#[ thinks ab how he was alone for 50 years!! only time he could practice fighting was against ryuma after like 45 years!

[soulsolid-a]

god mentioned a few times @ edwards but jus,,,,, thinks ab brook in the context of swordsman

[tlatollotl]

As told to Scientific American

When a family member dies, we the Diné, whom Spanish conquistadors named the Navajo, send a notice to our local radio station so that everyone in the community can know. Usually the reading of the death notices—the names of those who have passed on, their ages, where they lived and the names of their matrilineal and patrilineal clans—takes no more than five minutes. It used to be very rare to hear about young people dying. But this past week, I listened to 45 minutes of death notices on KGAK Radio AM 1330. The ages ranged from 26 to 89, with most of the dead having been in their 30s, 40s or 50s.

I am in shock. The virus entered our community in March, through a Nazarene Christian revival in Arizona. They brought in vanloads and busloads of people from across the Navajo Nation for the gathering; then all those vans and buses returned them to their respective communities, along with the virus. There were immediate deaths because the medical facilities were not ready for it. More than 300 Navajos have already died of COVID-19, and the disease is still spreading.

I am a Diné storyteller and keeper of traditions. I live alone in a hogan, a traditional octagonal log house, in Chi Chil Tah, meaning “Where the Oaks Grow,” after the Gambel oaks indigenous to this region. Officially known as Vanderwagen, the community lies 23 miles south of Gallup, N.M.. The pandemic reached the area in late April. On May 1, the governor of New Mexico evoked the riot act to block off all exits into Gallup to stop the spread of the virus, and only residents could get in. The lockdown extended to May 11. It was not so bad the first week, but then we started to run out of food and water.

The groundwater in parts of Vanderwagen is naturally contaminated with arsenic and uranium; in any case, few of us have the money to drill a well. Normally, my brothers and my nephew haul water in 250-gallon tanks that are in the back of a pickup truck. At Gallup they have a high-powered well; you pay $5 in coins, put the hose in your tank and fill it up. You haul that home, dump that into your cistern, and you have water in your house. Without access to Gallup, people began to run out of water—even as we were being told to wash our hands frequently.

My hogan has electricity but no running water. My brothers bring me water, and they put it in a 75-gallon barrel. I drink that water, and I wash with it, but I also buy five gallons of water for $5, in case I need extra. I typically use a gallon of water a day, for everything—cooking, drinking and washing up. My great-grandmother used to say, “Don’t get used to drinking water, because one of these days you’re going to be fighting for it.” I have learned to live on very little.

We have a lot of cancers in our community, perhaps because of the uranium. And we have many other health issues that I think makes this virus so viable among us. We have a lot of diabetes, because we do not eat well, and a lot of heart disease. We have alcoholism. We have high rates of suicide. We have every social ill you can think of, and COVID has made these vulnerabilities more apparent. I look at it as a monster that is feasting on us—because we have built the perfect human for it to invade.

Days after Gallup reopened, I drove there to mail a letter. Every fast-food establishment—McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Wendy’s, Burger King, Panda Express, Taco Bell, they’re all located on one strip—had long, long lines of cars waiting at their drive-throughs. This in a community with such high rates of diabetes. Perhaps there wasn’t any food available in the very small stores located in their communities, but I also think this pandemic has triggered a lot of emotional responses that are normally hidden. On the highway to Vanderwagen, there is a convenience store where they sell liquor. And the parking lot was completely full, everybody was just buying and buying liquor. There is a sense of anxiety and panic, but I also think that a lot of Navajo people don’t know how to be with themselves, because there isn’t a really good, rounded, spiritual practice of any sort to anchor them.

COVID is revealing what happens when you displace a people from their roots. Take a Diné teenager. She can dress Navajo, but she has no language or culture or belief system that tells her what it means to be Diné. Her grandmother was taken away at the age of five to a BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) boarding school and kept there until she was 18. At school, they taught her that her culture and her spiritual practice were of the devil and that she needed to completely deny them. Her language was not valid: “You have a Navajo accent; you must speak English more perfectly.” Same happened to her mother. Our languages were lost, the culture and traditional practices were gone. That was also when spankings and beatings entered Diné culture. Those kids endured those horrible ways of being disciplined in the BIA schools, and that became how they disciplined their own children.

I meet kids like this all the time—who don’t know who they are. For 35 years I have been trying to tell them, you come from a beautiful culture. You come from one of hundreds of tribes who were thriving in the Americas when Columbus arrived; we had a viable political and economic system that was based on spiritual practices tied to the land. Some 500 years ago, Spanish conquistadors came up the Rio Grande into North America in search of gold. They were armed with the Doctrine of Discovery, a fearful legal document issued by the Pope that sanctioned the colonization of non-Christian territories. Then in the mid-1800s, the pioneers came from the East Coast with their belief in Manifest Destiny, their moral right to colonize the land. As their wagons moved west, the Plains Indians were moved out and put on reservations. When your spiritual practice is based on the land you’re living on, and you’re being herded away from what somebody else would call her temple, or mosque, or church, or cathedral—that’s the first place your spirituality is attacked.

My great-great-great-great-grandfather on my father’s side was captured and taken on what we call the Long Walk to Fort Sumner. Initially about 10,000 Diné were rounded up, and many died on that walk, which took weeks or months, depending on the route on which they were taken. They were imprisoned for four years at Fort Sumner, and released in 1868, because of the Civil War. At about the same time, my great-great-great-great-grandfather on my mother’s side escaped from Colonel Kit Carson at Canyon de Chelly and traveled north with his goats. He came back down to this area at just about the time my great-great-great-great-grandmother escaped Spanish slavery. Slavery was introduced here by the Spanish—that’s never talked about. The children born at Fort Sumner were taken into Spanish families, to be slaves.

We had the Spanish flu in the 1920s, one of many viruses to invade our community. Then in the 1930s there was the Great Depression. We didn’t know that was happening: we did not have money, but we had wealth in the form of sheep. And the government came in and killed our sheep in the Stock Reduction Program. They said the sheep were eroding the land, but I think they did it because the sheep made us self-sufficient, and they couldn’t allow that. We had spiritual practices around our sheep. Every time we developed self-sufficiency and a viable spiritual practice, they destroyed it. My mother said they dug deep trenches, herded the sheep and massacred them.

A tuberculosis epidemic in the 1940s took away my mother's parents. My great-grandmother, a healer and herbalist, had hidden my mother from the government agents who snatched Diné kids to put them into BIA boarding schools. My mother became a rancher, a prolific weaver, a beautiful woman who spoke the language. She did not speak much English. She died at 96; my great-grandmother died at 104. Now, in our community in Chi Chil Tah, there are no more traditional healers; the oldest person is my great-grand-aunt, who is 78. I am the only traditional Diné storyteller.  

Now that we are talking about issues of race in America, we need to also talk about the Native American tribes that were displaced. There is a reservation in upstate New York of the Iroquois people—all of 21 square miles. How much land were the Iroquois originally living on? Who was living in what is now Massachusetts? What about Pennsylvania? What about all the states under the umbrella of the United States? Whose land are you occupying? Abraham Lincoln ordered the massacre of 38 Dakota men the day after Christmas, the same week he signed the Emancipation Proclamation; they call him Honest Abe. They don’t talk about the dark side of things, and I think that is what COVID has revealed—the dark side. We see a police officer putting his full body weight on the neck of a black man. And suddenly everybody goes, Wow! What have we evolved to?

It seems to me that COVID has revealed a lot of truths, everywhere in the world. If we were ignorant of the truth, it is now revealed; if we were ignoring the truth, it is now revealed. This truth is the disparity: of health, wellbeing and human value. And now that the truth has been revealed, what are we going to do about it?

[ticklishpeter]

remember when?

gfhdjbh this is so self-indgulgent. pls enjoy my second fic for diego’s day ! tw for,,,,,, pee i guess lmaoooo

fandom: the umbrella academy characters: diego & all the other hargreeves siblings!!! summary: klaus calls a family meeting; chaos ensues. word count: 1,691

The shrill sound of a bell rang through the mansion as Klaus sang out, obnoxiously loud, “FAMILY! FAAAMILYYYY!” The strong vibrato making Ben angrily cover his ears.

All six siblings met in the room fairly quickly; everyone looking either confused or tired... or both.  “What is it, Klaus?” Luther grumbled, sleepily scratching the back of his head.

“I’ve been watching our little old... home videos,” he held up air quotes, “and I came across,” chuckling, he put a video tape into the small television in front of the group, “such a lovely little memory.” 

A few seconds of fuzzy fast-forwarding later, the content of the tape made Diego’s stomach drop; it was an old ‘security tape,’ from when they all were 11 years old, of all six of his siblings pinning him down and tickling him to tears.

“I remember that. You guys tickled him until he cried,” Vanya exclaimed with an amused smile, watching the screen. 

“Oh, he did more than cry, if I remember correctly,” Luther snickered.

Yes, they made him pee his pants from laughing so hard. No, he would never admit it or talk about it ever again.

His face began to heat up, and as soon as each and every one of his siblings glanced over at him, he bolted off of the couch and ran away; at least... he attempted to run away. He didn’t get very far before he was taken down to the floor by his giant, half-ape brother.

“NO! KLAUS! — LUTHER! — DAMMIT, FUCK OFF!!” Diego growled, trying his very best to fight off his siblings, but it was six to one, and practically hopeless. And he knew exactly what was about to happen.

Luther managed to grab Diego’s upper arms, pinning them to the floor, as Klaus and Vanya each straddled a thigh. Leaving Allison, Five, and, while only visible to Klaus, Ben standing by; almost exactly like old times. Ben’s go-to spot used to be on the thigh that Vanya was now on, but he couldn’t help but smile at the fact that their sister was finally getting herself involved.

Allison took no time to start poking around at his stomach with two index fingers, and Diego’s tough facade lasted about two seconds before he fell into a fit of gasps and yelps, trying not to laugh. “No! It —” His voice was strained and rather high-pitched.

“What? Does it tickle? Huh? Does it tickle, Diego?” Allison cooed in her best baby voice as she wiggled one nail around the surface of his belly. 

He tried his hardest to frown but he just couldn’t hold back the giggles that were flooding out of him. It was just one finger, and no one else was doing anything except watching him; why the fuck was he so giggly already? 

“I-it doesn’t! It doesn’t t-tick —” he stifled a laugh and squirmed, angling his body away from Allison’s finger ever so slightly.

“It doesn’t what?” Adding her other pointer finger, she poked and scratched around his abs.

“D-doesn’t... t-tickle! Shut up!” he squeaked, saying the word made the dam break again as his shoulders began to bounce.

As Diego gasped through his laughter, trying to keep it quiet, Five kneeled down to his other side, squeezing at his ribcage. “C’mon Diego, laugh it up, you know you want to,” his menacing smile and teasing words catching Diego off-guard; he wasn’t used to Five being in such a mood. 

“S-s-stooop,” he whined, almost akin to a toddler about to snitch to their mom. Giggling into his shoulder, he felt his face begin to heat up.

As if he wasn’t about to scream already, Ben reached over Allison’s shoulder, lifted Diego’s shirt only slightly and wiggled a few fingers in and around Diego’s bellybutton. 

“NO!” You’d think he was being stabbed by one of his knives with how loud he screamed, and how violently he’d flinched. 

Five and Allison looked confused for a second before Klaus’ voice piped up, “Ooh, Ben’s getting the tickle button!” They all couldn’t help but grin; of course he was. The way Diego’s face quickly reddened, and the way his laugh’s pitch heightened was enough of a sign.

“It’s! No, it’s — it’s not a ti — GAH! I-it’s not a b-b-button!” That definitely wasn’t what he meant to say; he just didn’t want to say the dreaded word.

“Pretty sure it’s called a belly button, Diego. What are you talking about?” Vanya couldn’t help but giggle with sheer amusement.

“Yeah, and it is a tickle button because every time you touch it, this happens.” Klaus reached up to poke at his navel, which resulted in a ticklish yelp and approximately 5 successive curse words. 

Klaus, with his other hand, then began to pinch and squeeze at his brother’s thigh and Vanya followed suit. 

“NOHOHO, — SHIT, NO!” he hiccuped, much to his chagrin, “GUYS, FUCKING — FUCK!! FUCKING STOHOHOHOP, STOPSTOP, GOD D-DAMMIT!”

Five scoffed, a dimple showing on one of his cheeks, “And you all say I have a potty mouth.” His squeezes moved to his vigilante brother’s upper stomach, as Allison focused on the center, her nails now also finding his navel. 

Squealing as his legs shook fervently, Diego tugged on his arms with all the strength he could muster (which wasn’t much) and squirmed around as much as he could. God, this was humiliating. He was painfully aware of the squeaky and pathetic sounds he was making but could not, for the life of him, stop making them, which made his face burn.

“Aww, Diego, you sound like a big baby!” Klaus laughed, poking up and down his designated thigh in no particular rhythm, before laughing again at Diego rapidly shaking his head, now practically unable to speak.

“Don’t make any noise and we’ll let you go.” Allison taunted over Diego’s uncharacteristically boisterous squeals, spidering five nails across the middle of his stomach.

“FUCK OFF!” he yelled before quickly changing his tone after she poked a torturous nail into his navel. “OKAY, OKAY, I WON’T MAKE ANY NOISE,” he rambled, turning his head away.

“Deal,” Allison smiled, beginning to drag a single nail in circles around his tummy, slowly but surely closing in on his goddamned belly button.

A sharp exhale left poor Diego’s nose, and she wasn’t even close to the middle of his stomach yet, but he knew what was coming... and that made it ten times worse.

“That wasn’t a noise, right?” Luther genuinely asked before Allison and Klaus shook their heads. “We’ll let it slide for wittle baby Diego’s sake.” Allison mused, relishing in Diego’s reaction as he shook his head into his shoulder and scrunched his face up. 

“Tickle, tickle, tickle, tickle, tickle!” Klaus giggled, clearly having the time of his life. 

Five chuckled, loving the nostalgic shared moment with his siblings, “Let’s hope you don’t piss yourself again, Diego.”

“Yeah, I was embarrassed for you,” Luther chuckled, holding his arms down, still with seemingly no effort at all. 

He wanted so badly to tell them all to shut the hell up, but he couldn’t because he was too busy trying to swallow any noise he could possibly make. His shoulders bounced as laughter quietly bubbled in his throat.

The closer and closer Allison’s nail got to the hole in his middle, the harder it became to hold anything in. Out of anticipation alone, a humiliating giggle escaped his lips, and with the exaggerated coos that followed, he couldn’t hold back any longer. A screech preceded bouts of giggly, adorably contagious laughter.

“Aww, already? But I’m being so nice to you!” Allison chuckled, a hint of endearment in her voice. 

As soon as her nail dipped in, he was done for. But then... she added another hand, and as Five continued to pinch around the skin, Klaus and Vanya reached up to vibrate claw-shaped hands into his lower tummy, and Ben squeezed at his sides. Fucking fuck. 

“Tummy attack!” Klaus screeched as the others added in some laughs, teases, and coos. 

The feeling of all ten hands (one pair of which was unbearably phantom-like) all scritching, poking, and digging in to his tummy was enough to convince him that he was on the brink of death, and Luther’s fingers twitching into his triceps just added to the torture. Tears began to sting his eyes, and his cheeks began to hurt. He was a squirmy, screeching, laughing mess. And ... oh god, his bladder was getting uncomfortable.

The mixture of a snort and growl that left his mouth made his siblings laugh. “PLEHEASE,” he cried out with a wide smile, “I CAHA-” his cackles faded into silent laughter as his whole body trembled. 

A cacophony of coos and teases came from his brutal siblings as they did not let up; Diego felt like the tickling sensation on his stomach was somehow getting worse. 

“STOP IT! STOPIT, STOP PLEEEA —” between hiccups, he mouthed the words “I can’t, I can’t!” as he shook his head into his arm, occasionally trying to bite at Luther’s hands. “I’M GONNA P — HA!! I’M GONNA — EEK! FUCK, NO, NO, ALLISON! GUHUHUYS!” Diego’s legs bounced beneath Klaus and Vanya when he felt a huge raspberry right over his belly button. The feeling of that mixed with 50 fingers on his tummy was too much. He just couldn’t.

Diego let out a loud, more urgent sounding yelp as he kicked a leg, “GUYS! GETUPGETUPGETUP!” He would rather die admit that he peed himself again, and he didn’t have to because Vanya noticed his pants’ spreading stain first, immediately standing up and covering her laughing mouth.

“Oh my God, guys!” She couldn’t help but crack up.

The rest of his siblings laughed when they realized; Five doubling over and Klaus cackling as he stood. The second that Luther let go of his arms, Diego held one of them over his crotch and the other over his face before turning away towards the bathroom. All the Hargreeves saw was a middle finger as their ticklish brother wobbily, and angrily, stormed away. He would not hear the end of this.

[pixiegrl]

You Are My Horizon

Jack comes to visit Rian at work. Rian's hopelessly in love.

Alright lets take it from the top:

Bet you never saw ATL fic coming from me? Well, here it is. Once again, this is part of a larger fic I'm writing. I'm blaming Rian's v-day thirst trap and Jack just being, you know, Jack for writing this. The only important thing to know going into this is that Rian and Jack are dating, Jack is trans, and that Rian works at a tattoo parlor owned by Ashton and Calum. The tattoo parlor is across from the flower show Luke (also trans) and Michael (non-binary) own.

Second: big thanks to @tigerteeff for whom I write all trans content. Thanks for listening to me yell about Trans Jack he is a special boy and I love him. Thanks to @lifewasradical @cakelftv @blackbutterfliescal and @staticsounds for listening to me yell about this fic (and the flower shop/tattoo parlor verse) and telling me how emo in a good way this is. I love you all dearly.

on ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29500365

Rian’s sketching out the tattoo he’s designing when Jack comes into the back area of the parlor. He sighs dramatically, dropping himself into Rian’s lap and straddling him.

“Babe,” Jack whines.

“Hello to you too. Who’s watching Cam?”

“The puppy can be left alone for like an hour. I’ve been home all day. I missed you.”

“You saw me this morning.”

“That was hours ago. It’s like almost 5:00pm. I missed you,” Jack says, dropping his head down, resting it under Rian’s chin. Rian sighs, putting his pencil down and running his hands under Jack’s shirt. Jack sighs, pressing a kiss to Rian’s neck, easing into the touch. Rian likes Jack, all long legs and lean muscle, the contrast he is to Rian himself. He’s dyed his hair recently, a soft shade of blonde that contrasts with the dark hair of his beard. Rian remembers how excited Jack was about the beard when he started growing it, crowing that getting the hysterectomy finally helped him grow the hair that being on T didn’t. Jack’s painfully handsome these days, angled cheekbones and jaw framed by his beard, comfortable in his own skin. Jack has a soft smile on his face, as he pulls back, kissing Rian on the lips softly. 

They trade soft kisses for a few moments before Jack pulls back, grinning mischievously.

“No,” Rian says.

“You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”

“You may not suck my dick at my place of work.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not sanitizing the whole workstation.”

Jack sighs dramatically, flopping onto Rian, “But you have to do that anyway.”

“And I’m not letting you get this place dirty. Or risking someone walking in on us Jack, these are my co-workers.”

“Spoil sport,” Jack says. Rian huffs a laugh, letting Jack steal his snapback and put it on. He snuggles into Rian’s side, watching him sketch out the flowers.

“What’s this one?”

“Tattoo for a client. She wants a whole bouquet for flowers for her family.”

“Isn’t that Sierra’s thing? The flowers?”

“She wants it in watercolor.”

“So your speciality.”

“My speciality,” Rian says. Jack hums, getting a hand underneath Rian’s shirt, tracing his abs lightly as he keeps watching Rian. He has to be uncomfortable, at the angle he’s at but Jack makes no move to change his position.

“Why don’t you head home? I have to finish this sketch up and it’s not going to be very interesting for you,” Rian says, after Jack shifts for the fifth time in ten minutes.

“I don’t want to head home though. Wanna go with you.”

“You drove your car here Jack. You’d be going home without me anyway.”

“I don’t want to go home and wait around for you though. I want to wait here, with you. I want to spend time with you,” Jack says, pouting lightly. Rian sighs, heart soft. He ducks his head down pressing a kiss to Jack’s temple. Jack laughs, scrunching his nose up. He rests his head on Rian’s shoulder, watching as Rian works on the sketch around Jack’s long limbs.

“You know, I didn’t see myself being 32,” Jack says, just barely above a whisper. Rian stops what he’s doing, turning his attention to the boyfriend in his lap.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. At 15 I didn’t see myself making it to 20. I was a depressed teen, self-harming because I hated the way I looked and that I couldn’t understand what was going on. I thought I’d kill myself before 20 trying to figure it out. Then, I was 20 and I couldn’t see myself at 25. I finally had the words to understand what I was feeling and who I was, but then you’re going through therapists and doctors, people are giving you papers and reports and explanations and telling you how much money it all is to just be yourself. I thought I’d die under the stress of it all, the constant feeling of just having to fight to be myself,” Jack says, shrugging. 

He picks at the edge of Rian’s shirt, pulling at a loose thread there, head resting on Rian’s shoulder, nose touching his neck. Rian puts his pencil down, stroking his hand over Jack’s back, letting Jack nuzzle into him. They sit there for a few moments in silence before Rian finally works up the courage to ask Jack his question.

“What about at 25?” Rian asks, soft, squeezing Jack’s hip lightly.

“I got the right therapist. I went on T. They finally approved things and I had the money for my top surgery. There was light at the end of the tunnel. And then I met you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. I love who I am, don’t get me wrong. I love being trans and I love being myself and I’m happy with myself. It took me so long to get there, but I love myself. But it’s hard, when you’re two months out of top surgery, when your voice still cracks, when you’re worried about how everyone else will see you, to picture someone loving you the way you love yourself. Especially when they look like you,” Jack says. He tilts his head up, looking at Rian, eyes a little wet. Rian laughs, breathless, at the idea of it all. 

He remembers meeting Jack with the sort of clarity that only comes with the certainty of knowing that this is your person, with the knowledge to capture this moment, so you can tell your family, your friends, write it into your wedding vows, tell it to your children. Alex had invited him to the back to school brunch he hosted with Lisa every year before school started. Rian had grumbled about it, considering he’s not a teacher what does it matter, but Alex has insisted that as his oldest friend Rian should come (he found out later Alex had intentionally done it to try and set him and Jack up, but Rian can’t really be mad about it). He’d found Jack, with his grown out emo fringe and home dyed red hair, standing by the music, trying to hijack it to play Blink-182 and complaining that Alex never let him have his way. Rian had found himself hopelessly enamored, listening to Jack rant about music and the merits of not teaching Romeo and Juliet to bored teens when Shakespeare has better plays. Rian had been so caught up in what Jack was saying, he hadn’t even noticed brunch had ended until Alex kicked them both out. Brunch had led to late lunch, led to dinner, led to Rian taking Jack for ice cream just so he didn’t have to leave, giving Jack his number and waiting for a phone call. Rian doesn’t think there’s ever been a time he wasn’t enamored by Jack, hopelessly in love with him from the moment Jack had demanded to see Rian’s Blink-182 tattoo. 

“What do you mean someone who ‘look like me’?”

“Handsome, masculine, rugged. You’re a tattoo artist and you work out and you’re like the kind of guy I wanted to be when I was a teen except I’m not. I’m me and there’s nothing wrong with me, but like compared to you. I’m the dorky English teacher. I’m all tall and lanky and stuff.”

“I love dorky English teacher Jack.”

“I know you do. You look at me with such love and adoration it hurts sometimes. The first time you told me you loved me I went home and cried,” Jack says. He’s sitting up now, arms draped over Rian’s shoulders, tears in his eyes. Rian, reaches up, brushing them away. 

“You did what?” Rian asks, quiet.

“I cried. I cried because you were everything teenage Jack dreamed of and couldn’t have. You loved me and loved me and you didn’t care that my voice cracked or about the scars or about anything else that made me feel self-conscious at the time because it was new and fresh. The first time you called me your boyfriend I didn’t know what to do. I felt so special and loved. You just loved me and it felt so real. And I was 25 and for the first time, I could picture myself at 30, at 40, at 50 because I could picture my life, I could picture sharing my life with you. And now I’m 32 and I want to tell teenage Jack that it’s worth it, all the waiting is worth it because you’re here. You’re here and I love you so much Ri,” Jack says. He’s crying now, eyes red, nose red. Rian pulls him into a hug, realizes he’s crying too.

“Well, I love you. You’re a hurricane and I never expected to fall in love the way I did with you, but god did I. I was so worried that first day if I let you go home, if I let you leave, you’d forget all about me. Except you kept calling me and texting me and then you practically moved into my house and I didn’t want to let you go. We have a home, a life, a dog. It’s everything I pictured when I was 17 and realized I liked guys too.” 

“Guess we’re just stuck together,” Jack says, sniffling. Rian laughs, a little wet, pulling Jack into a hug. 

“Guess we are.” 

“Think Ash will let you leave early? I wanna go home now and I don’t wanna wait for you.” 

“Yeah. I don’t have any more appointments and I can take the sketches home.” 

“Good. I think we deserve some pizza and white claws,” Jack says, solemnly. He’s smiling though and Rian’s hopelessly in love with him.

It isn’t till the drive home, which Rian barely managed to get to because Jack kept kissing him against his car, refusing to just let Rian get in the car and drive home so they could have dinner and cuddle, that Rian wonders what’s stopping him from making this permanent. They live together, they have a dog, Jack’s all but told Rian he sees them as forever and Rian feels the same way. What’s stopping Rian from just proposing? 

He takes the thought with him for the next week, searching for rings on his off time, trying to get other people’s opinions on what Jack might like until Rian finally decides on a simple black band for the ring. He ends up in the flower shop the next week, deciding that Jack deserves nice flowers for a proposal.

Luke is at the counter, fixing up a floral arrangement when Rian comes in. He looks up, surprised, blushing a little. Rian’s not dumb, he knows Luke has a crush on him. He also knows Luke has a crush on Jack and a major crush on Ashton, so he’s pretty sure Luke is just falling for anyone he thinks is cute until Ashton finally kisses him.

“Rian, hi! What brings you in? More flowers for the shop?”

“Flowers for Jack. I want to propose and I thought the sweetest man deserved some flowers to go with it.”

Luke looks at Rian in awe, lips parted in an “o.” 

“You’re going to propose?” Luke whispers. Rian furrows his brow, confused at Luke’s surprise, until he remembers that Luke’s trans too. Luke’s trans and he’s probably having the same reaction Jack did the first time he and Rian went to pride and Jack saw other people like them together, the idea that they weren’t alone. It softens Rian’s heart even more. He gets the older brother affection Jack has for Luke and Michael, the need to care for them. It’s hard not to when Luke’s staring at him, all wide blue eyes and open wonder.

“Yeah. Figured my boyfriend of seven years deserves to be my husband forever. Have some roses for it?” Rian says. Luke beams, hurrying around the counter, pulling out red roses to make a bouquet, bouncing with excitement. It’s infectious, making Rian even more excited to propose to Jack, seeing how excited Luke is, smiling the whole time. Ashton let him out of work early too, so he could be home to make dinner with Jack when he gets back from school. 

Rian’s anxious the whole drive home, flowers in the passenger seat, tapping his hands nervously on the steering wheel. What if he’s overthinking this whole thing? What if he’s fucking up the best thing in his life by proposing? What if all the nice words Jack said don’t mean marriage, they just mean staying together? What if Rian’s about to make the stupidest decision of his life? 

Jack’s car is already in the driveway when Rian gets back. He wasn’t expecting Jack to beat him home. It makes the pit in his stomach open wider, makes him even more anxious. He drops his keys five times before he finally manages to get them into the lock and open the door. 

“Ri?” Jack calls when Rian’s through the door. Camden comes sprinting through the house, barking excitedly at Rian until he picks him up, holding him in one arm while trying to keep the roses out of the way. 

“Yeah. You’re home early.” 

“Took the rest of my shit home. Why the fuck should I grade bad essays on The Odyssey at my desk when I can grade them on our couch while you yell at Jeopardy.” 

“I don’t yell at Jeopardy,” Rian says, offended.  

“Yes you do babe,” Jack says. Rian drops his bag by the front of the kitchen, placing the flowers on the counter and Cam on the floor. Jack’s back is turned to him, watching the chicken quesadillas he’s making in the pan intensely. Rian sneaks up behind him, wrapping his arms around Jack’s waist and running his hands over Jack’s hip bones, resting his chin on Jack’s shoulder. Jack sighs, leaning back into the touch. 

“Hi,” Rian says softly, pressing a kiss to his bare shoulder.  

“Hi,” Jack says, turning his head to get a kiss from Rian. He glances over Rian’s shoulder, perking up when he notices the flowers on the counter. 

“You bought flowers?” 

“I did.” 

“For your other lover?” Jack teases, abandoning the pan to turn around in Rian’s arms, kiss him softly. Rian smiles, tugging Jack closer, kissing his lips, his neck. Jack laughs, squirming in his arms. 

“You can’t kiss me like that while I’m cooking. We’ll start a fire,” Jack says. Rian rolls his eyes, letting Jack play with his hair. 

“I missed you,” Rian says softly. Jack snorts. 

“It was only 8 hours babe,” he teases. 

“You didn’t text me today. I’m used to you texting me.” 

“The teens were being wild today. I don’t remember this much drama when I was their age,” Jack says. Rian rolls his eyes, pulls Jack in for a hug. 

Jack eventually wiggles from Rian’s hold, turning back to the stove. Camden’s flopped down next to them, sighing heavily. Rian swallows, hand in his pocket fingering the ring box. 

“Hey Jack?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Will you marry me?” Rian asks, sinking to one knee, pulling the box out. 

“Very funny Ri,” Jack says, turning to face him. Whatever else he was going to say dies as he takes in the sight of Rian on the floor. 

“Will you marry me?” 

“Holy shit,” Jack breathes out. 

“I’m not the English teacher, but I have a whole speech planned. You know, the moment I met you, I knew. I saw you standing in the corner of Alex’s living room, yelling at him to pick better music and I knew. I wanted to commit everything to memory because that was the memory I wanted to tell everyone at our wedding. I’ve known since the minute you demanded to see my tattoo in front of everyone and practically stripped me shirtless that I wanted to marry you. You’re it for me Jack. When I was 17 and scared shitless at the idea that I liked men, I didn’t know what to do. I never felt confident or comfortable enough to come out, to be myself, to picture myself with someone like you. And then I met you and it’s all I could picture. You made me comfortable with myself, happy with myself. Your endless love and support and just being reminds me everyday how lucky I am to know you, to have met you, to have you love me. You’ve never given a shit about my depression or the way I am or my anxiety. You just remind me of brighter days, of the idea that I’m allowed to have this, to have your love. I can’t picture my life without you, without loving you. I want forever. So, will you marry me?” Rian asks. 

“Yes, what the fuck yes! Of course I’ll fucking...come here!” Jack shouts, dragging Rian up to him. He pulls Rian in for a kiss, bumped noses and teeth because they’re too excited to kiss properly. Jack leans back, tears running down his cheeks, smiling widely. 

“I was worried for a minute,” Rian jokes, pulling the ring from the box and sliding it onto Jack’s finger. Jack holds his hand out admiring it. 

“Like I would say no. Maybe all the coffee has fired your brain cells,” Jack teases. He turns to Rian, kissing him again, softer this time. 

“You never know.”

“Hell would freeze over before I said no to marrying you. You’re the love of my life,” he says, quietly. Rian smiles, pressing another kiss to his lips. 

“Hey, is something burning?” Rian asks after a few moments, when he realizes he smells smoke. 

“Oh shit!” Jack yells, turning frantically to fix the burning quesadillas, fanning the smoke to stop it from setting off the smoke detector. Rian laughs, helpless in the face of Jack’s panic, Camden’s distressed barking. It’s perfect, it’s everything Rian’s ever wanted in life. It’s everything he’s wanted since he met Jack at Alex’s brunch. It’s the life he’s always wanted.

[morwenna-crows]

Seasons of War: First Nine Chapters Preview

A new series of Seasons of War previews were released this morning - a prologue, and chapters 3 to 8, which follow on directly from the earlier two chapter preview. 

A table of contents was also released -  the book is 144 chapters total, split into Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. There are 32 chapters in Spring, 23 in Summer, 39 in Autumn, and 50 in Winter.

I’ve put the previews under the cut, enjoy!

And all was memory. The memory of gods and people. The memory of monsters. 

Prologue.

"I don't know who I am anymore.”

"OK."

"I thought I did. I was the good guy. I was descended from the Last of the Ancients. I saved the world."

"And what's changed?"

"You know what's changed."

"You think you're not the good guy?"

"I've got the blood of the Faceless Ones in my veins. How can I be the good guy when everything I've come from is murder and death and torture and hatred? You know the worst thing? It's how much sense it all makes now. Darquesse killing all those people? The reflection killing Crystal? Me killing Alice? Everyone I've hurt and all the terrible things I've done?"

"You're blaming your heritage for all that?"

"Oh, no. No, no. I'm blaming me. But I'm the way I am because of my blood."

"And what about Alice? Is she a bad guy, too?"

"She's eight."

"But you saw her in the future, about to face down her arch-enemy. Do you think she's the hero in that story, or the villain?"

"It doesn't matter. The future can be changed. I'm going to change it. Whatever road she's going down, I can head her off."

"How is she? Still crying herself to sleep?"

"Some nights. My folks took her to the child psychologist, who says it looks like repressed trauma. I should tell them. Right? I should. They need to know what's happened in order to make her better."

"If you tell them--"

"I know."

"If you tell them, they might never speak to you again. They'll definitely never let you see Alice."

"But they'll be able to help her.”

"How? How will that help her? What will they tell this psychologist? When our daughter was a baby, her big sister killed her and fractured her soul? How can any mortal psychologist make sense of that? How can... What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"You have another headache?"

"It's nothing. And I don't know how it'd help, and I don't know how they'd explain it without sounding nuts, but I've kept this from them for way too long and they need to know the truth."

"No, they don't. What would be the point in ruining your relationship with your parents? You love them, they love you, and they never have to know about Alice's soul being broken. You fixed it, didn't you? You went through hell to find the pieces and put it back together. Why would you tell them what happened? Alice isn't going to. She barely understands what happened back then."

"Maybe she should tell them. I'm making her keep a huge, traumatising secret from her own parents. I damaged her years ago, when she was a defenceless little baby, and, when I try to fix her, I just damaged her some more. At least when her soul was fractured she didn't feel any sadness. What have I done? What exactly have I done to make her life better? I've just given her back that sadness, all in one go. All the pain, all the sorrow, all the trauma, all the horror, all the--"

"Valkyrie. Stop. You're doing it again."

"I've ruined her. "

"Stop it. You're spiraling."

"So what? So what if I'm spiraling? I deserve to spiral. After everything I've done, I deserve to spiral and I deserve a lot worse. You don't know what it's like to have these thoughts on your head. You don't. You don't know what it's like to have them constantly swirling and getting louder and louder. It's deafening in here. I can't hear anything else. All these voices, all these horrible, horrible voices, saying horrible, horrible things. The guilt... Jesus, the guilt. You don't know. It's everywhere. Every time I open my eyes. Every time I close my eyes. It's always there. It's underneath everything. Even when I'm with Militsa. Even when I'm with Skulduggery. I don't know... I don't know how much longer I can keep going. "

"Hey. "

"Oh, God."

"Hey. Look at me. Listen to me. You'll keep going because that's what you do. I don't know much about much, but I know you. I am you, although slightly smarter and significantly prettier."

"I don't think I can."

"You’re doubting yourself. That's fine. Everyone has doubts. You hate yourself, too. I get that. You've been out in impossible situations, forced to do unthinkable things. But this, how you're feeling now, it won't last forever. You think it will - it feels like it will - but it won't. You're in a pit, but you've climbed out of that pit before and you'll climb out of it again."

"I'm too tired."

"I don't think that matters. You're not going to stop climbing. I know you're not."

"You don't... You don't know me like you think you do. You're not me. You're a piece of Darquesse that she left behind."

"And Darquesse is a piece of you."

"So you're a piece of a piece of me, from back when I was eighteen. I've changed since then."

"I know you have. Look at all the muscle you've put on. Why couldn't you have had abs seven years ago, eh? Then I'd have them, too."

"That's not really what I mean."

"You talk like you're about to give up, but you're down at that gym how many times a week? And what food do you eat? When was the last time you had a pizza?"

"I don't..."

"If you'd given up, you wouldn't be working out. If you'd given up, you wouldn't be calculating when you're getting your next dose of protein. You'd have stopped caring about any of that stuff."

"But that's habit. That's... I dunno. That's something I do to take my mind off things. If I focus on the next rep, if I focus on lifting more than I did last week, then I have a few moments where I don't have to listen to all the horrible things going on in my head."

"You've still got a hell of a lot of fight in you, Valkyrie. I know you do. I can see it."

"I don't think you're right. I'm not a robot. I don't just keep marching on. There's only, like, so much someone can take, isn't there? There's only so many times you can fall into a pit before you think to yourself, what's the point in climbing out if I'm just going to fall back in tomorrow?"

"I... You need help. And not from me. And not from that bloody music box. You need professional help. Maybe some decent medication. You definitely need someone to talk to you who knows what they're doing."

"The music box helps."

"No, it doesn't."

"I wouldn't be able to get out of bed in the morning if I didn't have it."

"It's not healthy."

"It calms me down."

"It turns you into a zombie. I've watched you when you're listening to it. You just sit there, staring at the wall. I've actually called your name, actually shouted in your ear, and you haven't noticed I'm even there."

"You're exaggerating."

"I wish I were. It's not good for you."

"It helps."

"And what about those little Splashes of magic? Did you really think I didn't know about them?"

"I just use them when I have to."

"You realise it's a drug, right? What, nothing to say to that?"

"I don't talk to you to be judged. I talk to you because there's no one else I can talk to about this stuff. And I talk to you because, if I didn't, you know what? You'd float around, you'd walk through walls, you'd do whatever it is you do when I'm not there, and no one would see you or hear you or even know you exist. So do me one small favour, OK? Do not judge me. You're a piece of a piece of me that's a frickin' murderer. You're a piece of a piece of me that's an inhuman psychopath who was intent on killing the whole goddamn world."

"You're in a bad mood. I can tell."

"Just leave me alone, Kes. I need to be by myself."

"You'll never be left alone, you silly thing. This is the life you chose, a life of adventure. And the next one, as always, is just around the corner."

Chapter 1.

Red candles, maybe a dozen of them. Brick walls. Lot of rafters, lot of shadows, lots of big, empty patches of darkness. Wooden floor. She was in a cellar, a big one, upright against something metal. She could feel the struts digging into her back. Her arms were over her head, wrists bound with rope. Ankles tied, too.

Her tongue tasted sour. They’d drugged her. Her mouth was dry. She licked her lips. Her head was dull. She shot a little magic through her system and her mind cleared instantly.

She wondered if her make-up had been smudged. She hoped it hadn’t. It had taken ages to put on. Her shoes were gone. Good. They were awful. She was still in the dress, though, the one that was too small and too tight and not very practical. It did have one thing going for it, however – the amulet of dark metal, in the shape of a skull, that fitted against her hip like some cool- looking clasp.

She raised her head slightly, gave her surroundings a closer inspection through the hair that hung over her face. Pedestals displayed occult paraphernalia in glass cases like this was some- one’s idea of a black magic museum, and good quality – though obviously plastic – skeletons, dressed in rags, hung from shackles along the walls. The ground was sticky against her bare feet. She was positioned in the exact centre of a pentagram painted on the floorboards. She was pretty sure the dark stains had been made by copious splashes of blood.

“She’s awake,” someone said in the darkness ahead of her. “Hey, she’s awake. Get the others.”

The sound of feet on wooden steps, and then yellow light flooded in from above. A large shadow flowed across the light and then the cellar door closed and she was left with the flickering red candles and whoever had spoken.

He came forward, out of the darkness. Dressed in a red robe with the hood up.

“What’s your name?” he asked. His voice was gentle. American. Warm.

“Valkyrie,” she said.

“Valerie?”

“Valkyrie. With a K.”

“That’s a nice name. Unusual. Is it Irish?”

“Norwegian.”

“Oh. My friend said you were from Ireland.”

“I am. My name isn’t.”

“Ah.” He stepped a bit closer. She could see the lower half of his face, his square jaw and his even white teeth.

“You’re probably freaking out right now. I get that. I do. You wake up, you’re in a dark cellar, you see satanic stuff all around, you probably think you’re going to be horribly butchered in some ridiculous human-sacrifice ritual, yeah?” He pulled his hood down and his smile broadened. “Well, that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”

“I know you,” said Valkyrie.

“Do you?”

“You’re that actor,” she said. “From that movie. You’re Jason Randal.”

“You want an autograph?”

“How about a selfie? If you could just hand me my phone...”

He laughed. “Oh, I like you. That’s an impressive response. Usually, the girls we sacrifice are full of panicked questions at this stage, like they think they can make sense of what’s happening. Like they can’t bring themselves to believe that they’re about to be murdered.”

“What was that movie you were in, with the guy from The Big Lebowski?”

Jason tilted his head slightly. “I haven’t been in a film with—”

“No, you know the one. You both play dead cops who are still, like, solving crimes and stuff? You’re not zombie cops, or ghost cops, but... what’s it called? I want to say RIP, but...”

Jason’s smile faded. “RIPD,” he said.

“Yes,” Valkyrie said. “That was a terrible movie. Why did you make that?”

He scratched his jaw. “That was Ryan Reynolds. You’re thinking of Ryan Reynolds.”

“That wasn’t you?”

“No.”

Valkyrie frowned. “Are you sure?”

“I think I know what films I’ve been in.”

“I could have sworn it was you.”

“Well, it wasn’t.”

“It’s a terrible movie.”

“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen it and I wasn’t in it.”

“It’s bad.”

“Then how about we stop talking about it?”

“Are you ashamed of it because it’s so bad?”

“I wasn’t in it.”

Valkyrie looked at him. “Maybe if you had a better agent you’d get better movies.”

Yellow light flooded the cellar and shadows moved, cast by the three people coming down the steps, all dressed in red robes.

“Is the Master here?” Jason Randal asked them, annoyance pinching his words.

“He’s on his way,” the woman in front said. Her name escaped

Valkyrie, but these days she was always being cast as the girlfriend or the wife of the hero. A few years ago, however, she’d headlined a few movies herself. Not bad movies, either. The guy behind her, one of the stars of a dreadful sitcom Valkyrie had pretended to like, was the one who’d bought her the spiked drink in the crowded bar. She recognised the last person – an actor in a TV show she’d never watched who had a ridiculous name that she couldn’t remember.

The woman had an amazing smile and incredible bone structure and wonderful hair. It shone in the candlelight. “I take it Jason has explained what’s going to happen,” she said.

“Don’t bother with this one,” Jason said, somewhat grumpily. “She’s not that bright.”

Valkyrie ignored him. “I’m a huge fan,” she said. 

“Aw, thank you.” 

“That film where you were out for revenge on the men who’d killed your husband? That was brilliant.”

“That’s really sweet of you to say so. I did a lot of my own stunts for that one.”

“The fight scenes were excellent.” 

The woman smiled at the others. “Do we have to kill her? She has such great taste!”

The others chuckled – all except Jason. He didn’t chuckle even a little bit.

“We should do it now,” he said. The woman frowned at him. Victoria, that was her name. Victoria Leigh. 

“Before the Master gets here?”

“It’s almost midnight. We’ll have to do it anyway, with or without him.”

“The Master will not be pleased,” said the sitcom star.

“Then the Master should be on time for the human sacrifice,” Jason snapped back. “The rest of us are all here, aren’t we? And we have careers. I have to be on set in two hours, and don’t you have an early call tomorrow?”

“I do have an early call,” murmured the sitcom star. 

Victoria checked the slender gold watch on her slender pale wrist. “OK, fine, get everything ready to go. We’ll wait till the last second. If the Master arrives in time, excellent. If he doesn’t, we’ll do it ourselves on the stroke of midnight.”

The others nodded and went off to fetch whatever they needed to fetch. Victoria stepped closer, though, brushing Valkyrie’s hair back off her face.

“You’re a pretty one,” she said. “Not leading-lady beautiful, perhaps, but definitely girl-next-door pretty. And those shoulders! Good lord! Linebacker shoulders, that’s what we call them. I can see why Tadd picked you.” Her voice softened. “Was he respectful? I’ve warned him about this in the past.”

“Pretty sure he was.”

“Good. I’ve seen far too many girls being disrespected in my business and I’d hate to be a part of something that perpetuates this behaviour.”

“Aren’t you lot going to murder me in a few minutes?”

A little laugh. “I am aware of the contradiction.”

“Good,” said Valkyrie. “Because I was worrying.”

“I have to say... What’s your name?”

“Valkyrie.”

“Ah, from Norse mythology. Very nice. I have to say, Valkyrie, you’re surprisingly calm about this whole thing.”

Valkyrie shrugged as much as she was able. “I don’t want to brag or anything, but I’ve been in worse situations.”

“You have?” 

“It’s all worked out in the end.” 

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I don’t think that’s going to happen tonight.”

“We’ll see.” 

“Indeed we will, Valkyrie. That’s a great attitude to have. We will indeed see. So tell me, what brings you out to LA? Aspiring actress?”

“Actually, I’m thinking of getting into stuntwork. I like being physical, you know? Throwing people around, crashing through windows, falling off rooftops... That’s my kind of thing.”

“Oh, I admire stunt people so much, I really do. I know this great little team down in Glendale. Such a shame you’re dying tonight – someone as athletic as you, you’d have fit in perfectly.”

“Can I ask you something? This Master guy you’re waiting on – who is he?”

“You sure you want to know? Well, why the hell not – you won’t be telling anyone, right? He’s a sorcerer. He’s magic.”

“Like one of those street magicians?”

Victoria’s laugh was as pretty as her eyes. “No, no, not like those street magicians. I mean he’s actually, really, genuinely magic. He can move things just by waving his hands. He clicks his fingers and he’s holding a ball of fire in his palm.”

“No kidding?”

“I swear it’s true.”

“And why does he make you sacrifice people?”

“Well, he gets his power from Satan, you see. He’s Satan’s emissary here on earth. All of us in our little group, we’re the ones who sacrifice the girls and, as a reward, Satan grants the Master the power to fulfil our wildest dreams.”

“Golly,” said Valkyrie.

“I know.”

“And does it work? Do your wildest dreams come true?”

Victoria made a seesawing motion with her hand. “It’s not an exact science. We get a lot of callbacks during pilot season, a lot of interest from casting agents and directors... but really Satan just opens the door. It’s up to us to walk through.”

“Right, right,” said Valkyrie. “So Satan is real, then?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Wow. And that’s all he asks for? Human sacrifice?”

“Yes. And a commission.”

“A commission?”

“That goes to the Master. For living expenses, you know.”

“So the Master gets a cut of whatever you make? How big a cut?”

Victoria hesitated. “Forty per cent.”

“Seriously?”

“But it’s worth it. Tadd wouldn’t have got that sitcom if it wasn’t for the Master, and I’m on a shortlist for the role of a wartime correspondent. It’s based on a true story and the script has a lot of buzz around it right now.”

“Good luck with that one. I hope you get it.”

“Thank you.” The others came back. Tadd held a candelabra of seven long- stemmed, unlit black candles, and the other one, the actor whose ridiculous name Valkyrie couldn’t remember, carried a box of polished oak. Jason Randal opened the box, and took out a long, curved dagger. The corners of his mouth lifted when he looked at Valkyrie.

“We still have two minutes,” Victoria said.

“She needs to be dead at midnight,” Jason responded. “I know the rules.”

“We should do it now, to be sure she dies.”

“We’ll do it at eleven fifty-nine. So long as you stab her in the heart, she’ll be dead in seconds. Light the ceremonial candles.”

The ridiculously named actor put the box down and came hurrying over, digging through his robes. He produced a silver Zippo, flicked it open and ran the flint wheel along his thigh. It sparked to a flame, and he put the flame to the seven black candles. Tadd held the candelabra aloft.

“The candles,” he said, “are lit.”

“The dagger,” Jason intoned, “is sharp.” 

“The time,” Victoria said, eyes on her watch, “is now.”

Chapter 2.

Jason grinned and raised the dagger and then the seven candles went out.

“Oh,” said Tadd. “Sorry.”

Jason glared. “Relight them.” The actor with the ridiculous name flicked the Zippo open again, ran it across his leg again, and lit the candles again.

Sheepishly, Tadd held the candelabra aloft once more. “The candles are lit.”

Then they went out again. “For God’s sake,” Jason muttered.

“Are you standing in a draught or something?” Victoria asked. “Move over there, and don’t hold them up so high this time. Come on, we’re running out of time. Relight them.”

The actor with the ridiculous name flicked the Zippo open. “I swear,” said Jason, “if you run that up your leg one more time, I am stabbing you instead of this girl. Do you understand? Just light the damn candles.”

The actor narrowed his eyes. “You don’t have to be a—”

“Light the candles, Maverick!” said Jason and Victoria at the same time.

Maverick. That was his name. Maverick Reels. What a silly name. Not that someone who’d called herself Valkyrie Cain could throw stones, but still.

As Maverick fumbled with the Zippo, the cellar door opened and a man swept down the stairs. “Hail Satan!” he cried.

“Hail Satan!” the others cried back.

“Hail Satan,” Valkyrie added, just to be in with the cool kids.

“Midnight is almost upon us!” said the Master, summoning fire into his hand and passing it over the candelabra, lighting each wick. “Why does this girl still live? Kill her! Deliver her soul to the Dark Lord!”

“Voldemort?” Valkyrie asked, frowning. The Master pulled down his hood. He didn’t look like a Master. He looked like a mid-level office manager with a bad goatee. He peered at her. “Do I know you?”

“Do you?”

“I’ve seen you before.”

“Have you?”

“I’ve seen your photograph,” he said.

“Where have you seen it?”

“I’m trying to remember,” he said.

“Think hard now.”

“Stop talking.”

“Maybe it wasn’t even me,” Valkyrie said. “Was it a photo taken in a burning city? Then it wasn’t me. It was a god who just looked like me.”

His eyes widened. “Oh, no.” Valkyrie’s magic crackled, white lightning dancing around her wrists and ankles, burning through the ropes.

Panicking, the Master grabbed the dagger from Jason just as one of the skeletons in rags stepped away from the wall and seized his wrist.

“Let’s not do anything hasty,” Skulduggery said, and everyone in the little group of satanic worshipers screamed and leaped away as he punched the Master right on the hinge of his jaw.

The Master’s knees buckled and he collapsed into Skulduggery’s arms, and Valkyrie broke free of the scaffolding holding her and followed the actors as they scrambled up the cellar steps.

She caught Maverick just as the door crashed open, pulling him off the steps. He flailed madly and she ducked as he spun, then clocked him right on the chin. He stiffened and pitched backwards. Valkyrie left him there and ran after the others.

She emerged from the cellar into an impressively big house – a movie star’s house. Lots of glass and exposed brick and open spaces. She followed the sounds of panic to the front door, where Jason and Victoria and Tadd were cursing each other as they tried to navigate the locks.

They heard her coming. Tadd let out a roar and came charging. He was shorter than Valkyrie, and skinnier, and she stepped into him, stopping him with a shoulder. He staggered a little and her fingers curled into his hair and she smacked his face against the painting on the wall over and over until he fell down.

Victoria ran into another room as Jason Randal dropped his robe and squared up to Valkyrie. He was big. He had muscles. He moved like he knew what he was doing, or he’d at least worked with fight choreographers – but when he threw the first punch it was stiff and awkward and badly judged, and it stopped a good hand’s length short of where it needed to land. He didn’t have a clue, and this wasn’t worth bruising her knuckles over, so Valkyrie blasted him with a little lightning that threw him back against the door. He fell in a crumpled, unconscious heap and she went after Victoria. She was standing in the huge living room holding a poker like a baseball bat.

“This isn’t going to do me a whole lot of good, is it?” she asked after a moment.

Valkyrie gave a shrug, and Victoria sighed, and put the poker down.

“Was that an actual skeleton I saw downstairs, or was it some sort of special effect?”

“It was a skeleton. He’s alive and he talks. His name’s Skulduggery.”

“Of course it is,” Victoria said, and took a seat, wearily, on the couch. “So you’re a sorcerer, too, are you?”

“Yep.”

“You a Satanist also?”

Valkyrie sat opposite, and crossed her legs. “That guy’s not a Satanist. None of us are Satanists. Magic has got nothing to do with religion. Those people you sacrificed? The devil didn’t collect their souls. Those people just died.”

Victoria took a while before answering. “But then why did the Master tell us to do it?”

“Well, seeing as how all this is about money, I’m guessing that in order to get the lot of you to really commit, the idiot you call Master made you kill a bunch of innocent people so you couldn’t change your minds and back out at a later date.”

Victoria’s face slackened. “We didn’t have to kill those girls?”

“Nope.”

“But... but our careers... How did he—?”

“There’s a trick sorcerers can do once they know the name you were born with. They can tell you to do stuff. Not big stuff, not life-changing stuff – he wouldn’t have been able to coax a whole lot of money out of you that way – but he could certainly have suggested to casting agents that it’d be a good idea to call you in for a second audition, things like that.”

“Oh my God...”

“Yep.”

“What... what’s going to happen to me now?”

“You’re going to jail.”

“I should call my attorney.”

“You won’t need an attorney,” said Valkyrie. “You’re going to one of our jails. All four of you will disappear. No one will know where you are.”

“But my family... My fans...”

“They’ll never see you again.”

Victoria stared at her. “You can’t do that.”

“By our estimation, you’ve murdered sixteen young women between the four of you. We might be wrong. You might have murdered more.”

“But the Master told us we had to.”

“Stop calling him Master. He’s just some low-level sorcerer who couldn’t be bothered doing the work of a real agent so he invented this Satanist thing to make some money out of you morons. And I don’t care what he told you. You had a choice. You could have chosen not to murder sixteen innocent young women. Obviously, that’s not the road you decided to go down.”

Victoria sat forward, elbows on her knees, hands hidden by the voluminous sleeves of her robe, evidently processing what she could. “I can’t go to jail,” she said slowly. “I’m on a shortlist. That part could win me an Oscar.” She straightened up. She had a gun in her hand. “I’m really sorry.”

Valkyrie raised an eyebrow, but otherwise didn’t react.

“Sorcerers aren’t bulletproof, are they?” Victoria asked.

“No, we’re not,” said Valkyrie.

“I’m really sorry about this.”

“Are you, though?”

Victoria thumbed back the hammer. It made a pleasing little click. “I’m not the best shot in the world,” she said, “but I’m not bad, either. That revenge movie I was in? My firearms coach told me I was a natural. But, even if I were the worst shot in the world, I couldn’t miss from this range even if I wanted to.”

“Oh, I bet you could if you tried.”

“Will a gun kill your skeleton friend?”

“Not that gun.”

“Then I’ll just kill you.”

Valkyrie tapped the amulet on her hip and the black suit spread outwards, covering her skin and her clothes, flowing down to her feet and to her fingertips before Victoria’s eyes could even finish widening.

The gun went off. The bullet hit Valkyrie in the belly and she grunted, sitting forward slightly. She pulled the hood up as a second bullet struck her chest. Christ, that stung. Her fingers found the mask in the hood and she pulled it down and felt it turn solid over her face as Victoria stood and proceeded to empty the gun into her. Valkyrie wondered what the skull mask looked like today.

Every time she pulled it down, it was slightly different than the time before. It was like Skulduggery’s façade in that way. Victoria’s final bullet hit Valkyrie in the forehead, making the mask reverberate. Valkyrie stood up.

“I thought you said you weren’t bulletproof,” Victoria said quietly, the gun hanging uselessly by her side.

“I’m not,” Valkyrie responded, brushing a squashed bullet from her chest. “The suit is. I was going to give you the option of leaving this house in cuffs, as opposed to unconscious, but...”

“But I just tried to kill you?”

Valkyrie shrugged, took the gun away from her.

“Please,” Victoria said, “not the face.”

“Sure,” Valkyrie said, and hit her in the face anyway.

Chapter 3

Omen Darkly went to prison.

He didn’t like it much. It was big and grey and intimidating and it smelled of fear and sweat and everyone seemed to be in a bad mood and he was glad, all things considered, that he was just going to be there for half an hour or so.

He wouldn’t have lasted long in prison. For one thing, he was only fifteen, and, while he was currently experiencing his long-awaited ‘growth spurt’, it had resulted in a feeling that he simply had too many joints to fit in his body.

Omen strongly suspected, however, that his twin brother would have excelled in here. Tall and strong, a born leader, Auger would have taken down the biggest and baddest convict on his first day and then made the prison his kingdom.

But the very idea was ridiculous. Auger was the Chosen One, born with an innate understanding of right and wrong. He was a good guy, the one person you could depend on to never let you down.

And right now he was in a hospital bed after having nearly been killed, and Omen was visiting the guy who’d put him there.

Jenan Ispolin sat on the other side of the table and stared, a twist to his lips, his eyes heavy-lidded. There wasn’t a glass partition between them. Omen had expected a glass partition.

Suddenly all of his opening lines, the lines he’d rehearsed again and again in his head, that he’d muttered in front of the mirror, didn’t seem to fit the occasion. They were all tough-guy lines, designed to impress. But Omen wasn’t a tough guy, had never been a tough guy, and pretending to be one here, in a prison populated by guys who had to be tough to survive, now seemed like the silliest thing in the world.

So instead he said, “How are you doing?”

Jenan didn’t respond.

“Do they let you get much exercise here? I saw a yard on my way in. Do they let you play sports? What kind of sports?”

Jenan had liked playing sports when he was in school, Omen knew. He was good at them.

“We don’t play sports,” Jenan said.

“Right,” said Omen. That had been a stupid question. He changed the subject. “Do they let you see your folks much?”

Jenan leaned forward. “What do you want?”

“I don’t … I don’t actually know.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I wanted to confront you, I suppose. And I wanted to give you a chance to say what you needed to say.”

“What are you talking about? What would I need to say to you?”

“I’m not sure,” Omen confessed. “But there’s a reason you attacked me with that knife. Obviously, God, I know you don’t like me. I know that much! But this goes deeper than that, doesn’t it? I mean … you tried to kill me. You would have succeeded, too, if Auger hadn’t saved me. So I figure you must have some, like, unresolved issues.”

Jenan stared at him. “That’s why you came? So I could talk through my unresolved issues and get some closure?”

“Yeah,” said Omen. “We all need closure. I know I do. I wanted to come here and show you that I’m still alive, and I’m still doing well, and you didn’t manage to do whatever you were trying to do … but now that I’m sitting here, now that we’re talking, I can’t actually do any of that. You tried to kill me. That’s … terrifying. You stabbed me. I don’t have a scar any more, but it still hurts sometimes. It hasn’t healed completely yet.

“And you nearly killed Auger, too. See, I’m more mad about that than anything else. He’s had all the same healers and doctors that I’ve had, but his injury was way worse than mine.”

Jenan nodded. “I heard.”

“The stuff they had to do quickly in order to save his life, that’s been complicating his recovery. He hasn’t healed right. He’s still in the Infirmary in the High Sanctuary.”

“In here,” Jenan said, “I’m known as the guy who almost killed the Chosen One. They respect me because of that. A lot of them are scared of me.”

“I … I don’t see how that’s anything to be proud of, Jenan.”

Jenan laughed. “Of course you don’t. Because you’re a child.”

Omen’s voice dipped. “My parents wanted you to be given the death sentence.”

“Like I care.”

“They wanted you executed, dude.”

Jenan’s next laugh was more like a bark. “Dude,” he mimicked. “Dude.”

Omen sighed. “OK, whatever, laugh at me all you want. I’m just trying to understand why you did it.”

“Why I did it?” Jenan echoed. “I was part of Abyssinia’s army. I was the leader of First Wave. You and your little friends came in and ruined everything – of course I wanted you dead! We were going to change the world!”

Omen frowned at him. “You weren’t.”

“We all were!”

“No,” said Omen. “You weren’t. First Wave was going to be framed for murdering all those Navy people in Oregon. Abyssinia was planning on killing you.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, I do,” said Omen, “because I was there and so were you. You were never part of her army, Jenan. She used you and the others. You were a joke to her.”

Jenan sat frozen for a moment, and then lunged across the table. Before he could touch Omen, he shrieked and jerked sideways, falling off his chair.

Omen looked down at him. “No touching,” he said.

Jenan moaned, and the prison guard stepped forward.

“Everything OK here?” she asked.

“It’s fine, thank you,” Omen said. “He just wanted a hug.”

The prison guard nodded, and Omen waited until Jenan had dragged himself back into his chair.

“Your friends are in detention facilities,” he said. “Minimum-security stuff. Not like here. This is a proper prison, for proper bad guys. You’re not a proper bad guy, Jenan. You should be in school. Temper Fray – you know who Temper Fray is? He’s a sergeant in the City Guard. Anyway, Temper Fray told me the truth. They don’t respect you in here. No one is afraid of you. He told me you cry yourself to sleep most nights and every day you’re on the phone to your parents, begging them to come and see you. Your mum’s only been here half a dozen times and your dad still hasn’t come to visit. You’re miserable, dude. I’m just … I wanted to see if I could make things better.”

Jenan tried glaring back defiantly, but tears rolled down his cheeks and his lower lip quivered. “I hate you,” he said, his voice strangely high. “I hate you and I’ll always hate you. You ruined everything. You ruined my life, you pathetic little nobody. When I get out of here, I’m going to kill you. I don’t care how long it takes, how many years. I’m going to kill you, do you hear me?”

Omen watched him cry. “I hear you,” he said sadly, and got up.

Chapter 4.

Valkyrie set the alarm on her phone for sixty seconds, put it on the dashboard, and opened the lid of the music box on the seat beside her. The tune slowly filled the car, and Valkyrie’s eyes fluttered closed. It felt like the blood in her veins was slowing, her heartbeat softening. Anchors were attached to her thoughts, dragging them to a halt. Peace came over the horizon of her mind like the rising sun, until its warm comfort covered everything. She focused on her breathing. Her breathing was the only thing in the universe.

In the distance, an alarm went off, but it was dull and muted and unimportant. It slipped from her attention easily and once more there was only her breathing.

Then a voice – voices – and a laugh, and Valkyrie opened her eyes and blinked as a group of teenagers passed her car, chatting among themselves. Her alarm was going off. She closed the music box, shut off the alarm, sat there in the cold silence.

Her thoughts returned to her and she looked at the time.

“Dammit,” she said.

She pulled the handle, opened the door, lurched out of the car. Went to stuff the phone in her pocket, realised she was wearing a dress. A nice dress. Blue. Why was she wearing a dress? That thing in LA. It had reminded her that she liked wearing skirts and dresses sometimes. Not all the time. Sometimes. For special occasions. Was this a special occasion? Why was she here?

Fergus. His birthday.

“Dammit,” she said again.

She reached back into the car, grabbed her purse, and stuffed her keys and her phone into it as she hurried to the door of the Chinese restaurant. Here on time, but now twenty minutes late. Of course she was.

Through the door, smiling at the nice lady there to greet her, indicated she was with someone already inside. In she went, found the table at the back. Her parents and her sister and Fergus and Beryl and Crystal but no Carol.

“Here she is,” said Desmond, and Alice jumped up and ran over and Valkyrie laughed as her little sister hugged her round the waist.

“We’ve been waiting for you!” Alice informed her.

“You’re very good,” Valkyrie said, smiling warmly. The little bit of panic was receding into the warm ocean of calm the music box had delivered. “Sorry I’m late, everyone,” she said as Alice guided her by the hand to her chair.

She expected Beryl to say something sharp and resentful, but everyone just smiled and shrugged and said it didn’t matter.

The waiter came over, took their orders. Valkyrie turned to Alice and winked at her. “Hey, you,” she said.

“Hey, you,” Alice echoed.

“Haven’t seen you in a few days. What you been up to?”

Alice shrugged. “Things.”

“Things, eh?”

“And stuff.”

“Stuff, too? You have been busy. How’s school?”

“I got ten out of ten on my spelling test, but they were really easy, so everyone got ten out of ten except for one boy who forgot that we had a test. Well, he said he forgot, but I think he just didn’t want to learn the words. And there’s a new boy in my class.”

“Is there?”

“His name’s Dima. We all made him cards to introduce ourselves, and Mom looked up what welcome to school was in Russian and I wrote it and I gave it to him. And then today he gave me a card back, and he said he loved me.”

Valkyrie’s eyebrow arched. “Oh, wow …!”

Melissa leaned over. “He said you’re beautiful, didn’t he?”

Alice nodded. “He wrote you’re beautiful and I love you. And he’s right,” she said, “I am beautiful,” and she gave a dimpled, gap-toothed grin that made Valkyrie laugh.

The first course arrived and Valkyrie found it easier to interact with others when she had the distraction of food in front of her. It gave her time to think, to formulate responses, and an excuse to be brief when necessary.

The waiting staff came over, cleared the plates, and Alice announced that she had to go to the toilet, and slid out of her chair.

“I’ll go with you,” Beryl said, and Valkyrie suppressed a laugh at Alice’s rolled eyes.

Smiling, Valkyrie turned her attention to the rest of the table. They were all looking at her and her smile dropped.

“What?” she said.

Crystal leaned forward. “Why were you late?” she asked, keeping her voice low. “Were you saving the world?”

This was weird, sitting here with family members who all knew about magic. “No,” said Valkyrie, “I was just late.”

“We don’t talk about this in public,” Fergus warned.

“Then when can we talk about it?” Crystal asked, giving her dad a scowl. “We can’t talk about it in private because either Mum or Alice is around. Right now is the only time we can hear what’s going on. So come on, Valkyrie – what’s going on?”

“Stephanie,” Melissa corrected. “We call her by her proper name here.”

“But it’s not her proper name, is it?” Crystal countered. “It’s her given name. Valkyrie is her proper name.”

“Stephanie is fine when I’m with family,” Valkyrie said quickly. “It makes it easier to, y’know, maintain my cover or whatever.”

Crystal nodded. “Fair enough.”

Fergus shifted uncomfortably. “We shouldn’t be discussing this where someone could overhear us.”

“We’re fine,” said Desmond. “If anyone’s walking up behind you, I’ll give you the signal by coughing into my hand.”

Fergus frowned at his brother. “Do you really think this is a good idea?”

Desmond shrugged. “I reckon our family has gone long enough not talking about this stuff, don’t you?”

“If that’s a veiled reference to how I never told you that magic was real, I would respond by saying you’ve had seven years to get over it and it’s becoming quite tiresome.”

“Tiresome, is it?”

“I was protecting you.”

“You lied to me, you mean,” said Desmond. “You all lied to me – you, Gordon, Pop. The only person who didn’t lie to me was Granddad, and he’s the one you said was nuts.”

“You think it was easy?” Fergus asked, getting angry. “You think it was fun? Gordon was a lost cause, so all the responsibility fell to me to—”

Desmond coughed into his hand and Fergus shut up immediately and stared down at his plate.

When no one approached the table, he looked around, then glared. “Very mature.”

Alice came skipping back, with Beryl close behind.

“What were you talking about?” Beryl asked as they retook their seats.

“Nothing,” Fergus said sulkily.

“Crystal,” Melissa said, putting on a smile, “how is Carol doing in her new job?”

“Good, I think,” Crystal said. “It pays well, and she says the people are, um, what’s the word she used? Undemanding. So I think that means she’s settling in.”

“We don’t really hear much from Carol,” Beryl said. “She’s steadily grown more and more distant. I think, probably, that’s my fault.”

“Beryl, no,” said Fergus, covering her hand with his own.

She tried to smile. “I suppose I was never the warmest of mothers. I look at you, Melissa – you and Stephanie, and now little Alice – and I marvel at that relationship. How close you are. You’re friends more than … more than anything. I could never understand how you managed it.”

“Mum,” said Crystal, blinking back tears.

“My sweet girl,” Beryl said, reaching over, holding her hand. “I’ll never stop being sorry for the kind of mother I was to you.”

Valkyrie’s heart drummed in her hollow chest. Every beat reverberated. “Excuse me,” she said quietly, pushing herself away from the table. She managed to walk without stumbling out into the reception area, then lunged for the door.

Fresh air. She gasped it in. Her head was light. She went to put a hand against the wall and misjudged the distance, fell sideways, hit it with her shoulder. She looked drunk. She felt drunk. She needed the music box.

The door opened. Her mother walked out. Valkyrie straightened.

“Are you OK?” Melissa asked.

Valkyrie nodded. “Needed to make a call.”

Melissa handed her her purse. “Then you might need your phone.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“Are you OK?” Melissa asked again. Valkyrie didn’t answer, and her mum put her arm round her. “It’s sad,” she said, “watching Carol grow apart from her family like that.”

“Beryl isn’t to blame.”

“Oh, I know. She was never the easiest woman to get along with, and we’ve had our differences, but she adored the twins. Sometimes, sweetheart, there is no reason for the things people do. They change. They grow apart. But that’ll never happen to us.”

Valkyrie smiled weakly, hugging her back, and Melissa was silent for a long, long moment. Then she said, “You just have to look at Alice to see how much people – even kids – can change.”

Valkyrie moved her head off her mother’s shoulder.

“The doctors don’t know what’s wrong,” Melissa said, turning to watch a car go by. “A shift like this, they said it could be down to trauma, but, if Alice has suffered any trauma, she’s not telling us about it. Has she mentioned anything to you?”

Valkyrie shook her head.

“I don’t know what it is. She’ll spend all morning crying. Not little sobs, either. Big, racking sobs. It’s … it’s gut-wrenching.” Melissa’s hand was shaking. She noticed it, used it to brush her hair back over her ear. “Is there anything you can do?” she asked.

The question took Valkyrie by surprise. “What?”

“Is there anything magical you can do? A spell, or a charm, or something?”

“Mum, you really don’t want to use magic for something as delicate as this.”

“But is there?”

Valkyrie looked away. “We don’t do spells,” she said, not for the first time. “But, even if we did, trying to alter a person’s emotional state, that’s …”

Melissa nodded. “No. You’re right. It was a silly idea.”

“It wasn’t silly …”

“I thought there might be a quick fix,” Melissa said. “An easy answer. I wanted to cheat, basically. I was talking to your dad a few days ago about getting in a hypnotist, and that led us on to that time you told us about using people’s names to get them to do things. We were thinking something like that might help.”

“I don’t know, Mum. That kind of thing, there’s no way of knowing the ramifications. Besides, using someone’s given name, that usually doesn’t last longer than a few seconds.”

“But you use it to get people to forget things, don’t you?”

“It’s not as easy as that.”

Melissa’s face suddenly crumpled and the tears came, and now it was Valkyrie’s turn to wrap her arms around her.

“It’s OK,” Valkyrie said, her heart breaking. “It’s OK.”

“I just don’t know what we’ve done wrong.”

Now tears were running down Valkyrie’s cheeks. “Nothing,” she managed to say. “You’ve done nothing wrong. None of this is your fault.”

It was Valkyrie’s fault, just like Carol’s behaviour was Valkyrie’s fault. All this heartbreak, all this sadness and guilt – it was all because of her.

There was bile in her throat. She wanted to drop to her knees, wanted to scream until her voice was hoarse, wanted to throw up until there was nothing left inside her. Instead, she hung on to her mother until Melissa had regained control and stepped away, smiling bravely.

“Back into the fray,” she said. “You coming?”

Valkyrie held up her purse. “Got to make that call.”

Melissa smiled gently. “OK, sweetie. See you in there.”

When the door closed and her mother was gone, Valkyrie lurched to her car. She plunged her hand into her purse, found the fob. The boot clicked and opened and she practically dived in, she was so eager. Grabbed the sports bag, yanked the zip across, pulled out the music box, held it in both hands, pressed her thumbs to each side and opened the lid.

The music swam to her and her eyes closed, the turmoil calming. The sick feeling went away. All those voices. All that screaming in her head. All went quiet.

“Thank you,” she murmured to the music. “Thank you.”

Chapter 5.

Black suit. Three-piece. Black shirt. Red tie. Black hat, with black hatband, pulled low over one eye socket. One shoulder leaning on wall. Gloved hands in pockets. First polished shoe flat on ground. Second polished shoe, crossed over, toe to pavement.

Skulduggery Pleasant. Overdressed.

“You’re still compensating for wearing those rags the other day, aren’t you?” Valkyrie said as she approached.

“It was not a highlight of my existence, this is true,” he said, “but I try not to compensate for anything, Valkyrie. I’d planned to wear this ensemble today, regardless of what disguise I wore over the weekend.”

“Right,” she said, not entirely believing him. They walked side by side into the Humdrums, Roarhaven’s mortal district. It was quieter here. Fewer shops. The people hurried by, casting nervous glances around as they went.

“How was your uncle’s birthday dinner?” Skulduggery asked.

“Strained,” she answered. “But we ended it by singing happy birthday and the staff brought out a cupcake with a candle on it, so at least Alice had a good time. Who are we looking for?”

“Our mysterious friend.”

“Which one? We have so many.”

“My apologies. The mysterious friend who sends letters to the High Sanctuary, warning of an imminent invasion by Mevolent.”

“Oh, that mysterious friend. You think he’s a mortal?”

“No, but I think he’s hiding among them. It would have been ridiculously easy for a sorcerer to slip unnoticed through the portal from the Leibniz Universe, surrounded by tens of thousands of frightened refugees.”

“And do we know roughly where to start looking? There’s quite a few doors to knock on.”

“Oh, I know exactly where we’re going,” Skulduggery said. “Our mysterious friend left a not exactly subtle clue in a letter that arrived this morning. He wants to meet.”

They stopped, looked across the street to the pub on the other side.

“So he’s invited us here,” Valkyrie said. “And how can you be sure it’s not a trap?”

“I can’t.”

“So did you bring back-up?”

“Of course.” He started across the road. “I brought you.”

He wasn’t wearing his façade, so when they walked into the pub everyone stopped what they were doing and stared. All these mortals, still suspicious of anyone with the ability to do magic. Valkyrie wondered if they’d ever get over their distrust of sorcerers after living in a world ruled by Mevolent. She doubted it.

There was a man sitting at a table near the back, his face hidden by an old baseball cap. He wore tattered jeans, a Nirvana T-shirt, and a blazer – clothes that looked like they’d been donated – and his right hand was gloved.

His right hand. Was gloved.

Nefarian Serpine looked up at them as he tilted his chair back, and smiled. “Now, I would wager that you didn’t expect to see—”

Valkyrie snatched up an empty beer bottle and threw it, and it bounced off Serpine’s head and he toppled over backwards.

“Ow,” he said from the floor.

They stood over him. He started to get up, but Skulduggery planted a foot on his chest.

“You probably have questions,” Serpine said.

“The last we saw of you,” Skulduggery said, “you were leading the Resistance against Mevolent in another reality. What are you doing here?”

“Well,” Serpine said, trying to get comfortable, “not long after you departed, it occurred to me that being the leader of the Resistance was a very dangerous title to hold. It meant a lot of Mevolent’s people wanted to kill me. Almost all of them, in fact. So, taking this into account, I regretfully stepped down.”

“Who’s in charge now?” Valkyrie asked.

“I don’t actually know,” Serpine responded. “There is a distinct likelihood that I failed to tell anyone in the Resistance that I was leaving. I don’t like goodbyes, you see.”

Skulduggery removed his foot and waved his hand, and the chair righted itself, almost throwing Serpine into the table. “Thank you,” he grumbled.

Valkyrie dragged another chair over and sat. “So you left the Resistance without a leader, ran away, mingled with all those mortals, and came through the portal.”

“And I’ve been living here ever since.”

“Doing what?”

“Assimilating,” Serpine said, taking off his cap. “I’ve been watching your mortal television and reading your mortal books. You have a lot more sources of entertainment in this dimension. It’s quite diverting. And I’ve been learning a lot about this world and its culture. I haven’t been making trouble, if that’s what concerns you. In fact, I’ve been rather helpful.”

“We know,” said Valkyrie. “All those notes you’ve been sending to the High Sanctuary have been very interesting.”

“My humble attempts to be a good citizen.”

“Tell us more about that,” Skulduggery said. “Mevolent’s plans.”

Serpine gave a shrug. “He hates you. The two of you. I would imagine he’d invade this dimension just to kill you, but he’s also become obsessed with conquering a parallel world. There’s technology here that we just don’t have over there. Machinery. Computers. Medicine.”

“You’ve got a lot over there that we don’t have here,” Valkyrie pointed out.

“This is true, but a man like Mevolent isn’t one to be content with what is in front of him. If he sees something shiny and new, he wants it. He wants your world. He wants your weapons. And at the back of it all is the fact that he can’t stand the idea of a world run by mortals. Surprisingly petty, for one so tall.”

“Do you have anything useful to tell us?” Skulduggery asked. “We’ve known that there was a high probability of an invasion, or some sort of attack – none of this is news. Do you have any idea when Mevolent will invade?”

“I would guess you have until the end of the year at the very most.”

“How do you know?”

Serpine hesitated, then smiled. “All this talking is making me feel quite weak,” he said. “Perhaps, if you buy me a drink and some food, I might be able to summon the strength to talk more.”

“Oh,” Valkyrie replied. “Oh, you think this is a conversation. You think we’re chatting. No, no. This is an interrogation. If we weren’t doing this here, we’d be doing it in a cold room in the High Sanctuary and you’d be in shackles right now.”

Serpine frowned. “But I haven’t broken any laws.”

“You’ve murdered people.”

“But not here. Not in this dimension. Isn’t there a rule that says a person can’t be held responsible for laws broken in a parallel universe? Isn’t there? There should be. Besides, we have an understanding, don’t we? Detective Pleasant doesn’t blame me for killing his wife and child because I didn’t kill his wife and child.”

“You killed the wife and child of another Skulduggery,” Skulduggery said.

“Exactly. Completely different people. That’s precedent. Isn’t that the legal, mortal term for it? I saw that on one of your TV shows.”

“That’s true,” Skulduggery responded. “And I don’t blame you for it. That was another Serpine, and he’s dead, and I felt an enormous sense of satisfaction when I killed him. I’ve had my revenge.”

“Yes. See? That’s reasonable. You and I were never enemies, Skulduggery. Can I call you Skulduggery? In fact, there’s absolutely no reason why we can’t be friends.”

“I can think of a few reasons,” Skulduggery said. “You have murdered another version of my family, after all. You have done unspeakable things in another version of my world. You’re still you. So I would recommend you answer our questions and be as helpful as you can possibly be, or we’ll drag you to a cell and talk to you there.”

Serpine straightened up. “Of course. My apologies. You asked how I knew Mevolent would be invading within a year. I suppose I don’t – not really. But I don’t think he has any other choice.”

“Explain.”

“There’s a sickness on my world,” Serpine said. “I heard reports before I came here. I don’t know anything about it other than it spreads quickly, it leaves no survivors and, the last I heard, there’s no cure. Before I left, we’d lost entire continents to it.”

“So you think Mevolent will want to flee before it reaches him.”

“I do.”

“So why this?” Skulduggery asked, indicating the pub around them. “Why not put all this in a letter and leave it for us to handle? Why the meeting?”

“This information is valuable, is it not? I daresay invaluable.”

“You’re looking for a reward.”

Serpine smiled. “I’ve lived among these mortals for long enough. I would like immunity for any and all past crimes and misdemeanours, irrespective of which dimension they were committed in, and I would like a house in a better part of Roarhaven.”

Valkyrie frowned. “You want to be a citizen.”

“Indeed I do. I would also like free driving lessons and a car, and a latte. I’ve seen people order lattes on television and they don’t sell any around here, and I would so dearly love to try one. And maybe also a puppy. I’ve always liked puppies.” His smile grew wider. “They taste delicious.”

Valkyrie glanced at Skulduggery. “Shall I hit him,” she asked, “or will you?”

Chapter 6.

Sebastian Tao sat on the couch in the living room as Lily brought out a tray of freshly baked cookies. The others each picked one out as the tray passed, making satisfied moans as they took a bite. They held their free hands under their chins to catch the crumbs that fell. Sebastian’s mouth watered. He would have given almost anything to merely smell those cookies – but for the last two years all he’d been able to smell was the inside of his beak.

He hated his mask. He hated the glass eyeholes and the ridiculous beak and the straps that kept it all in place. He hated the hat he wore with it, and the suit, and the coat and the gloves and the boots. He hated not having one centimetre of skin exposed to the fresh air or the sun or the rain. He was like the Boy in the Bubble, that kid from years ago who was so susceptible to infection that he was forced to live in a plastic cocoon from the moment he was born.

Immediately after this thought occurred, Sebastian began to feel bad about it. The Boy in the Bubble definitely had it worse.

“OK, so,” Bennet said, still smacking his lips over that cookie, “the reason we’re all here.”

“Actually, the Plague Doctor should call this meeting to order before we go any further,” Ulysses said.

“Of course, of course,” said Bennet, and everyone looked to Sebastian expectantly.

He hated this bit. “Uh, I hereby call this gathering to order.”

Everyone nodded.

“Well done,” said Kimora.

“That was a good one,” said Tarry.

“Uh,” said Forby, which was a pretty good endorsement on his part.

“Thank you, Plague Doctor,” Bennet said. “So, when we all first got together, it was to share our feelings regarding Darquesse, and what it meant to have witnessed the actions of a god. And those feelings are still being shared, because they grow and they evolve over time.”

“Yes, they do,” Lily chimed in.

“But things have changed for our little group,” Bennet continued. “The Plague Doctor travelled to an alternate dimension on our behalf – a dimension filled with Faceless Ones, no less – found Darquesse, and brought her back to us. This is, obviously, wonderful, but also terrifying.”

Kimora raised her hand. “I, personally, am terrified.”

“Thank you, Kimora. I think it’s safe to say that we’re all a little worried about having a murderous god living among us.”

“Is she?” said Ulysses. “Among us, I mean. She’s been sitting in Lily’s spare room, staring at the wall, ever since she returned.”

“The point is,” Bennet responded, “she’s here. And we have one person to thank for that. Plague Doctor, we have been talking, the others and I, and we have come to the realisation that what you have done is nothing short of a miracle.”

“Well,” Sebastian said, “I don’t know about that …”

“You found her,” said Bennet. “You brought her back. We think that makes you the First Apostle of Darquesse.”

“What? Apostle?”

“You don’t like the title?” Lily said. “What would you prefer? I suggested Pope.”

“I’m … I’m not a pope.”

“Prophet, maybe?” Kimora said, and frowned. “Does that mean we would be worshipping you, too?”

“No,” Sebastian said quickly. “No, you shouldn’t. I’ve seen how you worship people. It’s creepy.”

He’d meant it as a joke, but apparently no one was in a joking mood.

“But you must be something,” Ulysses said. “A High Priest, perhaps.”

“Or maybe we should all be dressing like you,” said Tarry. “Is that why you wear those clothes? Should all devout followers of Darquesse be Plague Doctors?”

“That’s not why I wear this.”

“Should we lose our names?” Forby asked.

“My name isn’t lost.”

“So the Plague Doctor is your actual taken name?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Obviously, you have a connection with Darquesse,” said Lily. “Maybe you didn’t realise it. Maybe she was reaching out to you in ways we don’t yet understand, telling you to wear a suit that would let you find her, to call yourself by that name, to—”

“Sebastian,” Sebastian blurted. “Sebastian Tao. That’s my name.”

They stared at him.

“Sebastian,” said Bennet.

“Yes.”

“You don’t look like a Sebastian.”

“I’m wearing a mask so you wouldn’t know, though, would you?”

Bennet took a seat, and a moment. “Sebastian,” he said again, slowly.

“I’ll ask you not to tell anyone,” Sebastian said. “Even if you had people to tell, which you probably don’t. But just … yeah. Don’t reveal my name to anyone.”

“Why not?”

Sebastian hesitated. “I can’t tell you. But it’s important that I stay anonymous.”

Ulysses scratched his beard thoughtfully. “You in trouble, Sebastian?”

Kimora’s eyes widened. “Is that it? Are you in danger?”

“I’m perfectly safe,” Sebastian responded. “You don’t have to worry about me. But I do have a mission. The first part of that mission was to find Darquesse and bring her home.”

“What’s the second part?”

“To convince her to help us.”

Bennet sat forward. “With what?”

Sebastian didn’t answer immediately.

“You’ve seen the future,” Bennet said. “You have, haven’t you? You’ve seen what’s coming.”

This wasn’t a good idea. Sharing that information was not the smart thing to do. And yet Sebastian’s mouth wouldn’t stay closed. Finally, he was telling someone. Finally, he was sharing his burden. “I’ve seen what’s coming,” he said. “I can’t tell you what it is. I wish I could. I really do. But the success of my mission – the fate of the world – depends on me keeping this secret.”

“So … so Darquesse really is going to save us, then?” Forby said.

“But if she saves us,” said Lily, “does that means bad things are coming?”

“Oh, yes,” said Sebastian.

Ulysses blinked. “But we have Darquesse, so whatever happens, and I’m fine with Sebastian not telling us what that is, she’ll protect us. Right?”

Sebastian nodded. “Hopefully.”

Now they all frowned at him.

“What do you mean, hopefully?” Bennet asked.

“Well, I just … I just mean that I don’t know. I hope she’ll help us.”

“Didn’t you see her helping us in your vision?”

“It’s not quite as simple as that.”

“So you didn’t see her helping us.”

“No,” Sebastian admitted.

“But of course she’ll help us!” Lily said. “She’s Darquesse!”

“Um …” Forby said. “The last time Darquesse was here, she tried to murder the entire planet.”

Lily gasped and pointed. “Blasphemer!”

“Is it blasphemy if it’s true?” Kimora asked.

“I don’t think it is,” said Ulysses.

“Well, OK,” said Lily, “maybe not blasphemy, but … You’ve got to be more supportive, Forby. We’ve been worshipping Darquesse for years now, and we can’t just turn round and say, yeah, she’s not that great and she did try to kill us all.”

“But she did,” he argued.

“That’s not the point, though!”

“Then what is the point?”

“I don’t know!” Lily cried.

Bennet got to his feet. “OK, listen, everyone. We all started worshipping Darquesse for our own reasons. I started worshipping because I saw what she could do and I realised she was a god. And what do you do with gods?”

“Worship them?” Forby suggested.

“You worship them, exactly,” Bennet said. “And that’s what I did. I was shown just how insignificant I truly was and I’ll admit it … I was lost. I floundered. Praying to this god we all found … it was suddenly the only thing that made sense any more. It was the only thing that got me balanced again. So that’s why I worship her. In a vast and uncaring universe, she’s given my life meaning. We all have similar stories. We may have come from different directions, but we’re all on the same journey now.

“The thing is, we’ve never actually discussed what it’d mean to actually bring her back. Not really. Not seriously. Because the fact is she’s a terrible god. I don’t mean terrible as in crappy, but terrible as in great and terrible. Her wrath is terrible to behold. That kinda thing. She’s not benevolent. She doesn’t care for the people who pray to her. I mean, she’s been sitting in Lily’s spare room for three months and she hasn’t said one word to any of us. She hasn’t even blinked.”

“Not blinking doesn’t mean she doesn’t care,” Lily said weakly.

“We should be honest with ourselves,” said Bennet. “We never thought she’d actually come back, did we?”

They all looked at each other. Guiltily.

“Of course we didn’t,” Bennet continued. “And that was fine. That was perfect, in fact. Our god was missing, which meant we could project whatever fantasy we wanted on to her. There was no way of disproving anything we said, and she had no way of disappointing us. But now she’s back, and I think it’s fair to say that we don’t have the first idea what to do with her.”

Forby spoke up. “Maybe the Plague – sorry – maybe Sebastian could, like, ask her.”

“Oooh, good idea,” said Tarry.

They were all looking at Sebastian again. Finally, he sighed, and stood. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll try.”

He went upstairs, to the spare room. He knocked, then gently pushed open the door and stepped in.

Darquesse sat in mid-air, hovering above the carpet, legs folded beneath her. Her eyes were open, her gaze resting somewhere beyond the wall.

“Hi,” Sebastian said.

As usual, she ignored him.

Chapter 7.

If, as a structure, the High Sanctuary was the embodiment of the modern sorcerer – strong, noble, and a beacon of positivity and good intentions – then the Dark Cathedral was that sorcerer’s shadow – powerful, merciless, and a balefire of intimidation and sinister intent.

They glared at each other – the High Sanctuary, planted securely in the middle of the Circle; the Dark Cathedral, perched on the east side of the zone like a great, sharp-taloned bird – and sometimes it seemed to Valkyrie that they were silently battling for the soul of Roarhaven, a city of wonder and magic that appeared to be always teetering on the edge of isolationism and paranoia.

But that was only if the High Sanctuary did symbolise all those wonderful qualities of the modern sorcerer. Valkyrie was not so sure that it did any more. Under the leadership of Supreme Mage Sorrows, Sanctuaries around the world were getting increasingly heavy-handed with those sorcerers who didn’t fall in line. China would no doubt argue that a tougher approach to such a lofty ideal – to protect the mortals from sorcerers who would do them harm – was absolutely necessary in a world shaken again and again by the threat of unimaginable horrors. Valkyrie wasn’t sure if she agreed – but then Valkyrie wasn’t sure of much any more.

There were still bruises on her abdomen from the bullets Victoria Leigh had fired into her. It wasn’t the first time someone had tried to kill her, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Violence was now such a part of Valkyrie’s life that she barely trembled afterwards. Only in extreme cases would the shakes become apparent. In the old days, she’d break down after a fight as the last remaining jolts of adrenaline spiked through her system.

Still alive, that voice in Valkyrie’s head would say. Still alive.

But she was now so numb to it all that she rarely shed a tear despite the damage she endured. Despite the damage she inflicted.

Three months earlier, she’d been beaten almost to death in a jail cell in the depths of the High Sanctuary. Bones broken. Organs damaged. Massive internal trauma. A doctor had fixed some of it, but then she’d latched on to his magic, replicating it, improving on it. She’d healed herself while he watched in disbelief.

Maybe that was it. Maybe the fact that she could heal any injury so long as there was a healer to latch on to, maybe that was dulling her to the dangers she faced.

“Million miles away,” Skulduggery said.

Valkyrie looked up. “What?”

“I said you’re a million miles away. Is everything OK?”

They were in the Bentley, deep in the underground car park beneath the High Sanctuary.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, sorry. Miles away, you’re right.”

They got out. Skulduggery wasn’t wearing his façade, but she knew he was looking at her funny.

“Just thinking about punching people,” Valkyrie said as they walked for the elevator tiles. “I’ve hit so many people down through the years, I think I might be getting kind of … sick of it.”

“Well, that’s interesting.”

“Probably not the best attitude to have with the amount of fights we get into.”

“Probably,” he agreed. “But this has been building in you for a while, hasn’t it?”

“I suppose. I’m not … I’m not turning into a pacifist, am I?”

“Nothing wrong with being a pacifist,” Skulduggery responded. “I like to think of myself as a pacifist.”

Valkyrie snorted. “You?”

“I said I liked to think it. I didn’t say I was one.”

They took the tiles up, and stepped off once they’d settled into place in the marble foyer. Cerise, the young Administrator, waved them through, and they walked the corridors. They got to a set of heavy double doors. Grey-suited Cleavers blocked their way, scythes in their hands. Before Skulduggery could even tilt his head, they stood aside and allowed them entry.

It was a big room with half a floor. Hovering over the far half of the room, over the crackling sea of energy that would fry anyone who fell into it, was the dais that housed the elaborately carved throne on which sat China Sorrows.

She looked pale. Anyone would look pale with this light show going on beneath them, but China looked especially pale, even for her. She’d told them, weeks earlier, that she hadn’t been sleeping much. Plagued by nightmares, she’d said – then immediately changed the subject, angry at herself for revealing too much.

The dais moved forward a little, closer to where they stood.

“The Sensitives have scanned him,” China said, “as much as he’d let them, anyway.”

“I imagine Serpine’s psychic defences are formidable,” Skulduggery responded.

“From what they can see, he’s telling the truth. In his estimation, we have less than a year before Mevolent launches an invasion to get away from whatever sickness is decimating his world. On one level, this information is nothing new. We’ve been expecting Mevolent to strike at us in some form or other for years now. An all-out invasion, while regarded as somewhat unlikely, was nonetheless on the cards.”

“But now that we know it’s coming, we have time to get ready,” Valkyrie said.

China shook her head. “We can’t allow the invasion to even begin. We have no guarantee that we’d be able to contain it, and no guarantee he wouldn’t choose to attack a mortal city first. The fact is, I simply refuse to be the Supreme Mage in charge when the mortals learn of our existence. It would be a lasting stain on my legacy.”

The dais drifted lower, until she was almost at eye level with them. “I have a job for you. I realise that, as Arbiters, not even I am able to issue you an order, but I would appreciate it greatly if you would give this some consideration.”

“What do you need us to do?” Valkyrie asked.

China sat back. “If Serpine is right, and Mevolent and his army will invade by the end of the year, that gives us, at most, seven months. Our preparations will continue, of course, but I would dearly like for all that work to have been for nothing.”

“Meaning what?”

“You want us to shunt over to the Leibniz Universe,” Skulduggery said.

“That’s right,” said China.

“And you want us to kill Mevolent.”

“That is also right.”

Valkyrie looked at them both. “We’re not assassins.”

“I understand that,” said China, “but drastic steps are sometimes required. And assassination is nothing new to Skulduggery.”

“I’ve killed when I have to,” he replied. “But plenty of people have tried to kill Mevolent. Darquesse even gave it a go. If she couldn’t manage it, I don’t like my chances.”

“Everyone can be killed,” said China. “For centuries, we didn’t think that the Mevolent in our universe could die – and then his own son killed him. It’s entirely possible. All you need is the right weapon.”

“The God-Killers,” Skulduggery said.

“The sword was damaged during Devastation Day, and I have devoted considerable resources to repairing it. But our greatest hope lies with the greatest God-Killer.”

Valkyrie frowned. “You found the Sceptre of the Ancients?”

“We did,” said China. “You’ll be taking that.”

Valkyrie shook her head. “It doesn’t have to be me. Once we take it into another dimension, it’s wiped clean. It’ll bond to whoever’s the first to touch it.”

“I realise that. But I want you to wield it.”

“I can’t,” said Valkyrie. “If I’m the only one who can use it, I’d have to be the one to kill Mevolent. I’m not killing anyone. And don’t bother telling me how bad he is and how much he deserves it and how much better off people will be when he’s gone. I know all this. It doesn’t change anything.”

“I’m not asking you to kill anyone,” China responded. “I’m just asking that you take the Sceptre and maybe use it as a last resort – just in case everything else goes wrong. I have every faith that Skulduggery will find a way to kill Mevolent without it.”

“Skulduggery should take it, then.”

“It won’t bond to Skulduggery. We’ve studied the Sceptre – as much as we could without taking it apart – and it would appear that it bonds with living flesh and blood. I’m afraid Skulduggery lacks the essential ingredients. It has to be you, my dear.”

Valkyrie pinched the bridge of her nose. She was getting another one of her headaches.

“When would you need us to go?” Skulduggery asked.

“We have seven months, but time is of the essence. You will be leaving in four days.”

Valkyrie frowned. “And how long would we be away?”

“If you haven’t managed to kill him in two months, come home. We’ll re-strategise.”

“Two months?”

“We’ll need a team,” Skulduggery said.

China nodded. “Take whomever you like – apart from Fletcher Renn and Temper Fray. I’ll need them here. And I’m afraid you’ll have to take Serpine. He’ll be your guide.”

“I doubt he’ll be too enthusiastic about that.”

“We’ll give him asylum if he co-operates, allow him to stay in Roarhaven – under strict supervision, of course.”

“We’d be running the risk of him betraying us. He is notoriously evil, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“I trust you’ll be able to handle him if it comes to that. I know what it is I’m asking you to do. I know how difficult it will be. But I’m afraid we have little option. Meritorious had his Dead Men. I need you to be mine.”

“Ask us,” Skulduggery said.

“Pardon?”

“I just like being asked to … you know.”

China sighed. “Skulduggery Pleasant, Valkyrie Cain, will you accept this mission and save the world, pretty please, with a cherry on top?”

Skulduggery put his hands on his hips. “I shall.”

“Yeah,” Valkyrie muttered. “I shall, too.”

Chapter 8.

It’s a hell of a thing, to kill a man.

Clint Eastwood said that, in that movie with Lex Luthor and the first Dumbledore. Back when she saw that film for the first time, sitting with her dad in the living room, trying to hide the bruises she’d got from whatever fight she’d been in earlier that day, Valkyrie had just thought it was a cool line. Since then, she’d had the opportunity for a little re-evaluation.

She’d killed people. She’d weakened, allowed Darquesse to take over, and that side of her had ended lives while wearing her face. Then Valkyrie had regained control and she’d gone on with her life, not really noticing the blood that dripped from her hands. And that was before Darquesse had even split from her and killed thousands. That was before Valkyrie had killed her own sister. All that death – because of where Valkyrie has come from and what she’d been through and the decisions she’d taken down through the years.

And now she was on a team built for assassination. A hit squad.

“I wanted to be a pacifist,” she said.

“Hold on,” said Fletcher, tapping at his phone. “Almost finished. Almost … there. Sent.” He put the phone away. “Sorry, what were you saying?”

“I wanted to be a pacifist.”

“You? But you love punching people.”

“I don’t love it.”

“You hardly hate it.”

“I punch people if I have to punch them.”

“Does that make you a reluctant puncher, or a reluctant pacifist?”

“I didn’t say I was a pacifist. I said I wanted to be one.”

“You’d be a terrible pacifist. You’re far too violent.”

Her phone buzzed. She read the message. “New York,” she said.

“I heart New York.”

“Roof of the Flatiron Building. She’ll be there in three minutes.”

“We’ll be there in none,” Fletcher said. He took Valkyrie’s hand and now they were in Manhattan, high above the city streets. The sun was bright and the sky was blue and the warm air rushed in Valkyrie’s ears. She wandered to the edge of the roof and looked down.

“What has you thinking about pacifism?” Fletcher asked.

Valkyrie shrugged, watching the yellow cabs jerk erratically through the flow of traffic, signalling each manoeuvre with a blast of the horn.

“Is it anything to do with this top-secret mission you’re on that you can’t tell me about?”

“I can tell you about it,” she said, turning to him. “I couldn’t tell you about it in Roarhaven because I don’t know who’s listening, but we’re fine here. Do you want to know about the mission?”

“Not really.”

“You’re not the slightest bit interested in anything that doesn’t concern you, are you?”

“Why would I be?” he responded. “The problem with the world today is that people want to be in on everything. I don’t see the point.”

Valkyrie smiled, went to look down at the streets again, and jerked back. “Jesus!” she said, hand on her heart.

Tanith Low, grinning and standing on the side of the building right below her with her arms crossed. She walked up the last few strides, her body swinging from horizontal to vertical with that final step on to the roof.

“Sorry,” she said, hugging Valkyrie. “Couldn’t resist. How you doing? Doing OK?”

“Doing fine,” Valkyrie said, giving her an extra squeeze.

“Hey, Tanith,” Fletcher said.

Tanith released Valkyrie, gave Fletcher a hug, too. “Hey, Fletch. How’s life as a teacher?”

“It’s good,” he answered. “It’s nice to have a stable job, and I enjoy helping the kids, you know? It’s a chance to mould young minds. Really set them off on the right track.”

“Yeah,” said Tanith, “that’s cool.”

“I just think of all the ways I’ve changed since I met you guys,” Fletcher continued. “All the ways I’ve grown up. I was a cocky kid, wasn’t I? I was almost annoying.”

“Almost?” Tanith echoed.

Fletcher laughed. “Yeah, OK, so I was annoying. But now I’m teaching, I have a steady job, I’m moulding young minds—”

“Pretty sure you’ve already said all that,” Valkyrie pointed out. This was odd. Fletcher was suddenly – and uncharacteristically – nervous. Almost like—

He took a deep breath. “Tanith, would you like to go out with me?”

Valkyrie’s eyes widened.

Tanith stared. “I’m sorry?”

Fletcher chuckled. “Would you like to go out?” he asked. “With me? For dinner? Anywhere in the world.”

“On a … date?”

“Yes. I know it’s unconventional to be asked out by a guy whose ex-girlfriend is standing right here, but I didn’t want either of you to feel weird about this.”

“So thoughtful,” said Valkyrie.

“I mean, you’re best friends, and obviously there’s going to be some level of awkwardness there, but I’ve thought about this a lot, and I think that so long as we’re all open and honest from the very beginning, this needn’t be a problem. So, Tanith, what do you say? You know I’ve fancied you since I first met you.”

“He has,” Valkyrie said, nodding.

“Even when I was going out with Valkyrie.”

“It’s true,” Valkyrie said, nodding again.

“And yeah, I was way too young back then, but now I’ve grown up, and I think we’d be good together. What do you say? Want to give it a whirl, see what happens?”

“Uh …” said Tanith.

Fletcher gave her what Valkyrie knew was one of his most winning smiles.

“I’m kind of already seeing someone,” Tanith said.

Fletcher’s smile didn’t dim. If anything, it widened. “Is that so?”

“Oberon Guile,” Tanith said. “Valkyrie knows him.”

“I do,” said Valkyrie.

“I don’t think I’ve heard of him,” Fletcher said, frowning now with casual interest.

“You’d like him,” said Tanith.

“No, he wouldn’t,” said Valkyrie.

“Yeah, probably not. He’s a good guy. American. He helped us out with the Oregon thing and we’ve … well. We started something and we’re seeing where it takes us.”

“That sounds lovely,” said Fletcher, smiling again. “Well, OK then, so that’s a no from you on the whole dinner thing?”

“Afraid so.”

“That’s absolutely fine. I just thought I’d ask, you know. Now I’ll let Valkyrie take over, because she’s got the official Sanctuary business to talk to you about, because that’s the reason we’re here, after all. That’s the reason we came. I figured that while we’re—”

“You’re talking too much,” Valkyrie said.

He nodded. “I do that when I’m embarrassed. I’ll wait for you over there.” He smiled awkwardly, turned and walked off.

Tanith looked at Valkyrie, who held up her hands.

“I did not know he was going to ask that,” she said.

“I believe you.”

“But while we’re on the subject – how’s it going with tall, dark, and handsome?”

Tanith shrugged. “It’s going well,” she said. “No labels quite yet. We don’t really know what this is … but he’s a good guy.”

“Have you met his son?”

“I have not, nor have I met the ex. But, seeing as how he’s taken it upon himself to ensure they have a normal life, I’m not pushing for it. What about you and Militsa?”

“All good,” Valkyrie said. “She’s a bright ray of light in my otherwise dark existence.”

“Wow.”

“I know, right? Anyway – the reason I’m here …”

“Official Sanctuary business,” Tanith said, folding her arms. “And yet you know I already have a mission. Skulduggery assigned it to me himself.”

“I know, I know. Any progress?”

Tanith glared. “I’m getting there. We’re getting there, actually. I have Oberon helping me whenever he’s free … but it’s slow work, tracking down a weapon nobody will admit they’ve even heard of. It’s mostly research, going from one reference to the Obsidian Blade to another reference to another … I haven’t punched or kicked anyone in months. Months, Valkyrie.”

“That’s why I’m here. I’m offering you the chance to punch someone, and probably kick them as well. It’s got nothing to do with the Obsidian Blade or the Unnamed in the slightest, but it will entail travelling to another dimension.”

An excited smile tugged at the corners of Tanith’s mouth. “The Leibniz Universe?”

“Dimension X, yes.”

“We’re travelling into the Leibniz Universe?”

“I don’t know why you keep calling it that when its name is Dimension X but, again, yes.”

“How many of us?”

“Seven.”

“For how long?”

“Two months at the very most. I’m hoping it’ll only take a week or so.”

“What’s the mission?”

“We’re going to kill Mevolent.”

Tanith stuck her hand out. “You had me at kill Mevolent.”

Valkyrie shook it. “Literally the last thing I said.”

“And that’s when you had me.”

[sadlittlenerdking]

never send me roses

OPERATION KICK DEPRESSION AND NANOWRIMOS ASS 3 OF 50

Word count: 1,069

Summary: There are . . . unforeseen circumstances with a certain run-in with a bunch of roses. 

@cldfiredrgn prompted Queliot - “never send me roses” 

Quentin’s curled up on the couch in the cottage when Eliot bursts in, nose red and runny, eyes puffy. He looks positively furious, as he slams his way through the cottage to the small kitchenette to drop off the take from the village. Quentin watches him, unmoving, opting to let him work out the hissy fit of anger before even thinking to ask him what the fuck happened.

Rupert’s off at a friends in a village down the stream, and they’ve opted to take the weekend off from working on the mosaic. It’s been weeks without a break, and ultimately, the world has waited this long, it can wait a little longer for them to live their lives around it. He glances at the stack of tiles on the table by his socked feets, tilting his head for a moment. Maybe Eliot’s angry that the mosaic isn’t done.

Maybe it’s another fit about Margo never meeting their son.

Maybe it’s something else.

He never knows what it is with Eliot.

Though, he supposes, Eliot would say the same about him.

The cabinets in the kitchenette finally stop slamming, and Quentin looks up as Eliot, childish pout on his lips, stomps his way through to the couch, and stands at the center of their faux living room, hands on his hips, as he glares down at Quentin.

Quentin frowns. “What’d I do?”

Eliot opens his mouth, poofy eye twitching, before he lifts a hand from his hips and waves it at Quentin menacingly. “Never,” He says, pointing at him, “Ever. Send me Roses, Quentin Coldwater.”

Quentin blinks.

What?

He hadn’t.

Oh shit, is this because he didn’t send flowers? He thought they stopped celebrating the anniversary--wait, it’s not the anniversary. It’s not Eliot’s birthday. It’s not Quentin’s birthday. He purses his lips--could it be Margo’s? No, no. It’s nobodies birthday. It’s definitely not Ruperts.

It’s not the anniversary of their first kiss.

Of their ceremony.

Of--hell not even of Arielle’s appearance in their lives. Or her death, not that Eliot’s morbid enough to expect that kind of anniversary to be of the flower giving variety.

Today has literally no significance. None. Zilch. Not even Josh could find a fake holiday to make today important.

Margo could probably make one up, if she were here. National Celebrate Beautiful Women Day, or something.

He’d celebrate it, if he’s being honest.

“What the fuck, Eliot?”

He doesn’t mean to sound so confused, sometimes it’s better to pretend to know what he’s talking about, even if Eliot knows he has no clue, but god damn it--there’s no reason Eliot should expect flowers.

They’ve never exchanged flowers.

Well. That’s not true.

Eliot brought a bundle of lillie’s home once.

But that was just because.

. . . wait, does Eliot expect just because flowers? Because that is a very Eliot expectation.

He can’t believe he hasn’t thought to buy Eliot just because flowers.

Fuck.

He’s about to get dumped by his life partner of fifteen years because he didn’t buy him flowers just because.

The finger waivers, and twists around to point at his own face. “Some--some idiot,” He hisses out the word, like the person he’s talking about doesn’t even deserve to exist, let alone be so high up the intelligence latter as to qualify to be smart enough to be considered an idiot, “Crashed into my cart, and threw roses in my fucking face.”

Quentin blinks.

“Apparently, I’m allergic to roses.” He sounds equally furious and disgusted by the statement.

Quentin just blinks again.

“Q,” Eliot says, dropping his hand to his hip again, and tapping his foot, “Did you hear me?” His voice is kind of muffled by his chubby, swollen cheeks. It gives it the kind of comedic effect of a cartoon character bitten by fifty bees.

Quentin nods, once, swallowing, as the muscles in his jaw clamp tighter to stop the smiling fighting from winning it way onto his face. But the fight is strong, and he ends up curling his lips inwards, using his teeth to hold them, and the laughter in.

Oh, god.

“Then maybe say something?”

Quentin shakes his head.

“Or cast something!”

And, it’s the final straw as Eliot’s foot stomps, much like when Rupert doesn’t get his way and stamps his foot down on the ground demanding attention, and his way. The laughter bubbles out of him, one little hiccup at a time, until he’s hunching over the side of the couch, full on guffawing as Eliot stomps his foot again.

It just makes the laughter come bursting louder, boisterous and joyful.

Eliot’s only mad for a moment longer, before he sighs and leans against the wall. And suddenly, there’s an equally awed laughter joining Quentin’s, and they’re both laughing themselves silly over Eliot’s puffy face.

Quentin moves his hair aside, looks up at Eliot, trying to gain a breath--but Eliot’s face has only grown more swollen, and it doesn’t seem to be impeding any important functions like breathing, so the sight of Eliot’s bunch up eyes, practically disappearing beneath the swollen puffiness of his eyes, and the way his lips seem to have grown twice their normal size--

Quentin thinks he’ll never breathe again he’s laughing so hard.  

But he does breathe again, eventually, curled up on the floor in between the table and the couch, while Eliot’s slid down the wall, banging his head against the wall in an attempt to stop laughing. Quentin’s stomach aches--he might have just laughed himself a set of abs. Eliot would appreciate that. Screw ‘just because’ flowers--how about ‘just because you’re an idiot’ abs?

That’s a gift worthy of Eliot.

Finally, he takes in a breath and forces himself to sit up, reaching up to brush his hair back, raking his fingers through his hair. He grins across the room at Eliot, and his swollen, chipmunk face, before carefully casting a quick healing spell.

The swelling goes down quickly, until it’s just the pretty brown of Eliot’s eyes staring at him--the pretty brown that never muddies or grows boring, the pretty brown that makes Quentin happy to be here, okay with never seeing their friends again.

The corners of Eliot’s lips twitch, but he rolls his eyes, tosses his head so his curls fall out of his face, and says, cool and as Eliot as possible, “Took you long enough.”

It’s not Quentin’s fault that he bursts out laughing again.

[ecotone99]

[RF] The Muse Three Doors Down

Pulling into the driveway felt like the first drag of a spliff after a tiring day. It’s one of those moments where you switch realms. It was a transition from a mundane upper-class neighborhood into a pristine lakefront oasis, and it never ever got old.

“You got here fast,” Sully said as the car door opened. Nick, still disoriented from the view and the non-stop two-hour drive, emerged to greet him. The driveway wrapped around the side of the house, with Lake Butler about 50 feet from where the driveway ended, next to the beach volleyball court; Sully was staying in the guest house, which opened onto the driveway and a quaint picnic bench/sun umbrella setup, which they had stolen from a pizza shop years ago. It was one of those places where you stay once and never really want to leave, which was what Sully had been doing since graduation, and Nick couldn’t blame him. He had no real occupation to speak of, but here he was king of his own realm — natural lakefront view, 60-inch TV, proximity to a mid-size city, and of course a boat. It was paradise by anyone’s standards, and he was just lucky enough to have a blood relation to the owner.

“Well, that’s what happens when you do 85 the whole way.” Nick dribbles out, stretching in hopes of shaking off last night’s episode. The hangover, combined with the confinement of the ride, had him grasping at singular thoughts. “Well, I’m glad you called this morning. I needed an excuse to party. I just got an oil shipment from Colorado, and I need to whoop your ass in FIFA again. Not to mention this Tinder chick wants to hang tonight, and she said she could bring a friend,” He lingered on the last word, raising his eyebrows suggestively. Nick fiddled with the coin in his pocket and rebutted “Whoa whoa whoa. First of all, I torched you in FIFA last time I was here. You just can’t accept that. And second, that’s always the famous last words before we go out. ‘Oh yeah bro, she’s bringing a friend and she said she’s so hot’ and then flash forward to 11 pm, when it turns out her friend is a sophomore at Valencia State College, who’s trying to focus on her social media presence, has ‘the cutest’ Pomeranian, and is 20lbs heavier than her Facebook pics.’”

“…….so you don’t wanna go?”

Nick paused for a second, then shrug apathetically, “I mean, no. I’m down for whatever. Just saying. Alternatively, if we’re going near Lake Eola, Victoria and her rave friends will most likely be around, so that’s always Plan B.”

They head inside, and Sully brings out the hash oil at his desk. He ignites the souffle torch and begins heating the bowl of his Winnie the Pooh bong. The whole scene resembled the office of a Mexican cartel’s lawyer, Nick thought; loose papers neatly strewn across the surface, with a special compartment below for the illicit articles. Nick portioned off the tiniest piece of wax onto the dabber, as he knew well the potency of the oil Sully liked to smoke. But resistance was futile because as the flowing, transparent yellow wax melted onto the glass, and he inhaled, his mind and any semblance of a care melted with it.

After multiple games of FIFA and Super Smash Bros, Nick needed a change of scenery from Sully’s surprisingly dark guest house, so they changed into boardshorts and headed out on the lake with the paddleboards. It was a perfectly clear day, the type where a cloud would not dare defile such a virgin sky. The wind was light but constant, blowing parallel down the shore, but that didn’t matter; they were stoned on the beauty of the landscape, and all they wanted to do was catch up on each other’s lives.

“So, what’s the plan now? I mean, you’re living large in George’s guest house, but what’s next?” Nick asked, not really probing for an answer, but trying to reconnect with the person he’d shared a bathroom with for three years.

“I don’t know. I don’t wanna get a bullshit job in insurance or something like that. I’d just get bored and end up loathing everyone in the office, one-by-one systematically, until I blackout at the Christmas Party and try fighting some the office manager’s husband.”

“I mean, that’s basically the American dream” Nick added sarcastically

“I was thinking I might go to law school, considering I know the law so well with my multiple run-ins,” Sully continued. He had been carefully taking out a cigarette and lighter from a plastic sandwich bag that also held his phone, taking every precaution balancing over the water, but still smoothly executing the maneuver; he did it with the practiced ease of a longtime smoker and frequent wakeboarder, the perfect balance of aplomb and cravenness. “I could see that, and I’ve heard that you can have up to three DUI’s and still get accepted to the bar.”

“Yeah, that’s one reason I’m looking at it, but my GPA from FSU sucks, so I think I’m gonna take private-eye classes and work in that industry for a minute to fill up on my resume with relevant experience.”

“Really? Like a Private Investigator? Do a fedora and trench coat come with the class, or is that sold separately?”

“Ok, but like, I need something to do, and I’ve always been pretty good at investigating people, so I thought, why not?”

In truth, he had. One of Sully’s notable skills was stalking social media and piecing together true but farfetched theories about disloyalty to argue with his girlfriends. It was a common trait from children of divorce and made relationships difficult. Nick related to this and tended to overlook his complex attitude towards women, as it never really affected their friendship in any way, and it made good conversation after the fact.

Drifting idly, the hash oil had erased any perception of time and space. They laid on their boards under the dry spring sun and floated down the lake with the wind, letting the ease of the day wash over them. After what seemed like hours, Nick was jolted awake when he rolled over and saw they were about to be blown into a dock. They stood up and tried to paddle against the wind back to the middle of the lake, but were effortlessly pushed back toward the shore. Eventually, they began paddling along the shoreline, just outside the end of each dock, using them as cover from the violent wind whenever possible. This went for about 20 docks — Nick still had no concept of time — until Sully shouted that they could take a break at his neighborhood’s public dock up ahead. They rounded the final dock, and maneuvered onto the shore, beaching their paddleboards and jumping off to catch their breath. Nick went about securing his paddle to the board and going for a drink of coconut water in the small cooler in tow, casually asking Sully for details about the rest of the journey and their whereabouts. He shot back curt answers, and when Nick turned to ply him for more information, he observed Sully was talking with a girl that had been standing onshore the whole time — Nick was utterly unaware of her presence while they “made landfall,” but once he caught sight of her… holy shit.

She was immaculate. Nick had run into many beautiful girls during his time at FSU, and most were attractive, wearing makeup and outfits that made them look gorgeous, but once those layers had been shed, they were merely pretty. This girl, on the other hand, was absolutely stunning; while only wearing a workout outfit including yoga pants and a semi-loose fitting t-shirt, she looked like a goddess. Her flowing golden blonde hair hung down to the middle of her back, and was pulled up in a meticulous ponytail, utterly smooth without a single hair misplaced; its gossamer mass swished with her level of excitement in the conversation. Her face was sunkissed and vibrant, just as anyone under the age of 25 looks in Florida, but her body was what shook Nick. She was petite yet muscular; her toned lower abs produced a contour through the yoga pants – something Nick thought could only be conjured in Photoshop, and not in the physical world. She was immaculate, but he paid no attention.

“This is my friend Nick,” Sully said, gesturing to him as he drank the coconut water he had bought at a Fort Pierce gas station earlier. Nick surmised that it had been at least two hours since they smoked, and he still hadn’t come down. So he did what he always does when he was uncomfortably stoned in social situations: stayed mostly silent.

“Nice to meet you,” Nick said, unsure how to proceed any further. Still in a fog, Nick also noticed that she was not alone, as a little girl around the age of 7 and a dog with a curly blonde coat were splashing along the shore — some sort of golden lab-poodle mix, Nick was sure of it.

Sully continued to chat, and Nick began to infer they were neighbors and had met once or twice before. While they talked, Nick paid little attention, mainly watching the child play with her dog, and as the coconut water lost its refreshing appeal in the warmth of the day, he switched to cold beer. Nick stood there drinking, and couldn’t help but feel a warm sense of joy fill his stomach as he watched this admittedly adorable little girl playing with her happy-go-lucky dog while their beautiful 20-something babysitter watched over them. Nick thought he was watching a Hallmark TV movie, but really, he was just violently high.

Suddenly, the little girl marched up to him, while Sully and her babysitter were engaged in light but entranced conversation, and declared with authority, “Do you want to buy some Girl Scout Cookies?”

“Uhm, let me think…. Of course. I would like two boxes of thin mints, but I don’t have any money with me.” Nick said, trying but failing to match her level of cuteness.

“Oh yeah, her Girl Scout troop is having their cookie sales, and the competition is fierce.” The babysitter said, “We can just drop off the cookies at your house after we leave, and you guys can just pay later.”

They both politely declined in unison, but she insisted, and since it was Girl Scout Cookies, and they were stoned, they quickly gave in. A few minutes later, the little girl sneakily climbed on the beached paddleboard and was pretending to ride, using her arms to “balance.” Nick leaned over from his beer and whispered, “You want to take it out?”

The little girl nodded emphatically, and without the babysitter noticing, gently pushed the paddleboard off the beach. She then shot a look at the babysitter, and then back at Nick, showing a wry smile and letting out a hushed giggle. The warm joy in Nick’s stomach began to grow as she repeated this process, maneuvering zigzag into the water, and out to the middle of the alcove.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” the babysitter said, laughing casually when she saw the little girl kneeling on the paddleboard in the water. The dog had been barking excitedly at the little girl, clearly wanting a turn. After one lap to the middle of the dock, the little girl went back to shore, where the dog jumped on, and they floated about the water, detailing the perfect picture of what a full life would look like. This movie had a great writing staff, Nick thought to himself.

Eventually, he woke from this blissful daze and realized they had been standing on that shore for the better part of 30 minutes — he was finally coming down. He looked at Sully, and the girl talking with each other and had a feeling this was no longer a neighborly conversation. There was something more here, and after spending years observing Sully, Nick knew this was going to lead to an exciting conclusion.

“So, you live nearby?” Nick said, trying to get his facts straight.

“Yeah, I live like 10 houses down from here, in the brown one opposite the lakefront houses,” She said, her velvet ponytail bobbing as she spoke. “I’m living with my parents, but they’re actually in Aspen right now.”

“She lives like catty-cornered from me,” Sully clarified, trying to give me a frame of reference, as well as conveying that any late-night hangout would be very convenient.

“Yeah, it’s pretty boring. I’ve been cooped up inside all week watching these two. Don’t get me wrong, I love them and all, but I need a break.” Nick got hung up on her being cooped up with the little girl all week. Was it her sister? Why would she be babysitting all week?

“What are you guys doing tonight?” Her innocuous inquiry seemed to jut out into the conversation.

“We’re going downtown, probably start at Church St and then wander from there. You should come. We’re thinking of doing some dancing too”, Sully rattled off. It came to him with such ease, like Harry Potter speaking Parcil Tongue , sounding so smooth, yet sinister when out of context.

“Well funny enough, I do actually have plans to go downtown with one of my girlfriends tonight. We were gonna go to Stardust. Have you guys ever been there?” This is precisely the response Nick was expecting, and yet he was still genuinely surprised the conversation had gotten this far.

“Is that the place below World of Beer on the lake?” Nick interjected.

“Yeah, it is. Have you been?”

“I’ve never been, but a friend of mine lives right next door, above the wine bar.” Sully shot Nick a look, knowing that’s where Victoria lived.

“It’s a great place, I love it! They play disco, and 80’s pop hits, so it’s perfect for dancing, and last time we went, the owner kept giving us free shots.” She exclaimed, but still maintaining her poised cheerfulness. “If you guys are in the area, you should come by.”

“Yeah, for sure.” Sully said with calm intent, “What’s your number? I’ll text you when we finish pregaming at our buddy’s place.” They exchanged numbers, and Nick thanked God one of them had brought their phones.

She rounded up the little girl and dog, and floated up the shore and along the mulch path to the street, lofting back a “See ya later.” Once she turned the corner, Nick hazily turned to see Sully, who was wearing his signature shit-eating grin. Nick paused for a second with a puzzled look on my face, then all at once blurted out “Dude… what the FUCK just happened?!”

Sully responded simply with, “Right!”

“No, but seriously, who the fuck is she and how is she so goddamn beautiful? I know you’ve said there something in the water around here that makes girls crazy hot, but this is something different enti…” Nick trailed off, still perplexed at the events that took place. “Ok, first answer me this: is that little girl her sister, or is she like a live-in au pair? I couldn’t figure it out.”

“That’s her kid, bro,” Sully stated, emphasizing each word as he said them.

“…wait, she’s a mom?” Nick questioned, not able to deal with the information he was just given.

“Yeah, man. Apparently, she was married to the lead singer of the Muse, and they had a kid, but recently got divorced, so she moved back in with her parents here and has been like working out the divorce shit I guess. I met her a month ago when I was running the neighborhood.”

“Two things. First, you were running? Outdoors?”

“Yeah, I’ve been trying to lose some extra pounds I’ve put on since graduation.”

“Okay, fair enough. Second, what the actual fuck? You can’t be serious? So she’s essentially a single MILF that just happens to live three doors down from you.” Nick asserted, grasping for answers to this dizzying realization.

“Yeah, bro, I know. I kept going out for runs, hoping to see her, but never did until just now.” Sully confessed.

They got back on their boards and paddled back to Sully’s house, but Nick’s mind had not left that shoreline. He was reexamining the events in this new light and felt remorse and kinship. She seemed so well composed for a single mother going through a divorce, he thought. She was moving on, having the time and resources to pursue a second act in life. She had taken what she had left — her health, her child, her youth — and tried again. Maybe talking to them, who had no predispositions, is precisely what she was looking for. If he were in that situation, that moment of normalcy would be enough to sustain him for a few weeks. It was also enticing to ponder why she would want to go out with young men like themselves. He could already see the dim ending pursuing that notion would have, but nevertheless, follow it they did.

The rest of the journey was dull in comparison, as the wind had died down, and the house wasn’t that much farther. Once they arrived, they brought the boards up and were sitting at Sully’s picnic bench when he got a text.

“Left a present at the front gate :-)”

Simultaneously confused and giddy, Sully went to check it out and came back with a box of Girl Scout Cookies. They were beside themselves. “Holy shit, this is huge.” Nick bellowed. “Like, I couldn’t tell who she was hitting on between us. I’m down for a threesome if you are, only if we can hold hands, though.”

“Ok, pull back from a sec there bud. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m obviously down for anything, but let’s play out the situation first.” Sully said through the cigarette in his mouth, trying to keep his cool. “I’ll start texting her, and we can say we're gonna see where the night takes us.”

“…but in reality, we are beelining for that bar as soon as we’re sufficiently hammered, right?” “Yeah, duh.”

They watched as the sun began to dip below the horizon, sending iridescent beams of red, gold, and pink across the mirrored lake surface. It was a satisfying sunset, one that reminded Nick of sitting on the roof of their house at school, where they would watch the sinking daylight explode into the sky, capping off a successful day of doing everything and nothing. It was a feeling of blithe torpor that washes over you, which most people have to fly to Tahiti for, but Nick received for free. He thought this must be what heroin feels like.

They got ready to go out, mainly by playing a Rick and Morty drinking game while they watched an episode. Eventually, Nick wandered into the shower, and upon getting out, put on a shirt for the first time since he had arrived here. Sully did the same, and it seemed that throughout their friendship, they were beginning to dress alike — button-down shirt, jeans, and Vans sneakers — and the resemblance was striking. They kept drinking after they were dressed — some awful rum and Coke mixture Sully had created — and listened to the new Kendrick Lamar album to get excited for the night. By the time the TV read 8:00 pm, they piled into Sully’s black Ford Explorer, which had turned into more of a mobile recycling center than an actual SUV with the comical amount of empty plastic bottles, and made the 20-minute drive to Don’s house. By the time they arrived, Nick’s hash oil high from earlier in the day had transformed into a healthy buzz that had him energized, which Sully noticed.

“Oh shit, it’s time to resume regularly scheduled programming, because Nick at Night is here and ready to go.” This was the name that Sully had given Nick in college, because in his words, ‘you change into a different person when we go out… not in a bad way, just more aggressive and basically shameless’. Nick couldn’t fight him on that. Drinking always brought out a forceful side of him, as if he was about to run into a tied lacrosse game with 30 seconds left – full of adrenaline and ready for anything. But alcohol does that to everyone, so he wasn’t too worried. “Don! What’s up, shitbag?” Nick said with endearing force as he leapt out of the Explorer. “You will not believe what happened to us today… we bought Girl Scout cookies. Crazy, right? Oh yeah, and we met the hottest MILF of all time, and we’re going to meet up with her and her friend later.”

Don was their neighbor in college who was an insouciant guy like the rest of them. He had a shaved head and stout build, but very athletic; much more than Sully and Nick — the guy ran triathlons for Christ’s sake. He was standing on his stoop, smoking a cigarette when Nick walked up. Don paused for a second after hearing him, then with a look of malaise, replied, “so what you’re telling me is you guys got seduced into buying Girl Scout cookies?”

“Joke’s on her. We never paid for the cookies,” Sully shouted from the car.

They all shared a laugh and walked inside, making their way to the back, where a few of Don’s work friends were playing beer pong on the porch.

————————————— The plastic cup beaded with sweat as the hot spring night drenched all of its inhabitants. Nick fixated on the droplets, then reached for the cup from the bar, and turned to face the writhing crowd in the street. The city was alive, having some sort of festival that shut down the road to set up drink stands and speakers.

“Bro, where the fuck have you been?” Sully yelled as the humid crowd gave birth to Nick’s friend.

“I’ve been taking laps. You know I like to wander.”

“Well, you might want to wander over to Stardust because the MILF just texted me.” Nick could tell that Sully was focused because where he might typically be wearing that shit-eating grin, was now replace with a concise half-smile while he drafted a reply.

Without saying a word, Nick turned and began to walk away from the street-side bar. He walked to the end of the block and sat on an elevated planter, flipping a coin in half-time with the hip-hop playing nearby. After three minutes, Sully came down the street exasperated and said, “What are you doing?”

“Waiting on you,” Nick replied blankly. He slipped the coin back in his pocket, lingering on the triangle etched into its surface.

Sully shook his head, and the two continued bumbling down the street. After passing numerous street signs Nick couldn’t be bothered to read, they arrived at a basement bar with a small red neon sign that read “Stardust.” The dimly-lit venue was relatively empty for a Friday night, with only a handful of patrons standing at the bar, and a few people dancing near the DJ booth. Nick passed the bouncer and headed straight for the bar, ordering a vodka-tonic-lime, without so much as glancing at his surroundings. After paying for the drink, he turned around to survey the bar, and his glazed eyes illuminated at the sight of sleek golden hair glowing magnetically in the aged club spotlights. It flowed like fresh honey in synchronous with the resilient body it was attached to, moving with the precision and poise of experience. She twirled and gyrated along the dance floor, beaming while she sang along to the Bee Gees’ “Night Fever,” flaunting her youth and wanting all to witness. In his fugue state, Nick was paralyzed by her vitality, and it wasn’t until he saw Sully shimmy into his frame of view that his trance was broken, and he regained his focus. With the sheer force-of-will Nick’s stupor provided, he followed suit and bobbed his way toward the dancing group. She was with a friend who looked much more her age, though still held that same playfulness which the goddess exuded. Nick moved and swayed up to the group, after saying hello with a very European kiss on the cheek to both, focused on the friend — the die had been cast, and he was now the wingman. He stirred from side-to-side, in unison with his partner, being conscious of his own body for the first time in months. They moved together, and he eventually took her hand, spinning and twirling each other, aptly drifting through the music of an era that chased euphoria at all costs.

Time slowed around Nick as he shrugged off all of his cares once again; any responsibility or suffering that had occupied his mind was gone. The blurring lights and hypnotic music combined into a force that began to overwhelm him, and moments around him started to come in as clips, like the unused scenes for that made-for-TV movie — the knowing glances from friend to friend, the twirling of a perfect stranger, the creepy guy trying to cut in. All the moments that Nick knew would stay on the cutting room floor of his mind after tonight. Nick continued to jive and spin to the music but glanced at Sully and the goddess every so often. And as buoyant rhythms played and his head swam in a puddle of dopamine and pheromones, he could distinguish Sully moving in to kiss her, and her moving back slightly. Sully then whispered a line that she countered, but Nick could only see one word on her lips.

———————————- “NO NO NO NO NO!” Michael Scott yelled. The Office episode played loudly on the 60-inch TV. Nick opened his eyes a sliver as the daylight through the ragged bamboo shades assaulted him. The hangover had followed him to the next day, and again he was sprawled in his own disgust. He pawed for his phone on the coffee table and checked to see if he had called Kelly again, but all he found were pictures of Don completely asleep on a barstool and a text from Danny that said “Pizza at Joe’s. Come.” Nick was definitely still drunk, because his head didn’t hurt and his stomach was still full. That would all change after he inevitably vomited in an hour. As he laid there wallowing in his filth, pieces of the night began to come back to him. Before “Pizza at Joe’s,” he remembered Stardust and the gyrating body of the goddess. Nick sat up on the battered secondhand couch, peered over the bed to exchange information about the events of the night, but Sully was gone, and Nick was left there wilting, as the disinfecting sunlight burned away the deep layers of his protective shamelessness. He more remembered the rest of the night.

Nick got up slowly, unsure his dehydrated legs could hold his weight, wobbled his way to the door and opened it. The morning sun, though assaultive and blinding, cast a soft hue over the lake and the horizon; the frogs croaked, celebrating the new day, as the faint sound of a bullhorn drifted with a crew team streaking by. He eased his way into one of the Carolina chairs facing the lake, taking in the scene before his body turned on him. His mind had already given up. Nick sat there as he recalled more and more from the night before, and fell deeper and deeper into the abyss.

He recalled her saying something to Sully and twirling away as her friend followed suit, gliding across the dance floor and away from the two children in an adult’s bar. He recalled feeling a jolt of shame in the moment, but then moving robotically out of the bar and down the street, into a blackout. This was the third time in a week, and Nick didn’t know how much more he could take. He couldn’t have fun for the sake of fun anymore; there was always a motive, an underlying theme, and he couldn’t escape it. Nick thought of all the times he brought home a great report card, and after 7 seconds of congratulations, the next question would be “Ok, now what’s next? What are you going to do better next time?” Progress for the sake of progress, and never celebration of what was achieved.

Nick sat inert, starring at the coin from his pocket and moving his fingers over the words “to thine own self be true”. Just then, the black Explorer rounded the corner and parked. Emerging from the mobile recycling center was Sully, whose 1000-mile gaze made Nick feel in good company.

“Sup butt?” Sully threw at Nick, meandering to the adjacent Carolina Chair. “Chick-Fil-A?”

Nick admired the delicate pink sunrise and said, “Yeah sure. Hey, Law School’s good for you. You should do it. We’ll have the grad party at my house.”

EDIT: here’s the link to the story on Medium. Any feedback would be great. This is my first time writing fiction.

submitted by /u/oliver--cromwell [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2qZ2Qg0

[atakportal]

(3) The 4 Week Diet - Official Website | Lose Weight In 4 weeks | Program and Plan | The Best 4 Week Diet Book

New Post has been published on https://www.atak.co/2018/07/04/3-the-4-week-diet-official-website-lose-weight-in-4-weeks-program-and-plan-the-best-4-week-diet-book/

(3) The 4 Week Diet - Official Website | Lose Weight In 4 weeks | Program and Plan | The Best 4 Week Diet Book

Product Name: (3) The 4 Week Diet – Official Website | Lose Weight In 4 weeks | Program and Plan | The Best 4 Week Diet Book

Click here to get (3) The 4 Week Diet – Official Website | Lose Weight In 4 weeks | Program and Plan | The Best 4 Week Diet Book at discounted price while it’s still available…

All orders are protected by SSL encryption – the highest industry standard for online security from trusted vendors. (3) The 4 Week Diet – Official Website | Lose Weight In 4 weeks | Program and Plan | The Best 4 Week Diet Book is backed with a 60 Day No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee. If within the first 60 days of receipt you are not satisfied with Wake Up Lean™, you can request a refund by sending an email to the address given inside the product and we will immediately refund your entire purchase price, with no questions asked.

Description:

A Foolproof, Science-Based System that’s Guaranteed to Force All 4 FAT Burning

Hormones to Burn Away ALL Your Unwanted Stubborn Body Fat in Just 4 Weeks!…

No Matter How Hard You’ve Tried Before!

Achieve your ideal weight Without Starving Yourself, No Stress, No Shakes, No Pills and No Worries About Gaining The Weight Back! The fat loss results speak for themselves and have quickly convinced thousands of people to remodel their bodies, lives, and relationships for the better.

Here are just a few raving reviews from lifelong fans of The 4 Week Diet…

“At my age, I thought there wasn’t any hope. Until I found Brian’s 4 Week Diet that is!

I’d heard about the program from a coworker. Her sister had tried it and lost over 30 pounds in the blink of an eye! But as astounding as that was, I just couldn’t believe a woman over 60 like me could EVER change her body that much.

Boy was I wrong! I lost 3 pounds in my first 7 days! Then, in just 3 weeks on the program I’ve already dropped 2 dress sizes and the weight is STILL coming off! I feel like a new woman!”

“I was never the biggest guy in the room but after decades of fast food for every meal, my heart just couldn’t take it. I suffered a heart attack at just 50 years old and almost died.

I needed to change, and it had to be fast. That’s when I found Brian’s 4 Week Diet. It gave me just what I needed to get in the best shape of my life and now I’m down 13 pounds! And my doctor, he’s almost as excited as I am about it!

I’m healthier, stronger, and fitter than I’ve ever been!”

“I used to be so self-assured when I was younger. I knew I looked good. And I also knew I could get almost any man I wanted. But as I got older, it kept getting harder and harder to maintain the body I was so proud of.

After years of broken confidence and feeling down on myself, I stumbled on the 4 Week Diet and thought I’d give it a try. After the first few weeks, I was astonished to step onto the scales and see I’d lost 11 pounds! Now, after another go of the system, I’m 42 pounds lighter! And best of all, I’m finally FIERCE again! And it’s all thanks to you Brian! ”

FACT: Either your fat burning hormones work with your weight loss goals or… against you! You can force your 4 fat storing and burning hormones to work together so losing weight is easier… Now you can rapidly burn ugly unwanted fat anywhere on your body… on your command… simply by turning “off” your brain’s hunger switch… and turning “on” your fat burning switch!

STOP the sneaky metabolic weight loss killers messing with your fat burning hormones that are slowing down your metabolism and blocking your ability to burn ugly unwanted fat.

I’ll show you how you can quickly and easily force all 4 fat storing and burning hormones to work together to rapidly boost your energy and skyrocket your fat burning metabolism so you can…

Your RESULTS are spectacular:

The 4 Week Diet is a revolutionary fat burning hormone boosting system that not only forces your body to burn fat faster and easier so you quickly lose weight — it promises to help you lose more stubborn fat faster by using your body’s natural fat burning physiology — so you NEVER go hungry or feel denied.

Trust me when I tell you there’s finally… a fat loss solution to burn trapped fat that’s simple and works!

The 4 Week Diet works like nothing you’ve ever seen or tried before… because it forces all 4 fat storing and fat burning hormones to work together (rather than against your fat loss efforts) to release more “locked in fat” for better fat loss results and all-day-long energy!

It’s custom designed to force your body’s 4 fat hormones to rapidly release and burn the fat just like your body’s physiology was meant to!

The reason why this metabolic breakthrough is so effective it works with ALL 4 fat storing and fat burning metabolic steps involved in the fat loss process. You need all 4 of these fat hormones to work in harmony to properly dispose of unwanted body fat.

When these 4 hormones are out of whack, your fat can get trapped – “locked deep inside your fat cells” so it is unavailable to be burned no matter how little you eat or how much you exercise!

Now you can clearly see why having control of all 4 fat hormones gives your body the fighting chance it needs to reduce new fat storage and release stubborn fat stores “locked deep inside fat cells” for energy.

The 4 Week Diet System is broken down into four separate handbooks; each one has the simple steps for controlling all 4 fat storing and burning hormones for lightning-fast, body-transforming weight loss.

Once you try it you’ll see why burning fat using your body’s own natural fat storing and burning metabolism makes much more common sense than anything else you’ve tried in the past.

The Launch Handbook shows you how the sneaky metabolic killers are slowing down your metabolism and blocking your ability to burn fat. It gives you the complete look at the science behind why you gain and lose weight. The Handbook gives you straightforward, easy to follow steps to releasing and burning away “locked in” hard-to-lose body fat.

Inside The Launch Handbook you will follow the simple, down-to-earth instructions so you can easily take control of your fat storing and fat burning hormones to ensure you see real weight loss results.

Average results are 1 pound of fat every 72 hours and 12 pounds gone in just 4 weeks by following the system.

It’s time to get personal! In The Diet Handbook, you will receive an easy-to-do weight loss diet plan with simple personalized instructions created to work with your specific body type.

You will see how to calculate your lean body mass and body fat percentages so you can quickly and easily customize The 4 Week Diet for effective fat loss.

Plus, you’ll also receive my “top secret weapon” for maintaining your ideal weight for your entire lifetime with minimal effort.

The Diet Handbook alone will produce truly stunning amounts of fat loss, but with The Activity Handbook you can nearly double your fat burning results.

If you don’t have time for the gym every day, don’t stress. The Activity Handbook was created specifically for people with busy schedules who need a practical workout routine that they can follow at home—or anywhere else.

You get quick and easy exercises to force your body to release even more stubborn, stored body fats into fatty acids so these fats are quickly burned as fuel.

Most people have told me that the workout program alone was worth the entire investment they made in The 4 Week Diet because they love how fast their body changed with it!

You’ll also get my ultimate abs exercise to help flatten your stomach so you can build a set of sexy, six-pack abs.

Many people tell us this workout program alone was worth their small investment in The 4 Week Diet System because they loved how fast their body changed with it.

Where do you think 99% of body transformation happens? At the gym? Or on your plate and what you eat? Science shows the majority of a weight loss transformation happens in your subconscious mind.

By using a focused mindset and motivation, you can conquer any challenge and overcome all the obstacles to achieve all your weight loss goals. This way losing weight becomes its own reward – instead of a grueling challenge.

The Motivation Handbook gives you the much needed inspiration and energy to break through any mental barriers you may have to achieving your weight loss goals.

The Motivation Handbook will help you reach all your weight loss goals and helps you maintain your new body for life. Empower yourself with these simple tips and tricks to keep you on track and burning fat so you can keep the weight off for good.

Bonus Weight Loss Hypnosis Audio (Works on ANY MP3 Player!) Hypnosis is the simplest, easiest, and most effective way to lose weight without too much effort. Now you can curb cravings for bad foods and shed those excess pounds simply by relaxing and listening to this weight loss hypnosis audio just 18 minutes a day!

Imagine 4 weeks in the future when you have reached your ideal weight, just what would that feel like? Pretty incredible, right? Listening to this weight loss hypnosis audio is almost like having your own personal weight loss hypnotherapist right in your home anytime you need one! Could there even be an easier way to stop cravings, motivate you to exercise and feel better about yourself, and lose weight all while you simply listen and relax?

The great thing about THE 4 WEEK DIET SYSTEM is that you can actually begin the program in the next few minutes because I’ve made all four handbooks available in PDF form, by Instant Download.

Unlike most diet books, gym memberships, weight loss plans, and fat-burning pills on the market, The 4 Week Diet comes with my personal, 100% no-nonsense “Lose The Weight Or It’s FREE” guarantee.

It’s just this simple: If at any time in the next 60 days you have not lost the weight I promised… or if you’re not completely satisfied with The 4 Week Diet for any reason whatsoever, just let me know, and I will personally issue you a prompt and courteous refund — no questions asked.

I know this system is life-changing, and I don’t want you to miss out on the opportunity to completely transform your body. I can’t make it any easier for you to take action, but you have to be the one who clicks the download button!

So here’s what you need to do… Just click the Add To Cart button below and download the entire 4 Week Diet System, available on your computer, phone, or tablet in less than 2 minutes from right now.

Ignore this opportunity for revitalizing transformation and keep the same declining body you have now.

Download the complete 4 Week Diet and look like a brand new person in less than 28 days.

And yes, I am so confident that The 4 Week Diet will produce amazing results that I’m willing to take 100% of the risk if you give it a shot today.

Go ahead and read through the handbooks, commit to your 4 week diet plan, and really put it to the test. I promise that you’ll be truly amazed at the results you can actually see in the mirror and on your scale in just a matter of days.

And again, if The 4 Week Diet isn’t everything I promised, simply let me know and I’ll refund every single penny of your investment into the system — with absolutely no questions asked.

I don’t want anything to stand in the way of your giving The 4 Week Diet System a chance to help you – once and for all – end the years of frustration and finally get your 4 fat burning hormones burning fat. Just as it has done for SO many others you’ve seen for yourself right on this page.

So with this 60 Day 100% Satisfaction or 100% Money Back Guarantee, I’ve made sure you truly have nothing to lose – except those unwanted pounds and inches!

You’ve read this far… so you know the incredible value of being able to control your 4 fat hormones… to release your stubborn “locked in fat” and burn it for all-day-energy.

I promise when you complete your order and follow The 4 Week Diet System, you will burn at least 12 pounds of fat in just 28 days… only 4 short weeks.

And I will also promise if you don’t achieve that life-changing transformation, I’ll give you a full refund – no questions asked!

Click the Add To Cart button in the box below… you want to do it now.

I sincerely hope you chose the EASY path – to the body and the new thinner and better looking self you deserve. Yours truly,

Price will be increasing in minutes

I truly look forward to hearing about your weight loss success using my new 4 Week Diet System.

I welcome you to try it now, see for yourself that it works and get the fat loss results you want. I would love to see your before and after results so be sure and take a “before picture today” before you order your copy of The 4 Week Diet System.

I want to see your happy fat loss success in just 4 short weeks. Be sure to send any questions you may have and your successful weight loss “before and after” photos to my personal email:

ClickBank is the retailer of products on this site. CLICKBANK is a registered trademark of Click Sales, Inc., a Delaware corporation located at 1444 S. Entertainment Ave., Suite 410 Boise, ID 83709, USA and used by permission. The website’s content and the product for sale is based upon the author’s opinion and is provided solely on an “AS IS” and “AS AVAILABLE” basis. You should do your own research and confirm the information with other sources when searching for information regarding health issues and always review the information carefully with your professional health care provider before using any of the protocols presented on this website and/or in the product sold here. Neither ClickBank nor the author are engaged in rendering medical or similar professional services or advice via this website or in the product, and the information provided is not intended to replace medical advice offered by a physician or other licensed healthcare provider. You should not construe ClickBank’s sale of this product as an endorsement by ClickBank of the views expressed herein, or any warranty or guarantee of any strategy, recommendation, treatment, action, or application of advice made by the author of the product.

Copyright © 2018 The 4 Week Diet. All Rights Reserved.

Click here to get (3) The 4 Week Diet – Official Website | Lose Weight In 4 weeks | Program and Plan | The Best 4 Week Diet Book at discounted price while it’s still available…

All orders are protected by SSL encryption – the highest industry standard for online security from trusted vendors. (3) The 4 Week Diet – Official Website | Lose Weight In 4 weeks | Program and Plan | The Best 4 Week Diet Book is backed with a 60 Day No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee. If within the first 60 days of receipt you are not satisfied with Wake Up Lean™, you can request a refund by sending an email to the address given inside the product and we will immediately refund your entire purchase price, with no questions asked.

[atakportal]

(3) The 4 Week Diet - Official Website | Lose Weight In 4 weeks | Program and Plan | The Best 4 Week Diet Book

New Post has been published on https://www.atak.co/2018/07/04/3-the-4-week-diet-official-website-lose-weight-in-4-weeks-program-and-plan-the-best-4-week-diet-book/

(3) The 4 Week Diet - Official Website | Lose Weight In 4 weeks | Program and Plan | The Best 4 Week Diet Book

Product Name: (3) The 4 Week Diet – Official Website | Lose Weight In 4 weeks | Program and Plan | The Best 4 Week Diet Book

Click here to get (3) The 4 Week Diet – Official Website | Lose Weight In 4 weeks | Program and Plan | The Best 4 Week Diet Book at discounted price while it’s still available…

All orders are protected by SSL encryption – the highest industry standard for online security from trusted vendors. (3) The 4 Week Diet – Official Website | Lose Weight In 4 weeks | Program and Plan | The Best 4 Week Diet Book is backed with a 60 Day No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee. If within the first 60 days of receipt you are not satisfied with Wake Up Lean™, you can request a refund by sending an email to the address given inside the product and we will immediately refund your entire purchase price, with no questions asked.

Description:

A Foolproof, Science-Based System that’s Guaranteed to Force All 4 FAT Burning

Hormones to Burn Away ALL Your Unwanted Stubborn Body Fat in Just 4 Weeks!…

No Matter How Hard You’ve Tried Before!

Achieve your ideal weight Without Starving Yourself, No Stress, No Shakes, No Pills and No Worries About Gaining The Weight Back! The fat loss results speak for themselves and have quickly convinced thousands of people to remodel their bodies, lives, and relationships for the better.

Here are just a few raving reviews from lifelong fans of The 4 Week Diet…

“At my age, I thought there wasn’t any hope. Until I found Brian’s 4 Week Diet that is!

I’d heard about the program from a coworker. Her sister had tried it and lost over 30 pounds in the blink of an eye! But as astounding as that was, I just couldn’t believe a woman over 60 like me could EVER change her body that much.

Boy was I wrong! I lost 3 pounds in my first 7 days! Then, in just 3 weeks on the program I’ve already dropped 2 dress sizes and the weight is STILL coming off! I feel like a new woman!”

“I was never the biggest guy in the room but after decades of fast food for every meal, my heart just couldn’t take it. I suffered a heart attack at just 50 years old and almost died.

I needed to change, and it had to be fast. That’s when I found Brian’s 4 Week Diet. It gave me just what I needed to get in the best shape of my life and now I’m down 13 pounds! And my doctor, he’s almost as excited as I am about it!

I’m healthier, stronger, and fitter than I’ve ever been!”

“I used to be so self-assured when I was younger. I knew I looked good. And I also knew I could get almost any man I wanted. But as I got older, it kept getting harder and harder to maintain the body I was so proud of.

After years of broken confidence and feeling down on myself, I stumbled on the 4 Week Diet and thought I’d give it a try. After the first few weeks, I was astonished to step onto the scales and see I’d lost 11 pounds! Now, after another go of the system, I’m 42 pounds lighter! And best of all, I’m finally FIERCE again! And it’s all thanks to you Brian! ”

FACT: Either your fat burning hormones work with your weight loss goals or… against you! You can force your 4 fat storing and burning hormones to work together so losing weight is easier… Now you can rapidly burn ugly unwanted fat anywhere on your body… on your command… simply by turning “off” your brain’s hunger switch… and turning “on” your fat burning switch!

STOP the sneaky metabolic weight loss killers messing with your fat burning hormones that are slowing down your metabolism and blocking your ability to burn ugly unwanted fat.

I’ll show you how you can quickly and easily force all 4 fat storing and burning hormones to work together to rapidly boost your energy and skyrocket your fat burning metabolism so you can…

Your RESULTS are spectacular:

The 4 Week Diet is a revolutionary fat burning hormone boosting system that not only forces your body to burn fat faster and easier so you quickly lose weight — it promises to help you lose more stubborn fat faster by using your body’s natural fat burning physiology — so you NEVER go hungry or feel denied.

Trust me when I tell you there’s finally… a fat loss solution to burn trapped fat that’s simple and works!

The 4 Week Diet works like nothing you’ve ever seen or tried before… because it forces all 4 fat storing and fat burning hormones to work together (rather than against your fat loss efforts) to release more “locked in fat” for better fat loss results and all-day-long energy!

It’s custom designed to force your body’s 4 fat hormones to rapidly release and burn the fat just like your body’s physiology was meant to!

The reason why this metabolic breakthrough is so effective it works with ALL 4 fat storing and fat burning metabolic steps involved in the fat loss process. You need all 4 of these fat hormones to work in harmony to properly dispose of unwanted body fat.

When these 4 hormones are out of whack, your fat can get trapped – “locked deep inside your fat cells” so it is unavailable to be burned no matter how little you eat or how much you exercise!

Now you can clearly see why having control of all 4 fat hormones gives your body the fighting chance it needs to reduce new fat storage and release stubborn fat stores “locked deep inside fat cells” for energy.

The 4 Week Diet System is broken down into four separate handbooks; each one has the simple steps for controlling all 4 fat storing and burning hormones for lightning-fast, body-transforming weight loss.

Once you try it you’ll see why burning fat using your body’s own natural fat storing and burning metabolism makes much more common sense than anything else you’ve tried in the past.

The Launch Handbook shows you how the sneaky metabolic killers are slowing down your metabolism and blocking your ability to burn fat. It gives you the complete look at the science behind why you gain and lose weight. The Handbook gives you straightforward, easy to follow steps to releasing and burning away “locked in” hard-to-lose body fat.

Inside The Launch Handbook you will follow the simple, down-to-earth instructions so you can easily take control of your fat storing and fat burning hormones to ensure you see real weight loss results.

Average results are 1 pound of fat every 72 hours and 12 pounds gone in just 4 weeks by following the system.

It’s time to get personal! In The Diet Handbook, you will receive an easy-to-do weight loss diet plan with simple personalized instructions created to work with your specific body type.

You will see how to calculate your lean body mass and body fat percentages so you can quickly and easily customize The 4 Week Diet for effective fat loss.

Plus, you’ll also receive my “top secret weapon” for maintaining your ideal weight for your entire lifetime with minimal effort.

The Diet Handbook alone will produce truly stunning amounts of fat loss, but with The Activity Handbook you can nearly double your fat burning results.

If you don’t have time for the gym every day, don’t stress. The Activity Handbook was created specifically for people with busy schedules who need a practical workout routine that they can follow at home—or anywhere else.

You get quick and easy exercises to force your body to release even more stubborn, stored body fats into fatty acids so these fats are quickly burned as fuel.

Most people have told me that the workout program alone was worth the entire investment they made in The 4 Week Diet because they love how fast their body changed with it!

You’ll also get my ultimate abs exercise to help flatten your stomach so you can build a set of sexy, six-pack abs.

Many people tell us this workout program alone was worth their small investment in The 4 Week Diet System because they loved how fast their body changed with it.

Where do you think 99% of body transformation happens? At the gym? Or on your plate and what you eat? Science shows the majority of a weight loss transformation happens in your subconscious mind.

By using a focused mindset and motivation, you can conquer any challenge and overcome all the obstacles to achieve all your weight loss goals. This way losing weight becomes its own reward – instead of a grueling challenge.

The Motivation Handbook gives you the much needed inspiration and energy to break through any mental barriers you may have to achieving your weight loss goals.

The Motivation Handbook will help you reach all your weight loss goals and helps you maintain your new body for life. Empower yourself with these simple tips and tricks to keep you on track and burning fat so you can keep the weight off for good.

Bonus Weight Loss Hypnosis Audio (Works on ANY MP3 Player!) Hypnosis is the simplest, easiest, and most effective way to lose weight without too much effort. Now you can curb cravings for bad foods and shed those excess pounds simply by relaxing and listening to this weight loss hypnosis audio just 18 minutes a day!

Imagine 4 weeks in the future when you have reached your ideal weight, just what would that feel like? Pretty incredible, right? Listening to this weight loss hypnosis audio is almost like having your own personal weight loss hypnotherapist right in your home anytime you need one! Could there even be an easier way to stop cravings, motivate you to exercise and feel better about yourself, and lose weight all while you simply listen and relax?

The great thing about THE 4 WEEK DIET SYSTEM is that you can actually begin the program in the next few minutes because I’ve made all four handbooks available in PDF form, by Instant Download.

Unlike most diet books, gym memberships, weight loss plans, and fat-burning pills on the market, The 4 Week Diet comes with my personal, 100% no-nonsense “Lose The Weight Or It’s FREE” guarantee.

It’s just this simple: If at any time in the next 60 days you have not lost the weight I promised… or if you’re not completely satisfied with The 4 Week Diet for any reason whatsoever, just let me know, and I will personally issue you a prompt and courteous refund — no questions asked.

I know this system is life-changing, and I don’t want you to miss out on the opportunity to completely transform your body. I can’t make it any easier for you to take action, but you have to be the one who clicks the download button!

So here’s what you need to do… Just click the Add To Cart button below and download the entire 4 Week Diet System, available on your computer, phone, or tablet in less than 2 minutes from right now.

Ignore this opportunity for revitalizing transformation and keep the same declining body you have now.

Download the complete 4 Week Diet and look like a brand new person in less than 28 days.

And yes, I am so confident that The 4 Week Diet will produce amazing results that I’m willing to take 100% of the risk if you give it a shot today.

Go ahead and read through the handbooks, commit to your 4 week diet plan, and really put it to the test. I promise that you’ll be truly amazed at the results you can actually see in the mirror and on your scale in just a matter of days.

And again, if The 4 Week Diet isn’t everything I promised, simply let me know and I’ll refund every single penny of your investment into the system — with absolutely no questions asked.

I don’t want anything to stand in the way of your giving The 4 Week Diet System a chance to help you – once and for all – end the years of frustration and finally get your 4 fat burning hormones burning fat. Just as it has done for SO many others you’ve seen for yourself right on this page.

So with this 60 Day 100% Satisfaction or 100% Money Back Guarantee, I’ve made sure you truly have nothing to lose – except those unwanted pounds and inches!

You’ve read this far… so you know the incredible value of being able to control your 4 fat hormones… to release your stubborn “locked in fat” and burn it for all-day-energy.

I promise when you complete your order and follow The 4 Week Diet System, you will burn at least 12 pounds of fat in just 28 days… only 4 short weeks.

And I will also promise if you don’t achieve that life-changing transformation, I’ll give you a full refund – no questions asked!

Click the Add To Cart button in the box below… you want to do it now.

I sincerely hope you chose the EASY path – to the body and the new thinner and better looking self you deserve. Yours truly,

Price will be increasing in minutes

I truly look forward to hearing about your weight loss success using my new 4 Week Diet System.

I welcome you to try it now, see for yourself that it works and get the fat loss results you want. I would love to see your before and after results so be sure and take a “before picture today” before you order your copy of The 4 Week Diet System.

I want to see your happy fat loss success in just 4 short weeks. Be sure to send any questions you may have and your successful weight loss “before and after” photos to my personal email:

ClickBank is the retailer of products on this site. CLICKBANK is a registered trademark of Click Sales, Inc., a Delaware corporation located at 1444 S. Entertainment Ave., Suite 410 Boise, ID 83709, USA and used by permission. The website’s content and the product for sale is based upon the author’s opinion and is provided solely on an “AS IS” and “AS AVAILABLE” basis. You should do your own research and confirm the information with other sources when searching for information regarding health issues and always review the information carefully with your professional health care provider before using any of the protocols presented on this website and/or in the product sold here. Neither ClickBank nor the author are engaged in rendering medical or similar professional services or advice via this website or in the product, and the information provided is not intended to replace medical advice offered by a physician or other licensed healthcare provider. You should not construe ClickBank’s sale of this product as an endorsement by ClickBank of the views expressed herein, or any warranty or guarantee of any strategy, recommendation, treatment, action, or application of advice made by the author of the product.

Copyright © 2018 The 4 Week Diet. All Rights Reserved.

Click here to get (3) The 4 Week Diet – Official Website | Lose Weight In 4 weeks | Program and Plan | The Best 4 Week Diet Book at discounted price while it’s still available…

All orders are protected by SSL encryption – the highest industry standard for online security from trusted vendors. (3) The 4 Week Diet – Official Website | Lose Weight In 4 weeks | Program and Plan | The Best 4 Week Diet Book is backed with a 60 Day No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee. If within the first 60 days of receipt you are not satisfied with Wake Up Lean™, you can request a refund by sending an email to the address given inside the product and we will immediately refund your entire purchase price, with no questions asked.