[Quick author note: this is a work in progress, but the goal here is to build the bones. I think I’ve done that. There’s more I want to add and some I want to subtract, but for the sake of momentum and finishing an actual first draft of this novel (or novella?) by year’s end, here is a structured pile of bones to read and to have a glimpse at how this world is shaping up. Also don’t judge my grammar too harshly (looking at you, Franz). The final version will be clean as a whistle.]
Galloping atop a pegasus beneath a cold Virginia moon, Benjamin Franklin fled.
Naked branches cracked his bifocals. Crimson oozed from a missing pinky. His leg was broken. His stockings, torn. With each bounce of his horsebird’s bloody rump, the fresh bullet in the old man’s guts bobbled. He knew that to survive the night would take a miracle, but then again he likely should have died years ago––and perhaps in some other universe he had? He envied that version of himself. How wonderful a life he must have led to ultimately perish in a bed and not the snow with headlines on the morrow reading, genius who freed America returned to Divinity. Our greatest scientific mind now mourned across this mortal plane. Protector of the meek and peaceful as a donkey, he bids adeau to a life well lived to mount his throne of gold-soaked clouds. A brilliant candle snuffed not by violence but the gentle fart of age.
Fairy tales, for sure.
A bullet cracked in the dark. Franklin turned from the rushing wind, squinting for shapes in the black behind him. The werewolf’s howls had quieted, yet the ifirit Benjamin had summoned would only stall the redcoats for a matter of minutes. Had he anticipated so many of the bastards, fighting alone against an entire company, he would have imbued a few more soul stones before attempting this desperate, but at least successful (so far) heist.
Tucked hastily into an open satchel and bobbling against his swordslashed thigh, the stolen tome was larger than he’d expected: thick as a Roman Missal and wrapped in giant’s hide with crimson pages it radiated heat and smelled of burning roses. He’d been warned through Alexandrian scrolls not to lay a finger on it, for stronger men than he had fallen to its seductive wiles with just a touch. Yet for just a tiny moment, as he snatched the book from its demonic altar mount in that frosty moonlit glade, his fingertips poked through his possum gloves while gripping its craggy cover. In sudden visions clear as day, the old man became its every owner across millenia. He was the eyes of Caesar perched upon a dragon saddle, peering down from lowlay clouds into a moonlit Rubicon. He was al-Mahi, shattering the clay of Kaabah’s idols as the last of the tribal cyclops and goblin shamans screamed from nooses tied along surrounding parapets. As Qin Shi Huang, he coughed and stirred awake; roused from his silken death bed and trembling as that prophetic meteor he’d long so feared burst outside his bedroom window, painting shades of orange across the purple canvas of his final dusk. As Ramses II he wiped away a tear inside the inner sanctum of Abu Simbel, watching his most devoted vampiric slave erupt into flames as sunlight spilled onto the stone feet of Amun-Re. And he was hundreds of others––rulers across the whole of human history—all of them connected by the power of this ancient tome now slapping against his pipe-thin thigh. A tome seemingly lost to history, until now.
He kicked his pegasus in its bloody ribs. Peering around the darkened woods the old man mumbled things like, where is it, and, I fucking hate Virginia. From a pocket in his coat he pulled out a bright blue frog. It sat in his palm, squinting in discomfort against the icy gale.
“You told me we were close!” Benjamin shouted at the little thing.
Croak.
“So now it’s two more turns?!”
Croak.
“Five??”
Croak.
“You’re useless!”
It stared at him, squinting its eyes even more like a weary professor annoyed by an ignorant student. Then, croak.
Franklin huffed and shoved the frog back into his coat pocket. Flicking the stiffening, cold reigns in his hands sideways, his pegasus slipped at the heart of an intersection, attempting a turn. The old man held tight to the saddle mount so as not to fall, growling as the musket ball in his belly rubbed against everything it shouldn’t. Yet, as battered as he was, his horsebird had fared much worse in the encounter. It wheezed and coughed. Panted and whinnied. Ruffling its bullet-riddled wings, silver blood sprayed across Franklin, sizzling what skin of his lay bare. Together, they had survived The Scourge of Philadelphia and battled throughout the imp-riddled cliffs of the Adirondacks. They had soared over the Atlantic and secured from Carthage heaps of coin; rode further to Spain and endeavored her armada to war when France had buckled. Across thirty years of this relentless American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin and his pegasus were living folk tales. And now, alone and bloody with redcoats hot on their heels, the old man feared they were in the midst of their final chapter.
Yet as the fabled god-mount slid around another bend, light bloomed across its rider’s gaunt cheeks. Fast approaching was a cottage shack. A derelict thing with a single lit torch mounted beside a rotting birch door––the very door Franklin had hammered hinges into twenty-three years ago like he’d done with so many identical cottages scattered and hidden across the colonies.
The frog in his coat croaked incessantly.
“Yes, I see it!” Benjamin cried, his chin draped down to better face his pocket. “You’re always right, okay?”
He pulled on the reins of his tired horsebird and shouted, “Ease up! We’re finally here.”
The beleaguered man shimmied in his saddle, tooted, then fell sideways into the snow with a hearty crunch. Pain exploded from his broken leg, up his spine. Crimson seeped from the stump of his missing pinkey. His pegasus nuzzled his shoulder, old hat to the rider’s woes. Franklin growled and pulled against its reins, returning to his feet with a stammer. He slicked back his few remaining strands of hair, rubbing blood and ice over his liver-spotted scalp.
“I likely won’t survive this night,” the old man said, “But I’ll be damned if you do.”
Behind him, as if on cue, the werewolf’s howls returned.
“I can buy you time,” he continued. “William will desire me before his tome. I’ll distract him for as long as I can, but you must run from here as if the devil gave you chase.”
Franklin slid a long, wooden staff from a saddle holster. It was a heavy stick, thick as a fist and intricately carved from Massachusetts oak. All of the other thaumaturges balked at a sceptre crafted from Colonial trees, but not him. He preferred it, in fact. Saw no difference in the quality of its cantrips, and if nothing else it smelled nice.
Stamping the staff into the snow like a battle flag, Franklin pulled a coiled copper wire from his frock coat. Using the bright of winter moonbeams, he delicately threaded one end of the wire through a hole in the sceptre’s round head.
“Remember that you must remain upon the bushwacked paths,” Franklin relayed to his steed. “Trappers line arterial roads, and you’re worth more in gold than Georgia.”
After tying a stiff metal knot around the wood, he whispered in an ancient tongue and wiggled the trembling fingers of his left hand. Little glyphs illuminated across his calloused palm and suddenly the staff soared into the cold night sky, the copper wire attached to it lengthening like cast fishing line. As quickly as it started, the staff halted in the air above the cottage, hovering listlessly while glowing in an amber hue. As its light grew brighter, thick white clouds began to swirl above the staff, blotting out the stars. Snow spilled from this milky churn. Wind whistled through barren trees. Wiping wet from the cracked glass of his bifocals, Franklin squinted against the thrush of hail and flakes and turned back to his pegasus.
“Boston is your destination!” he shouted over the wind, unbuckling the god-mount’s golden reigns and jaw straps so that they fell into the piling snow. He heaved a rusty rod from a second saddle holster and continued, “But you must stop for nothing! Not food, not drink, nor even for piss. You piss while you run and you shit into the passing breeze. Do you hear me?”
The horsebird nodded absent-mindedly, peering over the man’s shoulders in the direction of the werewolf cries growing louder. Benjamin slapped its snout.
“Listen to me!” he cried, locking eyes with the surprised and now attentive pegasus. “As the blood moon nears tonight, the tome will entice you with everything you most desire.” He hoisted the large rod over his thin, boney shoulder. “You mustn’t heed its siren call. No matter what it tells you. This book cannot return the long dead riders you miss so dearly. It cannot give you a billion carrots or sacks of oats the size of mountains. All it wants is to be opened by some creature, be it human, horse, or squirrel, so that it can devour the souls of our world and turn this mortal plane into its own living Hell. It has been doing so for thousands of years and I fear that soon it will finally be ready to unleash the vengeful dead all trapped inside.”
The horsebird nodded.
“Once in Boston, let only John Quincy handle the book. Thrash and bite at anyone else who tries to touch it. Burn them to dust with your sunbeam eyes. Fill their minds with visions so as to render them psychotic. Whatever you have to do.” Benjamin smiled and patted the pegasus’s snout, wiping away pinky blood that splattered over its nose from the force of his slap. “Please forgive me.”
With the metal rod in both hands, Franklin turned and waddled into the prevailing wind. In the middle of a white-dusted, slender path just beyond the shack, he drove the rod into the icy earth. The horsebird watched as this bleeding, dying, century-old man fumbled with the other end of the copper wire attached to the floating staff above. Snow swirled around him as he looped the wire’s end not once, not twice, but thrice around the tip of the rusted pole. He then tugged on the wire, sending a tiny ripple upwards. It would miss this man, the pegasus thought. Of all its riders across millenia, this maniac was its favorite.
With a crack of thunder and a blinding flash, a lightning bolt exploded atop the iron rod beside Franklin, causing him to jump and shuffle away. Sparks snaked along the copper wire he’d just wound around the pole. The dancing light scurried up to the floating staff before being absorbed into the sacred wood. A blue light now softly pulsed atop the hovering stick. It hummed low and guttural like a dog before it bites. Satisfied, Franklin crunched back to the pegasus.
“They’ll arrive at any moment,” he shouted through what was now a blinding blizzard. “Go before the snowpack turns too dense.”
Suddenly, the staff above them erupted with a brilliant bolt of lightning that arced into the woodline. A distant tree exploded, showering bark, earth, and snow. Amidst the flash of light, dozens of redcoats were briefly illuminated. Soldiers around the shattered tree screamed in horror as it fell, crushing two men. Rifle fire burst from the forest. Bullets soared and cracked in all directions. Another arc of lightning exploded into the woods. Then another.
Amidst the chaos, Benjamin hobbled closer to his horsebird’s head and locked eyes with the ancient wonder. He saw stars inside its orbs. Saw the heavens softly spinning. He hoped that it was similar to wherever he’d find himself upon his mortal passage, surrounded by awe.
“It’s time you leave,” he said, low and solemn. Ice and snow swirled around them. Lightning cracked above. Benjamin continued, “I’ve met my journey’s end, but yours continues. Go to Boston. Seek John Quincy and deliver him this book. He will know how to destroy it so that the British never come into its possession again.” The pegasus lowered its head against Benjamin Franklin’s forehead. “Be kind to whoever claims you next. Do not mourn me long.”
Suddenly, a bullet struck the old man’s leg, bursting through one side of his ankle and out the other. He cried out and would have fallen if not for his pegasus keeping up aloft with its thick, silver neck.
“Go!” Franklin shouted, hobbling backward. A flash of lightning painted the world white. “Run to Boston and hide yourself within the growth-covered roads! Go! And save our world from ruin!”
The pegasus took one last look at its favored rider, hoping to keep his memory clear forever in its ageless mind. It nodded, then ruffled its bullet-riddled wings, shaking droplets of silver blood. Though it could not fly, it was still as fast as any bird as it turned and entered into a trot, then a gallop, then a sprint into the dark of the woods. For the last time, Franklin watched that wondrous silver hide disappear into the forest.
“Goodbye, my friend.” He whispered.
The cottage door snapped open behind him. A man with a rustic beard and soiled pajamas stood in the doorway with a musket pointed at Benjamin’s head.
“Leave our land!” he shouted. “We’ve had enough of your damned war!”
“On the contrary,” Franklin replied. He turned to the man and pushed him aside, entering the tiny home.
The cabin door wobbled shut behind him. The shack was just one room with a bed, kitchen basin and lopsided table with legs covered in a cat’s claw marks. A dying fire flickered in a half-collapsed hearth beside the bed. In the bed, fluffed up by lice more than straw, a mother held a quivering child.
Ignoring everyone, Benjamin paced about the cabin, the rustic man’s musket still tracking the intruder’s skull. Lightning cracked again outside. Men screamed. The werewolf’s howls grew louder. Bullets thunked against the walls.
“Who are you!?” the man asked.
“I built this shack,” Benjamin replied, descending on a floorboard. “And it’s okay that you’re squatters, but you must listen carefully to everything I say if you wish to survive.” He dug his nails into the sides of a particular floorboard discolored against the others. He grunted, pulled, but relented.
“A fire poker,” he said, turning his gaze to the hearth. He leaned forward and yanked from smoldering logs a thin metal rod. Using it like a cane to stand, he then lifted it into the air and slammed the sharp end into the floor. Thunder clapped outside as he struck the floor again, then again. With each crack of metal and wood the family yelped. With a crunch the board beneath Benjamin finally loosened. He tossed the poker to the floor and returned to his hands and knees, wobbling at the seething pain of his broken leg and shattered ankle. This time when he pried at the floorboard he wrenched a piece of wood away, revealing a hole. He leaned into the hole, putting his arm inside.
A series of wooden cracks echoed just above the cabin. Pitter-patters tinkled on the roof. The wind calmed. The snow ceased.
“That would be my staff,” Franklin said.
He groaned and pulled from the hole a bucket filled with rocks of gold, slamming it to the floor. The family watched in bewilderment as Franklin returned to the hole and within moments pulled out another long wooden staff, tossing it to his side with a clunk.
“Help me up,” Benjamin said to the rustic man who quickly set his musket against a wall and pulled him to his feet. Franklin pointed at the bucket with a shaking finger. “That gold is yours.”
He retrieved his staff from the floor and wiped soil from its green orb tip. Shouts echoed outside. Boots crunched through snow. Franklin turned to the family.
“Do you know Halifax?” he asked. The family stared at him.
“No, sir,” the bearded man replied.
“Well, it’s an awful place,” Benjamin said, “But it’s far from here.” He tipped his staff, aiming it at the hearth. In a clockwise motion he swished the ornate stick. A rainbow of colors spilled from its tip and a large wavey, oval hole appeared like a church window painted into air. Beyond the window was a frozen beach at night. Naked trees swayed. The ocean ebbed, sliding ice together.
“Take the gold,” Franklin said. “Begin yourselves a life anew. I’m sorry for all of this commotion. And for Halifax. But it’s the best I can do.”
Suddenly, the cabin violently shook as something large and heavy pounded on the roof. Dust and snow shivered from bowing rafters. Benjamin rushed to the mother, and child, yanking them from the bed toward the shimmering oval. He swiped at the bucket of gold’s handle, handing it to the bearded man.
“Father!” someone shouted outside the cottage. “Open this fucking hag’s hut door, or I’ll burn it to the ground!”
“Quickly now,” Franklin whispered, pushing the family through the portal.
One by one their bare feet squished against snow and sand. Franklin waved to them from the other side of the rainbow window, then a croak came from his coat.
“Oh!” Franklin shouted. He rummaged through his coat and pulled the blue frog from his pocket. “Take this frog!” He leaned into the portal with the little creature cupped in his hands. The boy rushed to the window.
“Whenever you are lost,” Benjamin said, “This frog will help you find your way.”
The boy carefully took the frog, cupping it into his little hands and pulling it through the rainbow.
“Goodbye, Bingley,” Franklin whispered, biting back a quivering lip.
From beyond the portal, croak.
Benjamin snapped his fingers and the oval window poofed into colorful smoke, leaving the humble cottage dark. He stood for a moment in the humbling silence, truly alone for the first time in decades. He breathed deep, then closed his eyes and raised his staff, waiting for his son to open the cabin door.
#
Seated in a carriage amidst a blinding blizzard night, William Franklin restlessly listened wearily to approaching gunfire. Garbed in a dense, brilliantly red coat with matching crimson trousers and golden buttons from crotch to collar, he peered outside a frosted window. Snow raged, but he could make out his soldiers trudging by his slow carriage as they made their way up the swirling road.
“Can’t they enchant them or something?” William asked his nervous page, a small man seated across from him bobbling in rhythm with the swaying carriage.
The page turned his head to a little window beside his head, facing the front of the carriage. He pulled against its delicate glass. Snow rushed in. The scent of seldom bathed werewolves filled the cabin. He put his mouth to the opening and called out to the drivers.
“Can they go any faster?” the page cried.
“What?” a driver yelled back.
“The werebeasts,” the page said. “They’ve slowed considerably.”
“It’s the fucking storm,” the driver replied.
“Maybe give them the whip?”
“We’ve been.”
“Threaten their families?”
“We’ve tried.”
The page considered any additional options to coerce the werewolves to exert themselves, then he shrugged and said, “Very well,” and shut the window.
The small man turned to William Franklin and said, “They’re doing all the can.”
“I heard him.” William replied. “Runts of the fucking litter.” An explosion rattled the carriage. Men screamed outside. “Oh, for Christ’s sake.”
William quickly rose from his bench and threw open the carriage door. Wind howled into his ears. Ice sliced his pale, veiny skin. He squinted ahead of the wagon, into the distant swirling white. A flash of white blinded him for a moment, then another explosion rattled in the distance. Disembodied legs in crisp stockings and red cloaked arms showered the air. William growled.
“Continue forward,” he said to his page. “I’m going out there.” He leapt from the carriage into the blizzard. “Untie the big one!” he shouted at the carriage drivers, pointing at the largest of the four werewolves pulling the vehicle. All of their backs were scarred, mangled and oozing with red from constant whippings. “Send him to the bloody house!”
He trudged through the snow, passed the carriage and up the road. Another flash exploded ahead through the howling dark. Blood, soil and bark showered around him. Some of the blood splattered over his upper lip where he licked it clean, careful not to slice his tongue on the two sharp fangs he was still getting used to even after a decade.
At the woodline just before the flimsy shack with the staff floating above it, destroying the world around it with its lightning, a man approached him. His red coat was covered with snow and his hat and wig were long lost to the wind. They walked together, William being a full foot taller so that the man had to crane his neck as they climbed through the growing powder underfoot.
“He’s set up a trap, sir!” the man cried.
“A chain lightning sentry,” William replied.
“It’s very hard to hit the damned thing.”
“But not impossible,” William said.
Another flash exploded from the floating stick, arcing lightning to an adjacent treeline. He watched as a tree fell onto several men, while others around it shot blindly in the dark in the direction of the light. He approached a man aiming a shaky musket in the direction of the floating staff. He snatched the musket from the soldier’s hands and aimed at the stick. His eyes glowed red so that he could see it in the dark as if it were daylight. He steadied his breath. He pulled the triggle.
Click.
He twisted the gun away from him, studied it, turned it round.
“You didn’t pull the hammer back,” the soldier beside him said.
“Sir, would you like me to try?” the hatless man asked.
“Do you see me as a lout?” William said. He clicked the gun’s hammer back.
“Don’t tip the muzzle, sir,” the other soldier said, pointing at William’s gun with its barrel aimed at the ground. “The powder could spill out.”
“I know how to shoot a gun!” William cried.
He pulled the gun upright again, turned his eyes red once more, aimed at the floating that was now charging up again with sparks. He pulled the trigger and felt the rifle’s stock drill into his shoulder. The bullet struck the staff perfectly in its center, shattering it in two so that both ends fell silently into the snow as wood chips rained over the little shack. The wind ceased. The snow stopped. The swirling clouds slowed and then evaporated, revealing the stars once more. William handed the rifle to the hatless soldier.
“Tell your men to surround the place,” William said. “And someone look for his fucking pegasus. It has the book on it, I’m certain. I’ll deal with it after I’ve dealt with him.”
“Yes, sir,” the hatless man said before handing the musket to the other soldier and traipsing off through the foot-deep snow.
William trudged up a small hill toward the shack. Suddenly, one of his werewolves from the carriage landed on the roof of the cabin, shaking it and bowing its walls. William smiled, relieved that he was still of a sort of synced mind with Bertrand and didn’t have to hold everyone’s fucking hands. He pointed at the werewolf and closed his fist, telling it to stay, to heel.
“Father!” William cried, nearly upon the shack. “Open this fucking hag’s hut door, or I’ll burn it to the ground!” He turned back to the troops approaching cautiously behind him. “Encircle the fucker and ready yourselves,” William said. “And where’s the torch I asked for?”
“It’s coming sir,” a soldier said.
“Well go down there and hurry them up,” said William.
“Yes, sir,” the soldier replied, turning quickly from the hut back to where he came.
William returned his attention to the hut, where through the slats of birch walls he saw a flash of rainbow light and then darkness.
“I swear to God,” William grumbled, suddenly stomping toward the cabin’s door. “If he fucking portaled—” He wrapped his hand around the shack’s door handle and yanked hard. The door flew off its hinges, and suddenly he was bathed in light and warmth. Then his world blinked dark.
#
Seated on a pony in a sunbaked field of poppies, William Franklin sneezed. Behind him was the gleaming city of Carthage, cloaked in a hazy distant blue. Sweat slid down his small back. The sleeves of his oversized blouse stuck to his skin. It was his first time riding anything like a horse, and all he wanted was to gallop.
“Can I at least roam the fields a little?” William said, his voice high and shrill. “All the other boys get to ride all over.”
Benjamin walked beside him, leading the boy and his pony through the colorful fields with a rope tied to the animal’s reins. A shadow covered his face, descending from his tri-corn hat. Gray had begun to streak through his long brown hair, and lately William had considered his hero was beginning to look old. He didn’t like it.
“You will learn to walk before you trot,” Benjamin replied.
“At least let go of the rope,” William said. “I can handle her.”
“Not until you learn patience,” Benjamin said.
They continued through the field for an afternoon, hardly speaking. Two small puffs of cloud lined the sky. Crickets, beetles and flies scurried around the surrounding flowers. When the blue horizon gave way to pink and they returned to the road which led to the glimmering city by the sea, William noticed a lone man atop a horse approaching them from the enormous gates of Carthage. Behind the man was a large plume of dust. He raced toward them. Benjamin slowed, eyeing the man.
“Is he coming for us?” William asked.
“Something’s the matter,” Benjamin replied.
The man slowed and entered a trot.
“Mister Franklin?” the man called out.
“Aye,” Benjamin replied.
“You have been summoned to the senate,” the rider replied. “I must escort you at once.”
“What’s the reason?” Benjamin said.
“I’m not at liberty—”
“I will not join you if I don’t know why I’m joining.”
The man grimaced and wiped his sweaty face. He glanced at William on his pony. William immediately blushed, realizing he must look like an idiot just sitting on this small dumb horse being led by his father.
“Whatever it is, the boy will learn soon enough,” Benjamin said to the man. “He might as well hear it now.”
“Prussia has invaded Silesia,” the man said.
Benjamin sighed. “You learned of this today?”
“Aye. A messenger with mortal wounds arrived upon a pegasus.” He tipped his hat solemnly. “Perished but an hour prior.”
As the men spoke, William noticed a flimsy, splintered door lying in poppies just beside the road. He glanced around the field but saw no building it could have come from.
“Father, why is there a door so far out here?” William asked, interrupting the conversation.
“What?” Benjamin said, turning to the boy. William pointed at the door.
“There,” said the boy, “Lying in the poppies.”
“It could be from anything,” Benjamin quickly replied, not so much as glancing at the thing.
“But it’s familiar,” William said, now suddenly becoming woozy.
“It doesn’t matter,” Benjamin said.
William’s vision blurred. He swayed in his saddle. “Why do I know it?”
“I said it doesn’t matter!” Benjamin barked.
William’s eyes drooped and he slid sideways, tumbling off the pony.
#
Deep in the bowels of a waterlogged frigate, William Franklin fell from his hammock. He splashed into the inch of water sloshing on the bowed wood floor. Waves hammered against the vessel’s hull. The ship listed left and right, then up and down. His stomach churned. He dry heaved, having nothing left in his belly to purge.
A deep, miserable rumble shook the floor, resonating from the sea. Men shuffled across the deck above, some screamed in terror, some shouted muffled orders. He wobbly rose to his feet, but in that moment something massive struck the ship and tossed William back to the floor. More shouts above him. More shuffling. Waves crashed into the hull. William stammered up again, holding onto crates, swaying hammock ropes, rolling barrels, anything to keep him balanced as he stumbled through the hold.
He stopped at the base of a stairwell, peering up. Wind shook a horizontal door at the top of the stairs. It shook violently, barely attached to a metal latch. Rain spilled from cracks around its frame, splashing over William. The screams grew louder as he climbed the steps, trying not to slip as the ship lurched. At the top of the steps he slid the rusty latch clear of its bindings and pushed the door upwards. The raging wind immediately caught the wood like a sail and threw it open so that it crashed backwards against the upper deck. Boots and legs ran by him as he poked his head over the gaping doorway. Sailors in soaked red coats and matching britches raced around the upper deck. Crashing waves spilled over railings. Rain sliced against William’s face, immediately drenching him. He climbed clumsily over the doorway onto the deck. A man shouldered into him, nearly tossing him to the ground. Gunfire cracked everywhere. He stumbled against the swaying ship. Men sprinted all around him, pointing and yelling at tentacles rising from the sea.
“Father!” William cried out, turning round and round.
An enormous tentacle crashed into the deck in front of him. It twisted and writhed. Slime oozed from it. A handful of men ran to the thing and hacked it with axes and swords. Black liquid sprayed from the thing, covering the men as they severed the snake-like limb.
A familiar shout drew the kid’s attention away from the slaughter. Squinting through the rain he saw Benjamin standing near the bow of the ship. In his right hand was his mahogany staff, as tall as the man himself. A blinding flash came from the top of the stick, followed by a blast of fire that shot out at the sea toward an enormous, bulbous head rising from the water. The head had several black eyes surrounded by glistening, throbbing veins. The fire struck the beast in an eye and the head quickly rose from the sea followed by many tentacles all squirming in the air as a horrible, low growl shook the air.
William stumbled to his father. Benjamin turned as the teen approached.
“Return below!” Benjamin shouted.
“I can help you!” William replied. He flicked the fingers of his left hand and a glyph glowed in his palm. His hand went warm. He turned his attention to the leviathan in the sea.
“No, William!” Benjamin cried. “It’s far too dangerous!”
“Stop treating me like a child!” William screamed. His jaw clenched and his body trembled. He turned his glowing palm to the monster that now locked its dozen eyes on the boy. A tentacle careened toward him.
“No!” Benjamin shouted. He aimed his staff at William and a shockwave erupted from it, crashing against the boy and knocking him backward. William soared through the rain. His vision blurred. The world swirled around him.
#
Seated at a table in a candlelit dining room, William Franklin shook. His knees hit the edge of the wood. Dishes rattled. Flames flickered.
“Are you alright?” a young woman said beside him. He turned to her and caught his reflection in a mirror beyond her. A light beard ran across his face. Beside the mirror was a window, revealing a snowy forest outside. Centered in the forest was a small cabin with its door missing. A sense of deja vu hit him like a runaway carriage. Then his eyes locked on the woman and memories flooded through him. He’d been here before.
“Priscilla…” he said in a whisper of disbelief.
She chuckled and replied, “William.”
“Why—” he said. “But you’re dead—”
Before he could continue, a chair shuffled from the other end of the table, shaking his attention.
“A toast,” Benjamin said, standing across from them with a glass of red wine raised. His hair was much greyer now. A red scar ran vertically below his right eye. “To the future Mrs. Franklin.”
The woman beamed and raised her own glass. William stared at his father.
“You hated her,” William said.
“What?” Prescilla said in an awkward chuckle.
“Pardon?” Benjamin replied.
William’s jaw clenched like before and he slammed his fist on the table, rattling the plates again.
“You said no!” he said.
“To the contrary,” Benjamin replied. “I was just saying you will make a beautiful pair.”
“You never said that. You said she was beneath me. That she was poor and homely.”
Benjamin’s eyes narrowed. The joy in his face fell away. He said, “William—”
William jumped to his feet, pointed at his father and cried, “This isn’t real!”
#
Suddenly, he was on a battlefield. He was still pointing but now his finger was upward to the sky where a silver pegasus and a hooded rider soared through cannon smoke high above the treeline. Deafening gunfire echoed all around him, whizzing and cracking and punching into flesh and bone.
“Hold your fire!” William said, still pointing at the pegasus.
Two golden beams of light as bright as the sun burst from the god-mount’s eyes, down onto the blood soaked field. The slender beams tracked over men and trees alike, splitting everything that touched it into two. Dirt, mud and limbs exploded into the air. Everyone around it screamed and ran in terror, retreating from the mayhem.
“Sir, he’s slaughtering us!” shouted a grizzled man in a long red military coat behind William. William turned. Tears streamed down his soiled face.
“I said hold your fire!” William cried and batted at the musket in the man’s hand that was raised and poised to fire upon the pegasus and its rider. “Focus your artillery on the advancing column!”
Suddenly, Another stream of heated rays snaked just in front of William. They split the man in front of him in half, spraying a mist of red across Williams’ face. Others around the man also split in two. Their limbs and heads all tumbled to the ground. William stammered backward, caught the lip of a log and fell.
#
He jostled in a priest’s chair now fashioned like a throne. The church hall, his hideout just outside of New York City, flickered orange in ample candlelight. A hole in its roof displayed a crescent moon. Fog drifted quietly outside cracked window panes. Out of one window was a cabin with its door missing, clearer now than it’d been at dinner so long ago.
Before him, on his knees, was General George Washington. His face was bruised and bloody. His clothes were shredded by swords. He panted, exhausted. Behind him, a handful of men stared at William, also bloodied. Frowns adorned their faces.
“But this goes against the King’s wishes,” one man said, low and somber.
William shook his head and replied, “Fuck his wishes.”
He stood and turned to the side of his throne chair, gripping the hilt of a silver broadsword leaning against the holy wood. Beside him was a werewolf which he recognized now: his most devoted slave. William drew the sword up and rested it on his shoulder, walking toward the miserable general.
“The king can come to observe the carnage himself,” William said. “He’d agree with my decision were he here.”
“Sir…” the man replied.
William seethed with sudden rage and beared his fangs at the man. He and the men around him stammered backward a step. William continued, “You’ll place his head upon the pikes next to Adams and all the other traitors. Do not fuck with me.”
Williams boots clunked against the old church wood. Washington said nothing as William raised his sword over him. He had heard of this general’s stoicism. Of his stature and grace. But just as he was about to swing, the rebel winced and raised his hand up, as if such an act could block the hammer fall of his blade. With one stroke William cut the man’s head from his body, along with the raised forearm with hand attached. His parts thunked to the floor like butchered meat, along with the rest of his limp frame.
William tossed his sword to the floor.
“Enough of this, father,” William cried. “Rid me of these fucking visions. Face me!”
Suddenly, he was knocked backward by something unseen and stumbled ass over heel.
#
In the dark of a ramshackle shed beneath a cold Virginia moon, Benjamin Franklin stood over his son. The man, this monster he hardly recognized after twenty-five years of war, writhed and growled as Benjamin pointed his staff at him, holding him in place with an invisible force. He had loved this boy once. Loved the future he so long ago imagined for him—a bastard, sure, but he was to be his successor he always thought. A man of brilliance like his father. All he needed was a stern hand and a steady focus. So when had things turned so terribly? Was there a single moment? He watched his son writhe and hiss, bare his fangs like a lion. The boy he raised was gone now, and perhaps Benjamin would never know when his spirit left him. For this, he was most sorry.
The old man tossed his staff to the floor. William quickly rose and wrapped his hand around his father’s neck, pushing him against the flimsy shack wall. They were nose to nose and William’s breath stank of iron. His son snarled at him. His eyes were red, his skin almost translucent.
William threw Benjamin through the shack’s open doorway and out into the snow. Franklin slid on his back, finding himself in the company of dozens of redcoats all with muskets at the ready. A werewolf loomed on the cottage roof, waiting for his master’s command to lunge. William stormed out of the shack toward his father.
“Where’s the fucking book?!” he shouted. Benjamin noticed red tears leaking from the man’s eyes. When he wiped them, blood smeared across his cheeks.
They stared at each other now in the cold with everyone watching. Above them the moon began to turn crimson, but no one looked up. All eyes were on the silent pair. It was as if the two were speaking, exchanging something greater than words ever could. It was a moment Benjamin wished he’d had nearly all his life with his son, just looking at each other, seeing each other. He wanted to apologize for whatever failings he’d made as a father. For driving such hatred into this once tender boy.
But then William’s face regained composure. He wiped his eyes and straightened his back. He turned his gaze from his disheveled, bleeding father and focused on his carriage just down the hill. Without another glance at Benjamin, William began to crunch through snow past him.
“Leave me his head,” Benjamin’s son said. The werewolf nodded and grunted. “His skull will make a nice addition to my mantel.”
William trudged back to his carriage without another word. The soldiers remained tense, not knowing what to do. The werewolf leapt from the roof, slamming into the snow at Benjamin’s feet. Four long talons sliced through his hip. He felt his spine detach. Felt his guts spill out. He gasped helplessly for air that didn’t come and tried to lift his arms against the slaughter but they wouldn’t rise. Yet as the beast tore through him, he watched the last hint of white on the moon turn red through naked branches and smiled, knowing at least his pegasus would now arrive in Boston safely. The tome would be destroyed and no one, especially not his son, would ever have it.
His smile remained as his world went dark, and he hoped his skull retained the smirk.
