For the love of hell, do not look at any news today.  In other sad things, David Lynch has passed away, and I had one thought on that.  And if you want to read this novel from the beginning, see this article, read it, and hit the next button until you see more entries.  Meanwhile…

PENCILS DOWN!!!

I did my best, but met neither goal.  I did not finish the story and did not make the word count.  Didn’t even make the humbler goal of finishing act two, because my outline sucked.  This last chapter was like pulling teeth, and was meandering anti-climactic guff.  So even though it isn’t midnight quite yet (close), I am calling it in.

37, 251 words, a few chapters shy of the halfway point in my outline.

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In the astrocielo around Borland 1, spirits looked up from their meals, from their eternity of grime and desolation amid a god’s bones, to see an unusual sight.  An astronave arrived, looking like a giant spiked black iron cage, suspended by rods from a slim, gold, coffin-like shape, embossed with stylized wings.

The cage suddenly burst apart, leaving desperate terrible creatures clinging to the dangling remains of it.  The coffin casually sailed around the world then, raining beasts whenever their strength failed.  As they fell, their survival instincts kicked in, and they fled the astrocielo for physical space just before they hit the ground.

They were effectively scattered across an entire planet, most of them very far from the nearest prey.  But they had senses that defied the physics of the material, a sense of smell that could take them halfway around the world.  The hellhounds had the power to heal these physical bodies, but they would need to eat.  The hunt began.

Josefina had promised to let Mallor’s children spend time with Ombunculita, which she would have to supervise – and so that time was committed.  She changed her diaper and cleaned and groomed her, in the basin of the guest suite living room, while Darter taught Umbrifer to play an electrified string instrument on the couch.

Darter looked at her with affection just the wrong side of salacious, but quietly so.  Umbrifer could not distinguish human expressions quite keenly enough to detect it, but noticed some flavor of distraction.  “The chords, Darter.  That’s a new one for me.”

“Ugh, just feel it out.  Real close to a F major, except…”

Umbrifer played a sour note in response.  “Guess the band isn’t going to make it.  What are you thinking?”

“She’s singing something.”

Josefina was singing quietly to herself, barely enunciating most of the words, but the tune carried just far enough in the warm quiet room.

Darter said, “You know you’ve really got it when you can play by ear.  Let me.”  He took back the instrument, palm muted the strings while he felt it out, and then began to play in time with her song.

She stopped singing and looked at him, which meant Ombunculita looked at him as well.  They both smiled sweetly.

The dead boy felt his hidden eye throb.  Could she really like him?  He kept playing until she started to sing again.  Unfortunately, she either couldn’t or wouldn’t project, so the song remained so much quieter than the accompaniment.

Umbrifer said, “That’s a neat trick, friend.  I commend you.”

“Thank you.”

Ombunculita mouthed like she was singing, not even well enough to match the time or shapes of the words.  Josefina picked up her little arms and danced with her, still singing.

Umbrifer smiled weakly.  What a strange scene!  It thought again of what Josefina was infamous for, and whether there was any contradiction in who she was today.  No, it thought.  A person could be a sex weirdo at sex time, and a perfect charmer the rest of their life.

Josefina noticed the smile and returned it, which Darter noticed, making him skip a note, face terse until he sorted himself out.  Umbrifer was also distracted, worried that she was going to find it sexually appealing.  It turned its weird face around and bugged Darter about the misstep, taking the opportunity to shake up the scene.

Josefina took Ombunculita away, leaving them behind.

Darter said, “It’s your fault she left.  She didn’t like your face.”

“Maybe that was it.  Hey, how old were you when you died?”

“Um, like sixteen.”

“How long ago was that?”

“A year ago?”

“You’re still so young.  I’ve heard young humans are fools for love.”

“That’s all dead and gone, my friend.  Don’t worry about it.”

“I won’t.”

Blasfemia leaned against a water changing station in the middle of the village, trying to shake the sickness.  She’d been drinking too much; now she needed a sip to take the edge off every morning.  What a fool!  But not a lonely fool.  That seemed to be the norm for the village, especially among single youths.

Kabel was passing by and stopped to say hello.  The big lady had a way of discouraging other people, which was helpful.  Blasfemia wasn’t keen on getting mobbed.  She pantomimed the hangover, and made a production of getting her mobile out.

“Hey, Kabel.  Where can I get a little medicine at this hour?”

“Raise the wrist?”

“That’s the prescription.”

“If it’s just a little, I might have it.”

“It is,” she made praying hands around her mobile, “just a sip.”

Kabel produced a flask, and let Blasfemia wash her mouth with it.

“Do you think you’d be good to handle a gun today?”

“Hmm, yeah.  Why you ask?”

“We gotta save bullets, but we also gotta stay sharp, so there’s an allowance for practice.”

“What’s there to shoot?  Can’t imagine you want trouble with the Company.”

“Want’s got nothin’ to do with it, sometimes.”

“Alright.  What are we shooting at?”

It was a reasonable scheme to have Blasfemia to herself for a time – most of the others had burned their bullet allowance, but she still had some to spare.  She walked her past the end of the village proper, chatting lightly as they went.  They stopped at a disused algae field, only visible as odd lines in the snow, and a shack.

“So what kind of guns to you have?”

Kabel set her bundle down and unwrapped it.  There was only one gun inside.  Blasfemia had expected the blocky shape to be a case for the weapon, but it turned out to be the weapon itself.  It looked like a series of shiny silver blocks with slightly rounded edges, and the end had a very large opening.

“What the hell kind of bolt comes out of this thing?”

“Plasma.  The bullets flash to plasma in the chamber, and the pressure causes it to erupt from the front.  It’s not a very safe weapon to use, honestly.”

“What kinda risks are we talking?  They don’t explode in your hand, do they?”

“No, but when they miss, they can miss badly.  A misfire usually sends it down thirty-five or so degrees from where you were pointing it, so it’s good to keep that area clear.”

“So you can’t rest it on our cover unless you want a lap full of plasma?”

“Yeah.”

Blasfemia whistled.  “What do the bullets look like?”

Kabel had been wearing a utility harness and belt just covered in blocky pouches, and she took them off, laying them over a short length of ruined fence.  “I’ve got twenty-eight to spare.”

“Damn, girl.  You got the bombs.”

Kabel smiled bashfully and fidgeted with the belts.  “Um…  I’m really bad at this, but I have to ask…”

“What is it?”

“What the hell is that?”

Blasfemia spun to look in the direction Kabel had.  There was nothing – but a hint of tracks in the snow.

“I thought you didn’t have animals here.  Could it be a robot?”

They held their mobiles out in front of them almost like weapons, so they could keep an eye on the horizon and read each other’s words at the same time.  “Gotta be some Company shit.  It was headed to the village, and we’re all the way out here with the weapons.  I’m an asshole.”

“Call ’em up.  I’ll call my people.”

They both hit the mobiles, strapping on the bullets as they did, and at last were marching double-time back to Alish.  Running was unwise – running out of breath at the wrong moment a deadly mistake.  By the time they neared the village, they could see the big robots coming in from the other direction, and toughs in the street, brandishing identical plasma rifles.

Someone cried out from behind a building – they had found a victim.  There was no point going that way, because the toughs had found tracks, and were pointing this way and that, to coordinate closing in.  As they passed within line of sight to the body, Blasfemia shot a look that way.  Blood in the snow, but couldn’t make out anything specific.

The lines were converging on the area of the bugaster’s house.

Mallor and his wife Patria were relaxing in the master suite when the call came in.  Something that moved like an animal, heading toward the village.  They called their children’s mobiles, but were ignored.  It was likely no cause for concern – just brattiness, or forgetting to charge.  They couldn’t call Josefina because the technology of their mobiles was not even remotely compatible, so they split up, to check different parts of the grand house.  Snow began to fall, gliding off the grand domes, and the light from the heaters bloomed.

(note to future self: this is meandering too much, shoulda outlined much more specific.)

Patria met Umbrifer and Darter in the guest suite, where they had just gotten the call from Blasfemia, and were planning to ride out trouble in comfort.  She spat at them and marched away, which Umbrifer took as a threat to the hospitality they’d thus far received, and hustled after her to see if it could make nice.  Darter played a single sad chord and slumped, still bothered about the scene with Josefina.

Mallor found the children being entertained by Ombunculita in the downstairs parlor, Josefina taking a call from Blasfemia as she watched them.  She had a faraway look, not taking things too seriously?  She did agree easily to Mallor’s suggestion they all go upstairs.

Shortly, the whole family and most of the visitors were in the living room of the master suite, which had large window overlooking the village square.  They watched the gunners move through the streets.  Josefina pointed to Blasfemia, and Ombunculita pointed as well.

The village toughs had it cornered in the grand house’s back yard.  This was no garden though; it was a maze of utility sheds, storage, and machines used to support the house.  Someone called the bugaster to tell him, and they worked out a strategy.  Gunners would carefully aim their rifles so that there would be no crossfire, while covering every angle of egress from the garden.  More gunners would enter the house from the front and take up guard along any weak points where it might break in from outside.

But unless they wanted to wait however many hours for the thing to make a move, somebody would have to go into the maze to find it.

Meanwhile, Mallor and Josefina went to watch the back yard from the best window view.  Due to the thick walls, some windows were substantially recessed in them, and to get the best view, they had to crawl inside the frame, move up to the pane, and wait there.  Ombunculita put her little hands on the pane and looked, though she seemed more interested in the feel of the glass on her face.  Mallor was creeped out, but didn’t say anything about that.

“They say it killed a child, savagely.  I can imagine a killer robot, but not one that would treat a body that way.  How could it be a beast?”

“It must be from the spirit world, Bugaster.”  Josefina wouldn’t look him in the eye, but had the convenient excuse of watching for a sign of the thing.  “Many spirits are basically monsters.  Born from of all of our fears.”

“I’m aware there is a spirit world.  They all say the spirit of Borland 1 is dead.”

“I’ve seen it.  It is.”

“I’ve never heard of a spirit on Borland 1 itself.  It’s just not that kind of world, Mis Josefina.”

“Umbrifer shows that there is nothing to keep that from changing.”

As the people waited outside, Blasfemia grew impatient.  Kabel was going to share the gun at target practice, but there was no way to do that in this situation, and they had no guns to spare for her.  Rumors did the rounds on mobile chat.  It was definitely a monster of some kind, not a robot.  It killed this person, or that.  The things it had done to its victims.

Blasfemia stood up.  “If it’s just a monster, it doesn’t have a gun, so why hide under cover?  It’s surrounded, right?”

Kabel said, “I wish you wouldn’t say that.”

“I’m gonna go.”

“With just your knives?”

“Yeah.  Make sure nobody shoots me.”  The fence wasn’t a barrier to much more than weak winds and snowdrifts, and she hopped it before anybody could stop her.

She made both tools into blades and kept one pointed forward and one backward as she stalked.  The natives had no experience with monsters, but Blasfemia had cut her teeth on them.

The polar regions of Corazon 2 had a weak boundary between the spirit and physical world, with “faerie paths” developing in any overgrown area from time to time.  When the more bestial sorts threatened livestock, one could try to overwhelm it with firepower, driving it back to the spirit world.  But it could potentially just come back.  Blasfemia’s talents were such that she could banish a spirit with physical harm, pin it to the material plane so that it could not escape, or just kill it outright.  It seemed like this one needed killing.

(note to future self: ooh, this is going so badly.  i swear.  wotta mess.)

“Here kitty kitty kitty!  Come and get it!”

She came out into a kill zone – an open walkway through the garden, where the thing could come at her from a half-dozen different directions.  Surprisingly, it did not opt for stealth.

In the window above, Ombunculita pointed to her, and the hellhound.

“By God,” Mallor said, “What is that thing?”

The hellhound was two meters at the shoulder, largely metallic in a way that reflected the landscape – now reflecting so much plastic and metal.  It really did look like a dog, but with more heavily built shoulders and head, and a front lip that split all the way to halfway up the snout.  It opened and closed the slit as it breathed, and the blood of its first victim trailed from its jaws.  It was definitely larger than anything Blasfemia had ever banished.

“Ooh, a doggy.  A little puppy doggy.  Come on.  Let’s go.”  She held the knives back, so that she could connect with the power of a swing – not sure how much it would take to penetrate that hide.

Behind her, looking down from the window, Josefina slapped a palm on the glass.  Two voices came to her, of Noise and Peace, saying “know thyself.”  A light bloomed from her eye, pushing her head back, blasting the air like the bleat of a huge antelope.

Mallor was shoved against the wall by the force, and when he opened his eyes, she had vanished, leaving only Ombunculita – whose eyes were glowing like twin suns, both palms on the glass.  He looked out the window and saw Josefina floating in the air, before she vanished and reappeared again, closer to the ground.

The hellhound snapped at Blasfemia, but before she could touch it, sank back to the snow, like a dog about to get hit with a shoe.  Josefina walked by, almost drifting like a ghost.

“Know peace,” she said, her voice echoing across dimensions.  She plucked the blinding star light from her temple and gently tossed it at the hound, where it landed like an anchor, pinning it to the ground by its jaw, burning its hide.

Blasfemia’s head snapped between that and the hellhound, not knowing what to make of it, but afraid the beast would shake off her power, not willing to take that chance.  She plunged a dagger into each eye, willing the creature’s death, forcing herself to think only of hatred as she did.

The emotion was key.  Her power was always intuitive, before she even understood that it was a power.  She knew that if she wanted something to die bad enough, while she was stabbing it, that was the end.

The hellhound shuddered, bleeding and burning far more than its wounds would suggest, until it shook apart, melting to nothing in the snow.

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