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HOARFROST: The First Three Chapters

10/23/2017

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Hoarfrost is finally out with beta readers and will be available on Halloween! I'm really excited to finally share this story with you all, and to finish this chapter (hah) of Frankie Mourning's life.

So here it is, Hoarfrost. Pre-order it on Amazon here, and read book one, Monstrous, here. And as always, thank you, thank you, thank you for your support. I can never repay all the kindness my readers have shown me, so I'll just keep writing books for you all to read. 



ONE


"Are you a good father, Jason?" 

Jason Halloran turned slowly, the light from the house flickering in his eyes, the white mark glowing on his arm. He'd taken off his suit jacket and tie, his sleeves rolled up to the elbows. The wet, gray sky behind him was quickly deepening to dusk, filtered through thick clouds. It was threatening to rain on the dark, choppy sea. Barnacle-crusted stones cut into my bare feet and droplets of salt water collected in my hair. The air smelled clean and sweet and I was sure this would be my favorite place to die. 

And for a little while, I could stop seeing Dekker's face every time I closed my eyes.

"Why are you alive?" Jason shook his head. "You should be dead by now. You should have been fucking dead hours ago." 

"Poison is a shit way to kill someone, Jason. You're going to have to think outside the box."

I came here to die. I smiled pretty when Jason fixed me with his cold smile in a seedy bar, handsome and charming if you didn't know what he was. But I knew. I went along when he invited me out to his house, which, he claimed, had "a view to die for." I pretended not to get the joke. I drank wine laced with enough sleeping pills to drop a horse, and watched his blooming surprise when I didn't collapse. And I feigned delight when he offered me three lines of powder to snort, even though we both knew it was not cocaine. I did everything I could to let Jason Halloran kill me. But that was before I knew about the girl.

"What are you going to do to Mirabel?"

"Mirabel?" he said, seeming not to recognize her name. Then he blinked several times, his pulse jumping in his throat. Tears filled his eyes, a shadow of shame passing over his face. When he spoke again, it was in a heated whisper. "How did you know about her?"

"Your daughter," I said. "What are you going to do to her?"

"Nothing," he said, watching me. He was afraid. I could feel it, smell it. He was strong, I could see the sinewy muscle of his forearms. Strong on the outside.

"You're weak," I said. "Get on your knees."

Ravens were gathering in the sky, flying low around us, screaming at Jason. He glanced at them, a haunted look in his eyes.

"You don't understand," he said. "I don't want to. I don't want to. But her mother left us here. She left us and Mirabel...she looks so much like her. She looks so much like her mother."

"She didn't leave," I said, pulling out my knife. Jason's eyes widened. "You killed her. She's walled up in the basement. At least, she was."

"There's no way you could know that."

"There is, actually," I said. "You were so sure I'd die after that cocaine you left me alone for a long time. A very long time. You couldn't even bear to watch me die, could you, Jason? What was it really? Rat poison? It left a nasty aftertaste in the back of my throat, if it makes you feel better."

He didn't say anything. Just stared at me as if I were the most frightening thing he'd ever seen. He looked at me like I was a monster. I shrugged, smiled.

"I busted open the concrete where she was buried. See, I have this...thing inside me. It lets me see into the cracks. I'm not sure what it is, not really. But when I want something, there's not a whole lot a shitty human being like yourself can do to stop me. You didn't even feel it, I bet. Maybe you were in your room, crying. Maybe you were getting off on the whole prospect of killing an innocent woman. But you didn't feel it when I put my hands on that concrete wall and let go. You didn't feel it when the plaster fell away from all those bodies wrapped in plastic. When the cops come, they'll find them. They'll know what you did. Your own wife. And the six other women you have down there."

"You...then you saw–"

"The room where your daughter was locked up?" I said. "I sure did. Did you hear the part about the cops? I have no affinity for law enforcement, but she's just a baby."

"You can't kill me, I'm bigger than you," he said, looking at my knife, not listening to anything I was saying. I turned the hilt of the knife in my palm. Turn, turn, turn, the dense light of Western Washington gleaming dully off the blade. 

"It might seem that way, Jason," I said, still turning the knife. His eyes were on it, following it hypnotically. "I can see how you might make that mistake. Except I keep telling you, when I put my mind to something, there's not a whole lot you can do to stop me. You thought I was an easy mark, I get it. It'd be kind of cute if you weren't a serial killer."

He frowned. His fingers twitched. "I could kill you," he said under his breath, as if he were reassuring himself. "I could kill you and then kill her. I've got money. I could disappear. Become someone else."

I smiled. "You could. It's never as good as it sounds, though."

"You talk too much." His voice was guttural and hoarse, the shame leaving his face, replaced with something brutal and cold. He took a step toward me. He was taller than me, but small for a man. 

"I get that a lot," I said. "But I just can't seem to stop myself once I'm on a roll. See, my daddy was a preacher. Not the good kind, the take your money and run kind. The kind who has affairs with his parishioners. Just not that great of a person. But he was my dad, and Lord, could that man talk. He could talk his way out of a snowstorm, that's what my mom used to say. He could talk out of both sides of his mouth and people would thank him for his time. I guess I got it from him, because I can chat up just about any sort of person in any situation. Take this one right here, for example..."

"I don't care," Jason said, what little patience he'd been holding onto disappearing. "I'm going to put you in that wall with the others." He lunged at me, his expensive shoes scraping against the barnacles, the skin of his knees shredding as I stepped out of the way and he toppled over, grasping at the air. It was so easy that a laugh fell through my lips. He turned quickly, from his hands and knees, grabbed my ankle, pulled. The force of the rocky beach against my back as I fell sent a glorious pain radiating through my whole body, and there was a satisfyingly audible crack. I felt the back of my shirt sticking to the blood and open wounds, gashes opened up by sharp barnacles and broken mussel shells, sharp rocks, and bits of driftwood, the salt water burning as it mingled with my blood. My skull throbbed where it bounced off a rock and something was wrong halfway down my rib cage. I struggled to move, but I couldn't breathe. My knife had fallen from my hand and I felt around for it, but only touched sharp rocks and sand.

"You're not talking now," Jason said, straddling my chest, all his weight on me. I finally managed to suck in air, my lungs burning from more than just having the wind knocked out of me. I grinned through tears, tasting my own blood. The screaming ravens were getting louder and I knew that soon they would be swarming above us.

"I found you," Jason was saying. "I picked you up. I brought you here to kill you. It was me, it was all me. You're just a girl from a bar."

"You're wrong," I said, gasping in between words. "I've been following you for a week."

"Liar." His eyes had gone bright, his cheeks flushed. 

"Go ahead," I said, getting some of my wind back. It hurt to speak, but that never stopped me before. "Try to kill me." 

"What?" A raven landed next to me and turned its head upward to caw at Jason. He waved his hand at it and it flew away.

"I came here to die, Jason. It's never stuck before, but who knows? Maybe you're the one." He was staring at me, his eyes uncomprehending. "Except, you had to go and mess with your daughter. Why'd you have to go and do that?"

"Shut the fuck up," he said, his voice a low moan. He finally put his hands on me, wrapping his thick fingers around my throat.

Relief flooded over me as I felt the world blur, dark spots floating in my vision, a brightness to the sky that I knew was just my imagination. I could just let go. I could die by the sea, staring up at the beautiful steel-colored sky. My lungs were in agony, but it would be over soon. I felt the familiar throbbing in my chest, scratching against the inside of my skull. I could let it go whenever I wanted, let whatever was inside me take care of Jason Halloran. Stars appeared in my vision, tantalizingly close. I could just die. The cops were on their way, and I'd planned to be gone by now. But they would save Mirabel, and I would get a chance to sleep. And maybe, this time, I wouldn't wake up.

"Daddy?" The fingers eased. The weight on my chest shifted.

"Mirabel?" he said. 

I coughed as air filled my lungs yet again. There was something wrong, I hurt myself when I fell. Broken ribs, probably. I breathed through the pain, touching my throat where Jason had choked me. My other hand touched something cold and smooth. I took my hand from my throat and grasped the handle of my knife. A raven landed next to me and regarded me with something like quiet pity. Another landed on the other side of me, then another. 

"You're a bad man," said the voice. A child's voice. But Mirabel stood there, nearly a woman. How old was she? 14? 16? How old had I been when I discovered evil in the world? How old when I realized my own family wanted to hurt me?

"I forgot to tell you," I said, the words like glass in my throat. "When I was in the basement, I unlocked Mirabel."

Jason was staring at his daughter, his lips loose and quivering, a string of drool falling onto his shirt, already smeared with dirt and blood. He was still on top of me, but I couldn't die now. I couldn't leave Mirabel alone with her father, even if the cops were on their way. God only knew what he'd already done to her, and I had to make sure he wouldn't ever hurt her again. I had to be sure he wouldn’t hurt anyone again.

"Remember what we talked about?" I said, and Mirabel nodded solemnly. Her nightgown, once white, was dirty and gray from the basement, her wrists and ankles crusted in scabs where he'd chained her up.

"I called them," she said, her voice high and scared. But there was a strength there, too. She was shaking, her eyes wide, but her jaw was set. As if she made a decision and was determined to see it through. "The police are coming. And my aunt is coming, too."

"Good girl," I said. The ravens were multiplying around me, unnaturally quiet. Bearing witness to what was about to happen. 

"No, Mirabel. I love you." Jason stood then, and I felt light. Like I could float right up to the sky if I wanted to. But when I sat up, everything hurt. Breathing sent a familiar jolt up my spine and I knew that at the very least I'd cracked some ribs. I stood slowly, watching as Jason walked toward his daughter, arms outstretched. Mirabel backed away, her face filled with disgust.

"That's not love," Mirabel said, her voice radiating a sureness I wished I could replicate. So young, and she already knew what love wasn't. "You're sick, Daddy."

"Go in the house, Mirabel," I said. "Just like we talked about."

Mirabel lifted her hand, dropping something metallic on the rocks. Keys. "No one knows about this car," she said, not taking her eyes off her father, a victorious cruelty playing on the edges of her mouth. She kept looking at her father as she spoke. "And I won't tell them you took it. It'll take them a long time to find it. I'll say I found him out here like that."

"Like what?" said Jason, his voice weak.

"I never saw her, Daddy. And I hope it hurts."

"You can tell them whatever you want," I said. 

"I never saw you," she said, finally looking at me, surprised that I was so close, right behind her father. 

"Look away," I said, my lips so close to Jason's ear that I felt him stiffen, my hand gripping the knife. He didn't turn. He didn't run. He just went rigid with expectation.

"No," said Mirabel. "I want to make sure. I want to see it happen."

"Mirabel," Jason moaned. "No."

"See what you've done to her?" I whispered and he shuddered. "Maybe she'll be just like you." He whimpered as I slid the knife through his ribs, like cutting cold butter. I felt my breath come faster as I wrapped my arm around his waist and eased him to the ground, pain exploding where my ribs had broken, my vision blurring, but it was already done. I blinked, dizzy, looking down as Jason moved his mouth open and closed on the ground. The cloud of ravens seemed to burst, each taking off with a cacophony of screeching and rising into the sky to soar in a circle above us, watching, screaming. A warmth shuddered through my body, the pain forgotten. Or perhaps the pain was part of the pleasure. I heard myself moan as I straddled Jason's chest, just as he'd done to me. I was still holding the knife, now dripping with dark blood.

"I usually have a nice chat before this point," I whispered. Jason was gasping under me, watching me through the pain, his eyes trailing to the sky, to the ravens. I cleaned the knife on his shirt, turned to Mirabel to tell her to go in the house again, but I could see the shape of her moving through the sweetgrass, heading toward the shining glass house. I imagined Jason drinking whiskey from a crystal glass, looking out at the sea while his daughter was chained in the basement.

Jason was trying to say something, his eyes on me again, but there was no sound, only a thick gargling in the back of his throat.

"Don't try to talk," I said, "just listen. She's never going to be okay. You know that, Jason, I know you do. She's alive because of me, but you've broken her; you made her something that she never asked for, filled her with a darkness that will never ever go away. But she's going to live, and you're going to die, and in a way, there's poetry in that." A raven landed on my shoulder, looking down at Jason, who blinked, looking from me to the raven and back again. He opened his mouth, trying to speak. I put my ear next to his mouth to hear.

"Are you Death?" he breathed, choking on the words. I watched him for a while, struggling to draw breath, trying to survive, but his blood was staining the pale, craggy rocks all around him, soaking the sand beneath. A trail of it ran through the bright, sharp stones and barnacles and driftwood, a stream of blood that mixed with the soapy, soft waves as the tide came in, and when the water receded, there was nothing there.

"Nothing so fancy," I said. "I'm just a girl from a bar."

"No. I see you. I can see midnight in your eyes. I can't believe I didn't see it before."

"You're dying," I said. 

He stopped for a moment, his eyes moving around, as if he were trying to take in the world, as much as he could soak up before everything went dark. He took a long, shallow, shaky breath, his eyes tearing from the effort and the pain and the loss of hope.

"No, you're not Death," he gasped. "What are you?" His eyes found mine, searching. "What are you?" I frowned, surprised, the tingle of tears behind my own eyes.

"I don't know." The raven on my shoulder squeezed hard with its talons, then pushed off into the air to join the others, circling us in the sky.

"Do it," he said. "Finish me off. Take my sin from the world."

"Your sin will stay on her skin for the rest of her life," I gritted my teeth as I brought the knife to his throat. Heat filled my belly and flooded my eyes with a light that felt both familiar and alien. The sky was black with birds. I felt my hand moving of its own volition as I screamed, Jason's face changing, shifting, a dying man turning to a woman, scarred and mocking. Laughing.
"It's not you," I said. "It's not you. You're dead."

"I'm going to stay on your skin until the day you die." Her voice, her face, her laugh. 

I brought the knife down then, blood gushing against my face, metal against bone sending a shock wave down the nerves in my arm. But it didn't matter, I brought the knife down again and again, blood gushing through my fingers, solid bone reduced to sand. I couldn’t stop, some force inside of me driving me through the pain in my arm, my ribs, forcing me to turn that face into something unrecognizable. Something that wasn't her. I fell away at last, feeling the stones cutting into me once again, my sobs echoing across the water. It wasn't her, it couldn't be. It couldn't be my mother.

I'd already killed her.

But when I dared to look at the body, neck and face a mess of gore, the eye that still remained was bright blue, the oxford shirt stained red, the large fingers slack. It was Jason Halloran, of course it was. I'd killed a killer, just like I always did. It was just another killer. But my heart beat so fast it hurt. 

I watched Jason's unmoving body and tried to breathe in the wet air, the seawater rushing up and carrying away blood and bits of bone, the bottoms of my feet stinging as the salt water dampened the cuffs of my jeans. I fished a nearly-empty pack of smokes from my pocket and pulled one out, my hands shaking, the cigarette bent as it hung from my lips. But my matches were wet and stained red and I spat the cigarette from my lips, and when the wave came up on the shore again, the sea carried it away. I looked back at Jason, still and dead. 

My vision went funny and I squeezed my eyes shut, opened them again. Jason hadn't moved, but the air around him shifted in waves, like trying to watch a scrambled television channel. The sound of the sea became muted, then was quiet. The ravens overhead cawed down at me without sound. I touched the back of my head, wondering if I'd fallen harder than I realized. I looked back at Jason's body again, touching something wet and sticky and painful on the back of my head. Then I blinked and Jason disappeared. The sand where he had lain was clean but for the barnacles and the broken seashells. No sign that a man had just died there.

"What the hell?" I said, and it was the only sound I could hear in the crushing silence. The world around me was buzzing, but not audibly. I could feel it coursing through my body. I reached out to touch the place Jason had been, hoping I was seeing things, hoping this was a dream. My hands felt bare ground where his corpse had been and I fell back, shaken. I looked around me, a lump in my throat. I looked at the house, the windows dark now, no trace of Mirabel. The keys she'd dropped on the ground were gone. 

I stood, the pain that had wracked my body vanished, the lack of pain more jarring than the agony. I turned and took a step toward the water. The waves had stopped lapping onto the shore, and appeared to be shuddering in place under the gray light, giving the impression they were trembling. And then a noise, a cracking, shifting, popping. I watched the water as it turned white, a fine layer of crystals forming on top. I recognized the noise then. Ice. The crystals atop the sea grew, and I watched a coat of hoarfrost travel as if it were alive, crawling up the shore, covering the sand, the barnacles, the broken shells. It stopped when it got to me. I looked up at the sky, but my ravens were as gone as Jason Halloran's body. 

"What the fuck is this?" I said aloud, my voice booming in the near silence. A perfect circle surrounded me, the hoarfrost covering everything else. I turned to see Jason's house, shining with icicles as if crusted in diamonds. When I looked back to the sea, there was a warm light in the distance, just beyond the horizon. I squinted. It couldn't be the sun, the clouds were too thick. The wind blew across the water and there was an odd tang, like the sharp smell of electricity. 

The warm light brightened, expanded, until it filled the horizon. It lifted up and blossomed out, rising up into the sky. Then it seemed to grow larger at an alarming rate, the burning smell in the air stronger, filling my mouth with the taste of smoke. I realized the light wasn't growing, it was moving, shifting and tumbling and crashing like an ocean wave, rising up, filling up the sky with fire, sliding across the ice as if the two belonged together, as if fire and ice were always meant to work in synchronicity, the ice of the sea not melting a bit, the hoarfrost growing ever higher around me. And when I looked above me again, the sky was made of fire.

When the blistering wave hit, I felt the heat of it. The sky was bright, as if the very clouds had become tinder, and the ice on the sea burned white and gold and red as the fire made its way inland. Tears fell down my face as I choked on smoke. I ducked as the fire crashed all around me, my eyes blurring from the heat, but it didn't touch me. It didn't burn a single hair on my head. I watched as everything in its path was reduced to ash. My heart was beating in my ears and set the time for the carnage. One heartbeat and the field of sweetgrass was gone, replaced with hard, blackened earth. Two heartbeats and the house was gone, nothing but cinders left as the fire passed. The forest beyond the house disappeared at four heartbeats. By six heartbeats, there was nothing. As far as I could see, all that was left was ash and smoke, and as the wave of flame receded in the distance, the hoarfrost crawled along the decimated landscape, covering the charred earth once again with ice.

"You've done this," said a voice. I froze when I heard it, tears instantly wetting my cheeks. I turned slowly.

"Daddy?" I whispered. It was him, he was standing in front of me, narrowing his eyes. He looked just the way he looked that last night when he took me home. When he'd slapped my face, striking me for the first and last time. "You're not real. I saw you die."

"You've done this, Frankie," he said, raising a hand and pointing a finger at me. 

"I didn't," I said, staring.

"But you will," he said, still pointing at me. "There's something inside you, we always knew. You're not yourself when it touches you. You can stop this, Frankie, but you have to be strong. Do what's right, you hear me? I didn't raise a sinner."

I swallowed hard and felt my tears dry up. I scowled back at him. "The fuck you didn't."

"Don't speak to me that way."

"You lived in sin and you left it on my skin," I said, my voice coming out in a whisper. "You could have stopped them, Mom and Becky. You could have ended it. You'd be alive now if you listened, you arrogant bastard. I wouldn't be standing here if you cared enough to let Beatrice help me. I wouldn't be a killer if you'd saved me. Why the fuck didn't you save me, you son of a bitch? Why didn't you save me?"

He took a step toward me and I realized he was wearing the clothes he was buried in. He lowered his hand and his narrowed eyes widened. "The devil's had his claws in you since the day you were born," he said. "No one can save you."

He turned his back to me and I felt a white-hot anger fill me up. He took a step toward the sea and I grabbed at him, angry, ready to fight. But my hand slid through him like smoke, and then he was gone. And when I blinked again, the hoarfrost disappeared, the waves lapped at my feet, and I was standing on the beach, covered in Jason Halloran's blood. I cried out as the pain returned. When I stumbled, I fell onto Jason's corpse. And when I looked up at the house, Mirabel was watching me through the wide, shining windows.



TWO


I rolled off Jason's corpse and lifted myself to my feet. The ravens were screaming again, the waves were crashing, my heart was beating in my ears. 

"What are you doing, doing, doing?" said a voice echoing in my head. It was growing dark and in the far distance I could hear sirens. I had to get out of here. I saw the keys Mirabel dropped on the ground.

"Killing a killer, same as always," I said, swallowing down bile. It wouldn't help anyone to panic right now, it wouldn't help anyone if I cracked and went batshit crazy, not with what I knew was inside of me. I turned to see the wraith, wrapped in shadows like a cloak, hooded face an absence of light so dark it hurt to look. The hallucination was still fresh in my mind, so vivid that it felt real. It was like my nightmares, surreal and vivid, but ultimately it would fade and I would barely be able to recall it by the end of the day. The dreams were getting worse, though, and starting to seep into reality. Like today.

I could still taste smoke.

"We didn't tell you to kill him, him, him," said the wraith, pointing to Jason Halloran.

"I don't do what you say anymore."

"We gave a task, task, task. What are you doing here? He still has her, her, her. Your sweet sister, in Cain's service. We won't help you save her until you follow orders."

I limped past the wraith and my vision went white as I bent to pick up the keys. I waited for the pain to pass, the ground cutting into my feet. I tried to remember where I'd taken off my boots, and I looked toward the house to see Mirabel still in the window. I had to get out of here. I was covered in blood and I’d just killed a man. Where I'd taken my boots off was highly unimportant. I held the keys tightly in my hand and made my way toward the sweetgrass.

"Cain will hurt her. Don't you care, care, care?"

"I care," I said, walking gingerly. I could see lights flashing on the other side of the bay. It was lucky Jason had chosen such an isolated place to live. Not lucky for him, though. "Just let her die,” I said. “Let her go. It's better that way."

"We don't have that power, power, power."

"So you'd let my sister go if you could?" I was walking toward the house as quickly as I could, but I was still maddeningly slow.

"We'd let you go, too."

"We," I laughed. "Are you a collective now?"

"We told you to kill him. Why are you here, here, here?"

"I think that's pretty obvious. I'm fleeing the crime scene."

"We told you to kill Thomas Dekker, Dekker, Dekker." I stopped, rage in my belly. I could feel the power inside me, the dark substance that I didn't understand. It moved and shifted and grew agitated, jumping under my skin. The ground beneath my bare feet rumbled, opening up cracks in the dirt all around me, the sweetgrass falling away into the chasms. I closed my eyes, trying to control it, and after a moment, the ground stopped shaking. I opened my eyes and looked at the wraith.

"Don't say his name," I said through gritted teeth. "Don't you ever say his fucking name."

The ravens swarmed down, a tornado of feathers around the wraith. And when they took to the air again, the wraith was gone.

I passed the cops on the lonesome, two-lane highway that wrapped around the edge of a short stone cliff just above the sea. The Honda was not a bad car, and even barefoot, the soles of my feet slick with my own blood and gritty with sand, I was able to drive with little effort. The back of my rib cage sent waves of agony through my body, and I thought about stopping when I saw a gas station on the horizon. But my shirt was shredded and covered in red darkening to rust, and my hands were sticky with Jason's blood and flesh, so I continued on, down the highway. I took the exit into Bellingham, and turned the car into the parking lot of the motel near the highway I'd checked into. 

I pulled the dwindling pack of Lucky Strikes out of my pocket and finally lit a cigarette with the car lighter. I cracked the window and let out the smoke in a shaky breath, feeling pain in my lungs as I coughed. If Dekker were with me, he would watch me closely with concern. But the thought of him sent a cold stab into my belly and I stubbed out the barely-smoked cigarette in the ashtray. 

My chest ached and it had nothing to do with a broken rib. The memory was sharp and sudden and made me feel dizzy with its crispness. A motel room, cheap and smelling of a tobacco pipe. Dekker in bed, an empty bottle of whiskey on its side. It had been easy, getting him drunk. And it hurt. I felt the pain all night, but when Dekker finally succumbed to exhaustion, tears sprung up in my eyes and cascaded down my cheeks. I was afraid my sobs would wake him, so I gathered my things quickly and headed for the door.

Don't look at him
, I told myself. Just don't look at him. Remember what happened last time.

I couldn't stop myself. I turned to look. I felt something inside me wrench, as if someone had grabbed hold of my insides and twisted.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I want to stay." I opened my mouth to say more, but that was it. I wanted to stay and that was all. I left him my car, my cherished Challenger, the only thing left from my dad. I walked to the street and stuck out my thumb. I didn't take his wallet. I didn't take money or clothes or the motel shampoo. I just left. I left and it was the right thing to do. But goddamn if it didn't hurt like hell.

I paid for my room five days in advance, in case I didn't come back from Jason Halloran's house right away. I knew I wouldn't really die, not for good. But I had a bone to pick with my so-called employer. I wanted to speak to him in person, and thought my chance to meet him would most likely happen in that empty hollow between death and life, the desolate crossroads where I'd first met the wraiths. I parked in the back corner of the motel parking lot. 

I was nearly to my room, walking along the boardwalk that led down the rows of doors, when I saw the car. There wasn't another Dodge Challenger like that, and I knew it right away, parked across the street, empty. My hand was on the doorknob, my heart hammering in my throat. 

"I know you're there," said a deep, muffled voice from the other side of the door. My mouth went dry. "You may as well come in."

I closed my eyes, trying to breathe. A long moment passed and it seemed the world had gone quiet again. No cars, no laughter or TV laugh tracks coming from the rooms, the owner stopped yelling at his slovenly son in the office across the parking lot. I half expected the sky to turn to fire. A raven landed on the sidewalk next to me and I opened my eyes. He blinked at me gravely, seeming almost sympathetic. A truck blazed by on the street, honking its horn, breaking the spell. I turned the knob.

It was dim outside, but the blackout curtains had been drawn in the room and no lights were on. I blinked in the darkness. I could feel him there, smell him, feel the heat and soul of him. There was movement and a lamp flicked on. And he was there. Sitting in my motel room in a ripped vinyl chair, a gun balanced gently on his knee. His eyes were cold when I found the courage to look at his face.

"Hey, Frankie," Dekker said. "Where've you been?"

"Dekker." I barely had breath to say his name. I sank back against the closed door, having no energy to propel myself any farther into the room. I winced.

"You're hurt," he said, with no indication that he was planning to help. He watched me as if I were a specimen in a jar. I remembered the shine in his eyes as he had his hands around Roo's throat back in Montana. The sheer joy I'd seen on his face as he squeezed...

"Are you going to kill me?" I said softly.

A brief cloud of hurt passed over his features, clearing almost immediately. "No," he said. He seemed to notice the gun for the first time and picked it up off his leg, setting it on the floor, near his foot. "I'm not here to kill you, Frankie." He sounded tired.

I pushed myself off the door with some effort and staggered to the bed, easing myself down and closing my eyes. "That's a shame," I said. "I've been trying my best to die."

"Same old Frankie." 

"Never claimed to be anything else."

He was quiet for a long time. I wanted him to come over and tell me it was all okay, I wanted him to say he knew why I left and he didn't care, I wanted him to get angry and scream. But all he did was watch me.

"How'd you find me?" I opened my eyes and turned my head slowly to look at him. The day had caught up with me and everything hurt. There was a whistling wheeze when I drew in breath.

"I'm a detective."

"You were a detective."

"It never really leaves you," he said. "Besides, I have friends. If I want to know something, I have all the resources to damn well know it. I've known where you went, Frankie. I know what happened in Spokane. I know what you did in Gold Bar, Washington.
That was a doozie. Rocked the whole state, finding out about that priest. And the way they found him, that was fucked up. Not that he didn't deserve it."

"So you've got friends in low places," I said, "I get it. So what?" It hurt having him here, the way he was looking at me. A cold, broken stare, every word like an accusation, each syllable a blow to the chest. I struggled for air again. 

"Why did you leave your car?" he said, leaning forward. His brow furrowed, lines in his face that hadn't been there before, bags under his eyes. "You love that car. It's your dad's car."

"It's yours."

"I don't fucking want it,” he snapped. I flinched, sending another wave over me, this time physical. "I just mean," he shook his head, took a breath, and when he let it out he met my eyes, neutral coolness the only discernible emotion. "It's your car, Frankie. It doesn't belong to me. It's a part of you."

"I wanted you to have something," I said, my voice weak. I wouldn't cry in front of Dekker. I couldn't. This whole thing would fall apart if I cried. "And it was the only thing I had to give."

"I can get my own car," he said. "It just reminds me..."

"What?"

"It reminds me of things I'd much rather forget."

I swallowed thickly, nodding."Did you come here to return my car?" My voice wavered. Dangerously close to tears. I was so dizzy, so tired, but I would not fucking cry in front of Thomas Dekker.

"No," he said. "I need you."

My eyes widened. "What?"

"I mean, I need your help with something. It's right up your alley."

"I can't. Dekker, I...I can't."

"You'll change your mind when you hear about it. This isn't some stunt to get you back. Not that I ever had you. You were pretty clear about that."

"Yeah," I said, "I was."

"Fine," he said, anger seeping into his words. "Just listen. You think it's too much to ask you to listen?"

I closed my eyes again, emotion swelling in my chest. I couldn't do this. I couldn't be here looking at him. It hurt too much. "I'm listening," I said, wheezing again as I tried to catch my breath.

"Bodies," he said. "They're washing up on shore in a little town down the Oregon coast. Middle-class, people with clean backgrounds, professionals and well-to-do housewives, couple of small business owners. Every couple of days, someone washes up."

"That doesn't really sound–"

"I wasn't finished." I opened my eyes to see him, sitting on the edge of the chair, elbows on his knees. His gaze was intense.

"Okay," I said. "Go on."

"They're frozen. Solid. No indication of how they got that way. They were, nearly all of them, seen the day before by friends or family, and found dead before they could even file missing persons."

I frowned. He had my attention. "Frozen," I said. "Like before?"

"Covered in hoarfrost."

I remembered my hallucination, the frozen sea, hoarfrost crawling up the shore. And a sky made of fire...

"Do you think it was Cain?" I said.

"I don't know. But just before the corpse washes up, the sea freezes."

I stared at him. "What did you say?"

"Savage Bay doesn't normally freeze at all. It's cold, but it stays above freezing. But it turns to solid ice, all the fish float to the top when it's all over. And there's a body, frozen to the core, lips blue and eyes white and looking like something from a horror movie. They're still dressed, except..."

"Except what?"

He looked uncomfortable. "Their hearts are gone."

"Say again?"

"Still dressed. Frozen solid. A small, fist-sized hole in their clothes, and the hearts are just gone. Like someone reached in and took them."

"So the killer has a thing for hearts."

"It happened after they were frozen."

My pulse was still jumping, and I felt something. Not fear exactly, but something like a dark resolve. My chest definitely hurt now, and I wasn't so sure it had anything to do with Dekker being there. I couldn't breathe and the edges of my vision darkened.

"Was there fire?" I said weakly.

"What?"

"In the sky? Or as a wave? Was there fire, Dekker?"

"No," he said frowning. "There wasn't any fire. Why would you ask that? Do you know something?"

I shook my head, trying to pull in air. "It's nothing. Just a dream I had," I rasped. I tried to suck air in hard, making a wet, gasping sound. 

Dekker sat up straight. "Frankie?"

He was on the bed in seconds, lifting up my shirt, rolling me onto one side to look at my injuries. I tried to scream, but nothing but the damn wheeze came out.

"Jesus fuck, how are you still walking around? What happened?"

The words came out in hiss. "I was trying to die."

"So you let someone beat you to death?"

"He poisoned me first." I couldn't see through the tears of pain, the room was a dark blur. "I saved her, Dekker. I saved Mirabel." But I couldn't speak any more after that and everything went dark. 

I tried to open my eyes, but it was as if time sped up while I stood in the same place. My dreams were scattered with visions of Dekker screaming into the phone. A man in an old 70s army jacket, dirt under his fingernails, holding up a syringe, blinking rapidly behind the greasy lenses of his glasses. Dekker holding my stomach, crooning at me to hold still. The prick of a needle in my arm, then the foggy sweetness of sleep. A voice saying, I can't give her that much, it'll kill her. Then a deeper, familiar voice: Trust me. You're not going to kill her. 



THREE


The world lurched as I struggled to regain consciousness. I felt movement, the world sliding beneath me as I lay perfectly still.
Nausea swept over me as the pain in my ribs came to the surface, my throat raw and my lungs aching. I opened my eyes, a familiar smell all around me. I was clutching the dash of a car, my car, the Challenger. And when I looked over I saw that Dekker was driving. It was daytime, the hot autumn afternoon sun beating into the car, the smell of my father all around me. 

"Dekker," I croaked.

"Morning, sunshine," he said, picking a styrofoam cup out of the console and handing it to me. "I took the liberty of getting you fixed up." 

I reached for the cup, but recoiled in pain.

"Oh, right, an explanation. You had a rib sticking right into your lung. He had to cut you open a little."

"He?" I said. 

"Yeah, this doctor." He reached over without taking his eyes off the road and slipped the full cup of coffee into my hand. "Well, he was a doctor once. I couldn't really take you to a hospital. I thought you'd appreciate that."

"You should have left me there," I said. I recalled my father's accusing voice: The devil's had his claws in you since the day you were born. I tried to breathe slowly through my nose, but my chest still hurt. I focused on the pain to distract me. 

Dekker glanced over. "You'd really rather die than spend a few days with me?"

"It doesn't have anything to do with you." I took a sip of the lukewarm coffee, grimacing a bit at the taste, but happy for the moisture on my throat. I took a longer drink. 

"You always have been a terrible liar," he said. I closed my eyes, opened them again, trying to get my bearings. The world was passing by all around us, too dizzyingly fast to comprehend. I felt too strange, too surreal. "What did you give me?"

"Something to stave off infection," he said. "And something for the pain."

"Where the hell are we?"

"Oregon."

"Goddammit, Dekker," I said, my voice still fuzzy. I blinked hard, trying to make my eyes focus. I felt like I could just slip back into sleep. "I had shit to do. I paid for that room in advance."

"Yeah, that was two days ago."

"What?"

"You must have been tired, Frank."

"Don't call me that."

"Why'd you leave?" The question was so abrupt, so sudden that it was a shock. I shook my head, trying to will the fuzziness out. "Before you're thinking clearly enough to lie, I want to know the truth. I know you, Frankie. Better than anyone else in the world, maybe. I know you and I'm willing to bet you did it for a reason. You love me, I know you do. And I told you I was obsessive. So before your mind is clear, I want you to tell me: Why did you leave?"

"I can't," I said, fighting the feeling of sick that was spreading from my stomach down my nerves, my skin sensitive and prickling, the world tilting. 

"Tell me anyway."

I took a breath, feeling pain on one side of my rib cage. "Don't make me do this," I said, my vision going dark around the edges again. I was suddenly heavy, too heavy to keep afloat. I closed my eyes.

"Stay with me, Frankie," he said, reaching over and taking the coffee from my hand. "Just answer the question."

"I want to sleep."

"You can sleep after."

"I couldn't stay. I'm sorry," I slurred, my voice thick.

"Why?"

"Because of you," I said. The world was moving oddly again, consciousness failing me again. "Because they want you dead." I started falling then, slipping into sleep, but Dekker shook me.

"Who wants me dead? Frankie!" The car turned, slowing to a stop, the sound of gravel under tires as he pulled over. Dekker turned and I worked to focus on him.

"Thomas Dekker, that's what they said. And they won't shut up about it. They're always there, always." I squeezed my eyes shut. "You shouldn't have drugged me." 

"If I hadn't, you'd be screaming in pain. Frankie, look at me." Dekker's voice was loud, even though he said it softly enough. But it resonated in my head in a way that cried out as clear as a bell. I blinked, trying to focus. You’ve done this, Frankie, my father had said. Just dreams, they weren't real. The fire wasn't real, none of it was. My father was rotting in the ground, and there was no fire.

"I don't want to," I said, my lip quivering. "It hurts."

"I know, baby, just one more question. Then you can go to sleep."

"I can't tell you anything. If I tell you, you'll want me to stay. You're supposed to hate me."

"I don't hate you. Well, maybe a little. I'm just mad at you."

"Because I left."

"What happened?"

"I died."

I felt his large hand encompass my smaller one. He was so warm. "I know. I was there when you woke up, remember? Who wants me dead? The wraiths told you that?"

"Abel wants me to kill you. I don't know why. Maybe to punish me. Maybe because the world is foul and mean and full of shit. And because I don't deserve you."

"Frankie, you have to know that's bullshit. You deserve better than me. You saved my life."

"You wouldn't be risking it if you hadn't chased me. You're going to die because of me."

"That's crazy, you can't know that."

"I had a dream," I said. "Everyone's going to die. Poof, in a cloud of smoke." But I was losing my train of thought, sliding from wakefulness.

"You can go to sleep now, Frankie." His voice was soft as he smoothed my hair away from my face. "Just for a little while, you don't have to worry about saving anyone but yourself."

"I can't save myself," I said, my voice far away. "I'm already gone."

I was almost asleep when I heard him say, "Not if I can fucking help it."


When I opened my eyes again, the car was no longer moving and I was alone. A motel stood in front of me, dove gray paint peeling. The sign said Traveler's Rest. Next to the motel was a pancake restaurant, the windows dark, with no sign but the one that said Open for breakfast only! A large picture of a pancake printed on a plastic banner flapped in the wet wind. I could see a fish restaurant on the other side of the pancake house, but couldn't make out the name. 

I reached back to grab my leather jacket, which was lying across the back seat, gasping in pain as I moved. I pulled up my shirt to see that someone had wrapped a bandage tightly just under my breasts. Slowly, turning my body gently, I pulled the jacket from the back seat and eased it around my shoulders. I realized I was shivering, the sky the dark light of either early morning or dusk. It was hard to tell through all the clouds. The parking lot didn't tell me much, but I could smell a wetness in the air, a clean, misty smell that only came from the Pacific Northwest. And when I opened the car door, I could hear the crashing of the waves. 

Stepping carefully out of the car, putting my arms through the sleeves of my coat, something on the dash caught my eye. A key with a magenta plastic tag, the number 201 in bold white lettering. I grabbed it, closing the car door, sucking breath through my teeth at the pain that radiated through me. I looked at the rickety wooden staircase set into the side of the motel with trepidation.

"This is bullshit," I said under my breath. 

I made my way up the stairs, taking breaks to catch my breath every few steps, key grasped tightly in my hand. By the time I reached the top, the sky had started to darken. Dusk then, not morning. I had just put the key in the lock of 201 when the door of 202 opened.

“Hey, Sleeping Beauty," said Dekker, leaning against the doorway. "Thought I'd let you rest." He watched me wrestle with the key. 

"I could have been murdered," I said. "The car doors weren't even locked."

"Isn't that what you wanted?" There was something goading in his tone, an edginess that irritated me. 

"Where the hell are we, anyway?"

"Westport, Oregon."

"Never heard of it."

"It's not a bustling metropolis like Helmsville."

"Are you going to help me with this key, or are you just going to crack wise all day?"

He walked over and turned the key in the lock, grinning like an idiot. "I got us separate rooms," he said, standing too close. I could feel the heat coming off him. I couldn't help but flash on the memory of him pinning me against a wall in Helmsville, our mouths covering our own cries...

"Fine, great," I said curtly. "Look, I just need to get these bandages off. I don't know who did this to me, but you're not supposed to bind broken ribs any more. It causes complications."

"Didn't know you were an expert."

"I have experience," I said. "Can I go in now?" He was leaning toward me, his eyes too intense, too dark, the heat of him almost overwhelming. I felt dizzy from the aftereffects of the drugs, and he wasn't helping. 

"Get some sleep," he said. "We have to be up bright and early."

"Why?"

"To go to work, of course. We're not a couple of drifters any more, Frankie. We're upstanding citizens."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Oh, and if anyone asks, your name is Dolores Peck."

"Dolores Peck?" I blinked stupidly at him, his smug grin pissing me off. "Can you please tell me what the hell is going on?"

"You'll see," he said, standing up straight and smiling wider. "Bright and early. That means no wandering around."

"What are you, my mother?"

"Jesus, I hope not. Your mother was horrible."

It was like a slap. But Dekker was already in his room and the door swung shut, the porch shuddering. I pushed open 201 and slammed it behind me, satisfied that the entire building seemed to shake. Maybe it would topple over and I wouldn't have to look at Dekker's smarmy face ever again. 

I clicked the light switch, the bulb flickering before filling the room with a garish light. Walking to the large window, I opened the heavy drapes and froze for a moment. We were right on the bay, a low roof in front of the window not obscuring the miraculous view beyond. A cold beach lay below, scattered with driftwood and boulders. A family was drinking out of mugs and had a small fire going in the distance, but it looked as small as a matchstick from where I stood. Waves crashed down, the tide coming up in sudsy, white-tipped bursts onto the sand.

I swallowed hard. Before a week ago, I'd never been to the ocean. I'd been near it once when I was still the Vigilante Killer, but at that time I'd been more concerned with staying hidden than swimming. I had to admit, the view was not unpleasant, but the hallucination on Jason Halloran's beach nagged at me. The wave of fire, setting even the clouds aflame, the water freezing, it had been so vivid. And then Dekker telling me the ocean was freezing in real life, in the real world, in this very town, it all seemed too coincidental to be a fluke. I looked up at the sky and expected it to brighten into a giant plume of flame, but it stayed as sullen and gloomy as I felt. 

I closed the curtains, holding my side to turn and look at the room. It was shabby and smelled of mildew, but it wasn't bad. TV, microwave, mini-fridge, and a nice, big bed. I walked over to inspect a heap of something dark on top of the bedspread. I picked up the hanger and realized it was a black pantsuit. I touched the polyester fabric, feeling the unpleasantness of it. A plastic shopping bag lay underneath and I hung the suit up to inspect the items. I pulled out a white button-up shirt, a clearance tag still attached. A package of unflattering underwear, a few bras. At least Dekker realized I needed clothes, but I wasn't sure why he'd gotten the pantsuit. Looking down at my bare feet, I regretted leaving my boots at Jason Halloran's house. My muddy and ripped jeans and shredded shirt were covered in old blood which, to Dekker's credit, looked like someone had tried to wash. Some things don't wash out, though.

I'm going to stay on your skin…


 My mother. I was aware that I was going completely insane, the apocalyptic dreams, the hallucinations. But my mother, it was still a shock to see her, even if I knew she wasn't real. I was just a little girl when my mom and sister changed, and it was only a few months ago that I found out why. The thing I'd killed, by that frozen lake in Montana, was not my mother. It was something else, a monster wearing her face. The thought of that thing, that aberration, staying on my skin made me sick to my stomach.
I shook my head, returning to the task at hand. I pulled out an ugly pair of tan loafers from the bag, dropping them on the bed. There was one more item left and I pulled it out, my heart beating fast as I felt it. I dropped the empty bag.

"Dekker, what are you doing?"

It was leather, but I knew what was inside, should I dare to flip it open. I set it on the bed and looked at it. After a moment, I reached down and opened it fast, as if it were a poisonous snake. It was a badge. I picked it up. A picture of someone who looked vaguely like me was on one side, an official ID card. There was a gold badge on the other side. I picked it up to look at it.

Dolores Peck.


The letters were unmistakable on both the badge and the ID. Three large letters, one set in blue, the other in black. Both sent a wave of dread spiraling through me.

​FBI
.




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New Release: Hoarfrost is available for pre-order!

9/27/2017

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At long last, Hoarfrost, book two in the Blood of Cain series (Monstrous), is available for pre-order! You can add it to your Goodreads list here. I'll be posting an excerpt (as usual) after it comes back from my editor.

I really hope people like this one, it took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to finish, but it was well worth it. I adore writing Frankie Mourning and I will continue this series until I can't lift a pen, or until Frankie blows up the world. Whichever comes first. 

This installment has Frankie and Dekker continuing their fire-and-gasoline relationship and traipsing about as fake FBI agents. And if that isn't enough fun for you, someone is running around the Pacific Northwest stealing people's hearts. Awww. Here's the official synopsis:

"The Mother of Hearts is here."

Plagued with terrifying visions and hounded by wraiths, Frankie Mourning is on the run again. Afraid she will hurt Thomas Dekker, she goes off on her own and does what she does best: killing the killers. But Dekker needs her help. Corpses are washing up onto the Oregon coast, frozen solid and covered in hoarfrost. And their hearts are missing.

As Frankie and Dekker delve deeper into the mystery, things get stranger. Frozen oceans; a woman who bursts into flame; holes in the fabric of reality; a shapeshifter; and a horrifying woman in a white shroud who claims she wants to help. Despite herself, Frankie finds herself closer to Dekker than ever, but her frightening power and terrifying visions grow stronger, threatening to hurt the last person alive she loves, along with anyone who gets in her way.

But Dekker has a secret of his own, and it might just tear Frankie apart. If she can't keep it together, she's not sure what she's capable of. Though a dwindling group of gods seem to think she could be the salvation the world needs...or the catalyst of its destruction.

Hoarfrost is available for pre-order on Amazon, and the release date is scheduled for October 31, 2017.

Stay creepy, friends! 
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Monstrous is a winner!

9/2/2017

1 Comment

 
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Monstrous is a semi-finalist in the Kindle Book Awards in the category of horror! If you want to check out the full list of amazing finalists, you can do so here. I'm a bit of a book award virgin, so this is really exciting!

In other news, Hoarfrost is currently being revised and edited and should go off to be professionally edited within a month. I'm shooting for a release near Halloween if all goes well. Otherwise, it may be as late as November. I'll post an update when it's available for pre-order, but you can add it to your Goodreads list here: www.goodreads.com/book/show/36159957-hoarfrost.

And speaking of October, who's ecstatic that we're fast approaching Autumn? If you're in the mood for a creepy tome, you can check out all my books here. I tried to convince Amazon to open up a Violently Romantic genre, but no word so far ;).

I'm working on a few things right now, all in different stages of writing. Queen Victoria's Monsters, a Victorian fantasy, is currently being written, as well as several stories including: The Immortal Henry Clay, Roses In the Snow, and a werewolf noir story entitled Auguries of Innocence. The coming year is much more free for me than last year, so I expect to be putting out books a little faster. More details on these titles in the coming months.

That's all for now! Still reeling a little from making it through the first round for the Kindle Book Awards, and a little punchy from the late-summer heat. Here in Oregon the air is crazy smoky, too, so I'm looking forward to a lot of indoor activities (namely just reading and writing), which is zero percent different than any other day. But now I have a reason for it.

Stay creepy, my friends!
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Announcements and freebies and whatnot...

3/13/2017

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Hey, guys! Hi! I'm still alive, despite three months without a single blog post. Just a quick note to announce a few things.

Hoarfrost, the sequel to Monstrous, and book two in the Blood of Cain series, is coming along swimmingly. It's crazy and weird and hasn't progressed at all like I expected, which is always a good sign, in my opinion. I expect to finish the first draft in the next month or two. I've also been working on something called Queen Victoria's Monsters, which is super fun and set in the 1860s, so lots of exciting research to do. I wouldn't expect this one for a while, I'll be working on it off and on for the next year or so, but I'll let you know when I get closer. You can see the lovely cover below.

All the pleasantries out of the way, I'm having a freebie promotion this week! Monstrous and Blood of the Stars will be free all weekend: Monstrous from Wednesday to Sunday, and Blood of the Stars from Thursday to Monday. Neat!

Be sure to grab yours if you don't have either book already. Especially Blood of the Stars, as I love that story and it's hard to find an audience for a madcap adventure through time, grief, Vodou loa, love, and curses. (Yeah, it's a pretty weird book.)

Goodbye for now, I must drag myself back to my subterranean cave to finish Hoarfrost (just kidding, I'll be in bedroom with a hot cup of tea and a laptop). I probably won't post until I'm done, so eyes on this space, I think Hoarfrost is going to be even crazier than Monstrous. 

​Stay creepy, my friends.

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Frankie Mourning died on a Thursday. Then she came back.

Tasked with killing the killers – people with the blood of Cain running through their veins – Frankie always gets her villain. But this time it's different. This time she has to go home. Something strange is happening in Helmville, Montana. People are dying at an alarming rate, and the sheriff is ruling them all accidents and suicides. Nothing is as it seems and Frankie soon finds herself sucked into the tangled and seemingly supernatural mystery. Because the people acting strangely, the people killing everyone around her are haunting the mirrors. Now Frankie's own reflection is behaving strangely and seems hellbent on causing her harm. 

In a world enmeshed in remote beauty, dark magic, and violent memories, Frankie feels lost. Luckily, a detective on the run for murder shows up. Thomas Dekker wants to help and claims he cares about Frankie. But daring to trust him could cost her everything.

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​"I remember my name."
​
Spencer McQuarrie wakes to find himself in a New Orleans hospital in 1945, in a spiraling sequence of events that ends with the brutal murder of his wife, Josephine. Pulled back through time to 1927, he is reunited with a still-living Josephine, and desperately tries to piece together his broken mind to avoid her future death. But then McQuarrie finds himself in the middle of a war between Haitian Vodou demigods – the Loa – and they do not have his best interests at heart.

The loa pull the couple from one time to another, demanding that McQuarrie learn who is killing almost everyone he knows. As McQuarrie starts losing time and waking up in different parishes throughout New Orleans, the list of suspects grows, and he begins to decipher his connection to the killer. Knowing the truth may mean losing Josephine's love. But to save her, he would give up everything: He would fight, he would kill, he would die.

To save her, he would burn worlds upon worlds upon worlds.

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Coming Soon...
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Available Now: MONSTROUS

12/6/2016

2 Comments

 
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It's here! You can buy a copy of Monstrous now, either in ebook format or paperback. It's a week early and I am so happy with how much readers are liking it. It's close to the bone for me, and I hope that shines through. You can add it to your Goodreads here.

To celebrate, nearly all my ebooks will be free on Amazon this weekend, beginning Thursday (and Wednesday for a select few), so if you want to read my other stuff, you'll want to pick those up.

On that note, I'll leave you with some quotes about Monstrous:

"Murray has written something new and familiar. The story was enthralling and I had bitten my fingernails off, by the time I was finished. You should give Monstrous a read, Then read some of her other books."

"It is original in every way possible, imaginative and with that touch of darkness to keep you turning the pages. There is nothing predictable in this book and nothing prepares you for the surprises. Great writing and good editing. Cannot wait for book 2."

"You can feel Frankie's emotions at times because the author has written such a riveting story, you get pulled into the character. I definitely didn't see all the twists and turns coming. You really couldn't rely on what you "thought" was going on because of the superb story telling." 

"Monstrous was amazing."



​Stay creepy, everyone. I need a nap.


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MONSTROUS: THE FIRST THREE CHAPTERS

12/2/2016

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Monstrous will be available December 13 (13 days!), so I thought this would be a good opportunity to post the first three chapters. I hope you like it. I very much enjoyed writing it. So without further ado, Frankie Mourning, everyone!


“
"The fear of you and the terror of you
will be on every beast of the earth
and on every bird of the sky;
with everything that creeps on the ground,
and all the fish of the sea,
into your hand they are given.”


~Genesis 9:2, Holy Bible



​chapter one



I died on a Thursday.

The thing about dying is, no one ever comes back. Not really. Even if all your parts are put back together—even if you’re walking around breathing, talking, screwing—it’s never the same again. Part of you is always going to wonder if the world is real, if you’re still lying on a gurney somewhere bleeding out. Or, in my case, pocked full of holes from lethal injection and forgotten in a cooler.


I died on a Thursday, and three days later I woke up.


When I walked out of the motel, the sun was coming up. I pulled a pack of Lucky Strikes from the pocket of my leather jacket and tapped one out. My lighter was dying and my hands were shaking, so it took a couple tries to get it to ignite. I pulled in the smoke and closed my eyes, the northern Wisconsin air already hot and humid, even this early. The keys in my back pocket bulged and I scanned the parking lot for Jimmy Wayne Frasier's car. My eyes slid over a Camry, an F10 pickup truck, recently washed, and then froze on a rusty Chevy Nova, a pair of ratty fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view.

“Jimmy, you're so goddamn predictable,” I said, letting the cigarette dangle from my lips as I fished out the keys. I pushed a pile of fast food wrappers and beer cans off the front seat into the parking lot as I drove away. I didn't know where I was going, but it didn't matter. They would find me. They'd find me and tell me where to go next. I looked at my hands on the grimy steering wheel, ragged from my work, blood caked under my fingernails.


Jimmy Wayne Frasier was a serial killer. Emphasis on
was. I’d tracked him to the motel where he had no fewer than three dead prostitutes carefully arranged on the floor. And when Jimmy, slovenly and slow, lunged for the gun lying on the bed, I had him hogtied on the floor before he even knew what was happening.


He figured it out soon enough.


“Please call the cops,” he had blubbered. “Please. I don’t understand.”


“I don't completely understand it myself,” I admitted. “I'm dead, Jimmy. But soon you will be, too.”


I watched him squirm, shaking his arms frantically behind him, as I pulled a wicked little fillet knife out of my belt and walked slowly toward him. He was crying.


“Aw, Jimmy Wayne,” I lowered the knife with a sigh and straddled the chair, facing him. “This isn't fun for me, I promise you that. I'm not what you'd call a happy person, if you get my meaning. I've done some bad things in my life. Maybe even worse than the shit you've been doing.” I looked over at the dead women on the floor and wrinkled my nose. “Though not as gross.”


I got up and stretched, my knife still in my hand. I saw Jimmy looking at it and sat back down, leaned forward. “I don’t get a chance to talk to many people, Jimmy. If I could get some much-needed psychiatric therapy, I’d jump at the chance. God knows, I need it. But what would I tell them? They’d have me socked up in the crazy house before I even got to the good part. Either that, or they’d toss me back on Death Row.” I shrugged. “That wouldn’t be so bad. In the end, I got what was coming to me. I was fine with it. Dying. But then I woke up. You believe that shit, Jimmy? I fucking woke up from being dead. And I know I was really dead, because I know that's what you're wondering. You're thinking, either I'm crazy or messing with you, am I right?”


Jimmy was a puddle of tears now. His latex-gloved hands were scrunched into balls and his face looked like a big pink prune. I stood up and he became agitated again, struggling against the rope. I raised my shirt, pointing to my belly and tracing the scar up to the middle of the Y-incision.


“This is how they do an autopsy, Jimmy. Which I'm sure you know because of your dead people thing. Also gross.” I pulled my shirt back down and picked up the knife. “I guess I got autopsied, no other explanation. Don't ask me how I'm still walking around. Maybe I'm a zombie, or a vampire. But I just keep getting hungry, thirsty, my heart's still beating, and I still have to...you know. Go to the bathroom. Was that too much information?” I watched him, shaking his head, his eyes red from crying, clear snot dripping out of his nose. “Jimmy, it's really too bad I have to kill you. You should know, you're not the only one. And none of this is really your fault. I mean, it is, but all you people are like this. You just acted on it.”


I shrugged. “Well, it's been fun, Jimmy Wayne. You are a fantastic listener. It's been a while since I've talked to anyone like this. But I came here to do a job, so I guess the question is: Are you ready?”



The Nova's full tank of gas got me all the way to the village of DeForest, outside of Madison. I fueled up with Jimmy's credit card, smiling pretty for the camera pointed at the gas tanks. I parked next door at a Culver's, ducking into the bathroom to wash my hands before grabbing two burgers and a custard shake to go. Heading south. The sun was high now and I shed my leather jacket. But even with all the windows cranked open, I was still sweating. And after a while, the fast food wrappers sweating grease in the sun made my stomach turn.

The sun was sinking below the horizon, the sky a violent orange by the time I reached the outskirts of a city. I pulled into the first shady bar I could find, eyeing the shabby motel next door, its “Vacancy” sign lit up like a beacon. I stretched as I got out of the Nova, parked far in the back of the small parking lot.


I wiped down the surfaces, taking what little cash Jimmy had in his wallet and ditching the rest. Leaving the keys in the ignition, I grabbed my duffel bag and pulled on my jacket, even though it was still hot as hell. I was out of smokes, and smelled like an animal. I slipped into the bathroom in the dark, smoky bar.


I looked in the mirror and cursed. I cleaned up, trying to drag a comb through my tangled hair. I pulled a clean shirt out of my bag, shoving the sweat and blood-stained tank top into the bottom. I desperately needed a shower, but I wanted a drink more. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail, fishing a stick of deodorant out of my bag. I smiled at my reflection, blinking as something moved in the corner of my eye in the mirror. I spun to look behind me, but there was nothing there.


“I need sleep,” I muttered, smoothing my hair one last time. I'd been up too long. Even my reflection looked weird to me now. I walked out into the bar, freezing for a second at the dozen or so people. A couple of rough-looking old guys playing pool looked up and stared at me. I ignored them and slipped onto a stool. The woman behind the bar was wearing blue eyeliner and smoking a Newport. She didn't even put the cigarette down before coming over.


“What are you drinking, honey?” she said.


“Maker's Mark and Coke,” I said, flashing her a big smile. If I was going to waste Jimmy's cash on booze, I might as well get the good stuff. “And don't go easy on the Maker's.”


“Long drive?” she said, looking me over.


I zipped up my jacket and shrugged. “Not too bad. You got Lucky Strikes?”


She nodded across the bar. “There's a machine. Use quarters. It steals dollar bills.”


I changed what was left after the drink for quarters and walked over to the cigarette machine.


“What's your poison?” said a voice. I looked around and saw a man sitting at a table next to the machine. He was reclining, with his feet up on another chair, a brown drink in his hand.


“Luckies,” I said. “Looks like I'm out of luck.”


“That's funny,” he said without laughing. “Unfiltered?”


“Yeah.”


“Hell of a choice for a girl.”


I gave him a cold stare. “You’re a peach, aren’t you?”


“Shit,” he said, looking down at his glass. “I'm sorry. I've been drinking this swill for two hours. I'm not usually a dick.”


“Rough day?” I said.


“Rough life.”


“That makes two of us.” I put my quarters in and punched the knob for Camels. I pounded the pack in my hand, smiling. “See you around.”


“Wait,” the guy said, standing. He wasn't half bad when he wasn't skulking in the shadows. Under the five o'clock shadow and the dirty tee shirt, he was lean with dark eyes that he fixed on me. “Let me buy you a drink.” His face, dead serious until this point, broke into a half-grin, dimples appearing on his cheeks. “Please.”


“Why?” I said.


“Because I want to sleep with you.” He stepped out from behind the table and walked toward me, stumbling only a little. He smiled that half smile again and something stirred inside me.


“I'm just passing through,” I said.


“So am I.”


“I won't give you my number.”


“I won't ask for it.”


He was close to me now, his eyes a little bloodshot, but he was warm and alive and I could see myself forgetting about the world in him for a few hours. I smiled. Not the big country girl smile I'd given the bartender. It was a different kind of smile that made the guy's charming half-grin falter and sent the pulse in his throat jumping. He reached towards my hip but I grabbed his wrist. His arm was muscular and I saw the lines of a military tattoo in the dim light. He was stronger than me, but he let me hold his wrist, his dark eyes glimmering with a look I recognized.


“No promises,” I said. “Buy me a few drinks first, and I'll let you rent me a room at that flea-infested hole-in-the-wall next door.”

His smile came back, his eyes still fixed on mine. He pulled a hand out of his pocket, a big blue tag on a key ring reading “Starlight Motel” in silver letters.

“Already done,” he said. “I'm Thomas Dekker, what's your name?”


“Nice to meet you, Tommy,” I said. “I’m Frankie Mourning. Let's get that drink.”



The truth was, booze didn't do a whole lot for me anymore. I'd tried everything to quiet my head and have a few hours of peace. Uppers made it worse. They also made me chatty, which was dangerous in my line of work. Weed slowed me down. Ecstasy may as well have been an energy drink, and opiates made me feel like I had bugs crawling through my scars. There was no oblivion for me. I was still myself, no matter what I took. Alcohol was the only thing that made the nightmare end and let me get a few hours sleep, as long as I drank it fast enough.

Tommy Dekker bought me six drinks, though he himself stopped drinking after three. And by the time we stumbled toward his motel room around midnight, he felt pretty damn good to me. When he kissed me in the parking lot, his lips were hot and hungry, and he felt firm when I put my hand against his chest.


“What are you, a gym rat?” I said breathlessly.


“On the job training,” he panted, pulling me against him again. I jumped up, grinding myself into his hips, my legs around his waist, and he carried me across the parking lot, only taking his tongue out of my mouth when he dropped the key at the front door.


When we burst through the door, we fell against the wall, where he pinned me, unbuttoning my pants as I pulled off his shirt.
He kissed me hard and I shoved him down onto the bed, my whole body vibrating.


“I should take a shower,” I said.


“Later.” He grabbed my waist and pulled me on top of him. I straddled him, pulling off my coat and tossing it into a chair. I unbuttoned his jeans and he started to pull up my shirt.


“No,” I whispered, pulling it back down. “Anything but my shirt.”


“Why?” he said.


“You can touch me inside my shirt,” I said, “but it's not coming off.”


“What about your pants?”


“Those are coming off right now.” But he was already pulling them off, tipping me backwards on the bed. I laughed, but his face was dead serious again, and in a heartbeat, he had his own pants off and was on top of me. I moved to kiss him, but he took my hands, lacing his fingers through mine and pressing my arms down onto the bed.


“Wait,” he whispered. His breath smelled like good bourbon, sweet and rich. His nose was nearly touching mine, and the streetlight filtering through the dirty lace curtains shone on his face. “Wait,” he said again, and I found it hard to breathe. “I just want to look at you for a second.” His dark eyes were too close, his face too solemn.


“Come on, let's do this,” I said, wrapping my legs around him. But he didn't move, he just stared at me.


“God, you're beautiful,” he said.


“Shut up and do me,” I said, laughing. But he didn't laugh. He unlaced his fingers from my left hand and touched my face.


“Okay, enough.” I took his wrist from my face. “We'll do this my way now.” I pushed him off of me and climbed on top of him.
He didn't resist. But he kept watching me. Those goddamn eyes were burning into me so hot and fierce that I couldn't breathe. I lowered myself onto him, arching my back as he arched his. He didn't close his eyes, watching me. Not looking away, watching, watching me ride him like my salvation depended on it.


The climax came fast and hard and I felt him give way at the exact same moment. We buried our cries in each other's mouths, in a kiss that was too intimate. It felt like I was telling him my secrets, like he knew me now.

I rolled off and lay panting and looking at the water stained ceiling.

“Jesus Christ, Tommy,” I said.


“People don't really call me that,” he said, out of breath.


“What do they call you?”


“Dekker.”


“Is that what you want me to call you?”


He looked over and smiled his sexy half smile.


“You can call me anything you want, Frankie Mourning.”


“I'm going to call you Tommy,” I said. “Mind if I take a shower now?”



Tommy was passed out when I got back. I slid into the bed as quietly as I could. His face was relaxed in sleep. I knew I should go. I knew I should split before they found Jimmy Wayne Frasier's car. But I was so tired. I couldn't remember the last time I slept more than an hour, maybe two days ago? Three? I leaned back onto the pillows and watched Thomas Dekker sleep. He had tattoos all over his chest and upper arms. I couldn't make them out, even with the light from the parking lot. Marines, maybe. His hair was cut short, a dark brown color, and stood up in front. He had an eyelash on his cheek.


I raised my hand in the dark and was about to brush it away, but he opened his eyes. I pulled my hand back as he watched me.


“Why won't you take your shirt off?” he said.


“Bad heart,” I said. “I have scars.”


“So?”


“I didn't want you to see. They're ugly.”


“They busted you open?” he said.


“You could say that,” I said. “I'm lucky they put everything back where it belongs.”


“Are you okay now?”


“Healthy as a horse,” I said.


He lifted a muscled arm. “Come here.”


I frowned. “Where?”


“You don't want me to put my arm around you?”


I shrugged. “If you're into that.”


I moved into the space he made, flattening my body against him and felt his arm pull me in.


“See, that wasn't so bad,” he said. His eyes were closed. I wondered how many drinks he'd had today. It was admirable that he mostly kept up with me.


“I'm not usually the cuddling type.”


“Neither am I,” he said, his voice heavy with sleep. “Stay with me tonight, okay?”


“It's either that or hitchhike,” I said.


“Which are you leaning towards?”


“I guess you'll do. There are killers out there.”


“That there are. Where you headed?”


“I don't know,” I said. “Maybe east.”


“You don't know where you're going?”


“I'm waiting for a sign.”


“I'll give you a ride,” he said. “I'm going to New York in the morning. I've got a shitty Civic, so it's not the lap of luxury or anything.”


“But,” I said, motioning around the motel room, “I've grown accustomed to such finery.”


“Buck up, princess,” he said. “I'll treat you like a queen.”


I don't remember falling asleep, but it was still dark when my eyes flew open, my heart beating fast. I looked around the room, getting my bearings, my eyes moving to Dekker. He was deep in an alcohol-induced sleep. I wondered if he'd even remember me in the morning. I inched out of bed and went into the bathroom, relieving myself and then drinking straight out of the faucet. I caught my reflection in the mirror and turned away. I was about to get back into bed when I heard it.


“Frankie,” came the whisper, so familiar that it hurt.


“No,” I said. “Not again. Just let me sleep.”


“Frankie,” it came again, loud and close and inside my head. “Frankie come outside. Come, come, come. Come out, Frankie Mourning and get your redemption.”


I slipped my jeans on in the dark. I couldn't find my shirt, so I pulled on Tommy's followed by my coat and boots. I left the door ajar, peeking another look at Tommy as I slipped out.


It was a clear night, but the stars were just out of view, the city illuminating the sky with a dirty light. I pulled out a Camel and lit it, walking around the corner of the motel. A raven squawked as it landed on a rusty pickup truck. It watched me out of one beady eye as I passed. The wraiths liked dark places, so I needed to find the shadows, even in a shady, sleazy place like this.


“Hey,” I said, walking behind the motel. There was an empty lot, surrounded with a barbed wire fence, my boots crunching on gravel. “Where are you, you creepy shit?”


“That's not very nice, nice, nice,” said a voice in my head. I spun and it was crouching in front of me, seeming to bleed into the shadows. I took a drag of my cigarette and blew out smoke.


“I was sleeping,” I said. “I haven't slept in days.”


“Maybe you don't deserve to sleep,” it said. This one's voice wasn't male or female, though most times it was usually one or the other. They liked to sneak up on you when your back was turned. As far as I could tell, it was a different one every time, though having never seen their faces, I couldn't have said for sure. I called them wraiths, but I didn't think they really had names. The raven watched us from atop the barbed wire, cocking its strange little head in the semi-darkness.


The wraith crouching in front of me was covered head to toe in a hooded cloak that seemed a part of its body. The edges were indiscernible, as if it could melt into the darkness at any moment. I couldn't see its face, either, the space under the hood unnaturally dark. I sometimes wondered if there would even be anything there if I ripped the cloak off. I also wondered if the wraiths were really there. Maybe I was just imagining all this. It was a pretty thought.


But I touched the Y-shaped scar that wound its way down my breastbone and I remembered the first night I woke up. I was pretty sure I wasn't making all this up, because if anything was real, it was pain. And those first days had been nothing but agony.


“Stop staring at me,” I said. “What do you want?”


“Touchy,” it said, voice echoing in my skull. “Seems I pulled you from lover's bliss, bliss, bliss.”


“Fuck you.”


The raven squawked, as if in agreement.


“You can't keep him, Frankie. You're not exactly girlfriend material.”


“I'm not trying to keep him, asshole. Now tell me what you want.”


“It's what you want, Frankie. Redemption, remember? It's why you're alive. Mostly, mostly alive.”


“Yeah,” I said quietly. I dropped my cigarette onto the gravel and ground it out with the toe of my boot. “Yeah, I know. You creeps remind me every time. So where are you sending me?”


“We need you to do something a little different,” said the wraith. “Something a little outside of your pay grade, grade, grade.”


“I don't get paid.”


“That's not true. You're working toward a goal.”


“Yeah, like a company store,” I said. “With no indication of how long I have to do this or how many it's going to take to be done.”


“Even if you're never done,” said the wraith, “it's a better deal than where you'd be headed if we let you stay dead, stay dead.”


“Says you,” I said. “So what's this next job? And what do you mean, something different? Worse than a killer? Because that last guy killed a whole lot of hookers. It's worse than that?”


“You'll think it's worse.”


“Just tell me what the job is then, Morticia,” I said. “Or we could stand around yapping all night.”


“You have to go home,” it said.


“Home?” I said. “I don't have a home, I'm fucking dead.”


“You had one once,” said the wraith. “Your best place, and your worst place. All those trees and fresh air scrambling your brains. Where it all happened. The beginning of the end, end, end.”


“Oh, no,” I said, bile rising in my throat. “I'm not going back there.”


“You are,” it said. “You must.”


“I died, remember? Someone will recognize me.”


“You left ten years ago and your family never left their mountain. No one will know you.”


“I went to school.”


“Have a lot of friends, friends there? Besides, we know you only attended school for a few months. Before, before, before.”


I glared at the wraith. “Don't do this. Pick someone else. You must have other people doing this besides me. Anyone else.”


“You're the only one, one, one,” said the wraith. “Boss's orders.”


“Tell the boss to fuck off.”


“You don't mean that, Frankie.”


I looked away from the wraith, trying to slow my heart.


“I can't go back there,” I said. “Hellville is cursed.”


“Helmsville,” corrected the wraith. “Rugged country. It's beautiful there, isn't it?”


“I can't go back to that place,” I said. “Please don't make me do this.”


“It's already decided,” said the wraith. “And Frankie, Frankie, Frankie?”


“What?”


“Helmsville, Montana isn't cursed. You are.”


The cloaked figure seemed to spin in front of me, and with a sound like sheets on a clothesline, the wraith was gone. And I was alone, but for the raven. I stared at the bird for a few seconds, waiting for it to screech at me. But even the bird was silent, and after a moment, it rose into the air with a flap of wings and disappeared into the darkness.


“Quitter,” I said.


Dekker was still sleeping when I slowly pushed the door open and slipped into the room. He was snoring softly, his wide chest rising and falling. I found his keys in his pants pocket. Feeling around, I found his thick wallet. I wasn't going to look at him. If I didn't look at him, I'd be fine. If I didn't look at him, I could keep on breathing. I turned to go.


Dekker snorted loudly and I froze. I turned slowly to look at him. His eyes fluttered and I felt my heart in my throat. I didn't know why I was so nervous. He was just a roof over my head. He was a bar tab and entertainment for the night. What did I care if he caught me? But I stared at Dekker's face, stock still in the dark. And I breathed again when he started snoring again.


I backed away, watching his face. He was just a guy, and a weird one at that. He was probably a shit when he wasn't drinking. Maybe he had a wife and kids. Maybe he kicked puppies for fun. But I recognized the feeling in my chest. It wasn't love or lust or anger. It was that feeling I got when what-might-have-been slipped out of my grasp. I'd had a lot of might-have-beens in my life. For the most part, I didn't think about them. Even when they were staring me in the face, I put them out of my mind.

I shouldn't have looked at him.

“I'm sorry,” I whispered. “I'm really sorry.


Dekker's Honda was being guarded when I found it. Three ravens sat on the hood, blinking at me.


“Come on,” I said. “I don't have a choice.”


The birds flew up onto the low-hanging roof of the motel, still staring at me. I was used to the birds. They were always there. Sometimes they were the only ones I talked to for days. I turned my back on them and got into the car.


The car started nice and quiet and barely made a sound as I pulled out onto the highway. When I flipped on the headlights, the ravens were gone. I was so exhausted my bones hurt. I pulled out his wallet, my stomach churning as I looked at it. I blew air out and opened it. I'd need money. I knew he had some, he'd been buying my drinks in cash all night. I wouldn't use his credit cards, it was the least I could do. He'd have them canceled by morning anyway.


Why had I given Dekker my real name? I didn't understand it. Usually I picked something out of the air. Sally McGrady. Antoinette Carter. I'd even used Rita Hayworth once and no one batted an eye. But I'd given him my name, the name I'd been born with. The name I died with. It was dangerous. I was being risky and I wasn't sure why.


I kept my eyes on the road, glancing down at the wallet by the light of the headlights behind me. At first I didn't know what I was seeing. Then I couldn't believe it was real.


“Holy shit,” I said. “Shit, shit, shit.” Repetitive as a wraith. I threw the wallet away from me, like it was a cockroach, but it fell open on the passenger seat. As a semi truck passed me, I chanced another look at it, as it gleamed in the lights cutting through the night.


It was a badge. A silver badge shaped like a star, the words Chicago Police etched into the metal. And across the top, the
word Detective.


“Shit!”


​The wraith was right. I was cursed.







chapter two


The way my sister died is this: I set her on fire and watched her burn. It wasn't as simple as the cops made it out to be, but it's true. I killed her and I wasn't sorry. Just like I killed the seven other bastards afterward, in what the newspapers called an “orgy of death.” There was no orgy. They all had it coming and I didn't enjoy it. But the district attorney didn't see it that way and neither did the jury.

So when I found myself strapped to a table with a needle in my arm and a crowd of people looking on, that should have been the end. To be honest, I was relieved. I closed my eyes, thinking it was the last time and I think I even smiled. I could finally get some rest. I wasn't supposed to wake up again, especially not with my insides scrambled and a Y cut from my chest to my pelvis, stitched up with black thread and screaming from the pain.


You might think that coming back from the dead would be a good thing, but it wasn't. Not for me. I wanted to be dead. I wanted to fall into the abyss and never climb back out again. I wanted to close my eyes without seeing my mother and my sister covered in my father's blood, laughing at my screams. I wanted to sleep without dreaming of fire. But it's like Jagger says, you can't always get what you want. I wanted to be dead, but someone else wanted me alive.


I should have left the car on the side of the road and hitchhiked, taken the bus, hopped a train. Anything but this. I'd stolen a cop's car. Not just a cop, a damn detective. I fucked him and robbed him blind while he slept. I didn't know why I kept going, why I didn't immediately pull over and hitchhike my ass out of there. I just kept driving. And I didn't stop until I was in Sioux Falls.


Maybe I wanted to get caught. Maybe I wanted to see what would happen. Or maybe I just wondered if I was too far gone to turn back. Being on Death Row was the quietest time in my life. Strange as it seems, I found peace in that little white room. A soft voice came from a grate in my cell, the woman next door whispering prayers every waking second. I found it comforting. It reminded me of my father and his sermons. It reminded me of the time before. And I slept like a child.


What would the authorities make of me now? My body disappeared from the morgue, my organs all put back in good working order, and most assuredly not dead. Would they execute me again? Or would I spend an eternity in a hospital, poked and prodded? Why did I wake up after being pumped full of chemicals, cut apart, and stashed in a refrigerator? Why was I seeing hooded wraiths that melted into shadow, telling me where to find killers, where to stalk my next prey? The wraiths said it was the blood of Cain, tainting the mind, making humans kill. Was I a serial killer myself? Vigilante, like the old days? Or was I just another asshole desperate to grasp at any chance of redemption?


I found the shittiest motel I could find. The kind of place that takes cash and doesn't ask any questions. I grabbed my bag from the passenger seat along with Detective Thomas Dekker's wallet and found my room. Exhausted, I dumped everything on the bed, shed my leather jacket and my clothes, and stepped into the shower. The water pressure was shit and the shower head was crusted in a sickly white calcium deposit, but I closed my eyes and let the tepid water fall over me, trying to wash everything away. I stood there until the water was icy cold and goosebumps stood up on my skin.


But I didn't feel clean.


I lay on the bed, my hair still dripping, and lit a cigarette, watching the smoke curl and loop around itself. I listened for police cars, more curious than nervous. But all I heard was breaking bottles and the raucous laughter from a biker party in the
parking lot.


I took another drag and let the smoke swirl in my lungs before blowing it out. Then I sat up and grabbed my bag, pulling out a book and laying it across my legs. I opened it and took in the familiar and jarring first page. The scrapbook was black paper and I had glued the newspaper article, clipping the end of the article from the back of the newspaper and pasting it underneath the headline:
West End Preacher Found Dead. There was a grainy black and white photograph of our old horse corral, a police officer standing inside of it, looking morose. Next to the picture was a photograph of my father, smiling in front of his church.

Trampled by horses. That was the story. No one asked any questions, and they surely didn't ask the shy 16-year old girl who hid in dark corners and shadows, trying hard not to be seen. I still didn't know if I would have told them, had they asked.

How do you tell a policeman that your mother and sister are no longer themselves? How do you tell someone that the people you love are no longer human? Back then I thought they were demons, from Daddy's sermons. The devil, the old adversary. But it wasn't so simple. I didn't know what happened to my mother and sister, but I know they changed. They were people I loved one day, and murderers the next. It only took me a year to become a murderer myself. To go from preacher's daughter to killer. It took me a year to feel good about burning my sister to death. One year from child to criminal.


It wasn’t that simple, of course. Is it ever? My sister, Rebecca, had never been what you might call kind. She was perfect. Pretty, smart, and willing to do anything to impress my mother. Odd images flashed in my mind when I tried to remember the exact moment when she changed from girl to monster. Snippets of nightmares, things I thought were true as a child. Adults thought I was crazy, or too imaginative, or full of the devil. And over time, I realized how surreal the memories were, too dreamlike to be real, too frightening to happen in real life. They were just dreams. But as a child, they had seemed real, and I was convinced for a long time that they were.


Rebecca was never kind, but slowly she became something darker. And, in time, she took my mother with her. In a way, they took me with them. Made me a monster, too.


The next page in the scrapbook was dated one year after my father died. The headline read:
Teenage Harlot Kills Sister, Wounds Mother In Fire. The picture showed the collapsed bricks that had once been a chimney and the ashes of our house. The fence around the horse corral in the background. The smaller headline read: Frances Mourning Pursued By Police. The picture of me was a bad one. My one and only school picture for the one and only year I was allowed to attend public school in St. Thomas. By that time, I'd gone into full-on rebellion, as noted by my black eyeliner and sullen expression.


The facing page was an article about an unidentified doughy white man found dead in Wallace, Idaho. Police had no leads and no idea about why he was dead. I could have told them. His name was Kurt Garrett and he attacked me. He nearly got me. I was so young then, inexperienced, but I had already seen horrible things. Too many for a young girl; too many for a lifetime.

Kurt was an accident. I snapped. He was maybe 130 pounds, soaking wet. Just a greasy old perv with a thing for young girls. But I started hitting him when he grabbed me. He was trying to shove me into an alley when I began kicking him, punching him, and I didn't stop. I was a country girl, raised in the mountains. I looked small but I was strong from climbing trees, riding horses, doing chores. He was expecting a girl, easily pliable and timid. What he got was me.

Even after he fell, I didn’t stop hitting him. Not even when he stopped screaming. I didn’t stop until I was hitting wet meat and grinding bone and I couldn’t feel my arms anymore. I didn’t stop until my fractured knuckles throbbed and the skin on my fists
looked like hamburger.


When I caught my breath, I looked down at what I'd done. How many others had there been? How many girls that weren’t as monstrous as I was? I wiped the blood off my boots with the back of Kurt's salmon-colored polo shirt and walked away. I found his car idling a block away and got in and drove. What little that was warm inside me, I left in the street next to Kurt Garret's body. A bystander might say there were already ravens circling the dead man. But I knew better. They were circling me, just as they always had. As they'd done since I was a child. Before I killed my sister, before my father died, before anything, there were ravens. They followed me like they smelled death on me; they circled me, waiting, watching me trying to be good.


And they were there when I stopped trying.


The cops finally picked me up in Jacksonville. I turned page after page of newspaper articles of child molesters and dirtbags found dead along the way. Over to one coast and across the country to the other. One article called me the Hillbilly Hellion. But most of them went with the ever-popular Vigilante Killer. Or, usually more simply, The Vigilante.


There were columns praising me, but most condemned me. And then a two-page spread:
Vigilante Case Goes To Jury. The picture was me in an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs, my hair lank and dirty. I skipped the trial articles and stopped when I found the one I wanted.


Governor Denies Public Defender's Final Appeal; Vigilante Executed.


I stared at the headline for a long time, fingering the scar that ran down the front of me. Sometimes I stopped to feel my pulse. I still saw my mother's face, half scarred from the fire that I had hoped would kill her, too. I only said one thing to her while I was lying there in the windowed room, waiting for the drugs to take effect.


“You're not her,” I said to the scarred woman who resembled my mother. She didn't say anything. A serene smile spread across her face, puckered on the burned side, and that smile stayed there until I couldn't bear to look at her any longer. A thing wearing my mother like a coat, with nothing behind her eyes.


I turned the page. A full-color newspaper front page took up both sides of the scrapbook pages. It was a shot of the Florida State Prison, a gorgeous sunset in the background. In the foreground, blurry, were dozens of protesters, carrying signs. I could make one out that read FREE FRANCES, and another that said TOO YOUNG TO DIE. But the focus of the photograph wasn't on the people or the prison or the sunset. It was on the several hundred ravens that sat on the wall and barbed wire and circled above the prison, dotting the sky with black. The caption said:
Hundreds of ravens gather just before Frances Mourning's execution. At the moment of her death, every bird took flight, turning day to night.


The image had shown up on websites, newspapers and television news shows across the country. I saw video feed much later, showing the moment of my death. It was chilling, not just because I knew I was dying behind those walls: the sight of all those ravens screaming and taking off into the air wasn't something you ever expected to see. The screaming was so loud you couldn't hear the reporter.


I closed the scrapbook with a snap. I'd have to print Jimmy's story when they found him, probably by morning. I threw the book onto the other side of the bed and picked up the wallet. I stared at Thomas Dekker's driver's license photo for what felt like an eternity. Even here, I felt his dark eyes burning into me. I felt the cold ridges of the badge with a finger. I suddenly felt so tired, the kind of tired that usually took seven or eight drinks. I turned off the lamp and closed my eyes, hugging the wallet to my chest. I thought I'd dream of fire or my sister covered in my father's blood, like I always did.


I don't know whether it made me feel better or worse to dream of a man with dark eyes who touched me as if I were something holy.




I wasn't awakened by policemen in the morning and, when I threw my stuff into the passenger seat of the Honda, no one even looked my way. I got watery coffee from the motel office, grabbing a doughnut from the box behind the counter when the manager wasn't looking, then got in the car and sat behind the wheel. I lit a cigarette, regarding the raven watching me from the lawn chair on the motel sidewalk.

No one was coming for me, not yet. I started the car and found a Conoco, using the dwindling money in Tommy's wallet to gas up and buy smokes. Then I found the highway. No one stopped me. No one cared. No one even noticed.


So I drove. West on I-90 all the way. All I had to do was stick to the highway. But it didn't feel that simple to me. It felt like choosing Hell over Heaven. I didn't know what my Heaven was, but I sure as shit knew Hell, and I was driving there in a detective's stolen car. I was driving right through the gates.


I looked toward the sky to see the lone raven soaring high overhead, leading the way.







chapter three


It was past midnight when I rolled into St. Thomas. It was eerie seeing the school I'd attended for a few months. I sat at the four-way stop and watched the lone stoplight blinking red at me. Floodlights lit up the parking lots on either side of the intersection, the Real Western Motel on my right, the Travel Center on my left. I turned left and pulled into a space in front of the bar, at the end of a row that included the gas station, two restaurants, and gift shop. The Western-style boardwalk now had a niche carved out for an espresso stand. I flicked my cigarette out the window and looked down at the gas gauge, tapping it with a fingernail. It stayed stubbornly on empty. I’d used the last of Dekker’s cash at a gas station just after coming over Homestake Pass.

“Shit.” I looked at the bar. The Silver Saloon aimed for Wild West but settled for small town ghetto. As I walked through a door propped open with a chunk of asphalt, the smell of old cigarettes washed over me. It was sweltering in the bar, and packed with drunks. “Here we go,” I muttered. Heads turned as I walked through. Outsiders always sparked interest.


“Hey, darlin',” said an unshaven man at the bar, grinning blearily at me. He was wearing a battered cowboy hat. His sleeves had been ripped off and when I looked down, I wasn't disappointed. Cowboy boots.


“I like your hat,” I said. “Buy me a drink.”


“Yes, ma'am,” he said, saluting with two fingers, nearly falling off his stool. “Pick your poison, beautiful.”


A tired man behind the bar came over and nodded at me, glared at my new friend.


“Time to go, Grady,” said the bartender. “Go home, okay?”


“No!” said Grady. “I am going to buy my lady friend a drink and you can't stop me.”


“I can, actually,” said the bartender, rolling his eyes. “It's sort of my job.” He looked at me. “What are you drinking?”


“Shot of Maker’s,” I said, grinning at him. I turned my smile to Grady. “Thanks.” I looked around the bar. I was relieved that I didn't recognize anyone. I don't know why I thought I would, but the nervousness eased a bit. A group of middle-aged women playing a serious game of pool kept yelling at people who bumped into them. A cheerful cacophony of canned music came from a corner labeled Casino, its clean French doors separating it from the rest of the grubby bar.


“Here you go,” said the bartender, setting my drink down. “New around here?”


I picked up the glass and smiled. “Nah. I used to live here.”


“Oh? Whereabouts?” The bartender was wiping the counter around Grady, who was using his arms to hold his head up. A bearded, tough old man at the end of the bar was yelling, waving for him, but the bartender ignored him.


“West End,” I said. “Helmsville.”


“Shit,” he said. “Only reason to go to Hellville is because you don't want to be found.”


“I had weird parents,” I said, making my grin go wider, a million degrees of fake happiness.


“They still here?”


I looked toward the pool tables where a woman of sixty was waving a fist at a thirty-something man missing a few teeth.


“Nah,” I said, “not anymore. I’m just passing through.”


“Well, be safe,” said the bartender. “Yeah, I hear you, Al. Jesus, keep your shirt on.” He left to serve the other customers. I downed the shot, feeling better as the alcohol hit me. I turned the shot glass over and set it noisily on the bar.


“Well, Grady,” I said, turning to my new friend, sliding his wallet out of his back pocket as I pretended to rub his back. “It was awful nice to meet you. Now I have a little more driving to do.” I slid the wallet into my bag. I waved to the bartender, then, thinking better of it, palmed the cowboy hat off Grady's head and flipped it onto my own. A table of pudgy husbands out for the night started to clap and cheer. I raised my arms and grinned at them.


“Hey, have a drink with us!” said a short guy with a bushy mustache.


“Sorry,” I said, “I don't drink with married men. I'm virtuous that way.”


“Oh, come on, honey,” said his friend, putting an arm around mustache's sweaty shoulders. “He hasn't gotten laid all year.”


“I'm guessing he'll go another year just fine then,” I said, backing out the door as his friends choked with laughter. I got into the Honda and lit a cigarette, closing my eyes. “Easy as pie,” I said to myself, breathing out smoke. “Easy as pie.”


I pulled out of the bar and into the gas station, sidling up to the corner pump. St. Thomas was a crossroads. People passing through stopped here, the last place for food or gas for miles. It did an epic summer tourist trade. College kids were always starting summer adventuring businesses, taking rich white people rafting or fishing. Most of the locals depended on the mill. A few outliers lived here for the wild beauty and cheap property, but St. Thomas was at heart a logging and mill town.


And it always seemed like a distinct step up from Helmsville.


I pulled out Grady's wallet, sliding his credit card, pulling the sweaty cowboy hat over my eyes, and filling the tank. I took out the cash, around sixty bucks and a few bills. Then I slid out what looked like an ATM card, flipping it over and sighing at the four numbers written in permanent marker on the back. He'd written his PIN on the back of the card.


“Dammit, Grady,” I said, “you made it too easy.” I took the nozzle out of the tank and looked toward the convenience store. I could see cameras inside. Even if Grady did report his wallet stolen, the police probably wouldn't bother to check the feed. Still, I couldn't chance it. I was, after all, driving a stolen car. But I had a plan to solve that problem.


I froze, blinking, realizing I'd told the bartender the truth, too. Jesus, what was wrong with me? I’d always been self-destructive, but this was out of control. It was easy enough to lie, to make some untruth that sounded better than reality. Why did I keep telling people the truth? It was bad behavior and I had to stop.


I got in the car and drove through the four-way stop, pulling into the motel, slapping on a smile as I walked through the doors, the air conditioning feeling decadent after the bar. The girl behind the counter was wearing a little red bow tie, her hair tied in a tight ponytail, her eyes rimmed in thick, black eyeliner.


“Hey,” I said. “Can I use the ATM?”


She was chewing gum and looked me over. “Sure. Something wrong with the one across the street?”


“My old man kicked me out,” I said conspiratorially, taking off Grady’s hat and leaning toward her over the counter. “I'm going to drain his bank account. Those cameras real?”


She looked where I pointed and shrugged, blowing a bubble. “Nah. They're just for looks. He hit you?”


“For the last time,” I said.


“Fuck that asshole. Take everything he has.” She clenched her jaw, a hard look behind her eyes. “Get out of this shithole and go somewhere nice.”


“I hear California's good,” I said. I'd always dreamed of moving to Los Angeles after high school. California had seemed like a different world, an exotic land that wasn’t even in the same universe. But I hadn't even made it to the end of the school year. I frowned, sliding the card in the machine and punching in the numbers. This place was already pulling me back into my past.


“Shit, take me with you,” she said with a dry laugh. When I looked, she wasn't smiling.


I left Grady’s hat on the counter.



The road to the West End was treacherous at best, death-defying in the winter. But I cruised just above the speed limit, passing semi-trucks and RV's like I'd never left. Everything was familiar, even in the dark. Maybe especially in the dark. The twists and turns of the road, the shape of the trees against the almost-black sky. Even the crescent moon hanging high in the sky, black shadows crossing it quickly, blocking its light just for a moment. Ravens. It all felt too familiar, too close. They call it Big Sky Country, but I felt claustrophobic. Chain smoking now, I lit another cigarette.

Like I'd never left.


I knew where I was going by heart, even still. I'd traveled this dirt road a thousand times, walking, on my bike, a few times on a snowmobile, and later in my father's car. These old logging roads didn't have names and that's the way people liked it. Away from the world. Anonymous. My headlights didn't start to penetrate the darkness. Tree roots raised up the road in spots, disturbing the packed dirt of summer. In winter, the road was only discernible by tire tracks in the snow
—when there were any. In spring the snow melted and turned the dirt into miles and miles of cold, cloying mud that sucked the boots off your feet.

And I was back. I felt sick and exhausted and ready to scream. But I swallowed it down and kept my eyes on the road. I knew where I was going, and that would have to be enough right now.

It was cold and I turned on the heat, but the air duct spewed a rotting smell, so I cut the heat and cracked the window. Up one last hill and around the last patch of trees, and there I was. The house was lit up like a beacon, and at first looked just as I remembered. I saw movement behind the curtains and I turned off the car, watching. From the house, 70s rock music rattled the windshield of the Honda.


As my eyes adjusted, I could see seven junk cars in front. One broken upstairs window was patched up with cardboard and duct tape. A Confederate flag covered what I knew to be the living room window.


I'd been careless lately, but that's not what this was. This was a calculated risk. The only person I'd ever known who could lose a car without a trace was inside that house. He was also the only person I could scare into keeping it a secret. The only person in this town who owed me.


And hell if he didn’t owe me big.


I got out of the car and started walking, then I was knocking on the weathered door that was peeling paint, the gray wood cracking underneath. I could hear voices inside, I couldn't tell how many with the music. I knocked again, louder this time, and the music stopped and the inside lights went out, leaving an oppressive silence in the darkness, the only light a watery bulb that barely lit the front step. I heard the voices again, and could tell there were only two of them. There was a sound like glass breaking.


“Shawn!” I called through the door, though I knew he was probably just on the other side. He would hear a whisper. “I know you're in there. Open the goddamn door.”


“Who is it?” said a woman.


“A blast from the past,” I said. “Just open up.”


I could hear bickering coming from inside in a stage whisper and rolled my eyes.


“I don't have time for this, Shawn. Open the door.”


The door opened a crack, revealing the darkness within. Then a ratty face with greasy, bleached hair emerged, a woman who hadn't eaten a square meal in months. She curled her lip, an attempt to look mean, I guessed. She looked me up and down.


“Who the fuck are you?”


“Is Shawn here?” I said, out of patience. It was taking everything I had not to just kick down the rickety door and haul the rat-faced woman out into the cold by her drug store dye job.


“He's here,” she said. “You can talk to me. I'm his wife.”


“Of course you are,” I said. “Tell him Frankie's come back from the dead.”


But someone was pulling the door open all the way and
Shawn Delaney finally showed his face. The years had not been kind. He was wearing a blue bandanna over dirty hair that went to his bare shoulders, his jeans crusted with something I couldn't make out in the dim light. He had a bad homemade tattoo on his chest, meant to be a St. Thomas eagle, but looking more like a deranged pigeon. He'd been cute in high school, but now he had a bloated stomach and when he smiled nervously, I could see blackening teeth and rotten gums.


“Shit,” he said, dropping his can of Schmidt Ice. Cheap beer foamed up and splattered the woman's bare legs and she jumped back.


“Shawn!” she screeched, “Jesus!”


“Shit,” he said again, still staring at me.


“Got a minute?” I said. He nodded dumbly. “You'd better step out. I don't want to know what you got going in there. Your dad always kept it so nice.”


“He died a couple years back,” Shawn said, blinking.


“Sorry. He was good to me.”


“Excuse me,” said the woman. “What the fuck is going on here? Who is this bitch?”


“Watch it, honey,” I said. “Not enough meth in the world for you to take me on.”


“Ellie, calm down,” said Shawn, seeming to notice his wife for the first time. “Go check on the kids, baby. This is just an old
friend of mine.”


“Kids?” I said.


“Kids?” said Ellie. “Some blonde bitch shows up and you just want me to go check on the kids? I will divorce you, Shawn. You will not leave this house.”


“Baby, we're common law,” Shawn whined.


“I still have rights.”


“It's business,” I said. “He did a job for me years back. Just came to pick up my merchandise.”


“Oh,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “You owe him money?”


“More like he owes me.” Shawn swallowed hard.


“Shit, how much?” Ellie said, aiming her glare at Shawn now.


“We're going to settle in a trade,” I said. “Don't worry.”


“Trade? What, like sex?”


I laughed before catching myself.


“That's funny?” said Ellie.


“No, definitely not sex. Shawn?”


“Just go in the house, honey. I'll be back in a minute.”


“Well, okay then. But no sex, Shawn, you hear me?”


“I hear you, baby. You're the only one for me.”


Reluctantly, Ellie closed the door. And it was just my old boyfriend and me. He stared at me. I lit a cigarette, ignoring him, giving him a second.


“Hey, Shawn,” I said. I examined the cherry on my cigarette, blew smoke through my nose. He had track marks on his arms that he rubbed at nervously.


“Is that really you?” he said finally. “Frankie?”


“Yep.”


“Are you...real?”


I finally looked at him. “Not a ghost. See?” I reeled back and smacked his face, catching him off guard, making him teeter off the front step onto the grass.


“Fuck!”


“That's for what you said to the reporters about me,” I said, taking another drag, looking down at him. “I still owe you for what you said to the cops.”


“How are you here? How the fuck are you alive?”


I crouched down. “I'm not. Boo!”


“I'm not hallucinating,” he said slowly. “Ellie saw you, too.”


“You need to cut the crank, dumbass,” I said. “You look like shit.”


“You look amazing. I mean, for someone who's dead.”


“Thanks,” I said. “You have my dad's car?”


“I haven't touched it,” he said quickly. “I swear.”


I raised an eyebrow. “You sure about that?”


“I was too scared. After what happened with...after what happened. I didn't even tell your mom when she was here. It still has
the same tarp from ten years ago.”


“Wait a minute,” I said. “My mother was here? Recently?”


He shrugged. “Couple months ago, I think. It was a few weeks after you...” He swallowed, his eyes welling, his brow furrowing.
He was either scared or about to soil himself.


“After I died.”


He nodded slowly. “Shit.” He rubbed his face. “Shit, what’s happening?”


“What did she want?”


“Who?”


“My mom, goddammit.”


“Oh! She was yelling some crazy shit, Frank. Like, really weird shit, how I stole your body from the morgue. I thought she was batshit. She was always kind of funny, anyway, you know?” When I didn't answer he turned his face away, frowning. When he looked back, he looked scared again. “I guess she wasn't so crazy, after all. You're standing here. Somebody must have stolen your body and done some science shit to it, right?”


“Something like that,” I said. “Except no one stole me, Shawn. I stood up and walked right out of that morgue. And if you tell anyone, I'll kill you. Understood?”


“I ain't telling no one, I swear.” A fragile smile spread across his face. “But it's pretty rad, right? I mean, you're back from the dead. That makes you immortal or some shit.”


“Damn straight,” I lied. “I need you to do me a favor.”


“A favor?” His smile faded.


“You see that car? The Honda?” He nodded. “Can you get rid of it?”


“Is that all?” he said. “Shit yeah, I can do that. Easy.”


“It's stolen.”


“Whose car ain't?”


“Just give me my dad's car and I'll leave,” I said. “And after you get rid of the Honda, you can pretend I'm dead again and it’ll be like tonight never happened.”


“Frankie?”


“What?”


“I'm real sorry. About everything.”


“Me too, Shawn.”


As he led me around, towards the shop, I heard him exclaim under his breath.


“What?” I said.


“That's weird.” He squinted toward the shop. As we got closer the motion detector lights came on, flooding what used to be a yard, but was now knapweed and garbage. The lights revealed what Shawn had seen in the dark, and he watched, open-mouthed as a half dozen ravens exploded off the roof of the shop and into the trees.


“I never seen ravens at night before,” he said. “I didn't think they were nocturnal.”


​“You learn something new every day,” I said.


MONSTROUS
Blood of Cain, Book One

Pre-order now on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LXZQ9XO

Frankie Mourning died on a Thursday. Then she came back.

Tasked with killing the killers - people with the blood of Cain running through their veins - Frankie always gets her murderer. But this time it's different. This time she has to go home. Something strange is happening in Helmville, Montana. People are dying at an alarming rate, and the sheriff is ruling them all accidents and suicides. Nothing is as it seems and Frankie soon finds herself sucked into the tangled and seemingly supernatural mystery. Because the people acting strangely, the people killing everyone around her are haunting the mirrors. Now Frankie's own reflection is behaving strangely and seems hellbent on causing her harm.

In a world enmeshed in remote beauty, dark magic, and violent memories, Frankie feels lost. Luckily, a detective on the run for murder shows up. Thomas Dekker wants to help and claims he cares about Frankie. But daring to trust him could cost her everything.



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Gregory A. Wilson: FACE TO FACE, COLLEAGUE TO COLLEAGUE

12/1/2016

1 Comment

 
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Please welcome Gregory A. Wilson to the blog! Take it away, Gregory.


I’ve been awfully busy this year. Besides the arrival of my son—who is a bit of a time sink—I’ve had two books come out, in addition to my normal professional life. The bad news is that, as we all know, time is a finite resource, one which I had precious little of to begin with; adding more things to do just divides the available pie further. The good news is I’ve learned some things along the way—and found help in surprising places.

My promotional activities basically take two forms: the first was my online presence, conducted through social media and my Twitch channel, where I’ve been broadcasting games and commentary with a focus on story and narrative since 2012. I’ve spoken about that elsewhere, so here I’ll focus on the second set of promotional activities: the offline world, manifested in conferences, conventions, workshops, and the like. I’ve done a decent number of these over the years, but in 2016 I took it up a notch: twelve cons in all, from Seattle to Toronto to Orlando to Ottawa and many places in between, ranging from large events with tens of thousands of attendees to ones with a few hundred. The feel of these differ; the Comic Cons, for instance, have a great deal of energy and offer a lot of exposure, but don’t necessarily much focus on writing per se, although there’s interest in a good story when coupled with good artwork. On the other hand, more traditional conferences with a literary focus like CanCon or Readercon are smaller, but the interest level in the attending authors tends to be higher, as many of the attendees are aspiring authors (or at least avid readers) themselves. And finally there are the gaming conventions with strong writing tracks, like Origins or Gen Con, which can often be a good blend of energy and author interest.

Two takeaway lessons from this experience: first, have product available, even if the con in question isn’t a big sales driver. Word of mouth is powerful, and under the right circumstances can open professional doors. I did a reading with Ed Greenwood years ago at Ad Astra, and after doing a couple more panels and the like, had a short story in a collection edited by Ed and Gabrielle Harbowy. Later, Ed invited me to take part in his new publishing venture; that eventually became The Ed Greenwood Group, and led to a contract for my Gray Assassin Trilogy, the first book of which was just released. None of that would have happened without the initial face to face contact, and being able to hand Ed something (“here’s the story I just read, in case you’re interested”) helped in that regard. Beyond having product, you need to be prepared: if you seem to know what you’re talking about on a panel, it’s much more likely that people in the audience or fellow panelists will want to know more about you, and to check out the product you’ve got.

Second, be aware of what you’re doing in that environment. Yes, you’re building exposure, creating buzz, and networking with other editors and authors—but demonstrating a general interest in those people before immediately turning to your own work is important. Everyone at these events knows that everyone else is working on something, and that discussion will almost always happen at some point during a social interaction. But no one wants to have someone doing the equivalent of waving a business card as they come up to a group of friends chatting about other things. If you’re genuinely interested in what your colleagues are doing—and you should be, because you can learn a great deal from everyone, even if they’re not writing in your particular subgenre—and demonstrate that interest, the opportunity will eventually come to talk about your own work. And when the opportunity does come, have something ready to say—not “oh, uh, yeah, I’m working on a book. Yep. It’s fantasy,” but rather: “Yes, I’m working on a dark fantasy, about an assassin who kills in the name of his god—kind of Jason Bourne meets Assassin’s Apprentice. It’s the first in a series, and I’m pretty happy with how it’s going.” Now you’ve given the person something specific to latch on to, and if they’re an agent or editor (or know an agent or editor—and all of us do) who is looking for something like that, you’ve got a foot in the door.

The most important thing in all of this is to understand your professional status and how best to deploy it. Yes, you want to be cordial, polite, and engaging—you want to be friendly with and interested in others, not just for its own sake but because everyone likes nice people who seem to like them. But you also want to recognize that in this setting, you’re a professional author (or an author with professional aspirations), and that means you’re a potential colleague, not just a fan. In my case, I had an academic background which helped me to feel more settled when chatting with these giants in the speculative fiction field; internally it was hard not to be kind of awestruck (“holy cow, Ed freaking Greenwood!”), but externally I (hopefully successfully) tried to play it reasonably cool, positioning myself as a person with professional credentials who was interested in deepening my involvement in the field. Outward presentation does make a difference, in this world like any other.

​Obviously an online presence is critical, and it’s important to maintain and develop such a presence over time. But the offline, face to face contacts are still critical, and can help distinguish you in the minds of other professionals in the field. That it also happens to be exciting, fun, and sometimes an amazing (Ed freaking Greenwood!) experience is just icing on the cake.


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​Gregory A. Wilson is Professor of English at St. John’s University in New York City, where he teaches creative writing and fantasy fiction along with various other courses in literature. His first academic book was published by Clemson University Press in 2007; on the creative side, he has won an award for a national playwriting contest, and his first novel, a work of fantasy entitled The Third Sign, was published by Gale Cengage in the summer of 2009. His second novel, Icarus, will be published as a graphic novel by Silence in the Library Publishing in 2016, and he has just signed a three book deal with The Ed Greenwood Group, which will be publishing his Gray Assassin Trilogy beginning with his third novel, Grayshade, in 2016.  He has short stories out in various anthologies, including Time Traveled Tales from Silence in the Library, When The Villain Comes Home, edited by Ed Greenwood and Gabrielle Harbowy, and Triumph Over Tragedy, alongside authors like Robert Silverberg and Marion Zimmer Bradley, and he has had three articles published in the SFWA Bulletin.

He is a regular panelist at conferences across the country and is a member of the Gen Con Writers’ Symposium, the Origins Library, Codex, Backspace, and several other author groups on and offline.  On other related fronts, he did character work and flavor text for the hit fantasy card game Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer, and along with fellow speculative fiction author Brad Beaulieu is the co-host of the critically-acclaimed podcast Speculate! The Podcast for Writers, Readers and Fans, a show which discusses (and interviews the creators and illustrators of) speculative fiction of all sorts and types.  He lives with his wife Clea and daughter Senavene–named at his wife’s urging for a character in The Third Sign, for which his daughter seems to have forgiven him–in Riverdale, NY.

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Amber Bird: Music Made Me

11/30/2016

1 Comment

 

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As part of a new series, I'll be showcasing some new and established authors here on my blog. The first is Amber Bird. I first met Amber when I was invited to be a guest at her book release party, and she is delightful. Enjoy.


​MUSIC MADE ME

In my life, music and books have always been intertwined. I grew up in a home where there were bookshelves full of sci-fi and fantasy and there was always music on the stereo. I have spent as many hours of my life as possible reading whilst listening to music. Every daydream and seed of story since I was a child has come as if summoned by a song I was listening to. It’s no surprise, then, that I find my own writing is tied up with music.

The initial image of
Peace Fire, my forthcoming book, came when reading Fool’s Run by Patricia McKillip. I honestly couldn’t tell you what the image I got has to do with that book, but the fact that there’s a band in that book made it seem important and, by commutative properties, made the image it put in my head seem important.

The first mental sketches, where there were action and characters instead of just the image of the main character’s home, were something like music videos. A song would come on that fit the mood of the emerging story, and my brain would flash the whole thing at me in an abbreviated way that fit the timing of the song.


Before I even sat down to write out my plot overview years ago, I made a playlist to write it to, filled with songs that fit the mood I thought I’d be writing for. Once that was done, I put the playlist on a loop and poured out a 20,000 word sketch, my fingers pounding out words to the same beat as the songs. I can read that sketch and still bob my head to the music.


Soon after, when I looked at the landscape of my life and realized I only had enough in me to pursue one creative endeavor, I chose music. And, when I was writing a song where the mood and emotions called up images that were from
Peace Fire, I wrote the lyrics that I thought would be the closest that story ever came to being told. Even the alternate versions we made and have discussed for the song (Tied to My Chair, for any fans of the band who’re reading) were influenced by the story. No surprise the book trailer for Peace Fire uses one of those versions and is quite like a music video.

Following the path of music actually prepared me to write prose, not just lyrics and poetry. It was learning how to truly work on art, playing just a piece of a song over and over for hours to get it right or analyzing a song figure out why it was or wasn’t working, that made me able to sit down and do the work or analyze what I’d written. It was learning how to work with other people, something that I dreaded in group projects but could manage in a band, that allowed me to write stories where more than just one person saved the day. It was learning how to keep my audience in mind while creating something true to me that helped me understand what a writing teacher had meant when she told me that, once I decided who my audience were, I would be a great writer. It was learning how to let bandmates or producers suggest changes to my lyrics without getting hurt that let me take feedback from readers and editors.


It was finally seeing something I’d created out in the world that reminded me art didn’t have to be fine art to do good for someone other than me and that made me resolve to not leave my stories untold.


I sat down and made a new playlist quickly, and I started writing. And then I made another playlist, because making music had also taught me it’s no good when every song sounds the same or has the same mood, and it’s no good when every scene in a book feels the same. I needed scenes that went with industrial beats, but I also needed scenes that had quieter or more emotional soundtracks.


Music had also taught me that a world of non-stop winning (happy songs all the time!) feels false and isn’t satisfying. I gritted my teeth and prepared to let bad things happen to my beloved characters.


I lined up playlists, grateful that an MP3 player meant I didn’t have to interrupt my writing regularlys to change CDs or records. I pushed play and I wrote. I let songs carry me through pauses, remind me of the state of the world in the 2050 where my characters lived, and help me feel the way the drum would drive them to action when things didn’t go as expected. I even, finishing up a writing day at 4am, let the songs pull a scene out of me that I had meant to gloss over.


Thinking about the music they would enjoy helped me get to know my characters better. I wish I had been able to make the albums they would listen to in their near future. I’m glad that some of them like “oldies” from the 1970s through the 2010s. To apologize for the hard and sometimes horrible things they would go through, I filled their world with music, and that let me feel enough better that I could follow through when the plot called for bad times.


As a nice side benefit, the music also made me stop sometimes for spontaneous dance parties (there are some songs my hips can’t resist) so that I didn’t just sit in a chair for 12 or more hours every day.


In the end, fiction and music are just two different ways to tell the stories that slip and slide the inside of my skull. If the future is, as my book predicts, a little greyer, it’s the fiction and music that will keep me having good days.

​


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In 2050, the world is a little denser, a little greyer, and a little more firmly under the corporate thumb. Wriggling carefully under that thumb, in their dimly lit flats, Katja and her friends have tended to walk the fine line between cyber criminals and cyber crusaders. For them, no physical reality compares to their lives built on lines of aggressive code.

But then somebody blows up the office where Katja is pretending to be a well-behaved wage slave and jolts them into the concrete and clouds of corporeal Seattle. Of brains infiltrated by a clandestine threat.

Can a handful of digital warriors win a war that stretches into the world on the flesh and blood side of their computer screens?

"A smart, fun, fierce tale of geek revolution and high-stakes adventure."
-Ernest Cline, Bestselling Author of Ready Player One

Amber Bird is a writer, a rockstar, and a scifi girl. She is the author of the Peaceforger books, the front of post-punk/post-glam band Varnish, and an unabashed geek. An autistic introvert who found that music, books, and gaming saved her in many ways throughout her life, she writes (books, poems, lyrics, blogs) and makes music in hopes of adding to someone else's escape or rescue. And, yes, she was on that Magic card.
1 Comment

Exclusive Excerpt: MONSTROUS

10/30/2016

0 Comments

 
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Monstrous won't be out until December, but I thought some of you might like to read the first chapter. It's an odd, dark book, with lots of sex, murder and mayhem. Please do let me know if you like what you read, and feel free to pre-order Monstrous here!

​
Without further ado, the first chapter of Monstrous.


chapter one


I died on a Thursday.

The thing about dying is, no one ever comes back. Not really. Even if all your parts are put back together—even if you’re walking around breathing, talking, screwing—it’s never the same again. Part of you is always going to wonder if the world is real, if you’re still lying on a gurney somewhere bleeding out. Or, in my case, pocked full of holes from lethal injection and forgotten in a cooler.

I died on a Thursday, and three days later I woke up.

When I walked out of the motel, the sun was coming up. I pulled a pack of Lucky Strikes from the pocket of my leather jacket and tapped one out. My lighter was dying and my hands were shaking, so it took a couple tries to get it to ignite. I pulled in the smoke and closed my eyes, the northern Wisconsin air already hot and humid, even this early. The keys in my back pocket bulged and I scanned the parking lot for Jimmy Wayne Frasier's car. My eyes slid over a Camry, an F10 pickup truck, recently washed, and then froze on a rusty Chevy Nova, a pair of ratty fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view.

“Jimmy, you're so goddamn predictable,” I said, letting the cigarette dangle from my lips as I fished out the keys. I pushed a pile of fast food wrappers and beer cans off the front seat into the parking lot as I drove away. I didn't know where I was going, but it didn't matter. They would find me. They'd find me and tell me where to go next. I looked at my hands on the grimy steering wheel, ragged from my work, blood caked under my fingernails.

Jimmy Wayne Frasier was a serial killer. Emphasis on was. I’d tracked him to the motel where he had no fewer than three dead prostitutes carefully arranged on the floor. And when Jimmy, slovenly and slow, lunged for the gun lying on the bed, I had him hogtied on the floor before he even knew what was happening.

He figured it out soon enough.

“Please call the cops,” he had blubbered. “Please. I don’t understand.”

“I don't completely understand it myself,” I admitted. “I'm dead, Jimmy. But soon you will be, too.”

I watched him squirm, shaking his arms frantically behind him, as I pulled a wicked little fillet knife out of my belt and walked slowly toward him. He was crying.

“Aw, Jimmy Wayne,” I lowered the knife with a sigh and straddled the chair, facing him. “This isn't fun for me, I promise you that. I'm not what you'd call a happy person, if you get my meaning. I've done some bad things in my life. Maybe even worse than the shit you've been doing.” I looked over at the dead women on the floor and wrinkled my nose. “Though not as gross.”

I got up and stretched, my knife still in my hand. I saw Jimmy looking at it and sat back down, leaned forward. “I don’t get a chance to talk to many people, Jimmy. If I could get some much-needed psychiatric therapy, I’d jump at the chance. God knows, I need it. But what would I tell them? They’d have me socked up in the crazy house before I even got to the good part. Either that, or they’d toss me back on Death Row.” I shrugged. “That wouldn’t be so bad. In the end, I got what was coming to me. I was fine with it. Dying. But then I woke up. You believe that shit, Jimmy? I fucking woke up from being dead. And I know I was really dead, because I know that's what you're wondering. You're thinking, either I'm crazy or messing with you, am I right?”

Jimmy was a puddle of tears now. His latex-gloved hands were scrunched into balls and his face looked like a big pink prune. I stood up and he became agitated again, struggling against the rope. I raised my shirt, pointing to my belly and tracing the scar up to the middle of the Y-incision.

“This is how they do an autopsy, Jimmy. Which I'm sure you know because of your dead people thing. Also gross.” I pulled my shirt back down and picked up the knife. “I guess I got autopsied, no other explanation. Don't ask me how I'm still walking around. Maybe I'm a zombie, or a vampire. But I just keep getting hungry, thirsty, my heart's still beating, and I still have to...you know. Go to the bathroom. Was that too much information?” I watched him, shaking his head, his eyes red from crying, clear snot dripping out of his nose. “Jimmy, it's really too bad I have to kill you. You should know, you're not the only one. And none of this is really your fault. I mean, it is, but all you people are like this. You just acted on it.”

I shrugged. “Well, it's been fun, Jimmy Wayne. You are a fantastic listener. It's been a while since I've talked to anyone like this. But I came here to do a job, so I guess the question is: Are you ready?”


The Nova's full tank of gas got me all the way to the village of DeForest, outside of Madison. I fueled up with Jimmy's credit card, smiling pretty for the camera pointed at the gas tanks. I parked next door at a Culver's, ducking into the bathroom to wash my hands before grabbing two burgers and a custard shake to go. Heading south. The sun was high now and I shed my leather jacket. But even with all the windows cranked open, I was still sweating. And after a while, the fast food wrappers sweating grease in the sun made my stomach turn.

The sun was sinking below the horizon, the sky a violent orange by the time I reached the outskirts of a city. I pulled into the first shady bar I could find, eyeing the shabby motel next door, its “Vacancy” sign lit up like a beacon. I stretched as I got out of the Nova, parked far in the back of the small parking lot.

I wiped down the surfaces, taking what little cash Jimmy had in his wallet and ditching the rest. Leaving the keys in the ignition, I grabbed my duffel bag and pulled on my jacket, even though it was still hot as hell. I was out of smokes, and smelled like an animal. I slipped into the bathroom in the dark, smoky bar.

I looked in the mirror and cursed. I cleaned up, trying to drag a comb through my tangled hair. I pulled a clean shirt out of my bag, shoving the sweat and blood-stained tank top into the bottom. I desperately needed a shower, but I wanted a drink more. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail, fishing a stick of deodorant out of my bag. I smiled at my reflection, blinking as something moved in the corner of my eye in the mirror. I spun to look behind me, but there was nothing there.

“I need sleep,” I muttered, smoothing my hair one last time. I'd been up too long. Even my reflection looked weird to me now. I walked out into the bar, freezing for a second at the dozen or so people. A couple of rough-looking old guys playing pool looked up and stared at me. I ignored them and slipped onto a stool. The woman behind the bar was wearing blue eyeliner and smoking a Newport. She didn't even put the cigarette down before coming over.

“What are you drinking, honey?” she said.

“Maker's Mark and Coke,” I said, flashing her a big smile. If I was going to waste Jimmy's cash on booze, I might as well get the good stuff. “And don't go easy on the Maker's.”

“Long drive?” she said, looking me over.

I zipped up my jacket and shrugged. “Not too bad. You got Lucky Strikes?”

She nodded across the bar. “There's a machine. Use quarters. It steals dollar bills.”

I changed what was left after the drink for quarters and walked over to the cigarette machine.

“What's your poison?” said a voice. I looked around and saw a man sitting at a table next to the machine. He was reclining, with his feet up on another chair, a brown drink in his hand.

“Luckies,” I said. “Looks like I'm out of luck.”

“That's funny,” he said without laughing. “Unfiltered?”

“Yeah.”

“Hell of a choice for a girl.”

I gave him a cold stare. “You’re a peach, aren’t you?”

“Shit,” he said, looking down at his glass. “I'm sorry. I've been drinking this swill for two hours. I'm not usually a dick.”

“Rough day?” I said.

“Rough life.”

“That makes two of us.” I put my quarters in and punched the knob for Camels. I pounded the pack in my hand, smiling. “See you around.”

“Wait,” the guy said, standing. He wasn't half bad when he wasn't skulking in the shadows. Under the five o'clock shadow and the dirty tee shirt, he was lean with dark eyes that he fixed on me. “Let me buy you a drink.” His face, dead serious until this point, broke into a half-grin, dimples appearing on his cheeks. “Please.”

“Why?” I said.

“Because I want to sleep with you.” He stepped out from behind the table and walked toward me, stumbling only a little. He
smiled that half smile again and something stirred inside me.

“I'm just passing through,” I said.

“So am I.”

“I won't give you my number.”

“I won't ask for it.”

He was close to me now, his eyes a little bloodshot, but he was warm and alive and I could see myself forgetting about the world in him for a few hours. I smiled. Not the big country girl smile I'd given the bartender. It was a different kind of smile that made the guy's charming half-grin falter and sent the pulse in his throat jumping. He reached towards my hip but I grabbed his wrist. His arm was muscular and I saw the lines of a military tattoo in the dim light. He was stronger than me, but he let me hold his wrist, his dark eyes glimmering with a look I recognized.

“No promises,” I said. “Buy me a few drinks first, and I'll let you rent me a room at that flea-infested hole-in-the-wall next door.”
His smile came back, his eyes still fixed on mine. He pulled a hand out of his pocket, a big blue tag on a key ring reading “Starlight Motel” in silver letters.

“Already done,” he said. “I'm Thomas Dekker, what's your name?”

“Nice to meet you, Tommy,” I said. “I’m Frankie Mourning. Let's get that drink.”


The truth was, booze didn't do a whole lot for me anymore. I'd tried everything to quiet my head and have a few hours of peace. Uppers made it worse. They also made me chatty, which was dangerous in my line of work. Weed slowed me down. Ecstasy may as well have been an energy drink, and opiates made me feel like I had bugs crawling through my scars. There was no oblivion for me. I was still myself, no matter what I took. Alcohol was the only thing that made the nightmare end and let me get a few hours sleep, as long as I drank it fast enough.

Tommy Dekker bought me six drinks, though he himself stopped drinking after three. And by the time we stumbled toward his motel room around midnight, he felt pretty damn good to me. When he kissed me in the parking lot, his lips were hot and hungry, and he felt firm when I put my hand against his chest.

“What are you, a gym rat?” I said breathlessly.

“On the job training,” he panted, pulling me against him again. I jumped up, grinding myself into his hips, my legs around his waist, and he carried me across the parking lot, only taking his tongue out of my mouth when he dropped the key at the front door.

When we burst through the door, we fell against the wall, where he pinned me, unbuttoning my pants as I pulled off his shirt. He kissed me hard and I shoved him down onto the bed, my whole body vibrating.

“I should take a shower,” I said.

“Later.” He grabbed my waist and pulled me on top of him. I straddled him, pulling off my coat and tossing it into a chair. I unbuttoned his jeans and he started to pull up my shirt.

“No,” I whispered, pulling it back down. “Anything but my shirt.”

“Why?” he said.

“You can touch me inside my shirt,” I said, “but it's not coming off.”

“What about your pants?”

“Those are coming off right now.” But he was already pulling them off, tipping me backwards on the bed. I laughed, but his face was dead serious again, and in a heartbeat, he had his own pants off and was on top of me. I moved to kiss him, but he took my hands, lacing his fingers through mine and pressing my arms down onto the bed.

“Wait,” he whispered. His breath smelled like good bourbon, sweet and rich. His nose was nearly touching mine, and the streetlight filtering through the dirty lace curtains shone on his face. “Wait,” he said again, and I found it hard to breathe. “I just want to look at you for a second.” His dark eyes were too close, his face too solemn.

“Come on, let's do this,” I said, wrapping my legs around him. But he didn't move, he just stared at me.

“God, you're beautiful,” he said.

“Shut up and do me,” I said, laughing. But he didn't laugh. He unlaced his fingers from my left hand and touched my face.

“Okay, enough.” I took his wrist from my face. “We'll do this my way now.” I pushed him off of me and climbed on top of him.
He didn't resist. But he kept watching me. Those goddamn eyes were burning into me so hot and fierce that I couldn't breathe. I lowered myself onto him, arching my back as he arched his. He didn't close his eyes, watching me. Not looking away, watching, watching me ride him like my salvation depended on it.

The climax came fast and hard and I felt him give way at the exact same moment. We buried our cries in each other's mouths, in a kiss that was too intimate. It felt like I was telling him my secrets, like he knew me now.

I rolled off and lay panting and looking at the water stained ceiling.

“Jesus Christ, Tommy,” I said.

“People don't really call me that,” he said, out of breath.

“What do they call you?”

“Dekker.”

“Is that what you want me to call you?”

He looked over and smiled his sexy half smile.

“You can call me anything you want, Frankie Mourning.”

“I'm going to call you Tommy,” I said. “Mind if I take a shower now?”


Tommy was passed out when I got back. I slid into the bed as quietly as I could. His face was relaxed in sleep. I knew I should go. I knew I should split before they found Jimmy Wayne Frasier's car. But I was so tired. I couldn't remember the last time I slept more than an hour, maybe two days ago? Three? I leaned back onto the pillows and watched Thomas Dekker sleep. He had tattoos all over his chest and upper arms. I couldn't make them out, even with the light from the parking lot. Marines, maybe. His hair was cut short, a dark brown color, and stood up in front. He had an eyelash on his cheek.

I raised my hand in the dark and was about to brush it away, but he opened his eyes. I pulled my hand back as he watched me.

“Why won't you take your shirt off?” he said.

“Bad heart,” I said. “I have scars.”

“So?”

“I didn't want you to see. They're ugly.”

“They busted you open?” he said.

“You could say that,” I said. “I'm lucky they put everything back where it belongs.”

“Are you okay now?”

“Healthy as a horse,” I said.

He lifted a muscled arm. “Come here.”

I frowned. “Where?”

“You don't want me to put my arm around you?”

I shrugged. “If you're into that.”

I moved into the space he made, flattening my body against him and felt his arm pull me in.

“See, that wasn't so bad,” he said. His eyes were closed. I wondered how many drinks he'd had today. It was admirable that he mostly kept up with me.

“I'm not usually the cuddling type.”

“Neither am I,” he said, his voice heavy with sleep. “Stay with me tonight, okay?”

“It's either that or hitchhike,” I said.

“Which are you leaning towards?”

“I guess you'll do. There are killers out there.”

“That there are. Where you headed?”

“I don't know,” I said. “Maybe east.”

“You don't know where you're going?”

“I'm waiting for a sign.”

“I'll give you a ride,” he said. “I'm going to New York in the morning. I've got a shitty Civic, so it's not the lap of luxury or anything.”

“But,” I said, motioning around the motel room, “I've grown accustomed to such finery.”

“Buck up, princess,” he said. “I'll treat you like a queen.”

I don't remember falling asleep, but it was still dark when my eyes flew open, my heart beating fast. I looked around the room, getting my bearings, my eyes moving to Dekker. He was deep in an alcohol-induced sleep. I wondered if he'd even remember me in the morning. I inched out of bed and went into the bathroom, relieving myself and then drinking straight out of the faucet. I caught my reflection in the mirror and turned away. I was about to get back into bed when I heard it.

“Frankie,” came the whisper, so familiar that it hurt.

“No,” I said. “Not again. Just let me sleep.”

“Frankie,” it came again, loud and close and inside my head. “Frankie come outside. Come, come, come. Come out, Frankie Mourning and get your redemption.”

I slipped my jeans on in the dark. I couldn't find my shirt, so I pulled on Tommy's followed by my coat and boots. I left the door ajar, peeking another look at Tommy as I slipped out.

It was a clear night, but the stars were just out of view, the city illuminating the sky with a dirty light. I pulled out a Camel and lit it, walking around the corner of the motel. A raven squawked as it landed on a rusty pickup truck. It watched me out of one beady eye as I passed. The wraiths liked dark places, so I needed to find the shadows, even in a shady, sleazy place like this.

“Hey,” I said, walking behind the motel. There was an empty lot, surrounded with a barbed wire fence, my boots crunching on gravel. “Where are you, you creepy shit?”

“That's not very nice, nice, nice,” said a voice in my head. I spun and it was crouching in front of me, seeming to bleed into the shadows. I took a drag of my cigarette and blew out smoke.

“I was sleeping,” I said. “I haven't slept in days.”

“Maybe you don't deserve to sleep,” it said. This one's voice wasn't male or female, though most times it was usually one or the other. They liked to sneak up on you when your back was turned. As far as I could tell, it was a different one every time, though having never seen their faces, I couldn't have said for sure. I called them wraiths, but I didn't think they really had names. The raven watched us from atop the barbed wire, cocking its strange little head in the semi-darkness.

The wraith crouching in front of me was covered head to toe in a hooded cloak that seemed a part of its body. The edges were indiscernible, as if it could melt into the darkness at any moment. I couldn't see its face, either, the space under the hood unnaturally dark. I sometimes wondered if there would even be anything there if I ripped the cloak off. I also wondered if the wraiths were really there. Maybe I was just imagining all this. It was a pretty thought.

But I touched the Y-shaped scar that wound its way down my breastbone and I remembered the first night I woke up. I was pretty sure I wasn't making all this up, because if anything was real, it was pain. And those first days had been nothing but agony.

“Stop staring at me,” I said. “What do you want?”

“Touchy,” it said, voice echoing in my skull. “Seems I pulled you from lover's bliss, bliss, bliss.”

“Fuck you.”

The raven squawked, as if in agreement.

“You can't keep him, Frankie. You're not exactly girlfriend material.”

“I'm not trying to keep him, asshole. Now tell me what you want.”

“It's what you want, Frankie. Redemption, remember? It's why you're alive. Mostly, mostly alive.”

“Yeah,” I said quietly. I dropped my cigarette onto the gravel and ground it out with the toe of my boot. “Yeah, I know. You creeps remind me every time. So where are you sending me?”

“We need you to do something a little different,” said the wraith. “Something a little outside of your pay grade, grade, grade.”

“I don't get paid.”

“That's not true. You're working toward a goal.”

“Yeah, like a company store,” I said. “With no indication of how long I have to do this or how many it's going to take to be done.”

“Even if you're never done,” said the wraith, “it's a better deal than where you'd be headed if we let you stay dead, stay dead.”

“Says you,” I said. “So what's this next job? And what do you mean, something different? Worse than a killer? Because that last guy killed a whole lot of hookers. It's worse than that?”

“You'll think it's worse.”

“Just tell me what the job is then, Morticia,” I said. “Or we could stand around yapping all night.”

“You have to go home,” it said.

“Home?” I said. “I don't have a home, I'm fucking dead.”

“You had one once,” said the wraith. “Your best place, and your worst place. All those trees and fresh air scrambling your brains. Where it all happened. The beginning of the end, end, end.”

“Oh, no,” I said, bile rising in my throat. “I'm not going back there.”

“You are,” it said. “You must.”

“I died, remember? Someone will recognize me.”

“You left ten years ago and your family never left their mountain. No one will know you.”

“I went to school.”

“Have a lot of friends, friends there? Besides, we know you only attended school for a few months. Before, before, before.”

I glared at the wraith. “Don't do this. Pick someone else. You must have other people doing this besides me. Anyone else.”

“You're the only one, one, one,” said the wraith. “Boss's orders.”

“Tell the boss to fuck off.”

“You don't mean that, Frankie.”

I looked away from the wraith, trying to slow my heart.

“I can't go back there,” I said. “Hellville is cursed.”

“Helmsville,” corrected the wraith. “Rugged country. It's beautiful there, isn't it?”

“I can't go back to that place,” I said. “Please don't make me do this.”

“It's already decided,” said the wraith. “And Frankie, Frankie, Frankie?”

“What?”

“Helmsville, Montana isn't cursed. You are.”

The cloaked figure seemed to spin in front of me, and with a sound like sheets on a clothesline, the wraith was gone. And I was alone, but for the raven. I stared at the bird for a few seconds, waiting for it to screech at me. But even the bird was silent, and after a moment, it rose into the air with a flap of wings and disappeared into the darkness.

“Quitter,” I said.

Dekker was still sleeping when I slowly pushed the door open and slipped into the room. He was snoring softly, his wide chest rising and falling. I found his keys in his pants pocket. Feeling around, I found his thick wallet. I wasn't going to look at him. If
I didn't look at him, I'd be fine. If I didn't look at him, I could keep on breathing. I turned to go.

Dekker snorted loudly and I froze. I turned slowly to look at him. His eyes fluttered and I felt my heart in my throat. I didn't know why I was so nervous. He was just a roof over my head. He was a bar tab and entertainment for the night. What did I care if he caught me? But I stared at Dekker's face, stock still in the dark. And I breathed again when he started snoring again.

I backed away, watching his face. He was just a guy, and a weird one at that. He was probably a shit when he wasn't drinking. Maybe he had a wife and kids. Maybe he kicked puppies for fun. But I recognized the feeling in my chest. It wasn't love or lust or anger. It was that feeling I got when what-might-have-been slipped out of my grasp. I'd had a lot of might-have-beens in my life. For the most part, I didn't think about them. Even when they were staring me in the face, I put them out of my mind.
I shouldn't have looked at him.

“I'm sorry,” I whispered. “I'm really sorry.

Dekker's Honda was being guarded when I found it. Three ravens sat on the hood, blinking at me.

“Come on,” I said. “I don't have a choice.”

The birds flew up onto the low-hanging roof of the motel, still staring at me. I was used to the birds. They were always there. Sometimes they were the only ones I talked to for days. I turned my back on them and got into the car.

The car started nice and quiet and barely made a sound as I pulled out onto the highway. When I flipped on the headlights, the ravens were gone. I was so exhausted my bones hurt. I pulled out his wallet, my stomach churning as I looked at it. I blew air out and opened it. I'd need money. I knew he had some, he'd been buying my drinks in cash all night. I wouldn't use his credit cards, it was the least I could do. He'd have them canceled by morning anyway.

Why had I given Dekker my real name? I didn't understand it. Usually I picked something out of the air. Sally McGrady. Antoinette Carter. I'd even used Rita Hayworth once and no one batted an eye. But I'd given him my name, the name I'd been born with. The name I died with. It was dangerous. I was being risky and I wasn't sure why.

I kept my eyes on the road, glancing down at the wallet by the light of the headlights behind me. At first I didn't know what I was seeing. Then I couldn't believe it was real.

“Holy shit,” I said. “Shit, shit, shit.” Repetitive as a wraith. I threw the wallet away from me, like it was a cockroach, but it fell open on the passenger seat. As a semi truck passed me, I chanced another look at it, as it gleamed in the lights cutting through the night.

It was a badge. A silver badge shaped like a star, the words Chicago Police etched into the metal. And across the top, the word Detective.

“Shit!”

​​The wraith was right. I was cursed.











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PRE-ORDER MONSTROUS: BLOOD OF CAIN

10/2/2016

1 Comment

 
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MONSTROUS IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER! 

Click on the link to reserve your copy. It's been a really fun adventure writing it, and fans of Niki and Jenny Undead will fall for Frankie Mourning. I know I did. 

You can put it on your reading list on Goodreads here.

I'll be posting Chapter One in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for that. 

I also have an email list now and will be sending out my first newsletter this month. There will be snippets, things I'm working on, excerpts for books that are in the works, and an exclusive short story that hasn't been published yet (but will later this year). You can add your email to the list on the homepage of this website.

Thanks for your support, everyone! The people that have contacted me interested in this new urban fantasy series has been really wonderful. Keep asking me questions, and chatting, I love it. I spend most of my time alone, so the interaction is probably good for me.

That's all for now! Stay creepy!

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    J.L. Murray is the bestselling author of the Niki Slobodian series, After the Fire, and Jenny Undead. 

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