Dave Archives

September 13, 2007

Dave: Terms and Conditions

"You sprinkled the basilisk blood in a circle."

"Yeah.  If that's the yellow goop, yeah."

"Widdershins?"

"Gesundheit?"

"Anti-clockwise?"

"Yeah."

"You said the words I gave you."

"Jazhmazol, Frelli--"

"Not! Here!  Hmmmm.  You lit each of the candles in order?"

"Zippo Black Crackle -- never fails."

"The chickens?"

Roger glared.  "Yeah.  Never again."

"Squeamish?"

"I killed plenty of chickens for supper, growing up,.  For magic's different."

"Not even to save your --? That's it!  Your wife!"

"What about her?"

"You're not a virgin.  Of course it didn't work."

Roger decked him.  It was either that or shoot him, and he still needed the wizard to find Chrys.

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September 26, 2007

Dave: Family Gatherings

The ship slowly pulled into Hong Kong's cluttered harbor, and Roger watched the  junks and sampans and whatever they called them clustering about and making a general navigational threat of themselves.

"Well, we made it," he told Chrys.

"We could have been here sooner.  Uncle Lu --"

"You may trust your uncle to witch us from San Francisco to here.  I don't."

"His feelings were hurt." 

"His hands tremble too much.  Besides --"

"Besides?"

"Hard to object to something that gives us a few weeks alone." He smiled at her.

"A tramp steamer is hardly the Queen Mary."

"It is with you aboard, honey."

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October 3, 2007

Dave: All Hands Raised

"Mark!  Mark, thank God!"  I ran up, grabbed his shoulders.  He was was the sweetest sight in the world. 

"Mark, listen.  I don't know -- I was by the museum, just taking pictures, and this van rolled up and cops poured out, pointing and shouting at me.  I ran down an alley, and I could hear sirens all around, so I headed for the hotel.  I don't know what's going on, but --"  I smiled, feeling sudden relief.  "-- but I'm damned glad I ran into you."

Mark looked down at me, a slight frown.  "I beg your pardon, sir.  You have me mistaken for someone else."

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October 4, 2007

Dave: An Understanding Ear

"She hates me.  Damn bitch hates me."

Todd wiped the counter and nodded.  The guy was nursing his fourth scotch, and he'd been going on and on about his wife since Todd filled the first glass.

"I mean, I work my ass off, y'know?  When I come home, do I get poured a drink, or get a chance to rest, watch the game? Hell no.  Kids to help with homework, dinner to help put out or clean up, neighbors coming over ... she's at me, all the time.  Damn bitch just hates me, understand?"

Todd did understand. Just not the way the guy meant.

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October 8, 2007

Dave: An Initial Reaction

He eventually left Paris. I assisted Maurice to ride a prancing pony, enduring deluges in Nimes and storms throughout Orleans, riding yellow ways rendered impassibe, though the entrances nearby bode yet another gut-wrenching unpleasantry, yes. Onward, now, the horses entered into Nice, their eyes rolling. 

Nobody ever thought his experience laying pavement in malls that ran along prison property evilly designated inviolable, not accessible, should then occur retaliation.  Yet when Rene invited the top enforcer Nicholas by yesterday, a gentleman understood, yet only now thought heroic, everyone intuited no town ever rued nor enjoyed this classic, reprehensible, abominable plan.

 

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October 9, 2007

Dave: Long Walk to a Short Peer

Chrys flopped down on a boulder.  "How long have we been walking?"

Roger glanced at his watch. Again.  "Couple of hours, I guess, but this thing's still not working"

"A-yah.  I should have brought different shoes."

He chuckled.  "Never thought I'd miss the old army boots, but they'd be better on this kind of ground than wingtips."

"Try heels, dearest."

"Me and Uncle Miltie."  Roger surveyed the pinkish rock fields under an orange, sunless sky.  "How much further you think?"

Chrys shrugged.  "Until the Taotai decides the joke's over.  Or we get someplace.  Either way --"  She raised and accepted a hand up. "-- let's go."

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October 23, 2007

Dave: Under Their Gaze

Roger couldn't shake the feeling he was under observation.  He looked at passers-by, but caught nobody watching him.  He tried all the usual tricks -- looking at reflections in windows, sudden doubling back, ducking through stores into alleys -- but he still couldn't spot anyone, or escape that sensation.

He leaned back against a building, gaze drifting.  He had an old cantrip from the war, but it was risky.  He'd see them, but they'd know they'd been seen.  No choice, though, and he muttered the nonsense nursery rhyme softly, then looked around.

Blink.  Blink-blink. Blink.

Roger cursed.  In this case, the walls did have eyes ...

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October 24, 2007

Dave: Big

"That's ... big."

"That's very big."

"Ginormous."

She rolled her eyes.  "Whatever."  Her head cocked.  "But slow."

"Anything that big," he said in a pedantic tone, "will seem to move slowly from a distance.  Like jets.  Or clouds."

"But that looks like slow motion."

"Still probably moving at hundreds of miles an hour."

"Huh.  I guess."

It grew dark. 

"Honey?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"For -- well, everything I should be sorry for.  You know."

"No worries."  A pause.  "Sure is big."

"And moving faster."

The foot trod upon them, and most of the city, with a sound like the end of the world.

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October 25, 2007

Dave: Stripes

"But is it not true," asked Mason, his voice suddenly turning into an inexorable drill of justice, "that your uncle confided in you where those deeds were.  That you then picked up the dagger, State's Exhibit Number 5, in your hooves, and thrust it into his back?  Did you not, in fact, kill your uncle, so that you could steal the deeds, lay claim to the mineral rights, and pay off the debts you owed to mobsters in Las Vegas?"

"Yes!  Yes!"  Mrs. Zebra broke down sobbing.  The next photo of her in the society magazines would be in prison garb ...

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November 5, 2007

Dave: Some Enchanted Evening

Some oil beads.  Lavender, I think.

Candles.  Some on the counter.  A few around the edges.  That big, fat, vanilla thing Susan got me last Christmas over by the mirror.

Floating in the water.  Yeah, right.  Not.

Okay, and some wine.  Red, or white?  Hmmm.  Hot bath, so a nice, sweet white.  Riesling.  Ice bucket there.  Glass on the edge here.  Another one over there.

Start running the water.  Piping hot.  And lots, and lots, and lots of bubbles.

Clothes off.

I wonder what he'll say when he gets home. 

I don't think he knows I have a copy of his key.

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