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Excerpt“Life in the fast lanes!” Sable sang at the top of her voice as she bent low into a turn. The green and brown scenery of the passing road blurred, as the wind whipped past her visor, distorting everything but the road ahead. It was a warm Scotland summer day, which meant that it was around seventy degrees. A watery sun broke through the gray clouds in the sky. Life was good! The birds were singing, the road was open, men were falling from the sky. Falling from the sky?! Sable slammed on her brakes, tightening her grip as her monster bike slid to the side with a loud growl of the engine and the loud grating of the tires as they left a black trail on the paved road. As soon as the bike screeched to a halt, she dropped her stand and was running towards the fallen body. “Oh my God!” she nearly screamed. “They’re throwing bodies around like litter!” Then she took a second to think about who they could be, before she sprang into action. She raced to the body. She could see by the build that it was one hell of a big woman, or a nearly naked man who had just been tossed…from somewhere! Paying no attention to the jeans that were getting covered in muddy grass stains, her best jeans, she fell to her knees beside the man—she decided after a closer look—and began to try an revive him. “Hey mister!” She patted his still cheeks, trying to wake him up. “Mister? Are you alive?” It was a stupid question, but her brain was not exactly functioning at its peak. For one thing, she had never seen a body pop out of thin air. For another, she didn’t know if she was touching a corpse. “Ewwww!” she gasped as that thought crossed her mind. She jumped back, scrambled to her feet, and then stepped back a few paces for good measure. “Okay, Sable,” she whispered to herself, giving herself a little pep talk. “He might be alive, girl. You have to go and see.” “Mister,” she called again, stepping up to him again and bending over him, her steel gray and black leather biker jacket parting to reveal the thin T-shirt she wore underneath. “Miiiissssterrrr.” She took another cautious step closer. “Mister?” “Nello!” he gasped suddenly as his eyes snapped open. “EIP!” Sable shouted as she jumped back, totally involuntary on her part, but his sudden move had frightened her…a little. “Nello?” he gasped again, then groaned as he tried to raise a shaking hand to his forehead. Never had he felt such an ache. His head was pounding, he felt cold to freezing, and there was a tiny woman screaming at him. Where was he? Had he died after all and this was the next dimension? He turned his head towards the woman, and blinked at her startled expression. “Your eyes,” Sable cried, her eyes going wide. “You have lavender eyes!” She had never seen a human being with those colored eyes before in her life! They had to be contacts. But then that mass of tangled silk he had for hair drew her attention, too. It nearly covered him like a blanket. Who was he? He had to be a foreigner, well, more of a foreigner than she was. “Mister,” she began again, suddenly wondering if she made a mistake in stopping to help him. “Maybe I should go and get some help.” “Nier. Neoow?” he asked, as he struggled to rise. “No!” Sable called out quickly as she saw the color leach from his face. “Don’t move! You might have broken something.” With her hands, she gestured that he should lay still. He looked at her oddly for a moment, then with a small groan dropped his head back to the grass. Wherever he was, the people were smaller than the tiniest person from the Magic Realm. The small woman had short red hair and wide brown eyes. He assumed that it was a female because of the two small breasts that pushed out against the front of her funny tunic. That and her very feminine sounding voice. But no matter how hard he tried, he could not understand a word she said. “Oh, gosh, you are hurt!” Sable sighed as she watched him weakly drop his head back to the grass, uncaring that he was covered in leaves and dirt. Leaves! He must have been up in the trees! That explained his falling. “What were you doing in the trees?” she asked as she took another cautious step closer to the wounded man. She had to do something to help him. She noted that he was wearing some type of leather strips that may have once been pants, and that his boots were torn and frayed. But it was those boots that caught her attention. “Are you a biker?” she asked, wondering if she had found a wounded but kindred soul. There had been a big festival near Glasgow this past weekend, and there had been tales of rowdies. Attracted by the lure of fancy custom-made bikes and the riches those bike owners were sure to possess, the local rowdies were beating up lone travelers and stealing their bikes for parts. “Is that what happened to you?” she asked, concern and regret filling her heart. “Were you coshed over the head and left in that…tree?” Well, she had heard of worse ways to stash a body. And big as he was, someone would had to brain him with a steel beam to get him out of commission long enough for anyone to steal his motorcycle. His chest, she noted as his dark hair parted, was extremely wide, extremely dark, and extremely bare. Did they take his clothes too? “Inipo opt Nello,” he said as he again turned to her, ‘Where is Nello?’ Couldn’t she speak normally? The only thing coming from her mouth was childish gibberish! “Inipo opt Nello?” he asked again, as he cocked his head to the side and examined her. At his gesture, Sable exploded in laughter. “You definitely aren’t from around here, and I have never heard Gaelic spoken like that. You must be from the festival. Stay here, and I’ll go get some help.” “Inipo apee yo kota?” he asked. ‘Where are you going?’ “Stay here.” She motioned with her hands, lifting hands up, palms spread and gesturing to the ground. “Stay here.” His head cocked ever further to the side, reminding her of a curious child. She smiled and nodded her head reassuringly. “Stay here. Here!” she repeated the gesture slowly and his eyes lit up in understanding. “Stay here,” he repeated, slurring the words a bit. Maybe he was Italian? But no, that dark skin said that he had some African in him. Maybe he was both. “Right!” she smiled at him, making the gesture again. “Here!” Torn examined the woman, his senses reached out to envelop her, to examine her inner self. He found no hatred there, no taint of evil, nor darkness, only a desire to help. “Stay here,” he repeated as he tried to roll over onto his knees to rise to his feet. Stay here was not comfortable and was quite damp. His body began to shake with chills. Where had Nello sent him? Ah, he suddenly remembered. Nello, in trying to save his life, had altered her father’s magic on the collar. Instead of taking him far away in death, it just took him far away. But how far away was far away? Did he have to remain on Stay Here? Would he ever see his beloved home again? He tried to rise, but groaned softly with the movement. Changing into The Reaver always drained him and sometimes left him as weak as a newborn babe. But never had he felt this painful body ache before. “No!” the female was crying out now. “Stay here!” “Stay Here, Stay Here!” he grumbled as he felt the cold penetrate the remaining leather from his tattered garments. There goes his ceremonial suit, he thought in disgust. Now he would have to hunt more range beasts to make more. “Stay Here,” he gestured to the ground. “You don’t understand,” she muttered, finally understanding what was happening. “How can I make you understand?” Sable spoke in her frustration, looking up into the sky for answers. But the big guy had struggled to his feet, and Sable took another step back, not out of fear, but out of awe. That man had looked big while lying prone on the ground, but standing tall, he looked gigantic! He had to be seven mother-loving feet tall! “You are one tall drink of water!” she said with awe as she watched him raise his hands to his head and try to pull some of those curls off of his face. “Tall drink of water?” he said, rolling the R’s around his tongue. “No! I mean…never mind,” she sighed, rubbing her forehead with her fist. “Never Mind?” he added wrinkling his brow. Her words made no sense! How was he to exist here if he couldn’t understand the natives? “No, no!” she sighed, shaking her head. “No,” he said repeating the gesture. Well, shaking your head no was kind of a universal expression. |
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Stephanie Burke Welcomes You
Have You Been Flashed?
