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Work In Progress #17: She Seeks Peace #9 (November 4-7)

November 08, 2024 — Owen Tyme

As soon as her head was down, she was snoring and Artemis smiled, because Verda had finally found somewhere she could sleep soundly. It wasn't a permanent solution to her battle with post-traumatic stress, but it was hard to make progress without decent rest.

  – Excerpt from She Seeks Peace.

She Seeks Peace is volume 4 of Ashen Blades.

You can read a short description of She Seeks Peace to learn more or you can read short summaries of each day's writing on Mastodon

Here's links to the rest of my blog entries on She Seeks Peace, in chronological order:

  1. September 12-13
  2. September 16-20
  3. September 23-26
  4. September 30-October 4
  5. October 7-11
  6. October 14-18
  7. October 21-25
  8. October 28-November 1

Chapter 42: Pale Imitations

This chapter opens with Lara entering the mine Wrath is using as his base on Earth. She uses Mashu'ra's nose to smell out the situation, realizing all seven arch-demons are inside.

She asks, "You ready to go down in a blaze of glory, Masher? I don’t think we’ll survive the day, but I’m game if you are."

Mashu'ra's response is straight to the point: "They took the boss. She’s always been a key part of Vogerath’s plan to open a portal to Hell, because he can’t stabilize it without a half-demon. So, this is bigger than us. I’d sacrifice myself to save the world, any day of the week, because that’s what the boss would do."

With that confirmation of commitment, Lara heads deeper into the mine.

Meanwhile, Insanity is happy to be free of the Hunter's head, with a physical body of her own. She feels a little short on energy, but looks around at the seven arches, seeing the equivalent of a buffet.

As he backs away, Insanity screams, "I’m The Eighth Deadly Sin, Willful Insanity! All of you demons are pale imitations of me, because people would have to be crazy to sin! You have one chance to survive: bow down to me and pledge your eternal servitude or I’ll eat you all!"

Wrath is about to put the cursed wedding band made by Lust on Insanity's finger, but she points out the fact she's not in a binding circle. Wrath looses his cool and real terror crosses his face!

One of the three bodies Pride showed up in changes form to a little garden snake and sneaks off, while Lust and Greed make their way toward the exit. The other arches stand together, as a unified front, because they've all been challenged, though Sloth yawns.

Insanity considers Sogliun, the moon demon, to be the only real threat in the room, but he chickens out and flows downward, into the floor, while no one is looking.

Pride speaks for all: "We won’t serve you, but might be persuaded to allow you to join our ranks. Though a few examples of the eighth arch demon have existed in the past, each was a dangerous, rogue element, definitely not a team player. Will you be the same, or will you join us?"

Insanity's answer is to head-butt Wrath, while she impales both of Pride's bodies on her claws. Wrath is hit so hard, his head goes rolling away. Insanity eats both of Pride's bodies, somewhat refilling her energy reserves.

Still conscious, Wrath's head rolls to a stop near the third copy of Pride.

Wrath asks for help and Pride eats him, which was according to Pride's plan, all along, because he intends to eat all of the arches and then eat their boss, the Void.

Alice looks on as Insanity deals with the arches, bothered by the fact that the Hunter seems to be dying. After some magical analysis, she realizes the Hunter is missing human genetics that she requires to survive on her own and with the demon separated from her mind and body, she can't gather the magic she'd been using to sustain herself.

Alice clasps the Hunter's forearm and begins feeding her magic, though it's only a stop-gap measure, that will buy half an hour.

Envy tries to escape, but Insanity crushes her to death with the thrown corpse of Wrath.

Gluttony is scared, rightly afraid she's about to be eaten, while her bodyguards abandon her, aside from one.

Her last bodyguard turns out to be a regular fairy that's been bound to serve Gluttony by some bargain the two of them made. He takes the form of a humanoid turtle made of diamond. Gluttony is smashed with the body of her last bodyguard, thrown like a projectile. I just wanted to do a little foreshadowing for a later book.

Insanity turns her attention on Lust and Greed. There's a brief argument and Insanity decides to slay Lust, but can't, stopping a fraction of an inch from the kill. She tries again, but same results.

Lust reiterates the bargain she made with the Hunter in the previous book: She must protect Lust and Lust will answer any question the Hunter asks. Insanity was part of the Hunter at the time, so she's bound by the agreement.

Insanity screams in her face, "There’s nothing I want to ask!"

Insanity kills Greed and his guards, then grabs Lust. She warns the arch-demon that she'll keep her 'safe' and 'alive', but that Lust may not like her definition of those words, if she presses her luck.

Turning to Sloth, Insanity asks, "What about you, Sticky?" I like this little nickname, because Sloth is a living goo monster.

Sloth just wants to go home, without a fight.

Insanity punches him, splattering him all over the walls.

She thinks he's dead and turns away, but he speaks again, "It isn’t that easy."

Sloth tries sleep magic, because he's famed for it, and everyone present falls asleep, except himself and Insanity, because "Madness never sleeps."

She tries to swallow Sloth whole, but Sloth explodes into mist. She thinks it's a self-destruct spell designed to prevent him from being eaten, but Sloth was never truly there. He only showed up by dream-walking, more or less a variation of astral projection.

Insanity looks on Alice and the Hunter and decides to eat them, since with the Hunter out of her head, she no longer has any sense of fair play.

Alice wakes in time to see the gaping maw of Insanity and has just enough time to manifest the torn mushroom cap that allows her to grow larger, cramming the whole thing in her mouth!

At the same time, Lara arrives, just in time to see, but not understand the resulting explosion, as Alice grows so fast, she smashes her way through the roof of the cave!

Chapter 43: Remorse of Conscience

Alice's transformation leaves her standing in a hole in the ceiling, as the light of dawn filters through her dress, bathing the room in blue light. Each of her feet (in boots, of course) is six feet long!

During the collapse cause by Alice's actions, Insanity rushed to the side of Lust, to deflect falling boulders.

Alice bellows, "How dare you try to kill our sister?"

Alice steps back (the ground shakes as she walks) and peers down into the hole. She reaches to pick up the Hunter, to keep her safe, but Insanity screams, "She's mine!"

Insanity attack's Alice's hand with her claws and Alice tries to punch her, much the way a human might try to smash a mouse! Insanity flops on her back and accepts the strick, so she can use all four sets of claws, latching onto Alice's hand!

Alice hauls her hand back out of the hole, taking Insanity away, though she stumbles off, causing another quake.

Lara drops her invisibility spell and rushes to the Hunter's side, asking what happened.

Lust actually takes responsibility, actually in tears over the guilt she feels. She even apologizes.

Lust explains everything, including why she did it (revenge), but now she feels awful about it.

Lara turns her into a Tommy gun and points it right in Lust's face, to demand, "Give me one good reason I shouldn't kill you right here and now!"

Lust explains what needs to happen to reintegrate the Hunter: her three personalities need to willingly merge. Alternatively, the giant can eat Insanity, then merge.

Lust begins to feel remorse for every single wrong thing she's ever done, which isn't a short list, with sins darker and more bloody than the worst serial killer, because her conscience is finally working properly, as a result of her recent religious reading habits.

Lara decides to let Lust live, but only of she signs an unconditional contract to answer Lara's questions. Lara hands over a sheet of paper and Lust writes, 'I promise to answer the questions of Lara Simmons.' She bites her thumb and stamps the page with her bloody fingerprint, sealing the bargain.

The Hunter calls attention to herself, because she's a hair away from death, so Lara uses a little magic to transfer Mashu'ra into the girl's body. Mashu'ra gets her back on her feet and in fighting form, at the cost of great pain, but the Hunter reasons a little pain is a small price to pay to save the world.

After all, with Insanity running loose, every human in the world is in danger.

Lara returns her hat and asks, "You ready to rock and roll?"

The Hunter nods, so Lara turns into an M1911 pistol, which the Hunter catches out of the air.

She steps over to Lust and points it right in her face. For a tense moment, Lust believes she's about to die, based on the idea of the Hunter pointing the gun as a mere threat, while the imp (Mashu'ra) pulls the trigger. She closes her eyes and accepts her fate.

The Hunter fires, putting a bullet through Lust's ear, because she's beyond pissed. Lust opens her eyes just in time to be pistol-whipped!

Lara orders her to stay put and threatens a fate worse than death if she isn't there when they come back, claiming she just put a tracking curse on Lust, with that bullet.

The Hunter screams in Lust's face, then flies out of the hole in the ceiling.

Chapter 44: Rock and Roll

Alice struggles with Insanity, discovering her giant size has some serious disadvantages: it slows her regenerative powers and makes her a big target, despite giving her incredible strength.

Meanwhile, Insanity winds her way up and around Alice's arm, cutting her all the way to the bone! Alice tries to scrape her off, but Insanity dodges.

Getting desperate, Alice calls DRINK ME into her hand and downs the entire bottle! She explosively shrinks down to the size of an ant and brags hold of Insanity's fur, with the intent of reaching the ear, where such a tiny figure might do some serious damage.

The Hunter flies into the air, seeing Insanity fall as Alice vanishes.

Lara turns into a Barret M107 anti-material rifle and the Hunter puts a round through Insanity's head, causing it to explode!

Meanwhile, Alice has reached the spot between Insanity's shoulder blades, where she decided to take a short breather. She's really grateful she took the breather, because otherwise, she might have been hit.

Unfortunately, Insanity is beyond the power of the average demon and manages to regenerate her head, a feat no other demon can match!

Alice continues her climb.

Knowing the situation is too hot for Lara, who might easily be killed in the mayhem, the Hunter leaves her behind and charges into battle.

Lara is upset by this, but decides to find a hiding place, so she can still contribute, by sniping.

The Hunter and Insanity roll through the Outback like a pair of angry, giant cats, but while the hunter gets stronger the more damage she takes, she also gets more stupid, the same issue Simmons always dealt with in cat-man form!

She lets go and kicks Insanity away, so she can think. She concludes brute strength is not the answer and none of her armored forms would work, either.

She wants to try grenades, but realizes she can't reach any of her gear inside her hat, without her demon powers.

She's also somewhat worried her mother's magic isn't protecting her, but her mother's power was split three ways and she's become ineffectual as a result.

She has Wood, Water, Air and Fire magic, so she combines the first three to rapidly grow trees to snare Insanity in a web of wood. Insanity is so strong, however, that she immediately starts to break free, so the Hunter adds some Fire magic, using the wood for fuel, while she produces pure oxygen with Air magic! The flame gets so hot, it burns blue!

Meanwhile, Alice is in Insanity's ear and worries she's about to be burned to death. She magically produces the mushroom cap and eats the whole thing in one bite!

Alice violently explodes out of Insanity's head, then starts punching the demon with her full, gigantic strength!

Insanity produces a painful telepathic scream of rage that sends Alice stumbling away, before she falls to the ground, causing an earthquake! Likewise, the Hunter is stunned, while Insanity gets back to her feet!

Lara opens fire, once again exploding the demon's head!

We switch to the perspective of Lust, who's guilt in this matter stirs her to action, because she can sense our heroes are losing the fight.

She feels she must help, so she flies out to join them.

Meanwhile, Lara empties her magazine, repeatedly blowing Insanity's head off, though she grows back faster each time. On the other hand, Lara has always laced her rounds with either poison or disease and Insanity does slow down a bit.

Once Lara's all out of ammunition (it takes her a while to magically produce .50-cal rounds, since they're so large), Insanity picks up the Hunter, in preparation to eat her, once and for all.

Lust arrives and pours on every bit of charm magic she can, slowing Insanity down with multiple tempting offers that match Lust's nature. Her words make Alice and the Hunter both blush.

While Insanity is distracted, the Metal Spirit, which killed Simmons, shows up and whispers to the Hunter. As usual, it does so in poetic rhymes of four lines.

It uses flowery words to apologize for killing Simmons, then explains its nature as having been forged from earth using fire, air and water, hinting that it's a child of all four of the basic elements. The rhyme also implies that humanity made it what it is. I like this as an explanation for why it's so strong, probably the most powerful elemental spirit, aside from Life and the Void.

Therefore, it decides to serve the Hunter willingly, that she might save humanity.

There's a brief scene inside the Hunter's head, in which it bows to her, offers up a token (a cast-iron and steel bracelet) and the Hunter collars it, much like she did with the Water and Air spirits in previous books.

Coming back to the real world, Insanity once more picks up the Hunter, then opens her mouth extra wide, to eat her. The Hunter hears Vogerath/Pride screaming, amused by the sound.

The chapter comes to a close as the Hunter focuses her mind to use Metal magic for the first time, while the bracelet tinkles on her wrist, since those tokens are both metaphors and real objects.

Chapter 45: (Re)forging Bonds

Insanity snaps her jaws shut on the Hunter, only to break some of her teeth! Letting go and stepping back, she sees the Hunter's clothes have produced metal plates, just like a suit of armor!

This metal-shrouded transformation is much like the iron wood armor she got from subjugating the Jungle Spirit, but instead of some rather heavy wood, the metal spirit has given her armor plates composed of layered titanium and tungsten, producing something with properties of both.

Insanity throws a temper tantrum, slamming her fists into the ground, producing brief earthquakes!

In the background, Alice drinks her potion, returning to normal size, mostly so she can heal.

The Hunter looks Insanity in the eye and raises a hand, then pretends with the other she's turning a crack attached to the first, seemingly resulting in her middle finger popping up.

Insanity is actually amused, saying, "I like that gesture. It fits the Robocop thing you've got going."

But having seen her greatest desire frustrated, Insanity is done with the fight and decides to walk away, though she promises to return to eat the Hunter, followed by every one of her sheep (meaning the human race). She plans to force the Hunter to watch as she wipes out everyone.

The Hunter screams at her, but Insanity ignores her.

Working with Mashu'ra, the Hunter produces a wall of fire to block Insanity's way, which curves around all three of them, in a huge circle.

Insanity turns back to point out the futility of continuing to fight, while the symbols required to bind a demon begin appearing in the flames, thanks to Mashu'ra, while seven more fiery binding circles forming.

When the first circle closes, Mashu'ra is significantly weakened, but the Hunter picks up the slack and maintains the magic long enough for Mashu'ra to finish shaping all the binding symbols. He falls unconscious and ends up on her shoulder.

Having lost Mashu'ra's power, the Hunter collapses, but gives the demon double middle fingers, before she falls over.

Insanity screams and charges, but runs out of power before she reaches the Hunter, because her demonic powers have been sealed. She scrabbles to get closer, but lacks the strength to move and throws another temper-tantrum, demonstrating how immature she is, without the Hunter.

She's horribly upset and complaining about how 'unfair' the situation is.

Aliget gets up, bites into her mushroom cap and grows back to giant size. She picks up the helpless demon and eats her, though she does say something soothing, to try and make Insanity feel slightly better about it.

Alice takes a swig of DRINK ME and returns to normal size. She lays down next to the Hunter and asks, "Can we be friends?"

As far as the Hunter is concerned, they already are, and even better, they're sisters, so she nods agreement.

Alice vanishes, re-absorbed by the Hunter.

The Hunter puts Mashu'ra in her hat.

The hunter enters her mindscape, finding Alice has made a little corner of it her own, with a small patch of gigantic grass, a tiny little sun for some light and a huge mushroom, on which Alice sits. Beside that are a record player producing psychedelic rock and a little apple tree with grenades instead of apples.

Alice is smoking form the Caterpillar's hookah, while the Caterpillar has been put in a specialized straight-jacket designed to keep it's very many arms under control. It's mouth is gagged, but it soon gets that loose and growls in the voice of Insanity.

“Quit harshing my buzz and relax for once!” Alice complains and shoves the stem of the hookah in the demon’s mouth.

Insanity inhales, but doesn't like it, spitting it out, before another torrent of complaints come form the Caterpillar's mouth.

The response of Alice is to slap Insanity, followed by telling her to shut up.

The Hunter falls over laughing, because this is something hilarious she never expected to see!

Lara finds the Hunter rolling in the dirt, laughing until she cries. Concerned, she calls the Hunter by name, calling her Artemis.

She stops laughing and considers that name, which was given by Simmons. She still sad she's lost him, but she's ready to accept that name as part of moving forward. From this point on, she starts referring to herself as Artemis.

Lara helps her up and together, they seek out Lust, finding her stuck in the dirt, unable to free herself, because she hit the ground that hard, when Insanity backhanded her.

They help her out and Lara thinks her for helping. Lust doesn't accept her gratitude, because she doesn't feel she deserves it and apologizes to Artemis for everything she's done wrong.

Lara asks Artemis if she can handle transportation and she puts Lust in her hat. Lara turns into a pistol, for ease of carrying, and Artemis vanishes into a puff of smoke.

Chapter 46: Hemming the Fray

Artemis reappears far above The Cauldron of the Elements (Macie's home valley).

She enjoys the view as she falls, in Australia, dawn was just over, but here, dusk is about to begin.

And yes, that does finally pin down the timezone of the place, likely putting it somewhere in the Appalachian mountain range, but I'm not going any further than that. It's a fictional place, so don't go looking for it. And now that I've started a conspiracy theory, let's get back to the story.

From above, it looks desolate and dead, because the interior is masked by an illusion spell, to keep it safe. Artemis passes through this, revealing the forest and blue lake.

She takes control of her fall and flies down to Macie's house, where she knocks on the door, then flies out of sight three times, messing with Macie's head as she answers.

Lara ends the game by speaking and Macie invites them in.

Hours later, James and Lara have fallen asleep on the couch, leaving a lovely scene of mother and son.

Artemis and Macie sneak out quietly, to avoid waking them, and head for the old amphitheater and stage. There, Macie begins teaching Artemis to dance and juggle, which are both important components of The Dance of Fire and Autumn.

Decades earlier, when Artemis met the Fire Spirit, it promised to willingly serve her, if she could subjugate the Metal Spirit, then summon the Fire Spirit via the dance. Having gotten the Metal Spirit under control, thanks to Simmons, she now wishes to summon the Fire Spirit, because she's convinced it will be useful in combat.

Artemis has trouble with dancing, tripping over her own feet, but picks up juggling fairly quickly.

Epilogue

Lust is back in a cell, reflecting on how much she's changed and how far she has to go. Lara and Verda just finished an interrogation session, which Lust fully cooperated with.

Cooperation has led to improvements in Lust's living arrangements, including a soft bed and a chair for her to relax in, as well as more choice in food selection, but Lust doesn't think she deserves any of it.

Each such session leaves her wanting to die, because she's wracked with guilt for her many, many dark deeds, but she staves off such thoughts by reading The Book of Mormon.

After reading for a time, she prays. She isn't certain if God is real or not, but knows that praying certainly makes her feel better.

I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with Lust's journey, but I'm planning to span it over the course of several more novels. However, part of it is clear: Lust's journey to redemption demonstrates the fact that the "demons" aren't actually what they claim to be, further emphasizing the fact they're dark fairies, because they can change.

Switching to Artemis, we find her putting James in his crib after a meal and some cartoons, because he fell asleep on the couch and she's been babysitting for Lara.

Lara and Verda enter the apartment. Lara starts a meal, while Verda sits on the couch and Artemis sit opposite her, in a chair. They acknowledge each other, before Verda falls asleep on the couch.

After all, with both Lara and Artemis in the place, who have both defeated Wrath, Verda feels totally safe and can sleep peacefully. It isn't a permanent solution to her post-traumatic stress, but quality rest is required for proper mental healing.

Artemis reflects on the fact they had been grieving the loss of Simmons separately, but ironically, Wrath somehow managed to bring them together.

She also reflects on the valuable lesson Evie and Simmons taught her: Artemis will always value the time she has with her friends, short though it may be. However, she will never stop fighting to keep them safe.

The Editing Process

With the Epilogue finished, I've completed the rough draft of She Seeks Peace.

This work-in-progress log will pause until I begin a new project, so I can do a pass of editing on She Seeks Peace. With the way I've been using text to speech software for my daily editing, I've been finding my typos and spelling mistakes earlier on, so I'm likely to only do one editing pass, mostly a matter of looking at the plot. I'll do more when it comes time to publish, but I'm eager to get to my next project.

I'm likely to add some scenes in which the Metal Spirit comes to Artemis/the Hunter, looking to apologize, because its appearance at the end was a bit abrupt. That will give me the opportunity to add a couple of funny places our heroine can seek peace.

One of the scenes I had in mind, but never used, was to have her hide among a herd of black and white cows. Her magic clothes will give her camouflage, to fit in with them. My thinking is there will be lots of metal fencing near the cows, justifying the presence of the Metal Spirit.

I think I need to come up with two more little scenes like that, just to subtly introduce the idea of it's presence for the final fight, though I need to be careful about when and where I insert them. I think they would work best early on in the novel.

I mentally justify its presence in Australia with the fact the final battle took place near an old, abandoned mine (it wasn't quite as played-out as the owner thought), on top of the fact Australia exports a lot of mined metals. Perhaps I need to throw another four line block into its rhymes, to serve as a sort of explanation:

Metal, Metal everywhere,
Under feet, here and there.
Metal made from Metal ore,
Man ever digs, such a chore.

That would also fit with previous appearances, because it usually makes reference to metal Artemis didn't realize was present.

Other than that, the only other thing I'll need to do is add some descriptive details, which I always do during editing.

What's Next?

There's two possibilities looming for my next project, the first a short story, the other a novel.

The Recruit (Working Title)

The Recruit will be a short story centering around Detective Shime Yasu, who readers may recall from Demon for President!

You might remember that she was given a special card to use, which had a number for her to call when she's "ready to open her eyes". The story will begin with Yasuy lying awake, unable to sleep, because her mind is too busy with the bizarre things she saw in the body cam videos of Ulmoch and Artemis in action.

She'll call the number and the story will show a glimpse into the recruiting and training process for the Order of Ash and Smoke. Artemis, Lara and Verda will work together for training.

Yasu will be one among many local recruits, but the story will center around disabusing the group of all misconceptions about demons, because all of them brought weapons they thought would be effective, including crosses, holy water and some dumb fool got confused, so he brought a wooden stake.

It will be a simple story, in which Artemis captures a demon for training purposes, while Lara tests all of the things the recruits brought, once more hammering home the point that they're not actually demons, because the crosses do nothing, the holy water just gets him wet and hammering the stake into his heart just gets him to make creepy comments (Ulmoch has always been a masochist, so he enjoys people hurting him).

Finally, Yasu will ask, "So, what does work?"

Lara will transform into an M1911 and Artemis will shoot Ulmoch in the head, while Lara delivers the punchline: ".45 rounds are good."

Yep, the whole story is just setup for a joke, though I think ending it with Yasu sleeping soundly would be a nice touch.

I've had this story in mind since I wrote the bits involving Detective Yasu, but had to get past She Seeks Peace to know the mental state of my characters, since the ending of Demon for President! was a big, dangling plot thread.

Star Witch

The other project I'm eager to get to is tentatively titled Star Witch. This will be about a trio of witches and sisters that used magic to launch themselves into space.

The story will focus on one of the sisters, who's named Amelia. She's the enchanter and engineer that built the light-sail ship, named Star Witch, but lacks talent for other forms of magic, barely able to operate the ship on her own power.

Most of the details are foggy to me, but I know it begins with Amelia alone aboard Star Witch, aside from the house brownies that serve as the ship's repair crew, though she's never seen them.

Amelia is extremely exhausted at this point, because she's been operating the ship around the clock with minimal breaks for sleep, when it was designed to be operated in shifts or left to its own devices for long periods of time.

Amelia's sisters were kidnapped several days earlier and Star Witch was left badly damaged, all by order of the villain, the Dead Queen.

Amelia has been following the Dead Queen's monolith (a huge, granite slab with tunnels cut through it, which serves as her star ship), using the bigger ship's wake of waste magic to barely keep her own light sails functional.

My plan is to do a series of flashbacks on the lives of the three sisters building and launching Star Witch, followed by docking at a space station, where they'll hear tales of the Dead Queen, a powerful witch that drains the life and magic from other witches, to extend her own life.

Eventually, the story will culminate in the monolith moving into parking orbit above an icy moon in the present (they've stopped to take on water, which is required for various processes aboard the big ship, despite the crew being undead), while Amelia goes around the moon the other way.

Amelia's intent is to surprise the monolith from the front, rather than attacking from behind, the last thing the Dead Queen might expect. Amelia has no other choice: she's dead without either the stolen mythril core of her ship or the backup of her sisters; she's the weakest of the three witches, barely able to get Star Witch moving on her own.

The truth is, the Dead Queen setup the entire situation for the sake of entertainment, a sort of sport she's played with smaller ships for centuries. She takes the strongest witches to extend her life and leaves the very weakest with a barely functional vessel, eager to learn what a desperate witch might do.

However, she didn't know and didn't count on Star Witch being full of house brownies, which can repair the ship, even in the absence of proper supplies, nor did she count on Amelia's exceptional skill with mathematics and engineering, which will be the lesser witch's greatest weapons.

I'm not entirely sure how Amelia will get her sisters back, but I do know she'll intentionally crash Star Witch into the monolith, so she can board the pirate vessel. This might involve crashing into a docking bay, but thinking about it, the bridge would be far more fun, a combination of destroying command and control functionality, followed by a desperate rescue mission, while the house brownies hold the line against the Dead Queen's soldiers.

I'm going to use Amelia's lonely tale as a framing story for the novel, to add tension and foreshadowing for the climax, coming back to it at the start and close of each part of the novel.

Thank You!

Thank you for following along as I write.

I don't get much feedback about these work-in-progress posts, but people like and boost them on Mastodon, which is encouraging.

Have a great day! You'll probably see my next post in this series the week after next.

Tags: writing, work-in-progress, ashen-blades

Demon for President!

November 05, 2024 — Owen Tyme

Today, November 5, 2024, is a very special and strange day, at least in the United States, where I live. The current election and division between the Republicans and Democrats really inspired me to pay attention during the first republican debate, last year.

I've never voted, since politics has always literally given me a splitting headache, because there's too many lies to really uncover the truth. Cynically, I sometimes wonder if there's any truth to be found, at all.

Still, I wasn't paying attention to the politics, but rather to the behavior of political candidates, because I'd had a bizarre, fun and timely idea for a novel: what would happen if a demon ran for President of the United States?

So, I watched and continually found material that could be twisted into political satire, all the while unsure if I had the skill to make the novel work. I got it published in June, just in time for the current election to really heat up.

With voting happening today, I've been thinking about that novel, which is titled Demon for President!

I ran the election and potential twists through my head many times during the writing process, but never did I expect so many parallels between fiction and the real world.

In my novel, the demonic villain, Otto Vogerath, was shot at by a sniper while cutting the ribbon for a store. On July 13, Former President Trump became the target of a sniper, an event that chilled me to the bone, because reality became eerily like something I'd written.

For another example, I wrote about the President bowing out of the election to make way for another candidate, so it really caught my attention when that happened!

There are other parallels, but none so shocking as those two, or which I would care to discuss, because I'm not here to draw connections between real people and fictional characters that really aren't connected.

I wrote the novel early this year and published it in June, before these events took place, but all I can think is this: art imitates life and life imitates art. There is truth to that old adage, after all.

I found the experience of writing political satire to be fun, educational and even intellectually stimulating, but at the same time, it made me nervous to see my fiction come true in such unsettling ways. I can't say I found that part of the experience enjoyable, which may be why I haven't discussed this novel as much as others.

I meant it all in fun, as a way to point out how silly and funny politicians can be, but I think I cut this piece too close to reality. It surprises me, the things I see without comprehending, which can so easily become a part of my work.

So much of my writing process is a subconscious black box, which I don't even pretend to understand, a gift that must be fed for me to retain it, but which sometimes produces things that leave me speechless for the most unusual reasons.

I'm not sure I can take any more parallels with my novel, but hopefully, our next president won't open a portal to Hell, so endless legions of demons can march forth to conquer the Earth. That would be one bit of straw too many for this particular camel.

Still, once the dust of this election clears, why not read about what could have been, if we'd gotten a Demon for President?

Tags: ashen-blades, writing

Work In Progress #16: She Seeks Peace #8 (October 28-November 1)

November 02, 2024 — Owen Tyme

"She felt very strange, as if her memories weren't her own, because they were a swarm of ants crawling around inside her skull, their skittering feet tickling her every synapse, making her laugh out loud, her voice echoing around her.

She wasn't sure what her name was, but knew it definitely wasn't 'The Hunter'. It most certainly wasn't 'The Eighth Deadly Sin, Willful Insanity', either."

  – Excerpt from She Seeks Peace.

She Seeks Peace is volume 4 of Ashen Blades.

You can read a short description of She Seeks Peace to learn more or you can read short summaries of each day's writing on Mastodon

Here's links to the rest of my blog entries on She Seeks Peace, in chronological order:

  1. September 12-13
  2. September 16-20
  3. September 23-26
  4. September 30-October 4
  5. October 7-11
  6. October 14-18
  7. October 21-25

Chapter 38: Letting Go

Evie spends all morning and afternoon speaking with the spirits of her dead friends. It gets pretty emotional for her, because she's doing her best to let them go, so they can pass on.

The Hunter holds her hand and Evie squeezes it pretty hard with each tearful goodbye. She grows a little older with each, until she's about thirty years old.

Last of all, she talks with her grandmother, but Evelyn asks to speak with the Hunter and Evie makes her visible.

Evelyn explains that she watched the world with magic for a very long time, looking for a champion to take Evie to her family. She'd heard of the Hunter, but couldn't see her, because the hunter is effectively invisible to most forms of detection magic.

In August (around the same time the Hunter went back in time, during the previous book), the Fates appeared to her in a vision, telling her the Hunter was on the way, to take Evie to family.

She asks if the Fates can be trusted and the Hunter somewhat reluctantly agrees, because she at least trusts them to help her against Vogerath. That reassures Evelyn she did the right thing and she passes on, vanishing from sight.

The Hunter comforts Evie for a time, before the rapidly-aging woman says she's tired and lonely. The Hunter pats her back and Riley steps in, for a group hug.

He reminds Evie, "You're not alone."

After that, Evie asks to be left alone, for a nap. She also corrects her accent mid-sentence, finally figuring out how to pronounce the letter L, promising to make Simmons visible, once she's rested.

As Riley and the Hunter leave the bedroom, Riley expresses his worry that Evie might not stop growing older, because she's now in her mid-forties!

There's a brief scene in which Evie is alone with her thoughts and she briefly considers suicide, that she might be with her friends. The first of the monks that died was a woman with depression issues, who took her own life, though Evie hadn't understood that at the time. Having seen how that didn't solve anything, she decides against suicide.

She doesn't realize it, but she's growing older by the moment and she's already rapidly headed toward a death by natural causes, though her aging slows as she falls asleep.

Some time later, Evie calls out for help. Riley and the Hunter rush in, finding Evie on the floor: she fell out of bed and can't get up, because she's now over ninety years old!

They help her back into bed. She offers to make Simmons visible and the Hunter prepares by hauling Mashu'ra out of her hat.

Simmons appears and thanks Mashu'ra for giving him the chance to fight demons. Next, he tells them both he loves them and admits this is going to be goodbye for a long time, though he'll wait until the end of time to see the Hunter again, if required.

He also discusses the fact that he knows neither of them will let go of life until the demon threat is permanently solved.

Finally, he addresses the elephant in the room, asking the Hunter to let him go, because she's been dragging him through life like a boat anchor. He isn't angry, because she had no idea her magic had responded to her emotions by binding his spirit to her, but he is upset that he can't pass on.

Last of all he says: "Go ahead and treasure the time we had together, but don’t hold onto me so tight."

The Hunter enters her internal mindscape, like the way she fought Sogliun, seeking the deepest, darkest corner of her mind, where she buries things she doesn't want to deal with.

This turns out to be a steel-lined corridor, along which hangs paintings, each of which is a different traumatic memory. Two examples are the death of her parents and Reggie's death. She takes the painting of Reggie's final moments off the wall and puts it under her arm as she goes deeper, seeking the darkest corner of the place.

She ends up at a dead end dominated by a piece of raw canvas that's been riveted to the wall, which displays the death of Simmons on an eternal loop.

She goes off somewhere else for a ladder and drill of the old hand-cranked variety. She sets up the ladder and manually drills out every last rivet, taking the canvas down, though that leaves the wall bleeding. She rolls up the canvas and carries it away.

She returns to the usual corner of her mindscape and as an experiment, she sets the painting of Reggie's final moments on fire, with magic. It turns into smoke that fills the shadows surrounding her, which are actually her memories. The return of that buried memory is painful, but it brings with it a flood of good memories that she'd been forced to bury with it, because they were connected. She's finally able to look back on her time with Reggie, feeling joy.

She next lights the bloody canvas aflame, releasing the full pain of loss into her mind. It really hurts, but she's ready to really deal with it and find a way forward.

Her inner demon (The Eighth Deadly Sin, Willful Insanity, or Insanity for short) hugs her in a surprising turn of events, because Insanity was born from the Hunter's Id, which is all about emotion.

Back in the real world, she tries to say, "I love you", though it comes out as "It's a secret."

Simmons responds, "I love you, too."

Mashu'ra also says goodbye and Simmons fades away.

Meanwhile, Evie has grown translucent, because she's also fading!

Riley is upset, because he basically gained a daughter and now she's dying, in less than a day's time.

Evie tells them what she just realized: She didn't understand it at the time, but she's been dead for a great many years. When she faced the demon that killed the monks, she blasted him with such a potent burst of life magic, she erased the demon magic in both her own body and that of the demon, killing them both.

Due to the nature of fairies (which is technically what the beings calling themselves demons in these novels are), Evie rose again in the same way Lara did in the previous book.

In the end, it hardly made a difference, because she'd never understood, until that morning, and the nature of her Spirit powers allowed her to freely cross the divide between the living and dead.

With her attachment to life fading, Evie is now ready to pass on.

Before she goes, she tells Riley something Evelyn told her: the woman he's been carrying a torch for feels the same, so he should marry her and have lots of kids. He promised he'll soon have a daughter again.

He thanks her for that message.

The Hunter is sad, of course, because she'd been looking forward to visiting Evie from time to time, thinking they would be friends for thousands of years to come.

She tries and fails to express herself, saying, "It's a secret."

Evie smiles and slips back into her Chinese accent, "I ruv you, too."

She fades from sight, leaving a set of empty clothes behind.

After a scene break, the Hunter steps outside, in tears, mourning both Simmons and Evie, finally understanding the meaning of 'bittersweet'. Looking back on her time with Reggie, however, she feels nothing but joy at having known him and the pain is gone, giving her confidence that she'll someday feel the same about Simmons.

Too distracted to pay attention, she bumps into a huge man in a biker's leather jacket and looks up at a squirrel's head!

Part Four: Grounded

Chapter 38 marks the end of Part Three and Chapter 39 will begin Part Four.

This part will cover the climax, in which the Hunter will face Ulmoch, leading to her capture, followed by a battle with Wrath and his arch demon wedding guests.

Chapter 39: Chasing the Rabbit

Ulmoch starts to tell the Hunter he's set a bomb on a timer, which will go off if she doesn't face him, only to realize, mid-sentence, he forgot to set the timer. He tries to excuse himself, to go set it.

Naturally, the Hunter cuts his head off with her sword, intending to threaten him until he tells her where to find the bomb, but she's momentarily forgotten the fact such a wound won't disable Ulmoch's body (on her personal timeline, the last time she fought him was a couple years ago).

Ulmoch catches his head and runs off, while the Hunter gives chase. He briefly trips on a bicycle (his head was facing the wrong way, because he was too busy talking), but loses no momentum, rolling down the sidewalk for a time. Once his head is reattached, he leaps from one residential roof to another, while the Hunter flies after him.

Ulmoch uses hairpin turns to avoid her, while subtly navigating his way toward a low-rent area of Alice Springs. He's more dexterous than she is and able to stay out of reach. She tries using fire magic from her hands to turn better and starts to catch up, only for Ulmoch to accelerate, as if he's intentionally staying just out of reach.

Finally, he goes in a straight line and the Hunter thinks she's got him, only for him to drop between houses and enter one. She overshoots and smashes her way in through the front window, sending a hail of sharp fragments into Ulmoch!

He rolls sideways and ends up next to an old, hand-cranked record player, which is ready to go. He starts it up and it crackles in the background as the Hunter catches him by the neck and slams him into the wall, putting her sword very near his eye.

She's so angry, her eyes glow an intense, blue shade.

Ulmoch surrenders and says he'll show her where the bomb is, if she'll let go of him.

She puts him down and he instead reaches into his jacket at high speed, yelling, "Psych!"

He produces the jar of liquid he's been saying he got as a present for her and throws it at the ceiling, where it smashes, causing the liquid to spatter down on the both of them! It's LSD, by the way. Nearly a whole pint of the stuff.

While Ulmoch sort of just accepts the high with pleasure, the Hunter stumbles around as the room becomes more colorful and spins around her, as if her head were mounted on a swivel.

She mutters, "It's a secret?" followed by her inner demon using her lips, "What the-" she finishes by cursing.

The next scene is inside the Hunters mindscape, where rainbows pieces the perpetual smoky shadows, chasing them away, while the sun shines from under the feet of the Hunter and Insanity.

Years of carefully maintained self-control by the Hunter erodes under the onslaught of the drugs, forcefully drawing her two halves together, where they splash and merge, like droplets of molten metal, reforming as a single individual.

Meanwhile, Sogliun has been watching the house from the other side of the street and is really surprised to see it melting like wax, while every color of light shines from within. He analyzes the magic of the air, finding nearly every form of it he recognizes, though Void and Life magic are most prevalent.

He growls, "Ulmoch, what did you do?"

We switch back to the young woman having her first drug experience, but I pointedly don't refer to her as the Hunter. In fact, she struggles with the very question of who she is.

She stands in a sunny field of grass and flowers, with rainbows flying like birds, surrounded by a landscape that's singing along to the song White Rabbit, by Jefferson Airplane. The flowers sing soprano, the sun and rainbows are tenors, the stars of the sky sing alto and the ground itself produces a pleasant bass. She initially thinks the cartoonish landscape is beautiful.

The song refers to Alice from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and she comes to believe her name is Alice and the story her mother read to her as a child is her own story, while the memories that crawl around inside her skull, like ants, obviously are not her own (memories of the Hunter and Insanity). That's a little hint that Alice is a brand-new personality, brought on by a drug overdose.

Having solved the identity issue, she looks at her magic clothes, which have gone absolutely berserk in response to her thoughts and feelings, unable to settle on a style or color.

She says, "Stop that" and her clothes settle on a long, blue dress with a white apron, a pair of fingerless, elbow-length gloves and a blue, silk top hat, while her hair turns blond and hangs loose.

She finally notices a pair of items in either hand, including a bit torn from a white mushroom cap and a bottle of dark liquid, labeled, 'DRINK ME'.

Feeling an urge to eat, Alice goes with the flow and bites into the mushroom. As a result, she grows quite large.

From Sogliun's perspective, the house explodes into melted droplets as Alice shoots through the roof and the reality-warping power she's manifested rolls outward, spreading her reality-warping physical hallucination to the neighborhood!

Humans run in every direction and even Sogliun seeks distance, because he doesn't want to be caught up in it.

Naturally, he blames Ulmoch.

Alice decides she doesn't like being large and takes a swig of 'DRINK ME'. It tastes mostly of fruit, but she can pick out a little turkey dinner mixed in. She shrinks just as fast as she grew, ending up shorter than the grass, beside a caterpillar smoking from a hookah.

The Ulmoch-become-caterpillar asks, "How high am I? This is like nothing I've ever seen! Is this real or is reality as high I am?"

Realizing she overshot, Alice nibbles on the mushroom and returns to approximately normal size, finding herself standing beside a small apple tree covered in green apples, with a golden one near the top.

The dream-like beauty fades as the landscape turns hostile (the LSD is finally getting through her skin and her trip is turning bad, as a result) and the flowers grow fangs, trying to bite her ankles, though that doesn't matter, because she's wearing boots.

The rainbows, on the other hand, become a deadly problem as they swoop at her, their edges cutting her like razor blades! Seeking to defend herself, she calls up the Hunter's wakizashi and deflects them.

As she fights, the landscape changes to a chess board on which a battle between the red and white armies takes place! She realizes the rainbows were actually the men fighting and they only cut her by mistake.

The Red Queen screams, "Off with their heads!" to encourage her men and Alice, being in a drug-induced suggestible state, swings her sword as she spins like a ballerina.

The Ulmoch/caterpillar has apparently changed size along with her and loses his head to her twirl, complaining, "Oh, come on! I thought we were finally getting along!"

She grabs Ulmoch's caterpillar head out of the air before he can catch it and hauls it out of reach.

The song reaches the last line and she takes it as an instruction. Looking on the severed caterpillar head, she finds herself looking into the eyes of her own severed head. She grabs the golden apple from the tree and forcefully rams it into the head's mouth, incidentally shattering teeth in the process. With the stem facing toward her, she plucks it off and hurls the head away, because instinct tells her something energetic is about to happen.

Ulmoch's head sails out of the reality distortion and returns to normal. So does the high-explosive anti-personnel grenade she called up from the Hunter's arsenal, which is inside his mouth. It explodes and Ulmoch is sent home, where it takes him weeks to heal properly. It was such a bad trip for him, he stays sober for three full months.

Feeling sick, Alice pukes, while the LSD dribbles form her clothes as they magically self-clean. She finally lays down, to sleep off the high.

Solgiun notes the unreality bubble reversing course and it eventually vanishes, leaving most everything as it was before it appeared. He reluctantly enters the house and finds Wrath's intended out cold, so he calls for pickup, quite surprised that Ulmoch actually succeeded in knocking her out.

Chapter 40: Final Preparations

Alice is captured by Wrath's minions, but in the process of getting her on a pallet with a binding circle on it, her hat falls off. One of the demons tries to pick it up. The hat eats them, both as the means to defend itself, but also to gain some extra energy.

Under normal circumstances, the Hunter's father, Jake, gets the energy he needs to maintain the pocket dimension inside the hat from the Hunter, but when the hat is separated from her, he's on his own, so he uses the traces of demonic magic available to him to consume any demon that dares to touch it.

He needs the extra energy, lest he be forced to start discarding things stored inside, as he once did in 1972, throwing out dinner rolls to maintain sufficient energy.

In the next scene, Lara arrives at Riley's home, who tells her the Hunter left an hour earlier.

Lara summons Mashu'ra and he directs her toward the hat.

Alice arrives (still unconscious and captured) at Wrath's abandoned mine base, where Lust gets to work positioning the pallet holding her, in preparation to separate her human and demon sides.

In the background, Gluttony prepares the wedding feast (summoned imps), while a trussed-up justice of the peace awaits being of service, probably followed by being eaten.

Wrath makes arrangements for the other arches to be summoned and the wedding dress is brought in. Lust tries to remove Alice's clothes, but fails, complaining that they must be glued on. Wrath gives it a go, literally trying to tear them off her, but only tears a small portion, which rapidly repairs itself.

Seeing the magic clothes at work, Lust suggests leaving them be (magic clothes aren't easy to make and can be very useful). Wrath asks her to put the wedding dress on Alice over them.

Wrath heads off to get dressed and get his hair done, for the first time, ever.

Meanwhile, Lara arrives at the old wrecked house and puts on the Hunter's hat, surprised by the fact it has turned blue.

She uses the tracking curse Verda put on the Hunter and her hat in 1972 to learn the direction and distance to Alice. Next, Lara grows bat wings and flies off (with Mashu'ra in her body, the animal forms she can use are limited to mammals).

Chapter 41: Three for the Price of Two

Alice finally wakes and looks around at the room, which has all seven arch demons in it. She tries to leave, because it isn't her kind of scene, only to burn herself on the interior of the one-way force field produced by the binding circle.

She looks down and sees the wedding dress, but doesn't quite make the connection that she's the bride. She's a little slow on the uptake, like a stoner normally is.

She notes the tuxedo Wrath is wearing and finally realizes she's at a wedding. She looks down again and realizes she's supposed to be the bride. The arches laugh at her exclamation of frustration.

She tries to escape with magic, but she's unable to accomplish anything.

Wrath orders her to hold out her left hand and she reasons she can't win, so she goes with the flow and obeys.

Wrath puts the enchanted engagement ring Lust made on her finger, resulting in Alice exploding into a cloud of black smoke.

Switching to Lust's perspective, she's surprised to see not two figures forming from the smoke, but three. She's also somewhat bothered by her slowly-growing conscience, because she helped put her jailer (the Hunter/Alice) in this position.

Her calculations are all wrong and with three personalities instead of two, none of them will end up inside a binding circle. She decides that with the plan so far off the rails, it's time to leave, but as she heads toward the exit, Gluttony sends three of her bodyguards after Lust, presumably to kill her.

Seeing no better option for survival, Lust plays into the desires of Greed, who's always had a thing for her, and buddies up to him, using a considerable share of charm magic to wrap him around her little finger. It's a game she doesn't want to play, but it's better than the alternatives; Greed wishes to possess her, but the others likely want her dead for political reasons.

Nonetheless, manipulating the feelings of a man doesn't sit well with her, because she actually feels guilty about it.

The three figures solidify at the corners of a triangle, free, rather than on the two binding circle pallets that stood ready to catch them.

One is the mutated cat form of Insanity at full-strength, wearing the wedding dress, as planned. The Hunter's human form is next, but she immediately collapses. The last is Alice.

Tags: writing, work-in-progress, ashen-blades

Work In Progress #15: She Seeks Peace #7 (October 21-25)

October 26, 2024 — Owen Tyme

“I don’t get it.” Evie’s big brown eyes wobbled with doubt and glistened with imminent tears, “You say my friends are gone, but they’re right there!” She pointed at empty space, then adjusted her pointing finger to some empty air beside the Hunter, “You say Crayton is gone, but he’s here, too!”

  – Excerpt from She Seeks Peace.

She Seeks Peace is volume 4 of Ashen Blades.

You can read a short description of She Seeks Peace to learn more or you can read short summaries of each day's writing on Mastodon

Here's links to the rest of my blog entries on She Seeks Peace, in chronological order:

  1. September 12-13
  2. September 16-20
  3. September 23-26
  4. September 30-October 4
  5. October 7-11
  6. October 14-18

Chapter 32: No Sanctuary

The upstairs portion of the The Last Sanctuary turns out to be nothing but mummified corpses and they head downstairs, finding the great hall a little different.

First, the fire is much smaller and there's a sort of nest of orange monk robes laid out, where someone has been sleeping. That's surrounded by little, hand-carved wood figures that are very artistic.

The bear statue has had a pair of glasses drawn on with charcoal and one whole wall is covered in charcoal drawings. They start primitive at one end and slowly transition to being very well made, hinting at a progression over time.

The incense is all gone, presumably all used up. The weapons and tools are rusty, but still serviceable, with sings someone has been looking after them.

Near the tree is a chopping block with an ax and carving knife (it's a magic tree that rapidly grows back, by the way, providing limitless wood for the fire).

The room smells of a child. The Hunter moves closer and sniffs the nest, confirming they sleep there.

They're surprised to hear a child ask, from behind, "What are you doing?"

The Hunter turns to look, but no one's there.

The child points out, from behind, "I'm not there."

Whirling again only causes the kid to giggle from all directions.

Yet again from behind: "Who are you and what’s that rittle furry thing on your shourder?"

Note the spelling. The kid pronounces L's as R's, using a Chinese accent.

The Hunter turns Mashu'ra around on her shoulder, so he can watch her back.

“You just gonna ignore me?” The child asks from every direction at once.

Tiring of the game, the Hunter closes her eyes, focusing her mind entirely on smell and magic. As it turns out, the kid is using a technique very similar to the Hunter's shadow-stepping spell, but instead of a mix of Smoke and Void magic, to make shadow, the kid uses Void mixed with Life, forming a ghost-walking spell.

The Hunter gets an idea where the child is next to appear, based on smell and magic, grabbing their clothes. The result is four years old, with brown eyes and a shaved head, in a child-sized orange robe.

Introductions reveal her name is Evie and it soon becomes clear the girl can see spirits and doesn't realize they're dead, because she asks "Who's the man in the gray suit?" and points at empty space.

They don't know, so she asks him and says he's "Crayton Simmons." The Hunter is shocked by the revelation that Simmons is so very close, yet so far away.

Evie points all over the room at people her guests can't see, naming them, including a mixture of Western,m Chinese and Russian names, though the name 'Will' turned into 'Wirr', which will probably confuse, not that it matters.

Eventually, Evie asks why they're there and Mashu'ra tells her they're supposed to take her to her family. She gets excited about it finally being time for "her adventure".

Like a child with a short attention span, she looks at the Hunter and asks if she ever speaks.

The Hunter nods and an amusing exchange happens, in which the Hunter intentionally baits Evie with the only phrase she can say, until she's annoyed the girl, getting her to ask, "Is that the only thing you can say?"

The Hunter nods and Evie grumbles, "That's annoying. You're annoying!"

The Hunter is quite pleased at this outcome, because she tries very hard to be so.

Evie briefly tries to erase the Hunter's curse, but fails, because it's "rearry strong".

Chapter 33: A New Lens

The Hunter leaves the Sanctuary with Evie in two, surprised to see that the courtyard hasn't changed, but the scene across from it has.

The rope bridge now crosses a creek instead of a deep chasm. The Hunter doesn't know it, but the Sanctuary connected them with an area near Alice Springs, Australia, because the magic of the Sanctuary sensed that was vaguely near where they needed to go.

The Hunter leaves the courtyard and steps onto the sandy bank of the Todd River. The background is desert scrub brush, including sparse grass, low brush and hardy trees.

She looks back, but the Sanctuary and rope bridge are gone, leaving her in a very short panic, thinking she's lost Evie.

Evie steps out of thin air beside her, amazed by everything she sees. After asking lots of questions, she wishes she could draw it, even though she left her "drawing warr" behind.

The Hunter gives her a clipboard with some paper and a box of crayons that came form the hat.

Evie draws the most violently-rainbow variation of the landscape, using every color she can, because she's never had colors to draw with before (she's used to charcoal).

After that, she draws it again, using more appropriate colors, and produces an image like unto a photograph, despite using only crayon. She makes a gift of it to the Hunter.

She wonders aloud what's next and Mashu'ra is forced to admit he's not sure, so Evie asks her grandmother, reveling the fact that the spirits of the monks followed.

After a pause (our heroes can't hear Evenlyn speaking), Evie says, "Yeah? I can do that."

She raises her arms and pours a mixture of Spirit and Void magic into the air, causing the landscape first to waver like a heat haze, then melt into a puddle like overheated crayons!

Mashu'ra and the Hunter get violently sick and she retches. Rolling on her back, she looks up at some monks, Evenlyn included, plus Simmons, standing over her and discussing her illness.

The magic reverses and the melted landscape flows upward, into the shape and form of a hill they're now on top of, which give them a nice view of Alice Springs (though they still don't know where they are).

There's a brief conversation in which Mashu'ra asks Evie to warn them before she does that again.

Evie settles in to draw, while the Hunter starts to cry, because seeing Simmons ripped her half-healed wounds open again. Evie notices her sobbing and hugs her (the Hunter's protective spells curiously don't stop that, indicating her mother refused to intervene).

Evie starts a discussion about the Hunter's tears and Mashu'ra tries to explain that she just lost a friend. Evie doesn't understand and they begin a long conversation about death, but the Hunter suspects Evie will not understand, because unlike everyone else, she doesn't perceive the divide between the living and the dead.

Chapter 34: No Home

Close to an hour late, Mashu'ra has made no progress getting Evie to understand the concept of death and he tries saying, "Ghosts can’t be touched by the living."

Evie proves him wrong by shaking the hand of the unseen ghost of Simmons, though she unknowingly uses a little magic to pull that off.

Mashur'a gives up, "You’ll understand when you’re older."

They decide to enter the city, but just as Mashu'ra is saying he'll be fairly quiet, he vanishes, whisked away by Lara summoning him.

Evie gets an explanation from one of the ghosts haunting them, most likely Simmons, though the Hunter only hears half the conversation.

The girl leads the way into the city, following directions given by her grandmother.

They arrive at a brick house and Evie knocks. A gruff-looking man answers, but smiles at Evie.

She asks if his surname is "Warrace".

He corrects her by saying "Wallace" and says yes.

Evie hugs his legs and says, "I ruv you, cousin!"

I've had a lot of fun with Evie's Chinese accent, so far, because it makes some of her words amusing and this struck me as one of the cutest things she's said so far.

The man pries her off and looks to the Hunter for an explanation, but Evie explains, "She can’t say much of anything, due to a magic curse."

The poor man looks at the both of them like they're insane and slowly back into his house, before shutting the door and presumably calling the police.

The Hunter grabs Evie's hand and takes here away from the place, while Evie asks if she did something wrong.

In the hunter's mind, it's more a matter of what she hadn't done wrong.

Again, one of the spirits explains, but this leaves the Hunter vaguely disquieted, because she isn't sure what they're telling the girl.

Meanwhile, Lara is in the New York branch office of the Order, helping with the cleanup and moving operation, while she waits.

She steps into Verda's office, noting the woman's bloodshot eyes, because she's hardly slept since Wrath exploded in her face.

They discuss Verda's fresh case of PTSD for a short while and Lara offers a little advice: Verda should go out and kill some weak demons, to do some good and reassure herself that she's not useless.

Verda agrees to try it.

There's also a brief internal momologue from Lara about her own experiences with PTSD (after she was rescued from Hell by her husband) and the way that very specifically didn't happen after she died and was transformed into a vengeful fey spirit, because fey don't get traumatized by death and instead seek revenge.

Verda asks if Lara has heard from Mashu'ra. The answer is no, so Verda suggests Lara try summoning him again, even though only three hours have passed; she wishes Artemis were around. That's a little hint that Verda would feel safe if Artemis were present, because she once killed Wrath.

Lara summons Mashu'ra into her body and relays recent events to Verda, who is very interested in The Last Sanctuary, which has been effectively sealed from the inside for 200 years.

Verda speaks of sending witches in through the "back entrance" to assess the place and get it running again.

Lara tells Mashu'ra she's on her way to Australia and releases him.

The scene ends with Verda asking if Lara needs a flight arranged.

Lara decides against it: “Nah. Shooting Wrath into space gave me an idea I’ve been looking for an excuse to try…”

What she's referring to will be revealed, later.

Getting back to the hunter and Evie, they've tried three more distant relatives of the Wallace bloodline, who (sadly) want nothing to do with her, though they were polite about it and her childish enthusiasm is starting to fade and she grows slightly older (I mean this literally, not figuratively) with each rejection.

They bump into a young woman in the street that's eager to talk to them, because they're obviously foreigners.

Evie learns a few new words/phrases, including 'American', 'Australia' and 'the world', each requiring explanation and the Hunter produces a globe from her hat as a visual aid.

This leads the woman to make a joke, "You the magician or the little one’s lovely assistant?"

Amused, the hunter leans into the idea and pulls Mashu'ra from her hat, grateful he's back, because she doesn't entirely trust the ghosts to give Evie current and correct information, even though Evelyn, at least, is oddly up to date on where her family is.

She does a ventriloquist-like act, allowing Mashu'ra to talk in her place, which actually works a little too well, drawing attention.

Meanwhile, Evie is confused, thinking the world and the globe are the same thing.

After an explanation of the difference, Evie shakes the globe and is very much relieved when it doesn't result in an earthquake.

The Hunter grows uncomfortable with the crowd she's accidentally drawn and leads Evie away.

When they're alone, Mashu'ra asks if they'd had any luck and Evie bursts into tears, because she feels like she has nowhere to belong.

The Hunter hugs the girl and finally realizes she's grown attached, much to her frustration. She'd intended to get the job of delivering Evie to family done, without emotional involvement.

Mashu'a comforts Evie. The Hunter also cries.

Chapter 35: Family

Evie and the Hunter are guided to several more homes of distant relatives by the ghost of Evelyn, but none of them works out, because the people in question have no room in their life for a random relative they didn't know existed.

They decide to quit for the night and Evie is directed by the ghost of Simmons to the local branch office of the Order.

They meet Riley Wallace, the man in charge of the place. On hearing his name, Evie runs to him and after a short explanation, he hugs her. Riley admits he saw Evelyn in a dream, months earlier, in which she asked him to look after a girl.

He wasn't sure about the dream, but his own grandmother (a witch) advised him to do as he was told, so he prepared a room in his home for her.

It's a rather emotional moment when he tells Evie she has a home. Evie is so happy, she cries profusely and thanks him.

Chapter 36: Brekky

Lara is on a sub-orbital spaceflight, in the form of a missile, the quickest option she knows to get to Australia.

At the apogee of her flight, she admires the incredible view of both the Earth and the stars.

She falls back into the atmosphere and changes form, to give herself a heat shield, sacrificing some skin to handle the friction of re-entry. Lara survives the friction burns and turns back into a missile for a while, performing a retrograde burn (reverse thrust) to slow herself down.

When the conditions are right, she turns into an eagle and flies to the ground, where she re-takes human form.

Her arms are badly burned and she's low on energy, so she lays down to relax and accidentally falls asleep.

Three aborigine men find her, two you fellows and one old guy. They saw her come down like a shooting star and even watched her change shape.

The first hypothesis floated is that she's an angel, like some catholic guys once mentioned to them.

Next, they consider the possibility that she's a monster.

The old guy eventually decides that no angel or monster would look English and finally settles on a correct answer: she's a witch, a kind of magic foreigner woman.

They still debate what they should do, but ultimately decide to help her, because she's less likely to harm helpful people, on top of it being the neighborly thing to do. They gather herbs and treat her wounds.

When she wakes, she's fully healed (mixture of medicinal herbs and her own regenerative magic). The local men have gotten a fire going and they sit on the opposite side of it, eyeing her. Not stated, but they put the fire between themselves and her as an extra measure of protection.

She thanks them and gets up to go, but her stomach growls and they kindly offer her brekky (Aussie slang for breakfast).

She's given a handful of live bugs to eat, including a fat caterpillar. Not wanting to be rude, she actually eats everything, though it all tastes disgusting.

The two young guys roll on the ground with laughter, while the old one produces a can of beans, a small cooking pot and a can opener, which he's been hiding behind himself.

He asks, “Would ya like some beans, mate? After what ya just ate, I can imagine ya’d like something normal to help ya forget.”

Lara can't help but laugh at their practical joke, while the old guy opens the can and dumps it in the pot.

Chapter 37: Home at Last

The Hunter waits for Evie to wake as morning arrives. Evie sleeps in a bedroom setup by Riley, wearing pajamas that feature a little, black-furred, helicopter pilot kitty, flying through a sky filled with violently-colorful stars and rainbows that offend and wound the Hunter's sense of fashion.

Evie goes from having the body of a prepubescent twelve year old to that of a fifteen year old, having matured a bit more in the instant before she wakes.

The Hunter helps her dress, because she needs assistance with certain feminine undergarments that hadn't previously been necessary. Riley stocked the closet of the bedroom with clothing ranging in age from infant to adult, because he didn't know the age of the girl he was to care for.

They step out of the bedroom, where Riley makes breakfast in the form of fried eggs. Evie tries an egg and pukes ten minutes later, demonstrating her digestive tract is setup the same as the Hunter's.

Riley and Evie talk and the Hunter gets up to leave, because she's finally certain Evie will be safe and secure. As the Hunter waves and opens the door to go, Evie finally comes to understand loss, in the form of losing a friend.

She begs the Hunter not to go and even offers to let her see Simmons if she'll stay, an obvious attempt at emotional manipulation.

A bargain is struck through gesture: the Hunter will stay for one day, then she leaves, regardless.

The spirits brow-beat Evie for her behavior and she apologizes to the Hunter for manipulating her feelings.

Eventually, Evie brings up the subject of death, because she wants to understand.

To address the subject, Riley takes them to a cemetery and the grave of his parents, who died in a car accident the year before.

He explains that their bodies are buried there and why (mostly cleanliness).

As a result of the conversation, he mentions "passing on" and Evie asks for an explanation of that concept.

Riley explains his views of the afterlife and a primitive variation of eternal joy vs. eternal punishment.

Evie asks why her friends haven't passed on and Riley suggests she ask them.

Riley and the Hunter step back, while Evie does exactly that, for quite some time. Evie begins to cry at what she learns from them.

She returns to her living companions with a guilty expression and explains they haven't passed on, because she won't let them (it's a mixture of their own unfinished business, needing to see Evie safe and happy, plus her magic anchoring them to the living world).

She's deeply troubled by the idea of letting go of her friends.

Tags: writing, work-in-progress, ashen-blades

Work In Progress #14: She Seeks Peace #6 (October 14-18)

October 19, 2024 — Owen Tyme

She Seeks Peace is volume 4 of Ashen Blades.

You can read a short description of She Seeks Peace to learn more or you can read short summaries of each day's writing on Mastodon

Here's links to the rest of my blog entries on She Seeks Peace, in chronological order:

  1. September 12-13
  2. September 16-20
  3. September 23-26
  4. September 30-October 4
  5. October 7-11

Chapter 26: …in the Depths

The Hunter stirs from her recollections as a single-engine prop plane fights to climb above Everest, only for the door to be kicked open with demonic strength, allowing Ulmoch to jump out, while the plane crashes into the side of the mountain, causing an avalanche that consumes several climbers!

Naturally, the Hunter is furious and finally angry enough to kill him, but Everest isn't a good place for her to fight (too little energy), so she vanishes into a puff of smoke, shadow-stepping away.

Ulmoch and Sogliun have a conversation about the "gift" Ulmoch got for the Hunter and it's revealed to be a mason jar full of clear liquid, though Ulmoch won't explain any further.

Sogliun asks, "Do you have any idea how annoying you are?"

Ulmoch grins.

Sogliun laments, "I hate you."

After a scene change and a very long fall, the hunter touches down at the Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench. She was forced to kill a giant squid along the way, because it tried to eat her. She also saw an angler fish.

Her clothes have become a thick wetsuit, to keep her warm, and she uses the power of the Air Spirit to oxygenate her blood, since there's no air to breathe and the pressure is too high for a helmet.

Touching the sea floor produces a cloud of muck, so she chooses to swim.

She sees a hydrothermal vent in the distance and swims that direction, finding warmer water, a carpet of microorganisms and an occasional crab, plus some very unconventional fish.

She sees flowers in the distance and rushes over, discovering they're not actually flowers, but tube worms, with red at the top and white tubes they can withdrawn into, when threatened.

Staring at the tube worms, she settles on a boulder and stares at them as her mind wanders backwards, to a time and place full of red flowers.

Chapter 27: Plain Sight

Returning to the Hunter's flashback on her time in Canada with Simmons, they stand in a field of red daisies.

Simmons is lost and has been for hours, but has been refusing to admit it, while the Hunter finds it funny, because he keeps turning his map at new angles. He ends her amusement by finally saying it and asks if her nose tells her anything.

She takes a deep whiff and picks up the scent of smoke on the wind.

She leads them to a cabin between a dirt road and a forest, where a man chops wood.

Simmons introduces himself and the man says his name is Brady Roberts.

Simmons asks for directions back to civilization and the guy points to the south, saying, "About a hundred miles that way."

Seeing his expression and knowing they're on foot, Brady offers to get on the radio about their situation.

He spends about ten minutes inside and comes back out, saying he's spoken with their friends, who will be along tomorrow, because they had car trouble.

He passes along a message: "The abominable Snowman is still at large."

The Hunter recognizes the code name for the demon they're hunting, which means the monster evaded all nine teams, four of which had witches that were experts at tracking demon magic.

The Hunter's internal monologue reminds the reader of the peculiar demons from the summer camp incident (during events of the novella She Goes to Summer Camp), who were masked by magic that made them dang near impossible to detect with magic, even allowing them to pass the Hunter's sniff test.

Some few of those frog demons born on Earth were able to survive their mother's death, but only the very strongest, hinting that their quarry may be one of them.

Brady offers to put them up for the night.

Brady says "we" several times during the conversation, which will become an important point (he doesn't live alone).

They all go inside and Brady chatters away as if he's lonely (he is), giving them both some coffee.

The Hunter initially suspects Brady of being a magically masked demon and sniffs the coffee for poison, but finds it safe.

While Simmons and Brady talk, she decides she likes the smell of it and drinks some, as an experiment. It makes her anxious and paranoid, with bloodshot eyes.

The Hunter eyes Brady with suspicion, thinking he's subconsciously tracing demonic symbols on his knee, then when he puts his head in his hand, she thinks his idle finger movements are designed to control some spell.

In essence, her imagination fills in the blanks on how his every action could be demonic.

Eventually, Brady comments on the way she's giving him the stink eye. Simmons notices the way she's acting and the empty coffee mug, surprised she drank it.

He apologizes by pointing out the fact she's never had coffee before and Brady goes back to being generally friendly and good-humored, blowing it off as something like his own first mug at the age of 12 (up all night).

The Hunter turns a little introspective on the matter and decides she doesn't like coffee, vowing never to drink it again.

She also realizes it enhanced her natural paranoia (demons try to kill her quite often), until she found a human to be suspicious.

Brady's co-worker, Elijah, arrives and says, "The last of the seeds are-"

Brady interrupts, saying their guests don't need to know the boring details.

Elijah turns his head and stares at the Hunter with terror for a brief instant, but she chooses to ignore it, thinking it's another bit of coffee-induced paranoia.

She continually chooses to ignore warning signs from Elijah, until the man says it's time for bed (the light from outside is fading).

He gets a pair of sleeping bags from his room.

They say their good nights and our heroes bed down on the floor, while the Hunter pretends to sleep.

She focuses her mind (the coffee is helpful for keeping her mind on task) and pays close attention to her senses, just in case the things she's been seeing were real.

She assumes if one of their hosts is a demon, they'll attack in the night.

Hours pass in sheer boredom.

The Hunter is vindicated when Elijah exits his room in frog demon form and opens his mouth extra wide, to swallow her whole.

She swings her sword sideways, out of the sleeping bag, and puts the tip to the soft bits at the roof of the frog demon's mouth, just below his brain.

She wakes Simmons and an interrogation session begins.

The demon initially refuses to cooperate, so the Hunter cuts his arms off. They don't evaporate like usual, by the way.

He blubbers and begs, agreeing to answer.

Unfortunately, just as he starts an explanation, he drops dead. Like his arms, he doesn't evaporate, because he's a leftover frog demon from She Goes to Summer Camp, which were spawned on Earth and have much more physical/less magical forms than the garden variety of demon.

Brady walks in, having been woken by the commotion, screaming at the sight of the corpse, asking if it's an alien.

The Hunter drags the dead demon outside, while Simmons explains, being honest.

The Hunter buries the body in the woods.

Chapter 28: Perspective

Lara has setup camp, including a tent, camp chair and a steel barrel with a fire in it, but the odd part is where she is: the underside of the Whitestone bridge, in New York City.

She used a spell to made the underside of the bridge attract things, similar to gravity, so she hangs upside-down, above the East River.

Unable to sleep, she decides to enjoy the fire and roast some marshmallows.

To that end, she uses her shape-changing magic to turn her finger into a a long, steel wire, similar to that of a roasting fork.

She impales three marshmallows on it and roasts them, only for Ulmoch to interrupt, saying, "Neat trick!"

Naturally, she turns her arms into Tommy guns and opens fire as Ulmoch leaps her direction!

He dodges her bullets until he reaches the attraction spell, losing his balance!

Ulmoch is riddled full of holes until he starts moaning with pleasure about how good it feels, causing Lara to stop, bothered by his masochism.

He reveals the existence of the bounties on both her head and that of the Hunter. He even tells her that Wrath is "in love" with the Hunter.

He spits out bullets several times along the way, especially when he laughs, because his lungs are full of them.

Laura kills him, collects her things and flies off, letting the corpse fall into the East River.

Sogliun watches Lara fly off, feeling suspicious about Ulmoch's motives. After all, he works for Pride and he only paid Sogliun to find Lara once, rather than a long-term deal like he negotiated to find the Hunter.

The smoky demon can't help but wonder what's really going on...

Meanwhile, Lara sets down in an alley and summons Mashu'ra, demanding to know where the Hunter is. He tells her the truth: bottom of the ocean, meaning she's out of reach (Mashu'ra can't survive where she is).

Mashu'ra offers to deliver a message, once he can safely pop out of the hat.

Lara explains everything she just learned, though it's left as a trailing sentence, to avoid repetition and loss of reader interest.

Chapter 29: …in Meditation

The Hunter's private thoughts are interrupted by the roar of a great cat, despite being at the bottom of the Pacific, and her mind is filled with the sound of animals of every shape and size.

By entering a place only inhabited by animals, she's drawn the attention of the Animal Spirit, which wishes to punish her for holding its siblings captive.

The Hunter puts out her light and shadow-steps away.

In the next scene, she's high in the mountains, fighting a blizzard. She's undeterred, because she enjoys the challenge. This is the third mountain she's searched for a place she heard about in rumor, in the halls of the New York branch office of the Order, which is supposed to be very quiet and peaceful.

She turns a corner of the mountain and sees the broken rope bridge leading to her destination. She doesn't give up and flies.

The wind nearly knocks her form the air several times, because the blizzard is that intense, but she reaches the walled courtyard of an ancient temple, setting down in the crunching snow.

In an instant, the weather is clear and the mounds of snow covering the place are gone. She looks with confusion at the intact rope bridge.

Her senses tell her that the fading magic she feels was an Illusion she just pierced.

The temple doors open and orange-robed, bald monks invite her to enter.

Inside, the tile floor depicts the elements of witch magic in grand fashion: air, earth, fire, water, smoke, metal, wood, animal, life and the void. It even has some small, nearly missed symbols representing the void-touched elements: vacuum, shadow, the all-consuming (ultraviolet) flame, poison, ash, bone, ice and blood.

She's welcomed to The Last Sanctuary and told she's been expected for some time.

She's surprised, because no one was told she was coming, though the monks are Ashen Blades.

The monk says, "The Master of the sanctuary would like to speak with you, but she’s very old and currently sleeping. We will inform you when she’s ready. For now, relax. Meditate on the peace and comfort you seek.”

The Hunter is curious to learn more, but for once, she's willing to be patient, because she has her own issues to focus on. She settles in by the fire and stares into it, letting her mind wander to the past.

Chapter 30: Questioning

The Hunter returns to the cabin as Simmons puts some fresh logs into the wood stove. (purely there for another cinematic fade)

Simmons questions Brady, because he has his doubts about the man being human, but isn't convinced he's a demon, either.

He reasons for a time about Brady, tallying points of evidence in his mind as they talk about the dead demon.

After a while, Simmons settles on an approach that occurred to him just before the last frog demon he hunted revealed themselves.

He claims he needs more information about Brady for his records and begins a formal interview over Brady's identity, eventually dovetailing into a psychological questionnaire, during which he asks Brady to close his eyes and say the first thing that comes to mind.

Eventually, Simmons throws in this question: "How long have you been on Earth?"

Brady answers, "Seven years."

Even Brady realizes what Simmons just did, though he's too late to take it back and drops the illusion of humanity, reveling himself to be a huge, muscular frog demon, much larger than average (all that wood chopping must have paid off). I like to think of Brady as a lumber-jack demon.

At the same time, Simmons mutters, "Mashu'ra!"

The two of them explode out the side of the cabin! Incidentally, this scares a moose that wandered by the cabin.

They end up lying prone as Simmons sinks the claws of his hands in and rakes with his back feet!

The frog takes the worst of it and begs for his life, bringing the fight to a close. He's been halfway disemboweled and is quite helpless for the time being.

Simmons gets some answers: the demons were spreading their offspring (the demon pretending to be Elijah was female) in nearby lakes and rivers and Brady was the strongest of them, having taken over the hivemind, after the death of their mother.

As the demon begs for his life, Simmons crushes his head with a foot.

Simmons drags the body into the woods, for burial, while the Hunter watches him go, glad she accepted human companionship and grateful Simmons is so strong and smart, more or less the perfect partner for her work.

She reasons he'll never die by anything other than natural causes and that fate is surely thousands of years away.

She's content that with him by her side, she'll always be happy.

Chapter 31: …Anywhere

The Hunter is stirred from her memories by Mashu'ra appearing on her shoulder, to deliver news of the things Lara learned.

The Hunter is disgusted by the idea than Wrath wants to marry her, making fake retching noises.

The kitten demon asks if she'd be willing to stand beside Lara, to face the bounty hunters together and she agrees.

As she holds Mashu'ra and pets him, she concludes she's done wandering, ready to face her grief with a friend by her side.

She still doesn't know how to cope with the idea of eventually losing all of her human friends, but she's ready to look for that path forward.

One of the monks politely interrupts and tells her, "The Master of the Sanctuary will see you now."

He leads the way toward the spiral stairs around the central column of the room (I did some editing to add it).

I like the implication of that column and its stairs: the way up (enlightenment) requires walking the path of life.

Part 3: Losing Buoyancy

The end of chapter 31 marks the end of Part 2.

Part 1, Untethered, was about Reggie and setting the stage with Wrath.

Part 2, Tossed on the Wind, was about Simmons and the Hunter's journey as she learns to grieve, instead of stuffing her feelings.

Part 3 will focus on her journey toward acceptance of loss as part of the cycle of life as she cares for a young child.

Part 4, Grounded, will focus specifically on the climax and conclusion of the conflict with Wrath. It will also bring the Hunter and Lara back together, with a stronger bond than ever.

The names of each part evoke the journey of a balloon and the grief of a child at losing it, as a metaphor for loss. The balloon represents Simmons and the child represents the Hunter.

First the balloon is accidentally released, leading to a crying fit, then the child watches their toy as it's buffeted by the wind and blown away, though they still feel the loss. Eventually, the balloon loses helium and starts to come down, while the child moves on with their life. Finally, the balloon comes back down to the ground, but by that point, the child has usually either forgotten their balloon or accepted the idea they'll never get it back.

Chapter 32: No Sanctuary

Mashu'ra and the Hunter are led to the old witch in charge, Evelyn Wallace, who speaks with an Australian accent.

She tells them a little about The Last Sanctuary: it's a magical place like The Cauldron of the Elements, but unlike that place of nature, it's a made thing, made by witches. It's also a pocket dimension, accessible from anywhere.

Evenlyn tells them a tale about an Ashen Blade witch that fought a war against a demon that sought to oust Pride from his throne, by destroying the world before Pride's circuitous portal-to-hell plan could be realized.

Eventually, this witch sought more power, that she might win, and summoned Pride/Vogerath, reasoning that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." She made a deal with him and became a demon witch, but part of the bargain was that she would bear a child.

Internally, she vowed to never do so. After all, in her era, women were not well respected as they are now and she hated them. She was also very head-strong, as witches tend to be, too much so to accept a man. Ironically, her personal pride may have been her downfall.

She won her war against her personal nemesis, but was rejected by the Ashen Blades, for having willingly become a demon.

She wandered and sought solace in strong drink. At one point, she lay drunk in the street and was raped, leading to pregnancy and birth of a daughter.

Determined to keep the baby safe, she sought The Last Sanctuary, but not for herself. In truth, the place cannot be found by a demon, though it will become apparent there is still one way they can find their way in, through the human heart.

She couldn't find the way, but her infant pointed the way and she reached the threshold. Evelyn met her there and refused entry.

The witch explained how she'd gotten there. Evelyn accepted the child and started to ask the witch to leave, but she'd already turned away.

Evelyn admits, through tears, that she turned her own daughter away, implying the half-demon infant was her granddaughter.

Mashu'ra asks how long ago the child was born and is told, "After your old master freed Pride to return to Earth, but before your current master was born."

Mashu'ra doesn't believe her, because that would make Evelyn far older than the Hunter, who was born 126 years earlier!

Evenlyn says, "Aren’t you a clever little imp?"

The Hunter blinks involuntarily and the room goes dark.

When she gets a magic light going, she looks on the corpse of Evelyn, who's clearly been dead for decades, if not centuries. The room is also full of cobwebs, which incidentally block the way out.

The ghost of Evelyn touches their minds, saying, "Take my granddaughter to my family, in Australia. It’s time she finally grew up a little."

They explore the place, finding many more bodies, all with signs of violence, ranging from blade wounds, to teeth and claws.

Mashu'ra investigates one of them, concluding it's the work of a fairly unique demon that goes by the name Muglon, who had a way of getting into any human head, because he didn't favor any given sin.

Worse, Muglon was/is able to jump from body to body, possessing humans with ease, not even requiring them to fully succumb to their sins, in order for him to fully possess them.

He was a generalist. It isn't stated, but Muglon was actually using the insanity basis of sin as the means into the human mind, so any sin at all was a doorway for him.

It's implied that one of the monks committed some sin that brought Muglon to the sanctuary and that was their downfall, leading to fighting.

This chapter isn't done, but I'll continue it on Monday.

Future Plans

The final elements of the novel are now fairly sharp in my mind and I have a strong idea of how the climax will shape up, but as ever and demonstrated by Chapter 32, all things are subject to change.

The Child

I'd originally planned to saddle the Hunter with a totally human child, but now know she'll be dealing with a half-demon girl, who's much like her.

This child has potent abilities, with a particular focus on Life magic. She's most talented with Spirit magic. The reason the Hunter initially saw the Sanctuary as it appeared in the past is because the child was the one to kill the demon and she was left alone, so she summoned the spirits of her fallen friends, to keep her company. With so many strong ghosts around, reality was warped to make the present appear like the past, up until Mashu'ra pierced the illusion with cold logic.

Since she's mentally three or four years old, when asked about the demon, the girl's explanation will be, "I made it go away."

The real truth will be that she either ate it or hit it with such a potent blast of pure life magic, it was unmade. Ironically, while demons use Life magic to enter the human mind, it's also antithetical to their core nature and can be quite dangerous to them. Ironically, if Verda knew that (she doesn't), she'd blast away.

The Hunter will take the child to Australia and over the course of days, they'll search for her still-living family, while the child grows older, the more she learns.

Half-demons don't mature at the usual pace of humans and their outward appearance changes to match their internal state. That's why the Hunter has grown mature so slowly, but in sharp spurts. It's also why she'll probably always look like a teen; if I have any say in the matter, she will never lose her childish nature, which will keep her young.

By the time they find the girl's family, she'll be an adult. She'll spend a few hours with them, then rapidly grow older, until she's a withered, old woman. She'll die happy and content. The reason for this is that her Spirit magic gives her a very strong connection to and understanding of spirits and with her final desire in life complete, she's ready to face the great beyond.

My intent in this is that the Hunter will slowly grow to love this girl, thinking she'll be a friend she can keep forever, only to see her hopes dashed, but in seeing her friend pass on, she'll come to realize that life isn't about the destination, but rather the journey along the way.

She'll come away from the experience with an acceptance of that journey and view her friends in a new light: she'll value the limited time she has with them, rather than worrying about the pain of losing them.

She'll also fully accept the name Simmons gave her in the previous book, coming to think of herself as Artemis Watson. She hasn't been using it, because it's been a painful reminder that he's gone.

The Climax

The final events of the novel will happen quickly, once the half-demon child is gone. The Hunter will be in some city of Australia, where Ulmoch will catch up to her. He'll lead her on a merry chase, until she bursts into a place he's prepared to fight her.

As she bursts in, he'll open her "present", which is a jar with at least a pint of LSD in it, splashing it all over the both of them. He hopes the massive dose will mess her up so badly, that she'll either pass out or try to sleep off the hallucinations.

I don't want to spoil the outcome, just yet, but it both will and won't go according to plan. He'll be killed, of course, but that doesn't matter very much.

She'll eventually lay down to sleep it off and that's when Wrath's people will capture her. They'll take her to Wrath and he'll summon the guests (the other arch demons).

Lust's plan to split the Hunter in two will work, but not quite as expected, due to a recent change in her mental landscape, ruining all of Lust's calculations about her final position(s) and the Hunter won't appear in the binding circles Lust prepared.

Lara will show up about the same time and all heck will break loose. The Hunter's inner demon and Lara will form a brief alliance, in which they cut loose at full strength on both Wrath and the arches, enjoying the target-rich environment.

Incidentally, Wrath will get his head punched off by the demon, landing far away, in the outback. As he lays there, helpless, Pride will come along. Wrath will request help (he can't move his body without his head attached) and Pride will eat him.

Meanwhile the Hunter's human side will be far too sick to function, because she lacks some vital (human) DNA and cellular machinery that had been replaced by her demon side.

Then comes the part I haven't quite figured out, yet: how will the Hunter be put back together? The demon will resist, because it wants to be free, and Lara will be smacked aside, once they reach that disagreement.

The Hunter will probably be forced to fight the demon, sick or not. The power of the elemental spirits in her head will help (they stayed with her human half, because they despise the demon, based on the way she once ate the Water Spirit).

It will probably take the combined efforts of Lara, Mashu'ra, the Hunter, her parents and a character I don't want to spoil coming together, as a team, with each of them holding one piece of the puzzle. It will probably have to happen inside the Hunter's hat.

The Ending

Lara and the Hunter will go home together, each vowing to be more sensitive to the feelings of the other. I think the epilogue might involve the Hunter learning to care for Lara's son, James, so she can serve as his babysitter and give Lara a break from time to time.

Tags: writing, work-in-progress, ashen-blades

Work In Progress #13: She Seeks Peace #5 (October 7-11)

October 12, 2024 — Owen Tyme

She Seeks Peace is volume 4 of Ashen Blades.

You can read a short description of She Seeks Peace to learn more or you can read short summaries of each day's writing on Mastodon

Here's links to the rest of my blog entries on She Seeks Peace, in chronological order:

  1. September 12-13
  2. September 16-20
  3. September 23-26
  4. September 30-October 4

Chapter 19: Confluence of Sin

I continued this chapter from where I left off, last week.

After seeing the 1000 soul bounty posted for the Hunter's capture, Ulmoch contacts Pride to ask permission to accept the contract. Pride says yes, but also requires him to do exactly as he says...

I intentionally left his instructions to the imagination, but they'll become apparent during the climax.

From there, I did wedding invitations:

Gluttony

Gluttony is in her throne room, which she's combined with a corporate conference room, for modern times, all decorated with obsidian and gold, with a boardroom style table at the center.

She's slimmed down for modern times and wears a gray business suit with a skirt. Corporate overspending and waste are the modern equivalent to eating too much.

Her modernization started with a conspiracy between light bulb manufacturers making their products disposable, but that spread to making everything disposable, with plastic being a huge part of that. In her internal monologue, the oil tycoons were wasteful on their own, needing little demonic push.

She sits at her huge table, which has been set with a meal consisting of three live imps, in the form of a boar, a turkey and a piglet, all tied up.

Each has been condemned to death by Gluttony for refusing to be her meal (that's what they were raised for). Ironically, the outcome is the same.

Just as she raises the piglet to bite, an illusion of Sergeant Thilvod (the stag demon Sogliun spoke with to get an appointment with Wrath) appears.

He invites Gluttony to Wrath's wedding. There's some discussion of catering (Wrath hasn't done this yet) and Gluttony offers to provide the food, mostly so she can avoid Wrath dumping a box of MREs on the food table, which is exactly what he would have done, if left to his own devices.

I have plans for Gluttony in a later book, so this serves as a bit of foreshadowing.

Greed

Greed is in his own throne room, which is also his treasury. He dresses somewhat like a street-level member of a gang, but with far more expensive clothes, including a pistol in his waistband and some gold chains. The only odd bit is his tricorn hat, a fond left-over from the days he was a pirate.

He's busy using a laptop from the human world, which is connected to the internet via a gremlin-possessed DSL modem.

His plans involve pouring magic into the internet, but it isn't explained. Again, I'm doing a little foreshadowing for a later book.

He's also interrupted by Sergeant Thilvod inviting him to the wedding.

Envy

Envy is next, but I carefully pointed out to the reader that Envy is actually one of Pride's bodies in disguise, because he ate her in 1972, during the second book.

He/she wears a ring that blocks that particular body from being tracked by the Thaumavore, a unique trinket he can't reproduce.

Sergeant Thilvod appears and invites Envy to the wedding.

Sloth

Sloth is woken by a servant. He appears as a puddle of foul, black slime at the center of a circular room lined with shelves. Those hold crystals that change shape and color over time, because they're physical manifestations of the dreams of humanity.

Sloth manipulates humans through their dreams, mostly in a for-hire fashion, the most famous example of which are Lust's succubi.

Sloth himself, on the other hand, favors driving men mad in their dreams. He admits to himself that he recognizes the existence of the eighth deadly sin, willful insanity, because he uses it in his work.

Thilvod has appeared to invite Sloth to the wedding. Sloth is happy to hear the news, because he and Wrath are friends; when people go mad, they often start killing, so he and Wrath work hand in hand on those cases.

With the invitation extended, the image of Thilvod vanishes and Sloth yells for lots of coffee, because he doesn't want to sleep through Wrath's summons, when the time comes.

Pride

When Thilvod appears to Pride, he smugly interrupts, "Of course I’ll go to my old friend’s wedding, just so long as it’s on Earth. I’m not returning to Hell until the Thaumavore is dead. When and where?"

Thilvod tells him, "The Australian Outback. I’ll provide more exact coordinates when the time is right."

Chapter 20: …in the Rainforest

The Hunter's thoughts are interrupted by the crazed cry of Ulmoch, who was brought to Giza by Sogliun. As it turns out, Sogliun can track the very distinctive feel of her life energy, which he's more sensitive to than any other demon.

She's not in the mood, so she flies off, while Ulmoch tries to taunt her into a fight.

In the next scene, the Hunter slashes her way through the Amazon rainforest, comparing it to the jungles of Vietnam.

She stumbles on an ancient, Aztec city, which includes a pyramid, a fact that amuses her, because she thought she'd left pyramids behind, in Egypt.

She climbs on the roof of the temple at the top and sits on the corner, admiring the view, because she can see pretty far, including the Amazon river as it winds back and forth.

Her mind is drawn to the past, to her time with Simmons in the jungles of Vietnam.

Between this and the opening of the next chapter, this would make for a nice cinematic dissolve, were it done in a TV show or movie, transitioning from a view of the rainforest to a view of the jungle.

Chapter 21: The Last China Shop

The Hunter and Simmons are in the jungles of Vietnam, in 1973, on their last search and destroy mission in the country, accompanied by Staff Sergeant Greer and his men, the long-range patrol that stayed with them while they were there.

She sniffs out a demon nest Verda located on a map with magic.

There's a brief disagreement between Simmons and the Hunter over who goes inside first, since the cave entrance is only wide enough for one at a time, so they decide to settle it with a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

However, Simmons (correctly) accuses her of cheating; she's been using her extremely-fast mind and reflexes to read his muscles before he moves, so she can choose a winning move, every time. It only worked because she's known him for thirty years, demonstrating how well she reads him.

Simmons insists they both close their eyes to make the game fair and the Hunter reluctantly obeys. She chooses scissors and Simmons goes with rock, so he gets to go first. Naturally, she's very annoyed, since she's always been a sore loser, but she lets it go, because it's Simmons.

They enter the cave, while Simmons unwisely uses a flashlight (tunnel rats didn't use flashlights unless they had to, because the Viet Cong were used to working in total darkness, so a light would give the enemy the advantage).

Simmons takes full-auto AK-47 fire from three demons, but isn't permanently affected, spitting out some slugs, while the rest fall off his magic suit, which can shrug off small arms fire. He goes total ape-crap on one demon (the pain forced him into a berserk fit), while the Hunter dispatches the other two with a bit of swordplay.

They head deeper inside, while the Hunter considers how happy she is to have such an indestructible partner.

When they emerge from the cave, they're informed it's time to head back to the world (Army slang for home/out of the war), because Verda says they've wiped out the last nest they can reasonably reach.

The Hunter considers the meaning of 'home', realizing she was never homesick in Vietnam, because she'll always feel at home with Simmons by her side.

Chapter 22: Rescue

Wrath rescues Lust and takes her to the abandoned mine that serves as his current base in the Australian Outback.

They discuss what he wants from his relationship with the Hunter, coming to some conclusions:

  • She will never be willing and would rather kill him.
  • He wants a long-term relationship, not a single night.

Lust forms a plan accordingly, which consists of an enchanted engagement ring that will force the Hunter to split in half by forcing the activation of the power she stole by eating Pride during previous books.

The ring will cause the Hunter to split into her human and demon halves, each of them pure and unsullied by the other.

The next half of Lust's plan involves an enchanted wedding band that will bind the demon's will to Wrath, so he can order her to love him.

Before Wrath leaves to obtain the required supplies, Lust's stomach growls, so he asks Thilvod to bring her a meal, a living human being.

At the end of the previous book, Lust was given a copy of the Book of Mormon, which she's been reading a bit here and there in this book. She reached 3 Nephi 11 at the start of the chapter and felt something powerful as a result (the presence of the Holy Ghost).

Seeing her "meal", Lust is disgusted by the thought of killing and eating the man. She refuses, claiming she's gotten used to the taste of beef during her incarceration (a half-truth), though she picks her words very carefully, lest Thilvod suspect her of feeling compassion, which demons have been known to kill each other over.

Thivold takes the man away and returns with some MREs that feature beef. Lust eats while working on calculations related to her enchanting work.

Chapter 23: …on Top of the World

The Hunter's thoughts are once more interrupted by the voice of Ulmoch, causing her to groan as he leaps from the trees to the roof the the temple she's sitting on.

She immediately flies off, while he tells her he got her an expensive present, which required killing a lot of "guys he liked" to obtain.

Her response is to go super-sonic.

In the next scene, the Hunter climbs Everest, hoping the remote location will keep everyone away from her.

She sits at the peak and stares at the horizon as the chapter ends.

Chapter 24: Airdrop

Were this a movie, I imagine a dissolve from one horizon to another, though with a military plane in the air (the kind used for airdrops).

It's 1989 and the Hunter is in a military plane in the air above Canada, preparing to parachute to the ground, because there's a demon hiding somewhere in a remote and snowy mountain range.

Naturally, the Hunter is sick and on her fifth barf bag, since the combination of low life energy and the motion of a plane get her every time.

Simmons gleefully jumps out of the plane with a whoop of delight, because being indestructible has made him adventurous.

The Hunter nervously steps up to jump, but hesitates, because her last drop from a plane went badly. The plane hits some turbulence and she loses her balance, falling out of the plane before she's ready! She screams and panics, forgetting what she's supposed to do!

She passes Simmons on the way down, since he's got his limbs wide, to slow down, so he angles himself through the air (he's gone skydiving many times before) to catch up to her, yelling for her to calm down.

They link up in the air and Simmons pulls her ripcord for her, ensuring her safety.

As he turns to look back down, he realizes he's too late to pull his own ripcord and screams, "Mashu'ra!"

He hits the ground mid-transformation to his cat-man form, but that's enough to save his life.

The Hunter lands and rolls back to her feet in one fluid movement, only to get hit in the face by her parachute, which pulls her off her feet and drags her on the wind!

She cuts herself free with her sword.

She follows her nose to Simmons, finding him groaning at the bottom of a small crater in the snow, with all four limbs badly broken. She helps him by lining his bones up, while Mashu'ra's power heals him.

When he's done healing, he releases Mashu'ra and returns to normal size.

The Hunter can't smell any trace of demon and they conclude they're in the wrong place. There were eight other teams being dropped all over the range, so no big deal.

Simmons produces a map and leads the way.

Chapter 25: Safe and Secure

Lara enters the Cauldron of the Elements, the same remote valley the Hunter sought some peace and quiet in.

Lara is worried that Wrath is coming to kill her and came to the valley, because she can think of no safer place to leave her son.

She bumps into Ignacio Greer, who settled there after the events of She Goes to Summer Camp.

They discuss current events, including Artemis (another name for the Hunter) being missing and Greer explains that Macie saw her in the valley, seemingly looking for some peace and quiet.

Lara explains her current situation and her worries, asking Greer and Macie to care her son.

Greer accepts and assures her that James will be looked after (Greer helped his Mom care for three younger brothers).

Tags: writing, work-in-progress, ashen-blades

Work In Progress #12: She Seeks Peace #4 (September 30-October 4)

October 05, 2024 — Owen Tyme

She Seeks Peace is volume 4 of Ashen Blades.

You can read a short description of She Seeks Peace to learn more or you can read short summaries of each day's writing on Mastodon

Here's links to the rest of my blog entries on She Seeks Peace, in chronological order:

  1. September 12-13
  2. September 16-20
  3. September 23-26

Part 2: Tossed on the Wind

At some point, I went back and added a heading for part one between the prologue and chapter one, titled 'Untethered'. I continued that trend by inserting the beginning of part two between chapters 10 and 11, allowing Moonshot to serve as the climax of the first part.

These part titles allude to a balloon, which I'll continue to reference in further parts. Part three will probably be 'Losing Buoyancy' or 'Coming Down', and part four will be 'Grounded'. Part four will be short compared to the rest, largely consisting of just the climax.

Having had a little inspiration for a chapter naming theme for part two, chapter 11 was renamed from 'Unthinking Concern' to 'No Peace…'

The intent is to use a series of short chapters describing where the Hunter is seeking peace, each named like so '…in/on/doing X', with X being her location or activity. Between each such chapter, there will be a chapter detailing a flashback to her earliest days with Simmons.

Chapter 12: …in Paradise

The Hunter arrives at a deserted tropical island, which is a beautiful, peaceful place, allowing her to settle in for some deep, emotional thought. She thinks back on her first case with Simmons.

Meanwhile, a shark demon spots her swimming to the island and approaches from downwind, so she can't smell him…

Chapter 13: Simmons

This chapter centers around introducing Simmons to the story, at the very start of the first case he and the Hunter ever worked together.

He sits in Reggie's old office, feeling like he's wearing another man's drawers (in more modern terms, that would be underwear).

Another detective agency has taken Reggie's caseload, to give Simmons the chance to ease into the work.

He reviews a case file given to him by the other agency, one they selected to show him the ropes, which is the bread and butter of detective agencies: a client needs proof of their unfaithful spouse's infidelity.

After reviewing the file, he decides a little photographic evidence would be just the thing, so Simmons asks the Hunter if Reggie had a camera. She leads him to a filing cabinet with one tucked inside, including film that's ready to use.

Simmons likes the look of the Robot II, a German-made camera that was first made in 1938, which makes it an unusual specimen in 1942 New York, but its nature as a clockwork device that can take photos in rapid succession made it perfect for detective work and too hard to resist putting in the novel.

He takes it into the bathroom and loads some film in the dark.

With the camera loaded, he winds it and steps out, aims at the Hunter and requests, "Say 'cheese'."

Quite naturally, she flips him off, since she can't say the word.

He apologizes and tries again, "Can I get a smile?"

She gives him a terrible rictus of a grin, as a mockery of his request. Knowing he won't get her real cooperation, because he annoyed her, he snaps the shot.

Chapter 14: …Underground

The Hunter is approached from behind by the shark demon, but the wind changes and she smells him coming before he can attack, which may or may not have been her mother manipulating random chance. She cuts him in half and, her peace lost, she gets back into the water, swimming down, for the dark depths.

In the next scene, she's in Carlsbad Cavern, stepping from one shadow to another, to avoid tourists.

The Hunter uses the natural cave entrance to enter, bothered by the smell of bird crap, since they gather there.

She shadow-steps to avoid the tourists and go deeper, surprised by the reverential hush of the people, mentally comparing the cave to a sacred place.

She does a little sight-seeing, then goes deeper, to find a dark place to think, reflecting on her first real adventure with Simmons.

Chapter 15: Private Eye

Simmons and the Hunter lurk on a rooftop, peering through a window into an apartment.

The Hunter is bored, because she doesn't care that much about the case, and is just there to make sure Simmons survives, in case of trouble.

Simmons snaps photos of their client's cheating husband and the other woman, his face turning red as they enter the bedroom.

Having obtained more than enough evidence for their client to pursue a divorce, Simmons stops taking pictures.

The Hunter points at his red face, asking, "A?"

Simmons puzzles out that she's asking him why his face is red and he follows up by asking if she knows what the people they've been following were doing.

She shakes her head and Simmons carefully embarks on the subject of the birds and bees, feeling a stinging embarrassment like no other in his life.

He concludes Reggie was a coward to not address the subject, considering the nature of their work.

Simmons is bothered by the sudden realization of responsibilities that Reggie dodged and accepts his role with the Hunter going forward will be more like a father figure than a mere friend.

Chapter 16: Reentry

Wrath slams into the ground after orbiting the Earth and moon for weeks. He howls with rage at maximum volume, literally turning the forest around him into kindling with his voice. The sound is so loud, it echoes over the whole Earth (much like some nukes and meteor strikes), but only Lara is able to comprehend the words, who decides to go into hiding.

Wrath summons Sogliun and puts a bounty on Lara's head, because he wants her as dead as possible. He also places a bounty on the Hunter's head, because he wants her captured and delivered to his fortified position in the Australian Outback.

Originally, the chapter ended like so:

Last of all, he pays Sogliun to track down Lust again.

In the mean time, Wrath is headed for Australia, to make arrangement for the wedding.

He's got to find a justice of the peace to force into pronouncing them married, threaten a caterer into providing food, invite guests and find a wedding dress that will fit his intended, which will be a pain, because she's only 5'1" and rather slender.

However, on Friday, I cut that portion to use in a later chapter and instead, Wrath sent Sogliun back to Hell with a single punch, while Solgiun made himself more physical.

The cut portion will become a part of Chapter 19, on Monday.

Chapter 17: …in the Desert

The Hunter's thoughts are interrupted by the Earth Spirit waking and noticing she has three of its kin trapped in her mind. The cave itself starts to quake.

In retrospect, she realizes going deep underground wasn't the smartest of choices, so she shadow-steps away, reappearing at airline altitude above Cairo, Egypt, at night.

She's nearly sucked into the jet engine of a passing airliner and flies to lower altitude, struck by the similarities and differences between New York City and Cairo.

The nighttime photos of Cairo I used for research material were stunning, to say the least, especially the orbital shots taken form the ISS. It surprised me, but the Nile was lit up like a Christmas tree.

Originally, the Hunter located the great pyramid by its dark silhouette against the stars, setting down on top of it, but then I remembered the pyramids are lit at night, so I looked up some photos on the internet and just fixed the text.

The Hunter settles in for some serious thought and can't help but grieve as she looks back on the bittersweet memories of Simmons, who was her best friend.

She's once more struck by the awful realization she may never see him again, because she has no idea when or even if she'll ever die.

Ironically, her own potential immortality has been twisted into her greatest weakness, likely to leave her with countless emotional scars.

Her mind drifts to the past, carried by memory.

Chapter 18: Confrontation

I think this scene about sums things up for the start of this chapter:

Mrs. Turner politely shook the hand of Simmons as she sat opposite him and started the conversation, “You said over the phone you’ve completed your investigation.”

“I have,” Simmons sighed, “but you’re not going to like it.” He opened the envelope that contained the photos he’d taken and set the first on the desk, in front of his client.

Mrs. Turner squirmed with discomfort in her seat and shook her head, “Maybe they’re just old friends? My husband can be a very affectionate man, after all.”

Simmons silently produced the next photo, which the disbelieving woman accepted with a grimace and a bit of embarrassed blushing, saying, “Well, that is…some very passionate kissing, but I’m sure Kyle would never…”

“I’m afraid he would.” Simmons shook his head and slid another photo over.

Their client’s brow furrowed as she looked on it and lied to herself again, “Well, at least they’re not completely naked. I think we might be able to work things out…” She spoke doubtfully.

Simmons hung his head and slid over the last of the four photos he’d selected for the discussion, the one the Hunter knew he didn’t want to use.

Mrs. Turner’s face went bright red as she turned the photo one way, then another, with horror, before Simmons supplied, “You’ve got it upside-down.”

The soon-to-be-divorced-and-former Mrs. Turner turned the photo the right way up and understanding of the scene she looked upon finally settled in, obviously shattering her illusions. She quivered with rage.

After the “birds and the bees” talk from Simmons, the Hunter finally grasped why married people got so angry when looking at pictures of their spouse in bed with someone else. The in-bed thing that he’d called – what was it? Oh right, sex – was supposed to be special, only to be shared between married couples, so when someone did that with another, it was a huge betrayal.

“I’m going to kill him!” Mrs. Turner stood and headed for the door.

The Hunter blocks the way and redirects Mrs. Turner back to her seat for a discussion of payment, then Simmons asks:

“Do you need us with you when you confront your husband and demand a divorce? Will you be safe? Would you like us to find you a safe place to stay, that’s out of your husband’s reach? I’d rather not leave you on your own with this, but I’m sure we can work out some kind of payment plan if money is an issue.”

She finally breaks down, cries and asks, "What should I do?"

Simmons reassures her they'll be there for her.

In the next scene, weeks have passed and the three of them are heading for the woman's old apartment, so she can personally deliver the divorce paperwork, because she wants to face her husband one last time.

The Hunter smells demon inside and Simmons gets their client to go home.

The Hunter bursts into the apartment and confronts two demons, including one in Mr. Turner's skin and the other in the skin of the other woman.

Simmons shuts the door and lets her work, but the room is oddly silent (muffling magic). After thirty seconds, she opens the door and invites him in. The demons are dead and evaporating, as they tend to do.

Simmons is about to call for a clean-up team, but the Hunter snaps her fingers, turning the two corpses into the kind of short-lived shadow creature that was demonstrated in the opening scene of the first book, her standard approach to dealing with situations requiring clean-up.

This scene puts a little more detail into this process, somewhat showing that the Hunter's shadow creatures can be fairly solid, but they need the leftover essence of a dead demon to give them shape and memories, though a hard strike will still disperse them, because they're nothing more than solidified smoke and shadow matter.

The female shadow creature begins cleaning up, while the male signs the divorce paperwork (it retains some knowledge, though the lights aren't all on, upstairs).

Simmons thinks they're creepy and possibly undead, even though he's quite far off-base.

They leave and head out to get a meal, because Simmons is hungry.

Chapter 19: Confluence of Sin

Pride/Vogerath's right hand man, Ulmoch, walks the streets of Castigation City and considers recent events.

Pride has become persona non grata in Hell, because no one wants to be near him, since he's being hunted by the Thaumavore, who has been extremely indiscriminate about how he kills his target, wiping out whole neighborhoods of demons to reach Pride.

Pride's plans are all on the back burner and he's mostly abandoned Hell, in favor of Earth. Therefore, Ulmoch has little assigned work, so he's taken to bounty hunting.

He heads for a business named 'Dead or Deader' in the Wrath district, which is a place where bounties are posted.

Sogliun is seen there, but not named, talking with the office manager, though he soon departs.

T?he office manager hangs a new poster, displaying the bounty on Lara's head, which is now 300 souls.

The next bounty he posts is for the Hunter, very specifically wanted captured and delivered to the Outback of Australia, at a price of 1000 souls.

Tags: writing, work-in-progress, ashen-blades

Work In Progress #11: She Seeks Peace #3 (September 23-26)

September 28, 2024 — Owen Tyme

She Seeks Peace is volume 4 of Ashen Blades.

You can read a short description of She Seeks Peace to learn more or you can read short summaries of each day's writing on Mastodon

Here's links to the rest of my blog entries on She Seeks Peace, in chronological order:

  1. September 12-13
  2. September 16-20

Chapter 8: Infatuation

To my surprise, I moved on to a new chapter on Monday, when I'd originally planned to expand what I wrote the Friday before.

Sogliun (the moon demon) ends up in Castigation City, in Hell, which has changed quite a lot in the past 3,000 years. He's bothered by the differences and surprised all seven arch demons have taken residence there.

Most of the chapter was spent on descriptive detail as Sogliun seeks something familiar, passing through the districts ruled by Pride, Greed, Envy, Lust, Gluttony and Sloth, in turn, bothered by how unfamiliar the city has become and how modern the demons within it are.

Pride's home, Pride of Place, displays banners on the outside with the face of a Pride Sogliun doesn't recognize.

Greed's Grotto is at the very edge of a dirty, unkempt district (Greed refuses to spend money on improving his district, so his minions are left to their own devices). Very near Greed's Grotto is Envy's Escape, in a far cleaner district, decorated with glass that sparkles, as if it has something to prove. Sogliun reasons the two arch-demons must be allies, since their homes are so close together.

Lust's Lot is naturally and unsurprisingly in the middle of a red-light district, but Sogliun is disturbed by the skyscrapers containing the houses of ill repute.

He reaches the Gluttony district, which is dominated by restaurants and bar and feels almost comfortable, thinking, "at least gluttony hasn't changes", right up until he reaches the center, discovering gray skyscrapers and streets filled with slender demons in business suits and skirts, all carrying briefcases. He doesn't understand, but it's explained to the reader that in modern times, corporate waste and over-spending have become big business and Gluttony's primary concerns. Bothered by the lawyers on the streets, Sogliun moves on.

He reaches the Sloth district, a sleepy little berg of apartment buildings, with very few demons moving around, who all look half asleep. Sogliun quickly leaves, lest he fall asleep for a hundred years or more.

Sogliun eventually seeks out Wrath, because Wrath doesn't change and Sogliun used to work for him. In fact, Castigation City used to be entirely Wrath's territory, a prison that he conscripted corrupted human souls from, to increase the size of Hell's armies.

Wrath is happy to see him and not angry the moon mission failed, which surprises Sogliun! Wrath isn't angry, because his mind is too busy with romance.

As they talk, Sogliun finds out Wrath is infatuated with the Hunter, because she beat him in a fair fight in the previous book, when she let her dark half to the surface. Wrath still wants marry her, but doesn't know how to woo her.

Sogliun suggests speaking with Lust, but she's unavailable, in the human world.

Sogliun offers to track Lust down, in exchange for a favor owed, and they make a contract to that effect, because Sogliun believes he can track Lust's magic back to the source, based on the things he learned on the moon.

Chapter 9: Visiting Hours

Verda Bagley, the most power witch in the world, head of the Order of Ash and Smoke, is at her desk in the New York branch office of the Order, dealing with a particularly nasty foe she needs to slay: the Order's annual budget.

She idly wishes for some excitement, but soon comes to regret her wish...

Verda's concentration is interrupted by an emergency alarm, indicating the underground bunker is under attack!

Rushing into the hall, she's told a demon is attacking the munitions factory over their heads, which serves as the cover story for the base.

She joins thirty men at the main elevator, which the demon is headed for. They wait for the demon to ride the elevator down, only for Wrath to smash right through the elevator's roof! Seeing a foe they have no hope of defeatng, Verda orders the men to run, promising to hold the line!

Wrath's face is well-known to the Order, because the Australian Ashen Blades regularly see him in the Outback, but the Order has never beaten him, despite throwing every form of military hardware at him, shy of actual nukes!

In fact, the only one to ever beat him is the Hunter, who isn't available.

Therefore, Verda has effectively decided to abandon the base and will hold Wrath off, while the men escape.

Wrath pulls a metallic, black war hammer out of his body using a mixture of metal and blood magic to shape his own blood into a weapon.

He swings it at Verda, smashing through the wall to an office. Verda ducked in time, but she's shocked by the fragments of the wall going through a desk and wall like pellets from a huge shotgun, glowing from the air friction!

Verda uses water magic to break the sprinkler system, so she'll have plenty of water to fight with.

Wrath tries a downward swing, leaving a crater in the floor!

Verda dumps a plastic bag of seeds from an ironwood tree into the dirt exposed by Wrath's most recent attack and strikes back with rapidly-growing trees that are as strong as steel!

She briefly manages to hold him in place with the trees, caught by his head and limbs, while his backside is exposed.

She hits him full force with a number of water blade attacks, only to see him explode!

The explosion puts her halfway through a concrete wall, leaving her concussed, with many broken ribs!

Before Verda passes out, due to her awful head injury, she tries a little magic, but isn't able to do anything, because she can't stay awake.

Wrath reforms, unharmed, but doesn't even bother to kill her, because he doesn't care, making his way to the cell Lust is kept in, who was captured by the Hunter in the previous novel.

He asks Lust for help with his romance issues and Lust demands to be set free, as payment. Wrath produces a contract to that effect, gives it a bloody thumbprint, then hands it over.

Chapter 10: Moonshot

Having received an automated phone call indicating HQ is under attack, the widow of Simmons shows up.

Lara floats down the elevator shaft using fairy magic to give herself wings.

She steps through the water and wreckage, coming across Verda. She's incredibly angry and the rage with demon-kind that she found in the previous book comes back to her.

Her rage immediately cools again, because Verda says one word: "Wrath."

Wrath is beyond dangerous, with a well-earned reputation, and Lara decides she has to be super-cautious.

She somewhat heals Verda and after a discussion, they determine that Wrath is there for Lust, either to rescue or assassinate her.

On the way, Lara forms a plan in her mind, asking Verda to bond with her as witch and familiar, causing Verda to put her hand on Lara's back, to perform the magic required.

After that, Lara speaks Mashu'ra's true name, summoning him into her body.

Lara takes on noticeably feline characteristics as the little imp possesses her body.

Lara asks both of them to give her everything they've got, when the right time comes.

They round a corner and spot Wrath at the periphery of Lust's cage.

Lara transforms into a Barret M107 anti-material rifle. Due to the presence of Mashu'ra in her body, the rifle ends up with a furry, black cover for the butt, a pair of cat ears on the scope and a set of whiskers on the muzzle-break. Verda shoots Wrath in the back with Lara. The bullet does nothing more than bruise the demon's back as it pancakes, causing him to turn his blood into armor as he whirls around!

Lara takes the form a cheetah to sprint down the hall, though she has to become a black one, due to Mashu'ra's influence over her powers.

As Lara charges to the attack, Verda and Mashu'ra super-charge her with all the power they can spare/produce and Lara finally realizes her personality is fully compatible with the imp, meaning she can safely use the humanoid cat form her late husband used to use.

Lara leaps and transforms into orange sparkles that surround Wrath! She uses her excess power to punch a hole through the ceiling and out the roof of the factory above as her body becomes a huge, electromagnetic railgun!

Before Wrath can react, she activates and shoots him into the air, using his extremely iron-rich armor as the means to launch him! Wrath flies so fast, he bursts into flame, at least until he hits space. From there, he hurtles away, taken out of the story for at least a couple weeks.

Wrath is on a course similar to that of Apollo 13. He'll slingshot around the moon and eventually come down from orbit, very, very angry, but hardly hurt.

At that point, he'll make his next move on his path toward stalking the Hunter, but for the time being, he's busy waiting for his free-return trajectory to pan out.

Chapter 11: Unthinking Concern

The Hunter walks the woods of the remote valley in which she once attended summer camp, back in 1986, deep in thought, considering the implications that every human friend she makes will die.

Her thoughts are interrupted by the voice of Macie Weber-Greer calling out to her, the local witch that looks after the magic valley, one of the Ashen Blades. Her calm disturbed, the Hunter vanishes into a shadow between some trees.

Next, she sits on the dam that holds the valley's lake in, watching water spill into the dark canyon, below.

Just as she gets her mind right and settles in to consider, Macie's voice again interrupts her grieving process. The Hunter leaps off the dam, into the shadows.

Around sunset, the Hunter's next spot is the small dock across the lake from the main buildings. She's taken her boots off and dangled her toes in the water, to think as she peers into the murky depths.

Macie approaches in a canoe, inviting the Hunter to dinner, who runs off into the woods.

Finally, night has fallen and the Hunter (incorrectly) assumes Macie has gone to bed. She settles in at the lakeside amphitheater for some deep thought, just as Macie steps up.

This time, the Hunter loses her temper and her sword appears in hand! She rushes to Macie and holds the tip of it to the woman's throat for a time, only to feel ashamed of herself. Her sword vanishes.

Angered by her actions, the magic valley wakes! Macie was shocked, but knows the Hunter well enough to know she'd never harm a human, but the magic suffusing the valley, which makes it semi-sentient, doesn't know that.

The ground shakes, the wind stirs, the water of the lake mounds up at the center and an asteroid hits the atmosphere overhead as the valley stirs up all four of the primary elements of magic!

Macie suggests the Hunter make a show of how sorry she is, so the Hunter kneels and bows her head to Macie, who loudly declares she forgives the Hunter.

The hostility of the valley ends as the earth stops quaking, the wind grows calm, the lake returns to normal and the shooting star harmlessly burns up.

Macie apologizes for misreading the situation, because she wanted some company, having finally realized the Hunter came for some peace and quiet. Macie leaves.

The Hunter sits down to think, but can't settle down, because she can feel the valley watching her. She vanishes into some shadows.

Future Plans

Due to how busy and exhausted I've been, I've had a hard time fully envisioning the Hunter's near-future part in the main story lately. I know what will be happening with Wrath, once he falls back to Earth (stalking the Hunter in all the worst ways).

Wrath

When Wrath gets back to Earth, he'll summon Sogliun and charge him with tracking down Lust again. Wrath will bust into another Ashen Blades base and release Lust, who will offer up some advice on wooing the Hunter's inner demon, suggesting that Wrath separate the human and demon halves of the girl, because the one thing the girl's inner demon has never really been free. Lust will also provide him with some magic trinket to do the job.

My aim for the climax is for the Hunter to be knocked cold and captured by Wrath. She'll wake up in a demon binding circle, in a wedding dress. Wrath will have a justice of the peace on hand, to marry them, but first, he'll use Lust's trinket. Naturally, everything will go wrong for him, because the two halves of the girl will be too busy fighting each other to pay any attention to him.

The trouble I'm having, however, is what will happen to the Hunter while Wrath is in space? Sending her to Macie's valley was funny, but it hardly moved the plot, though it did illuminate the Hunter's inner struggle, putting the focus of her grief on the idea her every human friend will leave her, by dying.

The Hunted Child

However, I did come up with a good plot element for late stages of the novel, something that happens just before the climax, to mostly resolve her inner turmoil and conflict.

She's going to end up taking care of a human child, three to four years old. She'll meet a retired Ashen Blade woman and her child, who are being hunter by a demon obsessed with revenge, out to kill the whole family. The Hunter will fail to save the mother, whose dying action will be asking the Hunter to deliver the kid to their father.

The Hunter will be bound and determined to not get attached, but she loves children, because they're totally innocent and immune to demon possession through sin.

They'll be together for several days and the Hunter will grow to love the child. When she gives the kid to their father, she'll feel stung with sadness, because she's unlikely to see them again, but she's also happy they met. In the end, having a brief time caring for a human kid will help the Hunter to value the brief time she has with her friends, rather than worrying the whole time about how she'll lose them.

Caring for the child will help her to look back on her time with both Reggie and Simmons with joy, remembering the good men they were. She may never see them again, since the only correct way into the afterlife would involve dying, but she can still be happy they enriched her life. In the end, she'll come to realize that so long as she remembers them, they'll never truly be gone.

Seeking Peace

Still, I need a fair few chapters between then and now. I think I may continue with the trend I set in Macie's valley, sending the Hunter from place to place, seeking peace and quiet that will be interrupted by demons at every turn, each chapter taking her a tiny step forward in her meditations.

I could push things along in her mind with a flashback on her time with Simmons as she travels, but I'd need a story I haven't covered in previous books. It would have to be something from their earliest days together, perhaps a case that caused them to bond as partners?

Of course, whenever she arrives and settles in for some serious meditation, she'll smell prey and be forced to kill a demon, once again ruining her calm, causing her to move on.

Each remote place I send her to could end up as part of a framing story to go around the flashbacks, similar to what I did with her time spend on the moon's surface, showing where she is and what she's doing between flashbacks. She should go from one extreme of nature to another, until she reaches the bottom of the ocean.

After failing to find peace in nature, I think an ill-fated visit to a Buddhist monastery would be in order, but naturally, there's a demon hiding among the monks, ruining the experience. Her violent extermination of the demon may result in the monks demanding she leave.

Places/activities the Hunter could use to seek peace:

  • Deserted island/Carribean
  • Carlsbad Cavern in New Mexico
  • Egypt
    • Top of great pyramid
  • Sahara desert?
  • Amazon Rainforest
  • Climbing Everest
  • Antarctica
    • McMurdo Station
    • Probably not enough life to sustain her
  • Bottom of the ocean
    • Marianna Trench?
  • Buddhist monastery
    • Remote place, for preference
    • Isn't there a famous one in the mountains of Tibet?

After that, she'll end up caring for the previously mentioned child and the kid's father (perhaps an Aussie?) could suggest a Walkabout in the Australian Outback, which would propel her right into Wrath's plans.

I could really amp up the stalking aspect of things by having Wrath's minions be the ones to interrupt the Hunter's calm at every turn, because they've been out searching for her.

Tags: writing, work-in-progress, ashen-blades

Work In Progress #10: She Seeks Peace #2 (September 16-20)

September 21, 2024 — Owen Tyme

She Seeks Peace is volume 4 of Ashen Blades.

You can read a short description of She Seeks Peace to learn more or you can read short summaries of each day's writing on Mastodon

Here's links to the rest of my blog entries on She Seeks Peace, in chronological order:

  1. September 12-13

Chapter 3: The Dollar Owed

Reggie steps into his dark office and sits down, pouring two glasses of cheap whiskey (prohibition is on, so the stuff he can get is garbage quality). He pushes one glass across his desk and offers it to Silver Dollar, who he's certain is in the room.

Silver Dollar sits down, but refuses the drink.

They discuss his reasons for killing her men and he drops the name of his client's father. Johan Mitchell was beaten nearly to death by one of Silver Dollar's street-level enforcers and Reggie was hired by Mitchell's son to get the demon-mobster to pay the medical bills.

Silver Dollar refuses and backs away into darkness, just as expected, so Reggie screams, "Now!"

The Hunter enters and shadow-steps behind Silver Dollar, swinging a baseball bat at maximum strength, while Reggie opens fire! Silver Dollar's head more or less ends up all over the room and the Hunter's bat shatters (the reason she doesn't use one in battle, ever again).

Reggie drops six demons with precise shots to the head, in just seconds, but then comes across a big problem: the next customer is bulletproof, with an insect's armored exoskeleton! He's actually a scarab beetle demon.

The Hunter hurls a 180 MPH fastball at the demon's head, concussing it, though her baseball explodes from extreme conditions it wasn't designed for.

The Hunter tackles the insect demon, since it fell down, and tries to kill it with bare hands and demonic strength, while Reggie ducks a demon diving for him, resulting in the attacker going out the window.

That leaves three demons still in the room, who are busy trying to sneak out, since their boss is headless, on the floor.

Reggie offers the three a rare chance to survive, if one of them will lead him to Silver Dollar's money stash (his client needs the cash for those medical bills).

All three volunteer. Reggie needs only one, so he tells them to sort it out among themselves and they scuffle for dominance, fighting for the chance to stay in the human world a little longer.

Meanwhile, the Hunter can't hurt the demon, because its armor is too thick! It gets up with her latched onto its knee, which she's hammers with her fists, trying to bust the kneecap. Having failed to harm her with punches and kicks, due to the protective spell surrounding her, it tries to bite her.

She looks up, sees the open mouth and Reggie's stolen pistol appears in her hands! She fires three shots into the unarmored interior of its mouth!

The brute falls over, badly hurt, but not killed, so the Hunter fires two more shots in each eye, finishing it off.

The scuffling demons finish sorting out the pecking order, so Reggie shoots the losers, promising the winner he won't kill them if they leads the way to Silver Dollar's money.

Reggie takes a moment to call HQ, using code phrases based on 1920's slang to arrange for a cleanup crew and inform them he's headed out. The codes are necessary, because telephone operators of the time were notorious for eavesdropping.

Before they leave, the demon that went out the window attacks, flying in the window. The Hunter uses the last round in the pistol she stole from Reggie to put it down, so Reggie gives her a full box of ammunition.

The captured demon takes them to Silver Dollar's brothel, which is full of demon prostitutes, most of whom run away.

He leads them to the main office and the money safe.

Reggie asks the Hunter to "do the honors" and the demon protests about the fact they had a deal.

Reggie reminds their prisoner the deal was that Reggie wouldn't kill them, having never said anything about the girl not killing them.

The Hunter kills the demon and smashes the safe open, before going out to get the demonic prostitutes.

The cash Reggie's client needs is delivered in the morning, while Reggie takes a little for expenses and the rest is given to the Order of Ash and Smoke, to fund their war on demon-kind.

Chapter 4: Lunar Night

The Hunter pauses the recall of happy memories with sadness, because she can't think about Reggie without pain. She's never really dealt with her feelings, but looking up at the Earth, she's surprised she has no issue with being on the moon.

It turns out that life energy from the Earth pools on the moon during the lunar night.

As she considers how much she loved Reggie and how wrong she'd been about how unstoppable he was (he died off-screen at the beginning of the series), she finds her mind drawn to the day he died.

Meanwhile, a demon races across the surface of the moon, collecting the pooling life energy to sustain himself.

He's been there for about three-thousand years, as a result of a failed mission to establish a demon outpost on the moon.

They used the moon energy to open a portal, but it didn't last very long, stranding them there. The demon ate his men to survive, then adapted to living off the energy pooling on the moon.

The demon has become little more than a black mist that senses the disturbance in the life energy field produced by the Hunter and rushes toward her.

He hopes to hitch a ride off the moon, just like it tried with Apollo 17, the astronauts of which ran away from him, then left the moon, never to return.

He crests a hill and sees the Hunter from behind, considering himself lucky she's facing away from him.

Chapter 5: The Hounds

It's 1942 and the Hunter now looks fifteen years old. She's wearing a long, black coat that was a gift from Reggie to mark twenty years as partners.

Reggie and the Hunter are on their last case together, a kidnapping. The Hunter approaches an old house with a suitcase full of money, intending to use it as a trap to make an opportunity for a rescue.

There's some argument from the thugs in the front yard, then she's allowed in, to meet Otto Vogerath, the demon-monster that kidnapped the client's daughter.

Vogerath is the Hunter's demonic arch-nemesis, though she didn't know that at the time.

He arranged the meeting as part of his overall plans, which are explained in previous books. His goal for the day is testing some magic he thinks will allow his minions to get past the spell protecting the Hunter from harm.

He admits to violating the kidnapped girl until he got bored, followed by eating her. The Hunter tries to shoot him, but he dodges dang fast (rattlesnake speed).

Vogerath is surrounded by hell hounds, which are juvenile demons (imps), summoned into the bodies of rottweilers, making them more vicious and stronger than ever. They're also atypically loyal for demons, which is the reason he used to favor them.

He orders, "Get her!"

The hounds rush the Hunter, but instead of meeting their doom by altered probability, they're cooked alive. Annmarie, the Hunter's mother, was a powerful fire witch in life and now lives on as a protective spell surrounding the Hunter. With probability magic blocked, she uses her old standby: high-intensity fire magic.

This feat is all the more spectacular, because hell hounds are normally quite resistant to heat and fire.

Three hounds die on the spot, two are scorched and one is blinded by its eyeballs getting fried.

The blind one seeks help from Vogerath, who kicks the injured hound in the face and reminds it of its orders. The hound is angry and lays into Vogerath with its teeth, grabbing him by the ankle, only to shake him back and forth by it!

The Hunter laughs at this so hard, she doesn't even try to kill them and lets the other hounds escape into the back yard, which is fenced.

The thugs from the front yard burst in, so the hunter crushes the guns of the two humans, while the others try to shoot her, resulting in their weapons melting!

She shoots the demons and leaves the terrified humans alone, then sneaks past the hound tearing his master to shreds, to deal with the others.

She finds them stupidly milling around and concludes dogs never were that bright, shooting them to make sure they harm no one.

She's about to end the demon and his not-so-loyal hound, only to hear Reggie shout, "Not today, boys!"

She forgets the demon and rushes to one side of the house, leaping to see over the fence, while her partner takes on too many thugs!

The Hunter leaps to his aid, going from the back yard to the sidewalk in a single bound, but she isn't fast enough and Reggie is shot in the chest, putting a pair of holes in one of his lungs!

The Hunter's eyes glow blue and she loses herself to a berserk rage, blacking out!

When she comes to her senses, the demons are all dead and their blood flows through the street, while the human thugs run away.

This isn't explained in the novel, but the Hunter lost her marbles from seeing her best friend shot and her inner demon managed to exert greater influence over her than ever before.

That's the first hint of the struggle for dominance with her inner demon/second personality in this novel, which was a major plot element of the previous two stories.

Looking at Reggie, she wishes she'd learned first aid, but puts pressure on his wound, to slow the bleeding.

Reggie pushes her hands away and says, "Too late", because he knows he's a goner.

She tries to express herself, but the curse gets in the way, though Reggie seems to understand, saying, "I…love…you…too."

Reggie dies and the Hunter yowls like a cat for nearly two minutes straight, at a volume that leaves the neighbors terrified.

She breathes and looks at her blood-soaked hands, then yowls even louder and longer, causing the neighbors to vow they're moving in the morning.

The Hunter sees cop cars crest a hill and bolts, because she really hates cops, leaving only a trail of tears in her wake.

After running for a long time, she pauses to discard her new coat, because the sleeves are soaked in Reggie's blood and she doesn't ever want to see it again, first using it to wipe her hands clean.

Within a few weeks, she starts wearing gloves all the time, because every time she looks at her bare hands, she sees Reggie's blood, settling on a pair of finger-less, black opera gloves.

The observant reader of the previous books will note that she's almost never been seen without a pair of gloves and this explains why.

Switching back to the perspective of Vogerath, he limps away, having just finished off his hound. He's flees the scene for similar reasons, not wanting to deal with the complication of police.

As he walks into the night, he vows, "No more hounds!"

This explains why we never see him use hell hounds again, despite the fact he used to heavily favor them for minions.

Chapter 6: Two's Company

With Reggie's story complete, the Hunter realizes she never mourned him properly, because she stuffed her feelings and moved on with a new detective, like one might buy a kitten immediately after losing a much-loved cat. It wasn't healthy and she's finally ready to face that fact.

Just when she's starting to deal with the facts and consider how what she's learned applies to Simmons, she hears a strange voice in her mind, asking for help.

She turns and looks on the moon demon, unsure what it is. She initially tries sniffing it, only to remember there's no air on the moon.

She uses the demon-locator spell she's seen Verda use many times, reasoning that even with her lack of skill for witch magic, she should be able to locate a demon that's right in front of her.

She forms a necklace with a quartz crystal on the end from solid shadow and tries the spell out.

Amusingly enough, the necklace is initially drawn like a magnet to her own body, the closest demon.

She tries again, making allowances for her own presence, and the necklace is drawn to the moon demon.

Having confirmed the creature is a demon, she leaps to the attack, accidentally launching herself into the sky, because she's very strong and the moon's gravity is weak.

She tumbles for a while, trying a few forms of magic to slow herself down, before settling on air magic, using it like a set of thrusters in her hands and feet, like Iron Man.

The demon keeps up with her the whole time, still asking for help she refuses to give, though it does start making threats.

She hurls her sword at it, but nothing happens. Realizing its ghost-like nature, she reasons it may be immune to the very physical things the living spell protecting her can do.

She tries burning it with ultraviolet flame, her unique combination of witch fire and demon magic, but it has no effect.

In the end, she decides to deal with it like an elemental spirit.

She ends her tumble through the sky with a shadow-step to the surface, then shoots off a bunch of fire magic, like fireworks, to draw the demon to her new location, while she braces to mentally attack it, though she needs it to speak to her telepathically to make her plan work!

The demon attacks and bites her, saying how tasty her blood is, though it doesn't finish the sentence, because the Hunter hauls it inside her subconscious mind.

Inside, we switch to the demon's perspective, who hears a girl's voice calling out in a creepy fashion as he runs around the shadowed void that represents the Hunter's mind.

After playing with the demon for a little bit, the Hunter and her other personality, the Eighth Deadly Sin, Willful Insanity, corner the demon.

Insanity holds it, while the Hunter kills it with her wakizashi.

Back in the real world, the demon explodes into mist that's drawn away by the vacuum of space, leaving a two-inch hole in her space suit!

She desperately tries to patch it with magic, while her air and blood vent into space, incidentally sending her rolling around the landscape like a spinning flower firework! Her patch fails and her magic clothes can't fix it fast enough!

She'd shadow-step away, but with her mind in turmoil, that could send her anywhere in the universe.

In the end, she opts to enter the pocket dimension inside her top hat, which is currently in the shape of her space helmet.

Her body and clothes vanish as a black mist that flows into her helmet, while it turns back to it's usual form.

The hat ends up rolling for a while, before coming to a stop.

Chapter 7: Three's a Crowd

The hunter spends a short time in her hat, healing from her injury, while her little friend, the kitten demon Mashu'ra, and the ghost of her father, Jake Watson, ask why she ran away from home.

She wanted to be alone, which she clearly won't get in her hat, so she departs as soon as she's able.

Insanity steps from the shadows at the edge of the hat's interior and tells them, "She’s just trying to think things through. If you fools had left her alone, she could have have done that here, but you had to go and make demands of her time and energy."

They both apologize.

This chapter isn't over, but I ran out of time on Friday, so I'll continue on Monday.

Future Plans

Monday will start with a chapter back at the New York City HQ for the Order of Ash and Smoke, where the head of the Order, Verda, will end up dealing with an intruder. As the Order's best witch, she takes them on with magic.

Wrath, one of the seven arch-demons, will break in, smash his way through every defense the Ashen Blades can muster, even besting Verda in a magical duel, leaving her so exhausted, she passes out. Ironically, he doesn't finish anyone off, because he doesn't care about the Ashen Blades or the war with humanity anymore.

He'll break into the room that houses Lust (another arch-demon), who was captured in the previous book. He wants advice on romance, because he's infatuated with the Hunter, who was the first to ever beat him in a fair fight.

She hears his story (taking twenty to thirty minutes) and requests being freed from her cell in exchange for her advice.

Wrath will agree, just as Verda comes to and charges into the room, hitting the demon with every bit of energy she can muster for a telekinetic punch based on air magic, probably with the backup of Lara (the wife of Simmons). Wrath will end up in a decaying, elliptical orbit for a fair chunk of the book, unable to get himself down. I'll have to do some research on orbital periods to get the timing right, but I think his orbit will take him past the moon, for something akin to a gravitational slingshot back to Earth.

Meanwhile, Lust will be moved to a location that hasn't been compromised.

Eventually, Wrath will hit the atmosphere like a shooting star (though totally unharmed) and seek out Lust, because he still needs her advice.

Tags: writing, work-in-progress, ashen-blades

Work In Progress #9: She Seeks Peace #1 (September 12-13)

September 14, 2024 — Owen Tyme

The next novel I'll be keeping a log on is She Seeks Peace, volume 4 of Ashen Blades.

Why the Long Delay?

It was a long month, working on editing Troll War and getting it ready for the process of querying literary agents.

Editing took longer than I would have liked. Some kind person on Mastodon suggested I use software to read the book to me, because it will read exactly what it finds. That was a third pass of editing I hadn't planned for, but dang, the results were worth it.

I was a little embarrassed to hear my typos read aloud, but I'm going to do all of my final editing this way from now on, because it catches stuff I never will on my own.

Then I got bogged down writing a basic query letter to modify for each agent, including back cover text and a synopsis of the novel.

Changes to My Process

Now that my computer is all setup for reading to me in a fairly pleasant fashion, I'll be listening to the previous day's material at the start of each work session. I tried it out with the prologue and chapter 1 this week and found some nasty typos I couldn't see on my own, so this is definitely something essential for the future.

For the curious, here's the combination of software I'm using:

  • Linux Mint - The Linux distribution I use for my operating system
  • LibreOffice - Word processor
  • ReadText - Extension for LibreOffice
  • Speech Dispatcher - Default text to speech system on Linux Mint
  • Piper - AI voiced text-to-speech
  • Pied - Software to connect Piper to Speech Dispatcher
  • Bash - I wrote some shell scripts to customize my experience with ReadText, to ensure pauses between sentences

I've really grown to love Piper, which is a real-time text-to-speech system that uses an AI voice to speak in a rather clear and understandable fashion, which was trained on ethically-sourced voice samples. I've been using the libritts model, which I find to be pleasant to listen to.

Piper only produces 22 KHz audio (half CD quality), so not the best, but it is fast, more or less perfect for reading during the editing process.

Prologue

I actually wrote the prologue during my work on Demon for President!, because writing it was the only way I could get the scene out of my head. Sometimes, I just have to write things out of order, to appease the inspiration.

The novel begins with the Hunter on the dark surface of the moon, picking up where the previous book left off.

She sits on the abandoned lunar rover from Apollo 17, considering the loss of her best friend, Simmons, who died at the end of the previous book.

Simmons was the biggest thing that made her want to save the world, but with him gone, she worries she'll lose her humanity.

Her mind is inevitably drawn to thoughts of Reggie Stewart, the detective she worked with before Simmons, because she holds herself responsible for his death, just the same as Simmons. She's wrong on both counts, of course, but she's has a guilt complex similar to Spider-Man, the reasons for which I'll make apparent through flashbacks on her personal history.

She looks back with longing and sadness, remembering how she met Reggie.

Chapter 1: Reggie

Chapter 1 takes place on May 5, 1922. I looked through historical records and found a sufficiently rainy day for my purposes. The Extreme Weather Watch website has been very helpful for looking up historical weather for Ashen Blades.

Reggie runs through the rain, pistols drawn (twin M1911s), considering how he got into the mess he's in, while his body aches, because he isn't as young as he used to be (48) and his old injuries act up in humid conditions.

He bumped into a demon in the rain, while looking to get a hot meal.

The demon grabbed him by the throat and lifted him into the air, explaining:

"The boss ain’t happy with you, mister. The boss is tired of you killing his guys."

As it turns out, Reggie has been killing demon mobsters that work for a particular demon, who's human name is Michele Popwell, while her criminal persona is 'Silver Dollar'. She got the nickname for her tendency to mark her kills by putting a silver dollar in the mouth of the corpse, as a warning to others.

The "his" in the demon's dialog is intentional. All of Silver Dollar's minions refer to her as "he", to throw investigators off the mark.

Silver Dollar is quite angry to have lost so many flunkies, who are now out for blood.

Reggie shoots the brute in the testicles, then the heart. The demon stumbles away and Reggie aims both pistols at their head as he makes an offer:

"We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Either you go tell Popwell I want a meeting, or I shoot you in the head a few times, then pin that nice suit of yours to her door, just like I’ve done with the last twenty of her men. It’s your choice, of course.".

Caught between a rock (Reggie) and a hard place (Silver Dollar will be angry at his failure), the demon opts to run, presumably in the hopes of healing and coming at Reggie again.

Reggie reluctantly gives chase.

Meanwhile, the Hunter sits on the edge of a rooftop, enjoying the rain, because while it's pouring, she can hardly smell demons. She's taking the rare chance to relax.

She appears ten years old, though she's really quite short for that age, at 3'11".

Despite the rain, she smells a demon and looks down, seeing Reggie chasing the it, amused to see a little role-reversal between the sheep (her internal monologue term for humans) and prey (her internal term for demons).

She leaps down and scares the demon into turning, because all demons in town know about her, scared crap-less by her existence and strength, because thye have no idea what she is.

She repeats this several times, using shadow steps (she teleports from one shadow to another), giving Reggie a chance to catch up.

Reggie turns one final corner and runs into the backside of the demon, who's finally stopped, leading to this scene:

Reggie charged round another corner and practically barreled right into the demon’s back, who blubbered, “Please, don’t kill me!”

Reggie put one pistol to the brute’s back and the other to the back of his skull, before answering, “Just deliver my message and I’ll let you live.”

“Okay, okay! Whatever you want two want!” The demon raised his hands in surrender!

“Two?” Reggie asked, surprised.

He was further surprised to hear insane, girlish giggling from the other side of the monster, so he peered around the demon, without moving his weapons.

There was a small girl there, with eyes so blue, they practically glowed! She had an elderly butcher’s knife in hand and it finally dawned on Reggie that it wasn’t him the demon was most scared of. The top hat she wore was far too large for her.

The girl launched herself into the air with inhuman strength, slashing the demon’s neck as part of a twirl! When she finished a complete revolution, she turned it into a forward thrust, ramming the knife into the demon’s eye so hard, the tip cracked through the back of its skull, before her body weight hauled it right back out! Reggie was hit by a splatter of demon blood, which quickly washed away in the rain, then evaporated.

Meanwhile, the girl lightly landed on her feet and took several steps backwards, allowing the demon to splash down into the water at her feet. Reggie met the crazed girl’s gaze, unsure what to do, because she was clearly a demon, though she’d just killed one of her own.

Reggie demands why she killed the other demon.

Naturally, she responds, "It's a secret", the only phrase she can speak, due to the curse she lives with.

Not accepting that, Reggie angrily asks more questions and she flips him the bird, but since he won't let it go, the Hunter produces Mashu'ra from her hat, the kitten demon that lives there.

He explains that she's cursed and the two of them hate demons.

Reggie doesn't believe him, but Mashu'ra also explains that the Hunter is a half-demon, not a pure demon.

He complains about the rain and the Hunter puts him away as he gives a final warning:

"If you’ll take a bit of advice, you should stop pointin’ guns at her, because nothin’ good will come of it."

Reggie reasons any spawn of evil is evil, even if they're partially human, and presses his luck by trying to shoot the Hunter, only for his pistol to repeatedly malfunction.

Getting annoyed, the Hunter decides to take his pistols away and shadow steps high into the air, above him.

She kicks him in the head, knocking him to the ground, while his pistols clatter away. She goes for one, while he goes for the other and they both come up pointing a gun.

There's a long, quiet moment in which neither fires and Reggie lowers his pistol. She does the same.

He was trying to trick her and raises it again, only to see her do the same. He soon realizes she's only mimicking him, with no intention of firing, basically playing a game.

He holsters his pistol in the hopes she'll drop hers, but she instead puts it in her hat, forcing Reggie to conclude:

"Clearly, I’m never getting that back."

She nods agreement.

He explains that she's gotten in the way of his plans for Silver Dollar and his need to send a message. She shrugs and grins sheepishly, the closest she can get to an apology.

Reggie decides (aloud) to go find another of Silver Dollar's minions and walks off, into the rain, having given up on getting a hot meal.

Thinking the sheep (Reggie) is mad to tangle with demons, the Hunter decides to follow him, because she likes him and he's going to need help from the only shepherd available (herself).

Chapter 2: The Assignment

Reggie is followed around by the Hunter for weeks on end. He initially tries to ditch her, but she shadow-steps to keep up, treating it like a game.

After a few days, he calls his boss in the Order of Ash and Smoke, Master Lagrow, telling him everything.

Lagrow acts as if he already knew about the girl and assigns Reggie to keep an eye on her. Reggie doesn't like it, bothered by the unspoken facts.

The Hunter initially won't go into buildings (she lives outside and gets claustrophobic at the idea of heavy concrete over her head) and Reggie pays street kids to watch her, discovering she never sleeps.

After a while, he accepts her as his perpetual shadow and gets back to work.

After a long day of killing demons to tick off Silver Dollar, in the hopes of arranging a face to face meeting, he heads back to his detective agency office to look at his notes on the case.

When they arrive at the building, the Hunter smells demon and growls.

She follows him inside and even rides an elevator with him, though she does have a panic attack, resulting in a half-crushed railing, because the sense of motion terrified her.

Getting out, they walk the hall to his office, the stink of demon getting stronger, because there's at least ten of them inside.

After a brief discussion that confirms the Hunter's opinion of Reggie (totally insane), he goes in alone, because he wants to try talking, before violence.

Future Plans

Next week will being with Chapter 3, 'The Dollar Owed'. That little play on words amuses me. Reggie will end up surrounded by demons and finally come face to face with Silver Dollar, who's so incensed, she's lost all rationality.

There will be some discussion, which will end with Silver Dollar ordering Reggie's death, at which point the Hunter will enter the dark office by shadow step, wielding a baseball bat.

Silver Dollar will take a full-strength hit to the back of her skull, which will destroy both Silver Dollar's head and the bat (this is the reason readers have never seen her wield one, before). After that, Reggie and the Hunter will fight back to back in a scene that will demonstrate the fact they're two peas in a pod (they're both totally insane and love a fight).

The chapter after that will take place twenty years later, though I might try the textual equivalent of a montage, so I can show a few happy memories along the way.

This will show their final mission together, which ultimately resulted in Reggie's death. While parts of that were shown in the prologue of She Hunts Demons, to help establish why the Hunter wouldn't let Simmons go into battle, I plan to show the entire scene, including an amusing bit where one of Vogerath's Hell Hounds bites him in the foot, leading him to stop using them as minions. Readers of the previous three books will definitely remember Vogerath, the Hunter's arch-nemesis.

Once that sad scene is done and Reggie is no more, we'll return to the Hunter on the moon, where she'll encounter a demon that's been living there since the Apollo 17 mission, surviving on the life energy that emanates from the Earth and pools on the surface during the lunar night (incidentally, the same way the Hunter can survive up there). That fight will prompt the Hunter to leave the moon, because it no longer feels like a peaceful place to her.

That will become the theme of the novel: the hunter seeks a place for quiet contemplation, but always finds more demons, wandering from one place to another, until she ends up in the Australian Outback on a walkabout, which is where she'll run into the arch-demon, Wrath, for the climax.

Tags: writing, work-in-progress, ashen-blades

New Release: Demon for President!

June 10, 2024 — Owen Tyme

I'm delighted to announce the release of a new book! The third volume of Ashen Blades, Demon for President! is now available as an Ebook!


The Hunter's demonic arch-nemesis, Vogerath, returns to Earth once more, but this time, he's running for President of the United States, on the 2024 ballot! Worse yet, the demon’s unique power to be in multiple places at once allows him to convincingly pretend to be identical twins, running as both a Republican and Democrat!

The other candidates all drop out of the race under mysterious circumstances and with his best competition being himself, he's practically assured a win!

Soon, the American people are lapping up the snake-in-a-suit’s every word as if it were ambrosia, calling out his name at every turn, magically charmed to believe he’s the best thing since sliced bread, despite the checkered, criminal history of his “family.”

Hard pressed to get rid of him, the half-demon Hunter and her allies kill him repeatedly, but he pops back up like a bad weed, making all of his appointments on time, photogenically kissing babies, cutting the ribbons of stores and donating laundered blood-money to charitable causes.

Will the hunter manage to end the demon's presidential campaign before election day? If she doesn’t, the USA may just get a Demon for President! Buy this book today and find out for yourself!

There's also a promotional page for this book, which includes links to political pins you can buy.

Tags: ashen-blades, novel, publishing

Stickers of the Hunter

June 03, 2024 — Owen Tyme


Ryan Johnson, the artist that does my book covers, sometimes also does little tie-in products that can be picked up from his store page, like the prototype sticker imaged here, which he kindly sent to me so I could see how they'd turn out.

The currently sold version omits the text and just shows the Hunter/Little Miss Secret/LMS.

Personally, I hope to see other artistic tie-ins to my work in the future. I even get a little money from each sale, since they're based on my writing.

Tags: ashen-blades

The Third Wish, in Ebook and Print!

May 14, 2024 — Owen Tyme


Plagued by horrific nightmares, the consequences of war and reeling from the loss of his family, the Steel Wizard, Levi Jacobs copes by throwing himself into work, but old enemies gain the power to travel through time, refusing to give him a moment to grieve. Making matters worse, an impatient and violent alien pirate lurks in orbit.

Far from friendly, the alien pirate is boiling with rage over several massive blows to his pride at the hands of humanoids. Unable to kill those responsible, instead he plots revenge on their child, Levi, and everyone around him, to regain face in the eyes of his own kind, for whom personal pride is literally everything, including social ranking and the right to rule.

While Levi's busy dealing with the pirate, a deposed prince scours history for allies, putting together a frightening misfit team of spies, dangerous trolls and wizards that all have a grudge to settle with Levi and his family. Intent on changing history to suit themselves, they strike at the foundations of the present, threatening to kill Levi's father at a pivotal moment on which the history of the galaxy hangs.

Will Levi solve this mess and move forward with his life or will he buckle under the responsibility of protecting both what he has and what he's lost?

I'm very pleased to announce that book three of The Wizard's Scion, The Third Wish is now available for 3.99 in Ebook or 18.99 in paperback (US dollars).

I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did!

Tags: ashen-blades, novel, publishing

She Goes to War, Now in Print!

April 27, 2024 — Owen Tyme

The second volume of the Ashen Blades series, titled She Goes to War, is available in print! In addition, She Goes to Summer Camp, the short story included in She Goes to War, is available both as a free Ebook and in print.

If you want to own both, buy the novel. If you want to get a free taste of the Ashen Blades series, claim your free copy of She Goes to Summer Camp today!

She Goes to War


The Hunter never wanted to go to war, but in 1972, she senses the return of her demonic arch-nemesis, Vogerath, to the world. Following his magic like a bloodhound, she finds herself inexplicably drawn to Vietnam, a war zone.

With a pressing need to kill Vogerath, who claims to be the serpent from the Garden of Eden, the half-demon Hunter is joined by her detective partner, Clayton Simmons, and a powerful witch, Verda Bagley.

It was meant to be a simple search and destroy mission, but nothing in the jungles of Vietnam is ever simple and their plans go off the rails the moment the Hunter sets foot on the ground. She’s overcome by the magic of the jungle, which causes her to forget her humanity and transform into a great, black cat with blue eyes!

Her team are forced to subdue her, to bring her back to her senses, but the consequences of her instinct-driven actions leave them troubled, because she killed a demon disguised as an American soldier and his best friend wants revenge! As this fresh, unwanted conflict comes to a close, the Hunter’s hands are reluctantly stained with human blood.

Vogerath’s jungle hideout is surrounded by soldiers and the raid begins, but the Hunter’s plan continues to go wrong. After a unit of tanks is overrun, the US military throws everything they’ve got at the demons, inadvertently playing into Vogerath’s hands! The demon grows stronger with each attack and awaits the power of a nuclear strike, planning to use it to open a portal to Hell, so endless legions of demons can march forth to conquer the Earth!

Will the Hunter and her friends stop Vogerath in time or will the world be conquered by demons? Buy this book today and find out!

Includes a bonus novella: She Goes to Summer Camp, in which the Hunter faces the most unthinkable and horrifying of challenges: teenagers.

She Goes to Summer Camp


Camp Sapphire Friendship, a summer camp for teens, was the last place the Hunter wanted to go, but she'd made a vow to protect humanity from demons, no matter where they appeared and in 1986, her team of demon-slaying experts is called on to investigate. However, to make things even worse, the Hunter's team leader sends her into the camp as an undercover operative, under the guise of a regular teen, despite the fact that the half-demon girl being old enough to be the grandmother of the kids at camp.

She's soon caught up in the daily minutiae of camp, learning a few new things along the way, while followed around like a puppy by a new "friend", a motor-mouthed girl that never shuts up. On the very first day, she also acquires a trio of teenage foes in the form of some valley-girl sisters from Los Angeles, who take every opportunity to insult and plays pranks on her.

However, despite the innocent look of the place, danger lurks around every corner, because the owner of the camp, Miss Macie Weber, is an untrained witch, whose unknowing, haywire magic threatens to kill everyone by summoning powerful and vengeful nature spirits, on top of the demons already lurking among the humans at camp!

Will the Hunter find and slay the the demons or will the nature spirits take offense at her mere presence, because she's had the Jungle Spirit stuck inside her head since 1972?

Download today and find out!

Tags: ashen-blades, novel, publishing

She Goes to War, Coming April 5th!

March 29, 2024 — Owen Tyme

The second volume of the Ashen Blades series, titled She Goes to War, is now available for pre-order as an Ebook. The print edition still has a few details to work out, but should be available soon.

She Goes to War will be available on April 5th, 2024!

This one is special to me, because a friend of mine that fought in Vietnam talked me into writing it and then served as my primary source of information on the jungles of Vietnam. According to him, I hit the nail on the head and the details of the setting are as close to perfect as they can be.

I hope you'll enjoy it!

Due to how serious and emotionally difficult this novel was to write, I decided to pair it with a rather humorous bonus novella, She Goes to Summer Camp, in which our stalwart heroine goes undercover at a summer camp where teens have gone missing four years in a row, in search of the demon responsible, but nothing could have prepared her for the horrors of dealing with teenagers.

When final arrangements for art are complete, She Goes to Summer Camp will also be released as a short story as part of my Short of Tyme collection.


The Hunter never wanted to go to war, but in 1972, she senses the return of her demonic arch-nemesis, Vogerath, to the world. Following his magic like a bloodhound, she finds herself inexplicably drawn to Vietnam, a war zone.

With a pressing need to kill Vogerath, who claims to be the serpent from the Garden of Eden, the half-demon Hunter is joined by her detective partner, Clayton Simmons, and a powerful witch, Verda Bagley.

It was meant to be a simple search and destroy mission, but nothing in the jungles of Vietnam is ever simple and their plans go off the rails the moment the Hunter sets foot on the ground. She’s overcome by the magic of the jungle, which causes her to forget her humanity and transform into a great, black cat with blue eyes!

Her team are forced to subdue her, to bring her back to her senses, but the consequences of her instinct-driven actions leave them troubled, because she killed a demon disguised as an American soldier and his best friend wants revenge! As this fresh, unwanted conflict comes to a close, the Hunter’s hands are reluctantly stained with human blood.

Vogerath’s jungle hideout is surrounded by soldiers and the raid begins, but the Hunter’s plan continues to go wrong. After a unit of tanks is overrun, the US military throws everything they’ve got at the demons, inadvertently playing into Vogerath’s hands! The demon grows stronger with each attack and awaits the power of a nuclear strike, planning to use it to open a portal to Hell, so endless legions of demons can march forth to conquer the Earth!

Will the Hunter and her friends stop Vogerath in time or will the world be conquered by demons? Buy this book today and find out!

Includes a bonus novella: She Goes to Summer Camp, in which the Hunter faces the most unthinkable and horrifying of challenges: teenagers.

Tags: ashen-blades, novel, publishing

Character Feature: Otto Vogerath (AKA Pride)

March 15, 2024 — Owen Tyme

Three AI-generated images of Vogerath. In all three images, he wears a gray suit and blood-red power tie.

(Left) A shot focused on just the head of the man and he smiles evilly, very pleased with himself. There's fresh blood on the wall behind him.

(Middle) A wider-framed shot, in which he's still smiling, but the grin isn't quite so wide and the blood on the wall is more smeared than spattered.

(Right) The blood on the wall is long dry and Vogerath has dropped the Illusion of humanity he normally portrays, revealing his true nature as a snake demon.


Otto Vogerath may be many things, including a German man that supposedly came to the states before the Nazis took over Germany, the ring leader of a circus, an abusive husband and father, a criminal, a mob boss, a mass-murderer, a mad genius plotting world domination, but all of that pales in comparison to his true identity: Otto Vogerath is one of the seven Arch-demons that rule Hell, where he's known as Pride.

He's very intelligent and often runs mental circles around his opponents, treating them almost like puppets dangling from strings, continually manipulating them into doing exactly what he wants. In that regard, he's playing a grand-scale game of chess, while his opponents think they're playing a simple hand of go-fish for no stakes, when in fact, the stakes couldn't be higher.

Even when he appears to be losing, he's usually accomplishing something of lasting value to his long-term goal of galactic domination or just possibly, taking over Hell. What really motivates him is a mystery to all others, but he'll never give anyone a straight answer.

Vogerath is extremely old, having been born before the dawn of humanity, which makes it almost believable when he claims to be the Serpent from the Garden of Eden.

Whether that's true or not, however, he is the living embodiment of Pride, literally believing himself to be a cut above all others, his greatest flaw.

However, when his plans start falling apart, making him look the fool, he can be extremely dangerous and unpredictable.

When his life is on the line, he becomes a total coward, because in his mind, he's the most important person in the multiverse, bar none. Therefore, leaving his minions to die while he escapes is perfectly acceptable.

Vogerath is the arch-nemesis of Little Miss Secret, because he's responsible for murdering her parents. His mysterious plans revolve around the girl, because he has need of the unique powers of a half-demon. He may even be responsible for arranging for her to be born.

Tags: ashen-blades, character-feature

Special Feature: On Magical Elements

March 13, 2024 — Owen Tyme

A collage of AI generated images representing the various elements, laid out as a cohesive chart of the elements.

All users of magic in the Ashen Blades series use a system of metaphors for classifying magic in to manageable categories and these categories are not always the same, varying by culture.

Witches use a system based on four basic material elements, including Air, Fire, Earth and Water, as well as two basic elements representing polar opposite energies: Life and The Void. Various other elements formed by combining the basic elements together.

During book one, the witches call Life 'Spirit', but Spirit is actually a sub-element of Life magic, a conclusion Verda Bagley arrives at during book two.

Material Elements

The four material elements represent all physical materials in the known universe, with the exception of difficult to classify materials, such as dark matter, which science doesn't even understand.

Mastery over any material element allows shaping it and levitating it, with magic that mimics telekinesis.

Air

The air, representing not just the breathable gasses, but all gasses, to a certain extent, as well as air currents and weather.

Air is a difficult element to master and witches that bear a natural talent with it can be quite dangerous when they lose control of their emotions, leading to shifts in weather outdoors, or poltergeist-like activity, indoors.

Isabel Grant and Verda Bagley are witches that wield Air magic.

Fire

Fire represents the more energetic elements of nature, but isn't considered a destructive influence, because the materials produced by the action of Fire are still useful to living processes.

Fire includes the fourth state of matter, plasma, and nuclear reactions.

Fire is one of the easiest elements to learn and untrained witches with a talent for it are unfairly feared, though in truth, Fire magic is actually quite safe, following guidelines similar to the real thing: it takes effort to start a fire and a large lapse in judgment for a controlled flame to get out of control.

Annmarie Nosset and her daughter, Little Miss Secret, are witches that wield exceptionally hot Fire magic.

Earth

Earth represents the ground we walk on and the processes that take place within it, including tectonic forces and volcanism (though fire is also involved in that). Hurling rocks with this form of magic is relatively easy, but shaping dirt and stone takes time and dedication to master.

Earth is relatively easy to get started with, because clay can easily be used for training exercises. However, witches with a natural talent for Earth can sometimes become quite terrifying to deal with, if their emotions get out of control, leading to earthquakes and other upheavals of the earth.

To a lesser extent, Earth also represents all solid matter.

Isabel Grant is a witch that uses Earth magic. In book two, Simmons demonstrates some ability to use Earth magic.

Water

Water is absolutely essential for all known living processes and users of Water magic can be exceptionally dangerous, because Water can readily be shaped into cutting and impaling attacks.

Water magic is quite difficult to master and rarely goes out of control, because wielding it requires supreme level of control or the water will simply go back to doing what it normally does.

Verda Bagley is a witch that uses Water magic.

Energetic Elements

Life

Life is what binds all the other elements together, allowing them to combine in infinite complexity. It's also absolutely essential to all living processes.

There are many sub-classes of Life magic and it takes in many things that don't readily fit in other elements, including curses and counter-curses.

Paradoxically (see below, regarding The Void), demons use a sub-class of Life magic to infiltrate the minds and hearts of humans: Spirit magic. This allows them to arrive on Earth in spiritual form, whispering inside the minds of mankind, until they convince the human to taint their own soul with such a heavy burden of sin, the demon takes possession of both their soul and body.

Life is Verda Bagley's strongest element as a witch, making her an expert on curses, counter-curses and healing magic. In book two, she also demonstrates knowledge of what's largely considered the dark-side of Life magic: Necromancy, which may be a Void-touched off-shoot of Life magic, though this is debatable, because Necromancy can be used to return a dead thing to life.

The Void

The Void represents the forces of death and entropy. It's ever hungry to consume the multiverse, breaking it all back down until there's nothing left but The Void. Void magic readily combines with the material elements, transforming them into mocking parodies of themselves.

The only known direct use of Void magic is for spatial manipulation, including teleportation and the formation of a pocket dimension.

For teleportation, it normally has to be paired with another element, to form a doorway. Form example, Little Miss Secret uses Void magic combined with Shadow magic to teleport from shadow to shadow, a spell known as shadow-stepping. How this works is particularly strange: the Void magic user simply steps out of the entire multiverse, and steps into The Void. From there, they then step back into the multiverse, at the place of their choosing. Hypothetically, it might be possible to travel through time the same way.

Demons all tap Void magic to one extent or another.

Little Miss Secret uses Void magic, which she got from her demonic ancestry. Her Top Hat contains a pocket dimension that stores most of the things she owns.

Secondary Material Elements

The secondary material elements are formed by combining adjacent material elements. These can be neatly categorized as scientific and natural elements.

Smoke

Smoke is the combination of Air and Fire, usually coming into being when Wood is burned. While it has its place in the natural world, its considered a scientific element, having been extensively, shaped, controlled and shackled by mankind.

Little Miss Secret makes extensive use of Smoke magic mixed with Shadow magic to conjure the weapons stored in her hat into her hands.

Metal

Metal is the strongest of the scientific elements, because most metals aren't found in their pure form in nature, requiring Fire to forge Earth into something different from the two.

In book two, Simmons is stated to have been studying Metal magic.

Wood

Wood magic is difficult to master, but gives power to manipulate plants in myriad ways, accelerating growth or granting power to move to these normally slow forms of life.

Wood is one of Verda Bagley's strongest elements.

Animal

Animal magic allows manipulating animal life of all kinds, including humans.

Most demons use some measure of Animal magic, because their first form is almost always that of an animal.

Mashu'ra uses this form of magic to transform the body of Simmons, giving him great strength and durability.

In book two, Verda Bagley demonstrates some very minor Animal magic, allowing herself to see in the dark, much like a cat.

Master Lagrow, the wizard that was Master of the Ashen Blades in book one, uses a very narrow class of Animal magic combined with Life magic to enact curse-like spells on living beings, fooling them into believing he's their friend and ally.

Void-Touched Elements

The Void-touched elements are all a combination of another element and The Void, leading that element closer to the end of all things.

Vacuum

Vacuum is the absence of Air, which can be quite damaging to unprotected living things.

Shadow

Shadow is Smoke that has lost its substance, leaving behind nothing but darkness that blots out the light.

Little Miss Secret makes extensive use of Shadow magic to conjure her weapons into her hands, in combination with her Smoke magic. She also combines it with Void magic, to teleport from shadow to shadow.

Ultraviolet

Ironically, combining Fire magic with the energy of the Void increases the power of the flame until its capable of consuming almost anything, producing a temperature so high, the flame glows in the ultraviolet spectrum.

Effectively, the ultraviolet flame has the endless hunger of the Void, seeking to burn all until there's nothing left.

Little Miss Secret learned to produce a UV flame just after seeing her mother use high-intensity blue flames, effectively combining her witch and demon powers into the most intense spell in her magic arsenal.

Poison

Derived from Metal and Void, poison represents anything that's toxic to animals, even including substances that are normally safe or even essential for life, but can be lethal if the dose is high enough, such as salt. Much of the toxins in the world are metals in one form or another, hence the close relationship with it.

This category of magic also includes any form of corrosive magic.

Ash

Ash is Earth that's been scorched so hot it loses all useful qualities, becoming inherently dangerous, choking out life. It takes time and the application of other elements to revitalize volcanic ash, but it can eventually become fertilizer.

Bone

Strangely, bone is the combination of Wood and Void. When all life leaves wood, the bark falls away and the bleached, dead wood starts to resembles bone.

Bone magic can only manipulate the skeletal structures of formerly living things, leading to such abominations as walking skeletons with no will of their own.

Ice

Water that loses most of its energy freezes and loses its life-giving qualities. Thus, ice is the combination of Water and Void. Ice magic is easy to master in snowy or arctic environments, but far less common in warmer climates.

Blood

Originally considered a form of Necromancy, but later categorized as a corruption of Animal magic by The Void, Blood magic allows the manipulation of living blood. It's one of the most lethal forms of magic, allowing human bodies to be torn apart from the inside-out, regardless of skill level.

Witches with a natural talent for blood magic are often surrounded by carnage worked by their own, out of control emotions and the more carnage they see, the more out of control their emotions become, until they accept their power or self-destruct as they internalize the realization they're responsible for all the deaths they've seen their power inflict on others.

Unfortunately, those that survive the trauma of such power coming to the surface usually become serial killers, thinking it gives them the right to be judge, jury and executioner.

Blood magic can be used to heal the body, but the malign uses far outweigh its benefits to society.

Whether it's just or not, Blood witches are feared and hunted by nearly all other witches, because they're too powerful to control and it's too easy for them to kill with an errant thought.

Additional Elements

This list is hardly exhaustive and there's a myriad of ways to combine the elements that aren't easy to display on a chart. For example, Steam magic is a combination of Fire and Water.

Other Elemental Systems

All of this is simply a useful set of metaphors to aid understanding. In addition to this system, demons also use their own systems of metaphors:

The most common system demons use relates everything to the various substances in the human body, including blood, bile, urine, bone, muscle, etc. That system sounds very messy and is very unappealing to non-demons. Demons, on the other hand, love it, because it suits their sick-minded nature.

The next most common approach relates the whole of creation to the seven deadly sins. Noble demons tend to favor this system, because it pays homage to the seven arch-demons that rule Hell.

Tags: ashen-blades

Character Feature: Verda Bagley

March 11, 2024 — Owen Tyme

An AI generated image of Verda Bagley, in 1945.


Verda Bagley is an ally of Little Miss Secret, Simmons and Mashu'ra. She's also a field operative of the Order of Ash and Smoke with a lot of experience.

She's one of the most powerful witches in the world, but ironically doesn't consider herself to be one, instead thinking of herself as simply 'talented'.

She's a mother to her very core and uses nursery rhymes as a concentration aid to focus her mind for spell casting. She can often be heard singing in combat, to keep her mind from wandering.

She appears to be in her twenties, but is actually in her forties during She Hunts Demons. It isn't explicitly stated until book two, but her aging process has been unnaturally slowed by her magic.

She hates the common labels that come with her magic and only puts up with being called a witch, because that's the convenient term used by the others in the Order.

She also doesn't believe the creatures the Order fights are actually demons, because according to the beliefs of her religion (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), demons don't have physical bodies, having been denied that opportunity when they rebelled against God, before the world was.

Instead, she considers them evil monsters that need to die, because their actions are the darkest kind of evil. Her theories about the demons are not well accepted by the Order, but toward the end of the book, she gains some indirect evidence she was right all along, leading her to conclude the so-called demons are actually Unseelie Fairies.

Like LMS, she absolutely hates demons that prey on children and will go out of her way to put them down.

As a witch, her best elements are Spirit, Water and Wood, but she also has a little mastery of Air and in book two, she starts experimenting with Animal magic. She's an expert on curses of all varieties and she often works to counter curses planted by demons.

Her favorite spells involve manipulating tree roots and branches to attack enemies or forming water into barriers or weapons. She also sometimes uses reversed curses, a technique she learned by observing the action of the protective spell surrounding Little Miss Secret. These are effectively delayed-action curses she places on herself that affect the first person to attack her.

Verda is the expert Little Miss Secret consulted when she was looking to counter the curse she lives with.

Aside from her magic, she fights with a shotgun and she's almost never without her switchblade, because sometimes magic fails.

Her best attributes are a keen intellect and a creative approach to any situation, both of which she can use in the heat of combat, with a cool and level head. Like Simmons and Little Miss Secret, Verda isn't one to give up easily and always has a new trick up her sleeve, whether it's magic or not.

She's extremely adverse to the idea of leaving behind or abandoning a friend and she'll go to great lengths to rescue them, almost regardless of the danger.

Tags: ashen-blades, character-feature

Character Feature: Mashu'ra

March 10, 2024 — Owen Tyme

(Left) An AI generated image of Mashu'ra, in the form of a little, black kitten, with green eyes.

(Right) An AI generated image of Simmons in his cat-man form, wearing the magic, shape-shifting clothes Mashu'ra gave him, in the form of a tuxedo. His cat-man form is a result of Mashu'ra partially possessing his body.


Mashu'ra is often called Masher, because when spoken by others, a demon's true name gives power to summon or compel them. He's the little demon that lives inside Little Miss Secret's top hat, in the novel She Hunts Demons. He's stuck in the form of an adorable little, black kitten, a fact that annoys and embarrasses him.

Mashu'ra was originally her mother's familiar and as a result of that demon-witch's betrayal of demon-kind, he's also considered a traitor by demons.

He's an imp, which is effectively a juvenile demon that isn't yet strong enough to properly possess a human host. Imps normally grow in strength by feeding on the blood left-over from their master's human kills, until they're strong enough to possess and dominate a human host. Alternatively, an imp can be summoned by a witch to server as a familiar and fed raw magic until they mature.

With rare exception, demons gain an initial form from the first creature they possess and since they're normally too weak as an imp to possess a human, they take on animal traits. This is why demons tend to have such sharp senses of smell. Before that, they normally resemble one or both of their parents.

In the case of Mashu'ra, he was summoned into the body of a house cat by Annmarie Nosset, the mother of Little Miss Secret. When she was killed, he lost the power she fed him and shrunk in size until he became a kitten.

He normally looks after Little Miss Secret's arsenal of weapons, cleaning and loading her firearms for her, on top of keeping her collection of blades sharp, but please don't ask how a kitten accomplishes that, because it's a big secret!

Mashu'ra is an expert on both witch and demon magic, because he spent so many years serving one of the most powerful demon-witches the world ever saw.

He uses his magic to keep an eye on Little Miss Secret and her activities from inside her hat, so he's always up to date on current events, unless he's been napping.

During the early portions of She Hunts Demons, Mashu'ra watches Simmons, coming to respect the man enough to make him an unusual offer: if Simmons would allow Mashu'ra to possess his body, they would work as a team, to kill demons together. Seeing an opportunity to finally get into the field, Simmons accepts.

While an imp can possess a human body, they don't have the strength to suppress the human mind, which effectively leaves the human in charge, with the full strength of a demon! When Simmons uses this power, he grows extremely large, muscular and takes on feline features, includes claws, fangs and black fur.

In cat-man form, Simmons is in great pain, but the pain feeds Mashu'ra's power, making him very strong and durable.

When injured in cat-man form, he heals extremely rapidly, the pain of which feeds into Mashu'ra, becoming greater power and that goes back into Simmons, making him even stronger. As a result, this transformation makes him nigh-indestructible, but with a seriously dangerous caveat: the more damage Simmons takes, the more Mashu'ra's animal instincts flood his mind and the dumber he becomes. If things go too far, his higher mental functions shut down, leaving him running on raw emotion.

Even worse, the pain Simmons feels is like a powerful drug to Mashu'ra, causing him to get extremely high. In short, if the duo takes too much damage, they become an unstoppable killing machine that's a danger to everyone. When they finally calm down and separate, Mashu'ra is effectively left suffering the powerful after-effects of a drug over-dose. Being a demon, this can't kill him, but it can and does make him wish he were dead.

Demons have tried this combination of human and imp in the past, inevitably leading to an out of control killing machine. The secret sauce that keeps Simmons and Mashu'ra alive and functioning in this state is impossible for such evil beings to replicate: an incorruptible man willingly working with and trusting a demon for the sake of a common cause.

Late in the novel, as a result of destroying the wardrobe of Simmons, Mashu'ra gives the man a magic, demon-made, shape-shifting suit, which is able to take any form desired and automatically adjusts its size to match Simmons as he changes size. Incidentally, it also serves as light body armor that's able to stop bullets and staunch bleeding, which gives him a little extra protection, even when he's out of cat-man form.

Tags: ashen-blades, character-feature

Character Feature: Clayton Simmons

March 10, 2024 — Owen Tyme

An AI generated image of Simmons from 1945, in his favorite gray suit.


Clayton Simmons is the private investigator partner of Little Miss Secret, in my novel She Hunts Demons. He affectionately calls her 'the boss', because she's been a part of their agency longer than he has, though she actually plays the role of muscle, while he's the brains and face of the operation.

Simmons is an operative of a secretive demon-hunting organization known as the Order of Ash and Smoke, who've been hunting demons and protecting humanity for centuries. Members of this organization are known as Ashen Blades.

Simmons became an Ashen Blade when his wife was consumed by a demon from the inside out as a result of her addiction to alcohol. On gaining control of his wife's body, the demon tried to kill Simmons, leaving him with a limp doctors couldn't fix, that forces him to walk with a cane.

As a result of his last-minute rescue by Ashen Blades that had used the power of a witch to finger his wife as a potential demon, Simmons volunteered to become part of the Order, because he wanted to know the real truth of what happened to his wife.

His limp initially precludes him from active combat duty and he was instead assigned to be Little Miss Secret's handler, a job that mostly consists of keeping an eye on her, because the Order knows she's a half-demon and is therefore wary of her, despite her lengthy list of demon kills, both on and off the record.

His day to day responsibilities mostly consist of doing things the girl has a hard time doing for herself, since she's functionally mute, including buying things she needs, such as an occasional pair of new shoes and ammunition for her guns. On one notable occasion, he helped her purchase a Japanese Wakizashi from a pawn shop, which they got very cheap, because the country was at war with Japan at the time. That sword is one of her favorite weapons.

As a result of how closely they work together and the emotional bond they form in the midst of her telling him her origin story through crayon drawings, Simmons and Little Miss Secret have a relationship somewhat akin to father and daughter. Simmons feels deeply protective of Little Miss Secret and she feels much the same for him, but for the early portions of the novel, she refuses to allow him to accompany her into combat, but not because of his injury, being more concerned by the fact that he's merely human.

As it turns out, she lost her last partner because he followed her into combat when he shouldn't have and she feels responsible for failing to protect him, so she's even more protective of Simmons, choosing to walk into a trap without him, to avoid risking his life. Being the good detective he is, Simmons soon realizes the truth and follows her, anyway.

In their first encounter with the villain of the story, Otto Vogerath, Simmons is nearly beaten to death by the demon, leaving him with multiple broken bones and an excess of bruises.

Seeing how badly injured he got, but nonetheless sensing the potential of Simmons, Mashu'ra, the kitten demon that hides in Little Miss Secret's hat, offers Simmons an unusual deal: if he lets the little imp partially possess his body, Simmons will have the strength, durability and healing power of a demon, but Simmons will be in great pain. In exchange, Mashu'ra will feed on his suffering and use the energy it gives him to empower Simmons to fight, incidentally getting the little demon some revenge on demon-kind for killing his Master, who happened to be Little Miss Secret's mother.

Simmons takes the deal and Mashu'ra tells him his true name, giving Simmons the power to call on the kitten demon's power whenever he likes. The little demon also gives him his first lessons in magic. As it turns out, Simmons is from a forgotten off-shoot of a family of witches, but because his power doesn't come out of its own accord, Mashu'ra teaches him the wizard's path to magic, which is all pain and hard work, for very little effect.

In his next encounter with Vogerath, Simmons turns the table and becomes exactly the bull in a china shop that Little Miss Secret needs by her side, finally making them equal partners.

Tags: ashen-blades, character-feature

Character Feature: Little Miss Secret

March 09, 2024 — Owen Tyme

(Left) An AI generated image of LMS at the age of 48 (1945), appearing 15 and a little tomboyish.

(Center) Ryan Johnson's illustration of LMS sitting on the edge of a rooftop for the book's cover, at the same age.

(Right) Another AI generated image, age 75 (1972), appearing 17 and a bit more mature, during a short trip to Japan.


The half-demon protagonist of She Hunts Demons has no known name, but instead a series of nicknames. Her friends call her The Boss, Little Miss Secret, Little Miss or LMS, while her enemies call her lots of unpleasant things, the least offensive and repeatable of which are half-demon brat or simply brat. She calls herself The Hunter.

At the age of three years old, her parents were murdered in front of her by a demon, so she grew up on the streets of New York City, with only her mother's familiar, Mashu'ra, to look after her.

She lives with a curse from the murderer that makes her functionally mute, by preventing her from saying anything other than, "It's a secret."

Due to the murders and the curse, she's devoted her life to exterminating demon-kind with extreme prejudice. As a result of the way a small child's mind can paper over harsh memories, she initially had no true understanding of why she hated demons so much, but the memory is brought back to her mind in the early chapters of the book, when she kills a child-eating demon, then when her private detective partner, Clayton Simmons, stumbles across the name of the killer on an investigation she had no idea was related, it all comes into sharp focus.

She suffers in silence for a time, but Simmons eventually suggests drawing what's on her mind, allowing her to tell him the story through crayon drawings. Together, they puzzle out its true meaning and she finally comes to understand the loss of her parents.

LMS is widely considered crazy by enemies and allies, alike, because she's incredibly driven and beyond stubborn. She never admits defeat and becomes incredibly dangerous when cornered. For example, when a chandelier is dropped on her, pinning her to the floor, she pulls the pin of a grenade and allows it to go off, nearly on top of herself, because if she's going to die, she may as well take some demons with her.

Aside from that, LMS is a deeply emotional individual, because emoting is one of the few ways she can communicate effectively.

She's mischievous, with a love for playing an occasional prank during idle times and loves watching the mayhem that ensues when people try to shake her hand (see below, regarding the protective spell surrounding her). Her mischievous streak becomes downright cruel when she faces demons and her pranks then become lethal or painful.

Due to the way her parents died, she has great love and compassion for humans, especially small children.

In many ways, she resembles a house cat: she moves with grace, can climb almost anything, can survive falls from extreme height, she's playful, but cruel to her prey (demons) and she even has a tail, which is normally hidden by her skirt. This is all because her mother's demon form was that of a feline.

As a half-demon, she inherited the full powers of a demon, giving her rapid healing, supernatural strength, the ability to conjure weapons to her hands from a pocket dimension inside her top hat and the fairly unique ability to teleport from shadow to shadow.

Like demons, she survives on raw life force, but unlike them, she can survive on the ambient energy of a city, without murdering humans. She's mostly incapable of digesting solid food and doesn't actually have to eat. When she does, she normally only ingests bread and water. When she goes out to eat with Simmons, she normally orders hot dogs and only eats the buns, giving the actual meat to Mashu'ra.

She has a particularly strong love of hot, buttered dinner rolls. Among all the things inside her hat is a secondary pocket dimension filled with countless fresh, warm dinner rolls, in which the flow of time has been suspended, keeping them perpetually fresh. She often gives these to victims of demon attacks, because dealing with harsh realities is often easier with a little comfort food.

Her demon powers give her Smoke, Shadow and Void magic. She also happens to be a powerful witch, giving her Fire magic, but she doesn't realize this until late in the first novel.

In addition, LMS is surrounded by a unique, sentient spell that protects her, which is what her demon-witch mother, Annmarie Nosset, transformed herself into when she died, as the means to avoid the eternal punishment that awaited her in Hell, for voluntarily choosing to become a demon. Annmarie has the ability to subtly manipulate probability to ensure LMS doesn't come to harm, causing unlikely accidents to those that would dare try. This also affects anyone that tries to touch the girl against her will. However, there are some significant caveats to how the spell works, which can't protect her from unintentional, indirect or blind attacks.

For example, in the case of the chandelier, the demon responsible had simply been waiting for the lights of the room to come on to cut the rope, without ever knowing the reasons for his orders. Another example is the case of LMS facing an angry witch. LMS tried to get rid of the girl with a warning shot, but she grazed the witch's ear, instead. The witch lost control and a whirlwind spun LMS in the air until she was violently ill.

Like Annmarie, the father of LMS is always near. When Jake Watson died, his spirit latched onto his old top hat, which LMS now wears. He dwells within the pocket dimension inside the hat as a bound ghost and his powers are integral to how it functions.

Little Miss Secret has one additional ally who's nearly always present: her mother's familiar, Mashu'ra, lives inside her hat, where he looks after her weapons for her and keeps a watchful eye on events outside, at least when he's not napping. Mashu'ra also keeps Jake company, telling him what's going on in the outside world.

In exchange for his service, LMS feeds Mashu'ra hot dogs.

Tags: ashen-blades, character-feature

Fresh Release: She Hunts Demons

February 01, 2024 — Owen Tyme

She Hunts Demons is the first volume of a new series titled Ashen Blades. It's heavy with action, magic, demons, witches, gunplay, conspiracies, a demon's plot to rule the world and an extra helping of wild and woolly weirdness, all in a Film-Noir inspired setting.

I enjoyed writing the dialog, which uses 1940's idioms. I also played around with many Film-Noir tropes, which is why I wanted a mostly black and white cover.

It was a challenging piece to write, but it was also immensely fun, because the protagonist is functionally mute, speaking largely though actions rather than words. She's also the most cocky character I've ever written, so it's probably a good thing she couldn't voice her absurdly stubborn level of self-confidence, which sometimes borders on the insane.

I apologize to those that were anticipating the next volume of The Wizard's Scion, but the third book of this new series, Demon for President! (which I'm in the middle of writing), takes place on the backdrop of the current presidential election, so I'm pressed for time and working to get this new series established so I can publish that piece in a timely fashion, probably in April.

The next book published should be Ashen Blades volume 2, She Goes to War.

You can rest assured: The Wizard's Scion will be published in its entirety, but for now it must wait on the back burner. Again, I'm sorry, but please take a look at She Hunts Demons. I doubt you'll be disappointed.


The half-demon girl who calls herself the Hunter never really considered why she wanted all demons dead, but when she’s presented with the one responsible for killing her parents, she loses all rationality, going on the warpath.

It started with a crying widow and a stack of letters, leading the Hunter’s private detective partner, Clayton Simmons, to investigate a series of financial crimes. These threads all lead to the mysterious Otto Vogerath, who’s rumored to be a mobster.

At the same time, the Hunter’s earliest memories begin coming into focus, giving her clarity about the death of her parents at the hands of the very same, because Vogerath isn’t just a mobster: he’s also a demon that claims to be the serpent from the Garden of Eden.

The duo and their allies are soon caught in a complex spider’s web of mystery, involving conspiracies, murders, atom bombs and the demon’s plot to tear a massive hole in reality, all of which revolves around the life of the Hunter. Worse still, the demon requires the Hunter’s cooperation for his plans to succeed and will do almost anything to get it, repeatedly proving to her that everyone she cares for is in danger, so long as she stands in the way of what he wants.

Will Simmons and the Hunter save the world or will the serpent succeed in opening a portal to Hell, so legions of demons can march forth to conquer the world? The answers lay within this book, but only for those brave enough to buy it!

Tags: ashen-blades, novel, writing, publishing