The Shadow Man from ‘Princess and the Frog’
So, what do you want? We work with curses, so being friendly isn’t something we’re used to. You’re not a Paladin, are you? Okay, guess finding this place helps too. Yes, I know this is a kiosk in the middle of a mall. Normally, we look like a place that sells expensive sunglasses. What if somebody wants to buy a pair? You know, that’s never come up and we’ve been here for a decade. So, what are you looking for?
One curse is easy to cook up in a few minutes. We do have a buy six, get a Seven Sin Jamboree for free. Fine, but that’s the only deal we have. By the way, once this starts, you can’t back out unless you take a cookie. Trust me when I tell you that your blood sugar level will be the least of your worries if it comes to that. What if you run? That’s when I send Nell after you and she hasn’t eaten in days.
Since we’re ready to start, I’ll give you the delivery options. We have verbal castings that you simply have to read in the vicinity of your victim. There are potions you can slip them either by drink or having them put it on their exposed skin. My personal favorite are the mouthwash versions because you know there’s a 30 count exposure time. There’s always using food, which includes liquids and powders. Besides all of that, we have patches, pills, darts, and dust.
Next up is what the curse will do. Don’t worry about telling me who the target is because that’s not my business. Best not to know the details beyond gender and age. We have physical alteration curses such as losing hair, skin deformities, growing a tail, or whatever else you can dream up. All of those have the same base, so it’s only a matter of including the proper trace amounts. Mental curses typically involve hallucinations that affect at least one sense. Very simple and literally been done to death. Elemental curses force transformations or give uncontrollable powers that will get them killed by the populace, but those aren’t popular these days. More than likely, the target will be seen as a superhero and become a hero. Yes, I know I said uncontrollable, but the thing still has an on and off switch.
Bestial curses? Haven’t done one of those in a while, so I hope I have the supplies. You need fresh parts of the proper animals, so the more exotic transformations will require a few days. Nothing too complicated, but you can’t find skin flakes and urine of every animal in this mall. Unless you want to do a dog, cat, pigeon, or rat. Yeah, a hyena will be tough and not really a good idea. Turning an enemy into a predator can backfire horribly unless you take the proper precautions. I don’t care if this person has an annoying laugh and it would fit. No, I’ll still do this, but I simply don’t care and the warning means you can’t say I didn’t warn you.
That settles everything and I should have things ready by . . . you already have the hyena ingredients. Rather suspicious. Are you a Paladin? Disgruntled zookeeper? Didn’t see that coming.
Legends of Windemere 
I love it. I have some notes for a future story about a curse shop somewhere. Apparently there really were such things in Rome and other ancient cultures.
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I remember reading a little about that. I wonder how curses would operate in today’s world. Seems like it wouldn’t really change since they tend to go after basic stuff like beauty, wealth, luck, happiness, etc.
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Politics and sports would be my guess. Curse one superbowl team and bet heavily on the other guys.
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But then there would be somebody on the other side doing the same thing. Opposing curses would be everywhere. That would negate them, but the energy has to go somewhere. Building into a single entity of malice and hate that infects humanity? What if this has already happened? (This is why I probably shouldn’t read and watch a lot of news when on little sleep and painkillers.)
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Now you’re getting close to the story I have in the queue. Husband and wife con game. Sell both curses and counter curses and double the profits. I may use it in a short story, or I may save them for a different kind of fantasy I have planned out a couple books down the road. They move around a lot, probably because of all that malignant energy.(Likely requires research involving The Sting and Maverick movies.)
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Cool idea. Would you consider using them in a short story and maybe reviving them for the fantasy? It isn’t uncommon, especially in fantasy, for characters to appear in a short story and later in a novel or vice versa.
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It’s possible. I need to finish Yak Guy, then a sci-fi piece I want to write. Then it’s time for the oddball fantasy story. By then, it may be a full fledged trilogy. (I hope not.)
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Love how you’re hoping the story doesn’t grow out of control. Fantasy does seem to do that a lot. Can’t think of many big, single book fantasy stories.
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It’s true. I started out not being able to write anything over about 140,000 words. Now I struggle sometimes to get them up to 80 or 90K. This one could be one of the exceptions.
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Interesting. My books are getting shorter too. I wonder if it’s that we become tighter with our writing as we gain experience. Early on, a lot of us put everything into a book including extraneous details. Though it wasn’t pointless to us, it wasn’t always necessary. Now, through editors and writing groups, we’re learning how to get rid of the fat before it even gets on the page.
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That’s true. I think blogging helps too. My first posts were up around 2000 words. These days many of them are 400 – 800.
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Same here. I was told long ago that shorter tends to be better because most people are in a rush.
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I’ve said the same thing myself. I think it applies to all walks of life today. There is no time for long descriptions of forests and mountains these days.
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Miss the days where there wasn’t always something to do or a place to go. Maybe it’ll happen again some day.
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Personally, I need to knuckle down on finishing my novel. I have all this October promo scheduled, and that’s going to eat all the time when the paycheck job isn’t demanding my time. I hate to say it, but I need to stay home and work on my writing.
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Hard to wrap my head around it almost being October. This year has gone so fast and so slow.
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LOL. Can you imagine starting to order a curse and then running out? One would have to be insane. Good job. Charles.
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Substitutions can work in some situations. I assume. Probably only with animal parts and if they’re related. Eye of elephant can’t replace eye of newt, but pupil of salamander could work.
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Hair of anything could work too I suppose.
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Eye of Newt (he has two) and toe of a blogger!
Wool of Batman and tongue from the Jewish Deli!
Plastic fork and blind-worm’s sting (no idea what that is)!
Lawyers leg and wing from KFC!
That should do it.
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Sniff, shoot, or slug?
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Slug slime to help the pill-based curses go down smooth?
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MMMM can’t wait.
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The curse mixed in with mouthwash is fun. Not for the recipient, obviously.
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Especially it’s aimed at the teeth. Then again, they might get a lawsuit out of it.
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Tooth pain is nothing to be laughed at, though!
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Yup. Living proof of that this week.
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