white31

MUSIC IN THE NIGHT           The sun was just touching the desert horizon, a great oblate ball of red, as the the traveller came in sight of the remains of the the town of Golconda.  To the East           a towering gray thunderhead flickered with internal lightning.  Rumbles rolling across the dry wastes encouraged him on.  Even the poor shelter of an abandoned           ghost town would be better than being out in the open tonight.  He revved his motorcycle’s engine up in order to reach the place before darkness fell. He would           need a little time to select a spot and better not to have to do that by a flashlight’s

The Crowd's Howl It was the third Thorsday night of the month in Werbane, and, as usual that meant the Adventurer's Club was holding it's monthly get-together in the upper room at the Kat Patch Inn.  One could say its "regular" monthly meeting, except for the fact that nothing was ever regular about the meeting or any of it's attendees.  Adventurers tend to be all over the lot in terms of backgrounds, habits, alignments, races, philosophies and goals and this bunch were no exception. The feast occupied the members for the first part of the evening, especially those down on their luck and a few, like Bony Llewellyn, whose magical and/or reli

REUNION The Mission had a lot of business that night. The economy was supposed to be getting better, but if so it sure hadn't penetrated very far into Indianapolis' downtown.  A lot of people were hungry, and with the night weather beginning to bite as Autumn came early this year, a lot of people were looking for shelter.  Years ago, when she'd started here it had mainly been the old street people, middle-aged burnouts and, tragically, young runaways as she had been. Now it was whole families, homeless because the money had been sucked away suddenly. Like a vampire sucks the blood out of the body JoAnne thought.  Ungrateful thinking, you owe

BLACK CANARY--WITH FANGS The Chesterfield was relatively quiet that night, in the way that a fistfight is "relatively restrained" ("hey, nobody pulled a knife or a gun ya know. Like I said, restrained.").  The Vampire Hunters were, as usual crowded into the corner booth with a jammer making sure no nearby bugs were broadcasting anything and a pitcher of beer for cover and moral support. Doc Peasley was talking. "I did the profile, like I was asked, and it's both comforting and disturbing" he began.  "No, please let me finish! Listen, don't all babble at me, OK?" "You say comforting and disturbing, you don't expect some reaction? What's com

Of Nervous Nellies and An Umbrella One day in 1972 or thereabouts I took in into my head to walk down to the corner for an ice cream cone.  It was a cloudy day, cool and with intermittent light showers, so I took an umbrella with me.  It was a long uncollapsible black umbrella with a wooden handle, thoroughly unremarkable in any way. As I walked down the little side street, I carried the umbrella variously, sometimes walking with it, a couple of times slinging it over my shoulder. It was a relatively short walk and no rain came down during it, so I never opened the umbrella. I bought my ice cream cone and was walking away from the Frosty F