Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Wednesday Flash

The Writing on the Glass

“Why did we have to wait for a full moon to do this?”
Lash had his knives out, his face was lifted to the night sky, a predator on the hunt. “Stay behind me, Jace.” His deep voice was hard-edged. “I mean it.”
Considering they were in a graveyard with tombstones the size of coffee tables planted upright, Jace was having heavy duty unpleasant thoughts about the dead.
“Let’s just go inside the house, Lash.”
“We are,” Lash said.
On the ride over, Jace had bitten his thumbnail to a bloody nub. He ripped at the barely healed flesh. “The front door was open. You saw that, right?”
Lash spun around and caught Jace’s hand. “No blood scents. You want them all over us like maggots on dead meat? Clean up your blood.”
Having a vampire lover definitely had its down side. Wiping his thumb on his jeans, Jace searched the front wall of the house looming up over the ancient cemetery. Moonlight flooded the topmost window. A shadow moved behind the cracked filthy glass.
“Lash?”
“What?”
“Ghost,” Jace said. “Top floor. Attic. Oh my god. It’s waving.”
“Be polite,” Lash said. “Wave back.”
Lash led them around tombstones tilted at crazy angles. They’d all been dug up at the base.
“I don’t think the residents like the accommodations,” Jace said.
“How do you know?”
Jace took Lash’s broad shoulder and tried to spin him around. Lash turned, his dark brown eyes on his lover. “What?”
His shaking finger pointing at the tombstones, Jace said, “These were dug out from underneath. Who’s reanimating them?”
“Not our problem.” Lash leaned in and brushed his mouth over Jace’s trembling lips. “Just a few more minutes, then we’re inside. I promise.”
The kiss felt good, even kind of hot, here in the graveyard and everything, but Jace wasn’t about to admit it. That was too weird. “We’ll be inside with the ghost?” he said. “You really think that’s an improvement?”  
“You said he waved.” Lash was at the bottom of the sagging steps that led to the splintered porch. “Sounds friendly. Probably has the guest bedroom all made up for us.”
“You’re not even close to funny.”
Going slowly up the steps, Lash said, “Thought you wanted me for my good looks, not my sense of humor.”
Jace definitely wanted Lash for his good looks, all six foot four of him, muscle bound and hard as stone. But he could do without the freaking graveyard jaunts.
“Sooner I get you inside and in the bathroom, sooner we’re out of her house,” Lash said. “Don’t fall on my knives and you'll be fine.”
On the porch, a dark maw of a door hung from a hinge. Lash delivered a brutal kick that sent the door flying across the porch.
Once they were inside, the Ghost Talkers were all business.
They went into the bathroom. Lash stood guard, knives out. Jace turned on the hot water pipe. In this world, nothing happened, but in the world his light grey Seer eyes could see, scalding hot water rushed out and steam rose, fogging the mirror. He waited for the word to emerge.
One letter a time, the woman who’d been murdered in this house wrote the name of her killer.
“Got it?” Lash said over his shoulder.
Jace was sliding a sheet of paper into his back pocket.
“Get us out,” Jace said. “And you better believe breakfast’s on you.”
With a smile Jace could hear in his voice Lash said, “I was hoping you’d be on me.”
“You and me,” Jace said, “your double wide coffin. It’s a date.”

2 comments:

  1. ME!! I came over and read and commented...

    I like this flash stuff... very welll done babe... was that 1000?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, Rj! Nope. I try to keep my flashes between 500 to 600 - - bite size.

    ReplyDelete