Changes & A Writing Update

I am finally feeling better, and just in time. It’s my first day of school. I have decided to go back to college and get another bachelors degree. There are a lot more jobs in my area for someone with an IT degree than there are for someone with an Applied History degree.

So I am taking online classes full time through Bellevue University, with the college credits I already have it will take me about a year to get a new degree, with two babies at home I thought this was the perfect time to spend a little more time at home.

Last semester I took a prerequisite class while I was trying to decide if I wanted to go back to school. Online classes were a little different than I remembered. Anyway I thought I would tell everybody why my blog posts and writing have slowed down a bit, and will probably slow down a bit more. I will keep writing, but homework will come first.

My writing has been going pretty well. The novel I am working on is coming along nicely. Dynasties and Demagogues actually did help. It put into words some concepts I had been mulling over. I am not sure it would be all that helpful to most people but it really did help me.

The one thing I am a little worried about in my novel now is that my character is too…proficient for lack of a better word. I can see a rewrite in my future, but for now I finished three chapters in the last three weeks, though I am not sure I want to count last week, I was so sick I did not write at all.

Hey all

I decided to write a blog today because it has been nearly a month since I wrote one. I have just been kind of busy. Right now I am fighting off a potent flu virus so instead of writing something interesting I will leave with this youtube video of Disney's Adentures of the Gummi Bears, it was a childhood stapple of mine and I just found it on youtube. I always feel a little nostolgic when I am sick and I actually sat down and watched four episodes before I realized that I was a grown man sitting on my couch watching over twenty year old cartoons.

Intriguing

Today I am feeling a little more optimistic about my writing than I have in a while. In the last week I have gotten two requests for partials from editors, one for Kingdom of the Dead, and one for The Lion of Solkara. Now this doesn’t mean that either book is going to be published, it just means that someone read the synopsis, and in one case a few chapters, and they wanted to read more.

It is a nice feeling. Progress on my latest novel has been pretty slow, and this kind of makes up for it.

Why has progress been so slow?

Without getting into too many details, I have decided to push myself a little and try something I haven’t done before.  My latest novel is set in a world full of political intrigue. Twice now I have tied the story into such a knot I couldn’t unravel it, and had to start over.

After that, I had the idea of basing some of the intrigue in the story on actual events which happened in the Roman Empire, only to be told by an alpha reader that those parts where “unbelievable” and “could never happen in real life”

I searched the internet for some writing tips and found a few, but I am still trying to figure out exactly how to do this a) without putting in an overload of extraneous information into the story b) in a believable manner c) with enough twists and turns to make it interesting.

I just order Dynasties and Demagogues, a role playing manual.

 

Item Description: Rulers make history -- Dynasties and Demagogues helps you make some history of your own with an in-depth look at the hidden rules of political intrigue and power brokering. Players are challenged to unravel the schemes of duplicitous enemies and allies alike as part of their characters' own rise to power. And for GMs, Dynasties and Demagogues affords a close look at the nitty-gritty of political campaigns fraught with plots and counter-plots, assassinations, duels, and changing allegiances, all tied together in an intricate web of power relations.

I’ll let you know if it helps. I haven’t played D&D since college but I remember being the DM was pretty much just writing a story, which is why I liked doing it so much. Hopefully it is the secret ingredient that helps me “get it”.

The one saving grace that will make the novel a little easier is that most of the intrigue is going to be taking place in the background. And my main character’s arc has him moving away from his life embroiled in political intrigue. We’ll see how it goes.

If anyone has any tips, please leave them in the comments.

Starting/Running A Small Press

I promised a post about starting/running a small press, but I couldn’t figure out how I wanted to format it, as bulleted tips, as a story, in essay format, epic poem, and so on. I have finally decided to throw it out there as jumbled mess, question-and-answer-stream-of-consciousness pile and let you sort it out, but I did add a bunch of pictures so that it looks pretty.

Who to use as printer? There are really only two choices. Create Space and Lightning Source. We went with lighting source, the books are higher quality and they have more distribution channels. You do need adobe illustrator or another graphic design program for the covers. Note: Things might have changed. It was a few years ago when we weighed the pros and cons of the two. You might want to do the same.

Adobe Illustrator? Whew, that’s expensive: Yes, a new version is. And it takes a while to learn. Fortunately, I had taken some graphic design classes in school and we found a copy of illustrator 9 on ebay for $60. Then we used the profits from the first books to buy CS5 including illustrator, photoshop and adobe indesign. Indesign makes formatting books soooooo much easier once you get the hang of the program. Heck, it’s what most of the big publishing houses use.

Illustrator eventually paid for itself. I did a lot of work for other small presses: formatting covers for lightning source, creating ads, making bookmarks, etc. $10-$50 a project really added up after awhile.

Where did you get cover art? Lurk here until you find an artist you like, that is in your price range. Also you could always try big stock photo or dreamstime. We used stock art on our first few books since we didn’t know where to find an artist. You can get some nice covers with stock art, check out the mock up I did for the first issue of Dark Things: Horror Magazine, that sadly never got published. I think it came out pretty well. And no those articles and author names are not real, I was just seeing how the text would look.

 

 

Personal rejection letters? Just say no to them. We tried it and got some very angry people. Some people can’t take criticism.

Website? We used weebly, it’s a pretty easy way to create a website and then you can purchase your own domain name.

Advertising? This is a hard one. We tried a lot of things, and it seemed like what worked for one book did not work for another. What makes a book sell over 1000 copies when another book (that I personally liked better) sold less than 50. It’s weird.

For anthologies it is totally based on the authors. If you get 16-30 people all telling their friends what great a book it is, going to cons, talking it up on the internet then you will have pretty good sales. If you fill the book with authors who are like “that’s awesome” and throw the book on their stack of contributors’ copies and never think of the book again, then sales are not good. On the other hand having a book filled with first timers would probably be bad too. I think the best formula for an anthology (when you can’t spend tons of money getting famous authors) is to get one or two recognizable names, one or two newbies and then the rest somewhere in between. Of course we never tried following any formulas, we just picked the stories we liked best, but I think that this formula would work.

 Book reviews are nice, but they don’t create a buzz. People have to start the buzz, and then the reviews will make the chatter louder.

Novels were a bit different. Reviews did help, sometimes. Authors promoting their own work helped, sometimes. Advertising in magazines did not work. We contacted local television, radio, and newspapers near all of the novelist’s homes and only received a positive response once, from a public television show. The author balked at the idea and wouldn’t do it, despite the fact that we checked with the author  first, so I am not sure if they work. Some Podcasts helped, sometimes. We did notice a difference when some authors went to cons, sometimes. Postcards worked…sometimes. Hmmm…I guess the same thing never worked twice. Don’t know what to tell you here.

To Kindle or Not To Kindle? We had a few months when kindle sales beat out print sales, but for the most part print sales were better. But kindle and nook sales can certainly give you a boost. It did seem like sci-fi sold better on kindle than in print. Fantasy sold better in print. Horror was split down the middle. Anyway, ebooks are definitely worth doing.

Help? Our business was a family run operation. But we did talk to our local college and could have gotten an intern at some point. We would have had to pay $3/hour, not bad for a little help.

Forum? I loved the forum. I wish I could have been a little better about keeping up with it. It was nice to have a community of writers to throw ideas off of, or discuss writing topics. Other writing forums I have tried come with an overabundance of snark, which we tried to keep to a minimum. We got a lot of emails thanking us for the forum. Getting members wasn't too hard, we just gave away some free stuff and bam, instant community.

How to deal with detractors? No matter what you do, someone won’t like it. If you start a small press you will eventually get some hate mail. On the internet people say whatever they want, things they really wouldn't say in person. We have gotten hate mail about pay rates, rejection letters, our covers, our website, our logo, and even the wording in our calls for submission. For the most part we ignored it. Occasionally, if somebody was waaay out of line we would send out an email to other small presses telling them that the person was hard to work with.

But usually, it was best just to look at the submission cue and see all the familiar names. Then it was easy to see that we also had a lot of supporters. In the end it was really easy to see, with the dozens of emails thanking us and wishing us well. Thanks to everyone for that.

That’s everything I can think of. If you have any questions feel free to use the contact form or post in the comments.

Pill Hill Press Closes

 

I just had to do something pretty hard. Last night, my wife came to a tear soaked decision to close her small press, Pill Hill Press. Being the person she is, she tried to immediately post on her website and ended up deleting it (which has happened before, it has always been easy enough to recreate with weebly, she just didn’t see the point this time) and then she tried to find out how to delete her forum and ended up deleting her account.

So as the last administrator of the forum it fell to me to send out the mass email telling everyone the PHP was closing. Jessy just did not feel she could give the PHP the time it deserved.  

Here is what I wrote:

I’m afraid I have some unpleasant news. Jessy was going to write this, but she has accidentally deleted her account. We have decided to close PHP. Jessy has been trying to go back to work for the past few weeks and, with the babies she cannot give Pill Hill or the authors’ creations the time, attention, and love they deserve. All short stories currently in submissions are returned to the authors. All rights on unpublished books revert back to the author. Authors who are currently getting royalty statements will be getting a snail mail letter about rights, etc.

The website is down, and we are contacting lefora about closing the forum.

This decision did not come without a few tears. We have truly enjoyed working with all of you, and have met some wonderful people, some of whom I consider to be friends. Thank you for sharing your creations with us, the glimpses into your imaginations have been entertaining, thought provoking, wondrous, and at times a little scary. It has been a privilege to work with all of you.

All our best,

Alva J Roberts

Pill Hill Press

 

 

 

I feel a little sad about it, but I understand. She could not work and take care of the kids, she has been trying and it is driving her crazy.

 

Pill Hill was making money, but it wasn't MAKING MONEY. To continue with PHP Jessy would have had to hire a babysitter or day care. She would be working to pay for childcare and a little spending money (some months).  It just didn't make sense.  But still I am feeling kind of sad about the whole thing. Who knows, maybe when the kids start school Jessy will reopen. We still have quite a few ISBNs and all the knowledge and equipment to do it.

 

Over the next week or so I will probably post a few blogs about starting and running a small press before I start forgetting a lot of details.

Writing Tips: Let's Talk About Sex

Happy belated new year everyone!

Sorry to take so long between posts, I had a ton of posts I was going to write, one about preparing for Christmas, one about new years, one about my current writing project, one about fantasy football (I won two of my leagues!), I had other ones about football, about the Huskers, the Minnesota Vikings, but it all ended up being put to the side because of the holidays and familial obligations. I will say my current novel is going really well when I find time to write. But let’s get onto the main topic: SEX

In particular I am talking about sex scenes. Scenes where your characters get intimate can be really hard to write, but sometimes they need to be written. I decided to do some research to figure out the best way to write them, and I am pretty happy with my results. Here are six rules I have garnered in my research into the subject.

1.       Know your audience/know your genre. Treat it like you do other aspects of writing for your audience. This goes back to being well read in your genre. What are other bestselling authors doing? For example I have yet to read an epic fantasy that talks about “throbbing members”. When you finally get published your editor will probably weigh in on the matter. Remember they are the expert in what sells in your genre, and give their suggestions a try.

2.       Write what you are comfortable with. If writing this kind of stuff makes you totally uncomfortable then it will show in your writing, and do your best to avoid it.

3.       Avoid crude terms whenever possible. Try to use metaphors, flowery terms, etc. to describe what is going on. Consider these two lines “he stuck his dong in her va-jay-jay” or “he entered her womanhood”. Neither is a great example but which is going to be less distracting?

4.       Use the same rules you would for a fight scene. This one may sound weird but I have a few rules that I use when I am writing a fight scene that transition to love scenes pretty well. First do not give a play by play. This will get boring and tedious to read after awhile, plus with a love scene it will start to sound a little silly. “He felt his passion building…” can replace an entire paragraph of the love scene play by play. The second fight scene rule I have is that the fight should be more than just a fight. It should develop the characters and/or advance the plot and/or resolve a conflict and/or add a whole new conflict to the story. This is important for love scenes too. Don’t just have sex in the book to have it in the book. Make sure it advances the story. Your readers are pretty smart people and they will be able to tell if you just add a love scene in to spice things up.

5.       Make sure the scene reflects your character. The Joker from Batman is not going to have the same love scene as Romeo from Romeo and Juliet.  

6.        Heterosexual  characters who have anal sex are villains. This one kind of surprised me but apparently it is pretty standard. Like the good guys wearing white hats in westerns. I have heard this from a number of romance novel readers. Which makes me thinks those romance novels might be more interesting than I ever gave them credit for.

The way this works out, at least for me (and remember I am writing epic fantasy intended for an adult audience) is that I write the begining of the scene, a little kissing, touching, etc. and then break away. I do this for a few reasons: Fantasy, at least what I read, tends to avoid explicit love scenes, in fact most of the books I read break away a little earlier than I do. I stick with it a little longer than other authors because I want to make sure the readers get a feel for what is happening, is it angry, is it loving, is it exciting, is it funny, sex can be all of those things in real life and I feel that a reader should know the mood of the scene, but getting really explicit will not advance the story in better than what I am writing. If you have any tips for love scenes leave them in the comments below. Please try to keep it PG-13 or cleaner.

 

Free Fiction - Broken Coven

Today I have some free fiction for you. The story has been languishing in publication purgatory for awhile now. I wrote it back in 2009 and it has been accepted for publication twice and twice the magazines or anthologies went belly up before publication. It was kind of fun to read through it again, I can see that I know a lot more about story telling than I did then. This one relies heavily on action scenes to carry the story, I think I am a little creating a plot now, but it is a fun story. Anyway I’ll let you guys decide. Happy Reading!

 

Broken Coven

By Alva J. Roberts

 

The world was a wasted, burning Hell. The asphalt streets were cracked and pitted, the buildings burnt out husks that stretched like skeletal fingers toward the blackened sky. Ash formed thick grey clouds that blotted out the sun and fell like snow to cover the wasted landscape. Bodies lay strewn about the street, barely visible beneath the ash. Death had come quickly, most still lay where they had been standing, dying unaware of their impending doom. The fires flared brighter and brighter until they engulfed everything within sight.

Morgan sat up with a start, cold sweat pouring down her face, plastering her long shimmering black hair to her forehead. Sometimes being a witch was not all it was cracked up to be. Dreams of the future were all well and good, until you dreamed of the end of the world.

Her hand reached over to the nightstand, flicking on the table lamp. Her fingers dialed a number on her cell phone, seemingly of their own accord. No answer. She dialed again.

“This better be important! God! It’s three in the morning.”

“Madelyn, it’s time. Meet me at the house,” Morgan said, hanging up the phone. Maddy would know what it meant. They had not spoken for almost a century. There was only one reason she would call.

Morgan dressed in faded blue jeans and a black t-shirt. She went to the closet and pulled out a small duffle bag. She dumped its contents, her gym clothes, onto the floor and filled the bag with items from the large chest that sat at the foot of her bed. Potions and items of magic quickly filled the bag.

She wished the bag could carry more but her days of altering the fabric of reality were nearly over. Her power was barely strong enough to keep her youthful appearance. She had little to spare for other things. A shiver ran down her spine. Her power had to be sufficient. She was the only one who could stop the coming cataclysm.

She took a long, deep breath to steady her nerves before leaving her small apartment. After more than a thousand years of life, she should have been ready for death, but fear churned in her belly and brought bile to her throat. But if you didn’t let fear overwhelm you, you could use it; bend it to your will. Fear could enhance your senses and keep you alive when nothing else would.

Morgan hurried down the hall of her apartment building. The elevator seemed to take forever to reach her floor and the ride down to the lobby even longer. The bottom floor of the apartment complex was thankfully empty, she needed no prying eyes. There was no doubt that an onlooker would have seen her for what she was, a woman preparing for war.

Morgan hurried down the street. There was no parking in front of her apartment complex. She had to park her car over a block away, near where a group of disheveled looking men lounged on the corner. The raw pungent smell of whiskey and unwashed flesh hung thick in the air near the men.

“Hey lady, you got any change?” A rough voice called out.

“No,” Morgan replied, without looking at the man. She didn’t have time for this.

“Maybe you got something else for me then?” The man focused a leering smile on Morgan. “You’re the prettiest lady I seen in a long, long time. If I can’t get no bread, maybe I can get a little sugar.”

The large man moved toward her. He wore stained dirty blue jeans and a thick brown coat that looked as if it had been salvaged from a garbage can. To most women he would have been an imposing sight on a dark street at three in the morning.

Morgan sighed. She had been dealing with bandits and outlaws for a very long time. Humanity had not changed a bit in all her centuries of life. Oh, they had advanced technologically, but at their core they were still animals, barely more than the viscously cruel apes that had evolved into an apex predator in the jungles of Africa. There advancement had only brought all new levels of barbarism.

“I do not have time for your impertinence. You will sleep now! May nightmares haunt your dreams,” she hissed. An eerie green light illuminated the corner for just a second, a by-product of using her power. Magic bent the light around it causing colored light, every witches magic bent light into a different spectrum of color.

“I will sleep now,” the man repeated in a stunned monotone. He dropped to the ground, asleep before he hit the pavement. The other men stared at her in wary fear, like wolves who suddenly found the deer they were hunting was a lion.

Morgan pulled out her keys as she stepped over the man’s prone form, clicking the remote start on her keychain. It was a chilly fall night. It would be nice to let the car warm up for a bit before she climbed in.

An explosion thundered through the parking lot, echoing off the nearby buildings. A ball of fire blossomed upward, appearing where her car had once been. The force of the blast knocked her off her feet. The men sprinted away; they wanted no part of what was to come.

Morgan rose slowly, watching as her car burned in the crisp air. She had expected an attack, but not a car bomb. It was unlike Maeve to use such mundane tactics. She was going to have to take a cab.

She pulled her cell phone from her purse and called a Taxi Service. The man on the other end of the line spoke in accented broken English, but she thought he seemed where to pick her up. Hopefully he really did what a bitter irony it would be if the world ended due to a language barrier.

A sharp pain tore through her shoulder. Her cell phone fell from nerveless fingers as her hand darted to the ache. The fingers came away covered in warm, sticky blood. Wispy tendrils of steam rose off the crimson fluid in the cold air.

“Hey, Morgan. That was a warning shot, for all the good times we shared. Go home! Just leave it alone,” a strange, vibrating voice urged.

She turned to look at the speaker. He was a short figure in a long trench coat. He held a ball of what looked like needles. Morgan knew that he was holding the end of his tail, and that he could fire those needles just like a gun. What little of his skin she could see was red and covered in scales.

“Maeve sent one of her experiments to deal with me,” Morgan said. She was offended. Did Maeve really think she was that weak?

“You know I don’t like to be called an experiment. I got a name.”

“I know, Bobby. I helped make you. She didn’t even tell you why she sent you out, did she? It doesn’t matter. You should have left when I did.”

Flickering green light flooded the area as fire erupted from the street.

Bobby screamed as the fire crawled up his long trench coat, he let go of his tail trying to beat out the flames. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air. Morgan felt some the tension drain from her shoulders. With his hands off his tail he would not be able to fire the deadly projectiles. He fell to the ground, smoke rising from his still form.

“I’m sorry, Bobby,” Morgan said. A wave of guilt assaulted her. Bobby was little more than a slave and in a way Morgan was his mother. She and Maeve had created the little man for protection during the Inquisition. It did not seem right; Bobby’s reward for centuries of service was painful agonizing death. She shook her head, trying to shake away the feeling. There was no time for guilt or sadness.

She needed to get to the house. If Maeve sent Bobby there would be others coming and not all could be so easily dealt with. She reached into her duffle bag and pulled out a bottle of thick, red liquid.

She swallowed the foul tasting concoction in a single gulp. The pain in her shoulder vanished. There was on odd tingle as her flesh knit itself back together.

 It was her last healing potion, she should have brewed more. But she hadn’t known the world was ending.

“Hey! What happened to that guy? I’ll call 911 you check for a pulse,” the cab driver yelled from an open window. She had not seen the car pull up.

“Stop! You have seen nothing. You will drive me,” Morgan called out, using her magic. Green light engulfed the cab driver as her enchantment flowed over him. A crippling wave of dizziness slammed into her, she stumbled and leaned against the nearby light pole.

She was using too much of her power. It had been years since she used so much magic.

“I have seen nothing. I will drive you,” the driver said in a cold, hollow voice.

Morgan climbed into the backseat of the black sedan, grateful to be sitting down. She felt weaker than she had in centuries. She had to keep going, but her body protested, demanding a large meal, a warm bath, and soft bed.

“Where we headed?” the man asked cheerfully, unaware of the smoking remains a few feet from his car.

***

Almost an hour later the Taxi turned onto a rural road, the lights of the city far behind. Trees cloaked the landscape in thick foliage and menacing shadows. They had made sure that the House was far from prying eyes.

“How much farther?” the driver asked.

“Not far.”

“You better be able to pay for this.”

“You will be more than adequately compensated. Just drive.”

The driver grunted a noncommittal reply. Morgan was feeling a little better. The car ride had provided her with a short rest. Morgan would need all the power she could muster. Confronting Maeve would not be an easy task; she had always been the strong one.

A loud thunking noise reverberated through the car as something struck the roof. There was another noise against the passenger side door, then the fender.

“What the Hell is that?” the driver asked, slowing the vehicle.

“Do not stop. If you value your life do not stop.”

“You threaten me? I been driving for twenty years! You think a hundred pounds of nothing, like you, is going to scare me? I got to see what that was. We better be close to where you’re going, cause you’re getting out real soon.”

“Don’t-”

“Shut up,” the driver, said. “You don’t like it you can call my boss and tell him I told you so. This car gets hurt and it comes out of my check.”

The car pulled to the side of the road. The emergency lights flashed, filling the night with a harsh red glow. Morgan watched him, knowing what was going to happen, but unable to tear her eyes away.

The driver made it two steps before his blood sprayed through the night air to splatter against the windshield of the car. His head rolled slowly down the rural highway, bouncing along like some kind of strange ball.

Morgan threw herself over the seat and jerked the car into gear. She steered awkwardly as he pulled her body into the driver’s seat. The engine roared as she mashed the gas pedal to the floor. A cloud of dirt flew high into the air, flung upward by the spinning tires.

A small shape smashed into the window next to Morgan. A spider web of cracks spread from the impact.

“Damn it!” Morgan yelled. She had hoped Maeve’s creatures would not find her. It was too much to ask.

Rocks pelted the car, a hailstorm of granite and limestone. Long, slender blades thrust their way through the roof of the car. Morgan saw long furry tails and black feathered wings flash through the beam of the headlights as she sped forward.

Flying monkeys.

With swords.

Morgan shook her head wanting to laugh out loud, but she was worried that her laughter might have a hysterical edge. Maeve had never had an original thought in all her long years of life, but that did not make the creatures in less deadly.

The car shimmed from side to side as it sped faster. The airborne simians had not been breed for swiftness. They fell behind, becoming small dots of brown in her rearview mirror.

A giant man-shaped figure stood in the middle of the road. Morgan could not stop the black sedan before it barreled into the shape, spinning out of control. Morgan’s head smashed into the cracked driver’s side window. Shards of broken glass showered outward. Blood ran down her temple and the world went black.

***

 Morgan’s eyes fluttered back open to the loud sound of crushing metal. A massive ten-foot tall man with the head of a bull smashed his fist into the hood of the car, denting the metal like a sledgehammer.

The monster smashed its fist into the hood again. Morgan gathered her thoughts, concentrating. She needed to act fast before the dumb beast realized it was her and not the car that hurt it.

Green light enveloped the beast. Frost formed along its arms and legs, growing thicker and thicker until the creature was encased in a solid block of ice.

Morgan stepped from the car and glanced around. The small stream and surrounding hills looked familiar. The last time she was here, over a century ago, there had been a small village. She was not far from the House. It was not by happenstance that the city had grown miles away. They couldn’t have that many people so close.

Memories of her life here came back to Morgan. She always tried to forget the places she lived, and the people she once knew. Remembering made it hard to move on. She had friends in the village, and even for a brief while, a husband.

Morgan fought off the urge to sink into memory. She glanced around noticing the faint red light that could barely be seen. Maeve was growing more subtle in her golden years, in years past she would have never set the magical trap. She had always preferred sheet blunt force to the more delicate forms of attack. Morgan would have to be careful.

She reached into her duffle bag and pulled out a long belt wrapping it around her midsection. The artifact would protect her from certain spells. A small revolver went into the waistband of her jeans. The final item was a long cane made of oak. Runes of power were carved deep into the aged wood.

She crept through the forest all her senses aware of the world around her. If Maeve cast a spell of memory then the next attack could be almost anything. But no attack came, instead Morgan spotted the tell tale glow of fire light.

The orange-red light of a gigantic bonfire loomed before her as she left the woods. Morgan could see the House silhouetted by the fire. Her former home had been ravaged by time. The roof had collapsed. The walls leaned inward, ready to follow the roof. Jagged, splintered wood stuck out from the ruins like teeth. Morgan slithered up next to the house, hiding in the shadows.

“Morgan, you might as well come out. Madelyn is already here,” Maeve said, her voice sounding like crackling leaves.

Morgan stepped from the shadows. Madelyn was hanging from her wrists in a nearby tree. Her head rested limp against her chest, her face drawn and haggard. Her chest still rose and fell, but the amount of blood that ran from her gaping wounds told Morgan she did not have long left to live.

“How sweet to have my dear sisters return to bask in my greatest glory. Have you two finally made up your differences?” Maeve asked. Her hair was white, her form hunched and fragile. Deep wrinkles marred her face.

“Time has not been kind to you, sister,” Morgan said. It was a petty insult, but anything Morgan could do to throw Maeve off would be a help.

“I’m not as vain as you and had better uses for my power.”

“Like ending the world? I know opening the rift will grant you eternal life, but at what cost? Your mad plans are why we left! Do you really want to spend eternity on an empty dead planet?” Morgan knew the answer but she needed to hear her sister say it.

“Yes!” Maeve screamed.

Bright red light flooded the clearing as Maeve used her magic. Fire surged forward, racing toward Morgan. Morgan held her staff in front of her. The fire struck Morgan’s thick green shield of protective magic, knocking her back a few feet.

“You were always the weakest of us. If Madelyn could not withstand my power, what chance do you think you have?”

Morgan fell to her knees; her only reply was a muffled grunt. Maeve was right. There was no way she could overpower her elder sister with magic. She struggled forward and nearly fell on her face. Maeve’s magic hammered at her shield.

“We knew you would do it, that someday you would be able to open the rift. We waited and planned how to stop you. But it has been for nothing...please sister…do not kill me,” Morgan said, forcing her voice to sound broken and defeated.

“Perhaps, I will let you live, just long enough to see me triumphant. It might be nice to have a serving wench to bring me wine as I watch the world burn.”

Morgan crawled closer. She dropped her cane, pulled out the revolver, and jumped to her feet. Six shots echoed through the night air. With each shot Morgan took a step forward.

Maeve laughed. “Did you think your insignificant weapon would actually harm me?”

“No,” Morgan yelled, sprinting the last few feet to her sister. Her shoulder slammed into Maeve’s midsection, a loud gasp escaping the ancient woman’s mouth as Morgan knocked the wind out of her.

Morgan crawled up Maeve’s unmoving body, her hands latched onto her sister’s throat. She squeezed as hard as she could and slammed Maeve’s gray-haired head into the ground.

Maeve’s fingers clawed at her arms. Morgan could see the light of desperation in her eyes. Magic required concentration. The panic that filled Maeve’s eyes spelled her doom.

Dark bruises formed on the flesh beneath Morgan’s fingers as Maeve’s struggles weakened. Morgan whimpered as she watched the light fade from her sister’s eyes. She didn’t let go until long after Maeve stopped moving.

Sobs wracked her body as she stumbled to Madelyn’s hanging form. A small magical green flamed flared, burning through the ropes that held her sister.

“Morgan?” Madelyn called out in a weak voice.

“It’ll be okay, Maddy. Everything’s going to be okay.”