“Fiddlywink Sings the Tune” pops up in Birdy 129, September 2024, with art by Jason White. Maya learns that once you have a neuroport, real and unreal aren’t useful concepts anymore–and Fiddlywink heartily agrees.

She turned again, down the alley, blindly, going anywhere, nowhere. She went three steps and Fiddlywink popped up like a jack-in-the-box, right out of the pavement, and seized her upper arms in his enormous gloved hands, squeezing hard, lifting her into the air. He grinned with carious teeth, grinned wider than anyone could grin. “Rub a dub dub,” he said, “tub full of blood.”

“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!”

“The Familiar” appears in the February 2024 issue of Birdy Magazine, with art by Jason White (@jason_white_art).

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?

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.

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!”

“Hunger Unto Him” appears in Birdy 118, from October 2023, with art by Caitlyn Grabenstein. This recipe calls for equal parts McCarthy, Steinbeck and King for a Depression-era feast:

I don’t get where we’re going.
We’re going to Wheeless to see John Hood.
You said that. I just don’t get it.
What don’t you get?
We got twelve dollars between the four of us and a Buick that might or might not make it another hundred miles. But instead of going west like everyone else we’re going north to Wheeless to see some crazy preacher.
Seems like you get it just fine.
Damn it, Dustin, when you’re down to your last dime you spend it on food. You don’t throw it away hoping for a miracle.
You’re wrong. When you’re down to your last dime, hoping for a miracle’s the best you got.

My short story from the September 2023 issue of Birdy Magazine, with 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.