Sunday, August 21, 2016

Dispatches from the porch: Did you miss me? Day 21


So, you may have noticed that I silent last week. It was a matter of real life overwhelming me. Yes, II know. I keep saying I won't let it happen, don't I?  but it does, and so the writing suffered. But it really was me that suffered. Why can't I remember that I feel so much better when I'm writing? Can you guys remind me?

Anyway, today it's 70 degrees, and rainy, and my cat and I are sitting on the front porch, and it doesn't even feel like I'm on the surface of the sun!. I'm wearing a sweater! Weird, right? But it's all very pleasant, and I'm going to try to catch up. To prove I'm serious, here's a bit more with Adella and the vampire. I thought he was going to be awful, but maybe not. Maybe Adella can reform him......

"You were as much an oddity then as I am. A woman with that pack of thug medical students. You didn’t notice me, because there iron bars between us.” He move from behind the counter in a flash, to stand inches from her. He reached out to trail a blacken fingernail down the side of her face, scraping it over the crow’s feet at the corner of her eye. “You’re older now, of course. Same brassy girl in there somewhere, though, I expect.”
He inhaled again, and seemed to savor. Adella gave an involuntary flinch.
“You are not here to inquire after our wares, Missus.” His eyes narrowed. “No. You are not here to buy. You weren’t then, and you’re not now.”
Adella jerked out of the creature’s gasp. She pulled her pistol free and leveled at the vampire’s face. “Did you divine all that from my perfume? You’d be shocked what I’d do, for the sake of science. Of curiousity. For example, I know this shot wouldn’t kill you, but I’m not clear on how painful it would be, if I say, hit an eye. How long would it take to heal?”
She saw a break in his expression, a flicker. He said, “It would be horrible painful. And it would likely disfigure me.”
Beneath the menace he wore, Adella saw a flash of a creature caged.  She eased the gun back. “You’ve obviously won your freedom.” She said. “Why do you allow this all to continue?”
He laughed at her. “It is put others on the block or suffer it myself. That is how this world works.”
Adella took her finger from the trigger. She shook her head. “If you’re alone, that is how it is.”
He only laughed again.  “We live in two very different ones, Missis.”
Not anymore, she thought. Not for the moment. “Tell me, does the man Vicktor Lemnus have a stake in the auction? Or do you simply pay him your protection like all the other shops?”
“What business it is of yours?”


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