Ally's Online Notebook

Okay, so this is REALLY late, but I finally finished the last two pieces for my creative writing group. I used the same world as the last one. This world is slowly taking over my life. If only I actually had time to sit down and write more of it.

Title:  The book
Series: Liam McBane
Warnings: language
Characters/couples: Liam, Zach
Rating: PG

The river sparkled under the moonlit sky. Stars reflected on the inky black water, ripples sending them scattering as silver fish backs broke the surface. Fireflies flitted along the bank, adding their own light to the reflected stars. A warm breeze blew through the leaves of the trees lining the river bank, tugging a few from their branches. Flower petals followed the leaves, twirling to pass over the old stone bridge and settling onto the carvings of cherubic angels.

Another gust lifted the leaves and petals again, sending them spiralling over the heads of the two figures on the bridge. The girl’s light blonde hair shone in the moonlight as it trailed down her back. Pale lashes rested on equally pale skin, her sapphire eyes hidden beneath painted lids. Her dark red lips parted as she let out a breathy moan. One long-fingered hand came up to twine in her partner’s hair. Her partner who was currently latched on to the girl’s throat, nibbling his way up to her ear. He wrapped one arm around her slim waist and pulled her closer, the other hand running up and down her arm.

Liam wasn’t usually one to make out in public. To be honest, he wasn’t usually one to even talk to a girl, let alone talk to her long enough to get her to kiss him. Really, he would normally rather kill someone than even touch them. Something about the French countryside, however, had him allowing random girls he had just met to drape themselves over him and nibble on his lips. Must be something in the air.

The girl (Ami? Adriene? Adela? Something like that.) moaned again and turned her head to capture Liam’s lips. She pulled him closer and set about trying to devour his mouth. Liam smiled into the kiss and pressed her back against the stone bridge. She had just started undoing his pants when a voice called out his name.

“Liam? Liam! It is you!” God. He knew that voice anywhere. That smooth, sweet, annoying voice.

Liam broke the kiss, sighed and closed his eyes. “Excuse me a minute.” He turned around and levelled a glare at the intruder. “What the hell are you doing here Zach?”

The angel, wings currently missing, gave a jolly wave and smiled. “Liam! How good to see you. It’s been far too long.”

“It’s been three days and that doesn’t answer the question.”

“Excuse, mais, who is this?” The girl peered over Liam’s shoulder at the other man.

Zach pulled Liam away from the girl and slid between them. “Why hello my dear.” Liam couldn’t see his face, but he knew the angel’s eyes would be silver, the hypnotic tone in his voice guaranteed it. “Why don’t you head home now, hmm? I think you left the oven on.”

“Oh, mon Dieu!” The girl clasped her hands to her mouth. “I did! Excuse Liam. I must go. Au revoir!” She moved to kiss Liam again, was blocked by Zach, and scurried off the bridge, Liam staring wistfully after.

“What the hell was that?” Liam spun around, grabbed Zach’s collar and pulled him down to eye level. “Why the fuck can’t you just leave me alone?”

Zach just smiled that annoying smile of his. “I’m so sorry to interrupt your little tryst with the tramp, but you’ve been summoned. I’m afraid there’s a book you need to pick up.”

“A book?” Liam dropped his hands. “You hypnotized away the first lay I was gonna have in God knows how long just so I can get a book? Where the hell am I supposed to get a book at this time of night anyway?”

“Now, really. That girl was much too young for you. You need someone with more experience.” Zach leaned in and pressed his lips to Liam’s. The human froze, even as wings materialized around them, and let the angel kiss him. A flash of light later and the wings vanished, leaving stacks of books around them.

Liam pulled back sharply, opened his mouth in shock, and punched Zach across the jaw. “What the fuck? What the hell was that?”

“Why, a kiss of course. I’d think you’d know that, what with the way you were attached to that girl.” Zach gently flapped his wings and rose up to perch on a bookshelf, avoiding another swing from Liam.

“Of course I know what it is! You don’t just go around kissing people! Now get down from there so I can kill you!”

“Well now that wouldn’t be very nice.”

“It’s not supposed to be nice, you overgrown turkey!”

“Please keep your voice down Mr. McBane. We are in a library, and I’m fairly certain that the owners would prefer if you didn’t throw their books around.”

Liam blinked and looked at the book in his hands. He tried to read the title, remembered that he didn’t know French, and carefully placed it back on the shelf. He clenched his fist, to keep from reaching for the sword he wasn’t carrying, and sighed. “Why are we in a library?”

Zach eyed him warily, looking for signs of another attack. Seeing none he smiled. “Why, where else would we get a book? Now,” he hopped down from the shelf and folded his wings. “You’re going to need this.” He tossed a small glass bead, the size of a marble, down to Liam. Blue lights sparkled inside of it, occasionally arching out to scorch the air.

Liam yelped and reached for the bead, cupping it in his hands. He held it up, peering through the blue light. “What the hell am I supposed to do with this?”

“Swallow it.”

“WHAT?” Liam shot his eyes up to Zach and back down to the bead, holding it out as if poisoned. “I’m not going to swallow this thing!”

“You are if you want to find the book. Unless, of course, you’d rather search through every title here.” Zach waved to the bead. “That little charm there will allow you to see the magic binding the book. If you don’t swallow it, I’m afraid you’ll have to search every book, one by one, to find the right one. And I’m fairly certain you won’t be able to do that before the library opens for the day.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Liam glared at the bead before swallowing it, grimacing as it burned down his throat. “Now wha-” He broke off as arcs of blue light spread across his body, moving from his stomach out to his arms and legs. It didn’t hurt, though Liam couldn’t help from wincing as it jumped from finger to finger. “How, exactly, is turning me into the Energizer bunny supposed to help?”

Zach shook his head and smiled. “Just let the magic work.”

Liam scowled but bit his tongue. He didn’t have to wait long. The light jumped from his body onto the floor, zig-zaging down the aisles of books. It hit a shelf, backed up, paused as if stunned (if light could get stunned) and continued around a corner.

Liam raised an eyebrow. “And what am I supposed to do now? Chase after light?”

Zach shrugged. “Unless you’d rather wait for the librarian to come find us.”

Liam sneered at the angel and turned to follow the lightning on the floor, Zach’s soft steps following.

The lightning arched down the aisles, sparking off one book before jumping to the next. It was really quite beautiful, if Liam was prone to think like that. His actually thoughts at the moment ran more along the lines of ‘dear God I’m going to kill that angel when this is all over – and I guess the lights are pretty’.

Finally, after climbing two stories, running down endless aisles, and twisting around countless corners, the lightning stopped. It plunged into the old worn cover of thick, leather-bound book. Liam skid to a stop and pulled the book from the shelf. He glanced at the title, but whatever language it was written in wasn’t one that he knew. Hell, the alphabet wasn’t even the same.

“Is that the one?” Zach rested his head on Liam’s shoulder to look at the book. 

Liam shrugged the angel off and held the book over his shoulder. “It better be. Take it.” He turned around to watch Zach flip through the book. “What is it anyway?”

“Hmm?” Zach looked up from the pages and raised an eyebrow. “Oh, it’s nothing.” He smiled at the scowl Liam shot him. “Your master–”

“Don’t call him that!”

“–was hoping to make his mother a nice dinner, but I’m afraid he couldn’t remember the recipe.”

“...a cookbook?” Liam stared blankly at Zach. “You ambushed me on my date, scared away a good lay, and dragged me to a library in the middle of the night...for a cookbook?”

Zach shrugged. “When the Master calls, I obey.”

“Oh, fuck that.” Liam took a swing at the angel, missing as Zach unfurled his wings and leapt into the air. “Get back here!”

“I’m sorry, my dear Liam. I’m afraid I’ll have to leave you for now. The Master was quite insistent that this was urgent. I do hope you can find your own way out.”

Zach blinked away, leaving Liam clenching his fists and glancing around the quiet library. His eyes flitted from side to side, looking for the angel to appear again and take him back to the river. Instead of hearing that annoying laugh, however, Liam was greeted with the sound of the doors of the library opening and someone whistling as they set about opening up for the day.

“Well, fuck.”

Title:  The trip
Series: Liam McBane
Warnings: none
Characters/couples:  Liam, Jess
Rating: G

“Liam! Liam!” The girl’s voice rang out from the front desk. Heads popped up from behind cubical walls and glanced around curiously. The girl waved at them and continued bouncing next to the receptionist’s desk. The receptionist, an older woman with large cat eye glasses, raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips. The girl just gave her a brilliant smile and kept bouncing.  “LIAM!!!”

Liam sighed in his cubical. He could hear his coworkers muttering around him. Better get this over with then. He locked his computer and stood, eyes closed, rubbing at the oncoming headache. He looked over to the girl calling him and gave a lacklustre wave. Picking up his briefcase he weaved through the maze of cubicles, ignoring the stares from his coworkers, and smiled at the receptionist. “Sorry Lisa. I’ll take care of this.” He grabbed the girl’s arm and dragged her out of the office.

“Sweet monkey fritters, Liam! No need to be so rough.” The girl pulled her arm free and sat down at the cafeteria table.

“What are you doing here Jess.” Liam sat and buried his head in his hands. “And what did you do to your hair?”

“You like?” Jess twirled a violet strand around her fingers. “Mom totally flipped when she saw it, but it was so worth it. I can’t wait to see her face when she sees this.” She lifted up her top, exposing a dragonfly tattooed just under the gold stud in her bellybutton.

Liam winced. “You mother is going to kill you. No, wait. She’s going to kill me.”

“You worry too much.” Jess laughed.

“Everyone needs a hobby.”

“You already have one.” Jess pulled a stack of papers out of her shoulder bag. “And speaking of your hobby. I have found us the perfect vacation!” She spread the papers out on the table.  

Liam looked down at the photo of a circle of jagged stones. “What’s this?”

“Callanish Standing Stones.” Jess said with a smile. “Like Stonehenge, but Scottish. I figure we can go there this summer.”

“And why would we be going to Scotland?”

“Duh. My grad present? Hello?” Jess rapped her knuckles on Liam’s forehead. “You promised that you’d take me on a vacation if I passed all my classes.”

Liam wearily swatted the offending hand away. “Marks aren’t in yet.”

Jess sighed. “You know as well as I do that I passed everything. I’m not stupid you know.”

“Just lazy.” Another sigh. “Fine. When are we going?”

Jess beamed. “I knew you’d see it my way!” She pulled a sheet out from under the pile of photos. “We leave on the 5^th.  Zach’s going to meet us there and we can go to all the mystical landmarks and then we’re going to go into London for some shopping!”

“Wait, what?” Liam’s head shot up. “Zach is not going with us. I refuse to travel with that annoyance.”

Jess pouted. “But, he’s lived there before. He’s going to show us around. Besides,” she smiled and tossed her hair out of her eyes. “He’s headed over for work anyway and you know that that means he’s just going to track us down when he’s done. You might as well accept that he’s going to travel with us and get over it.”

Liam gave her a half hearted glare and stood. “I may accept it, but I don’t have to like it.” He turned and started back up to the office. “By the way,” he paused and looked over his shoulder at the high school student still seated at the table. “What hobby are you talking about that would take us to Scotland?”

Jess laughed. “Meeting hot guys at mystical sites, of course. I have to get my eye candy somewhere.”

So there we go. Two more stories from the life of Liam McBane. I think he's starting to hate me.

So, I entered this contest over on deviantART a while back. While working on my entry I ended up creating a whole world and have since started yet another story. This one is about Liam McBane: Finder of Mystical Stuff, Helper of Magical Things, Protector of Those Who Pay Him, Destroyer of Those Who Piss Him Off, Practically-Slave of the Old Man (otherwise known as Ruler of the Old World), and pencil pusher by day. Oh, and he has a pet dragon. And hangs out with an angel (though not by choice). So, um, yeah. That's what came out of one picture (more specifically, the picture that I made my icon out of).

Anyway, in addition to the blog group thing, I also joined a creative writing blog group thing. Our first challenge was to write a piece involving

• a blue car
• a clock
• a man named Zach
• the time of 2:00 - am or pm, you decide

And thus, the first part of my new story was written. So, here it is. It might not make a whole lot of sense since it will eventually be a section of a much larger piece. Because of that, I've put some notes at the end to clarify some things. Anyway, here it is.

Title:  The Clock
Wold: Liam McBane
Warnings: language
Characters/couples:  Liam, Zach, the Clock
Rating: PG

Liam looked down at the paper in his hand. Zach. Oak and Pine. 2:00am. He sighed and looked at his watch. 1:50. Ten minutes. He sighed, looked to the left, looked to the right, cradled his head in his hands, and crumpled the paper. 

A chirp beside him called his attention. He glanced through his fingers at the thing sitting on the passenger seat of the car. Oh, God. It was awake.

The tiny bird cocked its head to the side, emerald eyes glittering in the light of the streetlamp. The small diamond feathers plumped up and the bird let out another trill. Laughter. The damn bird was laughing.

Liam wrinkled his nose and glared at the bird. “So glad I can amuse.” He ran hands down his face and sighed again. “What am I doing here?”

“Waiting for me, I presume.” The voice from the backseat sent Liam jolting forward, whacking his forehead on the window.

The chirping beside him floated through the ringing in his ears and Liam glared at the bird again before turning to look behind him. The man there looked mostly human. He had silky straight black hair, bright green eyes, olive skin. Five fingers, two ears, two eyes, one mouth. His nose was a bit hooked, but still normal enough. The large feathered wings that were somehow crammed into the back of the old blue Volvo, however, were not.

“Who the hell are you?” Liam let his hand rest on the gun at his side. Not that the bullets would do anything to the creature (Angel, a part of his mind said), but they might provide enough of a distraction for an escape.

The creature (angel) raised one perfectly arched eyebrow. “Can’t you read your little paper there? You’re waiting for Zach, aren’t you?”

“You’re Zach?” Liam stared in shock. Sure, he hadn’t expected someone normal to meet him, but he sure as hell wasn’t expecting a fucking angel.  Didn’t they have better things to do than run errands?

“My schedule’s actually quite free right now.” The angel smiled. Liam started and it tapped the side of its head. “You do project rather loudly Mr McBane.”

Liam glared and snapped his head away from the angel’s gaze. “You never answered the question. Are you Zach?”

A laugh. “I’ve been known to go by that name. Now, are you going to give me the clock?”

“And why would I just hand it over?” Liam looked down at the bird. The small clock embedded in its chest ticked slowly, matching the dull throb in his head. The bird let out another laugh-trill and twitched its head between Liam and Zach. A flutter of diamonds brought it up to Liam’s shoulder. It nipped at his ear and settled into the crook of his neck.

Zach smiled (and were those fangs he saw?). “It does seem to like you. However, the Clock cannot stay out here. It must be returned to the Keeper.” He nodded to the slowly ticking hands. “It’s already winding down. Do you really want to be responsible for the destruction of the universe?”

“Yeah,” Liam glanced sideways at the clock. “You know, the whole ‘let the clock run down and destroy the world’ thing would have been nice to know before the old man gave it to me. Could have avoided a lot of trouble that way.”

“You should have taken it to the Keeper right away.” Zach’s smile started to slip. “Had you done as you were supposed to, your house would still be in one piece.”

Liam scowled. Like he needed to be reminded that he had a fucking canyon running through his kitchen. “And if the Keeper had been home I would have passed it over. But he wasn’t. So don’t blame me for your screw up!”

Zach raised his hands in surrender (does he have claws?) and pouted. “Now, now. No need to get excited. The Keeper does have other duties. You can’t expect him to just sit around waiting for you.”

“Of course I can! I was told to take it to him, I took it. He wasn’t there. Was I supposed to just leave it there? I did the best I could. If that meant taking the bird home, so be it!” Liam grabbed (gently) the bird from his shoulder. “Now take this thing back where it belongs and wind it up before it tries to destroy the world. Again.”

Zach reached out for the bird, snatching his hand back when it snapped at him. A hurt look crossed his face as the bird twittered angrily at him. “It seems it would rather stay with you.” He smiled and withdrew his hand.

Liam closed his eyes in frustration and growled. “Just take. The damn. Bird.”

Zach shook his head. “The Clock cannot be removed from its chosen protector.”

“What?” Liam stared at the bird in his hand. “What ‘chosen protector’?  I’m no ‘chosen protector’.  Just take damn thing and let’s be done with it.”

Another shake of the angel’s head. “Were I to force it away, the Clock would stop.”

Liam forced himself to not drop the bird. “Look, what am I supposed to do with it? I can’t wind it and if I can’t wind it it’ll stop and if it stops the world ends. I’d really rather avoid that outcome. So take the bird back and let me go home to bed. I have a real job that I have to be at in,” he checked his watch. “Three hours.”

“You’re in luck then.” Zach reached a (clawed) hand into his coat pocket. “I happen to have the Key right here.” He drew out an ornate winding key made of diamond. The bird twittered happily and reached out to grab it in its beak.

Liam eyed the key sceptically. “You can’t really expect me-”

“Of course I do. I wouldn’t have brought it if I otherwise.”

“And I suppose trying to take the thing was just a joke.”

“Well, I couldn’t know for sure that the Clock wished to stay here. For all I knew you were actually planning on destroying the world. Now here,” Zach plucked out a strand of black hair and strung it through the head of the key, still in the bird’s mouth. Liam just sat in shock as the angel leaned in and tied the hair around his neck.

The bird’s curious chirp shook Liam out of his daze. “The hell?” He tugged on the key, but the hair held strong. “Get this thing off me!”

Zach laughed. “I’m afraid you won’t get out of your duties that easily. Don’t worry. I’ll come check up on you soon.” His body vanished without a sound. Not even a flash of light or shadow or anything to single a proper teleportation.

Liam looked at the three white feathers left on his back seat. He looked at the bird still in his hand. The bird looked at him, wiggled out of his fist, and scurried up his arm, settling back into the crook of his neck. It pecked playfully at the key hanging in the hollow of his throat.

Liam turned back around to face the road. He sighed and glanced at the bird out of the corner of his eye. “What’re you so happy about?” It let out yet another chirp and nudged his cheek. “Yeah, yeah.” He turned the key in the ignition and the old Volvo grumbled awake. He pulled away from the curb and pointed the car towards home.

Halfway down the street his phone rang. He unclipped it from his belt and, careful to not disturb the bird, answered. “Yeah?”

“Liam?” The old man’s voice crackled over the phone. “I have a box here that you need to take to the Keeper.”

Liam sighed, stopped the car, closed his eyes, and hit his head against the wheel.

And now, for the notes.

1. The bird is indeed a clock. If it stops, the world ends. Simple as that. One of the Keeper's jobs is to wind the Clock so that it doesn't stop. Liam having the Key means that that's his job now.
2. The old man is basically Liam's boss (for magical stuff at least). He sends poor Liam out to save people (and creatures), make deliveries and pick-ups, meet people (and creatures), and generally do whatever he says. The old man's also a god. Yeah.
3.Magic isn't normal in this world. Liam accidentally stumbled onto it when he was a kid and has been called on to help ever since. Why he's so special is something that I can't say right now.
4. Zach would be that angel I mentioned above. He likes Liam. Liam doesn't always like him.