Kehoe’s ankle grinds its teeth as he slides from the embankment onto the road. It won’t offer him any cover, but that’s fine, they need it more than him. He hauls himself from a limp to a jog.
“Only so many giant rabbits can join a miners’ union before somebody starts making connections!” He glances back at their blue eyes and long ears, flickering tree-to-tree. “Filthy strikebreakers! If you get me the others will know!”
Silence. Kehoe spits behind him: “Aren’t you going to ask me to come quietly?”
“Pinkerton pinkerton,” giggle the Pinkertons, and Kehoe shivers in fear.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Chastity is Hector’s partner in Bad Relationships 110, which isn’t their assigned disagreement, thank goodness. Instead they get jealousy, and scream for three hours weekly before tackling each other for angry sex. Chastity gets an A and ice cream; Hector gets a C.
Next semester it’s Slacking and Associative Guilt. In the winter he passes Binge Drinking with an A and a mop, but it’s exhausting.
“Nostalgia Prep and Poli Sci this term!” he moans at dinner their first night back. “And Random Hookups has a lab–”
“Wait,” says Ayane, “Poli Sci?”
“Does that even count toward your major?” asks Kai.
“This is an aye-aye!” says Boris the Zoo Friend, as it scurries up his arm. “It’s an endangered lemur–whoa!–capable of some spectacular acrobatic feats.”
“It’s a mankiller,” pipes up Alava.
“You’ve said that about every animal the class has met today, Alava,” chides Boris, “and I promise, Willikins here eats bugs! It knocks on trees to find–”
“I’m really serious this time,” says Alava, but she’s drowned out by laughter as the aye-aye raps sharply on Boris’s head.
“That’s right, little guy,” he laughs, “it’s hollow!” Then Willikins inserts its four-inch middle finger into his ear.
Once upon a time there was a purple dragon princess who was the ruler of a magical land. She and all her varicolored compatriots spent their days soaring over the green and dimpled hills, rings of silver on their talons and amber wands on their backs, awing the proletariat and teaching rabblerousers the error of their ways. By night they returned to their nacreous palace, Candide; they feasted on elephant and guzzled peppercorn wine. The peppercorns stoked the furnaces of their mouths, so that during the Great Purgings, all those endorsing dangerous ideologies could are you asleep yet? Please be asleep.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Leech knows that outside the Ferrarium, people eat the flesh of animals. The thought makes her sick; or rather, she expects it to make her sick, and feels guilty when it doesn’t.
The blood girls eat only their garden vegetables, and flatbread, and drink milk from their goats. The life they grow within themselves is only once removed from the pure earth. So long as they remain pure, the blood they give the Honchos is once-removed as well.
This is sacred doctrine, and Leech never questions it. She only wonders, watching the returning Honchos, how all that purity is spent.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
A glitch turns the city green for an afternoon, and the (green) Lord Mayor powers up the ancient patchwork of public address. “Full chromatics will be restored soon,” crackle the bullhorns and gramophones. “We anticipate no reboot.”
The morning does show improvement: dark things are yellow, light things blue. “Recompiling,” says the Lord Mayor, “better soon!” By five o’clock Spaks and his shop friends have a homebrew fix. They try it at an intersection. The police arrive quite soon.
“I personally don’t mind,” says the arresting sergeant, “but it’s a matter of principle,” and Spaks’s mouth sprays gold on the wall.
“The Case of the Missing Detective,” murmurs Mina. She’s sitting in the front seat of Dracula’s car this time, next to Quincey. She likes it a lot better.
“It was the night he told you he’d have your friend the next day,” says Quincey. “He was wagering with himself, and I think he bet too much. He’s got some astounding talents, see, but also some peculiar vulnerabilities, and–forgive me–I don’t think he aimed to disappoint.”
“So he’s in trouble? Maybe the same trouble as Lucy?”
Quincey nods.
“Well,” says Mina briskly, “if so, that should save us some time.”
Thursday, January 18, 2007