1

Odysseus Archer climbed the five gleaming limestone steps below 32 Chesham Place, and stood before the blue-lacquered door. Chesham Place was just off Belgrave Square - one of London's densest concentrations of wealth. Rows of austere, white-clad apartments stretched off to the east toward the Palace grounds. The palace itself and its mooring platform were hidden more by the thinning fall foliage than the three-story blocks of marble. Some of the occupants Archer already knew. This was not t

Eka's Portal Artists' Group - Guidelines and Rules


WHAT'S THE POINT AND HOW DOES IT WORK?:


The Eka's Portal Artists' Group is intended to motivate the artists here by offering deadlines, challenges, and guaranteed critique. Anyone who creates art can join, regardless of skill-level (note some clarifications below), and any artist can participate or not each month as they please. The only requirement to participate is that any month you post a work for others to critique, you agree to ac

I
WANT YOU TO WANT ME
I
really do.I don't mind the fact that I'm the one chasing
after you most of the time, that you play hard to get, that your
friends call me "The Cougar". I’m a confident woman, and
I don’t mind if you make me work a little bit for what I want; it
gives me an excuse to do the things I want to do to you on the nights
when I have you all to myself. Not that I really need an excuse.
Sometimes,
though, I really just need to be the one who is desired. I need to be

82 Varden St London3 Sept 1882 3:18 AMMerillionBuckland Hall, BrecknockshireIacobus murdered by vampire.Wexley Gardens, Erith.Come at once.Edward JamesSignals MinistryMerilyn Justinia Worthing n�e Murray climbed the spiral staircase of the Wexley Gardens Hotel more quickly than advisable. She was weighted down and thrown off-balance by the ungainly weapon strapped to her back, and by the clumsy leather gauntlet and cuirass she wore to protect herself from it. The goggles she wore made fine work

Vicci blinked her eyes
against the sweat dripping in rivulets down her face. She took
another methodical step forward - then another, and another - and
swung her machete - again - at the vines draped across her path. So
many vines. The jungle was more vines than trees, and the paths were
just patches of bare soil between twisted roots and dry riverbeds
promising a twisted ankle at the next missed step. Vicci stopped to
flip open her GPS, squinted at the little digital numbers, then
clicked the d

"That's Old Red,
the bed," he said and made a vague motion with a nod of his
head. He wore a trucker cap and a flannel hoodie over jeans. His
jeans had an embarrassing bulge behind the zipper; he held his
grocery bags and camera gear lower than was comfortable in an effort
to hide it.
"It kind of
stinks, Charlie." The witch wrinkled her nose and eyed the
sagging mattress warily. She was dressed up and made up for the
shoot, so the dark rings of eyeliner and bright red lipstic

0 - Birth


Gaya woke to pain and sirens, and to a nascent sense of satisfaction.

The recovery room was a disaster. Monitors had been tipped, displays were shattered, and the I.V. shunts dripped fluid where they had been ripped from her neck and arms. The countertops on either side of her bed were nearly bare, their contents smashed and scattered on the ground. A nurse and two guards lay contorted into unnatural positions on the floor, arms and necks twisted to angles their skeletons shouldn

Arishika pressed through the thin inter-dimensional film of the portal, vibrant and excited. Electric arcs trailed her clawed fingertips, whipping and snapping satisfyingly against the frame of the door before she pulled away. "Ahhhhh." Another day, another concert. Her tail flicked through the door after her and whipped off a few little sparks like waterdrops.She grinned at the bustle of roadies and engineers unpacking her equipment. She knew most of them by their faces if not by thei