Join Me on the Move

I have a new blog!

I've started a semi-review, semi-drabble, semi-writing excerpt site on WordPress. Follow the link below!

https://soyouwanttoreadsomethingnew.wordpress.com

This blog will stay up, more for sentimental reasons, but from now on most content will be published to the WordPress blog.

More Bartimaeus Excerpts

Hello all,

I have another snippet from the tentatively titled "Bartimaeus and the Hyperion Circle". Futurefic. Woohoo. If anyone can recommend a good fanfiction site to start posting actual chapters, that'd be awesome.

-----------------

“According to our records, some of you have not been summoned for a very, very long time. Let me be the first to tell you then that times have changed. Britain’s power is gone, and her colonies around the world are thriving on independence. Our technology has advanced ten-fold in the past decade alone. You will see things that you do not understand.”

Connor walked into his living room to find Bartimaeus on the rug with Connor's iPod. The earpieces were firmly implanted in his ears and he seemed lost in the music. His thumb scrolled through the list multiple times. Beside him was a discarded Walkman, and various CD cases from Michael Jackson to Linkin Park. In the corner of the room, Connor’s vintage record player had been dusted off. His Pink Floyd, Kansas, and Led Zeppelin vinyls were sitting on the chair next to it.

Connor grinned. “I see you’ve been busy. What are you listening to?”

Bartimaeus turned to him. “I like this band, Aerosmith. Good sound.”

“Rock ‘n Roll junkie, huh?”

“What?”

“Aerosmith is rock ‘n roll. I had a feeling you’d like that. Try Metallica or the Beatles next.”

Bartimaeus rolled his eyes. “I listened to your Beatles record. Not quite my taste.”

Connor sat on the floor beside him, aghast. “Are you telling me you don’t like the Beatles? You bastard.” He laughed.

Bart shot him a wolfish grin and reached for Connor’s laptop. “I ain’t no hippie. What else have you got in here?”

Connor smirked. “You know, there’s this great thing called Youtube.”

Bart waved him off and picked up an Adele CD. “Oh, I’ve seen it. You know, I honestly thought you were joking when you said there’d been an Artistic Revolution after the London Fall.”

“I told you, they’ve written history books about it. Spread like a virus.” Connor thought for a moment. “You know, I think it goes without saying that you’re a rocker at heart. Have you listened to rap yet?”

Bart quirked an eyebrow. “Is that what you were playing in the car yesterday?”

“Yup. Music of the streets. New York’s finest.”

Bart put down the laptop and steepled his fingers together, regarding Connor like a therapist. “Methinks you have a limited library to choose from then.”

Connor shook his head. “Darlin’, you have no idea how wrong you are.”

I'm Still Alive

Funny thing is people are starting to follow me on tumblr. This in turn leads some of them to my Blogger, where I post story excerpts for fun. I think I'll start it up again, just to see what happens.

SO. Every week (or maybe twice a week?), I'll post excerpts of little things I'm working. I'm a bit weird, wherein, I love to dabble in 2-3 projects at once. Whatever catches my eye that week. 

Here we go!

First one up is a fanfiction piece. A friend of mine has been bugging me about writing some fanfiction, since I've always complained about the lack of really good ones out there. At least in my fandoms...

I present to you, a Bartimaeus Trilogy fanfic. Backstory: set in future America (post-England's fall), the world has modernized without resorting to magic. Some police have proposed partnering djinn with detectives, as more frequent organized crimes are involving djinn and magic once again. Fighting fire with fire, so to speak. 

Bartimaeus, still feeling the after-effects of the London Revolution, has been thrown together with Det. Connor Roby of the NYPD. At this point in the story, Connor has done something for Bartimaeus to earn his respect, much like the respect he had for Ptolemy. What that incident was, is still a mystery to their colleagues.

---------------

It was raining on the steps outside the Natural History Museum.

Connor knelt down beside the covered body and lifted the blanket.

She was pretty, but her eyes were blank. A huge mottled bruise engulfed the left side of her upturned face.

Connor asked, “Name?”

An officer answered. “Driver’s license says Emily Roberts. She’s also got a UNLH student ID, and couple credit cards. Gold cards, I might add. Girl was loaded.”

Her bag had been gathered by Forensics and set aside. Connor looked inside and found an old weather-worn leather book. He tossed it to Bartimaeus. The responding officers lurched forward.

“Um, Detective...”

“What?” Connor rounded on them, “Worried he’s going to steal it? He’s a certified investigator just like you. Now, why don’t you stand over there and let us do our job.” Behind him, Bart was whistling.

He turned to Bart. “Give that a look-through, see what you can read.”

Bartimaeus was already scanning the pages and frowning. “I can tell you right now, it’s Sumerian. What a pop princess student was doing with it, I wouldn’t know.”

“Can you read it?”

“Of course. Can it be spoken? Not really. The last time I heard Sumerian, the Egyptians were still trying to figure out the pyramids.”

“Great.”

“It’s bad juju too.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean these are inciting spells that haven’t been used since the Sumerians died out. Painful stuff, I tell ya.”

Connor leaned forward and examined the rest of her body. “Blunt force trauma to the head, that’s obvious. Wearing a UNLH sweatshirt. When was she found?”

One of the officers spoke up. “About an hour ago. M.E.’s on his way, but it was raining when she was found.”

Connor groaned. “So, we might be missing evidence.”

Connor stood up on creaking knees and looked up at the grandiose building of Natural History. He gestured to Bart, who promptly tossed the book to a surprised officer.

“Let’s go talk to the curator.”

“Rashad Bash?”

The olive-skinned man looked away from another interviewing officer. “Can I help you?”

“I’m Detective Connor Roby. This is my partner, Bartimaeus. Don’t be alarmed, he’s a djinn and certified.”

Rashad smiled. “No need for the speech, Detective.”

“Force of habit. It’s going to be a while before we can stop explaining ourselves to people.”

Bartimaeus rolled his eyes. “True dat.”

Rashad pointed a finger. “I read about you in the news. New York’s first Para-Cop unit.”

Connor grimaced. “We don’t really like to be called ‘para-cops’.”

“Regardless, you’re a famous pair.”

Bartimaeus turned into a Belgian Shepherd dog, and stuck his nose to the ground, trailing it around the office.

Rashad watched him. “What is he doing?”

“Sniffing for the girl’s scent. Just in case.”

“Ah, right. Poor Emily.”

Connor raised an eyebrow. “What do you know about her?”

“I’ve seen her around. She was an intern in one of our smaller departments, and a restoration lab. I didn’t hire her personally.”

Connor stood next to Rashad. “We found a book in her bag that contains Sumerian script, according to my partner here. Any reason why she would have that?”

“No idea.”

Bartimaeus budged in. “Are you Egyptian?”

Rashad looked surprised. “Lebanese. What about it?”

The dog managed to look bemused. “I can hear derelictions in your voice. Like Ancient Persian.”

Rashad grinned. “I’ve been studying the language. Good ears.”

“Really?” Bartimaeus sat on his haunches and quirked his head. “How good are you?”

Rashad spat something out, too fast for Connor to tell what it was.

Bart snorted. “Wicked.”

“Alright, back to the girl.” Connor pointed out. “What-”

“Actually, Detective...” said Rashad, leaning in, “There’s something else I should tell you.”

“What is it?”

Rashad led them to a large warehouse, secured with triple locks and a whole mess of Shields, as Bart could see them.

“This is where we store the more valuable artifacts, ones we don’t often put on display. When I left earlier today, all was in order,” said Rashad as he walked them past rows of locked shelves.

He reached one and opened it. “However, when I heard about Emily, I couldn’t help feeling that something else was wrong. So, I came here to check and, well...”

He pointed to an empty slot.

Connor crossed his arms. “You’ve been robbed.”

Rashad nodded. “Not just any old artifact either, but something left over from the London Revolution.”

Connor felt Bartimaeus bristle across the bond. “What was it?”

“The Amulet of Samarkand.”

"Are you kidding me?" Bart swore.

"You know what that is?” Connor asked.

Bart huffed. "I swear, I've got the worst luck out of all of us. Back when England was still in power, I had to steal it. For a snot-nosed kid, no less."

"Did you get caught?”

Bartimaeus gave Connor an offended look.

Rashad asked, “What happened to the kid?”

Bartimaeus shrugged. “He grew up. And he’s gone now.”

Back-Story Monday

Long ago in the Philippines, in a little town outside Quezon City, lived the Balgaman family. The patriarch of the family was named Grover. He had his wife, Adorinda, five daughters and one son. He also had two sisters but they died in a bus accident in the mountains. Grover and Adorinda adopted their five nephews after the accident and their family grew too large for their house. The Balgamans had always been the superstitious family in this small town. They were the one family that was gossiped about in the café on the corner. Their house was a haunted place where children dared each other to look inside. They were teased and tricked for talking to the air or pointing out things that weren’t there. The name ‘Balgaman’ would get rejected from jobs, expelled from schools, even denied insurance. They were all around notorious for “calling attention to themselves”. Ignoring the warnings, little did their neighbors know that the Balgamans were protecting them from things unseen.

            Grover was the first to begin ridding their neighborhood of these creatures. It was as though the things could tell that his children could see them and delighted in tormenting them. Howls in the night, a poltergeist upending their furniture, and thumps on the walls were the tamest incidences. Grover took it upon himself to fight them. With his two eldest nephews beside him, they would tread into the jungles around their home at night with torches to drive them away. During the day, the family traveled in pairs and had planned routes, arming themselves with strange weapons like spoons of garlic and a ring of roses.

Then one winter night, Grover’s middle child, Francine, was injured when an imp threw a side-table lamp at her. When taken to the hospital, Grover lied about their name. But he was denied entry into the emergency room because a nurse recognized him and thought he was raving. Francine was taken to a veterinary center and patched up nicely, but Grover was seething. He had had enough. He picked up his family from the Philippines and immigrated to the United States. He feebly hoped that their family curse would go for broke in sunny Santo Yago, a city famous for its beaches and tourism and busy population.

            All was quiet that first summer. Grover took up a job as a clerk in the Department of Fisheries and Adorinda offered piano lessons for the local elementary school. Their twelve children were enrolled in school without incident and all seemed to be settling into a normal routine.

 One day, Grover took his eldest daughter and youngest son Arthur to a local book fair. One minute he was gazing at an antique issue of “The Count of Monte Cristo” and he looked up to find his toddler son talking casually with a smiling policeman. Grover would have thought nothing of it, had it not been for the horned tail that swiped into his view from under the man’s shirt. In a blink he had upturned the table of books causing the bookseller to scream and distract the creature. Among the dust he snatched his son and nabbed his daughter, driving home at a hundred miles per hour on the freeway. Whatever this curse was, it had followed them from the Philippines. Once home, he delivered the news to the rest of his children, to no one’s surprise. Each of them had seen things: at school, at work, even at bus stops.

            Grover and Adorinda loved their family deeply. But this city was their home now, and Grover grudgingly agreed with his nephews to start up the “family business” again: a non-profit one, solely for the purpose of providing security against the unexplainable. Under the table of course.

            Grover was reaching his sixties by then and knew that his time to fight was wearing thin with his oncoming arthritis. He trained his five nephews in all the ways he knew how to kill the creatures, for they were much the same as the ones back in the Philippines. As the boys went out nightly to stalk and hunt, they began to notice a pattern.

            This city was too noisy for the creatures. It was much less wild and open then the Philippines, too vulnerable for them. It wasn’t until they found large gatherings of human that they would emerge to hunt in the crowds. The Balgaman boys realized this and started following hordes of the creatures to conventions and concerts around the city. The difference was staggering and to their dismay, summertime in Santo Yago was the height of the tourism season. Thanks to their couture hotels and countless arenas and convention centers, Santo Yago was the hottest place in the country to hold an event. And these were frequent, thanks to its close proximity to Hollywood and the banking of an international airport.

            What was more alarming was that the Balgamans began to feel an enormous weight. For all the seasons they began hunting the things, it became more and more apparent that they were solitary in this conquest. No one else in the city shared their gift or knowledge of the existence of the supernatural.

Working title: The Stanfields of Saradee Street

I reached into the trunk for the next bin when someone spoke behind me.

“Excuse me.”

Turning, there was a man standing across the street, handsome with a boxy face and a bomber jacket.

“Can I help you?” I hefted the bin onto the wagon.

He crossed the road and stretched out a hand, “My name is Sam. I just moved here.”

I raised an eyebrow, but shook his hand, “Welcome to the neighborhood.”

He stood awkwardly for a few minutes while I shuffled the bins on the cart.

“Um…do you have a son named Tucker?”

I glanced up, “What about him?”

The man shifted his feet and stuck his hands in his pockets. He licked his lips against the chill, took a couple of deep breaths.

He finally looked at me, “I’m his father. His real father.”

The front door slammed open and Jamie bounced through in his snow-suit, dragging Tucker by a scarf.

“Papa!” Jamie crowed at me, “Snowman!”

“Tucker!” I yelled at them sharply. Both heads shot up at me.

I stared them down, “Go play in the backyard instead, okay? Just for a few minutes.”

Jamie whined, his cheeks puffing up. Tucker stared at us.

I gritted my teeth, “Now.”

Jamie huffed and waddled back inside and Tucker shut the door without asking anything. Bless him.

I whirled on Sam, “What the hell did you just say?”

He swallowed, cheeks growing red, “I said I’m Tucker’s father.”

“Is that so?”

He nodded.

I glared at him, “Why should I believe you?”

He dug inside one of his pants pockets and I took a step back. But what he pulled out were a couple of crumpled up photographs. He handed them out to me and the air in my lungs crystallized.

There was Sam, smiling with one arm around a woman who was absolutely, unmistakably, Kimberly. He was wearing a Marine Corps uniform. She was holding a neon pink sign with “Welcome Home” drawn in glitter paint. The second was a faded wedding photo of the two of them: a blushing bride and a beaming groom. Dear God...

“That first picture was taken after I came back from Kuwait, over a decade ago,” he said, “I was there for two years. I’d never seen her so happy.”

I swallowed and looked up. He was staring forlornly at the picture and I handed it back to him. I didn’t say a word. What was there to say?

He chuckled a bit, “You look confused. So am I. I didn’t know she’d had a baby until recently.”

“She didn’t tell you at all?” I asked, leaning against the trunk of the car.

He shook his head, “Um…she died last year, from breast cancer.”

“I’m sorry.”

He gave me a sad smile, “Even as she lay dying…she never told me. I found out about Tucker from her mother,” he stuffed the photo back in his pocket and leaned against the trunk next to me. I let him.

“How could you not have known?”

He glared at me, “I was gone for two years. She was pregnant before I left,” he scuffed his shoe on the concrete, “And now, years and years later, I find out that she didn’t want the baby. That she felt like she wasn’t ready for motherhood or something, gave the baby up for adoption to some queer couple across the country, without ever telling me…”

I let the sting go.

He swung back with a horrific look, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that in a…in a bad way.”

“It’s fine.”

We stood in silence and the wind whistled down from the rooftops. He sighed a puff of white cloud.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured.

“Me too.”

I twitched, “It was a legal adoption.”

“I know,” he muttered.

“She gave him up willingly.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you here?”

He rubbed his face, “I just wanted to see him.”

Something dawned on me, “Have you been watching the house?”

He shook his head, “Only today. I wasn’t sure how to approach you.”

I scoffed, “Hell of a way to go about it. Can’t just walk up to someone and declare you’re the father of their kid.”

“But he is my child.”

“So what are you going to do about it?” I stood from the car and walked a few feet in front of him, “Sam…you can’t have him. Nate and I, we’ve raised him since the day he was born. He’s our son too.”

“That’s not what I wanted to ask,” he crouched down, “I just…I just want to talk to him.”

“What do you think he’ll say?”

“I won’t know until I try.”

I sighed and rubbed the back of my neck, “Where are you living at? A couple streets away?”

“I lied. I’m in the city. I’m a cop, and I just transferred in a few weeks ago.”

I walked over and helped him up then stared him down right in the eyes, “Go home, Sam. Don’t come back here. I’m going to talk to Nate about this. Then we’ll call you.”

Flight Project

A.N.: A project I've been working on since 2009, and the one that seems the most promising and will most likely finish because my family is hounding me about it.

There was a new smell in the wind. The avian creature curiously shifted her wings a little, gliding along the current as the floating forested islands passed below her. There was a tug from her beak: she must be going the wrong direction. That would upset her rider, and she didn’t like to see him upset. She felt strange when he was sad: her beak would get itchy to peck something and her feathers bristled. In all, she looked very 

unflattering.

The creature tipped her wings back into the familiar current, pleased to feel the wind breathe through her feathers. The leather strap around her beak relaxed and she coasted onward toward the next island, watching her shadow dance across the clouds ahead.

Travis wrapped the leather strips around his gloved palms again, leaving some slack for his peri’s beak as his brows furrowed in concern. It wasn’t like her to suddenly change direction on him like that, especially when flying through a circuit with questionable security for couriers. He leaned over and scanned the length of her body, checking for any injuries or something he’d possibly missed before taking off back in Hanover.

Her snow-white plumage blended beautifully with the cloud cover. She was constantly preening so, to his trained eye, any dirt or blood stain would stand out. Her tail feathers were symmetrically fanned out, her thin legs and claws tucked comfortably beneath her. Her wings were thick and strong, and he silently counted the number of times she flapped in the next two minutes; nope, no gaps in routine that he could notice. Her wings were fine. He leaned forward and gently patted her head. She crooned in response to his touch, and his shoulders slumped in relaxation. He wondered briefly what she could’ve been sensing. He pushed the thought away and settled back into the saddle as the reddened towers of a Montague city came into view behind a thick bank of clouds.

“Where’ve you been?” yelled Rami as the peri landed on the wooden platform.  

Travis frowned and started casting off his straps, “I’m sorry; Hava changed course on me back on the border to the Chester circuit. It was really odd,” he said, as he unhooked the saddle from her back.

She was already clawing at the wood, anxious to have the burden off so she could shake her plumage. Working deftly, Travis unclipped several hooks and ropes of leather that made up the harness and, once it was loose enough, gravity took over and the weight slid off her back. Hava stretched her wings and shook them violently, her flurried feathers falling back into place. Then she stretched her neck back and cleaned her back feathers, her sharp beak pecking harmlessly into her plumage. Travis watched her with one ear listening to Rami’s ramblings and the other keenly observing for any abnormalities in her routine.

Rami knew Travis well enough to tell when he was only half-listening, “You know you aren’t the first one whose peri got turned around at the Chester checkpoint.”

Travis finally looked at him, “Really? What are the stories?”

Rami tucked his clipboard under his arm and buttoned up his collar against the chill. Only his nose poked out above the lining, his voice muffled, “You know Andy over at the Pinole circuit? Well, his peri, Desya, nearly bucked him off after they crossed over one of them jungle islands in the Chester circuit. He thinks some creature must’ve spooked her.”

Travis unbuttoned the top to his fur-lined flying coat, despite the biting cold from atop the East tower.  He was sweating beneath his encasing cap and goggles, but didn’t feel like removing them.

“What else?” he asked Rami as he watched Hava trot over to a trough and start gulping down the slop left over from another peri’s meal. Travis sighed and mentally made a note to buy her something quality to eat later; it looked like Montague was cutting funds towards their feeding again.

“Not much,” answered Rami, “I heard from a guy from Sanger that a really skittish peri actually up and died while in flight over the Chester border.”

Travis swung around, “Are you serious?”

Rami shrugged, “I don’t know. It was only a story, so I didn’t think twice about it. But now, with you having problems with Hava…” he trailed off and pulled out his clipboard.

Travis slapped his hand on the board, “Don’t you dare make a note of it. You know I need the money.”

Rami chuckled, “I was only joking. C’mon, I wouldn’t write you up for it if you’re still walking,” he said as he started toward the double-doors that led to the tower’s interior.

Travis felt something hard brush his neck, and he was startled to find Hava rubbing her head against his back. She propelled him forward and he quickly led her inside and out of the cold. Inside, Rami led them to an open stall on his level and Travis coaxed her inside. She picked among the hay and shed feathers until she found a satisfactory spot to nestle down for the night. Travis reached up and smoothed her ruffled head plumage, and she nipped his hand affectionately. Once her eyes slid closed in sleep, he locked the gate and followed Rami down the winding staircase to the briefing room.

Excerpt from 'Clean-Up Duty'

The alarm blared at an ungodly hour of the night. At least it was night aboard the Pisces III, or as Captain Cameron had dubbed his beloved vessel, “his third princess”. She was circling Saturn on a lazy trajectory, like a tin can floating on the Mississippi: a tin can with the echoing power of a gun going off.

            Bruce sat straight up his cot, clonked his head on the upper bunk and fell back against his pillow with a groan.

            Porter, the upper level occupant, tipped his head over the side with a curious look.

            Bruce swung his legs over the side, “Good morning, P.O.” he said cheerfully to the ten-year-old boy above him. Porter smiled back and signed Good morning.

            “RISE AND SHINE, BOYS!” Cameron yelled over the loudspeaker, “And Marley.”

            “Thank you!” said a girl’s voice in the room next to Bruce.

            “TIME TO WAKE UP WE’VE GOT AN ORDER.”

            “God, would ya shut up?” yelled Leon from across the hall.

“Son of a bitch, what time is it?” said his twin, Noel.

            In the course of ten minutes, the meager crew of Pisces III was sequestered in the briefing room, squeezed in tight.

            Captain Cameron smiled at his yawning crew, “Sleep well, boys?”

            If looks could kill.

            None of them were older than twenty, already rugged with history, and fit from a life on the streets before stepping foot on his Third Princess. But in this economy, a boy took whatever he could find.

            He sucked on his teeth, “No doubt you’ve heard it on the news, about the Reagan Colony. Damn shame, but the mourning period is over and we hit the jackpot. Clean-up. The whole colony.”

            Mercutio, one of the eldest, choked on his water, “The whole colony?”

            Porter signed frantically How big is it?

            Leon pointed, “That’s ISG’s job, why the hell are we doing it?”

            “ISG is currently busy with the farmer’s rebellion on Mars. So we got the deal of a lifetime.”

            Bruce slipped in next to Porter, “How much are we getting?”

            Cameron grinned, “Triple.”

            His boys leaned forward. Noel asked, “Triple what?”

            Marley, their communications officer, stepped over and she leaned against the table with a wicked grin, “Triple what they pay their own for clean-up,” she rubbed her hands together, as though she could feel the crinkling bills in her hands already, “Boys, we do this, we’re set for the next couple of years. Food, maintenance, whatever, it’s covered.”

            “Holy shit…” Bruce chuckled.

            Porter tapped him on the shoulder and motioned, I want to come.

            Bruce shook his head and ruffled the boy’s hair, “Not this time, buddy. You’ll stay here and run the com systems with Marley.”

            “We’ll send you a postcard,” Noel winked. Porter stuck out his bottom lip and moved his fingers, No fair.

            “What are we cleaning? Plague? Alien invasion?” asked Mercutio.

            “Havn’t you been listening to the news?” Cameron swatted him with a rolled-up paper, “Reagan succumbed to an infestation months ago. They got all the survivors out, and they say whatever the thing was, it’s long been dead by now without a food source.”

            “So, virus or alien?”

            “Alien.”

**************

Could you tell that I'm still reeling from a weekend of Dead Space 2. It was quite an experience...