Drive a Dark Horse

     We drive a dark horse. Flesh and bone made steel and chrome, yet at it's heart an engine that still races. Like all successful hunters we have learned to adapt to our prey. We hide in plain sight were they do not see us, our eyes shadowed by makeup, our true nature covered by the most sincere seeming smiles.

     My partner and I have different tastes. I like to think I have a more discerning palate. I prefer my chosen meals to have manners, good breeding, and an IQ in the triple digits. It makes it all so much sweeter when they fall. We crash a posh party, the sort to which my kind have unwritten and standing invitations. Once across the thresh hold we go our separate ways in search of the evenings entertainment. After all what fun is your food if you can't play with it?

     And so it was sometime later I found myself disturbingly comfortable, kneeling in red wine that looked too much like blood, head tilted back at an uncomfortable angle to better see the tall woman clothed in darkness standing above me. Or positions give the illusion that she holds the power between us. I could break her in two with a thought, crush her soul with a wish. For an instant there is something in her eyes that lets me know she understands just how dangerous I am, knees soaking up the stain spreading outward from her feet. I lean forward, just a breaths width, but I can smell her understanding, her fear. It makes me smile and that fear turns to cold terror.

Pow

     The field is open again, and the pows have returned to graze. I like the pows Whip smart, they trundle low to the ground, eating grain and flowers, though they especially like treats fed from hand. They are a sight to see, running in seeming formation across the open fields, kicking up their heels and squealing in delight. Some are spotted, some are dotted, some sprout tiny horns, while others are sleek and round, solid shades of the russet rainbow. They are magical creatures and good friends to a lonely child on a farm.

Demon Hats & Paper Tigers

     It's a good thing the old woman turned out to be a crack-shot with the even older rifle. The demon hats weren't always easy targets. They possessed an unholy life of their own, and did not need to be worn, but in the end they were still just hats, and so it was their desire, their function to set upon heads. They hid in corners, scuttled through shadows, searching for the perfect heads upon which to rest, lives upon which to feed.

     The Tigers hung, hugely, to every screened window in the many roomed old house. The clung with impossible claws, the waving of their thick paper bodies a soft sound in the wind. It was difficult to gauge their intent, their movements were so slow as if they had to be drawn again in between each blink of the eye or beat of the heart. But their presence was certainly ominous as striped fur glinted in moonlight.