Possibly a first chapter

I'm thinking of calling it "House of Thorns."



You can't break destiny, they told me. Destiny breaks you.

They weren't kidding.

"Hey, Emma. How are you feeling?"

It was Greg's voice, baritone, soothing. I half stirred from my sleep. My internal clock insisted it was entirely the wrong time to be waking up, and when I peered through my eyelashes I could see that it was still dark outside. Night. And then I saw his silhouette, backlit from the streetlights streaming in the window. He was sitting beside me on the bed, still fully dressed, obviously home from a late night at the office. Greg. My husband. He was home. I smiled drowsily and reached out to twine my fingers with his - and my hand hit the cold cotton of the comforter.

I sat bolt upright and flung my hand out to turn on the touch lamp - and Greg was gone. The comforter was smooth and unruffled, untouched. No one had been there. I sighed and buried my face in my hands, willing my racing heart to slow down.

It was just a dream, or maybe a dream mingled with memory. It had been a year. Greg was dead.

"Sorry, Emma. I didn't mean to scare you."

Greg's voice again. I opened my eyes, and there he was, standing in the corner of my half-empty bedroom. Greg was dead, and a year later, his soul was still hanging around. I wondered what it meant about my husband, that in death he was dressed in a suit sans tie as if he'd just come home from work. He hadn't died in the house - I wouldn't still be living there if the building was burdened with that. I shuddered and tried not to think of the way he'd lost his life, of the last time I'd seen his mortal remains --

"I didn't scare you, did I." It wasn't a question.

I took another deep breath. "Hey Greg."

His smile, though faint, was as sweet as it had been in sunlight. "I don't mean to bother you."

He didn't bother me usually, not really. Catching me half awake, however, was catching me vulnerable. "What's up?"

"There's something you have to see." He stepped forward, offered a hand. He was even more powerful in death than he had been in life, and in life he'd been a virtuoso beyond all expectations, even as the scion of the House of Hawthorne.

"Is this a demand from the House?"

"A warning from the Three." His tone was grim.

I took a deep breath. I wasn't on good terms with the Three. Greg knew the reason. Greg was the reason. He wouldn't have asked if it was for a good reason.

"All right." And I put my hand in his - almost. Before we would have touched - because we couldn't touch - I tumbled into the future.

A cellar. A six-pointed star drawn on the floor, overlaid with a tree of life and runes. Too much magic, too many different kinds. Walls lined with books, floor to ceiling. A man standing in the middle of the star, shirtless and supermodel thin, a book open on his palms. Ink dancing up his wrists, twisting up his arms, twining across his torso.

A lock of brown hair falling into brown eyes alight with a shy smile. A wide, generous mouth, soft in a kiss and quick with arcane words.

Long-fingered, spidery hands dexterous with a coin to make children gasp as it disappeared, smile as it reappeared. Those same hands curled around a gun, squeezing a trigger, six shots, deadly accurate.

A portal, gaping, open, straight to the Deep Nines.

A ring of seven golden candles, and those hands playing with a string of seven shining stars.

Blood. So much blood. His blood. Screaming. A shattered soul. His lips shaping my name.

"Emma. Emmaline."

My name, on his lips, in my dead husband's voice.

"Emma."

The future turned to grey.

"Emma, come back now."

And I was back in my bedroom, sitting on the edge of my bed. Greg sat beside me. I was breathing hard, hands clenched into fists.

"W-what was that?"

"I can't see what you see." Greg's tone was apologetic. "I never could. But it's important."

"Did the Three send a message with it?" I lifted my head and looked into his eyes. I used to imagine that if I looked long enough and hard enough I could tumble into his soul, feel more than just his magic.

He nodded. "They said --" and his expression became slightly puzzled, because the riddles of the Three were beyond the finite reasonableness of his necromancy -- "to watch for your destiny and to give him everything."

I raised my eyebrows. My destiny was a him and not an it. But of course. I'd refused to Stray all growing up, and when I finally Strayed, it was into Greg's arms. I'd already come into my full power, and it was too late for a Stray to be harmless. My proper destiny had finally arrived.

"Thanks, Greg."

Again with his smile. I knew he would have to leave forever one day, but before he did, I wanted to see him smile in the sunlight one more time. He'd stopped reaching out to try to touch me, to comfort me, but knowing he was there was everything. We'd been best friends before we'd fallen in love, and most of the time, I could imagine we were best friends again, the inseparable duo we'd been before we married.

"Anything for my Emmaline."

"I know you don't like talking to them either." I smiled up at him.

"The House of Hawthorne has its rules, and I am still its scion." He rose up. "You should try to get some sleep."

I nodded and crawled back under the covers. "Yeah. Depositions tomorrow."

"Good night."

I smiled. "Good morning." And I sank back into sleep.

Destiny was coming for me.

...Read more

Plot Bunny!

So I have some tentative character sketches, at any rate.

Main plot: tangled romance between Bob Summers (drummer in a rock band with his twin brother and another pair of twins - kudos to Ericka's encouragement on the twin front) who suffers from leukemia and is on the road all the time and Carolyn Pierce, a second-year law student. There will be distance and angst. Meet cute: in the law school basement during a tornado.

Subplot: Carolyn's roommate, Jewel Hennessy (a counselor for troubled teens and craft mistress/pagan priestess extraordinaire) is in love with the man affectionately know as FT, which is short for Father Thomas (the law school priest who was a prodigy surgeon who lost a hand in a horrific kidnapping incident and thereafter signed himself up for Seminary). The running gag is that Jewel plans on relieving FT of his virginity in the back seat of her Volkswagen. I'm open for models of the VW - I'll even take a Bug.

I've done preliminary research on Bob's leukemia and will have the science in order soon.

What say you, comrades-in-arms?

First chapter of many- Hopefully

Life was letting Bailey Atten down. The particular spot was a small patch of carpet in her living room. Surrounded by bills and student loan statements she felt dizzy. Life promised her a job after graduation and money to pay the expenses a broke student built up.

Dorm. Food. Clothes. Most of those things she didn't even have anymore. Her hall mates were gone, all that greasy late night 'study food' was sitting in an extra ten pounds she wasn't proud of and the clothes fit just a little too snug.

Nothing to show for four some odd years but a degree and bills she couldn't pay.

“Why not go to grad school and avoid the loans for another few years?” Katherine's voice came from the kitchen. She was piddling around making dinner and keeping Bailey from losing her mind.

“I'm not sure I can afford rent next month. I don't see how I can manage relocating.” History was her passion but no one was hiring on the merits of passion and she'd rather shove a number two pencil in her temple than teach.

Katherine kicked a pile of credit card statements to the side and sat down next to Bailey's slumped body. She took the piping hot cup of cocoa gratefully and drank it down like ice water. Kat often wondered how her friend could do that in Las Vegas.

Bailey was a life long resident just like Katherine but she seemed have blood a little colder than everyone else. She was the only person, local or not, who never complained of the heat.

“You should probably start smoking.” Katherine reached for her own pack and Bailey silently pointed towards the sliding glass door on the opposite side of her living room.

“On the balcony. You'll not pollute my home with carcinogens, woman.” She was smiling and not entirely paying attention to her, fixated as she was on the papers in front of her.

Her friend laughed and walked over to the door. The latch was rusted and the door struggled gallantly to open. Among the commotion she called out again.

“Why not do something out of you're career field, yet lucrative?”

Without looking up she said,” I don't quite have the physique for exotic dancing.”

“God. Will I ever live that down? It was a week, and I needed tuition.” She was laughing into her cigarette and her breath shortened when she spoke.

“Although the irony of a prude shaking her ass for money is not lost on me I was talking about office work. Or, you could get into my business. There are plenty of haggard CEO's who need an assistant as smart and detail orientated as you are.”

Katherine smiled and looked around her friends apartment. Despite the fact that it was a rundown relic from the sixties in down town Vegas she kept the place spotless and even attempted to brighten it with a new coat of paint.

She wondered how she avoided break ins too. She didn't have an alarm and her dead bolt was questionable. Still, when nine out of ten neighbors suffered burglary not so much as a missionary knocked on her door.

“ I don't think my back could take bending down twelve times a day to pick up the same stapler.” Her tone was dry, recalling Kat's horror stories of working with randy CPA's.

“It's not all like that, and you could always quite once you saved enough for grad school. I'll make a call tomorrow and see if I can you something.” Her tone was final. Bailey sighed and collapsed onto her mounting expenses.

“Fine. But if so much as a-”, Bailey cut off mid sentence and put hand to forehead. She sat up and curled into a little ball on the floor.

“Christ, not again!” Katherine tossed her cigarette over the rail and ran to her friend. The girls chest shook and rattled as she wrapped her arms around her.

“Shhh, it's ok Bails, it's fine. Just let it pass, it'll go away in a few minutes.”

But Bailey wasn't in that room, she was above the city watching as the strip glittered and cars passed like streaks of lightning below her. The world moved in fast-forward and the sun passed by every ten seconds, days blurred together and she quickly lost count.

Then, beginning at the base of sunrise mountain a wave of darkness passed as lights died and the entire valley became nothing but veins of dim light as cars slowed.

She tried to move but her astral body was frozen as one by one, voices rose, screaming into the night.

She must have blacked out again because when she came to, shaking and choking on her own terror a thin trickle of blood came from her nose and she was staring up at Kat's concerned face.

“Oh God, that one seemed longer than the last.”

“You have no idea.”

. . .

He stared at his computer screen, blue and then black. When he was alive a certain vein popped on the side of his neck when he was this angry.

“Rebecca! Rebecca what is this thing doing now!?” His secretary seemed to slither into his office, oozing sex and smiling it that flirtatious way that added just a little bit more annoyance to the current situation.

She leaned down a little too close in her blouse that was cut a little too low. He watched as she alt control deleted and nothing happened. Of course. It probably short circuited or stopped working out of spite. A year ago he wouldn't have had this problem.

A year ago he wouldn't of had a lot of problems.

“I don't know Mister Hunt, hope you backed up the hard drive, 'cause I don't think it's going to work ever again.”

She hadn't moved yet and he couldn't help but listen to the blood slipping through her veins. Her neck was so close...

“Ok, get out. Now.”

Rebecca left with a huff and went to answer the ringing phone. Just her luck, her boss was gorgeous, single and the biggest jackass she'd ever met. Most men fell over themselves for her red hair and drop dead body. He must be gay, that was the only explanation.

She picked up the phone and her blood froze. It was that woman, her voice made Rebecca wish she still went to church. It was silly, but there was something just not right about her. Even over the phone.

“H-hello Miss. Applegate. I'll patch you right into Mr. Hunt's office.”

“Thank you dear, keep up the good work.” She pictured the woman smiling and then thought of a snake pit.

“It's Applegate on line one!” She called back and gratefully hung up the phone.

“What the hell do you want?”, he greeted her cheerily. Idle, he wondered how long before the line cut out and static assaulted his ears.

“Don't sound so shy, love, say what's really on you're mind.” She laughed. Everything he did was hilarious.

“Speak.” He was irritable and had no patience for her cheek. Although he should more respectful, the woman was the author of his misery.

“I need those reports and you seem to have dropped the merger. You're our representative but as much as we need you I don't recall putting you on the pay roll to systematically destroy every electronic you touch.”

He caught sight of his reflection in the high gloss on his desk. That would never change, his skin would look as flawless and pale, his hair would always be sandy brown and no matter how much he smiled lines wouldn't etch themselves on his face. The newness of eternal youth had just about faded.

“I never asked to work for you, Zilla.” His teeth clenched, aware of Rebecca in the other room with the door ajar.

His maker's voice dropped. It sounded like something caged and hungry.

“Regret warps the memory, child. Find someone who can operate a computer or I'll write you're resignation.” Then the line went dead. Perfect timing.

“Rebecca!”

Once more, the lithe woman in green and black stood in his office.

“Yes?”

“Find me a personal assistant. Computer literate, must work nights.”

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Saying "I Love You"

So I'm kind of a sad fangirl, and I like to pimp the things I love.  But there's something about this moment in the series, especially given the chemistry between these two characters.  The moment when he tells her he loves her, it's beyond friendship, and yet not, and it never moves beyond friendship, but it's one of the most intense declarations of love I've ever heard.

Be inspired.

Making Love: three feet apart and over a cup of coffee.

I've experienced this only once in my life but I really, really want to write about. I think it's got the kind of emotional power that can connect with a large female audience, or at the very least show them there's something more out there than "Oh, I totally love this band..."

What am I talking about? Nothing less than companionship. An author loses credibility in my eyes when she neglects the notion of romantic friendships because really, whats better than making out with you're best buddy? (I don't mean you guys, but you get the drift.) Specifically I want to write a scene where the male lead and the female lead have a conversation. It begins simply but then spirals out into this beautiful lattice work of wants, desires, memories and hopes. All the fragile things we hold in most of our lives will spill out and there will be...a mental tangling that is nothing short of what a miracle ought to be.

-sigh-

Writing this makes me realize how much I want it.

Tossing the Cape: Or Writing a Realistic Male Vampire

I have a problem with vampires in fiction (romance fiction especially) and though it's only one of my many beefs with Twilight the thought makes my eyes twitch. As a youth worker and future therapist to the young and twisted I take serious issue with age difference. A few years is ok, especially after the formulative early twenties and past this time excesses of five to ten years is alright provided each partner is on some sort of equal mental footing. I don't care how 'mature' you were as an eighteen year old you were still hoped up on hormones and the first addictive tap of freedom so you're decisions are often, if not usually, circumspect.

I know that I was an absolute moron my eighteenth year and many have commented that even then I was exceptionally well grounded for my age.

What does this have to do with vampires, you may ask, lips pursed, bosoms heaving.... Sorry, got into the romance writer mode there....

Imagine all of the life lessons and learning you experienced in you're first eighteen years, and then throughout you're twenties. People of every age report learning more, growing more and just being better people as they age. They have time and the mistakes of youth to fall back on when decisions must be made and though the world as changed they general learn to change with it. ( Or not, but that's an entirely new speal, kids.) In the case of Bella and Edward it's obvious. She is an emotional stunted teenager and he is a man. Let me repeat this: their relationship borders on the pedophilic in that Edward is so obviously superior to Bella i life experience and his apparent fascination with her beauty. Which, he in Midnight Sun, repeatedly comments on as being 'delicate' or 'fragile'.

Their relationship is about power and possession and barring the fact that we as a reader are shown nothing in the way of actual companionship, the co-dependent coupling would be doomed from the start were Edward a haggard middle aged professional and Bella still in her late teens. (The socia-plotical comments concerning the Cullens wealth and apparent power not withstanding but, yet again,that's a discussion for another day.)

Ah, but I don't mean to rant about Twilight, only make it the pathetically cliche' example of vampire fiction that it is. Rather, I want to say that the older man meets drastically younger heroine trope is done to death and I'm not touching it with a ten foot wooden stake.

Age begets experience, experience begets success and success equals power. The relationship that develops in these pairings is usually some sort of 'teacher/student' dichotomy with the female half delegated into the subservient role. Some may argue that she in fact teaches, that her freshness, her youth, and the love she inspires in the anciently brooding vampire is a lesson in and of itself. That she impacts him as much as he guides her. This is not satisfactory as she is made a passive object, not through her tenacious tact or intelligence does she affect the plot but by virtue of being there, of being something that he could find in any number of spunk 'modern' women.

Which leads me to, why does he love her? I'm all for swooning passion and sex that joins souls as well as genitals but I want connection deeper than beauty, and a relationship that is not so overtly one sided as to border on some sick S&M
So what am I getting at? Yeah, I had a character concept hidden away here...

Evan Hunt is twenty six years old. No, he doesn't look it, he is it. Last year he fell into more trouble than he could talk his way out of and a beautiful woman lacking nothing but a pulse made a decision for him. He was too 'pretty' to waste, so he woke up, stone dead on a slab with a hunger he couldn't describe.

He's recently wrangled in the blood lust but it still bites him in the ass and sucker punches him when he least expects it. He's still trying to come to grips with his new undead life and he is still full of the kind of righteous that started an inquisition or two.

...brief. Yeah, I know but it's a start. What do you guys think?
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Two Experiments In One

Since I'm crazy excited about this project I want to do all kinds of cool things with it, and so I started to write a story in Trusts and Estates today, and that was when I realized what was up with me and my only writing from a male's POV. Here's what I wrote so you can see my problem, and this is also an experiment in expandable posts.

The building was on fire. Vanya was screaming.

Pietro grabbed his wrist and tried to pull him toward the door, but Vanya was too afraid to move.

"Vanya, come on!" Yelling cost him. Smoke burned his throat, and he began to cough.

Vanya shook his head. He was sobbing and coughing.

Peitro tugged harder. "Please!" If they didn't move, they would be trapped in the building. They would die.

Vanya kept screaming wordlessly and crying.

Pietro began to yell. "Help! Help!"

No one would come, not for them, only to stop the fire from spreading. They were going to die.

Pietro gathered Vanya into his arms to protect him from the heat, from falling debris.

A pair of yellow eyes appeared in the smoke. Pietro recoiled sharply. A dog. The city dogs had come for them. They would be torn to shreds instead of burned. Pietro could no longer scream.

The yellow eyes belonged to a woman, a woman with black curly hair and dressed like a Romani out of a fairytale books. But she spoke Russian.

"Come with me!"

Pietro began, "My brother --"

Vanya had passed out.

The woman picked him up as if he weighed nothing. "Come!"

Pietro slipped his hand into hers and ran with her through the burning orphanage. She knew where to go, where to step and when to pause, and they made it into fresh air. The firemen, with all their flashing lights and sirens, had barely arrived when they made it out into the cold night air.

The woman set Vanya down, shrugged off her shawl, and wrapped it around him. Then she knelt so she was looking Pietro in the eye.

"Look after your elder brother well," she said.

Pietro nodded, entranced by her lovely golden eyes. She slipped a necklace over her head, one decorated with an ancient-looking coin.

"Sell this for food," she said.

Pietro nodded again.

The woman darted a glance over her shoulder, then rose to her feet. "Be safe." She ruffled his hair gently and vanished into the shadows.

Moments later, the firemen heard Vanya come awake coughing as he tried to scream.

When the firemen had both boys bundled into an ambulance, Vanya turned to Pietro and smiled.

"You saved me."

Pietro shook his head. "No, I --"

"Thank you." And Vanya fell asleep.

***

"Vanya," Peter said.

"It's John." He ran a comb through his hair, checked his reflection in the mirror.

Peter leaned against the door frame and watched his brother primp. "We're alone. It hardly ruins our 'image' if I call you by your real name."

"We're in America, and my name is John, no Ivan." He stood up and scooped up his guitar. "Where are Jimmy and Luke?"

"Jimmy's running the last mic check. Luke's probably trying to pick up on fangirls." Peter twirled one of his drum sticks absently. "Are you pretty enough for the girls now?"

John shoved at his shoulder. "If I'm pretty, you are too."

"Ah, but you're prettier than me by ten minutes." Peter straightened up. "Now come on - the ladies scream for you."

It had been sheer luck, Peter and John running into Jimmy and Luke, but a rock band made up of two sets of twins managed to be a fairly good selling point with the fans.

The Rolling Stone staff writers ate it up, Peter and John living beneath a bridge in Central Park, playing music to survive, schooling themselves via the Public Library and Museum of Natural History. The fairy tale twist of fate was Jimmy and Luke skipping out on a day of private school to slum it in the park and meeting a pair of fellow musicians, from which music was born.

For Peter, the fairy tale was that Pietro and Vanya had survived a fire, the streets of Moscow, stowing away to America, and then the streets of New York. For John, the fairy tale was that a woman had rescued them from the fire.

Peter reached up and toyed with the pendant at his throat, an ancient coin he'd never sold. He'd sold a lot of things to help him and his brother survive, but never that coin.

A thump on his back jerked him out of his musings. He spun around and brought up his fists, but it was Luke.

"Hey, whoa! It's just me. Ready to rock this joint?" He smiled tentatively.

Peter forced himself to unclench his fists. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm always ready to rock."

Luke smiled sheepishly. "I didn't mean to sneak up on you, man. Sorry."

"Don't sweat it." Peter headed over to where their manager hovered anxiously. Time to be a rock star.

***

It was in the middle of their latest single that Peter saw her. From behind the drums he hardly saw the audience at all, but the strobe lights flashed across the crowd and he saw her. Saw her eyes. Golden and bright. He caught a glimpse of long dark curls and a bare shoulder, a gypsy blouse, but then she was gone.
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