A Midsummer's Barbeque - of an Incubus

HUGE CONGRATULATIONS TO JEFFE KENNEDY!!! RITA WINNER! :D

My regularly scheduled post:

Behold my inability to offer you flash fiction whilst in the midst of migraine. The drugs are onboard and I should be okay eventually. But deadlines wait for no head-splitter. So an excerpt of a fiery scene it is.  This is from Damned If He Does. Our hero has attempted to seduce the heroine to no effect. Since he's an incubus, this is not expected. So he reports to his boss for advice. Only that doesn't go exactly as planned.

“Incubus,” Ole Scratch said when the elevator door opened. He didn’t bother to look up from whatever he was working on. “You’re here off schedule.”

Darsorin approached the desk. “Yes. I’m a little confounded.”

Satan glanced up at that, though he continued writing, his pencil shrieking against the paper.

It set Dar’s teeth on edge.

“You’re empty-handed. Even after the power I fed you.”

Nearly burst him with, Dar corrected. Not that he’d ever admit that aloud. “She’s asexual.”

“An ace?” Satan’s gaze returned to his work. “Fine. You’ve wasted enough time on that one. Leave her.”

“No.”

The pencil stopped. Ole Scratch lifted his bottomless, soot-black gaze to Darsorin’s. Scorching heat licked his skin. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to go on meeting the twin pits of endless evil.

“What did you say to me, unwise little demon?”

“I’ve upheld my part of the bargain several times a night all over the world for the past . . .”

“And you will go on doing so for all of eternity, Hugh McClellan,” the Devil noted in a flat, soft voice.

Dread shivered up his spine at hearing his true name on the Devil’s tongue.

“Or do you grow weary of your enviable task? You seduce countless women, something you embraced with relish in life.”

No match for that jab, he closed his eyes. “And sacrificed that life to it.”

Ole Scratch chuckled. Screams of tortured souls echoed behind the sound. “You were judged and damned. It wouldn’t be punishment if it didn’t pinch, now would it? You understand your options.”

“I haven’t been Hugh McClellan since the day I died. You made certain of it.”

“And yet it is your true name and still holds your soul in thrall. So hear me. Leave her or seduce her and bring me the curative power of her sexual energy. Your soul hangs in the balance. If you’ve lost your taste for a job in the afterlife that takes advantage of the proclivities you displayed in life, I am certain I can find some other situation for you. Perhaps you’d prefer to spend eternity the way murderers do.”

He tried to suppress a shudder. Failed. Heaven provided special dispensation to Satan for the punishment of murderers. Souls damned for killing someone – anyone – stood in for innocent murder victims time after time. The innocent souls still died, something neither Heaven nor Hell could prevent because of the freewill clause in the human/Divine contract, but the innocent could be spared pain and horror by trading in a damned soul to take the brunt. The punishment was reserved for the most violent, and insanely painful circumstances. Devilish, effective comeuppance. Dar had never had the courage to ask what Ole Scratch got out of that bargain. That Satan did was certain.

Dar swallowed hard and opened his eyes. “Understood.”

His boss’s eyes narrowed as he studied Darsorin. “What is it about this one? You’ve imagined yourself infatuated many times before now. How is this one different?”

“She has no expectation,” he said. “I’m not a means to an end.”

Ole Scratch snorted and sat back in his chair. “You imagine she values you for you? When she has no idea who and what you are? Son. You’re thinking with the wrong head.”

“It’s not like I have a heart to break,” he snapped.

“Or to give. Remember that. Don’t imagine you’re falling for her. You weren’t capable of it in life and you are not capable of it now. Make your choices going forward very, very carefully.”

Demotion hung unspoken in the air between them. Darsorin blew out a sharp breath. “I’ll let it go for a few days. Give her time to cool off. She ordered me to leave her alone.”

“Why would she do that, Incubus?”

“She caught me out. Recognized me in waking life.”

“You were staking her out?”

“Looking for a way to break her open,” Darsorin said, nodding. “She confronted me.”

Satan shrugged. “Not the first time it’s happened. It won’t be the last.”

“Though usually, it leads to a waking sexual encounter,” Dar said. “This did not.”

“What did it lead to?”

“Breakfast.”

“Breakfast.”

Darsorin shrugged. “I made her a deal. I’d leave her alone if she’d have breakfast with me and tell me why nothing I did worked on her.”

Ole Scratch sat bolt upright, his eyes wide. “You did WHAT?”

The floor trembled.

Darsorin froze.

“You. Made. A. Deal.” Satan bit out the words as he rose, his fists planted on his desk. “YOU MADE A DEAL? Show me. NOW.”

He did.

“You struck a bargain with her.” The Devil snarled. Darkness swallowed the sunshine outside. Thunder rumbled. “You swore an oath to leave her alone. To vanish from her life.”

“With no intention . . .”

“Any bargain you strike with an innocent is made in MY name! Think you that I’ll be forsworn by the likes of you? Over her? When I again do battle with the Divine, it will be on my terms and in my time. You gave your word, demon. You will keep it.”

Satan flung a gesture at him.

Fire erupted around him, slamming him to the melting carpet, consuming him. His skin bubbled and crisped, cracking. The scream ripped from his blistering lips came out a hoarse, parched croak. He became pain and smoke.

A distant shrill rattled his charring skull.

Smoke detectors.

The flames winked out of existence.

Darsorin, trapped in a body that Satan couldn’t kill, lay shuddering on the carpet that he’d become a part of. The fibers had melted into his charred skin.

The Devil uttered a guttural, ugly word not meant for human ears. It resonated through the tortured flesh and bones of Darsorin, all the way to the damned soul of Hugh McClellan, which Satan held in thrall.

Reality opened beneath him and he fell.

He moaned a protest before he plunged straight into the soul crushing gray stones of his penitent's cell and into a sadist’s lash.

Flash Fiction : In the Sweltering Dark

For our summer flash fiction, I submit this 952 word short story.

In the Sweltering Dark

by Linda Robertson

Abigail roused to the sweltering dark, but she was not in her bed. 

Drowse fled away as realization struck: she was in a boat. Tear-shaped, it had only room enough for her, and barely that. As she slid onto a sitting position, she could not straighten her legs. Her pantsuit was dirty and there was sand and mud under her nails.

What in Hell is going on?

Pushing her gray hair out of her face, she scanned around but recognized nothing. The night-shrouded shores offered no explanation. Sweat beaded on her brow, but not purely from the stress of this moment. Despite the lack of sun in the sky, it had to be a hundred degrees here. A hundred and twenty. 

Thinking to splash some water on her face, she dipped a hand into the fluid but drew back instantly. Even the river seemed about to boil. 

How did I get here?

Thinking back, Abigail had trouble remembering. She knew her name. She knew she was an Executive Assistant to the Curator of Greek and Roman Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art – had been since graduating from Bryant Stratton thirty-two years ago. She had a cottage in a posh suburb. But she hadn't been home… and she certainly wasn't there now.

Eyes closed and hands covering her face, she fought to remember. 

Travelling. 

Snippets of calm, blue ocean shifted into a churning mass of green and gray. A gentle curve of coastline being ravaged by the swells of giant, foamy waves. White houses in the rain.

Mykonos. I was in Greece! A dream assignment and vacation in one.

There had been a storm. The charter boat bucked and heaved under her. She was told to go below deck; she hadn't understood the words but the captain pointed.

She hadn't made it.

Reliving it, she felt the wave grip her, lift her, and pull her from the deck like a monster. Just drops of water, she'd thought. Just drops...but gathered into millions, surging to the whim of a tempest's fury, and she was powerless. The Aegean Sea closed over her head. Gray turned to black. 

I'm dead.

Pulling her hands from her face, she opened her eyes again.

Yet I’m here. But where is here? If I’m dead…this is…no. No. It cannot be.

The speed of the river increased. Ahead, it split. One side flowed into a thick mist, the other seemed alight under the mist. Leaning, she steered the boat toward the light.

Nearing, she found that wasn’t mist on this side, but smoke. And the light on the water was flames.

Leaning again, twisting the boat beneath her, she willed it to change its course. But Abigail could not alter the bearing. Her path had been chosen.

Fear claimed her as she neared the flaming portion of the river. A more tangible version of death was about to seize her.

Hugging herself to keep as far from the flames as possible, the smoke enveloped Abigail and she floated among the flames. Every breath of this steamy air made her lungs feel more scalded.

In seconds, figures appeared to the left and right, near the shoreline. They were women, some ankle deep in the water, some knee deep. All moaned or wept.

At the sound of a nearby scream, Abigail turned sharply as another woman appeared, closer, and waist deep in the river. This one wore a tattered blouse with scorched cuffs, and her thin hair hung like so many threads. The burnt cuffs flaked away like ash as she reached out, broken nails scratching at the rail but finding no purchase. She cackled and cried, though it could have been mad laughter.

Drifting onward, the figures grew more numerous, many much closer to the boat. Their piteous cries filled Abigail’s ears and she covered them but could not block the sound. Her eyes squeezed shut again and seemed to continue burning from the smoke.

This couldn’t be happening.

She thought of her children and her husband, finally acknowledging the pain and loss they must be suffering, and her heart grew heavy knowing they would grieve. In his own way, so would her dog, Dante—

At his name, knowledge connected with thoughts and ideas and bound tight as she looked around again.

                                            

Phlegethon.

“I’ve committed no violent crimes,” she shouted into the smoky haze and drawing the attention of those trapped in the river. “I am not meant to be here!”

She felt and heard the scratch of something on the bottom and the boat lurched to a halt despite the current. Peering over the edge, she saw a wrinkled face barely above the surface of the lake. White hair fanned around her. “Help me!” The woman moved slightly to either side as if keeping the ebb of the heated water from flowing into the corners of her eyes and up her nose. Her arm, beneath the surface must have grabbed the keel. “Help!”

Being restrained in the river, the flames latched onto the boat. They licked up the sides, painting her view in orange and red. “Let go!”

From the river came only laughter. Not just the closest one; all the women began to laugh.

Abigail pulled off her shoe and threw it at the old face. Fire-water splashed across the woman’s eyes and she screamed. The boat began to drift again, but too late. The flames had set in and the heat redoubled at Abigail’s back—

Sitting up in her bed, Abigail gasped. Lightning flickered and thunder boomed outside her window. Aside from the pouring rain there was no sound. No light. Not even the clock.

The electric’s out. AC cut off.

And another hot flash crawled over her.

Summer Fiction Excerpt

It's summer time. Hideous, horrible, sweat everywhere and on every thing summer. When the sun is too bright and more than five minutes in its light scorches unprotected skin.

I'm not a fan. but you know who is? Vadrigyn, the fire-warrior protagonist from my debut Larcout. Even she knows fragile blood beings have no business under the brutal sun.

Here's tidbit of the opening for your pleasure:


LARCOUT Fire Born, Blood Blessed: Book 1

CHAPTER 1

Blood-beings could be chattel or they could be char. There were no other options for them in Agenwold. The four male gods had created these arid mountains as a prison for their sister’s fire-children, the Morsam. The Morsam, in turn, made Agenwold a prison for any male god’s child foolish enough to cross the Pogichan Sea. If blood-beings bothered to think before they fled, they would know freedom did not exist here.

Still, blood-beings ran without regard for their destination.

Vadrigyn os Harlo leaned against the warm mouth of a shale cave, watching her kin toy with their morning prey. The Morsam’s broad golden wings reflected the suns, blinding the bestial Nivurnian as he scrambled down the mountainside, sometimes on two feet and sometimes on four. The Nivurnian’s striped tail and tattered pants showed damage from the heat.

Blood-beings refused to admit the unfiltered intensity of the six suns ringing Agenwold posed a threat to their persons. The turbulent skies over their native nations had shielded them from the truth, yet even when exposed to the facts they clung to the lie.

“Vadrigyn, will you not save that man from the winged monsters?” The Nivurnian behind her spoke with soft deference.

“The entrance to my holdings is no secret. If he wished to be saved he would run toward us and not the sea,” she answered in the foreign tongue of her recently acquired chattel. They huddled in the darkness of the cavern, safe from the suns and bored Morsam. “He is like many of you blood-beings—fragile and willfully blind. He believes he can conquer the terrain, yet excludes the suns from his consideration. He thinks he can run faster than a fire-child can fly, yet he ignores the physical obstacles only he faces.”

An animalistic bray drifted up to the cave. Frustrated keens sounded from the swarm of circling Morsam. Her chattel shuffled back. She returned her attention to the fleeing Nivurnian. He no longer ran. His round furry ears peeked from a ring of boulders. His claws scraped at the unmovable stones to no avail. Another scream and he vanished from sight into a hunting trap—one of hers, to be precise.

Fool.

The stupidity of blood-beings amused her kin. Her kin’s stupidity provided opportunities for her. She leveraged those opportunities to amass more blood-beings. The cycle endured day after day, year after year. One day she would break free of the pattern, and break free from the mountain. One day she would prove to the gods that the burn of her essential fire was more than destructive, it was evolutionary. It was a fire that cleared away the old and fed the new.

Live. Learn. Burn.

Read more here: LARCOUT an excerpt