Lars is from Scandinavia. If you didn’t know it in advance, you’d know it within minutes of meeting him. He has a habit of telling how much better things are there.

“In Scandinavia, music is better.”

“We are not weak men in Scandinavia.”

“We like to talk about Scandinavia in Scandinavia.”

Yeah, so the last one is mine, but you gotta admit you smiled, right? The constant comparisons will get under your skin. It’s like ants crawling over your brain. Tiny little feet, always moving, that itch you can’t scratch.

He’s a damned good driver, though. Dealing with his bullshit comments is a small price to pay for a driver of his caliber. Word has it he was the wheelman for the Latimer Family for a while, not that he would confirm the story. No one would be dumb enough to pry, anyway. Some things just get left alone. Last thing you want is one of their specialists showing up to perform a vivisection on you in front of your kids.

“Highways are better in Scandinavia,” Lars says as he tweaks the wheel and passes a slower-moving minivan of some kind. I can see a couple of kids in the back, watching a cartoon on the backs of the front seat headrests. For a moment, I wonder what it must be like to have a mundane existence.

I lose myself in the gentle susurration of tires passing across asphalt. We’ll be at the job soon enough. I need to keep myself focused, not wonder about kids and minivans. That’s a life for someone else.

He downshifts as we exit the highway, light flashing off those silver horseshoe cufflinks he wears. He’s silent as we roll through a couple of intersections and down a street. I think my lack of response has calmed the country comparison thing for the moment.

We pull up at a house. Big ugly green thing, but it blends perfectly with every other house on the block so that it won’t stand out. Mungo and Shiva are sitting on the porch, pretending to read the paper.

“We are here,” Lars says.

Elements: vivisection, ants, Scandinavia, horseshoe, susurration

Her fingers trembled on the surface of the table, baby blue nails ticking against check-patterned black and gold formica. Not for the first time, she reflected on how hideous the table was. It was one of the things he had when he moved in. Some hand-me-down from his dead mother, so she kept it even though nothing was ever going to match with the thing.

She picked up the glass and drank the contents in one long swallow, her throat protesting the fiery liquor that splashed down into her stomach. The glass made a clacking noise on the tabletop. A match to just one notch on the winch that lowered the casket into the ground.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

The glossy black box was draped in a spray of everlastings. They quivered as the coffin was lowered. Her lips pressed tightly together as she watched.

She wondered if she would ever smile again.

Elements: everlastings

Rita –

If you are reading this, then it means that I failed. One way or another I’m dead. I’m so sorry I never took the time and the chance to tell you what I was truly thinking. Yeah, I know, the last thing you expected from me is a love letter. Get over it. You’re getting one. It’s the last thing I could give you.

You meant more to me than you can ever know. I remember the first time we met, sitting at that pretentious little café on the corner. You had that big swirling drink and you looked at me across the rim. I remember thinking that you had the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. Still do, in fact. They were glowing like a Fremen from Dune. (See? I can’t even write a love letter without being a nerd.)

You asked me for a light and we talked. Drank freely until it was time to leave. Neither of us could drive and we got in that stupid green taxi with the third-rate homemade reggae on the stereo. I wanted to smack that driver. I never told you, but I ran into him about three months ago, hawking his CDs on Flagler Avenue. He still sucked.

I have always wondered if you had really lost your house key or if you were just looking for an excuse to be with me a little longer. I was quite the host, right? “Welcome to my home. I have coffee if you want. Oh, and frozen fish sticks.” It’s a wonder I didn’t suicide on the spot from sheer embarrassment.

Anyway, every day since I’ve thought of you. When I needed a smile, a shot of courage, or a brief second of hope, it was your face I saw. I’ll be looking at your pic tonight before I go in.

So if you are looking at this letter, Greg is there with you. I asked him to deliver it. We’ve exchanged that duty over and over again through the past two years. One of us holds a final letter for the other. He’ll escort you to the house. Trust me, doll – if you have this letter, you’ll need the force. Under the bed there’s a weapons case. Help yourself. Take anything you want from the house. Burn the place to the ground when you leave.

I won’t go into the full explanation here, but Greg can bring you up to speed. Just know this much: Werewolves are real. Yep. Not the stupid shit from old movies, but giant monsters that tear people apart. Greg has seen them up close, just like I have.

I stumbled on a den yesterday. I’m going to wipe them out today. Well, I was going to. Obviously something went wrong. If there’s a story on the news about a massive explosion off Northeast Eighteenth (they’ll say it was a gas leak or possibly claim some terrorist bullshit) then at least I broke even, and the escort will just be a formality. If not, then this den is still viable and the pack will hunt.

I’ll sign off here, Rita. No matter what, know that I loved you.

Alexander.

elements: love letter, werewolves, taxi service, lost key, fish sticks

“Ripper! Flank two, distance two point one-one and closing!”

K-Dog chuckled at the announcement and stepped out of formation. “Mine,” he said on the unit push. He muted the radio for the moment, knowing that VicVic would be shouting at him for breaking the line. He needed a second to see what he was up against.

Camera One showed him little more than the swirling winds and the white blur of the ongoing blizzard. It was continent-wide, and he knew there was little use grousing about the storm. It was just the environment they operated in here. Even in the control cabin, with the heat on, it was still a little chilly. His toes were uncomfortable. He hated working on winter planets, but he went where the money was flowing.

Camera Two was set to sonic imaging. The onboard computer was filtering the storm’s interference. He spun the dial to turn up the resolution, revealing the Ripper that was making its way toward them. He didn’t immediately recognize the pattern, but he could see rocket pods, a pair of chainguns, and a laser cannon. The Ripper carried a crackling power sword in its left hand.

Time to start this bitch.

He flicked a switch with a finger of his left hand, and a microwave designator came to life, centering on the Ripper.

He reopened the radio. VicVic was still calling him.

“It’s a Scimitar variant,” K-Dog said in between the sergeant’s hails. “Stolley, toss me a starburst?”

“Copy,” Stolley said in his flat tone. “Shot,” he added as the missile rack on the back of his brilliant red machine lit up and a rocket leapt skyward on a tongue of flame. It screamed upward for a kilometer and shattered, releasing hundreds of seekers, their guidance systems locked onto the designator K-Dog had initiated. Their engines flared yellow as they powered into a single-minded pursuit of the target.

K-Dog switched on his autocannon and the heavy plasma gun, readying both for the attack to come. He took off in a lumbering run toward the Ripper, planting his feet carefully in the snow drifts. The wide-splayed feet with their grip plates should maintain traction, but K-Dog had seen battles lost on less. He watched through Camera Two until his targeting reticle illuminated. It was centered on the Ripper’s torso.

“Plas going live in three,” he warned.

“Splash,” Stolley said. The seekers began to hammer into the Ripper in a series of impacts. Explosive charges forged the warheads into shaped charges capable of breaching light armor. The objective with the heavy armor was more to overwhelm sensors and targeters than actually penetrate them.

“Firing.”

The world became a ball of brilliant illumination as the plasma gun flared. A streak of raw power jetted from the shoulder-mounted cannon. On the left shoulder, the autocannon roared to life with a staccato thunder. The recoil kept him from twisting out of his approach when the plasma gun spat its lethal load.

The glacis plate of the Ripper shattered in a blinding display. Bits of molten armor scattered into constellations as brilliant as anything the heavens could shine down upon the frozen planet.

A volley of rockets arced from the Ripper in response to the attack and K-Dog flicked the command for his flare launchers. At the end of his right arm, the massive chainsaw shrieked to life. He triggered another burst from the autocannon and charged. The ground beneath him shook in response to his weight.

“Let’s see what you’ve got,” K-Dog said with a wicked smile as the first of the chaingun rounds began to nip at his armor.

Elements: Winter Planets and Constellations