Category: Fiction

The Guardian Cats of New York City: Watcher On The Shore is now available for sale!

Watcher on the Shore Title

Hey, all!

Like the title says, The Guardian Cats of New York City: The Watcher On The Shore is once again available for sale and for checkout on Kindle Unlimited.  For the story that gives us our first look at what happens when there’s something too big for the Guardian Cats to handle – and how they manage to help any – check out the Short Stories page, The Watcher On The Shore‘s own page, or just go straight to Amazon.

To whet your appetite, here’s an excerpt:

Nar-Tali didn’t often envy the senses of the two-legs, nose-numb and half-deaf as they were. But tonight he would have accepted their night-blindness if it had brought with it the distance and clarity of their vision. The Thing that was coming, it was coming from the water. He could sense that now, feel it in his whiskers and fur and bones like the coming of the storm. But as much as he strained his senses toward the Great Salty Water, he could detect nothing. The roaring of the rain filled his hearing; the water and the wind washed away all smells.

Then the skyfire flashed again, and he caught a glimpse of…something. It was distant and unclear and it was only there for a moment, but it was…it was like a hill had suddenly risen up out of the water, then slid smoothly back in.

The sky rumbled in response to the skyfire, drowning out all sound. But as the last of the echoes of the sky-roar faded, Nar-Tali thought he heard the last echoes of another – a distant reptilian bellow.

There it was again. Much closer this time. And much, much louder.

Nar-Tali noticed that the ragged two-legs was standing beside him now, staring out at the Great Salty Water. For all the good it would do him. Even if the hill in the water surfaced again, all he would see was black on black. Not that he, Nar-Tali, was doing much better. With all this blinding rain coming down, he might as well be a two-legs himself.

Wait – there it was. The hill in the water. It was beside the long wooden sidewalk that went out onto the water now, and it was approaching shore.

On some instinct, Nar-Tali nudged the ragged two-legs, then pointed toward the shore.

The two-legs nodded. He saw it, too.

The hill was rising out of the water. Only it was longer now. More of a ridge.

The ridge kept rising. And rising. And then it broke the surface, and…

Oh. Great. Sekhmet.

It was huge.

Bast have mercy, it was a great serpent. As long as the sidewalk-over-the-water…no, longer, as long as one of the great metal serpents that carried two-legs in their bellies as they screamed along the rails. And at least as thick.

Its head was broad and flat and angular, with horns and razored spines sticking out in all directions. Its mouth, with its three rows of fangs, was easily capable of taking the ragged two-legs whole. Its scales gleamed black in the light of the boardwalk lamps, and its eyes glowed a poisonous green.

It thrashed and coiled its way out of the surf, and then it was on shore, rushing forward on thousands of limbs of all description. Crab legs and lizard feet supported it as tentacles and jellyfish stingers waved in the air.

It was so big. So impossibly big. As big as old Apophis, but he was no Bast. He was just Nar-Tali. He couldn’t fight that. But he’d felt the calling in his bones tonight, the call to duty. Why had he been called if he could do nothing? There must be –

And then the ragged two-legs was striding forward, a stick in one hand, the other under his coat. “Whoa there!” He shouted. “Hey, whoa there!”

Looking the Other Way is now available for sale!

Cover-Final

The first story of the dark beneath the City is now available for sale!  Check out the updated Short Stories page, the story’s own page, or, if you’re in a hurry, just go straight to Amazon.  It’s available both for purchase and for checkout with Kindle Unlimited.

(All stories previously released through this site are now available only through Amazon, and can now be checked out through Kindle Unlimited.)

Excerpt:

The tracks were full of vermin.

It was a living river, flowing from the Queensward side – from the deep and unbroken dark beneath the East River. Probably shin-deep or worse, if I’d actually dared to get down there: rats squirming and climbing and tumbling over each other as an endless current of cockroaches carried them along.

They were running from something. Was the tunnel flooding? Should I be headed for the surface, like right-frigging-now?

But no, that wasn’t it. If I looked further up the tracks, toward the tunnel, I could see what they were running from. Right behind the cockroaches was a tide of…well, they looked like cockroaches, too, except that they were black – I mean absolute, gleaming, lightless, deep-space black, like chips of the all-consuming Void moving among the plain brown carapaces of New York’s everyday garbage-eaters – and they were big. The ones the size of my finger were running before the ones the size of my palm, who were running before the ones the size of my whole hand, who were…

Then, just as I was about to make a run for the surface – possibly while screaming like a little girl – a dark shape appeared in the tunnel. It looked human and it lurched along like it was drunk or unsteady on its feet, like the homeless guy up on the platform.

I started forward; plague of giant mutant cockroaches or no, a person down on those tracks is in several different kinds of deep trouble. The train would be along any minute, but it might not even be that long before a stumbling drunk stumbled into the third rail.

I didn’t get two steps before Janitor’s Coveralls grabbed my shoulder. “Dejalo, m’ijo,” he said. “Leave it. This is their territory.”

“Their what?” I said, starting forward again. Then I stopped short as the figure emerged from the tunnel.

It wasn’t human. If it ever had been, it wasn’t anymore. More of the black cockroaches – these ones with weird silver-colored ridges and knobs forming patterns on their shells – were swarming all over it. Over it and through it. Black bugs dripped from the sleeves of its trench coat and the cuffs of its raggedy corduroys; they spread like sweat stains across its ancient white undershirt; they concealed its feet as it shuffled forward through the swarm. It opened its mouth and a horrible crackling noise emerged, followed by more of the finger-sized black beetles. Worst of all, when it raised its head so I could see under the battered brim of its hat, I saw two of them lodged in its eye sockets, like tiny pilots operating the vehicle that had once been a man.

The Guardian Cats of New York City: Shin-Nephura’s Neighborhood Now Available for Sale!

Cover with title

Hey, all!

As I mentioned last week, I’m starting to put short stories back up for sale again, and I’m starting by republishing the ones that were published before.  As you can tell from the illustration, the first story to get this treatment is Shin-Nephura’s Neighborhood.  My apologies to the fans of the kittehs, but yes, this does mean that the free version of this story has been taken down from this site.

Take a look at the updated Books page, the brand-new Short Stories page, or Shin-Nephura’s own page.  Or if you’re impatient, just head straight to Amazon or Smashwords to pick yourself up a copy.

To whet your appetite, here’s an excerpt:

It was deep into the night. Even the most cat-spirited of two-legs had finished with eating their burned meats, drinking their mind-fogging poisoned waters, and inhaling their strange-flavored smokes. They had all returned to their dens to mate and to sleep. Only those with no den of their own remained out in the open airs, or those performing some strange human task or other. The great metal serpents still roared in their caves, but their bellies were nearly empty.

It was the time of the Cat.

The cat known to other cats as Shin-Nephura the Gentle, to herself by the secret name no other knew, and to the two-legs as Dodger, was out walking the streets of her domain.

She was known as “the Gentle” because she was affectionate and gracious to the two-legs of her domain, visiting them often and allowing them the liberty of scratching her head and stroking her back once she was sure they belonged. This familiarity had the benefit of teaching her much about the two-legs. For example, she knew that the name they’d given her came from one of those marvelous two-legs stories, and that it was the name of a clever thief. This pleased Shin-Nephura greatly; clever thieves are highly esteemed among cats. Also, many cats who were less in-tune with their two-legs were confused by such habits as putting on obvious mating displays and heat pheromones, but not mating. Shin-Nephura understood that the mating ritual of the two-legs was simply much longer and more complex than that of cats.

Perhaps most importantly, she had learned the names with which the two-legs marked her territory. Two streets marked the boundaries of her territory, and she lived where they came together. Their names were “Seaman Avenue” and “Dyckman Street”. For some reason, the two-legs seemed to find this funny.

She had a family of two-legs that she stayed with, who fed her and tended her hurts and stood as her companions. But unlike many cats that shared nearby dens with the two-legs, Shin-Nephura did not content herself with enjoying their companionship, playing and taking the food they gave her. She kept to the old Compact: “You will shelter us, feed us, and care for us in our illness and injury. You will honor us and give us good company. In exchange, we will protect you from the rodents that eat and foul your food, the insects that trouble you and bring disease, and the darker things that come out of the night.”

During the day, Shin-Nephura guarded the food place that her two-legs ran (in her clever listening, she had learned the words “corner bodega”).

By night, she walked a patrol.

She’d finished checking the courtyard and was just returning to the Corner Bodega when she stopped, ears pricked.

“Aaaaaalllleeeee”

Something was coming. Something that raised the fur along her spine and made her claws twitch involuntarily in their sheaths.

“AllEEEEE!”

Closer and louder now. Close and loud enough so that even a two-legs could have heard it. If any two-legs did hear, they would have been disturbed, even frightened, but they wouldn’t know why. Shin-Nephura knew. Whatever was coming was…wrong. It had come from the river – it squished and dripped and splashed with every step, and Shin-Nephura could smell the tidal muds – but it was no right part of the world of cats, birds, mice and two-legs.

It drew closer, and Shin-Nephura finally caught a whiff of something other than the muds.

Rotten meat.

Not like the food the two-legs so wastefully threw away, the meat just moldy or spoiled enough to be flavorful, but the smell of something long dead and decayed.

“aaAAallEEEeee!”

As the dead thing came around the corner and into view, Shin-Nephura’s hackles went all the way up and her claws scraped on the sidewalk.

A two-legs. The dead, lurching, half-rotten thing was a two-legs.

No wise cat wishes to face a two-legs in a straight fight. Slow, clumsy, half-deaf, night-blind, nose-numb, so often strange and silly in their behavior…it was easy to underestimate them. But yet, they were giants. Their strength was immense and their clever forepaws could create horrors. Once a cat was in a solid grip, there was little hope of wriggling free. The best one could hope for was to make the price too high.

“AAAaalleeee”

Still. She had a duty. The ancient compact.

The dead thing was shambling toward the iron gates that led into the courtyard. They were locked, but Shin-Nephura doubted that would be any obstacle. Locks and gates were little use against something like this.

“AAAA—”

“You are not welcome in my territory, dead thing.”

Coney Island Images – June 4, 2016

Hello, all.

My fiancee’ and I visited Coney Island this past weekend, and when she started taking pictures, it occurred to me that this might be a good way to start my long-planned media page.  Since I talk so much about Coney Island in Dreams of the Boardwalk and my other works (both fiction and non), I thought it might be a good idea to share the sights of Coney Island with all of you.  Just a few today, but I think they’re good ones – check ’em out here!

 

Another Good Step For A Friend

Dubiousbyhabit of Sartorially Smart Heroines (who I will be adding to my link page as soon as I create it) has commissioned another character study of characters from his upcoming novel First Empress.  This time, it’s Pella and Zahnia, two young girls who escape from the setting’s equivalent of mad scientists to join Queen Viarraluca in shaping history.

(I should warn you: as much as I’ve enjoyed the excerpts of First Empress that I’ve been privileged to read, it approaches A Song of Ice and Fire in terms of brutality.  Unlike ASOIAF, the most “moral” character is also the most competent, but even she comes right up to the edge of “Villain Protagonist” territory sometimes.)

(Also, I must say that I’m considering following Dubiousbyhabit’s advice and contacting MJ for some artwork myself.)

Coming This Week

Hey, all.

I know it’s been a while since I delivered any new fiction.  That’s not because I haven’t been working on any.  Quite the opposite!  This week, you get to see what I’ve been working on all this time.

So join me on Thursday for the first chapter of Dreams of the Boardwalk, a fantasy set in the strange and glittering wonderland that is Coney Island.

And yes, when this story is completed, it will be part of Shining Towers, Shadowed Tunnels.

A Good Step For A Friend

Dubiousbyhabit of Sartorially Smart Heroines (which I will be linking here soon, for all that it’s currently on hiatus) is writing a novel called First Empress, a fantasy set in an iron age world.  I’ve been reading and reviewing parts of it, and I highly recommend getting yourself a copy  when it comes out.  I’ll keep you posted on the progress.

In the meantime, Dubious has commissioned a picture of two of the main characters: Queen Viarraluca and her handmaiden and lover, Elissa.

Head on over to Sartorially Smart Heroines and check it out…and while you’re there, keep in mind that Queen Viarra is actually more awesome than she looks in that picture.

Found Stories: The Meat Loaf Album Covers

This story was originally published on my old blog on February 19, 2013.  I include it here partly because I think it’s an interesting meditation on creativity, inspiration and the process of writing…and partly because I really like it and want to share it with a new audience.

As I say on my About page, I’ve always loved the Stories. But here’s the thing about the Stories: they don’t stop. Call it a blessing, call it a curse – I can look at the most unlikely thing and build a story out of it. For example, I’ve built an entire mythos out of Meat Loaf album covers. It’s true. Let me show you what I mean:

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Continue reading “Found Stories: The Meat Loaf Album Covers”

For the Fans

I wasn’t originally planning to post tomorrow’s next story.  It was the last of the “Guardian Cats” stories to be completed, and I’m still not sure that it’s up to the same standard of quality as the others.

But I’ve received such a strong positive reaction to the Guardian Cats series – plus some straightforward requests – that I’ve decided to go ahead and publish that final story (though who knows?  If I keep getting a reaction like the one I’m getting, maybe it won’t be the final Guardian Cats story).  It’s a sad tale, but it honors a cat I knew personally.

Come back tomorrow for Kodama’s Courage.