For All Those Who Complain About Explicit “smutty” Books Or Smut In Fic In General:

He sat upon a hilltop, watching out over the plane of existence he lived in. He was a demon, minor lord of a plane of Hell. Unfortunately, he was melancholic about his life and the position he was in.

His father was Lucifer, the king of fallen angels, and lord of all of Hell. His mother was Lilith, the first human. In this sense, he was closer to humanity than any of his siblings; the only child of the cursed, immortal woman who had never truly fallen – at least not in the sense that man had.

He had dark, curly hair, short horns growing from his forehead, and black, leathery wings. He wore only a simple tunic, with a belt tied at the waist. He needed no shoes, and he was discontent with his lot in life.

For he was a simple creature, in his own way – all he desired in life was to drink and be merry, to spend his existence harming none in his debauchery. But that was not his job – he was the child of Lucifer, the child of blue flame – he was to be a fearsome creature, a servant of darkness – but try as he might, he could never bring himself to harm a soul – even the blackest among the damned were spared his whip, for he was a gentle soul – despite his appearance and heritage.

He sighed deeply, as his brother came up from the other side of the hill. “Iscarbiel,” hailed the demon, “What are you doing?”

The demon, dressed similarly but with a blue skin and red eyes, pointed teeth and large, curling ram’s horns, a longsword strapped to his side, walked up and sat beside him. “Nothing, Jimarciel,” said Iscarbiel.

“Nothing,” said Jimarciel, gnashing his teeth, “Nothing seems to be all you do nowadays!”

Iscarbiel leaned back, onto the scorched black grass of Asphodel. “Leave me be, Jimarciel. You do enough evil for the both of us, is that not true?”

Jimarciel laughed, a haughty, unearthly rattle. “Indeed I do,” he ceded, “But it is not me that father cares about. You are his favorite, and he demands your presence. Good luck, little brother.”

Iscarbiel got up, stretched, and began walking down the hill, towards the blackened hellscape through the fields of the damned, towards the black castle atop a mountain. His ears numb to the screams of the tortured, he flapped his wings once, twice, and was lifted, flying upwards towards the castle in which he lived, and hated with almost every fiber of his being.

Landing on a parapet encasing a balcony, avoiding the wickedly-pointed spears every couple of feet, and climbing down, he walked into his room, down the stairs and into the throne-room of his father.

His father looked much the same as him, with pale skin and a goatee, but with straight hair kept short, and nearly three times the height of a normal man. Sitting on a throne of dragon-bone and cushioned with blackened fabric, he walked forward, between tables where demons and fallen angels sat feasting on roasted animal carcasses, drinking wine of finest vintage.

Lucifer was angry. Iscarbiel walked slowly forward, to stand in front of his father.

His father glared at him, and began to speak in a voice, deep as the fathoms of the ocean and booming like thunder. “My son… you are weak.”

The assembled court laughed at this, as they continued their feast. Slamming the butt of his pitchfork, the symbol of his rule, into the ground, Lucifer bellowed, “Silence!”

“You have not tasted blood. You are not a torturer, like Jimarciel, or a general of great renown like Falzlynnel. You are not a magus, like Arunic, or a soldier, like Varysin. You are… weak.”

Loathing dripped from every word he spoke.

“But there is hope for you yet, my whelp, for our guards have caught something that you can… play with.”

Iscarbiel would sweat, if his body could, and fear crept into him like a poisoned dagger. What would his father have him do?

“An angel, sent by my father, to spy on me. Caught by Jimarciel, and brought alive to our dungeons. You will torture it until it swears allegiance to me, and then slaughter it. This is my command; carry it out and your rewards will be great. But be warned,” he almost whispered, in a sibilant hiss, ‘If you fail me, your screams will be far louder and greater than any that now resound across my plane.”

Iscarbiel kneeled, silently, trying to think of a way out of this. None was forthcoming, unfortunately.

“Lonchoriel! Show him to his prey.”

A fallen angel, dressed in fine, purple robes, stood, bowed before Lucifer, and spoke, “Thank you, my lord.”

Lonchoriel lead Iscarbiel down a spiral staircase to the left of the throne room, not speaking as he walked down, down into the depths, beyond the castle and into the bowels of the mountain. Finally, they entered the dungeons, darkened cells where his father’s prisoners were kept. Down the hallway to the very end, where a large door was chained shut. Whispering the password to the door, a word in a language only pronounceable by demons and the damned,  he turned and walked back down the hallway, speaking a simple warning. “Do not fail your father.”

With Lonchoriel gone, Iscarbiel gulped, and walked into the room, not knowing what to expect. He had never left his father’s realm – he had never waged war on the heavens, and he had never seen an angel. From the words of Jimarciel he expected an alien, monstrous entity – something of fire and death, whose hatred of the hells knew no bounds. Something awful, no doubt.

But walking into the torture chamber, he saw something he had never expected to see.

She seemed so… normal. Inhumanly beautiful, with amber hair – but still, alike to his mother and to him. Human in appearance, but with the feathered wings of a pure-white dove, folded behind her. Chained to the ceiling, kneeling on the ground but with her hands suspended above her head, she appeared barely conscious, with superficial bruises and cuts probably incurred in her capture. Upon his entrance, she looked up, and he saw her eyes – humanlike, but with orange irises that matched the shade of her hair. She spat on the ground – blood, red like a human’s, mixed in with the saliva. “Do your worst, demon,” she hissed.

Iscarbiel was dumbstruck. Moving to stand before her, he began to try and sound intimidating, “Fear me, angel, for I am the son of Lucifer – the Morningstar, the Blue Flame, the Lord of Hell – fear me because I am here to –,” he stopped, slapping his forehead. “Oh, enough talk.”

He pulled a tray of torture implements towards him. He was pretty sure how most of them worked – or, at least some of them. Picking up a scalpel, he moved towards her, and she glared at him, looking him in the eyes, unflinching as he moved the scalpel towards the flesh below her right eye. Just as it was about to touch skin, he stopped, stood up, put it down, hyperventilating. “Nine hells damn it all,” he exclaimed.

“You aren’t very good at this,” she observed, watching him closely.

“No, no I am not,” he concurred, staring down at the tray and shaking his head. “I’m Iscarbiel.”

“Anabiel.”

“Charmed, I’m sure.”

They stood there in silence for a couple moments, neither speaking, wondering what they should do. He couldn’t bring himself to torture her, and she knew it. His father was right. He was… weak.

“So, Iscarbiel, what do we do now?”

“I don’t know, Anabiel, what do we do?”

“You could let me go,” she said, cheekily.

“You have absolutely no idea how impossible that would be,” he sighed. “My father doesn’t trust me to do this, and I’m damned sure he’ll check in before the night is done.”

“Have you ever tortured someone before?” she inquired.

“Nope. Never before in my life have I done something like this. I mostly hung around his courts, listening to my older brothers’ tales of glory, how they torture the damned and kill angels – no offense.”

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t offended just a little bit.”

“Well, in either case – I never had the stomach for this sort of thing. I’m a fan of decadence, I take to the wine a little more than most, but I’m not a torturer. Any recommendations?”

“Well, torture doesn’t normally come with this much banter.”

“I figured as much,” he said, sitting down in front of her, pushing the wheeled cart aside.

“What will I do,” he pondered, half to himself. “I can’t torture anything, never have, probably never will. But if I don’t my father will torture me.”

“He’d torture his own flesh and blood?”

Iscarbiel laughed, and pulled down the front of his tunic a little to reveal a score of scars, aged and healed whip-scars. “it wouldn’t be the first time.”

Anabiel went quiet. “I’m sorry about your father,” she paused, as if shocked that she had said something like that. “I didn’t think I’d ever say that to a demon,” she explained.

“Well, I’ve never met an angel in my existence, so I think we’re both in rather uncharted territory.”

“Shouldn’t we loathe each other with every fiber of our existences?”

“Probably,” he said, “But I’ve never been particularly demonic or malicious, even for a demon. Especially for a demon,” he paused, then the questions came pouring out, “Why did you come to Hell? If I left, I’d never come back. Ever. Why risk it?”

She bristled, and then began to speak, “I can’t tell you that. Is this your endgame? Pretend to be incompetent and then hope that gets me to spill all the answers? I have to admit, that’s clever.”

“No, nothing like that! Honest!”

She spat on the ground again. “A likely story. Get out of here!”

He got up, a little in shock, and walked out of the room. Outside, he found someone waiting for him. Jimarciel was standing there, a disgusted look on his face. “I knew you couldn’t do it. Father’s right, you’re weak.”

He pushed Iscarbiel aside, and with a wave of his hand, disguised himself perfectly as Iscarbiel. “Leave,” he said. “I’m going to make her talk, and you’ll get the credit for it. I hate your weakness,” he growled, “But you are my blood, for better or for worse.”

As Jimarciel turned to the door, Iscarbiel grabbed his shoulder. “Don’t do it, Jii.”

Jimarciel turned back, and pushed Iscarbiel across the hall, to the base of the stairs. “And what will you do to stop me, whelp? You are a weakling. You can’t even torture a human soul – how could father have trusted you to torture an angel?”

Iscarbiel got up, shakily. And walked forward. “Back away, Jimarciel. I’m warning you.”

Jimarciel laughed and drew his longsword, blackened, infernal steel hissing with the evil with which it had been tempered. “Warning me, now, are you? Run away, you little fool, before I destroy you.”

Iscarbiel took a stumbling step forward, unarmed. Jimarciel laughed and took a stance, with his blade in position so it would be ready to strike. The air smelled of ozone as the blade crackled. “Don’t hurt her,” said Iscarbiel, shakily but resolute.

“Don’t hurt her,” mocked Jimarciel. “She’s an angel. She’s our enemy. Given the power, she would destroy us all. Don’t you care for your flesh and blood? Turn and flee, cur. It’s what you’re good at.”

A million memories flooded Iscarbiel’s mind. Of being bullied by his brothers, of Jimarciel and Falzlynnel laughing at him, beating him into a pulp and him being afraid to speak back. “Not anymore.”

Iscarbiel charged. He did not know what he had planned, but Jimarciel was ready. Driving the blade towards Iscarbiel, he expected an easy kill. But Iscarbiel was not so obliging. Diving into a roll, he went beside the blade, punching Jimarciel in the throat with all of his meager might.

Jimarciel gagged, a hiss, as his blade cleaved into the floor. Running into the cell, Iscarbiel grabbed a blade from the rolling cart of torture equipment. He looked at it, a simple enough dagger, and he readied himself to fight. Jimarciel growled, ripping his blade from the ground and turning to Iscarbiel.

“What will you do now, little one,” he hissed, “What will you do now that you’ve cornered yourself? I will take no mercy on you now.”

“I expected as much,” muttered Iscarbiel, readying himself to die.

Jimarciel laughed and charged forward, bloodlust making him foolish. This time he made sure to be ready for a quick dodge, but this time Iscarbiel was not going to dodge. Throwing himself onto the blade, he drove his dagger into Jimarciel’s heart. “What...?”

Jimarciel let go of his sword, looking down at the blade that had pierced his chest. The blade was of hell-forged steel, like his own. Pulling it out, he watched blackened ichor pour from the wound. Kneeling, then falling over, he moved no more.

Walking over to his brother’s corpse, with the longsword stuck through the right side of his stomach, ichor leaking from his pierced side. Groaning, he groped around on his brother’s corpse, finally finding it. His master key. Walking over to the angel, he unlocked her shackles. “Go,” he said, falling over and leaning on the ground, pain overwhelming, “Run. You can escape.”

Anabiel knelt next to him, lifting his head. “Go!” he hissed, barely able to breathe.

She put her hand to the base of the wound, then, reaching up, pulled it free from his stomach. He screamed, but she covered his mouth. Putting an ichor-soaked finger to her mouth, indicating silence, she put a hand on the wound, whispered a word in Enochian, and it stitched itself shut. “Come with me,” she whispered.

Catching his breath, he nodded.

They made their way up the stairs as quietly as possible, and he whispered to her, “At the top of this staircase is my father’s throne room. If I distract them, you can escape out the balcony at the back of the room. You can still fly, can’t you?”

She nodded. “What about you?”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll guard your escape and follow if I can.”

She looked worried.

“Don’t concern yourself with me,” he whispered. “I’m demonspawn, remember? I’m not capable of redemption.”

They reached the top of the stairs, and Iscarbiel ran into the center of the room, quite a sight, covered in black ichor as he was, both his own and his brother’s.

“Father!” he screamed. Lucifer rose from his throne, holding his pitchfork resolutely. “I’m tired, father. I’m tired of my brothers. I’m tired of this court. I’m tired of you.”

“Watch your tongue, boy! I have fought gods! Destroyed nations! What have you done, apart from embarrass my bloodline?”

Iscarbiel saw Anabiel sneak out the back, and he laughed back at his father. “Embarrass your bloodline? Don’t make me laugh! You were defeated, what have your fights wrought you but this wretched place?”

Lucifer howled, his appearance shifting as he took a more suitable size, similar to his son’s. His skin was black as coal and his face a triple, with one on each side save the back. The eyes of each face glowed crimson, and his wings burnt black and skeletal. “Know your place, boy!”

Iscarbiel drew his blade into a ready stance, ready to fight. Lucifer charged, his attack pattern more sophisticated than Jimarciel’s. Within seconds, he had gripped Iscarbiel by the throat, lifting him into the air. “What has the angel brought out of you, boy? What hidden nature is this?”

Iscarbiel saw Anabiel, wings spread, flying off of the balcony and away, further and further, into the distance.

“Love, father.” Iscarbiel choked out.

“Love,” sneered Lucifer.

Dropping the boy, he struck forward with the pitchfork, driving it through Iscarbiel’s chest.

“Love will not save you, boy.”

Iscarbiel lay back onto the floor as ichor drained from his body, and he blacked out, and saw no more.

 ---Epilogue---

Iscarbiel awoke in a white, formless landscape. Standing across from him was a muscled angel, who seemed normal enough, save for the third eye in the center of his forehead. Getting quickly to his feet, he stood in a defensive stance.

“Fear not, worm. I am not here to harm you. I’m here to save you, per my sister’s request.”

“Who?” Iscarbiel began.

“Don’t be rude, Metatron,” spoke a familiar voice behind him. Turning, he saw Anabiel.

“Anabiel! How-,” Iscarbiel stopped himself before he said it. How was he not dead?

“I petitioned my father for your return. He sent Metatron to draw you out of the void. I accompanied.”

“Why?”

“I saw something in you, Iscarbiel. Something no demon has shown before.”

Metatron began to speak. “I see all, boy. I was there when your father betrayed his, and his brethren like me. I see in you what was in him before he turned from the light. Bravery. Honor,” here he paused, “Love.”

“Your bravery in offering your life to save an angel was enough to make you an anomaly; expecting nothing in return made you a hero. And heroes deserve heaven’s blessings, regardless of their father’s sins.”

Anabiel gripped Iscarbiel’s hand. “Follow me,” she said, and lead him into paradise.

You’re a demon. A pretty awful one, might I add. You should have been an angel instead. The other demons constantly harass you for not fitting in or being like them. You end up falling in love with an angel and you have to convince her that you’re not like the others.

“I swear they’re coming around,” said the man in purple robes and a gold crown, as he wandered down the hallway, open to the outside world on the right side, with marble pillars. He had black hair, with a short, well-kept beard growing, giving him the appearance of perhaps a twenty-something year old man.

“That’s all well and good, my king,” spoke the man walking with him, of about the same age. This one was dressed in plate mail, carrying a longsword at his waist. The armor is finely wrought, of steel and adorned with images of lions fighting serpents and the sun rising on each shoulder. His hair is the color of steel, though he does not seem much older. “But it never hurts to be prepared. Especially when they have been routinely sending assassins after you. You barely got away with your life last time.”

“Ah,” said the king, waving the man off as if he had said something meaningless, “What’s a few Drividien Death-Scorpions between the two most powerful families in the realms? Besides, with you there, they may as well have been sending me bouquets, my knight,” he ended, on a sarcastic note.

The knight closed his eyes and sighed, turning to his lord and speaking in hushed tones, “You know even I will fail given enough time. It is better to not give them a chance.”

The king rolled his eyes. “You were much more fun before I became king, Iotharius.”

Iotharius nodded. “Simpler times. Better times.”

The king nodded as well. “I long for such times again.”

“So do I, my king.”

“Drop the, ‘my king’ business, Io. Once you’ve been ‘watching over’ the king for nearly six months it becomes a little bit of a moot point.”

Iotharius began to whisper, “We can’t discuss that here, my lord-“

“Io, they already know. Or at least they suspect. We spend far too much time around each other to avoid rumors arising, and my refusal to appoint other guards to me makes me an easy target.”

Iotharius laughed a little. “What would your father think, Lord TIberion the third?”

Tiberion giggled a little as well. “To hell with what the old bastard would’ve said, I say. He’s dead and in the ground, and I’m here among the living. He can lecture me on proper behavior when I join him.”

“Careful what you wish for, because with the way you’re acting, that may not be that far into your future.”

Tiberion shook his head, and got a little closer to Iotharius. “Well, then, maybe I should give him a little to scold me about,” he said, grinning playfully. “Would hate for the afterlife to be boring, after all.”

Iotharius was now leaning against the side of a pillar, with Tiberius having one arm next to him. Their faces were inches apart. “Tibe, don’t you da-“ he said as Tiberion began to put his lips against his own, and they began to kiss.

Iotharius was almost lost in the passion – for Tiberion was good at what he did – but he was a knight, for the gods’ sakes. Gently pushing Tiberion away from him, he straightened his armor a bit, and Tiberion straightened his own robes, a little bit huffishly.

“We need to be more careful, my lord.”

Tiberion rolled his eyes, and mimed the knight’s stoic manner when he was fairly convinced Iotharius wasn’t watching.

“And I saw that!” snapped Iotharius.

“I think they’re coming around. They haven’t sent any assassins after me for at least six weeks.”

It was raining quite hard when I saw them walking, a pair of lovers who had been going for a stroll in the dark, and had been caught in the rain. They were quite young, I suppose, though I have never been a good judge of those things, and I floated around behind them. I suppose I hover behind all at some point, but these two seemed special to me. I paid attention to them, and saw their stories, hovering behind them like film-reels lost to time.

He was a boy from Detroit; his life had been far from easy. He had had to fight for every scrap in his life, and love was new to him. He had met her on a train bound to New York, and they had hit it off. They had spent a couple weeks in correspondence with each other before they had decided to date, and when they did, it had been a smashing success. Within six months they had moved in, and within eighteen he had proposed; rushed though it seemed, they were in love.

He had cut ties with his father, who did not approve the marriage. She was ‘not right for him’ he had said. And who knew, maybe his father would have eventually been proven correct.

She was born in Tennessee, the child of farmers whose lineage traced back to the dust bowl. She loved him dearly, but not with the all-consuming passion he did; she was a slow burn, and had more ties in the city than he did. She worked in a grocery store; her favorite food was roast chicken, and her best friend was her coworker, who was the first friend she made in the city.

Her parents were dead, her mother from a heart attack, her father from lung cancer. She had no ties back home, and was happy here.

I take no joy in my work this night.

I follow behind as they walk along the street, talking and laughing, with such joyous plans for the future. Their lives seemed secure, so perfect, so lovely.

They walk along the sidewalk, wet and dark, with an umbrella to protect from the rain. Twenty feet lay between them and the end of the block, twenty feet between them and the street. They paid little attention; youth rarely does.

They wandered along, talking of everything and nothing at all, giggling, him holding her close, kissing her forehead with such care that I wondered if there was a way I could stop what would happen. Of course, I couldn’t.

Ten feet to the street. He knelt to tie his shoe and she waited. Perhaps if he had left it alone, he wouldn’t have –

Five feet to the street. Both she and he are talking and laughing again. They didn’t even notice, as they stepped into the street.

The driver was a truck-driver from Shermer, Illinois. No wife, no kids. Nearing forty, it seemed he had little prospects of that happening, and he was happy enough about it. After the ‘incident’ as his coworkers euphemistically referred it, he would lose his ability to drive. He would take to drink. In all too soon a time, I would be drawn to him as well.

Perhaps if he had reacted a little faster, he would think, knowing he couldn’t have. I think the helplessness is almost worse, in a way.

Perhaps if it was not raining, he would have seen them before. Perhaps he could have reacted earlier. But, like me, the rain is inevitable. And even if the rain did not come, perhaps I would have come to them in a different manner.

I take no joy in my work, and as they stepped forward, the headlights shined on them just a moment too late for them to react.

Soon there was nothing to be done but watch, I, the eternal witness, in the rain.

And right there it rained a little harder.

write a story with the first line being “it was raining quite hard” and the last line being “ and right there it rained a little harder”

by Anastasia Fedorova

If your plot feels flat, STUDY it! Your story might be lacking...

Stakes - What would happen if the protagonist failed? Would it really be such a bad thing if it happened?

Thematic relevance - Do the events of the story speak to a greater emotional or moral message? Is the conflict resolved in a way that befits the theme?

Urgency - How much time does the protagonist have to complete their goal? Are there multiple factors complicating the situation?

Drive - What motivates the protagonist? Are they an active player in the story, or are they repeatedly getting pushed around by external forces? Could you swap them out for a different character with no impact on the plot? On the flip side, do the other characters have sensible motivations of their own?

Yield - Is there foreshadowing? Do the protagonist's choices have unforeseen consequences down the road? Do they use knowledge or clues from the beginning, to help them in the end? Do they learn things about the other characters that weren't immediately obvious?

reading update: june 2023

as promised (to myself) I spent all of gay months reading books by and/or about the gays, no exceptions! (unless you count the heaps of old Batman comics I was reading, but come on. it's all pretty fruity.) the trend will be continuing into July as well because I overshot and still have book I need to finish, so in the immortal words of Janelle Monáe: happy pride forever!

anyway, what have I actually been reading?

Empress of Forever (Max Gladstone, 2019) - man, I've been meaning to read this FOREVER! and I'm glad I finally did. Gladstone's space opera follows ultrawealthy tech genius Vivian Liao, a sort of dykey Lex Luthor who's CERTAIN that she's the good guy. okay, yes, she's trying to get control of the nukes, but she's not going to use them. it's just that the world's a mess and she needs to be in charge. unfortunately our girl Vivian doesn't get far in her master plan before she's transported across the galaxy and finds herself on the run from the all-powerful Empress in the company of a cybernetic monk named Hong and the legendary space pirate Zanj, the Empress' greatest enemy. from there our heroes are off on a slow, messy quest across the galaxy as they make new friends, grow as people, and strive to bring the Empress down. it's a very long book and can feel slow in places, but all of the time devoted to fleshing out the characters ultimately pays off as their stories converge into a resonant narrative about the notion of identity and what it means to be yourself. if you like Becky Chambers' Wayfarer books of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, get on this shit.

also hey listen Max Gladstone is having a bit of a Moment rn; the book he coauthored with Amal El-Mohtar, This Is How You Lose the Time War, is getting a huge boost thanks to the Trigun (????) fandom??? over on Twitter, and you should definitely go check it out

Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men (Jane Ward, 2016) - Ward is a brilliant queer feminist writer; rigorous and insightful while keeping her work imminently readable. while the title may sound facetious, Ward actually takes entirely at face value that there are men having sex with each other an engaging in otherwise homoerotic activities - mutual jerkoffs, hazing rituals that involve anal penetration - that sincerely aren't stemming from a place of gay desire and asks us what the fuck we're supposed to make of that. what results is a fascinating look at masculinity and the intricate rituals that both subvert and maintain it. shockingly thought provoking for a book that contains so many transcribed craigslist posts of men looking for straight guys to have totally normal hetero dudesex with!

The Latinos of Asia: How Filipinos Break the Rules of Race (Anthony Christian Ocampo, 2016) - I was lucky enough to get to see Ocampo (who is gay) speaking at the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity this year, and naturally I had to buy one of his books while I was there. I strongly suspect he's about to become one of my new favorite nonfiction writers, because the Latinos of Asia was a brilliant read that I really couldn't put down. Ocampo (who's also Filipino!) delves into the formation of Filipino-Americans' racial identity, and finds that many feel caught between the most conventionally accepted racial categories - feeling alienated from the idea of Asian identity, which is often perceived as pertaining to East Asians like Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans, and instead relating much more firmly to Mexican-Americans and other Latinos. it's a FASCINATING study on race and one (of many!) loopholes that exists in this very large, messy, totally made up construct of race.

A Lady for a Duke (Alexis Hall, 2022) - for my pride month romance novel I wanted to read something that I might actually like. I've previously adored Hall's genre-fucking ultra-queer Sherlock Holmes pastiche, the Affair of the Mysterious Letter, and Lady for a Duke was really well-reviewed, so my hopes were high! and you know what? I fucking loved this. it was like cotton candy, perfectly sweet and made to be inhaled without a second thought. Our Heroine Viola was the heir to an estate who faked her death at Waterloo so that she could run away and be herself - that's right baby, this is a 19th century trans lady romance! she reconnects with her old BFF the Duke of Gracewood, who's been catatonically depressed since losing his best friend in the war, and reader, you will not believe what happens next. just kidding, you totally will: they want to kiss each other so bad! they're yearning so bad and it's great. it's a very silly book and Gracewood is the most unexpectedly forward-thinking 19th century duke EVER who is instantly down to accept Viola entirely as a woman and thinks that having biological children is overrated, and you know what? that rules. I'm not reading this book for historical accuracy I'm reading it to watch a man beg his girlfriend to fuck him tenderly in the ass. and she does!!! if I'm being honest everything after they finally hook up is kind of nonsense and the book probably is too long, but god it's a delightful time.

Chlorine (Jade Song, 2023) - back in the days of twitter I started following Jade Song as soon as they announced selling this book, the story of a competitive high school swimmer succumbing to obsession as she fantasizes about becoming a mermaid. finally getting to pick up the book from the library and actually read it felt crazy after existing in potentia for so long! while Song's novel is a little rough in some places in exactly the way I expect from a debut, it's still gripping and visceral. our protagonist lives in an intense and demanding world, striving to please an overly handsy coach, wanting to please the immigrant parents she can barely speak to, stumbling through sex with boys on her team while longing for her female best friend. through it all she fixates on mermaids, and the story is told in flashbacks building up to a drastic act of self-mutilation at a swim meet. it's definitely not the right book for the faint of heart or anyone looking for feel-good fluff, but it's harrowing in the best way.

Vagabonds! (Eloghosa Osunde, 2022) - gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous! Osunde celebrates queer life - those called vagabonds, society's outliers - in Lagos, Nigeria, slipping between the real world of social stigma, oppressive religion, judgmental family, and dangerous politics, and the world of magic, gods, and the unreal, blending the two together in an effortlessly dizzying effect. the ultrawealthy hide behind layers of flawless masks to conceal their identities, a lonely woman dying of cancer summons up a daughter than only she can see, and a young man channels the devil to raise his murdered lover. while the stories start bleak, firmly establishing the danger of life on the margins, they gather speed with increasing warmth and love as the story progresses, eventually bringing all of our protagonists together in glorious, life-affirming celebration of vagabonds and all who love them. Nigeria, in Osunde's hands, reads much like family - imperfect, sometimes even awful, but also capable of harboring tremendous love, surprising tenderness, and still worth holding out hope for. I think measuring books in terms of relatability is a fool's game, but as an American queer watching more and more legislation and persecution roll out against my people each day, it was hard not to feel a cord being struck. Vagabonds! is a beautiful reminder that queer resilience is eternal, and reader, I did cry.

Quietly Hostile (Samantha Irby, 2023) - I was a ride or die bitch for Sam Irby even before she picked up and moved to my small Michigan city, effectively becoming my neighbor. (not really, but she is married to the mother of a friend of a friend, so.) despite this, I will freely admit that I was a little underwhelmed by her last release, 2020's Wow, No Thank You. it's possible that WNTY was damned by its March 2020 release, putting it in the awkward position of being a humorous essay collection creeping out into the world at a time when everyone was paranoid and nothing was funny; maybe on a reread I would receive it a bit more warmly. Quietly Hostile, on the other hand, is just stupid funny right out of the gate. Sam Irby is old (see: in her early 40s) and going downhill, writing candidly about peeing her pants everywhere, adopting a rancid little dog, getting sent to the hospital with a severe allergic reaction, and jacking off to plot-heavy porn of elderly lesbian nuns. it takes a little bit of work to get me to actually laugh out loud at a book but man, I was chortling. if you don't already know her work, this is a sign from god (me) to check Samantha Irby out now.

what am I reading now?

Black Water Sister (Zen Cho, 2021) - the was one of the oldest queer novels(TM) on my list and I really wanted to knock it out for pride month. the Malaysian setting and culture is a welcome addition to contemporary urban fantasy, but I'm not sure I'm crazy about the story overall. and yet, I'm over 200 pages deep and don't want to give up, so ? I guess I'm persisting.

Giovanni's Room (James Baldwin, 1956) - my local library lost their copy just in time for pride month, so I bought one on ebay for all of nine dollars. haven't started yet, but I'm really excited to finally pop that proverbial Baldwin cherry!

I woke up with a splitting headache, lying in bed next to the devil himself.

Wait, that may sound weird to an outside observer.

You see, a couple weeks ago, I met the devil himself at a ‘con, and, assuming he was just a cute (and dedicated) cosplayer, I asked him on a date. On the date, he told me what he ‘really’ was.

That was it, until last night, when I came home and found he’d broken into my apartment, helped himself to a couple of my beers, and was watching ‘Keeping Up With The Kardashians’. He was apparently on the run from his brothers, the archangels Michael and Raphael.

So, we did shots. Lots, and lots, and lots of shots. I lost count after about four. I checked under the blanket and breathed a sigh of relief. I was not naked. I looked over at him. He was shirtless, but save for that, he was clothed. I got up, and walked over to the full-length mirror. I was disheveled, and my lower lip was cut – as if…

“Morning,” said Lucifer, getting up and stretching, ruffling his black curls as he scratched his head. “Did you sleep well?”

I turned back to him and pointed to my lip. “Did you do this?”

He smiled, mischief flashing in his eyes. “You are a very naughty drunk, Adam.”

I moved to my shirt to the side a little bit, exposing a small, mouth-shaped bruise on my collarbone.

“And you aren’t exactly an angel yourself,” was the retort I saw fit to utter, and his smile was almost radiant.

“Well, I think my brothers would be inclined to agree. Breakfast? Do you know a place around here that we can get it? Somewhere out of the way?”

I looked at myself in the mirror again. I looked kind of awful.

“Let me shower first.”

Lucifer nodded. “Probably a good idea?”

“What about you, do you… shower?”

He chuckled a little bit. “Unless you’re offering to share, not really.”

“Not really.”

“Well,” he sighed (he’s very emotive, for a being who supposedly punishes the damned), “I guess I’ll have to see to myself, then,” and he waved his hand over his body, and his form seemed to shimmer. His clothes changed into a rather simple set of garb – a hoody over a t-shirt and jeans, with sneakers. He looked like he had showered, shaved and dried.

Shaking my head, I went into the bathroom. Turning on the shower, I looked into the mirror. “What the hell have I gotten myself into?”

I heard a muffled sound from my room. “Me, if you’re lucky!”

After I had finished showering, I returned to the living room to find him watching the news. He switched it off as I entered the room, and walked over to the door. “So, you have any idea where you want to go?”

“There’s a good IHOP near here. You do eat, don’t you?”

He shrugged. “I do, sort of. I can imbibe any mortal faire you please, up to and including liquor. I’m capable of becoming drunk, but I can end my inebriation in an instant if I need to. It’s a handy angelic trait. I enjoy these things, because they’re so…,” he shrugged, “Human, I guess.”

“And… sex?”

“Same thing, really.”

“Okay. Am I driving, then?”

He seemed glad for the change of subject, “Probably for the best. I can’t drive.”

“You can’t drive? You’re the devil for Christ’s sake.”

“Hey, I teleport everywhere. Occasionally I get a chauffeur. I’ve never had to.”

“Cars have existed for nearly a century and a half!”

“And I’m over a half a million years old! Cut me a little slack, please.”

It was my turn to sigh, this time walking to the door and nursing my headache a bit more. Maybe it wasn’t the liquor. Maybe it was just his personality.

When we got into my car (a beaten 1999 Ford Taurus, a dark shade of green and rusting through in spots), I asked him another question. “Is there anything I can call you other than Lucifer? It seems a tad bit…”

“… excessive?”

“Kind of. I mean, most people hear Lucifer and they think… I don’t’ know, goat’s head, human body, caduceus?”

“Sadly enough I left my caduceus in Hell. It was a fun little prop for a while, but once people start expecting things, it gets boring quick. I’ve never dealt well with expectations.”

“So, are there any that you like?”

“Satan?”

“Same problem.”

“Sammael? Lilith liked that one.”

“No, too… Aramaic.”

“Old scratch?”

“Too folksy.”

“Iblis? It’s not my name, but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t mind.”

“I feel like that’s appropriation somewhere along the line.”

“The French called me Voland for a while, does that work?”

“You have absolutely no clue how human names work, do you?”

“I mean, no,” he seemed a little offended. “You do realize I’ve had more names than you’ve had days on this planet, right?”

“Alright. Luci it is.”

“Luci? Am I a demon or a cartoon character?”

“How do you know about Charlie Brown but you don’t know how to drive?”

“Hell gets cable, not gasoline.”

I began to drive, and he watched out the window. Not like a sullen teenager, more like a child on their way to Disneyworld. He was caught somewhere between obvious excitement and a deep, internal reverie. I noticed his eyes were now green.

“You… don’t get out much… do you?”

He shook his head. “A couple days a decade, typically. I try to keep up with current events – I remember it took Machiavelli half a century to teach me about his contemporaries. Boy, you should have heard what he said about them…”

“Why don’t you….”

“… come to the world more often? Typically, because Michael has taken a liking to beating me up and throwing me back into Hell. Heaven views it as a prison break, usually. The last time I was allowed on the surface was to hunt down another rogue angel. That was the last time that I saw Raphael, too.”

“When was that?”

“About a thousand years ago, I spent six years on the surface.”

“How long do you plan on staying this time?”

“Forever. I left Iblis in charge, he can take care of things for as long as I need him to. He relishes it, poor bloke.”

“What, and you don’t?”

“Don’t get me wrong. It can be fun, for a few thousand years. Getting vengeance for those hurt by the damned, a righteous anger that can’t be sated. But it’s poisonous; you can lose yourself. Also, ruling over the ‘inhabitants’ of Hell can be good too. Some of them have wonderful personalities. Unfortunately, even that gets old. I created Hell, what seems like an eternity ago. From nothingness. John Milton almost got it right. But the problem was, that no matter what I did, I couldn’t recreate home. And maybe ruling in Hell isn’t as good as serving in Heaven was.”

“Can you ever go back?”

He smiled, a wistful expression. He seemed unbearably old then, like an old man who had seen too much of life. “Ta lonsh calz zonrensg, babalon adrpan.”

I heard a sound like thunder from the clear sky.

“As the exalted above have decreed, the wicked are cast down. Until the end of days, I am cast out of Heaven.  I suppose someone like me doesn’t get a redemption arc.”

As he finished that little diatribe, I pulled into the parking lot of the IHOP. I got out of the car, and he followed. “Do they have chocolate chip pancakes here?”

“What are you, twelve?”

“On a scale of one to ten, yes I am.”

“Pride goeth before the fall,” I responded.

“Not as much as you’d think.”

When we got inside, we were met by a server. She had brown hair, a pierced lip, and seemed happy enough to serve us. “Booth for two, please.”

“Right this way,” she said, leading us both to a booth in the far corner of the restaurant, next to the bathroom. She handed us a pair of laminated menus. “Can I start you off with something to drink today?”

I looked at Lucifer, who was staring intensely at the menu, and I guessed I would be the one to speak first. “Water for me. Luci?”

He looked up like I’d interrupted some deep meditation, rather than a decision over what to have for breakfast. “Umm… I’ll take a hot cocoa.”

I raised an eyebrow at this, but he either didn’t notice or feigned ignorance. When the waitress stepped aside, I whispered to him, “Hot cocoa?”

“I have a sweet tooth.”

“Clearly.”

As we waited for the waitress to return with our drinks, I began to ask questions. “So, Michael and Raphael. What do they look like?”

He arched his fingers in front of his face and focused for a second. The waitress arrived with our drinks while he pondered an answer. Taking a sip from his cocoa, he began. “You have to realize that our earthly forms are not our only forms. I’ve taken a particular many forms over my remarkably long life, and this is just one I picked up in ancient Greece.”

He took another drink. “So I suppose that Michael and Raphael could look like anyone. But they won’t. They like specific forms.’

“So what will they choose?”

“Michael is a lot like me, ashamed though he is to admit it. He likes younger forms. Typically androgynous. He is very much an Aryan – blonde hair, blue eyes, the like. He typically goes for lithe but muscular frames. He dislikes facial hair. He’ll stand out in a crowd – he’s vain, he likes to be pretty and he likes to be the center of attention. You’ll see him coming a mile off.”

“And Raphael?”

“He’s a little bit more varied. He likes to look smart, so expect him to look bookish. He likes older forms – middle aged men with grey hair and beards, typically he chooses to look more Arabic, with darker, weather-worn skin. He picked up that tendency in the eighth century or so.”

“Okay. Are you sure they won’t try to disguise themselves better?”

“Nah. I’m the one in the family who got the gift for illusions; they know I’ll spot them regardless. Their goal is to hunt me down like hounds chasing a rabbit, rather than try and sneak up on me.”

The waitress came back, this time with a small notepad. “Can I get your orders?”

“I’ll take the chocolate chip pancakes. And another cocoa.”

She took my order and then went back to turn it in to the kitchen. Within a few minutes she was back with his pancakes and my omelet, and he poured syrup on his food and began to wolf it down. “For someone who doesn’t need to eat, you sure like to.”

He began to speak with his mouth full, then paused, swallowed, and repeated. “I don’t get this kind of luxury very often. In Hell, we have our feasts and the like, but it’s all so much protein. Demons love beef and pork and the like, but we never get the sweet stuff.”

“My heart bleeds for you,” I said, as sarcastic as I could muster.

He had near-finished his plate when he looked alert and then dodged under the table.

“What are you doing?”

I looked down and saw him next to my right knee. He put a finger to his lips and whispered, “Shh. Door.”

I looked over my shoulder and saw two men entering. One was blonde-haired, blue-eyed and young. The other was a middle-eastern man with gray hair and glasses. Both were dressed in matching suits and long coats of wool.

“Are they…?”

“Yes!” he whispered, “Now quiet!”

I watched as he grabbed my fork off the table and jabbed it into his thumb, drawing blood. “What the fu-“

He put his finger to his mouth again and made eye contact. He began to draw on the ground in his blood. I watched as the two men talked to our waitress, and watched her point over to our corner. Goddamnit. The two made meaningful eye contact, and began to walk over, reaching into their coats and pulling out silvery… somethings. They looked like blades, but blades typically don’t blur like you’re watching them through some kind of smeared lens.

They walked over to the table, and began to speak. First it was that strange, guttural tongue which Lucifer had spoken in the car. Then, it was English. “Come out, little brother. We would have words with you.”

Lucifer climbed out from under the table with his hands raised, “Come now, boys, we don’t have to do this right now. I was just having lunch with my boyfr-“

Michael grabbed him by the throat and drew him close. “Quiet, you fool. Had it been my way we would have turned this pitiful city into a burnt-out pillar of salt rather than see you walk here. Your very presence befouls this world.”

Raphael put his hand on Michael’s arm, moving it away. “Not here, Michael,” he said, in accentless English. “We must try to keep a low profile.”

Michael moved his hand away from Lucifer’s neck, and nodded at me. “What about the boy, Raphael. He knows too much, I would suspect.”

Lucifer glanced at me. I recognized the look. It was fear. “He knows nothing. Let him be.”

Michael scoffed. “As if I would trust you to tell me anything, brother.”

Raphael looked at me. His eyes were pale, like ice. “Tell me true. Who are you?”

I couldn’t break eye contact. I was frozen. It felt like the truth was being pulled from me, extracted more thoroughly than torture ever could. “My name is Adam Drakeson.”

With that, he looked at Lucifer, then back at me. “And what has Lucifer told you?”

“That you are angels. That he is Satan. That you wish to send him back to Hell.”

Michael scoffed. “The basics.”

As he went to lift Lucifer into the air again, I got up and tried to stop him. It was mostly an unconscious thing, but I got to my feet and grabbed his arm. I don’t know what I thought I could do, but I do remember him backhanding me back into the booth. It felt like I’d been hit by a small bus.

At this the occupants of the nearby tables became agitated. A man, middle-aged and dressed in simple, everyday clothing got up and went over to him. “Sir, please, this is a restaurant, you shouldn’t –“

Michael looked at him, his eyes blazing pure blue, with no visible iris, pupil or schlera. “Know your place, pond scum.”

The man was blasted across the room, out a window. “Raphael! Wipe the human’s memory, then let’s be on our way.”

Raphael leaned towards me and made eye contact. “Forget whatever Lucifer has told you. Forget Lucifer. Forget us. Forget everything that has been changed because of him. Forget.”

I felt like someone was tugging on the inside of my skull, like my brain was being fed on, eviscerated, reduced. But, inexplicably, it faded. I forgot nothing. I remembered everything. Lucifer was laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Raphael snapped.

“It won’t work, brother. I warded his mind against illusions and alterations the day I met him. You won’t be able to do anything to him.”

Michael laughed, a haughty, hollow sound. “Nothing? I could always kill him. A corpse has no memories.”

Lucifer laughed back, this time shifting form, almost imperceptibly to me. His horns grew back. His eyes glowed red. The laugh became a cacophony of voices, the voice of legion. “Babalon ziltar zien!”

From beneath the table there came a groaning, screaming, as whatever he had drawn beneath it came to life. The table was destroyed as a portal opened, of black and red and shadow and death. Screams echoed as a creature emerged. Dressed in black robes, it was unlike anything I had ever seen. It had black scales, lizardlike features, with two curling ram’s horns. It carried with it two stone tablets. As it appeared, Raphael dived with his blade to strike it. It said a word, and Raphael was disarmed, his blade flying out of his hand and to the ground. “Fugio memet, coeles viventem.”

Raphael screamed as in a flash, he disappeared. Michael dropped Lucifer and went to strike the creature, but it spoke again, and this time, black, tarlike tentacles emerged from the portal to grab him. “Unhand me, infernal creature!”

It dragged him closer to the pit, and the creature looked at Lucifer. “Debitum solvit.”

Lucifer nodded, grabbed me by the arm, and dragged me towards the exit. “Time to go, I think.”

“I’m not the kind of person who gets a redemption arc.”

As I drove along the highway that night, a snowy November evening, I suspected little of the contents of the evening; it had been a fulfilling one, after all. After leaving work, I had gone with some friends to get drinks at a nearby bar, a favorite of one of my coworkers, and I’d promised for a while to join them.

Before I left, I had gone to the bathroom, and on the way out, walked into someone. A woman, probably no older than thirty, who I did not know. I apologized, but she made eye contact with me, almost blankly. Then, in a somber tone, as if she was delivering a verdict, “It ends tonight.”

I thought nothing of it, and continued drinking with my friends.

Maybe that was a mistake.

Maybe I drank too much that night.

Maybe it didn’t matter.

All that mattered was the drive.

The night was dark and the road was dimly lit by poorly-spaced lamps, and though I had made the trip many times, I had never done it in the dark. But I was not afraid; I had no fear of the dark, I didn’t fear the car that was behind me, even when they swerved in their lane. I did not fear them when they were alongside me, and I heard the people inside, four or five college students, drunker than I by far, screaming and hooting as they tried to pass me.

Tried. Their rear bumper hit the front of my car, sending me veering off of the road and into the ditch.

Before that, I looked to my right, and saw Her. The girl from the bar. She was smiling, something inhuman and ancient in her brown eyes and hair. Even in her ordinary features there was something eldritch and ancient that brought out a primal fear. A fear of death.

I was thrown from the car, and blacked out.

I woke up in the black and cold, with a splitting pain above my right eye, but otherwise intact and whole. I looked around and saw my car, aflame, broken and ripped apart by the collision. The college students, it seemed, had left without attempting a rescue.

Lit by the flames of my now-nonfunctional vehicle, I looked around. I expected to see nothing, but there was not. On the ground, not fifteen feet away, was the girl. She was lying on the ground, breathless, motionless and unstirring. Crouched above her was a strange girl, blonde-haired, not older than nineteen, dressed in simple clothing – jeans and a t-shirt – and carrying a weapon of some kind. It looked like a short sword, but the blade was thin and linear, not unlike a sharpened rapier blade but shorter still. Its hilt had a hand guard fashioned in the imagery of an Ouraboros, except with outstretched wings, set in gold but the blade of some black material I could not identify.

I stumbled forward, still disconcerted from the blast. “Who…?”

The girl looked up at me, and her eyes reminded me strangely of the girl who had been in the car with me; not in actual appearance, for this one’s eyes were an unearthly pale blue, but rather they evoked the same primal fears – the same fear of death.

This girl was dangerous.

She sheathed her strange sword in a leather hilt at her belt, and raised her right hand, and shouted, “Khairete!”

I shook my head, not understanding, wondering if maybe I had a concussion.

“Willechomen aband?”

I shook my head again, wondering if maybe I was having a stroke and this would be the end of it.

“Avete!” At this she waved her hand as if miming a greeting.

I stared blankly this time.

“Dia dhuit!”

I continued to stare.

She slapped her forehead and said, “Ego eimai Angelos.”

At my lack of a response she continued, “Ich bin Angelos?”

Rapid-fire she continued to spout in what I could only guess was a multitude of languages until she stumbled upon one I recognized, English. “Hel…lo?”

I nodded at this, encouraging her to continue, “I am Angelos.”

She spoke with a thick accent, something between Greek and German. “You should not be alive. You-“ at this she pointed at me, and paused. “You were supposed to die.”

I felt a little faint, and saw shadows dancing at the corners of my eyes as if my vision was being devoured by something. As I began to swoon, she ran up, but it was inhumanly fast, as if she had less ran to me and more flitted to my side. She waved a hand over my face and I felt a warmth, as if my body face were bathed in sunlight. The cold around me seemed to bite less, in that moment, and I felt awake again.

“Try… to stand,” she said hesitantly, helping me again to my feet. I tried to get to my feet and, nearly fell again, slipping into the snow. She put my right arm over her shoulder and helped me to my feet. As we walked along the snow, I began to ask questions. “What do you mean I was supposed to die? Who was that girl? Who are you? Why was she in my car? Why are you here? Are you… going to kill me?”

She gritted her teeth at my questions, but answered them all the same, “I mean you were fated to die tonight. In that crash. My handmaiden,” she gestured behind us at the crash, “was supposed to take your soul to my kingdom, and you would have been given judgement and sent to your proper afterlife. She has accompanied you, intangible and invisible, for most of this evening. I’m here because it seems she became the victim of fate tonight – her cord cut in place of your own. But you cannot stay here. For you are no longer fated to die.”

“So I’m not in any danger?”

She laughed, a harsh bark befitting an animal moreso than a human. “Not from me, paidi. But the elements, it seems, may have different plans.”

“So where are you taking me?”

She chuckled a little at this, and seemed a little more human in turn. “To my realm, Katachthon. Deep in the bowels of the underworld. It seems we have a vacancy that you could fill in the place of Tilphousia back there.”

I stumbled a little. This was all so much to believe, but what else could I do? Magic seemed the only explanation at this point; the girl appearing in my car, predicting my death. This girl, healing my wounds. I noticed, after a bit, that we were walking into the woods, away from the highway. We made our way to a clearing, and she stopped.

“Tóso kaló óso opoiodípote. This place seems as good as any. Hold to me tightly; this will be a little… disconcerting.”

In a second, it seemed, we were travelling at the speed of light, shadows dancing, laughter – raucous and unearthly, inhuman – and we arrived, on the balcony of a castle overlooking a darkened lake, within a massive cavern. I let go of her, and collapsed, and saw no more.

oadelԙ���

You’re driving a long, dark stretch of highway, when Death appears in the passenger seat, informing you that you are about to die. The car then spins out of control, flipping, and you black out. You wake up, hours later, in a deserted field. Death is laying lifeless on the side of the highway.

“I was never really welcome here, was I?”

The darkened study was lined with bookshelves against three of the walls, with a stained-glass window on the far wall from the door providing red, green and blue light across the room in an image of the virgin mother. In front of the window was a desk of polished ebony. The atmosphere in the room was tense enough to cut air, and the man leaning over the desk, short and squat, with white hair and a priest’s frock, laughed bitterly.

“Of course not, you stupid boy. You may have your father’s power, but you have your mother’s naivete.”

The boy, dressed in a white shirt, a leather jacket and blue jeans, looked normal enough, but he was positioning himself to flee if he had to. In his hand he clutched the locket containing the greatest secret his mother had ever kept – one known only to a few. The priest before him was one of them.

“Why? If all this time you meant to kill me then why haven’t you done it?”

The priest drew a cross from his belt and said solemnly, “We weren’t allowed to kill you in the womb. Papal sanction. We weren’t allowed to kill you as an infant – for you seemed normal enough. But as time wore on, I knew your father’s influence would get to you – and that would be our demise. But it seems there is still time to slay you before you betray us. Still time to do the right thing.”

From the door sprinted two younger priests, each gripping one of the boy’s arms. The priest approached, holding the cross at arms-length towards the boy, and drawing from the desk’s top drawer a pistol. He got to within an arm’s length of the boy, and held the gun to the boy’s forehead. “God forgive me for what I’m about to do.” He said coldly, pulling back the hammer of the pistol with his thumb.

It was then, for the first time, in a moment of rage and panic, the boy felt his father’s presence in his soul, and the power within his body. With a shout somewhere between a scream of anger and a growl, the gun was thrown backwards from the priest’s hand, through the stained-glass window that was the only source of light for the room. Clear light poured in through the hole.

Like a surge of adrenaline, great strength and powerful instinct over took the boy, as he threw the two grown men pinning him bodily against the bookshelves on either side of the room, knocking them apart. Books fell on the ground, scattering the floor with ritual literature and apocrypha. The priest backed away, knocking into the front of the desk and holding the cross at arm’s length still, beginning the Litany of the Saints.

At this the boy laughed, a harsh bark that sounded only vaguely human. “Old man,” he said in a guttural tone, different from the voice of the boy who had spoken moments ago. He waved his hand, and the cross flew out of the priest’s hand, into a pile of broken and splintered bookshelves.

He raised his hand, and the priest’s did likewise, gripping himself by the throat. As the boy clenched his fist, the priest gagged and choked as he strangled himself. The priest’s last moments were as pathetic as a dying fish’s, kicking and squirming on the floor as he fought for air. Once the priest had ceased moving, the boy relented, and the strange power faded from him.

The boy looked at what he had done. The dead priest, laying against his own desk, his aged hand still gripping his own throat. Against each wall were another priest, either unconscious or dead, he could not tell.

He went behind the desk and searched through the drawers, finding the things he was looking for. Another pistol, this one set in silver, and a pile of cash. He ran back, out of the room, and into his room in the orphanage. Gathering a bag of clothes, he sighed, and let reality sink in. It really was true. He was… he was…

He looked at the amulet again. Gripping it tight, he slipped it into his pocket. He’d think on that another time. For now, he needed to get far away from here. Once he had as many of his things as he could carry – it wasn’t much, nor, he figured, would much be needed – he ran for the door, and out of the orphanage.

He ran down the street, and didn’t stop running until he had made it across town, to his ‘friend’s’ home. A well-built two-story on the more affluent side of town, he knew his friend could help. He knocked on the door, a steady banging until the person he was looking for answered. “What’s up, Daelyn? You look like you’re… wait, is that… blood?”

Looking down and silently cursing himself, he saw that he did indeed have some small portion of blood on his shirt, from either the priests he sent flying across from the room or somehow from the man he had choke himself to death he did not know. “Zeke, I don’t have time to explain. I need a shirt, and I need to get a fake ID or two. Out of state ones, too.”

Zeke looked scared. As well he should, Daelyn supposed. How would he respond if one of his friends showed up on his doorstep, drenched in sweat and bloodstained.

Zeke looked around the neighborhood, the empty street, and then sighed. “Get in the house, dumbass.”

“I never really was welcome here… was I?”

Prompt - Dirt, Shoelaces, Hip

@big-bad-grimbark

Shadows danced as the gravedigger did his work, lit only by a single torch placed above him, dug into the ground at the foot of the grave. Opposite lie the memorial tombstone, for a William Berk, a man who died in his fifties, and was well-liked by the town. A shoelace salesman, he made a living selling what many did not realize they need – baubles that make life easier. Why, the gravedigger himself had bought a set just a fortnight ago, from the man himself, not that it mattered, he supposed.

The gravedigger continued his grim work, with each shovelful of dirt making the hole greater down, down into the dirt. But then something was wrong. He put his shovel to the dirt, and rather than reaching soft, moist earth, it hit something hard, like stone. Thinking that perhaps he had just hit a rather large rock, a not uncommon thing, he dug around it and uprooted it, and saw what it was.

It was not a stone, as he had thought, but a hip bone – from a human. The gravedigger shrieked aloud at the discovery, for this grave was not supposed to be inhabited. Scrambling for the edge of the grave, to climb out, he was gripped by the ankle by a hand – or rather, the skeletal remains of one. Ripping it from the ground in his mistake, he dragged the upper half of a human body from the ground with him. This body was mostly rotted – next to no meat remained on the bones, but the rotted remains were enough to hold the skeleton together.

The gravedigger was on the edge of the newly-dug burial ditch, when he saw it, and froze in horror. The ground of many graves was convulsing as if the things inside longed for release, and then clawing to the surface came the many dead. He watched as a man who died from a gunshot wound, buried a fortnight ago, whose body had begun to rot, clawed his way out of his grave. He watched a grave for lovers who died in an accident, as one rotten corpse crawled out, and helped the second to its feet. He watched as corpses, by the dozens, crawled from their graves and began to group together in the center of the graveyard.

He watched as the corpses of the Leer twins, who had drowned and been found days later, bloated with decay in the ponds buried with their favorite toys, met up with the skeletons who walked out of the Lovelace mausoleum; a married man and his wife, wealthy enough to afford affluence in death.

He watched, and then he saw Him.

He was a tall, thin figure, playing a flute, approaching the dead. He was dressed in a cloak and hood obscuring his upper face, but his hands were pale and paler still in the light of the full moon above. The sound of the flute was unearthly, but it seemed as though the dead were drawn to it. He played with skill, but the gravedigger could not hear it.

He watched as the skeletons from couples’ graves began to pair off and dance to an unheard tune played by the thin piper, and then those who died unmarried began to pair off and dance, a waltz to death’s memory. As they continued to dance, the gravedigger fought to free himself from the grip of his skeletal captor. Dragging himself to the surface, he ran towards the gate, trying to avoid the crowd of the dead.

But then the piper saw him, and began to play a different tune, one that the gravedigger could hear. The gravedigger felt frozen as he saw her rise from her grave – the woman he had loved in her life, though she died before her time. She rose, and he saw her as beautiful in death as she was in life, clad in a white dress. She approached him, and curtsied, and offered her hand to dance. Speechless, the gravedigger complied. Together they danced, closer and closer to the crowd, but the gravedigger could not care. For even as he looked, he saw them all as the beings they were in life; men and women, beautiful and forever in their prime. He saw none of the decayed beings they had become; he could not see the bone or smell the rot of aged and dead flesh. He could only see the couples dancing, happy as a yule-day ball.

The piper played faster, and faster still they danced, keeping time with the pace until the waltz became an insane jig, faster and faster they turned, turning and he noticed not them approaching the grave he had dug. He was too caught up in his love being returned to him, if only for the night.

For hours they danced, and the gravedigger could not feel the burning in his legs as they ached from exhaustion, he could not feel the pain of his own aging limbs as they were pushed to their limits. He could not see himself, as his time with the dead drew him closer to them; in both form and function.

Finally, they drew to the lip of the grave, after hours of dancing, and by the time he noticed his placement, he had lost his footing and tumbled into the grave. Hurting his back in the fall, he could not move his legs. He raised his hands for help, as he saw the ghostly party gather around the edge of the grave. He silently begged them for help, imploring them, imploring his beloved to rescue him.

But as this happened, the sun creeped over the horizon, and the glamer was broken. He saw them as they were – skeletal, ragged creatures in the tatters of burial clothing, skeletons, some with coins over their empty eye sockets. He saw his beloved as she was – a bare skeleton now, with a hole through the right cheekbone leading through to the back of her skull.

He tried to scream, but no voice came out. He looked up, and saw that skeletons were pushing the heavy tombstone – weighing near a ton. He saw as they pushed it closer and closer the edge, and finally noticed his hands – aged and wrinkled, as if he had aged four decades in as many hours. He raised them to protect him, as the tombstone reached the edge, and tipped into the grave. The last sight to greet his eyes before the tombstone struck was the face of the Piper, a face like a grinning death mask, its cheeks cut and restitched, a smile that never lowered. A last smile for the departed.