Hacilith 1818: Felicitia's Saturday Night

A night like any other.

A pretty normal Saturday night.

A band at the club, ‘The Chopping Centre’, knives in our boots, plumes in my hair. At eight I came down from the palace to collect them. Babbitt was driving, my old coach with the coat of arms blacked out and the windows smashed in. We collected Carver from Hell’s Kitchen and he sat on the coach roof plucking his guitar. We picked up Jant ‘freak’ Shira and Layce from the chemist’s shop. They had been together all day. ‘Young love?’ I asked, raising an eyebrow. Jant’s chicken – he doesn’t carry a weapon. Which is a mistake when you’ve got a mouth that big. We picked up Vance from the Shacklesheds. Vance had his arm in a sling but wouldn’t say why. Fritter and Connell were hanging out on Moren Wells common. Bubblegum Sam from the whorehouse, Bunting from his aunt’s. In the club, Serin slipped away. Vance got in a fight. Jant talked his way out of one. We pooled our money for a punch bowl of cocktails and a bunch of drinking straws.

Awooo! I keep telling Jant that the Shift is real. He doesn’t believe me. He thinks it’s the fevered products of my drugged imagination. A complex plot, maybe, to make him lower the price of cat. Or tempt him into taking it. If only I could! I’m the only person who can Shift on cat. I want him there with me. But he’s too suspicious. He wants nothing more than a year of stability in which to catch his breath – and I can tell my anecdotes just annoy him.

He’s still screwed up from Debrah getting knifed in a card game six months ago. She died cursing the Castle – damn her, she put into his mind the idea of going there. We blame the Castle for every wrong done to us but these kids have no idea what the Castle really means. They’ve heard they’re protected by immortals, but who has ever seen one?

Awooo! Now Jant looks up and discovers beauty in the form of Layce. What does he see in her? She began as a social worker, and since she could feed them all these brats, scum and lost innocents teamed up around her until now she leads the most feared gang in Hacilith.

Awooo! We’ve all the beer of the Plainslands, all the whores of Hacilith and all the sex of the Shift. There is dog sex, licking and whining and twining your paws in my fur. Awooo! There is cat sex: lithe and selfish and accomplished in the early hours. There’s bird sex, which is like doggy style but on only two legs. There’s good Rhydanne rutting, but only after a ten mile chase. There’s turtle fucking (slow), mantis love (tasty) and goat shagging (precarious). And you can get some carpet burns off those fibre-toothed tigers, m’dear!