Writing: a little urban fantasy novella

 

Now that Curse of Royalty is FINALLY published, I've pulled out a strange urban fantasy novella I wrote as an exercise while I was stuck at home in 2020. It's in a very different writing style than what I used for the curse series - a much needed change. I got to explore a few ideas I'd been mulling over and present the gospel in a way that was different than I did in the curse series. Still playing around with what title to use but the story has an interesting twist and end, but it's a little open ended. Was also thinking I might narrate it since it's kind of short - maybe 4 hours long. 

Anyway, for those of you who are interested, here is the intro chapter.

Will be working on getting this one brushed up enough to publish. I'm super close - might even be able to release in time for summer reads.

 

.1.
Escape

A thousand angry ants stung me while I ran from him. Hair whipped me in the wind, sloppy rain-soaked ropes that stuck at odd angles, sometimes partially obstructing my vision, but I pushed on without wiping them aside. I couldn’t afford even minor distractions.

Ted would die if he followed me and he knew it as well as I did, but that didn’t stop him from bellowing at me from the covered stoop like a guard dog.

Interminable years had passed while I sought an opportunity to escape. It had been no simple task, since desert rains even in the monsoon season rarely lasted long enough that I thought I had even a drip of a chance. Without a prolonged downpour I had no hope of putting any kind of distance between us before he could track me. And by then he’d be furious.

Tonight, his crew was off on some errand or other and when I heard him groan a comment about how he thought the desert wouldn’t get so much rain, I listened carefully, hoping to catch enough of the forecaster’s report before he stabbed the remote to change the channel.

My legs burned but I pushed myself farther into the bowels of the growling storm. Lightning struck a rod atop one of the tall buildings that glimmered on the distant horizon, but I leaned into each stride – a mantra, “Come on! One more step! And another!” filled my head leaving no room for fear of the bright fingers of light or even of the creature I was finally leaving behind.

I stumbled just as another bolt flashed white-hot across the flat land. I had to get to the coast, any coast, or I’d end up back where I started and I was certain he’d take more precautions then. Especially since up until a few months ago, he had only just started to let me out of my secured room for short amounts of time.

No! I would never go back. He’d have to kill me.

A boulder snagged the toe of my tennis shoe throwing me forward. I skittered across the surface of that wide rock and off into the sandy mud on the other side. My tender palms stung with abrasions but they were secondary to the sting of the fresh acid rain that needled almost every inch of my body. I could feel my exposed skin blistering, but I ushered the pain into a corner of my mind, righted myself again with a groan, and continued my insane dash. Each blessed lightening strike revealed more and more distance between me and that cursed room he’d kept me in.

Noticing darkness about me losing deepness, I glanced over a shoulder and panicked. Someone was coming – driving slow along the road as if looking for something.

I threw myself onto the ground, praying not to be seen, not to die, not to be caught again. While I waited for the car to pass, rain continued to singe my skin. I wore dark clothing. My hair, an even deeper black now that it was wet, glistened like a beetle’s shell. My skin, though reddened because of the irritation of the rain, was still as pale as if I had never seen sunlight.

The two jaundiced orbs were nearly upon me before I turned my face from the road. The only skin I imagined could be seen would be the back of one ear and a tiny bit right above my collar where my hair parted across my neck. I was a good eighty feet from the pavement and behind a small rise of rock with one of my ears pressed to the sticky sand, but if Ted was in that car – if he had braved the rain to get into that car…

My mind descended into despair. His eyes were accustomed to hunting in the dark. He would see or smell me despite the rain and he might have found a rain suit.

I squelched a rise of panic that made me want to risk being seen by jumping up. Instead, I squeezed my eyes closed, clinched a fist to my lips and another into the sand. While an eternity stretched I strained my ears, hoping to filter out the rainy beats to know if the car stopped. I stilled my mind with a hope that the car held a bent octogenarian and her scruffy calico going to the city for some Pad Thai instead of the monster who I had naively followed from home long ago.

How many years had it been? Twenty-five? Forty? Too long by any count but not long enough for me to forget where I came from and where I needed to return. Had my family given up on finding me?

The headlights continued past and towards the city, but it still took several painful minutes to unclench enough that I could lift my head and regain my feet. I knew his crew was in the city, and by now they would probably know what I’d done. Soon they’d be screaming by in their junker car, but they wouldn’t risk their lives by getting out in the rain – not even for him.

I stood beside a thorny mesquite, the painful rain still falling and scorching my skin. Shielding my face with a flattened hand, I drew a long breath, just to remind myself that I was alive. Tilting my head, I took in another before I stumbled into a run. The ocean had to be at least three hundred or more miles away, but I felt it calling, could almost smell it.