Book Sample the Second

I've decided to post multiple sample chapters this time, due to the long wait.

The ms itself is going through final revisions (as in final final final) and Ivory Scars, Iron Bars should be up for pre-order by the end of this week. There will be two more sample chapters in June, and it'll go on sale July 4th, 2014

 The  first book in the series, Silver Bullet, Black Hounds, is...well, under the link.

Chapter one is here.  Chapter two is beneath the cut. Read away, my lovelies.

GRAY FOX--COVER REVEAL!

It's DONE, guys! And OH MY GOD it looks good to me:

Sample of the story can be found over here, and remember, you can get a copy of the previous book, Blue Ghosts, by going to this site and using this promo code: TU68W

GRAY FOX coverart WIP

Hi, Raziel. Nice to finally see you in person. :D

Gray Fox--BOOK SAMPLE!!!

Here's a free sample of GRAY FOX, sequel to BLUE GHOSTS and SILVER BULLET.

Haven't read either? That's fine. Read through to the end for a free coupon for the Smashwords edition, good until 2/15/2013

Casey Winter could deal with bloodthirsty fairies. It was her ex-husband she had issues with.

“I think it’s time that we should talk,” Jackson Winter drawled, and Casey clutched the phone tighter. A bizarre combination of butterflies and acid gnawed at her gut. This just wasn’t fair. Not after the week she’d just had. A mermaid tried to kill her, a crazy, overpowered Faerie huntress blackmailed her into chasing a man-eating Phooka, and just last night she’d stopped a Boggart from turning the Lexington Museum into God’s Own Slaughterhouse. She hadn’t even gotten to sleep since that last one.

The universe owed her a break after a week like that.

How the hell, she thought, as she slid down to the cold kitchen floor, did my ex husband even get this number?

“I’m going to say you agree,” Jack drawled. She could hear his smile, could almost see his shiny, laminated teeth.

She rolled her eyes. Jack had been born and raised in Nebraska. He didn’t have a southern accent any more than she did. A Texas accent, maybe, but that Southern Drawl was from Virginia, or the Carolinas, or Georgia. And the voice crawling out of the phone was sticky sweet like deep fried Georgia peaches. An affectation. He preached to the masses of Atlanta in their native tongue. Otherwise it was yet another aberration of a cancer-damaged brain. If he could get a whole new personality thanks to that last stroke, why not a new accent to go with?

 “What do you want?” She asked.

“Well, sunshine, I wanted to hear from you. It’s been a little while. I was hoping that maybe it’s been long enough. You and I could get some water under that bridge.” A pause, and a sound of paper rustling. “Besides, you’ve met a few interesting new people these days. I want to make sure you’re okay.”

It was amazing. Only Jack could creep her out in ten seconds flat. The only new people in her life since she’d left Jack were the Faerie Exiles of Corpus Christi. And him knowing about them? That was a very bad thing.

But did he really know about them? Or was he just fishing. If it was the latter…well, she’d be able to fish him out, too. She racked her brain for good bait. Well, she’d heard through the grapevine that Jack wasn’t getting along with her church. His preaching was very hellfire and hard line, and he’d had a couple spectacular showdowns with other churches. She gripped the phone tighter and gave a thin, tight smile.

“Jack,” she said, steadily. “I’ve been going to Laguna Fellowship for years.” So had he. The old him. The gentle, sweet, kind man she’d known, before cancer and stroke and medical nastiness took him away.

 This man wasn’t him.

“Don’t bullshit me, sunshine. You know who I mean.”

“No,” she said. “I don’t. I don’t know you at all.”

The last time she’d seen her ex husband, he’d been standing over her hospital bed, apologizing profoundly for hurting her. Next to last time: Jack standing over her, a blood-soaked rolling pin slipping from between his fingers. What he’d done read like the aftermath of a car wreck. Shattered skull, right eye socket, cheekbone, and jaw. Broken collar bone, three broken ribs on right side, one punctured lung. Multiple compound fractures to right knee, which was the medical way to say “he turned the bones into marbles”. The problem with the last year of her marriage had not been that her husband was a bad man, she’d decided. It was that for the first few years, he’d been a good one.  You’re told to stand by your lover when they become ill. That it is good, and brave, and loyal. They don’t tell you what to do when your virtues turn lethal. She’d had to make it up on the go.

“This is a violation of the no-contact order, Jack,” She said. Her heart was pounding like a bongo drum, her mouth was dry, her hands were shaking. Her voice was dead calm. “I’m hanging up and calling the judge.”

“That’s fine,” Jack said. “You go right on ahead and do that. I don’t want to trouble you too much. I just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“That’s not your job anymore.” She paused. “And why wouldn’t I be alright?”

“People talk.” He said. She could hear the shrug on the other end of the line. “Some more than most. There’s a lot of rumors coming in from your part of the world. Makes for interesting listening.” A long pause. “Has that dwarf gotten his kid yet?”

Doug Green and Tim Anderson were both members of Marco Creed’s little group. Doug was human. Tim was a literal dwarf. They were openly gay in South Texas and trying to adopt a kid. Sometimes Casey thought they deserved a medal. She liked them both a lot…and Jack’s church wasn’t known for being a hotbed of tolerance and fellow-feeling.

She pressed her lips together and didn’t say a word.

“It’s a scandal up here, you know. Our Good Folk aren’t too much happier about gays adopting than the rest of us. And that Merrow girl, the one that tried to kill you? I only found out about it after the fact, but it damn near stopped my heart when I did hear. Thank God you’re hard to kill,” there was a sad little hurt laugh.

“Well, you should know,” she said. It was a struggle to keep her breathing steady now.

Jack knew about the Exiles. A lot about them. Fan-freaking-tastic. She took a deep breath. Hell, they probably contacted him for the same reason they’d contacted her.

Her Jack, the real Jack, had been a fantasy artist. They’d both been Christians, albeit of the “Pass the Harry Potter and the D&D manuals while I open another beer” variety. God was God, and he was powerful enough for airy-fairy nonsense to be clean and safe. God wasn’t in the things you wanted; he was behind them, the Thing above all things you didn’t dare admit to yourself you wanted. Once you did that, well, the plot was lost and all Earth and reality would be spent looking and seeking for the lovely echo of that one, true Thing. And if you wanted Fairies and magic and pretty glowing unicorns, you were really wanting that part of God best expressed as glitter and power and wildness. Throw in a little Romans 14 philosophy, and it wasn’t odd for the Winters to spend Sunday mornings attending church, and Sunday evenings attending Laguna Fellowship’s underground Dungeons and Dragons game, 3.5 rules only.

It went without saying, they’d also been huge nerds.

But that was before the cancer. The New Jack had lost that quality completely. There’d been a child-like neediness to the new him that Casey had felt driven to take care of. He’d had to relearn reading and writing, and as for artwork…well, where the real Jack had been hyper-realistic, the New Jack didn’t know ham from hemispheres. Up until the final night, he’d used words, not fists. Two months into his new life, he’d become obsessed with a Houston mega-church. When he begun studying the Bible and reading sermons fanatically, Casey had hoped that maybe he’d found some kind of solice and could begin to heal—and by extension, stop calling her fat, plain, stupid and lazy just because she’d rather earn a paycheck than attend his massive ego. When he’d landed a job as assistant pastor to massive Georgia based Hill Fellowship, she’d believed that, finally, it would all iron out.

She’d made herself into the good little pastor’s wife, had even begun discussing a Christian line of books with her agent, Emma Parker. Neither of them had been very enthusiastic. And for a brief period, it really did look like life was finally sane again. That changing herself to fit him really had bought her peace.     

And then Jack had gone to town on her with a rolling pin.

Since she’d left, he’d become full pastor and owner-in-all-but-name of The Hill. He’d built a new building for it and had a congregation of almost one hundred thousand people a Sunday. Three satellite campuses, a television program every Monday at nine p.m. And, rumors said, Pastor Jack could perform miracles. He’d downplayed these rumors something fierce, otherwise several thousand watchdogs would have reported him for fraud, but the rumors were still there.

She’d gotten nothing. Not a dime for her medical bills, not a cent of alimony. She’d even had to send him all of his artwork. She’d kept one lone canvas, her earliest novel cover, but that was it. He’d been very insistent. She didn’t think that he’d actually wanted the artwork. The New Jack’s attitude towards fantasy was very hard line: Burn Harry Potter. Beware the dangers of role playing games. Don’t fraternize with anything remotely resembling evil, as defined by Jackson Winter. All his old art had been of fairies and elves and soft green unicorn glens. The only reason he’d wanted them, she supposed, was to burn them.

And this was the guy who knew about Exiles.

Jack would call them demons. Not because he actually believed in demons, but because that was one of the words that tended to turn people’s brains off. Like “witch” or “gay” or “abortion.” Shout enough of those words at the right people, and they’d set fire to the world. Probably the reason a manipulative little shit like the New Jack had wanted a church in the first place. Burn, baby. Burn.

The whole idea made her cringe.

“What do you want?” She asked, her voice going colder.

“I’m worried. I know you and I had our issues, but my world feels a lot better knowing that you are around. I want to make sure you’re keeping a safe distance from these people..”

“What I do with my life isn’t your business,” Casey said. She was getting angry now.  Angrier still, because an unwelcome little voice told her that Jack was sort of right.

It was national news that she’d been targeted by the Corpus Christi Sniper. Her books had even seen a teeny, tiny upsurge in sales, thanks to her name being plastered on every murderabilia site in the country. But the shooter had been Faerie, and no way was that common knowledge. Marco Creed had taken the bullet for her, but he’d also put her in danger twice since. And with the exception of Doug Green and Leslie Fielding, every member of Marco’s gang could kill Casey twice, maybe three times over without breaking a sweat.

But I trust them not to. She thought. The difference between a good man and a bad one isn’t their gun collection or their power level. It is that, when given a situation and the power to take advantage of it, a good person won’t. Ever. Marco Creed, Abbey McShay, Tim, Doug, Leslie…they were all good people.

Jack wasn’t.

But you didn’t put Ero the Phooka or Raziel on that good-guy list, either. And you’ll listen to them. She shivered.

Jack was still talking.

“Maybe I can make it my business.” He said. “Some of the chatter I’ve heard says it’d be bad if the wrong people found out you were the one with the gun that day.”

“Are you threatening me?” She asked.

His voice softened. “I just want you to know, people down there are talking. I’m not the trouble here.”

Oh, yes you damn well are. “Spit it out, or I’m hanging up.”

“That gray bitch who runs things down there, she been real up front with you?”

The casual misogyny put Casey’s teeth on edge. He still had a point. Good manipulators never move without one. Casey didn’t know Raziel well, or, if she thought about it, the other Faerie. Apparently, Jack did.

And he definately knew about Lyrene McHally.

The McHally clan was, apparently, blood-thirsty as hell. They wanted a life for a life. Their daughter died, someone else should go with her. But that was all based on what Raziel had said. She had promised Casey protection only as long as she did Raziel’s favors. If Raziel was lying, she didn’t have a hold on Casey anymore.

If she was telling the truth, Jack had one, too.

Her skin crawled at the idea. If Jack decided he wanted her dead, all he had to do was jump on a plane to Scotland and whisper in a little fish’s ear. Raziel could do the same thing. A rock and a hard place, she thought. Trapped between a blackmailer and her abuser.

Screw it. Let’s kick over the ant-pile and see what falls out. “No,” Casey said, softly. “No. She hasn’t been open at all.”

“Shit,” Jack muttered. Her pulse increased.“We got a big group of the Good Folk up here. There was a gentleman up here who ran things behind the scenes, more or less. A few of the Good Folk asked if I could assist them in getting rid of this gentleman. I did. It was messy. I’m not real sure why I’m not dead right now. About a month ago, I was told this gentleman is a dear old friend of the lady running things down there. And that he was holding a hot grudge against me for throwing him out of Atlanta.

“Now, I don’t know if they’re still buddy buddy, but I do know that he’s mighty pissed at me and he might target you. And if the gray lady is still his friend, she might deliver you tied up in a real pretty bow. I’m trying to keep you safe, Karoline. You don’t get it. You are my life. I would die before I let anyone hurt you.”

“Anyone else, you mean.” She closed her eyes and ran her fingers down her jeans.

“That was a mistake. It isn’t fair to hold my mistakes against me. I’m much better now. If you just gave me a chance--”

She heard a car outside. Probably Marco with her Nissan. “I’m hanging up now.” She said.

“Wait. WAIT!”

Hanging up was satisfying. God. Nobody got under her skin the way he did. It’d been almost a year since she’d had to talk to the son of a bitch. Almost a year since she’d had to remember that she still loved him.

It hadn’t been long enough for either wound to heal.

But he was her abuser. You can forgive that, it’s healthy to forgive it, God knew, she needed to forgive it…but you don’t forget, and you don’t let your guard down. That made forgiving very, very hard. She rubbed her right knee and felt the scars through her blue jeans. The joint was artificial. It had taken her six months to learn how to walk again. Jackson Winter might have a lot of power, money, and he might actually feel guilt, but it didn’t make him any less of a waste of skin.

In this incarnation, anyway.

She listened to the fan belt whine as her car turned off.. Another car pulled into the drive, its engine a purring kitten in comparison to the new Nissan’s. If she had to admit the good stuff, it was that Jack had given her useful information. Maybe even enough to leverage her way out from under Raziel.

And Marco was here with her car.

She rushed to the door, wanting nothing quite so much as she did Marco. Not for comfort, but for reminding. The world was not full of ugly people. There were still a handful of men that keep themselves restrained. Sure, he was prickly, and he had that white-knight protectiveness that was both romantic and frustrating, but magic was a potent lure. His had something to do with being an elf, but most of it was sex. Twisting the knob, she threw the door open before the person behind it had a chance to knock…and gave them both a huge start.

It wasn’t Marco Creed.

Raziel looked down as if from an endlessly great distance. The Elestrin leader was Faerie, and Casey was mortal. To Raziel, that was the distance between a throne and the grave. Casey straightened her shoulders and met the other woman’s eyes square. Disappointment that it wasn’t Marco flash-boiled into anger in nine seconds flat.

There’s a gentleman…a friend of the lady who runs things down there. I don’t know if they’re still buddy, buddy, but…Casey smiled. Not sweetly. “Just the person I wanted to see.” She said.

And she dragged the great huntress into her house without waiting for an answer.

GRAY FOX is due out February 15th at Amazon.com, Smashwords and Barnes and Noble. And grab a copy of BLUE GHOSTS on Smashwords before then, using this coupon: TU68W

COVER IS DONE! COVER IS DONE!

THERE. Now I can go to silly party and serve people wine and "indian" food in peace (Look. I have never eaten indian food prepped by a real indian before, nor have I ever experianced Diwali for real. So until I do, this is "White boss's idea of Diwali" and not the authentic thing)

Anyway. There. There is the cover. Look at it. Enjoy it. Be ready to buy it (preferably on Buy Day, which is the seventeenth. Participate in Buy Day only if you already intend to buy the book.)

I'ma go soak my hands now.


EDIT: Also, blog makeover for new book! Yes!

Free Book Day on Amazon! AND BOOK SAMPLE!

So, first up, Rise of the Winterlord will be FREE, on Amazon, all day tomorrow. So if you haven't had a chance yet, go grab a copy.

Second. Prince of the Gray Keep has kind of...erm, evolved. Knowing that most of you have NOT read RotW, and that PotGK won't make much sense without it, I've kind of, um...included it. In Prince of the Gray Keep. So technically you'll be picking up a small sample of a larger book that still stands on its own. But I also know most of you have not read it, so...yeah. I want my book to make sense.

So now, without further ado, BOOK SAMPLE:

The instincts of a soldier saved him. Already on edge, he had considered any man coming through that door a threat. So when the stranger came at him, he stepped back without thinking, grabbed the stranger’s wrist, twisted, and struck a nerve point just above the wrist. The hand went limp, knife sliding through numbed fingers. The rest of the move ended with the combatant’s hands on the enemy’s throat; Leythorne didn’t think snapping this stranger’s neck neck would be wise. He shifted the last move so that the elf’s own weight carried him to the ground.

           The man was skilled. His knees hit the stone floor, he took the weight, then rolled and came back up. His hands moved in a quick, tight pattern, and a pure bolt of heat brushed Leythorne’s cheek, singing hair and beard. The Keep muttered options frantically, offering spells for his defense, methods of killing that were gruesome in their effectiveness. It seemed desperate to keep its new master alive. Leythorne ignored these suggestions, ducked, and fought like a man. He landed a beautiful right hook just below the Elf’s eye. These arms had strength, and the Elf went sprawling.

           Pardal tossed him the Elf’s knife. He caught it, burning his fingers where the rags had slipped. As the Elf rolled up, Leythorne caught his legs and sent him once more onto his back. Sitting on his thighs, Leythorne bought the knife under the man’s chin.

           Silence in the room. The elf spat in his face.

           “Finish me, then.” The elf said. “I’d rather die than serve you.”

           “I am not Faer,” He said, quietly. “And I will let you go.”

           And he did. It went against every instinct, but this man was known to the others. Killing him might be a bigger mistake than releasing him. Dropping the knife where the man could see it, he backed up slowly. The Elf snatched up the knife, but by now Pardal was armed, and Ledden stepped forward, thrusting the wrapped sword hilt into Leythorne’s hands. And he stayed at Leythorne’s side after. The elf looked frantically at the mortal. “Do you know what this man is? Do you, Pardal?” When Pardal nodded, cautiously, the Elf seemed to explode. “Why do you, of all men, protect him?”

           “He’s the man that saved my son and myself from the Old One.”

           The Elf looked at Ledden, holding to Leythorne’s belt, then at Pardal. His pale blue eyes burned. Holding Leythorne’s gaze, the elf spat to one side. “What lies you tell, Jennal.” Leythorne flinched, and he smiled. “Oh? Did you think I would not know your face? Old companion. Dear, dear friend.”

           Well, that would be his luck. The one man in this place who had known Faer personally was not only alive, he was someone his only ally trusted. “What is your name?” he asked, feeling more exhausted than all the world.

           “What a fair jest.” Calm words, taut with hate. They should have murdered on their own. “Should I ask yours? Pretend we have never met before now?”

           “We never have.”

           “I would not—”

           “Jennal Faer attempted to slave a mortal in the hills above Ravensfel. He did not know this man was Portal gifted, and that the gift would react…well, for him it was badly. It saved my life. Our powers tangled and I found myself looking through his eyes.” His heart was pounding against his ribs. If this man, who called Faer friend, should react so poorly, how would Rashaliem react? If he returned to Ambercross, he would have even less time to be convincing.

           Think about it later. Deal with this now.

           The man spat again. “You lie. And damned badly, for you.”

           Leythorne shrugged. “If you don’t believe me, leave. Take what is yours and go. You may have some of that, too.” He gestured at the Duskin Lord’s finery. “But I would suggest running far. It sounds as if the Duskin are ripping this island apart.”

           The low rumble of internal fighting swelled like the tide. The other man turned to Pardal. “Why would you say the man was good? Why bring me here? Even the Duskin Lord was better than this monster.”

           “He saved my life, and spared my son from the torturer’s hands. And he did not need to.” Pardal quickly related Leythorne’s actions a bare hour ago. He stretched the truth far too much, because he made it seem that Leythorne was a hero.

           The Elf turned to the boy. “This is true?” the child nodded. The Elf looked stunned. After a few heartbeats, however, he recovered.“But you killed the Duskin Lord in the process. These two could have been collateral damage.”

           Something in the distance broke. It was big, and the impact that followed rattled teeth. The sea-sound of war swelled into individual sounds. Voices screaming and urging each other on. Fists throwing blows, knife and axe resounding off shield. Inhuman throats rose in one great chorus. Victory and hate. Triumph, and then a call to further war. Leythorne’s pulse quickened as the sound slowly faded back. The Keep’s interest had peaked, and he had the dreadful feeling these halls were filled with darkness and red thread. Leythorne and the others were running out of time.

           He turned to the Elf and smiled, thinly. “We can stand here and argue who and what I am as long as you wish, but these others will not survive unless we stand together. Or at least, get out of my way.”

           “Perhaps you may show the Duskin how murder is done.”

           His temper, tried by exhaustion and this hell he had awakened to, finally snapped. Not bothering with magic, he slammed the elf hard against the filth coated wall. The muck from eons of filth and bloodshed felt grimy beneath his knuckles. It stained the elf’s perfect skin. Leythorne found himself not caring for anything, save that he had his enemy by the throat. “Stand with me or leave. But if you do not wish to help, get out of my way.”

           The Elf’s face hardened. “I have protected them since you gave me to that monster you served these long centuries. Do not tell me to leave them behind.”

           “Gave?” The word was shocked out of him.

           “I was the price for your victory. A taste of what your master would gain, if you won the day and the throne.” The Elf shook his head spitefully. “It was the delight of my life that you would rot forever insensiate in that cell. My revenge for all I had suffered.”

           Leythorne let him go, shaking. The Mistlands were something no one fully understood, something that everyone feared. The thought of being given to the creatures in it... “You’ve had your revenge. Jennal Faer died in a mortal form at least a hundred years ago.”

           “A pretty lie.” The elf sneered, rubbing his neck. “A defeat that costs you everything and a mortal, nothing at all.  But I would not believe—”

           Leythorne threw another punch. Even the outer roar had fallen second to the brutality in this room. Loss fueled a rage deeper than anything he should have felt, and his fist’s impact seemed to echo off the walls. When they finally stood apart again, he shouted, “It cost me my wife and my king. And even if I could convince Rashalem that it is his friend that stands in these dreadful bones, my wife…” He stopped. Oh, this pain was greater than the whole world. “My wife is dead. I can only hope that Faer didn’t…” his throat closed. “That it wasn’t his revenge. Mock me all you wish, but claim it is painless once more and I will finish what that son of a bitch started.”

Prince of the Gray Keep comes out November 15th. I promise.

Even if it kills me. 

BLUE GHOSTS IS LIVE!

We're live on Smashwords!

And Amazon has come through too!

But we made it! WE! ARE! LIVE!

And DAMN that cover looks good. Doesn't that look good? In fact...



Gotta love Will Smith

(PS expect Gor sometime midafternoon tomorrow. My brother is here and I am a lil drunk and I do not have the heart for Strawchick stupid tonight)

THE. COVER. IS. DONE!!!

The cover for Blue Ghosts, the next Exiles story, due out October 2012. IT IS FINISHED.

It at my lunch guys and girls. IT SO VERY MUCH ATE MY LUNCH. My working method with painting is usually a lot smoother. Though it didn't help that the day after I posted that WIP? THE COMPUTER ATE THE MASTER FILE. And I had to start over. THANK GOD I POSTED THE WIP is all I can say.

So here you are. Look upon it. Feast your eyes upon this glorious cover. And be ready for Blue Ghosts in October! First week of October, boys and girls, very first week!

(BTW her name is Abbey. Just FYI.)

This is gonna be SO MUCH FUN!

Blue Ghosts Update (PICTURE!) + CONTEST!

EVERYTHING about this story has eaten my lunch. I think it's awesome, I think you guys are going to love the ever-loving crap out of it, and I will be very happy when it is all DONE.

I've handed it over to the proofreader/beta reader (...aka my mother. Because this is what she does for a living and she is good at it) and so the text itself should be TOTALLY DONE by this time next week.

I've begun working on the cover art. You'll see a WIP below. After we get a little more business out of the way.

I've been playing with Amazon's promotional options. I'm not in love with them, but they've been doing pretty well. And this means I'm going to make a tactical decision regarding how we'll release Blue Ghosts.

First I WILL release it on Smashwords, for free...for a week. After the week is over, I'm enrolling it in Kindle Select, which requires that it be exclusive. I am doing this first, just to see what will happen, and second...I know a few of you hate the Kindle cold, and I want you guys to have your copies of the book.

After that...we will see what happens.

Alright. Contest.

So what is the contest, you ask? Well, as some of you MIGHT know, I'm also an artist. I do all my own covers, I did a webcomic for a while, yadda yadda yadda. And through my Deviant art site, I sell PRINTS. Big pretty fluffy prints of my own work.

What does this have to do with Contests and books and whatnot? I want to hold a drawing, let's say, October 1st, in which I will use a random number generator to pick A Person. This Person will get their choice of print from my Deviant Art Gallery. How will this Person get picked?

Review one of my books. That's all. Review a book, link back to the review, let me see it and I'll give you a number and do the drawing on October 1st.

So. RULES FOR THE BLUE GHOSTS RELEASE CONTEST:

1. Review one of my Amazon titles. (Starbleached is on a promotional give away right now FYI if you want to pick up a copy)

2. BE HONEST. I don't want glory glory happy happy praise and worship here. I just want reviews. Four stars, two stars, three stars, one star, I don't care. I want to know your opinion of my books. If you say it's shit and you never want to read another one, that's fine. You'll still go in the drawing. There are no reprocussions on giving me a bad review. Trust me. I'm harder on me than you'll ever be.

3. LINK TO THE REVIEW in the comments section of this post.

4. PICK OUT YOUR PICTURE You'll get the largest approved size. Usually this is twenty inches by thirty. It won't be framed, but these are damned good quality prints.

I'll generate the number October 1st. You'll have about 24 hours to contact me with your mailing address, otherwise I pick somebody else.

Okay? Okay. PICTURE TIME:

This is gonna look awesome, trust me.

BOOK SAMPLE!!!

(We interrupt this program to show off a lil' bit. Blue Ghosts comes out in October 2012. Here's a sample for your reading pleasure)

           Dinner with an Elf. You don’t do that every day. Casey Winter straightened the skirt on her very best dress, which was about six hundred dollars too cheap for her surroundings, and tried not to worry about what her dinner date would wear. Corpus Christi, Texas, wasn’t exactly a cultural hub, but it did have several nice restaurants. Marco Creed, the elf in question, had invited her to the nicest.

           The Republic of Texas. By God, was it ritzy. Dark wood and burgundy trim glowed under expensive lighting. Cut crystal glasses full of aged scotch sat at elbows. Lush greenery curled around brass fixtures. Wait staff moved with the collective grace of cranes, and with the sharp eyes of hawks spying rodents in the grass. Empty glasses were filled, plates were whisked away the moment knife and fork hit four o’clock. Complicated telepathy kept questions to a minimum. Here’s a salad, a soda, the entrée, your scotch. Plate clink, silverware song, mummer of voices under soft, slow jazz. Casey felt six inches tall when she asked the hostess about Marco’s table. It wasn’t ready yet, they said, and handed her an expensive glass of champagne.

           Good God in heaven, girl. What am I getting into? She wondered. A whole bottle of this stuff probably equaled her next royalty check. No way Marco made this kind of money on a mechanic’s salary. Oh, I’m sorry. He’s a car modifier. He’s still not pulling this kind of cash. Unless he actually did. When your dinner date is immortal, nothing is guaranteed.

           She wasn’t waiting long. A throat cleared behind her, and when she turned her nerves—well, around this man, they definitely didn’t settle.

           Elves are handsome. Marco Creed was also hot. Every time she met his eyes she thought about Chippendale dancers and underwear models and the large number of games you can play with ice cubes. Peach skin, eyes in almost luminescent blue, long gold hair in a braid he pulled off about as well as a lion in a circus tutu. And—this made her feel so much better—his well muscled chest was hidden by a suit about fifty bucks cheaper than her dress.

           He took her hand and ran his thumb across her knuckles. Shivers raced up her spine. “Ms. Winter.” He kissed the back of her wrist, then turned the charm on the amused hostess. “Table for Creed.”

           “Right this way.” The Republic of Texas sat on top of the Omni Hotel, and the hostess carried two menus towards a small table near a window. It had a breathtaking view of the moonlit ocean. Small boats and buoys floated through silver currents. The American Bank towers rose to the right, sides hit by spotlights. Falcons nested on the window ledges, spreading wing to spiral down to the pavement below. Light Wednesday evening traffic motored through the streets. Marco pulled her chair out for her, then sat in his own chair with effortless grace and dignity.

           Which he promptly blew by scraping his chair up that extra half inch. Nobody looks dignified doing the scoot-and-jump boogie.

           A waiter arrived with a bottle of champagne, the same brand as her first glass of bubbly, and he poured it with the majesty of a ritualistic magician. Marco thanked him, and checked the label as soon as his back was turned. Air was sucked through clenched teeth. “Pricy?” Casey whispered.

           “Yep.” He jammed it back into the ice. “Thank God, I’m not paying the tab.”

           “You’re not?” Casey was perpetually broke and currently unemployed. So was she relieved Marco wasn’t blowing hard earned cash on her, or disappointed?

           “I intended to,” he said, quickly. “But I told Razeil about our plans, and she had the manager bill her. A reward, she said.” He rolled his eyes.

           “You don’t think so?” Casey picked up the menu. Oh, my god, orange glazed quail. Sounded like one hell of a reward to her.

           “Raziel’s gifts come with strings—no—steel cables with thousand-volt generators attached. She’s up to something, and it bothers me that she’s involved you.” He brushed stray hair out of his eyes, drawing her attention to something that should have been there, and wasn’t.

           “Your ears,” She said. They’d been pointed three days ago. Now they were human blunt. 

           “I’m splurging.” A shy kind of sheepishness spread across his features. “Magically, I mean. It takes relatively little power for me and Raziel to hide ourselves—especially for me, where there isn’t much to hide—but the others…not so much. I wind up donating most of my personal magic so they can have a normal life…or something like it.”

           “And it takes so much, you can’t hide your ears all the time?” She asked. The waiter returned, and Casey ordered the quail. Marco ordered steak and lobster, and waited for the waiter to retreat before he answered.

           “Baseball caps work just as well. I’d rather not waste the power. I’ve got a lot, mind, but I’m not Sidhe, or even Elestrin. The well, in my case, ain’t bottomless. And magic on Earth is limited. Back in Ambercross, we could draw power from the trees, from the sky, from the Earth herself.” He looked at the vase in the center of their table and touched a daisy. “Everything was so…alive.” Roots curled out of the flower stem, and sudden pea green shoots curled around Marco’s fingers. Three more daisies flowered while she watched. “Alive on a level that you can’t even imagine. It sang to us, colored our every waking moment. But here…” he took his hand away. The daisies tried to cling to him at first. Then they withered, petals falling, leaves turning brown and disintegrating onto the table cloth.

           “Our world is dead?” She asked, horrified.

           He shook his head. “Sleeping. And like a dragon with a sore tooth, it’s a good thing it sleeps. The undercurrents I can touch are…angry.

           “But its slumber affects us. The sources a Merrow would use to shape shift, for example, are closed to her, and they have no personal reserves of power. Raziel and I, however, we’ve got big resources. Finite, but profound. That’s why we’re the leaders. Piss one of us off…” he pointed at the withered daisy. “No magic for you.”

           Seinfeld fan. She thought. Aloud, she said, “I thought it was because you could hurt them if you had to. Elves and Elestrin are big time scary when they want to be.”

           “Well, yeah. But it’s more effective to lead with a carrot than a stick.” Their salads arrived, and Marco smiled politely until the waiter retreated again. He picked up the pepper and shook it over the lobster. “Okay, your turn.”

           “What?”

           “Tell me something about yourself that I don’t know.”

           She tried to wipe the deer-in-the-headlights look off her face. “Um…what is there to know? Between Facebook, Twitter, and that blog my agent makes me update once a blue moon, my life is an open book.”

           “In Ambercross you would be tortured to death for that pun. We’d shove wooden splinters under your fingernails until you relented.”

           “That’s kind of the point.” She grinned and took a bite of salad.

           Casey had been marginally successful writing about elves and magic and a world named Ambercross…and had been flabbergasted three days ago to learn that it was, more or less, a real place. Neighbor-world to Earth. The kind that borrows your lawnmower and never returns it. She had some bizarre, unconscious connection to it, something even Marco couldn’t explain. He didn’t understand it any better than she did. But he claimed that, more often than not, when she wrote about Ambercross she was describing something real.

           Earth had Faerie population, too. Exiles from Ambercross, they’d latched onto her books as if they were a direct line to home…which, she supposed, they were. Most of the Exiles were immortals born in Ambercross, but even the Earthborn liked to read tales of their grandparents’ world. As for the Faerie-born…they missed their home world passionately. They clung to Casey’s literary straw, hoping against hope it would turn into gold.

           And that was a lot of heavy to put on her shoulders.

           It could have gone straight to her head—hey, she was a magical newscaster!—but it hadn’t. Mostly because her only benefit so far had been books that barely sold and getting shot at when a Faerie twisted off. Marco had saved her life that time, first by taking a bullet for her, and then by tangling with a fully shifted Merrow whose great goal in life was murder. Not bad for somebody who should work for Calvin Klein.

           She owed him something for it, but, well…“You know every part of me, Marco. There’s nothing to share.”

           “Not every part.” He waggled his eyebrows seductively and she underhanded an ice-cube at his lap. He deflected it with one smooth hand. Then the watts in his smile dipped. “What about your marriage?”

           He might as well dump ice water over her head. She shrugged, super casual. “I was married, he was an ass, he broke my leg and I divorced him.”

           “If he was an ass, why’d you marry him?”

           She flicked hair out of her eyes and took the last bite of her salad. The waiter whisked her plate away. Damn it, he was watching her too expectantly. He could probably out-wait her, too. She sighed. “You’ve told me world-shattering secrets about yourself. I suppose it’s only fair.” Her entrée arrived and she picked half-heartedly at the quail. Marco poured them both champagne, and Casey downed her entire glass before she spoke again. “He wasn’t an ass when I met him. He wasn’t even abusive. Jack was…God. Jack was great.”

           Noises rose around them. Someone laughed, high and long, as the jazz gave over to a live pianist. Whoever it was had skill, she thought. It was one of those heartrending melodies guaranteed to put tears in your beer.

           “He was the artist for my book covers,” she said, at last. “And he flew down to Houston for a convention. We met at this Irish bar. The Mucky Duck.” She laughed a little bit. “He had long hair and he tied it back with a zip tie. There was red paint on every single part of his body. And he--” she stopped, her eyes distant and dreamy. The memory had barely faded. Smell of old cigarette smoke. Warm wood bar and tables and stools, neon beer signs advertising Harp and Guinness. A slender young man with sharp blue eyes and long black hair smiling over the lip of his beer. Within twenty four hours his warm lips would be exploring more than personal history. “He was perfect.”

           “Love at first sight?”

           She shrugged. “Lust, I think. The love came later, when he…” She dropped her head because her eyes were stinging. “Our second date, we go out dancing. After about an hour he spots this little girl in a corner, crying her eyes out. She’s sixteen, she had Downs Syndrome, she was crying her eyes out, her mom was trying to comfort her. I would have kept going and let them do whatever. But Jack…he went right over and asked what was wrong.

           “He asked her, you understand. Not her mother. He asked the little girl.

           “Turned out, the most popular boy in school had asked the girl out as a joke. She’d had her hopes raised and then shattered because he and his sick buddies thought it’d be funny. And you know what Jack did? He took that little girl out on the dance floor and danced with her. He’s bumping around on the dance floor, I don’t know what the hell he’s doing, the girl’s doing something completely different…Marco, her smile lit up the whole world. All her mom could say was thank you. ‘Thank you both.’” Casey sniffed. “That’s when I saw that he was beautiful.”

           “And then he hit you,” Marco said, dryly.

           Sharp intake of breath, like a punch to the gut. She closed her eyes and nodded. “He got sick. Brain cancer. Then he had a stroke, and when he recovered…” she trailed off. At some point she’d begun rubbing her right knee. The deep, ridged scars from her last surgery could be felt through her panty-hose. She put both hands on the table. “He didn’t know who I was. Who he was. Anything. I thought if I were good enough, if I did enough, if I worked hard enough, I could fix him. I could bring my Jack back.”

            “And what happened?” Marco asked.

           “I burned dinner, and he beat me with a rolling pin. Three times in the face,” hand on right cheek, where six surgical pins held the bone together, “then the shoulder,” right collarbone snapped in two, “chest,” two broken ribs that still ached in cold weather, “and then my right knee.” Her right little finger began tapping her water glass over. And over. And over. “They said the bone looked like marbles in a sack. When I woke up all the way, I asked to be moved so this new version of Jack couldn’t find me. If I had stayed another day, I think he would have killed me.”

           Marco was quiet while he tried his steak and she ate a bite of quail. It had a strong citrus flavor, and was dreamily tender.

           “So that’s why you were working at a convenience store?” he asked.

           She nodded. “Yeah. The medical bills are pretty big. Reconstructive surgery. Physical Therapy.”

           “Wouldn’t Jack have to pay for part of it, at least?” He sounded outraged.

           Casey shrugged, feeling like a microbe on a telescope. “Texas is a no-fault divorce state. It was easier not to fight. I just wanted him out of my life.” She paused, and then a little of the old vitriol came out. “It was nasty. I don’t get alimony, I couldn’t keep any of his paintings. In one year he went from being the best human being I ever knew, to being this…vindictive, dangerous child.”

           “And he broke you.” Marco said.

           “He did.” She looked away and took another bite of quail. Outside the window, the hawks were settling in for the night. She shivered.

           Marco’s beeper went off.

           “Jesus. Who even has those anymore?” she said.

           Marco sighed, extruding long-suffering from every pore. “Raziel got one in the nineties and fell in love with it. I’d buy her a cell phone, but she’d use it for target practice.” He studied the number, then pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I’m sorry—”       

           “—but you have to take it. I understand.” And she did. Something told her a relationship with Marco Creed would be a little bit like dating a cop. Nice to know her instincts worked at least some of the time.

           After two rings, Marco flinched. He didn’t identify himself either, just listened for several minutes. “Wait,” he said, “Wait a second. She’s not—” more time passed as words flew across land lines and the atmosphere. Then finally, he sighed. “Alright. I’m making no promises. And if you hurt her—fine. Fine.” He hung up. Storm clouds brooded in his eyes. Storm clouds, and a bone-deep fear that put shivers up Casey’s spine. He sighed, then stood and put his napkin on the table.

            “Raziel wants to meet you.”

           “Trust me, Casey. This is not a good thing.” Marco turned his truck down Rod Field Road. The stereotype said Marco should have driven a pretty silver environmentally friendly Prius; this truck could have eaten five of them. The inside was pure white, not one scratch on the vinyl, not one smear on the dashboard. The outside was fire-engine red with metal flake and emblems from his home world airbrushed on the hood. He also liked heavy metal and the Black Eyed-Peas. She had yet to forgive him for the latter. He clicked his blinkers on and pulled into an apartment complex. Casey frowned.

           “She lives here?”

           “Yep.”

           “But…this is all student housing.” The apartment blocks were stark white and framed with palm trees and hibiscus, as if to argue that this was not some form of industrialized storage system disguised as living quarters. It didn’t really work.

           “It’s government supplied housing.” Marco paused a long time, then sighed. “She doesn’t work for a living.”

           “So she lives off the government?” Casey said, a definite edge to her voice. Though maybe she should reconsider. Being magical could be damn near crippling in this day and age, right? Elestrin were technically humanoid, the way unicorns were tangentially related to horses. Maybe government assistance was the best she could do.

           But Marco kept talking. “We pay her dues, and she keeps us out of trouble. Bails us out, keeps a separate apartment in case one of us needs to lay low for a few days. She’s not a bad person.” Marco said. It sounded more like he was convincing himself than Casey as he pulled into the main parking lot.

           Nighttime shrouded the buildings, turning soft yellow stucco to shallow off-blue. Cars occupied most of the spaces, including one incredibly shiny Jag with a Spectraflare paint job. It threw rainbows even in the moonlight. A lawn chair and board blocked off the space beside it. Marco stopped the car, got out, shoved the board and chair up onto the lawn, and then parked.

           “Raziel blocks this space off.”

           “Oh, so she’s one of those. Entitled to a parking space, so she takes one even though she doesn’t have a car.”

           “No. She has a car. Specifically, that one.” He pointed at the shiny monster parked beside them.

           No job, she lived off her charges, and she owned a Jag. Casey’s opinion of this woman was sinking fast. “You give her money for gas and insurance, too?” She said, climbing out of the car. “Or does she panhandle in her spare time?”

           “She does a lot of good things for us, Case. Exiles need a leader, and Raziel is better than most.”

           “Right. You know, David Koresh was awful nice to his cash cows, too.” They started up the stairs. “Is anyone else going to be here?”

           “Tim, maybe. Ero. Maybe everyone. I don’t know. The last time we introduced a human to our society she dragged people from Victoria down. She’s not predictable.”

           “And yet you’re expecting trouble,” Casey sighed.

           “Some things are more predictable than others.” He knocked on Raziel’s front door.

           The woman that answered the door was gray. Not the genteel tones of an old lady, but the deep steel of hurricane clouds. Her hair and skin were the same color, her eyes a slightly deeper oil smoke. She was tall like a lightning strike, narrow waist, almost flat-chested, and every seam of her perfect blue suit had been mathematically calculated to remind you that this was a razor blade masquerading as a person.

           “Marciaus.” The gray eyes tracked to her. “Winter. Karoline with a K. Come in.” She turned and walked back.

           Danger, Will Robinson. Casey thought. Danger. Danger. She walked into the house.

           You can tell a lot about a person by their house, and Razielara the Elestrin warrior-maiden had a front room straight out of Better Homes and Gardens. Gardenias in vases, sofa cushions in alternating shades of shale. Cutesy scrapbook dioramas. It felt like icing on a plastic cake, so Casey was relieved when Raziel lead her guests through the window dressing without pause. But the ruffles and gumdrops in cut crystal bowls left her very unprepared for the room they entered next.

           No frou-frou. No flowers. Almost no furniture at all. The heavy desk in one corner was almost a medieval throne. Its surface was mathematically neat, papers here, pens here, lamp emphatically there. And the centerpiece was a knife in a stand, the blade bare, razor sharp, and turned so that if you stumbled against her desk, you’d lose your hand. A starburst of swords, arrows and axes hung on the wall behind her chair, each blade rippling with skill and definitely sharp enough to kill. In one corner a full suit of armor, complete with a fox-shaped helm, stood guard over a display of six-shooters, each with their ammo lined beneath the barrel in a neat row. The bullets were polished, too.

           This was not an office. This was an armory run by a psychotic.

           Raziel sat behind the desk. There were no chairs for Casey or Marco. Her bad knee was aching already.

           “You have caused me a lot of trouble, Mrs. Winter,” Raziel said.

           “Ms. Please. I’m no longer married.”

           The tiny bit of good humor in those cold, gray eyes died. “You have killed a person who was under my protection.”

           Casey felt equally as cold. “I defended myself and Marco from a crazy woman and her boyfriend.”

           “You destroyed a creature of Faerie. This is not something that can pass without consequence.”

           Great. Casey was on the defensive in a room made of knives. Not the best place to be. “We didn’t have another option, ma’am. If you had been here—”

           “She would have gone quietly, and I would have another trophy. So not only did you destroy one of my people, you denied me the pleasure of a hunt.” Her smile was very dark.

           “What else should I have done?” Casey asked.

           Raziel laughed, beautifully, and nails on a chalkboard would be more calming. “You have made one disastrous assumption, Mrs. Winter, in coming here. You assumed that I care for the humans in this city. I don’t. You assumed that I would have protected you because you deserved it, or because you are famous, or because you can provide my people with a hope for return to Ambercross. I would not. What matters to me is that you have done something that cannot be undone. By our laws your life could be forfeit, and if I thought for a moment you could give me fair sport I would take it. A legal kill does not often come my way.”

           “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Casey said. Marco gave her a warning look.

           “But,” continued the gray woman, “You preserved the life of Marcaius as well as your own. And you are one that our people would listen to. And you have an extraordinary knowledge about us, thanks to your Gifting. You’ve potential to be a useful tool, and I don’t discard my tools without purpose.”

           “Raziel,” Marco interrupted, “No one holds to the old laws these days.”

           “The McHally family does. Lyrene was the daughter of their patriarch. They have already petitioned for your life, Marcaius. I have denied them the privilege as attacking your leader for sport is not a just kill. For now, they do not know about Mrs. Winter’s involvement, so they cannot petition her life. If this were to change, I would not give either her or you more than a few days. They would not go through me. By our laws, they do not have to.”

           “You’re threatening me,” Casey said. And doing a damn good job of it. “What do you want?”

           Another cold, knife-edge smile. “I need a problem-solver who will keep my secrets without worrying about her own. Preferably, because she has none, save the ones I give her.” She looked down for a moment, then back up. “Marcaius has told you about our problem child, yes? The missing Phooka, Prix.”

           “Yes.” Casey nodded.

           “You are to find her and bring her to me.”

           Marco exploded. “Wait a minute. She’s human, Raziel. She can’t stand up to--”
                        Raziel waved a hand. That was all, just one motion. But Marco went silent as if he were choked. He turned an alarming shade of red while Raziel watched, amused. When he stopped fighting, she looked back at Casey. “A human, indeed, but with magical gifts.”

           “I don’t know how to use them.” Casey said.

           “And even if you could, Portal power is no kind of a defense.” Raziel nodded. “But tools prove their usefulness outside of their intended purpose. Consider it a test of your abilities. I expect you will have Marco’s help, which means you will have the aid of those loyal to him. You will have five days to find Prix and bring her back to me.”

           “I don’t even know where to start.” She said. “And why five days? Why such a big hurry?”

           Raziel folded her hands on her blotter. It did not seem very surprising that she was the type who had a blotter. She probably used it to catch the blood of her victims. “Four people have been injured on the Lexington. Two tourists, two workers. All injured either at night or during a black out, with no sign of how they were injured or why. One of our people visited the site, and claimed to have found the scent of magic and fear. The Phooka seems an obvious conclusion.”

           Not to Casey, it didn’t, but she decided not to argue the point. “You’re not worried because people are getting hurt. What’s the real problem?”

           The look in Raziel’s eyes could have blistered nail polish. “People think the Lex is haunted. A reality show wants to investigate. They’ll be here on Friday. There will be cameras, tape recorders and many people to witness Prix’s violence. Publicity of our kind must be avoided. If Prix, or any Faerie, were to appear on camera, the lives of all witnesses become lawful prey. Something you and Marcaius would want to avoid, yes?”

           “I’d think that’d be your idea of the perfect day,” Casey said. Marco actually hit her.

           Raziel smiled, looking more and more like a great white shark. “She’s spunky, Marcius. From what passed in the tabloids I expected a little mouse, and instead I get a spitfire. A hunt would be very interesting, Ms. Winter, very interesting indeed with you at its end. You and whomever Marcaius can pry out of hiding will pose as a second group of investigators. And you, you alone, will bring Prix in…or kill her. Succeed, we’ll call the books even and your future assistance will result in reward. Fail…” the gray woman smiled. “Well, you will probably be dead, so it won’t matter.”

           “And if I refuse to help at all?” Casey asked.

           “I will tell the MacHallys that you killed their daughter, and you will die.”

           Casey closed her eyes. Three days ago she had been shot at by a crazy mermaid, and the responding officer had been a hard-assed no nonsense bad boy. He’d retreated from Raziel’s business card like it were made of snakes and not card stock. Casey now found this a testament to the man’s nerves. Raziel favored mahogany lipstick and brown-gold eye shadow. She looked like a storm cloud inches from a tornado. “We have a ghost problem, Mrs. Winter. Who you gonna call?”

            “Somebody with better taste in movies.” She took the papers out of Raziel’s hands. “I’m in.”
(And if you liked that, check out my other books on Smashwords)