out of the night, a snarl of claw and tooth and gray fur striking from the ground to land between them.

Belinda recoiled, colliding with the glass of the door even as Espeth’s foot snapped out to catch the beast in the throat. She thanked her Pinkerton training, all the work she’d had to do to prove herself.

With a gabbled whine, the creature fell away. Elspeth grabbed Belinda and pulled her inside the car.

In its confines, the younger woman swayed, hand at her throat, eyes wide and fixed on Elspeth as her knees buckled.

Elspeth stooped to the floor as well, feeling the rocketing rails underneath through her shinbones, grappling Belinda to her.

Belinda’s lips tasted of tobacco. Her heart hammered against Elspeth as Elspeth drew her into the compartment and the narrow, moon-washed bed.

***

She woke tangled in Belinda’s arms to the sound of knocking on the door. Artemus’ characteristic shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits.

“What is it?” she called.

“The Professor.”

She gestured quiet at the wide-eyed Belinda as she pulled on her nightgown. “What about him?” she called through the doorway.

“His doorway is locked but he’s not answering.”

#

Artemus looked to her before fingering the lock. He was not supposed to pick mechanisms unless there was a human present.

She hoped that Belinda would have the sense to wait until they had entered the other cabin before making her way out of Elspeth’s compartment.

The lock clicked open and Artemus’s hand fell away. He flipped the handle open and swung it inward cautiously, as though afraid of waking the Professor.

Who was unwakeable, lying as he did in a pool of crimson and surprise, face agape.

As they stood there in the doorway, Belinda appeared behind them and gasped. “Papa!”

“I must ask you to stand back, Miss McCormick,” Artemus said. “Elspeth, would you take her to a quiet place close by?”

“Like my cabin?” Elspeth said.

“That would do, certainly.”

Elspeth escorted the wide-eyed, shocked Belinda back into the cabin and petted and soothed her for a few moments before returning to Artemus’ side in the other compartment.

He stood frowning in the middle of the compartment. “I don’t see it.”

“See what?”

“The professor was carrying the formula for his work to the War Ministry.”

She looked around the tiny space. “It’s not here?”

“He has his case there, and another trunk full of presents. I believe for his host’s children.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I took the liberty of opening them. One is a puzzle, another a set of fables, and the third a board game, ‘Snakes on a Train.’”

“So the killer must have taken the formula.”

“Belinda is the most likely suspect.”

Elspeth hoped Belinda would remember the brief story Elspeth had coached her in. “She went for coffee to the dining car but found it closed. He was alive when she left.”

Artemus’s expression ground into disapproval. He didn’t like activating that portion of his face’s mechanism, she knew, preferring to keep it a bland and unthreatening smile.

“I don’t think it was her,” she said firmly, and left it at that, hurrying on to say, “I think it’ll be someone who gets off at the next stop.”

“When is that?”

“For a major stop, one that is more than fuel? A day or so.”

***

Summoned, two wide-eyed porters helped drag the body back several cars, wrapped in a blanket and supported as though it were an under-the-weather passenger, back to the refrigerator car.

After that, the Pinkerton agents canvassed the train to find the individuals planning on getting out at Kansas City. A young married couple, the Emersons, planning on joining Mrs. Emerson’s brother’s homestead nearby; a school-teacher headed into the Territory; two traveling sales-men, one in patent sun hats and soaps, and the other in tin-ware; two former soldiers headed to get jobs as cattle drovers; and a veterinarian who had just purchased a practice in Kansas City in the mail.

Neither Artemus nor Elspeth could extract any reason why any of these individuals would have reason to kill the Professor.

Artemus’ expression was still disapproving. “The daughter…”

“It’s not her,” Elspeth said. “I think it’s a wolf. We saw one when we were out there. One could jump onto a platform and come along a corridor.”

“And have hands to open the door?”

“Were-wolves,” she pointed out. “Shape-changers. Skilled ones can manage half-way forms.”

“If there were such a creature then it is long gone,” Artemus said.

“Let’s question everyone,” Elspeth said. “The man who called him a necromancer, for example.”

That man turned out to be a Portland bound minister, Alexander Knolle. Roused from his own sleeping car and questioned as to how he knew what McCormick had been doing, he pointed out that it had not been much of a secret, since McCormick had spoken in several lyceums in the Baltimore and DC area in the week previous to boarding the train.

“He bragged on it,” the fat man said sweating but adamant, gaze trembling between the two. “On how his formula help suit machinery and morbid flesh to each other. Morbid flesh, that’s what he called it. Dead things. I fought in the war last year. I know what comes of that.” He shuddered and retched.

***

The next night, Artemus spent on the platform watching for wolves.

Around two in the morning, Elspeth went out with him. The stars stretched overhead, brilliant as diamonds, lights that seemed close enough to reach up and pluck one.

“Is Belinda settled?” Artemus said over the rush of the wind and the rattle of the train.

“For now,” Elspeth said. She titled her face away from him, knowing he’d be able to read any rush of heat to her cheeks. She said, over her shoulder, “When we were first assigned together, I didn’t like it. Now I wouldn’t have any other partner.”

She wasn’t sure whether or not he was aware of Belinda’s scent clinging to her, of the phantom pressure of hands that clenched at her skin. Perhaps he’d think her blushes the result of her verbal confession. Either way, she wanted him to be reassured. “There’s no one else I’d rather have.” Silence stretched between them and she said, struck by it, “Can you say the same?”

“I am used to you,” he said, but she thought some other emotion glinted far below the living light of his eyes.

Someone knocked on the partition. Belinda, pressed up against the glass.

“Someone’s in with papa’s things,” she said. “I heard them knocking about.”

They crowded in, Artemus first. The heavy musk of wolf musk hung in the air. Where they had searched through the Professor’s things but kept them in order, someone else had executed no such caution, but rather flung drawers open, tumbled cases on the floor, and dumped belongings out onto the floor. The puzzle pieces lay underfoot mixed with a scattering of tea bags and the delicate bones of some bird’s wing, mingled with some reptile’s coiled spine.

“Looking for something.” Artemus picked up a copy of a book and laid it on the bedspread.

“But what?” Elspeth said.

“The formula still.”

“So it’s whoever killed him but they still don’t have the formula.” Elspeth looked around the compartment. “Either because it’s here hidden among his belongings, or because he’s hidden it elsewhere on the train.”

“Or because he never had it,” Artemus pointed out.

Disappointment clenched at Elspeth’s gut. “What makes you think that?”

“It seems as possible as anything else,” Artemus said. He looked around at the mess. “Someone believes it’s here, at any rate.”

“If it’s a werewolf, they’ll surely try one last time before we hit the next town,” Elspeth said. “How is he or she managing to keep up with the train?”

“They are supernatural creatures, endowed with uncanny amounts of speed and endurance,” Artemus said. He didn’t add that one of his appeals for the Pinkerton Agency was his ability to match those uncanny abilities.

***

They waited in the darkness. Artemus was braced in the cupboard space; Elspeth crouched near the door. Belinda was bundled in Elspeth’s bed again with orders to bar the door and not come out for love or money. After those instructions had been given, the two Pinkertons had taken up position. They didn’t speak.

The hours jolted by, the train slowing and speeding up. If she were the wolves, she’d wait for one of the curves where the train would be forced to deaccelerate, she thought. Even as it occurred to her, the axles squealed as they leaned left.

She tilted her head, listening, but also extending her other sense outward, searching for thoughts. There. ? where ? was not the thought of any passenger but the frustration of someone looking for a specific thing, returning to search again. river/camphor/dust flared in her senses and said they were familiar, long familiar.

She heard a sound she couldn’t decipher, lost between the outer and the inner perceptions.

“They’re trying to get into your room,” Artemus said, moving to the door.

She followed after him in the darkness, wishing they’d told Belinda to wait elsewhere.

Sparks flared, a shot rang out.

Artemus shouted.

She struck a light in the silence to see him holding a lean and ragged wolf by the paw/wrist. Green eyes glinted, considering her. The toothy jaws opened and croaked out, “Hnake. Here. Kill Hnake.”

She looked at Artemus, but his gaze confirmed her own senses. Sincerity.

They backed into the other tiny bedroom, debris and puzzle pieces crunching underfoot.

“You’re looking for a Snake,” Artemus said. “You sensed it, presumably.”

The heavy muscle dipped in a nod. This close, Elspeth found that every instinct of her body screamed to get away. The green eyes blinked in amusement, considering her.

“It’s Belinda,” Artemus said.

“This again?” Elspeth said. “I know you don’t like her.”

“That has nothing to do with anything. She’s the Snake. She’s taken the actual daughter and disposed of her along the way. As a master illusionist, she’s able to cloud your mind and make you think she’s just a null.”

Elspeth ran through matters in her head. The sheer weighty reluctance of doing so convinced her that Artemus was right. Something was very wrong with Belinda.

“Something more,” Artemus said. He knelt and picked up a handful of puzzle pieces. “Look at the backs.”

She turned over the carved wood with dawning realization. “Pencil marks on the back. It’s his formula.”

Artemus’ blue eyes shuttered. “If the knowledge goes to the War Ministry, they will make machines from fallen soldiers. So will anyone else who learns it.” He methodically plucked puzzle pieces from the floor. “They are very flammable, these pieces.”

This was why they assigned a human to the mechanical, to think out questions of judgment and justice. In theory. But it seemed he no longer needed her.

She took the pieces from his hands and shoved them in the waistband of her shirt. “If we just throw them out, there’s still a chance someone could find and reassemble them.”

He nodded. “The engine is three cars up.”

***

But when she reached the engine, Belinda was there.

“Ahhhh,” the young woman breathed out regretfully as she saw Elspeth’s face. She spread her hands in a helpless gesture. “I take it the jig, as we say, is up?”

Elspeth took a few steps forward, looking at the door to the boiler, small and square and securely shut.

Before she could move again, Belinda’s form blurred and interposed itself. Elspeth felt the hard muscles against her own.

“Would you like?” the voice buzzed, half out loud, half in mind. Like to see what I really look like?

She breathed out assent and the golden curls shimmered, gave way to a hood of shimmering scales, purple and pine and scarlet, and eyes that stared at her tenderly. She was enfolded in coils, and Belinda’s mouth hovered over the vein that pulsed in her neck.

I will not touch your blood, the voice said in her head, not for all the world, beloved, but oh, if I did, it would be right here — the teeth dipped and grazed the skin in a circle of freezing pleasure that ran from that point down to her very core, where it warmed and made her loins heavy with desire — right here — and the lips caressed the skin as though licking some flavor from them.

Even as that pleasure burned, Elspeth grappled the door open and threw the puzzle pieces in to flare up in a cascade of sparks. Even so, the arms held onto her waist, the warm breath caressed her shoulder. It is a bad thing for anyone to hold, and there will be other power, given time, the internal voice hissed, and suddenly nipped, not breaking the skin but making her gasp aloud with the intensity of the pleasure.

The orgasm shook her, drove her off her feet, and the arms released her to let her slide against the wall as the Snake backed away, green eyes amused and regretful.

We will meet again, you and I.

The door opened and the figure was gone, fallen out into the dark night.

***

“It is,” Artemus said, “something that we can explain to the War Ministry. The professor died telling no one the formula. It died with him.”

“You don’t want to say that the emissary of a group of magical shape shifters killed him for it”? Elspeth asked.

Artemus shuddered. “We would face questioning for weeks.” The amusement faded. “We’ll have to find the group ourselves.”

“If they don’t find us first,” she said. She heard the voice again, beloved, and shook her head to clear it.

She looked to Artemus.

We will meet again, you and I.

And what will happen then?

Retreat, Day 25

Tomorrow’s online class is Delivery and Description. Click here for details.

Today’s wordcount: 3001 (so far. plenty of daylight left.)

Current Hearts of Tabat wordcount: 119954

Total word count for the week so far (day 6): 23568

Total word count for this retreat: 70229

Worked on Hearts of Tabat, “Moderator,” untitled piece

Works finished on this retreat: “California Ghosts,” “My Name is Scrooge,” “Blue Train Blues,” “Misconceptions of Gods and Demons”

Taught week 3 of the Writing F&SF stories class, prepping to teach Delivery & Description tomorrow.

We have no water at the moment, or at least a pump is broken and we must conserve what we have in case of fires. Hopefully fixed soon, but I drove into Santa Cruz this afternoon and had a nice chat with the guy at the Pure Water store, who recommended all sorts of local places and doings.

I have been reading and reading here. I was watching no TV but Wayne and I usually watch Big Brother each year, so we started watching it while he was here and now have been watching it together while Facetime-ing. Yes, we are huge geeks.

From “Never Volunteer”:

“This is the Other Side,” [Dustin] said. I swear I could hear the capital letters.

“Like with ghosts?”

He shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Not at all,” he said, but didn’t explain anything beyond that. He held out his hand. “Come on.”

“What, you’re not going to carry me without my say so anymore?”

He gestured around himself. “I’m much less worried about you running away here.”

He did have a point. I rolled to my knees and stood up, ignoring his outstretched hand.

I looked around. It was a little like being on the set of an old movie, one where the landscape had been manicured to the point of knowing that somewhere, lurking in the underbrush, was a horde of gardeners with trimming shears in hand.

But here, apparently, all of that was natural. As were the jewelbright bees and birds. When the unicorn appeared, my inner 12-year-old-girl swooned. It trotted towards us and I had never seen anything so pretty in all my life: flowing mane, opalescent horn and horns, great brown eyes with enough lashes that you wondered exactly how it saw through all that.

“Henri,” Dustin said.

It was, apparently, a salutation, because the unicorn nodded before it turned to sweep me up and down with a cynical eye.

“This is it?” it said. Its voice was high-pitched and epicine; only the name made me think it was male.

“You are being rude,” Dustin said. His voice sounded resigned, as though it were the sort of thing he’d said to Henri to the point where both of them were tired of it.

Henri had no intention of quitting. He shook his mane, flipping it back out of his eyes. Was it entirely accident that the sun shone on the tip of his horn, that the gesture made him seem otherworldly graceful, that his mane flowed like creamy froth, inviting the touch?

But I wouldn’t have fondled that unicorn for all the tea in China. He was clearly an asshole.

Retreat, Day 22

Today I am letting myself slack a little, feeling caught up from the weekend’s excesses and so I can game tonight.

Today’s wordcount: 2592

Current Hearts of Tabat wordcount: 119954

Total word count for the week so far (day 3): 13568

Total word count for this retreat: 60229

Worked on Hearts of Tabat, “Moderator,” untitled piece

Works finished on this retreat: “California Ghosts,” “My Name is Scrooge,” “Blue Train Blues.”

Time spent on SFWA email, discussion boards, other stuff: 45 minutes

From the untitled piece:

The magician gestured, and out of the pool came musicians, the very first thing the tip of a flute, sounding, so it was as though the music pulled the musician forth, accompanied by others: grave-eyed singers and merry drummers; guitarists and mandolinists with great dark eyes in which all the secrets of the moon were written; one great brassy instrument made of others interlocked, so it took six to play it, all puffing away at their appointed mouthpiece, and all of them bowed down to the priestess who stood watching, her sand-colored eyes impersonal and face stone-smooth.

“Very pretty,” she said, and yawned with a feline grace, perhaps even accentuating the similarity in a knowing way with a tilt of her head.

The magician smiled, just as catlike, just as calm. “You can do better, I am sure,” he said.

She shrugged, her manner diffident, but rather than reply, she pursed her lips and whistled. Birds formed, swooping down, and wherever they swooped, they erased a swathe of the musicians, left great arcs of nothingness hanging as the seemingly oblivious players continued, their music slowly diminishing as they vanished, the instruments going one by one, and the last thing to hang, trembling in the air, was an unaccompanied hand, holding up a triangle that emitted not a sound.

Landing, the birds began to sing, and though the music was not particularly sweet, there was a naturalness about it that somehow rebuked the mechanical precision of the song theirs succeeded. As they sang, more and more birds appeared, and the music swelled, washing over the pair where they stood, like a river.

The priestess patted the air with the flat of her hand and the birds winked out of existence, leaving the two of them in a great white room, the antechamber of her temple.

“Will you go further in, then?” she said, and her voice was still casual.

The magician’s eyes were green as new grass and the black beard on his chin, which grew to a double point, was oiled and smelled of attar-of-roses. He considered her as though this was the smallest of debates, and finally stepped forward.

“We are still evenly matched,” he said.

Retreat, Day 21

Feeling a bit more caught up, some solid word count today. If I can bank a little more tonight, I’ll give myself a treat tomorrow and go down to check out the Santa Cruz boardwalk.

Today’s wordcount: 5102

Current Hearts of Tabat wordcount: 119160

Total word count for the week so far (day 2): 10976

Total word count for this retreat: 57637

Worked on Hearts of Tabat, Bloodwarm Rain, “Blue Train Blues”

Works finished on this retreat: “California Ghosts,” “My Name is Scrooge,” “Blue Train Blues.”

Time spent on SFWA email, discussion boards, other stuff: 45 minutes

From Blue Train Blues, completed today in first draft form:

The next obstacle presented itself a few miles further on. Fog covered the road, and the car swam in and out of it, a submerged salmon leaping through foamy water, curls and tendrils swirling in its wake. My lord drove slower, but barely, and more than once we swerved to avoid an incautious cow or deer. I tried not to think of how many things stood too low to be spotted through the fog.

We ascended to a hilltop and saw a basin of fog in front of us, an immense white bowl. I started to say something about the odd flapping noise that was just starting to creep up on my consciousness but before I could begin, my lord shoved me sideways, then rolled in the opposite direction himself. A massive claw flashed in the space between us and rasped against the metal before the dragon swooped back upward.

“Hold tight.” We leaped down the hill and into the fog.

My lord steered with face tense, watching the road flash by mere feet from our front wheels, not slowing. Overhead we heard the flapping of the wings.

Then the hoot of a train, off to the right, somewhat ahead.

“What are you thinking, sir?” I asked. “That’s not the Blue Train. It’s the train to the western coast.”

“I know,” he said. “But the crossing is up ahead, I can hear it.”

“But not see it.” Fog thickened and lessened around us; sometimes I could see his resolute face, other times he was lost to me. Overhead those wings flapped, and sometimes fire coiled, once a great wash of it directly overhead accompanied by a foul, sulfurous stench. My cap had blown off my head many miles ago, and I felt the hairs atop my head singe and vanish.

“Hold tight!” my lord yelled over the roaring of the wind and if he added anything to that, it was lost in the howl of the train and the sudden flap of wings and then somehow we were soaring through space just ahead of the train, so close I could count every bar in the cowcatcher in front of it and there was a vast scream and crash as the dragon and the train collided, and then a whoosh of flame, exploding outside, that cleared the world of mist and revealed chaos.

Retreat, Day 20

Eek, I thought I had been better about posting. At any rate, here I am still in California writing away. I had Wayne here Friday-Sunday, so no writing was done, but we really had just a delightful time with each other and both were very sorry to part when I dropped him off at the airport on Sunday.

Today’s totals:

Today’s wordcount: 5884

Current Hearts of Tabat wordcount: 119083

Total word count for the week so far (day 1): 5884

Total word count for this retreat: 52435

Worked on Hearts of Tabat, “Blue Train Blues”

Time spent on SFWA email, discussion boards, other stuff: 30 minutes

Besides working on “Hearts,” I have been finishing up “Blue Train Blues”, a steampunk set in the Altered America world, although over on the other side of the world, in their version of France, occupied by vampires. It’s not a pieceI’ve promised anyone, so it will probably go up on Patreon either this month or the next.

Here’s a section from it:

The evening wore on. Fortunes were squandered and won, and then squandered again. The cigar smoke haze thickened to the point of oppression, and the air grew stuffy except when someone entered or exited the car, bringing in a night breeze that cut through the heat like a saber stroke.

I tried to keep any thoughts from betraying us, but I could not help but wonder. The vampire knew my lord was cheating, he was threatening to say it openly, and there was only one end to it if he did make that accusation: they would kill my lord then and there.

But my lord seemed oblivious to his impending fate. He sat there playing and chattering away, an endless stream of blather that was his damned-silly-English-peer act, playing to the crowd with a touch of whimsy now and then. But underneath it all, he and I and the vampires knew, he was a werewolf, and while they had the numbers, he could at least account for some.

Lost in these thoughts, I swam back as the Renfrew beside me stepped forward to provide and light a cigarette, then retreated into his former position. My lord was talking about cars.

“Rover claims their new model goes faster than le Train Bleu,” von Blodam said.

“That’s nothing special,” my lord asserted. “I could leave with the train from here and my car could get me to my club in London before the train hits Callais.”

Von Blodam raised an incredulous eyebrow. “A bold claim.”

“It’s good English technology,” my lord said, and the edge to his voice was the same as though he’d bared his teeth, by the way the tension jumped in the room. I felt two Renfrews sidle closer.

But von Blodam laughed. “Then perhaps we should bet on. You will race le Train Bleu, and if you win, I will give you the prize of your choice.”

“And if that prize was to answer a question truthfully?” My lord’s eyes burned but could not melt the room’s ice.

Von Blodam smiled, and I could feel disaster looming like an iceberg. “Very well. Three questions even, answered with absolute truth, on my honor. What would you put up against something like that, my Lord?”

“Name it,” said my Lord softly. “For it’s clear that you are angling at something.”

The toothy smile broadened. “Very well. A reward of my choice, if the train reaches Callais before you are at your club.”

“A reward of your choice,” my lord said and his voice was expressionless. But his eyes still burned.

Patreon Post: California Ghosts

This post marks a change-up in my Patreon campaign – I will post content publicly. If you’re enjoying it and want to make sure it continues, please consider supporting my ongoing attempts with this publishing model! There are several levels of possible support, but you can do it for as little as a dollar a month.

I’m enjoying on retreat in California right now, which will explain what provoked this piece.

California Ghosts

When you walk in the hills in southern California, through stands of pine and tall grass, up shaly mountains where the sides fall away steeply and the rock splinters rather than crumbles, you can hear the sound of the wind in the treetops, making them sway, making them creak. Stand still and you will hear the little noises, the sound of a deer’s delicate steps, far away a Stellar’s jay scolding some interloper, the click and tap of falling rocks.

There are ghosts out there in the hills, walking the ridges, slipping among the trees, but they are mostly animal ghosts, the memories of deer and mountain lions, a flicker of rattlesnake among the grass stalks, an eagle’s shadow floating over the earth.

If you find a human ghost alone out there while walking, approach it with caution. Groups of ghosts are left behind by villages and tribes, and many of them died peacefully, among those they loved. Solo ghosts are usually ghosts who came to a violent end, blade or bullet or even bared teeth, and they do not want to be disturbed.

If such a ghost blocks your path, stand still enough to hear the protests of the pines, the slide of dust downhill. Do not look them in the eye, but at a point past their shoulder. At first they will know this for a ruse, but give it time and they will falter. Finally they will turn away and vanish, because you can never see the back of a ghost, and you will be free to move further.

There are other dangers in the hills, but you know if you keep walking towards the sunset, eventually you will find the ocean – perhaps cliffs dropping down, perhaps sand and rock sloping. There are more ghosts in the ocean than anywhere else, but that is because it is so very large, and most of them are fish and gulls, whose ghosts pay no attention to humans. Sit on the shore and listen again. You’ll hear it say, Why go on walking? and Who knows why the wind blows? And when you realize that the only sounds you cannot hear are your breath, your heart, your body, you will know you are a ghost yourself, ready to go down to the sea, and swim there in the water, alive with sound.

Convention Schedule: Sasquan (WorldCon 2015, Spokane)

Stroll with the Stars

Thursday 09:00 – 09:45, Breezeway/Statue (CC)

A gentle morning stroll with some of your favorite authors, artists and editors. Meeting each morning at 9AM in the Breezeway between the INB Theater and the Convention Center (check your map), and returning in time for 10AM programming.

Stu Segal, David Gerrold, Vonda N. McIntyre, Cat Rambo, Lawrence M. Schoen, Stephen Segal, Tom Smith

SFWA Board Meeting

Thursday 10:00 – 18:00

Writers Workshop section 13

Friday 10:00 – 13:00, 201B (CC)

Fifty-plus entrants submitted speculative fiction manuscripts in advance to be constructively criticized by industry professionals. In this section, a few of these entrants go on the hot seat to hear what the pros have to say. All workshop sections are closed to non-participants.

Bud Sparhawk, Toni Weisskopf, Cat Rambo

Dreaming on the Diamond: A Look at Baseball in the Speculative Fiction Genre

Friday 14:00 – 14:45, 303A (CC)

Some of our best loved stories embrace America’s favorite pastime. How has the sport infiltrated the fantasy and science fiction genres? Are all baseball stories as nostalgic as Field of Dreams? Or are they more whimsy like Angels in the Outfield or Rhubarb? What about other sports?

Bradford Lyau, Patricia MacEwen, Cat Rambo, Rick Wilber, Bud Sparhawk

Reading – Cat Rambo

Friday 17:30 – 18:00, 303B (CC)

SFWA Business Meeting

Saturday 13:00 – 15:00, 300B (CC)

Kaffee Klatche – Cat Rambo

Saturday 16:00 – 16:45, 202A-KK2 (CC)

Join a panelist and up to 9 other fans for a small discussion. Coffee and snacks available for sale on the 2nd floor. Requires advance sign-up.

What New Pros Need to Know

Sunday 12:00 – 12:45, Conference Theater 110 (CC)

You’ve sold a few short stories. Your first novel is just coming out. The praise, the pans, the fans. How do you manage it all? What should you do to help your career along? What should you avoid? Here from people who have been there and done that, and hear how they got through it.

Cat Rambo (M), Wesley Chu, Wendy S. Delmater, Brandon Sanderson, Rhiannon Held