Temptation

Levastiel picked up his book and tried to find his place. He wasn’t sure why it took him so long, it was the exact place he found five minutes ago, and ten minutes before that. He finally had to admit the truth: he wasn’t in the mood to read.

It’s not that the book was bad. Indeed, the author probably would have won awards for it if he had lived long enough to finish it. But after almost three days of nothing but reading, he was getting a little tired of it. He usually worked Mondays, which was enough to get him in a reading mood for Tuesday. Veriel had taken his shift that Monday, though, in exchange for him taking Veriel’s Tuesday shift the week before, and now Levastiel had no idea what to do with himself.

“Laundriel,” a voice called out. He turned to see what was likely one of the oddest sights in all of creation, but it had become so routine to him, he scarcely noticed. She-Who-Slips-Between-The-Shadows-At-Midnight was still a demon. She still had horns, and goat legs, and skin the color of blood. But she wore the shimmering white robes of the cherubim wore, even if she somehow managed to show significantly more skin than any other angel, and if you squinted just right, you could see a faint glow framing her head.

“Your halo is coming along nicely, Midnight,” Levastiel told her with a smile.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” she said, non-chalantly, but a smile touched the ends of her mouth. Levastiel would have been willing to bet (if angels weren’t above such things) that she was blushing, but it was impossible to tell with her skin.

“How’s the book?” she asked.

“It’s all right, I suppose,” he said. “I mean, it’s great, really, I just haven’t really…” He trailed off.

Midnight laughed. “You actually miss working, don’t you?”

He felt oddly insulted by that. “Service to heaven is the greatest reward.”

“No, fabric softener is the greatest reward.” She grinned, fingering the edge of one sleevebetween two black nails. He noticed she had filed away the sharp claws. That must have taken some effort.

“Are you getting along with the Cherubim?” he asked.

The smile became a little strained. “I’m doing all right. Everyone looks at me weird, but… they’re nice about it. They look embarassed if they notice me noticing, and a lot of them have even apologized.”

“It’ll all seem normal soon enough.” He thought of his own reaction to her, or lack thereof.

“A demon working for heaven? Or people being nice?”

Levastiel shrugged. “Both, I guess.” She let out a sigh. “I do miss tempting people, though. I’m not made for all this filing crap. No offense, Levastiel.”

“None taken.”

“Do you think when my halo’s fully formed, I could trasferred to Temptations?”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “We don’t have a Temptations office.”

“Why not?”

“You can’t just tempt somebody to be good. If you’re good for the wrong reasons, it doesn’t really count.”

She gave him a devilish¹ grin. “That’s the challenge part. Getting someone to do something good because it’s in their best interests is easy. The trick is slowly manipulating them so they start doing something good because it’s good. Let me show you. Then you can tell the boss-abim how clever and forward-thinking I am.”

^{1 A devilish grin is distinct from a demonic grin in that while a demonic grin indicate that the grinner is plotting terrible things for you, a devilish grin suggests you’ll at least enjoy it.}

Levastiel frowned. “I can’t. You’re still on probation. You’re not allowed to influence people.”

“I didn’t have a person in mind. I was thinking more along the lines of the Ravager.”

Levastiel shuddered at the memories of the demon’s horrible voice, but he had to admit that after a few beers, the demon wasn’t bad company. “You’re going to Save the Ravager?”

Midnight’s grin grew even wider. “I’m not. You are.”

Levastiel laughed at that, although it came out a little strained. “I think you’ve got the wrong angel for that.”

“No, you’re just the angel to do it. Come on, ever since you told him about days off, he skips work to go drinking every Tuesday. Let’s see how he reacts to you having too much free time.

Cassandra’s Return

Chen was getting out of his car when heard someone call his name. He turned to see Melissa Dawn waving at him from a few spaces over.

“I can’t believe I’m back here.” He grinned at her. It hadn’t been that long since he’d last seen Melissa. He kept in touch with all the old crew, whenever they both had a spare minute. It was just a month or so since he grabbed a cup of coffee with Melissa. She’d finished shooting The Mission, and was excited to talk about the relaunch with someone.

But it was never quite the same since Cassandra was canceled.

“Well,” she smirked, walking up to him. “We can’t do the voyages of the Cassandra without Captain Kei, now can we?”

“Heh, Kei would argue with that.”

Melissa playfully punched him in the arm. “And Paige would tell him that he was being too hard on himself.”

“It’s going to be weird playing Kei again. I mean, he’s got ten years of experience now. I can’t play him the same way I used to. Erica tells me to shoot for ‘worried, but confident.’ Because that’s helpful.” He’d done a couple of projects for Erica over the last ten years. She somehow managed to get everything to work out perfectly, despite her maddeningly vague directions.

“She knows you’ll figure out how to…” She trailed off as the two of them entered the sound set. The Cassandra was there—its cockpit, the common room, the cargo bay, all exactly the way he remembered it from ten years ago.

“Captain on deck!” Jane shouted, snapping a salute at Chen. Robert looked around until he saw them, then grinned like a child.

“Chen, you old dog!” He grabbed Chen in a rib-breaking hug. “How you been?”

“Ugh,” Chen said when Robert released him. “I’m alright. Did your hugs always hurt that much, or have you been working out more?”

Robert laughed. “No more than usual. Erica asked me if I’d need to tone up to play Ryans again. I told her I’d been waiting for her to call me ever since they canceled us.”

Chen nodded, walking down the stairs to the set. He hadn’t realized just how much he had missed working on this show.

“How is the book coming?” Melissa asked Jane.

“Dark Hunter hits the shelves in a few months,” Jane said. “The forums are already on fire wondering if Cassandra will delay the next one.”

“Can’t be worse than when you two got married,” Melissa grinned. “I swear, the entire internet was geeking out over the idea of Kain and Ryans actually hooking up.”

“That reminds me,” Jane said. “Have you met our daughter yet?”

Chen missed a step and had to grab the handrail to stay upright. “Wait, when did you two have a kid?” he asked, turning to stare at the couple.

That got another laugh out of Robert. “Not us, us. Kain and Ryans. You read the script, didn’t you? Ryans knocked Kain up shortly after the crew disbanded.”

“We’re going to have to do some flashbacks to show you two actually getting together,” Melissa said, “or the fans will turn violent.”

“True enough,” Robert said, then he turned to Jane. “My niece, Jenny, is playing her. Ain’t nepotism grand? Carrie’s flying in with her tonight. I’ve told you guys that story, right? How my sister was such a big fan of Mina-”

“That she asked Carrie to be her Godmother,” Melissa interrupted. “Yes, only a dozen times in the last eight years.”

“We need to go somewhere tonight,” Jane said. “The entire gang’s back together. We need to celebrate.”

Chen sighed, thoughts of his old friend surfacing. Li had helped him out a lot when he was first struggling as an actor, helping him nail down Kei’s strengths and weaknesses. It was an amusing echo of the guidance Kenji’s gave Kei. Even three years later, it was hard to think that Li was gone.

Jane went pale. “I’m sorry, Chen. I shouldn’t have… that was thoughtless of me. I know you and Li were close.”

He swallowed. “It’s all right. He’d be happy that the rest of us are here.”

“We should still do something,” Melissa said. “We can toast Li’s memory and welcome Jenny to the family.”

Chen smiled at her. “That sounds nice.”

Campfire Stories

The other kids grew quiet as Johnny returned from the forest. He was getting tired of that. He got along with them all right most of the time, at least as well as he ever did with kids his own age. But every time Miss Tokar’s name even came up, they all started staring like he’d grown a second head.

He sat down near the fire like nothing had happened. “You should have come, Kim,” he said to the girl across from him. “Miss Tokar showed me all kinds of interesting plants. You would have liked it.”

Kim stared at the fire and muttered something about maybe next time.

One of the other volunteers, Mr. Stevens, came by with marshmallows and s’more fixings. As kids argued over the best spots near the fire, burned marshmallows, and generally acted like kids, they forgot all about Miss Tokar’s herb-finding trip and how they should be afraid of Johnny.

“Let’s tell scary stories!” Ryan said.

“Don’t!” Cindy protested. She was easy to frighten. But everyone else agreed it was a great idea.

“I’ll go first,” Ryan announced. “This story happened in this very forest.”

Johnny thought that seemed a bit silly. These stories were all made-up. Some kids made up stories on the spot, and other kids repeated ones they’d heard before, but some kid had made those up, too; none of them were really real. If there’d really been an axe murderer who’s ghost cut the heads off of any kid who got lost, as Ryan insisted, there’d be investigations and stuff. Certainly their parents wouldn’t be letting them on this camping trip if headless bodies kept showing up.

The rest of the kids squealed in delighted terror, though. Well, except for Cindy, who was covering her ears.

Then Eric told his story. It, too, allegedly happened here. Really, Johnny thought, if all these ghosts were all in the same forest, they’d be too busy bickering to actually kill any children. Eric’s story involved a prospector, which was dumb, since they were in Michigan, which never had any gold rush or anything. But Johnny didn’t bother telling Eric that.

Instead he stared into the fire, trying to think of what to do when it was his turn. He’d never heard a scary story worth remembering, so he’d have to make one up. Obviously, he couldn’t claim that it happened “in this very forest”, since he was still the new kid. He could always say it happened where he used to live in Pittsburgh, but what would happen there? Would a ghost haunt a steel mill? Johnny didn’t see why not. It seemed like there was plenty mischief a ghost could cause in a place like that, but he didn’t think that’d go over well. It felt like it didn’t count as a scary story if it didn’t happen in a forest.

He started to see shapes in the fire. A branch on one of the logs stuck up, and it almost looked like there was a woman tied to it, burning. No, he thought, a moment later, she wasn’t tied to it, she was dancing around it. Smaller flames joined in, dancing in a circle around her, almost, but never quite, taking shape.

The woman grew taller and taller, and the crackling wood almost sounded like laughter for a moment. Then the fire leapt up, burning so bright, it hurt Johnny’s eyes.

He blinked the spots from his eyes, and the campfire was just a campfire again.

All the kids were staring at him, their faces pale. He could vaguely hear Mr. Stevens trying to calm down a crying Cindy at the volunteers’ table.

“What?” he asked. “Is it my turn?”

“No!” Eric said, quickly. “I mean, that was… where did you hear that? It didn’t really happen, did it?” He looked around at the dark woods surrounding them nervously.

Johnny frowned. He hadn’t said anything. Were they playing a joke on him? It seemed unlikely. Ryan honestly looked terrified, and Johnny didn’t think he would be willing to swallow his pride like that for a joke, or that he was a good enough actor to pull it off, for that matter.

“All right,” Mr. Stevens said, as the volunteers all swept down on them, “time for bed. Everyone to your tents.”

Johnny was grateful for the distraction and quickly headed towards the tent he was sharing with Eric. As he passed Miss Tokar, she met his eyes with a curious expression, then smiled, her teeth gleaming in the firelight.

“Did that really happen?” Kim asked, falling in beside him.

He shrugged, not wanting to admit he had no idea what was going on. “You’ll have to figure that out for yourself.” And without giving her a chance to reply, he turned down the path to the boys’ tents.

Solution Race

The timer rang, and Eileen turned the box on its side. An eclectic arrange of toys and small devices spilled out. She paused, processing them.

The parameters for this contest were vague. The items needed to be “solved,” but it was up to the robots to determine what that meant. Luke had said that was the real test here. Her ability to put those solutions into effect was just a metric.

She identified one item as a Rubik’s Cube. Six sides, nine squares to a side. Nine squares of six different colors. It would be trivial to figure out even if it wasn’t already in her database.

The sub-process only took a few milliseconds to calculate. She committed each side to memory. She let the process take over her hands as she looked at the other objects.

A chime went off and people cheered. Eileen looked up at the scoreboard. A white dot had appeared next to Atlas’s name. She turned to face the partition that separated her from him.

It was a waste of processing. The purpose of the partitions was to prevent robots from imitating the progress of others.

She had finished the cube, so she put it aside. None of the other items were in her database, so she grabbed the nearest one to study.

Four buttons in the standard four colors made a circle around the middle. Green meant go. She pressed that one, but nothing happened. She worked in a clockwise circle. The small device made no response.

There was another chime. Pandora had a dot next to her name now. It took Eileen a moment to process that she didn’t have a dot. She dropped the device and picked up the Rubik’s cube again.

Her sub-process had been sloppy, and stopped one step short. Some people laughed as she made the last rotation to complete the puzzle. This time, there was a chime, and she looked up again. Now she had a dot, but so did most of the other robots, and both Atlas and Pandora had two dots now.

She examined the device again. There was a switch on the bottom. She flipped that, and the buttons lit up. She pressed the green one again, and the yellow button across from it lit up with a beep. She ran through several dozen meanings for green and yellow before settling on traffic lights. Next came red.

She pressed the button, and it made a harsh buzz and all the lights flickered. Eileen recognized that meant she had made a mistake.

She pressed the green button again. This time the blue button lit up. That was to the right of the green button, and the yellow button was to the right of that.

Wrong again.

More chimes came. She should move on to a different object. She wasn’t certain why she didn’t.

This time, when she hit the green button, it lit up again. She pressed it one more time, and the green button followed by the blue button lit up. Pressing those two buttons got the sequence to repeat itself with a third button added on—green again.

She smiled, understanding now. Each of the buttons had a different tone, too, so she sub-processed this to her left hand. She took a few extra milliseconds to double-check it. Then she reached for the next object: a box filled with plastic polygons.

“And Buzz has completed the challenge!” Jordan Day announced. Eileen looked up at the scoreboard. Buzz’s name had changed to a gold color with sparkles rendered across it. Six dots were next to it. Atlas and Pandora were both at four. Six robots had three dots and two robots were still at two. Only Eileen was at one.

She confirmed that her sub-process hadn’t made any errors, then dumped the box out in front of her. Getting higher than eight place at this point was statistically unlikely, but she wouldn’t let herself come in last.

Team John Henry

A young man sat, not quite looking at the camera. He wore a dress shirt, stark white against his dark skin, but it clearly didn’t fit very well. About half a second in, he jumped.

“Oh, right,” he said, now focused on his theoretical audience. “Hi, KickStarter. My name is Steve Jones. And this is John Henry 2.0.” The camera moved with a jerk until a computer monitor could be seen next to Steve. A rendered human face was on it. It had rather generic looking features, and a low resolution. “Say hi, John.”

“Hello, Rebecca,” a harsh, automated voice said. The face moved about half a second too late.

“Not to her, to the audience. This is going up on the internet.”

“I understand. Hello, Mr. or Ms. Internet. It is nice to meet you.”

Steve smiled, but it was a little pained. “John here is a fully operational AI system. But, as you can see, he’s not very smart.”

“Hey!” the robotic voice said, and the face displayed frowned.

“It’s not your fault, John,” Steve said.

“I know. It’s yours.”

Steve let out an embarrassed laugh. “As you can also see, he does have a functional personality matrix. None of this was scripted. All John needs is a systems upgrade. Better processors, more RAM, that kind of thing.” He paused.

“And a body,” a woman’s voice said, barely audible in the video.

“Right! A body. You see, we want to enter John in the Prometheus Challenge. Only we couldn’t find a sponsor. But we’ve spoken to a manufacturer, and they can build John Henry’s body in plenty of time to meet the entry deadline. So… um, well, we need money, obviously, or I wouldn’t be making this video. It’s going to cost two million dollars, but obviously the more we get, the better. If we can get enough, we can use better materials and stuff. There should be a chart on the KickStarter page. And anything left over will be used for maintenance and stuff…”

He pulled at his collar. “What else… oh, right. Prizes, or pledges, I guess. John, can you tell them about the pledges?”

“Of course. At the lower levels, we have Team John Henry bumper stickers and patches.” His face faded away, revealing a stylized logo of a hammer smashing an old-fashioned steam engine. Then the face reappeared. “I don’t know what those are, but Steve told me to show them to you. Rebecca likes them, too, so they must be good. Higher pledges include invitations to Prometheus Challenge events as guests of Team John Henry, a personal visit from me, once I have a body, and even three honorary membership positions on Team John Henry. The highest pledge will let you decide what my face will look like. I would like to recommend David Tennant.”

Steve gave a mildly annoyed look over the camera. “So, there we are. This is a long shot, but we want to prove that innovation belongs to the people of the world, not just the megacorporations. Say good-night, John.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t have a body yet.”

“It doesn’t…” Steve took a breath. “I’ll explain it to you later.” He made a slashing gesture across his throat, and the video stopped.

 

“Probably should have done more than one take,” Jack said, a grin on his face.

“It’d do more harm than good,” Luke said. “Every take they do, John would be more rigid in his responses. They needed to make sure it was clear that he’s actually an intelligence.”

“Can we help him?” Eileen asked.

“You know he’d be your competition,” Luke told her.

“Yeah, but he seems sweet. Ooh! If we give them enough money, we’ll get to meet him!”

“If he’s in the Prometheus Challenge, you’ll meet him anyway.”

“Can we get a Team John Henry bumper sticker then?”

“You can’t…” Luke started, then turned to his brother. “I don’t have time to explain it. You handle it, Jack.”

The Sword in the Street

Again, these are characters from a potential project of mine, called Anti-Villains.

---

The rain began to fall, drumming light beats on her helmet. She walked to the edge of the alleyway where they had been lurking. She’d had a clear line of sight on their target, but now, she could barely see the café across the street.

“Ryuujin is nearby,” the Knight of Avalon told the Squire. This was going to complicate things.

“It could just be rain,” Squire said, giving the Knight the kind of look only a daughter can manage. “The forecast’s been calling for rain all week.”

The Knight loosed Excalibur in its sheath, a feat only she and her daughter could do. “I can feel it. This is the Murasame’s work. Do I need to speak to the Lady about your water magic?”

The Squire rolled her eyes and waved a hand above her head, muttering some words in Gaelic. The water parted above her, raindrops sheering off to avoid hitting her. “My water magic’s fine. It just doesn’t let me tell the difference between regular rain and magic sword rain. Maybe I should talk to the Lady about you.”

The Knight frowned beneath her helmet. There was no denying that her daughter took to magic in a way she had never managed. The only spell she could reliably cast was to use water to communicate, and even then, she had to set the other side up in advance.

She wasn’t about to admit that to her daughter, though. Teenagers were insufferable know-it-alls, and Paula was worse than most.

“Learn to tell the difference yourself, then,” she said. “It could save your life. Don’t you agree, Ryuujin?”

“There is wisdom in her words,” a heavily accented voice said from behind them. The Knight couldn’t help but smile to herself when her daughter jumped. She turned at a more sedate pace. She didn’t draw Excalibur, but kept her hand on its hilt.

Ryuujin stood in the middle of the alleyway. Like always, he looked as if he’d just wandered out of an old samurai movie, dressed in kimono and hakama. The white silk clung to his skin, and blotches of color could be seen, the magic dragon tattoos he was named for. He held his katana, the Murasama, lightly on one side. The naked steel hummed slightly, as it absorbed the raindrops striking it.

“Are we going to do this again?” the Knight asked him.

“You could always stand aside,” Ryuujin replied. “I have never wished to cross swords with you.”

“Nor I with you, but I won’t let you kill men in my city.”

“They are not worthy of your protection.” He turned to the Squire. “Do you know the man you are protecting? Do you know what he has done?”

The teenage superhero stood up tall and tried to sound confident. “H-he works for the Yakuza. He’s been shaking down merchants in the area.”

Ryuujin shook his head. “That is what he is doing now. Do you know what he has done?” When it became clear that she had no answer, he went on. “In Japan, he was a murderer. He was known as Osoi Shi, the Slow Death, because of the way he would draw out his victim’s suffering. Are you willing to die protecting such a man?”

The Squire glanced back at her mother, and the Knight knew she had better intervene. “We’re not here to protect him. We’re here to stop him. But I won’t let you execute him without a trial.”

“Enough,” Ryuujin said, “we’ve had this conversation before. He will arrive here soon. I suggest we settle the matter before then.” He sheathed his sword, and the rain slowed to a drizzle. He tapped the tattoo above his heart, and it glowed beneath the damp fabric, an echo of a roar carrying across the alleyway.

The Knight nodded, and handed Excalibur to her daughter.

They both stared at each other for a moment. Then, acting upon some unseen cue, both warriors leapt at each other.

It was a fight they’d had many times before. Ryuujin was better at unarmed combat, but her armor limited what techniques he could use effectively against her. She was the stronger of the two, her armor enhancing her muscles, but the dragon tattoo he had activated put him in her weight class, and he was nimble enough to dodge most of her blows.

Ryuujin had just leapt up on to a fire escape to evade the dumpster she had kicked on him, when shouts of Japanese drifted down the alley. Risking a quick glance back, she saw Osoi Shi climbing in to an armor plated hummer.

“You cannot protect him forever,” Ryuujin spat. He walked away before the Knight of Avalon could remind him — again — that she had been there to arrest him, not protect him. Ryuujin had prevented that just as much as she had prevented his murder.

Except the hummer was still there. The engine roared and the tires squealed, but it didn’t move.

“What’s going on?” she asked the Squire, as she approached the teenager’s hiding spot.

The Squire shrugged. “You were still fighting Ryuujin, and he’s got too many guys with him for me to fight on my own, so I snuck into his car and stuck Excalibur through the floor and into the road. Asphalt counts as stone, so unless he’s got Queen Elizabeth with him, he’s gonna have to walk.”

At the Playground

Fun fact: Vanish and Hard Place are characters from Common Grounds, which will eventually be a collection of short stories about a bunch of mutant teenagers and twenty-somethings squatting in an abandoned mall.

---

Vanish

I stopped near the end of the alleyway, just in case. The playground was empty, like it always was. No one came here ‘cept me.

The one swing, my swing, was still there. That was good.

Old graffiti still covered the walls, each one with a purple ‘V’ painted over it. No one had been stupid enough to try to tag the place in a while now.

The artist had been here, though. Another one of the V’s now sat on a black hole, the graffiti behind it altered to look like it was being sucked in. No clue what he was on about with this stuff, but since he wasn’t trying to tag the place for himself, I wasn’t gonna bother.

I lit up a cigarette, leaning casually against the corner. Nothing else had changed. Hell, there wasn’t much left to change. Anything that could be easily removed or destroyed had been. The basketball hoop was gone. The backboard, too, for that matter. The smaller playground toys had all been smashed. Only monkey bars and the metal frame of the swing-set remained. The fact that my swing was untouched proved how much I was feared around here.

“Do you see anything?” Hard Touch asked.

“Yeah,” I said, rolling my eyes, “the kid we’re after is getting beat up by Hunters even as we speak, I just decided to have a cigarette first.”

Never doing a run with this kid again unless Vanish is with us. Not that we had much choice. Inbox told me to grab whatever Runners I could find and get here ASAP. When that dead-eyed kid is panicking, you don’t stop to ask questions.

The kid was the only one I spotted on my way out, so I grabbed him. Now I was starting to regret it. I mean, I get that it sucks that he has to be hiding behind a dumpster. The world’s full of bastards, but at least I can go “buy” a pack of cigarettes without people raising hell.

Funny, really. The kid would never hurt any of them, but he’s the one they’d all run from.

I flicked the remnants of my cigarette and pulled out another. Wasn’t expecting to have to wait, not with the panic Inbox had been in. Something was gonna happen soon, and it was gonna be bad.

The muffled sounds of a tranq gun echoed off the walls, followed by a pitiful cry.

I grinned, tossing away the second cigarette. The Hunters were going to learn not to mess around my turf.

“Let’s go, Tough Case.”

“It’s Hard Place!” But I was already moving.

---

Hard Place

When Vanish slowed to a casual walk, I had to duck behind a dumpster. I wished Veil was here. I hated having to hide, but Vanish said there wasn’t time.

Minutes crawled by, and nothing happened.

“Do you see anything?” I asked.

“Yeah, the kid we’re after is getting beat up by Hunters even as we speak, I just decided to have a cigarette first.” I didn’t let her get to me. She talked to just about everyone like that.

I risked a peak over the dumpster. We were at the ghost of a playground. Or maybe “skeleton” was a better word. Bits of it remained behind. There was an old post that used to have a basketball net. A solitary swing remained on a set that used to have three. A small, broken pipe stuck out of the ground, probably where a merry-go-round used to spin.

It probably had never been a terribly great playground, penned in by old apartment buildings. I didn’t think this neighborhood had ever been a great one. I liked to think that it might have been loved for a while, though, before all the fear chased everyone away.

Someone cried out, her voice filled with fear.

Vanish started running, tossing aside her cigarette. “Let’s go, Tough Case.”

“It’s Hard Place!” I growled at her, even as I followed.

Green Meadows

Alex scratched at his cheek while he drove, for all the good it did him. It wasn’t his face that itched. It was his essence.

He had been wearing this face for too long. He should have changed weeks ago, but he just couldn’t find a face that felt right.

“Stop being so damn picky,” he said to himself. He was going to have to choose someone in the next day or two. The itching would only get worse, and it wouldn’t take long for it to drive him insane.

Maybe a woman this time. He’d been a man for the last five faces. He needed to break out of his rut.

He pulled in to his assigned parking space, right next to the shiny, black hearse. He took a moment to make sure his hair was neat and his tie was straight. He had to look professional. He’d see people hurting today. There was very little he could do to mitigate that, but it was his job to do everything he could to help them.

Jane was at the front desk.

“Where have you been?” she said, a nervous tone in her voice. “Mr. Terrance has been calling you all morning!”

Alex patted his pocket and grimaced. “Left my phone at home,” he said. “I’ll go see him now.”

Jane started to say something, but Alex was in too much of a hurry. He was very aware of how much he owed Paul Terrance; not many people would have agreed to keep his secret. If Paul wanted to see him, everything else could wait.

But when Paul saw him, he winced. Alex hadn’t been expecting that, but in a moment, it became clear. He had been speaking to a older woman. She was vaguely familiar, and she was looking at Alex like she had just seen a ghost.

Which wasn’t too far from the truth.

“Johnny?” she choked out, tears forming in her eyes. “Is… how is this possible?” He could see the conflicting desires in her. She wanted to run to him, but she was afraid of reliving the pain if she did. Hope was a beautiful and terrible thing.

“I’m sorry, ma’am.” It was an ingrained reflex. “You’ve mistaken me for someone else.”

It would have been less cruel to hit her. She almost collapsed right there, but Paul guided her to one of the plump armchairs.

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “It’s just… you look just like him. I see his face everywhere, but… if I wasn’t his mother, I’d wonder if he’d had a twin.”

Alex remembered her now, but he should have known who she was from the start. He was getting complacent. It was sometimes difficult to recognize people you’d only seen grieving, but that was no excuse when he had stolen her son’s face.

“I’m sorry,” Paul said, offering her a handkerchief. “When I realized you were coming in on Mrs. Jonas’s behalf, I tried to tell him not to come in. We didn’t mean to subject you to this. Alex, I’m sure there’s some work for you in the mortuary.”

The meaning was clear: go get a new face. And Alex couldn’t argue. He was getting careless, and things would only get worse if he kept putting it off. His kind weren’t meant to keep to one face. Soon, he’d start to get violent, and eventually it would drive him mad.

He nodded, mumbling an apology to Mrs. Abraham as he left.

There were only three bodies in the basement, all of them old men. That was unfortunate; ideally, he wanted a face near his own age. These men were three times his age, and he knew their faces would start to itch within a week or two.

It would last him long enough to find a better face, though. Until then, it would be his punishment for putting this off so long.

The Ice Queen’s Blessing

Prince Erran bowed deeply. “This is Lady Veala of Narisso, Your Highness.”

Queen Pearth looked down at her great grand-nephew and his would-be fiance. The two complimented each other nicely. Lady Veala was tall for a woman, but Prince Erran was tall enough that this was good. She’d seen him have to stoop over to dance at balls. The noblewoman’s dark hair and tanned skin stood out against Erran’s snow white locks and pale complexion. Standing together, it would be impossible not to notice the two.

“I hope I meet with your approval, Your Majesty,” Veala said, curtsying. It was difficult to tell underneath that dress, but it looked like she had good hips. It wasn’t strictly necessary for the prince’s wife to survive childbirth, but it certainly would be convenient if she did.

Veala and Erran glanced at each other out of the corners of their eyes, a gesture Pearth doubted they were even aware of. Their eyes swam with love for each other. Even she could see that.

She tried to remember feeling that way. She had, once, so long ago. She had known love and joy and fear and anger and betrayal.

“And why should I give you my blessing?” she asked, as she always did when people tried to marry into her family.

Veala stood tall, which Pearth appreciated. Too many people felt the need to bow or curtsy every time they spoke. It made them look like ducks.

“My father offers you the shipping fleets of our holdings, to use whenever you’d like over the next three years.”

“Thus making us dependent on Narisso for all of our trading. I daresay he’d quickly make up any money he lost over those three years.”

The noblewoman’s confidence shook a bit at that, but she didn’t look away. “It is a gift, Your Majesty. If my father should profit from it in the end-”

Erran’s laughter cut her off. “She’s playing with you, dear. Aren’t you, Your Majesty?”

“I’m the Ice Queen, if you’ll recall. I froze my heart away one hundred years ago. I don’t play games.”

“You do,” Erran said. “I sometimes think you do nothing but play games.”

The faintest smile graced Pearth’s lips. “Perhaps you’re right. At least you brought a sensible girl.” She turned to Veala. “You wouldn’t believe how many women in your position answer with ‘love,’ as if that would convince me of anything.”

“For what it’s worth,” Erran said, taking Veala’s hand in his own, “we do love each other.”

“So long as you love each other equally. I’ve found it’s imbalanced love that most often leads to people doing something stupid. A loveless marriage can be just as happy and profitable as-”

“Your Highness!” Captain Thuen called out as he ran into the throne room. He wore his guard uniform, and didn’t bother bowing when he addressed her; he was a practical man, and didn’t waste time on formalities if there were pressing issues. “Messenger birds arrived. Werewolves have attacked the town of Lindrel.”

She stood. “Take men out immediately. Anyone bitten is to be killed immediately. Any man otherwise injured is to be bound. Quarantine Lindrel. Make sure nothing gets in or out. Make sure they know that if any werewolf shows up within Lindrel tonight, the entire town will be put to the torch. Understood?”

Thuen clapped a hand to his breastplate. “Of course, Your Highness. Should I send men to neighboring towns?”

“You’ll need your men at Lindrel,” she said, mentally mapping out the area. “Send a man to each town to supervise their militias. If any of the wolves split off to attack the towns, they should be able to hold them off.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Thuen said, and without waiting for her to dismiss him, he left.

“What are your thoughts, Lady Veala?” she asked the noblewoman.

“You want me to cry out how unfair you are being, don’t you, Your Highness?” she said, looking the Ice Queen in the eye. “To tell you how horrible it is that your orders will likely put uninfected men to the sword. How cruel it is to threaten to burn down an entire town if a single man should hide an injured loved one.

“Well, it is horrible, and it is cruel, but I can’t call it unfair. Lycanthropy cannot be allowed to spread. It would be unfair to Bren, Endendale, and Willow to put them at risk. You have taken what precautions you reasonably can.”

The queen turned to Erran. “I like this one, nephew. You have my blessing.”

Erran grinned. “I never had any doubts, Your Majesty.”

An Alien at the Party

What was your resolution?” Becky asked.

Crystal flushed slightly. “To stand up for myself more often,” she said softly. “I wish I had picked something more concrete, though. I think I did pretty good, but what if they don’t agree?”

Becky laughed. “Easy, just complain about it. If you can stand up to them, they’ll have to admit you met your goal.” That got Crystal to laugh.

“Is it weird that this is starting to not be weird anymore?” she asked.

Becky considered that. “Maybe a little.” She glanced at the Myldav which was examining the food on the table, presumably deciding what was safe for him to eat. He looked almost human, but the skin was a deeper shade of red than you’d find on Earth and the proportions weren’t quite right. The limbs were too long, the nose to short. It wasn’t enough to make him look creepy (or at least, Becky didn’t think so), but it stood out. “I think we’ve got a long way before having an alien at a New Year’s party is normal.” She frowned. “Or is it aliens? I’m never sure how to count Myldavs.”

“Technically there’s only one Myldav there,” John said, joining the women’s conversation. “One Myl inhabiting one Dav.”

“Yeah,” Becky said, “but how many aliens does that count as?”

John just shrugged. “Crap, Pete’s coming. Stop talking about aliens.”

Sure enough, Pete stomped over to the group, looking angrier than usual. He didn’t wait for anyone else to bring up aliens, though.

“Can you believe it?” he almost spat. “Who invited that thing to the party?”

Crystal blushed again, which was answer enough. “He asked. They said he… they…” She stumbled over the pronouns. “Whatever. Trees hadn’t been to a party before. How could I say no?”

“So much for being assertive,” Becky said, playfully. “If you go around letting aliens go to parties just because they ask, they’ll shut down your bracer for sure.” John shot her a look, but it was too late.

“And there’s another thing,” Pete said. “Where do they get off judging us like that? Setting up hoops and making us jump through them.”

“He is sorry to interrupt,” the Myldav said in his almost toneless voice. Everyone jumped. They hadn’t heard him approach. “But your analogy is flawed. The Watchers do not set up the hoops. The idea of resolutions came from your culture. The Watchers have merely chosen to reward people who strive towards improving themselves. And your participation in this project is completely optional.”

“Hi, Trees,” Crystal said, clearly trying to sound casual. “This is Pete, John, and Becky. Guys, this is the Sound of Wind Blowing Through Trees.”

Trees nodded its head. “It is nice to meet you. Crystal has been very kind to both of us. He hopes you will be equally kind to us.” Although he gave a look that made it clear that he did not expect it of Pete.

Pete didn’t miss it, either. “I’m not going to toady up to a spy just to get a better bracer allowance.”

“You misunderstand,” Trees said, and Becky thought she could hear a trace of annoyance in his voice. “We are not associated with the Watchers. He has agreed to submit reports to them, but these are his general findings on Earth, not individuals. He also cannot help but notice that you wear a bracer. If you object to the exercise, why do you participate in it?”

Pete just glared at the alien, before storming away.

“Forgive him,” Crystal said. “He’s just stubborn.”

The Sound of Wind Blowing Through Trees watched him go. “He… forgive us, your pronouns are limiting. This one,” and he tapped his head, “does not understand that one.” He pointed at Pete. “The Watchers are merely encouraging traits that will help humanity enter galactic society. This is a good thing, isn’t it? Your dreamers write beautiful stories about exploring the stars. Why does he find it unpleasant?”

“I think he just doesn’t like being told what to do, even if it’s just a suggestion,” John said.

“Maybe he will resolve to try to learn why humans like Pete feel this way. He hopes the Watchers will find this goal admirable enough to make up for the limited success he may have with it.”

Becky cocked her head to one side. “You do the whole resolution thing, too? I thought that stopped when the Watchers let you join the rest of the galaxy.”

“The idea of celebrating the new year by promising to improve oneself is a human tradition. The Watchers find traditions on every world they help, but he thinks few are so easy to incorporate. Once you are accepted into the galactic society, though, you will be given the means to power the bracers yourselves, rather than relying on the Watchers for it. However, when we came here, we agreed to obey all laws, both human and Watcher. That means if we want to use our bracer, we must make resolutions as well.”

“Speaking of resolutions,” Pete said, “It’s almost midnight.” Becky looked at her own bracer. Only seconds to go.

“Ten,” someone yelled.

“Nine!” The rest of the room picked up the count.

“Eight!”

“Seven!”

She’d done well this year. She’d hit the gym more often and lost far more weight than the goal she had set for herself. She was sure to get a nice allowance for the next year.

“Six!”

“Five!”

She had never figured out what her next resolution would be.

“Four!”

This year’s had been too easy. She wanted something more ambitious.

“Three!”

She wanted a good allowance, of course, but it was more than that.

“Two!”

She wanted to help prove to the Watchers that humans were good. That they were ready.

“One!”

Maybe she’d try to meet more aliens this year. To try to understand them better.

“Happy New Year!”