As much as I hate to do it, I’m going to basically bail on the post this morning. You see, I learned something valuable yesterday: the writing gods have very perverse sense of humor. Either that or my dog sabotaged everything he could in order to prevent Sarah from going home. First, he somehow managed to take control of the knife I was using to make salad so Sarah would have something light to eat before getting on the plane. The result of the dog-controlled knife is that I tried to take the top of my index finger off. Lots of blood, probably should have stopped at the doc in the box for a stitch or two and now a finger that won’t let me use it to type or much of anything else either. And, if that wasn’t enough, the washer decided it didn’t like the fact Sarah had left and, as a result, when I returned from the airport, my mother greeted me with the news that the washer had exploded and the kitchen sink had backed up. Now, I am hunting and pecking on the laptop while I wait for the plumber.
So, since you guys have given us some really good topics at our last open floors, I’m not going to throw another one out today. Instead, I’m going to do another snippet from Nocturnal Interlude, my current WIP and the third novel, and fourth entry, in the Nocturnal Lives Series. I promise to be back next week — if not later today — with a real post.
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For the previous snippet, click here.
Nocturnal Interlude is © Amanda S. Green 2013. Do not copy, alter, distribute or resell without permission. Exceptions made for ATTRIBUTED quotes as critique or linking to this blog.
***
“Thank God, you’re all right.”
Jackson’s arms went about Mac the moment she climbed into the rear of the black van. For a moment, she let herself just enjoy the comfort of her mate’s embrace. She’d never forget the worry she’d seen in his eyes as she’d been led off by the feds or the anger. She knew without asking that it had been one of the hardest things he’d ever done not to go after them and force the men to release her. If their roles had been reversed, she wasn’t sure she’d have been able to exercise as much self-control as had he.
“Are you okay?”
She lightly touched his cheek, her eyes searching his. Even though Halsey and his partner hadn’t done anything to him, it had been hard not to worry that another team of agents hadn’t appeared to sweep Jackson up. The thought of anything happening to him, especially if it was because of her, made her blood run cold.
“I’m fine now that we’ve got you back.” He kissed her and then helped her into the seat directly behind the driver’s seat. A moment later, he was seated next to her.
“Mateo, what’s going on?”
Her cousin had taken his place in the front passenger seat and, before answering, he told the driver to get them out of there. “Mac, I promise I’ll answer all your questions, but let’s get well away from here first.”
“Damn it, Mateo!” She bit down on her anger. It was reaction to everything that had happened. She knew it. But that didn’t make his refusal to explain any easier to take. “I think I deserve to know what’s happening.”
“Mac.” Jackson reached out and turned her face so she looked at him. “He’s right. I only know the bare minimum and it’s enough to worry me – a lot. We’re on our way to a meeting where everything will be explained.”
She leaned back and scrubbed her hands over her face. Maybe this was all just a bad nightmare and she’d awaken soon. Then she’d be back in Hawaii and everything would be all right. But that wasn’t how her luck ran. No, this was all too real and she was getting a very bad feeling.
“Fine. Just tell me this: is my family all right?”
“They are. Your grandmother and mother are waiting for you. The twins are on their way back from Austin with a couple of my men,” Mateo answered. “And, before you ask, Jackson’s family is safe as well. I promise.”
Mac didn’t know whether to be relieved or not. On a primitive level, relief won out. She’d come to understand over the last few months just how important family really was. But then the implications of what Mateo said hit her. Why would he, or at least someone he worked with, have already taken steps to insure that her family and her mate’s were all right? Had someone specifically targeted them or was the threat more widespread? And why had the feds taken her into custody?
Without a word, she opened the cover on her tablet PC. Before she could turn it on, Mateo reached out and snatched it from her hands. Eyes flashing, jaw clinching, she stared at him in disbelief. What in the hell was going on?
“Mac, you can’t use the tablet or your cell phone or anything else with GPS capability until we scrub it,” he said, his expression serious.
Okay, now she was starting to get scared. Worse, it was fueling her anger and that was making it more and more difficult to maintain control. It wouldn’t take much more for her to shift. She didn’t know about her cousin, but she didn’t particularly want an angry jaguar loose in a moving van. So someone had better start telling her something before that happened.
“Mac, he’s right.” Jackson’s spoke softly but she still heard how worried he was. “Our families are safe but not all of our friends are. Someone has been moving against them for the last few days. We don’t know who and we don’t know why. All we know for sure is that at least half a dozen of our people are missing.”
For a moment, Mac stared at him, not sure she’d heard right. But one look at him was enough to convince her he spoke the truth, at least the truth as he knew it. After what happened at the airport, she wasn’t sure any of them knew the truth. Still, people they knew, maybe even people they loved, were missing.
“Who?” she asked even though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
“Pat’s one of them. The twins are also missing.”
If they hadn’t been in the van, Mac would have been on her feet and pacing. Three members of her pride were missing. Three people she cared about. She could almost understand why Pat had been taken. Not only was she a cop – and Mac couldn’t dismiss out of hand that one of Pat’s old cases from Narcotics hadn’t caught up with her – but she was also the pride leader’s mate. Two very good reasons why their enemies might want to take her. Also two very good reasons doing so could get someone killed.
But why take the twins? They were barely adults. College students. They had no real standing in the pride except as beloved members. They certainly couldn’t be involved with anything criminal. And there were others missing as well. God, this was a nightmare.
“Are they all from the pride?”
“No. There’s at least one lone pure missing as well as two members of the local pack,” Mateo answered.
“How long? How long since the first one went missing and has there been any sort of demand made?” She had to think like a cop. Ask the questions, eliminate the motives and zero in on the suspects.
And not let her think about what the suspects might be doing to the people she cared about in the meantime.
“Two days and no demands, no contact of any sort.” Mateo sounded as grim as she felt.
“Mike? Is he all right?”
The thought of her captain, her pride leader, and the anguish he must be feeling just then kicked her worry up another notch. Because he was also Pat’s commanding officer, just as he was Mac’s, he and Pat couldn’t go public with their relationship. The fact that she was missing had to be killing him and it would be made all the worse because he wouldn’t be able to let his fear show. Add in the worry he had to be feeling about the twins as well and it could be enough to bring him to his knees.
“He’s angry and scared,” Jackson replied. “But he’s coping so far. At least he says he is.”
“Mateo, I have a feeling there’s a lot more to this than you’ve told us so far.” She waited until he reluctantly nodded. “Than you’d better accept the fact that I am in this until we find out what’s happened and we catch the people responsible. Try to shut me out and I promise you won’t like the consequences.”
Damn it all to Hell and back again. This is what she got for going on vacation.
***
The other titles in the Nocturnal Lives Series are:
Nocturnal Interlude is the third novel and fourth title in the Nocturnal Lives Series. The other installments in the series are:
Some things can never be forgotten, no matter how hard you try.
Detective Sergeant Mackenzie Santos knows that bitter lesson all too well. The day she died changed her life and her perception of the world forever.It doesn’t matter that everyone, even her doctors, believe a miracle occurred when she awoke in the hospital morgue. Mac knows better. It hadn’t been a miracle, at least not a holy one. As far as she’s concerned, that’s the day the dogs of Hell came for her.
Investigating one of the most horrendous murders in recent Dallas history, Mac also has to break in a new partner and deal with nosy reporters who follow her every move and who publish confidential details of the investigation without a qualm.
Complicating matters even more, Mac learns the truth about her family and herself, a truth that forces her to deal with the monster within, as well as those on the outside.But none of this matters as much as discovering the identity of the murderer before he can kill again.
In this sequel to Nocturnal Origins, Lt. Mackenzie Santos of the Dallas Police Department learns there are worst things than finding out you come from a long line of shapeshifters. At least that’s what she keeps telling herself. It’s not that she resents suddenly discovering she can turn into a jaguar. Nor is it really the fact that no one warned her what might happen to her one day. Although, come to think of it, her mother does have a lot of explaining to do when – and if – Mac ever talks to her again. No, the real problem is how to keep the existence of shapeshifters hidden from the normals, especially when just one piece of forensic evidence in the hands of the wrong technician could lead to their discovery.
Add in blackmail, a long overdue talk with her grandmother about their heritage and an attack on her mother and Mac’s life is about to get a lot more complicated. What she wouldn’t give for a run-of-the-mill murder to investigate. THAT would be a nice change of pace.
Mackenzie Santos has seen just about everything in more than ten years as a cop. The last few months have certainly shown her more than she’d ever expected. When she’s called out to a crime scene and has to face the possibility that there are even more monsters walking the Earth than she knew, she finds herself longing for the days before she started turning furry with the full moon.
Mad Genius Club 
14 responses to “It’s Tuesday and the gods are picking on me”
Normally I like the gradual exposition method, but in this case, I think they’d have given her a brief infodump of the basics right away, or told her not to ask anything or talk until X moment outside the parking lot, and then given her a brief infodump. Especially the bit about not using electronic devices.
I don’t know, maybe it’s just the military people I know and their desire to spare people the worry of wondering if somebody’s dead, but a lot of them are very big on, “I’m okay, the kids are fine, the insurance covers it, but there’s been an accident with the car.” Or in this case, “Your family’s safe, not everybody is, don’t use electronic devices, and we’re going to tell you all about it once we get where we’re going. We’ll fill that in a little as we drive.” 🙂
I’ll consider it after the beta readers have a chance to see it all. So far, no one else has had a problem with it. And, while I appreciate the comments, this is a first draft and merely a filler for today. It wasn’t posted for crit. But I will keep this in mind when I finish it and start the edits.
Well, I’m not a great fan of “snippets,” so I’ll wait for the completed work. I must say, though, that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all of the series thus far.
Thanks, Ben. I appreciate it.
I’ll admit, I’m of two minds about snippets. I like reading everything at once, but Baen has sold me on books I might not otherwise have purchased by hooking me with snippets.
“Snippets” are a toss-up for me, too, Amanda; I’ll try to avoid them, however, because I like having the story flow. When it comes to Baen, though, I’ve been known to buy “blind,” and also to buy from the Baen website samples. If I’ve already decided to obtain a book, though (as I have regarding your next) , I’d generally prefer getting it all at once.
I have _got_ to get to work on the TBR pile. Haven’t read the second one yet. Now I need to, to make room for the third . . .
Don’t forget the novella as well ;-p
Now you know how I feel about your work, Pam. You are putting stuff up much faster than i do and I can’t keep up with it all. Pout
So this is the shifter version of a “busman’s holiday?” Sounds busy — and fun! Looking forward to it.
Incidentally, on the snippets question (was there a question in there somewhere?), I enjoy them — and mostly forget them right away. The folks that bother me are the ones who decide that since the author shared a bit of a work-in-progress, it is now canon AND they can pick on the author about inconsistencies, typos, etc. Hey, fans, realize that sharing a work-in-progress is scary enough, and that this little set of words is subject to revision, mangling, being removed — just enjoy the hint that there is work in progress, and don’t sweat the details. If you want to speculate, keep it light! So, please, authors, feel free to snippet or not, and ignore anyone who takes them too seriously.
Mike, thanks. There’s another reason a lot of authors either don’t put up snippets or they put up long disclaimers about them. The simple fact is that, even though I know none of our readers here would do this, there are people out there who would try to come back and claim they helped “edit” or “co-author” something just because a snippet was posted somewhere and they commented on it. Like I said, I know no one here would do it but it is something all authors keep in the back of their heads. That’s a legal headache none of us need. So, yes, this is a first draft. Yes, there will be changes. And yes, they will be based on what my beta readers and editor suggest. But that doesn’t mean I won’t snippet more in the future because I will.
Good point. I forgot about the “I contributed this idea, so you gotta pay me” blackmail attempts, which apparently enough authors have run into that it is a real concern. The very idea seems perverse to me, but I do know that we have become a society of lawsuits (which look rather naked to the young boy standing on the side of the road, but that’s another story). I wonder if we need a standard block of disclaimer for snippets, like the one in the front of most fiction that proclaims the characters and so on are fiction, so don’t get your underwear in a knot. Maybe I should ask a Martian Lawyer, I hear they are pretty good?
We probably ought to but that sort of hits me like DRM — you do it and it says you don’t trust your readers. That’s why I tend to simply put up the generic “thanks, but. . .” comment much like Sarah does.
I think the stars must be in conjunction or something. Or maybe we p*ssed off the local minions of Murphy, and they are getting their revenge… If ya lived closer, I might be able to fix your water issues (I do some plumbing work, long as I can keep it simple).
This past two weeks, my mortgage went up $80 (some new bank nonsense I can make no sense of), my godson’s mom’s car broke down, she got a ticket for inspection out of date (note these become my issues, as she’s tapped out due to her landlord forgetting to pay the lights and water), my computer blew up on me, a Good Samaritan stopped me to let me know I had a tail-light out (only to turn into the most expensive $1.99 fix ever- it was a plainclothes officer)…
When it rains misfortune, sometimes it comes out all at once. Hope things get better for you, Miss Amanda. I’ll see if I can’t flog up a few more paying readers for ya this weekend, at the volunteer job. Good luck, and heal fast!
Dan, Murphy is on a run with you it seems. Hope things pick up. As for me, the plumbing was fixed a couple of hours earlier than expected yesterday morning and the cause was exactly what I suspected. My mother put a bunch of veggie peelings down the disposal and they clogged the line, not at the pea-trap but at a low point in the line between the washer and sink. So the line had to be snaked.
As for your traffic ticket, check your state laws, especially if the officer was also in an unmarked car. There are some states, or at least there were, that wouldn’t allow tickets to be written out of unmarked cars for minor traffic infractions.
Wish I was closer to you re: the computer issues. I could probably fix it for you. Heck, I probably have the replacement pieces lying around here.
Anyway, good luck getting rid of Murphy. Look for his gremlins and toss them over the back fence into the yard of the neighbor you least like. It works. It gives them new mischief to get up to. And thanks for drumming up sales for me. I really do appreciate it.
Online with frankenputer (seriously- parts of this beast are older then my college education). Progress!
As for the ticket, it is paid now. Alas, the unmarked *is* legal is Speck, apparantly. Truthfully, I felt kinda sorry for the poor guy. It was raining, he was youngg aand young and *painfully* new at the job. I didn’t want to get him in any trouble, so I checked with a friend in the department upstate.
The computer issues I’m being kind of lazy about. I *could* dig out the voltage meter and start tracing the power runs to see if the old power supply is at fault, but it is probably the mobo. I just don’t quite have the time, and I have other stuff that might actually pay that I need to be doing. Like the dvd player I’m recalibrating the drive hardware on. *chuckle* Like Sarah said in her blog the other day, Ask me for anything but time!
De nada on druming up sales. Is no guarantee, but I know what my friends like. If I can turn them on to quality indie stories, I can get them to stop moaning about how “there’s nothing new to read!” The fact that it helps out other good folks is just another bonus.