Roland Yeomans's Blog, page 21

NOIR- vember _ MISS FROM THE ABYSS

 My first NOIR-vember tale focuses on another WWII veteran, a sociopathic O.S.S. agent who quotes the stoics and others for a roadmap for his actions.

MISS FROM THE ABYSS

“The boundaries which divide Lifefrom Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, andwhere the other begins?”

- Edgar Allan Poe

 

Our visitor to the movie setstudied me as I studied her. I don’t know what she learned. I learned more thanI wanted.

The willowy redhead cast noshadow.

Once, that would have shaken me. Butthe War killed a lot of things … like the illusion that life made sense.

Now, I took the day as it cameand survived as best I could.

I did survive. So did MitchellMack beside me.

Ingrid, of the woodfire soul andsmoky eyes, did not.

No, I take it back. I didn’tsurvive. Since she died in my arms, I had only been going through the motions.

The woman who was not a woman hadan impassive face.

 It reminded me of what an ancient Greek statue must havelooked like when first sculpted: cold, beautiful, impersonal … there wasnothing to it that spoke of a soul beneath.

I thought of what Poe once wrote:“There is no beauty without some strangeness.”

But, then, what did he know? Hewas an opium addict.

Mitchell Mack, the only one of myO.S.S. team to survive the war, noted the absence of her shadow.

He grimaced, “Luke, you want Ishould cork her?”

She sneered, “As if you could,Pict.”

Yes, he was short. But he couldwhip his weight in Polar Bears … which meant he was hell on arctic cubs.

Cecil D, DeMille, a scowldeepening the lines of his face, carefully took off his spectacles … when youwere as important as he was, your glasses were called spectacles.

He approached my corner table onthe set. “Is my guillotine ready, Mr. Lucas?”

“I’m putting the finishingtouches on it tonight.”

“Excellent. Then, you may go offwith your lovely fr ….”

He stopped upon seeing her lackof a shadow. “As you can see for yourself, Director DeMille. She is no one’sfriend … not even her own.”

Her supple back straightened. “Ibeg your pardon!”

“You don’t have it. You are aslave … probably to something vaguely female to think sending an attractivewhatever you are will succeed in snaring a male.”

Her ethereal face just thenreminded me of something Wallace Stephens once wrote:

“I was the world in which Iwalked, and what I saw or heard or felt came not but from myself; And there Ifound myself more truly and more strange.”

I sneered at myself. It wasobvious that I had been hit on the head too many times in the war.

She hissed, “Hybla is noSomething but a goddess!”

I chided myself. I was off mygame. She was no servant. She was the master off slumming in some mischief.

“Mother of Monsters you mean,”snorted Mitchell Mack. “Me and Luke scurried about the mountains of Sicily fora time. We heard about your Hybla breaking loose from the underworld, screamingto kill some Captain Blaine.”

The demon turned to me. “You werea captain in the last war. Do you know where this Captain Blaine may be found?”

I murmured, “What is divinityif it can come only in silent shadows and in dreams?”

“What?” she snapped.

I sighed, “There were a lot ofcaptains in the war, ma’am. We were all hardly on a first name basis.”

She gave me a haughty smile as ifshe had just drawn the fourth Ace.

“But only one who is to work forthe singer Perry Como this weekend on another of his cross-country radio showflights.”

I sighed. That was another cluethat I was getting sloppy in my life. 

With the number of enemies I had, you hadto keep things close to the vest to keep on living.

That this demon knew this muchabout my schedule meant I was putting Mitchell Mack at risk. 

Unacceptable.

This April 5th, Mitchell Mack andI had been the studio technicians on his Chesterfield Supper Club which tookplace 20,000 feet in the air. 

It had been the first knowninstance of a complete radio show being presented from an airplane. Perry, JoStaffer, the Lloyd Shaffer Orchestra and the entire "Supper Club"crew made the flights for the show.

There were two "SupperClub" broadcast flights that evening: at 6 PM and again at 10 PM for theWest Coast broadcast of the show. A total of three flights were made that daysince there was an earlier rehearsal flight for reception purposes.

“Perry is a good man. Me andMitchell Mack haven’t met many of those.”

The Fairbairn-Sykes knife, thatformer teammate Darael made for me from the heart of a cooled meteor, burned inits ankle sheath.

It only did that in the presenceof utter evil. Good … and bad. Utter evil was damned hard to kill.

But, then, so was I.

“Mitchell Mack, you sit this oneout.”

“Like hell! We go down together,or we beat the odds together. But it’s together, Luke.”

I nodded, knowing a losing fightwhen I heard it, and turned to Hybla as I now knew her to be.

I turned to her. “Take me towhere you shang-haied him. I’ll talk sense to your Hybla.”

“And if she doesn’t listen?”

“Then, I’ll talk death. I figurethe two of us are quite fluent in that.”

Mitchell Mack whispered, “Luke,you and me ain’t going to Heaven after all we done. You die; you won’t go towhere Ingrid ended up.”

“No, but I won’t be mourning herhere.”

My luck, I would survive this. Then,maybe I’d live so long that I’d forget her. Maybe I’d die trying.

Hybla flashed that beauty queen smile, all teeth and no heart, “After me, gentlemen. I promise not to hurt you ... much.”

Mitchell Mack grunted, "Tell that to your eyes, sister."

I followed her to the opendoorway that started smoking in reams of blood red mist.

Mitchell Mack muttered, “Thisain’t the way to win, Luke.”

“Is there a way to win?”

“There’s a way to lose moreslowly.”

I shook my head. “When your headsays one thing and your whole life says another, your head always loses."

“That’s cemetery talk."

"Why not? The War buried us.The only thing is, we’re not dead."

“Yet.”

The mists cleared enough toreveal cracked stone steps leading down into darkness.

They had not been there thismorning.

Mitchell Mack pulled up short.“That tears it. Quit the act, Hybla.”

I smiled. So, my friend hadpieced it together, too.

“Oh, I wish you had caught Lukeat the top of his game, sister. He’d have had you for lunch, and I would havesat back and laughed at the sight.”

He ironed his face with hiscalloused fingers. “Now, it’s time for me to pull his fat out of the fire likehe done so many times for me in the war.”

He turned to me. “She never said shehad Perry, Luke. She just dropped the hint, and you ran with it.”

The penny dropped as the New Zealanderssaid. I wanted to kick myself. But it would have given Hybla too much satisfaction.

I looked hard at her. “You justwanted me as a cat’s paw to hunt down this Captain Blaine for you.”

Her face blurred, revealing a mottledskull’s face. “What of it? You will still do so, or I will kill your smarterfriend in front of ….”

Habla never saw me draw Darael’sdagger or move. None of my victims behind enemy lines ever did. I had begun tothink there was something cursed about the dagger.

I drove its blade between her nowshriveled breasts. It was over so quick, shock didn’t even have time to registeron her face. Though bone as it was, it might have been hard to tell if it had.

I cocked an eye to my startledfriend. “I haven’t lost all of my moves … just most of my marbles.”

“Luke, ever since you lostIngrid, you been dying in bits and pieces … like a slow leak. Ingrid’s memorydeserves better. Hell, I deserve better.”

I nodded. “I promise to work onit.”

He raised a skeptical eyebrow,and I said, “M&M (Ingrid’s name for him), when have I ever broken a promiseto you?”

Pale at my use of his nickname, herasped, “Never.”

“And I don’t intend on doing so now. I plan to do some heavy reflecting tonight when I set up DeMille’s guillotineon the lot tonight.”

“Need some company?”

I shook my head. “No, I need tobe alone to think things through. Besides, what could go wrong on a deserted movie lot?”

To find out just how much went awry, read the first chapter to FRENCH QUARTER REQUIEM:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084P819CQ

“A dead thing can go with thestream, but only a living thing can go against it.”

- G. K. Chesterton

NOIR-vember_ IWSG

 

I never know what this month's question is so I will ask all of you one of my own:

Do You Ever Just Have Fun With Your Blog?

or

Have You Ever Been Sparked Into

Writing by Something on the 'Net?

Take This Music Video:

Now, it took me 5 months, what with work and a bad heart, to write SAME AS IT NEVER WAS (soon to be published):

November is the month for NaNoWriMo.
If you've read my blog for long,you know what the ghost of Hemingway and Ithink of writing a novel in a month. https://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2017/11/iwsg-postwhat-do-dead-think-of-nanowrimo.html
Without a firm foundation,any house will fall in on itself.
There is no going backand fixing it in postas many modern movies prove.

That said,I believe I will do a month of NOIR-vember: As many Noir Flash Fictionsas my health, work, & monthwill allow me.

What Do You Think?
The first will be, of course, Miss From The Abyss

Since IWSG is supposed to befor struggling writers,here is a very helpful videofor us all:

Halloween Special: BEWARE THE VISITORS ON HALLOWEEN NIGHT

 

A Halloween treat for my friend, Misky, -- a chapter of SAME AS IT NEVER WAS that will not appear in my book soon to be published.

It is self-contained, but occurs directly after THE END IS THE BEGINNING:

https://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-end-is-beginning.html

SING YOUR DEATH SONG LIKE ANORPHAN COMNG HOME

I opened my eyes, ignoring thebruises all along my body grumbling their wake-up call.

What else did I expect when I wentto bed, my body tensed hard as a fist by barely surviving Mr. Morton, whatever Itwas?

Sleep when you thought about it wasbizarre.

When the sun sank, so did you …into a bed. You walked a scary world that couldn’t hurt you, helpless against atruly scary world that could … and would.

I got out of the comfy bed of HeadmasterStearns. He had slept comfortable, while the rest of us orphans squirmed onrock-hard cots.

I hoped his corpse shifted painfullyin the dirt of his unmarked grave.

I whispered my usual mantra uponleaving the bed, “Redeem the times, for the days are evil.”

“No, young sir,” rasped the harshvoice of Sister Ameal. “Rather the feckless sinners wasting those days makethem evil.”

Forcing the words out of asuddenly dry mouth, I said, “You need the permission of the current resident ofthese quarters to enter … Mr. Morton.”

“Since when?” It rasped, dropping its disguise.

“Since now. My dreams, my rules.”

“How did you know?” It growled,fading away.

I had awakened feeling refreshed. Thatnever happens in my waking world.

I felt tears burn at the edges ofmy eyes.

Why does a man cry? 

Not like awoman; not for that. Not for sentiment.

St. Marok's had burned sentimentout of me. 

I know, stupid, right?

(But I was eighteen and thought Iknew it all.)

A man cries over the loss ofsomething, something alive.

A man can cry over a sick animalthat he knows won't make it … which was why I never tried to keep pets here.

The death of a child: a man couldcry for that, or for the death of his childhood. Mine had arrived still-bornhere.

Not because things are sad. A mancries not for the future nor for the past but for the present.

I was getting sappy. Sappy gotyou dead at St. Marok’s.

Here, the enemy was not merelyanother group of human beings with a differing political persuasion. 

The enemyhere was death.

“You called?” 

whispereda female voice, sounding like a lost wind blowing across sandpaper.

Another unwanted visitor. HadCharles Dickens taken over my Halloween nightmare?

I noticed the locale had changed.I was standing  amidst a field of lonelytombstones.

Not in New Orleans then. We werebelow sea-level where buried coffins rose with the next hard rains.

In that way, you couldn’t keep agood man down … or a bad one for that matter.

“There are far worse places thanthis orphanage, mortal.”

“You going to show me slides?”

“There is Auschwitz.”

“You say that name as if itshould mean something.”

“It will in the future when youstumble across it and its few pitiable survivors.”

A flash of horrifying images slidacross my mind’s eye.

“Merde! Why did you show me that?”

“You asked for a slideshow. I gaveyou one. My Samhain trick for you. Something to look forward to.”

Death reached out as if to rufflemy hair. “I forgot. You find this gesture demeaning for some odd reason.”

“Go away!”

Death laughed, and it was thesound of an ice floe breaking apart.

“Oh, no, little alley puppy. I amno product of your bruised psyche. Death is one Entity that cannot be orderedaway … ever … especially on Samhain’s Eve.”

“Lucky me.”

“You have no idea. But in themonths to come, you will, my child.”

“You mean I’m ….”

“I will tell you nothing about yourself. ButI will tell you about me.”

Death sighed, and it sounded likethe soft breeze from an open tomb. “Do you know what scares me?”

She shivered, and that scared memore than even her appearing in my nightmare.

“Sometimes what looks out at youfrom a person's eyes died back in childhood. But what is dead in there stilllooks out. It is not just the body looking at you with nothing in it. There isstill something in there, but it died and just keeps on looking and looking andlooking.”

Her shivers grew worse. “Itcannot stop looking. My taking them is redundant. But take them I do.”

A coldness emanated from her innumbing waves. “Sometimes, then, they thank me. Thank me!”

Death faded slowly away. I feltmy hair ruffled.

“There. I did it anyway. HappyHalloween … my son.”

“Death is the mother of beauty.Only the perishable can be beautiful, which is why we are unmoved by artificialflowers.”

– Wallace Stephens

WORDS THAT COME ALIVE

 

We all have lost

Whether our hearts, our homes, our friends, or something we took for granted and has become ashes in our hands.

The pursuit of replacements for those irreplaceable things can lead to dark places.

Everything in life is just for a while.

Pluckon the common threads which run all through the tapestry of each of our lives and

 

you will have readers return again and again to your book.

The story of life: what you fear never happens, but what you most yearn for never happens either.

Is it a good trade-off? You tell me.

Hemingway wrote that the secret is writing poetry into prose.

Words that touch the heart live. 

Those that do not are empty sounds in the mind which do not even leave echoes behind.

BACK COVER script for SAME AS IT NEVER WAS

 Science is not wisdom anymore than a slide rule was a ruler. When you ask something to perform a function for which it was not made ...

... you get tbe sort of backwards world we have today where we ask humans to ignore their souls ... and wonder why we have hearts full of ashes.

Has it occurred to you that somewhere in the past, we as a race have lost our way?

If we could go back in time, could we set right what went wrong? Would we even recognize the moment when it all began to unravel?

That question gave birth to SAME AS IT NEVER WAS

HERE is the script to its back cover

THE PASTIS NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE

Robert Frost called the past a “Disused Graveyard”

Theliving come with grassy tread

To readthe gravestones on the hill;

Thegraveyard draws the living still,

But neverany more the dead.

What did he know? He was only a poet. They live in verse whilemost of us live in reverse … only realizing the import of life as we look at itin the rearview mirror.

In the mirrors of many judgments, my hands are the color ofblood.

Often inmine as well

I sometimes fancy myself an evil which exists to oppose otherevils.

On that great Day of which the prophets speak but in whichthey do not truly believe,

On that Day when the world is utterly cleansed of evil, then I, too, will go down into darkness, swallowing curses for things I’ve done toooften … or not enough.

 Some think I was amadman. Others just a man with special powers. Both groups are wrong.

Sentient, through me, changed the world. Who is Sentient? Comewith me to New Orleans of 1942 and find out.

DESIRING A WITCH

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CL5NB9W8/

The moment she arrives in California, Deirdre falls in lovewith the untamed land that will become the Widows’ Winery. 

Despite the localcattle baron having convinced everyone in Sonoma county not to sell thembuilding materials, 

she is determined to find a way to build their homes andthe winery before their time is up and the county can reclaim it.

Love triangles, Greed, Dirty Dealings, and Magic!

How can you go wrong?

Especially when the tale is spun by a master storyteller

like Heather McCorkle.

https://www.heathermccorkle.com/

Visit her beautiful revamped website. It is something to behold.

UNDER A VIOLENT MOON

 

Richard Blaine discovers that sometimes dying with love is far better than living without it.

UNDER A VIOLENT MOON

“Finding your way through thedarkness is how you discover the light.”

– Richard Blaine

 

“Kindly death,” once wrote EmilyDickinson, “is lurking everywhere.”

Wasn’t it just.

Helen Mayfair snapped beside me. “Thatis not what she wrote.”

“You can hear my thoughts?”

“Thankfully, no. Your years ofliving sequestered from the others has you speaking low to yourself.”

“Well, it was close to what shewrote.”

“No,” she sighed like a disappointedMiss Myers.

“Because I could not stop forDeath—

He kindly stopped for me— bears noresemblance whatsoever to what you said.”

Sister Ameal beside Helen curtlysaid, “Your inane sniping has had at least one benefit – it has temporarilystalled the advancing Amal.

”They’re real?!” I yelped.

You heard of Indigenous Tribes?Well, the Amal are what you might call America’s Indigenous Monsters.

When the first Chitimacha,with the Atakapa, Caddo, Choctaw, Houma, Natchez, and Tunica came to whatbecame New Orleans,  

The Amal werealready here waiting for them.

Happy predators they.

Being soul-eating creatures ofblack mist, the Amal were not exactly chatter-boxes. So, their human victimsnever learned from whence they came.

Perhaps, oozed out from somenether region under the primordial ancient sod of what became Louisiana.

Who knows?

All their victims knew was thatthe Amal were drawn to despair. 

Before the Indian tribes arrived, those mistycreatures must have had to subsist on depressed alligators I guess.

But despair has been chief residentin these parts with the arrival of humans. 

Slavery, corruption, voodoo onlyadded spice to the mix.

Sister Ameal whispered, “I mustleave you. My despair will only lend them speed.”

I frowned, “You despair, sister?”

“Greatly before your birth. Now, notso much. But merely the echoes of that darkness are too much for the Amal toresist.”

And with that, she was suddenlygone.

I shook my head. I didn’t knowwhat shocked me more: her disappearing act or the fact that my birth had meantsomething to her.

The shadows kept oozing along thewet stone of the alleyway. Right towards us.

I frowned, “Why are they stillcoming? I haven’t a smudge of despair. 

I’ve long since learned tomorrow is promisedto no one. If I die today, I’ll die laughing that I made it this long.”

Helen knocked on top of my head asif it were a door. “Imbecile! I despair.”

“You? Why? You’re beautiful,intelligent … a force of Nature.”

“I love … “ The next word cameout hushed, “… you.”

My chest emptying, I cocked myhead. “I know I’m not the greatest catch in the ….”

“Oh, Richard! Our love is forbidden.”

“Y-You’re going to be a nun?”

She reared her head to the darksky as if to bay at the moon. 

The Amal froze, quivering as if in ecstasy. This wasgoing to be so bad.

“No! You and I are … I am evenforbidden to tell you clearly. We are … of two different species!”

“Y-You look human to me.”

“Appearing and Being are twodifferent things.”

Exasperated at how things weregoing, I snapped, “What were you and Sister Ameal doing out here anyway?”

“We were both worried. You havebeen gone hours!”

“What? It hasn’t even been anhour since I left.”

“For you perhaps. But out here inreality, it has been hours.”

Helen drew her dainty revolverfrom the small of her back. I didn’t know what good bullets would do againstshadows.

I was going to show them the HandMirror of Enigmas myself, so I should talk.

She moved to my left, and I frowned.

Helen smiled sadly. “This isthe side your heart is on. It is the side where I choose to die.”

I started to speak, but she puther fingertips on my lips. “To die with you will not be so bad a thing asliving without you.”

At those words, a tremendous goldenlight blazed all around us as the Amal screamed in agony.

Helen rasped, “The ShekinahGlory!”

Having read every book in theorphanage’s library and most of the ones in Stearns’, I knew the term.

The Jewish rabbis coined thisextra-biblical expression, a form of a Hebrew word that literally means 

“Hecaused to dwell.”

It signified that it was a divinevisitation of the presence or dwelling of the Lord God on this earth.

The Shekinah was first evidentwhen the Israelites set out from Succoth in their escape from Egypt. There theLord appeared in a cloudy pillar in the day and a fiery pillar by night.

I blinked my eyes.

The Amal were nowhere to be seen.The alleyway floor was turned to gold. Real gold, burnished as if polished foryears … or eternity.

It didn’t stay, of course.

The alleyway soon became aspitted as the surface of the moon … and about as far away from God as the moon,too.

Helen whispered, “I guess when …one of my species feels love, He appears.”

We never spoke of her admissionafter that.

I had many more chess games withMr. Morton, each one nastier and trickier than the last.

Helen was distant for a time. Butlittle by little, she began to laugh again.

We grew closer and closer, neverspeaking of how each of us knew how the other felt.

Then, the morning came when Helencame to me with what I knew was my draft notice in her trembling, too long tobe human fingers.

She leaned up, her lips becomingready for the kiss about which I had long dreamed.

I arched as if tiny daggers ofice pierced me.

Copper snowflakes swirled aboutme in a storm of fury and sound.

Then, nothing.

If Helen Mayfair had a theme, this would be it:

THE GAME OF LIFE … AND DEATH

The orphan, Richard Blaine, is thrust into a surreal chess game with One many fear is the Devil itself.

THE GAME OF LIFE … AND DEATH

“Man loves recalling life, but hedoes not enjoy living.”

- Lamashtu Morton

 

“I think I’ll stand,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because you want me to sit.”

Morton shook that withered,emancipated head.

“You see yourself as a hero inone of those historical melodramas in your library. You are deluded.”

Its face was living contempt.

Not mercy, not compassion, noranything remotely human glimmered in its wet stone eyes.

But then, considering who I thoughtit might be, what else did I expect?

“Real life is filled withinvisible razors under your bare feet. It is cruel. It doesn't care aboutheroes and happy endings and the way things should be.

 In real life, bad thingshappen. People die. Fights are lost. Evil wins every day.”

It flashed a smile of smugassurance. “Like with this game of life … and death.”

“You’ll have to play to find out,sir.”

“Sir? Respect?”

I shook my head. “Acknowledgementof more years than mine.”

“I was sung into being before thevery concept of time, you talking chimpanzee!”

“Figured as much … sir.”

Its face was a living sneer. 

“Whatdreary painting do you suppose one of your sentimental, literal-mindedsimpletons would craft of this moment?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care. Whatothers think of me matters nothing to me.”

Its caricature of an eyebrowlifted. “Really?”

I smiled darkly, knowing of whomhe spoke. “Helen Mayfair is not a simpleton nor an Other. She is one of a kind,unique.”

“More true than you know …simpleton.”

“Not so simple that I don’trealize that the spread of evil is merely the result of a vacuum. 

Whenever evilwins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the factthat there can be no compromise on basic principles.”

It snorted. “And tsunamis ofgenocide have washed away millions fighting over which culture’s basicprinciples were correct.”

I shrugged. “I never stated thatmankind wasn’t flawed. Sometimes the darkness lives inside you, and sometimesit wins.”

“Then, not a complete simpleton,merely a backwater hayseed.”

“Coming into Jerusalem, riding adonkey.”

Its eyes narrowed, and I continued,“All that we have, all that we are is on loan. Our lives are not about us.”

Its eyes were mere slits, and I wastempted to ask how it could see that way, but I shelved that idiot question andinstead asked,

“I do not know who my father was,do you?”

A coldness emanated from it that Icould feel deep in my bones.

“I’ll take that silence as a no.Here’s a thought: what if in our chess game, every time we make a move, reality is changed.”

“We have not made any ….”

It stared at the shimmering boardwhose pieces were scattered all over it. Many of his black pieces were completelyoff to the side.

As we watched, one of my pawnsblurred, becoming a second Queen.

“You are cheating!” it hissed.

“It is a perfectly legitimate move.You are allowed to promote one of your pawns to a second Queen. It happens allthe time in chess games.”

All the time, yes. But not in theway it had just happened. Besides, we both knew neither of us had moved anypieces.

Someone else was responsible.

Perhaps Someone who frowned on Mr.Morton going back on its word not to harm me in this game? Who knew?

But judging from the furious,scared look on Morton’s face, it suspected the same Someone I did.

My second Queen blurred, becominga second King – something that absolutely never happens in chess.

It’s face became livid, and I lamelysmiled, “I guess you prefer to be your own choreographer.”

It sprang up from its goldenthrone, (modest it was not) and charged around the table, sharp, black clawsoutstretched.

“Check out time,” I muttered andpulled the only weapon I brought with me: one of the two artifacts which keptMorton from Stearns’ quarters –

The handheld Mirror of Enigmas,which showed the viewer who and what he was.

Apparently, Mr. Morton, unlike Socrates,was not into self-examination.

It wailed, throwing up its clawsin front of its wizened face.

I stumbled in my haste to makehaste, and another set of claws latched onto the back of my neck.

I was wrenched off my feetbackwards into a secret passageway that I had not known existed in Morton’s mansion.

Guttural words hissed into myleft ear as we scurried down wet, slippery cobblestones, “Could you not havelet That One win in his own lair?”

Deborah!

“It was taken out of my handsactually.”

“Well, this has certainly severedThe Dark One’s bond with my People. For saving you like this, I and my Peoplewill be hounded by Morton!”

A maddeningly familiar voicesaid, 

“This has been ordained where such things must be. I will take you andyour People to a place even the Dark One may not go so as to await the time of Armageddonwhere you and the librarian may be reunited.”

Harsh, but strangely soft, lipsbrushed my cheek.

“So be it. Richard Blaine, we makepromise. So long as The Blood endures, I shall know that your good is mine: yeshall feel that my strength is yours: 

In that day of Armageddon, at the lastgreat fight of all, Our Houses will stand together, and the pillars will notfall.”

“But I have no House,” I protested.

‘Yet,’ a smallstillness murmured within my mind.

The almost-familiar voice chuckled, 

“Now, that is a sentiment I can get behind. In fact, I will be there myself to do so. Now,Librarian, off with you to fight a doomed battle with the fledgling.”

As Deborah and I both yelped atthat statement, 

I was pushed out of the passageway to stumble beside a stunnedHelen Mayfair into the sort of alleyway a wino would hole up in to die.

“When first we met, I did notguess that Love would prove so hard a master.”  - Helen Mayfair
The Music below really is stirring.Give it a listen.

THE WITCHING HOUR

 

The orphan, Richard Blaine, must find it within himself to fight his worst enemy: his own fear.

THE WITCHING HOUR

“Man’s knowledge is a recedingmirage in an ever- expanding desert of ignorance.”

- Lamashtu Morton

 

“You agreed to what?” explodedMiss Mayfair the next morning in the library.

“It was the only way I could keepyou safe.”

“I am a big girl, Mr. Blaine. Ican keep myself safe, thank you very much!”

“I know. Just three days ago, Isaw you take out those three Triad assassins who slipped in here 

before I couldeven completely get out of the chair.”

Her eyes narrowed. 

“And just whywere you getting out of the chair in the first place?”

“To help you hide the bodies.It’s what a good assistant librarian does for his supervisor.”

Sister Ameal, who was watching usamused, said, 

“Which you should have known I would help her with. It is what agood sensei does for her gakusei.”

She turned to Miss Mayfair. 

“ButMr. Blaine is correct. If you went with him, his mind would be divided. Andthat would prove fatal for our young librarian.”

Miss Mayfair gave a half-heartedprotest, but Sister Ameal was right … as she frustratingly always was.

So, that was how that night, Iwas in my Sunday’s best in the library reading Psalm 91:

“4 He shall cover thee withhis feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thyshield and buckler.

5 Thoushalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth byday;

6 Nor forthe pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wastethat noonday.

7 Athousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but itshall not come nigh thee.

8 Onlywith thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.

9 Becausethou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thyhabitation;

10 Thereshall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.

11 For heshall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.”

It was at that very moment thatHelen Mayfair walked into the library like a longed-for mirage of water in thedesert.

Slipping the Hanged Mancard into the Bible for a bookmark, I rose sharply to my feet.

“Miss ….”

“Richard, tonight call me Helen.”

“A-All right, Helen.”

She brought a slim leatherboundvolume from her skirt’s pocket: 

Thomas Babington Macaulay’s Lays of AncientRome.

“There is a verse in this bookthat has always spoken to me. I knew not why. Tonight, I know.”

She brought the volume up, and itopened naturally to a spot as if she had turned to that page often. 

Her voicechanged, becoming stirringly Other:

“Then out spake brave Horatius,

The Captain of the Gate:

"To every man upon thisearth

Death cometh soon or late.

And how can man die better

Than facing fearful odds,

For the ashes of his fathers,

And the temples of hisgods?"

“Helen, I don’t plan on dying.”

A deep voice unlike any I hadever before spoke from the shadowed ceiling. 

“None do when the End arrives.”

Helen cried to the ceiling. “Youpromised me time before you took him to Morton.”

“And time was yours. You spent itgirlishly on verse when you could have given him his first, his last kiss.”

I felt lifted, though I stillstood on the floor. His voice whispered in my ear.

“I take you to the Dark One,while taking the memory of our meeting from your mind. 

If you survive, we willmeet across the seas. If … if … if ….”

Music, strange and stirring, filledthe darkness around me.

Then, no lifting, no pulling. Iwas suddenly in front of Mr. Morton, studying an antique chessboard with ivorypieces.

It, of course, sat behind theblack chessmen.

It cocked its withered head.“Interesting overture with which Elohim has graced you. 

The prelude to a movie not yet made.

Should you survivetonight – which you will not – my adversary means you to be the new T.E.Lawrence.”

I frowned. “As in The SevenPillars of Wisdom? Lawrence of Arabia?”

I made a face. 

“The sevenpillars, huh? Well, I do believe in the unseen. It’s when they become seen thatI have a hard time with them.”

“I bore of this empty verbiage.Let us proceed with your death, shall we? Sit down.”

THE HANGED MAN

 

The orphan, Richard Blaine discovers that when things change inside you, things change around you.

THE HANGED MAN

“By the time Louisiana fell underAmerican control, New Orleans had become a city of debauchery and corruptioncamouflaged by decadence.

In other words, my kind ofcity.” 

- Lamashtu Morton

 

It was All Saints Day, and youwould think I could find a little peace in an empty library.

You would be wrong.

“I want my daughter out of thishorrid place!”

I sighed and slipped the Tarotcard of “The Hanged Man” in the book I was reading to mark the spot.

I made sure it was right-side upwhich signified wisdom, circumspection, discernment, trials, sacrifice,

St. Marok’s hadgiven me my share of trials and sacrifice. I could use the rest of the card’sattributes … in spades … to continue with the card analogy.

I fought another sigh. Just whenI thought I had run out of new books to read in the orphanage’s library, Ifound this one:

Julian Jaynes’s The Origin ofConsciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.

I think I had instinctivelystayed away from it due to its cumbersome title.

I had robbed myself. 

The words ofthe book were fascinating: their metaphorical verve, their self-satirizingcharisma, and their lonely intimacy.

If a book was well written, Ialways found it too short.

Mrs. Mayfair tapped a long, redpolished nail on the head of the card’s figure.

“This halo burning brightlyaround the hanged man's head signifies higher learning or enlightenment.”

She sniffed sharply. “Obviously,you have an inflated sense of your own importance.”

“Or a desire to be more than Ipresently am.”

She looked like she would havespat in my face if only she had not been so well bred.

Her two police bodyguards –Heckle and Jeckel I called them mentally – looked bored.

Guard duty for a superciliouswoman must have been dreary for them. 

But having lost his first wife to asloppy mob hitman, Commissioner Mayfair was not about to take any more chanceswith this wife’s safety.

“Frankly, I do not see what mydaughter sees in you.”

“A diligent coworker, ma’am.”

“Oh, puh-lease! At home, it hasbeen one long litany of ‘Richard this’ or ‘Richard that’ until I think I maylose ….”

“Your genteel sophistication?”

I earned the slap she gave me,but it was worth the look on her and the policemen’s faces. It looked as thoughone officer fought a cheer.

At that moment, the library dooropened, and the feisty Miss Myers walked briskly in. “Ah, Mr. Blaine, I see youare having your customary effect on the female populace.”

“Yep. First, Marie Laveau. Now,Cassandra Mayfair.”

“Mrs., whelp!”

Then, my words hit her. “Helenwas not exaggerating, then? You … you both met the legendary Voodoo Queen?”

I nodded, and her face becametruly somber as if she might truly care for Helen, ah, Miss Mayfair.

Mrs. Mayfair rose elegantly withan air of true sadness descending upon her.

“Mr. Blaine, you may have a bitof the prophetic nature of the Hanged Man, after all.”

The cheek she so stinginglyslapped, she now tenderly stroked.

“The Hanged Man, you socavalierly use as a bookmark, is associated with sacrifice. Sometimes, for thegreater good of all, you may have to sacrifice your own desires for the needsof someone else.”

She sighed and turned awaycalling back to me over her shoulder, “Think upon that.”

As the door closed upon her andher chuckling bodyguards, Miss Myers snorted, 

“Or not. Unlike her namesake,Cassandra Mayfair’s predictions are the opposite of true, Mr. Blaine. Much likethe reading for the reversed Hanged Man card.”

I shrugged. “Sacrifice is whatothers ask of you but wouldn’t dream of doing themselves.”

“Exactly, Mr. Blaine. You arelearning.”

“Not nearly fast enough.”

“No. Not at all.”

She smiled knowingly. “You willhave to learn much faster to keep up with Miss Mayfair.”

“Why is everyone so interested inme and Miss Mayfair?”

Her chuckle deepened. “We oldbiddies are romantics at heart. 

Oh, by the by, you have a visitor of the femalepersuasion waiting for permission to enter the library.”

The way she said “femalepersuasion” raised the hackles at the back of my neck, and I said, “Youmean not human female, right?”

“Yes, indeed. She said to tellyou that she was the sister of Dapper Dan, and you would understand.”

“I don’t, but I will be happy tosee her.”

“You would.”

Miss Myers turned to go, but Iasked, “Why did this fall to you?”

“Ah, I am afraid Miss Tethers istaken with the vapors and is recuperating at her home. 

I fear she will not lastlong as headmistress here. She has not the substance for it.”

“She might grow that substance.”

“I have substance, Mr. Blaine.You have substance. All who would survive here must have substance. All she hasis an aversion to uncertainty and challenge.”

“But that’s what all life is,ma’am.”

“Exactly, young sir, which is whyI fear it is not in the cards, to keep with your Tarot analogy, for our MissTethers to long be tethered to this world.”

As she left the library, chucklingat her own joke, she called over her shoulder, “I will send the sister of yourDapper Dan in shortly.”

As it turned out, it was veryshortly.

There was a rustle of a fullVictorian skirt. I looked up and recognized the design from my reading ofhistory books: an exquisite scarlet and gold Charles Worth dress.

I didn’t recognize who waswearing it … or I almost did and didn’t at the same time.

The face framed by long,luxuriant chestnut hair was almost a twin to Dapper Dan’s. Maybe the lips werefuller, more feminine .., the eyes more heavy lidded. But that was it.

I got up and pulled out the chairopposite me for the sister to sit. She stiffened for a moment, then sat downwith a curious grace.

“That is a beautiful dress,” Isaid as I sat down.

“Sister Ameal gave it to me … asan insult and mockery.”

I sighed, “Sister Ameal is ….”

“What she is as I am what I am. Butan insult only cuts if you perceive it as such. I chose to see it as areflection of her own shortcomings not mine.”

I smiled. “Very wise … ah, whatis your name?”

“My racedistinguishes one another by scent. What would you call me, Richard Blaine?”

Withoutthinking about it, I said, “Deborah.”

“Why,might I ask?”

“Deborahwas a prophet, poet, and the only female judge of Israel named in the OldTestament. The only woman to be called a prophet, and the only one described asperforming a judicial function. Deborah is a decisive figure in the defeat ofthe Canaanites.”

“Thatname came to you without thought.”

I tappedthe Hanged Man card I was using as a bookmark.

 “This card is supposed toindicate that the one for whom it is drawn has intuition, divination, and thegift of prophecy. Perhaps it is truer than I believed.”

“Perhaps.I will take your name as the honor you intended it to be not as a precursor ofanything more than that.”

I nodded.“So, to what do I owe the honor you are paying me with this visit?”

Deborahshook her head. 

“No wonder my brother was taken aback by you. My species cansmell if you humans tell the truth or not. You actually meant what you justsaid.”

“I wouldnot insult his memory by telling his sister a lie. Besides, a lie leads a manfrom a grove into a jungle. Why would I do that to myself?”

Deborahpurred deep in her throat. “I could wile away the morning conversingdelightfully with you, but my time is not completely my own.”

I made afist of my right hand. “I would break the chains of your race’s slavery if Icould.”

“But youhave. You and my brother have ended my species indentured captivity with yourfriendship and his translation.”

“I don’tunderstand.”

“Nor doI, but an angelic figure told me the moment you left, and from the way The DarkOne hissed at him, I believed what I was told.”

Mystomach grew cold, and Deborah sighed, “No, it was not The Mayfair. Her time isnot yet come.”

“Whattime?”

“Do youtruly wish to know?”

I didn’t haveto ponder my answer. “No.”

“Wise. Wemust let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that iswaiting for us.”

Her headbowed then lifted, “The Angelic Figure said you and he would meet some timehence across the ocean.”

“I don’tintend on crossing any ocean.”

“Yourfate and mine are not our own.”

I thoughtabout the ongoing war and how soon I would reach draft age.

She kepton. “I came to give thanks for my People for acting as the catalyst for ourfreedom … though we must still run errands for The Dark One in return for our …room and board.”

I startedto speak, but she held up a clawed hand. “Bide. The other reason I came was toinvite you to his mansion for a series of chess games.”

She sawmy face. “Your safety assured he promises.”

“Uh,huh.”

“I do nottrust That One either. But if you refuse, I sense he would act against TheMayfair, for that is the way his mind works.”

“How canI refuse such a gracious invitation?”

“Thefirst will be tomorrow at the Witching Hour.”

“Midnight?”

“No. Whenthe Church worldwide has no services, and thus the gate to Hell is somewhatloosened: the time between 3:00 am and 4:00 am.”

I cocked an eyebrow. "Funtimes await.”

“I thinknot.”