Love & monsters no 1

Bumping Back at things in the Night...

Urban Romance Science Fiction Crime FREE Short stories Fantasy

World Building

YA

News Tales from a splintered mind

Winter 2013

Meet 2 Authors with 1 Aim

A Beginners Guide to Amerikan Dreams Out Now: The Ladies’ Paranormal & Adventure Club Book 2

Being story samples and the

Love & Monsters, Amerikan Dreams, Amerikan Nightmares, Black, White & Red All Over, The Ladies’ Paranormal & Adventure Club, Edith & Max and all characters contained within them © Rob Sharp 2013.

These stories are works of fiction.

The names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved.

This is a free magazine and may be downloaded and copied.

The right for Robert Sharp to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Further information can be obtained by contacting: robsharpavalon@googlemail.com

Hi, I’m Rob Sharp from the North of England, and when the moon is full I’m also Rikki Sharp, Romance writer. Seriously, there aren’t enough hours in the day!

S

o where did all this writing begin? Stories scribbled down at school to entertain my friends, coupled with an endless appetite for reading anything, especially American Comics.

Add to this being a TV and Film addict and a habit of drawing constantly, and here we are.

The photo to the left should be entitled, ‘Boy Reading Comic’ was taken of mini-me in the seaside town of Scarborough,

general ramblings of an author with a split personality

England around 1963, so that places me firmly in my era.

In his new age of Self Publishing, there are now so many ways to get your stuff out there, but it’s catching an audience that’s the trick. Over the last few years I’ve been lucky enough to meet a few good publishers that like my work, but I finally feel the time is right to combine everything I’ve been working on.

Because that is the secret.

Whether I’m writing Science Fiction, Young Adult or Crime as Rob, or steamy Romance and Supernatural stuff as Rikki, it’s all within the same shared universe. Characters and locations move between stories.

Where the joins occur, I’ll leave it to you readers to find. I’ve just got to find time to write it all.

Love & Monsters combines numerous ISSUU ideas in one semi-regular magazine. When

other short stories, novellas and novels come out, I’ll produce an issue 2, and so on. Hopefully, if you like what you see and read you’ll track down my books and give them a try. After that, if you like the books, you’ll help spread the word.

Because, there is a plan...

avalon2020

They liked their urban myths the same as their coffee...

...dark

Amerikan Dreams stories of the wild frontier in the world of the strange

Amerikan Dreams, all published exclusively on Amazon Kindle

Created over the past decade, I’ve been writing various lengths of tales about Anthony Leibowitz, the selfstyled curator of the strange and his eclectic cast.

The current time-line for reading these begins with Whisperings and will move up through the Amerikan Dreams series of ebooks.

This runs until the series of 3 Novels, Black, White & Red All Over (Details of that series later in this magazine) and then moves directly into my new novel-in-progress, Demonville, which pushes Leibowitz into new worlds and old terrors, by kicking off the Amerikan Nightmares series.

See... I told you there was a plan!

There have only been two curators of the strange; Mordecai Leibowitz, a disillusioned Jewish Rabbi born in 1443 and his son, Anthony, born 1876. Collecting (some would say stealing) the forgotten treasures of ages past and locking them away where the bad guys can’t find them. Which is an excellent way of making many varid enemies!

Whisperings is an introduction to both their worlds, leading into the Amerikan Dreams series of short story collections and novellas.

Amerikan Dreams #0 through to #4 can be found to download exclusively from Amazon Kindle. Just type in Amerikan Dreams and away you go!

A free sampler of Whisperings can be found as an ISSUU magazine by accessing http://issuu.com/avalon2020/docs/whisperings_sampler Amerikan Dreams #5: Steel Koala should be ready to put on line soon!

So who are the five gentlemen from the cover of

?

Which is something I didn’t know until a few months ago! Well, I sort of knew, due to their interaction in the tale concerning why Amerika ended up being spelt with a ‘k’. But these five rogues banded together properly for only a few years back in 1871-74 and the true reasons are only just becoming apparent.

Back, 1 Rabbi Mordecai Leibowitz, 2 Baron Leopold Klein 3 Acer Via. Front, 4 Captain Zacharia Faust 5 Edwin Daark.

This group of five gentlemen with no name, shone brightly for just over three years then went their separate ways – a footnote in the history of the world for those who played the Secret Game. Just before the clouds gathered over Europe and the Game itself became a far more deadly affair.

1

2

4

3

5

Rabbi Mordecai Leibowitz was one of the most seasoned legend-busters of his generation – a collector of the strange and the bizarre. By the time this photographic picture was taken on bustling Mulberry Street in New York City, he was having a crisis of Faith and his prowess in fighting coupled with his many lady acquaintances rather tarnished his image. He is still referred to fondly as, Leibowitz the Elder.

Mordecai vanished from the Looking-Glass Earth in 1893 during an expedition into the Grand Canyon, being taken into the air by a legendary Roc and spirited away through a crack in the sky.

Baron Leopold Klein hailing from Austria was a longstanding rival of Leibowitz. No one really knew why the two tomb raiders initially called this truce, but the various discoveries they made together almost eclipsed their individual careers. What looks like a monocle in the Baron’s left eye, was in fact a prototype bionic prosthetic. For 1871, it was ahead of its time, but the Baron always did love his gadgets! At this point in time he was driving a steam-driven carriage, much to the consternation of his friends.

Leopold was murdered most terribly by the nefarious Mr Black some years later.

The small man wearing some sort of gasmask was the bad fit to the group. Whereas the two tomb raiders were constantly bickering, Edwin Daark was a silent Mage of some pedigree. His knowledge of the arcane was second-to-none, but his use of breathing apparatus even in those halcyon days, told that he was a pioneer in exploring the stacked Worlds of the Gap, and all dimensions known collectively as, Otherplace.

He came back into notoriety in the 21st Century with his connections to The Ladies’ Paranormal and Adventure Club, crossing over into their supernatural urban romances quite significantly.

Acer Via was the black-eyed immortal of the group - a Magii by definition. Probably the best swordsmen that had ever lived, he was also outrageously gay and his love for Mordecai was legendary. As far as Anthony Leibowitz knew, it was a feeling that was never reciprocated. Then the more Anthony found out about his father’s past, very little would have surprised him anymore. Previous wife and long-lost sister anyone?

The immortal was also well known for his haphazard visions of the future, which were often more of a hindrance than a help. Acer went into hiding from the secret world after the massacre of his kind on New Millennia’s Eve, and has rarely been seen since.

The final gentleman of the group, with what looked like an electric rifle resting on his knee, was the military man, Captain Zachariah Faust. The Faust family was a bunch of gypsies, rogues and bounders down all known history (and well into the Future, if certain legends are to be believed). Up until a year before this picture was taken, Zachariah had been part of another team, run by a deadly enemy. It seemed he had many dealings and useful allies within the Daemonic community.

In his father’s diaries, Anthony found out that Mordecai never really trusted the Captain, despite his gregarious ways. He could drink even the Rabbi underneath the table, on one of the group’s legendary binges.

Faust also came to a sticky end at the hands of the infamous Mr Black.

Amerikan Dreams, all published exclusively on Amazon Kindle

NEW RELEASE!

WALPURGIS NIGHT sampler

What starts as a Girls’ vacation on the Orient Express, dissolves into an arcane riot!

Chapter One “You always leave things until the last bloody minute!” cursed the tall, leggy blonde, trying to grab her friend’s case along with her own, whilst squeezing through the ticket barrier all at the same time. Tantalising, yards away on the station platform, the guard was already shutting the decorative carriage doors one after another. Above their heads was an ornate hand-painted sign reading, ‘Orient Express. London to Venice’.

It was to be the trip of a lifetime and they were in danger of missing it.

“You’ll hold the train,” protested the short, curvaceous Latino lady to the ticket collector, flicking back long waves of raven hair sensually from her foxy face.

“Sorry, madam. We have a tight schedule to keep,” said the guard, tearing his gaze away from her generous cleavage and trying to tow the company line.

The dark-haired girl’s crimson eyes burned into the poor man’s soul. “No, you turkey, that was an order, not a question!”

“The damn thing was in here five minutes ago,” protested the tangle-haired Goth, rummaging through her purse. “You saw me pick it up from the booking’s desk, then I put it— Ah!” With a cry of triumph, she waved her ticket in the air and her three friends let out sighs of relief.

There was a shrill whistle from the train as it let out a blast of steam.

Like four drunks on a Friday night, the quartet of girls staggered down the platform, nearly losing magazines, bottles of water and in the bobbed redhead’s case, her crossbow. But with cries of glee and hysterical laughter, they were finally on the train.

As the Goth who had mislaid her ticket tripped up the iron step into the carriage, she dropped one of the magazines she had been carrying. Before she could wriggle her nose or something equally timeless, and levitate the periodical back into her bag, a young man appeared out of nowhere and scooped it off the floor. There followed the usual embarrassing ten seconds as he simultaneously tried to pop it back into her hand and climb up on board the train himself before it pulled away.

He looked nice in a shy sort of way, she thought, giggling like some dumb collage girl. Strange business suit . . . really old-fashioned. That winged collar and ribbon tie looked uncomfortable. Very Dickensian! And what was the deal with the stainless-steel briefcase? Very 1990’s!

As the two of them grinned stupidly at each other, she wondered what the strange guy made of her; blue streaks in her hair, stud through her nose, ring in her bottom lip, and a serious collection of rock-star tattoos. Well, she was comfy inside her own skin, so what the hell!

“Sorry,” he excused himself and spun off backwards into the train.

“Sorry and thanks,” she echoed, watching him go. Interested at this stage, but not interested, all at the same time.

“Move your butt, nuisance,” snapped the statuesque blonde, reaching around her and grabbing the frame of the carriage door. No sooner had the dominatrix slammed it shut behind them, than the train lurched forward, metal screeching on metal as the steam locomotive began to hiss and grind sedately out of the station.

“Venice, here we come! Just look at the decadent décor of this carriage.

Doesn’t this take you back?” cried the blonde, Anya, throwing herself down on one of the luxuriously padded seats in their carriage.

The elegant redhead, Cleopatra, pushed down the window and let the smell and the noise of the steam engine waft into the carriage. She closed her eyes and smiled, trying to remember how many years it had been since she travelled by this route, instead of taking short cuts through the firmament via the slipways.

“This reminds me of early last century, when gentlemen knew their place and had fewer pollutants in their blood,” drawled Silver, in her thick New York accent, licking her rather long eye teeth suggestively.

“Less of that, girl!” chided Cleopatra, the undisputed leader of the bunch.

“You promised!”

“Only teasing,” retorted the dark Latino, but her flashing eyes told Cleopatra that statement was a lie. Silver had forgotten her damn tablets again. Like it or not, there would be blood.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” said the group’s resident Mage, the Goth-fashion victim, Raven, “this train smells of Magik!”

“I’d be disappointed if it didn’t, sweetheart,” said Cleopatra, still coming down after that chaos in Dubai . . . hoping her self-medication against the Fear would last out. “We are on the Supernatural Express after all!”

For this was the first annual vacation of that rather unique group, the selftitled Ladies’ Paranormal and Adventure Club. With the Elfin, the Mage, the

Vampyre, and the Earth-Angel, all on an expedition to Venice via the Orient Express. Because this year, they were taking time out to attend the worlds largest arcane festival, attended by humans and Supernaturals alike.

Walpurgis Night.

Well, that’s how the trip started out, anyway. Then someone, probably Silver, had turned the relaxing and pampered rail trip into an alcohol-fuelled competition to see which girl could kiss the most men in their two-and-ahalf day journey across Europe. Which was when the paranormal assassins moved in, skulking behind the dark side of mirrors, and Cleopatra sensed there was an old, slightly unhinged Malefic Daemon on board.

With all this chaos hitting the fan, was there going to be any time for a little old-fashioned romance on the Orient Express?

Chapter Two Balthazar’s broken legions were scattered across the unnamed plain as far as the eye could see. The occasional twitch of a bloodied limb amongst the piles of bodies, accented by tilted banners carrying ripped and charred red flags, marked with the sigils of the ancient and terrible Houses of Hell. Only carrion crows and rats as big as cats stalked across the battlefield now. The smell of putrefaction and death filled a world that once sported flowers and trees and birds.

How long the 11th Host had fought with the 18th Damned, was unfathomable. Time moved differently for the opposing forces in this blighted place. Broken wings waved in the stagnant breeze amongst the bestial limbs and severed horns. Red blood splattered with the black and the green. God had sent his old breed of Angel to war, the Seraphim from original stock, when prayer and damnation was enough to cast out brimstone and blasphemy.

Not so now. On the modern battlefields, where mutations on both sides raged against the machine and Balthazar, his Grand Abusiveness, was quietly missed, such modern festivities where now all guns and bombs, atomic fire and laser light.

But back in the Darkest of Ages, what had the Repentant Hosts done with the spirits of a thousand million slaughtered Angels?

Rebuilt for the New Millennium.

Grafted an Angel’s Holy Fire to the soul of a good and godly mortal then resurrected them. This was how Earth-Angels were created. *** Those last dregs of the Fear in Cleopatra’s body opened up this bitter recollection, courtesy of her other-self, as she watched the less than handsome underside of London roll by through the carriage window.

Cleopatra only vaguely remembered her benefactor’s fall on that mythical battlefield, oh so long ago. The Angelic half of her soul watching her last bloody sunset go down, before the wolves descended from the hill to finish her off. But to her human host it was like a dream . . . a very bad dream.

Likewise the first short life of Lady Cleopatra Victoria Defoe had had a nightmare quality to it. She’d been murdered just before her fifteenth birthday in the month of June 1708, by a mindless Wraith hell-bent on rape and slaughter.

Both deaths painful and bloody.

Then what felt like an eternity later—sweet rebirth in the city of San Francisco 1826, where both pure souls had been melded together to create something new, something wonderful.

Appearing an eternal twenty-nine years of age, Cleopatra walked the Waking World with grace and style. A woman of substance, a lady of secrets, with that alabaster complexion contrasted by the bright red of her hair, bobbed

just so, in line with her aristocratic jaw line. With eyes of an undetermined colour, she could see the Layers of Ages where the Undead stuttered, brushing shoulders with the living. But she was still a woman of the world, a heaven-sent poet and a connoisseur of the art of love. And in her turn she gave love. But none so beautiful nor as deep as the torrid affair she had had with the rogue, Stephano Angelus—the heartbreaker.

The problem being that her love had been unrequited.

Cleopatra smiled to herself, watching her own reflection in the carriage window. This tale again . . . She thought they were all done with Angelus, after he had died in a place between worlds less than six months before.

Oh, the angel-tears she had shed for him when they had had that first bitter fight, just over a century-and-a-half ago. When she had cursed his very existence. Since then, love with any other man was like wine gone sour. Still, recently she had agreed to give life one more try, energised by the company of these three girls and a forth absent friend, as the train’s organic rhythm matched her quickening pulse. But in the back of her mind the ghost of his memory bit back. There was something oozing out of the cracks between Reality and the realms of Purgatory . . . and it wasn’t nice at all.

Was this the after-effects of the arcane virus Artemis had infected her with, or something else entirely? She needed a distraction, and a stiff drink. *** “So, where do you come from?” the IT technician named Barry asked the beautiful Cleopatra, a short while later. He wasn’t in Stefano’s league, but then, who was?

To cleanse herself of the memory of the Fear, the Earth-Angel had wasted no time in finding a potential kiss-chase partner. Whilst the others fussed over who was sleeping with whom in their carriage’s twin bedrooms, she had headed for the bar. It was nearly eleven in the morning, a perfect time for an iced G & T. Barry had been in the mood too, as the Express rattled its way sedately through London’s urban sprawl.

“Go back far enough, and I’ve wild Highlander blood coursing through my veins.” She leaned casually against the bar, her body swaying with the rhythmic roll of the moving train. “But more recently I’m of pure Kent stock.

Daddy used to be something big in the City, I never quite found out what. Old Money, you see. Very old. I should be ashamed of the fact that I don’t have to work for a living, but be honest, darling, would you be?” Cleopatra loved telling tall tales. Building up her part in the sensual foreplay.

Barry grinned back like a loon. No doubt he was thinking, posh bit of Totty looking for a naughty adventure.

I could slice this churl in half if I unfurled my wings now. But breeding won out, and Cleopatra flashed her perfect pearl-white smile at him instead.

She was short for her ranking, but made up from her small stature by wearing towering six-inch heels. The pristine white blouse and tight grey trousers contrasted with her rich dark red-bobbed hair, not a single strand out of place, and her skin like flawless ivory made her the archetype English Rose.

It was amazing what a glamour charm could do these days.

She could sense that good old Barry was already aroused. Oh, this was going to be so easy. Then it was only a kiss. Anything else and he’d have to whistle!

“Cleopatra! There you are,” came a familiar voice. Frustrated, Cleopatra chewed at her bottom lip, sloshing part of her drink over the bar counter.

“Oh, naughty, naughty!” chuckled Anya, the blonde towering over both flirters. She lifted the G & T out of Cleopatra’s hand and tutted. “She’s on the wagon, you know. This is supposed to be a rehab vacation.”

“Harpy,” growled Cleopatra under her breath.

“Now me, on the other hand, I’ve been in a Convent in Sarajevo for the last ten years. I’m ready for anything!”

“Lying harpy. Excuse us, Barry. I’m sure we’ll bump into each other again.

Anya has to go back into a quiet, darkened place, ¬doctor’s orders, don’t you know!” She made the confused IT guy jump as she ran her long-nailed fingers across his chest through his shirt, then with a teasing laugh, linked arms with Anya and towed her friend back towards the private carriage.

“Dirty play, Anya! I was in for an early score there!”

“I know,” sniggered the blonde, totally out of character. “Let the train get into the Tunnel first, Cleopatra, no pun intended!”

But the Earth-Angel wasn’t listening. She was suddenly in a sanctified world of her own as a shadowy profile on drawn blinds caught her eye. A familiar cruel jaw-line and hooked nose silhouetted against one blind, just for a moment. Sharp teeth in endless rows, like a living buzz saw, bred especially to kill.

Then the shadow was gone.

“Cleopatra? Anything wrong?” whispered Anya.

“There is a Daemon in that carriage! By his aura, the last of that creature’s kind should have been trampled beneath the hooves of the heavy dragoons in the Battle of Salamanca in 1812,” Cleopatra hissed back.

“What in Ulrîk’s name are you talking about?” the Elfin replied, all trace of the flaky persona vanishing, and the warrior inside of her instantly on guard.

“We have one of the Bestiary on board, woman. A Malefic Daemon!”

Anya broke out into a smile, sweeping her long blond hair behind one elegantly pointed ear. “Now that’s what I call a target for a good hunt!” she said with a joyous sigh. “I’ll go sharpen my Vorpal blade!”

So the Orient Express rattled on towards its coastal destination, the rest of its mortal passengers unaware that arcane battle was about to commence. ***

The Origins of...

I

The Ladies’ Paranormal & Adventure Club

f you’ve just read the first two chapters of Walpurgis Night, here’s a little inside information about the story behind the story. If you haven’t read the Sampler yet, go back and do it right now!

Ideas for the fabulous Girls of the Ladies’ Paranormal & Adventure Club had been bubbling under in earlier stories for a few years. I wrote about my first EarthAngel (whatever they were) called Cassandra in a short story that was never completed. Then her sister-in-arms appeared in a couple of Steampunk stories, her name was Briar Rose.

Raven’s mother, Elise LeCroix had been listed in an Amerikan Dreams chapter along with other Mages famous for saving Little Transylvania from a riot and a fire. Infact originally she was in the first outing of the Club, but I decided a younger witch who was far less experienced would be more fun.

Jayne Constantine already had a predecessor in an unfinished Urban Romance (my first try at this genre!) named Heartbreakers, where my werepanther was a rather well-heeled young debutant, Serenity Devine.

(Who eventually morphed into a sassier girl named Eva Heart… which is another story!)

The Elfin, Anya Grith-Vфs-Danka had an earlier predecessor in a Little Transylvania story set in the future, The Immigrant. She was a gun-toting, horse riding police officer called Silva Eskrist-MåcTain.

Our Vampyre Silver Karnstein’s dad Ygor was already one of Anthony Leibowitz’s old friends. So there you go, all the girls were there in spirit, they just needed to meet in the flesh.

Which brings me neatly back to their first story, where they all first grouped together against a common foe – Book 1: Young Blood. But that wasn’t actually the first story I wrote about them, that was a short story that grew into the Orient Express half of Walpurgis Night.

The Shapeshifter, the Elfin, the Vampyre, the Mage and the Earth-Angel, connected by their visceral love of a dead man, have forged a bond, a Supernatural friendship unparalleled in the Waking World. Together they are known as, The Ladies’ Paranormal and Adventure Club.

As insane as it sounds, gods are walking the Earth

once again. But these are the younger offspring of those ancient myths, who like to call themselves the Young Blood, just because it sounds cooler. They have targeted five free and single Paranormal ladies under the orders of a strange Mage named Edwin Daark. It involves a black skull, an ancient power struggle within the godtribe and one of the girls falling head over heels in love with the tall, bronzed Young Blood with the metal wings, named Ikarus.

So it begins. Young Blood and Walpurgis Night can both be ordered from Amazon, Barnes & Nobel or direct from the publisher, Soul Mate Publishing.com.

A bit of light relief, Written & Drawn by Rob Sharp

out there...

Books knocking on Publisher’s doors at the moment.

A TOUCH OF MIDNIGHT (YA)

After the Red Storm traps Sarah Starling with her brother and sister in their crumbling London home, they emerge to find Wild Magik has replaced Science. From hidden worlds, the faerie Sidhe have migrated to our reality and now own the Earth.

Two years later 17-year-old Sarah Whispers is the wife of a shady Sprite, Jack-of-Nightingales. Her siblings have been spirited away, yet there are other teenagers living free up on Zenith Heights.

The talk is of revolution but Sarah faces her biggest challenge yet… death.

Hidden between Life and Death she meets the ephemera. As their latest recruit, her new name is Sarah Midnight. Everyone talks of pushing the Fey back into the sea, but all Sarah wants to do with her new powers, is find her brother and sister.

At the moment, with Bloomsbury Spark.

DARK

STAR HEROES Book 1 The Art of War

DARK STAR HEROES (YA)

The year is 4879. The artificial intelligence known as Ten, are trying to put genetically modified humanity back together again to explore the other half of the galaxy, by enrolling Earth’s scattered children into the Saratoga Program.

Caruso Ives from the asteroid belts lives in his antigravity chair. He wants to explore the Dark Stars, as does rich-girl Desiree Day, neo-fascist Hauser Siegfried and tech-head Imra Singh.

There are others heroes of course, hiding in plain sight. The most controversial being Chevaux Noir, the 4 Horsemen, who everyone used to think were characters from fiction.

Amongst all the book learning, the teen-crushes and the space wars, it’s sometimes difficult to tell who are heroes and who are villains.

Currently with Angry Robot’s YA imprint, Strange Chemistry.

OUT NOW!

BW&RAO sampler

Five corporate legbrakers walked into a Curio shop in Greenwich Village and died - violently.

Three years later, they came back to life again.

Epitaph September 10th 2003 In a sea of well-mown grass, the pearl-white gravestones fanned out in irregular waves. At the very centre of this display was a carved monument to the jazz musician, as a tribute to friends and loved ones who had passed over. The cemetery was called, Elysian Fields; privately owned by one of the top ten corporate entities in Amerika, situated at the southern end of Lincoln Park in Chicago.

On such a sunny day, its anaesthetized atmosphere only appeared marred by the private armed police who wandered aimlessly between its four entrances.

Guarding the dead.

Shi-Kane walked with dignity from the west gate, her head held low so that

her straight dark hair hung like a curtain hiding her tears. In her tiny hands was a bouquet of white lilies. John had always liked those, as much as he expressed any opinion concerning flowers.

The four grave markers were set to one side of the statue of Louis Armstrong, still playing his horn from beyond the grave – one of Chicago’s favourite sons. Each stone simply bore a name and those two bookend dates of birth and death; followed by the eulogy; ‘They fell in the line of duty’.

Removing the dead flowers from the urn in front of John’s grave, she spent a few moments arranging the live ones. There were several other withered offerings of remembrance there too, so she tidied them up out of habit.

Tokens from other women in John’s life, she presumed. The Korean Seer did not fool herself into believing she was the deceased soldier’s only lover.

Standing up, she mouthed the four names to herself once again.

Delta Chaney.

John Savage.

Lloyd Eastman.

Aaron Fate.

So they’d given Fate a Christian name too, for normality’s sake. She smiled and dragged the hair out of her eyes with cold fingers. Better than what happened to the fifth member of the team, forgotten and unmarked. Then you couldn’t bury a robot, really, could you?

All dead and gone these past three years.

“Oh, John...” she sighed into the gentle breeze; crisp and sharp off the lake.

“You bloody fool. Why couldn’t you have listened to me?”

The Gatecrashers, corporate knee-breakers in a secret world, were now nothing but memories.

But Shi-Kane had had a dream.

From beyond the grave, the band was getting back together.

Chapter 1 - Red Skies January 5th 1498 Lost between reality and make-believe, the stunted little man with the ginger hair had built a nest. His Fey ancestors used to dig such burrows underground, amongst the roots of the mighty Oak and the graceful Elm to store food and treasures in, but this nest was simply full to the brim with greed. It was the place where he kept his stolen spoils.

When the moon was new, like the bright silver blade of a scythe nailed to the sky over the city of Florence, he crept into his nest and pulled the precious things tight around him, singing softly to himself. It was done for comfort; it was done for love, for on this Looking-Glass Earth, he was an only child.

There had never been one like him, nor would there be again.

He was a mistake of super-nature.

In the beginning, when he was thrown out of Heaven and had to claw a living on this bitter world by picking pockets and eating the corpses of dogs and rats, he used to cry every night, all alone amongst the things thrown away.

One day, he vowed his bed sheets would be of the finest linen and his food served from plates of beaten gold. Then he would stop crying for his parents, wherever they were.

“Maybe they would come back for me the ‘morrow…” he would say, his eyes fixed on the moon. “My fair mother and my dark father… grow tired of their black and white games in Otherplace and retrieve me, their only son.”

But they never came.

Then to that new moon every month, he would curse their half-remembered names and shake his bony fist at the stars, demanding his revenge.

Somehow the child-thief survived and became a boy and the boy grew to be a wicked trickster of a young man. Until one day he stole something very special. So special that he had to hide it underground lest it shout out for its original owner and he would be caught and punished.

When he had stolen one item of such value, a unique oddity much like himself, one whose special purpose he barely understood, it led the young man to a second artifact of power, and that begat a third… So his black collection grew, trinket by trinket with each passing year, until his villain’s nest was full of such stuff.

It was a treasure hoard to be envied by the gods.

The foundations of his obsession had begun the day an old man had shown him pity, and had taken him off the streets to set him to work in his studio with his other apprentices. Now he was an odd cove.

Night calls to the local hospitals, whence upon he did proceed to cut dead bodies open so he might better understand how the human frame worked.

Then there were his stupid toys of paper birds and all manner of machines, by which he hoped man would one day be able to fly.

But it was his paintings that touched the nameless youth’s soul. How pigments of colour could be so arranged to represent people and places and things. The ginger lad would sit for days holding his master’s pallet, watching each deliberate brushstroke add more depth and detail to the finished scene.

Yes, Leonardo da Vinci was a strange soul that much was sure. Scribble, scribble, scribbling all day and night with his backwards writing, which the youth found no difficulty reading, for some strange reason. A new idea here, a drawing of great skill there, Leonardo’s head fair near exploded there was so much inside it that he needed to get out… as if he were possessed by daemons.

Then there were his most secretive of drawings. His communications with other like-minded savants, as they met in secret and divided up the universe.

Within this secret society was developed da Vinci’s ultimate Code, in which he believed that the world would naturally produce a great number of special people, such as him, in a time of great crisis. An epoch in the future

when the skies would turn red and the ancient forces of old return. In that future time, when their number reached seventeen, these pilgrims would band together and save the world from a chain of superlative events – last but not least, the return of that most seductive of energies, Magik.

This prophecy exited the boy more than he realized.

Then one day the youth found his master’s drawings and a working model of a machine of war that did sling Greek Fire down upon the heads of ones enemies from a great many leagues, and the temptation to possess this thing became too much for the urchin to resist. Something tugged at his arms and legs and mind, forcing him to steal the device and hide it away.

So his future was set.

Having been called Flambé after the shade of his hair by Leonardo when he was found half-dead in the gutters of Florence, the youth gave himself a new name. All the machines and mystical devices he compiled were connected to the waging of war. In his short life, it was war that fired men’s souls and pushed them into doing great acts of heroism and terrible deeds of cruelty.

War that advanced mankind in creating better ways to kill and maim each other. What the youth had stolen was war pushed to its maximum level, so that some of the treasures he now possessed were capable of tumbling the world into ruin… if he had been a more evil man.

By stealing these devices, he tricked himself into believing he had saved the world, just as the seventeen pilgrims would after him. He saw himself as the son of Warr, with that extra growl to its end, now known to his new circle of friends as Maximilian, because he did nothing by half.

The years were kind to him. His mixed ancestry of Angel and Daemon made it so he aged far slower than any mortal man. So with the passing of the decades, he grew more cunning and greedier. If he could find certain people to join him in his quest, he could save the world all over again.

At least that was how the crooked path of Maximilian Warr began, when life was a little simpler than it is today.

But time moved on. His ideas, in fact the man himself, began to fade into the very fabric of the universe, so that only those he allowed could now see him. Almost by accident, he became one of the people behind the curtains of Life’s stage, quietly puling the strings. One of its invisibles.

The trouble being, even lifted to these lofty heights that gods once occupied, he found he wasn’t alone.

Chapter 2 - White Day October 12th 2002 “In the greater scheme of things, there are seventeen people in the secret world that I need to touch base with. Yes, that damn prime number again; it will haunt me to my grave! They may be mortal humans or they may be paranormal or supernatural beings. Whatever – whoever they are, the keystone to this mystery is that flea on the planet’s back, Maximilian Warr,” explained Leibowitz as he and his guest sat sipping coffee on the Navy Pier to keep out the winter chills. “It all points back to Warr.”

Lake Michigan was grey and overcast, stretching out to a false horizon, as behind them Chicago rose up like a steel forest and the drone of midday traffic was like an old comfort blanket to the Windy City girl.

“This is all to do with the Super-War, of course,” he babbled on excitedly, gathering a full head of steam due to having a captive audience.

She had known the curator of the strange almost twenty years, and in that time he was never fully relaxed with her. Maybe it was because of what she did, or what she could do. Then maybe it was just Anthony’s thing of being ill at ease with the opposite sex.

“Everything is to do with the possibility of a Super-War at the moment,” he continued his rant. “I’m seeing signs and portends where none exist. But of all the cases I inherited from my papa, anything to do with Warr is the strangest. Which brings me neatly back to the seventeen pilgrims.”

“Why are you telling me this, Anthony?” asked Shi-Kane, sipping at her latte and brushing the strands of dark hair out of her eyes.

“Because I believe you are one of the seventeen,” he quietly dropped the bombshell.

The Korean Seer simply blinked at him, amazed. “But I would know! It’s what I do – divine weird information. I’m plugged into the soul of the world, God damn it! If that world had a special purpose waiting for me, I would know!”

“You’d think so, already?” Leibowitz grinned at her, raising his mug. Well, she took that better than I thought she would, he mused, all smiles. “This is why I need you to arrange an interview for me with Isabella da Vinci.”

“No one talks to the Da Vinci’s. They have withdrawn from Reality. To the Waking World they do not exist, as if Leonardo never had any children. That was all the propaganda about him being gay was all about… horny old goat that he was!”

“You meet with Isabella every third Thursday of the month to try and channel her grandfather.”

“How do you…?”

“I just do. Get me twenty minutes in a room with Isabella, and we’ll find out more about the seventeen. That’s all I ask.” *** “I gather you’ve been searching for me for some time, Mr Leibowitz. If this is about your father, I’m sorry, but from the day you appeared on the scene, bawling your eyes out and filling your nappy, he cut himself off all of my family.”

“Papa used to work with you?” said Anthony, oddly enough feeling totally at ease with this elusive super-star.

“Correction – he used to work for us. He was the best legend hunter we ever had, before everything got so serious. I miss his clever sayings and his bitter sarcasm. Plus the beard. The beard tickled!” One of the three most beautiful women in the world actually giggled like a high school girl talking about an old crush. Now that Leibowitz found strange beyond words.

Running her fingers through her long dark curls and suddenly eyeing Anthony up and down like some prize bull rather threw him too. “We still use hunters from time to time,” she pouted. “If you are interested.”

“I’m interested,” he croaked, his throat drying in an instant. “But my schedule is rather full at the present time. Why I needed to meet you was to talk about Maximilian Warr. Everyone seems to ignore the little man, partially due to his skills to edit himself from Reality. But his name is cropping up more and more in all the live cases I’m working on at the moment. He was your illustrious grandfather’s apprentice back in the 13th Century… so I thought of you. Now I find he had a connection to the late, notso-great Gatecrashers and I can’t figure out why.”

The lady laughed in a most sophisticated manner. “Oh, that. Simple really; Max had the killer in his pocket. Lloyd Eastman was Warr’s boy.”

“Why? They were just a bunch of knee-breakers. Corporate thugs.”

Isabella shrugged, growing bored with the conversation. “Who knows with that irritating little man? Always trying to rise above his station – once a pickpocket from the gutter, always a pickpocket, no matter who he curries favour with. As you probably know, one of his more confusing hobbies is, he adopts strays… Makes seemingly random people become extraordinary.”

“As if he is working to the Code?” Here we go, thought Leibowitz. The whole reason I wanted to speak to you, you fascinating, beautiful woman!

“Ah. At last we get to the point.” Isabella woke up and fixed Anthony with her predator’s gaze. “That old legend, Mr Leibowitz? Really? Seventeen souls nurtured from obscurity to protect us from the perils of the future? That was last century’s fad, wasn’t it?”

“But it was your grandfather’s prophesy, and you – if my research is correct, and it usually is – are a part of the Code.”

“Am I? Says who?”

“Says me.”

She switched on that look again. Like he was dog dirt on the soles of her shoes. “Well you are wrong. Grandfather was wrong. Warr is wrong. I agree this version of planet Earth is spiraling out of control, but a handful of individuals cannot reverse that trend!”

“I totally disagree,” he pressed his luck, absentmindedly touching the bulge in his waistcoat pocket where he kept his father’s Hunter watch. It was becoming a bit of a ‘tell’ whenever he talked about the seventeen pilgrims, which he was struggling to keep in check.

“Well you think wrong!” she suddenly shouted, loosing all her legendary cool and rising to her feet in a cloud of thunder.

Isabella da Vinci glanced at her ornate Ultrawave; the rich person’s computerized everything, strapped to her wrist.

“Look at the time. You made me lose my temper, Anthony… I never lose my temper. This interview is officially over. I’m sorry I couldn’t help. Crackpot theories aren’t really my style.”

“I’m sorry too. I hope when I get this bee out of my bonnet about the Code, we can meet again and discuss more civilized things.”

“That would be nice.” She smiled at him stiffly and allowed him to bow and kiss her offered hand. “Oh… just one thing before I go. Your sister is still living in that ridiculous moving House.” It was a statement, not a question.

“How did you know…?”

“Lorenzo Marvelo was an old personal friend of mine. I know the locations

of every single architectural work of art he created, at any given moment.”

She batted those well-curled eyelashes at him. “Just a simple hobby, you understand.”

“Rebecca spends most of her time in the House, she feels at her safest there.”

“Amongst your father’s endless mountains of paperwork and journals, I know. I visit her from time to time. I’d like to think we are friends.”

“You do? She never said.”

“Secrets run deep in the Leibowitz family, Anthony… almost as deep as they do with the da Vinci line. We are both – what’s the phrase – ah, old school.

All I’m saying is; visit her a little more than you presently do. Open the place up to a few more guests. If they mean you or your sister harm, the House will not permit them to enter.”

She turned to leave that dark, oppressive space of the Sistine Chapel in the Apostolic Palace of Rome, which Leibowitz had somehow been able to hire for the full day, and made to leave.

Then she stopped in her tracks, her elegant back to him. “I appreciate the venue, by the way,” she whispered. “My father, the Cardinal, used to bring me here when I was a little girl.”

“I know. That’s why I picked it.”

“If you wish to talk to the queen of crackpot theories, I suggest you have a word with her. She who portends to be the ruler of the world. Talk to Scorpio about Leonardo’s Code.”

“I thought she was dead… one of the victims of the New Millennium’s Eve massacre?” It was his turn to sit up straight, like a startled hare.

“She faked her own death. Those bloody Magii are so good at things like that. I’ve left her number on my card by your side… it may or may not still be

an active line. Good hunting, Mr Leibowitz.”

When the lady finally left the room, Anthony let out the breath he had been holding since the meeting started. His sister knew Isabella and she had never mentioned it? He was slipping! But now he’d moved on from the third most beautiful woman in the world to the first, with his current obsession. Or at least she had been the last time he saw her play at Wembly Stadium in front of a sell-out crowd. Scorpio, the woman with a million past lives, when she had been a rock sensation in the early 1970’s. *** Of course he rang the number on Isabella da Vinci’s card immediately. A man’s voice answered, Anthony could guess whom. The deep tones told him to go to a back alley in the heart of Little Transylvania, and then hung up. The man didn’t say when, so Leibowitz took that as being now. When he tried the number again out of curiosity, it had been disconnected.

Some hours later, the curator of the strange stood in the leaning alleyway in New York’s most secretive manor, its cracked walls rich with moss and lichen and the gutter down its centre running with a foul smelling brown liquid that he tried not to step in. Several years’ worth of garbage was scattered down its length, before the passage emerged back into Dead Angel Street, one of the poetically named Seven Streets of the principality.

A section of a broken mirror leaning against the wall caught his eye. The frame once elegant now rotted and splintered. Could she be… No! No one used mirrors to speak through these days!

“Scorpio? Er, I’m here. It’s Leibowitz.”

A shimmer of silver crossed the glass for a moment.

“Anthony, so nice to speak to you again. But I was supposed to be dead.”

She had a voice like honey mixed with a little gravel. Deep and sweet that could enslave a man’s heart with a single word.

He laughed nervously. “I’m glad you aren’t. Too many of your people died on New Millennium’s Eve.”

“That’s why they called it a massacre,” came the humourless reply. “You’re poking about concerning Leonardo’s Code, I understand.”

“Yes.” He touched the pocket watch again, almost involuntarily. Damn it!

Stop doing that, he chided himself.

“Well cease and desist, Anthony. Far too many good men have gone to their graves chasing that particular phantom. There are much more interesting mysteries in the world which need solving, like how did I escape certain death? What am I doing now? Who killed the Gatecrashers? Is that stain on your shirt tomato ketchup or blood?”

He automatically looked down at his dark shirt. There was no stain to be seen.

“Gotcha!” laughed the rich, sexy voice.

He laughed nervously too, wondering if there was a point to all this.

“Warr thinks the Code is worth pursuing. Warr is trying to put together his own list of seventeen pilgrim souls.”

“Warr might have bitten off more than he can chew, Anthony. One of those lost souls, those children he has taken so much interest in down the centuries, was a young Egyptian girl. He’s opened doors for her that were best left closed and now the student is far more powerful that the teacher.

Now he has to keep on the move lest she find him again…” The voice suddenly tailed off.

With a slight cracking noise, the shard of mirror split down the middle then broke again, until only a pile of small pieces was left.

“So endeth my audience with the hereditary ruler of the world, I presume,” sighed Leibowitz.

But when he looked more closely, there was a tiny string of numbers written on the wall behind where the broken mirror had been leaning. By the time he had jotted it down on the back of his hand, they had disappeared. But at least he had a fresh contact phone number for Scorpio, should he want to speak to her again.

Maybe next time what she told him would make a bit more sense.

THE STORY CONTINUES...

Chronologically, when Black, White & Red All Over was first conceived as a single book, it was meant to be an introduction to the Looking-Glass Earth and some of its myriad cast, most importantly being Anthony Leibowitz, the curator of the strange.

Prior to that, I’d been scribbling a series of novels for my own amusement called, Scorpio (more of her later), which had swerved all over the place and had a cast of thousands. BW&RAO was my first attempt at a self-contained story set within this world.

Of course, if grew to a dangerous size too, until on the umpteenth try the trilogy format finally emerged. All I had to do was re-write the whole thing again. Simples.

Both Book 2 and Book 3 are finished, but require that all-important last read-through to make sure I’ve tied up all the plotlines. Fingers crossed for an early New Year publishing date!

Buy from Amazon Kindle Store, or direct from Fiction4All.com

in progress...

Things I’m writing at the moment

Amerikan Nightmares Book 1: Demonville

This used to be a nice witch-town before the demons moved in...

Amerikan Nightmares #1

Anthony Leibowitz, paranormal detective, lies in hospital minus his memory, in no hurry to recover.

Until he hears the patient in the next room scream every night. Then it’s time to do something.

With the hospital on fire behind them, in a flying car belonging to alchemist Horatio Bix, they rescue the girl in the next room and run. Run to the Worlds Below, which exist in a never-ending stack inside the split in reality called, Ginnungagap – The Gap. They head for New Salem, the safest place known for Majik. Except the Daemons are revolting – well, Leibowitz always took that as unwritten. But in his befuddled state, it seems fate had brought him there not to battle the Daemons as they struggle for equality and freedom, but to lead them.

That’s if the Pale God will let him live, of course, to found the new city-state of Demonville.

ROB SHARP

SCORPIO Book 1: Dark Eyes

Book One: Dark Eyes

She has walked the world for over twelve-and-ahalf thousand years, seen empires rise and fall, loved great men whose bones are now less than dust. Wouldn’t you be tired of life if you were Scorpio?

Yet after they took it all from her, her power, her people, her beauty and her youth, they still didn’t break her. New Millennium’s Eve signalled Scorpio’s enemies to rise up and drive her immortal race, the Magii into extinction. But they failed. Just over 200 immortals survived.

What didn’t kill her, made her stronger.

And now she is back, rejuvenated and ready to take her rightful place as hereditary ruler of the planet Earth, starting with an army of two.

Feel sorry for those who see their own reflection in her dark eyes… moments before their death.

Edith & Max short story Life after Max was just not working for Edith, so she had decided to do something alternative about it.

12.55 “Do you still miss him?” Lorraine asked Edith, as they sat outside Starbucks in the city’s town hall square, lazily people-watching.

“Stupid question.” Edith blew on her latte to try and cool it down. Only every day. “Only every day...”

It was like living inside a bubble. The world outside, full of sunshine and people and laughter and couples… happy, loving couples, was the place everyone else existed in. It was a reality denied to her.

So as her best friend prattled on, Edith just sat and watched this other world drifting by.

Passing by in a never-ending stream, the traffic had that odd purr to it, since the law had dictated the use of electric transport. Over by a news kiosk a

police bike pulled over a blue Ford Echelon.

“But my toll disk has another three months to go!” the angry faced driver protested. “You can’t just expect me to ditch a perfectly good car just because of some stupid...”

“Law is the law, sir,” said the officer calmly. “The cut-off date has been flagged for the last six months over broadbandWAX. No petrol or diesel driven vehicles within the city limits after midnight last night.” He peeled off the yellow and black-checkered immobilisation notice from his pad and slapped it on the Echelon’s windscreen. “You’ll be charged for the tow and a three hundred and fifty bucks for the impound. Have a nice day!”

The two friends giggled at this interchange. Served the fool right. New World, Clean Air, right? Courtesy of Earth 15’s superior pollution control.

A familiar drone of Zeppelin engines caught their attention. Edith sat back, shading her eyes as a vast torpedo-shaped airship drifted over head, trying not to glance at her watch again as she did so.

She peeped.

1.15 We went to Paris in one of those, she thought, happily. Max was airsick all the way. It was the age of the helium Zeppelin, thanks to Earth 7’s advanced engineering.

There was a man stood on the town hall steps who was streaming pictures of the electric traffic through a WAXpack. Historical event and all that. Using technology borrowed from Earth 4. On his t-shirt read the tasteless one-liner, ‘I WENT TO EARTH ZERO. NO ATMOSPHERE’.

“They should ban stuff like that,” Edith muttered, nodding towards him.

“What? Ban what?” her friend raised her sunglasses to try and pick out what Edith had seen. Catching sight of the man and his bad taste in clothing, she shrugged. “Oh... That. Someone always makes a joke out of a tragedy. Its

just people.”

“Well it shouldn’t be ‘just people’! There are probably families with kids from Zero walking by as we speak. What the hell must they think of us?”

The dark haired Lorraine touched Edith’s hand across the metal table.

“Calm down, love. He’s just a jerk with a sick sense of humour.”

But the traffic cop had also seen the man. Striding across the cobbles, he beckoned the t-shirt wearer to him. Looking nervous, the man complied.

Seconds later, he zippered his jacket shut over the offending phrase and wandered away, embarrassed.

“Good.” Edith nodded.

1.39 Time was crawling...

Edith focused on a young mewling child of about five, being hauled along by his harassed mother. On the child’s wrist-TV, a looped episode of the Laughing Policeman cartoon show played to its audience of one. The TV was Earth 11 technology, but that damn show seemed to have infested every parallel.

“It’s the companionship I miss the most.” We never had the chance for kids. Max always wanted three. Edith continued their previous conversation, staring for too long at the protesting child.

“What? Oh...” Lorraine realised they were back to Max again.

She’s got to let go, Edith’s friend thought. I loved him like a brother, but life goes on after bloody perfect Max. “I thought it would be the sex,” Lorraine smirked, as Edith choked on a mouthful of latte.

“You swine...” Edith wiped her eyes, ginning.

1.50 The HD walls inside Starbucks were all tuned to the same channel. It was that scientist feller again. The old one.

“...And you now know that parallel Earths exist in sets, like peas in a pod?” the interviewer said, leaning forward as she spoke, to appear interested.

The professor, hair like electrified cotton wool and that anarchic monocle squeezed over his right eye, replied enthusiastically.

“Precisely, Cindy. It now seems feasible that they exist in stings – like a necklace of beads. We sit in the centre of our local string sequence, with Earths 7 and 15 on one side, 2 and 19 on the other.”

“So these other Earths aren’t in numerical order?” The female reporter stifled a yawn.

“Oh no, no, no. After all, since Zero’s decimation and the migration of its peoples across the 23 known Earths, it is us who arbitrarily labelled each parallel and alternate. These numbers bare no real...”

“Connection with reality. That’s what you need,” Lorraine said softly.

“Pardon?”

“Connection. A date with a real man, not those morbid post-mortem chat rooms you spend your nights in, over WAX.”

“Lorraine... I’m not ready yet.”

“I flaming would be. It’s been ten months, for God’s sake. You need a damn good...”

2.03 “Is that the time?” Edith was suddenly on her feet, like a frightened rabbit.

The sounds of the electric cars suddenly sounding like angry insects and the walls of Starbucks seemed to close in on her.

“Catch you next week?” Lorraine finished her coffee with a gulp as her friend dithered about, slipping on her woolen jacket.

“I’ll WAX you. Work or home slot?”

“Home. They’re having a purge on personal stuff over HeadSpace again.

Tight sods. Better make it home.”

They kissed lightly, and Edith suddenly gave Lorraine a big hug. It rather took her friend by surprise.

“Easy,” the darker haired woman smiled, as several passersby stared at them and whispered.

“You’re a good friend putting up with me, but I’m sorting myself out.”

“I know.” Lorraine rubbed her back, reassuringly. They parted with gentle waves and Edith tripped hastily to the bus stop. Two minutes later she was sat on the back seat upstairs, heading for home, a luxury apartment that had once been part of an old mill.

The journey still took too long. She drummed her vivid green fingernails impatiently on the chrome bar framing the seat in front of her. By the time the bus reached her stop, her nails had morphed to orange. Cosmetic chemistry magic courtesy of Earth 5.

She hopped off the bus as it stopped, feeling suddenly excited. Avoiding the lift, Edith mounted the steps two at a time.

Ten months of climbing the design-winning stairs to her empty flat, helping with her sixty minutes of exercise per day. Coupled with five veg per day.

Three litres of filtered water per day.

Two showers per day.

One lonely night per day.

2.45 Life was living it by the numbers. Little seconds ticking away in a vacuous, mind-numbing waste. Until this moment...

Ten months since those first immigrants from a doomed version of Earth had begun to appear in the skies, crammed inside those awful screaming ships. Some of which crashed into the streets and homes of innocent victims…

She swallowed hard. Victims like her Max. Creating the Conjoining – the phenomena where one parallel Earth overlapped the next... and the next... and the next...

2.49 The HD Wall was blaring something out about identity theft between parallels when she walked through the door. People from one world stealing the lives of their doppelgangers on another parallel. By blinking her eyes, she turned it off. Retinal recognition control – Earth 2.

2.54

2.55

2.56

She was nervous and her palms were sweating. It was nearly 3.05 at last and time he was here. All above board and legal.

2.59

Her Max had died when those first refugees from Zero brought their version of the common cold across the Great Divide. His Edith had been killed when one of Zero’s vast evacships had crash-landed on Manchester, Earth 10.

3.02 They had met through the post-mortem chat rooms. Earth to Earth links,

where WAX patched you in to your duplicates – or your alternatives. They’d applied for a meet. Filled in all the endless forms.

3.05 3.05!!!

The walls of her apartment were starting to become slightly fuzzy. Where her end wall was a soft, pastel grey, his was obviously painted a vibrant yellow.

The combined colour was not too unpleasant. On top of that, his abstract print replaced her line of china flying ducks.

Worlds were being shuffled together. The science was a little beyond Edith, exactly how. Something about mile-long Reality Engines parked between parallels?

She was breathing far too heavily and beginning to gently tremble. Well, this was their first date after all.

As the dim outline of Max, this other Max, became visible, she shed a single tear of joy. It would be like old times. The golden couple back together again, for the first time...

Edith & Max.

At least, that was what she hoped with all of her broken heart.

END

That’s it for now. But what are all those butterflies up to in Amerikan Dreams?

avalon2020