Competitive Edge

Competitive Edge, my rom-com, has finally wrapped at 132 pgs.  Handing it off to editor tomorrow.  Hopefully be ready by the end of the month.  Still have to find cover art and fix that up, but I am looking forward to the headaches that come with it.  Nothing more satisfying than wrapping your novel.

Other projects are in the hands of editors:  Touch the Veil and Perception.  Still looking like early fall releases for those.  If the dates change, I'll keep the blog updated.

What's on deck?
  Honestly, I need to work on Through the Veil, but also, Silverside has been brought up a lot lately.  I'm torn.  Guess I'll sleep on it, tomorrow's another day and all that.  Perhaps I'll have a bright spot of inspiration.

Oh, I've sketched out the outline for a Dystopian early Industrial Revolution fiction.  Think Game of Thrones, only Industrial Revolution style.  I hate comparing anything I write to someone like Martin, he's pretty damned epic, but that's the closest comparison I can come up with at the moment.  Not committed too heavily to it, just setting it up, finding head-shots for the main players.  It's not a fly by the seat of my pants project, so it will likely be years before I have enough for a rough draft.  Still, it's a great concept, here's hoping it doesn't fizzle out.

So, many things to write....so little time.  Okay, back to work.

The top pic is Perception and Touch the Veil side by side.  The middle image is Touch the Veil and the bottom is Perception.   Seeing the manuscripts like this makes everything seem so much closer to reality.

Thought I would share these.
Gotta get back to the edits so they'll be ready for publisher rejections.

Touch the Veil excerpt. Sharp's Pussal Larvae Infestation

Touch the Veil excerpt, as promised. This is not a teaser, this is content that never made it into the book due to length.  (Forgive grammar flubs as this never made it to the editors....)
Touch the Veil will be published as soon as edits and cover art is finished, so hopefully you'll enjoy this little bonus.
Enjoy!!

            I stood and stretched, my back ached from crawling the last fifteen acres of Joshua Sharp’s expansive peanut farm, marking out the vast network of subterranean Pussal larva tunnels.  If Sharp had waited any longer to contract my services, the remaining four hundred and eighty five acres would end up in the same disastrous state as the back nine of his fields.

            When I can safely feel my toes again I open the trunk of my Jeep and began pulling out milk jugs filled with neon green liquid.  No lie, it looks like antifreeze under black light.  It’s not antifreeze and as far as I know, it won’t damage Sharp’s crops any more than the Pussal larva already had.  This field wasn't just infested, it was ruined.  If not wiped out, the bastards would spread.  Sharp would lose everything.  And the price of peanuts in Antigone would ratchet up to astronomical heights.  I don’t necessarily care for nuts, excuse me, legumes, but Denise does.

            People usually limit the preternatural community based on what they read.  They’ve lumped them all into varied categories of sentient creatures; vampires, trolls, faeries, shifters, etc.  Truth is and will always be stranger than the greatest fictions.  Every biome has pests, even the preternatural ones.  And that’s exactly what Pussal larva where, pests, big, ugly, crop decimating nightmares that perpetuated world-wide famine.

            Have you ever snuggled with a grub?  Or perhaps turned one over while planting your garden, maybe burying a body?  Well Pussal larva and grubs have a lot in common.  They have a pale white C shaped body, three sets of legs, and a wormy appearance, though that has more to do with their lack of spine and supporting architecture than anything else.  Bulbous brown heads with no discernible eyes.  And both have a dangerous addiction to cellulose, as both were dedicated herbivores.  That’s where the similarities between the grub and Pussal larva end.

Pussal larvae were built like grubs on PCP with a little Miracle Grow thrown in for good measure.  Attached to those similar brown bulbous heads though, Pussal larvae have two sets of mandible jaw pinchers.  One that is meant to capture and hold roots while the other works to push food into its voracious mouth; well they also use them for defense when necessary.  Like ants and bees, Pussal larvae share a hive mind, and have delegated work groups.  They come on like a ravenous horde and don’t leave until they’ve eaten every piece of vegetation they can.  They’ve caused more than their fair share of crop blights and dust bowls.  Soldiers prowled the perimeters to keep away intruders, or would be predators while workers harvest and drag dinner back to the queen.

She’s who I’m here for.  And ten gallons of Wicca fortified insecticide should more than do the job.  Still, I don’t relish the idea of crawling through those tunnels.  They’ll all know I’m there the minute I breech.  And that’s when things will get ugly.  Fifteen acres worth of tunnels, I didn’t need to be a mathematician to know that beneath the soil wormed a venerable army of preternatural creepy crawlies.  It’s enough to make my skin crawl.  Pussal larvae, future B movie stars.  Though they’d have to come up with a better name, something that inspired fear in the masses, grubs just don’t have that violent ring to it.  Not like JAWS.

In an effort to prevent ruining a clean shirt, I slid on my coveralls and began the arduous task of dragging the pest-be-gone toward the center of the field.  This was where Sharp had first noticed the damage.  He’d even marked off the area with bright blue flags, very considerate.  It narrowed down the amount of tunnels I was going to have to crawl through.  I’d make sure to keep that in mind when I tallied his bill.

With each step closer to the circle of blue flags, the ground beneath my feet begins to give.  Behind me, all ten gallons of ultra-preternatural-insecticide were being dragged by a network of cleverly woven bungee cables and climbing carbineers.  If I fell through and landed in the center of their nest, any discount I’d planned on cutting Sharp would be negated.  He hadn’t said anything about the integrity of the ground and it was something he would have noticed.  There was absolutely no way he could drive a harvester over this area.  Details man, details.

I try to tread the brittle terrain the best I can, but the closer I get to those flags, that spindly feeling of dread unfolds in my stomach warning me I’m not going to make it to my destination.  No sooner than the thought forms the ground gave way.

Shiii-

-iiii

-ii

-iit.

When I land, it’s with a firm thud and a freshly blown curse.  Thankfully Mother Nature padded the fall with a convenient pile of rich soil.  Above, the stars were twinkling.  No, not twinkling, they were laughing.  My sudden entry was not cloaked in stealth or masked by loud machinery so they knew I was here.  Quickly my eyes dart from left to right as I use all the power in my legs to bring the gallon containers below with me, one at a time.  At least they hadn’t fallen on my head.  Oh what fun that could have been, my second concussion for the week!  Sadly, it wouldn’t be a new record.

The flashlight mounted to my forehead lit up the tunnel.  Four feet wide, two feet tall, yep, my only navigational option was the belly crawl.  Not the best defensible position if the natives got restless and decided to come at me all mandible wielding ninja style.  For several seconds I studied the walls, the top and bottom of the tunnel, sifting through the remains of roots for signs to follow.  They had front legs, three sets for fucks sake, they should have left something behind, a trail to follow straight to the heart of their compound so I could shove poison down their queen’s throat and use the rest on any and all eggs.  Ew, leaky egg sacks….for a moment that scene in Alien’s plays out on the back of my lids.  The one where the freaky-tentacle-sucker face latched onto the unsuspecting soldier, yep, totally what I needed to be thinking about before crawling down a long dark tunnel into a nest of nasty.

Shaking the imagery of Pussal larva attempting to attach its mandible jaws to my face, I had only one decision to make, sigh, left or right.  Keeping with the tradition of any good dungeon crawl, I went left.     

Left was a bad idea.

Not more than three feet committed and I could hear them snuffling and shuffling through the earthen walls, above and below.  They weren’t in front or behind me yet, but it wouldn’t be long.  Extinction event was put on pause as my flashlight illuminated the path ahead of me, one amber brown mandible peaking around a corner.  Bastards were going to ambush me.  Damn sneaky.

I try to wiggle backward.  It’s a mistake.  The space is too narrow for such an acrobatic feat, and I’m no contortionist.  Even if I was, ten gallons of metaphysical bug spray blocked the backward exodus.  Range of movement was a vital and in this earthen crawl space there wasn’t any.  As the mandibles I’d spotted inch around the corner I slid my hands down my hips.  Bullets were useless down here.  Pussal larvae weren’t much more than fluid filled sacs.  All a bullet would manage, if it hit, was to turn them into pissed off seeping sacs.  Nope, tonight it was all about blades.  Close quarters and closer contact, my favorite.  Some people like roller-coasters I like hand to hand combat.  And yes, I know how incredibly psychotic and suicidal that sounds.  If things went Sasquatch hairy, well, I had a grenade secured to my suit.  A very, very last resort since it wouldn’t kill the infestation, all it would do was collapse their network of tunnels and force them further out into Sharp’s other fields.

My daggers slide from their harness, and for a split second, I revel in their reassuring weight, all 2.2 lethal ounces of it.  I had four others attached to various parts of my body, but these were a personal favorite.  Four inch black skeletonized daggers, one side serrated while the other was sharpened surgeon scalpel smooth.  They slice, dice, and mutilate, making them perfect for the task at hand.

While earlier I cursed the gallons of insecticide for blocking any retreat, I’m grateful for them now, they’ll provide cover so I won’t have to divide my defenses on two positions.  My enemies will come to me.  It’s a very lemon and lemonade assessment.  Battlefield strategy 101.

As if they can hear the tactical wheels in my head spinning, one Pussal larva finally rounds the corner, impatience forcing it to make the first move.  Mandible gnashing, its albino skin so thin the flashlight illuminates its gooey innards.  I’m granted one second to appreciate the melatonin in human skin and all it does to conceal the things we have no business seeing.  Membrane lung sacks, milky tubular intestines, like rolls of puff pastry submerged in white muscadine jelly.  That I’m still in my belly crawl position works to my advantage because its spindly legs force it up so it slides against the earthen roof.  It swings its bulbous head my direction, the larger mandibles snapping to grab me, covering me with rancid spittle.  Instinct, years of training takes over.  One swift left, the serrated edge rips through the viscous membrane of the larva’s exposed abdomen while the scalpel edge of my right blade is shoved through the bulbous skull.  The once soothing dampened earth smell was replaced by a nausea inducing fragrance of rotted fruit.  I’ve pierced a bowel.  Bluish green slime slid down my hand just before I pull my daggers back.  The mandibles take one more wild swing at my face before emitting a low gurgling noise as it choked to death on its own bodily fluids.  A mournful shriek escapes the creature before its body crumples in a fat seeping heap of disgusting.

There was no time to enjoy victory or vomit.  Three more larvae have pushed their way around the corner.  And while smaller, they look absolutely pissed.  Yep, hive mind.  I’m not just an intruder.  I’ve been upgraded, my threat level moved up another level.  Goodie.  Last thing I wanted was a boring night.  It’s not like I had a hot date to cancel or anyone waiting at home.  That this was the highlight of my week was almost pathetic.  If I was a selfless hero I could claim that I was making the world a better place, that I was sacrificing my personal life for the greater good.  But I’m not a hero.  And even without creatures like the Pussal larvae, I’d still have no life.  At least I had purpose, direction.  That meant something didn’t it?

The great quandary over my life’s meaning ends when the encroaching larvae hiss at me, covering me in a new layer of that rancid herbicidal spittle.  It’s a stink slice festival as I turn insides into outsides and wear their entrails like soupy merit badges as I carve my way forward, dragging the insecticide with me as I inch deeper to find an army of rabid mandibles waiting around the corner.  It’s going to be a long night.

Time lost meaning as I crawled and carved a swath through the Pussal horde.  While time consuming and nasty, they weren’t exactly the smartest or toughest creatures I’ve ever dealt with.  Their hive mind had a down side, their shared consciousness meant they all thought the same, fought the same, and had the exact same weaknesses.  They were used to fighting small mammals, rabbits or raccoons that mistakenly crawled into their tunnels looking for an easy meal.  They’d likely never encountered predator like me, so they weren’t prepared for how to deal with me.  The confined space worked more to my advantage than theirs.  Their vast numbers meant nothing in the narrow confines.  They couldn’t overwhelm me, or sneak up from behind.  They were forced to face me head on-er-mandible on?  And I dug into battle, no longer nauseated by the smell, no longer gagged by the noises my blades made as I carved their gelatinous bodies.  I became a machine, muscle memory and adrenaline taking over as humanity fell away to hard-wired survival instinct.  The animal beneath the civilized veneer, it’s in all of us, but mankind likes to pretend we’re not the most vicious predator on the planet.  I’m not afraid of it.  I own it.  Some people have an eye for numbers, others build things.  Death is what I do.  And damn if I’m not good at it.

I slide through the gaping maw entrance to the main nest.  Bodies fall to the ground around me, landing in wet thwapping heaps.  I’m bruised and my ankle sang in mild agony, but it’s nothing a hot shower won’t cure.  Considering the mandible militia I’d just carved through, I actually came away better than I should have.  It’s not that I was that good.  Any redneck with a Bowie knife could have done the same thing, but it would have taken longer.  Without sparing the corpses a second glance, I pull the bungee cord tethering the gallons of unconventional bug killer down.  One by one, I tug them out of the tunnel and set them on the ground, unhooking them from my throbbing ankle.  Should have bracketed them to my hip, but you know what they say about hindsight right.

It doesn’t take a genius to know I’m in the nest and the horn for a retreat has been blown.  There’s no way I killed all the Pussal larvae.  My flashlight illuminated the room, moving with my head as it swivels from left to right and back again, like a typewriter.  Sure enough the brood queen is sitting there, blind-fat-and nine times bigger than any of the larvae I’d encountered in the tunnels.  Attached to her backside is an embryonic sac, with hundreds of soccer ball sized eggs.  Damn, that was enough larvae to eliminate all the vegetation in the tri-county area.  The brood queen lacked mandibles like the others.  She shouldn’t need them.  After all, she had an army to defend her.  Well, had, was the operative word there.  I might not have killed them all but I’d put a dent in her forces.

I look at her size and then give the ten gallons of poison a skeptical glance.  I sure hope I brought enough to do the job…..

She knew I was there but for all my menace she doesn't make a sound.  No gaseous hissing, no watery warbling.  Her big head just tracked my movements, following me as I shouldered the poison and dragged it closer.  While I assessed the best route to climb the gelatinous mountain, she studies me.  I’m going to have to pour at least four gallons down her throat.  The rest I’ll have to apply to the eggs she’s already laid.  When you destroy a large group of people, its mass murder, maybe even genocide if you've got a real hate on for who they are or what they stand for.  When you lay waste to an entire community of larvae, it’s called larvicide.  Somewhere, someone will read this and think me a monster.  That I’m destroying creatures I shouldn't.  PETA will add me to their ever lengthening list of chronic offenders.  I should feel guilty right?  I don’t.

First, these creatures don’t belong here.  They aren't of this world and I don’t have a way to send them back to where they belong.  Second, Pussal larvae do not get full.  They eat.  And eat.  And eat.  Until there is nothing left but barren soil.  So it wasn't just Sharp’s peanuts in danger here.  It was the entirety of Antigone’s flora.  Unchecked, they’d create another prodigious famine.  Thirdly, and most importantly, I’m a humanist.  And in the coin toss of them-or-us existence, I’ll choose us every-single-fucking-time.  Someone has to be willing to make these decisions and carry the consequences because no one else likes the weight of it.  Next time you eat peanuts, remember this.  Next time you give your kid the apple he’s been begging for, remember this.  And maybe you won’t thank me, if I've done my job right you won’t even know I've done anything at all.  You’re welcome.  Now point the judgment elsewhere while I finish my work.

The ascent was treacherous, finding and keeping your footing on a waterbed, and the brood queen’s body is very much like a waterbed.  Despite the pain I’m inflicting with my climb, the brood mother remained still, silent.  And this unnerves me.  As if she’s accepted the defeat.

When I make it to her head, I have to trap it with my arm and anchor it, though she doesn't fight, the last thing I need to do is lose my damned footing and land on my ass in this chamber.  With my arm around her golden brown head, her mouth is forced open.  Using my free hand I pop the first bottle of poison, and turn it up.

“It will be quick,” I promise, and painless I think but don’t say.  It will taste like honey suckle sugar.  Second gallon, she’s guzzling it down.

Third.

Fourth.

As the last of the sticky sweet poison drips out, the empty bottle falls to the cavern floor with the others, landing with a hollow thump.  She still isn’t fighting me, so I loosen my grip on her neck.  The poison has to work its way through her digestive track and right into the eggs in her belly, the ones in her birthing canal.   I can feel her insides quiver beneath me as the poison finally hits home.

I dismount her carefully, knowing when she falls I don’t want to be anywhere near her.  I back away, letting the poison finish what I started.  The brood queen’s once tall and foreboding body arches, tilting awkwardly before landing inches away from the tip of my boots.  I wipe my face with a grimy sleeve, my eyes stinging from some kind of dirt I must have gotten in them.  I can’t physically cry, haven’t been able to for years, so it’s debris I’m wiping away, not phantom tears.

Guilt doesn't live here.

Humans win; every-single-fucking-time.  

Rules and Other Things worth Breaking....(Liam)

Rules & Other Things worth Breaking

           

            She sleeps, for the moment that is enough.  At least that is what I tell myself.  I live in the rise and fall of her chest, each measured breath.  The pause between each is enough to drive me madder than a Victorian hatter.  The fragility of her slender frame is only emphasized by the gauze bandages and tubes running this way and that, ensuring she gets the fluids-the medicine she needs to heal.  Eternity is just a bat of lashes in the time I have waited to see her.  And I almost lost her again.  And I would be forced to remain behind, banished to this in-between.  I had spent too many years, wasted so many opportunities, following rules that were set against me.  Legislation created to facilitate my failure.  It seems even those who’d set the rules had grown tired of playing by them as well.  Too many things had changed.  There was no longer balance between the forces at work within this world and those who pulled their strings.

            Everything had just become infinitely more complicated.  Chaos would come.  War would follow.  And she slumbers.  Unaware that she will be the fulcrum.  It is a responsibility too large for any mortal mind to fully understand without splintering apart.  Too many lives crisscrossing-intersecting-knitting together-coming undone and all came with one decision.  And the weight of it sits squarely on those slender shoulders. 

            When the nurse enters, I watch as she checks the plastic bags and tubes.  Watch as she scribbles out the vitals.  In minutes she is gone but I am no longer alone.  My time with her has come to an end. 

            “You shouldn't be here.”  The guardian says.  He wears the same shadows I do, a camouflaged so that we may move through this world, mostly unobserved.  The guardian’s words register like the buzzing of an unwanted gnat.

            “I should not have to be here.”  The guardian nods.  I do not tell him that he should have been there.  That he is just as responsible for her condition as the vile creature that pulled the trigger.  He lives because he remains to be of use to me.  She twitches, her eyes fluttering behind closed lids.  The dreams have begun.  It is only a matter of time.  When I move to the edge of the bed the guardian grabs me by the arm, it was a very unwise thing to do.

            “That you are the reason she still remains in this world is the only reason I have not destroyed you.  Do not test the limits of my benevolence.”  My voice is cruel.  He doesn't release me, I admire courage-but this borders stupidity.

            “Your presence will draw too much attention.  The longer you remain the greater the risk.  I can only keep her hidden for so long.”  I look at her, my eyes absorbing everything.  She was different, but somehow, the same.  “If she dies, I will take spend the rest of my eternity re-inventing your concept of pain.  Do not think my leaving is a victory for you.  I do this for her.”  As I always have.  In this world and beyond, everything endured-for her.  I do not risk looking at her again, afraid that the courage to leave will fail me.

With a thought I am outside the hospital, walking beneath stars that, for the first time, do not feel stacked against me.  I smile for what feels like the first time in an eon.

There was much to prepare.

NOTE THAT THIS WAS CUT FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT.  IT IS UNEDITED AND NOT IN THE FINAL STORY.  Okay with that being said, I hope you enjoyed a preview from Liam's POV.

Nothing inspires true fear like.....

A trip to the dentist.  I only have a few things that actually give me a good case of the 'heebies', and while the dentist ranks the lowest on that scale, it still doesn't mean I'm not scared shitless.  Maybe it's the horrible sound of the tools, or the nauseating smells, maybe it's the too large hands trying to force themselves into my mouth....whatever the reason, I pity my dentist today.  I pity him because not only am I scared but I am a nervous wreck.  They've been warned in advance that I'm a white knuckler so I flatly refuse to feel bad for any of the terrible things I say while they work.  Not that they will be able to understand a damned thing I'm saying with my mouth shoved full of cotton.

Now that's out of the way, Thirty Years is doing better than I expected considering the dark subject matter and the visceral level the main character forces the reader to go in order to understand her life and her choices.  It's not a happily every after story, but it is reality for some people and that's the reason Thirty Years had to be written.  And it makes me smile to see her shining there in the dashboard.

Okay, I've put off getting ready for the dentist as long as I possibly could, so now I have to get ready.

Thirty Years Released Today

Thirty Years

Released this afternoon.  It has what I consider some adult content so you may have to turn your adult filter on to see it.

Now that is done, I'm still waiting on my damned phone repair guy.

Short Story....

I've written a new one, it's a little edgy and graphic but it has a few powerful political undertones.  It's short though, again I will be releasing it for free once I get the cover art finished and a second edit done.  It's already been named so I don't know why I feel the need to keep calling it 'short story' habit maybe.  I've got one other short story in the hopper that's a little closer to home and  taking a little longer to write than I would like but I hope to see it done within a week or two, then I can move forward with some of my heavier projects.

I'm still looking for an editor.  Hell at this point I'd settle for an English major or the equivalent.  I won't be able to push any of my bigger projects without having someone with a hawkish set of eyes for my Shatner commas and continuous verb tense shifts.


Also, if anyone out there knows any reviewers who might be interested in reviewing some of my work, would you kindly pass them along.  I promise not to bombard them with emoticons or pleading requests.


And to those of you who've read and rated Thirty Minutes, thank you so much.  I appreciate it.  To those who've only read the story, thank you also.  Without readers, a writer's life is pretty damned pointless.