Austronaut

Ologies: A Study of Arcane Specialists {Paranormal Investigations and more}

Rather a lot of people have to post before my 'turn' comes up again

Ologies: A Study of Arcane Specialists {Paranormal Investigations and more}

Fear me and my pencil!

Priest & Hawthorne Investigations (Redux!) - Supernatural Urban Fantasy!

@Fizzy

Great post,really enjoyed it!

Ologies: A Study of Arcane Specialists {Paranormal Investigations and more}

Wow how am I just now discovering the hide signature feature?!

Let sleeping dogs lie.

It is quite the band of cut throats!

Let sleeping dogs lie.

"We will need a ship,” Biancca said from the doorway, lounging against the crumbling stone column, her arms folded beneath her breasts. Several of the mercenaries looked more than a little sceptical. Kidnapping, for, if one was blunt, that is what this amounted to, was a little out of their comfort zones.

“Something small and fast, or large and heavily armed if we are to escape the Araby corairs. The could go overland of course but that was a long journey through hostile lands. It also didn’t bode for a quick escape.

“No doubt every questing Knight in the kingdom will be after us. A rare chance to rescue the literal damsel in distress.”

“Also if the goblin is coming, we will need a plan for that,” she grinned mischievously at the dwarf.

“The northern kingdoms take a more enlightened attitude towards greenskins as I understand it.”

She strode across the room to take her seat, retrieving her glass of wine.

“And money up front of course,” she said sweetly to the strange lord.

“I am not impugning your honour you understand my lord, but I’d really rather not be left to face Brettonian ‘justice’ if you accidently sail away without us.”

Priest & Hawthorne Investigations (Redux!) - Supernatural Urban Fantasy!

"Yes, I understand you are looking at it,” Emmaline responded as the taxi bumped through the darkened streets of Seattle. She tapped irritably on the glass in front of her, not for the first time, in her quest to get the driver to turn the horrid rap music of. Also not for the first time, he ignored her. Next bonus, she promised herself, she would buy a car of her own.

“I’m just saying that guardian spirits usually attach to special places, sacred in some way. Wal-Mart is pretty much the expression of soulless human misery.”

Nearly half an hour had passed since the head office had roused her from her bed. For a wonder she hadn’t been up late so it was only mildly annoying. She had pulled on her jogging attire and a light jacket against the cool spring air, grabbed her supplies, and hailed one of the few, surly, cabs to carry her to Morgan. She hadn’t even bothered to grab her gun.

Morgan’s reply was lost in a particularly loud blast of semi-obscene lyrics. Emmaline narrowed her eyes and focused, nesting parenthesis in her mind. With an audible pop, a component in the radio blew and the cacophony subsided to a gurgling static. The driver fiddled irritably with a now useless control. Ahead of them a light suddenly turned red. The driver stomped on the brake and the car skidded to a stop, slamming her against her prudently donned seat belt. Nothing for free.

“Look, I can probably contain it, at least for a while, but we need to know what it is doing there. They didn’t dig up some Druidic grove for garden supplies or something did they?”

Darkened Seattle loomed ominous in the streetlights. She should have felt the joy of of spring. Privately, she always hated the few weeks between the thaw of the snow and the first blooms of green. Tonight though, the green growths seemed more ominous than their skeletal, leafless, forbearers.

The cab pulled up in front of the Wal-Mart parking lot.

“You want me to take you up to the door missy?” the cab driver asked with oily politeness. He had his tip to consider now after all.

“No this is fine,” she responded curtly, shoving a generous amount of cash at him and hopping from the vehicle. Lights in the store flickered and died. Part of her wanted to wait here until Rob or Jacob arrived, but Morgan was in there, alone. She moved across the parking lot at a fast walk. Pulling her silver athame from her jacket pocket she held it, pointed down, against her pant leg. Better to be safe, etcetera. There was Morgan, her familiar aura marking her more clearly than her striking looks.

“What can I…” her question trailed off as she followed the other woman’s eyes.

“That…. Is not good.”

Ologies: A Study of Arcane Specialists {Paranormal Investigations and more}

Max, it seemed, had the right idea. This adolescent posturing was as dangerous as it was annoying. She slid sideways out of the small crowd and came face to face with Glory Grey. She smiled at the other woman, rolled her eyes and mouthed the words ‘boys’, before ruffling the little dogs head and slipping out of the room. She wondered if there was a reason that Wells and Raik hired such apparently unfeasibly young men. Perhaps the relative rarity of magically talented individuals led to a kind of ‘any port in a storm’ effect. Perhaps there were few older males because they destroyed themselves in childish fits before they could get their testosterone under control.

Visiting the bathroom on the way to her office, she carefully washed her hands. Some time ago she had seen a demonstration of how many bacteria the average person left after washing and this made her extra fastidious about the practice. Thus cleansed she returned to her office and collected the book, her briefcase and a large tablet she kept in her desk drawer. She pressed her thumb into the finger print scan and unlocked it. Four new messages. One from Mother, wondering how she was. Two were trash that had somehow slipped past her filters, the fourth was from Emmaline, subject line: Ritual. She thumbed it open as she set off down the hall. As always the text of the ritual was covered with notations in bright red pen and tiny German notations. Leaky. Suboptimal. Meta-inocian? Stick with a single syntax at least. She rolled her eyes and muttered something uncomplimentary towards her pedantic sister.

She reached the office without further incident. Max was already inside. Raised voices echoed down the hall. She wanted more coffee but decided against risking another trip into the fray. Not taking one of Glory’s corn muffins also struck her as a mistake. She contemplated further negotiations with future Lenya about working out and decided it might be just as well. Taking a seat across the table from Max she opened her briefcase and removed her notebook, slipping the tablet away as she did so.

“And I thought universities were the pinnacle of brooding adolescence,” she commented. She pushed the printed copy of Die Shriken und Wunder across the table towards Max. A further thought occurred to her.

“Glory doesn’t read German does she? I don’t want to upset her with a book she might consider unholy.”

Ologies: A Study of Arcane Specialists {Paranormal Investigations and more}

No! We must resist any effort to advance the plot. My only goal is to talk about books and avoid work!

Let sleeping dogs lie.

Wow that is so perfect!