Alan Foster - Exceptions to Reality

Exchanging glances, the women did as they were told. Ax followed sword in clattering to the floor. Cruz started to relax a little. Whatever these bitches were, they were not omnipotent. He only had to stay awake until they made port. Another day and night. He could do that. He had done similar things before, on other desperate occasions, and had always survived. Did they have any idea who they were dealing with?

One by one, the women started to file off the bridge. David Larson would not go with them, would not leave his father. That was fine with Cruz. Two hostages were better than one.

A sudden coldness brushed the smuggler’s face, chilling his skin. It was unusual to feel such on the bridge, which was always kept warm in defiance of the sometimes brutal cold outside. Taking his eyes off the doorway for just an instant, he glanced upward in the direction of the breeze.

The needle-pointed icicle that fell from the ceiling—it had been flash-frozen by Sigrdrifa, alias “Victory Blizzard”—went right through his left eye.

Staggering and screaming, he stumbled away from old man Larson, who perceptively fell to the deck as several shots from the agonized smuggler’s pistol rang out wildly. They hit nothing but a framed antique chart on the wall and a surprisingly sturdy metal purse that Hrist thrust forward to shield the younger Larson. Striding over to the wildly sobbing figure that was now rolling about uncontrollably on the deck, Sigrdrifa dispatched the half-blinded Cruz with a single swift, quick slice of the sharply curved blade she took from her elegant attaché case. The drug-runner’s legs kicked out violently several times before quivering to a halt.

“So perish all enemies of good fisherfolk.” Turning, she ululated a victory cry that was taken up and amplified by her sisters. The Mary Anne shuddered with the force of it, and members of the crew who were used to hauling in longlines in howling Atlantic gales found themselves covering their ears.

Reassembling on the bridge, with the wide-eyed crew once more crowding as close as they could to the gore-soaked scene of battle, the quintet of bloodied blondes (and one redhead) confronted Red Larson and his son.

“We have to go now,” the indifferently blood-soaked Róta informed them.

“Yes.” Hrist checked her Patek Philippe chronometer. “I have a meeting in Zurich tomorrow at nine, and with the time difference I will get little enough sleep as it is.”

Sigrdrifa nudged Cruz’s body with a high-heeled shoe. “Sorry about the mess. It was not exactly Ragnarok, but it is good to still be able to do battle on behalf of a noble cause now and then.” Raising her stained short sword, she sensuously licked blood from the flat of the blade. “Keeps a girl in shape.”

Red Larson swallowed hard. “I hardly know what to say, how to thank you…”

Herfjötur smiled. Stepping over Truque’s body, she put a reassuring hand on the captain’s shoulder. “Thank your son, who, in a moment of desperate need, had the foresight to call upon those of us who have watched over your tribe for millennia.” Leaning forward, she gave him an encouraging peck on the cheek. The old man did not blush, but he was glad his wife was not present.

As for David Larson, he was the dazed recipient of kisses from every one of the women. It was enough to make a weaker man succumb, but David had been toughened by years of hard work on the Mary Anne . Still, when she bent him back to buss him most soundly, Skeggjöld nearly sprained his spine. Her ax earrings fell forward, tickling his cheeks as he felt the salt of her tongue slide into his mouth. The salt, he knew, came from the blood she had licked off her sword. This realization somewhat mitigated his otherwise complete enjoyment of the moment.

Too awestruck to talk among themselves, the crew gathered on the stern’s deck to watch as, one by one, the women mounted their snow-white steeds. With a kick and a leap, they soared away from the Mary Anne, calling out boldly to one another as they rose into the night sky. Most prominent among them was the beauteous Herfjötur, who was still upset that in the heat of battle she had broken the heel of one of her handmade Spanish pumps.

“We’ll have to get the bridge cleaned up before we make port,” a soft-voiced Panopolous whispered to his captain. “The stains don’t look like fish blood.”

“At least we have the supplies to do that.” Red Larson looked and felt better than he had in a decade. The curse that was Cruz and his business had been lifted. The mysterious disappearance at sea of the smuggler and his henchmen should be enough to keep any curious fellow dealers away from the Mary Anne . And if it was not, Larson mused, why, his son could always put in a call for help to an escort service the likes of which was not to be found in the Providence Yellow Pages.

High overhead, the aurora borealis suddenly flashed to life, filling the night sky above the steadily chugging fishing boat with shimmering luminescence.

“You know what they say causes the light of the aurora, David?” Larson had an arm around his son’s tired shoulders. “It’s the flickering of light off the shields of the Valkyries.”

The younger Larson nodded. “From designer-branded armor I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

The Killing of Bad Bull

I have been fortunate enough to have journeyed far and wide over this isolated little ball of dirt and water we call home. My travels have provided me with inspirations for entire books. East Africa for Into the Out Of; Peru, Papua New Guinea, and Australia for Interlopers; the South Pacific islands for The Howling Stones; and most recently India for Sagramanda.

I’ve also used memories of people I have met as the basis for characters. I have transposed and transmogrified places I’ve visited into alien worlds. Mamirauá in Brazil for Drowning World, Namibia for Carnivores of Light and Darkness, Peru again for Catalyst.

But sometimes—sometimes you don’t have to travel very far in search of inspiration. There are days when you find it waiting for you right around the corner. That’s the case with Bucky’s Casino on the Yavapai-Apache Indian reservation, which is engulfed by the city limits of my hometown of Prescott, Arizona. It’s much like the Nevada gambling meccas of Laughlin and Las Vegas, towns that are close enough to be neighbors. Loud and flashy neighbors, ever calling, ever enticing.

These modern-day temples of temptation are powerful enough to lure visitors from all over the globe. Are they strong enough to attract mutant powers? In such places would strange abilities be used for good or for evil? Or would they just be—used?

The saddest thingabout it was that it was his own people who were trying to kill him. The rest of humanity didn’t give a damn. Of course, the rest of humanity did not know about him. Which was the reason his own people were trying to kill him.

A quick stroll around the casino revealed nothing out of the ordinary. Here in the great tropical metropolis of Salvador, on the north coast of Brazil, the men and women sitting like sphinxes in front of the slot machines and laughing as dice ricocheted around the craps table were nearly all locals, with only a smattering of foreigners. Being Pima-Cheyenne made it easier for him to pick out strangers, since the local Indians were considerably smaller of stature than their more robust North American cousins. This was important, since strangers might be looking for more than just entertainment or the chance to make a quick dollar.