Urban fantasy is hot these days. Vampires and vampire hunters, and werewolves, shapeshifters, witches, wizards, ghosts, fairies (or elves or fey), zombies–and lots more. They’re all over the place. I read a lot of them. I enjoy reading Charlaine Harris, Kelley Armstrong, Rachel Kane, Jim Butcher, Kim Harrison, Tanya Huff, C. E. Murphy, Carrie Vaughn, and others I’m sure I’m forgetting. I enjoy all of them very much, though of course I have my favorites.
In my own published works, I haven’t written a single word about such things. I’ve tended to bounce between tales of contemporary erotica (ordinary people having extraordinary fun between the sheets) and superheroic erotica (superhuman people having extraordinary fun between the sheets). What can I say? I’ve always been a fan of comics, and of the superheroes who inhabit them. Given that superheroes and superheroines are, almost to a man (or woman) possessed of flawless physiques, does it surprise anyone that the thought of them getting naked and sweaty with one another should arise? I hardly think so.
But just because I haven’t published anything in the more…traditional paranormal vein (superheroes count as paranormal, right?), doesn’t mean I don’t wander down those paths on occasion. On the other hand, those stories tend not to be so overtly erotic. When I’m writing about vampires and werewolves and zombies, I tend to focus much more on the darker aspects of those creatures. That isn’t to say that love (and sex) won’t crop up eventually, but that’s not how they tend to start. So since I’m on deck to post this week, I thought I’d throw some excerpts from works in progress. None are anywhere close to completion–and are on the back burner while I work on my second novel. But they’re in the mix.
First up, Vanessa’s tale. She was attacked by a werewolf–deliberately infected, but the truth hasn’t been revealed to her yet. Being a no-nonsense modern woman in the real world, she convinced herself that it was just a dog. She hasn’t changed yet, but she’s experiencing some awkward side effects.
Vanessa looked up from studying a case file. She could heard Carol returning from her lunch break, moving around with an uncharacteristic amount of noise. And–Vanessa closed her eyes to concentrate on her sense of smell. Carol smelled very strongly of soap, and shampoo. But beneath that, Vanessa could sense…other scents. Sweat, for one.
Vanessa found herself standing at the door to her office, nose lifted as she breathed deeply. Yes, Carol smelled of sweat, as if she’d worked out over her lunch hour. But there was more. Vanessa closed her eyes again, sorting through the scents, trying to identify them. She picked out faint traces of masculine cologne, but also perspiration, vaginal secretions and semen.
Vanessa’s eyes fluttered open. She found Carol staring at her curiously. Vanessa walked to Carol’s desk. The scents intensified, and Vanessa confirmed what she’d smelled. Carol smelled of vigorous sex, and of soap and shampoo intended to erase those scents. A few strands of damp hair along Carol’s hairline confirmed both sweaty exercise and a hasty shower.
Vanessa leaned closer, etiquette and protocol forgotten. She breathed in Carol’s scent, and the mingled scent of her lover. It smelled tantalizingly familiar.
“Vanessa?”
Vanessa ignored the question. Who was Carol’s lover? She sniffed at Carol’s hair. The scent of shampoo was intense, but Vanessa focused on the manscent that lingered there. Damn, but it seemed familiar. Vanessa began to sort through the men in the office.
The moment she thought of Blake Taylor, Vanessa knew he was the one. That was his scent. How she knew that, Vanessa couldn’t say. It was as if she’d always known, but just hadn’t recognized it before.
“You slept with Blake!”
Carol’s shocked gasp seemed absurdly loud. “How did you know?” Her stage whisper was loud enough to carry across the room.
“Are you kidding?” Vanessa asked. “I can smell it on you.”
Carol’s surprise and alarm were palpable. Carol’s scent took on a metallic overtone.
Vanessa opened her eyes again. Carol’s scent? Since when did she notice Carol’s scent–and yet, she did. This wasn’t the odor of soap, shampoo, deodorant, or of her tryst with Blake Taylor. There was a more basic, more fundamental scent there. Carol’s scent, as personal and identifiable as her face.
Vanessa straightened, alarmed by her discovery and by Carol’s wide-eyed shock. Something strange was happening to her. She had an unshakeable conviction that she could identify Carol by smell now, as easily as by her face.
“I’m–I’m leaving the office for the day,” Vanessa said. “Reschedule all my appointments.”
As odd as Vanessa’s day is, Elizabeth Steakley is having a much worse night.
Elizabeth Steakley had known fear before, of course. Fear of embarrassment, fear of failure, fear for her reputation, her social standing, even her physical well-being. As a cop, she’d feared for her very life on more than one occasion. Though it wasn’t as dangerous an occupation as television made it look, there were risks. They came with the job. She accepted them. Bravery, her father used to tell her, wasn’t the absence of fear—it was the strength of character to act despite the fear.
In the last year she’d even learned to fear for her soul. The world was a dark and awful place, full of horrible realities that most people—even most cops—never knew existed. She’d resumed attending church on Sundays after lapsing from her childhood faith long ago. If vampires and demons and God only know what else really existed, then God must also. Right?
If so, he seemed to keep his representatives in the dark. So to speak. The first priest she’d spoken to had become scornful in the face of her sacreligious jokes about vampires—and angry when she’d persisted by trying to convince him she was serious. After that incident, she’d been more cautious. But her oblique hints and leading questions had elicited only puzzlement and expressions of concern for her welfare coupled with platitudes that told her they knew nothing of what she’d seen. She’d stopped asking after that.
She’d never felt so alone. Until tonight.
Elizabeth’s calm shattered and she thrashed again, madly, frantically. The sharp cold edges of the handcuffs gouged her wrists and ankles, slipping back and forth across her bloody skin but giving not at all. The armchair to which she was bound was solidly constructed wood, heavy and rigid, undamaged by her best efforts. She screamed her frustration and terror into the gag stuffed in her mouth, the sound muffled until it emerged as a dull moan that would never penetrate to the hallway outside or the next room.
She stopped struggling only when her labored breathing threatened to choke her. She sucked air in noisily thru her nostrils, knowing she was very close to gagging on the mass of fabric filling her mouth. If that happened and she vomited, she’d die. The thought frightened her, but not enough to silence the thought that it might be her best option.
If she choked to death, she’d only be dead.
If the vampires had their way with her, she’d be undead.
Elizabeth sat very still, breathing loudly, trying to think of a third option. Trying hard.
Last, an excerpt from a tale of zombies in the Old West. It didn’t start out that way, but when my characters discovered the smoldering ruins of the family farmhouse, and one of them began checking the well for…something, that’s when I realized what I was writing….
Aaron was in the barn. There wasn’t a lot left of him. Charred bones and scraps of flesh the scavengers hadn’t got to yet scattered over a wide area. There was a hole in his skull, just at the temple. The ruined remains of Aaron’s revolver lay halfway across the barn. Scott glanced at me once as he was examining Aaron’s remains but I pretended not to notice. He looked away and didn’t say anything.
Later, maybe. But not yet.
We buried Aaron that afternoon. I dug the hole with a shovel that had mostly survived the fire. Scott carried his bones out to the grave site and laid them out gently, then just as gently covered them with dirt. I didn’t touch them, or the grave. Scott stood over the grave with his hat in his hands for a long while, head bowed. He might’ve cried a little, but I stayed far enough away that I couldn’t see or hear.
I didn’t say goodbye to Aaron yet. Soon, though.
The shadows were growing long when Scott and I set up camp in what once was the front yard of the ranch. I collected firewood and got the fire going. Scott was busy sorting through the ash and charred wood of the house, occasionally producing bits of treasure. Most of it was reduced to ash.
While Scott occupied himself with that, I walked to the well. The cover was lying on the ground near by. I leaned over and looked down into the darkness. The water reflected the sky from a few yards below the surface. It was utterly still. Which didn’t relieve my fears any.
I glanced around, picked up a rock and dropped it into the well. It vanished into the water with a splash, setting up ripples that slowly faded as I watched. When the water was still again, I picked up the bucket. The rope tied to it was coiled neatly by my feet.
I tossed the bucket down the well instead of lowering it slowly. It splashed into the water, tipped over, filled and sank. I let the rope play out as the bucket sank until it hit bottom.
I jiggled the rope a bit, and moved the bucket around by pulling the rope from one side to the other. No one and nothing pulled at the rope. The surface of the water grew still again, save for occasional faint ripples when the rope moved.
Good enough. I pulled a bucket of water from the well, sipped a little from the dipper, then spat it out. It tasted fine. I was convinced now. There were no walking dead lurking at the bottom of the well, fouling it.
I’d wondered. The men who had killed our brother and burned the ranch might’ve poisoned the well while they were at it. Or just fallen in. They weren’t the brightest or most dextrous of folk, after all.
Scott tossed something that might’ve been a half burned photo in a charred wooden frame onto a small pile of similar items, dusted his hands and then stalked toward me, dismay and anger written in his features. His eyes strayed toward the well. So I hadn’t gone unobserved after all.
“Well’s clean?” Scott asked.
“Seems to be,” I said.
Scott sat down on the ground beside me, knees pulled up and arms resting on them. He looked at me. “Zombies,” he said.
“That would be my guess,” I said.
“Shit,” Scott said.
“Yeah.”
Because, as the Kentucky Derby showed on Saturday, sometimes the little guys can score one against big guys with deeper pockets. And the cool thing is, when that happens, it’s probably an even bigger win, because it revitalizes interest in the sport (or in the publishing industry).