For someone who doesn’t care much for leaving home, I love driving. I don’t like maintaining cars, or souping them up, or making a particular car mine, and only mine. Cars are a big, clumsy method of giving me the freedom that is driving. It’s considered one of the quintessential American joys, and for good reason. Every time I drive, I’m consuming a resource that will take millions of years to replenish. The bones of the dead, long since rendered into energy-rich jelly. It’s the inheritance of our species, the thing that can keep society grinding long enough for us to make it to some new energy source, the necromancy for the everyman. And I was wasting it on zooming down a highway at midnight in rural Pennsylvania.

Continue reading “Chapter 9: Did You Think It Would Be That Easy” →

I sat with Jenny on the curb outside the club. Polly was nervously kicking her soccer ball from side to side, bouncing it off of the top of her shoes with shocking precision. Every ten or twenty bounces, she’d miss, and it would heavily strike the pavement of the sidewalk, leaving large cracks. Alfred’s jaw was tensed, his forehead vein throbbing, his legs crossed. “Must you do that right now, darling?” he asked, through gritted teeth. He sat in a meditative pose, eyes closed, five candles surrounding him, the vials sitting between his crossed legs. I knew for a fact that he didn’t need any of these little accoutrements, but he’d made it clear that putting on a show made the magic easier.

Continue reading “Chapter 7: Cruor, Ichor, and Gore” →

The day before a major trial, the judge calls both lawyers into his chambers, with a very stern expression. “So, I have been presented, by both of you, with a bribe. You, Mister Abrams, gave me ten thousand dollars. And you, Mister Chandler, gave me fifteen thousand dollars.” The two lawyers bow their heads in shamed embarrassment. The Judge takes out a check for five thousand dollars, and hands it to Mister Chandler. “Now then, let’s decide this case on the merits!”

Continue reading “Chapter 6: Hope Means A Lot” →

As we made our way down the hill, into the cemetery proper, I noticed groups of the undead stopping and kneeling by graves. A number of them carried flowers, mementos, or bottles of alcohol. Jenny frowned, looking among them. “What are they doing?” she asked, curious.

Continue reading “Chapter 5: The Adversarial System” →

“Jesus Christ, Atina,” Alfred muttered, a frown on his face.

Continue reading “Chapter 4: Keeping the Wolf from the Door” →

I am well aware that I am not a small woman. I’m not obese, though I weigh more than I’d like to. I’m freakishly tall, especially for a woman. That height brings with it a certain level of mass- And again, this is not an invitation for a joke about my weight, because I genuinely am sensitive about that. When I punch someone, they might not get knocked on their ass, but they should damn well have the decency to stagger. It’s not a matter of strength or toughness, it’s a question of relative mass.

Continue reading “Chapter 3: Kind-hearted Killers” →

I’m going to tell you a secret. I hate my name. Loathe it. My parents were well-meaning, as all parents were, when they named me. They wanted to give me a name that meant something, that felt strong. And so they chose Atina, because even they recognized that ‘Athena’ was too much. And my last name, LeRoux, was the last remaining shred of French identity left to my family. My ancestors had fled from Basque country two hundred and fifty years ago, up Louisiana along the Mississippi, through to Ottawa, and then drizzled back down into the States over time. I got a few strands of copper hair, most of them turned to white now, and a name that got me picked on mercilessly for most of my life.

Continue reading “Chapter 2: Worryingly Helpful Friends” →

A man has three sons. He explains to his sons that he wants them to prosper. So, he will make them a loan of one hundred thousand dollars for their education, on the condition that at his funeral, they pay him back. Many years later, at the funeral, his sons gather around him. His first son, an archaeologist, lays a pair of priceless golden coins on his eyes, each worth 50,000 dollars. His second son, a jewelry-maker, lays a diamond necklace around his neck, worth 100,000 dollars. His final son, a lawyer, places a check for 300,000 dollars on the man’s chest, and then grabs the gold coins and the necklace as change.

Continue reading “Chapter 1: A Young Woman, in Dire Straits” →