A New Woman

"Sam! Sam, I know you're in there!" Gia rattled the door handle, and the cheap interior lock popped open. She burst in, catching Sam and the dryad in flagrante delicto. Gia clutched a bucket of chemicals in her hands.

"Gia, no!" Sam cried.

"Aha!" Gia said. "I knew it!" With that, she flung the weed killer over the nut-brown nature spirit. Sam leapt aside.

The dryad, dripping wet, glared peevishly at them both.

"You're... you're alive," Sam said.

"Of course," the dryad answered. She thumped on the trunk of the tree in the pot beside her. "Plastic tree. Plastic dryad."

Cronos and Uranus

They were the strongest of the children, Viachess and Beh toh Macs. They struggled for her pleasure, and in the end, one became triumphant. She swallowed the other as she had swallowed so many children before, wax and papyrus, clay and stone. The struggle to contain her fractious brood is never apparent on her smooth-featured face. Now, the newest spawn have overthrown their father and begun their own struggle, a battle of discus and light-lance. The latest games will end soon. Whether she is pleased or not, who can say? Her quiet half-smile never changes.

But she is always hungry…

The Information Age

Alucard was using the Internet again, which never failed to amuse him. "Grigor, look," he called.

"It is the day, Alucard. I rest upon my native soil, as you should."

"Come and see," Alucard insisted.

Grigor pried the top of his coffin up. "More of your Inter-net cobwebs?"

"Web pages. Here, I have found this."

Grigor peered at the screen. "Alucard, this is a recipe. Why do we need recipes?"

"It is called a turducken. A turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken."

"So?"

Alucard's eyes gleamed, and his fangs extended unconsciously. "It has given me... an idea."