Tomb Beasts Need Love, Too

Now available on Amazon

Makeda and Lixbeth are overjoyed to be on their honeymoon at last. When they finally arrive at the distant, abandoned temple of the Uthranzi, they savour the chance to relax together without any distractions. But just how alone are they? 

Caution: this book includes adult/mature content, lesbians, and Canadian spellings, as well as a tentacle monster. If any of these things offend or bother you, flee while you still can.

Buy it here: 

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Short Story: The Last F$#% Given

Hello hello!

My mentor and friend, Zig Zag Claybourne, over at Rehumanize Yourself said, "I want a short story about the last phuque given." I couldn't help but oblige. A certain Asimov short played a roll in the genesis of this.

***

Tamika stared out at the endless void. The glowing chunks of what had once been Gaia, the blue-green jewel of home, drifted slowly towards the sun. The little grey moon, following like a faithful cat, was no more. It had been knocked away by the comet.

She watched for a long time as the scarlet fury of the sun slowly devoured the remaining shards of Earth. There had been life there, once. And on Mars as well, the russet neighbour. There was a time when humanity had filled the whole system orbiting Sol, had stretched beyond that—

Then came the war. Then another war, and another one. The factions didn’t matter. It had been xenos the first time, genetically engineered hybrids the second, robots, the third time. Tamika distantly remembered a time when it had been the other way around—robots, then humans, then the xeno invaders had waged war. The Shroedinger device had made history an even more confusing proposition than it once was.

She strode across the deck, platinum heels clacking. A captured Singularity glinted around her neck: the last moments of a dying star. She surveyed her ship. The crew were still in their places, polished bones and hardware gleaming. No-one could say she hadn’t taken care of them. Even now, with nothing but auto-protocols left, they were impeccably tidy. Of course, the time-scarabs had helped with that—picking all flesh from their bones.

Tamika’s metal fingers played over the console distractedly. She navigated away from Sol, and faster than a thought, her little ship arrived in the Orion cluster.

Cold and dead here, too, but a better sense of perspective. She looked back at the Solar system—nothing but a few distant glitters, now. Not her problem.

The universe would go dark any day now, she thought, firing up the engines. A few lights were still on, but the house was empty. Perhaps it was time to knock it down, to build something new.

The last living creature in the universe deliberated, staring at her console, and opened the hidden menu. A display glowed before her.

“Activate the Oroboros protocol,” she said, her dusty vocal chords clattering a little. She crossed two of her six legs and waited for the computer to respond.

It flickered for a moment. The computer, too, was breaking down. “Activate the Oroboros protocol? Are you sure? Y/N?”

“There’s nothing left,” said Tamika. “It’s time to start over. Yes.”

The Singularity around her neck burned brightly for a moment. There was nothing but light, pure light, as the Orion cluster, then the spiral arm, then the rest of the Milky Way Galaxy, then the universe collapsed in on itself—

—and then—

“This should be interesting,” said Tamika. “Computer, initiate protocol ‘Beginning’. I’m bored already of all this light. Let’s build something.”

*****

Thanks for dropping by the nest once again. Don't miss any of the phuquerie. Find Michelle on Twitter, Facebook, and on Tumblr, and find her work on Amazon. Check back on the blog to see when one of the irregular posts has careened onto your feed. This is the one and only SciFiMagpie, over and out! 

Eyes in the Night

Hello hello!

So a friend of mine challenged me to start doing a short story a week. Here's last week's! I may make this a regular feature if you like it. So, without further ado, here is Eyes in the Night!

***

Eyes in the Night

I rub the glass as best as I can. Ol' Petey eyes me with his one good peeper down at the end of the bar. The other one's glazed over with a cataract.

My job ain't easy, but it is what it is. I lick my teeth, avoiding the hurt one on the lower left, and go back for some stale water. Minnie's keepin' it pumped, but it ain't flowin' easy. Not everyone can afford the fixin's of the Grand Hotel a few cities away.

Still as a graveyard tonight. We been raided again. Damn fools comin' into town, thinking they'll just rob us folk and then go shoot some injuns and bag a reward. I'm half Hopi myself, though we're all the same colour of dust 'round these parts. But that half that ain't Hopi is smart enough to know you don't tamper with them people. There's things in the desert, things with gleamin' eyes and long teeth. Them things is older than any damn fool white man's camp and older than the Hopi. It don't take no half-breed fool like me to know you don't mess with the things in the shadows of the desert.

Heard 'em howlin' again last night. Men crowded into the bar. I kept a hand on the gun tucked into my lacies and waited for the usual. Always happens, at least once a month--some fool tourist or prospector or traveller will stagger in through them doors, unaware that he's been saved by the iron over the threshold, and say we oughta do somethin' about them things. They listen to the yowls and yips and one will say somethin' about coyotes. Ain't no damn coyote never sang like that, nor no wolf neither. The voices of despair, a deepness that comes from a place beyond the stars.

"Ain't nobody going after them things," I say, striding out from behind the bar. "Not tonight and not never. You don't like 'em, you should leave. But otherwise, you leave them iron charms around the doors and you ain't got nothing to worry about. We don't bother 'em and they don't bother us."

But people can't leave well enough alone. "It ain't nat'ral," the Damn Fool will say.

"Listen to the Belle," Ol' Petey will mumble. "I saw one 'a them things once. How you think I done lost this eye?"

"Ain't nothin' but age," the Damn Fool or his friend will say. My girls wash things or pour drinks or keep dealin' cards quietly. They know. They don't have to speak up to make sure I get heard.

The town doctor will say somethin', and so will the preacher--if he ain't been run out yet; we can't keep preachers 'round here. And the debate will go on, the Sherriff rollin' his eyes at me. We know. And when he comes to warm my bed at night later, we'll both grumble about another damn fool gettin' lost.

So that's my side 'a the story. You can take it or leave it. Or you can look at the pile 'a white, polished bones licked clean just outside 'a the Hopi camps. I guarantee you, it ain't because my people been eatin' white folk. It's them things. But if you wanna go raidin' or killin' Injuns for a lark, you're welcome to it. But don't come cryin' ta me when yer staggerin' back through them doors, eyes wild, yer tongue ripped outta yer mouth from the screams. You leave them things well enough alone, and the eyes in the night won't bother you none.

Probably.

*****

Thanks for dropping by the nest once again. Don't miss any of the phuquerie. Find Michelle on Twitter, Facebook, and on Tumblr, and find her work on Amazon. Check back on the blog to see when one of the irregular posts has careened onto your feed. This is the one and only SciFiMagpie, over and out! 

Just a Sip: A Preview of New Work

Hello hello!

Well, my darling fans and followers, you have shown your love and gotten me over the 100 mark on my fan page. That's here, of course: https://www.facebook.com/SciFiMagpie

Right! So, without further ado, here is a preview of "A Shot of Vodka", a non-science fiction work I'll be putting out this winter. Christmas is the projected date. It's novella length, but I may be including another short story or two along with it.

Source. Of course, thanks to wiki, you can have ALL the vodka. However, this story is about something much more disturbing than whatever happened on your last liquor story adventure. I can pretty much guarantee that.

Of course, no work is complete without a sinister origin...
It was inspired by my first-ever, feverish reading of Doestoyevski's Crime and Punishment some years ago. The story got under my skin in a way that's difficult to describe. I think anyone else who's been really gripped by a story will understand. At the same time, I had a rather maniacal and slightly insane English teacher, who encouraged us to 'tear the book apart' and applied a culturally incorrect reading of the siblings' relationship to our analyses. One thing led to another, and I pursued study of the text on my own. It was the beginning of my love affair with Russian literature, which has continued to this day, but it also sowed the seeds of this novella. 
While there is an overlap in the character's names, they aren't intended to be fan fiction versions of the title characters of the masterpiece. Rather, they're children growing up in the shadows of famous namesakes, connected by coincidence to literary tragedies, but otherwise remote. And, as you'll learn in December, their tragedy follows a far different course. 

I will forewarn readers that while there is little disturbing content in my excerpt, the story contains sensitive material. This may not be an easy read, and may not be for everyone. There may or may not be heads split open by axes, but I've heard from critics that this is one of my darkest stories yet.

Enough teasing--let's get to that excerpt. Here, Avya introduces herself and her brother, and we get a small taste of some of the undercurrents disturbing her family's ordinary exterior.

*****

Rod and I were close. I did love my brother, and rather a lot; it’s a difficult thing to explain, and I suppose that’s why I’m writing this. Though I looked on him only as a sister does, I did sometimes wish we weren’t related—to look at us, one-to-one, you wouldn’t have thought we were siblings. We looked nothing alike. Still, if he was not, you know, my brother, well…you know how it is.

People had remarked from the time he was very little, that he was handsome, and startlingly so. His name suited him. I suppose it’s all genetic coincidence, his resemblance to the other Raskolnikov; nonetheless, there was that fine build and dark hair and inky, oil-black eyes, but he was only of medium height, not exceptionally tall, like his namesake.

             I wished I looked more like him. I am the light-haired one in the family. Big brown eyes, slightly darker eyelashes and eyebrows, full-boned and sturdy, but not plump. Reasonably good-looking, I suppose, but in the ordinary way. To look at our parents it would be hard to see any trace of my looks in their faces. In the snow, though, we all hunch the same way.

It was, as it happened, very cold at the time of which I speak. Our parents were out, that weekend, visiting relatives in another town. We had decided not to go, and they left Rod and me to our own devices. The previous night had been a quiet one, as our evenings usually are; despite my brother’s looks, he had no close female acquaintances that I currently knew of, even though there were plenty of girls who would have been more than happy to get in the sack with him.

So, Saturday morning did not begin with my return at one in the morning, already hung-over and crawling on my knees. Let it go on the record that, as I walked into the day, my soul was mostly unblemished and I was sober.

I was in a good mood, too. However, when breakfast was sitting on the table before us, glancing out the window was enough to displace my equilibrium. That certain kind of snow was falling, steadily, heavily. I groaned about it to Rod, and he shrugged his shoulders.

“Avya, Winnipeg. Winnipeg, Avya. Have you met before?”

“Da, darlink, but ees cold.”

He groaned. “It is much too early in the morning for that accent.” It was eight o’clock. No-one in the family slept in.

We crunched away at our cereal for a few moments. “Still have to do chores,” I said.

“Ugh. It’s time to handle some of the recycling, and it’s snowing like a bitch.”

“Wanna make a deal?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ll handle the recycling if you do the dishes and the laundry.”

            Crunch, crunch, went his cornflakes. “Fine, what’s the catch?”

            “None. I’m going out with the girls to a movie. You’ll probably get the house to yourself today.”

            “Not another horror movie?”

            I shrugged. “Wasn’t my first choice, but Parmi liked it and Nicole wanted to see it too. I’ll probably be out all day.”

            “Suit yourself.”

            I put the bowl on the counter, next to the sink, and walked upstairs to change. Outside, the snow continued, stolidly, with a certain Communist courage. Snow brings equality, I thought. Doesn’t matter whether it’s a Ford POS or a Benz, if it’s stuck in your driveway, you still need to borrow a shovel and possibly somebody’s arms to heft it.

            It was one of those mornings where a trite insight like this is followed by a string of meandering, stupid thoughts about shovels and which sweater to wear. Pulling off the plain blue pyjamas, I stared at the closet for a few minutes, glanced down at myself.

            The door opened.

            “Rod, go away. I’m in my underwear.”

            “Sorry. Whoops.” His footsteps paused for a moment and then, resolutely, padded back towards the kitchen.

            I had goose-bumps, at this point, and I was annoyed with him for barging in on me. I pulled out a grey sweater and thick cords, pulled on a pair of wool socks.

            My parka was in the nook by the door. I pulled it on and stuffed my feet into boots, hands into gloves. “See you!”

            “Bye.”

            I opened the door to the garage, loaded up the car, and drove out into the cold. 

            Notes about the year 1985: the Berlin Wall was still up. Gorbachev and Reagan were in power. New Coke emerged and died within a three-month time span. Nelson Mandela was still in prison. My heart broke. The IRA was still bombing the shit out of the police department. Route 66 died. They found Titantic. Windows 1.0 was released. Things were bombed and a number of natural disasters occurred. It was a remarkable year, in the ordinary way.

           

Teenagers don’t think about history, or not often. I handled the errands, and when that was done, went to a coffee shop to wait for the mall to open. That got me to ten o’clock—then I wandered around the mall for a while, and drank several cups of tea. Parmi and Nicole came at twelve, and the wandering changed to a plural tense. Nightmare on Elm Street 2 was on at one, so we went to see that.

After the movie, we loitered in the food court. I do remember Nicole, cracking jokes about the film—and it was awful, after all. Normally, I would have laughed, but I didn’t.  I do remember, though, that I felt a peculiar sense of unease, something nagging at me—an emotional blister. I stared past their faces and thought about the snow. Parmi asked me whether the movie had given me a case of the jitters, and I started.

“No, no, vos byad movie, darlink,” I said. “zat ees all.” Parmi laughed.

“Yes, it was. So why are you scared?”

“I’m not,” I said. “I’m just cold!”

“That’s stupid. I’ll get you a hot chocolate.” Parmi bounced off with my two-dollar bill in hand.

Nicole patted my hand. “It’s okay to be scared.” I blinked at her.

“I’m fine, really. Just spacing out. I think I didn’t get enough sleep or something.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

“Hot chocolate!” Parmi grinned at me, set the cup down on the table. I smiled and wrapped my hands around it, and tried to ignore the anxious look in her eyes.

“Thanks.” I sipped it, but I couldn’t process the taste.

I wondered what Rod would say about this. He would laugh, probably—put an arm around my shoulders, tell me not to get so panicky—and yes, he would have bought me a cup of something hot and sweet. And—

“Are you okay? You’re really pale,” Nicole said.

“Actually, I think the movie kinda shook me up. Uh…I hate to be a wet blanket, but would you guys mind if I went home and took a nap? I don’t feel so hot.“

“Yeah, okay.” They looked disappointed, and I apologized, but, after all, being good friends, they didn’t make an issue of it.

I wished, later, that I’d said more, because it was the last time I saw them for years.

            By the time I got home, it was only four o’clock. It had stopped snowing, but it was still cold, and windy, too. Rod didn’t expect me until eight, I suppose; normally, I’d have made a day of it.

            As I let down the garage door and walked into the house, I realised that most of the lights were off.

It was so still. I called out again, and there was no answer. My pulse was speeding up, and my mouth was drying. I shouldn’t have been scared, really, but I was. It was cold, over-cast, and I’d just seen a horror movie.

There was no logical reason for Rodya’s silence. Then, it occurred to me that he might have decided to go to his room, instead of sitting on the couch in the den. That would have been a little more usual; he was a creature of habit. Still, to look for him meant I had to go downstairs, to the basement. I hate basements to this day.

As I opened the door and descended, the creaking of the stairs made me even jumpier than I already was. My feet seemed unnaturally loud, clattering loudly on the wood. I thought I could hear music—well, there was a percussion solo going on at the moment.

Sure enough, the music revealed itself as Soviet rock-and-roll—my pulse slowed. (To give you an idea of the sound, Gogol Bordello hadn’t formed yet, but if they’d been around, that would have been the sort of music Rod would have listened to.)

            Most of the lights down there were off, but a little light was seeping through the space between the door and the wall. I knocked on the door, and there was still no answer, so I opened it. 

*****

Thanks for returning, ladies, gents, and people in-between. For more delightfully witty commentary. new works, some politics, and other phuquerie, you can find me at Twitter and on Tumblr. Don't forget to check back on Sundays to get your weekly fix. This is your SciFiMagpie, over and out!

Free Story Time! The Undine

Hello hello!

Having begun the process of settling into a new job, I'm back on the blogging wagon. As well, I have a snack for you patient, lovely people! Thanks for waiting around for me.

It was late and I was inspired. A friend and I were chatting about name origins, and she mentioned that her sister's middle name was Undine. Digging up my folklore encylopaedia, cross-referencing a few things with Wikipedia, and sorting through my own recollections, I tried to describe the story. Of course, I ended up telling it as bed-time stories must be told, and here it is.

The Undine

Source.

A long time ago, in the time of Crusades and of Christ and kings, there was a prince in France. The prince was an avid hunter and loved to fish next to the waters of the great river that divided his kingdom.

One night, as he sought the great prowling cats that came to fish there, at the cusp of the mountains, he strayed far from his fellow hunters. Silently and stealthily, watching for the great cats and other beasts of the night, he crept to the river. Where the water fell down across the old mossy rocks, a fine mist always rose up. He looked, sometimes, but on this night, with moonlight catching the water, he looked longer than ever. In the shape of the spray, a damsel bathed, perfectly naked.

Luxuriating in the water and tossing her hair, combing it, she was perfect. Skin silver as air on the water, blue eyes, and when she smiled, sharp sharp little teeth. The prince was infatuated.

Riding across the bridge and to the waterfall, he approached her without hesitation, without thought. On one knee, he begged her to marry him, and the undine, the water nymph, agreed. The undine, you see, wanted a soul, something she could get only by marrying a mortal, and bearing a child.

They returned the next morning to his kingdom, the prince bearing his beautiful bride to the castle in an exquisite chariot. Their wedding was celebrated with great pomp and circumstance, and all the kingdom rejoiced.

On the night of the wedding, as the new couple went to bed, the Undine took a moment to make her lover promise a few trifling conditions: first, never to look at her on Saturdays; second, to let her lock her chamber and be undisturbed on that day, and third, never to be unfaithful to her, as long as he drew a waking breath. Her husband, smitten, agreed that they were trifling conditions indeed.

And so, they lived together a very long while, and were happy. A year after the wedding, the Undine had a beautiful child, a well-formed princeling heir. But from that day, a shadow stole over her.

The undine, immortal and lovely, though soulless, had had a child, and that had taken away her immortality. Lovely as she was, and fey, she was now a mortal, and began to age. It was faint at first, but the prince--short of attention span and of temper, as princes so often are--began to notice. The fine, elegant lines, as delicate as finest spider-webs, and the silvering at her temples--no matter how graceful--were signs of age. And a prince is many things, but in his own eyes, and in those days, in God's eyes, he was a little immortal.

And so it was that the prince's eye began to wander. A little, at first, and then a lot. The undine, though she often coveted the river, was dutiful.

Then, thoughtlessly, her maid glanced through the keyhole one Saturday as the still-lovely undine bathed.

To her shock, she saw not a woman, but half-a-woman, with a long, curling, elegant tail, covered in silver and green scales! The prince caught wind of the tale, which travelled through the castle like a monsoon storm. He had to see it for himself. So there he was, one fine Saturday morning, peeping through the keyhole--and what did he see, but his wife with the tail of a serpent! Horrified, he burst in.

Angry and hurt, she cried out, "Oh, you have broken your first and second promise!" and vanished straightaway as he looked at her.

A few nights later, he heard her soft voice singing in the babe's room, and came in to find her cradling her son. Apologizing, weeping, and down on both knees, he pleaded with her to return.

"Yes," she said, "but remember the third condition. Break your word, and I won't be so forgiving next time."

And so it was that she returned, he quelled the rumors, and they lived happily. For a time. The silver at her temples showed more, and her skin softened. And still, she was beautiful, but she was growing older. Her chuckling infant had become a toddler, and then, a gold-haired boy. And the prince's attention wandered.

She took to walking about the castle at night, more and more. Generally she avoided the animals, which capered and danced away in fear when she came near. One night, however, she found herself near the stables. To her surprise, a familiar droning snore was cutting the air.

Could it be? Her heart hammered fearfully in her chest. She padded in, soft as dew in the morning, and found her husband, the prince, lying in the arms of a common trollop there in the hay.

He woke in an instant, feeling as though someone had kicked him in the ribs, to find her pointing a finger at him.

Her eyes large with pain, she cried out, "You promised to be faithful with every waking breath!" He sat dumb, silent. She wept, as immortal nymphs cannot. "Faithless man! Well, as long as you are awake, and have your breath, you can live. But as soon as you sleep, you shall die!"

And with that, she vanished again, a final time. The prince died a short time later, in his sleep, but his young son grew up fine and strong, and was wiser than his father in choosing a wife.

The end.

*****

Thanks again for tuning into my phuquerie. There will be more--updates about my writing, more feminism and literary criticism, and probably some movies. There might even be some politics and science! Keep an eye on new releases by following on Twitter and on Tumblr. This is your SciFiMagpie, over and out!

Sample Time!

Sample time!

A snippet of 'And The Stars Will Sing'. It's something to whet your appetites, and I promise you won't find it in the Amazon preview of my book!

Crystal has been settling in, excitedly describing her coworkers, the ship, and the food. She has her suspicions about why Crossing Paths is really working on the wormhole, but so far, things have been quiet and stable enough. And then, one evening, it gets a little more interesting...

"It’s been a couple days since I’ve last written. There wasn’t really that much to talk about until today. Annamar had a nightmare last night. Her screams were enough to chill your bone marrow. Her quarters are right next to mine, so I heard her very clearly. So did Kelna. So did half the floor.

I'm sorry, that wasn’t a very nice thing to say, especially because she was just terrified. I guess I know who was screaming that one night.

            We found her sitting on her cabin floor, sobbing and shaking, and very, very white. Kelna came in right away, followed by Jaria and me. She is usually so composed, and to see this kind of raw emotion is very unsettling. She kept going on about rips and tears and the effects of their reckless actions on the galactic fabric. She never actually said who ‘they’ were, just kept crying. After a while, we helped her calm down enough to go to sleep.

            I was not so fortunate—I lay awake for a very long while, mindsearching to calm myself. I felt around blindly in that vast black universe, and it was like being wrapped in a warm blanket, the kind from when you were a little kid. You know exactly where all the burst seams and frazzled edges are, and it’s so calming. It makes my head spin softly, better than alcohol or hradìrga any day.  I’d never want to have to analyze the fabric; I’d rather dwell in it and savour those faults. However, knowing where they are does help in the mapping. But enough about me.

            This morning she had almost forgotten about it, but I shall watch her very closely for the next few days. It’s creepy, because she might be a PreCog. Lots of the lunar people are. I remember reading about that in the old colony archives from the early days of Terran history. She seems so fragile sometimes, brittle and resilient in the same instant. I sure hope she’s okay.

Crystal. "

Crystal doesn't know yet that much more frightening things than a screaming nightmare will be in store for them....