The Goddess of Crime and Other Stories: Michael La Ronn's Strange Stories, #1

THE GODDESS OF CRIME AND OTHER STORIES

STRANGE STORIES, VOL. 01

MICHAEL LA RONN

Maybe Now the Stars Will Shine © 2018 Michael La Ronn. All rights reserved.

The Goddess of Crime © 2023 Michael La Ronn. All rights reserved.

All other stories Copyright © 2024 Michael La Ronn. All rights reserved.

Published by Author Level Up LLC.

Version 2.0

Cover design by Rochelle Bolima.

Covert art © peus (hooded woman) and grandeduc (futuristic city) via depositphotos.

Editing by BZ Hercules.

Maybe Now the Stars Will Shine first appeared in The Expanding Universe Vol. 3 edited by Craig Martelle (2018).

The Goddess of Crime first appeared in Hidden Villains: Betrayed edited by Inkd Publishing (2023).

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the author except for the use of quotations in a book review.

This series is also available in audiobook format, read by Darren Eliker. Look for it at your favorite retailer.

For avoidance of doubt, Author reserves the rights, and no one has the rights to reproduce and/or otherwise use this work in any manner for purposes of training artificial intelligence technologies to generate text, including without limitation, technologies that are capable of generating works in the same style or genre as the work without the Author’s specific and express permission to do so. Nor does any person or company have the right to sublicense others to reproduce and/or otherwise use this work in any manner for purposes of training artificial intelligence technologies to generate text without Author’s specific and express permission.

This series is dedicated to Ray Bradbury.

Live forever!

CONTENTS

Preface

The Goddess of Crime

The Goddess of Justice

Hangin' with Uncle Funky

All Hallowed Roads

Return to Exodus Ranch

Alone in Naked Greed

Almost Dawn

Maybe Now the Stars Will Shine

Quick—Only a Fool Would Say That!

One Last Thing Before We Dock

Encore No. 1

Author's Notes

The Goddesses of Crime and Justice

Hangin' with Uncle Funky

All Hallowed Roads and Return to Exodus Ranch

Alone in Naked Greed

Almost Dawn

Maybe Now the Stars Will Shine

Quick—Only a Fool Would Say That!

One Last Thing Before We Dock

Encore No. 1

Adventure Awaits You

Meet Michael La Ronn

PREFACE

Welcome to Volume 1 of Strange Stories! I'm so glad you're here.

This series consists of short fiction I have published throughout my career.

At the time of this writing, I have written a lot of short stories. Some have been published in anthologies. Others have just been collecting digital dust on my hard drive, which is sad, so I created this series. Many of these stories are being published for the first time, though I wrote them long ago.

I've always had a complicated relationship with short stories. At the beginning of my career, they were the only thing I wrote. I was terrified of writing novels, so short stories were my safe place.

However, when I wrote my first novel, I got hooked, and I stopped writing short stories for a long time.

It’s a lot easier to make money from novels; once you experience the magic of long-form writing, it tends to be the only thing you do unless you make a conscious effort to write something else.

But here's the wonderful thing about short stories: they don’t require much time or investment for the writer or the reader. I can write a short story relatively quickly, build perfectly formed characters and worlds, and walk away. Readers can enjoy the story in one (or two) sittings. If I've done my job, you'll feel satisfied when you reach the end of each story.

There’s also another practical reason I created this series. I took the Ray Bradbury Writing Challenge. Ray Bradbury was a prolific science fiction author. His work inspired me to pick up the pen.

Bradbury issued a challenge to young writers wanting to improve their craft:

read one short story, one poem, and one essay every night for one thousand nights.

write one short story per week for one year.

To say this challenge is devilish is an understatement. It’s one of the most difficult challenges a writer can attempt because it requires mastering virtually every skill a writer must develop for a successful career: time management, organization, planning, writing, writing well, writing fast, business, marketing, and more. It took me several attempts before I finally won the challenge.

As I was reading short stories by other authors during this challenge, I often wanted to know what else they had written. This was especially true when I read speculative fiction magazines. To my dismay, when I encountered a wonderful story in a magazine, I found that many times it was the only piece of work that the author had published, or it was disconnected from what they were known for. For example, if an author wrote an excellent urban fantasy story but was known for science fiction and had no urban fantasy novels to offer, it created a disconnect. Usually, I stopped exploring that author's catalog and moved on to someone else.

I don't want readers to feel that way about me. If they read a story in a magazine they like, I want them to 1) know which titles in my portfolio the story is most like so they can buy them and 2) if there aren't any titles in my catalog in the genre of the story (because it will happen), I want to have a flagship product that will feel familiar—hence, a short story collection series where they can find similar stories.

I’ll let you be the judge of whether I've been successful.

IN THIS VOLUME

The lead story, The Goddess of Crime, is a magical urban fantasy featuring a lesser-known Greek goddess, but reimagined in a neo-noir world. The Goddess of Justice follows her sister. These stories came to me in an unsettling but revelatory dream. The Goddess of Crime appeared in the Hidden Villains: Betrayed anthology edited by Inkd Publishing. The anthology was funded in a smash hit Kickstarter campaign. (The Goddess of Crime also won Silver Honorable Mention in The Writers of the Future Contest, the highest award a story can earn before actually winning the contest.)

You'll also find two standalone stories from my bestselling dark fantasy series The Last Dragon Lord (All Hallowed Roads and Return to Exodus Ranch). If you love dragons, elves, and myths, you'll love these two. You don't need to have read The Last Dragon Lord trilogy to enjoy them.

Making an appearance is also a standalone story from my space opera Galaxy Mavericks universe (Maybe Now the Stars Will Shine), a story that first appeared in The Expanding Universe short story anthology series edited by Craig Martelle. The story follows Devika Sharma, one of the main characters from the series on an important side mission that will determine the fate of the galaxy. Devika is a fan favorite in the series.

And that's just the start. From crazy uncles with magical powers to yachts sailing the world in an apocalypse to monster hunters looking for love after a devastating bodysnatcher war, this volume will keep you entertained.

IN THIS SERIES

Expect the unexpected. While I write mostly science fiction and fantasy, you'll find contemporary stories in these volumes too.

I write about heroes and heroines from all stripes of life. The connecting thread is that no matter what I write, it will be quirky—guaranteed. And of course, it will be strange.

As a bonus, each volume will have a special, exclusive extra Encore story. In the Encore story, I throw all the rules out the window and do something wacky inspired by all the stories in the collection. Think of the Encore story as an experimental lab where you can watch me play around with new concepts in real time. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't. Maybe it will be your favorite story.

(If you love the Encore story, do let me know when you review this book!)

The Encore story pays homage to Annual superhero comics that I used to read when I was a kid. At the end of a season, the comic writers would invite a new artist to spin a standalone story that often went into new and unexplored territory, yet was not connected with the previous season in any way. Annuals were notoriously zany. You either loved them or hated them. No in-betweens! Symbolically, that's where I like to live as an artist. I enjoy the high risk and high reward. It energizes me.

Give the Encore story a try. It will be suspiciously familiar, but with twists. All good fun.

Oh, and I always write author's notes for every story I finish. So, if you happen to read one of these stories somewhere else first, you can learn more about it in the Author's Notes section. This series will (usually) be the only place you can read the Author's Notes.

Thanks for reading, and let the Strange Stories begin!

—Michael La Ronn

September 6, 2024

Des Moines, Iowa

THE GODDESS OF CRIME

Here's what happens when you're about to get mugged.

It's nighttime, usually some blackened hour when you should be rolling over in your toasty bed. Your only excuse for being out so late is your vanity. You’re one drink away from drunk, but you’ve still got your judgment.

The streets are deserted and rain-slicked. In the dark valley of buildings through which you walk, every window has its curtains drawn, like children covering their eyes while watching a horror movie.

A distant car horn blares as if trying to warn you. You see your reflection in an inky puddle under a flickering streetlight amid a background of pinwheels of light.

Above, the stars glitter like Turkish lamps, but they are not your compass home. Their beauty is a temporary distraction that pulls your eyes upward to marvel at the strangeness of the city that you’ve lived in for years but never stopped to admire.

You will be so busy staring at the breathtaking sky that you will not see the hooded man waiting for you in the doorwell two buildings down.

He saw you the moment you turned onto the street. You don’t see him until you’re a few feet away. When his hooded shape slinks out of the shadows, Mother Nature kicks in.

Your heart rate accelerates.

Your breath runs shallow.

Beads of sweat bloom in places you didn’t know you could sweat.

That alcohol buzz burns away and you get as sober as if you never had a drink in your life. His shadow looms larger with every step.

If you run, he’ll grab you. If you turn your back, he might hit you. He’s got you right where he wants you.

If you have a knife, it doesn't matter. If you have pepper spray, it doesn't matter. It is too late. All those videos you watched on the internet about self-defense—just your imagination fooling you into thinking you could be your own hero.

If you were going to avert disaster, you would have done it seconds earlier.

The only thing that matters now—the only thing that's real—is your fear.

First, he’ll ask you politely if you have the time. You’ll look down and find yourself on the ground, tasting cement as he grabs your things.

Your watch. Your ring. Your phone. Your wallet.

You will feel light as his hoodie swallows your things. You will feel as if it has swallowed your soul. The urge to vomit will well up in your stomach, but somehow you will hold it down.

You will struggle, but he will be ready. You will hear the metallic click of a gun cocking and stare into the depths of its barrel as he continues his pillage. His gruff voice will tell you to stay down.

If you’re lucky, he will strike you on the head as his getaway act.

If you’re unlucky, he will shoot you, and you will die.

As for me, I will live. No harm will come to me tonight.

I invented the ancient art of mugging. It hasn't changed in five thousand years. The first man standing in a stone doorway in early civilization waiting by firelight to accost the first unlucky passerby—that was my design.

I hovered behind history’s first mugger in an ethereal mist, whispering in his ear and telling him exactly what to say and where to strike. His every move was a prayer to me. When that innocent pedestrian in a toga stumbled by smelling of dry wine, I guided my subject’s hand into the back of the fool’s bare head. A few silver coins and drops of misery later, my offering was complete.

Any time a criminal inflicts misery upon the world, I grow richer and stronger. Yet, there have never been any shrines to my greatness. No one has ever painted a mural in honor of me that I know of. No one has ever uttered my name because history has never bothered to record it, and it is just as well. A goddess like me thrives best in the shadows.

As misery grew in the world, I didn't need the same foolishness as the rest of my brothers and sisters. I didn’t need larger-than-life shrines on grassy hilltops to flatter my ego. I didn’t even need blood. All this goddess needed to thrive was misery.

Now, the eons pass like a film on long exposure. Humanity has crawled away from its pagan origins, and most of the old gods are dead. No one prays to them anymore.

My dead brothers and sisters live on in paintings and myths that praise their lives. They live forever in the zeitgeist but will never breathe again.

Yet, I am here, but only because my subjects continue to grace me with executions of my inventions: crimes of every kind.

I don’t live on a hallowed mountain or in sun-drenched clouds. I live among humanity. I have a familiar but forgettable face. I blend easily in a crowd. You see me, then you forget me. Lovers throughout the ages have known me, and I have had to forget them.

Being a goddess in a world that has forgotten about your kind is a private existence. And lonely. You take your tributes where you can and keep living. No one you meet will last, and you cannot risk being found out, so you must always keep moving.

My travels brought me to this gray, sunless city covered with wet surfaces and shadows. I feel at home here because the unrest is palpable.

The crime is also exceptionally bad. I wear this city like an old warm blanket that I’ve forgotten but am oh-so-glad to have rediscovered.

While walking these streets among my faithful subjects, I sense her.

My sister is here.

It has been four thousand years since I’ve seen her. I sense her presence like a parched tree senses rain.

Walking through the shadowed streets drenched with fear and loathing, I use the stars as my map, my astral tea leaves. It has been ages since I’ve stared up at the night sky, but feeling her pulls me out of my usual drudge.

I stand in a darkened street and stare at the cosmos from whence I came, marvel at their everlasting radiance, and reorient myself in my sister’s direction.

I must find her at all costs.

It just so happens that my path tonight has brought me into the path of our dear mugger.

This one's an amateur. I can tell by his hesitation in stepping out of the doorwell.

This isn't the first time I've been assaulted with my own method. Even my godly, forgettable face doesn't mean I don't get targeted every now and then.

Any other person would have frozen. Instead, I walk right to him, let him think that I'm playing his game.

I glance around. We're the only ones dancing tonight.

Then I meet his face, which I can't see but know all too well. The mark of innocence.

The teenager? Perhaps a child forced to become a man too soon. Dark hoodie.