Just Another Vortex
The Devil’s Chariot
“The Devil’s Chariot” blazes through the April 2024 issue of Birdy:
“World after world,” the devil said, and closed the door. He glared balefully at Mackey and tilted his head toward the passenger seat. “Last chance. Ride or die!”
Two ideas came together to inspire this story. The first was the ambiguity of the make and model of the car in the image prompt. It looked to me like a Dodge Challenger, but… not quite. Where does a not-quite-Dodge Challenger come from? From some not-quite Earth, of course.
The second idea was from a tarot reading I did recently, which centered around the Chariot crossed with the Devil. Sometimes taking things literally can be surprisingly fruitful.
The Familiar
My latest short story is in the February 2024 issue of Birdy Magazine, inspired by art by Jason White (@jason_white_art). Originally I wrote a completely different story for this image, trying to tie in another concept I’ve been working on, but in the end decided that piece was too long, too complicated and too intense for the format. Instead, after days of internal debate, I sat down and cranked out this story in maybe four hours. It’s about as straightforward as my stories get, a narrative about a teenage witch trying to help her sick sister, but the key here was settling on who and what her demon familiar was. I’d already been researching demons for that other piece, and I liked the description of Baal as having three heads (those of a cat, a human and a toad, which I changed to a crocodile).
Not until she burned several feathers from the chick did she feel her temples tighten — and tighten, and tighten. The demon’s claws were cutting into her face, its teeth sinking into her forehead. A small cry of surprise escaped her, but she fought it, tried to calm her mind, tried to relax her features against the pain, still keeping her eyes tightly shut.
When she finally saw the visage of Baalephin, it was neither cat nor human, but a verdigris crocodile, its grin all teeth, its eyes red and greedy. What have you brought me?
As a last note, the etymology of the word “verdigris” is quite interesting. I had always assumed it was derived from the French vert, meaning green, and gris, meaning “gray,” which may be correct; but it may actually derive from vert-de-Grèce, meaning “green of Greece,” and hence is most frequently pronounced with an audible “s”.
The Okhotsk Trade
Here’s my story from the January 2024 issue of Birdy Magazine, a fable about the perils of taking what isn’t yours. Something about the figures in the painting struck me as Russian, which led me to researching the islands in and around the Sea of Okhotsk. This yielded some memorable photos of Ainu women, who in adulthood would often receive a black tattoo in the shape of an exaggerated smile. Otherwise, it’s the deep dwellers from Lovecraft and elsewhere delivering their toothy retribution:
The Zvezda Morey had cannon, guns, steel. The deep-dwellers had needle teeth, claws on their webbed hands and feet, and countless numbers. They were hatched by the thousands in the darkness, voracious in their legions, contained only by the availability of food and intolerance of the sun. They thrived by the volcanic vents, ecosystems untouched by light and unglimpsed by human eyes. Even shallow waters pained them, much less the open air; but the offense to their god could not go unanswered.
Spawning Ground
From the December 2023 issue of Birdy Magazine, inspired by art by Roman Makarenko. This is a follow-up to the previous month’s story, “Jailbreak”, following a young Japanese woman who is completely paralyzed (shut-in) following a helicopter accident that killed her parents. With her body immobile, she relies on an AI simulation for interaction, accessed via a neuroport, leading to severe doubts about the nature of reality. (Astute readers will note similarities with my earlier story “Prism and Prison.”)
A swarm of writhing tentacles, obsidian, irregular, saw-edged, exploded out of the fabricator’s shielding, tearing it apart. The tentacles stabbed toward the spiders, which fought, but hopelessly. Whatever they shattered reformed anew, the nanobots magnetically reforming before they each touched the ground to attack anew. It was like fighting a storm of black dust, if dust was stronger than spinning saw blades. There was a reason nanotech fabricators were kept under such close guard.
Jailbreak
From Birdy 119, November 2023:
With the neuroport installed, Nao almost never turned it off. The real world was a prison. In the sim she was free.
Or almost. It only took her a few days to run into the first guardrail. She’d been flirting with a guy from Singapore who insisted he was real, and after a hot makeout session in an Alpine chalet she decided sure, why not. Fifteen months since she’d had sex (well, eighteen, actually) and she was horny.
The AI wouldn’t display Jia Jun’s genitals. When he took off his underwear, there was just … more underwear. “You’re fucking kidding me. Kasuga!”
With Every Heart and Spirit True
My short story from the September 2023 issue of Birdy Magazine, inspired by art by Moon_Patrol . It has generous helpings of Power Rangers and ’80s fantasy, while the twist – a inappropriate suggestion from one of the male characters – sends up a notorious scene from Stephen King’s It.
“In shadows deep and light’s embrace,” sang Cassandra.
“We forge a bond, a sacred space,” sang Tom.
“With every heart and spirit true,” sang Phil.
“Our magic makes the world — fuck me!” spat Lys, ducking as a collie-sized spider leapt at her face. Tom took a quick step and smashed the arachnid with his baseball bat.
“Should we retreat?” Phil suggested. “Considering there are about a hundred more of these little buggers, and, you know, that.” He pointed at the eighty-foot tall monstrosity down in the valley, the other-dimensional spider titan Urglash, from whose belly the smaller spiders were dropping like a wave of paratroopers. Fortunately Urglash was too occupied with spitting acid at the U.S. Army’s tanks and helicopters to pay attention to four puny humans. On the other hand, her spiderlings alone seemed more than capable of turning them into human juice boxes.
Blue Amber
My short story from the August 2023 issue of Birdy Magazine, a sequel to my earlier stories “Filthy Animals” and “The Writhing.” Gedim and Joira continue their adventures on the planet Talend, and navigate their increasingly tricky relationship in the face of an alien symbiote.
What are they?
Not one thing. Lots of things.
Giant arachnids … slugs … those cyborg centaur creatures … what’s the common factor?
The common factor is that they’re all trapped in the fibers of the tunnel walls. Like the root system that entangled us. The symbiote. I’m starting to think this whole planet is alive.
It is alive. That’s what I keep trying to tell you. I think all these are alive too.
Suspended animation?
Something like. But their consciousnesses interwoven, blended.
Absorbed. Consumed.
You always take the darkest view.
What’s the bright side of being swallowed by a living planet?
Godlike consciousness?
If that’s the cost, no thank you.
Burning Down the House
My story from the July 2023 issue of Birdy, inspired by art by Moon Patrol. It seemed obvious from the image that this was some kind of kung fu /fantasy/Blaxploitation mashup, but trying to weave its disparate elements (four specific characters, flames and a smashed vial of poison) into a single narrative took several attempts. Understanding it as an dream allegory for a soldier’s Vietnam experiences was the key.
A Boar Slain, a Bat Exploded, A Fox Forgotten
Irina Razok, the Virgin Queen of San Lavinia, simply had no notion of morality. Turned vampire as a girl of six, she was famous for her capriciousness, her cruelty and her power of command, which even most other vampires could not resist.
THE FELL AND THE FAE 
