Grumpy Old Gods Vol. 1 Meet The Authors Vanessa Finaughty #grumpyoldgods #anthology #mythology

Meet The Author of Out of Luck

Out of Luck by Vanessa Finaughty: Loki, God of Mischief has a history of going too far: when one of his pranks goes wrong, he and the rest of Gods are out of luck…literally. 

(flash fiction story – currently published in Vanessa’s anthology, Dragon Kin & Other Fantasy Stories which you can find On Amazonor Smashwords to read the other stories like this one in Dragon Kin.

Kill to Live 
by Vanessa Finaughty

Magan bustled around her home, child proofing it so her young ones couldn’t get out while she was gone. At sundown, she was heading to the next valley to slay the black dragon that lived there. The dratted creature and her recent hatchlings were eating all the livestock and wild animals in both valleys, and pretty much anything else that moved. If she didn’t put an end to its hunting, she and her children would starve before winter was even half over, and it promised to be an exceptionally cold one…

With great effort, Magan pushed a large crate filled with oranges to stand with the other crates that blocked the exit to their cave home in the mountains. The fruit had fallen off the back of a wagon as it had travelled to the village market, and Magan had snatched it before the loss had been noticed. None of her children ate oranges, and neither did Magan, but she’d known it would be too heavy for her young ones to move, even with a combined effort. One more and the exit would be completely blocked off.

“Mommy, Mommy! Jerra bit me!” Magan’s youngest, Corneil, shrieked, charging up to her.

Magan turned to Corneil with a sigh. “Where did she bite you?”

He stretched his right foot out towards her, lost his balance, fell and began bawling.

“There, there.” She bent to pacify him, putting her arms around him and drawing him close. She looked at his foot. His sister had left bloody teeth marks. Magan scowled. “Jerra! Come here this instant!”

Jerra hid in the tunnel that led deeper into the mountain.

“If I have to come and fetch you, there will be hell to pay!”

Jerra crept into the cavern and slunk towards her mother, her eyes focussed on the floor.

Magan pointed at her son’s foot. “What is this?”

Jerra examined the floor.

“Look at it!”

Jerra glanced at it, then looked away again, shuffling her feet and sucking on something.

“What do you have in your mouth?”

Jerra pushed a smooth river stone between her lips, then sucked it back into her mouth.

Magan held out her hand. “Spit it out! You could choke on it.”

Jerra obeyed, pouting.

Magan placed the stone on a high shelf. “I want you to apologise to your brother for biting him.”

Jerra pursed her lips.

“And then I want you to hug him.” Magan folded her arms.

Jerra hesitated, then, obviously seeing the furious look on her mother’s face, did as she was told. The hug was quick, and Corneil shoved his sister away even before she could withdraw.

“Eww! Girls hugging me!” Corneil patted himself down as if dusting off dirt.

“Mommy, he’s so mean! That’s why I bit him! He deserved it. He reallydid!”

Magan sighed. Then it hit her that her other three were too quiet. “Where are your brothers and sister?” she asked the two.

Jerra shrugged, but Corneil said, “In the tunnels. They’re trying to undo the magic you placed to stop us from exploring.”

Magan could always count on Corneil to tattle tale. She patted his head. “Good boy.”

She made a beeline for the tunnels. She doubted ones so young could remove her magic, but she wasn’t about to take any chances. She found her other three children a few metres into the tunnels, where she’d placed an invisible barrier that prevented them from passing – the tunnels were dangerous, with many rock falls and numerous openings with vertical drops to the valley below. She’d placed barriers by all the exits, and a few in between – to be extra sure her young were safe.

All three spun as one and looked at Magan guiltily.

Magan looked around, then examined her barrier. It was intact. She shook her head. “I’m not trying to spoil your fun, you know,” she lectured. “It’s for your own good, so you don’t get hurt. I know a lot more about the world than you do, so if I tell you it’s too dangerous, you would be wise to listen. Come.” She headed back to their main living quarters. It was almost sundown and she still had one more crate to move.

Jerra and Corneil were at it again.

Corneil shrieked, “You’re just a stupid girl! You’re so stupid that you’re probably going to die before your first birthday! Because you did something stupid!”

Jerra burst into tears and hit her brother in the face.

Corneil began howling, holding his cheek.

Magan yelled, “Stop this, right now! I have to go out tonight, and if you lot can’t behave, I won’t be able to, which means we’ll all starve. Do you know what that means?” She glared at them.

They shook their heads.

“It means we’ll all die!” She glared around again. “Because all of youwere stupid!”

They glanced at each other.

“Are you all stupid?” Magan glowered.

“No, Mommy,” they chorused.

Magan had known mention of slaying the neighbouring valley’s black dragons would make them behave. They were well aware of the implications of living so close to a bunch of animals that couldn’t control their gluttonous eating sprees. Magan smiled at her children as she slid the last orange crate into place, then added an enchantment to keep them in place. She turned to her children. “Now, Mommy’s going to go out for a little while to kill our selfish neighbours who can’t control their appetites.”

“They’re like animals, Mommy!” Sheraton, her eldest son, squeaked.

His siblings giggled.

Magan smiled. “Yes, dear. That’s exactly what they act like. They have no pride in what they are. None at all.” She tutted.

“Jerra’s an animal too. She bit me!” Corneil showed his siblings his tooth-marked foot.

Jerra’s lip quivered, and Magan said, “Come now! I thought you said you weren’t going to be stupid.”

“And get us all killed,” Jerra muttered.

“Jerra, be quiet!” Magan snapped. She looked at Corneil again. “But yes, that type of remark might cause me to stay home tonight, and cause us all to starve to death while those animals eat food that’s rightfully ours.” Magan sensed that Jerra had another snappy comment, but her daughter bit it back and she smiled proudly at her. “That’s more like it.”

Magan scanned the cavern again. Everything that could be choked on had been placed too high for her children to reach, and all the entrances had been blocked off.

“I want you all to go to sleep now, okay? I won’t be long. They’ll be sleeping, so I’ll catch them by surprise and I’ll be back in no time.”

“Yes, Mommy,” they chorused, and raced to their beds.

Magan looked up at the natural skylight. Storm clouds blackened the sky – she would be downwind on her approach, which would hide her scent and aid her in sneaking up on the black dragon, and her grey dragon magic, which black dragons didn’t possess, would make the kills easy. Although, killing the young dragons would be easy even without magic. Magan spread her large grey wings, flapped them a few times to loosen her wing joints, then rose to the skylight and soared the strong air currents towards the black dragon’s cave.

Releasing March 30th PreOrder Now!

What happens when gods wane, retire, or just decide they need a change of employment? 

13 writers took up the challenge and let their imaginations run wild in this anthology that is nearly-always amusing, somewhat insightful, and completely irreverent as we imagine the gods of yore in retirement. Volume 1 Available for PreOrderNow!

13 days of fun as we meet the authors of Grumpy Old Gods Volume 1 releasing March 30th, 2019.

Grumpy Old Gods Anthology Volume 2 
Call For Submission 
Deadline March 30, 2019.
Submission Guidelines here.

We are adding an author a day to this meet the author series starting March 23-April 4th as a kick off to our launch. Grumpy Old Gods vol. 1 releasing March 30th. So be sure to check back and read about the other authors too. We have all kinds of surprised that show up randomly. Don’t miss them. You can read about the other authors HERE.

Originally published at Storm Dance Publications