by Charley Case
This was going to suck serious donkey dick, so she didn’t want to have to do it twice. This way, she just had to keep from screaming once. Feel that cartilage pop… She didn’t want to think about it and rocked forward quickly so all her body weight was on those two joints, which hurt like a son of a bitch but wasn’t quite enough pressure.
So she bounced.
That worked, and there was muffled wet pop. Mila screwed her eyes shut as tears ran freely from them. Blood wet her lips after she bit her tongue to keep from screaming.
Very carefully, Mila pulled her hands out. She wanted to be sick, looking at that odd angle on both hands. She had to bite her tongue again when she pulled her hands out one at a time and gently placed the shackles on the concrete so they didn’t clink.
As soon as she was clear of the shackles, her magic came rushing back, although noticeably diminished. Immediately she fed power to her hands and nearly cried out as the digits reset themselves. The pain eventually faded as she kept feeding magic to the affected areas. Her tongue was the last thing she healed.
When she looked up, the color drained from Mila’s face.
Missy stood over the Drude, her right hand out and open as a rather ordinary hand scythe appeared in it. She gripped it tight and cocked back her arm.
“Let’s get that little problem fixed so I can use it myself, shall we?” Missy said to the unconscious Drude.
Her arm swung down but stopped suddenly. She pulled, but it was locked in place. Mila leaned to the side to get a better view.
One of the Drude’s tentacles had snaked up to grip the wrist of the hand holding the Reaper.
A crackling laugh filled the echoing factory.
“No. No! I took your power.” Missy screamed as Azoth slithered to his full height and looked down into her face.
“You really think I didn’t know you stole a piece of my soul before you woke me? You think me so incapable?” He ripped the Reaper from her hand and held it up in victory. “My mission is finally complete! With this, we will become gods. Whatever power we want, we’ll just create it. This is the ultimate power in the universe, and you were dumb enough to bring it out around me?”
He laughed again.
Then the wall exploded for the second time that day.
Mila had no clue what was happening, but this was her chance.
As she empowered her body for all it was worth, she snatched up Gram, took one step, and swung hard. The golden sword sliced through Azoth’s forearm like it was made of butter and sent the Reaper and attached arm spinning off to land with an odd combination of a wet splat and clanking metal.
Victoria and three other Valkyries Mila had never seen before rushed in, followed closely by Carl and the rest of the team. Azoth looked at his incoming enemies, then at Mila. He reached down with his one remaining hand, palmed Missy’s face, and picked her up as a void portal opened.
“I’ll be back for that, pet.” He turned to the portal, and after a second’s consideration, he kicked Yaminah’s broken but still living body through the portal, then stepped through himself.
Mila scrambled over to pry Azoth’s tentacle hand open, then picked up the Reaper as she muttered to herself.
“This shit just got complicated.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Finn stepped out of the illusion Freya had kept them in despite him telling her that he knew it was an illusion.
He’d put his hat back on, and his backpack once again held half a ton of treasure. His phone dinged, and he saw there was a message from an unknown number. He hit play and put the phone to his ear to give Freya the entire gambit of emotions in about thirty seconds.
He hung up and turned to her. “Can you teleport?”
“Yes. Why?” she asked suspiciously.
“I need a teleport to San Francisco right now.”
Mila and the rest of the team had returned to Victoria’s condo, most of them congregating on the roof to perform the cleanup. That involved a lot of magically dissolving bodies. Mila found it telling that not only were the Valkyries efficient at it but so was the G.A.E.L. team.
Mila spoke with Victoria about where to put the Reaper. They couldn’t keep it in Elsewhere because Missy could just come in and take it. Victoria didn’t want any of the Valkyries to have it because Missy knew where all their homes and hideouts were. Until she could get a new location up and running, the Reaper needed to be somewhere with excellent wards, looked after by capable people.
After two minutes of Victoria dropping not-so-subtle hints, Mila threw up her arms. “Fine! We can keep it at my place. Are you happy?”
Victoria smiled. “Very. Thank you.”
A large bubble formed on the deck, to be quickly surrounded by Valkyries. When the teleport bubble popped, no one expected what they got.
Finn, a large floppy yellow sun hat on his head, black Speedo barely visible, and flip-flops on his feet, shouted a war cry, Fragar held above his head. The small darkly tanned woman who had brought him jumped backward with a squeak and immediately teleported away.
Finn, on realizing there were no enemies to fight, deflated, spotted Mila, and jogged over. He collapsed Fragar and, for some ungodly reason, stuffed it down the front of his very tight and already full Speedo.
“Oh, my God, Finn!” Mila’s mouth kept working, but no more words came out.
He struck a pose. “You like em? It’s like I’m wearing nothing!”
“Yup, sure is, babe. Nothing at all,” Mila agreed.
Remmy walked by and turned just as she passed his crotch.
“I can totally see your balls, dude,” she remarked.
With a toothy grin, she bounced over to help Howard pack up the weapons.
Finn looked down at his package. “It’s not that bad.”
“Well, I can’t say I don’t like it in theory.” Mila chuckled.
Another teleport bubble appeared, to be surrounded once again, but when it popped, it revealed Penny and a very tired woman with a blue pixie cut. The woman waved to Mila and held her hand up like a telephone. Mila waved back and gave a thumbs-up while Penny flew over.
Rebecca teleported away, and Penny dropped a very heavy softball-sized device into Mila’s hand.
“Is this it?”
Penny nodded as her eyes drooped in exhaustion. She flew over to Finn and laid on his shoulder to fall asleep.
Finn looked at her on his shoulder. “What, no hello?”
“Sheeir skee,” she mumbled.
“You can not see my balls in these trunks!” Finn scowled.
Remmy walked past in the opposite direction. “At this point, those trunks are your balls.”
“I fucking hate you guys.”
Mila gave him a pouty face as she walked over and slipped her arms around him. “Poor babe. It’s okay, I love you.”
“Love you too, darlin’. So, you like the trunks?”
“Oh, no, babe. Those things are awful. You can totally see your balls.”
The End
(for now)
Mila has a lot to process: her new powers, betrayal, Finn's swimwear choices... But the one that takes the cake is what to do with the Reaper. It's not every day you're responsible for one of the most powerful artifacts in the universe.
How do you hide something that important? Sometimes the best hiding places just don't exist.
Join Mila and Finn as they discover what it takes to keep a planet safe in Wings of the Valkyrie, book three of the Lone Valkyrie series.
P.S. I hope you like baby dragons...
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Author Notes - Charley Case
April 4, 2020
This book was interesting to write. I started it when the
country was doing great; strong economy, the seasons were changing from winter to spring, and the new beers were coming out at my favorite brewery. By the time I wrote The End the government had closed the country down and we were getting the first hints of what life would be like closeted in our homes for the foreseeable future.
I have to be honest here… if I wasn't married to a woman who payed attention to the world at large, I might not have noticed there was a pandemic going on.
Life as an author is a strange and wonderful thing, at least if you’re an introvert with an overactive imagination. But with that life comes a lot of isolation.
A week into the social distancing someone asked me how I was coping with all the changes. What I said was, “It’s been a little hard, but if we stick to the plan we’ll get back on track before you know it.” What I wanted to say was, “Coping with what?” But, I can't really say that; not if I don't want to sound like an asshole.
I live in a world that starts at 7:30 am when I wake up and make a cup of tea, then I write until 4:30 pm when I stop to make dinner. Me and the wife take a walk, maybe workout, then watch a TV show or a movie. I’m in bed around 11:00 pm and the whole thing starts over. I can do that for weeks… I prefer to do that for weeks. I’m actually built for social isolation.
But I’m not so far gone that I don't realize that you are, more than likely, not.
So, I would like to take this opportunity to share with you a few tips to get you through this trying time. After all, if you want to know how to fix your car you would ask a mechanic, right? Well, if you want to know how to survive isolation, ask a writer.
Tip 1: Never think of yourself as being trapped; you’re not. You are the opposite of trapped, you’re finally free. You no longer have to worry about what people are going to think of you when you leave the house; no need to get dressed up, put on makeup, or wear that fake smile you have to use at the office. You get to be you, in all your weird and quirky ways, and no one will be able to judge you… except you. Which leads to my second tip.
Tip 2: This isolation will be the only time some of you will have to really take a close look at yourself in the raw, as it were. This was the hardest part for me. After that first month of gloriously wearing pajama pants everyday, and eating whatever I liked for lunch regardless of bad my breath might be afterward, I had a nice long sit down with myself and evaluated my life choices.
I was an animal… a big stinky animal. My wife is a saint.
Tip 3: Don’t judge yourself too harshly, we all need a break and if that break makes us look like an ape that broke into the banana bin and gorged ourselves into a banana fueled coma, that’s okay. Life is a big ass ball of stress, and we need to decompress. But there is a big difference between not judging ourselves too harshly, and not judging ourselves at all.
We are our own keepers. That means we are the masters of our own destinies, but it means we’re the masters of our own faults as well. Notice those faults, don't dwell on them, just mark them down and think about them. We are born the way we are right now, we learned all the things we do over a lifetime; it’s going to take a minute to reorganize.
Tip 4: Make a list. After that first month I realized there were a few things I didn't like about how I was carrying on. It wasn't fair to me or my body or my wife. I needed to make a few changes. So, I made a list of the things I would like to see improve in my life, and when I was done that list was waaaaaaayyyy too long.
So I picked the top three things, and threw the rest in a drawer. Once I had my much smaller list I moved to the next stage.
Tip 5: Make a plan. I drew up elaborate plans to change those three things over night. I was going to be a fucking golden god! No one has ever seen change like this, this fast, and this effective. I was going to blow my own socks off, then wash them and fold them and put them in the sock drawer, then blow the sock drawer out of the dresser.
That lasted about twenty minutes.
Once reality hit, I realized that any step in the right direction was one step I hadn't taken yesterday. So I rewrote my plan to the most pathetic version of itself. For example, I need to exercise. Well, I wasn't going to do that, so instead I put “walk to the mailbox everyday when the mail truck comes.
And I did. Then I did it the next day, and the next. The whole time I was thinking that it was exercise, and that made me feel foolish, so I decided that I could handle a walk around the block, and started doing that.
See what I mean, pathetically small plan, but it was miles more than I was doing.
Tip 6: Go outside. You need the sunlight to make Vitamin D. We all need the D, go do it. You’ll feel better, promise.
Tip 7: It’s over before you know it.
Why did I just tell you to go make yourself better? Because that’s how you go for a long time in isolation. You get a project, you work on the project, and before you know it a few months have gone by and you hardly notice.
The secondary benefit is that you actually got shit done! You’re going to be home anyway, may as well make the most out of it.
Tip 8: Have fun. Call your friends and talk on the phone, or over video chat. This is the perfect time to reconnect with the friends that you don't call all that often because you know they’re home too. Play cards, play music, play hide and go seek with the dog.
Tip 9: I don't know what the hell I’m talking about. Seriously, I’m a guy who makes shit up all day, what the hell do I know? My whole point is that this is not a time to spiral down, it’s a time to spiral up.
Make that happen however you make that happen. Just make it happen.
Well, the sun is going down, and I have a cat on a leash that wants to take a walk…
I hope you all are doing well and doing your part. I know it’s been hard, but with a plan you’ll get through this before you know it.
P.S. Wash your hands. Right now, go do it.
Charley Case
(My house,
Boise, Idaho
4/4/2020)
Author Notes - Martha Carr
April 6, 2020
Week bajillion of the quarantine (probably fifth week in reality) and successes so far – figured out how to use my sewing machine after a few decades and fits and starts, walking 3.15 miles – basically a 5k, have joined a zoom yoga class, went to some neighborhood zoom happy hours with games and have made a baker’s dozen bandanas for some nurses. Somewhere in there finished writing a book and read two third’s of Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson about Churchill before the U.S. joined the war. It’s soothing because in this one I know who wins and when it all ends.
Not bad overall.
This week I hope to add in meditation, stay away from the news, (both of those are for the sake of sanity), and sketch some drawings for the mural I’m doing down the hallway. That’s right, I’m drawing a large, complicated mural down my long hallway. Rather than adopt the pristine look of an HGTV makeover, I’m going for making the house look singularly like my own. I’ll share pics and videos when it’s underway and as the process continues.
I used to draw cartoons of families and their pets as a side gig a long time ago and drew cartoons of Louie, the Offspring, when he was little to assume him. This is just a return to some roots.
I’m also doing a fairly big embroidery of flowers that I have plans to frame for the dining room. I can’t buy plants right now or start that vegetable garden, so I think it’s coming out sideways in the artwork. That works for the time being. Maybe I’ll end up with the feeling of a continuous garden from the indoors to the outside. I could live with that.
My future daughter in law, Jackie Venson and the Offspring have been doing nightly Facebook Live concerts at 9 pm CT, which is a lot of expended energy, but has also provided an audience in the thousands, and growing, something fun to do seven days a week. Amazing.
One thing I’ve had reinforced for me as an entire world is in time out, is that we’re very clever people who will go to great lengths to find ways to conn
ect, to be creative, to structure our days and to find meaning in what’s happening – good or bad. That’s why I know we’ll make it through this too. And with a lot of stories to tell our grandchildren. More adventures to follow.
The Magic Compass
If smart phones and GPS rule the world - why am I hunting a magic compass to save the planet?
Austin Detective Maggie Parker has seen some weird things in her day, but finding a surly gnome rooting through her garage beats all.
Her world is about to be turned upside down in a frantic search for 4 Elementals.
Each one has an artifact that can keep the Earth humming along, but they need her to unite them first.
Unless the forces against her get there first.
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON AND IN KINDLE UNLIMITED!
Other Books in The Terranavis Universe
The Adventures of Maggie Parker Series
The Witches of Pressler Street
The Adventures of Finnegan Dragonbender
Other books by Martha Carr
Other books by Charley Case
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