Sorry I’ve not posted for quite a while. Two months, apparently. I’m afraid I can’t put it down to anything but my Asperger’s Syndrome. I’m afraid I just get distracted by things sometimes and completely lose track of time. In any case my writing has been coming along and over the coming weeks and months I’ll be uploading much more to my password protected Tumblr.

Some earlier chapters and sections are marked for rewriting, like most of Chapter Four which was rushed, but I know there would be choices I would have to make later in the story that would influence what I really want to show there. For now the old version is still up, as I do let people see my drafts. Maybe there’s an idea or something hidden in there that could be developed more that would otherwise be overlooked in later rewrites. Anyway, if you want to read the drafts right now just message or send me an ask and I’ll share the link and password.

In the meantime, here’s a small excerpt of Jen beginning to figure things out:

“I’m not,” Jen said, head lowered and biting her lip. “I had
other reasons. The blood on the blade – it wasn’t human. There’s a mystery here
and I have no choice but to seek answers.”

“No kidding Holmes,” Kaya quipped then quickly bit her own
lip. “So I was right?”

“You were telling the truth,” Jennifer conceded. “That
doesn’t mean you were right.”

“What does that mean?”

“You were attacked by something you couldn’t explain and
equated it with some fae creature out of stories we read as children. Other
people might have said it was alien, or the devil, or some radioactive mutant.
Of course it was either one or none of those things.”

Kaya had almost forgotten how frustrating talking to Jen
could be. She often didn’t communicate entire thoughts or left out rather
crucial bits of information, perhaps thinking that others would fill in the
gaps themselves. Kaya was going to have to prod her for more. “So what actually
was it?”

“I don’t know,” Jennifer shrugged, “to find out we first
have to clear our minds of all prior assumptions, observe and consider the
evidence, then form a hypothesis.”

Jen was still a daddy’s girl Kaya saw, but there was likely
something to be said for choosing the scientific method here. That had been
Madame Lumina’s mistake – assuming she just knew the answers already only to
find at the last moment that she was wrong. “What evidence do we have?”

“Observe,” Jennifer swiped on a little pad beside her and
more screens lit up on the sides of the van filled with just jumbled code as
far as Kaya could tell. “This is human DNA,” Jen explained, “the result of
millions of evolution and random mutation. But this is the DNA from the blade’s
blood; it’s much simpler, shorter, neater. Like there’s no junk or anything
random there at all.”

“Which means?”

“Most likely that it was engineered. And if
that’s true then there’s only facility I know around that might have some
answers.”