A Stalking Cat

http://cghub.com/images/view/93768/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jrslm/2046856319/sizes/m/

The Black Kite on Wendle’s shoulder spread it’s wings and arrowed it’s beak at Rhoda. Wendel turned her head to look away. Rhoda took the moment of false privacy to extinguish the daemon and shift onto her feet. She sheathed the dagger but not the attitude.

“These monks believe things, girl. Things I don’t and things I know you don’t, but it never goes to piss on someone you don’t need pissed on, ” Wendle inclined her head, “Take my meaning?”

Rhoda flicked her head as much in assent as in a brush off. She took both the older woman’s meanings just fine, then broke her silence. “She’s my sister.”

Another gust drove through the glade pulling at the flames atop each lit candle but not dragging them free—enchanted. Spell-inscribed canvas streamers hanging from the alter’s hexagonal umbrella slapped the rafters. Shards of snow blustered down between them. The kite adjusted it’s grip.

Wendle locked eyes with Rhoda. And Rhoda stared back. Morgan may have been Wendle’s wife, but she was Rhoda’s only sister. When you had eight brothers one sister meant something hard to describe.

Wendle looked away as she had before. This time Rhoda noticed the dark brown curls tucked into her sister-in-law’s cowl and the gold hoop on her ear. The bird trilled a whistle. Fucking witches.

“You’ve matriculated?” Wendle asked.

“I will.”

“You won’t if I allow you to come.”

“What you allow means nothing to me.” Rhoda conjured a fresh daemon—a stalking cat this time. It glowed blue.

Wendle exhaled. “Let’s get you killed then. And put that out.”

The witch gestured lightly at the blue cat. It winked to black like a falcon snatched it on the wing. Rhoda hid her surprise.

297 words on day 584

Not Just a Warm Body

Presuming the door was older than the ones she used in the newer building G, she tried a more emphatic approach. She placed her foot on the glyph and her hand on the wall. When she pushed she felt the door there this time. It felt found but locked. She tried again, still locked. Donna would have to come back out and get her.

The older woman appeared back in the hallway looking more frustrated than apologetic. “Sorry. Give me your wrist,” Donna said.

Kera offered her right one, but, shaking her head, Donna snatched up the left instead. The MPM stripped the backing off the end of a one-use Tyvek wristband with her teeth and looped it snuggly around Kera’s wrist.

“Is there anything I need to know, or am I just a warm body?”

“That’s tight. Sorry. Mr. Crainstock just spelled it. Let me know when it’s warm, huh?”

“Crainstock?” Kera didn’t know if that added or subtracted from the strangeness of the evening, but it was unexpected.

“Mr. Crainstock, Miss Woods.”

“He…ooo!…it’s ready.” Kera held up the wristband.

Donna smiled, “Juiced it, huh?”

“Just a little.”

“Kera?” Donna asked permission to use her first name and Kera assented. “Kera, I know this is all very unexpected. It’s not how I’d planned this evening to go either as you can imagine. This is real magic in here—not the mundane stuff you’ve been doing on the bench. It will feel the same, probably, but it isn’t. And, yes, you are a warm body, but you don’t have to be just a warm body.” Donna pulled her through the door.

215 words on day 581

On the Life of Engineer Coffee

http://mcqueconcept.blogspot.com/2010/09/on-tow.html and some of this http://mcqueconcept.blogspot.com/2010/10/last-airborne.html

For more of my Ian McQue inspired writings check out the ‘terminus‘ tag.

“I’ll use your name. Prepared for that?”

Coffee swallowed and asked, “You’d do that to me wouldn’t you?”

“If it’s as necessary as you say, I’d be doing it for you.”

Coffee vented air through his open mouth like a laugh or a fuck you or a crying of uncle. “The sure way or the slow way, huh?”

Admiral Tsien remained still and quiet at his desk. One hand lay on the surface holding down a manila folder marked [something cryptic but pertinent] the other propped up his head as he barely leaned to the side in a leather swivel chair.

Through the many-paned window behind Tsien and his chair, Coffee watched a tug pulling a Type: Recon to altitude. The Lebbeus—it was called—glided steadily right to left, heading north. Tsien licked his lips to speak, but first popped his fingertips from his forehead extending them skyward to mark the culmination of his thoughts. “Oorah.”

Coffee tugged at the soul patch in his goatee. “Oorah,” he said quietly. He then repeated the shape of the word soundlessly several times while still tugging the hair below his lip. Coffee shot up from his own chair and slapped the Admiral’s desk with both hands.

Tsien didn’t flinch.

Coffee leaned across the depth of the steel desk, locked eyes with a man no longer his friend, said, “Do it, Wu. It’s my life either way,” and then left the room.

https://1000days.douglasblaine.com/20101202/engineer-coffees-plans-revealed-nearly/

247 words on day 566