GNELFS

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NOVELS:

Gnelfs

Blood Hunter

As Michael August:

Deadly Delivery

The Gift

COLLECTIONS:

Scars and Candy – Tales of Terror & Dark Mystery

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For Ann,

who rescued me from the slush pile
.

Heaven's scream pierced the night, cutting like a razor through Gabrielle's REM sleep.

Throwing back the covers, Gabrielle jumped from bed and thundered down the hallway. A thousand horrible things flashed through her mind as the short corridor seemed to stretch on for eternity. Her legs moved in slow motion, feet bogging in the carpet. It was impossible to lift them fast enough. She felt the beat of her heart in her throat, and another cry pierced the midnight darkness.

"
Mommieeeeee
."

Her nightgown fluttered as she ran, and she imagined its resistance slowing her, cutting away precious seconds that might mean the difference between her daughter's life and death. Why had she let her sleep in her own room? There was no reason for that now. If Heaven had been only the space of a bed away instead of at the end of the hall there would be no need to run a gauntlet to her rescue.

If Gabrielle could provide a rescue. What if some child molester or other criminal had somehow found a way into the room? Gab had no weapon, no means of defense. She would have to throw herself on the attacker in an effort to drag him away from her baby.

With lungs heaving and heart accelerating like a racing car, she reached the bedroom doorway and shoved the door, sending it crashing against the wall. Her hand scratched up the Sheetrock, fumbling for the light switch. A sudden white blaze flooded the room as Gab dashed toward the small canopied bed.

The child sat at the head of it, huddling between the pillows and clutching the covers about her like a shield. Even her snow white teddy bear had been discarded in her fear. He lay at the edge of the bed, head precariously dipping over the side of the mattress.

Tears streamed down the four-year-
old's
—five in another month—cheeks, and as Gabrielle embraced her, she felt the child's body tremble.

"What's wrong, honey?" She whispered gently, rocking slightly as she pressed Heaven against her. "I'm here. Mommy's here. Are you hurt?"

"They wanted to get me, Mommy?"

"Who?" Gab's eyes turned quickly to the window, but it was closed and the latch was in place. A quick glance around the room revealed no signs of intrusion elsewhere.

"The
Gnelfs
," Heaven sobbed. "
Gnelf
Master and his people. They had pitchforks and things."

Gabrielle cradled her daughter in her arms, gently touching her hair. She wanted to laugh as relief swept over her. Her heart slowed, her lungs relaxed, and the tingling fear that had danced through her entire body like an electrical charge subsided.

A dream, Heaven had had a bad dream, nothing more. No one had come to harm her, no intruder had threatened to take her innocence with twisted assaults.

"It's okay, baby," she soothed. "You had a nightmare. That's all. The
Gnelfs
are your friends."

The bedtime story, evidently the last thing on Heaven's mind, had mingled with the second helping of spaghetti she had demanded at supper, and had turned into a horror show.

The friendly nomadic band of the half-gnome/half-elf figures known as
Gnelfs
—soft
g
and silent as Gab kept pointing out to Heaven—had changed from beloved childhood figures to creatures of terror.

Having her afraid of them wouldn't be all bad, though, Gab thought. The merchandising connected with the popular cartoon was enough to give any single parent nightmares. Stuffed animals, toys, story books, cereals—the whole gamut of tempting items lurked on the store shelves. If Heaven was afraid of them, a fortune could be saved. Aware that it was a cruel thought, Gabrielle dismissed it as she continued to soothe her trembling child.

She couldn't be so selfish as to wish her baby to fear beloved heroes. They were part of childhood! Besides, the stories and cartoons soothed Heaven, and had helped in the last year, Gab hoped, to take her mind off the absence of her father.

In any case, if it wasn't
Gnelfs
, it would be something equally costly like Rainbow
Brite
or the Teenage Mutant Ninja . . . whatever they were.

Merchandised toys were just a part of childhood nowadays, and Gab wanted Heaven to have as normal a young life as possible.

~*~

When Heaven was at last asleep again, Gabrielle headed back to her own room with the
Gnelfland
Bedtime Storybook
tucked under her arm so that her daughter wouldn't wake up and see the cover. She'd expected to let the child sleep with her the rest of the night, but moving Heaven would only wake her again, better to let her rest alone than risk not getting her back to sleep.

After smoothing the covers over the child, she had also stashed the stuffed
Gnelfs
behind the other animals on the toy shelf so Heaven wouldn't roll over and find them glaring at her through the shadows. With luck, the last few hours of the night would be peaceful.

She looked at the book as she walked along the hallway. It wasn't inconceivable that the figures could be frightening to a child. They were green with pointed features and sharp eyebrows. The eyebrows were enough.

Mr. Spock had been frightening to her, even though he was the good guy. Some of the artwork in the book was rather dark in nature, also. The
Gnelfs
wandered through ancient lands and visited odd kingdoms. Their images didn't compare with those of Maurice
Sendak
—they were more commercialized than that—but they did reflect the newer trends Gab was noticing in children's literature. But hadn't things always been that way? When had they made
Fantasia
?

Well, if the images continued to be a problem, they'd just have to find something else for entertainment. It wouldn't be too hard to find
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
. She walked into her own room and put the storybook aside.

The bed looked soft and comfortable, but the fear of her daughter being in peril had rattled her so badly she knew she wouldn't be able to sleep for a while. She turned on the light on her dressing table, then sat down in front of the mirror to brush her hair. She didn't want to bother doing that in the morning while trying to get Heaven ready and then make it to the office on time.

Once she had taken great care with her dark brown hair, curling it just right with the hot irons. Now she allowed a more unkempt style. She figured there was an outside chance it was attractive that way. By neglect, she had achieved the look teenagers worked so hard for.

As she pulled at the tangles, she went through her regular ritual of checking for wrinkles. She was twenty-nine, still slender, except for a little poundage around the hips that couldn't be helped. Her breasts also were a bit heavier than she would have liked, although some would argue that was no flaw.

Things like those faint lines beside her eyes made her aware of how rapidly years passed. And Heaven was no longer a baby. It seemed to have taken Gabrielle no time to become a mother, then a divorcee and career woman.

Yet not so long ago she had been in college, falling in love with Dave.

It had all passed faster than a television commercial break, including the experience with Martin last spring, something she had chalked up to her vulnerability.

Dave had not been a bad man, and he had not been a bad husband, but after a time they had realized they were not right for each other. Their interests, their ways of approaching things, even their ways of thinking were different. While many marriages survived such problems, they had decided to move on. He had not wanted to let go, not even when he had realized it was over, but finally he had accepted reality with limited bitterness.

His work had recently taken him out to the West Coast to a better job. He wrote infrequently and sent Heaven cards, but he didn't seem terribly disturbed about the distance. In a way it was almost as if he had never existed, yet Heaven had his blond hair and blue eyes as reminders.

It had been hard the first few months, not just recovering from the feeling of amputation divorce created but getting on her feet again. Finding a decent house to rent at a reasonable cost had seemed impossible. She'd also had to switch jobs. While she was married she had worked for a small commercial art company, but the pay wasn't enough to get by on, not on her own. No alimony was part of the agreement, and the child support Dave did contribute came erratically, so she couldn't continue earning something akin to minimum wage just because she enjoyed what she was doing.

In addition to working in the shop, she'd been doing the bookkeeping, putting her college business classes to work, so it hadn't been that hard to make the move over to an accounting firm. Working with payrolls and doing audits didn't have a great deal of appeal for her. She'd wanted to major in English, but her father had warned her about the impracticality of such a degree and she'd wound up in business, struggling through endless hours of economics and management classes.

She'd applied herself and learned the material well, and now, at least from a food-on-the-table standpoint, it was proving useful. Even if she couldn't say she loved her work, it did allow her to keep Heaven in nice clothes and faddish lunchboxes. What more could she ask?

Maybe there was supposed to be more in life, but she wasn't sure. Love and romance hadn't worked out, yet she had been rewarded for the attempt with Heaven. She could not imagine life without her little girl.