The Travelling Circle

Dakshana woke from frenzied dreams of strange men with moonlight hair and eyes the colour of newly-broken dawn. Magic danced in her fingertips, and she rose from her bed of furs, straw doll clutched close, and slipped out of the den of sleeping children. She followed the tug of magic to the edge of the village where only the shamans and elders dared to venture, and she saw the shimmer of a travelling circle in a patch of dead grass. Inside the circle, she saw the glow of a thousand pair of ancient, hungry eyes.

She coudn't even scream.

Just a Shadow

Chadstone hovered on the edge of twilight, watching children, watching her play. The game was frenzied laughter, tackling, running. Though daylight faded, sunlight shone in her eyes. She spied him in the shadows and came close, smiling.

"Who are you?" she asked.

He said, "Just a shadow."

Sensation unlike the myriad dusky pleasures he'd known ricocheted through him when she hugged him and promised she'd love him forever. Then she backed away to return to play, and he took a foolish step in following - and vanished.

Shadows did not live in light.

Shadows, Bones

Chadstone was born into shadows, carved into life by a shard of bone against infernal glass; nine runes and a splash of blood to form a body animated. The Ancients slithered through their illusion-riddled world and played chess with mortal lives, sucking the marrow out of their souls. Chadstone hovered on the edges of the mortal realm, sharpening his magic and wit, and wondered if he could steal a soul. He watched a mortal play, a girl with black curls and golden eyes.

He wondered if it was better to steal a mortal heart.

Nine-piece Existence

Darkness likes to dissolve souls. Smother them. Whittle them down to nothingness. Leave them as less than dust. But this soul is too stubborn, strong, both halves too solid to ruin. So the darkness shatters it. Smashes it into shards and throws the pieces wide. Brown for earth. One blue for air. Another blue for fire. Black for dragons. Grey for water. Another blue for the void. Green for love. Gold for girl. Too many for the boy.

Then the shadows swallow the world, the heavens, the city of glass, and spit out the pieces. Nine pieces for a new world.

City of Glass

Raven waits in the city of glass, listening for the song of battle. She saw the blue guile in her lover's eyes and knows he will not return. Shadows hiss and roar in the distance; they will reach the city and swallow it whole. She bears her sword and will fight alongside her sisters, and she will die with a broken heart. The soldiers left, but the city is not defenseless until the shadows arrive. The pride of the elders angered the powers that slumbered in the deep, and overhead the stars wink out like snuffed candles. Justice has come.

Green With Love

Corbin is a soldier, honorable and brave, fast with a sword and faster with a kiss. He wears bloodstained armour and stands on the edge of a battlefield still with shadows. They writhe over the fallen; bodies crumble. When the shadows come for him, the last living, he will fight one final time. His eyes are blue with laughter, guile; brown with lust, black with sorrow, grey with anger, green with love. His eyes are all colours but her golden; her hair is midnight to his moonlight. She is everything he's not, and he doesn't want to say goodbye.

Chase in 100

Chase is green eyes turned blue, easy smiles covering wicked grins, killer piano-hands and fighter-lithe body concealed as a dancer. He is lonely jazz and intricate classical, pre-teen melodic and easy tenor. Tonight he’s a superstar, and tomorrow he’s a murderer. He can shoot the wings off a fly with one eye closed and kill a man with his bare hands. His coworkers call him Spaz and Dreamer and think he’s an easy musician. In his dreams he’s never forgotten he’s an orphan, but in his waking hours he’s Josh, and today he thinks it’ll never end.

Jade in 100

Jade is blue eyes and a halo of golden curls, wicked dancing hips and radio-friendly voice, thief-dexterous hands and a deceiver's smile. He is punk rock and heavy guitars at midnight, pop sensation and screaming fans at twilight. He is international superstar famous and underworld operative anonymous. Today he’ll smile and pose for the cameras, collect his money and sing his songs. Tonight he’ll disable the cameras, drill the locks, and escape with the loot. Tomorrow he’ll be in another place, another country, on site for another job. He’ll always be Jade, four lines tattooed on his wrist.

Asia in 100

Asia is golden eyes and dark curls, a thousand faces in a thousand lives. She is soulmate and soul-reaver, taking lives with a flick of her wrist, a pull of a trigger, a single command. She is a computer programmer unleashing viruses on the stock market; she's a sister, giving advice and hugs alongside guilt. She is dark chocolate kisses and snake-striking punches. In everything she does, she dances - on lines, on hearts, on lives. Tonight she commands, and her soldiers - teammates - obey. If everything goes right, none of them will have the tomorrow she couldn’t promise them.

DJ in 100

DJ is dagaz-blue eyes and frost-white hair, shadow-elusive and beautiful enough to hurt. He is Chadstone down a well, granting wishes and wishing he was carved out of anything but rock. He’s electric guitar riffs and charcoal-smudged fingertips, paint-blushed skin as he separates a man from his life with bare, long-fingered hands. He is Dragon of the Emeralds, kung-fu quick and astral-projection hidden, every color of the spectrum and every vision of nothingness. Some nights he wants to be Dylan with Celia in his arms, but tonight he works and ends lives.

Keith in 100

Keith has Houdini-quick hands and an even quicker smile, and his red hair is even redder in the flames he builds. The girls swoon for his accent. The boys swoon after he punches them. His kisses taste like Irish whiskey, and his laughter is a Celtic battle cry. He was a warrior for the Irish Glorious Cause and now he plays bass in an obscure American ska band. Today he will self-immolate, release himself to the gods of fire, send an entire building up in flames. Then Christian will put him back together, and he’ll be Keith again.

Christian in 100

Christian is quislai quixotic, blue-eyed sweet and knighted arrogance. He looks as good in armor as he does in Armani. He would rather play guitar in a coffee house than dance onstage for thousands of screaming girls, but he has a “job” and a “wife” and he doesn’t compromise a thing. He imagines his family on solstice nights and rides with the wind. Tonight, girls scream. More will scream when they find their parents dead, but he will be long gone, living it up on a tour bus like the rock star that he isn’t. He’s just a soldier.

Angel in 100

Angel is James Bond charm and Hannibal Lecter precision.  He flirts and chats his way through the crowd toward his target, dashing in his tuxedo.  He murmurs poetry in Sanskrit, a general whose battle lines have been long erased from the sand.  He is a student on a silent mountain, dancing ancient forms in bare-handed murder, and he is a mafia enforcer who is too good at his job.  Angel knows he could have Gabriel make this a clean, bloodless kill, but someone has to think this one is a murder, and tonight it will be.  Angel doesn't hesitate.

Gabriel in 100

Gabriel is a wolf-sharp smile and eyes in shattered slate.  He is voices on the wind and in the mind, ice-prickly walls and too-strong telepathy.  He is acoustic guitar and call-and-answer songs echoing down rows of plantation cotton.  He is the rifle report of a Union soldier, the tattered grey of a Confederate messenger.  When he lounges on the sofa, barefoot in jeans and a t-shirt, listening to jazz, his victim is another continent away.  Gabriel can close his eyes and remember sterile institution walls, and with a single thought, the target is dead.

Tobias in 100

Tobias is bowling shirts and sleek dark hair, coal-black eyes and gentle smiles.  He is piano melodies and violin strains on the wind, wolf howls on a full moon night.  He hovers in shadows, a human boy, an ancient monster, a broken-hearted soldier all in one.  When the victim is in range, he will leap, shimmer in quicksilver formlessness, and then become whatever he has to be to get the job done.  Some days Tobias is a child, other days he is Lucy, Russian seductress and redheaded bombshell.  Tonight he is just Tobias and ready to kill.