AnyaKimlin
Confuddled
I am supposed to be working on Mayhem but I have had a two month long writer's block and hardly written anything so when inspiration struck and I actually wrote something....
Black's Nest is my wrinkly urban fantasy. It has two POVs John Black (psychiatrist) and his father Ian Black (former senior detective now retired). Ian is the MC but it goes for about half the book with him oblivious to the fantasy so I brought in his son who works as a medic for the rebel fairies. Previously I've always started with Ian but I wondered if John was a more exciting place to begin or is it too weird for a beginning?
Black's Nest
CHAPTER ONE
A recent divorce, a backlog of paperwork and drinking alcohol at his desk, Dr John Smith was rapidly becoming a stereotype a; psychiatrist with more issues than his clients. He didn't care as working late was an improvement on spending another night on his brother's sofa. Beetroot juice and salad cream bled from his half eaten sandwich and congealed on the plate. He sipped his malt whisky and stared at his laptop screen, trying to find a reason to care about the pampered affluent patients that came through the exclusive clinic hidden away on the Pennshire Moors.
The beeper on his desk startled him out of his boredom. He blinked until he realised what it was.
He smiled. From the back of his desk chair he took his bespoke tailored suit jacket. Shop bought clothes didn't work on his lean frame. They looked like they were still on the hanger. He left his office before he could feel a stab of guilt about the paperwork that was already several weeks late. His long legs made short work of the maze of identical corridors. All were lined with oak panelled doors, carpeted with the thickest pile and scented with lavender. The effect was an unnatural quiet that couldn't be created in nature. John hated it but it was what the patients and their money demanded. Lilac Innes the senior practitioner chose everything including her staff with an impeccable eye; he'd never been under any illusion about why he'd won out over the older more experienced practitioners who had been waiting for the interview. He was eye candy for the old ladies and gay men who were currently taking their supper behind the closed panelled oak doors.
He let the scanner to the aluminium door scan his retina, palms and any other part it needed for identification. It hushed, the sign he'd been accepted into the bowels of the building and St Dymphna Clinic's precious secrets. He pushed open the door and it shushed closed behind him. It had been specially designed not to clank and disturb the sensibilities of its spoiled occupants. His feet clattered down the metal stairs and he pushed through the heavy plastic curtains, the kind more associated with a loading bay.
He nodded to the young man with grey skin and pointy ears who was getting into his lilac scrubs. “What do we have, Dew?”
“It's nasty. There's been a battle at Primrose Hill and the casualties are mounting up, Sir. Dr Innes says she needs as many pairs of steady hands as we can find.”
She wouldn't have called unless it was bad. Dr Innes didn't share the Hundred Hill Faction work out very often but these rare occasions were why he stayed at his otherwise ridiculous job treating alcoholics, plastic surgeries gone wrong and those whose nerves needed a rest. The adrenaline of working on a frontline hospital was like no other. He opened his locker and changed into his peach surgical scrubs. The gas mask he would only wear if he had to and he carried it through the hospital doors into a reception area that smelled so strong of disinfectant it made his eyes water. It was devoid of all people, well except for a terrified little nurse who was standing his guard and staring down the covered walkway.
John touched his shoulder. “First time?”
She nodded. Her young face wizened beyond what looked like her very few years. He couldn't discern what species of fey she was.
“Do you have one of these?” He held up the gas mask.
She shook her head.
He sighed and handed her his. “You'll need it more than I do. The stench isn't toxic well not immediately it's more like smoking twenty a day.” At just over fifty he didn't have as many years left as she did. Depending on her species of fey it probably amounted to more than his threescore years and ten. “It's coming.” The faint smell of burning, decomposing flowers and seaweed had already reached his nostrils and he knew this was bad.
“Ahh, John.” Even in her scrubs Dr Innes was perfectly made up. She said she'd chosen her trademark peach because it went with her black skin. It didn't matter it looked appalling on the rest of her staff as long as she was fabulous. She handed him a gas mask. “It's going to be more like chain smoking sixty a day for several weeks today. I'd put it on now.” She pulled her own over head. He'd never worked out how she did it without disturbing hairdo.
John helped the young nurse, whose name he'd forgotten to ask and probably couldn't pronounce anyway, to get hers on tight. Together all three of the stared down the tunnel hidden from view beneath the Pennshire Moors. It came directly from a portal to the fairy realm. Wheels of the stretchers coming from the ambulances were rumbling, getting closer. These weren't little fey with wings that took teeth from under pillows. Once they came through the portal they were human sized and powerful, and some of them were mad, bad and dangerous to know. They were more like Donald Trump with magical powers. Fortunately their ability to wield magic was reduced on Earth.
Paramedics brought in the first and tears stung John's eyes. This one would lose his wings, a fate worse than death for a fey. It would be his responsibility to remove them and to guide the poor sod through the trauma afterwards. He took his place beside the stretcher and helped to push it down the corridors to theatre. Behind him Dr Innes was assessing the others that had arrived. He'd known her long enough to hear the concern in her clipped tones.
Black's Nest is my wrinkly urban fantasy. It has two POVs John Black (psychiatrist) and his father Ian Black (former senior detective now retired). Ian is the MC but it goes for about half the book with him oblivious to the fantasy so I brought in his son who works as a medic for the rebel fairies. Previously I've always started with Ian but I wondered if John was a more exciting place to begin or is it too weird for a beginning?
Black's Nest
CHAPTER ONE
A recent divorce, a backlog of paperwork and drinking alcohol at his desk, Dr John Smith was rapidly becoming a stereotype a; psychiatrist with more issues than his clients. He didn't care as working late was an improvement on spending another night on his brother's sofa. Beetroot juice and salad cream bled from his half eaten sandwich and congealed on the plate. He sipped his malt whisky and stared at his laptop screen, trying to find a reason to care about the pampered affluent patients that came through the exclusive clinic hidden away on the Pennshire Moors.
The beeper on his desk startled him out of his boredom. He blinked until he realised what it was.
He smiled. From the back of his desk chair he took his bespoke tailored suit jacket. Shop bought clothes didn't work on his lean frame. They looked like they were still on the hanger. He left his office before he could feel a stab of guilt about the paperwork that was already several weeks late. His long legs made short work of the maze of identical corridors. All were lined with oak panelled doors, carpeted with the thickest pile and scented with lavender. The effect was an unnatural quiet that couldn't be created in nature. John hated it but it was what the patients and their money demanded. Lilac Innes the senior practitioner chose everything including her staff with an impeccable eye; he'd never been under any illusion about why he'd won out over the older more experienced practitioners who had been waiting for the interview. He was eye candy for the old ladies and gay men who were currently taking their supper behind the closed panelled oak doors.
He let the scanner to the aluminium door scan his retina, palms and any other part it needed for identification. It hushed, the sign he'd been accepted into the bowels of the building and St Dymphna Clinic's precious secrets. He pushed open the door and it shushed closed behind him. It had been specially designed not to clank and disturb the sensibilities of its spoiled occupants. His feet clattered down the metal stairs and he pushed through the heavy plastic curtains, the kind more associated with a loading bay.
He nodded to the young man with grey skin and pointy ears who was getting into his lilac scrubs. “What do we have, Dew?”
“It's nasty. There's been a battle at Primrose Hill and the casualties are mounting up, Sir. Dr Innes says she needs as many pairs of steady hands as we can find.”
She wouldn't have called unless it was bad. Dr Innes didn't share the Hundred Hill Faction work out very often but these rare occasions were why he stayed at his otherwise ridiculous job treating alcoholics, plastic surgeries gone wrong and those whose nerves needed a rest. The adrenaline of working on a frontline hospital was like no other. He opened his locker and changed into his peach surgical scrubs. The gas mask he would only wear if he had to and he carried it through the hospital doors into a reception area that smelled so strong of disinfectant it made his eyes water. It was devoid of all people, well except for a terrified little nurse who was standing his guard and staring down the covered walkway.
John touched his shoulder. “First time?”
She nodded. Her young face wizened beyond what looked like her very few years. He couldn't discern what species of fey she was.
“Do you have one of these?” He held up the gas mask.
She shook her head.
He sighed and handed her his. “You'll need it more than I do. The stench isn't toxic well not immediately it's more like smoking twenty a day.” At just over fifty he didn't have as many years left as she did. Depending on her species of fey it probably amounted to more than his threescore years and ten. “It's coming.” The faint smell of burning, decomposing flowers and seaweed had already reached his nostrils and he knew this was bad.
“Ahh, John.” Even in her scrubs Dr Innes was perfectly made up. She said she'd chosen her trademark peach because it went with her black skin. It didn't matter it looked appalling on the rest of her staff as long as she was fabulous. She handed him a gas mask. “It's going to be more like chain smoking sixty a day for several weeks today. I'd put it on now.” She pulled her own over head. He'd never worked out how she did it without disturbing hairdo.
John helped the young nurse, whose name he'd forgotten to ask and probably couldn't pronounce anyway, to get hers on tight. Together all three of the stared down the tunnel hidden from view beneath the Pennshire Moors. It came directly from a portal to the fairy realm. Wheels of the stretchers coming from the ambulances were rumbling, getting closer. These weren't little fey with wings that took teeth from under pillows. Once they came through the portal they were human sized and powerful, and some of them were mad, bad and dangerous to know. They were more like Donald Trump with magical powers. Fortunately their ability to wield magic was reduced on Earth.
Paramedics brought in the first and tears stung John's eyes. This one would lose his wings, a fate worse than death for a fey. It would be his responsibility to remove them and to guide the poor sod through the trauma afterwards. He took his place beside the stretcher and helped to push it down the corridors to theatre. Behind him Dr Innes was assessing the others that had arrived. He'd known her long enough to hear the concern in her clipped tones.
