By Jackie Kessler

Before saying hello to our newest Dame for a Day, I want to announce the winner of Anton Strout’s contest:

20. Raelena says: I haven’t read the Simon Canderous novels but they sound interesting. I will definitely have to start reading them

Congratulations, Raelena: Email me via the Deadline Dames address in the sidebar, and be sure to include your postal address so that Anton can send you the books.

And now…

Rob Thurman is the author of one of my favorite urban fantasy series, bar none. When I read Nightlife, I remember being absolutely blown away by one particular technique Rob used in the storytelling. Many authors have tried something similar, and most simply lack the chops to pull it off believably. Rob? A freaking GENIUS. She (yes, Rob = Robyn) not only pulls it off — she does so masterfully. What am I talking about? Go on and read Nightlife, and then let’s talk about it. Kudos!

Rob took some time away from her Kleenex to stop by the Dames. Poor thing is sick as anything. Which, after reading an ARC of Roadkill, I’m convinced is a fabulous marketing ploy. (Don’t believe me? Buy Roadkill starting on March 1. Prove me wrong.)

And lo, there is an excerpt from Nightlife at the end of the blog post! And…a contest! Woot!

Hi, Rob!

Kill Me
(or Plague Ridden Pox Monkey From Hell Writes a Blog)

By Rob Thurman

You know what the worst thing is about being sick for a week after your book is released two weeks too early and suddenly you’re too sick to promo at all? When midnight of Friday you wake up for the first time in five days, really wake up: you’ve eaten solid food twice in the week, and you’ve a week’s worth of sleeping stored up. It’s just you and the ceiling (and a hundred-pound deadly flatulent attack dog.)

So, a mini blog.

I don’t blog. There’s a few reasons. My computer is already on the fritz, frying my knees. Add my sarcasm to it and there will be a fireball erupting in Indiana. I am a walking (eh, sitting) weapon of mass destruction.

Second reason I don’t blog? I need to save my scraps to put in my books. And writing is my job, so writing about writing is like a damn term paper. I always hated term papers. There are much better qualified people than me to tell others about writing. Throw a rock out your window and you’ll hit one. (Wait…don’t do that. Someone will blame me.)

Third reason? I have twelve days to, as my editor calls it, tweak my latest manuscript (she says “tweak,” I say “rewrite the whole damn book”) while watching reruns of Supernatural. (The show came out at the same time as my book. Supernatural: two sarcastic angsty brothers kicking monster ass. Cal Leandros Series: two sarcastic angsty brothers kicking monster ass. It’s like having an identical twin who’s more successful than you. It drives me insane, yet it’s what I write and I write what I like—how can I not like the show? I can swear at it when it comes up with things I’ve already written but haven’t turned in to my publisher yet. I can say “Ah ha!” and feel smug when they come up with things I published two years before, but I can’t not like it.)

So while I was posting last night, I turned the post into this blog, tossing it to the generous and kind and mind-bogglingly talented individuals who offered to help me.

Who is Rob Thurman? Do you care? Hell, no. Do you want to know where I went to college? Nah. Do you want to know how long I’ve been writing? Same as all writers…since I could write, wrapping my fingers around those chunky elementary school pencils. It’s not the author that’s important, it’s the writing itself—the characters, the plots, the incredible things you wish would happen in a certain book or TV show or movie, but didn’t, yet someone somehow somewhere figured out exactly what you were missing and, damn, it’s right in front of you.

Why do I write? The aforesaid post below. I can’t keep this shit in my head. My brain would melt.

LJ midnight post: My best friend’s grandfather passed away yesterday after a long illness. He’d lived a long life and kicked ass for a lot longer than the doctors ever predicted, passing peacefully. This had she and I (as she and her Blackberry were in the airport waiting to fly to the visitation and funeral) talking about various experiences in that area. I have no close family other than my mother, my aunt, and my uncle (who died two years ago in an accident.) *But* when I was younger, I was dragged to the visitations of extremely extended dead relatives I didn’t know and had never met. And I discovered one thing.

Unless you are related to a famous politician, actor, peace activist or musician in that coffin, when you tell stories and say “And then the funeral parlor called the police,” there is no way to not come off as white trash. Can’t be done.

And, by the way, why is no one co-opting my white trash heritage? You can say my skin is the color of a tub of Cool Whip. I don’t mind–I swear, and it’s true. Scottish, English, and one wandering Viking, it makes for a damn pasty person. Hell, I make Cool Whip look like it’s been tanning for the summer. “Her eyes were round and large, overly large, somewhat frog-like, in fact–their riveting color that of a swamp in which biohazard waste is dumped on a frequent basis.”

For that matter, co-opt my long passed grandfather asking me for money years and years ago, and my reply, “Pee-paw, I’m eight. I don’t have any money.”

Second generation white trash…co-opt the *hell* out of me, please. Be our voice as we are frequently and easily distracted by rhinestones and that smoking hot double-wide. When the tornado whips through the trailer park, we’ll be going in style, baby. Nothing but style.

As I write from a male point of view, I’m waiting for the outraged emails of men lambasting me for co-opting their genitals. And to those guys who don’t want to share their testicles, I say…

Wait. Look.

Hey…is that a Bedazzler?

Oh, enjoy the fic. Brothers. Monsters. Ass-kicking. Snark. Angst. Lethal sarcasm. (And there’s a hug in one book, but I won’t tell you which one.)

~

NIGHTLIFE EXCERPT

Prologue

People…they do the craziest shit.

Yeah, I know. It’s not the most elegant observation. Definitely not along the lines of you can’t go home again or it was the best of times; it was the worst of times. But considering I was making it with a knife blade buried in my stomach, kudos to me. Although I had to say that it didn’t hurt as much as I would’ve expected. In fact it didn’t hurt at all. It just felt cold…cold and numb, like I had a belly full of ice water.

It was the touch of a much warmer liquid on my fingers let me know different. It was blood. My blood. I tightened my hand over the one that held the knife handle. The blood covered both of our hands, his and mine. He had done it. He had actually done it…stabbed me. Not that that was the crazy part. It wasn’t, not by a long shot. No, the crazy part, the howling at the moon madness bit, was that he had tried so hard to avoid it. But wasn’t that my brother all over? Honest, loyal, all but rolling in integrity. Too good for his own good. But, Hell, in the end, too good for my good as well.

“Well,” I said ruefully. “Look at that.” Then my knees buckled and I dropped to them, sliding off the blade as easy as you please. There was the kiss of metal and then only gaping emptiness as I fell. Letting go of his hand, I covered the wound in my abdomen. It was strange, how the blood was so warm while I felt all but frozen. I looked up into eyes the same color as mine, pale gray as a winter sky. Curling up the side of my mouth, I gave him a half smile. “My mistake. I guess you have the balls after all. Good for you, big brother.”

That winter sky darkened to a stark and despairing shadow. Poor guy. He felt bad. Can you imagine? Damn, I hated that for him. Almost as much as I hated the darkness creeping in around the edges of my vision, the drifting fingers of spilled ink. The blade dropped from his hand to clatter on the floor with the metallic, ringing peal of a bell. And why not? Its job was done.

“What? No souvenir?” I asked curiously. The words came out slurred and thick, heavy and fading. Like me. Fading and fading fast. A morning mist dissipating in the rising sun. A broken bird plunging from the sky. A scuttling dark thing fleeing the light of day. Shit, I should’ve been writing some of this down. Dying really brought out the poet in me.

I heard the gate close, a thunderous and oddly final sound that threatened to bring the building down. The walls shook with a peculiar rippling effect that rose from floor to ceiling which promptly began to drop plaster and metal like rain. If you had to go, might as well go out with a bang. “Better run, Chicken Little. The sky’s falling.” Fairy tale words with a predator bite. They weren’t deep, not meaningful, but they had teeth. And like any good predator I wanted to go out with the sweet taste of blood in my mouth.

Naturally he didn’t run. Heroes don’t do that. And apparently neither do brothers. Hands gripped me and I was flung over a shoulder in a fireman’s carry before I could even take a swing at him. Of course that was making the assumption I had enough life left in me to make a fist. One damn huge assumption. Then he was running, jolting me up and down. Behind us I could see the monsters boiling in frustration, rushing at where the gate hung, impenetrable. This time it was closed for good and they knew it. Knew it and weren’t exactly too happy about it. To a one every narrow, pointed face turned in our direction; every molten lava eye seething with bloodlust and a poisonous, black hatred. Like an ocean wave they came after us, a riptide of murderous intent. Monsters, they didn’t handle disappointment well. I should know.

I was one.

Chapter 1

Most kids don’t believe in fairy tales very long. Once they hit six or seven they put away Cinderella and her shoe fetish, the Three Little Pigs with their violation of building codes, Miss Muffet and her well shaped tuffet; all forgotten or discounted. And maybe that’s the way it has to be. To survive in the world you have to give up the fantasies, the make believe. The only trouble is that it’s not all make believe. Some parts of the fairy tales are all too real, all too true. There might not be a Red but there is a Big Bad Wolf. No Snow White, but definitely an Evil Queen. No obnoxiously cute blond tots, but a child eating witch…yeah. Oh yeah. There are monsters among us. There always have been and there always will be. I’ve known that since I can remember, just like I’ve always known I was one.

Well, half of one, anyway.

Not that I looked that way. Regardless of what inherited nastiness I might have on the inside, on the outside I was all human. In fact Niko had said, and pretty damn frequently, that I had more human qualities than I had good sense. There was no one like your brother to remind you no matter how godawful that you thought your problems were, you were still his punk ass kid brother. If I wanted to beat up on myself, I’d have to go through him first. Niko was such a boyscout. Albeit a boyscout with a lethal turn and a merit badge in deadly weapons.

Niko, for all his fascination with sharp, pointy things, was all human. Not a drop of monster blood in him anywhere. Of course his father could barely be classified as human in my book, but technically the man met the definition. Worthless bastard. Niko had been two weeks old when his dear old dad had taken off. He’d seen him no more than three times in his entire life. There were some true parenting skills at work. Three times. Hell, I’d seen mine more than that.

Yeah, I’d seen mine all the time, at least once a month. It watched me. There were no father and son chats, no invites to see the monster cousins, no interaction of any sort. There was just a shadowed figure lurking in an alley as I passed. Or maybe a silhouette with lithe, sinuous lines and sharp, sharp teeth cast against my window at night. Of course it wasn’t like it was wearing a name tag that said ‘Dad’ on it or left me birthday presents topped with a bow tied with unnaturally long, clawed fingers. So I had no proof it was my demonic sperm donor, but come on. When your mother is quick to tell you you’re a freak, an abomination that should’ve been aborted on cheap bathroom tile, you have to think…why else would this monster be stalking me? Funny, that monster had more interest in me than my mother ever had.

Over the years I got used to it, the shadowing. A couple of times I tried to approach it; curiosity, morbid death wish, who knew? But it always disappeared, melting into the darkness. Mostly I was relieved. It was one thing to be part monster, another altogether to embrace that less-than-Mayflower heritage. Then when I was fourteen that all changed. After that I didn’t look for monsters.

I ran from them.

Actually we ran from them, Niko and I. For three years that felt more like thirty, we ran. Ran until it was a way of life. It wasn’t the kind of life Niko deserved. But did he listen to me when I told him so? Shit. Hardly. My brother had made a career out of trying to protect me. Talk about your minimum wage, no benefits occupations.

Sort of like the one I had now, I thought glumly. Dumping the mop back in the battered bucket, I swirled it around once in the gray foul smelling water then flopped it back on the scarred wooden floor. You’d be amazed at how much vomit a bar full of drunks could produce. I was, at first. Now I was just amazed how damn long it took to clean it up. Not to mention how bad it smelled. You think you’d get used to the smell after a few months of all but swimming in the stuff. Yeah, you’d think, but you’d be dead wrong. It was rather ironic that the fake ID that aged me up from nineteen to twenty-one had me cleaning up alcoholic chunks rather than spewing it myself.

“Cal, I’m heading out. Close up for me?”

I cast a jaundiced look over my shoulder. Good old ‘close up for me’ Meredith. You could always put your faith in her; that is, the faith that she would leave you high and dry to duck out early. “Yeah. Yeah.” I waved her off. One day I’d tell her to bite me and stick around to do her job, but I was guessing that day would come when she was wearing a top that was a little less tight or a shade less low cut. “Want me to walk you out?”

“No, the boyfriend’s outside.” She tugged at my short pony-tail as she headed towards the door. “See you tomorrow.” And then she was gone, her long cascading red hair and curving figure lingering in the air to dazzle the eye like a fluorescent afterimage. Meredith was all about a look. She’d sculpted herself with all the passion and precision of any artist. I doubt she had a clue what her original hair color was or her original breast size for that matter. She was a walking, talking advertisement for better living through cosmetic surgery. Forget milk, it’s plastic that does a body good.

And despite ninety nine percent of it being artificial, it was a damn good body. Fantasizing about it made the unpleasant chore of mopping up human bodily fluids pass a little faster. I actually didn’t mind pulling close up duty at the bar. After bartending all night it was kind of nice to be surrounded by nothing but silence and empty space. I was beginning to think working at a bar was ruining my appreciation of a good party. Drunk people were starting to lose their charm; hell, they were even starting to lose their comedic ways. You can only watch a wasted guy fall off a barstool and crack his head open so many times before it’s just not funny anymore. Well, not as funny anyway.

At the moment the bar was quiet. It was a comforting quiet, the kind that wrapped around you like the thickest of fleecy blankets sold at stores you couldn’t even afford to walk through their front door. It was nice…peaceful. It was also dangerous and Niko would kick my ass if ever I didn’t recognize that. Being alone, being distracted, that all added up to being a walking, talking target. I was a fugitive, hunted, and not for one minute, one second, could I forget that. Other things I’d forgotten, in a big way, but never that. Putting up the mop, I finished locking up and ended up on the sidewalk about four-thirty. Even at that late hour the streets of New York weren’t totally empty, but they were sparser…for a few hours the road less traveled. With the chill of October already a vicious bite in the air, I zipped up the battered black leather jacket I’d picked up from a street vendor for twenty-five bucks. A knock-off of a knock-off, all I cared about was that it let me blend in with the night.

Keeping my hand in my pocket and firmly gripping a deadly little present Niko had given me, I walked the home. It wasn’t too far, about five blocks over to Avenue D. It wasn’t the best part of town by any means, but neither were we the best type of people. Even though the walk wasn’t long, it was still more than long enough to get into trouble. I kept my eyes open and my senses as sharp as any rabbit that smelled the wolf. Although to give myself some credit, I was a rabbit with teeth. Not to mention one helluva kick. This time, however, I made it back with no sign of anything with claws, molten eyes, or a hunger for my blood. That made it a good night in my book, a pizza, beer, and party hat night. No matter how many quiet ones I had, I never lost an appreciation for them. If I was tempted in that direction, I simply had to run a finger along the scars on my neck. They reminded me to stay humble and grateful.

Niko and I lived in an older apartment building, pretty run down but not a complete slum. Depending on your definition. The front door had been secure at some point in time, I suppose, but now it usually hung ajar by a few inches, the gap toothed grin of a dirty old man. I took the stairs up, seven stories, grumbling and cursing under my breath. There wasn’t an elevator; apparently our landlord considered housing laws not exactly a must read. Not that it mattered. Even if there were one, it probably wouldn’t work and if it did, an elevator was no place to be trapped. A metal box of guaranteed death, Niko had said on occasion. And as my brother had absolutely no talent or inclination for exaggeration, I tended to stay out of elevators. Picturing what might drop through the roof or burrow through the floor wasn’t the kind of thoughts I liked to entertain. Making my way down the hall to our door, I slid the key into the lock and opened the door to a dark room. The light switch was roughly aged plastic under my fingers as I flipped it.

Nothing happened.

The light bulb could be burned out; that’s what your average person would think. It wasn’t for a single second what I thought. Instantly I shrugged out of my jacket; the rustle of the leather would do its best to give me away before I moved an inch. I let it slip to the floor as silently as possible and then slid along the wall, slow step by slow step. The plaster was cool even through my shirt, a light trace of ice against my spine as I listened and listened hard. There was no sound, not the brush of a foot against the floor, not the single sigh of an exhaled breath.

But something was there. I didn’t need to spend two ninety-nine a minute on Madame Cleo to know that. I crouched slightly and started a cautious pass with my arm through the pitch black air before me. Not a good idea.

A grip as unbreakable as any bear trap snared my wrist. It pulled me away from the wall, virtually off my feet. Something hard hit me in the pit of my stomach and I flipped to land forcefully on my back, the air exploding painfully out of my lungs. An iron pressure was applied to my throat and a sibilant voice hissed, “Any last words, dead man?”

I coughed, sucked in a ragged breath then drawled hoarsely, “You are such an asshole, Niko. You seriously need to invest in a hobby.”

“Keeping you alive is my hobby. It certainly doesn’t appear to be yours.” There was a sharp clap and the lights flared on. Wonderful. We now had clap on, clap off technology in our midst. All the better to illuminate my humiliaton.

I scowled and batted in annoyance at the long blond braid that hung down in my face. “I already have the one side of my family out to put me in a box or worse. Is it too much to ask you stop playing Cato?”

“Yes, it is.” With an automatic shrug he flipped the braid back over his shoulder and stood. “And Inspector Clouseau would certainly be a better student than you.” Holding out a hand to me, he asked pointedly, “And where exactly is that knife I gave you?”

I took the hand and let him pull me to my feet. “In my jacket pocket.”

Gray eyes shifted to the puddle of leather by the door and pale eyebrows raised skyward in silent, but potent disapproval.

“Yeah, well, at least with it over there I’m not tempted to make like a Cuisinart all over your scrawny ass.”

“Ah, yes. Quite the threat,” he said dryly. “I’m sure you are the terror of Girl-Scouts everywhere.” He brushed the dust from his black turtleneck and pants with a fastidious hand. “Lock the door, Cal. Let’s not make it any easier for the Grendels than we have to.”

Names were funny things. They meant things…no matter how much you might deny it, no matter how much you might want to believe they were chosen at a whim. Niko had come up with Grendels. It wasn’t enough he was a blond Bruce Lee, but he was smart as hell too. Always had been. One reading of Beowulf in the sixth grade and he’d labeled my stalkers Grendels. I’d only been in the first grade myself, five years younger than Niko, so it hadn’t meant much to me at the time. But Grendels they became, after all monsters were monsters.

Of course now I was just three years younger than my butt-kicking big brother. Wasn’t that a trick?

Caliban was a helluva name too. Nice label to put on a kid, right? Mom might have lived in a dark, cramped one room apartment over a tattoo parlor. She might’ve told fortunes for a living, ripping off the naïve, the desperate, the flat out stupid. And she might have been as quick with a slap as she was to tilt a bottle of cheap wine. But one thing you could give her credit for, she knew her Shakespeare. The Tempest’s Caliban, born of a witch and a demon. Half-monster…a slouching nightmare of a creature tainting everything he touched.

Gee, thanks, Mom. You really knew how to make a boy feel special.

I locked the door and headed towards our bathroom, saying with a grin, “What’re you still doing up? You know all good little ninjas should be in bed, visions of homicidal sugarplums dancing in their heads.”

With a grunt of resignation Niko retrieved my jacket from the floor. It hung from the point of one of his many, many blades until he draped it over the back of our battered sofa. “They’re not completely homicidal,” his lips twitched with amusement. He followed me down the tiny hall, leaned with casual grace against the wall, and folded his arms. “And I had a last minute scheduling for bodyguard duty. An off off off Broadway actress who imagines herself the target of a literal army of sex crazed stalkers. It was exhausting.”

“I’ll bet.” I gave him a mock leer as I leaned over the bathroom sink. As I pulled the rubber band free from my hair, the ruler straight black strands fell forward against my face. Squeezing a generous dollop of toothpaste on my brush, I went to work, scrubbing and spitting. Niko had a casual business relationship with an agency that provided bodyguards and security around the city. Actually, the agency was one guy with a lot of contacts, some of which were even almost legal. But it was fair money and the pay was strictly under the table. No taxes. No government. No trail for the Grendels. Not that I pictured a Grendel in a bow tie and spectacles climbing that corporate ladder or waiting on his retirement. Still, Grendels weren’t above using humans, and most humans weren’t above being used.

Niko watched me silently as I finished up, rinsing my mouth and then pulling off my shirt. I slid him a glance, a little worried. “Okay, what?” When you’ve known someone all your life you don’t need a neon sign to know when something is wrong. A faint shadow in his eyes, a slight flattening of his mouth, something was bugging Niko.

He hesitated then said quietly, “I saw one today.”

Four words. That’s all it took to have the ground disintegrating under my feet. Just four goddamn words. I wadded up my shirt with suddenly clumsy fingers. “Oh.” Articulate as always. Flipping the lid down on the toilet, I sat, tossed the shirt into the sink and started to untie my sneakers.

Niko moved closer, a solidly reassuring presence in the doorway. “It was in the park. I was doing my evening run.”

“The park,” I repeated emotionlessly. “Makes sense.” Grendels, as far as we could tell, didn’t much care for cities; they seemed to be more prevalent in rural areas, the woods, the creeks, the silent and sullen hills. But New York was one damn big place. Of all the cities we’d run to, this was the one where we were bound to come across the occasional monster, Grendel, vampire, ghoul, boggle…whatever. One Grendel in Central Park should not a crapfest in your pants make, right?

Right?

~

Want more of Cal Leandros?

Chapter one of ROADKILL part one
Chapter one of ROADKILL part two

For more about Rob and her books, check out her website.

And now…contest time! Rob is giving away FOUR books — TWO from the Cal Leandros series (each winner can pick one of the five books), and TWO copies of TRICK OF THE LIGHT, the new Trickster series. So…four winners to be picked at random on Sunday, March 7, 2010. All you have to do is comment below.

Have at it! And feel better, Rob!