Sneak Peeks

2 comments on "Excerpt: “Overwatch”-segment; Drawing; Whatever"

Title: Overwatch
Author: Harper Kingsley
Universe: Kanon-verse (alternate universe version of Heroes & Villains)

EXCERPT –

Here I am, he thought. One day older. One day closer.

He squeezed his eyes closed. Drew a deep breath in through his nose. Then he pressed the button that raised the top portion of the hospital bed to an upright position. He clenched his teeth against the pain, feeling the lines around his nose and eyes pull tight.

If he lived, he would carry reminders of this experience forever.

Finally the pain shifted, released. He could breathe. The tears weren’t threatening to squeeze their way past his eyelids.

He took a few moments to regain his composure. Then he shifted the fingers of his left hand onto the call button. Concentrated. And pressed.

Thirty seconds later a nurse appeared. “Good morning, Blue Ice. Are you ready for your pain medications now?”

Warrick thought about saying No. Thought about pretending to be strong for one more minute and continuing to suffer through this agony that had become his life. Then he thought about cool relief from the nerve pain caused by his continuous brain seizures.

“Sir?” the nurse asked. “Is that a Yes or a No on the pain medication at this time? I need a verbal reply, as per your instructions.”

Sometimes Warrick cursed his past-self. That self-assured fool that had never truly believed he could be brought so low. Who never would have imagined a time when all he’d want was for someone else to make the hard choices, because he hurt too much to even care.

“Y-y-yessss,” he hissed out through his teeth.

Then there was sweet relief at the hands of his beautiful caretaker. He didn’t know her name, but he loved her with all the fervor of someone finally released from the grasp of wretched misery.

He drifted for some timeless state of being.

A few precious moments completely free from pain.

Time was pressing in on itself. Soon these moments wouldn’t exist. He would count his blessings in seconds, not minutes. Then milliseconds. Then no relief at all. Pain would become his world.

And then he would die.

I hate this, he thought for the millionth time. Why won’t someone come save me for once?

The door slammed open hard enough to take a gouge out of the wall. Caspian didn’t pause in his entrance, coming right to the side of the bed, his grin a fierce baring of teeth. His eyes were like blue fire.

Warrick’s breath caught. He was all aquiver. He felt a desperate hope blooming in his chest.

“I found it. I found it!” Caspian reached his hand toward Warrick’s face, then ever-so-gently, careful of his friend’s propensity for pain, brushed his finger along the arch of Warrick’s cheek. “As long as you hold on, you miserable fuck, you’re going to be out of this hospital bed in a month, walking around. But you’ve gotta hold on, you hear me War? Can you hold on?”

Warrick drew in a shuddering breath. He formed the words slowly, carefully, wanting himself to be clearly heard. “Y-es. Ho-lding onn iss hw-wha-at I do b-es-t.”

/END EXCERPT

crossposted at Kimichee.com

*

I’ve been drawing a bit, which has really helped my imagination come up with storylines and characters.

I got a copy of “Drawing and Painting Beautiful Faces with Jane Davenport” and I’ve been trying to make the people I draw look more attractive and less lopsided. I really like this book. I’ve been carrying it around with me, and I’ve been drawing with colored pencil so I can’t erase anything, and my people’s lips are beginning to look like lips.

*

About the Warrick thing up there ^ ^ –– Things are a bit different in the Kanon-verse, and not just where “Pulse of the City” is concerned. It’s why things are so different in “Tuesday Night.”

1 comment on "Excerpt “All That Remains” – from Chapter Five"

Title: All That Remains – excerpt Chapter Five
Author: Harper Kingsley
Genre: superhero. science fiction. action. mm.

EXCERPT-

They didn’t get to enjoy the afterglow for even five minutes before someone rang the front doorbell. Then rang it again, and again, and again, before leaving their finger on the button for a long time.

One look at Vereint’s darkening expression had Warrick climbing out of bed. “I’ve got it.”

He pulled on a pair of black sweatpants and a loose gray tee shirt.

“No underwear?” Vereint asked.

“I don’t care if whoever that is sees me free-balling,” Warrick said.

“But it might be one of Nicky’s friends. Put on your robe,” Vereint ordered. Then rolled on his stomach and burrowed his face into his pillow. “I’mma sleep now.”

Warrick rolled his eyes fondly. “If you weren’t so cute…” He picked his robe up off a chair and slipped his arms in the sleeves, tying the belt as he left the bedroom and padded barefoot down the stairs.

Whoever was on the porch rang the doorbell again.

“Okay, okay. I’m coming!” Warrick called. He could feel himself getting irritated. His evening with Vereint was being spoiled by this interruption.

He forced himself not to jerk the door open. The last thing he wanted to deal with was a broken front door. Instead he —-purposely—- turned the knob and opened the door.

“Can I help you?” he asked the delivery man in a frosty tone.

“It’s a good thing you’re here. I was about to leave.” The guy proferred a clipboard. “I need a signature, please.”

Warrick took the clipboard but didn’t sign until the delivery man showed him the package with Vereint’s assumed name on the label. Then he scrawled a signature on the digital paper and exchanged the clipboard for the loaf of bread-sized box.

“Thanks,” he growled, then slammed the door and locked it. He waited until he heard the truck start up and drive away before carrying the package upstairs to Vereint.

“Who was it?” Vereint asked when Warrick came in the room.

“A delivery for you.” Warrick set the box on the bed and began stripping back down. He wasn’t giving up a rare opportunity to lounge naked.

“Hedonist,” Vereint teased. He didn’t lift his head from his pillow, just reached out a hand to snake the box across the covers toward himself. He fumbled at the tape with one hand, eventually pulling it off the lid in one strip.

Warrick climbed into his side of the bed and sat with his back against the headboard. His pillow was somewhere on the floor. “What’d you get?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“So it could be a bomb, and you’re opening it on our bed?”

“Yes.” Vereint fumbled the box lid open and tilted it toward Warrick. “What’s in there?”

Warrick reached out to move the brown packing paper out of the way. “It looks like a creepy doll. Is someone going to try and serial kill us now?”

Vereint snorted. “I’d like to see someone try.” He lifted the doll out of the box by its head, tilting it so he could get a good look. “Hm. That is creepy. Who’s it from?”

Warrick glanced at the widely smiling bald ceramic head with the hand and foot-less white cloth body and fought a shudder. He looked at the outside of the box, then the inside. He even flipped it over to show there was nothing inside.

“There’s no name,” he said. “Someone went out of their way to send you a creepy doll anonymously. Strange and suspicious.”

Vereint rolled over and sat up, the bedcovers pooling over his bare lap. He picked up the doll with both hands and examined it closely. “Whoever made this knows how to sew, yet purposely made it look amateurish. It’s a taunt.”

“What–“

Vereint whipped the doll around by one leg and smacked the head against his night table. The head cracked apart, a small slip of paper falling out.

Vereint snatched the paper out of the air and spread it open. “‘I know who you are,'” he read aloud. “What the shit is this?”

/end excerpt

*

Wanna know who these guys are before reading “All That Remains”? Check them out first in “Heroes & Villains“, then follow it up with “Allies & Enemies.”

2 comments on "Defunct opening to “All That Remains”"

Title: All That Remains – defunct opening scene
Author: Harper Kingsley
Twitter: @HarperKingsley0
Rating: Mature
WARNING: descriptions of the aftermath of a violent disaster event.

The beginning of this scene is still the current beginning of “All That Remains”, its just I changed the intro for some action stuff.

ALL THAT REMAINS – defunct opening scene

There was the acrid stink of smoke filling the air, along with the screams and desperate cries of the hurt and dying. The street in front of Caspian Dukes was a wreckage of twisted metal where dozens of vehicles had collided.

He felt helpless. Tragedy had already happened and he didn’t know how they could clear away this mess. His mouth tasted sour with failure.

One hour ago he was eating a food truck taco and contemplating a nap. Now he was looking at a triage situation he didn’t feel up to handling.

The lifestyle was wearing him down. Statistically speaking, most superheroes retired out of the field by their tenth year of active duty. He’d been doing this job for close to thirty.

He didn’t think he was quite ready to retire, but he might cut back on some duty shifts. He wouldn’t do anyone any good if he let himself burn out.

Maybe it’s time for a nice vacation, he thought. Surf, sand, and a chance to get my gills wet.

Just the thought of immersing himself in the ocean soothed some of the tension out of his shoulders. Enough that he was able to focus on the task at hand.

As the old timers had said, the ocean always called their people home in the end.

“All right, boys and girls, the situation has changed,” Caspian called out. “It’s time to focus on cleaning up the mess rather than making it. I want each of you to pair up with an Emergency Services team. It’s search and rescue time. Follow the orders of the ES team leader and be careful, safe, and smart. Understood?”

The Junior League members answered in unison, “Yes, sir!” There wasn’t an ounce of hesitation as they rushed forward to rescue the wounded and comfort the dying. They were strong as a unit, even the ones that had never worked together.

Smart, loyal, and quick to follow the orders of their superiors–they were a good bunch of kids and Caspian felt proud watching them swarm the scene. Maybe he was getting old, but the new League members looked younger to him every year. He couldn’t remember a time when he was ever so young and eager to please. There was a part of him that secretly wanted to wrap them up in bubble wrap and deliver them back to their parents safe and sound. Which was ridiculous because they were competent professionals that wouldn’t appreciate his babying.

He shook his head and stalked forward to do his own part. People needed his help.

Trusting that the Juniors would know to give him a yell if they needed him, he helped a couple of Emergency Service officers by ripping the passenger side door off of a car that had been crumpled like a tin can in the fist of a giant. A single peek through the window showed that the driver–a young woman with blood darkened hair shrouding her face–was dead, but the man next to her was weakly struggling with his seatbelt, his dazed eyes unable to focus. He seemed frantic to reach the toddler screaming in the backseat.

“Hold on, buddy,” Caspian said. “Don’t try to move.”

He stepped out of the way of the rescue workers and their backboard, wishing that the car had been a four-door so he could get to the kid. She was unharmed, though the shock of the crash had turned to terror of the unknown. Interspersed with her shrieks were what sounded like the words “Mama!” and “Dada!” and he couldn’t help feeling sorry for her as only one of them was ever going to answer.

Once the father was out of the way and being loaded onto a gurney, Caspian was quick to pull the toddler out of her car seat, turning her so she didn’t get a good look at her mother’s body. “Sh, sh, it’s all right,” he murmured, patting her back and giving her a quick once over.

Her small hands fisted against the front of his uniform and her shrieks trailed into hiccuping cries. Her head moved back and forth, trying to see where “Dada!” had gone, but Caspian kept her turned away from where the paramedics worked. There was quite a bit of blood and he didn’t want to traumatize her more than she already was.

Looking around, he knew she was going to have plenty of stuff to talk about with her future therapist. She’d lost her mother, and her father was probably going to be spending some time in the hospital.

“Here, I’ll take her.” Caspian turned to look at the man that had spoken. He was wearing an Emergency Service uniform along with a Megacity Mavens baseball cap. “You’ve got other stuff to handle.”

“Thanks,” Caspian said. He carefully passed the toddler over, reining in his strength. He’d feel terrible if he accidentally hurt her, especially after everything else she’d experienced.

Stepping away from the totaled car, he looked around to see where he was needed. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to what he was seeing, like some horrible optical illusion coming into focus.

The street was a scene of damage and destruction. The epicenter was three low buildings close together. From the way the awning had been blown across the street from the middle building–with its plaster pillars shattered and broken mirrors everywhere–Caspian thought that it had been the main site of the disaster.

There was a ten-year-old boy seated on the curb, a vacant expression on his dirty face. He was cradling something in his hands and his dark brown hair was nearly white on top from plaster dust. When he glanced up at Caspian’s approach, his eyes were a startling shade of blue. It was such a striking sight that Caspian hitched his step.

“Hey, kid.” Caspian didn’t bother faking a smile. The situation was too raw to be made light of yet. “Do you know what happened here?”

The boy looked up at him. His hands shifted and Caspian briefly glimpsed the watch that he held. The glass face had a crack running through it and there was plaster dust caught in the band. “It was Becky. She said that she wasn’t feeling good. Then all this happened.”

“I see. And who is Becky?” Caspian asked. The first responders would have gathered the information on their arrival, but it didn’t hurt to get a first hand account when he could.

“She’s a girl in my class.” The boy rubbed the back of his hand under his nose. “She’s dead now. Can I call my dad? I want to go home.”

“It will be a little while,” Caspian said. “You’re going to have to be patient.”

The boy hunched his shoulders with a sigh.

/end scene

1 comment on "EXCERPT: Doggy Style, by Sol Crafter [mm, magical realism, body transformation]"

Title: Doggy Style
Author: Sol Crafter
Genre: urban fantasy, magical realim, mm

CHAPTER FOUR

Having his door pounded on at three in the morning would usually have Faraday screaming with rage. But tonight, with his best friend missing and sleep as far from him as the moon, he was up out of the blanket nest he’d made on the couch and running to the front door.

“Hold on, hold on, I’m coming,” he called out.

Relief was a cold rush across his face and down his body when he opened the door and found Zack on the other side. Sure, Zack’s hair was an uncombed mess, his glasses were missing, and the clothes he wore were too large and combined with the lack of shoes or socks to give him a waifish air, but he was alive.

“Oh shit.” Faraday grabbed Zack by the arms and pulled him in close for a desperate hug. “You’re alive.”

Part of him wanted to be mad at Zack for frightening him, but he could feel the way Zack trembled in his arms and it quieted his anger. Obviously something had happened to Zack.

He tugged Zack inside and toward the couch, kicking the door shut behind them. “Are you all right? Here, sit down. I’ll get you something to drink. Do you need to eat?”

“I have no idea what’s going on,” Zack said. He gave Faraday a spooked look and didn’t hesitate to grab the afghan off the couch. He wrapped the brightly decorative piece of cloth around himself and made to draw his legs up under it before seeming to remember that his feet were filthy. “I don’t even know what’s real anymore. This seems like it should be somebody else’s life.”

Faraday hurried into the kitchen area to grab a bottle of cran-raspberry juice out of the fridge. He looked indecisively at the cupboards for a moment before going to the oven and taking out a cookie sheet to use as a tray for the juice. He added two glasses half filled with ice, a plastic bowl of baby carrots and cherry tomatoes, and a package of cheese and chive sandwich crackers.

Part of him wanted to make Zack a couple of turkey sandwiches and possibly a bowl of soup, but he didn’t want to leave him alone for too long. He was paranoid at the idea of Zack disappearing when his back was turned. It was just too bad that he didn’t have much in the way of instant food that wasn’t also junk food.

He carried the makeshift tea tray into the living room and set it on the coffee table. He sat down next to Zack and busied himself with pouring the juice and opening the sandwich crackers.

“Here, I got you a little something to eat. Drink this first.” He pressed one of the glasses into Zack’s hands and gestured for him to drink it. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do and I don’t want you to have a dry mouth.”

“Gee, thanks.” Zack sipped at the juice and accepted one of the crackers Faraday offered him. He ate it in two quick bites, then looked surprised, as though he hadn’t realized he was hungry.

Faraday let him swallow before asking, “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been going out of my mind with worry.”

“You’re not going to believe me,” Zack said. “I don’t think that I even believe me.”

“Well?”

“I was a dog. A literal dog, with fur and a tail and four feet and everything.”

“You’re right. I don’t believe you.” Faraday flopped down on the couch. He rubbed his hand across his forehead. “Where were you?”

“I’m serious. Look into my eyes. I was a dog.” Zack shook his head. “I have no idea how it happened, but I experienced a full-body transformation. It was like something off TV.”

Faraday had heard all the stories, though magic was usually something that happened to other people. People that moved through darker circles than he or Zack ever had.

“Did you piss off a witch–or I guess it would have to be some kind of enchantress? What did you do to make someone so mad?” he asked.

The look Zack gave him could have melted steel. “I have not had any run-ins with witches, enchantresses, sorcerers, or even party magicians. I have been working and going home as usual. Turning into a dog has got to be the most unlikely things to ever happen to me. I don’t know why anyone would bother cursing me.”

“Hm.” Faraday thought of all the transformation cases he’d ever heard of. It wasn’t a popular spell anymore, since it was power intensive and was a quick way for a magic user to end up in prison. Still, there were stories. “Maybe it wasn’t intended for you. You were cataloging the new shipment. Maybe you triggered some kind of booby trap.”

“Who would leave something like that hanging around?” Zack looked thoughtful. “We did receive all that stuff from that estate sale. I didn’t see anythng in the paperwork about Mary Nye being a magic user, but it’s not something people usually advertise, is it?”

“This is very serious,” Faraday said. “We’re going to have to final reports with the police and get you Cleansed before it becomes a permanent curse.”

“Maybe we should be a bit careful with that. Can we just go to a Cleanser and not bother with the police?”

Faraday stared at Zack, noticing his deadpan expression and the forthright honesty of his stare.

“What did you do?” he asked. He was experiencing a sense of dread.

/EXERPT

This story is being serialized at Kimichee.com.

There's some great tee shirt deals happening at BustedTees. Like $10 and $8 for stuff like this Rick and Morty one.
There’s some great tee shirt deals happening at BustedTees. Like $10 and $8 for stuff like this Rick and Morty one.