ValentineDavis21
-
Posts
824 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Forums
Stories
- Stories
- Story Series
- Story Worlds
- Story Collections
- Story Chapters
- Chapter Comments
- Story Reviews
- Story Comments
- Stories Edited
- Stories Beta'd
Blogs
Store
Help Center
Writing
Gallery
Events
Everything posted by ValentineDavis21
-
-
Even two doors down and with two doors shut between them, Brad could hear the anger and authority Jaffe Curry's voice. He carried the authority with him everywhere he went, wielding it like a flaming sword. He's probably threatening to sue someone, Brad thought. Or maybe he was arguing with his wife, Tiffany. Excuse me, soon to be ex-wife. You couldn’t pick up a goddam newspaper without seeing something about Jaffe and his multimillion-dollar divorce. What was the point in looking at a story whe
-
“I can’t imagine what you must be thinking,” Vanus said when Bazzelthorpe and he were in the truck. The Astorathian didn’t answer for a long time and Vanus didn’t think he ever would. Vanus wished he could say he was surprised. Few had ever truly withstood the truth of what it meant to be a death magician and all that it entailed. The romanticized depictions on TV and the reality could not be more different. Bazzelthorpe waited until they’d stopped behind a red light to answer. “You lo
-
Vanus didn’t know why he was being such a chicken all the sudden. He’d been to the morgue a thousand times, the hospital even more than that. He couldn’t think of two places he loathed to go more, but it went with the job. Everyone had to do things they didn’t want to do, didn’t they? Perhaps it was the comment the Astorathian had made about his caseload…or rather the lack of one. He reminded himself that Bazzelthorpe hadn’t meant it as an insult (had he?). It had merely been a remark. A re
-
"Yes," Vanus said into the phone, letting the person on the other line hear the first stab of impatience in his voice. "I realize the staff at the morgue is overwhelmed…I certainly don't want to add to your list of problems. But I did fax over a priority flag from the Theocracy yesterday morning, signed by my boss along with details of the victim. Now how hard can it be to find a corpse…excuse me, the remains of a corpse…that's been fried to a crisp?" He paused long enough to let the s
-
Tonight when Leonidas called for him, Brad found the acolyte and his nepharites waiting for him in the upstairs study; this time he’d brought two with him instead of one. Their towering presence made Leonidas seem small and shriveled, a child cursed to a neverending nightmare. Assuming that child didn’t already naturally come from the burning pit of some hell dimension as it was, Brad thought darkly. Leonidas stooped forward to get a closer look at Brad's mural; the way each segment ca
-
Vanus emerged from the bathroom in a thick fog of steam, dressed in fresh clothes, his hair brushed back from his brow. He scowled in disappointment. The Astorathian hadn’t left. The death magician had sat against the door of the shower stall until the heat seeped out of the water in hopes that Bazzelthorpe would pick up the hint and leave. With the way his luck had been going lately, Vanus told himself he better get used to things not going the way he wanted. The Astorathian’s face was…re
- 3 comments
-
- 11
-
-
“Arriving at Grant Avenue and Fifth Street,” said the chirpy automated voice on the tram. “In the name of the Mother, have a nice day.” Sometimes it surprised Vanus that he didn't hear it in his sleep. The train slowed to a graceful stop. The door slid open with a mechanical whooshing sound. Van’s long fingers tapped anxiously against the side of his briefcase. He felt his brain send the impulse down his spine to his legs: Get moving. This is your stop. His body apparently had its own plan
- 3 comments
-
- 10
-
-
-
“Disappointment?” Judging from the way his eyes widened, this was not the answer the death magician had been expecting. His brow furrowed in confusion, the pale skin dimpling into a crack. Even in the wake of his outburst, the promise of devastation it would cause, Bazzelthorpe was fascinated by how the death magician’s face worked. It constantly shifted, each movement exaggerated and unrestrained. Bazzelthorpe was beginning to become aware of a sadistic pleasure that took joy in playing wi
- 2 comments
-
- 12
-
-
-
Thank you. I'll do my best to keep it up.
-
The architecture of the Theocracy was supposed to showcase the awe-inspiring feats of the twenty-first century. Prism-shaped and three dimensional, a monolith made of mined steel from the ruins of Elysia. This is the result of what we can achieve when you wield magic and technology together. Order in the midst of chaos. To Vanus it just meant he had to climb a lot of steps. Steps and steps and more steps. Most days he didn’t mind. It helped him stay fit. In this business a healthy diet was
- 2 comments
-
- 10
-
-
Brad snapped awake, smelling smoke. Smelling fire. His first thought was that he had to get Heidi up and they had to get Little Annie and get out of the house. But when he lifted his head and looked around, the house was completely dark. He didn’t smell smoke. The fire alarm in the hallway wasn’t going off. Everything was silent. His family was safe. Before he could slip back into sleep, a thought tugged at the back of his mind: Something was supposed to happen last night. Something importa
-
Four days ago... When he was a boy, Brad loved to draw. It was the first thing he could remember loving to do. He remembered the moment he realized you could make anything so long as you had the color in your hand. With yellow you could make the sun, with blue the ocean. He’d been four or five then, crouching on the floor in the bedroom while his parents screamed hateful things at each other in the living room. This same thought came back to haunt him as an adult with a slight u
- 1 comment
-
- 11
-
-
-
The man who was responsible for the capture of the Astorathian Butcher was nothing like the man who had appeared on the front pages of The Roc City Gazette. He thought of those long, sleepless nights when every Astorathian mother in the Slums had clutched onto their children with fear. Not just fear for their lives but for the fear that there was no justice to be had for their suffering. We're not a priority. The Theocracy doesn’t care. They don’t consider us human. All except one agen
- 4 comments
-
- 12
-
-
The man who’d captured the Butcher of Innocence and appeared on the Roc City Tonight Show scarcely resembled his real life counterpart. Baraq recalled those long nights when every mother in the slums of the city had clutched their children to their breasts in fear for their lives; between this and the threat of the plague it seemed that no one was safe from the wrath of death. Only one voice served as a guide during those long dreadful nights when Baraq was on the brink of madness, wishing his e
- 3 comments
-
- 12
-
-
-
The Seraphim and the black-blood sat across from each other in a plain white walled room. They were alone. If anyone were to have been in the room with them, they would have seen that the two individuals did not want to be alone in the room together, but we're doing so as their occupation dictated. Charoum forced himself to look into companion's eyes. Looking into them was like looking into pools of infinite black. Worse yet was the network of varicose veins that tracked through the woman's
- 3 comments
-
- 15
-
-
-
-
Brad Anderson woke up early each morning to go on his morning jog. This was a precious moment he’d discovered, cliche as it might seem; that precious all too brief window of time when the rising sun turned the sky into liquid and the world was his for the taking. Heidi and Little Annie were still asleep when he rose out of bed. Little Annie clutched her Dora the Explorer doll to her chest, her thumb tucked safely in her mouth. He smiled privately to himself before tiptoeing down the stairs
- 3 comments
-
- 14
-
-
-
-
Christianity is dead. The old gods and magics of the Void have returned to the twenty-first century. For this the Theocracy was created, a world-spanning organization put into place to keep the forces of the Void from bleeding into our world. After a lengthy hiatus following his last case, death magician and agent Vanus Kaufman is teamed with Astorathian agent Bazzelthorpe to investigate a viscous occult murder that will lead them into the dark depths of Inferno, a hell-like dimension. If they are to survive they will have to learn to trust each other.
-
Episode 7, Part 1: Thomas
ValentineDavis21 posted new chapter in Resentment: A Psychological Thriller
The phone was ringing off the hook again and it was driving me nuts. Ring-ring-ring. I wanted to smash the fucking thing to pieces. I got up from the desk and stormed across the room, kicking aside discarded clothes. I ripped the phone off the cradle, gripping the handle so hard it hurt. “What?” I snapped. “Thomas, it’s Agamemnon,” said the voice of the last person I wanted to hear from. “Do you need something?” I couldn’t keep the tremor of anger out of my voice. It had been bui -
Thomas I opened my eyes, rolled over, and found the bed empty. Gone. Just to prove to myself it wasn't a dream, I pressed my hand to the mattress. The spot still felt warm from his dream. No, I reassured myself, not a dream. He hadn't left a note saying goodbye. Why would he? He was probably at home with his beautiful wife, or building his empire. Despite my attempt to shut out these thoughts, I found myself pressing the pillow where he'd laid his head, and breathed in deep
-
Having come from a large city, I had no idea how dark the world could get. It was as if the night had swallowed everything, save for the trees lining both sides of the road, and the asphalt unspooling before the car, made visible by the ghostly glow of the headlights. The sense of isolation, of being removed from civilization, was overwhelming, pressing in from all sides like the darkness itself. Agamemnon was quiet. Every now and then I would look away from the window long enough
-
Thomas Two shots of whiskey and fifteen or so stitches later, I was right as rain. Or if not right, I wasn’t shaking so hard it felt like my bones would pop out of their skin. Adermoor Cove doesn’t have a hospital. Not even a clinic. What it has is a doctor who makes at-home visits named Alfred Kohl, who shows up with a briefcase dressed in a flannel shirt and jeans. He assured me as he examined the gash from where I’d bashed my head in the car, that he was perfectly qualified.
-
Thomas With a curse I threw the tie onto the bed and studied myself in the mirror. For the past hour I’d been trying to knot the tie in place, but my efforts proved useless. Oh well…I don’t need it. I turned to the suitcase laying on the bed and pulled out a light blue button up. With the black jacket I could still pull the outfit off. I just hoped what I was wearing was feasible enough for tonight’s dinner with Agamemnon and his famous wife, Roxanne Lockhart. A glance at
-
Thomas For the service, I dressed in my best suit, then drove up the hill to the church. From the looks of it, all the villagers on the island had shown up for the service. Family indeed, I thought as I climbed out of the Mustang; salty winds blew my bangs back, making the summer heat more bearable. Inside the church all the pews were full except for the one in the very back. I again reminded myself I was a stranger among these people. I had not known the men who’d die. I was me
-
For the entire night, Bazzelthorpe wandered the manor, restless. The silence made his skin crawl. Only moments ago it seemed Kaufman Manor was crawling with life and wealth, but now there was only a mournful hush. In his absence the Kaufman Dynasty had suffered greatly, and was now on its last leg. He tried to distract himself from his shame and the anger it felt growing inside him. Daemons didn’t require sleep the way mortals did, so this meant trying to find other ways to pass the time.
- 7 comments
-
- 31
-
-
-
