Update on the future of "Dreamless"

"Dreamless" never got a fair shake from the beginning. Released just as Jolly Fish was in its death throes, my poor book was supposed to be released in spring 2016 but didn't actually come out until the fall. There was hardly any publicity for the first release, and the delay (which Jolly Fish's original leadership never told anyone about) killed what little momentum was generated. Discouraged, I stopped my own attempts to generate some publicity for the book. On top of that, the cover was nothing like my other books and didn't actually represent the story inside.

Admittedly, my first chapter also needed some work, and looking back I should have given the whole thing at least one more good hard edit. Still, the book did manage to win an award despite its failings, though that wasn't enough to get its name out there.

Still, both "Dreamless" and I are getting a second chance. Northstar reverted both the print and ebook rights back to me, which means that it's going to not be for sale for a little while I find an awesome new cover and give it the magnificent spit-and-polish the story deserves. Then, with a final tweak to the name - it'll be "Sleepless" now, instead of "Dreamless" - I'll re-release the title as a $5 ebook and make plans for a physical printing depending on demand.

"Dreamless" is dead, but rest assured that "Sleepless" will live on. 

Exclusive: Chapter 1 of my new novel, "Piper's Song"

I feel like I owe you guys something for the massive radio silence, which is the result of a months-long rewriting/editing session more massive than any I've experienced in my life. Seriously, I went a little bit crazy - it's probably best you didn't have to deal with me. Still, as an apology, here's a teaser for the brand-new version of "Piper's Song" I've been slaving away over:

Chapter 1: A Little Night Music

Having a song in your heart was considerably less cheerful-sounding when rats and fire were involved.

Jess smiled a little to herself at the thought, making a mental note to try and use it in conversation later. She couldn’t say anything at the moment, her breath occupied by the music controlling the rats, but it was good to make note of these things. Especially when it was a decent distraction from her hundredth time through the current song she was playing, a children’s song so simple she could probably play it in her sleep.

To the small, furry listeners behind her, it didn’t matter what song she played. The sound of them was quieter out here, the dirt doing more to muffle their tiny claws than the brick-paved streets back in town, but she had no doubt they were all still following her. The magic inside her surged up through the song, reaching for the rats as sharply and clearly as if she had her own hands stretched out. Her power couldn’t call anything bigger than a small cat – most pipers couldn’t even call something that big – but rats and anything smaller were powerless against it.

(While that sounded great as part of the sales pitch, the swarms of bugs who came along with the rats her first few times on the job had been less than thrilling. She’d eventually learned to concentrate and call only what she wanted, but it had taken some practice.)

To most people, what she could do was a mystery. Pipers never talked about what using their power felt like, because whenever they did someone inevitably pointed out how much piper magic sounded like siren magic. Sirens, who even witches and sorcerers had been so scared of that they’d been hunted to extinction. There were rumors that some had silenced their songs, marrying humans instead of draining their energy, but those weren’t the kind of connections pipers wanted anyone to make.

There’s nothing to be afraid of, little nightingale. It’s a gift, the same way your music is.

An old familiar grief clenched her chest at the memory of her foster mother’s voice. Marie had believed that with her whole heart, but now that she was gone there were very few people Jess could trust to feel the same way. Silence was easier all around.

When she finally arrived at the fire-filled trench on the opposite side of the field, Jess shook herself out of her thoughts and got back to work. She took her first step onto the wooden bridge stretched across it, looking for the small, embedded charm that meant it had been enchanted against fire. The rats pushed against her legs, trying to get closer, while a few got excited enough to stumble into the fire on their own.

“Lady?” The man at the end of the trench asked, coming closer. “Is something wrong? Why aren’t you moving?”

Because the last time I didn’t check for the charm, the bridge collapsed under me and I nearly died. But she couldn’t actually say that, with the pipe in her mouth and the rats ready to escape the second she stopped playing. So she simply kept looking until she found the charm, glinting in the firelight, and she stepped fully onto the bridge and kept walking. She turned around while she was halfway across, sweeping the rats that had made it onto the bridge off the sides and into the fire. They died silently, thankfully, but sometimes she closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to look at what was happening. It had taken her months to master the rhythm, picking up the basics through careful questions to the older pipers on the circuit, but now that she’d been doing it for a few years she didn’t have to think about it.

When the last rat had finally tumbled over the edge of the bridge, Jess stopped playing. “That should do it,” she told the man, stepping off the bridge completely and flashing her best salesman’s smile. “I’ll stay long enough to make sure the fire goes out completely, so as soon as I get the rest of my payment you can go home and get to bed.”

He hesitated, looking back out into the darkness. He was pale enough to have a desk job someplace, hair thinning and coat far too heavy for the relatively mild weather. “You sure that’s all of them?”

Temper rose up, prompted by pride, but she throttled it back. Keeping her salesman’s smile fixed firmly in place, she held out her hand. “If there’s a rat left in the entire town, I can promise you they’re completely deaf.” Then he shot her a skeptical look, and temper slipped past good sense to get a jab in. “Though if we don’t get this settled soon, I’m sure I can find more somewhere and bring them in.”

He narrowed his eyes at her briefly, and she braced herself for things to blow up into an actual fight. Her golden brown skin was usually close enough to a farmer’s tan for people not to question it, but her black hair was just a little too dark and too straight to completely pass as a local in the more rural parts of the kingdom. Unfortunately, that was also where work was best for people who killed rats for a living, so she’d learned to adapt. She kept her hair short, told people she was a solid three or four years older than her actual 18 summers of living, and knew how to use the knife she kept in her boot.

She’d also learned never to show either hesitation or weakness, so she held the man’s gaze while he came to a decision. Then, after a few beats, he reached into his pocket and handed her an envelope full of money. “I’ll let the mayor know we got everything wrapped up,” he said, turning to leave.

Jess counted the money by the light of the fire, pleased to see it was all there just as promised. “Pleasure doing business with you!” she called out, looking up in time to see him wave a hand vaguely behind him in acknowledgment.

As he walked off into the distance she put her pipe back in its case, tucking the money safely away underneath. “You’ve got to remind me to be less snippy with the clients, T,” she told the empty air around her.

A young man appeared suddenly out of that empty space, his dark hair close-cropped and warm brown skin burnished by the firelight.  The mere sight of him was enough to unknot something inside her chest, a fact that she would absolutely have to worry about the moment she let herself start thinking about it.

“Be less snippy with clients,” he said dutifully, lips quirking slightly at the familiar, shared joke. Then his expression turned serious, eyes intense even from behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “But you know you don’t always have to check for the fireproofing charm, right? I always look for it before you get here, and if it was missing I promise you there’s no way I’d let you cross that bridge.”

Jess didn’t know what left her feeling suddenly unsteady – the earnestness in his voice, or the fact that she believed him completely. Deciding that neither was a safe topic of conversation, she flashed him a grin to make sure none of it showed up on her face. “Don’t want to put your job at risk by saving my life again?”

It was how they’d met, actually. Sometimes, Jess pictured telling the story to the members of her foster mother’s performing troupe, dramatically acting it out while Thomas rolled his eyes, but then she thought about her foster mother not being there and it hurt too much.

She’d never been good at dealing with pain.

Thomas, thankfully not able to hear her thoughts, widened his smile. “I don’t know. It worked out pretty well for me last time.” He pulled out his pocket-sized magic mirror, handing it to her. “I should probably get to work, but you got a mirror message while you were on your walk. I didn’t read it, but it sounds like someone wants to hire you for a job.”

Jess winced at the reminder, taking the mirror from him as she straightened. “I swear I keep meaning to get a new mirror,” she apologized. “It’s not fair for me to keep using your work mirror for my work messages.”

Thomas shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. I like being able to help you when you need it.” The words called up another rush of warmth in Jess’s chest as he reached for the I.D. hanging around his neck, then hesitated. “You want to skip following me around tonight, so you can focus on the message?”

He always asked her that, in one form or another, even though she’d never once taken him up on the offer. “What, and miss your rundown on whatever town it’s from?” Opening the message with one hand, she laid the other hand on his shoulder. If she let go of him, she’d immediately get dumped back into the regular world and Thomas would end up invisible again. “Seriously, if you ever want to quit being a Reaper I’m sure someone would hire you as a tour guide.”

Thomas made a rueful noise. “Only someone who was really interested in hearing an itemized history of the local plant life.” Then he slapped the flat of his hand against the I.D. hanging against his chest, and both the darkness and the fire disappeared in a rush of gray. The only spots of color left in the world were her, Thomas, and the cool blue light of the rats' discarded life energy floating in small clouds within the now-gray flames. Everyone's life energy stuck around like that after they died, according to Thomas, and if everyone left it alone the energy usually disappeared after about a week. Since life energy was an easy power boost for magic users with a more flexible view of ethics, however, hardly anyone left it alone.

Which was where Reapers came in.

Thomas's hand curled like he was holding a staff, murmuring a word that Jess could never quite catch. An instant later, a glowing, translucent scythe made of energy appeared in his hand.
Jess watched him adjust his grip, remembering the explanation he'd given her once as to how the scythe had probably been made. She asked him questions about it sometimes, just to get him talking. "Didn’t you say they were considering skull masks at one point? Why didn’t they ever go through with that?”

Thomas stopped, brow furrowing as he thought. “I think there were copyright issues,” he said finally. “A scythe is a tool that anyone can use, but the lawyers decided that the skull face under the hood was pretty specific to the company’s founder.”

Jess watched him start his work, considering whether or not to prompt him for a longer explanation, carefully swinging the tip of his scythe through each one of those small clouds of blue light. They disappeared in a flash, the energy’s tie to this plane of existence sliced through – yes, Thomas had explained all of this to her, too – leaving it free to move somewhere beyond the reach of evil sorcerers. Technically, Thomas could use it to clean up any kind of energy, but his official assignment was to focus on mice and rats.

Which worked out extremely well for Jess, though she wasn’t about to tell his bosses that.

Still, she should probably focus on her job rather than his. Tearing her attention away from the reaping, she activated the mirror message from the potential client. When the smoke cleared on the pre-recorded message, the sender turned out to be an exhausted middle-aged man with the lingering trace of a farmer’s tan and an expression that suggested he worked out a lot of stress by hitting people in his imagination. “Miss Tremeau, my name is Arthur Perkins. I’m the mayor of Kensford, a bustling, prosperous town that boasts—” He stopped, closing his eyes a moment with a long-suffering look. “But you don’t care about that.”

This wasn’t the “inconvenience” face, the one that said “We tried to take care of this ourselves and are deeply resentful of the fact that it didn’t quite work.” No, Mayor Perkins’ expression shot straight to “please help,” which usually meant a ton of rats had started making a serious dent in the food stores. It meant they wouldn’t haggle much, when it came to her fee, and she could probably squeeze out a bonus or two depending on how quickly she could get the mice and rats taken care of.

“If it’s the Kensford I’m thinking of,” Thomas said absently, his attention still focused on his work. “It’s only about a day’s ride from Hammelin.”

Knowing he wouldn’t have said anything if it wasn’t important, Jess briefly stilled the mirror message and wracked her brain trying to remember why Hammelin was relevant. “Wait, is that the city you said the witches were talking about? The one where no one’s heard from any of the residents for the last few days?”

Thomas nodded. “None of the witches in the mirror chat group live near Hammelin or have family there, so no one knows exactly what’s going on. But it might be something to keep in mind.”

Jess nodded. From how Thomas always described them, the witches in the group all treated gossip like it was a professional sport. Still, gossip was usually at least 50 percent true, and any piper with a brain in their head stayed away from areas where people were messing around with more serious magic. A day’s ride might be enough breathing room from whatever was (or wasn’t) going on in Hammelin, but there was no way to be sure. “Are they still trying to get you named an honorary witch with that society they all go to?”

Thomas’s sigh was both affectionate and long-suffering as he pushed his glasses back up his nose. “Yes, and I don’t know why. I mean, I understand they’re probably trying to be nice, but literally the only magic spells I have any control over are the ones management put into my I.D. For that matter, I haven’t even figured out yet how they code the I.D.s to each individual Reaper, and I’ve been poking at it long enough that I definitely should have figured it out by now.”

Jess squeezed his shoulder. “The rest of us don’t care so much about accuracy, T. They probably just want to say thank you for having to listen to all their stories 500 times.”

Thomas shook his head, turning his attention back to the rats’ energy. “If they want to say thank you,” he muttered, “they should send me some of their reference books.”

Jess activated the mirror message again, the frozen image of Mayor Perkins springing back to life. He cleared his throat. “We’ve talked to the leaders of some of the other cities and towns who you’ve done jobs for, and they all say you’re the most thorough piper they’ve ever worked with.” She had just long enough to feel a warm glow of pride before he ruined it by continuing. “We had to research a little more thoroughly than we usually do pipers, since we heard your name in an unusual way. We put up our usual posting for a piper, and a man named Crispin St. Clair responded. His—”

She jammed a finger down to still the mirror message again, alarm shooting through her, as Thomas suddenly stopped and looked back over his shoulder. “Did he just say—”

Jess’s jaw tightened, her self-preservation instincts activating. “Unfortunately, he did.” She hesitated, thumb hovering over the trigger that would delete the message completely. If Crispin had given these people her name, it was absolutely a trap.

This was enough to make Thomas turn around completely, though he moved carefully enough not to dislodge Jess’s hand on his shoulder. “Maybe they decided not to hire him and he was complaining about you. Even if he’s not actively trying to get you fired from jobs anymore, he still thinks it’s your fault that everyone knows what a terrible piper he is.”

 “You clean up after a man one time, and he decides you’ve organized a conspiracy against him.” She felt herself leaping at the idea, and she forced herself to stop and actually weigh the possibility. “If that’s the explanation, then I have to do it. It’s rare enough for anyone in government to make the intelligent choice first that I need to encourage them.”

Thomas watched her face for a moment, then his lips quirked. “And next time you run into Crispin, you can rub it in his face?”

Jess’s couldn’t stop the smile that slipped out, even as she gave him her best innocent look. He knew her so well. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Then her expression sobered. “Hammelin’s a day’s ride away, which mean that if there is trouble we’ll at least get some warning. But it probably isn’t anything – witches and sorcerers are showy enough that there’d be reports of explosions or enormous trees, not a communication blackout.”

“And there hasn’t been reports of anything rampaging around the countryside.” Thomas looked down at the mirror. “So if Crispin didn’t mean to give them your name, we’re going to Kensford?”

Jess nodded, then restarted the message. “—reputation is such that nearby towns had already warned us against him, so we rejected his offer even though we were desperate. When we did, he began ranting about how you had somehow arranged the situation by spreading lies about him. Since putting up a general posting had proven so unsuccessful, we decided to research your name in the hopes that it would speed things.”

She stopped the message completely, valiantly resisting the urge to do an impromptu victory dance. “Just think about it this way, T,” she told Thomas. “It sounds like there’s enough rats in Kensford to make your quota for the month.”

“I always make my quota now that I follow you around.” Still, he seemed amused as he returned to the reaping. “Let me finish up here, then we can get a few hours of sleep and set out for Kensford in the morning.”

Jess grinned. “I’m sure the rats will be excited to see us.” Then, slipping the magic mirror into her pocket, she went back to watching Thomas work.

#

One mirror message taking the job and two days hitching rides on various wagons and carts later, they arrived in Kensford. Their first stop was a quiet stable near the edge of town where they could stash their things, and after a quick change – only an idiot traveled in their presentation outfit – they arrived at the Mayor’s Office.

Before they went inside, Thomas lightly touched her arm. “Want me to go invisible?” he asked quietly. “I know they already gave you the job, but that doesn’t mean you want me in the way when you’re dealing with clients.”

The hesitancy in his voice made her turn enough to look at him. His shoulders were hunched slightly, just like they always did whenever he apologized for explaining something too thoroughly or talking too much in general. Every time she saw it, Jess gave serious thought to tracking down the people who ran the Abernathy Home for Orphans and punching them in the face.

Instead, she grinned at him, patting his cheek. “Not a chance, my friend. Today, I’m going to show you how to make an entrance.”

She could see a flicker of surprise chase its way across his face, making her annoyed at his former guardians all over again. Then, slowly, his lips curved upward a little. “How about I just watch you make the entrance and take notes for later?”

Jess sighed dramatically, the same way she always did at this point in whatever variation of the familiar, shared joke came up. “One day I’ll teach you the joy of the spotlight, T.”

His smile widened as he came back with the same response he always did. “But that day is not today.”

They announced themselves to the woman behind the front desk, who ushered them with gratifying speed back to Mayor Perkins’ office. He wasn’t alone, as it turned out, a sour-faced man with a beautifully tailored suit and a face like a lump of wheat bread dough glowering in the corner. He started speaking the moment they were announced, cutting the woman off before she’d even reached the end of her sentence. “Not so fast, Miss Tremeau. The rest of the council chose to hire you while I was out of town on business, and though they’re all clearly prone to panic I’m not about to let myself get conned the same way they have.”

Jess bristled at the word “conned” while Mayor Perkins sighed, looking like a man in urgent need of a nap. “Edward, the people are desper—”

“The people need to learn some self-sufficiency,” the man – Edward, apparently – snapped. “Now, Miss Tremeau. I know the previous cities you’ve worked with have spoken well of you, but I’m sure there are other, more experienced pipers out there who have reputations that are just as good or better. I’m sure the council will agree that we can just send you on your way while we—”

“Edward, we had more than enough votes for the decision to be—”

Clearly, Jess needed to take control of the situation, and if she could make Eddie over there regret his whole life that would be a delightful bonus. She glanced over at Thomas, wondering if he was going to try and be the voice of reason. Instead, he was busy glaring daggers at Eddie, intense enough in his dislike that he didn’t even notice Jess looking.

Well, that was a go-ahead if she’d ever seen one.

Pulling out her pipe while the mayor and Eddie were busy arguing, she hefted her power up into her throat and started into a simple children’s song. By the time she’d gotten three notes in she could hear the click of rat claws in the corridor outside, and she smirked to herself as she walked over to stand at Eddie’s side.

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, girl, but—”

Before he could finish the thought, four rats surged into the office. Jess stepped slightly behind the council member, and though he stepped away quickly he was still between her and the rats. They went straight up his legs, prepared to go over whatever or whoever they had to in order to get to the music.

The esteemed council member’s shriek was louder than the music.

That was Jess’s cue to stop playing, which caused the now-released rats to scatter. Eddie straightened his suit, shaking with offended dignity, and Jess shot him her best salesman’s smile. “It seems like you have a rat problem, Eddie. Are you sure you really want to wait?”

He lifted his chin, turning to the mayor. “Fine. I won’t argue anymore,” he snapped, then turned and stalked out of the room as if it had offended him personally. As he left, Thomas grinned and mouthed “nice job” at her.

Jess grinned back, a warm glow in her chest as she turned to the mayor. “So, shall we?”

Things wrapped fairly quickly after that, with Mayor Perkins agreeing to a healthy fee that wasn’t quite large enough to make her conscience start providing annoying commentary. He insisted she do the walk that evening in exchange, and Jess sighed like she was making a serious concession instead of getting exactly what she wanted.

By the time the walk actually started, Jess was still riding high on that wave of confidence. A nice crowd had gathered, watching her with an eagerness that meant no one bothered giving her funny looks or questioning her credentials. She even got a round of applause as the music started, which was always good for the ego.

Her pleasure at the attention lasted about half a block, when she realized that only one or two rats had started to follow her. She’d always called more rats by this point, especially in cities with as many as Kensford seemed to have, and it wouldn’t be long before the people lining the streets starting figuring that out. She could feel the power in her throat, pushing upward through the song, but she dug deep inside her chest for more. The notes thinned out a little as she concentrated on the power, pushing it upward and out into the music with an effort that left her fumbling to get her breath back while never letting the song falter.

Only a few steps later, though, the rats started coming. A lot of rats, from the sound of it, pushing at her ankles with far more eagerness than she usually got out of the rodents she called. It made sense, really – she’d called up too much power, and the poor things had overdosed on the magic that pulled them along. She shook them off as she walked, concentrating on getting to the end.

More rats came. They were loud enough now to be heard over the music, but all that meant was that she was doing her job properly. All she had to do was hold them long enough to get to the field, then make sure they ended up in the trench. A simple job, one she’d done a thousand times before.

She kept repeating the thought as the audience thinned, eventually disappearing completely and leaving her alone with the rats along the empty streets. No witches or sorceresses jumped out at her from the shadows, and none of the rats started growling or transforming into some kind of monster. She could see the glow from the trench fire in the distance, and the rats were still moving along behind her like an obedient little army. She was fine.

Jess shook her head again, not sure why she was even thinking like this. There was clearly nothing to worry—

The thought cut off as Thomas suddenly appeared in the middle of the empty field, hurrying toward her at a dead run.  

Missing scene from "How to Win Over Your Arch-Nemesis (In Three Easy Steps)"

***Spoilers for "How to Win Over Your Arch-Nemesis," naturally.***

So, I'm in the process of writing Thea and Max's next e-book adventure, and this little missing scene from "How to Win Over Your Arch-Nemesis" suddenly hits me. It fits in after the case gets solved and before the very last scene.

A part of me wants to edit the book to include it - a lovely thing about self-publishing e-titles is that I can do that without too much trouble - but a part of me thinks it would ruin the flow of the story as it stands. Let me know what you think in the comments, and either way you can consider this officially canon. (Though the rating is ever so slightly higher than my fairytale stuff, just FYI.)

***

Clubs in Monte Carlo were the same as clubs anywhere else, just more expensive. Max stayed by the bar, cola in a glass normally meant for rum and cola, and his eyes were only for a leggy blonde who was making come-hither eyes at him.

To be fair, he was making those exact same eyes at her. Marissa St. Claire was the reason he was in the club in the first place, a high society girl currently in possession of three vials of a brand-new designer drug that had the unfortunate habit of killing more than half the people who tried it. Really, she should be grateful he was taking them off her hands.

He couldn't exactly ask for them, however, so he was here promising things with his eyes. It wasn't long before she cocked a finger at him, and he abandoned his drink instantly and moved through the crowd to her side.

The song changed to something slower, with a beat designed for sex, and it would have seemed like fate if he hadn't slipped the DJ a bribe the moment he'd gotten here. Max took full advantage of it, moving his and Marissa's bodies together in just the right rhythm to make her think of being tangled together naked in the sheets. Normally, that would be where this was leading, and he'd make off with the vials and slip away after he'd worn her out.

Out there on the dance floor, he considered letting it end up there again. It wouldn't take much - they were practically having sex right here on the dance floor, and if anything the challenge would be making sure she kept her clothes on long enough to get to the room. Though there was always round two....

Then he blinked, surprised for a split second to see sun-bleached waves in front of his eyes instead of the sensible ponytail he'd been... expecting? Imagining?

Either way, it was like a bucket of cold water. His hand skimmed over the curve of her breast only long enough to slip her hotel room key out from where it was tucked into her bra. Then he kissed her neck and shouted that he was getting another drink, slipping away while she pouted in disappointment.

000

"You didn't sleep with her." D's voice in his ear was flat with disbelief. "She was attracted to you enough that you got her room key, and you didn't seal the deal?"

"I don't sleep with everyone," he muttered under his breath, regretting putting the earbud back in his ear. He shut the hotel suite door behind him, dropping the key in just the right place to look like it had fallen out when Marissa originally left the room. "You make me sound like Bond."

"If anything, you sleep with more people than he does," D shot back. "Not that there's anything wrong with that - seduction is a well-established tool of espionage."

"But there are other tools." He started for the safe, then stopped and went for her suitcase instead. "A good spy should use all of them."

There was a moment of blissful silence from D's end, which she promptly went and ruined. "It's that programmer from Chicago, isn't it?"

Max's chest constricted suddenly, making him hesitate. "Thea has nothing to do with this."

D made an exasperated noise. "You changed your codename for her. I told myself that was just because you hated the letter you were assigned, but you haven't seriously looked at another potential bedpartner in weeks."

Spies weren't supposed to miss people, especially women you'd known less than 24 hours. It was practically written into the job requirements, right next to the ability to lie.

But more than once, he'd caught himself wanting to tell her something and wondering what she'd say. Worse, even the smallest reminder of her was enough to chase any other woman right out of his head.

"Did you take your earbud out again?" D snapped suddenly. "Oh, I loathe it when he does that."

"It's still in," Max said quickly, hoping to forestall the rant. He found the vials, wrapped in lingerie, and he took them out and slipped them inside the jacket pocket of the hotel staff uniform he'd "borrowed." "I'm just having a hell of a time denying it."

There was a moment of silence from D's end, then a long sigh. "I've known you for years," she said finally, voice oddly gentle. "And I had no idea you were a romantic."

"How could you?" He slipped out of the suite, shutting the door behind him. "I didn't know."

"Well." She cleared her throat, some of its usual briskness returning. "What are you going to do about it?"

"Practice pick-pocketing," he said under his breath, grabbing an empty food cart from in front of another suite and wheeling it in front of him as he headed for the elevator. "Try to get you to never bring this up again."

D made a dismissive noise. "That's not the spy I know. If you want to see this Thea of yours again, you're going to have to figure out how to make it happen."

Max's fingers tightened on the handles of the cart, chest constricting again. "I didn't know that was an option."

"Darling." D's tone was affectionately chiding. "Since when have you listened to anyone who said you couldn't do something?"

Max stepped into the elevator, doors closing in front of him. Slowly, he started to smile.

The real heart of “Beauty and the Beast”

©Disney

I’ve always loved “Beauty and the Beast.”

It was an obvious choice for my favorite Disney movie growing up, since I had brown hair and a serious reading habit. I, too, was the girl with the “dreamy far off look” and “my nose stuck in a book,” and if I ever starred in a musical there would absolutely have to be a song where everyone talked about how weird they thought I was. I was also insanely curious, and just like Belle would have immediately investigated the creepy, shut-up part of the house I had been forbidden from going anywhere near.

I identified with the Beast just a much. No, I wasn’t extremely tall and furry, but I was angry and brooding and almost completely lacking in social skills. It was hard to see him as a monster when I could sympathize so completely with him, and it wasn’t like Belle needed the defense – when he roared at her, she yelled right back at him. And he was so eager to learn how to be a nicer person, even though he stumbled sometimes.

The only part of the movie that really tripped me up was the end. As much as I loved the Beast, I had zero interested in the human he turned into at the very end. I didn’t see anything that connected him with the guy I loved – he had a pretty face, and a soft voice, and he was never onscreen long enough for us to see any sign of the anger and awkwardness that had been so much a part of the Beast. Even though he’d been working hard to become a better person, things like that don’t just disappear the moment you get a makeover.

A lot of people see the transformation as the entire point of “Beauty and the Beast.” For them, the moral of the story is that love “fixed” the Beast, making him the metaphorical handsome prince instead of the supposedly scary monster. In its more dangerous aspect, it’s the idea that a good woman is enough to “save” a man (“Fifty Shades of Grey” is really just “Beauty and the Beast” in its most annoying form).

For me, however, I wish the transformation never happened. Or if it did, that the movie made it clear we were getting the same angry, awkward man in a slightly different body. The change that mattered had already happened, the slow transformation of an isolated man into someone who cares enough about others to put their needs before his own. That was the man Belle had already fallen in love with, the man that the weird, awkward dreamer inside her had recognized and responded to. She had been just as alone as he was, surrounded by people who couldn’t see past how different she was.

They were both beasts, in their own way, just like they were both beautiful where it mattered. What they looked like didn’t matter – the fact that they had found each other at all was the real happy ending.

Return to the "How To Win Over Your Arch-Nemesis" universe

I was at the International Spy Museum in Washington D.C. this past weekend and this just sort of happened. I don't now if this counts as a story, but I consider it canon. Spoilers for "How To Win Over Your Arch-Nemesis (In Three Easy Steps)" and warnings for fluff.

Interlude: It Happened One Thursday Afternoon (Allegedly)

This was ridiculous.

Thea stood inside the first gallery of the International Spy Museum, staring at the information boards inviting visitors to test their spy skills and regretting every single life choice she'd made to get to this point. She'd come to Washington D.C. for a cyber security conference, sent by the company owners to make themselves feel better after the hacking scare earlier in the year. Yes, all of the information at the conference was so blazingly obvious she was sure her 13-year-old niece could have taught half the sessions, but it was technically what she was being paid to do at the moment. If she refused to do that, she should at least be doing something she'd be willing to admit to her co-workers.

But... well, there were several things she couldn't exactly admit to her co-workers, weren't there?

Like the way she had, possibly, been recruited into an independent spy agency she still wasn't entirely sure even existed. There was still a small chance she had hallucinated the entire thing, particularly the meeting almost a month ago with the supposed head of the agency (and the call from Max, who she refused to think about), since she hadn't heard from any of them since.

She could technically call them, since she'd been given a special phone designed to do just that, but she didn't really care about proving whether or not they were real. The only person she really cared about hearing from was Max, and with him there was too much of a risk of calling him at the wrong time. She could give away a hiding place, interrupt a deal he was trying to make, anything.

So she was here, trying to... what? Understand? Research? Embarrass herself?

Deciding it was definitely the latter, Thea turned around so she could fight her way back to the museum's entrance. If they wouldn't let her out there, she'd have them direct her to the nearest emergency exit. It wouldn't get her ticket money back, but that was a small price to pay for—

"So soon? You haven't even gotten to the fun parts yet."

Thea froze at the familiar voice. Taking a deep breath, she turned around to see Max grinning at her. He was wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the logo of a sports team she'd never heard of, cargo shorts, sneakers, and one of the baseball caps she'd seen in souvenir stalls around town. He looked indistinguishable from the throngs of tourists surrounding them, completely different from the arrogant attorney she'd assumed him to be when they first met.

Her first thought was how much she'd missed him. Her second thought, thankfully, was considerably more practical. "Have—" Realizing what she was about to say, she stopped and leaned in close enough that she could lower her voice. "Have you been tracking me?"

"No more than Homeland Security does," he said under his breath. "We just... borrow their system sometimes to keep an eye on assets, enemies and people we want to make sure stay protected."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Which category am I in?"

His grin returned, milder but no less genuine-looking than the last one had been. If she never saw his fake smile again, it would be too soon. "I would never make the mistake of calling you an asset."

She could feel her own expression ease. "It's good to know you're smarter than I initially gave you credit for." When he made an amused sound, her lips curved upward. "So, any chance you're going to try and convince me you're in the middle of a mission?"

"I don't know if you noticed, seeing as how it was the entire room was devoted to it, but the museum assigns everyone missions and cover identities when they get here." He offered her a hand to shake. "Hello, my name is Greta."

An actual chuckle slipped out at that. "You make a very convincing Greta."

He beamed at her like she'd just given him a Christmas present, his body relaxing so subtly she hadn't known he was tense until he wasn't. "I had a really boring visit to the FBI Building this morning, and in a couple of hours I've got to jump on a plane to Istanbul. But until then, I'm all yours."

The visit to the FBI Building was no doubt some kind of meeting or debrief, and she knew she didn't want to imagine the kinds of dangerous things he would be doing in Istanbul. But he'd stolen a few hours, just for her, and it felt like she'd been given a gift.

Something inside her softened dangerously. "I won't call you Greta, even while we're here, but you can pick whatever other name you want." He refused to tell her his real name, or even his handle, and so she'd started calling him Max because she'd refused to use his alias in private conversation. He seemed to like it, but she could admit now that it hadn't exactly been fair of her.

There was something very close to fondness in his eyes as they started walking to the next exhibit. "To you, I'm always Max."

000

Unsurprisingly, he talked the entire time. His knowledge of spy-related movies and TV shows was almost encyclopedic, and his knowledge of famous real-life spy stories was almost as extensive. He gave her more detailed backstories than they could ever hope to fit on the museum's little signs, coming across far more like a spy nerd than he did a spy. They also had several fascinating discussions about various pieces of old-school spy technology, all couched in discussions Max swore were completely theoretical. She didn't know if she entirely believed him, but as lies went it was both minor and necessary.

His obvious love for the entire profession, however, wasn't a lie at all. It lit his voice every time he talked about some spy's moment of heroism or ingenuity, or oohed and aahed over a particularly cool spy toy. He looked like a little kid talking about what he dreamed of being when he grew up.

The more nuanced insights came far more rarely, particularly because he tended to skim over anything that put a serious look on his face. The CIA made him prone to a bitter-edged sarcasm, at least when it was talked about as an entity and not individual agents, and the FBI left him shaking his head. What either meant, she didn't know - sales people left her prone to sarcasm, but her only connection to them was that they annoyed her.

There was one surprising moment, however. Near the beginning of the exhibits about the history of spying, there was a quote from Sun Tzu's "The History of War": "A military operation involves deception. Even though you are competent, appear to be incompetent. Though effective, appear to be ineffective."

The idea threw her. She thought about the empty-headed charm Max had used when they'd first met, the same that had left her questioning his intelligence, and imagined him putting it on the same way he did his suits. It must work, more often than it didn't, or he wouldn't have defaulted to it so easily.
What did it do to you, to have to hide your intelligence all the time? She'd had to fight tooth and nail to see hers acknowledged, and she couldn't imagine being forced to deny she even had it.

She turned to Max, who shot her a wry look. "Don't tell me you hadn't figured it out by now."

"Oh, I had." She watched his face. "I just hadn't thought about how hard it must be."

Max blinked, startled, and there was a moment when he looked almost flustered. "That's... I..." He floundered a bit, then gave up and cleared his throat. "Thank you."

Touched, she squeezed his shoulder before moving on to the next exhibit. "Come on. You can tell me all about Revolutionary War spying."

They hadn't quite made it through WWII, however, when he leaned close. "Sorry," he whispered. "I wish I could stay longer."

She waved the apology aside, ignoring the weight of disappointment in her own chest. At least he hadn't just slipped away again. "All I ask is that you be better at using your phone."

He looked appropriately regretful. "I haven't snagged a case I'd need your help with, yet."

"Then don't call me for work reasons." She gave him a pointed look. " It's considerably safer for you to interrupt me than it is for me to interrupt you. I'm sure even you can find a few safe moments to tell someone hi."

He hesitated, then a small, soft smile crossed his face. "Yes, ma'am."

She didn't watch him slip away, eyes fixed on an exhibit she didn't have the slightest interest in. A few more rooms made it clear that the rest of the museum had lost its appeal as well, and before too long she started weaving through all the exhibits to the exit.

When she made it to the gift shop, however, one of the women behind the counter waved her hand. "Ma'am? Your friend left something for you."

Thea stopped, coming closer. "A note?"

"No." The woman held up a souvenir bag with a smile. "He said you wouldn't buy yourself anything, so he needed to."

Thea opened the bag, finding a t-shirt that said "Top 10 reasons I didn't make it in the CIA." On the other side of the receipt, he'd scrawled a note. "Don't tell the CIA I gave you this. They wouldn't find it as funny as I do."

Feeling a smile sneak across her face, Thea stopped by the bathroom and changed into the t-shirt before she left. It looked ridiculous with her work slacks, she was sure, but she didn't care.

Being ridiculous wasn't such a bad thing, after all.

A Bonus Scene (from before any of the above happened)

At least it's not the CIA.

Max repeated the familiar mantra to himself as he finally escaped the FBI Building, his dark suit making him indistinguishable from the other people flowing in and out of the building. The debrief they'd insisted on had been both endless and repetitive, and he'd seriously considered escaping out the window a few times. But he hadn't even been tempted to punch anyone, so there was that.

Still, all he had planned for the afternoon was an obscenely long plane ride, so it didn't look like his day was going to improve any. The only thing to do was console himself with a late lunch, preferably one that somehow involved cheese fries, and remind himself that things would finally get interesting again once he actually got to Istanbul.

He was a few blocks away, still mulling over his food choices, when he got a call from what appeared to be the hotel his current alias was staying at. Since that hotel didn't actually have this number, however, there was no hesitation in his voice when he answered. "Let me guess - you've somehow managed to reroute me through Des Moines."

"No, but that's a lovely thought for next time I find you suitably vexing." D's voice was warmly amused. "Now, though, you should be thanking me. I got you a present."

He smiled a little. "Does it explode?"

"If you annoy her sufficiently. It's one of her best qualities."

Max went utterly still. There was only one woman, anywhere, who D could possibility be talking about. "Where? How?"

"She's in town for a cybersecurity conference, but it seems she's decided to play hooky for the day. I'll text you the coordinates, but she appears to be sticking to the tourist areas. You may want to change your clothes."

He was already moving again, hurrying to the nearest Metro station. "How long has she been here?" He'd lost consciousness pretty much the moment his head had hit the pillow last night, barely an hour after he'd landed, but he'd been at that meeting with the FBI for hours. He'd wasted so much time. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I could say that you had a job to do, and I knew if I told you this you wouldn't do it," D said archly. "Luckily for you, though, the truth is that I found out 10 minutes ago."

There was a strange sort of relief in that. "I never should have doubted you."

"No, you shouldn't have." She sounded mollified. "You owe me."

"I absolutely do." He hung up the phone with a grin, shoving it in his pocket before breaking into a full-out run. It made him more obvious than he liked to be, but right now that didn't matter.

He had someone he needed to meet.

"Piper's Song" excerpt

I'd like to introduce you all to the latest obsession/torment of my life - my current novel, "Piper's Song." I've posted an excerpt here before, but that was like four versions ago. This is from the current one, the one that will mostly stick (barring the inevitable new round of edits, of course):

Chapter 3: The Key to a Drama-Free Life

A year later

Either the Kensford City planners had no imagination, or their residents didn’t. This street market was just the same as all the others Jess had ever passed through, with vendors crowding into the square trying to outshout whoever owned the cart or stall next to them. The people had clearly heard it all before, which meant they were more focused on the gossip their neighbors were sharing than they were hearing about a ridiculously overpriced scarf that was “handmade by the elves, as I live and breathe.”

Jess skimmed her fingers along the mound of apples piled high at the produce stall, ear cocked to take in every mutter of the crowd behind her. She’d been sent an official request for her services, this time, brief and polite and nearly vibrating with an urgency that was never actually stated, but there was no way she was going to speak to the mayor armed with so little.

If the rumor mill was any indication, there was a lot the mayor hadn’t said.

“I’ve had to buy bread three times this week! The rats keep eating it!”

“I swear there was no sign of the little beasts even a week ago, but now they’re everywhere. It’s like an invasion.”

“They’ve practically moved into my daughter’s bedroom! We’ve tried putting poison out, but the nasty things won’t go anywhere near it.”

“I’m telling you, there’s nothing natural about this. Nothing at all.”

Next to her, Thomas made an interested sound that Jess was sure had nothing at all to do with the conversations going on around them. He was intent on his mirror, skimming through various news streams like he was hunting something down, and when he got like this not even an explosion was enough to distract him.

 Jess smiled a little at the memory. Only Thomas would list the likely ingredients of a bomb as they were running away from it.

On her other side, the owner of the stall was winding down his debate with a customer over the price of plums – when the other woman left, Jess knew she would be the next target for the sales pitch. Pocketing the apple closest to her fingers, she reached behind her and hooked her fingers on the hem of Thomas’s shirt. Tugging him over to the next stall – cheese, and the fancy kind by the smell of it – she deposited him safely out of the path of foot traffic and continued to feign an interest in shopping while she listened.

By the time three more people had commented on how “sudden” the infestation was, Jess wondered if there really was magic involved. It didn’t sound like something a sorcerer or sorceress would try – it wasn’t flashy enough, and they likely would have delivered a threat of some kind by now – but it could be just the right sort of revenge for a witch. Particularly one who was mad at the city council for some reason, and might be perfectly happy to pass that grudge onto the piper who just happened to wander into town. Even if she and Thomas didn’t end up a target, the witch could just send a new batch of rats right back into town after they’d left. And Jess, more than likely, would be blamed for it.

Jess sighed. She hated it when things got complicated.

Feeling the stall owner’s attention shift their way, she snagged Thomas’s shirt again and led them both over to a quiet corner. He let himself be guided, waiting until they were out of the way of any other potentially open ears before looking up from his mirror. “Ask for double your fee,” he said quietly, reporting on the research he’d just been doing. He pushed his glasses back up his nose. “Elections are coming up, and if the current mayor doesn’t take care of the rat problem there’s no chance of him getting to stay in office.”

She leaned against the alley wall next to him, watching the crowd move past the entry into the small alleyway. The rhythm of this was already a familiar thing between them, as easy as she remembered it being between the performers in her foster mother’s theater troupe. Only they’d all worked together for years, the history between them all older than Jess herself, and she and Thomas had barely been doing this for a year. It was worrying, when she let herself think about it.

Mostly, she didn’t let herself.

“So that’s a point on the plus side,” she said instead, letting herself get lost in the rhythm. “On the minus side, there’s a chance someone ticked off a witch or a sorceress. We don’t want to get in the middle of that.”

Thomas’s brow furrowed, and he immediately bent back down to his mirror. His fingers flew over the mirror’s surface, various lists and maps flashing by in the smooth glass, and after a moment he shook his head. “There’s been no sign of any kind of trouble like that, and you know how the magic community likes to keep tabs on each other. Besides, the nearest sorcerer or sorceress is 200 miles away, and the nearest witch....” He let the words trail off as he double-checked something. “...left a year ago to take care of her sister after a house fell on her. She’s changed her address on the mailing list and everything.”

“Did you finally let them sign you up?” He’d let himself slip the week before and not-quite-complained about the pressure he was getting from some of the witches on the message boards he posted on regularly. He’d protested, saying he wasn’t even a witch, but apparently the actual witches hadn’t been bothered by that little detail.

NO MORE E-book problem on Amazon

Update: The problem has been resolved, and the titles should be popping back up throughout the day. Yay!

It seems as though the Amazon Kindle versions of my three full-length novels have currently vanished into thin air, but worry not - it's an issue between the publisher and the site that's caused the problem, and therefore most definitely not a permanent state of affairs. If you can't wait to buy the books, they're still available as print copies on all sites and as e-books on both the iBooks store and Kobo, which has an Android app.

My iBooks links

My Kobo links

Guest Post: Why zombies are the perfect modern monster

I featured F.J.R. Titchenell on the post when her "Confessions of the Very First Zombie Slayer (That I Know Of)" came out, and since it's being re-released on April 4 with a new publisher and a snazzy new cover I thought I'd have her drop by again to share her thoughts on why zombies are still so gosh darn popular.

000

Why Zombies Are the Perfect Modern Monster
by F.J.R. Titchenell

I’m a huge fan of zombie fiction – as you can probably tell by the fact that I wrote a book called Confessions of the Very First Zombie Slayer (That I Know of) – but when asked questions like this one, about why exactly zombies are so popular, I find that my answers tend to get a bit misanthropic.

Why are we so enthralled by the concept of an apocalyptic plague of hungry, infectious walking corpses?

Since the idea has passed through the hands of so many different writers, it’s been spun a million different ways and used to express lots of different things, from anti-materialism to self-exploration to downright futility. In general though, zombie stories that come anywhere close to the standard format of brainless, unsaveable zombies, plucky survivors, and nonexistent infrastructure, all speak to one particular human fear.

The fear of being lost in the crowd.

I don’t just mean literally being lost in a packed space full of hostile strangers, but the fear of our own insignificance on a planet full of people crying out to be acknowledged.

Imagining ourselves against the backdrop of the zombie apocalypse allows us to feel instantly special and separate from an endless crowd of extras by virtue of simply being alive. We and our tiny cast of fellow survivor characters are thinking, feeling, real people who matter; the bodies packing the streets outside aren’t.

Pretty sick, right?

But we all do it. We all fantasize about not having to share, not having to wait our turn, about taking whatever strikes our fancy because there’s no one to tell us it’s not ours, about carving our way through the people in line ahead of us with a chainsaw, because they weren’t real anyway, not the way we are.

Is this a specifically modern desire? I’m sure it’s always existed, but it also makes sense that it could have been intensified by a rising world population, and by improved communication technology making it more obvious to each of us how far from alone we are – and by the same token, how dubious our sense of uniqueness. And while we’re still a very long way off from achieving true universal equality, it is thankfully far less socially acceptable to elevate oneself by openly dehumanizing a particular group of fellow humans than it was, say, a hundred years ago. Maybe fictional zombies have risen as a convenient psychological surrogate for that particular destructive human habit.

I don’t know if all this would make me call zombies the perfect modern monster, but it certainly makes them a great modern guilty pleasure.

So is that all typical zombies fiction is? A safe, controlled outlet for the worst of our remaining lizard-brain instincts?

That’s certainly a large part of it, but I like to think not.

Zombies can also set the stage to explore the best parts of how people respond to a crisis. A lot of zombie fiction tends to focus disproportionately on humanity at its worst, assuming that the majority of people who survive the apocalypse would immediately take the excuse to unveil themselves as the biggest psychos they could possibly be, but my favorite moments are when we get to see how desperate and exceptional circumstances can instead bring out people’s compassion, initiative, and ingenuity.

I like to believe that where there are still humans, there’s still humanity. There’s still love and laughter, even when it has to come in the form of a morbid crutch, and that’s what you’ll find in Confessions of the Very First Zombie Slayer (That I Know of). There might be a psycho or two for flavor, but mostly it’s about a group of teens who could have gone their separate ways in the everyday world, finding time to riff on each other and keep being teens as that world ends around them, even while they adapt to protect and support each other through it.

Oh, and also plenty of looting, skull smashing, traffic law breaking, and fireworks, because you can’t release the zombies and not feed the lizard brain a little.

Come on, now.

000

More about Confessions of the Very First Zombie Slayer (That I Know of)

The world is Cassie Fremont’s playground. Her face is on the cover of every newspaper. She has no homework, no curfew, and no credit limit, and she spends her days traveling the country with her friends, including a boy who would do the chicken dance with death to make her smile. Life is just about perfect—except that those newspaper headlines are about her bludgeoning her crush to death with a paintball gun, she has to fight ravenous walking corpses every time she steps outside, and one of her friends is still missing, trapped somewhere in the distant, practically impassable wreckage of Manhattan.


Still, Cassie’s an optimist, more prone to hysterical laughter than hysterical tears, and she’d rather fight a corpse than be one. She’ll never leave a friend stranded when she can simply take her road trip to impossible new places, even if getting there means admitting to that boy that she might love him as more than her personal jester. Skillfully blending effective horror with unexpected humor, this diary-style novel is a fast-paced and heartwarming read.

Pre-order it here:

Amazon
Smashwords
iTunes
Barnes and Noble

More about F.J.R. Titchenell

F.J.R. Titchenell is an author of young adult, sci-fi, and horror fiction. She graduated with a B.A in English from California State University, Los Angeles, in 2009 at the age of twenty, is represented by Fran Black of Literary Counsel, and currently lives in San Gabriel, California with her husband and fellow author, Matt Carter, and their pet king snake, Mica.

The "F" is for Fiona, and on the rare occasions when she can be pried away from her keyboard, her kindle, and the pages of her latest favorite book, Fi can usually be found over-analyzing the inner workings of various TV Sci-Fi universes or testing out some intriguing new recipe, usually chocolate-related. You can find more about her at her official homepage, fjrtitchenell.weebly.com.

Sales! Sales! Sales!

IPG is doing a sale for print copies of both "Beast Charming" and "Dreamless," with "Beast Charming" available for $9.99 and "Dreamless" available for $11.99 throughout the month of March. If you've been thinking about picking up either, this is probably your best chance. Here's the link (it may look like the books are still the original prices, but the sale prices are listed next to the "Buy this" button. I couldn't find it at first, either).













If you've been looking to pick up a copy of "Two Left Feet" but are a frugally minded soul (like myself), now might be your chance. The book will be on sale for 99 cents now through March 11 at Smashwords, a non-platform or app specific site that has several e-book formats. Just use the code RAE50 at checkout (and/or click on the "Buy With Coupon" link available on the page).


Happy reading!

How to Win Over Your Arch-Nemesis (in Three Easy Steps) question/future plans (a.k.a. my little spy fic)

I wasn't really prepared to trip and fall into spy fiction. I'd never written it, never really even thought about writing it, and then one little plot bunny happened and suddenly I have a whole new universe. Weirder still, it's one I really, really like. Like many people who have commented on the two chapters I have posted (thank you all, they're all so lovely), I've realized over the last few weeks that I really, really want to know what happens next.

So my current plan is to double the current amount of text (I say double, but never in all my life has a piece of fiction kept to the word count I thought it would, so it'll probably go over) get a cover together, and publish it on several different platforms (including Smashwords) as a 99 cent e-book. I will, of course, keep everyone updated here and on my various social media profiles.

And if you guys end up liking that, who knows? Spies (and computer programmers, I suspect) always seem to have more than one adventure under their belt.

Update: It's up now. I've collected all the links it's currently available at here, and will be adding links to new platforms as they go online. 

How to Win Over Your Arch-Nemesis (in Three Easy Steps), ch. 2

So I'm playing in the spy genre now. For those who missed the first chapter, check it out here.

000

The more she thought about it, the more Thea was certain there was something off about that lawyer.
She returned her attention to the list of local law firms the search engine had spit out, realizing she couldn’t begin to guess which firm he was with. Specifically, because he hadn’t even told her his name, though every other lawyer she’d ever met had always been immediately ready with their name, firm and a business card at the slightest hint of interest. Not to mention the fact that a lawyer would be intelligent enough to know that she wouldn’t discuss privately-made software at work - if he’d been genuinely interested in getting her to sell the clone-blocking software, he would have offered to discuss it with her over lunch.

But if he wasn’t a lawyer, she still didn’t know what he’d thought he was doing. She’d double-checked her phone and tablet, but there was no signs of anyone even attempting an intrusion. If he’d had a device or program capable of slipping past her firewalls without leaving /any kind of trace, he wouldn’t have bothered being so obvious about his approach. Simply taking a seat at a nearby table would have likely been enough to create the opportunity he needed. 

Sighing, she returned her attention to shaving another .05 seconds of response time off of the company’s current app. Whatever he’d been doing, it was a safe bet he’d decided she was more trouble than she was worth and move on to another target. There were plenty of problems already at her fingertips that would have more satisfying solutions than—

Thea was pulled from  the sound of the receptionist’s voice coming in over her phone’s speaker. “Ms. Spencer?”

Her fingers stilled. “Yes?”“There’s a Mr. Dominic Walker who says he’s here to see you. He admits he doesn’t have an appointment, but also says you’re expecting him anyway.”

It was a good thing her earlier assessment hadn’t been an actual bet. Either he was more stubborn than he was smart - not terribly surprising, given what little she knew of him - or she was really the only source he could think of for whatever it was he thought he needed. Either way, she needed more information than she had.

“Send him—“ The familiar words were half out of her mouth before she realized what a terrible idea that would be. Whatever he was up to, the last thing she wanted to do was let him wander around the office on his own. “No, I’ll come down and get him.”

In the background, she could hear the faint but unfortunately familiar voice of the newly named Mr. Walker. “It’s no trouble, I’m sure I can find....”

“She asked you to wait here, Mr. Walker,” the receptionist countered, the edge of steel in his voice. Pete looked like a high school science teacher, but he’d once put the abusive ex-husband of one of their design team members on the floor. “He’ll be here, Ms. Spencer.”

“Thank you.” Thea ended the call, tapping her fingers against her desk as she thought. A part of her thought about lingering, giving him the chance for one last burst of sense and slip out the front door, but her curiosity was a strong enough itch that it was muting the sound of alarm bells ringing in her head. She’d always loved solving puzzles, and this was shaping up to be a big one.

Still, she wasn’t an idiot. Picking up her purse, she pulled out her tazer and slipped it into her pocket before heading downstairs.

#

The supposed Mr. Walker was waiting in the reception area as if he’d be content to do it all day, leaning against the reception counter chatting with Pete about the latest episode of some cooking show. She got close enough to hear him make a comment about the hubris of trying to cook risotto in such a narrow time limit when he caught sight of her coming closer. He shot her that same annoyingly plastic smile, and she felt her brow lower in another glare before he was intelligent enough to wipe it off and turn back to Pete. “Sorry, but it looks like I’ll have to give you that recipe for vanilla poached pears some other time. My ride’s here.”

She gestured toward the elevators without a word, waiting until they were both safely inside with the doors closed before speaking again. “It looks like you and Pete are better friends than you were five minutes ago,” she said.

There was a flicker of what she could swear was a smirk on his face, vanishing again an instant later. “I saw a cooking magazine tucked up under the edge of his desk.”

She turned enough to see his raised eyebrow. “If only you’d been that observant before you approached me.”

His expression turned rueful for a moment, and she was surprised to see what looked like genuine amusement in his eyes. “Touché.”

That was the last either of them said until the elevator reached the proper floor. She watched him scan the sea of cubicles with a clearly analytical eye, gaze lingering on the server room visible through a set of doors tucked into the corner. Her gaze followed his, trying to figure out what he was seeing, but unless he was a headhunter who was really terrible at his job she couldn’t imagine what he was looking at. No one bothered looking back at them, too used to the sight of people in suits venturing into their domain with various requests.

When they stepped into her office, she closed the door but resisted the urge to draw the blinds before she sat down. “So,” she said, leaning forward slightly. “What firm did you say you were with?”

There wasn’t even a twitch in his expression this time. “Smith, Smith & Jones,” he said easily. Her eyes narrowed, sure he’d made that up on the spot, but a quick Internet search revealed that the firm had apparently been in existence for the last decade and was located several blocks away. And... yes, there was his name in the list of lawyers. Conveniently.

Thea looked back up again, sure she saw the faintest trace of a smirk. “Can I have your card?” she asked.

He straightened, making a show of patting his pockets, then shook his head and settled back against the chair again. “Must have run out.” He made a tsking noise. “Sorry.”

She had a sneaking suspicion he was playing with her now. which was deeply annoying. “So.” She shifted her attention back to him, leaning back a little in her seat the same way video game warlords always did when they wanted to intimidate someone. “You never mentioned why it was you were stopping by.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment, just watching her with a more thoroughly analytical expression than she’d ever seen from him. Then, seemingly deciding something, he pulled a file out of his briefcase and handed it to her. “My firm is representing a client who has been accused of funding terrorists. He’s a small business owner, handles the accounts himself, but he swears he had nothing to do with it. We’re inclined to agree with him.”

Thea accepted the file, scanning through it. She was far more familiar with intellectual property law, but she’d read enough legalese to know that it supported the story. “Why hasn’t this made the news?” she asked, looking back up at him.

“Because it turns out he’s only one of 15 people who have been identified as sending money through the exact same channels to the exact same groups. They’re all in different states, all completely unrelated people, except for one thing.” This time, he took his phone out of his pocket, pulling up something on the screen before tossing it to her. “This.”

When she saw the lines of code filling the small screen, it hit like a punch to the stomach. There was no question of what it was – she recognized every program she’d ever written, especially one she’d poured as much sweat and tears into as this one.

She glared at him again, suddenly furious. “Funny,” she snapped. “I thought being accused of hacking meant a team of government agents showing up at your front door.”

He waved a hand in a vague gesture. “We did consider the possibility.”

Unfortunately, Thea wasn’t sure whether he was talking about accusing her of hacking or having the team of agents handle it. “You do realize there are probably 10 different other apps these people all have in common, right? And I’m sure three or four of them have something to do with helping them shop faster.” She scanned the code, trying to figure out what made them think her app was the one to blame. “Am I the only programmer on the list with a Russian grandmother? Because if—”

She stopped, suddenly, staring at a line of code she didn’t recognize. That was impossible – though other programmers had worked on the app with her, she’d overseen the integration of every subroutine and line of code into one elegantly unified whole. There was no piece of the program she wasn’t completely familiar with.

Except this one. Setting the phone down, she moved to her computer screen to pull up the original files. Before she could, he reached across the table to take his phone back. “No need,” he said quietly, pulling something else up on the screen before handing it back to her. “We have the original code right here.”

Thea took the phone, something inside her easing for a moment at the sight of the commands that should be there. Then that moment is gone, her anger back and immediately redirected at whatever asshole had messed with her code. “It wasn’t anyone on my team,” she said immediately. “I’m the last pair of eyes that sees this before the—” She stopped as realization hit. “The design team.”

He leaned forward, suddenly intent. “The design team?”

“Sometimes they make tweaks to the graphics without passing the code back through me first.” Normally, she didn’t mind – color or font changes were simple enough that even the newest intern could make the adjustments, and the visual elements had never mattered to Thea nearly as much as the efficiency of the programming. It was what a program could do that really mattered, not how pretty the packaging was.

But if someone had used that inattention to hijack her program….

Mr. Walker shifted forward a little more, as if ready to leap into action the moment he had all the information he needed. “Who?” The word was more command than question, the sound of someone deep in the middle of a project who was stuck until they got the answer they needed. She’d used that tone before.

Hearing it now, she realized she was missing something. “How did you get this?” she asked him, holding up the phone with the screen showing the clean code. “Because this company takes its source code copyrights very seriously, which means that anyone outside of the company interested in looking at it has to jump through several different hoops before they can.” He opened his mouth, clearly ready with a comeback, but she held up a finger. “And before you try it, I know full well that you didn’t jump through those hoops, because at least two of them have to pass directly through me. The rest would have led to at least one meeting of all the department heads, no matter how covert the government was trying to keep this. Needless to say, that also hasn’t happened.”

His eyes narrowed, clearly frustrated at getting distracted from his goal. “You’re good, but you’re not unhackable.”

While entirely true, that was definitely not the answer that was going to save him. “I never said I was,” she said easily, leaning forward again. “But if you really were a lawyer, you would need to get whatever information you planned to use for court at least semi-legally. To do that, you would need to have gone through the aforementioned hoops, which you would have happily done to keep the opposing counsel from getting your evidence thrown out. But not only did you not do that, you don’t even care that you didn’t.”

Now he looked like he was realizing his mistake, enough that she could almost see the “Oh, shit” flicker across his face. “Ms. Spencer….”

She held up a hand to stop him. “I’m not throwing you out. Not yet. Because while a lawyer can’t just pry their way into people’s code like it’s no big deal, the government can and does on a regular basis. The government would also be far more interested in arresting and detaining a hacker than in actually building a case against them.” She gave him a sharp look. “No more lies, Mr. Walker. Before I give you any more information, I need to know who you’re really working for. FBI? NSA? I’ve watched enough television to know the CIA isn’t allowed to work within the U.S., but I’m sure there are several other acronyms to choose from that I can’t think of off the top of my head.”

He watched her for another moment, far more penetratingly than he had at any previous point in their interaction, then settled back in his seat. He still looked poised, ready to move at any moment, but to her surprise his lips curved up in what might have been the first genuine smile she’d ever seen out of him. “You’re far more interesting than your file suggested you would be,” he said finally, sounding pleased by that fact. “Now, if you’ll just let yourself relax and have a little fun, this might actually turn out to be an entertaining mission for both of us.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “‘Mission?’” she asked, not bothering to hide her disbelief. “Listen, I know they probably recruit you guys with speeches about how it’s going to be just like it is in the movies, but this is hardly a spy adventure.”

His smile widened, almost becoming a grin, and he pulled something out of his ear and tossed it to her. She caught it, more out of instinct than any real intent, and realized it was a communications ear bud. He tapped his ear, mouthing “Put it in,” and Thea hesitated for only a second before doing it.

“—serious. And don’t try to tell me this is just improvising, because you know full well I support that. I was the first to applaud when you jumped off that skyscraper in order to escape with those security files.” The woman had a faint accent, distinct but indefinable, and clearly thought she was still yelling at Mr. Walker. “But this, this is pulling in a civilian simply because she’s not letting you talk her around the same way everyone else seems—” She stopped suddenly, as if realizing something. “He’s already given you the ear bud, hasn’t he?”

There didn’t seem to be a safe way to answer this question. “Yes?”

“Well, hell.” The woman sighed. “I suppose the cat’s out of the bag then.” 

000

Sooo... this is a complete book now, titled "How to Win Over Your Arch-Nemesis (In Three Easy Steps)." It's available in several different platforms here, as well as its sequel "Dirty Deeds Done for Reasonable Prices.

How to Win Over Your Arch-Nemesis (in Three Easy Steps), Ch. 1

Thanks to this delightful plot bunny, the muse has sent me in a slightly different direction than it usually does. Tell me what you think. 

000

Even a spy’s life can’t be exciting all the time. 

That universal truth was of little comfort as he stared across the crowded food court, completely indistinguishable from every other mall court in existence. His suit was less expensive than usual – he was playing an attorney here, not a jet-setting billionaire or dashing playboy – and the mission was almost painfully simple. Approach the target, charm them into letting their guard down, then talk his way into their home to get access to, in this case, computer files. 

Still, at least he didn’t have to feel guilty about this one. The agency had tracked a bit of code in several cell phones that was siphoning money from users and funneling it to terrorist organizations, and she was the company’s head programmer.  That meant one of two things –  either she was manipulating phone software for terrorists, in which case she deserved everything she got, or she was being used by someone who was manipulating phone software for terrorists. In which case, he was saving her.

She was just the type who could use a little saving, too. Eating lunch in a mall food court, hunched over a tablet while she ate sesame chicken one-handed without looking. Her hair was pulled back in the most practical hairstyle possible, her clothes professional but hardly fashionable, and her face was merely pleasant-looking. She spent most of her time working, and according to her file hadn’t had a long-term romantic partner in several years. Their interaction would likely be the most exciting part of her week. 

Shifting his grip on his briefcase, he sauntered over to her table. “Pardon me for being rude, but I saw you sitting over here and I—“

“No.”

He blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Whatever you’re about to try to sell me, I’m not interested.” She didn’t bother looking up. “Though if you need the empty chair, feel free to take it.”

He’d been shot down by an actual princess, once, though he’d won her over not more than 15 minutes later. Putting on his most flirtatiously charming look, he slid into the seat opposite hers. “Thank you.” He smiled. “I was hoping to be able to eat my lunch in such beautiful company.”

Her head shot up at that, but instead of pleased surprise she shot him a look that seriously questioned his intelligence. “Really?” She shifted her tablet onto her lap, leaning forward slightly. “That’s the approach you’re going to go with, here?”

For one wild second, he thought she was calling him out as a spy. He would accuse her of working with terrorists, his wording equally vague, and they would spend the next 10 minutes threatening each other in code because the other option was a gunfight in a food court full of idiot civilians. The last thing he wanted was for the local PD to show up, but maybe he should—

He stopped himself before he could finish the thought, pushing it aside. Even if she was the mastermind, there was no way she could know he was a spy – he’d covered his tracks too well. “What approach should I take?” He gave her his best smile. “I’m always willing to take instruction from such a magnificent woman.”

She just stared at him, and there was another second where he thought he was actually getting somewhere. Then her brow lowered, and she was glaring at him as if he’d just dented her Porsche or misidentified the designer she was wearing. “I don’t know if you’re an idiot, or so arrogant it basically amounts to the same thing.” She shoved her fork into her takeout container, shutting it almost violently before picking up her purse and putting her tablet inside it. “I don’t know what firm you’re with, or what information you think you can get out of me for whatever case you’re working on, but you’re just going to have to go back to your bosses and tell them they’ll have to get it legally.”

Now all he could do was stare at her. “What?” Training had him immediately downshifting, trying to save the situation. “I’m sorry if I offended you, miss, but I just—“

She made an exasperated noise. “Listen. I’m sure that face of yours helps you in the courtroom. But it’ll help even more if you acknowledge that other people have actual brains in their heads, even if you don’t.”

He reached for her hand, trying another smile. “When I said magnificent, I meant your mind as—“

She snatched her hand away, cutting him off with a shake of her head. “No, no, if you’d tried that I would have assumed you were from a rival tech firm out to steal company secrets.” She stood, collecting her things. “I’m sure all your undoubtedly gorgeous lady friends tell you how beautiful and amazing you are all the time, but when things like that happen to the rest of us it’s a scam.” Then she took a step back, narrowing her eyes again. “Now I’m going to go away so I can eat the rest of my lunch in peace, and if you come near me again rest assured I will taze you.”

He watched her walk away, more stunned than the last time he’d been caught in a concussive grenade blast. When he was sure she was out of earshot, he slowly let his head drop forward and hit the top of the table with a groan.

After a few seconds, he realized the muffled noise he could hear over his comm sounded suspiciously like laughter.  “Shut up,” he muttered, voice low enough that casual passers-by wouldn’t be able to overhear.

Naturally, D did exactly the opposite and stopped muffling the laughter entirely, letting it boom over the comm loud enough to make him wince. “You know I’m saving the audio forever, right?” D managed, laughing so hard she was wheezing. “I’m going to insist we start an agency Christmas party, just so I can play it for everyone and we can all laugh at you together.”

“Rhys—“ Catching himself with a muttered curse – it was so much easier to have these conversations in a quiet corner of a mansion or security compound – he pulled out his cell phone and pretended to answer a call. “Rhys would never agree to it.”

“He would if I played it for him,” D shot back. “There’s nothing confidential on it. He’d call it a morale booster.”

Damn it, he would. “You couldn’t have done any better.”

“Maybe not.” He could practically see her grin, sharp as the edge of the knives she always carried. There were rumors she was a retired assassin, but she would never talk about her previous line of work sober and there was no one in the agency who could outdrink her. She was also old enough to be his mother, and overall his favorite person in the entire world. “But I don’t have to do any better, because I’m here to keep an eye out for any rival agents who may want to kill you. You’re the one who’s supposed to be 007.”

“Normally I am,” he shot back, realizing belatedly that he really should be tracking wherever the hell she was going. He stood, weaving through the lunch crowds as he started scanning the area for his target. “I’ve seduced—“ No, that was definitely not a sentence he could finish out in public like this. Damn it, he would give anything to be working with arms dealers right now. “—successfully closed with any number of people before this, and always gotten everything I needed out of them. But she just—“

“Slapped you down like a two-bit con man,” D finished, sounding delighted. “Didn’t even play with you a little first. Poor kid.”

That was one of the things that was throwing him. He was used to targets of both genders turning the conversational tables on him, drawing him into a verbal fencing match. Even enemies tried to draw him out, finding out what he knew while trying to keep everything they knew hidden.  He was prepared for those kind of duels – loved them, in fact – but this woman had shut him down with the blunt effectiveness of a verbal brick to the face.

He was, he could admit privately, in unfamiliar territory. “Are you absolutely sure—“

“—you can’t just break into her condo?” D finished. “As T explained in the same report I know we both read, it won’t do you any good. Her computer’s security system requires access codes from both her tablet and her phone, and both can only be activated within the perimeters of the condo after the security system has been de-activated using the security code. Slip up even once, and the whole thing shuts down tighter than a nun’s undergarments.”

His jaw set. He was excellent at breaking and entering, but technology... was not his area of expertise. Damn it, why had Rhys assigned him this case? “Just testing you. I’m still committed to our original plan of action.”

“Of course you are, darling.” D sounded indulgent. “The question is, can you pull it off?” 

He’d better be able to. He’d talked his way out of a room full of armed terrorists before – there was no way he was going to let one little programmer beat him. “Absolutely.”

#

He made it to the front doors without finding her, and he was forced to confront the unfortunate possibility that he'd allowed his target to get away completely. If that happened, he'd lose any chance of talking to her until tomorrow - she went straight back to the office after lunch, then straight home after work. And if he tried to stop her on the way to her car, he had a sneaking suspicion she really would taze him.

If he had to admit to Rhys that he'd delayed the mission an entire day because he'd blown his approach, though, he'd taze himself.

Luckily, when he went outside he caught sight of her sitting on the edge of one of the planters lining the perimeter of the mall, back on her tablet and finishing the rest of her chicken. He adjusted his suit, preparing his approach, when to his horror he found himself hesitating. He’d been thrown before, yes, but that was his fault. He’d underestimated her, and paid the price for it.

He needed to go in a bit more carefully this time.

“Is this caution I’m seeing?” D said in his ear, the surprise in her voice genuine and only faintly annoying. “Well, will wonders never cease.” 

“Shut up,” he muttered, dropping his shoulders and adopting a more penitent pose. If he was going to have any kind of chance getting the information he needed, she couldn’t see him as any kind of threat. Deciding that hanging his head would be too obvious, he walked up to her and silently stood a full two feet away from where she was sitting.

After a full 30 seconds – diffusing enough bombs gave a person an excellent sense of timing – she set the fork back down in the nearly empty container. “I was serious about tazing you,” she said mildly, still not looking up.

With a normal mark, he would shoot back something about always liking things exciting in bed. Now, however, he lifted a shoulder. “I’m not worth the trouble. A security guard would run over, someone might even call 911... such a waste of time.”

That made her lift her head, a penetrating expression on her face like she was trying to figure out what was going on. Not quite the response he was hoping for, no, but better than last time. “Pepper spray’s less dramatic,” she said after a moment, still watching him. “You’ll be shouting and clawing at your eyes, but everyone will just assume you’re an asshole who deserved what he got.”

Unfortunately, that was entirely true. He took an instinctive step back, and for a second her mouth flickered upward in a faint smirk. Not sure whether to be annoyed or impressed, he decided that distraction was the only option to diffuse the situation. “How did you know I was a lawyer, out of curiosity? I’m sure I didn’t mention it.”

She raised an eyebrow at him, saying “seriously?” more clearly than words ever could, but there was less anger behind the expression than there had been earlier. “There’s not that many people who’d want something out of me. If you were handing out fliers for something, you wouldn’t bother with the suit. If you were with a tech company, you wouldn’t bother with a suitcase.” She pointed to the one he was still carrying, and he fought off the sudden, ridiculous urge to toss it in the bushes. “Also, you would have flashed me your phone or tablet at least once, because technology is a dominance game and even though you wanted information out of me you couldn’t resist the urge to prove that you’re more advanced than I am. If you were trying to hire me away from my current firm, you wouldn’t have bothered with the awful fake flirting before piling on the incentives.” She gestured to the entirety of him. “So, lawyer.” 

He blinked, surprised and more impressed by the assessment than he was at all prepared to admit. “I still don’t understand why you didn’t think I was just flirting with you.”

She made an exasperated sound, a sudden shift in her expression making it clear she’d just lost whatever shred of patience she’d managed to scrape together for him. “Look, despite what daytime television might try to convince you, most women are fully aware that life isn’t a romance novel. When you look like me,” she gestured down her body, “no brooding male model with a convenient fortune is going to sweep into your life and beg you to save him from his traumatic childhood and inability to emotionally connect.” The faint smirk returned. “And if they did, they’d probably be as annoying about it as you are.”

“I don’t know if I’d go quite so far as to say ‘annoying,’” D murmured in his ear, sounding impressed. “And you’d never make it as a male model. But you do have trouble emotionally connecting to people. And I seem to remember you mentioning something about your father the last time we shared that bottle of—”

Faking like he was scratching an itch, he pulled the comm out of his ear and slipped it into his pocket. “I need to know if there’s a way to tell if someone is trying to clone your phone,” he asked, as if she’d finally gotten him to admit the “truth” of why he’d approached her.

She blinked, confused – he felt a strange sense of satisfaction at putting that expression on her face, for once – then her eyes narrowed. “I can, and block it, but it’s a program I wrote myself. Are you looking for a commercial option?”

No, he was looking for a way to figure out who had implanted the code into the cell phones, because unless she was the greatest actress in the world he was growing increasingly certain that it wasn’t her. Which meant someone was using her, someone smart enough to get around what T insisted was some damned fine coding. Given his experiences of the last 10 minutes, odds were it was someone that she worked with. Which meant he had to get into her office. 

He smiled at her again, an automatic gesture that he quickly wiped away when her eyes narrowed. “Is there any chance I could stop by your office this afternoon to speak about the matter in more detail?”

Her expression was still wary, but her shoulders had relaxed. “Fine.” She picked up her chicken again. “Now will you go away and let me finish my lunch?”

Sketching a dramatic bow – and feeling just the faintest tickle of amusement when she scowled at him – he turned and did as she commanded. Once he rounded the corner, he slipped the comm back into his ear to hear D muttering. “...jump out of the bushes. Then he’d be dead, and what good would that....”

He pulled out his cell phone, faking another call. “D, we’ve got a complication.” 

000

Want more? Check out chapter 2 here