Lizard Skin

June 23, 2018July 31, 2018 ~ Piece, of the Sky

Dan sat on his couch, holding a snifter of whiskey, wearing a cobalt dress shirt. Cai came out of the bedroom – now, really, their bedroom – holding his phone, “There are some people I want you to meet.”

He looked up at the sound of Cai’s voice. Rain ran down the windows. The 6 o’clock news played quietly on the TV.

Cai plopped down next to him, revealing a couple on the mobile screen. The one on the right was clean-shaven, pale and dark-haired, with intense amber eyes, under a heavy brow – A Cancer by the looks of it, Dan thought – and the other, on the left, had a beard, and a swarthy, Mediterranean complexion. Both were smiling – the smooth one had on a smug, triumphant look, the other, pleasantly bemused.

“Who are they?” Dan asked.

“The one with the piercing glare and the tie is Hod, Undersecretary to the Lightning Avatar. The other one, with the open collar, is his husband, Sebastian. They’re both FBI agents, on this side.”

“Oh,” Dan said. He hadn’t really talked to Cai about the whole Lightning Avatar thing. He hadn’t known there was more.

“And this,” Cai continued, “is Alli and Page.” Cai swiped left, and a second photo appeared, one of two women, one with long black hair, wearing a gray pantsuit, and another bronze-skinned, shorter female, in jeans and a dark green college sweatshirt.

“This is the Thunder Avatar, and the soon-to-be, new Sky Avatar,” Cai explained.

Dan blinked, “Who are these people?”

Cai returned his gaze, and without missing a beat, said, “This is the team.”

“The team?” Dan asked again, growing more bewildered.

“Yes, the new team,” Cai responded, “Our new team.”

“For what?” Dan wondered, “What do we do?”

“Well, we’ve got a heavy caseload,” Cai quipped.

“Cases?” Dan exclaimed, alarmed.

“Yes,” Cai soothed, “Are you in, or are you out?”

“Well, I’m in, but –” Dan began.

“Good, because we’re meeting Hod and Seb tomorrow, for dinner,” Cai slapped Dan’s thigh and got up from the couch.

Dan looked around, flabbergasted, but he didn’t follow Cai back into the bedroom. He sank back, into the cushions. He had no idea what he was going to wear tomorrow evening. The rain clattered down, either unaware or unopposed to the idea.

Fountains in a Tea House

May 19, 2018May 20, 2018 ~ Piece, of the Sky

The clouds above were roiling and gray. The wind tore through the trees, ripping off small branches. An untethered, rotted tennis court net flapped in the wind. Alli walked across the leave-strewn hardcourt.

A house loomed, lopsided and in disrepair. Alli entered through the familiar red door, swinging off its hinges, hanging by a screw.

She strode down the long corridor. The hall was lined with crumbling Corinthian pillars, some with whole chunks smashed out of them. The rest of the room opened out on both sides of her – broken windows letting in the cold, shattered mirrors, reflecting nothing.

Water from the afternoon rain poured down from holes in the ceiling. The cataracts framed the room, like the off-white pillars, stained with mildew. Streams sluiced through the ruined floor, irrigated by cracks in the tiles.

Nealy stood at the far end of the room, in her beige suit, smoking a cigar. She inhaled the exhaled smoke back into her nostrils. Her eyes glinted in the darkness at the far end of the room, away from the daylight streaming through the many gashes in the house – a sudden shift of light in the background, like the quick flare of flaming ash. Whorls of smoke twisted away into the blackness.

“Did you bring it?” she asked, spitting out a piece of tobacco.

“Yes,” Alli said, hefting the ax from behind her.

Nealy stood out of the way. Behind her, in the inkiest depths, in a shallow pool of water, was a blue and black beast, a cockatrice at least the length of a Winnebago. Its leathery wings unfolded at regular intervals, but it was wounded, conserving its movements.

“Get rid of it,” Nealy said. She turned away, toward the distant remnants of a torn-out window pane, taking a deep drag on her cigar.

The wyvern’s neck heaved in a useless bucking motion. Its teeth clacked as it opened and closed its jaw impotently. It couldn’t shapeshift anymore – it didn’t have enough energy. It was a dark avatar, frozen in that form.

The constant patter of water flowing down from the roof was all Alli heard. The whole house exuded the essence of soaked, dead wood, forgotten splinters. Alli smelled, at the edge of her consciousness, a bright, green whiff of Honduras. She raised the ax.