Friday Flash Fiction

Another Friday, another round of flash fiction from the Alinar authors.

Our new theme was taken from our list of prompts. If you would like to suggest a theme you want to see us tackle, we're always looking for new prompts! Just leave us a note in the comments.


This week's theme: crash.






The End of a World by Kallysten
500 words, prequel to the short story His Lover's Fangs

“Damn it, Liv! Wait!”

Logan’s voice echoed in the maze of stone-paved alleys after the thumping of Olivia’s boots.

“She’s going to get away again!” she called over her shoulder, but did not stop running after the two vampires she was pursuing.

Just as she was about to disappear past a corner, she raised her crossbow. Logan never saw her fire as he was tackled to the ground. He crashed hard enough onto the street that he’d be blue and black when morning came - if morning ever came for him again. It wasn’t such a certainty anymore, not when he suddenly had to ward off the fangs of an irate vampire.

“You hurt him!” the female vampire – God, she was just a girl! – growled at him. Her fangs gleamed in the light of a nearby street lamp. “How dare you!”

The vampire clawed at his face as he held her head back with his forearm across her throat. His crossbow was trapped under him, and in any case she was too close for him to use it. Instead, he fumbled at his belt to free one of the stakes hanging from leather loops. It took him precious long seconds to loosen the length of woods – enough time, maybe, for the vampire he had wounded to come closer and help his girlfriend.

Or enough time for Olivia to catch up with the other two vamps.

Olivia. Alone. Fighting Ann.

The thought sent a burst of renewed energy through Logan. With a grunt, he pushed the girl back, and when she lunged at him again, she all but impaled herself on his stake. She dissolved into a cloud of ashes that rained over Logan, blinding him for just a second.

“No!” the vampire’s boyfriend shouted. “You bastard! You killed—”

Jumping back to his feet, Logan whirled and used the very same stake to kill the boyfriend too; he aimed to the left of the wound he had made earlier – poor shot on his part – and this time struck true. There was a kind of harmony there. They had killed together, and now they were ashes in the same street, killed by the same hand. But Logan didn’t have to think about that, didn’t have time to stop and wipe the ashes from his stinging eyes. He was already running, calling out Olivia’s name, listening for her voice to call back.

He couldn’t hear anything but the rumbling of thunder in the distance. As he searched empty street after empty street, finding an abandoned stake here, a crossbow arrow there, a sense of dread started creeping through his mind.

When he reached the end of a cul de sac and found Olivia’s crossbow, the metal stained with still warm blood, he froze. The dread was slowly evolving into a full-blown certainty.

Olivia would never have left the crossbow behind, not of her own free will.

The first lightning strike tore the sky. With it, Logan’s world started crashing down around him.

~*~

How to Meet a Prince by Candy/Alexandra

1410 words.

Well, one moment I was taking a leisurely drive up the legendary Strada Dellestanze, admiring the breathtaking mountain scenery, taking real care to negotiate the dangerous bends with the respect they deserved. The next, this idiot in some high-powered death-machine was screeching round the curve at suicidal speed, coming up behind me so fast I could do nothing but swerve and choose either the mountain rock-face, or the sheer drop as my preferred mode of demise.

My frantic prayer must have got through. Either that or the man had superhuman driving skills. I swear his two outside wheels were hanging over that edge as he took the outside curve and, for a moment, it was just the two of us, my expression one of frozen disbelief, his focussed and cool, the cars taking up the whole road with hardly an inch in between.

Instinctively, I swerved towards the mountain-face to give him room to pass, already resigned to the crunch of metal on rock as I scraped the car to a halt.

I sat there, stunned and cursing under my breath. The jerk hadn’t even stopped to swap insurance details. I was in one piece, for which I was thankful, but could hardly bear to look out the window at the damage to my poor car. Damage which I could ill afford to pay for.

“Dio! Signorina, are you okay?”

Well, what do you know? He did stop, after all. Was that concern, or anger darkening his features as he leaned towards my closed window?  Behind us, another car, this time a Range Rover with blacked-out windows, ground to a halt. The doors were flung open with such force, I thought they’d fall off. Two very large men stepped from the vehicle, suited, dark glasses.

This was a Bond movie, right? Any moment now the camera crew would come barrelling round that bend and we’d all laugh. And then they’d cough up a huge cheque for the damage and I’d have quite a story to tell back in the hotel that night.

I was right about the cheque. Heavy number one was already brandishing what looked like a cheque book, while the other approached the driver and to my surprise, bowed deeply before taking him by the arm and attempting to usher him away.

I watched incredulously as the driver shook him off and threw up his hands, then pointed to my car. For one hysterical moment, I imagined he was ordering them to throw me from the cliff to get rid of the evidence. Someone with bodyguards this big had to be important enough to want to avoid a scandal. I swallowed hard and thought about making a run for it.

Heavy number one was already at the window, tapping imperiously and signing for me to open it.

Looking beyond him, I caught the driver’s eyes, nodding me to comply. Very nice, eyes, now I had time to look. Dark as the neatly trimmed hair. And his charcoal grey suit certainly hadn’t come from any high street chain.

He barked an order, totally in charge now the hysteria had died down.

I cracked open the window, wondering at the folly of reading them the riot act. I decided that discretion really was the better part of valour. Heavy number one leaned towards me.

“His Royal Highness would like to apologise profusely for any inconvenience caused.” The man had a more pronounced accent than the driver, a bit of eastern European, even though I was somewhere in the Italian alps. “He hopes you will accept this small token of his regard and allow us to see to your vehicle.” He motioned me from the car.

I must have laughed again because the man frowned and looked back at the driver who shook his head and strode forward, straightening his jacket and his hair. The gesture looked automatic, as if he were someone used to the scrutiny of the public.

He bowed smartly, flanked on both sides by the anxious Heavies, one of which I now saw was wearing a shoulder-holster beneath his jacket.

“Don’t let them frighten you,” his so-called Royal Highness said. “They can be…a little overzealous, but they are just doing their job. Now tell me, are you hurt?

“No, I don’t think so. Just a little, shocked.”

To tell the truth I was more shocked to be chatting with a central-European prince than by the near-crash. I recognised him now. Crown prince Alfonso Di Genaro of the tiny but scandalously wealthy principality of Cordova-Marina. Darling of the gossip magazines, and of every woman lucky enough to warrant his attentions. Of which there had been quite a few, if the gossips were to be believed.

His mouth turned up at the corners as he saw the recognition dawning in my eyes.

I waved away the cheque. “Just pay for the damage and we’ll call it quits. Where shall I send the bill, your Highness?” I sounded smugly cool. If he thought I was about to swoon over him and his title, he had another thing coming.

“Just send it to the Royal Palace. The garage will know where to find it,” he replied with only a small hint of sarcasm. He followed with a wink that scattered my resolve not to be overawed by him or this situation, to the four winds.

I tried to keep my smile sweet, rather than melting under the onslaught of all this Italian charm. One of the Heavies whispered something close to the Prince, who turned back to me and shrugged apologetically.

“I need to ask if we can expect this to be in the papers tomorrow morning. If so, I will warn my press office.”

“You think I’m going to go running to the tabloids?”

“It has been known to happen.”

Another wink, and oh Lord, any moment now I would be a puddle of goo running right out of the car and all over his immaculately-polished shoes.

“I wouldn’t dream of causing a scandal, your Highness. But I do have an appointment…”

“You must allow me to drive you there,” he returned before I could even finish. “Bartolo will stay with your car and arrange for a tow-truck and a hire car while it is at the garage.

“There’s really no need,” I said turning the ignition. “No need at all. Damn, why won’t it start?”

“Maybe because you just scraped it into a mountain-side. Signorina…” He opened the door with a flourish and stepped aside for me to exit. All we needed to complete the bizarre scenario were a few paparazzi, flashbulbs popping. “I absolutely insist.”

Grabbing my purse, I bowed to the inevitable and am almost ashamed to say I put on a quite outrageous limp as he led me to his car. The Heavies didn’t look too happy about it. Couldn’t be easy mopping up after spoiled Princes and their jet-set ways.

His near-encounter with the back-end of my car hadn’t sobered his driving. I tried not to pray too loudly as he swung the car round the bends and Heavy number two and the Range Rover struggled to stay on our tail.

A few heads turned as the Prince gallantly hopped from the Maserati to open my door. We both glanced back at the sight of the Range Rover screeching round the last bend to the hotel.

I felt a little sorry for the Prince then, to be so privileged and yet never free of the watching eyes.

“Have dinner with me tomorrow night,” he whispered urgently, one eye on the security guard now exiting the Range Rover. “I need to make sure you are really unharmed. And I would like to see you again.”

“And to make sure I’m not about to run to the tabloids?”

A slow smile spread across his face. “I don’t even know your name,” he said with the confidence of one who already knew I would say yes to his invitation.

If he thought to buy my silence by taking me to dinner, he was going about it the right way.

“Dolly. My name is Dolly.”

He gave an explosive laugh. Probably thinking the same thing as I was. No chance of any fairytale happening from this. Whoever heard of a Princess Dolly?

That thought still makes us both laugh, all these years later.  Her Royal Highness, the Princess Dolly. Amazing how quickly the people got used to it. And it has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?