Chesapeake road trailed east from High Valley through a slow canyon and up some switchbacks to the top of the rim. I knew the road from camping trips I’d taken with Jeff and some of the other guys when I’d been in boy scouts. The sun was just cresting the horizon as I drove over the rim. I could look down into High Valley from this vantage point and see the Mill, the meandering stream, and the town all laid out below me.

The first snow of winter was falling as the New Undying Army reached Hanged Man's Pass. Soon enough the area would be buried, making travel impossible. It would be a time of preparation for the new era of war.

We went into the living room and I told them everything. Mom was a Wytch in her own right, able to know the healing properties of any herb, tree, berry, vegetable, stalk — any growing thing. She healed the sick or wounded, provided relief to the infirm, and, well, grew, sold and distributed marijuana and psychedelics on the side. My father and she made a great team with Maggie Atkins sliding in with honey and James Atkins using the hammer.

He smiled and looked me in the eyes,
and in that moment I didn't like him any more.

He said, "It's pretty simple. There are links missing from the chain.
We don't have John Doe number one, and we don't have Anson Charpont.
All we have is you."

"And how is that a problem?" I asked, my mouth suddenly gone dry.

Such a Prude
By Sabrina G. Langton

***
Author's Note: The penultimate one of this series, I don't know what I'm thinking, I really don't know where my mind has been finding itself lately. I hope YOU like it and I know YOU, yes you, over there in the corner will understand... ha...

***

I remember the first time my nylon legs hit fresh air.

“Time to get up, Petra,” Ella said.

Instinctively I mumbled, “I don't wanna die!”

I heard my roommate sigh, then she pulled my soft, warm, safe blanket off of me. “You're not going to die. It's the weekend, time for homework and relaxing.”

Swingers

“Over to your right, miss, next in line. Take your luggage with you.”

I mentally shrugged my shoulders and followed the instructions. Parking the bike in the assigned spot, I waited while the bike was secured for the ferry trip.

A bleak landscape stretched below me. I’d appeared in a cave, next to some kind of rock formation. Green gases billowed around me, the stench of death and putrefaction made me gag.

A thundering earthquake shook the cave. Small pieces of rock tumbled from unseen areas, pelting me with fragments.

I ducked, covering my head. I saw something slither away with a whiplike tail and a mouth with far too many teeth. Where the hell was I?

I got off the bus swearing at myself in a village in the middle of nowhere where only a few poor sods could understand English. It was in December 1947 and the quicksilver would have shown minus 40 if it had been able to. It had been a very long journey and the worst part had been the last. 4 hours on a rickety bus that didn’t even pretend to be a coach! I had to remind myself why the hell I was there. Sure, the case interested me but the real reason was that Boston wasn’t big enough for both me and the men in black.

Eighteen-year-old Nicholas Hammerstein is at the cusp of finishing high school in his hometown of Los Alamos, NM. He has a seemingly ideal life and is blessed with loving parents, a cute baby sister, and great friends. Nicholas is a gifted student and martial artist who has dreams of leaving for college at the end of his senior year. But, living in a world of Emergent humans, he will soon find his life turned upside down as his life and the fate of a kingdom hang in the balance. His future and theirs will be determined by how he navigates the drastic changes in his body and the magical and superpowered Mergent population he joins.

Though the princess and I never quite became close friends, we reached a mutual understanding: both of us simply wanted to complete basic training with minimal complications. Neither of us had the energy to engage in any unnecessary drama or feuds that would only serve as distractions.

We made long slippery love…again, apparently. Hey, when life gives you a nubile beautiful young woman in a tub of hot water with all the right stuff in all the right places, you take advantage of it.

Afterward, we settled into April’s immense bed, wrapping ourselves in robes. She lit a one of her long black cigarettes, and smoked as we enjoyed the afterglow.

“Mother will be home soon.” April said. “But this is practically endorsed by her, so I doubt she kicks you out.” She handed me the cigarette, and I inhaled the tobacco into my lungs and immediately began coughing.