Out In The Field (a writing tidbit in the Purga verse)

Sometimes images pop up on my tumblr and then words happen. This is one of those times. Consider this a random side-mission in Lilly's life, well after Book 2. Maybe part of a later novel in the series if I can see it working in. 

The whole scene felt so fucking cheesy, it looked unreal. 

“This is like something out of a bad horror movie,” I whispered, because talking out loud seemed wrong somehow, tromping through a corn-field, with darkening clouds over head. The winds whipped my braid across my back, turned the corn stalks around at odd angles. It was like the Signs meets Twister, but I did not believe in aliens, and so scenes of Children of the Corn came to mind. Which was so not even close to the actual horror movie that was my life. 

Zell snorted, but he tightened his grip around his gun too, the Bul Commander looking huge in his thin hands. In some cases I would say it was too much gun for the job, but we were looking for a body that Rhodell had said he smelled, and still no idea what had killed it. Only that Rhodell could not step foot on land so far from Mikail’s purview. So here we were, Zell and I, the team of the newly minted offices of Purga Private Eye, tromping around a corn field with guns we did not have carry-permits for, seeing if anything jumped out and tried to eat us. 

The wind howled, actually fucking howled, and my heart slammed into my chest at the sound. Get a grip Lilly I chastised, there are no goddamn werewolves this far south, dumbass. 

“Jumpy, jumpy,” Zell chuckled, and I laughed when a stray cornstalk smacked him in the face.

“Yeah, well, when something tries to eat us, I’ll be the one to kill it.”

“Or run from it.”

“That too.”

“You can’t outrun a zombie. Or a shifter. Fuck, you can’t outrun any of it.”

“Neither can you.”

“I don’t have to out run the monsters,” Zell grinned, “I just have to outrun you.”

“Yeah, and then I’d haunt your ass for all time.”

He didn’t say anything to that. I had stupidly referenced the Thing We Do Not Discuss. Monsters we joke about, ghosts, on the other hand, were no laughing matter. Not when we knew them so personally. 

And then the fucking cornstalks rustled, fucking rustled, and it was so not the wind. My Beretta was two-handed in the direction of the noise without needing to think about. In the past few years aiming my best fire power towards the tiniest noise was the only thing that had kept me alive this long. 

“Show yourself!” I shouted, all pretense of stealth gone.

“Slowly,” Zell added. 

It didn’t go slowly. It fucking somersaulted out of the growth and onto the clearing of the path, landing easily on filthy boots with a grin. It was Finn, no last name, probably not his real first name either. Bounty hunter for hire. 

“You’re pretty far from home, Lilly.”

“Hi to you too,” I drawled, lowering my Beretta, but not putting it away. I hadn’t since we got here. This place gave me the fucking creeps, which usually meant Very Bad Things had taken place here. 

Finn opened his mouth to say something in that southern-boy-charm of his, when a fucking whole section of the crown growth snapped in one big go. 

He stopped being charming then, and took off towards the sound, shotgun at the ready. Zell and I shared a look before we zoomed after him. The skies were getting ever darker over head, and it had nothing to do with the time of day. 

I wondered if we could find the thing and the body before the tornadoes came. 

The way my luck was going, I didn’t count on it. 

Wordy Weekends: A Sparring Match

“You’re getting slow Purga.”

Zell had me pinned to the mat, arm digging into my throat, wearing a black wife beater, black gym shorts, black Nikes, and his best victory smirk. I was out of breath, but not out of ideas. I fell back on my usual plan of attack, play dead. I panted a little harder for added affect, and when his grip eased up, I slammed the heel of my hand into the side of his head. He let out a satisfying gasp of pain, and I scrambled to my feet. I should have taken him out with a hit below the ribs, but I didn’t want it to end that quick. I wanted a fight, and now, black hair falling out of his hair tie to frame a pissed off face, he was going to give me one.

 I stood at a half crouch, arms up, staying loose and ready.

“And you’re getting sloppy, Ketsian.”

I dodged his first punch, and got a blow to his side before he swept my legs out from under me. Zell was trained far beyond any of us, a second degree black belt in kicking your ass and being really damn happy about. I jumped to my feet just in time to miss a blow to the head, spun him around by an arm, and kicked him in the back right in the sweet spot, the one that knocks the air right out of your body. It’s a move I’m not sure would work on vamps, with the whole not breathing thing, but I got a sick satisfaction from the oof that followed as Zellious Ketsian gasped for breath.

 “Come on, is that all you got?” I laughed.

 It wasn’t.

 He came at me hard and fast, trading blow for blow. We weren’t sparring anymore, this was an all-out brawl. I blocked his fury of blows with forearms and elbows, and the sting had me smiling like a lunatic. He got a good one below my left shoulder, but I was right handed, so that didn’t stop me from using the opening to undercut him below the ribs. I’d avoid hitting him in the face if I could, it was a very pretty face. The ladies of the Bombay would be very upset.

 As I ducked a blow aimed for my jaw, I began to rethink that. But he wasn’t trying to punch me. He was trying to pin me down. And like all things in life Zell worked for, he got it. He had me pinned back to the mat in less than a minute, and again, we were both out of breath. But he wasn’t smiling now.

 “I am not your enemy Lillith, and I am not going to hurt you.”

 I frowned at that, but I understood, and apologized. I had let my anger get the best of me, and in my want to simply hit something, to feel something, I had nearly hurt my partner. And in that moment I knew why Zellious Ketsian was a true friend. Shaun would have kept fighting. Alex would have gotten his ass kicked. Zell pinned me down and let me breathe it out. He didn’t hug me. He didn’t yell at me. He just sat there and pinned me down until I could control my demons again.

 Zell was an asshole. But he was also brilliant, and when he found someone he deemed worthy of his company, he did right by them. And so he would always do right by me. I needed to try harder to do the same.

 “Apology accepted,” he said, and offered a hand to help me up. It was a gesture I normally ignored. I didn’t like taking help from anyone.

 I took it.

 I vowed to do so more often.