I’d been quiet for a very long time, and then I moved the website and prettied it all up, and then it sat around, lonely. So I’m resuming the Tuesday Teasers.
Here you get a taste of a super-secret project I’ve had back-burnered for years, which will begin creeping slowly out into the open, this year:
Aurelia stepped forward, the light of her torch brushing the smooth surface of an enormous crystalline sphere. It must have been twice her height – more, with its iron stand, cushioned by a thick ring of gum rubber. It was filled with a milky, opaque liquid that glimmered and undulated like pearl dust. But there was something… There. Was that a shape in the depths? There was something in there.
That low moan came again, louder, this time, rising to a rumble, a roar. A shriek. The liquid swirled faster, flickers of blue-green light appearing in the heart of the sphere. The door to the chamber exploded inward, and a blast of icy wind extinguished the torch. Blackness crashed in.
Aurelia hurled the useless torch aside and drew her shotel from its scabbard, immediately putting her back against the wall as she tried to force her eyes to adjust. The wind passed through, howling down the tunnel, and then there was silence. No footfalls, only her own harsh breath.
The sphere was growing brighter, the flickers coming faster, sparks becoming arcs, arcs branching into tiny, turquoise bolts of lightning. She could begin to hear the crackle, feel the tingle against her skin, like a coming storm.
She jumped. There, against the glass. A handprint, glowing violet amid the lights.
And she knew what she had found, there in the deep dark, amid the crypts.
A womb.