On Deadline

Darlins!

So here's the thing--I have a novel due at the end of the month, and I'm nearly there. I haven't been able to write anything else as I'm closing in on it, not even Mutable, but! I'll write an extra-long post for next week, at which time the novel will be turned in and out of my hands.

Please enjoy an excerpt, and I'll be back with Mutable next week--which is also nearing its end, holy smokes! My writing life is a roller coaster right now (my everyday life is pretty much the same--Baby Girl has learned how to get a trot going, and she can move surprisingly fast with it).

***

I should have known I was going to fuck it all up.

Eye contact. Why had I made bloody eye contact? I didn’t look like myself right now, not a version of myself I would recognize, in the fatigues and the cap with a gun at my hip. Alex had told me to keep my eyes straight ahead, not to stop for anything, and we would be all right. Only—only I saw someone I thought I knew, in the foyer, and I’d glanced his way.

It turned out, the Beninese Minister of Culture and History had an excellent memory for faces.

“I asked myself,” Minister Adjoukoua said as he led the way downstairs, “what could a curator for the famous British Museum be doing here, in Lomé? Working for Mademoiselle Corday it seemed, but surely not you. You might have been demoted, Professor Armstrong, but you are still a man of great principle. Not the sort of person to whore himself out to a treasure hunter like our auctioneer. Then, when I heard the noise from inside the room, and your companion nowhere to be seen? Well.” He smiled broadly. “I thought you might be here to render the rest of this day meaningless. I couldn’t have that. Mademoiselle!” Minister Adjoukoua called out to Corday, who came in from the next room wearing a smile that got broader as soon as she saw us. She wore feathery, fluttering red from shoulder to shin—blood red. “Mademoiselle, I have a surprise for you, eh? Two people who should not be here sneaking about.”

“You have a sharp eye, Minister,” she said graciously, but there was ice behind her beaming smile. “Where did you find them?”

“Upstairs, at the end of the hall.”

“Alone?” Anyone else might think it was an idle question, but I could hear the tension in her voice, as soft as a breath of air but as furious as a hurricane.

“There was no one else that I saw.”

“Ah.” She was likely wondering if we’d killed Fawkes, and if so, where we’d stashed the body. I glanced at Alex—he, minutely, shook his head. He hadn’t killed him, then. That was a relief. “Well, then. Allow me to dispose of these irritants and we’ll get down to business.”

Dispose of—surely she wasn’t going to just murder us. The bleak look in her eye suggested she was ready to do just that, though, and neither of us had a gun any longer—they were all in the possession of the enormous bodyguard holding a gun on me. Oh god. Oh god, I was going to be killed—I was going to get Alex killed, no, this couldn’t be—

Delay and Excerpt

Hi darlins,

Well, due to two looming deadlines for paid work and a monster headache, Mutable is going to have to wait a bit. I'm sorry, I hate to delay this late in the story game, but it's cold and I'm tired and I've got a pile of things to do reminding me they exist.

Instead of Mutable, have some of a story I'm subbing to Dreamspinner at the end of next month. Fight scene for the win!

***

She wrapped her free hand around the back of my neck, then smashed her forehead against my face. I felt my nose break, hot, salty blood gushing over my lips and into my mouth, and my eyes teared up so badly for a moment that I couldn’t see.

Corday followed her elbow up with a vicious knee to the balls, a strike that would have completely incapacitated me if I hadn’t already been reeling back out of her range thanks to the head butt. The impact was still enough to double me over, almost retching with the throbbing pain but not so far out of it that I wasn’t able to grab her leg before she could knee me again.

You wanna play rough? We’ll play rough. Gritting my teeth, I grabbed her behind both knees, lifted her up, and did a high double-leg takedown that put her straight through the glass-topped coffee table.

The noise was intense, way worse than the breaking glass of the door. I was on top now, exposed, not an impossible shot for her sniper to take, and yet no shot came. That meant whoever it was had changed targets, and was probably hunting for Mal. I needed to give him as much time as possible to get away from the hotel, away from both of them. As much as I wanted to turn around and run after him, I had to stay and fight it out.

Corday was stunned, spluttering, but holding onto my hips with her legs. I reared back and began to throw punches, simple, brutal hammerfists, down onto her head. Fuck being a gentleman, this woman was a better, definitely dirtier fighter than me. I needed to end it, fast.

She protected her head well, though, keeping her hands down by her face and leaving her elbows up to deflect my blows. Five strikes in she wrapped up my right arm with her left, looping around it like an eel and drawing me in close, then—crack! She brought her right elbow around for a vicious strike to my face. It hit my cheekbone and not my disaster of a nose, thank fuck, but it was still enough to knock me onto my side.

Glass crunched beneath me, shards glittering like diamonds against the cream-colored carpet, dotted with red splotches from my still-bleeding nose. Corday spun to put her feet between us, seemingly oblivious to the sharp glass beneath her, and lashed out with her foot, kicking me just below the sternum.

I exhaled hard and grabbed ahold of her ankle before she could reel it back in, clutched it to my stomach and twisted, hard, to the left. I wasn’t much of a grappler, never had been, but I was versed enough to know that if you could isolate a limb, it would be that much easier to break. I didn’t want to kill this woman—the thought made me feel sick—but I wouldn’t mind wrenching her tendons out of place so she couldn’t fucking kick me again.

She rolled with the movement of my twist, and ended up flat on her stomach and trying to stand. She was hurt, the plethora of cuts on her back welling with blood, but it wasn’t slowing her down at all. I kept my grip on her foot, got up onto my knees, and jerked her flat just as she was raising her other foot to strike at me.

She hit the floor with a smack, and I took the opportunity to get back onto my feet. I needed a weapon—where had my gun ended up? Hell, her gun would do too.

There. Three feet over, beneath the wall-mounted television. I dropped her foot so I could go after it, saw her hand move out of the corner of my eye—

***

And that's all you get, because I'm MEAN!