Romance Writer

You can get the first parts of the short story here at Part 1, and Part 2.

Of Rats and Crystals (Part 3)

Over the past several months, Veronika had been scouring the subterranean shops and nighttime street vendors of Oskelez.   She was nearing a breakthrough in her alchemical research, but she needed some exotic ingredients. Rare poisonous mushrooms that only grew on top of the graves of murderers, and a supply of volcanic minerals rich in fossilized demon bones.

One of her regular suppliers had claimed to have a connection that could arrange for a shipment of what she needed.  The price they were asking was high, but given what they were supplying, Veronika agreed it was fair.  But she refused to pay until she received the goods.

She’d been on her way to meet them and make the transaction when, well, all she remembered was a bright purple light, and a humming sound.  Next thing she knew, she woke up in the cage.

There was no way to be sure how much time had passed since her capture as there were no windows, but as a vampire, she was grateful for that.  She estimated that she’d been taken two or three nights ago based on how strong her blood-hunger was getting. Whoever her captor or captors were, they weren’t allowing her to feed.

A handful of ghostly white, vaguely humanoid shapes came through the walls, howling and wailing and hovering in the air around the iron cage.  They were fixated on the rat, but recoiled whenever they got too close to the iron.

Howler spirits?  She’d never seen one in person before, but she’d read about them.

But they could hardly be considered true demons.  For one thing, they weren’t smart enough.  They fed on fear the way mosquitoes fed on blood and were about as intelligent.  Whomever and whatever her captors were, on the other hand, were at least crafty enough to build a cage and suspend it over a pit of acid.

Maybe they keep the Howlers as pets?  That seemed to Veronika like something a true demon might do.  Then they’ll want a steady source of fear to keep their Howlers fed.

She thought about the arrangement: the source of fear was kept in a cage, and suspending it over acid amplified the captive’s fear. But only if they identify it as acid, from the smell. Any novice alchemist would recognize it as sulfuric acid. But would a non-alchemist know? They might guess it was just filthy liquid. Is fear of drowning that common? Perhaps if a heavy iron cage prevented you from swimming to the surface, it would be.

But then the cage itself is made of pure iron, to repel them when they swarmed around the source of fear.  Why would that be?

“Skitterclaw!” A deep voice echoed off the stone walls, raised to be louder than all the howling that was still going on.  “What’s taking you so long?  Return to me, now!”

Veronika looked up.  Ten or twelve feet above where the cage was suspended there was a balcony of sorts.  But her view of it was partly blocked by the heavy iron chains the cage was hanging from.  But there was someone standing there in the unmistakable black robes and bonework accessories of a Necromancer.

Now Veronika was afraid.

As the living-dead, vampires were vulnerable to necromantic magic.  And certain necromancers were known to exploit this fact in rather perverse ways.

Although it was impossible for a vampire to disobey a command from the Master vampire of their Blood-Circle, they still retained the free will to agree or disagree with such commands, and a Master vampire that ruled a Circle for their own benefit, rather than considering the needs and well-being of their Circle, would eventually have their orders creatively interpreted in ways that would bring about their downfall.

But a necromancer could, given sufficient time, take a vampire’s mind away little by little until they were mentally no more than an obedient zombie.

Veronika began brainstorming ways to rapidly commit suicide that would kill her before the necromancer finished a complete sentence.  But no.  Without access to sunlight, nothing she could do to herself would kill her that fast.

Her only hope was to conceal the fact that she was a vampire.  A desperate plan, to say the least.

“Skitterclaw?”  The necromancer had a deep bass voice.  “Why are you still in the cage?”

“May I answer him without you dropping me?” The self-proclaimed God-King of all rats whispered to Veronika from her clawed hand.  He was close enough that she could hear him over the howling.

“That depends on how you answer,” she said.  “If you betray me, do you think you can do it thoroughly enough to ensure I don’t survive?”

“Umm….”

“Because if you do betray me, and I survive…” Then I’ll be a mindless plaything, she thought with horror.  But she hoped that the way she trailed-off implied a threat of vengeance.

The howler spirits were centered on Veronika now, instead of Scitterclaw.  She didn’t care.  Spiritual mosquitoes lapping up small amounts of her fear were the least of her worries.

“I, Plague-Emperor Skitterclaw,” the rat called up to the balcony, “God-King of all rats and faithful servant of the goddess of pestilence, am not yet finished.  I shall return to your side when I am good and ready.  I shall not be rushed.”

For a few moments, there was no reply.  Just more howling from the swarm of spirits around the cage.

“What do you mean, you’re not done?”  The necromancer sounded incredulous.  “The Howlers are here.”

Veronika held up a finger to get Skitterclaw’s attention.

“Who is that?” She whispered, holding him close to her face she he could hear her over the racket of the spirits.

“That’s Necromancer Lord Vordrack,” said Skitterclaw.  “I persuaded him to help me spread plague and disease in the name of the goddess by pointing out that he’d have a plentiful supply of dead to raise.”

Veronika guessed Vordrack had been the one doing the persuading, and the rat had twisted the truth in his mind to support his delusions.

“You’re his familiar, aren’t you?” She asked.

“Only until I have no further use for him,” said Skitterclaw.

You can get the first part of the story here.

Of Rats and Crystals (Part 2)

            Veronika had been born in the city of Oskelez over a century ago.  Her parents were slaves, and she’d never known them.  She’d been raised by the Pest-Hunters: skinny men and women who wore yellow rags and odd-shaped hats.  Her earliest memories were of being made to crawl into small spaces to catch rats.  Sometimes it was a warehouse. Sometimes it was a luxurious and terrifying residence. A few times, she was sent rat-catching inside some kind of complex machinery.

Sometimes the rats were being caught because they were pests.  Other times it was because someone or something wanted them for food.  Having known no other life, she didn’t think there was anything strange or tragic about her situation.  She got good at catching rats and came to enjoy it, until the day one of the rats made her a deal.  She’d been six years old at the time.

The talking rat offered to teach Veronika magic if she would spare him and bring him some chalk and candles.  She didn’t trust the talking rat or think that giving it what it wanted was a good idea.  She figured any sorcerer foolish enough to change themselves into a rat without a way to change back probably wasn’t a very good teacher.

But she was curious, and decided to do what the rat asked just to see what would happen.  She guessed that either he’d turn himself into a human again and skip out on his promise to teach her magic (not that she cared to learn from him), or he’d make some mistake with the spell and burn the whole place down (she was very good at finding escape routes, having spent her whole life crawling through nooks and crannies).

When she returned after scavenging everything he’d asked for, the talking rat had introduced himself as Plague Emperor Skitterclaw, God-King of all rats and faithful servant to the Goddess of Pestilence.  He warned her that he was preparing a ritual spell to bring death to the humans who had been hunting and killing his people, but as thanks for her aid, Veronika would be spared.

She agreed.  But only so that the talking rat would let his guard down.  She ran him through with her steel dagger as soon as his back was turned.

The Pest-Hunters weren’t kind, but they weren’t cruel either.  And with them, she had a purpose.  If the talking rat’s ritual-spell would really bring death to them all and leave Veronika on her own, she wouldn’t last a day in Oskelez.

            In the century-and-a-half or so that followed, Veronika had grown into adulthood, survived by her wits, made dangerous enemies, bargained with dark powers to survive, become a vampire, and had mastered the practice of apothecarial alchemy.

Once or twice a decade throughout her eventful life and subsequent undead existence, Veronika would encounter a talking rat that claimed to be Plague Emperor Skitterclaw, God-King of all rats and faithful servant to the Goddess of Pestilence.

The other talking rats of Os-Kelez always advised her not to take them seriously.

Veronika ignored the talking rat and paced her cage, trying to focus her thoughts.

As a master-class alchemist, she could tell that her cage was iron, not steel.  Easy to magnetize, prone to rust, and softer than steel.  But not soft enough that she could bend the bars, even with supernatural vampire-strength.  When designers opted for pure iron rather than charcoal-infused steel, the most common reason was that pure iron repelled ethereal undead.  Not physical undead, like zombies or ghouls.  But ghosts, wraiths, and other such spirits absolutely hated the stuff the same way shape-shifters hated silver.

Did that mean something, Veronika wondered?  Why would her captors keep her, a vampire, in such a cage?

She hissed a curse under her breath.  The delusional talking rat who thought he was Plague Emperor Skitterclaw, God-King of all rats and faithful servant of some-goddess-or-other, was distracting her from her train of thought with his incessant chatter.

“Are you some manner of demon that feeds on annoyance, rather than fear?  What is it?  What do you want?”

The rat blinked at her.  “Few have dared to take such a tone with Plague Emperor Skitterclaw and lived,” he said.

With lightning-quick movement, Veronika’s snatched the rat in her hand and extended her vampire-claws just enough to poke into his skin without penetrating and drawing blood.  She held the little pest right in front of her angry, fang-bearing glare.

“Fewer still have been dropped into a pit of sulfuric acid and lived,” she snarled, “no matter what kind of God-King they think they are.”

“Oh!  Err, yes, good point!  Very true!  And if I may take this moment to beg your forgiveness, oh revered and exalted goddess!  Your humble and faithful servant am I, and I most fearfully prostrate myself before you for failing to recognize you in your present vessel of incarnation. How may I serve your will, oh goddess?”

Veronika shook her head. “I’m not going to pretend to be a pestilence goddess just to humor your delusions of grandeur!  Just give me the peace and quiet I need to think of a way to escape.”

Just then, an ear-splitting howl echoed through the stone walls of the chamber.  It was shortly joined by several other identical howls.

“So much for peace and quiet,” she said.

“Err, sorry about that, ma’am,” said the rat.  “It’s just that I was rather terrified of being dropped into a pit of acid a second ago, and now they’ve sensed my fear and are coming to feed.”

Good, thought Veronika, let’s see just what these ‘fear demons’ are.