Heirs of Cain: Venus in Quarantine

Severin Molochi is in love with a goddess.  She’s not the kind found in a church, or that you can take with you to church for that matter.  She’s of the old, muddy, animal line of Cain: those who gained power in the world’s first murder.  Just as Severin and his goddess Wanda are settling in their new home, setting up her future dominion, her jealous siblings come calling, but they’re not after her.  They want every gods’ most valuable asset, the mortal chosen as the conduit between them and the people, who in this case happens to share her bed.

Heirs of Cain, a gothic horror fantasy erotic thriller novelette series, continues here.

(estimated reading time: 1 hour, 27 minutes)

Heirs of Cain

Venus in Quarantine

After the thirtieth entry or so I realized what was so familiar about the process; it was as if these unsuspecting people were being added to a menu, complete with their prices, and the intention was to serve them all to a solitary but reliable customer who would appear out of the dark and damp at the same time each day without the ring of a doorbell, like a fox fed once and then forever entitled.

And her name was Wanda Blasphemer Pelts. My Wanda. My whole world, to have her tell it and me experience it. She did not permit me what used to be the most basic knowledge of position spatial and chronological, which still prevented a precise understanding of both my location and the year, but I knew that she and I had recorded three months of paradigm-gnawing history together, written in an ink of sweat and a sensual but possession-gnarled hand, our bodies intertwined like two pages stuck together, the words of experience on her, still wet, transferred messily to my blank by rapturous spineless contact. Continue reading

Heirs of Cain: Venus in Transit

Severin Molochi is aboard a train… but to where?  And come to think of it, what year is it?  He has lost his place and time in the world.  Could it be the work of the bewitching predatory woman who enters his private car, wrapped in furs, with designs and desire in her eyes?  Heirs of Cain, a gothic horror fantasy erotic thriller novelette series, begins here.

(estimated reading time: 1 hour and 33 minutes)

Heirs of Cain

Venus in Transit

by

Blaine Arcade

The number one… followed some time later and after strenuous mental investigation by the number eight. What was the one? One of the seven? One of the six? One of the two? All of these number were suddenly in my head, throbbing as if of great importance, but they were a distraction.

What had I been searching for? It was difficult to recall as I had my forehead pressed against the cold glass of a locomotive window, eyes chilled as if dangling just outside by threads. What I saw was snow-cloaked firs by the thousands, with a stormy winter tailor still in the process of garbing them. Continue reading

Snakewaist: The Demon of Gougecoin (Part Two)

(reading time: 1 hour, 32 minutes)

The Knight and the Thief

After leaving Twarly behind their journey took several days. Snakewaist could not travel along interstates because of the danger of being seen, so they opted instead for the most forested route and a few old fairy tunnels that were magical enough to move out of the way of any cables and pipes bumblers tried to install.

There were several family trees on the way, but neither of them particularly felt like making diplomatic stops yet. If they succeeded in stopping the electric demon they would have something to show for their travels, and would be much less embarrassed to ask for lodging. Continue reading

Snakewaist: The Demon of Gougecoin (Part One)

Join the modern fairies Chaxium and Ladyspiller as they use their transforming magic mecha-snake to intervene in the madness of the human world, this time doing battle with digital dragons and a thief stealing electricity to power his crypto-hoard.

This is the second in a series of novellas, so if you’re interested I’d recommend starting with the first.

(reading time: 1 hour, 9 minutes) (reading time for entire novella: 2 hours, 41 minutes)

Snakewaist:

The Demon of Gougecoin

by

Blaine Arcade

Onthinice

Kunk kunk. Nobody answered the door, so to the back of the line with Pollywig. The next fairy up guessed that she just hadn’t been forceful enough. KUNK KUNK! He succeeded in bruising his knuckles, but not in opening it, so Taxido had to cede his place. If the other nine failed again he could have another turn at it. Next was Bellirub, and she had bragged after every attempt that she had a way with stubborn magical things. Her knock was practically melodious: katunk kunk katunkituktuk.

“I think I heard something move behind it,” she insisted, but that was met with good-natured booing and hissing. It was time for the owners to give it another shot; they stepped up together.

“Do it as a couple!” somebody shouted from the back. “It’ll be twice as powerful.” The rest of the party agreed and cheered them on until their hands locked together and the blades of their transparent wings overlapped. They looked at each other encouragingly, both a little surprised and elated to see the happiness sparkling in the other’s eyes. They’d come a long way in a few short months. Continue reading

Timeless

Dogwood the magician is less of an expert and more of a dumpster diver, but when someone new in town offers a big payday to find a magic relic that can sever emotional bonds, he takes the job.  How hard could it be to help him divorce his enchanting wife…

(reading time: 1 hour, 20 minutes)

Timeless

The saddle topped the newest gross of garbage funneled out of Fernico’s mansion like a flake of chocolate grated onto red velvet cake.  Dogwood reached down and pulled the red chunks of a destroyed carpet off it.  When held up in the day’s dying light, the saddle’s rare markings betrayed its true purpose.  The ordinary brown leather gave way to a pewter rim imprinted with inward facing blue triangles, designed to trap a certain type of magic like bear trap teeth.  A ghost saddle, he thought.  Should fetch at least four gold and six silver. Continue reading