FREE prologue 1x00 Isabol Tseung Voice News

Characters, places, and events are works of fiction and not at all indicative or representative of any real life person places or things. A lot of inspiration was taken from Vice, a subsidiary of HBO. Much respect is held for the journalism that goes on at Vice, and I suggest everyone check them out. I do not represent them, nor do I think my book is a factual retelling of anything relating to real life. For the true story on everything, check out Vice.com or tune in daily to   Vice News airing on HBO. I personally never miss an episode.

 

1x00 “Nobody Does it Better”

Released on http://www.patreon.com/99geek on August 2018

Susanne collapsed against the side of the bombed out building, wincing in pain as her hand kept pressure on her side. When she pulled away from the sand stone wall, she left behind a bloody imprint. They’d have no problem tracking her now.

Gunshots rang out in the distance, and Susanne stumbled forward through the empty alleyway, tripping over debris of a house hit by military airstrikes. She smacked the sandy ground hard, propping herself painfully against a metal beam as she laboriously gasped for breath. It was getting harder.

She looked around the alley. She was somewhere in the middle of downtown Mosul in the country of Iraq. Perhaps this would be a good place to die. Quiet. Alone.

More gunshots rang out, and she could see the people in the street continuing their day. Gunshots had become a regular soundtrack to these people. Their entire lives had been only war for so many years now that it seemed the only thing left that could startle them was peace.

Her bloodstained hand reached into her pocket, the bullet wound in her side bleeding out furiously. She was growing cold, in a climate that often hit 115 degrees during the day, and on top of that her head was spinning. Her hands furiously worked against her phone’s touchscreen, slapping the keyboard as fast as her thumbs could keep up with her mind, each tap leaving a bloody thumbprint in its wake.

There were more gunshots, this time far closer. They were coming from the building just in front and to the left of her. She could see the muzzle flashes as two more shots went off, illuminating the shadows on the third floor of a bombed out structure.

Suddenly an Iraqi woman, slender and muscular, with military camo jacket pants and hijab, came to the edge of the third floor. She was facing away from Susanne, and fired two shots with a pistol into the room she’d just come from, before jumping from the third floor. She struck the wall of the building across from her with her shoulder, and bounced off to land heavily on the ground at Susanne’s feet.

Turning onto her back, the familiar Iraqi freedom fighter raised her pistol at the floor she’d come from as two large bearded men took her place at the edge of the third floor. They were wearing turbans and carried AK-47s. She fired up at them, two shots into one, and two shots into the other. As they fell, she took two more carefully aimed shots pegging them with headshots before they hit the ground.

She ejected her magazine, checking the cartridge which only seemed to have a couple shots left in it. Pocketing the cartridge in a baggy pocket of her cargo pants, she got up and offered Susanne a hand.

“We must be moving, Suzie,” she said in a commanding voice.

“Alright Alia” Susanne said, her thumbs still working the keyboard, “just let me finish this text.”

“There will be time for doing this later,” Alia insisted in her thick accent. “They will be swarming this حارة [hāra] soon.” She bent over to help Susanne up. “There is place for us to hide. I have people in the city.”

“Go ahead then and fetch them,” Susanne moved her arm so Alia could see the blood on her side. “I’m not going to make it with you.”

“Don’t speak these things,” Alia begged, her face turning soft.

“I have to send this message out,” Susanne insisted, finishing her email, “No one is watching. No one knows what’s been going on here.”

“There’s no time,” Alia said.

“There,” she said stubbornly. “I’m done.” Susanne raised the phone as high as she could, trying to get a signal in the spotty locale. “Come on.” Zero bars. “Come on.” Her arm fell as her head got dizzy. “Come on,” she said as she saw the phone get a bar. The animation of the email sending began, but the bar flickered out before it could finish.

“Who is your friend?” Alia asked.

“We’re not friends,” Susanne said with a gargling laugh. “Oh that didn’t sound good, did it? Ugh, we went to university together. She’ll know what to do. Far better than me.”

There was screaming from the street at the mouth of the alley, “laqad wajadat alnisa' kunaa nabhath eanha, allah 'akbar, tueal 'iilaa huna,” and Alia turned quickly to fire off a shot that went through the man’s neck. The crowds in the street were finally dispersing as the man went down. The damage was done.

Alia grabbed Susanne and forced her up in one surprising show of strength for a woman so petite. Supporting Susanne with her shoulder, the wounded reporter with red hair screamed and dropped her phone to the floor. Trying to go for it, Alia pulled her away.

“No!” Susanne insisted through the pain. “I have to make sure it sends. It’s all that matters.”

It was futile however, and Alia led her from the alley, the two women far out of sight and earshot as the phone pinged with the chime of a sent email.

*     *     *

“Do you mind if I smoke?” Robert Daggers said in his deep voice, pulling a cigarette from the half depleted pack he kept in the breast pocket of his suit jacket. The man was tall, imposing even, in his traditional black suit with suspenders that seemed to be doing nothing to hold his pants up when he still wore a belt.

He brought the smoke to his lips, and with his other hand fished out a lighter. He flicked the lighter before Isabol Tseung could even respond.

“A little,” She said, too late. She was sitting across from him in a small foldable chair, lights beaming down on them both from stands where her cameraman had set up three fresnels in a triangular pattern to counter act the shadows cast by the one draped window in the cold library conference room where she was conducting her interview on the University of Toronto campus.

Robert Daggers drew deeply from his smoke, and Isabol Tseung tried to share a glance with her cameraman, though she couldn’t see his eyes through the reflection of light on his glasses. He threw her a shrug and she gave the American a disapproving frown. Better to not make a fuss. She wasn’t there to attack him on his nicotine addiction. Not that.

“I guess we’ll just have to call this my presidential prerogative,” President Daggers said, taking another drag, he blew the smoke into Isabol’s face.

“It’s actually illegal here,” Isabol said, unable to stop herself, “now. Smoking inside.”

“Yes,” the President of the United States said, ashing his cigarette carelessly on the floor, getting some of his ash on her shoe. “It’s illegal in the States as well.” He gave her the thinnest of smiles, almost daring her to get triggered. Triggering the liberal media was, after all, what President Bob Daggers did best.

Isabol wasn’t going to take the bait. She’d been wanting this for only too long, and anyone who knew her knew she never let an opportunity go to waste. “So you believe, then, that certain types of people should be allowed to live by a different set of rules than other people. Such as successful people. Or rich people.”

The president wasn’t often prone to smile, but his thinly veiled satisfied smirk didn’t budge once. She hoped to wipe it clean off his face before the interview was over.

“I don’t think anyone is saying that,” President Daggers said confidently. “But in life there is an unspoken understanding that people who have made it to the top have earned a level of respect and privilege that lesser classes are welcome to if they just work hard for it. I think if someone is a value and benefit to their society, what good does it do to drudge into their private lives?”

“You mean like Rosanne?” Isabol asked, brushing her dark hair behind her ear and tapping her pen on the pad before her. She didn’t have any questions written on it, but she found just having the pad there an often effective intimidation tool.

“Sure,” The president agreed.

“Harvey Weinstein?”

“Maybe.” She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of reacting to that. He ashed his smoke on the ground again.

“So,” Isabol said, leaning forward in her chair. “following your logic to its rational conclusion you probably also don’t think child pedophiles should have to announce themselves when entering a new neighbourhood.”

“Nobody is saying that.”

Isabol crossed her arms. “But you’re not denying it either. Right? What exactly are people supposed to think?”

“People can think whatever they want to think,” Daggers told her, smoking away. “I personally think that my supporters are an intelligent, critical thinking, flock.” The word flock seemed to jarringly contradict his descriptors of intelligent and critical thinking. “And I think any intelligent man knows that there’s nuance to every issue.”

“And what about intelligent women?”

The president ignored her question. “You have to take things like that on case by case. Do I think there’s a lot of wrongfully accused pedophiles who are being treated unfairly, you’re damned right I do.”

Isabol clicked her pen. “Do you have any evidence or stats to support that?” She already knew he didn’t. “Or are we seriously just supposed to take your word on that? That immigrants are murderers and rapists, and some pedophiles are good people?”

“That’s the problem with you media folks,” he said in his deep voice, stroking his chiseled unshaven chin. There were more hairs on his scruffy face than atop his shiny bald head.

“We’re the enemy of the people,” Isabol stated flatly. “Those were your words. Would you care to elaborate?”

“You’re asking me? How are you the enemy of the people?” the president leaned back confidently. His smoke now burned to the filter, he tossed it away into the corner of the room. “Honey,” he said. “you should read my tweets.”

“I was just hoping you could explain it to my face,” Isabol told him. “Personally I love -- people. I became a reporter because I wanted to help -- people.”

“Maybe you should have been a nurse.”

“My father wanted me to be a -- doctor.” She said, in case there was any doubt in his mind women could be doctors. “It just wasn’t for me. This is where I belong. You still haven’t answered my question.”

“It’s the lies,” he said. “The way you attack conservatives.”

“So you feel attacked,” Isabol said, tapping her pen on her pad.

“You don’t think I’ve watched Voice News?” he said.

Isabol nodded, with a polite laugh. “Yeah, I don’t think you’ve watched us.” He was too busy watching the jokers at Fox News.

“I’ve seen enough,” the president said. “I’ve seen clips. You make me out like I’m some kind of pervert. Like I can’t bring up how hot I think you are without you spinning this interview to make me seem like some kind of creep.”

“And yet,” Isabol said, leaning back, “despite that, you still brought up my physical qualities when I’ve only come here to address you at an intellectual level.” She crossed her arms again, somewhat more tightly this time than last.

“It’s a compliment,” he said. “I’d be more than happy if you told me I have a hot body.”

“But I don’t think you have a hot body,” Isabol Tseung said, trying to keep her voice level. “What if I brought up your bald head, your sweaty pits, how your face turns bright red when you get angry. Your fat banana lips.”

The thin smile he’d been wearing the whole interview was gone. She was starting to get under his skin.

“None of those were compliments,” he said. “And there’s the problem with the media. I complimented you, and you insulted me, and somehow people will watch this interview and think I’m the bad guy.”

“I think the problem,” Isabol explained, “is that comments on physical attributes take away from the real conversation.”

“But you’re not interested in a real conversation,” he argued before her. “You’re only interested in spreading fake coverage of nonsense, and distracting people from what’s really going on.”

“Let’s go through it all together then,” Isabol said. “The events, from the beginning. It started in twenty sixteen when you beat Donald Trump to be the conservative representative.”

“He played a good game,” Bob Daggers said. “I just played the same game better.”

“But then you lost to the democratic representative who beat Hilary Clinton, Shirley Manson.”

Bob shifted in his seat. “Only because of election tampering.”

“You mean the so called hacking of the elections,” Isabol clarified for the camera.

“It wasn’t so ridiculous when it was the Democrats complaining about election hacking.”

Isabol frowned, crinkling her small nose. “For the record though, the democrats meant hacking in the loosest of senses. The Russians took advantage of social media to push false narratives and spread discourse. There was no actual hacking, as much as there was mind hacking or life hacking.”

“And there’s another false story,” Bob Daggers insisted. “That’s what the media wants you to believe to hide the real hacking that Hilary Clinton did with the Russians to get her ultimate revenge.”

“That sounds like a good movie,” Isabol made the casual observation. “So Shirley Mason wins by quite a margin—“

“Proof of election tampering,” Bob Daggers interrupted. “The polls showed the race to be much closer.”

“So the Russians didn’t bother to hack the polls first?” Isabol was trying to follow his logic. She really was.

“Why would they?”

“So then there was the scandal with Mason’s vice president, and in a shock to practically everyone, she announced you her new VP.”

“She wanted to close the divide between the right and the left.”

“Okay,” Isabol said, tapping her pen against the pad again. “but you then went on and destroyed her administration from inside, set her up for impeachment, and took the presidency completely against the wants and votes of the people.”

“More media spin,” Daggers insisted. “You really can’t help yourself can you? Conservatives are treated as evil monsters without –“

“But when the things you believe are monstrous,” Isabol insisted, pushing him. “When the very tenants of your party are callous and cruel…”

Bob Daggers shook his head. “That’s a gross misrepresentation of the Republican party. Let me boil it down for simple minds like yours to understand.” He lit another cigarette as he spoke, and the smoke around Isabol was making it hard for her to breathe. “Conservatives believe in small government and free enterprise. That’s it.”

“I’ve heard this argument before,” Isabol insisted. “But in practice it seems like conservatives only believe in small government when it suits them. Where’s your small government when you’re pushing a law through senate to abolish all abortions in the country. Forcing women to suffer through pain and horrific body transformation because you think the government--”

“That’s not exactly how I would describe child birth,” Daggers said with a laugh.

“You’ll never know,” Isabol argued angrily. “You could never know.” She was starting to raise her voice. “What about the girl in Texas, who was raped and was refused an abortion. She didn’t ask for her life to be changed forever. You don’t know how traumatizing child birth can be on a person. How life altering. It should always be a choice. Otherwise you might as well be signing them to torture and a life of unpaid servitude.”

“That is absurd.”

“Where is your small government when you are refusing immigrants at the border? When you are kicking out hard working people for being “illegal” but really just because they are a different ethnicity as you. People who were providing for our economy, even without many of the benefits rewarded to legitimate citizens of the country. How can a small efficient government be so needlessly cruel while simultaneously shooting themselves in the foot?”

“It’s all spin,” Daggers insisted. “You can spin it anyway you like.”

“Where is the conservative focus on economy and a cheaper government, on lowering our national debt, when Bush started the war in Iraq. Racked up a ten billion dollar deficit in the process. You claim to care about the debt, and yet the only way you actually push towards small government is to cut important environmental protections so you can put that money into funding your anti-immigration. You cut money from social services that guarantee vulnerable people will suffer and die, and then you just openly hand that money back into the hands of the rich with tax breaks, even though they are already doing just fine for themselves and only keep getting larger in needless assets.”

“My presidency has been better for both the rich and the hard workers of America,” Bob Daggers finally butted into her tirade.

Isabol took a deep breath. “That’s not true. How can you say that and yet deny minimum wage workers even a living wage. When a single mother works 40 hours a week and can’t even make enough money to feed her kid, and your argument to support that is simply that she will learn then how to work harder? It’s despicable.”

Bob Daggers got up, “I don’t need to listen to this.”

”What about the allegations against you of women abuse?” Isabol said, getting up with him, fully aware she was about to lose him. “Do you enjoy taking advantage of people more vulnerable than yourself? Is power just a trip for you, so you seek new ways to flaunt it? Or, in that disgustingly perverse misogynistic cave of evil you call a mind, are you just existentially incapable of accepting a world in which you can ask something of a woman and her answer to your question is NO.”

She grabbed his smoke from between his lips, broke it, and tossed it aside. She didn’t realize she’d tossed it at the blonde secret service agent off to the president’s side, but the woman in a suit and shades leaned back casually and dodged both pieces. All while facing away. How could anybody have reflexes that good?

President Bob Daggers raised his hand as if to slap her, his face twisted in furious abandon. Isabol planted her feet and locked eyes with him, daring him to follow through. Instead he chuckled in such a way that sounded like a cough.

“I suppose it’s a good thing I have diplomatic immunity,” he said, lowering his arm to point at her instead. “You should watch yourself.” He shared a glance with his secret service agent. She didn’t seem to hold herself much like the agents Isabol was used to seeing. There was a rumour that Bob Daggers had fired the entire secret service staff, replaced them with his own private contractors.

“This conversation is over.”  The president said, turning to her cameraman with his same hand still outstretched. “Give me the tape.”

“It doesn’t run on tape,” Tom said, pulled the micro SD card from the back. “We’re all digital…”

The secret service woman grabbed the small chip from him.

“Go ahead,” the president said to Isabol. “Say anything about me that you like. I promise you that you’ll hear from me again, and that I’ll enjoy our next meeting far more than you.” The way he said that made her skin crawl, and the way he looked her up and down was as if he was imagining her naked. He then stormed out of the room with his protection.

“Jesus,” Tom said, behind his large glasses that sat awkwardly on his square face. Isabol jumped, having forgot for a moment that he was in the room. “That was really intense.

“Tell me you didn’t give him our only copy,” Isabol insisted, pointing at him the way Daggers had pointed at her.

“I was connected to the university WIFI and uploading live to the dropbox,” Tom told her, and she breathed her first sigh of relief, hugging him with excitement. “He had to know that though, right?”

“No, you lovable lump you. I don’t think he did.” She looked at the door he’d only just slammed on his way out. “I’m really good at pissing off conservatives,” Isabol said. “You notice that?”

Tom shrugged while taking the camera off the tripod. “Nobody does it better,” he said casually, as he slipped the camera into its case.

Isabol sighed, and picked up her pad where it fell when she stood up. As she did, Tom turned off the Fresnels and bathed her in black. In the darkness her phone’s screen was the only light. A notification had popped up, an email. The subject line was a single word.

Urgent.

Next Month on Isabol Tseung Voice News at www.patreon.com/99geek in September 2018
Chapter 1: Isabol Tseung is an up and coming reporter who wants to make a name for herself doing more than just local news, and AP reporting. She wants to go into the field, interview the most relevant people, she wants to dig at the story, and find something real to report on. Something that affects millions of lives. She wants to make a difference.

Next Time: Adrift Homeless at www.patreon.com/99geek in October 2018
Chapter 6: Just because the Blazkor second rebellion has broken, doesn't mean there isn't still lots to be done. There's a ship to fix, and a crew still must be formed to man it. People will need to be uprooted from their homes and forced to live in an unfamiliar environment. Bureaucracy will have to be tended to. And there are more threats still to come.

Free Excerpt! The Aldonn Chronicles 1x06 "Weighty Credentials"

Here's two free scenes from this month's upcoming chapter, available at patreon.com/99geek

1x06 “Weighty Credentials”

Released on http://www.patreon.com/99geek on July 2018

Penelope knocked on the door of Janice’s pub, and the tall chubby thief Sean opened it to greet them.

“I brought him,” Penelope said, gesturing underneath her cloak to her butler Roric. He too was wearing a cloak and hood over his pale balding head.

Sean seemed to eye the man critically, and Penelope wondered if the gay thief was about to comment on her Roric’s age. It seemed the man had more crass than that, however, asking instead, “You know first aid?”

“I studied for many years as a doctor but never completed my training,” Roric said, raising his nose proudly.

“You’re more qualified than anyone else in hear,” Sean said, widening the door to let them inside. “Frankie really isn’t doing so good.”

“I’m doing fine,” Frankie said, from a table where Janice had her strewn out and topless. As Frankie spoke, the bartender poured alcohol on one of her smaller cuts and she screamed, twisting on the table in agony. Gasping for breath, she watched as Roric place his leather bag of supplies on the table beside her.

“This old man is gonna save my life?” Frankie asked Penelope, laughing, and then cringing from the pain.

Penelope rolled her eyes. “If you give him a chance,” the princess said sternly.

Frankie tried to cover herself with her hand. “Don’t make fun,” she said weakly to Roric. “I know they’re small.”

“Frankie,” Janice said, stroking the thief’s head affectionately. “You’re beautiful and you know it.”

“Not anymore,” Frankie muttered, looking  down at the bright red scar under her breast. The gash in her shoulder where Janice had pressed a bloody rag. The other bloody rag pressed against her stomach. “Look what that bitch did to me.”

Janice kissed her tenderly on the lips, squeezing Frankie’s hand. “You’ll always be beautiful to me,” Janice told Frankie as their lips parted. Penelope thought it was cute, but Roric ignored the display of affection and got to work lifting the cloth off Frankie’s flat stomach. He reached his fingers in to examine the wound.

“Agh,” Frankie groaned, staring into Janice’s eyes affectionately if only to avoid thinking about the pain. “If only I had known I just had to get cut up pretty bad to rekindle the fire between us.”

“The fire never left,” Janice said in a sweet song voice, her dark sin shining in the bronze light of the bar. “It was you who pulled away or don’t you remember?”

Frankie winced again as Roric poked and prodded at her wound, pulling gloves from his bag, and gauze. “Hey doc,” she said to him. “Couldn’t you take a look at the big guy here. The lady and I have some catching up to do.” She glanced across to the table beside her where her large blonde friend was strewn out lifeless.

“I’d rather finish tending to this,” Roric said, looking closely into her wound. “It’s gone untreated long enough. It’s thin but looks relatively deep. How long was the blade that stabbed you here?”

Frankie reached under the table to pull something from one of the wooden legs. It was one of her daggers, one she was likely playing with earlier. “It was identical to this,” the thief said, twirling the blade in her hand, careful to avoid the two broken fingers Janice must have bound together while Penelope was gone.

“That’s deep,” he said, whistling. “You’re lucky it missed your liver. It looks like it did some minor lacerations to your intestines but it’s not leaking and you should heal okay as long as there isn’t an infection.”

He grabbed the bottle of whiskey the bartender had been using to clean her smaller cuts. “This is going to hurt,” Roric told Frankie and then Janice. “A lot.”

Janice’s eyes teared up, and she squeezed Frankie’s hand, kissing the wounded thief again as Roric poured the liquid over and inside the wound.

Frankie tensed, and then went limp, Janice releasing her from their kiss.

“Frankie?” Janice said with worry. She shook Frankie who’s eyes seemed to loll into the back of her head.

“She must have passed out from the pain,” Roric said, not seeming too concerned.

“Or from blood loss,” Janice said fiercely with a look at the older man.

Roric ignored Janice’s insinuation. “She’ll be alright. This was the best thing that could have happened. I’ll quickly sew up this wound, than bandage that one on her shoulder. It’s too wide to sew, but also shallow.” He pointed at the shoulder and then grabbed his sewing kit from his bag. “Both wounds will heal but leave scars. The rest of her cuts should be unnoticeable in a couple weeks.”

“Where’s Ed?” Penelope asked as her servant got to work with his needle.

Richter pointed to the stairs, from the bar where he was sharpening his daggers and giving Frankie the decency not to look.

“We put him into a room upstairs,” Janice said with a look to Penelope. “He wasn’t looking too good either. What in all the hells happened to you guys out there?”

“Lee happened,” Richter said gruffly as Penelope passed him on her way to the stairs.

“Second door on the left,” Sean told the princess as she made her way up. She followed his directions, passing the first closed door and opening the second. Inside was a small quaint room, with an open window to allow in a breeze.

On the small single bed Edward tossed and turned, his face covered in sweat. It was clear he was in too much pain to sleep, and when he noticed her he turned away dramatically.

“Edward,” Penelope said, stepping into the room and closing the door behind her.  He let out a small moan, trembling even though he was covered in layers. “How are you feeling?” She felt like the question was redundant.

“It hurts,” he said slowly, between gasps for breath. “It hurts more than it did when I was under the influence.”

She reached for him but he pulled away from her.

“Don’t look at me,” he snarled. “I hate it.” She wasn’t sure what he meant. “But it’s all I want.” Did he mean the drug they’d injected him with.

“Edward,” she said again.

“This is how they died,” he said, and Penelope frowned. She was having a most impossible time following his train of thought. “My parents.”

“You’re an orphan,” she said. She’d had no idea.

“They were found in a drug den overdosed on something the guards couldn’t identify,” Edward said, shivering under Penelope’s hand. The whole bed shook as she sat upon it. “They were guards too. No one knew they were crooked. I didn’t even know.”

“How old were you?” Penelope asked.

“Seven,” Edward told her. “I still remember them. They seemed so loving, and righteous. If they could see me now they’d be disappointed.”

Penelope shushed in, cooing gently into his ear. “They wouldn’t be disappointed.” He still wouldn’t turn to look at him, but she lay down on the bed beside him and wrapped her arm around his waist. Pressing her chin against the back of his head she whispered to him, “They’d be proud of the man you’ve become.”

“I became a soldier to try to clear their name,” Edward told her. “Bring honor back to it… it was dumb. I’ve only managed to dishonour our name more.”

“What IS your name?” Penelope asked him.

“I--” Edward paused for a long moment. “It doesn’t matter. I’m an orphan. I don’t have a name.”

“You were born with a name,” Penelope insisted to him.

He finally turned around to lie on his back. “I don’t remember it. I’m just Edward now.”

Penelope lay her head on his clammy chest, straddling him and closing her eyes as he lay trembling beneath her.

*

Frankie opened her eyes with a start, the doctor Roric still finishing up with her shoulder.

“I’m awake,” she said loudly, and Janice grabbed her hand excitedly.

“Good,” Roric said with a smile, pressing the tape against her bandage. “I’m just about done here.”

“You scared the shit out of me,” Janice told Frankie.

“Hey I’m okay babe,” Frankie said, raising her good arm to touch Janice’s black face. “I can survive anything. It’ll be me alone at the end of the world facing down the demons of all the hells.”

She smiled to Janice. “How long was I out?” Frankie asked, lifting her head to look at her torso. Both her gut and her arm hurt like hell. She could only just see the gnarly stitches for a moment before Roric slapped a bandage on that too.

“You’ll need to change these bandages every day,” Roric told her.

“I’ll try,” Frankie said unconvincingly.

“I’ll make sure it happens,” Janice told the princess’ servant. Looking down at Frankie she finally answered the thief’s question. “You were gone about twenty minutes,” she said affectionately.

Frankie bolted up, and both Roric and Janice tried to hold her down.

“Whoa!” Janice exclaimed with worry.

“Take it easy,” Roric insisted. “You’ve been through a lot. You’re gonna need time to rest and heal before you can be fully active again.”

Frankie slid off the table onto her feet, almost swooning as her vision blurred and she had to lean on the table. Janice came around the table to put an arm under her.

“I’m okay,” Frankie insisted. “I’ll be fine. Just help my friend. Please.”

Roric turned around on his stool to observe the man on the table beside them. Frankie took and unsteady step forward and leaned on Aldonn’s table, looking down at his pale blonde form.

“What’s wrong with him?” Roric asked, confused. He unbuttoned Aldonn’s tunic and searched him for any cut or bruises.

“He had his throat slit,” Frankie said, tracing her finger along the barely noticeable scar on his neck. Even the scar seemed to be fading away, and would soon be gone.

“That’s impossible,” Roric said following Frankie’s finger.

“I saw the man bleed out,” Richter said, hopping off the bar, and coming around to join them. He glanced to Frankie, “Where did you find this big lug?”

“Hey!” Sean said in complaint.

Richter raised his hands in defence. “Not that I have a problem with big lugs.”

“Just don’t get any ideas,” Sean warned playfully while Roric checked under Aldonn’s eyelids. He brought a candle close to Aldonn, and moved it away, seeming to watch how the irises reacted to the light.

“I found him locked up in a cage,” Frankie told them. “He’s always healed fast.”

“Nobody heals this fast” Roric insisted. “I think your friend is in a form of coma. If what you’re saying is true, it’s likely brought on by bloodloss. It’s certainly possible his body might be able to heal, but his blood still replenishes at a natural rate. Especially if he was brought so low, that might not be an easy thing for even him to accomplish. He’s riding now ona  line between life and death.”

“What can we do to help him?” Frankie asked, as Janice handed her one of the barmaid’s tunics, and helped her painfully slide it on over her head. The shirt was too big for her, baggy at the sleeves and chest as well as extending past her waist.

Janice interrupted before Roric could respond. “I’ll do it,” she said. They looked at her with eyebrows raised. “You were about to say she needs a blood transfusion,” Janice explained to Roric. “And then she, expecting that, was going to offer herself.” She touched Frankie’s face. “But Frankie dear, you’ve lost too much blood. I’ll do it.”

“It’s a risky procedure,” Roric said. “I can’t guarantee it won’t make things worse for him. But it might also be the only thing that can wake him up.”

“You sure about this?” Frankie asked her. The last thing she wanted to do was risk the life of her closest friend.

“There’s more,” Roric said to Janice. “As a Mystene, there’ll be added complications to the blood transfusion.”

“A Mystene?” Frankie repeated. She’d heard of them, everyone had heard stories of the habitable land on the other side of the scorched desert. But no one had ever seen it. Or returned from a voyage across. There were legends of the people from there, the mystical city of Mysteria. For the name of a city, this one was apparently pretty on the nose.

“You’ve met one of my kind before?” Janice asked Roric with surprise.

“So it’s true?” Frankie said, her mind still a flutter.

“Oh really now,” Janice said with impatience. “You never wondered why I was the only black woman you’ve ever met in Capsin?”

“I--“ Frankie started to say. “Maybe that was what I liked about you.” It was said the people of Mysteria possessed inhuman abilities. Suddenly all the pieces were falling into place. “Well at least you’re not one of those hippie tree loving druids.”

Ignoring Frankie, Roric continued. “It’s possible during the blood transfusions your minds might connect.”

“Our minds have connected before,” Janice told him with a nod. “I can handle it.”

“You won’t be able to disconnect the link like you’re used to,” Roric told her.

“I can handle it,” Janice repeated. She grabbed the table Frankie had been lying on, and with Richter and Sean’s help she dragged it to be up against Aldonn’s.

“Very well then,” Roric said with a nod. “I’ll need time to prepare and sanitize my tools.”

“Okay,” Frankie said, getting out of the way and nodding her head as her mind started to wander. “And while you’re doing that, I’ll go to the mage tower.” She looked around for her jacket and found it on a chair. She slipped her bad arm through the sleeve carefully, still in quite a considerable amount of pain.

“What?” Janice said.

“What?” Richter said in tandem.

“You shouldn’t even be on your feet right now,” Roric argued indignantly. “You absolutely should be going anywhere.”

Frankie slid on the other sleeve, careful not to wince too much from the pain and worry everyone. “I’ll be fine. I’m not just going to wait around here while my on again off again girlfriend risks her life for my best friend.”

Frankie looked at her friend’s pale form on the table. “I have to do something. Lee did this,” she said, looking around the room. “Lee has hurt all of us. And we need to start thinking pay back.”

“You can’t take Lee,” Richter warned her.

“Maybe not right now,” Frankie said, rubbing her bad shoulder with mock bravado. “But maybe the mages can if we give them some warning that he’s coming.”

“I thought you hate mages,” Janice said from the table.

“I do,” Frankie assured her. “I just hate Lee more.”

“So you’re going to storm over to the mage tower and do what?” Richter asked her. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“It’s nearly dawn,” Sean said from the window, giving Richter a look he didn’t return.

“I’ll warn them,” Frankie said determined. “I’ll warn the shit out of them. On Sean’s shoulders singing at the top of my lungs if I have to.” A tune came to her mind and she started singing, ‘In your eyes, thieves are coming, your eyes, hear me humming.’” She did a short, painful, dance with her arms and hips.

“We’re not going with you,” Richter said assuredly.

Sean crossed his arms. “Yeah we are,” he said. “She can’t go alone.”

“I’m coming too,” Penelope said from the stairs, the princess descending steadily.

Roric looked up at her from where he seemed to be putting his tools against the flame of a candle. “I know for a fact you hate the mages,” he said.

“I don’t hate the mages,” Penelope told her butler Roric. “I just don’t trust them. And what better opportunity than this to take a closer look at what they’re up to.”

“Yeah,” Frankie said, “’cept we don’t exactly need a princess.”

“That’s why she’ll be wearing the same cloak she used to sneak into the thieves guild,” Sean said, spotting the cloak lying against a table and tossing it to her.

“That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” Frankie admitted.

“Haven’t you figured it out yet?” Richter asked, joining them by the door. “Once my boyfriend decides on something, you just have to go along with it.”

Janice lay back on the table as Roric finished up. “This is your last chance to back out,” he warned her.

“Wait,” Penelope said. “What are THEY doing?”

Janice’s eyes bugged out as Roric lifted a needle. “It’s that big?” she exclaimed, second thought definitely in her voice.

“It’s probably better you don’t ask,” Richter told the Princess, beckoning for her to lead the way out the door. Frankie would have followed but she went back to grab Janice’s hand.

“You don’t have to do this,” Frankie told her.

“You could stay here with me,” Janice told her back. Frankie didn’t respond, but she didn’t have to. Janice could see it all over her face. “Just promise me you won’t be dead when I wake up.” Richter stuck the needle into her arm, and she let out a painful gasp.

Frankie shook her head. “I shouldn’t make promises I can’t keep,” she told the barmaid. “In fact I’m feeling a little funny right now.” Frankie grabbed at her shoulder and stuck out her tongue. “Agh! They got me. I’m sorry Janice I tried.”

Janice’s eyes fluttered closed as her blood travelled through the thick rubber tubing into Aldonn’s body. Just before she passed out her last words were “You’re a real asshole Frankie.”

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