Pintor Noche

Pintor Noche

Alternate History / Women Sleuths / Steampunk / Mystery

Available through Amazon - Barnes&Noble - Kobo

I started this book long before all the political strife in Catalonia. If you haven't followed that situation, the basic summary is a region in northeastern Spain called Catalonia, where Barcelona is, has declared independence from Spain and the Spanish government came down on them hard. So I dedicated my book about Barcelona to the people of Catalonia as a sign of solidarity with their struggle for self-determination even as the situation continues to evolve.

For whatever reason, lesbians love mystery novels. I have a few theories as to why, but they're kind of stupid and silly and probably not at all right, so I'll skip going into any of them. The fact remains: lesbians love mystery novels. Why haven't I written one before Pintor Noche if I'm aware of this fact? Because I don't actually read mystery novels. Yep, I am one of a tiny handful of lesbians roaming the literary landscape with no mystery novels in my reading diet. Then I read a few steampunk mystery novels and realized the genre could include the tech stuff I like and often have elements of romance. Romance is my jam.

Pintor Noche is the culmination of a ton of research and talking to painters, Spaniards, detectives, and engineers. What I came up with is probably less accurate than most alternate history writing, but perhaps more historical than many mysteries...or maybe that's just what I'm telling myself. Whatever was sacrificed in accuracy was done in the name of fun, adventure, and a good story. And I'll stick by that even under intense interrogation by a Spanish Inspector.

Synopsis:
Barcelona is burning!
The police are powerless to discover the identity of the Pintor Noche, the Night Painter, who has turned the summer of 1905 into an arsonist’s masterpiece. In desperation Inspector Esperanza seeks out Desdemona, the daughter of his legendary former mentor and predecessor Inspector Amina. Implementing the latest in forensic science, Desdemona teams up with the Inspector to hunt down the Pintor Noche before one of his fiery works of art consumes the entire city. With the help of her painter paramour, Santene, and a roguish French journalist, Yvette, Desdemona struggles to navigate the perilous worlds of the aristocracy, Sephardic gangsters, and secret societies to chase the ghost of a man who paints with fire.

Sample Chapter:

Chapter 1

Sun from the trio of skylights in the studio warmed Desdemona Amina’s skin, telling her it was getting on toward noon. The task of an artist’s model was to maintain stillness in the face of crushing boredom. It wasn’t Desdemona’s preferred work, but she could not deny Santene anything. She watched her lover paint, focusing closest on Santene’s caramel-colored eyes as they wandered from her form, to the palette, and finally to the canvas. Desdemona believed she could tell which part of her Santene was painting based on the micro reactions of her face. A blush to the cheek, faint smile, light sweat on her upper lip, slightly arched eyebrow, all hinted at the different areas of the painter’s focus and the affects Desdemona’s nude form was having on the artist. Santene’s messy, brown curls falling free of the loose bun she always placed her hair in while painting, the fullness of her pursed lips when she concentrated, and the voluminous cleavage created by her corseted dress all served to arouse similar reactions in the model as she watched the artist engrossed in her process. It was only a matter of time, probably even before the sun reached it zenith, when Santene would abandon her paints to join Desdemona on the litter of pillows and sheets. Morning light in the workshop was best for painting while afternoon sun in Barcelona was meant for drinking wine, napping, and making love.

The tension building between them even as the sun warmed the little studio to an uncomfortable level was shattered by a terse knock upon the peeling white door. Desdemona let out a sigh and flopped, face down, onto the blue, satin pillow she’d formerly reclined on. Santene set aside her palette and brush on a nearby stool and rose to answer the door. Before Santene could even fully open the door, the feminine, artistic energy of the room was shattered. Inspector Esperanza charged into the studio, remembering only manners enough to snatch the bowler hat from his head within a few steps. He was a tall, slender man, dressed smartly in a pale, gray suit with gleaming copper buttons. His black hair was mussed every so slightly and a dappling of sweat clung to his immaculately tended moustache indicating he’d been walking briskly in the morning heat.

“Señorita Amina, at last I’ve found you,” Inspector Esperanza said, averting his eyes quickly from her nude form.

“At last I am found,” Desdemona muttered. She slipped from the pillows to retrieve her robe. “I wasn’t aware I was sought.”

Inspector Esperanza shifted his focus from one of the many cracks in the plaster on the far wall to look instead at Santene’s work in progress. He cocked his head to one side and then the other in much the same way a chicken might study a particularly puzzling kernel of corn.

“Why is there so much purple to the front edge of her skin?” Inspector Esperanza asked.

“It is an undertone in the process of drying,” Santene explained. “Skin has many shades to it that are built in layers. Señorita Amina has lovely violet hints to her skin in the right light.”

“She looks brown to me,” Inspector Esperanza said, “a pleasant shade of brown to be sure, but brown nevertheless.”

“Certainly you didn’t come all this way to discuss color layering in skin and paint,” Desdemona said, eager to be rid of the Inspector.

“In a manner of speaking, I did,” the Inspector said. “There was a fire last night that I believe was the most recent arson committed by the Pintor Noche. The night’s victims reside in the Moro district…” The Inspector worried the rim of his hat in his hands, trying to avoid the indelicacy of what came next.

“…and they won’t talk to you,” Desdemona surmised.

“Only enough to tell me the quickest way out of their district,” the Inspector said, forcing a chuckle. “Jests aside, I can pay you for your time. I don’t know how lucrative modeling for painters is…”

“You’re supposed to be paying me?” Desdemona asked of Santene with a flirty smirk.

“Only if I plan to sell the work, but I was going to hang this particular painting in my bedroom,” Santene said, “for personal use, you understand.”

“I believe I know the wall you mean.” Desdemona returned her attention to the Inspector, who had grown a few shades redder from the coquettish banter passing between the two women. He was a good Catholic man with a thunderous boring streak who eschewed the houses of burlesque and drinking of absinthe. Desdemona suspected she could send him into an apoplectic fit if she kissed Santene in his presence. Entertaining though that might be, she decided it also might spoil her chance at gainful employment. “Very well, Inspector, I’ll look into the matter.”

“Excellent, here is the address.” The Inspector produced a slip of paper from the front pocket of his suit vest and handed it to her. “I shall meet you at the crime scene within the hour if you are able.”

Desdemona took the paper, scanned the address, and glumly deduced she would not have time to enjoy any carnal delights with Santene if she expected to meet the Inspector’s timeframe. “Barely enough time to lace a boot,” she murmured, “but I’ll manage.”

The Inspector bowed to each of them in turn and then hurriedly exited the studio. Immediately upon his departure, Desdemona let her robe drop and began searching amid the painting supplies, canvases, and set props for her clothing. She could feel Santene’s eyes upon her the entire time, which only served to make the room feel warmer and her imminent departure more loathsome.

“I suppose I’ll head down to the docks to sketch sea birds if you’re going to be occupied this afternoon,” Santene grumbled.

“If you buy clams and wine, I can cook them for you,” Desdemona said.

“If you make me dinner, you will have to stay the night,” Santene countered.

“If I stay the night, you will have to provide breakfast in the morning.”

“Your terms are acceptable Señorita Amina.” Santene stood from her painting stool, crossed to Desdemona, and gave her a light kiss on the shoulder before collecting her sketching implements. “Until this evening.”

Desdemona dressed quickly in her yellow, corseted dress, at least as quickly as the cumbersome garment would allow, and drew up her hair into a bun to hold it beneath the matching, wide-brimmed hat. In bohemian districts she could get away with more sensible attire, but she had to cross several posh streets to get to Santene’s studio, and her skin color was already a source of sideways glances depending on the hues of each neighborhood.

She stepped from the subdued studio into the bustle and life of the city. The smell of roasting lamb floated on the air amid the dust of the ancient streets. She turned down the handle on the side of her Penny-Farthing bicycle’s rear wheel. The motor was of her own design, working in much the same way as a pocket watch to spin the small, rear wheel of the bicycle rather than forcing her to peddle the much larger front wheel. It worked marvelously well around the flatter parts of the city, especially when she was wearing a dress that required her to ride sidesaddle. With the mechanism wound, she rolled the bike forward enough to get it going, stepped onto the peg along the back frame, and swung herself up into the saddle atop the four foot tall front wheel. She flicked the drive release on the moustache handlebars and set off at a clicking, jaunty pace over the cobblestone streets. Certainly she could have purchased one of the new Rover Safety Bicycles that had the lowered frame for ladies to still peddle while wearing a dress, but she rather enjoyed the view from the top of her Penny-Farthing and the nearly unstoppable gait provided by the large front wheel.

The bike ticked like a Swiss pocket watch through the city, over the bridges, across the dusty bits of road in the unpaved sections, and around the busy corner at the La Pedrera. The rich scent of pipe and cigar smoke sat heavy atop French perfumes and colognes amid the gentlemen and women walking leisurely down the thoroughfare. The vibe and pace of Barcelona was slow and sumptuous in comparison to Paris or Berlin, but no less taken with the bohemian revolutions in art, literature, and intellectualism. A strange bit of nationalism for her city arose in Desdemona during the ride, and she found herself a little cross that someone was burning down parts of it. By the time she arrived in the Moorish district she’d come to the conclusion she would locate the vandal regardless of what the constabulary might pay her.

The Moors of Spain, especially on the Mediterranean coast, were a diverse lot inside of the larger Islamic community, although the rest of Spain saw them as one darkened group with inconsequentially different shades. Desdemona was of Moroccan descent, mixing Arab blood with African for a thousand years before her ancestors came to Spain where the blending continued until she only thought of herself as Spanish and her Muslim roots were completely lost to the modernizing influences of Europe. In the neighborhoods set aside for the Moors, who had once conquered and ruled the entirety of the Iberian peninsula, there were proper Arabs, a few Turks, countless Libyans, and Africans from beneath the Sahara—all of which had dealings with Moroccans and all of which would see her as a go-between for the Muslims and the Catholics even though she wasn’t particularly fond of either group despite being an amalgamation of both.

She could smell the lingering smoke of the doused fire long before she saw the burned timbers of the scorched section of the district. Inspector Esperanza was already at the scene with his carriage waiting across the litter-strewn street from the burned out husks of buildings that constituted the scene of the crime. The owners of the five burned buildings were already gathered around the Inspector to voice their complaints while refusing to answer any of his questions. As luck would have it, they were also Moroccan Moors.

Desdemona goosed the spoon brake on her bike to slow it and slid off the back. She tapped her foot on the motor’s release along the way and grabbed the frame of the bike to walk it to a stop so she might lean it against the side of the Inspector’s carriage. She may as well have arrived with a platoon of soldiers, waving the Spanish flag above her head for the immense relief her entrance instilled in Inspector Esperanza.

“Excellent, Señorita Amina, if you’d be so kind,” the Inspector stepped boldly behind her, armed with his little notepad and scrap of a pencil to record what information she might draw from the increasingly agitated Moros.

“Which shop did the fire originate in?” Desdemona asked.

A haberdasher, with his sleeves rolled up and suspenders bedecked in sewing pins stepped forward. “That would be mine,” he said, curtly nodding to her with his head of perfectly shellacked black hair.

“And do you have any reason to believe you were the target of the arson for malicious purposes?” Desdemona asked. “Any enemies? Recent threats made against you? Disgruntled former employees? Unsatisfied customers? Anxious lovers or an enraged wife?”

The other men chuckled behind the haberdasher’s back. He proudly titled his head back and grunted his disdain at the question. “I am a tailor of fine suits and coats for gentlemen of discerning taste but modest means. I have always worked alone, I am well-liked by my customers, respected by my competitors, and live a celibate life with my extremely devout wife.”

She was all too familiar with the haberdasher’s type since his description fit nicely many of the married couples she’d known of both Muslim and Catholic persuasions. The haberdasher’s shop may have been where the fire started, but she did not believe he was the true target for the flames. Response times for Spanish fire departments were slow and their capabilities upon arrival were haphazard; a fire in one shop would almost certainly consume several other surrounding structures before the blaze could be contained and a clever, increasingly experienced arsonist likely knew these things all too well.

She took similar statements of incredulity from a pawn broker, an art dealer, a type-setter, and an unfortunate man whose house happen to partially burn down and was then knocked completely over by the firemen attempting to stop the flames from spreading. If there was a motive to be found in the bunch, it was known only to the Pintor Noche.

“Splendid work, I suppose,” Inspector Esperanza said when Desdemona was done ascertaining that the victims were as they appeared: humdrum citizenry with unfortunate luck. “You’ve uncovered a witness description of a man in a top hat with a cane fleeing the scene at a brisk walk. This would describe every man of even moderate means within the whole of Europe and much of America.”

“Perhaps, but not many within the Moro neighborhood,” Desdemona said.

“So our suspect is Blanco,” Inspector Esperanza said. “We already believed this.”

“Of the other fires, how many struck similar businesses to these?” Desdemona asked, ignoring the Inspector’s petulance for the moment.

“Almost all of them have involved a haberdasher. Perhaps the Pintor Noche detests finely attired gentlemen or he had an unsatisfactory suit alteration that drove him to revenge,” the Inspector offered.

“How many other suit-makers are there in Barcelona?” Desdemona wondered.

“Not counting the people who do a bit of sewing and alterations out of their homes, perhaps a couple dozen or more,” the Inspector said. “We are a fashionable city, after all.”

At the very least, it seemed farfetched to her that the arsonist was targeting tailors over a matter of billing or style. No doubt the records of customers at each establishment were consumed in the flames, paperwork being entirely flammable and all. Still, there had to be more to the fire-bug’s elusiveness than simply choosing a plentiful target in a seemingly random pattern.

“I will need the addresses of all the other fires and a street map current enough to list the businesses that stood near the fires in the last year or so,” she said.

“I’ve looked over all these materials and more already,” the Inspector said, “besides, you were hired to take statements at this location and you’ve done so. The constabulary has things well in hand.”

“If the constabulary did indeed have a satisfactorily progressing investigation, I imagine the Moro district fire would have been largely ignored,” Desdemona said. “Instead you hired an outside agent to take statements in hopes of finding a lead regardless of the disinterest in the particular victims of the latest vandalism. No, no, no Señor Esperanza, you do not have things well in hand.”

The collected victims of the arson, along with several other curious denizens of the neighborhood who had congregated around the investigation to eavesdrop on a scrap of news or gossip, broke into subdued, yet sincere, clapping for Señorita Amina’s cutting oration. Inspector Esperanza harrumphed, waggled his moustache, and straightened his bowler from the fashionable tilt he’d formerly worn it in to a sterner slant. The posturing of his authority evaporated almost as quickly as he’d bedecked himself in it. She was right and he knew it.

“Your contract will be with me, Señorita Amina, and not the constabulary.” He smoothed his moustache with two fingers before producing a pad of paper from the breast pocket of his suit. “You are an outside consultant only, not a deputized or temporarily sanctioned agent of the city. This appointment most certainly does not allow you to carry a firearm or represent yourself as a figure of authority to any Blanco citizens.”

“And would they believe me even if I did,” Desdemona said.

“Let us hope not.” The Inspector scribbled out a contract on his pad of paper, signed it tersely, and handed it to Desdemona. Within moments he was back in his carriage, banging on the outside of the door with the flat of his palm to indicate to the driver he was ready to depart. “I will have the pertinent materials brought to your apartment as soon as they are ready for transport,” the Inspector said as a parting comment.

Desdemona walked the crime scene for another hour after the Inspector departed. She spoke at length with the witnesses she believed might reveal more after the Blanco authority was gone. They did reveal more, if only in placing blame on the police and the dominant culture as a whole for cultivating an arsonist they seemed incapable of capturing. Eventually, after she began wholly ignoring their gripes, the crowd dispersed to return to whatever business was left to them after the fire. She sketched the paths she believed the fire followed based on concentration of ash. Santene would have done a far more artistic job of rendering the scene, although aesthetics were not required for accuracy and she didn’t feel like bringing her Blanca paramour to the Moro district just yet, especially not when it was so justifiably riled by nocturnal arson.

When she’d finally walked and sketched the entirety of the crime scene, successfully staining the bottom hem of her skirt and her boots black in the process, she deduced that the fire appeared to follow prescribed paths through the buildings. Whether or not this was a product of fire’s natural proclivities or something the arsonist planned, she could not say. She purchased from a nearby shop a number of small glass jars and then collected ash samples from multiple locations within the scene to compare at a later date. Research and testing would be required to learn the true nature of fire; an arsonist knew the flame like a lover and so she would need to follow suit to find him.

Even a clever man would have to abide by the laws of nature that dictated fire’s behavior—in that, she believed she could find a pattern and hopefully a clue as to his motive.

Ravens From the Ashes

Ravens From the Ashes

From the Ashes Trilogy: Book 1

I love thinking about the apocalypse. Zombies, nuclear war, alien invasions, global warming, whatever, it's all fun to think about. But, like most people who like thinking about the apocalypse, I like it only as a concept. Let's face it, I'd be totally fucked if society really did fall. I'm an indoor kitty cat who doesn't even like camping. Still, it's fun to think about from the social standpoint of what might happen to all sorts of people if society's rules were suddenly gone and challenges that nobody has ever faced before popped up...even if my fate would be to immediately get eaten by zombies because I suck at climbing trees. So it should come as no surprise that I write a lot of post-apocalyptic books, but this is my first book outlining the fall of humanity.

This book was supposed to be a prequel to the Ravens Ladies series, and then I decided it was going to be a prequel trilogy...prilogy...triquel...pretriquelogy...I'm really close to making up a word for that. This caused problems, none of which are particularly important now, but it delayed the release of the book by about a year, which suuuuuuucked. The result, however, is the first book I've actually had complete creative control over. A first for me. So if you're wanting to see exactly what my vision of a paperback is, you should spring for the hard copy since it's exactly what I wanted in a book.

I've also been toying with the idea of books with soundtracks. Movies get them, TV shows get them, and holidays get them, so why not books? Nikki and I sat down while we were working on proof copies (sorry, dear readers, but the love of my life does get to read all my books way before anyone else) and came up with a soundtrack for Ravens From the Ashes. If you want to listen to the music we decided should be the backdrop for the book, check it out on Spotify: Ravens From the Ashes Soundtrack. If you've got music you think would work for the book and would like to add to it, feel free to post your personalized soundtracks for this (or any of my books if you want to) in the comments section. Also consider buying songs/albums/merch or go to a concert for any of the musicians on the soundtrack--I only picked songs I've personally paid for and several musicians I've gone to concerts to see.

Here it is, lovely readers, the first book of the origin story trilogy for Fiona Bishop aka the Gunfighter, Veronica Vegas aka the White Queen, and the Raven Ladies. It's available in all formats through the links below, and heck, I'll throw in the first chapter right now to get you started.

Kindle   --   Nook   --   Kobo   --  Paperback

 

ONE

 

Drip, drip, drip, drip. Fiona awoke to the familiar sound of the coffeepot finishing its run. Her head felt like it was full of wet cement when she dragged it from her pillow. Were the coffeepot not automated, she doubted it would ever make coffee before noon. She didn’t actually know if either assumption was true for that morning. Daylight streamed in through the Venetian blinds on her bedroom window that overlooked the top of King Street. Her cell phone wasn’t on the nightstand so telling time wasn’t an option until she went into the kitchen to look at the microwave.

She stumbled from bed, found a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt among the scattering of clothes on the floor, and wandered out the open bedroom door into the rest of her West Hollywood condo. The coffeepot had filled the living room, kitchen, and dining room with the lovely scent of freshly brewed coffee. Fiona glanced at the sleeping form on her couch on her way past.

“Sharon, get the fuck off my couch and out of my apartment,” Fiona snarled at her mother on the way past. The bleached blond, comatose figure on the couch barely stirred at the order barked at her. Fiona nearly stumbled over a pair of daringly high wedge heels on her way into the kitchen. “And pick up your hooker shoes before I break my neck.”

A glance at the microwave mounted above the never-used stove told her that she’d awoken at 10:32 AM. Not bad considering her night ended on the barely light side of dawn. She stood in front of the coffeepot a moment before she remembered what she was doing. A white mug sat next to the white appliance. Most of the things in Fiona’s apartment were white, not for any vision of décor, but because she didn’t like trying to figure out complimentary colors and nothing in her apartment was ever used enough to show dirt even on white surfaces. She poured coffee into the mug and considered its existence. Her mother clearly hadn’t made the coffee, and even if she had, she wouldn’t have set out a mug for her daughter.

The coffee mixed poorly with the tequila film coating the inside of Fiona’s mouth left over from the night before. She spit the coffee into the sink and dipped her head under the tap to run the faucet over her mouth to suck in a few mouthfuls. She swished the water around and spit it into the sink before returning to her coffee.

“Don’t drink from the tap like some stupid animal,” her mother croaked from the couch. “There’s bottled water in the fridge. Besides, there are chemicals in tap water.”

It wasn’t even funny how many chemicals Sharon willingly ingested in the form of drugs, paid to have pumped into her face by plastic surgeons, and poured over her head to turn her red hair platinum blond, but her daughter was supposed to un-ironically beware tap water chemicals. “I told you to take your hooker shoes and get out.”

Fiona’s mother rose from the couch like a herky-jerky zombie. She glanced at the shoes mentioned as she staggered toward the hallway and the bathroom door. “Is that any way to talk to your mother?” she said. “And those aren’t mine.”

“You were telling people you were my sister last night.” Fiona sipped her coffee, wrapping both hands around the mug to absorb the warmth along with the caffeine. She took a harder look at the shoes. Upon closer inspection, they were real Jimmy Choos, which were well out of her mother’s price range or fashion savvy.

“There’s someone taking a shower,” her mother said on the way back through toward Fiona’s master bedroom and the other bathroom.

“I told you to get out,” Fiona said.

The shoes must belong to whoever was in the bathroom, the same someone who made the coffee and set out the mug. That made more sense than the automated timer making the coffee. Fiona rarely remembered to set up the pot the night before—automatic didn’t mean the coffeepot would fill itself with a fresh filter, coffee grounds, and water. Fiona hated to admit, even to herself, that she’d thought that’s what automatic meant when she bought it.

“You need to be in Las Vegas by 7 PM,” her mother said. “Do you want me to drive you? We could have a girl’s weekend.”

“You mean you can snort all my coke and dance with frat boys while I work? Fuck off, Sharon.”

“You can’t drive anymore. How else are you going to get there?”

“Stripper flight out of Burbank.” Supremely sought-after strippers and porn stars or sometimes struggling models and actresses, would fly from Burbank airport to Vegas for the weekend on cheap flights to dance in the high-end strip clubs of Las Vegas, earning five figures in two nights. Fiona never did the dancing part, but she’d taken the flights before because they were filled with beautiful women who smelled heavenly and appreciated the professional courtesy of not pestering one another. After Fiona stabbed a paparazzi guy in the mouth with a pen knife outside LAX a couple years ago, she wasn’t eager to use the L.A. hub again and she really didn’t want anyone recognizing her.

“How are you going to get to the airport?”

“Whoever is in the shower can give me a ride.”

“Maybe it’s a him in the shower and he was my date.”

Fiona rolled her eyes. “Not likely. My television is still here instead of at an Echo Park pawnshop sold for meth money and those are women’s shoes on the floor. You’re not coming to Vegas with me.”

“Fine, can I at least have the Camaro since you can’t drive it?”

“Chaos tic.” Fiona looked down meaningfully to the steaming cup of coffee in her hands.

“Whatever, I’m gone.” Fiona’s mother comported herself and walked out of the condo with all the grace and dignity that a hung-over hanger-on could muster.

Fiona returned to sipping her coffee. She hadn’t really had a chaos tic that demanded she throw the hot coffee in her mother’s face, but she’d indulged so many of her psychotic tendencies lately that it was a potent threat even as a lie. Only a handful of people even knew of Fiona’s particular mental affliction that required her to do most of the insane things that popped into her head; thankfully, her mother didn’t know her well enough to know when she was bluffing.

A dainty figure wrapped in a towel emerged from the hallway. Her dark brown, shoulder length hair was still wet from the shower and her face had the attractive, freshly scrubbed glow that Fiona adored. Fiona knew the woman, although she couldn’t remember how they’d met or what her name was.

“What’s a chaos tic?” the woman asked with a twinkle in her dark brown eyes.

“You know those weird urges you get in everyday situations where you feel like doing something socially unacceptable like spitting in someone’s face for no reason, or shoving a stranger off a curb, or whatever?”

“Yeah, everyone gets those.”

“I call them chaos tics,” Fiona said, “and my mother knows I either can’t or won’t ignore them.”

“Good term for something I didn’t know had a name.” The woman kicked her shoes out of the high traffic area between the bedroom and the kitchen. She leaned against the divider wall alongside the kitchen island. “How’s the coffee?”

“Good, thank you.” Fiona liked that the woman had kicked her own thousand dollar shoes as if they were five dollar flip-flops just because Fiona wanted them out of her way. Pliable was good, but being instinctively aware that Fiona’s feelings were far more important than shoes of any price range was great. It kept her calm when people picked up on her desires, however small, without her having to ask for something, and calm kept her from lashing out.

“The shower is all yours if you want.”

“Thanks, I could use one.”

“You have no idea who I am, do you?”

“I want to say Kelly,” Fiona said.

“Right so far. I work for you.”

“As an…accountant?”

“Lawyer.”

“My lawyer is a large, hairy Jewish gentleman with unpleasant breath and a weightlifter’s body,” Fiona said.

“That’s your criminal lawyer. I’m an entertainment industry lawyer.”

“Oh, right, the fucking TV show thing.”

“You’ll be the next host of ‘Model Behavior’ by the end of the month if I have anything to say about it,” Kelly said.

Normally inking a reality television show contract wouldn’t require a lawyer since she already had an entertainment industry agent, but Fiona had some legal baggage that necessitated a specialist, chiefly because of the mouth-stabbing incident at LAX and the suspended drivers license from two DUIs. Truthfully, Fiona didn’t even want the show—playing the mentor figure to a gaggle of bitchy wannabe models sounded like a shit job to her. They drove the metaphorical dump truck full of money into her living room, and she got over her trepidation.

“Did we sleep together?” Fiona asked.

“You fell asleep while I was going down on you.” Kelly cracked a smile that made Fiona flinch inwardly.

“I swear that’s not my best move.”

“I would hope not,” Kelly said. “Did you need me to give you a ride to the airport?”

“I’m driving to Vegas. I just didn’t want Sharon knowing.”

Kelly gave her a suspicious look. “I thought your license was suspended.”

Fiona leaned forward against the countertop between them. She smiled sweetly, letting a few strands of her red hair fall across her face. A little fidgeting with the handle of her coffee mug gave off the sense of nervousness she didn’t really feel. When she glanced up from the demure tilt of her head, she saw in Kelly’s eyes that her coy routine had done its work.

“You could come with me, if you want,” Fiona said shyly. “Give me a chance to make up for last night.”

“You’re not planning on hooking up a bunch when you’re in Vegas?” Kelly asked. A light touch of pink warmed the curves of her cheeks and the top of her neck.

“I am,” Fiona said, letting a tiny pause pass, “with you.”

“I suppose I can take a weekend off,” Kelly said.

“We can swing by your place on the way out of town to pick up your slinkiest party dress and skimpiest bikini,” Fiona said with a smile.

♠ ♣ ♥ ♦

After a quick stop off at Kelly’s Culver City apartment, they were on their way down the 10 heading east toward Vegas. Fiona’s lead foot didn’t know or care about suspended licenses or speed limits. She’d purchased the highest of high-end Camaros for the express purpose of feeling every single horse the car had under the hood whenever she so much as twitched a toe against the accelerator.

“Silver and black Camaro ZL1,” Kelly said. “Something like 580 horsepower?”

“Something like that,” Fiona said, not really knowing the exact numbers. Long Beach motor-head butches certainly seemed to like her ride whenever Fiona ventured down that way for an edgier date than she could get in West Hollywood. She hadn’t pegged Kelly as the type to know more about her car than her, although it was definitely a point in the lawyer’s favor. Fiona was a sucker for fast cars and fast women who knew cars.

“Am I going to get to drive it?” Kelly asked.

Fiona downshifted to fourth, slammed the gas pedal, and shot around a slow-moving BMW. The car roared and jumped forward under her expert direction. Fiona liked to think her car wanted to go fast as much as she did. The Camaro understood her self-destructive streak because it had one too. They were both built to someday end up wrapped around a telephone pole—it was in their blood and motor oil. Burnouts that fell short of anything worthwhile in life like Sharon and sweet girls with people-pleasing streaks like Kelly couldn’t understand the need to ride the edge of imminent destruction.

“Maybe,” Fiona said, reconsidering her estimation of Kelly. Anyone who would go to Vegas with her for a weekend must have some nihilistic tendencies.

They merged onto the 15 toward Barstow with the early afternoon sun beating down on the worn California highway. Kelly kept herself busy messing with the air conditioning on her side, answering emails on her Blackberry, and searching through Fiona’s iPod for tolerable music. Fiona couldn’t tell if her lawyer was nervous or just self-contained.

“So what exactly are you doing in Vegas?” Kelly finally asked when she’d run out of busy work.

“There’s a runway thing and a photo shoot,” Fiona said. “I usually just skim the emails enough to know where and when something is happening. Details aren’t my thing. It doesn’t matter since they usually let me know what’s going on when I get there.”

“Is your agent okay with that attitude?”

Fiona shrugged. “Don’t know; don’t care.”

“I saw that you packed something of a treasure trove of pills and other chemical refreshments,” Kelly said. “Are you really going to go through it all in one weekend?”

Fiona glanced over, hoping to judge Kelly’s intentions, but ended up fixating on the top of her silk blouse where the blasting air conditioner vent was fluttering the gauzy material across her cleavage. She was tan, her breasts were exquisite, and Fiona couldn’t think of anything beyond wondering what color Kelly’s bra was. There was little doubt Kelly’s breasts were the work of a surgeon and not genetics, but that had never bothered Fiona. A person in Los Angeles would kill their hookup chances if they excluded the surgically enhanced.

“Um…sure, maybe, do you have a weapon of choice against unsuspecting brain cells?” Fiona asked.

“No, I’m the squeaky clean type, maybe a little pot in college,” Kelly said. “It just made me think of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The talent and her lawyer driving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas with a trunk full of illicit drugs.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Fiona said. Even if Fiona wasn’t entirely distracted by the luscious view of Kelly’s cleavage, none of what she’d just said rang a bell.

“The Hunter S. Thompson book?” Kelly asked hopefully.

Fiona shrugged. “It sounds interesting, but like I said, I’m a skimmer not a reader.”

“They also made it into a movie, twice actually,” Kelly said.

As the 15 seamlessly turned into the 515 at Barstow and they dipped into the true desert of eastern California, Fiona began to suspect she was losing Kelly. The truth was Fiona didn’t think of herself as a very interesting person. She didn’t read, didn’t care about politics or causes, and she didn’t even watch TV or movies all that often. Anything that required a quiet mind to enjoy made her skin crawl. She worked hard and partied twice as hard in the hope that the next adrenaline rush or fix would satisfy her long enough to sleep for a few hours before she would have to get up and start hunting for the next jolt. Kelly was interesting, though. She’d gone to college. She’d read things. She knew things that connected to other things she knew in ways that made her seem smart and worldly when she spoke. She probably even knew exactly why she was going where she was going for work. In comparison Fiona was empty, beautiful to look at, but vacant in almost every conceivable way. When faced with that level of disparity in overall value as a human being, Fiona did what she always did.

“Let’s play a game,” Fiona said.

“Like twenty questions or something?”

“Yeah, but strip twenty questions,” Fiona said.

“Okay. You think of something first.”

Fiona could tell from the upward trill in Kelly’s voice that she was excited by the prospect and probably more than a little nervous. That’s what Fiona needed: to feel as though she’d regained the upper hand despite how inferior she really was to Kelly.

By the time Vegas rose out of the desert like an unholy abomination cobbling together a dozen cities from around the world into one, Fiona and Kelly were both mostly undressed and practically thrumming with sexual frustration. The bra Fiona finally got to see cupping Kelly’s breasts so perfectly was maroon with little lace flowers. It was as satisfying of an answer as she could hope for.

Rather than let Kelly get dressed once they pulled onto the strip, Fiona gunned the engine, weaving in and out of traffic until she shot across the oncoming two lanes to get into the Bellagio parking roundabout. The Camaro’s engine roared, the cars she cut across the front of slammed on their brakes and laid on their horns, and Kelly let out the most delightful noise comprised of equal parts nervous giggle and scream of excited fear. They passed along the side of the famous fountains, skipped the valet beneath the awning, and darted straight into the south parking garage.

Fiona loved Vegas for the parking. Finding parking in Los Angeles was impossible, required the right stickers from a monolithic parking authority, and always cost money. In Vegas, they wanted people out of their cars and into casinos as quickly and as painlessly as possible, so parking was typically free and plentiful.

It took every drop of willpower she had not to race through the crowded parking garage to find an empty, secluded spot. Near the top of the structure, away from the elevator to the casino, she finally found the dark corner she was searching for. She pulled the Camaro in, slammed on the brakes, turned off the engine, and practically leapt across the center console into Kelly’s arms.

The fiery kiss they shared was only broken momentarily when Kelly asked, “Aren’t you going to be late?”

“Only a little and I’ll look much better on the runway if I have the glow of just getting laid,” Fiona whispered against Kelly’s mouth.

“Good answer,” Kelly murmured back and their lips were once again inseparable.

The Eternal Autumn

The Eternal Autumn

Available on Kindle, Kobo, and Nook

I really like travel stories, especially through classic fantasy settings like in The Hobbit and Lord of the Ring trilogy or a science fiction/paranormal setting like in the Dark Tower series. Essentially, in the first book of this series (Divine Touched) everyone hung out in Griffon's Rock for the most part, exploring the city and dealing with everything more or less within sight of the city walls. In The Eternal Autumn everyone has hit the road!

The cover, as seen above, features the lovely, blue-eyed assassin Calista, but she's not alone in the traveling adventures. Harper, Athol, Wizardly Willard, Brandinne, and Sofea from the first book all return. New characters are added along the way, including the daughter born of two women, gifted by three goddesses. In writing this book, I wanted Vaelandria itself to become a character as the reader travels the Last Road with Sofea and explores the Valley of the Hallowed Harvest with Harper and Calista. As with the first book, I tried to balance adventure, action, humor, and romance in the largest project I've written to date.

Enjoy the prologue as a sample below, and meet up with old friends as you return to Vaelandria in the troubled times of the Eternal Autumn!

Synopsis

Time has frozen. The leaves of autumn refuse to fall, frost clings to the ground, and the last harvest took place more than a year ago. Vaelandria is gripped by the Eternal Autumn, and some say it is the end of days. Starvation and madness spread across the countryside even as corpses climb from their graves, goblins raze villages, witches fly through the darkest nights, and ghosts rise to haunt the living.

As many have come to believe the child of three Goddesses is the source of the Eternal Autumn, Calista and Harper struggle to protect their fated daughter from unseen enemies. They flee to the Valley of the Hallowed Harvest where the Eternal Autumn is celebrated as a holy sign only to find the citizens of the valley are every bit as dangerous as those they thought to escape.

In the war torn north, the Dagger Falls Company is hired to discover the source of the Eternal Autumn and hopefully end it. Led by Sofea, the former North Wind Valkyrie, the company takes to the road in hopes of gleaning answers from the Thief Queen of Griffon’s Rock, the mystical Ogre of the orchards, and a long-dead dragon. Unlikely aid for their impossible task comes from an escaped Cyclops bear, a flirtatious Brownie bandit, and a sarcastic Witch of the Nightshade Coven.

Amid the insanity sown by the Eternal Autumn, assassins skulk through the night, mask-wearing cultists roam the forests, and divine powers tear at the very fabric of reality. While the world decays under the sinister beauty of the Eternal Autumn, Calista and Harper slowly unravel the mystery to find frozen time is a harbinger of something far worse.

Prologue

The Eternal Autumn began in Vaelandria on the day the child of three Goddesses was born. And the world will burn before her, as the prophecy went.

The doula, midwives, and priestesses all agreed that Calista would not give birth until the first month of winter. Calista was growing increasingly unhappy with the lot of them. There were women who enjoyed pregnancy, who felt right, natural, beautiful, transcendent, comfortable, and Calista came to hate these women too. Calista’s personal doula, a dignified matron of sixty years from Harper’s home fishing village, stated that Calista might have more than a month left as first children were often late. Calista nearly slapped the woman at the mention of ‘first children.’ The daughter she was carrying was to be her only child—any future children their Goddesses planned to accost them with would have to be carried by Harper.

Pregnancy was a blight for Calista. She was sick for months at the outset. Allegedly, the stomach upset was to focus mainly on the dawn hours, taper off in the day, and evaporate entirely after the first few months. Calista’s pregnancy involved stomach disquiet throughout, anchored to no particular time of day. Her ankles were swollen. Her back ached. Her feet were a constant source of discomfort. She couldn’t sleep for more than a few hours at a time. The baby, her beloved, bedeviling daughter of divine origin, kicked her almost constantly. She had to pee every ten breaths it would seem. Her moods swung like a pendulum batted by a cat to the point where she didn’t know what she would be feeling from one moment to the next, but she knew she would feel it with an intensity completely inappropriate to the situation even if the emotion matched, which it seldom did. All the women surrounding her who had collected their knowledge of childbirth over decades of experience said it was one of the toughest pregnancies they’d seen.

Calista walked the cold, narrow hallways of the keep they were staying at on the furthest eastern edge of the duchy of Ovid. She was wrapped in a giant set of wool and satin robes colored royal blue and black. Her feet were left bare to absorb a soothing chill from the stones she walked upon. More than the pain, discomfort, and dawn stomach illnesses, which had only recently subsided, she was most irritated that her body no longer did as she commanded. Once upon a time, she was fast of hand, swift of foot, strong, agile, and able to do back flips while fighting. Now she struggled to simply walk down the hall without holding her back with one hand and her protruding belly with the other.

Harper meant well throughout and fawned over Calista with a devotion that was increasingly irritating. Since most things irritated Calista as of late, she’d banished Harper from the keep for the day along with all the entourage who came from the four corners of Vaelandria to attend upon the unborn fated child. Calista loved Harper, but she wished truly that her Goddess had chosen the Sword Maiden to carry the child rather than her. Calista expected Harper’s natural sweetness and caring to blossom, and it had, but she hadn’t expected the amorousness that accompanied it. Harper was tender, loving, and took remarkable care of Calista during her pregnancy, but seeing her beloved wife heavy with child also sparked a nearly insatiable lust in the Sword Maiden. Calista enjoyed the romantic wishes of her wife at first, especially since she felt like a waddling, griping, mess most of the time and greatly desired anyone telling her she wasn’t actually the waddling, griping, mess she thought she was. After a time, Calista’s own sexual needs grew, as was common during phases of pregnancy, she was told, until she and Harper did little more than make love. With around three weeks until her due date, Calista was still amorously inclined and Harper seemed even more so, but Calista simply couldn’t stand anything anymore. Warm baths were interrupted by the need to pee. Sexual contact was often spoiled by the distraction of her child kicking and rolling about in off-putting ways. Even the foot massages Harper gave weren’t tolerable anymore as Calista couldn’t find a comfortable position to sit in long enough to truly savor them. She dreamed of a time when the child would be out of her, and she could turn her body back into what it was before.

Her constant inner monologue of desiring the end of her accursed pregnancy was interrupted by the faint scent of something old and familiar. She was still an assassin trained in the lowlands and any assassin from the south could identify the faint aroma of the systemic poison known as Belly Rot. It was a sickeningly sweet fragrance like a rotting corpse, but with a peculiar undertone of cinnamon. The stone keep they inhabited on loan from a lesser noble smelled of wet stones, rain, and moldering cloth most of the time. The intrusion of Belly Rot was subtle, yet well within Calista’s powers of perception.

Calista froze and listened. As if to follow her mother’s lead, the baby within her belly ceased her kicking to listen as well. Strangled breathing trying to pass through a mangled nasal passage sounded from around the corner ahead. Calista took a soft step back and then another. She pressed her back to the wall, glanced down the corridor in the direction she’d just come, finding it dimly lit by the gray light filtering in through the arrow slit windows, but otherwise empty. She was unarmed and no longer able to run or fight as she once did. She regretted banishing Harper and everyone attending on her from the keep. Calista was several stealthy steps back down the hall before the ambusher apparently realized she wasn’t completing the circuit to the window that she’d been walking most of the morning. The assassin stepped around the corner, apparently a little surprised to find Calista staring at him even while she was sneaking in the other direction.

The assassin was tall, powerfully built, and wrapped in the muffling black wool clothing common to many orders of hired killers. His face was obscured by a black shroud. A large knife, coated in soot and poison, rested casually in his left hand.

Calista turned and ran for the end of the hall. She couldn’t hear the assassin give chase above the sound of her own robes swishing and her bare feet slapping against the stones, but she didn’t doubt for a second that he was behind her and closing fast. She cursed how slow she was and how awkward her gait had become. Before turning the corner, she snatched the lone torch from the sconce at the darkened end of the hallway. She tucked into a slide on her side, gripped the edge of the wall to pull herself around the turn, and pointed her feet at knee level. Her suspicions were immediately confirmed when her foot struck the leg of another assassin waiting around the corner. The man’s knee buckled backward under her attack, and he crumpled sideways into the wall. She sprung to her feet as sprightly as an almost nine-month pregnant woman could manage, and swung the torch at the man’s face. The burning wood and pitch made perfect contact with his black shroud at what turned out to be eye level. The man shrieked, gripped his face, and began wailing about being blinded.

She scooped up the knife the assassin dropped and began running again. The second man was an insurance policy, smaller and likely less skilled than the one still chasing her. Were she still herself, she would have used the knife she’d collected to gut the much larger assassin on her heels; pregnant and clumsy as she was, she chose fleeing.

Calista ducked into a room rather than continuing on to the next corner. No sooner was she across the threshold than a sharp, stabbing pain shot through her from groin to sternum. The harbinger pain wasn’t precisely like a knife wound, but she could see the similarities. Her labor was upon her and at the worst possible time.

“Curse you, you little shit, not now,” Calista hissed at her unborn daughter.

She collected herself after the pain subsided and ran for the window. The outer windows were arrow slits meant to defend the keep while the inner windows were more provincial glass and large enough to let in an ample amount of light as they looked in on a well fortified courtyard. She pushed open the window and hauled herself up to the sill even as the large assassin warily stepped into the room.

There was a narrow ledge running around the outside wall, no more than a couple hand-widths of stonework made slick from autumn rain. Before she was heavy with a Goddess inflicted child, Calista would have looked upon the ledge as being miles wide and more than enough to run across. In her current state, the slippery stone ledge that wasn’t long enough to accommodate her entire foot from heel to toe when placed from wall to edge, looked entirely too narrow to even stand upon. She willed herself out the window onto the ledge and pressed her back against the wall.

She was a solid dozen steps down the ledge when the next labor pain shot through her. When it became a matter of keeping her knife or keeping her grip on the wall, she relinquished the assassin’s weapon to hold on to the inner face of the keep. The blade clattered into the courtyard, but she blessedly didn’t follow it.

“You do realize if I die, you’re likely to die with me,” Calista growled at her unborn daughter.

A quick glance back revealed the assassin had already crawled onto the ledge and was following her at a pace quicker than she thought such a large man could manage. The assassin had to be divine touched. He wouldn’t have been sent otherwise, and he certainly wouldn’t have been as cavalier about killing her if he didn’t have a deity’s blessing in the world. Even if he were just a standard assassin, she would have struggled against him since her own stores of power were completely depleted as she hadn’t killed anyone since becoming pregnant.

She continued on along the ledge and around the corner. Getting her pregnant body around the outside curve of the building was enormously difficult and she didn’t want to admit, even to herself, how close she came to falling. Her balance was all off. Her center of gravity was way out in front of where it should be, and her spine wasn’t nearly as spry.

There was one window left before she rounded to the outside of the tower where there would only be arrow slits. The large man pursuing her struggled around the corner that nearly knocked her from the tower’s ledge, though not nearly as badly as she had. Her head start was spent, and she was quickly running out of options.

Before she could duck into the window, a brief waft of burned flesh, hair, and clothing carried on the wind to her. She plunged a hand into the window and pulled hard at what she found. The backup assassin she thought she’d blinded came stumbling toward the window and fell out with her aid. She ducked into the window, stumbling about in the weaving room while trying to right the wobbly ship that was her body. She barked her leg against a spinning wheel and cursed loudly. The other assassin died on the stones of the courtyard below. She felt a sudden rush of his life energy flowing to her.

The large assassin filled the window, knife not yet at the ready. She gathered the scant scraps of power she’d just received and put them behind a single strike. A labor pain shot through her mid punch, but she only let the agony fuel her attack further. The assassin braced to take the hit, clearly not expecting the added force of a Goddess’s might behind it. Her knuckles made solid contact with the bridge of his nose. The bone shattered, his neck snapped backward, and the assassin was flung from the window as if fired from a catapult.

She flexed her sore hand and began her slow, painful waddle out of the room. She’d have to search their bodies in the courtyard to find out who they were—that was the only major flaw in her plan of survival: making her way down the narrow stairwell while in the midst of labor. By the time she reached the bottom floor of the keep’s tower, she was breathing hard, gritting her teeth through every fresh grind of pain through her body, and ready to kill a few more people to vent her frustration. Her daughter was a month early and charging hard to be born far faster than expected.

Rain fell in earnest by the time she stepped into the gray courtyard. She made it several steps toward the crumpled body of the first assassin she’d pulled out of the window. Hoof beats interrupted her focus. Riders were coming toward the keep’s open gates, although they didn’t sound entirely like horses. She had the life force of the second assassin she’d killed at the ready, but from the increasing intensity of the thundering riders she assumed the force was far too formidable for her to fight. Instead, she began looking for a place to hide in the largely empty courtyard.

A labor pain ceased any further thoughts of hiding. She ended up facing the approaching riders doubled over, cursing the Goddess and her unborn child. A familiar voice bellowed across the keep as he rode through the open gates on a mighty draft horse. Calista looked up to find Athol and Caleb leading a group of a dozen Sylvan riders upon dire elk.

“What in the name of the pantheon are you doing out in the rain?” Athol demanded, reining in his horse next to the body of one of the assassins she’d killed.

The Sylvan riders spread out into the keep, never dismounting their dire elk. They were of middling height, muscular, and all had hair the color of autumn leaves in golds, reds, oranges, and browns. Their otherworldly green eyes glowed faintly in the gloom of the overcast day. Calista knew the Sylvans’ hair changed with the season, becoming black or white in the winter, pale green in the spring, dark green in the summer, and then every shade of autumn leaf in the fall. The deeper woods Sylvans’ skin also changed throughout the year to match the forest around them. The riders in the keep looked to be of a tribe from the darkest boreal forests in the northeast.

Athol rushed over to help her stand fully. She accepted his hand and powerful arm around her waist. They walked toward the household entrance on the side of the castle, passing by the assassin body in the courtyard.

“You killed a Dark Stalker while in the midst of labor pains?” Athol asked. “It would seem the rumors of pregnancy difficulties are overblown if you managed such a feat.”

Calista gripped his massive hand tightly as the next wave of contractions overtook her. She bent his thick thumb back, knocking him to his knees at her side. “Let me share the pain I’m enduring, and you tell me how bad it is,” Calista snarled.

“I’ll take your word for it if you allow me to keep my thumb,” Athol complained.

“This is the mother of the prophesized daughter?” one of the Sylvan riders asked of Caleb.

“One of them,” the Ranger replied. “The other mother is the one with the Sylvan blood.”

“Speaking of, where is Harper?” Athol asked after Calista relinquished her death-grip on his thumb.

“I sent her away to gain a moment’s peace,” Calista said.

“We will remain in the courtyard until she returns,” the Sylvan rider said.

“I’ll remain outside as well,” Caleb said.

“Perhaps I should too then,” Athol agreed.

“You’ll all come inside or there will be several more dead bodies in the courtyard to worry my wife upon her return.” Calista was pregnant, irritated, a little frightened about a second squad of assassins coming when she was even further into her labor, and she wasn’t remotely in the mood to tolerate male fear of the birthing process.

“Have you thought of a name for her yet?” Athol asked.

“Pain-in-the-ass,” Calista replied.

“That was my nickname as a child,” Athol said.

“Bianca then.”