"Book Club Meeting" by Ed Calkins, Steward of Tara

Since the beginning of this blog on August 1, 2010, Saturdays has been a day to celebrate BryonySeries author and Irish vampire character Ed Calkins, Steward of Tara, and all things Irish.

Read this post about Ed as author, how he connects to the BryonySeries, and what he's written (so far).

And then read this piece of literary nonsense and fan fiction from Ed's third novel in his Ruthless series, called "Recovering Ruthless."

CHAPTER 8: BOOK CLUB MEETING

 

 

It was a small building that housed the Beulah County Sheriff’s Office, so the interrogation room was also the conference room. The room was what you might expect from any of the police detective movies or TV shows that air constantly in the “Who Done It” genre. Four chairs faced four chairs with a rectangular table to present evidence and a two-way mirror facing the suspect’s side. By force of habit, Marsha and Matt sat side by side with their backs to that mirror. They waited impatiently for a third person to start their book club meeting. On the table was a copy of the novel “Staked!”

 

              “It seems we’re in for a hell of a Christmas,” Marsha commented dryly. “According to the book, Beulah County will get national television coverage because of a whole bunch of things we can't explain.”

 

              “One of the rare times the county is part of the country,” Matt added, making a sour face. “Hopefully the whole thing quickly fades away. The medical mystery of John-Peter’s death shouldn't be too much of a problem in that it is a medical mystery. They'll be a whole bunch of ‘no comment’ replies to that. But the missing body of John-Peter and the sixty teenage girls with branded backs that just appear in the basement of Eircheard’s Emporium…” Matt shook his head. “At least we know to schedule extra dispatchers for Christmas.”

 

              “Are you’re worried about the State auditing our department and – maybe – arresting some of us?” Marsha asked. “I mean, we’re all fugitives in some fashion.”

 

              Matt shrugged. “I’m sure they’ll audit, but it I’m guessing it won’t be my problem. I’m not getting reelected, and that Pike fellow will be in office by the time they do. It’s not like they’re going to find any records that will incriminate anyone. All they might decide is that ‘Sheriff Matt’ didn’t bother with records. All fine with me. Beulah County never bothered with county sheriff elections.”

 

              “I guess a ‘no last names’ policy comes in handy now.” Marsha stared at the book. “Can we do anything to save John-Peter?”

 

              “Nope. Ed warned me that everything has to be consistent with the book or we’ll be messing with something he calls ‘deep time’ and we’ll all get as crazy as he is.” Matt slumped in his chair and sighed. “Anyway, I don’t see how we could save him. John-Peter dies in Ed’s imagination as it’s collapsing. And Ed Calkins and Kellen Wechsler are already dead.”

 

              “If we do nothing, nothing in the book happens,” Ed said, suddenly appearing in the room.

 

              Only Marsha was startled, and just a touch at that.

 

              “There isn’t a single word about the ‘Rules of the Damned’ in ‘Staked!’ either,” Marsha said continued. “Why would a book about Munsonville vampires omit such an important contract between the living and undead?”

 

              Ed laughed. “Don’t you understand? It’s not important. The book is about me, not law enforcement. In fact, the whole trilogy it's about me.”

 

              “This is a part of a trilogy?” Matt held up the book. “By the same author?”

 

              “Of course. Do you think she’d only write one book about how ruthless I am? Look at it from Melissa’s point of view.”

 

              “John Peter’s mother?” Marsha asked.

 

              “Yes. In the first book, ‘Bryony’, she gets introduced to me and I ask her to marry me. She didn’t say yes. After that, she falls in love with the vampire John Simon, who eventually dies for good. So then she has to marry Kellen Weschler at the end of the second book, ‘Visage’ in order to save her son’s life.”

 

              “How is that all about you?” Marsha persisted.

 

              “Don’t you see?” Ed proclaimed. “None of this would have happened if Melissa had married me in the first book. My marriages have no sex or ceremony, so she never has to sleep with a vampire. Also, she gets some of my luck and probably never falls in love with John Simons. The trilogy is a cautionary tale to young women. If Ed Calkins asks you to marry him, it might be the only time he does so. Now, The Goddess herself disagrees with this, but she only writes the books. That doesn’t mean she understands them.”

 

              “Aren’t we straying from the point here?” Matt asked irritably. “You said earlier that if we do nothing, none of the events in the book happens – and I’m wondering if that would be a good thing.”

 

              “It would not,” Ed said. “Some time before November, a pair of werewolves maul the entire town of Shelby, Munsonville, and a good part of Thornton. I was wandering alterative timelines looking for something else. Don’t ever wander in alterative timelines, but I had my reasons. Anyway, I did not stick around to see what happened or who got eaten or killed, but the number was high enough that no one left alive stays in Beulah County.”

 

             Matt sat straight up. “Sounds bad. What do we have to do?”

             

Ed looked confused.

 

              “I’m not sure,” Ed admitted. “I know it’s mostly you, Sheriff, who prevents it. I only have a supporting role, providing logistics.”

 

            Marsha’s fist came down hard on the table. “Damn you, Ed! Think!”

 

              Ed scratched his beard and thought.

 

              “I know it has something to do with a raid on Kellen Wechsler, but not at his home or business. Does that make sense?”

 

              “Arcadia then?” Matt asked, brightening.

 

              “Why, yes. You must have read ‘Before the Blood’. It was/is/will be The Goddess’ greatest work that didn’t include me. Since it was a prequel about Munsonville vampires, her omission begs the question ‘why’…probably the greatest literary mystery of all time.”

 

              “We’ve already raided Arcadia,” Matt reminded him, trying to keep Ed focused, by far Martt’s most difficult task as sheriff. “Remember? You were there when we found the room where Kellen keeps his redheaded, maiden victims. We were enforcing the treaty outlined in ‘Rules of the Damned.’ Kellen didn’t have the proper paperwork for some of them and we were able to recuse some of them and ticket him for…”

 

“Sounds really dangerous…not like something I would be in on…interrupting Kellen while he plays with his food,” Ed said, looking shocked.

 

Marsha leaped to her feet. “You moron! You were our hostage! We threated to stake you if Kellen didn’t stand down!”

 

              “I doubt that.” Ed protested, shaking his head. “We wouldn’t be still friends if you forced me, and I can’t imagine agreeing to something…”

 

              “It was your idea!” Matt and Marsha shouted in unison.

 

              Ed grinned. “Ah, another ruthlessly clever idea of mine that worked.”

 

              “Yes, yes, you’re great.” Matt waved away that topic. “Here’s the thing that’s really important, Ed. Did we already do what needs to be done?”

 

              “I’m not sure? Where in the book are you?”

 

              Marsha snorted. “We both finished it, of course!”

 

              “No, I mean what page number are we living right now? Wait, another way of asking, what day is today? Is it before Halloween or after?” But Ed answered his own question with a glance at the calendar hanging on the wall. “No. More has to be done. But the sheriff is already inclined to start that by himself. The real problem is the dream. I know what you’re planning with Trudy, and I understand. But don’t do it till she’s had the dream.”

 

              “I don’t see why anything else has to be done,” Marsha complained, clearly frustrated with Ed.

 

Seconds later, she wished she hadn’t said a word as Ed went into a long explanation about the thing they already knew.

 

             “It was a crazy but landmark treaty between the living and the vampires made between the Beulah County Sheriff’s office and the recently empowered ‘Council of the Damned,’” Ed said. “The treaty would limit the killings of living people to those fatally involved in a suicide or murder/suicide. Such people would be teleported out of their own time using a vampire-enhanced enchanted dream such as Trudy could provide. These people would then feed the vampires and let nature’s ‘autocorrect’ handle the missing corpses by letting the intention play out in the time of origin. In this way, bodies of the suicides and homicide would be found without a suspicious lack of blood. In exchange, vampires would no longer fatally feed on anyone else or risk the wrath of the ‘Council of the Damned’ and be subjected to the penalties mandated by the ‘Rules of the Damned.’”

 

              “We know that, Ed,” Matt said in a strained voice as he, too, was nearing the end of his patience. “What Marsha meant was, how does bringing back the vampire Susan Betts help? Is that in some book that you forget to give us to read?”

 

              Ed shook his head. “No. It’s definitely not in any book or I wouldn't have forgotten it. Like I said, I’ve been searching alterative timelines and it all gets really confusing really quickly. It has something to do with defeating Kellen Wechsler who may or may not have turned her. Now, in ‘Before the Blood,’ Kellen tells Bryony that Susan committed suicide after giving birth to someone you know as Grandma Sue Barnes, the founder of Sue’s Diner. Now in ‘Call of the Siren’ also by Denise Baran-Unland…”

 

              “Ed, please,” Matt pleaded, rubbing his forehead. “We’re not her to analyze or review books that haven't been written yet. Can we get back to the matter at hand? Why do we need to rescue another vampire? It seems to me that in ‘Staked!’, Kellen and you are both goners. Are you saying that the book gets it wrong? I know you’re still here, but…”

 

              “You’re right,” Ed admitted. “With time travel, even if it’s not the deep time that made me crazy, the person facing you might have already been killed in your past but not his or hers. With vampires, there’s another dimension. It’s one thing to kill a vampire, but you have to finish killing them or they just reanimate.  That’s why we needed Professor Cornell Dyer all these years. Now, in ‘The Phoenix,’ another book by the goddess, Kellen hires Cornell to…”

 

              “Stop it!” Marsha shouted. “We’re not interested in your book reviews! If anything is SOOOOO important in these other books, why didn’t you give us those to read, too?”

 

              “I shouldn’t even have given you this one.” Ed spread out his hands. “Marsha, Matt, try and understand how dangerous this is for me to bring a written work into the past it’s been written about. But trying to stay on topic, I’m almost positive Kellen survives being stabbed and cremated. He had plenty of time to plan, and he knew Melissa meant to kill him on John Peter’s birthday. You both read that in ‘Staked!’ You also know that Melissa didn’t inherit any money. It's because Kellen moved all his funds into the future.”

 

              Matt now felt more willing to take the psychotic vampire at his word.

 

“Ed, I knew Susan Betts was important. I just didn’t remember why,” Matt said, more calmly this time. I also remember a name connected to all of this, and possible controlling it as well: Lord Lawrence Girard.

 

              “Who’s he?” Marsha asked.

 

              “One of the werewolves.” Ed answered Marsha and then disappeared in a puff.

 

“Must be a younger version of himself,” Matt mumbled. “In the versions we’ve seen lately, he forgets he can do that.”

"Recovering Ruthless" by Ed Calkins, Steward of Tara

 So Ed Calkins, Steward of Tara, has sent few telegrams this year.

But that's because he's been hard at work writing his third book in the BryonySeries "Ruthless" trilogy.

The title is called "Recovering Ruthless."

And editing this novel is my next project, once I finish the final copyedits for "House on Top of the Hill" (the third book in the BryonySeries Limbo trilogy). 

I've dabbled a little with the manuscript as Ed has sent chapters. But I will really dig into hard, heavy edits on Wednesday, when I have a leftover vacation day scheduled.

I don't have back cover summary yet for "Recovering Ruthless" - or an updated Table of Contents.

But I do have the book's cover art and chapter heading art, once again lovingly created by Ed's wife, Nancy Calkins (aka Nala).

If all goes well, "Recovering Ruthless" will be available for sale by Calkins Day 2024 (February 13).

And, yes, Ed already has ideas for a fourth book (not part of the Ruthless trilogy), using new and returning BryonySeries characters.

But Ed (according to Ed) is likely not among those characters. But that is OK.

For the entire trilogy has shifted away from Ed's backstory to other stories. Readers, I think, will see the growth in Ed, both as a reader and as a person.

Happy Saturday!

Twenty Questions with Ed Calkins, Steward of Tara

Next week, I'm taking my fourth at-home writing retreat, and I have two projects waiting for me.

One, I'm looking for errors in my proof copy of "House on Top of the Hill," which is the third book in the BryonySeries Limbo trilogy.

Two, I'm working on line edits in the third book of the BryonySeries Ruthless trilogy by Ed Calkins, Steward of Tara.

That feels like a good reason to repost this blog, which includes the original twenty questions from 2011 before we ever released "Bryony" (the first book ever in the BryonySeries) and the introduction to the reposting in 2015.

We certainly could not have imagined such a writing journey when my family and I first met Ed in a warehouse in 2007 back in our newspaper delivery days.

And we certainly could never have imagined that we'd still be on the journey nearly two decades later.

The journey has developed our writing, developed us as people, and blossomed into friendship.

What's especially interesting to me is seeing Ed's version of the Ruthless dictator (a hybrid of himself) turn into an unreliable narrator, who is then challenged by another character to use his ruthlessness and vampirism for good, which then becomes Ed the author again, who now wants to use his time write a book that doesn't include himself for a character.

So here is the insight for those of us who enjoy art and for those of us who create art: art has the ability to transform us.

Whether that transformation is good or evil is up to us.

Happy Saturday!

When I first started the BryonySeries blog in 2011, I posted this Q&A with the real Ed Calkins in several installments. We did this interview months before the release of the first book, and it has never again been published.

Now for the first time, in living black and purple, is the entire interview with the man that fictionalized himself and allowed me to fictionalize him further for the series.

Just to clarify: Ed Calkins is a real person. He really lives somewhere Chicago-ish and was a supervisor for one of the agents when The Herald-News circulation passed from The Sun Times to the Chicago Tribune. I reported to Ed for my Marycrest route.

Having missed his Ed Calkins parade several years in a row, I offered, as consolation, a one-page monthly newsletter for his imaginary world or a spot in my series as a vampire. His response was, "Immortality, of course."

My attorney drew up the necessary paperwork for Ed to sign off himself. Seriously.

No Ed, is not insane, but wonderfully creative. If you want to know Ed, read the novels, for I dutifully scrawled on brown paper wrapping snatches of conversation overheard in passing at the distribution center while Ed handed out papers or in longer conversations by phone to weave in real dialogue with the imaginary dialogue and overall character arc.

I also spent much time with him, getting to know his "ruthless dictator" persona, as to accurately portray it. In a wonderful and truly humbling act of trust, Ed did not want to read any drafts; rather, he wanted the experience of his fictional self however I chose to write it, a very literary and legally-bound, "Do with me as you will."

It was marvelously empowering.

PS: I did such a good writerly job with Ed that one day, after Timothy had been out of the distribution center for a year attending Joliet Junior College and working at the Renaissance Center, he offered to help us roll papers one night and ran into Ed.

Ed said something to the effect of, "Wow, I haven't see you in a long time." Timothy blinked, yes, literally blinked, in surprise, for he had been reading drafts of Staked! as I had chaptered it off and felt as if he'd seen Ed every day.

Any blog post on this series attributed to Ed was really written by Ed. Just so you know.

And now, the interview:

        1)      Who is the ruthless dictator?

“My son was doing a lot of role playing games, and he was trying to come up with a bard and give him magical powers. I told him there was no need coming up with magical items, because bards are already too powerful, providing they’re not trying to seek notoriety for themselves. Ruthless dictators are not afraid to die. They’re just afraid of how they’ll be remembered. It’s not effective to compose a song or a limerick or an epic poem glorifying yourself. You’ve got to have other people saying it about you. Why not cut the military in half and invent some really good limericks? You can really insult someone into submission.”

2)      Why did you invent him?

“I was bullied as a boy, so it came from the way I would get back at bullies. I would think something negative about them, because verbalizing it wouldn’t go well. In my mind, I called it even. The ruthless dictator really started when I got a ticket running a stop sign when I was delivering newspapers on a really snowy day. If I had stopped, I would never have gotten going again. I really thought the ticket was unfair. As revenge, I picked ten people out f the phone book and thought bad things about them. My wife thought that was pretty corny. Later, I took over the entire town. I didn’t have to conquer a nation. It just had to be a place, at least metaphorically. It had to have its own identity.”

3)      What was your reaction when asked to become part of a vampire novel?

“I was nervous at revealing my ignorance about vampires. I didn’t know a lot about it. I worked quickly to remedy it.”

4)      Why did you accept?

“Immortality, of course. I can’t think about myself in everything. I have to think about 1,000 years from now, and if there’s going to be a three-day holiday in my name or not. There’s a side of me that thinks this could be goofy enough to think this could actually happen.”

5)      Weren’t you afraid of how you might be portrayed?

“No, and a lot of that comes from my survival mechanism as a kid. I learned to play along with the bullies rather than fight them. Part of my comedic outreach is self-deprecating, so it didn’t really seem that anything negative could hurt me. The ruthless dictator would say, ‘Look, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.’ King Midas is much better off than King Midas the Second, even though he was portrayed in a bad light, because nobody remembers King Midas the Second.”

.

6)      What if fans expect the real Ed Calkins to be similar to the fictional Ed Calkins?

“He is like him. There’s just that side of him. He’s significant in an offbeat way, enough to where he can claim the stewardship of Tara without blushing.”

7)      The Irish have no solid vampire legends. How do you feel about being the first, real Irish vampire?

“I think other people will make more of that than I will. Being known as the Steward of Tara is more of a crowing achievement in my mind.”

8)      Where did your love of Irish lore and history begin?

“It started with my love of history. Then I looked into mythology, and I used to tell my son a lot of tales and legends. When he reached high school and heard the same thing, my credibility rose in his eyes. One thing I had told him that wasn’t really true is that Ireland was always a backwash of European history, unless your interest is war. Then, it is probably true. There were many Irish warriors. It’s just they tended to be fodder; they were never fighting for Ireland. Ireland is probably the only place where you get a sense of what pre-Christianity was about, so if you want to know Ireland, just study its myth. Even before I was really into being Irish, I had a disdain for the Roman Empire, which, I think, gave me a bias toward the Irish. In all honesty, I’m American, but my heritage is Irish. It only takes going to Ireland to know that.”

9)      How did you research your Irish heritage?

“I’ve read a lot of books. Also, as a college freshman, I got put into an Irish literature course, which I wasn’t very interested in it at the time. I’m not one of those people who have forgotten much of what they learned in college. So it stayed with all these years in a recessive way. The problem is that I’m very bad with names. The proper study of Irish mythology involves heroes, kings, and saints, in that order. They are alive today through the last names. I just don’t know who these people are.”

      10)   When did you begin writing?

“I started with poetry. In the eighth grade I wrote poem that resonated a little bit.        So, throughout high school, I wrote poetry. I was an editor of the literary magazine and the editor in chief the last year. Something bizarre about me is that I can’t finish anything. I have these really organized fantasies, but I’m not a wordsmith. I just lost my hard drive, which means I lost everything I’ve written for the last twenty years. I should be beside myself, but I’m not, because none of the pieces were really finished

       11)   What have you written?

“I actually wrote a historical fiction novel when I was in high school. I had a         fascination for Hannibal, so I put myself on the other side facing Hannibal’s army. I didn’t really know how to handle it, but I did write it.”

        12)   How had you shared your writings in the past?

“I posted them. When I was working on my trilogy, someone would send me an e-mail that said, “Send me your story,” and I’d send them a few chapters. Then I’d get another email saying, ‘That was great. Send me some more.’ So, a lot of it was praise-driven. The problem is that twenty years have passed. The protagonist has become darker and the eroticism is no longer interesting, I hate to admit. In my mind, I’ve reduced the second book to a single, short story. Also, every novel I’ve written was also an idea for a game. I had done a really good job of writing the games, again not finished. The smallest details completely derail a project for me.”

13)    How do you overcome writer’s block?

“The truth is I don’t. My writing block is fear. By the time I do write, it’s only because the ideas have been spilling out over and over and over again through my mind, to where it’s enough already. The details have become an irritant, so I just sit down and write.”

14) What motivates you to compose a limerick?

   “I get ticked off, and my mind starts putting lines together. It’s different with limericks because I don’t have to actually write them. A limerick is not fine art. Because of its structure, a kindergartener is just as good as composing limericks as an adult.”

          15)  Why is legacy important to you?

“I think it’s fascinating to me in the same way history is. Think of Sue, the Tyrannosaurus Rex, which lived approximately 25 million years ago and compare that to the 6,000 years of civilization. In the eyes of God, dinosaurs must be a statement of survivability. Humanity is still an experiment in its infancy. When all is said and done, the history of humans is going to be a lot more significant than the bones of a creature, but we’re not there yet. We’re gong to have to start with many things, including being a lot older than 6,000 years. Maybe there won’t be an Ed Calkins parade that 6,000 years old, but maybe there will a 1,000 years old Ed Calkins Day parade, which will create the much larger tradition of there still being parades.”

16) How did the idea for Ed Calkins day parade originate?

“I discovered that my birthday and Valentines Day had a little conflict when I started dating my wife. The first year I was dating her, we went out and celebrated my February 13^th birthday. Guess what happened on the fourteenth?  I didn’t have Valentine for her. That offended her at the time. My defense was, ‘Come on, it was my birthday.’ I guess where started. Then I started joking with other people that my birthday should be a national holiday. When you couple that with Lincoln’s birthday and the stars aligned in the sky, you can see it was meant to be.”

17)  You’re famous for cookouts, Queen of Christmas contests, candy canes and Santa hat distribution and palette jack races. Why host these things?

“Have fun, of course. Distribution centers can be so dreary. If everyday is like the last, no one wants to get up.

18)   Do you own a kilt?

“I used to, but I gave it away to my brother. It no longer fit, at the waistline. So, currently, I do not have a kilt. They’re not cheap. They can cost a couple hundred dollars.”

19)  For what occasions did you wear it?

“Initially I wore it St. Paddy’s day. I wore it the whole day. I was I in newspapers and, yeah, I went to work with it. My wife wouldn’t let me do it after I married her. It happened this way. I have a way of not taking care of garments. When I was starting to date her, most of my jeans had holes in them. She takes care of her possessions. That how I knew we were serious when she started washing my clothes. But when a woman starts washing your clothes, she gets to say what get discarded and what gets kept. You know my striped shirts? Those were her idea. My wife now dresses me. I used to dress differently.

20)  What are your plans for this blog?

“I’d like make some myths of my own, but that won’t start until the book comes out. I’m thinking it might be fun to add different side stories of the character into the blog, but maybe, too, I might be able to introduce some of the traditional Irish myths. I’ve been wanting write something about the interplay of state fairs in Ireland. There were laws concerning them, such as you couldn’t arrest anyone during a fair and you could not engage in war. All combat had to be resolved before a fair was scheduled to start. I’d also like to write about the Knights of the Red Branch and maybe some adventure that happens to some of the knights. That’s the neat thing about a blog. Speaking from the character, if something doesn’t fit, or if there is something else I want to say, I can always come back with, ‘I was just joking. Here’s what really happened.’ I’m very excited about this. I feel I’m getting closer to that three-day holiday.”

"The Fifth" by Ed Calkins, Steward of Tara

We are really, really working towards having the second novel in the BryonySeries "Ruthless" trilogy by Ed Calkins, Steward of Tara,  published and available for purchase on Calkins Day (Feb. 13).

Ed's proof copy of "The Fifth" arrived on Thursday. Mine arrived last night.

The plan is to read through some of it today - after I help cook for our family Christmas tomorrow and Rebekah's thirtieth birthday.

And after I finishing wrapping the last of the Christmas and birthday presents. And maybe duck outside and get a few "snow" photos, while everything is covered in a blanket of pure white.

Whatever your "life" situation is today, I hope it brings you moments of joy.

Happy Saturday!

"Four Words to go Forward or Four More to Drop Back" by Ed Calkins, Steward of Tara

Ed Calkins, Steward of Tara is so busy working on his second novel (buy his first one here and my Irish genealogy here) and sending me excerpts that he's stopped sending blog posts for the time being - and who can blame him?

He's also now a full-fledged member of WriteOn Joliet and read this piece to the group last Thursday evening. 

For a sneak peek of where Ed's mind (and writing) is heading, read on. 

  Four Words to go Forward or Four More to Drop Back

              Who are you and what do you want? Whatever it is, now is not a good time. You see, I’m dropping into my imagination right now, which is trickery than it might be for you. To me, imagining is like waking from a deep, disturbing, desolate, dream to find myself in the middle of something that should be important but doesn’t feel that way because of the incomplete transition. The sounds are sharper, the colors more vibrant and the consequence more enduring, but the facts confuse me and I’m unsure which concerns are from the dream, and which are of my compulsory imaginary life.

              Right now, I’m in an office of some type and everyone is angry, which is why you should go. I can feel your disembodied presence lurking in my mind. I believe you can perceive my conscious thoughts as clearly as if I said them aloud, but I can’t hear your thoughts at all but rather I can guess at what you might be feeling. I can’t tell your gender or specie, but I do know, without knowing how that you’re here for some sort of story. You’re not going to leave until it’s told, are you?

              But enough about you. Let’s talk about me.

              As always when I’m waking from reality, it takes me awhile to reckon much and I need clues to reinforce my memory. Still, I can always remember five things that give me a starting point to fill in the details.

              First, I am the famous, one and only, Ed Calkins. Really? You’ve never heard of me? I am the soul and creation of the most prolific novelist of all time, and thou that author, the Goddess, never realized it, I am the true meaning of her work. True, I did exist before she wrote about me, but my existence was just a bad excuse for unrealized dreams of world domination. Once the series was written, world domination seemed unworthy of my greatest.

 I won’t judge you as an ignorant person. I chose to focus on how courageous and honest you’re being by admitting that. Clearly, you’ve never read any of the novels written by the Goddess who crafted the ‘Bryony’ series; something you should be doing now instead of haunting a mixed up mind. That, or you read only the later of her books and totally missed the point. Perhaps you’re from an earlier time? Lesser folk might judge you and name you, ‘Ignorant’ or ‘Caveman’, or other such insulting nick names. I shall think of you as ‘Cah’ the first letters of ‘Courageous and Honest’. But really, Cah, you should leave.

              The second thing is that I am ruthless. In saying so, I left out the word ‘very’ which belongs before the word ‘ruthless’ and should be repeated a varying number of times depending on the various variances that my mind will verify, which is way I left the word ‘very’ and all its forms out of my statement. Are you as confused as I am? Yet right now instead of wondering how best to clarify my thoughts I am wondering who would trouble with the English language and not read the Goddess’s novels? To put it plainly. ‘Ed Calkins’ equals ‘ruthless’ times ‘very’ raised to the nth power where n is the variable representing ‘situation’. By rights, I should name that variable ‘s’, but I don’t want to come across as a nerd.

              The third thing is simple but center to my existence. Newspaper delivery is important. If it weren’t for the need for newspapers to find their customers, I would simply not exist. Don’t waste too much time I that as I’ll circle back to it.

              Fourth and final is that I have many wives all over the times and places of the planet and will continue to marry more; many without their knowledge. I’m allowed this as marrying Ed Calkins is painless and easy as the word ‘yes’. However, I can only bed one being who is my eternal lover. This is known as the pink machete rule. Relax! I’ll circle back to that one too.

              You’re still here.

              Please try to understand. This meeting seems very important and judging from the fact that everyone else is situated around the large oak desk, and I’m the only one behind it, I’m supposed to be leading this anger…or at least answering to it. The meeting seems to have short middle aged men on one side and attractive young women on the other. Maybe by suppling you with that detail you’ll forget that I forgot the fifth thing.

              Dang! It’s hard to deceive someone intruding in your stream of consciousness. Believe me, Cah, this is no time for a story.

              Ok, I give up. Go ahead with your story.

              Wait.

You’re the silent one. I’m supposed to tell this story? Well, as much as I’d do anything to make you happy, my telling a story is impossible as it requires me to know a story. I’m sure it you hang around long enough for my memory to come back I’ll be able to come up with something. Hey, here’s a better idea. Go to the library and look under ‘Author’ for ‘Goddess’. You’re not going to do that, are you. Ok, I remember Goldilocks and the Three Bears…most of it. I don’t remember how it starts.

              Maybe I supposed to tell the story that’s happening in my imagination now…just tell it as it happens? Bad idea. Why is the fifth thing I always remember that I just forgot. The fifth thing is four little details so less important than the other four that it’s easy to forget but it makes story narratives a really bad idea. I’m a dyslexic, psychotic, time traveling, vampire. Cah, none of this is good for you.

              The vampire thing…that can be fatal. Forget about biting. Vampires, especially long enduring ones, are often literally bored to death, and I am the longest enduring vampire in history. While its truth that those other four things that I never forget mitigates some of that boredom, empathizing with me might bore you to death. Time travel is very confusing, and dyslexic makes a mess of the order of words and numbers, not to mention when words sound similar (remember the ‘very’ thing) Don’t even get me started on the psychotic thing which will drive you crazy.

              Cah, if you want me to do this, I’ll try, but damn it would be so much better if you used your library card.

              Let me start by describing the room a little better. It would be a good guess that I’m in Ireland right now…or at least as I imagine it. The two parties, which seem to be as angry with the other as they are with me, are leprechauns and merrows.

              Stop!

              Cah, put the damn digital dictionary down!

              I told you I was dyslexic, which means, if I’m to tell the story with my thoughts, I have to do it the way I’ve learned to think. I can’t just give you the background, I have to map it out first. That means I’m going to say things you can possibly understand, use words you might not be familiar with or even don’t exist. But I’ll circle back to all of it and explain it better when you have more contexts. That way, it won’t matter if I forget a detail or two, or even mix up the order. You’ll have some of the answers to put it right in your own mind. Besides that, you’ll have perspective of the other narrating characters to form your own sense of the plot. In that way, you might come to know the story as well as I do, or even better. You might disagree with me on what happened. What fun that would be!

              Think of it this way. When I was young and as confused as I am right now, my future self appeared before me and insisted that I memorize forty words; made me repeat them until I said them all without any mistakes; and disappeared without explaining any of it. The forty words made no sense, and some were words I never heard before. Try as I did to remember all of them, I started forgetting some as I practiced in my head on my way to wherever I was compelled to go. I found myself in a classroom where final exams where happening. I had no memory of ever taking a class on the subject, but when the test appeared on my desk, I realized those words were the answers to the forty questions. Even the words I thought I forget, when prompted with the question, I was able to recall. Not everything made complete sense, but I did know a lot more about forty words. I still flunked, however, as I knew how to say the words, but didn’t have a clue how to spell them.

              Cah, you are in the same position here, expect instead of forty words, you have four. If you wish to understand the story, you need remember only four words…Ed Calkins, ruthless, newspapers, wives (or the pink machete rule if you prefer.) If you want reasons not to understand the story, the four words change to dyslexic, psychotic, time travel, vampire. Either way, the answers are before you. The point is, don’t give up just because you don’t understand, I don’t understand half the stuff I’m thinking either, but I am mapping it out, and it will all make sense in the end.

              But you wanted to know about merrows. For now, I’ll just ask you to think of them as Irish mermaids with legs.

              Together, we’ll look for the next clue, which might be this letter on my desk.

"Forward" by Ed Calkins, Steward of Tara

As opposed to "foreward." Because the next chapter in Ruthless (from which this excerpt comes) is called "backward."

Glorna, a wood sprite, perched in a crooked branched of a chatty pine tree while the tree murmured to him a scenario of what  killing a modern king might be like should Glorna continue with his plan to assassinate someone set on becoming the king of all vampires. Clearly, the pine had more whisper than wit, but since Glorna was a wood sprite, he was obliged to listen.

              “Such a king,” the tree said, “would travel in a motorcade of high-speed limousines and an army of men who’d fight to the death rather than let their monarch break a nail. The king would occupy the middle car, so you must time your dive from the branch onto the correct limousine roof. Once you hit your target, gunfire will spray from the other vehicles and seven ninja warriors will do a dance of death to avoid it as they dive on you, kicking and blocking your counter chops and kicks in a fur ball of high-pitched verbal utterings that only makes sense to ninjas. Six will lose their balance and fall to their deaths.”

“Why?” Glorna asked.

“I don’t know why,” the pine said irritably. “It’s some kind of rule. Are you going to listen or not?”

“Sure,” Glorna said.

“Now the gunfire will not hit anyone, just come perilously close. The last ninja, however, will push you to the hood and pin  you there. Your head will sink lower than the grill of the car and leave your face just inches from the rapidly moving pavement. But you’ll flip that ninja over his head with the kick of your feet, being saved from falling only be the tenuous grip of the hood ornament on his clothes. Once  you’re free of the last ninja, the magical swords will attack.”

“Magical swords?”

“Yes. Six steel blades with no one holding them. They’ll stab and slice while you dance around them until the swords give up and the serpent takes over. After that will come the poisonous monkey, followed by the green tiger, all attacking while the cars speeds over one hundred miles per hour and the gunmen continue to shoot. Eventually, the car will hit something and explode, but the king and his guard will survive. Got it?

“Got it.”

Glorna knew the tree was full of sap. Killing the king of vampires would be far more difficult. Most wood sprites were cautious mythical creatures, not given to performing assassinations without some sense of duty or cause. Glorna was different. Glorna was the cool bad boy type - if wood sprites could be cool, bad, or boys. The point is: Glorna wasn’t here for the whispering of pine trees, he was here to kill.

              The wood sprite knew who his target was, though was less clear on why that was his target. True, a strange leprechaun from a different realm did offer him money to do it, although Glorna didn’t understand what money was, let alone have any idea on how to spend it. Wood sprites lived in the trees they protected and typically cared about nothing except their trees. But it wasn’t cool, bad, or boyish to be so duty-bound. With all that time to kill, why not kill?

            So why did he hesitate? There had to be another reason.

              Maybe his target was too ruthless, especially to wood sprites who were too cool, bad, or boyish. The leprechaun that had offered him money to make the killing also hinted that the assassination was a competition, that Glorna had to make his hit before somebody else “hit” first. Timing was everything.

              “Get there before a vampire bites,” the leprechaun warned.

              So Glorna sat – and waited.

              Soon a rust bucket van drove under the branch where Glorna was poised to drop from the tree to the roof of the vehicle, superhumanly balance himself as he broke through the windshield, and then stab his target with a knife. But the van just stopped.

What the hell?  Was this a trap?

Patiently, Glorna remained in position, toes curled around a limb, hoping the van would soon be on its way, but it stayed, as if to block a motorcade from driving under a wood sprite/assassin. Glorna sighed and tightened his grip. If the van didn’t move, how would the motorcade drive past? Maybe the truck was broken. Glorna could offer to fix or move the van, but cool bad boys didn’t help people, they yelled at them.

              He dropped from the branch to do just that only to find that the unmoving driver was his target. This was way too easy to be cool, bad, or boyish, but at least he got there first. He quickly stabbed his target who didn’t even resist.

            Maybe his next crime wouldn’t be so boring. At least he got his target first. Glorna looked around. No sign of any vampires.

             The two killers that followed thought the same, not realizing that each was too late.

              “Not again!’ thought the pot-bellied, white-bearded, middle-aged man still sitting upright in that rusty white single seated van. He had been delivering newspapers, his only job for the duration of his adult life, when something distressed him, making him unable to correct a mistake. His face was still red with anger and with the approaching footsteps, he wasn’t feeling any calmer.

              First, he’d been stabbed in the belly then shot in the head with a bullet, which was now rattling uncomfortably in his skull, and all of that was before he wound up with the huge pain in his chest. So naturally being dead was a perfectly reasonable expectation. Along with being dead should come the feeling that any concerns about this other newspaper carrier, who had parked behind him and was now approaching his van, should be somebody else’s problem. Ed, for that was the driver’s name, lamented on how many other people died so often in such a short time. It hardly seemed fair. Most people that died, he was sure, didn’t have to work the next day.

              Suddenly Ed realized something. He hadn’t just been murdered; he’d been assassinated! Hell, anyone can take a knife or a bullet, but to be the victim of some elaborate conspiracy; well, didn’t that make him important?

            He saw the carrier quiet distinctly now. It was the new carrier, John Simotes, and somehow Ed Calkins knew something about him that he didn’t know the day he hired him. At first, John seemed like a godsend, as he was willing to take a paper route Ed thought he would never fill. This route contained pockets of small towns surrounded by forests, grasslands, and farm fields, which increase the mileage exponentially, all on the carrier’s dime. John not only accepted the route, he especially asked for it, so Ed thought of this new carrier as his LPC: least problematic carrier.

              Don’t get him wrong. Ed loved his carriers. Most were hardworking problem-solvers, trying to pull themselves up in the world by taking extra work for extra money. But carriers, by their nature, always came with problems they brought to work with them. For example, a carrier takes the route to get his car fixed, but he needs it fixed to do his route; do you have an extra car I could use? Or money. I'm a little short right now, can I have an advance? I need a sitter; can you watch my kids while I do the route?

Until now, Ed thought John’s problem was the two-year-old boy he took with him on the route, a little boy with an exceptional talent in music and an equally exceptional appetite, so much that he was eating his proud parents out of house and home. While the parents were proud, they didn’t seem happy, at least not with each other. That seemed to be the most of this carrier’s problems.

              Now, inexplicably, and all at once, Ed knew the truth. John’s main problem was that he was a vampire that fed on human blood, and he was trying not to be a vampire that fed on human blood and was failing miserably at that endeavor. That problem was about to be Ed’s problem as John just found his next supply of human blood in Ed. As bad as that seemed, that wasn’t John’s biggest problem, which was also about to become Ed’s biggest problem. John wanted a changeling son.

              “Relax,” John murmured to Ed as he closed in. “It will be fine.”

But it wasn’t. John was going to make Ed a vampire too and pass onto him that little deal of making that changeling son that, two years ago, became the little John-Peter that accompanied John on the route. Sure, John; make a human, do a better job this time, and get it all done a couple of years ago? No problem…except how? John was insistent. Ed could use his skills as a computer programmer to write AI software to the specifications of his bachelor’s psychology degree, which undoubtably gave him all the knowledge he would ever need to make a child from scratch. Ed kept insisting that the deed was impossible, but John kept insisting otherwise, as John-Peter already existed.

              Teeth sank into Ed’s neck. The experience seemed familiar in an awful way. Ed felt the vampire sucking deeply not only for his last drop of blood, but his very soul.

              To this, Ed might have smiled. He didn’t have a soul as it had already been stolen by his lover and wife, which is an important distinction to note. Ed had many wives, but only one was, by the enforcement of her own machete, and would be for all times, his lover. All other women were just potential wives that would be numbered, but never bedded, as Ed believed he was in a bragging rights contest with the biblical King Solomon.

              Still, something felt wrong. It was almost as if Ed wasn’t protected by his lover’s theft from eternal damnation. Was he going to answer for his plans to kill off every other living male on the earth? To be fair, his plan was to enable someone else to do that and kill them once he finished. What about his plans for world domination? To be fair again, they were no longer his plans as everyone seemed to steal them before he could bring them to production. What he worried about the most was what he did about the day he won the lottery. Ed was a broken creature. Surely the Divine would understand and show mercy. More likely, the luck of the Irish would swoop down at the last minute and rescue the damaged soul just before it hit those eternal flames.

              The timing problem suddenly had a surprising solution. As John informed him, Ed was going to disappear for a time too slight for anyone to notice, but a small plastic leprechaun would appear in his pocket when that time was up. John’s wife, who was about to get out of the car and listen to his final words, should receive that leprechaun with his last instructions, “Give it to the boy,” meaning John-Peter. Between now and then, Ed would have plenty of time and every kind of help for his task, as John would supply his own blood and an impressive piece of wood that Ed’s imaginary leprechaun friend could use to craft a changeling body.

              While Ed objected, time did something strange. How was it strange? Image a rubber circle with a seven second radius. Now imagine the center of the circle being pulled downward for ten years. Technically, this would be a cone, but to the naked imagination’s eye, it would look like a very deep, narrow cylinder. Now, as Ed realized that he would have to cover for himself to allow for burial, plans that required being at two places at the same time, and a wild idea about stealing future technology that may or may not have gotten him lost and had him wandering through the end of time till he was back at its beginning. You must now imagine some very long, impossibly thin warts to that cylinder, folding upward, downward, and making it impossibly ugly and just as impossible to imagine. All of this time travel would make Ed crazy, John informed him, but it would also make him famous.

              Now, Ed was never the sanest man to begin with, but understand the havoc that time travel can bring to mental wellness. There are three things to existence: who you are, where you are, and what you are doing. Normally, none of these things contradict each other. To understand this, take a butcher, baker, or candlestick maker in France during the summer of 1812. Pick one, let’s say a candlestick maker named Jean. We can say with confidence that if Jean is making a candle somewhere in France in the summer of 1812, that Jean is from France in the summer of 1812. Now throw time travel into the mix. We might see Jean, making a candle somewhere in France in the summer of 1812, but do we know he is from France of the same time? He could be from the past, doing work for his future self or completely the reverse. None of that matters of course. Jean could make too many candles, and no one would notice unless he took nuclear technology from some Russia launch site in the late winter of 2031 and made a very large candle that impressed a customer who then lit it with a blow torch so that it blew/will blow France out of existence. That might catch notice. If you’re a new vampire, or plan on becoming one, don’t try what Ed did about time travel without senior vampire supervision. You see, if Ed had merely gone back in the past, future, and imagined present, the result might have been benign, but Ed unwittingly changed the course of human existence in his efforts, thus effecting what can be called deep time, which effected a disorder that he coined “deep time psychosis” or DTP. If you should become a vampire and ignore the warning about deep time, know that the only person that can treat your DTP is Ed Calkins himself.

              Yes, Ed Calkins would become the vampire’s leading authority of not only psychosis, but also Astro-Time Physics, a mathematical field which he invented, despite not really understanding any of the underlying math. He also became the poster child for why vampires needed to bite more qualified authorities into vampirism.

              Ed did disappear for seven seconds. When he reappeared, Melissa, John’s wife, rushed from her car to aid the dying Ed, but he grabbed her jacket and dropped a plastic leprechaun in her hand.

“For the boy,” he croaked, just before he actually did croak.

            This is the tale of what happened in that seven seconds…except of course, when it didn’t.

Illustration by Nancy Calkins for "Ruthless"