Peach Tree Grove

               The front windows came down in explosions of glass, and people screamed.  Shadowy figures leapt into th brightly-lit ballroom after the flying glass as men covered their wives and turned away from the glittering shards.  “Sorry about that,” a cheerful voice said. “I hope nobody was hurt?”       The speaker was a well-enough looking young man, slim and of average height, wearing aviator’s clothes, and with eyes that glittered sharp and unnerving. They were yellow. And his hair was blue.       Everyone in the room know who he was. He was the smuggler and pirate Judas Iscariot III, the man who had stolen Lord Jameston’s finest aircraft at age eleven and sailed at its helm as the captain of his rough crew of misfits ever since.       When nobody answered Judie’s polite query, and a few pulled out weapons instead, he held up his hands appeasingly. “Please, please...

               “Adam, stop your pacing,” Judie groaned from under his ridiculous captain’s hat.  Adam shot him a barely-contained glare. “No.” Judie sighed and sat up, plonking his elbows down on the table and the hat next to them. “We know where she is, we know who has her, we’re closer to getting her back than we have been in weeks,” Judie’s eyes tracked Adam’s down-turned brow as he paced. “So why are you drilling troughs in my floor with both your heels and your eyeballs?” “Lay off Judie, you’re no fool, you know exactly why I’m pacing,” Adam snapped. “We might be closer to getting her back but she’s still in just as much danger as before, maybe more.” His pace quickened. “Collsworth is dangerous; who knows what he’ll do to her if he’s provoked! Or what he’s already done to her.” He paused his step, then resumed. “She’s still in just as much danger as before,” he repeated. “Collsworth might decide to threaten her safety if he feels t...

      Johannes didn't like the little girl who lived in room 42 of Mr. Montebury's house.     He did not know what the actual title of the room was, or if it even had one at all. With as strange an occupant as it held, it must have. But within his own mind he called it Room 42, because it was the forty-secondth room he had counted when he had counted every single room in the great deep house that was Mr. Montebury's estate.      At first the closed door of Room 42 hadn't bothered him at all. It was just one more closed door with a bed and a wardrobe and a small chest of drawers behind it, just like every other door on that hallway.      But one day, on his way to the library and from there to the garden, he had passed by Room 42 at the worst possible moment fate could have decreed.      The door to Room 42 had been open, and four nursemaids were in the midst of escorting a little girl out of it.      He...

          Let me be Your Knight Lord. Let my armor shine a gleaming gold and silver and bronze burnished brighter than any dragon’s scale. Let my spear burn with the white-hot wraiths of Your rage and my sword shine double-edged with diamond love and steel truth. Give me a halo: a helmet and a wedding ring; a guard and a sign. Give me a crown and a steed and a standard snapping: a red cross on a white field. Make me faithful and frightful Lord, fearless and full-grown in love and laughter shining in sharp grace. I’ll face the dragon Lord, onward I’ll ride. I’ll meet that greedy yellow gaze and the Liar’s flaming tongues licking at the wind. Sharp are his fangs, sharper is Your Word. Bind my shield, O King, in the iron-clad knowledge of Your will and let the fool’s fire assail it in vain.  Wings unfurl, whips a tail, a roar shatters the ear. The earth shakes, the winds rage, and through scale slides a spear.