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RYDER ON THE STORM
Storm
sighed and brushed the memory away.
Looking around, she realized everyone had left. Storm was the last one standing – in more
ways than one. Aunt Trin was gone. Aunt Trin who taught Storm about the visions,
how to track and interpret them, and most importantly how to recover from the
pain of one. Aunt Trin who’d taught her
the craft and raised Storm after her mother gave up on life. Aunt Trin who was being lowered into the ground,
the grinding of gears echoing through the graveyard. The stargazer lilies on the top of her coffin
were wilting in the heat. Sweat dripped
off Storm’s brow. She wondered briefly
if the sheen gave the appearance of tears.
Trin would have liked that. The
tears simply would not come, they never had.
Most people thought her heartless.
She didn’t understand it, couldn’t change it, wasn’t even sure if she
wanted to. Aunt Trin had told her time
and again that there was a reason for her emotional paralysis. Storm just wished she could summon a few
tears for the only person she’d ever cared about.
Two
caretakers emerged from a truck with shovels and began filling the grave; burly
men with sweat stains under their arms that spread in all directions across the
gray polyblend jumpsuits. The larger man
even had sweat lines down his back.
Storm refrained from sneering as she approached them, her heels sinking
into the soft soil with each step.
“Could
I have another moment, please?” She
loosed the belt of her jacket revealing the navy sheath dress beneath. As expected the caretakers’ eyes bulged
slightly at her defined curves and nodded in that stunned manner Storm had
become accustomed to long ago. Once they
were out of sight, she knelt beside the grave and took a handful of dirt from
the pile. With the other hand Storm
reached into the pocket of her jacket and withdrew a vial. She cast them both into the grave, stood up,
brushed herself off, and nodded toward the caretakers to proceed. Storm felt their eyes on her as she walked
away and pulled her jacket tightly around her, in spite of the sweltering
heat.
In
the driver’s seat of her VW Beetle, Storm exhaled. It was done.
Everything she’d been asked to do.
She was free. Sort of. The visions would still plague her. Unless she could break the curse. Storm started her car and flicked the radio
on, this one’s for you Aunt Trin, as
Jim Morrison blew through the speakers with her namesake song.
And, from the upcoming Steampunk release IMMORTAL MACHINATIONS
Prologue
The music continued.
The maddening thrum, a cacophony of sounds striking images and thoughts
in a melody only Dorian could see and hear.
Nobody could see the world as he did. Nobody could hear the way it rolled
and clicked. Nobody knew the mechanical nature of all things. Dorian did. He saw it all and he knew how to improve upon
it. Blasphemy though it may be, Dorian could improve upon the world around him,
could create machines and medicines. If only he knew how it would be his
undoing. If only Dorian could have seen what his very existence would come to
mean in the War. He may have let the villagers hang him after all.
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