Andrew Q. Gordon

Please Welcome the amazingly talented Angel Martinez to the Land of Make Believe. This is a real treat. If you’ve never read an Angel Martinez book, you REALLY need to start. A Fine Mess is part of a series so you might want to start at the beginning, but enjoy this guess post to see what you’re missing.

GUEST POST:

Heckle Numerous is an imp who once belonged to a powerful prince of Hell. Now a free imp, he’s finally been learning to read—at a much faster pace than a human would, but it still takes time. A short Heckle fic, by reader request:

Location: Aboard the Brimstone

Time: Directly after The Hunt for Red Fluffy

Sometimes, to practice making the letters sit still, Heckle read books for small human kids. They had short sentences and lots of…space, what Captain Shax called white space on each page. Also, there were pictures, though he was careful only to tell certain people about how he loved the pictures. Some were better than others, but the colors were always bright and cheerful.

He understood by now the thing humans did in stories, where animals stood in for people, especially when the storyteller was making a point. There was a word for that, one he didn’t always remember. It wasn’t narrative distance that the captain sometimes talked about—Heckle had looked up the term and wasn’t sure Captain Shax was using it right. Animorphing? No, that was something else.

Sometimes in the stories, the animals wore clothes, which was cute in, say, Jemima Puddleduck, but in this story’s pictures it just looked silly. They’d painted the cat with a white ruff, not of fur, but the kind that humans wore centuries ago made of starched linen. The rat was wearing a suit that didn’t have any believable way to deal with his tail—Heckle knew firsthand what the human artist had drawn wouldn’t work.

“It’s just pretend,” he reminded himself, going back to the page with the final confrontation and blowing out a slow breath, his hooves kicking against the crate he perched on.

“You all right there, little bit?” Mac called over from where he was working on the next project, whatever it was.

Always something, though. Mac could never sit still for long and his brain was always spinning around the next improvement, the next necessary build. This was a box? A frame for something? Heckle wasn’t sure yet.

“Yeah…it’s…” Heckle shook his head. “Humans are weird sometimes.”

“Humans are weird most of the time.” Mac looked up from bending a piece of metal with his bare hands. “Except Corny. He’s a sensible person.”

“‘Preciate that, Mac,” Corny called over from where he was brushing Rosa.

Heckle nodded, trying to think of a way to explain why the story irritated him. “This Little Red Hen—you know the story, right?” He knew Mac would hear every word even if he’d gone back to work and he waited until Mac nodded. “I get why she’d be angry. She had to do all the work and take care of her kids. Um, chicks. But then she finally has this nice bread and she’s just mean about it.”

Mac frowned, tightening a bolt. “You wanted her to share the bread?”

“Well…no. Maybe if the others had been busy doing something for everybody else too. Like if they all had jobs on the farm. But they didn’t do anything.” Heckle turned the reader over in his hands, trying again. “She shouldn’t have to share. It’s her bread. But if that was me? I’d just have the bread with the kids. I wouldn’t wave it around and make sure everyone knew they weren’t getting any. Even if they were lazy.”

“That’s because—” Mac stopped to lift another beam into place, one as thick around as Heckle’s waist. “You have a kind heart unlike so many characters in human fables.”

“Oh, it’s one of those. I see.”

Fluffy padded over to rest her head on the crate next to Heckle and he pointed out the cat in the ruff to her. “That’s ridiculous, isn’t it? You’d never wear that, would you?”

She turned her head and let out a disgusted sneeze-growl before she flowed up onto the crate and curled around Heckle.

“That’s what I thought.”

“Give it here, sweetheart.” Mac held his hand out for the reader. “Some fables aren’t as bad. Let’s find you a better one.”

He tapped on the screen delicately, his fingers too large for Heckle’s settings, and finally handed the reader back.

The screen showed a cover page with a border of beautiful flowers and the title, The Lion and the Mouse.

Snuggled back against Fluffy, his heart full to the very top with the knowledge that Mac knew him better than he did himself sometimes and that he cared so much even in the little things, like story selections. Warm, understood, loved—Heckle held the screen out so Fluffy could see too and began to read to her.

Angel Martinez has a new queer space opera comedy out, book seven in her Brimstone series: “A Fine Mess.” And there’s a giveaway!

Beware the demon prince who’s sick and tired of running.

Federico Duomo is dead, to begin with. But this is only the first bit of Shax’s problems resolved. Powerful crime lords and an obscenely wealthy oligarch are still determined to destroy him and his crew, and Fluffy’s original owner may be coming after the Brimstone now, too. It would be splendid to be able to take on one thing at a time.

Adding to the external conflicts, life on board the Brimstone has only grown increasingly stranger. Shax has no idea what to do with the seven partly human children that Heckle rescued from slavers. Heckle himself has grown short-tempered, even with Mac. Someone from Julian’s past catches up to them on Barbary. It’s enough to put a demon off his cinnamon buns.

Shax isn’t panicking, though. In fact he’s had it up to his handsome royal nose with the people he loves having to live in constant fear. The fox has turned at bay and the Brimstone’s enemies are in for a shock. The demon prince of thieves is coming for them.

About the Series:

Due to circumstances completely within his control, Shax, the Demon Prince of Thieves, has fled, er, emigrated from Earth to seek his fortunes out in the galaxy. Who said Science Fiction always has to be serious?

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Giveaway

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Excerpt

“Captain Cream Puff, Glkix is on the line for you.” Ms. Ivana kept her voice to a throaty purr, probably in deference to the early hour.

While Shax had been expecting the call, he would’ve preferred at least one more cup of coffee beforehand. “Thank you, my dear. Put her through to my comm, please.”

He arranged himself in his desk chair to appear calm and unaffected, coffee mug in one hand for any necessary sardonic or thoughtful sipping. A brief flicker through the relays, and Glkix’s image hovered above the holo plate on his desk. Her blue-black hair swept up and pinned with obsidian, her gray-green face smooth and serene, his mother’s personal assistant was as elegant as ever. Few people would have picked up the tightness around her eyes, and only if they’d known her as long as Shax had. Not good news, then.

“Good morning, highness. Your royal mother sends greetings.”

“Thank you, Glkix. Please convey my filial greetings in return.” Shax’s nerves got the better of him. He sipped. “You have something for me?”

Incomprehensible data flowed across the screen as Glkix typed. “We were able to track her genetic material through registered bloodlines and make discreet inquiries regarding missing stock. Her lineage is well-documented and highly prized among certain demon lords, highness.”

Is this flattery or an explanation of methodology? Sometimes it’s so hard to tell. “Yes? Do you have an answer, or is this just an update on progress?”

Glkix cleared her throat, eyes glued to the data stream. “An answer, highness. Your hellcat belongs to Baphomet, Lord of Beasts.”

Hell’s shiny, pointy gates. Inside, Shax ran in little circles screaming. Outwardly, he sipped. “I see. Does he know I have her?”

“Abject apologies, highness. I’ve little data on that.” Glkix ducked in a strange sort of seated bow. “We know that Lord Baphomet was visiting a forested moon near Opal when the hellcat in question—”

“Fluffy.”

“Pardon, highness?”

Though he knew she’d never approved of his names for his pets, he persisted. “My hellcat’s name is Fluffy.”

Glkix cringed. “Er. Yes. When Fluffy was stolen from her pride.”

“Do we know by whom?”

“No, highness. Not yet.”

Shax drummed his fingers on his mug and forced himself not to sip. Control. Control. “And m’lord of beasts? Where is he now?”

“Hunting, highness. In his ship, Cornuta.” Glkix shook her head. “We are trying to redirect wherever possible, Prince Shax.”

“Understood.” All too well. “Thank you for the information. Mother can’t possibly be paying you enough.”

“I live to serve, highness.” She executed her seated bow again, and Shax cut the connection.

Carefully, he placed his mug on the desk. Pushed back his chair. Bent over his knees and screamed into his hands for a solid forty-five seconds.

Of course, he should have known better. Boots pounded down the corridor almost before he’d stopped, and his door whooshed open. Through his fingers, he spotted Ness in the doorway with his wings mantled in a fierce defensive position and his plasma pistol drawn. Julian, knives out, slid in under Ness’s wing and dove behind the trunk Shax had pulled from the closet earlier.

“Shax? Everything all right?” Ness ventured after a stunned and puzzled silence.

Julian vaulted the trunk to sit on its lid. “We thought something was murdering you.”

“No murders.” Shax sat up and forced himself to draw in a slow breath. “Not yet, at any rate.”

Instead of acknowledging him, Ness turned to Julian. “I don’t think it was an angry scream.”

“Right.” Julian nodded. “No prince-in-a-snit smoke. I’d say frustration, except there was definitely a squeaky note to it.”

“You’re both vastly entertaining and should consider taking this on the road.” Shax scowled at each in turn. “But this is serious.”

Ness flipped and reflipped his wings as he folded them before sitting on the bunk. “Perhaps you could enlighten us, love.”

“Fluffy…” Shax paused as the hellcat in question trotted through the open door to butt her head against him almost hard enough to knock him from his chair. “Yes, you’re a good girl. Who’s the best Fluffums? Ahem. Fluffy was stolen from Baphomet.”

“I’m gathering that’s not good.” Ness let her waving tail run through his hand, careful of the sickle blade on the end, his expression unreadable.

“ISE lists Lord Baphomet as a class IV demon lord. Not of the highest rank, so he’s able to leave Sol system,” Julian offered softly. “Unpredictable, motivations unclear; do not, under any circumstances, engage.”

“While Enforcement and I disagree on many things, that’s a frighteningly apt assessment.” Mug back in hand, Shax took a fortifying sip. “He may be hunting us and, I’ll be honest, this is definitely cause for alarm. Mum and Glkix have apparently been sending him off in various directions, but he will find us at some point.”

The crinkle in Ness’s forehead showed the first sign of real concern. “Is he family? Do you know him well?”

Shax waved a hand at the universe. “All demon lords are family in a sense. I don’t believe we’re directly related, mind you. And Mum would never allow association with the more, ah, nature-oriented demons. Mud and dust and sticks in your hair…”

“That’s a no, then,” Julian drawled. “This may sound absurd to you, our lovely prince, but could you contact him? Let him know what happened?”

A cold iron weight lodged in Shax’s stomach and the backs of his eyes burned as he choked out, “But he’ll want Fluffy back.”

Everyone lunged toward him with huffs and other distressed sounds, and he found himself surrounded by arms and wings, with a huge hellcat head in his lap.

“Shax. I’m so sorry,” Julian whispered. “Please don’t cry.”

“I most certainly am not.” Of course, a hot teardrop chose that moment to splash onto Julian’s hand.

Ness stroked his hair. “We know you love her. But she had a pride once, didn’t she? Maybe a family?”

“Of course.” Shax shook himself and swiped at his eyes. Part of him wanted to collapse against them and howl like a six-year-old demon, but he was the captain, and there was such a thing as dignity. “Of course. And better to inform him than to have him come after us in a rage. I’ll… send the message.”

About the Author

Angel Martinez is the pen name of a writer of several genres who writes both kinds of queer fiction – Science Fiction and Fantasy. (What? There are others?) Currently living part time in the hectic sprawl of northern Delaware, (and full time inside the author’s head) Angel has one husband, one son, at least one cat at any given time, a changing variety of other furred and scaled companions, a love of all things beautiful and a terrible addiction to the consumption of both knowledge and chocolate.

Where to Find the Author

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