Category Archives: Writing

Bell Bridge Books, Belle Books, Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Radiants, Writing

Professional Wednesday: Beginnings, Middles, and Endings, Part I — Openings

This week, I launch a new series here in the Professional Wednesday feature — “Beginnings, Middles, and Endings.” Sometimes I focus on minute details of writing in these posts, arcane points of craft or business that are helpful to some, but perhaps less so to others. With this series, I am, at least for a few weeks, returning to basics of storytelling. Because while we can focus on all sorts of small points to improve our writing, the fact is we’re all storytellers, and it never hurts to reconsider the fundamentals now and then.

Today, let’s start with beginnings (“A very good place to start,” to borrow from The Sound of Music). To state the obvious, your opening lines, paragraphs, and pages are where you want to hook your reader. I spend a great deal of time — a disproportionate amount of time — crafting my opening page. I want my readers to be wowed by the time they start reading page 2. I want them to have decided on that very first page that they cannot/dare not/will not put this book down until they have finished reading it. (Yes, they can pause for meals and sleep, but only because I’m a generous soul.)

There are, of course, as many ways to hook a reader as there are stories to be told and authors to tell them. My wonderful friend J.D. Blackrose (Joelle Reizes) begins her book A Wrinkle and Crime with a single sentence that is laugh-out-loud funny. Readers are hooked in mere seconds. Guy Gavriel Kay, another good friend and probably my favorite author, tends to ease into his novels a bit more, allowing his gorgeous prose and the slow build of his brilliant storytelling to draw readers in.

RADIANTS, by David B. Coe (Jacket art by Belle Books)I fall somewhere in between. I don’t think any of my novels have a single opening sentence that grabs readers by the collar (that’s actually pretty rare), but I do try to capture my readers’ attention early. My best book opening, I believe, comes in Radiants (Bell Bridge Books, 2021):

The first time I did it, my mom, who is about as chill as any parent anywhere, hit me. Slapped me across the face. This was after I confessed. She never would have known if I hadn’t told her, and still she hit me. That’s how pissed off she was.

She told me it was a violation, which I didn’t even understand at first. I thought she meant it was against the rules—like a violation in sports—and I had pretty much figured that out when she slapped me. But no, she meant violation in a way I’d never heard the word used.

An invasion. A rape of the mind. She called it that, too. Her slap shocked me. When she called it a rape, I started to cry. I swore I’d never do it again, and she made me promise on my dad’s grave, something she hadn’t ever done before. I did, and I meant it.

I was twelve at the time. About the age my brother is now, and you just know Mom is aware of that. Hyper-aware.

I honored the promise I made that day. I had been tempted in the weeks and months and years since. Many, many times. But never once did I break my vow. Not until today.

Why do I like this opening so much? Well, let’s break it down. Our opening should hint at conflict and tension. It should introduce a key character — a central protagonist or antagonist. It should establish voice. And it should intrigue or excite the reader with action or mystery or romance or some other compelling plot feature. This opening to Radiants does all of those things in about half a page. The conflict and tension are right there in the first graph, with the slap from an otherwise mellow parent. Clearly this narrator did something really bad — and we want to know what it was. These graphs, and her confession, establish the narrator as someone we trust and want to know more about. Already we know she has faced tragedy, as indicated by the oblique reference to her father’s death, and we know she has a younger brother. We get a sense of her voice from the informal tone of the prose. And with that last line we want to know more — about her and what she is going through. This terrible thing she did, this thing that angered her mother so much, she has just done again! Today!! Why? And we’re off and running . . . .

As I said, there are an infinite number of ways we might open our books. There is no single right way to do this (or really anything else in writing). But there are some things to avoid in our opening passages. One of the most common errors I see in the opening paragraphs of short stories and the opening pages of novels, is an over-reliance on exposition. Often beginning writers are so eager to explain their worlds, tell us all there is to know about lead characters, and show the cool stuff in their magic systems or imagined technologies, that they dive into descriptions and explanations. The problem with this? There is almost no tension or conflict in exposition and background. Tension and conflict come from character and narrative. So save the exposition for later. Or, better yet, do away with it entirely and find other, more creative and compelling ways to reveal your background information.

Some writers err on the side of the other extreme. They are so eager to plunge the reader into action that they have on page one some serious, terrible stuff happening to their characters. The problem here is that we don’t yet know the characters well enough to care about them the way we ought to before they’re put through the wringer. As in so many aspects of writing, we want to find balance. We don’t want to bore readers with too much character background, but we also don’t want to overwhelm them with spectacle at the expense of introducing our lead characters.

There are a few things beginning writers are told they should never, ever do with their opening lines. “Don’t begin with your character waking up.” “Don’t start with the literary equivalent of a weather report.” (“It was a dark and stormy night . . . .”) “Don’t open with a dream sequence (and then have the character wake up).” The problem with these sorts of openings is they’re overdone to the point of cliché. That said, it may be that you’ve found a way to open with a character waking up that is perfect for your story and is unlike any other waking-up-opening the world has ever seen. In which case, go for it.

As long as your opening feels original and organic to the story, you should be fine. And originality is most likely to come from your characters. Anchor yourself firmly in the point of view of whoever your narrating character is for the opening scene, and then tap into their emotions, thoughts, and sensations. Make it visceral, make it powerful. Ultimately, the best opening will be one that is compelling, intriguing, and, of course, written with eloquence and passion.

Next week (and perhaps the week after), Middles!!

In the meantime, keep writing.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Writing

Monday Musings: AI Content Creation? No, Thanks

I’ll start by assuring you that this is not one of those posts. I’m not going to share my feelings regarding AI generated content and then reveal at the very end of the post that everything you’ve read was actually AI generated. It’s really me. I promise. How can you be sure? Well, the best evidence is this: I’m too cheap to purchase the AI generator I’ll be discussing . . . .

That I would even think it necessary to say as much . . . well, read on.

An email appeared in my inbox this past week. It came from a prominent maker of WordPress plugins and it advertised a new AI content generator for WordPress sites. “Our latest product [is] aimed at enriching your WordPress experience . . . This tool utilizes the potential of artificial intelligence, adding a formidable ally to your writing process.”

Already, I can hear the Skynet airships hovering overhead. [Sorry — Terminator reference.]

I’ll admit, I was horrified. Wanting to know more, I followed the link in the email and was taken to the product page where I could see the generator in action. “Write a blog post about X,” the app is told, and in a second or two content populates the screen. (I should add here that we are guided through the product tour by what is clearly an AI-generated voice. It’s kind of creepy, actually.) The wording produced by the plugin is clean and flowing, free of typos and grammatical errors. In fact, that’s one of the features the developer trumpets. No more typos. No more wording mistakes. God forbid writers should just learn to write and take the time to proofread their work.

The AI generator can also provide snappy titles for its posts as well as summaries of the content, and it can even adapt the tone of the piece to our mood and preference — among the possible choices are “formal,” “informal,” “optimistic,” “humorous” (humorous AI? Really?), “serious,” “skeptical,” “empathetic,” “confident,” “passionate,” and “provocative.” The tour shows the imagined user switching from “formal” to “passionate.” The differences in the resulting text are minimal.

I’m not naïve, and I’m also not blind to the benefits such a generator might bring to, say, a travel enterprise that specializes in tours of various parts of the world. Rather than write separate essays about each region, which could take hours, a webmaster could input the parameters for each essay and complete the work in mere moments. The resulting prose would be safe, error-free, and quite likely good enough for the company’s purposes.

It would also be anodyne, soulless, utterly lacking in anything remotely human.

Reading the text generated in the product tour, I was struck by a few things. First, for now at least, the AI’s vocabulary and writing style are both quite limited. It repeats words and sentence structure so that there is a sameness to each paragraph and the treatment of each new topic. Also — and this is predictable, I suppose — the generated text is as dry as dust. It is long on fact, on the sort of information one might find in an encyclopedia entry, but it lacks anything to which one might connect emotionally. And it also lacks rhetorical flourishes — simile, metaphor, analogy. It is, in short, boring.

“Say goodbye to writer’s block and hello to effortless content creation,” the product tour says, missing the point entirely. I have written about writer’s block before, and the last time I did, I hurt and offended a writer friend whom I care about and admire. I have said in the past that writer’s block doesn’t exist (and I’ll get to what I mean by that in a moment). The fact is, though, this is not true. Writer’s block does exist. It is a debilitating void, an inability to create that can last months, even years at a time. Writers who are afflicted with it, as my friend has been, suffer greatly.

But writer’s block as it is used commonly, as it is used here in this AI generator product tour, is not at all the same. It is the difference between clinical depression and saying one is “depressed” because a favorite sports team lost a close one.

What most people — including the app developer — mean when they speak of writer’s block is the inability to write something in a particular moment. This form of “writer’s block” presupposes that writing is easy, that creating new content should come without effort, without hesitation, without forethought and contemplation. What most call “writer’s block” I call writing. Because writing isn’t easy. Creating new content takes tremendous effort. It is messy and slow and frustrating. It is fits and starts. It is staring out the window for fifteen minutes at a time, wracking one’s brain for that perfect turn of phrase. It is re-writing the same graph six times until it shines just as we want it to.

And that’s what’s wrong with AI generated content. That struggle to create, that wrenching, ugly, glorious process is what infuses our writing with emotion and energy, individuality and the spark of humanity that makes writing and reading joyous. When we take away the work, the messiness, the false starts and numerous rewrites — in other words, when we make writing “effortless” — we also render it gutless and vapid.

Is there a use for AI generated writing? I guess. I mentioned a hypothetical travel business earlier; AI would probably save its owners a bit of time and money. At what cost, though? How much dumbing down is too much? And where does this slippery slope lead? At the risk of sounding idealistic and giving the lie to my early claim that I’m not naïve, I have to ask: Wouldn’t we be better served as a society if we put as much effort into teaching our children to write and think creatively as we do teaching computers to do stuff for us? The answer seems self-evident to me.

Have a great week.

Bell Bridge Books, Belle Books, Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, LonTobyn Chronicle, The Chalice War, The Chalice War: Cauldron, Tor Books, Writing

Professional Wednesday: The Emotions of a Book Release

The Chalice War: Cauldron, by David B. CoeLet’s start with the obvious: The Chalice War: Cauldron is now out and available from all booksellers in ebook and paper formats. This is the second installment in my Celtic urban fantasy trilogy, The Chalice War. Stone, the first book, came out a month ago. And the third and final volume, Sword, should be released in early August. The cover reveal will be coming soon.

I sold a bunch of copies of the first two books at ConCarolinas this past weekend, and hope to sell bunches more at LibertyCon (Chattanooga — June 23-25). By the time DragonCon rolls around (Atlanta — August 31-September 4), I’ll have all three books in stock.

I have, in a previous post, made the case for supporting authors and their blogs, etc. by buying their published works; I won’t bother making the case again. I have also made the case for buying the early books in a series as they’re released, rather than waiting for the entire series to drop, and I won’t bother doing that again either.

But I did want to spend a bit of time discussing the emotions of a new release, emotions that begin well before the actual publication of the novel. The anticipation can be excruciating. Not just waiting to see the book, or even looking forward to seeing it in the hands of readers, though I feel both of those. With each new book, I experience this sense of excitement about the story finding its way into the world. “I have a new book coming,” I want to shout from the rooftops, “and it is going to blow your minds!!” As I’ve said before, I almost always feel that my newest book is also my best, and so I want to show off a bit, let people see what I’m capable of as an artist now. Ego? Maybe. Pride? Definitely.

Children of Amarid, by David B. Coe (Hardcover -- Art by Romas Kukalis)I’m asked quite often if I still feel the thrill of seeing a new book in print, even after so many years and so many releases. And the truth is, I do. Sure, the very first time was unlike anything I’ve experienced since. I still remember getting a call from the local bookstore here in our little college town. My author copies hadn’t arrived yet, so when the store manager reached out to let me know the hardcover edition of Children of Amarid was in stock, I rushed over to see it. I’m pretty sure Nancy came with me.

And, typical of me, I was so excited to see the book, to hold it in my hands, to see my name right there on the cover, right below the gorgeous artwork. I was over the moon. But I also recall thinking, “Hmmmm, the image is a bit too dark, and the colors don’t pop the way they should.” I have long been Glass-Half-Empty Guy . . . . Which doesn’t change the fact that I was right. The cover did come out too dark, something Tor corrected with the mass market paperback edition a year later. Just sayin’.

Those competing impulses, though, are fairly typical for me, and, as I gather from conversations I’ve had with other authors, for many of my colleagues as well. Yes, the thrill is real. So is the worry about sales and critical response, the hyper-sensitivity to anything that might be even slightly off with the new product, the certainty that the excitement will prove fleeting while the concerns linger.

We authors notice things others don’t — the darkness of the images is a perfect example. No one else thought the jacket art for the hardcover of Children of Amarid was anything other than cool. But I picked up on the (very mild) flaw immediately. That said, I have been fortunate with my book art throughout my career, and have liked the cover images that appear on almost all my books. There are a couple of exceptions, but I won’t say more than that. The point is, I have never actually hated one of my covers. I know plenty of authors who have. I can’t imagine how difficult that would be.

There can be other problems as well. Sometimes the maps we put in our books are split in an awkward way in order to fit them in the front pages. Sometimes there are typos. I know authors who have had their books published only to find that the print editions begin or end with the wrong chapter or scene!! Oh. My. God. I would lose my freaking mind. All sorts of things can go wrong.

And, as I mentioned before, even if all goes as it should with the published version of the book, and even if the jacket looks great, sales can disappoint. So can reviews. Releases can coincide with economic downturns. Or national tragedies. Or global pandemics. We have no control over such things, of course, and in the context of world events, the fate of our book release is pretty insignificant. Except to us. For us, it’s more than a book release. It’s the realization of years of work and hope and passion.

The Chalice War: Stone, by David B. CoeWith all this in mind, I am happy to say that the releases of The Chalice War: Stone and The Chalice War: Cauldron have gone great. No new pandemics. The stock market is up. The art work looks marvelous. All the chapters are just where they should be. (I think — I should probably check to be sure . . . . Yep, they look great!) Sales? I have no idea at this point. It’s too early to know. Reviews? We’ll see about those as well. I worry, of course. I want these books to succeed. I want you to like them. And, if you do, I would love for you to tell the world.

Thanks for reading this.

Keep writing!

Bell Bridge Books, Belle Books, Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, The Chalice War, The Chalice War: Cauldron, Writing

Thursday Teaser — THE CHALICE WAR: CAULDRON Drops Tomorrow!!

The Chalice War: Cauldron, by David B. CoeThe Chalice War: Cauldron, the second volume in my new Celtic-themed urban fantasy, will be released tomorrow by Bell Bridge Books. And to get you a bit more excited about the release, I offer a new teaser — my hero’s first encounter with the Celtic sea god, Manannán mac Lir. Enjoy!!

*****

While Carrie continued her conversations, Riann wandered up the strand. Near a rock pool, she came upon a man who sat in a rickety lawn chair, an ancient Billabong baseball cap on his head, and two fishing poles set in rod holders before him. A dory rested at the tideline a short distance away, its wood worn and badly in need of fresh paint.

Or so she thought at first glance.

When she glimpsed it from the corner of her eye, the boat looked quite different. It was golden and perfect. She halted and stared straight at the vessel; once again, it appeared to be a battered old rowboat.

She wheeled to face the man. “What—”

His smile stopped her.

He was gorgeous. His chin and cheeks were grizzled, and the corners of his emerald eyes crinkled. He had a dimple on one side, and his hair stuck out from beneath his hat, hanging down to the base of his neck. He wore khaki cutoffs and a stained, torn short-sleeved shirt, unbuttoned to reveal a tanned and toned chest and belly, lightly covered with fine silver curls. She had been with men and women, and she preferred the latter. But she would have taken this man to her bed without hesitation.

And he seemed to know it.

“You like my boat?” he asked in a soft Irish burr, his voice a warm tenor.

She eyed the dory again, then averted her gaze slightly, enough to see it turn golden once more.

“I don’t understand,” she said, facing him.

“Of course you do, love. You understand perfectly.” He nodded at Quinn, who stood beside her. “Your conduit is beautiful. May I?”

Before she could answer, he clicked his tongue and held out a hand, palm up. Quinn strained to reach him. Riann released the leash, unsure of why she did it. Quinn trotted to the man and sat in front of him, allowing him to scratch her ears and neck.

“Aye, a fine creature.” He regarded her. “You’re Michael Donovan’s girl, aren’t you?”

She gaped, but took a step toward him. “You knew my father?”

“Aye, love. He was a good man. His death was a terrible loss for all in the magical world.”

Riann stole a glance at Carrie, started and looked again, then turned a quick circle. A soft wind blew off the water, cooling the day, and the surf surged and retreated as always. Silver gulls circled and cried, and a sea eagle flew past, clutching a fish in its talons. But every person on the beach and the sidewalk had frozen in place, as if time had stopped.

“I’m dreaming,” she murmured, frightened.

“You’re not even asleep.” He slipped a hand into his pocket, pulled out something that caught the sun with a flash of silver. He tossed it in her direction.

She caught and scrutinized it. It appeared to be a coin of some sort, though almost all the detail had been worn away. She thought there might be a head on one side. She couldn’t make out the design on the obverse. It was mostly round, and slightly concave.

“What is this?”

“A drachm. A Celtic crown essentially. Proof that I’m real, that this is real.”

Riann turned it over. “How—”

“Twenty-two hundred years, give or take.”

She studied the coin for another moment before walking closer to him and holding it out for him to take.

“Keep it,” he said with a smile. “A token, to remember me.”

“Who are you?” Riann asked, fear giving way to curiosity.

“Forgive me. Manannán mac Lir, at your service.”

She’d heard the name before, from her father, of course. She combed her memory.

A small frown creased the man’s brow, which, impossibly, made him even more attractive. “Come now. I refuse to believe that Michael never spoke of me.”

“He did. I just can’t remember—”

“You would forget a god?”

And then she did remember.

Manannán, the sea god. A trickster, her father called him. Fickle, even capricious, like all the Celtic gods, but essentially benevolent.

Riann wondered if she should bow, or kneel.

“Most prostrate themselves before me,” he said, his tone severe.

“O-oh! I . . . I didn’t know.”

He laughed. “That was a joke, love. I had the sense you were about to curtsy or some such.”

She felt her face redden.

One of the fishing poles juddered and nodded. Manannán sat forward, took hold of the pole, and reeled in what turned out to be an enormous silver fish. The god removed the hook from the creature, whispered something to it in a language Riann didn’t know, and heaved it back into the water, easily clearing the coastal breakers.

“Why—”

“Just checking in with old friends. What do you know about the woman?”

As quickly as blood had flooded her cheeks it now drained away, leaving her cold, despite the sunshine.

“What?”

“The woman. The dead one they found last night.” He continued to scratch Quinn’s head. She licked his hand.

“That was you,” Riann said, remembering how Quinn growled and stared into the darkness. “You were watching us.”

“What do you know about her?”

“She was Sidhe. She was killed by a Fomhoire and her demon. But that’s about all. I don’t know why they killed her.”

“Fomhoire need a reason?”

She lifted a shoulder, conceding the point.

“You know nothing more?”

“I know her name, where she worked, that she was on a museum board and was recognized for her philanthropy.”

“Which museum?”

“The Australian.”

He nodded, thoughtful. “What else?”

She shrugged again. “That’s all.”

Manannán’s frown this time conveyed disapproval, as if he thought she should know more.

“I’m sorry,” she said, because she thought he expected it.

“No worries, love. But I may check with you again at some point. If you learn anything of value, I hope you’ll tell me. Fomhoire incursions are becoming too frequent for my taste. And now they’ve focused their attention here. There has to be a reason.”

“There are others who know more than I do. Why ask me?”

“Who says I haven’t asked those others?” He let the question hang, a gentle rebuke. “As to why you, because you were there last night, of course. Because you knew enough to convince the police to let you see the body. That was well done. Michael would have admired your resourcefulness.”

“Thank you.”

He smiled in answer and her knees nearly gave way. Rather than stare at him, she cast another look at Carrie, who still stood frozen with the brawlers. When Riann turned back to the god she found him eyeing the reporter as well.

“She a friend of yours?”

“I suppose. We’ve only really just met.”

He nodded, his gaze lingering on Carrie, an odd twist to his grin. “Interesting,” he murmured.

“What is?”

Manannán turned back to her, his expression brightening. “Not a thing. Remember what I told you. Learn what you can, and watch for me. My demesne ends at the shore, so I’ll always be near water.”

“Yes, of course.”

“I’m going to start things again now. You may experience a moment’s unpleasantness. It’ll pass. ’Til next time.”

Before she could say goodbye, a wave of dizziness crashed over her and she staggered. Voices reached her. A dog on the far side of the street barked and a car engine revved. The world had awakened.

Manannán was gone, as were his chair, the fishing poles, and that magical golden boat. The coin lay in her palm. Proof . . . . Quinn whimpered and sidled back to Riann.

Riann scratched her head absently.

Carrie called her name and when Riann looked that way, she waved and beckoned. Riann strode over the sand to the sidewalk. Already she felt better.

“Do you have the images you need?” Carrie asked.

“Uh . . . yes. Your interviews are over?”

The woman nodded. “I have enough to write my story.” She surveyed the beach. “It’s nice here. Too bad we haven’t time to stay.”

“Yes. Did you happen to notice the man I was talking to?”

“I didn’t see you talking to anyone. Who was he? Did he see what happened last night?”

“No, nothing like that. Just . . . just a guy fishing. We should probably head back.”

Bell Bridge Books, Belle Books, Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, The Chalice War, Writing

Professional Wednesday: Marketing Strategy, a New Release, and an Excerpt!!

The Chalice War: Cauldron, by David B. CoeThis Friday — the day after tomorrow!! — The Chalice War: Cauldron, the second book in my new Celtic-themed urban fantasy series, will be released by Bell Bridge Books. For those of you thinking, “Wait, didn’t you JUST have a release in this same series?” you’re right, I did. The Chalice War: Stone came out May 5, four weeks before this week’s release. And the final book in the series, The Chalice War: Sword, will be out in July or August. (And wait until you see the jacket art: Spoiler Alert — it’s spectacular!)

The thinking behind rapid-fire releases of this sort is pretty simple: If the first book interests readers, and if they fly through that opening volume, they will be eager for more and won’t want to wait. I can’t tell you how many times authors hear from readers, “Oh, I hate waiting for each book in a series to come out, so I wait until the last book is published before I buy any of them.”

This is deeply frustrating for those of us who write and sell books for a living. I get it, of course. Sometimes, fans have to wait a year or more for subsequent volumes in a series to be released. And on occasion, those subsequent volumes never appear at all. The series is dropped by the publisher, or the author simply never gets around to completing the story. Writers aren’t the only ones who can find the publishing schedule frustrating.

Here’s the thing, though: Quite often, the publication of second and third and fourth volumes in a given series is dependent on the sales of the first book. If sales of Book I disappoint, some publishers will decide to drop the series, rather than go to the trouble and expense of putting out the later volumes. And so the reluctance of readers to buy that first book, lest the others don’t find their way to print, becomes self-fulfilling.

The rapid release model is relatively new in the publishing world, but it is intended to prevent this sort of thing from happening. If readers see the second and third books coming out so soon after the first, they will be more willing to buy that initial installment, and might go ahead and just grab all three as they appear. This is certainly my hope.

So, in the spirit of marketing and piquing your interest, let me tell you a bit about Book II, Cauldron. In book I, Stone, we meet Marti Rider, a Sidhe conjurer, and Kelsey Strand, two strangers who are bound to each other by a powerful magical artifact. They are attacked and pursued across the country by Fomhoire demons and their allies, who are intent upon killing them, claiming the artifact as their own, and using it to conquer our world. Along the way, we encounter a host of Celtic immortals who help our heroes or hinder them, depending on their shifting alliances.

In Cauldron, the pursuit of these magical chalices shifts to Australia, where we are introduced to Riann Donovan and her friend (and perhaps more) Carrie Pelsher. Riann is a Sidhe sorcerer who has fled the States to Australia to escape a tragic past. Carrie is a journalist with a strange affinity for magic. When the Sidhe community in Sydney is devastated by a coordinated Fomhoire assault, the two women find themselves in a race against time and a dance of intrigue among gods, Furies, and demons. And yes, for those wondering, Marti and Kel will find their way to Australia to join the fun.

As I’ve said before, I love all of these books. Writing Cauldron allowed me to draw upon experiences and memories from the year I spent Down Under. Many of the locations described in the book are places Nancy, the girls, and I visited. It was a special book to write. And I hope you enjoy it.

And, to whet your appetite for the book even more, here is a short excerpt! Enjoy!

*****
The train had just pulled out of Redfern station when the first frisson of magic brushed across Sara’s skin. She shivered, tasting darkness in its touch.

Fomhoire. Here, in the middle of Sydney. Nearby and closing in, accompanied by . . . by what? Wight? Demon? Yes, demon. All this she read in that initial contact. More, she sensed the Fomhoire had already found her, was intent on her and closing the distance between them.

Sara stood, crossed to the nearest of the sliding doors, and stared out into the inky black of the railway tunnel, desperate for the light of the next station. Never had the distance between Redfern and Central felt so great. The train car rocked, and she grabbed hold of the steel pole beside her to keep from tumbling into the lap of a young businessman.

“Pardon me,” she whispered.

His gaze flicked to her. He answered with a nearly imperceptible nod and turned his attention back to the Herald.

Morning commuters crowded the CityRail trains and stations. Surely Fomhoire assassins wouldn’t attack her here, in front of so many.

A small voice in her mind replied, Why not?

She wore work clothes, carried her briefcase, was on her way to her office in the CBD. Roger, her tabby, her conduit, was at home, safe in her flat, too far away to help her with spells. She was powerless, defenseless.

The train slowed—finally!—and the train guard announced their arrival at Central Station.

“Change here for Northern, Carlingford, North Shore, Cumberland. . . .”

The moment the doors opened, she pushed her way out, heedless of the men and women in front of her and those on the platform waiting to board. People shouted after her; a few muttered obscenities. She didn’t care. She hurried to the nearest stairway, one that would take her to the concourse. The magic followed, aimed like a weapon at her back.

By the time Sara reached the top of the stairs, she was breathing hard, sweating through the blouse she wore beneath her blazer. She switched her briefcase to the other hand, wiped her slick palm on her skirt.

She kept to the crowd, surrounding herself with people, using them as shields and searching frantically for anyone who might give off enough glow to let her defend herself.

How can there be Fomhoire in Sydney?

She and the others maintained a network, a web of magic. Like Sidhe in other parts of the world, they watched for portals and Fomhoire incursions from the Underrealm. As far as she knew, they had sensed nothing.

For decades, Sara and her fellow Sidhe had protected one another, warned one another. These last several years had been quiet, peaceful. She knew other Sidhe in countries far from Australia had battled Fomhoire recently. Harrowing reports had reached her from the States, from Europe and Africa and Asia. But here . . . . Relative peace had reigned for so long, she had grown comfortable, lax. Caution needed to be a routine, like exercise. And she had grown lazy. How many mornings had she left her flat without taking the simple precaution of warding herself? This morning had been no different from yesterday, from the day before, from the one before that. Except it was entirely different. And she might well die because of it.

She exited the gates, threaded her way through the throng in the concourse, hoping to lose her pursuers among the masses. She would exit the station onto Pitt Street and grab a taxi. That was her plan anyway.

As she neared the doors at the west end of the concourse, she sensed more magic. Wights probably, but without Roger, she wouldn’t stand much chance against them, either. She slowed, halted. People flowed around her on either side, as if she were a stone in a stream.

Eddy Street then—the nearest exit.

After a single step in that direction she stopped again. More magic. They had her surrounded.

Another train perhaps. If she could return to the gates and get to a North Shore platform, or maybe the Illawarra line . . . .

A spell electrified the air and made the hairs on her neck stand on end. Sara could do nothing except brace herself for its impact.

Magic fell upon her an instant later, obliterating thought, will, consciousness. She couldn’t say if she remained standing or fell to the floor or ran in circles like some ridiculous child’s toy. Time was lost to her.

When next she became aware of her surroundings, she was still upright in the middle of Central Railway Station’s Grand Concourse. A woman stood before her radiating so much power Sara had to resist an urge to shield her eyes.

“Hello, Sara,” she said in a cool alto and an accent that would have convinced any native Aussie.

“Who are you?” Sara asked, surprised she could speak.

The woman smiled. She was beautiful, of course. The Fomhoire always were here in the Above, regardless of how they appeared in the demon realm. Pale blue eyes, flawless olive skin, golden brown hair that fell in a shimmering curtain to her shoulders. As brilliant and superficial as a Carnival mask. She wore jeans and a long sleeve Sydney FC T-shirt; nothing that would have made her stand out in a crowd.

A second form hovered at her shoulder, as hideous as the woman was lovely, as ethereal as she was solid. It appeared to be little more than a cloud; shapeless, smoke grey, undulating. What might have been eyes shone dully from within the shadow, like stars partially obscured by a nighttime haze. Its lone substantial feature was a mouth at its very center, nearly round and armed with several rows of spiny teeth.

Two demons. One ghastly, the other lovely. Both deadly, no doubt.

None of the people passing by took note of them. Sara sensed that she, the Fomhoire, and the cloud demon were invisible to all.

Bell Bridge Books, Belle Books, Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, editing, Invasives, The Chalice War, Writing

Professional Wednesday: Another Letter To My Younger Self

Dear Younger Me,

Yes, it’s me again — Middle Aged David. Upper Middle Aged David, actually. I know I wrote to you earlier this week. I remember doing so. I’m not so far gone quite yet. But I thought you might benefit from a second letter focused on the professional side of things. As I told you on Monday, we did wind up having a career in writing, just as we dreamed when we were a kid. And, also as I told you, our professional life hasn’t followed precisely the path we envisioned. That’s fine. We’ve had a good ride so far. But there’s stuff you should know, stuff I wish I had known.

I suppose all of it can be summed up in two words — and I hate to resort to cliché, in a writing post no less, but it really is true. Shit happens. It does, it does, it does. And it has happened to us. More than once.

The biggest mistake I made — we made — early on was assuming our career trajectory would be linear, a progression toward greater and greater success, higher and higher advances, bigger and better sales numbers. That may be true for a select few, but for most writers a career follows a meandering, uncertain path. Some books and series are more successful than others — commercially and critically. I call that early expectation of ever-improving circumstance our biggest mistake not because it somehow led to a disappointing outcome for one project or another, but because it caused me — us — so much pain. When our career hit that first speed bump, I took it personally. I felt I had failed, and also that the industry had failed me. I was confused and angry and sad and, most of all, terrified at the thought that this first disappointment would mean the end of our professional journey. I didn’t yet understand the nature of a creative life.

And so I say to you, Younger Me, learn resilience. Grieve for those lofty unmet ambitions, but then move on and try again. Learn moderation. Don’t let commercial and critical success carry you too high, and don’t let poor results drive you too low. Success will follow failure, which will follow success, and so on. If you can — and I know it’s so, so hard — learn to let go of expectation entirely. We don’t know which books will soar and which will flop. We love them all, which is why we go to the extreme trouble of writing them in the first place. And finally, learn contentment. Love the stories you create on their own terms. Find success in the completion of a good tale, in the realization of an artistic vision.

Take every promise made to you by an editor and publisher with a grain of salt. It’s not that they don’t mean what they say. Okay, SOME of them don’t mean what they say. But mostly, they simply can’t anticipate all that might happen. Producing a book is no small feat. A thousand things can go wrong. Editors and publishers often tell us, as if gospel, that a certain thing is going to happen on a given date. And that is, at the moment, their best guess of what will happen. Pencil in the date. Don’t commit it to ink. Because, as we have established, shit happens.

Thieftaker, by D.B. Jackson (Jacket art by Chris McGrath)All those great ideas you have for jacket art? They’re not as great as you think they are. Seriously. We are a writer. And we’re very, very good at that. We are NOT a graphic artist. We are NOT a marketing expert. I remember when the first Thieftaker novel went into production, I had what I thought was SUCH a wonderful idea for the jacket art. A can’t miss idea. PERFECT for the book. It wasn’t any of those things. The moment I saw Chris McGrath’s image for the book, which WAS brilliant and wonderful and perfect, I understood that no one should ever put me — us — in charge of selecting jacket art.

INVASIVES, by David B. Coe (Jacket art courtesy of Belle Books)On the other hand, do trust in your story ideas. All of them. Even the old ones that haven’t yet gone anywhere. At some point, you’ll have an idea for a story about three kids living in the subway tunnels beneath New York City. And you won’t have any idea what to do with it. You’ll give up on it. Don’t. It will become Invasives. At another time, you’ll write a story about two women interacting with Celtic deities and trying to protect an ancient, transcendently powerful magical artifact. That one, too, will seem to languish. Trust the story. That book just came out. It’s called The Chalice War: Stone. Believe in your vision.

If a publisher promises more than you think they can deliver, under terms that seem way too good to be believed, be skeptical. Very, very skeptical. Chances are, they CAN’T deliver. Chances are those terms can’t be met. We’ve been burned a couple of times. ’Nough said.

Over the past twenty-five-plus years, I have tried to thank Nancy every single day for making our career possible. And I’ll continue to thank her. But I might have missed a few days. Fill in the gaps, will you?

Most of all, keep doing what you’re doing and I’ll do the same. No, we haven’t gotten all we wanted, we haven’t achieved every goal. But we’re doing okay, and as much fun as you’ve been having early in our career, I’m having even more now. It keeps getting better.

And yes, the rumors are true. We’re editing now, and we like it. The dark side really is more powerful . . . .

Best wishes,

Older David

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Writing

Monday Musings: A Letter To My Younger Self

Dear Younger Me,

Yes, that’s really our hairline now. Calm down. It’s not— Would you please calm down? Thank you. What did you expect? Seriously. Dad was bald. Bill and Jim had lost their hair by the time they were thirty. You thought we’d make it through middle age with hair like George Clooney’s? We didn’t make it through middle age with ANYTHING like George Clooney’s. On the bright side, our beard finally filled in, so there’s that . . . .

But this isn’t about how we look, thank goodness. This is a letter to you, my younger self, about other things I wish I had known when I was your age (whatever age that might be exactly). So read on, Younger Me, and if you happen to run across a time machine at some point, remember this stuff, okay?

Let’s start with this, because really nothing is more important: You know how you feel most of the time that you’ll always be alone, that you’ll never meet the right person? Well, I can assure you, you won’t be and you will. She is brilliant, caring, funny. She shares many of your interests and, more important, she shares your values. She is strong and insightful, charming and generous. And . . . What’s that? Yes, she actually loves you. I know: I couldn’t believe it either.

What?

[Sigh]

Yes, Younger Me, she’s also hot.

And together, we have two brilliant, strong, funny, beautiful daughters. You will be blown away.

More good news — and we can discuss this more on Wednesday: You will have that writing career you’ve been dreaming of since you were six. There will be a few detours along the way, some bumps and bruises. It won’t be exactly the career we imagined; it might not reach the heights to which we’ve aspired. But it’s our career. We made it, we sustained it (with the support and encouragement and love of the aforementioned life partner and children), we earned it. We should be proud of it.

Don’t know if you can do much about his one, but I should mention it — if, around 1993 or so you have a chance to get the rookie card of a Yankee prospect named Derek Jeter, go ahead and pick one up. Or ten. Or fifty. Slide it (them) into a nice plastic sleeve for protection and put it (them) away. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did.

You know those episodes we go through, and have since we were little — nausea, shaking hands, extreme ill-defined terror? Those aren’t normal. I know Dad used to tell us he experienced them, too, and he might well have been telling the truth. But that doesn’t mean they were routine or natural. He meant to reassure. He loved us and wanted to help. But by normalizing them, he kept us from doing something about them at a younger age. Along the same lines, you know how for so very long we brushed off our tendency toward unexplained worry and stress, saying that we were “high strung,” or some such? Turns out, that’s not high strung.

We have Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and we have Panic Disorder. And we didn’t need to suffer with either for nearly so long. Do something about them. Soon. Please. For our well being. Friends have encouraged us to try therapy. I finally did when we were 58. I wish we’d done it forty years sooner.

For your sake and mine, please work harder at the guitar. Yes, we still play. Yes, I’m better than you are, which is as it should be. But with work and practice, with less laziness and self-satisfaction, we could have been so good. I can’t have expected us to work at guitar the way we did at writing — one was a hobby, the other a profession — but a bit more work would have brought us such joy.

Never ever ever take your car to Toyota of Palo Alto. Just don’t.

Look at your book shelf, the one with all the fantasy novels on it. You’re going to wind up meeting nearly every author represented there. Many of them will become good friends. Yes, including Guy Gavriel Kay. Pretty cool, right?

Spend as much time as you can with Mom and Dad. Be as tolerant as you can be of Bill’s flaws and idiosyncrasies. Love them. Cherish them. We won’t have nearly as much time with them as we deserve, and we will miss them every day for the rest of our lives. I know, Mom and Dad can be annoying now and then, and occasionally Bill infuriates us. They’re family, and sometimes family is like that. But the hole their absence leaves in our life dwarfs these temporary frustrations. Extend to them the grace and forgiveness you would want from all those we love.

Those amazing friends we made at Brown, the ones who enriched our life there and made it the most memorable time of our early life? Yeah, they’re still our dear friends, still enriching our life. Treasure them.

The rest is pretty much common sense. Dial back the weed — we will later anyway; might as well preserve a memory or two. Don’t drink too much — you don’t hold your booze as well as you think you do. Exercise. Eat right. Take care of yourself. Life is precious, and we don’t want to miss a thing. Read more. Yes, we read a good deal. Read more. Trust me. No one ever looked back from the vantage point of their dotage and thought, “I wish I’d put all those books aside and watched more TV.” Be good to the people we love. Slow down and savor all those things we enjoy doing. Let go of grudges and jealousy and regrets. They do us no good.

Oh, and along the lines of that Derek Jeter thing — those people at Apple who early on made all those weird-looking, quirky computers? Turns out they were on to something. If you get a chance, buy a few shares . . . .

Best wishes,

Older David

 

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, editing, Tor Books, Winds of the Forelands, Writing

Professional Wednesday: Looking At Our Old Work With Compassion

Rules of Ascension, by David B. Coe (Jacket art by Gary Ruddell)I continue to read through and revise the books of my Winds of the Forelands epic fantasy series, a five-book project first published by Tor Books in 2002-2007. The series has been out of print for some time now, and my goal is to edit all five volumes for concision and clarity, and then to re-release the series, either through a small press or by publishing them myself. I don’t yet have a target date for their re-release.

Last week, I wrote about the number of passages I have found in the first book, Rules of Ascension, that are repetitive or overly explanatory. My younger self had yet to learn the simple lesson of trusting one’s readers, and, by extension, trusting oneself. We often don’t need to tell our readers as much as we think we do. We can trust that the groundwork we have set in place will make clear the plot points, character backgrounds, and world building details we want our readers to grasp and remember.

In previous weeks, I have written about the excess verbiage we often put into our books, at the expense of flow, clarity, and effective story telling. And yes, I have found a great deal of this in Rules of Ascension as well. Too many adverbs, too much passive writing, too many dialogue tags. This was only my second series, and I was still learning to write.

This week, though, I would like to shift my focus a bit, and, in a way, give my younger self a break. Because despite the many, many flaws in my early prose, I am also finding some things to enjoy and even admire about this early work.

I suppose it might strike some as self-serving — even egotistical — to look back on earlier work and say, “I like this; this is good.” The truth is, I find myself grappling with self-criticism for even contemplating praising my own work. Hence this paragraph. But I had a text exchange the other day with a dear friend, someone I have known for decades. And he pointed out to me — in a somewhat different context — that extending ourselves grace and compassion, not to mention forgiveness and understanding, can be incredibly difficult, but also profoundly important.

Children of Amarid, by David B. Coe (jacket art by Romas Kukalis)We are often our own most unrelenting critics. This is certainly true for me in other elements of my life. I am hard on myself. Too hard. And, on a professional level, I am the first to notice and criticize flaws in my writing. So reading through old books in preparation for re-release is often an exercise in self-flagellation. It was with the LonTobyn reissues that I did through Lore Seekers Press back in 2016. And it is again with the Winds of the Forelands books.

Then as now, I had to force myself to acknowledge the good in the novels. Because I was hyperaware of instances of clumsy prose and heavy-handed story telling. I still am.

But . . . .

The Winds of the Forelands books marked a turning point in my career. I had enjoyed some success with the LonTobyn Chronicle, and with this new project I wanted to take my writing to the next level. I challenged myself in several ways: I featured a protagonist who was, at least at the outset of the saga, really difficult to like. I built a world that was exponentially more complex and intricate than what I had constructed for LonTobyn. And I wove together numerous plot threads, creating an ambitious (and, I believe, ultimately successful) narrative that I wouldn’t have dared to attempt with my first series.

Weavers of War, by David B. Coe (Jacket art by Romas Kukalis)As I have read through this first book in the story, polishing and trimming the prose, I have rediscovered that narrative. I remember far less of it than I would have thought possible. Or rather, I recall scenes as I run across them, but I have not been able to anticipate the storyline as I expected I would. There are so many twists and turns, I simply couldn’t keep all of them in my head so many years (and books) later.

So, I constantly find myself thinking, “Oh! I forgot this! What a cool twist!” If I’m being honest, I have to say that it’s quite gratifying.

I have written here before about the importance of self-defining our successes. Artists in general, and writers in particular, are subject to business models and creative traditions that depend largely on external markers of success or failure. Royalty statements and sales numbers, print runs and new contracts, reviews in journals, reviews on Amazon, awards, etc. We look outside ourselves for affirmation. If it comes, great. But if it doesn’t, many of us label our latest endeavors “failures.” Or, worse, we label ourselves that way.

To my mind, one of the secrets to enjoying, or perhaps enduring, a career in writing, is learning to self-define what it means to succeed. We need to take satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment from the things we can control — hitting our deadlines, writing books we know are good, managing to craft that difficult scene or plot point in just the way we had envisioned.

Which brings me back to where I began. Rules of Ascension will benefit from the polishing I’ve done. The other four books in the series will be better when I complete similar revisions on them. But these are good books. They’re exciting, suspenseful, poignant. They’re written with passion and a keen eye for detail. The character work is strong, the plotting tight, the world building compelling.

I say this not to brag, but to affirm something I wish I’d been able to say as a young writer, too obsessed with those external measures of accomplishment to look beyond a poor review here or a disappointing sales report there: These books were a success. And I’m damn proud of them.

I look forward to reissuing them so you can enjoy them, too.

Keep writing!

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, editing, Tor Books, Winds of the Forelands, Writing

Professional Wednesday: Trust Yourself. No, Really.

Rules of Ascension, by David B. Coe (Jacket art by Gary Ruddell)Trust your reader.

This is editor speak for “trust yourself.” It is something I say often to many of the writers I edit.

But what does it mean?

I have had my own lesson in “trust your reader” in recent days as I have begun the long, arduous task of editing for reissue the five volumes of my Winds of the Forelands epic fantasy series, originally published by Tor Books back in the early 2000s, when I was still a relative newbie. My editor at Tor used to tell me all the time to trust my readers, and so I assumed — naïvely, it would seem — that back in the day he and I had caught all the instances where I didn’t trust my reader. But no. It seems there were so many of these moments, that he had to engage in a sort of editorial triage, catching only the most egregious and leaving the rest.

Yes, I know. I still haven’t defined the phrase.

Seeds of Betrayal, by David B. Coe (Jacket art by Gary Ruddell)As I say, “trust your reader” is essentially the same as “trust yourself.” And editors use it to point out all those places where we writers tell our readers stuff that they really don’t have to be told. Writers spend a lot of time setting stuff up — arranging our plot points just so in order to steer our narratives to that grand climax we have planned; building character backgrounds and arcs of character development that carry our heroes from who they are when the story begins to who we want them to be when the story ends; building histories and magic systems and other intricacies into our world so that all the storylines and character arcs fit with the setting we have crafted with such care.

Bonds of Vengeance, by David B. Coe (Jacket art by Romas Kukalis)And because we work so hard on all this stuff (and other narrative elements I haven’t even mentioned) we want to be absolutely certain that our readers get it all. We don’t want them to miss a thing, because then all our Great Work will be for naught. Because maybe, just maybe, if they don’t get it all, then our Wonderful Plot might not come across as quite so wonderful, and our Deep Characters might not come across as quite so deep, and our Spectacular Worlds might not feel quite so spectacular.

And that would be A Tragedy.

Shapers of Darkness, by David B. Coe (Jacket art by Romas Kukalis)Okay, yes, I’m making light, poking fun at myself and my fellow writers. But fears such as these really do lie at the heart of most “trust your reader” moments. And so we fill our stories with unnecessary explanations, with redundancies that are intended to remind, but that wind up serving no purpose, with statements of the obvious and the already-known that serve only to clutter our prose and our storytelling.

The first few hundred pages of Rules of Ascension, the first volume of Winds of the Forelands, is filled to bursting with unnecessary passages of this sort. I explain things again and again. I remind my readers of key points in scenes that took place just a dozen or so pages back. I make absolutely certain that my readers are well versed in every crucial element (“crucial” as determined by me, of course) in my world building and character backgrounds.

Weavers of War, by David B. Coe (Jacket art by Romas Kukalis)As a result, the first volume of the series was originally 220,000 words long. Yes, that’s right. Book II was about 215,000, and the later volumes were each about 160,000. They are big freakin’ books. Now, to be clear, there are other things that make them too wordy, and I’m fixing those as well. And the fact is, these are big stories and even after I have edited them, the first book will still weigh in at well over 200,000 words. My point is, they are longer than they need to be. They are cluttered with stuff my readers don’t need, and all that stuff gets in the way of the many, many good things I have done with my characters and setting and plot and prose.

I have always been proud of these books. I remain so even as I work through this process. People have read and enjoyed all five volumes as originally written despite the “trust your reader” moments. I actually think most readers pass over those redundant, unnecessary passages without really noticing them. They are not horrible or glaring (except to me); they’re just annoying. They are rookie mistakes, and so I find them embarrassing, and I want to eliminate as many as possible before reissuing the books.

But our goal as writers ought to be to produce the best stories we can write, with the clearest, most concise narratives and the cleanest, most readable prose. “Trust your reader” moments are a hindrance — one among many — to the achievement of that goal, and so we should be aware of the tendency and work to eliminate these unnecessary passages from our writing.

Mostly, we should remember the translation — “trust your reader” means “trust yourself.” Chances are we have laid our groundwork effectively, establishing our worlds, developing our characters, setting up our plot points. If we haven’t, a good editor will tell us so and will recommend places where we can clarify matters a bit.

So, remember that less is usually more, that showing is almost always better than telling, that most times when we stop to explain stuff we rob our stories of momentum.

And most of all, remember to trust yourself. You’ve earned it.

Keep writing.

Bell Bridge Books, Belle Books, Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, The Chalice War, Writing

Teaser Thursday: One Day ‘Til Release!!

The Chalice War: Stone, by David B. CoeAnother teaser, to get you excited for tomorrow’s release from Bell Bridge Books of THE CHALICE WAR: STONE, the first book in my new Celtic urban fantasy. Enjoy!

*****

Macha turned back to Marti. “You summoned us. Why?”

Before Marti could answer, the Fury went on. “You used herbs and oils to do it.” She halted her pacing beside the spear of tiger’s eye and nudged it with the toe of her shoe. “And crystals. How quaint. I’m guessing you lost more than your husband to the Fomhoire. They killed your conduit, too.”

Marti stopped herself from saying something rash and irrevocable. Macha wanted a reaction. She was a predator; all three of them were. Twisting the emotions of mortals came as naturally to them as hunting did to a hawk. Marti gained nothing by lashing out. And by holding back, she denied them nourishment of a sort.

“Yes, they did,” she said, keeping her tone even. “I wish they hadn’t of course, and I’m sorry to have summoned you this way. To be honest, I don’t like the smell of petitgrain any more than you do.”

An amused grin flashed across Macha features and was gone.

“Nicely done, Marti.”

“I don’t mind the smell that much,” Nemain said.

“Do shut up, Nellie.” Macha resumed her pacing, hands held behind her back. “You have questions.”

Delicately. She needed to learn as much as she could while revealing as little as possible.

“They sent Sluagh to kill Alistar,” she said. “And it turns out Alistar took certain precautions, just in case something like this happened. It seemed like he knew the Fomhoire would come for him eventually.”

“What kind of precautions?” Macha asked, as Marti had known she would.

Always distract the Furies with truth, Alistar told her. They’ll sense lies, but they’re not so smart that they can’t be distracted with a few well-placed truths.

Marti shrugged. “Spare license plates for the car, stuff with our finances. It was like he knew I’d outlive him.”

“And your question is?”

“Why? What made him a target for the Fomhoire? What did they think they’d gain by killing him?”

Macha stopped and clapped her hands in mock applause. “Lovely, my dear. You should be in show business with us. What do you think, girls? Shall we make Marti part of the act?”

Badbh leered.

Nemain glanced from one sister to the other. “Why? Does she sing, too?”

Macha ignored her. “You brought it here with you, didn’t you?” She waved off the question. “You must have. You’re far too clever to have left it behind.” Her eyes narrowed. “But I do believe Alistar kept you in the dark about its true nature. That would have been like him—doing the prudent thing—assuming he had a choice in the matter. The problem is, he wasn’t as prepared to die as you imply. If he was, he would have told you more.”

“They were after something he had?” Marti asked, unwilling to confirm the Fury’s suspicions.

“They are after something you still have,” Macha told her. “Stop playing games with me.”

“What is it she has?” Badbh asked, taking a step toward Marti, hunger in her pale eyes.

Macha’s gaze flicked toward her sister. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I think it does.”

“I’m sure you do,” Macha said, facing the other Fury. “But I have no intention of telling you.”

The glower Badbh directed at her sister could have kindled wet wood.

“Maybe we should speak in private?” Marti asked, trying to mask her eagerness.

“I don’t think I’m ready to do that, either,” Macha said.

“What do you want?”

Macha gave an exaggerated shrug. She was having too much fun for Marti’s taste. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“The Fomhoire want it, too, right?” Badbh said. “Just let them fight for it.”

“That’s tempting, actually,” Macha said. “I would love to see another full-blown war between you and the Fomhoire. It’s been too long.” She brushed a tiny thread off her dress. “But in this case war would be dangerous, even for us. We can’t afford for you to lose it.”

“Then tell me what I need to know.” The words tumbled out of her, reckless, too fast. Macha had frightened her. Marti’s suspicions about the stone had been growing in recent days. With the Fury’s last words, terror exploded in her mind.

Gods, Alistar. What did you do to me?

Macha smiled again. “I don’t think so.”

“But you said—”

“Oh, we don’t want to see you beaten, but we have to have some fun. Don’t we girls?”

Badbh and Nemain cackled, sounding far more like Furies than nightclub singers.

“You know what you’ve been hiding,” Macha went on. “I do, too. Now, it seems the Fomhoire have some inkling as well. But it’s been lost to time for so long they can’t imagine where it could be or exactly what it might look like. To be honest, none of us can.”

Macha halted, scanned the room with studied indifference before fixing her gaze on Marti once more. “Actually, I would love to see it.”

Marti shook her head. “No.”

The Fury pouted, her lower lip protruding provocatively. The audiences in Vegas must have loved these three.