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Blood Maiden
Blood Maiden
Blood Maiden
Ebook342 pages5 hours

Blood Maiden

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

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In the City, gods from all mythologies mashup with the every day. Monster infested fog sometimes sweeps through the lunch hour. Occasionally traffic backs up because the Blood river overflows. Bicyclists can shortcut through the Sumerian underworld to City park as long as they don’t mind a few desiccated zombies gumming them. That’s life in the City.

Blood Maiden, a Mayan death goddess, is starting her senior year at Himinbjorg High, where her skin, hair, even the shape of her nose mark her as an outsider among the teenage Norse gods. While at home in the Mayan Underworld, anyone who is invited as a guest must face a series of trials. The winners will gain a boon from the Death Lords. Since the heroes never listen to Blood Maiden’s advice, they end up trapped in the underworld. Meanwhile, Blood Maiden's parents think that she'd be a great death goddess if she just had a little more self confidence.

Her friends have their own problems. Blood Maiden's friend, P.D., swallows a pine needle and gives birth to Raven, who keeps trying to steal the sun, moon, and stars stored in the hope chest in the living room. The twins, Isis and Nepthys, can't get any respect. Coatlique is impenetrable and isn't that fun to bring up on a date. While Princess Danae, Danny, has been lojacked by her father because of the "curse" that she's under.

If Blood Maiden can just figure out how to deal with Zeus perving on Danny, how to ask Danny to the winter dance, all the tangled prophecies everyone is under, and her parent's expectations, just maybe she'll figure out what she's supposed to do with her life without killing anyone.

Or they could all decide to be heroes.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateAug 26, 2012
ISBN9781476416038
Blood Maiden
Author

Crystal Carroll

Crystal Carroll has been writing for as long as she can remember.Crystal has had a long fascination with mythology and folklore. Starting in fourth grade, when she read every book her local library had on Greek mythology, she has long been fascinated with the rhythm and beauty of religious traditions, mythology and folklore. During her years at the University of California at Santa Cruz, she dug deep into the field of literature with an emphasis on medieval literature with all it’s strange and quirky stories.Crystal balances writing privacy and security documentation during her day job and writing fiction during her off hours. Crystal’s fiction writing focuses on lyrical prose from the point of view of specific characters with an aim of letting the reader know what the world feels like for those characters.

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Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher/author through the LibraryThing.com Members Giveaway program. I was asked to post an honest review (though not necessarily a favourable one). The opinions expressed are strictly my own.Being a mythology junkie, I could not let this pass me by. it didn't disappoint. The pace is good and the characters are funny and deep where they need to be.With a full complement of sumerian zombies, assassin fogs, monsters, gods and teenage insecurities and problems and a captivating five (plus one) girl band, it definitely captures the attention and amuses, while dealing with the issues of growing up, finding one's place and teenage pregnancies (a lot).The only defects I could find in this were a certain sketchiness in places and that some plot points were not exploited to the bitter end as they deserved.A certain knowledge of various mythologies is recommended if you want to get the most from this book, but the ride is fun even if you don't know Osiris from Odin.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    After reading this book, I had a hard time thinking about what to write in the review. For me "Blood Maiden" was an up and down going book, starting off very good, then losing me for some time just to grab me again close to the ending, which made me hope for an amazing finish, just to let me be disappointed again. The story is about Blood Maiden, a girl who is a death goddess in training. She deals with the same problems all teenagers her age have, trouble with parents, first love, disappointment,..... She is wondering if he path her parents want her to go is really the right one for her. As stated before, the story starts of nicely, introducing Blood Maiden, her life, surroundings and friends. We see her struggle to find her place in a world that wants her to be something she doesn't want to be. But then comes the part that totally lost me, cause for me it doesn't make sense. Suddenly three of the girls end up pregnant (one of them being the main character). While at least one of these pregnancies has some kind of meaning, the others seem to be totally meaningless to me. There are also some other events that just feel as if they are crammed without any purpose. When Blood Maiden finally starts living the life she wants to live, acting against her parents will, the book takes a sudden turn to the better. That leads to another gripping part, which kind of reconciled me with the book. Unfortunately, the ending frustrated me again, cause there seems to be no real solution for some problems and no real reason for some things that happened before. If you don't care that much about reasoning in a book and just want to enjoy some kind of gripping adventure about teenage girls, "Blood Maiden" will be the right choice for you. But if you like your books be based on events that make sense, then maybe better stay away from this. As much as I loved some of the characters and things happening in this book, this book still left me more disappointed than I thought.

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Blood Maiden - Crystal Carroll

Blood Maiden

By Crystal Carroll

Copyright © 2012 Crystal Carroll

Smashwords edition: 9781476416038

All rights reserved.

Discover other books by Crystal Carroll at crystal-carroll.com

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Introduction

Mythological logic goes something like this: A woman opens her cupboard to get a cup. The cup says, Did you hear? Last night the knife ran away with the spoon.

If the story were to happen in the real world, the woman would scream, Yikes! A talking cup! In mythological logic, the woman says, Really? I didn't even know they were dating.

That's what I love about mythology and folklore. It's not that just that odd things happen, but that no one questions that odd things happen. It's a normal part of life. Sometimes cups talk. Sometimes rivers are made of blood. Sometimes giant scorpions guard the gates to the underworld.

That's the logic that is behind The City, which is not so much a location as a place of the imagination. Blood Maiden’s adventures in the City aren't so much about regular people turning a corner and finding themselves (much to their consternation and looking for answers as to how such a thing might happen) in the City. It's a place where everyone has always been.

The City is every city and no particular city. It is sprawling like Rio de Janeiro and it is as compressed as Hong Kong. It's divided by real rivers like the Nile and imagined rivers like the River of Blood.

All mythologies and all folklore live there because it a space of imagination and because urban landscapes (even imagined ones) are full of mixes of peoples and ideas. Ordinary people live there for the same reason the fairly ordinary woman in the story above opened the cupboard. It's her kitchen. She wanted a cup.

Which is a long way of saying, Blood Maiden is a magical realism ride down the stream of consciousness highway, which is odd because you'd think a stream of consciousness would at least be a river.

If you like stories where cups gossip and shadows become water and women become dragons and dragons have tea, then great. Read on and I hope you enjoy.

Chapter 1

A month before Blood Maiden started her senior year at Himinbjorg High, her best friend gave birth to a raven. Well, technically, that was when the egg hatched. P.D.'d actually given birth, or nested, or whatever you called it, a month earlier.

Blood Maiden got the call while she was doing her chores in the guest houses of the Xibabla.

The Dixieland ring tone echoed off the stone walls sending the razor bats into a demented swirl before they hid in one of the cabinets. Normally, she'd have turned her cell off when she was in the guest houses, because the razor bats could seriously not deal, but P.D.'d said the egg could crack any moment. Blood Maiden hadn't wanted to miss the call.

Last year hadn't been good for P.D. First her parents black-holed into divorce after her mother finally found her sealskin coat. P.D.'d gained about fifty pounds, although that might have been a half-selkie thing. Either way, life was like jungle orchids gone arctic for teenagers like them in a school full of athletic blond blue-eyed Vikings. Then to top it all off, P.D.'d gotten pregnant after swallowing a pine needle.

Their friend, Isis, said the City was like that, and her sister, Nepthys, went on about the general toilet flush of life, but Blood Maiden wasn't convinced. There had to be something better.

Her cell rang again, and the razor bats practically tried to merge with the ceiling. Blood Maiden bolted out the door into the front alley. Hey.

Hey, said P.D. Her hey sounded desperate.

What? Is it time? Blood Maiden looked up at the sloping stone above her, but the ceiling's shifting murals didn't really show her anything other than the glories of Lord One-Death and Lord Seven-Death, long may they slash, disembowel, and slay.

Maybe. It's my parents. P.D. lowered her voice and Blood Maiden could hear the sound of a faucet being turned on in the background. They're both here. P.D. sighed in a long low whistle with a little depressed hiccup hitch at the end.

I'll be right over. Blood Maiden pocketed her phone.

Then she remembered that she really couldn't be right over. Lord One-Death and Lord Seven-Death had invited guests to play Pitz in the central ball court of the Xibabla. Guests that could arrive at any time.

She briefly hoped that the guests wouldn't show. Maybe they'd buy a clue from getting an invitation from people named Lord One-Death and Lord Seven-Death and then having to cross a river of scorpions, a river of pus, and a river of blood, and stay home.

Not that anyone ever did. The guests probably thought the names were just a funny coincidence. After all, Death was one of the twenty day names in the rolling calendar cycle, and it was pretty common for people to be named for the day they were born on. The Lords just happened to have been born on two of the Death days. Course, Lord One-Death and Lord Seven-Death took living up to their names really really seriously. It got so it was hard to remember that the words referred to the calendar at all. Well, except on their birthdays, when there were black and orange happy death day balloons everywhere, which inevitably got stuck in the carvings and at least a couple of the jaguars had to have their stomachs pumped.

For whatever reason, when Lord One-Death and Lord Seven-Death sent the giant owls with an invitation to play a game of Pitz, everyone always came.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw one of the wispy servitor-dead slowly drift down the hallway. She waved him over. I'm sorry to ask you this, but it would be really great if you would help me and clean out the litter boxes in Jaguar house and . . .

Before she got any further, the servitor-dead held up the pale memory of his mangled right arm and gave her a mute pleading look, which meant he'd probably been mauled to death in Jaguar House.

She could have made him do it. Her father was Master Blood Gatherer. She knew the words to command all the servitor-dead. She could have gotten a fresh one from one of the clay death jars. Not all the servitor-dead had died in one of the houses. Some of them died for having trash on their patios or staying out after curfew. But digging up a spirit not suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder would have taken a long count, and she really needed to get moving.

She waved the servitor-dead on his way and ran down the alley towards Jaguar House. She could skip Bat House—she'd almost been done there—but she really needed to clean out the jaguars' litter boxes.

As she opened the gold-embossed door to Jaguar House, a wave of musky stench rolled out. Dark Paw made his traditional escape attempt. Blood Maiden swatted him on the nose. Cut it out. I don't have time. Dark Paw whined and sulked on a stone couch.

As usual inside Jaguar house, it was muzzle to rump jaguars. Missy Twelve Toes batted a pink ball at Blood Maiden.

Blood Maiden said, Sorry, I don't have time to play today. The egg's cracking. She shoved her way through the jaguars—Sorry. Sorry. Excuse me. Sorry—until she reached the litter boxes at the back.

She quickly scooped the jaguar shit out and dumped it into two of the silver pails. Then she shoved her way back out.

She ran down the alley past a colorful mural of Father gathering brilliant pools of sinners' blood and opened the door to Fire House. She flung the contents of the bucket inside and winced as she heard litter box sand scatter across the stone floor. By morning, there'd be melted glass spatter all over, which was going to be beyond annoying to clean up. No time to think about that now. The murals around her frowned the Xibabla's disapproval, but really, nothing much she could do about it now.

She used her cell for a quick look at 511-Fog-Chek. It was sunny across most of the City with dense fog in the North Portal. Normal summer conditions basically. If she was going through the fog, she'd need some blades. Well, not according to her parents. According to them, she just needed to apply herself, but she wouldn't and couldn't, and whatever.

Inside Blade House, the blades stopped their slide across the floors and walls and ceiling. They turned as if one creature and rushed at her in a sparkling obsidian wave, crowding around her legs and jumping against her knees. Tiny red love cuts. She said, Who wants to go for a ride? But of course everyone did, so she gathered up two of her favorites, Blue Shadow and Hoppy, plus Chip on the End, because he hadn't gotten to go in a while. She put them in the old battered Speed Racer lunch box that she kept on a shelf in Blade House, just in case. She said, Maybe next time, to the rest of the blades, who went back to pacing the walls. Blade House was one of the later guest houses and they hardly ever got visitors.

The blades rattled around inside the lunch box, excited about their trip. Shh . . . if they hear you in there, they won't let me take you. They got really quiet after that.

She really wasn't supposed to take the blades out. They were for eviscerating guests and not for playing with. They, like everything else in the Xibabla, belonged to Lord One-Death and Lord Seven-Death. They, like everything else in the Xibabla, longed to go outside. She was careful not to let anyone see her take them.

She practically flew through the front entryway to her bicycle, which was chained up to one of the mannequins seated by the gate. Outside, blazing sunlight faded the colors of the quiet neighborhood.

Master Trash and Master Stab sat in their usual spots as they fried battered shrimp on the heated stone bench, which was for guests, so clearly they weren't worried about anyone showing up anytime soon.

Master Trash called out, Hey, Blood Maiden, want a shrimp?

Can't. P.D.'s baby is hatching. She wrapped the long coil of her bicycle chain around the seat post. Then she carefully put the lunch box in the blue plastic basket that she'd attached when she'd assembled her bicycle. The blades inside the box didn't make a sound. Good blades.

She waved at Master Trash and Master Stab, who waved back, their mouths full of battered shrimp. The curlicue stone carvings around the great door waved at her, like hanging vines in a breeze. She yelled, Bye.

As always, when she got outside, the sunshine hurt her eyes. But she got used to it pretty soon. Plus, she loved the way her muscles stretched as she started her ride. She'd thought about motorizing her bicycle, but then she wouldn't feel the earth give way to her feet. This was one case where faster wasn't better.

Except for the part where she was leaving forty minutes after she said she would.

She sped down the smooth asphalt through the painfully clean stuccoed buildings that surrounded the Xibabla. Even the red tile roofs gleamed without a trace of bird nests or spider webs. There were no birds in this neighborhood. Not even pigeons.

There were only silent people on their way to and from their approved tasks. Everyone walked on the sidewalk or crossed at the crosswalks. No one raced through yellow lights.

She didn't see any spiraling graffiti until she reached the edge of the Xibabla Neighborhood Watch territory at the Five Death Bridge over the Pus River. In the marsh at the river's edge, shirtless boys stood in the foul reeds next to their grazing elephants and stared at her silently.

They recognized the little red flag snapping on the pole attached to the back of her bicycle. The elephants didn't look up from their grazing. Her bicycle wasn't shiny enough to catch their attention. She waved. The boys with their elephants didn't wave back.

They wouldn't be here by the time she returned. The Lords wouldn't let them stay, and anyway, they had to keep moving to find new grass. At least this neighborhood didn't have any of the belching busses and zipping cars that irritated the elephants. They were only half trained by their teenage minders. There'd been a thing last year where an elephant decapitated his boy. Her classes had buzzed about it for weeks even though none of the boys went to any school.

She lost sight of them as she rode over the bridge.

The neighborhood on the other side was crowded with stained cement apartment blocks blinkered with black metal grills over tired windows. Diseased pigeons could hardly stir the energy to duck out of her way as she whirred by.

Street corners were peopled by dull-eyed men, amid the remnants of shattered bottles and crushed bone left when someone hadn't been quick enough when the fog alert made its call. There was a reason no one wanted to live this side of the Xibabla.

She felt the dead eyes of the men crawling over her skin and jewelry as she rode. She told herself that she shouldn't feel out of place. It wasn't like at school. She hadn't even known she was short until she started at Himinbjorg in freshman year. There her skin, and hair, even the shape of her nose marked her as some sort alien from another City borough. May as well be another planet. She should have fit in here. Pedaling down streets where everyone looked just like her. Except for their eyes, those were different.

Even the servitor-dead had more hope.

She didn't unlatch her lunchbox, though. The little red flag flapped and cracked in the breeze of her passage. The faded markings on her bicycle were a more subtle sort of warning.

She sped through the neighborhood. She pedaled past the bomb-shelter-deep Metro stop. She whirred past the empty convenience stores. No convenience here. She went down the slope past the fenced-in gas station. She kept going.

Until she came to the cement channel down which the mighty Blood River flowed. Today it was just a trickle. Although you could never tell when a god would kill a giant upstream and the blood would churn down the river in a bubbling froth wave.

Father could make the Blood River dance. All it did for her was splash stickily against her legs as she rode across the thin stream to the bicycle path on the far side. This was exactly what it should do.

She rode toward the ridge that marked the entrance to North Portal along the coast. She could see wispy claw fingers of fog reach over the top of the cliff and dissipate in the bright sunshine. A few wisps put out furtive fingers through the V-shaped pass where the C405 freeway cut through. Some days fog crawled through toward the Xibabla like a battering ram, but not today.

She finally came to the drainage tunnel that went under and parallel to the freeway. Before going in, she got off her bicycle and helped the blades down.

Hoppy spun dizzily on his tang. The sunlight sparkled off his edge like he was cutting it, which maybe he was. There were flecks of golden light in the Blood River. Nothing in the City was as sharp as the blades of Blade House.

But she couldn't waste time here. She rode into the tunnel, illuminated only by the bluish circle of light cast by the pedal-powered LED she'd installed when she'd built the bicycle.

Around her, the blades splashed through the blood and spun round and round inside the pipe. Something wet and viscous dripped on her face. They were having a good time. There were no rivers of blood inside the Xibabla.

They emerged out the far side into another cement channel bundled in roiling fog. She could hear something shrieking off in the distance. She could also hear the blades as they slid along the ground next to her. They wove in and out and around her in abstract patterns. She could tell from the way Hoppy skipped that he hoped something would attack them.

But nothing did.

The ground was littered with the bones of things that had attacked them on previous visits. She wondered if the blades thought of this section of cement as some sort of daughter colony of Blade House. Blue Shadow circled around a rounded rib cage and let Chip on the End have a slide through.

After a long count of pedaling, the old wrecked car emerged out of the grey—landmark for the ramp up the side of the channel behind P.D.'s place. She rode up to street level and stopped at a gaping tear in the chain link fence. She carried her bicycle over the sword grass and leaned it against the side door to the garage of P.D.'s house. She trailed her hand along the paneling so she wouldn't lose the building in the mist.

When she reached the short flight of pale blue stairs that led to the porch, she put the tired blades in their box, and went up to the white front door.

She'd hardly knocked once when P.D. flung the door open, grabbed her hand, and pulled her inside.

Blood Maiden had been to P.D.'s house lots of times, but still she felt dizzy at the speed that P.D. yanked Blood Maiden past the colorful entryway totem poles toward the narrow staircase. Blood Maiden stumbled forward and said, Um, hello.

P.D. kept tugging. We can't leave them alone. Blood Maiden gave up on helloes and went up the stairs two at a time. P.D. had her father's height and her mother's selkie muscle-fat mass, so it was follow or be dragged off her feet.

In the three flights of stairs, clustered family pictures of P.D. and her parents smiled from the walls. It was a study in contrasts. The sound of yelling spiraled down. P.D. dragged Blood Maiden faster.

As they reached her sea-foam-colored bedroom, P.D. shoved Blood Maiden through the door. Look. It's Blood Maiden.

P.D.'s mother, Bridget, a short, heavy white woman currently sweltering in her inward-turned sealskin coat, pasted a smile on her face. Hello, Blood Maiden. She grimaced briefly. Here for the joyous occasion?

Umm . . . yes. Blood Maiden bobbed her head. Hello . . . Bridget, Grey Eagle.

P.D.'s father, Grey Eagle, carved a smile onto his own face and re-crossed his arms.

Blood Maiden looked into the basinet. The large blue-brown egg jiggled slightly to the left.

P.D. sighed and squeezed Blood Maiden's hand. Everyone was silent for a long time as they stared at the egg. It wasn't exactly a comfortable silence, but it didn't feel like someone was about to get pushed out a window either.

It couldn't last.

Bridget fidgeted with a large basin of water, big enough to bath a toddler in.

Grey Eagle snorted. You aren't going to need that.

Bridget said, We might. My great grams on my father's side was a—

I don't want to hear about your great-grandmother again. Look at it. Grey Eagle jabbed the air in the direction of the egg. It's going to be a bird.

And what made you a biology expert. You work construction. Bridget sniffed.

High steel, gritted Grey Eagle. At least I do something more constructive with my life than harass local shipping. A little vein next to his right eye pulsed in a really unpleasant way.

P.D.'s hand on Blood Maiden's became a death grip. Blood Maiden sighed and said, I got a card from Nepthys. She and Isis are still with their folks on vacation in Memphis. Blood Maiden puffed out a short sharp breath as Bridget and Grey Eagle stared at her. Um . . . they went to Graceland and everything. Blood Maiden shrugged. She really wished she could be here.

P.D. sighed. Yeah. It'd. . . . She swallowed. It'd be nice if my friends were here.

Blood Maiden wished Nepthys and Isis were here, too. They could jump on the conversational grenades with her.

Bridget sniffed. If we'd gone to the birthing grounds, you could have been surrounded by hundreds of your cousins instead of being stuck here alone in this cramped—

Bridget, don't start that again. Grey Eagle kicked the side of the basin. Water splashed over the side and onto the thick green carpet. You wanted the house in the divorce. You got the house. All the family she needs is right here. He punctuated his words with splashing kicks.

For as long as you're here, you mean! Bridget shoved her hands in her coat pockets. How long before you head out on another contract and leave all the work to me.

The vein next to Grey Eagle's eye continued to pulse on its caravan to an aneurism.

P.D. looked like she was about to cry. Blood Maiden said, Um . . . want to see my blades? Blood Maiden held up her lunch box. They're sleeping right now because of all the sliding they did coming here.

Your what? Bridget's brown seal eyes got very round. Rounder. She was a very round woman.

Sliding! Grey Eagle brushed something off of Blood Maiden's face. She could see dried blood on his fingers and sensed the flakes as they drifted to the floor. Blood Maiden, how did you get here? His hands did this spasmy thing. Did you ride your bicycle again? Through the fog?

Blood Maiden got as far as Um . . . when the egg saved her.

It shuddered violently and then a tiny beak broke through the speckled shell.

Bridget grabbed a digital camera and started filming as the thing inside cracked the egg open and the ugliest little naked-blind-bird-thing ever pecked its way out.

Bridget stopped filming. Ugly little monster. She smiled sourly at Grey Eagle. Must be from your dad's side of the family.

He glared at her. I'm not the one who turns into a seal.

Ha. After I finally found my coat, you bastard.

It was in the chest in the living room the entire time, said Grey Eagle through clenched teeth.

Along with all the other things you have trapped there. What kind of ass keeps a sun, moon, and stars in a box? They should be flying free.

They. Don't. Fly. Grey Eagle opened and closed his hands. They were my father's and his father's and they are going to be P.D.'s. In the damn box!

Well, I'm out of the box. Bridget waved the camera at him. And in the list of things that are cute, baby seals top the list. And that— she pointed at the wet chirping bird—is not cute.

The baby bird coughed a couple times and then chirped in a high thin voice, Grams, come on. I'm so fugly, I'm adorable. Then he flopped himself around and said, Hey, Mom, could use with a little food. Pecking out of that thing was a bitch and a half.

P.D. smiled dreamily at her naked bird baby. Oh, he's a Raven. She picked a grub out of a plastic box, and ground it up in a little stone mortar. Then she dribbled the mush into Raven's open beak. The ugly-pink thing gulped it down.

Blood Maiden peered into the basinet. Are you sure he's a Raven?

Raven wallowed in his blankets and chuckled like a baby buzz saw. Oh, I'm a Raven, all right. He ate another mashed grub.

There followed a long period of Raven eating his weight in grubs, Blood Maiden distracting Grey Eagle and Bridget from killing one another, and P.D. glowing happily. Finally, Raven gave one more burp and curled in on himself. Blood Maiden hoped this meant that he was asleep and not that they'd fed him so many grubs that he'd gotten an internal injury.

The blue whale clock on the wall said it was 4:24. It would be time for dinner soon. Blood Maiden said, I should go.

Grey Eagle scowled. Not on that bicycle, you're not.

Shh, you'll wake the baby. Bridget's forehead creased a tidal wave between her eyes, Grey Eagle, you should drive Blood Maiden home.

Hmmm, Grey Eagle kind of rumbled. Blood Maiden could sense him suppressing the urge to refuse just on principle.

Blood Maiden wished that P.D. could drive her home. Grey Eagle had given her a rebuilt 1967 Dodge Charger with a 6.1 Liter V8 Hemi, upgraded power train, cold air intake, exhaust headers, and a flamethrower. Blood Maiden was in love with the Charger. Also, this would get her away from both her parents.

P.D., not the car.

The Charger was utterly cherry and Blood Maiden wanted to marry her. If, you know, that were even theoretically possible, which it probably was given the way the City worked, but if she could marry her then she wouldn't be the car that Blood Maiden loved.

Anyway, Blood Maiden couldn't figure out how to suggest it. At least they weren't going in Bridget's car, which was an energy-efficient box. Blood Maiden knew she should love the box, but the heart wants what the heart wants.

Blood Maiden followed Grey Eagle back down the stairs and waited in the garage while he went outside to get her bicycle. He carefully fussed her bicycle into the trunk of his Roadrunner, which was also very nice, but not the Charger. She patted the Charger's back bumper and waited. He went into a brief funk staring at an unused weight set.

She shifted awkwardly on her feet. Traced her hands along the colorful Haida symbols painted across the Charger's glossy forest-green body. The history of Grey Eagle's family going back ten generations spiraled under her fingers.

Finally Grey Eagle grinned. Raven really is cute, in a butt-ugly sorta way. Chuckled and jerked his head toward the Roadrunner. Get in.

Blood Maiden climbed in. The springs creaked under even Blood Maiden's small weight. She breathed in the smell of old leather and sweat. Then she put her seat belt on. In North Portal, it was more than basic car safety.

Grey Eagle hit the button on the garage door opener and the door shrieked open in seconds. The Roadrunner screamed out of the driveway as the timer slammed the garage door shut behind them.

The street was empty. Not that they could see farther than a car length ahead.

They sailed down the quiet streets to the cloverleaf on-ramp to the C405. A dark group of tentacle-somethings rolled into the street around them, but Grey Eagle sprayed them with a short burst from the right-side flamethrower and

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