#not tagging with the characters both to preserve the (very thin) mystery of who one of these is

[theminecraftbee]

There’s a flier someone’s left on the bus. Something shaming a—company logo he doesn’t recognize, as he shoves it aside to grab the last seat in the back that usually means he and Gem don’t have to sit next to anyone else—for “desecration of the Carrows Life”. Alright; with a logo and a slogan like that, it’s either a religious nut job or one of the people real mad at the Church about the demons.

Yeah, sure. He’s exhausted. Impulse can’t really bring himself to care about neon-yellow fliers in the dead of night on the bus.

Just another hour and practically every single stop down the line, and he’ll be home. He’s glad there’s a late-night bus down here; enough people come and go from these streets at two am that they make some poor bus driver do the route.

Next to him, Gem grumbles as she removes her makeup. “Impulse, why do I keep getting the waterproof kind?”

“Hard to dance and still look good if it doesn’t stand up to sweat,” Impulse says, settling into his seat as the bus starts moving again. “Don’t see why that should make it that much harder to remove, unless you’re sweating acetone these days, but they don’t pay me to know how your makeup works.”

“No, they pay you to be your stupid big protective butt. You absolutely know how my makeup works,” Gem says.

“You could wait until we aren’t on a moving bus to take it off?” Impulse offers.

“Nah. I need something to do so I don’t fall asleep, and I’m not opening my other bag until we’re both safely at home.”

“Yeah, fair,” Impulse says, not glancing at it for too long. Gem had a good night tonight. Sometimes, he’s jealous of the nights she has; the amount people are willing to throw at her sometimes is insane. Most of the time, though, he’s just glad he’s paid a regular salary to stand in the corner and occasionally show people exactly why he’s so big if they act up.

(Someone’s got to do it.)

The doors open. The unmistakeable smell of someone on way, way too much weed wafts through the doors. Impulse sighs. There’s a reason they sit in the back.

“What are the odds we get lucky and get home early?” Gem says. “My knee hurts.”

Impulse looks at her sharply. “You didn’t say anything during the show.”

Gem laughs. “Relax, relax. Not that bad. Nothing a bit of icyhot won’t solve, or one of your little…” She wiggles her fingers.

“You need to tell me these things before you dance on them, Gem,” Impulse says. “One of these days, I won’t be able to fix it! Then what are you gonna do about your knee, huh?”

“Uhuh. And the bruise on your face…?”

“He was drunk,” Impulse says. “It’s barely a scratch. Or, uh, well, it’s a bruise, but…”

“If I were any good at healing,” Gem says.

“I’ll ice it!” Impulse says, putting his hands up. “Besides, I don’t need my face to do my job. Might make guys respect me more?”

The bus stops. A few more people get on. There’s a bit of shouting from a drunk guy, and it makes Impulse look up on instinct, both his and Gem’s awareness hovering around their bag. Gem has a nasty curse on it if anyone but her tries to grab it, but these days…

The drunkard isn’t looking their way. He settles down again. Impulse doesn’t.

“One day, one of us will get a car, and we’ll just drive,” Impulse mutters.

“And pay for parking?” Gem asks.

“Well, it’s the thought that counts,” Impulse says.

The bus stops. Impulse looks up at the sign, just to make sure they aren’t near their stop. They aren’t. He almost looks down.

There’s a feeling in his gut. He doesn’t ignore gut feelings after as long as he’s been doing what he does. He puts a hand in his jacket. He doesn’t actually carry a gun; people think he does, but he’s fairly effective at threatening without it, and if all else fails, he does have a thick vest he’d bought with his own money after the only time he’d been shot. It had taken all of his savings, but it had been worth it.

He curls his fingers instead around the lucky charm Gem had given him after they’d become roommates and tries to focus on the feeling. There's something scraping nearby. A horrible scraping, like talons against brick, or maybe more like death clawing against soil.

The bus starts moving again. The drunks stay drunk. The fellow exhausted club and bar workers stay exhausted. The guy who’s high out of his mind doesn’t even blink.

A woman who had gotten on the bus, though, approaches them. Gem stiffens. Impulse is hyper-aware of the bag full of the night’s tips that Gem has with her.

“Hello. Sorry for interrupting,” the woman says. She’s tall. She has long, light brown hair that she hasn’t tied back. She’s wearing a long overcoat. It looks second-hand, but not properly so, like it’s being worn by someone who doesn’t quite know how to fit into second-hand clothes, or perhaps doesn’t quite know how not to fit.

There's bruises on her face, too. A split lip and a black eye and a bit of blood on the collar of her shirt.

"You look lost," Impulse says without thinking. The woman blinks.

"Oh! Yes, I suppose you could say that," she says. "That's..."

Impulse slowly takes his hand out of his jacket. Her voice is even more lost, somehow. Impeccably put-together. Very hard to read. But Impulse, he has to read people for a living, and this is a woman who is lost.

"I was just here because you two look the most aware and fit on the bus," she says.

"Oh, I'm not all that fit," Gem lies to the woman's face. "I mean, just look at me! I'm delicate!"

Impulse has seen Gem's abs. She's not delicate, she just puts on a show of being—still not delicate, actually, but the kind of not-delicate men like, not the kind of not-delicate she actually is. It's a fine line.

The woman raises an eyebrow. "Okay," she says. "I'm just—there are demons. Not far. I got away from them, but they might be following you."

"They're following you?" says Gem.

"Shhh," says the woman.

"Fine," Impulse says. "They're following you. Why? And why did you get on the bus?"

The woman is silent for a moment. "I don't think they'll catch up to us," she says. "I don't—I don't have another place to go back to, right now. I'm a bit... I don't mean to put anyone in danger. You two are the most fit looking people on here, is all. If danger did happen..."

Impulse feels something in him crack. He looks at Gem. It wouldn't be the first time the two of them have helped someone down on their luck off the streets. Of course, it's not entirely out of the goodness of their hearts, all the time, but, well, Impulse is still Impulse and Gem puts up with it and this world doesn't work if people don't help each other, Impulse has always said.

Gem shrugs and nods.

"Sit down. You can get off at our stop. My name's Gem, by the way."

The woman, slowly, sits down in a seat across from them.

"Impulse," Impulse says.

The woman opens her mouth. The woman closes it. "You can call me Griba," she says, finally.

Impulse quirks an eyebrow. "I can call you?"

"Hey, that sounds like—wasn't there someone with a name like that on the news recently?" Gem says.

The woman grimaces. "You could say that," she says.

Gem and Impulse look at each other. They look back at the woman. "Fine then. Keep your secrets," Gem says imperiously, and her tone works, because it makes—Griba, Impulse supposes, until she wants to give them her real name—laugh.

"At least until we find out if the demons get me," she says agreeably.

The bus stops again. They all tense. One person gets off and no one gets on. The bus starts moving again.

"One of these days," Impulse mutters.

"You've got to finish the sentence," Gem says. "Don't leave me hanging like that!"

"Is this an ongoing thing?" Griba says, and they continue onwards together.

#a bee fic #last days talk #not tagging with the characters both to preserve the (very thin) mystery of who one of these is #and because there are some adult implications here i don't necessarily want in the main tags #anyway. for anyone wondering what i'd do with a last days sequel: something like this. #mentions of alcohol #mentions of drugs #also for the record. the way... griba... enters this story is an intentional parallel with how she does it in last days #however changed because she's changed as a character and that's a large part of what this story would be about

[ninja-muse]

Urban Fantasy Recommendation Masterpost

This is a list of the urban fantasies I’ve enjoyed most over the years, split down a few lines and to be updated as I discover new series. I’m also including contemporary fantasies because the lines often blur. Hope you find something you like on it!

$ for LGBT characters £ for characters of colour € for characters with disabilities * for potentially problematic depictions of the above ! for #ownvoices (all based on my slightly spotty memory, so feel free to correct if I’ve missed something)

World-Focused

or stories that spend most of their time steeping you in the magical world

American Gods - Neil Gaiman £

Shadow Moon gets out of jail and is hired by the cagey Mr. Wednesday to … he’s not really clear, honestly, but it puts him in the path of people who may or may not be gods. Multiple mythologies.

Among Others - Jo Walton €!

A 1980s teen flees her troubled home in Wales to get to know her birth father and attend an English boarding school. Is her mother’s family able to work magic or is it just wishful thinking? Reading science fiction might give her the answers. British folklore and faeries, and a very interesting take on magic.

The Boggart - Susan Cooper

A Canadian family inherits a Scottish castle inhabited by a mischievous boggart—who then stows away and finds himself in Toronto. Scottish folklore.

The Bone Clocks - David Mitchell £

The life of a woman from teen-hood to old age as she lives her life and occasionally intersects with an ancient war between good and evil, fought with telepathy and other things that look a lot like magic.

The Changeling - Victor Lavalle £ !

After his infant son is violently attacked, Apollo Kagwa, used bookseller, descends into the hidden world of New York in search of his vanished wife.

The City We Became - N.K. Jemisin - $ £ ! for race

New York City, newly alive, is being attacked, and six humans, no longer quite human, must do everything in their power to save their city.

the Dark is Rising series - Susan Cooper €*

A group of English kids—four siblings, a seventh son, and a boy who might be a reincarnated Arthur—versus the forces of darkness. Five books, only the last of which includes all the kids. Cornish and English folklores, Arthuriana.

Gods Behaving Badly - Marie Phillips

The Greek pantheon now lives in North London and is as dysfunctional as ever. Artemis walks dogs. Aphrodite does phone sex. Apollo is a washed-out TV psychic who’s just fallen, via Eros, for the cleaning lady—who’s trying to date someone else, thank you very much. Greek mythology.

The Golem and the Jinni - Helene Wecker £

A golem and a jinni both find themselves in turn-of-the-century New York, both literally and figuratively. A beautiful exploration of the immigrant experience, friendship, and identity. Jewish and Arabic folklore.

Good Omens - Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

A mostly-good angel and mostly-wicked demon discover they’ve been training the wrong Antichrist days before the scheduled apocalypse. The real Antichrist wants a dog and to save the whales. Also features a legacy witch, a rookie witch-finder, the Four Horsemen, the Four Other Horsemen, Satanic nuns, and a Queen soundtrack. Christian mythology.

The Hunter’s Moon - O.R. Melling

A Canadian teen visiting her Irish cousin ends up mounting a cross-country road trip to retrieve her cousin who’s run off with the faeries. Irish mythology.

The Left-Handed Booksellers of London - Garth Nix $£

In the summer of 1983, Susan Arkshaw travels to London to find her birth father. What she discovers is a family of magical booksellers, and an Old World that’s very much alive.

Middlegame - Seanan McGuire

Roger and Dodger are exceptionally gifted, telepathically linked, and a little more than natural. James Reed will stop at nothing to use them, or people like them, to get ultimate power. Alchemy, time travel, and portal fantasies are involved.

Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman £

Richard Mayhew has it all: a good job, a hot fiancée, a nice flat. Then he helps an apparently homeless girl with the power to create doors and is pulled into the magical community below London. Nothing will ever be the same.

Of Blood and Honey and And Blue Skies From Pain - Stina Leicht

It’s tough, living in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, and Liam finds it harder than most. No one trusts him, he can’t find work, everyone wants him to choose a side, and to cap it off, he feels like a monster is inside him and knows something inhuman is stalking him and his. The war between the Fey and the Fallen is heating up, and the only people keeping peace are an order of priests—who also, surprise, want Liam’s help. Irish and Christian mythology.

The Sixth World series - Rebecca Roanhorse $£€ ! 

Maggie Hoskie is a Monsterslayer of Dinétah, but she’d rather not be. Even rescuing a kidnapped girl is supposed to be a one-shot deal. But the monster’s a new one, an apprentice medicine man’s attached himself to her, and Coyote’s around, so of course it’s not that simple. Navajo mythology.

Son of a Trickster - Eden Robinson £€ !

Jared’s life sucks. He’s sixteen, living in a crap house in a crap town with crap prospects. He’s paying his dad’s rent with weed money. His mom’s more interested in parties than holding down a job. His only friend’s a pit bull. And just when he thinks that’s as low as it gets, a raven shows up and say he’s Jared’s real dad. Heiltsuk (and other First Nations) mythology and folklore.

Sparrow Hill Road - Seanan McGuire

Rose Marshall, the Phantom Prom Date, the Ghost of Sparrow Hill Road, hitches her way from coast to coast while dealing with paranormal problems and route witches—and avoiding Bobby Cross, the immortal who killed her.

Sunshine - Robin McKinley

Rae is a baker. Tough and practical and smart, but a baker. Who’s just rescued herself and a vampire from captivity using magic she’d half-forgotten she had. Unfortunately, the master vampire’s still after them, the magical police know something’s up, and she just wants to keep being normal. Includes mild, realistic PTSD and a whole lot of delicious desserts.

An Unkindness of Magicians - Kat Howard

The Turning has started in New York and every magician in the city has their own reason for entering the tournament—power, status, acknowledgement, revenge, revolution. The high stakes would be enough for anyone, but it’s starting to look like there’s something suddenly wrong with magic, too.

Witches of Ash and Ruin - E. Latimer - $ £ € *

Dayna wants to be a witch, live her life, and block her OCD thoughts so she doesn’t have to deal with them. Then scary but gorgeous Meiner and her coven roll into town prophesying Bad Things, and a serial killer reappears who seems to target witches and shit. Meet. Fan. Themes of family and abuse.

Ysabel - Guy Gavriel Kay

Ned Marriner’s tagging along with his photographer dad to Provence when he begins to notice magic awakening around him. There’s an ancient love triangle that‘s repeated throughout history, using contemporary locals as proxies—and it’s very interested in Ned, his new friend Kate, and his father’s entourage.

Mystery-Focused

or stories that spend most of their time solving a magical crime

The Arcadia Project series - Mishell Baker $£€ !

Millie’s nearly broke, scarred, a double amputee, mentally ill, and Done with all the BS around that. She’s also despairing of ever resuming her directing career, so when a mysterious woman offers her a job with her temp agency, she’s intrigued. What wasn’t mentioned? She’ll actually be an immigration agent working with the Fae of Hollywood, and one of them’s just gone missing.

the Blood series - Tanya Huff $£€

Vicky Nelson is the pinnacle of the tough, no-nonsense PI—which poses a bit of a problem when she’s hired to catch a “vampire” on the streets of Toronto and then actually meets one. (He writes romance novels.)

the Felix Castor series - Mike Carey $*

Felix Castor is an exorcist. A hard-drinking, down-at-the-heels exorcist in a London brimming with ghosts and demons. Unfortunately, he never seems to get the easy cases where he can just waltz in and play a tune—and his past mistakes might be coming back to haunt him.

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and The Long, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul - Douglas Adams

Dirk Gently solves mysteries by wandering around, getting into strange situations, and then connecting dots no one believes even exist. Like time traveling robots and Romantic poets, or rampaging eagles and mold-ridden refrigerators.

The Grendel Affair - Lisa Shearin £

Makenna Fraser is a seer working for Supernatural Protection and Investigations in New York. “Seer” meaning she can spot the ghoulies and ghosties few people can, including her coworkers. When an off-the-books gnome removal turns into a blood-soaked crime scene, she and her partner are handed the case—but will her eagerness to prove herself just land her in hotter water?

the Greta Helsing series - Vivian Shaw $£

Dr. Greta Helsing serves the undead of London. Her best friends are vampires and demons. The boundaries between worlds are thinning, causing all manner of metaphysical trouble. Plays with 1800s horror classics; equal parts sensible, disturbing, and funny.

the Greywalker series - Kat Richardson $£

Harper Blaine prides herself on rationality and unflappability, but after briefly dying on a case, she’s suddenly wrong-footed and seeing ghosts everywhere. In the middle of all that, she’s hired by a mysterious voice to track down an organ that’s more than it seems, and suddenly haunted street corners are the least of her problems.

the Incryptid series - Seanan McGuire $£

Meet the Price family, a close-knit group of cryptozoologists whose mission is to protect and preserve endangered cryptids like dragons, gorgons, and the religious Aeslin mice from humans. They’re also hiding from the Covenant of St. George, a.k.a. why the cryptids are endangered in the first place. Technically paranormal romance.

the Iron Druid series - Kevin Hearne £

Atticus O’Sullivan is a herbalist and seller of New Age paraphernalia by day, two-thousand-year-old druid by night. He thought moving to Arizona would keep him safe from gods bent on revenge. He thought wrong. Multiple mythologies.

Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge - Paul Krueger $£€ !

Bailey Chen is fresh out of business school, broke, and living with her parents. When a childhood friend offers her a job as a barback, she takes it as a stopgap—but then she discovers the secret cabal of bartenders who fight demons using magical cocktails and after that, there’s no looking back.

Moonshine - Alaya Johnson £

Zephyr Hollis, a charity worker and ESL teacher in 1920s New York, and therefore flat broke, takes a side job from a student, Amir, without asking questions. But will the vampire mob, the drug-crazed vamps, Amir’s literal smoking hotness, or her family history do her in first?

Night Owls - Lauren M. Roy $

Valerie is a vampire with a successful campus bookstore. Elly grew up fighting monsters and fearing for her life. When their paths collide via a book in Elly’s keeping, they must unite to prevent said monsters from unleashing hell and then some.

the October Daye series - Seanan McGuire $£€

Toby Daye wants sleep, coffee, and for everyone to leave her alone already—not necessarily in that order. Unfortunately, as a changeling Knight and PI with a knack of finding people and solving problems with maximum chaos, none of those things will ever be easy to come by. Multiple folklores.

the Olympus Bound series - Jordanna Max Brodsky $£

Selene di Silva’s been keeping her head down for a long time, shutting herself off not just from New York, but from the world. (Being a former goddess will do that.) But then she stumbles on the body of a woman who’s been ritually sacrificed and her past as Artemis comes rising up again. Greek and Roman mythology

the Rivers of London series - Ben Aaronovitch $£€

When Constable Peter Grant meets a ghost at a crime scene, it’s only logical for him to take a witness statement. When DCI Thomas Nightingale learns of this, he offers him a job as an auror the sorcerer’s apprentice a valued member of a magically-focused police unit. London, its river goddesses, various magic workers, assorted Fae, and the Metropolitan Police will never be the same.

the Shadow Police series - Paul Cornell $£

Following the mysterious death of a suspect, four Metropolitan Police officers are drawn into London’s sinister magical underworld in their hunt for a killer.

the Smoke series - Tanya Huff $*£

Tony Foster’s found his footing as a PA on a Vancouver-shot vampire show. Unfortunately, the paranormal weirdness that is his life continues and it’s somehow up to him to save the day.

Unholy Ghosts (and following) - Stacia Kane £*

Chess Putnam works as a Church exorcist, partly out of obligation and partly for the pay, which goes to fuel her drug addiction. Unfortunately, no ghosts are nice ghosts and her private life keeps intruding on her cases.

the Watch novels - Terry Pratchett

Ankh-Morpork is the citiest of fantasy cities. Its City Watch is a bunch of misfits. Sam Vimes isn’t putting up with any nonsense. Somehow, they fight crime.

Zoo City - Lauren Beukes £

Zinzi December is a con artist and occasional finder of lost things who lives in the Johannesburg slums with her sloth familiar. Her latest case? Find a pair of missing teen pop stars—before the apparent assassins do.

#book recommendations #masterposts #urban fantasy