Border, KS

“Well, I guess we know what happened to them,” Antigone offered with a sigh as she considered the pictures. Once again they found themselves in the hallway Morgan had shown them earlier, with the pictures of the children who had died in 1986. Her fingertips lingered on the picture of a boy with a bowl-cut and a girl in ponytails.

“Matthew and Natalie Morrison,” Siobhan repeated. “Yeah, I guess they didn’t run off in to the city and live as feral wolf-children. Which was about the best anyone could have hoped for, all things considered,” she offered, with a wrinkle of her nose at how good an outcome that would have been. “They never left. In any sense.”

Antigone considered the pictures, sighing. “So what was the thing they were fighting? And if they’ve been ghosts, why didn’t Morgan mention it?” Antigone asked. “It’s not like she would have not told us about ghosts, after everything.”

Siobhan gave a distracted shrug in universal signal of having no idea whatsoever. “That’s the first step, though. We’ve got all kinds of half information on faeries now, but I don’t know butt about ghosts.”

Their quest for Morgan turned out to be short lived. As they came back to Paul and Paolo, she was both nowhere to be seen—not unusual in a hospital. But Paul came out with a note scratched out in precise, flowing handwriting that Antigone immediately knew was Morgan’s.

Antigone and Siobhan,

I got a call. I have to go out of town for a few days in order to straighten out some family business. I texted your Dad to come and get you at 5 PM; he’ll meet you outside. I should be back by the weekend, and not have to leave again next week.

Morgan.

“Shit,” Siobhan said with a shake of her head as she read the note over Antigone’s shoulder. “Well, there goes asking her about it,” she sighed as she folded the note and tucked it in to a pocket.

“Ask her about what, girls?” Paolo asked as he leaned against the nurse’s station, idly looking over his shoulder at the clock on the wall to track down how much time he had left. He had hair in a ponytail down to his shoulder that looked liked it would be glorious when freed, and Antigone briefly blushed at thoughts of what it would look like—Paolo was as gorgeous as he was taken by the equally handsome boyfriend who had dropped him off in the morning.

Antigone and Siobhan shared a glance as if considering how to answer that. “We, uh…” Antigone began, biting her lower lip. She had gotten more attention than she had perhaps wanted out of the battle at the high school, with an article in the papers proclaiming how she had saved lies by warning everyone of the impending doom. She had no desire for Paul and Paolo to start thinking she had some kind of messiah complex, if they had heard of it.

“Ghosts,” Siobhan offered blithely, apparently harboring none of her sister’s insecurities. “We were cleaning in the hallway and we thought we heard something spooky going down. So what sort of ghosts have we got in this place?” She offered it completely calmly, leaning on the nurse’s station opposite Paolo.

“Oh, we’ve got some ghost hunters in here, huh?” Paolo asked with a smirk. He shared a knowing look with Paul. “It’s a hospital, kiddo, people die here by the pallet load every day, under the best of circumstances. When certain soda spilling doctors are on vacation is pretty much the best of circumstances,” he offered with a snort. “Where were you? They say there is a vomiting ghost up two floors, from the founding of the town.”

“Room 133,” Siobhan answered. She started to say more, but then both Paolo and Paul stiffened, and shared a look between them. “What?” She asked, eyes darting between the two of them quickly, trying to make sure she didn’t miss a visual cue because she was looking at the other one at the time.

“That’s not funny,” Paul spoke, his voice low and serious. He came over to look Siobhan in the eye, and Antigone saw tension around his eyes that made her nervous. “Did Morgan put you up to that, is it some kind of prank? It isn’t funny.” His voice went from being serious to almost hostile as he finished, searching Siobhan’s face for some hint of mockery. There wasn’t any.

Antigone always told people Siobhan did have the ability to be serious when she needed to be, and she demonstrated it in the face of Paul’s near aggression. “No, we were in the hallway and we started hearing things. It looked like the hallway changed color, and the room was crazy…”

Paolo let out a little shuddering breath, and reached out to put a hand on his counterpart’s shoulder gently. Paul gave a nod, shaking his head and sighing. “Did you hear them?” When both Antigone and Siobhan nodded solemnly, he shuddered as well and sighed, standing up straight. “What did they say?”

“They told us to run…” Antigone finally chimed in, her voice soft. “A brother and sister with brown hair in hospital gowns…” Paul reached up to wipe his eyes a little bit, and looked around.

“Yeah, alright,” Paul said hesitantly. “I am going to go out on a limb and believe that somehow you two are the only two that have ever seen them besides me and Paolo. For some reason. Maybe you’re psychic, or weird shit just follows you.”

“The second,” Siobhan and Antigone answered at the same time, before they shared a look.

“Spooky,” Paolo said with an appreciative nod at their twin-speaking, before he sighed. “Can you girls text your dad and tell him you’ll be a little bit late? If you can see them, maybe you can save them—and Paul needs to tell you about the day they disappeared.”

“I can’t believe he spilled all of that goddamn soda again!” Siobhan muttered angrily to herself as she shoved the mop down in to the bucket, splashing a little bit of soapy water out on to the floor. “This is a man that they trust with Operation—the board game—let alone actual scalpels and sharp things.” She attacked the spill with the mop like a warrior with a spear. “Or his own taxes. Or dressing himself!”

“Oh, Doctor Alvarez spills things all the damn time,” Paolo commented from the nurse’s station, where he was opening boxes and sorting supplies. “He’s tried to spill on a couple of the nurses on purpose, but Paul made sure he knew that’d cause some problems.” Paolo looked at the spill that Siobhan was taking care of, and his dark eyes stormed for a moment, cutting through the normal enthusiastic bonhomie. “If he spills something on you just let me know.”

Siobhan raised an eyebrow and looked over to Antigone, who was helping Paolo with sorting the supplies. “He spills on me on purpose I’ll go all monkey steals the peach on him,” Siobhan stated darkly as she considered the patch. She gave it one more swipe with a mop before she shoved it back in to the bucket.

Paul looked up from where he was entering information in to the computer. “Do we want to know what in God’s name that is?” He asked, his voice a mixture of horror and curiosity. He had slightly golden hair and slightly tanned skin that made him look monochromatic, and also somewhat like a scarecrow.

“She’s basically threatening to rip off his testicles,” Antigone offered, moving away from the counter to come around. “Come on, ripper of gibbly bits, let’s put the mop away. Which closet did this one come from?” There were several janitor’s closets nearby it could have come from, and the janitors were apparently territorial.

“Down past the private rooms, since the geriatrics keep stealing the one from our closet,” Paul commented after glancing up to look at what name was written in Sharpie on the side. “Little bit of a walk. Write if you find work,” he offered helpfully. Siobhan sighed, one more thing to throw down on the benighted name of Doctor Alvarez, and began pushing the mop and bucket down the hallway.

“You wanna see if we can ride this thing, like Dad used to do with floor polishers?” Siobhan asked as they strolled in to the hallway, several hallways away from their destination.

Antigone glanced down at the rolling bucket dubiously. “No, that just seems like a good way to get our legs wet. No thanks. We could just steal a floor polisher if we really wanted our internship to last exactly one working day,” she pointed out. The mop bucket squeaked as they rolled it along. The two twins shared an amicable silence as they considered the relative merits of not having to deal with another spilled two liter of soda, when they heard a loud crashing sound coming from one of the side hallways of private rooms. They brought the bucket to a stop and stood there curiously, before there was another loud clattering. Siobhan looked at her sister who sighed, rolling her eyes.

“Of course we’re going to investigate it,” Antigone agreed with a shake of her head. They pushed the mop aside and began walking quickly in to the hallway. It was not as well lit, the overhead lights flickering in need of changing, casting dancing penumbral dancers on the antiseptic green hospital walls as they walked by them. It took Antigone’s brain a moment to catch what was wrong with that, and when it did she reached out to grab Siobhan’s arm.

“What?” Siobhan asked, as there was another crash.

“Bonnie, what color are the walls in Pediatrics?” Antigone asked, glancing around quickly.

Siobhan’s eyes followed her sister’s as she answered. “Cheerful pastels like a nursery…” she offered, trailing off slowly. “The opposite of the shitty green hospital walls everywhere else has.” She let out a very weary sigh. “So we’re what…in another dimension? Trapped somewhere?” The green walls around them, flickered and speckled with darkness, looked ominous. But back in the intersection they had come from they could see the normal hallway, looking thoroughly unmolested. “Well, not trapped,” she said with a little bit of hope.

“Shall we add more money to Morgan’s bill for our therapy?” Antigone asked with faux good humor. Another person might have seen only the nervousness and thought she was looking for an excuse not to, but Siobhan knew the truth. Especially after everything that had happened with Oberon, she wouldn’t turn away; not when these were patient rooms, and not when there might be someone in them who needed help.

“What’s a couple more grand, right?” Siobhan offered with a matching cheer. Moving with a much quicker step they walked to the door, and paused again. Room 823 had a door with a large window covered by a blind, and the noises coming from within sounded like they were distorted somehow—as if they came from a great distance or were down a long hallway. They locked eyes for a moment before nodding, and shoving open the door.

Inside was chaos.

The room was decorated in a slightly older style, but it was apparent that someone had been living in the room for at least a couple of days. Cards were flying around the room, and the moment they walked in a pair of teddy bears launched over their heads and went sailing in to the hallway. Beyond the wind and the swirling cards the room was empty for the first long second they stared, until there was another clanging crash. Both girls flinched back and blinked from the sudden onslaught of sound, and when they opened their eyes it changed. Now it was filled with flowers glass and plastic containers that were being sent flying everywhere, the bed was made with blankets.

And there were two children with chestnut hair jumping off of the bed and screaming loudly, bare feet hitting the floor and their hospital gowns catching in the wind. A corner of the room was billowing shadows, lightning crackling in the roiling darkness. The two kids were definitely running from the growing darkness.

“RUN!” The boy screamed at the top of his lungs, grabbing at Siobhan’s arm. The girl grabbed at Antigone’s arms, and neither sister fought the instinct. They both turned and followed their younger counterparts in throwing themselves through the door. Antigone and Siobhan spilled out in to the hallway on their backs, looking back to the room with wide eyes.

The hallway was clear, and well lit. There was no sign of any struggle or disturbance, and the two children who had run with them were not there any more. The hallway didn’t even have the decency to have a strange breeze, or a flickering light.

“Damn I hate this town sometimes,” Siobhan muttered as she pulled herself back to her feet, sighing. “What do you figure, ghosts?” She asked as her eyes glanced back down the hallway.

“Maybe…” Antigone said absently. “Probably. But…I don’t know. I wish we’d gotten a picture or something. The…two seconds of panic aside, those kids seemed familiar.” They both pondered this for a long moment in their own fashion, Antigone chewing on her lip and Siobhan tapping her feet.

“If this were on TV, it would be something we’d recently seen,” Siobhan pointed out. “Something they’d dropped the hint about…” she trailed off, her eyes moving to meet her sister’s. Both sets of eyes widened, and without a word they turned and started running back down the hall.

It turned out that their winter break ‘internship’ was set to primarily consist of cleaning up things that were non-biological. Like when Doctor Alvarez spilled an entire two liter of soda he was bringing for the Oncology Department staff holiday party, and there had been two shiny High Schoolers hanging around to help. While both Antigone and Siobhan were both handy with a mop and bucket, it didn’t exactly match with their dreams the night before of watching doctors save lives.

They had gotten a general walking tour in the morning, but then Morgan had gotten called away to deal with something and the rest had to be postponed. They had been left in the care of a nurse that Morgan trusted, Paul in Pediatrics. Nurse Paul, nothing like the stereotypes of male nurses that television had offered for them, was serious and to the point. That didn’t stop either Antigone or Siobhan from liking him, but it had been a jarring bit of reality intruding. Paolo, Nurse Paul’s partner in crime, was meanwhile the exact stereotype of a male nurse in every conceivable way. The two of them had given them an in-depth tour of the hospital’s pediatric wing, including a trip to see several patients who were being released in good health that lifted everyone’s spirits after they had first gone through the infant intensive care unit—or NICU—that had lowered them.

The afternoon crept on while waiting for Morgan to be done with her consult, and it was pushing 2:30 before the red-haired Faerie doctor returned. Paolo, who had come in after she had left, came over to give her a hug after proclaiming he liked the new hair.

“I just stopped dyeing it, actually,” Morgan offered, with an amused look to Antigone and Siobhan as they came over. “I’d dyed it for so many years I almost forgot what color it was.” Paolo, and apparently everyone around them, accepted that as a possibility despite the fact that during the Three Stripes crisis and for six months before it her hair had been short and dark and black—not mid-back length and curly red. “I figured I would show them the plaque for the plague,” Morgan offered. Both nurses winced a little bit at that, but nodded. Another nurse named Maliya, an older woman with skin a few shades darker than Antigone and Siobhan’s who wore a hijab with red crescents on it, murmured a soft prayer in response to that.

The hallway that Morgan lead them in to was a quiet one just off of the main pediatric wing. Pediatrics tried to combat the normal paint scheme for hospitals by not being a sickly but easy to clean antiseptic green, and was instead painted a more lively series of pastels. But in the soft light of the hallway they walked down even those colors seemed muted in respect to a series of pictures and a plaque hanging from the wall.

“What is your specialty, by the way?” Siobhan asked curiously as they walked toward the little display. “Until you started talking to us about this I thought that you were just the medical examiner.”

“Currently? I’m board certified in forensic and surgical pathology, as well as oncology,” Morgan explained almost off-handedly. “Of course that’s just this go around, I’ve specialized in a number of different things over the years. I volunteered overseas as an Ebola doctor earlier this year, largely because I can survive it,” she offered. Neither girl felt like they wanted to follow up too closely on that, since she hadn’t said she was immune—just that it wasn’t fatal. “Here we are,” she said, stopping in front of the plaque.

The plaque was discrete, lighter wood with dark words. It listed names, with dates of birth and dates of death. The header of the plaque read ‘In Memoriam: Victims of the Plague of 1986.’ Around the plaque were pictures of what were presumably the victims, and that was what took Antigone’s breath away.

“They’re all children,” Antigone gasped, her voice quavering a little bit. None of them could have been over 18 years old, and most of them were significantly younger. The pictures should them mostly in ones and twos, some in groups of four or five. All races and genders, and all age groups of children. Many were taken in the hospital, some were obviously brought from home, and all had little plaques beneath them identifying which children were in the photos. “How many died?”

Morgan reached out with a fingertip to brush a couple of the pictures. “23 children died in the span of two weeks. To this day no one has any idea what caused it, only that it started with a fever and progressed through hallucinations and eventually organ failure. At the time I specialized in infectious diseases and pediatrics and had been a doctor here for about a decade. I retired from that identity shortly afterword.”

Siobhan hadn’t spoken for a moment, her eyes moving quickly between the pictures on the wall and the names on the plaque. Her eyes were serious, for that moment no hint of sarcasm or joking around, and they widened a little bit as she got to the end of the list. “Why are there two kids that aren’t listed with a day they died?” She asked. Morgan’s eyes shaded a little bit, sighing. She reached up to touch a picture of two children smiling. They were obviously brother and sister and were both in scout uniforms, the boy’s chestnut hair in a boyish bowl cut and the girls in pigtails. They couldn’t have been more than twelve years old in the picture.

“Matthew and Natalie Morrison. Matty and Natty. Terrible parents, sweet kids,” Morgan explained with a shake of her head. “They…disappeared. In the last few days of the plague it was more chaotic than the battle at the High School. The CDC was here, people were panicked, the media was trying to get any information. And Matty and Natty just…disappeared. We assumed they were hallucinating and went out in to city.” Her voice trailed off slowly, as if considering something that she had considered many times before, or didn’t believe.

“Border isn’t a good city to be wandering around tripping balls in,” Siobhan agreed, but with a raised eyebrow at Morgan. “But…”

“But I’ve always suspected that there was more to it. It’s Border, after all,” Morgan shook her head, and then looked up at the pictures again. “I’ve been a doctor, nurse, midwife, apothecary, and wise woman since my mother started teaching me herbs when I was a little girl. I am, if I may say so, pretty damn good at my job. But to this day I don’t know what it was or how they got it.”

They grew silent at that, the hallway filled only with the passing sounds of the hospital and the hum of the phosphorescent lights. As was her custom, Siobhan broke the silence. “We need to lighten the mood. You want to show us the morgue?”

The previous Monday, 7:30 A.M.

“It’s not that I’m not thankful,” Siobhan said with a yawn as she got out of her father’s SUV. “It’s just that I did specifically request a graveyard shift.” She was dressed in what she liked to consider her ‘nursing goth’ look. It wasn’t chromatically different from normal, it was all black except for her blue earring studs, but it was practical scrubs. She ran a hand through her hair as she got out of the car and looked around.

Border General Hospital looked like it had been designed by committee. It had an impressive front, with a large tree-filled courtyard surrounded by covered walkways supported by pillars, and the front was given to carvings of what Siobhan presumed were great doctors and healers over the centuries. It was impressive, and also pretentious as hell, and she couldn’t decide if she hated it or not.

“Yes, but since you hand wrote it on the back of a place-mat at a restaurant, we chose to ignore it,” Morgan Winters said as she too slid out of the SUV. She was dressed in scrubs the blue of a frozen lake, surmounted by a white lab coat bearing her ID card. “Besides, they don’t let candy-stripers work the graveyard shift.”

Siobhan scowled. “I stripe no candy, madam,” she offered haughtily, but she ruined the grim aspect of it by stretching and yawning immediately after. Antigone puled herself out of the SUV, and her scrubs were of course bright and sunny despite the fact that it was December and promised to be bitterly cold.

“You know, it’s considered polite to thank someone for giving you opportunities, Bug,” their father said as he leaned against the arm-rest to stick his head out the window of the car. “Morgan didn’t have to offer to do this for you,” he pointed out.

Siobhan and Antigone shared a glance, and Antigone smirked. The offer to spend winter break working at the hospital actually was quite a generous one—normally people coming in to volunteer at the level that Antigone and Siobhan were came from the local community college and were doing it over a semester for credit. To get to actually help out in different departments—stacking and sorting and filing, of course, nothing medical—and see what they were like was an opportunity neither of the girls were able to pass up. Both were off and on considering medicine for their future, albeit in very different capacities.

Under normal circumstances, they might have wondered how they got the opportunity. But the fact that their father was dating Dr. Winters, a well established and respected doctor at the hospital, explained much of it. The fact that she also happened to be the Faerie Queen of Winter, a powerful woman who was over 700 years old, likely didn’t hurt her ability to convince the hospital administration to allow the unusual internship.

Siobhan sighed, shaking her head and shrugging. “You’re right. I can sullenly pretend gratitude like most teenagers, I guess,” she offered, but softened her teasing with a grin. “Thank you.” Morgan gave her a smile back, and reached out to take Walter’s hand through the rolled down window of the car.

“I’ll see you tonight? I have to go back next week,” Morgan said with a smile and a hint of sadness. Walter nodded, with all of the smile and none of the sadness. He took her hand up and kissed the back of it, drawing the obligatory rounds of eww-ing from his daughters. Wiggling his eyebrows at them, Walter put the car into reverse and began to pull back out of the parking lot.

“Poor Ryan, getting to spend all winter break sleeping in and not putting on pants,” Antigone offered wryly as they all walked toward the entrance of the hospital. They made it to the coffee cart inside just as the snow was beginning to fall outside in thick, fat flakes.

Saturday, 3 AM.

There was screaming in her ears. Screams of pain, screams of fear, screams of the outside trying to get in. It was in her ears and in her head, and she couldn’t get away from it. It echoed and rebounded the walls of her mind, taking on a mocking quality at times—and others the tones of damned souls crying for release from torment. She couldn’t escape them, and she ran through the dark corridors of her consciousness to try to find some way out.

“Do not run, child…it is only the closing of your eyes, and then nothing…”

Siobhan Richards woke up screaming, gasping, and crying. The room she was in was dark, and for agonizingly long moments she didn’t know where she was. She stared up in to the darkness between her and the ceiling that seemed like it was swirling, like it was alive, and tried to remember…anything. Slowly it began to come back to her where she was—but remembering didn’t decrease the fear. Quite the opposite; as she remembered more her heart began to pound faster and the feeling of how monumentally screwed she was bore down on her like a physical weight.

She sat up and her head swam with the exertion, the dark room spinning around her. She carefully slid out of the bed and gasped as her bare feet touched tiles that felt like ice. She looked down to see that someone had changed her in to a hospital gown—a terrifying thought on its own. She shivered as she came out from under the blankets, and between that and how frozen the tiles felt under her feet she realized she probably had a fever.

I’m in the hospital, I have a fever, and very few of the lights are on. Shit, shit, shit, gotta move… her brain felt like it was finally beginning to speed up as she stumbled toward the door. There were lights on in the hall, albeit dimly, and she was able to open the door carefully. She slid out in to the hallway silently, edging carefully in to the light toward the nurse’s station. Padding lightly down the blandly painted green hallway, she heard something coming from the station. She leaned up against the corner to peek around it…

And then literally and figuratively slumped in relief at what she saw. It was a sign of how confused she had been that finding Antigone hadn’t been her first thought. Her twin was at the nurse’s station trying desperately to dial out on the phone there, and cursed as she slammed it back down on to the receiver. She looked up, and the annoyance was replaced by relief. “Oh thank God,” Antigone said seriously, coming out from the station and running over. In the moments before they were desperately hugging one another Siobhan saw Antigone was dressed in the same hospital gown and lack of shoes.

“We have got to find some goddamn pants,” Siobhan gasped in to her sister’s shoulder before they pulled apart. “What happened?” She surreptitiously reached up to wipe her eyes while she asked that, and knew Antigone was pretending not to notice.

“Do you remember the flash of light, and then all of the lights going out?” Antigone asked. Siobhan grimaced, and nodded. It was about the last thing she remembered, followed by searing pain in the center of her skull and then what she supposed were unpleasant fever dreams. “I think that was the hospital being cut off from the rest of the city. Only the kids who had started to show symptoms of the fever are still here—I can hear them in some sections, but with you unconscious…” she trailed off, and Siobhan knew. Antigone had wanted to go after the children, but wouldn’t leave her sister.

Siobhan’s voice was a bit hoarse as she spoke. “Thanks,” she said, trying for gruffness before she looked around. “Matt and Nat?” She asked. Antigone shook her head.

“I think they must be in one of the other sections.”

“Do we have any idea what it is?” Siobhan asked. She closed her eyes and began to focus, letting the familiar energies flow through her the way Morgan had been teaching her, to summon her sword. As she did so Antigone went back to the nurse’s station and pulled out what looked to be an old school notebook, the front cover faded yellow and the spiral-binding barely hanging on to the paper. “I found this in the room Matt and Nat woke up in. I think it’s their journal,” she explained as she began flipping through pages.

Siobhan nodded, leaning over to see. There were some sections that were filled with the scrawling text of preteen handwriting, and some with drawings of surprising detail. “Any hints?” She asked hopefully.

Antigone nodded, finding the page and looking at her sister. “There is, but it isn’t good. Bonnie, I think that I know what’s here. Death…gone mad.”

A door long closed. A doctor’s past. The twins future. The next installment in the Border, KS series is:

O, Death.

A short story/novella starring, primarily, Antigone and Siobhan. Tonight we will see what happens when the twins are given unfettered access to a hospital, and a part of the past of Border, KS.

Part 1 will post tonight at 9 PM Central time.

In the mean time, enjoy some mood music:

As a reminder, Border is on hiatus until February 2nd while I prepare Book 2 and the possibility of a short story. All posts this month will be on things related to Border, but not actual plot updates–these posts will be about background and behind the scenes things. They are labelled as Omake, which is a Japanese term from anime and manga for extra or bonus parts, because I can.

What Changed: Morgan and Tania

The biggest changes to Book 1 came from Morgan and Tania, the two (spoilers) Faerie Queens. From the very beginning they were going to have the positions they had–Morgan was going to be a doctor and the Winter Queen, and Tania a newspaper mogul and Summer Queen–but they were going to be far more remote characters than they are in the story. Even more Morgan than Tania was originally going to be a more enigmatic and mysterious figure, who when it comes out that she is a Queen of Faerie is treated with concern and sometimes even suspicion. She was going to be a powerful force that wasn’t always helpful to the Border crew in the investigation.

But that wasn’t something that lasted very long, obviously. First and foremost it was because I wanted another adult female character for the cast, rather than having her come in and out mysteriously. But a second big reason was I found that I liked having Walter and Morgan in scenes, and I felt like there was a good possibility of them becoming interesting love interests. This also meant that I changed her backstory a lot to make her a more sympathetic and human figure.

In Border as it ended up, Morgan and Tania are Mab and Titania but not the FIRST Mab and Titania–that those names are titles that have been held by other women, and that there is a very rare tradition of successive Queens in the Faerie courts. Originally they were going to have been the ONLY Mab and Titania, thousands of years old instead of centuries and more remote from the human world despite their being connected to it by the Border. Changing them to being younger (relatively speaking), and half-human, helped them be easier to relate to, and gave fertile ground for their background with Oberon.

Tania stayed much more the same person she was before, because she ended up being more of a foil to Morgan. Part of what I wanted to play with was the personalities of the Faerie courts as they are often depicted. The exact reasons why they are different are still to come out, but they are obvious throughout book one. Tania is hot-headed and remote, while Morgan is more sensitive and soft-hearted–she can also be sad and serious. The two also worked better as clone characters and parallels for Antigone and Siobhan with their new backstory.

What Changed: The Plot

The other thing that changed a lot was the plot. I’ll talk more about my writing process later, but I didn’t start book 1 with a lot of idea about where it was going. I knew the main characters (Walter, Siobhan, Antigone, Ryan, William Alexander, Morgan, Tania), and I knew there was going to be the Three Stripes killings–but I had no idea what they were at the time. I started to develop the idea that they were related to the Faerie Courts, but originally they were going to be Faerie power activists rather than anything about Oberon. Oberon was a later development that helped define and sharpen the Three Stripes group’s opposition to Morgan and Tania. It also helps them be more important later, because if you look at book 1–the Hound disappears and is at large, as is one (or more, hint hint) Lord of Nightmare.

The whole Nightmare sequence also came about very, very late. Once I’d figured out that the Three Stripes killings were Oberon trying to draw out Morgan and Tania (whom he couldn’t recognize as part of the geasa), I figured the next step was to give them something they couldn’t pass up–a chance to go get him. They suspected it to be a trap, but the idea of having the trap be getting them stuck in Nightmare was pretty much done as I was writing it. Ultimately I’m glad that I decided to, because it gave me two additional worlds to work with (Dream and Nightmare) which will be fun to work with later. Dream and Nightmare are especially reminiscent to me both of concepts from the Wheel of Time series (tel’aran’rhiod) and from Japanese and Japanese inspired worlds (Yume-Do from Legend  of the Five Rings comes to mind), even though I wasn’t thinking of these when I first made it.

The plot also directly changed at the end. Originally I intended them to come back from Nightmare and then, days later, have to chase Oberon again. But a loyal reader (hi, Charles!) commented when they were trying to get through Nightmare that he thought we were close to the climax. That got me thinking, and it made me realize that it really did make more sense to go from Nightmare right to the climax; it would be far too repetitive for me to have another so similarly set-up scene. And that is one of the things I enjoy about the format of Border, is that I was able to make changes based on good points raised by readers.

Next time in Omake: How many people read Border, and what are my next steps for Book 1?

As a reminder, Border is on hiatus until February 2nd while I prepare Book 2 and the possibility of a short story. All posts this month will be on things related to Border, but not actual plot updates–these posts will be about background and behind the scenes things. They are labelled as Omake, which is a Japanese term from anime and manga for extra or bonus parts, because I can.

Why Border? Why did you start this, and what were and are your goals with it?

Why is a difficult question to answer, because there are a couple of different ways to answer it. But all of those answers are a part of why we have the thing here that we do, so I will try to answer them.

Border came about largely because I wanted to write a webcomic, but I’m terrible at drawing. I have numerous friends who have done webcomics, most specifically Robin Childs of www.leylines.com (go read it, they just came off hiatus), and I love the ability that she has to directly interact with her fans. A webcomic has a great opportunity to create a community and see immediate responses from fans; contrasted to writing a novel, which is pretty much a solitary activity unless you’re in a writing circle. And even then it is small scale feedback from a select audience.

So a big part of why I started Border was because I wanted to work on a project that I could throw out to the world, week by week.

A second reason was because I’d never actually finished any major writing projects, and I wanted to see if I could challenge myself to do so. I wanted to see if I actually could do so, or if I was doomed to have about fifty pages of a bunch of different would be novels on my computer. I’d previously joked that I was a great first fifty pages author, but I stalled out after that. By putting myself out there and promising that I would publish something twice a week, I figured it would be the best way to see if I had it in me.

And to that extent it succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. I not only finished Border, I didn’t miss an update for the entire first year. And when schedule slippage came I forced myself back on to the horse and got back to it.

And the final reason was I had ideas for urban fantasy kicking around in my head. I’ve been a fan of the genre (think the Dresden Files or the Kitty Norville series) for years, but it was the one genre that I hadn’t really started putting to paper. So when I wanted to do a serial project it was the thing I had at hand that I wanted to develop, and I thought would work.

What were the biggest changes in the first book?

The biggest change in Book 1 from a structural standpoint was changing how long the updates were. I originally thought it would be 500 words per update, and that would be enough. But it quickly became obvious that it wasn’t working for either myself or the people who were reading it; it wasn’t enough to be satisfying, and the story would have taken forever to get to where I wanted it. Given it took 18 months already, it would have taken probably 3 years if I had kept it at that length.

The biggest change internally were the changes to the characters of Morgan and Tania. But I’ll save exactly how they changed, and why that was such a big change, for the next Omake update. See, still trying to keep the cliffhangers going.

“I don’t suppose I have to caution you about freezing out here,” Walter offered in amusement. Morgan smirked, wiggling her toes and shrugging. She had somehow changed into a fashionable, knee-length dress in dark blue with silver embroidery—although he suspected that all she’d needed to ‘change’ was an empty bathroom and some magic.

“Queen of Winter does have its benefits,” Morgan responded with a smile up at him, wiggling crimson eyebrows as well. She looked at her hair, which was mid-back length and obviously the same hair he had seen in Nightmare. “It’s been so long since I’ve looked like this I’d almost forgotten.”

Walter smiled at her, reaching up to gently brush some of the hair back out of her face. “We’re stalling.” It wasn’t a question, or even a negative—just a statement of fact. She nodded, the smile still on her features but a seriousness coming to her eyes.

“Walter, I like you a lot. You’re interesting, and it’s pretty damn rare that a mortal interests me that much. I…” She laughed, shaking her head. “I want to keep seeing you, and I want to see where this goes.” Her voice was honest, plain and true, and Walter smiled wider—although it had a little bit of a sad edge to it as he spoke in return.

“I like you a lot too. I sense a ‘but’ coming, however…” Walter prompted wryly, making no move to take his arm from around her waist. She nodded, the curls tumbling around her face as she did.

“But it is going to be very hard, for a while. We can go back to Faerie now, and see our people. Rule our courts, in a way we haven’t been able to for a very long time.” Morgan’s voice was a mixture of hopefulness and sadness, the combination of hopefulness and the sinking suspicion that it would not be very pretty or easy at all. “We have had people sending us updates, regents looking after it while we shared Oberon’s exile…but I don’t expect it will be sunshine and kittens when we go back.” She reached down to squeeze his hand. “I’ll probably be gone for long stretches at a time, at the very least.”

Walter’s smile took on the qualities of a smirk for a moment. “Well, it only seems fair. I went on deployments for huge stretches at a time,” he explained, shrugging. “Seems like karma dictates I should get to experience it.”

Morgan laughed genuinely, before nodding in appreciation. “That’s fair enough, I suppose. Certainly can’t argue with the poetry of it. And if some day I have to make a decision for my people that goes against the interests of the police?” She asked, softly. When he didn’t respond, her voice grew quieter still. “Walter…I know things. I am sworn to secrets that you will not like when they come out, and I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt either of us.”

Walter was tempted to respond he didn’t believe it would happen, but he had long ago learned that trusting someone meant considering their words seriously. So he chewed on the tip of his cigar for a moment, before taking it with his other hand. “That’s all fair,” he admitted. “And it could happen. I can’t promise that something you know or have done or will do couldn’t make us hurt one another.” Her eyes clouded, and he leaned over to gently kiss her forehead. “But that’s not different than any other relationship—anyone can say something hurtful. Anyone’s past can come back and hurt their relationships.” He offered a shrug of his shoulders. “So we’ll say that we will see each other as much as possible, and take life as it comes. Right?”

She didn’t respond, but leaned up to kiss him instead. It was a good answer.

**** ****

They had perhaps fifteen minutes alone on the porch until they were joined by Antigone and Siobhan. Both girls were as barefoot as Morgan was, their shoes visibly blocking the doorway in the fine family tradition, but they had put on fleece-lined hoodies as a concession to the cold. Walter leaned over and put his nearly finished cigar out in an empty cup of water someone had discarded on the deck as they came up to him. Morgan started to step out of his arms, but demurred when Siobhan snorted and Antigone gave her a smile. Content with those tacit symbols of acceptance, she settled back in.

“So, where did you put the shard of Oberon’s power you palmed?” Siobhan asked curiously as she sat down on one of the deck chairs and considered her father. Morgan laughed, and Antigone raised her eyebrows in surprise.

“I told you they saw,” Morgan commented, as Walter shook his head with an exaggerated sigh. He pulled a small, dark green crystal out of his pocket; it shimmered and cast its own light, little dancing green motes on the deck and the house wall before he put it away again.

“It was the only one I could grab, because it was basically right next to me. It’s one of only two souvenirs I’ve got from him,” Walter explained. Antigone kept her eyebrows raised at that, looking at him critically.

“What’s the second one?” She asked, wary—apparently thinking nothing left from Oberon could be good; which Walter reflected wasn’t far from the truth. He reached out to roll up his sleeve, the opposite arm from which he had his tattoo on. But it revealed what looked to be another tattoo, and both Antigone and Siobhan blinked. In ink so black that it made his other black tattoo look dull by comparison, three twisting lines made intricate knot-work around his bicep. But as they watched the lines seemed to shift slightly, taking a subtly different pattern.

“I don’t remember all of it, but in the last minute whatever he did to bind the bad guys from getting out of wherever they are…tried to escape. Made a run for it, and I knew if it got out it would be bad. So I kept it in. I’m the keeper of his geas now,” Walter explained, keeping his voice studiously neutral. Walter and Morgan had discussed whether or not he should tell them, but he had been adamant about honesty.

“How bad is that?” Antigone asked, reaching out to brush the line before she pulled them back. Morgan sighed.

“Not the best. It is a piece of the Fomori, bound to his will. It will try to tempt him with anger and violence, and he will have to resist it. If it were any other mortal…” Morgan trailed off, which was as good as a pronouncement.

“But he isn’t any other mortal,” Siobhan offered. Morgan nodded, smiling.

“He is not. And I would not bet against the man who beat Oberon and stole his power,” Morgan said with a fond smile up to him. She ran a hand back through her hair.

They all fell in to silence, once again considering the night. A black car slid by sedately, someone trying to find their way home. Unaware, unknowing, but safe for at least the evening because of their efforts.

“It’s going to get worse and weirder, isn’t it. Border isn’t just going to rest, even now that Oberon is gone.” Once again it wasn’t a question. Antigone stated it plain as day, and didn’t look surprised when Morgan nodded.

“It’s part of what it is. Border is…just that,” Morgan explained. “It is the place where all the supernatural worlds overlap with the mortal world. It’s the place where it all comes together, and it will always be a place of worth and desire.” She smiled softly, shaking her head. “I won’t lie to you all. If you stay here, then it is going to be more dangerous. People will come and they will be dangerous, and powerful. You’re tied in to it now, and I don’t know how to pull you out, but you could run.”

Three of the four Richards in Border considered that for a long minute, before all of them gave variations of the same shrug and the same sigh. “We could run,” Siobhan offered without much enthusiasm, and it was so much against character that Antigone raised an eyebrow at her. “I was just saying. I don’t have a lot of run in me.”

“So what do we do?” Antigone asked softly.

Walter considered the city again. The sky was starting to cloud over, and he could see in another part of the city it was raining. It left the city misty, but beyond the cloak of encroaching shadow he could still see the stars twinkling above in their multitude.

“It’s the truth my father told me, when he didn’t want me to join the Army because he thought it would just bring more violence in to the world,” Walter said softly. “Border is filled with danger, and evil people. We live here and we make it better. We choose to protect people, and find out how we make ourselves safe.” He reached out his arms to encompass all three of them in a hug as they looked out at the city they had made their home. “We get to choose the kind of world we live in. That’s what we do.”

And the city continued to glow, lit by the light of the stars in the perfect night’s sky and shadowed by the oncoming clouds, as they all began to choose what the city was going to be—and what they were going to be inside it.

THE END OF BOOK 1

It turned out, Walter was both delighted and surprised to learn, that the party after you’ve (probably) killed a God turned out to be quite a party indeed. None of them had expected there to be a party, necessarily—it had just happened to spring up at them.

It was pushing 8 PM when the convoy from the battle got back to Walter’s house. Andre and Leah had been released far earlier than any of the rest of them, and Walter had expected they had gone home. When William Alexander suggested the rest of them (the two Queens, Walter’s Children, Ryan Aquino, and Alexander) grab a beer, Walter had volunteered his refrigerator as the source and his house as a place to decompress and talk about what came next.

“Were we expecting a lot of company?” Morgan asked curiously. “Should I change?” She gave Walter, who was driving the car with his three children in the back and her in shotgun, a little bit of a smile. She reached to fluff her hair a little bit, and in a flickering instance of power it was back to the flame red comet that it had been in the visions of her childhood. Walter raised an eyebrow, and she smiled. “Someone told me I should go back to wearing it this way.”

Antigone, Siobhan, and Ryan all watched the transformation with longing—and shock for Ryan, who had not seen as much of Morgan’s abilities. Walter filled the silence with a shake of his head. “No, I wasn’t expecting anyone…” He murmured. Cars lined the neighborhood streets on both sides, save for several apparently VIP parking spaces. As Walter pulled in to one, he saw that there were about fifteen people on the porch, and twenty or thirty more he could see inside the house. When they saw the party get out of the car, a cheer went up and people surged toward them.

Antigone and Siobhan were both wrapped in hugs by Lacey and Monica respectively, before they were switched around and hugged by the other. Walter and Andre were immediately gripped and grabbed by Ryan Richards and Andre Alexander, while in their case the switch was not a hug but a handshake. Then others started to come up around them, and bring them in to the house. The crowd was heavily concentrated with police officers, people who had been called out to the battle at the high school—people who had seen what happened. People who had been suddenly clued in to at least some of the goings on of the city they lived in, and who had gathered to celebrate the hard-won victory.

When they came in to the house someone turned the stereo on, blasting them all with the exuberance of Freddy Mercury declaring them the champions. Walter laughed and shook his head, while Antigone blushed and Siobhan raised her fists in the air like a victorious boxer. People in the house started singing along; well before the song was over Walter found himself in an impromptu karaoke session with two Faerie Queens, half the Border PD, and his children.

It was only an hour later that Walter found himself free of the crush of people, hand shakes, and back slaps out to the front porch again. The party continued inside, all of the people pushed in to the house and even in to the basement they had rarely used since moving in. With the door closed he could still hear the party quite well, but it was at least quiet enough for him to think. He leaned against the porch rail and looked out in to the darkness of the city. Having grabbed his cigar humidor on the way out, he was pulling a cigar out of it when he heard someone come out behind him.

“Taking a break, Major?” William Alexander asked as he moved to lean on the railing next to him. Walter nodded, cutting off the tip of the cigar so that he could light it.

“Needed some air. Poisoned air,” Walter offered wryly as he puffed, “and probably tempting fate, given the last time I smoked one my house was attacked, but…” he trailed off, shrugging. “I’m not sure I expected a party.” He held up one of the other cigars, offering it to the Marshal.

Alexander took it, cutting it and lighting it up as he joined Walter in amicable silence for a long moment. The whole neighborhood was on enough of a hill that they could see a lovely section of the city, lights twinkling gently in the darkness. There was enough frost in the air to make it crystal clear, and they enjoyed it as they smoked.

“We don’t get many big victories, Walter,” Alexander commented softly. He turned to lean his back against the rail, and gestured with the lit cigar to the house. “These are a people that live for small victories because they can’t even hope for the big ones.”

Walter didn’t respond for another long moment, and Alexander continued. “Most of the people who join the department are ones who have seen something in this city, Walt. And the ones in there are clued in more than most, whether they were before today or not.” He smiled, although there was not very much humor in it at all. “They know that there are things that they can’t fight back against, and that they can’t stop—so every little stop they get is worth celebrating. And this…this is beyond anything they could have hoped for.”

Walter turned to look at the people in the house as well. “We can’t keep giving up fights for lost, William,” he said simply. “We can’t keep these people thinking they can’t win, or they’ll never be able to.”

Alexander shook his head and sighed. “Walter…when we try to stop everything, when we send people out in to the night to stop all the crazy things in this city we loses people every week. Sometimes every day. They don’t know what they’re up against—”

“Then tell them,” Walter interrupted, looking his boss in the eye seriously. “Then tell them what is out there and let them decide if they want to fight it head on or quit. And then let them fight it with everything we have!”

Alexander sighed, shaking his head adamantly. “Walter…just knowing about these things is dangerous. Just knowing what’s out there makes you a target. We’ve had to pick and choose who knows what and what to fight…” he trailed off. He took a long drag off of the cigar, before sighing again. “But if we’d let this one go, we’d all be dead. We didn’t think about there being one that tried to take out the whole city, and probably a chunk of the state.” Walter started to open his mouth, but Alexander waved his cigar and kept going. “Things have to change. But it is going to be dangerous, and things will get ugly. But you’re not wrong. The question is…are we up for it? Are you?” He asked, looking Walter back in the eye without flinching.

Walter nodded, and Alexander sighed. “Well then…we’ll see.”

“What’s the first step?” Walter asked softly.

“We’ve just taken it,” Alexander responded, looking much older in the smoky light of the porch. He sighed, gripping the cigar between his teeth and heading to the porch stairs. His steps were heavy, and he shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’m going to clear my head a bit more. Besides…I’m not the only one who wanted to talk to you.” With a few steps he was down, and off to the neighborhood.

The footsteps that replaced him weren’t heavy, but soft steps on quiet bare feet. Morgan stepped up to Walter’s side, and he put an arm around her waist without hesitation.

“We should talk,” she offered quietly, as she rested her head on his shoulder.