Excerpt: BOOKBURNERS – Anywhere But Here by Brian Francis Slattery

We have an excerpt from BOOKBURNERS – Anywhere But Here. It’s Season 1 Episode 2 of Serial Box’s serialized book that is released in segments. And don’t worry there are no spoilers.

For more information about the series and how to read the entire publication, take a look at the information at the bottom of this post. But for now here is an early released excerpt to entice your interest in the book:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anywhere But Here - Episode 2 by Brian Francis Slattery, Max Gladstone, Margaret Dunlap, and Mur Lafferty

“Where are we going?” Sal said.

“Madrid, it appears,” Asanti said. She was poring over a stack of papers at her desk.

“Though where exactly is unclear,” Liam said.

“We have the coordinates.”

“Yes,” Liam said sarcastically. “We have the coordinates.”

Menchú nodded. “Good.” He turned to Asanti. “Any idea what we might be facing?”

Asanti didn’t look up from her papers. “Madrid has been officially purged of magic for over five hundred years.” She gave a sad chuckle.

“The Inquisition?” Sal asked.

“Oh, no,” Asanti said. “The Inquisition was just a witch hunt, and not of real witches. Nothing to do with magic at all.” She turned a page. “But even so, Madrid seems dry. There was a brief flurry of magical activity during the Spanish Civil War, and the usual spotty records of underground societies during the Franco years and after. But they seem like dabblers. There’s no indication that any of them got hold of anything truly magical. No books or artifacts or anything else that I’m aware of.”

“So whatever we’re dealing with, it’s rogue,” Grace said.

“That’s right. Possibly predating the Inquisition, when they declared the place clean.”

“Arabic?” Liam said.

“Could be,” Asanti said. “But that’s a guess. Not even a hunch.”

“So we don’t know what we’re facing,” Grace said. “At all.”

“Afraid so,” Asanti said.

“This isn’t going to be like Eyjafjallajökull, is it?” Grace said.

Asanti looked up at last, slightly irritated. “No, this is not going to be like Eyjafjallajökull,” she said.

“The volcano in Iceland?” Sal said to Liam.

“Yep,” Liam said. “You know those eruptions in 2010? No one could fly in Europe for days? Apparently not entirely the result of natural forces.”

Grace interrupted. “There was a dragon. Seven stories high. Living under the volcano. Which had been there for over a thousand years, and was the subject of several local legends. But were we told any of this when we got on the plane?”

“My Icelandic was rusty,” Asanti said. “It won’t happen again. It’s certainly not going to happen in Madrid.” She said it with a sudden authority that made Sal believe her. Grace did, too. She backed down.

“Well, whatever is happening in Madrid,” Liam said, “I haven’t heard anyone call the police about it yet.”

“Thank God,” Menchú said.

“What happens if the police get involved?” Sal said.

“You’re a cop,” Liam said. “You should know. Things get a little messy. Let’s just say the sooner we get there, the better.” He sighed. “Why can’t they just take the books out to a barn up the back ass of nowhere and open them up there? Everything would be so much easier.”

“How’s your Spanish?” Grace said.

“I can order at a Mexican restaurant,” Sal said. “That’s about it.”

Grace shook her head. “Americans,” she said, under her breath.

They headed out to the airport.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here’s a blurb about this serialized urban fantasy: 

Magic is real, and hungry—trapped in ancient texts and artifacts, only a few who discover it survive to fight back. Detective Sal Brooks is a survivor. Abruptly thrust into the battle between nefarious forces trying to unleash this power onto the world and those trying to stop them, she joins a Vatican-backed black-ops anti-magic squad: Team Three of the Societas Librorum Occultorum. Together they stand between humanity and magical apocalypse. Some call them Bookburners. They don’t like the label.

Here’s a bit more about the series:  

This September, new publisher Serial Box is bursting onto the scene and bringing the TV model of media production and delivery to the book world with BOOKBURNERS, an urban fantasy adventure following a black-ops anti-magic squad backed by the Vatican. Wandering from police procedural to New Weird and dabbling in most genres in between, BOOKBURNERS will keep you hungry for more, week after week.

Written by a team of authors including Margaret Dunlap (Eureka), Mur Lafferty (The Shambling Guide to New York City) and Brian Francis Slattery (Lost Everything), the group is led by rising genre star Max Gladstone (Three Parts Dead).

While the series officially launches on September 16th with the release of Episode 2, there is the first episode up for all to enjoy on SerialBox.com.

They aim to bring book lovers everything they like about television:

• New episodes each week
• Series are produced by a team of writers collaborating to create the most exciting, dynamic stories
• Episodes are easily ingestible with a 40-minute average read-time
• Each episode is an exciting adventure but together they build into a complete narrative—just like your favorite shows

Each episode will be available via SerialBox.com and their iOS app (via Apple), as well as iTunes, Amazon, Kobo, Google Play, and B&N.

And here’s the blurb about the first episode:

Chapter 1: Badge, Book, and Candle

NYPD Detective Sal Brooks is no rookie—but even the most hardened cop would think twice when they see their brother open a book and become…well…something entirely not their brother.

When her attempts to solve the case cross paths with a mysterious team led by a priest, she starts to realize that the world is far more than what is seems, and, just maybe, magic is real—and hungry.

Follow along as Sal learns the life changing lesson: some books have teeth.

Press Release: THE STREETS by Robert Dunbar

THE STREETS has just been released. It’s the third novel in Robert Dunbar’s The Pines Trilogy.

It can be read independently of the other two novels THE PINES and THE SHORES. However, for an optimal reading experience you might want to start with the first two in the series. You can pick up all three books at Amazon in various formats.

If you enjoy dark and tasteful fiction then these are a must read. And even better they’re perfect for that obligatory feeling that we all desire in the Fall, since who doesn’t enjoy a thrilling read as the weather starts to cool?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here’s what the author says about his latest book:

THE STREETS is the final part of Robert Dunbar's THE PINES TRILOGY:

In a desolate city, as ravaged and dangerous as a post-Apocalyptic wasteland, horrors prowl the back alleys. Struggling to survive, a group of young people find themselves trapped in a decaying asylum ... where unspeakable evil lurks.

Do the streets offer escape? Or death?

And the prologue:        

Just as there are broken people, there are broken places on this earth.

Some have always been broken. 

All cities have such neighborhoods at their edges, and this city is all edges... block after block of bleakly hopeless outskirts.

People don't bury dead cities. They abandon them. They abandon them to the poorest of the poor, to the lost and the doomed.

A few streetlights may still glimmer, but the life of this city ebbed long ago.

It might resemble the site of some cataclysm or as though chains of time had tightened, crushing it. Yet it is not truly old, not as such things are measured. No true cataclysm occurred, and the extinct civilization that built it staggers on, even now unaware of its own demise.

Rot phosphoresces where wounds are deepest, and here decay is well advanced, but some form of life festers still. Things scurry. They twitch in shadows. They splash through flooded alleys and lurk along the docks.

And they travel in packs.

334 pages | Uninvited Books | September 1, 2015

Excerpt: THE WILD GIRL by Kate Forsyth

We have an excerpt for THE WILD GIRL by Kate Fosyth. It’s historical fiction about the untold love story of Dortchen Wild and the boy next door, who just happens to be Wilhelm Grimm, one of the brothers behind the famous fairy tale collection.

I loved Kate Forsyth’s BITTER GREENS, the fairytale story of Rapunzel mixed with historical fiction. You can read my 4.5/5 star review by linking on this text. And I am just as excited by THE WILD GIRL as it’s getting many great reviews.

Below is an excerpt from Chapter 1 of the book:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wild by name and wild by nature,’ Dortchen’s father used to say of her. He did not mean it as a compliment. He thought her headstrong, and so he set himself to tame her.

The day Dortchen Wild’s father died, she went to the forest, winter-bare and snow-frosted, so no one could see her dancing with joy. She went to the place where she had last been truly happy, the grove of old linden trees in the palace garden. Tearing off her black bonnet, she flung it into the tangled twigs, and drew off her gloves, shoving them in her coat pocket. Holding out her bare hands, embracing the cold winter wind, Dortchen spun alone among the linden trees, her black skirts swaying.

It was Christmas Day. All through Cassel, people were dancing and feasting. Dortchen remembered the Christmas balls Jérôme Bonaparte had held during his seven-year reign as king. A thousand guests had waltzed till dawn, their faces hidden behind masks. Wilhelm I, the Kurfürst of Hessen, had won back his throne from the French only a little over a year ago. He would not celebrate Christmas so extravagantly. Soon the lights would be doused and the music would fade away, and he and his court would go sensibly to bed, to save on the cost of lamp oil.

Dortchen must dance while she could.

She lifted her black skirts and twirled in the snow. He’s dead, she sang to herself. I’m free!

Three ravens flew through the darkening forest, wings ebony-black against the white snow. Their haunting call chilled her. She came to a standstill, surprised to find she was shaking with tears as much as with cold. She caught hold of a thorny branch to steady herself. Snow showered over her.

I will never be free . . .

Dortchen was so cold that she felt as if she were made of ice. Looking down, she realised she had cut herself on the rose thorns. Blood dripped into the snow. She sucked the cut, and the taste of her blood filled her mouth, metallic as biting a bullet.

The sun was sinking away behind the palace, and the violin music came to an end. Dortchen did not want to go home, but it was not safe in the forest at night. She picked up her bonnet and began trudging back home, to the rambling old house above her father’s apothecary shop, where his corpse lay in his bedroom, swollen and stinking, waiting for her to wash it and lay it out.

The town was full of revellers. It was the first Christmas since Napoléon had been defeated and banished. Carol-singers in long red gowns stood on street corners, singing harmonies. A chestnut-seller was selling paper cones of hot chestnuts to the crowd clustered about his little fire, while pot-men sold mugs of hot cider and mulled wine.

At last she came to the Marktgasse, lit up with dancing light from a huge bonfire. Not one building matched another, crowded together all higgledy-piggledy around the cobblestoned square with its old pump and drinking trough outside the inn.

Only the apothecary’s shop was dark and shuttered, with no welcoming light above its door. Dortchen made her way through crowds buying sugar-roasted almonds, gingerbread hearts, wooden toys and small gilded angels at the market stalls. She slipped into the alley that ran down the side of the shop to its garden, locked away behind high walls.

‘Dortchen,’ a low voice called from the shadowy doorway opposite the garden gate.

She turned, hands clasped painfully tight together.

A tall, lean figure in black stepped out of the doorway. The light from the square flickered over the strong, spare bones of his face, making hollows of his eyes and cheeks.

‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ Wilhelm said. ‘No one knew where you had gone.’

‘I went to the forest,’ she answered.

Wilhelm nodded. ‘I thought you would.’ He put his arms about her, drawing her close.

For a moment Dortchen resisted, but she was so cold and tired that she could not withstand the comfort of his touch. She rested her cheek on his chest and heard the thunder of his heart.

A ragged breath escaped her. ‘He’s dead,’ she said. ‘I can hardly believe it.’

‘I know, I heard the news. I’m sorry.’

‘I’m not.’

He did not answer. She knew she had grieved him. The death of Wilhelm’s father had been the first great sorrow of his life; he and his brother Jakob had worked hard ever since to be all their father would have wanted. It was different for Dortchen, though. She had not loved her father.

‘You’re free now,’ he said, his voice so low it could scarcely be heard over the laughter and singing of the crowd in the square.

Dortchen had to look away. ‘It doesn’t change anything. There’s nothing left for me, not a single thaler.’

There was a long silence. In the space between them were all the words Wilhelm could not say. I am too poor to take a wife…I earn so little at my job at the library…I cannot ask Jakob to feed another mouth when he has to support all six of us . . .

The failure of their fairy tale collection was a disappointment to him, Dortchen knew. Wilhelm had worked so hard, pinning all his hopes to it. If only it had been better received…If only it had sold more…

‘I’m so sorry.’ He bent his head and kissed her.

Dortchen drew away and shook her head. ‘I can’t…We mustn’t…’ He gave a murmur deep in his throat and tried to kiss her again. She wrenched herself out of his arms. ‘Wilhelm, I can’t…It hurts too much.’

He caught her and drew her back, and she did not have the strength to resist him. Once again his mouth found hers, and she succumbed to the old magic. Desire quickened between them. Her arms were about his neck, their cold lips opening hungrily to each other. His hand slid down to find the curve of her waist, and she drew herself up against him. His breath caught. He turned and pressed her against the stone wall, his hands trying to find the shape of her within her heavy black gown.

Dortchen let herself forget the dark years that gaped between them, pretending that she was once more just a girl, madly in love with the boy next door.

The church bells rang out, marking the hour. She remembered she was frozen to the bone, and that her father’s dead body lay on the far side of the wall.

She shook her head. ‘It’s too late.’

At twenty-one years of age, she was an old maid, all her hopes of love and romance turned to ashes.

‘There must be a way. If the fairy tales would sell just a few more copies…’ His voice died away. They both knew that he would need to sell many thousands more before they could ever dream of being together.

‘One day people will recognise how wonderful the stories are,’ she said.

He took her hand and bent before her, pressing his mouth into her palm. She drew away from him, turning to the gate in the wall. She was shivering so hard she could scarcely lift the latch. She glanced back and saw him watching her, a tall, still shadow among shadows.

Happy endings are only for fairy tales, Dortchen thought, stepping through to her father’s walled garden. She raised her hand to dash away her tears. These days, there’s no use in wishing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From The Wild Girl by Kate Forsyth, on sale July 7, 2015, from Thomas Dunne Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press, LLC. Copyright © 2015 by the author and reprinted by permission of St. Martin’s Press, LLC.

Kate Forsyth is the internationally bestselling and award-winning author of more than 20 novels. Her books have been published in 17 countries. Forsyth holds a doctorate in fairytale retellings from the University of Technology. She lives in Sydney, Australia.

Stay tuned since we will be hosting a giveaway for THE WILD GIRL tomorrow.

Peter Orullian: Music Playlist for TRIAL OF INTENTIONS

We have a guest post from Peter Orullian. It’s a collection of some of the music that he thought would represent his latest novel – TRIAL OF INTENTIONS. It’s the second book of the Vault of Heaven series and it’s a dark epic fantasy with a musical magic system – meaning that some of the magic in the books is based upon music. Which is perfect for this guest post, since besides being a writer Peter is also a musician. For more information on Peter Orullian click on this text to read our recent interview with him.

Here Peter shares his thoughts on the songs he’s chosen, along with imbedded YouTube videos. *Please note readers may have to visit the Layers of Thought website to access the videos or link to YouTube to access the music. Enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Metal (& More): Playlist for TRIAL OF INTENTIONS

So, I got chatting with Shellie about what I should write for this guest post. And she made a fantastic suggestion: a playlist. And while it’s true I listen to pretty much everything, I’m going mostly metal with this.

Now, I should be clear. I don’t listen to music when I write. Music isn’t a background thing for me. It requires my full attention. And that’s whether it’s vocal music or strictly instrumental. So, by “playlist,” what I really mean is songs that seem to have some natural tie or relevance to TRIAL OF INTENTIONS.

With that said, let’s get going. And note, I’m going to paste in some of the salient lyrics and talk as much as I can about how they create resonance with my book. In some instances, I’ll have to pull back a little to avoid spoilers and stuff in book three—which isn’t even out yet.

First is “Still Water,” by Fates Warning. Check out these lyrics:

Feeling the weight of unseen chains
This routine is growing thin
It's a narrow path that we walk
And the walls are closing in, caving in

Is there room still for us to grow?
Within the bounds we've come to know

Beneath the dust of our days
Hides the key to our emotions
And it's been a while since we've been moved
Without going through the motions, no emotions

Is there time still for us to show?
Feelings, we forgot long ago

Living life in still water
Blinded by what we've become
You get tired of screaming
When you're not reaching anyone

Now, this is most likely commentary on a dead or dying relationship. But, in my series there’s a collection of races sealed inside the Bourne who were sent there rather unjustly by the gods. Simply put: The gods didn’t think these races (called Inveterae) had any real potential, so they bound these races there with other truly vile races. The Inveterae became slaves, for all intents and purposes—“chained.” And at the end of the day, the point of creation--in the world I’ve created—is growth. These races aren’t able to achieve that in the Bourne. So, you can see the relevance of the lyrics. Check out the tune:

Next is Metallica’s “Unforgiven.” I’m one who likes the Black album. And when this particular track is turned way the hell up on good speakers, it’s damned forceful. Consider these lyrics:

New blood joins this earth,
And quickly he's subdued.
Through constant pained disgrace
The young boy learns their rules.

With time the child draws in.
This whipping boy done wrong.
Deprived of all his thoughts
The young man struggles on and on he's known
A vow unto his own,
That never from this day
His will they'll take away.

What I've felt,
What I've known
Never shined through in what I've shown.
Never be.
Never see.
Won't see what might have been.

In the world I’ve created there’s a place known as The Scar. It’s a place left barren by war. And through a series of circumstances, young foundlings and babes are sent there to live with an exile. These are children abandoned by their parents. And their adoptive father, this exile, teaches them hard lessons, and to fight. It’s a tough regimen, and includes learning to distrust people. And many of the children don’t make it. They commit suicide. The emotional weight of their lives—compounded with the dire life in the Scar—simply becomes too much.

 

Let’s reach back now, though, to Black Sabbath and “Children of the Grave.” Here’s a section of the lyrics:

Revolution in their minds - the children start to march
Against the world in which they have to live
And all the hate that's in their hearts
They're tired of being pushed around
And told just what to do

This is most pertinent to the Inveterate I mentioned above. In TRIAL OF INTENTIONS, I have a POV character who is Inveterae. And his primary objective in life it to try and liberate his people from the Bourne.

 

Now let’s talk about Blind Guardian’s “Twilight of the Gods.” As I mentioned above, the gods that put my world in place have abandoned it. And in the absence of these gods, those races sealed behind the Veil are trying to find a way out—and they have an inkling that it might have something to do with the Vault of Heaven (the sky). And by the way, they’ve grown more bitter with the passing of the ages. In fact, most of the peoples of the Eastlands believe these cast off races are evil by nature.

So, with that in mind, check out these lyrics:

How've they dared to be
Such misguided creatures
How've they dared to be
Of such evil nature
Spiral up to doors all sealed
No turning back
Red door to Discordia

Steal the stars
Deceive the day
A sign of evil
They're gone with a final warning

Witness the twilight of the gods
Will they ever return
A storm will take us
And then wipe us out
There's no retreat

 

What playlist would be complete with Maiden, right? This time, I’ll include “Wasted Years.” This song and some of its lyrics have several allusions to my series. One that jumps out at me is this:

So understand
Don't waste your time always searching for those wasted years
Face up, make your stand

The correlation is kind of obvious isn’t it? My character Tahn begins with a loss of memory for his first twelve years of life. And once it’s restored to him, he learns that he spent most of that time in a barren waste. And ultimately, he’s got to go to a place called Tillinghast to make a kind of accounting. With that, enjoy some Maiden.

 

And how about Avenged Sevenfold and their track “This Means War?” Epic fantasy is riddled with conflict. Battles and war are often central to the narrative. My series has a major conflict looming. And one of those who appears to be trying to answer this threat of war is far from a decorated, experienced war hero. Consider these lyrics, then:

No home to call my own
No finding someone new
No one to break the fall
No one to see me through
No name to carry on
No promise for today
No one to hear the call
No tattered flag to raise

 

Next comes Five Finger Death Punch and their track “The Wrong Side of Heaven.” Take a look at these lyrics:

Arms wide open, I stand alone.
I'm no hero, and I'm not made of stone.
Right or wrong, I can hardly tell.
I'm on the wrong side of heaven, and the righteous side of hell.
The wrong side of heaven, and the righteous side, the righteous side of hell.

This describes more than one of my protagonists. Come to that, it also describes some of my antagonists, too. For my purpose today, though, let’s stick with my protagonists. Early in TRIAL OF INTENTIONS, one of my main characters makes an awful choice. It appears to be the right choice, but it can also easily be seen as wrong, or at the very least . . . reprehensible. These situations that challenge conventional definitions of what is moral and right are rich terrain for writers. Plus, the track rocks.

Now let’s turn to Within Temptation. Specifically, let’s look at their track “And We Run.” I’m one of those who digs the collaboration here with Xzibit. But regardless, read this:

It burns into your heart
The darkness that you fear
You were never free
And you never realized

Take your breath
'Till nothing's left
Scars of life
Upon your chest
And I know
Wherever it goes

And we run
With a lonely heart
And we run, for this killing love
And we run, 'till the heavens above

This—as some of the other song choices in this playlist—could apply to more than one character or scenario in TRIAL OF INTENTIONS. But maybe the most salient is the character Kett. He’s an Inveterae—one of those unjustly imprisoned in the Bourne. For millennia, his people have lived there. Slaved there. And that bit about “Scars of life upon your chest” . . . that could literally refer to the branding that is done in the Bourne. Without giving too much away, I can tell you Kett wants out. And he wants to liberate his people. Along the way . . . well, let’s just say that the reference to “killing love” is very relevant. As is the whole reference to “heavens above.” I mean, my series is entitled The Vault of Heaven, right?

And, oh man, Stone Sour’s “Tired.” This song hits some chords with my series, and TRIALS OF INTENTIONS, in particular. Have a look at these lyrics:

I just want to watch the whole world burn
Lost a million times and I won't learn
Show me someone innocent, I'll show you there's no proof
I may be gone but I'm no fool

I'm not close
I'm not safe
I don't know
Don't know
Am I better off in chains?

The feeling in these lyrics of being lost, defeated, of wanting to simply see everything go up in flames because things seem hopeless . . . all that very much applies to the Children of the Scar (the orphans raised in a waste that I mentioned above), as well as those living inside the Bourne.

But let’s tackle it straight on with Devin Townsend’s “Suicide.” Check out these lyrics:

So I hide my internal suicide
All my pride just to keep it inside...
KEEP IT INSIDE BOY!!!
suffer...

I deal with the topic of Suicide in TRIAL OF INTENTIONS, since young kids living in the Scar often make this choice. Their lives seem so hopeless. And not to put too fine a point on it, I recently had a friend make this choice. It affected me. It affected the book. I didn’t know my friend was suffering. He never said anything to me. So, this one hits home.

 

By the way, I also could have included “Life” by Townsend. But I’ll save it for now. If you do go listen to it, though, you’ll see what I mean.

Next let’s take a look at DGM and their track “Reason.” Great band doing some great things. To get into the relevance, first read these lyrics:

I can't be there 'cause I run out of energy
If you could only see
Trying my best to convince you that
I don't mind

There's nowhere to run
Reason is calling
No more pretending
This time it's coming the end
Coming the end

There are several saliencies in this bit of text. First, one of the magical classes in my world are called Sheason. Quite literally when they use Resonance (the magical principle in my world), they are left depleted of their life’s energy. But at a higher level, Vendanj (the Sheason in my story) is trying to convince individuals and nations that the threat from the Bourne is real. It’s not a myth. And the invasion they face is world-altering. A final end.

Okay, let’s move back to the Children of the Scar with Disturbed and their album The Lost Children. On that record, they have a track entitled “Hell.” Now, check out these lyrics:

Read me tonight, when the warnings said leave a shudder upon you
Running from all that you feared in your life
Soul of the night, when the sun mislead paint a horror upon you
Marking the moment, displaying in my ghost of a life!
And I can't get round the way you left me out in the open
To leave me to die!
So how can I, forget the way you lead me through the path into Heaven
To leave me behind!

Now I can't stay behind
Save me, from wreaking my vengeance
Upon you, too chilling more than I can tell
Burning, now I bring you Hell

Where do I start. First, you may recall that the castoffs sent to the Scar are often just babes, who are left in a dead tree. And all these Children of the Scar are ghosts of a kind. On one hand, you now know that many of them choose a way to Heaven, suicide. But for Tahn, he’s on a path to learn more about who he is. And it could make him bitter, if he’s not careful. In fact, this also applies to another of my characters in TRIAL OF INTENTIONS—her name is Wendra, and she has the power of a music magic. These two characters are within their rights to wreak their vengeance for how they were mistreated as youths. There are accounts to settle.

No playlist of mine is complete without Nightwish. And here I’ll use “I Want My Tears Back.” Again, first take a look at these lyrics:

Where is the wonder, where's the awe?
Where's dear Alice knocking on the door?
Where's the trapdoor that takes me there?
Where the real is shattered by a Mad March Hare
Where is the wonder, where's the awe?
Where are the sleepless nights I used to live for?
Before the years take me
I wish to see the lost in me
I want my tears back!
I want my tears back now!
A ballet on a grove
Still growing young all alone
A rag doll, a best friend

These words really hit at what is sad about the Scar and the children sent there. But it equally applies to the children being sold into the Bourne for purposes I’ve not yet revealed yet in the books. The relevance is for children who grow up through compromised childhoods. Through the suffering and tears they miss the best part of what it means to be a child and move on to adulthood. On another level, though, I’ll apply it to characters in my world who may not have had a particularly challenging childhood, and can mourn a simpler time gone by—lost, if you will—when the world wasn’t so hard. And I include “ballet on a grove . . . a rag doll, a best friend,” because of the city of science in TRIAL OF INTENTIONS—it’s called Aubade Grove. And Tahn meets an old friend there from his childhood. Their adventure in the book is among my favorites.

Okay, like Nightwish, Queensryche will appear on any my playlists of mine. Here, I’m including “Neue Regal” (New Rule). This is a haunting tune. A sample of the lyrics:

I will light the way for us to find
Order of a new kind
Join us on the stay the road is mine
Poets line in a rhyme of silence
Gathered from the winter air
Warms the children's eyes they see
The time is near for the signs

Here, there are two immediate relevancies. One is to the Quiet from the Bourne—those who wish to invade the Eastlands, ending their long imprisonment and issuing in a new era in the history of my fantasy world. But maybe the stronger tie with this lyric is the League of Civility, a society given to militant social reform. They aren’t the “bad” guys. In fact, on the face of it, their agenda seems quite reasonable. But their methods to achieve it are not, which includes indoctrinating children to their credo. It’s rather insidious. So, now, listen to Geoff rip.

And one more from Queensryche, “The Mission,” from Operation Mindcrime.

I search the past back to a time
When I was younger
A target for the new society
Picked to displace the leaders
Countering objectives
Of this new underground reality

Waiting for days longer
'til sister comes to wash my sins away
She is the lady that can ease my sorrow
My love for her
Will help me find my way

Uh, did Tate know I would one day write this book? Heh. Consider Tahn trying to reclaim his forgotten youth. Consider that he’s asked to take on a task—not as the chosen one, because others have been asked (and failed)—that puts him in the breech. He’s going to be at odds not just with the Bourne, but with the League of Civility. Not a desirable position. And amidst it all, he’s got two women in his life—a sister, and a stranger he comes to love—to help him. The whole “comes to wash my sins away” would be a huge spoiler if I explained its relevance. But trust me. It’s on point.

 

I also have to include “Eyes of a Stranger.” (Can you tell I like Queensryche?) The germane lyrics:

All alone now
Except for the memories
Of what we had and what we knew
Everytime I try to leave it behind me
I see something that reminds me of you
Every night the dreams return to haunt me
Your rosary wrapped around your throat
I lie awake and sweat, afraid to fall asleep
I see your face looking back at me

And I raise my head and stare
Into the eyes of a stranger
I've always known that the mirror never lies
People always turn away
From the eyes of a stranger
Afraid to know what
Lies behind the stare

Okay, so in TRIAL OF INTENTIONS, right in the prologue, Tahn recalls a tragic moment from his childhood. His memory has been restored to him, and the memories are rushing back. The result of all this is that he realizes he’s not who he thought he was. Not entirely. Yes, what he recalls is at least part of him. But the larger part is foreign, strange. It’s not all bad. But some of it is painful. And the sum total of his remembered past, and some of his recent choices, make him . . . complicated. For some, he’ll be a pariah. For others, a source of hope.

 

Bear with me for another QR selection. This time: “Silent Lucidity.” The lyrics:

There's a place I like to hide
A doorway that I run through in the night
Relax child, you were there
But only didn't realize and you were scared
It's a place where you will learn
To face your fears, retrace the years
And ride the whims of your mind
Commanding in another world
Suddenly you hear and see
This magic new dimension

I- will be watching over you
I- am gonna help you see it through
I- will protect you in the night
I- am smiling next to you, in Silent Lucidity

I wanted to have at least one tune that wasn’t all heavy. This song is good and relevant to Wendra, my character who has lost a child, and tries to help another small boy. Wendra, you may remember, is my character with the powerful music magic ability. She feels a powerful responsibility to those people, kids included, who are being trafficked into the Bourne. She wants to help them. And early in TRIAL OF INTENTIONS, there’s a gentle moment when she sings—not with her unique ability—but just as a mother might. It puts me in mind of this song.

 

Okay, to close out we’ll look at some Dream Theater. Here’s “The Enemy Inside.” Consider these lyrics:

Over and over again
I relive the moment
I'm bearing the burden within
Open wounds hidden under my skin
Pain as real as a cut that bleeds
The face I see every time I try to sleep
Is staring at me crying
I'm running from the enemy inside
Looking for the life I left behind
These suffocating memories are etched upon my mind
And I can't escape from the enemy inside

I'm a burden
I'm a travesty
I'm a prisoner of regret
Between the flashbacks and the violent dreams
I am hanging on the edge
Disaster lurks around the bend
Paradise came to an end
And no magic pill
Can bring it back again

This one really hits on Tahn’s formerly hidden past. As it’s returned to him, it’s challenging for him in many ways. But also, he’s not simply a puppet or slave—either to his past or to those who have designs for his present. He makes his own decisions, and the heartbreaking choices are hard ones. They create new moments of pain to go with memories of friends from his past who he’s lost in many equally painful ways. All of this is hard to escape, because it’s part of him. Still, there’s also a part of his past that was good, and he wants to reclaim that for his life now. Not to mention that it may help in the conflict and threat of invasion that is looming. This is all complicated by Tahn’s murky origins. So much of everything feels tenuous. In the face of it, he pushes forward.

Last, but not least, how about Dream Theater’s “Outcry.” This is a huge, sweeping tune. The lyrics:

The rebel in us all
Something is tired of being pushed around
But freedom has a price
The cost is buried in the ground
We suffered far too long
We gather now
Growing stronger
We will not be ignored
Anymore
Any longer
Our anthem will guide us
Rise up be counted
Stand strong and unite
Wait for the outcry
Resistance is calling tonight

This is a war song. A battle cry. And finally, there are characters and nations in my world who tire of being preyed upon. They stand. Some will fall. Just as others have fallen in the past. But they know they have to try. And part of how they intend to do it is with what I call the Mor Nation Refrains—a set of powerful (magical) war songs. But they have to go to a xenophobic people to ask for their use. Nevertheless, nations are gathering to try and form an alliance to put down this threat once and for all.

 

So, there you have it. You should know that I had to significantly pare this back, just because it was getting hellaciously long. I mean, I cut 56 bands from my initial list. But because I’m having fun doing these articles on music and fantasy (see my metal one on Tor.com, for example), I’ll be doing more and I’ll pick up those 56 bands and more in future articles.

Hope you dig.

Your Rock Lord,

Peter Orullian

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Peter Orullian has worked at Xbox for over a decade, which is good, because he’s a gamer. He’s toured internationally with various bands and been a featured vocalist at major rock and metal festivals, which is good, because he’s a musician. He’s also learned to hold his tongue, because he’s a contrarian. Peter has published several short stories, which he thinks are good. THE UNREMEMBERED and TRIAL OF INTENTIONS are his first novels, which he hopes you will think are good. He lives in Seattle, where it rains all the damn time. He has nothing to say about that.

Visit Peter at www.orullian.com, or follow him at @peterorullian.

About TRIAL OF INTENTIONS: 

The heart of grief lies somewhere between one man’s expectation and another’s intent.

Enemies come. But one enemy believes the gods were wrong about his exiled people. And he’s impatient.

Nations arm. But one man finds a realm paying for its gearworks with an awful currency. And he’s angry.

Politicians lie. But one leader lies because he would end the days of slums and porridge. And he’s ambitious.

Songs restore. But one woman will train to make her rough song a weapon.

And she’s in pain.

Magi influence. But one sage follows not his order’s creed; he follows his heart. And his heart is bitter.

And one young man remembers. He remembers friends who despaired in a place left barren by war. Friends who did self-slaughter. But he also remembers years in a society of science. A gentler place. So he leaves the rest, daring to think he can lead not in battle, but by finding a way to prevent self-slaughter, prevent war.

The heart of grief . . . is a trial of intentions.

Tor Books | May 2015 | Hardcover | 672 pages

On Short Fiction by Damien Angelica Walters

We have a guest post by recently published Damien Angelica Walters in honor of her short horror story collection SING ME YOUR SCARS.

You can read the title story “Sing Me Your Scars” at the publisher’s website (Apex Magazine). I highly recommend it.

Below she writes about some of her favorite dark, short fiction which is, wonderfully, all by female authors.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

On Short Fiction by Damien Angelica Walters

I keep reading that short fiction is making a comeback. To that I say, did it ever go away? Looking at the books on my bookcases, I say no, but in the public eye, perhaps it did. I know I see more single-author collections on bookstore shelves now than I have in the past, and while many of the collections are by those already established, some are by debut authors. I think it’s a great time to be a fan of short fiction.

There are so many talented authors working in the field of dark fantasy and horror, and Shirley Jackson Award nominee Livia Llewelyn is one of my favorites. She writes horror, dark fantasy, and erotica and her collection, Engines of Desire: Tales of Love & Other Horrors, contains ten stories as beautiful as they are brutal. In many ways, her prose reminds me of Tori Amos’ lyrics—poetic and gorgeous with a razor-sharp edge that will cut you so carefully you won’t even notice until after you’re bleeding. Livia doesn’t pull any punches with her fiction and she goes into dark places many writers would hesitate to go.

One of my favorite passages from “Omphalos” references events between a mother and daughter and isn’t necessarily disturbing on its own, but it holds an undercurrent of calculated cruelty which says much of the relationship of the characters. “Long ago, like when she’d hide drawings you’d made and replace them with white paper, only to slide them out of nowhere at the last minute, when you’d worked yourself into an ecstatic frenzy of conspiracies about intervening angels or gods erasing what you’d drawn. You’d forgotten about that part of her. You’d forgotten about that part of yourself.”

Another favorite is Helen Marshall. Helen Marshall writes elegant and disturbing stories, often with young protagonists. Gifts for the One Who Comes After has been nominated for a 2014 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection; her first collection Hair Side, Flesh Side won the 2013 British Fantasy Award for Best Newcomer.

Haunting is the perfect word to describe her work, and her stories are filled with imagery that send shivers down your spine. Take this bit from “In the Year of Omens” for example: “A month later Leah found something in the trash: one of her mother’s sheer black stockings. Inside it was the runt-body of a newborn kitten wrapped in a wrinkled dryer sheet.”

Since I know people are sensitive to such subjects, it’s important to note that this isn’t a story about animal abuse, and the main character tucks the kitten away in an old music box, but after I read the passage I could not get that image out of my mind. Then it’s revealed that the kitten has fish scales on its belly, another image not easily forgotten.

Molly Tanzer’s first novel Vermilion was just released and it’s in my to-read pile, but I’d like to talk about her collection A Pretty Mouth, which was released in 2012 and was a British Fantasy Award nominee. The four stories and one novella it contains are connected by familial lineage. The Calipash family history unfolds in reverse chronological order and the stories are weird, beautiful, and often darkly whimsical.

This, from “A Spotted Trouble at Dolor-on-the-Downs” always makes me grin: “The Lady Alethea was…in the bath. And when I say in the bath, I do not mean that she was laving herself in a tub full of frothy suds and rubber ducks. She was in the nude and fully submerged under the surface of the water, which trickled into the large basin out of the faucet, and though I did not like to look upon her so indisposed, when I noted some, let us call them physical peculiarities, I could not help but stare.” I will not spill the story by revealing what those peculiarities are, but suffice to say that you would stare, too, if you were in that situation.

Aurealis and British Fantasy Award winner Angela Slatter writes dark fantasy and horror and her most recent release is The Female Factory, co-authored with Lisa L. Hannett. I am rather partial to her 2010 collection The Girl with No Hands (and Other Tales). The sixteen stories within are imaginative and lyrical and, more often than not, heartbreaking.

In “The Chrysanthemum Bride,” Angela writes: “She is sleek but a little plump; any spare food goes to her, to keep her beauty intact, for her family believe this is how she will save them. If she is lovely enough, a rich man will take her to wife or concubine, then, they pray, prosperity will flow to them, that emptiness will become fullness.” So much pressure for a young woman. Without giving any spoilers, all I’ll say is that the end of the story and its revelations hurt my heart and made me angry.

Here are four stories by the above authors available to read free online:

“It Feels Better Biting Down” by Livia Llewellyn

“The Hanging Game” by Helen Marshall

“Herbert West in Love” by Molly Tanzer

“Bearskin” by Angela Slatter

Other authors whose short fiction I love are A.C. Wise, Anna Taborska, Kaaron Warren, S.P. Miskowski, E. Catherine Tobler, Sunny Moraine, Alyssa Wong, Natalia Theodoridou, and JY Yang. And when it comes to multi-author collections, you can’t go wrong with anything edited by Ellen Datlow and Paula Guran. Their most recent anthologies are The Doll Collection and New Cthulhu2: More Recent Weird, respectively.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

About Damien:  Damien Angelica Walters’ work has appeared or is forthcoming in various anthologies and magazines, including The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2015, Year’s Best Weird Fiction: Volume One, The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu: New Lovecraftian Fiction, Cassilda’s Song, Nightmare, Black Static, and Apex. Sing Me Your Scars, a collection of short fiction, is out now from Apex Publications, and Paper Tigers, a novel, is forthcoming from Dark House Press. You can follow her on Twitter @DamienAWalters or visit her website at http://damienangelicawalters.com.

About SING ME YOUR SCARS: In her first collection of short fiction, Damien Angelica Walters weaves her lyrical voice through suffering and sorrow, teasing out the truth and discovering hope.

Sometimes a thread pulled through the flesh is all that holds you together. Sometimes the blade of a knife or the point of a nail is the only way you know you're real. When pain becomes art and a quarter is buried deep within you, all you want is to be seen, to have value, to be loved. But love can be fragile, folded into an origami elephant while you disappear, carried on the musical notes that build a bridge, or woven into an illusion so real, so perfect that you can fool yourself for a little while. Paper crumples, bridges fall, and illusions come to an end. Then you must pick up the pieces, stitch yourself back together, and shed your fear, because that is when you find out what you are truly made of and lift your voice, that is when you Sing Me Your Scars.

200 pages | Apex Book Company | February 15, 2015 | Ebook & Paperback

Excerpt and Giveaway: ICEFALL by Gillian Philip

We have an excerpt and giveaway for ICEFALL by Gillian Philip. It’s the 4th and final book of the Rebel Angels urban fantasy series and there are 3 copies for US and Canadian addresses.

Below is the excerpt and below that is the Google form to enter the contest.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ICEFALL by Gillian Philip

Hannah

The sound was so soft, I’d never have heard it if a breeze had stirred. The faintest whisper, like leaf against leaf, or steel against leather.

I hesitated, glancing behind me, hitching my backpack higher on my shoulder. I was probably imagining it. I had things to do, books to read, prospectuses to study. This was my final school year and I was impatient to know where my life was going. I didn’t have time for getting spooked by shadows.

All the same.

Turning, I scanned the street. Broad autumn daylight. Cool and overcast, it was true, but weak shafts of sun filtered through onto cracked concrete and corrugated iron. This was the dingy end of town, the deserted end. No reason that alley between the warehouses should look so dark. No reason, except my imagination.

Except I was fairly sure that was a footstep.

Nothing moved. Shadow leaked out of the alleyway, pooled between a parked car and a lorry: so very dark, when there wasn’t much sun. I couldn’t even hear a gull. Late afternoon and even the shabby corner pubs were quiet. Weird. Like being sealed in a capsule of stillness and fear.

I shrugged. Sniffed. Walked on. Stopped again.

The silence wasn’t empty. There was something inside it, something that could think and hate, something that could move. Something that would move, when it chose to.

I stood quite still. I could feel the cold fear in my spine, now, trying to make me run. I mustn’t run.

Too late to call Rory. And anyway, did I want to? If this was anything more sinister than some suicidally ill-judged piss-take from cousin Lauren and her pals, I might only draw him into a trap. He was the one they mustn’t have. I was dispensable. In the long run.

Not that I thought much of that idea. In the short run.

I showed my teeth. There was still the chance this was only Lauren, and I didn’t want to make a fool of myself. Didn’t want to overreact or anything.

I didn’t think it was Lauren.

‘Come on, then.’

My words echoed off blank walls.

‘I said come on. If you’re hard enough.’

That was fine. That was fine, my voice had come out steady. It wouldn’t do that again, not now that a figure had stepped out of the alleyway. A woman, I guessed from the silhouette moving forward: tall, and kind of elegant. Yes, a woman: pale hair twisted into a braid, mouth curved in an apologetic smile. Sword held lightly, almost casually, and now she flipped its hilt so that the blade was held high, and drew it to her face in salute.

Lovely, I thought. Honestly, very graceful. With luck she’d do the whole thing as beautifully as that. Fast and painless.

Of course, I’d rather she didn’t do it at all. Letting my backpack slip from my shoulder, I swung it in a threatening arc.

‘Hannah Falconer McConnell.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘Yeah? And?’

‘Come along, now,’ said the pale-haired woman. ‘Don’t make a fuss.’

‘I will, though.’

‘Please don’t make this any harder.’

‘Uh-huh. Right.’ I lashed the backpack at her.

Pathetic. The bag was heavy, the movement clumsy. Stepping neatly back, the woman swung her sword, severing the strap. Lunging, I snatched it as it fell and raised it like a shield. Even more pathetic, but I’d like to have heard a better suggestion.

‘You’re being very silly,’ the woman told me.

I didn’t dignify that with a reply. Anyway, I only had time to thrust the bag forward to catch the swinging blade. It thunked through canvas and into textbooks and notepads and glossy university brochures.

Homework has always had its uses.

Sucking her teeth in exasperation, the woman tugged her sword loose as she grabbed the backpack with her free hand and wrenched it from my grip.

‘Now, shush. Let’s get it done. Quickly, I promise.’

I stumbled back as my bag was flung to the ground. I don’t know what was stronger, the disbelief or the terror. This had happened so fast. I’d been walking home, pissed off at the thought of having to study at the local redbrick next year because you can’t leave here, not on your own, you’re not going out of our sight. And now I was never going to take a degree anywhere, because I was going to die.

This was not how I’d planned my life or my evening. I’d have liked to run, but there didn’t seem any point.

‘Shush,’ soothed the woman again, and drew back her blade on a line with my neck.

At the furthest point of her lazy backswing, she hesitated, and frowned, and glanced down.

My breathing was high-pitched, and my whole body was shaking, but I looked too. A sharp point of steel had appeared between the woman’s ribs, just to the left of her sternum, and as she growled in astonishment, a sinewy arm went round her neck and jolted her backwards. The blade tip poked further out of her chest; I watched it, mesmerised.

Her shock had turned to rage, too late. As she tried to turn, the silver light in her eyes faded. She dropped to her knees, her sword scraped and then clanged on the pavement. With a last irritated look at me, she pitched forward onto her face and died.

The man who stood over the corpse tugged at his sword. It wouldn’t come loose, and he had to put his foot on the woman’s back and jerk it hard out of her ribs. It came out with a horrible sucking thwick that made me want to be sick. Nothing altruistic. I was thinking it would have made the same noise coming out of me.

My saviour raised an eyebrow.

~ That’ll teach her to keep an open mind.

Someone was breathing hard and very fast. It wasn’t the newcomer, the man with the neat goatee, the unruly black hair and the brutal facial scars. Presumably it wasn’t the dead tart. Must be me, then.

Taking a deep breath, I smiled.

‘Sionnach,’ I said. ‘Have you got nothing better to do than be my bodyguard?’

He shrugged, glanced down at the corpse. ~ No.

He frowned again.

~ You okay?

No, I’m about to fall over and I think I want to cry. ‘I’m fine. Fine.’ I let out a shuddering breath.

‘You shouldn’t walk home alone,’ he said aloud. ‘Where’s Rory?’

‘In the library. He’s still got loads of catching up to do.’

‘Well, we need him. Call him.’

Seeing as I’d been dying to, I did what I was told. Of course, Sionnach didn’t give me time to catch my breath or rearrange my hair. When the love of my life appeared, running to my rescue, I was grunting and sweating from the effort of helping drag a corpse into a handy doorway. Sionnach let go of the woman’s limp arm and straightened, eyeing Rory accusingly as he skidded to a halt.

‘Sionnach.’ He was out of breath.

Sionnach shook his head. ‘Hannah was alone. Not again, hear?’

‘No. Right. I know. God, Hannah, I’m sorry.’

I pushed a damp rat-tail of hair behind my ear and smiled, trying to look cool, so glad to see him the fear of death was already slipping off me like snakeskin. I liked that tight knot of love in my gut. It let me know I was still a human being, and being hunted down in an alleyway wasn’t all there was to it.

Rory’s face split in a grin. It was pretty funny that he still got bossed around by Sionnach, now that he was an inch taller than him. Tall, feral, and full of mischief: an overgrown Lost Boy. His bright hair had darkened in the last couple of years, his face had grown thinner and harder, and his grey eyes had the shadowy glint of his father’s. But he still had the elfish beauty I’d fallen for on the most chaotic day of my life. Best of all, he still loved me. I hoped he always would. My Rory Bhan. My one-time lover. My cousin.

Sionnach coughed. ‘When you’re quite ready.’

Rory looked abruptly away, and I forced a pout to stop myself laughing too. I liked to hear Sionnach being sarcastic. There hadn’t been much of the old Sionnach in the last three years. Not since he lost the other half of himself, not since Alasdair Kilrevin put a sword blade through his twin.

He went still, raising his head. ‘Someone’s coming. Do it now.’

Shocked, Rory said, ‘What?’

~ Do it.

Obediently Rory reached for thin air and the fragile thing that was hidden in it. Sionnach’s nerves were contagious. My own heart, which I reckoned had stopped five minutes ago when it got stuck in my throat, crashed back into my chest and into overdrive. Delayed shock, maybe, but it made my head spin. The fear was becoming panic, because I knew Sionnach was right—he always was—but Rory was struggling with the Veil. Beyond the defences of a Sithe fortress, that was unheard of.

‘Rory. What’s wrong?’

Rory’s fingertips scrabbled, like he was trying to grab glass. He swore. I could feel his panic growing.

‘I thought it was thinning,’ I hissed.

‘It is. It was!’

‘Come on. Veil or no Veil, somebody’s going to notice a corpse.’

‘Yeah, no kidding.’

Sionnach said nothing, only stared into the shadows.

This was stupid. It was meant to be withering, but the Veil had picked a fine time to get its strength back. Rory was getting no grip on it at all. For an instant he looked completely bewildered, but he clenched his fists, and his face darkened.

He had that cold look of his father’s now. Flattening his fingers he thrust them forward like a blade, snatching hold of something I couldn’t see.

Sionnach took a step towards the alleyway. ~ Whoever it is, they’re close.

With a growl, Rory hauled on his handful of Veil, and it began to give: like tearing oilcloth. He put his other hand to the rip, dragged it remorselessly wider. The sinews stood out on his wrist with the effort.

He grunted as the gash widened at last. Let go, and stood up. He froze.

Then he stumbled back, and would have fallen on his backside if he hadn’t crashed into me.

‘Rory…’ I began.

A tremor ran through his skin, and he’d gone very cold. I looked up and past him, towards the tear in the Veil. Something oozed from the gash, all chill and black fear. Instinctively I shuffled backwards away from it, dragging Rory.

For a moment he let himself be tugged away, then his muscles hardened and he wriggled out of my grip. On all fours he crawled back towards the hole, then clambered to his feet and seized the Veil’s torn edges in both hands. Even Sionnach was staring at Rory now, the intruder forgotten.

‘What’s that?’ he said. There was fear in his hoarse voice.

Rory couldn’t spare him an answer. The gap in the Veil couldn’t be more than a metre long, but I could just make out its distorted shadow where the weak sunlight caught it. It sagged inwards, bulging, like it was going to rip further.

I’d never felt anything like it, not in all the many times it had given way to Rory. It always obeyed him, but now I had a feeling the Veil had rebelled for the first time. You’d almost think that at its heart, caught in the membrane, there was a trapped darkness that wanted out.

I’d never been afraid of the Veil between the worlds, never. Even the first time Rory tore it for me, four summers ago that felt like decades, I’d been only gobsmacked, and mistrustful, and rationally angry. I’d never felt this lump of fear in my belly. Whatever the darkness was, it didn’t fascinate me. I only wanted it gone, but I was terribly afraid it wouldn’t go. The gap yawed, sagged further, stretched like a living thing.

We’d taken it by surprise. The Veil, I mean. The thought struck me, unexpected and bizarre. We’d woken something that hadn’t expected to wake; it had been disturbed unawares, but it wasn’t ready to explode from its restraining membrane.

And just as well, was my instinctive thought.

Rory dragged the edges together and stood rigid, clutching the gap shut. I couldn’t so much see that it was closed as sense it, because the strange coldness was gone like a sigh.

It seemed an age before Rory loosened his fingers and stepped back.

I took a breath to say And what are we going to do with the dead tart now, but I never got the chance. Rory reached out, almost thoughtlessly, and tore the Veil again.

It ripped like gossamer. He used a light forefinger and he didn’t even have to take a breath.

I gaped at him, but Sionnach wasn’t struck dumb. He grabbed the dead woman’s arm and hauled her to the new rip in the Veil, bundling and shoving her through. Getting a hold of myself, I helped him, pushing the woman’s dangling foot through the gap as Sionnach threw her sword after her. With no fuss at all, Rory clasped the Veil’s edges and sealed it, and she was gone.

*   *   *

The three of us were panting for breath, staring at the space she’d filled, when the air was shattered by a tinny blast of unidentifiable R&B.

Sionnach turned. The music died abruptly; a phone clattered to the paving stones. As we gaped, a manicured hand shot round the corner to grab for it.

Nonchalantly Sionnach took a pace closer and trod hard on the hand. There was a yelp of angry pain as he bent to pick up the phone, turning it in his hand, thumbing the touchscreen with interest.

‘Come out,’ he said. ‘Lauren.’ He tilted an eyebrow at me.

‘Aw, hell,’ muttered Rory. I swore more creatively.

She stumbled to her feet, clutching her bruised hand, glaring at all three of us. Not a muscle of Sionnach’s face moved now, and I thought: Uh-oh. When his hand went to the hilt of the short sword hidden inside his leather jacket, Rory put a hand on the man’s arm. Sionnach scowled.

I forced a smile. ‘Hi, Lauren.’

Rory’s breath sighed out of him. ‘Sionnach, watch where you’re putting your feet. Y’okay, Lauren?’

‘Fine,’ she spat.

‘What did you just see, Lauren?’ asked Sionnach.

‘Nothing. Like I’d be interested. I wasn’t even looking.’

‘Really?’

‘You broke my best nail.’ She folded her arms aggressively. ‘Although that’s nothing compared to you dragging that wom—’

This time Rory had to shove in front of Sionnach, seize his jacket, and pull it back across the emerging blade. He gave Lauren a tight smile. ‘The drunk one?’

‘The—’

‘Drunk one,’ I said.

‘She didn’t look drunk to—’

Sidestepping Rory, Sionnach offered Lauren her phone back, his lips tightening in an almost-smile. The girl just stood there, glowering nervously.

Sionnach’s unconvincing smirk stayed in place as he thrust the phone forward again. I knew he was still wondering if he ought to kill Lauren, so this time I shouldered him sideways. Now Rory and I together were blocking him quite efficiently, but I knew the man could snake past us fast enough if he felt like it.

‘In the middle of the afternoon and all,’ said Rory. ‘Dead. Drunk.’

Lauren eyed us, mistrust fairly oozing out of her. ‘Where did she go?’

‘I dunno.’ Rory shrugged and pointed hopefully at the grubby stained-glass window of the nearest pub. ‘In there? Gosh, I hope she doesn’t come back!’

Oh, very convincing. Not. I gave Lauren my sweetest smile. ‘I’m sure she won’t be back.’

I knew fine Lauren wasn’t even half-convinced, but Sionnach hadn’t taken his eyes off her. Working on the girl’s brain, just like Rory. Between the pair of them, Lauren didn’t stand a chance. At last she rolled her eyes and blew out a sigh.

‘Stupid drunk.’ She nibbled crossly at her ragged nail. ‘She made me break my best—’

‘Well,’ said Rory. ‘All over. Want to come back with us? Have a go on my Xbox?’

~ Rory. Sionnach had stiffened, and he was giving him the kind of glower that used to be reserved for when Rory was a young brat and had a habit of running away.

~ Sionnach, said Rory, glaring back. ~ It’s not a problem.

~ Yes. It is.

I’d have backed Sionnach up, but I was unnerved. ~ Sionnach, she saw something. We can’t just let her—

~ Live?

~ Sionnach!

But Lauren heard none of that. She was still watching Rory with narrowed eyes. ‘Have you got Grand Theft Auto?’

‘No, but he’s got the latest Call of Duty.’ I back-kicked Sionnach’s ankle. ‘Yeah, come on back with us.’

‘Well, that’s a first.’ Lauren almost grinned at me. ‘Thanks.’

Sionnach’s anger was coming off him in radioactive waves, but it was an offer Lauren couldn’t refuse and I wasn’t about to withdraw it. She was my cousin, even if not the one I was in love and lust with, and it was undeniably odd that I’d never invited her back to my new place. After all, I hadn’t bitten her face for at least three years, and she hadn’t gouged my eyeballs. Maybe we were both older and wiser; maybe it was just that we didn’t have to share a bathroom any more, or indeed a house.

I lived with my real family now, with my uncle and the exiled clann he captained, and I was happy. Probably happier than any of them, since I was the only one who wasn’t dislocated and homesick. My life would be pretty much perfect, in fact, if it wasn’t for college applications, and the high chance of being hunted down and murdered.

~ Get rid of Lauren as soon as you can, Sionnach told me. ~ This is a mistake.

~ It’ll be fine.

~ We’re all going to regret it.

Within about ten seconds, I already did. At school Lauren was inclined to eye Rory a little too closely and too long, and now, as we headed home through the deserted streets, she might have been surgically attached to his flank. Rory was way too polite and naive to tell her where to go, and Sionnach dropped back about fifty metres.

It pissed me off, and funnily enough it wasn’t jealousy. It was just that Sionnach belonged with us more than Lauren ever would. Nobody had the right to take his place.

I glanced over my shoulder, and Sionnach gave me one of his most beautiful grins.

~ It’s okay.

Well. He might not mind, but I did.

Nobody could say we lived in the best part of the city, but it was certainly the oldest. Half the old warren called Fishertown—‘town’ must have been a bit of stretch from day one—had been flattened to make way for warehouses and factory units and offices. What was left, when the heritage charities finally got their act together, was huddled on the far side of the industrial estate, cut off from the rest of the city: a few cobbled streets and low terraced cottages with quaint streetlights that I suspected weren’t the originals. Some Victorian shipowner had built a big house to the south, right up on the cliffs, overlooking his fiefdom. It was ramshackle now, dilapidated and unloved and unsold because the sea was eating at its foundations. Frankly I didn’t like to walk out on the headland and look back at the cliffs, riddled with tunnels and caves. At two in the morning, waking with a start, I could imagine the whole house collapsing into one of those holes.

Rory’s stepmother had found the house, or it had found her: love and real-estate lust at first sight. It had no name and they didn’t give it one; my friend Orach once told me that if you named something, you tied it to you, and it would tie you right back. Old and huge, unrenovated so that its rooms and halls were a warren of secret places, the house was set at the end of a dark winding drive in more than two acres of wild rhododendron-haunted garden. And there we all lived, and when I say all, I mean all. The place was treated as an open house by what seemed like an entire exiled race. I never knew who I’d find when I got home from school.

As Rory trudged up the drive with Lauren, I hung back under the untrimmed laurels and waited for Sionnach. He gave a soundless laugh as he caught up and put an arm round my shoulder, and together we negotiated the stuff piled in the hall. Motorbike helmets, mountain bikes, two pairs of muddy hillwalking boots, a sack of dry dog food. A case of empty wine bottles put out for recycling. Snowboards, waiting to be cleaned and waxed for the oncoming winter. I swore as I tripped on someone’s laptop bag. Minus laptop, and just as well, since I kicked it hard.

I’d never altogether get my head round the Sithe’s gregarious ways. They just didn’t seem capable of living in nice little nuclear units. Always had to be in great sprawling anthills of humanity, and the more the merrier, but somehow, if you wanted space and solitude, you could find it. You could even find peace and quiet.

At least, you could find a moment’s peace when Rory’s father and stepmother weren’t tearing verbal strips off each other. As we caught up with Rory and Lauren, waiting in the hall, my heart sank. The kitchen door was shut but we could hear every word.

‘You conceited ARROGANT stubborn UP-YOURSELF FAERY! What makes you think you know better than me?’

‘Yeah, it’s not like I’ve had more experience of life. It’s not like I would know better because I’ve seen about a thousand percent more and know ten thousand times more than you do because I’ve been around a bit longer.’

Rory had his hand on the kitchen door but he paused. If he walked in now, Seth and Finn might shut up, but then again they might not, and that would be even more embarrassing. He raised an eyebrow at me, and I shook my head. Sionnach sighed—half exasperated, half sorrowful—then edged past me and out towards the back garden and his workshop.

Smiling brightly, Rory and I looked at Lauren, and Rory said. ‘Sorry about this. Let’s go upstairs.’

Lauren stared at the kitchen door. ‘For God’s sake. Is he violent?’

‘Hoo!’ I laughed. ‘In his dreams. Take no notice.’

‘Wait till they make it up.’ Rory rolled his eyes. ‘That’s when it gets really embarrassing.’

‘I’ll prove it to you! I’ll show you what I saw, if you’ve got the guts to look!’

‘Don’t bother. You were hallucinating. I don’t want to share your hallucinations.’

‘Sometimes I could just SLAP YOU, SETH MACGREGOR!’

‘Well, why don’t you? It’s NOT LIKE YOU USUALLY HOLD BACK.’

The total hideous silence was broken after a few seconds by a snort of laughter. A clatter of crockery falling to the floor, the scrape of a table. A growl and more laughter.

‘If I didn’t love you so much I’d have to kill you.’

‘Yeah, yeah. I’d like to see you try. Shut up and kiss me, woman.’

‘Oh, for crying out loud,’ I said. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

‘If my mum called my dad a fairy, he’d kill her,’ said Lauren as we climbed the stairs. ‘I’m amazed Doctor Evil puts up with it.’

Rory stiffened, one foot on the top step and a dangerous look in his eye. ‘What did you call my father?’

‘Sorry.’ Lauren shrugged. ‘Thought everybody did.’

I felt a surge of violent resentment go through Rory. ‘Not in front of me they don’t. All right?’

I gave him a mental nudge. ~ Calm down, there, Laochan.

~ Like hell I will. Like any of them have been through what he’s been through. You don’t get scars if you spend your whole life on your fat backside, do you?

~ Your dad thinks it’s funny, you know. I glanced at Lauren, who was watching us both as if we were mad. ~ He doesn’t mind.

~ Well, I do. But he shrugged. ‘Come on, Lauren, forget it. My room’s up here.’

Actually I wasn’t telling the truth, there. Seth did mind. He was still self-conscious, and he was never going to have a perfect face again, but I reckoned he looked more beautiful now, as if life had given him a good slapping and he’d bounced back stronger and a whole lot wiser. The beatings he’d taken from the Wolf of Kilrevin had knocked his features slightly out of symmetry, and his right eyelid didn’t open as far as the left one since a deep vertical scar had been drawn down his face with a knife, but his eyes got a sort of mournful beauty from the aching homesickness. Ironic. Or maybe his non-existent gods just had a terrible sense of humour.

I got bored fast with Rory’s new game, since I couldn’t get near it. It was no great thrill watching him and Lauren sprawl on the bed and hog the controllers, so when I stood up and stretched, I was easily distracted by a black scrap in the sky. Opening the window I leaned on the sill and watched the raven soar and dive and loop impossible loops. That’d be Faramach. For all the mob of birds that hung around the cliffs, there wasn’t another one that took quite such delight in showing off.

Finn was with him. She stood right on the edge of the cliff, arms folded, watching him fly. Either the squabble with Seth was over or she’d stormed out: wouldn’t be the first time. But I reckoned they’d made it up, because she looked perfectly happy. Her hair whipped crazily in the breeze, but even out there on the bleak cliff-top she didn’t look cold.

She spent a lot of time out there—especially when Seth was working away from home—though it was barely more than wind-scoured grass and whin, and any fence must have crumbled away as the rock face did. All that was left of a formal garden was the mass of laurel and rhododendron that hugged the house and blocked the light from the downstairs rooms. I used to wonder why the clann didn’t cut the bushes back to get the view, but I’d worked it out now. It was the wrong sea, that was all. They loved it but they didn’t want the permanent aching reminder of the right one. No islands at the horizon here, just a fusion of sky and water.

Finn liked the cliffs, though. Sooner her than me. As I watched, she sat down on the cliff-edge, dangling her legs over, then leaned forward to follow Faramach’s aerobatics as he spiralled lower. My stomach lurched just watching her.

Faramach wheeled upwards again, but Finn went on staring down. There must be something else at the foot of those insane cliffs that fascinated her.

The sea had turned silver-blue, glittering and popping like a million flashbulbs, so brilliant it hurt my eyes. I didn’t want to spend any more of an afternoon like this with a couple of Xbox bores, and they hadn’t even started the game proper: they were still choosing weapons from a ridiculously massive arsenal. Boys would be boys and some girls would be boys too, and Finn would be much better company.

Unfortunately, though I stalked off unnoticed, I didn’t get far. To the left of the staircase the door of the TV room stood open, and Grian was leaning on the newel post glaring up at me, blocking my way through the hall. I glanced past him at the darkened space within. The volume on the TV was so high I could follow every word of the dialogue.

I eyed Grian again. Big and blond and a trueborn healer, and I didn’t know which of those gave him his permanent air of superiority.

‘Get in here,’ he said. ‘We want a word.’

With a very bad grace I stomped down the remaining stairs and barged past him into the room. We didn’t seem to want a word at all. The rest of them, about a dozen or so, were slouched across sofas and armchairs, feet on the upholstery, drinking beer out of bottles and watching Blackadder on DVD.

Boys, I thought for the second time in a minute, would be boys.

‘You bunch of slobs,’ I said. ‘It’s a gorgeous day. At least open the curtains.’

‘Hi Hannah.’

‘Hey, Hannah.’

‘Shut the door, girl.’ Sprawled across Iolaire’s lap, Jed waggled his fingers by way of greeting.

‘Somebody better pick up those peanuts,’ I told them, nudging the spilt bowl with my foot, ‘before Finn gets here.’

‘She’s busy.’ Fearna sniggered.

‘They’re not still fighting?’ Iolaire glanced across.

‘Nah,’ I said, and ate a peanut.

A suggestive sigh drifted round the room.

‘Leave them alone.’ Braon appeared from behind me with a platter of chicken wings and a bottle of hot sauce. Not like her to do the cooking for this lot; she must have been really peckish. ‘Seth has to go back to work tomorrow. Course they’re fighting.’

‘Aye,’ said Iolaire. ‘It’s an excuse to make up.’

‘He shouldn’t go away,’ snapped Grian, flicking his hand across my scalp. ‘His place is here. It should be Seth keeping the lid on you and Rory, not me.’

‘He has to work, Gri,’ said Braon mildly. ‘We all have to eat.’

‘He can live off us.’

Braon gave him a you-can-tell-that-to-Seth look.

Grian clicked the mute on the remote. ‘Can I get some backup here?’

Iolaire helped himself to two wings, feeding one to the flat-out Jed and wagging the other at the huge flatscreen TV. ‘Leave her alone, Gri. There’s no harm in it.’

‘There could be.’ Grian wouldn’t let it go. ‘Would you slobs focus? You know what the little cat’s dragged in.’

‘Cheers, mate,’ I growled.

‘What was Sionnach thinking, letting you do that? And where is he anyway? I want a word.’

I sighed, and nodded towards the garden and Sionnach’s joinery workshop.

Braon hesitated, took her teeth out of a wing. ‘Is he okay?’

‘Okay as ever,’ I said. ‘We had a … bit of an incident. On the way home. That’s why we had to bring home the only witness, as it happens.’

Grian stiffened, folding his arms as if his point was made. His lazy grin fading, Jed pushed Iolaire’s chicken wing away and levered himself up.

‘What kind of an incident?’ he said.

I bit my nails. ‘Oh, a woman. Darach, Sionnach said she was. He, um … he dealt with her. It’s okay.’

‘Darach,’ spat Iolaire. ‘I know her.’

‘You knew her,’ I said dryly.

There was a silence.

‘Did anyone get hurt?’ asked Jed sharply.

I shook my head. As an embarrassed afterthought, I added, ‘Except Darach.’

‘Gods,’ said Iolaire.

‘Sionnach should have killed the girl,’ said Grian.

‘The girl is seventeen years old.’ I felt my cheekbones redden with anger.

‘The girl is a nosy cow. We could feel it as soon as she walked in. You and Rory are idiots.’

‘You can take that and stick it—’

‘Suicidal fecking idiots.’ Grian was yelling now. ‘Have you ever heard of keeping your heads down?’

‘Anybody for Big Bang Theory?’ Iolaire interrupted brightly. ‘I don’t think the Witchsmeller’s that funny.’

‘That’s ’cause it isn’t comedy, it’s history,’ muttered Diorras. ‘Christ, I should know.’

‘Less of the funny, more of the news,’ snapped Grian. He fired the remote at the TV as if he wanted it to shatter, and yanked his phone from his pocket. ‘I checked the BBC website a minute ago. Want to see?’

‘No,’ said Sorcha, lifting a beer bottle to her lips.

‘I do.’ Iolaire sat forward, dislodging Jed’s head and provoking a grunt of protest.

‘Watch,’ said Grian, and everybody did.

‘They kept themselves to themselves,’ a woman was telling a fuzzy microphone. Her hair blustered in the breeze across her pale face, and she combed it away then re-folded her arms. Behind her stood the shell of a council house, the neighbouring walls smeared with black smoke. ‘Very quiet and reserved. They seemed a nice couple. It’s a nice area.’

The recording cut back to the balding reporter, swaddled in a dark overcoat, his face solemn. ‘The bodies were found in an upstairs room, and reports indicate the room may have been barricaded from the inside,’ his brow furrowed, ‘and that items of weaponry were found with the couple. The police are not commenting at this stage. For Reporting Scotland, this is…’

Grian clicked the mute button. The silence, for a moment, was so oppressive I thought it would smother the lot of us.

‘Sgarrag and Fraoch, in case you were wondering. Because they buggered off to live by themselves.’ Grian rapped the back of my skull with the remote. ‘Still fancy Durham University, do you, Hannah?’

‘Shit,’ breathed Sorcha.

‘I hope,’ said Braon, and cleared her throat. ‘I hope they were dead before the house was fired.’

‘They wouldn’t burn them to death,’ said Iolaire, not very convincingly. ‘They wouldn’t.’

Nobody said anything. I guess nobody wanted to think about it too hard.

Sgarrag and Fraoch didn’t account for many on-screen seconds. The newsreader was doing the final-item funny now. I didn’t have to hear it to get the story: yet another sighting of the Beast of Ben Vreckan. The Beast itself featured in a uselessly blurry mobile-phone photo above the presenter’s right shoulder. Aye, sure said her cynically tilted eyebrow.

‘Hannah,’ said Iolaire, a pleading look in his eye. ‘Try not to bring strangers home, ’kay?’

His thumb was caressing Jed’s close-shaved hair, and my anger melted away. Jed had shut his eyes, but I could tell from the tight set of his mouth that he wasn’t asleep. He was unhappy, that was all, possibly unhappier than anyone, and Rory’s reckless invitation to Lauren had put the already-distant prospect of home just that little bit further away.

‘Okay,’ I grunted. ‘But it’s only my cousin Lauren.’

‘I’m sure it is.’ Grian’s attempt at conciliation came out through gritted teeth. ‘This time.’

I turned to leave. ‘And next time,’ I said, ‘you can take it up with Rory. He’s the one that invited her.’

‘Or maybe Seth can do some parenting instead of me, for a change.’

‘You’ve got a lot to tell him to his face,’ I said spitefully. ‘Good luck with that.’

Copyright © 2013 by Gillian Philip

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here’s more about the series:

The story began with Firebrand in the 16th century on the far side of the Veil that protected the Sithe’s peaceful world from our own troubled one. But Sithe Queen Kate NicNiven had her eyes set on more than her own kingdom and determined to tear down anything in the way of her ambitions. Seth and Conal MacGregor are two brothers with a complicated relationship who end up on the wrong side of both the Veil and Queen Kate. Firebrand followed the two as they fought to survive in a foreign land embroiled in religious wars, as well as protect the Veil and reclaim their birthright from the Queen.

Bloodstone found the brothers in modern day England after spending centuries hunting for a mysterious gem demanded by Queen Kate. But in those years they also managed to slip through the Veil on a few occasions—and cause no small amount of violent havoc. Meanwhile, a young thief named Jed Cameron gets swept up in the struggle between worlds and is thrust into the fray of intrigue and betrayal. In the collision of two worlds, war and tragedy are inevitable, especially when treachery comes from the most shocking of quarters.

In Wolfsbane, the drama reached a shocking fervor. Rory, the son of Seth MacGregor, was angered by his house arrest and the looming death threat from Queen Kate—so the prophesied savior of the Sithe followed the footsteps of his father and crossed the Veil. On the other side he met Hannah Falconer, who would do anything to escape her worldly woes, even if it meant taking up with the strange and wild Rory. Meanwhile, Seth struggled ever more against the wicked Queen and when years of stalemate were shattered by a surprise attack, he was devastated to learn just who had betrayed him.

Now, in ICEFALL, the final installment in the Rebel Angels series, death stalks Seth MacGregor’s clan in their otherworld exile. Kate NicNiven is close to ultimate victory, and she is determined that nothing will keep her from it. Not even the thing that took her soul: the horror that lurks in the sea caves. But Kate still needs Seth’s son Rory, and his power over the Veil. And she’ll go to any lengths to get him. Seth’s own soul is rotting from the wound inflicted by Kate, and survival for his loved ones seems all he can hope for. But might a mortal threat to his brother’s daughter force him to return to his own world to challenge Kate? And will Rory go with him? Because Rory suspects there’s a darkness trapped in the Veil, a darkness that wants to get out. But only one Sithe knows how near it is to getting its way: Seth’s bound lover, the witch Finn. Nobody gets forever. But some are willing to try...

Rendered with complex characters full of life and a world fraught with intrigue, Philip has exquisitely brought the Rebel Angels urban fantasy series to a thrilling end.

Tor Books | March 2015 | Hardcover | 448 pages

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Please fill out the Google form to enter the contest.