Magic Slays Status & Snippet

By Gordon on July 22, 2010

Hi, everybody (ya’ll say hi doctor Nick)!  How is your week going?  Ours is a bit hectic.  The book of doom (Magic Slays) is due very soon and while we have been working on it, we have also been doing other things such as meeting other writers, like Diana Francis and her family who were very nice, spending tons of money we don’t have at Costco, battling thru traffic to pick up kid 2 from Shakespeare play, and perhaps most odd, buying wood for and building a deck for the dogs, complete with astro turf, you know so its comfy and not too hot for their paws.  It does not look great but it keeps them out of the dirt.

All of this has Ilona pulling out her hair.  What she would like to do is hide away and write the book in a dark cave somewhere remote and unpopulated.  Sadly this is not how it works, most likely her secret hideaway would not have electricity let alone access to the series of tubes, (thank you Sen. Ted Stevens) that is the inter-webs.  Real life always has a way of mucking up our best laid plans.  Sadly, we can not isolate ourselves like some crazy hermit in a shack writing his manifesto on an old typewriter and livin off the land.  Cause when you put crazy in, you get crazy out.  She thinks the book is terrible and that it will be an epic fail.

Honestly I have been working on it with her and I think that not only is it not as bad as she thinks, some of it is actually pretty good.  So in light of this, I have a small bit that I have taken without her permission, and I will let you all be the judge.   Here is the stolen snippet bit:

Snippet

A few feet down, a floor to ceiling glass window offered the view of Beast Lord’s private gym.  His Majesty was in residence, doing dips on the high parallel bars.  I stopped and watched him through the glass.

He’d taken his ripped up sweatshirt off, presenting me with a view of a broad back in a white T-shirt.  He wore a pale leather belt eight inches wide with two sets of clips, one set in the back and one in the front.  Curran had threaded chains through the weights and hooked them up to the clips.  He gripped the bars, lowering and raising himself, his movements smooth and unlabored.   Four weights, forty five each, a hundred and eighty pounds, plus the chains, plus his own weight.  It’s good to be the Beast Lord.

Up and down, up and down, working the triceps, smooth muscles bulging and relaxing.  The bars creaked a little.  Sweat slicked his short blond hair.  His skin glowed with a slightly damp sheen.  A slow insistent heat spread through me.  I could picture him in bed above me and the thought sent a pleasant thrill all the way down to my toes.

I missed him so much, it almost hurt.  It started the moment I left the Keep and nagged at me all day.  Every day I had to fight with myself to keep from making up bullshit reasons to call to the Keep so I could hear his voice.  I was like some sort of lovesick puppy.   My only saving grace was that Curran wasn’t handling this whole mating thing any better.  Yesterday he’d called me at the office claiming that he couldn’t find his socks.  We talked for two hours.

He was all mine.  I could walk in there right now, slide my hands along that shimmering skin, feeling the steel-hard muscle underneath, and make him drop off the bars.  He would land on his feet and then he’d turn around and kiss me.  When Curran kissed me, everything else disappeared.  I wanted that right now, I wanted to feel his hands touching me, I wanted him to kiss me.  I wanted to know that I was home and safe, and that he still loved me.

I’d been standing by the glass for a while now, but Curran gave no indication of knowing I was there.  He had to have heard me come down the hall – the gym door stood wide open and the shapeshifter hearing was legendary.  His Majesty was in an ill humor, indeed.  Just as well – having him turn around and seeing me drool like some sort of idiot would’ve completely cramped my style.  A woman had to have some dignity left.

I headed to the open door of the gym.  Usually we sparred after work.  I’d been looking forward to it.  I needed to blow off some steam.

I stopped by the door and shrugged off my cloak.  I unbuckled the back sheath with my saber in it, placed it down on the floor, took off my shoes,  and stepped into the gym.

I was on my fourth step when I realized that the parallel bars stood empty.  The weight belt, complete with chains and weights still attached to it lay on the floor.

I wheeled around.  Curran leaned against the door, blocking the exit.  His arms were crossed on his chest.  Carved muscle bulged on his biceps.  Grey eyes met my gaze.  “You have something to tell me, Lucy?”

Oh-oh.  “Nope.”

He peeled himself from the door.  “You sure?”

Let’s see, a dead vamp, a dismembered journeyman, a nice GBI officer who came to see me, a fifteen year old bouda having group sex in public…  “Positive.”

“So your day was uneventful?”

“My day was fine.”  I waved the box at him.  “Chocolate?”

Curran moved across the floor with fluid predator grace.  I moved with him, circling toward the mat.  He made no sound as he walked, stalking me like a ghost.  A gold sheen drenched his irises and vanished.  Ill humor, my ass.  He was pissed as hell.  He couldn’t possibly know about the whole People-Gray affair this morning.   And what he didn’t know, couldn’t hurt-

Curran lunged.  Stopping him in mid-lunge was like trying to halt a battering ram.  I dropped the chocolate, grabbed his T-shirt, planted my foot on his waist, and fell backward, using all of his momentum to throw him over me.  He had a lot of momentum.  I threw him clear over my head and about ten feet out.

He landed on his back, sprung up, and leaped back at me.  I rolled into crouch, shot up, and caught his chin with the heel of my hand as he landed.  His head snapped back.  I rolled clear and backed away.

Curran shook his head.  Ha-ha.  Felt that, Your Majesty?

He started toward me.  At heart Curran was a grappler.  I’d learned the hard way that if he got a hold of me, the show was over.  I snapped a light front kick to his side and backed up.  Tap.

He kept coming.

Tap to the thigh.

Nothing.

Tap to the thigh.  Tap to the side, tap.

Curran moved forward and right.  My kick missed by a hair.  He grabbed my shin with his left hand, clamping it between his arm and his side, and swept my other leg from under me.  Nice!  A kung-fu takedown.   The mat slapped my back.  I tried to roll back up, but he landed on top of me, catching my wrists.  That’s it, game over.  Once he clamped me down, I didn’t have a prayer of breaking free.

“Pretty,” I breathed.  “When did you learn it?”

Curran put my hands together, holding my wrists with one hand, and peered into my eyes.

“What are you doing?”

Curran moved my hands to the other side, looked into my eyes again, and touched the tip of my nose with his finger.  “Pupils don’t seem to be dilated.  You aren’t high, you aren’t drunk.  What the hell possessed you to run out of a nice safe office into a gun fight?”

Snippet Part 2 (Warning there will be smexy bits) Cause it’s Friday damn it!

By Gordon on July 30, 2010

Damn it all to hell.  “Who snitched?”

“When you called Barabas, it became an issue and he had to give Jim a heads up in case our security had to storm the GBI offices and bust you out of there.  I found out when I saw Jim walking down the hallway snickering to himself.”

I made a mental note to punch Jim in the arm next time I saw him.   “Thought it was funny, did he?”

Curran’s face took on a steel-hard expression.  “I didn’t think it was funny.”

Oh-oh.  “People were about to die and I could save them.”

“You could’ve been killed.  For what?  For the necromancers?”

“There was a girl.  The PAD opened fire and cut her leg almost completely off.  She might have been twenty tops.  She almost bled to death in my office.”

“It was her choice.  If she wanted to stay safe, she could’ve joined the Girl Scouts.  She isn’t out selling cookies, she’s piloting diseased corpses for a living.”

I twisted, trying to break the lock of his fingers on my wrists.  “So you would’ve stood by and let the PAD kill four people?”

Curran moved my hands back and forth, looking into my ears of all places, as if the answer was hiding in there.  “Four of the People.  Not only that, but I can take a shot from M24.  You can’t.”

I jerked my hands above my head.  The move stretched him above me and suddenly we were face to face.  A little thrill ran through me.  Being in close proximity to Curran always made arguing difficult.  I still managed.

“When you offered me this business, did you think I would stay in the office all day baking cookies?”

“Nobody ever died of being shot by a cookie.”

He had me there.  I groped about my brain for a snappy come back.  “There is always the first time.”

Oh now there was a brilliant response.  No doubt he’d now collapse at my feet in awe at my intellectual magnificence.

“If anybody could manage being shot by a cookie, it would be you.” Curran shifted his weight on top of me.  His hold relaxed.

I bumped his nose with my forehead, gently.  “Boom.  Now you’re dazed and bleeding all over.  And then I free my hands and knock you over, like so.”  I slipped my hand  out of his hold and nudged his side with my fist.  “And then I have my evil way with you, while lay there, helpless.”

“And bleeding?”

“No, you stopped bleeding, because you’re a shapeshifter.”

He jerked my hand aside and dipped his head.  His lips brushed mine, at first tender, than teasing, then insistent and I melted right into it.  His tongue parted my lips and slid inside of my mouth.  His tongue teased mine and I teased back, asking for more, drinking him in.

“I’m glad you’re alive,” he told me.

“Me too.”

I nipped his lower lip.  His eyes turned a darker grey.  He dipped his head and kissed me again.  The shock of his tongue against mine was electrifying. I smelled him, I tasted him, I felt his arms around me, and it left me dizzy and breathless, and craving more. I slid my arms around his neck, molding myself against him.  The hard muscle bunched under my fingers, and I kissed him back, his lips, the corner of his mouth, the sensitive point under his jaw, tasting his sweat and the sharp touch of stubble on my lips.  He made a quiet masculine noise, halfway between a deep growling rumble and a purr.  My heart beat faster.  I wanted out of my clothes.  His hands slid under my sweatshirt.  I arched my back…

He stopped.

“What?”

Curran pulled his hand out.  His fingers were dark with congealed blood.  “Human.”

Aaaaand the happy moment screeched to a halt.

Snippet for a cold gray Monday. (We are still chilling)

By Gordon on August 9, 2010

He laughed quietly in my ear.  “I like when you make that noise.”

A loud knock echoed through the apartment.  Curran growled.

“It’s probably Jim.”

For a moment he didn’t say anything.  I could see it in his face: he was calculating if he could send Jim packing without insulting him.  Considering that Jim dropped everything and ran over her after being “royally summoned”,  sending him away was out of the question.

Curran had reached the same conclusion. “We should revisit this discussion after dinner.”

“You think you’re up to it? Lifting all those weights must’ve tired you out.”

He turned on his way to the door and flashed a wicked grin at me. “We’ll see, baby.”

Oh boy.  I took out an extra plate.

Jim followed Curran into the kitchen.  Some people made it hard to guess their profession by their looks.  Jim looked like a leg breaker.  It was an image he very carefully cultivated.  Six two and muscled like a middleweight boxer, Jim wore black: black boots, black jeans, black shirt, black cloak, edged with dark fur, black gloves with cut off fingers.  His skin was dark brown, and he looked distinctly monochromatic, like a wedge of darkness cut in the fabric of the kitchen.  People mistook him for a thug, which was what he wanted.  It was a costly mistake to make.

“Damn,  Jim, you’re so flamboyant.  Like a peacock with all these colorful clothes.  You should tone it down a little, if you want people to take you seriously.”  There.  Payback for ratting me out.

Jim inclined his head in a light bow.  “Mate.”

Ass.  I set the plate of meat in front of him and dropped into my chair.

Jim shrugged off his cloak, hung on the back of the chair, sat down, and waited.

“Something wrong?” I asked.

Curran cut a piece off his steak.  “He’s waiting for you to start eating.”

In the Pack, alphas ate first and everybody else second.  Jim was the alpha of Clan Cat, but I, being Curran’s mate, was the alpha of the Pack.  I had earned the alpha rights in a ten day marathon of murder three months ago, when Curran lay in a coma and ambitious shapeshifters lined up by the bedroom door, trying to separate me from Curran by helping me find my wings.  Jim was on my side then and now.  We went way back, to the Mercenary Guild, where we occasionally teamed up to tackle harder gigs.

And now he refused to eat until I started.  Great.

I cut my meat.  “Why do you do this?  In public, I can understand, but there is nobody here except us three.”

“Once you start doing something, it becomes a habit.”  Jim picked up his fork.  “If I do it too many times in private, I might forget myself and do it in public.”

I put chunk of venison into my mouth.  I had to give it to Curran, it was perfectly cooked.

“You are the Consort,” Jim said.  “Get used to it.”

“The Consort?”

Jim grimaced.  “Alpha is confusing, you don’t want to be called Mate, and Beast Lady makes people laugh.  You are the Consort.  That’s how you’re identified in the official documents.  It’s been spread around Keep for a week.”

Great.  The consort.

“A present.”  Curran slid my papers toward Jim.

Jim read the first page, the second and looked at Curran.  Curran nodded at me.

Jim turned to me.  “You shouldn’t have this.”

“You shouldn’t have done this.”

“None of it is illegal.”

“It borders on criminal conduct.  It was explained to me this morning that taken together, this constitutes a pattern of malicious behavior.”

Muscles played along Jim’s jaw.  “Explained by whom?”

Little Snippet of Dali’s Story (because I have no content)

By Ilona on September 2, 2010

I peered through the windshield of my ’93 Mustang. The Buzzard Highway stretched before me, a narrow line of crumbling pavement vanishing into dusk.  Below it ran the Scratches, a twisted labyrinth of narrow ravines gouged out of the ground by magic three decades ago, when our world began to end.  The old road skimmed the top of ravines, rolling far into the distance, where the sunset glowed gold, red, and finally turquoise.  There was something vaguely wrong with this picture, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

The Buzzard Highway took no prisoners.  Step too hard on accelerator, turn the wheel half an inch too far, and Boom! Pow! Fiery crash!  To the bottom of the ravines you went.  Only Atlanta’s best and craziest raced here.

That’s why I liked it.  When a girl weighs a hundred pounds wet, her glasses look like a loupe borrowed from Sherlock Holmes, and everybody under the sun makes fun of her because she’s a vegetarian and blood makes her vomit, she has to do something for fun.  The wild deafening chaos of Friday night Buzzard race was my fun.

It was so peaceful now.  So quiet.  Just me and the Mustang.  I named it Rambo.  It was a sweet car, built from ground up for one purpose: to go fast.  We understood each other, Rambo and I.  Rambo liked to kick ass, and I made sure it had a chance to show off.

My body was so light.  It was an odd feeling, almost like swimming or floating through some feathery cloud.

A familiar face appeared in the windshield: pale skin, dark eyes, a long tattoo of a dragon wrapped around the neck, snaking its way down under the blue tank top.  Kasen.  Decent enough guy as wererats went.  He worked the tow truck and liked to hang out at the races at Buzzard Highway.  They were good for his business.

Kasen’s lips moved, but no sound came out.  He looked kind of funny there, sideways, flapping his lips in silence.  What is it you want, silly person?

Kasen was sideways.

The sunset behind him was sideways too, the highway running to the left the sky.

Oh crap.

Crap, crap, crap.

The phantom cotton clogging my ears vanished and the world rushed at me in an explosion of sound: the distant roar of car engines, the groaning of metal, and Kasen’s voice.

“Dali?  You okay, baby girl?”

I tried to talk and my mouth worked.  “Cool like a cucumber.”

He grinned.  “You know the drill.  Hold tight.”

I clamped my seat.

Kasen stepped out of my view.  Rambo screeched.  Metal clanged.  I winced.  Rambo, you poor baby.

The sunset turned and dropped into its rightful place with a shudder.  Rambo’s tires hit the pavement and bounced once.  The left lens of my glasses popped out of the frame and plunked onto my lap.  I swiped it off my jeans, squeezed my left eye shut, and climbed out of the car.

“I flipped!”

“You flipped.”

Hot damn!  Rambo’s front end looked like a crushed coke can.  Water wet the highway, leaking from the hood – the enchanted water tank that let the car run during magic waves had ruptured.  I must’ve taken the turn too fast.

Kasen peered at me.  “Why is your eye closed?  Did you hurt yourself?”

“No, it’s closed, because my glasses are broken, and looking through one lens makes me dizzy.”

“Situation normal, all fucked up.”  Kasen rubbed the back of his head.

Thank you, Captain Obvious.  “It’s not that bad!”

“You want Rambo towed to the usual place?”

“Yeah.”  My races would be cancelled for a month.  Bummer.

Kasen nodded at the Mustang.  “That’s your second crash in three weeks.”

“Aha.”

“Didn’t Jim forbid you to race?”

Jim was my alpha.  The shapeshifter Pack was segregated into seven clans, by the family of the animal, and Jim headed Felidae with a big Jaguar paw hiding awesome claws.  He was smart, and strong, and hot, and the only time Jim noticed my existence was when I made myself into a pain in the ass or when he needed an expert on ancient Far East.  Otherwise, I might just as well have been invisible.

I raised my head to let Kasen know I meant business.  “Jim isn’t the boss of me.”

“Actually yes, yes he is.”

It’s good that I wasn’t a wereporcupine, or his mouth would be full of quills.  “Are you going to snitch on me?”

“That depends.  When you die, can I have your car?”

“No.”

Kasen sighed.  “I’m trying to make a point here.  I’ve been watching this race for six years now and I’ve never seen anyone crash as much as you.  You’re my number one customer.  You can barely see, Dali, and you take stupid chances.  No offense.”

No offense, right.  No offense stood for I’m going to insult you but you can’t be mad at me.  I bared my teeth at him.  When it came down to it, he was a rat and I was a tiger.

Kasen raised his hands up.  “Fine.  Forget I said anything.”

The world blinked.  The colors turned slightly brighter, the scents grew sharper, as if someone dialed the picture’s resolution up a notch.  A welcome warmth spread through my body – the magic wave had flooded the world.  The distant roar of the gasoline engines choked and died.  It would take fifteen minutes of chanting to get the enchanted engines to start.  The race was dead.

“What if I take you to dinner?” Kasen said. “I know this really nice place down on Manticore…”

Wererats always knew this nice place to eat.  They munched constantly or they went twitchy, meaning they suffered attacks of the hypoglycemia: cold sweat, headaches, convulsions, accompanied by nervousness and bouts of aggression.  Not fun.

I squinted my open eye at Kasen.  There was no reason for him to offer me dinner.  Most likely, he just wanted to butter me up so he could get a shot at my wheels after my demise.  Too bad for him – I might not have been the strongest weretiger or the most bloodthirsty, but my bloodline was pretty damn old.  Lyc-V, the shapeshifter virus, and my family were good friends and the levels of virus in my body ran higher than in most shapeshifters.  The higher the concentration of the virus, the faster the regeneration.  Normally higher levels of Lyc-V also meant greater risk of losing your mind and turning into a crazed loup killer, but so far I hadn’t had to worry about that.

I was hard to kill.  Nothing short of a fiery crash complete with a giant explosion at the end would send me into afterlife, so if Kasen was hoping to inherit my car, he would get a smoking wreck for his trouble.

I wrinkled my nose at Kasen.  “Thanks, but no thanks.  I need to get home.”

He heaved a sigh.  “Maybe next time.”

“Sure.  Maybe next time.”