Coming June 15
I'm going to spend the next week on edits, but that's very boring for you, so here's an exciting snippet to whet your appitite.
From the next Convergence book, Black Hound. Available June 15 wherever ebooks are sold.
“Wait!
If that thing’s a foot thick, how are you getting cell reception?”
She blinked. When the answer
came to her, she grinned. “I’m magic, cuz.”
His swearing was good-natured
this time. The man forgot she wasn’t a helpless kid anymore.
“Whatever. Get back to work.”
“If
you’d quit bugging me, I would,” she retorted in good humor, and
hung up. With Ike soothed, she was able to focus and make rapid
changes. First up was a garage door that looked seamless from the
outside and a camouflaged man door. She sent Iron Eagle off to Ike
with the key so he’d feel better.
She ran a line of thick
bulletproof glass all the way around the spiral to let some light in,
tinting it on the outside so it appeared like the rest of the gray
steel shell to an observer. She studied it for a moment, reconsidered
and added a rainbow of colors, making the light dance. After that she
had to color the inside wall of the spiral white to better reflect
the ribbons of light, add a few strategic mirrors...
Much better!
After lunch and a text to her
twitchy cousin, she set up camp. An indoor outhouse was a necessary
evil until she could work on plumbing, but it was easy to form a
small stainless steel kitchen, storage shelves and a platform for her
sleeping bag and thin foam mattress. She set up a map on a steel
table and studied it, then made a curving stair to the peak of the
roof where she formed a camouflaged observation window.
She groaned as she climbed,
totally wiped out. Setting up house was exhausting, and she’d done
it two days in a row.
The light was fading. The
sunset turned piles of junk into mysterious hills of darkness. She
noted the rising mist and was glad she’d installed special air
filters in the Spire. She glanced ruefully down the stairs and
thought about an elevator…later. When she wasn’t seeing double.
She’d pushed her limits again.
Of course, if she didn’t
push them, how would she know where they were?
A
knock sounded at o'dark-thirty, waking Rue from a dead sleep. She
fumbled for her phone and squinted at the screen. Yep, it was early.
The knock came again. She
flicked on a battery powered camping lamp and got up, retrieved her
gun, and looked through the disguised safety glass window. Moonlight
revealed four men, but without a yard light, that’s all she could
make out. Clearly that was an oversight, but she hadn’t thought
she’d need one, not this soon. What would possess someone to visit
the Yard at night? Unless they were dangerous themselves…
She wasn't about to let them
in.
“What?”
she called.
“We
come in peace. We’d like to buy some metal.”
She scoffed. Metal? At this
hour? “Come back in the morning and we’ll talk.”
“Your
word on it?”
That was odd. Words had power
in this age, and the more powerful the person, the stronger the
consequences. Still, there was no harm in talking. “Come back
tomorrow and I will talk with you about metal,” she said carefully.
“You have my word.”
They returned at four AM.
She stumbled to the door,
stupid with sleep. “What are you doing?” she snarled, tempted to
smash them like bugs.
“It's
morning,” the persistent visitor said mildly.
ARGH! She dragged a hand over
her face to scrub away the sleep and checked the window; still dark
out. It was hard to think before coffee.
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