Ink – A Books of Binding Flash Fiction

“You doing okay?”

Alerich grimaced in the chair, the uncomfortable feeling of the needle penetrating his skin like the rough tongue of a cat scraping over a sunburn combined with thousands of tiny claws perforating his chest. The pain seemed to grow more intense the longer the artist worked on him, but Alerich was determined to see this through. “I’m fine.”

The tattoo artist grunted and bent his head back over the design, wiping away blood and excess ink with a practiced swipe.

Alerich watched him work, the outline of the blond raven done in white ink finished, and the artist filling in the delicate feathers. The raven’s blue eyes staring up at Alerich were disconcerting, accusing, and Alerich stared back, full of guilt. He hadn’t known Gaubert long, but Alerich believed that they could have grown to become friends. Gaubert had believed in the Coalition, believed that Seahaven could be changed, and the lives of the various therian groups made better. He had believed in Alerich, right up to the end.

Alerich looked away from the raven on his chest, the pale ink as ghostly as the memories that haunted him. He had failed Gaubert. Failed to see how dangerous politics in Seahaven really were. Failed to stop the attack that killed the raven and nearly his entire murder. Only the kids, Colette and Casmir, had survived, Gaubert hiding them at the last second, telling them to call Alerich. That Alerich would help them.

The kids were safe now, tucked in at the Theatre and far from the reach of the sharks and their guns. But neither Casmir nor Colette would take his calls. They were angry at him for being new to town, for misinterpreting Gaubert’s request for assistance, for his naivete and ignorance of how things functioned here, for his idealistic fantasy that everyone could be brought to the table and would be happy to forge a new community out of the fractious mess Seahaven had been for the last hundred and fifty years. They were angry at his failure, but not half as angry as Alerich was with himself. And so, he sat here, arms gripping the chair, trying not to move as his greatest failure was indelibly etched into his body where Alerich would always see it and remember that his mistakes cost lives.

The artist gave one last swipe and sat back, turning off the machine. “What do you think?”

Alerich looked down at the finished raven. The likeness was amazing, the bird looking like it could flap its wings and fly off Alerich’s chest at any moment. “It’s perfect.”

The man gave a brief nod of thanks, slathering the new tattoo and covering it as he explained how to clean and moisturize it over the next two weeks to have the best results. Alerich listened carefully, even though he knew Winter would have a salve that would cut the healing time drastically. Though part of him wondered if he shouldn’t forgo her salve, to heal slowly and painfully as further penance for his failure. Alerich didn’t think Gaubert would want him to suffer, but he wasn’t so sure about Casmir. The boy was so angry. And Alerich couldn’t blame him.

Alerich stood, paid the artist, and gingerly buttoned up his shirt. He felt the sting of the new tattoo and welcomed the ache. It matched the one in his heart.

He left the shop and headed back to his car. He had two more meetings scheduled today with groups that wanted to take part in this grand experiment. He reached a tentative hand up and touched the tattoo, promising that he would learn from this mistake and never underestimate the dangers of Seahaven again. He slid into the car, gripped the steering wheel, and made a vow to the ghost now emblazoned on his chest that he would do better, be smarter. That he would learn from this tragedy.

That he would be the leader that Gaubert had needed.

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Understanding – A Books of Binding Flash Fiction

Winter tied the last stitch and gently patted the therian wolf’s shoulder. “All done.”

The wolf growled, and Winter slowly removed her hand, her eyes hardening as she stared the young therian down. The wolves of Seahaven used dominance fighting as their favorite sport, but Winter was in no mood to resort to fisticuffs against an amped up injured therian with something to prove. Not that she would have any chance against him in a physical match. Wizards were neither as fast nor as strong as therian, and they didn’t heal as quickly. Then there was the problem that wolf therianthropy was one of the easiest forms to contract. One good bite and Winter could begin the process of becoming a wolf herself. That would be bad on two accounts.

First, Seahaven’s new wolf queen, Vivaine Hayden, was famously jealous and had killed or driven off all of Seahaven’s female wolves when she joined the pack. And second, a person could not be a therian and a wizard at the same time. If she were bitten and began to transform, she would lose her magic — the one thing she and her dwindling family counted on to maintain the precarious balance among the various preternatural groups in Seahaven.

So, she definitely didn’t want to physically confront this young wolf. But she couldn’t afford to back down either. The wolf would see any attempt to deescalate as submission and that would be even worse for her family and Seahaven than Winter losing her magic.

The Seahaven wolf pack was horribly unstable. Its leaders were amoral and vicious, and its large number of unattached young males were under tremendous pressure to fight their way to the top or be prey themselves to the older and stronger wolves.

Maintaining what little peace existed between the preternatural groups in Seahaven was only possible because the wizards were seen as a neutral party and could thus negotiate with any group without the other groups fearing the wizards were biased. None of the other groups would ever allow the violent and unstable wolves to hold power over the wizards — not even a pup like this one winning dominance over one young wizard. The city would fall to factional war.

So, with no way to deescalate with the now snarling wolf, and no desire to allow the confrontation to get physical, Winter was left with only one option — using her magic on him. That was usually frowned on, as it could be seen as an act of war, but the therian had left her no good options.

Winter raised her hands and started to sketch a glyph in the air. The wolf, realizing that the wizard was about to cast, jumped off the table and tried to rush her before she could complete the casting, but Winter had played this particular game before and finished the glyph of shielding before the wolf cleared the table.

The shield pulsed red between them, and Winter blinked a little in surprise. She looked down at the gloves she wore, and comprehension dawned. The gloves were smeared with the wolf’s blood. She had inadvertently cast a blood magic shield, giving her magic over this therian a little more oomf.

The wolf paced on the outside of the visible shield, growling. “You can’t keep that shield up forever, wizard.”

Winter was tired. Tired of politics. Tired of betrayal. And tired of living under the constant threat of violence and death, even from the very people she spent every waking hour trying to either help or heal.

She raised the bloody gloves and glared into the eyes of the wolf as she began to sketch again. She finished the glyph and, putting resonant Command into her voice, she poured power into the design and said, “Burn.” The power in the glyph, drawn with the wolf’s own blood, flared and the wolf began to scream as the blood in his body reacted to her command. He fell to the floor, writhing as his blood boiled inside him.

Winter stared down at him and felt little pity. She had spent the past hour healing this wolf from the last fight he’d lost only to have him turn on her when she was done sewing him up. The wolf was a hot head, and in Seahaven that would undoubtedly get him killed.

But Winter didn’t want to be the one to do it if she didn’t have to. Yes, he was trying to dominate and attack her, but he didn’t seem to understand that he stood no chance against a wizard. His speed and strength were no match for her magic. But perhaps, while writhing and screaming on her floor, understanding could be reached.

She raised her hands again and the wolf whimpered pitifully. Winter felt a little ashamed for hurting him, but she needed for him to understand that she was no wolf’s prey. She sketched a glyph and said, “Cool.”

The wolf stopped writhing and lay panting on his side.

Winter checked that the shield was still up and crouched beside him. “Look at me.”

The wolf obeyed, all thoughts of dominance erased from his eyes.

“I understand that your life is chaotic and dangerous. I understand that attacking and either changing or killing someone like me would make your standing go way up with the other wolves. But I need you to understand something. Do I have your attention?”

The wolf ducked his head and nodded meekly.

“Good. Listen carefully. I am a wizard. Wizards are capable of some very dangerous and painful things. The next time you even think about attacking me or my family, I want you to remember that I took pity on you today, but I never will again. Do you understand?”

The wolf nodded over and over, frantic to obey. “I understand. I’m sorry. I—”

Winter cut off his apologies. “Get out.”

The wolf pulled himself up off the floor and limped through the beaded curtain and out through the shop.

Winter watched him go until the door of Curiosity’s shut behind him. She quickly crossed the shop and locked the door.

Blood magic. She had used blood magic to torture someone. She tried to feel horrified or at least a little scared about what she had done, but all she felt was relief that it was over, and death had not come for her today.

Winter went back to the workroom, carefully peeled the blood-smeared gloves off, and tossed them into the trash. Maybe it was wrong that she didn’t feel remorse for what had just happened… or maybe it was just another way to survive in the mess that was Seahaven.

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Special Delivery – A Books of Binding Short Story

Cian woke in the dark to an urgent rapping on his bedroom door. Winter’s low voice carried through the wood. “Cian, we’re on.”

Cian sat up in bed, trying to parse that. On? On what? English wasn’t his first language and sometimes idioms — he hoped it was an idiom — tripped him up. He pulled his jeans on and made his groggy way across the spacious room to find Winter on the other side of his door, dressed in her usual loose dress and cardigan, her purple bag over her shoulder and her surgical bag heavy in her hand. She hadn’t taken the time to put her hip-length white hair up in a bun, and it rode one shoulder in a careless braid.

She was lovely.

He pushed his own long, sleep-tousled hair out of his face. “What are we on?”

A small, exhausted smile played about her lips, and he wanted to kiss her until the shadows under her ice-blue eyes faded away. “’On’ means it’s showtime,” she explained, not terribly effectively. What was a ‘showtime?’ “We have a delivery to attend. Corinne’s started bleeding heavily, and Doc says she can’t stop it.”

Cian’s brows shot to his hairline. The Lion Queen? Oh shit. “Is it the placenta previa? She’s five weeks early.” Which wasn’t too terribly early for a human or a vampire, but with a therian’s five-and-a-half-month gestation it could make things complicated.

Winter nodded. “Which means that either she got pregnant during an earlier heat than we thought, or the placenta’s started pulling away from her uterus, which I think is the more likely. Either way, I suspect we need to deliver the baby tonight. If she’s having contractions it will tear the placenta apart, leading to hemorrhaging. Now, you get dressed, and I’ll wake up Etienne so he can drive you out to Xanadu on the motorcycle. I need you at the top of your game, and making you ride with me in the Bug with its old steel chassis won’t help with that.” She sighed. “I really do need a new car.”

Cian shuddered at the thought of riding in the Bug. He’d ridden in more than one older model vehicle and gotten sick in the process. He was sidhe, though, and not a lesser fae, so sick was the extent of it. A lesser fae might come away with more serious injury or even death. The little pixies in the gardens here on the Point avoided Winter’s vintage car at all costs. “Yeah, a new one would be good. Maybe we can go shopping for one this weekend?”

Winter gave him a tired smile, but tired as she was it still reached her eyes. Cian couldn’t have said that only a few weeks ago. “Yes, maybe.” She checked the time on her phone. “We need to head out as soon as possible. Doc is perfectly capable of performing a c-section if she needs to, but I’d rather be there in case things get complicated. I’ll meet you in the foyer in five minutes.”

Cian shut the door as Winter moved toward Etienne’s room and turned to get ready. It was just the three of them rattling around in this huge house, where once there had been dozens of wizards, all part of the extensive Mulcahy family. He could tell that Winter liked having the company, and he liked it, too. So did Etienne.

Long hair pulled back in a neat ponytail, worn boots and a new sweatshirt against the mid-November chill, his silk-lined riding chaps to protect him from the Harley’s frame, and he was ready to ride as soon as he got his helmet and riding jacket together. Worry for Corinne dueled with excitement. This would be his first time attending a birth. He’d assisted Winter with several surgeries already, but Corinne was the community member closest to delivering and currently the highest-risk pregnancy. She was also one of Winter’s closest friends, and Winter said she felt better knowing he would be backing her up with his healing gift. Cian was happy to help.

Etienne was still putting his auburn hair up into a ponytail in the high style he preferred as he hit the stairs and nodded to Cian. “Get your things. It’s going to be a cold ride, even for you.” His red plaid overshirt was slung about his neck and the new black gun rig for his old Glock jostled lightly against his chest with each stairstep he took.

Cian stood at the bottom of the double staircase beside Winter and watched the faerie knight descend, his bootheels thudding softly on each wide tread. He waved a hand indicating the Glock under Etienne’s left arm. “Expecting trouble?”

Etienne smirked and pulled on the overshirt as he touched down from the last step. “Always. This is Seahaven, after all.”

Winter shook her head and offered a rueful smile but didn’t disagree. “I’ve got the car loaded and ready to go. Be careful out there. The roads might be a bit slick after that rain.”

Etienne’s smile stretched into a rake-hell grin and Cian felt his belly flop. By Dagda, Etienne had a sexy smile. “A little rain isn’t going to stop us. Now, let’s go help Corinne.”

Cian handed Etienne his helmet and his old worn leather coat before getting into his own, new, silk lined coat. Winter’d had it made for him when she’d noticed he was showing about an inch of wrist below the cuff of his old one.

Winter hitched her bag up higher on her shoulder, determination showing in her eyes. “Okay, let’s do this.”

The rain had subsided to a sprinkle, which did nothing for making the ride out to Xanadu any safer. Etienne sat a little higher in his seat, vigilant, and managed to avoid most of the puddles.

Most.

Cian tried to ignore his cold, wet boots as the three of them pulled into the covered Xanadu employee parking lot, Winter leading the way in her yellow Bug. They were met at the back entrance to the primary hotel that crowned the largest island in the resort complex. Corinne owned all of the islands in Eriksson Bay, and employed both the dolphins and the selkies as well as her entire large pride of lions. Scores of humans worked in the park, too, but they were offered only limited access. No need for some curious teenager to die just because they got a peek behind the Veil of Secrecy.

Santiago, Corinne’s husband, mate, and Chief of Security, waved as they approached the private elevator. Worry etched deep lines into his brow, cutting into his light brown skin. Cian noticed that he’d shaved his head, but it was already showing fine stubble with the force of his therian regeneration. “Winter, thank god you’re here.” His English was flavored with rich Cuban Spanish, as were most of the lions he had brought with him from Miami to merge with Corinne’s lioness-heavy pride.

Winter offered up a confident smile and gave the Lion King a quick hug. “It’ll be all right. I can get little Bella out in under a minute if I need to.”

Cian knew that Winter’d had to perform emergency c-sections in the past and knew what she was doing. Therian couldn’t get sick or infected, but they could develop conditions that put a pregnancy at risk, like Corinne’s placenta previa. Most therian lived on the edge of society, victims of poverty, abuse, and malnutrition. Pregnancy loss and high infant mortality were common.

But that wasn’t a concern with Corinne tonight. The Lion Queen led one of the biggest groups in Seahaven and was one of the most powerful and wealthiest therian on the West Coast.

Santiago ushered the three of them into the elevator and swiped his resort ID through the reader, granting them access to the private floors and the penthouse where the pride lived. “Doc says Corinne and the baby are both holding steady, even with the blood loss. She’s got both of them on monitors.”

Winter looked to Cian. “With heavy bleeding, what is keeping Corinne and Bella stable?”

Cian thought about that for a moment. “It’s Corinne. She’s strong enough that her healing ability is regenerating blood before she can lose too much, so Bella isn’t being stressed.” He paused. “Yet. There’s a limit to how long her body can heal itself and maintain the baby at the same time. She’s burning through an incredible amount of calories, and once she’s depleted, she’ll be vulnerable.”

Winter smiled her approval. “Excellent. You’re picking this up quickly.”

Etienne looked pleased but said nothing.

Santiago listened intently, tension singing across the backs of his hands, stress making his dark-eyed gaze intense. “But you can save her — save them — can’t you, Winter?”

Winter exuded confidence even as Cian could feel her exhaustion through the veil of his healing gift. “I’m here to fight. We’ll get Corinne through this.”

They exited the elevator one floor below the penthouse where Corinne and Santiago lived and travelled at a brisk pace past closed doors and the soft sounds of sleeping lions until Santiago pushed open a set of frosted glass doors at the end of the hall.

Doctor Gloria Park’s domain.

Glass, chrome, and bright lights, the small clinic and surgery suite gleamed like a shrine to modern medicine. Winter’s backroom clinic was smaller and homier — and a lot busier — but Cian could tell by the way she glanced around that Winter admired it and all of the shiny toys Doc had to play with.

Cian had to admit that he did, too.

“Doc, they’re here.” Santiago raised his voice just enough to be heard on the other side of the two frosted glass doors that bracketed the main room of the clinic.

Doc emerged from the door on the right, butting it open with a hip, her gloved hands marked by blood and ruddy betadine. A bloody streak smeared wet across her white coat at the waist, but she ignored it. She flashed a quick smile of greeting at the new arrivals, her slightly hooded eyes crinkling at the corners and tugging at her small epicanthal folds, her short, no-nonsense, black hair tucked beneath a surgery bonnet. “Excellent timing. I’m prepping Corinne now. How do you want to do this?”

Winter took her surgery bag from Etienne and began moving toward the surgery suite. “I think we should first administer my painkiller potion, and then once it kicks in, we can take a closer look.” She gestured to the blood on Doc’s coat and hands. “Is that all hers?” In any place other than Seahaven that might have been an odd question, but Cian was quickly learning that chaos seemed to reign above all, here.

Doc made a short shrugging gesture. “This time, yes. Contractions started about an hour ago.”

Winter nodded, all business. “Then we’ve got no time to waste. Santiago, do you want to come in and keep Corinne company?”

Santiago smiled, visibly relieved. “Si. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

Etienne crossed his arms and leaned a hip against a table. “I’ll wait out here. Haven’t attended a birth in a while, but I bet it’s going to be crowded enough in there as it is.”

Winter flashed the faerie knight a warm smile of gratitude and pushed through the door, Cian close behind her, Doc and Santiago bringing up the rear.

The surgery suite was small, but airy and brightly lit. Corinne sat reclined in the center of the room, gravid belly painted a lurid yellow-red with betadine, long red hair tucked into a surgery bonnet to keep it out of the way, full lips looking pale. Even still, she was glamorous. She opened her eyes as they entered the room, and she smiled a tired smile. “Hey there.”

Winter returned the smile with one of her own as she pulled out a surgery bonnet for herself and passed another to Cian. “Ready to have a baby tonight?”

Corinne chuckled softly and reached out for Santiago’s hand as he reached her side. “You have no idea. But someday you will.”

Winter’s smile turned a bit wistful. “Maybe.” Cian wanted to hold her, just for a moment. He knew she expected to die young, like the rest of the Mulcahy line. She was the last.

Cian found a chair and brought it to Santiago so he could sit at Corinne’s head.

Santiago took the seat and stroked Corinne’s forehead. “Mi corazón.”

Winter tucked her long braid into the surgery bonnet and Cian followed suit. “This is going to go very fast. Your contractions tore the placenta and that’s what’s causing the bleeding. It’s still a total occlusion, still entirely blocking the cervix, as we saw on the ultrasound during your checkup last week.”

Corinne gave a single nod, exhaustion and worry etched into the corners of her eyes. “Did I do something wrong? She’s so early.”

Winter shook her head no and dug into her surgical bag. “Sometimes babies just come early. Nobody’s at fault.” She looked at the monitors showing both Corinne and the baby’s vitals and Cian followed her gaze. Both were holding steady so far. “But Bella’s at a good weight. She should be fine. And your strength is keeping her that way. But I still want to get her out with all speed. We need your bleeding to stop.” As she spoke, she pulled a tumbler from the bag, filled it with cool water, and added three drops of light blue potion, drops that never quite mixed in, instead swirling about like whisps of metallic smoke. “Here, drink all of this down as fast as you can.”

Corinne took the tumbler and knocked it back, then locked her jaw as her entire body shuddered. “Good lord, what was that?”

Winter retrieved the tumbler before it ended up on the floor. “Painkiller potion. It will last for a few hours. It also gives us the ability to go in after little Bella without you feeling any pain and without giving you enough human anesthetic to knock out the Fifth Fleet.” Cian knew from Winter’s explanations that therian could burn through human drugs at an alarming rate. Only magical solutions could withstand their incredible metabolisms.

Corinne shuddered one more time, and then leaned back with a sigh and closed her eyes. “Oh. Oh, that’s much better. Thank you.”

Winter gave her friend’s hand a squeeze. “Good. Now let’s meet your daughter and get that bleeding stopped.” She shrugged out of her sweater and pulled a couple of scrub tops out of the surgery bag, handing one over to Cian. “This is going to be pretty straight forward,” she began to explain, mostly to Cian. Doc already knew what she was doing. “Cian, I want you as tech on this so you can get as much experience as possible. You’ll suction the amniotic fluid out of our way, and I’d like you to use your touch healing to tack Corinne back together once we deliver the placenta, so she heals correctly. Corinne is strong enough that she’ll probably heal faster than I can suture her. Doc, if you can keep the incisions open long enough for me to go in and get the baby and the placenta, we can get her delivered in the next few minutes.”

Doc gave a thoughtful look at her queen’s belly and then to the monitors. “I think that’s reasonable. The bassinet’s already warming, so you can just plop the baby in there while you deliver the placenta and we get the bleeding stopped, and then as soon as the umbilical cord stops pulsing, we can cut it.” She cast a grin at Santiago, who was massaging Corinne’s temples. “Feel like cutting the cord?”

A smile spread across Santiago’s handsome face. “Si. I thought that was just a TV thing.”

Doc let out a soft chuckle. “No, it can be a dad thing, too. Bella’s welcome to the world.”

Winter handed Cian a clean absorbent pad, and he replaced the blood-soaked one beneath Corinne, tossing it into the operating room trash with the rest of them. He could only thank Dagda that she was a therian, and a queen. A human would be in dire straits by now.

Doc lifted an electrocautery scalpel from its tray, the steel glinting under the bright lights, a long wire stretching to the base of the machine beside her. “Ready when you are.”

Winter explored Corinne’s belly, feeling out the position of the baby within. “She’s breech, which is normal with placenta previa. First incision down here, across the lower abdomen, and then we very carefully cut into the uterus.”

Doc snorted. “Don’t teach me to suck eggs, kid.”

An amused smile tugged at Winter’s mouth. “Yes, ma’am. Cian, get ready with the suction, please.”

Cian flipped the machine on and held the wand at the ready, tucking himself against Corinne’s side opposite of Santiago so he could both reach and stay out of the way. He’d done this in surgery with Winter before. There had just never been a baby involved. It didn’t make him nervous, though. Winter had faith in him.

Winter shifted just a little to the side to give Doc more room. “All right, let’s do this.”

Doc spread her fingers across Corinne’s lower abdomen, her hands rock-steady, and made the first deft incision, a tiny whiff of smoke rising as she made the long cut, stopping bleeding before it could start, exposing the flesh of Corinne’s uterus. “Get the retractors ready,” Doc murmured to no one in particular.

Winter reached around her and picked up the two steel retractors, looking for all the world like salad tongs to Cian’s mind. He’d used them before, but the first impression was always the lasting one.

Doc carefully centered her scalpel and indicated a small band of muscle just to the side of her hand. “Pay attention to this, Cian.” Her voice was low with concentration. “Corinne is a lioness, and her uterus works a little differently than a human’s. Instead of basically just being nestled in place by the other abdominal structures, it’s held in place at two points, acting as shock absorbers. She’s built to hunt and fight while pregnant.” Doc shifted the position of her scalpel. “We don’t want to cut those, so we’re making a bit of a smaller incision instead.”

Cian nodded, absorbing the lesson. “Will the baby still fit through?”

Doc nodded. “It’ll just be a tighter squeeze, but she’ll be fine.” Doc deftly nicked the edges of the first incision, pushing against Corinne’s healing ability. “Cutting now.” She pierced the uterine wall without hesitation, drawing another long, bloodless, horizontal line across Corinne’s abdomen.

Immediately a tiny foot appeared, pressed against the intact, translucent amniotic sac. Winter smiled as she applied the retractors. “Very nice.”

Doc grinned. “It’s what we do. Ready to catch?”

Winter nodded. “Trade you.”

Doc and Winter traded tools in a dance born out of years of practice. Doc had been Winter’s primary teacher as she learned trauma surgery, after the death of her Aunt Curiosity.

Winter cut into the amniotic sac with a delicate touch, careful of the moving baby beneath. Cian shifted behind her, suctioning fluid as best he could, until Winter slipped her hands inside and began to ease the baby out.

Corinne’s eyes widened. “Oh, that feels weird. How does she look?”

Winter slipped a hand further into Corinne’s uterus, sloshing fluid over her wrists and onto the pad. “Well, all I see right now is her little butt, but her head is coming free… right… now.”

Corinne raised her head, eager for a peek. “Can I see her?”

Winter mopped the tiny baby’s face off with a pad that Cian handed her, suctioned her little nose and mouth, and held her where Corinne and Santiago could see just in time for Bella to raise her first vigorous objections to being pulled from her warm retreat. Winter beamed. “Look what you two did.”

Santiago’s eyes reddened with joy and he kissed Corinne’s cheek. “She has your hair, mi corazón.”

Corinne grinned, unable to take her eyes off the baby. “She’s beautiful. Just beautiful.”

“And messy.” Winter handed Bella off to Cian, who wrapped her in an absorbent pad and carried her to the cozy bassinet. She was so tiny, and so fierce. “Let me finish this with Doc and Cian’s help and then she’s all yours.”

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If you like this story, check out our other free short fiction and all things Seahaven at https://www.aelowan.com.

Proof – A Books of Binding Flash Fiction

George Joji took another close-up shot. It was real. It was really real. The thickness of the nail, the toughness of the callouses on both hands and feet. The wicked nail edge that could probably slice through flesh. Everything else about the naked man seemed perfectly normal. No fangs, no fur. So where did they keep it all—?

“George, you know you’re not supposed to be down here. The mortician is threatening to turn you into a classroom skeleton.” Detective Lawrence Robertson approached from one side of the gurney, George stood on the other.

George peered closely at the body’s hand. The thick nails. The heavy callouses. “I’m the press. See, press credentials.” He tapped the press pass clipped to his jacket with a blue-gloved finger. “Lawrence, come here and look at this. I think I really found one!”

The bigger man let out a long-suffering sigh. “What is it this time? Demon wings?”

George’s expression turned sardonic. “Hah hah. You should be a comedian instead of a cop.”

“Not likely. I have a wife and kid to support.”

“Yeah, a wife with the best sushi place in town. No, come look at this hand. Anything appear unusual to you.”

Lawrence took a long look at the hand, turning it gently in his large, gloved palm. Respecting the dead. “Congratulations. You found a construction worker. Norah’s son Brian is getting callouses like this helping at the forge at Mulcahy House. So what?”

“Not with those nails. Construction workers break their nails off all the time. This guy could remove someone’s face. And look at the striations. That’s an indication of rapid growth. Like, supernaturally fast.”

Lawrence raised a brow. “You really are trying to tell me you found one of them.”

“I’m telling you it’s a shape shifter. One of their ‘therian.’” George flashed a grin, delight dancing in his dark eyes. “This will make a hell of a blog on Monday.”

Lawrence sighed softly and pulled a yellow straw from his breast pocket. “No, it really won’t.”

“What—?”

George was in a vaguely familiar alley. Dammit. He patted his pockets and thanked the powers that be for the Cloud. Phone was gone. Again.  Although, cloud or no, he expected the small bit of footage he’d taken would have been purged by the time he got home. These people didn’t need his password to break into his files.

Which was why he kept three secrets strictly to himself:

He’d developed a degree of resistance to their magical yellow power.

He kept everything backed up to another, secret location.

And it was Lawrence who kept putting the whammy on him.

George swung his leg up and over his motorcycle. Time. He just needed a little more time. Let them send their pet cop to try and stop him. Soon, he’d have enough proof to show the whole world that monsters walked among them.

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If you like this story, check out our other free short fiction and all things Seahaven at https://www.aelowan.com.

Recoil – A Books of Binding Flash Fiction

“Spread your feet to shoulder width. Right foot back. No, not that far. Your shoulders are too thin.” Etienne narrowed his eyes. “When was the last time you ate?”

Winter gave the faerie knight at her side a wry expression. “This morning, with you and Cian. Remember?” The November wind whispered over the water and blew loose tendrils of hair across her face. She was grateful for the warm felt coat she wore.

“Then you need a snack or something. You’re still sickly.” His voice was gruff.

She sighed softly. He was only trying to take care of her. She was just out of practice in accepting help. “I’ll get one when we’re done here.” She hefted the handgun, feeling its weight heavy in her long-fingered hand. “Now what?”

“Turn to face the target.”

Winter turned her body just a little to come into line with the target several yards away, past the seagrasses that covered the Point and repositioned her right foot to be more supportive in the sand. It was a simple paper target with concentric circles one within the other leading the way to a bullseye, pinned to a hay bale butted up to one of the big sand dunes. She twisted back a little to face Etienne, a thought occurring to her. “Shouldn’t we be wearing ear protection?”

Etienne’s brow knit. “What for?”

“Because this is going to be very loud.”

“Never heard of ear protection. I just wait until my hearing comes back.” Etienne gestured toward the target. “And in a real fight you don’t get to protect your ears from anything, much less noise.”

Okay, he had a point. “And this is a Glock, right?”

Etienne nodded. “Only gun I have left. It’s a good enough one. Not Agmundr, my revolver, but still good.”

Only gun he had left? Winter wondered if she could do something about that. It had been hard enough to buy new clothes for the proud faerie knight, finally getting him to agree in exchange for teaching her to shoot a handgun, but it was important to be fully armed in the city of Seahaven. The City of Peace.

To not be was a good way to get eaten.

“Now, back to the target. Still holding the gun like I showed you?” Etienne adjusted her grip, his hands warm against her chilled skin. His long auburn hair, so close to her face, smelled like the shampoos she made and the spicy scent of clean adult male. It took some effort to not breathe him in. “Yes. Okay, now raise your arms and aim down the sight.”

“And I just pull the trigger?”

“You checked the chamber and it was loaded. This is a Glock so there’s no hammer to cock and no safety to worry about. It’s fairly basic, point it and shoot it. That’s the phrase, right?” English wasn’t Etienne’s first language and he sometimes stumbled on a new term.

She smiled. “Close enough.”

He ran his hand down her arm, testing tension she guessed, and then moved behind her, hands on her hips.

Winter tilted her head to one side and dropped her elbows, not wanting to strain her arms. Not that she objected to him touching her but… “What are you doing?”

“Catching you. That gun has a recoil and I don’t want you falling on your butt.”

Winter made a soft rude noise. “That’s not going to happen. I’m not a child.” Of course, she’d never actually felt recoil before. Or even seen it. Everyone she had ever seen shoot a gun was preternatural and for the most part strong enough to flip a car with their bare hands. She hesitated a moment, and then asked, “Is it really that bad?” Did she really want to do this?

“You get used to it. You develop strength in your center and your arms.”

She wasn’t exactly strong as it was. Maybe developing that in herself would be helpful. “And I pull the trigger and it just fires?”

“Pretty much. Anytime you’re ready.”

Winter nodded and blew out a breath as she lifted her arms again. She lined up the sight on the nose of the ugly black gun with the center mass of the target and hesitated a second. This was going to hurt.

She pulled the trigger.

The gun flew up into the air, pulling her hands along with it and jerking to the right, and she let out a little girl yip. She could feel Etienne’s tight grip on her keeping what little momentum the recoil gave her from carrying her backwards even a bit. “Oof! That was unexpected.”

“For you, maybe.” She could hear the chuckle just underlying his words.

Winter turned and he lifted his hands to her waist as she moved. “Thought that was funny, did you?” Her ears were ringing, but not so much that she could not hear the amusement in his voice.

Etienne’s smile bloomed into a full grin. Goodness, but he had a sexy grin. “Just a bit. I’m pretty happy. You handled that .45 well.”

Her brows shot up. “You had me shoot a .45 caliber round for my first outing?” Without ear protection. She would definitely need that in the future. She popped her ears, trying to get the ringing to pass.

He pulled his hands back from her, still grinning. “Why not? Do you think you could stop a therian with a .22?”

Again, a good point. Therian shape shifters — and vampires, for that matter — were incredibly strong, fast. Combine that a trend toward nasty tempers and preternaturally fast healing, and they were hard to kill. The only sure way with a gun was to shoot them in the head or the heart until you saw daylight.

“Did I at least hit the target?” She turned around to look… and the paper target just sat there, unblemished, ruffling a little in the wind off the water.

Etienne chuckled behind her. “Nowhere close, but you did clip the dune. Good enough for a first time.”

Winter rolled her eyes and handed Etienne the gun back. Her right shoulder blade was taking on the sharp ache of a pulled muscle. “I’m glad you had a good time. I should probably just stick to the paintball gun.” A brainchild of her apprentice, Jessie, the paintball gun could be loaded with balls of magic potion. Etienne had already demonstrated its usefulness.

Etienne took the gun. “Don’t think you’re done. I promised I’d teach you how to handle one of these things, and we’re going to keep working on you until you can hit that target.”

Winter gave him a smile. “Deal. But no more today. I think my fingers may freeze off. How does lunch sound?”

Etienne stepped back and gave her a surprisingly elegant bow. “As my lady wishes.”

Winter’s smile widened. She couldn’t help it. “Lunch it is, then.” And a new gun. Another one of these ugly Glocks, probably. She didn’t like the thought of Etienne going about only half armed.

---

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Things Fall Apart – A Books of Binding Flash Fiction

He sniffed the air. The scent of burnt bones and under it—blood. A lot of it. And the outhouse smell of violent death.

He walked the utility area carefully, reconstructing the deadly dance from a lifetime lived among its devotees. The spatters of brown flecks. The dust-free smears where a body had been dragged, struggling. A broken fingernail caught in the chain-link. The cloying smell of burning hair and garbage, and just a hint of cucumber. Acetone. At least they had destroyed the body, but it meant the attackers were not human. A human gang might have doused the body with gasoline to throw off the authorities, but they wouldn’t have brought their victim all the way out here, and it wouldn’t have been acetone. They’d brought it with them to make sure the body was gone. He sighed heavily. Perfect. He didn’t have time to pity the dead. This was just one of the sites he had been sent to check.

He opened the dumpster, holding his black sleeve over his sensitive nose, wishing the leather were doing a better job of masking the stench. The inside was charred black, the sides a little warped from the heat, but the accelerant had done its job. Nothing remained to mark this victim as different. Just a lumpy sort of ash. Shattered bone fragments and the occasional tooth. He could have his team sanitize the area, but they couldn’t remove the smell. If the authorities didn’t find the body they could smell, there would be more questions than a few teeth, they would never find a match for, would pose.

This city was a mess. Its preternaturals were out of control. Just short of all-out warfare between too many factions. It was getting worse, and more importantly, it was getting sloppy. That was something his masters couldn’t allow. The humans could never know who lived among them. They were a panicky breed and the only thing they liked more than killing each other was killing anything else. It would be open season on them all, and as superior as many preternaturals liked to feel with their extra strength or speed or longevity, there were billions of humans in this world. No matter his people’s advantages, they would lose any concerted war.

He heard a car approach, its tires crunching the gravel. He lowered the dumpster lid soundlessly and scaled the fence behind it, dropping to a crouch on the other side. He heard the ding of the car as the occupants left the engine running and the lights pointed in his direction. He sprinted for the tree line, trusting the dumpster to block him from view. He hurtled past the first line of trees and hauled himself, hand over hand with the ease of practice, into a tall one a few feet into the stand, coming to rest about fifteen feet up. Any higher and his weight was going to be an issue.

He watched from his temporary blind as a man and a woman crossed through the beam from their headlights. The woman wore a long dress and carried a large, floppy bag, from which she was pulling a flashlight and a few small bottles. The man beside her had his hand across his stomach, fingers under his jacket. He would bet most of his not-insubstantial resources that the jacket held a gun. The man’s eyes never stopped moving, searching outside their pool of light—muscle then, which made her the boss.

“I don’t like this. It’s too exposed out here. Let’s come back in the morning.”

“Etienne, it has to be tonight. Do you smell that? Tomorrow this place will be full of families and someone is going to notice the smell.”

The man frowned, and he stopped his scanning to look at her for a moment. “I smell it. Why don’t you go wait in the car? I’ll take care of it.”

She sighed and seemed to be counting to ten. “I know that you think you’re protecting me. You seem to think I’m much more fragile than I am. This is not my first burned body, Etienne. Not my first murdered friend. This isn’t even my hundredth. I appreciate you coming with me, but this thinking that I’m the damsel you have to save has got to stop. This is my city. I’m the Mulcahy now. You have to let me do my job or I can’t have you come with me again. Tell me you understand.”

The man’s body was tense, his face a mix of frustration, anger, and a touch of fear. “Winter, you can’t seriously expect me to—”

“Tell me you understand or go sit in the car. This is my job, Etienne. This is what I do. None of that has changed. I am responsible for keeping as much peace as can be had in this city, and barring that, for keeping things under wraps enough to not have us all killed by the Eldest to keep the Veil of Secrecy intact. Sometimes that means stopping fights before they start. Tonight, it means making sure that a missing lion’s body has been destroyed enough not to raise questions. A fifteen-year-old lion.” Her teeth and fists were both clenched as she spoke. “Who belongs to a very good friend. Tonight, my job is to make sure his body is unrecognizable. Tomorrow, it’s to talk to his Queen and tell her that my need that she maintain the peace is more important than her need for vengeance. So, tell me you understand. Back me up and help me do this impossible job or stay home.”

The man searched her face, and sighed heavily. “I don’t understand.”

The woman raised her hand to point at the car. “Then g—”

He caught her hand gently. “I don’t understand, Winter, but I’m trying to. Do your job. I’ll back you up.”

The woman struggled to control her face, but nodded, and turned toward the chain-link fence.

Winter… this was Winter Mulcahy. Seahaven’s wizard. The man in the trees had heard of her, but never met her. She was out of her depth, but it looked like maybe she was recruiting some help. He hoped it would be enough. Seahaven was winding up on his masters’ radar too often. The Eldest were neither patient nor forgiving. They couldn’t be.

He slipped silently out of the tree and into the darkness beyond. Lions. He couldn’t help Miss Mulcahy comfort her friend, but he could make sure that whoever was attacking the lions was too scared to do it again. His smile was feral as he ran toward where his car was hidden.

The Characters of Faerie Rising – Winter Mulcahy

This is not the life that Winter Mulcahy ordered.

There was once a time in her home city of Seahaven, WA, when people said you couldn’t swing your arm without smacking a Mulcahy wizard.  The huge Mulcahy family was the backbone of law and order in this city, famous for having the largest per-capita preternatural population of any city in the world.  They alone stood between the various groups of vampires, shape-shifting therian, and other magical beings and the chaos that factional fighting would bring.

But those days are long past.

Throughout her young life, Winter’s extensive family was killed off in ones and twos, sometimes in whole family groups, until the other wizards of the world began whispering of curses and left the survivors to face their fate in isolation.  Eccentric and fiercely independent, these defenders of the innocent hoped the door hit the other wizard Houses on the butt on their way out, and determined to discover the source of their curse even as they held their city together.

They never did.

Finally all that are left are Winter and her father, Colin, who holds the position of the Mulcahy, the head of the family and neutral arbiter of Seahaven.  Colin, though, has not left Mulcahy House in twenty years, and is crippled by depression following first the abandonment by his Faerie wife and then the repeated hammer blows of the deaths of his loved ones.

And so Winter stands alone.  The vampires and the therian lions are her friends, and help her when she allows it, but as wizard of the city she cannot afford to show any group too much favor, to lean too hard on anyone’s support.  She must stand strong; a lone, slender pillar supporting the crushing weight of a city full of responsibility.  She is a physician, a Potions Master, a teacher… but not a fighter.  Not a combat wizard.  Her strength lies in her compassion and intelligence, not in her martial skills, but she lives in a world where viciousness and cunning are often more highly valued than honor or valor and kindness is a weakness.  She holds power over this fractious population by force of habit, on the memory of the threat a House full of wizards once wielded.

And habits are made to be broken.

Winter is cracking under the pressure.  To cope, she has taken to self-medicating, as many physicians do – she relies more and more on magical stimulants to force her exhausted body through endless days of medical emergencies, political crises and magical calamities, then doses herself to sleep when she comes dragging in late at night to both counter-act the stimulants and the nightmares a lifetime of violent death and funerals has left behind.  The stimulants are burning her away from the inside out, even as they give her the ability to meet each day’s challenges.  She can see the symptoms in her own body, and the people around her are beginning to notice something is wrong, but she cannot stop.  A new word has wormed its way into her mind – “addiction.”  She is no fool, she knows the dangerous road she travels, but she sees few choices.  It’s either rise to the challenge and feed this addiction, feed it with her health and sanity, or fall and let the city burn.

And then, one day, two lords of Faerie come into her clinic, seeking her help…

The Denizens of The Books of Binding (Part 3) The Therian

the·ri·an·throp·ic

adjective

1. being partly bestial and partly human in form.

“Karen breathed her in, and Winter knew she felt hunger.  She saw herself, wounded and bleeding on the grass, and knew Karen smelled her weakness and found it good.  A human might have actually felt the concern Karen mimicked well, but the predator knew only eat, and being eaten.  Concern was for cubs and kin.  Karen was therian.  She had either never been human, or was human no longer.”

~ Faerie Rising

“Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!”

~ The Wizard of Oz

The step of a wolf falls even more silently on the asphalt of an alleyway than on the forest floor.

Eye shine reflects in the darkness, much too high to be a feral housecat.

A shape rises, the night itself taking form from the city’s shadows, rising impossibly tall, and steps forward just to the edge of the safety the streetlight promises.  Its body is covered with gleaming fur from the protruding muzzle and broad shoulders to the powerful curved legs and feet tipped with lethal claws.  Its eyes glitter with intelligence as it regards you taking refuge in the light, and it bears canines longer than your fingers as it says, “Lost?”  And then it is on you, teeth buried in your flesh as it shakes you effortlessly as rag doll.

The streetlight lied.

Our shape shifters, the therian of The Books of Binding, range the land, the air, and the seas.  Though many keep to the dwindling wilderness, as humans have spread more and more have been forced to settle down beside them in cities, and those who are predators find that humans living on the fringes of society are easy prey – or potential brethren.

Though they may come in many varieties, the one trait that binds all therian together is that they are all essentially animals that turn into people.  Make no mistake, born or made, it is with an animal’s instincts guided by a human intellect that they interact with the world around them.  They can cry and laugh, be your friend or lover, but they are not human and do not understand many human niceties and social cues, and can react with explosive aggression if they feel challenged.  The common therian lives very much in the now; only their leaders, those who are alphas or the most powerful, the kings and queens, are capable of thinking ahead, of strategizing.   It is for this reason that the majority of therian live on the fringes of society themselves, an underclass of criminals and dropouts who band together with others of their own kind for survival.

Several strains of therianthropy can only be passed down through family lines, the avian therian and the prey species in particular.  All others are either born or made via magical infection.  The disease is carried within a therian’s body fluids.  No tiny claw scratches will make anyone furry.  Only a wound severe enough to mingle the attacking therian’s body fluids with their victim’s blood stream will initiate the change – if the victim survives the initial shock.  Most made therian are attack survivors, and there are more horrible ways to become a therian than by being bitten.  Once begun the change is swift, happening over the course of several agonizing hours.  If they’re lucky the one who attacked them stays nearby, waiting until they are ready to be taken back to the group and their new life.  But if they are not, and many are not, they wake with healing wounds that should have killed them, in pain and alone in a world they never knew existed.

Once in this life, the new therian finds their body capable of incredible things.  They can change forms without pain, feeling more like a truly epic stretch, and if they are strong enough they have not only their human and animal forms, but the half form, the massive “wolf-man” made famous by movies.  They are much faster than a human, sight and scent are enhanced, they are capable of jumping well above their own height (higher if they are one of the great cats), and stronger than even a vampire, strong enough to crush a car door in their bare hands.  Wounds heal before their eyes, their bodies burn feverishly hot with the energy of their amazing metabolisms, and despite what folklore would say they are not slaves of the moon’s cycle.  These gifts come at cost, however.  To fuel their powerful bodies they must eat, and the metabolism that can heal like theirs requires massive amounts of food every day, much more than a human needs.  There is also a hidden cost, one that most therian are not capable of thinking too hard about, with their minds eternally in the now.  Their amped up metabolisms burn them out, shortening their lifespans.  Most therian, if they live to see old age, do not live past their sixties.  A therian who sees seventy is ancient, indeed.

However, an early death by accelerated old age is the least of a therian’s worries.  Life within the preternatural community is brutal and often short, especially for them.  Outside the various groups, therian prey on each other, predators hunting prey species for food and predators hunting other predators in competition for territory.  The prey species have few resources to protect them, and often turn to stronger groups, such as the vampires, for protection against predation.  Vampires will still feed on them, but a little bloodletting is far preferable to being eaten.  Within the groups violence determines the rule of law.  The predator groups are ruled by the strongest, the most dominant, and usually the males.  Males fight amongst themselves for dominance and the right to mate with females, and can move up and down the ladder of hierarchy depending on the outcome of the fights.  The higher up the ladder they get, the higher the stakes of the fights get.  At the top most levels, fights are to the death.  Females don’t dominance fight as often, preferring to sort themselves out in a more social fashion, but when they do it is almost always lethal.  The strongest female will then pair with the strongest male, and they will jointly rule the group.  It is she who decides who, if anyone, will bear children in the group.

A therian female, born or made, will go into heat every 6 months for the majority of her life.  The usual practice is for other females to isolate her, well away from the rest of the group, to prevent fighting among the males in their attempts to get to her.  The stronger the female, the more intense the fighting can be.  The most common forms of birth control are to either endure the seven day heat alone, which can be intensely frustrating for the female in question, or to enlist the company of a male of another species, as therian cannot crossbreed.  When a female does choose, or is selected by her alpha female to have cubs, she will carry one or two (twins being very common) for five and a half months to term.  This gives her the ability to have two litters a year, if the pressure to reproduce is high, though most therian females don’t.  In an ideal setting, the group will assist in raising the cubs, protecting and nurturing them until they are old enough to begin climbing the dominance ladder themselves.

If only all groups were ideal and stable.

Hours later you’re breathing in the metallic meat scent of your own blood where it soaks your clothes, the broken asphalt of the dark recess of the alley digging into your side.  The vicious wounds where the monster ripped into you with its teeth have long since healed, leaving you dressed in shredded, bloody rags, and the sunlight on the bricks above you head highlights colors you’ve never seen.

He watches you with those same cunning eyes, now a man dressed in jeans and an unbuttoned shirt as he ties his other boot.  Finally he nods as if convinced of something, and grabs you by your arm, dragging you to your unsteady feet.  “Come on,” he says in the same gruff voice, and pulls you out of the alleyway towards your new life.