*Prodigal What? Ch. 1 pt. 1

This is the first part of the firstchapter of my novel Ametank (Blood) as begun for the umpteenth time.  But the flow is working for me, even if I have to write it all out of order and put it together in the end.

Yes…I know it needs more scene…

           The doorbell rang…eighteen times in a row.  I’d developed a tick in my right eye *twitch* by the time I got there, and whoever though this was funny was going to play…oh yes.  What I found on the other side of my front door was my second oldest brother Adonis, holding a severed head by the hair, just like they do in the movies.

            He smiled from his vantage point of a staggering 6’2, a whole seven inches taller than his baby sister, and it was the familiar smug little grin that made all the girls at his high school slip up in their own drool, made Mom’s smoldering turn into an affronted sigh, and which had conned me out of more allowance money that I would care to think about.  I, Atlanta Draken, should never be allowed to gamble with anything but my life.  It’s the only thing I seem to be able to keep a tight grip on.

            Strange as it might seem, I was more concerned about that smile than about the severed head.

            Alright, play it cool, Atlanta dear, he’s probably just dropping in to say hello.  After two years.  With a severed head.

            “Hey big brother, what’s the occasion?”  Not casual banter, but genuine curiosity.  What had dragged my brother from our family home in Williamsburg, to my little rinky-dink house in Richmond?  At two a.m.

            “I found this in your front yard.”  He lifted the head just a little, as if I hadn’t already noticed.  I cocked my head.  Was that supposed to answer my question.  I guess I could run with it.

            “Still hunting with a hatchet, huh?”

            “Since I was twelve.  Are you going to invite me in?”

            “Depends.”  I eyed the head.  It wasn’t dripping blood or other gross bodily fluids.  Then again, vampires don’t have much in the way of their own blood, so unless he’d already been a bad boy tonight, it shouldn’t be.  Still, I don’t care who you are severed heads are icky.  “Are you bringing that in?”

            “I figured we could ask it a few questions while we’ve got it.”

            “Riiiight.”  Despite what all the books and movies say, decapitation isn’t always a sure way to kill a vampire.  You’d think a vampire without it’s body would be pretty useless, and nature, or supernature, or whatever governs them would have a little pity and take them out quickly.  However, most of the time a vampire head can go on ‘un’living for several hours all by it’s lonesome.  Yeah, it’s gross.

            “So where’d you put the body?”  I peaked around him at the front yard.  Nothing seemed out of place.

            Adonis gave me a strange look, the kind that usually preceded the question ‘Are you sure you weren’t adopted?’  But instead he said, “The trunk, where else?”

            I grinned at that and hopped out of his way.  “We are so the supernatural mafia.”<span style="mso

-spacerun: yes”>  He shook his head as he passed me.  “Ooooh he’ll be sleeping with the sunrise!”

            “What?”

            “It was…I just…” I sighed.  “Nevermind.” Nobody gets my jokes.

            Adonis snorted and headed straight down the hall for the kitchen without having to be told.  I poked my head out the door and scanned the front yard.  There was nothing at all but uneven patches of darkness struggling to hold ground against the ever-growing population of street lamps.  The grass was looking a bit wilted and brown in places, gray at this time of the morning, but aside from that you would never have known a fight had taken place here.  Huh.  Good job big brother!  I shut and locked the door, feeling suddenly more uneasy, though whether that was the realization that something had been skulking around in my yard without my knowing it, or just the unexpected appearance of Adonis, I still wasn’t sure.  Of course there was only one way to find out.  I shut and locked the door, then headed towards the kitchen, where I could already hear my brother rifling through the pantry.

            Ah siblings.

****

   I guess I’ll be posting the next part in the next couple days, and maybe an update on the weekend.  It was perfectly lovey…a nice change.